SG OwnBlog

Affinity towards attachment

2024-11-08T00:45:00.005+05:30

Of late I realize how attached I get to people, places and even things.

This is not just limited to stuff that I care about, but also mundane things that I don’t really generally much about either.

On most days, I am not even conscious about it. But when I am, I find it increasingly weird.

This hits different than hoarding though. Garbage is something I can easily get rid off. It is just that the definition of what I consider garbage is limited. More worryingly, I find accepting stuff (or God forbid, people) that I considered a treasure can now safely be put in the bin extremely difficult.

This was always the case to an extent, it is not new. Just that at my age I just have come to this self realization on my own.

What do I need to do about it?

I am not sure to be honest. On one hand, I agree, obsessively being attached to anything or anyone is not healthy. But, at the same time, Life still works, relatively okay. Of course, inanimate objects are better in this regard. They can’t really let me down.

People, on the other hand, can. And often do. That hurts. But unlike many who can simply uproot such folks from their lives, I persevere. In the hope that things will get better in time or I will be able to improve things in the future. Hope makes me tick.

At the end of the day, there is not much else we can do anyway.

Saraswati Puja and Valentine's Day Coincide

2024-02-14T14:37:00.000+05:30

I used to hear this a lot - for Bengalis (Bengali Hindus), Saraswati Pujo is equivalent to the Valentine's Day. Girls would wear yellow sarees and braid their hair, while guys will be wearing yellow punjabees and white dhoti or pajama.

This time on Feb 14, 2024, they fell on the same day.

Woke up pretty early in the morning, showered, wore the dhuti and uttiyo and did Saraswati Puja. Most of the mantras I have got by heart now. After the pushpanjali, I was done and we (my mother and I) could then break our fast with the Mahaprasad. Took a day off for the day, but still joined for a quick catchup call.

This is how she looks like.

There is a bit of a history here. Usually, Hindus get the vigraha from the shop every year, worship and then do visarjan (immersion) in a river or pond. However, she is with us since I was in class IX. When I was in Standard X, my grandmother had died. As part of the souch (relatively inauspicious greiving period), we could not get a new vigraha. So, the next puja was done with her (picture above). She has stayed on since. We call her Swati.

In the afternoon, I had lunch / bhog at our apartment pujo. This is completely vegetarian for today but delicious. My mother went to a friend's place. So far, today's been a very good day.

Getting back to making stuff

2024-02-12T23:47:00.001+05:30

I was off for a while.

I mean, I was not. I painted an old shoecase that now looks a gorgeous white cupboard. I fixed my bicycle.

But beyond this, I did not do much beyond what my work paid me to do.

So here I am, about to touch a new year of my life - and I am itching to get back into the habit of writing again.

Not just writing stuff here, but also making applications or music.

In fact, after a very long time I feel like sketching again. I think I am going to sketch my wife. Or may be finish my ex wife's sketch. I dunno. But I am gonna get started with a pencil tomorrow.

Thanks to chatgpt, I have restarted my application brainstorming and dusted my old Github repos.

I think this is going to be a good run this time.

Chess Play 12 December 2023

2023-12-09T00:20:00.004+05:30

This is going to be my chess journal.

I am going to document blitz and rapid games mostly. I will be playing only 3 games a day.

I have won all 3. The FEN for the same are below.

FEN - 2r5/Q7/1kp2p2/1p4r1/8/1P1B3P/5PP1/R5K1 b - - 6 40

FEN - 4r3/ppp3p1/1b2p1k1/4P3/4n3/2PN2pK/PP4P1/5R2 w - - 2 33

FEN - r5k1/8/p2p3p/1pnNp1r1/2P1P3/3P1K2/P4P2/8 w - - 2 32

What if your spouse is actually insane?

2023-09-28T00:38:00.009+05:30

Imagine this scenario.

You gift your spouse something and decorate your home the way she likes it (lets assume).

Then you text her saying that you have done this.

You would expect her to feel nice and may be ... I don't know - thank you, at the very least.

What if instead she directly questions you why you had changed your contact name in her mobile phone without asking her permission?

You will probably be stunned by the question. You may take a couple of minutes to check if she is actually serious or just pulling your leg. An uncomfortable realisation dawns on you. This is not a joke.

She directly assumes that you have unlocked her phone with her passkey, went to her contacts application and changed your name and then once again locked the phone back on. And this is when you don't know her key, and have never touched her phone.

You check if this is a prank or some kind of nightmare induced by REM sleep. Naah, no luck. This is real.

The basic questions that come to your mind, but apparently evades your spouse include -

How can you unlock a phone without knowing the key?
How did you discover the passkey?
Assuming you watched her unlock her phone and copied the key combinations, why would you only change your name and make your wrong doing obvious?
What on earth will you gain from it?

Worse, she just blames you for it all and then says that you have been most interested to do something like this all along.

In that instance, you know - your spouse may be insane or very drunk. But probably just insane.

Growing up

2022-07-07T20:24:00.006+05:30

Time affects everything and everyone

We all grow up. After college, friends go places, to different states and far away countries. You get less and less time. Some go for higher studies, again, in other states. Parents get older. Then friends start getting married. First it’s usually the girls. One by one, your crushes tie the knot. You dismiss it, you are still young. Then your guy friends start getting married too. Your circle shrinks. In the end you look around. All you are left with are ideological nutjobs, immature imbeciles, idealistic crazies, bohemian hippies, or other misfits. Do you really belong here?

Okay, that was too harsh. But you think. You say to yourself, ‘dil to baccha hai jee’.

Okay, fair enough.

And then...

Then, you see a growing pot belly. Something you always despised. Your dad had one (he still does). After taking a shower, you look at the mirror. You are losing hair. You search on Amazon for hair growing products - it is too much of a hassle. Hair transplant is far too expensive and does not even stay. Besides, accepting the fact that you need hair transplant ITSELF is problematic. You are still too young to need that, right?

Relatives probe, ‘Son, now is a good time to settle down!’. They know nothing. Right? Just another boomer with unsolicited advice. We know better. Right?

Your friends even hint the same question though. ‘Did you get a girlfriend?’, ‘What’s up’ followed by a long pause. If you explain about mundane things in life, they push it further, ‘Okay, but what about ... you know?’ And they smile with a question mark on their face.

You smile back. You can’t even cancel this person like you did with the boomer.

Being pushed to ‘settle down’ is a relatively minor side effect of getting older. Getting a better job, getting married - these types of ‘suggestions’ are still external. They come from others. Or, you yourself get influenced by others’ families, kids, jobs etc. These are relatively easier to deal with.

Challenges that are personal

The personal implications are far more difficult to accept and embrace.

Remember, when you used to play cricket and the ball broke the neighbor’s window?

What happened after that?

Well, the poor sod complained to my dad and my dad paid him some money to offset his loss. My takeaway - play carefully.

It was cheap. It was easy.

And now?

From issues in communication to failure in doing things on time, there is no one else but myself to take the blame, to take the responsibility.

This realization is hard. You can postpone your acceptance and still genuinely make mistakes (without making proper amends).

But this time, a Rs 500 bill will not fix it.

You will lose friends, lovers, children. You will lose your peace, you may lose everything that you hold dear.

The only solution?

Accept that you are an adult. And take responsibility for your actions.

Hiding behind a facade of a ‘forever teen’ manchild is easy. But it sure is not rewarding.

So yeah, I am middle aged. I am happy, I am hard working and I am a decent person. But I am not a child.

Sure, I may make mistakes. I will try to fix things I can.

I will not drown myself in guilt over burnt bread (unless I knowingly do something evil) either.

But it is my moral and personal responsibility to make things right. Or at least try. And also even own up to genuine mistakes, even if (and especially when) I know that doing so will not fix everything. It may fix nothing.

But it still needs to be done. For the sake of the future generation I nurture or inspire. And for me too!

Because, that is the right thing to do. That is my swadharma as an adult. In time, you will need to find yours.

Operation Situation Report Summary - Ukraine 4 March

2022-03-04T20:45:00.003+05:30

Defense Without Strategy

Ukraine seems to be hell bent on fighting a static war without almost any flexibility. Their forces may be valiant and defiant, but without a coherent strategy, the best they can hope for is to prolong their own suffering WITHOUT significantly hurting the enemy.

Here is how the situation stands as of now.

Kherson has fallen. The front in the South was decisively broken day before yesterday with the capture of the railway station and port. Naturally, the Russian forces did not wait and moved straight North to Mykolaiv. All UA forces on the Dnepr facing South are likely to be outflanked. Unless the Russian spearheads are cut off and destroyed in a day or two, it will be too late. The fall of the entire South seems to be inevitable.

To extricate the forces, UA should have withdrawn forces from other sectors (including far away Donetsk front). Now, the best they can try is to win time to reinforce Kyiv.

