Oh Enemy!

Oh Enemy! - Varavara Rao.

A page from my 1991 Diary

 Twirled Moustache

 i’ve lost that unquenchable thirst,

To chase a dream.

i no longer have the strength, once i believed i had,

To reshape this world.

Somewhere along the way,

That anger of a youth died out.

And that twirled moustache shaved off.

Now, As i run the rat race

Bound to a keyboard and a glowing screen,

My shoulders have grown narrow,

Thoughts, even narrower.

My identity reduced to - The house i own,

The balance i keep.

The man in the mirror feels like a stranger,

His gaze unfamiliar, his voice silent.

Yet, the fragrance of those bygone days’ drifts back,

When I flip the worn-out pages

Of my Bharati.

-Krishna-

மழையும் நதியும்

 

வேர்களுக்கு நன்றி

 

விதி முறிக்கும் மனிதம்

 

சுகமான சுமைகள்

 

Novelist, Spy and Gentleman

My first brush with John Le Carre happened when, as a kid, I discovered “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” and “The Looking Glass War”, among the books that my grandfather had left behind. Although I read those books many, many years later, somehow the names have stayed on in my memory and I still remember the red cover page of “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold”

John Le Carre was born, David John Morre Cornwell. His mother left them when he was 5 (he tracked her later- but could not mend the relationship) and his father Ronnie was a notorious conman, who would use David and his elder brother in all his schemes and also beat them up regularly. David never went to a proper school and grew up without love or books. This disturbing childhood left a deep scar (“Until I die the father-son relationship will obsess me”) and would be a recurrent theme in his books in some shade; especially so in the 1996 semi-autobiographical novel ‘A Perfect Spy’.

David had to adopt a pen name as he was a spy himself and worked with MI5 and MI6 and started writing his books while in service. His first book was 'Call of the Dead' in 1961. But it was the ‘The spy who came in from the cold' that turned the limelight on John Le Carre and he resigned from the service (probably asked to leave) and became a full-time writer. His writing was dark and realistic compared to the flamboyant and glamorous world created by the other British spy novelist Ian Fleming (who was also a British intelligence officer). The characters they created were also starkly contrasting; George Smiley and James Bond respectively. Smiley, is a lonely, brooding, (sometimes bumbling) and pudgy (often, he is referred to as a ‘toad’) character who, nevertheless, is a brilliant spy who is devoted to his country and profession.

Among this many books, I especially love the Smiley series but my favorite Le Carre has to be Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (also made into a successful movie in which a shapeshifting Gary Oldman plays a wonderful Smiley version). In this maze  of a story, Smiley goes about to find the Russian mole inside the agency and becomes the head of the crumbling MI6 the Intelligence agency known internally as the Circus and starts to rebuild it (Le Carre created a delightful set of spy jargons like Circus). The 6 part BBC mini-series “Smiley’s People” where Alex Guinness plays Smiley is riveting too – this is available on YouTube. But that is just me; if you have to read just one of his novels or looking for a book to start, then “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” is the place to start. This gripping story would raise many moral questions and will question the assumption that West was morally superior (during the cold war era).

Le Carre’s plots are complex and covered by many layers of intrigue; he brought a seriousness to the genre by creating a dark and treacherous world driven by the political interest that was morally ambiguous, especially during and post-cold war era. After the end of the espionage era; Le Carre takes up new villains in the form of corrupt businessmen, arms dealers, terrorists, and even big pharma and continued to write in everlasting righteousness and integrity till the ripe old age of 88 (his last book Agent Running in the Field (2019) is written with Brexit as the backdrop). For all his formidable writing, he notoriously shied away from recognition; he turned down an OBE; withdrew from the Booker nomination, and gave away the Olof Palme prize money to Doctors without Borders. With his passing, a giant who wrote serious fiction, and who wrote that, better than many serious non-fiction writers passed away. Writers come and go; but someone like Le Carre, who creates a genre, rules it for nearly 60 years, and thus influencing a whole generation of authors and creators, they don’t come very often. 

John Le Carre passed away on the 12th of December 2020.

A letter from the future (after a 3 year lockdown)

 

My Dear,

 

As we complete 3 years of shutting ourselves in, I thought of writing this to you, not because we are apart, but because we may read this on a day in the future when we want to look back at our best during the worst of times.

As home and office blended with each other and as the days and nights blended together, I am happy to be still working, more than working, I am glad I am still alive and that we are still a family, staying intact. I never thought I will miss my commute through these Pune roads, but there it is, I do miss the long journey to the office and back, I miss that bad canteen food, and to my surprise, I miss some people at work too (no, I am not going to name them nor am I going to say why I am surprised). But these are good problems to have, no?

Over these 3 years, we have come closer, we got to know each other better, we support each other in all we do, small and big. Our early thoughts and fear that spending more time alone, just the two of us, would only breed contempt proved to be wrong, rather happily. Of course, we get to see the rest of the world only through a zoom

I do not know how much longer we need to go on like this, do not know when we will have a vaccine or a pill to feel safer, to get out, and go back to what we used to call normal. We are tired of news of a miracle or a miracle medicine and have in fact stopped believing in all such news. We just brace for the lockdowns, one after the other. We shut out all data of the disease and the details of how many died. We just think of, ‘what to cook for dinner’ (with what little we have) or ‘what to watch on NetFlix or Prime’. We just take one small challenge at a time; we just look at each day on its own. After all these years, we have started to live in the present. A Zenish, mindful living; some would call it.

Yes, we have changed in other ways too, mostly for the good, we have learned to be frugal, right from what we eat, and to any other resource we use. We have learned to be thankful for trivial things. We are healthier than ever before.

Still, when I see the photos you have kept on display or when I hear the sound from the conch shell (which I found while cleaning the house), I slip back in time and recall how the waves used to wet our feet again and again, how you used to run those grains of sand through your fingers. Most of all, I yearn to just sit with you, and watch the full moon bathe the Shore Temple and turn the sea to silver… just, one more time.

 

Love,

K

July 17, 2023.

Ship of Theseus

 

Our Soul's Song - Celebrating SPB

The Pandemic of Our Minds

“But race is the child of racism, not the father.”

― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“So, let’s all get a little uncomfortable.”

― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race

The killing of George Floyd by police during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25 and the (US) nation-wide demonstrations and protests that followed the unfortunate event, kept me thinking about this complex issue of racism and I sought out to read some contemporary writings on the subject. Two books really stood out and came highly recommended; “So, you want to talk about race by Ijeoma Oluo” and “Between the world and me by Ta-Nehisi Coates”.

I especially liked ‘Between the world and me’, which is written in the form of a letter from the author to his 14-year-old son, Samori. The book is an intense account of what it means to grow up and be black in America today. The writing reflects the depth of the author’s fear and anger while he was growing up in West Baltimore. Since Mr. Coates is trained as a poet, the book is structured and written elegantly. At some places, it made me pause and deliberate at the depth of the issue even today, but I reserve my thoughts as I will never be able to fully comprehend the feeling of being a minority and fighting against centuries-old systemic oppression.

Conversations on race and racism can make most of us uncomfortable and it surely is an area of uncertainty for people of all races. Ms. Oluo’s book is a simple and straightforward guide for handling those complex conversations with sensitivity and clarity making this an important book for everyone. Some of the ideas in the book - like the origins of the US police force, the ‘School to prison pipeline’, Model Minority were revealing, especially for a third person to the core topic of this book. Comparatively; this book is an easier read, (but equally powerful), will truly make us uncomfortable, and question some of the interactions we take for granted.

Both the books are mostly specific to the US, but the emotions and ideas expressed are common for all of us, and in that sense, they are profound, enlightening, and searing documentaries of our times.

Reading these books had me thinking about the biases we carry here in India. It is not news that we are one of the worst offenders when it comes to our love for fair skin. The huge market for fairness creams (valued around 4000 Crores. 62% of Indians in the age group of 15-34 are users as per a survey conducted in 2016, 39 % are regular users), the bombardment of the adverts for those creams during primetime (this is despite 2015 ruling against misrepresentation and 2020), the blatant matrimonial ads asking for a fair bride (yes, they are still there, I checked!) these are just the day-to-day signs of this underlying evil.

As individuals, we would have come across casual comments, name callings, etc. During my early school days, I remember one of my friends was called ‘crow’, an obvious reference to the skin color, he never seemed to take it seriously; or so we thought, until one day when I went to his home and his mother started narrating that he was indeed hurt by this name-calling and would be so disturbed when he came back from school and while narrating this she started crying; I would never forget that hurt and anger. Recently, one of my colleagues from North India, told/asked me in a typical conversational tone “most of the South Indians are black, no?”. Looking back, when the first incident happened and I did not realize the impact caused to my friend (and his family) and did not stand by my friend, but I did give a lecture of sorts to the colleague who was intrigued by the skin tone of the south Indians (not sure what impact that had). Incidents like these prove how deep-rooted this bias is in all aspects of our life. We may use these terms/comments intentionally, unintentionally, affectionately, ignorantly, patronizingly, or as aggression- in any form, it is just wrong.

Our obsession with fair skin is just the beginning of our deficiencies. We discriminate based on caste, religion, region, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, even what we eat would isolate us and make us susceptible to discrimination. If we really think about it, all these various forms of discrimination are the manifestation of the underlying ‘class discrimination’. It is always the ‘powerful vs the weak’. While we all, at some point would have been the victims of one or the other forms of discrimination; we would have discriminated against someone, for some reason, at some point in time too. Sometimes we are the aggressors and sometimes we are the victims; it depends on our ‘Position of Power’.

It is not easy to dismantle these deep-rooted societal structures; especially something like caste segregation that is historically ingrained for well over 2000 years. It is clear that we can’t rely on our leaders, gurus, and heroes (the 3 top influencers in this country) to come and change this for us. The change has to start with us; and the first step is to understand that as individuals we all carry such biases based on our position of power and once we acknowledge that fact, the next step is to be conscious and not letting these prejudices color our day to day interactions. So, as individuals this cycle of ‘1. Understanding 2. Self-checking and 3. Changing’ is critical for us to move forward.

I am not so naïve that I dream of an equal society anytime soon, but in recent times we have come some distance by taking a few steps in the right direction and the next generation holds out a lot of promise and hope.

Heroes

என்னுள் நீ!

Sapiens - A review by Venkat.

Venkat is very passionate about Sapiens and the ideas from the book, so I requested him to write the review but somehow it was not happening, so I wrote one in the meanwhile, Now he has penned his thoughts and I am glad he did, for this is more than just a review of the book...

Krishna-

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Prof. Yuval Noah Harari is one of the most entertaining and informative books that I have read in a long time. This has been recommended by former President Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates among others. This has been translated into multiple languages since 2014 and has been an international bestseller. 

Prof. Harari states – 70,000 years ago, humans developed cognitive ability which bestowed them to think and communicate in abstract terms (ones that defy objective reality). If we were to ask ourselves what set us apart from other animals, this is that moment in our evolutionary path. Animals still completely rely on biology for their evolution – which is painfully slow.

While all other animals still have a limit on their pack – by believing in stories that are fictitious, humans broke that barrier. These fictional stories gave us multiple identities and enabled us to cooperate with complete strangers to achieve our goals. Material needs ensued invention of money, companies myth; need for social order birthed religions-gods myth; these and fortuitous foray into agriculture enabled us to live in few thousands together – from alpha males to tribal chieftains, we moved on to Empires myth which coagulated into nation, country myths, etc.

One of the offshoots of the scientific revolution - project Gutenberg started publishing books which helped successive generations of humans to stand on the shoulders of their forebears and shoot for stars. Consider this for a moment, it just took 60 years since the invention of the airplane for humans to send a man to the moon.

In retrospect, it has been a good ride for humans. Why complain?

The imagined identities that we amassed (which we call growing up) from such fictional stories– is causing more harm by dividing us now into us vs them, good vs evil, what’s true vs what’s not, and worse still, we do not seem to care for truth either. To make matters worse – Silicon Valley social media giants are competing with one another to capture and retain our eyeballs. They are exploiting our vulnerabilities by racing to the bottom of our brain stem through their suggestions for us to read, watch videos, associate oneself with one or another moral group. The result? We now live in balkanized communities with more stark fault lines and conversations between groups is impossible. Technology has been leveraged in the elections last few years world over to manipulate people’s will by pressing our emotional buttons without our knowledge or consent; If this continues – Civilizations and Democracy as we know of, would be a thing of past.

To be fair – humans have always had differences of opinion. But when you combine that with complete communication breakdown with the other side, indulge in name calling, de-humanize people in opposite camps – we have been through those situations in the past and those did not end well.

In a globalized world – we all are more interconnected and interdependent than we believe we are. If we consider every major challenge facing humans now – nature of future job market in the age of AI, impact of climate change, nuclear weapons– all these needs coordinated responses from all countries.

Is there a way out? What could I do as a responsible human? At an individual level – we could spend time and educate ourselves. With so many layers of identities each one of us accumulate as part of growing up – member of a family, company, culture, region, religion, language, country, philosophy, etc. – we need to train ourselves to see and experience reality without any of these imagined identities.

Sapiens could help you get there. If. only. you. want. to.

Venkat-

Pilgrimage Within

Our imagined orders of yesterday
Become our realities of today
As, Our stories of today
become our history for tomorrow

The facades we build
To support our social structures
Become our shackles
That hold us back

The myths we weave
To explain our ignorance,
Become our gospels
That lead us astray

The heroes we create
To overcome our fears,
They become our Gods
Whom we fear now

We become prisoners
Of our thoughts,
As our hopes
Become our dogmas

There is no Saviour coming;
Our salvation will come
When, we question our
Handed down wisdom

There is no Shepherd coming;
We will know our direction
When, in the quest for knowledge
We open our minds

There is no  Charioteer coming;
Our enlightenment will come
When, in search of our true self
We start the Pilgrimage within.

- Krishna
Inspired by "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari.

Sapiens - Why humans dominate the Earth?

A meaningful life can be extremely satisfying even in the midst of hardship, whereas a meaningless life is a terrible ordeal no matter how comfortable it is – Yuval Noah Harari

There are some books that make you sit up and do a lot of “deep thinking”, make you question your core beliefs and as a result, possibly alter you as a person. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari is one of them.

Harari is an Israeli historian and a professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is gay, vegan and a practitioner of Vipasana meditation for 20 years (and vocal about all of them). Harari specialized in medieval and military history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has a Doctorate from Oxford. He has many best sellers and articles to his name, Sapiens being the foremost among them. Sapiens was published in Hebrew in 2011, became a national best seller in Israel and was published in English in 2014; it has since been translated into some 50 languages. It made Harari a superstar.

Sapiens is breath-taking in its scope (which is the entire history of our Human race and projections for the future thrown in for a good measure!), Provocative in its assertions, entertaining in its language; this book is surely an unputdownable.  Some of what is written in the book is not new or original, some are wild assertions too, but the extraordinary writing paints a macro view of the different stages of our evolution through our many revolutions makes this book very engaging and important. As you read, you will agree that Harari does have a different way of looking at things e.g., "we did not domesticate wheat. It domesticated us", “Consistency is the playground of dull minds”  (The last one would have been inspired by Oscar Wilde who said “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative” ).

Sapiens is mostly about how we (Humans) came to dominate the Earth - in spite of having many disadvantages and being an “insignificant animal” (sic) and a little about what may lie ahead for us in the years to come. The book traces human history through various human revolutions, It starts with the first, about 70,000 years ago with the cognitive revolution, and then to around 12,000 years ago as the agricultural revolution starts with domestication of plants and animals and start to settle down in colonies; third is the scientific revolution, about 500 years ago that leads to industrial and later information revolution about 50 years ago and then the Biotech revolution – which is just evolving and transforming; probably into bio-engineered cyborgs that could live forever – which in some ways signal the end for Sapiens!

The key change, of course is the start of the cognitive revolution, which set us on a different evolutionary arc. This Cognitive revolution helped us to create stories and imagined realities (myths) like money, country, God (yes, all these are only real because we have collectively chosen to believe so), this enabled us to work in large groups in a flexible, cooperative manner, that in turn enabled us to create economy, empire and religion. This was a game-changer as we out ran (or wiped out) our competitors including our cousins the powerful Neanderthals - who lived until about 40,000 years ago. Much like the network of low powered computers made the mighty standalone mainframes insignificant and eventually obsolete. Long story short; our human domination is the outcome of our cooperation and ability to use tools and technologies and the cooperation is because of our beliefs in common ideological or religious myths.

The future according to Harari, holds dangers and opportunities. From what I read, opportunities for a minority and dangers for the majority, primarily because of the gaps between rich and poor and a huge class of humans who would be rendered useless thru AI. We are seeing both these scenarios are already in play, the divide between poor and rich is wider than ever before – (the Oxfam report states that the wealth gap continued to widen in 2017, with 82% of global wealth generated going to the wealthiest 1%. Another report states that 2,153 billionaires owned as much wealth as the bottom 4.6 billion people in 2019) and more and more workers losing jobs to AI, robotics and automation in general and unable to repurpose themselves (Forrester predicts job losses of 29% by 2030 with only 13% job creation to compensate). Such economic disparity along with job loss is a perfect recipe for political instability and a general moral crisis (Widening income inequality is the defining challenge of our time- 2015 IMF report). History proves that humans have not handled power responsibly, for us the relationship between power and responsibility is inversely proportional.

Harari touches upon various topics across a wide spectrum; globalization, human greed, the definition of happiness; whatever the topic Harari never ceases to surprise with his ability to connect the dots (which at times, does look a little far-fetched) and thus creating an amazing visual of the past and future of mankind. So, as Aristotle said; ‘It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it’ or as Venkat says ‘leave your opinions in the parking lot’ and get ready to ‘immerse yourself’ (this is important) and start to question your values, judgements and the opinions that you left behind at the parking lot!

Sapiens is listed as one of 10 favourite books of Bill Gates and is the Gaurdian’s best brainy books of the decade

“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”

― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Spring in the Dessert

Being Curious

How Democracies Die

“The drift into authoritarianism doesn’t always set off alarm bells. Citizens are often slow to realize that their democracy is being dismantled even as it happens before their eyes.”  Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblat - How Democracies Die

Today, the slide from democracy to autocracy happens in small increments, over a period of time. Unlike the coup that ends an elected regime abruptly and, in most cases violently; democracies, in the modern political world are killed slowly by the leaders who are elected to protect that very system which they used to get to power in the first place. This, is the premise of the book “How Democracies Die”

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt are Harvard University’s political scientists and this book by them comes at a time, when democracies across the world are being threatened by right wing alpha male leaders. The book is a warning, an alarm, to the ascension of demagogues and helps to identify the preceding signs. Although the book focuses on the US (the idea of the book is prompted by the election of Trump) it uses case studies of leaders from other countries including Putin in Russia, Erdoğan in Turkey, Orbán in Hungary and Maduro in Venezuela. Based on these studies, the authors outline four key indicators, or warning signs, of authoritarian behavior that is detrimental to democracy (1) the rejection, in words or action, of the democratic rules of the game, (2) the denial of the legitimacy of political opponents, (3) toleration or encouragement of violence, and (4) a willingness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including the media. If we consider these key indicators, there is no denying the fact that Democracies across the world are facing existential threats from big, loud mouthed and divisive nationalist leaders.

