World Chess Championship 2018: Where's it going?

No American has ever won the World Chess Championship, since Bobby Fischer’s win in 1972.

By the end of this month, we shall know if Fabiano Caruana will make America great again.

Like Fischer, even Caruana is from Brooklyn, the most populous borough of New York City. And like Fischer’s win had done then, many are hoping that, possibly with Caruana’s win now, there would be an explosion of interest in ‘Chess’ once again, in the United States. And that young people would favourably view this cherished game of mental agility.

‘Chess is the gymnasium of the mind’ some people say. But sadly, in these times of instant gratification, ‘mind sports’ which require time and patience are often overlooked in favour of those with quick rewards. And the value of this game is being eroded by the 21st century busyness of our generation.

In the World Championship, currently being played in London, Magnus Carlsen from Norway is defending the title he had held since 2013, when had beaten India’s Viswanathan Anand.

In fact, Carlsen successfully defended his title once again, against Anand in 2014 and against Sergey Karjakin in 2016.   He is now battling it out with Caruana, the US hopeful.

Held from November 9 to November 28, this championship – which has become biennial since 2014 - is a three-week, twelve-game match.

What I found interesting and somewhat shocking is this. On Monday evening (19 November) Game 8 turned out to be a draw. Just like all the earlier seven games. And it’s now a ‘four-all’ dead-lock.

So, it is unclear how the remaining four games will decide who the World Chess Champion for 2018 would be.

Game 9 will start on November 21 and those interested can follow the four remaining games live at: www.chess.com/wcc2018.

Both grandmasters have been giving it their best. And the Norwegian Carlsen, in many games, had to actually defend himself, and save himself from losing, by managing to play to a draw.

“Chess requires a lot of stamina,” says his US rival Caruana in TIME magazine (19 Nov 2013). “You’re playing six, seven hours at a time. You’re burning a lot of calories, and you can easily get mentally tired. If your physical form is not good, then you’re likely to crash at some point.”

That is why, perhaps, he had had severe physical training in summer, with jogging, shooting hoops, and playing tennis.

This event is actually held by FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs) or World Chess Federation, an international organization that connects the various national chess federations around the world.

In this country, the Bahrain Mind Sports Association, founded in 1999, has been overseeing the conduct of the game of Chess, along with other games like Checkers, Scrabble and Bridge.

I am particularly proud that a community club to which I belong, here in Bahrain, conducts an Annual Open Chess Championship every year.

This FIDE-rated tournament is being organised by TKS (Telugu Kala Samithi) in association with BMSA and sponsored by Devji Jewellers, for many years now. But then, that is beside the point.

Coming back to Caruana. Will he, who hasn’t won a world championship yet, win, and join the ranks of Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, Antoly Karpov, Boris Spassky, Viswanathan Anand and Vladmir Kramnik?

Only 7 Americans are currently in the top 100 of the world chess rankings. And that is one reason why the US needs a ‘Caruana win’, to boost the national interest in the game.

And who knows? Maybe then, the terms ‘English opening’ or ‘queen’s gambit’, ‘Trompowsky’s attack’ or ‘sicilian defence’ will become more popular in US. And the country would wage wars on the chess board, than on the world map.

The Amazing Stan Lee: His Tingling Writer Sense

The name of Stan Lee, who died on Monday, will always make me think of two thin comic books I had borrowed from a small book-shop near my house.

One was of ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ and another of ‘The Incredible Hulk’.

Stan Lee with Iron Man and Spider Man

The year was probably 1981. And for an over-imaginative teenager that I was then - and for someone already high on the adventures of ‘Phantom’ and ‘Bahadur’, published in those days by ‘Indrajal Comics’ of India – finding these new comics was a special moment. A discovery of pure joy.

Flipping through the pages, my friend and I were fascinated by the brightly-coloured characters and the action-packed scenes.  We wasted no time in borrowing these comics. And on rushing home, soon got immersed into a magical world of newfound super-heroes.

Our small book-shop-plus-lending-library had had many books in the vernacular language, but a very small collection of English books and comics. The store was not located in some high-class urban setting, near posh schools, to warrant the shopkeeper to buy and store foreign-published comics easily.

But thanks to our friends at school, among whom our comic books got circulated privately, a big group of boys soon descended on the shop.  And thanks to all of them demanding copies of Marvel Comics from abroad, the proprietor had to give in.

He saw a business opportunity. And soon procured for us, not only more adventures of ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘The Incredible Hulk’, but also of ‘Fantastic Four’, of ‘Thor’, of ‘The Avengers’ and of ‘X-Men’, among several others.

And the great excitement we had derived, from access to these comics, is not easy to explain to a new generation that has seen them all on television and cinema screens.

Especially, to the millennials who probably will never know the wonder and awe of action-packed comic books.

The passing of Stan Lee, therefore, is the passing of an era. As a man who co-created some of the most endearing superheroes, he has taken sci-fi fantasy and super-hero stories to a whole new plane, a higher plane.

It was long ago, in 1962, that ‘Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, first appeared. But it was only in 2002 that the first Spider-Man movie released. And I am still surprised as to why it took Hollywood so long.

However, in quick succession, with the Spider-Man movie series came other highly successful series of ‘The Avengers’ and ‘X-Men’. Also, ‘Iron man’, ‘Ant Man’ and ‘Captain America’ which have all had the fabulous finger-prints of Stan Lee.

“I never had any idea that these characters would last this long”, he had said in interview clips which were telecast by CNN on his demise. “In fact, I, and the people I worked with, who co-created them, with me - the many talented artists - just hoped that the books would sell and we continue to get our salaries, and be able to pay our rents”.

Even he did not know how far his dreams would take him. His mid-boggling futuristic imagination, and his portrayal of superheroes with all their failings and flaws, ensured that the readers’ and audience’s love for superheroes does not die.

A few months ago, when my daughters excitedly went to watch ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ by Marvel Studios, on the day it released in Bahrain, I thought of my teenage times. The times I had rushed to the book store on hearing that a new set of Marvel Comics have arrived.

Also, Stan Lee’s cameo appearances in almost all Marvel Studio productions have portrayed him as a simple loveable human being. But he will remain a super-hero. A real one. Not a fictional one.

From comics to movies, Stan Lee’s imagination has only taken us, and the entertainment world, ‘ever upward’. Excelsior!

The US Government Debt: Where's it going?

“Neither a lender nor a borrower be”.

This Shakespearean advice, from the tragedy called Hamlet, might seem impractical today.

Often, we wouldn’t be able to buy cars or build houses, if we do not borrow.

And, if it were not for those bankers - who first lend, by smooth talking us into taking loans, and who then come straight to our throats, if we default - many of us wouldn’t be taking any bold or adventurous steps.

But, we are not alone. Even organizations and countries borrow money. And, just like many of us, they thrive sometimes. And they nose-dive sometimes.

In 2015, when Greece formally defaulted on a $1.7 billion payment to IMF (International Monetary Fund) it had plunged itself into a crisis. And it was for an amount that was only a minuscule part of its overall debt of $367bn then.

As of 2017, Greece’s total debt is $376bn.

Since the 2009 financial crisis, due to austerity measures and several conditional pressures from outside, it had ensured that the debt had not risen above 6%.

But the Greek tragedy is that, during the same period, its critical debt-to-GDP ratio has shot up from 127% to 179%.

Compare that with USA, which is on top of the world when it comes to government debt.

Its total debt is $21.6 trillion dollars. And counting. Trillions, not billions. And that is some 60 times more than that of Greece. (Check out the US Debt Clock here)

The 2017 Gross-Federal-Debt-to-GDP ratio of USA is 105.4%. We can call it very high because, never since 1940s, has it been this high.

It was an all-time high of 118.9% in 1946 (But it was during the Second World War, which is understandable). It was a record low of 31.7% in 1981.

Interestingly, from the historical data, from 1940 to 2017, we can see that the Government Debt to GDP ratio had averaged at 61.7%.

Borrowing 60%-62% of what you are producing may not be a bad idea. In fact, it could be a great idea, to surge ahead. But when, eventually, borrowing becomes greater than what is being produced, danger-lights and alarm-bells should start off.

In 1988, the debt was only half of America's economic output. But by 2017 it has become greater than its output.

Today, therefore, letting this percentage rise more could be disastrous. Especially, for a nation in whose treasury bonds, other countries have heavily invested.

When a nation’s leaders decrease revenue by cutting taxes, and yet increase expenditure by putting more dollars into defence, education, medical care, and social security, it is obvious that they will be forced to borrow.

Now, with the mid-term elections going on in the USA, let us hope that some new decision makers would emerge, with fresh thoughts, to effectively address both; the fiscal deficit and the debt-to-GDP ratio.

In an article titled “What would it take to get US debt under control?” James C Capretta - of the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank - suggests that keeping debt under 50% of the GDP, by 2033, is ideal and possible. But getting it under 100% should be a top priority.

“Procrastination is the enemy of sound fiscal policy. The longer political leaders wait to take action, the more difficult it will be to reach reasonable goals”, he says.

Republican leaders, including those in the Trump administration, are telling us that the growing deficit is an example for why entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security must be cut.

Democrat leaders, on the other hand, are telling us that they can reverse some provisions of the GOP tax law to increase revenue.

But, for whoever comes to power, there’s another Shakespearean advice: “Wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss but cheerily seek how to redress their harms.”


Related Links

1. 3 charts that show why the US should stop ignoring its debt problem
2. Does US Debt Matter? CNBC Explains (YouTube Video)
3. What would it take to get US debt under control?

The Sherlock Holmes Phenomenon

Who is C. Auguste Dupin?

The name won’t ring a bell easily because hardly anyone knows this fictional character created by Edgar Allan Poe.

Dupin had made his first appearance in Poe's 1841 book "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", generally considered the first real detective fiction in English literature.

Poe had created the character Dupin even before the word ‘detective’ was coined. Or, so I heard.

However, when I curiously consulted the online etymology dictionary, I found out that in 1828, though not popular, the term ‘detective police’ was already in use in some British police documents. And it referred to those "fitted for or skilled in detecting".

But that was just 13 years before ‘Detective’ Dupin made his first appearance. Very soon, in a series of books, this ‘detective’ or sleuth endeared himself to English readers with his skillful analysis of crime scenes.

His evaluation of the sequence of events and the possible motives of suspects, before finally revealing the real criminal – in the climax of the book - from a set of characters which readers are led to suspect, became a model-framework for many soon-to-come detective stories.

“Without Edgar Allan Poe, We Wouldn’t Have Sherlock Holmes” is, in fact, the title of a Smithsonian website article.

Today, 31 October, is the day on which ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was first published in 1892.



On this 126th anniversary of the great fictional detective’s arrival, therefore, I thought it appropriate to look back at Holmes and a few other fictional detectives.

The pipe-smoking, cloth-capped, magnifying-glass-wielding Sherlock Holmes, of 221B Baker Street in London, captured readers as he captured criminals.

His mystery-unravelling skills are cogently narrated to us by his companion Dr. Watson who often gets reminded that elementary escapes him.

Personally, I had graduated to Sherlock Holmes’ books, only in college. But my mind was already fertile for these books, thanks to my devouring of Enid Blyton’s stories of ‘Five Find-Outers’, a series of mystery-books I’d loved as a middle-school kid.

My particular fascination for one of the characters, Fatty (real name, Frederick Algernon Trotteville) made me dream that I would become a detective like him.

And once I got introduced to Agatha Christie’s fictional detectives ‘Hercule Poirot’ and ‘Miss Marple’ in other books, my dream got reinforced. And I seriously felt I had found my calling. However, fortunately, or unfortunately, it was a short-lived desire.

Father Brown (created by G K Chesterton), Jack Reacher (Lee Child), Inspector Maigret (Georges Simenon),  V.I. Warshawski (Sara Paretsky), Mike Hammer (Mickey Spillane) and  even Nancy Drew (Edward Stratemeyer) are all great fictional detectives.

Precious Ramotswe (created by Alexander McCall Smith), who runs the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in Botswana, solves many crimes too.

Almost all these detective characters came to life in movies and TV series, and changed the face of whodunits. Especially because, young people and millennials would rather watch, than read.

My two daughters now watch Sherlock, the new BBC TV series. No. Not those with Jeremy Brett, but those with Benedict Cumberbatch. And though I feel they should be reading instead of watching, I have to give in, and join them.

I find the setting of the new Benedict Cumberbatch series, in 'current day London', very odd and unaccepatable. I dislike watching Dr Watson browsing the Internet, and I dislike watching Sherlock Holmes walking past the London Eye. But what can I do?

Therefore, much to my daughters' dismay, I just take pride in explaining to them that ‘A Study in Pink’ was originally ‘A Study in Scarlet’. And that ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’ was actually ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’.

And that it is "The game is afoot", not  'The game is on'.

But, they don’t care.

They feel the adventures of their Sherlock Holmes are definitely better than mine.

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PS :

(1) 'The game is afoot' could be a Sherlock Holmes' phrase,  but the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle took it from William Shakespeare's writings 'Henry IV' and 'Henry V' .

(2) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle attributed the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes' character to (a) Edgar Allen Poe's writings and (b) to one Dr Joseph Bell.


To DOWNLOAD the pdf page of my Wednesday column in THE DAILY TRIBUNE, Bahrain here or from here.

John Locke's Political Philosophy: Is it still relevant?

About a year ago, at Oxford in United Kingdom, the guide of our walking tour was showing us various colleges of those prestigious academic environs.

He showed us a building where he said philosophy students might have debated and discussed radical ideas, for centuries.

Among the philosophers he mentioned was one special name. John Locke.

A few months ago, when I was listening to Michael Sandel's video lectures on ‘Justice’ - available freely on YouTube, from Harvard University - I met the name again.  John Locke.

Born some 400 years ago, John Locke the English philosopher and physician had influenced politics and justice systems in ways more powerful than, probably, how many other front-runners of western philosophy  have done.

It was on this day, 29 August, in 1632, that he was born in Somerset, England. And it is unlikely that anyone may have thought then, that John Locke would grow up to become one of the most influential thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment (1620s – 1780s).

In fact, he went on to be called the "Father of Liberalism".

Some political philosophers even say that his writings had generated such agitation in political discourse that they are the main reason the French and American Revolutions actually happened!

His philosophy had influenced French thinkers like Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and his momentous work called ‘Two Treatises of Government’, in particular, had given monarchs, government leaders and politicians radical new perspectives on ‘governance’ that they were unable to ignore.

This British scholar was among those who argued that all of us have a ‘natural right to life, liberty and property’; and that governments, based on ‘social contract’, must not violate these rights.

Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America, was so captured by the teachings of John Locke that he had incorporated them into the US Declaration of Independence of 1776.

When Thomas Jefferson drafted the declaration, borrowing from Locke, he gave three examples of "unalienable rights" which all his country’s citizens must be entitled to, namely "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The related text in the US Declaration of Independence says: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed”.

The choice or the consent of its citizens is therefore paramount when it comes to the conduct of elected governments.

While it may have the right to control what its citizens do, the government must note however that it can do so, only to the extent that it does not violate the natural rights of individuals.

Locke had believed that no government should ever take away any individuals’ fundamental rights.

For example, since the fruit of a man’s labour is effectively his property, how much of it can be taken away as ‘tax’? Is it with his consent? Moreover, is the man able to enjoy the results of what he has gained without undue government intervention?

Conservative governments may not hold the same view as liberal governments. But it is essential for us to understand that Locke made us think of governance by social contract that benefits nation, society and the individual.

Is there a threat to the life of an individual?  Is the liberty of the individual restricted? Is the individual unable to fully enjoy his own property?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then the government is failing in following moral principles. At least those laid down by Locke.

Thailand's Cave Rescue: A Reminder that People are Awesome

“Today, hope, compassion, and courage has won". 

These were the words of Iceland’s prime minister, Katrin Jakobsdottir, who was the first world leader to welcome the news of the amazing cave rescue in Northern Thailand, through her tweet on Tuesday, 10 July.

As the world was waiting with bated breath to know the fate of the 12 boys and their football coach, stuck for 18 days in a deep, dark underground cave; and as the torrential rain and flooding waters inside the tunnels, made the rescue operation extremely dangerous, what has ultimately survived and succeeded is this: the undaunted spirit of collective human endeavour.

Today, hope, compassion, and courage has won. Warmest wishes for a speedy recovery to all of you brave boys from your friends in Iceland. #ThaiCaveRescue

— Katrín Jakobsdóttir (@katrinjak) July 10, 2018

Hope. Compassion. Courage. These three words that Iceland’s Prime Minister used are not only apposite for this amazing daredevil operation, but also appropriate in ascribing to human beings the qualities they are capable of.  

The seemingly pessimistic human nature is just an exterior to a strong optimistic determination that we all have deep inside, when it comes to helping others.

We possess within us this hidden potential, which somehow surfaces only when we come together, and struggle together, to lift others up, without losing hope. 

This coming together of the Thai navy seals, divers, doctors, aid-workers, psychologists, counsellors and all other experts, in this hour of need to bring out the cold and hungry boys from the dark and deep subterranean tunnels -- so that they can safely return to their loved ones, and so that they can continue experiencing the joy of life -- deserves much praise and appreciation.

Our best cheers, therefore, must go to these remarkable rescue participants; to all those, from Thailand and outside, who fought against all odds to get the boys and their coach out.

More than the cheering of our favourite football teams in the World Cup - where those soccer stars are anyway earning megabucks for their participation in the ongoing sporting extravaganza in Russia - it is the cheering of these ‘rescue workers’ and their selfless determination and dedicated hard-work that, I think, really matters.

I had closely followed the news, in 2010, when a similar cave rescue operation went on – for many days - in the South American country of Chile. In an astounding daredevil operation, after 69 days inside, all 33 miners were rescued.

Trapped with no way out, food and messages were being sent inside, for many days.  

And then, after what must have seemed like eternity to those 33 miners and to their families, they were brought out, one by one, using a capsule built specially for that purpose, and which can accommodate only one person at a time.

I found it nice to read this week, in the news, that those Chilean miners had sent messages of advice, encouragement and support to these boys and their families.

In a short video message, one of miners Mario Sepulveda from his twitter account @SuperMarioChile had said, “I would like to send greetings and lot of strength to the authorities and to the families of the 12 children”.

He had also added, “I have no doubt that if the government of that country puts in everything and makes all the humanly possible efforts, this rescue will be successful. May God bless you”.

Con la ayuda y fuerza del gobierno de Tailandia y el mundo entero! Oremos por esos 12 Niños que salgan lo más pronto posible! Hago un llamado a todos los que a nosotros también nos recataron no podemos dejarlos solos!! pic.twitter.com/FGcGF8qEaa

— Mario Sepúlveda (@SuperMarioChile) July 4, 2018

And, today, we can say the rescue was successful. And it is because of all the humanly efforts wholeheartedly put in, by the government and by other authorities, so that joy and laughter can replace fear and desperation which had been haunting the families of those boys, for 18 days.

With hope, compassion and courage, we make this world a better place.

And we must agree that, yes, ‘people are awesome’.

Can we stop Indian Words infiltrating into English?

“... the stars were coming out above him, in great processions of wheeling fire. He saw a great juggernaut of stars form in the sky and threaten to roll over and crush him…”

These words, in Ray Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451 which I am reading, made me think of how Indian words have been embellishing the English language.

‘Juggernaut’ and ‘wheels’ are often used together to define an overwhelming force of circumstances from which one simply cannot escape.

With its origins in Shree Jagannath Temple at Puri, in India’s east coast state of Odisha, and in its thousand-year-old annual Hindu chariot-festival, the term ‘juggernaut wheels’  has achieved immense literary significance.

It is an allegorical reference to gigantic temple chariots, reputed to crush devotees under large powerful wheels.  Once the ratha-yathra (chariot-journey) starts,  there is no stopping it. Even if crowds of devotees thronged its path, and came in its way.

The exaggerated accounts of deaths of devotees under Jagannath’s wheels, and the apocryphal stories of pilgrims in devotional ecstasy throwing themselves into its path, to achieve moksha (salvation), gave rise to the term ‘juggernaut wheels’.

In this 1953 dystopian novel of Ray Bradbury, I could feel the protagonist Guy Montague’s emotions as he runs wild, as a fugitive, chased by sophisticated government machinery, both political and technological, unable to escape being crushed under the weighty wheels of inexorable circumstances.

On investigation, I found out that Charles Dickens had used the term ‘juggernaut’, much earlier, in ‘The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit’ published in 1844.

And so did Robert Louis Stevenson in ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’. And even H G Wells, and H W Longfellow.

From Shashi Tharoor's book 'Why I am a Hindu' published in 2017

But ‘juggernaut’ is one simple example, from thousands of Indian words and phrases which enrich English literature.

In 2015, Shashi Tharoor the Indian politician had said in a debate at Oxford University that, during their rule of India, the British had looted many things, including the word ‘loot’.

And he is right. Hindi words like ‘loot, jungle, bazaar, bungalow, Tiffin, verandah, shampoo, chutney and gym’ are all commonplace in English now.

For etymology lovers, here’s another interesting piece of information I found on a BBC website about ‘Hobson-Jobson’, a dictionary compiled by Colonel Henry Yule and AC Burnell.

The dictionary’s subtitle is: "A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms etymological, historical, geographical and discursive”.

In their work, which consists of over 2000 Anglo-Indian entries, the authors write about a copper coin. In ancient India, the coin was called a ‘dumree’.  And it was common, long before British Raj time, for people in India to say: 'No, I won't give a dumree!', referring to something of insignificant value.

On English tongues, apparently, ‘damree’ became ‘dam’, and was soon spelt as an already existing English word ‘damn’!

‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’. When Rhett Butler says this to Scarlett O'Hara,  in the movie ‘Gone with the wind’, he probably has no knowledge about the ‘dumree’ or about the phrase’s Indian connection.

Old Blighty! It was also a term for 'England' or 'Great Britain' to which every British soldier longed to go back to. And it is a pure Indian word.

A ‘wilaa-yati’ or ‘bilaa-yati’ in Hindi, Urdu and Bengali means ‘a foreigner’. When Indian soldiers of the First World War referred to their British counterparts in this way, the Britons found it a ‘cushy’ term to use.

Yes. ‘cushy’ too, is derived from the Hindi word ‘kushi’ for happiness.

Pyjamas, dungarees, and bandanas in clothing; thugs, dacoits and loots in crime; curry, tandoori and chutney in food; avatar, karma and nirvana in religion; pundit, guru and mantra in education…

There is no stopping the juggernaut wheels of Indian words romping onto the English language. After all, in 2017 alone, Oxford Dictionary has added 900 new words, and 70 of them were Indian.

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PS: In 2009, Ray Bradbury had written a short story with the title itself as  'Juggernaut' - for Saturday Evening Post. You can read it by following links by clicking here.



For the published article pdf file, click here

The Kohinoor Diamond: A Troubled Tale

As recently as in 2015, there were calls for the Kohinoor diamond to be returned to India.

But the British government remained silent. And the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi too, did not raise the issue during his UK visit, in November 2015.

