Crash course!

The Incredible History of India's Geography

Author: Sanjeev Sanyal

2023 seems to be the year when India showcases to the world that it has arrived. With the euphoria of the moon landing still lingering on every Indian psyche, the G20 summit put India and its leaders on a pedestal. Seeing Modi walking bare feet, shoulder to shoulder with foreign leaders reminds Indians that they have come a long way since they were looted of their prized collection and left out in the cold as a basket case struggling as once the world's most impoverished countries. 

It is interesting to note that throughout the history of the world, India (and China) have not been considered a poor nation. In fact, before the Industrial Revolution and the Great Game, these countries combined provided more than two-thirds of the world's GDP. The exploration and Western understanding of world geography changed the history of the East and the world at large. 

Sanjeev Sanyal, an economist, a Rhodes scholarship, and an economic advisor to PM Modi, is also a prolific writer and speaker on India's untold ancient history. He is one of the growing band of people who decry that the history of India that is told and taught to its people and the world is Eurocentric and Moghul-centric.

In this book, Sanyal takes a peek into the geography of India and sees how it influenced its history over the years. The beginning of time started with the supercontinent of Rodinia 1 billion years ago. About 250 million later, in the pre-Cambrian period, the supercontinent began to drift apart. (The pre-Cambrian era had single-cell organisms; the Cambrian explosion had large numbers of complex organisms.) Another 250 million years later, the continents reassembled to form Pangea. Then Pangea split into a northern continent, Laurasia, and Gondwana, the southern continent. Laurasia split further to include North America, Europe and Asia, and Gondwana to Africa, South America, Antarctica and India. India separated from Africa and collided with the European plate. The collision is still in progress, and the Himalayas are still seismically unstable. River Saraswati went on under this tectonic shift.

The book discusses the migration of people and animals out of Africa until the world geography came to be as it is. After that, things become fuzzy. Where did all the milestones in human civilisation happen? Where did farming start? Was it in regions around Persia and spread outwardly, or did they begin independently elsewhere, like in the Indic part?

Genetic studies now support an 'out of India' theory rather than the 'Aryan Invasion Theory', which gave the European powers to legitimately rule over and civilised people in India.

Archaeologists and historians have differing views on India's early history. Vedic traditions support the possible existence of a glorious river named Saraswati upon which the sophisticated cities of the Harappan Civilisation developed. Its drying up altered the course of history. People started migrating out of Harappan. Are Harappans the same as the Vedic people? If horseback riding invaded Harappan, why is there no evidence of destruction as explained by the Aryan Invasion Theory? It is unbelievable that horsemen could be civilised, knowledge-yielding planters and town planners.

Geography and the forces of nature played an important role in Indian history. A vast coastline drew maritime visitors and sent explorers overseas. A ragged terrain over the North was the avenue of a busy highway with traffic jams of convoys of bullock carts. The tributaries of the great rivers for the Himalayas also provided two major 'highways' of trade - the North-South and the East-West axes. 

The book further discusses the various invasions via land from the North by Greeks and Islamic invaders. As the land routes were closely controlled, the. Europeans needed an alternate way of trade. India was also a place with internal wars by local chieftains in their zest to build Empires, Maurya, Gupta, Cholas, Pallavas, Pandyas, Cheras, and others. 

Bharat is supposed to have its name from the victor of the 'Battle of Ten Kings', the Bharata tribe, as mentioned in Rigveda. The wheel of 'Chakravartin' (Universal Monarch) became the imperial symbol and survived through the Maurya dynasty, Buddhism and finally made it to the Indian flag.

The area around Punjab and Afghanistan
were ardent Shakti worshippers

India is proud to say it is the only country in the world where lions and tigers co-exist.

The Romans and India had a robust business exchange in the first Century CE. Unfortunately, it was lopsided, favouring the Indians so much that Rome had cut down imports of luxury items from India. Jews came to trade in India during King Solomon's era, but Jewish refugees trickled in after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE to settle in Kerala. St Thomas, the apostle, landed there to convert people who refer to themselves as Syrian Christians.

