VEDIC TEA : MUSINGS IN AN UNCERTAIN COSMOS

THE VEDIC TEA : MUSINGS IN AN UNCERTAIN COSMOS

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“The existence of a Creator and Controller God has always been at the core of all religions and in fact central to the very psyche of humans “, declared my friend Devjani with an air of apparent finality, “till this foul science came along and challenged it “. She was quoting from a respected columnist and waved the newspaper at us as it’s irrefutable proof!

The debates between Science and Religion, Fate and Free Will, Duty and Destiny were staple conversations in our morning tea sessions. Sparks flew and sometimes the tone even got personal. But that day, it took a really serious turn. Satya, my friend and IT guru, was in no mood to take all these. He had always regarded Devjani as the quintessential woman, prone to rituals and superstitions despite her acclaimed background in Medicine. Satya was a cold rationalist for who reason reigned supreme everywhere.

Priyambada, never the one to be interested in such heavy topics, was less concerned about the impending storm over our tea cups. She always held the role of a moderator and stopped such bouts just before the combatants threatened to inflict lasting injuries upon one other. It was, after all, her house and she had to take good care of it before any such hot discussions attempted to blow it up. She inhaled the drifting aroma of morning tea and winked at me as the combatants got ready to lock horns.

Devjani was a votary of God, Spirituality and all those good things we are supposed to be. Even though she was a doctor, she had a streak of obedience and conformity to the traditions. For her, Satya symbolized an unemotional, machine like boring personality with no respect to tradition and authority – something which no one should ever be. She particularly disliked those moments during tea session when Satya would read the Science Page of the daily newspaper aloud and made all tea club member to listen to him. Today, with the views of such a celebrated columnist on a top national daily, she wanted to pay Satya back in his own coin – with compound interest!

But Satya, instead of getting agitated at such a blasphemous declaration (blasphemy ?), smiled benevolently. He sensed an easy kill, perhaps. Taking a sip from his cup, he rubbed his hands and told “ Devjani, it is time you brushed up your “Science”, “History” and “Religion” early morning. If you haven’t, allow me the opportunity to do so, madam! “

With this he stood up , surveyed the audience imperiously as Hercule Poirot does, in the final chapter of an Agatha Christie Novel before declaring the murderer’s name and posed us the following question ..

Which of the great persons could have told the following?

“Gripped by fear people go to sacred mountains, sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines. Religious ideas, especially the idea of God, has its origin in fear.”
a. Bertrand Russell b. Stephen Hawking c. Pope John d. Paul-II e. Buddha

“Of course Bertrand Russell “, shouted Priyambada.
“No way”, thundered Satya.

“Makes the job rather easier for me”- quipped Devjani. It has to be Stephen Hawking, that silly scientist who had the audacity to declare that the goal in his life was to make God redundant as a hypothesis for understanding the origin of the universe. What other derogatory remarks would he not have passed with his evil mouth, had he not been afflicted with that strange neurodegenerative disorder, only he knows! “

“Wrong again” thundered Satya. “It is Buddha – as quoted in Sukta 188 of Dhamm Pada, the main religious text for the Budhhists. So you see, here is a religion, well before the birth of Christ and long before science as we know came along, which not only questioned the existence of a God but even went to explain why such a concept persisted in the contemporary belief system .“

“Want to know more? Why Buddha told so?” Satya queried. “He actually noticed that people turn to God, in times of stress, sadness and uncertainty- out of fear and to feel assured that God will help them. The real reason for origin of sadness is desire. Buddha taught us to try to understand our fears, to lessen our desires and to calmly but courageously accept the things we cannot change. He replaced fear, not with the irrational belief of God but with a rational understanding of our strength and limitation. It is a tragedy that the birth place of such a rational revolutionary – India - today teems with Godmen, Soothsayers and Astrologers, all peddling their dangerous ware to a gullible public whose mind is far away from the concept their Buddha had preached!”

Reeling under such a blow, lesser mortals would have finished their tea and signed the peace treaty. But Devjani was made of sterner stuff. She was not to be so easily undone.

“Yes, Satya, we know that Buddhism is an exceptional case of agnostic religion. But all other religions do have a God as their core belief and have never questioned his existence and his role in creating and still controlling their world! Nobody ever challenged that! This in turn validates mine as well as this columnist’s claim.”

Satya’s grin grew wider. He expected such a salvo from the enemy camp. But it was probably his day and not Devjani’s. He delivered his knockout punch in style –
“Oh yes. Buddha was agnostic! He was an exception! Can I then refer to Hinduism, please? Lets than talk about our good old Rig Veda and its famous “Nasadiya Sukta, or the Hymn of Creation”. Let me tell you just four verses of possibly the mother of all mysterious hymns which has captivated even modern rationalists and scientists “

He took another sip from the already cold tea kept on the sofa side and tried to remember some thing. We thought he was probably slipping into an unchartered territory this time and did not have enough ammunition in his arsenal.

But we were wrong. In crisp Sanskrit, Satya started reciting what he called the Nasadiya Sukta, his tone faltering at times with suspected devotion:

नासदासीन नो सदासीत तदानीं नासीद रजो नो वयोमापरो यत किमावरीवः कुह कस्य शर्मन्नम्भः किमासीद गहनं गभीरम
न मर्त्युरासीदम्र्तं न तर्हि न रात्र्या अह्न आसीत्प्रकेतः आनीदवातं सवधया तदेकं तस्माद्धान्यन न परः किं चनास

“What is the meaning of these slokas ? Why should they be mysterious?” We asked . “They sound like any ordinary mantras that priests recite during Pujas”.
“Let me not translate them for you. I will let the great German Philosopher, Max Mueller, do that for you. I want the exact translation so that you can appreciate as to why these are not ordinary mantras.

