Celebrating Next Big Sterile Statistics

Which statistics will Indian media celebrate next? I can never guess.

Currently they are celebrating figures at which cricketers were auctioned. My son is a cricket-stat nut. Sometimes he is a big nuisance around.

Outlook February 25, 2008 celebrated:

”…1.60 million Indians can’t resist the Facebook Phenomenon” and then went on to discuss exciting facebook lives of many so-called celebrities.

I don’t quite get it. Perhaps because I am still not on Facebook.

”… Facebook purports to be a place for human connectivity, but it’s made us more wary of real human confrontation...For young people, Facebook is yet another form of escapism; we can turn our lives into stage dramas and relationships into comedy routines…” (ALICE MATHIAS, NYT October 06, 2007).


'We met on Facebook and split up on Bebo.'

The Spectator February 2008

What is a Real Oriental, Edward Said?

Do only insiders can know the truth about their societies? Edward Said’s much-discussed Orientalism (1978) thought so.

About it, David S. Landes said his classic “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations” (1998):

“Insofar as one uses this claim to discredit the work of intellectual adversaries, it is polemical and antiscientific. But insofar as it points to the instrumental value and power of information, for good and for bad, it makes an important point.”

While reviewing 'The Great Transformation' by Karen Armstrong, JOHN WILSON said:

“…In our own time of "great fear and pain,"Armstrong proposes that we look to the Axial sages for "two important pieces of advice," both of which turn out to be quite uncontroversial: We should practice self-criticism (amen), and we should "take practical, effective action" against excessively aggressive tendencies in our own traditions (amen again).

But after 400 pages of historical argument, the banality of such declarations is staggering.

Yes, we need to learn to see things from other points of view. But once we have done that, once indifference and ignorance and prejudice and other obstacles are cleared away, real differences — political, religious, and cultural — remain. “ (NYT, April 30, 2006)

Wilson sounds as if it is easy to clear indifference and ignorance.

On the other hand, it’s impossible to clear it considering following state of affairs in USA.

Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason”:

“Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.” She pointed to a 2006 National Geographic poll that found nearly half of 18- to 24-year-olds don’t think it is necessary or important to know where countries in the news are located. So more than three years into the Iraq war, only 23 percent of those with some college could locate Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel on a map.” (NYT February 14, 2008)


“… Most people at the CIA don't speak foreign languages, so communications between and within other nations go untranslated…” (Doug Brown’s review of “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA” by Tim Weiner). (Powells.com February 16,2008)

Why just middle-east? In the West, I feel, quality of scholarship about India was better in 19th century than today. Many India based 'popular' Indian historians don't read Indian language books to source their material.
I have already written about ignorance of likes of V S Naipaul when it comes to India. For the same reason, even many educated and well-off Indians- living in India and abroad- are ignorant about India.


Artist: Ned Hilton The New Yorker 5 September 1936

Write it Down Anju. Multi-Storied Parking Lot at Pune.

The multi-storied parking lot with a capacity to accommodate 300 cars or 2,000 two-wheelers was inaugurated on November 5, 2007 at Pune. Of course, there are few roads- like FC road- that now seem to be used only for parking!

The 4.55-crore parking lot project includes a ground plus five stories and is constructed on a 10,000 sq m plot.A six metre-wide ramp has been constructed for vehicles to pass through to upper levels and provision has been made for installing lifts in the future.

I hope my wife Anju will note the advice in following picture.


'For heaven's sakes, Dennis, write it down.'

The Spectator, February 2008

Manage Repressed Hostility Without Getting Asthma. How? Ask Eknath एकनाथ.

Times of India February 22, 2008 reported:

“Anger slows down healing process: The adage that laughter is the best medicine has been backed by an unusual investigation which says that people who seethe with anger take longer to recover from injury.

Previous studies have linked ill tempered behaviour, whether brow-beating or road rage, with higher incidence of coronary heart disease, hypertension and stroke, especially among men…“

In the past I suffered from extreme anger. Anger described aptly in following line:
"भोवतालच्या माणसांना एकच मुंडी असती तर ती आपण अत्यंत आनंदाने पीरगाळली असती."
(if surrounding people had one neck, I would have gladly twisted it)

(स्वामी जी ए कुलकर्णी Swamee G A Kulkarni पिंगळावेळ "Owl Time" 1977)

Our previous generations had a bigger problem with anger. See a related post here.

Laxmibai Tilak’s लक्ष्मीबाई टिळक classic स्मृतिचित्रे (Memory-pictures) 1934 is full of description of extreme anger filled scenes from many Marathi speaking homes.

Anger was very fashionable in Maharashtra.

Vinoba Bhave wrote an excellent essay on Saint Eknath संत एकनाथ. (विनोबा सारस्वत "Vinoba Saraswat" edited by राम शेवाळकर Ram Shewalkar 1987). Vinoba says all saints are known for their serenity but Eknath was probably the best among them on this count.

Nath said:”आपुलीच दारा, जरी टेके व्यभिचारा, क्रोधाचा थारा अंतरी न ये.”

“To our door, even if infidelity touched, let anger not enter our inside”


Artist: Robert Weber The New Yorker 24 November 1962

Long, Cruel Road to the Slaughterhouse. My Own Rude Awakening.

Independent UK had this story on February 13, 2008:

“…Across the world, more than a billion live animals are transported every week, many over long distances. In shocking footage (available here), animals including horses, pigs, sheep and chickens are seen being transported thousands of miles across the world, when they could as easily be carried as meat.

Thousands of animals die en route from disease, heat exhaustion, hunger and stress. The others escape the intolerable conditions only to confront, immediately, the butcher's knife…

… In Spain, thousands of horses are illegally crammed into lorries for a sweltering 46-hour journey to Italy. Canadian pigs, in conditions just as obscene, are condemned to a 4,500-mile journey by land and sea to Hawaii, so that, when slaughtered, their carcasses can be sold as "Island Produced Pork". For nine days, hundreds of pigs are crammed together in the dark, standing in their own excrement. Exhausted and hungry, they become ill, vomiting from motion sickness and waiting for long periods without food…

… Australia sends four million live sheep every year on the barbaric journey to the Middle East. They are transported in such cramped conditions that many die of suffocation on the way. On arrival, they are killed according to Halal butchery laws. “

Indian stories are equally cruel.


Artist: Alan Dunn The New Yorker 27 June 1942

p.s This picture also brought to my mind the final journey of Boxer in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”.

Migratory Birds Have Started Returning from Pune

Pudhari पुढारी February 21, 2008 reported that birds that came over to Pune this winter, from far off places like Africa, Mangolia, Siberia, Tibet etc had started returning.

I have a question for them…

Lazy species like me would surely stay put.


Artist: Victoria Roberts The New Yorker 15 November 1993

Civil Wars- India’s and American

Some say India has been fighting a civil war for last 40 years.

India Today February 11, 208 reported:

“…Left wing extremism (LWE) or Naxalism has killed thousands of people to emerge as an immediate threat to internal security. Worse still, more than a year after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledged the severity of this threat by calling it the “single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country”, there is no holistic initiative to tackle the bloodlust.

The militants, who launched an armed movement in 1967 claiming to fight for the rights of poor peasants and landless labourers, are active in at least 16 of the country’s 33 states. Of the total 12,476 police stations in the country, Maoist violence was reported from 395 in 11 states in 2006.

What was confined initially to pockets in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh in the early 1970s has not only spread in a virulent manner but emerged as a major political force in the tribal woods of Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand.

They strike at will with accurate planning, ambush police teams, break into jails and hit select targets to create a fear psychosis as is the wont of terror groups everywhere.

Despite the improvement of the information gathering networks in the affected areas, the range and intensity of the Maoist violence spirals upwards…”

But this pales compared to American civil war that remains one of the bloodiest in the history of mankind.

