कालनिर्णय Kalnirnay- My Mother's Diary App Without Smartphone, Any Phone!

Steve Jobs:

“(death) is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

Homer Simpson:

"You never know when an old calendar might come in handy. Sure, it’s not 1985 now, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?" 
  
David Graeber:
 
"Where, in short, are the flying cars? Where are the force fields, tractor beams, teleportation pods, antigravity sleds, tricorders, immortality drugs, colonies on Mars, and all the other technological wonders any child growing up in the mid-to-late twentieth century assumed would exist by now? Even those inventions that seemed ready to emerge—like cloning or cryogenics—ended up betraying their lofty promises. What happened to them?"

We are lucky. We at least have Kalnirnay on our kitchen wall.


Kalnirnay was launched in 1973, we bought it soon afterwards and the kitchen wall in our Miraj (मिरज) house just lit up! The calendar became the brightest spot in the whole of kitchen. 

Almanac (पंचांग) became accessible to anyone who read Marathi (मराठी). 

And at our house it did not just remain a calendar, in later yeras it became my mother's diary. She did not wait for an app on smartphone for that. We did not not even have a land-line but we had an appropriate app! When she died, I kept looking at her last entries on Kalnirnay.

Even today in 2013, Kalnirnay Marathi remains my and (occasionally) my wife's diary! We keep the last year's calendar hanging just below the current year's for the entire year. We also have preserved a couple them- say the year our son was born-  from the past. (ref- Homer Simpson's wisdom quoted at the start.) I also have kept some articles clipped from them at the end of the year. 

For me, Kalnirnay remains one of the top indigenous inventions of India since my birth. I know almost nothing about  its inventor Jayant Salgaonkar (जयंत साळगावकर) who died on August 20 2013. But I will always remain thankful to him...

Our Mother's Diary App!

Artist: Kamal Shedge (कमल शेडगे)
 
courtesy: http://www.kalnirnay.com

Has the Rupee Ever Been Worth More Than a Dollar?

Adam Fergusson, 'When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse', 1975:

"Just before the First World War in 1913, the German mark, the British shilling, the French franc, and the Italian lira were all worth about the same, and four or five of any were worth about a dollar. At the end of 1923, it would have been possible to exchange a shilling, a franc or a lira for up to 1,000,000,000,000 marks, although in practice by then no one was willing to take marks in return for anything. The mark was dead, one million-millionth of its former self. It had taken almost ten years to die."
 
'Arthur Jensen' in 'Network' 1976:

"There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE!"

Naomi Klein, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism", 2007:

(disaster capitalism is)  "An economic system that requires constant growth, while bucking almost all serious attempts at environmental regulation, generates a steady stream of disasters all on its own, whether military, ecological or financial. The appetite for easy, short-term profits offered by purely speculative investment has turned the stock, currency and real estate markets into crisis-creation machines, as the Asian financial crisis, the Mexican peso crisis and the dotcom collapse all demonstrate." 

Paul Krugman, The New York Times, August 22 2013:

"In short, the main lesson of this age of bubbles — a lesson that India, Brazil, and others are learning once again — is that when the financial industry is set loose to do its thing, it lurches from crisis to crisis."

From time to time, I see proceedings of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on TV. They are often very interesting. At any rate, they are much better than the shrill, largely uninformed 'debates' on (Marathi, Hindi, English) news TV channels.

On August 14 2013, Mr. D. RAJA of Communist Party of India said in Rajya Sabha: 

"...In 1947, when we got independence, the rupee value was equal to the dollar value. One rupee was equal to one dollar. That was the situation in 1947. Now, one dollar is equal to Rs.61. When our economy is growing, as per the Government statement, at five per cent, and the economy of the U.S. is growing at two per cent, then, why is our rupee falling in value? What is the secret? The American dollar value has not fallen, but the Indian rupee value has been falling..."

India's finance minister did not challenge the claim that in 1947 the rupee value was equal to the dollar value. Instead this is what he said:

"...Yes, people have said that one rupee is equal to one dollar. Of course, it was in 1947 that one rupee was indeed equal to one dollar. Ten grams of gold costed Rs.88.62 in 1947. Today, ten grams of gold is about Rs.29,000. The rupee has depreciated. Do you not like the rupee? Don't take the rupee. I will give you 88 dollars. Please go and buy ten grams of gold today. We will give you 88 dollars if you don't like it. Please go
and buy ten grams of gold today. If the rupee has depreciated against the dollar, the dollar has depreciated against gold. Why?..."

Business Standard on August 19 2013 says:

"...For the record, the rupee was never equal to the dollar, except perhaps in the hoary past. At the time of independence, India's currency was pegged to pound sterling, and the exchange rate was a shilling and six pence for a rupee - which worked out to Rs 13.33 to the pound. The dollar-pound exchange rate then was $4.03 to the pound, which in effect gave a rupee-dollar rate in 1947 of around Rs 3.30. The pound was devalued in 1949, changing its dollar parity from 4.03 to 2.80. India was then a part of the sterling area, and the rupee was devalued on the same day by the same percentage, so that the new dollar exchange rate in 1949 became Rs 4.76 - which is where it stayed till the rupee devaluation of 1966 made it Rs 7.50 to the dollar and the pound moved to Rs 21."
 
I am stunned that even India's parliament does gets its such vital data correct.


Artist: Dana Fradon, The New Yorker, January 13 1973

I can't resist the temptation of quoting another extract from Mr. Fergusson's book that is quoted at the top:

"The agony of inflation, however prolonged, is perhaps somewhat similar to acute pain — totally absorbing, demanding complete attention while it lasts; forgotten or ignorable when it has gone, whatever mental or physical scars it may leave behind. Some such explanation may apply to the strange way in which the remarkable episode of the Weimar inflation has been divorced — and vice versa — from so much contemporary incident. And yet, one would have thought, considering how persistent, extended and terrible that inflation was, and how baleful its consequences, no study of the period could be complete without continual reference to the one obsessive circumstance of the time.

The converse is also true: except at the narrowest level of economic treatise or personal reminiscence, how can a fair account of the German inflation be given outside the context of political subversion by Nationalists and by Communists, or the turmoil in the Army, or the quarrel with France, or the problem of war reparations, or the parallel hyperinflations in Austria and Hungary? How can one gauge the political significance of inflation, or judge the circumstances in which inflation in an industrialised democracy takes root and becomes uncontrollable, unless its course is charted side by side with the political events of the moment?"

Darling of Unmodern People...मध्ययुगीन राधा ही बावरी!

Manohla Dargis, The New York Times, June 27 2012:

"...For all the technological innovations, the groovy new Bat cycles and codpieces, superhero movies just recycle variations on gender stereotypes that were in circulation back in the late 1930s, when Superman and Batman first hit. The world has moved on — there’s an African-American man in the Oval Office, a woman is the secretary of state — but the movie superhero remains stuck in a pre-feminist, pre-civil rights logic that dictates that a bunch of white dudes, as in “The Avengers,” will save the world for the grateful multiracial, multicultural multitudes. What a bunch of super-nonsense."
 

The Economist, February 15 2001:

"...Dipankar Gupta contends, justly, that India's fascination with western gadgetry and lifestyles has not brought modernity. You can subjugate women and make a weapon of religion just as well with a mobile phone as without one, probably better. True modernity, Mr Gupta writes, entails adhering to universal norms, upholding individual rights, making the state accountable. His book pleads with India to put modernisation in place of “westoxication”..."

महेश एलकुंचवार, लोकसत्ता, August 17 2013:

"...ढिसाळ, बेजबाबदार, बौद्धिक आळशीपणा, नाठाळ, स्वत:मध्ये बदल न करणारा आणि संयम हरवलेला ही मराठी माणसाची लक्षणे सुमारपणातूनच आली आहेत...अभिरुचीची ही घसरण सुरू असून अभिजात म्हणजे काय हेही आम्हाला कळत नाही..."

I stopped watching any Marathi and Hindi TV soap operas more than a decade ago.

This does not mean I am against them. I might have been once but not now. They are popular and, other than creating considerable employment, they serve a useful purpose: Serving senior citizens.

Maharashtra has a large and growing population of middle-class senior citizens. They now live longer and (at least bodily) healthier. While it's often easy to say, one should read books, there is a limit to how much one can read with a weakening eyesight.

A similar argument can be made about even chatting or walking. Public parks have almost vanished from the most of urban Maharashtra. Even suburban roads are un-walkable because they are serious-accident traps. There is no public transport that is economical to use and not dangerous. In places like Pune, auto-rickshaws refuse the fares for short distances with impunity. All this severely restricts senior citizens' movements beyond immediate neighbourhood.

There are no card/carom/chess clubs in the vicinity.

How do people kill time from about sunset to until they sleep?

Answer: Watching soap opera channels including Marathi news channels because the latter are as 'entertaining' as the former. 

(I know a couple of people who get withdrawal symptoms if they don't watch their soaps. I also know some who watch the same episode multiple times in a 24-hours cycle.)

Look at the picture below. Aren't they well served by Marathi soap operas?

Artist: Vasant Sarwate,  Lalit, Diwali 2007 (वसंत सरवटे, ललित, दिवाळी)

David Foster Wallace has said: "TV is not vulgar and prurient and dumb because the people who compose the audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests."

Therefore, those who watch  "vulgar and prurient and dumb" serials are not vulgar and prurient and dumb in all their interests.