Then there was not non-existent nor existent:

there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.

What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter?

was water there, unfathomed depth of water?

Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal:

no sign was there, the day's and night's divider.

that one thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature,

apart from it was nothing whatsoever.

Let us remember that these verses ( the 129th hymn of the 10th Mandala of Rig Veda) are supposed to explain the Creation of Universe. But instead of answering, these pose questions: probing philosophical questions of impenetrable depth. These lines pack so much thoughts that even 3000 years after they were first recited, countless scholars are gasping for answers for one question - How could primitive humans in 1000 BC , be so profoundly wise and sceptical about God’s role in creation ? And at a time, when the order of the day should have been to sing your prayer in the praise of the Almighty, bow humbly before Him to prevent flood and famine and get down to the business of your daily farming .

Why are they so enigmatic ?

Think ! What are” not non-existent” and “nor existent” ? Why should Rig Vedic poets or philosophers think of such riddles? What purpose does it serve?
Or does it sound a little like Black Holes? You can not see them as the escape velocity from them reaches speed of light. So neither light nor any other form of information can escape them. They are invisible, non-existent for all practical purposes ! Yet they exist. And influence others by the tremendous gravitational force exuded from their huge mass. They are “cosmic nothings” made up of “huge things”, created when large stars die after their nuclear fuels runs out!

Solid matter - contained in star clusters, galaxies and black holes that we have around - is actually very rare in our universe. Matter floats in the universe like cosmic dust particles with immense expanse of nothingness separating them. So much rare is matter that the average matter-density of observable universe is just one hydrogen atom in every four cubic meter volume. (Lucky that we have so much matter around us on earth!). But recent scientific observation has concluded that what seems like empty space among the floating galaxies is actually not empty. It is filled with mysterious “dark matter “ and “dark energy” which account for most of the observable universe and explains the force behind its rapid accelerated expansion. This seemingly “non-existent” dark matter and energy really account for the “existent” ones , their motion and position. They also hold the secrets of understanding what happened during creation of Universe .

And what about death? Was it there? Of course not! Death, as we know it, of complex organic cells generated by the coded messages of DNA , was initially not there. That arose long after billions and billions of chance combination of atoms led to the fortuitous birth of self replicating molecule .! But then there was no immortality either. New stars were being born and old stars died and collapsed into white dwarfs or super novae. Planets arose around some stars. The cosmic dance birth and death, of stars and galaxies continued. And somewhere in the cosmos, clusters of inorganic molecules became self-replicating and in some cases ,as in the case of humans, self-conscious! “

“Seems like a heavy does of philosophy? Wait till I get to the next two verses” , chuckled Satya.
“ It gets even more intriguing there “

को अद्धा वेद क इह पर वोचत कुत आजाता कुत इयंविस्र्ष्टिः

अर्वाग देवा अस्य विसर्जनेनाथा को वेद यताबभूव

इयं विस्र्ष्टिर्यत आबभूव यदि वा दधे यदि वा न

यो अस्याध्यक्षः परमे वयोमन सो अङग वेद यदि वा नवेद

Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation? The gods are later than this world's creation. Who knows, then, whence it first came into being?

He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it, Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows it not.

“This is what has baffled even modern scientists. This piece from the ancient Rig Veda is really the extreme in scepticism . Only a highly philosophically evolved society could dwell on such posers ! Who were these people in Rig Vedic period to conclude that “gods were later than the world’s creation”? If Gods came afterwards, who completed creation ? A super God ? Nice ! But the writer (s?) of the above verses even doubts that? What then is the truth ?”

Satya went on , encouraged probably by our undivided attention .

“ These two verses have generated great debates over years – from religious leaders to quantum physicists . Cornel University Astronomy professor, Carl Sagan often quoted this mysterious sukta to prove that a spirit of “doubt” persisted even among the most ancient societies and rues the fact that even today, many of us do not have such a spirit of rational enquiry!”

“One more round of tea ? For deeper soul searching?” , asked Priyambada and nobody dared to disagree! “

“Ideal to dispel the philosophical fog hanging in the air “, I interjected.

Satya was not listening. He had relapsed into his trade mark monologue. Tea or not, there was no way to bring him back to reality immediately.

“Do you want to know what I personally think of these two verse s.”. Said Satya.
“Yes, Yes go on, we are all ears for you!” , I encouraged him to speak , for his own theories were often made of bizarre stuff ,- ranging from the banal to the bewildering !

Satya did not need my encouragement. He had already started.

“ I think they ( the verses ) declare the boundary of human knowledge and announce a limitation to its capability . You see, can humans know everything by using their brain? Or is there something which can never be known to them, no matter however much they tried through a system “reason , logic and observation”. In other words, is there an upper limit to the application of knowledge ? Is there something absolutely unknowable for ever? Is there something which will forever remain uncertain”

“How could that be ?” I asked and went on to prove that I also knew a bit of modern science to participate! “Why should there be an upper limit? By application of their “mind” human beings have achieved so much! They have even transcended and augmented the limits of their god –given senses. They can listen to ultrasound and see infra-red. They can see beneath their bodies by sending invisible rays and converting them into printable images which can be interpreted by their natural eyes . They can set up powerful radio telescopes to detect feeble signals from exploding stars in deep space, magnify them and create visible maps. They can literally listen to the dolphins and whales who talk in sound waves with frequencies undetectable to human ears. They seem to go on and on in their victorious march on nature . With the help of a soft 1.5 kg of bloated, wired mass called “brain” , sitting on top of their erect bodies, this strange specie have been able to contemplate on the abstract subject of infinity , visualize great distance in our cosmos and comprehend the behaviour of the tiniest entities inhabiting the sub atomic quantum world. They may be mere mortals, yet they are self-conscious and are able to do one thing that no other species does – “ contemplate on the fact of their own contemplation” . If they still don’t know something, that is because of the fact that their latest knowledge tool “science” has not yet got enough time since it’s invention. Why therefore should there be any uncertainty? I think, the Rig Vedic fellows were merely kidding !” , I said in one breadth and having the satisfaction of defeating Satya in his home turf .
Devjani, who thought I was on her side, gave me a glance laced with a you-too –Brutus accusation.

