Mayank Chhaya Daily

On why I should not tweet more often

Perhaps a couple of times in a year I get asked why I do not tweet much. Thinly hidden under that question is the presumption that if I did, I may be able to build up a following.

It is true that I do not specifically tweet (my handle @mcsix) other than my blog post headlines automatically getting up there. That may explain why after having been on Twitter for quite a while I have amassed 88 followers. Of course, the question that troubles me often is not why so few but why even these many?

What has prompted me to write about my Twitter account is that my 88th follower joined yesterday. He happens to be a particularly distinguished figure in South Africa. For reasons which are not entirely clear to me he has chosen to follow me. We met during a conference in Mumbai in September, 2012, and seemed to hit it off rather quickly. Since then we had been out of touch until Twitter alerted me to a new follower in him. Here is what I wrote about him then.

Jay Naidoo, left, with Nelson Mandela (Photo: www.jaynaidoo.org)

Jay Naidoo has the bearing of someone who should be approached only if you have an urgent point to make about a global crisis. His goatee and mustache only enhance that effect. In reality, he is far more affable.

These days, Naidoo, a seasoned South African political dissident and campaigner who would easily fit in a Che Guevara music band, is comfortably ensconced in positions such as a member of the Broadband Commission of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). He is also on the Global Advisory Health Board for the World Economic Forum and Patron of ‘Scatterlings of Africa’, a paleontological foundation linking archaeological sites across Africa.

But there was a time when Naidoo was one of the leading campaigners against South Africa’s apartheid.His official biography says that he was the founding General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) where he served three terms (1985 to 1993). “He was at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid leading the largest trade union federation in South Africa,” it says.

After apartheid was dismantled and with the rise of Nelson Mandela, Naidoo made an easy transition into political life. From 1994 to 1999, he was the Minister responsible for South Africa’s Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) in the Office of the President.He went on the become the Communications Minister in Mandela’s Cabinet.

The point of that detour was to illustrate who he is and why he has zero reason to follow me. Other than natural graciousness I find no reason for any one of the 88 to follow me.

Coming back to the question why I do not tweet much at all, it is certainly not for a lack of things to say. It is not also because of any inability to say things in a distilled, compelling manner. Remember I have been writing haikus in Gujarati practically since my childhood. I can swing between brevity and hyperloquence (Not a real word but coined here from my earlier hyperloquent) on literary vines. (Admittedly, a bit too contrived but works here). I also have enough years in the profession with enough stories to tell to be able justify a much more prolific Twitter output.

That said I find it to be a rather silly indulgence. Twitter to me is necessarily for those who have a certain celebrity or name recognition or position of influence/consequence built about them in their chosen profession. It is as much about who is saying it as about what is being said. I do not for a moment believe that people want to know what I think about this, that and the other. (Have you noticed that I say all this by being so charmingly self-unaware? If that was my reason, I should not even write this blog).

Some of my Twitter followers have several multiples of more followers than I do. I do not have the grace to follow them as a return gesture. I follow only one, the White House but that too I rarely, if ever, read because I am on their media mailing list.

Occasionally, I do get the urge to become more active on Twitter but then it passes almost as soon as it rises. As a medium of unfettered democratic discourse Twitter is obviously an extraordinarily powerful tool. For instance, the other day while driving back from downtown Chicago with Sam Pitroda it was heartening to see that a farmer from India got instant response and encouragement from Pitroda, bridging a distance of 7500 miles (over 12000 kilometers) almost without losing any time. In the same conversation someone also asked Sam what he was smoking in an obviously snide reference to his natural optimism. It cuts both ways and that’s what makes it consequential.

As of now I remain a reluctant Twitter presence. The day I develop Justin Bieber’s reckless insouciance I might consider being more prolific. Incidentally, Bieber has 42,133,379 followers, which is said to be the highest for anyone. The Dalai Lama has 7,327,136. They are both in the top 100 with the Dalai Lama at number 90 and Bieber number 1.

Headline not necessary

For the past couple of days I have been working on creating a series of artworks based on the color blue and shades in its vicinity. I think describing what I do as “working on” is a bit grand because really what I do is click virtual colors and move my mouse on a virtual canvas using the app Fresh Paint. Some of that leads to these images.

The collage above represents six in the Blue series. I have not uploaded these works on my Saatchi portfolio mainly because even from the existing 35 pieces not one has sold yet. If history is any guide, nothing is ever likely to sell. So why let my inventory bloat?

There is nothing particularly unique or inventive about these works. If there is a story to some of them it is that they were done at the peak of my current migraine headache. In so much as they represent the visual conception of a migraine-hit brain, they might hold some clues. Other than that they are just like a trillion other pieces of art floating around in the world.

I like them because that’s the least you could do when you create something. Another approach is to create something out of a deep dislike. I am yet to try that approach.

I was vaguely familiar with what happens when you mix any two colors and keep churning them. With Fresh Paint I can now see how their tone changes with every swirl. In most cases the new tone is progressively deeper than the last one.

Since I am making random observations about my artworks, I have noticed that a predominant majority of my work roughly coincides with the aspect ratios of either 1.85:1 or 2.39:1. That’s like a widescreen movie frame. Left to me I would like to permanently frame the world in these aspect ratios. That way you think you are forever watching a movie.

There is something to these aspect ratios that helps me disconnect from the action and turns me into a spectator. What I like about spectating is that you participate without being responsible. Before my cogency begins to fray at its edges because of my migraine, it is best to conclude here.

The queen does not think she minds

Fay Batey, a 10-year-old schoolgirl at Wiggonby CofE School, near Wigton, Cumbria (All real names), asked Queen Elizabeth II:

“Do you want Kate’s baby to be a boy or a girl?”

The Queen: ‘I don’t think I mind.’

I have several interpretations of her reply.

1. She does not think she minds as long as someone comes out
2. She is not entirely sure whether she minds if anyone comes out
3. She does not think she minds whether it is a boy or a girl but not so sure whether she minds one way or the other

The operative part of her reply comes in the comment that followed: “I would very much like it to arrive because I’m going on holiday soon... I wish it would hurry up.”

Her concern is that the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge (that would be Kate) must deliver someone, anyone, without delaying her holiday.

This from a woman whose entire life has been a sort of holiday. For any queen, particularly the queen of England, work of any manner is a matter of choice and not necessity. It is the holiday that is the default life. What changes is the venue of that holiday. In this case she plans to spend the summer at Balmoral in Scotland.

She wants to leave next week provided Kate gives birth in time. It would be somewhat of a royal inconvenience for Kate’s baby to keep the queen confined to the Buckingham Palace. But that’s the kind of sacrifice the queen is called upon to make. Can you imagine the sheer hardship of having to stay put in a palace which has 775 rooms, including 19 State rooms, 52 royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices 78 bathrooms?

For those of us used to the overwhelming opulence of our common life it is next to impossible to fully grasp how hard it is to lead the life of severe austerity that the queen of England has to bear and yet smile politely at her subjects and even occasionally answer them like she did Fay. It is only appropriate that some in the British media have described Fay as “bold” for displaying the insolence to ask the queen a question. Usually the subjects are just expected to stand on the sidelines in an obsequiously unctuous manner and either gently applaud or wave the Union Jack or do both.

‘Unfinished Love’

Chicago skyline from a frozen frame of an upcoming movie ‘Unfinished Love’ (Photo: Raghunandan Bharathur)

Helming a modestly budgeted feature film as its executive producer comes with little to no glamor and considerable challenges. Its rewards, if any at all, are rather underwhelming. Notwithstanding that, I have a good feeling about ‘Unfinished Love’, the film whose production I am overseeing these days.

I wrote in May about shooting a short promo for the movie based on real events that unfolded in the life of dear friend Dr. Bharat Thakkar, a Chicago-based engineer, teacher and poet. We are almost ready with that promo. With some luck I have managed to convince national award winning Indian director Sri Prasad to direct the film. Prasad’s young son-in-law, Raghunandan Bharathur, who is an engineer by training and vocation, has been generous enough to shoot the promo using his own equipment.

So far not a penny has been spent on the promo because everybody is chipping in. I am trying something new to pitch the movie to potential investors. Rather than orally describing what the movie is about and what it might look like, we are shooting a few dramatic scenes to lure investors.

On the sets of ‘Unfinished Love’, left, Raghunandan Bharathur and director Sri Prasad

If things go as planned my plan is to begin principal photography in August. With some tight control we can wrap the film in about six weeks. We are yet to finalize the cast because we have no money to offer established actors. That’s where the promo comes in. With that as a calling card we are hoping to raise some seed capital.

I intend following the same model for my own feature film ‘The South Block’, a political thriller which I have written and will direct sometime in October out of India. At this stage it is still like a castle in the air but then I have this old habit of building castles in the air and living in them until they are foreclosed upon.

Schrodinger’s cat

Schrodinger’s Cat by MC

Today’s post has been inspired by a piece in The Independent of London about ultra-highbrow humor which my friend Harmony Siganporia alerted Facebook friends to. The piece is about humor among scientists often referred to as geek humor or nerd humor.

There are some blisteringly smart jokes that the piece’s writer Andrew Johnson compiles. Reading those one popped up instantly in my mind which went something like this:

A neighbor to Erwin Schrodinger: What do you feed your cat?

You have to be in the realm to get this “ultra-highbrow humor” because first you have to know who Schrodinger is and then the relevance of the feline reference and the whole thought experiment around an imaginary cat inside an imaginary box which is both dead and alive simultaneously in a mindfuck paradox.

So anyway, after I wrote that line, it occurred to me that there is potential here for a full play. The basic plot is that the Nobel Prize winning physicist Erwin Schrodinger is being tried for killing his cat. The ultra-highbrow humor part is that there was no cat and since there was no cat, it was not killed. The cat was imaginary and so was his death, if it did happen. It was one of science’s greatest thought experiments.

Caution: What I have written here is entirely, 100 percent fiction. There was no such court case and no such trial just as there was no such cat.

Any resemblance to the dead or the living or the living dead or the dead living or the in between is incidental and/or deliberate and/or deliberately incidental and/or incidentally deliberate.

Part I

Time: 1935

Time: 9.30 a.m.

Venue: Bundesgerichtshof, the Federal Court of Justice, Berlin

Judge Volkard Strauss presiding. The judge is intently reading his notes.

Case # 24246, The Third Reich versus Erwin Schrodinger

Case history:

Erwin Schrodinger (ES) has been charged with culpable felinicide even though the police have not been able to determine whether the cat was dead or alive. What threw them off was the accused’s oblique suggestion that the cat could be both dead and alive. In his police statement, Schrodinger said the following:

“A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of the hour, one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges, and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat mixed or smeared out in equal parts. It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.”

Judge Strauss (JS) is questioning the first witness for the prosecution, Frau Frauke (FF), a next door neighbor of Schrodinger :

JS: Describe to me your encounter with Prof. Schrodinger on the morning of the police raid.

FF: We exchanged pleasantries but he seemed preoccupied. He always seemed preoccupied. I asked him about his cat.

JS: What about the cat?

FF: I was curious to know what he fed his cat because I never saw him feed it. I never saw the cat either.

JS: And what did he tell you?

FF: He said there was no cat to feed but if he had one he would choose hydrocyanic acid.

JS: (Taken aback): Hydrocyanic acid? Why?

FF: I couldn’t tell you that because he never told me why. He only said something about a radioactive substance and hammer smashing the flask inside a box.

JS: You seem familiar with scientific terms.

FF: I am a retired science teacher. I retired from teaching but not science.

JS (Smiling): Let me ask you a direct question. Do you think Prof. Schrodinger killed his cat?

FF: Well, I never saw the cat but that does not mean he did not kill it. It also does not mean that if he had one he killed it.

JS: Did you experience any foul smell emanating from his apartment?

FF:  I did and I confronted him about it.

JS:  What was his explanation?

FF:  He said it was the stench of a decaying genius.

JS:  And you believed him?

FF:  Not quite but there was a high probability that it was indeed the stench of a decaying genius.

JS: Then why did you alert the police?

FF: Who would not like to save a decaying genius?

By now Prof. Schrodinger, sitting along with his attorney, is laughing. The judge notices him and says:

JS: You find something amusing professor?

ES:  Only the notion that a decaying genius has a stench.

JS turns to FF and excuses her from the witness stand. He directs ES to come to the witness box.

JS: I do not wish to continue your testimony today much long because I want to recess the court early. But before I do that, let’s go through a few questions.

JS: So is the cat dead or alive?

ES: That depends.

JS: On what?

ES: On whether an atom decayed, the tube discharged, the hammer fell, the flask shattered and the hydrocyanic acid spilled. Only then could the cat die.

JS: So the cat did die.

ES: That depends.

JS: On what?

ES: On whether an atom decayed, the tube discharged, the hammer fell, the flask shattered and the hydrocyanic acid spilled. Only then could the cat die.

JS: (Exasperated): But you already said that once. Why are you saying it again?

ES: Because you asked me again. Asking the question again does not change my answer.

JS: You have said during your interrogation that the cat could be both dead and alive. How is that possible?

ES: That is not possible. I said probable.

JS: That’s a distinction without a difference.

ES: I would call them distinctly different.

JS: Let me ask in simple terms. Is the damn cat dead or alive?

ES: If all of the above conditions were met, then it is likely that it died. If not, it is likely it is alive. But we have no way of knowing unless we open the box. So for us, without opening the box the cat is both dead and alive at any given time.

JS: Where is the box and how big is it?

ES: There is no box.

JS: Be that as it may, what poison did you feed your cat?

ES: I did not feed my cat anything because it did not exist.

JS: Then why have you been charged with killing the cat?

ES: It is an imaginary cat inside an imaginary box equipped with an imaginary radioactive substance from which an imaginary atom may or may not decay and the tube may or may not discharge and the hammer may or may not fall and the acid may or may not be released. Hence, the cat, which does not exist, may or may not die. And unless we open the box that also does not exist we may or may not know whether the imaginary cat is dead or alive.

By now, the judge is ready to tear his hair out. He throws the gavel at Schrodinger who ducks. The gavel falls on the courtroom floor. The floor shatters like glass. A dark golden brown cat jumps out from underneath. He rubs his body against Schrodinger’s right shoe and jumps on to the judge’s dais. He thumps his paw and says:

“If you think I exist, I think you should see Dr. Freud who, by the way, is real.”

P.S.: Some day I hope to complete the play.

Lookalike and Feelalike- Jerry Seinfeld and Brooks Atwood

Industrial designer Brooks Atwood, left, Comedian Jerry Seinfeld

I don’t quite know what but it says something about me that I find it worth my while to produce a post like this. Lookalikes and Feelalikes have been a popular feature on this blog for quite sometime where I choose two totally random people who either look alike or, at the very least, feel alike.

When I first saw industrial designer Brooks Atwood, a participant on HGTV’s reality show ‘Design Star’, I instantly told myself Jerry Seinfeld.There is a clear resemblance between the two, even with Atwood’s frizzy hair and moustache-beard combo. If Seinfeld were cast in a French avant-garde movie about a tortured novelist who wants to experience firsthand the life of a deliberately homeless painter, this would be the look. Don’t get me wrong. I think Atwood’s style is rather hip and compelling and one that Seinfeld will never emulate in real life.

Coming back to what it is that prompts me to synthesize so much useless information, I have not been able to figure that one out. You might remember the other day I showed you how similar the hands of Dr. Amar Gopal Bose and Dev Anand seemed. It is a reflection on me that I notice such ridiculous details and even choose to occasionally write about them.

I think it is only fair that I rework one of the two images to show you why I think Seinfeld and Atwood look alike to me. By the way, I have taken the trouble to actually paint new hair on Seinfeld’s head and face because I do not have Photoshop to doctor Atwood’s image by erasing his facial hair.

A few observations about George Zimmerman’s acquittal

Illustration by MC

While watching the trailer of Wong Kar Wai’s latest ‘The Grandmaster’ yesterday I chanced upon a couple of lines in the voiceover that reminded me of the George Zimmerman acquittal.

“The guy on the ground is wrong,” says the deep-voiced narrator and adds after a pause, “The last man standing up is always right.” Shorn of all the legal nuance and complex details of the case, the verdict to acquit the Florida resident Zimmerman by a six-member all-female jury comes close to this description.

Even after walking the chalk line of reasonable doubt and facts as presented by the prosecution and defense, I find it hard to comprehend how there can ever be an equal fight between a 28-year-old man (Zimmerman) armed with a semiautomatic weapon and a barely 17-year-old unarmed boy (Trayvon Martin). Why is it that in America those armed with weapons frequently end up killing their perceived or real threat/adversary rather than causing incapacitating injury? Why is there so much obsession on using “deadly force” in the face of danger?

That the prosecution could not prove its case in support of second degree murder or manslaughter is evidenced by the jury’s verdict to acquit Zimmerman. And in so much as we respect the jury system, we have to accept the verdict. My point is not so much about the verdict as the deeper issues such as deadly force and Stand Your Ground statute as an acceptable means to defend oneself it raises. It is as if every single stage up until the point where a weapon must be fired to kill is skipped entirely and immediately during such altercations. Even police officers, who are trained to deal with all manners of threats, are commonly known to fire dozens of rounds once they have determined that their adversary poses a threat.

The justification to kill enshrined in the Stand Your Ground statute as long as the person perceiving a threat “reasonably believes” that to be the only option, is open to a very wide interpretation indeed.

To me, one of the lowest points of the trial came when Zimmerman’s attorney Mark O’Mara, in his zeal to prove that his client was the real victim, brought to the courtroom a piece of concrete. It was supposed to represent the sidewalk concrete on whose edge Trayvon was supposed to have repeatedly slammed George’s head. The attorney’s intention to make it subliminally appear to the jury as if Trayvon had in effect bludgeoned George with a concrete slab was not lost on anyone. It was also being suggested that contrary to the prosecution’s argument that Martin merely had a Skittles and a can of iced tea, he was actually armed. His weapon, it seemed, was the concrete walkway.

“That is a sidewalk and that is not an unarmed teenager with nothing but Skittles trying to get home,” O’Mara had said even as he kept shaking off the dusty remnants of the concrete slab from his hands and clothes. It was all gratuitously theatrical. Of course, as the defense attorney it was his right and duty to do whatever he could to get his client acquitted which he did. One cannot hold it against the attorney for effectively using the legal system. 

The fundamental point of the case boils down to one simple fact— it was Zimmerman who initiated the pursuit that led to the violent altercation. We do not know whether Martin, as alleged by Zimmerman, jumped him from behind a dark spot/bush on a rainy night. We do know that Zimmerman told the police dispatcher this: "Fucking punks. These assholes. They always get away." At the very least, these comments do indicate a presumption in a certain direction on the basis of whatever visual and other stimuli that Zimmerman made. It is possible that by “fucking punks” he meant young men in hoodies generally who wander about neighborhoods with ill intentions. It is possible that he did not presume race from Martin’s getup but merely became suspicious as an efficient neighborhood watchman about an unknown presence.

However, the terms “Fucking punks” and “These assholes” do seem to refer to a specific group of individuals. It is true though that we cannot say with any certainty that that specific group is of a particular racial extraction. Punks do abound in many racial and ethnic groups. Many punks, irrespective of their racial/ethnic backgrounds, do wear hoodies but hoodies are not a prerequisite for being a punk. There are punks who detest hoodies. Also, hoodies by themselves do not engender punkhood.

Let’s accept for the sake or argument that Trayvon did indeed first attack George. This is where I come back to my original contention. Perceiving that he was in real danger of either grievous bodily harm or possibly death, Zimmerman was left with no choice but to fire straight into Martin’s heart and kill him. That was the essence of the defense’s argument. Could he not have fired a warning shot in the air? Could he not have fired a shot that would have injured Trayvon but not killed him? Or did he have to, absolutely have to, kill him? Or better still when the police dispatcher told him not to pursue Trayvon, should he not have stopped?

I find it troublesome that laws have been written in a way where they almost encourage killing as part of self-defense or Stand Your Ground statute rather than effectively thwarting the threat without always mortally terminating it.

While I am at it, let me just say that the notion that this whole sordid affair was not about race is absurd. It was about race. It was about presumptions made on the basis of race. It was about those presumptions causing an armed man to follow a teenager. Even as I am saying it I am presuming that Zimmerman for sure knew Martin to be a young black man despite the hoodie covering him and and night and the rain. It is not as if hoodies are the sole sartorial preference of young black men even though they are frequently presumed to be so. This is also a problem area because the leap of presumption seems to be that a hoodie = young black man = possibly menacing intentions = must be pursued = using deadly force if the need be.

It was most definitely not about a hoodie. Trayvon Martin’s hoodie merely propped up an ugly edifice of prejudice. That said, I am willing to accept that at the time of the altercation and just prior to it, it is possible that Zimmerman was not thinking along such complex sociocultural lines. None of this even remotely lessens the Martin family’s pain.

Pran, the celluloid Dean of the Mean

Pran, right, putting a badge on Dev Anand. (A photo dating back to the 1980s by Gopal Shetty)

Pran, who died at the age of 93 in Mumbai on July 12, had the among shortest screen names in the history of Hindi cinema but perhaps the longest and most illustrious career spanning over six decades. It was as if everybody in India knew who Pran was.

The actor straddled all manners of celluloid villainy in close to 400 films since his first in 1940 and was in many ways the very embodiment of Hindi cinema, like his contemporary Ashok Kumar. To be both an intrinsic part of an entire art form and one of its most defining features simultaneously must have been quite a high for Pran.

Pran’s presence in any film had a remarkably clarifying effect, mainly because he frequently did roles with deeply negative shades. Pran had the mean realm so completely cornered that he deservedly went on to become the Dean of the Mean (My term, coined right here) early in his career. In an industry notorious for typecasting its actors, it typecast Pran with particular relish but he lifted his performances out of their jadedness and gave them an enduring appeal with consistent integrity.

In my childhood, when going out to watch movies was considered a rare privilege, one of the most common questions asked before selecting a film was “Ema Pran chhe?” (Does it feature Pran?) That was because his presence meant that the film will have some dramatic hooks. Pran meant the end of ambiguity.

Pran is one of the few figures of that vintage and standing, apart from Ashok Kumar, whom I never met or spoke to. So I have no personal anecdotes to liven up this short little reminiscence. Considering his very long span in the profession and given his stature, it was inevitable that Pran would end up working with the entire roster of Hindi movie stars over the past seven decades.

With many of the biggest movie stars over the decades, Pran acted in numerous films. Ashok Kumar, often regarded as Hindi cinema’s actor’s actor, and Pran acted in 27 films together, for instance. When you consider that many actors in Hollywood do not act in those many films in their entire careers, this is an extraordinary number. With Amitabh Bachchan, by most reckoning Hindi cinema’s biggest ever star, Pran did 14 films. In fact, their 1973 film ‘Zanjeer’ (Shackles) is considered as a compelling example of a giant star, Pran, lending his name and credibility to a relative novice, Bachchan, during the early days of the latter’s career. That’s why some obits have pointed out that Pran was paid thrice what Bachchan was for the movie.

Perhaps Pran’s biggest challenge at the height of his success was that filmmakers would essentially hand over a stereotype to him and expect him to make something memorable out it. That he did was a tribute to his artistry. Of course, there were many roles where Pran could have just gotten by by merely keeping his right eyebrow arched for the duration of his presence. There is a lot to choose from Pran’s filmography but I have just chosen two clips here. One is, of course, from ‘Zanjeer’, and the other from ‘Half Ticket’ (1962).

 

By any measure, Pran led a dream life doing what he loved and loving what he did. Along the way he gathered stardom and adulation very few manage.

P.S.: My special thanks to dear friend and photographer Gopal Shetty who is always generous to share his collection with me.

Dr. Amar Gopal Bose, 1929-2013

Dr. Amar Bose (Photo: www.bose.com)

My first and only meeting with Dr. Amar Gopal Bose in the early 1990s in New Delhi nearly led me to write his biography. It was after a press conference that Dr. Bose gave in the Indian capital that I separately chatted him up a bit.

It was my sense then that he was somewhat amused by all the media attention he was getting there. He seemed genuinely surprised that his work in acoustic engineering was known to many at the news conference. Of course, most of that knowledge was about the famous line of Bose stereo speakers.

When I mentioned that perhaps he should consider a biography about his life and perhaps he should consider me as his biographer, he flashed an incredulous smile. He said something to the effect that “the thought had never crossed his mind”. He gave me his business card with his company’s address in Framingham, Massachusetts and asked me to send a formal proposal. I promptly did but never heard back. So that was that.

My recollection of that news conference is that reporters were surprised to hear Dr. Bose’s fully American accent without a trace of his partly Bengali origin. Of course, many did not know at the time that he was born in Philadelphia to Noni Gopal Bose who was married to an American school teacher. He was, for all practical purposes, American. Born on November 2, 1929, he came of age at a time when America was in the grip of the Great Depression.

I remember asking him how that experience influenced his formative years. I am not quoting him verbatim but he said he was too young to have been directly affected by it, although he had memories of the era.

Among my superficial impressions of Dr. Bose then was that he was dapper in an understated way.A tall man, his bearing was friendly and had a smile that was wide open. I also remember him often moistening his lips with his tongue as if he felt parched. Do excuse me but I do tend to be observant about these inane details. Another feature I remember was that for some reason he reminded me of Dev Anand. Very likely it was his partly toothless smile that made me think of Anand. At the very least, there is the feel-alike touch between the two, if not look-alike.

Check out the two images below, one of their hands and the other of their faces.

Left, Dr. Bose’s hand, Right, Anand’s.

Left, Dr. Bose, and Anand

There is no particular relevance to these comparisons while writing about Dr. Bose other than the fact that I have a weakness to look at things and people from many different angles.

According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with which he had more than six decades of association, “Dr. Bose received his bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and doctorate from MIT, all in electrical engineering. He was asked to join the faculty in 1956, and he accepted with the intention of teaching for no more than two years. He continued as a member of the MIT faculty until 2001.

During his long tenure at MIT, Dr. Bose made his mark both in research and in teaching. In 1956, he started a research program in physical acoustics and psychoacoustics: This led to his development of many patents in acoustics, electronics, nonlinear systems and communication theory.”

He was among the most popular MIT teachers whose classes were much sought after. “Amar Bose was a legend at MIT,” said MIT Chancellor Eric Grimson, who served as a faculty colleague of Dr. Bose in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “He was an incredible teacher, an inspiring mentor, a deep and insightful researcher. He has influenced multiple generations of students, both directly through the classroom and laboratory, and through the many students he influenced who have themselves pursued careers as faculty, propagating Professor Bose’s approach to mentorship and teaching.”

Bose Corporation, the company that he founded nearly 50 years ago and which revolutionized sound technology, was a closely held entity. He did not take it public because he knew the pressures of corporate bottom lines would deviate him from his largely R and D mindset.

It was a tribute to his unusual way of doing business that in 2011, Dr. Bose gave MIT the majority of the stock of Bose Corporation in the form of nonvoting shares. “Under the terms of the gift, dividends from those shares will be used by MIT to sustain and advance MIT’s education and research mission. MIT cannot sell its Bose shares, and does not participate in the management or governance of the company,” the MIT said.

The Earth’s inner core

The Core By Mayank Chhaya

Wolfram is a search engine that offers computed results which are unlike any other search engine. I occasionally use it. Yesterday on a visit to Wolfram my cursor randomly rested on a graphic of the Earth’s inner core. It was one of those serendipitous moments that I have a weakness for. I clicked the image and it produced specific information such as the inner core’s depth, density, pressure and so on. It’s not the sort of data you would know what to do with unless you have a specific interest in the subject. I suppose Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus can get by without knowing about such things is what I am trying to say.

Anyway, the serendipity aspect of my Wolfram visit was that I decided to check out if there was anything new going on in the world of the Earth’s inner core. So I did a Google news search on the subject. To my pleasant surprise, there is a lot that has gone on in this very field in recent months and weeks. Scientists have proposed a radical new model for the make-up of the core. The inner core is about 5000 kilometers or a little over 3100 miles below the surface. Wolfram is very specific by offering the figures between 3190 and 3960 miles.

At the heart of the planet is the inner core, which is essentially a giant ball made up of iron-nickel alloy 760 miles (1,220 kilometers) in diameter. This ball sits, kind of sloshing about, inside a liquid-metal outer layer. The core’s temperature is measured to be 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit (6,000 degrees Celsius), which is how hot the Sun is on its surface. At its core the Sun is incomprehensibly hotter than the Earth, of course.

This information comes from two new recent studies about the inner core published in Nature Geoscience. An extract from one of the studies says, “The centre of the Earth is one of the most inaccessible and enigmatic parts of our planet. The full knowledge of its chemical composition, dynamics, anisotropic properties and hemispherical asymmetry in absolute velocity and attenuation is in the centre of long-standing and ongoing controversy. This almost spherical solid body, with a radius of 1220 km, has been developing since more than one billion years ago, involving the process of crystallization of iron from the liquid outer-core. The present-day growing rate has been computed to be around 0.5 mm/year.”

The inner core, which began solidifying about a billion years ago, is enlarging at the rate of 0.5 millimeter a year. One millimeter is the tenth of a centimeter. One centimeter, in simpler terms, is about the size of a fingernail. So now you do the visualizing. It may seem insignificant but when you consider the size of the iron-nickel ball at the center of our existence, 0.5 mm a year is significant.

An image of how my cursor randomly rested on the graphic of the earth’s inner core

I have long wanted to paint my image of the Earth’s inner core. So I finally did it this morning. (See above). The painting is now for sale at http://www.saatchionline.com/profiles/portfolio/id/419264. I say this only so that buyers can ignore it like my other works. Nothing has been sold yet. Incidentally, I have priced the painting at $3190 in reference to the depth of the Earth’s inner core. Buy it, don’t buy it, whatever.