Balderdash

Dhoni* says that the Dalai Lama's blessings made his team win in IPL, perhaps.

The last word in the sentence is the saving grace.

If Dalai Lama's blessings had such powers, Tibet would be free.

No, I am not making light of the Tibetans' plight.

The owner of CSK* is supposed to have invoked Vaastu and other hocus pocus, according to the papers. Dhoni says that many (all?) cricketers are superstitious and do "little things". Amazing that only one team wins! Isn't it?

One of these little things I was close to was that a classmate of mine wore the same set of clothes for all papers of engineering examinations, if he did well in the first paper. He could do that because he came by car and I went by bicycle. (I imagine that if I did any such thing, I would have got thrown out of the examination hall for being "a public nuisance" I guess.) He invariably did well in the first paper. He was placed either first or second in the University ranking and yours truly was way down below.

So, the difference between his 1st or 2nd ranks and I was a car - the late unlamented Standard Herald at that. How unfair. The fact that he studied some sixteen hours a day and I, sixteen hours a week, for the last four weeks, favoured him just a little perhaps.

* For those apologies for human beings from the large majority of nations that do not know Cricket, and who Dhoni is or what CSK is, here is something to set the scene: Dhoni is the captain of a Cricket team called Chennai Super Kings in a tournament, of a game called Cricket, called Indian Premier League (IPL)

Anand and IPL

Good start for the morning. Saw that Anand has won his second game against Topalov.

I watched the streamed version of the second for a while. I thought that Anand looked confident and Topalov looked tense. I am not sure if it was wishful thinking.

I watched the IPL final too till 11. I wanted CSK to win. Someone asked me why I wanted it to win. My answer? Because Dhoni is from Ranchi. I have a soft corner for Ranchi and that is a long story.

The contrast between the game of chess and IPL finals was striking.

The glamour, glitz and the bling of IPL. The deafening noise and physical energy of all involved. The colours, the lasers and lights and the dancing girls and the endless discussions about the nuances of the game. Even the murky happenings behind the scenes appeared to be erased.

The chess? Two immobile figures. One dressed as if he is attending a board meeting and the other looking almost ridiculously informal, in a formal shirt, in contrast. The display of the board on the screen in black and white. For those who do not have a deep understanding of the game, which includes me, the affair must appear incredibly boring.

The match itself does not lack drama. An Icelandic volcano erupts. Air traffic is cut off. The defender of the title reaches the venue by road. 22 hours in a bus. Three day postponement of the start requested. One granted. Defender loses the first game against a well rested challenger playing before his home crowd. The word crowd sounds almost irreverent and inappropriate. Does "the challenger playing in front of his countrymen" or some such thing sound better?

But! Imagine the happenings in the brains of the contestants. Neurons firing. Memory being accessed. Patterns being compared. Moves being evaluated. Imagining patterns that would emerge with a certain course of the game. Steely wills. Controlling the emotions and the thought processes.

The "fireworks" in their combined brains will perhaps put to shame the wildest creations of the pyrotechnic artists.

Coming down to the results, CSK won. Anand won. I feel happy.

I hope Anand wins and retains the title.

Ten Good Reasons to Learn German

I came across an article called “Zehn gute Gründe, Deutsch zu lernen” - Ten Good Reasons to Learn German, by Sebastian Sick, a columnist for the German Magazine Der Spiegel. He writes regularly about the German language. He is passionate about his mother tongue (Muttersprache). Interestingly, the Germans have a father land (Vaterland) but, a mother tongue.

I admire his passion, sense of humour and concern for the language. I wish we Kannadigas have our own Bastian Sick. Our language is sick and looks terminally ill when you look at the way it is used, misused and abused.

I have attached my translation of the article here. It is not a translation that would get me a first class in a German course or in a translation course. But, it conveys the meaning and humour at least a little bit. I hope you enjoy it.

