On HIV/AIDS awarenss for Dec 1 - World AIDS day

Here is a short article I wrote on HIV Awareness and the present situation with respect to finding etc on HIV/AIDSMarching towards zero AIDS and zero Stigma

Insights into railway accidents of 2010

Here is a paper that discusses how accidents take place and what are the most risk-prone zones in Indian Railway. Scientists from IIT Kharagpur analyse the 2010 Indian Railway Accidents. My report about the same in The Hindu today Click on this to read the article

And if you have a bit more time to read at leisure, here is a longer version...
 

 

There are many things going on around us that we seem so sure about and yet many times it remains a gut feeling only. For instance the changing of seasons – everyone observes this but we do not seem to have any scientific study that quantifies this change.  Similarly comments about the growing traffic on railways are rife yet many of these comments remain at a subjective level. However, there is news on this front. Moved by the spate of railway accidents that took place in 2010 in India – 19 in all of which 11 were due to derailments or collisions between trains or some sort of failure of the railway system itself (as opposed to fire or faults in the train  or some other reason), Saptarshi Ghosh, Avishek Banerjee and Niloy Ganguly of Complex Network research Group (CNeRG), IIT Kharagpur have taken it upon themselves to analyse this phenomenon.

Published in Physica A, this year, their results are twofold – first, they identify zones of heavy traffic and the reason for accidents as the fact that the number of trains has grown over the years whereas the railroads and routes have not proportionately been scaled up. Second, they identify serious flaws in the scheduling of trains on some routes. They find that if on these routes trains were to run as per the Indian Railways schedule, the system would not be able to handle the traffic. In reality, this is managed by making trains wait at signals because of which there are long delays in runtime of trains.  The second is an alarming result because it holds in its heart the possibility of human errors leading to accidents – what if the signals malfunction or if the driver fails to respond to the signal or some other such disaster? 

The year 2010 was grim in this aspect – there were 19 accidents in all of which 11 fell into the category the authors consider. It had the feature that eight of the eleven shortlisted accidents took place in a zone which they call the Indo Gangetic Plain – a north eastern belt of India.  Noting this, the authors identify statistical parameters to measure this phenomenon and do a statistical analysis of the existing Indian Railway (IR)  express train routes. They find that the Indo-Gangetic Plain hosts some of the most traffic intensive segments of rail routes (7 out of the 20 that they consider high-traffic). Comparing data gathered from 1992 to 2010 from Trains at a glance, they conclude that this is because the infrastructure such as railway lines and tracks have not grown over the years, whereas the number of trains has increased many times. They identify the most risk-prone “trunk segment” as the Delhi-Tundla-Kanpur one and identify the Vishakhapatnam-Vijayawada trunk segment from the southern zone as the “safe standard” owing to the empirical evidence that it has not had any accident so far.

Another parameter is the headway, or time lapsed between two trains as they cross the same point. As the headway reduces, the chance of two trains coming dangerously close to one another increases. On analysis, two segments clearly come out as risk-prone segments The Delhi-Kanpur segment  and the Ahmedabad-Surat segment. The Vishakhapatnam-Vijayawada segment has a much higher headway and therefore is safer, relatively speaking.  Of the two segments with low headway, the Ahmedabad-Surat segment has trains with low headway running throughout the day, whereas in the case of Delhi-Kanpur segment, they are bunched up in the early hours. This once again points out the latter as more unbalanced.

Runtime delays of trains on these segments were also studied and it was found that 20 percent of the trains on the Delhi-Kanpur segment were delayed by more than one hour, whereas about 3 percent of the trains on the Vishakhapatnam-Vijayawada segment were delayed to that extent. The delays reflect the high degree of congestion and frequent waiting of trains at the signals  - which again as pointed out earlier implies a high probability of collision due to malfunctioning of signal or driver failing to react to signal.

To analyse the congestion of traffic at a fine-grained level, a simulation of the traffic flow according to the IR schedule was done. The authors modelled the “block system” followed by Indian railways. A railway track is divided into block sections (of about 4 km to 8 km) such that when one train is occupying a block, no other train is allowed to enter that block on the same track.  At the end of the block, there are signals or stations which control the traffic entering the block.

From the simulation, it transpires that if all trains were to keep to the schedule and not stopped by signals etc, then for trains in the Indo Gangetic plain (IGP) there would be more than two (or three) trains in one block quite frequently. Now, while some blocks have three tracks, most of the IR blocks have only two tracks and so can accommodate at most two trains. So this indicates that the infrastructure is not sufficient to handle the traffic and this is only being managed by stopping trains and delaying them beyond the schedule. This is an alarming result because it implies that if the trains ran as per the schedule, for the IGP trains, the infrastructure would not be able to accommodate all of them. This is a result that begs for proportional improvement of infrastructure.

Do they have an alternate method for scheduling trains which may be safer? Niloy Ganguly replies, “We would like to do a study on better scheduling of IR trains, but it will only be meaningful if we get to know the present infrastructure accurately, e.g., the traffic handling capacities of different routes, etc…  we had requested the IR authorities for these information, but are yet to receive any favourable reply from them.”

How sound is the rationale behind keeping the south zone route as a safe standard? Is it not better to keep an absolute value on safety?  The author says, “It will definitely be better to use an absolute standard, but we do not know of any such standard for IR…. Note that there have been derailment / collisions even in south India in 2012. Hence, some segments in south India also seem to be nearing the risky zone. However, this means that the condition of IGP is even worse than what we had estimated in our paper (since the safe standard itself is no longer very safe)”.

Thulir Magazine completes twenty-five years

Thulir a children's science magazine that runs completely on volunteer efforts completes twenty five years of circulation... my report on the celebrations

Click here to read the article

On a Trip to Kazhugumalai - My article in The Hindu

Here is an article I wrote based on inputs from Pa Ramachandran, sculptor and Asian Studies scholar and my visit to Kazhugumalai, about 50 km from Kovilpatti

click here to see the article.

Start reading about Carbon Credits - My Article in Chaikadai

Chaikadai has published the article I wrote on the implementation of carbon credits exchange in different sectors in Chennai. The editors have put in links to key concepts so that this article makes a good starting point for a reading on the subject.
click here to view the link

My Poems published in Muse India

Dear Reader Here are some of my poems (four) that muse India has kindly deigned to publish...

click here to view the link

Project desalination - An Article for Himal

An article I wrote on desalination plants that are about to be constructed in Chennai has been published by HImal Southasian web magazine as a web exclusive article.

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The link may take some time to upload...If you have trouble viewing it copy and paste this link to a browser

http://himalmag.com/component/content/article/4729-project-desalination.html

India on the Neutrino Trail - an Article for Himal's Blog

Here is a link to an article of mine written for the Himal Southasian Blog.It is about the India Based Neutrino Observatory. click on the title above.

Sikkil Gurucharan - Article in Deccan Chronicle for Music Festival 2010

Sikkil Gurucharan today literally has the crowds swaying to his tune. He started his career at age six and now, in his early thirties, he is much sought after. From child artiste to full-blown professional and crowd-puller: what a transition! But he feels differently, ‘for me there has been no real transition in those terms, though of course the musical sense has deepened! I like to feel I am in competition with younger musicians, it keeps me on my toes. Yet, technically, a transition happened about 2–3 years back: large audience, papers write about you and secretaries put you on their list. These things push you to the next level’.
He enjoys the pressure, the press interviews, attention and publicity, ‘it’s all enjoyable. Readers sometimes keep track of what you say so there’s a need to say the right things. This pressure even transforms into positive energy on stage’.
Gurucharan has experimented with new concepts. The Anil Srinivasan–Gurucharan duo has hit the records many times, but he does not feel there is a need to innovate, as ‘people come to the concert to hear traditional Carnatic music for what it is’. His collaborations with Anil Srinivasan have brought in a whole set of new listeners, from North India and outside India, who were more into Ravi Shankar or Pop and Rock.
Gurucharan is usually noticeably sensitive to his audience’s mood. How does he manage this, with sabhas asking for predetermined lists of songs to be sung? How does he manage to be spontaneous in this? He says, ‘The list is useful because it saves the audience from accidental repetitions by subsequent performers, but it is not so rigid and can be slightly modified to suit the mood of the singer and the listeners’.
He draws inspiration from the stories his grandmother, Sikkil Kunjumani, used to tell him. For example, about how Semmangudi ‘mama’ used to engage the audience. ‘When the audience looked slack or vague, he would change the tempo with a brisk krithi carrying his trademark kalpana swarams. It is necessary, and even very important, to be in tune and respond when the audience looks vague or looks away’.

Subhiksha Rangarajan - Article in Deccan Chronicle for Music Festival 2010

Subhiksha Rangarajan is a multifaceted artist: performing artist, painter and writer all rolled into one. Having started early, she is deep into different genre of music, even at age 22! In her concert for Karthik Fine Arts, she was using her abilities to the fullest and spun out exquisite strains of Abhogi, Bhairavi and Pantuvarali. Accompanying her on violin was another young talent, Akkarai Swarnalatha. Subhiksha’s strength is being able to build up the mood of the raagam, while Swarnalatha has the ability to first set up an environment and then place one note in its centre. Guru Raghavendra on the mirudhangam smartly added to this harmony.
Apart from her performance in sabhas, Subhiksha also sings for a contemporary Indian music band: Yodhakaa. What is Yodhakaa? Subhiksha says, ‘We compose music for lyrics that are drawn from Sanskrit slokas. Most of these are old songs, but a few lyrics have been written by our friend, Pranav. He also helped us with our other slokas. Our music is influenced by many styles from around the world: Latin, African, Jazz, and so on, but it’s not, ‘in the face’! We take care that the styles are blended into the sloka and other melodies’.
Carnatic music takes pride in being complete, so how are these compositions different? ‘We do not compose for the meaning or mood of the songs, rather we try to highlight the effect of the syllables! In the song, ‘Gnaanam’, for example, rather than stick to one raagam, we stress on the syllable ‘Paap’, and the instruments all try to imitate this sound’.How does she separate the purist carnatic style from such fusion compositions? ‘ It’s not different, really. If you ask any senior musician, they will say that the raagam is more important than the notes it is made of. I always sing thinking of the song as a whole. I always stick to that picture and not always the notes’.
Subhiksha’s approach is new and to be lauded. Art in its growth must also touch a common chord in all people; it is to be hoped that musicians of her generation will be endowed with that liberating gift.

Priya Murle- Article in Deccan Chronicle for Music Festival 2010

Rigour helps gain dance versatility
January 8th, 2011
Shubashree Desikan


Priya Murle recalls the roundedness of her training at ShriBharatalaya, under Guru Sudharani Raghupati. Apart from dance, they were taught music, Sanskrit and theory of dance. ‘Our Sanskrit master also told us many stories; after all, dance is visual story-telling! For five years, I only did adavus, much later came solo performances and thematic presentations. Sudha aunty would do the research but always discuss how we should present; she would ask basic questions, “what are you going to highlight here? what swarams and jathis here?” In fact, we never realized we were being trained. I was trained in giving demos, explaining to newcomers through speeches, etc. Even our pronounciation and diction was checked by her. Many people are now surprised that I can handle all aspects: sing, play nattuvangam, do folk-style dance with Anita Rathnam, etc. All my co-students can do all this.’
Priya upholds two performances as special: Amba Shikandhi and the folk-depiction of Indra in Mammudha. ‘In the former, it was a great challenge to depict woman, woman disguised as man and woman becoming a man; especially, doing it sensitively, without being offensive. It would not have been possible without the depth of our training’.
Priya says, ‘I can unconsciously mimick people. Consciously I work at letting go of my ego, for when I portray a character, I have to lose the Priya ego. An important thing is to warm up to the stage quickly and perform instinctively. The body memory should be the guiding instinct, when the dance appears effortless’. Even then, ‘every performance is a test. Losing oneself is rare, and then, but for a moment’.
Conflict between self and the character exists at times, ‘in many cases this lends force to your portrayal’, as for example in One Million Seetas, by Anita Ratnam.
Natyarangam of Naradha Gana Sabha, ‘identify talents and rope them into group activities. They hold camps in Tennangur every year, where daily, we have yoga and lectures, and dance in the temple’. Occasions when one feels down? ‘It is natural to feel a twinge of jealousy sometimes, but I snap out of it very quickly. My family is so supportive, it would be very difficult without that. You must really just reinforce belief in yourself’.

K.J.Yesudas - Article in Deccan Chronicle for Music Festival 2010

Yesudas, remains a lion on stage
By Shubashree Desikan
Jan 09 2011

Dr K.J.Yesudas’ concert at Bharat Kalachar was an amazing feat, so much so that the grand lady, Mrs Y.G.Parthasarathy compared him to a lion emerging from a cave. The versatile singer has been given the Alvas Virasat award at Mangalore. A few years earlier, he had requested the Kerala Government to leave him out of the contention for the best playback singer award. He says, ‘yes, there are many youngsters who deserve to be considered. It is not to be interpreted that I just refuse awards or any such thing’.
Despite his seniority and experience (he has recorded 40,000 songs so far) he still listens to the masters to fine tune his sensibilities. He advocates this, ‘It is important to listen attentively, and notice their exact notations. What is the length of the note that he sang? I can write it down. That is not to say one must copy; the true test is when you sing it with your original capacity’
How is he the king of the cutchery and the light music stage? ‘People come there with an expectation which I must fulfill. It is important to conserve your voice. I do not talk on concert days. I have sacrificed, because I believe my voice is a gift and I must nurture it’.
S.Balachandar, his first music director, still brings a shine at mention. ‘With so few people in his team, unlike the practice in tamil film industry, he was full of grace, like the Sun, tall and dressed in white! I emulate him in the way I dress. Of course there is another advantage in wearing white; no one would know how many pairs you possess,’ he laughs. ‘S.Balachandar’s Andha Naal is a masterpiece, so fresh even today! It is so unlike the present films which are only the stuff of dreams. That was reality, which is why it has lasted. Fantasies and dreams break when you get out of the hall.’
‘Classical singers sometimes are not easy for the audience to appreciate, for example M.D.Ramanathan, was criticized for being slow, even in varnams. He had few listeners sometimes, yet never compromised. Many times changes are made. The varnam Gnanamu Sakaradha, which people sing in Purvikalyani now, is said to have been composed by Thagaraja in Shadvidhamargini. Changes happen, along the way, perhaps to capture audience; perhaps Purvikalyani has the spring that was not in the other’.
‘Sangeetha Gnanamu: so many old Telugu books have the opening phrases in a different notation. It sounds more correct to me, because every phrase starts with panjamam. In the present monotonous way, when tha and gna are sung on the same note, there is a danger that sangeetha-gnanam sounds like sangeeth-agnanam, just the opposite!’

Balamurali Krishna - Article in Deccan Chronicle for Music Festival 2010

‘Faith in destiny paved my way’
January 3rd, 2011
Shubashree Desikan

Innovation was known to be Dr M. Balamuralikrishna’s style even in the 1970s. ‘I love the new,’ he says, in reply to the question, ‘how do you tackle modernity?’ He continues, ‘Change is inevitable and unstoppable, and I always embrace it. Technology has so many new uses, like recording systems, mikes, computers and so on; we do not hesitate to make use of these things, so why shy away from change? Rather we should find people who made this possible and worship them!’
Balamurali, as he is popularly known, has been living true to this statement. It is well known that even at age sixteen, he had discovered new raagams. Yes, the new never held any fear for this gentleman. Even when his career was at a sensitive stage, he was never afraid of making his opinions felt, ‘I always had a strong faith that nothing could stop what was due to me from reaching me’.
He was the first musician to be presented three awards from the president for best musician, playback singer and composer. He corrects this, ‘I am not a musician, I come under the line of vaggeyakaara, like Syama Sastri, Muthuswamy Dikshitar, Thyagaraja and so on’. Of course he is famous for his classical compositions, but he has also composed music for a Malayalam film and even sung for a Bengali films. ‘I am famous in Bengal for my Ravindra Sangeeth I have two doctorates in this’, he interjects, ‘I love Tagore, he was a creator; he made his own music’.
He stopped singing in the music season fifteen years ago, when the season boomed into the mega event it is. ‘There are so many youngsters, all singing very well. They know the world better than us. No one can mislead them’, he speaks again with his brand of faith in the new. ‘Everything has its place, and what stands the test of time becomes classical. Once people criticized me, but today many people adopt my methods… call me guruji…’ Like the Music Academy, next to which he lives, he too is a living proof that having faith in oneself is an essential ingredient in an artist’s makeup.

Aruna Sairam - Article in Deccan Chronicle for Music Festival 2010

Present perfect, agrees Aruna
December 26th, 2010
Shubashree Desikan

Aruna Sairam’s unique, powerful singing draws people by the thousands today. When and how did this growth happen? She says, ‘this was a very slow process. First I had very small audiences, used to perform in smaller concert halls. In fact, I collected my audience one by one. I always tried to go back and assess my performance. Did I feel good? Did the audience walk away with a sense of ecstacy and joy, forget themselves at least for a moment?
Sometimes this did not happen. Then, I would ask why and also think, next time this twenty should become thirty. Still, even I never dreamt of such a number. It grew from twenty to two thousand! If I had foreseen this, I would not have advanced even a step. Even now, when I feel something did not go right, or if it went wonderfully, I would not be able to sleep’.
She speaks about the balance that music restores in her: ‘when practicing, you work through technicalities, discipline, the grammar, repertoire, but somewhere, sometime, for a fleeting second you forget yourself and merge with something. That moment does not come often. This makes it worthwhile. We feel, if I have been gifted with a body and a form and a voice, it must be for this’.
My voice is by nature a bass voice, unusual in comparison with most women’s voices. It took me a lot of time to learn how to use it as a plus. I did work on it and practice yoga and breathing techniques, akaara saadhagam, special excercises. It’s all in breath control, the breath is the source of the voice’..
‘My teacher Brinda amma had a special voice, like a gopuram, widening at the bottom and tapering and rising, seemingly endlessly, at the top.It was not a thin high-pitched perfectly kuil-like voice, but it would do amazing things. This is what I modelled myself on. She had that rustic wisdom and would say, when you are on stage, imagine you are the queen; when you step down, be yourself. That confidence level is very important for a performance. On stage, if you sit and wonder what do I know, you will be lost!’

Tiruvarur bhaktavatsalam - Article in Deccan Chronicle for Music Festival 2010

Respect all, especially the elderly
By Shubashree Desikan
Dec 22 2010


At Parthasarathi swamy sabha, that Monday, the violin brothers, Mysore Manjunath and Nagaraj were exploring the scope of the duet to the fullest. Framing the pace to their portrayal of Sankarabharanam, Saroja Dhala Netri, was Tiruvarur Bakthavatsalam on the mirudhangam. It was hard to separate the tune from the beat as the two vied with each other for the audience’s attention. What was it that inspired the musicians? ‘It was a lovely concert,’ says Mr Bakthavatsalam, ‘a combination of good players, mike and speaker systems, appreciative audience and grace that made me feel very good about that day’s concert’.
Fifty-five years old now, he has been playing since he was nine years old – fortunate in that his mother was herself a concert singer and his own uncle his guru. There was no formal transition from learning to performing, as he remembers, ‘ except that when I was younger, I used to practice for twelve-to-eighteen hours a day! Now, I am into music all the time, practice is when I teach my students and even my concerts are sessions of practice because later I study my recordings and think about how to perfect my techniques’.
How has he been able to cope with the physical strains of being a mirudhangam player? ‘You have to learn the right finger techniques and how to use them skilfully instead of blindly using force. This is the heart of what you observe and learn from the teacher. Posture is important and so is being disciplined about food and drink. Above all dedication is most important. You have to treat the instrument like divinity’. As he speaks, there is a phone call from Dr Ramani, for whom he is playing the next day. Over the telephone, he sets the note of his pitch pipe to match the caller’s pitch. This will be used to tune in his mirudhangam. After making some plans for the concert, they call off. He adds, ‘The day before every concert, I focus on the player I will be accompanying and everything else is set aside. I know their style and plan accordingly’. He concludes with a word to newcomers: ‘be respectful to everyone, especially elders, and never wound anyone’.

Review of "Sprint of the Blackbuck"

This review was published in The New Indian Express; Readright section; 8 August 2010.

Book Review of 'The Scar'

The Scar - is an autobiographical novel penned by Dr KA Gunasekaran, Tamil Scholar and Theatre Activist. You can find on this page my review of the novel and a part of the interview with the author - Published in The New Indian Express - Sunday, 6 June 2010.

Review of Umrao Jan Ada: the courtesan of Lucknow; Mirza

Published under the title

Grace under fire

in Life (Businessline) of The Hindu Group of publications; 19 Dec 2008.

Book Title: Umrao Jan Ada The Courtesan of Lucknow, By Mirza Muhammad Hadi Ruswa (1857-1931)

Translators: Khushwant Singh and M.A. Husaini

Publisher: Orient Paperbacks Price: Rs 175

Reviewed by Shubashree Desikan
(see also link - http://www.blonnet.com/life/2008/12/19/stories/2008121950050200.htm)

The story of a woman in the "world’s oldest profession", as I hate to call it, is a kind of literary motif that every language has contributed to, in India as well. The courtesan, prostitute or sex-worker — as she is referred to variously — often comes across as an interesting character of contrasting images.
Nalini Jamila’s work in Malayalam is autobiographical: a stark depiction of the present — how poverty and treacherous love forced her into this profession; how she managed to support her family single-handedly.

In Tamil, Moovalur Ramamirtham was a pre-Independence writer; she rejected her devadasi background and worked with reformers to abolish this practice. Her novel is an unstinting political criticism of her community and an indictment against the wily practitioners of the trade.

Other novelists who have etched strong images of courtesans in India are Qurrat-ul-lein Hyder, in River of Fire, and Hermann Hesse, in Siddhartha.
Umrao Jan Ada by Mirza Muhammad Hadi Ruswa is unique in many ways. It’s a novel that has been translated, retranslated, filmed and even remade, several times over.

The story, as narrated by the author, is of young Ameeran, who is kidnapped by her father’s adversary as a means of getting even. She is taken to the Chowk at Lucknow and sold to the famous courtesan Khanum. Ameeran tries to escape, but finds she is doomed forever to work in the love trade.

Umrao, as Ameeran is now called, grows into a very fine poet; her talents in music and dance are unmatched, even by Khanum’s daughters. Her fame spreads and young scions of society are sent to her to learn grace and sophistication.

This fame is a mixed blessing, for while it makes her powerful within her own mansion, outside she is despised and abused by the respectable and conservative sections. She continues to walk with her head held high, enters palaces and exhibits her dance and poetry at mehfils, until even her detractors cannot but admire and respect her, however reluctantly.

Umrao pays the price of survival and success in many ways: despite her self-pride, in the outside world even women never hesitate to abuse her; her mother and brother reject her when she tries to return home to Faizabad; a passionate love affair with the handsome Nawab Sultan ends abruptly. Attempts to escape Khanum prove abortive. Finally, Khanum’s establishment is destroyed and Umrao moves to Faizabad, to live alone.

The novel is remarkable, consistent and stout in making a case for this woman who is determined to transcend the boundaries imposed on her, who holds tenaciously to her self-esteem and self-respect, and finds a way to celebrate her life, as every life ought to be celebrated.
The Urdu original contains many verses and phrases of common speech that have been translated skilfully. The novel is a must-read for all those who wish to rework their worldview of society’s marginalised sections with compassion.

Book Review: A Place Within - By MG Vassanji

An emigrant’s journey through history
Subhashree Desikan
First Published : 14 Jun 2009 10:26:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 14 Jun 2009 12:16:14 PM IST

MG Vassanji, author of A Place Within: Rediscovering India, comes from East Africa and now lives in Toronto with his family. He was born in the port city of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. His grandparents had emigrated to East Africa and settled there. When the countries in the region obtained independence from the British in the early 1960s, he recalls, in his wonderfully clear introduction, that it seemed very natural for him to seek an identity that was closely tied to the British and colonial traditions and myth. The contradictions this evoked were stirred by his reading of Jawaharlal Nehru’s autobiography and his Discovery of India. He realised that he had his own discovery to make. This book is born from that stirring.
A Place Within is not one book, but several, interwoven in the hope of producing a tapestry of abstractions of India. It takes several forms at once — a travelogue describing the landscape of modern India; an emigrant’s quest to follow his own roots and to locate the origins of his family’s tradition of legend and symbol; an unearthing of the layers of history shrouding some famous cities of India such as Shimla, Delhi, Baroda, Ahmedabad and much more.
Buried deep within this tapestry is the story of the syncretic tradition of the Khojas — a sect initiated by “a line of pirs, whose ancestry was Persian Ismaili, but who, except for the first one or two, were all born in India”. With these lines and a brief introduction to the most prominent of these saints — Sadardeen, also known as Guru Sahdev and Sarguru — Vassanji narrates the story of Imamshah, a descendant in the tradition of Guru Sahdev, and the life of the Ismaili sect of Muslims. With this understanding, it becomes easier to understand what follows, the story of this fusion of Islam and brahminism as it had taken place in Ahmedabad. His earlier references to Ahmedabad reflect the reader’s own horrified wonder at how this fusing has actually given way to the presently seen excesses of intolerance and even genocide.
In retrospect, this book should not be called a “tapestry of abstractions”. It is, in fact, a composite of two stories, or even several as more readings may reveal, one consisting of the author’s search for his homeland and the second telling the reader of the understanding he has gained about the workings of time over history as applied to Ahmedabad.
Certainly it is a brilliant book in many respects, not least of which is in its exposition of the nonlinear and tiresome work involved in research. The effort made by the author to compile and assimilate the information it contains is apparent in every chapter. It offers valuable insight to research scholars in any discipline as to how the truth one is looking for can get distorted and covered up so badly that it would take patient and persistent toil to make the crucial contact. Yet the whole thing is too much of a challenge to take through to the finish, unless one has some business with the book. In fact, one cannot help wondering whether this book would get buried in the nanodynamics of modern popular reading, just like the subject it deals with! This is a phenomenon to worry about, and just as missions are launched to save beaches and the ecosystem, it would not be amiss or too late either to start a campaign to save endangered voices such as this. A few months ago, I was impressed by an article in The Guardian of UK, which spoke about the danger of the publishing boom to the value that used to be added by expert editors in the past. Certainly the campaign to save endangered voices is one that should be pioneered by expert and committed editors

Lilavati's Daughters- My review in TNSIE

This review i did of, "Lilavati's daughters: Women in Indian Science," has been published in the New Sunday Indian Express.

Ninety-eight women who shattered myths

First Published : 26 Apr 2009 11:23:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 26 Apr 2009 11:15:33 AM IST


In India, women in science face all kinds of hurdles to their progress. This is seen in many ways: despite women having enrolled in higher studies since early 1900s, the fraction of women among scientists fluctuates around only 13 per cent–15 per cent. Many talented women drop out of science, at penultimate stages of obtaining their PhD or even later. Women in science in India resist taking each other’s side and often end up on opposite sides. Some women would not apply for awards given particularly to women scientists, for the reason that they feel this is setting their work apart as if it does not deserve to win in the general category.

Lilavati’s Daughters: The Women Scientists of India is a bouquet of biographical sketches of ninety-eight Indian women scientists, edited by Rohini Godbole and Ram Ramaswamy. It is a long-overdue acknowledgement of the contribution of women to Indian science.
How is this book a very fine first step towards achieving an antidote for this social poison of women dropouts? What does it contain that makes it different from the average biographical book? How does it work against existing prejudices?

The book’s format is very simple and straightforward and is often more of a personal story-telling about one’s own life and happenings, sometimes narrated by a close friend or relative. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that each one deserves to be read for its own worth. After reading this book, young women scientists won’t have to look to Marie Curie or Sofia Kovalevsky or Emmy Noether or Sophie Germain to model their own decisions and behaviour on, they would see there are examples closer home!.

Some poisonous prejudices against women are that they are not as productive as men; they show stereotypical behaviour; they are unwilling to relocate and face challenges, and so on. All these myths are shattered by reading even within the first nine stories in this anthology:
Janaki Ammal, from Kerala, was the first woman Oriental Barbour Scholar and D.Sc (1934), a botanist and a pioneer! Then is the story of B Vijayalakshmi’s heroic struggle against cancer of her stomach and abdomen, to carry out research in high-energy physics. Another pioneer is Asima Chatterjee, the first woman to receive a D.Sc. from any Indian University (Calcutta). Her work on ayurvedic drugs is the story of untiring and path-breaking research which led to the development of the anti-epilepsy drug, Ayush-56, which is patented and sold even today. Anandibai Joshi’s, Mumbai of 1865, is a story of struggle against the confusing marital complex- being educated and discouraged by the same person, her reformist-husband. Who can say that women fear controversy, if only you read the story of Iravati Karve, who was the pioneer in advocating statistical studies based on caste divisions – a theory that is controversial even now. Bearing testimony to the stolid undeterred labour of women, Anna Mani is a beacon of a physicist from CV Raman’s lab. Her thesis did not get her a degree in physics for some bureaucratic reason, causing her to shift her field to meteorology subsequently becoming Deputy Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department.

The short index of contributors at the end is a useful reference to put a face to the names. The earthy colours in the cover and the glossy pages add an aura of antique art and a touch of nostalgia. The contributors are listed alphabetically, which also underlines that all their contributions are valuable and important.

Is there any strategy to reach this book to the people who will appreciate and benefit from reading it?

Dr Rohini Godbole, an editor of this volume, and a leading particle physicist, says that the grant from Department of Science and Technology is being used by Indian Academy of Sciences, which has started the work of distributing 1000 copies among those who will benefit. Further, abridged versions of these essays, translated into Marathi, have been appearing in Marathi news paper, “Loksatta,” every Saturday from January 2009. There are suggestions and offers to translate the book into different regional languages.