Mad Musings

Enduring pain

2005-01-12T19:43:00.000+08:00

I am safe -- I am an atheist!!!

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Oxford University researchers are totorture Christians in a U.S.-funded program to find out if beliefin God can help to relieve the pain, the London-based Timesreported, citing the scientists involved. The team won't use traditional items of torture such as therack used by the Spanish Inquisition, which started in the 13thcentury; rather, pain will be inflicted by simulated burns understrict supervision, the newspaper said, citing research chiefToby Collins. As the pain is induced, the volunteers will be shownChristian religious symbols such as a crucifix or images of theVirgin Mary, to measure neurological response, the Times said. The scientists want to get a better idea of the way peoplewith intense religious beliefs can withstand pain, the papersaid, adding that the project is being paid for by $2 millionfrom the U.S.-based John Templeton Foundation.

Interesting Detail in US Job Creation

2005-01-11T19:32:00.000+08:00

Of the 157K added new jobs in December, 19K (12%) were in "restaurants and bars".

Then and now. Progress?

2004-12-22T22:28:00.000+08:00

Guess which place and time this refers to.

"All the poor and destitute in the country and all who are diseased, go to these houses, and are provided with every kind of help, and doctors examine their diseases. They get the food amd medicines which their cases require, and are made o feel at ease; and when they are better, they go away of themselves."

Ans. Patna circa 400 AD, as reported by Fa Hian. (quote taken fm an Amartya Sen paper on India and China)

Bhagalpur 1989 done. Still to go...

2004-11-13T08:42:00.000+08:00

Delhi 1984, Bombay 1993, Gujarat 2002, and many more...
From The Hindu

Life term upheld

By K. Balchand

PATNA, NOV. 12. The Patna High Court has upheld the ruling of a Bhagalpur court, sentencing 16 persons to life imprisonment in connection with a case relating to the communal riots of 1989.
The division bench of P. N. Yadav and Mridula Mishra yesterday dismissed the petition of the accused who challenged the Bhagalpur court's ruling on the Chanderi (village) episode, in which 61 persons belonging to the minority community were killed.

The only witness of the massacre, Mallika Begum, lost a limb in the violence. She also lost 11 members of her family.

Left Behind

2004-11-09T21:57:00.000+08:00

Some uninvited advice to Manmohan and Congress leaders:
Ignore the raves and rants of the commies. They are absolutely irresponsible – won’t join the government so that they can avoid accountability, and then try to decide all policy. They have no support outside 3 states – and they won Kerala thanks to Karunakaran. But most important – they have no choice but to support the government.
So call their bluff – push for reform, increase investments in infra (they can’t protest); free petrol pricing (is petrol more essential than rice/wheat/sugar/salt? If not, why control prices under a supposed free pricing regime); increase FDI limits liberally (given an equal chance, Indians can compete with the companywallahs and the yanks – just look at Indian success in silicon valley); sell the PSUs (profit-making/loss making doesn’t matter – the government has no business making aluminium); enable private sector investments in every sector (cant you see the telecom revolution, and have you forgotten the decade long wait for a miserable dead telephone connection).

CALL THEIR BLUFF.

What can the left parties do? Nothing. Zilch. Cry, shout, weep, throw tantrums – all like a spoilt five-year old. Don’t pay any attention (also the right therapy for a spoilt brat).
Do they dare pull support? Then what? They can’t join the Bigmouthed Jenocide Party. Will they push for an election?

You should hope so. That assures a 300-seat win for the Congress-combine. The Indian electorate punishes any party that forces an early election (unless the incumbent self-destructs like the Morarji or VP Singh govt) – Remember the fate of Congress in 1998 (election forced by withdrawing support to UF govt) or 1999 (1-vote defeat of ABV govt)? This time any such behaviour will pay you – as long as you don’t let Karunakaran screw around. And the BJP? They are at their weakest in recent times.

More likely, these guys could pull the plug in 2006 – ahead of Kerala, Bengal elections (aside – why do we still say west Bengal when we don’t say east Punjab?). That could be even better – Vajpayee will be older by 2 years; so will Bal T. And if you take some bold steps now, there will be something to show for it in 2 years. That could mean a well-earned victory.

