What Dostoevsky knew about evil “ The trouble is that Dostoevsky is manifestly more than the sum total of his journalistic views. He may have defended tsarist absolutism, but he provides the most eloquent argument of the 19th century against religious tyranny. He wrote toxic nonsense about Jews, but objected to any attempt to limit their political and religious freedom. He believed that Christian (more specifically, Russian Orthodox) faith was the only hope for cultural renewal and global reconciliation, but wrote a scarifying catalogue of the unavenged horrors of human suffering (including child abuse) for which the Creator had to be held to account. He imagined Jesus Christ being tried and condemned by the Spanish Inquisition. He claimed, with a typical mordant irony, to have made a better case for atheism than most atheists would dare.”
Thursday, December 23, 2021
Frederick Douglas in Haiti
Frederick Douglas and American Empire in Haiti
And they are still paying the price for independence.
Fascinating interview with Ashwin
The India spinner talks us through how he deconstructs batters' techniques ahead of and during a series, his struggles with injury, and more here
Sunday, December 19, 2021
School Days-7
School Days-7
https://www.facebook.com/749518284/posts/10159048970193285/
Perhaps the last of the series. 1952-54 in Chintayapalem.
With in an year of our stay in Pedapulivarru, we moved to Chintayapalem in Bapatla Taluk in 1952. My father was an imposing figure. His best days were probably in Gudavalli and his appearance reminded me of NT Ramarao in Shavukaru. By the Chintayapalem days, he weighed around 100 kilos, but was still agile and played volleyball regularly. Jo Marks tells me of walking with my father in Indian clothes in London and people impressed by his looks. He was also prone to short temper and cooling quickly and would beat up students for misdeeds. I remember a Christian student by name Somayajulu from Ganapavaram. It was alleged that he had an affair with a local. It was reported to my father and he was beaten up mercilessly in school.
Chintayapalem was a sandy place but mainly agricultural with rice, peanuts and other crops as well as mongo groves. It was a small village and we shared the house with a local landlord near the school. The landlord was married but was supposed to be having an affair with a lady in Bapatla. Her adopted daughter came to study in our school andvstsyed in the house. I duly fell in love with her though I was only about eleven. She later became a lawyer.
My father got in to public speaking and used to go away regularly for meetings. Soon, the reasons for leaving Pedapilivarru became clear. When he was going away to one of his meetings he told me that if K came to the house, I should try to kick him out. To my eternal regret I did it. There were later some tearful scenes in the house but the parties reconciled quickly.
My mother's involvement with school children decreased but her friendliness won over many in that village and other places. She had even a group of admirers whom she never met before. She used to say that every village should have a school and a temple (బడి గుడి).
There were some brothers dominant in the village affairs, one of them might have the name Subbarayudu. One of the brothers was impotent and apparently his wife had an affair. There was story going around that she was stripped and whipped all along the only street in the village by the other brothers. I used to see her often sitting in front of the house. She was friendly and used to give me sweets once in a while.
Unlike the other villages earlier, I do not remember harikatha in Chintayapslem. But we had some burrakatha events and also tolubommalu. The usual entertainment was playing games in school ( we had baseball) like chedugudu or Khokho and marbles in the streets. I do not remember seeing films in this period but must have seen some films like Devadasu in nearby towns. But I remember a Raj Kapoor film Premalekhalu. I liked the songs and practiced them assiduously. Once when my cousin Baburao came I sang to him. He said it was ok but I should not sing in public and thus killed a possible career in music.
My father probably had good reputation by this time. Apart from students from nearby villages, some came from places like Appikatla which had a school. Thummala Sitaramamurthy (chowdary) used to teach there and I think Kosarsju Raghavaiah was also was from there, but am not sure. For some reason, many added Chowdary to their names whereas earlier it was Naidu. My father's favourite was Gurram Jashua and I too acquired a liking for Jashua. Once there was a celebration of Jashua ( and also Thummala) in Nidubrolu-Ponnur area. Jashua rode on an elephant and then there was kanakabhishekam for him. I attended the function with my father.
Heros those days were sports persons like Buchiramaiah in volleyball and various chedugudu players like Avadhani and Meka Sitaramaiah.
Our family, probably like many other agricultural families were keen about education though some well to do people did not work after their degrees as they did not want to work under others. Since my father was a teacher various relatives studied in the schools he taught and there were lifelong relationships with many of them. Cousin Bsburao stayed with us for six years or so in Gudavalli. In Chintayapalem Radha Babai sent his son to stay with us and study. But he was a strong kid of my brother's age and used to beat up my brother. After an year or two my mother put her foot down and said no more. I was not particularly good in school but my father was very ambitious about my studies and try to send me to schools beyond his means. Once he tried to send me to an expensive school in Dehradun and luckily it did not materialise. Another time he took to me Madrss and tried to join me in Adyar school. That did not materialise either but I remember staying in Avula Sambasiva Rso's house during that trip. He was probably a relative and friend of my father and later became the chief justice of Andhra high court and was also an influential rationslist. Indid not know about toilets and I remember sitting down in a chair with a hole which was supposed for toilet purposes and the children laughing at me. Manjukata told me later she was not there but was with her grandoarents. The memorable part of the trip for me was watching some wrestling matches participated by King Kong and others. Anyway, we got back to Chintayspskem and my studies improved a bit and I ended up being first in class 11. Until that time we did not wear shoes or sandals. In 1954, before I joined Andhra Loyola College, we made a trip to Bapatla, got half a dozen pairs of clothes made and also got some shoes called belt boots. That was the end of my school days but not my contact with villages.
During 1956-1960 I was off and on in Loyola College, Madras. I developed an interest in mathematics after coming across some ideas of Cantor. I stopped attending classes and tried to study by myself and was rusticated twice. During this period, my father worked in Thullur, Vullipalem and later Kolakalur. I remember the first two villages vividly and reading books like 'The brothers Karamazov' in Thullur. Also some Eliot and Auden in my grandfather's farm in Pesarkanka. My father and mother were grief stricken and my mother became very protective. The most influential book for me was 'Asanadhuni Jeevayatra' by Tripuraneni Gopichand. A cherished moment is a glimpse of him Hyderabad standing outside a restaurant in Narayanguda. I finally realised that I did not have the talent to study mathematics in villages and went to Hyderabad to study B.Sc with the help of money lent to my mother by her friends. But that is another story.
P.S. More about my https://gaddeswarup.blogspot.com/2007/06/remembering-my-father.html?fbclid=IwAR3mW4uWXcfIgqcgNpZ_UMUjIeeFq10qt3s8ydccRbY4D5-J4N_WvD_Ug9o
School Days-6
https://www.facebook.com/749518284/posts/10159047831223285/
School Days-6. Holidays in Avanigadda.
During the years 1948-54 described in these posts, I was 7-13 years old. I passed S.S.L.C. (grade 11) in 1954 at the age of 13 and then studied in Andhra Loyola College Vijayawada and went to Loyola College, Madras in 1956. It seems to me that I did not really think during these years in spite of some exposure to communism. There was an existing system in place and one just adopted or reacted to it. With this proviso, I will come to the family background in Avanigadda,
Avanigadda was the taluk headquarters and a big village. Our family house was near the centre of the village close to a temple, a largish house which was later divided in to three. My grandfather Venkaiah ( wife's name Venkamma) had three sons and two daughters and by the time knew, sons were in charge of the family affairs.