My wife- Anju (अंजु)- too hardly watched any TV except extremely funny 'CID' on Sony channel. (CID is really funny, in fact currently the only genuinely funny program on Hindi-Marathi TV. Just watch some of the CID jokes on FB.)
 
A couple of months ago Anju started watching 'Radha Hi Bawari' (राधा ही बावरी), a Marathi TV serial. I asked her why.

She said she liked its theme of romance of over-thirty professional, well qualified girl- Radha (राधा)- with a younger, ingenuous, lowly-educated boy- Sourav (सौरव), her husband.

And then one recent morning, she announced: she would not watch it any more. I once again asked her why.

She said she was sick and tired of the way Sourav was constantly denounced by his wife and his motherly sister-in-law for "not doing anything worthwhile".

My wife felt why Sourav should do "something" as long as he was a good sensitive person, a potentially good homemaker and, above all, loved by Radha. As a qualified doctor, Radha was making enough money to lead a happy life. Did they ever fear that they might destroy Sourav in the process of remaking him? Couldn't they change Sourav with their love? Couldn't they be little less shrill?

Having seen glimpses of the serial along with my wife, I completely agree with my wife. The serial  reinforces the stereotypes of 20th century: a man / husband/ father should earn money no matter what...otherwise he is not a 'man'.

Artist: Emily S. Flake,   Courtesy: brain pickings

The rate at which Sourav is being pounded by his close ones, I think,  he needs to see a psychiatrist very soon. Of course, that will never be shown because seeing a psychiatrist is perhaps for the sissies!

I have Dipankar Gupta's 'Mistaken Modernity: India Between Worlds', first published 2000.

I have always liked what the book basically does: "issues a damning indictment of the "westoxicated" elitist Indian middle class, and shows how unmodern the people of this class are in the very areas in which they are considered to be modern".


Akash Kapur wrote about it in The New York Times, July 29 2010:

"...Mr. Gupta was referring to a particularly superficial version of modernity that he believed was taking root in the nation — one defined more by Western consumer habits and lifestyles than by adherence to a cosmopolitan, tolerant set of values and democratic norms.
He pointed, for instance, to the persistence of caste bias, oppressive traditions and historical inequalities in a nation where ownership of washing machines, cars and other material trappings of global capitalism was increasing. He argued that in many ways India was an unmodern nation..."

courtesy: the owner of the copyrights to this image and the author of the book

p.s I write on September 27 2013:

Loksatta, September 26 2013:

" वीस वर्षांपूर्वी, उपग्रह वाहिन्यांच्या उदयकाळात आलेल्या बोल्ड नायिकाप्रधान मालिकांची जागा आता सोशिक, दुखी नायिकांनी घेतली आहे. आजचे प्रेक्षक काळाच्या वीस वर्षे मागे आहेत, असे वास्तव टीव्ही-चित्रपट निर्माती अश्विनी यार्दी यांनी बुधवारी परखडपणे मांडले...उपग्रह वाहिन्यांवरून सुरुवातीच्या काळात दाखविल्या जाणाऱ्या मालिकांचा प्रेक्षकवर्ग समाजातील उच्चशिक्षितांचा होता. त्यामुळे तेव्हा हसरतें, तारा अशा मालिकांमधून बोल्ड नायिका प्रेक्षकांच्या पसंतीला उतरल्या. सन २००० नंतर उपग्रह वाहिन्या सर्वदूर पसरल्या. शहरीच नव्हे तर निमशहरी ग्रामीण भागातील प्रेक्षकांना समोर ठेवून मालिका बनवणे क्रमप्राप्त ठरले. आज बोल्ड नायिकांना प्रेक्षकवर्ग नाही. मालिकांमधील नायिका या मान खाली घालून राहणाऱ्या, दुख सहन करणाऱ्या व सोशिक रंगवल्या जात आहेत, असे यार्दी म्हणाल्या. भरजरी कपडय़ांमध्ये घरात वावरणाऱ्या, किचनमध्ये सतत राबणाऱ्या, स्वयंपाक बनवत राहणाऱ्या, कुटुंबियांमध्ये आग लावत असलेल्या व्यक्तिरेखा प्रेक्षकांच्या आवडीनुसार दाखवल्या जातात. त्यांच्यात बदल केलेला प्रेक्षकांना रुचत नाही. वेगळ्या विषयांवरील, गंभीर मालिका आपटतात, अशी खंतही त्यांनी व्यक्त केली. किचनमध्ये तयार होणाऱ्या पदार्थाची प्रक्रिया विचारणारे, सोफासेटचे कौतुक करणारे आणि भिंतीवरील चित्र का बदलले याची चौकशी करणारे अनेक फोन आणि पत्रे येत असतात..."