So CALL THE LEFT’S BLUFF.

Why Bush is better for India

2004-11-03T19:42:00.000+08:00

I think this is good for India. I am not talking about the outsourcing scare – that is just election propaganda. If election slogans worked, India should have abolished poverty in the 1970s.
My thoughts are on two different streams. And still not very clear in my mind but the broad gist is:
Short term. Bush is more focussed on terrorism. And that is good for India as we face a common enemy. Indeed, the last 4 years have seen the best Indo-US relations ever (of course, ABV/Jaswant deserve some credit), partly as the US realised India’s emerging importance and common goals vis-à-vis terror. The flip side is that these guys tar all muslims in a negative light – and that is a clear risk for India as the VHP/RSS/BJP goons try to take advantage of any such sentiment.

Longer term – 20-25 years. Here I am on slippery ground and am making some major assumptions. I think that if our politicians get things right (or not too wrong), India should be an economic power, along with the US and China by 2025 or so. Europe and Japan are on a decline – and demographics are against them. Bush will weaken the US long term with both his domestic and foreign policy – more with the former. And, if we reach some sort of economic confrontation, it is better to have the rival weakened.

The American Mahabharata

2004-10-24T20:32:00.000+08:00

Bush and Kerry are cousins.
http://msn.ancestry.com/landing/strange/bush4/tree.htm

Keith Miller, RIP

2004-10-16T11:21:00.000+08:00

Read this story about the great man.
Miller was captaining the NSW team in a Sheffield Shield match, and as the team came in to field, was told that he had not designated the 12th man. So, he selects tha team and places the field thus:
"One of you blokes bugger off, the rest of you scatter."
What an attitude!

Modern day King

2004-10-14T22:50:00.000+08:00

Just saw on BBC that Cambodia has decided to place Sihanouk's second son on the throne after the grand old king decided to abdicate due to old age (he is 81). I'll write about Sihanouk in another post -- a colourful character who (other than his amorous adventures) flipped political affiliations so often (including abdicating once earlier) that VC Shukla would get an inferiority complex.
Just a note -- now the country is a constitutional monarchy and the king has just ceremonial duties/powers.

Why Angkor Ruled

2004-10-14T22:46:00.000+08:00

Short Answer: Location and smart rulers.

Longer Explanation:

Angkor is at the edge of the Tonle Sap Lake, the largest freshwater lake in SE Asia, wich is fed by, among others, two rivers which flow near the Angkor complex. The Tonle Sap Lake connects to the Mekong River through the Tonle Sap River at Phnom Penh (cepital of Cambodia). Well that is simple. What is amazing is that during the monsoon, the Tonle Sap river changes direction and flows up-slope.

How does that happen?: Through most of the year, water flows from the hills, into Tonle Sap lake, through TS River into Mekong and then on to the Sea. But during the monsoons, the Mekong carries so much water that it pushes its way through TS River into TS lake. So the Lake gets filled up—and also gets re-stocked with fresh water fish.

The kings of Angkor built a complex irrigation system using the streams and the Lake. They also built a number of reservoirs, filling them by diverting river water. Thus, the kingdom had 2-3 rice crops a year unlike its neighbours who were not even sure of one (like in 21st century India). Food was also nicely supplemented with fish – Macher Bhath!

Surplus food => Trade surplus => Money to fund army => Rule over parts of Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and China.

WillowMan in Cambodia

2004-10-14T22:23:00.000+08:00

The Ta-Prohm temple is one of the most amazing sight I have ever seen. The temple is in ruins – one of the few not restored in the 20th century, and you can see the trees eating up the stone temples. Well, this reminded me (don’t really know the connection, but it struck a chord) of the Willowman – remember the 4 hobbits and how they are rescued by Tom Bombadil (in The Book – the movie skipped this episode).
Some pictures (again not mine). See the photo in the centre (3rd row, 5th from left) and you get what I mean – HUGE trees, and roots encircling and slowly crushing the stone.
ta-prohm

Dance like a ...?

2004-10-12T21:46:00.000+08:00

Well, I am -- like Rory, b-i-l of the original HPP (see post below) -- a man with two left feet. PGW could have been describing me when he said:

'When I dance', said Mrs Spottsworth, cutting, like her partner, quite a rug, 'I don't know I've got feet.'