“…Americans had never endured anything like the losses they suffered between 1861 and 1865 and have experienced nothing like them since. Two percent of the United States population died in uniform — 620,000 men, North and South, roughly the same number as those lost in all of America’s other wars from the Revolution through Korea combined. The equivalent toll today would be six million…”

(GEOFFREY C. WARD’s review of “THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING/ Death and the American Civil War” By Drew Gilpin Faust. NYT January 27, 2008).

India has never seen a war like this on its soil. Bloodiest battle of modern times in India perhaps was Panipat 1761 where estimated 50,000-100,000 people died.
What about the battle of Plassey, which supposedly changed the subcontinent’s history?
“…The nawab began the battle with fifty thousand troops, against three thousand for the British. Of the fifty thousand, only twelve thousand actually fought for him, and these withdrew so quickly that they suffered only five hundred casualties. British losses numbered four Europeans and fourteen sepoys….”

What was India’s population in 1761?

“…We have no censuses, but one estimate gives the figure of 100 million for the late sixteenth century, and this may well be low…” (“The Wealth and Poverty of Nations” by David S. Landes, 1998)

Even if we take the figure of 100 million for 1761, we are still talking about 0.1% deaths at upper end of the band.

GEOFFREY C. WARD: “…Little wonder. Some 7,000 corpses lay scattered across the Pennsylvania countryside, alongside more than 3,000 dead horses and mules — an estimated six million pounds of human and animal flesh, swollen and blackening in the July heat. For weeks afterward, townspeople carried bottles of peppermint oil to neutralize the smell…”

Panipat 1761’s aftermath would have been comparable to this though thankfully it was a cold winter of January. If it were to be during a monsoon month, it surely would have triggered an epidemic.

Drew Gilpin Faust: “Death created the modern American union, not just by ensuring national survival, but by shaping enduring national structures and commitments”

Civil war brings Abraham Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg to mind.


Artist: Jack Ziegler The New Yorker 18 December 1989

Did a Power More than Human Give Letters their Shape? Answer it R K Joshi र कृ जोशी

Now he won't because R K Joshi who made pioneering efforts to establish aesthetics of Indian letterforms and revived academic, professional and research interest in Indian Calligraphy died on February 5, 2008.

Read wonderful tribute put together by C-DAC in Marathi on him here.

When I was in school (1965-1975), elders often talked about the quality of “hand-writing”, both Marathi and English. I thought I was doing OK with both.

My father disagreed. He said my letters were short unlike my brother and hence my handwriting was not pretty. He was right.

Later when I corresponded with D G Godse द ग गोडसे, he once wrote that my handwriting was good. He for sure was encouraging me. I have never liked my handwriting.

But I have admired it of many. Particularly Marathi ones.

Hindustan Times claimed that R K Joshi “brought about the realisation that alphabet can have aesthetic value”. That obviously is very sloppy. The realisation had been there for much longer.

I liked Joshi's Marathi initials more. कृ (Kru) there stood out like a peacock, between mundane र(R) and जोशी(Joshi), full of possibilities. When you pronounced his name, there was an echo to it.

He was a scholar in the tradition of V K Rajwade वि का राजवाडे. Ready to put in any amount of effort to get slightly closer to the truth. In fact he showed us a whole new way to approach the truth: Calligraphy.

Plato's dialogues mention, "a power more than human gave things their first names." Did a power more than human give letters their shape?

In Japan, ancient samurai swords and calligraphy both are national treasures. In India, we have even stopped talking about the quality of handwriting.

Vasant Sarwate वसंत सरवटे had some fun with our alphabets. Here is an example.

The picture shows two Marathi letters. One of the left is pronounced “TO” which means he and one on the right is pronounced “TEE” which means she. The caption reads:
She: “Now who all are you going to suspect?”


Artist: Vasant Sarwate source: Cartooning-Drawing (व्यंगकला- चित्रकला) Majestic Prakashan 2005.

