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Karma and DNA

I read the obituary of Maharshi Mahesh Yogi with great interest. I too learnt TM popularised by him, in the seventies. I have practiced TM, off and on, and have benefited from it. That would be grist for the mill for another post.

What is of interest at the moment is the report that says "as told to Anubha Sawhney Joshi" by Deepak Chopra, about the passing away of the Maharshi.

It describes the incident of Deepak Chopra giving his blood to the Maharshi. Very interesting! The Maharshi at first refused to accept blood from Deepak Chopra because he did not want Chopra's Karma to flow into him. When Deepak Chopra convinced him that red blood corpuscles do not carry DNA, the Maharshi acceepted the blood.

So we carry our Karma in our DNA! That is news to me and am sure so is it to the thousands of people who work in the field of genetics.

What a load of rubbish!

Pranab and his Award

Padma Vibhushan Pranab Mukherjee said that there should be no room for controversy about is getting that award.

He is absolutley right. No room for controversy. It is WRONG that he was given the award.

To see the contrast, see the conduct of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad here.

Another similar story is that of the First Bharat Ratna awardee Sir M Vishweshwarayya. When the cabinet decided to honour him with that award, no one wanted to inform him! Because of his reputation as a man who did not mince words.

Prime Minister Nehru himself wrote to him and requested him to accept the award. True to form Sir M V wrote back sayaing that he did not want to accept that award if it curtailed his freedom in anyway to criticise Nehru's government if the need arose. Nehru, equally gracefully wrote back that it was for such upstanding ways of his that he was being given that award. It was only then that Sir. M V accepted the award.

Alas, unbelievable, in these days of "moral pygmies"

Measles?

I saw hoardings all over Bangalore proclaiming as above. It says Amma in Bangalore.

When I saw it the first time, I could see just the top part of the hoarding. My immediate reaction was one of consternation. Was there an epidemic of smallpox in Bangalore? Or was it chickenpox or measles? There is already gastroeneritis - cholera. Now this?

Then the bottom part of the hoarding became visible. It was announcing the presence a religious/spiritual person, popularly known as Amma.

Even though amma means mother and I call my mother amma, seen as a banner headline, it could mean what I first thought!

Uffff...

Einstein and Religion

Einstein is once supposed to have said something like, "Religion without science is blind, science without religion is lame". This is often quoted to say something like "See? Even Einstein said that religion is important. Most do not realise that Einstein had his own definition of religion, which was quite different from what most people usually take it to be.

Here is the original article: "Religion and Science" - New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930

Here is an article in Kannada on the subject by my father, J R Lakshmana Rao, published in the January 25, 2008 edition of Prajavani.

The same article English, is coming soon. . . Here it is!

For your reading pleasure. . . .

Bombay?

There was this Englishman friend of mine, Peter, who visited Mysore frequently. He had fun by going to an autorickshaw and asking the driver "Bombay?". The drivers would melt, fidget and grin. Then he would pat the driver on the shoulder and tell him where he really wanted to go.

One day he met his match.

There was this autowallah, sitting in the drivers seat, with his legs crossed, reading a news paper. Peter goes and asks him: "Bombay?"

The driver unhurriedly uncrosses his legs as he folds his paper, with his eyes still on the job of folding the paper and says calmly, "Yes, Five Thousand Rupees". You should have seen Peter's face!

He recovered, guffawed and shook the driver by the hand and said, "OK, OK, for now, Saraswathipuram will do"!

Auto Wisdom

Autorickshaws in Bangalore are painted on their backs with names of the owners' children, names of movies, "Hi - somebody-or-the-other" and sometime some aphorism. Some of them gross, some are hilarious, some are even wise.

I love looking for them. Here is a gem that I saw today. For those who can not read the Kannada script, here is the transliteration as per the Baraha translitration aplication:

aaDu muTTad soppilla . .
aaTo nuggada galliyilla

It declares with pride that "there is no leaf that a goat does not eat (a famous proverb in Kannada) . . There is no alley that an auto does not elbow its way into!"

That is definitely pride in his work I admire it.

Note on "The Sensation"

My story The Sensation elicited many responses, in person.

In the years gone by, many self styled astrologers and palmists have tried to tell me my future. The common things that they said were that I would never step out of India and that my "Education" was complete and that I would never even acquire another certificate, let alone a degree.

I have been abroad several times and did get an M Tech (Reliability Engineering) from IIT Kharagpur.

So much for the power of these "arts"

Sign of the Times

The most irritating aspect of traffic in India is the incessant honking. I have a host of sticker ideas about it, which I have never executed, though.

I saw a great one the other day on the rear mudguard of a bike: "Honk, If you are an idiot"

I want to put up, "Honk away, I am deaf anyway!"

