On the agriculture of Hindostan

The Journal of Agriculture published in 1838 carried a lengthy article ( page 29 to 63) on the “ Agriculture of Hindostan”. In its opening paras, it tried to disabuse the Englishmen of the notion that all of India held fabulous treasures:

NOTHING can be conceived more erroneous than the ideas generally entertained, regarding the aspect, physically considered, of' the great Indian possessions, which have been acquired by Great Britain. Some have formed their pictures from the romantic legends and stories peculiar to the East, where rivers are made to roll over golden sands, where flowers are breathing perennial fragrance, and where palace, mosque, and minaret are the habitations of princes and of priests. Others, from a course of somewhat more authentic historical reading, have formed for themselves greatly exaggerated notions of the wealth, pomp, and splendour of the Rajahs ; while not a few, whose maxim on most things is, that " seeing is believing," have convinced themselves of the grandeur of Hindostan, not by legend or by written report, but from a knowledge of the unequivocal circumstance of so many of our countrymen having left the North, poor, and returned from the East, rich.

But when we turn from the coast towns of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, and passing the suburban village quietly progress into the vast territory which has been subjugated, as it were, by one spell, only to be kept in subjection by another, we find ample reasons for lowering the tone of our speculations. Instead of the pomp and parade, distinguishing the chief seats of the British Government, the eye will rest only on the depraved, the dependent, and miserable natives of the Deccan, and on dwellings almost too paltry for the habitation of human beings; in short, little elevated above those of the Esquimaux or Laplander.

It then goes on to describe in detail the methods of cultivation, the various crops, how Britain could harness the potential of India and, in passing, warns that it would be dangerous to try out European innovations in a country with such established beliefs and customs.

The communities of Hindostan are held together by a peculiar system, which, although considerably behind those of Europe in moral refinement, is yet a curious admixture of law, custom, and religious ceremony. The great mass of the natives are cultivators of the soil, which they hold by tenure of an annual rent, generally a sixteenth of the whole produce, payable to their immediate superiors, by whom, again, a tax is paid to Government. The country is divided into districts; these districts subdivided into villages. Each village forms an independent association of agriculturists, with its own establishment of officers, who, for certain duties to be performed, have a tithe of the produce, or a portion of land. These offices are generally hereditary. The cultivator's interest in the soil is hereditary also.

The officers of the village are the Potail, or head man, who is the organ of communication with Government, the collector of the public dues, and sometimes lessee of the village,— the Bullaye, a sort of constable, who, from lns acquaintance with local rights and boundaries, gives evidence about disputed land-marks, —and the Putwarry, or register, who keeps accounts of all village matters. As with ourselves, the priest, the watchman, the carpenter, the blacksmith and the barber, may also be considered as public characters.

These village communities are connected by various links with the general officers of the district, and thence with the Zemindary, who is usually a great functionary of Government, and by whom, under the Mogul dynasty, the land-tax was finally paid into the royal treasury. A general system of magistracy and police is thus formed, which is consecrated by immemorial usage in the minds of the population ; and which, although sometimes perverted to improper ends, has been found far from ineffectual in maintaining the tranquility of the country. Knowing, therefore, as we do, that among no people on the face of the globe does such bigotry to established customs so inveterately prevail, it would be well for the British Government to pause before attempting European innovations, which, however consonant to our own ideas, may be at wide variance with the religious prejudices, and the associations, the feelings, and habits, consecrated by the working of a series of ages. It were certainly by far our best policy in the mean time to act cautiously ; to gradually improve the defects of the native institutions, and to uphold what is praiseworthy among them ; to repair what has moldered into decay ; and rather to re-construct than to destroy. The influence of example will act much more beneficially than law or edict. We perfectly agree -with the following opinions of an eloquent writer in the Edinburgh Review (July 1824) : —

" As conquerors," it is there said, "we have to dread the explosion of fresh conspiracies against our newly acquired territory; and when we consider that there is not, in any part of India, above one European to fifty thousand natives, and that in many parts the proportion is much smaller, this disparity presents, it must be confessed, strong temptations to rebel; and it is only by the greatest moderation and justice that we can avoid this danger. In the capacity of legislators, the greatest danger arises from our ignorance and inexperience in the local usages of the country ; in consequence of which, with the best intentions, we may commit the greatest errors, aud agitate the country with the dread of perilous innovations on manners and customs interwoven with the very frame of Indian society."