Clerihew

I won a book "The Dord the Diglot and an Avocado or Two" by Anu Garg sometime ago and finally got down to reading it seriously. I came across the word Clerihew in it and Wikipedia defines it as:

A clerihew is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. The lines are comically irregular in length, and the rhymes, often contrived, are structured AABB. One of his best known is this (1905):

Sir Christopher Wren
Went to dine with some men
He said, "If anyone calls,
Say I'm designing Saint Paul's."

The sub-rule seems to be that the name of the person whose (purported) biographical work it is, appears in the first line.

So I cooked up the following Clerihew.

Mr Shashi Tharoor
Was shown the door
When he played on an unfamiliar wicket,
A game that does not sound quite cricket.

But, one more rule seems to be that it is not satirical. Perhaps mine does not qualify.

Catch 22 Inverse

A friend told me that RC (Oh no, not Royal Challengers (nor Rum n' Cola), you dummy, it's Roman Catholicism) does not allow divorce.

However, (Ah! How I love that word!) if one of the partners is mad, RC allows divorce.

In that case any marriage could be declared null and void.

Isn't getting married proof enough?

Celebration Time!

I wrote a short piece on British Chiropractic Association vs Dr. Simon Singh libel case. I wrote that piece being elated about the news that Simon Singh had won a case in which the judegment was that he could defend himself on the ground that what he had written was opinion and not a statement of fact.

Now the good news is that BCA has dropped its case against Simon. You may read all you want (and a lot more) here.

24 Hour Classical Music Channel

Yesterday, I attended a concert, a violin - Mohana veena jugalbandi, of Mysore Manjunath and Viswamohan Bhat. This was at the 72nd Ramasevamandali concerts held in the grounds of the Fort High school Bangalore. Before the start of the concert Bhat took the microphone and started talking. I usually do not take such talks seriously and only half listen to them (Don't ask me how that is done!!!). You may call me a cynic, but such talk is usually all about how the artist "loves" the audience of Bangalore (or Mysore or Pune or Timbuktoo where you happen to be and he or she happens to be performing)

But, this speech jolted me to attention with the second sentence. Here is a transcript of it as far as I can remember it.

"Good evening. I thank you all for coming to this concert. pause.... ignoring the two hundred TV channels ..... and IPL. I wish we had at least one channel devoted to Indian classical music. Even animals have three channels. (Said with a beautifully self deprecating smile)

In this place of Sri Vijay Mallyaji, I would like say that it will cost about 0.5 percent of his expenditure on IPL and Force India to run a channel like that. So I request Sri Vijay Mallyaji to ....."

I felt like crying. Now that World Space has been shot into deep outer space, this plea sounded more poignant.

As for me, if I have a 24 hr music channel on the air I will unsubscribe from the cable and will watch the four Tennis grand slam finals in some friend's house!

Are the Mallyas of the world listening?

Kudos and Congratulations to Simon Singh

The news of the day for me yesterday was "Simon Singh Wins Libel Case"

If you don't know what this is about, type the words Simon Singh libel in google and find out.

For those who are satisfied with a short report, here it is.

Simon Singh is a best selling science writer from England, of Punjabi origin. In 2008 he wrote an article in which he expressed his opinion that Chiropractics were offering a "bogus" cure for even children's ailments such as colic and childhood Asthma. The British Chiropractic Association sued him for libel. It so happens that the libel laws in England are such that it could drive the defendant insolvent.

After two years of fights in the courts and launching a movement to get the libel laws changed, he has won his case and also succeeded in getting all the major political parties to promise that they would work towards changing the libel laws in England.

He has had to stop writing and do this full time.

Bravo Simon Singh!

Paintings of Srinath Bidare

Today, I went to an exhibition of paintings and charcoal sketches of Srinath Bidare.

I found his works beautiful and executed with great skill.


I have posted some of them below. I hope you like them too. Of course, the photogaphs do not do justice to the originals. Look out for this artist and see his exhibition whenever you get a chance.


The one below is a landscape painted with hair dye. This brings to mind a sepia photograph.

The next one is a landscape in acrylic colours.

The artist calls this a seascape. Also done with acrylic.

The last one is a landscape done in water colours.

You can see more about the artist here: http://www.srinathbidare.com/

Art and Science

Does the following give you the feeling that someone is railing about something?

