Mayank Chhaya Daily

Of lions and hyenas

Here is a problem with hyenas. They look, behave and laugh exactly like the stereotype hyena. In fact, very few animals live up to their stereotype as quickly and precisely as hyenas.

Not that I have seen them personally at great length except once years ago, but they always seem to be conspiring and plotting in a particularly malicious manner.

I was thinking all this while watching an extraordinary BBC Earth clip as part of its Dynasties series. It is a single lion, named Red by the dulcet David Attenborough, who accidentally walks into a pack of 20 hyenas. Quickly enough, the lion understands the potentially fatal danger it has walked into. 

You can see it in its eyes, which are both scared and defiant. You can also see what living in the wild really means. What we humans call wild life is actually just life for these animals. They make no distinction between wild and life.

At one level, the fact that even 20 hyenas with their rather powerful jaws have to be so cautious in approaching a single lion highlights everything that we celebrate in a lion—majestic courage and self-assurance. On another though, you can see how worried the lion looks as the hyenas, with their sinister, mocking laughter, occasionally bite it. The three and half-minute long clip tells me yet again how ill-equipped the vast majority of the human race has become because of evolution to deal with an encounter like this one.

Such survivalist violence unfolds on the continent of Africa every day. It is a constant battle among the animals stacked up like a pyramid with the lion being reputedly on top. However, that position is often not guaranteed as illustrated by this clip.

I strongly recommend you watch it only be happy that most of us do not have to face this as a matter of routine.

Howzat, Mr. Khan?

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that if India takes one step towards peace talks, his country will take two.

Here is an idea. Let New Delhi take that one step and ask Islamabad to hand over Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind behind the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, and suspected  mob boss Dawood Ibrahim. Islamabad then can take two steps and hand over both, one after the other in rapid succession, perhaps an hour apart. Howzat, Mr. Khan?

Reading Khan’s seemingly sincere comments to a group of visiting Indian journalists I try hard to be optimistic and open-minded. Employing rather Trumpian logic he describes the Indian demand over these two men as “inherited issues” for which his government should not be blamed. That is how successive governments work, Mr. Prime Minister. You inherit both triumphs and disasters. There is no cherry-picking here.

Khan also says that India and Pakistan “cannot live in the past.” The best way to deal with the past is to make it present—disinherit the two men as a gesture to pump life into the long comatose talks. If New Delhi still fails to respond with matching sincerity, then Khan would be justified in questioning its intentions.

Of course, the idea that Islamabad would even consider handing over Saeed and Ibrahim is absurd on its face. More than Ibrahim, it is Saeed whose fortunes are so intertwined with Pakistan’s domestic politics. The relatively nascent Khan administration would not like to mess around with all that at a time when it faces much deeper existential issues over its massive debt obligations.

Pakistan is in the midst of negotiating an economic bailout package with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of anywhere between $6 billion and $12 billion. There have been fears expressed that Islamabad may use that prospective IMF bailout to service its debt to China. It is a nation-state version rolling one’s credit card debts. 

However, those apprehensions appear to have been allayed by David Malpass, the U.S. department of Treasury’s undersecretary for international affairs. He has been quoted as telling a US Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee yesterday, “We think the maturity of the Chinese debt comes after the IMF would have been repaid.” He implied that “From the standpoint of IMF money being used to pay Chinese money” was not the main U.S. worry.

Any IMF bailout is bound to come with severe conditions imposing fundamental economic reform, austerity and spending transparency. That imposition may not augur well for the new prime minister trying to make his mark. It would be living in a fool’s paradise to even suggest it but over the last three decades Islamabad could have found ways to mend fences with New Delhi to such an extent that its own economy would have strengthened along with India’s and saved itself the humiliation that always comes with being in debt. That mending of the fences would have necessarily required not using an assortment of jihadists and other misanthropic groups to foment trouble in Kashmir and elsewhere as a state policy.

Machine versus human

The Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC), located on the robotic arm of NASA's InSight lander, took this picture of the Martian surface on Nov. 26, 2018, the same day the spacecraft touched down on the Red Planet. The camera's transparent dust cover is still on in this image, to prevent particulates kicked up during landing from settling on the camera's lens. This image was relayed from InSight to Earth via NASA's Odyssey spacecraft, currently orbiting Mars.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

I do not want anthromorphise machine but looking at the photograph above beamed by NASA's latest Mars lander InSight I couldn't help it. It traveled nearly seven months and 300 million miles (458 million kilometers), went through quite an ordeal slowing down from 12,300 miles per hour (19,800 kms per hour) to just five mph (nine kmph) and yet managed to send the photograph soon after landing. It needed no time to unwind or whine about a jet lag version of space travel. That's machine as opposed to human.

