Animals Can't Detect Quakes

A devastating quake has brought Nepal to its knees. 4400 people are confirmed death by now and Nepali administration fears that the toll may well exceed 10,000. Over 8 million people are affected or about a third of the total population. Being a developing state, Nepal’s infrastructure is strained almost to breaking point under the impact of this natural calamity of a scale unseen In the Himalayan state. As of now, every hand is engaged in extricating people trapped under the debris, before it’s too late. Soon, the effort will shift to reconstruct the damaged buildings. A huge amount of money will be required to put the economy back on track. The impact on tourism industry, which was one of the mainstays of Nepal, would naturally be huge as well. All reservations for the next two years might be cancelled. The country may have to start from scratch again, since it is reported that almost 80% of the ancient temples are either destroyed or heavily damaged.

As we know, Himalayas is a seismic zone inherently prone to devastating quakes like what we saw a few days back. The Indian tectonic plate pushing under the Eurasian plate is a scary reminder for people in this region. There have been no warnings this time too. Soon, hordes of astrologers and charlatans would come out to claim that they had predicted about the tremor. Unfortunately such warnings appear in media, only after the events. No human being has so far been able to forewarn his fellows about an imminent quake. Even technology is helpless as of now to make a prediction applicable to a specific period of time. How long will it take for mankind to device deep probes that sense the heart throb of the Earth?

There is another group of people who claim that they got wind of the impending disaster by the behavioral peculiarities exhibited by domestic animals. This argument is also false, but cloaked under the veneer of scientific probability. It is quite probable that a fault zone about to cause a tremor might release noise in the longer wavelengths, and hence lesser frequency. Man cannot detect sounds less than 20 Hz frequency, so he can’t hear them. But dogs and cats have the faculty to hear low frequency sounds as well. Then, isn’t it possible that the animals may be used to detect earth quakes before they actually occur?

Here, we are in a dilemma. We can’t simply reject the argument as baseless. Charlatans have an uncanny ability to exploit doubts in others to their own nefarious ends. A useful strategy to adopt here is to appeal to practical considerations. Even if we accept for argument’s sake that animals could sense tremors that are on the way, it is equally true that nobody escaped a quake by deducing it from the strange behaviour of an animal. After the event, many people ‘remember’ that their pets acted strangely, but never before it. What is the morale here? Even if the animals detect tremor signals, their behaviour is not altered or at least not changed in such a way as to attract the attention of people around them. Their masters could not detect anything extraordinary in their behavior. Isn’t it clear proof that animals can’t be used to sense earth quakes in a sensible way?

Kerala Hartal Calendar

Public life would come to a standstill on a hartal day

This post is a simple effort to serve as a guide to people from outside Kerala state who are unfortunate enough to arrive on a hartal day in Kerala. This is basically a survival guide to overcome the effects of hartal up to an extent and also provides an online schedule of planned hartals. As soon as a hartal is announced, this will be updated online, and people planning to travel to Kerala may do better to visit the hartal calendar before venturing on their journey. It is always good to postpone the trip, if at all possible. If your travel was planned much in advance, or is very important, you might have to do it anyway, whatever may be the risk. In such a case, you may read the following section.

1. Violence

Surprisingly, there is no risk of personal violence. The protesters may stop your vehicle, if you are riding in one, and may ask you to get out. If the mob is much agitated, they may smash the wind screen, but there is no chance that you will be personally injured.

2. Travel

Flights and railway are the two modes of transport which will operate without any hitch. Strikers won’t normally hinder movement of trains. So, if you can reach the railway station or airport, you can travel freely. On the other hand, all other forms of public transport will be stopped. Busses will not run, taxis will not ply, and auto rickshaws will stay off the road, for fear of their wind screens and tyres. Private transport will not be normally blocked, though many people are reluctant to take their cars on the road. Two wheelers have no restrictions. Protesters will not stop them. So, the best way to reach your destination is to hitchhike on two wheelers, who are generally helpful and would give you a free lift. But if you have heavy baggage, your options are limited. Private cars may or may not accommodate you, of course, depending on your appearance! Another option is to seek help from the Police, who might take you to your destination on one of your fortunate days.