"It bugs me," Koop told the Guardian. "It's the molecular building blocks that shape these crystals and they can't form any shape other than a hexagon."

In a letter to Nature, Koop points out that the hexagonal shape of snowflakes has been known for at least 400 years when Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer, published his mini-treatise on the subject, "On the six-cornered snowflake".

"Beautiful photographs abound, including those taken by Vermont farmer Wilson A Bentley starting in 1885 ... Why then do many artists invent their own physically unrealistic snow crystals?"

Railing? Yes? No? At least, I do not think Koop was railing. It sounds like the voice of a man of reason who is troubled by bad art. 'Bad' is the operative word.

The news report published just before Christmas 2009, claims that the scientist railed. The dictionary defines railed as "complained bitterly". Well, diction is a matter of personal taste and I am ready to let go of it. But I take issue with the opening paragraphs of the report:

"The fragile truce between science and art came under strain today when common depictions of snowflakes threatened to divide the two cultures over the festive season.

In the latest salvo between the warring factions, Christmas card manufacturers, advertising agencies and children's book publishers are accused of corrupting nature with "incorrect designer versions" of snowflakes that defy the laws of physics."

Truce? Fragile? Salvo? Warring factions? Common depiction? What are we talking about?

How does this report matter to anyone and especially me? It so happens that I am passionate about science and I am passionate about art. If there was a war between them, I would be schizophrenic of sorts. But I firmly believe that I am no schizophrenic. There is no war inside my head. (Sure, most mentally ill people do not really believe that they are ill. So, you need not take my word for it!) And I see no war between the two cultures. Here is the origin of the phrase "The Two Cultures".

First, let us get one fact right. Most often, artists depict snow crystals with six corners. Frankly, I have not noticed the offending non-six pointed depictions. Of course, I do not receive many Christmas cards. When I do, what I see are six pointed snow crystals. That is neither here nor there.

Historically there have been numerous instances of collaboration of sorts between art and science. For many great scientists science was an artistic endeavour. Many of them were simultaneously artists and scientists. The biggest name of them all is, of course, Leonardo. If there was a war between the so called factions there would be debates about "Was Leonardo an artist who was also a scientist or was he a scientist who was also an artist", perhaps. I have not come across any such debate.

Science being an artistic endeavour brings to mind G H Hardy, the mathematician. He is perhaps famous in India as the man who discovered Ramanujan. Hardy was always very proud of the fact that his work was completely useless! For him, his mathematics was purely a search for beauty of numbers and their properties. Some years ago, one of Hardy's works was found to be useful in solving an esoteric problem in computing. The news paper report about it even wondered if Hardy would be turning in his grave! Art, quite often, is also completely useless. Like applied mathematics which helps people of other professions and pursuits find solutions to their problems, applied art helps people do other things, like selling a product or an idea sometimes.

A family friend who was a well travelled, brilliant biochemist once told me that in his experience he had met many really good scientists who could easily have chosen a career in music but, had chosen science.

Just for the record, I would like to list here some great scientist - artists of the world. I am sure no one will have an objection if I included creative writers in the art "faction".

The most prolific science writer of them all, Isaac Asimov, a doctorate in Bio Chemistry, was also a prolific science fiction writer.

Nearer home, you could count Jayant Narlikar in the same category.

Goethe, the greatest of German men of letters, once spent a few months in Goettingen working on a problem connected with the sun. I have no idea how good he was as a scientist but there was no war between the factions there.

Charles Darwin once regretted that once he started thinking about and writing the Origin of Species, he could no longer read novels and poetry which he had once enjoyed. This looks like a contradiction of my own claim that there is no war between the factions. We must note that Darwin said this with great regret. The war here is between the method of science and the madness (oh what beautiful madness) of art. (I must add that not all art is all madness. It needs hard work but of a different kind. For instance, Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and edited it three times. Each time, his wife made fair copy of the whole manuscript. Did these people have a different clock which ran much slower than ordinary clocks? I have postponed reading WaP to my post-retirement plans - not having enough time right now!)