Indians have a long maritime history, trading with the Middle East, Greeks, Romans, to South East Asia and all the way to China. Chinese Buddhist scholars frequented India to delve into Buddhism. Details of their journeys are nicely documented.

   

The Arabs were trading even before Islam. The Mohamadans, the Arabs, who went on a conquering spree after the Prophet's demise, reached Sindh as invaders in the 8th Century. They were warded off. The Turks attacked Aghanistan, then a Hindu region, and captured Ghazni. Mahmud of Ghazni kept repeatedly attacking Hindu temples for their enormous wealth. Slowly, these Islamic invaders reached Delhi and started making their mark in Indian history. Others followed -Thuglaq and Moghuls.

Indian seafaring vessel

The Chinese seamen were going places in the seas with their mammoth vessels. It all came to a halt in the 15th Century. Meanwhile, the Portuguese and other Europeans were making baby steps in finding a sea route to the East, bypassing the Muslim-controlled land routes. 

The animosity between the Europeans and Muslims, leftovers of the Crusade Wars, continued on the Eastern shores of Africa and the Western coasts of India when Portuguese ships circumvented Africa to reach there. Arab traders, being long there and naturally having developed a working relationship with the local rulers, showed their displeasure. Hostility was reciprocated, and the Portuguese slowly gained ground in India with their superior weapons. Evangelists and later other European nations came to be drawn in, like bees drawn to pollen. 

The pilfering and looting progressed at an industrial scale afterwards. The rest of the story we know. India and China contributed two-thirds of the world's GDP when the British sauntered in. 200 years later, when they left, India was left with a begging bowl as one the poorest nations in the world, together with other fellow colonies. Two Industrial Revolutions left whilst the Indians were busy defending their own land and amongst each other.

The local looming industry started losing to Spinning Jenny, but the railways came to India, and India had to foot the bill. Of course, it was a shot in the arm for British engineers and industrialists.

At the beginning of all these shenanigans, the Europeans who thought the world was flat soon managed to draw a composite picture of a round earth on a flat map. 

The colonial masters left in 1947, but not after slicing the country into two. There were still pockets of the country that still needed to be in the Union of India. The princely states had to be arm-twisted to choose India or Pakistan. The Portuguese had to be chased off from Goa. The French needed to be evacuated from Pondicherry. Pakistan continued starting skirmishes in Kashmir, the problems of which continue till date. The two parts of Pakistan began clashing in 1971 and parted ways.

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When the hunted becomes the hunter!

Prey (2022)
Director: Dan Trachtenberg

When the film 'Predator' came out in 1987, it was a hit. It was the time of American jingoism. The free world believed that America was the only superpower around and only they could give the best solution to all of world problems. Rambo and his First Blood franchise did just that. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Muscleman from Austria, did not want to be left behind. After fighting baddies from all four corners of the world, it was only natural that our Mr. Universe try a hand at muscling down enemies from out of this world. 

When 'Predator', a sequel to 'Prey' in terms of story timeline, came out, it was a super duper hit. Shot in the lush forest of South America with cinematography completed with sense-around movie theatres, moviegoers thought that was the pinnacle of Hollywood's moviemaking.

The movie developed a cult following. Comic books were rolled out, bankrolling on its success. Board games and computer games ensued. After all possible clientele were exhausted, the natural course of action was collaborating with followers of the 1979 'Alien' franchise. Since the main characters of both 'Alien' and 'Predator' fought extra-terrestrial forces, it was only logical that fighting matches were fixed between these two alien forces. Numerous spinoffs were churned out subsequently.

Following the 1987 film, many sequels came out with not-so-creative titles. 'Predator 2' (1990), 'Alien vs Predator' (2004), 'Alien vs Predator 2' (2007), 'Predators' (2010) and 'The Predator' (2018). 

After exhausting all avenues of reaping profit from the 'Predator' franchise, the logical next action plan is to return to the basics. So they went to the beginning, pre-independent New World, in 1719, when the Comanche people roamed the land freely. The first Yautja, the villain, probably landed on Earth and started his hunting expedition. 