3. Food

Food is the most difficult item to arrange on a hartal day. All restaurants will be closed. If you happen to stay in a hotel with an attached restaurant, you are safe. Otherwise, if you are on the road, there is absolutely no way to get food and drinks during forenoon in the case of dawn to dusk hartals. Eateries may function in the railway stations. It is always advisable to stock up provisions on the previous day itself. Street vendors generally open their stalls by around 2’o clock in the afternoon. Basic food items may be obtained from them. However, if you are exceedingly hungry in the morning, there is not much you can do other than begging at nearby homes.

4. Accommodation

No problem on this front. All hotels will function. If you can reach the hotel, the ‘rest’ is assured.

5. Hartal Calendar

All hartals cripple public life in Kerala, irrespective of the numerical strength of the organization calling for it. Keralites don’t want to take risks. So, don’t entertain the false hope that at least some daring trader would open his shop. Statewide hartals occur roughly about once in two months and district hartals occur more often. There are two types of hartals, one is of the lightning variety that is often called against some political violence. You would get hardly 24 hours notice in this case. Most often, the next day would be declared a hartal day. One point to remember is that no hartal would be called on Sundays and public holidays, because if you do, loss of productivity would be very minimal and the protesters naturally want to cause maximum loss to the public exchequer. The second type of hartal is called in protest against a policy of the government, such as liberalization, hike in petroleum prices, increase in insurance premium and the like. Here, the notice period would be around one week, so to say. So how would you know that a hartal is announced on the day you plan to visit Kerala?

I have started an online Kerala hartal scheduler, which will be updated as frequently as possible. You may see the schedule at TeamUp http://teamup.com/ksb4c10e215321a338/. Or, watch for shortened URL http://goo.gl/Gt9Qpn

Time’s Winged Chariot

Andrew Marvell (1621 - 1678)

Poetry is a very beautiful expression of human emotions. If I left it at that, it would have been the understatement of the year! A couplet, unexpectedly wafted by a literary wind in the form of a quote in a quite unrelated book, might set in motion in you a train of thought, and at the same time savouring the metaphysical essence of it. It is the economy of words while expressing an idea that makes poetry an unassailable foe to prose. Likewise, I stumbled upon the lines

“But at my back I always hear

Time’s winged chariot hurrying near”

as a quote in Arnold Toynbee’s ‘A Study of History’. There wasn’t any mention of the author – just the beguiling lines that invited the listener to immerse in a deep ocean of thinking at the philosophical inevitability of the subject alluded to, by the poet.

If the day was three decades prior to what it actually was, nothing would’ve happened. You would have no clue as to the poet who wrote these lines. May be learned scholars in English literature would have able to help, but most of them are out of reach of rustics like me even now. The lines would’ve forever haunted me with neither the beginning nor the end in sight. I would’ve been forever chained to the present as enunciated in those lines. But the year is 2015, the Internet has reached every corner of the country, and it was a matter of seconds to run a search in Google and coming up with 16,000 matching results! Not only the full poem, but a biography of the author is now available at your fingertips.

It was Andrew Marvell (1621 – 1678) who wrote these lines in his poem, ‘To His Coy Mistress’ around 1650. Contrary to all expectations we might have formed based on the metaphysical quote, the poem is actually an amorous one in which the poet urges his mistress to shed her coyness and to respond favourably to his lustful advances because the time available to live is very short and he is already hearing the clatter of time’s winged chariot approaching from behind. What an irony! The thing you thought to be a diamond of philosophical speculation turned out on closer examination to be a piece of charcoal! The fact that both are of the same material need not detain us here. The poem is still noteworthy, with a few more aces down the poet’s sleeve, when he reminds us that “yonder all before us lie deserts of vast eternity”. It ends with this marvelous sextuplet,

“Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Through the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run”

English is hilarious if we detect the pun! Full text of the poem may be found here.

