An IG of police in Madhya Pradesh was transferred today. In a speech to cadets yesterday, he was heard exhorting them to learn from Ajmal Kasab, the 26/11 terrorist. That, apparently, was a good enough reason to transfer said officer to the boondocks (police HQ as it were, where he can do no mischief; the police equivalent of the detention room I guess). I for one, see no reason for this administrative punishment. I heard the relevant part of his speech and found nothing offensive in it. All he did was to make Kasab an example to his men. He said if an uneducated man, not even a matriculate, a drug addict like Kasab could learn so much through training in less than an year, why not our police constables. He talked about how Kasab learnt to use firearms, explosives, GPS, advanced technologies and even learnt to speak Hindi (Marathi?) in less than an year, then what was stopping our policemen? He said that he was sure his force had men much better than Kasab, both in intelligence and valour, but they needed to inculcate the passion Kasab showed.
Now what is wrong in saying, “learn from your enemy, and try to better him at his own game”? he wasn’t asking the men to become terrorists, just to see how far the enemy had gone and catch up fast. And he was ‘punished’ just for saying the words ‘Kasab’ and ‘example’ in the same sentence. I live in a crooked country!

Finished reading Sean Carroll’s “Remarkable Creatures” a couple of days back. I’d actually bought it thinking it would be about odd, impossible fossils and the extraordinary creatures that were to be seen in prehistoric ages. Always been a childhood fantasy of mine, you see. But it was nothing like that at all. Carroll documented the people who were behind the discovery of some of the most important fossils. From Darwin’s voyage aboard the Beagle to the discovery of tiktaalik, he describes the incredible adventures these people had and the hardships they endured and the effort they put in to unearth these historic finds. And it was an engrossing read. From Wallace to the Leakeys, I was fascinated. Here were the men (and one woman, Mary Leakey alone finds mention) who went out into the most barren, forbidding, wild, unreachable, unexplored, dangerous, inhospitable terrains and step by painstaking step, fleshed out Darwin’s Theory (ever since reading Dawkins elucidation on how this word in misinterpreted, I’m more and more attracted towards the idea of calling it ‘Fact’) of Evolution and gave us a more complete picture of how we came to be. I read how one by one, the arguments against evolution, both in a general sense and in the more personal sense of human evolution, were struck down. In fact, having grown up taking evolution as scientific fact, I was surprised at the level and amount of opposition it faced in the past. This, of course, stands true even today, but that’s another story.
One thing that showed through was our incredible human ego. Our desperate need to place ourselves at the top of the heap that is Nature. First we were the chosen specie, made in God’s own image. When that was struck down (down but not out, mind you), we found it hard to believe we had been on earth for only a miniscule portion of its history (I remember reading somewhere that if the entire history of earth were to be compressed into a week, life came into being on the last day, and we made it onto the stage about 5 seconds before midnight). So it was a hard task believing the earth was billions of years old. Then when that was proved incontrovertibly, we had to believe that ‘our’ line split from that of the apes at least 30 million years ago and we have been different (read superior) since. Of course, that’s another fallacy and has been disproved too. Then we had to believe that at a genetic level we were far superior to other animals so surely, our genome would have thousands upon thousands of genes thereby marking us as so much more complex than the ‘lower’ creatures (I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve learned to hyphenate that word from Dawkins). But when the whole genome was finally unraveled, lo and behold, the entire difference between us and the earthworm, was a few thousand genes! Our pretensions to being the only intelligent specie, or the only one capable of learning and even transmitting that learning are belied everyday in some corner of the world or the other. I wonder what form our ‘specie egotism’ will take next?

While the reviews of the latest Holmes movie didn’t make me go see it, quite the opposite in fact, even though I like Downey as an actor, I don’t care for his rendition of one of the world’s favourite character and one of my personal role models, it did get me thinking.
I looked at the way he portrayed Holmes, and then I looked back at this series that was aired on The History Channel and the old one I used to watch on DD back in the 80s. I feel that even this change in the depiction of a fictional character is a sign of our social zeitgeist. In the 80s series, Holmes was the way I pictured him, intelligent, aloof, with a supercilious air about him, a trifle egoistic perhaps, but eminently logical and methodical almost to the point of inhumanity. Watson was a little dense perhaps, but loyal, true and always in acceptance of Holmes’ intellectual superiority. The THC series showed Holmes as more petulant and vain, more emotional, more impatient and almost brash. Watson was shown as more intrusive, more irreverent, almost jealous and more eager to score a point against Holmes. I guess the director wanted to equalize the relationship between the two, and he even showed Holmes being proven wrong once or twice with Watson displaying a smug smile. The latest Holmes, of course, is a muscle bound hunk who uses his fists as often as his brains, quite the opposite of Doyles’ hero.
I guess that is the key word, hero. Our society has over time become more and more disbelieving of heroes. The Supermen, as it were. People who transcended their circumstances, even in fiction, are no longer looked upon with admiration and as examples worthy of emulation. No, they must be brought down to our level for us to relate to them. So all heroes have perforce to become less heroic as it were, to stay popular. So Spock today shows more emotion in Star Trek than Nimoy ever did, Spiderman has to be helped by the common public in the third edition, even Superman is rushed to the hospital. James Bond gets broken, hurt, and bleeds. We don’t want supermen anymore. We don’t want to believe that anything better than us can exist, that we can be better than we are today.

When I was younger, I always saw the world as this wide, open space, with so much to see and learn form at every turn, at every angle. Now as I grow older, I find my world constricting around me. There was so much I wanted to learn and see and experience, and now I only find myself able to taste a little bit of it. Whenever I turn to one of my hobbies I find another thing I’d like to do. And now things keep piling on things and I don’t think I’ll ever find enough time in my life to do it all. Tons of songs I’ve never had the time to really sit back and listen, movies I’ve yet to see, serials I’ve got but haven’t come round to yet, books I’ve bought but haven’t read, magazines and journals stacking up. Amid this huge jumble, I’ve realised I’ll never find the time to write poetry, or read about the arts, or even the classics I’ve always wanted to.
Instead of the broad range of topics I indulged myself in even a decade ago, I find myself limiting myself to only a few that I have a chance to enjoy fully. So no more sketching or listening to new singers or reading Plato or even new poets, new in the sense that I haven’t read them, that is.
Instead of being a tech guru on top of everything computer-linked, I now have a broad idea of the trends and innovations. Instead of being a cricket expert, I’m hard-pressed to put a name to some new Indian players. Byron’s longer works I’ve abandoned to old age, when I shall presumably, have more time. Ditto Donne, Plato, Russel, and so much more.
The downside is that when I do get the time to try something new, I enjoy it so much! The first time I listened to internet radio, I found two country artistes I liked a lot. And the few books I’ve bought the last couple of months are a revelation. But where do I find the time to do all that?

The Bible has always fascinated me. I enjoyed reading it, esp. the Old Testament (never got round to the New), which I went through as a kind of novel. I had no doubt in my mind that most, if not all of it was based on some kernel of truth, sort of like the Mahabharat might have been based on clan warfare sometime in the past. But recently, this opinion of mine has been called in question. The more I read about biblical history and archaeology, I find that each and every chapter of the OT has been called in question. From Genesis to Kings to the Temple of Solomon, there isn’t much proof of what the Bible talks about. No mention of the Jews in Egyptian history, apart from some obscure reference in one text, no sign of the massive migration of such a large population across Arabia, no sign of the works of David, nothing. Even some of the major landmarks mentioned in there, Ararat where Noah’s ark landed, Moriah where Moses received the Commandments etc. are not known. A lot is just inferred and a greater lot assumed. I actually thought there might have been someone called Abraham, but even that seems a fantasy. The flood and the garden of Eden I always assumed to be fairy tales, though it was a shock to know that 40% of adult Americans firmly believe in Creation as set out in Genesis. I mean, seriously! The link between Eden and the Banishment and the actual agricultural revolution in the Turkey-Iraq area I’ve already talked about before. I always thought of these stories as allegory and now I find that people actually believe that as actual truth! I thought even fundamentalist Muslims, some of the most Medieval of people in their mindsets would know better. But no, 4 out of every 10 Americans believes the earth is only 10000 years old.
Add to that the fact that the OT was put together in its present form only in the AD era. And it was written down by people who didn’t properly understand the old Aramaic script. Plus the latest extant version is even newer. Add all this together and I wonder if any part of the original has even survived, and what, if anything did the actual OT say?
Looking back, I wonder why I accepted stories like the Ten Plagues and the parting of the Red Sea as at least partly truth. What part could be true? Which of those events might actually have happened? And if such miracles did occur, where is the historical record? I guess I never took things to their logical conclusion, which was that even if Moses did exist and the Jews were freed by him from the clutches of the Egyptians, he must have done it in some other fashion than by invoking miracles such as three day eclipses and fire falling from the sky and killing the first born of Egypt etc. not a very good thing for God to do by the way! Now of course, I wonder if Moses actually lived. I guess Dawkins is right. We are taught from infancy to accept whatever religion teaches us without much questioning. Even for someone like me, brought up in a very liberal family, where I was free to believe or disbelieve pretty much anything I wanted to, I never looked at the Bible critically, even less than I did the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. Of course, the latter are not religious texts like the Bible is, and I’m thankful that there is no such Canon in Hinduism, leaving every Hindu free to believe whatever or whoever he likes.
Dawkins book, “The God Delusion” fights at two levels. He tries to disprove God, and does a commendable job at it. I am an agnostic and have been for ages. Even when I prayed, I found it odd to believe there was someone listening in, but it was a soothing experience and had its run. The other thing Dawkins fights against in organized religion and does a much better job of it. Of course that could be because he had a more sympathetic ear in me in the letter argument. I’ve seen and read about the great injustices and genocides and misery and barbarism and utter inhumanity that organized religion has brought about and even encouraged, and have always been against it. Dawkins has just strengthened my opinions on both counts. I have to talk about what I think of his book soon.

