Tuesday 21 March 2017

Travelling Back In Time


Hi,

Have a close look at me. Apart from being a watch of Soviet era vintage you may have noticed that I just have one hand.

Now don't think I am a defective piece, caused due to bad workmanship. I was meant to be like that only. 

In an era when watches are turning into wearable devices and checking time comes way down the priority list, I may look like a laughable oddity.

I may evoke the same amusement as Mumbai's ancient Premier Padmini taxis, with their clumsy column mounted gears, to a Formula One driver.

I know the questions coming to your mind. "How the heck did guys those days check time? Were they only concerned about hours and not minutes?"

Relax, those were early days of watches and people had a different way of looking at it. In fact during 16th century telling the time using just a single hand was the normal way. Timekeeping began with just a single hand, sundials and the early church clocks kept time this way and pocket watches too followed the norm.

The second hand was introduced only in late 17th century and for the people then it seemed as odd as single hand watches appear to you today.

Reading time on single hand watch does not look as difficult as it may seem. A dial is divided into 144 markers and each of them represents 5 minutes. The 15 and 30 minute markers are bolder.

Now using that yardstick, the time shown on the above watch (double click to zoom the image) is 10:20. Simple, isn't it!

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Monday 6 March 2017

American Dream Sours In Trump Era

For the TRP driven Indian news channels this was an ideal recipe for a perfect storm. A 32-year-old techie from Hyderabad is shot dead and his co-worker is injured in a shooting at a bar in Kansas in US. The deceased, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, and the injured, Alok Madasani, had a career graph, which could evoke envy among the India's TV viewing middle class.

Hence for them it is unsettling to see people whom they look up to getting mercilessly gunned down by some xenophobic nut in a bar in US. And the assailant's cry 'Get out of my country' sounded eerily similar to 'Go to Pakistan' uttered by saffron brigade back home. Or 'go to your desh/mulk', by Mumbai's MNS storm troopers to UP, Bihari taxi drivers.

Even before they could come to terms with this attack, a rash of copycat hate crime attacks took place on Indians living across US and not just the traditionally polarised south. In all these attacks the common thread was 'get out of my country' cry by the assailants. 

A couple of videos also surfaced on social media about an Indian's house vandalised and a Gujarati woman getting threatened in a New York tube train. Interestingly in the latter case the racist bully happened to be a burly looking black American. He too yelled 'get out of my country' and then went on to invoke 'black power'. So it looks like this hatred against Asian looking migrants is not confined to whites. 

US is no stranger to hate crimes, it has a fairly long history and even during the previous Obama administration we had policemen getting into ugly and bloody spats with black youths. However, during Obama administration the official condemnation was prompt and reprisals were swift.

That way the recent bout of xenophobia looks very different. It can be traced to US President Donald Trump's very polarising campaign and his unabashed contempt for ethnic groups such as Mexicans, Arabs and Blacks and all those professing faith in Islam.

In this atmosphere of surcharged majoritarianism, there is a feeling of entitlement among the attackers. In a couple of cases the attackers were not some petty criminals or those living on the fringes of society, but they happened to be war veterans, bragging they have ‘done a lot’ for the country and consider these acts also as part of their nationalist endavour. The proliferation of guns, with little control, has only made matters worse.

When Trump was going about his hate fuelled campaign, many Indians were lulled into complacency that since he had not said anything against Indians residing in US, they were safe. Moreover their professional success, epitomised by two freshly minted corporate icons - Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai, the 'model diaspora' tag, all this deluded them to think they were on par with the privileged white upper class.

Traditionally Indians in US were Democratic party supporters, but of late many are leaning towards the Republicans, buoyed by their professional and entrepreneurial success. There is even a lobby group called Republican Hindu Coalition, which had contributed to Trump's election campaign and was making a common cause with his visceral hatred towards Islam. To humour them Trump had also called Hinduism a great religion and some very enthusiastic fans in Delhi had even conducted a pooja for his victory in US elections.

But little did they know, or for that matter anyone else, that his foot soldiers are not all that discerning and hardly wise enough to differentiate between an Indian with other Asians like Iranians or even Saudis. For them brown skin was like a red rag, more so if it is accompanied with beard or turban. The same way as Indians with Mongolic features get mistaken for being Chinese in their own country!

With the attacks happening on a regular basis it is a rude awakening for the Indian diaspora, who were hallucinating about a privileged status on the back of their economic success. 

Also Read: Bangalore Beat