Recently, Ruth Padel, Darwin's great granddaughter was in India and she writes poetry about her great great-grand-father and his life and work, among other things. No sir, no war between the two cultures there.

One of the most famous names in the visual arts and science is the German scientist-artist, Ernst Haeckel, whose pictures of plants and animals are perhaps unparalelled. You will perhaps never know if it was an artistic endeavour or a scientific endeavour for him.

A maverick of sorts and one of the legendary scientists of the modern era, Richard Feynman, learnt to play drums and while trying to teach some science to an artist ended up learning enough art to make some very good looking pictures.

Nearer home again, Kuvempu was very well read in science for laymen and had a lifelong interest in it. (He was instrumental in influencing my father to read popular science books and also take up science writing) Pu Ti Na, another great Kannada poet had an abiding interest in science and you can discern that in some of his poems too.

Is a naturalist a scientist? If yes, Audubon, perhaps, is known more as a painter of nature (See paintings here) was an avid nature lover and observer and painted it too. (The American non-profit environmental organization dedicated to conservancy is known as the Audubon society)

Perhaps the greatest name in science, Einstein, himself was a violinist of some accomplishment. I have always wondered how good he was as a violinist. Because he is a legend, his violin playing abilities could be the stuff of legend. But there is this story about how Einstein was concerned that an unknown young stranger next to him said that he did not understand music and took the trouble to give the young man a crash course in music listening shows that there is no war there!

Homi J Bhabha, one of India's greatest scientists, considered to be the father of India's atomic energy programme, was a trained pianist and a painter. Once, he painted a portrait of C V Raman and presented it to Raman. Raman was admiring it when Bhabha said, "That is the portrait of a great scientist by an artist". Raman retorted, "No, it is the portrait of an artist by another artist". Both took their art seriously and were proud of being artists! Raman conducted considerable research on the vibration of the membranes of percussion instruments. The interest in the topic was born more out of artistic interests than scientific interests, is my guess. Raman's wife was a well trained Veena player and Raman was very (inordinately?) proud of that fact.

If you make certain changes in the quoted passage about which I have 'railed' here, and replaced the word art with religion, it might make a lot more sense. That, of course, will also be contentious!

Yes Sir, art and science appear to be two divergent cultures. But at the heart of both is a search for truth and beauty. Their methods are different, means are different. But, NO SIR, there is no war between them and no salvos.

What Koop is "railing" at is not art but BAD art. He would rail equally, if not more, vehemently against bad science or non-science (sounds very close to nonsense, does it not?) and non-science trying to pass itself off as science, I am sure. I am certain that any self respecting artist who looked at five cornered and eight cornered (pentagonal and octagonal, Ahem!) snow crystals would be riled and would rail at it. Not at art per se.

Let me end with a piece of news that caught my attention recently. The latest Indian (born) Nobel Prize winner dashed to India recently to attend his son's Cello concert. Father and son at loggerheads and in opposite camps? No sir.

No Sir, there is and was no war, no truce, no salvos. Dare I say it? The report under discussion is as bad a piece of journalism as a piece of art depicting five cornered snow crystal?

Republic Day Musings

Every Republic Day has a certain things in common - watch the RD parade for a while on TV, watch "Gandhi", the movie, on some channel or the other, look at the list of Padma award winners and crib. This year, the crib started a day before RD because a friend called and asked if Romulus Whitaker has got any padma award. The answer unfortunately is no.

Awards are given to many deserving people, for sure. However the lapses - those of commission and of omission - are points for discussion and cribbing. This year, I was really happy to see the name of - Sheldon Pollock a very deserving recipient indeed. He is scholar of classical studies who is passionate about classical studies in India. My introduction to his name was fairly recent - through a very interesting article by him in The Hindu. There are of course people like Arundhati Nag who richly deserve it too.

The name in this year’s list that amused me was that of Resul Pookutty. I do not have an opinion on whether he deserves it or not. But, I do believe that he got the award because he got the Oscar. If not his existence itself would not even be known to the powers that be who decide on such matters is my guess. This comment does not take anything away from Resul I hope.

