Books and Beyond: Desi, with a ‘phoren’ touch

THE story of the man who contributed the most towards moving us from words printed on paper to those on electronic screens became a runaway bestseller of 2011. Steve Jobs gave us the devices that changed our reading habits, and here he was, being celebrated not only in his preferred media, but also in the conventional pulp book format. Reports of the ‘death of the book’ have been greatly exaggerated. Readership expanded, and both traditional publishers and e-book publishers gained.

Internationally, authors too gained, since they were now being courted by both kinds of publishers. Of course, those who wrote really good books, like the Delhi-born Siddhartha Mukherjee, added new feathers to their cap. This doctor-author got fresh recognition for his last year’s much-acclaimed book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. While on his side of the pond, he won the prestigious 2011 Pulitzer Prize in the general non-fiction category, on the other side; he also bagged the Guardian First Book Award just before the year ended.

The writer of tomes Arun Shourie’s Does He Know a Mother’s Heart? touched the heart of everyone who read the story of his family’s battle with disabilities. We had yet another book, and another controversy, on Mahatma Gandhi, with Joseph Lelyveld’s Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle with India.

Arundhati Roy, the great cerebral controversy queen, published a book without writing one, and thus we had Broken Republic: Three Essays. Talking of writers who published books without writing them, the king of the bestseller charts continued his winning streak with Khushwant Singh on Women, Sex, Love and Lust, which was compiled and edited by Ashok Chopra, as was Agnostic Khushwant: There is No God! which came out near the end of the year.

The man who has changed what the word ‘bestseller’ means for Indian publishing, Chetan Bhagat, built on his reputation by selling lakhs of books within days of releasing Revolution 2020: Love. Corruption. Ambition. Often books that critics love don’t make that much of an impact on bestseller lists. Among the top-10 list we consistently have two other Bhagat titles — 2 States: The Story of My Marriage and The Three Mistakes of My Life. Talking of numbers, we now have Nielsen BookScan which is gathering data from book stores and publishers nationwide.

We seek new understanding of the new world order and this has brought new books like Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within by Shishir Gupta and The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam.

On the fiction front, Amitav Ghosh won much acclaim with his detailed and multi-layered work River of Smoke, Aravind Adiga gave us Last Man in Tower, Aatish Taseer Noon, and Tarun J. Tejpal The Valley of Masks.

Memoirs formed a significant part of our reading appetite, be they those of the veteran journalist S. Nihal Singh who wrote Ink in my Veins, or No Higher Honour by the former US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Chandigarh’s own Abhinav Bindra teamed up with sports writer Rohit Brijnath and gave an interesting account in A Shot at History: My Obsessive Journey to Olympic Gold.‘Business tycoons gave their accounts of their lives, be it Vinay Bharat Ram whose From the Brink of Bankruptcy: The DCM Story made it to the bestseller list, or real estate magnates Ansals and DLF.

Yes, while international publishers sold many books to Indian readers, including some through various kinds of electronic devices and e-book readers, it was the traditional book that ruled the roost, and largely Indian authors found resonance among avid readers.

This article by Roopinder Singh was published in a special yearend issue of The Tribune titled 2011: The Year of Uprisings

Computing became more than mainstream, it became personal. Mobile internet access became an agent of change that connected people far beyond their geographic limitations

COMPUTERS are truly devices held in millions of hands worldwide. They connect the world like never before, and make it a global village. The world of technology lost its icon in 2011, but Steve Jobs left his mark for all to see. The computer came into our hands through smartphones and tablets this year. We had operating systems that competed with each other, hardware that out-specked its competition and even new applications that re-invented the old and gave it a twist. Such was the pace of new offerings that there was an embarrassment of riches that left consumers happy, though bemused.

WHEN AAKASH IS THE LIMIT: The small and inexpensive Indian tablet Aakash made news for being the only tablet that is available for Rs 2,500

With India finally being recognised as an important market, we saw product releases that were synchronised with international ones, and, at times, we got products that other markets, especially the US, did not have.

Everyone has a smart electronic gadget in their hands. Why, our honourable Members of Parliament, too, are getting assistance to get and use tablets so that Parliament can go significantly paperless. Not that much paper got used in the few sessions that the honourable MPs sat down for business, but that’s another story.

Jobs’ baby, iPhone 4S, came four months later than expected. It was not bigger than its predecessor, and was not the much-awaited iPhone 5, but it still became a bestseller, and had enough new features — the fast A5 processor, an improved camera and Siri, its voice-activated digital assistant — to make it stand out.