“Sorry to disappoint you My friend” , said Satya, “ Much as I would wish human knowledge to be a winner all the way right up to the end , it actually is not . “

“Let me tell you an interesting story. As the 20th century dawned mathematicians of the world gathered in the second ever “ World Congress” on Mathematics in Paris. Its opening address was by a German Mathematician called David Hilbert. His speech has since been regarded as the most famous and most influential speech in mathematics. That was a time when science was riding on the wheels of mathematics and mankind was waking upto its combined potential. Great discoveries tumbled out one by one from the European Laboratories. Scientific optimism was on the air! But certain mathematical problems remain unsolved and some mathematical conjectures appeared true but unproven. Hilbert was of the view that key to all human understanding lies in mathematics, the language of the universe. He singled out 23 unproven problems and declared that their solution will define the course of 20th century mathematics. Everybody agreed that there must be some way to prove them. Nothing is improvable by human intellect. So the final declaration of this great congress was “We must know, we will know”.

But within a few years, a sickly looking Austrian mathematician destroyed the second part of this triumphant declaration for ever. His name was Kurt Godel and what he invented sent shivers down the spine of mathematician, logicians and thinkers of al hue around the world. For what he proved was a theorem which states that “there will always be something improvable”. Proving that something will always remain improvable to any system of logic was exactly opposite to Hilbert’s futuristic claim , “We will know”. According to Gödel, there really is something about which we can never be certain about whether it is true or false , right or wrong ! Sounds eerily similar to the last lines of “Nasadiya sukta” , isn’t it ? Godel called this “incompleteness theorem” , others called the “The God Principle “. Here at last is the final frontier for human knowledge. Religious leaders and theologians, wary of a marauding Science, heaved a sigh of relief realizing that here was a proof that humans could never be omniscient, thanks largely to Godel. But God did not help Godel, who turned increasingly delusional at later life, refused to take food as he saw unseen enemies poisoning him and died a lonely death in a psychiatric hospital at Princeton . His best and only friend with whom he daily walked from his apartment to college and back , watched helplessly . Thus died the greatest ever logician of all time about whom Einstein had once remarked “I have no more interest in my works on Relativity. These days, I go to the college, merely for the privilege of walking back with Gödel”
Just when the news was out the “unknowable” really exists, albeit mathematically, another young mind, the German Physicist Heisenberg noticed something strange about the nature of the subatomic particle- one can not tell the position and speed of a particle simultaneously no matter how sophisticated instruments you employ. If you know one exactly, the other one is uncertain and vice-versa. It is as if, uncertainty is woven into the very fabric of nature. It is as if there is a real world within “is and isn’t”, “right and wrong” and “existent and non-existent”. Humans have to accept this seemingly unreal nature of reality and the uncertain behaviour of the micro-particles which constitute the certain , ready to touch macro-world! Heisenberg called it this “the uncertainty principle”. Unlike Godel who had to flee Europe to avoid persecution, Heisenberg received a Nobel and was made the Director of Nazi atomic bomb project by Hitler!

So where does that leave us. Today’s science knows about the existence of the non-existent and the certainty of the uncertain in the universe . Dozens of quantum mechanical and relativistic experiments testify to it on almost daily basis. “

“Just as the ancients mused in the last four line of the Nasadiya Sukta, replied Devjani.
It was close to 9.30 AM.

Satya glanced at his watch, gave a shriek and rushed out. It was time for him to go to office and push his pen in the highly certain world of Indian Babudom !

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WORLD WAR II - WHEN SANITY TOOK A BREAK

This is the 70th year of start of WW-II. Few days back , when my 12 year old son , Shreyans , after being asked to do a school project on World War, wondered as to why he should bother at all about such silly things , I decided it was time to tell him the story of this great human conflict.

Here is how it went, for the introductory chapter (Part-1).

THE WAR LIKE NEVER BEFORE (PART-I)

World War-II is the single most destructive conflict in recorded human history. In terms of human loss, it counts more than all other previous wars of world put together. No other event in the past has influenced the course of human history as much as this did. As the war ended, there was hardly any country in the world which was either directly or indirectly not affected by it. Every field of human activity- politics, society, science, technology, warfare and even painting and literature – underwent momentous changes because of it.

The war started with a German cavalry charge on the borders of Poland just like any other ancient war but ended with the devastating exhibition of the most modern weapon known to mankind-The nuclear bomb. The war started as a limited European conflict but ended encompassing the entire planet’s continents and all its oceans. From the cold steppes of Russia to the burning deserts of Africa, from the impenetrable jungles of Indonesia to the desolate islands of Okinawa – it caused destruction of lives and property never seen before in human history.

