Living By The Ganges

Its an honour to be living on the banks of the holy river Ganges. Ganges is full of life - nee its life itself .....
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Ganga is life, Life is like Ganga
Its sometimes clear and often muddy like life
Its mostly calm but sometimes in furious spate like workedup emotions
Its mighty but also humble in face of obdurate obstacles like us
It can take you across safely or drown you despite all your resouces
It has a new face new geometry everyday
Ganga is life, Life is like Ganga

Floods In Bihar Stay Mainly In The Plains

Floods in Bihar are seen to be believed. North Bihar has so many rivers criss-crossing it - all coming down from Himalaya.
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This year rains were particularly furious. From July onwards, till even today only embankments of Roads and Rail can only be seen, rest is under water. Imagine how beneficial it will be if we could harness all this water. How? Linking all the rivers? Storing this water some-place-else undergroung or otherwise.

A Rough Guide To Life

In physics most of the equations have a large number of terms. For ease of computations we ignoring less significant terms. Moreover in a phenomenon we ignore minor effects of weaker forces - for example when we study mechanics of two moving stones, we ignore the insignificant gravitational attraction between the stones.
If this is not done it would be impossible to learn or teach physics - at all. These approximations do not take away the validity of the conclusions arrived at.
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Similar is the model of life that we as a child, are handed down.
Its only a rough guide to life.
As we grow we learn the many nuances which do not jell with what we had been taught. Like:-

• Honesty is not the least cost alternative.
• The meek do not inherit the earth.
• Cheating may be profitable many times.
• Truth does not always triumph.

But as a rough guide to living - what we are handed down is superb and the nuanced exceptions discovered by us do not negate the essence of rough guide.

Birth Before Conception

During screening of a Film on Chengiz Khan in our college's (IIT Delhi) open Air Theatre in 1969, the scene of the heroine giving birth to child was shown before the scene of her rape that resulted in the pregnancy - due to erroneous shuffling of film cartridge by a sozzled projectionist.
But film making is like that. First scene may actually be shot in the end. Or the scene in Vienna may actually be shot in a studio in Mumbai. Even the Hero fighting the villain may not actually be the Hero - but only his substitute. Thus film breaks down boundaries of time, geography and personalities.
So does Information Technology (IT).
Read Further on ...Apart from the mere increased efficiency, the sociological effects of IT on an organization are also similar (in a subtle way). It breaks down the debilitating departmental and geographical divisions in the organization. Its tones down the hierarchical rigidities. It makes a mockery of office-hours and allows 24X7 support to the customer. It de-individualises the personality behind a job - your call may be answered by a Bangalorean with a false accent!
It shifts the power balance away from megalith organizations towards the customer. It thus makes the organization more cohesively oriented towards its customers.
All these effects are sorely required in government to shift focus to citizens. Hence thorough implementation of IT in all Govt processes are a must.
Perhaps some more research on this may be needed.
Bertrand Russel also discussed the impact of Science on Society - in particular shift of power balance between the individual and the society.
Please do come back again, I will blog about that later!!

Nature As An Architect

During a whirlwind tour of Bhopal (the capital of State of Madhya Pradesh), I came to know of ancient cave art site called “Bhimbetka” – some 45 KMs away. Being interested in evolution of Man, I immediately decided to visit it. I had not known that such sites were there in India (despite its ancient civilization), although I had heard that these were discovered in Europe and USA.
Bhimbetka means the place where Bhim (A revered mythological figure) used to sit.
It was mind-boggling.
Read Further on ...BTW – ancient cave art is called “Petroglyphs”. The word comes from the Greek words petros meaning "stone" and glyphein meaning "to carve". These are left by Neolithic men from about 10,000 yrs BC onwards.
What I learned about the petroglyphs, you can find a description also at Wikipedia.
But the point that has been missed in all its descriptions are the Geographic - Architectural beauty of the rocks in which these caves are.
These rocks are said to have been under water in a river or a lake much before Neolithic men came on earth. This site was part of “Gondwana” continent which moved away from Africa and later abutted Asian plate and became Indian peninsula. The action of water has sculpted the rocks. These look like a multistoried skyscraper, with caves at various levels. There is a marked appearance of windows (holes) carved in rock. Many caves have natural ventilating openings in the rear. Stones lie atop other rocks, perfectly balanced on a point. You see Nature as an Architect. You feel the emrging balance between malleable flow of stone imparted by the power of hydraulics - in opposition to hardiness of rocks. The whole area has a playful architecture - A narrow opening leads you to a sudden vast open area. In fact this fairy-tale site is fit to excite the artist in you. No wonder that world’s best petroglyphs were created here.
I have decided to return to it with my painting material later – although I haven’t painted for last 10-12 years. I will post the pictures of the rocks later.
The petroglyphs at Bhimbetka are a continuous series of paintings by generations of Humans dating from 10,000 BC to about 400 AD. The initial ones are in white chalk and the latest ones in red mineral - still used in India for religious ceremonies – it’s called “Geru”. Intermediate ones are in vegetable dyes of yellow and green colour. My surmise is that some others may have been lost since they might have experimented with dyes which are not so permanent.