Sighting of Scholz’s Star in Prehistoric Times

A team of German astronomers have come forward with an astounding observation. A star, now termed Scholz’s Star after its discoverer, had come very close to the solar system around 70,000 years ago. It flew past the outermost reaches of the solar system called Oort Cloud which is a vast region of space full of stellar debris and is the breeding ground of comets which are nudged by celestial objects whizzing past through the cloud and which then tumble onwards to the Sun by its gravitational tug in a periodical orbit. Astronomers say the comets the star had dislocated in its wake might not reach the sun for many more thousands or even millions of years to come. The star is categorized as a Red Dwarf, meaning the size was very small, and it hurtled past us at a speed of 2,88,000 kmph which is four times the speed of a normal celestial body. It had come nearly 0.8 light years away from the Sun, which means that it reached nearly one-fifth of the distance to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star at 4.2 light years away. Dwarf stars are difficult to see with the unaided eye, but many such stars flare occasionally, even up to 4000 times its normal light intensity. If such was the case, it would’ve been visible on the prehistoric face of the earth.

Scholz's Star in artistic concept

It is deeply exhilarating to contemplate the feelings that rose on sighting this new dot of bright red in prehistoric people. The star might have put in an appearance at the intersection of two crucial events in human history – the migration out of Africa and the development of speech. Probably, some inquisitive child might have spotted this unusually bright speck of crimson light on a sky unencumbered with smoke and industrial particulates. With childish naiveté, the little girl might have pointed it to her little brother and possibly to her mother, who would’ve been busy preparing for the long night in an era when artificial lighting was still several millennia ahead. Her father would probably be outside the cave socializing with his fellows and discussing on the hunting strategies to be followed in the new area in which they have arrived on the arduous trek out of Africa in humanity’s greatest ever bid to conquer the world. The girl might have uttered some sounds that was somehow comprehensible to her parents and siblings, since man had just reached the critical stage in his evolution at which speech developed. The guttural sounds of apes gradually or more probably rather suddenly by geological standards, gave way to meaningful speech. Isn’t it wonderful to visualize a little primitive human family looking uncomprehendingly and with a little anxiety watching this portent of unknown events to occur? Religion had not taken root in human societies at that time, as the concept of an omnipotent deity required the development of the ability to produce meaningful spoken words. That family might have just wondered with a tinge of apprehension about how their future could be correlated with the appearance of a little red dot in the evening sky.

And, would they have spared a thought for the man who would not be born for the next 70,000 years from that moment, but would think and write about them in a medium they couldn’t even dream about?

Good Games on Chess.com

Chess.com is a very good site to play chess online. Ever since Yahoo stopped its buggy online chess in March 2014, we have been at a loss to find a good alternative. 

Chess.com was the sweet alternative and have just started some nice gaming there. There are a few memorable games (of victory, of course!). The following are the moves in the game.

1. Against dambrefe2 on 7.2.15 (with black pieces)

1. e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6 4.c3 d6 5.h3 Nf6 
6. d3 Be7 7.O-O O-O 8.Re1 a6 9.Bb3 Bd7 10.d4 exd4
11. cxd4 Qc8 12.a3 Bxh3 13.gxh3 Qxh3 14.Qd3 Ng4 15.Be3 Kh8 
16. Nbd2 Bf6 17.Qf1 Qh5 18.Qg2 Be7 19.Kf1 f5 20.Ke2 fxe4
21. Nxe4 Qf5 22.Ng3 Qf6 23.Nh5 Qf5 24.Ng3 Qf6 25.Ne4 Qf5 
26. Ned2 Bf6 27.Rac1 a5 28.Bc2 Qe6 29.Kd1 Qd7 30.Rh1 Rae8
31. Bf4 Bxd4 32.Bxh6 gxh6 33.Qh3 Nxf2# 0-1

Perumal Murugan's Clever Ploy

Not many youngsters would be aware of it, but there was a tooth paste brand named ‘Binaca’ during the 1980s. I distinctly remember the name, because those were days when television sets were switched on only for a few hours each day as the transmission began only at five in the evening. So it was a time for young children like us to watch eagerly and relish whatever is telecast, be it movies, Chitrahaar or even commercials. Binaca soon caught the attention of us with its chic ad campaign designed to appeal to children. Then, all of a sudden, the company was taken over by Ciba Geigy and the brand was renamed ‘Cibaca’. Then followed a vigorous PR blitz covering both the print as well as electronic media to make the customer aware that the name has changed. One such commercial showed Alibaba of Arabian nights chanting ‘Binaca” three times and the cave door remains shut. Then he utters the magical ‘Cibaca’ and the door opens. It was sheer fun to watch the ad again and again. And we genuinely wondered why the company decided to change the name of its brand which had long established familiarity among the people. And it caused a huge effort of man power and money to advertise the new name.