But apart from the victory and defeat which are normal part of any war in history, this war exposed the weakness of human nature and the beast like cruelty it is capable of - in the name of nationalism. It showed that man can not only create factories for industry but also build industries for death in the form of concentration camps. Designed by engineers, architects and scientists, these murder mills were progammed to deliver death to their unsuspecting victims-six million in all- with unprecedented efficiency. Those who were led through the gates of these death-factories were not people of war but simple innocent men , women and children , who happened to be having a particular religion not liked by their executioners! Deception ran in concentration camps right from the start –The entry gates had euphemistic German slogans like “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Woks make you free) , flower gardens lined up the path leading to gas chambers which in turn were masquerading as community shower rooms. As frightened naked men women and children huddled for a supposedly disinfecting bath, lethal Zyklon-B tablets rained from hidden roof vents snuffing the lives out of their bodies in a matter of minutes. As the tablets evaporated and rose upwards, small kids fell first , some even clutching their toys up to the last moment, and then the adults fell on top of them in heaps. When the shrieks gradually stopped , it was time to feed one more batch of processed dead bodies to the burning ovens of the creamatoria to churn out the finished products - the ashes of innocent human beings and hairs of Jew women - to be used as fertilizers for German agriculture and mattresses for Nazi soldiers. Even as the war was drawing to an end, these murder mills remained surprisingly active, turning out their daily quota of dead bodies at furious pace. At the end six million of civilian Jews had vanished into the sky – through the chimneys of Auswitchz, Treblinka , Bergen-Belsen and countless other concentration camps !
What do all these teach us? The potential of hatred? The absence of a God supposed to rescue his creation from periodic chaos and turmoil? Or the real picture of the animal that hides within all of under a veneer of civilization - ready to emerge at the slightest outbreak of insanity ?

In his groundbreaking BBC television series “Ascent of Man” , standing in front of a pond in Aushwitz (the largest concentration camp) into which ashes of two million bodies had been flushed, Jacob Brownski, the British Mathematician and Biologist tries to drive the same message. Elie Wisel, the nobel peace prize winning author, echoes the same feeling in his book “Night”.
But as a human conflict, WW-II was unique- a war of sharp contrasts and grand contradictions. The war saw crushing victories of dictatorship over democracy at the beginning and its dramatic reversal at the end. It shook the faith of mankind in the virtue of democratic way of life for a short duration as Hitler and Mussolini notched victories after victories and appeared nearly invincible but made us finally believe that democracy is the only surviving kits for mankind. Before the war, Germany was the epicenter of European learning where the fire of knowledge raged in its institution and universities. And it was the same Germany, the land of Beethoven and Goethe which, within few years , witnessed huge bon-fire of books on its city streets. During this period Germany drove the world’s greatest ever scientific genius, Albert Einstein, to America and surrendered to the greatest evil genius of history, Adolf Hitler - the vegetarian , non-smoking, non-drinking ordinary soldier of WW-I who disapproved killing of animals , led a simple life and slept on a hard bunk with his mother’s photo by the bed side. It is amazing to think that Hitler, the ultimate dictator had been a product of a genuine German democratic process.

Well , the contrasts do not end there.

In the years leading to war , like a magician, he made Germans believe the unbelievable – That the Jews, a race that has given the largest number of Nobel Winners in history- is actually a race of morons! And those who have broad shoulders and high cheekbone –The Aryans - are destined to rule the world forever. Throughout the six years of war, he possessed the German soul like none before – making the average German see things that never existed and believe in victory when defeat stared . Even the Swastika sign which Hitler chose for the Nazi flag and which signified fear, terror and often death, is actually taken from ancient Hindu mythology that symbolizes peace, luck and well being to its bearer. Such was the devastation let loose by its bearers that even today, the symbol continues to be dreaded in the West . Yet in the east and far east, the followers of three world religions, Hinduism, Budhhism and Jainism, bear it adoringly everywhere- from tattoos on their shoulders to designs on daily apparel.

The war quickly made Hitler the winner - the master of Europe with an empire larger than that possessed by Alexander or Napoleon . But it was the same winner who drove his nation to its tragic denouement. The thousand year rule of third Reich that he had promised to German people did not last even for 12 years, leaving on its wake, a trail of death and destruction everywhere in Europe.

Seventy years after the event, if you can identify a single non-religious personality that is recognizable in every country or society on earth as the symbol of totalitarianism, it will undoubtedly be Hitler. As a recent historian put it, he was perhaps Satan’s best answer to God! No wonder, when Times choose, Einstein as the Person of the Century , they had to offer an exclusive explanation as to why the choice was not Hitler ! (Person of Century is not about whether a person is good or bad but about having maxim influence on the events of the period under consideartion) .

The war was not without certain positive fallouts. Great scientific and technological advancements took place during the war. The jet planes that we see today, the ubiquitous computers, the security of internet commerce, the space suit that Neil Armstrong wore to moon, the antibiotic we take to fight against germs and the cruise missiles of modern warfare – all owe their origins to the developments made during this period. As the war came to an end, the world saw the emergence of two new superpowers – America and Soviet Russia - and the extinction of a previous super power – the British on whose empire, it was said that “sun never sets”. Unable to maintain distant colonies with a war ravaged economy and relegated to a lower status in the global power hierarchy in the new world order , the great imperial British gradually retreated from Asia and Africa resulting in unexpected freedom for many countries like, perhaps, India ! While it’s end brought peace , it also started the beginning of a new confrontation - between two new superpowers and their two contending economic ideas-Capitalism and Socialism. Before the light of new found peace bathed an exhausted world, it got divided into two hostile blocks and the shadow of Cold War lengthened across every nation heralding the deadly age of nuclear arms competition and possible annihilation of the entire human race.