On the software front, the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich from Google strutted its stuff, including the capability to unlock a phone through facial recognition. Hardware from Samsung, Motorola and others improved to an extent where smart phones became faster than computers, and came with dual core processors.

As for tablets, our very own Aakash became the game-changer by breaking a price barrier and delivering functional tablets for less. For those who have more, the iPad 2 is still the market leader by a large margin. Yet, like the iPhone version only gained incrementally as it is thinner, faster and has two cameras now.

Everyone aspires to beat iPad2, and with Android tablets nipping at its heels, Apple launched a barrage of suits against its rivals, even as Amazon came out with the Kindle Fire, an e-book reader that is much more, and Nook brought out its own attractive product.

As consumption devices, tablets are now displacing laptops. Not that laptops are going extinct. Since people still have to work by typing on their keyboards, laptops are fast evolving into ultra books — the very thin versions with flash memory and the ability to start instantly. Apple’s MacBook Air is one such device already available. Others in the Windows world are just on the horizon, with Intel backing them.

In a world dominated by slick and expensive gadgets, the small and inexpensive tablet Aakash made news simply by being there, the only tablet that is available on sale online for Rs 2,500. Datawind, the company that assembles it, created quite a stir, and got more than four lakh orders from individual and corporate customers.

Many months before Aakash made waves worldwide, people were already looking at the skies, looking for the ‘super moon’ which brought the moon closest to the earth in 19 years.

Mankind’s quest for more information about planet Mars continued. NASA’s probes worked at finding traces of life on the planet as a new $2.5 billion nuclear-powered rover was sent to the Red Planet in November. On the other hand, the Russian attempt to launch a probe failed, because of a mechanical problem with the rocket.

A quest of another kind continued as the search for evidence of Higgs Boson continued. It is also called ‘The God Particle’ and is critical in our effort to understand the structure of matter. Did you know that the sub-atomic particles, Bosons are named after the physicist Satyendra Nath Bose?

Indian scientists continued to search the skies as they sent satellites skywards on Indian rockets. ISRO scored far more hits than misses in 2011 by adding might to the defence forces with successful testing of Prithvi missile, and to India’s space mission by PSLV launches. Thus, we not only reached for akash, we also held our very own Aakash in our hands.

This article by Roopinder Singh was published in a special yearend issue of The Tribune titled 2011: The Year of Uprisings

Herman came to us as an exchange student from St Stithians Boys College, Johannesburg, South Africa, where our son Jansher maintains was the best time he had in his life, as an exchange student earlier in the year. The boys met at school, though Jansher was hosted by the ‘awesome’ Leigh family. Herman’s mother Charin had taken them to Soccer City and some other places. Herman came to us after a stint at Doon School.

He is a handsome well-behaved child who has a ready smile, and as we soon discovered, is quite witty and a pleasure to have around the house. Yet there was also something about him that made you wonder about what exactly made him tick. It stuck a familiar note, since I have seen something similar, having spent much of my childhood with people from privileged families. They had a background which would make others envious, but one which they took lightly.

We did not know too much about Herman. He didn’t go into any details regarding his parents and we did not want to probe. In any case, it was a welcome change, since the statement “Don’t you know who my father is?” reminds one too much of spoilt children asking for special treatment.

As days passed, he became a part of the family and we started sharing much more. He would often talk about his father, who we now knew, was a senior official with the international auditing giant, KPMG. It was, however, his mother, who obviously had much influence on him, and who he looked up to. “What does your mother do?” I asked him one day. “She is a prosecutor,” he said.

Over dinner, yesterday, as we munched our way through tikkas and kababs, we found out much more about her. Herman had neglected to mention that not only was his mother a prosecutor, but that she was actually the Director of Prosecutions in Johannesburg. “After the Zuma episode, I decided to devote my time to my family, and stopped working,” she said.

A surreptitious check on Google through my cell-phone revealed much, even as we went through plates full of Indian savouries, which she wanted to try out. The screen was full of news on her. This petite woman had taken on the former deputy president Jacob Zuma, who was accused of raping a 31-year-old HIV-positive family friend.

The case was a hot potato which no one else wanted to touch and thus it landed in the lap of the person who had become the youngest prosecutor in South Africa at the age of 24, and had risen to the top. According to many newspaper accounts, this was by the dint of hard labour, integrity and a good record of convictions.

She fought the Zuma case hard, but in the absence of some crucial evidence, which never reached the Johannesburg High Court, Zuma was acquitted.

Charin de Beer found herself in a position where she might have had to compromise her integrity to keep her job. She quit, and has been devoting herself to her family, especially her children, Herman and his sister. Well, the woman who took on Zuma faces the ultimate challenge every mother faces, of bringing up her children well. From what we have seen, she has achieved much success here also.

This article by Roopinder Singh was published as a Middle in The Tribune on November 10, 2011

Taking on Zuma and other challenges

by Roopinder Singh & Vibha Sharma

Courageous and charismatic, this is one woman who has lived life on her own terms. She has also rubbed many an important person the wrong way in the process of achieving her goals. She attracts cameras, has recently shown her ability to work crowds, and in the process, attracted much ire from political leaders.

Kiran Bedi, a caricature by Sandeep Joshi

She is totally unapologetic about caricaturing politicians on stage, or identifying Anna with India during the recent popular protest against corruption, in which she played a leading role. But then, Kiran Bedi, 62, is not known to have been apologetic about anything, be it managing crowds by leading from the front, taking action against a car from the Prime Minister’s pool that was illegally parked, or reforming Tihar Jail when she was posted there as Inspector General of Police. The first, at the beginning of her career, had male students screaming, “Bobby go back” even as they backed off while she charged at them. The second earned her the ‘Crane Bedi’ title, and the third contributed to her getting the prestigious Magsaysay Award.

Kiran Peshwaria grew up in Amritsar, living in the comfort and security of a large family that had land holdings as well as a dharamshala and hotels like the Volga and Savoy. “Amritsar was a safe, clean city for me to grow up in,” says Kiran Bedi. She would cycle down to her school, Sacred Heart, and college, Government College for Women. Later, she bought herself a Luna moped. She and her three sisters had access to “facilities and opportunities” like tennis courts, and they made full use of them, winning tournaments, and travelling.

Playing tennis well led to participating in tournaments in Amritsar, and for Punjab. It also gave her the first brush with sports bodies that worked on considerations other than merit. “It was my first brush with official corruption and because of these officials, I lost out on many opportunities,” she recollects.

After Amritsar, she moved to Chandigarh as a student, and is particularly proud of getting both a sports and an academic scholarship at Panjab University, Chandigarh, where she studied for her MA in political science with teachers like JC Anand and MM Puri. On the debating side, she sparred with the likes of Mac Sarin, now a noted local lawyer, and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj.

A teaching stint took her back to Amritsar and then came the call of the uniform. She became India’s first woman police officer. “Being the first woman IPS officer, she was always trying hard to prove that she was an equal in a man’s world,” a senior journalist recalls, recounting an incident when Kiran tackled a violent mob, using Hindi abuses just as her male counterparts would have done in the given circumstances.

Sartorially, not too many remember her in a traditional sari or a salwar kameez-dupatta ensemble. She wore shorts on the tennis courts, uniform trousers, a kurta or a shirt, a pathani style suit with a Nehru jacket or a band gala suit as in her TV show Kiran Ki Adalat.

Ironically, her male colleagues have sometimes accused her of taking advantage of her gender. “Her being a woman worked in her favour rather than being a disadvantage. Seeing a woman at the head of the Police Contingent Spectators during the 1973 Republic Day Parade, the then Prime Minister lndira Gandhi was so impressed that she invited Kiran for breakfast the very next day. Would any male officer get the same privilege?” asks a senior serving IPS officer, who requested anonymity.

She understood the power of media even in the days when the maddening 24×7 media channels were not there to follow her every move. She engaged the media effectively, whether it was as DCP (Traffic) when she controlled traffic during the 1982 Asian Games, towing away offending vehicles without caring for their VIP owners.

She met Anna only on November 14, 2010 at the ‘India Against Corruption’ rally near Jantar Mantar on Parliament Street in Delhi that called for registering of an FIR against corruption in the Commonwealth Games. Her media management skills were well utilised by her Team Anna colleagues.

Labelled a “hardliner” during negotiations with politicians during Anna’s fast, she openly criticised them by name. She followed the tirade against the holy cows by saying that she felt “let down” by Nehru-Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi’s lack of support for the anti-corruption movement, even terming the young Congress leader as the “biggest loss of faith in our trust”.

Courting several controversies in her career, it has not always been an easy run for Kiran. She was transferred out of offices for trying to turn things around or at times proving too difficult for others in command. When she was posted as IG Chandigarh, she was accused of instigating junior officers to defy the administration.

She has been controversial. She is charged with walking away without completing her tenure on at least two occasions. “She left her post as SP Goa and DIG range (Mizoram) without permission. The Mizoram Governor even issued a formal note of displeasure for leaking information to the Press,” a senior police officer said.

Cribbing and complaints apart, Kiran continues to be an inspiring public figure. In 1977, she put an end to the Akali-Nirankari riots at India Gate and as DCP (West Delhi) in 1979 broke up the 200-year-old illicit liquor trade. In 1985, as DCP (headquarters) she ordered 1,600 pending promotions to be made in a single day. Standing instructions were issued that if any file were not cleared within three days, the person concerned would be called personally to explain the delay. In 1993, as the Inspector-General of Tihar Jail (9,100 inmates, including 300 women) she turned the unliveable jail into a humane institution that focused on educating prisoners.

She has her fans. Eminent writer Khushwant Singh in one of his columns described Kiran as “the gutsiest woman” he ever knew. She has adroitly managed to keep her personal life out of the limelight. She is married to Amritsar-based industrialist and philanthropist Brij Bedi and they have a daughter. Kiran lost her mother in 1999 and ever since her father has been staying with her. She enjoys a great relationship with her sisters, Sashi, who teaches philosophy in Canada; Rita, a London-based expert on autistic children, and Anu, a San Francisco-based immigration expert.

After leaving the police force, she has concentrated on her NGOs, Navjyoti and India Vision Foundation. When the Income Tax Department sent notices for scrutiny to these two NGOs regarding certain exemptions enjoyed by them under various provisions of the Income Tax Act, she typically refused to see a conspiracy in that, saying there was no evidence of it.

“We are in the process of getting ISO 9001 certification for these NGOs and the chartered accountant is competent to answer these queries,” said an unruffled Kiran.

A woman can do anything, it is said. Well, here’s one who has been a lecturer, a tennis champion, a debater, a police officer, a social activist, an actor, a television show host, a columnist, an author, an inspirational speaker, and an inspiration for both TV serials and even a film, Tejaswani. She lives life on her terms, and seems to enjoy every moment of it.

This article was published as the Last Word column in The Tribune on October 6, 2011. It was also simultaneously published in Dainik Tribune and Punjabi Tribune.

The Tribune, October 6, 2011

Dainik Tribune, October 6, 2011

Punjabi Tribune, October 6, 2011

A Sikh is supposed to follow the path laid down by the Gurus, believe in the teachings of Guru Granth Sahib, keep the five k’s…all this is widely known. However, when it comes to defining who a Sikh is, there is a degree of ambiguity that crops up from time to time, often fuelled by vested political interests.

In defining a Sikh, we go back to the Rehat-namas issued after Guru Gobind Singh in which the teachings of the Gurus were or given as Code of Conduct by prominent Sikhs. In modern times, the need of defining who a Sikh is was largely legalistic, in response to a perceived need of having a Sikh body manage the affairs of historical gurdwaras which were then in the hands of the mahants. In 1915, Sikhs got together to define a Sikh and their definition had a bearing on the Sikh Gurdwaras Act which was adopted in 1925, It says:

“If any question arises as to whether any living person is or is not a Sikh, he shall be deemed respectively to be or not to be a Sikh according as he makes or refuses to make in such manner as the (State) Government may prescribe the following declaration:

“I solemnly affirm that I am a Sikh, that I believe in the Guru Granth Sahib, that I believe in the Ten Gurus, and that I have no other religion.”

In the 1930s, prominent scholars, leaders and organisations participated in the proceedings of the SGPC’s Code of Conduct and Conventions Sub-Committee. They included such luminaries as Giani Thakar Singh, Amritsar, Giani Sher Singh, Bhai Budh Singh, Akali Kaur Singh, Sant Sangat Singh of Kamaliya, Bhai Kahn Singh of Nabha, Pandit Basant Singh of Patiala, Bhai Vir Singh of Amritsar, Bawa Harkishan Singh, Principal, Guru Nanak Khalsa College, Gujranwala, Pandit Kartar Singh of Dakha, Ludhiana, the Jathedars of Sri Akal Takht, Takht Sri Kesgarh Sahib, Takht Sri Patna Sahib, Prof Ganga Singh, Prof Jodh Singh, Justice Teja Singh, Bhai Randhir Singh and Prof Teja Singh ( who was conveneor of the sub-committee).

Rehat Maryada

The Sikh Rehat Maryada, issued by the SGPC in 1945 after deliberations, terms Sikh as: “Any human being who faithfully believes in: (i) one immortal being. (ii) Ten Gurus, from Guru Nanak Dev to Guru Gobind Singh. (iii) Guru Granth Sahib. (iv) the utterance and teachings of the Ten Gurus and (v) the baptism bequeathed by the Tenth Guru and who does not owe allegiance to any other religion, is a Sikh.”

Amritdhari Sikh

The Sikh Gurdwaras Act says that Amritdhari Sikh means and includes every person who has taken khande-ka-amrit or Khanda Pahul prepared and administered according to the tenets of Sikh religion and rites at the hands of five pyare or the ‘beloved ones’

Sehajdhari Sikh

A Sehajdhari Sikh means a person: (i) who performs ceremonies according to Sikh rites; (ii) who does not use tobacco or kutha (halal meat) in any form; (iii) who is not a patit; and (iv) who can recite Mul Mantar .

Meaning of Patit

“Patit” means a person who being a Keshdhari Sikh trims or shaves his beard or keshas or who, after taking amrit commits any one or more of the four kurahits(breach of code) (a) trimming or shaving hair, (2) eating halal meat; (3) sexual contact with a person other than one’s spouse; and (4) using tobacco.

This article was printed in The Tribune on September 3, 2011

ROOPINDER SINGH

Steve Jobbs Illustration by Sandeep Joshi

HE did all the things top achievers are not supposed to do: dropped out of college, popped ‘acid’, took off from home in search of spiritualism … but then, nothing succeeds like success. Today, he is recognised as the super-successful man who came back after being thrown out of the company he co-founded to make it the most valuable company in the world.
Steven Paul Jobs had much stacked against him when he was born on February 24, 1955, at San Francisco, California. Abdulfattah Jandali and Joanne Simpson, his biological father and mother and University of Wisconsin graduate students, gave him for adoption since they were not married at that time. He got love and affection from Paul and Clara Jobs who adopted him, but not many material things. Paul was a machinist and did not have much money, so Steve grew up in a house that did not even have a colour TV in Palo Alto, where the family moved soon after Steve was adopted.
Tall and lanky (he is 6′2″) Steve went to Cupertino Junior High School and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California. He met his first girlfriend, Chris-Ann Brennans, at Homestead. Steve often attended lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California. It was there in 1969 that he met someone older who shared his first name and was called Woz by all.
The Jobs stretched their budget to make good their promise to Steve’s biological parents that they would provide him with college education. However, fate had something else in store for him. He did enrol in Reed College in Portland, Oregon in 1973, only to drop out after one semester. It was in 1974 that he got a job at the game-maker Atari, but he left it and took a backpacking trip to India with a friend. Jobs became a Buddhist, and went back to California.
By next year, Steve and Wozniak began assembling Apple computers and selling them to hobbyists. Later, Steve showed off his Apple I at various computer forums, and by 1976 he, Wozniak and Ron Wayne had formally formed Apple Computer Inc.
Apple II, introduced in 1978, became a huge hit in the US. Another bit of news hit Jobs on the personal front. He had a daughter, Lisa. Initially, he denied that Brennan’s daughter was his, but two years later, conceded to it.
It was not Apple that invented the ubiquitous graphical user interface (GUI), but Steve saw its potential when he was shown it at a Xerox lab. He licensed the technology and incorporated it in all his computers.
The GUI liberated computer users from the world of DOS. No longer were command strings needed to use a computer, you got it out of the box, assembled it, put the power on and were greeted by the smiling Mac. You clicked on icons to launch applications. Life suddenly became simple…. Under all this was a powerful computer with well-written software programs, which did all the work but had a surprisingly well-thought-out interface that made Mac the darling of the creative community at the core of an ever- expanding Mac fan club.
Mac showcased the elegance of design, and the attention to detail that was to be a hallmark of Apple products When Mac really clicked in 1984, Steve seemed to be at the pinnacle of his glory, by having made it to the cover of the Time magazine two years earlier. The Chicago font of the original Macs saw the impact of calligraphic class on Jobs. He also credits the course for his attention to aesthetics and his obsession with design.
As he said in an interview to Playboy in 1985: “We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build.”
Then came the fall. Steve was ousted from the company by the man who he had brought in as the CEO, John Sculley, in 1985.
He started a new venture NeXT, bought a film animation company and formed Pixar. Steve also rediscovered his biological mother and his sister. His biological parents had married each other after he was adopted and their daughter is a famous novelist, Mona Simpson. However, Jobs’ biological parents divorced after a few years and Steve has not reconnected with his biological father, who lives in the US NeXT cube attracted money and talent, and it became an expensive but very capable computer when it was launched in 1988. Pixar also introduced a film, Tin Toy, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Steve, too, was attracted to a 27-year-old Stanford University MBA student, Laurene Powell. He was 36 when he married her in March 1991. They had a Buddhist ceremony. They have three children and their son, Reed Paul Jobs, named after Steve’s college and father, was born in September that year. They also have two daughters, Erin (born 1995) and Eve (born 1998).
In spite of a bad beginning, Lisa Nicole and her father too have reconciled over the years. As she says in her blog: “In California, my mother had raised me mostly alone…My father was rich and renowned and later, as I got to know him, went on vacations with him, and then lived with him for a few years, I saw another, more glamorous world. The two sides didn’t mix, and I missed one when I had the other.”
Steve came back to Apple in 1997 and within a year made it profitable. With pizzazz, he introduced the revolutionary iMac, and within a year Power Mac G3. He killed the floppy drive years before others did, and introduced the USB.
Laptops were iBooks and all this was backed by a vision of software and hardware that was truly staggering. iMovie, became Apple’s first Digital Hub software. Steve became Apple’s CEO officially in 2000 and the new millennium saw the introduction of the Mac OS X and the ill-fated Power Mac G4 Cube. It is not that Apple does not make bad products, it just learns from each failure.
The Mac eco-system, in which the users got everything without stepping outside the Apple universe got a major boost with online iTunes opened on 2001, followed by one for Windows. Steve Jobs had changed forever the way we would listen to music, and in the process gave the music industry a new direction. On the personal front, however, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Yet work continued. iPhone, which was released in 2007, simply changed the way the world uses a cellphone, spawning many imitations, which are now subject of patent litigation.
So did iPad, which came into hands of millions of eager consumers last year, and yet again changed our relationship with technology. The laptop is dead? Not really, but we have a revolutionary change in our hands. As Jobs said at the 2010 speech at iPad’s debut: “It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the results that make our hearts sing.”
What next? Much is being made of Jobs’ resignation as the CEO. His successor has been hand-picked by him. He is still the Chairman of Apple. Steve believes that he has infused Apple with the dream that was clear in 1984, when he released the Macintosh computer: “We’re gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make ‘me too’ products. Let some other companies do that. For us, it’s always the next dream.” And it lives on.

This article was published in The Tribune as Last Word on Monday, August 29, 2011.

The Last Word column on Steve Jobs published in The Tribune on Monday, August 29, 2011

Administrator, diplomat, encyclopaedist, historian, hunter, interpreter of Sikh scriptures, tennis player, tutor to an heir apparent and scholar, Bhai Kahan Singh of Nabha was, indeed, a Renaissance man, who has left a lasting impact on Punjab and Punjabi scholarship.

Bhai Kahan Singh. Watercolour by R M Singh

Widely known as the author of Mahan Kosh, the encyclopaedia in Punjabi that was published in 1930, Bhai Kahan Singh was born on August 30, 1861. His father, Mahant Narain Singh, was steeped in the Sikh tradition and was well known for his ability to recite Guru Granth Sahib.

Like many others of that time, Bhai Kahan Singh received no formal education, but was taught by tutors at home. He became well versed in Hindi, Braj Bhasha, Sanskrit, Urdu, Persian, English and, of course, Punjabi.

Bhai Kahan Singh was taught music by the famous musician, Mahant Gajja Singh. He learnt martial arts from Nihangs and was also a good shot and fond of hunting. He played the sitar and the dilruba with distinction, and was known as a soft-spoken, considerate man, who was always immaculately attired.

As an administrator, he began his innings in 1880, when he started working for Nabha state. He held administrative positions that included City Magistrate, Nazim, Mir/Munshi, Nehar Nazam. The term nazim was used for an administrator and would roughly be equivalent of Collector or Deputy Commissioner.

Bhai Kahan Singh had met British administrator Max Arthur Macauliffe in Rawalpindi in 1885. Macauliffe was engaged in research on the Sikh religion and Guru Granth Sahib. Naturally, he relied on a number of Sikhs to help him. Bhai Kahan’s first book Raj Dharam had been published a year ago, and, thus, it came as no surprise that Macauliffe asked Maharaja Hira Singh of Nabha to spare Bhai Kahan Singh for three months, so that they could work together.

Years of research went into what became a six-volume work and Macauliffe often visited Nabha and other places to work with Bhai Kahan Singh who, in the meantime, had published Nanak Bhavarth Dipika (1888), Ham Hindu Nahin (1898), Gurmat Prabhakar (1898), Gurmat Sudhakar (1899), Gur Gira Kasauti (1899) and Sharab Nikhedh (1907). He had also come out with two tikas or exegeses, Jaimant Assamedh (1896) and Visnu Purana (1903).

The Sikh Religion was published by Clarendon Press, an imprint of Oxford Press, in the UK in 1907. Bhai Kahan Singh accompanied Macauliffe to London to assist him in the publication of the book. Macauliffe even transferred the copyright of the book to Bhai Kahan Singh. According to Major A. P. Singh, grandson of Bhai Kahan Singh, Macauliffe also offered his house, 10 Sinclair Road, London, to him. Bhai Kahan Singh, however, declined the offer.

Along with his literary pursuits, Bhai Kahan Singh continued to serve Nabha state and with increasing experience, and because of his ability to sort out problems, he was also given other responsibilities that included being a foreign minister, a Judge of the High Court and member of the Judicial Council, etc. He played a significant role in the framing of the Anand Marriage Act, which was proposed by Maharaja Ripudaman Singh, and as a result of which marriages were given a legal status. Like other people with means, he would spend summers in Solan and Shimla.

Bhai Arjan Singh Bagrian, Maharaja Bhupindra Singh of Patiala and Maharaja Ripudaman Singh of Nabha are seated in this 1917 picture, often said to be the only one in which the two maharajas are together. Standing on the left is Raja Gurdit Singh and on the right is Bhai Kahan Singh. Photo: Courtesy Maj A P Singh

Nabha and Patiala states did not always enjoy a positive relationship even though the rulers of both states, Maharaja Bhupindra Singh and Maharaja Ripudaman Singh, were related. However, Bhai Kahan Singh, Bhai Arjan Singh Bagrian and Raja Gurdit Singh of Retgarh played a significant role in effecting reconciliation between the two rulers.

He compiled Gurushabad Ratanakar Mahan Kosh from 1912-1930. During the years 1915-1917, he was the legal adviser to the political agency of Patiala state. Mahan Kosh, as it is commonly called, has 64,263 entries and is well known for pithiness and accuracy. Maharaja Bhupindra Singh of Patiala sponsored its publication, and now Punjabi University, Patiala, is translating it into English and Hindi.

A Sikh with strong convictions, Bhai Kahan Singh practised what he preached. His son, Bhagwant Singh, popularly known as Hari ji, wrote Dasam Granth Tuk Tatkara, and index of Dasam Granth, thus continuing his father’s legacy.

Bhai Kahan Singh passed away on November 23, 1938. The sequential celebrations of Bhai Kahan Singh’s birth anniversary are being held at various venues in Punjab. As people reflect on his rich legacy, it is only natural that they should also salute this Renaissance man, Punjab’s pioneering encyclopaedist.

This article was published in the Spectrum section of The Tribune on Sunday, August 27, 2011

You may also want to read an article I wrote about Bhai Kahan Singh earlier, which was published on November 21, 2oo4.

Article on Bhai Kahan Singh Nabha published in Spectrum supplement of The Tribune on Sunday August 28, 2011.

A well-informed look at the world of science in India today

INDIAN techies have made a place for themselves the world over, so much so that they have eclipsed the achievers from their mother discipline, science. The IITs and other scientific institutions owe much to Jawaharlal Nehru who insisted that every Indian citizen should develop “scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform”.

Geek Nation: How Indian Science is Taking over the World

It is common to see snapshots of contrarian symbols of India, rich/poor, advanced/backward, educated/uneducated and so on. It takes a passionate observer to go beyond them, which this writer has done in her journey to the land she believes was the birthplace of the geek.

The story goes back to 700 AD, when the Bakhshali manuscript is believed to have been written. It is one of the earliest scientific texts in Asia, and is now at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, the author’s alma matter.

The author is a master’s in engineering and science journalist, and the combination makes for not only an engaging read but also a remarkably well-informed look at the world of science in India today. She takes us to the Vikram Sarabai Space Centre, and to a “small Hindu town of Melkote”.

Through her we meet the 88-year-old Prof. Udupi Ramachandra Rao, a space scientist and former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation. The redoubtable Naryana Murthy, who needs no introduction, Dr Pravendra Nath, a molecular biologist working on genetically modified bananas, Vandana Shiva, the scientist-turned activist who is leading the anti-GM fight in India, and a host of other committed individuals who give us many insights into scientific research in India.

Many of us know the tale of how someone’s blunder was the cause of Indians getting major exposure in the international stage, but the story bears revisiting. It was in the mid-1990s that Western governments and business woke up to the fact that many of their mainframe computers used programmes in which only the last two digits of the year was mentioned. Thus, as far as the computers were concerned, the year 2000 could well be 1900, 1800, whatever. With the year 2000 approaching, millions of lines of code had to be written, or all kinds of problems could arise in various sectors, including banks, airlines, public utilities, even nuclear installations, which used old mainframe computers, and more importantly, code written for them.

Indians were better qualified than others to do this because of their technical education as well as their knowledge of English. By the time the millennium bug had been tackled, Indian techies were an established force. However, Indian programmers were known to work like drones, and were not known to be innovators. But this is changing. While many IIT students are burned out by the time they get there, and how there is a movement within the IITs to counteract it, by creating Technocracy, a new group designed to give everyone the chance to build practical skills in their own time. Initiatives like this and increased funding have resulted in more focus on research, and a larger number of patents being issued to IITians.

Saini explores how science and religion co-exist in India, so much so that there are many who claim that scientific knowledge has it origins in ancient Indian texts. She meets Sanskrit scholars and sees their blueprint of an ancient aircraft described in the Vaimanika Shastra, translated by G.R. Josyer, in 1946. She also finds the paper by five researchers at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengalaru, who ripped apart the text.

If religion has many believers in India, so does science. Sometimes I wonder how we can accept brain scanner, or a “mind-reading machine”. The writer investigates the claims of C.R. Mukndan, the machine’s inventor, and finds no validation for his invention in the international scientific community. Yet, the “scientific” evidence based on this device is cited, and accepted, in courts.

We know of Lavasa when its environmental transgressions hit headlines. The author talks of it as the first city designed for Generation Y. She also talks of how people who were displaced because of this development throw stones at cars going in and out of the area.

We are informed about the e-governance initiatives that are being undertaken, even in courts, of cutting edge research in medicine and genomes, of mindsets regarding patents, even visit the 97th Indian Science Congress, where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made his “The empires of the future are going to be the empires of the mind”, statement.

The writer combines pragmatism with passion. Through this journey we learn to appreciate the possibilities of change around us, and it leaves us looking at the future quite positively.

This review by Roopinder Singh was published in the Spectrum section of The Tribune on July 3, 2011.

Japuji Sahib: Prayer of the Soul

By Ranjodh Singh.

Wisdom Collection, Ludhiana. Pages 96. Rs 995.

Japuji Sahib: Prayer of the Soul

JAPUJI Sahib remains Guru Nanak Dev’s most popular composition which has a unique position in the minds of millions of Sikhs as well as the world at large. It holds a special attraction for scholars and devotees, and has been translated into many languages. The author gives the meaning of the text in both Gurmukhi as well as English. An accomplished photographer, he has chosen images on which the text is transcribed with care to appropriately reflect the thoughts expressed in the stanzas on which the text is printed. Paintings by artists like Sobha Singh, Kirpal Singh, GS Sohan Singh and Jarnail Singh have also been used to illustrate the volume. The lavishly printed coffee-table book, the royalties of which go to a charity, will find a place on many a book shelf.

—   Roopinder Singh

This write-up was published in The Tribune on June 26, 2011

By Gurbir Singh and Gagandeep Kaur

Kesar Media and Lahore Books. Pages 158. Rs 3,000.

The Valiant Ones: A journey into the mesmerizing world of the Sikhs

The Nihangs always attract the eye. Their colourful attires, displays of traditional and not-so-traditional weapons and distinctive lifestyle set them apart. Rich in photographs, the book takes readers into the world of which they see only glimpses from time to time.

The beats of innocent ecstasy

While the pictures make it a visual delight, there is also information on Sikh history and principles, the contribution of women, the daily routine of Nihangs, their weapons and turban, important festivals and how the Nihangs are facing challenges of the modern society. The section on the words that enrich their interaction with each other will certainly enhance the vocabulary of Punjabis who have heard the terms but do not know their significance.

- Roopinder Singh

A Nihang Singh demonstrating his equestrian skills

The article was published on June 19, 2011 in the Spectrum section of The Tribune.