South Asia Daily

Voyager 2 is also in interstellar space now behind its twin Voyager 1

The following by me is on the IANS wire worldwide.

By Mayank Chhaya, Indo-Asian News Service

Forty-one years after it left Earth, NASA’s probe Voyager 2 has now become only the second human-made object to enter interstellar space after its twin Voyager 1 did in 2012.

Since November 5, the instrument on Voyager 2 that detects plasma from the Sun, also called solar wind, has not observed solar wind, indicating that it has left the heliosphere, “the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun.”

Voyager 2 is now some 18 billion kilometers away compared to Voyager 1 at 21.6 billion kilometers, both offering a measure of how far the empire of the Sun stretches. In terms of the reach of heliospheric particles or particles from the Sun, both the spacecraft are effectively outside of it but for them to escape the influence of solar gravity they still have a long way to traverse.

As NASA explains, it will take Voyager 2 300 years to enter the inner edge of the Oort Cloud, a collection of small objects still affected by the Sun’s gravity. Estimates of how far the Oort Cloud stretches vary between about 1000 astronomical units (AU)—one AU is the distance between the Sun and the Earth of about 150 million kilometers—and 100,000 AU. It will take the probes up to 30,000 years to completely cross the Oort Cloud. The Sun’s heat can no longer touch Voyager 2 but its gravity still can.

However, for all practical purposes both the spacecraft are in interstellar space or the space between stars.  One everyday example of how much technology has been revolutionized since they left, smartphones now have 200,000 more memory than the two probes. With that little memory the two produced remarkable images of planets unlike the often pointless selfies that people produce using their powerful smartphones.

The Voyager missions have been an astonishing success for NASA. Originally built to last five years they both lasted nearly eight times that and during those four decades transformed human understanding of the solar system. They both conducted close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn. NASA altered the path of Voyager such that it conducted flybys of Uranus and Neptune, making the first exploration of those very distant planets. The two spacecraft are expected to last billions of years, drifting around in space and could be the only available evidence of human civilization in deep space for a prospective advanced civilization.

Voyager 2 continues to send data and what is extraordinary about it is that for the first time scientists will have some measure of interstellar space. Given its current distance, radio communication with it take over 16.5 hours to travel one way. It is a fascinating realization that while the two probes are over four decades away in number of years they are still just hours away from Earth for radio communication. Of course, as Voyager 2 pulls farther away, that time will only increase eventually to a point where it will be no longer possible with its radioactive power source running out. Each probe contains a golden record embedded with snapshots of Earth’s sounds, images and message in the hope that another civilization may someday chance upon it and learn about human civilization.

Since the launch of the two Voyagers NASA has not launched any probe that can escape the empire of the Sun. That means if an alien civilization did indeed catch one of the two golden records and managed to decipher the data on it they would have insights into a rather early versions of humans’ technological advances. Unless a new interstellar mission is launched, which even at a much faster speed than the Voyagers would still take more than two decades to enter interstellar space, Earth’s only calling card to alien civilizations would be technologically quaint.  Nevertheless, it would still let them know that a planet with intelligent life does or did indeed exist.

--Indo-Asian News Service

Jack Dorsey, Viapassana and Myanmar

I meet at least two conditions of Vipassana meditation for hours every single day. On an average, I am silent for about six hours daily if not more. As a journalist and writer, I see things as they are. Those are among the primary conditions of Vipassana as I understand it. By implication then, I am in an extended state of meditation. Of course, Vipassana is much deeper than I am portraying here. I am aware that I making light of it.

I was thinking of Vipassana because Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey is under some social media censure for exulting over his Vipassana-themed visit to Myanmar. He is being castigated for being “tone-deaf” while praising Myanmar even as the country’s government is under severe criticism for the treatment of the Rohingya Muslims.

In a tweet on December 8, Dorsey said, “Myanmar is an absolutely beautiful country. The people are full of joy and the food is amazing. I visited the cities of Yangon, Mandalay, and Bagan. We visited and meditated at many monasteries around the country.” He had a series of tweets about Vipassana, including this one, “Meditation is often thought of as calming, relaxing, and a detox of all the noise in the world. That’s not Vipassana. It’s extremely painful and demanding physical and mental work. I wasn’t expecting any of that my first time last year. Even tougher this year as I went deeper.”

I understand social media reactions to Dorsey’s Myanmar experience but a country can be “absolutely beautiful”, its people “full of joy” and food “amazing” and, simultaneously, its government and sections of civil society terrible. I am not sure what Dorsey’s commenting on the very troubling Rohingya crisis would have achieved other than yet another high-profile person holding forth without really making a difference. I understand the need for people to expect those of some consequence and in influential positions to always take positions on social, political, religious and cultural ferment. I am just not sure about what that can achieve.

