ANAMIKA

A Dutch Search

2012-01-25T04:02:00.000-08:00

In the heart of Tripunithura town, Kerala (I live here nowadays) is an understated-ly elegant and old-looking clock-tower. I have known of it since 'time immemorial'; but it was only a few weeks back that I chanced upon a piece of descriptive text at its base. The gist: "The tower was built around 1860-70. The then Maharaja invited Dutch experts to build it. The clock is British." I had known for a long while that the Dutch had a strong presence in these parts and that 'Kalikkotta Palace' (actually a set of pleasantly roomy halls where sundry functions are held) was a Dutch construction. But I also knew the Dutch had left Cochin for good by 1800; so their being 'invited' to do some construction a lifetime after they quit was a surprise. I decided to ask around a bit.

I soon learned that Dutch architecture had made a much bigger impression in Cochin than I had imagined. For example, the Dutch remodeled the palace at Mattanchery that the Portuguese had originally built (indeed, this palace is now known as the 'Dutch Palace') and built yet another and grander palace - perhaps the first three-storey building in Kerala - on the Bolgatty island off Ernakulam. Less famously, but far more interestingly, they built another edifice - allegedly quite a beauty - barely a hundred meters from the clock tower. Whatever its original name and purpose, this building acquired a reputation for being haunted (and with it, the nickname, 'Devata Malika', approx. 'the mansion of supernaturals'); several abortive exorcisms later, it was demolished to the last brick sometime at the end of the 19th century.

With all that new info, I went to look around Old Cochin. To my surprise, the only serious remnant of the Dutch there (apart from the above-mentioned palace) is a cemetery (locked up and forlorn-looking) and an honorable mention in front of the Fort Cochin Cathedral (to the effect that they rebuilt this church, originally set up by the Portuguese). I went over to Bolgatty but the palace there is now a star hotel - and beyond the ken of explorers with little money to splurge (*).

I had realized how little I knew about the political side of the Dutch involvement in Cochin. So I searched in our library and fished out an old copy of the classic, 'Kochi Rajya Charitram' (History of Cochin State) by K.P. Padmanabha Menon (coincidentally, the centenary of this work falls this year). Overly descriptive and written in dry and old-fashioned prose, the tome defeated me. But my goals were limited to finding out what the Dutch did in Cochin - and a few facts were eventually gleaned. The gist of Menon's evaluation, as far as I could make out, is given below. For those Mallu readers of mine, here is a great online treasure of facts (thanks, Vishnu!): dutchinkerala.com.

The Portuguese came first by sea to India and brought with them the major vices of religious fanaticism and imperialism. The Dutch followed and were far more civilized and liberal in religious matters (Even Britannica makes this Portuguese vs Dutch comparison and comes up with pretty much the same verdict). The Portuguese mercilessly massacred Hajj pilgrims from Calicut, tried to force Roman Catholicism on the Suriyani Christians of Cochi and terrorized the Hindu and other local population of Goa with the Inquisition (a very broad and 'secular' spread of religious atrocities!). The Dutch were cool about religion, did not care much for imperialism and were just smart and cold businessmen and monopolists.

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With specific reference to Cochin, let me give a quick account of how the Dutch became dominant - a personal summary of Padmanabha Menon's narrative:

There is no mention of the kingdom of Cochin in any pre-Portuguese source - it is conceivable that the kingdom itself was a Portuguese setup. Whatever, from the mid-16th Century, the king of Cochin was just a vassal or satrap of the Portuguese (apparently, they used to perform the coronation ceremonies of new kings in the Fort Cochin Cathedral). When the Dutch turned up in the South and set up their factories and stuff at Kollam in the mid 17th Century, Cochin was ruled by a queen and a serious civil war was brewing. This was how:

Rani Gangadharalaxmi, the queen, was growing old. She had no surviving descendents so she adopted a set of three brothers and had the eldest crowned as King by the Portuguese. A short while later, a crooked Minister by name Ramankovil poisoned her mind and got these brothers disinherited and banished and another set of four brothers adopted; and the Portuguese, who were fine with all this, crowned the new eldest prince. The banished set of brothers plotted to win back the kingdom, aided (secretly) by Paliath Achan, a disgruntled military commander, and the Zamorin of Calicut (who had his own designs on Cochin)...

Hereon, the real action begins... The second of the banished brothers, Virakeralavarma traveled to Kollam where the Dutch were securely established; the prince made a deal with the Dutch and brought them over to Cochin in a bid to overthrow Ramankovil and his Portuguese bosses. Cochin fell and Rani Gangadhara Laxmi was taken hostage; three of the four brothers in the ruling faction were killed in battle; the youngest, Godavarma, swore vengeance and retreated to the South.

Ramankoil did not survive the war but Godavarma rallied his forces and with his Portuguese allies, counter-attacked Cochin. The Dutch withdrew from the city; the queen, who had agreed to reinstate the banished brothers went along with them and they set up base in Trichur. Virakerala and his elder brother sailed to Colombo(**) and brought another Dutch fleet. The Portuguese were knocked out, for good. The elder brother had died at sea so Virakerala was crowned King (the Dutch did the honors).

The later careers of Gangadharalaxmi and the defeated Godavarma are not mentioned (probably the queen into peaceful old age and the pretender simply got lost). The Dutch controlled Cochin proper till 1795 (although unlike the Portuguese, they only made sure they got their hoards of pepper and did not micromanage how the kings went about their job inland), when they handed over their holdings to the Brits.

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I recalled from School history books the names of several lady rulers - the several 'Bai's of Travancore, Umayamma Rani, Ilayidathu Rani,... But never had I heard of 'Gangadhara Laxmi'. An online search on her gave another surprise: a certain Alathur Anujan Bhattathiripad had written a historical novel on this queen's career. I searched and in 'Touring Book Shop', Kozhikode, I found a retelling of this work by well-known children's writer Sumangala.

There is plenty of intrigue and action in the bare sequence of actual events of those times but Bhattathiripad has tried to patch in a love-story side-track (let me just mention here it does not involve the queen) and that seriously damages the work. Accomplished writer Sumangala's retelling is also sadly uninspired - hers is more an exercise in precis-writing. However, with all its flaws, the work retains great interest - especially in how it reinvents some characters: the queen, whom history portrays as a helpless puppet(***) is invested with great moral courage and lofty stoicism; Paliath Achan, who is in many narratives (especially the Portuguese ones) a selfish turncoat, becomes a noble and loyal patriot working for his 'true' masters. And Virakeralavarma is very much the Richard-the-lionheart kind of hero, handsome, adept in disguises and capable of great physical bravery. Another remarkable feature of the novel is the unalloyed Dutch heroism (especially in contrast with the devious Portuguese): during the final coronation, both Virakeralavarma and the Rani deliver eloquent eulogies for their bravery and chivalry and timely assistance.

Of course, every author reserves the right to put his own spin on his story. For example, somewhere on dutchinkerala.com is this sentence (part of the narrative on the first Dutch attack on Cochin): "a Dutch contingent, led by Captain van Reede, made a daring assault on the Mattancheri palace and arrested Rani Gangadhara Laxmi, the reigning matriarch of the Cochin Royal family."

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As the search proceeded, I was struck by the fact: there are hardly any Dutch surnames in present day Kerala - "we have no Burghers!" as I noted in the post on Thangasseri, a short while ago (by way of contrast, Portuguese surnames are very common in coastal Kerala). Indeed, part of the intent behind my visit to Thangasseri was to ask around about Dutch surnames. A young student there told me: "I am not much aware of Dutch surnames in these parts. Many present-day folks have dropped European surnames. For example, a 19th century ancestor of mine had the surname 'Camoens'. Our family has since dropped it."

To me, 'Camoens' sounded Dutch all right. I searched online for confirmation; to my surprise, my guess was off the mark by a thousand miles. 'Camoens' was very Portuguese; indeed, it was the surname of Portugal's National poet. His great masterpiece - the Lusiad. The Wiki article on this epic led me on to an altogether different track of memories and searches. And that will be the next post(****)!

Afterword: It is a curious fact that all sources I saw flatter the Dutch and condemn the Portuguese. But whatever their achievements in Malabar, it is a fact that Dutch immigrants did incalculable damage elsewhere to the local population - the word 'apartheid' is Dutch. And it is also unfair to say religious fanaticism was a Portuguese import into India - it might just be that their fanaticism was more fervent and focused - and more importantly, better armed - than the ones that existed in Malabar before their arrival.

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(*) I now tend to believe that the Durbar Hall in Cochin and a few other buildings nearby - that includes a certain 'Indian Guest House' (now a residential building) - show Dutch hand. Several nontrivial Dutch contributions to Kerala are listed on dutchinkerala.com - the greatest contribution of them all by far must have been the compilation of 'Hortus Malabaricus' (wiki has further details). In recent years, I have heard a Nationalistic narrative: Calculus was developed in the Kerala School of Mathematics in the 16th century and the Portuguese took the know-how to Europe and enabled its (re)discovery by Newton and others. Whatever be the truth therein, I guess the Dutch are far better candidates for the transmitter's role than the Portuguese.

(**) - this is the only instance known to me of post-medieval and pre-modern orthodox(?) Hindus 'violating' the sea - with impunity.

(***) - A source which Menon quotes says: when the Dutch first captured the Cochin palace, the aged queen was found in such sorry shape that she had to be physically lifted and carried out by a Nambuthiri.

(****) - I have seen and heard a Rock singer from Cochin named Glenn Larive. 'Larive' sounds sort of Dutch but I am not sure. As I write, I have no other candidate surnames.

A Cube of Green 'Aluva'

2012-01-22T03:23:00.000-08:00

My memories of accompanying Pop to Mithai Theruvu ('Sweet Meat Street'), Kozhikode have parallels to Aureliano Buendia remembering going with his father to see a block of ice (*); the focus of my own recollections is a huge cube of dense green 'Kozhikodan Aluva' - off which Pop bought me a little slab. I was then about four years old. Yesterday, half a life later, I was back in Kozhikode - sent there by Pop.

Along with more mundane assignments, I had orders to buy aluva from 'Sankaran Bakery' which was supposed to be at one end of Mithai Street (Pop did not recall which end). I began scanning the street at the north end - where a colossal portrait bust of great traveler and eminent writer SK Pottekkat (the big hero of my high-school and college years) casts a benign gaze on his one-time haunt. Surprisingly, the street had few sweet shops. Finally, at the South end, I saw a sweet shop with the required name. Indeed, there were two 'Sankaran Bakery's' facing each other. And at least one had a warning to customers: "We have no other branches!"

The Connolly canal that I used to know as the 'Puthiyara River' has not changed a bit in all these years - curving palms, ramshackle shacks, rafts of timber, the smell of decay(**). Opposite the Railway station, three water tanks which I remember calling "one box tank, two ball tanks" still stand side by side. Near the Mental Hospital is a massive 'Taanni' tree. A powerful visual impression from my early childhood, it still looks huge and immensely strong. Someone has built an ornate fence and put up a bit of holy text: "This giant, that has for generations provided shade to wayfarers and shelter to countless birds, we name 'Punya Vriksham' (Sacred Tree)"(***). Nearby is an overgrown compound where I used to imagine Abhimanyu's single-handed assault on the mighty Kaurava host taking place (just as the battle of Badr raged among the palm groves of 'Khasak'). The little house we used to live looks very different; but a chimney, reminder of its 19th century make, still sticks out.

I have had so many great masterpieces reduced to banal predictability by guide books. So it was a mighty thrill to see the sculpture of 'Pathumma's Goat' - she reaches out to devour copies of the Basheer's 'Sabdangal' from atop a table; I feel blessed I did not know earlier about this amazingly heart-felt memorial to the Master.

All over Kerala, religious icons are kept inside vehicle windshields. In a Kozhikode city bus, I saw a mirror on display; and that makes quite a mystery of the driver's religious stance - he could be a staunch Muslim ("no icons, not even pictures of the Kaaba!") or a staunch atheist ("nothing religious!") or even a follower of Vedanta ("That thou art!" or "look within thyself!"; Narayana Guru, Kerala's greatest Vedantin, is known to have consecrated a mirror instead of an idol in the inner sanctum of a temple he established). Overall, I was struck by the large number of revivalist religious posters - both Hindu and Muslim - plastered all over the city walls.

And I walked past the school where I learned to read and write and to count and add and subtract (multiplication on were attempted in other cities). The thatched sheds have been given a tile roof but they still hold 'LKG' and 'UKG' classes there. The mulberry tree which stood in front is gone and a 'Mandaram' (bauhinia) has taken its place. In the front room of the school were a pair of rocking horses which used to be visible from the road. They are gone; at least I did not see them.

The school's little courtyard was where I won my first and only athletic prize - a blue plastic cup for coming third in 'Running Race for Senior Nursery'. It was also here that the 'Misses' made me act out the following on our Annual Day:

"Georgie Porgie, Puddin' and Pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry,
When the boys came out to play
Georgie Porgie ran away. "

Yes, I do remember the 'girls'...
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(*) Although am not exactly facing a firing squad, I feel pretty much up against it.

(**) In 1950, Pottekkat, the 'Prince of Puthiyara' made this observation from Rome: The Tiber is a disappointment - it's just a good-looking gutter, rather like our Connolly Canal.

(***) The nitpicker in me observes that the tree does not give anything significant by way of shade.

Thangasseri

2012-01-16T03:47:00.000-08:00

"We sat in that scruffy shack with a steady rain falling outside. Sipping South Indian coffee, we discussed Proust and Mann; and I felt *this* afternoon in Kerala was what I really had set out for (from my home in far-away UP)"

It was not yet 6 in the morning. A big and fat but very pale moon was about to dip into the treeline. The Eastern sky was just beginning to turn grey. It was mildly chilly and the Tripunithura railway station was deserted. I had an hour to wait out and sat under one of the few lights and slowly read Kumaran Asan's 'Karuna'. Having finished the poem, I contemplated the scene around with some satisfaction - and then memories rose of the above passage (an approximation of the original) from Pankaj Mishra's 'Butter Chicken in Ludhiana'. There was of course a vital difference: Asan's sublime poetry was not quite "what I had set out for". Indeed, my journey was just beginning; the destination: Thangasseri, a Keralan coastal town I had never visited before.

Towards the end of the day, I was there. Vishnu and I stood atop the lighthouse at Thangasseri and took in a predictably amazing view - the open sea, changing hues by the second; the harbor and its formidable breakwater(*), a stretch of beaches to the north, and inland, a bristling-with-palms expanse of green with little white crosses rising here and there(**) ...

Thangasseri is now a maritime backwater and a fishing outpost of Kollam city. But it used to be the real Kollam, a great port and a large urban center (the biggest in Kerala) with almost two millennia of history (the hub of the city has now migrated a few kilometers inland and is on the bank of the Ashtamudi(**) lake). Thangasseri hosted the Chinese, the Arabs and all the major European Maritime powers - the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English. But a piece of a laterite wall, about 30 foot high and of similar length and said to be part of the fort built by the Dutch in the 17th century is pretty much all that remains of their presence (lost among the densely clustered shacks of fisher-folk stand a few European graves - mildewed and crumbling - with not even the Archeological Society's blue board to guard them).

The main repository of colonial memories appears to be the many churches. Most of the local population is not just Christian - their faith has a strong European-ized flavor. Many refer to the place as 'Tangy' or Tang-sherry' (I guess even the Mallu 'Thangasseri' is a proper Christian name, although its etymology is not clear to me) and many answer to Portuguese and English surnames. I was drawn here by a colonial mystery: a suspicion that Dutch surnames were very rare among Coastal Christians of Kerala(****); the inquiries we made at Thangasseri strengthened those suspicions - although the Dutch had as much of a presence here as anybody else, there is hardly anybody with a Dutch surnames. Anyways, more on all that will be a future story here.

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(*)I got to learn the Malayalam word for 'breakwater' from Vishnu; it goes: 'pulimuttu'. A straightforward break-up of this compound word is: puli ('tiger') + muttu ('knock' or 'obstruction'). The latter meaning of the latter word has some connection with its function - blocking out rogue waves (indeed, this structure saved Thangasseri from the impact of the 2004 tsunami) but what could a tiger possibly have to do with such a maritime structure?

(**) In the famous novel Malayalam 'Oru Desathinte Katha' by SK Pottekkat, the protagonist Sridharan fantasizes as a young boy of becoming a light-house in-charge - "All you have to do is to sit up there and enjoy the breeze and read story books!". Sridharan certainly had a point. The caretaker of the Thangasseri light house was a remarkably literate and articulate chap; he recited to us a poem written by himself - appropriately, a meditation on lofty solitude. But he also had much else to work on - the machinery handling the lamp and the reflectors looked quite intricate. And he appears to be doing his job very well - everything in this century-plus old installation looked in ship-shape.

(***) - Ashtamudi approximately means 'eight inlets'. In terms of modern cartography, it is a misnomer - this highly complex lagoon has well above that number of extensions curling inland from the Arabian sea.

(****) - to adapt an immortal bit of dialog mouthed by the great Mallu film action- hero Jayan in the smash-hit 'Angaadi' :
" 'Burghers'?? (in Kerala), we have 'parangees' ('Portuguese'; Mallu slang applies it to pure Desi folk with Portuguese surnames), Anglo-Indians, .... but we have no Burghers!"

New Year Snippets

2012-01-06T20:58:00.001-08:00

If you thought Mallus (and some Gujjus) are the only ones confusing 'cot' with 'coat', check out this exchange from 'Mind your language', the BBC Rom-Com.

"What is a comma?" asks the very stiff and sterm Brit schoolmarm.

And her Italian student answers: "It is-er .... you are er... unconscious-er"

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A bit of Narcissism. A quote from the intro to Italian Renaissance Man Girolamo Cardano's Autobiography (Thanks, Gyani!):

"The story of Narcissus is an allegory - of a writer who gets so obsessed with his own work that he keeps editing and polishing it to the exclusion of every other study"

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Cochin, a city spread over several islands, has absurdly priced ferries - a trip from Ernakulam to Fort Cochin aboard a very comfortable and large 'vaporetto' costs Rupees 2.50. Comparison: the Belur Math to Dakshineshwar ferry in Calcutta, reputedly India's cheapest city, cost 7 bucks last year - and the boats are small and rickety and one has to squat on rough planks (the distances are about the same).

And here is the sublime height of it: if you buy a ticket to Vypeen via Fort Cochin, it costs a princely two rupees!

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I have jut discovered that the history of Cochin packs more action, drama and intrigue than that of any other Indian city, with the possible exception of Delhi.
More on that later!

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In the last post here, I quoted an eminent politician who said he "had a viewpoint but no standpoint" on a burning issue. Just remembered this business of having a viewpoint without a standpoint has a precedent of sorts in (where else but) the Mahabharata! Arjuna's son and brave young warrior Iravan (Aravan) got killed at Kurukshetra but as he had previously arranged with Krishna, his severed head stayed alive for a few more days, hovered high over the battlefield and saw the entire action to the finish!

There is yet another version of this story. The head is not that of Aravan but of another warrior (whose name I can't recollect). This hero does not get killed at Kurukshetra - instead he was put to death by Krishna *before the battle* for being too powerful. Krishna had planned for the total destruction of *both* armies in the war and Hero, if he had participated on either side, would have annihilated one of the armies in hours - and thus spoiled the plan. And he too asks Krishna for a chance to watch the war.

Anyways, for more info on the Aravan phenomenon, one could read the Wikipedia ("Iravan") or look up a very interesting article in the Pakistani daily 'Dawn' about how "transgenders wed a Hindu God".

South-West and North-East

2011-12-21T03:35:00.001-08:00

This Mullaperiyar Dam thing has been going on for a while. Panic (whether grounded in facts or fanned up by selfish politicians is not quite clear but the panic itself is very real) has gripped upwards of a million people in central Kerala; in both Kerala and Tamil Nadu, processions are being taken out, provocative slogans raised and effigies burnt; sporadic mob violence has erupted (a particularly spectacular instance being a large troop of lawyers looting a few shops in Chennai and challenging the traders "Don't you dare to deny us water!") and there have been inter-state threats (backed by actual action) of road blockades and economic strangulation. The Center, which is said to embody Mainstream India (whatever it really is), has certainly not been silent: Every few days, it generates reports on the lines of: "We shall facilitate a frank discussion to solve the Dam issue - Manmohan", "We reserve the right to intervene in this inter-state matter and shall intervene at the appropriate juncture. But first, there should be peace - Manmohan", "Everyone should exercise restraint - Sonia", "The Prime Minister Understands our Concerns - Oommen Chandy", ...

Keralan representatives at the center have dutifully joined in churning out similar samples of equivocation and quibble. The gem: the other day Central Minister Antony said something like this: "I do have my own viewpoint on Mullaperiyar but I don't have a standpoint."

The general Keralan public (especially those in the valley downstream from the dam) have begun to feel the rest of the country and the center in particular does not care enough. That (Medha Patkar apart) major intellectuals/activists have yet to make any meaningful noises has begun to vex not only the local intellectuals. To give an example, I had expected Ramachandra Guha and Arundhati Roy to either endorse each other or tear into each other on this issue; in my limited knowledge, neither has done either.

Some Keralan politicians, allegedly only regional satraps, have already issued statements which go: "The Center and the mainstream media should shed their passivity. Kerala is a part of India and its people are Indians and have a right to live in this country!".

Note: Shashi Tharoor, Kerala politician, central legislator and intellectual (the only such combination) did say things like: "A new dam is the only way out... If the present dam breaks, studies have found that the impact would be that of a hundred odd atom bombs going off!" But all that was in mid-December; Tharoor has since fallen very silent indeed, maybe under orders from above.

Now, if one were to reason that the Center cannot possibly be too concerned about what happens in far corners of this huge country, I can say with conviction that certainly is not the case: a couple of years back, a rather short-lived blockade of the road link to Kashmir had triggered frenzied action among the big political and media players. And whatever happens with Gujarat since the horrible events of 2002 is always BIG.

But the people of Mullaperiyar valley (and the South-West in general) do have solid 'company'. One just needs to look right across the country and see how much the 7 North-Eastern states have mattered to the 'Mainstream'. After nearly a life-time of independence and national integration, the only news items that filter in from that other corner of India are only the "Believe it or not" types - a lady activist's 10 year-long and ongoing hunger strike, a 100 day plus blockade of a city by restive tribes, participants in a procession by agitating tribals getting thrashed and worse in Assam, a group of Manipur ladies daring the Indian army to "take their flesh"... Each of these a by-product of a problem ignored and allowed to fester interminably(*). Indeed, one hears more about how immigrants from the North-East are racially taunted in Mainstream India (Delhi in particular) for their alleged "Chinese" features - and the standard protest of the victims is said to be "Hey, we too are Indians!".

Perunthachan Connections

2011-12-06T03:26:00.000-08:00

I have referred here to the great cycle of Keralan myths called 'Parayipetta Panthirukulam' more than once - the lives and adventures of 12 divinely gifted siblings of antiquity. Some of the siblings were historical figures but were not all contemporaries in any historical sense - the poet/sage Tiruvalluvar ('Vallon') who lived around the time of Christ was one of the brothers and so was Uppukoottan, who was a Muslim and hence could not have lived before 7th century AD. It was clear to me from a long time back that several members of this legendary fraternity were non-Keralan or non-Mallu - the aforementioned Tiruvalluvar, Tiruppan Alwar (Pananar) of Srirangam, Karaikal Matha (the 'lady' of Karaikal, a place on the Tamil coast)... were all clearly Tamil. But Perunthachan, master craftsman and practical trickster, was out and out Mallu - at least that was my impression till a couple of days back.

'The Hindu' recently had an article on Vettuvan Koil, a rock-cut temple deep in Tamil Nadu. A significant Pandyan achievement along with the more famous paintings at Sittannavasal, the site has a mix of Jain and Hindu sculpture and architecture. Some superb details have been captured on this page: http://madraswanderer.blogspot.com/2010/02/vettuvankovil-at-peruneccuram-aka.html

Now, what has Perunthachan got to do with all this? 'Vettuvan' in Tamil could mean either 'carver' or 'slasher (killer)' and refers to a local legend about the master architect/sculptor who built this koil (temple). While work was in progress, this guy murdered his even more gifted son in a fit of jealousy and as penalty, had to leave the project unfinished; Vettuvan koil was never consecrated. That story line faithfully echoes (or anticipates) the (Keralan) myth of Perunthachan dropping a heavy chisel to sever his brilliant son's head. While the story is very well-known in Kerala, the Tam counterpart is largely forgotten.

I recall that near Chennai there is a place called Vettuvankeni (Vettuvan's tank/pond). I have not explored this place at all but I suspect it might have been the site of another of Perunthachan's achievements. The story: a temple management hired Perunthachan to dig a ceremonial tank. But the project soon ran into serious trouble as the trustees were totally divided on the shape the tank ought to have - some wanted a square, some a circle and others a rectangle .... Perunthachan worked out a vague, "egg-like" geometric shape which could indeed (!) look like all of these specified shapes - when viewed from suitable vantage points - and actually dug such a pond. But in a final twist to the story, the pond was never used - most rituals need to be performed with reference to the cardinal directions and the tank was so confusing and disorienting that even east and west could not be distinguished!

Personal: I spent several months last year attempting the quite different problem of finding the convex planar shape P with the property: if two mutually identical (congruent) convex shapes of largest area possible are cut out from P, the largest fraction of P's area goes waste. I could not solve the problem properly ... but I am tempted to christen the (to me, mysterious) shape of P, the 'Perunthachan Oval'. Some details are here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.3106

Such a naming is aided by this bit from Wiki: an oval is any curve resembling an egg or an ellipse, but not an ellipse. Unlike other curves, the term 'oval' is not well-defined and many distinct curves are commonly called ovals.

Another Homecoming

2011-11-23T04:19:00.000-08:00

I write once more from Kerala.

The day I landed here, I saw a march by Communist Party volunteers. Several hundred red-shirted and quite tough-looking young fellows, each armed with a hefty staff, marched in robustly military order thru rush hour traffic - accomapanied by a band playing 'Ra Ra Rasputin'.

Kerala seems to have achieved a sudden spurt of creativity in the design of scarecrows (evil-eye deflecting effigies) at construction sites. I saw two interesting specimens in close succession yesterday - one was dressed in salwar-kameez and had the usual blackened pot for a face and a challenge scrawled above: "Nokkedaa karinkannaa!" ("stare away, ye evil-eyed scum!"); the other wore a ladies' night-coat and for the head, it had an open black umbrella planted upside down.

Another (alleged) scarecrow is making huge waves among Mallu filmgoers. The more I heard about Santosh Pandit and saw bits of his performances and interviews on the telly (and the nasty comments on him and his work from filmy bigwigs), I was being reminded of a story I read long back in the Readers' Digest volume: "Strange Stories, Amazing Facts". WIth some effort, I found the book and managed to locate the piece - on the career of Robert Coates, an English theatre actor who flourished 200 years back. Here is what Wiki says about the man:

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Robert (Romeo) Coates ... had an unusual career as an ... actor. His self-image included a highly mistaken belief in his own thespian prowess ... His favourite part was Shakespeare's Romeo, hence his widely-used nickname.

Later he appeared in Romeo and Juliet in the part of Romeo – in a costume of his own design. The costume had a flowing cloak with sequins, red pantaloons, a large cravat and a plumed hat – not to mention dozens of diamonds – which was hardly suitable for the part. The audience cracked up with laughter.

...

Coates was convinced he was the best actor in business – or at least that is what he claimed. He forgot his lines all the time and invented new scenes and dialogue on the spot. He loved dramatic death scenes and would repeat them – or any other scenes he happened to take a fancy to – three to four times over.

Coates claimed that he wanted to improve the classics. At the end of his first appearance as Romeo he came back in with a crowbar and tried to pry open Capulet's tomb. In another of his antics he made the actress playing Juliet so embarrassed that she clung to a pillar and refused to leave the stage. Eventually no actress would agree to play the part with him. The audience usually answered with angered catcalls and embarrassed jeering – and loads of laughter. (But,) his fame spread and people would flock to see whether he really was as bad as they had heard. In 1811, when he played the part of Lothario in The Fair Penitent in London's Haymarket Theatre, the theatre had to turn thousands of would-be spectators away. In another performance in Richmond, Surrey, several audience members had to be treated for excessive laughter...

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And here is a bit of news for fans of Chuk and Gek. The Malayalam translation of the story has recently been republished by Matrubhumi - the text is the same as the Russian issue but the illustrations have been redone (I liked Dubinsky's old ones much better).

Passing the Days in Amdavad

2011-10-21T08:15:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks, confined to Ahmedabad, have been dull - tiresome weather, not enough to do, no social life and not enough energy to explore beyond city limits...

The new haunts:

- Sabarmati Station: An hour's walk from where we live. A mostly quiet place; a derelict but functional footbridge gives a full view of the vast railway yard and one can watch a wide variety of diesel locos (both broad gauge and meter gauge) in furious action. Perfect for a vacant evening.

- Kankariya lake: A vast, nearly circular lake dug in medieval times. Recent development has brought in a toy train, 'Atal Express' and garish lighting. The worst part of it all: everyday, they play songs from 'Hum Aap ke hein kaun?' on the public address system. Nevertheless it still is a welcome lung-space. Right next to the lake is the strangely named One Tree Hill park. In this tree-filled patch I was surprised to find a few medieval European burial sites. Called 'Dutch tombs', they are clustered among a dozen or so modest Muslim graves and are topped by tall and slender pyramids. A short way around the lake from there is a dull zoo with the usual captives (a novelty was the 'white black-buck'). This place is redeemed by an incredibly dense and varied population of birds, free and feral (except some sad flamingos kept in a net-covered enclosure) - crested spoonbills, ibises, egrets, a few night herons and thousands of jet black cormorants. Each of the trees is thick with dozens upon dozens of shabby bird nests and the air, with the stench of guano - and the roads and bushes are white from a steady shower of it. The avians make a chaotic racket at dusk but fall very silent by night; spoonbills sitting very still on the highest branches gleam in the powerful waterfront lights.

- For a few days, long trips on the RTS buses were a diversion but the experience quickly became a drag. What one sees of the city from these paths is terribly dull - wide and functional but flat and boring roads lined with concrete boxes, each no different from the next. The monotony of it is so overpowering that even the sight of semi-slum settlements and smoke-spewing factory chimneys at Danilimda feels like a welcome variation. And oddly enough, the stop right next to the Indian Institute of Management has been named 'Blind People's Association'. There is indeed an institution nearby that helps the visually challenged. But 'blind' is no longer a politically acceptable word. So, what does the stop name really refer to?

- At a pavement bookshop, among pirated editions of the usual desi and phoren pulp, I saw a copy of 'Satanic Verses' and casually asked the price. The vendor appeared to know the game and quoted 4 times the usual figure. Needless to say, I did not dare to buy the book.

- And if you think the only proper way to see someone off at Ahmedabad (Kalupur) railway station is to buy the three rupee platform ticket, you are mistaken! There is a perfectly legal way to do it cheaper - with some other benefits thrown in!
Here is how: a passenger ticket to Sabarmati or Maninagar from Ahmedabad costs an unbelievable two bucks. So, buy that ticket instead of the platform ticket, see off the guest and walk out; if someone checks the ticket, say with perfect validity you missed the train you wanted to catch.

Even better, if you want to get back to somewhere in the western half of the city from the station, and have some time to spare, actually use the ticket and take a passenger train to Maninagar or Sabarmati and then hop on to a (quite cheap) RTS bus at either place and get home for some more peanuts; no need to haggle with autowallahs at Kalupur.

Mumbai Transit

2011-09-08T00:47:00.000-07:00

Last weekend - a persistently rainy one. We had to travel from Pune to Ahmedabad. We could only get railway bookings from Bombay onwards so had to take an absurdly costly volvo bus from Pune to Sion, bag and baggage - my share: two big bags with 8-10 kilos each on either shoulder plus another half dozen plus kilo bag in hand.

At about six, we get down at Sion, a mess of severe rain, puddles and rush-hour traffic. We decide to eat an early dinner somewhere and wait for the rain to let up a bit before going to Bandra Terminus (within 4 kilometers) to catch the Amdavad train. We find an eatery after a painful, two hundred plus meter slog.

An hour later; rain keeps falling steadily with an occasional sharp gust of wind; we don't have a lot of time left so we step out, luggage and all and look for a taxi. I flag down 3-4 and the moment I mention Bandra, each drives off. Things are becoming real nasty now - the straps of the big bags keep sliding off the sore shoulders, the other bag threatens to tear off my aging forearm, rain smacks the face like so many whip-lashes ...

We find a taxi parked on the sidewalk with the driver standing beside. I say Bandra; he says: "okay" and pauses. I walk around to the boot, eager to dump the bags (they are not waterproof so one can't put them on the muddy sidewalks). The driver makes no move. "Open the boot!" I plead desperately. He looks away and says: "three hundred and fifty rupees... only"

I recall: across the circle down a lengthy subway, the auto-rickshaw territory begins; but, what if the subway is waterlogged?

Another taxi approaches; he says: "We will go by meter but the straight path is slushy I will take you thru Bandra-Kurla complex!" I silently turn and stagger towards the subway, bracing for the worst. Surprise, down there was perhaps the driest bit of ground in the city; and it was even clean enough to put down the bags for a breather or two!

Right across is an auto-stand. The first 3-4 autos refused flat; a couple of drivers drove off making dirty faces. Finally, one chap says: "okay, give me a hundred and fifty." Although exhausted, I argue: "Look, it is a 50-rupee distance."

"I know, it is sixty by the meter" he says. "but there are so many potholes, what if the auto breaks down? Who will pay for the repairs?"

"Hundred. take double charge" I make my final move. "one twenty; done!" he decides unilaterally. I surrender: "Yes. okay!"

At the precise instant, another autowallah nearby who had refused us says: "I will take you there for a hundred!"

The 120-guy jumps out and a loud argument erupts between the two. I frantically grab 120 and say: "hello, we need to catch the train!"

He withdraws from the fight, quietly helps us load our stuff and starts up. As we enter Dharavi, he says: "we need to halt a second!" He goes off and returns quickly enough and sees us thru to Bandra all right (the route is messy and filthy but nothing awful by Bombay Monsoon standards). At the station, he helps me hoist the bags back onto my shoulders (as we would find out, a walk three quarters the length of a train awaits us here). We pay him the 120 (perhaps a taxi ride via Bandra-Kurla would have cost less!) and he says: "Thanks! That other fellow, he is a 'Bhaiya'! They will ruin this city... but I have told some of our guys in Dharavi to let him have it!"

A Political Post

2011-08-28T23:13:00.000-07:00

"Had young leader Rajiv Gandhi been alive today, that noble man would have definitely come forward to save the lives of Santhan, Perarivalan and Murugan" - Karunanidhi

We hear three of the accused in the 'Rajiv Gandhi assassination case' are to be hanged. There are protests by some extreme Tamil organizations - one of them calling itself 'Save Three Tamils Campaign' - and some not so extreme ones (as is evidenced by the above Karunanidhi statement, made this very day). And some intellectuals have raised basic questions on death penalty itself.

I have heard impassioned pleas against capital punishment from people ranging from Prince Myshkin to Albert Camus. I have neither the superior intellect to refute their arguments nor the supreme moral conviction to support them. And I don't know the rationale behind the present Indian practice of equating 'life imprisonment' with 14 years in jail. Whatever, I can't stay silent on certain basic aspects of the present case.

First of all, the 'assassination' was not the clinical taking out of one man by his enemies. Most online sources I could consult say at least 15 people were blown up and over 40 injured, many of whom were crippled for life. The way the dead are named is very typically Indian - Rajiv Gandhi, the suicide bomber Dhanu, the mysterious photographer Haribabu, congress worker Latha and her daughter Kokila and then ... who else? The hoi polloi are there only to make up the numbers!

Here is one of the very very few pages which has cared to list the names of victims: http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part25.htm

Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. 17 others also lost their lives, including Dhanu (the alleged woman assassin) and Hari Babu (the freelance photographer). The names of other 15 are as follows: P.K.Gupta (personal security officer to Rajiv Gandhi), Latha Kannan, Kokilavani, Iqbal (superintendent of police), Rajakuru (inspector of police), Edward Joseph (inspector of police), Ethiraj (sub-inspector of police), Sundaraju Pillai (police constable), Ravi (commando police constable), Dharman (police constable), Chandra (woman police constable), Santhani Begum, Darryl Peter, Kumari Saroja Devi and Munuswamy

To those who interpret the event in racist terms - Tamil fanaticism or Tamil retaliation against North Indian thuggery or whatever (and there are many such interpretors, judging from the comments that have piled up on our newspaper websites(*)) - very sorry, the fact remains that almost every single victim was Tamil. What was done was MASS MURDER AND MUTILATION of individual men and women and ought to be seen as just that and nothing else. 'Rajiv Gandhi assassination' may be a convenient name for the case but it should not make us forget for a moment the deaths of Iqbal, Chandra and all those who were killed in the line of duty or the loss suffered by the family of Latha and Kokila, a loss that is (even if one goes by perverse arithmetic) exactly twice that suffered by the Gandhis or those who were maimed. I beg to add, for all the nobility of her gesture, Sonia Gandhi's public 'pardoning' of the assassination and intervening in the case on behalf of some of the accused very seriously devalues each one of those unsung lives snuffed out or otherwise ruined by the so-called assassins.

I am not qualified to say what punishment the surviving murderers deserve; that depends on their degree of involvement and much else (**). But the above page (and later events) clearly says most of the conspirators did meet very violent ends (That includes the Seven who were cornered in Bangalore and consumed cyanide. 20 years back, our media had shown far greater alacrity in naming them than their victims so let me leave the 7 as just a number). So, even if one is all for death penalty, Fate has ensured that justice has indeed substantially been done.

Note added 10 days after: A few years back, Priyanka Gandhi visited Nalini, one of the assassins now lodged in jail and remarked to the media: "I discovered Nalini has suffered more in life than us!" Today, I saw this gesture of forgiveness highlighted yet again in a Malayalam weekly. And again, as always, everybody is silent about the dependents of the cops who died protecting Priyanka's father.

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(*) - and it is about time reader comments on all our online news pages are seriously monitored. I am all for strict censorship.

(**) in Indian law, life = 14 years and the trio have been behind bars for 20 years, so it can possibly be even argued that they have already been more than hanged.

Kerala is Different

2011-08-25T03:54:00.001-07:00

I spent a month in Kerala recently and this post summarizes some impressions.

"The long bone-rattling drive afterward to Allahabad on potholed roads flooded at places with calf-deep rainwater, past the tin-roofed shacks and rain-battered villages of mud and thatch — the cowering huts, so picturesque from the plane, now appearing frail, in danger of collapsing onto the sodden earth, low-caste women paving tiny courtyards with cow dung, the men spinning rope for the string cots, the sky low and gray over the flat fields and tiny huts and the buffaloes placid in muddy pools—the long drive through a world that belonged to itself as fixedly as it would have two centuries ago was a reminder of how far even the superficially good things of a globalized economy were from this heavily populated and impoverished part of India."

That was just the beginning of an article by Pankaj Mishra titled 'The Other India' written for the New York Review of Books. A lengthy, detailed, searing, brutally honest portrait of the cow-belt, the real 'India Shining', ... I could maybe string together some cliches to describe his article but that is not the intent here. I just want to assert that I won't and can't accuse Mishra of belaboring an old point. His story is indeed very old but the immense misery of day-to-day life in a huge part of Northern India is a reality that could do at the very least with some relentless belaboring.

None of our political parties has yet made a worthwhile contribution towards turning things around in Gangetic heartland - and that includes those which fight elections on behalf of the 'aam aadmi'. Indeed, the Congress (yes, Nehru and all) had had a free run of the region for three decades and some before the more obviously 'bad' BJP, SP and BSP came on the scene. Equally shockingly, our mainstream media, the TV news channels in particular, have barely shown any sustained concern(*).

Kerala presents a very different picture. There are a dozen or so news channels vying for viewership and each goes to amazing lengths to cover issues of governance - infrastructure, human rights, education, gender issues, environment, the whole spectrum. No issue of any significance gets left out - dispossessed tribals, victims of chemical pollution, bad roads, real estate mafias, 'quotation' groups, exploited women, illegal quarrying,... nothing. Channels even invite freelancers to compile reports which, while rough-cut, often hit very hard.