Marathas Won at Kharda but Nizam has the Last Laugh

Historian WILLIAM DALRYMPLE has written at length about the Nizam’s legacy. (The Guardian and Outlook February 18, 2008).

I couldn’t help chuckle.

Here was the regime about which I have rarely read anything good.

For instance, historian Setu Madhavrao Pagdi’s (सेतु माधवराव पगडी) first hand account of the last days of the Nizam regime from his autobiography-Jeevansetu (जीवनसेतु) 1969- describes how rotten it was.

On March 11, 1795, Marathas vanquished Nizam in the battle of Kharda. For a change all Maratha chieftains fought together.

Nizam’s army had played havoc before the battle. Among other things, they had slaughtered cows in the temple complex at Ambejogai आंबेजोगाई.

Historian T S Shejwalkar त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर gave a radio-speech on this battle 'Khardyachi Ladhai' (खर्ड्याची लढाई).

Shejwalkar rued how Marathas wasted the opportunity to eliminate Nizam. He argued how this blunder of Marathas costed Indian union dearly in 1947.

Even today, Nizam and his legacy continue to grab attention and resources.

His Chowmahalla palace complex is being restored to its former glory while Maratha’s Shaniwar Wada शनिवार वाडा continues to languish, remains ghostly.


Princess Esra at the Chowmahalla palace complex (pic courtesy: Outlook)

Naked Woman on Mars and Yeti-Alien in Himalayas. Will they Mate?

Marathi newspaper Pudhari पुढारी has printed a picture of colourful alien, arguably male, on the first page of its edition dated February 16, 2008. (See picture below).

It has reported how in year 2004 a team of Indian scientists from ISRO filmed an alien in Himalayas. It claims this is first such shooting of its kind.

No word of doubt or skepticism as always. See a related previous post "Dark Side of the Moon" here.

In January 2008, there was a report:
“The photo of what looks like a naked woman with her arm outstretched was among several taken on the red planet and sent back to Earth by NASA's Mars explorer Spirit.”

James Lovegrove wrote excellent review of science fiction books in FT on February 9, 2007.

“…Contrary to received opinion, science fiction’s preoccupation has always been the here and now. Its far-flung planets and future timelines are merely a way to analyse the contemporary. In this respect, it is the most politically engaged of all literary genres. Motifs that may appear trashy to the uninitiated - space exploration, extraterrestrials, futuristic technology - can in fact be surprisingly sophisticated tools for dissecting and examining the world as it is…

… The search for aliens, then, has turned inward. The Other is no longer up there in the stars. He’s our neighbour with the faith-based dress code. She’s the person with the tinted skin and unfamiliar accent. Modern science fiction is putting out the unexceptionable message that we should gladly embrace him or her, if we are to have any kind of future.

Someone else’s Other, after all, is us.”

Carl Sagan:

“…Which, then, is more likely that we're undergoing a massive but generally overlooked invasion by alien sexual abusers, or that people are experiencing some unfamiliar internal mental state they do not understand? Admittedly, we’re very ignorant both about extraterrestrial beings, if any, and about human psychology. But if these really were the only two alternatives, which one would you pick?

And if the alien abduction accounts are mainly about brain psychology, hallucinations, distorted memories of childhood, and hoaxing, don’t we have before us a matter of supreme importance, touching on our limitations, the ease with which we can be misled and manipulated, the fashioning of our beliefs, and perhaps even the origins of our religions?…”

(“The Dragon in My Garage” from “The Demon-Haunted World” 1996)

For me, ISRO scientists are as fallible as anyone when it comes to “brain psychology, hallucinations, distorted memories of childhood, and hoaxing.” I am fallible even to an attack of acidity after eating too many peanuts.

See below how a group of scientists and technologists are resorting to astrology for rocket launching.


Artist: Rowland Wilson The New Yorker 14 August 1965



Naked Woman on Mars and Yeti-Alien in Himalayas.
My fantasy: Will they mate?