In keeping with the times, the cast and the storyline are kept politically acceptable to the people in Hollywood and the viewing crowd at large. The protagonist has to be a lady, of course, and from a minority group, a Native American. Comanche language is spoken liberally throughout most of the film. The whites are depicted as uncouth, uncultured and heartless carpetbaggers. 

Everyone is a hunter here. The Yautja hunts for sport. The Comanches hunt for survival to satisfy their basic needs of food and shelter. Over the generations, the Comanches have developed a symbiotic relationship with Nature. They hunt what is needed and maintain peace with their surroundings for generations. The French hunters depicted here are observed to be evil, hedonistic, self-serving people who turn violent because they can. They abuse Nature by hunting bison indiscriminately for monetary gains and torture the Comanche for the kick of it. 

In its visually pleasing display, we experience the hunted turning the table against the hunter in the thick of American wilderness at a time when being civilised meant staying in zen with Nature, not abusing and raping the environment for personal gains. The prey becomes the predator for survival. 

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Have Gun Will Travel?

Dead for a Dollar (2022)
Director: Walter Hill

These days, one of the things that parents fear when they drop their kids at school is not that they fall or get hurt but that a mad kid might go on a shooting spree with a semiautomatic gun. 

The debate on gun control will appear occasionally after every massive shooting, which is quite often; it dies as quickly as it escalates. Arguments like 'guns don't kill people, people do!' are not unheard of. Using archaic laws at a time when white men tamed the lawless Wild West, they justified their fights to bear arms for defence. Of course, it was for offence when the leaders of the initial thirteen states decided to expand their hegemony westwards. 

The Second Amendment of the Constitution support gun possession for defence but not with assault rifles and M16s. Repeated studies worldwide, including experiences in the UK and Australia, have unequivocally shown tight gun laws and stringent control reduce gun violence. In the USA, these results are not reproducible as different states advocate different levels of control. A flea market selling guns, rifles and assault weapons in a supermarket is accepted as the norm in some states. Going to a gun fair is more like a social event. Free movement between states makes any legislation laughable. The latest figure for gun ownership in the UK is 5.03 guns per 100 people compared to 120 guns for 100 Americans! 

The political will is, of course, wanting. When gun lobbyists are on the payrolls of most Presidential candidates, who wants to eat the hands that feed them?

Now, another idea has been put forward on why everyone, including the bench, is dragging their feet in putting a full stop to this tragedy. After growing up, generations after generations, with a staple diet of a good Western as a wholesome evening entertainment, Americans have been hardwired to perceive gun possession as a birthright. The fastest draw has no reason to face the law as the showdown (as in OK Corral) was fair and square, facing man to man. 

Imagine constantly being fed with the potpourri of strong, tall White men enforcing the realm of the white men's law in the land they infiltrated and justifying it with gunpowder. 'Gunsmoke', 'High Chapparal', 'The Virginian', 'Rawhide' and 'The Rifle Man' all went on for umpteenth seasons and are still viewed on dedicated Western channels and YouTube. The premise of most stories is that white men march west for a better life for their families. Their noble intention is marred with vicious savages who are hell-bent on causing misery. It does not matter that the natives were merely defending their abodes and way of life. The barrel of the gun is a justified manner to mete out justice. There is no moral ambiguity. Balance is preserved when the Cowboys get their way. 

Over the years, perhaps after watching the devastations that came with the Vietnam War, moviemakers started making fewer Western movies. 

This movie is different. A Western, no doubt, but trying to be as politically correct as possible. To counter the throb often associated with Westerns, the idea of machoism, white supremacy and male toxicity, the story has a strong female character; often, ladies are mere eye candy in this genre. Two African-American actors play essential roles. Cowboys are shown to have moral judgment, after all.

An 'honest' bounty hunter, Max Borlund, is hired by a wealthy businessman to apprehend his wife, who had allegedly eloped with an African-American army deserter. Riding with a black soldier, Max finally catches up with the pair in Mexico but deals with Mexican bandits. Meanwhile, one of Max's foes has a score to settle. It's a straightforward movie with a predictable storyline. 2.75/5.