The Ultimate Beauty

In the movie, “The Animal”, Marvin the cop meets with a near-fatal accident, but is miraculously saved by a ‘mad surgeon” who transplants different animal parts on to his body and, for good measure, also weaves in some amount of animal DNA. Marvin acquires all the individual strengths of the different animals and mobilizes them appropriately in various situations. But, in due course, the animal parts assert themselves and he starts displaying certain non-human traits…….

I don’t know why I remembered the movie after reading this article in Times of India, which provides valuable tips on beauty enhancement and in meeting aspirations such as “ If you want Kareena Kapoor’s jawline”, “ If you want Deepika Padukone’s arms”, “ If you want Priyanka Chopra’s legs”, “ If you want Shilpa Shetty’s waist”, etc. The writer provides two types of solutions, one cosmetic, the other non-cosmetic. Cosmetic methods involving liposuction, Botax treatment, hyalunoric acid injections, body contouring, sculpting, etc are recommended as the fastest way to achieve results.

If a woman (use of this gender may be rather presumptuous of me. Why can’t a man aspire to have Kareena’s jawline or Shilpa’s waist line?) wants to be an amalgam of all the desirable features, she can have her body chiseled and sculpted to accommodate Kareena’s jawline, Deepika’s arms, Priyanka’s legs and Shilpa’s waist. Her beauty would then be more than the sum total of that of all the parts.

Unlike the case of Marvin the cop, I really don’t see a flip side here. Or is there…?

The dilute remedy

Among alternative therapies, homeopathy seems to enjoy higher credibility, as it is cloaked in scientific vocabulary. Its German origin adds to is acceptability and enhances the perception that scientific reasoning and methods would have been rigorously applied.

I know of a couple (let’s call them Mr Homeopati and Mrs Homeopatni) who clung to this therapy for several years, till an incident required one of them to be rushed into the Emergency ward in one of the allopathic institutions that they had sworn they wouldn’t be seen dead in .

Via Coyote Blog I came across an article on Timesonline written by Matt Parker of the School of Mathematical Sciences, London in which he explains what it means to achieve the ‘dilution’ levels required by homeopathy:

I have just purchased a packet of Boots-brand 84 arnica homeopathic 30C Pills for £5.09, which Boots proudly claim is only 6.1p per pill. Their in-store advice tells me that arnica is good for treating “bruising and injuries”, which gives the impression that this is a very cost-effective health-care option.

Unlike most medication, it didn’t list the actual dose of the active ingredient that each pill contains, so I checked the British Homeopathic Association website. On their website it nonchalantly states that to make a homeopathic remedy, they start with the active ingredient and then proceed to dilute it to 1 per cent concentration. Then they dilute that new solution again, so there is now only 0.01 per cent of the original ingredients. For my 30C pills this diluting is repeated thirty times, which means that the arnica is one part in a million billion billion billion billion billion billion.

The arnica is diluted so much that there is only one molecule of it per 7 million billion billion billion billion pills.

It’s hard to comprehend numbers that large. If you were to buy that many pills from Boots, it would cost more than the gross domestic product of the UK. It’s more than the gross domestic product of the entire world. Since the dawn of civilisation. If every human being since the beginning of time had saved every last penny, denarius and sea-shell, we would still have not saved-up enough to purchase a single arnica molecule from Boots.

But, if you are an ardent believer in homeopathy, don’t let science come in the way. Go right ahead and pop some of those 30C or 200C pills. If not the formulation, the placebo effect can cure your illness. If it doesn't, there's always the ICU in an allopathic hospital as a last resort.

Update 02/02/10: " Massive homeopathic overdose leaves hundreds of scientists 0.00000000000000000000000001% dead".

Old is gold

On the occasion of  Republic Day, let us all spend a few minutes reading the transcript of the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly of India that took place in Constitution Hall, New Delhi, on Monday, the 9th December, 1946.