My problem is more with the names such as Aamir Khan and Sehwag. I am an admirer of Aamir Khan in general. His movies are good and he seems to be a good human being with social concerns and has done his bit about them. But does someone who promotes coloured aerated water deserve such an award, is my question. I know at least a few people who believe that he does not. If that is the case, one can imagine Indra Nooyi getting a Padma Vibhushan was just too much to swallow! I have already written about that here.

Now, coming to the other question - about Rom Whitaker; He has done more for Indian snakes and Gharials than anyone else. He richly deserves far more recognition than he has got. Or do environment and ecology not deserve such concern? When thinking about Rom, I could not help thinking of Valmik Thapar, Fateh Singh Rathore and Ullas Karanth. These naturalists, to find a common name, deserve the award, even perhaps more than some who have got it this year and before!

Giving them an award like that will serve an important purpose other than recognising their work and contributions. The matters are at least forced on the consciousness of people at large and hopefully something good will happen for the besieged environment.

I only hope that one day soon the actors against whom there are prima facie cases of killing black bucks!

Obama and Nobel

Let me be blunt. I felt let down by the Nobel Committee that decides on the prize for peace.

Let me make it clear. I am an admirer of Obama. Then why the feeling of having been let down?

When a colleague hurried to my desk to announce that Obama got the Nobel Prize for peace, my first reaction was, "It must be a hoax". He insisted that he had seen it on a reliable news channel. Until I saw it on the Official Nobel Website I did not believe it.

I talked to colleagues and friends at random and the reactions were uniform - "What?", "What for?", "Rigged?", "Nothing is reliable any more" . .

I told a friend, we will read the reports and the citation and then decide. The citation on the Nobel website reads " . . . for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples". Not too bad.

I thought about the whole thing and realised that most of the previous laureates had a life time of achievement behind them before they were honoured. Many had contributed significantly for a number of years before they were awarded. The Fact that Obama gets the prize when he has not really been in the international scene for more than a year seems to be the reason for the disbelief and all the other emotions.

I recalled another fact now almost forgotten that the will of Alfred Nobel reads as follows.

"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. . . "

The words in bold italics above (both mine) has been a problem for the Nobel committee and has been flouted than followed. The greatest scientific discovery of the preceding year would not have been peer reviewed, replicated and tested enough for the prize to be awarded this year. Hence someone like S Chandrasekhar gets a prize five decades (?) after his discovery. (Well, that is a long story but, good enough for the present purposes) Because of this, we are used to seeing prizes being awarded to recognise and honour life time achievements.

Suddenly, the Nobel committee decides to stick to the clause in bold italics and we feel let down.

Nobel peace prizes often seem "political" in the sense that the committee is trying to promote a movement or a line of thought. Quite often, anti-communist writers and activists have been honoured and most common people had not heard of them. Al Gore's is another case in point. In this case too, by awarding the prize to Obama, the Nobel committee seems to be saying - "What this man is doing is good" and quite often a Nobel laureate has an invisible aura that may help "him" in doing what he wants to do.

With all these things in mind, do I still feel disappointed/let down? No. Not as much as when I heard it first.

I am still thinking . . .

Loves Labours Lost

I received an SMS as follows: ninu + nanu + cenma + yavaga + pls + tell + me (you + I + movie + when + please + tell + me. I swear, Cinema was spelt so!)

I replied: ninu + nanu + cenma = DISASTER! Now the equation is balanced! May I know who you are?

An hour later, I got a call from the same number. I put on my deepest and gruffest voice and said "HELLO"

Line was cut.

Some poor lovelorn soul, must be deeply disappointed.

Nuanced Speech

I wanted to explore the language of the present day youth. The 'Y' generation. (Is that the shorter version of "Why is this generation like this?"). I had an idea about a post on nuanced speech. I decided to merge the two. Bad idea? Let us see.

