An Autobiography - Prof Dr Hematram Yadav

 

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How dynamic was ancient India?

Growing up in the later part of the 1970s, kids of my generation were drilled into us that India was a subcontinent of poverty, filth, and pickpockets. Even our history books taught us that it was a land of darkness, living in its myths, superstitions, and cults, waiting to be civilised by the mighty European race and their scientific discoveries.

https://borderlessjournal.com/2024/12/16/how-dynamic-was-ancient-india/

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All starts from India?

The Golden Road - How Ancient India Transformed the World (2024)

Author: William Dalrymple

The author is quite unapologetic that his book would sound like an episode from the famous British desi sitcom, 'Goodness Gracious Me'. In fact, Sanjay Bhaskar, the main character in the above sitcom, was the invited guest to launch Dalrymple's latest book on Indian history.

This book is a joy to read. Packed with information from cover to cover, extensive research must have been conducted into the world of the Indosphere before waves of invaders destroyed it and rewrote its history.

Its cultural influence spread beyond its borders. Indian advanced navigational skills, using the seasonal monsoon winds to bring goods, knowledge, and culture to adjacent regions, were assets for mankind. India was a big brother figure to the Southeast Asian region, as far as the present Indochina region and even to China.

As early as the first century CE, the trade imbalance was so great, favouring India. A third of India's business was with the Romans. They traded pearls, gold, spices, diamonds, incense, eunuch slaves, ivory, perfumes, and even exotic animals like elephants and tigers. Imagine the sheer size of Indian ships that could carry elephants. Proof of these was found in the drawings in the Ajunta Caves. The Buddhists, contrary to the austere life that Buddhists are assumed to be living, encouraged trade and mercantilism. A Roman Emperor in the 1st century was reported to be incensed with his subjects' fixation with Indian spices (which he found distasteful) and almost transparent Indian cloth (that left nothing to the imagination). The image of Buddha in the Kushan Era had Greeco-Roman features.

It is said that British hunters' discovery of the Ajuntha Caves led to the discovery of India's long-forgotten tryst with Buddhism. Ironically, Buddhist monks have been found as far as Libya (sent by Asoka) and Alexandria. The Buddhists, it is said, had an influence on the Christian monastic movements.

It is perplexing that India was looked upon even by the Chinese as a cultured region. Its scholars endured treacherous land journeys to acquire knowledge from renowned universities like Nalanda and Taxila to learn and translate Buddhist scriptures. Sanskrit was viewed as the language of the elite. Travelogues of Xuanzang's 16-year journey against the restrictions imposed by the Sui Dynasty returns tells about a well-developed India with high intellect and culture. Buddhism was no longer popular in India and had moved eastwards.

There was a well-coordinated shipping line from the Bay of Bengal throughout the Straits of Malacca to Indonesia and China. Indonesia was a Sanskrit centre where scholars stopped over to master the language before going off to India. Buddhism soon competed with Confucianism and Taoism as the state's official way of life. The first female Empress of China, Wu Zetian, was instrumental in building innumerable Buddhist shrines in Loyang, China, in the third century CE. This colourful figure ruled for over 50 years. Many sculptures, scholars and astronomers from India were invited to set up offices in China.

By the 7th century CE, the likes of Brahmagupta and Aryabatta brought mathematics and astronomy to a different level. India's competence in architecture and science and its Ayurveda made it the most advanced country in the world at that time. Ujjain, in central India, had a space observatory centre then. They had advanced ideas of keeping time, the meridian, and shipping. 

Sailing sailors from Southern India mastered shipbuilding and navigational techniques. Their seamen brought Indian culture, influence, and civilisation to faraway lands like Indonesia, Cambodia, and beyond. Testimonies of Indian expertise are seen in many mammoth temples there—Angkor Wat, Borobudur, etc.

Observatory in Ujjain,

built by Maharaja Jai Singh II, 1725

When the Muslim invaders started attacking the northern part of India, the wealth of knowledge found here also fascinated Muslim scholars. An influential Buddhist family from northern Afghanistan, the Barmakids, are credited with bringing Hindu knowledge to the Abbasid Empire. They converted to Islam and helped to build the city of Baghdad. The Barmakids' descendants became important advisors to the rulers, but one fell out of favour with Harun al Rashid, and their legacy ended there. 