The first task was to elect a temporary Chairman. In the time-honoured tradition of India, the name of the oldest member, the 75-year old Dr. Sachchidananda Sinha was proposed and he was duly elected.

The provisional Chairman then had to deliver the inaugural address. But as ‘he felt the strain too much’ he passed on the script to Sir B.N.Rau, who read it out. The opening remarks of Dr Sinha, as read out by Mr Rau, were:

In expressing my sense of appreciation of your great kindness, I cannot conceal from myself that I feel comparing small things with great-that I am, on the present occasion in the position in which Lord Palmerston found himself when Queen Victoria offered him the highest Order of Chivalry, namely, the Knighthood of the Garter. In accepting the Queen's offer, Lord Palmerston wrote to a friend as follows:-

"I have gratefully accepted Her Majesty's gracious offer as, thank God, there is no question of any damned merit about the honour conferred on me."

I say I find myself more or less in the same position, for you have agreed to accept me as your President on the sole ground that I age, the senior-most member of this Assembly. Whatever the ground however, on which you have chosen to have me as your first President, I am nonetheless profoundly grateful to you. I have had, in my fairly long life, several honours conferred on me in recognition of my services as a humble worker in public interest, but I assure you that I regard your mark of favour as a signal honour, which I shall cherish throughout the rest of my life.

His next task was, as he stated :

For many years past, under medical advice, I have not been able to do any work in the afternoons, and I do not propose to sit after the luncheon recess. So for the time I am temporary Chairman, I propose to request the House to give me the assistance of a Deputy Chairman, and I propose that Mr. Frank Anthony be nominated by you.

Today when we see  many geriatric, perambulation-challenged, visually-impaired, aurally-deficient, catheter-dependent,  ventilator-supported, brain-dead individuals clinging to key posts as a matter of right, it is good to read about someone who had the humility and the good humour to acknowledge that he was being honoured only on account of his old age. And to openly state that he needed to get back home to catch up on his afternoon nap.

Vacuous and Verbose-14

“The death of Jyoti Basu is an irreparable loss to the nation”, say Surjit Singh Barnala, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Mulayam Singh, Mayawati and Tarun Gogai in their respective condolence messages.

That expression may not have been inappropriate if death had snatched away a distinguished person in the prime of his youth or one who, potentially, had several years of productive service left. But describing the demise of a long-retired, nonagenarian, however great his past achievements might have been, as an irreparable loss to the nation is ridiculous.

I don’t see why this cliché is resorted to when there are so many more at one’s disposal. Examples :“He strode the arena like a colossus”. “He was the last of the Gandhians”. “He was a true patriot”. “His contribution to the country, state and party was immense”. “He cared and fought for the poor”.

Statues.

"Uttar Pradesh government today told the Supreme Court that its order to stop the work for construction of statues and memorials for Dalit leaders, including those of Mayawati and her political mentor Kanshi Ram at a park in Noida near here, was causing a loss of Rs three lakh everyday. "(source)

My humble view is that the Supreme Court should allow the UP Govt. to go ahead with the statues, with the caveat that the faces (and the name plates) should be screwed on and be of a removable type. This suggestion on statues was made by R.K.Laxman in a cartoon several years back. His point was that statues need not be monolithic pieces cast in stone. They can be of 2-piece or 3-piece design, with the face detachable. The party that is in power can install the faces of its leaders. The party that comes to power next can unscrew the faces (and the name plates) and substitute them with ones of their leaders or role models.

Don’t you think that the Supreme Court should learn to be a part of the solution and not the problem?

Where were you when the sun went out?

Ray Bradbury’s short story titled, “All summer in a day” is set in a planet where it rains continuously and where sunshine appears only for two hours once in 7 years. On the day that scientists had predicted that the sun would appear, Margot, a 9-year old girl waits in eager anticipation. A few moments before the sun is about to appear, her friends tease her and lock her up in a closet and then forget to let her out till the sun disappears and it starts raining again. Poor Margot has to wait 7 more years for the event.

I felt exactly like Margot yesterday. The total solar eclipse, said the scientists, was unusual and the next one of a similar duration would appear again after 1014 years. During the period of totality ( 12 minutes) what was I doing? Sitting in an artificially-lit conference hall discussing mundane matters of business with a visitor from overseas.