Why is this period so important? Practically any scientific or technological feat that we see today, every hue of political or economic philosophy we come across , has some trace in this tumultuous period of human history. Therefore to understand these things, appreciate them in right perspective and above all to prevent this chapter of history from repeating itself, a proper knowledge of this period is a must for every one.

"That is why, my son, you should bother about this period in History ", I told Shreyans!

Globalization@Recession.com : Mails From a Globalized World

Globalization@Recession.org

Looking out of the classroom window, in the Belfer Center of Kennedy School of Government, Harvard, USA, I tried to focus my mind on the ongoing lecture – “Globalization”. It was a part of the curriculum in my Masters degree in Public Management.

I know... today it is a much maligned word, especially in the developing world. In the desert settlements of Sub-Saharan Africa, where much of the teeming humanity strives to live in one-dollar-a-day income, it assumes the proportion of a divine curse.

But not too long ago it was the Holy Grail for the developed world, as Jagadish Bhagawati, the famed American Economist of Indian Origin would testify. Never mind the occasional attacks mounted by a certain Joseph Stiglitz, another American Nobel Economist.

At the beginning of the lecture, the Nash looking professor had asked all of us to define “globalization” in our own words. It was so difficult to define it. I mean you know a thing in a kind of vague way , but when someone asks you for a precise definition , you would be kind of "dashed" as Wooster ( of P.G.Wodehouse fame) would have put it . The classroom had students from all over the world- from Mexico to Kenya. Yet only a few ventured to define. None was satisfactory...at least to the professor.

Right after that moment my mind was not on the lecture. So simple and familiar a word and yet it appeared to confound us all. After struggling for a while an American student, sitting near me opened his lunch box and closed his mind.

I tried to pen my thoughts on a scrap of paper and surprised to see it taking the shape of a rhyming poem. Here is what I wrote that day :-

“
Globalization

When a virus in Pakistan,
Crashes computers from Botswana to Boston...
When a twist from Michael Jackson,
Triggers epileptic feats in a Mongolian maiden...

You feel an invisible force,
The force, my friend, of globalization!

When a terrorist in Jordan, Transfers money from Japan
To buy a bomb in Ukraine, for a target in Manhattan...

You feel an invisible force,
The force, my friend, of globalization!

If Dollars catch fever from the sneezes of a Yen,
And pizza-wars over market share are fought in dry Congo-terrain,
When Baggio turns Buddhist and Beckham’s tattoo reflects Vedic Religion...

You feel an invisible force,
The force, my friend, of globalization!

What is globalization?
Is it an attempt to create a single face and one vision?

For a planet that ploughs through the space,
In a state of perpetual motion …? “

======================

PostScript: - As recession casts its long shadow over the global economic landscape, virtues of Milton Freedman style capitalism seem less evident. The Keynesians appear to be back with a bang in the free market havens of USA as Obama tries to drag the country away from the approaching apocalypse through Government intervention - an euphemism for “Capitol crying for Capital”. The Indian-GDP sized stimulus package announced by US government to pull the omnipotent multinationals of yesterday up the abyss of bankruptcy brings the curtain down on a quarter century of unbridled free market economic theory. Remember, the cardinal principle of Free Market Capitalism – “No artificial correction to the “Aggregate Demand” through Fiscal and Monetary measures. The market would recover by itself in the long run.” More than 700 billion dollars of tax payer’s money for correcting the imbalance! Seems more of a “creation” of a new economic curve than a “correction” to an existing one.

Remember how Keynes had ridiculed the free market champions in his famous phrase “In the long run we are all dead .... His policy prescription during the depression years was that instead of trying to save ,the Government should “spend the money they don’t have”. In recession his innovative idea was when the private industry shrinks and hands over the pink slip to its workers, the State should create work and may even pay its citizens “ for digging holes and filling them back”.

So we will be unfortunate to witness one more epic battle of “Free market Philosophy” (that is at the heart of “Free Trade and Globalization”) of Bhagawati and the “Interventionist” approach of John Maynard Keynes – a battle that has been witnessed more than once in the last century. So far Obama seems to listen to the ghost of Keynes while Hayek and Freedman turn in their graves.

And as I write today , my sacred belief in Hayek and Freedman seems to shake, wobble and totter – a dashed unpleasant state of mind as Bertie Wooster would have testified...
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BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE DREAM IS OVER (PART-5 of 5)

Back To The Future - The Dream is Over!

After visiting the Valley of Kings at the West Bank, we went to see the giant statues of "Colossi of Memnon" and the temple of the queen Hatshepsut . While the Colosssi statutes offered the best photo-op for the tourists, the temple of Hatshepsut was unique - It was constructed by the a queen pharaoh who shined through a long line of male knigs dominating Egypt's past. So those of us , who were bored with the male mummies so far , took notice . A female pharaoh aroused our curiosity. It is said that upon the death of her father in 1493 B.C., Hatshepsut married her half-brother Thutmose-II and assumed the title of Great Royal Wife. Incest among Egyptian Royality was not rare. ( Did you know that the ravishing Cleopatra, the last Pharaoh of Egypt, , had to marry her brother aged 11, in order to be the queen of Egypt as the rule demanded a female to have a consort to ascend the throne !) Thutmose-II was the greatest campaigner of ancient Egypt and better remembered as "Egypt's Napoleon". After his death, she assumed the titile of "God Amun's wife" and ruled Egypt.
As the hot sun prepared to settle down for the day , we arrived at the famous Karnak Temple complex. Some say, this is perhaps the largest temple in world history before the era of organized religion. Standing inside a bewildering maze of pillars and obelisks , I realized that this vast temple complex was as important as the pyramids or the Valley of Kings in historical and archaeological terms. In fact, if you go to Egypt, the three places I would advise you not to miss are the Great Pyramid, The Valley of Kings and the Karnak Temple Complex of Luxor.

