UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS: A PYE IN THE SKY?

UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS: A PYE IN THE SKY?

Racial discrimination and religious bigotry are responsible for a great number of cases of human rights violations. These are frequently used as tools to gratify and justify personal greed and egotism.

When an action is inherently right, one does not need the crutch of race or religion but when it is not, the two Rs are invariably invoked.

What about Nations and States? The state boundaries and national identities do discriminate between people and deny basic rights to people who do not belong to their club. Recent mass refugee migration in Middle East and Europe exposed the infringement of universal human rights at a major scale. Majority of people and their governments in the recipient countries did not shout against it and let it happen though individually a great number of people felt sympathy and sorrow at the plight of migrants. But the idea of absolute sovereignty of national boundaries, greatly eased their pain !

This raises a major question. Can the concept of universal human rights really exist while these boundaries created by Race, Religion and Statehood exist?

Thankfully, race as a discriminating factor has been losing its public acceptance in most of civilized societies but religious bigotry is still condoned in many countries publicly without an iota of guilt or shame.

The notion of absolute sovereignty of State is at present accepted as norm and people are ready to kill one another to defend it with vigor and pride. People doing obvious wrongs in its name are hailed right and righteous. Not long ago similar atrocities were proudly done all over the world in the name of race or religion and were similarly glorified.

CLICK HERE@@@TO HEAR THE SONG

Until all these dividing fences are voluntarily taken down, the concept of universal human rights is just a pie in the sky. This will only be achieved when a critical mass of humans evolves enough to really comprehend and put into practice the spirit of SOHAM*  i.e. “I am He”^#.

I know, it seems impossible even to visualize this in the present climate but I am a great believer in the power of evolution.

But for this what hope is there for our progeny?

* Soham is a Sanskrit chanting mantra; the word is formed by a combination of two words – ‘Sah’ meaning ‘He‘ and ‘Aham‘ meaning ‘I’Soham. It is thought to be derived from Mantra 16 of Isha-Upanishad. 

* योऽसावसौ पुरुषः सोऽहमस्मि http://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/isha-upanishad/d/doc122468.html

# Beatle song “I am he as you are he as you are me”    https://youtu.be/WU4uaKgCQ9A

EPISODIC MEMORY: AN EVOLUTIONARY MARVEL OR A DESIGN FAULT?

 Last week we went to a wedding reception. The parents of the bride are friends of ours. There was a pre-dinner short boat trip on the Thames. On the deck I saw a couple of other people who were mutual friends. We gravitated towards each other and ended up standing together on the deck.

I got busy talking to them but in the back of my mind something kept niggling. While getting on the boat I saw a familiar face but could not put a name or context to it. Who was that man? If I could remember where I met him before, I might be able to put a context and then maybe I could even recall his name. 

To say that you know a person you have to know the context  in addition to name and image.  When we meet a person and have interaction with, the brain acquires all these bits of information and automatically stores them. Unfortunately each bit is retained in a separate place, on top of that, as the time passes they are moved around perpetually depending on the priority our brain assigns them.

How does the brain prioritize, does not enter into our consciousness. Sometime very mundane and banal facts are kept in the fore of the mind and at other times even crucial or apoplectic events are forgotten.  Our brain does not share a lot of things with us! Is it an evolutionary asset or a design fault?    

Forgetting events and people associated with unpleasant or unimportant events certainly keeps us in positive frame of mind but forgetting important episodes puts us at a great disadvantage. The problem is that it is our brain that decides what is important, not our conscious mind. People who had been in rather close contact in past feel hurt when they find out that you cannot recall their names, faces or contexts. They impart blame as if you have “consciously” forgotten them.

Luckily, one of the friends who I was talking with said “have you met Rehman? He is here on the boat.” Suddenly the veil disappeared I remembered him. He worked with us in the same department and lived only a few blocks away. That was  20 yrs ago! All these bits of information were in my brain safely stored, just needed a trigger to bring them to my conscious mind. A few minutes later when he came near us, I met him with all the warmth that my memory has just delivered!