A rare celestial event passed by while I was locked up in a closet. I’ll have to wait till the year 3024 AD. Damn.

Conversation with daughter-33

Daughter: Appa, I think my Geography teacher hates me.

Me: I don’t think so.

Daughter: How can you know if she hates me or not?

Me: I can’t say for sure, but it certainly can’t be as bad as you imagine.

Daughter: What do you mean?

Me: Hatred for a person develops only when one considers that person important enough to be worthy of one’s hate. For your teacher, you are just a small worm, an insignificant piece of the school landscape and certainly not someone she should needlessly expend her hatred on. She needs to conserve her share to spread it over more deserving people.

Daughter: You mean I am not even good enough to be hated?

Me: Exactly. You have not yet attained the stature that would grant you the eligibility to be hated. You are a mere speck of dust in your teacher’s cosmos.

Daughter: You were right. The situation is not as bad as I had imagined. It’s worse.

Photographer keeps filming while cop is dying

'TN cop bleeds to death, even as ministers look on in complete apathy’ screamed TV headlines this week and sanctimoniously lamented the abysmal depths to which politicians have sunk.

And what did the channels have to support the story? A video footage, shot in an unhurried manner, of the cop begging for help and then collapsing.

The footage was provided by a freelance photographer, but had one of the NDTV cameraman been around he would have shot the same film too without any compunction.

Did the channels ask what the cameraman- one of their own tribe- was doing? Why couldn’t he have extended some help to the cop, instead of getting the photographic scoop?

Journalists and photographers have their own code of ethics. They are expected to be true to their profession- that is to report events and stories as truthfully as possible. They are not supposed to interfere – for good or for worse- when the events actually unfold. War photographers, who are constantly in battle zones, often see their countrymen getting injured but are expected to restrain their urge to reach out or help. Their job is to capture the piece of action on a film, not to save lives.

Wildlife photographers are expected to maintain strict neutrality and not influence or disturb the ‘ecological’ system in any manner. If a lion is chasing down a deer, their sympathy may be with the deer, but Nature is supposed to decide the outcome. The photographer should remain a mere spectator.

A detached outlook in the context of war or amidst wildlife may be understandable – even desirable- but not in circumstances that the freelance photographer found himself in, when the cop was dying. I would hold him as guilty of apathy and devoid of decency as the politicians. I wonder why the media has not introspected on this aspect at all.

Vacuous and Verbose-13

"The former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, said here on Monday that the Earth, which was rapidly exhausting its resources, would not remain an independent entity in the future, but form a “single economic entity” with the Moon and Mars. "This will be possible by developing scientific knowledge in a very unique solution to the crisis of water, energy and infrastructure faced by humanity in different parts of the world.” (source)

If he had suggested that the SAARC countries would form a single economic entity by the year 2015 - a far more plausible scenario,trust me, than planets and satellites being forged into a single economic unit – there would have been many people disagreeing with him or challenging that view.

But the ingenuity of Dr. Kalam’s predictions – and the reason he is held up as a visionary- is that he chooses his time frame well. It has never been his style to take a position on what can happen in a year or two and  carry the needless risk of being proved wrong. He always has to dream of a future that is at least twenty to thirty years away. Till a few years back, he used to talk about his Vision2020, then about his Vision 2025 and now, tired of the small increments, he has upped the ante. He is outlining his Vision 2050, no less.

So, applying his methods, here’s a prediction from my side. By the year 2500, the Milky Way and a few other like-minded galaxies such as the Silky Way and the Bulky Way will not only form a single entity; they will also have a common currency and a common language called the APJAK.

Off the circumdrome

In a brilliant article titled “Energy and Economic myths” published in 1975, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen wrote:

………..we should cure ourselves of what I have been calling "the circumdrome of the shaving machine," which is to shave oneself faster so as to have more time to work on a machine that shaves faster so as to have more time to work on a machine that shaves still faster, and so on ad infinitum.

