Jai Ho or Not

Published February 14, 2010 / by Jehangir

|It's almost official now. The world has been cocacolised.

John Dvorak , writing on technology in the USA, commented that " It's almost as if the collective brain of the American public has been put into neutral ." That is just the tip of the iceberg.

Hype-mania is an international pandemic. Just look at the headlines. Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time. Crippled-spec Netbooks are outselling laptops. AR Rehman has a couple of Grammy Awards to match his double Oscars.

What are we to make of headlines exclaiming that Science Channel Refuses To Dumb Down Science Any Further?

Avatar was a huge disappointment. The cutting-edge special effects experience quickly wore off, leaving the feeling of watching an interminable Discovery Channel documentary. The plot was ridden with every moth-eaten cliche in the book.

A far better movie experience, IMHO, was the reboot of the Star Trek film series. In the seventies the Star Trek TV series was broadcast by PTV and Jammu was near enough the LOC to receive a faint signal. An ingenious combination of an antenna with a bicycle rim enabled grainy though quite watchable B&W reception and we became avid Trekkies. I will be surprised if Avatar achieves that kind of longevity.


Is this our future?

Netbooks are low- powered devices with ridiculously small squint-inducing screens, cramped keyboards and missing CD/DVD drives. Tablet laptops that beat the pants off netbooks are available for similar amounts of money but everyone and their uncle are buying netbooks.

Lower standards and expectations are not only acceptable but fashionable too.

The enormously talented A R Rahman is accepting multiple Oscar and Grammy awards for the music of Jai Ho . I am sure that it takes quite an effort on his part to keep a straight face. Jai Ho is not his best work – not by a long shot.

The starkest example is that of Facebook. The social networking site has taken over the world with millions of users all over the globe. Here is the result:

Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login

Just go through the comments. Hundreds of people were trying to login to Facebook from a totally unrelated site called ReadWriteWeb and getting frustrated at their inability to do so despite the following message printed in bold letters:

Dear visitors from Google. This site is not Facebook. This is a website called ReadWriteWeb that reports on news about Facebook and other Internet services.

One commenter joked about removing these people from the gene pool. What about Twitter – and the millions of people who are tweeting inanities this very moment? Don’t even get me started on the selfie mania.

To their credit, till the sun set on their missionary/capitalist empire, the British insisted on excellence. The strategy of the modern neo-colonist unipower is quite the reverse – the imposition of dumbocracy in every nation on earth. The world could not be converted but, like poor Santa Claus, it sure as hell has been cocacola-ized.

Update: The rules of Scrabble have been changed to allow the use of proper nouns like people's names, places, and company names or brands! Be sure to read the comments.

Postscript : ‘I will be surprised if Avatar achieves that kind of longevity.’
This is the part where I eat my hat.

Archaeology and Astronomy at Burzahom

Published January 3, 2010 / by Jehangir

Burzahom was the first Neolithic site to be discovered in Kashmir.

It is located on a ‘karewa‘ between the banks of the Dal Lake and the Zabarvan hills, about 5 km from the famous Mughal garden of Shalimar. Burzahom translates as ‘place [ hom ] of birch [ burza ]‘ in Kashmiri.

Plentiful food from the forests on the Himalayan foothills, abundant water supply from the lake and a raised location protected from seasonal flooding ensured that the Burzahom plateau remained continuously settled from the Stone Age [2400 B.C] to the Early Historical period. The inhabitants progressed from hunt-and-gathering pit-dwellers to a pottery-making agricultural society over the ages.

A rock carving unearthed at the site shows two hunters hunting a stag while twin suns shine in the sky. The engraving on the slab depicts hunting scenes showing an antlered deer being pierced from behind with a long spear by a hunter and an arrow being discharged by another hunter from the front. The slab seems to reveal that hunting was still a part of the life of the Neolithic people of Burzahom.

The presence of two similar suns in the sky is however a mystery.

Some researchers believe that the twin suns indicate the duration of the hunt, while a far more exotic (and convincing, IMHO) theory has been proposed by a team of astronomers who believe that the scene represents the ancient night sky with the two suns actually representing the moon and a supernova*, while the hunters and the animals represent constellations like Orion and Taurus.

If the latter theory is to be believed, it would represent not only the first record of a supernova, but also the oldest sky-chart ever discovered!

* A supernova is the explosion of a massive star which produces an extremely bright object that gradually fades away over weeks or months.

Burzahom lies just off the Shalimar-Telbal road and is well worth the short trip to experience the history it represents.

Learn more about Burzahom here.

Update (2019):
I feel that in ancient times the Dal lake would have extended to the boundaries of Burzahom which seems to have the perfect attributes for a shore settlement. Unfortunately unplanned construction is taking place in the most likely place where an anchorage would have existed. Indeed the construction monster may soon devour Burzahom. Shame!

Crying Wolf (or Leopard)

Published December 27, 2009 / by Jehangir

Like the boy who cried wolf, constant harping on the Man-Animal Conflict in my wildlife blog has literally landed a leopard on my doorstep.

I live on the banks of the Jehlum in the Shivpora locality of Srinagar, the largest city of Kashmir. The Jehlum makes an almost complete loop around it and only a small strip of land connects Shivpora to the adjoining foothills of the Zabarvan Range. Somehow a leopard has managed to overcome the obstacles presented by the barricades, the highway and the river to reach Shivpora.

A couple of years ago, it was a huge Golden Langur that somehow found its way into Shivpora. It caused a great deal of excitement among the local populace and once interrupted an improptu cricket match in my garden by trundling across the pitch carrying an enormous amount of pillaged vegetables.

A hungry leopard, however, is another matter entirely and mass hysteria is developing among the residents.

I have witnessed the amazing speed with which a caged leopard sprang at my younger son on a trip to Dachigam National Park. This leopard was sleeping on the far wall of its enclosure oblivious to the presence of a number of adult humans. Khurram , my younger son who was about six years old at the time, ran up to the walls of its cage, squeezing between me and an armed guard. In split second, faster than a heartbeat, the apparently sleeping leopard jumped down the wall, crossed the enclosure and sprang at him. The leopard collided with the chain-link fencing with an enormous crash and everyone who witnessed the attack let out an involuntary shriek.

I have never before or since witnessed such speed from a living creature. The cunning stillness before, the ferocity and speed of the actual attack, and the fact that the leopard was not in the least bit put off by the presence of a large number of adults around its intended victim still sends shivers down my spine.



I have learnt to respect and fear the leopard, and whenever we are on one of our weekend ventures, a low cough is enough for me to call off the adventure in that neck of the woods.