Karnak was known as Ipet-isut (most select of places) by the ancient Egyptians. It is a city of temples built over 2000 years and dedicated to the Theban triad of Amun (Sun God), Mut (Mother Goddess) and Khonsu (Moon God). Standing there , I wondered whether it is a matter of coincidence that the largest Sun Temple in India is named “Konark” and that in Egypt is called “Karnak” ? Did the Kalinga kings borrow this name from their African Counterpart? After all , the scene of a Giraffe being gifted to the king is depicted in the stone relief of Konark Temple and India had no giraffes when Konark was being built . The derelict place, much like Borobuddur or Angkor Vat, is still capable of overshadowing many of the wonders of the modern world and in its day must have been an awe inspiring sight. For the ancient Egyptian population this could only have been the “place of the gods”. It was the mother of all religious buildings, the largest ever made and a place of pilgrimage for nearly 4000 years. It covers almost 200 acres .The area of the sacred enclosure of Amon alone is 61 acres and can hold ten average European cathedrals. The great temple at the heart of Karnak is so big; St.Piter’s, Milan and North Dame Cathedrals could be lost within its wall. There are columns which are nearly 15 mtrs in diameter and would take 10 adults with their outstretched arms joined together to cover a single pillar’s circumference. ( Remember how tourists try to embrace the Iron Pillar in Delhi with their outstretched hands. Here , you have to line up 15 of them to encircle one pillar ! )Each pillar, each wall of this temple is like personalized dairies of the pharaohs who ruled Egypt thousands of years ago- all written in hieroglyphic language and still well preserved. These writings, correlated with papyrus accounts of ancient times , give a remarkable clarity and authenticity to Egypt’s past. In fact, in Egypt’s history not only the year but even the date of ascension of some kings can be fixed easily though the event happened some three to four thousand years ago. Unlike the ancient Indians, the ancient Egyptians believed that the written word has magical powers. So they wrote wherever they could – on the walls and obelisks of Karnak, inside the tombs of the Valley of Kings and even on articles kept for a king’s use in afterlife.

Compare it to ancient history of India where even some of the major happenings are mired in controversy and lack authenticity because of what Historians call the “lack of genuine source material”. Even , Ashoka ( 273 BC-232BC?) the greatest of ancient Indian King, was unknown to all subsequent kings- the Guptas, Hrashvardhan, Moguls and so on- till a British official of Calcutta , Joseph Princep, deciphered the Brahmi script and interpreted the inscription on the stone edicts of Ashoka. Even then, in none of the rock edicts the name “Asoka” was mentioned which led to an unprecedented historical manhunt by the British historians till finally one such edict was discovered , clearly bearing the name of Ashoka, in Karnataka in 1915! How Princep put the various pieces of this historical jigsaw resulting in discovery of Ashoka is nothing short of modern crime thriller . Isn't it astonishing that the Great Ashoka was introduced to our history books only 100 years ago! When I pass by the Princep Ghat back home in Calcutta, I feel a sense of gratitude to this great man, Joseph Princep, for giving us , Indians, our greatest ever king. But even now, nothing definite is known about Ashoka’s ancestors or whether he had 99 brothers (whom he is alleged to have killed to ascend the Mauryan throne!).

Though we may be proud of the antiquity of Indian civilization, think of it –our earliest surviving ancient monuments belong to post Buddhist era (3rd century BC onwards). The lion capitol of Ashoka at Saranath, which is our national emblem, is dated 250 BC. The only historical relics surviving out of our Indus Valley (contemporaneous to Old Kingdom of Egypt) are few single storied houses and drainage! Our oldest written documents with unambiguous historicity (Kautilya’s Artha Shastra ) belong the early Mauryan period only, hardly 3rd century BC. In the Vedic period, no durable writing medium was known to Indians and the sages passed down the sacred texts to their disciple through continuous verbal repetition ( shruti ). Hence , none of these exist in written form today. Compared to us, the ancient Egyptians had mastered the ultra durable Papyrus as a writing medium and were busy penning their history right from the period of Egypt's 1st Dynasty (4,000 BC) upto upto 11th century AD. Truly, their antiquity- unambiguous , well preserved and documented, dwarfs many of contemporary civilizations!

In the evening we went to buy some souvenirs and Egyptian curios. The hot favourite – Papyrus paintings , mummy masks and Egyptian cotton shirts . Our guide had informed us that it is comparatively cheaper in Luxor town. As I was going through the crowded bazaar, a shopkeeper called out “India? I nodded. He shot back “ Amitabh Bachhan! Come to my shop please. Really good stuff here for you”. Everywhere in Egypt I went, I heard the name of Amitabh Bachhan next to the word “Indian”. For all practical purposes, Amitabh, is a synonym for India as far as Egypt is concerned . Everyone from little children to bearded shopkeepers knows about him. I was told that Hindi films especially that of Amitbh are extremely popular in Egypt. That must be so, because we had noticed that one cable channel in our hotel room beamed Hindi movies continuously. When I asked a boy at a shop about Hindi movies he told me that he had recently seen Shakti movie. “What acting man, this Amitabh of yours! This guy is really great” he gushed. Everywhere, we went, we found the Egyptians extremely fond of Indian Tourists and when a shopkeeper even offered his mobile phone to me as a loving gift from Egypt,I was truly overwhelmed. Never, in any foreign land, have I seen so much fondness for India ! Bosses in the ministry of tourism and producers of Bollywood potboilers, please take notice - here is an untapped market for you with unlimited goodwill!