The area of Elysium Planitia on Mars where InSight is now firmly planted is not a particularly pretty place. From the picture it looks like dusty desolation and that is precisely what it needs to carry out its science for the next one Martian year or nearly two Earth years. Having deployed its own solar panels, it will now harness its own solar energy. Imagine a human doing that without any fuss.

As NASA explains, "InSight's twin solar arrays are each 7 feet (2.2 meters) wide; when they're open, the entire lander is about the size of a big 1960s convertible. Mars has weaker sunlight than Earth because it's much farther away from the Sun. But the lander doesn't need much to operate: The panels provide 600 to 700 watts on a clear day, enough to power a household blender and plenty to keep its instruments conducting science on the Red Planet. Even when dust covers the panels — what is likely to be a common occurrence on Mars — they should be able to provide at least 200 to 300 watts."

Humans and machines may differ in most significant ways but they both have their lifespans. For instance, just as InSight begins its life, NASA's Opportunity rover that landed in 2004 could be near its end after going into hibernation in June this year following a major dust storm. It was supposed to last 90 days along with its companion Spirit. It outlasted that by nearly 14 years. 

It is a tribute to NASA and its brilliant staff that I, a general ignoramus, can write about something so complex as a Mars mission in such a matter-of-fact tone. Of course, I never forget how inordinately hard these missions are.

InSight and what lies beneath Mars

Me watching InSight landing live online. (Photo by me)

If I were a reasonably intelligent Martian in the vicinity of any of the NASA rovers/landers, my question whether there is life elsewhere in the universe would have been answered so definitively a long time ago. That is presuming that as a Martian my brain would have evolved in a way that would ponder such existential questions.

Now that NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport  or InSight lander has so precisely landed in a region named Elysium Planitia I would have even less doubt about whether life exists elsewhere. Interestingly, here on Earth we still do not know the answer to that question other than educated conjectures.

Of course, we have no reason to believe that there is even marginally intelligent life on Mars, let alone the kind that would look at any of the rovers/landers and conclude that the question has been answered.

Like millions, I too sat glued to my computer watching the live NASA feed online as InSight began its approach, descent and landing yesterday afternoon. I am never without the sense of marvel at the scientific, technological and engineering accomplishment of NASA every time I watch a mission like this unfold. That a probe can be on an almost seven-month, 300-million-mile (458-million-kilometer) journey from Earth and soft-land on another planet pretty much at a spot chosen perhaps years before its launch never ceases to amaze me.

In this particular mission, what was even more remarkable was that apart from InSight two small experimental Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats, were  launched on the same rocket and followed the lander to Mars. They were the ones which first sent the telemetry confirming the landing was perfect.

"We hit the Martian atmosphere at 12,300 mph (19,800 kilometers per hour), and the whole sequence to touching down on the surface took only six-and-a-half minutes," said InSight project manager Tom Hoffman at JPL. "During that short span of time, InSight had to autonomously perform dozens of operations and do them flawlessly — and by all indications that is exactly what our spacecraft did." 

A NASA press release quoted Hoffman as saying, "We are solar powered, so getting the arrays out and operating is a big deal. With the arrays providing the energy we need to start the cool science operations, we are well on our way to thoroughly investigate what's inside of Mars for the very first time."

It said InSight will begin to collect science data within the first week after landing, though the teams will focus mainly on preparing to set InSight's instruments on the Martian ground. At least two days after touchdown, the engineering team will begin to deploy InSight's 5.9-foot-long (1.8-meter-long) robotic arm so that it can take images of the landscape.

For the record, my only contribution to the mission was to watch it live online and take the selfie above like a jackass. 

Revisiting a wrenching anniversary of Mumbai terror attack

On the tenth anniversary today of the horrific terror attack on Mumbai it is appropriate that I republish an anniversary piece from seven years ago. Here it is:

 

As a journalist who cut his professional teeth in Bombay in 1981 I felt terrible being peripheral to the terrorist siege and attacks of November 26, 2008, on the city. Watching the mayhem from the suburban comforts of Naperville in Midwestern America felt strangely irresponsible.

