It is graduation time and people all around cannot stop 'celebrating'.(Just a puny 'r' in 'celibate' creates so much of a difference!)
Would-be-graduates immerse themselves in alcohol and/or walk around in wet skimpy clothes on campus(depending on whether it's a he or a she). They wear strange apparels and stranger head gear and harbor hopeful illusions about the future-Theirs and others'.Their parents put up 'College-Grad' stickers on their cars and float cartoon-graduate balloons from their car tops.Mother earth simply cannot keep up with their gargantuan lust for roses,daisies, germinis,orchids and what not. Having spent much of their last 4 or 5 or 6 or...n years, as the case may be, in college learning (and often preaching!) responsible use of earth's resources they go berserk and their unabashed display of floral fetish is but quite disconcerting. Some hang Olive ,alpine and what not coronas around their neck like Olympians or victorious gladiators.
They throw parties and want everyone to know that someone they know has arrived. That the world will be a better place for it and that had their graduation been a bit earlier our world would not have had Dec,2012 as it's tentative expiry date.
Too much gaiety around me disturbs me. I don't know exactly what feeling it is though. I don't suppose it could be called jealousy or contempt or resentment . Not that I don't want the show to go on.By All means it should , it must- for me to make such sullen observations about it!Indeed, I have found it central for my general way of existence that there be people or events or places -entities really- that have done nothing against my well being materially or morally - but those that I could lampoon and critique for no fault of theirs. You must pardon me my idiosyncrasy if you are reading my blog. I get restless if I don't find something to lambaste at regular intervals of time. Politics, Politicians, free style poetry, Cliched jokes, humorless acquaintances, state of High Energy Physics....you name it and no amount of money will suffice to keep me from lambasting it.Perhaps the closest dictionary 'abstract' noun that I can classify my feelings into is cynicism :
"An attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others"
As I sit now at a south facing window of Leavey library there must be atleast a couple of thousand people in festive attire holding balloons and wearing garlands and leafy crowns and photo-oping away in the McCarthy quad adjacent below.Their caps and gowns bright black , red sashes fluttering in the air.From my vantage point inside sealed windows high up on the fourth floor, they are mute characters on a television screen and myself - a deaf and grumpy cricket reporter covering the Indian team performing at West Indies recently.All I can think of producing is grump and yet more grump.
Can a possible explanation (why do we even need one?!) of the source of all this grump be that I never got to attend my college graduation that was postponed to a date I wasn't in India anymore and the day of my high school graduation I was away in Patna (unsuccessfully attempting the Indian National Chemistry Olympiad).
Who is to say ?
Why something is,
The other
or
The One Way!
Friday, May 14, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Godmen-1
I am enumerating the title as I intend to followit up later....for now you might wanna watch the following video from 2.58 to 4.55.
and we wondered how come astrology became a honors course during his tenure as MHRD. Oops i missed the 'Hon'ble' outfront.
and we wondered how come astrology became a honors course during his tenure as MHRD. Oops i missed the 'Hon'ble' outfront.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Kaprekar's Pattern
Just a little Saturday Afternoon fun.
Take a three digit number and arrange it's digits in ascending number. Call the three digit number that you get N1.Arrange the numbers in descending order and call the three digit number you now get N2.Now subtract N1 from N2. Call this whole procedure iteration one.The resulting three digit number will be 495 (Kaprekar's Constant) after a certain number of iterations.It is 495 since applying the process to that number brings it back to itself.So 495 is the Kaprekar fixed point.(for three digit numbers)
One can start with single and double digit numbers by appending zeros to the front.Infact during the iterations if the result of subtraction comes to be a two digit number then zeros have to be appended outfront to keep the number of digits 3.Not doing that can lead to zero and not the constant (consider the result 99).The process obviously fails for multiples of Nelson.
One can ask if the number of iterations required would be periodic(or have some pattern) in the natural number argument to start the iterations.Rather than work out the algebra (which to me seemed to involve a lot of conditional routes if analytics of the process is possible) I wrote a matlab program (but blogspot does not let me upload it here!) to plot number of iterations required against a user fed limit,N.The maximum number of iterations required for any number is 6 and the least is 1(By definition). (Kaprekar's constant itself needs to be processed once to get back to itself.)
Here's the Graph:
May be connecting the dots would be more appealing (though mathematically absurd since the process requires natural number input and cannot be interpolated).But here it goes:
Is this periodic? Is there any symmetry?what is the period if there is one?
Do four digit numbers settle to such a value ?Yes they do!!! The K constant in this case happens to be 6174.which I discovered reading here. More on this later.