In Luxor market, I was puzzled to see some shops marked as “hassle free”. I asked the guide what it means and he told me that in those shops, tourists are not pestered to buy something at any cost. I asked the price of a papyrus painting, the shopkeepers answered 100 pounds. I turned away and immediately the shopkeepers became very apologetic, “do not be angry, my friend. You tell your price. Does not matter whether you buy or not. Let us do business”. Tourism is taken seriously in Egypt. No wonder ten million of them from all around the globe flock here every year. The guide came running from another end and immediately enquired whether the shopkeeper was trying to hassle us. They probably do not know what hassle means in a typical Indian bazaar.

The tour finally came to an end as we headed to Luxor station for a train to Cairo. A porter called out “India! Amitabh !” and came running towards us . When the train arrived , it was a sheer coincidence to find the same ticket collector on our coach. He immediately recognized us and greeted us with “Hello India, back from the trip? How is Amitabh Bachhan back home?”

Alps Tours, Calcutta had fulfilled all its promises. We had heard many horror stories from people about travel agencies promising a heaven to tourist and leaving in the lurch in strange foreign lands ( after, of course the payment is made!). But not so with Alps Tours, whose owners Abhijit Dhar personally accompanied the group and took care throughout the trip. He had promised us a pyramid for breakfast, a Karnak for lunch and a belly dancer for dinner- all served with slices of History! He truly kept his words. What more can you expect for a sum of a little above $1000?

==============END OF TRAVELOGUE===============================

TEMPLES, GODS AND THE CURSE OF A MUMMY- (PART-4 of 5)

TEMPLES, GODS AND THE CURSE OF A MUMMY

The next day we sailed for the Philae Temple, situated in Agilika Island. Philae in Greek, or Pilak in ancient Egyptian meaning “the end”, defines the southern most limit of Egypt. It was begun by Ptolemy-II and completed by the Roman Emperors. The temple was dedicated to the goddess Isis, the wife of Osiris and mother of Horus. These three characters dominate ancient Egyptian culture and their story possesses all the drama of a Shakespearian tragedy. The god Osiris is murdered and dismembered by his brother Seth. Isis searches for the fragments, collects them together and with her magic powers bring Osiris back to life. They then conceive the god Horus. Osiris becomes god of the under world and judge of the dead – who must answer to him for their deeds on Earth. Meanwhile, Isis gives birth to Horus and protects the young god. Later when Horus is grown he avenges his father's death by defeating Seth in combat. The temple of Philae was nearly lost under water when the high Aswan dam was built in the 1960s. Fortunately, the temple was rescued by a joint operation between the Egyptian government and UNESCO. In an engineering feat to rival the ancients the whole island was surrounded with a dam and the inside pumped dry. Then every stone block of the temple complex was labeled and removed later to be assembled, like a giant jigsaw puzzle, on the higher ground of Agilka Island. Not even a fraction of the original geometry and architecture was compromised in this unique restoration work. The project took ten years of untiring international effort but it succeeded in saving one of the Egypt’s most beautiful temples from certain destruction.

We returned back to our ship just before noon. The summer heat was easily bearable thanks to gentle soothing breeze blowing on the Nile. Most of us were hungry by now. As we took positions in the dining hall for lunch, the ship started sailing from Aswan. From the dining room window amidst the sound of clattering spoons and forks, the view of the Blue Nile looked breathtaking. I finished my lunch quickly and moved to the upper deck to appreciate the moving panorama. The afternoon was spent either playing chess with Freddie, an American Engineer or gossiping with fellow tourists from Calcutta on the deck. A table tennis board on the middle deck and some Chinese tourists kept my son busy most of the time. The cruise stopped at a town called Edfu. After dinner at 2030 hrs, we gathered for the Gallabiya show where tourists were requested to wear traditional Egyptian dresses and made to dance in circles. The Chinese and some Indians literally went berserk as the crew abandoned the traditional Egyptian music and swayed to the beats of an old Bollywood hit- “Muqabla Muquabla”.

We anchored in Edfu Town in the evening. This is a small riverside town. Our scheduled visit next day was Edfu temple. I went to the deck early in the morning to witness sunrise on Nile. Looking across the river, I could see the quaint little Edfu town waking to morning life as a reddish brown sun shone on it. This town still has small horse carriages to ferry the tourists from various cruise boats to the temple. Some of these horse carts had started plying on the riverside road even in this early hour. From the upper deck you can listen the gradually approaching and then receding sounds of their hooves as the carts passed by. In the back drop of a sun climbing above the clear blue water of Nile, this small old town looked as if nothing has changed here since the pyramids.

Edfu temple is located in the outskirts of this town. After taking a light breakfast we left the boat and hopped into one such horse carriage. Several other such carts moved in the front and in the back of our carriage, all headed in the same direction. As the caravan moved, sound of horses’ hooves kept rhythm with the side swings of our cart while we passed through streets with fading neon signs. Somewhere along the way, I had a feeling of oscillating between modernity and antiquity in this mysterious land called Egypt.

