The Man on the Indian Street

It is with great pride and gusto that we have entered the 21st century. On the fifteenth of august 2007, we will proudly celebrate the 60th year of independent India. Politicians will stand on the podium at the Raj-Path and watch defense personnel march past them. Many people will appear on many television channels and speak highly about the progress of our nation and the glory of our nation. After the party has ended and the high and mighty have gone back into their castles, the man on the street is left standing where he always was, on the street. The hype and the glamour have brought no change to his life, except maybe the confetti that now clutters his street.

The man on the street was there even in 1947, at that fateful midnight hour, when India was declared a free country, a sovereign state. His eyes were full of hope, hope for a better future, but now he is still standing there and the hope is fading from his eyes. He harks back to the past, a broken man he is now, "if only", he thinks, "if only I was an only child, and not one among twelve, if only I had a job, if only..."

Such is the plight of many a youth in our allegedly glorious country. Though employment has improved over the years thanks to the IT industry, the number of unemployed youths has shot up. This is because of our booming, burgeoning population. Yes, I did call ours an "allegedly glorious country". And yes I do believe that the glory is an allegation with little truth in it. How can a country be glorious, if the people who grow the country's food- the farmers commit suicide? How can we be glorious, if on one hand we raise the image of a simple man by the name of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi by using superlatives like "Mahatma" and "father of our nation" and on the other hand exhibit an open and blatant disregard for his ideals?

The blame for this lies on two systems, one is our system of administration, the other is our system of education. Fine, both are huge systems, both are shouldering an immensely large burden fairly well and they are producing results. Lets tackle the system of administration first.

Our system of administration is what one would call a "top-down" administration. That is, there is one person at the top, he/she has some people under him/her to assist him/her and these "minions" have other people under them to assist them, and thats how it goes down all the way to the bottom. What does this mean? Well, it means that the man on the street has no real power. Oh yeah, this is a democracy, and that means that people rules themselves, and we have the wonderful lines written in the preamble to our constitution (borrowed from the constitution of the USA) which starts with the words "...for the people, by the people, to the people...". Pardon my insight but that is a fairytale that every Indian is made to believe. A caption that would say "by the politicians, for the politicians, to the politicians" would be more apt for whats happening in our country today.

Is there an alternate system that can be put into place? Oh yeah there is. That would be whats called a "bottom-up" system. Basically that puts all the power in the hands of the people at what Mahatma Gandhi called the grass-root level. There will be a person above his level and he will have control over only those matters that fall under 2 or more grass-root administrators, this system goes on to the top where the head of state has control over generalized things like national security, the economy, foreign affairs and so on. This system puts real power in the hands of the man on the street.

If this system is so good, why isn't it already in place? Well, when India got independace, and Nehru became the first Prime Minister of India, he didn't think it was necessary to change the system of administration that the British had set up, so he let it be. And the British had set up this for one purpose alone, to loot this country. And Nehru's successors, saw that this system was beneficial to their own power hungry and money hungry needs, so they too didn't change it.

Now lets tackle our education system. Yes, we think we have the best one in the world. Then why is it that none of our Universities (even the much hyped and overrated IITs) aren't in the top ten or even the top twenty Universities of the world? The reason- they are all seriously overrated. Take a peek into any of the schools in India, in Andhra Pradesh in particular. The first thing that is drilled into the head of the student is "don't use your head, learn whats in the book by heart and write only that". It is this edict that stifles and throttles any creative spark in any child, and snuffs it out. If there is no creative spark, there is no avenue for innovation, and a graduate without any avenue for innovation is a substandard graduate.

Furthermore, the Indian education system in general places emphasis on Mathematics and the Sciences, Social Sciences, especially History take a back seat and are often brushed aside as being useless. The result of this is a batch of students who have no national pride. The historians of our country are partially to blame for this. They write their history books with such high flown language, and in such a boring matter-of-fact manner that all the thrill and excitement is taken out of them. The Arts are another casualty of this system. Languages and fine arts take a serious beating, and English and Hindi and other languages like Sanskrit and so on are learnt "just because they are in the curriculum". And fine arts like painting and music aren't even taken seriously. Why? Because they don't carry marks. The result is a gaudy society with no sense of art or style what-so-ever, ugly buildings that make any international tourist want to puke, and many other things that cant be mentioned for sake of decency.

