What, me retire?

According to a report in The Hindu :

Sachin Tendulkar made it clear on Sunday that he does not intend to retire anytime soon, and left open the possibility of playing in the 2015 World Cup.

The master batsman, who will turn 39 next month, took on his critics who have been suggesting that he should retire from the one—day format of the game and focus on Test cricket.

“I feel that the retirement decision is something I should decide, because the decision to start was (also) not decided by someone else.

Those who are advising me about retirement did not bring me in the team,” he said at a rare press conference here.

Sachin is right. He need not announce his retirement just because others are asking him to. He can choose to stay unretired as long as he wants.

In the same way, the selectors – if they choose to and if they look at the larger interest of the team- need not wait patiently for Sachin to retire. They can simply drop him and then sugar-coat the decision in suitable platitudes.

When Sachin says “I don’t need anybody to tell me when to retire” or when he says it will be selfish on his part to step down when he is doing well, what he forget is that there is such a thing as “law of diminishing returns”.

This law catches up with almost all cricketers by the time they reach 35 years of age. From this point, any further investment on this cricketer will not necessarily yield negative returns, but will yield lower returns than before. At this point, when you compare the 35-year old cricketer with a promising 21-year old, the former might look better, but if the decision to invest in the latter is delayed, the law of diminishing returns would reduce the former to almost zero in 2-3 years, leaving the team vulnerable and without a mature replacement. Sachin is 39 years old and it would be delusional to believe that he can escape the clutches of the law of diminishing returns.

Investing in a 21-year old on the other hand can result in accelerating returns in 2-3 years. In the next few months, India is due to play most of its matches in the sub-continent, and this is the best time to invest in a younger lot..

Dravid’s retirement was well-timed and characteristically unselfish of him. I am afraid I don’t feel the same way about Sachin. Cricket is a team game, unlike a game like, say, tennis. In tennis, a delayed retirement does not affect a team or other players. The selectors must remember this simple fact,

And it is ridiculous to say that someone has earned the right to decide when to relinquish his place in the team. Past performance deserves tributes, but cannot be held as a reason to stay on for all times to come.

Can the natives become good Judges?

By the 1850s, Courts in India already had native lawyers and native judges at the lower level. The Appelate Court and the District Court were however presided over by English judges. With cases increasing in number and complexity, opinion slowly gained ground that the participation of native lawyers and judges in the legal process was desirable.

The paper, “Indian judges, British and native” ( page 277) in the book, “ The Edinburgh review or critical journal, volume 130-1" published in the year 1869 discusses the wisdom of getting native judges appointed and whether they had the capability to cope with the task entrusted. The intention of the British judiciary to ensure that local nuances were properly considered and to render justice comes through very well. Here is an extract.

With the hope of contributing something to the successful accomplishment of this object, we will try to estimate the natural aptitude of a native of India for a legal career, and the mode in which that aptitude may be most successfully trained for use in the public service.

Nothing is more marked in the present intellectual condition of India than the avidity with which natives take to the study of the law. There seems to be the same general dislike to the study of the physical sciences according to the method pursued by Europeans as there is said to have been in Europe in the age which immediately succeeded Bacon. But every native is eager to study law. This is intelligible enough. Besides that already it opens to them a career by far the most lucrative and honourable of any which they can select, it exercises largely that keenness of intellect which is the pride and ornament of the Hindoo mind.

A Hindoo revels in a legal argument. He delights in fine distinctions, in minute verbal criticism, in picking his way through a long subtle argument. Nor let anyone doubt the value of this intellectual capacity. It is quite true that it is a capacity which may easily enough degenerate into a fault. It is quite true that Hindoos are prone to an excess of subtlety. But law, if rightly taught, is just the study which of all others restrains while it exercises this dangerous power. There are sciences more subtle than law; there are sciences of which the conclusions are more forcible and weighty. But there is perhaps none in the scientific conclusions in which there is such a union of force and subtlety.

That, if properly educated, natives of India might become in the highest degree eminent, not only as forensic disputants, but as sound lawyers, we have not the least doubt.' Nor can it be well denied that could we bring this intellectual power into full play upon the administration of justice in that country, a great advance might be achieved. Could we once combine in the judge a masterly knowledge of law with a deep insight into the manners of the people, we should surely sweep away that mass of trickery and fraud which in India destroys titles to property, swamps innocent persons in liabilities which they never incurred, deprives men of their just duos, paralyses the strong and oppresses the weak.

Why do the present judges of India stand so helpless in the face of all this? The answer is simple. They do not understand their business. They see the fraudulent result, and strive to prevent it. They may succeed for the moment; but by some clumsy device which does not go to the root of the evil, and which very often only suggests a contrivance for some new villany. Successfully to cope with the cunning devices of fraud requires indeed a judge of skill and experience. But even skill and experience are not alone sufficient. The judge must also have such a scientific knowledge of law as will enable him to comprehend the question he has to decide in all its parts and all its relations, to foresee new combinations, and to provide for new results. Like the surgeon, he must have knowledge to discover as well as skill to remove; and further knowledge to assure himself that the cure is complete. Let him fall short at any point, and he is but a bungler after all.

Not only in the administration of the law, however, but in legislation also, native jurists will run the English hard. They start here, as elsewhere, with great natural advantages. Hindoos and Mohammedans understand better, at any rate, than Europeans, the ground upon which they are to work. Law is never dead. The growth of it and the conditions favourable for its development are just beginning to be understood, owing in a vast degree to the genius and learning which Mr. Maine has applied to this subject. If the matter is left to English lawyers or English legislators, we can see what will happen—they will be ever trying to thrust upon this country their crude English notions, just as they are—antiquated, anomalous, and obscure.

What have Hindoos or Mohammedans to do with opposed systems of law and equity, with trusts, with interests vested and contingent, with freehold and leasehold, realty and personalty, reversions, remainders, estates for life, and estates of inheritance? These terms and distinctions are founded on notions almost exclusively English; they are bound up exclusively with the development of law in England; a development which stands alone and which is marked out as peculiar even in Europe. A pretty piece of patchwork we shall make by sticking these notions on to Hindoo law! No—the law of India, like every other law, must be grown from its own stem. Prune it, cultivate it, train it as you will; but it must remain the indigenous plant.

London to Calcutta in... 7 days !!!!

When railway trains became popular in England and their potential to cut down travelling time was understood, more ideas were put forward to reduce the voyage time between London and Calcutta. At a time when average sailing time was around 100 days, an engineer made a daring proposal for inter-modal transport ( a mix of travel by sea and travel over land by train) which he promised would make possible, communication between London and Calcutta in- believe it or not- 7 days.

Allen’s Indian Mail and Register of Intelligence for British and Foreign India, China and all parts of the East- Volume IX, published in the year 1851, carries this report (page 562), which must have left its readers awestruck.

COMMUNICATION BETWEEN LONDON AND CALCUTTA IN SEVEN DAYS.

Such is the announcement which lies now before us. To be sure, the information is termed a prophecy, but, unlike most prophecies, it fixes the exact period of its own fulfillment, and that period is only fourteen years distant. Moreover, the consummation is to be gradual, and every five years will not only contribute its own realized portion of the work, but give a pledge for the completion of the rest. In sober truth, the scheme exhibits not the first visionary ideas of a projector, but the revised designs of an engineer who has been for some time engaged in maturing the means of the undertaking. About two years ago, we surprised our readers with the original prospectus of the "Direct Calais and Mooltan," and some doubts were, perhaps, entertained as to the seriousness of such an extraordinary suggestion. Since that time, however, the scheme has been actually extended in its scope, discussed in its details, approved in much of its purport, and so fur advanced, that of the four great divisions of the route, two have been positively decided on, and are in present course of completion.

To form a proper judgment on the character of this enterprise, the reader should open some general map including the continents of Europe and Africa, with so much of Asia as would comprise the mouths of the Ganges, and then follow our remarks, pencil in hand, upon the sheet before him. The ancient route from England to India was round the Cape of Good Hope, —a passage which was performed wholly by sea, and which generally occupied of late years about 100 days. In 1840, the first step of a new system had been taken, by turning the course straight to the East at the Gut of Gibraltar, carrying it along the Mediterranean Sea, across the Isthmus of Suez, down the Red Sea, and so over the Indian Ocean to Bombay, or round Ceylon to Calcutta. Nor was this all, for, by traversing France from Calais to Marseilles, the detour round Cape St. Vincent was altogether escaped, and the route assumed the appearance of a tolerably straight line from Calais to Aden. It will be observed that this gain had been effected partly by the division of the voyage into stages, whereby steam power became available, but more notably, by the substitution of overland cuts for long sea circuits. Thus, the cut from Calais to Marseilles saved the circuit round Spam, and that across Egypt the vast circuit round the Cape. Now, this substitution of land carriage for water carriage is the one simple principle of the scheme before us, and the problem is nothing more than this,—how to eliminate from the route between Marseilles and Calcutta those portions which au: still performed by sea, and substitute, instead thereof, some means of transport by land. Curiously enough, this is the exact reversal of that invention which changed the face of history four centuries ago.

At that time, the communication with the East was by land, but land journeys were then so painful and adventurous, that the discovery of a sea passage round the Cape at once diverted the course of traffic to a route which it still steadily maintains. At present, by the introduction of railroads, land travel has become to sea voyages what sea voyages were to mediaeval caravans, and the consequence is, that Vaseo di Gama's invention will be superseded in its turn, and the traffic of the East will once more be conducted through Constantinople, Augsburg, and Cologne.

The sea stages of the present route to India, exclusive of the trip across the Channel, are two; one from Marseilles or Trieste to Alexandria, and the other from Suez to Bombay or Calcutta. These stages constitute by far the longest part of the journey, being 5,075 miles, performed by steamers, from which an average speed of some ten miles an hour is all that can be expected. The longer, again, of these two stages is that from Suez to Hindostan, as it includes a circuit round two sides of the triangular territory of Arabia. The first object, therefore, is to treat the detour by Aden as the detours by Cape St Vincent and the Cape of Good Hope have been treated already, by carrying the passengers to the mouths of the Orontes instead of the mouths of the Nile, and forwarding them across the Turkish territory to Bussoruh, at the head of the Persian Gulf. The railroad required for this purpose would run along the Euphrates Valley, and its length would not exceed 900 miles,—barely two-thirds of the extent just executed in the little commonwealth of Massachusetts,—whereas its completion would reduce the distance from London to Calcutta by more than one-half,—by twenty days, in fact, out of thirty-nine! This project, it is conceived, could be accomplished in five years' time, and the route would then lie through Ostend, Trieste, by the Mediterranean Sea, to the Orontes, thence to Bussorah, and by the Persian Gulf to Bombay, where it would meet the Indian railroads now actually commenced, and by that time completed to Calcutta.

We have thus got rid of the Red Sea circuit, andl substituted a land route for 900 miles of the distance. There remain now the straight run from Bussorah to Bombay, and the circuitous reach, from Trieste to the Orontes, to be commuted for the facilities of direct railway transit by land. Of these, the latter is the first to be taken in hand, and its difficulties are the less, as a continuous line of railway from Ostend to Orsova, on the frontiers of the Turkish empire, is already decided on. From Orsova to Constantinople is only 315 miles; from Constantinople to Bussoruh is about 1,355, of which 900 would be already covered. The distances, in our English eyes, are undoubtedly great, but Americans have accomplished greater feats of railroad mechanism in countries where the natural obstacles were at least equal to those likely to be encountered in Asia Minor. It is suggested that the line should run round the coast of the Asiatic Peninsula, and an estimate is given that this communication between Constantinople and the Orontes, completing that between the same city and Bussorah, might be established by the year 1860. On that assumption, the total mileage of the route would give 4200 to railways and only 1,600 to steamers, and the journey from London to Calcutta would occupy twelve days.

Here, perhaps, we might pause, for it is no mean exploit to have brought Calcutta as near as New York; and Beloochistan, we must needs think, would be a strange country for even Irish "navigators." The projector, however, is not yet content, and he allows five years more for eliminating the Persian Gulf and continuing the railway from Bussorah by "the coast line of Persia and Beloochistan" to the old capital of the Ameers— Hyderabad on the Indus, whence the several branches of the Indian lines would soon whisk the passenger to Bombay, Lahore, or Calcutta, according to his wants, the latter station being exactly 5,600 miles, or seven days' journey, from the booking office of the company in Grace Church-street- This is the scheme. Its accomplishment involves the completion, altogether, of some 5,600 miles of railway; but of these, some 2,600 are actually decided on, and in course of construction already; and, if we look to what has been done elsewhere, we may perhaps think this Anglo-Saxon prophecy by no means so impossible of fulfilment as it seemed at first.

Ethics without religion- 2

In an earlier post, I had linked to an essay that argued that ethics can evolve independent of religion. That is, it doesn’t need a religious anchor or framework. Atheistic societies can have high ethical standards and have their own moral compass.

In his book “Religion for Atheists” ( confession : I haven’t read the book, I only read this review in the NYT), Alan de Botton has a slightly different view. As the reviewer David Brooks says:

De Botton looks around and sees a secular society denuded of high spiritual aspiration and practical moral guidance. Centuries ago, religions gave people advice on how to live with others, how to tolerate other people’s faults, how to assuage anger, endure pain and deal with the petty corruptions of a commercial world. These days, he argues, teachers, artists and philosophers no longer even try to offer such practical wisdom.

It wasn’t a loss of faith that brought us to this sorry pass, de Botton argues; it was a loss in understanding about how to transmit wisdom. The religious authorities had a low but realistic view of human nature. We are fragile, sinful and vulnerable — unable to create moral universes on our own. We therefore need self-confident institutions that will unabashedly transmit God’s guidance and love.

Today’s secular institutions, by contrast, have an absurdly high and unrealistic view of human nature. We are each charged with the task of coming up with our own philosophy and moral laws. We are supposed to have the ability, on our own, to remember the key things we learn and to put these ideas into practice.

So, is de Botton arguing for a revival of religion? Not quite. He is “calling on secular institutions to adopt religion’s pedagogy, to mimic the rituals, habits and teaching techniques that churches, mosques and synagogues perfected over centuries. For example, religious people were smart enough to combine spirituality and eating, aware that while dining in a group, people tend to be in a convivial, welcoming mood.”

In short, don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Religion had some good methods and tactics. Adopt and fit them them into a secular context to bring about ethical behavior.

On writing....

I have read only one book - “The Unaccustomed Earth”- of Jhumpa Lahiri’s. Her narrative style is simple, yet striking. She rarely uses a big word, but manages to string together the right words in every sentence.

In this recent piece in the New York Times, she reveals how the words occur to her:

My work accrues sentence by sentence. After an initial phase of sitting patiently, not so patiently, struggling to locate them, to pin them down, they begin arriving, fully formed in my brain. I tend to hear them as I am drifting off to sleep. They are spoken to me, I’m not sure by whom. By myself, I know, though the source feels independent, recondite, especially at the start. The light will be turned on, a sentence or two will be hastily scribbled on a scrap of paper, carried upstairs to the manuscript in the morning. I hear sentences as I’m staring out the window, or chopping vegetables, or waiting on a subway platform alone. They are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, handed to me in no particular order, with no discernible logic. I only sense that they are part of the thing.

Over time, virtually each sentence I receive and record in this haphazard manner will be sorted, picked over, organized, changed. Most will be dispensed with. All the revision I do — and this process begins immediately, accompanying the gestation — occurs on a sentence level. It is by fussing with sentences that a character becomes clear to me, that a plot unfolds. To work on them so compulsively, perhaps prematurely, is to see the trees before the forest. And yet I am incapable of conceiving the forest any other way.

That last para is very interesting. The words and the sentences come first, before the characters become clear to her and the plot unfolds. Not the other way round.

The lottery pool

In a brilliant story titled “Ukridge and the accident syndicate” and written by P.G.Wodehouse, the plot goes like this ( extracted from Wikipedia)

Weeks was a struggling actor who believed all he needed to get his breakthrough role was a decent wardrobe. Ukridge, Corocoran, Weeks and others are dining at their regular haunt when one of their number reveals he has acquired accident insurance as a bonus for subscribing to a magazine, and has subsequently received five pounds after a minor cycling accident. Ukridge is inspired by this, and persuades his comrades to form a syndicate, subscribing to all magazines offering this free insurance, arranging an "accident" and splitting the insurance monies. Lots are drawn, and Weeks is selected as the one to be insured and to suffer the accident.