Dyspixia

At work, I belong to a group of people who read and analyse patent documents. Whenever I see a patent on the screen, the first thing I notice is the drawing on the first page. I identify the document from the picture. Quite often, if I come across the same document at a later date, I recognize it from its picture.

I found at least one colleague to whom the picture does not make any sense. She reads only the words - the title, abstract - on the first page. She says that she does not even register the picture. What a difference! I asked a few other colleagues and they confirmed that they too look at the picture first.

To describe her state or method or inability to "read" a picture, I invented a word - dyspixia - similar to dyslexia.

Before writing this post I put the word into Google and found one site! You put any gobbledygook and you find a hit?

God and the Gregorian calendar

I was listening to a charlatan on a popular Kannada TV Channel this morning. He was telling his audience that the dates of 8, 17 and 28 of the months, whose digits add up to 8 are inauspicious.


What Bunkum, I thought, when he claimed that “all natural disaster or calamities” occur on those days. He even said that the break up of the Reliance Industries was because it was incorporated on the 26th of some month. He also said that unhappy marriages, divorces are the results of weddings that took place on those days.


I did a small test. I looked for a list of natural disasters on Google. I opened the first one that came up and found that out of the ten listed, the numbers of only one added up to 8 – the Chernobyl disaster. The REMANING NINE DID NOT. Of course, this was a listing based on some yardstick chosen by the compiler of the list. But still it should have at least had more than one, don’t you think?


I looked for other lists and MOST of them did not meet this specification.


I wondered:


Why does god/fate follow the Gregorian calendar? Why not any of the innumerable other calendars available and followed for religious purposes? For example: the lunar calendar of some Hindus, the solar calendars of other Hindus, or the Islamic or Jewish or Chinese calendars? Does it mean that the Judeo-Christian god is the true god, perhaps?


Which was a bad day in the days before the Gregorian calendar came to be accepted as the universal calendar? The number of days was changed sometime in the calendars history. What happened to in those days. If disasters then too occurred on such days, did god /fate change to the new calendar along with humans?

When it is 26th here, elsewhere on the globe, it is still 25th or it is already 27th in some other places. Which is the correct date then?


India became a republic on 26, January. Does it qualify as a natural disaster or a political disaster or what?


India lost the Boxing Day test (starting on 26 Dec, 2007). National disaster? But Australia won. What?

Gut Feeling

Some researchers used an unusual (and controversial) method of predicting the impact of human activities on the environment. What he did was to interview scores of scientists in the concerned field, and out of it, for their predictions. The overwhelming opinion was that the impact is visible and unless contained will be disastrous in future.
However, one scientist gave a very guarded answer based on what he already knew and refused to go any further. The interviewer asked him what his ‘gut feeling’ (Bauchgefühl) was.
The scientist’s answer must be carved in stone and displayed in a prominent place, in all academic institutions.
His answer was:
All my life, I have trained myself to think with my head, based on facts. I refuse to start thinking with my guts now.
I have to admit that this is a free translation of what I read in German and that my German is not all that great. Still the message was unmistakable in its clarity and definiteness.
Kudos!

Drink, Don’t drive?

"Make love, not war” was the slogan of the flower power generation.

Now Bangalore seems to have a similar slogan. Drink, Don’t drive. At least that is what many hoardings in Kannada seem to do. They exhort you, “Madya pAna mADi, vAhana chalAyisabeDi”

Or, is my punctuation all wrong?

The Eigth Note

There was an article in The Hindu based on an interview with Ustad Amjad Ali Khan. It has a reference to a discussion on science, technology and music. The Ustad goes on to say that “It [science] simply lacks the human touch. Despite the innovations and mechanisation, science has not been able to push the envelope and discover new musical note,” Very true, did you say? Big deal, nor has Philosophy for instance. Nor has Sociology.

For that matter, even music itself has not created a new note!!!

Let alone a new note, compared to the already existing ragas, hardly any new ragas have been created. You talk about that to a musician and he is likely to say, “A life time is not enough to explore the possibilities of a handful of Ragas. Where is the need for new ones?” Ditto notes. See the Ustad’s own opinion on the subject.

The point is that some people feel threatened by science or technology. They want to take pot shots at science and/or technology without any provocation. This seems to be such a case. Those taken unawares, do believe the Ustad’s statement, I am sure, without asking further questions. This is akin to a hunter shooting a sleeping tiger. Even in that despicable so-called-sport there is are traditions and conventions that govern what is honourable!

Make no mistake. I am a great lover of music – all music. If it makes any difference, I have even played the Tambura (Tanpura) for the Ustad, for his concert in the Mysore Palace a couple of decades ago.

Timeless India?

Two pictures: One dated 1908 and the other, 2007. The latter, of course, is by an artist, inter alia, friend of mine - Jayanth Lakshman. He bemoans that things do not change in India even after a 100 years. I know a few souls who would be happy that it does not. I leave it to you.

