Monday Cup Of Links #49 - Robo-buggies, Ancient Pinda, Assassinating A Nobel Laureate
Gadar tried to kill Rabindranath Tagore in the San Francisco Bay Area. WTF, right?
Happy Monday!
Before I know it, it’s time to do another Cup Of Links. With an infant around, the days are long and the weeks are short. My baby is trying to master the subtle art of flipping over. Which means she does it all day and all night, even in her sleep. But then she needs help flipping back, so we’ve to watch her like a hawk, all day, all night, even in our sleep.
Which doesn’t really give me much mindspace to explore new things. It feels like there’s a lot of cool things happening in the world, and I’m watching from the sidelines.
For instance, Clubhouse seems to be taking off, and I occasionally log on to see a combination of the most amazing combination of people talking about things (Paris Hilton and MC Hammer talking about NFTs), or random people talking about thirsty topics (“Does size matter?”).
And, people are losing their minds about NFTs. I spent an hour or so creating one myself, an NFT of the flag designed by Veer Savarkar and flown by Madam Cama at the International Socialist Conference in 1907, the first flag to represent India internationally. But I’m still clueless about how NFTs square with copyright laws or their current legal position. Anyone with any insight?
Onto our links!
It’s an exciting time to read books about Indian identity. A few months ago, it was Harsh Gupta and Rajeev Mantri’s book, A New Idea Of India that was all the rage. I’m trying to get through former R&AW chief Vikram Sood’s The Ultimate Goal - How Nations and Intelligence Agencies Construct Narratives.
But an upcoming book I’m really excited about reading is Makers of Modern Dalit History by Guruprakash Paswan and Sudarshan Ramabadran. Guruprakash Paswan has a lovely speaking style, where he often picks up on small details about a situation that make it distinctive, and I have loved his videos about history and contemporary issues. He has talked about Babu Jagjivan Ram, India’s defence minister during the 1971 war, who was tipped to be the next Prime Minister. Indira Gandhi was so threatened by him, she resorted to publishing pictures of his son in a “compromising position” with unwarranted allegations to put him out of the running. I had no idea Babu Jagjivan Ram was Dalit, or of his track record as India’s most hawkish defence minister, or his efforts as railway minister to end untouchability by reserving the post for water carriers to be a member from that community. This way, people had to accept water from someone they considered it taboo to accept water from, thus breaking these made-up mental barriers to equality. I expect the book to be with more unknown stories from a different perspective. Unfortunately I don’t yet find the book for pre-order on the Amazon US store. Hopefully they’ll put it on there soon.The offering of pinda was an Indus Valley tradition. In India, you offer rice balls to help the soul of your departed relatives unite with their ancestors. You do this during the funeral rites, as well as to honor their memory on their death anniversary (if it’s a relative in recent memory) or on Pitru Paksha (which is like the Day Of The Dead in Mexico, or Hungry Ghost Month in China and Southeast Asia). Researchers have found similar offerings in Indus Valley sites, which date back to over 5000 years ago. That cultural continuity amazes me to no end.
There was an attempted assassination of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore by members of the Gadar Party in Alameda in 1916. I know, right, WHAT ON EARTH!
I am not sure I understand it all, but it’s complicated. At first, the Gadarites liked Tagore and thought he was anti-British. But then he accepted the Nobel and a goddamn knighthood, and said British rule wasn’t that bad. This pissed them off that he would say that using his global platform, so they tried to assassinate him, but were foiled by the authorities in the Bay Area. Tagore eventually renounced his knighthood over Jallianwala Bagh, which as we’ve discussed here was a massacre of peaceful protestors who had gathered to protest the Rowlatt Act, which was enacted by the British to prevent any more acts of rebellion by the Gadarites. So I guess they ended up agreeing eventually. It’s all connected. I don’t know why we don’t talk more about this.Given my productivity has taken a huge hit, I decided to waste what little time I had on reading productivity books. I read Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg, and while I found the book draggy in parts, I loved the whole approach to productivity. I’ve been annoyed at how ineffectual lists are in actually getting things done, and this book kind of concurs. Here’s a book summary that touches on most of the important things, though I recommend reading the book to understand how these things matter in context.
Google is now working on big data personalization for farms. They now have a buggy that goes over a field and inspects each plant individually. I suppose you can use this data to figure out how to care for each plant personally. This reminds me of how big banks use big data to offer personalized service to individual customers…. Which works as well as you think it would. But I guess it could be easier with plants.