European Pictures - October and November

Trips & More Trips

Bangalore - Delhi - Bangalore - A Management Game

Bangalore - Mumbai - Lucknow - Delhi - Bangalore - Consulting Workshops

Bangalore - Mumbai - Indore - Mumbai - Calicut - Bangalore - Consulting Workshops

Bangalore - Delhi - Workshop Planning

Next Month - Europe


I'm tired

The Saatchi Gallery

I spent a couple of hours walking around the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea, London. In a city full of great museums, the Gallery seems to hold its own because of its vivid, extremely unusual exhibits.

A corpse on chairs?

A two headed lamp!

Not sure what this is, but its cool!

This is not a creased cloth. Its the actual design!

A room full of speakers!

Workshops and Exercise

I've been helping some folks with running workshops in Delhi. I'm enjoying that though not the travel but thats not too bad.

On a fitness mania at the moment and of course, it has its advantages. Not the least being an ability to be more alert and effective on my feet at the workshop, where the display of kinetic energy is needed.

I feel light and energetic at the ripe old age of 47. In fact I feel more fit than when I was half that number! I hope it lasts!

Nemo's illness

Nemo is ill and we are very down. He has stones in his bladder and is unable to urinate. An operation is the only option but he is too small and weak. It could be dangerous. Wish him well.

My Dogs

Scotty

Cookie
Mocha

Jumble
Jimmy

Jimmy

Jimmy

The Collapse of Education

An entirely new wave of oddly-literates stalk the corridors of the corporate world.

The origins of this strange set seem to be in the zillions of B-Schools to be found at every corner. What are they teaching? Where is the faculty? Why can't these students write at a BASIC level? Why are they completely confused about what they want to do?

Over the past six months I have met students who have no idea what they want to do - finance is the same as marketing which is the same as consulting. All that matters is some strange notion of a 'pay-package' and the brand. Bravado alone is apparently enough. Inflated resumes claiming all kinds of baffling excellence ("Top 0.013% in India in Grade 6") , restless body language, eyes that have already wandered off to the next scheduled interview - are these the leaders of tomorrow? I guess the answer is yes.

I can't wait to be led!

Music in London

I had the pleasure of visiting the Raj Academy of Sikh Music in Southall, London. Met their Principal, Dr. Surinder Singh, a wise and knowledgeable Musicologist. I listened to some soul stirring music in Raag Badhans (not far from Desh) in an orchestra by his students - Esraj, Sarangi, Dilruba and Sarinda. They really believe in bringing feelings out. I was very touched.

I shall be back in Feb to visit them again.

The Runaway Puppy

Sarang's book is featured in a list by Reading Rainbow as something small children should read!

http://www.readingrainbow.in/rrr.shtml

You can get it here http://www.flipkart.com/run-away-puppy-sarang-dev/8187649615-dw23for8te or

Dog Rescue

I managed to get a dog rescued two days ago.

Hour after hour, day after day, month after month, year after year - there it was - tied up in an area called BTM Layout. Half-starved. No dreams of unrestrained freedom. Complete hopelessness. Perhaps waiting for the the bliss of death.

Finally, a complaint to CUPA and my friends there actually rescued it. The 'owners' gave up without any resistance!

Hats off to CUPA!

I am adopting the chap after he recovers at the ICU at CUPA. That might take ten days. Photos soon.

Utterly Ghastly cruelty to animals

There is no limit to the base cruelty of man.

If you have a Facebook account, see the photos on this group of animals skinned alive, beaten to death for 'better taste' and so on.

http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=6976864122&ref=nf

There is no God.

South Africa's SPCA

The NSPCA believes that an animal’s welfare should be considered in terms of the five freedoms

• freedom from hunger and thirst
• freedom from discomfort
• freedom from pain, injury and disease
• freedom to express normal behaviour
• freedom from fear and distress

The NSPCA does not support the chaining of elephants and is opposed to any handling methods which may cause pain and suffering. In terms of the Animals Protection Act, Section 2(1)(b) – any person who

“confines, chains, tethers or secures any animal unnecessarily or under such condition or in such a manner or position as to cause that animal unnecessary suffering or in any place which affords inadequate space, ventilation, light, protection or shelter from heat, cold or weather;”

is guilty of an offence.

