White House, Black President, Grey Matter

A big fat book by a lanky ex-President. I have been seeing it in our bookshops for a year now but being innately suspicious of politicians - especially slick ones - I had flipped through the tome, and put it back on the rack. It did not seem worthwhile to spend time reading about the intrigues of a distant country. 

This attitude changed a couple of weeks ago when I came across an audio version of the book narrated by the author himself. Instead of sitting down with a fat book, now I had the option of listening to it while getting other things done. Now, after seven+ hours of listening I must admit that I am not at all disappointed.

Like any other accomplished politician, Barack Obama too is a great communicator who has mastered the skill of walking a tightrope - at striking a balance between what needs to be revealed to maintain a certain image, and what to leave unsaid.

Rather than a dry, clinical account of his first term as the president of the United States, the book deftly switches back and forth between two lives - the personal and the professional. He starts with the people who inspired him - writers, philosophers, labor organisers, and of course, family members starting with the values he learnt from his mother - "...how you could build power not by putting others down but by lifting them up".

Along the way you also learn about the peculiarities of the US electoral system - of caucuses, electoral colleges, the tussles between the GoP/Reps and the Dems; the "institutionalised procedural mischief—the Senate filibuster—which...would prove to be the most chronic political headache" of his presidency while lamenting the difficulties of getting bipartisan support in the face of "egregious pork-barreling, logrolling, and patronage-dispensing tactics Senate leaders had traditionally used to get big, controversial bills like the Civil Rights Act or Ronald Reagan’s 1986 Tax Reform Act, or a package like the New Deal, passed".

Yet what caught my attention was the way in which Obama describes the compulsions of domestic politics spilling over to distant corners of the world with devastating effect. The pressures of not wanting to be perceived as a "weak" president, the consequences of displeasing certain interest groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful bipartisan lobbying organisation dedicated to ensuring unwavering U.S. support for Israel.

Also while lending context to the way in which top generals try to box in POTUS, Obama refers to the long history of West Point, and, in retrospect, the not-so-glorious line of military brass who led the country into a bigger mess - 

"It was impossible not to be humbled and moved by the tradition those men represented, the service and sacrifice that had helped forge a nation, defeat fascism, and halt the march of totalitarianism. Just as it was necessary to recall that Lee had led a Confederate Army intent on preserving slavery and Grant had overseen the slaughter of Indian tribes; that MacArthur had defied Truman’s orders in Korea to disastrous effect and Westmoreland had helped orchestrate an escalation in Vietnam that would scar a generation. Glory and tragedy, courage and stupidity—one set of truths didn’t negate the other. For war was contradiction, as was the history of America." 

In what way did MacArthur and Westmoreland escalate the crisis in Korea and Vietnam? I don't know yet. If the current situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya is anything to go by, one can be sure that the art creating a global mess out of regional conflicts continues to be a US speciality.

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LINKS & REFERENCES

Obama, Barack (2019): A Promised Land - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55361205-a-promised-land

Seeking Solace in Music

The past two weeks have quite harrowing for many of us. The news of neighbours, friends and acquaintances losing their fight against the novel corona virus, aggravated by a certain feeling of helplessness that comes from not being in a position to offer real help.  

It has also been a time to reconsider so many things that we take for granted. The freedom to travel and move around; the joys of camaraderie, of meeting family and friends; the mundane act of sharing a meal, of taking a deep breath. 

At a time when thousands of people are stricken with the mutated Covid-19 virus in India, desperately looking for oxygen cylinders and ventilators, the very act of painless, unhindered breathing seems like something we should savour and relish with gratitude.

Ever since the lockdowns began, I had resolved to make a habit of playing the bansuri, at least once a day. This was easier said than done because, for one thing, it has been ages since I stopped learning at the Gandharva Maha Vidyalaya, and except for occasionally picking up the bansuri to practice a familiar tune, my hands had all but lost the tactile memory of the bansuri - its weight and balance, the position of the supporting fingers, the feel of warm breath being released through the instrument as music fills the air. 

It took me a while to get back into the groove. Initially sitting still with a straight back seemed as difficult as breath control. Then there was the difficulty of scales - while my fingers could easily get around the smaller C-bansuri they just could not get a grip on the longer, heavier\ base F-bansuri. The only way forward was to get familiar with simple compositions on the C-scale before trying out more complicated ragas and compositions. 

YouTube has been a big help with its numerous channels that display the talents of accomplished musicians. Many of these cater to folks trying to play the Harmonium or the Carnatic flute, but here are some that I found particularly helpful, and can be easily adapted for the Hindustani bansuri :

* Bhooma Parthasarathi : "Thumbi Va" - https://youtu.be/29J2GZ51DvM and "Kani kaanum neram" - https://youtu.be/q0-AlGyP41s

* Musician66 :  "Zindagi kaisi he paheli.." -  https://youtu.be/gu5JYiCm3tA

* Sargam Zone:   "He Ram, he Ram.." (Jagjit Singh) - https://youtu.be/wEovN0wE8jY; "Ye raatein, ye mausam" - https://youtu.be/FdTVIZsAFHk

Now, as we enter the second round of lockdowns to cope with the "Second Wave" of Covid-19, I have been trying to build my riaz into a regular routine by focusing on two ragas - one for the pre-dawn early morning (Raga Bhairav) using the base bansuri (F scale), and one for the evening (Raga Yaman Kalyan) on a regular C. 

The morning sessions have been especially magical. Sitting on a yoga mat on the terrace facing the east, even the simple aaroh and avroh of raga Bhairav seem to be in sync with the meditative calm of early morning with its the cool breeze, flocks of birds flying high overhead, squirrels scampering about, and the gradual filling out of light in the skies. 

It takes about eight deep breaths for the sun to transform from a sliver of light to a bright orange orb breaking free into the skies. Once the sun rises over a certain level some musical notes - especially the komal Dhaivat and komal Rishabh seem out of place, as though the right moment has passed, the mood has changed. 

It is then time to set aside the bansuri and  Raga Bhairav, to cope with the world of Covid-19 once again, and all the surprises that the rest of the day will surely bring in...

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* https://swarajyamag.com/culture/the-bhairav-thaat-unexplored-ragas-associated-with-raga-bhairav

* https://swarajyamag.com/culture/the-atypical-bhairav-exploring-the-evolved-ragas-from-the-family

* Music and Emotion - a Case for North Indian Classical Music (2017) - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02115/full  

Breathless

 Yesterday was a day of desperate messages on our neighbourhood e-group:

13:50: "Does anybody know where oxygen cylinders can be purchased right now? "

19:02: "Mr. B needs a ventilator immediately...his hospital does not have one to spare.."

01:14: "Very, very sorry to inform you that Mr. B is no more..."

The same tragic sequence of events is being played out in thousands of places across the country now. As the "Second Wave" of Covid-19 infections sweeps across India a major crisis of medical supply-chain inefficiencies has hit India. There has been such a sharp spike in Covid cases that 54.5% of patients during second wave required supplemental oxygen during treatment - a 13.4% increase from the peak during September and November 2020.

The irony of the situation is that there is no shortage of O2 production in the country - India has a total production capacity of more than 100,000 tons/day (7,100 tpd of medical O2 as per HT), of which over 80% goes for steel-making. According to HL Meghnani, an industry veteran, industrial O2 has to be 99.5% pure while medical O2 needs to be only 93% pure, and less than 1% of O2 produced is used for medical purposes. Yet the scale of crisis currently unfolding is mind-boggling.