But this remarkable phenomenon has developed one serious drawback - glut. The channels have got locked in a paparazzi-like rat-race for the next sensational scoop so the space of 'news consciousness' has got horribly overcrowded - each issue goes 'stale' in days if not hours, too fast for it to have grown in minds for any serious corrective action to be formulated. To give an example: a couple of years back, a smart young lady won a contest for 'Best Citizen Journalist' with a feature on the horrible public toilets in Sarkari offices. Many still remember her work as a hard punch in the gut but the toilets remain horrible as ever.

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Like most other Indian languages, literature in Malayalam is on the decline. A month back, I asked an eminent writer "Who are the best writers in Malayalam, I mean those in their thirties and forties?" And he said: "There aren't any good ones! The oldies will write till they die and then there won't be any literature!" From my outsider's perch, I can't contest that; all I can say is: Cinema is a good barometer to measure the vitality of a literature and Malayalam cinema is certainly not what it once was.

But Kerala springs another surprise! Go to any bookshop and one sees brand new editions of all the classics - stacks of copies each. Obviously, they are bought - and I am not cynical enough to say they are only bought (I did see an intriguing newspaper headline: "Book sales zoom, Reading declines in Kerala"). And it is not only outstanding works in Malayalam. In my many years in Chennai, I never so much as saw an edition of 'Tirukkural' in any of its many decent bookshops. During my last spell in Kerala, I saw piles of copies of two different Malayalam translations of the Tamil classic in each of the nearly half dozen bookshops I visited!

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While in Kerala, I saw 'Arjunan Sakshi' a film with a catchy name and nothing else. Well, not quite nothing. The foreign returned hero is being driven to his apartment after a drunken night out; he asks, very feebly: "Are we on the Mahatma Gandhi road?" and his friend who is on the wheel asks back: "What, want to pay your respects with a ceremonial puke?!" (the original is untranslatable: "enthaa, ninakku vaaluvechu thozhano?")

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(*) - The cow belt has suffered from serious and chronic under-exposure in the visual media. Bollywood, the most powerful among them is all about Bombay, very occasionally, Delhi, a bit of Punjab (only the Golden Temple and mustard fields) or the Himalayas. But never ever is UP/Bihar seen; not even the Taj. The silly con-caper 'Bunty aur Babli' got a tax exemption from the then UP government just because it was filmed in and around Lucknow and Agra!

On Anna

2011-08-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

The following words are not mine; I record the take of someone who I know and whose judgement I have grown to trust in a broad sense.

If you do read on, you won't find any 'Bharat Mata' slogans and jingoism; neither will you have to endure the screams of rabble-rousing dissidents.

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I visited Ralegan Siddhi with some collegemates in 1989 and spent a couple of days with Anna. Then, he had no Padma Award. I found him a strict idealist. I could see his work for his village. He was almost god to folks there; but his lifestyle was very frugal. He was quite an inspirational figure to the young crowd. Thereafter, I have not seen him but I have kept hearing about him every now and then, like everyone else.

Over the last couple of years, I have had to deal extensively with the Co-operative society Registrar and Fire Service officers - it is very true that without Right to Information act, it would have been impossible to get any serious co-operation from the Babus. Frankly speaking, I know of no other mechanism to make these government officers to work on a normal person's plea, except the fear of RTI or Court order. Going to court can be painful but RTI does make a difference.

About the current movement lead by Anna, I think it is a good reminder to ministers, political parties and govt officers that people have a voice and it can't be ignored all the time.

The present movement has elements of blackmail, challenge to the constitution or the beginning of anarchy. Some people have absurdly high expectations of Anna and after some time they would surely come out of this delusion that he is some kind of Messiah. But, it is very true that although the masses who support Anna hazare may not know technicalities of the Jan Lokpal bill, their non-violent upsurge speaks volumes of our rotten system; and there are real issues being raised - issues which had better be addressed one or other way.

I also think there is some substance to allegations that Anna has dictatorial tendencies: indeed, way back in '89, I heard of Anna lashing with a belt someone who tried to sell liquor in Ralegaon; there was a certain fear for Anna among the villagers. And there are videos on Youtube where former associates have raised similar issues. Be that as it may, now the country as a whole should look not at the man but at the issues.

Fabrics and Peacocks

2011-08-12T03:36:00.000-07:00

I report from Amdavad again - having reached here three weeks back. The weather was sultry to begin with and then has turned drizzly and windy. The many vacant plots in the newer neighborhoods look lush and richly carpeted - little muddy patches abound and a sometimes, one sees flocks of black ibises (these are biggish black birds with long, curved beaks) inspecting them with a studious, professorial air. The malls are, as usual, full of horribly expensive (to me) merchandise. And I notice that among the present young adult crowd, nearly a third of the males (and a sprinkling of the females) stand over six feet tall.

On the advice of a Calcutta-based anthropologist, I visited the Calico Museum.

The museum comprises two distinct galleries, one exclusively on textiles and one on textiles and religious paraphernalia; both wind thru a vast mansion which stands in a large compound in the Shahi Baug area of the old city. The overall layout of the building could be made out from any point in our conducted tour path - except that it is several floors high and has perhaps a hundred rooms (maybe well above that) but few large halls and that parts of it are ornate with haveli-like decorative work (and some actual 'pols' and haveli facades with densely delicate wood-carvings have also been brought and reassembled here). At a closer level of detail, the mansion incorporates some superb specimens of intricate lacquer-work on ceilings and capitals of wooden pillars. The compound is very green with tall neem and other trees, several overgrown with epiphytes, a few small ponds and a large population of "kaeey-oh"-ing peacocks; and the management has wisely refrained from kitschy landscaping.

And almost everything I saw in the galleries was new to me. I had never heard of the Patola sarees of Patan (and of the only surviving Master-weaver there, Chhota Lal Salvi) although I had been to Patan; same was the case with the 'tie-dye' technique and its various manifestations across India. And for the first time, I saw the Pichwais of Rajasthan - cloth curtains several meters across, painted with Krishna worshipped in his Srinathji form (quite similar to the idol in Dwaraka) or engaged in various amorous adventures. Some Pichwais show a group of gopis worshipping a flowering tree as Krishna and one of these had the uncanny feel of Boticelli's 'Primavera!

Then, there were the Madhubani sarees and tribal art from Bihar, the Phulkari fabrics of Punjab, a Mughal Royal tent with lavish textile work, elaborately recreated, Tanjavur-painting style fabric designs from Tamil Nadu ...

Our guide had plenty to tell us and spoke with a lot of vigor. She showed us several indivdual printing blocks and the marvelous patterns they create on cloth on sequential application. She adds: "The famous paseley design, much favored as a fabric print by the British, was actually, a South Asian innovation." Then she describes a weaving technique: each single thread is colored according to the pattern already decided and then the fabric is woven, warp and weft and the picture gets automatically revealed. The sheer effort involved in all that must have been mind-numbing - no wonder such art-forms are gradually dying out.

And there apparently was a style of painting where a very large piece of cloth is decorated from the middle outwards by a group of faithful and highly skilled artisans guided by a single designer - the former just do their portion of the work and the the boss never touches the paint but guides them all in parallel, having conceived the full picture in his head!

I leave this remarkable place with a wistful feeling that I didn't see anything from Kerala; but for the name 'Calico' that is - probably concocted from 'Calicut' by the Portuguese as a generic name for all Indian cotton textiles (and was there somewhere in there a copy on cloth of an erotic mural painting in the Mattancheri palace - Krishna dallying with his girls?). And yes, I don't remember seeing any Dacca Muslin - I heard while at primary school, sarees made of this weave of cotton were so sheer that one could see thru sixteen layers of them (a fabric for emperors that, not merely kings!).

Shahibaug ("Royal Garden") gets its name from a small Mughal palace, said to have been built by Jahangir on the banks of the Sabarmati. Among the people who have stayed in it are Shah Jahan and a young Rabindranath Tagore, visiting his brother who was a Government official in these parts. The building now houses a very modest museum dedicated to Sardar Patel - the paucity of exhibits is very much in keeping with Sardar who was not one for material possessions. A surprising item was a photo of Patel with the then Maharaja of Cochin (the latter, who appears sporting a Turkish-style cap, is famous in local legend for telling Patel: "I shall cede my state to Indian Union only on one condition: you must ensure that every new year, I will get a copy of the astral almanac"). There was also a little porcelain statue of the popular Kerala deity Ayyappa.

Near the western edge of the city is the Sardar Patel Institute of Social Sciences. A kilometer-long and convoluted walkers' path runs thru its campus. The terrain is surprisingly uneven (most of Ahmedabad is utterly flat) and the vegetation is dense stands of neem and other trees and grassy slopes. The resident fauna includes packs of stray dogs (they seem perpetually locked in some sort of turf war but don't mess with bipeds) and a few proud and pushy bulls and troops of dark-faced monkeys occasionally pass thru (when one-on-one with homo sapiens, they don't make way and instead bear their fangs in a dirty snarl). But the ones who really lord over the place are the very vocal peacocks. Numbering in dozens, they are totally unfazed by the walkers; but they step away away in a hurry if any photographic equipment is pointed at them. The males often dance and the females (who seem less in number) usually pretend to be totally unimpressed with the show.

'Megharoopan'

2011-07-13T04:35:00.000-07:00

A semi-arty Malayalam movie is in the making - a biopic on late poet P.Kunhiraman Nair (1906-'78). The poet, known as just "P" (that makes things easy to those non-Mallus who may find his name a twister!), was famous as much for his uniquely Bohemian lifestyle as for the vividly colorful and repetitive evocations of Keralan landscapes and classical culture in his work - he was particularly besotted with the idyllic Nila river valley. The movie is titled 'Ivan Megharoopan' (in crude translation, "Behold, a Cloud-like Man!"). A promotional blurb for the movie goes: "What manner of man was this?.... He was no ordinary man, He was Megharoopan!"

I am sort of familiar with the work of P; my involvement with classical Keralan culture - Kathakali, festivals, caparisoned elephants, the works... - is real albeit limited; most of my life happens far away from all that. At any rate, I do have to record the making of this movie here because...

Due to a coincidence (as is usually the case with me!), I read a Malayalam poem by Attoor Ravivarma yesterday - 'Megharoopan'. The poem is a celebratory evocation of heroic virtues - loftiness, generosity, joyousness, elegance, invincibility,... congealed together in the immense thunder-cloud like presence of a mighty bull-elephant. The poem gives the tusker, a much-beloved and repeated image of classical Keralan and Indian tradition, a novel spin, turning the very famous Kalidasan metaphor inside out: "(the love-lorn Yaksha happened to see the approach of) a massive thundercloud, bursting with unbridled power like a tusker toying with a riverine mudbank".

Attoor prefers to hint and suggest rather than describe; so his poem never mentions 'P'; but his spirit is unmistakeably present. Beginning: "Stature excelling the Sahyan (mountain), generosity greater than the gentle Nila's, virtues of noble forbears assume form and expression in you!" 'Megharoopan' reworks images and metaphors 'P' used to revel in (the vast sand-banks that flank Nila, the moonlight of 'thiruvathira'...)- excavating them for deeper epiphanies.

The makers of 'Ivan Megharoopan' have not mentioned Attoor's poem in any online document on the movie. Maybe they actually did, somewhere; maybe they did not. It is also possible, the word 'megharoopan' was coined by "P" himself, so the movie-makers do not owe Attoor a major debt; but I do feel they owe him an honorable mention.

On a personal note:

Here is the last stanza of Attoor's poem in the original Malayalam (a reference to the famous parable of the "blind men examining the elephant" and the Keralan practice of twisting strands of hair from elephant tails into simple finger rings (mothiram)(*)

"Andhar nin tumbiyum kombum
pallayum thott-idanjitaam;
enikku kothi nin valin
romam kondoru mothiram!"

I would love to replace 'andhar' (blind men) with 'vambar' (worthies); here is an approximate translation of this personalized version:

"Let the worthies carry on their learned disputes over your tusk, trunk and bulk. But I crave only for a little 'mothiram' (finger-ring) from your tail"

And that articulates, to perfection, my credo vis-a-vis Mathematics and Mathematicians.

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(*) Elephant tail rings and bracelets are worn even in Africa as talismans, I am told.

'Chignon' And 'Kuduma'

2011-07-05T05:28:00.000-07:00

I recently acquired a copy of 'Tales Once Told', an interesting and laudable attempt to render into English selected episodes from the Keralan classic 'Aitihyamala' (transliterated somewhat oddly as 'Ithihyamala'). The author: Abraham Eraly, whose earlier works brought back the charm of story-telling to descriptions of ancient and medieval India - a welcome change from (but NOT an alternative to) the austerity and rigor of Irfan Habib and the academic dessication of Romila Thapar.

I won't attempt a broad critique of 'Tales Once Told' here but will only briefly examine a word I encountered therein - 'chignon'. The specific context is the 'punishment' meted out by Saktan Tampuran, King of Cochin around 1800, to a guard from the 'Thandan' subsect of the Ezhava caste for an amorous act that threatened to violate caste-taboos. The king grabbed the Thandan by the latter's chignon and .... let me leave the grisly story at that. Note: Vivekananda, by no means an exponent of the understated remark, was being euphemistic when he described Kerala's caste-practices as "right out of a madhouse"!

Merriam Webster says: chignon = a knot of hair that is worn at the back of the head and especially at the nape of the neck. While the word (new to me) must sound smooth and musical, given its French origin, it is inappropriate in this story. The Keralan caste system had assigned each community its own readily-identifiable-from-a distance (this was necessitated by untouchability and unapproachability restrictions) coiffure (ha, another French word!). Ezhavas used to (indeed, were forced to!) shave their head except for a portion around 4-5 inches across at the very top and tie the hair there in a topknot. Ergo, what the unfortunate guard sported could not have been a chignon! Note: The title character in the acclaimed movie 'Perumthachan' (though not an Ezhava) wears an Ezhava-style top-knot.

Indeed, hardly any Hindu community in Kerala sported a proper chignon (although many in neighboring Tamil Nadu did). The Nambuthiri Brahmins and some other 'upper' castes used to shave most of the head but for a little tuft *in front* and keep it in a knot above the forehead to a side; the Nairs did not shave their heads at all and tied the whole mass of hair as a knot to a side; and so on...

In the unlikely event of Prof. Eraly seeing this post and seeking references, let me mention: 'Jativyavasthitiyum Keralacharitravum', a remarkably original and idiosyncratic (I had to learn the precise spelling of this word for this post!) work by author-scholar P.K.Balakrishnan. Aside: Balakrishnan christens the 'Ezhava top-knot' the 'chakkara-kuduma' for unspecified reasons - let me leave it untranslated!

Note 1: Eraly refers to the Thandan as a leader of a set of 'Thiyya guards'. This is somewhat inaccurate. The event takes place in Trichur in central Kerala. While 'Thiyya' is indeed a synonym of 'Ezhava', it is used only in North Kerala.

Note 2: In another similar instance, O.V.Vijayan, in his own English rendering of the masterpiece 'Khasak', (inappropriately) used the technical term 'phoneme' for 'aksharam'. 'Syllable' would have been a much simpler and neater fit.

A Farewell To Kolkata

2011-06-08T05:32:00.000-07:00

A word on the title: The 'a' there is deliberate - Life often makes me revisit places, not only as a tourist. For example, I have left Madras/Chennai, bag, baggage and everything, on no less than 4 separate occasions. I had never planned to have an address in Calcutta but have just finished an eventful 2-year spell in that city. And lurking among 'the shadows and silence', there may be more farewells to be bid Cal.

In the days before I left, I braved some terribly sultry weather to revisit some old haunts in the city. Jorasanko Thakurbari was predictable and familiar and near-empty. The short-lived 'Kavi Patni' Mrinalini Devi looked down from a photo with a now familiar pained and neglected expression that made me feel very sad. The metro was crowded as usual. The usual pub on Park Street had the usual smattering of lone bulls of varying middle-ages; South City Mall had the usual crowd and six-foot plus, bikini-clad mannequins and the precincts of Howrah station were a smelly mess.

The one new place I checked out was Swami Vivekananda's ancestral home. The place was not open to public on the day but, thanks to a sagely contact, I still got to see a doc video showing how the Ramakrishna Mission managed to save and restore this building which had gotten occupied by 54 (!) different families (mostly illegal squatters) in the decades following the Master's passing(*). The nitpicker in me felt the restoration had been overdone - at least from outside, the place now looks too grand, an elegant palace turned luxury hotel, which it is not. I am told, among Swamiji's personal effects on display somewhere in there are a pair of boxing gloves (he is credited with pinning down a leading pehelwan from Madras in an impromptu bout held at Marina beach). And there is even a wrestler's club (Mugur) - appropriate, since Advaita Vedanta (of which Vivekananda became a great exponent and champion) is also said to be 'Mohamudgara', the Mudgara (Sanskrit for Mugur) that smashes (or squashes?) the delusions (Moha) arising from the cosmic illusion of Maya.

A parting gift: A Mugur-like influence made me buy the complete works of Upendra Kishore Raychowdhari (Satyajit Ray's grandfather) - a massive hardbound 800 page tome costing just over 100 bucks(!) that added nearly a kilo to my already unbearable baggage. A week downstream, it was a very welcome addition. Despite the effort involved (the Bangla 'juktakkhor's are a great pain to the uninitiated; and my vocabulary and grammar are still rudimentary), I am now reading 'Chheleder Mahabharat' and 'Mahabharater Katha' with great pleasure.

Upendrababu (1863-1915) was a remarkable pioneer who wrote many children's books and stories (a century later, his style remains a high-water-mark for both readability and richness of detail) and even popular science articles. Right now, I don't know Bangla well enough to read his essays on dinosaurs and stuff - one of them has a picture of a brontosaurus, forelimbs raised as if in supplication - but given the time available, I might manage, soon.

Upendra has also inspired me to visit Premendra Mitra's Ghanada series - every bit, India's answer to Tintin. More on all that later!

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(*) - I am aware that there are narratives in which Swamiji's ancestral home was not salvaged from encroachers but seized from its residents - that is par for *any* course.

The Mystery Of The Fugitive Arab Chief

2011-05-02T02:45:00.000-07:00

"The solution of a mystery is always less impressive than the mystery itself" - Jorge Luis Borges

It was only yesterday that I encountered the little fiction written by Borges in 1949: "ibn Hakkan al-Bokhari, dead in his labyrinth". Its basic plot goes approximately thus:

A man calling himself ibn Hakkan al-Bokhari, deposed king of a Nilotic principality, arrives at a coastal village in England; he says he is fleeing from the ghost of his vizier Zaid (whom he had himself killed). He lays out a vast labyrinth and hides in it guarded by a lion and a slave - and never venturing out. One day the man is again seen outside, in great agitation. He says his hideout has been attacked; and then he vanishes. When folks go and inspect the labyrinth, they find the lion, the slave and ibn Hakkan himself, dead, with their faces smashed in. Nobody knows what exactly has been going on. The mystery remains unresolved for many years....

Without fully revealing the end of the story (read it in 'Collected Fictions' available at Gigapedia), let me quote some samples:

"(ibn Hakkan) seemed very tall, he was a man with sallow skin, black eyes, an insolent nose, fleshy lips,... beard ... self-assured and silent."

ibn Hakkan says: "No man can place judgment upon what I am doing now. My sins are such that were I to invoke for centuries the Ultimate Name of God, this would be powerless to set aside my torments!... I ruled over the tribes of the desert... (then) my armies were broken and put to sword. I escaped with the wealth I had accumulated during my reign of plunder...."

Unwin, the Mathematician trying to solve the mystery, says: "I know the story is a lie - although its facts are true. ... A fugitive does not hide himself in a maze. He does not build himself a labyrinth... For anyone who really wants to hide away,.... (a city) is far better."

A comment about the killer: "He really wanted to see ibn Hakkan dead.... he killed ibn Hakkan and in the end he became ibn Hakkan! He was a good-for-nothing..."

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Just in case this post appears opaque, its intent a mystery, let me spill the beans; whether this solution is "less impressive than the mystery itself", I really dunno!

A fugitive Arab leader (very tall, check; bearded, check; fleshy-lips, check; insolent nose, ... can't decide - not sure how to make out if a nose is insolent!) is in the news - indeed he IS the news. His army largely destroyed, his mountain hideout (described by media nearly always as a labyrinth) under persistent attack, he figured it was smarter to hide in a proper city; and he did just that - with near complete success. And his 'end', like that of the Borges character, may remain an enigma for a long time to come.

Borges clearly advises: "keep in mind the 'Purloined Letter'!". And as I have just checked, that detective story by Edgar Allan Poe shows: sometimes, the best place to hide is also the most visible, the most obvious. In it, Poe has also aired some interesting opinions on Mathematicians. More on that later!

Guruchand Singh And His Men

2011-04-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

Guruchand is in his mid-twenties; he is over six feet, three inches in height and is a fine athlete who can jump 3-4 feet high from a standing position. He is also the only international sportsman I have shaken hands with. But the handshake apart, I hardly know anything about the man: I don't know if he has a celebrity girlfriend, whether he has endorsed any soft-drink, whether he owns a few or several swanky cars - the answer to each of these questions is very likely to be "No" but I really don't know.

....

A full 25 years have passed since that last ball six in Sharjah. The day after the match, a poor Keralan gentleman's name had appeared in the local newspapers - his heart stopped with that fateful Miandad hit and never restarted; it was the first such case I heard about. Now, middle-age has brought a worrying increase in my own blood pressure and a visceral fear of stress. So, when the recent semifinal against Pakistan happened, although I was at home in Kerala, I stepped out and went for a movie; the theatre was surprisingly full and I overheard several conversations on how much more peaceful it was to be in the theatre watching that moronic film than to be in front of the telly.

When India played the final, I was in Bombay. I could have watched at least two thirds of the match (had a train to catch in evening) but preferred going on a very long walk down the Western Express Highway, luggage and all. Later, on the train to Amdavad, the air was thick with cricket. I tried standing at the door - to be away from the all the tension. But there was no respite. At every street corner in the endlessly straggling Western Railway suburbs we were passing thru, crowds were watching the game with bated breath and occasional huge roars. And I prayed - something I have not done in years - for an Indian victory. Maybe that made the difference; if Sri Aurobindo could harness and channel his yogic powers to propel the allies to victory in the second world war, I could quite conceivably enable 11 men in blue to win a tournament featuring the Commonwealth countries and the Netherlands and named 'World Cup'.

Anyways, the show is done and over and each of our players has grown a lot richer - perhaps by billions of rupees each. Let me return to what I really have been planning to write about.

.....

Just over half a year ago, I went to watch India play Pakistan here in Cal. It was not cricket but volleyball so there was no stress - only joyous anticipation. The players of both sides (especially the Indians) looked a lot younger than the cricketers and a lot taller and fitter. Just watching them warm up sent one's pulse racing. The match itself was hotly contested and each time a spiker from either side soared to strike, there was electricity in the air. Unlike in cricket, where irrespective of the results, the Pakis have always looked by far the more athletic and powerful bunch, here the Indians were clearly better built - some of our guys could have looked okay even among NBA stars - and actually outhit and overpowered their rivals; and they did not seem to need any prayers.

The match won, the players lingered for while for some stretching exercises and then filed out. I too was among the hundred odd admirers who approached them for handshakes/autographs. I got there a bit late so I could only shake hands with the guy who left last and that was Guruchand Singh. But that was fine, for he was the star player of the day(*).

The next day's papers devoted a few inches of space to this match. There was special mention of Guruchand's performance. It was also said his participation in the match bad been doubtful due to injury - he was hurt by a piece of broken glass during the train journey from Chennai (where the team had been training) to Calcutta to play the tournament.

I was surprised: "Why is our National team in a globally competitive sport like volleyball traveling by train? Why the eff are they not flying?"

A clue to the answer is here: http://www.thehindu.com/sport/other-sports/article634198.ece
A cash prize that works out to a few tens of thousands of rupees per player is being awarded to the national team and judging from all those happy faces, that is a windfall of sorts. To give another idea of the kind of money volleyball generates, the ticket for the India-Pak match, held on a Sunday evening in a large, air-conditioned indoor stadium cost me ten rupees.

Let me leave it as an exercise to identify the players in the photo linked above (the caption lists only the four political heavyweights sitting in the middle). I feel any genuine sports-lover among my few readers ought to give it a try - after all, these chaps did quite well at the recent Asian Games and have kept India at around a global ranking of 30-40 among well over a hundred countries actively playing the game - and like in cricket, at the very top or thereabouts among Commonwealth countries.

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The other day, another National-level volleyball player, Arunima Sinha, met with a tragic accident and lost a leg - while on an overnight train journey in an unreserved compartment, she was attacked and physically thrown out by some hoodlums. Some folks have commented online: "A national-level sportsperson having to travel unreserved, Why the hell??"

Kashi

2011-03-29T04:22:00.000-07:00

I was briefly in Kashi/Banaras in mid-March. To those who might wish to know in depth about the Kashi, sacred and secret, let me mention the highly detailed and sympathetic 'City of Light' by Diana Eck.

Ganga is mostly dried up. What remains of it is mostly sewage; several immense towers stand as remnants(?) of the quarter century old Clean Ganga Scheme - which probably was a non-starter. I did not explore much of the city but did the five kilometer riverfront walk from Asi Ghat to Panchganga Ghat thrice. Do it with the rising sun and one sees a miracle. None among the bedlam of buildings rising sharp and high above the ghats has any serious claim to beauty (possible exception: the observatory 'Man Mandir' with its carved windows and neat sandstone walls). But in the warm glow of a spring dawn they collectively alchemize into a magnificent spectacle. I did not get to see how the waterfront looks in moonlight. Maybe...

Upwards of a dozen funeral pyres burnt at Manikarnika. A big white man with matted locks and wearing a black lungi was to be seen squatting amongst the fires - a convert to Kapalika-ism, I guess. Harishchandra Ghat, the city's other famous 'Soul School' (as a godawful Mallu film song from the 1950s put it) was a comparatively low-key affair. Miraculously, there was no stench whatever of burning flesh in either place.

However, there is plenty of bad odor elsewhere, with Chet Singh Ghat, fronted by a substantial, two or three century old red sandstone palace, the smelliest. Someone had painted pictures of Gods on the walls but people had shat all over.

The weather was quite pleasant very early in the morning but would blaze down for a good ten hours thereafter. The city was host to several thousand Firangees and a goodly number of Japanese (most Japs wore masks). Most foreigners in town must have been out on boats to watch the Ganga Arati at sundown at the Dasaswamedh Ghat - nearly a dozen richly dressed and surprisingly athletic young fellows (from my distance, one of them looked a bit like Pak cricketer Afridi) perform a well-drilled routine that lasted an hour or so, swinging and whirling an assorted set of massive lamps to the tune of filmy-ish bhajans. The show seems sponsored by - among others - the Sai Baba of Puttaparthi.

The wooden mace swinging, kachha-clad wrestlers have almost disappeared from the Ghats. All I saw was a single batch of young boys and a Jap-looking woman performing some calisthenics to the instructions from an elderly Guru. The parasols, numerous in old photos of Kashi, have also dwindled.

Most parts of the core city were desperately crowded (even by Calcutta standards) but the very holiest site, Vishvanath temple was not - got done with the Darshan in 10 minutes flat. Siva's 'Shakti' counterpart here is called Annapurna although those from the South often accord that honor to Goddess Vishalakshi, who presides over a separate temple that I did not visit. Vishwanath temple is separated from the Gyanvapi Mosque by a towering fence. A large, unruly troop of monkeys were trying to cross over to the other side and a determined mosque caretaker was seen fighting (to the extent I saw) a successful defensive action against them, armed with only a long staff.

The energetic temple-building Maratha queen Ahilyabai (18th century) features as a blessed donor in many of the popular icons of Vishvanath. Many temples and ghats in this city were her creations.

At Sarnath, I saw a strange ritual being acted out by a large troop of probably Thai devotees. In a long procession, they circumambulated the main Stupa and proceeded to the ruins of the Vihara nearby chanting an assortment of strange nasal sounds and parked right there and then, someone was seen making a speech. I dunno what followed. There are many East Asian temples here. The Burmese temple had larger than life statues of Buddha preaching to a tight group of disciples; all of them have been given very oriental facial features.

Most Buddhist Jatakas center around a 'Kashi ruled by king Brahmadatta'. And Diana Eck narrates a legend which strongly indicates that the city predates popular Hinduism: long ago, the city was ruled by the virtuous but non-Believing king Divodasa; then, Siva, with the assistance of Vishnu, disguised as a devious Buddhist monk, sneaked in and took over the city (shades of the Maveli legend of Kerala there). There is another legend: Parvati loved the place so much she reported her gem-studded ear-ring ('Manikarnika') missing and asked Siva to find it - and she did such a good job of hiding the jewel that the harried God(*) still walks the city, searching the Gallies, the Ghats, the temples,...

The Bharat Kala Bhavan is an impressive museum. The grandest and best-known exhibit there is the colossal Gupta sculpture of Krishna lifting Mount Govardhana. Here I first saw the work of Alice Boner - especially awe-inspiring was the painting 'Vishwarupa of Krishna'. An ancient Vamana Avatara sculpture was notable for the realistic and unflattering portrayal of the chubby dwarf's sagging belly - I remember seeing similar effects on some load-bearing dwarfs at Sanchi and also a Vamana at Rani Ki Vaav in Patan, Gujarat. (Note: Ancient Indian sculptors often went to Rubensian lengths while showing - especially female - flab but to my knowledge, never ever bothered to sculpt idealized male muscularity on Greco-Roman or even ancient mid-Eastern lines. Our best-built male figures - like the Krishna mentioned above or any of the thousands of Natarajas - are merely sleek and slim, even androgynous. This seems to have been the fashion even in South East Asia).

In a metal curio shop near Vishwanath, we saw several curious folksy sculptures, thin figures with long tendril like limbs (the name "Giacometti" comes to mind). The finest of the lot - a horse headed (he also had seven horns - the phrase "When horses sprout horns" signifies utter impossibility in Malayalam) dholak player, sitting crosslegged with an upthrust shaft-like phallus. His price, a cool 7000 bucks.

During one of the riverfront walks, an old man asked me for alms and I gave him a coin. Returning an hour later, I saw him squatting at the same place and resolved: "If he does not ask for money again, I shall give him another coin". He definitely saw me approach but ignored me.

At Chet Singh, I saw from afar a masked fellow sitting on the steps, patiently sketching the palace. I mused: "These Japs really are something. Mask or no mask, I can't last a minute in this field of shit but look at this guy...!" Approaching, I was even more impressed to see that the guy was Indian. The sketch he had made was sadly, rather banal.

Somewhere else I saw a small group, a Japanese guy and two Indians. One of the Indians, obviously Muslim, was playing a classical piece on a flute. Later, I saw the party at the same place. The Jap was now playing the same flute and it was a very popular Desi Bhajan tune.

Chunar fort occupies a hilltop with impressive views of the Ganga. A very Muslim looking building has now been converted to a Krishna shrine (maybe it was a 'reconquest' - the site is associated with legendary sage Bhartrihari, says our guide). There is also a deep and now waterless well; in its wall, about twenty feet below ground level is a little niche - according to our guide, this niche, which can be accessed by a secret tunnel, is where a queen of yore used to have her bath. There apparently are secret underground passages that link the fort even with Delhi. There also is a platform on the bastions from where kings used to decapitate and throw prisoners into the Ganga.

Towards the end of the overnight train journey from Calcutta, I saw the endless straggle of railway installations at Mughalsarai pass by in a foggy glimmer. The return to Cal was a ride on the newly introduced Yuva Express - an awfully uncomfortable but mercifully fast train (**)(I timed it at over 130 kilometers an hour). Near Parasnath, we skirted hillsides aflame with Palash trees in riotous bloom.

And while in Allahabad, I saw some of the finest Indian academicians red-faced, then with their faces blackened - Holi. I also saw 'Seventh Seal' for the first time and also a lovingly cut emerald of an animation film, the 'Secret of Kells'. Thanks to who made all that happen!

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(*)A severely henpecked husband leading a successful coup can also be seen in 'Tintin and the Picaros'

(**)A description of Yuva express: "Sixty per cent seats will be reserved for youths and passengers in the low-income group. To avail of the special rates, a youth has to carry proofs of birth and unemployment."

'He of the Two Horns'

2011-02-25T05:33:00.000-08:00

In recent weeks, I read a bit about Mohenjodaro and stuff, a very old interest rekindled by a visit to the National Museum in Delhi.

There is this mysterious Indus seal showing a three headed male human figure sitting cross-legged with animals in attendance. Here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shiva_Pashupati.jpg. Several scholars have claimed it to be a proto-Siva in his Pasupati (lord of the beasts) form. That he is ithyphallic is a supporting fact. But this view is not universally accepted and is sometimes even opposed as a Hindu Nationalist attempt to appropriate Indus into Hinduism; it might well be just that, but I am not into taking sides in this quarrel. But I did find a view from the 'other' side interesting, trying to identify this mysterious figure as 'Zulqarnain', a mid-eastern legendary hero. This theory is based on an extravagant pair of horns that he wears (or that have sprouted from his head).

Wiki defines 'Zulqarnain' thus: "a (heroic) figure mentioned in the Qur'an, the sacred scripture of Islam, where he is described as a great and righteous ruler who built a long wall that keeps Gog and Magog from attacking the people who he met on his journey to the east (ie, the rising of the sun).... According to a classical interpretation, the name is due to his having reached the two 'Horns' of the Sun, east and west, where it rises and where it sets" during his campaign...

Wiki goes on to say: "Arabic ذو القرنين ḏū al-qarnayni literally translates to "possesor of the two horns". ذو ḏū means "owner". The construction is semantically weakened, however, and a better translation would be "having, possessing, endowed with".[3] القرنين al-qarnayni is the definite genitive dual of قرن qarnu "horn"; thus, "he who is endowed with the two horns".".

Secular scholars have identified Zulqarnain with either Alexander the Great or Cyrus the Great; both these guys lived in the first few centuries BC and post-date the Mohenjodaro seal by a good two millennia. So, the theory that it is him on the seal is certainly non-standard.

I have a further question: Does Zulqarnain refer to 'two horns' or 'both horns'? I don't know if Arabic has a word for 'both' (Hindi for example as 'donon' for 'both' and the Sanskrit 'ubhayam' also probably has a similar meaning. My own Malayalam has no such specific word). In this context 'both' makes better sense for a very simple reason. Having a single horn can be a defining characteristic of some being (the unicorn or the Indian rhino); having three horns is defining enough (like the 'triceratops'); but two is the 'default' number of horns and saying 'the one with two horns' is too weak and vague for a definition, just like saying someone is 'two-eyed' (indeed, a silly Mallu film from the early 1990's has a thug character 'Two-eyed Kuttappan'; the hero mocks him for his idiotic nickname - and bashes him up). So, imo, 'the one who reached BOTH horns of the Sun' sounds a lot correcter than 'the one with two horns'; the horns must refer to some abstraction rather than cranial protuberances.

Somewhere during this exploration, I was reminded of Moses. The famous statue of the formidable prophet by Michelangelo has several peculiarities, the most documented being those little horns (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo%27s_Moses). Enough has been written how the horns are the product of a mis-translation. Aside: more than the horns, the remarkable thing about the statue is that Moses wears a very generous amount of clothing, including a sort of 'baniyan'!

Although such a possibility is not inconceivable, I don't know of any speculations identifying Zulqarnain with Moses. However, while searching for such online theories, I found the following episode, adapted from the Scripture.

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Prophet Moses had grown old. The angel of Death came to fetch him. Moses handed out a severe thrashing to the angel; the latter went and complained to God: "Lord, when I asked Moses to drop everything and come with me, he refused to lie down and die - and gave me a black eye!"

God the Father spoke to Moses: "Fine. Put your palm on the back of an ox and as many hairs as come under it, you will live for that many years!"

Moses asked: "And after that, what happens, My Lord?"

God said: "Death"

And Moses said: "Enough! Take me right away!"
...

And when Moses had been taken away, God the Father said: "I made him an offer he couldn't accept!"

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Note: this episode is rather similar in spirit to a legendary Keralan Hero trying to get goddess Kali to tweak his lifespan (I wrote about it sometime back).

Zulqarnain is quite an uncommon given name. I know of only two guys with it - both are Pakistanis; coincidentally, both have played for the Pakistan cricket team; and remarkably, both are wicket-keepers. One was active in the mid-1980s and the other quite recently. The earlier Zul was short, stocky and bearded; the later tall, lean and usually clean-shaven. Both had very short careers with the national team. Zul-1 appears prominently in photos of the Pak cricket team celebrating the Australasia cup (THAT last ball six match) and Zul-2 was prominently in the news for some high-risk whistle-blowing against match-fixers but is now totally out of the limelight.

Bishnupur

2011-02-16T02:39:00.000-08:00

A photo. It showed a stretch of laterite terrain, gently undulating. In no apparent order, stood a few brick-built structures; all were about the same size and had the same plan - a square base surmounted by a sort of dome, not hemispherical but paraboloidal. The picture came with a question as to the function of those buildings. One ventured: "Not sure, but they look like tombs, you know, like those Qutub Shahi tombs in Hyde." And then came the answer: "They are not tombs but temples, all dedicated to Krishna! And the place is Bishnupur, not all that far from your Cal!"

The other day, I was feeling bored. Then I remembered Bishnupur and checked online and saw there were seats free on the Rupasi Bangla Express leaving Howrah early next day; that was that.

The train started on time but ran into severe fog and took nearly 3 hours to reach Kharagpur. Thereon, the weather cleared up and warmed up (and the surrounding countryside grew more rustic). The sun was blazing away when I got down at Bishnupur at 11 (proper winter and proper summer the very same day at pretty much the same place!).

Very brief history: Bishnupur was the capital of the Malla kings, who were Vishnu-Krishna-Radha devotees and built these temples starting from around 1600 AD to around 1800. The temples are of either brick masonry or laterite (abundant in the area); some have laterite plinths and brick superstructures. The laterite temples usually had white stucco coats - most of which have worn off with time. Some brick temples are profusely embellished with terracotta reliefs. They also incorporate structural arches formed with special wedge-shaped bricks.

Let me first issue a couple of warnings to those who want to go to Bishnupur. The Archeological Survey's guide book has a map which is accurate with shapes and orientations but has the distances off-scale by a factor of almost 3! And mid-Feb is not the time to visit the place, unless one plans to be there in the morning or evening. I ended up being on my feet continuously for 5 hours and some in the hottest part of the day and towards the end, was beginning to cramp up and feel faint. There is another reason to avoid my kind of day-trip from Cal. Red is the dominant color of all these temples and it can acquire a magical hue in twilight. And midday glare is hardly the right kind of illumination for examining *anything*.

About half a dozen of the temples are clumped within a quarter kilometer radius (the ones in the photo mentioned above) and located to the south of a vast lake called Lal-Bandh. And there are well over a dozen more of impressive ones (more impressive than the ones in the cluster). But they are strung out in a 3-4 km arc along the eastern rim of the town (the railway line is its western limit); several are located among modern dwellings and need a certain amount of asking around to reach. Pictures of all temples mentioned below can be seen on the Wikitravel page on Bishnupur.

Impressions:

1. 'Ras Manch' is said to be a kind of permanent 'festival pandal' with a square laterite plinth, thick brick pillars and a curious pyramidal roof - indeed, the pandals made at Belur Math for the various Pujas have a similar outward appearance. But then the Manch is very different - there is no hall within but only narrow passages among the pillars and walls. In there, it was refreshingly cool.

2. The 17th century 'Shyam Raya' temple has a square plan, a central pinnacle and 4 auxiliary towers at the 4 corners. This plan is called the 'pancharatna' (5 jewels). In front-view, with the central pinnacle and two flanking towers, the building has an unmistakable latin-church look. This may not really be an accident because the Portuguese had built a church at Bandel (only 150 km away) in 1599 and that could have influenced the Mallas. In that case, the Mallas deserve credit for being the only Indian Natives to adapt European religious architecture to achieve something really non-trivial - Konkani temples with their long halls and bell towers are, to me, more imitation-European than creative.

Note: In Bishnupur, all other temples I saw had only the central pinnacle. The much more modern Dakshineswar temple in Cal has 9 pinnacles - a central summit surrounded by two concentric squares of towers, a style called a navaratna (9 jewels) - and when I first saw it a year ago, I had thought it looked very 'churchy' and recorded the impression in an earlier post here.

