Sacred Games

THE book is out.

A book I'll probably never read, even though being from Bombay myself and having read and enjoyed an excerpt from this book in Amit Chaudhuri's compilation, Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature, I am sure I'll enjoy the book but who has the time and the patience for reading big 1200-page tomes like this. Despite liking Vikram Seth's writing, I never really ever seriously contemplated reading Suitable Boy and am afraid Sacred Games is going to be the same way...although I do plan to read his well-received book of short stories, Love and Longing in Bombay sometime soon.

Anyways, read a review by Nilanjana Roy, who blogs as Hurreebabu at Kitabkhana, a great literary blog. Also read another review by Jai Arjun Singh, also a journalist from Delhi, who, unlike yours truly, writes a great blog titled Jabberwock that lots of people read.. the title of the blog is based on a poem from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll. Just learned that Jabberwocky has begun to mean

1. A manifestation of the deepest level of fear in the human psyche.
2. All of the things that one is afraid of that one can put no proper name to.
3. The name of Lewis Carroll's monster in The poem "Jabberwocky"; it appears only when Alice is afraid and once confronted, never appears again.

---------- A few month's back.. ----------

The barbarians shrug, knock down your walls with their amazingly powerful weapons and put a parking lot over your sacred grounds. "
- Vikram Chandra on the pointlessness of resisting technology

---------- Earlier this year... ----------

The book to look forward to apparently in 2006 is Vikram Chandra's (of Love and Longing in Bombay fame) big epic (1200 pages!!) book, Sacred Games. First there was lots of press about the huge advance the author got for the book, and in January the publicity machine in India was abuzz with interviews and profiles in almost every paper.

For example, read these interviews and profiles in various Indian newspapers:
The Hindu
The Indian Express
DNA - including an interview
Economic Times
Mid-Day

And this article listed the book as one of the 36 reasons to wake up to 2006 !!! Wow..now thats hype!! :)

India - Independence Day

On the occasion of India's 59th celebration of independence from the British, although I echo Charles de Montesquieu's thoughts (mutatis mutandis) when he said “If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it; for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident”, let me first indulge in a little bit of nationalistic show-n-tell...

Although I couldn't find the famous video from the 1980s online, here is a link to the Mile Sur Mera Tumhara video made up some years ago by MIT (Cambridge, US) students.

And here is one from the University of Idaho, one from University of Texas at Arlington, another from Twente, Netherlands, and one from Old Dominion University, Norfolk

And now time for some tough questions for this day...

Independence Day but where is the freedom asks The Bangalore Torpedo, questioning how "free" we are.

Give us freedom, not flags - a blogpost by Amit Varma, who blogs at India Uncut.

Also read these older posts by Amit, where he expounds further on the theme:
Waiting for the free-market Mahatma | Freedom vs Sovereignty | The Myth of India's Liberalization

Amit also had written an article in one of his 'favourite online magazines', TCS Daily, titled Transforming India's Mental Landscape

And even the Prime Minister lectured the nation, as it turns 59, on India's failings

Speaking of the PM, read this blogpost -Manmohan Singh's Surprise
It is too soon to tell whether Manmohan Singh's robust and elegant defence of the Indo-US nuclear deal in last Thursday's debate in the Rajya Sabha marks a turning point in his prime ministerial tenure. Nonetheless, his impassioned address before the Upper House is an event of some significance. Perhaps not since Atal Behari Vajpayee's fiery parthian volley during the no-confidence motion that stymied his thirteen day government in 1996 has any other prime ministerial speech induced an equal sympathy.

Fascinating stuff - 1

Read a fascinating article in the BBC last week...

Peru link to Indian archaeological find?
Geologists have discovered a striking archaeological feature on a hillock in the Kutch district of the western Indian state of Gujarat. This feature is shaped like the Roman numeral VI. Each arm of this feature is a trench that is about two metres wide, two metres deep and more than 100 metres long. The feature has evoked the curiosity of archaeologists because such signs have mostly been observed so far in Peru. .... The Kutch region is host to several archaeological findings belonging to the Harappan civilisation (3000-1500 BC). This has led to the speculation that this feature could be related to the Harappan civilisation.

Other links to similar fascinating archeological stories covered by BBC in years past include:

Tsunami throws up India relics
11 Feb 05 | South Asia

Lost city found off Indian coast
11 Apr 02 | South Asia

Lost city 'could rewrite history'
19 Jan 02 | South Asia

Indian seabed hides ancient remains
22 May 01 | South Asia

Archaeologists probe legendary city
19 Oct 00 | Europe

Digital Planet

Digital Planet - Fifteen years after the arrival of the web, users explain how it has transformed their lives - while children tell us what it is like to be part of the technology-literate generation.

Speaking of planets..

Definition of a planet creates a world of controversy
A committee has proposed a new definition of the word "planet" that would expand the family of planets from 9 to 12.

And a few days later...

