We become what we do not want

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 praising his father again, putting him up on a pedestal. He would say, "my father was a great man. No one can do all the things he did." He once again becomes a Superman, an Ubermensch.

At the spring of youth, wanting to explore newer frontiers, learning new things, looking at things from a different, with the possession of new knowledge, we see our parents as fossilised dinosaurs. We think they are not in sync with reality and are not keeping up with the demands of the changing times. We abhor our parents, are embarrassed and vow never to be like them. After all, with the benefit of education and modern knowledge, we think we can do much better. At the end of the day, we realise how wrong we were!

We go through the mill, traversing the joys and aches that life has to offer and soon realise that at the end of the day, we become the very person(s) that we despise.

Anupama Banerjee, daughter of Shakuntala Devi.

If one were to think that this movie all about the achievements of Ms Shakuntala Devi, a simple girl from Karnataka, who later came to be known as the human-computer, an astrologist, a writer, an activist for the gay community and even as the politician who stood against Mrs Indira Gandhi, one will be disappointed. There are many facets of this interesting lady. The storytellers decide to concentrate on her dilemmas being a woman, a wife and a mother in a world that is not really ready for her outlook of the world.

The story is told from the point of view of her daughter Anupama Banerjee. Many, even those in India are not aware of Shakuntala Devi, the mathematics genius. She has the incredible ability to do swift mental calculations. With ease, she would rattle off roots, square roots of multiple orders in record times, faster than the early late 70s' calculators and computers. She also has the ability to tell the days in a calendar. Give her a particular date any year, and she could tell the day it was. She did all these without any formal education. Her father, a circus man, upon discovering her talent at a young age, decided to bring her around showcasing her abilities like a freakshow for money. He brought her to the UK, and she started her shows there, even in Imperial College. Her fame soon brought to all the four corners of the world. Her skills even find a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records.

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Introspection is king!

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 sage named Alara Kalama who tried to unite the microcosm of the inner self and the macrocosm of the universal soul, but Gautama was not impressed. He then joined the renouncers who felt that material attachments impede liberation. After six years of extreme self-denying penances which almost killed him, he abandoned it as well.

He finally chose the path of moderation. In an ever changing external world, our permanent selves do not exist. Nothing is permanent. Everything is contextual. The fundamental reason for suffering is our trapping in materialism and our obsession with the delusion of self. The realisation comes when we know ourselves - know yourself and the world is yours.

At the age of 35, under the shade of Bodh Gaya, every puzzle of the jigsaw fitted perfectly. He was enlightened, he found nirvana. From then, He discovered the Four Noble Truths and the 8-fold paths to end all sufferings. He revolutionised ethics by saying that the intention of our action is more important than the ritual of action. Irrespective of our caste, gender or class, we are the master of our fate. To find answers, we first must look within.

Buddha then ventured to the Central Indian plains. His group of followers formed the Sangha. They received donations from well-wishers. A bamboo retreat was donated by Bimbisara to start a monastery.  Nuns too formed part of the Sangha. This was something revolution for the time when the female gender was looked upon as a burden to society.

Even though on the exterior, the Buddhist teachings may appear to be focused on self-improvement, its ambition is for collective wellbeing. Buddha finally meets his death after feasting on a blacksmith's tainted food.

Two hundred years after his death, a despot reactivated his fledgeling religion and brought it to greater heights. He spread it to East Asia and the Middle East. Ashoka, after his trail of killings and torture, one day had a realisation. He built stupas and sculptured stone carving of Buddha's teachings. In the 5th century AD, India had the first university in the world in Nalanda. It did not last long. Muslim invaders from the north burnt it to the ground in an inferno which last three days.

You cultivate the mind by cultivating it, not torturing it. Change is inevitable, but we have the power to direct the change. At one glance, these sayings look benign. Given the correct over-analysis and coercion, one to bound to think that it is alright to bear arms to injure a fellow human being. After all, we are just directing the change as he deems fit. That could provide the explanation for the somewhat combative stance of Buddhist monks in Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand of late. Points to ponder...

He lived by numbers...

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 Mathematics. He loved it so much that he never studied other subjects and to be contended with life without obtaining a degree.

Growing under the shadow of his dominant maternal shield, Ramanujam, grew up as a stickler for rules and Brahminic traditions. Probably these age-old rituals may have been the very reason why he developed such an astute arithmetic aptitude. In school, when told by the teacher that '0' had no value, he argued that by simply placing a zero behind a number, its value increases 10 folds. Hence, '0' cannot be valueless. In another scenario at a temple, he commented that the offerings that the priests were to the well-wishers would be enough after assessing the crowd number and the availability of food. He was not-so-politely told to mind his own business and not to tell the veteran priests to do their job. Sure enough, his calculation came out true much to the amazement of everyone.

As an adult, Ramanujam realised that India does not what outstanding people. What they want are mediocre simpletons who do not think out the box. The parents thought that his fate would change with a marriage but life continued its dull path.

Ramanujan (centre) with other scientists at Trinity College

Things have hardly changed. Be it 1900s or be it 2015, Asians have to be appreciated by the kwailos and gringos. After a series of dead ends, a letter to a Mathematics Professor Hardy in Cambridge proved to be the turning point. An acceptance to work with the Mathematician eventually led him to greater heights, a degree and acceptance as a Fellow of the Royal Society and Trinity College.

I was particularly impressed with the ritualistic practices that were shown in the film. The devoutly orthodox Brahmin that he is proved to be a scourge throughout his life. First, there was the dilemma of leaving the comfort of the shores of India to go to England. The classical belief is that one who lose his caste and be treated as an outcast by his people. This eventually proved true. After his untimely demise in his early 30s due to tuberculosis, none of his clansmen wanted to attend his funeral. They looked at his death as a sign of wrath of the Gods for crossing the black seas! His particular eating habits, strict vegetarianism, proved self-depreciating. He had to be treated for nutritional deficiencies.

This independent production stars Abinhay Vaddi (the grandson of Gemini Ganesan and Savithri), Suhasini Maniratnam and many famous Tamil movie actors (Sarath Babu, Delhi Ganesh and Radha Ravi among others) appear in cameo roles.

The number 1729 is known as the Hardy–Ramanujan number after a famous anecdote of the British mathematician G. H. Hardy regarding a visit to the hospital to see Ramanujan. In Hardy's words: 

I remember once going to see him when he was ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. 'No', he replied, 'it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. Wikipedia 

An equation for me has no meaning unless it represents a thought of God.       Ramanujam Srinivasa

Bose, Raman, Saha