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Mercy? Murder?

Mary Kill People (Miniseries; 2017-19)
S1-S3; E1-E6

In 1967, surrounding the abortion debate, psychologists came up with a moral question, the trolley dilemma. It involved a speeding train about to hit five people working on the track. You are given a switch to divert the train onto another track. Unfortunately, it would involve hitting and killing one person. The question was, would you sacrifice one life in place of five. People found it easier to kill one as it is better in the greater scheme of things.

Over the years, the dilemma scenario was expanded. One involved the interviewee being allowed to push a fat man before the train to dampen its speed. People refused to agree to pushing someone personally, i.e. killing someone, to save lives. The consensus was unanimous - no killing. We have been hardwired to treat life as something so sacrosanct that we have no business ending it.

No matter how bad a convicted has been in real life, the general public, at least, refuses to be the one who would condemn another person to death. What if, despite all the advancements in forensic sciences, the public inadvertently sends an innocent person to the gallows/electric chair/lethargic injection/ firing squad. It is not that such things are not happening.

Let us turn to people who are genuinely in a near-death situation. Maybe they are afflicted with a terminally ill disease where all treatment modalities have failed and are spending their time in their few days or months of painful life. What if all cognitive faculties have failed and are left with a vegetative body kept alive, electrophysical only, by machines until the plug is pulled. 

Is it justified to insist that life is so sacrosanct that only the Giver had the right to take back what He gave, not mere mortals? Does easing the pain not include ending the very life that is inevitably coming to an end, albeit so ever slowly? 

Increasingly, more societies are asking these tough questions. The answers are more straightforward if theology is put aside and objectively argued with tangible facts and figures. In this time and age, as society has to deal with the longevity of its citizens and the costs of fighting aggressively near-fatal situations, resources could be set aside for the living and those worth saving. Or is every life worth saving, old, young, poor, rich, elite and pauper?

This miniseries does not ask or answer these questions directly or indirectly. It tells of a team of a nurse and doctors who identify patients who are terminally ill and seek relief from their sufferings. As euthanasia is illegal worldwide, this team offers a hush-hush discrete service for a fee. Their preferred choice of poison is liquid thiopental mixed with champagne. They hope their sympathetic act will go unnoticed as the victims are dying anyway. Unfortunately, sometimes, things do not work out as planned, and they encounter unexpected hurdles and failed attempts. To top it all, a police team is hot on their trail, eager to catch them in the act.

The medical dictum dictates 'primum non nocere' - first, do no harm. Are we causing harm or alleviating pain by offering medically assisted suicide after a comprehensive, multipronged assessment by medical and psychological experts?

The Utilitarianism school of thought would believe that killing one to save five is appropriate for the greater good. Deontological ethics dictate that ethical actions follow universal law. Wilfully killing someone is wrong. Period.

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Before and After...

Dear Zoe (2022)
Director: Gren Wells

Just the other day, my wife wanted to get some prayer stuff to commemorate Vinayar Sathurthi, a day dedicated to Lord Ganesha, the elephantine one and remover of all obstacles. I was shocked by seeing so many people buying things like there is no tomorrow. The streets around Little India were swarming with activities. The traffic was at a standstill with people double parking. The footpaths were blocked by shopkeepers stocking their premises with goods, overflowing to the streets. The loudspeakers were up blaring devotional songs in keeping with the spirit of festivities. The shop owners are sure they are going for a kill this time around because they know the masses have been suckered into believing that God needs these condiments and that it is the worshippers' divine duty to fulfil His needs. Their desire to outdo their neighbour is good for the National economy.

I do not remember Vinayakar Sathurthi creating such a rave when I was a kid. It used to be a non-event in most households. Nobody wished each other Sathurthi salutations or publicised the day. It was something personal confined to the four walls and entrance to the abode. Now, even those non-celebrants who quite nonchalantly label them as heathens and devil worshipers go out of their way to wish Sathurthi wishes. Is that a recognition or respect? 

