Pratibimb

The Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Nomad Players have been presenting a play in our institute every year since 2009. They started off with their first successful play "Three blind mice", adapted from Agatha Christie's Mousetrap, in 2009. Their second venture, "Black comedy", was presented in 2010, in which the organizers had used reverse lighting scheme to tell the story that happened during an electrical blackout. This year, the team had come up with another interesting play named "Pratibimb".

The director (third from left) introducing the cast of Pratibimb to the audience

Pratibimb is a story of Dhondya, an ordinary man, who wakes up one morning to find that he has lost his reflection suddenly. With the help from his landlady Muktabai, called as Bai, they both attempts to find explanations for the sudden disappearance of his mind, by entering into each others mind. What happens during their course of finding his reflection forms the central theme of the play.

The set designer has done a wonderful job in designing the stage for the play. The concept of "entering into another's mind" is beautifully told by apt studio lighting and using a "window" as the gate of one's mind. The philosophical story ends with Muktabai letting out a scream after looking at the mirror.

Review of Chanakya's Chant

Little is known about Chanakya, the author of Arthashastra, who is supposed to have lived some 2300 years ago, believed to be the chief architect of Chandragupta Maurya's rise to power. The unknowns are vast that it leaves plenty of opportunity for historical fiction writers to fill in those gaps with their creative imagination. In Chankya's Chant, Ashwin Sanghi went one more step ahead.

While going through the mind of Chanakya to understand his strategic mind, a number of question arises. What was the political situation like during Chanakya's period? What made him to architect Chandragupta Maurya rise to power? Who were the enemies with whom he fought in order to achieve his goal? If he ever succeeded in his mission, why were his works not popular in today's world? Finally, what was his love life like? Did he fall in love? If so, how did he balanced his love life with politics?

The questions posed above to the reader is not complete, however, it gives you an idea of a good start for a story. In addition to these questions, Ashwin added: "What if Chanakya were to be cursed by his lover due to his greater love for the nation instead of her? If Chanakya were to be cursed, what is the cure for his fault?

Chanakya's Chant is as follows:

Adi Shakti, Namo Namah; Sarab Shakti, Namo Namah; Prithum Shakti, Namo Namah; Kundalini Mata Shakti; Mata Shakti, Namo Namah.

which means

Primal Shakti, I bow to thee; all-encompassing Shakti, I bow to thee; that through which God creates, I bow to thee; creative power of the Kundalini; mother of all, to thee I bow.

Chanakya indeed had a girl friend, named Suvasini. He was cursed by her since he paid more attention to the nation to the extent that he used Suvasini as a whore to achieve his goal. However, Suvasini felt sympathetic with Chanakya for his nobel cause, and hence suggested the following cure

Four thousand days you shall pray
Four hundred chants every day.
Chanakya's power is yours to take
Chandragupta, to make or break.
If there's a lull, start once more.
King must be queen, to be sure.
Suvasini's curse shall forever halt
If you can cure Chanakya's fault.

The chant forms the central theme of the story, the mantra japa gives the contemporary kingmaker Pandit Gangasagar Mishra the Chanakya's power for rising Chandini Gupta to queen (prime minister of Independent democratic India).

While Suvasini herself was chanting for Chanakya in order that he succeeds in his mission to Lord Shiva

Om tryambhakam yajamahe, sugandhim pushtivardhanam; urvarukamiva bandhanam, mrityor mukshiya maamrital.

which means

O praise to the Three-Eyed One, who increased prosperity, who has a sweet fragrance, who frees the world from all diseases and death! Liberate-as the fruit from the wine. Shiva, grant immortality!

Chanakya's Chant is an interesting read for all those who love to read historical fiction. Through his writing, Ashwin takes us back and forth to the Chanakya's time and present day with his vivid imagination.

Snaptu issue on Nokia 5230

Snaptu is one of my favorite mobile application which enables me to socialize using facebook and twitter on the go. However, the last time I connected my mobile using USB to my desktop, I did something terribly wrong, which led to incomplete removal of some of the mobile applications that are installed in my memory card. This includes Snaptu, Opera mobile browser and Skype among others. But I was fortunate enough to locate the uninstaller of Opera and Skype, which allowed me to reinstall the same later on, and hence recover. But Snaptu is not to be "seen" anywhere in my mobile. Not in the file manager, nor in applications installer folder.

I tried all the basic tactics, including resetting my mobile to factory settings. Nothing worked. Re-installation from Nokia's Ovi store gave me a warning saying the application already exists and hence could not be installed again. It was frustrating experience for me, for I love Snaptu but I could not install to use it. When I connected my mobile through Nokia PC suite, I felt elated as I could see Snaptu in the installed directory against which it showed 0KB. I selected Snaptu, clicked on 'delete' button, and wait to see that nothing happened. After several attempts, I understood that its not going to work. In that desperate moment, I tried Googling for "not able to delete Snaptu, Nokia mobile". Most of the links that came up in the search list told me that I am not alone in this world with this issue. However, I could not find a solution in any of those, including Nokia forums.

Down the list, something caught my attention. It read something like memory card blah blah, which I did not see in any other link. Backed up with my hunch, I clicked on the link to find a solution which is irrational, but promising. The solution goes like this; remove the memory card, install Snaptu again in phone memory, insert memory card again, uninstall from phone memory and reinstall in memory card (if you are having a limited memory constraint). I had done this before with windows machine. Whenever a particular application does not work, I close and open it, or still, I will restart my machine. So far, I had solved a number of such issues in Windows XP. But will it work that way in Nokia too?

What is there for me to lose if it does not work? Anyway its not working now. Thus pacifying myself, I decided to give it a try. I removed the memory card, opened file manager, went to the location where I had downloaded the Snaptu application earlier, opened it to install. The installer popped up with a warning message asking me if I want to overwrite the data for which I gladly said 'yes'. But it appears that time wanted to play with me for some more as I got an error message saying "invalid jar file"!

It then occurred to me that I had downloaded the version from getjar for some other mobile model as one of my vain attempts earlier. Naturally, I opened  Nokia Ovi store from my mobile, went to applications and downloaded Snaptu freshly. Voila! It worked! So, as the forum user suggested, I inserted my memory card, uninstalled Snaptu, reinstalled again by choosing memory card as install location. It popped up with a warning to overwrite the existing 0KB file, which I gladly accepted. The success story ends with a tweet message announcing the world that I am back into action with Snaptu.

Review of Bertrand Russell and Trinity

Its a story of the relationship between Bertrand Russell and Trinity college at one of the challenging times for humans in history, the World War I. The book was written by the an authorized person, a fellow of Trinity, G. H. Hardy who has access to most of the original sources, and is verified by Bertrand Russell himself.

The story begins with Hardy explaining about pacifist organizations (Union of Democratic Control, No Conscription Fellowship) and their role in conscription during the world war. It then proceeds in explaining why Trinity (council) took a stand to cancel the fellowship of one of the most famous and celebrated mind, Bertrand Russell. The last part is perhaps an unknown to many, even in Trinity itself, the reinstatement of Russell's fellowship and lecture post in post war era. The book is wonderfully written by G.H.Hardy, another celebrity mathematician of his times.

A Tale of Two Talks

Two talks on one of the most important issue India is facing is organized by our Extra Mural Lecture (EML) group of IIT Madras.The first one is by Ms. Shukla Bose, who resigned her corporate high profile job to do something to the society. She had founded Parikrma foundation wherein she takes one child at a time, and nurture them in all aspects viz education, arts, athletics etc. She takes a kid from slum area in and around Bangalore at the age of 5, provide education at her school until above 20 wherein the boy/girl is able to stand on their own.

The other talk is by Mr. P. Sainath, a freelancer, who spends about 300 days in rural area on an average, to understand the effects of capitalism and globalization in rural people's life style. I had recently bought his book "Everybody loves a good drought". Its currently in my "to read" list. I'm planning to read it before this summer to get a perspective of rural India's problems.

Both the talks are certainly an eye opener to all those who were present. The social impact of these talks are, no doubt, tremendous as I can see the speakers were able to move the crowd with their oratory skills. I hope this will make elite students to think of returning something to the society of what they have got.