Time passes and Weeks shows no sign of taking any damage. Despite much cajoling, pointing out of appropriate taxi cabs and even the placing of dangerous dogs in his rooms, he remains unhurt. Finally, he agrees that he will do the honourable thing, on condition that he is first primed with a fine dinner and champagne. The syndicate scrape together the necessary funds, and watch glumly as Weeks dines and guzzles the pricey drink, abusing his friends roundly as he grows inebriated. After the feast, he laughs at his friends, tells them he had no intention of having his accident despite their generosity, and promptly slips in front of a passing truck.

Visiting Weeks in hospital, he claims to have no memory of events, stymieing any attempt to retrieve the funds. Instead he spends the cash on fine clothes, and kick-starts his career in the movies. Returning to the present, Ukridge bribes a passing vagrant (with a shilling borrowed from Corky) to throw a tomato at Weeks as he leaves the church to face the waiting throng of photographers; the good man's aim is true, and justice is restored.

Well, I’ve read this story several times and laughed my guts out.

Today, I came across this real-life story which bears a resemblance to Ukridge’s story:

Five construction workers who claimed a colleague cheated them out of their share of a multimillion-dollar lottery jackpot have been awarded $4 million each by a New Jersey jury.

A unanimous verdict was reached Wednesday morning by the jury, which heard the lawsuit in state Superior Court in Elizabeth. The panel rejected the claims of Americo Lopes, 52, who had claimed he won the 2009 jackpot on a personal ticket – not with a ticket he bought as part a lottery pool with the co-workers.

I wonder if the P.G.Wodehouse Trust can sue Americo Lopez for plagiarising an idea.

"As long as the sun and moon endure".

The Hindu has the following story today (link)

When Tipu Sultan lost the Third Anglo-Mysore War to the allied forces in 1792, the old Mysore region did not have a newspaper to report it. But, thousands of kilometres away, readers of the Philadelphia-based The Mail; or, Claypoole's Daily Advertiser read the details of the war and the treaty that was signed subsequently.

A copy of the four-page newspaper, having survived for nearly 220 years in different hands, reached Bangalore-based document collector Sunil Baboo. He bought it from a U.S. dealer last year.

The September 8, 1792 edition of The Mail… carries details of the treaty signed between Tipu and allied forces commander Lord Cornwallis. The war came ended on February 6, 1792, and the treaty was signed on February 22, 1792. It was notified in the July 5 issue of London Gazette.

The article doesn’t carry the text of the treaty and my curiosity led me to Google Books- which did not disappoint me.

“A Collection of treaties, engagements and Sunnuds relating to India and Neighbouring Countries” published in 1864 produces the text of the treaty (page 147-152)  signed between Lord Cornwallis and Tipu Sultan in 1792. Apparently, it was dictated by Lord Cornwallis at the gate of the Sultan’s palace and sent across to the latter for signature and acceptance. The treaty has this grand opening narration:

Definitive Treaty of perpetual friendship for the adjustment of affairs between the Honourable English East India Company, the Nawab Ausuph J Ah Bahadoor, and Rao Pundit Prudhan Bahadoor, and Tippoo Sultan, in virtue of the authority of the Right Honourable Charles Earl Cornwallis, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Governor General, invested with full powers to direct and control all the affairs of the said Company in the East Indies, dependent on the several Presidencies of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, and of the Nawab Azim-ool-Omrah Bahadoor possessing full powers on the part of the Nawab Ausuph Jah Bahadoor, and Hurry Ram Pundit Tantea Bahadoor possessing equal powers on the part of Rao Pundit Prudhan Bahadoor, settled the 17th day of March 1792, of the Christian era, answering to the 23rd day of the month Rajeb, 1206 of the Hegira; by Sir John Kennaway, Baronet, on the part of the Right Honourable Charles Earl Cornwallis, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, .; and Meer Aulum Bahadoor, on the part of the Nawab Azim-ool-Omrah Bahadoor; and Buckajee Pundit, on the part of Hurry Ram Pundit Tantea Bahadoor, on one part: and by Gholaum Ali Khan Bahadoor, and Ali Rheza Khan, on behalf of Tippoo Sultan, according to the undermentioned Articles, which by the blessing of God shall be binding on their heirs and successors as long as the sun and moon endure, and the conditions of them be invariably observed by the contracting parties.

The contract is valid till the ‘sun and the moon endure”!

Conversation with daughter-36

Me: Where do you want to go for lunch?

Daughter: I am ok with any place.

Me: How about a quick thali at Woodlands?

Daughter: Ugh. No.

Me: Then, why don’t you suggest some place?

Daughter: I don’t know. I am not able to decide…

Me: When will you learn to be part of the solution and not the problem?

Daughter: Just because I don’t have a solution doesn’t mean I’m part of the problem, ok?

Me: Great repartee. You are going to be a very successful boss in the corporate world, in a few years.

Daughter: How?

Me: If someone comes to you with a problem, you can say with a straight face, “That’s interesting. Tell me, what do you plan to do about it?” Soon, that person will take the hint….

Daughter: …And go back clueless.

Me: And chastened. I knew of a boss who was even more impressive. If a subordinate approached him with a problem, he’d give him two more problems. Far from getting a problem solved, the poor guy would go back with three problems. That boss went far in his career.

Daughter: So, who ends up solving all those problems?

Me: No problem has ever been solved in the entire 350-year history of the corporate world. Problems just get forgotten and quietly buried, when larger ones materialize and make them look trivial in comparison.

Daughter: Sounds a lot like our Maths class, to me. I’ve always wondered if we’d be able to find some practical use for the stuff taught to us and the problems we are asked to solve. I realise now that they’re just preparing us for the corporate world.

Tackling multiple challenges at same time.