OK. I'll tell you one story OK? (Where have all the indefinite articles signifying a quantity of one gone? They seem to have completely disappeared now a days, I mean, now one days.) I had gone to buy coffee powder and come OK? Sudden rain. Jumped into one shop OK? OK. Neat and clean and all. Standing standing suddenly, I started saying Chihuahua and by the time I wondered when to stop, dogs all around me. Raining cats and dogs they say no? That day only dogsOK? I am thinking, where they are coming from and oh s*** I remember. Below shop no? A vet shopOK? Rain means all dog owners and their best friends in the med shop. Then I see, shop full of doggy things. Oh! OK, now I know.

Standing there, I see two beautiful dogs OK? Same type both. Really really cute OK? Wondering what breed it is. Finally asked the dude catching one dog. (This is the Kannada to English translation that you hear very often. In kannaDa the verb hiDi means both hold and catch. As a noun, it means handle) What breed? I ask him OK? Bugger looks one type and casual like, "it is an Indian breed" he says. You know, like only he knows dogsOK? OK, bugger, I look seriously and tell, "It's like, I think it is Rajapalyam. That's why I ask". Thud, he comes down OK? Stupid grin he tells, “yaa, their father IS a Rajapalyam”. Awww bugger we also know dogs OK?

Well, even if you are not sick of it, I am. This really really ooooooops, .. This really happened to me. He did have the look that said, "Who knows about Rajapalyams other than the cognoscenti?" Subscript - like us. I like dogs, from a distance, preferably in books. I can recognize a few breeds and am fascinated by them. Once, in Germany, I ran away from the table in an open air restaurant. My companion was really scared that he has to pick up the tab for my beer too! I ran and talked to a girl with a really tiny dog on a leash. Learnt of a new (to me, that is) breed. It is called a Reh Pinscher. Reh means a doe in German. This breed was bred to be small, run after deer and bite them and hang on to them, to be hunted down easily by the hunter. Cruel! But, interesting. I swear! The fact that the girl was pretty had nothing to do with it!

I will now continue in "normal" English.

I was waiting at the "parcel" counter of a restaurant. (Take away or "to go" counter for those who do not know this very Kannada (south Indian?) term) I had a fairly long list of things to be packed. A young lady came to the counter and handed her order in. She then went out to talk to someone. Returned in a few minutes and asked the man at the counter if her order was ready. He said that it would take more time. She talked a little further to him in a friendly way that is unusual. She was obviously in a hurry and hence I apologised to her for my long list that was making her wait. Then to compensate for it, I complimented her on the easy friendly way she talked to the guy at the counter. She thanked me for it and said "I learnt it from my hubby". Must be an unusual man, that truncated husband. Not only does his wife learns something from him but is also ready to even acknowledge it!

See what I mean? She was telling me in no uncertain terms. "Look old man, do not get ideas, just because I talk freely! I am already married and am close to my (truncated) husband." She must have wondered if she was too touchy. She complimented me that it was a good idea of mine to bring a book along and read it while waiting for my order to be filled.

See what I mean by nuanced speech?

Message in a Bottle on the High Seas

I have had some success looking for long lost (to me, that is) friends through my blog. Let me try once more.

Look at the guys in the picture. In the middle is yours truly. The other two are Solomon Mechessa and Alemayehu Mechessa. Unfortunately I do not remember who is who! It is no wonder that I do remember their names. They sound so musical. They are such nice people and friends. The place is IIT Kharagpur and in particular the quadrangle of the Vidya Sagar Hall (VS Hall), Ca 1986.

These two were gentle gentlemen and cousins. They used to be quite isolated. Very few of the hostel-mates talked to them and I was the exception. We became good friends. Before I left Kgp, they gave me a lunch - authentic Ethiopian style. They were good cooks. Ethiopian cuisine is very close to South Indian food is what I remember other than the fact that it was a very good lunch. In the company of two very nice people.

I was never a good correspondent in the days of snail mail and am a much better one in the electronic era. Of course, I am not perfect but, I am a far better one. Else, I would not have lost touch with these two friends.

I searched for Alemayehu on the net and did find one - Dr. Alemayehu Mechessa. I tried to contact him through an international organisation that he is associated with but with no success. I hope, I am more successful here.