All that changed, in my guess, after 9/11. When the world was sliced into two halves - 'those with us and those against us - essentially demarcated by the desert religion, people started wearing their religiosity on their sleeves. It was a survival strategy to delineate themselves from perceived suicide bombers. Through their algorithms, social media further helped create exclusive zones where birds began cherrypicking their own kind till the last barb of the feather.

The world we live in is the sum of all these. Just like how a single eruption of Mount Tempora in 1815 transformed the summer of 1816 to cause crop failure, famine and poverty, the 9/11 episode changed how people looked at each other forever. On the cultural front, however, the Lost Summer bred the horror genre Frankenstein and later Dracula. 

The film is centred around the 9/11 incident. Drawn by the hullabaloo of jet planes crashing into the Twin Towers, the protagonist could not take her eyes off the TV. That single action changed her life and her family's forever. Her younger sister was playing in the yard, and she was supposed to keep an eye on her. Amid that mayhem, the sister was run over by a passing vehicle. She died. 

This sort of coming-of-age movie describes how the 16-year-old protagonist comes to terms with tragedy. Her strained relationship with her mother and her stepfather adds to her misery. She moves in with her estranged father, who leads a too-laid-back life in the not-so-affluent part of Chicago. Love blossoms with a neighbour who is not a parent's idea of a son-in-law. 

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Paedophilic Ring - Fact or Fiction?

 Sound of Freedom (2022)
 Director: Alejandro Monteverde

This movie drew a lot of flak from either side of the spectrum. People over the subject matter put forward in the movie cry foul over the lack of publicity about this movie. On the other end, those who stand by the belief that the whole talk of the existence of secret pedophilic prostitution is bunkum are up in arms. They cannot believe that Tinseltown is pandering to conspiracy theorists. It does not help that it is the third highest-grossing film in the US after Barbie and Oppenheimer. 

On one end, big studios had malaise, like Fox and later Disney, which bought Fox to get off the ground. It had to be purchased by a small independent studio funded by crowdsourcing and the excellent work of Mel Gibson and the movie star Jim Caviezel, who played the protagonist Tom Ballard.

For a long time, during Trump's tenure, a strong lobbyist swore to the presence of an entity called QAnon. Nobody could pinpoint who QAnon actually was, but rumours were rife that it could be someone entrenched deep within the Administration, or it could be Mr Donald Trump himself. QAnon was supposed to be prophetic, a seer who could foresee events yet to happen and would whisper cryptic messages to the general public. 

One of the most damaging rumours that went around then was the existence of Pizzagate. Pizzagate became a code word for the proof of the existence of Satanistic, hedonistic, cannibalistic child abusers with a big pedophilic ring within the Democratic Party of the USA. They allegedly drank tortured children's blood to reap the benefit of adrenochrome, an elixir of youth. The ring later involved a more comprehensive web, including moguls of the cinema industry, royalties and public figures. Nobody has been convicted thus far for such crimes, but it will not die soon. The latest victim is Hunter Biden, the son of POTUS Joe Biden. 

Slavery never really died. It just got rebranded. The hunt for wealth will continue as long as the economic divide grows exponentially worldwide and fiat money is used to gauge an individual's success. With wealth, decadence becomes a well-deserved fringe benefit. The march to the wild side becomes a dare. The market for sex for hire and appetite for experimental experiences grows exponentially, too.

Despite the numerous laws enacted worldwide by governments and world bodies, children are abducted and trafficked over borders for multiple reasons, including child labour, adoption, begging, working as child soldiers and serving as sex slaves.

This film is based on the real-life experiences of Tim Ballard, a Homeland Security Agent who left his job at the agency to start a non-profit organisation called Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), credited for rescuing thousands of children from sex trafficking rings. In this movie, he travels to Columbia to rescue a preteen Honduran girl from one of these rings.

Detractors to the successes of OUR insist that their laurels were highly exaggerated. They insist that all the trafficked children were abducted and kept outside the USA. What they forget is that there is a market for it, and their customers are Americans who frequent them outside American shores.