Kharkov is almost surrounded. This battle seems to be fought by the UA only for prestige reasons. The Russians are content with only bombing the approaches to the city and tying up the significant Kharkiv garrison. There are local mobile forces as well - they seem to be wasting their time fighting a static battle of attrition, while they should have been deployed to the Mariopol region to prevent the Russians from Crimea and Donetsk linking up or preventing them turning around the Dnepr bend.

Chernihiv is besieged. Another garrison will probably perish in the city, again fighting a battle that is not even remote decisive.

Fastiv is almost in Russian hands. Kyiv is getting steadily encircled. Zaporozhe is almost encircled as well. Melitopol has fallen. Mariopol is almost taken. Mykolaiv is partially taken.

Even though many are delighted to see the UA defense putting up a good fight against the Russian forces, it needs to be established that the defenses in both the North and South have been completely broken.

What is likely to follow is this.

The Russian Northern Spearhead will turn East from Fastiv and reach the Dnepr cutting Kyiv off from the West and South.
The Russian North Eastern spearhead will move south and meet the northern spearhead on the other side of the river - completely cutting off Chernihiv and any other Ukrainian city holding out in the east.
Kharkiv will be bypassed and continued to be shelled, creating another encirclement. Supplies are sufficient here, it seems for a protracted battle - not that it matters much.
The Southern forces have already linked up in Mariopol. What remains of the resistance will probably collapse in a day or two.
Russian forces will move from the South in two directions, one from Mykolaiv up to North to outflank all Ukrainian forces on the river, another will be around the Dnepr bend, outflanking the entire UA defense in the East. It seems ONLY the Russian logistical problems can prevent them from exploiting this massive gap.
The threat to Odessa seems to be a feint, it is likely to be besieged and left to its own resources.

There is almost no regular frontline remaining in most of the country. What remains are isolated garrisons and cities that continue to resist. Unfortunately, Ukraine does not have the strategic depth that Russia has - these fortress defense concepts will not prevent Russia from overrunning most of the country - nor will it seriously impede the supply problems.

Unless the UA shortens its lines right now, we can expect a cohesive national defense to break down into city based battles. Bloody they may be - its outcome shall not be in any doubt.

Operational Situational Summary - Ukraine 2 March

2022-03-02T12:28:00.009+05:30

From a glance at the map and the news reports, it appears that the Russian advance has been very slow or even checked.

However, a deeper look shows the situation has worsened significantly for Ukraine. That this happened as per my expectation in the past few posts makes me feel worse.

In the North, the Russian forces have already encircled Chernihiv in the past couple of days. This is not yet fully updated on this map.

The two strong armored spearheads from Konotop (which had also fallen) are currently holding in Pryluky and Nizhyn. The Chernihiv garrison probably has a day or two before the Russians reach Kozelets. Then any breakout attempt to Kyiv will become extremely difficult and will likely result in very heavy losses. It is to be expected that this city too, will fall soon without affecting the battle of Kyiv.

This is bad for Ukraine. Now that the International Community has rallied for Ukraine, the previous fears of Russia dealing with breakaway republics in the East should be gone. Putin will have to sign a peace treaty with Zelensky only - otherwise the crippling sanctions on Russia will continue. No puppet Ukrainian state can come about and get diplomatic recognition except from Russia, Belarus and other Russian puppet states.

What this means is that the Ukrainian Forces should withdraw promptly from their Eastern besieged areas to the areas where the decisive battle is going to come about - Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Dnepropetrovsk, Cherkassy and Fastov.

Worse, the Russians have broken through the Kyiv defenses in the West and blocked the roads to Korosten and Zhytomyr completely. Even the road to Fastiv/Fastov is being contested. If this is gone, all the routes of supply to the West / Europe will be cut leaving only an air bridge available to the Ukrainian defenders. This is terrible, because most of the larger airports in and around Kyiv have fallen to the Russians and also because the air superiority in the region over Kyiv belongs firmly with Russia.

Ukraine will have to break the route to Zhytomyr and Fastiv if it hopes to sustain a meaningful resistance over the next couple of weeks.

The front in the East remains largely static. There have been artillery shelling of Kharkov over the past days, but infantry assaults have not yet materialized. This significant force and the one facing the DPR and LPR are also facing encirclement on the other bank of the river.

In the South, we have a lot of action. Almost the entire south of the river has been captured by Russia. Mariopol is likely to fall anytime soon. The city is still fighting and is probably going to follow the Festung Mariopol policy to its demise in a day or two.

The battle for Kherson is ongoing. The Russians had captured the railway station and the port/ferry. This allows them to reinforce the city at will, while Ukraine will not be able to do so. Unfortunately, Ukraine will have to defend this town as this is the last line of defense before the open plains to Central Ukraine and a direct Southern route to the Capital. Odessa is also just to the West - which is the last access point Ukraine has to the Black Sea.

One the Russian forces reach Mykolaiv, Kherson's defenders will perish eventually - again without influencing the decisive battles to occur in and around Kyiv. The last chance of having a Southern front stretching Mykolaiv - Kherson - Nikopol - Zaporizhzhia - Berdiansk seems to be gone. Nikopol and Berdiansk have already fallen. With Kherson in the bag, it is only a matter of time before the South is breached.

After this Ukraine will be devoured from the open south. This could have been prevented if the East was evacuated and forces sent to reinforce the river Dnepr. It is now too late. Only a miracle can ensure sustained Ukrainian resistance.

Operational Situation Summary - Ukraine 27 February

2022-02-27T23:51:00.006+05:30

The media has been reporting massive Ukrainian victories and impending Russian defeat. The talks have also been cancelled, neither side could agree on the conditions and location. Russia has in the meantime put its nuclear arsenal on alert.

Below is however the frontline as it stands roughly.

Kyiv Front

As we can see from the map, the situation is actually worsening for Ukraine and pretty quickly.

While the latest attacks on Kharkiv were beaten back and most of the city retaken by ZSU (Ukrainian Armed Forces), Kyiv is being encircled slowly but surely.

The North was the first to fall and rapidly. A direct assault to occupy the city failed yesterday, and it seems a further reinforced assault also failed to breach the city defences. In fact, some of the supply convoys were attacked further slowing the Russian advance.

However, if we look at the map, it is clear that the Russians are simply encircling the capital. The road to Korosten is in Russian hands, the road to Zhytomyr is being threatened and probably cut off. The road to Poltava is the only link left to the Donetsk region The highway to Konotop is held, but Konotop has fallen to the Russians. Only Chernihiv to the North East is still holding. The chance of it being further reinforced seems unlikely. It is clear that the forces are being actually withdrawn from the East to Kyiv to strengthen the defences.

This is what should be done, as I argued in the previous post. The eastern part is not defensible in any way - at least not for the long term. While the Russians have been slowed down, the evacuation of the threatened regions should have been done thoroughly. We don't see that happening much, yet.

The only open roads out of Kyiv are the one to Cherkassy along the river and to the Kherson front in the South.

If the Ukrainian Govt wishes to continue to exist and hold on to Kyiv, it must hold open at least a couple of roads to the West - preferably the roads to Korosten and Zhytomyr. Without these supply arteries, the city will starve and run out of food, supplies and ammunition rendering any meaningful defence impossible.

The Eastern Front

Chernihiv is getting rapidly surrounded. They have got only a single road going out of the city to Kyiv. The garrison has already fended off numerous Russian assaults and it is also being threatened by a mobile spearhead from the East. If it does not withdraw now, it might be encircled and eventually destroyed before it is able to mount an effective rear guard before Kyiv.

The Konotop garrison seems to have been encircled and mostly subdued. The Russian spearhead has already broken through the Ukrainian defences as I had feared before. If they reach the river Dnepr (and it seems they will), Kyiv will be cut off from the East almost entirely.

The Donetsk Front

As expected, the Donetsk front remains largely static. There has not been a significant movement. If Ukraine has forces in this theater, this is probably their last chance to withdraw from this area now. The region is industrially rich, but if cut off, the local forces will be unable to render an organized defense of any sort.

Kherson Front (South)

Kherson city has beaten back the Russian assault. It seems the bridgeheads have also been reduced and bridges blow up. This is good for the city itself. The attempt to outflank it from the North had also failed. Melitopol had falled and there is a possibility of a link up with the Donetsk PR. But action in this eastern sector seems to be dying down. It appears that the Russians are reinforcing their forces for a concerted attack to cross the bridge further North and move straight to Dneprpetrovsk with a flank guard facing Kherson. If they will be able to sustain this logistically is to be seen.

Conventional Military Options for Russia and possible Ukrainian Defense Strategy

2022-02-27T00:38:00.006+05:30

Russian Armed Forces have continued their invasion of Ukraine over the past couple of days.

The first operations had begun from the bridgeheads claimed by separatist forces in the so called Donets, Luhansk People's Republic and the Crimean People's Republic.

