The TMK trail

The TMK trail

The nexus of cartel unveiled –Ford foundation like institution funding followed by Magsaysay award for peddling outdated leftist ideology.

Read this fully to understand that I have nothing against TMK and am not making any allegation without proof.

I wish all facts about the people like the ilk of TMK are exposed well so that he gets the taste of his own medicine.

These are for anyone who uses a platform to peddle out dated ideology and verbally [not intellectually] divert attention of literate masses from any real substance filled development activity or worthy contribution in any field.
I am placing here some mails exchanged blocking names because you know mafia kills its own team members.
This I wrote the following for a highly funded program at IIT   Madras benefitting a selected group financially of which the leader is TMK.

My mail :-

“I am an advocate of making optimum utilization of technology to classify, connect and decipher anything.

 
So, I understand and I am happy that you enabled me to make a note of and acquire knowledge from the perspective of highly intelligent group of enthusiastic youngsters who are doing a research to aid understanding of Carnatic music better by a wider range of/more number of rasikas which is an effort that is also a necessity of the hour.


From all those angles it is fine and thanks for making me getting enlightened on that score though I am not fully convinced about the overall outcome of this and please note never try to make convincing some oldies like me as part of your research nor let our observation discourage even a wee bit your work but probably you may also try to find and let me know whether my perspective could also be an aspect of your research if not an integral part of the project.



My only worry is in matters, especially in this context classical carnatic music, in essence, is very high on aesthetic sensitivity to which proper justice may not be rendered particularly in that aspect i.e 'aesthetic sensitivity' through scientific analysis. It is something to be tasted as a whole as you would a milagu [pepper and tamarind juice] rasam or a puliodarai sadam rather than prioritizing and preoccupying to find out the ingredients and their percentage of milagu[pepper] in a milagu rasam or percentage of tamarind in a puliodarai sadam.

I hope I made my point clear through this example as I am neither capable nor have the time to explain certain things through elaborate verbal expressions or professional jargon.


I also would have liked the team with all these enthusiastic lovers, proficient artists and techies and promoters of carnatic music to be having as advisers people with similar motives so that motivation will be focused and towards the goal but I am surprised how come cheap personal popularity seeking and self promoting TMK is part of the project.


I am also entitled to express my views. After all even yesterday's The Hindu newspaper[ I think N. Ram was absent ] for the first time has published a correct view about the present political scenario by a foreign national in its 9th page 'the article by David Cohen'after publishing all thrash including the ones by half baked small fries like TMK.”.


Reply to my mail-
Sri Balayogi,

“thanks for taking the time to write your comments.
The research being carried out at IIT is not analogous to dissecting a frog. Instead it is a research activity aimed at advanced signal processing to do pattern recognition and intelligent archiving of carnatic music. It is part of European Union funded initiative to explore music of various cultures using computational methods.
Let me give some use cases from Sangeethapriya itself. Let us say , I want to identify a rendering of bhairavi from sangeethapriya in which the raga alapana by vocalist is minimum of 10 mins. Or I want to locate a thani avartanam in which misra nadai has been played. Or a thani avartanam that is minimum 15 mins durations. Or I have some 100 MP3 files each of 3 hrs duration and each concert has to be split automatically into individual items and probably tagged automatically ??.

Today do we have a way to locate these tracks automatically ?? Unless we listen to each and every track, we wont know whether alapani is present or thani is present or misra nadai is present . How nice it will be if sangeethapriya has a search facility to search based on these search queries ??

Another example can be,  in Western music , they have achieved "hum" based music search. Let us say you have a song lingering in your mind, you heard it somewhere, you can not recollect the title of the song. You hum it in front of a computer and it will recognise and tell you what song it is. We dont have anything like that for Carnatic music. Doing this in Carnatic music is much more difficult due to variations from gamakas, "schools" etc. Still possible.

Or let us say, there is a thani avartanam piece that an artist has played and a budding student wants that to be transcribed so that he can play those phrases and learn from that. How nice it will be if computer can transcribe it and give the notation ??
Or let us say, a not-so-knowledgeable rasika attends a concert and the main artist sings a raga The rasika is not able to identify the raga, so either she/he has to ask the neighbor or keep quite and listen restlessly not knowing the raga. How nice it will be if there a iPhone app that is in "listening" mode that analysis the gamakas and jeeva swaras of the rendering and flashes the raga on the iPhone screen within 1 minute ?? The "frog dissection" is a first step towards this raga recognition.

And reg. the last usecase of splitting a 3 hour concert, the research at IIT has already yielded algorithms that can recognise that an item has ended based on raga change or claps from audience and can split a 3 hour long MP3 into individual tracks.