Nathaniel's Nutmeg

A fascinating book by Giles Milton about the Nutmeg trade and the associated bloody history.

The Island of Run was exchanged for Manhattan as a political settlement between the Dutch and English.

And read all about Dutch atrocities at Amboyna! Shudder!

Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary - about Animals

The Philosophical Dictionary
Voltaire
Selected and Translated by H.I. Woolf
New York: Knopf, 1924
Scanned by the Hanover College Department of History in 1995.
Proofread and pages added by Jonathan Perry, March 2001.


Animals



What a pitiful, what a sorry thing to have said that animals are machines bereft of understanding and feeling, which perform their operations always in the same way, which learn nothing, perfect nothing, etc. !

What! that bird which makes its nest in a semi-circle when it is attaching it to a wall, which builds it in a quarter circle when it is in an angle, and in a circle upon a tree; that bird acts always in the same way? That hunting-dog which you have disciplined for three months, does it not know more at the end of this time than it knew before your lessons? Does the canary to which you teach a tune repeat it at once? do you not spend a considerable time in teaching it? have you not seen that it has made a mistake and that it corrects itself?

Is it because I speak to you, that you judge that I have feeling, memory, ideas? Well, I do not speak to you; you see me going home looking disconsolate, seeking a paper anxiously, opening the desk where I remember having shut it, finding it, reading it joyfully. You judge that I have experienced the feeling of distress and that of pleasure, that I have memory and understanding.

Bring the same judgment to bear on this dog which has lost its master, which has sought him on every road with sorrowful cries, which enters the house agitated, uneasy, which goes down the stairs, up the stairs, from room to room, which at last finds in his study the master it loves, and which shows him its joy by its cries of delight, by its leaps, by its caresses.

Barbarians seize this dog, which in friendship surpasses man so prodigiously; they nail it on a table, and they dissect it alive in order to show the mesenteric veins. You discover in it all the same organs of feeling that are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the means of feeling in this animal, so that it may not feel? has it nerves in order to be impassible? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction in nature.

But the schoolmasters ask what the soul of animals is? I do not understand this question. A tree has the faculty of receiving in its fibres its sap which circulates, of unfolding the buds of its leaves and its fruit; will you ask what the soul of this tree is? it has received these gifts; the animal has received those of feeling, of memory, of a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts? who has given these faculties? He who has made the grass of the fields to grow, and who makes the earth gravitate toward the sun.

"Animals' souls are substantial forms," said Aristotle, and after Aristotle, the Arab school, and after the Arab school, the angelical school, and after the angelical school, the Sorbonne, and after the Sorbonne, nobody at all.

"Animals' souls are material," cry other philosophers. These have not been in any better fortune than the others. In vain have they been asked what a material soul is; they have to admit that it is matter which has sensation: but what has given it this sensation? It is a material soul, that is to say that it is matter which gives sensation to matter; they cannot issue from this circle.

Listen to other brutes reasoning about the brutes; their soul is a spiritual soul which dies with the body; but what proof have you of it? what idea have you of this spiritual soul, which, in truth, has feeling, memory, and its measure of ideas and ingenuity; but which will never be able to know what a child of six knows? On what ground do you imagine that this being, which is not body, dies with the body? The greatest fools are those who have advanced that this soul is neither body nor spirit. There is a fine system. By spirit we can understand only some unknown thing which is not body. Thus these gentlemen's system comes back to this, that the animals' soul is a substance which is neither body nor something which is not body.

Whence can come so many contradictory errors? From the habit men have always had of examining what a thing is, before knowing if it exists. The clapper, the valve of a bellows, is called in French the "soul" of a bellows. What is this soul? It is a name that I have given to this valve which falls, lets air enter, rises again, and thrusts it through a pipe, when I make the bellows move.

There is not there a distinct soul in the machine: but what makes animals' bellows move? I have already told you, what makes the stars move. The philosopher who said, "Deus est anima brutorum," was right; but he should go further.

The Path: Autobiography of an American Yogi

I just chanced upon this fascinating book by Donald Walters and I found it as powerful as the book of the author's Guru (Autobiography of a Yogi - Paramahamsa Yogananda)

A must-read!