In the short-story “Strychnine in the soup” by P.G.Wodehouse, Cyril Mulliner is in love with a girl called Amelia and she loves him too. Unfortunately, her aunt-an explorer- disapproves of the match as she feels he is a weak and spineless pipsqueak. The groom she has in mind for her niece is Lester Mapledurham, a hunter. When Cyril musters up the courage to ask her for Amelia’s hand, the following conversation ensues.

“What, pray, would you do if faced by a charging rhinoceros, Mr Mulliner? enquired Lady Basset.

“I am not likely” said Cyril, “to move in the same social circles as charging rhinoceri.”

“Or take another simple case, such as happens every day. Suppose you are crossing a rude bridge over a stream in Equatorial Africa. You have been thinking of a hundred trifles and are in a reverie. From this you wake to discover that in the branches overhead a python is extending its fangs towards you. At the same time, you observe that at one end of the bridge is a crouching puma; at the other are two head-hunters- call them Pat and Mike- with poisoned blowpipes to their lips. Below, half hidden in the stream is an alligator. What would you do in such a case, Mr Mulliner?”

Cyril weighed the point.

“I should feel embarrassed,” he had to admit. “I shouldn’t know where to look”.

“Precisely. Such a situation would not, however, disturb Lester Mapledurham.”

“Lester Mapledurham!”

“The man who is to marry my daughter Amelia. He asked me for her hand shortly after dinner.”

Cyril reeled. The blow, falling so suddenly and unexpectedly, had made him feel boneless .And yet, he felt, he might have expected this. These explorers and big-game hunters stick together.

“In a situation as I have outlined, Lester Mapledurham would simply drop from the bridge, wait till the alligator made its rush, insert a stout stick between its jaws, and then hit it with a spear, being careful to avoid its lashing tail. He would then drift downstream and land at some safer spot. This is the type of man I wish for a son-in-law.”

The Hindoo men (FAIL!) and Hindoo Women (WIN!)

The Monthly Miscellany brought out by the East India Company, in its edition of March 1816, carries a description “On the persons of the Hindoos". Here is an extract.

…. very few of the inhabitants of Indostan are endowed with the nervous strength, or athletic size, of the robustest nations of Europe.

On the contrary, southward of Lahore we see throughout India a race of men, whose make, physiognomy, and muscular strength, convey ideas of an effeminacy which surprises when pursued through such numbers of the species, and when compared to the form of the European who is making the observation. The sailor no sooner lands on the coast, than nature dictates to him the full result of this comparison; he brandishes his stick in sport, and puts fifty Indians to flight in a moment: confirmed in his contempt of a pusillanimity and an incapacity of resistance, suggested to him by their physiognomy and form, it is well if he recollects that the poor Indian is still a man.

The muscular strength of the Indian is still less than might be expected from the appearance of the texture of his frame. Two English sawyers have performed in one day the work of thirty-two Indians: allowances made for the difference of dexterity, and the advantage of European instruments, the disparity is still very great; and would have been more, had the Indian been obliged to have worked with the instrument of the European, as he would scarcely have been able to have wielded it.

As much as the labourer in Indostan is deficient in the capacity of exerting a great deal of strength at an onset, so is he endowed with a certain suppleness throughout all his frame, which enables him to work long in his own degree of labour; and which renders those contortions and postures, which would cramp the inhabitant of northern regions, no constraint to him. There are not more extraordinary tumblers in the world. Their messengers will go fifty miles a day, for twenty or thirty days without intermission. Their infantry march faster, and with less weariness than Europeans; but could not march at all, if they were to carry the same baggage and accoutrements.

Exceptions to this general defect of nervous strength, are found in the inhabitants of the mountains which run in ranges of various directions throughout the continent of Indostan. In these, even under the tropic, Europeans have met with a savage whose bow they could scarcely draw to the head of a formidable arrow, tinged with the blood of tigers whose skins he offers to sale. Exceptions to the general placid countenance of the Indians, are found in the inhabitants of the woods, who, living chiefly on their chase, and perpetually alarmed by summons and attacks from the princes of the plains, for tributes withheld, or ravages committed, wear an air of dismay, suspicion, treachery, and wildness, which renders them hideous; and would render them terrible, if their physiognomy carried in it any thing of the fierceness of the mountaineer.

The stature of the Indian is various: the northern inhabitant is as tall as the generality of our own nation: more to the south their height diminishes remarkably ; and on the coast of Coromandel we meet with many whose stature would appear dwarfish.

And what about the Hindoo women? The description is more charitable

Nature seems to have showered beauty on the fairer sex through Indostan, with, a more lavish hand than in most other countries. They are all, without exception, fit to be married before thirteen, and wrinkled before thirty—flowers of too short a duration not to be delicate; and too delicate to last long. Segregated from the company of the other sex, and strangers to the ideas of attracting attention, they are only the handsomer for this ignorance; as we see in them, beauty in. the noble simplicity of nature. Hints have already been given of their physiognomy: their skins are of a polish and softness beyond that of all their rivals on the globe: a statuary would not succeed better in Greece itself, in his pursuit of the Grecian form; and although in the men he would find nothing to furnish the ideas of the Farnesian Hercules, he would find in the women the finest hints of the Medicean Venus.

(Read the full piece here, Page 445-6)

To the enlightener of canopy of chastity

The “Oriental’ style of letter writing characterized by flowery language, sycophantic tributes and ornate sentences, is illustrated in this letter written by the Nawab of Arcot, to the Queen of England in the year 1816 ( Source. Page 325) This was probably because the original was written in Persian and later literally translated into English.

To the ornament of the veil of modesty and majesty, the enlightener of the canopy of chastity and magnificence, queen of the kingdoms of Europe, bright star of the constellation of glory and renown, to whom together with glory and prosperity, be health perpetual!

Although a longtime has elapsed since I have had the honour of giving that exalted personage an account of my health, whose known celebrity has been the cause of great pleasure and happiness to me; yet it is matter of great grief to me, that from the distance which separates us I feel myself withheld from personally presenting to that exalted personage, the tribute of respect and attachment which the writer and all his family cherish in their hearts for her; and therefore have taken the liberty to send by Sir Thomas Rumbold, a subject of her Majesty, a diamond seal-ring, in token of friendship, and I hope that as it is taken immediately from my own finger, to be forwarded thither, Her-Majesty will condescend to wear it upon her's, as a mark of the pure and unchangeable fond wishes I bear towards the English Queen. I intreat the Almighty for the good health of Her Majesty and children, as a cause of happiness to the King, and of glory to the English nation—and may she be happy!

The art of distraction.

Right from school, we are taught to concentrate on what we are doing and not let our mind wander around. Single-minded focus - whether in studies or in sports- is the secret to succeed.

At work, we are again rewarded for ‘hard work’ done in a coordinated, well-directed manner.

But, when stuck with a problem, or when struggling to complete a report, it may actually be more prudent to take a break and divert one’s mind, allowing the brain to organize the information overload.

Hanif Kureishi, writes about the ‘art of distraction’ in this piece in the New York Times. Reflecting on his own childhood where he was humiliated for not excelling in sports, he felt that he found his true calling- of becoming a writer- through the distractions that came his way. And this ‘art of distraction’ helped him overcome the writer’s block too.

…sometimes things get done better when you’re doing something else. If you’re writing and you get stuck, and you then make tea, while waiting for the kettle to boil the chances are good ideas will occur to you. Seeing that a sentence has to have a particular shape can’t be forced; you have to wait for your own judgment to inform you, and it usually does, in time. Some interruptions are worth having if they create a space for something to work in the fertile unconscious. Indeed, some distractions are more than useful; they might be more like realizations and can be as informative and multilayered as dreams. They might be where the excitement is.

You could say that attention needs to be paid to intuition; that one can learn to attend to the hidden self, and there might be something there worth listening to.

Obviously, one can’t allow the distractions to take one on long flights of fantasy, and a balance has to be struck.

It is said that distractions are too easy to come by now that most writers use computers, though it’s just as convenient to flee through the mind’s window into fantasy. In the end, a person requires a method. He must be able to distinguish between creative and destructive distractions by the sort of taste they leave, whether they feel depleting or fulfilling. And this can work only if he is, as much as possible, in good communication with himself — if he is, as it were, on his own side, caring for himself imaginatively, an artist of his own life.

That's why when the British designed the education curriculum, they placed equal importance to sciences, humanities and sports and enabled the right degree of distraction and to stimulate all parts of the brain.

Those lovely lines

I had a Maths teacher in school who, apart from his prowess in Maths, had this amazing handwriting and a fetish for drawing near-perfect circles and straight lines on the blackboard. The sense of aesthetics he brought into his drab work was admirable. His passion rubbed off on many of his students who consciously tried to get their diagrams right.

I was reminded of that Maths teacher when I came across this video of Walter Lewins, a renowned Professor of Physics at MIT, who is also famous for the lovely lines he draws on the board.

Walter Lewins, world-renowned professor emeritus of physics at MIT, is incredible. You might think he is incredible because he's a world-renowned physics professor, and I don't want to take anything away from that little accomplishment. But because I'm not great with physics, the part of Lewins' game I find most remarkable is that he can draw a mean line. Rhythmic, precise, and clearly well-practiced, Lewins draws lines like Mozart conducted. Or like George Costanza worried. Or like Guy Fieri diners, drive ins, and dives. He's just good at it, and it's a delight to watch him nail it on each try.

Do watch the video that appears in the same link.

Good teachers can influence and inspire in so many different ways.

The sagacity of an elephant

The Asiatic journal and monthly register for British India and its dependencies, Volume 27 published in March 1829, has this interesting, even poignant tale to narrate, on the sagacity of an elephant. (page 343)

Lieut Shipp, in his Memoirs, relates the following anecdote of an unmanageable elephant, who broke loose and. killed his keeper.

The instant be had struck his keeper, and found he did not rise, he suddenly stopped, seemed concerned, looked at him with the eye of pity, and stood rivetted to the spot He paused for some seconds, then ran towards the place whence he had broken loose, and went quietly to his piquet, in front of which lay an infant, about two years old, the daughter of the keeper whom he had killed.

The elephant seized the child round the waist as gently as its mother would, lifted it from the ground, and caressed and fondled it for some time, every beholder trembling for its safety, and expecting every moment it would share the fate of its unfortunate father; but the sagacious animal, having turned the child round three times, quietly laid it down again, and drew some clothing over it that had fallen off. After this, it stood over the child, with its eye s fixed upon it and, if I did not see the penitential tear steal from, its eye, I have never seen it in my life. He then submitted to be re-chained by some other keepers, stood motionless and dejected, and seemed sensible that he had done a wrong he could not repair. There was a visible alteration in his health after his keeper's death, and he fell away and died at Cawnpore six months afterwards; people well acquainted with the history of the elephant, and who knew the story, did not scruple to say, from fretting for his favourite keeper.'' 

Sophia Loren

“What a subject: her nose is too big, her mouth is too big, she has the composites of all the wrong things, but put them all together and pow! All the natural mistakes of beauty fall together to create a magnificent accident.” — Rex Reed on Sophia Loren, review, Oct. 23, 1968. (source)

Yes, some actors manage to have a great stage or screen presence. There’s more to them than just good looks. Sophia Loren was one such. In an Italian movie titled “A Special Day” set in the 1940s, Sophia Loren stars opposite another great actor Marcello Mastroianni ( she went on to act in 40 movies with him totally). The movie is black & white, is entirely shot in one building, and Sophia Loren wears the same dress throughout the film. Yet, she leaves you captivated in the end.

That’s why I read this recent interview with her in Vanity Fair, with interest. By way of preamble the interviewer writes:

You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Sophia Loren walking. Bare-legged and pregnant on the stony streets of Naples in Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow or walking through the war-ravaged Italian countryside while balancing a suitcase on her head in Two Women. “It’s like watching all of Italy walking—there’s the Tower of Pisa, here’s the Pitti Palace, there’s the Uffizi … the gondolas of Venice,” Roberto Benigni rhapsodized for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tribute to Loren last May.

Loren’s is perhaps the most famous walk in the history of movies; you can see it as early as 1954 in The Gold of Naples: a languorous walk through rain-soaked streets in which she exults in the movement and the feel of wet fabric clinging to her skin as the men around her look on in wonder. They still do.

Banana chips of Kerala

I can’t remember a single trip to Kerala when I did not come back with a packet or two of fresh banana chips. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, when I used to travel to Kochi (or Cochin, as it was then) very frequently, I would head to a favourite shop in one of the narrow side lanes ( and side lanes in Kerala can be very narrow), order the banana chips, watch in fascination as the bananas were being sliced, thrown into the boiling oil and packed in my presence. A separate 250 gm packet would be packed for consumption in the train and would vanish before the train reached Trichur.

So, for me to think of Kerala without the banana chip is rather tough.

That’s why I was dismayed at first when I read that Kerala’s banana chip was under threat from potato wafers made by global brands. The vacuum-packing, the standardizing, the longer shelf-life make the potato wafers far easier to transport, stock and market. And youngsters seem to be switching over in droves.

The heart-warming thing is that the banana chip makers are fighting back, as this report says:

The traditional banana and tapioca chips industry in Kerala worth around 750 crore is in a changeover mode. Under threat from brands like Lays and Bingo, the local industry is trying to make banana chips more appealing to the young generation.

"Attractive packaging, convenience and a variety of flavours have lured youngsters to potato chips. To win them back to our traditional snacks, we too have to upgrade," said Alex Thomas, managing director of the newly-launched Tierra Food India. The company is coming out with 10-15 flavours in trendy packets with prices from 5 to 20 to beat competition from potato chips.

Way to go, guys. You have my unstinted support.

Why have a jury?

In the famous movie, “Twelve Angry Men”, the jury trying a young man for murder charges is convinced that it is an open and shut case and that there is nothing to discuss. All they needed to do was deliver the verdict of ‘guilty. Slowly and gradually, one of them- played by Henry Fonda-plants some doubts into the mind of each of the other members, one at a time, and finally the verdict is “Not guilty”.

Would a single judge or a bench consisting of 2-3 judges have come to the same conclusion?

If all the cases that are popularized on TV news channels (the Aarushi murder case, etc) are tried in a jury system, what will the verdict be?

Why did Britain have the jury system in the first place? Isn’t knowledge of law and its various nuances necessary and best left to specialists like judges who have risen from the system? Why did India, which adopted several aspects of the British legal system dispense with the jury?

G.K.Chesterton explains in this essay why ordinary people are trusted to take the final decision, rather than the specialists.

The trend of our epoch up to this time has been consistently towards specialism and professionalism. We tend to have trained soldiers because they fight better, trained singers because they sing better, trained dancers because they dance better, specially instructed laughers because they laugh better, and so on and so on. The principle has been applied to law and politics by innumerable modern writers. Many Fabians have insisted that a greater part of our political work should be performed by experts. Many legalists have declared that the untrained jury should be altogether supplanted by the trained Judge.

Now, if this world of ours were really what is called reasonable, I do not know that there would be any fault to find with this. But the true result of all experience and the true foundation of all religion is this. That the four or five things that it is most practically essential that a man should know, are all of them what people call paradoxes.

…..the horrible thing about all legal officials, even the best, about all judges, magistrates, barristers, detectives, and policemen, is not that they are wicked (some of them are good), not that they are stupid (several of them are quite intelligent), it is simply that they have got used to it.

Strictly they do not see the prisoner in the dock; all they see is the usual man in the usual place. They do not see the awful court of judgment; they only see their own workshop. Therefore, the instinct of Christian civilisation has most wisely declared that into their judgments there shall upon every occasion be infused fresh blood and fresh thoughts from the streets. Men shall come in who can see the court and the crowd, and coarse faces of the policeman and the professional criminals, the wasted faces of the wastrels, the unreal faces of the gesticulating counsel, and see it all as one sees a new picture or a play hitherto unvisited.

Our civilisation has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. It wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt in the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round.

Update: Apparently, in the US system, they have something called a Grand Jury. This article explains:
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While a regular trial jury hears both sides of a criminal case and renders a verdict, the grand jury only hears the prosecution’s side of the case and decides only if there’s enough evidence to officially charge the defendant with a crime. Essentially, they act as a filter for criminal trials.

In grand jury hearings, there’s no judge, no defense attorney and no defendant. The State’s prosecutor simply puts a case before the jurors and attempts to show that the defendant should be indicted and go to trial. The defense is not permitted to attend the hearing, question the State’s witnesses, or present witnesses or evidence of their own. 

This system may seem a little skewed in favor of the prosecution, but grand juries don’t just “rubber stamp” the cases brought before them. They often wind up not handing down indictments because the cases aren’t strong enough to go to court. And just because the defense attorneys can’t be there for the hearing doesn’t mean they can’t intercede.

How to propose to a woman.

“It cannot have escaped your notice that I have long entertained toward you sentiments warmer and deeper than those of ordinary friendship. It is love, Susan that has been animating my bosom. Love, first a tiny seed, has burgeoned in my heart till, blazing into flame, it has swept away on the crest of its wave my diffidence, my doubts, my fears and my foreboding, and now, like the topmost topaz of some ancient tower, it cries to all the world in a voice of thunder: ”You are mine! My mate! Predestined to me since Time first began!” As the star guides the mariner, when battered by boiling willows, and heaves him home to the haven of hope and happiness, so do you gleam upon me along life’s rough road and seem to say, “ Have courage, George! I am here!” Susan, I am not an eloquent man- I cannot speak fluently as I could wish- but these simple words which you have just heard come from the heart, from the unspotted heart of an Englishman. Susan, I love you. Will you be my wife, married woman, matron, spouse, helpmeet, consort, partner, or better half?”

“Oh, George!” said Susan. “Yea, yea, ay, aye! Decidedly, unquestionably, indubitably, incontrovertibly, and past all dispute.”

That was George, a crossword buff proposing to Susan, another crossword aficionado in P.G.Wodehouse’s short story “The truth about George” in the book “Meet Mr Mulliner”.

Brought to you by Raj, on the occasion of Valentine’s Day.

Manipulative music

In a fascinating piece, Bear McCreary explains the pattern and physics behind the theme music of some famous science fiction movies such as “Star Wars”, “2001 : A Space Odyssey”, etc.

When you think about science fiction theme tunes, chances are there are a few that are especially stirring and heroic. Star Wars. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Superman: The Movie. And all of these theme tunes have something in common: they rely on the same basic intervals.

We talked to music experts — including legendary composer Bear McCreary — to find out why so many famous theme tunes use the "perfect fifth" for their hook.

Most people will instantly recognize the first few notes in 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was originally known as "Also sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss. It starts with a low C, and then goes up five notes to a G — that's a perfect fifth right there. And then the next note is another C, up an octave from the first C.

Once, this ‘perfect fifth’ was used in 2001: A Space Odyssey, it registered in people’s mind as “ the musical characterization of the cosmos or transcendence or generally mind-blowing scenarios in film." That series of ascending intervals "acts as an iconic symbol of things that are uplifting, progressive, bold, active - all heroic traits associated with space explorers and adventures”.

We have similar musical characterization in Indian movies as well. Early mornings are depicted with the music of flute wafting by usually in a certain ‘morning raaga’ ( Bhupalam in Tamil), or the haunting violin melody that formed part of the signature tune of All-India Radio. Tamil devotional movies relied heavily on the sound of the veena when showing the actor praying to God. As Charulata Mani wrote in a piece in The Hindu:

In moments of quietude, I wonder, “If a raga were to be given a form, what would it look like? A beautiful maiden or a handsome man?” This form that we conjure up in our mind's eye on listening to the melody of a raga defines its personality, and thereby the mood that it conveys. That's why certain ragas like Shubhapantuvaraliare used to highlight sad scenes in movie background scores while ragas like Bilahari are used to bring out cheer and brightness (recall Omana Penne from Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya).

 Amazing how music can be used to manipulate our moods and emotions.

Do you have any insights to offer on the techniques used by music composers to characterise certain situations or circumstance?

Update 13-02-12:


In this WSJ article titled, “Anatomy of a tear-jerker’, Michaeleen Doucleff explains

“Though personal experience and culture play into individual reactions, researchers have found that certain features of music are consistently associated with producing strong emotions in listeners. Combined with heartfelt lyrics and a powerhouse voice, these structures can send reward signals to our brains that rival any other pleasure.

The tear-jerkers contain a musical device called an "appoggiatura."

An appoggiatura is a type of ornamental note that clashes with the melody just enough to create a dissonant sound. "This generates tension in the listener. When the notes return to the anticipated melody, the tension resolves, and it feels good."

Chills often descend on listeners at these moments of resolution. When several appoggiaturas occur next to each other in a melody, it generates a cycle of tension and release. This provokes an even stronger reaction, and that is when the tears start to flow.

Chill-provoking passages shared at least four features. They began softly and then suddenly became loud. They included an abrupt entrance of a new "voice," either a new instrument or harmony. And they often involved an expansion of the frequencies played. In one passage from Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 (K. 488), for instance, the violins jump up one octave to echo the melody. Finally, all the passages contained unexpected deviations in the melody or the harmony. Music is most likely to tingle the spine, in short, when it includes surprises in volume, timbre and harmonic pattern.

Laugh out loud

I came across this video of the climax scene of “Star Wars’ – but with a slight difference. It’s got a laughter track added. So, what was intended to be a tense, grim scene turns out to be more of a spoof.

Someone on Twitter spotted this site called “Lolinator’ which helps you add a laugh track to any video available on YouTube. So, you can download the final scene of a Sivaji Ganesan film, say “Devar Megan” and add canned laughter at appropriate places.

Just as DVDs offer you the option of sub-titles, they should provide this feature too – laughter track, to enhance the viewing experience of those like me who hate tear jerkers and emotion-charged scenes.

In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that there should be a portable device with embedded earplugs for use in real-life situations, to lighten the atmosphere. Say you are with your boss for a performance review and he is pulling you up for falling short of your target. You can activate the laughter track which will be audible only to your ears. It will help you cope with the situation much better. It will enable you to see the lighter side of life. Needless gravitas will turn to endless levity.