Regarding taking the help of leading musicians, Sri TM Krishna and Sri Umyalapuram Sivaraman are already advisers to the project.
Some techie musicians are also part of this project - Vignesh Iswhwar, Akshay Anantapadmanabhan

I urge you to go through http://compmusic.upf.edu/ to understand the full picture and about the results achieved so far so”.



On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 9:47 PM, Balayogi Venkataraman wrote:
Dear Brothers and Sisters at IIT,

I was aware of the works in acoustics department of IIT especially with regard to carnatic music.

I am happy about the great  efforts and very useful for beginners. I always feel we should never discourage good efforts through unloving criticism nor pamper and promote irrelevant things through uncritical love, nor ignore or be indifferent without placing on record our observation, especially if that can enhance or embellish the effort.

It is in this direction  as a matter of observation I feel no one can do enough justice to Carnatic music raga presentation through pieces or parts and make analysis through  dissection like a frog’s anatomy, because fundamentally carnatic music is not totally a staccato style of music nor is it merely a notation based reproduction of notes. So, unless it is rendered with crystal clear scales [with equally clear hamakas] like DR.M.Balamurali krishna or someone able to render the Jeevan/life or vital swaras of a raga in a short and quick alapana like Ariyakudiji or Kalakad Ramanarayana iyer [ unfortunately we do not have many recordings of both] or some flamboyant beginnings [like Shewag's batting or Vivian Richards batting] for example Vasudevayani varnam rendering of Madurai Somu, Sarasa sama dhana or Thathvamariya tarama of Madurai mani iyer etc wherein the vital aspect of raga is embellished within two minutes in a very crystal clear manner. Similarly many Nadahswaram vidwans’ or Violin vidwans’ or Veena vidwans’ renderings can be selected and embedded .

Neyveli Santhanagopalan has done a fine job in rendering pallavis within 10mts wherein the ragas along with their names are embedded in the sahityam.

People doing the research can also take the help of instrument players like Dr.M.Lalitha and M. Nandini or Veena Parthasarathy or the Jambhavan Shri T.N. Sheshagopalan sir and also take the work with people who are highly innovative but who stay in remote villages and therefore not much known in the carnatic circles for the simple reason they have not been in the circuits at Chennai or have not had reviews by the most preferred newspaper for fields like carnatic music but most biased news paper of South India ‘The Hindu’ [ the name is an irony] . I would like to mention two such great souls one did a recording [for my friend some 13 years back for blue lotus company] just within two days rendering all the 72 mela kartha ragas’ alapana with kritis and swaras as well Shri. Mohankrishna [unfortunately blind person] a disciple of Dr.M.balamuralikrishna and Advocate B.S.Manjunath, M.A, B.L,L.L.M,well versed in Music Key Board playing as Nadaswaram in Keyboard combining the sounds of Tenar Sax, Oboe, French Horn,Metalpad in different ratios and thus making the sound of Nadaswaram in the style of Dr Tiruvengadu Subramania Pillai and Vedaraniam Vedamurthy pillai! sample link here listen and get mesmerized https://soundcloud.com/guruvayurappadhasan/mishra-yaman-key-board-high?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook

Some years back in the early 90s[ mostly between 90 to 96]  there was a lec dem by one bannerjee or mukherjee from France at music academy during the december season that too on a sunday morning two hours wherein he was trying his level best to impress the audience about a software based analysis of ragas and the audience included such great personalities like DR. Srivatsan, Mythreyi madam, Partahsarathy sir[musicologist],prof.S.Janakiraman etc. It was total confusion leading to chaos making everyone convinced that it did justice to neither carnatic music nor computer software and it was mere loads of jargon laden verbosity. I made it known during the question and answer session and Dr. srivatsan sir came out after the session and patted me on the back and said you have rendered a service by awakening the music academy committee to screen lec dems in future before presentation.[hope that particular lec dem is available in the archives of music academy]

last but not the least there would be no harm in including some classical raga based cine music bits too like MKT's songs ,film Hamsageetha's songs[kannada film for the best of all bhairavis etc.

wishing the team all the best.

Hope you all take these observations in good spirit.”.
http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/04/tmk-publicity-seeking-leftist.html
http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/12/tmk-and-his-tricks.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/04/pseudo-secularists-and-modi-baiters.html
http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/08/evaluations-and-tmks-blindness.html
http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/03/negative-perspective-wrong-evaluations.html
Actually more than Naxals or terrorists it is people like Arvind kejeriwal, TMK, kamal hassan, charu hassan , N.Ram of Hindu etc who are more harmful because of the damage they do to Indian culture misusing their positional advantage and create a sense of inferiority complex among average normal human beings who move with pride in their nation and its culture. I love healthy criticism of anything and everything under the sky and I too do it but filthy half baked misplaced irrelevantly compared and evaluated judgmental nonsense always negatively portraying everything Indian and Hindu with an intention to seek cheap popularity in the name of observation is something which must be opposed by all. Tolerance also has its limits .passive indifference to such nonsense is not tolerance but a sign of cowardice and lack of pride in our nation and culture. This is a malady that the drifting Leftist ideologies create in all places, in all ages leaving people culture less, pride less, identity less living a life in vacuous inanity and nurtured inferiority complex and a sense of victim hood when there is none. It was initially used as a political brainwashing technique as a ploy to play by magnifying the societal disparities to dislodge the Empires in many parts of the world but then gradually these self appointed leaders of socialist movements and leftist ideologies gradually replaced the kings and carried on the same atrocities and enjoyed the same privileges as the kings knowing well that they could easily intoxicate the masses with catchy slogans, brainwashing ideological sign posts, selective presentation of victim hood etc

Education package .....

It is fundamentally wrong to offer education and schooling as a homogenized package.

It causes further damage when it aspires to produce stereotyped human beings as if human beings were a product in factory line.

Therefore this allowing boy to be a boy is just not a malady which is gender specific because the trend varies from country to country.

There are many countries which do not allow a girl to be a girl, still worse, not even a human being.

Therefore I am often tempted to question as well as look into many fundamental aspects of socio-cultural, socio-political or socio-religious systems because all of these try to homogenize individual human beings as herds of sheep.

For certain areas of practical social utility such homogenization is inevitable to frame rules so that humans as social beings are able to function without being a hindrance to others as in following traffic rules.

However, applying too much of this homogenization while dealing with young minds leads to lot of bad feeling because each one of them have their own dreams, their own way of approaching life and  they are blossoming with curiosity, bundles of energy, bubbling with enthusiasm, boundless yearning to learn and boisterously exploring and creative attitudes etc.

In countries like India girls are subjected to many unwanted restrictions.

If we look at the root cause rather than the resultant symptom it has to do more with denial of freedom to children to explore, experience and enjoy life as individual souls/human beings, of course with certain basic physical safety measures and awareness of social obligations and humane values- not what elders or existing socio-culture or religious milieu defines or determines as values.

So, going back to what was mentioned earlier the whole society with all its institutions-religious, political, educational institutions- must evince serious interest with concern about the main stake holders i.e. children.

Then based on that premise form certain basic structures which may act as mere guidelines and children must be allowed to choose and carve out a life path depending on their own interests, instincts, impulses, involvement, intelligence and the inevitable circumstances they are in.

Of course, the collective wisdom of experience gained over longer periods of time by elders must be used in a very appealing manner taking into consideration the contextual relevance and inherent attributes of each and every individual child.

These may sound very idealistic and even as a vague utopia but then the fact is that there are no uniform emotions, reactions or psychological conditions.

Though all elders have, rightly so, genuine concerns about their children regarding the physical safety, future financial security, preferred social attitudes manifested as behavior patterns for a safe and harmonious social co-habitation as human species.

Unfortunately elders also adopt various methods to ensure this and in their hyper enthusiasm bordering on paranoiac presumptive prescriptions they become extremely vulnerable.

There are many issues involved in this which I have written about at different times.

Broadly indicated they are:-

1. Education?

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/01/education-and-many-of-its-dimensions.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/04/education-what-it-is.html

2. Values?

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/06/values.html

3. Pampering and parenting?

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/06/education-parents-literacy-society-etc.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/07/discipline-and-pampering-of-children.html

4. Perspectives?

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/05/perspective-matters-more-than.html

5. Over emphasized sense of perceived security?

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/10/living-growing-up-and-settling-down.html

The harsh reality at the same time is that mass literacy is a must and the society has not come up with any better or suitable or easily adoptable alternative system of education.

Discipline and pampering of Children

Discipline and pampering of Children

I may not agree because

1. It is a very populist generalization;

2. Individual humane feelings of love and affection, at least within the family, must be allowed to express itself without any restraint at the moment rather than molding it to condition for a projected/presumed far off future state of life;

3. Human souls must behave like human souls with humane qualities of concern and care irrespective who they are and therefore cannot be reduced to churning out socially acceptable products or as executors of contractual obligation;

4. In spite of everything the context or situational exigencies may turn out to be otherwise. For example the most loving child who would like to take care of the parents genuinely may be forced to stay far away to make a living and ensure his/her own survival. So in such cases it is not any willful negligence but an inevitable necessity of fate;

5. Life must be always be lived in the present and enjoyed and made enjoyable for others around creating comforts, providing happiness and contributing to peace to the extent one can afford;

6. Whatever roles out ultimately must be gracefully accepted a design for a particular soul or decide to fight out despite any circumstance good or bad.