Themes also show differences. Those in white from 10,000 BC only show hunting of animals by co-operating gangs of men. While the ones in red – the latest ones – also show two men fighting each other with spears (photo above). Progress of civilization!

A Stitch in Time Saves Nine

Its a common but ancient adage - "A stitch in time saves nine". I applied it to some of the photos taken while on a visit to New York, USA.
A panorama of Manhattan Bridge as viewed from Brooklyn Bridge is a stitching of 3 photos.

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A panorama of New York Skyline as seen from the Ferry from coastline near Bowling Green is stitched from two photos.

At the Liberty Island, 5 statutes of its contributors cannot be captured in one shot. Here are two photos stitched together.

Making Capitalism and Socialism Meet

Capitalism is the dominant dogma today. Socialism or communism have proved to be no match. Capitalism is not without weaknesses - cyclic stagnation-inflation and economic-meltdowns. But is there a better alternative?
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At least in poor countries capitalism exploits the full potential of a minority elite class. Even in rich countries, upper and middle class are the only enthusiastic participants in the capitalistic and democratic game. This leaves out a very large poor populace which is indifferent to the polity.

If this large poor populace enthusiastically participates in capitalism - its weaknesses can be overcome. This can come about if we ensure that these people stand to gain in the economy. Can this be done by bringing prices down by playing on larger volumes?

Lets take an example. If price of an electronic equipment (TV or Digital Camera or a digicam) is kept at one-fourth of present day price, the volume would perhaps go up by 8 times. Can profit still be made at this price-volume combine. Perhaps it may also need toning down the astronomical levels of expenses on Salaries, Advertisements or celebrity endorsements. Perhaps standardization of sub-assemblies across the industry may be required. Perhaps the whole industry would have to integrate its supply-chain-management.

If this theory could be worked successfully, economy will be more stable because of large consumer base. It will have higher velocity of money (i.e. same Dollar will change large number (say 1,000,00) of hands productively = as good as one dollar doing the job of 1,000,000 dollars).

Imagine this getting applied to air-travel.

It can be done! This was proved in recent turn-around of Indian Railways. Where instead of increasing the prices in tandem with increasing input costs - a strategy of higher volumes at same price (or even discounts) was tried out successfully. Today Indian railways is poised for an exponential growth - although Economist had earlier written off the organization.

The spirit behind it was empathising with and focusing on large numbered poorer customers.

This is how capitalism was made to to stretch and meet socialism.

Its would be missing the point if this is viewed merely as a turn-around story. I think it is a seminal and paradigm shift.

A new "ism" has been created bridging the socialism and capitalism.

The Four Eternal Quests

Humans are driven by four basic quests - which determine our whole behaviour. I have alluded to these earlier also but here are they in nut-shell!!!!
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1. What am I?
2. Where am I? How do I fit in here?
3. Why am I here, what am I supposed to do here?
4. How can I ensure survival of my genes over the generations?

A Difficult Man To Live With

We all think ourselves to be very simple beings, while others are complex, difficult and devious. The whole world is at fault, not me - is the normal assumption. Am I an easy person to live with?
Read Further on ...I do realise that I am perhaps quite a difficult and irritating person up close. Main reason is that I am perhaps out of synch with the world and people around me. Firstly, physically, I am too short, wispy thin, bald with a dome-like head - nothing, but nothing worth a second glance. I like clowning acts, before children in particular. My physical presentation is like one of these clowning acts - meant to amuse or tease others. I take an impish delight in it.
I occupy myself most of the time with solitary pursuits - that leaves others out. Who will be interested in Quantum Mechanics, Particle Physics, Computers etc.
Entertainment like Movies, Shows, Eating out etc I do not do often - I get bored too soon.
But then there must be some good in me - that my wife has borne with me for last 30 years!!!
That does not dilute the fact that I am a difficult person to be up-close. Do I take a wry delight in this also?? HA! HA! gotcha.

A Mind Full Of Tunes

Lately I am cataloguing my Music Collection - old Himdi Film Songs. I am amazed at the number of tunes that mind is full of.
Read Further on ...Hindi Film Songs have been an important part of my childhood and youth. I am amazed at the number of tunes that whistle in my mind. At present my collection includes only 1600 songs. But I can recall all the tunes, lyrics and artists in most cases. Some of the songs ante-date my birth in 1950, but are part of my growth-lore. Say 1945 to 1990 - after which I lost touch. My admiration for the artists who created these songs has grown tremendously during this project. What intoxication they must have felt about their creativity and Art? Bless them Lord!!
Of the singer, composer and lyricist - whom do I admire more? I admire the lyricist most - the creativity and imagination is his only his. Then comes the composer and in the end the singer.
What do you think?