My father born on 25-7-1915 was the middle one. His older brother was Chalamaiah and younger brother Venkatakrishnaiah ( called Radha babai) and two sisters Koneru Rukminamma ( older than my father) and Vemulapalli Annapurnamma. And as far as I know Venkaiah was small farmer who owned about six acres of land. By that time a few from agricultural families studied and some like Tripuraneni Ramaswami and N.G. Ranga even studied abroad. There seemed to be some glamour for education among the farming families. Avanigadda had high school up to grade 11 and apparently my grandfather promised to send any of the son who finished school to college ( the nearest was in Masulipatam). The sons worked on the farm in addition to studying and I think only my father finished school. He went to Masulipatam, about 35 km by road, rented a house with fellow students and used to take some rice and pulses from home and work on the farm during holidays. I heard that to the high busfare, he walked to Masulipatam every term lentils and other groceries on his head. He took one of the standard groups MPC ( mathematics, physics and chemistry)in his intermediate class of two years. It seems that the lecturer for logic gave interesting lectures and there was not much guidance and he started attending logic classes instead of mathematics classes. After some months, it came to the principal's notice and luckily for my father, there was a group LPC. After some scolding, he was shifted to the new group and finished B.A. in the same college.
I heard that several relatives also studied in Avanigadda school and some stayed in my grandfather's house. Probably he got some supplies from their families. I met some who remained life long friends with our family. There was also brahmin student with whom my father had combined studies in school for some time. They met in Bombay around 1970. My father stroked one of his hands which had six fingers and exclaimed 'It is really you'. I do not remember when he finished college but he finished B.Ed in Rajahmundry in 1941. He worked as a teacher in Masulipatam and I remember him saying that some brahmin teachers helped him in getting the job. But soon he became a headmaster because the villagers wanted one from their own caste. He married my mother Lslita Devi in 1940.
By my time, life was much easier and we just enjoyed ourselves in relative's houses during holidays. Apart from Pesarlanka and Avanigadda, I also spent holidays in close relatives' houses in Repalle, Potarlanka and a few other places. In Avanigadda,we just wandered around the fields and I sometimes went with the cattle to River Krishna. The channels close to the fields were dry during summer months and sometimes the water was salty. The dry channels were mud baked with mud in dry pieces. If one dug it out, there was sand underneath and one took out some sand, fresh sweet water would emerge. We use to have lunch with that water on the occasions when we took lunch with us. There were mango and guava groves between the bund and the river and a few lemon groves and some banana plantations, Many other crops like toor dal were also grown. Apart from playing with friends and spending with cousins and some other relatives from BhatlaPenumarru and such places, I do not remember any activities except interactions with communists and municipal elections one year. I remember Gunturu Bapanaiah, a Dalit and communist leader from those days. He did not make any money in politics and I later heard that Radha babai sent him rice for a long time.
School Days-5 continued
https://www.facebook.com/749518284/posts/10159047469428285/
School Days-5 Continued.
Continuation of school holidays in Pesarlanka.
Another constant during Pesarlanka holidays was Basavamma (Basivi pinning as we called her). She was elder Reddiah's daughter, I think. She was married to somebody who had already had a relationship and was abondoned. She stayed in her father's house and afterwards with her brother Bhaskara Rao. In my eyes she was a very goodlooking woman and I could not imagine how anybody could abandon her. She was always there, very kindly and smiling whenever I passed through the houses on the dibba. She had a several brothers I think, I may be mistaking brothers and cousins. She moved with Bhaskara Rao to a house almost opposite to my grandfather's house when I saw her in 1970 and later. Then there was Balaiah, her brother or cousin, always sitting in front of the elder Reddiah complex with a cigar. He always had a friendly hello whenever I passed the house on the way to the farm. He studied for a few years in Gudavalli and married the daughter of another well-known headmaster Guttikonda Lakshmi Narayana, originally from Gudavalli ( See the correction in the comments). Lakshmi Narayana used to teach mathematics and I spent a couple of weeks in his house in Karmchedu supposed to be learning mathematics. His younger brother Ramanaiah was married to my mother's older sister. There was another younger brother Narahari, perhaps the only intellectual in our families.
Narahari was a radical humanist. He was in Burma for a while and ran a news paper. After he came back to India he was in politics for a while and even contested some elections. At some stage he ran tobacco business with his brother Ramanaiah and both became very rich. But then they started a cigarette factory and lost money I heard. I heard much later that Narahari lost his mind and used to wander around the streets.
Basivi pinni continued to be good looking even in her eighties. She would be still erect when she served coffees to us and died in her nineties a few years ago. I used to imagine that my mother would have looked like her had she lived longer. Around 1970, I visited Pesarlanka with a couple of young British friends. We had to wade through mud and ate in Bhaskara Rao's new house fed by Basivi pinni. I think the villagers were fascinated by the foreigners and Sheila got lot of sarees as presents. I continued to visit Basivi pinni whenever I went to Pesarlanka and once in Guntur. Her face and fate still haunt me.
School Days-5
https://www.facebook.com/749518284/posts/10159047359058285/
School Days-5
During my high school years (1948-54), holidays were mostly spent either in my maternal grandfather's place Pesarlanka or paternal grandfather's place Avanigadda, one inside the river Krishna and the other on on a bank outside the bund. By this time all the uncles were in different places either in Guntur or Krishna district and sometimes there would be other aunts, uncles and cousins would also be there during holidays in one of these places. So we noticed various cousins from childhood. They were all different and later on acquired some social graces which seem to have externally smothered the differences somewhat, but differences remained. I remember one cousin from my mother's side who I saw in several places including Pesarlanka. Her's was the richest family among us having made money in business. She was acquisitive and wanted any nice thing she saw. We did not like it but put up with it since parents were always careful with the rich. This particular cousin had a good career Independent of her wealth, married for love but later suspected husband of infidelity and became addicted some drugs. She later came down with paralysis. I saw her much later with her husband taking care of her, brushing her teeth, dressing and feeding her.
My maternal grandfather Reddiah was an impressive figure, sturdy with no hint of paunch and challenging younger people to Chedugudu (later called kabadi). He was a very good farmer living in a good house with a big compound at the end of Persarlanka, adjacent to Pedalanka. His older brother also Reddiah lived on a very elevated place towards the centre of the village with a couple of other families including his son in law. That place was the refuse during floods. Grandmother Kamala was from Pedana and was somewhat fashionable wearing blouses with frilled arms. I do not know how a villager like him acquired a wife with city airs. He used to bring flowering plants and mango plants from various places. His front yard was full of crotons about 4-5 feet high, backyard some fruit plants like jambu and also sampenga. There was hand pump between the jambu plant and kitchen in the backyard and one of the workers used to fill up a pitcher with water from the pump and water the plants.