7. The word ‘discipline’ is the most ill defined and abused term often used to label conditions  that do not disturb a particular status quo either of religious, social, traditional or cultural identity;

8. Anything that curbs the freedom of expression and experiencing of life of an individual soul cannot be a discipline- yes with a rider if it is harmful and hurting to anyone then it has to be curtailed for reasons of social harmonious co existence and this need not include following any particular way of dressing, specific observance of rituals, accepting every existing mode of expected behavior without questioning or following any prescribed forms of morality;

9. We all need to know that morality is not something downloaded from very ancient scriptures which were not even aware of any of the multiple complications and complexities of modern life.

10. http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/04/parenting-and-individual-human-being.html

11. MORALITY  

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/balayogiv-1483224-morality-contextual/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/101199648/Morality-is-Just-Contextual

12. http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/10/definitions-and-debates-too-much-of.html

13. http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/05/perspective-matters-more-than.html

Education and Morality

1. In my view no one gets educated everyone can 'become educated'. One can get only academically qualified, get injected with knowledge that is imparted [both useful and useless].

Education

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/01/education-and-many-of-its-dimensions.html

2. Morality is contextual .

MORALITY

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/balayogiv-1483224-morality-contextual/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/101199648/Morality-is-Just-Contextual

Globalization

1. Globalization-its original perversions with protected beneficiaries

This is lop sided version of globalization that was initially pushed on

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/11/west-needs-to-change-its-obsession-to.html

With greater awareness and experience over time there is a over whelming realization that, yes globalization is inevitable but must ensure synergy with a real global awareness, acceptance of human conditions, along with correct attitude to become citizens with a concern for all human beings and nature as stake holders with shared responsibility to ensure sustained development on this planet.

2. Need to create Global Citizens

This means everyone needs to be encouraged to become global citizens

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/01/global-citizen-and-worldology-what-are.html

3. Getting rid of xenophobia

Also avoid all forms of social, cultural and political ideologies based xenophobia.

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/02/what-is-foreign-in-globalized-world.html

Do not miss to listen to this brief talk for just 3 minutes

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/watch-joseph-stiglitz-explain-globalization-in-three-minutes/?utm_content=bufferab738&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Bharat or India meanders through its own destiny

I pity people who still read The Hindu and Vinod Metha's views are as distorted as his back and he has become senile 10 years ago.

Modi euphoria is well justified for which you need have really bird's eye view of world history and in particular Indian history starting from the time of Adi Shankara, meandering through, Swami Vivekananda, through Annie Besant, JK, Paramacharya of kanchi mutt shri .Chandrasekarendra Saraswathy to Modi for those who may ,and many are expected to,feel what these comparison have in common in simple terms they have popped up to prop up the degenerating morale of Bharath and unite them in an organized and rational manner .



The soul of Bharath performs this with unfailing regularity but only after the damaging trends reach a saturation point so that the common folks do not revert back to the malign cancers.


But for Adi shankar we could not have had even the many scriptures of Sanathana Dharma in place with various warring factions and the very docile but life denying philosophy of Bhuddhism expanding and almost leading the population into two categories the warring multiple sects of Hinduism and the passive followers of  Bhuddism [ we would have ended up as TIbet];


But for swami Vivekananda the great wisdom of Sanathan dharma would have been known to the world and to many of us too who do not know Sanskrit;


But for Annie Besant and her influence on Hume we would not have started a group to fight the Britishers;


But for Maha periyava Paramacharya of kanchi mutt shri .Chandrasekarendra Saraswathy who was responsible for introducing article 26 in the constitutions we would not have had even the rights legally to worship in temples or do homoms and pujas at home ;


But for JK we would not have had a re look into the spiritual and philosophical inquiry into life beyond our rituals and


But for Modi the idiom of political debate would not have crossed the fences of secularism, communal-ism, cast-ism with pampering a particular segment with temporary appeasements and freebies and creating an unfounded paranoia on the other but now it has gone into the most important enclosure , thanks to Modi, healthy trend of looking into politics as a tool for good governance, economic development, employment creation, industrial growth generation, improving agricultural economy , providing enough infrastructure in the rural areas etc.


The lesson is if you are denied US visa on the basis of wrong reports you can become a PM.

It is not as much do with Modi's destiny it is more to do with Bharath's destiny.

Our nation is destined to become a super power and therefore the forces that can ensure that have been thrown up by nature in her great wisdom and it is the soul of nature which has influenced the minds of millions despite the N.Rams and Vinod Methas

English as a global language

  http://blog.omnilexica.com/english-as-a-global-language/

Why we need a global language and which language can be considered for this taking various factors into consideration?