After falling out of favour of things from India, the Abbasids had sourced knowledge from Greek scriptures. 

Andalusia was a vital region which showcased the golden age of Islamic civilisation. With its serene gardens irrigated with advanced water pumps, it was heaven on Earth. In 1085, the Christian King Alfonso VI conquered Toledo. King Alfonso's attack left the libraries undisturbed, unlike the Muslim and Mongol invaders who destroyed everything in sight. European scholars found the Indian knowledge there profound. The earlier translated Indian wisdom was translated again into Latin and made its way to Oxford. They were erroneously labelled Arabic numbers. Fibonacci, credited for the numbers (of his namesake), apparently learned it from these books. He picked up the wonder of numbers from Algeria. Of course, the discoverers of trigonometry, zero and negative numbers were Indians. 

The New India has woken to the awareness of its glorious past. After being a leading force for thousands of years, it is amazing how it had fallen off the pedestal. With new leaders who vow to return the nation to its past laurels, it is marching towards a new dawn.

(PS. When I was young, I was curious to see Roman coins being part of the ornaments adorning my Amma's thali chain. How did Roman symbols come to be part of Indian jewellery? When we learnt history in school, it was so fragmented and compartmentalized, and the two regions were different like night and day. Of course, there were huge trades between Tamil Nadu and the Roman Empire then. And possessing foreign goods must have been an item to flaunt around. Hence, the desire to thread it into the thali chain and inadvertently let it slip out  occasionally for full view of others to be jealous.)

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Indian Fables

Vetalam dan Vikramaditya (2020)
Author: Uthaya Sankar SB 

I remember a time when a newly married couple rented a room in our house. My sister and I, 4 and 6 years old, respectively, were dying to hear the wife's stories that she did tell without fail every evening, with our persuasion, of course. She had a peculiar way of making us glued to her stories. We affectionately addressed her as ‘Atteh’ (Auntie, father’s sister or maternal uncle’s wife). 

Every evening, after she had her shower as she returned from work, it was storytime. Her stories usually carried a message, and many of them were Indian folk tales, including ‘Vetalam and Vikramaditya’. 

‘Vetalam and Vikramaditya’ stories always carry a moral dilemma that needs critical thinking. We were often disappointed as she never told us the answers to the questions she put forward. She would ask us to think carefully.

That is the thing about these stories. Legend has it (it is probably a historical statement now) that King Vikramaditya was a King based in Ujjain. A fun fact is that Ujiian in Madhya Pradesh is sometimes referred to as the navel of Earth or Greenwich of India. Before 1884, as per a 4th-century treatise, Ujjian was considered the prime meridian. Even today, the panchangayam (Hindu almanack) is based on Ujjian time (29 minutes behind IST).

Vikramaditya in Ujjian

Many kings took the honorary title of Vikramaditya. Hence, there was confusion about who the real Vikramaditya was. It is agreed that he probably ruled around the first century BC under the Vikrama Samrat era.

In the 'Vetalam and Vikramaditya' stories, King Vikramaditya is summoned by priests to capture a playful and sly demon from a cemetery by daybreak. The King manages to trap the demon, Vetalam. The trouble was that the talkative imp had a penchant to escape from the clutches of the King. The King was relentless, however. The demon made a deal with Vikramaditya. It would narrate stories that would need answers, to which the King had to answer. The King's head would explode if he gave the wrong, but Vethalam would escape if the answer is right.

The night goes on with Vedalam telling stories, expecting answers, the King giving the correct answer, Vethalam escaping, King capturing him again, and Vethalam starting a new story. Thus it went on the whole night. By the way, the King was not allowed to speak. It was done telepathically. Towards early morning, they had built a rapport and joined forces to crack the priests' ulterior motives.

One of the stories is similar to the story of P Ramlee's 'Keluarga 69' and K Balachander's ' Apoorva Ragam', where no answer is expected. One cannot put a name to a relationship when a King marries the daughter of a mother who marries the Prince. The offspring of the King, if it is a son, is also a stepbrother of the Prince and grandchild to the King's daughter-in-law; very confusing! 

P.S. A Tamil proverb describes a person who is unsuccessfully trying to reform as 'Vethalam recoiling into a marunga tree'.

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An externally-introduced or intrinsic problem?