My daily routine during the holidays, when there no other relatives was to walk after breakfast, which was regular food, to my grandfather's farm about a mile away. Some houses had elevatedplatforms outside the houses and some of the villagers would be sitting and chatting. I assumed that these were the rich and lazy ones since my grandfather left for the farm early. I used to be quite fair and one Purnachandrarao used to shout 'red dog's when I passed by. I used to call him 'black dog' and run away. Then there was Reddiah's raised house and opposite to it where one friend Venkataratnam ( later Dr. Bssava punnaiah) lived. I remember that he had eczema all over his legs. His father was communist who was underground and he grew up in his grandfather's house for some years. Just behind elder Reddiah's house was his son in law's house and M..L. Naraysna Rao, a well known communist his son. Narayana who we called Nari did a ph.d. in Chemical Engineering and taught in Andhra University before joining the armed struggle. Much later he farmed in the village, became a successful farmer and was popular with labourers. Then to the right were potter's ( Kummari) houses, from those families several children came to help us in the house, and at the end a temple the right and village munsif's elevated house on the left. I often saw the villagers Karanam sitting in the front. There was a depression and the houses of the poor and suddenly a big bunyan tree in the middle of the path (Donka) and path divided in to two to get around it. Somewhat further I had to turn right and walk another furlong or so to reach my grandfather's farm. I spent a lot hours in that farm watching lemon trees getting watered from an arrangement which used bullocks to raise water from the well. Then there was a big mango grove and a lot of vegetables grown near the well. Nearby Kantham Ramaiah (Kantham is throat, he had some growth on his throat), a big strong man used to grow vegetables watering them with a pitcher.He seemed less well to do and used to transport vegetsbles to the market on his bicycke, I think. There were a couple of sheds and my grandfather used to each lunch in one of them. Unlike Ramaiah, he did not really labour but used to supervise labourers and often tended to lemon trees removing bad growth and infected areas. His wife passed away in early forties and he used to spend his time mostly there until the evening. I remember reading books and in later years authors like Eliot and Auden there. My mother's ashes were also somewhere there. In an emotional moment, I wanted to take them to Benares for immersion but later decided it was all nonsense.
My grandfather had three daughters and son. The son was not interested in farming and used to spend his time visiting nearby towns and bringing back fancy items, it was not clear what he did in the towns. Earlier he was sent to a school in Bangalore but came back or brought back by my father. Much later he became president of the village panchayat. His taste for fancy goods did not diminish it seems. When I came back from England he took my watch.
These are the of the vague remembrances of Pesarlanka holidays.
This series is becoming unwieldy and unpredictable. I do not know how it will develop. Next time, I plan to describe holidays in Avanigaddaand then my school days in Chintayalem from 1952-54. Hopefully only two more.
School Days-4
https://www.facebook.com/749518284/posts/10159044125648285/
School Days-4
I tried to compare a bit with what a few I know remember about their childhoods. One friend with whom I have been chatting for the last thirty years or so is one Ramakrishna from Bapatla. He too remembers vividly his childhood incidents and friends. As in my case, though the family is constant, memories seem mostly of others. In his case, he remembers different caste groups and their habits. Bapatla is a much bigger than the villages I grew up and I remember no caste groups as they were mostlykamma villages. I first became aware of caste in Madras around 1956 I think where most of the classmates were Tamil brahmins. One day I was surprised to find Srinivasan very upset because Savitri married Gemini Ganesan who he said was brahmin.
Peter Scott who I know from 1968 says "A completely different world from my schooldays. My family consisted just of my parents and brothers, as all other relatives lived far away. And I lived in a big city (London), totally different from what you describe, and in many ways much more tightly restricted."
I do not remember any inner world apart from becoming an agnostic by the time I left Gudavalli. There was some communism around but that mostly in terms of relative who were underground or jailed and no ideas about others were involved. So my memories are mainly of those outside the family and some of their interactions with the family.
Coming back to Pedapulivarru in 1951-52, the second turion master, I do not remember when I shifted from one to another, or whether second one was only part time. S was mathematics teacher who lived in a shared accommodation with the owners about 300 yards from us. He was an excellent teacher and strict. He was very well dressed with a muslin dhoti, a Kurta where the arms had buttons at the end and quite stylish. I used to walk to his house through a Kosaraju family house who seemed related. I called the couple pinni and babai. The teacher S was rumoured to be a womaniser but as far as we knew, his contacts seemed to be mostly with older students in the school. There may be some thing in it. He seems to have been forced to leave another school for similar rumours. One day I found that my mother had a letter from him. She seemed amused and pleased and kept the letter but was not interested. Her interests seemed elsewhere. Several years later, I visited S in his house in Repalle. He called me inside and sitting before the mirror in lungi and undershirt, perhaps shaving. He did not seem particularly handsome and another idol seemed to have fallen.
There were some beginnings of rebelliousness and also silliness in me. I remember taunting somebody ( in the verandah of teacher's house which was also a place where some of the neighbours sat around) who was a non-smoker by offering a cigarette which I found a bit squashed to rectangular shape nearby. He was offended and I spoke back since I did not think I made any mistake. Somebody reported it to my father and my father came with a whip (chemtadu) and he whipped me all the way home.
I vaguely remember attending a meeting of Moturu Udayam in Vellaturu full of red flags. This was the beginning of my interest in communism without knowing what it is. Most of the Gadde houses in Avanigadda were near a temple at the centre of the town. Two Gadde brothers were originally recruited from Nellore area to work on temple lands in Avanigadda and that may explain the proximity of the descendents to the temple. Our family house has big covered room with one side open and three raised platforms on three sides. It was good for small meetings and also lot people could sleep in the nights. The family arrangements at that time was my younger uncle Venkatakrishnaiah ( called Radha babai) would look after and develop family lands. My father worked as a teacher and older uncle Chalamaiah worked as a revenue collector (samuddar) for Challapalli zamindar. They would contribute money to the development of the family property which eventually expanded to 30 acres from about 6. Radha babai became a communist and the house conveniently at the centre of the town was a hub of activity for the visiting communists. I think that my father had leftist sympathies too and Chalamauah uncle did not have much interest in politics. I used to visit Avanigadda during summer holidays ( sometimes Pesarlanka) took an active part in municipal elections in one year around that time. It consisted mostly of putting up posters and listening to elders like Gunturu Bapanaiah who used to visit from Gudivada( Bapanaiah's role in Dalit and communist politics is described in a book by Sujatha Gidla: 'Ants among elephants'). Once I saw the flag on the communist party office torn and suggested to Bapanaiah that we should replace it. He agreed and I duly replaced it. It turned out the half next to the office belonged to the opposing candidate and it almost started a riot. It was explained that I and Bapanaiah were outsiders and finally both flags were raised. Somehow my interest politics slowly ended and I never did understand communism though I read a few books later on. My cousin M.L.Narayana Rao and friend Perepa P.C. Joshi remained communist and I used to learn a bit about communist politics from Joshi. I remain convinced that there is no theory of every thing.
Our stay in Pedapulivarru ended with in a year probably for reasons I could only guess later. I liked that village very much.
Thursday, December 16, 2021
School Days-3
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School Days-3 Pedapulivarru 1951-52
In late 1951, my father went back to government service and was posted in Ravela near Sattenapalli. Compared to the wet irrigation areas we were used to, this was a dry cultivation area dependent on rains. People generally ate Indian millet and corn and we started tasting these for the first time. There was big lake near the village, possibly for cultivation and drinking water with big tamarind trees around. The villages were very friendly but my father fell sick with malaria and got himself transferred to Pedapulivarru. I remember several villagers coming to send us off and following our bullock cart for some distance.