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One World, One Love, One Vision?

Dedicated to a follower, HS, who enjoyed the post on Lotus and asked whether a 'one world' can ever exist where we do things for the greater good of mankind and where the need of the collective supersedes that of an individual.

We are told that race is healthy. The human race is moving forward from cave-dwelling nomads to space-exploring nations by this very trait, the race to be better than the other.

Nature is hostile. It does not care two hoots for the weak and the slow. It shows its mighty fury to those who cross its path. Only the fittest survive. Biology transmits this survival trait to the next generation so that the memory of how to thwart that adversity is implanted in their DNA.
But we are told we have six senses, unlike members of the animal kingdom. We have developed empathy and compassion for the weak and the downtrodden. Still, the only thing keeping us from killing each other is the law, fear of retribution for our actions in this life, the next, or the afterlife if rebirth is not on the menu. Communal living with rules ensured that even the weaker of its people would be taken care of, barring which nothing is going to stop from punching another blue-black or kicking away the walking stick of the invalid and laughing his eyes out. Lurking deep in the crevices of the grey matter is the dormant reptilian brain, which is triggered whenever the gatekeepers take a break. The desire to dominate is there. The carefree attitude of surrounding to the pleasures of the physical body can easily be bargained for.

The world has all the resources to meet human needs, but not its greed. The idea of universal equality is only a utopian dream which is as common as a flying pink elephant. When we are poor, we demand equality, fair play and a level playing field. The idea of socialism and communism fascinates us. As we climb the ladder of prosperity, our desire never to part with our hard-earned money declines exponentially. We realise that our wealth is worth every drop of sweat that comes through our pores. Parting was not just sentimental but unnecessary as we reminisced the hungry nights we endured in pursuit of prosperity. We tell ourselves life is very fickle and we must prepare for a rainy day. Some call it greed; others call it wise planning. Empathy knocks in a different form. We do not want our offspring to endure the hardship we had to experience. Also, leaving a legacy behind is nice! We are often told the need for one is only as important as the collective! It has been ingrained in us the idea that Lady Justice is blind to external interferences. She only metes justice as it is, irrespective of the offender's status, race, creed and intellectual prowess. What we are not told is justice is all about how deep-pocketed the suspect is. If favourable sentences are not obtained, one can go on and on higher on the levels of courts available in the legal system. Justice can be bought with all the money one can pay. For political offences, as judges have political affiliations, one wonders how impartial they are.

Even the treatment of various accused is glaringly different. A leader who foolishly (or wilfully) siphoned off the nation's coffers saunters to the court with his flashy designer suits, whereas a couple of mischievous motorcyclists who decided to film their dangerous motorcycle stunts get dragged to the courts in orange police-lockup overalls handcuffed under the flashes journalists' flash camera. And do not get me started on selective prosecution of political and even civil cases by the Attorney General Chambers. Those who followed the path of communism/socialism soon realised the longer it stayed in power, the more it looked like the systems it wanted to eradicate. It believed it wanted to replace the hegemony of Romanov over the peasant land. Fast forward, we see Russia being run by oligarchs. The short-lived satiety came to be replaced with hyperinflation and Kafkaian governmental squeeze. The distribution of wealth has a funny way of redistribution even if all the world's wealth is divided equally amongst its population. Experiences from COVID-19, slum population and national calamity are testimony to this.

All the things that we wanted the world to be - One World, One Vision, One Way of Thinking- are just piped dreams. Listening to Oprah and her talk show, we thought we could change the world with a rational Western way of thinking. Bob Marley tried to change the world with 'One Love' and his message to get together and feel alright. And Beatles with 'All You Need is Love'. Then we grew up. We realise that the economy has to trickle down. We cannot expect society to benefit solely from a 'trickle-up' economy. The world is chaotic; it will always be, and within that churning sea of chaos, there will be a constant flow that moves things forward. The little eddy currents happen, but the essential thing is the forward propulsion of the human race. Along the way, there are bound to be casualties of civilisations and people not acclimatised to change.

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