Some great music

After a long time, we actually sat through an entire concert.

Mormukut and Manoj Kedia from Giridih performed in Bangalore yesterday. The sarod and sitar duo started off very beautifully. They played Raag Jhinjhoti and did a very fine Alaap Jor and Jhala. The Teen Taal

compositions were good as well, but I was left vaguely dissatisfied by the usual convergence to a crescendo where the nuances of Jhinjhoti were sacrificed in the interests of ‘performing’. Pilu was nice but a bit shorter than I would have liked. All in all, a pleasant performance.

This was followed by a remarkable concert by Dhondutai Kulkarni. Your typical little old lady, but with a great voice and complete mastery. Simply loved her wonderful Pulashree, with the beautiful use of Shuddha Madhyam and a rising Komal Rishabh. She sang Desh, Rageshree and Shahana. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Tabla accompaniment in both cases was pleasant.

And now I am listening to Amritvarshini by the late Pandit Jitendra Abhisheki.

A weekend well-spent!

(Images borrowed from the net)

Nemo & Scotty

Two nice boys

Nikhil Bannerjee

The most amazing musician. What musical thoughts, what feeling.

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A Life Event

My Mother passed away last Friday while I was away on a short business trip to the US.

Her music, love for books and animals has come down to us, not as perfectly as she might have wanted.

Have I reconciled with her passage? Time will tell.

Kalavati by Malini Rajurkar

Some fabulous music - Raags Kalavati

Malini Rajurkar 1969

When I look into these eyes

A nice video on compassion - the animal anthem

Geeta Dutt

What nostalgia, such marvelous music...eternal brilliance..






Waqt ne kiya: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS681XZqAoQ


Babuji dheere chalna:

Youtube Tabla wonders

Some amazing old footage of musical greats needs to be acknowledged.

Here is Ustab Ahmad Jaan Thirakwa on the Tabla with Ustad Habib Khan on the Vichitra Veena (no one plays it anymore)




Pandit Anokhe Lal of Benaras




Ustad Tafo Khan of Pakistan



One more of Tafo Khan



The late Ustad Amir Khan with the late Pandit Shyamal Bose, with whom I spent many days in Kolkata. He taught me some pieces in Bihag and taught my son Tabla. He was a wonderful short-tempered genius. Memories of a lifetime.....

Rupak Taal

A nice seven beat taal (3 + 4). A favourite for many, though I do not find it easy since I didn't apply myself when I should have.

Here is an example



Here is a piece by Zakir Hussain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvPMLQSz4y0

Basant

And this is Basant from a Pakistani movie.

Horrendously difficult on a violin, mathematically brilliant and lovely to hear.





A modern version from Rashid Khan

The beauty of impermanence

As time passes by and one gets older, it seems right that memories become a burden. Its great that nature dulls the sharpness of some poignant thoughts of events and people.

One looks back with surprise - was I that dumb? How could I have said such and such or done this or that? Was that really me?

I read a science fiction story once that talked about the conquest of death and the accompanying agony of those who wanted to be rid of too many memories, good or bad. The fear of passing on then perhaps went away. We shall move from one reality to another and never know the difference. The observance of cruelty, of a certain God who keeps desperate hopes alive but looks away at the suffering and pain of the innocent - a message garbled by philosophical rubbish, designed to keep us sane - yes, this is not a reality I am interested in. To that extent, I am happy when time accelerates and the pain of the innocent stops. But the cries of their agony will last beyond time.

I wrote a book many years ago on the survival of the animal kingdom and our own eradication as a punishment for centuries of depravity. The logic of suffering of the mute escapes me entirely. But we are superior, we are told, and have the right to erase and inflict.

Basant - Mallika Pukhraj and Tahira Syed

An extraordinary piece based on Raag Basant, a simple beat and two brilliant singers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq3bb33sElU

swimming in the cauvery

Water & Fire

A great trip to an idyllic and picturesque spot called Manchanbele near Bangalore. We had some terrific fun leaping off like fools from 40 feet cliffs into deep water, kayaking and swimming.

And we were face to face with a forest fire that stopped 20 feet away from where we were.