Pedapulivarru was less than two miles from my mother’s village Pesarlanka, where me and my brother were born. There was high bund separating Pedapulivarru from the river Krishna. Pesarlanka was on an island in the river and one had go by boat. It is possible that the river started drying up due to various aqueducts and there some students in the school from Pesarlanka and nearby villages; there were seven or eight villages on that island. The famous Naxalite Dr. M.L. Narayana Rao was from Pesarlanka and was my classmate. ( The only other revolutionary I came near was Julian Assange who took Comlex Analysis course from me in Melbourne). There was a canal parallel to the river and there were prosperous villages like Donepudi, Vellaturu, then Pedapulivarru, Gorigapudi etc to Penumudi along the canal and river. My father’s village Avanigadda was on the other side of the river near Puligadda which was about six miles by boat from Pesrlanka. But those days travel was from Penumudi to Puligadda crossing by boat twice or thrice and walking the rest of the way about 2-3 miles.
Pedapulivarru seems to be a historic village, at some stage an agraharam. I remember the village more vividly than Gudavalli and felt at home there. There were lot of relatives. There was harikatha kalkshepam by Muslim in the temple. He ate in different houses and told us stories during the spare time. They garlanded him with rupee notes at the end of his stay. There were other entertainments like Karrasamu (stick play fighting). Some of the communists were supposed to be good at it.
I saw some famous persons in the village. The first was Yelavarthi Nayudamma though I did not know what he was famous for. He seems to have provided jobs for some people in the area. Another was the famous singer Ghantasala Venkateswara Rao. There were no toilets those days and like others he had to go to the bund carrying a mug of water. He wore a lungi and had a towel or some such over his shoulders. He really had big and round stomach. We speculated that the resonance in his voice was to the stomach. He was stopped by various elders for chats along the way to the bund. Another well known personality who I did not see was Samudrala Sr. He was supposed to be friends with the village munsif and some associated the munsif's wealth due to his association with Samuldrala. May be the munsif's invested in films. He built a big house but had only one daughter. Afterwards I learnt that the film director K.Viswsnath was as also from that village.
Our school itself in some fields in the adjacent village Guthavaripalem. We shared a house with farming family as before in Pedapulivarru. One had to cross a steep bridge and walk a bit to the school. There were accacia (thumma) trees around and in rainy season full of thorns and troublesome. We did not have any footwear during school days. There were actually two parallel canals I think, and we used the road in between and the slope to learn cycling. There were some arvi plants in Guthavaripalem near the school and it is still a favourite, both pulusu and fry. Outdoor activities included wandering in the fields, frying peanuts in open fire and eating corn. I remember going to two tution masters. The second was near the school and we used to sleep there at nights. There was no cinemas nearby but there was one in Repalle about six miles away. I think I smoked a bit during those days. Once we let the teacher sleep and ran all the way to Repalle to watch Awara. This was 1951 and cigarettes might have helped in keeping awake. I vividly remember some scenes from Awara which I saw only that time reinforced by videos of songs later on.
I will say a bit about the other tution master next time.
School Days-2
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School Days-2 Still Gudavalli
The origins of Gudavalli are not clear. It seems to be an ancient village going back to at least 12 the century. In the years, I was there, I saw Independence Day celebrated and mourned Gandhi’s death. J.P. Narayan visited, Gandhi visited a nearby village Kavuru. In the school there were plays about Harischandra and Kashmir. We saw some documentaries and were surprised to see farmers wearing trousers. There were visits to Avanigadda and Pesarlanka and relatives during school holidays time spent mostly on farms. In Pesarlanka I came to know of the police presence nearby and various atrocities to communists by Malabar police. Somehow, the practices uniform used by the British seem to have continued. There is very little presence of police in Gudavalli and the usual rhythms continued.
There are lot of things which are dim and which I did not understand. We lived in one half of the house of a farmer Devaiah. Iyengar lived in the house of Subbaiah, who was Devaiah’s brother. It was just across a small street. I used to visit that house but do not remember which half. I have vague memories of Iyengar’s daughters but not his wife. But I remember the kitchen of the other half, yoghurt hanging from above. My first memories of sambaru karamu is from that kitchen. One day coming back from that house, I was poked near the eye by bullock and still carry that mark on my eyebrow. On the other side is a lane leading to the main road about 150 yards away. We sometimes had to go to the main road to stop the bus for my father. He always seemed late and the conductor would use that time to fire up the coal at the back of the us. One woman used to pinch my cheeks and sometimes kissed me in that lane. Later I heard that she probably was having an affair with my father.
It is not clear to me how it is possible to have affairs in such open and crowded villages but there are hints of such things.
My cousin Baburao was about 6-7 years older than me and he lived with us. He and I used carry some curries made by mother to the tailor’s house. We called him Subbiri, his house half a mail away. Subbiri’s brother was more impressive looking but both wore regular clothes and plain lungis where as Subbiri’s wife dressed in the Muslim way. Though our exchanges were confined to food, she seemed pretty and friendly. Though me and my cousin have fond memories of my mother, he had to do more household work like pounding chutneys than me. My brother was baby and he used to carry him around. In many ways, I saw Indian women I knew being cruel to servants and children of relatives while they themselves faced various problems.
My father was originally taught in a government school for an year so. Gudavalli school was a committee school and I think he was chosen mainly because he was from the same community as the dominant farmers. But it was clear he would leave at some stage. There was also a financial scandal. One of the school clerks (called writers at that time) committed suicide after some school funds disappeared. He left a young wife. I do not remember what she did, but she started some sort of work, could be teaching, and seemed content. I saw her a few times in Jagarlamudi.
For a few months we had a house to ourselves on the Main Street near Ghantavari street. I remember playing marbles, rolling tyres and various games in that street and also visiting ashram at the end of the street. We had our first radio there and moved back to Devaiah’s house. My grandmother came to our house for medical treatment but died of cancer in her forties. We left for Ravela and soon after to Pedapulivarru in 1951.
School Days-1
From Facebook which has some comments. My brother wanted his children to know our background,
https://www.facebook.com/749518284/posts/10159036765888285/
School days-1
A post by Rahul Banerjee reminded me of my High School days 1948-54 in three different villages Gudavalli 1948-51, Pedapilivarru 1951-1952 and Chintayapalem 1952-54 where finished school at the age of thirteen. None of the villages had cinema hall but Gudavalli was long and big, contiguous with Nadimpalli. The school was near the border of the two villages. There was a touring talkies between Gudavalli and Kanagala and a regular cinema hall in Cherukupalli about three miles away. There was a village radio from which I remember listening to S.Rajeswararao songs. There was village library in about an acre of land. My older cousin Baburao and and I used to bring books from the library to my mother. She used to read lying in the bed and I read some of the books sitting behind on the floor. There were always girl students in the house training for school dramas and such, lot of singing some classical and many film songs from Telugu, Hindi and Tamil. There was a tailor hanging around for whom my mother provided various drawings from magazines. Then there some students who used to come to study in the nights. Those were also days of communism and when one of them went underground, his daughters and Makineni Basavapunnaiah’s son Jaswant studied in our school for an year. I remember the father coming for a night to visit his children. There was also of a circle inspector of police from the village who was working elsewhere but still wore uniform when he visited the village.
I heard that students were not coming regularly to school during seasonal work. My father, the school Head Master, coming from an agricultural community had good rapport with the villagers who were mostly from the same community. Sometimes he would go to the fields to persuade them to send the children to school. I only heard this later and do not know whether it is true. There were students from nearby villages including a number of muslims from Kanagala and some students who set up temporary residence in the village.
No really strong memories except listening to film songs from older students who could go to Bhattiprolu to see films like Barsaat and music at home. Some Tamil songs from the school teacher Iyengar’s daughter who lived next door. There was a talented teacher Tilak who was quite a famous bridge and chess player. And there were some excellent chedugudu players like Meka Sitaramaiah and Yelavarthi Satyanarayana. There was an acharyulu enclave around the temple; they seem to be descendants of migrants from Tamil Nadu. Some of them became school teachers, only one in our school. Surprisingly all the Telugu pundits in the schools I studied came from Kamma community.
Even at that age, I noticed that there were affairs going on in the village and some with school teachers. Some were rumours but some I am more certain.
Being a school teacher’s son, one was always a bit of an outsider. I remember loosing faith in god and such and reluctance to take part in puja for Vinakaka Chaviti. I think that I became an agnostic by the time we left Gudavalli for Ravela. We spent only a couple of months there before moving to Pedapulivarru.
My main memories of that of my mother who made a lot of friends in that village and wherever we went and her singing light music. She had a note book of some of the songs she used to sing and I had it with me for a long time.
Friday, November 05, 2021
Response to a post of Raman’s Jeevi
This came as a part of my response to a Telugu post by Ramana Jeevi who said that there is no dictionary which defines a human being (manishi). In my response I used a couple of quotes of Barry Mazur on Grothendieck:
Possibly the same can be said for many words. Wittgenstein said some thing like ‘ that the meaning of a word is—in essence—determined by, in fact is nothing more than, its relations to all the utterances in a language.’ Similar ideas come in the work of the mathematician Grothendieck: ‘mathematical object X is best thought of in the context of a category surrounding it, and is determined by the network of relations it enjoys with all the objects of that category.’
From an obituary for him:
“He admired the HuaYen Buddhists for the attention they paid to the relationships between things rather than the things themselves, in the belief that whatever notions of identity and individuality we have emerge from those relationships.”
Thinking about Grothendieck by Barry Mazur.
An old mathematical question
Recently, I posted the following question
There is an old paper of mine ‘Homeomorphisms of compact 3-manifolds’ in Topology 1977 (accessible online). I was trying to extend Waldhausen theory to irreducible non-orientable 3-manifolds. So these contain two sided projective planes. The case when there are no such planes was done by W. Heil in his thesis. By decomposing further one obtains 3-manifolds with projective planes in the boundary but any two sided projective plane inside is parallel to the boundary. I was able to show that these were sufficiently large except in one case: when the boundary consists of exactly two projective planes. Now much more is known and it may be possible to handle this case.Meanwhile, Jonathan Hillman sent me a preliminary draft in which he studies Poincaré complexes using Crisp’s thesis. One of the results he obtains is: If M is a closed irreducible manifold which has an element of finite order > 1 which has infinite centraliser then M is homotopy equivalent to projective plane cross a circle.
In the above, if N is an irreducible manifold with exactly two projective planes in the boundary, then we can glue the boundary components to obtain M as above and so the answer to the question is yes by Hillman’s result. Actually, it is a homeomrphism in Hillman’s result by an old theorem of G.R.Livesay.
Here is an argument which could have been done in 1977. Take M as above and let L be the cover corresponding to Z\cross Z_2. Take the Scott Core of L, which we may assume to have incompressible boundary. If L is not closed, the boundary has at least two projective planes. Take a map to the circle to split L along a projective plane. The result of the splitting is another compact 3- manifold K with at least four projective planes in the boundary and fundamental group Z_2. Now a famous theorem of D.B.A. Epstein from his thesis in 1960 asserts that any such K has to be projective plane times an interval. This contradiction shows that L is closed and thus equal to M itself. We are done.
If this is correct, I am still in the game but I find that I do not understand my 1977 paper. It is going to be hard work and I won’t even try.
Sent from my iPad
Tuesday, October 05, 2021
Two about the economy
Nobody Really Knows How the Economy Works. A Fed Paper Is the Latest Sign from NYTimes
Do taxes fund spending? From Crooked Timber
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Friday, September 24, 2021
What we can learn from John B.Calhoun's rodent experiments
"When all needs are accounted for, and no conflict exists, the act of living is stripped to its barest physiological essentials of food and sleep. In Calhoun's view:
Herein is the paradox of a life without work or conflict.
When all sense of necessity is stripped from the life of an individual, life ceases to have purpose.
The individual dies in spirit."
Another review THE BEHAVIORAL SINK The mouse universes of John B. Calhoun
"Death of the establishment leads to spiritual death
= loss of capacity to engage in behaviors essential to species survivalNo matter how sophisticated we considered ourselves to be, once the number of individuals capable of filling roles greatly exceeded the number of roles,
only violence and disruption of social organization can follow. ... Individuals born under these circumstances will be so out of touch with reality as to be incapable even of alienation. Their most complex behaviors will become fragmented. Acquisition, creation and utilization of ideas appropriate for life in a post-industrial cultural-conceptual-technological society will have been blocked."
Thursday, August 19, 2021
Saturday, August 14, 2021
The unravelling of a conspiracy in India
The unravelling of a conpiracy by Siddharha Deb
In 2018, Indian police claimed to have uncovered a shocking plan to bring down the government. But there is mounting evidence that the initial conspiracy was a fiction – and the accused are victims of an elaborate plot.
Thursday, August 12, 2021
Saturday, August 07, 2021
Long read, a review of three books from 2010, mostly about George Price
On George Price by Miriam Markowitz
A quote towards the end:
"If we know that altruism makes one feel good and useful—that, at least, has been tested in the laboratory of human emotion—then perhaps altruism evolved because it increases the fitness of the individual by protecting him from the desire to die. Life is hard; we know that as moderns, and it seems likely that it was as well for our predecessors. Perhaps, in her omniscience, Nature understood that she could not rely solely on the survival instinct to ensure the propagation of her magisterial creations; that occasionally one might grow disillusioned with this life, despite its beauties, and want to end it. Feeling that one is needed by others might just prevent this defection. Altruism, pure or not, may be a lifeboat, a dinghy we row. Within its confines, we experience the subtle brotherhood of men, and let it warm us."
Friday, August 06, 2021
Fifty years of Price Equation
Fifty years of Price equation from Philosophical Transactions of thevRoyal SocietyB. Several interesting essays free online.
Sunday, August 01, 2021
Introducing 'Khabar Lahariya'
"Khabar Lahariya is India’s only all-female news organisation. Based in Uttar Pradesh, its journalists passionately believe in reporting rural issues through a feminist lens."
From 'The natural selection of bad science'
Seems applicable to other areas as well.
"The requirements for natural selection to produce design are easy to satisfy. Darwin outlined the logic of natural selection as requiring three conditions:
(i) There must be variation.
(ii) That variation must have consequences for survival or reproduction.
(iii) Variation must be heritable.
