Mayank Chhaya Daily

Krishn raises Mount Govardhan

 

One of the great joys of not being religious or even spiritual—the latter is a bogus idea anyway but more about that some other time—in the Indian context is that one can genuinely appreciate the arts emanating from that glorious cultural tradition without the burden of piety. The distance from piety to sacred is not that far. So it also saves one from being sacred. Also, the distance from sacred to sanctimony is quite short. So one is spared being sanctimonious too. But I digress.

Speaking of glorious arts emanating out of India’s splendidly creative religious manifestations, I found this astounding late 16^th century painting (1590-95) on Google Arts courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MoMA). What is more is that the MoMA has made it available for free download.

The painting is titled "Krishna Holds Up Mount Govardhan to Shelter the Villagers of Braj". It is a folio from a Harivamsa (The Legend of Hari (Krishna). Its dimensions are H. 11 3/8 in. x W. 7 7/8 in. and it is done in ink, opaque watercolor and gold on paper.

Today happens to be celebrated as Janmashtami or Krishn’s birthday across India and in many parts of the world.  The painting represents the idea that Krishn is lifting Mount Govardhan much to the astonishment of some around him. There are those who are just going about their business. There are so many brilliant details to this work.

What struck me first is the choice of a resplendent, turmeric yellow pitambar that Krishn is wearing contrasting against his famous cumulonimbus blue complexion.

Those around Krishn watch with a mixture of awe, reverence, befuddlement and even indifference. In one case, a man is blissfully asleep, oblivious to this magical feat. The expressions on people’s faces are a remarkable study by the unnamed painter. There is so much life unfolding around Krishn. There is a half-naked child with a distended belly riding astride a fierce-looking bull. Speaking of the bovine presence, there is, of course, no Krishn without the cow. There are so many lovely ones in this painting, each with very different expressions. There are buffaloes and goats as well.

Mount Govardhan has its own lovely ecology that is so distinct from the plains it towers above. The painter has done an extraordinary job of capturing the flora and fauna. There is even a white leopard lurking in a corner eyeing an antler or two.

In the left-hand middle corner, there are what seem like two tradesmen, one Hindu and the other Muslim, apparently in the midst of a transaction even as Krishn raises Mount Govardhan.

Everything about the painting gives one the sense that it all in a day’s work, for Krishn to raise a mountain, for tradesmen to do their deals, for some to sleep, for some—a leopard—to stalk a prey, for antlers to climb the mount and so on.

And the use of colors is awe inspiring. Who knew that watercolors could be so striking!

This is a fantastic painting. I am so glad I chanced upon it.

On the great Firaq Gorakhpuri's 125th birth anniversary today

Today is the 125th birth anniversary of the great Raghupati Sahar 'Firaq Gorakhpuri', one of my most favorite literary figures. I have written about Firaq in these columns a few times. I might as well republish a piece I wrote on June 13, 2013. Apart from his brilliant poetry, Firaq was a great raconteur with the gift of the gab that was both erudite and remarkably funny. He had a birdlike demeanor enhanced by his innate charisma and complete absence of self-consciousness. he had the self-assurance of someone who knew that when he spoke people heard him in rapt attention.

June 13. 2013

Raghupati Sahay ‘Firaq Gorakhpuri’ has long been one of my favorite literary figures. Regarded as one of the most important names in Urdu poetry, literary criticism and language scholarship, Firaq, which means separation in Urdu, was one of those naturally charismatic people. A thinker of subtle but charming self-absorption, he was at equal ease teaching English literature (his professional calling) and creating and reciting his Urdu/Persian poetry.

It is a pity that there is a sparse audio-visual record of Firaq because he was such an effortlessly cinematic figure and could have lent himself to a terrific full-length documentary feature. I have seen few people who smoke cigarettes with such relish and yet such detachment at once.

There is a short documentary about him, which was made by India’s Films Division in 1971, available on YouTube. He was already 75 then. Born in 1896, he died in 1982 at 85. There are also a couple of other sessions from a different video about where he holds forth on how language often rises from much more intimate sources such as individual families. (See the video above). It has one of those rare stimulating conversations carried out by Firaq, unmindful of and unselfconscious about the presence of TV cameras. With his cigarette dangling he discusses finer points of language.

He makes a couple of striking points when he says,”Bhasha ka base illiteracy hai. (The base of language is illiteracy).Aur literature kehte hain brilliant illiteracy ko. (Literature is brilliant illiteracy).” He also says that brilliant literature should not be defined by the use of words that ordinary, perhaps even illiterate, people do not use.