I was happy that I was as fit as guys half my age, which may not be saying much, given our sedentary lifestyles.

Pups & the House

A room with a view

These pups were born on the site.

Side view

Front View

Another view

Finally, a Great Concert

After months of waiting and watching, I finally attended a great concert.

We listened to Alka Deo Marulkar of Goa at the Gokhale Institute.

After a little warming up hesitation, she really stunned the audience. These were the Raags she sang

1. Marwa
2. Purvi (truly delightful)
3. Tilang (a variation)
4. Nat Bhairav (I think, but I could not precisely nail it down)
5. Bhairavi

I greatly appreciated the peace on her face when she sang. I think she is an evolved soul.

The tabla was a bit loud. The accompanists were very average.

Don't miss her if she visits your part of the Galaxy.

Points to ponder

There is only one thing more powerful than all the armies of the world, that is an idea whose time has come.
- Victor Hugo

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.We have guided missiles and misguided men.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.
- Stephen W. Hawking

To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.
- Stephen W. Hawking


The visible world is the invisible organization of energy.
- Physicist Heinz Pagels


There is no reality in the absence of observation.
- The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics


No theory of reality compatible with quantum theory can require spatially separate events to be independent.
- J.S. Bell


If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.
- Niels Bohr


Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.
- Claude Bernard

Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
- Lewis Carroll


Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true.
- Niels Bohr


To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.
- Copernicus


Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
- Albert Einstein

The power of Thought, the magic of the Mind!
- Lord Byron


The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mystical. It is the source of all true art and science.
- Albert Einstein


Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.
- Stephen W. Hawking

It gives me a deep comforting sense that ‘things seen are temporal and things unseen are eternal.’
- Helen Keller
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
- William James


We feel and know that we are eternal.
- Edmund Spenser


As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of being.
- Carl Jung


Time is not a line, but a series of now points.
- Taisen Deshimaru


The birth of a man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach! His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present.
- Chang-Tzu

How could there be any question of acquiring or possessing, when the one thing needful for a man is to become-to be at last, and to die in the fullness of his being.
- Antoine De Saint-Exupery

The spirit down here in man and the spirit up there in the sun, in reality are only one spirit, and there is no other one.
- The Upanishads

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the law of the universe will be simpler.
- H.D. Thoreau

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
- Carl Gustav Jung

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge.
- Albert Einstein

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on.
- Winston Churchill

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become.
- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.
- Georg C. Lichtenberg

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
- Chief Seattle

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity...and I'm not sure about the universe.
- Albert Einstein

Know thyself.
- Socrates

A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
- James Joyce, Ulysses

He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
- Albert Einstein

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.
- John Maynard Keynes

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
- Democritus of Abdera

All great truths begin as blasphemies.
- George Bernard Shaw

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

When the violin sings

Yesterday my violin sang.

New strings that have had time to settle and some great musical inspiration helped. I am a very average violinist but sometimes the sounds of a contented violin are captivating. Especially when one of playing for oneself.

a great piece in Raag Paraj was the inspiration - check this out http://sarangi.info/sarangi/vocal/ratnakar_paraj.wma

Paraj is related to Basant, Puriyadhanashri etc and all flow from Purvi Thaat.

Who are my visitors?

I see that I get a few repeated anonymous visitors who do not leave comments.

You don't have to, but do write and tell me who you are. It would be nice.

Englewood CO
NJ
Delhi

Oddly, a very common search that leads people to my blog is 'forensic'. :-)

Throw them into Jail for Negligence and Dereliction of Duty

While in power, they have security, power, foreign trips - all at our expense.

When there's a problem, they defer to the Italian 'High Command' and 'offer to resign'. If the High Command decides after deliberations to accept their resignations, they just ...LEAVE!!!!! Nothing happens to them! They probably get accommodated as Governors or even Presidents. Nothing happens to them. NOTHING!!! They are NOT ACCOUNTABLE TO US!

This MUST CHANGE! They cannot just resign and get away with this!

These guys should be thrown into jail for negligence and dereliction of duty! They must be held accountable and punished severely!

The great country of Israel

How I admire Israel....

A country where the people have learnt lessons from history and treat every single citizen and his or her grief with great tenderness, while making sure avenging deaths is never a lower priority.