This month, he will be making a second visit to UK, for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. And this time too, we can be sure he will not raise the topic.

The story of this diamond called ‘Koh-i-Noor’ – which means ‘Mountain of Light’, in Persian - is so complex that it is unlikely that neither government would make any effort in even starting to negotiate on it.

In fact, at different times, not only India, but also Pakistan, Afghanistan, and even Iran, had claimed the prized gemstone as rightfully theirs, and asked for its return.

But the Kohinoor is stubbornly sitting, on a display, in the Tower of London among UK’s crown jewels. And, it might remain so, for years to come.

But, why do I say so?

It is because I had just completed the book, ‘Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond’. And this 2017 book written, evidently with enormous research, by historians William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, shows me that it is not an easy problem to resolve.

The authors have taken me on a ride, through history, which I doubt I will ever forget. It was not an enjoyable ride.  It was a disturbing one. The history of this diamond is replete with stories of loot, murder, torture, deceit and colonial greed.

From India’s Kollur Mines to Golconda Fort, from Kakatiya Dynasty to Mughal Dynasty, from India’s Muhammed Shah Rangeela to Persia’s Nader Shah, from Afghan King Shuja Shah Durrani (Shah Shuja) to Punjab Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the diamond had kept changing places, and positions, which are simply too many and too complex to explain.

In 1846, when the one-eyed Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s successor, the 7-year old Maharaja Duleep Singh - who was ruling through his mother and regent Maharani Jind Kaur - signed the ‘Treaty of Lahore’, the diamond passed onto British hands.

If it had not gone to the British, it would have probably gone to Shree Jagannath Temple of Puri - which is in the current day Odhisa State. Apparently, Ranjit Singh, when he was completely bed-ridden and unable-to-speak, is supposed to have indicated to his Prime Minister that he will bequeath the diamond to the temple.

Sadly, except for the words of the Minister, there is not much proof of what the Maharaja had really intended. And the rapid turn of events in his successors' greed for power had let the diamond slip out of Punjab's royal treasury into British possession.

At the Buckingham Palace, however, Queen Victoria was not very excited with that which Lord Dalhousie had sent her from India. Yet, at “The Great Exhibition of 1851” organised by Prince Albert, the Kohinoor diamond was on public display at London’s Hyde Park.

But, when the general public expressed that the Kohinoor had lacked the special lustre that diamonds have, Prince Albert decided to have it re-cut.

In 1852, amidst a huge fanfare at the Tower of London, an aging first Duke of Wellington – Arthur Wellesley, who had, himself, served in India defeating Tippu Sultan (a poem here) – made the inaugural cut on the Kohinoor.

It was soon re-cut, re-shaped, and re-fitted in such a way that Queen Victoria could wear the diamond, in her crown, or in her brooch, as she pleased.

In 1855, she was able to show off the Kohinoor, at the Palace of Versailles where a huge banquet was thrown in her honour by the then French monarch.

Vintage illustration of the State Crown of Queen Mary, Consort of George V, part of the Crown Jewels of England (chromolithograph), 1919. The crown contains 2,200 diamonds, including the famous Koh-i-Noor, Cullinan III and Cullinan IV gems.

Interestingly, fearing bad luck on men, kings avoided the crown with Kohinoor. But it seemingly brought good luck to women. So, queens wore it. Right up to the mother of Queen Elizabeth II.

Over centuries, Kohinoor has been a tenant of many treasuries, of many rulers. And we know that ‘spoils of war’ or ‘payments for treaties of annexation’ are no longer acceptable in democratic governance.

Furthermore, we must remember that India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran had not existed then, in their current forms.

The claims may come and go. The places may remain or change. But the diamond itself, we know, is forever.

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Related Links:

Kohinoor was no ‘gift’, the learned SG has got it mixed up
India's learned Solicitor General needs to read up on the 19th century history of the Sikhs and the British.

Puri priests want Kohinoor for Lord Jagannath
They have renewed their longstanding demand of placing the famed jewel on the crown of Lord Jagannath.

What's the New Weapon of Mass Misinformation?

The 2016 election win of Trump, in the USA. The 2016 vote for Brexit, in the UK, and the 2015 elections, in Nigeria.

What is common to all three?

It is ‘Cambridge Analytica’, the company that is alleged to have influenced voting in all these places.

By collecting data on personality profiles of people, using various methods - including a software application that garnered data from Facebook profiles - this organization is said to have enabled governments and political parties to specifically target millions of voters --- with advertisements and promotional material that might have swayed their thinking.

Whether this gets proven or not, in the near future, we can be sure of one thing. Our personal data is not ‘secure’ anywhere. And it is being used against us.

If our pictures from iCloud can be stolen, if our personal data in government data centres can be hacked, if our telephone calls can be spied on and tapped, if our website-visits and our actual physical locations’ visits can all be recorded, if our emails can be read by Artificial Intelligence bots (in the guise of targeted marketing software), I think we are moving into a dangerous new world; where nothing will remain private.

It will be a world where, using our personality traits, biased and distorted information is fed to us, through various social media vehicles, by political parties, with the ulterior motive of manipulating our minds.

Just look at what SCL group promises. This is the same group which owns ‘SCL Elections’ and ‘Cambridge Analytica’.

“SCL Group provides data, analytics, and strategy to governments and military organizations worldwide. For over 25 years, we have conducted behavioral change programs in over 60 countries & have been formally recognized for our work in defense & social change”.

I picked the above lines from SCL group’s website. And, as we can see, they make it clear that their aim is behavioural change -- using our data.

And now, look at what ‘Cambridge Analytica’ itself promises, on its website.

“We have up to 5,000 data points on over 230 million individual American consumers. By combining these data assets with your own customer data as well as a proprietary research instrument, we build custom target audiences, which enable us to engage, persuade, and motivate individuals to act”.

They can build custom audiences, they say. And to build them, if they obtain data through unscrupulous means, like it was allegedly done though companies like Facebook, whom should we blame?

This organization? Or Facebook? Or both? Or ourselves? Who betrayed our trust?

We may not know the answer, yet.

However, it is clear that data companies today are built and maintained to help the world. But they can also harm the world.

While Customer Relationship Management is a great thing, the spread of propaganda material, distorted information, and lies is a dangerous trend in politics.

In fact, ‘propaganda’ has become a good example of weaponized information today. Misleading or biased information of political nature is being spread by parties which are actually paying data-companies for their services.

Governments and organizations are on the one hand using data, of our behavioural patterns, to attack our minds. And on the other hand, promising us that our data is completely secure, in their servers.

“Edward Snowden steals data and he is called a criminal. Mark Zuckerberg allows data to be sold, and he is declared the ‘Man of the Year’”. That’s one of the Internet memes crisscrossing the cyberspace now.

Despite all the big things companies are promising us, like end-to-end encryption, we are really not sure if our communication and our data are really, genuinely, protected.

If George Orwell were alive today, I am sure he would not have said: “Big Brother is watching you”.

He would have re-written it saying, “Big data is manipulating you”.

My Brief History with Stephen Hawking's Books

A mathematics professor at the US University of Wisconsin-Madison did something interesting.

Using the highlights feature of Amazon Kindle, Jordan Ellenberg compiled a list of the most popular e-books that people buy but never finish.

And, Stephen Hawking’s ‘A Brief History of Time’ is right there, among the top-books, which are celebrated by many, but read by hardly any.

On Wall Street Journal’s website, as I read Ellenberg’s analysis, I immediately thought of the time I had purchased this book myself; an Indian paperback edition.

It was in 1990, I think, when long before kindles arrived, I'd embarked on this ambitious project of reading Hawking’s book.

Ambitious, because I was barely 23 then.

For a graduate in mathematics and physics – which I was, by then – and for someone who had read books of over 1100 pages – like Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’, which I’d read, by then - this non-fiction bestseller of just 250 pages seemed like an easy task. Just a brief, well, a matter of time.

But, try as I might, despite all that which our over-passionate Physics professor at the university had pumped into our heads - including the Theory of Relativity with its ‘length contraction’ and ‘time dilation’ concepts - I must confess, I had to abandon the book midway.

This book even had lots of beautiful pictures and diagrams explaining concepts like time-warp, uncertainty principle and string theory.

It is, however, another matter that the images had lacked the power to penetrate the thick skull I was blessed with.

Therefore, I soon gravitated, into my own universe. Against the book. And, today, I am completely unaware of my book's current physical coordinates.

The book, we can infer, was simply unable to escape the pull of a black hole, somewhere.

But, as an Indian, I particularly remember from the book, Stephen Hawking’s appreciation for the work done by the Indian-American Astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

As far back as in 1930s, Chandrasekhar had studied what would happen if Einstein's special theory of relativity was applied to the processes that occur inside stars; and eventually proved that a star really could collapse, and fall into a black hole.

Chandrashekar had won the shared Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983. The very year Hawking's book was released.

So, we can say that Hawking’s appreciation of Chandrashekar’s path-breaking work had come much before that of the Swedish Academy.

It was in 2008, in the Awali Library, here in Bahrain, that I had stumbled on ‘The Universe in a Nutshell’ by Stephen Hawking.

Published in 2001, this book - which is generally considered a sequel to the multi-million-copy bestseller ‘A Brief History of Time’ – was standing seductively in the bookshelf. Staring at me.

I took it out. I leafed through its pages, which were rich with colourful photos and illustrations. And falling to its charms, brought it home.

But unable to make sense of many concepts, I must admit, I returned the book without reading most of it.

However, my troubled relationships with two of Hawking’s books did not deter me; from making a third attempt.

In 2016, I purchased Stephen Hawking’s ‘The Grand Design’ (2010) co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow.

I had doubted myself, but the book was so well-written, targeting those with even basic knowledge of science, that I was able to complete it.

From Viking stories of Skoll and Hati, the wolves which cause eclipses (like Rahu and Ketu, in the Hindu Mythology) to the latest analysis of the Theory of Everything and M-theory, it explains the growth of scientific knowledge, and asks if God is really needed in the creation of ‘multiverse’, or many universes.

Whether we read Hawking's books or not, and whether we agree with him or not, we know one thing for sure.

In our lifetime, we will never see another 'Superstar of Science', like him.
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Some related weblinks.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/stephen-hawking-a-brief-history-of-time-book-theoretical-physics-why-good-a8255251.html

Dan Brown's New Book: Robert Langdon's Latest Chase

In mid-November, when I went to purchase ‘Origin’, the latest book of Dan Brown, I had asked how many copies were sold here, till then.

The cashier at Jashanmal bookshop in Seef Mall had replied 66. And it had been barely a week, or maybe two since the book was released.

So, I immediately knew that - like me - there were a few in this island country of Bahrain who wanted to quickly learn about Robert Langdon’s latest escapades.

This fifth book featuring the fictitious Harvard Professor of Religious Iconology and Symbology - but the seventh book, written by Dan Brown – starts with an important meeting at a monastery; at a Benedictine Abbey, on the mountain of Montserrat, in Catalonia, Spain.

Edmond Kirsch, a billionaire inventor, futurist, and atheist, tells the world’s three great religious leaders - a Roman Catholic Bishop, a Jewish Rabbi and an Islamic Imam - that he will make known to the world, a new discovery. He tells them it “will not shake your foundations. It will shatter them”.

The tight suspense takes a very long time to loosen itself; mainly, because of the author’s somewhat needless longish prose. But, as a reader, I did not mind it, because of the delectable concoction into which I was thrown.

As in all the four earlier books, we see Robert Langdon unravel clues and uncover secrets, giving us an entertaining and educational tour as we scramble through the pages, with him.

And, as in all the four earlier books, we see him in the company of yet another beautiful and brilliant young lady.

In fact, this time, she is the Director/Curator of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. And, our story becomes more intense as we learn that she is also the future queen of Spain; after her recent engagement to Spain’s Crown Prince.

Now, one of the most fascinating things about any Dan Brown story is the way it is woven around art and architecture, philosophy and literature, and even science and technology. In fact, it is on the latter that this book’s plot revolves.

And it follows the typical Dan Brown pattern of giving us mindboggling information.

From the poetry of William Blake to the architecture of Antoni Gaudi, from the Miller–Urey experiments on evolution theory to the growing application of artificial intelligence, from apostasy in the Catholic Church to the new phenomenon of online fake news, he covers it all.

No wonder Edmond Kirsch’s car, a Tesla, has on its number plates these words: “And the geek shall inherit the earth”.

In a television interview I saw on YouTube, Dan Brown admits that Edmond Kirsch’s character is a blend of real-life futurists Ray Kurzweil and Elon Musk.

Those interested in Evolution Theory and its effect on the theological world, those interested in the growing application of Artificial Intelligence to everyday use, those interested in the architecture of Catholic Spain, and those who love to read a thriller, will certainly enjoy the book. Though at some points it may appear like a drag.

Anyway, for some strange inexplicable reason, even more than ‘Da Vinci Code’ and 'Origin', my favourite will always remain ‘Angels and Demons’.

In ‘Angels and Demons’ it was the Vatican City, in ‘Da Vinci Code’ it was Paris and London, in ‘The Lost Symbol’ it was Washington DC, and in ‘Inferno’ it was Florence, Venice, and Istanbul.  This time, in ‘Origin’, it is Madrid and Barcelona.

And like in all the other books, we learn a lot about these cities and their history.

One thing is certain. Dan Brown’s research and storytelling skills can never be brushed aside as mediocre.

I loved the book. But I have come across some reviewers being very rude in their criticism (Especially a Washington Post review). But I attribute it to the ‘sour grapes’ attitude of reviewers who cannot stomach the fact that, unlike them, Dan Brown has already sold millions of books.

Their reviews will, anyway, not stop the ‘Origin’ from being on the ‘New York Times’ bestsellers list’. It has already been on it for 16 weeks!

The erudite Robert Langdon will, hopefully, be remembered for years to come. Perhaps, on the lines of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

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