P.S: Just discovered that people at mathematica beat me blue long long back...they have something called the Generalized Kaprekar Routine .(Aagh!!!)
Take a three digit number and arrange it's digits in ascending number. Call the three digit number that you get N1.Arrange the numbers in descending order and call the three digit number you now get N2.Now subtract N1 from N2. Call this whole procedure iteration one.The resulting three digit number will be 495 (Kaprekar's Constant) after a certain number of iterations.It is 495 since applying the process to that number brings it back to itself.So 495 is the Kaprekar fixed point.(for three digit numbers)
One can start with single and double digit numbers by appending zeros to the front.Infact during the iterations if the result of subtraction comes to be a two digit number then zeros have to be appended outfront to keep the number of digits 3.Not doing that can lead to zero and not the constant (consider the result 99).The process obviously fails for multiples of Nelson.
One can ask if the number of iterations required would be periodic(or have some pattern) in the natural number argument to start the iterations.Rather than work out the algebra (which to me seemed to involve a lot of conditional routes if analytics of the process is possible) I wrote a matlab program (but blogspot does not let me upload it here!) to plot number of iterations required against a user fed limit,N.The maximum number of iterations required for any number is 6 and the least is 1(By definition). (Kaprekar's constant itself needs to be processed once to get back to itself.)
Here's the Graph:
May be connecting the dots would be more appealing (though mathematically absurd since the process requires natural number input and cannot be interpolated).But here it goes:
Is this periodic? Is there any symmetry?what is the period if there is one?
Do four digit numbers settle to such a value ?Yes they do!!! The K constant in this case happens to be 6174.which I discovered reading here. More on this later.
P.S: Just discovered that people at mathematica beat me blue long long back...they have something called the Generalized Kaprekar Routine .(Aagh!!!)
Friday, April 9, 2010
Ads/CRT (Not to be confused with Ads/CFT)
Ads on TV can range from irritating to the ridiculous. A case in point being the Snuggly ad:
Do I need say how many Spoofs of this ad you can get among the related videos on youtube?!!!
But sometimes I find them useful in a way the sponsors hardly intend them to be.
They have over the years often introduced me to some of the bands I hear most!!!
This blog is prompted by a very recent discovery of a band called "The Heavy" through the Kia Motors Ad for Sorento.
The catchy background score got me searching for it as it must have many others who had searched for it before me on youtube:
Check out Set me Free and Colleen from the same guys.
Sometime ago through a Lincoln Car Ad I came to know about the "Under the Milky Way Tonight" by Church.
It's a pretty good track except it gets me queasy when she says exactly what the title says "under the milky way".....makes me feel the earth dropped out of it's place in the saucer's plane!!!
Lest you think I run off in search of western tracks only, here's a piece that adult swim plays in the background of it's program schedule.It's a groovy mystic Asian(Indian Sounding) piece:
Another piece that plays against the ad for Sony Bravia is a soothing acoustic piece by Jose Gonzalez:
Once it so happened that I already knew the track that was playing in the background!!!(Of the very few things I know before I am supposed to know.)It was a HTC phone ad.The track being Sinnerman by Nina Simone that I had researched for after watching The Thomas Crown Affair.I find the piece unbelievably exhilarating.
For an interesting discussion of the piece read here.
Finally,to come back to car ads there is this Audi Separation Offical Extended Version, that the creator of the piece says he had to create just cause there was so much enthusiasm for the part that played with the actual commercial.Here's the whole thing:
Having read this far I hope one is able to figure out what the Notation "Ads/CRT" stands for then!Go Figure:)
Do I need say how many Spoofs of this ad you can get among the related videos on youtube?!!!
But sometimes I find them useful in a way the sponsors hardly intend them to be.
They have over the years often introduced me to some of the bands I hear most!!!
This blog is prompted by a very recent discovery of a band called "The Heavy" through the Kia Motors Ad for Sorento.
The catchy background score got me searching for it as it must have many others who had searched for it before me on youtube:
Check out Set me Free and Colleen from the same guys.
Sometime ago through a Lincoln Car Ad I came to know about the "Under the Milky Way Tonight" by Church.
It's a pretty good track except it gets me queasy when she says exactly what the title says "under the milky way".....makes me feel the earth dropped out of it's place in the saucer's plane!!!