Monica winced.

'If you danced with Rory, You'd know you've got feet. It's the way he jumps on and off that gets you down.'

Angkor W(h)at

2004-10-12T21:29:00.000+08:00

Blogging after nearly a week. Well, I was in Siem Reap, Cambodia to see Angkor Wat and other temples.

An amazing place. First, did the standard tourist trip – Angkor Wat, Bakheng at sunset, Angkor Wat again in the morning, Angkor Thom, The Bayon, Baphoun, Ta Phrom; then Bentei Srei and the Grand Tour – Pre Rup, East Mebon, Neak Pean, Preah Khan and a couple of other temples. Then tooled around in Siem Reap town, Balloon rode, Tonle Sap laked.

Link to some photos (not mine):

angkor-wat-pics

Brief History of 8th to 12th centuries: Cambodia or Kambhoja was a Hindu Kingdom – founded by a courtier from Java (might actually have been Sumatra) called Jayavarman II (well, I never found out who the original JV was) in the ninth century. He built a few temples in Kambhoja dedicated to Shiva. A few generations later Suryavarman II (r.1112-52) built the magnificent Angkor Wat – someone in between had shifted the capital close by and built another temple called Bakheng on a small hill.

Later the last of the great kings Jayavarman VII built a new city Angkor Thom and this contains the amazing Bayon (this is the one with faces gazing on you from all its towers – 54 faces in all looking at his 54 provinces). Also has many other (most of those listed above were built by this guy. And since he became a Buddhist, these are a mix of Buddhist and Hindu iconography.

Some of the amazing things –
Architecture, mythology, scale. Most temples have a similar plan based on the myth of the churning of the ocean. So the temple is surrounded by a huge moat (the ocean) has three levels, with the innermost representing Mount Meru and its four smaller peaks. The other buildings which are libraries represent the butter (continents). And you can see the huge statues of the devas and asuras using vasuki as the rope.
A description can be found here: angkor-wat-desc

Indeed, the entire complex of Angkor Thom is a larger scale representation of the same motif.

And the scale: Angkor Wat is surrounded by a moat: 1.5 km by 1.3km. The width of the moat is 190 m. Three levels: (1) the outer wall is 1025m by 800m. Then in the first level, there is a gallery with 800m ling bas reliefs (Kurukshetra – I could identify the scene of slaying of Bheeshma (on a bed of arrows and Arjuna shooting from behind Shikhandi); could not identify other chararacters); Ramayana (Ravana has his heads in three tiers: 4 (like Brahma or our Ashoka lions) in the lower layer, then 4, then 2 – so you can see 7 of these), and some others from Hindu Mythology, also one of Suryavarman in battle.

Angkor Thom is even more amazing: enclosed by a square wall 3km each side (again with moat and the snake + devas + asuras around it). Bang in the centre is the Bayon (see bayon-pic ). Amazing structure, you can climb up to the faces and it is surreal there.

Well. I’ll stop about the temples. Next post on the Balloon ride, the Tonle Sap lake, Siem Reap town and other general cambodian history.

The original HPP

2004-10-06T20:59:00.000+08:00

Hard core Wodehouse fans (I count myself as one) would have recognised my nom de plume. Honest Patch Perkins is the name adopted by Bertie's pal Bill Rowcester in his bookie's disguise. As Captain Biggar describes him: "Chap with a Walrus moustache and a patch over his left eye. Honest Patch Perkins, he called himself: "Back your fancy and fear nothing, my noble sportsman" he said. "If you don't speculate, you don't accumulate", he said. "Walk up, walk up, Roll, bowl or pitch. Ladies half-way and no bad nuts returned", he said. So I put my double on him.'.

I'd like to be like that, though not as what follows -- Cap'n Biggar wins a double; Bill owes him over three thousand pounds; doesn't have the money; and as Biggar says: "This inky-hearted bookie welshed on me".

In "Ring for Jeeves" one of the more hilarious ones by the Master. This book has the passage describing how Mrs Spottsworth was widowed twice:

"Widowed owing to Clifton Bessemer [first husband - ed] trying to drive his car one night through a truck instead of around it, and two years later meeting in Paris and marrying the millionaire sportsman and big game hunter, A.B. Spottsworth, she was almost immediately widowed again.
It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that caused A.B.Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn't. The result being that when he placed his foot on the animal's neck preparatory to being photographed by Captain Biggar....."