If you think memory is for keeping an accurate record of past, then it is flawed and defective. But as a tool for imagining future scenarios and thus preparing us to face the uncertainties of future better, it is a design marvel. This really is the purpose of memory. 

“Indeed, our ability to revisit the past may be only a design feature of our ability to conceive of the future” Suddendorf & Busby 2003

GETTING DOWN THE STEPS SIDEWAYS: SENESCENCE CATCHING UP

GETTING DOWN THE STEPS SIDEWAYS: SENESCENCE CATCHING UP

Last month I was in San Francisco. A lovely city, lots of nature, lots of culture, lots to see. Enjoyed roaming in the city. But there was one fly in the ointment. San Francisco is a city of hills; there were lots of steps everywhere. I noticed that going up the stairs was easier than coming down. This seems contradictory to the common sense; surely the body has to do more work going up against the pull of Mother Earth! But lately, it does not seem that way to me.

We went uphill on Hyde Street by the iconic wooden cable car and alighted at the highest point where it crosses Lombard Street.

 From here, at the top of one of America's crookedest streets you can see a beautiful scene. The road makes eight hairpin bends just in crossing one block! Each V shaped recesses on either side of the road are packed to the brim with Kaleidoscopic flowering shrubs. To savor the prettiness we decided to go all the way down the street on foot by the steep steps on the side of the road.

Here I experienced one of those rare movements when one feels joy and pain at the same time.  The joy of the beautiful sight and the malevolent ache in the knees in going down those millions of steps. I noticed that I was going down the steps sidewise, putting both feet on each step. What a relief it was when I reached the lower end. 

The sight was best from here too; the whole street looked like a vertical  multicoloured garden with cars and people creeping sinuously down like drops of rain on a stained glass window pane of a cathedral.

I used to run down the steps, two at a time only a few years ago. Few years? It does seem like a few years ago to me! In reality, probably decades ago.

 How did I reach this point, when to maintain the balance and power I have to adapt a tandem double stance sideways on each step while going down?

Going up the stairs I use single stance, each foot coming in touch with alternate steps only and it feels much secure.

I saw a television program many years ago where a comedian was asked “how one does know that old age has finally arrived”. He enumerated and enacted the following signs with great hilarity.

• 1.  When you start descending the stairs sideways.
• 2.  When children sit in the front of the car and you in the back.
• 3.  When you start using every public toilet just because it is there.
• 4.  When you ask others for time even though you are wearing a watch.
• 5.  When you go in the study to get a pen and come back with a book.
• 6.  When you bend down to pick up something, you start looking for what else you can do while you are there. 

He got a lot of laugh from the audience me included.

It must have looked very odd when I laughed loudly remembering that show when I reached at the lower end of Lombard Street.

A Knotty Problem

A Knotty Problem

 Why do they take so much pleasure to annoy and irritate me? Why don’t they just be friends rather than insist on tying the knot at the first date? My rant was not without reason.

I had opened the drawer to get my earphones. What a mess it was! Everything was intimately tangled with each other forming one big polymorphous puzzle. Only two weeks ago I had organized the wires. I had taken them all out and laboriously separated each one and neatly arranged them back. It took the best part of two hours.

I can fully assure you, no one has opened that drawer since then. I rarely use the earphones for my mobile phone when I am at home. We are going to Hay Book Festival next week just for two days and I wanted to take them with me.

Why do the wires do that? I googled “why do the wires get tangled when left in a box”, hoping their might be a few web pages on this.  I did not expect an avalanche of theoretical and experimental work on spontaneous knotting.

 The reason for so much scientific interest is because spontaneous knotting is not just a minor irritating earphone problem; it does influence our life and our environment at many levels. It can be life threatening for the 1% of us who are born with a knotted umbilicus! Even before that, at molecular level the bending and knotting of strands of DNA and various other large proteins are absolutely necessary for the very existence of life. The knotting and braiding pattern of various synthetic polymers of large molecules have significantly increased the diversity of materials available to us to use in every walk of life. They are used in making clothes, drugs, cars, buildings; the list is ever expanding.

There is a whole branch of Mathematics dealing with Knots.  Most of the math was beyond my cognition so I looked at some practical lab papers. One by Raymer and Smith^* caught my attention.

They took various lengths of string and put them in a box which was rotated at a constant rate and then noted the number and types of knots formed. It was repeated hundreds of times and the results were statistically analysed. They described the relation between length of the string and number & types of knots formed.  What it really boils to that knots will always develop if the following criteria are met.

1)  A flexible string longer than 1.5 feet.

2)  More than one free end.

3)  Space large enough to allow some movement but not too large to prevent contact.

4)  Energy source to cause movement.

It only requires small amount of energy to make the free ends glide under and over the neighbouring string and soon the knots start developing.

It was not a poltergeist, moving my wires, just opening and closing of the adjacent drawers was enough to supply sufficient energy.

What can I do to prevent my earphones getting tangled? Following are the suggestions I found on the all wise web!

       1) Shorter length.                                      

2      2) Keep each wire in its own small bag.

3      3) Wind the wire on a spool.

4      4) Keep the ends apart.

5      5) Keep the ends together fixed to each other.

        6) Zipped head phones.

7      7) Flat wires. 

Most of them do not seem practical in day to day life unless one has a compulsive obsessive personality but then he/she already has them in colour coded sleeves, arranged alphabetically!

My salvation is to buy flat wire earphones. I hope the sound is not too flat and the price not too high. Better end this blog on this optimistic note♫

* Spontaneous knotting of an agitated string. By Dorian M. Raymer and Douglas E. Smith published in 2007 (Proc NailAcad Sd USA 104:16432—16437).

LISBON: A TRIP INTO HISTORY

We saw Lisbon for the first time in 2005 when our cruise ship called in the port at the shore of Rio Tejo. It was a very short visit, just for half a day. We only saw a few places along the river bank. The grandeur of Praca do Comercio  and the Belem was very impressive. We spent most of the time there and walked back to the ship.  

We decided to come back again to Lisbon and see it properly. 

We did just that this month. Spent five days in this lovely understated city.  It has all the majesty and splendour but without the commotion and hustle of most of the European capitals. 

I feel that to really see a city one should use its public transport.  It lets you have a peep in to the very soul of the place. You not only see the proscribed touristy places but also get a glimpse of the ordinary, everyday local life and culture. It does need a lot of prior research which has become much easier now due to the internet. I love doing that because it makes the holiday seem much longer. My holiday really begins from the day I start looking up about the city on the web. Besides, it is much cheaper than using the usual commercial holiday and tour providers. 

Lisbon is quite a historical place. It was ruled by the Romans, Visigoths and the Moors and it later colonized Angola, Brazil, Mozambique and Goa, to name a few. All these diverse cultures have left their marks in Lisbon. We saw the narrow pebbled streets of Alfama, weaving through the tiled houses and shops. Moors initially built a castle atop the hill here, reclaimed back after the crusade and now called Castle of São Jorge. We saw the whole Lisbon city from here.

Along the water front one name dominates: Vasco da Gamma. Vasco da Gama Bridge, Vasco da Gama Tower, Vasco da Gama shopping centre and The Jeronimos Monastery where his tomb lies. He discovered the sea route to India in late 15^th century breaking the Arab monopoly on spice trade and heralding the era of European colonization of India.

The other famous name which connects Portugal with India is St Francis Xavier who is described in Encyclopedia Britannica as “the greatest Roman Catholic missionary of modern times, who was instrumental in the establishment of Christianity in India. Though he was Spanish by birth, he came to Lisbon to go to India where he arrived in 1542 on a Portuguese ship. Today there are nearly hundred schools and colleges in India which bear his name.

We visited the Sao Roque Church reputed as being one of the world's most expensive churches. The outside looks rather plane but the chapels inside are dazzling, covered with Brazilian gold leaves and precious stones. There is a chapel here dedicated to St. Francis Xavier. A kind church lady seeing that we were very interested in him, called the security guard to unlock the sacristy where a lot of artifacts associated with St Francis are kept, along with other treasured paintings and objects. This was a real privilege to be allowed in the sacristy.

People in Lisbon are very friendly and even in the souvenir shops the salesmen were very polite. Portuguese wines are really fabulous and the prices are much lower than that in Britain.

This country, which was colonized by others and then colonized others, has now settled back. Though economically not doing well, it seemed more at peace with itself than many other European countries.

All in all, the entire trip was very pleasant and edifying. 

FINDING THE REAL CULPRITS

 FINDING THE REAL CULPRITS

Last week there were two brutal killings, a day and five thousand kilometers apart, one in a very poor and developing country and the other in a fairly rich developed country.  On February 26^th a 42yrs old man was hacked to death with machetes in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A day later a 55 yrs old man was executed with multiple gun shots in the back in Moscow, Russia. Former was a blogger and the later was a politician.

Different people, different cultures, different lands. At a cursory glance, these two killings do not seem to be connected at all. But if you look carefully these two murders are symptoms of the same malaise.

In Dhaka, Mr. Avijit Roy, an American engineer and blogger of Bangladeshi origin, was killed because of his secular writings on growing religious intolerance and bigotry. In Moscow, Mr. Boris Nemtsov, a prominent political leader in Russia was gunned down because of his robust opposition to corruption and war mongering of Putin’s government.

These two men were killed because a certain group of people did not agree with their views and these two could not be bribed or intimidated into silence. They stood firm against injustice and hypocrisy and paid the ultimate price.

More such brave and honest people will be killed in coming days and months. Some of the criminals who pulled the trigger or wielded the knife will be caught and punished.  But the real culprits will never be brought to justice.

The reason that real culprits will not be brought to justice is because we are looking in the wrong direction. The actual perpetrators of such atrocities are not the idiots and megalomaniacs who commissioned or committed such acts. The real culprits are you and I, the silent majority, who believe in justice and fair play but choose not to come out in enough numbers to condemn such acts unequivocally.

THE BEST GREETING WISH OF ALL TIMES

THE BEST GREETING WISH OF ALL TIMES

1st of January, New Year day. I wanted to wish all my friends and family a happy new year. Just wishing “Happy New Year” looked very simple and inelegant.  I wanted to write something graceful, stylish and poignant. A greeting full of gravitas and conveying sincerity.

I wrote the greeting differently, qualifying my wish with “health and wealth”. I made it sound religious “may God bless you”. I even personified the New Year and pleaded with it, “may the New Year bring success …” Somehow none of them seemed to offer any greater wish than just Happiness.

  

People say that they are sacrificing their happiness for the family, for the religion, for the country or the world. But are they, really? In fact doing that sacrifice makes them feel happy. They would feel miserable if they did otherwise.

 Some people feel happy to amass a lot of wealth. Some find happiness in finding a soul mate. Some find happiness in worshiping God and some find happiness in explaining to people that there is no God. Many of these people will suffer trying to achieve their goals. They might feel that they sacrificed their happiness for their causes but at that time they would have felt a lot more wretched if they would not have tried.

Everything one wishes, or longs for is to achieve just one simple goal: happiness. To be happy is for what every living being is living for. There is no point to live otherwise.

What is the worth of anything,

But for the happiness 'twill bring?

RICHARD OWEN CAMBRIDGE, Learning

To be happy is, I believe, the ultimate wish one can wish for someone.

  HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL.