RIFLE RANGE BOY

Shakuntala Devi (Hindi; 2020) A joke that my friend once told me comes to mind. A child, aged 5, will think that his father is some kind of a superman. He is strong and invincible. At 10, he is still looked up upon. In the teenage years, the relationship sours. By 20, son and father do not see eye-to-eye. Father tries to pave the path with his wisdom, but the son thinks his ways are passé. He soon refers to his father as 'your husband' when talking to his mother about him. He only communicates with his mother and does not engage in any form of conversation with his father. Things just happen in a ritualistic manner. Son gets married, has a child, slowly enjoys parenthood. He soon realises the intricacies of parenting. By 45, he is impressed by his father's ability to juggle work, family life and skill to educate his siblings with his meagre income. By 50 or 55, the son tries to make up for lost times. When the son is 60, the father has passed on, and the son starts prais...

Genius of the Ancient World (BBC Four) #1. Buddha Centuries before modern man came up with the concept of cognitive psychology and self-discoveries, there walk a man in flesh and blood who questioned the ritualistic practices of the people in the name of the Protector. At a time when Brahmin sages performed sacrificial rites to appease the Maker so that man can be taken care in the next life, he stood to question the relevance of these. Leaving his comfortable life in the courtyards of the leader of the Sankya clansmen in Southern Nepal, he wandered to the buzzing city in Maghada state. People of the cosmopolitan town of Patna were alive with many questions and ideas about life and its purpose. Siddharta Gautama queried the concept of samsara and the cycle of life. If rituals could change the fate of the high caste in the next life, what happens to the traders and workers rank. Are they destined to be trapped in miseries forever? He sought for his answers with a s...

Ramanujam (2014) Some 2 years ago, my son asked me about the Indian subcontinent's contribution to the sciences in modern times. He told me about accolades conferred to Indians, but scientific discoveries were far too few to enumerate, he said. Besides telling the usual adage that ‘everything comes from India’, pizza (crusted masala thosai) to noodles/spaghetti (idiyapam) to philosophy to NASA scientists and silicon valley geeks, he was surprised to hear about India’s Nobel prize winner and the Quantum Indians of the early 20th century. These three forgotten Indian scientists of Satyendra Nath Bose, CV Raman and Meghnad Saha revolutionised Physics and Indian Science in the early part of the 20th century by giving the world Bosons, the Raman Effect, the Saha Equation and India's first and only Nobel for Science. Unlike these highly educated scholars, in Madras, there lived a timid Brahmin boy who thought of nothing else by Mathematics. He slept, drank, ate and even dreamt M...