December 27, 2011
T.N. Seshagopalan's carnatic music concert at the Chembai festival on Doordarshan channel to go with idli-sambar breakfast.
I had a quiet day at home, quite in contrast to that of India's parliamentarians. The parliament witnessed the debate on the anti-corruption Jan Lok Pal bill. All the top guns of the government were present. Compared to the usual wild nature of proceedings that accompany controversial legislation, the display of cordial camaraderie throughout the day, was disturbingly revealing. It was pretty obvious that either the bill, in its current avatar, is toothless or that it is never going to be implemented. Major difficulty for many of the "leaders" to hide the smug smiles. They don't have to worry about their habitual corruption or overseas stashes of dark cash for a sufficiently long time.
The Hindu newspaper published a supplement to celebrate 125th birth anniversary of the great mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan. It is commendable that the newspaper did not water down the articles for "popularity" as is the norm these days. The supplement has been elevated to the old wooden box from grandmother's house upstairs in which we save collectible newspapers and magazines.
Ramanujan was a devout Hindu. He believed that his mathematical genius and intuitive conjectures, way ahead of their time, were divine blessing. I have been thinking about the evolution of the idea of god since I read the article on the evolution of writing technology from the typewriter to word processors in the recent NY Times Sunday magazine.
Nietzsche has remarked that the tools themselves shape the writing.
I think the same can be said about the idea of god.
I need many more days to flesh out this thought to see if it will amount to anything. The dominant medium and its use at any particular period in civilization shapes the features of the almighty itself. Since prehistoric times, the gods have been painters and sculptors. In Egypt and Mesopotamia, where record keeping was paramount for taxing and production, the gods became record keepers who kept a tab on all human beings to be rewarded or punished in the afterlife.
Then we moved onto much more organized society that demanded rigid laws for managing. Gods transformed into law givers. They started writing down fates as well. Advent of drama brought the directing god. Later, as life became busy in the cities, time began to dominate lives. God got linked with time...an aloof creditor of time. This almighty found a sense of detachment from intricacies of life. It was easy for this detached god to let evolution run its course and allow the 'free-will' delusion. Now, as the high energy search for the 'god particle' progresses, the divine idea has sort of come to a synthesis of previous variations.
As free-will crumbles under the relentless assault of psychology and neuroscience, the secular personal god of believers today is a fusion of the recording keeping, detached, law giver. Events of the universe, from the nano to the cosmic scale, proceed with randomness, but then their record is kept and physical laws are enacted.
I certainly need many more days to flesh out this thought to see if it will amount to anything.
The local god of bulbs and fans, our electrician, came by in the afternoon. He was here a couple of days ago to make a note of the purchases he need to make for the repair work. Today he came to collect the money. He has threatened to come tomorrow afternoon and finish the job. Achan tries to sneak away every time he comes over because this dude never stops delivering his opinions about everything under the sun while working. Even in the five minutes that he was here today, he expressed how he cannot stand the genius Malayalam screenwriter and actor Srinivasan. We were watching Srinivasan's brilliant movie,"Chinthavishtayaya Shyamala" when he showed up. "Look how dark he is and he walks like a duck!" he couldn't hold back.
Tomorrow afternoon is going to be fun if he delivers on his threat. Two tubelights to be replaced, two switches to be repaired and one water heater to be installed. Enough time for me to learn his insights into sociology, politics, economics, history and theology!
One of the articles in Rasikaranjini magazine a hundred years ago briefly mentions Naranathu Bhranthan. The few sentences about him convey nothing about the 'madness' that has become his hallmark in popular imagination these days. Surprisingly, he is talked about as an expert astrologer/mathematician who established few temples. One among his disciples was also called 'Bhranthan'. I seriously doubt if the word 'Bhranthan' always meant 'madman' as it means today. 'Bhranthu' could have meant something like obsession or addiction centuries ago. Bhranthu, brahmin, brahma, brain, branding...I am hooked to their common, opening 'bra' variation. I google 'eymology of the word brain' and end up reading a pdf that throws in a lot of connections to Old German 'hirni', horn and Greek 'keras'. It has a picture of the 2nd century BC Celtic cauldron's relief showing the horned god Cernunnos who looks a lot like the seated yogi in the Indus valley seal.
Google again.
Theories aplenty...conspiracies abound.
Perhaps this is how 'Bhranthu' begins!
I have been reading V.T. Bhattathiripad's complete works. But that great man deserves notes exclusively dedicated to him. Later.
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