 

Things changed dramatically less than a year later when David Coleman Headley, one of the main plotters behind the attacks, was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare international airport here and plead guilty by federal investigators in return for a deal that took the death penalty as well as his extradition to India off the table. He was a resident of Chicago in as much as someone like him can be a resident of any place. It is an odd thing to say but when the arrest happened followed by the disclosures of how deeply Headley was involved in the planning of the attacks, I felt a sense of having been reinstated to the story.

 

A journalist has a reflexive need to be part of any major story and if the story happens to be so close to one’s area of interest as the Mumbai attacks were, then that need becomes almost unmanageable. Come to think of it, I have been on the Chicago end of the Mumbai story ever since October 9, 2009, arrest of Headley.

One got to see Headley firsthand during his testimony against his childhood friend and co-accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana in May, this year. I wrote about my impressions of the man on May 25 and they bear repeating here today.

 

“Key Mumbai terror plotter David Coleman Headley talks about death and destruction with the aloof air of a laboratory technician mixing various chemicals to see which combination would be most combustible.

 

If there was ever a plan to showcase his remorse about Mumbai, his two days of testimony in the federal court of Judge Harry D. Leinenweber in Chicago, it is going in the opposite direction. Here is a man who says the Mumbai attack evened scores for the bombing of his school in December, 1971 during the India-Pakistan war, that led to the creation of Bangladesh. The man sure holds long grudges.

 

One had heard about Headley’s cool and measured composure and one is getting to witness it now. As Assistant US Attorney Daniel Collins carefully walks him through all major and minor details of the Mumbai plot, Headley responds as if he has dropped by for a casual chat. His replies are precise, almost well-rehearsed. He remembers details of who said what years ago, making me wonder whether he is improvising it. He is under oath and improvisation is not an option. He cannot possibly wing it. And yet I find it hard to conceive of someone who can remember minute details about his dozens of meetings with the masterminds of the Mumbai attacks.

 

The man is clearly good at his chosen profession. That chosen profession may not be all that respectable but he gave his absolute best. Yesterday, for instance, while talking about his reconnaissance of various potential sites to strike, he spoke of Mumbai’s Siddhi Vinayak Temple. He visited the temple to shoot some surveillance video. While he was there it struck him that it would be a great idea to get some red and yellow threads that the faithful tie around their wrists. He carried those threads, described in the court with some liberty as bracelets, back to Pakistan and gave it to Sajid Mir, the Lashkar-e-Taiba operative who oversaw the training of the ten Mumbai attackers. They indeed wore those threads in order to blend in.”

 

In a separate news dispatch for the IANS wire on May 24, I found this to be particularly compelling:

 

“Headley's attorney John Theis sat in the front row as his client answered questions in somewhat muffled tones even while disclosing remarkable details.

At one point as he discussed the kind of conversations he had had with his Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) handler Sajid Mir, Headley said he was even told how to pray in order to avoid "mihrab", the dark spot that devout Muslim men have on their foreheads because of the regular friction with the floor while praying.

The significance of this particular detail being that since Headley was to travel to Mumbai as a white American on a US passport, a mark like that on his forehead may arouse suspicion. As a result, he was advised to pray without touching his forehead to the ground.

 

Another seemingly minor but crucial detail that came to light during his four-hour-long testimony concerned the train arrival and departure announcements at Mumbai's Victoria Terminus or Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.

 

Headley told the court that he pointed out to both Sajid Mir and Major Iqbal, a shadowy figure reportedly belonging to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), that the announcements were made in English and Marathi. If the attackers did not know English, they could run into difficulty trying to find out when trains were arriving.”

 

Having left Mumbai a long time ago I am not qualified to comment on whether the city’s authorities have learnt any lessons from the attacks. From what I read in the Indian media, it does not appear to be the case. When you consider the level of planning that terrorists do, I am not sure if the law enforcement agencies are able to anticipate all the scenarios with equal meticulousness.

Watching InSight countdown with nerdy excitement

This morning I have been just staring at the countdown clock of NASA's InSight mission to Mars which is scheduled to land on Monday around 3 p.m. Eastern or noon Pacific time. Just the idea that the probe, designed to study Mars' interior up to 15 feet was about 145 million kilometers (about 90 million miles) from us this morning is exciting for me.

The landing comes a little over six years after NASA's rover Curiosity landed in August, 2012. I followed that with equally nerdy enthusiasm. In my estimation, NASA's various space missions are America's greatest civilizational achievements simply because of the sweep of their human ingenuity. A space mission tests and extracts the best of the human mind and every time it succeeds or even fails it advances the cause of human intellect.

I know it is not going to happen but news networks should consider blocking the time of InSight's landing in their broadcast to the exclusion of the oppressive banalities of the toxic earthly politics emanating from one particular individual. Even half an hour of just landing-focused broadcast on CNN would be a great service to the rest of the world. Of course, NASA has its own live feed which anyone with a decent internet connection can watch online.

I grant that I am inordinately excited about such missions but that is because they always remind me of the astonishing amount of science, technology and engineering that goes into them. All of that endeavor brings out the best of the human race.

A melange of faces

Spooks by MC at https://fineartamerica.com/featured/spooks-mayank-chhaya.html

A melange of mysterious, suspicious, weary, wary, tired faces.

Art is the process of becoming something else

I have said this before but it can be said again. Art is what did not exist but now does.

This morning while staring at a stark white 11 x 17 inches sheet I had no idea three rapidly eroding pastel sticks would produce. I gave it a quick background using the flatter side of the pastels and rubbed it with used makeup sponge. That was followed by the sharper side edge of the sticks to draw some straws.

The piece looked evocative enough with those few minimum details but then my hand kept moving, eventually creating a woman in the midst of the straws. Some quick finishing touches and what was a blank sheet barely a few minutes ago became something else. Art is the process of becoming something else.

LinkedIn searches and I

I am always amused by the searches I appear in on LinkedIn and what they mean for my employability. I say this because the searches so far have remained searches and not led to any job. However, the diversity of the searches is rather intriguing. 

In the past couple of days, for instance, a leading ice cream and frozen dessert maker from Ahmedabad, namely Vadilal Industries, and a software company in Vadodara, PEaaS Software LLP have searched me. I happened to know those behind PEaaS rather well. So that search must mean neither here nor there. 

There is one more search, whose details I am studiedly going to keep from this post by not naming it, is particularly intriguing because it involves a diplomatic mission in New York. There is some history to that search. That is all I am going to say.

Vadilal, however, is interesting even though perhaps eventually futile. I wonder what they could be looking for in a journalist and writer. I can think of one possibility—ice-cream taster. I think I would make an excellent ice-cream taster unless, of course, they are looking for someone to ghost-write their story. Vadilal is a highly popular and visible brand in Gujarat and beyond but particularly so in Ahmedabad. Their frozen desserts tend to be cloyingly sweet but by and large their ice-creams work for my tastes. By some strange coincidence, only last week I finished their kaju-draksh (cashew-raisin) flavor, which happens to be my old favorite.

Growing up in Ahmedabad, which was known as ice-cream eaters’ paradise, the kaju-draksh flavor was the most commonly available in the 1960s and 70s along with the anjeer (fig) flavor by a host of mom and pop ice-cream makers. So much so that kaju-draksh and anjeer became the default idea of ice-cream for me.

Coming back to the latest LinkedIn search, to those who looked for me I can only say, I can do both—eat ice-cream and chronicle technological trends with equal ease. So give me both these jobs.

New White House media engagement rules may be breached more than obeyed

After going through the new White House rules for media engagement, I am convinced that they will be observed more in breach than obedience. I seriously doubt if any serious journalist would abide by these rules merely because they have been laid down on the heels of the revocation, partial reinstatement and full restoration of CNN's chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta's hard pass.

The WH press office is apparently conscious that they may not be received well since press secretary Sarah Sanders says in the statement, "We have created these rules with a degree of regret." In the same breath though she also says that there may be coming "more elaborate and comprehensive rules."

I suspect it is part of President Donald Trump's gladiatorial instincts when it comes to dealing with the media. He is aware that this is a fight he will continue to win as far as his core base is concerned and might even manage to sway some independent but fence-sitting supporters from time to time. It is an insidious approach whose broader consequences are hard to predict but they cannot be good by any measure. He could not care about the decidedly chilling effect to which despotic strongmen may use this as an inspiration.

The media motocross has just been made much rougher.