My sister and I reached home by 2200hrs on the 7th of May 2011. All along we were silent because we were being dropped by my colleague; we did not want to discuss the god man in their presence. Nor did I want to broach the subject of what transpired between them and the god man. First, neither I nor my sis was nosy. Secondly, we were too weighed down by the atmosphere at home. We just politely enquired if the visit was worth all the effort, to which they informed in the affirmative. By the time we spoke a few words, we were near home.
We entered home and moved into our rooms. I met mom talked to her for a few minutes and went off to bed, upstairs. I did so because Gita was there of take care of mom. My wife was all along cursing my having chosen to meet the god man, more so when I shared with her, some of this god man’s observations and comments. I pacified her not to bother and tried to steal some sleep.
I heard a knock on our room door urgently and my niece calling out desperately, around 0315hrs. I ran downstairs. My niece Shalini told me that my mom had asked for me to be called to her bed. I found my mother sitting wide eyed. My sis told me quickly that my mom hadn’t slept after 0000hrs. But she was speaking and requesting for her leg to be massaged.
My mom told me to call the doctor as she was feeling very uneasy. As she insisted on calling the doctor, though I wasn’t sure if the doctor would make it to our house in the dead of night, I did call him. There was an urgency to and importunate sense to her demand. I found that her breath was labored, so I felt may be she is low on glucose; she had not eaten anything that night; I quickly mixed some glucose in water and was trying to feed her a spoon or two, when I found that the water trickled down from her mouth, her gaze became fixed, and light had gone out of her eyes!
I exclaimed,[B] “Gita Amma is no more!”[/B]. My mother was leaning on my sis and facing me when all this happened. My sis immediately tried cardiac resuscitation by mouth-to-mouth, then pounding the chest etc., but to no avail. My mom had left her mortal coil. I checked the pulse. It had flattened. Mind blanked out, my sis Gita held mom cradled in her hands and was desperately calling her out. She felt mom responded. All of us were struck dumb. I looked at my watch it was 0345 hrs. The date was 8th May 2011!
By the time we picked up our senses, we heard the doctor’s knock on our front gate. I opened the gate. Dr.Chandrasekhar Adiga walked into the room where my mom was laid, and declared my mother dead for about 10 minutes, after he had finished applying medically certified checks. He said we had done what would have been done, by a trained medic - he was referring to the resuscitation efforts that we had done. The silent stalker had come in stealthily with hardly an indication – my mom was a diabetic, for whom the coming of a myocardial infarction would be undetectable. Her nervous system played truant. Well, that was the medical cause of death.
My mother had passed away in wee hours of the 8th of May 2011. It was, as per International convention, the Mother’s Day! So, memorably we had lost our mother on the Mother’s day. It was Mesha-Shukla-Panchami, the day Shankara Jayanti is celebrated in Shankar Mutts all over India.
Now is the time for me to once again indulge my passion – to delve into the manner of passing over to the other side of an individual evaluated against the Bhagavad- Gita Vakya. The time of My mother’s passing away was Uttarayana-Shukla Paksha-Panchami- brAhma-muhurta all pointing to an upward movement for the Atman_karmasharIra combine.
I checked up with my sis if my mom was remembering God’s name during the lucid interval. My sis said the previous few hours she was repeating the Lord’s name all through her laboring through the heart attack and the uneasy period before the coming of the actual attack. It gave me some satisfaction. But the last words on her lips were my name – the nickname [Raja] which could be considered- going by Vedic standards- very remotely as connected to Chandra. But then what was the image in her mind? That is a mystery. The day of passing was auspicious by all means. But was my Mother a mokshagAmI Atman? That is a mystery again. What were the last thoughts on her mind? Was she fixated on me or The Lord?
Taking into account the circumstances of her passing away -the timing- the day, the time of day, and the time of the year are all very excellent, and my mom’s moving into a higher yoni [B]is certain.[/B] But The Gita says, to be part of The Lord the exit must be as follows:
ओमित्येकाक्षरं ब्रह्म व्याहरन्मामनुस्मरन् ।
यःप्रयाति त्यजन्देहं स याति परमां गतिम् ॥8|13॥
This couplet gives what a person must do to make his exit from the mortal coil to result in a flight to the feet of the Lord. Lord Krishna says, “He who shall depart from this world repeating the single syllabic OM which is synonymous with God [Brahman], and remembering Me-Lord Krishna- the manifest Godhood, shall reach the Final Abode-that of Liberation and freedom from the shackles of births and deaths. This is the idea fundamental to Sanatana Dharma. This couplet makes it look very simple.
However for this to happen, the person must be conscious till the moment of the Grand Exit. If one is blessed to be so, then that is the first best thing. My mother was conscious till the last moment.
अग्निर्ज्योतिरहः शुक्लः षण्मासा उत्तरायणम् ।
तत्र प्रयाता गच्छन्ति ब्रह्म ब्रह्मविदो जना: ॥ 8|24॥
The couplet above details the time of passing. The first four wordsand the fifth a phrase: <1> agniH (fire), <2> jyotiH (Light),<3> ahaH (day time) <4> shuklaH(White-Fortnight), and <5>ShaNmAsA-uttarAyaNam (the six months of the Northward movement of the Sun (beginning Jan 15th to July 16th approximately of every year) indicate the brighter side of the time of departure.
The death must occur in the presence of the Sacred Fire <1>—in here, is the reference to the [I]tretagni[/I] – the three-fold fires of the householder; at a place that is well lit<2> in the daytime<3>; in fortnight of the waxing Moon<4> and in that part of the year when the Sun is on his Northward transit<5>. Those who leave their bodies [this is the standard idiom of Sanatana Dharma] they reach Brahman—provided, they have “known” Brahman, before the exit time.
Now, in this 24th couplet The Lord qualifies- the possible “entrants” to the State of Liberation! After stating the time of the day, period of the year, and the part of the month, the qualifying line calls for[B] knowledge of Brahman[/B] to be a pre-requisite. There are three preceding couplets to the 8-13. These describe the preparatory “work” needed to make the exit final. They are as follows:
प्रयाणकाले मनसाचलेन भक्त्या युक्तो योगबलेन चैव ।
भ्रुवोर्मध्ये प्राणमावेश्य सम्यक् स तं परं पुरुषमुपैति दिव्यम् ॥8|10॥
At the time departing from the body he who holds his pranic energy between his brows (concentrated at the Aj~nA chakra) with an unwavering mind, and connects to God either in devotion or with the power of yoga, and holds well, he attains the Great Lord!
सर्वद्वाराणि संयम्य मनो हृदि निरुध्य च ।
मूर्ध्न्याधायात्मनः प्राणमास्थितो योगधारणाम् ॥ 8|11॥
Holding all his exit points-these are supposed to be nine in the human body- called metaphorically the City of Nine Gates-in attention, holding his mind in the heart directing his life force towards the crown of the head if stays focussed at the contemplative stage of the eightfold yoga:Such a yogi who attains Liberation. It looks like a householder could qualify to be such a person.
These then, are the preconditions for a liberation-oriented “exit”. Taken together these steps i.e. 10, 11, and 13 are a tall order. It almost looks like it is all designed for a sanyasi – a renunciate. What would be the fate of the householders then?
This shall be delved into in detail in the subsequent blogs.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
LIFE WITH MOM #3 [LAST DAYS -2]
Beginning May 1st (2011) mom’s conditions were deteriorating. She came back home on the 28th of April after being discharged from BGS Hospital. When she was discharged she looked hale and hearty. She was so happy, that on some of those days I had applied leave, to be with her. Sharada Periamma gave a lot of service to mom in those days. The service she rendered need be described in detail. There was a feeling of uneasiness but I kept pushing it away. The food they gave at the hospital, mom felt, was very bland and inedible. Well, it was nutritionist recommended food! They took into account the fact that she was a diabetic. We carried food for Periamma or sometimes we had breakfast/lunch in the hotel opposite. Periamma always requested for coffee and flask-fulls of it, just to keep her going. Periamma survived on over-sugared coffee.
Two days after mom reached home may be on the April 30th or so Periamma left for Hyd. Mom was disturbed that there would no one with her in daytime. Periamma reassured mom that she would be back in a week after attending to the receipt of her pension and settling some commitments at Hyd. Each day I tried to put her back on her heart management medication. The day she took those she lost appetite and sleep. She complained of pain in her legs and asked me, or Li or Ananya to keep pressing her feet, massaging her feet, in downward stroke, knee down. With the doctor’s permission I stopped the heart-related medicine regimen, and to let her sleep gave her mild sedative tablets-sleeping pills. The first two days i.e 1st and 2nd May she sort of responded. She had a reasonably good sleep. May 3rd and 4th I gingerly doubled the dose as it was warranted- the one nightly dose hardly worked; she had a disturbed sleep. She pleaded with me not to resume the cardiac medication. They did more damage to her peace than good she had said. I stopped them all. I used to sit with her in the nights to see her sleep for a few hours. She would just manage a light sleep for, say 2 hours and then she would be wide awake. On 5th May I felt an eerie feeling: may be mom’s not going to survive this! I called my sis Gita and told her she should try to reach Bangalore as early as possible. She talked to her boss and confirmed she would be there on the 7th Morning. Mom was happy and eagerly awaited Gita’s arrival on the 7th morning. I went to receive Gita and Shalini. Mom was so happy to see them come. I had gotten late for office, so I applied leave on the 7th May even though it was a Saturday. The three of us kept mom busy, talking to her about many things. Gita took care of her feeding by making soft rice and rasam mix. Li had, on Friday, fed her successfully this concoction.
On 7th night I had a special request from a colleague of mine. He was to meet a god man who was a Malayalee. Their family was to meet the god man to ask his advice on some family problem. Though I was a little embarrassed, having been asked to be an interpreter when they were discussing something private, I accepted since they didn’t mind. This meeting was fixed in some house which the god man frequented. We were supposed to meet him at 1900 hrs that evening. My sister also accompanied me so that we thought we would ask the god man about the prognosis about our mom’s health.
That evening we reached the place and waited in queue, after an initial puja wherein we –my sis and I recited LS along with the god man, who, I noticed was looking at me very frequently. My colleague’s family entered into private audience and had their ‘consultation’. They came out after 30 minutes. My sister and I entered and started talking to the “swamiji” – I spoke Malayalam while my sis asked him her questions in Tamil.
The swami went tangentially off into saying that I had the blessings of Saraswati, that I knew everything about Mantra Shastra but “cleanliness” [what is called ‘madi’ in most South Indian Languages] was missing; He said shuddham porA. I asked, “In which sense?” I said, “I don’t go to puja unless I take bath- and that too Keralite style a full bath!” He said, “I do not observe the separation needed for menstruating women- i.e. my wife doesn’t observe these!” Now this is a very controversial topic. It would be very difficult to get modern day women to accept such things. “In that case” he said, “Just give up your spiritual practices. Satisfy yourself with just the remembrance of the Lord/Dev!i”, was his caveat. Because of this one thing, he had said, even though Parashakti is pleased with the correctness on the application part of the Mantra Shastra alongside is the kShudra devI who buts in uninvited and was playing tricks with the results.” I asked him about the place of Cleanliness of the Mind and Heart. Wasn’t that important? He declined to answer. He kept insisting that bodily cleanliness was more important in Devi worship. I wanted to put a stop to this conversation as I found that we wouldn’t be able to find common ground.
I was a bit annoyed for my sis and I were there only to know about my Mom’s health and prognosis and not to be lectured on the proper way of dealing with mantra shastra. He then returned back to the subject and gave us what we needed to set some things right. He talked of getting some pujas performed to “cleanse” my mom’s family of accumulated karma born of insufficient caring to the manes. There were some correct statements he made about events in my mom’s life and family background, so I resolved to do the needful should my mom be out of this spell of ill health. The man was so vociferous in his warning that unless I mended my ways about bodily shuddhi in rituals, I mustn’t be seeing him. Fine! I resolved not to see him ever again. I wasn’t in the least bit convinced about his reading of my spiritual engagements. I had better confirmation than that. All said and done I did want to take some of his points and apply though I had zero belief in his way of looking at things from a typical Keralite outlook. Does that mean Keralites are the only ones who had powers of mantra shastra based Divine Intercession? I did not want to buy this. God is for all. Devi included. If Keralites are obsessed with bodily neatness to the point of being fastidiousness, yea it has a weather- basis for that and nothing more. What would someone from say Bengal or Assam or any other cold clime do?
That night we returned home by 2200 hrs. All along my wife was very unhappy about my consulting this god man. Since she refused I had taken my sis along. Even on our return, my wife, after being narrated the whole conversation was very indignant. She was cross with me for having thought about this “consultation”. I just kept quiet. I resolved to do the needful corrective pujas soon after my mother’s recovery from the ill-health.
Two days after mom reached home may be on the April 30th or so Periamma left for Hyd. Mom was disturbed that there would no one with her in daytime. Periamma reassured mom that she would be back in a week after attending to the receipt of her pension and settling some commitments at Hyd. Each day I tried to put her back on her heart management medication. The day she took those she lost appetite and sleep. She complained of pain in her legs and asked me, or Li or Ananya to keep pressing her feet, massaging her feet, in downward stroke, knee down. With the doctor’s permission I stopped the heart-related medicine regimen, and to let her sleep gave her mild sedative tablets-sleeping pills. The first two days i.e 1st and 2nd May she sort of responded. She had a reasonably good sleep. May 3rd and 4th I gingerly doubled the dose as it was warranted- the one nightly dose hardly worked; she had a disturbed sleep. She pleaded with me not to resume the cardiac medication. They did more damage to her peace than good she had said. I stopped them all. I used to sit with her in the nights to see her sleep for a few hours. She would just manage a light sleep for, say 2 hours and then she would be wide awake. On 5th May I felt an eerie feeling: may be mom’s not going to survive this! I called my sis Gita and told her she should try to reach Bangalore as early as possible. She talked to her boss and confirmed she would be there on the 7th Morning. Mom was happy and eagerly awaited Gita’s arrival on the 7th morning. I went to receive Gita and Shalini. Mom was so happy to see them come. I had gotten late for office, so I applied leave on the 7th May even though it was a Saturday. The three of us kept mom busy, talking to her about many things. Gita took care of her feeding by making soft rice and rasam mix. Li had, on Friday, fed her successfully this concoction.
On 7th night I had a special request from a colleague of mine. He was to meet a god man who was a Malayalee. Their family was to meet the god man to ask his advice on some family problem. Though I was a little embarrassed, having been asked to be an interpreter when they were discussing something private, I accepted since they didn’t mind. This meeting was fixed in some house which the god man frequented. We were supposed to meet him at 1900 hrs that evening. My sister also accompanied me so that we thought we would ask the god man about the prognosis about our mom’s health.
That evening we reached the place and waited in queue, after an initial puja wherein we –my sis and I recited LS along with the god man, who, I noticed was looking at me very frequently. My colleague’s family entered into private audience and had their ‘consultation’. They came out after 30 minutes. My sister and I entered and started talking to the “swamiji” – I spoke Malayalam while my sis asked him her questions in Tamil.
The swami went tangentially off into saying that I had the blessings of Saraswati, that I knew everything about Mantra Shastra but “cleanliness” [what is called ‘madi’ in most South Indian Languages] was missing; He said shuddham porA. I asked, “In which sense?” I said, “I don’t go to puja unless I take bath- and that too Keralite style a full bath!” He said, “I do not observe the separation needed for menstruating women- i.e. my wife doesn’t observe these!” Now this is a very controversial topic. It would be very difficult to get modern day women to accept such things. “In that case” he said, “Just give up your spiritual practices. Satisfy yourself with just the remembrance of the Lord/Dev!i”, was his caveat. Because of this one thing, he had said, even though Parashakti is pleased with the correctness on the application part of the Mantra Shastra alongside is the kShudra devI who buts in uninvited and was playing tricks with the results.” I asked him about the place of Cleanliness of the Mind and Heart. Wasn’t that important? He declined to answer. He kept insisting that bodily cleanliness was more important in Devi worship. I wanted to put a stop to this conversation as I found that we wouldn’t be able to find common ground.
I was a bit annoyed for my sis and I were there only to know about my Mom’s health and prognosis and not to be lectured on the proper way of dealing with mantra shastra. He then returned back to the subject and gave us what we needed to set some things right. He talked of getting some pujas performed to “cleanse” my mom’s family of accumulated karma born of insufficient caring to the manes. There were some correct statements he made about events in my mom’s life and family background, so I resolved to do the needful should my mom be out of this spell of ill health. The man was so vociferous in his warning that unless I mended my ways about bodily shuddhi in rituals, I mustn’t be seeing him. Fine! I resolved not to see him ever again. I wasn’t in the least bit convinced about his reading of my spiritual engagements. I had better confirmation than that. All said and done I did want to take some of his points and apply though I had zero belief in his way of looking at things from a typical Keralite outlook. Does that mean Keralites are the only ones who had powers of mantra shastra based Divine Intercession? I did not want to buy this. God is for all. Devi included. If Keralites are obsessed with bodily neatness to the point of being fastidiousness, yea it has a weather- basis for that and nothing more. What would someone from say Bengal or Assam or any other cold clime do?
That night we returned home by 2200 hrs. All along my wife was very unhappy about my consulting this god man. Since she refused I had taken my sis along. Even on our return, my wife, after being narrated the whole conversation was very indignant. She was cross with me for having thought about this “consultation”. I just kept quiet. I resolved to do the needful corrective pujas soon after my mother’s recovery from the ill-health.
Friday, February 3, 2012
FUZZY THINKING - BART KOSKO
(THE NEW SCIENCE OF FUZZY LOGIC)
This book was first published in 1993. It must have been reviewed then and may be several times. I would like to write here a review of the book recording my own impressions about this book
I remember reading about Fuzzy Sets as an article by Lofti A. Zadeh in the Information and Control magazine. It was during a Final Year seminar during our Engineering Course that we had presented a glimpse of this concept. After that I must admit we all but forgot about Fuzzy Logic. We had, as one of the papers in Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics and Communications Engg) course, a lesson on Threshold Logic as part of our Paper on Logic Design. Neural Networks was a nascent field then, perhaps.
After I joined a manufacturing company as an engineering professional, I nurtured an interest in Artificial Intelligence, as a personal passion as all my efforts to make it a part of my professional practice came to a naught. In the field of AI I was fascinated by Automated Theorem Proving based on Aristotelian Logic, studied by Logicians as Formal Logic – the so called Statement Calculus and First Order Predicate Calculus. This I think was a carryover of my interest from my college days in Pure Math and Logic. Even though I was a student of Engineering, and if at all natural, an interest in Applied Math would have been most appropriate, I had this interest in Logic and Pure Math.
Even as I studied Logic way beyond the requirements of my scholastic curriculum, there was always one gnawing doubt that was never answered sufficiently by any book on Logic. Books on Logic separated meaning from structure and the Calculus was all about tautological structures and formal constituents of Valid Inferential schema. Central to Classical Logics as they are now called was their binary or bivalent nature. As I progressed through the study, I was even thrilled about successful implementations of Theorem Proving programs based on the Null Horn Clause idea. Though the program itself was ‘creative’ enough to offer, for instance, in respect of one theorem, a proof different from the ones in Euclid’s Elements for a theorem of Elementary High School Geometry, there were reasons that turned me off Formal Logic, as time passed. Godel’s Theorem of Undecidability about the completeness of an Axiomatic System created in my mind a dichotomy about the utility of Logic as a means for implementing Intelligence in Machines. The next to captivate my attention was the concept of Expert Systems and by that time AI as a field, even if considered Inter-disciplinary was losing its sheen. Many thought it was just a sophisticated way of Programming. It was about 1989, I shifted from Logic to Intuition as a means to discovery. Thus, to me Intuition was the source of creative thinking. I was now looking for working on Machine Intelligence by mimicking the workings of the human brain. This is when I came across, a news paper article on what was then called as neo-connectionism or what is presently known by the name Neural Networks. Thus over a decade I had started with memberships to the Journal of Symbolic Logic and shifted to the AI Magazine and last to the Journal of the International Society of Neural Networks. After a time the subscriptions became unaffordable and I had to discontinue.
One more idea that troubled me all those years when I was consumed by a passion for Classical Logic was how it is possible that statements have only a binary truth value! Though I needed a discussion on this topic, I had no one to look up to as no one seemed to be interested in Logic in the first place. My professional company was still less interested as they were people from mainstream manufacturing of proven technological products. Thus there were hardly any who were even interested in these at an intellectual level too as there was no apparent use for these ideas in our day to day professional life. So sad, I did not chance to see the present book in our own library shelf. I vaguely remember a book on Neuro-fuzzy algorithms for Control Strategy implementation, but right now I am not able to locate it. But two years back I thought I must renew my interest in Neural Networks and bought two good graduate level texts on these.
In this book the author laments the lack-luster treatment that the subject of Fuzzy Logic/Fuzzy Systems received in the US. The field according to him has come up to where it is today mainly due to efforts in Japan. He attributes this Japanese preference for this field to their Zen Buddhist background and the comparative lack of interest in the Western countries, to the Aristotelian orientation of all Western Science and Technology.
The author begins with Set Theory where set membership is an all or none phenomenon and makes out the case for membership by “degrees”. Similarly, about statement Truth Values in Logic. The concept of Fuzzy sets and Fuzzy Logic is developed progressively, leading to some computationally important results like the FAT (Fuzzy Approximation Theorem): simply put the statement of the FAT is: A curve (even quite a kinky one at that) could be covered by finite number of fuzzy patches. FAT also says that one could approximate a continuous system (on a closed bounded set) as closely as possible. This leads to an idea of Math Model free estimation. The whole idea of Math Modeling of Real Time systems is to afford design of robust and finely tuned control systems. But then in all but the simplest of, partitioned parts of complex control systems only Math Modeling is possible, or has been useful.
The author laments ad nauseum the scant regard given to Fuzzy System Design. Mainstream S&T tend to pooh- pooh or belittle the development of the idea. This may not be so today as in Japan significant commercial results have been achieved esp. in the intelligent control of home appliances and some industrial processes and in aerospace. Thus if the scientific community refuses to admit the utility of Fuzzy System design on the plea that it lacks sufficient rigor, or the administrators refuse funding for Fuzzy systems research being influenced by the scientific community, then the best route is through the industrial applications generated and/or the commercially successful products released to the market. A part of the profits gained could be siphoned off for research into mainstream control and computational application of Fuzzy system concepts. The author again repeats too often the, funding availability for Neural Network systems as the concepts have been furthered by some rigorous Math! He recounts how he had even obtained funding for Neural Network research which he had combined with Fuzzy System research.
It is felt that if the repetitions were avoided the volume of the book could be brought to about 250 pages, without loss of clarity or intuitive appeal. I have procured a copy of the author’s standard text Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems. It is hoped that this being a University curriculum text would not contain avoidable repetitions. The book also extends the idea to Adaptive Fuzzy systems where the set of Fuzzy rules developed evolve over a period of time to improve the closeness of the process image to reality.
The author gives an impression that Fuzzy Systems and Neural Networks play a complementary role and would be a power Decision Making and/or Control Strategy taken together. If rigorous Math Modeling could be successfully replaced leaving it as only an academic curiosity then one could say a revolution of sorts would have been achieved.
The influence of an Eastern Philosophical bent is clearly seen by the author, who elaborates on this by using Buddha and Aristotle references, for picking the concept of Fuzzy Systems, taken together with the Neural Network Research, in Japan. We know from recent history of the development of Science that Japan had picked up on the Logic Programming approach in the early seventies, only to abandon that in favor of Fuzzy Systems gives some hope for finding new applications to concepts from Classical Philosophical Systems of India like Nyaya and Navy-Nayaya etc. It is worthwhile to pursue these ideas in the light of the successes in Japan. Even otherwise a modern re-evaluation of the same to develop a holistic logic system would not be out of place. The author of this review subscribes to this opinion. It is time we(in India) take an independent approach if necessary different and divergent form western thinking using creation of working products and systems as a measure of the success of the approach.
This book was first published in 1993. It must have been reviewed then and may be several times. I would like to write here a review of the book recording my own impressions about this book
I remember reading about Fuzzy Sets as an article by Lofti A. Zadeh in the Information and Control magazine. It was during a Final Year seminar during our Engineering Course that we had presented a glimpse of this concept. After that I must admit we all but forgot about Fuzzy Logic. We had, as one of the papers in Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics and Communications Engg) course, a lesson on Threshold Logic as part of our Paper on Logic Design. Neural Networks was a nascent field then, perhaps.
After I joined a manufacturing company as an engineering professional, I nurtured an interest in Artificial Intelligence, as a personal passion as all my efforts to make it a part of my professional practice came to a naught. In the field of AI I was fascinated by Automated Theorem Proving based on Aristotelian Logic, studied by Logicians as Formal Logic – the so called Statement Calculus and First Order Predicate Calculus. This I think was a carryover of my interest from my college days in Pure Math and Logic. Even though I was a student of Engineering, and if at all natural, an interest in Applied Math would have been most appropriate, I had this interest in Logic and Pure Math.
Even as I studied Logic way beyond the requirements of my scholastic curriculum, there was always one gnawing doubt that was never answered sufficiently by any book on Logic. Books on Logic separated meaning from structure and the Calculus was all about tautological structures and formal constituents of Valid Inferential schema. Central to Classical Logics as they are now called was their binary or bivalent nature. As I progressed through the study, I was even thrilled about successful implementations of Theorem Proving programs based on the Null Horn Clause idea. Though the program itself was ‘creative’ enough to offer, for instance, in respect of one theorem, a proof different from the ones in Euclid’s Elements for a theorem of Elementary High School Geometry, there were reasons that turned me off Formal Logic, as time passed. Godel’s Theorem of Undecidability about the completeness of an Axiomatic System created in my mind a dichotomy about the utility of Logic as a means for implementing Intelligence in Machines. The next to captivate my attention was the concept of Expert Systems and by that time AI as a field, even if considered Inter-disciplinary was losing its sheen. Many thought it was just a sophisticated way of Programming. It was about 1989, I shifted from Logic to Intuition as a means to discovery. Thus, to me Intuition was the source of creative thinking. I was now looking for working on Machine Intelligence by mimicking the workings of the human brain. This is when I came across, a news paper article on what was then called as neo-connectionism or what is presently known by the name Neural Networks. Thus over a decade I had started with memberships to the Journal of Symbolic Logic and shifted to the AI Magazine and last to the Journal of the International Society of Neural Networks. After a time the subscriptions became unaffordable and I had to discontinue.
One more idea that troubled me all those years when I was consumed by a passion for Classical Logic was how it is possible that statements have only a binary truth value! Though I needed a discussion on this topic, I had no one to look up to as no one seemed to be interested in Logic in the first place. My professional company was still less interested as they were people from mainstream manufacturing of proven technological products. Thus there were hardly any who were even interested in these at an intellectual level too as there was no apparent use for these ideas in our day to day professional life. So sad, I did not chance to see the present book in our own library shelf. I vaguely remember a book on Neuro-fuzzy algorithms for Control Strategy implementation, but right now I am not able to locate it. But two years back I thought I must renew my interest in Neural Networks and bought two good graduate level texts on these.
In this book the author laments the lack-luster treatment that the subject of Fuzzy Logic/Fuzzy Systems received in the US. The field according to him has come up to where it is today mainly due to efforts in Japan. He attributes this Japanese preference for this field to their Zen Buddhist background and the comparative lack of interest in the Western countries, to the Aristotelian orientation of all Western Science and Technology.
The author begins with Set Theory where set membership is an all or none phenomenon and makes out the case for membership by “degrees”. Similarly, about statement Truth Values in Logic. The concept of Fuzzy sets and Fuzzy Logic is developed progressively, leading to some computationally important results like the FAT (Fuzzy Approximation Theorem): simply put the statement of the FAT is: A curve (even quite a kinky one at that) could be covered by finite number of fuzzy patches. FAT also says that one could approximate a continuous system (on a closed bounded set) as closely as possible. This leads to an idea of Math Model free estimation. The whole idea of Math Modeling of Real Time systems is to afford design of robust and finely tuned control systems. But then in all but the simplest of, partitioned parts of complex control systems only Math Modeling is possible, or has been useful.
The author laments ad nauseum the scant regard given to Fuzzy System Design. Mainstream S&T tend to pooh- pooh or belittle the development of the idea. This may not be so today as in Japan significant commercial results have been achieved esp. in the intelligent control of home appliances and some industrial processes and in aerospace. Thus if the scientific community refuses to admit the utility of Fuzzy System design on the plea that it lacks sufficient rigor, or the administrators refuse funding for Fuzzy systems research being influenced by the scientific community, then the best route is through the industrial applications generated and/or the commercially successful products released to the market. A part of the profits gained could be siphoned off for research into mainstream control and computational application of Fuzzy system concepts. The author again repeats too often the, funding availability for Neural Network systems as the concepts have been furthered by some rigorous Math! He recounts how he had even obtained funding for Neural Network research which he had combined with Fuzzy System research.
It is felt that if the repetitions were avoided the volume of the book could be brought to about 250 pages, without loss of clarity or intuitive appeal. I have procured a copy of the author’s standard text Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems. It is hoped that this being a University curriculum text would not contain avoidable repetitions. The book also extends the idea to Adaptive Fuzzy systems where the set of Fuzzy rules developed evolve over a period of time to improve the closeness of the process image to reality.
The author gives an impression that Fuzzy Systems and Neural Networks play a complementary role and would be a power Decision Making and/or Control Strategy taken together. If rigorous Math Modeling could be successfully replaced leaving it as only an academic curiosity then one could say a revolution of sorts would have been achieved.
The influence of an Eastern Philosophical bent is clearly seen by the author, who elaborates on this by using Buddha and Aristotle references, for picking the concept of Fuzzy Systems, taken together with the Neural Network Research, in Japan. We know from recent history of the development of Science that Japan had picked up on the Logic Programming approach in the early seventies, only to abandon that in favor of Fuzzy Systems gives some hope for finding new applications to concepts from Classical Philosophical Systems of India like Nyaya and Navy-Nayaya etc. It is worthwhile to pursue these ideas in the light of the successes in Japan. Even otherwise a modern re-evaluation of the same to develop a holistic logic system would not be out of place. The author of this review subscribes to this opinion. It is time we(in India) take an independent approach if necessary different and divergent form western thinking using creation of working products and systems as a measure of the success of the approach.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
LIFE WITH MOM # 3.0 [THE LAST DAYS-1]
I would like to start with the last days! Yeah, some very overpowering intuition made me express to mom that I wanted to take her on a pilgrimage – to Sringeri, to Shankarankoil – our Family Deity and to Tiruvannamalai. I was just waiting for the Production period to come to a close. I left for Hyderabad on the eve of 1st April 2011. As I travelled in the bus I just called my sister to ask about my mom’s health and to confirm that all is well. I was told by my niece that my sister has taken my mom to the clinic for she had complained of chest pain. This pain had lasted all day! After getting an ECG done the GP had recommended just a higher dose of BP medicine. There was this hint of an advice about getting an EKG done. My mother, her sister (My periamma) and I were to travel to Bangalore on the 3rd of April 2011. There was a DS to be performed at a friend’s place on 2nd April.
When I met my mom the following morning she was quite cheerful despite the episode of chest pain. I asked her if she was in a fit condition to travel. She replied in the affirmative. Mom and periamma and the rest of the family attended the DS function and partook of the luncheon. The net day we left for Bangalore, and uneventfully landed at Bangalore. For the next two to three days we visited some local temples like the Arumugar temple at Shringagiri (4th April 2011 eve), RR Nagar, the Venkateshwara Temple at Vasantapura(9th April 2011), and another Murugan temple in Subrahmanyapura(12th April. 2011- Ramanavami Day!)
After two repeat episodes of some chest pain on the 5th and 6th April I felt the advised diagnostic tests need be done at the earliest. So, we fixed up with Vikram Hospital on Miller’s Road and got the suggested battery of tests done. The Cardiologist Dr.Padma Kumar’s opinion was to get an Angiography done at the earliest followed by an Angioplasty, if necessary. That it was necessary seemed to be a foregone conclusion, even though the steps towards the conduct of an Angiography were being taken with some caution and after a lot of deliberation with my sister at Hyderabad and my brother at San Jose California. All the three of us had daily conference calls.
Having decided to get the Angiography done at Narayana Hrudayalaya we had a consultation with Dr.Ravi Kishore, on 12th April. I was advised get Mom admitted ASAP and that was supposed to be done on the afternoon of 13th April. The travel to NH was by my Civic car on Neice Road. That was when my mom got to know the comfort of riding this sedan. The Angio was done on 14th April –No Tamil New Year’s Day this year- we were going around hospitals. Mom came out of the Angio pretty cheerfully. Dr. Ravi Kishore had left a message for me to speak to him. He explained to me about the blocks in her coronary arteries. The right side had too many blocks,but could be set aside, he said, it was given to understand that the left side was to be studied. The doctor said the blocks were not in positions to be stented. Instead he asked me to check with the surgeon Dr. Praveen Kumar about the possibility of a coronary bypass surgery. But the surgeon in many words and winding arguments for and against the benefits of a bypass surgery, dissuaded us from attempting one considering my Mom’s age – 76 years – and the fact she was on a regular dose of insulin. My Mom had been a diabetic for the past 26 years and on Insulin for the past 3 years.
The angiogram was interpreted by the doctors as the progressive deterioration of my mother’s heart condition in the past 3 to 4 years. Yes! That was the time interval between the passing away of my Father, on the 17th April 2006 and today. My mother used to have weeping bouts where she complained of loneliness and her desire to die. My Mom and Periamma lived together at Hyderabad because, despite her wanting to be with me conditions at my home were not very conducive to peace of mind. The previous writings on Life with Mom would throw light on why Mom’s living with me was near impossible.
The NH doctors discharged my Mom, after throwing in a suggestion to take a second opinion from Dr.Padma Kumar of Vikram Hospital. We did that on the 18th April 2011, only to be corroborated by Dr. Padma Kumar and Dr Ganesh Iyer, the Cardiac Surgeon at VH, not to attempt a bypass surgery on Mom. The same was the opinion of Dr.Thimmappa Hegde Chief of Neurosurgery at NH. Thus being thrice dissuaded was enough for us to go for what is called as aggressive medication. A catch of about 7 tabs were prescribed, and we started administering them to Mom.
On the 20th April was my Dad’s shraddham and the following day my wife had planned what is called as the sumangali prarthanai(also called mangali poNDugaL). My Mom was not in her element; ate very little but was quite active in guiding my wife on the family practices to be followed. By the next day evening, my mom complained of severe constipation and difficulty in passing urine. So, as a first aid we tried administering an enema. Our trials not being successful we took her to RC Hospital nearby, and a soap enema done, sort of gave her some temporary relief. Earlier, say on the 19th April I had taken her to BGS Hospital as an out-patient to get a Nephro referral completed as advised by NH doctors. We had given blood samples for the basic tests recommended by Dr.Padmanabhan at BGS. But even before receiving the reports on the 23rd April Saturday, we were advised after a check at Casualty at BGS, to get my Mom admitted for in-patient attendance to set the “constipated bowels right” and to relieve her of the urine held back- by catheterizing. She was at the BGS for 5 days. She was discharged a relieved woman after the peglec[dose of laxative] and an unwanted, an unwarranted colonoscopy that relieved us of some money too.More about this in a Facebook blog.
We returned home - to continue with the cardiac medication. In the meanwhile we had done a bit of study on the side effects of cardiac drugs- all of them had nausea, loss of appetite or constipated bowels recorded as side effects. When I shared with Dr.Padmanabhan, he only said that even a lone occurrence of such effects in clinical trials would find their way into the warning statements of medical brochures accompanying patent medicines so that the drug companies are absolved of their complicity.
Beginning 1st May we were seeing Mom’s condition causing concern.
When I met my mom the following morning she was quite cheerful despite the episode of chest pain. I asked her if she was in a fit condition to travel. She replied in the affirmative. Mom and periamma and the rest of the family attended the DS function and partook of the luncheon. The net day we left for Bangalore, and uneventfully landed at Bangalore. For the next two to three days we visited some local temples like the Arumugar temple at Shringagiri (4th April 2011 eve), RR Nagar, the Venkateshwara Temple at Vasantapura(9th April 2011), and another Murugan temple in Subrahmanyapura(12th April. 2011- Ramanavami Day!)
After two repeat episodes of some chest pain on the 5th and 6th April I felt the advised diagnostic tests need be done at the earliest. So, we fixed up with Vikram Hospital on Miller’s Road and got the suggested battery of tests done. The Cardiologist Dr.Padma Kumar’s opinion was to get an Angiography done at the earliest followed by an Angioplasty, if necessary. That it was necessary seemed to be a foregone conclusion, even though the steps towards the conduct of an Angiography were being taken with some caution and after a lot of deliberation with my sister at Hyderabad and my brother at San Jose California. All the three of us had daily conference calls.
Having decided to get the Angiography done at Narayana Hrudayalaya we had a consultation with Dr.Ravi Kishore, on 12th April. I was advised get Mom admitted ASAP and that was supposed to be done on the afternoon of 13th April. The travel to NH was by my Civic car on Neice Road. That was when my mom got to know the comfort of riding this sedan. The Angio was done on 14th April –No Tamil New Year’s Day this year- we were going around hospitals. Mom came out of the Angio pretty cheerfully. Dr. Ravi Kishore had left a message for me to speak to him. He explained to me about the blocks in her coronary arteries. The right side had too many blocks,but could be set aside, he said, it was given to understand that the left side was to be studied. The doctor said the blocks were not in positions to be stented. Instead he asked me to check with the surgeon Dr. Praveen Kumar about the possibility of a coronary bypass surgery. But the surgeon in many words and winding arguments for and against the benefits of a bypass surgery, dissuaded us from attempting one considering my Mom’s age – 76 years – and the fact she was on a regular dose of insulin. My Mom had been a diabetic for the past 26 years and on Insulin for the past 3 years.
The angiogram was interpreted by the doctors as the progressive deterioration of my mother’s heart condition in the past 3 to 4 years. Yes! That was the time interval between the passing away of my Father, on the 17th April 2006 and today. My mother used to have weeping bouts where she complained of loneliness and her desire to die. My Mom and Periamma lived together at Hyderabad because, despite her wanting to be with me conditions at my home were not very conducive to peace of mind. The previous writings on Life with Mom would throw light on why Mom’s living with me was near impossible.
The NH doctors discharged my Mom, after throwing in a suggestion to take a second opinion from Dr.Padma Kumar of Vikram Hospital. We did that on the 18th April 2011, only to be corroborated by Dr. Padma Kumar and Dr Ganesh Iyer, the Cardiac Surgeon at VH, not to attempt a bypass surgery on Mom. The same was the opinion of Dr.Thimmappa Hegde Chief of Neurosurgery at NH. Thus being thrice dissuaded was enough for us to go for what is called as aggressive medication. A catch of about 7 tabs were prescribed, and we started administering them to Mom.
On the 20th April was my Dad’s shraddham and the following day my wife had planned what is called as the sumangali prarthanai(also called mangali poNDugaL). My Mom was not in her element; ate very little but was quite active in guiding my wife on the family practices to be followed. By the next day evening, my mom complained of severe constipation and difficulty in passing urine. So, as a first aid we tried administering an enema. Our trials not being successful we took her to RC Hospital nearby, and a soap enema done, sort of gave her some temporary relief. Earlier, say on the 19th April I had taken her to BGS Hospital as an out-patient to get a Nephro referral completed as advised by NH doctors. We had given blood samples for the basic tests recommended by Dr.Padmanabhan at BGS. But even before receiving the reports on the 23rd April Saturday, we were advised after a check at Casualty at BGS, to get my Mom admitted for in-patient attendance to set the “constipated bowels right” and to relieve her of the urine held back- by catheterizing. She was at the BGS for 5 days. She was discharged a relieved woman after the peglec[dose of laxative] and an unwanted, an unwarranted colonoscopy that relieved us of some money too.More about this in a Facebook blog.
We returned home - to continue with the cardiac medication. In the meanwhile we had done a bit of study on the side effects of cardiac drugs- all of them had nausea, loss of appetite or constipated bowels recorded as side effects. When I shared with Dr.Padmanabhan, he only said that even a lone occurrence of such effects in clinical trials would find their way into the warning statements of medical brochures accompanying patent medicines so that the drug companies are absolved of their complicity.
Beginning 1st May we were seeing Mom’s condition causing concern.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
IN MEMORIAM: SHRIMATI GOMATI AMMAL- OUR BELOVED-“PERIAMMA”
Lord Krishna said in the BG: “For one born death is certain, so is one to be reborn once dead”. While the second part of the sentence of this excerpt from BG is a matter of belief or faith, the first part cannot be denied as on date- even with the march of Science and Technology. Our beloved Periamma- my mother’s eldest sister passed away in the wee hours of November 1st, 2010. She had lived a long life of about 90 years. She was, we learn from her caretakers, bed-ridden needing help from others in the process of waiting for Death.
What makes me want to write an obituary to this very ordinary lady is—I have not come across as far my memory goes, anyone who had had a load of misfortune, or say, a profusion of ill-arranged circumstances in her life. In any one’s life there will be a mix of good and bad so that most can withstand the pulling-down effects of the bad patches in life on the strength of the good times there had been!
Here is a woman in whose life good was as sparse as sugar in a conscientious diabetic’s drink. Married early, when she must have been about 9, she had spent the 81 years of her life battling one or the other disappointment. But the classical training of those years wherein, no formal education was given to the female child might only have stood in good or bad stead for her not wanting to have given up fighting the pathos. Her husband - my Periappa- would never spend time at home, a very expert astrologer that he was, he was the cynosure of his officers. He was more outside home either on the plea of duty or to attend to the prognostication requests of his clientele, done chiefly at their place, perhaps to let the anonymity be. As a reason her five children had to be disciplined by her- a very lenient and voiceless person. If there must have been one who never ever uttered one harsh word to anyone or even expressed anger or frustration, all through her life, it was this person. In short, one must confess everyone took advantage of her goodness, benefitted a lot by her unflinching efforts at serving all at home with their needs and necessities, without even as uttering one word of displeasure, tiredness or what not. Yet the most shocking thing is that neither of her sons has ever felt like sympathizing with her plight- her helpless situation of having to be the man and the wife in the house. When young and dependent they (her sons) perhaps did help her running errands, but nothing more than that. Her husband, my Periappa, did not have any bad habits like gambling or boozing so as to lay a waste of money earned; he used to give his salary at home at least in good part. But she never spent it on her. She was content with whatever was needed for minimal existence.
Our Periappa passed away when his sons were still in school. The responsibility of managing the family finances also came upon her, though her eldest son-in-law helped her with investing the moneys received in the form of terminal benefits of our periappa wisely. The authoritarian presence of the son-in-law as a guardian only served to alienate her sons from her further for they were both so terrorized as to form warped personalities- one son taking to frugality to the extent of being miserly and the elder one incapable of independent decision, so much so as to lean too much on a manipulative wife, after having mortgaged his mind to an authoritarian BIL.
Even as the tides were turning against her in her old age her real supports were her second daughter, granddaughter and grand son-in-law, she would not permit them to pick a quarrel with her errant sons. She used to say,”Leave them. They know only that much”
Now, I would love to indulge in my curiosity born of my own religious convictions. What would be her after life? Will she be having a rebirth? If so, how will that be? She has died during the Southward transit of the Sun or what is called as DakShinAyana, on the tenth day of the dark fortnight- all of which point to another sojourn in this world at a future time and that in a disadvantageous yoni! Even human kindness of not so great a description would pray for a better future lifetimes for her. Greater luck and advantageous yoni placement is what I would pray for her fervently, in the least. That, if only Nirvana were possible for an ahimsa-driven life, as in the case of a Buddhist, she would be fully eligible for Nirvana, is my assessment. But I/We are in dark as to her level of spiritual evolvement – vis a vis the state of her desires. One could say that there was very little or no ego in her, but what about her desires in the last moments of her death? She was not very erudite in the Shastras to take a Knowledge-based approach, nor the kind of being steeped in devotion as seen by any random observer. So, one is not very sure if she would be granted mokSha!
If I were asked what should be her desserts, I would say she is a right candidate for mokSha, and to this end any small failings should be overlooked. Even in mean human minds, there is the magnanimity of not granting a death sentence to the worst criminals. Going by these standards, grant of mokSha – the libration from the cycle of births and deaths- should be the only fitting gift to her life torn of cares, concerns, disappointments and ill-luck all through.
That alone would be my constant prayer! Another lifetime, unless that is one of great means and advantageous placements, will be too hard a burden to bear. It might break her faith in the ONE, even if, in the next life she were to go through this kind of life, and that would be the saddest thing! One might say, she might not be able to remember anything of this life. But the Atman remembers!
What makes me want to write an obituary to this very ordinary lady is—I have not come across as far my memory goes, anyone who had had a load of misfortune, or say, a profusion of ill-arranged circumstances in her life. In any one’s life there will be a mix of good and bad so that most can withstand the pulling-down effects of the bad patches in life on the strength of the good times there had been!
Here is a woman in whose life good was as sparse as sugar in a conscientious diabetic’s drink. Married early, when she must have been about 9, she had spent the 81 years of her life battling one or the other disappointment. But the classical training of those years wherein, no formal education was given to the female child might only have stood in good or bad stead for her not wanting to have given up fighting the pathos. Her husband - my Periappa- would never spend time at home, a very expert astrologer that he was, he was the cynosure of his officers. He was more outside home either on the plea of duty or to attend to the prognostication requests of his clientele, done chiefly at their place, perhaps to let the anonymity be. As a reason her five children had to be disciplined by her- a very lenient and voiceless person. If there must have been one who never ever uttered one harsh word to anyone or even expressed anger or frustration, all through her life, it was this person. In short, one must confess everyone took advantage of her goodness, benefitted a lot by her unflinching efforts at serving all at home with their needs and necessities, without even as uttering one word of displeasure, tiredness or what not. Yet the most shocking thing is that neither of her sons has ever felt like sympathizing with her plight- her helpless situation of having to be the man and the wife in the house. When young and dependent they (her sons) perhaps did help her running errands, but nothing more than that. Her husband, my Periappa, did not have any bad habits like gambling or boozing so as to lay a waste of money earned; he used to give his salary at home at least in good part. But she never spent it on her. She was content with whatever was needed for minimal existence.
Our Periappa passed away when his sons were still in school. The responsibility of managing the family finances also came upon her, though her eldest son-in-law helped her with investing the moneys received in the form of terminal benefits of our periappa wisely. The authoritarian presence of the son-in-law as a guardian only served to alienate her sons from her further for they were both so terrorized as to form warped personalities- one son taking to frugality to the extent of being miserly and the elder one incapable of independent decision, so much so as to lean too much on a manipulative wife, after having mortgaged his mind to an authoritarian BIL.
Even as the tides were turning against her in her old age her real supports were her second daughter, granddaughter and grand son-in-law, she would not permit them to pick a quarrel with her errant sons. She used to say,”Leave them. They know only that much”
Now, I would love to indulge in my curiosity born of my own religious convictions. What would be her after life? Will she be having a rebirth? If so, how will that be? She has died during the Southward transit of the Sun or what is called as DakShinAyana, on the tenth day of the dark fortnight- all of which point to another sojourn in this world at a future time and that in a disadvantageous yoni! Even human kindness of not so great a description would pray for a better future lifetimes for her. Greater luck and advantageous yoni placement is what I would pray for her fervently, in the least. That, if only Nirvana were possible for an ahimsa-driven life, as in the case of a Buddhist, she would be fully eligible for Nirvana, is my assessment. But I/We are in dark as to her level of spiritual evolvement – vis a vis the state of her desires. One could say that there was very little or no ego in her, but what about her desires in the last moments of her death? She was not very erudite in the Shastras to take a Knowledge-based approach, nor the kind of being steeped in devotion as seen by any random observer. So, one is not very sure if she would be granted mokSha!
If I were asked what should be her desserts, I would say she is a right candidate for mokSha, and to this end any small failings should be overlooked. Even in mean human minds, there is the magnanimity of not granting a death sentence to the worst criminals. Going by these standards, grant of mokSha – the libration from the cycle of births and deaths- should be the only fitting gift to her life torn of cares, concerns, disappointments and ill-luck all through.
That alone would be my constant prayer! Another lifetime, unless that is one of great means and advantageous placements, will be too hard a burden to bear. It might break her faith in the ONE, even if, in the next life she were to go through this kind of life, and that would be the saddest thing! One might say, she might not be able to remember anything of this life. But the Atman remembers!
Monday, June 21, 2010
THE VEDA CLASS OF 15TH JUNE MORNING
We* began learning the Krishna Yajurveda from our beloved guru Sh.Vishveshwara Shastri of Bellare, beginning the 19th May 2010. Sh.Vishveshvar Shastri a young man barely 32 years of age had kindly consented to initiate us in the learning of the Veda. The first two weeks were not very smooth going. We were then going to his house to learn. We advertised among our colleagues and pursuaded Sh.Shastri to conduct the classes at Sh.Manjunath’s residence. The strength of the group has risen to ten, at present. There is an expectation that this might go up to 15. After initial teething troubles of most of us trying to get a hang of the swaras, just as we were trying step up our rate of learning, the new additions who had a backlog of about 10-12 days had to be brought up to the level of understanding of the rest.
In this process we have seen people slipping out of synchronism, mismatch of pitch and tone and the like. There was quite a bit of unlearning to do from our past partly erroneous, and partly ill-conceived learning, our present teacher being schooled in some of the finest traditions, not only retained his learning, but made it a point to make us stick to the same exacting standards in respect of our rendering the same.
He had sufficiently elaborated on the recitation standards, codes and the discipline to be followed. There had to be several repetitions of these fundamentals on several days, to cover the new entrants who joined on different days. We hope this group membership will now close. Sh. Shastri chose the Taittiriya Upanishad to begin our instruction. The reason for this was that this contained smaller sentences and simpler swara distribution. He even made us go through a formal “learning” of what is known as the Mantrapushpam. This is supposed to be a well known piece of Vedic prayer, virtually known to every Brahmin, because of its wide spread use. Often people pick this up from popular temple or home recitations, rather than through formal instruction. Shastriji used this as a spring board to “fix” people on the swara system in the Vedas. With all these efforts it was a disappointment for him from us today; that we – at least half a dozen of us to have woefully goofed up on the swaras! His disappointment with the group was palpable in the beginning, but it grew with repeated failure of the group to come up to his expectations! He had to resort to wordy substitutes of the bastinado. Exasperated as he was with our discomfiture, we could see his displaced anger, in the form of admonitions to himself on a future date. Instructing the elderly is also a pain.We are able to see that he had already begun using a kiddo in the group as a stooge to convey his acerbic corrections!
Finally the imbroglio was resolved by some of the successful students among us taking up the responsibility of coaching the laggards so that we come up to the Guruji’s expectations. We hope to cross over to the set of right rendering group in a couple of practice sessions.
We# = S/Shri. VS Manjunath, Jagannatha Shastri,Venugopal and myself.
In this process we have seen people slipping out of synchronism, mismatch of pitch and tone and the like. There was quite a bit of unlearning to do from our past partly erroneous, and partly ill-conceived learning, our present teacher being schooled in some of the finest traditions, not only retained his learning, but made it a point to make us stick to the same exacting standards in respect of our rendering the same.
He had sufficiently elaborated on the recitation standards, codes and the discipline to be followed. There had to be several repetitions of these fundamentals on several days, to cover the new entrants who joined on different days. We hope this group membership will now close. Sh. Shastri chose the Taittiriya Upanishad to begin our instruction. The reason for this was that this contained smaller sentences and simpler swara distribution. He even made us go through a formal “learning” of what is known as the Mantrapushpam. This is supposed to be a well known piece of Vedic prayer, virtually known to every Brahmin, because of its wide spread use. Often people pick this up from popular temple or home recitations, rather than through formal instruction. Shastriji used this as a spring board to “fix” people on the swara system in the Vedas. With all these efforts it was a disappointment for him from us today; that we – at least half a dozen of us to have woefully goofed up on the swaras! His disappointment with the group was palpable in the beginning, but it grew with repeated failure of the group to come up to his expectations! He had to resort to wordy substitutes of the bastinado. Exasperated as he was with our discomfiture, we could see his displaced anger, in the form of admonitions to himself on a future date. Instructing the elderly is also a pain.We are able to see that he had already begun using a kiddo in the group as a stooge to convey his acerbic corrections!
Finally the imbroglio was resolved by some of the successful students among us taking up the responsibility of coaching the laggards so that we come up to the Guruji’s expectations. We hope to cross over to the set of right rendering group in a couple of practice sessions.
We# = S/Shri. VS Manjunath, Jagannatha Shastri,Venugopal and myself.
Monday, June 7, 2010
A VISIT TO MYSORE AND TIRUVANNAMALAI
We had bought a new Honda Civic on the 18th March 2010, and wanted to have the pleasure of some real long distance travel. We had never had a new car in a long time and I remember having made about one or two visits to Mysore in my old Maruti Van. Now, here was a car that must make driving a pleasure and what with all the road blocks in the city(Bangalore), I had desisted form using the car in the city especially for short rides. Thus it sort of became an imperative that we seize every opportunity to do some long distance travel to justify the buying and possession of an expensive car- by our standards- I mean the standards of salary earners like me.
In fact we want to and do keep inventing reasons to do such travel. We drove to Mysore on the morn of 25th May reaching Mysore by about 1100 hrs. That driving was a pleasure. Notable in this visit of Mysore, was the visit to the Mysore palace, esp., the Jaganmohan Art Gallery where I found, the existence of a game of dice that goes by the name of Pachis . What was interesting in this was each of the squares had a picture associating one with a particular life and the progression through the board was to be treated as an enactment of the Hindu belief in rebirth and succession of lifetimes! Generally, this sort of a Karma and Rebirth inspired board game that is well known to native Hindus is what is called Snakes and Ladders in the west which goes by the name paramapada sopaana patam(psp). I had seen for the first time the game of Pachis being made a lifetimes-progression game. As a natural enthusiast of the Theory of Karma and Rebirth, which I find as one of the most satisfactory explanations of the inequities and indeterminacies in human life, I took an instant liking to it and wanted to sit and duplicate the same!
The striking commonality between psp and pachis is that both are games of chance. The artists’ equating the birth of a person in a particular socio-cultural milieu, to “chance” speaks volumes about the people’s belief in Karma staying close to atheism!
It doesn’t take much imagination to see that taking chance and randomness as the reason for the occurrence in a peculiar combination of events, circumstances, or connections is atheistic and incidentally the scientifically accepted view.
The one other thing that impressed me in the gallery was Raja Ravi Varma’s art. I was particularly impressed by Raja Harischandra selling his wife and son on the streets of Varanasi, Damayanti looking expectantly at the Swan flying away to Nala, and a Brahmin woman giving alms, on the footsteps of a temple. Raja Harishchandra brought tears into my eyes. In general all the art on the Palace walls took me out of this world into the world of the spectators in those works, and I felt like R.K. Lakshman’s Common Man taking part in the happenings.
The return journey to Bangalore was quite uneventful except for the delay caused by an accident en route between a truck and a car, an i10 to be precise. Of course this prompted my wife to command my son to move away from the wheel and ask me to take the driver’s position istead.
We landed in Bangalore by about 1715 hrs and after taking a break of about 45 minutes we started off again to Tiruvannamalai. The journey to get out of Bangalore city took up to 2030 hrs, a clear two and a half hours! That is how the city traffic is worsening! The travel after that was uneventful except for a goof-up by me in taking the appropriate left turn to hit the road to Chennai. We reached Tiruvannamalai by 0130 hrs early in the morning. We had reserved accommodation in Hotel Arpana, hence we could hit the sack by about 0200hrs. Since I had planned the circumambulation of the Annamalai Mountain believed to the abode of several Siddhas, I got up urgently by 0400 hrs and after due preparation went to the Ishanya Linga temple to begin my girivalam. To begin with this was a pleasant experience. But as the Sun rose higher on the horizon, I started feeling the heat on my feet. By the time I reached a point just 100m from the IL point whence I had begun, I was exhausted – surprisingly the distance is just 14 KM, not a very great distance to reckon, but I was almost fainting from the Sun beating hard. With some fervent prayers to Lord Shiva and with a last dash to the IL point, I somehow completed the girivalam. The only happy thing was that I had kept up the chanting of the mR^ityu~njaya mantra straddled by the pa~nchaakSharI mantra. This really kept up my spirits. We were there on the morn of a Full Moon, instead of being there for the night! I learnt the hard way that the right time to be there is on the night of a Full Moon Day!
The return journey I must say was uneventful in that my speed up to the point of reaching the NH 7 was around 70-80 Kmph, and on the highway I would frequently touch 135-140Kmph. Only on the well maintained toll based Highways of India can one find sufficient space to touch such speeds? This was a thrilling experience for me.
I wasn’t feeling tired at all even after reaching home at about 2330 hrs on 27/5/10. I couldn’t go the Veda Class the following morning. I resumed it only from the 29th Morn.
In fact we want to and do keep inventing reasons to do such travel. We drove to Mysore on the morn of 25th May reaching Mysore by about 1100 hrs. That driving was a pleasure. Notable in this visit of Mysore, was the visit to the Mysore palace, esp., the Jaganmohan Art Gallery where I found, the existence of a game of dice that goes by the name of Pachis . What was interesting in this was each of the squares had a picture associating one with a particular life and the progression through the board was to be treated as an enactment of the Hindu belief in rebirth and succession of lifetimes! Generally, this sort of a Karma and Rebirth inspired board game that is well known to native Hindus is what is called Snakes and Ladders in the west which goes by the name paramapada sopaana patam(psp). I had seen for the first time the game of Pachis being made a lifetimes-progression game. As a natural enthusiast of the Theory of Karma and Rebirth, which I find as one of the most satisfactory explanations of the inequities and indeterminacies in human life, I took an instant liking to it and wanted to sit and duplicate the same!
The striking commonality between psp and pachis is that both are games of chance. The artists’ equating the birth of a person in a particular socio-cultural milieu, to “chance” speaks volumes about the people’s belief in Karma staying close to atheism!
It doesn’t take much imagination to see that taking chance and randomness as the reason for the occurrence in a peculiar combination of events, circumstances, or connections is atheistic and incidentally the scientifically accepted view.
The one other thing that impressed me in the gallery was Raja Ravi Varma’s art. I was particularly impressed by Raja Harischandra selling his wife and son on the streets of Varanasi, Damayanti looking expectantly at the Swan flying away to Nala, and a Brahmin woman giving alms, on the footsteps of a temple. Raja Harishchandra brought tears into my eyes. In general all the art on the Palace walls took me out of this world into the world of the spectators in those works, and I felt like R.K. Lakshman’s Common Man taking part in the happenings.
The return journey to Bangalore was quite uneventful except for the delay caused by an accident en route between a truck and a car, an i10 to be precise. Of course this prompted my wife to command my son to move away from the wheel and ask me to take the driver’s position istead.
We landed in Bangalore by about 1715 hrs and after taking a break of about 45 minutes we started off again to Tiruvannamalai. The journey to get out of Bangalore city took up to 2030 hrs, a clear two and a half hours! That is how the city traffic is worsening! The travel after that was uneventful except for a goof-up by me in taking the appropriate left turn to hit the road to Chennai. We reached Tiruvannamalai by 0130 hrs early in the morning. We had reserved accommodation in Hotel Arpana, hence we could hit the sack by about 0200hrs. Since I had planned the circumambulation of the Annamalai Mountain believed to the abode of several Siddhas, I got up urgently by 0400 hrs and after due preparation went to the Ishanya Linga temple to begin my girivalam. To begin with this was a pleasant experience. But as the Sun rose higher on the horizon, I started feeling the heat on my feet. By the time I reached a point just 100m from the IL point whence I had begun, I was exhausted – surprisingly the distance is just 14 KM, not a very great distance to reckon, but I was almost fainting from the Sun beating hard. With some fervent prayers to Lord Shiva and with a last dash to the IL point, I somehow completed the girivalam. The only happy thing was that I had kept up the chanting of the mR^ityu~njaya mantra straddled by the pa~nchaakSharI mantra. This really kept up my spirits. We were there on the morn of a Full Moon, instead of being there for the night! I learnt the hard way that the right time to be there is on the night of a Full Moon Day!
The return journey I must say was uneventful in that my speed up to the point of reaching the NH 7 was around 70-80 Kmph, and on the highway I would frequently touch 135-140Kmph. Only on the well maintained toll based Highways of India can one find sufficient space to touch such speeds? This was a thrilling experience for me.
I wasn’t feeling tired at all even after reaching home at about 2330 hrs on 27/5/10. I couldn’t go the Veda Class the following morning. I resumed it only from the 29th Morn.
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