“ग्रेट लिटरेचर और ब्रिलियंट लिटरेचर वही है की इतने बड़े बच्चे को जो लफ़्ज़ मालूम है उस से वह गीता लिख ले  (Great literature aur brilliant literature wahi hai ki itne bade bachche ko jo lafz malum hai us se who Gita likh le,” ( Great literature and brilliant literature is one where the words that a child this small knows can use to write the Gita),” Firaq says.

He illustrates his point about the accessibility of great literature by giving the example of Charles Dickens and how his cleaning lady could enjoy his books in her free time. He says the great Hindi writers Premchand and Surdas both had this facility.

I admit to not having read Firaq much but from whatever little one has read one can infer his intellectual depth. I say infer because Firaq was a great proponent of being able to infer when one is not well-versed with something.

The short Films Division documentary does an effective job of capturing the more compelling aspects of Firaq’s personality. Obviously gifted with a charming sense of humor and great skill as raconteur, Firaq’s presence at poetic conventions was a major draw. There are a couple of places in this documentary where Firaq opens his recitation with humor. In one he describes how a man falls inside a well. A poet happens to pass by and he too falls inside the well. Rather than looking for ways to rescue themselves, the poet declares that he would recite some verses from his poetry. The other funny incident that Firaq narrates is about a haunted house which no one wanted to buy. A poet, unable to find any home for himself, decides to buy it. He then drives the ghosts away by reciting his poetry.

There is so much to quote from Firaq’s great body of poetic works but for the purposes of this post I would like to cite just one throwaway line from this documentary.

ज़ुल्मात के सीने में हमदम

मैं रोज़ चराग़ाँ करता हूँ

(In the heart of darkness, my dear

I always spread light (His literal words are ‘I light lamps everyday’)

Firaq’s poetry was also defined by the influence of nature, something he said he was inspired to do by the likes of Wordsworth. There is a short discussion with students in this documentary about it.

Perhaps I am wrong but one no longer finds this level of erudition and this finesse and sophistication in articulation of great ideas that the literary giants such Prof. Sahay commanded with such lightness of touch. Pay attention to how he says what a civilization like India has had to balance for millennia before it acquired its greatness.

There is zero provocation for this post today, but then do we really need a reason to acknowledge people of such brilliance? I don’t think so. Not that I need any inspiration to write my own poetry but in the midst of watching this documentary I wrote a ghazal which contains a subconscious tribute to Firaq in these two lines:

ज़ुल्मत से जंग छेड़ने की आदत है मेरी पुरानी

भीगी तीलियों से अब नहीं होता आग जलाए रखना

Their free translation would be:

Battling darkness is my old pastime

But I can no longer keep the fire going using damp matchsticks

A heartening response to 'Gandhi's Song' so far

It has been a little over two months since I released my documentary ‘Gandhi’s Song’ my YouTube channel. As of this morning it has been watched by over 1600 people, 30 of whom have commented and 86 have liked it. There is not a single dislike yet.

What is particularly heartening for me is that for a big majority of viewers the documentary has done precisely what I set out to accomplish, namely rescue ‘Vaishnav Jan To’ from Gandhi’s looming shadow and introduce its creator, the great 15^th century Gujarati poet-philosopher Narsinh Mehta. That was summed up in a tweet this morning by a viewer named Natasha Bardia who said, “Must confess that I've not given the origin of "Vaishnava Jan" so much thought, but it's likely that I would have sided by the one who said #Gandhi composed it! Thanks @MayankChhaya for this telling film!”

It is remarkable that so far there is not a single dislike or even a gratuitously insulting comment on it which I suppose represents the essence of Narsinh Mehta’s gentle prescription for a righteous life as written in the song. I do not presume for a moment that things will remain as upbeat and positive. In fact, I had not even remotely expected people to watch it, let alone like it.

If I add up all the numbers of those who watched it before I released it in the public domain, the total could easily come to in excess of 30,000 plus. I concede at a time when even some of the tritest and and the silliest of videos, including reaction videos, notch up millions of views easily, my numbers are embarrassingly low but it is my hope that at least the essence of the song will spread by word of mouth from those who have bothered to watch it.

It is refreshing to note that young viewers have warmed up to the documentary which is always a good sign. That a poet speaks to him some six centuries after his passing is highly encouraging.

The purpose of this short post is to thank all those who have watched it and done so with obvious attention. I am grateful.

Afghanistan, Pakistan, strategic depth, China and suchlike

The perspective that Pakistan has long viewed Afghanistan as a country that provides Islamabad strategic depth against India, something which I have written about, is once again coming into play. This is especially because the international community generally and America particularly watch how Islamabad positions itself vis-à-vis the return of the Taliban to Kabul.

There is of course a strong military-intelligence community in Pakistan that believes that the Taliban triumph is by extension their triumph since the Taliban leadership owes them a great deal accrued over the last 20 years of the US invasion and occupation. There have been reports of celebration in some quarters in Pakistan over what they regard as a victory of the Taliban and, with some glee, a defeat of the United States.

The idea of strategic depth is an interesting one but I am no longer sure how consequential it is in the face of great advancement in weapons and other technologies. The logic of territorial fallback is of a 19^th or early 20^th century vintage which may not have the kind of importance it was believed for a long time. However, in so much as Pakistan feels it has the reassurance of territorial depth against India because their mentees are now in control of Afghanistan it has relevance for India.

There is an added factor to Pakistan’s sense of triumph and perhaps even relief which has to do with its assertion that India has long fomented separatism in Balochistan via groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army which had the ability to operate from Afghanistan. With the Taliban in charge Islamabad would expect Kabul to eliminate that threat altogether.

Left to Pakistan it would like India’s presence and influence in Afghanistan completely erased. What is standing in its way is that ordinary relatively liberal and urban Afghans have great love and regard for India. According to one estimate some seven million Afghans are entirely urban-dwellers, young and largely unfamiliar with the terrible cruelties of the Taliban. In the overall scheme of things they may not be so influential but it is a constituency that might prove problematic for the Taliban. India has the ability to use its soft power to influence this constituency.

The biggest problem that the Taliban will come face to face with rather quickly is their woeful ignorance and even incompetence in running a country. They can no longer pretend to be outsiders armed with nihilism against the system because they are the system now. It is one thing to gleefully wield  American weapons and dress up in American combat gear, including helmets with night vision goggles but quite another to run a country which will soon be out of hard cash.

That is where India and the world need to watch out for the role that China is expected to play. China's is a leadership completely devoid of reformative impulses or obsession to introduce Jeffersonian democracy like America. It will quickly establish a ruthlessly transactional and pragmatic relationship to exploit Afghanistan’s rich mineral resources as well expand its much-cherished Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This is even while ensuring that the Taliban’s Islamic fundamentalist virulence does not seep into Xinjiang Province and its grotesquely persecuted Uyghur Muslim population.

There is thinking doing the rounds of social media that the US withdrawal is a fiendishly well thought plan by Washington to saddle China with the Taliban in Kabul. The logic being that China will be mired in the quagmire and in the process its feverish march to the world superpowerdom will be slowed if not halted altogether. That is a rather fanciful notion at best. People forget that China’s international operational method is markedly different from America. Like I said, it has no reformative impulses to alter the societies it gets involved with. Its primary goal is to serve its national economic interests. For now, Afghanistan offers that possibility and the Taliban will soon desperately need funds. It can print some Sharia currency but who is going accept that?

With today’s twin explosions at the Kabul airport it is certain that the Taliban will come under great pressure via some tough sanctions unless it guarantees that such acts are stamped out. Of course, there is also the likelihood where, once most of the Americans and other non-Afghans have left the country the international community may not care much as long as there is no external terrorist attack mounted from the Afghani soil. Among the things that the Taliban ought to fear is international indifference as it struggles to govern an impoverished country that is also facing serious droughts.

Gene Weingarten, Padma Lakshmi, Indian cuisine, spices and I*

That's me virtually trying a Tom Ford frame this morning. Obviously, I can't afford an actual one. I am not a Washington Post columnist.

This morning on a whim I virtually tried this Tom Ford frame and took a screenshot. On seeing how ridiculous I looked I looked for a way to pour my derision and faux anger on someone else. My right eye was already bloodshot either because of conjunctivitis or some vessel burst. That meant looking angry was not a problem. 

I found a plum target in Gene Weingarten, a Washington Post humor columnist whose existence I was not aware of just five minutes before writing this post. That is a reflection on my ignorance and not his celebrity. After all, there is a twitter verified blue tick mark next to his handle. He must be important. He has over 23,000 Twitter followers compared to 459 for me. 

In a column, Weingarten wrote about his dislike and contempt  for various foods, including Indian cuisine, curries in particular, calling it “the only ethnic cuisine in the world insanely based entirely on one spice.” That’s ignorant enough but then Weingarten whips his dick out and steps on it by saying this: “If you like Indian food, yay, you like Indian food! If you think Indian curries taste like something that could knock a vulture off a meat wagon, you do not like Indian food. I don’t get it as a culinary principle.”

It was as if before writing that drivel Weingarten decided to turn himself into a duck and sit to be taken potshots at—a sitting duck, I mean. I am sure even as he was constructing those sentences he would have known the blowback it would trigger. And a blowback it did trigger, led by none other than Her Culinary Illustriousness Padma Lakshmi who pithily tweeted to Weingarten, “On behalf of 1.3 billion people, kindly f**k off.” In case, you do not know what the two asterisks mean they represent the letters u and c; read together she is asking Weingarten to “kindly fuck off” and too on behalf of 1.3 billion people. It is good she said 1.3 billion because that would include me by definition. I am glad she added "kindly" because telling him to just fuck off would be so rude.

I am not the paroxysms-of-anger-over-cultural-and-culinary-insults type. India and things Indians, including its cuisine, have such civilizational depth and self-assurance that they do not need defending in the face of a newspaper columnist oozing his bile out over it because he might have had some uncooked, spices-free red meat the night before. If you like that kind of food, yay, you like that kind of food!

To be fair Weingarten does say this, "The Indian subcontinent has vastly enriched the world, giving us chess, buttons, the mathematical concept of zero, shampoo, modern-day nonviolent political resistance, Chutes and Ladders, the Fibonacci sequence, rock candy, cataract surgery, cashmere, USB ports … and the only ethnic cuisine in the world insanely based entirely on one spice." So cut him some slack. He mentions zero, shampoo, nonviolent political resistance and USB ports in one sentence. That is commendable. 

First, Weingarten tried to double down on his tweet by visiting Rasika, apparently Washington D.C.’s best Indian restaurant, and tweeted this, “Took a lot of blowback for my dislike of Indian food in today's column so tonight I went to Rasika, DC's best Indian restaurant. Food was beautifully prepared yet still swimming with the herbs & spices I most despise. I take nothing back.”

That tweet was timed 10.56 a.m. yesterday. At 2.32 p.m. Weingarten had a change of heart and said this, “From start to finish plus the illo, the column was about what a whining infantile ignorant d---head I am. I should have named a single Indian dish, not the whole cuisine, & I do see how that broad-brush was insulting. Apologies.(Also, yes, curries are spice blends, not  spices.)”

He called himself  a “whining infantile ignorant d—head”. For those of you who do not know what the two dashes mean, they represent the letter i and c; read together he is calling himself a dickhead which is fine by me because I already said he stepped on his dick.

Some on Twitter have inevitably found his diatribe racist. I am not quite sure. Not liking particular food and expressing utter disdain for is quite fine with me. What is not fine with me is saying it could knock a vulture off a meat wagon. That is mainly because America eats with great gusto, annually, and in unbridled celebration the meat of a bird that looks like a vulture in some ways. You figure out which bird I am talking about.

There is next to no chance that Gene Weingarten would suddenly develop a taste for Indian cuisine after this blowback. It would be enough though if he developed a measure of taste.

* The headline is not a headline but a collection of keywords to make my post more searchable. After all, I am not Gene Weingarten with a verified blue tick next to my name on any social media handles. 

Spider, ATM, overdraft and I

I went to my bank’s ATM this morning around 5 a.m. I sometimes do that just to ensure that the ATM is still there. There may or may not be any money in my account but the ATM’s existence is paramount. It creates a false sense of hope in me that if the ATM exists, soon there could be money in my account too. But I digress.

I had gone to deposit ten dollars; yes, literally ten dollars because it is only niggardly amounts like that ensure that I do not overdraw. But I digress.

As I slipped my card in, I saw a spider right next to it. It is safe to assume that the spider was not there to withdraw money. The world of spiders is not built on an economy like ours. A spider carefully weaves her web for hours and then waits for hours for a prey to get ensnared. In a manner of speaking, the cash comes to the spider and not the other way.

Since it takes hardly any time to cough up a ten-dollar bill, I did not wait at the ATM machine much. But even during that short time and much after that I have thought about how we are the only sentient life which has created such a complex web, if you pardon the silly pun, out of our lives for what is essentially just existence. That spider, for instance, has no use for what is inside that ATM. It is not worried that drawing seven dollars might overdraw her account and the bank might slap an overdraft fee of $35. It happened the other day with me. For a transaction of seven dollars, which I did not have, the bank charged a $35 overdraft fee.

I called the bank’s customer service to discuss the problem. I started by asking a very polite customer service representative this: “If I don’t have seven dollars, why do you think I will have 35? Before this transaction I did not have seven dollars and after it I don’t have 42. So what’s the point?”

She was genuinely confused by my question. “Sir, your account went into overdraft and that triggered the 35 dollar fee,” she said with the confidence of someone who had done a PhD in “Stating the obvious”.

I said I know and would she be kind enough to waive the $35 fee. She said she would try and try she did and, mercifully, waive she did.

So to meet that overdraft I went to deposit ten dollars this morning and found the spider weave its web. You are lucky you are a spider, I told her. Incidentally, it is the only the female spider that weaves webs. She did not answer because, you know, spiders do not talk.

A quick perspective on the caving in in Afghanistan

I saw a photograph of a group of Talibani fighters on their motorbikes. All the bikes had blankets on their seats and that set me thinking as to why. The most plausible explanation that I could come up with is that since they are on the move and determined to take over Kabul, lodging and boarding too have to be mobile and bare minimum. I can see them spreading their blankets on the ground anywhere and catching some sleep before getting on with their business of violent misanthropy.

The point of that little introduction is to illustrate the reason why the Taliban are able to do what they do in the face of the world's mightiest military machine is because they have stripped down their lives to a singular purpose of killing or beating back those they consider their enemy. That purpose is not diluted by drinking Coke and Pepsi and eating burgers and fries like many US soldiers had become so accustomed to. The Taliban have been so used to a severe and austere life where the only motivating factor is defeating the enemy at any cost no matter how long it takes.

Speaking of how long it takes, as the US has withdrawn from Afghanistan after nearly two decades the Taliban with their motorcycles draped with blankets and beat-up Toyota pickup trucks are yet again proving that in the end what wins is a terminal wish  to both die as well not to lose and not hundreds of billions of dollars, state-of-the-art weaponry, night vision goggles and expensive communications infrastructure. According to the Costs of War Project at Brown University, the United States has spent $2.26 trillion on the Afghan invasion and occupation, which is a little over $130 billion a year. The Brown estimate says 47,245 Afghan civilians have been killed in the war as of mid-April this year. The US Department of Defense says 2,442 U.S. troops have been killed and 20,666 wounded in the war since 2001. The actual fighting, which involves everything including ammunition, fuel, vehicles, armored vehicles, tanks, food, the famous Humvees, airstrikes and so on have cost $815.7 billion.

The number dead Afghan troops is said to be 66,000 to 69,000. In contrast,  2,442 U.S. troops have been killed and 20,666 wounded. 

I am being facetious here but for a fraction of $143 billion a year that America has spent since 2002, it could have just plied pliable Taliban leaders to do their bidding without investing so much blood and treasure. 

It is extraordinary and even strangely suspicious how quickly the country's armed forces have folded up in the face of the Taliban onslaught, so much so that they are now on the verge of taking over the capital Kabul. President Joe Biden's decision to rapidly end the Afghan engagement is already being seen as a debacle in the league of Vietnam. It is also being seen as an action that very seriously undermines America's international credibility as an unassailable military ally perhaps much to the joy of China and Russia. It is astonishing that a rapid fall of Afghanistan was not factored in while deciding to withdraw to an accelerated schedule. The result is that the Biden administration is having to send back 3000 US troops to ensure a secure evacuation of the large US embassy staff. 

In a galling indictment of how flawed the rapid withdrawal has been that Washington had to essentially plead with the Taliban via its chief  negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad not to attack the embassy and its staff. After spending $2.26 trillion it has come to this--pleading with fighters on motorcycles draped with blankets. I engage in some literary exaggeration here but you get my point.

Much is being said about how Washington is abandoning Afghanistan at the wrong time. Actually, leaving Afghanistan at any time for America would be a wrong time. If President Biden has made the calculation that in the short-term there will be opprobrium for him but history might be more reasonable to his decision, then one cannot do much about it. If the logic in Washington is that America cannot be expected to be mired in forever wars not matter what happens to the countries it leaves, I suppose one has to respect that decision. 

Of course, the biggest worry now is that the level of freedom and empowerment that Afghani women, girls and children have become accustomed to since 2001 and the dislodging of the Taliban will now be severely tested if not altogether dismantled. I had a strong and a heartfelt conversation with the well-known Afghan women and children's rights activist Mahbouba Seraj on my show Mayank Chhaya Reports. 

At 18.9 million women and girls constitute about 48 percent of Afghanistan’s total population of about 39 million. Historically, at least in the last four decades or so, they have been at the receiving end of the country’s slide into violent, medieval misogyny led by the Taliban.

 

The 73-year-old Seraj living in Kabul since 2003, having returned home after 23-year-long exile in America and elsewhere, is deeply worried about what is to come. Although she concedes that there has been considerable advance in the empowerment of young women and girls over the last decade and a half, she is unsure what the dramatic US troops withdrawal from her country would engender for them.

 

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres (File photo: Jay Mandal/On Assignment)

 

On a separate but broadly related note, I am going to watch with interest two specific players in the context of Afghanistan post-US withdrawal-- India and the United Nations. First about the U.N. which can be expected to be roped in as a stabilizing force sooner rather than later. It is a pity that while the U.N. does not create these crises, it frequently gets saddled to clean up the mess. Secretary-General António Guterres has his work cut out for him and the institution he heads. In the next few weeks and months he will have to decide how he positions the U.N. in relation to Afghanistan as it confronts an empty exchequer, potential economic sanctions and even a looming drought. Also, no one should be surprised if the Taliban, once having taken over the reins in Kabul, want to establish their presence at the U.N. to gain a semblance of international credibility.

 

The second player is India. There is much to write and I will do so soon. For now, it is enough to point out that there is a great deal riding on how New Delhi deals with Kabul even as China has already made deep inroads there. Remember India has over the years invested more than $3 billion in helping build infrastructure in Afghanistan.  

Munch returns to me

The frequency with which Edvard Munch loomed over my painterly impulses may have reduced but it has not disappeared. This morning he came back with some force. In particular, his remarkable piece 'The Girls on the Bridge', 1927. When Munch comes, I must yield and I did with my own version of that. I wanted to make the same spot at Aasgaardsstrand devoid of any human activity other than the bridge. So I removed the girls from my work as well as the white villa.

The result is a place before any significant habitation in the area. I don't want to leave you with the misleading impression that I am familiar with the place. I have no clue where it is other than that it is somewhere in Norway. I painted it because I have frequently operated under Munch's influence in terms of the deceptive roughness of his brushstrokes. These days for me there are no brushstrokes involved because I use pastel sticks on paper slathered with vegetable oil. The oil deepens pastel colors dramatically and stops them from powdering like butterfly wings.

My piece looks like what that place may have looked like before people started living there. There was also a steamship jetty nearby which meant it was a busy place. Mine looks pre all that and I like it. 

On Erwin Schrödinger's anniversary, revisiting a play of mine

Erwin Schrödinger, Photo courtesy: www.nobelprize.org

Today is the 134th birth anniversary of Erwin Schrödinger. To mark the occasion I revisit a play I wrote in July, 2013.

JULY 17, 2013

A neighbor to Erwin Schrödinger : 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

 

Year: 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 Schrödinger (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 Schrödinger 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.”

Julio Romero de Torres, Maria Teresa Lopez, Mera Saaya, Madan Mohan and I

Chiquita Piconera, Modeled by Maria Teresa Lopez, Painted by Julio Romero de Torres (1874-1930).

I could not have known Maria Teresa Lopez. She was a model who was a muse to the Spanish master painter Julio Romero de Torres (1874-1930). She was clearly much younger than her but it is unlikely that she is alive now. This captivating painting by him of her is circa 1929-1930.

Titled Chiquita Piconera the painting is breathtakingly sensuous and captures Maria’s swag, if I may use the 21^st century term for a 20^th century work, rather powerfully. I must admit to my enduring fascination for Maria. She has shown up in different posts of mine even on Facebook. She returned this morning again.

I am an early riser, generally by 4 a.m., and like to finish the bulk of my writing in the first five hours or so. More often than not I do not utter a word or made a sound during that. This morning was no different. I broke that silence as I often do by practicing a song mainly to warm up my throat. The song that came to me was Tu Jahan Jahan Chalega from the 1966 Hindi movie ‘Mera Saaya’. It is one of Madan Mohan’s finest compositions, written by Raja Mehdi Ali Khan and inevitably sung by Lata Mangeshkar.

So why not exercise one’s vocals with that song? I did. Now on to blabbering for the rest of the day.

Separately, I like mixing things up. Using Maria Teresa Lopez’s portrait by Julio Romero de Torres to front my karaoke was a thrill. The song was composed a little over three decades after her time and I am singing it five and half decades after it was composed and 91 years after she was portrayed. That’s neat.