I will not go into detail comparing the tactical or operational situation. That requires a more serious study. Also, the information coming from the media sources is fairly limited and often contradictory - so drawing the proper conclusions is difficult.

However, the overall strategic situation is a lot clearer.

The image below shows the current frontline. The major problem is that such a solid frontline beyond these lines do not exist. There have been saboteurs who have been found operating significantly deeper inside Ukrainian territories. But these are roughly the lines where the major conventional forces stand.

Ukrainian Mistakes before the invasion

Intelligence Failure

There have been some failings from the Ukrainian Armed Forces before the beginning of the invasion. The Intelligence services were not aware of the exact date of the beginning of the invasion or that if the Russian Forces will actually cross the border. This was not too difficult to understand. Unofficial forays and recons in force to capture local officers may have yielded them more information and therefore time to prepare. If such information was available, they have not been taken seriously or the preparations had been largely inadequate.

Incorrect Force perception

Surprising though it may sound, Ukrainian Govt and High Command were under the mistaken belief that NATO and the European Union will be able to provide direct military support against any Russian aggression. This deterrence probably played a significant role in convincing the Ukraine Govt that the issue will not escalate into an all out war.

There are two issues though. Even if you can't fault them for the West betraying them, Ukraine did know a couple of things - Russia was building up for a long time on their frontiers and this was detected. Also, the fact the the NATO or the European Union's lack of military readiness was also well known. So even if they had wanted to, it was doubtful if the other European forces would be able to defend Ukraine with their forces.

Also, considering the recent withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan under the Biden administration, there was little chance of any new deployment in Ukraine against Russia.

Faulty Troop Deployment

The majority of Ukrainian Forces had been deployed to the South and East facing the new separatist republics. However, it is now clear that the Russian threat from Donetsk and Luhansk has been limited. The main attack came from the South (via Crimea) and North (from Belarus). It was thanks to the mobile troops in the Kiev region that the area around the city has been secured. Chernobyl fell almost without resistance.

Of course, the issue is that Ukraine is almost entirely surrounded by Russia - with Belarus (a Russian puppet state) to the North, Russia and the puppet states in the East, Crimea to the South and Transnistrea to the South West. Ukraine's terrain is also pretty bad for defense. You have got these flat steppes that are almost impossible to defend against a motorized militarily and numerically superior force.

Ukraine's Challenges

It is clear that all of Ukraine cannot be defended with the forces it has at its disposal, even with the mobilization of its reservists. The problem is that the East, while more industrialized and vital to the economy, cannot be defended for long. Their forces are likely to be encircled and defeated in detail.

Ukraine will find it hard to evacuate any territory quickly either, because Russia will simply setup puppet Republics in the provinces and annex them later.

However, to survive, Ukraine will have to sacrifice its limbs. This is a hard choice to make but militarily there does not seem to be any other option. As a saving grace, Ukraine can consider defending the provincial capitals to prevent Russia from completely claiming puppet states. This means setting up Fortress Towns in Kharkiv, Dneperpetrovsk, Mariopol etc. However, this takes a lot of time - setting up of static defences, reserves, stocks for at least a month or more, evacuation of civilians and so on. Now that a state of war already exists, it is probably too late anyway.

Russia's issues

Russia fears the presence of NATO on their very frontiers. This explains the anxiety of the Russian Govt in general and Putin in particular. Though it does not justify the invasion, it does explain it. The immediate objective of Putin (assuming he is rational) is that he would like to setup a puppet Ukrainian govt like the one that exists in Belarus and Crimea. A buffer state between Russia and NATO/EU is perhaps what Russia is looking for.

Here is what we have observed so far -

The Russian preparation has been methodical but without the element of surprise.
The main objective seems to be to take Kiev quickly from Belarus along with some distraction in the East. Crimea was to act as a powerful bridgehead to secure the ports in the South of Ukraine and stop all Ukrainian naval trade. Dnepropetrovsk is also closest from Crimea.
They expected NATO and the EU to stay out of the conflict, except economic sanctions.
It is clear that Russia did not expect a serious military conflict here. The calculation was simple - Russia would do a recon in force and reach Kiev, Ukrainian forces would be too demoralized to fight back effectively.
They expected the Government to be paralyzed or in flight. Initial indications did seem to support this.

Current Situation

The Russian plans were not fulfilled entirely.

While the International powers acted as expected, Ukraine did not.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces did not surrender quickly, nor did they desert their positions in hordes as hoped (by the Russians). The Government led by President Zelensky also did not flee the capital in the hour of danger. There was no rout.

Russia may have had a large force on Ukraine's borders, but the forces they had unleashed against the Ukrainian fronts seem to be less than adequate. Of course, they are likely to reinforce their positions. However, how much Ukraine will be able to match up to Russian reinforcements need to be seen in the future.

Ukraine's Future Options

The Southern Front is broken. The forces in Melitopol and Mariopol are about to be encircled as well. Even though Kiev holds and has defeated the latest Russian forays, we need to understand that it was a minor attack (with a single tank brigade).

Ukrainian forces are fighting valiantly, however, the overall situation does not look good.

If the Kherson front (South) is not held, the massive Dnepropetrovsk region will fall eventually. This will take away much of what remains of Ukraine's industrial infrastructure and power. So a battle of attrition will no longer be possible. The East of the river Dneipr cannot be militarily held for much longer.

The ideal situation for Ukraine would be this -

Withdraw whatever force possible from the East of the river Dneipr.
Withdraw any local forces that cannot be moved to the West bank of the river should move to Kharkov or Poltava or work as partisans.
Setup as strong defence on the Kherson front as possible.
Barricade Kyiv and stock as much reserves in the city.
Evacuate most of the Govt from Kyiv to the West (Lvov) or Vinnytsa, even if the President stays back in the capital. The continuation of the Govt after Kyiv's fall is essential.
Ukraine needs to hold on to Kyiv for another week.
Even after Kyiv's fall, the Govt should be evacuated to the West and mount a defence there.

Frustration of the Political Left in the Indian context

2022-02-26T14:41:00.002+05:30

The Left in India has long outlived their sell by date. They have been able to outlive the fall of the Berlin wall, the Soviet Union and even the collapse of Yugoslavia.

After the fall of the Soviet bastion in India (West Bengal) and the demise or change in allegiance of many Left oriented intellectuals, little remains on the ground. The last breath was drawn when the Maoist movement was extinguished in the second decade of the 21st century. It does not mean the Left is extinct. There are still a sufficient number of people - both young and old who remain enamored (or infected) with Communism to this day. Indeed, non Communist parties also often toe a very avowedly socialist line when it comes to public policy.

With the death of a viable political leadership, the Communists survive and try to find like minded voices in the deeps and crannies of society. The Zombified existence remains and continues to create perverted art, articles and a narrative. Though significantly less effective, it does have an impact on young minds.

This is made worse by the fact that the Left still occupies the majority of the arts and general humanities departments in educational institutions, effectively breeding future malcontents to swell the ranks of their flock. A proportion of them end up becoming teachers and professors and continue this vicious cycle.

What happens to the vast remainder?

Foot soldiers of a never coming Revolution!

Documenting Hate against Hindus on r/india

2022-01-10T11:22:00.002+05:30

I am pretty sure there are places where hate and bigotry directed against Hindus is shared and disseminated.

However, having joined r/India in reddit actually opened by eyes to something far more one sided and vicious. The hate there has no limits, no naysayers and no justification. This will be my own megathread of all the hate speeches and opinions for the record. I did try reporting to reddit admins and mods but none of the hate speech was removed. So here I am, documenting them here.

Exhibit 1

Source

Exhibit 2

Source

I will keep updating this.

Trading and Investment Setup 05-October

2021-10-05T11:14:00.003+05:30

Overall Market Sentiment

This is very confused today. The OPEC meeting did not turn out to be great. They are NOT going to increase the oil production, so the prices are going to remain high. That means BANKNIFTY will most likely not do great.

There was another major problem that came up. Facebook plunged in the US since they had a downtime of more than 6 hours. This led to NASDAQ falling by close to 2% in a day! This did not sustain and we can see a recovery.

However, there is a China Taiwan crisis looming on the horizon. So International Markets and especially the Asian markets are going to remain choppy for some time to come.

India is in a sweet spot. FIIs and DIIs were both buyers yesterday and this trend is likely to continue today offsetting some negativity.

NIFTY AND BANKNIFTY

Nifty has opened relatively flat and I think it will remain rangebound, between 17500 and 17750 for the week. Then we have results coming out, starting with TCS on October 8. So if you want to buy these, this is probably your chance. I have.

BANKNIFTY is going to stay neutral and slightly depressed till the quarter results come out. The RBI monetary policy is anyway unlikely to change in the short term, so we are good.

I don't intend to take any positions today. I have a carry over long position from last week. I am good with that.

Trade and Investment Setup 4 October

2021-10-04T09:49:00.006+05:30

The global cues are still weak.

But we are seeing some signs of improvement.

Bad news first - Evergrande trading has been suspended in the Hang Sei market (Hong Kong) stock market for the next few days. Their index fell more than 2 %. That is huge. In general the Asian markets were under selling pressure.

For NIFTY, a gap up opening was assumed looking at SGX NIFTY. It is hovering around 17650 as of publishing this post. I will not enter into a trade until it crosses 17700 and stays there for at least half an hour. There is a lot of anxiety and this may result in some profit booking.

BANKNIFTY is up by close to 1% by now and we can expect some profit booking right now. I will just wait and watch. There is not much for me to trade with.

I have signed up with Zerodha over the weekend and will buy a few bonds or gilt funds this week. I intend to use this as a pledge for getting my collateral margins in place.

As for India, the signs are positive, and the results are coming out from the next end of week.

For today, though, I will wait and watch.

Verdict

Today was great. Even though the global cues were not very good, our market rallied and both NIFTY and BANKNIFTY closed with about 1% upside. I have a long position for October, so this is good for me.

Not much to write home beyond this.

I did buy some SBI Magnum Gilt Fund to use as collateral in the future. Plus, it is a gilt fund obviously, so the capital is protected as well.

Trade and Investment Setup for October 1 - Plans and Results

2021-10-01T07:38:00.004+05:30

I have started actively trading and investing in the Equities and Futures and Options markets. This is a simple journal of what I do and why. The format will be simple.

I will jot down my points during the start of the day and make some plans.

During the day, (when the market opens), I will execute them.

After the market ends, I will note down my observations and see where we stand and how far the strategies worked and why.

Disclaimer: This is my personal journey. I am not a financial advisor of any sort, so copying my trades or scrips is NOT recommended.

Background

After rallying almost 1200 points, Nifty finally showed some weakness and and has come down from the highs of 17950 to 17600. That is a big fall.

I see a few major problems:

US bond yields are getting higher. Source
There is an ongoing energy crisis ongoing. Coal is in short supply, gas stations are running dry.
Monthly expiry was on September 30. This led to a lot of positions closing. Ok. This was a minor point.
FIIs have sold drastically. They have pulled out almost 1900 crores on Thursday while DIIs have bought about 90 crores.
Evergrande crisis
Delta variant is still a threat in the US
US Markets are also significantly lower than yesterday

There are a few pros:

NIFTY has been falling for 3 days straight. RSI has eased off. I don't care much for technical indicators though. Human psychology works differently.
Massive fall was observed in NIFTY and BANKNIFTY yesterday and that was monthly expiry. Trends suggest there could be a rally today.
Retail buying remains strong in India.
Festive season is approaching and October to November has traditionally been good for Indian markets.

Let us see the situation in NIFTY

Long term - we are good. So, let us look at the short term cues.

As can be seen from the chart above, there is a stiff resistance at 17650 to 17700. On the downside there is a support at 17300 levels. After that the next support is at 17000.

Since SGX NIFTY is falling since the morning (AGAIN), it is safe to assume that NIFTY will open gap down and still fall further. So I will go long only with put options. I think 17800 PE can be safe. I will see at 9:15 AM where we stand. Selling 17700 CE is also great and most certainly safer.

Let us check BANKNIFTY

Here as well, I don't see anything easing for the Banks in the short term. The upper resistance stands around 37900. I don't think it will go there today.

The support is at 37300 and lower at about 36500. These are not encouraging signs.

Going long OTM is risky.

I may still go with 37300 PE or short 37500 CE.

Let's see how these strategies work out today.

Verdict

The gap down was massive in both NIFTY and BANKNIFTY and the general trend was downward.

But, in NIFTY going long on PUT options would have been bad.

Selling 17700 CE was fine. This would have been safer.

Same with BANKNIFTY. Buying a PUT option would not have done you wonders, unless you scalp. But selling a CALL option would have netted you good profits for the day.

A lot of Large Caps were available at a discount. Apart from that, there was nothing to note in particular.

In the end, I would say the results were mixed. Writing is generally better so this is not very surprising either. I would rate my results about 40% for the day since I personally ended with minor to moderate losses though my general prediction was not off.

I guess I lack confidence and conviction, here's hoping to gain it soon.

Thanks for reading. See you on Monday.

The curious case of the dairy farm of Bahalrampur

2021-08-25T21:19:00.006+05:30

Bahalrampur is a sleepy little village in Western Uttar Pradesh, India. Before independence the only thing people did there was rear sheep and farm in their fields. The highways connecting Delhi and Kolkata in the early 21st century brought what we call as modernity and development to this place. Now it is bustling (for a village) with people opening up businesses, tractors ploughing the fields and large fertilizer dealerships. There are also large dairy farms, each housing more than 200 cattle and selling milk to the ever increasing demand in the National Capital Region.

In the summer of 2020, just after the first hard wave of COVID was reaping its deadly harvest, this little village was coming to terms with a slackening consumer demand. Instead of the hundreds of large tankers of milk that flowed every day from the village to the Noida collection center of Amul, there were barely barely a few. The price of milk increased and the few remaining firms made a lot of money.

It was at this time, that something unusual happened. One of the unaffiliated farms started selling milk at a significant discount. For example, while a litre of milk from Amul cost Rs. 45, this farm was able to deliver the same for Rs. 30. In a month the demand was so high, they could raise this to Rs. 35 and still not be able to meet the demand. The existing dairy owners were in a fix and could just not keep up with such competitive pricing! They did what most villagers do - complained to the panchayat to investigate the owner for unfair practices. There were claims that these were funded by big corporate players who were okay with a temporary loss to gain market share and then earn big fat profits.

Not much came off it. There was a local investigation but the business continued. Eventually the record low price actually attracted attention at the Govt. Secretariat. The Govt. of UP apparently also has a tie up with the FCI (The Food Corporation of India) and they have the mandate to verify and certify the quality of agricultural or food produce. They visited the site, inspected the grounds and submitted a report stating that all was okay and the only reason they could operate was low labor costs. There was something fishy but probably a little bit of greasing eased the way and it did not find a mention in the report.

This was however noticed by some civil society sociopreneurs.

The price of Rs. 35 was not the major concern. The fact that they could keep this price WITHOUT diluting the milk and still manage production with 50 cattle WAS. They also requested the owner for a site visit and this was granted. I was a part of this team.

We managed to visit the site in late August. It was pouring. The roads were good, thankfully and there was no hold up while reaching the place. The property was spread over about 2 acres (not too huge for a similar operation of the size) and though the owner was not there, he had arranged for helpers to keep us company.

While the entire group was treated to mouth watering tea and snacks, I was on my way to the grounds. There were neat stacks of feed for the cattle. Obviously, the management of this farm stood out. Efficiency showed through - there was good sanitation facilities for the cattle and the goshala was constructed with local materials to save cost (and keep the cattle cool). Water provisioning for the cattle was in place and there was a conveyor belt for feeding as well. There were 4 workers to clean the premises - far too few, but they seems to be able to do the work well.

The group was being treated to a round lunch - with 11 different bowls of delicacies. This is normal and occurs in every single such inspection. I had in the meantime almost completed my rounds as well. The lassi, as everyone else stated, was apparently mouth watering. Most of the group was indoors by now. There were a couple walking around. It was raining again, briefly interspersed with thunder. It was then I heard something that was totally out of place.

Barks.

Very ordinary in a village in UP. Very very unusual in a cattle farm. One of the helpers understood I must have heard it. I looked at him, and he looked at me. I looked in the direction from where I heard it. He mumbled something about some 'Kalu'. Then there were multiple barks, and this time not from a single source.

"There can't be a single Kalu", I said and started walking quickly in the direction.

The helper followed me speaking gibberish, urging me to go back. After almost racing down for about a 100 yards, I came across a curtain. I removed it and saw something that I was not prepared for.

These were dogs. Not one. Not two.

Entire rows of dogs till the eye could see. Each of front and hind legs were tied in pairs and there was another chain on their neck. The thunderstorm had scared the poor creatures and they were completely scared. The same conveyor belt extended to this section too. It was clear they were being milked too.

There were 250 dogs in total. Collection centers were kept after about 50 dogs. The collectors of cow and dog milk were the same. All the dogs were collected from the street and kept there in the shed where they were pumped hormones to stimulate pregnancy. Just to keep the milk production going.

The Government crept in. The owner was (as far as I remember) arrested and the farm was auctioned off. The dogs were released, back into the streets. Some were rescued by animal friendly organizations. Or that was what they claimed. Bahalrampur however never reclaimed its status as a dairy producer anymore.

Note: The entire story above is a work of fiction, any semblance to reality is nothing but a coincidence.

Reaching the peaks of my own stupidity or not

2021-08-13T19:46:00.005+05:30

I have never considered myself to be particularly intelligent.

Though I have not had myself clinically diagnosed, anecdotal evidence and day to day activities amply demonstrate how stupid I am.

Now wait. This does not mean I am indulging in self pity.

No. Far from it. I have had successes in life. I continue to do well in things that I love to do. I have no complaints there. It is just that I do feel my intelligence lacking. My success is, therefore, despite my stupidity and I take some pride in it.

Of course defending the statement - 'I am stupid' is difficult. Especially without a test that ascertains the fact for certain.

I will make a more nuanced statement as a result. I have less intelligence than the average person around me. That is a more defensible stance and there are tests (even other than IQ) to confirm it.

Aptitude tests are a good example.

I do horrible in them.

Okay, there is an exception - I got into IITB. But that was me trying for a third time. In any case, that is an outlier and I can't consider one or two cases to justify anything. Statistically that would be a crime on my part.

Also, do note that there is a difference between being educated, skilled and wit. I lack the last not the first two. So, if I have some time to ponder over a decision, chances are I will arrive at the correct decision. But split second is not enough. Or, less enough than the average person.

Chess brings this out CONSISTENTLY. I have the knack to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (in the best cases). In the worst scenarios, the match does not even progress anything beyond the first 20 moves. I sit comfortably in the 40 percentile bracket (below average) out of players numbering more than a million. And I have played over four thousand games. What is interesting is that (all matches are timed) for matches that are timed over 10 or 15 minutes, I end up with a higher ELO rating, something close to even the low level Grandmasters. Which means that I have the skill, just that in lower timed matches my brain is not able to keep up with the requirements.

That is interesting.

I intend to put this to the test and will play 10 matches with 5+3 minutes on the clock and put the results down herein for analysis. I will share my lichess profiles for your analysis if you consider I am bluffing!

Game 1: DEFEAT

This was a good example where I was on the offensive and still managed to lose comfortably. Both of us were making minor mistakes, till I moved my queen to d6 and ran towards defeat. I can guarantee that almost no one with a sane mind will make that move in that position. Except me.

Game 2: DEFEAT

This was totally one sided. I was outplayed from almost the first move. Not much to see here.

Game 3: DEFEAT

This is one of the best example of my stupidity shining through. Few games can actually beat this.

Game 4: DEFEAT

Pretty much whitewashed in the end. Not much of a contest.

Game 5: DEFEAT

Pretty much whitewashed in the end. Again, not much of a contest.

Game 6: VICTORY

I was nowhere near victory, however, the opponent FELT that he was in a tough spot and simply gave up. I did not do very badly here though. But I won this because the other guy just gave up.

Game 7: VICTORY

I kind of distracted the opponent in this game. He made a number of blunders in the end game that allowed me to snatch this win.

Game 8: VICTORY

I fooled the opponent. This I can consider as a sweet victory that I did well.

Game 9: VICTORY

Again, fooled the opponent. This was a pretty smart move from my end. I baited the opponent to take my rook while did a classic Van't Kruijs opening.

Game 10: VICTORY

I kind of dominated the game. I will not make excuses here. The opponent was outplayed in almost every move. I will not say he was outmatched though. So yeah, credit goes to me.

Conclusion: I cannot come to a definite conclusion yet. Suffice to say that the outcome does go 50:50. Perhaps over a period of time, the ratio may skew towards either side. However, the percentile level shows I am slightly better than 13.3% of Blitz players. That is pretty bad.

Even considering cheating, mood to play, form and so on. This shows I am well below average.

The final verdict is not out on this one. But till then, if I have to play and win in Chess, I have to go the extra way.

Is it worth the time and effort (that is how I compensate for my lack of intelligence)?

I don't think so.

My love affair with ThinkPads

2020-09-08T15:46:00.002+05:30

I had never used a ThinkPad in my life till 2018. To be honest, I did not really see the benefit of using them anyway. Consumer series laptops (with plastic bodies) were the ones that I had always used before.

Then I was introduced to the rugged looks of the T60 and T61 original IBM ThinkPad designs that came out way back in 2004 or so. And I loved it.

Finding a ThinkPad that old did not appeal to me. I was impressed with the smaller compact X series laptops and decided to have either an X230 or an X220. Both of these are fairly similar and were launched about 8 years back. But they still sport good processors, plenty of memory upgradability, provision to add a maximum of three hard disks and a decent battery backup to boot.

My reasons to get this were simpler -

They are rugged, I like to use my laptops well
Memory is not soldered. There are plenty of options to upgrade.
The keyboards are probably the best in the world.

Why not get the latest ThinkPad?

Again, simple.

They come with a price tag of above Rs. 1 lakh. Not worth that much in my opinion.

These used ThinkPads offer the sweet spot to me when it comes to performance per unit value.

So in the end of 2018, I narrowed my search down to the ThinkPad x230 on olx. There was this guy who brought a piece in decent condition to RCity Mall, Ghatkopar for me to check out. I went out with my gloves, USB drives with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on it to check the peripherals, temperature, BIOS and so on. In the end I paid exactly 12900 for this piece (that I am writing on).

I brought it home, did a clean format of the Windows 7 it came with and installed Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. And never looked back. This has been my daily driver for almost the past two years and never have I had a chance to complain. The battery backup was slightly deficient but for a system this old, even a couple of hours of decent usage was okay.

Everything was good till just about a couple of weeks back. While using, the laptop suddenly shut down. I thought it was the thermals that failed. I allowed it to cool down a bit and tried to reboot. The lights came up, it appeared to have POSTed (but actually did not) and there was no display. Then I retried and it booted again and began to run as if everything was fine. After a while, I shut it down.

A few hours laters when I tried to reboot it, it refused to start up again. This time I had to try numerous times to get it to boot. It worked for sometime but then froze and seemingly died. I opened her up, swapped the SODIMMs, but could not even get a motherboard beep sound. This was serious. Display was certainly not the issue. It is not that it did not work all the time. For every 10 times I pressed the start button, there were 2 or 3 times that it would boot to the ThinkPad logo and things would be fine. Rest of the times, the fans spinned, the lights came up for the HDD and nothing happened beyond that.

I searched for more indications of what might have happened on the Internet. There were two options. One was a power supply issue. This was easy to diagnose. If the battery was malfunctioning, I could simply try to boot with the direct cable in and the battery out. This did not work. The other possibility was the dreaded GPU solder related issue. Older motherboards often would have their solder cracked and broken that connects it to the motherboard. The fix for this is complex and not very long lasting (as far as I have seen from tomshardware). So called up this guy I found on Google Maps with a good rating. He came, took my laptop and headed home.

About a week later he called up and stated that he had fixed my machine and he would expect to get about Rs. 3k for the repair job. I was okay. A day later he said that the fix was not permanent and he will not be able to do much more. Of course, he would not charge beyond the Rs. 350 diagnostics charge. So this guy was good, but the laptop was not saved. I got it back in a couple of days.

Then I opened her up. I found the older RAM stick gone and replaced with a newer one. The hard disc I had removed earlier only. I disassembled the entire system down to its barebones and gave it a thorough cleaning. Then I reassembled it along with the HDD and the extra 4 GB of DDR3 1600 MHz RAM stick that was laying around. Then I pressed the start button.

And she came back to life.

It still is not perfect. The system still does misbehave from time to time and I understand the underlying issue still remains (that of the Bridge having a loose connection). The inbuilt keyboard and trackpad module also ceases to function properly from time to time. Only reboot fixes it, or (like now) you got to add an external keyboard and mouse to continue working.

So here I am. Once again scouring the market to get good deals on this very laptop model. Nothing more advanced will do (because this is the last one that supports the PCI Expressway slot). The more modern ones with Thunderbolt have crappy modern chiclet keyboards. There are more options available in the other metro cities of India (Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore). For some reason, in Kolkata they are very hard to track. Let’s see how far this search goes.

Update: 05 September

I finally tracked down a reseller of Lenovo ThinkPads way out in Dum Dum. The place is named SibuOnline, managed by a Hare Krishna devotee - Sibsankar Dutta. I got the same ThinkPad x230 - in decent condition. Armed with an i5 3320m processor, 4 GB of DDR3 Memory clocked at 1333 MHz and a 320 GB hard drive, it was almost exactly a replica of the one I owned before. The keyboard on this however is not backlit, there is only the ThinkLight to illuminate the laptop in darkness. So probably I will replace the keyboard on this one with the other one. But otherwise, I have been using this for about a week now and dare I say, I don’t have any complaints. The battery is duplicate from what I could gather but that is okay since it holds a charge unlike the other one. I hope I will be able to use this for at least another three to four years.

Thoughts on Money and Life

2020-08-28T22:49:00.006+05:30

Money can not buy everything.

But it does make things easier.

Money can't make you feel good. But an AC on a hot day may make you better better than otherwise.

It is one of the biggest cliches that you must have come across numerous times in life. It is not necessarily true though. There have been a lot of dramas, stories and philosophers' notes on this topic. But at the end of the day ONLY those who have the luxury of meeting their basic needs in life can ponder over these questions anyway. The poor do not have this luxury. For the vast majority of them, money is actually ALWAYS a good thing.

The next higher rung in society is what we know as the Salaried class today.

I am one.

We work the week (and sometimes beyond) and get paid for it. We are the ones that actually run the factories, drive the cars for businesses, teach kids in school and colleges, report stuff to papers, manage projects for businesses and so on. We differ in two very crucial aspects to the group that sits above us (figuratively). The Business.

1. We do not decide how much we make (beyond pitiful negotiations for a raise)

2. We do not have total control over the time we can take off.

These two are critical disadvantages though. Our maximum limit (that we can earn) is actually a fixed ceiling. There are alternatives to this exact model where there are the bonuses that you can get.

However, total freedom comes from earning whatever you want for working however long you want to.

But then there is a catch. With the added freedom comes additional risk.

As a salaried person, you never really have to worry about running the business in general (unless you are in that specific role). The risks of the business operations do not lie on you. That is often a good thing.

So is there ever a way out?

A kind of existence that we used to have when we were kids?

Probably not. But there is a next best thing.

The solution is deceptively simple but very difficult to come to terms with. There are people who have done it - with varying degrees of success, depending on the extremes you wish to go to.

Take the Hindu Naga Sadhus for instance. They have given up all material possessions in the world. They don't have to report to bosses or give justification for their actions to the board. They are actually 'free'.

Of course, that is not practical for the vast majority of people.

What we can do instead, is to learn to live simpler - have fewer expectations, fewer demands from Life. Instead of a Merc, a simpler smaller car would be fine. Instead of a Rolex, a Titan should do well enough. In place of a massive bungalow, a small house or apartment can house use good.

Earning more or even saving more to build up a big portfolio is not the way to financial freedom, as far as I have seen. With increased incomes, you will notice your demands grow proportionately. When I was a kid, I used to be content with the cheapest of ice creams. Now would I go for it? Probably not!

There is of course the societal pressures that exist as well. Even if you don't really need a high paying job, your colleagues, friends and relatives will ensure that you continue.

The problem is that Life is short. It is too short to live someone else's Life. If you are a mid level professional you are probably in your early to mid 30s. You have almost lived half of your life.

Don't be a slave.

What do you have to lose?

A Super Rainy visit to Diamond Harbor

2020-08-23T13:00:00.004+05:30

There are not many places you can go to during this lockdown.

There are friends' places you can go to. And relatives.

If you wish to go further and visit more distance places (if you are residing in a city) - things become a lot more difficult.

One - there is the threat of the virus.

Second - there is a psychological issue that works. Why go so far when we can just chill at home?

The point is that there is only so much 'chill' a person can do at home, especially since the virtual house arrests already make sure you are AT HOME most of the time. And it has been months.

So on we went to the last stop the river Hooghly makes before meeting the Bay of Bengal.

This was the destination.

We did not plan to stay a night, it was just going to be a simple visit - spend a couple of hours and come back.

It was raining all the way (almost) on our way to the town. Fortunately it had stopped when we reached there.

We could see the rains pouring on the other bank of the river and the chimneys of factories and brick kilns dotting all over the landscape.

A doggo pack was on the prowl on the NH 117 (the infamous highway that connects Behala to Diamond Harbor town). One of them must have been fed up with his life. As soon as he saw the car approaching, he jumped. The car hit, he cried. At the time, I was under the impression that he was a goner - probably got Moksha. On our way back we did not manage to see any trace of the body though. So I guess he was only injured.

Some interesting observations were made on our way and once we reached there.

The place seriously lacked the following -

A decent place where people could sit and chat
A clean environment - there were absolutely no garbage disposal bags whatsoever.
Half of the seats built facing the river had already been taken by the river itself.
The road connecting the town from Kolkata city had 2 lanes ONLY. For most of the road, considering the fact that there are limited connectivity options - this was extremely inadequate.

If I can sum all the above in a single line - it would be that the place was negligence personified. No excuse of destruction due to Amphan can suffice. Even the entry to the only Hotel run West Bengal Tourism was hopelessly filthy.

But the weather was nice, the rains washed the roads clean. The green foliage around appeared greener, the contrast was great. Tiny town markets were dotted on the road and they looked exactly the same as they did about twenty years back. Time had really stood still for much of West Bengal's hinterland.

Recommendations for future tourists / travelers

Come with no expectations - you will like this place
Book a room in a hotel. The riverside practically does not exist, but the river does. From what I can see from the photos - the interiors of these hotels are great. Besides, a stroll will do you good.
The road connecting to this place is narrow and there are some extremely aggressive buses that ply - drive carefully. Very carefully.
You can get fish cheap - usually every evening right by the market on the road. You can even see the boats coming ashore and offloading their freezers to sell their day's catch.
If you plan to visit and leave on the same day, there is no need to pack your food. The restaurants are closed, true. But they do provide takeaway services. Plus, there are super cheap roadside didir dokans (Bengalis will get this). If you are super health conscious, get biscuits or stay at home.

Zaira Wasim stirs the nest

2020-05-30T20:02:00.002+05:30

Introduction

I have never seen Zaira Wasim act. Never got myself to see Dangal.

There was a lot of outcry when she left Bollywood for Islam (in her words, not mine).

Outraged Hindus generally said stuff like this was obvious and had to happen. The folks in the media and the film industry were saddened, some called her an ingrate while Muslims mostly celebrated her.

To be entirely honest, regardless of her motives for leaving the industry, I applaud her determination. Not many can do that despite being successful. Had it been Tusshar Kapoor (I am not aware of his present name spelling) leaving the moh maya and going to the Himalayas, I would have understood.

In any case, the 'return to Islam' or the 'Right Path' as she called in her original tweet was genuine.

Yesterday, I saw her trending on Twitter India!

Zaira trends on Twitter. Again!

This is what she wrote.

She faced a LOT of flak from others - stick whatever labels you wish on them. But she swiftly deactivated her profile (temporarily) and left.

That did not last.

She came back and her tweet continues to shine on her wall (I am not sure what you call it).

Link

https://twitter.com/ZairaWasimmm/status/1265540285997764608

Her profile status also was interesting.

'If the truth shall kill them, let them die.'

Let us discuss both.

The response to the first tweet is along expected lines. Muslims are supporting her with the following justifications -

Freedom of speech
Just a quote from the Qura'an.
We should introspect about what is going on rather than shoot the messenger
'They' just hate Islam, that is why Zaira is being targeted

There are some permutations and combinations but the logic revolves around the above.

The non Muslims, primarily Hindus (if twitter aliases are to be believed) are also predictable.

This is hate speech
Islam hates us
This was said before, nothing happened
Religious indoctrination is too deep
She is brainwashed
This is expected

Again, the vast majority os statuses revolve around the above themes.

Also let me state for a fact here, I do not condone her statement nor do I choose to ignore it outright. This is a critical examination only, nothing more. If cases are lodged against her for promoting hate, law should take its own course. Anybody offended by this post henceforth are free to connect in the comments below. In case there is merit to them, I am perfectly willing to take it off publication.

Now, let us go slightly deeper.

Digging deeper for context of the religious justification

I, for one, do not like to dismiss an educated woman's point of view as 'brainwashing'. People have their opinions. And in this case quoting THIS particular verse has a greater significance. Especially with the timing.

The good thing is that unlike most religions, Islam claims to be an easy religion to understand. It prides in itself to be simple. So, that gives us the ability to read and discuss it knowing that we will automatically understand it and hence critically examine the relevance of Wasim quoting it.

So let me point out the verse to you here.

The same verse in a very slightly modified version is quoted by the reputable Sahih International.

So We sent upon them the flood and locusts and lice and frogs and blood as distinct signs, but they were arrogant and were a criminal people.

A superficial reading will appear slightly offensive, considering that this looks like a justification for the floods due to the super cyclones in West Bengal, Odisha, Bangladesh and the recent locust attacks in vast regions of Pakistan and the Indian border states.

But it goes much beyond that.

For that we need the context of the verse.

Reading a few verses before and after gives us a better clue. I am following the Sahih International version. Other accepted versions are also perfectly alright (since folks converting to Islam who do not know Arabic use these).

And We certainly seized the people of Pharaoh with years of famine and a deficiency in fruits that perhaps they would be reminded.

This actually refers to an anciet story in the Abrahamic tradition, meaning it is not original. But that is not important.

What is happening here is that, according to the Qura'an, Allah had sent Moses to the Pharaohs as a Messenger (called Firaun in the Islamic tradition) to deliver the message of Islam ie. become Muslims. However, they decline again and again. By they, it is refered to the people of Egypt as a whole, since famine and deficiency did not affect the ruling kings as much as it did the general populace.

However, the people of Egypt and the pharaoh's subjects ignore these 'signs'. This is verse 7:131

But when good came to them, they said, "This is ours [by right]." And if a bad [condition] struck them, they saw an evil omen in Moses and those with him. Unquestionably, their fortune is with Allah, but most of them do not know.

The next one is a defiant proclamation from the non muslim Egyptian subjects of the Pharaoh.

And they said, "No matter what sign you bring us with which to bewitch us, we will not be believers in you."

The very next is the one Wasim quoted (with a minor translation difference).

So We sent upon them the flood and locusts and lice and frogs and blood as distinct signs, but they were arrogant and were a criminal people.

7:134 shows a change in heart of the people due to all the suffering.

And when the punishment descended upon them, they said, "O Moses, invoke for us your Lord by what He has promised you. If you [can] remove the punishment from us, we will surely believe you, and we will send with you the Children of Israel."

In 7:135 we see the people stopped believing in Allah when the 'curse' was removed.

But when We removed the punishment from them until a term which they were to reach, then at once they broke their word.

So, verse 7:136 shows what happened to the people and the kingdom.

So We took retribution from them, and We drowned them in the sea because they denied Our signs and were heedless of them.

The signs here are the signs of Divinity or miracles.

The capital 'W' in 'We' means the retribution, in this case the genocide, was 'Divine'. The following verse shows what happened to the people without ambiguity.

And We caused the people who had been oppressed to inherit the eastern regions of the land and the western ones, which We had blessed. And the good word of your Lord was fulfilled for the Children of Israel because of what they had patiently endured. And We destroyed [all] that Pharaoh and his people were producing and what they had been building.

The most plausible explanation

To give you a very very brief introduction to the life and culture of Pre Islamic and Pre Judeo-Christian Egypt - we have to go to the ancient belief systems of the Egyptians. They had numerous Gods and Goddesses, not unlike the Greek Pantheon. Their Gods had idols and these were worshipped with great pomp and glamor.

I can only guess. But this may be analogous to the Hindu civilisation of today as well. Like the Egyptians then, we also have been witness to the 'signs' and we have remained on our path of our native belief systems (Hindu/Boudh/Jain/Sikh/animism etc). Islam finds a major issue with the concept of shirk (assigning partners to God) and in all likelihood that is what Ms. Wasim is refering to.

So yes, it is a little more than JUST a justification for the misfortune the poor of this country (and many others) have found themselves in. Farmers are losing their produce, disease has taken its toll on the economy and the future is, at best, uncertain.

Ms.Wasim perhaps takes comfort in the fact that this is Allah's wrath on the pagans. Unlike her, 'we' did not 'walk on the Right path'. Our aversion to Truth, she indicates, is the cause for our downfall.

Of course, you can say that these are my deductions, not hers. I would agree with your but for the timing of her post.

To further stress on her point, she keeps her status as one spoken by the philosopher Emmanuel Kant - "If the truth shall kill them, let them die". It is debated that Ayn Rand may be paraphrasing him instead, but the context is something like this - even if one needs to lie to save oneself, one should not. There is a detailed discussion that you can refer to here.

But the point is that the focus on the quote itself strengthens her position so that she/Allah does not have to bear responsibility for the misfortune of the people at the receiving end of 'His Wrath'.

I will ignore the trolls here because their inane comments is a knee jerk response to something more profound and something that requires more thinking. The religious justifications fit much better and the hope/prophecy for the destruction of the pagans (in this case probably Hindus) and at least in this context makes this close to hate speech.

Hindus taking offence are not at fault here. Just that they are probably mostly unaware how much worse it is for them. Muslims supporting her can also barely be faulted since she quoted directly out of their Holy text verbatim. Pending any clarification or refutal of claims to the contrary, it is safe to assume she knew what she was writing and what she meant.

If I were the authorities, I would keep an eye on Ms.Wasim. Once you are free to wish ill of your fellow human beings just because they belong to a different religion, you are just one step away from doing worse to them on your own.

The original tweet is here. You can check the Twitter trends here.

Life in the time of Corona

2020-03-23T18:36:00.001+05:30

Times surely have changed.

I never really expected Mumbai to shut down to quickly and completely.
Sure, you see reports of traffic jams even today. But there is no denying that things have taken a turn for the worse.

This was how Phoenix Market City, Kurla looked like. And this was last week.

This is me going to office on March 13.

I have got permission for Work from Home. I don't know if that is good enough. So I have my friends here in the apartment and my laptop for company. Food or grocery delivery is difficult now. Big Basket has stopped delivery temporarily. Grofers was still in service. Ordered a few things but I am supposed to get them on 1st April only.
Travelling is out of the question. Had it been earlier, I would probably have moved home. Now that is nearly impossible. Domestic airlines are shutting down from Wednesday onward. International flights had stopped since March 22 (my birthday). Trains have also stopped. So, I am stuck here.
I don't see this as entirely bad though. I have time to study and do a number of things that I did not have much time for. Like singing or cooking. Already cooked a couple of simple dishes today. More to come.
I have also returned to reading books. I re-read Antony Beevor's Stalingrad. The way human beings could fight, survive and die under impossible conditions is always a source of inspiration.
Things are probably not as bad in Kolkata yet. The news reports suggest so. Maharashtra is the worst hit. Let's see how things turn out in the next week.
Stay safe.

Destroyed or Occupied Mandirs or Stupas in India

2019-12-09T23:59:00.001+05:30

This is not my regular type of post.

We know from evidence that Mandirs and Stupas (and other monuments like universities) were demolished/occupied and often even replaced by invaders. Several historical accounts both contemporary and today acknowledge this. The legendary Sita Ram Goel made one of the first comprehensive study of the destroyed temples that dot the landscape of the Indian subcontinent. However, the list of these temples or other buildings are difficult to find (other than his original book). There is another book by Prafulla Goradia, namely 'Hindu Masjids' that speaks specifically about Hindu temples that are currently under occupation.

The main problem is that this information is difficult to find. Unless one is a scholar, or has a special inclination towards reading history - one cannot be expected to stumble upon this on their own.

Hence, it is important that a easy to find repository of all monuments with a wound is recorded for posterity. My own humble attempt to fill this gap is in the way of this website - https://sarthakganguly.github.io/mutewitnesses/

This is our frontend

Before you dismiss this as an amateur site, let me explain how this can make a lot of difference.

Since I wish this material to be understood by the greatest possible audience, I will keep the technical jargon limited.

What you see in the web page is a list of mandirs that are in various states of ruin. Their status, the date when they were built or destroyed, a picture, some details etc are present.

The advantage is that the data that you see here is entered only via a Google sheet.

You can easily contribute to the data set. Once you get access to this Google Sheet (when I give you access), you have to enter the details as shown below.

Destroyed Mandir List - in Google Sheets

This makes the data entry and management part extremely simple. When you add a new entry, the page will automatically change when you reload it.

Several other advantages are mentioned below:

It is totally free, all you need is a Google account. Send me a DM via @thecodepost and I will grant you the same.
Worried that your data may be deleted and the site broken? Not a problem. Google Sheets has sheet history built in. If I see an issue with the website, I will simply restore the Google Sheets to a previous date.
Access control is built in - if you get write access, you will not be able to share it with others.
Data validations will be put in, soon.
I will add search functionality in some time as well.

If you people like this site and this gets some traction, I will buy a domain name and redirect my GitHub page to the domain. This will increase our visibility and anyone with a doubt about the authenticity of our claims will only have to go to this site to know which mandir was destroyed and when.

For those of you who are technically inclined, I have covered this in a post here at The Code Post.

Pakistan returns 400 temples to Hindus - A Hindu response

2019-11-13T21:23:00.001+05:30

I came across this post by the reknowned author, William Darymple on Pakistan promising to renovate and return 400 temples to the Hindu community.

Something of a contrast...

Pakistan to restore, hand over 400 Hindu temples https://t.co/ufTdlW3joH via @indiatoday
— William Dalrymple (@DalrympleWill) November 12, 2019

That is great.

However, there was something problematic about the tweet. Notice the first line - 'Something of a contrast'. The inference is hard to miss. The fact that the Indian Supreme Court had given its verdict recently to return the Ram Janmabhoomi to the Hindus stands (as per William) in direct contrast to Pakistan returning its temples to Hindus. The moral signalling is relevant. Hindu majority India is handing 'Muslim' places of worship to Hindus, while Pakistan being a Muslim majority nation is transferring Hindu places of worship back to Hindus.

Katas Raj Mandir Comples

Indian nationalists will take a serious offence at the patronising tone, as Pakistani liberals have already done. After driving the bulk of Pakistan's minorities out of the nation and committing outright genocide in 1971 in its Eastern wing, Pakistan can be no model of minority rights to speak of. Hundreds of thousands of temples lie in ruins, are under occupation, the Hindu population either converted or evicted. Such a nation returning 400 temples to a nearly non exisitng Hindu population ( even assuming they actually fulfill this promise) is more of a PR exercise than a genuine change of heart. In contrast, in India, the Muslim population has grown to nearly 16% of the population and the number of masjids built is the highest in the world.

But that is the way Indian nationalists would be expected to respond.

My point is different.

The objective of the original tweet is a common sentiment of virtue signalling. The point is that Hindus or India (interchangably used) are more narrow minded than Muslims and the proof is the different treatment given to the Babri Masjid and the Hindu temples in Pakistan. The motive is simple - to inflict a sense of guilt in the mind of an ordinary Hindu for being a hate monger and pride in a Muslim for being tolerant and celebrating a vibrant past.

I look at it entirely differently. As a RamBhakt, I am grateful to Alimighty Gods that the Ram Mandir can now be rebuilt in Ayodhya. I am also grateful to the Government of Pakistan assuming that they actually intend to return the temples to Hindus for resuming worship. If the temples are restored to Hindus (as is their right), it will bring peace to the region and instill bhakti among the people. I reject the trade that is implicitly expected of Hindus - Pakistan is returning Hindu temples. Therefore, Indians should cease asking for restoration of their own temples in India.

Whoa! It makes no sense, does it?

Once you chip away the irrational logic that masquerades as a virtue or a perverted trade off of faith so to say - you see that the underlying analogy does not stand scrutiny.

The Ram Janmabhoomi belongs to the Hindus. As do the temples (that are often used as toilets) of Pakistan. Restoring monuments to their rightful owners is where the actual virtue lies in.

So yes, I welcome the move by the Government of Pakistan, provided the same is in good spirit, as I do regarding their support in the Kartarpur corridor. In the same spirit, I also support the right of Hindus to demand the restoration of their places of worship all over the world, including India. May we free them all in the near future.

The Hindu Revivalist Movement - The path ahead

2019-11-10T18:22:00.000+05:30

The Ram Mandir verdict was pronounced by the Supreme Court of India yesterday. The judgement was decisive as it clearly asked the state to handover the erstwhile disputed site to the Hindus for the building of a Ram Mandir and the Muslims to be given a 5 acre land for the construction of a Masjid if they need one.

Both sides seem to have accepted the judgement so far. Of course, neither side could do much in any case. The judgement was unanimous, all five judges pronounced the verdict in favor of the Ram Mandir and hence the chance of a review petition by any party was unlikely to be entertained by the Court. Besides, the Hindus got what they wanted (mostly) as they have restored ownership to the 2.77 acres of land where the previous Mandir was supposed to have been standing.

Wat Chaiwatthanaram, Ayutthaya, Thailand

I will not go into archaeological evidence again to justify the verdict. The court has done a decent job in noting the reports that were provided to it by the ASI proving the existence of the pre Islamic Mandir on the same site. I am more interested in the aftermath and the implications that this judgement may have on the future course of events regarding policy and Hindu Muslim relations.

Influence on future policy and matters of State

First, let us come to the matter of policy. I as a Hindu am genuinely greateful for the verdict and am happy that the Ram Mandir is going to be built in the Ram Janmabhoomi, Ayodhya. Even though I don't feel the Supreme Court is best positioned to provide a judgement on this particular matter. Under the present circumstances it is hard to argue for a more competent institution that can provide a legal basis for the renewed ownership of the land by the Hindus. In that case, this is a positive development.

The biggest winners are obviously the kar sevaks (who often shed their lives in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement) and the millions of Hindus who prayed with baited breath for a judgement in their favor. The Muslims who take their religion seriously are equally will undoubtedly be very dejected and many will question their decision to stay behind in India. The secular and left liberal folks will be the most dejected lot. Their outright calls for the evidence being tainted - have been all been rejected in light of the evidence that refutes such arguments. Certainly, one can't expect them to suddenly wind up and relegate themselves to the dustbin of history. But their relevance will henceforth be significantly curtailed. In terms of Government policy as well, a change may very well come now - that of acknowledgement of the fact that there are several monuments that were built on the top of another by force. A closer scrutiny of such monuments will most likely begin soon.

The influence on Hindus and Muslims

The greatest apprehension for the Muslim community lies in the fact that this, they fear, is only the beginning of a range of demands that the Hindus have. The slogans of the yesteryears - 'Ayodhya to bas jhanki hain, Kashi Mathura abhi baaki hain' meaning Ayodhya is only a trailer/beginning, Kashi and Mathura are still left. The point is unmistakable. The Hindus (led by the VHP, Sangh whatever you call it) claim to recover the ownership of other buildings that were usurped by the Muslims during the Mughal period. Of these, in Mathura lies the Shahi Idgah built by Alamgir (Aurangzeb) after demolishing the Krishna Janmabhoomi. The other place of contention is the Gyanvapi Masjid built after desecrating the Gyanvapi Mandir in Kashi.

Now herein lies the problem. There are hundreds or even thousands of other temples and stupas that have either been entirely destroyed or have mosques built on top of them. It is a matter of good fortune that many of these places have been taken over by the ASI, preventing the regular Islamic worship in the places. But the fact remains that the places are still under Islamic occupation. And even though the politicians may (and probably will) raise the bogey of these temples to fetch votes - the individual Hindu or Muslim may hold these temples and masjids far closer to their hearts.

For the Hindus, this becomes trickier. With growing education, they have come to know about a great of information that was denied to him. The same applies to the Muslim too. But while the tales of destruction of temples may be traumatic for the Hindus, the Muslims have a very different take on this matter. Their simple claim is that of adverse possession. In simple terms, Muslims believe that in the medieval times, Muslim rulers defeated hindu kings in battle and thereby took possession of the lands along with whatever stood on top of it. Therefore destruction of temples, though deplorable, was a matter of the medieval state. Eventually, the Muslim community has grown attached to it and for them it has become a matter of faith as much as it is for the Hindus. Of course, the perversion of logic is clear here as the location of a place like Krishna or Ram Janmabhoomi is of much much greater significance to the Hindus when compared to Muslims. Especially since Islam itself does not give much importance to any place as a holy place barring the ones in Arabia. But such calls have repeatedly fallen on deaf ears and the standard Muslim response to requests for return of Hindu holy sites under Muslim occupation has been straight forward - silence or violence.

There is also a genuine fear among the Muslim leadership. Any honest Muslim knows the motivation for the iconoclasm of the Islamic leaders and kings in the past. The example of the Prophet regarding the destruction of Kaaba idols and conversion of the same into an Islamic place of pilgrimage is recorded in primary Islamic sources itself. As a result, the fear is this - if Hindus ask for the return of all the places under Islamic occupation in India, there will be very few places of Islamic history left to be considered entirely Muslim as far as heritage is concerned. This, they legitimately fear, may lead to the severe weakening of Islam and their own influence over their population and by continuation - their power.

What is likely to happen?

I will leave aside political parties. Their fickle minded vote winning strategies will continue changing, regardless of the party in power or opposition. But the dynamics of Hindus and Muslims have been altered forever. Hindus are no longer the all tolerant (such illusion was broken in 1992 though)_mish mash that Gandhi symbolised. The weakness is no longer visible in a significant portion of the Hindu discourse. The Muslim side on the other side is beginning to fragment - with one side accepting the injustice meted out to Hindus in previous generations hoping that the same acknowledgement will grant them equal status as citizens (which many Muslims believe is not granted to them now). The other and more significant majority (as far as making the most noise is concerned) is turning more anti Hindu in response thereby increasing the communal gaps that were already existing. This will most likely lead to a hardening of position in both the Hindu and Muslim camps, thereby culminating in a low level civil war. How the State, the Economoy and the civil society responds to this event (if it comes) remains to be seen. The lack of pragmatism of the Muslim leadership will precipitate a greater crisis, aided by an increasingly intransigent Hindu leadership. Eventually a Muslim exodus or a partition along the lines of 1947 does not seem unlikely.

A civilized solution would probably be to simply accept the fact that older buildings were usurped by Islamic rulers and that the idea of Islam itself is to be blamed for the same instead of the people of this generation. Education should play the biggest role. First hand accounts should be taught in schools. The Muslims have to understand and accept the role of Islam in these acts of iconoclasm. The Hindus will have to appreciate the fact the Muslims today are not to be blamed for the ill deeds of the Muslim sultans then. Eventually, the hope should be such that the Muslims themselves should come to see the mistake of their leadership and hand over the places of worship back to the Hindus/Jains/Buddhists etc. Perhaps such a crisis of faith may even lead to something similar to the fall of the Wall - wherein their belief in Islam as an ideology may be shaken beyond redemption. Such an outcome is what one may hope for if the blood of innocents are to be spared, perhaps in the next fifty years or so. One can only hope.