3. The 'Jod-Bangla' temple is remarkable for its shape - a scaled up copy in brick of a pair of thatched huts standing abreast. The walls are covered with impressive terracotta reliefs. The Avataras, Krishna's adventures and escapades... Then there are hunting scenes, other genre scenes. Then one sees Ganesha, Kartikeya, Vishnu himself riding Garuda all engaged in single combat with human looking adversaries (the only instance of a violent Ganesha I have ever seen that!). Ducks, lions and elephants are recurring motifs; somewhere I saw a badly done camel too.

It was probably Howard Roark who said the classical Greek architecture is not really great but fundamentally flawed in that it merely reworked in stone, patterns earlier developed in and for another very different medium - timber (I have not read 'Fountainhead' properly; whatever of it that I did read was not particularly likable either). By the same token, the Jor-Bangla too is no big deal, copying in brick+terracotta the mud-built and straw-thatched shrines from a more distant past. Very personally speaking, this temple brought back distant memories of a house of made of chocolate and biscuits which I had read in some European fairy tale.

The above 3 buildings apart, most Bishnupur temples are of the square plan - paraboloidal pinnacle type. But overall, this place has a near-unparalleled range of religious architectural designs - even the complex at Pattadakal, though much richer in art, has less architectural variety.

4. I also saw two 'unrestored' temples - with grass and even gnarled trees having sprouted from all over their structures. There was something very romantic about them and I think it would be a very good idea and a non-trivial challenge to preserve them in their present state (retain the trees but ensure that they don't collapse the temples) - am reminded of the photo of a colossal Buddha face from Angkor Wat being 'strangled' by the roots of a fig tree.

5. Two 'chariot shrines', one standing next to a bigger temple in the above cluster, one alone, next to a small pond, among hutments. Both are scaled down copies of single-pinnacle temples and are around 6-8 feet in height. These have wheels meant to give the chariot look but they never seem to have been mobile or even movable - the wheels are too small and few in number for that. There is a mystery here: on the one hand, there are full and grand temples - like the Konark temple or the Airavateswara temple at Darasuram - which are decorated with wheels and made to look like chariots; and on the other hand, there are proper 'rathas' (many of which are in the South) built like temples but with big and massive wheels which allow them to be actually pulled around by devotees. So, rather than make temples that do move or attach wheels as pure decorations to big and static temples, why did these guys build miniature temples with non-functional wheels?

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Bishnupur is underdeveloped and dusty, an over-grown rural backwater. The roads are narrow, irregular and poorly surfaced with open drains and gutters and heaps of rubbish all over (the worst being mixtures of shaving cream and human hair heaped near the many barber shops). Beneath some of the sparse tree population sit crowds of clay images, including stylized Bankura horses(*); these seem to be in active worship. Stray dogs abound, many in particularly wretched health (and I nearly stepped on the carcass of a freshly-stillborn pup) but mercifully there are no filthy pigs. The town has a large number of ponds (including the Lal-Bandh, named after a legendary royal concubine by name Lal Bai, who committed suicide in it) - encroached upon by weeds, their banks strewn with decaying remnants of recently held pujas. Right thru the day, one sees women walking home from a dip, draped in dripping sarees. A recurrent picture but with no sensual lyricism about it or soft folds of greenery to frame it (as was the case in Satyajit Ray's 'Ashani Sanket') - just harsh, impoverished everyday reality.

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(*) - the famous 'Bankura horses' (Bishnupur is in the Bankura district) look very similar to the equally stylized Ayyanar horses of Tamil Nadu but are usually smaller in size and are seldom colored. Let me also record a personal memory with clay horses. Long ago, there used to be a children's book 'Dul-dul, the magic clay horse' (inspired by Bankura?). I never read or possessed it but do remember asking Pop, showing him the cover - 'This horse looks like an ass!'

'The Loop' - Published!

2011-02-09T03:15:00.001-08:00

The latest on 'The Loop': it was released as a book a few months ago by Writers' Workshop, Kolkata.
The details are here: http://writersworkshopindia.com/modules/booklists/singlelink.php?cid=3&lid=772

Continuing some earlier posts on the work, I record some responses already generated by the book.
As for how it has sold, jump to the end of this post.

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- "Quite a remarkable book. Read it fascinatedly in a single sitting. Great stuff!"

- "Very accurate in its recreation of modern corporate reality. It ought to be brought out as a low-cost edition so it could be used as a serious case-study in Business schools"

- "Awfully bad. A depressing storyline, so joyless! As literature, it fails on every conceivable count - pretentious parodies of masterpieces, a slew of ham-fisted allusions, clunky dialog, irritatingly pedantic footnotes and above all, an overpowering stench of self-pity. The author evidently takes himself too seriously!"

- "A real double success - a truly humorous story on the one hand and a searing look at the perils and ups and downs of students in academia/younger people in the corporate world. Look forward to more!"

- "An amazingly articulate work! I approached it with a lot of apprehension but am now a fan, plain and simple! I need to congratulate not only the author but the publishers too, they have identified and backed a real talent."

- "A total dud, dead in water I would say. Sadly, you (the author) think the work is a masterpiece - it reminds me of how a she-monkey would cling to its dead child's carcass and won't let go! Well, it is not all bad, the book has a nice and pithy name. But that IS that!"

- "The story has got a real flow of its own - grips you tight and the pace never slackens till the end. I liked the unusual format too - it leaves so much for the reader to recreate, to ponder. Some serious talent!"

- "I enjoyed 'The Loop'; but it is not for everyone. Begins with a bang - the Hercules adventure, marvelously recreated. Then things meander through a rather banal contemporary story which really does not add much to the prologue -less is more, as they say! And it lacks drama - there are no exciting twists..."

- "It kept me wide awake till I finished. Amazing narration, no Olympian tragedies but banal, little 'Duhkhas' of day-to-day Human existence. For a serious spiritual seeker, there is plenty to contemplate in this work!"

- "I could not get beyond page 20. I hated the footnotes - they are so patronizing, like "Come, let me teach you what 'algorithm' means!" Get a life, people know more than you think they know!... And the first episode was a show of sickening masochism. Come, s***w me, types - Very Indian!"

- "Really lives up to the initial promise - even 'a story where nobody dies' call tell us one hell of a lot!"

- "The same old, boring story - the rat-race, the suffering. What's new?"
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About the sales: The publisher informs me "perhaps a couple" of copies have been sold.
For Readers who might just want to know more, I can be reached at 'theloopauthoratgmaildotcom'.

"Where To?"

2011-02-05T02:52:00.000-08:00

"Where to next, Maashe?" asked Madhavan Nair (having downed his drink).

"WHERE TO?! That's precisely what I too have been pondering, all these years!" Ravi replied.

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Recently, I was at home in Kerala. My Old Man asked me to fish out from our chaotic library a copy of 'Legends of Khasak'. "I think I should read it." he says: "Tried so many times but somehow never finished. Should try once more!".

Finding the severely worn book took a while. I opened it 'generally' and saw the above lines. "Spot on!" I said to myself(*)

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A scholar-critic asked me the other day: "What would you say is the unifying theme of your blog?"

I tried the following answer: "Each post begins with something and goes on to some other things and so on. Indeed, not only does each post digress a lot; each post, in itself, is a digression - but I dunno from what main theme. Like ... there is this big banyan tree in the Shalimar Botanical Garden. You see only branches and their branches and so on spreading all over the place, but there is no main body - it probably withered away long ago..."

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Over last weekend I watched nearly half a dozen Ray movies (won't even name them). With each movie, I felt a progressively more intense urge to smoke. And the 'onset symptoms' got so overpowering I went over to a colleague's desk (it was about midnight) and flicked a fag; and lighting it entailed further adventures which I won't relate. Thus, I stole my first cigarette - not as a teenager from Pop's desk as chaps of my generation normally did but from someone half a generation younger. My readers, this confession is likely to stay a secret between you and me. I doubt if the affected party will know. He is very unlikely to ever read this post - and I won't tell him!

And thus, the journey continues. However, "change is the only constant" does not quite apply to mine. For example, after all these years, I still like my drink - shaken or stirred (although I don't quite go as far as one of our truly eminent scientists who declared on his homepage: "I drink only once a day, and I always enjoy it!").

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(*) Keralites sometimes employ a home-spun divination technique: open some holy text at random and read the first line (or from the seventh letter on the seventh line) on that page; for a generation and a half of Mallus, Khasak has not been any less holy than any other text.

Delhi - 2

2011-01-16T05:32:00.000-08:00

Qutub Minar
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As the south-bound Delhi metro rises from underground to elevated track past Saket station, Qutub Minar appears to the west. From afar, the near-millennium old tower looks stumpy and clumsy of design. A two-kilometer walk from the Qutub station gets one up close and personal with the monument and now, with the higher storeys greatly foreshortened, its proportions turn amazingly graceful. Among the five stages of the tower, the lower 3 - fluted, faced with red sandstone and with balconies, intricate designs and calligraphy - are undoubtedly far more beautiful than the top 2 (those two have suffered from medieval restoration attempts). Indeed, the topmost stages look like a pair of rooks from a cheap set of chessmen planted one above the other; the 4th stage uses marble and adds a further jarring note to the whole composition (*).

The Quwwatul Islam mosque nearby liberally 'reuses' temple pillars of widely differing design and style. Many feature statues. Perhaps, in (partial) accordance with Islamic rules against representation of the human figure, almost every single statue has been systematically defaced (and where applicable, de-bosomed), but otherwise left largely intact. The roof of the mosque is long gone (maybe it never had one) but some elegant archways still stand. The nearby Alai darwaza and Altmash's tomb both have scalloped arches in the 'Alhambra style' (without the central outward point seen in the scalloped arches in later Mughal buildings; I had a post on this here long back. Some of the balconies of the Minar also feature scalloped arches and some of these show evidence of the central outward point - these were done a full four centuries before Shah Jehan's time!).

I had heard plenty about the famously uncorroded 'iron pillar' here. I also 'knew', being able to clasp it with one's arms bestows boons on the clasper; and I was quietly confident I could do it (although am not a particularly big guy, my arm-span exceeds my height by a near-abnormal seven and a half inches). Disappointment - the thing is now fenced off(**)!

In the same area stands a full-fledged mini-mosque - it has two minarets, a courtyard and a west-facing mihrab, the works, but the entire edifice barely exceeds a man's arm-span in size; indeed, it bore a certain resemblance to the little 'snake-shrines' which still stand in some old Keralan compounds. And since no name has been officially assigned to this mosque, let me play Adam and name it the 'Sarpakkavu Masjid'.

Another enigmatic building here is the stump of the Alai Minar. Alauddin Khilji had planned it to be twice as tall as the Qutub; the massive walls, to my surprise, have no neat masonry - no proper bricks or dressed stone - but only randomly shaped stones embedded in mortar. Maybe the Qutub too has such a chaotic interior within its neat sandstone coat, maybe even the Taj Mahal, for all its marble. Indeed, if Wiki got it right, this rubble masonry resists earthquakes better than 'unit masonry'!

Old Delhi
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The area around Jama Masjid in old Delhi is great to walk around in winter. To the south of the Masjid is an incredibly dense cluster of motor spare parts shops, all owned by Muslims and to the north are jewelry and silverware shops almost all run by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains. Some of the 'gallis' and 'kuchas' hereabouts are narrower and have more twists than the trickiest pathways I had ventured into previously - in Khar, Bombay. Densely tangled electric cables hang perilously low overhead. The Masjid itself, though vast and monumental (said to be the biggest in India), is probably one of Shah Jehan's lesser achievements; the triad of sharp pointed and marble coated domes that sit atop the mosque's sandstone bulk look particularly incongruous; indeed, nothing here really compares with the few arches that stand at Quwwatul Islam. Even the sheer size of the Masjid fails to have an impact. Footwear is neither allowed to be worn within nor kept outside, so one has to take them off and carry them around as one explores the interior. Visitors can climb one of the two minarets and take in a bird's view of old Delhi.

As I walked around, there was a somewhat ominous announcement made in somewhat flowery urdu, stating something on the lines of: "Believers had requested the government for such and such facilities for prayers and the requests have not been granted. So, the Shahi Imam will soon come up with a public declaration on the future course of action!". A few minutes later, as I sat for a while on the southern steps of the Masjid among a crowd of visitors, a couple of Sikhs came up with a big bucketful of 'Kada Parshad' and started ladling out generous portions to one and all. It was quite reassuring to watch obviously Muslim men consume the sanctified sweet with gusto (eating any 'prasad' is frowned upon by orthodox Muslims, I am told).

The Flight
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I got to more than walk around the swanky and overwhelming T-3 at the Delhi airport. The reason: I had nearly 6 hours to wait out before boarding a 4 am flight to Calcutta. I won't dwell on any of the statistical highlights of T-3 or describe the riches put up for sale in its glittering showrooms(***); but shall mention a single instance of subtlety in this building of superlatives: an an unobtrusive 'prayer room'. Within, there are no obvious religious symbols. But for those who need, the shape and orientation of the room and the alignment of the designs on the floor carpet give a clear indication of the direction of Mecca. In contrast, 'the prayer room' at Calicut Airport in Kerala has Muslim prayer mat designs painted on the floor in the 'correct' direction (that differs from the alignment of the room itself), leaving no doubt whatsoever as to who the facility is really meant for - despite the vaguely general label.

Exhausted after a sleepless night (which had followed a day spent mostly on foot), I boarded the flight and by daybreak, we were describing big circles above Cal, which lay submerged in a sea of fog. Then, came an announcement: "poor visibility; we shall fly back to Delhi and return later in the day" and within minutes, we gained height. And behold, glowing in the morning sunshine, at a distance of well over 400 kiometers, stood good old Kanchenjunga! And for the next hour or so, we were treated to a spectacle of the Great Himalayan range - the Everest cluster, the Annapurnas (from this distance the 'Fish Tail peak' cannot be made out), Dhavalagiri...- indubitably, the Greatest Show on Earth!

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(*) - "It was curious to see at the Qutb to see ornament in the Seljuk style carved out of stone instead of stucco. The virtue goes out of it in this other material; it becomes Indian and painstaking, and loses its freedom." - that was the Robert Byron in 'Oxiana'. I have not seen Seljuk architecture. At any rate, I can't dispute a Master's verdict. But I loved the Qutub, at least the lower three floors, loss of freedom and all!

(**) Maybe it was just as well that I did not get to try my luck on the pillar. Decades ago, an uncle of mine had managed the feat and his subsequent life was a rather sad story.

(***) The Mahabharata says, the 'Sabha' building and Palace of the Pandavas (said to have been built somewhere around Delhi, more than 3000 years before Christ) was 5000 feet (1.6 kilometers approx) in length and fashioned out of carved crystal and with wonderful works of art on display at every turn. Now, T-3 has just about managed to equal those standards!

Delhi - 1

2011-01-15T00:43:00.000-08:00

I just got back from a state of being jobless and footloose in Delhi - to me, the least known among Indian metropolises. There was no fog and the weather was splendid. The sad part, the spell lasted but two days and a bit.

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The Approach: I woke up when our train paused briefly at a small railway station in a scrawny-looking town named 'Gangapur City' on a bitingly chilly morning. The area around (the North-Eastern corner of Rajasthan) looked poorly fertile (although there were some lovely mustard fields) and eroded and riven with ravines. We passed wetlands between 'Hindon City' and Bharatpur and beyond. Saw painted storks with their reddish rumps and a gang (not pair) of splendid Saruses (sadly, I did not know the place enough to look for Siberian cranes). Mathura followed, looking dirty and chaotic, and then a string of industrial townships and suburbs - Kosi Kalan, Faridabad, Tughlaqabad - with their straggling slums and semi-slums (including some with TV dishes sitting atop every single shanty) and ubiquitous and hugely prominent advertisements for a range of herbal and other products that enhance male virility; and finally, what is possibly the most messy station I have seen - Hazrat Nizamuddin.

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The National Musuem: Some of the curious bits which caught the eye during a 3-hour run-thru: (1) An embroidered cloth from around 1800 showing a sequence of mythical events: Siva proudly displays a neatly peeled off elephant skin to Parvati and just below, himself running with a wild elephant seemingly in pursuit. (2) An illustration from Razmnama (Mughal production in Persian of the Mahabharata) showing Siva and Vishnu (in his horse-faced Hayagreeva form) embracing like Mid-Eastern friends. (3) ancient Coins showing a pot-bellied female figure said to be 'Lakshmi' (4) a carving of a flabby (but not potbellied or ugly) female figure captioned 'Jyeshtha, the goddess of sloth' (5) some 'leogryphs' (sharabhas perhaps) from Orissa (7) a few wooden, polychrome statues from Kerala, stylistically very similar to the Kerala Murals - one showed Yama riding a chariot pulled by tiny buffaloes (6) a set of chain-mail body armors (17th century types) from North India; wonder if anybody ever actually wore them, for they would fit guys of stature approaching six cubits rather than six feet (7) a very handsome sandstone sculpture with both of its two hands missing and said to be a Gupta period Vishnu - to me, it looks more Avalokiteswara than Vishnu (maybe the one was a forerunner of the other).

The Museum has a rich (indeed pretty awesome) collection of pre-Columbian American artefacts - mainly pottery from Peru-Bolivia and Mexico. Here I have another story to relate so I shall stop with a strong recommendation to my readers: do visit that gallery!

By far, the greatest attraction of the Museum is the Harappa gallery - with pieces from the famous Pakistani sites of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and 'our own' Kalibangan (Rajasthan), Lothal, Dholavira (both Gujarat), Rakhigarhi (Haryana), Daimabad (Maharashtra) etc. The 'Priest-king', the famous sculpture of a bearded figure in trefoil printed toga, was not on display. But there was much else.

Among the exhibits is a set of bronzes - including a striking bullock-cart group. Let me quote the Wiki story on them.

The most interesting discovery (from Daimabad) is a hoard of four bronze objects by a local farmer, Chhabu Laxman Bhil in 1974. He found these artifacts while digging at the base of a shrub in Daimabad village. This hoard was later acquired by the Archaeological Survey of India.

The hoard comprises:

1. a sculpture of a chariot, 45 cm long and 16 cm wide, yoked to two oxen, driven by a man 16 cm high standing in it;
2. a sculpture of a water buffalo, 31 cm high and 25 cm long standing on a four legged platform attached to four solid wheels;
3. a 25 cm high sculpture of an elephant on a platform 27 cm long and 14 cm wide similar to the water buffalo sculpture, but axles and wheels missing;
4. a sculpture of a rhinoceros 19 cm high and 25 cm long standing on two horizontal bars, each attached to an axle of two solid wheels.

The archaeologists are not unanimous about the date of these sculptures. On the basis of the circumstantial evidence, M. N. Deshpande, S. R. Rao and S. A. Sali are of view that these objects belong to the Late Harappan period. But on the basis of analysis of the elemental composition of these artifacts, D. P. Agarwal concluded that these objects may belong to the historical period. His conclusion is based on the fact these objects contain more than 1% Arsenic, while no Arsenical alloying has been found in any other Chalcolithic artifacts.

The above note (which hints at a dispute as to whether Daimabad was a Harappan site at all), fits into a much larger and on-going story with two interrelated themes, nationalistic and religious/communal: (1) What was the relative share of Pakistan and India in the geographical spread of the Indus Civilization? More importantly, (2) How Vedic (and hence, Hindu) were these mysterious Indus people?

Every descriptive caption in the gallery revealed a clear pattern - their collective gist and drift is as follows: (1) after Partition, Indian archeologists searched hard and found hundreds of Harappan sites in the sadly-shrunken borders of this country; Pakistanis presumably did precious little. (2) The civilization was not an Indus civilization at all in the first place - the greater share of its territory lay in India and our own (long gone) Saraswati river had just as much of an enriching share as the Indus, so it was an Indus-Saraswati or better, Saraswati-Indus culture that really existed. (3) there was clear continuity between Indus-Saraswati and later Vedic(proto-Hindu) cultures (no Aryan invasion and stuff ever happened); the city-dwellers from Harappa et al, after a few centuries of increasing urbanization, found it wiser to migrate to and settle down in idyllic villages and perform fire sacrifices - but they retained memories of their ancestors and their cities, allusions to which lie scattered in their (Vedic) poetry.

Indeed, fire sacrifices are claimed to be no Vedic period innovation but a Harappan one - on display is a 'sacrificial fire altar shaped like the base of a Sivalingam', unearthed from the allegedly Harppan urban site of Rakhigarhi. Pictures painted on an earthen jar from Harappa are stated by the accompanying description to depict scenes from life after life in a manner closely matching the popular Hindu picture - the treacherous Vaitarani river, fierce dogs attacking the newly liberated spirit and finally the virtuous enjoying an eternal life in a sort of Elysium, teeming with fish and fowl and game (I did scan the jar with some care; there were plenty of fish and fowl but the connection with the description was not really clear).

There is a major fight on between factions bent on Saraswatifying the Harappan culture and in vehemently asserting the total non-Hinduness thereof. Standard academic wisdom is clearly on the side of the latter faction. Even attempts to pull the geometric center (if not the epicenter) of the culture towards modern India by sheer weight of archeological evidence have not been particularly successful - for instance, no major reference on Harappan culture seems to even mention the (admittedly remarkable but allegedly much later) Daimabad bronzes. It is also quite surprising that nearly a decade after the BJP lost power, the descriptive boards in the National Museum have not been purged of the H-word.

Note: Here is an extract - from comments made by an expert from the other side (available online):
"The problem with the Indian scholars is that they live in the world of their own imaginings and judge the affairs of the world in the semi-light of their ideas which are mostly faulty. .... The people of the Indus Valley have given ample evidence of their culture and history but instead of judging them in the light of that evidence, scholars have recourse to post-Indus culture in India and draw inferences.... The fact that no temple was found in the Indus Valley Civilization suggests that they were practical people, the concept of otherworldliness, if not unfamiliar, was secondary to them and their attitude towards life was more utilitarian than anything else."

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New Delhi: Walking west down the Rajpath from India Gate began as an impressive visual experience - indeed, not much less in terms of impact than walking up to the St.Peters Square and into the embrace of Bernini's colonnades. One could even imagine the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the two flanking blocks(*) as the proudly raised head and massive shoulders of a colossus. However, as opposed to Vatican and its Basilica which grows within as well as in front with every stride of approach, the Desi edifices begin to underwhelm; finally, viewed from its gates, the Rashtrapati Bhavan, with a dome that seems to imitate the Sanchi stupa, is almost dull. I don't mean to say the nerve center of Indian political power has bad or even uninteresting architecture; it is just that it makes a strong initial impression and fails to sustain it.

By Indian standards, New Delhi probably *does not* have its share of statues of political leaders. I saw just two - both were of overweight, tired men with dopey eyes and bored faces. I would rather not name them.

(*) it is a mystery why North and South Blocks have remained just that - not renamed after politicians (even in Hindi script, they have been named 'North Bloke' and 'South Bloke' - Mallus of the World, please note!). The (as of now) slick and sleek Delhi Metro has revived the once-tried-and-shelved renaming of Connaught Place - 'Rajiv Chowk'. It is pretty sure the various lines of the Metro (now neatly marked with colors, Blue, Red, Yellow...) as well as the 2 kilometer Terminal 3 at the airport (more on that in the next post) will soon be due for political rechristening.

Five. And A Break

2010-04-27T23:46:00.000-07:00

This blog just completed Five years and well over 200 posts - an achievement of sorts.

One feels the need for a break, am putting on hold most activities on this blog. There are still plenty things to talk about but that hopefully can wait till I get back.

My 'blue blog' needs some serious attention; it is not *officially* on a break and I hope to add something there, soon.

So, Everybody out there, take care and be well!

Update (August 1st): Too many spam comments have forced me to block the lot. In response to a query in the comments (thanks, Geetha), yes, 'The Loop' is indeed being published and will be released in another 2 months. And I shall post on that. Thanks also to Manu and Anand for writing in.

Rivers Of Black Birds

2010-04-10T03:13:00.000-07:00

Ahmedabad. Just before sundown, swarms of little black birds (small, roundish and they flap their wings rapidly in short bursts) fly in from just North of West and proceed in a generally Eastward direction. Some groups are just a few dozen strong. But the largest groups are immense ... they burst forth from the sunset like innumerable tiny black suspended particles swirling in a centrifuge, then sweep over like an immense and turbulent river flowing right across the sky... And this has been going on everyday.

Within a group, the birds do not all fly at the same pace and keep overtaking one-another, like runners at the start of a city marathon; maybe this competition (combined with invisible atmospheric fluctuations) causes the formations to stretch, turn and sway and flap and flutter wildly(and sometimes sweep by almost 'a quarter of a sky' in the North-South direction by the time it crosses a distance of 'one sky' from East to West) but they maintain the same general direction. And each evening, the number of birds crossing the SG Road (the Western limit of the city) should easily run into millions. To my knowledge, most of this activity happens over a stretch just to the south of Bodakdev Gurudwara.

I don't know if these birds are returning en masse from a daily foraging mission. I dunno if there is some larger scale migration going on. I dont even know yet, which species of birds they are. But I do know that there are others in this city who are at least as intrigued and amazed as I am; yesterday, I saw a teenaged looking couple follow the pageant on a mobike, videocamera and all.

The Story Of A Conjecture

2010-04-03T03:59:00.000-07:00

Note: 'Egregious' is among the more interesting words in English. From an archaic "distinguished", its meaning has somehow evolved into "conspicuously bad". In the source Latin, the word still means 'outstanding' or 'remarkable'.

As some of my readers would know, Ramana Rao and I formulated a Mathematical conjecture way back in 2006. Over the years, the conjecture acquired a bit of a life of its own among Mathematicians (the more intrepid/jobless among my readers may google with "nandakumar ramana rao conjecture"), but our serious attempt (published in late 2008 at arxiv) to achieve a partial proof has almost totally failed to attract serious expert attention.

A solid Mathematician told me: "the problem is *rigor*. If you want real mathematicians to read your writeup on the problem, you must write it rigorously. What you have produced is quite an unreadable chaos of English"

My own conception of rigor is that it resides in the abstract world of arguments and logic, not in the notation and formalism. So, whether our article is rigorous or not depends only on the *truth* of our arguments and how they hang together, not in the language in which they is couched (for example, the above-mentioned Mathematician remarked he would like to see more epsilons and deltas, and I don't care too much about such proposals).

Recently, I discovered the following: Gauss, the all-time great Mathematician, was not much given to hype and hyperbole; but he was so impressed by one of his own discoveries that he named it 'theorema egregium' (there is a Wiki article on it)!

That gave me an idea: as a tribute of sorts to Gauss, I decided to christen our own problem with a suitably picturesque adjective. And there was only one real contender: 'kitogiro'.

I encountered this word a couple of years ago in an internet joke mail on software slang in Bangalore Kannada: here is the original source: http://www.kannadaaudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15727

I checked with a local expert and he said: kitogiro/kittogiro/kithogiro means "absolutely worthless" in Kannada.

The word has a surprisingly authentic Japanese feel ('komogeto maru', 'ikkiru', 'ishiguro'... types). And there are some real famous Mathematical conjectures from Japan, the most famous being the 'Taniyama-Shimura' one. The 'Kitogiro Conjecture'- it sounded cool!

Now, if someone were to think, by choosing a Jap-sounding name, I am being disloyal to our Indian roots, there is a great precedent in Mathematics: a troop of French mathematicians giving themselves the pseudo-Hungarian (or faux Greek?) pseudonym: 'Nicolas Bourbaki'.

Then, a strong Russian variant 'Kitogirov' emerged. Again, the 'feel' was solid and authentic. Kitaigorodski, Kolmogorov,... there are any number of similar-sounding Ruski names with unimpeachable Academic pedigree.

The dilemma was resolved with a coin toss; Japan won. To mark the occasion, I inserted in my (soon to be released) book, 'The Loop', a reference to the 'Kitogiro conjecture'. Now, I want to talk a bit more about how this naming business made me think of the dreaded r-word again.

Quite pleased with 'Kitogiro', I wrote to a Kannadiga Physicist/Mathematician(*) I know well (he really knows his Math, and can teach a thing or three about rigor to most folks) about the naming of the conjecture. I expected a reply on the lines of "Hilarious!". And what I got was the puzzling: "What does Kitogiro mean? Is it intended to be an allusion or something?"

Hiding my confusion (and disappointment) I wrote back: "hey, I thought kitogiro is a Kannada word!"

Pat came the reply: "Never heard it!"

Self: "Hello, I was told, it means 'absolutely worthless' in Kannada!"

Him: "Oh, that?! The actual phrase is 'kettu hogira' and it means spoilt, worn out...yes. Maybe in Bangalore slang, it may sound ..."

Now, there goes a stickler for rigor!

Question: Who are the two communities which use the word 'rigor' all the time?
Answer: Mathematicians and Forensic experts (as in 'rigor mortis').

Sorry for the groaner!
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Note: Being Malayali, I did fleetingly consider the Malayalam word 'Tallippoli' which means almost the same as the Kannada 'kitogiro'. This word too is sort of international, sounding like the Turkish 'Gallipoli'. And I have a sneaking suspicion that 'Tallipoli', though it can be given a pure Mallu derivation, was actually coined in the wake of the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign of the first World War. To give another word of similar pedigree, the rural Mallu slang word 'yamandan' meaning 'big and powerful' or 'terrible' is said to derive from the name of 'Emden', the German warship of World War I which came all the way to our shores and sensationally shelled Madras (although the planet(?) 'Yamakantaka' too has some claims)!

Note on above Note: A major expert, who has done some serious work on our problem has recently attributed it (on at least two separate occasions) to 'Nandakumar and Ramanda Rao' (again, I call google to witness!). When I reported this - including the misspelling of Ramana as Ramanda - to my Old Man, he ramarked: "That sounds like 'Yamanda Rao'!". Come to think of it, that would have been quite apt; 'yamandan' sits well on my fellow-traveller - tall and powerful, he used to be a fiery and feared fast bowler and had (and still has) a great baritone voice to boot.

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(*) 'Mathematican' would be a much more accurate description of the gentleman than 'Mathematician'. But I would rather not press the point - he might object on grounds of rigor, saying 'mathematican' is not listed in any dictionary.

'The People's Jungle'

2010-03-28T20:58:00.001-07:00

This is on some details of 'Jana Aranya', a Satyajit Ray film dating back to mid 1970's.

The official English translation of the movie's name is 'The Middleman'. But the literal meaning of the title is 'a jungle of people'; I suspect it is a parody of phrases like 'janatantra' or 'ganatantra' (meaning democracy, as in 'people's republic' or 'popular government') - reflecting a deep disillusionment with a system which claims to be democratic (or republican) but where actually the jungle-law prevails.

The movie has been variously described by reviewers as 'unknown masterpiece','underrated classic' and so forth...

This is indeed an exceptionally tautly narrated story and there are some passages where Ray equals his best work. Unlike other Ray films I have seen, this is a 'morality play' (an 'immorality play', to be precise) so most characters are actually types and personifications; but despite the resulting - necessary - 2-dimensionalization, almost all of them are exceptionally well-realized. In his patented style, Ray uses music sparingly and tellingly (the absolute highlight: a montage showing a mountain of job-applications piling up at a post office, the background score progresses gradually from a sumptuously orchestrated movement to the 'dhup dhup' of the envelopes being stamped). However, in spite of all these virtues, I feel the film could have been an even better piece of work.

For instance, the episode where an elderly examiner fails to read Somnath's small hand-writing and gives him a low grade. This marks a digression from a 'third person limited' style of narration (ideally suited to a story of this type) to 'third person omniscient'. The result: we are prevented from sharing fully the sheer disbelief of Somnath's father when the results are out. Imho, a wisecrack by the cynical elder brother to the effect: "As usual Kokon (Somnath's 'daak-nam') would have written in that cute little style of his.... you can't expect the examiner to be carrying a microscope around!" would have been sufficient.

Further downstream, Somnath is not witness to Bishuda's brief but interesting 'exchange' with a fruit-seller - and Ray could easily have (and to me, he should have) constructed the scene so that he is.

A jarring note, to me, was the rather stagey depiction/portrayal of the protagonist's angst-ridden father. His suffering is real; but something about either the acting or the dialog or ... grates.

And the nitpicker in me also spotted a miniscule continuity problem: When Mitter and Somnath discuss 'strategy' over chicken omelettes, the camera repeatedly cuts between their faces and the latter is shown with specs and without them alternately in a brief sequence of shots - a bit earlier, he has been shown taking them off and hence should have been without them for the entire duration of the switching shots.

This movie, like quite a few others of Ray, features some intimate Devar-Bhabhi (younger brother - elder brother's wife) cameraderie ('Charulata' is easily more famous on that count and Shakha-Proshakha too such an episode). Maybe there are no 'darker' undercurrents to the relationship between Somnath and his 'Baudi' but somewhere, I sensed a lurking doubt, a shadow of a certain 'physical tension'. Indeed I am reminded of Dutta and Robinson's biography dissecting Tagore's relationship with his sister-in-law, where it is mentioned the word 'Devar' literally means 'second husband'.

Remarkably, Calcutta streets of 2010 look almost exactly the same as in this thirty five year old b/w film. I have heard millions of times of the timelessness of Indian villages but this is the first time I have encountered such an 'urban time warp'.

Personally speaking: 'Jana Aranya' was the first Ray movie I saw (nearly 20 years back) and over the last week, I have seen it about half a dozen times. And I have liked it so much its few flaws disturb me. A reason for this special affinity could be that I see parallels between this story and my own 'The Loop', which, if things go well, will be out in book form later this year.

"Yellow Limestone"

2010-03-13T22:00:00.000-08:00

Nowadays, I watch as many Satyajit Ray movies (and Feluda films by his son Sandip) as possible. The primary intent is acquisition of Bengali language(*) so I tend to watch each film repeatedly, trying to decipher the dialog better. The deep (and well-documented) aesthetic pleasure that practically every Ray movie provides is another incentive, although not the primary one.

Regrettably, I do not possess the evolved and nuanced sensitivity which could have yielded illuminating film reviews (the genre of writing I have sampled most extensively over the last few years). Ray has had enough reviewers anyways.

Let me record some impressions:

- 'Abhijan' has some exciting action (indeed I never thought a relic of a car and a moving cattleshed of a steam train could feature in such a racy race!) and a gives deeply engaging sense of being on the move and being swept thru landscapes (in sculptured stasis as well as furious evolution). It seems to have been an inspiration for a slightly later (and rather atypically interesting) Hindi road-movie 'Teesri Kasam', a connection, perhaps, not adequately explored by existing reviews of the latter.

- 'Kanchenjunga' struck me as static and somewhat dull on first viewing (and reviewers have criticized it for its 'picture postcard'-ness); but if ever any movie is an acquired taste, this must be it. When the Darjeeling fog rolls in and the cling-clang of a loaded mule-train mingles with Ray's wonderfully understated background score, it is quite a cocktail of sensations.

- A sense of travel permeates the detective film 'Sonar Kella' (must be the only detective movie described by reviewers as 'lyrical'). Having grown up in the era of steam engines, simply watching those smoky, rickety trains was a deeply nostalgic ride. Some of the shots, - the Gangetic plain, the Rajasthan desert...- dripping with old-style color, looked straight out of a 1960s vintage National Geographic(**). The plot was less of an attraction. The pace of narration was a bit too leisurely for a thriller - but I did not mind at all. And, as has been documented elsewhere, Ray gets two little boys to act amazingly well.

And I found an error in Ray's typically meticulous detailing (as my readers would know, I am a compulsive nitpicker) - detective Feluda picks up a carved bowl from a curio shop and makes his decisive deduction: "yellow limestone ... Jaisalmer!". Hey, Jaisalmer has a fort made of golden-hued *sandstone*, not limestone! But I can't be sure about my finding yet since there are almost as many web-pages which say Jaisalmer fort is made of yellow limestone as there are those which say it is of sandstone. There are also web-pages which say the two stones are indeed fundamentally different, which implies Ray and self cannot both be right.

With all respect to thespian Soumitra Chatterji (who played Feluda in 'Sonar Kella'), I liked Sabyasachi's much later interpretation of the character better.

And the Monday after I saw Kanchenjunga and Sonar Kella (saw both twice each over a weekend), when I pulled out a chalk-piece from a neatly packed case, I could not help go tap-tap with the chalk-tip on the case!

- 'Shakha Prashakha' is one of Ray's last movies. Critics in general have not rated this movie very high. Even many Ray fans find it too verbose and boring. My own first viewing, not surprisingly, was quite a drag, but repeats have actually been hugely enjoyable, for a rather non-cinematic reason - the dialog has, almost abruptly, become almost comprehensible. Beginning to get a grip on a new language is quite a high, even at this age ... it reminds me of the day when I discovered I could swim!

- 'Kapurush' is a neat little movie, one of the best explorations of the usual triangle of relationships. I could suggest one change: the final scene of "can I have those sleeping pills back?" had better be a dream (maybe it is, as it is!).

- 'Jana Aranya' is, in terms of pacing and the ability to draw the spectator into the action, one of Ray's finest efforts and I have already seen it 4-5 times. More on that later!

Note: While on the Feluda trail, I also checked the wiki article on 'faluda' (a soft drink I tried and did not take to long ago). I was led to a couple of absolutely surprising articles on 'yakhchals' and 'wind towers', highly non-trivial civil engineering feats from the middle east which have not received the recognition they richly deserve. I had never before heard about such structures (they must have been built even in Mughal India). Even Robert Byron's remarkably detailed classic 'The Road to Oxiana' has but a single fleeting reference to them.
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(*) As an example of the progress on the language front, I give the following exclamation, coined yesterday: "Feluda Govinda!". And here is another sample: "Some folks deem deem vegetarian."

(**)Coincidentally, the Indian Railways put up the famous National Geographic picture of a steam loco with the Taj Mahal as backdrop on its website, just a few days back.

Rumtek - Visited And Revisited

2010-02-20T04:23:00.000-08:00

Rumtek Monastery sits near the crest of a hill that faces Gangtok. Detailed info is available at rumtek.org

Till the other day, I had barely heard about the place; even our guide book said precious little, except that during Feb, Tibetan Cham dances are staged there.

For starters, there is some really complex politics being played out at Rumtek, with rival Karmapa Rimpoches, other Lamas including the Dalai Lama himself and Chinese agencies - and of course, our own - all intricately involved. There is a surprisingly heavy military presence and foreign visitors are seriously checked.

The main monastery consists of a four-storied inner shrine with a spacious quadrangle in front and monks' quarters around. In the center of the space before the shrine stands an inscribed pillar. Atop a tall mast hangs an elaborate gyaltsen (a victory banner, one of the eight auspicious symbols of Tibetan Buddhism; very uncannily close in design to the 'tazha', an elaborate prop displayed atop elephants, along with colorful parasols, during some temple festivals in far away Kerala).

When we entered, a large troop of monks, from little boys to middle-aged men, were wrapping elaborately sleeved maroon cloaks and robes over each other's basic monastic uniform. Two other smaller groups sat before mike sets, equipped with long horns, cymbals and a large drum.

Despite the apparently solemn activity, access to the inner shrine was not restricted. The interior, housing a whole gallery of Buddhas, Bodhisatvas and fierce guardian deities of Tibetan Buddhism looks splashed with brilliant colors - indeed, the color schemes were among the most glaringly beautiful I have ever seen(*). Surrounding the entrance, there are again brightly colored murals, including a Ganesha image (inspired by a miraculous vision a Karmapa had of the popular Indian God, I am told).

We stepped out to take a look at the Golden Stupa chamber in the adjacent Dharma Institute building. This place, again very heavily guarded by soldiers, has several images of enlightened beings - glaring Padmasambhava, attentive Milarepa, and other figures displaying a wide range of expressions - beatific to smug to quizzical to wrathful.

Back at the monastery quadrangle, the monks had finished the robe-wrapping and had gathered in a tight group near the entrance of the inner shrine. I asked a novice if there is any special ceremony going on: "They are going to dance!" he said.

The drums and the horns came alive and the groups near the mike sets rustled up some basic rhythms on the cymbals and started a quaint chant - at unnaturally base frequencies; and presently, the monks, in groups of 4 abreast, stepped out into the quadrangle and began a simple dance movement, to the drum and cymbal beats, lifting hands, stepping back and forth and pirouetting. Soon the full group had arrayed itself in a large ring.

The chanting and the horn music continued; the dance went on and on - rehearsed but with a dash of spontaneity and freedom, totally un-selfconsious, repetitive but nowhere near boring; indeed the overall effect was rather funny. Watching them at it, a phrase occurred to me: "the dancing woolly masters".

The novice had much else to tell me: "Day after tomorrow is Losar, our new year. Tomorrow, they will dance with masks. (oh, so the masked dances are performed by the monks themselves!) .... That ( he points out among the dancers a chubby boy-monk of about 8, one of the few wearing bright golden sleeved costumes, the rest don red sleeves) is the new Rimpoche; he was born in Ladakh and was identified as the chosen one by the instructions left by the previous Rimpoche when he passed away; you know we believe he is the reincarnation of a late Master.... and these chosen ones are exceptional, even as children; the new Rimpoche is extremely intelligent!"

"This dance and tomorrow's puja are dedicated to Mahakala. There is a sacred Mantra dedicated to Mahakala which goes: "Om Mahakala.... Swaha!"

He further asks me about the status of Buddhism in our part of India. My an answer is more optimistic than honest: "Of course, all over India, Lord Buddha's teachings are much revered".

--------------

The next day, we are back. The military presence is more in-your-face and a helicopter whirls overhead. An army man tells me: "these people have some mela thing; so no entry fee!"

Right next to the inscribed pillar in the courtyard, a brightly painted effigy of a large face had been set up. Several devotees, locals and some Europeans were prostrating themselves before this image and wrapping white scarves around it...

The inner shrine was out of bounds. Sets of musician monks had stationed themselves on either side of the entrance. Today they wore big yellow hats, which vaguely resembled, in design, Greek infantry helmets.

The portico of the main shrine was barred by curtains; but behind them, we could make out some brightly colored images which were not there yesterday...

The drums, cymbals,... start up and the ultra-low-pitched chanting begins... the curtains are yanked aside and a group of monks wheel out a large and fiercely colored effigy of a guardian deity - he wears a garland of severed heads, a la Kali, and sports a massive crown studded with skulls and rides a Bactrian camel. The deity goes around the quadrangle in a procession. Next comes a similar and equally strikingly colored deity, who rides a blue horse; he too is taken around... Finally comes a very big image somewhat similar to the earlier two - fiercer in aspect as well as color and holding a kapala (skull-bowl) dripping with blood; and he rides a chariot. The big image is positioned himself between the earlier two. Mahakala, I presume ...

The curtains close. A longish wait.... The steady drone of the chanting continues.

The curtains reopen; the drums and cymbals start up and four dancers in strikingly colored overcoats and masks which resemble the Mahakala images stride out and break into dance moves identical to what was seen yesterday. Then come another 4 dancers, then 4 more... the overcoats remain similar but the masks span a huge range - beaked birds, antlered deer, horned buffaloes, ... Each holds weapons - bow and arrow, swords, stylized Vajras; and each has an empty skull-bowl in the left hand; and they go round and round in a big circle...

The dancers pause briefly. Two monks bring in a small, made of sponge-looking human effigy and lay it in the center of the quadrangle as if it is a corpse, and step back. The dance restarts, then one of the dancers breaks from the ring and approaches and stabs the 'corpse' with his sword; an attendant monk comes forward and wipes the sword clean of 'blood' and the dancer rejoins the ring. Then comes a bowman-dancer and shoots an arrow at the corpse and returns; and the other dancers follow ....

A solitary unarmed dancer with an antlered mask steps out into the center. He dances far more vigorously than the others - perhaps, possessed by Mahakala's spirit. A monk approaches him with a pan of rice. He grabs a fistful and flings it into the air, then another fistful... (just as the 'oracles' at Kali temples in Kerala do, when 'possessed').

The possessed dancer approaches the 'carcass' and crouches before it. A monk hands him a sword; the dancer spends a few minutes in silent contemplation, then works himself into a frenzy and with thrusts, each more violent than the other, makes mincemeat of the carcass.... And finally, his fury abated, he throws away the sword.

Attendant monks gather the 'flesh', go around the ring of dancers and put small chunks into their kapalas. And then,full kapalas raised and weapons flashing, off they go again....

--------------

And I have to leave it at that; we saw no more. Pity we did not plan a longer stay there. I am told, further dances, even more vigorous and featuring effigies of yaks and dragons and so forth, would go on thru the day. Maybe ...

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(*) - Tibetan artists and architects must have spent a lot of time researching how to juxtapose and arrange strong and bright colors - their works are distinctly more pleasing and attractive than, say, the multi-colored gopurams of the South.

A Ride To Nathu La

2010-02-17T06:12:00.000-08:00

Note: This post is about some real incidents. The names of characters may have been changed.
----------

A clear morning in Gangtok. We get up early and walk hard to the Taxi Stand. The arrangement: a large jeep would leave at 8 am for Nathu La pass on the China border. We did our booking rather late and, as advised by our travel agent, hurry to get there and grab the front seats...

We find the jeep well before 8 but there is no sign of the driver. We park on the front seat and wait. At about 8.30, a portly, mustachioed man in his mid-fifties approaches and says: "The front seat is ours!" There is an equally portly woman with him, her hair dyed brown, face painted.

"But we were told, if we get here early, we could take the front seat." I venture.

"Look. We have specifically booked this seat... We will see!" he stops, ominously. Sensing trouble, we leave the seat.

.....

By 9, the vehicle is full, the driver too arrives and we finally set off, Mr. and Mrs. Portly having squeezed into the front seat.

The rest of the passengers are young honey-mooners from various parts of the country. From their general talk, it's clear they are all new to Sikkim - and quite excited about going to Nathu La.

....

Ten minutes into the journey, Portly turns back and addresses the rest: "Hi everyone, I am Doctor Khanna from Delhi!" A young lady in the group is excited to hear that: "Oh we too are doctors!" she says, nudging her husband. "I am a physiotherapist!" declares Khanna; "and am in the army (pauses) and my brother-in-law is a Director of Police(*)! And this is my fifth visit to Nathu La."

A pause. The driver, a rather morose-looking Nepali, speaks: "All of you, please remember, we shall do our best, but if there is some block or something, we will have to return. Road conditions are quite unpredictable!"

"Why, man, are you saying such inauspicious things right in the beginning?" Khanna admonishes the driver. "If there is something wrong, I will manage it. Nathu La is army territory and this is *our* army!"

.....

The road climbs sharply from Gangtok and Khanna begins a lecture of sorts on what lies ahead:
"Guys, this is sensitive military area. China often creates trouble. But you should see our jawans who guard the border post at Nathu La. Absolutely, the cream of the cream of Indian manhood. You know, they are from the Jat regiment, Sikh regiment, ... not one of them is under six feet in hight! ... and those Chinese who face them, not one of them is above five feet!"

"The Tsangu lake which we shall pass, is a sacred site. Lord Shiva himself used to visit the place and offer Puja"

"And you should know of Baba Harbhajan Singh, whose Mandir is next to Nathu La. He was a jawan, all of twenty two years when the Chinese attacked; he faced an entire battalion single-handedly and polished them off, you know, like Abhimanyu! Then, he disappeared somewhere there. The army does not treat him as a war casualty; he is still on its rolls, his personal belongings are still kept intact and every year, they travel to his village in the Punjab, as if he is going home on leave. And he continues to guide and help his beloved colleagues. When those Chinese are up to some mischief, he warns them in dreams; he never ever fails his men..."

We are just beginning to see streaks of snow atop hills when the jeep halts at the tail of a long queue. "There is a jam up ahead" says the driver and gets down - and disappears somewhere.

It is a few minutes before we realize that there is some serious problem ahead. I go off to investigate.

A couple of hairpin bends above, a truck carrying a JCB has broken down - and totally blocked the narrow road. About half a dozen military men stand around and discuss. I tentatively approach a Jat-looking soldier (he is tall, a tick over six feet) and ask: "Saabji, how long will it take?"

"Nothing can be said." he says pleasantly "The truck can't move unless the JCB is taken down. There is an army camp a few kilometers ahead and a relief machine is on its way. So, hopefully in a few minutes,..."

I stay. A few workers are piling up rocks and soil next to the truck. The soldiers, many more in number than them, watch; a couple of dozen stranded tourists have collected and they too watch. Half an hour on, there is no sign of any 'relief machine' from higher up. I go over to another soldier (the tall Jat is not to be seen now) and ask him about the situation.

"Somebody is saying we the army are not doing anything. Can you not see that we are working hard?" he responds.

"Sure Saab" I answer.

"Anyways, these coolies (he points at the toiling gang of workers) are making a ramp for the JCB to be moved off the truck. Then we will see!"

The tall Jat soldier reappears briefly, gives me a smile and watches. A short while later a stout and well-decorated armyman appears and calls out: "Mahinder, let's go back. This won't get over anytime soon!"; the Jat gallops over and a few minutes later, I see him start up a car in the queue with the decorated armyman in it and make a u-turn and go off...

....

To summarize, watched by over a score armymen and over twice that number of tourists, the four or five workers took well over an hour and a half to set up the ramp, a driver got on to the JCB and with considerable skill and a dash of luck, got the lumbering brute off the back of the truck. Whew!

.....

Our journey continues. A fellow-traveler wonders: "Man, if this road link is so fragile, what will happen if there is a war?"

Doctor Khanna says: "Arrey, don't underestimate our army. We can give those Chinis a pasting!...(pauses) yes, but there are some handicaps. Like, you know, our minister is a lungi-wallah!"

"Who are you referring to?" the hitherto silent painted woman asks.

"Arrey, that Anthony!" says Khanna. "These fellows, they go everywhere in a lungi, whether to office or a war-zone or to the UN, they have zero sense of perspective! So how can they possibly understand what the hell the army is for? Defense minister it seems!"

....

A military camp appears. I see a board in English letters and hear myself reading out aloud: "Pathomabathe, Vetri Namathe(**)! Hey, Madras Regiment!".

"Have you not heard enough? Why don't you just keep your southie-ness to yourself?!" I hear a sharp admonition and fall silent.

.....

Flakes, then lumps of snow begin to speckle the grass on either side of the road. More army camps,... The ascent continues,... And here are proper snow-fields, "10000 feet above Sea level", "11000 feet..." boards declare.

At a military camp, Khanna tells the driver: "I am hungry. Stop at a shop!".

"Sir, you won't get anything here" he says.

"Hell, you never stopped anywhere!" Khanna thunders. "All day we have been starving. There was that bloody jam, and now you won't stop. Stop, let me check."

"No, no, let's proceed, we are already late. Uncle, please..." a chorus of voices from the passengers.

There is anyways, no shop visible. We move on.

.....

Tsangu lake hurls into view, hemmed in by snow-blanketed hills, half of its surface covered by a vast slab of ice. A solitary cloud is seen rising from its surface (or has the cloud just dipped down from its heavenly path to replenish its stock of water, as Kalidasa(?) said somewhere?).

The car stops. The honeymooners get busy taking snaps. Khanna shuffles in the direction of an eatery which lies about 20 steps down from the path. I ask the driver: "How much more to Nathu La?"

"One more hour" he says. "But we have no time left; so enjoy here and we will go back!"

"But that is not enough!" I protest. "... Okay, if we leave just now...?"

"Hmm, we can make it. But Saab has gone to the hotel to eat. So..." he trails off.

I approach the honeymooners and inform them of the situation. "Let us call Uncle back!" tells a bride. Her husband and another in the party move off in the direction of the eatery.

I watch from afar as a conversation, first casual, then animated, then pretty heated ensues down in the eatery. "Amit, Amit!" a bride calls out imploringly. The young men return and they have a talk with their women who now proceed towards the eatery.

I ask 'Amit'. "What's up?"

"That old scratch has ordered some trash and won't move it until he has had his fill. I even asked him "if you are tired, we shall quickly go over to Nathula and get back!" and know what he started threatening us: "I challenge you, if you dare to leave us here, go. But I will fix you proper. And I will get the driver's license canceled!" And he told me: "You are young but keep your stupid attitude to yourself!" Attitude it seems, bloody a*****e!"

I confine myself to: "your description of him is very saatvik"; and as we wait, I can helplessly sense blood beginning to hiss and seethe within my skull ....

The brides retreat. "He is adamant!" they say. "Auntie too pleaded with him but... Now let us wait".

10+ minutes, I see the couple get out of the eatery. Khanna takes a further 5 minutes to haul his massive frame up the flight of 20-odd steps. Amit looks away and spits vigorously on the snow.

....

40 more minutes spent skirting progressively thicker snow deposits and we are halted by a military checkpost just 2 kilometers short of the frontier. "Nathu La closed for the day!" the Driver says "We can turn and go to Baba Mandir"

Baba Mandir, at almost 14000 feet above sea level,in a snow-bound setting, is a well-visited shrine. It is suddenly cloudy and extremely chilly; but sunbeams slant onto the snow which glows golden - and the odd crystal shimmers...

Nearby, a Buddhist-style military shrine stands atmospherically atop an icy, desolate hill, prayer flags fluttering against a cloud-laden sky.

While returning, we pause for half an hour at Tsangu and take more snaps and drink some surprisingly good tea at the same eatery where Khanna had his meal. I experiment with pouring some boiling tea over my painfully numb fingers - and it works like a charm.

The driver comes over to me and asks for my name and phone number. I ask: "What for?"

"I may need you to speak on my behalf. That man is threatening me saying because of my prompting, you spoiled his meal so that he will lodge a complaint against me to somebody high up and get my license scrapped!"

I answer: "Don't worry. He wont do anything!" Amit, who has been listening, butts in: "And he simply can't do a thing. Bloody fool, if he acts smart, we will..." he trails off, perhaps chewing down the rest of the sentence.

....

During the entire return journey, Khanna stays silent. Exception: one of the brides is distributing cookies. "Uncleji.." she makes an approach. "No!" Khanna declines the offer monosyllabically.

------------------
(*) I was reminded of the movie 'Utsav'; a flabby and mustachioed Shashi Kapoor declares loudly and repeatedly - "Hey, I am Sansthanak, and I am the King's Saala!"

(**) That means "The Nineteenth. Victory is Ours!" in Tamil

Kanchenjunga

2010-02-15T04:20:00.000-08:00

“I was told (by a resident of Darjeeling) that the summit of Kinchinjunga is often hidden in the clouds, and that sometimes a tourist has waited twenty-two days and then been obliged to go away without a sight of it. And yet was not disappointed; for when he got his hotel bill he recognized that he was now seeing the highest thing in the Himalayas.”
- Mark Twain, sometime in the 19th century (before Everest was measured accurately).

I remember a time long gone when the wonderfully alliterative name 'Kanchenjunga' first hurled into view in a children's atlas and one went 'kanjenjenjenjen...' with it. Sure enough, 'Kanchenjunga' is to mountains what 'Tintoretto' is to artists(*).

A decade and some ago, I first glimpsed the peak - had made the hugely over-hyped 'mountain flight' from Kathmandu and the flight attendant pointed out a wall-like snowy range far to the east and said: "...and that's Kanchenjunga!"

A few days ago, at Gangtok, Sikkim, I got lucky with the weather and saw the mountain again. Just under an hour of power-walking from Gangtok is 'Tashi Viewpoint' where stands a tower from atop which a whole range of mountains consisting of Kanchenjunga, Siniolchu and so forth are impressively visible. A slight goof-up with scheduling ensured that I missed sunrise "pour molten gold over the peaks"; but an hour of staring at silvery ice was not bad at all by any means. Indeed, the visual impact of the spectacle is comparable to (although not quite an equal to) the view of the Annapurna Range from Sarangkot, Nepal.

Wiki says Kanchenjunga has five separate peaks. From Tashi, only two could be made out; an identical pair of protuberances rising from the broad and rugged visage of the mountain - they were reminiscent of Moses' horns. Presently, a solitary plume of white vapor rose from the very top; it persisted and snaked quite some distance into the deep blue above. The mountain looked like a steaming volcano.

The 'book' says the mountain is the guardian diety of Sikkim.An online source says: the name means “Five Treasures of Snow,” referring to Kangchenjunga’s five peaks. The Tibetan words are: Kang (Snow) chen (Big) dzö (Treasury) nga (Five). The five treasures are Gold, Silver, Precious Stones, Grain, and Holy Scriptures. So the correct spelling should be 'Kangchendzonga'.

A much simpler derivation of the name could be the Sanskrit kanchana+jangha = 'golden thigh'
But then, it is difficult to correlate anything of what is visible of the mountain to the thigh of any living being.

Aside: the phrase 'golden thigh' does have significance in a different context. Among the several semi-divine attributes tradition assigns the great Greek philosopher Pythagoras was a mysterious 'golden thigh'!

The smaller Siniolchu peak has been described as the most beautiful on earth; it might well be that but not when viewed from Tashi; what I saw of it is not really in the class of Machchhapuchre (as it appears from Sarangkot).

--------------
(*)- Let me quote myself from an earlier post: "Tintoretto was the best-sounding name any painter ever had!"
And nearly a quarter of a century ago, a smart and daring bit of investigative journalism was seralized in a newspaper in far-away Kerala. The theme: scary details of illegal ganja (cannabis) cultivation and drug processing in the high ranges of Kerala's Western Ghats. The title: 'A journey through 'Ganjanjunga''

The Duke of Candallah

2010-02-02T19:37:00.000-08:00

I have been to the hill station of Khandala many times over the last decade and a half. I have done the very enjoyable walk up the sharp-pointed hill near there called 'Duke's Nose' at least thrice. But I never knew - or even wondered - who the 'Duke' was.

Until the other day that is. The prominent rocky crest, which overlooks the Express Highway and is locally called 'Nagphani' (the Cobra's hood), was given its English name after Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington - the same general who was the nemesis of gentlemen ranging from Napoleon (who he finished off militarily at Waterloo) to Tipu Sultan (whom he simply finished off at Seringapatam). For the record, Wellesley could not (or did not) finish the 'Lion of Kerala', Pazhassi Raja (Wiki says Wellesley left India in 1803 "after 3 years of inconclusive war" with Pazhassi).

The source: a couple of paintings of 'Candallah' done by Brit landscape artists (sadly, I did not note down their names), which were recently on display at the Victoria Memorial, Calcutta. One of them shows a caravan trail winding up the Bhor Ghat and the other, a far view of the Nose. The description given alongside revealed the Wellington connection. Of course, that Wellington had a big nose and was famous for it was news to me.

There is a bit of an anachronism in 'Duke's Nose': Wellesley was in these parts around the year 1800 but he was no Duke then. In fact, Indian history remembers him as only Wellesley and not as Duke of Wellington. In Kerala history, he is 'Karnal Wellesley', so he probably was not even a general yet. The Duchy came his way only after he liberated Spain from Napoleon and co. (1814). So, it is likely, the Brits initially named the rock 'Colonel's Nose' or whatever - and 'promoted' it later.

One more bit: the most impressive view of the Nose is not from up close but from Rajmachi fort - a long walk from Lonavla in a different direction. From that point, the Nose really looks a nose (indeed, from close quarters, Nagphani is, any day, a better name) and entire hill looks uncannily like an aquiline-nosed man asleep - or stoned out.

-------------

And here is a three-score year old episode narrated by Pop:
"In an English exam, I mis-spelt the word 'duke' as 'duck' - several times. Our teacher left a one-line comment: "Do not play 'dukes and drakes' with the riches of English!""

Wiki says, "the Guinness record for 'stoneskipping' is 51 skips, set by Russell Byars on July 19, 2007". And coincidentally, one of my own early memories is of watching in sheer disbelief as Pop gave a demo.

Continuing the ramble on ducks and drakes, here is an episode from an old and tacky mythological film, 'Jason and the Argonauts': A contest is on between Hercules (a huge warrior, in his prime) and a fresh-faced lad. The setting is a beach. Hercules powerfully hurls a discus and the projectile, having soared high, lands on a rocky islet quite some distance offshore. The boy nonchalantly asks "Should I hit that rock or go beyond it?" and sends another discus skipping happily over the sea - its last skip neatly clears the rock.

Indian Museum - Revisited

2010-01-23T06:08:00.001-08:00

In an earlier post, I had described a sculpture on the wall of Rani-ni-Vaav, the grand step-well in Patan, Gujarat:

"an unusually detailed image of Kalki(?), the equestrian incarnation of Vishnu - he holds a sword and his other hand holds forth a bowl into which a lady is pouring something"

Today, on my second visit to the Indian Museum in Calcutta, I found out the rider's actual identity. He is 'Revanta', a minor solar deity, whose worship dates back almost to the Vedic times, and who still has some serious following in the Western parts of the country (another name for him is 'Raivata' and the holy 'Raivataka' mountain of the Mahabharata (and identified with the modern Girnar) derives its name from him). Wikipedia says: Revanta is one of the sons of Surya, the Sun God proper; he is sometimes said to correspond to the Persian Mitra and is usually shown as a horse-riding hunter.

But my earlier guess of the Patan rider's identity was, probably not wrong either. Vishnu himself started out, in Vedic times, as a minor Solar deity himself; and as he grew over the centuries to become the all-sustaining Narayana, Revanta, a sub-Solar deity, might well have been absorbed into the Avatara legends cycle with the new name Kalki. And Revanta too, like Kalki (which word is probably derived from 'khadgi' = the one with the sword), is usually, shown brandishing a sword (he is, at Patan).

Every Vishnu image I had seen before showed him with two of his arms raised above shoulder level and holding a discus and conch (keeping them up perpetually must be quite tiresome even for Him). Today, I saw quite a few carvings from in and around Bengal of Vishnu standing at ease, relaxed - all four arms hanging down.

I also saw, for the first time, a strange Buddhist sculpture of the divine Kalpa-taru tree; it looked more like a mushroom - and was vaguely reminiscent of the Henry Moore abstraction on the atomic cloud.

A 7-8 year old boy suddenly accosted me and asked in English: "You know where is mummy?"; for a few seconds, I was too puzzled to give any answer. Then a lady, who had been with him, asked "you know, where is the Egyptian mummy kept, he (the boy) wants to see only that!"

The mummy, of which I came to know only then, is in pretty bad shape. All flesh on the face has crumbled away - and all you see is a grinning Death's Head.

A caption in Hindi next to a marble statue of queen Victoria's refers to her as 'Rajarajeswari (in translation, "lady/goddess of the king of kings") Victoria'!

The Bharhut gallery was, again, closed.

And I did see the strange 'Ajaikapada' sculpture out there, which I had mentioned in an earlier post. Then, I had also said I did not remember if the figure was ithyphallic, as is probably the norm; and even based on what I saw today, it is hard to decide either way!

---------------

I found the Victoria Memorial a fairly attractive marble edifice. The facade has a few allegorical female figures, their muscular arms and even poses parodying some of Michelangelo's masterpieces. A large bronze statue in front shows Queen Victoria enthroned in majesty. There is a certain hard-hitting realism about it - the queen is well on in years and quite corpulent and weary-eyed and appears weighed down by her elaborate royal attire; and she has to hold up a scepter and a little globe. No wonder she sits as if the throne is a wheel-chair!

There is a temporary exhibition going on in there, of paintings/sketches/drawings done by Brit artists during 18th and 19th centuries showing Indian landscapes/genre scenes/ ruins etc... Quite impressive. In the (very unlikely) event of someone from Kolkata reading this post in the next few days (the expo closes on Jan 30th if I remember right), let me recommend a visit!

Being And Becoming

2010-01-16T05:30:00.000-08:00

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If ...'is' means is, that is ... one thing. If it means ..."
-Bill Clinton

This is a 'journalistic' meditation on "Tat tvam asi", a famous aphorism from Chhandogya Upanishad.

In word-for-word English translation, the aphorism goes: "That you are". In the standard sequence of words, it becomes: "You are That" with a touch of emphasis on 'That'.

'That' refers to the absolute, the quintessential essence of everything, usually referred to by the word 'Brahman'. And 'Tat tvam asi' is at the very core of Advaita, the Indian Monist/ non-dualist philosophy, which equates and identifies the individual soul with Brahman. In my understanding, Advaita interprets 'Tat tvam asi' to mean that the individual is not a fraction or subset of the whole but the whole itself.

However, one could ask: The Upanishadic seer says "you are that!" . And he does not say "that is you!". For a full and *equal* identification (on the lines of the Mathematical equation, "A=B") between 'you' (the individual) and 'that' (the absolute), both statements ought to be made; and the Upanishad makes only one. So, is the Advaitic interpretation accurate?

Indeed, the 'be-group' verbs, "is", "am" and "are" are ambiguous and could imply either time-independent (transcendental) being or a becoming, an evolution in time. So, since the seeker (the one spoken to, the 'you') is clearly the one who is 'are-ing', there is a hint of a *becoming*, an evolution that he has gone through or ought to go through to be the timeless 'that'. At least within the confines of the English translation, the absolute Advaitic identification/equality of the individual with the absolute cannot strictly be derived from this particular Upanishadic declaration.

To summarize, in order to fully convey the mathematical statement, "A=B", English needs to say "A is B; B is A"; and I have never come across an English translation of Chhandogya which says: "You are that; that is you!".

However, one should also note here that while English grammar allows statements like "that is you" just as it allows "you are that", other languages, such as Hindi, do not appear to allow both constructions.

Let me try to give an example. In English one could equally well say, "I came to meet a friend... and that is you" or "I came to meet a friend... and you are that friend". But in Hindi, one uses only the latter phrasing: "Ek dostse milne aaya hoon; aur tum ho woh dost" ("woh dost hai tum" is never used)

So it might well be the case that Sanskrit, like Hindi, allows only "you are that" - and "Tat tvam asti" ("that is you") may simply be inadmissible, in which case, one cannot really suspect that the Upanishadic seer really implies something different from total equality between 'you' and 'that'.

But then, Sanskrit also (very clearly) allows dropping of 'be-verbs' in several contexts: for example, the question "What is that?" is in Sanskrit, "Tat kim?" (literally "What that?") with valid answers like "Tat sanganakam" ("That (is a) computer"). So, the seer could very well have have just said: "Tat tvam!" and identified 'that' and 'you'. The very presence of 'asi' might well be a deliberate decision on his part - to imply that there may be an identification all right but not a total and equal, *reflexive and symmetric* one.

To give another example from Indian spiritual tradition, 'Sat Sri Akal', the Sikh declaration of faith (there is no 'be' verb there) is often translated as: "God is Truth; Truth is God!" - with *both* statements given, asserting the total identification of Truth and God.

Christmas Past, New Year Yet To Come...

2009-12-28T06:50:00.000-08:00

Q: What is the only bigger letdown than a 'dry' Christmas?

A: A dry New Year of course!

Well, I have just gone thru an instance of the former and am up against an instance of the latter, in Amdavad; am making do with preservative-laced plum cake which has come all the way from Kerala and costs a fortune.

--------------

An opportunity missed:

'Post-Hindu India' is a spanking new book (spanking in every sense) by Hyderabad-based academic Kancha Ilaiah. From what little I could make out in a quick browse, the only low-key thing about the tome is the title itself - the Prof is not one for subtlety or understatement - or pretensions of decorum - when holding forth on what someone else referred to as 'India's most popular mass-opiate' (for the uninitiated, Ilaiah's name features prominently in the Wiki article 'anti-Hindu').

I saw the book at a book-shop in Delhi airport a few days back and now regret that I did not muster the courage to shell out 295 bucks and grab it (especially in view of my then being about to use an air-ticket bought for nearly a dozen times that amount), for it appears very likely to be banned in our thin-skinned times.

---------------

A strange motif:

Champaner-Pavagad is the only Gujarati site on the Unesco World Heritage list. An hour's drive off Vadodara, the place has several half-millennium-plus old mosques scattered over a few kilometers of very scrubby terrain - the Jama Masjid, the Kevda Masjid, the Nagina Masjid, the Ek Minar Masjid and so on...
Jama, the largest of the lot has an impressive domed pavilion crowning the gateway into the main enclosure; the decorative work on its walls and archways shows great skill. Nagina too has a similar pavilion. Several of the domes have fallen off. Only a solitary minaret remains of the Ek Minar...

What struck me most is a decorative motif which has been carved in loving detail atop arches, niches and even in the Mecca-facing mihrabs of Jama Masjid - and is repeated several times over in Nagina and elsewhere; the design appears to show an incense-burner hanging from a chain with highly stylized fumes gracefuly emanating forth.

I don't quite remember seeing such a design elsewhere - although it might well feature in mosques at Sarkhej, Dholka etc. (places I have actually been to) many of which are associated with the strangely-named medieval ruler Mahmood Begada, who is said to have laid out Champaner.

Two Quotes, Again!

2009-12-26T06:38:00.000-08:00

As usual, I quote out of context, from two books I saw today evening at my usual browsing joint.

1. The unexpected...

"I am enough of a pagan to believe that a bit of paganism is good for body and soul"

- that was Jawaharlal Nehru in 'The Discovery of India'

My comment: "Ami obak!" (*)

2. ... and the egregious (thanks GRE!)

"(Those who join the IIMs do so because) they can solve Mathematical problems better than 99.9% of Indians"

- Chetan Bhagat in 'Two States'

My comment: It is a profound pity that from among those who can indeed solve Math problems better than that particular fraction of Indians, a goodly number do choose to go to those institutions(**).

----------------------
(*) that was the last bit of a Bengali limerick I heard a generation ago. It goes somewhat like:

"shokale uthi dekhi
shoto shoto kaak.
*aak, ami obak!"

(beyond the power of translation)

(**) Quite a few folks were of the opinion that a fair bit of Chetan Bhagat's 'Five Point Someone' (especially, the prof-speech climax) was 'inspired' by 'Munnabhai MBBS'. And now, the maker of that very movie has taken 'Five...' and made yet another blockbuster. What would that make, a cycle of inspiration?

And here is a bit of dialog from '3 Idiots', mouthed by the hero himself: "Must say X is an ass - did Engineering, then Management, then went on to work for an American bank. Arrey, if the whole idea was simply to work for some bank, was he not an ass to have gone thru Engineering at all?"

And Chetan Bhagat (a solid B.Tech-MBA-banker himself) is said to have okayed the script of 'Idiots'!

Update (January 1st 2010): Chetan Bhagat and the makers of 3I are now engaged in a very public spat over the extent to which the movie is based on FPS (estimates of the being-based-fraction range from 2 percent to 70 percent depending on the estimater) and how the credit for the story should be divided between Chetan and the scriptwriters. Chetan now says he was never shown the full script, Aamir Khan accuses Chetan for trying to take away credit from a less famous person (screenwriter Abhijat Joshi) and says he and the producers will sue Chetan, who in turn says he is prepared for any legal action and so forth....

Santiniketan - A Pilgrimage

2009-12-04T06:49:00.000-08:00

"Tagore was not a gifted man. He was a genius" - Gyani.

I am no expert on Tagore; but I have been a fan for long. Many years ago, I read his own English translation of Gitanjali (most Bengalis would say he made a meal of the translation) and a few of his stories (most of which I found a bit too sad; of course, there are several works like 'Nashtanirh', an exceptionally subtle and not at all sad story, but I know it only thru Satyajit Ray's film interpretation). I like Rabindra Sangeet, and believe it is one of the primary well-springs of inspiration for the rich corpus of early Hindustani film music. But more than everything else, I admire the Master for his visual art - "at nearly 70 years of age, he took up painting and produced works which won him a place among India's foremost contemporary artists", as Britannica puts it (of course, I sense some backhanded-ness in the geographically limiting 'India's').

A quick day-trip to Santiniketan, Tagore's 'Karmabhoomi', happened last week.

We got off the train at Bolpur on a persistently chilly mid-morning. The hallowed campus is just a couple of kilometers away and we walked down there. A traveler's guide, which we picked up upfront, lists literally scores of sites and sights to see - we did not check out more than half a dozen.

There is a museum with a lot more memorabilia and photos than the Jorasanko Thakurbari in Calcutta; here one can buy neat postcards of Tagore's paintings, some of which were masterpieces, plain and simple(*), some, not surprisingly, little more than 'senilia'. None of the originals was to be seen there.

The roads which crisscross the campus are treelined and reasonably maintained; but nowhere does one see direction boards to the various 'Bhavans'. And most bhavans do not even have name name-boards, making navigation still more difficult. Colossal sculptures by Ramkinkar Baij stride across several of the grassy compounds. Further pieces of modernist sculpture sit around students' hostels.

Indeed, visual arts seems to be one area where the university is still going strong, although I am told, the so-called 'exact sciences' have of late been sadly neglected. We saw many students at work around the 'Kala Bhavan', some of them painting what looked like a medieval Persian-inspired mural on a building, another group was putting together some complex installation around a tree.

Several of the buildings had been embellished with modern art, murals... One had big black reliefs - copies of ancient masterpieces from all over the world - a Dakshinamurti Siva, a Persian lion-hunt, an Egyptian genre scene, A Kerala-mural style representation of Parvati's toilette,...

We hired a rickshaw to take us to the nearby village of Surul. On the way the driver pointed at a quiet bungalow saying : "Amartya Sen's house". Then we passed a pond, ringed by dense stands of bamboos and many huts among them. The driver pointed in that direction and declared: "Aborigines!". I asked him if they were the Santhal people who I had heard, lived in the area. He did not respond.

Surul has a temple, quite similar in design to (though much smaller than) to the Dakshineswar temple. Its facade (and the facades of some smaller shrines which flank it) has elaborate terracotta reliefs (not sure about their antiquity). The best of the lot shows a complex battle between Rama and Ravana's armies - a medievally dressed musketeer can be seen standing behind Ravana and taking aim at Rama...

The Campus Art Gallery (named Nandan) had just a few bits of folksy sculpture and craftwork on display. No paintings at all by any of the masters associated with Shantiniketan - Tagore and his nephews Abanindra and Gaganendra, Nandalal Bose(**), Binod Behari Mukherji, ... . I sought an explanation and got this response:
"The paintings are in the strongroom. You may meet the curator and the principal of the arts college. If *both* agree, you can see them. But you will need to convince them that you are an expert and are doing research on arts." At any rate, nothing could be done on the day, since both gentlemen were busy with some meeting.

Later, a student we got to meet near Kalabhavan corroborated what we had heard: "Even we need special permission to see those paintings" he informed us.

On the return journey, we got into a bit of a talk with some NRI's who too were returning from a sightseeing trip to Santiniketan.

A gentleman: How did you guys like the place? I found it nice, very nice.

Self: The place is of course, nice; but it was a bit disappointing not to see all those paintings; none of the masters..."

The gentleman: Paintings? We did not see any either, (to a lady, who was with him) Right?

The lady (who probably was his guide/hostess): Oh, you can't see them these days... they stole his medal you know (***)... and then, they locked up everything!

Another lady (who probably was the gentleman's wife): Oh, yeah, I remember now, the Nobel thing! ... The two theys were different, right, like, the they who stole and the they who locked?!

....................

After getting back, I spent a while collecting biographical details about the Man behind the Tagore Myth. There is plenty about him that reminds me of Tolstoy - the landed gentry-background, his empathy for serfs (although, some sources allege that Tagore was just another money-minded Bhadralok Zamindar who had no qualms about rack-renting his mostly Muslim tenants in Kushtia, present-day Bangladesh), his experiments with evolving a commune, the pathos-tinted realism of his stories... and of course, a comparably robust beard(****)!

Like most long-lived great men, Tagore evolved a lot over his life. Our travel guide has this strange bit to say about the early days of Santiniketan:

Tagore did not ... allow any form of non-Vedic or non-Hindu activity to disrupt the functioning of the Ashrama (he had created). In early days, he was rather hesitant to allow Brahmin pupils to touch the feet of non-Brahmin teachers as a mark of respect. The Brahmin students also had a specially demarcated dining area. But with time, all divisions gradually vanished. Non-Bengali and non-Hindu students were heartily welcomed in the Ashrama. The rigid attitudes of the poet underwent a drastic change. But he never imposed his opinion or ideology on anyone.

Whatever be the truth value of the above bit (I find it rather dubious and the last sentence, almost hilarious!), Tagore's trajectory does show a transformation from a confused mishmash of Brahmo-influenced liberalism and conservatism to a world-view broad enough to encompass the world itself. For example, several of his elder sisters and sisters-in-law led very visible public lives and were intellectuals in their own right, but the poet does not appear to have encouraged his wife (whom he married when she was just over 11 years of age) to follow their lead. More tellingly, he did not educate his three daughters at Santiniketan and arranged marriages for them at ages 14, 10(horror!) and 13 respectively. It can be, of course, said in his defense that at that stage, almost half his life remained to be lived out...

The abiding memory of this pilgrimage might well be a photo, taken around 1900, showing four of Tagore's children. Within a few years thereafter, three of them - and their mother - would die and over another generation, his lineage would be totally extinct. Even the larger Tagore clan, once such a galaxy of brilliant men and women, has no presence worth mentioning in today's cultural scene - unless one considers Bollywood A-lister Saif Ali Khan as a representative.

----------------------------------
(*) My personal favorites include: the face of a lovely girl with Rapunzel-like tresses against a dreamily blue backdrop; an enigmatic, predominantly yellow, 'laughing face'; a couple of 'masks' (in these I sense a a Daumier-like quality) and of course, an amazingly elegant seal with his initials in Bengali script (to self, the only Indian script which allows genuine calligraphy - the Urdu script is an import). A set of a dozen identical b/w photographs of his own which he transformed with pen-doodles into a self-portrait gallery of sorts is also strangely interesting.

Tagore's color-schemes are often reminiscent of William Blake (although the drama and violence of Blake's visions are far removed from Tagore's quiet themes). Perhaps Blake too had a touch of color-blindness, like Wiki says, Tagore had. Less seriously, the aging Tagore himself cut a figure the like of which haunts many a 'Blakean' painting!

Tagore is said to have been totally untrained as an artist. But I have never seen him listed as a 'naive master' alongside the likes of Rousseau.

(**) - Belur Math museum - a repository of holy relics with no pretense of being an art gallery - has at least a dozen of Nandalal's sketches.

(***) - Tagore's Nobel medal was stolen a few years back from the Santiniketan museum; it was never traced.

(****) Here is what the biography by Dutta and Robinson says: "Tolstoy who died in 1910 never read Tagore, far less corresponded with him; and Tagore felt no particular affinity to Tolstoy's works".

"Work On Your 'Black Magic'!"

2009-11-30T05:12:00.000-08:00

As the few readers of mine know, I have just written about a brush with the occult (the last post here; it was rather more than a brush, physically speaking, but that is not the story now!). And while keying in that story, I remembered another piece that I wrote nearly half a generation ago - in perhaps my first ever attempt to write anything beyond examination essays.

As some would know, I was, once upon a time, a research student of Physics. Our hostel had a bit of a tradition of folks putting up articles on the notice-board. Driven mostly by "Why can't I too...?" sentiments, I put up a piece titled "Magic and Black Magic in Kerala: a living tradition".

Now, in hindsight, I could say, that article laid down a template which most posts here have ended up following - a personal memory-rewind with anecdotes, historical and literary episodes gathered from here and there, (where available) a couple of quotes and personal experiences thrown in and ...

Further, as has been the case with most posts here, readership was low then. Anyways...

Some months down the line, my research career, which had never really been on a roll, began showing signs of sputtering to a halt. I had a conversation with a senior colleague.

Him: Must say, time is running out, you got to either pull yourself up by your boostraps or...

(pauses briefly)

Him: This might sound radical but... have you thought about other ... options?

Self: Options ... like?

Him: Hmm, alternative career paths, some other...

Self: No. I understand things have not gone well, they are not looking too good either but I sort of try to tell myself that I am not all that bad and if I hold on on for a while and...

Him: That would have been fine if you had say 3-4 years ahead, but... you know, I sense a sort of disconnect. Like... You know, I would put it this way, you are not really cut out for the exact sciences.

Self: In what sense?

Him: You know, in Maths or Physics, you need to think very logically, very analytically; one has to be sharply analytical to do well. Your own thinking... you are not really analytical and precise enough, like, you are more ... emotional.

(continues after a pause)

Him: Actually, you probably would make a decent writer, you know, the freelance journalist type. There you can be vague and general and flowery, at least it is not rigorous Mathematics! I remember you wrote that bit about black magic and stuff. It was pretty good. Why don't publish it in some paper? That could show you an alternative career path. Well, I am not saying what you wrote is great or anything, but I remember seeing some potential there.... Yes, you should try that. Work on your Black Magic, rewrite it, see what experts in that field say about it and then, you could ... you know...

The Exorcism

2009-11-19T05:12:00.000-08:00

"There are only two forces in this world, Light and Darkness. And they are in perpetual conflict. All our problems - diseases, mental disturbances, failures in business, whatever.. are due to Darkness. My job is to help people move away from Darkness, to attain Light"

The person who said the above was addressed by those around him as 'Guruji', but he looked like a normal villager, not a tantrik or sadhu. I had come to meet him on the persistent advice of some well-wishers, who had found his simple Manichean scheme(*) meaningful and had developed a certain amount of faith in his spiritual powers.

Guruji and an assistant led me into a small, dark room. I was told to sit down on the bare floor and think about God. Guruji closed his eyes in a brief spell of silence and intense contemplation. Then, he suddenly speaks:

"Oh, Darkness! (**) This man is possessed by the dark forces!" I felt him touch my head. He goes on: "Oh, Lord, you who are Light, the only true light, please chase away all the darkness... yes, it is Narakabhadrakali who has taken over this man's spirit. Lord, please, please, save him, fill his life with light. O, Supreme Lord!"

The assistant suddenly started screaming and hissing and appeared to go into an epileptic fit.
Guruji goes on: "Lord, may this man's sufferings cease, may he be freed from all the Karmic bonds, may he acquire Light, peace. My Lord!"

The assistant is now lying on the floor, writhing. Guruji grips my head and orders me to "Relax!". The next instant, his hands give a sharp impulsive twist and I hear something crack in my neck, followed by a strange lightness in the head - as if "a little bird has just flown out thru one's ears".

"Narakabhadrakali, go away! Do not torture this man. He craves for light; and the Lord is with him and wants to save him. Narakabhadrakali, go back to Hell!"

The assistant's screams and writhes cease. Guruji says: "My dear man, you are now safe. All darkness in your life has been eradicated! Come, let us go!"

I get up and follow Guruji. The assistant seems fast asleep. Outside, a few more faithful wait their turn.
.....

I woke the next morning (and the next morning and ... for several months), with a severely stiff neck.

-------------------
(*) I did argue saying "darkness and light are not opposites; if light is positive, darkness is only zero; for something negative, you got to have 'anti-light'" and so forth. But my arguments convinced nobody, myself included.

(**) I could not help remembering Blessed Lightning's "Oh, the Migou!" from 'Tintin in Tibet'

The City Of Goddesses

2009-11-05T09:09:00.001-08:00

In (Bankim Chandra Chatterji's novel) 'Anandamath', the secret revolutionary organization with the same name worshipped Bharat-Mata (Mother India) in three forms.

1. What Mother Was - Goddess Jagaddhatri
2. What Mother Has Become - Goddess Kali
3. What Mother Will Be - Goddess Durga

- Wikipedia

The above triad of awe-inspiring goddesses (one could probably add Tara - about whom I wrote a bit here sometime back - to the group) continues to preside over the fortunes of Calcutta. And nowhere is their collective presence as visible as at Belur Math. First up, there was the Durga Puja (which I did not see); shortly therafter came the puja to Kali, which most of the rest of this country calls Diwali (and of which I saw only the final immersion ceremony - the Kali idol, much-worshiped over several days, was tipped into the Ganga and seemed to disintegrate into the murky waters within seconds)(*). And finally, there was the worship of 'Jagaddhatri', literally, 'the Goddess who sustains the world'.

I got to see a fair bit of the Jagaddhatri festival. The main puja took place at Saradapith, a small shrine within the larger Belur Math complex. The Goddess image was 'life-size' and sari-clad and had four arms and had a fiercely beautiful face; she sat atop a very life-like lion which stood on the corpse of an elephant demon.

And then there was the 'Khichdi-fest'. For an entire night, a tight gang of workers were seen laboring in a makeshift pandal. When I took a look at 9 or so in the morning, they were still at work and the following were already in place: (1) a full dozen cylindrical tanks, each with capacity well over a thousand liters, each brimming with khichdi (2) a score of somewhat smaller vats with heaps of cooked potatoes steeped in oily gravy; and there were further hills of the same tuber beyond, waiting to be processed,

The communal eating of the 'Khichdi-prasad' began at 10 am and went on right thru the day; people were let in in batches and were served by a battery of volunteers, whose mechanical efficiency (and all those plates with little lakes of golden yellow khichdi) reminded one of Bruegel's 'Peasant Wedding'. At a conservative estimate, around 20-30 thousand liters of khichdi were finished off by 40-50 thousand eaters. The menu was minimal, khichdi (unlimited), the potato curry (again unlimited) and laddoos (1 or 2 per head). I did not try the laddoo but the other items actually tasted excellent!

And the premises saw lots of festive trading, especially in religious paraphernalia. Among the items on display were icons of a 'space-clad' Kali and a Lakshmi. The latter Goddess sported a Bengali style tiara and wore a rich sari; and instead of the 'usual' elephants squirting water on her, she was accompanied by her 'actual' vahana, the owl. And there were no gold coins showering from her palms; instead she held a jewel-encrusted pitcher in one hand and a ear of some cereal in the other. In the background was a cluster of straw-built huts, quite a contrast with the glitter of her Sari and ornaments (**).

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And nowadays the Goddesses are in the news in an all-India context as well. Some sort of debate is brewing on 'Vande Mataram', our National Song. The issue: the unequivocal invocation mention the song makes of Hindu goddesses. Poet Javed Akhtar, one of the participants, characterizes a couple of stanzas (probably, those which refer to Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati - the latter two having mysteriously replaced Kali and Jagaddatri) as 'rabidly religious'; and he goes on to add "I sing (the rest of?) the song!"

And Wiki claims: "The song remains to this day very unpopular among muslims of India".

And here is Rabindranath Tagore's sagely take on the matter(the year was 1937. Again from Wiki)

"The core of Vande Mataram is a hymn to Bharat Mata( Mother India): this is so plain that there can be no debate about it. Of course Bankimchandra does show Durga to be inseparably united with Bengal in the end, but no Mussulman [Muslim], christians and Arya Samajis can be expected patriotically to worship the ten-handed deity as 'Swadesh' [the nation]. This year many of the special [Durga] Puja numbers of our magazines have quoted verses from Vande Mataram - proof that the editors take the song to be a hymn to Durga. The novel Anandamath is a work of literature, and so the song is appropriate in it. But Parliament is a place of union for all religious groups, and there the song cannot be appropriate..."

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(*) In the days just before Kali puja, a nearby shop had stocked dozens of Kali effigies; all of them followed the same design but were of various sizes (a couple of them were colossal). And they were all 'bare' idols, lacking the weapons and the usual macabre ornaments of severed head garlands and ear-rings (presumably, these would have got added just before the puja). Even the girdle, with chopped-off humans hands strung together, was missing - and strangely enough, its 'function' was performed by a hand that seemed to sprout from the goddess's belly and grow downwards!

The Malayalam novel 'Govardhante yaatrakal' has an episode which I had found rather unsettling when I read the book a decade ago: a Calcuttan potter, having moulded a Kali image, suddenly decides to decapitate it and to turn it into the even more frightening 'Chhinnamastaka' form of the Goddess. But now, having seen a bit of Cal, his act does not strike me as particularly shocking - Wiki shows the photo of a Chhinnamastaka image actually worshipped at a Kali puja pandal.

(**)The same hawker also had an icon of Kamakhya (who is from neighboring Assam). This Goddess has six heads (one of them facing upwards) and 12 hands and sits on a lotus which seems to be hovering in space. On two smaller lotuses nearby, both of which seem to have sprung forth from a turbulent ocean, sit Brahma and Vishnu, both in prayer. Siva, the remaining member of the Trinity is also in the picture; he lies, semi-conscious, on the back of a lion who stands on a platform which appears to be floating in the same ocean. And on closer inspection, the flower on which the Goddess sits has grown out of Siva's navel; and one of her feet rests on his chest! Anyways, here is a picture: http://www.ambaa.org/images/kamakhya_1.jpg

A Desi Techie In Lanka

2009-10-18T20:39:00.000-07:00

A Certain Desi Techie is visiting Sri Lanka these days. Here is a thinly edited version of some of his impressions. Note that he always refers to the island country as simply 'Lanka' - and that is no act of disrespect. Over to him!

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Lanka is a good tourist place, with lots of interesting things to see, and it costs little to visit Lanka from India...

Hardly any signs of Diwali out here. Of course, flights to India are overfull, with all the Tamils rushing there to celebrate the festival with relatives.

The Ramayana connection lives on. There are some places which have preserved those memories; like for example, the place where Sita was held captive -it is now a deep forest.

The name 'Ravana' still commands a lot of respect here - people say he was a very good King. To this day, people are given the names of Rakshasas. In fact our client Mr.Indrajit shares his name with Ravana's son. I looked into a book of names for children; amazing, one never imagined the names of so many Rakshasas are still known!

Hanuman is a hated figure, as he destroyed Lanka. But then, there is a temple of Hanuman too here!

And there is a temple where Buddha's tooth is kept; as is well-known, Buddhism is the main religion; you will see a lot of monks, here and there.

And another interesting experience: we went on an 'elephant safari'and came to know several interesting things about elephants...
For example, they have their own language. I was told a word by the handler, and when I spoke it, the elephant lifted it's trunk... :-)
Our guide told us there are several several hyper-sensitive spots on an elephant's body, and with a well-aimed punch, even a human can kill it instantly!

We also went on a boat-ride in a river/Lagoon. The boat was so tiny, you feel you are sitting on the water; and the place is infested with crocs - it was real scary. And there are some densely-forested islets in that area; many monks go there and meditate.

I did a quick study of Buddhism. Buddhist cosmogony describes ten realms of existence, each marked by beings which inhabit it...

1. Hell (the extreme sinful among men)
2. The realm of Pretas (Hungry Ghosts)
3. Beasts (Animals)
4. Asuras/Rakshasas, who embody violence.
5. Human beings - the run of the mill variety.
6. Angels (small-time divinities)
7. The Sravakas (those fortunate souls who were direct disciples of Buddha)
8. The Pratyeka Buddha ( a mini-Buddha, whose enlightenment sustains himself but not others)
9. Bodhisattava (a full Buddha in terms of potential, but staying on on earth to help others evolve)
10 Buddha (the Ultimate)

In each of us, all these 10 realms and natures exist, but in different proportions...

And after some serious reflection, I have identified the intrinsic nature of our s/w community as belonging to the second level; the Pretas ( Ghosts tormented by unfulfilled desires).

'A House For God'

2009-10-04T01:53:00.000-07:00

An episode from the Amar Chitra volume on 'Dronacharya' that I read in my childhood:
The Master and his friend, prince Drupada are students at some Gurukula. Drupada, seen carrying a bundle of clothes, tells Drona: "I shall finish washing our clothes while you recite the Shlokas". The latter assumes a Yogic pose and says: "It is very kind of you, Drupada!" and launches into a chant: "Ishavasyamidam...". I remember wondering what it could be about that strange Mantra (only the opening of which was given in 'Amar..'), that can get a prince to do your laundry.

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Sukumar Azhikode is an eminent Keralan intellectual - serious scholar, trenchant critic and rabble rousing polemicist. I got to read his masterpiece 'Tat Twam Asi' - a study of the Upanishads - a decade or so ago. The crisply-written book held my interest till the end, but the only discussion from it that has stayed in my (admittedly, not very retentive) mind is a passage on 'Isha-Upanishad'. It began with a quote of Drona's Shloka, which is, in fact, the very first shloka in this Upanishad. Then there was a lengthy and extensive debate: whether 'Ishavasyamidam Sarvam' means "All of this is home for God" or "God has wrapped all of this around himself" (or perhaps "God has wrapped himself around all this"). As Azhikode informs us, this particular debate has been going on among our theologians for over two millennia. "Either way, what diff could it possibly make?" I mused - bemusedly (*).

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A few years later, I encountered S.Radhakrishnan's massive work of translation, 'The Principal Upanishads'. Although I planned to read it extensively, poor discipline limited my progress to a few pages - and I did not read the translation of Isha-Upanishad from this particular tome. Indeed, the only 'bit' that has stayed in memory is a rather fantastic mapping from the body of a sacrificial horse to the entire Cosmos and from the movements of the former to the dynamics of the latter (the 'Brihadaranyaka Upanishad'). Some further years down the line, when I read a bit of poetry by A.K.Ramanujan, I could guess that the phrase: 'the iridescence of horse-piss', was an allusion to the Upanishadic image of rain being the cosmic horse urinating!

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A few months back, Pop happened to tell me:

"I was recently in Trichur (a town in Kerala) and had a few hours to fill; mysteriously, I thought of taking a look at my old College, a place I had never seen for well over 50 years. The place hardly seemed to have changed from my student days; and yes, there used to be a quaint phrase on the college logo which is still displayed prominently all over. It goes: 'Tena Tyaktena Bhunjitha'. Wonder what that could mean!"

'Tena tyaktena bhunjitha!' that rang a bell somewhere. I tried hard to recollect and, having failed, searched the web. And there it was:

"Ishavasyam idam sarvam
yat kinca jagatyam jagat,
Tena tyaktena bhunjitha
ma grdhah kasya vit dhanam"

I was surprised that it was the opening Shloka of Ishopanishad, all over again! And I could even vaguely remember Azhikode dissecting the third line of the Shloka - how it enjoins the Seeker to "consume the world, first having abandoned it".

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A week ago, via a newly-met Mathematician (thanks to him!), I got to read, in English translation, a Kannada story 'Mantrodaya'. A semi-fictional reconstruction of the genesis of the 'Isha-Upanishad' (also featuring a tight precis of its content), the story was interesting enough for me to go for a re-read; and from there, I went on and explored the web to find out more.

The Ishopanishad is perhaps the briefest Upanishad - all of 18 Shlokas in length. Centuries of Seekers have praised its great density of meaning. Sri Aurobindo, for example, began work on a detailed commentary and left it unfinished; what he did write down runs to something like a 100 printed pages and they analyze only the first 2 Shlokas (some contrast, that, with the simple 'Siddhartha'-esque(?) brevity of 'Mantrodaya')!

To give a taste of Sri Aurobindo's meditations (see here: http://www.odinring.de/eng/isha.htm):

Immediately after the great fundamental reconciliation (implicit in 'Tena tyaktena bhunjitha'), the Seer proceeds to a phrase which under a form of familiar commonness conceals an immoderate wealth of spiritual suggestion. "Lust not after any man's possession." - Ma grdhah kasya svid dhanam.

We seem to have stumbled out of deep and strange waters into a very familiar shallow. Read superficially and without an eye to the words that precede or to the whole serried thought of the Upanishad, this closing cadence of the Seer's opening sloka would suggest only a commonplace ethical suggestion identical in form and spirit with the last of the Mosaic commandments, - just as read superficially and apart from the coherent and interwoven thought of the Upanishad. tyaktena bhunjithah need not go beyond a rule of moral self-discipline in which the aim of the Epicurean finds itself married to the method of the Stoic. But the Upanishads are never, like Greek ( ) and Jewish scripture, simply ethical in their intention. Their transcendence of the ethical plane is part of their profounder observation of life and soul-experience....

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Long ago, while at college, we had to study the famous Malayalam love poem 'Manaswini' by Changampuzha: One fine morning, an utterly besotted lover sees his girl return from a bath in the river, her beauty glowing in the fresh sunshine; he proceeds to liken her body, clad as it is in wet and clinging garments, to 'Truth obscured by illusions'. Our prof claimed there was a certain Upanishadic reference therein and quoted the following: "hiranmayena patrena satyasyapihitam mukham" - which, he told us, meant: "The real truth is hidden in a golden vessel".

I felt then that the teacher's claim was a bit far-fetched. But now, I have come to know that the bit of Sanskrit he had quoted also hails from nowhere other than Ishopanishad. Here is the full Shloka with *a* meaning:

"hiranmayena patrena satyasyapihitam mukham
tat tvam pushann apavrinu satya-dharmaya drishtaye"

"O Lord Pushan, Sustainer of all that lives, Your real face is covered by Your dazzling effulgence. Kindly remove that covering and exhibit Yourself to Your pure devotee."

And yes, after reading the above translation, I think our teacher did have a point there - and I must admit Changampuzha probably was even smarter than I thought he was!

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Among the vast corpus of Upanishadic literature, Ishopanishad is said to be a comparatively recent entry, dating back *only* to the 3rd Century BC. The word 'Isha', approximately translated as 'God', apparently makes its first ever appearance in this Upanishad. One senses a strong semitic flavor in this word, reminiscent of 'Yehoshua' (from which is derived Yeshu/Jesus) or 'Isaiah'. But this is not a very unique phenomenon - the names of many Indian deities have close Biblical counterparts; Brahma-Abraham, Shiva-Yehovah,...
Further, the name of the Indian deity Ishana (said to be a form of Siva) seems to have an interesting derivation, in all probability, from 'Isha'. Whatever, this Upanishad, especially the first sloka has profoundly inspired several of our eminent luminaries - for instance, a young Maharishi Debendranath Tagore, in the throes of a severe spiritual crisis, is said to have instantly figured out THE answers he had sought on his first encounter with these lines.

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(*) Update (July 2011): I heard this bit of literary spice: Once, there were major plans to produce an English translation of 'Tat twam asi'; then, noted satirist VKN commented: "The book is already a translation from English and there is no need to produce another version of the original!".

The Cosmic Architect

2009-09-24T22:45:00.000-07:00

Mythology credits lord Vishwakarma with having forged a whole host of divine weapons - ranging from Vishnu's discus to Indra's 'Vajra' - apart from having designed the city of Gods and much else. But, although he has been described as the 'cosmic architect' by Amar Chitra Katha, Vishwakarma is, to most Indians, very much a minor deity - one whose status borders on insignificance; this state of affairs is actually quite consistent with the rather pervasive traditional tendency here to look down upon any activity which results in Production (in the Marxist sense).

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A few days back, I saw on Calcutta streets, large numbers of an unusual religious icon being sold. It showed a stout, moustachioed male figure with something like 20-30 arms, seated atop an elephant (this description may be somewhat inaccurate since I did not get to inspect the picture properly)(*). Soon thereafter, I was told that those were pictures of Vishwakarma, a grand puja in whose honor would happen the next day. It was quite a pleasant surprise, him being thus honored.

I discussed the icon further with a better-informed person, who said: "You may wonder why a God is shown with a 'mooch'. That is actually accurate, although unfashionable. the Devas did have moustaches; facial hair represents the 'rajasik' attribute. Only Siva and Vishnu are really clean-shaven, because they transcend all attributes."

Note: It is indeed true that Siva, even in his 'wildest' forms, is almost always shown clean-shaven. An exception that comes to mind is the left-facing figure among the trinity depicted in the famous elephanta 'Mahesamurti' - a stylish moustache is clearly visible there. Then there is, of course, the Mangesh (or 'Manguesh' as the Portuguese called him) of Goa who has, arguably, the most impressive moustache among all divinities, Indian or International.

It is generally believed that Hindu iconography derives from Mahayana Buddhist art. The latter always appear to show Buddha without facial hair (although some Gandharan Bodhisatvas are moustachioed princes). This clean-shaven model of the Master might have been influenced by Greek images of the eternally-youthful god Apollo.

Most online pictures of Vishwakarma show him as a Brahma-esque figure (white beard, four-armed (only one head though), accompanied by a swan). His face is also quite reminiscent of popular icons of 'Jhulelal' or 'Maharaja Agrasen'. He usually appears enthroned in majesty, but is occasionally shown riding an elephant (the only representation I saw on Calcutta streets); and sometimes he is shown at work, lovingly sculpting the earth itself with hammer and chisel.

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In the Southern Indian states, 'Vishwakarma' is the communal name associated with several castes traditionally concerned with manufacturing - in Kerala, it refers to the goldsmiths, in Karnataka to carpenters. Strangely, these castes were not considered 'upper' although they did skill-intensive and value-adding work. As what looks like a a strange sort of 'concession', the carpenters in Kerala-Karnataka and the goldsmiths of Andhra were traditionally referred to as 'ashari'/'achar'/'achari' - all derivates of 'acharya' (approximately 'master') used mainly to refer to (Brahmin) teachers. The weavers, stone carvers, blacksmiths ... were not accorded such (tokenistic?) honors, despite their professions too being highly skill-oriented.

Perhaps the ultimate example of the ambivalence of caste-practices vis-a-vis artisans was how Kerala temples would close their doors to the craftsmen who would have moulded the hallowed idol, once it was Vedically consecrated.

We may also note here that at least in Kerala, artist communities which used to make traditional murals were actually considered 'upper' and could enter temples and work on their walls.

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The Vedic god Twashtr is often identified with Vishwakarma. In post-Vedic mythology, Twashtr is a strange character: he creates the demon Vritra to destroy Indra; he also gives Indra the lethal Vajra, for use in the showdown *against* Vritra (that in some versions, Vritra is Indra's elder brother makes the story even knottier!).

Most Gods had their uniquely signatured 'Astras' - lethal, precision-guided weapons, often of mass destruction, often possessing magical powers. Usually, these astras closely match the nature of the presiding God - 'Agneyastra' causes a firestorm, 'Varunastra', a deluge and 'Vayavyastra', a raging tornado. However, the Twashtr-astra stands remarkably apart from the rest. When shot into a rival army, it would cause them to attack one-another, mistaking colleagues for arch-enemies. At Kurukshetra, Arjuna deploys this weapon and annihilates the 'Narayani-sainya' (a formidable regiment of warriors hand-picked and trained by Krishna and fighting for the Kauravas), simply getting them to kill one another!

(*) - Later, I got to examine a few more Vishwakarma icons - apart from the usual 'mooch' and the elephant, the god also has an elaborate aureole surrounding him, and in this aureole is seen floating an entire arsenal of tools - knives and hammers to water-pumps and lathes!

More From The Third Corner

2009-08-31T21:18:00.000-07:00

Calcutta has given me several images - and shocks. Here are a few...

1. My first ever visual impressions of this city came from the Amar Chitra volumes on Vidyasagar and Rabindranath Tagore. The illustrator of both was a certain Souren Roy, who was especially skilled in capturing the cultural milieu of Bengal in all its visual subtleties (to use a filmy phrase, as an 'art-director', he was easily the best in the Amar atelier - although in terms of 'action' and much else, Pratap Mulick was tops). Indeed, the older parts of Cal look straight out of Roy's artwork...

And when I visited the 'Jorasanko Thakurbari', the sprawling mansion where Rabindranath Tagore was born, grew up and returned to die, the place felt uncannily familiar. While walking down the the verandahs, I looked for the balusters which little Rabi, posing as a schoolmaster, would think of as his students - and would occasionally cane for 'not being attentive' in his class. But in the part of the building where he used to live, the verandahs have only grills - those hallowed balustrades might have got replaced during the century and a half that has passed since the Master's childhood....

There are several photos of the great man on display; the most striking to me was of him as a handsome, bright-eyed and bearded young man (mid-twenties types) sharing a casual meal with some elder relatives.

Should revisit the place.

2. In a shop was an old 'calender-icon' - A goddess draped in a sari but with tongue hanging out Kali-style and Siva lying in her lap -Siva not in his 'child form' (in which he is seen blissfully asleep in icons all over the country) but as an adult - the pose strongly reminiscent of Michelangelo's pieta. Further research gave this bit of info: when Siva bravely consumed the poison which rose from the churning of the Milk-ocean, he fell senseless. His 'Sakti' assumed the form of Tara (the focus of a very popular Tantrik cult in these parts) and took the prostrate God in her lap - and revived him with her own milk!

Another episode from the myths relates how a distraught Siva madly wandered around the world carrying the burnt corpse of his first wife Sati (who had immolated herself). Another calender icon I saw here shows this episode. Matters of detail: Siva's face was rather benign and almost smiling and the 'corpse' on his shoulder was a beautiful (though limp) girl, not burnt or anything.

3. At the Indian Museum (near Park Street station), the 'Bharhut gallery' which I had really wanted to see, was closed. There still were a few BC Buddhist reliefs on display. But the one image that has persisted in memory is not Buddhist but medieval Tantrik. It was a sculpture of a standing male with both legs fused into one, almost like a slender tree-trunk. The caption -'Ajaikapada'. A bit of web searching gave me this page:
http://indiatemple.blogspot.com/2006/12/ekapada-shiva-one-legged-shiva.html
A-pada seems to be a form of Siva-Bhairava. Aja (to me) is a strange Sanskrit word meaning both 'goat' and 'unborn' (eternal); and 'Ekapada' means 'one-legged'. There is nothing obviously 'goaty' about the sculpture (it is not satyrical!). Both images in the above page are 'ithyphallic' (like in the 'Urdhvareta' form of Siva which I have seen elsewhere) but I don't remember the Museum specimen to be such. Perhaps one could go there again and and check!

Three Corners - 3

2009-08-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

The day after we inspected the ruins of Lothal, I set out for Howrah from Amdavad; my longest-ever train journey, in terms of the number of states traversed (Gujarat, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Bengal). During this a massive swing from the extreme West to the Eastern fringes of India, I saw nothing of Orissa and Chhattisgarh as they were crossed at night, but I did see Ajni and Santragachchhi and must have passed thru Bondamunda - all places I had characterized in a quite recent post here as never having been even remotely approached by my worldline.

The Male Rivers:
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The far East of India has conceived several of its rivers as male entities ('Nadas' rather than 'Nadis'). I had known about the Brahmaputra and the Damodar and on this journey, crossed the turbulent 'Rupnarayan' ( of course, this region also has the 'Padma', 'Meghna' and 'Jamuna' and yes, the Ganga). I have heard of the 'Panchnad' river in Pakistani Punjab but am not sure if that name is indeed masculine or merely neuter.

Of course, in Europe, they have had river gods - and Bernini personified the Ganga as a bearded and virile man(*)!

Belur Math:
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The grand river-side temple dedicated to Sri Ramakrishna is an unusual pastiche of a sandstone edifice with a cross-shaped plan and chruch-like hall (where every evening, a ceremony takes place that is marked by church-like choral singing with an organ in accompaniment), a cluster of domes in the center (something vaguely Byzantine or Russian - or it is Turkish?!- about them) and so forth. The temple also incorporates the kind of elegant scalloped arches one sees in Mughal buildings and pillars which hark back to South Indian temples. Around the central domes are carved, in relief, allegorical figures representing the Nava-Grahas - their style is strangely foreign, reminscent of medieval European woodcuts... or better still, the pictures on playing cards - or tarot cards.

The Vivekananda Samadhi nearby is also a strange syncretic structure, with a dome and a facade supported by Corintian columns. The pinnacle of the Dakshineshwar temple (across the river from Belur) bears a certain resemblance to the Sacre Coeur Basilica in Paris (which is, in turn, said to be a 19th century re-interpretation of Romano-Byzantine style). And a little upstream from Belur is another temple with a facade that, from the distance, looked quite Baroque (or was it neo-Classical?)!

The Math complex embraces several compounds around the temples; in one of them stands the spanking new sandstone edifice housing the Vivekananda university. Apart from several more modest structures around, there are grass-overgrown plots, dilapidated factory sheds and muddy patches. Many ponds dot the area, with a particularly large one right in front of the university building - its murkily green waters teem with fish; cormorants and kingfishers plunge in frequently; and now and then one sees water-snakes streak across the surface, wiggling like spermatozoa.

Calcutta:
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An overloaded, creaking kind of place - indeed, in this city, almost everything that moves creaks - the ancient ambassador taxis, the still more ancient trams (Cal is only the second place after Rome where I saw trams), the consistently awful buses, ... Of course, there is also the Metro (again, among the cities I have visited, only the second with such a thing, Rome again having been the first(**)) which does not creak at all! Half of the buildings in the city look like they could urgently do with a fresh coat of paint - and most of the other half clearly have never been painted at all. But creaking or whatever, there is a resilient vitality about the Cal that is unmistakable, a vitality that declares it is certainly nowhere near *croaking*! And although decent residential buildings are rarer here than in any other major Indian city, the place has far less slums than Bombay and probably even Pune and Chennai; it is certainly unfair to portray it as a hell-hole of misery and charity-destination as countless firangees have done.

The weather sometimes feels more oppressive than anything I have experienced in Kerala, Chennai or Bombay; must salute the generations of yore who excelled in a game like soccer in such a setting!

The city has several Raj-era buildings in dire need of repair - among those I saw were a huge, rambling and partially demolished warehouse on the Strand Road, the so-called Currency Building near the BBD Bagh and so forth... And somewhere there is a building housing (if I remember right) 'Standard Insurance'. At least a dozen trees have sprouted from various corners of this still functioning structure(***). Its facade has several pairs of heraldic figures done in what looks like stucco. All these (sculpturally quite undistinguished) figures are reclining, nude males playing assorted musical instruments - one of them has even contrived to play a tabla while balancing the two pieces on his person. There is a central panel with a group of figures at the very top, the details of which are now obscure. And then, there are pairs of unclothed figures hiding behind bushes; before I could wonder "The Garden of Eden?!" it struck me that both figures in each pair were actually male - although one of each had 'femininely' long hair!

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(*) - The westerners have thought of Ganga as at least an important geographical marker since at least the time of Dante (who predates the 17th Century Bernini by a good 400 years). For example, a passage from the Divine Comedy (that shows awareness of Time Zones and stuff) goes something like: "At sunset on Purgatory, it is midnight in the Ebro river valley (in Spain), dawn at Jerusalem, and noon on the *Ganges*". Wonder if there are still earlier references - I mean not traveler's-notes-types but proper cultural references.

(**) - I had only seen a Metro Station in Rome (when I strayed into one, while searching for Michelangelo's Moses); I actually traveled on an underground train for the first time ever in Cal; am am yet to travel on a tram anywhere.

(***) - Tenacious fig trees growing from the walls of (not necessarily derelict) buildings is a sight I see more often in Cal than in any other Indian city. The most remarkable specimen I know of has grown from the top of the chimney of a probably defunct factory that stands across the river from Belur. The chimney is well over 50 feet tall and the tree which crowns it, something like a dozen.

Three Corners - 2

2009-08-14T23:13:00.000-07:00

Lothal
------

Within a week of our visit to Pundareekapuram in the deep south of this country, I found myself in the far west, driving south-west from Ahmedabad along what must be one of our best toll-free highways. An easy 80 kilometers from the city, atop a mound that rises a dozen or so feet from utterly flat country, is Lothal, ('the place of the dead' in the local language; curiously, 'Mohenjodaro' too means something similar), now an intensively studied Harappan site.

The ruins here, dating back a full 4000 years (and more) have nearly doubled my 'archeological span' (for I had not seen any remnant of civilization in this country dating farther back than 3rd Century BC). They have been extensively described in Wikipedia and elsewhere.

Much of the ancient brickwork looks neat and tidy, just like in pictures from Pakistani Harappan sites, although some amount of 20th century repair using cement and stuff has happened all over, spoiling the effect somewhat. Having seen pictures of (and written about) the wells of Mohenjodaro, I was excited to see a harappan water-well at Lothal - although unlike the Mohenjodaran ones, this solitary specimen does not have towering walls.

A guide, who bore a certain resemblance to Narendra Modi, showed us the 'warehouse' (with its solid, cubical brick platforms), the 'bead factory', and so forth... On the walls were a couple of smooth, inverted hemispherical structures formed by shards glued together (the gluing itself must have been the handiwork of modern restorers) which he referred to as 'matkas' and did not explain. He then pointed out a certain enclosure as 'ladies toilet' and added "I am saying this from my own imagination".

And then, there are some waste-water-drain-looking structures, which, though neatly made, looked quite shallow. The entire complex can be contained by a square of 100 meters side.

That of course, leaves out the famous 'dock', a very big and very neat rectangular depression, now looking more like a vast, shallow tank. If it really was a ship-building center/port, it would have held several dozens of vessels the size of modern mechanized fishing boats.

Interestingly, although photography is freely allowed, one is not supposed to record the site in *any* movie form, not even short digicam clips.

Three Corners - 1

2009-08-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

Pundareekapuram:
-------------------
We are about 20-odd kilometers to the South-East of Cochin, Kerala. The precise locality is called 'Mithayikkunnu' ('the hill of sweets' in Malayalam) or 'Midayikkunnu' (not sure what that can possibly mean). What we are looking for is a temple dedicated to Vishnu. 'Pundareekapuram' means the 'city of the lotus', but the area is as rural as it can get in Kerala.

There are other web-pages and books (especially 'Murals of Kerala' by M.G.Sasibhooshan) which seriously describe the remarkable Kerala-style paintings (experts date them to 17th-18th centuries) on the walls of the Sanctum of this quite small and utterly unassuming-looking shrine. Here are some quick impressions:

The main idol is of an extremely rare form (even rarer than the 'enthroned' form of Vishnu in worship at the Tripunithura temple, which is not far from this place - and about which I have written elsewhere in this blog). It shows the lord in the form of Krishna with his consort Satyabhama, riding his mount, the eagle Garuda. A mural (unfortunately, poorly preserved) repeats the theme. Garuda has wings but no beak and has fangs bared. A priest told us: "Krishna, with the help of Satyabhama, had undertaken an expediion to kill the mighty Narakasura. This shows his victorious return. Although the campaign is over, Garuda is still in a belligerent mood, and in that mood, he is often shown as a fanged being rather than a proper bird."

So focussed is Garuda on his military mission that he seems to have allowed many of his natural prey, the serpents to wind about him as garlands, bracelets and so forth - perhaps, in his present mood, he has no time to devour them. Indeed, the temple also has an enclosure outside with several hundred naga-silas (stone image of hooded cobras), their proximity to Garuda perhaps symbolizing the unusual coming together of two naturally opposed forces in the quest for an exceptional commmon goal.

Another better-preserved mural shows an amorous Siva-Parvati (come to think of it, in our art, Vishnu-Lakshmi always appear significantly more stiff and prim than this pair) . Yet another mural has Rama enthroned with his queen Sita. Rama is warlike and wears armor, which (strangely) leaves the midriff bare and hence looks like a (Indian) ladies' blouse. And (a rather bashful) Sita is virtually topless!
Note: Kerala murals, to my knowledge, always show Rama as a warrior/prince; even during the Vanavasa - - there is a mural showing the Rama-Sugriva pact somewhere - he is not shown in the 'canonical' jungle-dweller's attire.

The best-known mural here shows a horse-riding Shasta (Ayyappa) on a royal hunt - it is remarkable for the wealth of detail. And then, there is a picture of Ganapati being worshipped by quite a gallery of devotees. While most in the crowd are shown as proper Mallus (with unclothed upper bodies), one of the worshippers(?) sports a stubble and wears a collarless, full-sleeved shirt and a turban, the like of which is still worn by some Muslims from North Kerala. And next to him is a similarly attired figure who seems to sport a ponytail; a Chinese visitor?

'Berlo' - Then And Now

2009-07-31T22:43:00.000-07:00

Italy did not look anything like a stylishily booted foot; instead it lay stretched out and receding into the distance, limp and flat like an etherized patient. A spectral figure hovered above, reaching out to touch the center of the prostrate country, in a parody of God touching Adam (although unlike the Father, the hoverer here had a receding hairline and was plumpish and clean-shaven). And there was a little piece of text which went something like : "Waiting for the life-giving Touch!"

That was the only occasion when I ever got to see the Genesis of a proper political cartoon. The Maker: Thomas Kodenkandath ('Thommy'), scientist, artist and (then occasional and now prolific) cartoonist. The place: Trieste, Italy. The year: 1994. And playing God in 'Thommychettan''s vision was billionaire and soccer-club owner Silvio Berlusconi, who had just assumed premiership of Italy, promising a sharp revival of the country from economic doldrums.

....

Later during that visit, I spent a few days in Rome among a group of Italian students. The Soccer World Cup had just started and Italy was to open its campaign against Ireland. My host Francesco invited me to watch the match at a party of youngsters. The party happened somewhere outside the city; it was a very lively and drunken gathering numbering least a hundred; and a huge-screened telly had been set up.

The match kicked off and the Italian commentary, animated and loud and repeating the names of national heroes "Baresi,... Donadoni.... Roberto Baggio!.... Donadoni!..." reminded me of radio commenataries in Malayalam from my childhood... Then suddenly Ireland scored a goal. There was a hushed silence among the TV watchers; and suddenly someone began to clap and a large fraction of the audience started a round of applause.

I stepped away to fetch a drink and saw several of my new friends - surprisingly, Francesco included - standing away and chatting and not watching the match at all. I asked them why they were staying aloof.

Francesco said: "You know, all of us are great football-lovers but we are also committed left-wing activists. We are just not for Berlusconi, who is a big-time capitalist and is very right-wing."

"But what has the premier's politics got to do with the world cup?" I asked.

"Actually, he owns the clubs for which most of these guys, Baresi, Maldini, Donadoni,... play. And these chaps had made public statements supporting Berlusconi's politics. Many in our group cannot identify with guys who say such irresponsible things, just because they are paid by some politician. You know what, Elena (his girlfriend) actually wants Italy to lose!"

"And what about YOU?"

"I want Italy to win. But I am not going to support them 100 percent; I will try not to watch Italy's matches!"

"I too support Italy!" I said earnestly "but in support of your cause, I too will skip today's match."

It was just as well. Ireland won the match and most party-ers looked seriously shaken, including the majority of those who did not watch.

....

I returned to India in another couple of days. In my then hostel, I was the sole Italy-supporter and watched the Azzurri revive and win hard-fought matches against Bulgaria, Nigeria, Spain... before they narrowly lost the final (it was easily the most exciting *goalless* match I ever have seen; the decision came via a 'shootout') to Brazil. Even old Francesco gradually got hooked and watched the latter stage of the tournament with great interest - he even sent me a long email analyzing the final, describing how the Italian defense led by a semi-fit Baresi and Maldini had held the rampaging Brazilian forwards at bay for a full 120 minutes.

....

When Italy actually won the Cup in 2006, I was again a steady supporter; but age had taken its toll and I did not feel anything like the excitement I felt cheering for them in a losing cause a dozen years previously.

More interestingly, 'Berlo' is back as the Premier of Italy; and judging from the papers, is up to some rather different kinds of ballgames. Wonder what Thommy (whose latest work may be seen at http://drawnopinions.blogspot.com) and Francesco would have to say on the recent developments!

'Pub City', Revisited

2009-07-22T05:14:00.001-07:00

I was very briefly in the 'Garden City', after quite a while. Although July is by far the best time of the year to be in this still-attractive city, now renamed 'Bengaluru', all I got for local looking-around were just over 3 hours on a late afternoon and that too because an arrangement to meet someone on serious business did not work out; and regrettably, I had no time to meet up with friends - old or new.

Anyways, I had the above-mentioned 3-hour slice of time and I decided to tramp it from 'Majestic' to MG Road, sort of goofed up my direction and ended at JC Road and then did a course-correction and walked down to and across Cubbon Park and... well, at the end of a lengthy 2 hours, I was on Brigade Road and searching for 'Pecos'.

I did not find that once-upon-a-time favorite haunt of mine but there were other similar establishments and at the entrance of one was a board advertising 'Happy Hours' from 10am to 6 pm.
1 Mug - 70 Rs - happy price 40 Rs
2 Pint -120 Rs - happy price 70 Rs
and so forth.

I saw the time. It was 5.55; and I entered. I was surprised to see the place more than half empty.

I ask my waiter upfront, "Happy hours are on, right?"
He shows me his watch. It showed 5.57. He smiles a rather sympathetic smile at me and asks matter of factly: "What you want?". I say: "A pint".

He produces a largeish mug, which I notice is only around 80 percent full. But then, I am from 'dry' Ahmedabad and keen to get on with things.

About half a dozen minutes down, I have emptied the pint-mug. The waiter comes back and asks me. "What?"

I take a few seconds to do some mental calculations - which concern the additional kick any further consumption of the drink would produce and how it could impact the further 4-5 kilometers of walking that I have to do - thru Bangalore traffic(*). And then I hear him say:

"Happy hour over. So..."

I take a further few seconds to decide whether I should have another pint or just a mug when he says, ominously: "Pint, now 120 rupees, okay? Mug, 70". And he presently adds in Kannada with a generous smile:

"Actually, you go to some wine shop, you can get what you want - cheap!"

"Why wine shop?" I ask back in English (my own Kannada is minimal). "You wont give me more?"

"No, no... actually I thought..." he pauses, perhaps not sure what to say.

"Okay, give me one mug" I have finished my calculations. "Ondu maggu!"

He silently goes off and returns with a which is dispensed with, with relish.

The waiter comes again: "What?" he has the same one-word question.

I hear myself starting a question: "Are you going to close or...?" but then I quickly change tracks and add. "Okay, bill!"

He brings the bill. I take my time, search my pocket exhaustively and pay for it with the only 1000 rupee note I have. He brings the balance. I again take my time to gather the cash and step out; I see the waiter again at the doorway chatting with a doorkeeper - and he gives me what looks like a smile. The doorman too appears to be smiling and wishes me "Good evening, Sir!". I halt, fish out a wad of low denomination notes from my pocket, give the doorman 10 bucks, give the waiter (what must have looked like) a smile and walk into the raging traffic...

---------
(*) - Most roads in Blore are one-way tracks. And many of these have medians. When one crosses such a road and semi-consciously follows the standard protocol of "look to your right and get to the median. Then look to your left and do the rest", a fatal accident is a very, very likely outcome. To those of my readers going to Blore, let me wish luck!

Scalloping Away

2009-07-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, I spent a short while at a Biology Research Center - the idea was to learn (and do research in) Molecular Biology. Sometime during that short-lived experiment (I left the place, having totally failed to cope with the work, but that is not the story here!), I got to attend a Research Presentation. A lady researcher spoke on some deeply specialized aspect of fruitfly genetics and kept mentioning something called 'scalloped' almost as if the word was a noun (rather than a past-participle it very much sounded like) - "Scalloped gets expressed.... " types.

In those days there was no internet and I did not have the habit of looking up new words. At any rate, I left the place in another day or three so I did not find out what 'scalloped' - or 'scallop' for that matter - meant.

...

A few years down the line, I got a job in a team maintaining a rather elaborate piece of Software controlling milling machines - the software would automatically plot pathways for a cutting tool so that it could fashion a specified component from a lump of metal. One of the issues to be addressed was 'scallops' - long, cusp-cross-sectioned remnants of metal which used to be inevitably left over on the component after the machining operation was done. And in this context the words, 'cusp' and 'scallop' were used synonymously. I already knew well what a 'cusp' was so I did not search for the meaning of 'scallop'(although online dictionaries were available). And again, I did not try to find out what the lady-biologist's 'scalloped' was.

...

Last month, I got to run thru the Red Fort(*) in Delhi. I was particularly impressed by the compact marble edifices and their beautifully proportioned arches. I overheard a guide telling people how the liberal Shah Jahan embellished Islamic buildings with Hindu-style arches (he meant the ones formed by several small arcs with a sharp outward point in the center, for example, this ). Indeed, it is generally observed that arches with just the outward point in the middle (and no arcs) are Muslim and the ones with many arcs plus the central outward point are Hindu - the farthest arch in the above picture is Muslim while the rest are Hindu.

It is also known that Hindu temples, traditionally, never used the arch - they were all post-and-lintel affairs. This was a bit strange because the aesthetic appeal of the arch was well-known here very long ago, judging from the facades of Buddhist caves; perhaps the crucial step of constructing a *structural* arch from appropriately cut stones was never made here until the advent of Muslims(**). And even when the arch was adopted (after some initial resistance, it appears) into temple-designs (both Hindu and Jain) and into secular buildings such as palaces (mostly around Rajasthan), the many-arcs-within-the-arch pattern appears to have been so heavily favored and the single-outward-point one was so totally excluded (both for rather mysterious reasons) that the above 'communal divide' came about. Anyways, *both* patterns were (almost certainly) originally Muslim innovations (so, whether Shah Jahan was being 'secular' with those arches is a little doubtful; he almost certainly did not need to borrow their designs from temples - and Shah Jahan had no reputation for 'reusing' temple portions in his buildings).

Note: The capitals of some of the marble pillars did look unmistakeably temply in style though. And that many-arcs-with-central-outward-point arches are not much seen in Islamic buildings outside this subcontinent may after all indicate *some* Hindu contribution.

After some web-research, I discovered that that the many-arced-arch is often called a 'cusped arch' or 'scalloped arch' (again cusp is synonymous with scallop) - and a google images search with either of these as key will yield several pictures of those lovely Red Fort arches. Another phrase which means pretty much the same is 'multi-foiled arch'. The Moors of Spain, who were basically Muslim, also used many-cusped arches extensively in their buildings (for example, in the Alcazar of Seville which predates the Red Fort by a few decades: or in the more famous Alhambra , which is still older by a couple of centuries).
That the multi-foiled arches of the Moors do not have the central *outward point* maybe a matter of detail; anyways, the absence of this central outward point is, to me, the reason why the Moorish arches do not quite equal in grace the Mughal ones.

Now, to finish the scallop/scalloped story, here is what Merriam-Webster says:

Scallop (noun) =
1. Any of numerous marine,... mollusks, that have a radially ribbed shell...
2. A valve or shell of a scallop
(the logo of Shell Petroleum features a scallop)
3. One of a continuous series of circle segments or angular projections forming a border

Scallop (verb) = to cut or finish in scallops.

As for the fruitfly connection: 'scalloped' is the name of a particular fruitfly (drosophila) gene. Here is an online sample that I found today:

"Scalloped ... encodes a member of the TEA/ATTS-domain family of transcription factors... Scalloped functions downstream of Notch (from the context, another gene) signaling during development of the Drosophila wing and acts as an intermediary between the signaling pathways that pattern the wing and the regulation of wing growth."

I am too tired now to find out what it is about a gene - which is a sequence of biochemical units - that could have scallops. Maybe it is some anatomical feature of the fruitfly (guess: - fringes of its wings) which gets a scalloped appearance when that particular gene is 'expressed'.

-----------
(*) The Red Fort is (mysteriously) not a World Heritage site. Humayun's Tomb (also in Delhi) which is on the list, struck me as a distinctly inferior building - it looks quite impressive from afar but from close quarters, the designs and patterns on its walls - incuding an unusual (to self) 'Star of David' which was repeated all over) - are not quite up to scratch.
Note: On further examining Humayun's Tomb, it looks a lot more impressive viewed from a corner than face on.

There is plenty of detail in the Red Fort which I could only gloss over - a foot square picture of the lute-playing Orpheus(!) atop the imperial box in Diwan-e-aam, the Scales of Justice,... and so much more.

(**) A bright Desi student of Architecture once told me: "If you ask me about ancient Indian architecture, it is, to a good approximation, Zero! No arch, no dome, no grand structural innovations, and no sense of space whatever - just walls and pillars and more walls and more pillars and sculptural decorations all over... Even large temples have only dark and conjested interiors!"

"What's Your Problem?!"

2009-06-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

Allahabad station. A hot september day last year. Afternoon. I board a Bombay-bound train. Second class sleeper coach. My berth (and seat) is one of the 'main long' ones (not of the shorter pair along the aisle). An elderly lady sleeps on my seat/berth and the space underneath the berth is filled with some heavy luggage; I decide not to disturb her and park on the side seat in the same coupe and temporarily keep my bag under the same seat.

Five minutes pass. I sense a heavy-ish pat on my shoulder. Looking up, I see a bloke of about my own age who presently says in Bhojpuri-flavored Hindi: "APNE seat pe chale jao!" ("you, go to YOUR seat!"). A porter is just bringing in his luggage. I meekly get up and look around for some other spot to park.

"Arey, ee kaa hai?!" ("and what is THIS??") a shocked-sounding remark emanates from the same gent. He has spotted my bag resting under his seat - and stoops with great alacrity and reaches for it: "Nikalo usko!".

I reach forward, "actually, woh mera bag hai..." ("actually, that is mine")

He turns and growls "To kaa hua? hamra saamaan rakhna hai!" ("So, what? I have to keep MY stuff!") and starts dragging my bag out.

I hear myself snapping "Haath mat lagaana!" ("Don't touch the thing!") as I swoop down and snatch my bag away, unmindful of whether it made any hard contact with his person in the process.

"Hey, tumra problem kaa hai?" ("What's your problem, Man?") he demands to know.

"TUMRA problem kaa hai?" I quietly ask back and turn away, looking for a place to keep the bag.

A tense silence. It persists for the next 24 hours until I get off the train at Kalyan.

----------------

Ernakulam. A sultry afternoon, last week. I board a 'Reserved' 3-tier sleeper coach in a Bombay-bound express and occupy a vacant seat. I had taken a 'sleeper class ticket' with which one could (legally) travel as a sitting passenger in day time in sleeper coaches (even in reserved ones, with the consent of the reserved passengers). My destination: Shoranur, 2 hours and a bit away.

Three girls occupy the rest of my berth, all of them, like me, sleeper-class ticketers. A guy stretches out on the top berth and goes to sleep.

The coach fills up with other sleeper-classers and the train leaves. An hour and a half pass.

Trichur station. Our seats seem to be under reservation here on - a large crowd is getting into our coach. I wait, hoping against hope that my particular seat is booked from a future stop (the reason, I was not quite healthy on that day)...

A middle-aged couple thrust their way into our coupe with a lot of luggage. The wife survyes the scene and remarks very audibly in Malayalam: "Oronnu keriyangu irunnolum!" (difficult to translate in all its punch but here is an attempt: "Squatting wherever they see, as if...". And then she sternly orders the three girls sitting next to me: "Get up, baba!" (in English). The girls get up and slink away. The husband proceed to pat up the chap sleeping on the top berth.

I stay on my seat - if there were just the couple, I figured I could remain seated for the remaing 30 minutes of my journey (the lower berth could seat 3 people comfortably). But I soon realize the famly has one more member - an elderly lady (probably the mother of either of the couple) follows the couple in and addresses me in malayalam: "Eneettu poyikkoode? ... Varunnathu kanaan paadille?" ("Can you not move it? Are you blind not to see us coming in?"). I promptly stand up - and resist the temptation to say something equally nasty, confining myself to: "Eneekkaan paranjaappore?" ("you could just have told (me) to get up!")

The wife has begun to stuff their luggage under the lower berth and mutters, spotting my bag in a corner: "kettiyangu vecholum!" ("generally stuffing their trash wherever they see some room!") and then switching to English with a declaration "Throw it away, whoever(sic) it is!" proceeds to grab at the said article.

Almost yelling: "Hello, just lay off!" I snatch away the bag. And just as I walk off in a mighty huff, I hear a familiar question from behind, this time in English: "You, what is your problem, man?!"

Badri-Kedar

2009-06-16T03:05:00.001-07:00

"The hills are lonely, sharp and steep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
- a Military-sponsored signboard on the Badrinath-Mana Road, near the Tibetan border.

I got to visit Badrinath-Kedarnath (via Delhi) last month - my third foray into Northern India within a year (thanks to Mom!). The week-long, 'conducted' Yatra was too full of images and too hectic for me to have recorded it in some form convertible into a proper journal here. Here is a very sketchy account of what was seen - and felt:

- Haridwar was just what I had expected. The Ghat, the clock-tower, the Ganga Arti, the crowds of bathers,... hot and muggy weather, and the river water surprisingly cold. I wandered the ghat, watching the crowds, the Arti, hawkers selling plastic sheets to Arti-watchers, the chaos,...

A huge Siva statue stands a little upstream, oddly facing farther upstream with its back towards the ghat; Goddess Ganga sits on a pedestal in mid-river, riding a croc. Half-submerged, near the Western Bank are small statues of various divinites, all shown facing east, into the river. Among them is a figure of Guru Nanak, who ought to be facing West(*).

- Hrishikesh was a bit more of the same show. A folly of a temple, 13 storeys tall with sharp spiky towers and painted a glaring red - stands next to the famous Laxmanjhoola. There are Ashrams, all concrete - and over-sized effigies of Gods - all over the place, which has grown into quite a town, a far cry from pre-Independence days when it was described as a secluded spot populated by the odd hermit - and where tigers prowled.

- Beyond Hrishikesh, the foothills (Sivalik range) have a healthy forest cover for a few kilometers but then on, on both sides of the Ganga are burnt-out-looking barren hills, with only cacti and agaves making a few scratches of green. The river looks the color of overmilked coffee.

- At Devaprayag, the Alakanda (which brings the murky, coffee-look) merges with the deep green Bhagirathi to form the Ganga at a turbulent sangam where a large population of foot-long fish thrives. At Rudraprayag, another deep green and slender stream, the Mandakini, loses itself in Alakananda's murk.

- The road to Kedarnath follows Mandakini and starts climbing sharply after Rudraprayag; the hillsides gradually get greener. At Agastyamuni, with the weather still muggy, one has the first vision of snow-mountains - the trapezoidal crest of the Chaukhambha.

At a chai-shop there, I saw a hill-woman in a bright blue sweater and bright red scarf, with an infant strapped on to her - the color scheme and much else strongly reminiscent of Leonardo's 'Madonna Litta' (another member of our party reported witnessing a quarrel featuring the same lady, a "hag" accusing her of having broken her (the hag's) marriage).

An elderly sadhu, whose face was uncannily reminscent of the famous composer Dakshinamurti, lay in peaceful repose under a tree next to the chai-shop; he seemed unaffected by the flies buzzing around.

- The road terminus of Gaurikund is another 30 or so kilometers ahead. A conjested pilgrim-village. A kilometer of shops, dharamsalas and what not lie tightly packed alongside a 3-footwide pathway.

Easily, the most picturesque of all temples in this Yatra is at Triyugi Narayan, about 45 minutes by jeep from Gaurikund. From the temple, which lies at an altitude of 7000 feet, we watched a panorama of rugged mountains in the distance; as one gazes, a small bank of clouds passes over the mountains and the crests briefly gleam with a fresh and generous dusting of snow ... and then, the spectacle melts into dusk.

- A stiff 14 km trek (it took me five hours flat of near-nonstop walking) begins at Gaurikund and picks its way up the hills along the rim of a deep and narrow gorge cut by a very noisy Mandakini. Rhododendrons have just begun to bloom, the odd horse-chestnut is also in form. In the upper reaches, there are a few grassy patches (locally called 'bugyal'), spangled with exotic orchid blooms...

Kedarnath is in the center of a few-kilometer wide plateau behind which rises a wall-like range of mountains, several of which top 18000 feet in height, and which are unfortunately, hidden by clouds at midday, this time of the year (one had caught several spectacular glimpses of the peaks while tiredly hauling onself up the foot-trail; and had to be satisfied with that much).

A handful of sadhus chill out near the temple; one of them had dressed up as Shiva (quite a hard act in this very chilly place) and sat meditatively puffing a beedi and not showing much interest in the few notes that had got deposited before him.

Surprisingly, by far, the single biggest group of yatris to Kedarnath are from far away Maharashtra - tough, wiry villagers, men and women, old and young, determinedly walking up the steep slopes, ignoring the dolies and the ponies; am told by a source with considerable authority that this strong Maharashtran presence is a still persistent effect of the fervent and almost country-wide temple-building activity undertaken by the Maratha queen Ahilyabai Holkar in the 18th century; it was perhaps she who drew up the list of 12 Jyotirlingams, with Kedarnath being the farthest to the North (8 of them are clustered in West/Central Mahrashtra-Western MP-Gujarat).

Kedarnath temple is a small, plain and not unattractive stone building. The interior is desperately crowded with worshippers and almost shockingly, there is no security check at any point. The focus of worship is a large, irregularly shaped rocky Lingam, also said to represent the hump or rump of a bull (the resemblance to either needs quite a lot of imagination to visualize) which Shiva turned himself into, in a rather inexplicable effort to hide from the Pandavas, who were desperately seeking his blessings to expiate some sins committed in battle.

- The drive from Gaurikund to Badrinath was a day-long affair. The Chaukhambha can be glimpsed several times, glittering away in the morning sunshine; then, the hot blast from the plains at Rudraprayag, another slow ascent, this time along the Alakananda valley, past scorched-looking hillsides; a sprinkling of jacarandas in bloom, then the deodar and pine forests slowly taking over... Approaching Joshimath, one sees snow again atop distant mountains, one of which has two sharp and almost identical peaks - I decide to christen it the 'Devil' (Note: another, more imaginative. member of our party saw a 'reclining woman' thereabout). I name another distant mountain - many pronged, with sharp tips - the 'Tiger's Paw'.

Our path (called the 'Chetak Highway' after Rana Pratap's legendary horse) descends for a short while from Joshimath and then begins a dizzying climb that gains well over 5000 feet in just about 30 kilometers. Here is a description, by Keralan writer S.K.Pottekkat (c 1965), in free translation: "Charging forward resolutely, then twisting and turning sharply, rearing and recoiling as if in panic and dramatically recovering ... mighty Chetak struggles heroically, as if in vicious battle, against the challenge of the formidable battlement that 'Kuber Shila' truly is. The roar of the turbulent river can be heard from thousands of feet below... This portion of the journey is a profoundly scary experience...."

- Badrinath lies at 10500 feet, near the lower end of a U-shaped and gently sloping and few kilometers wide glacial valley, both walls thereof rising to snow-peaks of 15000 feet and upwards (their hard profiles and snow-caps can be clearly made out even at night, in star-light). Past the straggly town, the valley winds northwards to the village of Mana and then turns North-west towards the glaciers of Satopanth and the Swargarohini Peak, a few tens of kilometers away. It is humbling to think that that during the last ice age, this entire valley was filled by a huge glacier and Alakananda is but a skimpy remnant of that immense sheet of ice...

Neelkanth, the tallest peak in the area is usually hidden behind clouds; all I could get of it was a fleeting glimpse at sunrise, bright orange-yellow and pure white - like a generous helping of vanilla ice-cream with a dash of orange syrup poured over at the top - and flowing viscously down the sides ... (to Pottekkat, half a century ago, the same mountain had appeared as a "silver scimitar thrust into the heavens"; curiously, my own vision of Neelkanth matches rather well with HIS description of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa!).

Badrinath temple has a very colorful facade - all blue, yellow, red and white in their purest shades - and from the distance, looks like a scaled-down carpenter's model. It teems with worshippers throghout the day. and security arrangements are far more stringent than at Kedar and we had to wait 2 full hours in a queue for Darshan - the small, gilded, heavily ornamented idol of Badrinath, flanked by Nara-Narayana and Lakshmi... The town itself is a messy affair, and like most places I saw on this trip, presents a curious and very real problem - electric lines and cables that criss-cross and clutter the sky almost everywhere, spoiling the views of the mountains.

- The trail to the Vasudhara Falls begins at Mana village and follows the glacial valley (the board of a shop where one starts off declares: "The last shop in Hindustan"; China/ Tibet is a further 40 kilometers away, across uninhabited mountains) in the direction of Satopanth - this is also said to be the path taken by the Pandavas on their final heaven-ward journey... The track runs thru a strangely desolate Alpine landscape, flowery meadows, rugged, snow-capped mountains and a persistent, chilly wind. Too sad, I could not trek all the way to the falls, a scheduling problem...

- We stopped by at Joshimath on the way back. Sankaracharya is believed to have set up a Monastery here and to have meditated under a still-flourishing tree (looks like a mulberry tree) named 'Kalpavriksha'. As I waited for the rest of our group to finish their devotions, a senior member of our group, who had got to know me fairly well, came up and said: "Thought I should tell you; the priest said if one touches this tree and makes a wish, it will definitely come true. So ...!"

-----------
(*) The episode from the life of Guru Nanak, in which the Master chided some devout Sun-worshippers by throwing the Ganga water towards the west at sunrise - claiming he was watering his fields in the Punjab - was where I first heard about Haridwar as a sacred site.

Australia, Half A Century Ago...

2009-06-08T05:30:00.000-07:00

Australia and some of its Immigration problems are in the news these days. This post consists mainly of two quotes on Australia's immigration policies from a long-gone era (one quote is brief, the other quite long; some editing has been done here and there but no new words have been inserted). The source is an extended (mostly pictorial) essay on Australia, written and published sometime in the mid 1960's. In my opinion, the quote says as much about the source as about Australia, the subject; and the source shall be revealed at the end.

1. Geographically a part of Asia, Australia is seemingly becoming more and more aware of the southward pressures of that continent's millions, influenced and goaded by an aggressive Communist China. New Zealand is slightly less vulnerable due to its being more isolated across the Tasman Sea.
Australians and New Zealanders, however, are made of stern stuff....

2.... In the external political sphere, Australians feel that their minute population is a constant provocation to overpopulated Asian nations to turn envious eyes upon this empty land. ... But those who speak against (immigration) are now in a minority, and since World War II, Australia has embarked on a policy of massive immigration under which more than two million people have entered the country in two decades, mainly from Europe...
There has arisen a very serious problem: should immigration be confined to Europeans or should Asians also at last be allowed in?

The 'White Australia Policy' is supported by most of the population and by two of teh country's three principal political parties, though everyone, in modern international climate that condemns racialism, wishes this policy were not called openly what in fact it is. At one time, to enforce it, an ingenious device was used. There was no overt questioning ofthe prospective immigrant as to race: he was merely asked to take, on arrival, a 'dictation test' in any European language selected by the examiner. Thus even if the hapless immigrant knew two or ten or even a hundred tongues, one that he did not know could always be chosed for the test. Since 1958, this pretense has been abandoned, and the permission to enter the country is accorded arbitrarily by the Minister for Immigration - who does not have to justify his decision. What this means in effect is that persons of European stock are allowed to settle and Afro-Asians are not.

...

What are the advantages of this situation? Firstly, of course, that Australia has a more or less homogeneous racial structure. Next - and this point is missed often by liberal critics of the Policy - the Australians are the only people of European origin, who, living in a torrid climate, have done most of their own manual work. The temptation, a century ago and later, to introduce cheap coolie labor on a vast scale must have been enormous.

A curious consequence of the Policy is that in Australia, thansk to the very fact that there is no color problem (unless we include that of the aborigines), racial relations with visiting men of color are harmonious. There is no hostility to an Afro-Asian because he is in no way felt to be a menace.

But what are the disadvantages?... the Policy irritates, Australia's Asian neighbors.... Of course, it may be that these Asian nations close their own frontiers to immigrants; it may be that they have not fully exploited, with their vaster populations, their own potential riches; it may be that Asians would not want to come in large numbers to Australia, even if they could. Nevertheless, the Policy is an obstacle to the extension of Australian trade and influence in Asia and Pacific.

The social disadvantages may be more subtle... On the one hand, Australia eagerly seeks skilled European immigrants, most of whom in conditions of increasing European prosperity, wish to remain at home. On the other hand, it absolutely bars Asians whose labor might be of great value. The feeling is thus growing - though it is still very much a minority feeling - that selected Asian immigrants should be admitted.

A further disadvantage of the Policy is that Australians, racially epaking, live in a sort of vacuum. ... By shutting the doors firmly to Asians, Australia have achieved social harmony at the expense of a deeper understanding of the racial problems that surround them in the world at large.

In the long run, any change of policy will doubtless be based on four key considerations: Woudl Asian immigration diminish living standards? Would it encourage economic development? Would it harm social integration? And would it endanger national security? If Asian immigration were controlled, the answer to teh first question would seem to be "No", to the second "Yes" and to the final two "Perhaps". This is a hard decision, on which it would be irresponsible for non-Australians to pass judgement, since they don not have to live out the consequences of making it.

...

The immigrants most liked by the Australians are those from northern Europe, Germans and Scandinavians; these people are felt to be energetic, reliable and loyal. Those from southern Europe - Italian, Spanish, Greek, and Yugoslav - are less accepted and admired. This is chiefly because, the northerners are assimilated more easily than the southerners, who are likely to live and work in their own exclusive areas... and fail to learn comprehensible English. Another objection is that the Roman Catholic minority is growing because of immigration. Australia is a predominantly Protestant country and there is some resentment.....

....

In both Australia and New Zealand, the early white immigrants encountered a native population. Following a period of harsh treatment in the 19th century, each Government has sought to deal fairly with its particular minority group. Australia has the more difficult problem to solve because teh aborigines are among the most primitive people on earth. In New Zealand, however the initially more advanced Maoris have adopted many Western ways and are assuming a major role in the national life.

The source: The volume on 'Australia and New Zealand' from the 'World Library' series published by LIFE. The primary audience for these volumes was American. Quote 1 was from the intro to the volume. In general, the LIFE series is a very interesting (and sometimes arresting) source of information on how the American Mid-Right perceived the rest of the world, during Cold War days.

And for a serious online discussion on what is now going on Down Under, here is a link:
http://parayilat.blogspot.com/2009/06/curry-bashing-view-from-down-under.html

Railway Stories

2009-06-07T03:34:00.000-07:00

Without knowing the word, I have been a 'trainspotter' for long. I am not officially a member of the online 'Indian Railway Fans Association' but I do read their train travelogs with great interest and gaze at their photos which show momentous events like "Karnataka Express, led by a blue and green WDM-2 from the Krishnarajapuram Loco Shed, turns onto the Chennasandra bye-pass line". And over the years, 'Bhagat Ki Kothi', 'Santragachchhi', 'Ajni', 'Bondamunda' (to the uninitiated, locations of depots of locomotives ('loco sheds')), ... have all become rather familiar names, eventhough they refer to places I have not even remotely approached.

And very recently, I met a gentleman, whom I won't introduce here but will only mention as the source of the following three bits on our railways. I have tried hard to capture at least some of the impact these anecdotes had as he narrated them - with great deliberation and loving care.

1. The Erode-Trichy section of Southern Railway got converted from meter guage to broad guage long back, before independence - and this line was for a long while, the only major line in Tamil Nadu apart from the arterial line from Madras to Bangalore/Kerala, which was in broad guage. And this nearly 150 km line was guage converted in ... a single day, indeed in 3 hours flat. Well, the work took a lot longer but 3 hours was the time-span separating the run of the last meter guage train and the flagging off of the first broad guage train!

And there was nothing magical in what happened. Over a period of time, even as the track was in use, gangs of workmen changed the sleepers under the tracks to the longer broad-guage ones and widened the spread of the stone ballast. Then on the appointed day, a large army of workers just - simultaneouly - shifted one of the rails sideways, widening the gap between them to the broad-guage mark; and that was that!

Now, you may wonder why, nowadays, lines are closed for guage conversion for several years and the work goes on and on .... and on! The reasons are purely non-technical and I won't get into them!

2. The Taj Express was some sight in those days. It had a dedicated, lovingly maintained steam loco - its rear half painted a sparkling blue; you know, the loco had a grand name, 'Vir Bundela'. And it would pull a ten-coach rake over the 200 kilometers from Delhi to Agra in 3 hours flat, with a single watering stop in between. And the driver, an Anglo-Indian named Mr. Bean(?), such an impressive man, standing six feet, three and a half inches, assisted by two equally imposing, hefty firemen, it was some sight, them working in perfect unison...

3. Talk of the word 'thorough' - and there was this young executive, who had newly joined our office. He was told to inspect the functioning of the railway level crossings in remote areas. On day one, he takes a train at midnight, travels on the engine, asks the driver to slow to a crawl a couple of kilometers short of a manned level cross, gets off, allows the train to go ahead and walks to the crossing. The guard there was of course, fast asleep. Our executive wakes him up, shows his card and proceeds to read the riot act to him. The guard pleads with our man to spare him promising he would be vigilant and never doze off again on duty.

And what? our man lets off the guard with a verbal warning. He then leaves, walks six more kilometers down the track to the next railway station, hops onto another train heading in the reverse direction, gets off well before the same crossing and walks over and pounces on the guard .... who had fallen asleep again, perhaps reasoning that lightning does not strike the same spot twice!

On The Kinnara Trail...

2009-05-29T04:53:00.001-07:00

There has been a longish spell of silence here, which shall be explained in due course.

Among the less taxing things I did over the last month was a bit of online research on the classes of fantastic, semi-divine beings in Indian tradition - the focus was on the 'kinnaras' but I also read about the 'yakshas', 'gandharvas', 'vidyadharas', 'kimpurushas' (who are sometimes identified with kinnaras) and so forth...

I have read somewhere the word 'kinnar' being used to refer to the hijadas (eunuchs). This association has no real foundation in ancient literature. Kalidasa, for instance, refers to the slow gait of the generously-endowed 'Kinnara women'(*) (somewhere in the beginning of Kumarasambhavam) and that seems sufficient to rule out attributing any hermaphrodytic nature to these beings.

In Buddhist art, some of which predates Kalidasa, Kinnaras are half-men and half-birds (see Wikipedia, for example); in the Sanchi reliefs, they are shown diving down from the sky to worship the Master or a Stupa (in an earlier post here, I had noted a resemblance between these beings carved at Sanchi with the 'buraq' from the middle-eastern and Islamic traditions). Half-bird kinnaras abound in the Buddhist art of Thailand and neighboring countries. Needless to say, Kalidasa's slow-walker description does not match them.

I also remember encountering Kinnaras in the Amar Chitra Katha volume retelling the ancient Sanskrit prose classic 'Kadambari' - one of the principal characters encounters (and chases unsuccessfully) a troop of Kinnaras, who are shown as anthropomorphic midgets with horse-like faces. This 'alternative representation' is actually consistent with the following bit from Wikipedia: "Kinnaras were mysteriously linked with horses. Puranas mention them as horse-headed beings..."

...

To those who grew up in Kerala, the Gandharvas are far more familiar than the Kinnaras. In the mainstream Sanskritic tradition, the Gandharvas are mostly musicians or tricksters who occasionally turn into vicious beasts when cursed by some sage or the other but in Kerala, they are lustful 'possessors' of (usually) nubile young women, causing them and their families untold misery - Yakshis are their female counterparts and prey on men, a major difference being that a Yakshi summarily kills off her victm whereas the Gandharvas cast a life-long spell.

At least two major Mallu motion pictures have explored the possibilities of Gandharvas tangling with young girls' lives. Modern Malayalam lyrical poetry (film songs, mostly) often uses 'Kinnara' almost as a synonym of 'Gandharva'; and some lyrics feature absurd compounds like 'Gandharvakinnari'.

Quite recently, I saw in Chambakkara, an eastern suburb of Cochin city, Kerala, a brightly painted shrine named: "Vaishnava Gandharva Temple" - I never knew there was a Shaiva-Vaishnava schism among Gandharvas.

And to conclude, here is a 'case-study' from the Mallu classic 'Aitihyamala': "Once, ----- suffered from a strange affliction. Although it seemed as if the lady was insane, she had in fact been possessed by a Gandharva. The symptoms were a propensity to violence, often resulting in no-holds-barred attacks on people around and a tendency to remain totally unclothed...."

-----------
(*) Only yesterday, I happened to see a bit of an adventure on 'Animal Planet'. Somewhere around Namibia, a lady explorer (white) was trying to initiate two juvenile lions reared in captivity to a normal ('feral') life. Guiding/aiding her were a !Kung tribesman and his wife, and the latter brought back memories of Kalidasa's (sometimes rather fulsome) descriptions of female beauty, including that of the Kinnaris (of course, the !Kung lady was slick and quick as she walked the dunes). Rather than dwell further on these strands of memory, let me point to the tragic story of Saartje Baartman (see Wikipedia), in whose memory, Stephen Jay Gould wrote 'The Hotentot Venus'.

Tintoretto, 'Tintoretto' And ...

2009-05-02T00:58:00.000-07:00

This post is a 'collage'; among other things, a tribute to a Master - from an admirer of Art and recorder of impressions and memories...

For starters, this is how Wikipedia introduces the man:
Tintoretto ... was one of the greatest painters of the Venetian school and probably the last great painter of the Italian Renaissance. ... In his youth, Tintoretto was also known as Jacopo Robusti as his father had defended the gates of Padua in a rather robust way against the imperial troops during the War of ...

....

I was in primary school when first I came across the interesting-sounding name 'Tintoretto' in a series of articles on Western Art that used to appear in a Malayalam weekly (the author was an uncle of mine; I have briefly mentioned this series elsewhere in this blog). The only thing that persisted in my memory from that particular episode in the series is a dark and enigmatic 'Last Supper' - incidentally, I must be one of very few art-lovers for whom, the first impression of 'The Last Supper' was NOT provided by the Leonardo masterpiece or an imitation thereof.
....

Several years later, in Chennai, I encountered a fun-game in our hostel - participants, based on yes/no answers to (usually) twenty questions, have to identify an eminent historical person. Almost everywhere else, this game is known as 'Twenty Questions'; but interestingly (and to self, shrouded in a mystery that persists to here and now), in our college, the game used to be called ... 'Tintoretto'!

(Digression: Much later in life, I saw this game converted into a big game show on a Mallu TV Channel - and grandly renamed 'Ashwamedham'. Some Pre-selected 'challengers' had to pit their GK against a certain 'Grandmaster Pradeep', who almost always won. Incidentally, one of the episodes wherein the Grandmaster lost was when the challenger had chosen Him (the Master that is) as the personality to be identified!)

....

Sometime in the early nineties, I started collecting volumes of 'Great Artists' - a remarkable partworks series from Marshall Cavendish. The volume on Tintoretto gave me the first proper acquaintance with the Master. Although in those days of maniacal art-appreciation, I would not have named any work by him in my personal Top Five, the strange, dark (and occasionally harshly-lit) atmospheric effects (emphasized by a limited palette of colors), ghostly figures and swirling action of some of his paintings (especially the St. Mark series and of course the Supper) have held me in thrall ever since.

Very soon afterwards, I managed to briefly visit Venice. And Tintoretto became the Master whose works I have seen most comprehensively - the reason: a very large percentage of his oeuvre is located in Venice. Dozens of them are in the dark interiors of 'San Rocco' which I ran thru in a couple of hours.

I also went to the 'Academia' where, among other things, an exhibition of 'Portraits by Tintoretto' was on. With me was an Israeli student by name Yuval (I guess and hope he must be a big-time Physicist now). I was inspecting a Tintoretto self-portrait (also featured in the Wiki article on the artist). A robust, bearded man was generally standing next to the painting. Yuval remarked to me - pleasantly albeit somewhat indiscreetly: "He looks like Him (referring to the guy and the portrait)". And the bearded man spoke in suitably gruff voice: "I too am Venetian!"

I remember asking Gyani once in those days: "Who do you like more, Titian or Tintoretto?". The prompt reply was "Neither".
I persisted: "Then, who is your favorite Renaissance Master?". Gyani thought for a few seconds and said: "Say... Botticelli". "Botticelli?... How come?!" I wondered. And Gyani said: "Why not?". And I had no further quesitons.
(It was a couple of years later that I came to know of a gentleman named Bernard Berenson, who probably inspired Gyani's answer; some of his works are at 'Project Gutenberg').

Unpardonably, I missed the 'Last Supper' on that visit.
Again, let me quote Gyani: "You are seeing too many paintings, just rushing thru galleries, almost as if you are carrying a checklist and you go tick-tick-tick with it... Go to one church or gallery, see one painting, look at it intensely... ". Perhaps, if and when I return to Venice, I will go to 'San Giorgio Maggiore' and stare away...

....

Then sometime near Y2K, Gyani (yes, himself) sent me a card from Italy; this was a San Rocco painting, 'Christ before Pilate'. Jesus appears here as a pensive, robust, thick-bearded prisoner, a far cry from the almost teenaged looking, soft-faced Italian representations of the Savior.

I am told Satyajit Ray has written a detective story titled 'Tintoretto's Jesus' ('Tintorettor Jishu'). Dunno whether Ray was referring to the Pilate painting or some other work; guess Gyani would know... But I am pretty sure Ray could possibly not have named his story "Somebody Else's Jesus", for 'Tintoretto' is just about the best-sounding name any artist ever had (*)!

And, regrettably, I seem to have misplaced that card somewhere...

....

A few weeks back, Gyani (again!) sent me a book 'Italian Hours' by Henri James. Although I now sadly lack the stamina to work thru the kind of frustratingly convoluted prose that James constructs rather than writes, I did manage to decrypt his opinions on 'The Tintoret'. James has had plenty to say about 'The Crucifixion' and rates this work and its author way above Titian (whose famous 'Assumption' he says is a hugely overrated work).

....

And yesterday, I saw an ad for 'Levis Buttonfly Jeans' featuring Bollywood hunk Akshay Kumar - he is shown from close-quarters, hanging out by one muscular arm from the some high perch and looking down rather disdainfully at a vast city (there is also the small matter that he happens to be wearing jeans(**), buttonfly or whatever). And, something about the picture - maybe the atmosphere - very gloomy, lacking in color ... and there is a driving rain,maybe the way the actor seems to hang unreally and portentously over the chasm-like street down below - was eerily 'manneristic' ... and very powerfully reminiscent of, say, 'St. Mark Rescuing the Saracen'. Of course, I don't intend to imply here that the ad in question is a work of art of any massive merit; but it did appear to parody some masterpieces, which were close to my heart once upon a time!

-----------------------
(*) Update: May 9th 2009: Did a bit of research on 'Tintorettor Jishu', recently released as a motion picture by Sandip, Satyajit Ray's son. Quite a complex detective story, that. And one of the characters in this whodunit is named... Nandakumar (for example, see http://addabaj-sardar.blogspot.com/2008/12/tintorettor-jishu.html)!

(**) The same Akshay Kumar used to model for 'Ruf and Tuf', a Desi (and fairly low-brow and probably, always dark-blue) denim brand way back in the nineties; a then TV ad used to feature the hero, in all blue denim, bashing up a gang of baddies.

By a strange coincidence, all trousers in my then wardrobe used to be (cheap) blue denims. And once, when, I was visiting a relative, his little boy, who was seeing me for the first time, asked: "Someone like you comes on TV often, and fights with lots of guys.... Is it you?"!

'Rashomon' - A Mathematical Parody

2009-04-27T09:13:00.001-07:00

The Original: Japan; Centuries ago; a jungle; a Samurai found killed by a sharp weapon, his wife, who was traveling with him, probably raped; a known bandit arrested from the area. That's about it, as far as the core facts go.

And everyone has different story to tell - the wife, the bandit,... and the dead Samurai's spirit...

-----------
The Parody:
-----------

The core facts: Some time back, an article presenting a conjecture and a proposing a partial resolution thereof was submitted to a popular Mathematical journal. That set in motion a 'process' which has lasted several months ....

A somewhat old version of the article may be seen here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.2241

Here I record what people had to say - A Reviewer for the Journal, the Spirit of the Article (aka the Authors), and three Witnesses, all with substantial academic standing and who are up-to-date with everything that has happened to the article.

The Reviewer:
-------------
1. The authors prove only N=2 of the conjecture. The rest of this long paper has only false starts and incomplete investigations - more than 20 pages worth!
2. The authors write in a choppy style, breaking up the flow with multiple 'observations'; the writing is verbose and uses phrases like 'thought construction', 'proposed proof' etc.. which indicate they are not sure about what they are talking about!
3. There are far too many numerical investigations rather than tight and elegant writing.

Summing up: The article is not suitable at all for publication.

The Spirit (responding to above comments in order):
---------------------------------------------------
1. The reviewer has got even basic facts wrong - apart from the obvious N=2 case, the article contains a complete proof for N=4 with indications of how to generalize it even further. There are a couple of other complete results as well. Yes, we also show how and why some 'standard' approaches to the problem won't work. These are not 'false starts' or whatever but examples which describe the *context* of the problem and show how difficult it is.

2. The numbered 'observations' are not breaks in the flow of some liquid but *steps* building towards the proof. It does not take an Einstein to recognize this, if one has read it with a minimum of sense that is. And if non-standard terminology is so irritating, there are but 2-3 instances and five minutes worth of editing would have cleaned them up.

3. The numerical investigations are there not for the heck of it but to show concrete examples. If they really got his goat for whatever reason, the reviewer could have asked for them to be compressed or deleted. And some seriously analytical thinking will still remain.

Summing up: The reviewer has not bothered to evaluate the main proof we presented (N=4) - indeed the very core of the article has been just ignored - and has gone strictly by peripheral stylistic considerations. His main concerns could have been taken care of with a 2 day rewrite/editing but he has projected these irritants as sufficient grounds to summarily reject our work - without appeal. The fellow has not only made snide remarks on our work but made factually incorrect (indeed we would say, untruthful) observations about the article.

------------------

Witness 1:
It was unfortunate that the article got rejected. The numerical examples seem to have been a major irritant. And maybe the length. I was worried about these factors myself but also quite hopeful that the article would be still accepted, for it really had some serious substance. The reviewer certainly did not do his job properly.