I have been planning for a while now to graduate from Gillette’s Mach-3 (a mere 3 blade razor) to the 5-blade Fusion razor of Gillette. And I thought that the New Year was as good a time as any to gift myself this gadget. Then I remembered reading above piece by this Georgescu-Reogen.

So, my New Year resolution is to actually regress technologically. Yes, I will be buying a 2-blade model – the Sensor. Let me get off the circumdrome of the shaving machine and set an example to the materialistic, hedonistic world.

Restrict the terrorists

Following the recent attempt by a Nigerian to blow up a plane in the last hour of its flight, new travel restrictions have been introduced in the USA that would prevent passengers from getting out of their seats in the last hour of the flight. By some strange law or understanding, the terrorist would follow the same pattern again and again, and so this restriction would thwart their sinister designs.

You can be sure that 70 minutes before landing, the flight steward would announce to the passengers that the ’60 minute’ restriction would come on in 10 minutes and those who desire to use the washrooms may do so right then.

So, 75 minutes before landing, I would start worrying that the helpful announcement about the 10 minutes left for the restriction to come into force, would be heard in 5 minutes and immediately after that one of the passengers would get up and blow the plane to pieces.

In one of his essays, R.K.Narayan writes about a childhood experience of an all-night journey that he had to undertake by bullock-cart to reach his home town after alighting from a train in a station thirty miles away.

“The bullock carts moved in a caravan, winding along a dark, tree-shaded highway. Robbers were known to attack such caravans about ten miles from the railway station at midnight. The menace was warded off by a simple expedient. One of the cart-men walked ahead carrying a lantern and a staff and throwing bloodcurdling challenges to the night air. “Hey, keep away, prowlers, if you don’t want your skulls pulped… Who goes there? and so forth, the other drivers also sitting up and urging their bullocks with the loudest swear words. This was kept up till we passed a jutting rock beyond the twelfth milestone; the moment we crossed this spot the challenger went back to his cart, curled himself up in his seat and fell asleep, the entire caravan following this example. By some strange law or understanding, the robbers never seemed to step an inch beyond the jutting rock. It always seemed to me that the robbers were missing a fine opportunity to attack with all the cart-men fast asleep and the only wakeful person being myself as I tried to sleep on a pile of straw expecting any moment to be killed.”

Anti-dacoity or anti-terrorist measures have always been reactionary, I guess. The measures aim at pre-empting the method followed the previous time. If the attack happened last time near the twelfth milestone, step up your vigil as you near that spot. Once you cross that, there’s nothing to worry.

Vacuous and Verbose-12

Hindol Sengupta, Associate Editor, Bloomberg UTV, in an article in 'The Hindu', desperately tries to earn some brownie points by projecting himself as the sole surviving torchbearer of the “Wear Indian clothes” movement and on whose broad shoulders rests the responsibility of liberating the nation from the grip of Western wear.

"..Why are we uncomfortable about wearing Indian clothes?


Look around you, office after office is bereft of Indian clothes. In the age of industry, connectedness and entrepreneurship Indian clothes are rarely seen because they failed, or we failed to make them, office wear, and thereby, everyday wear.


Since most of us no longer wear Indian clothes to work, since the “corporate wardrobe” for some reason does not include Indian clothes, they have become occasional wear — costumes not clothes.


Why don't we wear Indian clothes to work? Why don't Indian news anchors, for instance, wear bandhgalas instead of suits? Even in news TV, Indian clothes are costumes to be donned to festive days. Udayan Mukherjee, the face of the markets, wears dazzling bandhgalason mahurat trading but not otherwise. Rajdeep Sardesai wears the occasional kurta but is usually in his unkempt cool, about-to- run-out-of-the-newsroom light shirts and dark trousers. Prannoy Roy also dons the odd bandhgala but seems far more comfortable in his impeccable suits.


Can you think of any men in business who regularly wears Indian clothes? If you can, tell me on hindol.sengupta@gmail.com . I can't."

First, this sanctimonious kurta-promoter must realise that so many aspects of our lives have been touched or influenced by Western habits and we have willingly embraced this change. If I wear a shirt or jeans, it is because I find them more convenient than going around in a dhoti or pyjamas. It is my choice. If Hindol wants to flaunt his ethnicity, that’s his choice. It is also open to this Hindol to start an office and ban entry of employees clad in anything resembling Western wear.

