Simultaneous Chess Event at DA-IICT, Nov 2011

The members of DA-IICT's chess team including Prof. Rahul Muthu, an international master who played against 16 players simultaneously in the corridors of DA-IICT on 4th Nov 2011.

For more pictures of the event, click here.

Cooking Corruption

How would your favourite dish taste if you forget to add masala in it? Pretty much lacklustre, dull and tasteless – right? Can you sell such a dish? Well 21st century modern India sells primarily on masala. Unless and until there is considerable amount of masala in your food, it won’t sell. And corruption is not only the spicy food, but has become the very pot in which your masaledar food is cooked.

In other words, corruption is the licence to sell the masaledar food. It is indispensable, ubiquitous and is often warranted by a hierarchy. There is a politics to it which demands you to be a witty player of the game. You cannot be a hero unless you make yourself a practitioner of corruption; or more importantly have a licence to practice the politics of corruption. In the least, you can pay heed to Khushwant Singh’s fantastic recipe on ‘how to be a star attraction’ in today’s world. He says -

“If you can’t dazzle your opponent by your wit, then bamboozle them with your bullshit.”

The modern era seems to have been rather bamboozled by the over-execution of wit. Manipulation, nepotism, cronyism is rampant. They are all flavours of corruption just as your masala is to your food. You want to make maximum optimal profits in no time, more than any maths or algorithm course can optimize. The greeneries of currency looks supreme than the sanctity of the ecology; the insatiable desire engenders gigantic disparity; honesty and simplicity remain confined to the mythological textbooks; and morality, values, ethics and innocence dis-appear, rather get vanquished.

Corruption shares a healthy relationship with the greed and insatiable desire of humankind. It discriminates, divides and sorts the rich and the poor. As an example, the rich prefers to remain exposed as a signature of salaciousness, status and class; while the poor remains under-dressed. Both are devoid of attire but for entirely opposite reasons. As a matter of fact - 46 per cent of the malnourished children of the world—of whom at least 75,000 die every month—are in India. Another alarming official statistic—36 per cent of Indians live on less than Rs. 20 a day; with the menace of corruption pegging at Rs 1,555 thousand crores in the last decade.

The tank of wealth is leaking and overflowing at few places sans any distribution / percolation to the much weaker sections of society. What transpires is we have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider highways, but narrower viewpoints. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, yet more problems; more medicine, but less wellness. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorces. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is like you have so much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom.

I think globalization and modernization has imported a new disease that of ‘instant’anization. Today, you have programmes with instant results –viz. instant yoga, instant Samadhi, instant vocab builder, instant masala for cooking and many more. This instantaneous approach is also a grave party to the birth of corruption. The quality is compromised with money, inefficiency and hollowness.

Today, no one claims to be ordinary, for it is the epoch of extra-ordinary events – right from the CWG and 2G scams to the “Murdochization” of Indian news and some media-channels including Ms Radia, the Olympic winner’s dope scandal, the recurring blasts, the illegal mining, an unresponsive and clueless government, Tihar’s VIP inmates, same political battles and tu-tu mein-mein between political parties on National TV channels. UPA-II has been pre-occupied in combating the scams it has been greeted with and futilely changing ministerial portfolios with very little on concrete developmental grounds.

So if you wish to be an extra-ordinary sensation, all you have to do is to engine a scam successfully, failing so can land you in Tihar. Even if you miss out on the wits, simply a reasonable pocket-load and a reasonable political nexus can befriend you with corruption – the licence to buy any damn thing. Neeraj Grover became a huge sensation recently – the murder, the judgement, the accused, the accomplice, the media melodrama. A new film on the enigmatic man by a notorious producer and a reality soap-opera pregnant with Maria Susairaj becomes another new sensation to this sensation. In this series of sensations, the common citizens also play a role but of mute spectators.

Lokpal created a huge debate of late. Not that it is something new. It was first introduced in the parliament of India in 1968 and subsequently brought to table 9 times thereafter. But it never passed its examination at the hands of our elected representatives. It is a pity to see a high resourceful country governed out of lustful desires and nepotism. It is even more a pity to see the able civil servants – the IAS, the IPS fall at the merciful prey of the system ruled by political black-sheep. A couple of months back I saw a very encouraging competition in DAIICT which demanded solutions to corruption. Unfortunately I don’t see a concrete, clear, feasible, sweeping and sure-shot solution to corruption. I guess Lokpal is a very solid beginning in this regard. It remains to see how it gets implemented to ensure a relatively less corrupt and a cleaner, a civilized sustainable society.

With author Rashmi Bansal

With author Rashmi Bansal at DAIICT at her book launch 'I have a Dream', June 2011.

Breathless Flute

Breathless Flute by Pandit Ronu Majumdar. Click HERE to listen.

One of the most enchanting instrumental melodies :)

The Decayed Romance !

At the very outset, I shall borrow the words of Khalil Gibran, the famous American-Lebanese poet - "One day you will ask me which is more important ? My life or yours ? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life."

‘Shiv’ is a binomial entity. Binomial for it is equally fascinating both in mythology and modernity. Etymologically, it stands as an embodiment of auspiciousness, more befittingly a subject of passionate romance. It manifests itself in a form as abstract and perhaps as controversial as romance – the form we all worship – which is the linga or the Shivlinga. Controversy is an indispensable part of Modernity. And this controversial modernity engenders a romance of different kind in me– a sublime one embodying a set of new philosophies, ontologies and epistemologies. This ecological Cybernetics gives you a chance to taste all the new eclectic set of ideas.