India's clinical management protocol recommends oxygen therapy as the primary form of treatment: the target is to achieve 92-96% SpO2, or 88-92% in patients with COPD. While proportion of those requiring oxygen beds is still hovering around under 10%, this number is at an all time high with India's active caseload crossing 26 lakh (2.6 million). The demand for medical oxygen has increased by 18% over the last 6 days across 12 states which account for 83% of India's active cases.

Where did we go wrong? What will it take to bring this situation under control? 

One of the points made by Meghnani brings out the nature of the complexities involved rather nicely - "The current crisis arises because of a shortage of road tankers, storage tanks and cylinders... each tanker costs INR 4.5 million and a cylinder costs INR 10,000 in which you sell O2 worth just INR 300" (!) Add to this the location of the O2 plants -  mostly in Western  and Eastern India -  and the decision taken by major hospitals to outsource O2 supply instead of having captive plants, and you begin to understand why the supply-chains collapsed last week.

We are now in the process of rushing in extra cryogenic O2 tankers from abroad, and penalising those who have been profiteering during this crisis by hoarding O2, and driving up the prices.

What remains unclear is a more granular picture of O2 demand and consumption in our hospitals. How many O2 tankers are needed every day to service all the hospitals in our cities and towns? Can some of the shortage be handled by portable O2 concentrators? 

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* 28Apr21 - Gurumurthy S, New Indian Express - Missing Facts, Misdirected Course - https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/why-india-is-facing-an-oxygen-crisis-as-covid-19-cases-mount-101619268862048.html

* 25Apr21 IEexplained - What changed in the second wave? - https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-whats-changed-in-second-wave-7289002/

* 25Apr21 IESunday - Falling Short O2 - https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/nirmala-sitharaman-economic-package-migrant-workers-one-nation-one-ration-card-coronavirus-6410303/

* 24Apr21 - HT - Why India is facing an oxygen crisis - https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/why-india-is-facing-an-oxygen-crisis-as-covid-19-cases-mount-101619268862048.html

Life in the Altiplanos

 

This is a book unlike any I have read so far - simple, direct, brutal. 

It lends voice to many who were never heard before - the vanquished, the defeated, enslaved, and colonised; those who try to articulate themselves in the languages of their conquerors. The author won the Nobel Peace Prize of 1992, and being unlettered, dictated her life's story to Elizabeth Burgos who, in turn, edited and transcribed it as a first person account.

The book narrates a type of exploitation that has many facets, many layers. You can see within it glimpses of the caste system that was the hallmark of India's social structure for centuries,  the maoist movement which plagues parts of eastern-central India, all the way to the way we engage with our own domestic servants everyday.

Rigoberta Menchú is a Mayan from el Quiché province of Guatemala. When the Spanish conquered and colonised the Mayans a few centuries ago, hers is one of the numerous communities that were driven into the remote forests - the altiplanos. Descendants of the conquistadors now come in the form of white  or ladino landlords who try to push them off their land, further and further into the forests. 

Life is tough, food is scarce. So entire families end up as migrant labourers, working in the finca's along the coast, plucking coffee, harvesting sugarcane. Young girls are forced to work as servants in the cities, getting paid a pittance, being treated worse than dogs, and getting fired for refusing to 'initiate' their master's son's into sex... many end up as prostitutes. Those trying to seek justice are hounded, tortured and killed. Judges are bribed to ensure that protesters rot in jail. 

While reading Rigoberta's account you wonder how many millions more have suffered such horrors and privations. One of her brother's died of starvation, another was publicly tortured and burnt alive; her father was among the 38 who were burned to death during peasant uprising of 1980 and the consequent  burning of the Spanish embassy in Guatemala city. 

I saw in Rigoberta's stories the face of ShimaPolayan. A short, dark, muscular man who used to stay on my grandfather's land with his family, and labour in the paddy fields and estates. Perhaps his ancestors owned the area before it was forcibly taken over by newcomers who perhaps saw themselves as more civilised and entitled. Over the centuries, these people lost the confidence to fend for themselves and instead ended up at the bottom of the social pyramid, living in huts with their families and serving the 'upper castes' all their lives. 

ShimaPolayan lived in Southern Kerala and died maybe forty years ago, but during his lifetime he saw his children growing up in a more equitable world - going to school, learning the power of voting rights, and discovering that there was a better world beyond the endless toil in paddy fields.

Perhaps during his lifetime he realised that those whom he served were also slaves of a colonial power. That they may have spoken English with the correct accent, fought their master's bloody wars in lands far afield as Mesopotamia and the Flanders, and had conditioned themselves to believe that they were inferior to the white man.

The old pecking order of white-man, brown-man and black-man began crumbing after India became independent. Thanks to high literacy and democratic norms the ShimaPolayan's of the Kerala disappeared decades ago. 

On the opposite site of the world in South America the struggle still continues. How many more will it be before Rigoberta's people get back their land, and rebuild their communities?

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigoberta_Mench%C3%BA 

* I, Rigoberta Menchu - Nobel laureate, 1992 - https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1992/tum/facts/

R-Value and it's Covid Travails

SARS-Cov-2 aka Covid-19, the virus behind the current pandemic continues to be a nightmare for everybody - especially for statisticians. 

It was bad enough to have the Chinese obfuscating the truth about the original 'Wuhan virus' last year, but now we have a range of mutants (and double-mutants) that seem to be spreading in ways that are difficult to predict. This is is making the work of those who prepare statistical models much more difficult, and this in turn is affecting the quality of decisions being taken by policymakers.

Take for instance, the reproductive-value or R-Value for Covid-19. R is the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus. 

The lowest possible R-Value is R-naught or R0. Also referred to as the Basic Reproduction Number, it is the R-value of a population that is assumed to have zero immunity against a new infection. R0 is the division of the number of new infections by the number of existing infections, or the average number of new infections over an infectious period (R0= new infections/existing infections).

Measles has an R number of 15 in populations without immunity. It means that, on average, every 10 people with Measles will infect 15 other people. For Covid-19, the latest R-value estimate for India, is around 1.30. This number is showing wide variations across states with Uttar Pradesh recording the highest infection value at 1.62, followed by Andhra Pradesh at 1.61.

The problem with the R-Value is that it gives us a picture of the past - by the time you calculate it, the number is already outdated. This is because it is based on data recorded on hospitalisations and death figures to get a sense of how many people have the virus – but the problem with this is that, since the virus’s incubation period is so long, it only gives an accurate picture of a few weeks ago.

Add to this the complications coming from recent mutations of the virus in different parts of the world, each with its own incubation period - the "UK" B.1.1.7; the "South Africa" B.1.351; "Brazil" P1, "India" variants B.1.36 (Bangalore) / B.1.1.7 (Punjab) and B.1.617 which contains two specific mutations - E484Q and L452R which is capable of 'immune escape', and infecting those who have already been vaccinated. 

Add to all this other newer emerging variants of concern (VoCs) and we have all ingredients for a statisticians' perfect nightmare. 

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52473523

* https://theprint.in/health/indias-covid-r-value-increases-to-1-30-this-week-the-highest-since-april-2020/633783/

* https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/covid-19-what-is-the-r-number/

* https://www.statista.com/statistics/1101713/india-covid-19-cases-by-type/

* R0 Explained - https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/coronavirus-r0-reproduction-number-explained-6354339/

Across the Waters

 The Suez was in the news last month. A single, massive ship passing through the canal got blown by the winds and ended up getting wedged across the canal, blocking traffic for a week. During this period it effectively blocked the passage of about 400 ships and prevented an estimated USD 9.6 billion worth of trade!

How did we end up getting so completely dependent on the Suez and Panama canals? What is it that drives us to make bigger and bigger ships that need wider, deeper shipping docks and canals that cut across continents? The simple and obvious answer is global trade, and the economy of scales that drive it. If simple answers do not satisfy you, the book you need to read is David Abulafia's "The Boundless Sea".

This book is a serious piece of work - over 800 pages of which nearly half is references and citations! And yet, it is eminently readable, especially in the e-book format where the act of picking up a book of this size does not remind you of visits to the gym :)

The book covers a wide canvas. Starting from the oldest records of those who ventured out to explore the seas and oceans, all the way to the obsessive search for trading opportunities and power-play between countries that marks our relations with the not-so-boundless seas today.

I particularly enjoyed reading the sections on Polynesian navigators and explorers, trade during the Harappan period; the spread of Buddhism by sea; the Cholas, and the spread of Omanis deep into southern coasts of Africa. Towards the end, details of the arrival of the Europeans on the scene, and their depredations in Africa, the Americas and Asia makes for depressing reading. 

At the end one has to admit that if it were not for the bloody competition between the European powers that completely transformed the world through slave-trading and migrations, the world would have been a completely different place. 

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* 2021 Suez Obstruction - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Suez_Canal_obstruction

* 

Covid Shielded

The lady who helps us with the housework is from a remote coastal village in West Bengal. Yesterday she got a call from her parents and the news was that they were both suffering from fever. A few thousand kilometres away, near the capital city, we too were afflicted by the same symptoms - the expected after-effects of a vaccination national drive against Covid-19. 

We were among the four million+ people who got vaccinated in India today. While the fever and the dull pain of an intramuscular injection abates, it is quite amazing to think of superlative effort that has gone into creating, testing and delivering these vaccines all over the world.

The vaccination program started its rollout in India couple of months ago. First for those over 65 years of age, and for those who were vulnerable due to 'co-morbidities'. At first people were wary, and senior citizens had to be coaxed and cajoled to the vaccination centres. This changed on 1 April 2021 when the government decided to expand the coverage to those over 45 years of age.

The sheer scale of this effort does not hit you until you participate in it. It is a four step process is driven by information technology in which each dose can be traced back to a specific vial at a specific vaccination centre:

(1) Registration at CoWIN site - a single phone can be used to make four bookings at either government 

(2) Selecting a vaccination centre - Based on your postal PIN code you can opt for either the nearest government centres (free of charge) or private hospitals / clinics (fixed at INR 250) 

(3) Vaccination - At the hospitals a queuing system ensures that people maintain social distance. Each vaccine station has three staff  - two for writing out the registration details, one  for preparing the vaccination card, one for checking the CoWIN id, uploading the confirmations online, and a nurse who administers the vaccine. The whole process takes about 8 minutes. After the jabs people are expected to wait for 30 minutes of observation before returning home. 

(4) Certificate - within a few minutes of getting vaccinated an SMS message leads you to an online certificate (PDF) which can be used as proof while travelling.

(4) Follow-up - each vaccinated person is given a card which specifies the vaccine type (Covidshield / Covaxin), the date for the second dose (min. 28 days), emergency helpline numbers and a list of five possible after effects (mild fever, pain and swelling, etc.,)

One thing I have learnt along the way is that the government machinery seems to be far more efficient than the private sector. In my immediate neighbourhood all the hospitals were booked until 14 April, so I expanded the generic Noida PIN code and booked two slots on 1 April at Metro Hospital from a list of about 10 hospitals. 

However my experience at Metro Hospital left me quite disappointed. It is a large hospital in Sector-11 Noida. When I found my way to the entrance the staff seemed paralysed by chaos - there were over a 100 angry, impatient people already crowding inside, with the guards telling the newcomers that they would need to wait for three hours!

I went back to the CoWIN site and got my appointment rescheduled to the  next day at the District Combined Hospital, a government facility in Sector 30. Over here the whole process was a breeze. There was ample parking outside; masks, hand sanitisers and social distancing was compulsory; tokens were being distributed at the main gate and security guards were systematically guiding people through waiting halls while giving priority to the elderly and infirm.

Millions of tiny vials from Oxford-AstraZeneca / Serum Institute of India, Sputnik and J&J have now set out to deal with a virus from China that had the world paralysed for more than a year. Hope is in the air, and in our blood streams.

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LINKS & REFERENCES:

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/covid19-vaccination-over-36-lakh-people-get-the-jab-on-april-1-the-highest-so-far-11617335903675.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-55748124 - Covishield and Covaxin: What we know about India's Covid-19 vaccines

On the remarkable role being played by Co-WIN and its developers (19 April 2020, Indian Express) - https://indianexpress.com/article/india/co-win-platform-coromnavirus-vaccine-india-modi-govt-7279432/

Sri Varaha - What a Boar!

One of the many intriguing things about the temples of Khajuraho is the prominence given toVaraha - the boar incarnation of Sri Vishnu.

As is the norm, nearly all the temples here face the rising sun, and many temples dedicated to Shiva have a Nandi, the bull, facing the deity, looking towards the west. At Khajuraho, in front of the 10th century Lakshmana temple stands a shrine dedicated to Varaha.  It does not seem big until you climb up a fleet of stone stairs to see the massive, beautifully carved and polished,  single-stone sculpture of Varaha that almost looks like a huge piggy bank rendered through flights of imagination. 

Mythology is of course a time tested way of communicating an underlying philosophy through engaging stories. This one is no different. The ASI boards at the temple does not tell us anything beyond the estimated timelines of construction. So I thought this sculpture was a one off thing until today when I came across a tweet by William Dalrymple with a Varaha image from Eran in Madhya Pradesh that looks almost exactly like the one in Khajuraho.

Intrigued, I got in touch with a cousin, an archeologist at MSU Baroda, who told me that Varaha was a popular cult in central India during the early phase of the Guptas, around 300 CE. "In fact the largest of these Bhu-Varahas is at the Udayagiri caves near Sanchi, where the 12 feet high rock-cut statue, in an area that has the earliest surviving evidence of Hindu structural temple construction."

Why would the earliest temples give so much importance to an animal form, and that too, a wild boar? What do all those intricate carvings on the boars head and torso signify? Apart from some distant memories of stories I heard from my grandmother, and those that I read in Amar Chitra Katha comics, my bandwidth was rather limited. 

These are stories that have survived thousands of years, from one generation to the next. My grandmothers generation is no more but her children have grown up seeped in poetry, and the epics. So when I reached out to my mother I was not surprised to receive at the outset an admonition, a gentle rebuke of a reminder - "How many times have I told you to read the Srimad Bhagavatham? It is a treasure trove of wonderful stories!"

Easier said than done. The Srimad Bhagavatham, or Bhagavata Purana, consists of 12 books (skandhas) with 332 chapters (adhyayas) containing about 18,000 verses... in Sanskrit!