Fast forward to 2015, and we again watch a subtle script being played out in Tamil Nadu. Perumal Murugan, a small time Tamil author, suddenly declares that he is hunted by casteist forces and vows to stop writing altogether. And he also wants to drop the word ‘Perumal’ (god) from his nom de guerre. Henceforth, he would be known simply as P. Murugan. And what is the reason for this change of heart? He had published a Tamil novel titled ‘Mathoru Bhagan’ which was translated into English as ‘One Part Woman’ (ardha nareeshwara). This book is reported to have angered Hindu militant groups and they allegedly threatened the author, who was promptly scared to the core and withdrew from literary career. Don’t worry, the man is a professor of Tamil language in the government service and literature is only his part time interest.

Predictably, progressive minded people with strong subconscious affiliation to the Stalinist Left came out firing on all guns against Hindu fascist forces that cut off a veritable fountain of creativity in curbing Murugan’s talent. Watching what was going in Communist Russia, and what’s still going in China, I am at a loss to understand what the Left has got to do with freedom of expression! Anyway, here comes the curious part. The author says that he was threatened for some remarks in the text, which offended some of the conservative segments. This is plausible in Tamil Nadu where the lower castes are still oppressed to an inhuman degree at least in some of the villages there. But, isn’t this what an author with a radical bend of mind must endure, like Salman Rushdie and Tasleema Nasreen did? Bringing in sensationalism would greatly help in larger sales figures, but there is bound to be opposition. Just as the author has the freedom to knowingly or unknowingly hurt the sentiments of a section of the people, the supposedly offended also has the freedom to protest against it – peacefully. We have no information that the author was the victim of any violent action on behalf of the protestors. All of it was purely verbal. It was only last week that we read about the French satirical magazine, ‘Charlie Hebdo’ restarting publication after 12 of its staff were brutally gunned down by Islamic terrorists. The magazine didn’t stop its publication forever in the style of Perumal Murugan, but came back with more cartoons designed to inflame the feeling of those who have a very sensitive perception of what constitutes religious outrage. Whether you support Charlie Hebdo on its foolhardiness or not, there is no denying that it possesses great inborn courage to stick to what it feels is right. Compare this to the pathetic cowardice of Perumal Murugan who quickly drew the tail between the legs and went back to literary oblivion (from where he emerged last year).

Hey, don’t be so quick in passing judgment. There are subtle issues that don’t meet the eye at first. The original Tamil version, ‘Mathoru Bhagan’ was published way back in 2010 with absolutely no protests in its wake and also lukewarm sales. Then why the protests now? This is something which we find it difficult to digest, till we learn that the English translation, ‘One Part Woman’ was published only in 2013. The English version targets a pan-Indian audience and some controversy would help no one better than the author and the publisher. A rustic author who commands no great following in Tamil Nadu itself was surely going to be a flop on the national arena too. This is doubly so, as the book tells the story of an obscure village in Tamil Nadu with a plot set over 100 years ago. Naturally, the outside readers should ideally be introduced to the author with a bang, and the publishers were saved from a great expense on ad campaigns by riding on the wave of a helpful controversy and aimless public debates of leftists. Now, the country is aware of who Perumal Murugan is, and the title of his book in English. The sales will soar now, and it will be translated into more languages. There will be more revenue for Penguin, and more royalty for Murugan. He can safely go back to his full time profession of teaching comfortably with the thought that burgeoning royalty will afford him a rich second income after retirement in addition to assured pension.

Everything is cleverly stage-managed by intelligent people. But who were made the fools in this camouflaged advertisement campaign? The unsuspecting public, of course - as always.