The very idea of romance is omni-present. Its power is invincible. It journeys from an embryo to adulthood, through different lanes of time. It presents a fantastic ontogeny. But love demands sophistication; lest it can lethally insidious. Gone are those days when romance used to be a symbol of pristineness, a celebration of oneness, a bond of sacrifice, an exercise of passion and a mirror of pain. The cloistered passion of Radha-Krishna is an epitome. Mira’s love exemplifies her unconditional, painful longing and perseverance for Lord Shri Krishna. Sarada Maa inspires us with her renunciation of worldly pleasures to be one with the eccentric mystic - Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa. Mythology, truly, had invented the sanctity, the piousness of romance.

Modernity has imitated it to give birth to an objective romance. A romance which identifies you only with a purpose. In this epoch, complexity has outlived simplicity, lust has overtaken suprasensibility and imitation has murdered the innocence of love. Parameters of judging today’s romance have changed its colour to puzzle the justice of love. Modern beauty is superficial beauty, it is material beauty, only skin deep and it is merely a powdered beauty. Remember you can powder a surface to look artificially pretty; not any inner part. And humankind, anyways, offer you with only the few types of pure blood and flesh in it – very little to decorate and adulterate. Today, romance has become by far the most competitive and evanescent; akin to an instant Samadhi crash-course workshop of the West; teaching you nothing more than the art of kissing the futileness.

Gandhi, the heroic saint of the India’s independence, confesses in his autobiography, the lust that gripped him in his youthful days. The lust orphaned him of seeing, despite being the most dutiful and religious son, his father’s last breath. For he was hijacked to an abyss of desires, sensuality, fornication with his wife. Not only this, the very first child to Kasturbai died three days after its birth, which Gandhi attributes and laments owing to his youthful lust. Worse today romance is a comedy, a joke of two fluctuating identities.

I wish I could talk to the apparent innocence of this romance, talk to its eyes; perhaps know its changing needs. For I still find a faint essence of this divinity around me. I see it in the Orient, especially India, in the unconditional, oblivious, unbiased, painstaking love of its mothers for the neonatals. I feel it in music, another sublime refugee of this romance, which connects you potentially with the Supreme. I sense it in spirituality, which if practiced religiously, helps establish a wonderful oneness with you inner-being. I wish I could be a party to the innocence of a little boy; penurious, hungry, tired at the day’s end; holding onto his wage-worker father’s hand.

I will conclude with the words of Swami Vivekananda that – “Humans have infinite desires; They must learn the power to control it.” Nothing today can make a person happy. Man has become completely material. In fact, emotions, like romance, have got biased and purposeful. We must exercise, for the sake of real happiness in our lives, the power of detachment along with that of attachment – be it with any material or emotion. Because attachment beyond a degree brings in calamitous sorrow and pain. Let us learn to romance with the divine gift of romance. Let us preserve and practice its sanctity, piousness, purity, sanguiness, susnato from the modernity of Death.

--
Susnato Lahiri


References:-
1. Intimate Relations, Sudhir Kakar Penguin India, 1989
2. Tales of Love, Sex and Danger, John M Ross and Sudhir Kakar, OUP 1986
3. Ramakrishna Parahamansa – A psychological profile, N Sil, New York Publications
4. Complete works of Swami Vivekananda, Advaita Ashram, Calcutta
5. First Love, Last Rites, Namita Devidayal (e-Article)

Fluidity of Flute

Kindly Click On The Embedded Video Below To Listen



This particular piece has mesmerized my senses, transcending me to a different plane altogether. Presenting Dinesh Kumar with the ever-enchanting Fluidity of Flute :) Enjoy the wonderful composition of Peace !

Chess mahotsav 2010 – Guiness World Record

A world record of twenty thousand people playing the royal game of chess simultaneously on December 24, 2010 at Ahmedabad – kudos to Shri Narendra Modi and his government. Gujarat became the world leader in a record beating the previous best of Germany of thirteen thousand population.

The bottom line was to promote chess amongst school children of Gujarat with a view to instil patience and an exercise of intellect. The top line was the exhibition of such a mammoth event in very less time, with the help of GSCA(Gujarat Chess State Association), NIIT and Govt. of Gujarat. It was splendid.

GMDC ground at Ahmedabad was chosen to be the venue. Top chess players from all over the state were invited to participate. So were multitudes of school kids. Uniquley and quite exquisitely decorated, the playing arena looked like a giant chess board of blacks and whites from over the top. Huge chess pieces greeted you at the entrances. So were the army of State buses fetching the kids.

I happened to luckily play the event as a Master. Lucky, for I perhaps entered last in the registration. There were around 900 masters altogether; each one having to play against 20 school kids simultaneoulsy. The event witnessed, as guests and mentors, many luminaries - prominent amongst them were GM Vishy Anand, GM Tejas Bakre, Paresh Rawal, Manoj Joshi and last but not the least - the dynamic CM Shri Narendra Modi.

Wonderful chess players, arbiters , kids, organisers ornamented the event. For me, it was a rendezvous with lot many chess players with whom I used to play incessantly few years back. I met my coaches, my friends and many parents.

Playing agaisnt 20 players simultaneously is pretty exciting, but by the end of the games I felt it was exhausting circling for an hour or two constantly. The stages were colossal chairing CM and the GMs, Bollywood actors and also most other dignitories. It was great fun when the Shri Narendra Modi walked past me through the aisle of my playing arena.

During the presentation, I managed to be seated onto one of the diases, clicking pictures with my bloody 2MP camera I had at that point of time. Even though I did manage to click some great shots. Witnessed the flamboyance of CM Modi – his charisma, his power, his thrust of speech. The huge event came to a fantastic end with Gujarat being officially declared as Guiness World Record Holder for maximum number of chess players playing in a simultaneous. The exact figure was 20,484 ! Shri Modi was conferred upon the Certificate by the Guiness adjudicator.

The event was one of its kind and shall remain ingrained in my memory for years together.

- Susnato.