Read in this Sunday’s Times of India that Paris Hilton has such a busy social calendar that she has an entire staff of secretaries to keep her dates straight. It is, apparently, the high point of a host’s party to have this stick-figure non-achiever present at his gala event. And her dates are booked months in advance! Talk about ha colossal waste of everything. Apart from one porn film, I can’t think of a single thing of worth this woman has contributed to the world at large. What is she famous for? There are better porn stars out there I’m sure, and even better dumb blonde stereotypes. But wait a minute, there might not be a super-rich, dumb blonde stereotype, porn star out there! Hmm, that probably explains her popularity. An heiress to billions, stupid as the sea is salty and providing a naked image the moment you close your eyes….not a bad combination! Just kidding, though all of it is true. But she’s a pop phenomenon today. Maybe it’s the immense imbalance she seems to portray that attracts attention (how can such a dumbass get to play with more money than she knows how to count up to while I bust my ass all month to earn enough to maybe feed her dog for a day?). Maybe it’s beauty sans brains that draws every salivating satyr to her. Who knows? I don’t, though I’m sure she’s smartened up pretty fast after “One night in Paris” (clever title). Didn’t sue Salomon, took a share of the profits instead. Has assiduously cultured the image of a ditzy blonde, courtesy endless reams of paper and a TV serial that went into 3 seasons at last count. Makes it a point to go pantyless to at least one party/nightclub/somewhere every few months. Occasionally shoots topless pics on her mobile and “loses” the same soon after. Quite hard work let me tell you! “Should I let a nipple slip or show a bit of butt crack this month? Appear in public necking my dog, or get into a catfight with Nicole? Choices, choices!”

Gobekli Tepe

Was reading about ‘Gobekli Tepe’ the other day. Liked it so much that I put up a link on my FB page. First time I did that, and liked the way FB picked up the link and displayed a short summary too. Gobekli tepe is a paleolithic site, and is the earliest sing of human architecture and planned building known to us. The various structures have been interpreted as some sort of temples or places of ancestor worship. They date to c.10000 BC, well before we had assumed humans capable of building large common structures, and even predating the advent of farming, which is assumed to have started at a large scale some 2000 years later. It was always assumed that only after agriculture was well established and a surplus food supply assured did the population expand and people were free enough to venture into other fields, such as pottery, art, architecture etc. in short, the cultural evolution was supposed to have started after the Great Agricultural revolution. But here we see signs of culture predating farming by a couple of thousand years! There are a number of round structures made of stone and covered with lime. In these round rooms, there are free standing monoliths that some archaeologists interpret as ancestors/proto-gods. These are huge structures, some weighing many tons and have been carried here on top of this hill from some distance, in an age where the wheel was yet to be discovered.
Though a desert today, the area was lush and well irrigated 12000 years ago. What I find most interesting is that there is good evidence that wheat and grains were first cultivated in this area. some strains of wild wheat in the surrounding hills are genetic ancestors of the oldest known cultivated strains. This makes Gobekli the probable site of man’s first foray into settled agricultural life. And these people, for unknown reasons, built this astonishing structure. There are signs that some sacrifices were carried out here. Then, mysteriously, around 8000BC, the site was deliberately buried under rubble.
Interested as I’ve always been in archaeology, two things make Gobekli Tepe all the more fascinating. First, it is the precursor of the Sumerian civilization, and the unknown, unnamed ancestor figures on this hilltop temple fit in so well with the Sumerian myth that agriculture was brought down to man from the hills by unnamed Gods who existed before the Sumerian pantheon came into being. What a bewitching idea, tying up these two disparate threads into one beautiful progression!
The other idea is that this is the site of the proverbial Eden; that the Bible carries a record of folk memory going back to the time when man moved from the relaxed, easy lifestyle of the hunter-gatherer to the more rigorous life of the farmer. The story of Adam and Eve’s leisurely life in the garden and their subsequent exile to work the earth to bring forth food resembles very closely man’s move towards an agrarian lifestyle.
And both these fascinating (to me) stories are linked to one patch of earth; ancient, mysterious, massive, awe inspiring, harking back to the dawn of man.