Second, this ignoramus seems to believe that all of India lives in Delhi and Mumbai, and the number of businessmen in India is limited to those that regularly appear on NDTV or Bloomberg channels. If this blinkered moron would care to look away from the TV screen or care to look beyond CII and FICCI or care to cross the Vindyas, he will be amazed to know that there is more to India than what he has seen. For starters, if he would come to Chennai (any place in the South would do. Chennai is because I happen to live here), I would gladly introduce him to Mr. Nalli Kuppuswami Chetty, who runs a 500-crore enterprise and is rarely seen in a lounge suit.

The Bushmen of Jalandhar

The movie “The Gods must be crazy” starts with a scene set in the Kalahari desert, where Bushmen live a blessed life without any knowledge or wants of the ‘civilised’ world beyond and limiting themselves to their primitive tools and implements. Into this world, an empty Coca Cola bottle is dropped from a plane above. Initially this is viewed as another gift from the Gods, but soon it becomes a ‘property’ to be owned and this leads to clashes and violence among this hitherto peaceful tribe.

In the Boing Boing Blog, Lisa Katayama seems to suffer from severe pangs of conscience and wants to know if she had unwittingly dropped a “Coke bottle” in the midst of a bunch of poor kids in a town ‘called’ Jalandher and sullied their technology-free lives with the temptation of electronics.

“A few years ago, I went on a trip to northern India to see the Dalai Lama. I traveled with a lawyer, a politician, a publicist, and a translator. One of the places we visited on the way up from Delhi was called Jalandhar — it's in the Punjab region and is home to a lot of sweatshops.

While we were there, we met a bunch of kids who lived with no electricity but told us that, when they grew up, they all wanted to be computer scientists. So we whipped out our cameras and iPods — the closest things we had on hand to real computers — and showed them how technology works. We figured they would enjoy it, and thought it could be a valuable experience that would stay etched in their minds as something to aspire to as they continued their studies.

Later, I found out that one of my travel mates thought what we had done was cruel. We had seduced these poor kids with luxuries they will probably never be able to afford, and sullied their pure, technology-free lives with the temptation of electronics.

So who's right? Did we ruin these kids for life or give them hopes for a better future? Does it not matter? Is there even a right answer to this question? What do you guys think?

Poor Lisa Katayama. Can some of you go across to the Boing Boing post and put her conscience at rest please?

Piracy Ltd.

Somalian pirates who have made tons of money through ransoms now have set up a ‘stock exchange’ of sorts to manage their hard-earned investments, says Reuters in this report.

"The shares are open to all and everybody can take part, whether personally at sea or on land by providing cash, weapons or useful materials ... we've made piracy a community activity” says one of the pirates. "Ransoms have increased in recent months from between $2-3 million to $4 million because of the increased number of shareholders and the risks," he said.

This is hardly an innovation, considering the origin of joint stock companies and exchanges.

The British East India Company (probably only the second company, after the Dutch East India Company, to be formed as a joint-stock company) while ostensibly chartered to carry on trade with India actually built its fortunes by plunder. Here is a description in page 253 of a book “The reign of King George III” by Robert Bisset, published in 1816.

"Thus have we seen a mercantile company, in less than ten years, acquire by war and policy, more extensive possessions, and a richer revenue, than those of several European monarchs. This was an epoch in the history of conquest. Nations of merchants had before conquered very extensive dominions, but this was a mere corporate body of private subjects. The principles on which the servants of this company of merchants proceeded were formed in a great degree by the habits and conditions of the masters. The leading object was gain; ambition was only secondary and instrumental: power and dominion were esteemed merely as the means of profit.

Where the Romans carried their arms, they sought warlike glory, victory, and the splendor of triumph, as well as the gains of plunder ; they took their superstition with them : and from the conquered countries made additions to their gods, as well as to their treasury. The Spaniards, the creatures of gloomy bigotry, carried to Mexico their zeal for making converts, as well as for acquiring silver and gold. These and many other victors were actuated by various passions; but the British conquerors in India directed their pursuits to one object exclusively, the acquisition of money. They considered, in every transaction of war, peace, or alliance, what money could be drawn from the inhabitants.