Even the once resolute civil libertarian, human rights activist and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize to boot Aung San Suu Kyi has been coopted by the compulsions of being in government and in a sense made complicit in the Rohingya crisis. If she has yielded to the expediencies of politics, I do not know what Dorsey’s strong tweets could do. The Rohingya crisis is a manifestation of much deeper antipathies in the human race.  

It is true that Dorsey, as the Twitter chief, commands global influence and those who follow him would like him to use that platform to stand up for important causes. That is a fair point but finding Myanmar beautiful and its people amazing and its food delicious is not necessarily at the cost of the Rohingya cause. It is a different story that he remained silent on it, which was not part of Vipassana.

Coming back to Vipassana meditation and I, I too sit cross-legged on a hard surface for a long time, completely silent and experiencing my breath and every little pain and anguish in my body without reacting to it. Either it is not as hard as it is made out to be or what I am doing is not even remotely Vipassana.

Is it forming or disintegrating or both?

For Sunday morning, let us just go with this pastel piece of mine. I like it particularly because one cannot really decide whether it is in the process of forming or disintegrating or both. That is what I feel about the universe too.

Weeping nude and I

 

The artist on whose works I practice my admittedly limited skills the most is Edvard Munch. I feel a strange kinship with Munch that I cannot really explain because culturally and geographically, not to mention our very different periods of existence, there is zero reason for it to be so.

I do not dwell on why I feel particularly drawn to Munch but I do and do frequently return to him. Incidentally, Munch lived 1863-1944.

The other day I did my versions of his two works ‘Separation’ (1896) and ‘Weeping Nude’ (1913/14). I am particularly stuck on my ‘Weeping Nude’. Although it is clearly prompted by Munch’s rather captivating piece, the woman in my work is not the same as his. She does not look like his other than that there is some passing resemblance.

I concede it is not a normal state to be in but one gets so deep into the lives of the fictional figures in one’s pictures that they begin to come alive. It happened this morning while looking at my ‘Weeping Woman’. It was almost as if I was looking at a real person. I hope I am not approaching the outskirts of insanity. This has happened to me a couple of times before when I feel as if the figures in my paintings are real. Like I said, it is not a normal state to be in but it has always been my habit to fully experience whatever it is that I am experiencing. I take the path of least resistance.

Weeping Nude--Munch (below) mine (above)

“Aloo pyaz ka daam pataa chal jayega"

One maxim that has always been fraught with grave political consequence in India is “Aloo pyaz ka daam pataa chal jayega.” (You will discover how much potatoes and onions cost.) The meaning is literal only in a limited sense. Its deeper, more figurative meaning is to caution someone about the hardship of daily life for hundreds of millions of people in India, with potatoes and onions being their ordinary staple. It also carries within it the counsel to be mindful of how difficult survival can be.

It is from this context that I read about the rather tragic frustrations of India’s onion farmers these days. As always, the enormous problems faced by the farmers related to the price of their onions were powerfully distilled by a single farmer named Sanjay Sathe of Nashik district in the state of Maharashtra. He donated 1064 rupees (about $14) to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund as a protest for the disturbingly low price per kilogram of onions he got. To earn that niggardly sum he had to sell 750 kilograms of onions, making it less than one rupee and fifty paise a kilo, which I do not have the heart to convert to the dollar (today’s exchange rate is 71 rupees to the dollar).

I must admit to not being well-versed with agrarian economics generally and particularly how pricing of vegetables such onions work. However, anytime when an onion-seller or farmer smashes onions on the ground in sheer anger you know things are going terribly wrong. There are many reasons behind the price volatility, including a glaring lack of modern storage facilities. Perishable produce such as onions, potatoes and tomatoes has to be sold quickly by farmers to traders who hold the upper hand in providing the last mile to the retail market. Retail giants are known to buy cheap and sell at a premium without the original farmers benefiting.

Small and marginal farmers who take bank loans to underwrite their crops are at the receiving end of this price volatility and frequently fall into debt.

The mounting discontent among the farmers over various factors, particularly massive debt burdens on them causing them to commit suicide in large numbers across the country as well as such pricing challenges, poses a potentially grave political challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he prepares for the 2019 general election in the summer of 2019.

It is quite possible that the price of retail onions would see a sudden increase in the run-up to the election, once again reminding many of the old maxim “Aloo pyaz ka daam pataa chal jayega.” Although the nutritional value of onions is rather questionable, they often form the main course for those who barely manage to eat a decent meal even once a week or once a month. It is a heartbreaking sight to see poor families getting by on just rotis and a few bulbs of onion sprinkled with salt.

India’s politicians are quite aware of the potential of onions to make them cry at the hustings. Whether they can/will do anything about it is another matter.

Sliding quantum particles under a fine milky beige fabric

Dream--MC

Last night I had what I would call the strangest dream of my life so far. It was vivid in a very amorphous sort of way. The only color was particularly milky beige and the only shape were contours of what could be human figures.

Imagine an infinitely stretched out fine milky beige fabric under which contours of human figures slide around. It was not as if they wanted to break free of the thin fabric holding them under. It was their very existence.

What added to this rather strange visual was that my brain, which seemed to be lucid-dreaming, was also simultaneously hypothesizing about the quantum origin of the universe. In that state, I concluded that the real universe—such as it is—is entirely made of quantum particles that manifest as large macroscopic structures such as galaxies, stars, planets and us. The default state of the universe is entirely quantum. In thinking that I also concluded, in that dream, that when we die we merely splinter into quantum particles which slide and glide under that milky beige fabric. They may manifest as something else.

I told you that it was the strangest dream I have had until now. In so much as dreams make any sense, this one did too in its own context. This morning after waking up, I have not been able to shake off the image of those figures sliding under the milky beige fabric. I also feel that any moment I will splinter into quantum particles. I have chosen to write this down before that happens.

Looking askance at life, unable to get a handle on it

In a familiar burst of creative impulse, I made 16 pastels on paper in four days. Seen individually, they do not give me a full measure of the output but when I spread them around and see them collectively, one feels a sense of elation.

There is no particular theme to these works except that they are all done using pastel sticks on paper. I find that I have much greater control on my lines with pastels/pencils than I do with brushes. The greater the distance between my hand and the canvas/paper, the harder it gets for me. The brush handle makes the movements of my hand that much harder. I am sure with continuing practice that will improve. For now, I am going to turn some of pastels into acrylic or oil by painting over them.

Pastels reflect light distinctly differently than acrylic or oil. It is the grainy, powdery surface on which light bounces off unlike acrylic or paint. The problem with pastels is their preservation. Every time I pick up a pastel, the smudges it leaves on my fingers reminds me of butterflies I used to catch and release. The wings had powdery, pastel like substance in their colors.

Of the 16, the one that captures my mood this morning is the face on top. It is the face of someone who looks askance at life because he cannot get a handle on it.

 

Quantum computing versus Gotra-Gomutra

A word of caution at the outset. This post is consciously superficial and somewhat facetious. It is grounded more in impressions than facts, of which many may really exist.

Reading a piece about quantum computing this morning in The New York Times by Cade Metz and Raymond Zhong about quantum computing and quantum encryption and how China is taking the lead in it, I was simultaneously reminded of India and its current medieval obscurantist ferment.

As I said, superficially one gets the sense that important sections of India’s polity are trapped in absurd debates that swing between Gotra (Generally clan or patrilineality) and Gomutra (cow urine). Influential public figures are flaunting their personal Gotras to prove who knows what and many of them also point out health virtues of cow urine.

Admittedly, this may be going on in a very narrow, lunatic strip of the country’s political mainstream but it is going on and often dominating the popular discourse. I immediately stand corrected. It is not the narrow, lunatic strip but as mainstream as it can get. News reports say that the debate began when Rahul Gandhi, president of the Indian National Congress, was said to have revealed his Gotra while performing a Hindu ritual at the famous Pushkar temple in Rajasthan. That ignited social media ferment with other leaders asserting their own Gotras while ridiculing Gandhi’s.

The “beneficial” effects of cow urine have been a matter of some intense and often abusive national discussions for some time now. It is not my case at all that nothing else is going on in a country of a billion plus people but these absurd debates appear to have become emblematic of the popular mood.

In contrast, the news coming out of China is of the kind reflected in the Times story about quantum computing. It highlights a very different sense of national purpose when you compare it with India. Serious people are doing serious things as the future unfolds at a dramatic pace. 

It is entirely possible and in some sense even inevitable that work of such serious nature is also going on India but the impression that predominates is one of Gotra and Gomutra. What accentuates that impression is the kind of grotesque violence by the so-called “cow vigilantes” in Uttar Pradesh who very publicly killed a police officer.

As a journalist of long standing, it is my business and obligation to go deeper into trends and not be swayed by superficial impressions. Of course, I have adhered to that obligation earnestly for 36 years and do keep up every day with, for want a better term, serious stuff. Occasionally though, I feel tempted to see it the way a complete outsider here in America or elsewhere might. It concerns me the kind of ludicrous image the Gotra-Gomutrra dynamic is conveying to the outside world.