Lest you think I run off in search of western tracks only, here's a piece that adult swim plays in the background of it's program schedule.It's a groovy mystic Asian(Indian Sounding) piece:
Another piece that plays against the ad for Sony Bravia is a soothing acoustic piece by Jose Gonzalez:
Once it so happened that I already knew the track that was playing in the background!!!(Of the very few things I know before I am supposed to know.)It was a HTC phone ad.The track being Sinnerman by Nina Simone that I had researched for after watching The Thomas Crown Affair.I find the piece unbelievably exhilarating.
For an interesting discussion of the piece read here.
Finally,to come back to car ads there is this Audi Separation Offical Extended Version, that the creator of the piece says he had to create just cause there was so much enthusiasm for the part that played with the actual commercial.Here's the whole thing:
Having read this far I hope one is able to figure out what the Notation "Ads/CRT" stands for then!Go Figure:)
Saturday, February 6, 2010
A few Ragas
Obviously no one missed me!!!But that's OK. You , the reader should know that all our existences are infact insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
There, I said it. That is my revenge.
I am back not to rant eloquent again about state of the nation, world, or the climate. I will leave those things for now for better people in the know. I just want to share some renditions of miscellaneous Ragas that are available on Youtube.
From what little I understand of what a Raag means, I can may be proffer a heuristic explanation of the term. It is if I understand correctly, a certain combination (not just a permutation) of notes that have been discovered to produce a pronounced effect of a certain kind on the mood of the audience. A Raag can be mood uplifting, melancholy etc. Depending on the mood of the raag they usually come with a concomitant idea of the best time of the day to be sung at.So there are morning ragas and sometimes if you close your eyes while listening to them you can almost feel sunrise. Evening ragas give you a feeling of the day coming to a close. One can choose to render a song (by which a I mean the lyrics) in various suitable Raags depending on the feelings one wants to convey. Usually these songs that are usually of a few generic types: Thumri: usually upbeat lines, Khayal: A very few lines that can be repeated as many times as one wants to demonstrate one's mastery over the Raag in as many scales or tempos. Think of a Raag as an abstract structure that usually is learnt as certain combinations of the seven basic notes of Indian classical Music: Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa. But once that is done one can flesh out the vocal structure with lyrics that do justice to the mood of the Raag.
Having once again tried to pretend to be recondite about what I barely know let me stop here and enlist a few of the Raags I know of.
One Raag that a very knowledgeable friend of mine calls an all time Raag is "Bhairavi" sometimes described as the chant of the dawn and also the Sada Suhagan Raag.
This rendition of Bhairavi is sung by Pandit. Bhimsen Joshi:
Here's another rendition by Pandit Ajoy Chakravarty(must watch for Birju Maharaj doing some "Bhaavs"(nuances of dance, while seated!!!)):
"Hansadhwani": Sound of the Swans:
Raag Yaman Kalyan (Early evening) by Pt. Bhimsen Joshi:
I hope to keep adding more videos as I catch them .
Enjoy!!!
There, I said it. That is my revenge.
I am back not to rant eloquent again about state of the nation, world, or the climate. I will leave those things for now for better people in the know. I just want to share some renditions of miscellaneous Ragas that are available on Youtube.
From what little I understand of what a Raag means, I can may be proffer a heuristic explanation of the term. It is if I understand correctly, a certain combination (not just a permutation) of notes that have been discovered to produce a pronounced effect of a certain kind on the mood of the audience. A Raag can be mood uplifting, melancholy etc. Depending on the mood of the raag they usually come with a concomitant idea of the best time of the day to be sung at.So there are morning ragas and sometimes if you close your eyes while listening to them you can almost feel sunrise. Evening ragas give you a feeling of the day coming to a close. One can choose to render a song (by which a I mean the lyrics) in various suitable Raags depending on the feelings one wants to convey. Usually these songs that are usually of a few generic types: Thumri: usually upbeat lines, Khayal: A very few lines that can be repeated as many times as one wants to demonstrate one's mastery over the Raag in as many scales or tempos. Think of a Raag as an abstract structure that usually is learnt as certain combinations of the seven basic notes of Indian classical Music: Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa. But once that is done one can flesh out the vocal structure with lyrics that do justice to the mood of the Raag.
Having once again tried to pretend to be recondite about what I barely know let me stop here and enlist a few of the Raags I know of.
One Raag that a very knowledgeable friend of mine calls an all time Raag is "Bhairavi" sometimes described as the chant of the dawn and also the Sada Suhagan Raag.
This rendition of Bhairavi is sung by Pandit. Bhimsen Joshi:
Here's another rendition by Pandit Ajoy Chakravarty(must watch for Birju Maharaj doing some "Bhaavs"(nuances of dance, while seated!!!)):
"Hansadhwani": Sound of the Swans:
Raag Yaman Kalyan (Early evening) by Pt. Bhimsen Joshi:
I hope to keep adding more videos as I catch them .
Enjoy!!!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Thoughts at the End of the Year.
I renege on the advertisement in my last post- for today I write on things that have occupied me for the better part of this December and not on the ways to solve x^2=0.
My Disillusionment with India shining.
Following Wikipedia:
"India Shining was a political slogan referring to the overall feeling of economic optimism in India after plentiful rains in 2003 and the success of the Indian IT boom. The slogan was popularized by the then-ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the 2004 Indian general elections."
The then BJP government spent USD 20 million on the campaign!!!
From an ardent believer in the functioning of our democratic behemoth I have become quite a skeptic and the question that bothers me most is the complacence we exhibit in our acceptance of popular tags for ourselves.
Sovereign, Socialist, Democratic , Republic is how our constitution describes "our" pledge.But I wonder how much of each, if any, actually applies.
I like to think that my country is doing well, that despite our poverty we have compassion, despite our differences goodwill, despite the apparent chaos some measure of law and order and despite corruption our perseverance to triumph. Thus, I preferred reading Shashi Tharoor's India: Midnight to the Millenium than Naipaul's India: A wounded civilization a few months back in the summers during and after my trip back home. Set about 25 years apart (Naipaul talks about his impression about India and it's future post emergency in 1975 while Tharoor talks about his and the country's hopes around the end of the century.) -the two books can be placed at opposite ends of the scale of optimism. It might be my chauvinistic self that naturally biases me to believe more of Tharoor but I concede that as a matter of literature I would vote Naipaul to have a much superior gift of the gab.(As if my opinion matters.). But to get back to my intended export for this piece,
I find events unraveling in India deeply unsettling and pointers to deficiencies that the conjurer's who dreamed up "India Shining" would like to sweep under the rug.
I liked it better when my window to the world had been the NCERT history and geography books that we followed for the social sciences till Std. X. The British rule had been bad......Our Land had been "Sone ki Chidiya" all along till they came along and plundered it...... The people had been happy under the local rulers who were always interested in the arts, music and higher contemplations.....our Freedom struggle had given us leaders with impeccable characters and unquestionable integrity....Their ideologies had been instrumental in inspiring many other oppressed countries towards independence......Partition had been painful but unavoidable.....Our constitution was a landmark in human history(longest ever)......India had fought two brave wars and defeated the eternal villain throughout the entire post-independence dicourse- Pakistan...... India itself was the paragon of communal harmony......The state of J&K at the head of Mother India had two ears resembling a bunny rabbit.......we had had the green and the white revolutions.......we could now export food and help out starving countries..... The world had seemed so orderly and the lines on the map god-given.These ideas were only reinforced by Doordarshan the only real time news feed I had access to and for quite a long time I could state my position on all relevant topics as one or the other within the dual tone world I lived in.
The years, access to international and possibly more neutral media, few books I could manage to read in the post high school years (making time from my busy schedule of getting hammered by alcohol) and google earth have changed all that.Still unsure if I lament the tragedies and travesties of the truth or my discovery of them I cannot anymore ignore them.
I write this as I finished reading about half of Pankaj Mishra's book, Temptations of the West: How to be modern in India, Pakistan and Tibet. The part I finished reading describes the cover up of the Chitisinghpura killings on March 20 , 2000. 35 Sikh Villagers in Chitisingpura were massacred in response to which the army claimed to have gunned down atleast 5 of the "militants" involved. It was later discovered through the toils of the kinsmen of those killed that the alleged militants included two Gujars -shepherds of the Kashmir Valley and a Muslim businessmen who was found wearing the trousers that he left home in, under the fatigues that "identified" them as the same militants who had slaughtered the Sikhs.In the protests that followed which led to the civilian administration allowing exhumation of the corpses, the army tried to prevent entry to the offices by the protesters by firing upon them. 8 More protesters were killed. The surviving Sikhs in Chitisinghpura were given jobs and other compensation by the "concerned" ministers. The incident drew international condemnation led by the US whose then president Bill Clinton arrived in India a few hours later. The killings once again exposed Pakistan for what it really was,claimed the all knowing ministers and sought consolation from the condemnations and sympathy of the "World Leaders".
Why am I shocked by this incident?In the context of the world such incidents are not unique. Heads roll when something goes wrong or if it doesn't. Sadly what the discovery of false propaganda from people you trust does is that one cannot dismiss lunatics like Hamid Zaid as mere prisoners of hallucination.