In their modes of exaction from the feeble natives, they observed the systematic regularity of commercial habits; they made bargains; and for the money received, stipulated value delivered. They pillaged, not with the ferocity of soldiers, but with the cool exactness of debtor and creditor. Instead of saying to the sovereign of Hindostán, "You have a very rich territory, and we must have a great part of the product," (which might have appeared the language of robbers,) they adopted a mercantile mode: " We shall collect your revenue for you, reserving to ourselves " only eighty per cent, for factorage :" this was the spirit of their agreements. Before they planned aggression, they calculated the probable proceeds, the debts that they might extinguish, and the addition, on the balance of accounts, which they might make to the sum total.

They considered war with the natives, merely as a commercial adventure: by so much risk encountered, a certain quantity of blood spilt, and a certain extent of territory desolated, great sums were to be gained. In all their intercourse, however, with the natives, in the plans which they devised, and the efforts which they employed for the accumulation of wealth, they manifested the immense superiority of the British character with a rapidity of success, that brought an unprecedented influx of opulence to this country, and effected a considerable change in the sentiments, habits, and pursuits of Englishmen."

Vacuous and Verbose-11

Chetan Bhagat has an op-ed titled “Indian Institute of Idiots’ in the TOI in which he not only identifies the fundamental flaws in the Indian education system but goes on to proffer amazingly simple and elegant solutions.

The first problem, as he brilliantly explains, is that there is a serious short supply of good college seats. He then gives an awesome solution that this shortage can be overcome by the simple expedient of building more colleges and more Universities and inducting more professors and teachers. Voila, there will be more seats! He provides an astoundingly splendid example: The Govt can easily buy up acres and acres of land on the outskirts of Gurgaon and create a University that is four times the present size of Delhi University.

Where will the Govt find the funds for such Universities? Here, Chetan Bhagat excels himself. When funds can be found for miles and miles of malls, why not for these colleges? Duh?

The second problem, as he enlightens us, is to do with the course content. It is quite irrelevant in today’s world, he pinpoints wonderfully. Unlike other critics who merely keep cribbing about the system, Chetan has an extraordinary solution for this problem, one that no one has thought of before - which is that the HRD Minister must take note and do something.

For this insightful piece, I am sure Chetan deserves every rupee that TOI would have paid him. What an eye-opener. What breathtaking ideas to radically overhaul the moribund system.

After his stint at IIT, Chetan seems to have become a real doer. As the crossword buffs would say, an anagram of a 5-letter word formed by adding IIT to ‘do’, perfectly describes him.

It's a record anyway.

At the end of Day 2 of the third test match against Sri Lanka:

Sehwag set to become the first batsman in Test history to score three triple hundreds!!!!!! (source)

At the end of day 3 of the third test match against Sri Lanka:

“Along with two triple hundreds, I have a 293. Nobody has done that” said Sehwag after getting out early in the day. (Source)

Vacuous and Verbose- 10

“Inflation has gone up because prices of food articles have gone up” the Finance Minister Mr Pranab Mukherjea told reporters today. (source)

I am reminded of:

1) The standard reason for delay as given by airlines : "The departure is delayed on account of late arrival of incoming aircraft” . As if the airline is not responsible for that.

2) A statement attributed to Calvin Coolidge: “When people lose jobs, unemployment results”. What Pranab is saying is similar “When food prices go up, inflation results. Don’t blame me or the Congress party for that”.

Why do I travel?

I accept my frequent traveling as something that is part of my job and for which I get paid my salary. I travel because, if I don’t, my boss will kick my ass. So, I don’t need to ask myself metaphysical questions such as “Why do I travel?”

But Jonah Lehrer of Frontal Cortex, being a writer can afford to ask the question, “Why do we travel?” and then proceed to answer the question as well

Travel is a basic human desire. But, is this collective urge to travel - to put some distance between ourselves and everything we know--still a worthwhile compulsion?