The result is a society that hankers after wealth and nothing else, their attempts to appear modern, open-minded and cosmopolitan often result in vulgarity and garishness and they have a total disregard for anyone but themselves. They have very shallow ideals, and they are easily swayed by politicians and god-men who are seldom true to their word.

Therefore we think we have to blame the system of Administration and the system of Education for the plight of the man on the street, but ultimately, the blame lies with us, because we have allowed these flawed systems to exist for the past 59 years.

The Speed of Light as in an Ancient Indian Text

The Speed of Light

The speed of light was determined by Roemer in 1675. Recently it has been pointed out that an ancient Sanskrit text of 14th century contains the value of the speed of light that is identical to the modern value. Sayana (1315-1387 A.D.) was a very famous Vedic scholar. He was the prime minister in the court of Emperor Bukka I and his successors of the Vijayanagara Empire. In his commentary on the following verse in the Rigveda he gives the value for the speed of light.

"O Sun! You see all, create brightness and travel very fast. You brighten the whole sky." Rigveda 1.50.4

Sayana comments: "It is remembered that Sun traverses 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesa."

It is to be noted that Bhatta Bhaskara (probably in 10th century) made the same statement in his commentary on Taittiriya Brahmana. He says this to be an old Puranic tradition.

Yojana is an ancient unit of length. Arthasastra defines it as being equal to 8,000 dhanus(a dhanu is approximately equal to 1.81 meters), which is equivalent to 14.481 kilometers. Nimesa is an ancient unit of time. One nimesa is equal to 16/75 seconds. Thus 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesa is equal to 298942.143 kilometers per second after conversion. This is very close to the value of 299792.458 kilometers per second for the speed of light. Why would Sayana call this the speed of the Sun? The speed of the Sun calculated by Indian astronomers was very small compared to this value. It turns out that Sayana was following the ancient Indian tradition of codifying the knowledge. In this code Sun represents light. The discovery of this code is described in the book “Vedic Physics: Scientific Origin of Hinduism”.

This subject has been discussed in detail in a scholarly article ("The Speed of Light and Puranic Cosmology", Subhash Kak, "Computing Science in Ancient India", editors T. R. N. Rao and Subhash Kak, 1998, pp 80-90).

I HAD COPIED THIS INFORMATION LONG AGO FROM A WEBSITE ONTO A PIECE OF PAPER. THEREFORE I HAVE NO WAY OF MENTIONING THE SOURCE OF THIS INFORMATION. ALL NUMERIC DATA IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT WAS EXPRESSED IN TERMS OF THE BRITISH SYSTEM OF UNITS WHICH I CONVERTED INTO THE SI SYSTEM FOR EASE OF READING

The Origin of the Algorithm and the Arabic Connection

In the modern world one would associate the adjectives of “backward”, “fundamentalist”, “communalist” and maybe even “militant” with the Arab world. And one would be labeled a maniac for even entertaining the idea that it was the same Arab world which gave us our so called modern system of counting. In Arabic, their number system is called “arqa-m hindiyyah” which loosely translates to “Hindu-Arabic numerals”. Whats even more puzzling is the fact is that if it weren’t for one person belonging to that region, we probably wouldn’t have had computer in this day and age and you might not have been reading this article on this blog.

The name of that one man is Mohammed Ibn-Musa al-Khwarizmi. He inhabited the exact place where we have almost created hell on earth: Baghdad, on the banks of the river tigris. It was in Baghdad where this man worked as a faculty member of the House of Wisdom between 800 & 847 CE (common era; a period previously referred to as A.D.). He even wrote one of the first books ever written on algebra in 830 CE. The book, back then, was called “al-Kitab al-mukhtasasar fi hisab al-jabr w’al-muqabala”. The title of this book loosely translates as “the condensed book of calculation by restoration and comparison”. The preface of this book reads something like:

…what is easiest and most useful in arithmetic, such as men constantly require in cases of inheritance, legacies, partition, law-suits, and trade, in all their dealings with one another…

Students who deal with x, y, z and variables of the like in their algebra textbooks would hardly believe that they are studying what was once created to deal with such complications of daily life. But before he wrote this book, he wrote “On Calculations with Hindu Numerals” in 825 CE which was part translation and part explication of Indian Numerals as expounded by Brahmagupta.