Quite close to my home Naxals are protesting the rape of their land, resources, culture and way of life by making crude bombs and taking apart a few rail tracks. The Indian government wants them to understand the "Law" and one way of making them do so it decided was to engage the air-force to conduct aerial attacks on their densely forested hideouts. Read that sentence once again if you missed my point.
States in India are multiplying faster than some of the more stubborn strains of bacteria. The whole shin-dig about better governance through more more meaningful distribution of administration is a farce even when the reasons are logistically plausible. My own small town Jamshedpur seems to have been much better served-cleaner and further from trouble when Bihar was united as opposed to being the second most important and hence disturbed town in Jharkhand. While Madhu Koda the last CM made a tidy Rs. 1200 Crore during his short stint taking care of the state he is succeeded by Shibu Soren, the JMM supremo also known as Babaji.
Babaji was acquitted in 2007 for the murder of his own secretary though the charge only seems to have brightened the halo framing his head that the haria guzzling franchise of my state seem to observe around his pictures on the posters especially on polling days, when haria is distributed freely and cartloads of people ferried to the polling booth and back, free of charge , as part of the democratic drama. People dress up like dandies and the atmosphere is festive as they vote one son of the soil after another to bring them better days.
Uttaranchal,Chattisgarh, Jharkhand are realities. Poorvanchal, Haritanchal, Mithilanchal, Gorkhaland,Telegana, Vidarbha at different stages of conception.Just like a real birth our country has to suffer labor pains and bloodshed as it keeps producing states, their legislatures, it's machinery, Babudom and associated non-utilities.
And I haven't even talked about the Gujarat Pogrom, or the military rapes in the Northeast or the recurring Orissa famines or the slum dwellers in all our cities always living on the edge or the runaway inflation of food prices or the farmer suicides all over or the frequent honor killings or the matter-less election manifestos .......
It seems to me that our celebrations have begun a bit too soon. We have been talking about getting a proper place at the global high table for too long and just as what happens to fantasies oft repeated- we have become prisoners of our own propaganda. The make belief glitter and the shine of the malls and multiplexes have fired our imaginations and we(the middle class of India) have dreamt up a parity with the middle-classes of the west -that we so want to emulate - that in reality does not exist. The rich all over the world as in our country do not need to worry about economic disparity or uneven benefits of globalization. The poor are way too behind in the race to grab as much resource to further their material existences. Now that they realize when the boat begins to sink they will be the ones let off first and foremostand without lifeboats they try to make their presence felt. We don't bother since the machinery of money making has always had mercenaries (be it any of the the noble minded armies or any of the ignoble militia)clearing it's path while the middle classes turned it's wheels. The parity we seek is not just in economic terms rather it includes everything that in our opinion counts as a positive indicator of civility. Right to speak freely, dignity of humans and all forms of labor, liberal media and society,a safe society for women ,children and seniors, no apartheid of any kind......and so on and so forth. The numbers we put forth for our military, the foreign reserves we show, the stock indices at all time highs and the Soft power that Shashi Tharoor keeps talking about all seem to add yet more potency to the opium that our own propaganda has become. As I discover the failures of my people Tharoor's over-optimistic note in his books and speeches appear jingoistic if not burlesque.
By writing this piece I have become yet one more of the finger pointers you would say. I suggest no remedies only cry hoarse at the rot setting in at the foot, mouth and the inner organs.But I implore you to look at me as a destitute sitting hunched on the ground with his head in his two hands in pain and in shame, my fingers pointing at no-one for I am guilty of not doing my share for the notion of a country I still believe in .
May Everyone have a Happy New Year ,2010.
References: Being discontinued from now on.
My Disillusionment with India shining.
Following Wikipedia:
"India Shining was a political slogan referring to the overall feeling of economic optimism in India after plentiful rains in 2003 and the success of the Indian IT boom. The slogan was popularized by the then-ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the 2004 Indian general elections."
The then BJP government spent USD 20 million on the campaign!!!
From an ardent believer in the functioning of our democratic behemoth I have become quite a skeptic and the question that bothers me most is the complacence we exhibit in our acceptance of popular tags for ourselves.
Sovereign, Socialist, Democratic , Republic is how our constitution describes "our" pledge.But I wonder how much of each, if any, actually applies.