In this case, there are no biological traits being passed from scientific mentors to apprentices. However, research practices do vary. That variation has consequences—habits that lead to publication lead to obtaining highly competitive research positions. And variation in practice is partly heritable, in the sense that apprentices acquire research habits and statistical procedures from mentors and peers. Researchers also acquire research practice from successful role models in their fields, even if they do not personally know them. Therefore, when researchers are rewarded primarily for publishing, then habits which promote publication are naturally selected. Unfortunately, such habits can directly undermine scientific progress."
"Despite incentives for productivity, many scientists employ rigorous methods and learn new things about the world all the time that are validated by replication or by being effectively put into practice. In other words, there is still plenty of good science out there. One reason is that publication volume is rarely the only determinant of the success or failure of a scientist’s career. Other important factors include the importance of one’s research topic, the quality of one’s work, and the esteem of one’s peers. The weight of each factor varies among disciplines, and in some fields such factors may work positively to promote behaviours leading to high-quality research, particularly when selection for those behaviours is enculturated into institutions or disciplinary norms. In such cases, this may be sufficient to counteract the negative effects of incentives for publication volume, and so maintain high levels of research quality. If, on the other hand, success is largely determined by publication output or related quantitative metrics, then those who care about quality research should be on high alert. In which direction the scale tips in one’s own field is a critical question for anyone interested in the future of science."
Victor Toth on entanglement
No man is an island.
Victor Toth in Quora about entanglement:
Well, actually, that is precisely the point. Most of the time, everything is entangled with everything else.
When we talk about, say, creating an entangled pair of particles, the point is not to get them entangled with each other; the point is to reduce or eliminate their entanglement with everything else to the extent possible, for as long as possible. That is to say, make sure that the pair are isolated from the environment.
That’s the hard part. Not entangling them with each other; that’s a given.
The original question:
If interacting particles become entangled, why isn't everything entangled with everything else from the big bang?
A comment from Dan Kervick
Dan Kervick comments in a Doug Henwood post;
Seems like leftists of various kinds and degrees are always bemoaning the failure of the masses to develop a consciousness of their “true” material interests, and their susceptibility to fake or fraudulent cultural, religious, identity or moral concerns. (What’s the matter with Kansas?)
Is it possible that, after many decades of failure, these kinds of leftists might want to reconsider their own flat, two-inch deep understanding of human nature and what they understand as its “real” material interests.
People actually care about their spiritual lives, their loves and friendships and family lives, their linguistic heritage and the cultural riches embodied in it, and their sense of justice and morality. Leftist philistines who think all of this is fake, false consciousness need to expand their own intellectual and spiritual horizons, and then might understand why they have failed, over and over and over, to gain much of a foothold.
The socialist vision of society is ancient and rich and varied. It is exalted. It has a noble artistic, moral and religious heritage. It didn’t begin in the cold, smoggy and mechanical mid-nineteenth century and isn’t solely the product of the satanic mills and what a handful of modernist urban European thinkers thought about them.
Friday, July 23, 2021
The plight of migrants
The plight of twenty first century migrants by Mit Ali Husseni
"But those who want to approach the question of migration truthfully must ask the question which Arendt asked about the Greek democracy but failed to answer when it came to the United States. To what extent does our freedom from the necessities of life rely, and has historically relied, on the labor of people living thousands of miles away? Just as America’s political ideals were founded on enslaved people’s labor, just as Europe was enriched by looting the colonies, today too, our freedom relies, at least partly, on exploiting other parts of the world.
So, as it turns out, to be a “Dane” does in fact have a meaning. The price of Denmark being named “the happiest country in the world” is paid not just by Danes, but also by others whom the global economy exploits. No political citizenry, despite what Arendt’s consecration of the political presupposes, can be stripped from its enabling social and economic conditions."
Thursday, July 01, 2021
Sunday, June 20, 2021
Survey of gene-culture evolution
Long-term gene–culture coevolution and the human evolutionary transition
Abstract
It has been suggested that the human species may be undergoing an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI). But there is disagreement about how to apply the ETI framework to our species, and whether culture is implicated as either cause or consequence. Long-term gene–culture coevolution (GCC) is also poorly understood. Some have argued that culture steers human evolution, while others proposed that genes hold culture on a leash. We review the literature and evidence on long-term GCC in humans and find a set of common themes. First, culture appears to hold greater adaptive potential than genetic inheritance and is probably driving human evolution. The evolutionary impact of culture occurs mainly through culturally organized groups, which have come to dominate human affairs in recent millennia. Second, the role of culture appears to be growing, increasingly bypassing genetic evolution and weakening genetic adaptive potential. Taken together, these findings suggest that human long-term GCC is characterized by an evolutionary transition in inheritance (from genes to culture) which entails a transition in individuality (from genetic individual to cultural group). Thus, research on GCC should focus on the possibility of an ongoing transition in the human inheritance system.
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
On approaching the age of 80
I will be 80 in less than week. A close friend who is like a younger brother suggests: “Also, I suggest (with some trepidation) that you should consider devoting some spare time beyond your mathematics and grandfatherly duties to writing up some more autobiographical material. Perhaps that could include how you came to do the work you chose to do, the mathematicians with whom you became involved and the way you feel about doing mathematics or anything else (including farming, as I recall). By doing something like that, it could encourage many othersto follow their own path [including one of my grandsons when he is a little older]: a sort of much more human-oriented and personal than E.T. Bell's offering.”
Well, there is not much to say. I was silly and a bit stubborn, had some passions and followed my interests. Moreover I was lucky with friends. I am surprised that I am still around.
Saturday, May 29, 2021
A 1946 parable from Sarada Natarajan
Sarada Natarajan (Subrahmanya Iyer Natarajan)1924-55 is Telugu writer whose mother tongue was Tamil. He was also well-versed in Tamil when he landed in Tenali in 1937 and started working as a waiter. He learnt Telugu and started writing in Telugu. Tenali at that time had many writers with various ideologies. Sarada was pen name and he became quite famous mostly posthumously. Here is a short piece by him translated by Rohith which I found on his wall.
Mister World Has Fallen Sick
- Sarada, July 1st 1946 (translated from Telugu)
Mr World has fallen sick. He is bed-ridden. Mr Imperalism immediately sends a message to Sir Bourgeoisie.
The car of Sir Bourgeoisie creeks to a halt outside.
Mr Imperialism offers a chair to Mr Bourgeoisie to sit.
"Sir Bourgeoisie, Mr World is unwell. We don't know the disease yet. We should send for a doctor." says Mr Imperialism.
Imperialism thinks for a while and says "Call Dr. Socialism"
Sir Bourgeoisie takes off his specs, clears the smudge on the glass, puts it back on saying, "Him! Oh, no no. He gives injections of equality and solutions of revolution for every small thing.'
Mr Imperialism retorts "Oh, it's not for treatment. Its only to have a precise diagnosis. He knows the nature of Mr World very well. Call him."
Bourgeoisie calls Dr Socialism right away. He comes to help.
Mr Imperialism and Sir Bourgeoisie asks Dr Socialism to diagone the disease of Mr World.
He looks at the palm of Mr World, "This is a dangerous disease. It's called the sickness of servitude. It needs a high dose of revolution-medicine. And then, injections of socialism are to be infused into veins. Only then he can recover."