 

As in species survival, dominance, proliferation and extinction, in language too there are many factors which contribute to similar situations.

 

If we get down to serious research on each and every one of these areas of survival and extinction of different languages and the dominance of certain languages in certain geographical locations/regions, in certain specific domains of life etc, probably we can simultaneously document many other areas of life on earth which has either influenced or impacted these developments and vice versa that is how certain languages have influenced and impacted many areas of life on earth.

 

This is a very vast area of research but in this article I plan to restrict to very limited area of language i.e. the prevalence, preponderance, preference for English.

I am neither a linguist nor a scientist nor a philosopher but I am going to view it as an ordinary observer. So that I escape from the traps of linguistic confirmation bias and prejudice; the necessity to float a hypothesis and work through theories and experiments to prove that hypothesis; create a logical premise and develop a philosophical vindication as a carapace of arguments to substantiate that premise.

 

This approach suits a person like me, who prefers to observe, perceive and share whatever I have observed and perceived rather than plunge too deep into subjects, and who is more like an inquisitive youth indulging in desultory hobbies till another interesting hobby interrupts or invites the attention. After all everything is a matter of attention.

 

Language basically is a tool which pays attention to ensure that, as a species with conscious awareness coupled with an ability to recall or recollect that conscious awareness, we can share with others verbally, i.e. communicate whatever we have observed and experienced and also bequeath to our future generations in verbal format.

 

Before the advent of structuring of sounds into proper language the communication and records were there in the form of many other tools like grand architectures, sculptures etc but imagine if the entire plays of Shakespeare were to be depicted in sculptures conveying completely everything as it is done in language.

So, in a way, the ability to develop proper language, propagate it and popularize it involved various players and various factors. That’s why fortunately no one is called the inventor or discoverer of any natural language.

 

In a way, it was part and parcel of our evolution and a very vital component of our evolution which enriched and enhanced our evolutionary advancement and preservation as we had documented verbal guidance which saved us the time, energy and other resources in not repeating the experiences of our predecessors either good or bad.

 

From this vague introduction to language, we shall see what the basic things that any language did:-

 

• Named objects – things, persons, all other species etc and enabled us to connect mentally with the name to identify what they referred to. As Confucius said that “the beginning of wisdom is calling things by their right names.”

 

• Named actions – what one was doing or what something was doing.

 

• Named states or condition of things – how a person or thing was.

 

• Named how an object was and how an activity was done – and so on and so forth.

 

I have intentionally refrained from using any grammatical terminology like noun, verb, adjective etc because we are talking about language in general in its initial stages and besides all these grammatical classifications get their appropriate labels and relevance mostly in terms of context.

 

For example I can say:

 

• I bought a cage [noun].

• I caged [verb] a bird.

• People work in small cubicles 18 hours a day leading a life like caged [adjective] birds.

 

Then having made words for these fundamental aspects of life, as evolution of human species progressed, especially in terms of human beings’ neural developments, social systems, multiple activities involving various types of studies and skills to understand life as it was sauntering through evolutionary development or surging as a commander directing the course of evolution, sometimes constructively and sometimes destructively, language too popped out newer and greater number and of words and expressions to convey varieties of activities, including articulating many abstract concepts, imaginations, fantasies, dreams etc.

 

That’s why many thousands of words that dominate the discourse nowadays belong to latest trends and sciences that are pervading and propelling every domain of life to greater understating and connectivity belong to the cyber terminology which was a science unknown to human species a century ago.

 

Still all languages have their own limitations and the most irritating part of life is when we cannot find an exact word or expression to convey appropriately any particular phenomenon or feeling, all the more irritating if that phenomenon or feeling is irritating in a hitherto unknown way. It is like specialist doctors struggling to tackle a new virus.

 

While there are many scholarly linguistic studies about the influence of language in our thinking and culture and vice versa, the irony as indicated earlier is that languages have their inherent limitations too.

 

Added to this lot of damage is wrecked through translations which fail to exactly convey meaning from one language to another.

 

Here I would like to quote certain interesting aspects of these features from an interesting book by Guy Murchie titled The Seven Mysteries of Life:

 

Today there are only an estimated 130 significant languages (“significant” meaning spoken by at least a million people), which include many you may never have heard of like Wu in China, Tadzhik in the Soviet Union, Bagn in India, Xhosa in South Africa, Pashto in Afghanistan, Quechua in Peru.

 

The vast majority of people in the world speak one or more of the top 20 languages, which, in the order of the numbers (millions) using them as their native tongue, according to Nationalencyklopedin (2010), are:

 

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67766/worlds-top-20-languages-and-words-english-has-borrowed-them

 

 

Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who gave an ambiguous reply to the American ultimatum.

An outstanding example was the reply of Japan’s Premier Tojo to President Truman’s ultimatum of July 26, 1945. When Tojo said Japan would “mokusatsu” the ultimatum, he meant that his government would “consider” it. But the translators at Domei quoted him in English as saying the Japanese would “take no notice of” it. So atomic bombs destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – perhaps for nothing! And the same sort of oriental misunderstanding continued through the Korean and Vietnam wars, where the much publicized “peace talks” bogged down for years over the occidentals’ assumption that “to negotiate” was “to compromise,” while the orientals interpreted it as “to get something by talking”.

 

Individual injustice through language of course must be even commoner than the more conspicuous bungles in international diplomacy, and I’ve read that before the Russian Revolution an Assyriologist named Netomeff was exiled to Siberia for life on a charge of blasphemy and treason because he wasn’t given a chance to explain that his book about Nebuchadnezzar did not mean “Ne boch ad ne tzar” (Russian for “no God and no tsar”). And such irrationality of language interpretation continues to plague world understanding in the United Nations Assembly, where a translator on one memorable occasion translated “out of sight, out of mind” into an expression the Russians understood as “invisible insanity”.

 

Even if the story about Count Leroy de Saint-Arnaud is only a humorous anecdote, it shows that misunderstandings happen sometimes.

 

 

Even when no translation is involved, most languages have ambiguities that can cause serious misunderstanding. And this made the history books in 1851 during Napoleon III’s coup d’etat when one of his officers, Count de Saint-Arnaud, on being informed that a mob was approaching the Imperial Guard, coughed and exclaimed, with his hand across his throat, “Ma sacree toux!” (“My damned cough!”) But his lieutenant, understanding him to say “Massacrez tous!” (“Massacre them all!”),” gave the order to fire, killing thousands – needlessly.

 

The English language, now beginning to be considered a leading candidate for a universal tongue, is still not only seriously unphonetic but full of illogical idioms. A London house on fire may not only “burn up” and “burn down” at the same time but it itself can “put out” the same flames and smoke that the firemen are simultaneously “putting out” with their hoses. And, speaking of smoke, a Chinese student of English rang a fire alarm at Fort Bragg, California, emptying a big building to which fire engines dashed with sirens screaming, all because he needed a light for his cigarette and had carefully followed the directions printed on a red box: PULL FOR FIRE.

 

Up to now the established languages have evolved naturally without conscious guidance or design or with anybody seeming to mind that the English phrase “I assume” translates into French “I deduce” and into Russian “I consider.” Yet there is an unobvious mystique about language associated with the fact that it grows by itself, both in individuals and throughout the world, like a sentient being. For, as linguist Noam Chomsky of Massachusetts Institute of Technology has pointed out, all normal children at birth possess an innate capacity and compulsion to acquire speech within their next three or four years, not just by imitating their elders but, more significantly, by comprehending and creating a constant flow of new combinations of words and phrases never expressed in exactly the same way before. Actually this is a very subtle two-way flow, with the young mind both shaping the language and being shaped by it in return, depending greatly on the characteristics of his particular language as well as on how it is used – on whether cautious noun thinking eventually “achieves success” or instead more aggressive verb thinking simply “succeeds.”

 

So, it is inevitable to a certain extent that every language suffers from ambiguities syntactically and phonetically. In addition to these if there are situations wherein important negotiations are required to be made wherein the negotiators may get bogged down in the quagmire of too many languages and language interpreters.

 

They can neither concentrate on the content nor can they be utterly confident about what they have negotiated.

 

There is a necessity to evolve a global language for various reasons.

One can come up with thousands of reasons but the predominant factors which necessitate the emergence of such a language is to facilitate further and enhance more number of people to know, understand and share with many more leading to greater interaction, improvement and to a certain extent facilitate the process of unity.

 

Hence there arises a necessity to bring down further, the number of languages; and if necessary evolve a global language, and this has to emerge from among the existing languages, as we know the experiments with artificially created languages such as Esperanto, IDO etc have failed for want of literature. A global language needs a pride of ancestry, must be in popular use at present, and possess worthy credentials to survive in the future.

 

A language, which qualifies to become a global language, must be primarily a significant one as per the criteria mentioned earlier. But mere number of users cannot be a sufficient or justifiable parameter to classify a language as significant, because if that were the case we may have in that list such unheard of languages as Wu in China, Xhosa in South Africa, Pashto in Afghanistan, Quechua in Peru.

 

 

A more justifiable classification would be, in addition to the number of users of a language, its geographical spread, the wide range and variegated vocabulary to communicate and express as many ideas or events as possible in as many fields of human activity, it must have the syntactic plasticity, flamboyant flexibility suited to both simple and complex modes of expression, and an enormously evolved derivational morphology along with preferably people involved in various domains of activities using that language.

 

If there is a language that fits into all these criteria adequately, that is English. It stands as the unrivalled champion as a global language. It does not mean that it is superior to all other languages or it is without any weakness. Definitely it does not sound as sweet as French. In fact it does not have a word for ‘Punya’, the exact opposite of ‘sin’. It has not a single word expression to counter many social and psychological aspects of life, which many other languages even very insignificant ones have as has been wonderfully brought out be Howard Rheingold in the book titled They Have a Word for It. Here are a few of them:

 

• Tjotjog (Japanese) – harmonious congruence in human affairs

• Mokita (Kirinina-New Guinea) – truth everybody knows but nobody speaks

• Yufen (Japanese)- an awareness of the universe that triggers feelings too deep and mysterious for words

• Fucha (Polish) – using company time and money and other resources for your own ends

English does not have the grammatical subtleties of such insignificant languages as Chichewa, a language spoken by the unlettered tribes of East Africa which as per the studies of Benjamin Lee Whorf, has an extraordinary perspective on time through its two past tenses, one for the real or objective past and another for the subjective or mental past. The primitive tongues of Algonquin languages have four persons in their pronouns; the metaphysically marvelous language of Hopi Indians of Arizona reflects their excellent view of creation; instead of a noun for ‘wave’ they have only the participle ‘walalata’ (waving).

 

While every nation and its leaders talk more and more about global trade, global thinking, global concern etc. But when it comes to agreeing on a global language in addition to many reasonable impediments, there are also factors linguistic chauvinism, ethnocentric pride, unwillingness or inability to learn a foreign language, national and/or religious affinity to a particular language etc prevent people from opting to / bothering to horn their skills in a foreign tongue / global language which rules the global arena as a medium of discourse.

 

It is an aspect of evolution, no one wished or worked for the extinction of dinosaurs nor the near extinction of many species/creatures in the animal kingdom as well as in flora and fauna nor does anyone wish new virus to emerge and hurt everyone. Some things happen by our design others beyond our decisions and designs but delves deeper in terms of their influence in our life like many useful technologies towards which initially many may have had some reservation out of fear that they may upset the status quo.

 

It is not suggesting that definitely a United Nationhood can be brought about by either unity of religion or race or language. The Arab world and Latin America are classical examples were despite all those unity, there are so many nations, some with great animosity against the other.

 

It is out of sheer wish and optimism that we need to remember one thing, while all of us feel the need for unity, what unity needs is feeling for all by all. Let us remember what the great seer Bahaullah has said:

If language can help create a sense of nationalism, it can equally well help create a sense of internationalism.

 

So, various aspects of language several languages continue to evolve and the language debates continue to occupy human thought process because human beings ability to use language has been a very great advancement over other species.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180221062825/http://blog.omnilexica.com/english-as-a-global-language/

 

A question of synergy

Golden India will happen when Goals are Done with a very candid acceptance of our weaknesses and approach life and living with contextually relevant perspectives.

With this attitude we must start  making a  conscious endeavor to create synergy between on the one side the multiple raw talents, millions of natural resources, myriads of  useful traditions and cultures [ all of these of contextual relevance which help to enhance humanity on the whole in various spheres and many ways] and on the other a very clear cut scientific, systematic , structured, data driven, analytical approach so that in the long run the activities leading to fulfillment of goals do not relay on even on any single great individual-though that would be a great boon and motivating factor- but the systems in place will take care of them.

This synergy is needed in every sphere, I repeat in every sphere is necessary and it is a sacred marriage which can deliver great babies for a prosperous posterity.

Though we are all tempted to see India always as golden, it need not necessarily be just a future dream or hope or illusion.

This could be more out of our ethno centric pride mixed with nationalistic ferventness or fanaticism.

In a way it is also justifiable because the reality is we are a nation with immense unearthed and underutilized potential, so in that sense, yes, we need to ensure to deliver a Golden India –which means it is obviously a work in progress geared towards a future date of delivery.

But it is more than possible because we are nation with a pride of ancestry and hence with a great hope for future.

Search, search for,seeking

Searching for is a never ending activity of life.

‘Neither our Brain nor our Character is Cast in Stone’ so we all keep constantly searching for …..

No search can ever be divorced from our narrow walls of perception. It could be to go beyond that or confirm that and consciously try with the help of perception to search for something that can/may enlighten us or take us to a new realm of joy or happiness that may put a stop to our mortal cravings or revelation of some stark reality that can open our conscious awareness to a different facet of life.

The search could also be to find solution for many things that we are not satisfied with and we want to change.

So in a way every search is motivated by our craving for something else, a wished for change and mostly emanates from our perception of existing state to migrate to experience another state of life and living.

Do our perceptions and/or thoughts, feelings, knowledge etc influence our experience or our experiences influence our perceptions and/or thoughts, feelings, knowledge etc?

If we know already why must we search for it at all? “Why search anymore? The whole universe has come together to make your existence possible. There is nothing that is not you. The kingdom of God, the Pure land, nirvana, happiness and liberation are all you”, Thich Nhat Hanh

On the contrary how can we search for something that we do not know anything about, just because someone says that you must search for it, try to experience it, try to realize it etc? So we embark on a journey full of doubts, vagueness, fuzziness etc.

“The search ends with the realization that there is no such thing as enlightenment. By searching, you want to be free from the Self, but whatever you are doing to free yourself from the Self is the Self”, U.G.Krishnamurthy.

Search for Reality need not proceed from any presumptive goal then it ceases to be search, it is merely an attempt to achieve a goal. The very adventure is the uncertainty and vagueness. But at the same time because of this inevitable contradiction, on may wonder, then, why any search at all? Of course, there are motivations and that is at least attempting to try to dispel our lingering doubts and longing to know the permanent and look out for possibilities to seek security for at least our temporal life.

Therefore, we are not necessarily seeking any enlightenment, or any vision of either any God or any favors from any God. Who knows serendipity has secrets up her sleeve that she may startle us with sweet surprises. The famous Sufi saying,” I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God”.

Or as ‘Sailor’ Bob Adamson says, “The reflection is not in the mirror but of the mirror”.

So, nothing is needed to prevent us from the journey of searches but the vehicles used are

I would like the search also to be more exploratory, not dogmatic, open-minded, deeply passionate, and perceptive to the appeals of rationalization, but, in due course, also acknowledge without prejudice and becoming sensitive to the deeper stirrings and movements that are beyond and beneath rationalization.

More or newer doubts popping up due to the constant curiosity etc as William Lyon Phelps  puts it, “One of our secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute”. “Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.”-Thomas H. Huxley

All these not necessarily following any particular sequence but at random because we don’t have either a map and therefore no GPRS and all the routes around seem to have everything:- beauty, blessings, bumps, boisterousness, barricades, beasts, boons etc with lots of twists and turns with only constant factor being change.

All these probably chosen as preferable options going by observations like this one by H.P. Lovecraft, in  The Call of Cthulhu  “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

As Sascha Vongehr  mentions in ‘Science As Rationalization And Ultimate Religion

By’  “Every adaptive system has what can be called a perception apparatus and information processing structures and so forth. Science is part of the perception/thinking of social systems. All perception has its “blind spot”. Perception is ignorant of everything except for a tiny slice that it evolved to select and focus attention on. Thinking is there to interpret in a certain evolved way. Humans, being parts as well as environment of social systems, cannot grasp the perceived world of social systems, let alone map out their blind spots. Scientists are especially suspect when it comes to judging the blind spots of science.” 

“I presume it is the same with many people who sincerely seek intrinsically valuable answers to many aspects of life, nothing kicks off without doubts, questions, arguments, contradictions, confusing contemplations etc. Invariably when we doubt, we enter into real search and enquiry. When in doubt, of course, nowadays we resort to google which throws up lots of material good, bad, ugly, authentic and unauthenticated etc. When we seek answers and solutions to many of our intellectually and emotionally incomprehensible and unjustifiable happenings and events surprisingly we somehow get lots of answers from multiple sources. Only thing is we must frankly ask all sorts of questions and fearlessly put forth our doubts. Fear masquerading as hesitation can and does play havoc in many things

The scope of our view, purview, perception, concern etc are determined by various factors and aspects like our unbiased observations [if at all that is possible], frames of reference, tools of perception,   focus of attention, fathom of intentions, intensity of involvement and interest, sensibility and sensitivity of our selections, clarity and conviction of our choices.

Intellectual perceptions tended to become barriers but I have enjoyed and accept happily and humbly, as even the great Poet Shakespeare once said “I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people”.

On a social level we search for these

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2009/04/let-us-search-for-synonyms.html

Sometimes we goof up our searches through our predetermined or preconditioned belief systems through which tend to justify everything rather than merely observe them as they are and deal with them either by accepting, appreciating and adopting or rejecting.

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/04/search-for-meaningless-meanings.html

I have a written a lot about searching for in my blog post given below and most of what I have indicated have been taken out from that

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/12/new-year-with-new-realization-of-reality.html