But that said, I would suggest that the authors write the article afresh, get rid of all those numbers and leave out some side-investigations and maybe tighten up the presentation of the N=4 proof... Then it should stand a better chance with some other journal.

A general point: The article appears to use a lot of intuitive, visual arguments. Some rigorous tightening on that front could help.

---------------------

Witness 2:
I did not think the article was bad at all. Yes, it was on the longer side, and had a rambling, notes-to-myself feel; but to me, these are not fatal defects. Yes, things were not presented strictly canonically but the journal in question too had said they accept and encourage unconventional/speculative stuff. The reviewer could have commented, rather should have commented on the logical content but he probably had other ideas...

Anyways, I would suggest that the authors take the reviewer's suggestions seriously, tighten up the terminology. And yes, cut the length at least by 60 percent, perhaps by leaving out those numerical examples and submit somewhere else. The full article could of course be kept online as a further reference to those who want the details.

-------------------

Witness 3:
I was sure the article would be rejected; and I am not surprised there has been no further review - indeed I think it was an easy decision for the reviewer, in terms of the style as well as the content. Unless one writes Mathematics rigorously, it won't be read. Reviewers do their work as some sort of voluntary service to the community - they are not even paid for it. And the reviewer won't read the article fully unless the writing is rigorous. And it is the writers job to impress him and to keep him interested, else the logic or whatever simply won't be evaluated.

As for the content, an article has to have at least a couple of solid results; just a conjecture is not really good enough, since there are hundreds of conjectures all over the place. And even using the word 'conjecture' is shaky here; what has been presented is more of an interesting problem than a proper conjecture - indeed, there does not appear to be enough intuition in the work to really float a serious conjecture.

Anyways, I shall try to read the article and give some specific inputs as to how the writing could be improved....
(continuing after a week)
The article is absolutely unreadable; no mathematician will read it and no serious journal publish it. This may sound harsh but that is the fact of the matter.
----------------

And here is what another Witness had to say the other day:
"I saw the article about 2 months back and read the initial few pages, maybe 2 or 3 pages.... yes, I had an impression then ... rather, I remember forming a general impression then, that the article was a piece of bad writing. I can't recollect anything more!"

----------------

And I sign off with a quote, the source of which I won't reveal: "The pressure for conformity is enormous. I have experienced it in editors’ rejection of submitted papers, based on venomous criticism of anonymous referees. The replacement of impartial reviewing by idiotic censorship will be the death of science."

Two Quotes

2009-04-21T05:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday TOI published an interview by N.R. Narayana Murthy. The title "Rein in Ego, Greed". Excerpts:

"Actually, India is a nation of entrepreneurs. You go to villages, small towns you have all these kirana shops, they are taking risks. However, when the Mughals and British came - the past 1000 years - the focus shifted to keeping us law-abiding and tax-paying citizens. When the government becomes stronger, automatically the chances of corrption and patronage become higher. In such a society, you wont see entrepreneurship, which is all about using personal initiative, dreams and optimism to create wealth and jobs...

(We are ambivalent about strong Leaders) ... again due to foreign rule. Between 1000 and 2000 AD, we were free of foreign rule only for 53 years. When you are subjugated for 947 years, what do you have leaders for? We had leaders who curried favor with kings and rulers but by and large were not for the people. I used to ask my father - an honest, good man - "Why did you not fight the British?". He had no answer. How many of our ICS officers said "This is not fair, we cannot be ruled by foreigners" How many people spoke up? How can leaders develop in such an environment?...we had a wonderful generation of leaders post-Independence. "

Comment: There is a hyper-simplistic view of history being propagated here; as if Indians as a whole were Free before 1000AD when they were abruptly enslaved; that year only marks the establishment of a Muslim sultanate over the far North-west and Ghazni's attacks on Somnath and NOT Muslim dominance being switched on over the whole country. Indeed, it took over half a millennium since Ghazni for 'Muslim power' to work its way down and across the rest of India. And crucially, at no point during this so-called Muslim period, was Islam a centralized, overpowering monolith (Aurangzeb tried to forge something of that sort and failed spectacularly) - even during Akbar's time, there were several Sultanates all over, coexisting with several Hindu kingdoms not too different in essence from themselves. And the 'foreignness' (cultural or ideological) of most of these Sultanates was ... well, very dubious.

Further, during the period immediately preceding 1947, fighting the British was not the sole hallmark of a genuine leader - Ambedkar, for instance, was not much of a 'freedom fighter', but certainly he was an outstanding leader - one who cared and achieved much. As for our wonderful post-independence leaders (one cannot include Patel and Ambedkar (and even Nehru) among them since they lived only the last few years of their lives in free India), I doubt if they will stand serious comparison to those who developed a couple of generations earlier.

Ironically, Murthy's analysis is a rehash of the picture of Indian History worked out by the British Colonial Masters - a history neatly divided into fundamentally different Hindu, Muslim and British periods. Detail: the latter two have been merged into 'foreign' in the new model.

Aside 1: Napoleon is said to have referred to England as "a nation of shopkeepers". It is rather unlikely that he was paying tribute to English entrepreneurship.

Aside 2: The mix: Nationalism + an extra-strong emphasis on 'strong leaders' has a real potential to brew into Fascism proper.

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On another note, here is another quote:

"I love this city,.. it gives me so much. ... the sheer joy of just going out on to the streets and the malls and meeting and talking to people; all those little conversations... they fill my loneliness.... And, I also enjoy thrusting sharp metal hooks down the throats of some of the guys I get to talk to and then nicely hang them up..."

Well, did that sound rabidly homicidal - or worse? But then, it is but a parody of this original:

"It is this river that made me a lover of Nature, a writer... you know, as a child I used to sit here everyday for hours on end, fishing. The only company were the fishes, and I would just talk and talk to them - the 'pallattis', 'kooris',..."

(Arundhati Roy in a Mallu weekly).

And here is British academician Simon Schama on an encounter with a herd of British Bison: “Oh, the bison, they were such happy animals. God, were they happy animals! They are in a little social community, like bison always used to be... and their meat, it’s staggeringly wonderful. I cooked it on a cast-iron grill last night. It’s like beef with a tang, the best beef you ever had, like superbeef, with a delicate richness to it..."

A Note To Myself

2009-04-14T07:36:00.000-07:00

This post is 'addressed' to a young lad of a generation ago who evolved into what I am today. I wish wistfully - if only I had then got to meet someone like what I now am or at least got to read something like *this*.... Of course, if that had happened, this post would never have been written!

I grew up in Kerala, among popular science books idolizing Albert Einstein. The 'Sastra Sahitya Parishad', a Mallu organization I have mentioned in some earlier posts, had built up a virtual cult around the Master - indeed if I were to say he was a grand-fatherly figure for self and a whole host of Mallu schoolers of my generation, I would not be exaggerating one bit.

Projecting Einstein as the one Scientist who really counted, 'Parishad' fed us verbalized and romanticized - and indeed, dumbed-down - interpretations of Relativity theory thru half a dozen books on the life of Einsten (one of these hagiographies began: "Dear children, each one of you would want to be a scientist, not just a scientist but a very big scientist, right? Here is the life-story of the greatest scientist of them all; try to be like him!") and countless articles which kept appearing in their Students' Magazines. To give an example of the impact all this had, I could confidently make statements like "gravity is the curvature of the space-time-continuum" at the age of 10 - and I was nowhere near being a child prodigy!

Although I developed grand dreams of becoming a Theoretical Physicist, I was never quite comfortable with Mathematics - and was clearly less than sharp at manipulating algebraic expressions. A fear slowly grew witin - what if I am fail to do lengthy calculations - to fill page after page with all those messy equations, how will I do Einstein-class work?... Then, towards the end of junior college, I read 'The Physicists' by C.P.Snow. And the following bit sank deep:

"The reader may wonder if to be a top-flight physicist, one also has to be great with Mathematics. Well, not necessarily! Indeed, more than facility with Mathematics, a profound physical intuition is what marks out an outstanding physicist. Of course, Dirac could have been any type of Mathematician, of the highest level. Feynman, Pauli and Dyson were also formidably gifted in Mathematics. But Einstein, who was bored with Mathematics, had to pick up on the way whatever Mathematics was needed in his theoretical work..."

Wow, the great Einstein (the greatest of them all!) was no great shakes with Math - and did not like it much either! Ergo, I too had a chance, if could really hone my 'physical intuition' to the required sharpness. And when, a few weeks later, I had to choose my future career, I confidently declared to Pop: "I am going to study pure Physics!". I remember using the English word 'sublime' somewhere there.

Several years passed and despite all efforts (sometimes optimistic, sometimes desperate), my Physics Research petered out; and the love affair with the subject had ended long before a certain eminent (and loud) theoretical physicist made a public declaration which went: "Our Institute has many good students. But there are also a few mediocrities and one or two deficient guys. And finally, of course, there is a certain Nandakumar!"

Utterly disillusioned, I switched to hacking software to earn a living... to continue the main story, over the next few years, thanks to a fairly rigorous study of computer programming - and the internet - I discovered Mathematics (yes, I am not saying 'rediscovered' because I never really knew it before!) and noted with considerable surprise that I was actually *liking* it!

And I found out C.P.Snow was plain wrong (perhaps I am being uncharitable here, but I even suspect he lied) - Einstein might have been no great Mathematician but he certainly greatly loved Mathematics (and he was definitely not BORED with it!). And Mathematics is a subject that returns love with the deepest fulfillment; and without connecting - viscerally - with this fulfillment, one simply cannot do anything worthwhile with any Mathematical Science, Physics included - and viewing Math as a necessary evil, as I used to, is to put it mildly, bad tactics! My discoveries also had a reassuring element: to relate to Math at gut level, one does not need to be a Math Wiz; even I could do it! Snow and the 'Parishad' books had not only missed this vital point about the quintessential nature of Math but had hopelessly - and unpardonably - obscured it.

I want to emphasize that it is simply not necessary to be 'gifted' or even terribly well-trained to make a nontrivial contribution to Mathematics. Indeed, one could say this is one crucial difference between it and Physics: the days when an energetic amateur could hope to do ground-breaking work in Physics are almost certainly over; but with Math, the scene, even now, is: "there (still) are theorems .... which have never been proved and which any fool could have guessed." From personal experience, I am very much in agreement with this quote by G.H.Hardy, although I can't share his snobbery - perhaps Hardy, having been a genius, could afford to be a bit snobbish.

Mathematics is one subject where the quality of teaching is crucially important (I can only think of Music as an area where the teacher has a comparably critical role to play) and in our country, Math remains a very poorly taught subject, including at the highest levels. One other serious problem with the way Math is introduced in our system is the element of competition it always and essentially involves. There are some who are naturally quick and sharp and there are some who are naturally competitive. And I belong to neither category. Moreover, Geometry, an area of Math which I found (quite late in life) I could relate to much more naturally than, say, Analysis, is nowadays much neglected - for example, IIT-JEE, the ultimate Desi test of *real* mathematical ability, usually has zero questions on pure geometry.

David Hilbert once remarked: "Mathematics is often confused with juggling numbers". One could rephrase it, in the context of modern Indian academia: "Mathematics is almost always confused with juggling equations - at speed!".

And I think computer programming is a very useful means to get to love Math, especially for those who are less than facile with equations. Indeed, programming and geometry were what enabled me to get to the heart of Math - more accurately, Mathematics entered my heart via programming and geometry.

I sign off with a very reassuring and more to the point, true statement (at least a hell of a lot truer than the stuff I got to read in more innocent times) on Mathematics that I heard from one of our leading experts: "It is not that Mathematicians find the subject easy. Trust me, that is just not the case. They don't find the subject easy at all. Indeed, the whole idea is not to do Math with ease or to do it better than everybody else, but to love it and to enjoy doing it!"

Religious Identities And 'Communal Violations'

2009-04-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

'Gurusagaram' ('An Infinity of Grace' in English translation) is a novel by O V Vijayan. Let me quote an episode from distant memory.

The protagonist Kunhunni is a journalist covering the Bangladesh Uprising and the aftermath of its successful conclusion (helped by Indian military intervention). While walking the streets of a war-ravaged city in the newly liberated country, a desperately poor woman tries to seduce Kunhunni. "Take me, I am Salma, I promise you...". Kunhunni gives her a tight slap, grabs her by the throat and asks: "No, you are not Salma, tell me your real name!".

"I am Kamala" she stammers. "Then why...?" before he could finish the question, she says: "You are Indian, so you must be Hindu; I thought if I had promised you an opportunity to violate a Muslim woman, that would have been an extra incentive.. get me some food!"

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N S Madhavan is a well-known Malayalam author. His famous short story 'Higuita' is an episode from the life of Geevarghese, a Mallu soccer player turned Christian priest.

Father Geevarghese runs an orphanage in Delhi. Jabbar, a local pimp/hoodlum, has designs on one of his wards, a Christian Tribal girl named Lucy. In the climax of the story, the Father confronts Jabbar in a violent showdown.

A certain old acquaintance of mine once remarked: "Did the villain need to have such an emphatically Muslim name? The place being Delhi, it makes better 'statistical sense' to for him to have a Hindu name like 'Kishan'. At least the name could have been a religion-neutral name like Roshan or Aman!"

Note: Here are some 'corrections' to the above recollections from 'Higuita' from a reader's comment (see below for the full comment): "Fr. Geevarghese is not running an orphanage. He is a parish priest and Lucy, the tribal girl is a parishioner, from Bihar. Jabbar, her tormentor, is a pathan from Bihar. In tribal areas of bihar (Jharkhand) moneylenders are mostly Kabulis".

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The Hindi movie 'Bombay' deals with the Hindu-Muslim riots which rocked Bombay in 1992-3 and their impact on an inter-religious marriage. Bollywood had earlier hardly dared to show Hindu-Muslim marriages; boys and girls of the 'opposite' religions were always brother and sister (let me note here that 'Malluwood', on the other hand has been exploring Hindu-Muslim dynamics and tensions (and marriages too) for several decades; that of course DOES NOT mean that the inter-faith relations in Kerala are more harmonious or enlightened than in the North).

I myself never saw 'Bombay'. But an acquaintance of mine, who saw it in a theatre, made this observation: "Although the movie tries - superficially - to be 'balanced', it seems to actually deepen the communal divide and connect with certain deep, 'tribal' instincts. For example, the *heroine* being a Muslim was strangely enjoyed by many in the audience. There is one scene where the girl runs frantically towards her beloved and her purdah gets caught in a thorny bush; and she throws off the veil and rushes on. The crowd roard in approval seeing her come out of the purdah - they almost seemed to take a certain vicarious pleasure in 'violating' a woman from the 'other' side!"

Note: This acquaintance does have a point. Indeed, conquering women from the 'other' side - and jealously guarding those of one's - is an obsession with Desi religious zealots of all persuasions. And I know several hyper-educated gentlemen who tend to be quite promiscuous with girls from faiths other than theirs and who also turn very protective - and territorial - about those who belong (even if only 'officially') to their own.

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About 'Chandni Bar', a critically successful movie made a few years ago on the life of a bar dancer, there were questions: "Why is the bar dancer a Muslim?", "Why does the gangster who ultimately saves her from her evil (Muslim) 'guardian' and marries her have a Hindu name?" and so forth. I don't think these questions became major public issues; and I also don't think that is any indication our society is becoming any less hung-up about religious identities than it used to be.

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That brings me to 'Slumdog'. The hero of the original story 'Q and A' had a Bollywood-style, pseudo-interfaith name 'Ram-Muhammad-Thomas' but the diector Danny Boyle rechristened him with the Muslim 'Jamal'. And his love-interest has a Hindu name Latika. Although he and his brother Salim witness, as children, their mother being cut down by a frenzied Hindu mob (during the '92 riots), religion and religious identity sit lightly on Jamal throughout the story. The 'darker' - and far more interesting - Salim gradually veers to crime and, even as he builds an impressive list of gangland murders and other 'achievements', rapes Latika and keeps her as his concubine.

The movie does not show Salim's subjection of Latika as an act with clear communal overtones; but subsequent events in the story make things rather ambiguous. Indeed, towards the climax, Salim experiences a change of heart, kills his gangster-boss and sets Latika free (to join her true love, Jamal). Just before he prepares to carry out his fateful decision, Salim dons the white cap and performs Namaaz; and having taken out his evil boss - in a hopelessly unequal battle - he dies with the Muslim declaration of the Almighty's Greatness (with 'Allah' suitably translated to the more secular 'God'). Such scenes, which emphasize a qualitative change in a acharacter with a strong affirmation of his religion (a heroically uplifting interpretation thereof), appear to insert a communal subtext into Salim's characterization and further, by 'hindsight' into his relations with Latika; and I tend to believe that this insertion was a conscious decision on the part of the director.

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Note: 'Mallu' movies with much more explicit across-the-faith 'violations' (and various types of violations, apart from sexual) have been made. A shocker of a movie on the Malabar Rebellion, titled '1921', comes to mind; although this movie did not really stir up a storm when it hit the screens (quie successfully) in the mid-eighties, no cable channel seems comfortable with the idea of re-telecasting it in our more deeply divided times. One could also note that in Malluwood, showing violations between Hindus and Christians is considered less offensive, irrespective of the 'direction' of the violation; still more 'favored' are violations between Muslims and Christians. For example, in the novie 'Dadasahib', the cop who abuses the Muslim hero as a 'Pakistani agent' is very conveniently shown as a Christian!

One may also remark that the depictions of cross-faith violations could also be masochistic, with the author's own community graphically shown at the 'receiving end'. The most telling example I could quote is a gruesome communal gang-rape described in the award-winning the Malayalam novel 'Kayar'.

In my opinion, Boyle's Firangi-ness seems to have helped in the making of 'Slumdog'- it would have been much harder for a Desi director to have made the 'unbalanced' sort of movie it is.

"You Look Worried!"

2009-03-30T03:44:00.000-07:00

A hot late afternoon. I thought of visiting the 'Crossword' Bookshop. Having walked a few kilometers, I stopped at a 'Paan Parlour' and bought a soda. Tiredly gulping down the drink, I asked the shopkeeper: "How does one reach 'Mithakali Junction'?" (the bookshop is a few blocks from that crossing). He was halfway thru his answer when another customer suddenly interrupted and asked me: "How will you go there?"

"Paidal" I said.

"Just hang on till I finish this cigarette. Will drop you there on my bike" he offered.

Although not very keen on a pillion ride, I wait.

Between puffs he asks: "Where are you from?". I give the name of our neighborhood.

"No, where is your village?" he persists.

A: "South India, ... Kerala"

Q: "Oh Kerala! And what do you do?"

A: "I am a student... computers"

Q: "But you look my age, not the age to be studying!"

A: "Earlier, I used to work as an engineer..."

Q: "And NOW,... are you not searching for a new job?"

A: "Sort of... yes."

"Good. let us go!" He has finished the fag and starts up the bike. I get on. He expertly maneauvers the bike thru the crazy Amdavad traffic. A few minutes of silence between us...

Q: "Do you mind if I give you some local contacts. They will help you find a job, a software job"

A: "... Okay".

At this point, I spot Crossword and request him to stop. He neatly avoids an oncoming scooter with the comment "These Gujaratis are mad!" and puts me safely on the sidewalk. And he has some more questions.

Q: Got cellphone?

A: No.

Q: Got pen and paper?

A: No, I am afraid.

(He quickly takes a pen and a few scraps of paper from his pocket, tears off a bit from one of the sheets and gives it to me.)

Q: Okay, write! These are the names of people of your community. Kerala people. Meet them. Number one: Mister Amit Menon, note his number.... Mister Kurian, very good man, you know the type that goes to churches... note his number too. Then Mister Mohanan...

I faithfully write down the info. He takes the paper from me. Adds another number.
And says: "This is me. I am Nayan. I too am an outsider here like you. I am from Rajasthan."

Self: Thanks very much.

Nayan: And just one word of advice: don't drink soda water. It causes gas-trouble... But yes, do contact these gentlemen. They will help you, just say you are Nayanbhai's friend... Well, you may wonder why I am giving you all this information. Ask!

Self: Er... tell me.

Nayan: When I saw you ask the way, I knew you were an immigrant. And I could make out you are worried, ... worried about life in general. So, I thought why not help this guy? You know, I run a textile shop... I know nothing about your computers and stuff but I know Men - I employ 20 people - 10 Hindus, 10 Muslims - and know them all. And in some sense, I thought I know you!

From An Objective Viewpoint

2009-03-16T05:24:00.000-07:00

the cultivated person’s first duty is to be always prepared to rewrite the Encyclopedia

- Umberto Eco.

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This long post is on how Western analyses and opinions of India-Pak (and at a deeper level, Hindu-Muslim) relations are rigorously, even obsessively 'balanced'. Having grown up hearing only one side of the stories, it was interesting to hear more 'neutral' judgments. In what follows, I mostly quote from various Western Sources. I have resisted a temptation to highlight in bold what I thought are the more illuminating phrases and opinions.

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Part 1:
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Here are some extracts, all from a lengthy article on Modern Indian History. The source shall be revealed at the end:

1.
In 1920 December, Jinnah, alienated Gandhi's mass-following of Hindi-speaking Hindus, left the Nagpur Congress...

The Muslim quarter of India's population became increasingly wary of the Congress' promises and restive in the wake of the collapse of the Khilafat movement, which occurred after Kemal Atatürk announced his modernist Turkish reforms in 1923 and disavowed the very title of caliph the following year...

Jinnah, alienated by the Mahatma and his illiterate mass of devoutly Hindu disciples, instead devoted himself to his lucrative Bombay law practice, but his energy and ambition lured him back to the leadership of the Muslim League, which he revitalized in the 1930s.

2. The Muslim League and its president, Jinnah, did not join in the Pakistan demand until after the league's famous Lahore meeting in March 1940, as Jinnah, a secular constitutionalist by predilection and training, continued to hope for a reconciliation with the Congress. Such hopes virtually disappeared, however, when Nehru refused to permit the league to form coalition ministries with the Congress majority in the United Provinces and elsewhere after the 1937 elections. Nehru... insisted there were but “two parties” in India, the Congress and the British raj. Jinnah soon proved to Nehru that the Muslims were, indeed, a formidable “third” party. The years from 1937 to 1939, the Congress actually ran most of British India's provincial governments... The Congress' partiality toward its own members, prejudice toward its majority community, and jobbery for its leadership's friends and relations all conspired to convince many Muslims that they had become second-class citizens ...

3. On Sept. 3, 1939, Viceroy Lord Linlithgow (governed 1936–43) informed India's political leaders and populace that they were at war with Germany. For Nehru and the Congress' high command, such unilateral declarations were viewed as more than insensitive British behaviour, a “betrayal,” therefore, this autocratic declaration of war was judged, and how angry it made Nehru and Gandhi feel. Instead of offering loyal support to the British raj, they demanded a prior forthright statement of Britain's postwar “goals and ideals.” Neither Linlithgow nor Lord Zetland, his Tory secretary of state, was prepared, however, to pander to the Congress' wishes at Great Britain's darkest hour of national danger. Nehru's outrage helped convince the Congress' high command to call upon all its provincial ministries to resign. Jinnah was overjoyed at this decision and proclaimed Friday, Dec. 22, 1939, a Muslim “Day of Deliverance” from the tyranny of the Congress “raj.” Jinnah met regularly with Linlithgow, moreover, and assured the viceroy that he need not fear a lack of support from India's Muslims, so many of whom were active members of Britain's armed services. Throughout World War II, as the Congress moved farther from the British, first with passive and later with active noncooperation, the Muslim League in every possible way quietly supported the war effort.

(that was the Encyclopedia Britannica, CD edition, c. 2000. To those who feel I am guilty of selective quotation and want to read the full story: a poorly formatted but largely complete electronic version of this article is at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User_talk:Rupenda_kkoshal).

And the same material may be read from the latest (as of 2009) 'hard' version of the same resource.

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Britannica, elsewhere, almost tries to argue that Pakistan is not a modern political entity but something that has been around for millennia (the 'Two-Nation theory'?) by virtually defining it as the non-Hindu portion of Indian culture; it almost locates the Buddha himself in this tradition (an extension of the Two-Nation theory?), with the following gem: "it may not perhaps be a coincidence that all areas which eventually had Muslim Majority, modern Pakistan, Kashmir and Bangladesh, had a Buddhist majority in ancient times". What is conveniently(?) forgotten here is several other regions in India were just as Buddhist in ancient times as those parts which eventually became Pakistan/Bangladesh.

The article on Jinnah has the following: "The Pakistan movement was first ridiculed and then actively opposed by the Congress. Ranged against Jinnah were men of the stature of Gandhi and Nehru; and the British seemed determined to preserve the integrity of India. But Jinnah led the movement with such skill and tenacity that final victory was his."

The article on Pakistan says: "Soon after independence, Pakistan faced seemingly insurmountable odds - India remained overtly unfriendly; its greater size and economic leverage manifested in a virtual blockade..."

And this is how the article on Zakir Hussain begins: "The first Muslim to occupy the largely ceremonial post of the President of India".

Note: I have not checked but I won't be surprised if Britannica would repeat the sentence for Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and Abdul Kalam with the word 'first' replaced by 'second' and 'third' respectively.

In a different context, Britannica says this about Nehru: "When the Chinese invaded, Nehru sought help from the West, making virtual nonsense of his non-Aligned policy"

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The crowning example of how balanced Britannica is in the way it describes how the Sikhs were affected by the Partition. Here it is:

"The Sikhs, caught in the middle of the dividing line between the two states suffered the highest percentage of casualties... (Sikh leader) Master Tara Singh said: "The Hindus got their Hindustan and the Muslims got Pakistan; what did the Sikhs get?"

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Part 2:
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The Readers Digest Library of Modern Knowledge, a mini-encyclopedia published in the late 1970s had an interesting feature about it. While talking of the (then) two Germanies, the history of the (breakaway) Eastern portion (commie GDR) was treated as something that began in 1945 (the earlier history of eastern Germany was treated in the article on the larger West Germany). Similarly, the history of North Korea began only from when the Koreas separated. However, the section on Pakistan history began not in 1947 but BC 2700 at Mohenjo Daro and encompassed Qasim and Ghauri and the Mughals on to Jinnah and then post 1947.

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Almost every single BBC report on Kashimir contains the mandatory(?) sentence: "India has persistently accused Pakistan of supporting the Kashmir insurgency, an accusation Pakistan has consistently denied". The sentence 'The Kashmir insurgency met with a robust response from the Indian security forces' used to be part of BBC's Kashmir profile. Recently, the word 'robust' was replaced with the more balanced (?) 'brutal'. And here is a typical sentence from a BBC Kashmir report: "The Police shot dead ... civilians ..." - in direct active voice, not "... civilians were killed in clashes with Police".

Recently there was some outrage in Indian media (most powerfully articulated by M.J.Akbar) over BBC's persistent characterization of the Bombay attackers as '(unidentified?)gunmen' and not 'Pakistan-based terrorists' as India referred to them.

BBC's brief description of India has phrases such as "officially Secular but pre-Dominantly Hindu" and on Indo-Pak relations, BBC says: "Kashmir is only one aspect of the unfinished business of Partition. Both national identities are defined in large part by contrast with the other."

Comment: The above, to me, implies the following definition of India: That part of South Asia which is not Pakistan. If my Reader does not agree, here is another BBC gem: "The partition of 1947 created two new countries - predominantly Muslim West and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and Hindu-majority India wedged in between."

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Part 3:
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A very interesting website is maintained by American Prof and Hindi movie buff Philip Lutgendorf. The reviews of mainstream Bollywood movies by Lutgendorf and collaborators consistently make for rewarding reading...

Here are some samples:

1. "Hrithik Roshan’s rise to megastardom has been dramatic even by Bollywood standards; he became a household name in India (and for some households, a sort of Great Hindu Hope after a decade dominated by Khans: Salman, Shah Rukh, and Aamir)"

(note: google with "great hindu hope" and "hrithik" and the ONLY webpage that comes up is Lutgendorff's. *This* page will be the second)

2. On "Mission Kashmir": "... secessionist militants are sympathetically shown as good-natured, tea-drinking boys who have simply fallen into Bad (Islamic fundamentalist) Company—though this furthers the depiction of Muslims as errant children who need to be straightened out. To balance this, we momentarily hear the vengeful rhetoric of a Kashmiri pandit policeman talking about brahmans having to flee their ancestral homes; he is then chastened by a Sikh comrade who lost his family in the New Delhi pogroms of 1984—suggesting that everyone has suffered and everyone must forgive (though this begs the question of why minorities suffer and have to forgive more)."

3. Again on "Mission Kashmir": Altaaf takes time out to dance exuberantly in her televised spectacles of National Integration. These might be auto-parody, or just incredibly bad taste: they conjure up a Never-Never-Kashmir, literally Made For (and of) TV, with “lakes” formed of glass blocks that resemble sets, upon which colorfully-costumed “natives” sing souped-up Kashmiri folksongs about bumble bees and communal harmony, with all the enthusiasm of, say, Chinese extras in a Beijing musical about life in Lhasa….

4. On 'Fiza': This glossy, uneven film promises a welcome break from recent feel-good saffron majoritarian narratives -- in which Muslim actors like Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan play a succession of upper-class Hindu boys named Rahul or Vijay -- by portraying the life, or rather demise, of a middle-class Muslim family in the aftermath of the Mumbai riots of 1993 (which were in fact largely anti-Muslim pogroms).

Note 1: No explanation as to how 'DDLJ', 'K3G', 'Dil To Pagal Hai', 'Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai' etc. were "Saffron Majoritarian" although they were all obviously 'feel good'.

Note 2: About the Mumbai riots, even Desi Scholar Ramachandra Guha appears to concur with Lutgendorff ('India After Gandhi'): "Nearly two-thirds of the casualties were Muslim, although they formed only just over 15 percent of the city's population", (this estimate does not count the bomb blasts that closely followed the main riots).

5. On 'Dil Se': The film's explosive and haunting conclusion leaves a number of questions unanswered—one being whether its open-endedness is intentional or due to a failure of directorial vision. Assuming the former, one reading of the film is as a gendered anti-nationalist allegory in which "All-India" Amar represents the Hindu-majoritarian centre and Meghna the alienated ethnic and religious minorities and peripheral states. In this interpretation, (director) Ratnam ingeniously turns Khan's trademark bouncy, self-centered screen persona against itself, to craft a political commentary on the hypocrisy and ultimate failure of centrist programs of "national integration." The hero labors manfully to lure the heroine into a lasting union based on (his) ideals, asking her to forget past injustices and (literal) violations; his implicit message—"Just love me and everything will be all right!"—appears increasingly idiotic as we learn more about her life. His love is as selfish as it is passionate, and both blind to and seemingly uninterested in the reality of Meghna's traumatic past. The result of his unrelenting pursuit of his romantic dream is not a happy ending, nor an optimistic portent for the nation.

6. About "Hey! Ram": ... an ultimately pro-Gandhi epic that nonetheless ventures deeply and sympathetically into the minds of his staunchest political enemies (and eventual assassins): the votaries of Hindutva.

Note: It would be interesting to see Lutgendorf review 'Slumdog'; although no proper Desi product, the movie seems to try - very consciously - to correct several of what Lutgendorf repeatedly highlights as Bollywood's 'majoritarian' tendencies.

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Tailpiece:
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Let me conclude with one of the most interesting India-Pak hyphenations I have seen. I won't name the author of this quote - it is from a travelog on Malaysia.

Malaysia can give India a lesson or two on how to treat religious minorities in a democracy; and it can can teach Pakistan how tolerant a Muslim country ought to be.

Of Names And Naming Wars

2009-03-11T09:50:00.000-07:00

When people choose modern 'all-India' names such as Pravin, Mohan and Sunil,... for their children, they don't realize they are contributing to the marginalization and demise of rich local cultural traditions. For all their national - and indeed pan-Hindu - appeal and reach, names such as Sunil or Mohan are hardly 'pure Desi'. Indeed, the correct Sanskrit original of Sunil is 'Sunilah' and 'Sunil' is a by-product of the forceful violation of Sanskrit by the Turko-Iranian syllabaries brought by Muslim invaders. ... it is but a sad fact that for each baby christened Sunil or Mohan, there is a Koran, a Chappan or an Othenan (some old Malayali Male names)consigned to oblivion.

That was eminent Malayali writer O.V.Vijayan, sometime around 1990.

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The other day, I read this bit said by Ghelubhai Nayak, an elderly Gandhian social worker and activist who works among the poor (and largely tribal) population of the Dangs region, Gujarat (Times of India, March 10, 2009):

"During my work (among Tribals), I realized that changing the names of Tribals will make a lot of difference to them. With names like Ravio, Thagio, Budhiyo, Somo, Mangu, Ravji,... they stick out like sore thumbs. And if we want them to join the mainstream society, they should not feel awkward... I gave them names like Sukhdev, Mangalbhai, Ramesh... and they, in turn have learnt to give more commonplace names to their children."

As is well-known, Dangs has for long been witnessing a full-blown turf war for the souls of its population, between Christian Evangelists and Hindu 'Reconverters'. And 'Ghelukaka', while probably not a Sangh Parivar-member, is among those actively involved from the Hindu side - his interest appears to be more in preventing conversion rather than retrieving converted souls. At any rate, it is obvious that his renaming activity has a strong religious (communal, if you wish) angle to it, something the Times report has not mentioned at all.

In this same conversion-context, let me quote an old acquaintance, a Telugu by name (say) Vinay. "My grandparents were very poor. They were approached by some local Missionaries who said they will educate their son - my dad that is - for free. In return they requested that they be allowed to give him a Christian name. So, my dad, who is still basically a Hindu, has the name 'Asirvadam' (a standard Desi Christian name meaning 'blessing')."

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Note 1: Interestingly, Ghelubhai did not apply the 'joining the mainstream' argument to his own name. 'Ghelu' appears a very local, most probably pure Gujju name - though it sounds somewhat similar to the (now old-fashioned) coastal Marathi name 'Zilu' (pronounced 'Jheelu'), which may well be the only purely Desi (Hindu, if you wish) name beginning with a 'z'.

Note 2: And O.V.Vijayan himself named his son 'Madhu' - which is in no way a specifically Keralan name, although there are thousands of Mallus belonging to my generation with that name. And up North, Madhu is usually a female name; and 'typically dense-mooched' Mallu migrants who answer to that name do cause a lot of confusion.

Extension:
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A recent (post 1950) phenomenon is the sharply increasing prevalence of 'mainstream' Indian (even obviously Hindu) first names among the Christian communities in the South - and to a lesser extent, practising Hindus adopting Christian-sounding names. It is not clear if it is any urge to 'join the mainstream' that drives these trends. And such naming is often observed to lead to rather 'interesting' social difficulties. Indeed, for all our 'secularist' efforts and pretensions, one-on-one behavior and conversations between individuals is still strongly moulded (at least regulated) by the information the parties have of each others social (caste + religious) identity - and the deliberate(?) obfuscation of this identity by adopting 'neutral' or even the 'wrong' kind of names often leads to 'troublesome' things (critical remarks on other religions, politically dubious jokes, etc..) being articulated to an inappropriate audience.

I will leave it to a better-equipped future chronicler to comment on these naming fashions among people - whether the trend persists, what effects it has in the long run etc...

But for now, let me briefly look at the *institutional* name 'Dharmaram', given to a famous Bangalore college. When I first heard the name, it *felt* like it has something to do with 'Ram', the Hindu God. Then when I visited the place as a schooler, I was quite surprised to see an out-and-out Christian Theological institution - not for long though, as a resident priest explained the name to us: "In Sanskrit, 'Dharma' means 'Virtue' and 'Aram' (with both 'a's stretched in pronunciation,like in ... 'Ram') means 'Garden'. So, the full word means 'The garden of virtue'"

The derivation had sounded quite smart (and appropriate even at a physical level - the institution maintains some really beautiful gardens); but later I understood it has a little but non-trivial problem: There is a Sanskrit word 'aramam' which means Garden all right - but there is no 'aram'.

One could readily argue that the college name is actually Hindi rather than Sanskrit and neuter nouns in Sanskrit often lose an ending 'am' when adopted by Hindi (eg: 'anandam' went to anand') and so 'aramam' could go to 'aram'. But that is not going to work either! The word is already 'taken'; there is already an 'aram' in Hindi, which came perhaps from Persian, and means 'pleasure' or 'relaxation'. And 'dharma' too, when going from Sanskrit to Hindi has a subtle meaning shift and begins to mean 'religion'. So, if the language is taken to be Hindi, 'Dharmaram' will be a not-entirely-sensible compound of two words meaning 'religion' and 'pleasure'.

Of course, the 'problem' has a simple resolution: to change the name of the institution to 'Dharmaramam' which sounds Sanskrit and properly means 'The garden of virtue' as intended. But then, it won't quite have the effect - and impact - that comes from sounding interestingly close to 'Ram'.

A Snake God - And A Name

2009-03-06T23:11:00.000-08:00

I wrote here sometime ago about some unusual divinities (especially bestial ones) that enrich the folk pantheon of Gujarat. This post is a short addition; and a bit more.

At almost every third or fourth roadside joint in Ahmedabad, one sees among the icons, pictures of a formidable hooded cobra. A bit of research took me to wikipedia:

Gogaji ... is a folk deity of Rajasthan state in India. He was an eminent warrior-hero of the region. Hindus and Muslims alike honor him. He is also venerated as a saint and even as 'snake-god'. He is known as Goga among the Hindus and Jahar Peer among the Muslims. .... Gogaji is popular as a snake-god ... In Gujarat, an annual procession is taken out in honour of the great warrior.

A grand fair is held at Gogamedi, which is 359 km from Jaipur,... The inscription in Persian at the main entrance describes Mahmud of Ghazni's regard for Gogaji(it does not get any more Hindu-Muslim-Bhai-Bhai than that!)
...

Gugga Pir (Zehar Pir) The great Indian Hindu was a Rajput warrior-king. He was reputed to have the power to miraculously cure those suffering from snake bites. He was also referred to as king of snakes and initiated by a Muslim Pir, and is worshipped in North India and Pakistan... Probably there was some relationship between Jhule Lal the great Pir of Sindh and Gugga Pir.

(Elsewhere Goga is said to have been Gorakhnath's disciple. Among people (nick)named after the hero are Pakistani wrestler Goga Pehelwan and rugged Bollywood actor Goga Kapoor)
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Here is a different serpentine piece, a very old bit of conversation featuring a certain 'Jack' and Self:

Jack: A relative of mine has just had a third son. And he is seriously searching for a name that rhymes with those of his elder sons. And finding it real difficult...

Self: What are the existing names?

Jack: Dileep and Pradeep. So...

Self: Guess he wants a name with an 'eep' ending... How about 'Sandeep'?

Jack: I suggested just that. But, Sandeep means the same as 'Pradeep'. And 'Dileep' means something else... Basically, he wants an 'eep' but with a different meaning to the two already in place.

Self: Hmm, heard a name 'Nirleep', or something of that sort.

Jack: Tough luck! I examined that as well. 'Nirleep' is a bit of misspelling. The correct word is 'Nirlep' but that has a slightly different ending sound. So...

(pause)

Self: You seem to have done some serious research...

Jack: Yeah ... and know what, the only word I could find satisfying the specs is 'Sarisreep'... but then, that means 'Serpent', a terrible serpent at that!

........

Note: 'Maheep' (rhyming with English word 'deep') would have been a neat fit to the specs; but perhaps 'Mahip' (rhyming with 'slip')is the spelling that correctly reflects the pronunciation of the original Sanskrit word meaning 'king'. And it might well be the case that both 'ip' and 'eep' are allowed - one of the rare such cases. To give another example, 'Dilip' is a bit of inaccurate spelling; 'Dileep' is truer to the original.

I really dunno what name the then newborn received. But, I do know, however, about someone else who, having named his first-born 'Gireesh' ('lord of the mountain', could be Siva or Vishnu or even fellow-Mallu Ayyappa, depending on which mountain one chooses as reference), thought of naming his junior son 'Pureesh' ('lord of Puri', Krishna) and then was told by someone in the know that 'pureesham' in Sanskrit (which naturally goes to 'pureesh' in Hindi) meant ... 'shit'! The crux of the matter is that the final letters of 'Pureesh' and 'pureesh' are in fact different (though similar-sounding) consonants in Sanskrit/Hindi which are usually mapped onto the same 'sh' group in English.

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Update (15th August 2009): For the corresponding Sanskrit word, 'Maheep' is a correcter English spelling than 'Mahip', as I have found out by asking a Sanskrit expert. That solves the naming problem.

'The Loop' - Sixty Days On

2009-02-22T20:25:00.000-08:00

On 18th of December 2008, I went public with my work of fiction 'The Loop' . Having put the entire work online, I decided to rely entirely on word-of-mouth to reach out to readers/publishers/critics. Now, I am in the mood for some stock-taking...

Here are some opinions generated by the work. Thanks to everybody who wrote in. Those who want to know about the readership stats could jump to the end of the italicized portion:

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1. Very interesting ... and I would say, very refreshing! I really could identify with Lucky, and guess many, many others would as well.

2. Full of life and creativity; ... dazzling ideas and allusions. Well worth a re-read!

3. There are no serious flaws... (but) not gripping or extraordinary. The work lacks a strong plot and "Wow!" moments.

4. I am impressed! Very tight and very apt. The satirical take over the corporate processes and academic pretensions develops subtly yet strongly. And I loved some of the character names: Kali Gulesh, Afflatus, Shlomo Sen.... Well done!

5. Excellent job! I read it in one sitting.... engrossing.

6. Deeply disturbing, while being positively hilarious. Having experienced both academia and industry myself, I can really relate to it.

7. Read about a dozen pages and gave up - I could not really figure out what was going on.

8. Just one word: fantastic!

9. Very engaging and very REAL. Three characters standout for me : spooky Gadfly, murky Afflatus and above all, Shlomo Sen, the 'sage'.

10. Tried really hard to read it - guess it is some kind of satire about software or maybe about life in general - but gave up when I saw 'productization' for the third time. (The author) would be better served by reading fiction rather than trying to write it.

11.At a quick glance, I could sense a flow in the events. Thought I will give a proper opinion after a proper read, which did not happen.

12. I am not reading your story, and I am sorry!

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The readership: After some sharp and massive fluctuations over the first fortnight or so, the traffic thru the site has stabilized to a very steady 0.75 visits per day.

The 'Barber Problem'

2009-02-17T22:37:00.000-08:00

This post is on the sad *irony* of being a barber, not the 'Barber Paradox' (see Wikipedia).

A movie 'Billu', featuring a hairdresser protagonist, has just been released. The original name of the film was 'Billu Barber'; widespread protests caused the name-trim.

Wikipedia has an article on 'Barber' and it says:

A barber (from the Latin barba, "beard") is someone whose occupation is to cut any type of hair, give shaves, and trim beards. In previous times, barbers also performed surgery and dentistry. In more recent times, with the development of safety razors and the decreasing prevalence of beards, most barbers primarily cut hair. Some hairdressers consider the term derogatory.
...
The place where a barber works is generally called a barbershop, or simply the "barber's".

'Billu' is the remake of a Malayalam movie which has no 'barber' in its name, but freely uses the word itself in dialogs and especially in an 'introduction song' which went somewhat like "Meet Balan, the Barber with a difference!"

I don't think too many in Kerala protested the song (which, while being quite silly, also had a few interesting phrases describing the barber's trade and how the hero is refreshingly different from other run-of-the-mill practitioners thereof). But the fact is the word 'barber' became unfashionable and slangy quite a long time ago in Kerala too, just as it did elsewhere in India. Barbershops came to be named 'saloons' long ago and now one also sees 'hairdressers', 'hairstylists', 'men's beauty parlour' and so forth.

But Keralan conversation (and movie dialogs) continues to abound in very derogatory (indeed scandalous) remarks about what the barber's job. It is standard to rebuke someone loafing around with "If you are good for nothing else, you could at least go and shave someone!". "If you win, I will be your barber!" is again a standard rhetorical challenge between contestants. Even Mallu IT professionals, when describing what is 'shit shovelling work' to others, uses 'cherappu', a slang word which literally means 'knife work' (shaving, that is) (*).

Here is a bit of over-the-top dialog from the latest Mallu megahit movie 'Twenty-twenty': "You will pay for this! You have no idea about my uncle... he has been in politics for twenty years and mind you active power politics; he was not exactly shaving anybody!"

In the former Hindu social hierarchy of Kerala, there probably was no single barber caste. Everyone needed a shave of course, but due to the stringent untouchability constraints, there could not have been a single barber caste for all, but several distinct communities which practised 'barbery'. So, most probably, the denigration is of the trade itself rather than a caste.

Even the more egalitarian Muslim community of Kerala used to look down upon 'Ossans' - barbers, who were themselves Muslim. Indeed, the Ossans were the perhaps the only Indian barber community that used to do a bit of surgery - they used to perform circumcision operations (the source for this bit is 'Kunhayante Kusrithikal' by V.P Muhammad, a very interesting Malayalam story, which deserves a future post).

Leaving Kerala behind, I would like to quote two 'legendary' episodes, which illustrate, quite tellingly, the barber's plight, in an all-India context:

1. In the Mahabharata, when the Pandavas were in exile, king Jayadratha happened to pass by their jungle dwelling. He saw Draupadi at home and seeing that her husbands had gone out, tried to get fresh with her. Unfortunately for him, the Pandavas suddenly appeared on the scene and beat the hell out of him. After some debate, the brothers spare Jayadratha's life but decide to hand out the worst possible humiliation.

"Bhima took a crescent-headed arrow and randomly tonsured Jayadratha's head, leaving a few tufts here and there - the once-proud king now looked downright ridiculous. Then having given him a couple more of painful smacks on the head with the back of his palm, Bhima told him: "Get lost! And if you meet someone, introduce yourself: 'I am the Pandavas' barber'". Jayadratha, trembling, agreed!"

(source: 'Mahabharata for Children' Mallu translation from Upendra Kishore Raychoudhari's (incidentally, Grandmaster Satyajit Ray's grandfather) early 20th century Bengali retelling 'Chheleder Mahabharat'. I am not sure whether that bit of dialog is from Vyasa's Mahabharata or was Upendra's invention - or for that matter, the Mallu translators')

Ridiculing the barber apart, giving an ugly tonsure has for long been a common abusive punishment. Elsewhere in mythology, Krishna gives his bro-in-law Rukmi a taste of this treatment.

2. Sometime in the 18th century, the Maratha Empire Peshwa, Baji Rao and his rival, the Nizam Ul Mulk had an encounter. The latter, having failed to outsmart Baji Rao, semi-mockingly praises him: "Ek Baji, aur sab Paji!" (There is only one Baji, the others are rogues!") to which the Peshwa replies: "Ek Nizam aur sab Hazaam!" (There is only one Nizam, the rest, mere barbers!)

(source: the Amar Chitra Katha volume on Baji Rao).

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(*) The Mallu slang word 'cherappu' is a corruption of 'churappu' which in turn is derived from the sanskrit word 'kshuram', meaning knife/razor. The sanskrit word for barber is 'kshuraka', the knife-man. And even in Tamil the word 'serappu' has the same nasty connotations as the Mallu 'cherappu'.

An old Mallu (and even Tamil) word for barber is 'ambattan' which is now, while quite politically incorrect, freely used, including in (Mallu) movies. Interestingly, 'Ambashtha', which probably is the Sanskrit root of this word, is the name of a Kayastha (traditionally an upper caste) subgroup in the North. The same word is also said to be listed in Manusmriti as 'one of the upper subcastes resulting from inter-caste marriages', whatever that means!

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Updates (June 2011): The bit about someone being a barber from the 'Mahabharata' is probably an invention of Parukkutti Amma and Sarojini Nair, who translated Upendra Kishore's Bengali 'Chheleder Mahabharat' into Mal. Quite recently, I checked in the original and Bhima tells Jayadratha to "introduce yourself as Pandavas' *slave*". Of course, that was a 21st century edition of the book so a bit of censoring might have happened!

Irfan Habib's 'People's History of India' (volume 5) reports, quoting a pre-Christian Greek source, that the allegedly tyrannical Nanda kings of Magadha (4th century BC) were said to hail from a family of barbers. And according to the same book, one the tribes encountered by Alexander in west Punjab were called the 'Ambashthas'!

Update (Jan 2012): I just discovered, the 'adhwaryu' the chief priest ('rtwik') of 'Sagnikam Atiratram', a highly complex classical Vedic sacrifice, has to do a barber's job - he has to shave the 'yajamana' - the principal sponsor of the sacrifice and this shaving is part of the cycle of rituals. Let me also note here that the adhwaryu has to be a kushava (potter) too - he has to personally mold and bake an earthen pot which is used later in the ceremony. This is interesting since the work of the kushava is traditionally has been looked down upon in Hindu society (at least in Kerala) as the barber's.

MP - Bits And Pieces

2009-02-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

Wrapping up the series of posts on Madhya Pradesh...

Indore: I had heard this is a boom town of sorts, Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar apart, the only place in India with *both* an IIT and an IIM. Some swanky malls and stuff have indeed sprung up indicating metropolis-ness. But the fact of the matter, infrastructurally speaking, is that much of this bustling city is a major pain - terrible, conjested roads (many of which seem perpetually under construction), poor public transport dominated by awful auto-rickshaws, severe air pollution ...

In the 'Rajwada' palace, we saw a museum with modern (and undistinguished) copies of classic Chola bronzes, including one of the famous 'Vrishabhavahana'. Indeed, for a fairly long while (18th-19th centuries), Marathas were in power here as well as in Tanjavur and there even seems to have been considerable cultural give-and-take. Cricketer Rahul Dravid's family is said to have migrated from down south and settled down in Indore (several generations ago) and even adopted Marathi as their 'home language'- although the surname still references their Southern roots.

Bhopal: There is much in Bhopal that reminds me of Hyderabad - a crowded old city and a considerably more spacious new city, large Muslim population, undulating, rocky terrain, a huge lake,... Some of the areas (MP Nagar for example) have very wide roads and a neat new railway station has come up at Habibgunj; but these planned features notwithstanding, the city is quite a haphazard affair - and some parts are godawful (for instance, the 4 kilometer stretch from the Station onto the highway to Sanchi, where one needs to negotiate two level railway crossings in succession). The urban area has expanded very irregularly, thinning out into empty country in less than half a dozen kilometers from the main Station towards the North and straggling well over 20 kilometers up to and beyond the industrial areas of Mandidip to the South. The city bus service is pathetic and the main bus stand (from where buses run as far away as Nagpur and Kanpur) is one of the worst I have seen. And to top it all, at least some of Bhopal's autowallahs can give even their notorious Chennai counterparts a run for their money.

Overall, Indore and Bhopal are now at a stage where Bangalore and Hyderabad found themselves a generation ago - and growing just as explosively. One hopes (although present indications are not too propitious) that these new up-and-coming cities handle growth better than the southern metropolises.

Landscapes: I did not 'feel' much difference between the vast plateau that makes up most of Madhya Pradesh and Deccan proper - the Narmada valley cutting right between apart, the two could perhaps be seen as parts of the same geological formation, although most basic textbooks treat them as separate entities... Throughout the rural MP that I got to see, agriculture is dominant although (apart from the vicinity of Narmada) not very intensive - maybe due to poor irragation. I don't remember seeing a single coconut tree anywhere in the state - in Maharashtra they are at least sporadically visible.

One big surprise of this journey has been the 'ghat section' on the railway between between Hoshangabad and Bhopal. The train crosses the Narmada and works its way up the edge of the Vindhyas, past some sheer cliffs, impressive sandstone formations and lush vegetation - I would love to walk the stretch sometime, preferably during the monsoon. Similar, though less rugged, is the shorter stretch on the Jabalpur-Itarsi section between Sontalai and Gagra Tawa, cutting across the Satpuras - somewhere near there, I saw from the train a blackbuck fawn, blithely bouncing over a patch of cultivation.

Developmentally speaking: MP seems to be an improvement over UP but is several steps behind Maharashtra/Gujarat. Indeed, this trip threw up a most poignant rural image - a State-sponsored sign written prominently all over: "Show your love and respect for your wife, daughter and daughter-in-law; build a toilet at home"

Bhimbetka

2009-02-11T23:36:00.000-08:00

An hour or so by (rickety) bus from Bhopal is the bustling town of Obaidullagunj. The 'book' told me there were frequent buses from here to Hoshangabad and that Bhimbetka is about 8 kilometers down that way. Over half an hour of waiting, I did see a couple of buses bound for Hoshangabad and asked the crew if they went via Bhimbetka. The answer was a loud "No!" followed by a louder signal to the driver to move on.

Puzzled, I asked a shopkeeper how one could get a bus to Bhimbetka.

Shopkeeper: No buses! Flag down a truck going that way (points). After some time, you will see a path branching off to Bhimbetka, marked. Get down there and tramp an hour uphill and that is it.

Self: But I was told, buses to Hoshangabad ...

Shopkeeper: They simply won't take you on if you are going only up to Bhimbetka. You will waste a seat for them.

Self: Guess one could buy a ticket all the way to Hoshangabad and get down...

Shopkeeper: But why would you want to waste twenty rupees! Why don't you just catch a truck ... and where are you from?

Self: Just came from Bhopal.

Shopkeeper: Well, you certainly are not Bhopali!

Self: I am visiting Bhopal.

Shopkeeper: From?

Self: Amdavad, Gujarat.

Shopkeeper: Ah, that explains it!

(I thank him and leave, without asking what it is that has just got explained)

I took the advice and soon enough, got onto a truck and a quarter of an hour ride (five bucks) thru flat cropland took me to the 'Bhimbetka junction'. The path to Bhimbetka crosses the main railway line from Bhopal to South and soon starts going uphill - a stiff 2 km climb and one enters a rugged sandstone landscape (a very far cry from the ironed out flats that have just been left behind). To the south stretches rolling hill country, scrubby, with clumps of boulders... Geography tells me this is the beginning of the 'Vindhya Horst', which a few dozen kilometers farther south plunges into the 'Narmada Graben'.

The world heritage site of Bhimbetka, another kilometer ahead, consists primarily of a tight group of huge sandstone formations (clustered within a hundred or so acres). There are no caves as such but the immense rock masses have gotten eroded at their base into vast natural shelters, refreshingly cool even in hot midday. Stone age cave paintings have been found on the walls of many of these shelters. Apart from 'stick figures' engaged in hunts, there are paintings of hordes of animals (especially in one particular shelter named the 'zoo').

There are some battle scenes - for instance, two horsemen battling it out with clubs. There are also a few dance scenes - including one in which several stick-humans form a chain, with each dancer holding the arms of the next dancer but one (just the kind of dance they used to show often on the telly in late 1980's featuring Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi among Central Indian Tribals). I don't remember seeing any bowmen.

The rock formations impressed me more than the art. The largest of the lot looked like a gigantic prehistoric reptile, petrified - its 'head' rises well over 50 feet and its long, winding 'body' is supported on 4-5 'legs'; and one walks along a passage under its 'belly'. At twilight, the color effects of sandstone (I had first witnessed these in far away Badami, a full 3 years ago) were again on display all around.

Wikipedia says: "As (archeologist)V. S. Wakankar was traveling by train to Bhopal he saw some rock formations similar to those he had seen in Spain and France. He visited the area along with a team of archaeologists and discovered several prehistoric rock shelters in 1957."

I doubt the comparison there. The famous 'cave artists' of Europe lived in limestone caves which are fundamentally different from the Bhimbetka sandstone shelters. Clearly the better parallel is to the Tassili Plateau in the heart of Sahara desert - immense and spectacularly eroded sandstone pillars and rock shelters brimming with paleolithic art (some of which much more sophisticated than the specimens here in Bhimbetka); and I guess *that* must indeed have been the parallel that guided Wakankar.

Note: Quite recently, well-known Malayalam writer Anand has included a very atmospheric meditation on Bhimbetka (without naming the place) in a short-story titled 'Out of Schedule'.

An Encounter

2009-02-07T08:27:00.000-08:00

Not far from where we live in Ahmedabad is a vast mall. At least every other evening, I go there and park on one of the benches in the cavernous atrium. An 'Australian Cookies' shop serves up a package of a cup of pretty good 'machine coffee' + a couple of cookies, at a price that I can still afford ...

Yesterday seemed no different from any other day. I had had my cup and was watching the crowd and thinking some vague thoughts when someone came and sat on the same bench. I did not pay any attention for a while; then I heard the question: "Are you a local guy?" in English. I looked up and saw a thin speckie, somewhere in his early twenties.

Self: Well, I live here ...

Speckie: But ... are you Gujju?

Self: No, I have been here just a few months...

Speckie: Okay, I came here just the other day. So you must know this place better... So, tell me, is there some nice place to visit out here?...

Self: Hmm, there are some interesting spots around the city. Depends on your taste...

Speckie: Oh, you can be sure, I have pretty good tastes; I am from Bombay, you know!

Self: Well, one nice place not too far is a bird sanctuary. But you may need to...

Speckie: Birds? Oh, no. Not my kind of thing. You mean, they have a whole lot of cages and birds are kept...

Self: No, it is an open area, a lake...

Speckie: You mean, a National Park sort of thing?

Self: Yeah.

Speckie: And what kind of birds do you see there?

Self: Those migratory birds; like even in Bombay, you have flamingoes coming for a visit...

Speckie: Oh yeah, all those creeks and stuff, yucky-mucky places, so much filth, man, nobody goes there!

Self: Well... this place is not that type....

Speckie: Oh, but, that sounds too dull anyways! Anything closer?

Self: Within the city,... well, it depends; there are some old monuments, bazars and stuff... Then..

Speckie (interrupting): But you know what, this whole place is real boring. Not like Bombay, well, ever been there?

Self: Yeah, rather often.

Speckie: Cool, been to Lokhandwala? Some of those malls there...

Self: No.

Speckie: Well, Bandra Bandstand...

Self: Not really.

Speckie: Hey, you simply don't know Bombay then!... you know, my problem is ... this crowd. These girls (sweeps his hand around) are no good. They dunno what it is like. Ever seen Bombay girls?

Self: Yes. they are smart, more trendy.

Speckie: That is an understatement, man! You go to Lokhandwala and just see those malls. Yeah, and phenomenal maals. Well, you get what I mean right?

Self: Guess so!

Speckie: Any place in this city where you get a better crowd than this? You know, I am bloody stuck here for another couple of days. And I just want some cool place to hang out for something like a day! Any really nice mall?

Self: There are some malls in the Satellite area. That is a bit more hifi place, you know, richer people...

Speckie: But I bet it wont be like Bombay.

Self: It may not be. You might just find the crowd there more to your liking. But, well, I am not sure. Whenever I went there, things looked just like this!

Speckie: Boring place, this Ahmedabad! and on top of it, no booze! (pauses a while) Well, you are South Indian?

Self: Basically, yes.

Speckie: Where, Bangalore, Mangalore...

Self: Kerala.

Speckie: Kerala, people there are called Mallus, Malabaris, right?

Self: Yeah.

Speckie: Kerala, yes, the place that is number one in suicides, number one in literacy and .. yes, number one in rapes!

(short pause)

Speckie: And man, I hear, Mallus drink like hell too, right?

Self: They do.

Speckie: But you know, you guys can never beat the Goans. No way! Ever been to Goa, Folks just drink all the time. Papa, Mama, Brother, Sister, ... all sit and booze and booze ... well, they have a ...

(pauses in some thought)

Speckie: Now, how do I go to Usmanpura?

Self: It is about 10 km from here. You could take a bus to Ashram Road and go from there perhaps. Otherwise, take a rick.

Speckie: How much will the rick guy charge?

Self: About 50 bucks.

Speckie: Cool, man! Just 50 bucks for 10 kilometers?

Self: Yes. they are much cheaper here than in Bombay.

Speckie: So, here you at least have better ricks; but make no mistake, we have much better chicks. And no points for guessing which of the two I would prefer to...well, haha!

(short pause)

Speckie: Anyways, got to move now. Okay, have a good time here, well manage with what you have! It was nice talking to you, man!

(raises a clenched fist; I raise an open palm anticipating a high-five)

Speckie: Hey, not that way, close your fist!... Ah that is better, that is the way we do it in Bombay...

(he punches my fist with surprising gentleness and walks out).

'Jabali's City' - Or Is It?

2009-01-29T07:12:00.000-08:00

Note: Shall explain the title towards the end of the post. For the time being, the MP travelog continues...

We were in Jabalpur, a city deep inside Madhya Pradesh, for a day and a quarter.

From near the city bus-stand, I boarded a six-seater rickshaw. Nearly an hour of travel (the first half dozen kilometers of these were over some outrageous - even by MP standards - city roads; things improve outside city limits as one gets onto the 'National Highway' to Bhopal) left me at the village of Bheraghat, on the banks of the Narmada. A short walk from here are the Dhuandhar waterfalls; the river splits into two and makes an impressive plunge - something like 50 feet. The two streams then rejoin and the river proceeds to seethe thru a very narrow gorge (at some points just about 30 feet across) it has, over the aeons, sliced through a huge mass of limestone. The gorge slowly opens out - and the river widens - past the temples of Bheraghat.

The limestone walls of the Dhuandhar-Bheraghat gorge(*) are impressively massive and the rock is sharply foliated. At the lower levels, the grey limestone appears metamorphosed into milky white and porous marble - giving the area the popular name 'Marble Rocks'.

A very striking feature of the gorge is the pronounced slant of the its walls - as one looks downstream, an inclination of the order of 15-20 degrees from the vertical, from top right to bottom left, is clearly visible - and this inclination is faithfully (and intriguingly) reflected in the foliations of the rock masses. To explain this slant, one is tempted to invoke the (oft misunderstood) Coriolis force, which causes free-moving objects to veer rightwards in the Northern Hemisphere and determines which way cyclonic stomes whirl (and *does not* determine which way water draining off a toilet bowl is going to spiral). However, my (naive?) understanding of this force tells me the slant should be (looking downstream) from top left to bottom right, just the *opposite* of what Bheraghat shows. Well, I dunno!

Speculation: The river is alleged to be over a hundred feet deep within the gorge => only the upper portion of the gorge (less than half) is visible. This upper portion might well have been cut when the Indian landmass was in still the *Southern* hemisphere, during its long journey towards the collision with Asia - so the 'Coriolis slant' of this upper portion should actually be consistent with being in the Southern hemisphere, as is indeed observed. And perhaps deep down in the gorge, the river might have 'switched' the slant. Well, that should be enough geology for now!

From Bheraghat, manually rowed boats take tourists up the river into the deepest part of the gorge; here the rock walls reach almost a hundred feet in height. Some local kids perform the dizzying (but quite safe) stunt of diving into the river (which must be very deep indeed in these parts) from dozens of feet up above - for a tip from the boat-travelers.

But the real highlight of this boat-trip was a guide who spoke (in Hindi) almost exclusively in rhyming couplets. From descriptions of the rocky highlights on either side to general fundae about the Narmada, from PJs (some quite neat) to Bollywood gossip (several Hindi movies have been filmed here, most famously, the 'O Basanti' song sequence from 'Jis Des Mein Ganga Behti Hai' and the later 'Pran Jaye Par Vachan Na Jaye'), he kept the rhymes and alliterations flowing. Pity I did not record him (to, those kindred spirits who read this and decide to visit Bheraghat: look out for "Ramesh guide"!).

Here are a few samples from memory, which I won't violate by translating:

"Yahaan ki gehrai hai ek sau assi foot - one eight zero,
aur yaheen se hoti hai meri commentary shuroo!"

"Yeh hai Narmada ka pani, Dekhne mein green,
haathon mein clean, peene mein behtareen!"

"Woh Patthar dekhiye, lagta, baitha hai koi Rishi akela...
lekin AB dekho, peechhe se dhakka de raha hai koi badmash chhela!"

"Bhaiyo, ab pahunche soocide point,Yahaan mana hai tairna...
lekin phully allowed hai... kya? ... soocide karna!"

"Yeh thaa gufa Rishi Jabali ka...
Jinse hai naam shahar Jabalpur ka!"

---------------

Now the 'Jabali' (pronounced 'Jah-bah-lee')connection:
My recently released (online) work of fiction, 'The Loop' mentions one 'Jabali University' as the character Lucky's alma mater. The university's name was chosen after several weeks of deliberations.

Satyakama is an Upanishadic Seeker. A striking feature about this guy is that he does not know his caste - indeed, he is of dubious paternity. When asked by a prospective Guru about his family background he says: "My mother - her name is Jabala - told me: "If anybody asks you about your parents, just say "I am Jabala's son" ".

Despite protests from some orthodox quarters, the Guru accepts him and Satyakama (or 'Jabali' as he was known after his mother) goes on to become a famous Vedanta exponent. In brief, his story is that of someone from the dark fringes of society gaining acceptance among the elite. (A matter of detail: Lucky's trajectory in 'The Loop' is more of an 'anti-Jabali' nature!)

A particularly poignant episode in the young Satyakama-Jabali's quest: during his apprenticeship, Jabali is assigned the job of taking care of his Guru's 'ranch'. Ond day at Sundown, he sits down to rest next to an aged, quietly ruminating bull. Suddenly, he hears the bull whisper to him: "That which you seek (the Absolute) is to be found far to the north. It can be found in the east as well... and the west and the south; up in the skies and down in the bowels of the earth."

Mysteriously, Jabali (spelt 'Javali') resurfaces in the Ramayana, as the proponent of a seriously cynical Nihilism! He advises Rama: "There is no Heaven, no afterlife, no absolute Dharma or whatever. So, simply do what you want and don't care about the consequences, as long as they are to your advantage!". I am quoting (from memory) a quotation here - from Amartya Sen's 'Argumentative Indian'(**).

'The Loop' refers to the above Bull-episode in the parable, 'The Bovine Comedy', featuring a "bull, who spoke". The Nihilistic Ramayana aspect of Jabali is alluded to by the character ... well, enough of that digression!

Before I heard "Ramesh Guide", I had indeed pondered the etymology of 'Jabalpur' - it seemed to mean 'the city of mountains' (from 'jabal' an Arab word meaning 'mountain'; there are several rugged and rocky (but not really big) hills in the area). The Jabali association came as a bit of a surprise. And on the way back from Bheraghat, I was still more surprised when a 'Hotel Jabali Palace(***)' caught the eye. Well, there is (still) no 'Jabali University', yet.

Anyways, despite all those personal connections, I still see 'Jabali's City' as a bit of spurious - etymology, there being no major mountains in the area notwithstanding.

---------

(*)India does not appear to have many limestone-dominated regions (karst landscapes as they are technically known). Some interesting limestone formations do exist around Ettimadai-Madukkarai, just inside Tamil Nadu as one threads the Palghat Pass - here one sees see plenty of massive chunks (some up to 30-40 feet across) of foliated rock; and these rock chunks, their size apart, have an odd 'woody' look. Similar rocks are visible near Kondapuram station in interior Andhra Pradesh as well. But neither of these regions has full-blown karst features - caves with stalactites etc.

Correction to the above note, added in Feb, 2010: The Belum caves near Tadipatri in AP (not too far from Kondapuram) are described by Wiki thus:

(The Belum Cave system) has a length of 3229 meters, making it the second largest natural caves in Indian Subcontinent. Belum Caves have long passages, spacious chambers, fresh water galleries and siphons. The caves reach its deepest point (120 feet from entrance level) at the point known as Pataalaganaga.

Impressive!

(**) - A bit of guesswork: Amartya Sen *very likely* read the 'Javali Episode' of Ramayana in his native Bengali. There, the sage might have indeed been named 'Jabali'; and while reaching out to a beyond-Bongland audience, Sen might have 'corrected' the name to 'Javali', under the impression that the 'b' must have been an artifact of Bengali pronunciation (which, as is well-known, turns 'Vimal' to 'Bimal' and 'Vivek' to 'Bibek'). Sen could have let 'Jabali' be, since the 'b' was from the 'original'!

(***) - Perhaps elsewhere in this country, one might find a 'Yajnavalkya Bar' or an 'Uddalaka Aruni Restaurant' or a 'Gargi Boutique'

Sanchi - A Gallery Of Fantasies

2009-01-27T00:07:00.000-08:00

This post is on some details of the Hinayana Buddhist art of Sanchi; for self, the recent visit there was full of unanticipated personal discoveries.

A pair of animals, kneeling back-to back, with a 'donor couple' sitting atop is a standard Hinayana sculptural element (I don't know the antecedents of this much repeated motif). In the caves at Karla and Bedsa near Pune, one sees only elephants, bulls and horses as the animals. At the Pandava caves near Nasik, I remember seeing a sphinx (!) and what looks like a strange synthetic beast with a monkey's face and antlers.

Sanchi has several such couples. There are also several 'heraldic' pairs of animals; and around the Stupa 2 (halfway down the hill), there are 'medallions' with relief carvings of single animals.

And here is an incomplete catalog of the 'Sanchi Bestiary': Elephants, Rams and ewes, Camels (surprisingly, mostly, the two humped Bactrian ones), Bulls (some of which have the curly-braces-like horns, sported by some modern Kathiawar cattle), Horses, winged antelopes, peacocks, multi-hooded cobras (one of which even forms a grand parasol for some divinity!), a whole array of Lion forms - hefty, winged lions which look very middle-eastern, winged Lions with antlers, winged lions with antelope horns, winged lions with unicorn-like single horns, winged lions with parrot-like beaks, ...

And then, there is a centaur, sharabhas (combination of man+bird+beast) with elephants dangling from their talons (these were on the comparatively later double-story temple), a horse-headed human figure ("Hayagriva"!), a horse with very long canines sticking out of its mouth....

Wikipedia describes the 'buraq' (Prophet Muhammad rode one of these on his trip to Heaven) as a "horse-like creature with long ears and the wings and tail of a peacock. It may also have a man's face". Sanchi has troops of human-faced near-buraqs (they have peacock tails all right, only the equine torso seems to be missing) swooping down from the sky to worship Stupas.

And here is my pick for the craziest of the lot: a chimera with an elephant's head and trunk, deer antlers, a bulls body and hooves and a horse's tail! Even whoever carved/conceived it seems to have thought he had done something cool, so a caption(?) has been provided right above; sad, I can't read the Brahmi script!

Indeed, it is almost a surprise that Sanchi *lacks* sphinxes!

Among humans, one sees mid-eastern types, Greeks, etc.. mostly among those worshipping stupas; elsewhere, a heavily armed Greek infantryman fights a lion... Among one set of stupa-worshippers, there is a chap in a phrygian cap playing a panpipe. Two of his companions play what look like a 'Maddalam' and a 'Timila' (two of traditional Mallu percussion instruments) respectively

On the front face of the single Torana of Stupa 3 are two symmetrically placed carvings of a hero - having grabbed a a gigantic serpent by its jaws, he is poised to tear it asunder (guess: it may represent Indra killing Vritra). The poses struck by the heroes are mirror images of each other and almost identical to the 'Mithras Killing the Bull' statues (eg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithras) of the Greco-Roman world. And one of the Sanchi serpent-killers appears to wear headgear rather similar to Mithras's Phrygian cap!

And a worn relief shows something like a human figure grappling with two lions - Gilgamesh?

There are multiple instances of a lady being bathed by elephants - they are supposed to represent Buddha's mother Maya. This motif was later appropriated into the Hindu iconography - in representations of Laxmi. And if I remember right, the mid-eighties version of Encyclopedia Britannica showed a Sanchi medallion with the caption 'Laksmi' - which strictly speaking, was plain wrong!

The Sanchi museum displays a grand 4-lion pillar capital (this crowned the now fallen Ashoka pillar - that the stump of it used to be part of a sugarcane press in a nearby farm until its rediscovery by the Brits is another story!). The lions are mostly intact. The pedestal has reliefs, not of bulls and horses (as in the Sarnath pillar) but geese. 4-member teams of back-to-back lions also bear the weights of one of the Great Stupa toranas.

Rishyasringa is a mythological figure from Ramayana (the son of a sage and a heavenly nymph, he is Rama's brother-in-law). He is distinguished by deer-like antlers growing forth from his head (a much more recent representation of the guy can be seen in the murals of the Mattancheri palace, Cochin). In Sanchi, he appears as the Pali language equivalent 'Isisinga', antlers and all, as the son of Kassapa, one of Buddha's earlier Human incarnations!

The human donors themselves here are not as interesting as the much larger-scale figures of Bedsa and Karla. One particular pair did catch my eye though - the man (looking very foreign, tunic, boots and all) rides a huge ram, the woman (also looking pretty exotic, and seemingly unclothed!) an ewe. The two animals face opposite directions; so the couple have turned back towards each other and are engaged in what looks like casually intimate conversation...

Sanchi - In General

2009-01-26T22:07:00.000-08:00

Note: The Sanchi Stupa and its history is reasonably well documented in Wikipedia. A very useful resource for travelers is the slim - and highly economical -volume "Sanchi" published by the Archeological Survey of India. A very good online (pictorial) intro is here: http://www.art-and-archaeology.com/india/sanchi/san0.html

A quick historical summary: Asoka built the Great Stupa atop the Sanchi hill and also erected a grand stone pillar inscribed with edicts - in 3rd century BC. The stupa suffered from vandalism shortly thereafter but in 1st century BC, the Satavahanas (who also built the contemporaneous Amaravati Stupa almost a thousand kilometers away in AP), rebuilt it and commissioned 4 grand triumphal archways (Toranas) - each over 20 feet tall - around the Stupa. A couple of more stupas sprang up in the vicinity. Work on the site continued almost until 1000 AD when it was abandoned. Rediscovered by the British in mid 19th century, the stupa and the toranas were meticulously restored by John Marshall and his team. Now, Sanchi is a World Heritage Site.

We visited Sanchi expecting to be impressed; and the experience turned out to be way above the merely impressive!

Several of the Jataka stories on previous incarnations of Buddha are depicted as relief carvings on the Toranas. These include the Monkey King (Mahakapi), the Six-Tusked Elephant (Chhaddanta) and the over-generous Prince (Vessantara). There are also episodes from the life of the Historical Buddha, mostly miraculous stunts (walking on water, materializing a 'stairway to heaven' and making a trip up there,...); there are also 'non-stunt miracles', like, for instance, a monkey who brought honey for the Master...

A remarkable feature in all this artwork is a persistent refusal to show Buddha in human form(*) - he is always shown symbolically, as a Bodhi tree or Stupa or... But this symbolism applies only to Buddha himself and his other human incarantions ('Manushi Buddhas') and not to other human beings or to his own other incarnations. Not sure what prompted this strange restriction...

Each Torana panel shows a rich profusion of figures (human and beastly). Formal religious episodes are but a small minority of these - there are processions, armies on the march, royal darbars, everyday scenes, battles, cityscapes - complete with multi-storeyed builings and balconies,...

Some highlights:

1. A group of over a dozen grotesque dwarfs (Yakshas, or maybe the minions of Mara?) of various ages and sporting a range of facial expressions. To me, this crowded panel, merely 5 foot by a foot and a half, is right up there with the best of Brueghel - 'Proverbs', 'Peasant Wedding'... and till the other day, I did not even know such a piece of art even exists in this country!

2. An amazingly fluid battle scene, about the same size as (1) - an elephant being goaded on by its handler, a chariot, a cavalryman, bowmen, pikemen, even a dwarf cutting down an adversary with a trident,...

3. An immense variety of animal images: Elephants (browsing, uprooting trees, luxuriating in ponds, 'saluting', at war - mostly shown in profile, some frontally...) deer and antelopes, lions, cattle, buffaloes, horses (in harness, being ridden...), geese, alligators,... I could readily sense the deep debt the splendid animal figures of Mahabalipuram ('Arjuna's penance' etc.. ) owe to these at-least-half-a-millennium-older works.

Two details on the animals: The elephants are being prodded on with very 'modern' goads. The riders atop some of the horses use toe stirrups (which support only the big toe), some clearly use full foot-stirrups and some use none at all, the complete range! Btw, the stirrup is a very old concern of mine and elsewhere on this blog, there is an article on it.

5. Remarkable 'load-bearing' figures. dwarf/yakshas(the most impressive of the lot), lions (just like on the Saranath Pillar, India's National emblem), elephants,...

6. 'Genre scenes' showing common people simply minding their business - grinding cereals, trading, picking fruits, simply lazing around under lush trees, a happily married couple with two children, a couple chatting in a small hut, another couple sitting outside a hut, tending to a fire...(these are said to show stages of Prince Vessantara's life).

7. The Grand Stupa has a very neat looking 'fence' surrounding it. Nearly 10 feet in height, this fence was made by fitting together rows of stone blocks, each block well over a quintal in weight, with regular gaps between rows. The job was so expertly done that the fence was intact even when the ruins were rediscovered in mid-19th century (judging from photographs taken round about that time and now on display in a small museum at the foot of the hill).

Among the other architectural relics are a small Gupta period temple (said to be the oldest surviving structural edifice in India), a double storied temple from a later era, a structural Chaitya hall - of which only a dozen or so tall pillars remain, the foundations of a large monastery,...

Judgement: Artistically, I would claim the Sanchi Toranas rank with the Ghiberti's 'Gates of Paradise' in Florence, if not higher. I first heard about the Italian masterpiece when I was 10 years old - and have had to *discover* the Desi one in middle age.

Udayagiri - A Glimpse

2009-01-26T08:52:00.000-08:00

We drive north from Bhopal on a chilly winter morning. The city thins out rapidly and we pass kilometer after kilometer of flat, cultivated land. Then sandstone hillocks begin to thrust up all around, their edges falling off several dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of feet in steep cliffs. The Sanchi hill with its stupas is visible from a long distance away; we pass it for the time being and proceed farther northwards.

A dozen kilometers beyond Sanchi and a few kilometers off the main highway rises a substantial and irregularly shaped sandstone plateau. At the near end of this tableland are a group of rock-cut caves, known as Udayagiri.

The caves and the sculptural decorations are said to date back to the Gupta period (4th-5th century AD) and almost exclusively deal with Hindu themes. The well-known highlight is a colossal relief of Vishnu as Varaha, lifting up the Earth (personified as Bhudevi). Among the 'worshipper-figures' carved around Varaha are two musicians, playing what look like a harp(*) and a Sarod respectively. Among the other carvings are a reclining Vishnu (now seriously damaged), a standing Vishnu (with only two arms remaining, holding a mace and an unusually large discus), a Ganapati(**) and so forth. Particularly interesting is an unusual (and quite violent) representation of Durga killing Mahishasura - the many-armed goddess grabs the buffalo-demon by a hind-leg and, pressing down his head with a foot, drives a trident into his belly.

A trail passes the caves and creeps up to the top of the sandstone bluff. All around are spectacularly eroded rock formations, sharply lit by the limpid winter sunshine. A kilometer or so farther, we could make out what must be another rock-cut temple, its entrance shaped like a pillared portico... But we decide to leave further explorations to a future visit. Sanchi beckons...

On our way, we digress briefly to visit 'Khamb Baba'. A pre-Christian Greek gentleman by name Heliodorus is said to have come here, seen the place and converted to Hinduism (or one of its then manifestations) and grew devoted enough to Vishnu to have built a 20 odd foot stone pillar as a mark of his fervor. The pillar still stands smartly in a largeish compound; next to a nearby tree are heaped what look like sculptural fragments from a long-gone temple.

The book says the pillar is now venerated by fishermen as 'Khamb baba'. The only water body nearby is the none-too substantial Betwa river; the sea is a good 800 kilometers away. Then how come 'fishermen'?

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(*) the harp seems to be a rather universal instrument, like say, the flute. The town of Jaffna in Sri Lanka has the Tamil name 'Yaazhpanam', after 'Yaazh', a kind of harp which used to be popular in the south more than a millennium ago.

I am also reminded here of the late Gift Siromoney. A scholar and academician from Tamil Nadu, his interests spanned a wide variety of areas. And his "research in music and archaeology resulted in work on stringed instruments of the ancient Tamil Country; and musical instruments from Pallava sculptures". Some info is available here: http://www.cmi.ac.in/gift/Music.htm

(**) I remember reading somewhere that Kalidasa never paid homage to Ganapati in his works (and hence his times predate the emergence of Ganapati as a popular deity). If the Ganapati carvings of Udayagiri were indeed made in the heyday of the Guptas, we perhaps ought to seriously doubt the theory that Kalidasa was one of the Navaratnas who adorned the court of Chandragupta Vikramaditya, the most prominent Gupta king.