I like to think that my country is doing well, that despite our poverty we have compassion, despite our differences goodwill, despite the apparent chaos some measure of law and order and despite corruption our perseverance to triumph. Thus, I preferred reading Shashi Tharoor's India: Midnight to the Millenium than Naipaul's India: A wounded civilization a few months back in the summers during and after my trip back home. Set about 25 years apart (Naipaul talks about his impression about India and it's future post emergency in 1975 while Tharoor talks about his and the country's hopes around the end of the century.) -the two books can be placed at opposite ends of the scale of optimism. It might be my chauvinistic self that naturally biases me to believe more of Tharoor but I concede that as a matter of literature I would vote Naipaul to have a much superior gift of the gab.(As if my opinion matters.). But to get back to my intended export for this piece,
I find events unraveling in India deeply unsettling and pointers to deficiencies that the conjurer's who dreamed up "India Shining" would like to sweep under the rug.
I liked it better when my window to the world had been the NCERT history and geography books that we followed for the social sciences till Std. X. The British rule had been bad......Our Land had been "Sone ki Chidiya" all along till they came along and plundered it...... The people had been happy under the local rulers who were always interested in the arts, music and higher contemplations.....our Freedom struggle had given us leaders with impeccable characters and unquestionable integrity....Their ideologies had been instrumental in inspiring many other oppressed countries towards independence......Partition had been painful but unavoidable.....Our constitution was a landmark in human history(longest ever)......India had fought two brave wars and defeated the eternal villain throughout the entire post-independence dicourse- Pakistan...... India itself was the paragon of communal harmony......The state of J&K at the head of Mother India had two ears resembling a bunny rabbit.......we had had the green and the white revolutions.......we could now export food and help out starving countries..... The world had seemed so orderly and the lines on the map god-given.These ideas were only reinforced by Doordarshan the only real time news feed I had access to and for quite a long time I could state my position on all relevant topics as one or the other within the dual tone world I lived in.
The years, access to international and possibly more neutral media, few books I could manage to read in the post high school years (making time from my busy schedule of getting hammered by alcohol) and google earth have changed all that.Still unsure if I lament the tragedies and travesties of the truth or my discovery of them I cannot anymore ignore them.
I write this as I finished reading about half of Pankaj Mishra's book, Temptations of the West: How to be modern in India, Pakistan and Tibet. The part I finished reading describes the cover up of the Chitisinghpura killings on March 20 , 2000. 35 Sikh Villagers in Chitisingpura were massacred in response to which the army claimed to have gunned down atleast 5 of the "militants" involved. It was later discovered through the toils of the kinsmen of those killed that the alleged militants included two Gujars -shepherds of the Kashmir Valley and a Muslim businessmen who was found wearing the trousers that he left home in, under the fatigues that "identified" them as the same militants who had slaughtered the Sikhs.In the protests that followed which led to the civilian administration allowing exhumation of the corpses, the army tried to prevent entry to the offices by the protesters by firing upon them. 8 More protesters were killed. The surviving Sikhs in Chitisinghpura were given jobs and other compensation by the "concerned" ministers. The incident drew international condemnation led by the US whose then president Bill Clinton arrived in India a few hours later. The killings once again exposed Pakistan for what it really was,claimed the all knowing ministers and sought consolation from the condemnations and sympathy of the "World Leaders".
Why am I shocked by this incident?In the context of the world such incidents are not unique. Heads roll when something goes wrong or if it doesn't. Sadly what the discovery of false propaganda from people you trust does is that one cannot dismiss lunatics like Hamid Zaid as mere prisoners of hallucination.
Quite close to my home Naxals are protesting the rape of their land, resources, culture and way of life by making crude bombs and taking apart a few rail tracks. The Indian government wants them to understand the "Law" and one way of making them do so it decided was to engage the air-force to conduct aerial attacks on their densely forested hideouts. Read that sentence once again if you missed my point.
States in India are multiplying faster than some of the more stubborn strains of bacteria. The whole shin-dig about better governance through more more meaningful distribution of administration is a farce even when the reasons are logistically plausible. My own small town Jamshedpur seems to have been much better served-cleaner and further from trouble when Bihar was united as opposed to being the second most important and hence disturbed town in Jharkhand. While Madhu Koda the last CM made a tidy Rs. 1200 Crore during his short stint taking care of the state he is succeeded by Shibu Soren, the JMM supremo also known as Babaji.
Babaji was acquitted in 2007 for the murder of his own secretary though the charge only seems to have brightened the halo framing his head that the haria guzzling franchise of my state seem to observe around his pictures on the posters especially on polling days, when haria is distributed freely and cartloads of people ferried to the polling booth and back, free of charge , as part of the democratic drama. People dress up like dandies and the atmosphere is festive as they vote one son of the soil after another to bring them better days.
Uttaranchal,Chattisgarh, Jharkhand are realities. Poorvanchal, Haritanchal, Mithilanchal, Gorkhaland,Telegana, Vidarbha at different stages of conception.Just like a real birth our country has to suffer labor pains and bloodshed as it keeps producing states, their legislatures, it's machinery, Babudom and associated non-utilities.
And I haven't even talked about the Gujarat Pogrom, or the military rapes in the Northeast or the recurring Orissa famines or the slum dwellers in all our cities always living on the edge or the runaway inflation of food prices or the farmer suicides all over or the frequent honor killings or the matter-less election manifestos .......
It seems to me that our celebrations have begun a bit too soon. We have been talking about getting a proper place at the global high table for too long and just as what happens to fantasies oft repeated- we have become prisoners of our own propaganda. The make belief glitter and the shine of the malls and multiplexes have fired our imaginations and we(the middle class of India) have dreamt up a parity with the middle-classes of the west -that we so want to emulate - that in reality does not exist. The rich all over the world as in our country do not need to worry about economic disparity or uneven benefits of globalization. The poor are way too behind in the race to grab as much resource to further their material existences. Now that they realize when the boat begins to sink they will be the ones let off first and foremostand without lifeboats they try to make their presence felt. We don't bother since the machinery of money making has always had mercenaries (be it any of the the noble minded armies or any of the ignoble militia)clearing it's path while the middle classes turned it's wheels. The parity we seek is not just in economic terms rather it includes everything that in our opinion counts as a positive indicator of civility. Right to speak freely, dignity of humans and all forms of labor, liberal media and society,a safe society for women ,children and seniors, no apartheid of any kind......and so on and so forth. The numbers we put forth for our military, the foreign reserves we show, the stock indices at all time highs and the Soft power that Shashi Tharoor keeps talking about all seem to add yet more potency to the opium that our own propaganda has become. As I discover the failures of my people Tharoor's over-optimistic note in his books and speeches appear jingoistic if not burlesque.
By writing this piece I have become yet one more of the finger pointers you would say. I suggest no remedies only cry hoarse at the rot setting in at the foot, mouth and the inner organs.But I implore you to look at me as a destitute sitting hunched on the ground with his head in his two hands in pain and in shame, my fingers pointing at no-one for I am guilty of not doing my share for the notion of a country I still believe in .
May Everyone have a Happy New Year ,2010.
References: Being discontinued from now on.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Life as a GaugeTheory
I have come to the conclusion already, knowing but only a small part of either, that Life can after all be modeled quite well as a gauge theory.Let me set up a dictionary for my proposed correspondence:
(Words in Italics are words used by hoi-polloi, those in Bold by the physicist clan!)
Destiny: Action
Trajectory of One's life: Equation of motion(classical)
Twists of fate: Quantum(higher order) corrections
Attitude: Energy Level
World: R^4 Manifold of theory Space
Pitfalls: Genus of the manifold
Options: Gauge Symmetry
Good-Lawful choices: Gauge group
Free Will: Gauge transformation
Reasons: Generators
One's Identity: Identity element of the group
Spouse: Superpartner
Commitment: Symmetry breaking
Realization of one's region of validity: Scale
Beyond's One comprehension or control: Non-Perturbative
The dictionary is not exhausted with the list above...and yet these are the ones I find sufficient to convince me that such an analogy exists.Also I think that there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence and if one finds the correspondence somewhat forced then you may safely attribute that to my limited faculties of understanding.
I imagine if an unsuccesful physicist were to try his hands at preaching (read possibilities for yours truly) he might have to draw on such a vocabulary:
"Remember, Son You come with a given Action. The Equation of motion, as you well know, has been prescribed by Euler- Lagrange.However do not be perturbed by the quirky Quantum Corrections and always ,always maintain your energy Level.
Your R^4 might have after all many Genera but remember it is by preserving your identity that you can be successful. You might not always find trivial topologies in patches of your worldsheet but remember the more difficult the metric the more fun it is to get to an answer and more the possibilities. All positive transformations in your life can well be achieved by using the generators in the neighbourhood of your identity.You just need to exert and exponentiate. These generators have been tested by others in their lives and if you follow their algebra you know all the constants (of structure) you need to know.
At different points along your world-line, if you choose to consider one, you will discover a lot of possible gauge symmetry but care must be taken to first determine the gauge group rather than going ahead blindly with the gauge transformations.If you are clever you will discover that no matter how tight a corner you are in there is still some residual gauge symmetry and in moments of despair those will come to your rescue.
It is well known,to those who know it well that at some point of time your worldsheet might intersect with that of a superpartner. There will be strange attractive long-range forces at work trying to bring the two sheets together.Your trajectories might get intertwined for some interval of the affine parameter at the end of which you might need to sacrifice some of your gauge symmetry and break it by choosing some scale.
Note that this ground state is different from the vacuum you might find yourself in from time to time where you feel quite complacent and do not feel the urge to really do anything.Yet rest assured that there will be non-perturbative effects that lift you out of one vacuum and place you in another.In the meantime you will have a hell-uva ride.Oh....my apologies!!!
In trying to comprehend the duality of good and evil, light and shadow, particles and waves much effort is being invested right now and hopefully we shall have an answer soon.
The bottomline is keep away from illicit interactions and you shall come out to be beautiful, renormalized and sensible Toy-Model for others."
This constitutes my feeble attempts at spinning a yarn from some lingo I picked up at recent points on my own world-line. All physicist friends of mine are welcome to suggest even more correspondences/corrections/re-interpretations and just as a heads-up I intend to write my next post about the ways to solve the equation: x^2=0.
("x" squared equals zero).
References.
1.jkmsmkj.blogspot.com
2.dictionary.com
(Words in Italics are words used by hoi-polloi, those in Bold by the physicist clan!)
Destiny: Action
Trajectory of One's life: Equation of motion(classical)
Twists of fate: Quantum(higher order) corrections
Attitude: Energy Level
World: R^4 Manifold of theory Space
Pitfalls: Genus of the manifold
Options: Gauge Symmetry
Good-Lawful choices: Gauge group
Free Will: Gauge transformation
Reasons: Generators
One's Identity: Identity element of the group
Spouse: Superpartner
Commitment: Symmetry breaking
Realization of one's region of validity: Scale
Beyond's One comprehension or control: Non-Perturbative
The dictionary is not exhausted with the list above...and yet these are the ones I find sufficient to convince me that such an analogy exists.Also I think that there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence and if one finds the correspondence somewhat forced then you may safely attribute that to my limited faculties of understanding.
I imagine if an unsuccesful physicist were to try his hands at preaching (read possibilities for yours truly) he might have to draw on such a vocabulary:
"Remember, Son You come with a given Action. The Equation of motion, as you well know, has been prescribed by Euler- Lagrange.However do not be perturbed by the quirky Quantum Corrections and always ,always maintain your energy Level.
Your R^4 might have after all many Genera but remember it is by preserving your identity that you can be successful. You might not always find trivial topologies in patches of your worldsheet but remember the more difficult the metric the more fun it is to get to an answer and more the possibilities. All positive transformations in your life can well be achieved by using the generators in the neighbourhood of your identity.You just need to exert and exponentiate. These generators have been tested by others in their lives and if you follow their algebra you know all the constants (of structure) you need to know.
At different points along your world-line, if you choose to consider one, you will discover a lot of possible gauge symmetry but care must be taken to first determine the gauge group rather than going ahead blindly with the gauge transformations.If you are clever you will discover that no matter how tight a corner you are in there is still some residual gauge symmetry and in moments of despair those will come to your rescue.
It is well known,to those who know it well that at some point of time your worldsheet might intersect with that of a superpartner. There will be strange attractive long-range forces at work trying to bring the two sheets together.Your trajectories might get intertwined for some interval of the affine parameter at the end of which you might need to sacrifice some of your gauge symmetry and break it by choosing some scale.
Note that this ground state is different from the vacuum you might find yourself in from time to time where you feel quite complacent and do not feel the urge to really do anything.Yet rest assured that there will be non-perturbative effects that lift you out of one vacuum and place you in another.In the meantime you will have a hell-uva ride.Oh....my apologies!!!
In trying to comprehend the duality of good and evil, light and shadow, particles and waves much effort is being invested right now and hopefully we shall have an answer soon.
The bottomline is keep away from illicit interactions and you shall come out to be beautiful, renormalized and sensible Toy-Model for others."
This constitutes my feeble attempts at spinning a yarn from some lingo I picked up at recent points on my own world-line. All physicist friends of mine are welcome to suggest even more correspondences/corrections/re-interpretations and just as a heads-up I intend to write my next post about the ways to solve the equation: x^2=0.
("x" squared equals zero).
References.
1.jkmsmkj.blogspot.com
2.dictionary.com
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