In addition to the 4 indicators, the authors also identify two crucial informal norms (the unspoken/unwritten rules) as the pillars of democracy (other than the formal institutions and processes), (1) mutual toleration and (2) institutional forbearance. These informal norms are also being undermined in the recent times, when leaders are focusing on their short-term gains as against the long-term benefits for the nation/people they govern.

The book could have had an increased focus on influence of social media in the democratic process. We have seen in the recent elections of US and India that social media has played a significant role in swaying the though process of voters and thereby the votes and results. Social media (ab)use had a similar effect on the Brexit vote too. We also have most of the leaders today communicating through this medium rather than the traditional media. At times it feels like the US is governed through a series of Twitter posts.

The solutions provided in the book are primarily through lessons from history, which may or may not be applicable in today's world. The solutions also sound too idealistic in the current environment. Nevertheless, this is an interesting and important book which has come out at an appropriate time, especially for us. While we are not seeing all the 4 indicators consistently, there surely are green shoots here and there. As for the 2 informal norms (mutual toleration and institutional forbearance), I am sure the evidence is there for everyone to see (esp., if you watch the 9:00 P.M. special debates). The book is even more important now, considering that there is no visible or audible political opposition today in this country – which, for me, is the first sign of the slide in a democracy.

Life of the Purposefully Unrushed

A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles.

A Gentleman in Moscow is an exquisite tale, that for most parts moves like a stream, at a languid pace and then all of a sudden takes a surprising turn and crashes down with the power and beauty of a mighty falls.

Post the Russian Revolution, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov is condemned to lifelong house arrest in the majestic Hotel Metropol in Central Moscow by a Bolshevik tribunal. He would be shot if he ever steps out of the hotel. And so the story goes on as Count Rostov moves to a disused servant’s quarters (more of an attic) in the hotel and becomes, from an aristocrat, to a waiter and stays on for 32 years, till he makes a stunning escape.

In those 32 years we travel through the turbulent times of Russia, from the Bolshevik upheaval, to the tyrannical times of Stalin (to think that one of our political leaders is named after this dictator who condemned and killed millions of his own folk!) and to Second World War.

For the generation (at least for Sree and me) who grew up on NCBH (New Century Book House on Mount Road, Chennai, was a beautiful place filled with the fragrance of new books, that had amazing illustrations and top notch print and paper quality), Maxim Gorky’s Mother and the romanticism of communism; would be able to connect, reminisce and eventually be disappointed with the reality of the times gone by (there is a remark on Gorky in the book, which would shake those who revered Gorky and The Mother).

The Novel, is a series of lessons on culture, and Gentlemanness (I know it is not a word, but it does sounds appropriate) during some very difficult times), with references to fine wine, books and music (the three core elements of a good life, wouldn’t you agree?). The book is a discourse on moral discipline, but done with a light humor and charm that it hardly sounds preachy at any time (also, there is an awesome reference to Casablanca that is beautifully appropriate).
Narrated in third person, you become a part of the ensemble and grow alongside the characters. Some of them so wonderful, you make friends with them, you hate- just the one character and surely will fall in love with a few.

This is just the second novel for American author Amor Towles ( the first being Rules of Civility, also a best seller). Towles, left behind a successful investment profession of 22 years to become a successful novelist. It took more than 3 years for Towles to finish The Gentleman in Moscow and every page is a testament to that spectacular effort.

Quotes from the book, that I liked most:

• If a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.
• What matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim.
• If patience wasn’t so easily tested, then it would hardly be a virtue
• To what end, he wondered, had the Divine created the stars in heaven to fill a man with feelings of inspiration one day and insignificance the next?
•  Life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate and our opinions evolve--if not glacially, then at least gradually. Such that the events of an average day are as likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew.