July 2018

There were 4 posts published in July 2018 (this is page 1 of 1).

Mob violence in India

“He looked like a terrorist!” How a drive in rural India ended in a mob attack and a lynching

These stories of mob lynchings (this one in Reuters) are so depressing. I’m beginning to feel that there is something more going on than simply panic against child abductors.

I was just remembering a paragraph in Saki (HH Munri) story “Filboid Studge” (1912)
” There are thousands of respectable middle-class men who, if you found them unexpectedly in a Turkish bath, would explain in all sincerity that a doctor had ordered them to take Turkish baths; if you told them in return that you went there because you liked it, they would stare in pained wonder at the frivolity of your motive. In the same way, whenever a massacre of Armenians is reported from Asia Minor, every one assumes that it has been carried out “under orders” from somewhere or another; no one seems to think that there are people who might like to kill their neighbours now and then.”

That’s typical Saki. But it would be truer to say that this is a reaction of village people who have been left out of India’s boom. They see rich hi-tech workers from Hyderabad in their shiny new red SUV and something snaps inside them. Perhaps the story they tell themselves is that they are confronting child abductors, but unconsciously they are acting from a deep sense of grievance. All of these lynchings have been of outsiders. In the south, the victims have usually been northerners or people from the cities. In a case near Tiruvannamalai in TN, a 63 year old north Indian woman was killed after having been seen giving sweets to children. Probably the children themselves were pestering her for sweets or school pens.

Whenever there is a bandh (a strike) or any kind of civil unrest in India, the first thing you do is get off the streets, because if you are not a local, or are from the wrong community, you automatically become a potential target. If something unexpected happens, like the death of a well-known politician, the streets empty in an instant, because everyone is afraid.

Is India such a “primitive” country? It isn’t the only place subject to mob violence. In America, people become similarly afraid of each other after every national disaster. Every man for himself. Civilization is all too fragile.

Rubaiyat of Sarmad

Lately I’ve been reading a translation of Sarmad by Paul Smith, who seems to have translated almost the whole body of Persian language Sufi poetry into English – tons of material. Paul Smith is a disciple of the 20th century spiritual teacher Meher Baba, whose center near Ahmednagar in Maharashtra I’ve visited. Interestingly the small town of Ahmednagar is also the place where emperor Aurangzeb (or Alamgir) died. Aurangzeb was responsible for Sarmad’s execution; a year or so after he had his elder brother and rival to the throne Darah Shikoh killed. Dara Shikoh, like Sarmad, was also a sufi and a composer of poems. He is also known for translating the Upanishads. A great man but a poor leader of men, unfortunately.

I don’t much care for Paul Smith’s translations, unfortunately, at least not his rubaiyat of Sarmad. He attempts to follow the traditional rubaiyat format of rhyming the first, second and fourth line, as Edward Fitzgerald did more successful with Omar Khayyam back in the 19th century. But whereas Fitzgerald employed blank verse, Smith’s translations are almost like prose, except for the rhyme at the end of the line. This convention doesn’t work very well, in my opinion.

This is what I occupy myself with instead of worrying about citizenship laws, impending wars and other troubles. Sarmad would feel right at home I think, or not at home:
“Until your last breath
This world won’t be your friend.”
I feel a need to write some sort of manual about how to spiritually survive the current dark age. It would be full of quotations from Lao Tzu, Ashtavakra, Sarmad… Lao Tzu was probably the most practical survivalist. His teachings provided the philosophical basis of Chinese martial arts, but he also showed people how to stay out of harm’s way. In T’ang dynasty China, many a disgraced courtier would find asylum by adopting a new life far from the emperor in the forests and mountains south of modern day Xian. Even today, folks who are disgruntled with modern day China and want to lead a simpler lifestyle are reportedly finding refuge in these same mountains. There have been a couple of films about these modern day hermits. However, the spiritual survival about which the sufis and vedantins (and Lao Tsu himself) speak is more important than merely living out one’s days.

O Sarmad!
Shorten your complaint.
Of two choices, take one.
Either surrender your body
To the will of your friend
Or offer
to sacrifice your soul.

At the time of his death, he was perfectly ready. He “looked straight into his executioner’s eyes, and spoke the following words:

Come
o come, I implore you!
In whatever guise you come
I know you well.

Aurangzeb, on the other hand, lived almost to the age of 90, but did not know peace. He had on his conscience the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men. From his deathbed he wrote:

I know not who I am, where I shall go, or what will happen to this sinner full of sins. . . . My years have gone by profitless. God has been in my heart, yet my darkened eyes have not recognized his light. . . . There is no hope for me in the future. The fever is gone, but only the skin is left. … I have greatly sinned, and know not what torments await me. . . . May the peace of God be upon you.

Keyboards and pointing devices

I was just reading a review of the Logitech G710+ mechanical gaming keyboard. I was given this as a gift some time ago by my son when he bought for himself a still more expensive keyboard. In general I’m quite happy with the keyboard, though I can’t say that the typing experience is amazingly better than my other keyboards. I think I might agree with one reviewer who said the keys are just a shade too close together. Perhaps keyboards should be tailor made for the user, based on expert evaluation.

I also have a cheap Rapoo bluetooth keyboard, for example, which I bought once in India for usage with an Android tablet, but which can be used for any of my devices. In some ways this keyboard feels a little bit easier to use, despite its small size. The only trouble with bluetooth is that it is not 100% dependable. I keep the Rapoo next to the Logitech. For night use, when my spouse is sleeping, the Rapoo is a bit quieter than the Logitech, though then there is the disadvantage that the keys are not lit.

The keys, are if anything, a little more generously sized on the Rapoo, though the keyboard itself is so much smaller. There is no number pad on the Rapoo. Since I never use those number keys, it is an advantage for me that the number pad is absent: the wrist is closer to the mouse or trackball.

By and large, I think my typing experience on the Rapoo is better than that of the Logitech. An irony, since the Rapoo is so much smaller and cheaper.

Fortunately, on account of my desk setup, I can shove the G710+ to the back whenever I feel like using the Rapoo. And whenever the Rapoo decides it isn’t going to work, or I feel like I would like to use the G710+, it’s available as usual.

Recently I bought a Logitech M570 trackball, even though I have a good Logitech mouse. I’ve actually always liked trackballs, just as I’ve always hated trackpads. With a trackball, the hand does not need to travel around the desk, which I think is easier, and the actual surface under the pointing device is unimportant. Our glass topped coffee tables, for example, are fine. There’s also an advantage if one is using a laptop on a portable knee tray, for example, or an airline’s tray, in that less room is necessary. The only thing is that it is more important that a trackball be well designed and engineered than for a mouse. Logitech’s M570 fills that bill, and has been tested by many users. My history with trackpads is that these too must be well-engineered, and I have never been able to afford the high end laptops such as Apple products, that presumably are equipped with better trackpads. I possess a Logitech keyboard – trackpad combo which is the most horrible device that I ever purchased from Logitech. I use it for our media pc, but even for that comparatively light use, it is ill-suited.