Feral animals

A dear friend of mine, wrote this as a part of his mail. I told him that he should blog this. In this matter, at least, he is lazier than I. So here I am, putting it on my blog.

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Feral animals

Domesticated dogs have few functions to perform in their lives. Done well, they are appreciated and well taken care of by their masters. They obey and have this irresistible urge to please the master. They do it well until they grow in unmanageable number and turn feral. In Indian cities we find feral horses, donkeys and dogs in packs. Their pack behavior is different. Once removed from the need to be obedient and good they turn their attention to the basic need like existence, power in the pack and procreation.

For example once dogs form feral packs they behave differently to the Tommy, Caesar and Rocky we know of and turn to beings we no longer recognize as man’s best friend.

The pack usually consists of one Alpha Male, breeding females, few young and juvenile males and some older ones. They usually pick a territory and stick within. The pack members behave with each other with guarded respect until the season arrives. This is the time the Alpha wants to retain dominance fearing being usurped by a new comer. All of them vie for status of high order in the pack. They bicker, whine, bark and bite each other creating havoc. This is followed by constant urination to mark the territory and this activity is concentrated on the main land mark of the territory. It is very interesting to note the power shown by barking, fang exposure, rising of the tail and hair on the neck and back. Sometimes when the Alpha is busy showing off his power in the pack one unsuspecting juvenile finds a chance for him to copulate with the female. Hell gets loose. The males of the pack just go berserk and they all try to teach the smart young one a lesson. Barking, biting and utter terror become the order of the hour and suddenly one finds new blood being introduced by an unsuspecting juvenile when the Alpha and the rest bickered.

Do I hear someone say that this is kinda akin to what was happening inside and out of Vidhana Soudha in Bangalore since a few weeks?

Come on, I was only kidding.

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Is he really?

Super Power

I received a clever SMS. It read, “Kalam’s dream of our country becoming a superpower in 2020 has come true. We are the superpower in Twenty20”.

Clever, very clever.

I watched and enjoyed the tense end too. It was fun. When the last Pak wicket fell I whooped too. I drove out at 10:30 towards MG road to watch the celebrations. Got stuck (struck or ‘stuck up’ as most of us say!) in a traffic jam. The euphoria on display was and is unbelievable.

It is the fashion of the (political) day to demand the resignation of a minister, if not the whole ministry, in case of a misdemeanour – real or imaginary. So, I decided to join the bandwagon too when I saw the reports on the ‘victory’ parade of our ‘conquering heroes’ in which tens of thousands of people in Mumbai participated .

I hereby demand (ahem!) the resignation of the minister in charge of human resources. The fact that there are tens of thousands of people, in our most business-like city, have no better business is proof enough of his and his ministries failure?

BBC vs CNN

You might as well take note. This is one of the rare occasions when I admit something in favour of CNN vis a vis BBC.

Protests in our neighbouring country against the cruel, cynical military junta are in the news. CNN refers to the country as Myanmar and BBC insists on calling it Burma!!

(Post?) Colonial hangover?

‘Life’ Is What We Do Between Mobile Conversations?

One of my favourite (and perhaps a dangerous one at that) pastimes while on the road is to observe drivers and riders use their mobile phones. It invariably reminds me of the cartoon showing a tourist guide pointing to a statue of a ten handed god or goddess to a ‘phoren’ tourist and saying, “multitasking - it was invented in India”.

My favourite memory in this genre is that of a scooterist, with a young boy standing between his legs, a slightly older (taller) daughter between him and his corpulent wife on the pillion, she herself carrying a 3 year old child in her arms, driving through the busy St. Mark’s Road (Bangalore) at ‘peak hour’. A daunting exercise in itself, until you add carrying on a conversation on his mobile phone stuck between his tilted head and an awkwardly raised shoulder. Wow! Some courage!!

The line between courage and foolhardiness is a thin one indeed.

But the inspiration for this mini-post is what I saw today. A man toying with middle age, playing street cricket on one of the side streets near my house – with a mobile stuck between his head and left shoulder, waiting for a circa ten year old to deliver the ball. Alas I did not have a camera and my sketching is not good enough to present you a visual.

Good god!

I got the following pictures through e-mail. I was requested by the sender to forward the mail to everyone in my address book. Amazingly, it did not threaten me with dire consequences if I did not. That was a pleasant change from the norm - for such mails.

When I had read through the mail and seen the distressing pictures, I decided to do something better. I decided to post them on my blog, with this introduction. I am sure the original photographer would not mind. I thank him!

‘Better’ if only many more people see it than would read my mails. More importantly, none on my mailing list is likely to be one of the organisers of a Ganesha pandal. Hopefully, one of the visitors to my blog will actually read (“see the pictures”) the blog and influence the organisers into installing a smaller Ganesha and an unpainted one!

Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of the identical consequences of the Bangali Pooja. I am sure the Bangalis will draw the right parallels.