The next two days were spent on more shore excursions to historic temples along the Nile coast. On the way we passed the beautiful Esna Lock in Nile. The lunch, dinner and breakfast were exotic for some while boring for others. The typically Egyptian fare at the dinner was already getting on the nerves of many tourists as they missed their home food. But others liked the great variety of salads, fish, chickens and sweet dishes which were on offer. I did not bother about the food as I was busy eating Egypt throughout the day. Some Bengali ladies missed their staple Indian food so much that one day the cruise management specially made “chhole” in their honour. Whatever be the food, the attention given to us by our Egyptian guide was really special. He would even come to our table to enquire whether we are comfortable with the menu or require our items to be prepared in any other manner.

Our cruise journey finally ended in the southern town of Luxor. From here we were to return to Cairo by train. Luxor is world famous as a holiday resort and for the “Valley of kings “. When Pharaohs noticed that the mummies of their forefathers were not safe form tomb raiders even inside the great pyramid, they wanted to shift them to a distant and safe place. Surrounded by mountains of sandstone, this desolate desert valley in the middle of nowhere must have seemed an impregnable resting place for the great souls of the ancestors! And truly, here they lie, undisturbed since centuries! Elaborate burial chambers were cut deep into mountain sides by thousands of workers. Some of the tombs, here, are strange and huge, like the tomb of Hathsepsut which winds down in a zig zag manner for a length 200 mtrs in length from the entrance to a depth of nearly 100 meters below where the actual burial chamber is located. The tombs were constructed and decorated by the workers from adjoining areas and mainly from the village of Deir el-Medina , located in a small wadi between this valley and the Valley of Queens, facing Thebes (old name for Luxor). The workers journeyed to the tombs via routes over the Theban hills. Legend has it that all the workers were brought to this Valley blindfolded and when the work for the day was over, returned back to their places blindfolded to preserve the secrecy of this location. The daily lives of these workers are quite well known and are recorded in some tombs’s walls and official documents of that time. Amongst the events is perhaps the first recorded worker's strike, detailed in the “Turin strike papyrus” This place, in its heydays, might have been the country’s top secret location, much like the secret atomic reactor of an aspiring nuclear power of present day! No wonder, this became the principal burial site for the powerful kings and nobles of the New Kingdom (11 Th to 16th century BC). The official secrecy, a dry hot climate coupled with near absence of rain has helped preserve these tombs for nearly 3500 years!

But Valley of Kings lives in public memory as the place where the boy king “Tutankhamen’s (1341 BC-1323 BC) mummy resides. When the British Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922, the most intact and best preserved of all tombs in Egypt, he created an extraordinary public sensation.. An Egyptomania swept across the entire world. The king was sleeping there inside his elegant gold sarcophagus and with hundreds of artifacts for his use in afterlife as if he had died only yesterday. It was the most sensational archaeological discovery of all time. Even though Valley Of Kings has the tombs of other more important pharaohs like Ramses the Great , it is this boy king , who died mysteriously at 18, who has dominated public memory and captivated their imagination. The Tutankhamen treasures, totaling nearly 5000 in numbers, retrieved from this tomb, are now on display in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum. When I saw Tut’s mummy in Valley of Kings, a shiver ran down my spine as I remembered the “Curse of the Mummy” which refers to the belief persons who disturbs the mummy of an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh is placed under a curse whereby they will shortly die. ” And death shall come swiftly to those who disturb the king”, is supposed to be written on the walls of one such tombs. Many tombs of pharaohs have similar curses written inside their tombs, possibly to frighten grave diggers. But the belief gained international currency due to some mysterious deaths surrounding the period of Carter’s discovery of Tut’s tomb in 1922 (KV62) which launched the modern era of Egyptology. After repeated failure to locate Tut ‘s tomb, Carter had returned to the valley, for one last attempt . This time he carried with him, a beautiful green canary , as a symbol of good luck . On the day, they got a lead to the buried tomb; the canary was eaten up by an Egyptian Cobra, spreading fears of bad luck among the excavation party. But the intrepid Carter moved on as his financier, Lord Carnavon was already fed up with Carter’s failure and had threatened to cut off the fund. Within a month he had dug up to the central chamber. The news brought Carnavon to the Valley. They dug a hole in the wall, a bamboo pole carrying a small light bulb was pushed through it as Carter peered inside to his ultimate amazement. Carnavon , standing near him asked him what he saw but Carter was speechless. He was witnessing centuries of undisturbed history, sleeping inside and waiting to be woken up. After some time both were inside. The next day, Carnavon spoke to press about their discovery and the world went wild. But within three month, Carnavon, in the pink of his health, mysteriously died. Some more deaths followed and the Mummy’s Curse made headlines on world press. But in reality, Carnavon had been bitten by a mosquito, and later slashed the bite accidentally while shaving. The wound became infected and blood poisoning resulted and he died three months after entering Tut’s tomb. But it did not prevent Mummy’s curse from frightening many. Like Bermuda Triangle , the curse strikes fear in the mind even today. No wonder I was acutely conscious of in the darkly lit pathway leading to the place where Tut slept. Skeptics pointed out that many others who visited the tomb or helped to discover it lived long and healthy lives. Much to my relief, my guide told me that a recent study showed that of the 58 people who were present when the tomb and sarcophagus were opened, only eight died within a dozen years.

Even now, it is the dream of every archaeologist to dig in the Valley of the Kings, the burial ground of the monarchs of the New Kingdom (ca. 1500-1100 BC). Of all the sites in Egypt, this is one of the most magical. It is hard to believe that, of the 63 tombs found in the valley, not one had been officially discovered by an Egyptian archaeologist, possibly outlining the huge financial resources required for an archaeological expedition of this magnitude. Like inventing a new molecule in Pharma industry which requires a billion dollars, at least !

To be concluded ...