The other two oldies jolted to conscience saying, "Did we ask you to prescribe medicines? We needed you to only diagnose. Take this 'dollar' and leave."
Dr Socialism leaves.
Mr World's pain intensifies after Dr Socialism leaves. He is writhing with pain on the cot. The situation has come to a stay. Dr Socialism is out of question now. Mr Imperialism and Sir Bourgeoisie ties up Mr World to the cot and begin thinking again : 'how do we cure this?'
Sir Bourgeoisie suddenly reckons: "Don't we have our Fanatic-Priest Rao Bahadur Sir. He can treat with our own homemade pills and domestic oils instead of those toxic foreign medicines. I am calling him", and takes out his phone.
Fanatic-Priest Rao Bahadur Sir comes by his own chartered flight. He takes a look at the hand of World. "May God Bless Him, Misters! This Mr World has the typhoid fever called atheism in his body. That's why he is twisting with pain. It's not something that can be cured. I will give a blended spirit to sedate him for now."
He gives two ounces of vedanta, two grams of desh-bhakti and three ounces of non-violence.
"That's better. He makes a lot of nuisance awake. Let him sleep.", says Sir Bourgeoisie with a sigh of relief.
A landmark judgement on environment from Australia
"The children took a novel route in asserting the federal environment minister owed them a duty of care. A duty of care means a responsibility not to take actions that could harm others. A duty of care is the first step in a claim of negligence.
A similar duty was found in the Netherlands in 2015, as a global first. In 2019, the Supreme Court upheld that duty – the Dutch government owed it citizens a duty to reduce emissions in order to protect human rights.
Other cases around the world were inspired by that success, including the one decided in Australia today."
Covid's next phase By Zeynep Tufekci
Covid's deadliest phase may be here soon by Zenep Tufekci
By the same author according to Gautam Menon but I cannot find the link:
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
M.S. Narasimhan (7 June 1932 – 15 May 2021) RIP
Reminiscences of M.S.Narasimhan (possibly more about myself):
I joined TIFR as a research student in 1964 eleven years after Narasimhan. Though he was much senior and already a star, he was friendly from the beginning. Both of us being students of Fr. C. Racine in Loyola college may have some thing to do with it. Sometimes, he used to attend/oversee our first year courses. One incident, I remember is that the lecturer in algebra confused all of us while explaining tensor products. Then Narsimham took me to his office offering to explain and he too made a mess of it. I assumed that he was big picture man as Raghunathan told me at some stage that Narasimhsn explained the essentials of Kodaira-Spencer work in an hour during seaside walks near the TIFR canteen.
Having browsed Hausdorff's Set Theory in college, I was already committed to learning Topology and in spite of Narasimhsn's diverse interests, I chose an area in which he was not an expert. He did try to get me interested in the topology of moduli spaces. But my interest was more towards general theories rather than specific calculations. Our acquaintance which slowly developed in to a sort of brotherly guidance continued. Around my third year or so, we occasionally had beer together on Saturdays. I do not remember what we talked about, it must have been about general things and some about mathematicians rather than mathematics. The actual mathematical discussions were with M.S. Raghunathan and S.Ramanan who were both interested in topology.
Meanwhile there were visiting professors and I particularly liked the lectures of John Stallings whose papers I read earlier. I enjoyed learning mathematics and was not sure or care whether I could do a ph.d. And TIFR gave great opportunity to learn without pressure of publishing papers or doing a ph.d. There was always the possibility of teaching in a college in Guntur area if one could not do a ph.d. I also enjoyed reading Milnor, Browdrer, Zeeman, Serre's Thesis and various Cartan seminars on topology. Towards the end of his stay, Stallings said that Papakyriakopoulos did some great work in three dimensional topology. After Stallings left, I started studying Papa's papers though I did not have any background in 3-manifolds. It soon led to some minor work which became part of my thesis.
Then came a crucial intervention from Narasimhan at the beginning of 1968. He heard of Nuffield Foundation Fellowships and thought that I had some chance of getting it and went about organising my application. By that time I had 3-4 papers and he thought that it would be good if I had specific place in mind. I read several papers of CT.C. Wall who was in Liverpool. He organised sending my papers to Wall and a letter of support from Wall. He coached me on preparations for the interview. Since I was generally like a bull in China shop reflecting my village farmer background, he advised me about being polite to the interviewers. It seemed to have worked. One Kothari asked me name the greatest theorems in topology. I replied that it was a silly question. Apparently, I came back and told Narasimhsn that I followed his advice since I said that the question was silly instead of saying that it was stupid. To my surprise, I got the fellowship snd the visit to Liverpool proved to be very useful in terms of what I learnt there which was used in later research and the start of acquintance with Peter Scott which resulted much later in a long collaboration.
He was supposed to be one of those persons who understood me. Kalyan Mukherjea told me once that he told MSN that I was planning to quit TIFR. He asked MSN to guess what I wanted to do. Apparently, the reply was that I was planning to go back to Guntur which was correct.
Narasimhan went on to bigger things both mathematically and as an administrator in the development of mathematics in India. He was slso Head of the Mathematics group at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste from 1992–1999.
I was not in touch with him during some periods. But I remember gratefully his visits to Delhi during 1982-86. This was a difficult period for me and his visits both to my office and home offered some succour. We renewed correspondence after he moved to Bangalore. I visited him a few times in Bangalore and was looking forward to visiting him again when the sad news came.
Saturday, May 08, 2021
covid vaccine waiver likely?
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/07/opinions/covid-vaccine-patent-waiver-as-equals-intl-cmd/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0e7y2g8gCFGIp8UZHR4JGVEceeDKgvasbJJBpFAoZYrq5kUfk765Y2I3E
With a Covid-19 vaccine patent waiver likely, time to rethink global intellectual property rules
Monday, May 03, 2021
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Interview with Arvind Gupta
Interview A good toy is one that can be taken apart, says toy scientist Arvind Gupta
Doug Henwood summarises aa article of Matt Levine
MattLevine's article. I did not read it completely;too long. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-04-19/everyone-loves-the-100-million-new-jersey-deli-except-david-einhorn-knottrmb
Doug Henwood's summary:
https://www.facebook.com/749518284/posts/10158602377663285/
Remember that little deli in NJ that is the public face of a stock valued at over $100 million? No doubt it's a front for something or other, but we don't know what yet. In any case, it came to the world's attention when hedgie David Einhorn wrote about it in a letter to clients, as an example of how the market might be just a little bubbly? Well, guess what—Einhorn's letter prompted people to buy the damn stock.
From Matt Levine's Money Stuff:
"But then Einhorn published his letter, and Hometown became the laughingstock of financial media last Friday. And here is what happened:
Volume exploded, from 800 shares on Thursday to 42,762 on Friday. By Friday evening, Hometown had traded a total of about 70,000 shares in all of 2021; more than 60% of that trading happened on Friday.
The stock was down by 3.1%. It closed at $12.99, for a market capitalization of $101.3 million.