Brahmagupta was a court astronomer in Ujjain like al-Khwarizmi, and he wrote the Brahma Sputa Siddhanta in 628 CE where he used and defined a new concept in mathematics, the ZERO for the first time. If it weren’t for this concept, there wouldn’t have been any calculus, nor any theoretical physics, nor any advancement in mathematics. He also wrote the Khandakhadyaka in 665 CE about astronomy. The Arab world learnt about the Indian system of counting when the second Abbasid Caliph invited a scholar from Ujjain called Kanka. Kanka introduced the concept Zero to the Arabic world.

This was then translated into Arabic by Al Fazaii around 770 CE.

Khwarizmi used these concepts in a book. The book itself was lost but its latin translation exists, and this translation is called Algorithmi. The name changed from Al-Khwarizmi to Algoritmi and is now called the concept of the algorithm.

Therefore, if it weren’t for this one man, Mohammed Ibn-Musa al-Khwarizmi, from the city of Baghdad, we wouldn’t have had the computer. For the fundamental idea on which all computer theory is based is the algorithm.

Courtesy The Hindu Young World Page 6, June 23, 2006. Original article by Serish Nanisetti

The Pendulum of Religion

Ok, I was reading the book called "The Mists of Avalon" by Marion Zimmer Bradley. The book is laced with references to pagan religions and what I assume to be Wiccan lore. This book also is set at such a time in Britain when Christianity is trying to make its presence more solid and its authority more totalitarian. That’s when the starkness of this contrast struck me in the face. Here is paganism, which gives more importance to the feminine. And as an opposite is Christianity which proclaims that the feminine is the root cause of all evil in this world. This started me thinking.

Maybe, there was this religion where the woman played an all important role and is given the symbolism like she is the embodiment of the divine goddess and what not, and the man is only needed for the act of procreation. Through time, maybe this idea became more and more extreme and the people ended up with the idea that men are useless except for procreation. And men were looked down upon as lesser beings. We must remember that before Christ, paganism was widespread throughout much of the western world. And this extremist idea must have cheesed off certain very shrewd people who got this idea into their head that women were the root cause of all evil and so on.

Then a further idea struck me, we all know that the masculine gender is more given to physical strength and aggression. It may be that since the dawn of time, men started ruling the roost and subjugating their feminine counterparts on the basis of physical strength. then, to reinstate their importance, some people put forth the theory that the feminine was closer to god than the masculine because after all, women are the one who give birth to the next generation, and that is the creation of new life, and it is almost difficult to overlook the similarities between the lunar cycle of waxing and waning, and women's menstrual cycles.

Hindu scriptures indirectly speak of a civilization that existed before ours and that it was destroyed in a sort of "end of the world" scenario that is called the "pralayam" in Sanskrit. Maybe, that was a male-centered civilization, which ended up being so full of aggression, unrest, war and strife, that the thinkers of the time decided that its time that the focus shifted from the sacred masculine to the sacred feminine. And maybe this "end of the world" is actually a symbolism for something like a change in ideology. And this change lasted till the dawn of Christ and Christianity which turned the tables again. Now, 2000 years after Christ, with talks of women’s rights and "equality of the sexes", are we again heading towards another "change in ideology"?

I would like to think so.

Ghatasthani

This is one of the many names of the goddess Kali. She was a tantrik goddess adopted by the Hindus. Her name means "pot breasted" but let this not fool u. She is said to be one of the most fearsome avatars of kali who is also called Maya meaning "deception or illusion".

She has huge breasts, a garland of human skulls and stains of human blood on her lips. She is naked except for a skirt made up of severed human arms. She is the goddess of death and destruction.

She is otherwise known as Smasana Kali, Smasana meaning cremation ground. I have not been able to deduce the central idea behind this avatar of hers, but she is supposed to be a personification of the raw power that fuels this universe. And yeah, her seat is the corpse of her dead consort whom many say is actually the god Shiva.

Now it is known that Shiva loves his partner or wife if u may dearly. This whole thing about the corpse is meant to symbolize the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of love I think.

Kali has been viewed as a mother and some have even called her a lover. There is one I know of who calls himself her consort. She requires sacrifices. But most of all, more than sacrifices she needs u to have the spirit of sacrifice. Those who did consider themselves her consorts sacrificed their bodies to her and killed themselves. But this one I talk of sacrificed his soul to her and waits for her to come accept his sacrifice.

Ghatasthani is not common among the normal folk. It is used by the aghori. Aghoris are the practitioners of aghora which is a more severe form of Tantra.

Tantra is mistaken as plainly sex, but it is a system of meditation which involves everyday activities as its constituent rituals, sex is just one of them.

The aghori perform various rituals either using human remains or sometimes even human corpses to appease this goddess. Just because her name suggests that she has a large bosom doesn’t mean that her fury is gentler. She is supposed to be very scary and hideous in appearance, but to her true devotee she is the personification of beauty. Those who have claimed to have been granted a boon of being able to see her have said that at first they were alarmed by her ugliness, but later she transformed the personification of beauty.

A lot about kali and the tantrik traditions can be gleaned from the site

SHIVASHAKTI- A GOOD RESOURCE FOR TANTRIK LITERATURE

this is a site that contains a lot about the tantrik ways, but just like any other resource about kali, it suffers the inherent flaw of being incomplete. For the amount of literature compiled about kali is too large to be consolidated into any one resource.

Actually the fearsome image of kali is so that the common folk who are at times very fickle should not forget to pay their respect to the raw power of the heavens. For that’s what kali represents, the power that feeds the universe.

There is actually a verse in Tantra literature that says that a person can see kali in any form he/she wishes as long as he is able to respect that form of hers.

The Gist Of My Novel - DIfferent Epochs

The year is 2084, humans have been contacted by an extraterrestrial life form, and they are all set to make a landing in the Indus delta region, the site of one of the oldest civilization in the world. A space ship appears and descends to the ground where a battalion of Indian troops await their arrival.

They watch with bated breaths as one of the extraterrestrial creatures makes its descent and starts moving towards them. Then suddenly one of the soldiers fires a weapon at both creature and ship destroying both. This soldier turns out to be an emissary of another race of extraterrestrials who in fact are humans.

The leaders of the earth then realize that there is an empire of humans spanning thirty-five galaxies, and that the earth had been quarantined off from it as the outcome of a war fought over ten thousand years ago. They also learn that there is currently a war brewing between the humans and the race which spawned this creature which attempted to land on earth for the possession of the earth.

As it turns out, the milky way galaxy is said to be a border galaxy on the border with the alien species called the Ghaik. Amid all this, there is talk of the inclusion of the earth into the human empire as it is called. The emissary then takes with him a member of the Indian secret service called the RAW. She explores the facets of the complex imperial government which is in fact somewhat a semi-monarchical democracy and is a capitalist society of various communes as opposed to a capitalist society of individuals.

This agent then discovers that this emissary is not a human being but a member of an order of supernatural warriors called the yativikrant who once were human beings. This revelation shocks her a little but being a trained espionage agent she hides it. The warrior by the name of Ajayaxara then offers her a chance to join the order which she accepts after some thought. As soon as her training is done, the war between the human empire and the Ghaik commences. The humans on the earth also play a part in this war and the war is won. As it turns out, the enemy is helped by a rogue member of the yativikrant. Ajayaxara fights the arch villain and kills him. After which he ascends to a higher level of the universe.

After the war is over, as a run up to the inclusion of the earth in the human empire, the leaders of the ten most powerful and influential countries on the earth decide to send two teams of scientists one after the other to study the empire and its citizens. The first team is meant to do the basic ground work and as the calculated culture shock is too large, the information they collect is meant to act as a means for the second team to brace themselves. They discover that the humans of the empire have modified their bodies in such a way as to make it completely robust and capable of survival in the harshness of empty space. They are all biomechanical, in other words they are all cyborgs.

The second team goes more in depth into the sociology and other aspects of the human empire. One member of the second team gets into an emotional relationship with one of the members of the host team of scientists from the imperial university and discovers the similarity between the earth humans and the humans of the empire despite the physical differences. He even volunteers to have his body engineered so that he too could be made a cyborg.

The earth is successfully inducted into the human empire and life returns to normal but not without incident as some people found out that they had spent their whole life studying something that turned out to be a well constructed hoax, an act of deception.



Endnote:

My first novel took me approximately eight years to complete. I am currently researching material for my second novel which is based in the period during the invasion of the Indian subcontinent by the Aryans.