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Sixty: At the Threshold of Dusk

When does a day begin? When does it end? Does dawn arrive with the distant blush of the dark sky? Or does it set in when a young sun hesitatingly appears at the horizon? Does the waning of sun’s warmth announce a day’s demise, or does it linger till the last light is sucked out? Day is imperceptibly born in dawn and dissolves as furtively in dusk. Autumn unhurriedly begets winter. Winter disappears in spring. Spring after a protracted labour births summer that unbeknownst metamorphoses into autumn. When does life begin? Does the beat of foetus’ heart announce a new life? What about the three-day old embryo or a single-celled zygote after fertilization of the egg? Or each of the ova and the millions of sperm? Each of these throbs with potential of bringing forth a new life. Nature goes on cycling in its rhythm, ceaselessly and imperturbably. These relentless revolutions, pursued over eons, give rise to variations. Newer elements born with their unique cycles mingle in the grind of...
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Measuring Evidence to Strengthen Belief (Bayes’ Theorem)

Reverend Thomas Bayes of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England, was a Georgian gentleman scientist. These wealthy, independent, male citizens practiced science as a passionate hobby and not a profession. Many were priests. Church provided easy and respectable means of an ample income and vast spare time to indulge scientific queries. By most accounts, Bayes was a hopeless preacher, but an ingenious mathematician. At some point in his life, exactly when is not known, he devised a formula to work out various probability distributions of an uncertain event. And then; he forgot about it. Richard Price, Bayes’ friend, submitted this formula to Royal Society in 1763, two years after his death, under the title, 'An essay towards solving a problem in the doctrine of chances'.  Bayes’ theorem, as the formula came to be called, had no utility in Bayes’ lifetime. Today it is considered a landmark in the history of probability science and is used for: spam filtering, weather forecasting, DNA ...
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The Selfish Gene

  Road to Self-Awareness   I read Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene about two decades ago. Fiction was my staple reading then. I had come to acknowledge vagaries of fate – unfathomable misery of many and unbridled joys of some, through fiction. - John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Maugham’s Of Human Bondage, Samuel Butler’s The Way Of All Flesh, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Sharat Chandra Chatterjee’s Shrikant, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, were some of the literary masterpieces that chronicled life in face of a whimsical fate.   But acceptance of chance in human condition gave birth to many queries. It appeared that being human was not just possessing an upright posture, a reasoning mind, ability of language, culture, and social behaviour. These made us all similar. What made us different? Why everyone behaves in a unique fashion? Why are we here? Our existence must justify our fickle fates. Seeds of doubts had been sown but answers were not in sight. ...
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A Languid Getaway

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I have had holidays that were relaxing but the holidays were not relaxed. I plan each vacation meticulously and squeeze as many   experience in a day as appear feasible. I have stayed at some exotic locales in these vacations: in a sprawling house on a hill overlooking the cerulean Mediterranean, in a house, every window of which opened to mesmerizing views of Hauraki gulf on   Waiheke Island, in an apartment that faced Pacific in Wellington. But I did not sit amid this surreal scenery, unhurriedly drinking its beauty. I would leave soon after breakfast chasing my itinerary and drive back in the late   evening; to begin another schedule of touring the next day. I know people who go on holidays only to relax. They drive to the destination in a hired cab, stay put in the place for weeks, then hire another cab on return. I envy their poise, their equanimity, and their single-minded pursuit of a goal. But I am unable to follow their example. Perhaps, it is a restless natu...
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Chaos Theory and the History of National Song

One of the less appreciated – but no less onerous – duties of a statesman is to elevate the zeitgeist of his nation, to nudge it towards novel realms, to sublimate nation’s consciousness. Our statesman extraordinaire is conscious of this weight on his shoulders and never squanders an opportunity to offer advice and improve the spiritual being of his long-suffering citizens. Means of communication are an important link in performance of this arduous task. Interviews and press-conferences, the chosen means of the past leaders are wasteful and quite futile. These only open chinks in an argument. The quibbles, the bickerings, the dissenting opinions, hinder meaningful communication – a monologue that the spellbound people deserve. Thus, the supreme religiously eschews them. He regularly shares his heart’s content with countrymen on radio waves. The profundity of topics takes your breath away: Vocal for Local, for making India self-sufficient; Har Ghar Tiranga, for breeding patriots i...
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Reading Past

How does one know past? Is history faithful in capturing it? Is history a discovery or an invention? History is the study of past societies, cultures, and civilisations. Historians analyse material remains of old civilisations such as archaeological diggings, artifacts, documents, and literature to build their narrative. They write about events removed hundreds and thousands of generations from their time. Cultures and civilisations are the product of human thought. And thoughts change with time Stones do not speak. Mind, with its ideas, is not fossilised. Zeitgeist is not recorded on imperishable tablets. Sketchy written documents, if any are available, never relate a cogent, verifiable narrative. How do historians then collate history of ideas from the material evidence they study? When the evidence is so feeble, what is it that allows an historian to read the mind of historical figures, to discover intentions behind their apparent actions, to comment on their morals? Historians...
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Poetry: A Key to Life

Poetry: A Key to Life   Ephemeral moments ceaselessly rain down on consciousness, each unwaveringly like the one gone by. In this monotony, life – shorn of emotions and feelings– inexorably escapes from my clasped fingers. Poetry is one shelter where a bewildered mind rests and makes sense of the fleeting reality. Poetry brings timelessness to a life shackled to time.   फिर विकल * हैं प्राण मेरे ! * Restless तोड़ दो यह क्षितिज मैं भी देख लूँ उस ओर क्या है ! जा रहे जिस पंथ से युग कल्प उसका छोर क्या है ? क्यों मुझे प्राचीर * बनकर * Battlement आज मेरे श्वास घेरे ?   -       ‘ सांध्यगीत’   Mahadevi Verma   रहिए अब ऐसी जगह चल कर जहाँ कोई न हो हम - सुख़न * कोई न हो और हम - ज़बाँ # कोई न हो *   Someone to talk with    # One who speaks our language   बे - दर - ओ - दीवार * सा इक घर बनाया चाहिए *    Without doors and walls  ...
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