For this poor child, the entire country stood up

"Moshe, you don't have a father and a mother to hold you in their arms... no parents to hug and kiss you," Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky said as mourners dressed in black chanted hymns with tears rolling down their eyes. "You are the child of entire Israel," Kotlarsky said adding the community would take care of the boy, whose parents Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, and his wife Rivka, 28, were among those killed when terrorists stormed the Nariman House in Mumbai.

How utterly moving, how utterly beautiful. I have no doubt that in parallel, those who killed or ordered the killing of the boy's parents will be hunted down and hopefully tortured continuously (not to death please, that's an escape) for years on end.

And now cut to India, where &^%&^%& politicians like the Chief Minister of Kerala, Achuthanandan said this about the family of Major Unnikrishnan who was killed in Mumbai



Achuthanandan, who went to offer his condolences at the Bangalore house of National Security Guard commando Sandeep Unnikrishnan on Sunday night, was turned away by his father. The chief minister reacted sharply, saying that "even a dog would not have gone to their house if he had not been a martyr".

This #$@)(*%$# dares to say this!

And where was the Defence Minister? Why did he not attend the funeral?

I forgot - he is busy figuring out who the next Chief Minister of Maharashtra is to be.

Patil, Patil & Patil

More weird stuff.
29 Nov 2008, 2134 hrs IST, IANS: When asked at a press conference whether the terror strike was an intelligence failure, Patil said in Hindi: "Aisa nahi hai. Itne bade shahar mein chhota hadsa ho jata hai. To total failure nahi hai. (It is not like that. In big cities like this, small incidents do happen. It's is not a total failure.)"

Others do notice Incompetence:

Walter Andersen, currently associate director of the South Asia Program at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, told rediff.com, "I am surprised that after several terrorist incidents, the government hasn't moved faster to get something much more effectively in place."

"You have a totally incompetent home minister (Shivraj Patil), and why he isn't removed is beyond me," he said, "He really doesn't know how to get the bureaucracy organised to have some sort of coordinated planning."

Our 'President' is still holidaying in Indonesia. Others notice.


Fri Nov 28, 7:20 am ET DENPASAR, Indonesia (AFP) – Indian President Pratibha Patil arrived in Indonesia for a six-day visit Friday, going ahead with a Southeast Asian trip despite deadly militant attacks in Mumbai.

More pictures of house construction

Some fine Gentlemen

This is my little boy Nemo. He thinks I'm his Dad.

These guys like to hang out with me because I can be easily manipulated. Thats Jumbtle, Scotty and Nemo.

Humble Jumble, with the big heart.

Weird Stuff At a time of crisis

The most astounding, weird stuff is happening now in India.

The Prime Minister has warned Pakistan for the 3462474th time. He's asked the ISI chief to visit, all expenses paid.

The Home Minister said: "Before I could reach there, the terrorists who had attacked one of the hospitals, the Cama Hospital, had left and those who attacked the railway station had also left," Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil said. NOTHING bothers this man.

Our 'President' is vacationing in Vietnam and has not thought it necessary to return to India. On second thoughts, let her stay there.

Sonia Gandhi has condemned the attack. Imagine that!

Rahul Baba, heir-apparent, with no known source of income, has said "Its a terrorist attack." Now that's profound!

Allahabad and Pune

A nice trip outside Bangalore on a campus recruitment mission.

It had been quite some time since I visited UP. I went to Allahabad and enjoyed Sangam, the confluence of Yamuna and Ganga. An expensive boat ride takes you from the banks of the Yamuna to the point of confluence, where one takes a nice dip and then returns. Religious ardour is everywhere and the setting is quite nice. I also brought home a Guava sapling – Allahabad is famous for its Guavas – and I also visited the temple of the reclining Hanuman, which comes with its own interesting myth, about how he lay down to control Ganga and how she washes him once a year. Such stories are actually quite beautiful.

Then on to Pune, which I had not visited since 2002. Not too much to say except that it seemed a cleaner city (than Bangalore) and the roads were better. Now I’m back and quite exhausted.

On the subject of Literature, the only note of disappointment is that I discovered that the habit of reading anything sensible has been discarded a long time ago. No one cares.