The good news, at least for those of you reading this while stuck on a tarmac eating stale pretzels, is that pleasure is not the only consolation of travel. In fact, several new science papers suggest that getting away—and it doesn't even matter where you're going--is an essential habit of effective thinking. It's not about vacation, or relaxation, or sipping daiquiris on an unspoiled tropical beach: it's about the tedious act itself, putting some miles between home and wherever you happen to spend the night.

The reason such travels are mentally useful involves a quirk of cognition, in which problems that feel "close"--and the closeness can be physical, temporal, or even emotional--get contemplated in a more concrete manner. As a result, when we think about things that are nearby, our thoughts are constricted, bound by a more limited set of associations. While this habit can be helpful--it allows us to focus on the facts at hand--it also inhibits our imagination. Consider a field of corn. When you're standing in the middle of the field, surrounded by the tall cellulose stalks and fraying husks, the air smelling faintly of fertilizer and popcorn, your mind is automatically drawn to thoughts that revolve around the primary meaning of corn, which is that it's a plant, a cereal, a staple of Midwestern farming.

But now imagine that same field of corn from a different perspective. Instead of standing on a farm, you're now in the midst of a crowded city street, dense with taxis and pedestrians. (And yet, for some peculiar reason, you're still thinking about corn.) The plant will no longer just be a plant: instead, your vast neural network will pump out all sorts of associations. You'll think about high-fructose corn syrup, obesity, and Michael Pollan; you'll contemplate ethanol and the Iowa caucus, those corn mazes for kids at state fairs and the deliciousness of succotash, made with bacon and lima beans. The noun is now a web of tangents, a loom of remote connections.

…We travel because we need to, because distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything.

Now, I know why I travel. It removes the cobwebs from my mind. It makes me the creative genius that I am.

Madness is well distributed.

In his column in the Hindustan Times ( link not up. Read page 8 of e-paper), Vir Sanghvi recalls a story narrated by his Professor, on the negotiations between the Nato and the Soviet Bloc at the height of the Cold War,

Apparently, Kissinger had a bright idea to convince his Russian counterpart that President Richard Nixon was unstable. Nixon drank late into the night, flew into rages, went down on one knee at the Oval to listen to the voice of Jesus, Kissinger would point out. In simple words, Nixon was a madman. Who knows, Kissinger would hint to the Russians, if mad Nixon was provoked, he might press the red button and nuke Moscow. This tactic, explains Sanghvi, proved to be a very effective negotiating ploy and helped keep the Russians in check.

Sanghvi then argues that Pakistan has been using this Madman theory to perfection against the Indians for decades. Years after she quit power, Benazir admitted to Sanghvi that the militants were pushed into India by the ISI, but that she couldn’t control them. Nawaz Sharif would blame the military for the Kargil invasion. Musharraf would wash off his hands and say that it was the mujahideen factor. So, each time an ‘uncontrollable madman’ was invoked and held responsible for any misadventure.

Whereas, says Sanghvi, whenever an Indian leader talks to Pakistan, he acts like a statesman showing flexibility and a willingness to go the extra mile. There is no passing of the buck; no third party is brought into the picture.

This is where I don’t agree with Sanghvi. While we may not have used the Madman theory against Pakistan, Indian prime ministers have routinely used Pakistan as a bogey- the Madman, if you will- to create a perception of a serious threat to the nation and to divert attention from internal issues. One cannot downplay the threat, but if we let that dominate our policies and relationships with the rest of the world- as we have- we are plain mad. Madness is not a monopoly of the Pakistanis. It is well spread on both sides of the border.

As a metaphor on Indo-Pak madness, I recall this hilarious story called “Toba Tek Singh” (I found the reference in one of the essays of Salman Rushdie) by Hasan Munto. It describes the scene in a lunatic asylum near the frontier, at the time of Partition. A decision has been taken that the lunatics too must be partitioned, Indian lunatics to India, Pakistani lunatics to Pakistan. Utter confusion prevails as the exact location of the frontier is not known, nor the places of origin of insane persons. But the partition of lunatics had to be done anyway. A character called Bashan Singh who keeps muttering nonsense such as "Upar di gur gur di annexe di dhiyana di mung di daal of di Pakistan and Hindustan of di dar fatay mun!" reminds me quite a bit of the speeches delivered by our politicians from time to time..