The story of Varaha-avatara is covered in canto 3, chapter 13, and goes something like this: 

Four baby-faced nerds of the spiritual world, the elder sons of Brahma called the Sana-Kumaras, once went to visit Vishnu.  At the gates of Vaikuntha, the abode of Vishnu, they were stopped by two guards, Jaya and Vijaya, who refused to let them through - the kids just did not look serious enough to deserve a meeting with the boss.

The Kumaras got enraged. They cursed Jaya and Vijaya to be born on earth thrice, as three villains with characteristics of "lust, anger and greed". In the first round, during Satya Yuga, the guards were reborn on earth as asuras named Hiranyakashyapu and Hiranyaksha. 

So one of the insolent guards turned into the demon Hiranyasha. While living up a life of lust, greed and anger, he once assaulted Mother Earth (Bhu-devi), and dragged her down into the cosmic ocean. People were distraught, they prayed to Vishnu for help, and this time he took on his third avatar to become a wild boar - the Varaha. Varaha dives into the ocean, and finds Bhu-devi. After this rescue mission, as he swims out of the ocean with the Devi clinging on to his curved tusk, Hiranyaksha tries to stop Varaha. A fight ensues, the villain is killed, and Mother Earth is saved.

As always these mythologies are full of hyperlinks - wheels within wheels, stories within stories, popping up like Matryoshka dolls. 

What remain unclear is the reason why the cult of the Varaha is restricted to Central India. There is a place near Thiruvananthapuram called SriVaraham named after a shrine dedicated to the same avatar. But why are there no shrines to this avatara elsewhere? 

Also, in terms of iconography, the rest of the picture remains unclear - Why is the goddess of wealth (?) placed at the nostrils? What is that fat snake crawling on the ground? why are there 'thousands of sages' attached to the boar's body? 

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* Bhagavata Purana - https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/

A Disjointed War

 

A few years ago, an old Afghan friend turned up and Delhi and we decided to meet at Lajpat Nagar. "This is AK", he said introducing a compatriot, "He is a Tajik but we are still good friends." 

I knew that my friend was a Pathan but the introduction left me baffled. There I was, a South Indian, born and brought up in the north, sitting in a bustling market built from scratch by punjabis displaced by the partition...but I just could not imagine introducing a friend from UP, Mizoram or Gujarat, or anywhere else in India, in this way.

It is only later, after serving two UN assignments in Afghanistan that I began to understand that the caveat 'still good friends' was actually an achievement in itself. In Kabul I had found a city that was struggling to recover from years of war and strife, a city divided along ethnic lines, where communities sought the safety of numbers.

Once while driving from Jemal Mena and Kabul University towards Sevom Aqrab, we got stuck in a traffic jam. A colleague pointed to the traffic junction and reminisced, "When I was in school this was a dangerous crossing...on this side were the Tajiks, on the other, the Uzbeks and across the road, the Hazaras...all suspicious of each other, trying to keep the Taliban out of their neighbourhoods...there were dead bodies all over the place...you could get killed simply for responding to a casual greeting with the wrong accent of Dari or Pashto.."

It is a difficult world to explain or understand. Steve Coll's latest book, "Directorate S", tries to give you a bird-eye (or blimp) view of the other side of the story. One that enfolds after 9/11 and the arrival of USA into this tinderbox, seeking Al Qaida, Osama bin Laden, and revenge for the attack on USA. 

An ultimatum was given to Mulla Omar and the Taliban leadership - surrender your guests OBL, and his AQ minions, or else. Bound a code of honour, and, perhaps, by naiveté, they refused and opted for the 'or else'. That autumn US-led coalition dropped about 12,000 bombs on Afghanistan...about 40% were "dumb", unguided resulting in thousands of civilian deaths. 

The Soviet invasion of 1989 had claimed an estimated one to two million lives, or up to 10% of the population. This US invasion also caused about 140,000 deaths directly by the end of NATOs formal combat role in 2014. While the US-led allies spent about $60 billion a year in men, materials and 'humanitarian aid' in Afghanistan, the Taliban found refuge in Pakistan and managed with an estimated budget o $100 million annually. from Arab donations, drug dealing, protection rackets, local taxation, extortion and kidnapping.

Now what about the title of the book, 'Directorate S'? Well the author does not have much to offer other than patchy details about ISI and its machinations. The focus of the book is on allied generals, ambassadors, assorted dictators, dubiously 'elected' leaders and diplomats. 

Steve Coll's latest book reads like a thriller but it leaves you disappointed because the book is essentially about short-sighted Americans, not the Afghans, ISI or a way out of this mess. It describes two decades of disjointed war which has turned out to be as effective as most of the allied bombs - dumb.

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REFERENCES & LINKS

Coll, Steve (2018): DIRECTORATE S - The CIA and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Kabul's All Seeing Blimps - https://www.wired.com/2011/01/all-seeing-blimp/

Spin and Wobble vs. Space and Time

 Today is the winter equinox - one of the few festivals days linked to the solar calendar India. In the north - especially in Punjab the day is celebrated as Lohri, a harvest festival, while in the south and east it is Makara Shankranti.  

In the zodiac, Makara (crocodile), coincides with Capricon (sea-goat), and so this day marks the farthest movement of the sun on horizon, the longest night and shortest day of the year. From here on, as the sun moves further into Makara/Capricon, the days get longer, and winter is giving way to spring.

Indian astronomy is something I always wanted to understand better. No festival or ceremony - birth, marriage, death - is complete without a precise reference to the Hindu almanac which seemed like a complicated triangulation of the position of the stars, constellations, the sun and the moon. This is also the reason why most of us celebrate two birthdays every year - the constant solar calendar date, and the luni-solar date which changes each year.

It is only recently that I came across a video that explains some of these things clearly - a lecture by Prof. Raj Vedam titled, "Indian Civilization - The Untold Story". It is a long lecture (1:37 hrs) but what fascinated me is the explanation on astro-archeology. In this the author uses references to the luni-solar dates in the ancient epics and poems to determine when these works were composed.

First a bit of background. What is the Indian astronomical model? 

The main elements of the traditional astronomy are the Nakshatras and Rashis. The night sky was divided into 13&1/3 segments (Nakshatra s) and each was named after the brightest stars in that section. The 27 Nakshatras  covers the space around earth (27 * 13 1/3 = 360 degrees).

Next this was combined with the location of the full moon. So the sky was also divided into 30 degree segments called the Rashi -(30*12 = 360).

Now consider Kalidasa's epic poem, "Meghadoota" (The Cloud Messenger) which is said to have been composed in the 4th or 5th century CE. The story refers to a time when "the rainy season (Varsha Ritu) began in Ashada Masa". This means that at this time, the full moon was above Ashadha nakshatra (~Sagittarius constellation), and from here it follows that that the sun, 360 deg opposite, was in Punarvasu nakshatra (castor-pullox of Gemini).

At present the rainy starts when the sun is in MrigaShirsha nakshatra (Orion constellation). There is only one logical way to explain this discrepancy - precession of equinox.

What exactly is precession? It is the wobble of a spinning top. As the earth spins on its axis (once every 24 hours), it also wobbles slowly, making the axis turn a full circle in 25,771 years. Thanks to this wobble our view of the stars also changes as time goes by. Today Polaris is the pole-star (Dhruva today); in 3000 BC it was Thuban, and in 14000 AD it will be Vega (Abhijit).

So, coming back to Kalidasa's poem, it is precession that explains a two nakshatra difference between the observation of the start of the rainy season. Precession of equinox happens at the rate of 960 years per nakshatra. Hence the event being described by Kalidasa happened 1920 years ago (960 * 2), around ~100 CE about 400 years before the commonly accepted date of the composition!

This makes you wonder about conventional wisdom, most of which is based on the observations of Western scholars. Which are the other dates waiting to be revised in our textbooks? 

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* "Indian Civilization - The Untold Story" by Prof. Raj Vedam - https://youtu.be/RGyjvyXEKdc

* List of Nakshatras - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nakshatras

Slavery - Not So Long Ago

 I got my first introduction to the concept of Slavery a few decades ago,  from Alex Haley's book, "Roots". 

This book not only left a lasting impression about this dehumanised life of Kunta Kinte, but also a notion that slavery was something that was the white man created to obtain cheap labour for his plantations in the New World - a rather naive view in which slaves were snatched from Africa, packed like sardines into ships, and sold to sugar and cotton plantations in the Americas.

I did come across other references to slavery in the distant past. The history of Islamic invasions across the Indus River, the enslavement of 'infidels' in their thousands by the Ghaznivid and Ghorid sultanates, as a result of which an entire mountain range got the name Hindu-kush, or 'killer of Hindus', because a large number of Indian slaves had perished while being driven across the central Afghan mountains, to the slave supermarkets of Central Asia. 

That was, of course, the distant past. The most recent news of slavery came from the Middle East with reports of what ISIS or Al Qaida had been doing to the Yazidis and other ethic minorities in Iraq and Syria. Except for this aberration of sorts, my rather simplistic view has been overturned by the book - "Slavery in South Asia" by Richard Eaton and Indrani Chatterjee.

This book is a compilation of essays focusing on different parts of India across the ages.  It now turns out that far from being a rarity, slavery has always been an integral part of empire building in India. 

If the ISIS enslavement of Yazidi women is shocking, you should read about what the Cholas did with captured women for centuries. They developed military slavery to such an institution that captured women were systematically organised into "Velam s", to serve as breeding machines for future soldiers. A practice that has been meticulously recorded in temple inscriptions both by the victors and the vanquished - especially the Pandas and Chalukyas.

Another surprise was the extent to which foreign slaves were brought into India. Mongol invasions (starting 1222 CE) had destroyed the social and economic fabric of the area around the Caspian Sea, and children were being traded for a pittance. So Central Asian raiders to India had entire battalions made of such slaves, and trusted them more than their own sons. Some of these slave-boys went on to become Sultans themselves, starting with Qutub-al-Din Aybak, Iltutmish and Balban, all of whom were slaves of Turkish origin.

Religious sanction, of course, provided just the impetus for a practice that would surely have been hard to accept morally. The Koran was - and is - quite unambiguous - 

"When ye encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads, until ye have made a great slaughter among them; and bind them in bonds; ad wither give them a free discussion afterwards, or extract a ransom; until the war shall have laid down its arms. -- Sura 47:4-5 in The Koran

"Tarikh-i-Firuzshahi" gives the standard value of a 'working girl' as fixed between 5 and 12 tankas, a singing girl between 20-40 tankas...a handsome slave-boy between 20-30 tankas, a working man between 10-15 while "ill-favoured" boys were priced at 7-8 tankas.

Alauddin Khilji had a slave general with a name that combined his price-tag - Malik Kafur Hazar Dinari. He had been captured during a raid into Gujarat and went on to become an army commander who not only stopped the Mongol invasions in the early 1300s but also plundered the kingdoms of deep south - the Kakatiyas, Hoysalas and Pandyas.

Each time there was a successful raid into India, so many people were enslaved and taken away that prices nosedived, and the slave markets collapsed. Ibn Battuta was quite pleased at the bargain rates for which he got slave boys and girls in Delhi; All the Mughals traded Indian slaves for horses from Uzbekistan; Nadir Shah took so many slaves and wealth back to Persia that he did have to tax his countrymen for a few years.

Then we have the amazing Ethiopian slaves, purchased from African kings and Arabs in exchange for Indian textiles. These "Habshis" and "Sidis" formed military backbone of the Deccan Sultanates. So much so that one of them - Malik Ambar - became the de facto king of Ahmednagar and employed among his many Maratha commanders, the father of a boy who was to become Chattrapati Shivaji!

Did the practice of slavery end after the British took over India? Not quite. A British monarch himself requisitioned for "two pairs of slave dwarfs" from India for his entertainment. In the North East of India the practice of slavery continued to the basis for recruiting soldiers into the British Indian Army. 

During the 1800s, more than four rounds of severe famines had ensured that thousands of men, women and children were forced to become slaves under the "Chawmman" system wherein they owed their chiefs for payments for board, or price of food. So when the British wanted cannon-fodder for the trench-wars in Europe, these men were readily signed up by their village chiefs. 

It was only after the First World War that the 1919 Convention of Saint Germain-en-Laye affirmed international desire to secure complete suppression of slavery. This was lated taken affirmed by the League of Nations and then, the United Nations.

This book is a sobering reminder that the dreadful past is a lot more recent that we imagine.

Alwar and Sariska

This was a New Year trip to remember.

Our road trip to Alwar and the Sariska Tiger Reserve was just meant to be a break - from the dreariness of Covid Lockdowns and the usual overcast gloominess of peak-winter in Delhi. The expectations were rather low - we had not spotted a tiger during our trip to Ranthambore, so in our calculus, Sariska, with less than half the number, did not stand much of a chance. I had not heard much about sightseeing in Alwar, and the hotel too did not seem remarkable.

As a fallback option, I had armed myself with a nice fat book to cope with the anticipated ennui - "Slavery and South Asian History", a compilation of essays by Indrani Chatterji and Richard M. Eaton.

Four days later I am looking back with wonder and amazement over the fact that Alwar does not attract even a fraction of the tourist traffic that throngs the so -called Golden Triangle of Delhi-Jaipur-Agra.

It is a lovely getaway. Alwar is a plain little town that hides its treasures very well, and Sariska Tiger Reserve has the feel of a Jurassic Park biding its time, waiting for the world to wake up to its potential.

We started out road trip on 30 Dec., 2020, half expecting the roads to be blocked by agitating farmers. The journey was smooth - except for the switchover from National Highway 8 to the State Highway. The junction at Bhiwadi is a pot-holed mess and for a few dozen kilometres the SH has a nasty collection of unmarked speed-breakers. Once you get past these, the driving is smooth as can be.

Hotel Alwar Bagh Aamod is about midway between Alwar and Sariska. It covers a large area alongside the Aravali hills, with lawns, orchards and gardens. The rooms are so-so. Many of the facilities it promises on its website are not available (space observatory, table-tennis), while some of the 'sports facilities' are downright pathetic - especially indoor games like snookers, darts and carroms. The hotel blames this on cutbacks linked to the the C19 lockdowns. However, it does have a bunch of really helpful and proactive staff. The obstacle course is particularly good, and is staffed by an able Lucky-ji. They also offer a decent buffet spread for breakfast and dinner as a part of the package.

The drive from Aamod to Sariska is quite interesting. The gentle Aravali hills seem to grow higher and broader, you drive past an unmarked fort surrounded by jagged rock formations, past the buffer area of the park until you reach the main entrance which seems to sit at the centre of a massive U-shaped valley. 

I was surprised to learn that this park covers 881 sq.km which is more than double the size of the Ranthambore reserve. It has lovely scrub forests and valleys filled with dhok trees, plenty of deer (Sambhar, spotted and Neelgai) and birds. We hired a jeep and drove around route-2 for more than two hours, enjoying the pin-drop silence broken only by occasional animal calls, and the low rumble of the vehicle. One obvious flaw of this park is that it allows private vehicles owned by local villagers, unfettered access right through the park. No wonder the tiger population here fails to grow here -- the domestic cows and buffaloes that roam around in the park are clearly not bothered by the tigers. 

The park has a ticket counter but it is better to make online bookings at Sariska Tiger Reserve site. It is better to choose the open jeeps over the noisy canters at about INR 800 pax.

The park does gives you a sense of how this area would have looked for thousands of years. Alwar district located along one of the old trade routes to the Arabian Sea, so it is not surprising that it has a long history. During the Vedic era and the Mahabharata wars (~4000 BCE?), this area was ruled by the Matsyas. An Ashoka edict in nearby Viratnagar (Bairat) dates back to 300 BCE but  the structures that stand today are the palaces, tanks and forts built by the local Rajput clans.

Alwar's medieval palace now functions as a dreary government secretariat but three things here a strong impression -- Musi Rani ki Chattri (a mausoleum), the terraced water-tank, and the government museum. At the mausoleum a board tells you that it was built in the memory of Raja Bhaktavar Singh and his wife, Musi, who committed "sati" on his funeral pyre. 

The truth is a bit more complicated. According to the book on Slavery, Musi was actually war booty - a slave girl snatched from the Meo tribe defeated by the Rajputs. 

The museum here is a bolt out of the blue - neat, well organised with excellent displays of paintings, artefacts and weapons. Some of the collections here surpass the National Museum in New Delhi!

It would be wonderful to see the rest of the Alwar palace, and the water-tank restored to its former glory. 

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REFERENCES & LINKS

- Sariska Tiger Reserve - http://www.tourism.rajasthan.gov.in/content/rajasthan-tourism/en/tourist-destinations/sariska-tiger-reserve.html

- Dhok Trees - https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/dhok-the-purple-heart-warrior-of-the-aravallis/article28295083.ece

- Rajasthan Tourism - http://rtdc.tourism.rajasthan.gov.in/

- Alwar Bagh Aamodh Hotel, Sariska - https://www.aamod.in/sariska/ -- note - photos and details here are completely out of date. 

On Farmers

 

This book has been on my bucket list for a long time. In the midst of the ongoing farmer-agitation on the borders of Delhi, mainly by the farmers of Punjab and Haryana, a friend kept referring to this book, urging us to read it to understand better the dilemma being faced by the farmers.

The first thing that strikes you is that for a book written nearly 50 years ago, it continues to be quite relevant today. The poorest farmers in undeveloped countries continue to be exploited, countries continue to chase policies that prioritise cultivation and export of foods consumed by rich countries, leaving their own people to grow less for their own consumption, and a dependence on the  processed foods, which, in turn are produced by MNCs.

The question raised at the outset is this: 

"Why would the North concede anything when the Third World could make no credible threats and had little to do give in exchange except a clearer conscience?"

The book might be a bit dated but it presents a range of eye-opening examples - of how soyabeansOn came to dominate farms in Brazil; of how MNCs teamed up with Rockefeller and Ford Foundation to promote Green Revolution and build a market for their own fertiliser-pesticide-seed companies; of the opaque ways of Cargill, a family-held company that dominated the food value-chains;  of companies like Massey-Ferguson funded research studies on farm mechanisation while promoting their own tractors, and the ways in which USAs Food for Peace Law (PL 480) vastly increased US commercial markets for food abroad.

Susan George is quite scathing on the Green Revolution:

What is GR doing to research? Since most agronomic research takes place in the developed countries...an inordinate amount of research is devoted (a) to high carbohydrate HYVs, (b) to the climatic zones where they can be grown, and (c) to fertiliser-sensitise plants that can be protected from disease only by chemicals.

I was also struck by the description of some individuals - especially Frantz Fanon, the black psychiatrist and Matinique who put himself to the service of the Algerian freedom struggle.  Then there are stark facts - there are 80,000 known edible plant species - but a mere 50 of them provide 90 percent of our food. 

In the context of the ongoing farm protests in India, its interesting to know that George had warned - back in the 1970s! - about the implications of Punjabi farmers (among the 'small privileged stratum of larger landowners') shifting away from a wide range of crops to focus on wheat and rice. 

Now the Punjabi chickens have come home to roost. Grandchildren of the farmers who wholeheartedly accepted the changes brought in by the Green Revolution are now blocking the streets, demanding not only a continuation of government support and subsidies, but also a buyback at 'minimum support prices' that are way above the the global prices of foodgrains! 

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REFERENCES & LINKS:

* George, Susan (1976): HOW THE OTHER HALF DIES - The Real Reasons for World Hunger

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Other_Half_Dies

Ten Fe Ciega - Have Blind Faith

The past can be confusing - especially if you are learning to express yourself in Spanish.

Confusing and frustrating if you are trying to navigate through the number ways in which you express the past in Español - preterito perfecto, preterito indefinido and preterito imperfecto.

Yet the learning process has its rewards. I was trying to figure out a fill-in-the-blanks which went with the title - "¿Conoce a Horacio Quiroga? Lea su biografía y escriba los verbos entre paréntesis en pretérito indefinido." (~ Do you know HQ? Read his biography and write the correct verb forms")

I had never heard of Horacio Quiroga. So, after getting most of my answers wrong, I switched windows, to read more about this poet, author, and maverick.  

And what an amazing, crazy life! Quiroga was born in Uruguay. He once shot dead his own best friend my mistake while helping him prepare for a duel, and after spending some time in prison, he got acquitted, and left for Argentina where he spent much of his life away from cities, in remote forested areas. He managed to persuade a young lady to marry him, and join his life in the forests, brought up his two children to survive the outdoors, with a deep love for nature. Along the way he published books and poems which continue to be popular today.

English translations of this works are, unfortunately, not available at my favourite Russian online repository. So I guess I'll have to get my preterito's sorted out before I can read his works in original Spanish!

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LINKS & REFERENCES

- https://www.infobae.com/sociedad/2020/02/19/horacio-quiroga-los-amores-la-locura-y-las-tragedias-que-marcaron-su-vida/

- https://www.wikiwand.com/es/Horacio_Quiroga

- https://horacioquiroga.org/galeria-de-imagenes/

Quotes

 "Ten fe ciega no en tu capacidad para el triunfo, sino en el ardor con que lo deseas." --- Have blind faith not in your capacity for success, but in the ardor with which you desire it.

"Culpar a los otros...es patrimonio specifico de las corazones inferiores." --- Blaming others... is the specific heritage of the small hearted.

Frankl's Search for Meaning

A random quote on social media leads you to a book, and then some thoughts in the book hit you deep inside. This happens to me quite often - the latest example comes from the book, "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl.

The Frankl quote in this case came from a TEDxGenoa video - "Everything can be taken from man but one thing. The last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.". 

Much of the book is focused on the author's experiences in Nazi Concentration Camps while describing his psychotherapeutic method (Logotherapy, where logo = meaning ), of identifying a purpose in life to feel positive about, which then helps you survive the most difficult trails of life.

Towards the end of the book, while describing the various ways in which prisoners tried to keep up their hope through the months and years of being subjected to starvation, beatings, and torture amidst those who who were being taken away to the gas-chambers, he tells of a comrade who - 

"...on his arrival in the camp had tried to make a pact with Heaven that his suffering and death should save the human being he loved from a painful end. For this man, suffering and death were meaningful; his life was a sacrifice of the deepest significance"

This set me thinking about my father and my grandparents, who suffered prolonged confinements at hospitals before dying. It brought back memories of confusion, helplessness and despair; of constantly wondering why people who lead such gentle lives in the service of others, had to suffer so much in the end.

This book has many helpful pointers - 

"What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life...it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us...Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct."

Where have I read this before..?  - The Gita? Teachings of the Buddha?

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Links and References:

* TEDx - Own Your Behaviours (Louise Evans) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BZuWrdC-9Q&list=PLJZfFMDhIj8x6c-zuDsF6Y6y2bx0geOal&index=60&t=0s

* Frankl, Viktor (1946): Man's Search for Meaning -  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4069.Man_s_Search_for_Meaning

Machuca

"Look at me!", screams 11-year-old Gonzalo. The soldier stops his pushing, shoving and shouting. Amidst the chaos of a military action on a city slum, he pauses as his eyes now notice that the kid he is just tied to detain happens to wear expensive sports shoes, jeans, a nice full shirt...he is also blonde and white. 

Gonzalo is allowed to run away even as his friends are being shot and detained.

Machuca (2004), a Chilean movie directed by Andrés Wood, living through the aftermath of General Pinochet's military coup in 1973. A dictatorship that lasted 17 years, leading to about 15,000 deaths and 2000 who just 'disappeared'.

In this film, I was struck by the role of Fr. McEnroe, of St. Patricks School. An elderly man who has the clarity of thought to foresee the dangers of a society in which there is a wide disparity in the distribution of wealth. In his predominantly White school, he persuades parents to allow poor, indigenous children to attend his school for free. The story revolves around a friendship that grows between a rich white kid, Gonzalo and Gonzalo, a poor, hardscrabble child from a local slum.

 The movie leaves you wondering what would have happened if people like Fr. McEnroe had indeed succeeded in their social integration projects, and if Chile had not suffered so much under dictators.

Kabul - A City Under Attack...Yet Again

 

Kabul has been on my mind all day today.

It started with a trickle, with a photos-app reminding me that exactly one year ago, I had taken some pics of an office commute that took me across a hill to Jamal Mena. The narrow road had snaked past a large fuel-storage facility, past water-tankers supplying houses tightly packed on the hillside, across the ridge to a lovely green cityscape that stretched from Kabul University to mountains of Paghman.

Towards noon, news of an attack on Kabul University starting appearing on Twitter. For the rest of the day I was checking on friends working and staying around Jamal Mena - they were all safe but by evening reports said, "At least 50 students including 5 professors, 4 members of Kabul University Police, including a policewoman killed."

Is there no end to the violence inflicted on Afghanistan? 

Perhaps the answer to this question lies outside Afghanistan because it has been decades since the Afghans had some real control over their own affairs. During the days of the "Great Game" the British said that the king must return, and so he returned to play the role of an unwilling puppet. A couple of centuries later a Pakistani General said "Kabul must burn!", and so not only Kabul but the whole country was burnt so that the Soviets could be forced out. 

"The Bear Trap", written by Mohammad Yousaf, a former IGI general,  in charge of ISIs Afghanistan operations, gives a detailed account of how a few individuals, backed a 'superpower' can destroy a country in a few years.  From 1984, through 1987, over 80,000 Mujahideen went through ISIs training camps, hundreds of thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition were distributed for operations in all the 29 provinces in Afghanistan. These operations killed over 13,000 Soviet soldiers and wounded some 35,000. during nine years of bitter fighting.

As fighting raged in the countryside, Kabul's population shot up from 750,000 to over 2 million in 1985, most of whom were crammed into into tents on the outskirts of the city. 

Gen. Yousaf was quite clear that neither ISI nor his mujahids would have been able to sustain the fight if it did not have a steady flow of money and modern equipment:

As I was about to discover, nothing moves, in peace or war, without money. The Mujahideen could achieve nothing without financial support. No matter how brilliant my strategy might be, the implementation depended on the availability of a vast reservoir of cash with which to arm, train and move my forces. Almost half this money originated from the US taxpayer, with the remainder coming from the Saudi Arabian government or right Arab individuals.

As the Soviets started leaving Afghanistan, USA realised that a radical islamist government was not in its interest, so they kept the Taliban away from Kabul as long as they could.

Then came 9/11, Osama bin Laden, and the Americans returned to bomb the Taliban out of the country. Then then tried to force-feed democracy a country that has always been a diet of strict autocracy. The Taliban simply said, "You have the watches, but we have the time."   The waiting game seems to have ended this year. 

Over two decades of relative peace and quiet is now being lost again to the sounds of gunfire in universities, assassinations, and street bombings.

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Kabul University Attack 2020 - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack-university/death-toll-from-kabul-university-attack-rises-to-at-least-35-as-anger-grows-idUSKBN27J178?il=0

* Book - The Bear Trap -  https://www.amazon.in/Bear-Trap-Afghanistans-Untold-Story/dp/0850522676

Rupchanda

Fish-vendors in Noida stock a fish with a lovely name - Rupchanda. 

Over the past few weeks, I have been keeping an eye on it at the fish-vendors, but until last Friday I somehow could not muster the confidence to try a new unfamiliar fish over the tried and tested Pabda or Rohu. The fishes were always placed in ascending order of pricing - Pabdas cost INR 120/kg, the going rate for Rohus is INR 180/kg, and Rupdhanda was lined up in the middle at INR 160/kg.

True to its name Rupchanda does have a striking, beautiful form - flat like a pomfret but fleshier, with a larger mouth and a dash of pinkish red scales on its belly. Another prominent feature is its teeth, a fine set of incisors and grinders line up in its mouth, giving it an almost mammalian appearance.

I tried to look it up on the online stores, and was puzzled to find that this evidently popular best-seller was not available on FreshtoHome, Amazon, Licious, or IndiaMart. 

Why so?

Digging a little deeper I finally came across an article in the Hindu newspaper. Rupchanda is also called the Red-bellied Pacu or Piaractus brachypomus. It is an alien species that has not yet been approved for farming and sale in India because...its original home is in South America, and is closely related to...the Piranhas!

So my fish-vendor was selling me a banned fish with cousins that have a fearsome reputation of being 'extremely predatory...with a powerful and dangerous bite generated by large jaw muscles'. Its cousins may be dangerous and the Rupchanda too may be tearing apart the fisherman's nets...but its delicious!

Now those teeth make sense. 

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* Sudhi, KS (2018), The Hindu: A delicious alien in Kerala Kitchens - https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/south-americas-red-bellied-pacu-a-delicious-alien-in-kerala-kitchens/article24421299.ece

Tsuneno's World

 

Let us be upfront about two things about this book: first, its a fine piece of work, and second, it might look like a tome but its not - nearly half the book is notes, bibliography, references and the index!

Amy Stanley's "Stranger in the Shogun's City" is a labour of love spanning nearly two decades. It is the real life story of an ordinary girl named Tsuneno, daughter of a temple priest, who gets married at 12, lives through four divorces and many journeys through Japan before landing up as an impoverished migrant worker in the capital city of Edo, now Tokyo.

The book reconstructs her life from a vast collection of letters that Tsuneno sent to her brothers back home. Letters that were preserved at Risenji, a temple in Ishigami village for nearly 200 years before finding its way to the archives section of a library in Niigata Prefecture. 

Tsuneno's lifetime (1801-1853) covers one of the biggest inflection points in East Asian history - the colonial powers, the Dutch, England, France, and Americans are carving out their colonies in Asia, and the Japanese Shogunate is waking from its slumber to see the aftermath of gunboat 'diplomacy', the Opium Wars and the humiliation heaped on China. It is also a time of terrible deprivations - especially the Tempo Famine (1833-37), a period when -

 "...it was hard to say how many died of hunger and how many died of epidemic diseases - typhus and dysentery - the ravaged the weakened population...in the northeast, half the peasants in one domain had died of some of the survivors had resorted to cannibalism. Even reliable accounts described people reduced to eating grass and straw sandals, roadways strewn with emaciated corpses, and gravediggers too weak an exhausted to continue their work".

The book brings to life many familiar places in Tokyo - Chiyoda, Kanda, Tsukiji, Ginza - areas that are now teeming with skyscrapers, clean roads and manicured gardens. It is good to be reminded of the millions of hapless migrants like Tsuneno who did their bit to raise a grand city from dirt and squalor.

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* Stanley, Amy (2020): STRANGER IN THE SHOGUN'S CITY - A Japanese Woman and Her World, Scribner 2020

Drones Over the Black Garden

Last autumn, while serving on a UN assignment in Afghanistan, a Tanzanian colleague said something at floats up in my mind ever so often. He was telling us about a jihadist terrorist organisation in Central Africa that has killed thousands and displaced about 2.3 million people from their homes. "Boko Haram", he told us,  "simply means 'books are bad'" - all books, except, of course, the Holy Koran. 

Come to think of it, this is a recurring theme across the world - Khymer Rouge, The Great Leap Forward, the power of a radical ideology, encapsulated in a seemingly innocuous slogan, packaging an ideology that divides neighbours, drives ethnic cleansing, forced migrations, and wars.

Why do neighbours make the worst enemies? Is it the old adage 'familiarity breeds contempt' driven to extremes? 

Just as it is difficult for non-South Asians to differentiate between Indians and Pakistanis, it is not easy for us to figure out why the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis are at each others throats now. The news channels tells us that these two former Soviet states are fighting for an enclave called Nagorno-Karabakh or "Mountainous Black Garden" - itself a Russian-Turkic term, representing an amalgamation of cultures covering an undulating, fertile patch that lies at the tri-junction of three old empires - Russian, Ottoman and Persian. 

When you look at the map it seems like a puzzle at many levels: How did so many Christian Armenians end up in an enclave surrounded by Shia Muslims? How on earth did other large chunk of Azerbaijan - the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic - end up on the other side of Armenia, next to Iran and Turkey?

Then there is this ongoing spectacle of a real war being played out like video games. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have put up slick twitter handles that update the world on how efficiently they are now slaughtering each other. Images from kamikaze drones closing in on their targets - a tank, a truck, or a group of soldiers huddled in a corner - before obliterating them; images of a peaceful, tree-lined avenue disappearing in a haze of cluster bombs; long shots of artillery shells landing in cities, decorating it with plumes of smoke. Each side puts up daily scorecards of soldiers killed and military hardware destroyed or captured. 

People are getting killed in hundreds and yet it all seems like a video game being played by kids sitting sitting in front of computer consoles in Turkey or Russia. They are just following an example set by USA in Afghanistan and the Middle East. 

Wonder what point these gamers and their puppeteers conclude that have shifted one way or the other...  

Fighting on the Himalayan Ridges

Thousands of Indian soldiers are now perched on the freezing ridges of Ladakh. With China continuing with its expansionist "salami-slicing" of borderlands, lakes and islands, with no signs of letting up even in the midst of a pandemic, these soldiers are likely to stay put for the rest of the winter.

How do fighting units sustain themselves through some of the toughest physical terrains? How do they deal with the long stretches of silence and boredom? What keeps them going? I was looking for a book that would dwell on questions like these, and that is how I ended up with Sabastien Junger's "War".

It is a short, sharp book which reminds you that you should not judge a book by its cover. The book cover you see here is not the one favoured by the publishers which has a close-up shot of a single eye on an effeminate, clean-shaven face. I thought this one was more apt for the story of one platoon in one valley of southern Afghanistan.

This is the story of KOP - Korengal Outpost in Kunar Province. Its a place where the deep valleys and high mountains provide an ideal cover for Pakistan-trained Taliban to infiltrate into Afghanistan, and in 2007 Junger stays out there with a platoon that is trying to prevent this infiltration. 

This is a battlefield where codes of honour clash. When a US patrol gets ambushed one of the survivors, a soldier named Luttrel, staggers badly wounded into a mountain village with the Taliban at his heels. He survives because "The people of Sabray were obliged to protect Luttrell under an honor code called 'lokhay warkawal' (?), which holds that anyone who comes to your doorstep begging for help must be cared no matter that the cost to the community." 

The Taliban, on the other hand, know that battles can be won when the villagers are made to suffer at the hands of the "enemy", the "infidel". Their strategy is to lure NATO forces to accidentally killing so many civilians that they lose the fight for the human terrain. The physical terrain would inevitably follow.

There is irony in the imbalance of military hardware. The Americans can call in their Apache helicopter gunships with 30mm chain guns, their drones, 155mm howitzers and AC-130 gunships, but thermal signatures can be blurred by Taliban fighters wrapped in blankets on a warm rock, and a flock of crows can give away the position of US soldiers. 

This brings you to a glimpse of the cost of war - "A javelin shoulder-fired rocket costs $80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn't make that in a year at a guy who doesn't make that in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes war seem winnable."

Then there is the X-Factor that motivates smaller fighting units - "Perfectly sane, good men have been drawn back to combat over and over again, and anyone interested in the idea of world peace would do well to know what they are looking for. Not killing, necessarily, but the other side of the equation: protecting. The defence of the tribe is an insanely compelling idea, and once you've been exposed to it, there is almost nothing else that you'd rather do."

"In a crude sense the job of the young men is to undertake the work that their fathers are too old for, and the current generation of American fathers has decided that a certain six-mile-long valley in Kumar province needs to be brought under military control. Nearly 50 US soldiers have died carrying out those orders. I'm not saying that's a lot or a little, but the cost does need to be acknowledged."

The situation in Ladakh now is of course vastly different - especially the human terrain. Unlike US troops in Afghanistan seeking legitimacy and acknowledgement from a wider world, this is a place where a conquered people - the Tibetans - are looking for ways to settle scores with the Communist Party of China. This will be a different kind of fight on the ridges.