The Great Debate - Part I

2004-10-03T11:19:00.000+08:00

Saw the Bush vs Kerry debate. Not much substance. Bush came out as an idiot (what’s new?) and Kerry as the holier-than-thou personality. Can’t say that I like either of them.

Bush is easily intellectually challenged. He still connects Saddam to 9/11. Pray what did SH have to do with 9/11? [ Digression: Read some of the Iraqi recent history and you will find that he was a brutal dictator but with some good ideas – Iraq pre-1980 (when the war with Iran started) had the highest literacy levels in the region, high level of women’s participation in the workforce, ban on the veil (well, this was part of Kemal Ataturk’s strategy in transforming Turkey towards modernism). I am not defending him and do despise him. All I am saying is that he was no different from the many dictators (once “our bastard” for the Yankees) whose main objective was to stay in power. Good that he is gone but to what end? Another region with warlords running the place? Yet another Afghanistan?]

And Kerry? Said some of the right things like working with allies and getting more countries into the coalition. But how? How is he going to convince Germany, France, Russia, India, China – to send in peacekeeping forces? As he himself said – you break it, you fix it (actually the original quote is you own it). And he couldn’t resist quoting his Vietnam record.

But does this matter? Many of the post debate discussions – on TVs, Blogs – were on how they “looked” (“Kerry looked Presidential, Bush looked tense”). And how does that get you out of the mess in Asia, and how does this get your economy on track? God save America.

Welcome to the land of milk and honey

2004-09-30T20:14:00.000+08:00

Well, I was subjected to this as I have an Indian passport but now goras too?
New checks for travellers to US

Identity crisis

2004-09-30T20:07:00.000+08:00

Changed name in blog. But this does not change the identity in earlier posts. Can the algo be cracked?

Why I Love Shri N Modi

2004-09-30T19:40:00.000+08:00

Reuters reports that a Gujarat standard X textbook has words in praise of Hitler.

Excerpts:
"Hitler lent dignity and prestige to the German government in a short time by establishing a strong administrative set-up," reads the social studies textbook that mentions the holocaust only in passing and has a subtitle reading "Internal Achievements of Nazism".
"He (Hitler) adopted a new economic policy and brought prosperity to Germany. He made untiring efforts to make Germany self-reliant within one decade," the book reads.

Way to go Mr Modi. No hypocrisy here. You say it as you believe it. What if some people like me do not agree with you. We can be eliminated in the next riot.

To blog or not to blog

2004-09-23T20:59:00.000+08:00

What makes a good blog? Personal recollections? (why
should anyone be interested in my life?), Humour? (yes
that should work), intelligent discussions? (okay,
yes, but “interesting” is the key word). And who is
this for? Myself? In that case, why on the www? Why
not just type in a word file and store it on the hard
drive?

Let me not be a hypocrite. I am writing this so that
others read the blog, appreciate it, disagree with the
view, comment, praise, criticize, throw tomatoes, in
short react to it. I seek attention like any 2-year
old does. (Come on guys, pleeeeeease read this blog.
Cash prizes for the 100th reader. The 1000th reader
gets a ticket to switzerland (subject to terms and
conditions written in invisible ink like the ones in
any seedybank credit card app))

It is like getting dressed for an occasion – one
clearly does that to be admired by others– yes, even
those who dress down (like the IITians in slippers,
dirty jeans and t-shirts – accepted dress code ‘cos
most peers drss like that).

That reminds me of the traps we get into when we brand
ourself into a corner. I am sure Gandhiji could not
have dressed for the English weather but had to think
of a smart reparte. Or some of our IT head honchos
can’t travel business class even if they can afford to
do so. That is Brand Equity – cant dilute it.

Mad Musings

2004-09-23T20:55:00.000+08:00

Mad Musings
Hello World.This is so much simpler nowadays compared to what theCS profs made us do 15 years ago. Thank you Mr Gates.

Trying out the blogger

2004-09-18T10:41:00.000+08:00

My first attempt at creating a weblog. This is a test post.