Last Wednesday, when there was a single trade of 200 shares and Hometown closed at $13.90, you might have asked incredulously, “who’s paying $13.90 per share for this deli,” but the answer would have been “exactly one person, for reasons of their own.” But on Friday there were hundreds of trades, and almost half a million dollars’ worth of stock changed hands. And the stock barely budged. People were like “yes, $100 million deli, absolutely, I want to buy that.” Hometown went from a thinly traded pink-sheet deli that nobody had heard of, to a company that everyone had heard of exclusively because it was a poster child for market excess, and … people … bought … it? Like, a whole new class of investors was introduced to Hometown International specifically by a hedge-fund letter saying “small investors who get sucked into these situations are likely to be harmed eventually,” and they looked at it and decided they wanted to be harmed. “Yes, step on my neck, Hometown International.”[3] David Einhorn warned people not to invest in Hometown International, even though it had never occurred to them to invest in Hometown International, but once they were warned not to they absolutely did."
Monday, April 19, 2021
Namita Arora comments:
Anandaswarup, yes, it's now safe to say that the foundational ideas, practices and social class elements that later gave rise to the full-fledged varna system / Brahminism can be traced to the cultural substrate of the Aryans who migrated in from central Asia.
I hesitate to use the word ’stability’ to characterize India’s caste society, because that word has positive connotations. I personally prefer ‘continuity’. I think this oppressive system has continued for so long because unlike other systems where the oppressors and oppressed are more identifiable, caste is graded inequality. As Ambedkar wrote, ‘there is no such class as a completely unprivileged class except the one which is at the base of the social pyramid. The privileges of the rest are graded ... each class being privileged, every class is interested in maintaining the system.’ Of course, those near the top of this pyramid of privilege and resources gain the most from preserving the status quo but their job is made easier by the 'graded inequality' in the system that militates against people coming together in common cause. Indeed, it's too pervasive to imagine its demise anytime soon though aspects of it have certainly been defanged over recent decades.
His original post https://www.facebook.com/586055302/posts/10157750383645303/
Saturday, March 27, 2021
Remembering my father-2
Remembering my father-2
Today there was some discussion of a bit of weirdness in our family. May be it started with my father. He came from a family of lower middle class farmers; his father had six acres of land and had 3 sons and 2 daughters. Their village Avanigadda was the Taluk headquarters and a high school was started there. My grandfather promised send any son who finished school to college and my father was the only one who completed. He was sent to study in Masulipatnam about 50 miles away by bus. He started with Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry (MPC) group in his Intermediate. Then he found the lecturer in Logic was popular with students and started attending Logic classes instead of Mathematics classes without informing anybody. After several months the College Principal found out about this and took him to task. But strangely, there was also an LPC group those days ( he finished his B.Ed in 1941 and so this must be about 1936) and he was shifted to LPC group. I did similar things in college but that is another story.
The bus fare was about one half rupees then and one could also walk 30 miles to reach Masulipatnam. In the holidays he used to come home, work on the farm, and carry bags of lentils and other food stuff and go back by walking. Compared to that we had it much easier. Probably Sambasivarao Kolli knows more about my father than me.
An earlier story here https://gaddeswarup.blogspot.com/2007/06/remembering-my-father.html
Thursday, March 18, 2021
Doing mathematics
Like many other things, doing mathematics may be just a question of working hard and staying power. I complained to Peter “I still do not have good command of the stuff. Your answer shows that I was wrong I one case. I have to work some more.” He responds “It definitely takes a while to get into it. I worked on section 11 for many months, maybe more than a year. But the last time I worked on it was before I retired (3 years ago), and probably 4 or 5 years ago!” And having collaborators helps, some thing I discovered at the age of 53 or so. I will be 80 this June.
Thursday, February 25, 2021
Universal jurisdiction
From https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56160486
Eyad al-Gharib was a relatively low-level operative among thousands of others in the Syrian regime's highly developed network of coercion and repression.
The verdict is a legal landmark. The prosecution was intended as a test case, to build up a body of evidence about the actions of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad that could be used in other trials, not just in Germany.
Al-Gharib's conviction starts to chip away at any sense of impunity felt by Syrians
still working for the regime who might be involved with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The German human rights lawyers behind the case have spent years using the principle of universal jurisdiction to reach out across borders to pursue other allegations. Their targets have included the former US President George W Bush for crimes including violations of the UN Convention against Torture.
Ground water depletion in India
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-indian-agriculture-groundwater-depletion-winter.html
Indian agriculture: Groundwater depletion could reduce winter cropped acreage significantly in years
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Continuiing military conflicts
https://asiatimes.com/2021/02/indias-forever-wars-and-forever-warriors/
Vested interests and entrenched official mindsets drive military conflicts in Afghanistan and on India-China border Says MK Bhadrakumar. The article also links toEli Clifton's article "Vested interests and entrenched official mindsets drive military conflicts in Afghanistan and on India-China border"
Saturday, February 20, 2021
Friday, February 19, 2021
David Labaree on credentialization
Credentialing I read only two of the articles here. Many more from a favourite author who appeared here several times before.
Friday, February 12, 2021
About the Russian and Chinese vaccines
China, Russia steal a vaccine diplomacy marchThere is hope for poorer countries.
See also The Folly of Hoarding Knowledge in the COVID-19 Age
Scientific American on farm protests in India
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/farm-protests-in-india-are-writing-the-green-revolutions-obituary/?fbclid=IwAR1JFOaBMAA-yWUvwKz3Mk8zcTTz8eYO-B3IBQ7RtUghvWWkBlkhYUAxcAw
Farm Protests in India Are Writing the Green Revolution’s Obituary
Mahua Moitra on the current situation in India
Full speech https://youtu.be/umRjAyqtvYs which seems to be an accurate assessment of the current situation.
Transcript of the speech https://theprint.in/politics/full-text-of-mahua-moitras-lok-sabha-speech-that-landed-her-in-plagiarism-row/258660/?fbclid=IwAR03l-RtQDfwy1vEFTEKNHlo1drsQhaKsZ3l1nLiqbVa0aEXjendqKfH4Lk
Thursday, January 28, 2021
A review of ‘Indians: A brief history of a civilisation’ by Namit Arora
This is a compelling book about the deep history of India and its effects on the present. How did the author achieve it? He was once an IT professional who worked in USA for several years. In his 30s, he took a two year leave and travelled the length and breadth of India like several illustrious people before him, followed by deeper reading and writing. Some of it appeared in his first book, “The Lottery of Birth: On Inherited Social inequalities”. If his essay ‘A place called home’ is any indication, his desire to understand India and Indians more deeply must have long been with him.
After a few more years of working and travelling the world, he quit his job, relocated to India and began exploring more thoroughly the questions that bothered him. To do so, he chose six major historical sites he had visited before, covering different regions and timespans. He studied the historical sources and modern scholarship available and travelled to them again, talking to various people along the way. He has also presented insights from the chronicles of famous historical travellers, the most compelling of whom (for me) is Francois Bernier. The result is a book that combines a narrative history of India with archaeological travel writing.
As the author says in the introduction, “I hoped to find the essence of each site’s [historical] inhabitants—their defining beliefs, customs and institutions; their struggles and living conditions—and their legacy in the cultural mosaic of India.” Namit Arora has done the hard yakka and given us a guide and model to study India’s past. I think Patrick French summarized it well in his tweet about this book: “Options: spend a decade thinking and reading deeply about the early history of India, and going to all the key places. Or read this 250 page book, INDIANS, by someone who has done the work. An extraordinary feat of imaginative framing, achieved through close observation.”