It looks like there are 2 factions and they just keep fighting back and forth over definitions. they are back at degrading Pluto back from being a main planet! Pluto faces being sent to minor leagues

And then...the final word - It’s official. Planet Pluto is no more…

I am tired of reading about the Fall of Pluto.. and scientists behaving like kids (and naming dwarf planets) and kids thinking they are scientists (school kids vote: keep pluto a planet!) and of people in general getting their planetary panties in a bunch over how they need to modify the various mnemonics, including my favorite (only because it is the most logical one*) one: "My very excellent mother just showed us nine planets"

* I never needed mnemonics to remember stuff like this or for anything else for that matter.. though, with age, who knows, some day, I may need memory improvement tools like these... though I am glad to read that there is "mounting evidence suggests that diseases such as Alzheimer's and dementia can be prevented (by diet & lifestyle choices) and are not the natural result of the ageing process," and that the answers to graceful aging are not all in the genes. Though ofcourse, if you believ this guy, we'll all live healthy untill we turn 5000 years old... (we'll all destroy the planet much before that but thats a whole other philosophical argument for another day...)

Related Link:
Interview with the International Astronomical Union (IAU)'s new President, Catherine Cesarsky (previously ESO Director-General) on Pluto's demotion. (also read the Inaugural address from the new IAU President.)

And finally a kind of related news snippet about geologists getting their arhaic panties in a bunch over the new 'Pluton' definition. The article mentions an unbelievable story of the outgoing IAU President, Owen Gingerich, saying that he thought 'pluton' wasn't a real word because Miscrosoft Word dictionary didn't have it!! Kinda unbelievable ... didn't know Gates had such a stronghold on our common sense too!

Science Dozen

Starting another new thread.. 12 interesting scientific (including social sciences) studies in the news..

Based on my reading of your blog, I think you might find these dozen studies interesting..

1. Our perceptions of body image is primarily predicted by biopsychosocial influences.

2.Race, class, and Hurricane Katrina: Social differences in human responses to disaster

3. Girl or Boy: Chance, choice and control: Lay debate on prenatal social sex selection

4.Do dogs harbour risk factors for human breast cancer?

5.Cat parasite may affect cultural traits in human populations

6. Mice learn tasks that may help treat human psychiatric disorders
(from 4, 5, and 6 above, I conclude that dogs and cats are bad for humans but rats are good. No report yet about cows (no..not this very useful COW!) other than reports about some madness in cows that affects human but humor aside, whatever be the alleged negative effects of cows, I do not think I can convert Amit Varma- his confidence may be stirred, but not shaken! ;) In any case, keep eating that curry cause apparently, chemicals in curry and onions may help prevent colon cancer)

7. Patterns of usage of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)
Use of CAM is relatively common, with younger, Caucasian patients with malignancies being the most common users. However, there seems to be no difference in perceived postoperative problems, nor actual postoperative complications between CAM and non-CAM users.

8. Living Larger and Longer The human animal is taller, heavier, healthier and longer-lived than in the past. Whatever the reasons, maintaining health should not necessarily be to extend life but to enjoy life.

9a. What You See Is What You Eat
9b. Genetic glitch could keep some people from feeling full
9c. Scientists Successfully Test New Anti-Obesity Vaccine

10. Sorry monkey, apes are smarter (also see this 'Monkey' video link by Ernest Cline) but remember: Predators prefer to hunt small-brained prey

11. Researchers convert farm waste to energy source I think rural communities in India , Africa and probably elsewhere have known this for centuries... so what if it is not non-smelly, dry-to-touch s*** ;)

And finally...blame all your bad habits on those damn jeans..er..genes

12. A family study of pathological gambling

Spin Doctors, Existentialists, and Quantum Holes

No...not them, though I hear they are back too after all many years with an album worthing listening to, called Nice talking to me. I used to hear their song,' Little Miss can't be wrong' (hear a snippet) from their debut album on the radio a lot in 1992-93 with Pocket Full of Kryptonite but never heard about them since; though just learnt that they apparently released a few albums in between - Can't Be Wrong and Here Comes the Bride, and a collection put together titled, Just Go Ahead Now: A Retrospective!

I'm talking here about these scientific geniuses who made something from nothing. Even Seinfeld would be proud :) (Btw, had perused through a book, Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing some years back. To think that the show inspired a book on philosophy! Ofcourse, to the existentialist philosopher (also read the Existentialism Blog), nothingness is a very important concept and many tomes have been written on the subject, including the most famous of all - Sartre's Being & Nothingness (Exhaustive class notes on the book here. Also: A Commentary on Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness by Joseph S. Catalano). However, in my mind, nothingness in the context of Seinfeld is not really the same thing! As Isabella Adjnani has apparently said, ' Nothingness not being nothing, nothingness being emptiness'. However, just read the argument being made that Charlie Brown (from Peanuts) is an existentialist, and that I can agree with!

Anyways.. pardon the multiple digressions..! Here is the article I originally intended to link to..

Spin Doctors make something from nothing

Electronic devices are always shrinking in size but it's hard to imagine anything beating what researchers at the University of New South Wales have created: a tiny wire that doesn't even use electrons to carry a current.
Known as a hole quantum wire, it exploits gaps – or holes - between electrons. The relationship between electrons and holes is like that between electrons and anti-electrons, or matter and anti-matter.
The holes can be thought of as real quantum particles that have an electrical charge and a spin. They exhibit remarkable quantum properties and could lead to a new world of super-fast, low-powered transistors and powerful quantum computers.

P.S. Speaking of holes, scientists on a quest to find the esoteric black holes have found surprisingly few.

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. - Woody Allen
God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through. - Paul Valery

Myth #1: Latin America is moving to the left

NY Times dismisses the myth that Latin America is rapidly moving to the left or center-left, at best - ignited by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.