China has managed to master a way to convey a serious sense of national purpose even though a lot of it may not be what it is cracked up to be. In this particular case, it is the Times that has chosen to take note of its advances in quantum computing and encryption even as it points out how America is playing the catch-up game. 

Notably, even America does not convey that sense of national purpose other than a weird kind of jingoistic chest-thumping. It is almost as if China has clearly decided to be the mature adult in the room for now.

It is in a somewhat related context that the other day I wrote about what I call a geostrategic polar switch in the way Beijing is calling for multilateralism and free global trade, once the sole preserves of America. India comes across as a middling presence even as its leader robustly hugs fellow leaders, sometimes to their awkwardness.

I say this as a lament for a civilization of India’s intellectual depth and profundity being mired in idiotic debates which serve no purpose other than causing social division and strife.

Rumor of death is best repudiated by staying alive

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari (Photo:@MBuhari)

The best way to repudiate the rumor of your death is by staying alive. However, how does one challenge the claims that you are your own impostor or that you are your own clone? Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari is in that terribly hilarious dilemma.

Buhari has had to deny claims that he had died and was replaced by a Sudanese impostor. Wouldn’t an impostor say precisely that?  Jokes aside, the source of the rumor on social media is Buhari spending five months in Britain for the treatment of an undisclosed illness. It says that he died of that illness and was replaced by a lookalike from Sudan.

As conspiracy theories go, this one has the virtue of being humorous. Even Buhari himself appears to make light of that in a video on his Twitter handle where he is also asked if he was cloned. Quite apart from the scientific fact that you cannot clone a fully-grown human copy of a person, this is quite a yarn to spin.

Between being an impostor of himself and his own clone, Buhari has his work cut out. The best way to deal with a rumor is with humor. They even rhyme.

Perhaps he can answer it with this:

There is some humor in the rumor of my death

But I stand before you, real and full of breath

P.S. We should all watch out for emails from Nigeria saying its late president left a fortune to each one of us which can be claimed by simply giving our bank account number and name.

Narsinh Mehta--an appeal

It is strange that I feel protective, if not proprietorial, about the works of the 15^th century Gujarati poet-philosopher Narsinh Mehta, in particular his most enduring song “Vaishnav jan to.” It is almost as if I have appointed myself the spokesman for all things Narsinh Mehta and specifically all things “Vaishnav jan to.”

I react with discernible annoyance when Mehta gets absolutely no due when his most famous song gets appropriated by the powers that be as has happened with Vaishnav produced under the tutelage of India’s Ministry of External Affairs. In and of itself it is a highly laudable idea that singers from around the world sing the song in their own unique way even though it is not their language and they have no cultural affinity to it. The video is slickly produced and has become popular. All of that is good and very welcome.

What agitates me is that the poet of the song gets absolutely no mention anywhere. In order to create awareness about Mehta and his works I wrote, shot, edited and produced a feature length Gandhi's Song. The irony was not lost on me at all when I deliberately named it “Gandhi’s Song” to ride the global name recognition and unremitting celebrity of Mohandas Gandhi. The song was Gandhi’s lifelong moral compass. 

As I point out in the documentary, it is also one of the world’s most widely sung songs. The Ministry of External Affairs video, in which artists from 40 countries sing it and from 124 contribute to it, illustrates my point.

I have tried in utter vain to correct the glaring omission of Narsinh Mehta from the video by tweeting to both Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is well aware of the great poet-philosopher, and Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, who should have been. I concede that in the world of hard-charging social media superstars I am not even a marginal presence but I suspect that as a journalist with a considerable career I may have some currency. Evidently, not.

I have seen some videos where Swaraj waxes eloquent over the song and its profoundly simple definition of what it means to lead a virtuous life. I wait for some acknowledgement of Narsinh Mehta and much to my chagrin find none.

Mehta has been regarded as the “Adi Kavi” or the original poet of Gujarat and has been credited with having laid down the very foundation of Gujarati poetry and songs. He is widely celebrated in my home state but is unknown outside. My documentary is my way of trying to change that. It has been a rather fruitless endeavor other than some sporadic interest among friends and acquaintances whom I nag the heck out of to buy a pay-per-view and watch it.

Some fellow journalists, who have watched it, have given it highly laudatory reviews but it has not found the traction which it should have. I am not the one to give up on something which is my two-decades-long passion project.

For those of you who might be interested in watching it by paying—yes, by paying—reach out to me on my official email mcsix@outlook.com. It is not going to break your bank. The link to the pay-per-view video is Gandhi's Song. It is password protected and I will supply the password on payment. 

As for the powers that be such as Prime Minister Modi and Foreign Minister Swaraj, who extol the virtues of the song, the least they could do is to acknowledge the great Narsinh Mehta.