Dear Alemayehu, dear Solomon, I have forgotten which name matches which face in the picture, but I remember you clearly and with affection. Do contact me if and when you see this blog.

One more Ethiopian friend from VS Hall was one Ebenet. I do not know his second name. I just put it here increase the chances of this post being hit in a random search and getting to contact the Mechessas.

Sketch

Some time ago I wrote about Julia Lermontova here.

I made a paper and pencil sketch of her portrait and here it is.

Wow

My my! Must be some man, to be on such pally terms with none other than . .

Sorry bad picture, from my seven year old mobile.

AWAD and Award

If a blog is not (also) about bragging, what is it?

So let me brag.

It is not really a brag, actually, but a means of sharing a small win.

I subscribe to and read a e-mail newsletter called "A Word A Day" from "Wordsmith" Anu Garg.

The e-mail introduces or re-introduces you to (or vice versa) a new word and gives you the meaning, pronunciation, etymology, related words and usage. This is done 5 times a week. It is pure fun. I am a logophile.

Usually the words that come to you in a week share a theme. Last week, the theme was "you find the theme". That means, the theme was concealed and the readers were challenged to find it based on the week`s words.

And the rest is here in Wordsmith's words.

****************

Last week's Discover the Theme contest challenged readers to identify the common thread among the five words featured: odious, asinine, cagey, arcadian, and devious. Several readers believed that these are all words that describe their ex-boy/girlfriend or ex-husband/wife.

About 1200 readers took up the challenge of whom about 150 sent the correct answer: All of these words can be pronounced as a sequence of letters and numbers: ODS, SN9 (or AC9, SE9), RKDN, KG, and DVS.

I'd feared that this puzzle might prove too difficult compared to the previous ones, but never underestimate the ability of a thousand brains working on a problem. The first person to send the correct answer was J L Anil Kumar of Bangalore, India, who sent me the solution within minutes of the first word going out on Monday. He wins a signed copy of the book A Word A Day.

A second winner, randomly selected from all who sent correct answers, is Ada Payne of Delaware, Ohio, who opted to receive a signed copy of The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two as her prize.

********************

You can see more of all this here.

So, I am eagerly looking forward to the book now.

Oh! Thank you, thank you. . . . . . . .

My own reckoning is that this challenge is easier for a "South Indian" like me and hence I had an unfair(?) advantage The reason is that most Indian languages, more so the SI ones, have no serious concept of a pause, except when we run out of breath. When pronouncing O-D-S we are most likely to say "oodeeyus". Others: "oh pause dee pause es". The pauses may be micro (even nano as per the latest craze) pauses. But they make a difference. Folk or amateur phonetics? Perhaps.

Dear Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

You say, “Your comment doesn't make any sense!”

I made that comment only because it made sense to me in two different ways. Let me try to explain.

When you try to sell an idea to someone, your chances of selling are better if you answer a question, the acronym of which is WIIFM. It means “What’s in it For Me?” So, the slogan as modified by me, attempts to answer that question for the reader. It is contended that vegetarian food is easy on you So, when you “Go Veg” you are being kind to yourself first!

At another level I am trying to remind the reader that the reader himself is an animal too. The first comment on the same post correctly but cryptically says, “One should see that the differences between us are not of kind but of degree”

Then you say “It is a 'slogan' and you cannot have a slogan like the one you have written....” I cannot really reply to this one as I find that it is a decent enough slogan. But perhaps we are in the sphere of personal opinion and individual taste and hence perhaps we should leave it alone.

Then you say, “Of course, who is not kind to oneself?” Well, if you look around you will find many and in this case meat eaters!! At least that is what is implied by it.

Then you say parenthetically, “(except someone like you who torture himself/herself trying to find 'mistakes'(!) in some totally trivial matters such as the one that you have posted....” In this case you are really mistaken, let me assure you. I was having great fun while doing it. I was NOT trying to find a mistake. Actually the slogan is good and correct. I was only playing, for pleasure, let me assure you, with words. Vegetarianism is not a trivial matter, at least for the animal that is slaughtered and consumed. It is. quite literally, a matter of life and death for it! Don’t you think so?

You say “It appears that you have a whole lot of free time and not much to ponder in life....”

You are at your “wrongest” here.

As a family man, I ride a bike to run errands required to be run to run a family. How does one occupy one’s mind at such times? It is at such times that these interesting snippets catch my eye and my mind processes it for fun. I hope that it amuses some others too and distracts them from the cares of the world but alas, sometimes it irritates someone.

You seem to be an angry (sure) young (?) person. I have a hunch that you reacted like this to one of my earlier posts too. In any case, anger, contempt, jealousy, hate are emotions that hurt the source more than the target. I hope, you learn to control this (and other such emotions) for your own good, happy and long life. I wish you the best.

You may skip the following part as it is only the result of “stock taking”, triggered by your comment. I ran through what I do and have done in my 54 eventful, rollicking years of my life and put them together. In spite of all this I do have some spare time and waste it on watching TV! You may feel I am bragging. Perish the thought! I know of a guy who made a list of 124 things he wanted to do and did all of them, I know a guy who knows 8 or so European languages well enough to professionally do translations. Each of those is a short cut to an inferiority complex. No, I do not brag.

I work 9 hrs in an office, commute to work - about 1:45 Hrs in toto, during which time I read German articles, mostly Sci + Tech, in the process I have taught myself German Language, I meditate (TM), I play the Veena (Carnatic Classical), I sketch (during my first cuppa coffee), I also prepare my own breakfast with bread and oats, iron my own clothes, write mails to friends, sometimes chat and sleep for eight hours too! That is a normal day. Then on abnormal days, I do Su Do Ku, the Hindu Crossword, paint, photograph, blog (and bug some unintentionally)

In the past I have translated two books, (one is likely to see the light of day in December), ran a half marathon after about a year of training, acted in two plays in Kannada - both major roles - one as Basavanna in Karnad’s “Tale Danda”, have painted in oils, (sketching, oils, water colours and German, all self-taught, for all practical purposes), I have learnt to read Bangla, Tamizh and Malayalam and promptly forgotten the last one, I have sung in a group and given a performance, participated in quizzes and debates and lecture competitions and impromptu speech competitions and won prizes too, edited an in-house magazine of a factory where I worked, written poetry, translated poetry of Kaifi Azmi (on my blog), cycled from Mysore to Bangalore (long ago) read many books (from absolute trash including M&B to Shakespeare), I am a BE and an M Tech, Designed a couple of award winning power electronic equipment. . . . .,

I am unhappy, when I have to time to be so, that I have not done mountain/rock climbing, pottery, clay modelling, sculpting, trekking. fly an aircraft, run a company, driven an auto for a day picking fares in Bangalore, driven a bus, a truck, run a restaurant, sail, walked down from Talakaveri to the estuary of Kaveri, swum the English channel (Don’t laugh, why be stingy in dreaming?), travel by the Chunnel, act in a movie. . .,

I will do some of them, sooner or later.

Curiouser and Curiouser

After I wrote the post on the Tale of Two Statues (in Two Cities) I was looking for further information about the fate of the sculptors.

I found that the old sculptor did attend the function but was ignored.

What was heartening was the report in The Hindu about the arrangements the Tamil Nadu government has made to get the sculptor of the Sarvajna statue to be present at the function in Madras.

But the Curiouser and Curiouser of the title is because the Hindu report says that the sculptor is Pramodhini Deshpande. (In the report, the name of the town near Mysore is spelt as it is spelt officially - Yelwal).

Now who is the actual sculptor then? Ms Deshpande or Ms Acharya?

I have always had a (grudging?) admiration for the Tamil people because they generally do things well and neatly. (For proof, of sorts, experience the roads in the two states, for instance). Even in this instance, they have shown how to do things well - as can be read in the Hindu article.

Here are some more links on the subject: 1 2 3

The answer given by one of the persons responsible for the function is ludicrous, to say the least.

Decide for yourself.