CASTE IS NOT HINDU

'Caste is a Construct of the Colonial Invaders'

Authors: Guruji Sundara Raj Anatha, Aykshya Simrhen Raj, Pardip Kumar Kukreja.

If anything life has taught us, it is this. People are narcissistic and egoistic. People try to understand everything but are unwilling to accept that things are way more complicated than an average man can comprehend. We are all guilty of cognitive dissonance and suffer from the Duning-Kruger effect, overestimating our competence.

People always try to dominate each other and clamour for the joy and privileges of being in power and a leader. Those in the higher rung of the hierarchy are pretty comfortably perched high up, looking down at the mere mortals. Those stranded at the lower perch of the food chain are gaslighted to be convinced that they are there because of their own doing. Their leaders want to maintain the status quo to ensure their position and conserve their high status.

A house cat, quite comfortable not needing to hunt for its daily meal, will want to maintain its amount of pampering. No one in the correct state of mind, enjoying the fruits of affirmative action, will want to, surrender his privileges willingly.

With this background knowledge, one has to critically look at this book, 'Caste is Not Hindu'.

Before the 16th century, India/Bharat was a self-sustaining subcontinent. Its social architecture created a steady state where science prospered, societal order was maintained, and its cultural influences went beyond its shores. Monetary support for mega-projects was handled by trade guilds within the public domain.

Unbeknownst to India, the rest of the world, from the land of barbarians, was awakening from their deep slumbers. Their idea of civilisation was not mutual respect but mercantilism and exploitative colonisation. India mesmerised them with its mysticism, immense wealth and welcoming nature. India soon fell prey to their maverick Machiavellian tactics. The colonisers masterminded a devious plan to justify their takeover of the nation.

The contemporary world of Hindu scholars suggests that European conquerors extrapolated their society's 'Sistema de Casta' division to India. The Europeans had earlier subdivided their own people to put royalty, clergymen and aristocrats at the top of the pecking order. The rest of the people, the craftsman and labourers, were the low-ranking serfs. The conquerors felt they needed to understand the social structures of the natives. It was too complicated for these simpletons.

The Indians had a complex societal structure system. They had varnas and jatis. Varnas referred to an individual's innate aptitude - whether he was scholarly, one who exhibits and utilises his physical attributes, good with business skills or a doer, i.e. a worker. This is not determined by one's birth, and he does not have to stick to his family's profession. Hindu scriptures are abundant with tales of scholars from tribal groups and learned men from princely families. Vyasa, the author of Ramayana, was born to a fisherwoman, Satyavati. Siddartha Gautama, a prince, became a preacher. King Ravana was a Brahmin, even though he mastered martial arts, as well as art, music and culture. Of course, we all know of Ambedkar, a Dalit who masterminded the Indian Constitution after securing multiple degrees from premier universities in the UK and the USA. How do you classify a man born Brahmin (as per the British set caste system) who gets an MBA (scholar), and works as a CEO (a businessman) in a conglomerate that sells leather shoes, e.g. Bally? Traditionally in the British Raj, a casteless person works with carcasses and leather.

Even within a family, one can notice that children of the same parents have different interests. Some can be studious, athletic or boisterous, while others will do what they are told.

Book launch by
H.E. High Comm of India to Malaysia.

Jatis refer to a professional group. This guild of craftsmen, smiths and merchants identified themselves together for the betterment of their professions. It was a way to explore their little nuances in improving their trade. For example, there was a group called Parrayars, who specialised in playing the war drums. With modern warfare, their work became redundant. They became drum players at funerals.

Looking at such a complex societal admixture that was self-sustaining puzzled the visitors. They tried to make sense of the whole setup. Their first attempt at this was the 1872 Indian National Census. It became a social engineering tool highlighting caste, religion, profession and age. No matter how hard the British system tried to make sense of the arrangement, they became more confused and created more castes and sub-castes.

Many professionals of ancient India were out of work during British Raj. In other words, they became casteless. The British created a new caste called 'the untouchables'.

Another strategy is their plan to 'divide and rule' is the creation of enemies within the society. At the same time, the British had to justify their positions as conquerors. The Aryan Migration Theory just covered the grounds so fittingly.

A highly cultured band of fair-skinned erudite steppes men from Central Asia allegedly infiltrated the land beyond the Sindhu River, bringing Hinduism to send locals south. They also brought in the Sanskrit language and all the rituals associated with Hinduism.

Down south, a schism developed between the priestly caste and the ordinary people. The priests were viewed as invaders trying to control the locals. That, combined with politics, was a sure way to create unrest. It worked just well for the feranghis (foreigners). Feuding brothers are easier to control.

Akin to the fair skin foreigners bringing in culture and wisdom to Bharat, the British portray themselves as God-sent saviours to educate and civilise Indians from 'ignorance' and 'illiteracy' by the European-Christian standards.

The extensive kurukkal system of India that served the nation for ages was dismantled as they were deemed archaic. English was introduced as the medium of instruction, as suggested by MacCaulay's Indian Education Memorandum. The real reason for this move is for the colonised to view their own culture as inferior to that of Europeans. And the European languages were linked to Sanskrit, the foreign language that was brought into India.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Besides controlling its economy, the other ulterior motive was to proselytise the whole nation to Christianity. They also viewed it as their service to mankind. After all, the Papal Law decreed by the Vatican states that to convert non-believers is a divine duty.

One can argue that this should not be an issue anymore; after all, the colonists left India 75 years ago. As an independent nation, they should be able to decide their own fate. Not quite. 

200 years of subjugation and indoctrination by Europeans, many Indians who received the short of the stick from their masters are still reeling from a lack of confidence, an inferiority complex, with a tinge of Stockholm Syndrome and a constant seeking of validation from the West for existence. On top of that, there exists a group of locally bred phenotypically Indians who quickly shoot down anything Indian. Like the local soldiers during the 1857 First Independence War who did all the dirty jobs for the British, these sepoys view India and Hinduism as a lost cause.

The 200 years of 'divide and rule' of India must indeed have had a long-lasting effect on the psyche of all Indians, leaving many frustrated individuals who were at receiving end of the harsh, divisive effects of casteism. Perhaps, they benefitted from English education and foreign countries after being driven out of their own country. The need to defend the culture of their ancestors made no sense at all. On the contrary, they have every reason to shoot down some discriminatory practices they were subjected to. There is no love lost.

The Hindus themselves find it difficult to untangle themselves from this colonial legacy. If casteism is not Hindu, would it not be easy to go back to basics and put it back in order. Not so easy. People who have benefitted from reservations and affirmative action will not surrender what they deem is theirs so quickly. The politicians whose raison d'être is to grasp popularity and ensure that they continue to win elections will be comfortable continuing the Britishers' 'divide and rule' policy via caste separation. Even closet converts also benefit from reservation seats.

Perhaps India should learn from their other Asiatic cousins like China, Japan and South Korea. When Commodore Matthew C Perry arrived at Edo Bay in 1853, the Japanese, who had chosen to be under seclusion, were mesmerised by the appearance of Perry's armada. They thought the mythical ancient dragon had actually descended. They realised that the world had morphed in leaps and bounds while they were napping. The Japanese caught up with the rest of the world by 'copying and pasting' western technology. Their turning point was the 1905 Russo-Japanese war, where they surprised the modern world by defeating the Russians. The rest, as they say, is history - World War 2, the rape of Nanking and Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army.

Commodore Perry arriving in Japan

After being squeezed and torn apart from all sides between China, Japan and Russia for generations, the Koreans found relief after the Korean War. The South Koreans were happy being a vassal state of the USA but prospered because they were apt to adapt.

When Nixon landed in Beijing in 1972, after much water went under the bridge, the Americans thought they could play realpolitik again as they did in the post-WW2 era. The Chinese cleverly used the opportunity to watch, learn and absorb all the knowledge at their disposal and gave, and are still giving the American a good run for their money.

Wonder what happened to the wisdom of Panchatantra and Chanakya's political treatise, Arthashathra, that India introduced to the world way before the Machiavellian tactics that Europe so boasted about. Centuries of civilisation squashed by firepower.

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The murmurs beneath the 'Land Below the Wind'!

Mission Sabah: The Manhunt
V.G. Kumar Das

It used to be that Sabah was one of Malaysia's high income earning states. In the late 60s, Sabah was poised to go places. Then the vultures moved in .....

First, they reaped the land of its natural resources. Then they divided the lands and sealed their dominance through the ballot box. Readers well-versed with Malaysian history of the early 1980s would be familiar with project IC where citizenships were given away like M&M's to 'eligible' subjects. Thousands of Filipina boat people flocked to the shores of Sabah to be counted. The project was deemed a whopping success with the favourable state election results (to the national ruling party) that ensued. Nobody actually wondered why most congregations of Pakistanis in the country are centred in Sabah - as if there was a mass trans-subcontinental migration of Pakistan êmigrês is in the 80s. Blame it all on project IC!

Not to forget the moral and economic support of Islamic freedom fighters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that Malaysia gave in the name of the brotherhood of Islam. Now the dog is coming back to bite the hand that fed. Descendants of some of our leaders who still continue their traditional family business find Sabah a lucrative spot. Blessed with aquatic beauty, it lured in an array of tourists with fat bank accounts back home. Every time the pirates of the coasts of Sabah were low in cash, all they had to do was start their engines, head towards these tourists spots and catch a few hostages for ransom. Like clockwork, it worked every time.

It is helpful when the coastline is long and is manned by incompetent servicemen equipped with outdated weapons. Their replacement weapons had been approved, but somehow they landed elsewhere, perhaps outside the country, thanks to interference from the top echelon.

The watering down of news from this end of the country came in handy as well. In the recent Lahad Datu stand-off, the powers-that-be managed to paint a rosy picture of the incursion for a good one month before busybody foreign media spilt the beans.

Prof. Emeritus Dato’ Dr V.G. Kumar Das

With this background and the restrictive discomfort of the pandemic lockdown, Prof VG Kumar Dass' creative juices must have flowed in abundance to create this fiction. With the worldwide spread of radical Islam and Salafism, the secluded position of the State, and the dubious infamy that Malaysia is attracting as a transit point for jihadists, the author picked Sabah as a setting for a high-octane paced police thriller.

A spate of violence in the capital alerted the police intelligence (this appear as an oxymoron, probably because of its lack of independence) to zero in on Sabah. They stumble upon a jihadist training camp. ASP Zain of the counter-terrorist and seven-member elite commando team spring into action, with the help of the state-of-the-art telecommunication interfering devices to infiltrate and cripple their devious and megalomaniac plans of absolute anarchy.

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Gun, Oil and Drugs - the GOD Complex!

Population Control: How Corporate Owners Are Killing Us
Jim Marrs (2015)

It may have sounded like rumblings of an old man who had lived too long to be amiable to the wranglings of the modern world, or it may scream of the rebel yell of a conspiracy theorist who is explaining about that is wrong with the world today.

In America and in the world as a whole, entire populations have been culled for profit and control. Elites have used the so-called GOD syndicate—Guns, Oil, and Drugs—as well as toxic air, water, food, and medicines, and of course, the unhealthy financial system on which the whole master plan depends—to reduce the world’s population. This is due to the belief of the global elite that the basis of all the world’s problems is overpopulation—just too many people using the Earth’s limited resources.
The conspiracy theory angle starts with the story of the American Stonehenge, which was unveiled in 1980, in the state of Georgia by anonymous donors. The inscription gracing the four mammoth slab of Georgia Guidestone, written in eight different languages, among other things mentions the need to maintain the world population at 500 million. In 1980, the world population had already capped at 4.4 billion. How on Earth are the people behind the Georgia Guidestone going to have their mission accomplished if not for the mass killing of the masses?

We were taught that economic growth and population growth are inversely related to each other; overpopulation is linked to poverty and famine. On the hand, the equation is not so straight forward. It has to be weighed against productivity, migration policies, access to medical, savings and educational facilities as well as civil society and good governance.

Modern statistics teaches us that for a society to continue, there needs to be a constant population growth of at least 2.1. By biological design, to create more thinking brain and exponential technological advancements, couples have to have more than two children. Exponential population growth, however, is a recent phenomenon, spurred by the industrial revolution and later progress in the medical field after the second World War. 

The neutrality of population growth with respect to economic development came into disrepute again in the 1990s, when tigers of East Asian sprang their fangs. Despite their vast population, instead of being a burden to the country, they became a market for their products, which consecutively steamrolled the economy.

Georgia Guidance

The premise of the book is that there is a cabal which wants to control the whole world and control its resources. First, it needs to eliminate the population, damage the environment, acquire all its natural resources, its fauna and flora, influencing the economy, usurping industries, destroying mom-and-pop businesses and replacing them with multinational conglomerate owned enterprises which would terrorise to control price, seed and quality.

The water would be polluted with toxic fumes and chemicals. The land will be laden with heavy metals and polluting hydrocarbons. Big pharma will sell medicine for the diseases that they create. And the data which are reported by dishonest scientists who sell away humanity for personal glory. New non-existent disorders are plucked out of thin air, like social anxiety disorder which was formerly referred to as just shyness and female sexual dysfunction syndrome. The society is drugged to receive fake news, to be numbed and be herded to the slaughter.

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Get out of your comfort zone!

Antifragile - Things that gain from disorder

Author - Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2012)

This is a thick book written by a mathematician, a hedge fund manager, a derivatives trader, a businessman and polyglot, Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He reads ten languages.

People, like things around us, are of three kinds. They are either fragile which crumple or break with pressure, robust which can withstand stresses or the others which actually grow stronger with strains. These are the anti-fragile. The analogy of a fragile situation is like Damocles in the palace of Dionysius standing precariously under the sword held on by a strand of horsehair. A robust person is like the Phoenix who, despite defeats, come from the ashes to fight back. He can fight, but he is as durable as before, not stronger. The perfect example of an anti-fragility is Hydra, the mythical Greek creature who grew two heads every time one of its heads was cut. In other words, it grew with adversity.

The author suggests that Nature, over the years, has a recurring demonstration on antifragility. Whatever does not kill us will make us stronger. Our civilisation turned us into 'fragilitas'. We have been shielded all through our young age, thanks to immunisation, protection from diseases, helicopter parenting by football mums and or education system which paves a smooth path into adulthood. 

Take the example, the story of Agrippina, Roman Emperor Nero's scandalous mother. Knowing a bit or two about poisoning, after allegedly killing her husband earlier, she suspected Nero of trying to poison her. To make herself resilient against possible poisoning, she started consuming minute and incremental doses. This is the basis of homoeopathic medicine, administrating highly diluted substances for the body to heal itself. Pharmacologists coined the word 'hormesis' when a small dose of harmful material is actually beneficial for the organism, acting as medicine.

Just like how carrying weights increases the bulk and endurance of our muscles, intermittent stresses encourages post-traumatic growths (as opposed to PTSD). Randomness in life also strengthens people against Black Swan events in politics and economics.

Humans are emotional creatures. When the going is good, we are lulled to believe that everything will be alright forever. Like a turkey, we will be thankful to the farmer for feeding promptly, not knowing that come Thanksgiving it will be culled. What makes the species stronger is not peace but adversity.

Modern society reduces variations. Taleb brings in the example of Procrustes who cuts the legs of his travellers or stretching them to fit them into the beds. Modernity is the Procrustean bed that tailor-makes its occupants.

Our ancestors probably were right with their age-old practices which were handed down to them from people before them. After looking at the ups-and-downs of the environment around us, they must have thought, of our grandmothers' remedies and advice that should logically stand the test of time. And we do not need double-blind controlled studies for everything. Especially when it comes from the pharmaceutical companies or physicians who have vested or economic interests in its outcome and usage.

The book goes on to discuss in length into many subjects related to antifragility, making oneself secure in facing adversities. Procrastination may not be all bad. Many creative thinkings materialised when thoughts were pushed aside, let to simmer in the hidden crypts of the brain. Even Darwin's last book took 38 years to be published. Creative juices sometimes flow after long procrastination. Perhaps, it is not wise to practise this during an emergency situation.

Lernean Hydra

Degrees are not the sure way to solves every of world's problems. Many getting their hands dirty in the field would realise that people who work their way up from scratch are more adapt to handling work-related uncertainties. It is like riding a bicycle. No amount of theoretical knowledge of physics can keep a rider balanced on two wheels. We cannot lecture birds on how to fly.

Sometimes people who are passionate about a subject bring more knowledge to a topic than those who are paid to do it.

On a related note, modernity has made us creatures who have to be fed continuously. Our overindulgence in food has strained our internal systems which had caused many metabolic diseases. To reduce overconsumption, intermittent fasting and food deprivation are suggested ways for our body to economically burn fat efficiently.

Everything is gained from volatility, time is a test of unpredictability and innovations come from uncertainties. Intermittent jolts in life will help us faithful to our intended path in life.

"Perhaps being deprived of poison makes us fragile, and the road to robustification starts with a modicum of harm." – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

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