Why Bran is so sad

One of my favourite formats of content on the internet is short clips of people saying one thing one day and then exactly the opposite a short time later. The best that I can recollect is Arnab Goswami absolutely laying into Yogi Adityanath for some of his comments and then criticising Narendra Modi as well while he's at it followed by a clip of him interviewing Yogi Adityanath where calling him "mild" would be an understatement and he praises Yogi for the same comments that he had castigated earlier. This is the video I'm talking about.

This is also hilarious when you look at two tweets or facebook posts where the person lauds something in one and criticises it in the other. Or someone tweets that they are very against people who do something, then later do that very same thing. 

It would be even more hilarious if it wasn't a serious problem. Along with fake news, this kind of hypocrisy among people we trust for our information and politicians who rule us is worrying. Not only do they lie, they also change tunes seemingly at will. And why has this come to the fore now? Why have people started spreading more lies and changing their tunes more frequently recently. 

My humble submission and pet theory is that they haven't. I think politicians and media-persons are as unscrupulous and hypocritical as ever, it's just that with social media, it is far easier to spot as well as far easier to spread information across so many channels. It's like the Chinese whispering game - you hear one bit of information at one end and the information the last person receives is something only mildly related, most often completely random. 

But more than this, I would quote Arsene Wenger here. "It’s difficult sometimes when you are paid to talk, to talk, to talk and only say things that are true and intelligent." When someone's job is to talk a lot, give speeches, moderate panels every single night, they very very quickly run out of intelligent things to say. The hundreds and thousands of contradictions and hypocrisies in their mind and action come to the fore - and I'm sure this would be true for every single one of us. Even us good conscientious citizens, if we gave vent to every single thought, would be seen as terrible hypocrites. And maybe this is why some very questionable characters have huge mass followings - I think human beings are by nature very comfortable with hypocrisy. If we weren't, we would never be comfortable with anybody on this planet. All public figures, to my mind, are by definition questionable characters.

Social media exacerbates the situation is two ways. It makes it so much easier to point these hypocrisies out, because there is a record of every video, every statement, every speech, every tweet that someone has made. And secondly, everyone who loves to talk and say a lot is given a voice to talk all the time. This information deluge leaves us exhausted and often extremely sad or pessimistic.

I have lived happily all my life in Bengaluru. But when I was young, reading the newspaper was really scary. And after a burglary at my house, I started paying special attention to the crime section. Every day there were a couple of murders, a person shooting someone else, chain-snatchings, etc. etc. Now I understand that Bengaluru is a really peaceful city. More than a crore people live there, you would expect way more crime, chaos and disorder. If this was a few hundred years back, maybe a desperate fight for food, water and resources would cause riots and mob violence everyday if those many people lived in such a small space. So I now appreciate that the city of Bengaluru is overall, a peaceful, not terribly unsafe place. At least for the vast majority of the city for the vast majority of people.

And this is why I sympathise with Brandon Stark. (Mild spoilers from Game of Thrones coming) He is always expressionless, brooding, sad and sombre. Here is a guy who knows practically everything that has ever happened. All the major and so many minor events of history. Here is a guy who at any time can tune into anything happening anywhere and just find out. This guy is living in the biggest possible information deluge. Of course he would be terribly sad all the time.

And how different is this from us. Any semi-major event happening anywhere on earth, we can always find someone making a Facebook live about it. We can find someone tweeting about it. It is a miracle we are all not like Bran. Because at some level, we don't like to believe all those on media.

As one of my favourite contemporary writers Manu Joseph said - "The elite, by their very nature, are few in number but exert a disproportionate influence on voters by controlling activism and influencing journalism through which they then transmit gloom and fear. Their greatest political success is in creating the notion that we are going through times that are dark, angry and insane, which are intrinsic qualities of social activists but not the nature of our age or the world at all. The world is mostly banal and hopeful, until it switches on the media."

I like being banal and hopeful. 

The Perfect Painting

The book which left the greatest impact on me was "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". It's a hard book to read and make sense of. On my first read, I understood about 20% of it and on my second try, I got confused about the 20% while still being quite clueless about the 80%.

I will not discuss the book directly, because I don't remember the exact chronology of events. I just remember some ideas and thoughts that stuck with me amidst all that confusion and just stayed with me, gestating in my mind. There was one line that stuck with me throughout, that for me epitomised everything that I think I understood, correctly or wrongly, about the book.

"How do you make a perfect painting? By becoming a perfect person and then painting naturally." This line seems inane and ludicrous at the same time. We've seen plenty of perfect paintings by imperfect people. We've seen perfect music by imperfect people. In fact, the whole trope of the troubled genius seems to be a refutation of this idea. Perhaps these people are outliers. Perhaps everything discussed in the book is fanciful nonsense. This isn't an academic forum so I'm just going to go ahead and repeat what I've learnt from the book, something that I believe to be true.

Now, about this perfect painting - what is the metaphor trying to say. For some reason, our mind jumps to someone making a perfect painting and thinking about whether this person is necessarily a perfect person. What is a perfect painting? There are no perfect paintings - this is just that - a metaphor.

So let us flip it around - let us say you're a person who wants to make a painting that is close to perfection. Or for those of you who have a problem with the subjective nature of a perfect painting, let us take an example that can be measured and that I also relate to far more. Let us I want to execute a perfect run, where the perfect run is being able to run 21 km in 2 hours and then not be bedridden for the next several weeks. Right now I can't paint very well, nor can I run very well. I have to practice running. The question is though, should I only practice running. Robert Pirsig (the author of the book) disagrees. He says, you must improve your entire life. All aspects.

I like to think of our personality, or our selves as a tighly-wrung web, each string representing some one particular aspect of ourselves, be it physical or mental or spiritual or whatever. Pulling on any string will move every other string. Of course, some strings are close to each other, some are far away and will feel only a light pull. There are some surprising connections that you can never uncover no matter how hard you examine the web. One string might look very tangled with another but actually are weakly connected, while another far away that looks completely unrelated might be closely linked.

The point the author makes repeatedly is that everything you do affects who you are, and this becomes you and dictates what you do next. We tend to think of things in isolation. It is easy to see why a good night's sleep and a healthy breakfast will help you in that jog, but it isn't obvious for the painting. I think many people will disagree. But I think it's true.

I think the book doesn't try to make it a direct effect. Of course, on a healthy diet, on a good sleep, one can think better, work better, move better and pretty much do every thing better. But can a person get better at painting by becoming a better person? No, but the converse is the point being made here and the lesson to be learnt - you cannot become a better painter without becoming a better person.

Sounds absurd, but this brings me back to running and another book I read about it which I've discussed on this blog before. A leading running guru who coached several ultra-marathoners firmly believed (and did his own little pet experiments) that becoming a better runner is closely linked to becoming more empathetic. Recent research has shown very very close connections between psychological well-being and the health of your digestive system - so much so that some doctors believe that those complaining of chronic stomach and gut related problems being referred to psychologists will become routine practice soon.

Recently, I had a great rhythm going with my running - one shorter, quicker run, one longer, slower run and one long cycle ride per week, and everything was great. Work was getting done, I was eating better, I was actually cooking more instead of feeling lazy. Then one sleep-deprived, work-filled night ruined every thing. Not only did my stamina miraculously disappear for the next few days (understandable), I got back into some bad habits I'd been avoiding - nothing too serious, just a habit of binge re-watching a TV show that I'd decided to stop doing. It doesn't make direct sense that a break in routine should affect my will-power, especially given that the sleepless night had been a couple of days previously and I was technically caught up on my sleep.

I remember watching a talk by a guy, some kind of special force dude from UK or USA, who was captured and kept in a kind of well for some 11 months. It was a deep hole in the ground which he had no way of climbing. It was just wide enough for him to sleep and he was given some form of food every day, obviously not of the best quality. He explained what helped him survive - he never allowed himself to lapse into disorder. He mentally "arranged" the hole into different regions, one corner for sleeping, one corner for answering nature's calls, another place for sitting idle. He exercised in a particular corner of the hole everyday at a particular time and kept track of the date. All this while having no contact with anyone he knew and the sun beating down upon him every day as long as sunlight fell directly at the bottom of the hole.

This is an extreme example. In the same situation, I am sure that for me, it would be a slow descent into craziness, disorientation, etc. But this man avoided it, because he kept pulling on every string of the web. And if one thing gave way, if one day he said screw this and just slumped and slept where he exercised, then it was far from game over, but it was the first step of the descent and it would have undone a lot of hard work.

None of us are so perfect. Perhaps the nature of this man's special service training, whatever it was, gave him the right temperament to have this kind of steely determination. And I'm not saying that there is zero room for error. I think that this web of who we are is something we need to pull on and to balance continuously. A talent or a skill or a habit cannot suddenly bloom in a vacuum. You cannot suddenly just become a great painter while still not being regular with your meals or nice to your friends.

I think this picture of the personality, or of a persona, that this book gave me cuts both ways. It can be overwhelming to constantly think about. Oh no, if I don't eat properly now, will I be able to give that talk properly three days from now. Constant vigilance can very quickly become constant anxiety.

But there is a circularity to it. When everything seems to be going terribly, haphazardly, maybe all you need to do is pull on one string, and everything will fall in place. If you have a terrible sleep-cycle, if you're not eating properly, you're not working well, you're procrastinating, all you need is that one good jog. Not the perfect run. Even a terrible run is closer to a perfect run than no run. And this tug pulls the whole web forward. You're tired and you sleep well, so you have a better day at work. So you feel better and you're sweeter to the people around you.

When nothing is going right, a little tug anywhere can solve the problem everywhere. And when everything is going right, a little carelessness anywhere can ruin everything. It's just a more holistic way of looking at things. And for some reason, perhaps due to modernity, due to culture, due to human nature, whatever, we don't naturally look at things this way. At least I didn't, until I read this book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is "neither about Zen nor about Motorcycle Maintenance".

War

Kunti's door crashed open and nearly got unhinged. Draupadi stormed in through the open door and disturbed Kunti's sweet reverie. "You can't just barge in like this, Draups! What if I was changing? It's not yet Kali Yuga for you to just walk in without knocking!" she reprimanded her daughter-in-law. Draupadi was clearly upset about something.

"What the hell did you just tweet!" she demanded. "Five villages for five sons? Peace is the only cause worth fighting for?" she scoffed! "What are you, a romantic now? And why the hell did you tag Krishna in your tweet? He's going to ignore and all his followers are going to troll you now! You deserve it". The questions came in a constant stream.

"Sit down, Draups, calm down", Kunti reasoned. "No I shall not calm down. And stop calling me by that ridiculous nickname, I told you to stop it 3 days into vanvaas. You've started it again!"

Silence.

"So, will you explain your tweet?" Draupadi demanded again.

"I don't know what is there to explain. Don't you want peace?"

"Yes, I want peace. Peace of bloody mind, which I will get when I see Bheema drinking Dushasana's blood. I will get it when I wash my hair in his blood and I see the limp bodies of Drona, Kripa, Bhishma, Karna and Duryodhana burnt. And here you're suggesting 5 villages while those tyrants rule! Who gave you that idea? It was Yudhishtira wasn't it? I've had enough of his Dharmic virtue signalling these days!" She began to cry in earnest. "I thought Arjuna at least loved me deeply, but he's reading too much philosophy these days as well. Constantly whines about how much he respects Drona and Bhishma as his gurus. Paaah! Gurus who sat and did nothing while his wife was molested. What's the point of being the best warrior in the world if you die without ever shooting a bullet in your life? I bet he's already dreaming about living in his little village as Duryodhana's slave while the whole world admires Karna no? Only poor Bheema is as angry as me, but he listens to Yudhishtira like an idiot. No one cares about my humiliation." Her tears overwhelmed her words and she could speak no more. She dissolved into tears, but only for a few seconds. She was a warrior herself - she gathered all her resolve and continued.

"What hurt me the most was, all day I was creating new accounts, making new bots on twitter, new pages on facebook. I was presenting our side as a grand rebellion against the entrenched rulers, a rule over the people versus a rule with the people. It was getting great engagement - people even changed their handle names in support of the "Kuru government in exile". How cool is that! All that hard-work undone by one tweet from you!"

Kunti allowed Draupadi to vent. She was rather alarmed by this outburst from her fiery daughter-in-law. She was relieved that Draupadi had missed the most important bit of news, but now she would have to tell her herself. She wanted Draupadi to calm down before breaking the news to her. "Anything more? Let's talk it out" she said kindly.

"There's nothing to talk about. You're a traitor. Yudhishtira and Arjuna are big-headed idiots who think they're too smart. My only hope is Krishna. He saved me from Dushasana, he will save me from having to live in a random village for the rest of my life. He will know what to do". Kunti grimaced inside. "Ummm, Draupadi. I think you may have missed out on a bit of news." she said slowly.

"What news?" Draupadi demanded.

"So that tweet, it wasn't just a random idea of mine. It's our official truce offer and Krishna has gone as our messenger to Duryodhana's court. I was just putting it out there."

Draupadi's reaction was exactly what Kunti feared. It was a mixture of anger, a feeling of betrayal and utter helplessness. Stunned silence followed as Draupadi digested what she had just heard. The anger in her voice was no longer fiery, it had turned to ice. "Who. Suggested. This. Idea?" she hissed, enunciating every word clearly. Kunti's face fell, for she knew the answer would disappoint Draupadi. "Krishna gave Yudhishtira this idea. Yudhishtira was strongly in support of it, Arjuna said it's a good idea. Bheema got annoyed, but he consented as well. Nakula and Sahadeva, well, you know them. They were in their own world saying their own things, but in the end they agreed as well."

Draupadi had only thing on her mind. The whole world would think she was hysterical, but she was already planning well ahead on what could be done. She could demand from her father to call her brother and the entire Panchala army. Her online support would mean she could even get convince some motivated mercenaries and youngsters to join her camp. And of course, Bheema. She knew he was itching for a war with Duryodhana! They could slowly raise support and funds for an army. She muttered a goodbye to Kunti and got up.

"Draupadi wait!", Kunti called. "I understand how upset you are but think about the costs of war. Think about all the lives that will be saved, all the children who will grow up with both parents. We can avert so much destruction. The price paid for a life lost in incalculable. War must be averted at every cost whenever possible".

Draupadi stopped dead and turned around to face Kunti. A strange calm came over her. Every thought flowed in her mind with a sharp clarity. "Let us be clear about one thing, Amma. There never was peace. Those people have been at war with your sons for decades. Just because there aren't two armies assembled at a battlefield firing at each other, just because there is no shankhnaad echoing across the meadows, it does not mean there is no war. We have offered them the chance to reform their ways a million times. And a million times they have slapped away our hands that were extended in friendship. For how long must we endure humiliation and pain because we are of the same blood, because we were once one people? And for once, let everything not be about your sons. What about the one you accepted in your home as your daughter, me? I could have stayed back in Indraprastha under the protection of Bhishma or Drona or Kripa and lived like a queen. I chose to walk with your sons in my bare feet across jungle, grassland and desert. I have eaten berries for days, slept with an empty stomach for nights on end. War and kingdom were the games played by men, I have always been a mere pawn following them. But when the time came to assert power over the other, I was suddenly called to play. No one disrobed Bheema, no one dragged Sahadeva by his hair in front of a packed hall. All your sons vowed revenge on Duryodhana, but now they are like meek goats as soon as the possibility of comfort is offered to them. My suffering means nothing. When a discussion takes place and Krishna is called to be sent as our messenger, I am not informed, I am not called or consulted. From the first day, this has been a war, a war I didn't choose yet a war in which I suffer the most. So today, for the first time, I will at least have my say, if not my way." She stormed off towards the door, but paused before leaving the room. She had been weighing the cruelest words in her mind and decided to utter them.

"Oh one more thing, Amma. You lost Karna when you heartlessly flung him into the river, he will never rejoin you. He will fight against his brothers even if he knows the truth about who he is. So support your sons who grew up playing on your lap, drinking milk from your breast, not he who you condemned to the life of a vagabond, a life of misery and death at the hands of his own brother. He will not come back to you, quit pining already." Draupadi left without turning around to see the effect her words had. Moments ago, Kunti was gleefully imagining a life of peace, with 6 sons, 5 of them happily in their beautiful villages under the protection of their cousin, the sixth a king in his own right, serving her as well. Now she was a broken woman. She prayed for Krishna's well-being and success in his mission while also hoping Draupadi didn't truly mean her parting words.

Draupadi walked straight for Bhima's quarters when she bumped into Krishna returning from his mission. Krishna looked stoic, but the edge of his lips were curved upward in a slight smile. Draupadi walked on, pretending she didn't see him. Krishna understood exactly how she felt. With feigned resignation he sighed loudly, "Well, there will be a war after-all, Draupadi." Draupadi turned around and faced Krishna in shock before remembering Krishna's betrayal. But Krishna continued speaking, now playfully with sarcastic exaggeration. "Who imagined Duryodhana would be arrogant enough to turn down the offer of five villages, huh?" he demanded from no one in particular. "You know what he said? He said he wouldn't give the land equal to the prick of a needle."

His voice now turned playfully poignant and sad. "Well, when Yudishtira hears that even this most humble offer has been rejected, and so rudely, even he will agree that there has to be war. What a pity." Draupadi nearly burst out giggling. "Oh Krishna, you evil genius!" she exclaimed. She rushed to tell Bheema. Krishna did know what to do!

Prahalada, Hiranyakashipu, Narasimha

This is my favourite story from the Puranas, retold in my own words, with my own embellishments (or as a purist would call it, inaccuracies) on the basis of the various versions of this story I have heard/read. I think I like this story most because of how simple it is and how straight-forward the various emotions involved are - Hiranyakashipu's anger, exasperation at his son, Prahalada's serene detachment to everything but Vishnu and Narasimha's righteous anger at the extremely learned but arrogant man who is troubling his Bhakta. 

I will be using several Sanskrit/Kannada words which I believe are generally understood in most Indian languages (like "Bhakta"). Sorry if you don't understand them

Hiranyakashipu was more than enraged - he had reached that stage of decisiveness after anger. When you've accepted that the thing which is angering you won't go away, so you've taken a final decision and intend to follow it through to the end. He forcibly dragged tiny Prahalada into his palace.

All his attempts to educate Prahalada, to coax him, cajole him, force him, to renounce Vishnu and accept Hiranyakashipu as the supreme power in the Brahmaanda, had failed. With no remorse he'd ordered his own son's death - Prahalada was no fit heir to the daitya lineage. But to no avail. Prahalada had survived all the attempts. The venom of the deadliest snakes in all the worlds was powerless against this boy. The mightiest, most rogue elephants bowed meekly before him. Every time he was thrown off the steepest cliff, he hurtled towards certain death, only for his fall to be mysteriously cushioned just as he struck the ground. The sharpest weapons turned to cloth upon contact with his skin. With every attempt, the radiant 5 year old boy emerged unscathed, Narayana's name constantly on his smiling lips, indifferent to the world around him.

Hiranyakashipu towered over the little boy, glaring with red eyes. It was time for the king himself to take care of the execution. He raised his mace. "Aren't you scared of me?", he demanded from his son. "I have defeated all and sundry, I rule the entire universe. I have taken Indra's throne. Even devathas run scared from me! All my enemies are dead or in hiding forever!" Prahalada looked at him calmly, as if in a trance. "But have you defeated the six enemies of your mind, kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada and matsara, (lust, anger, greed, attachment/delusion, pride, jealousy) who reside within you?", he enquired politely.

Hiranyakashipu advanced. The cold decisiveness in him was again being replaced by rage. A small boy, his own son, could not be brave enough to speak so calmly to him, the ruler of the universe! Surely he was being propped up by some one else. Some enemy of his. "From where do get the arrogance, the pride and the bravery to confront me this way?" he raged! Again, Prahalada replied softly. "Not only me, but all of us, derive our strength from Shri Hari, Narayana. Vishnu. Even a blade of grass cannot move without his blessing." 

Hiranyakashipu's mortal enemy, he who had taken the avatar of a boar to kill his brother Hiranyaksha! The man Hiranyakashipu had sworn to kill to avenge his brother. And here his son was calling him supreme! "If you derive your strength from him, show me where he is. Show me where he is and we shall see who is stronger!" he roared. "He is everywhere," said Prahalada unblinkingly. 

Hiranyakashipu's anger finally exploded. "Oh, he is everywhere, is he?" he asked rhetorically, advancing menacingly towards Prahalada. He grabbed a large clay pot lying nearby and gestured towards Prahalada. "Is he in this pot then?", he demanded, smashing the pot violently against the floor. "Where is he!". He advanced closer to Prahalada, his mace within striking range. "He must be in this pillar then! Is he in this pillar?", he bellowed. "He is everywhere, he is in the pillar," said Prahalada, unmoved. Hiranyakashipu smashed his mace against the pillar, shattering it and sending a cloud of dust in the air. 

He raised his mace over Prahalada, ready to swing it at his head, when a terrible sound filled the hall of the palace. The building, nay, the entire universe shook with a cry so loud, Brahma, Indra and all the other devthas came out of their lokas, shaken and surprised. Hiranyakashipu turned around as a silhouette became visible in the dust. From the shattered pillar emerged a figure, taller than Hiranyakashipu, na mrugam, na manusham. Neither man nor beast. 

His legs and torso were that of a man, while his face and arms were that of a lion. The worlds shook as he took at step towards Hiranyakashipu. His eyes glistened like two full moons in the clear night sky. His long tongue stuck out of his mouth like goddess Kaali. His lion-claws were drawn and held high in the air, ready to pounce on Hiranyakashipu. 

Vishnu had come, as half-man, half-lion, Narasimha, for his Bhakta Prahalada. Prahalada said "He is in the pillar". The great Rishis had said every time, with unwavering faith, that Narayana is indeed everywhere. He showed it all to be true, appearing when his Bhaktas needed him the most, to end the tyrannous rule of the asura-king Hiranyakashipu and re-establish Dharma in the worlds. 

In the battle that followed, Narasimha is initially frustrated by Hiranyakashipu. Additionally, Hiranyakashipu is protected by Brahma's boons. Narasimha eventually overpowers Hiranyakashipu and carries him to the threshold of the palace door exactly as the last rays of the sun are visible in the horizon, places him on his lap and tears his gut open with his claws. All the conditions of Brahma's boon were met. These were his boons. 

He cannot be killed by anyone created by Brahma - Narasimha is Vishnu himself, who is Anaadhi, without beginning. Also, his Narasimha form came to be in the pillar, not by Brahma

He can neither be killed by man nor beast - Narasimha is half man, half beast. 

He can neither be killed at day or at night - Narasimha killed him at twilight

He can neither be killed on the earth or in the sky - Narasimha places him on his thigh to kill him

He can neither be killed by the living or the dead - Narasimha's claws, like our nails, are living in a way, and dead in a way

He can neither be killed indoors or outdoors - Narasimha killed him on the threshold of the door

Thus vanquishing Hiranyakashipu and laying the path for Dharma Sthaapana again, Narasimha, wearing the intestines of Hiranyakashipu like a victory garland, with blood splattered all over him and still burning with fury, turns to finally greet the smiling five year old boy whose unwavering faith had brought him down to earth. 

I think in the age of buzzfeed, we want to know what are the "take-aways" from this story. We wish to know what are the "Three things we learnt from Narasimha's cameo appearance today". I think this story has no morals. Sure, have faith in god, maybe. But if someone charged at you with a weapon, I would very strongly advice you to run as fast as your feet can carry you towards a crowded place, not await a saviour to burst out from a pillar. I think it's just a nice story, a feel-good story with a happy ending, simple agendas on the minds of the actors. It's almost a template for thousands of movie scenes, where the good guy is about to have his head smashed by the evil guy when the hero enters and saves him. That is it. We watch various versions of this basic story so many times over. We read it so many times over. And so I can listen to this story again and again. It's an uncomplicated story you tell a child to coax him into sleeping, safe in the knowledge that the sound from under his bed is not Hiranyakashipu ready to kill him, but Narasimha lying in wait to ambush Hiranyakashipu should he show up. And as an adult, it reminds you of the time when you would believe in Narasimha. As an adult, when you are acutely aware of the futility of faith in the world, you still hang on to it. 

Artificial Intelligence

The beautiful thing about the internet for me is the presence and easy availability of forums (fora?) with people discussing one particular thing or hobby. If, for example, you are a cricket fanatic, then you don't need to look too far in India. You can literally stop every passerby and debate whether India trounced Australia in Australia because this Indian team is so good, because the current Australian team is weakened and demoralised or a bit of both? Is this India's strongest fast-bowling attack ever? Is it India's strongest bowling line-up overall ever?

What if there exists a huge community across the world who watches one show or plays one game, but they're rarely in physical contact? That's where the internet comes in. And this has most had an impact on me through chess. Yes, it's not quite an esoteric pursuit and once you start talking about it, you will realise that there are a really huge number of committed amateur chess players in the world who are watching analysis of classic chess games, trying tactics puzzles and best of all, playing each other! But they're rarely in the same room or at the same table.

On the chess.com app, there are 15 different time schemes for the games. All you need to do is log on to this app, select your favourite time scheme and within 3 seconds, you are matched with another person who also is looking for a game with the same time scheme whose chess.com rating is similar to yours. Perhaps, you say, all the chess enthusiasts of this world (with no lives otherwise) are on this one app, so it's a concentration not truly reflective of the actual, meagre popularity of chess in the world. Actually, it is but one of about a handful of extremely popular chess apps. 

Chess  is one of those in-between things. You don't see too much of it in real life or in your "screen life", but if you go looking for it, it is hard to miss it. Perhaps playing chess is as popular as supporting Arsenal or Barcelona, but nowhere near as popular as football as a whole. 

To describe my relationship with chess would be impossible without using the word "addicted". And I realise that to be really into something, you don't necessarily have to be really good at doing it (one look at me on a football field would destroy this illusion once and for all). Yes, if a beginner played chess against me, they would probably get routed, but any player with a modicum of seriousness about their game would either stretch my game or, more likely, beat me with relative ease. 

There is one aspect of this game that I love which just keeps bringing me back to it. Chess is a highly constrained game where, relative to the total possible moves that can possibly be made (the maximum possibility is where every piece can move to every square), the number of moves a piece can actually make is miniscule. A pawn can move to a maximum of 3 squares at once, a knight to 8 and even the mighty queen, when ideally situated, can strike a mere 27 squares out of 64. And such an ideal situation only happens at the very end of games with few pieces remaining on the board. 

In spite of this, the number of possible moves is mind-mindbogglingly large and colossal. The first 10 moves, according to a calculation, has some 10 to the power of 29 possibilities within the rules of chess. That's a 100 billion billion billion possibilities. (and seemingly all of them end in me being checkmated)

So would a chess player's mind have to grasp all of this? Every single move? Thankfully not. These are only possibilities. The moves that make sense are far fewer. A significant number of these possibilities certainly involve stupid moves that a child would know is wrong. 

In reality, there are certain well-known and not so well-known principles in chess which help beginners to rapidly improve their games. The best-known principle is that the player who controls the central squares generally has a better chance of winning. So from these 100 billion billion billion (HBBB) possibilities, perhaps the vast majority lead to one player losing a lot of material or not making progress towards the centre of the board. In all professional games, the players actually memorise and prepare, with help from older games, chess theory and off-late, supercomputers, to understand which openings yield the greatest advantage, position-wise and material-wise.

So from a HBBB, in reality, we are dealing with a few hundred well studied, sensible and practical openings. Very often, players don't even think about the first 5-6 moves, as the best move for every variation is studied in great detail and this forms the background "homework" for any great chess player. There are whole books dedicated to particular variations of particular openings and what kind of patterns can emerge from this, the weaknesses and strengths of different move sequences. To be very honest, when I first learnt this, I was rather disappointed. I thought chess is a game based only on pure imagination and logic, but actually a huge part of it is rote study.

But here's the amazing bit that I love - this number I've been throwing at you - HBBB. It is just so huge, that even with all the opening theory and preparation and supercomputer guidance during practice, down there, on the board, every single game is unique! Every game starts with the players knowing exactly what the opponent will do 2 moves in, 3 moves in. Player A knows that Player B knows, Players B knows that Player A knows that Player B knows. It is all planned out. Yet, at some point, because players have a finite memory, because players can't always guess what the opponent likes, what he/she has prepared, at some point it diverges from every single game known to mankind.

Quite similar, sure. Many similarities exist between 2 ongoing games that vary by just one move. But this one extra move is a wildcard. It opens up god knows how many billion more possibilities. And from then on, the players are on their own. It is just their minds against each other. Their preferences, their biases, their imagination and their luck.

So you must be wondering - does this guy have a point? And why is he rambling about chess in a blog post with a title like "Artificial Intelligence"? I think I have a point, but in a while. So bear with me.

The question that bugs me is this. We have two players whose "wits" are pitted against each other. Let us assume they're thrown into a unique game where black and white have an equal position to the extent to which that is possible so that their match preparation and opening theory knowledge don't prove very useful (though there is an equal amount of literature dedicated to mid-game theory as well, but let's imagine these players are just using their "intelligence"). Who would win? Would the smarter player always win? What constitutes smartness here?

A strongly logical person would be an intuitive guess. Perhaps the guy with a photographic memory stands a great chance, since he can hold the images of the board several moves in advance and can work with less effort on this mental chessboard. Maybe the more imaginative person, the guy who thinks out of the box, prodding to see if that seeming blunder of giving the queen in exchange for a bishop can actually open up a match-winning sequence of moves, will win out as he confuses his opponent every time.

Luckily, we don't have to rely completely on our instinct to give us the answer to this question. We don't have to rely completely on people to give us a part of this answer. Today, all the top-ranked chess players in the world are computers. The cold, hard logic of a machine always wins. Well, not always cold.

There are essentially two kinds of chess-playing computers (usually supercomputers), or chess engines. Let us call them Rama and Sita (since you know, there is RAM in every computer).

The way Rama works is, he considers the current board position and then takes every single possible move. For every single move, he assesses the position and gives it a score, depending on the new position. Then, he looks at every possible reply to each of these moves and gives each of them a score. Depending on time-restrictions and the computing power, Rama decides to stop assessing the possibilities a certain number of moves in advance. Maybe he just looks one move ahead and evaluates the positions. Or goes far ahead. Given just how rapidly the number of possibilities proliferate (10 moves is HBBB possibilities at the beginning), there is a physical limit on how many moves ahead Rama will be able to assess every single option. The best chess engines can assess up to a depth of 30 moves ahead! This is a testament to the sheer computing power it has at its disposal.

But the main question is - how does Rama assess each position? How does he know one is better than the other? Rama has a creator (Brahma, duh). The evaluation of a position is hard-coded into Rama. Somebody tells Rama at the beginning, this piece is worth so many points, that piece is worth so many. A pawn past the central square is worth more than an ordinary pawn. A king safely tucked in behind a pawn barrier is good. Additionally, Rama doesn't bother calculating the moves initially. He just looks up a manual on openings which are excellently studied by his sentient cousins, the human beings.

Now you must be jumping! This is misleading - because when you're playing Rama, you're not really playing Rama. You're playing some really good chess player hired by Rama's creator (probably IBM) to give him an evaluation scheme. This great player certainly has his biases. He may be more uncomfortable defending against rooks, so he rates rooks highly. He has his favourite opening, so even Rama plays this opening more often than an actual position assessment would suggest playing it.

Enter Sita. She is stupid, but at least she is her own person. And she learns rapidly. Sita only knows the rules of chess, nothing else. She isn't great at looking too many moves into the future either. But she has one fundamental advantage - she is flexible.

Sita has a ritual before playing anyone else. She sits by herself and moves for both white and black. She merely knows how the pieces are allowed to move, she has no idea that taking a piece to the centre is good. No one whispered in her ear that a passed pawn is especially dangerous even though a pawn is by itself a rather weak piece.

Slowly, yet steadily, she begins to notice patterns in the games she is playing against herself. She starts to see that some positions are advantageous for her and she starts to make her own evaluation schemes. Initially, her evaluation is really rudimentary - I mean who takes so long to understand that the queen is the strongest piece! But then she gets better. And even better. Now she has grasped everything about chess that every human being has ever known and a whole bunch of other positional evaluations. Yes, Sita's intelligence is "Artificial". No one has ever taught her anything, except how to learn. Yet she knows more than anyone else and every single time, she learns more as well.

So who wins in a chess game between Rama and Sita? It depends. Which model? What kind of computing power? What kind of evaluation schemes? Screw that, you say. Just give me the strongest Rama and the strongest Sita made. Now who wins? This has been done, and the answer is definitive. Sita. Hands down. Even though Rama can see 30 moves ahead and Sita doesn't bother trying so hard. Even though Rama assesses a few million positions per second while Sita assesses some 80 thousand only. Rama plays hard, Sita plays smart. Rama has intelligence, Sita has intuition with only a smattering of intelligence. Sita has imagination.

It's even better if you think about it this way. Take your phone. Now invite the best chess players and programmers to make a Rama type chess engine out of this. Will this engine beat you? Yes (unless some chess grandmaster has stumbled upon my blog). Will it beat the current world chess champion? It depends on which phone you have. Let us say you have a rather primitive phone and the world champion is in fact stronger. No matter how many times they play each other, the human will win. (Most current smartphones are actually stronger than the DeepBlue computer that beat the human world chess champion for the first time ever in 1997)

But with your phone, you now make a Sita type chess engine. Will she beat the human? Given enough time, yes. At some point, she will be the world chess champion.

Are human chess players Rama or Sita? That's a hard one. Sita makes billions of moves every minute while playing on her own. A human can make maybe hundred. Sita records every game she plays. A human has a finite memory and doesn't necessarily choose the most important thing to remember. Rama is taught what positions are better and what positions are worse. Humans study this as well. Humans have intuition, Rama doesn't. Sita has something that seems a lot like it. Sita learns on her own, Rama learns nothing, humans learn from each other. But Sita too learns when she plays humans. Humans can write poetry, paint, build and tell stories. Rama can't. Nor can Sita - at least she hasn't yet learnt how to. 

Jogging Diaries

There's a saying in Kannada - "ಕುದುರೆ ನೋಡಿದರೆ ಕಾಲು ನೋವು". If you see the horse, you get leg pain. A throwback to the days when the horse was a means of transportation.

Just over 2 years ago, as my 6th semester at college was winding down, there was a tentative plan for a trek in the Himalayas with my friends (in the end, they went, I couldn't go. :( TWICE! ). I was worried about my fitness naturally, as walking continuously over mountainous terrain in sub-zero temperatures wasn't exactly a part of my usual routine. Thus, I consulted some website, looked up the recommended fitness regimen for such a trek and started on it in preparation for the trek.

Part of the regimen was jogging/running (terms to be used interchangeably now on) thrice a week. The aim was to do 5 km in 35 minutes, and the website recommended a gradual increase towards this level by jogging for a fixed time, then "taking a break" by doing brisk walking, repeated 5 times. The other three days involved climbing some stairs continuously or  some such fools errand which wasn't challenging at all.

My view on running up till then had been simple - who the hell runs when you're not chasing some kind of a ball? A football, a basketball, any round bouncy object. I could just play football. What about practice for football? Increasing your stamina for the game? Well, play a lot more football and you'll get the practice.

Surprisingly, when I forced myself to run without the lure of a ball ahead of me, I actually began to enjoy it really quickly. Since that first time about 28 months back, I've been a regular jogger on and off (mostly off, but in the past 1 year, quite on). And it feels phenomenal. I couldn't recommend it enough to anyone and everyone.

I recently read one of the best books I've come across, called "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen", a book that talks about running with proper form, about a tribe whose people are known to simply run hundreds of miles out of boredom or fear and most fascinatingly, how we're all alive today because our ancestors could run. Homo Sapiens, the book points out, were smaller, weaker and even less intelligent than Neaderthals, who were our competitors and our cousins in the evolutionary tree, not our direct ancestors as most of us believe. But because humans acquired the ability to run long distances without tiring, we out-survived our better endowed cousins. The author gives fascinating tales of people who lived with tribals and perfected the art of running and hunting animals that are rapid, and the tales of modern, industrial age people who by accident discovered their ability to run by jogging to and from work and few years later winning "ultramarathons". (Google that term, trust me!)

I'll just throw one last fact from the book at you, oh patient reader - Human beings peak at around the age of 26 in terms of running. But the decline is really slow, so the running ability of a 19 year old is the same as that of a 64 year old! Even elder men and women among our hunter-gatherer ancestors ran and hunted!

Over the past few months, I've run mainly in three places. In and around the Pashan-road and Baner-road area of Pune, on the path around Sankey Tank in Bengaluru and in the campus of Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. That proverb at the beginning of this post, that's absolutely true!

In Pune, I would begin at my hostel located near Pashan Road, jog along a fixed path and return to the hostel. I carried nothing with me and I jogged almost daily for a period of a month this April-May. What a happy month that was!

The thing about this path was that once I started, I had no choice but to run all the way. I could stop running and walk, of course, but it would be a long, tiresome walk with sweaty clothes, far worse than being absolutely knackered but still jogging to reach hostel again quickly and drinking some water. There were primarily two paths, a shorter path and a longer path, with several shortcuts giving rise to runs of distances intermediate to these two. By the end of the month, I was exclusively taking the longer route every day and on a day of great determination, as a sort of culmination (since I would be leaving Pune soon), I did a circuit of the long route once followed by the short route, all in one go. Pure swarga! An unparalleled feeling, a tiredness that was ecstasy itself. I have no idea how I did it, but now I know I can do it again!

This reminded me of a quote from the book - "Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find huge amounts of ease and power which never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction." I know I've never gone close to breaking this "obstruction"; that's reserved for the people who run hundreds of miles. But if just going somewhat towards that can feel this good, I can only imagine what that feels like. The book is full of stories of runners who collapsed to the ground, completely dehydrated, fatigued, cramped, and then suddenly found a reserve of energy to wake up and resume running for 20 more miles as if nothing happened.

However, I found that the modest resolve of mine completely deserted me during my rounds of Sankey Tank. It was infuriating and frustrating - how could a person, perfectly capable of running at ease and with so much joy in Pune, not be able to reproduce that effort at Sankey Tank, Bengaluru? The setting was perfect. The path around the lake is serene, the greenery is beautiful and the weather couldn't be any better anywhere in the world. But I was too tired to run another step when I'd run just half the distance I could run in Pune.

It wasn't the pollution, I didn't feel any congestion in my chest or my throat. Running on main roads in Pune couldn't be far better than running near a lake surrounded by lush greenery in Bengaluru. Is it the city? Could my beloved city of birth be betraying me and making me weaker? Maybe it was the food? In Pune, an hour before running, I would have a carefully chosen health snack to give me some energy for the run. This snack of one vada paav and one chai wasn't available in Bangalore. Was that the cause?

I meditated on this and realised something - it wasn't physical. It was mental. The same level of tiredness in Pune would make me think, "Ha, it's starting to kick in now. Let us see how far I can go." In Bengaluru, it would make me walk back home.

I was also feeling more thirsty while running in Bengaluru. Also felt like going to pee very frequently. What was the difference between Pune and Bengaluru that, I wanted to drink more water while jogging in Bengaluru, I wanted to pee incessantly while jogging in Bengaluru and I wanted to quit much earlier in Bengaluru. Then the answer struck me!

The path around the Sankey Tank has several amenities for the walkers and joggers. It has 2 toilets. It has 2 taps for drinking water. And it has 2 exits. These were distractions. When there was a fixed path with nothing available in Pune, I had no choice but to run and come back to hostel for any rest, recuperation, excretion and rehydration. At Sankey Tank, I had an outlet at every point. I could quit any time and walk back home from one of two entrances in to the park. ಕುದುರೆ ನೋಡಿದರೆ ಕಾಲು ನೋವು. If you see horse, leg pain. A life lesson!

So I decided to jog at the beautiful campus of the Indian Institute of Science instead. There are toilets here, but I have no clue where they are. And it is infinitely more awkward to walk into a department building where no one knows you and ask for where the toilet is than it is to walk into a public toilet. And I'm so glad to say the running form of Pune is back. It had nothing to do with the city or pollution or anything.

On every run, I go through 3 stages. The first I call discomfort. Your body has just gotten up off the chair/bed after a comfortable day. The last thing you really want to do is physical activity. You really want to watch TV, stretch on the bed and read a book or just while away the time. So as you slowly trot up the path, your mind starts to echo your body's protest. Go sleep dude, he says. Your stomach makes funny rumblings. Your lungs refuse to bring in that oxygen. Maybe a bit of pain in your knees or hips. Your mind gets a little more tactful. He says that just today you aren't in the best of shape, run tomorrow. Skipping one day for health reasons is perfectly legitimate. For some reason, out of habit or sheer force of will, you get through this.

Your body begins to loosen up and you enter the 2nd stage. I call this The Zone. The Zone is the best place to be. Your body has warmed up, each stride is effortless and you're not thinking about running or the path - you're thinking about random things. Almost meditating. This feels brilliant, I could do this forever, you think. This is where all the stress evaporates. You feel like closing your eyes but thankfully you're aware enough to know that is a really stupid thing to do on the footpath of Baner Road during peak hour traffic.

One of the frustrations of Sankey Tank was about not being able to enter The Zone. It is impossible to enter The Zone when you're constantly monitoring your tiredness and thinking when you'll take the next pee break or water break or when you'll exit. The truth is, when you run you will feel tired and thirsty - that does not mean you rush to drink water. Discomfort is a part of the process. You get used to the discomfort and enjoy the tiredness. "Joyfully participate in the suffering of the world" as Buddha preached.

Once you've enjoyed and meditated through The Zone though, harsh reality catches up with you. You're flesh and blood. There is a finite distance you can run continuously for without food and water before you drop dead. And ideally you don't want to be too close to that limit. You enter the 3rd Stage, for which I don't have a name yet. The Ayyo Stage, maybe. Ayyo, how much further away is hostel? Ayyo my legs can't carry me anymore. Again, this stage, where you're absolutely knackered is joyous and meditative in its own way. It's like a tired extension of The Zone. It is like when you're working on a long project, you really get into it but then you start to burn out, so you somehow see it to completion because you've started it and you have to finish it.

What I've found though is that tiredness, up to a point, is relative and subjective. Look, if you're on the edge of complete dehydration and you have no food left to burn in your body, there's nothing subjective about that tiredness. Eat and drink soon, or something serious could happen. But the truth is that our bodies are so much more capable than we imagine - an hour long jog barely scratches that surface of objective tiredness. Subjective tiredness is where you can convince yourself that you're too tired to go another step or you can convince yourself that you can do another half an hour. Whenever you stop, you're going to be equally out of breath and thirsty and hungry. But the most important thing is to not stop. If you stop after say 35 minutes, your body just begins to relax, it's almost impossible to restart again. But if you power past that urge to stop, you can jog another half an hour and when you stop then, the tiredness is almost the same. To give an analogy, if you can eat 20 idlis, whether you eat 3 or 6 makes hardly any difference to how full you feel but eating 18 would feel very different from eating 15. We just do not know or accept that our body's limit for jogging is most probably so high, that 30 minutes or 60 minutes of running makes very little difference. At the end it feels the same. After all, we're Born To Run. So taking a break to drink water from the very conveniently placed tap at Sankey Tank fools you into thinking you're exhausted and you've to head back. That horse always brings leg pain.

Another lesson I've learnt is about company. While I've been running reasonably regularly in Bengaluru, it is not with the same enthusiasm and regularity of Pune. In Pune, I had a dear friend who would run with me. The meaning of "run with me" here is not literal. We would put on our shoes, go downstairs together and start together. He possesses a far larger stride than me, thus he would zoom off and I would run alone except for the first 200 yards. But even that bit of company, the knowledge that someone else is doing it with you, a good friend, adds exponentially to your enthusiasm. Again, this was echoed in the book. There is something deeply human about running, I don't know how to say it or put it, but I can understand that it is indeed so. You have one of the top ultramarathon coaches of the world who dedicated his life to the study of running talking about becoming a more empathetic person as a legitimate way of running better.

Is it the unscientific ramblings of a senile old fool, or a line grasping at some deeper truth? The same question could be asked about this blog post!

Disclaimer: All this is based on my own experience of jogging and reading the book. Don't run some crazy amount without drinking water, faint of dehydration and then sue me.

10 Years: An Arsenal Journey

10 years is a hell of a long time. When someone says something happened ten years back or longer, I switch off. Because 10 years back is a long time back. I was a suckling baby back then. No clue what was happening in the world. Oblivious to the .... WAIT! 10 years back I was in 8th standard!

I have perfectly clear memories of all the stupid things I did in 8th standard. And I wasn't 2 feet tall then. So, 10 years back I was actually quite grown-up. I'm old? Crap. :(

The English Premier League starts today and I realised something - it will be my 11th season following Arsenal and the Premier League in earnest. Yes, I followed the 07-08 season reasonably closely, Arsenal's great win at AC Milan I remember feeling thrilled about. Adebayor scored 30 goals. But I don't have any "I remember where I was when so and so happened" moments from that season apart from watching Bacary Sagna give Arsenal the lead against Chelsea and then switching off the TV. to go sleep. (We would go on to lose 2-1, with Didier Drogba doing the damage). Then there was John Terry's slip in the Champions League, bahahahaha! So let's go on a trip down memory lane, with the games and moments I remember most clearly from the past decade of watching Arsenal. I'm not going to check Wikipedia for any details, so feel free to correct me and point out any great stuff I missed.

The 08-09 season, I remember the excitement of the first day of the season, swooning every time Fabregas touched the ball. Even then I couldn't name 11 Arsenal players, but by the end of the season I would be reeling off the names of 17 year olds impressing behind the scenes. Adebayor was big back then. Ronaldo was the best player in the league. Aston Villa would spend a large part of the season in 4th if I remember right. Carew, Agbonlahor, Nigel Reo-Coker (I think) ruled the show! Samir Nasri was an exciting 19 year-old talent procured by Arsenal. Promoted Hull City shocked Arsenal at the Emirates. Nasri scored two past Van Der Saar to give Arsenal a 2-1 win against United. Arsenal signed Arshavin on deadline day in January. Liverpool smashed Manchester United 4-1 at Old Trafford and I fell in love with Fernando Torres. Even back then, I knew instinctively that Liverpool were alright but Manchester United were scum. Liverpool gave United a huge scare in the title race, but Arshavin scored 4 goals and an epic 4-4 draw between Arsenal and Liverpool practically gave the title to United. In the Champions League, Arsenal would go to the semi-finals, going past Roma and Villareal before being outclassed by an inspired Ronaldo and Manchester United. Almunia pulled of an absolute masterclass to keep the score at 1-0 at Old Trafford with John O'Shea scoring the only goal of the game. In the return leg though, Ronaldo tore Arsenal to shreds. I still have a grudging respect for him. Unbelievable player, too bad he was born in Messi's era.

The 09-10 season is a bit of a blur. The comeback against Barcelona in the Champions League to draw 2-2 at the Emirates was memorable, the Barcelona defence had no clue how to handle Theo Walcott. Yes, Theo Walcott terrorised Puyol, Abidal and co. The return leg had a horribly depleted Arsenal squad losing 4-1, but not before taking a 1-0 lead via Nicklas Bendtner. Oh God, those days. I believe we somewhat challenged for the title. Arshavin scored a worldie at Anfield again to give Arsenal a 2-1 win. Iconic commentary - "It's Andrei Arshavin at Anfield. Again!". The attacking unit was great - Walcott, Nasri, Fabregas, Arshavin, Van Persie, Adebayor. Or had Adebayor left by then? Manchester City's new money had gotten them Robinho, Roque Santa Cruz, Jolean Lescott and a 3-0 win against Arsenal. Chelsea with Ancelloti as coach romped to the title.

Aah, the 2010-11 season. This season has particularly fond memories as well as disasters. What we must remember here is that I still had "school nights", so watching games wasn't always straight-forward. It was either sneaking and watching the game without alerting my parents or missing them altogether. Marrouane Chamakh and Samir Nasri led the scoring charts at the beginning of the season, Fabregas and Wilshere formed a gorgeous midfield partnership and the Arsenal's league form was phenomenal, apart from a bottle-job against Tottenham, when Arsenal from leading 2-0 at home, lost 3-2 with Johan Kaboul scoring a header and Rafael Van-der Waart being great for Spurs. Wenger threw a water bottle. Ugh, makes me puke. I remember a few things clearly. Somewhere in January of 2011, we played Birmingham on a foggy evening and Arsenal absolutely destroyed them, sumptuous passing combinations between Fabregas and Nasri. We were in the Carling Cup final. Beat Barcelona at the Emirates in a stunning performance with Johan Djorou at centre back. Now, beating Pep Guardiola's Barcelona in 2011 was an achievement by itself, but beating them in a Wenger-esque way, with Emmanuel Ebuoe bombing forward on the overlap from right back is an achievement of a different level. I confess, I didn't watch this game live. That was the high point. I remember a game at the Emirates soon after that. Arsenal had just beaten Barcelona, walked into the Carling Cup final and were league leaders. The camera panned to the sign reading "2005" at the Emirates to commemorate the FA Cup victory in that year. The commentator said, "The world has gone dry ever since. That could all change in the coming weeks though." Euphoria gushed through me and I think that was the day that confirmed I would love this club forever. The rest is history of course.

The Carling Cup final was bottled. Arsenal went to St. James Park needing a win to go top of the table after Manchester United had drawn their game. After leading 4-0 at half-time, an Abou Diaby red-card turned the game and we drew 4-4. The league was all downhill since then. As for Barcelona, well those cheating scum bribed the referee. Van Persie was given a second yellow card for the crime of shooting after the whistle had been blown because he didn't hear it. Seriously, that's your excuse for a second yellow card? In a knock-out game? Barcelona had dominated that game, but Arsenal had been given a life-line when some Barcelona player scored an own-goal from an Arsenal corner. Arsenal had just started to grow into the game, then Barcelona's 12th man struck. The less said about the rest of the season, the better. In the middle, I missed out a great 3-0 victory against Chelsea where Alex Song Billong scored, and then Fabregas and Walcott assisted each other. Also, the opening day was an exciting 1-1 draw against Liverpool with a Pepe Reina own goal. I remember another 1-1 draw against Liverpool (maybe the next season) where Arsenal took the lead in something like the 96th minute via a Robin Van Persie penalty before Liverpool scored in something like the 102nd minute after Emmanuel Eboue made the stupidest foul I've seen in my life.

On to the 2011-12 season. The Robin Van Persie season. Fabregas went to Barcelona in the summer after a prolonged "DNA" campaign by the unethical Catalan scumbags. Wenger assured the media that Nasri would stay amidst interest from Manchester City, lost to Liverpool 2-0 and then sold Nasri to Manchester City. Then we lost 8-2 to Manchester United, Arsene Wenger rushed to the supermarket and bought Arteta, Mertesacker, Andre Santos, Yossi Benayoun and one other guy I don't remember. Damn, I'm missing some important name. Chu Yong Park? I remember that guy scoring a beautiful goal against Bolton in some cup game, a lovely finish, similar to Cavani's second against Portugal in the world cup, except closer to the top corner.

Anyway, buoyed by these 5 signings, we SMASHED Swansea 1-0, lost 4-3 to Blackburn where Koscielny was absolutely terrible. Then, one of my favourite games ever and the first game on the new TV at home - Arsenal beat Chelsea 5-3. First, Terry scored, Van Persie equalised after great interplay between Ramsey and Gervinho. Lampard scored. Andre Santos scored through Cech's legs after a great pass from Alex Song. Oh God, these names make me crack up! Then Walcott fell-over, the entire world except Walcott stopped, he got up and smashed it past Cech. Mata scored a fantastic equaliser. Then Terry slipped. Bahahahah! Terry slipped. Van Persie rounded Cech to make it 4-3 and then scored his third on the counter-attack. The rest of the season was Arsenal being shit and Van Persie being supreme. Power-shift Tottenham came to the Emirates, took a 2 goal lead, then Arsenal scored two just before half-time and the second half was carnage. 5-2! Rosicky was unbelievable. A 10-point lead had briefly threatened to become a 13 point lead and eventually Arsenal would finish ahead of Tottenham. Tottenham finished 4th, but Chelsea winning the Champions League miraculously meant the Spurs wouldn't taste Champions League football. In the Champions League, Arsenal lost 4-0 to AC Milan but almost completed a sensational comeback. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain emerged as a real talent and Van Persie went for a chip instead of a smash when he was alone with the bald AC Milan keeper with the score at 3-0. Abiatti or something. Well, the comeback wasn't to be. There was a great 1-0 win against City, with Arteta scoring and Balotelli getting sent off. That perennially irritated City manager said their title challenge is done for and that Balotelli would never play for the club again. Ohh, Roberto Mancini was his name. Both his proclamations would turn false as Balotelli assisted the Aguuuueeeeeerrrrrroooooooooooooooo goal to give City the title in dramatic circumstances.

Then came 12-13. Van Persie went. Arsenal signed Podolski, Giroud and Cazorla. Cazorla was a great signing. Giroud scored a decent amount but was absolutely wasteful. The season happened. Tottenham Hotspur beat Arsenal to go 7 clear. Arsenal fan and Tottenham manager said Arsenal were in a negative spiral and Tottenham were in a positive spiral. Arsenal had lost the first leg of the Champions League Round of 16 game 3-1 against Bayern Munich at the Emirates. I remember watching the second leg with no hope instead of studying for my biology board exam. Wenger had taken some hard decisions. Sczczesny was dropped in favour of Fabianski. Club captain Vermaelen was dropped for Mertesacker. Or was it Koscielny? Either way, a defence first approach built on the compatibility of Koscielny and Mertesacker at the back would be the foundation of a 2-0 win at Munich (agonisingly close to reversing the first leg deficit, bloody away goal rule!) and a great end of the season run-in, where Arsenal won 8 and drew 2 to rein Spurs in. Bahhaha, what spiral, Tim? The grand feast of St. Totteringham would be celebrated with much fanfare. Arsenal in 4th place again. Rafa Benitez gave a great speech basically saying Chelsea fans are useless. I love that man's accent. Van Persie inspired United to the title in Fergie's last season.

Come 13-14. Lose opening day to Aston Villa. Fans in open revolt about the lack of money spent. Beat Spurs 1-0 via a tidy Giroud goal. Arsene says "we might have a surprise for you" and smirks. My Liverpool fan friend messages me on facebook and says "congrats on Ozil". There were whispers. I told him it's not official. But soon enough, it was. WE'VE GOT OZIL!!! WE'RE GONNA WIN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE. The player Rooney had personally asked Fergie to sign and Fergie had told him to concentrate on losing weight. The man who had dismantled England's golden generation in the 2010 world cup. That was a great league season. Arsenal topped the table for 128 days before suffering humiliating defeats against Liverpool and worst of all, against Jose's Chelsea on Wenger's 1000th game. 6-0. God, that still hurts. Sitting through the game. The worst day as an Arsenal fan. But there was a silver lining. Silverware. The FA Cup. To sum it up in a chant,

2-0 down, 3-2 up,
that's how Arsenal won the cup,
With a knick-knack, paddy-whack, give the dog a bone
Aaron Ramsey prodded one home.

The Welshman was outstanding this season and gave me my first taste of silverware. Oh God, it was ecstasy. My favourite video and my second favourite video. Oh God, there was no feeling like it. Even the puny FA Cup felt unbelievable. This was the season I became a profession fan. Watching every obscure cup game and Champions League group stage game. Following Arsenal blogs, YouTube channels. And there was silverware at the end of it. What more could a fan ask for? The Premier League of course.

I remember the summer of 2014. Optimism was at an all-time high surrounding Arsenal. Apart from the thrashings received at the hands of Chelsea and Liverpool in the previous season, the league season had been promising. Puma gave Arsenal a shiny new kit and Wenger made several great signings. Alexis Sanchez, Calum Chambers. A young crop of players had just got their first taste of blood with the FA Cup, claimed the media. And now was the time to kick on. All those hopes faded quickly as Arsenal started the season dreadfully and were too far off the pace to mount a real title challenge. Towards the end of the season, the team embarked on a 9-game winning streak and came close to somewhat being in the conversation for the title, but a 0-0 draw against Chelsea at home effectively meant the title would go to the blue side of London. Once again, the FA Cup was the source of joy. Danny Welbeck scored against Manchester United to give a great quarter-final win at Old Trafford and Aston Villa were dismantled in the final. The unlikely midfield pair of Coquelin and Cazorla would prove to be a great asset. A 2-0 win at the Etihad was heralded as the beginning of a new era when Wenger finally decided to go for a solid, defence-first, build from the back approach.

The lesser said about 15-16, the better. The best chance to win the title since 2008, and we bottled it again. Manchester United floundered. Jose did a classic third season at Chelsea. Manchester City stagnated under Pellegrini. Liverpool - I don't even remember what they were doing. Finishing 8th under Brendan Rodgers, I think. And Spurs were being Spurs. They were 2 periods that defined the season. Over Christmas, Arsenal beat Manchester City at home, goals from Giroud and Walcott giving a 2-1 win and the driving seat in the title race. Arsenal would kindly hand the keys back to the other teams the very next week where, instead of consolidating their position, they would go to Southampton and get thumped 4-0 in a listless performance. Horrendous. Some Southampton right back scored an absolute screamer to make it 1-0 and Arsenal never responded.

Somehow finding their way again, Wenger steadied the troops and Arsenal remained within touching distance of the top of the table occupied by surprise package Leicester. This evening I remember vividly. February 14th, 2016. The entire day, I was compering an event for my college. I'd had no lunch and I was trying to desperately to stream the match on my phone, hiding it behind the podium. No luck! But I was getting discreet messages from the audience. Leicester had taken the lead. I was shell-shocked, but I soldiered on. The event came to an end. Prize distribution, some random announcements. My mind was thousand miles away in North London. I got a chance to go off-stage because some big-wigs had to give speeches. I was restless. Then a friend told me - Danny Simpson got sent off! I had to watch the game. The event ended, but all "organisers" had to stay back for discussion and deliberation. Group photos. All that jazz. I told my co-compere she was in charge and made a bolt for the door. No one stopped me. I ran to the TV Room. I hadn't had lunch, I was standing for several hours straight for two consecutive days.

The audience in the TV room was tense. Arsenal with relentless pressure. Walcott grabs the equaliser. Still tense. Final whistle almost there. Ball goes out for a goal-kick with the clock running down. Wait, no goal-kick. Wazilewski, an absolute tank of a man and reserve CB for Leicester had barged into Ramsey. Free-kick. Ozil over it. Inch-perfect delivery. Danny Welbeck glances it into the far bottom corner! Cue pandemonium. The greatest voice the Emirates has ever been in! Just 5 points to Leicester now! They can be reeled in. They will fall away. We're gonna win the league. We're gonna win the league.

Not to be, of course. A bunch of kids you've never heard of would give United a 3-2 win against Arsenal soon after, with Marcus Rashford launching his career against a clueless Arsenal defence. Then Arsenal lost to Swansea. Back-to-back defeats and it all went to waste. All the hopes from 11 years of waiting dashed. Wenger out! The murmur became an earnest cry. There was a 1-0 win against Norwich which was the stage for a Wenger Out protest in the stadium, where the loudest protests yet were heard, mingled with the loudest chants of "One Arsene Wenger" heard in a long time. It was divided and tumultuous.

But the final day brought some cheer. I remember being on stage for my sister's wedding when my Arsenal supporting buddy informed of what had happened. 10-man Newcastle had thrashed Spurs 5-1 and Arsenal had beaten Villa 4-1. Arsenal finished in the top-2 for the first time in over a decade, and above Spurs! A delayed but still whole-heartedly welcomed St. Totteringham Day. This led to my third favourite video. Bahahaha.

2016-17 - It was really the manager's future that would dominate this season. Arsenal actually started the season well, smashing Chelsea 3-0 at home and at one point, looking like the most credible challengers to runaway league leaders Chelsea. A late late penalty gave Arsenal a controversial win against Burnley at home. The next 2 games were against Watford and Chelsea - win those two and Arsenal would be within shouting distance of Chelsea themselves at the top of the table. Instead, we lost to Watford at home and Chelsea at the Bridge, a meek surrender. The rest of the season was largely forgettable, dropping to 5th place in the league and behind Spurs for the first time. But two games at Wembley would be a source of joy, in the FA cup again.

An off-colour Arsenal faced Manchester City in the FA Cup semi-final. Aguero gave City the lead, but Monreal scored a thumping equaliser before Sanchez scored the winner in extra time. Arsenal weren't great, but we rode our luck. In the final, Arsenal completely outplayed and out-tacticked champions Chelsea in a phenomenal display where the 2-1 scoreline in favour of Arsenal largely flattered Chelsea. Wenger had played his one last card, and it got him a new contract. A two year extension.

I will not say too much about the season just passed. It was a season which disenchanted and disillusioned even the most ardent fans. Arsenal finished sixth, most certainly the worst of the "big-6". Despite Chelsea trying hard to be more shit, they couldn't finish below Arsenal. Manchester City completely dominated the league and Pep Guardiola showed the world he could do it in England. A grievous Koscielny error cost Arsenal the equaliser and eventually, the tie in the semi-finals of Arsenal's new home, the Europa league. Arsene Wenger announced that he would step down at the end of the season.

And so today is the beginning of a new era. And I'm every bit as excited as the young boy who had swooned at Fabregas' every touch. It was always Arsene leading Arsenal, now it is Emery leading us out on to the Emirates. Football has changed in these ten years. Arsenal has changed. But my excitement hasn't faded. I admit, when Wenger left I had my great moment of doubt. It was impossible to separate Arsene and Arsenal, for supporting one had always meant supporting the other. But slowly I've come to accept it. A few shrewd acquisitions by the new manager as well the low-key phenomenal signings by Wenger in January means I believe Arsenal have a great squad. With Chelsea delaying the appointment of their new coach and looking lethargic against Manchester City in the Community Shield, Mourinho having a right moan about his squad and players at every presser and Spurs not making any new signings, an assault on the top-4 spot looks quite realistic, though a title challenge I believe is still fanciful.

Onwards and upwards. COYG!

The Will to Science

A debate that has prickled my mind for the past four years, and I believe will continue to do so as long as I can think straight, has been about "doing" science. It is natural that a debate on this topic should come to dominate my mind. I am after all currently doing "scientific research", and no, the quotation marks aren't to undermine what I'm doing or to make it satirical. It is just an expression of a doubt about what I am doing, what the majority of my peers are doing and what humanity has been doing and saying for quite some time.

There are two primary types of reactions from people who hear that I'm working in Physics. The first is fascination, awe. "OMG, so lucky. How amazing! That's so cool!". These are often people who have been fascinated by science and somehow never got round to doing it, for various reasons. They will then speak in awe about gravitational waves, black holes and the possibility of time travel. These reactions usually bemuse me, because that was once the image of science that I had. And it isn't always too far from what a lot of scientists do. The universe, the cosmos obviously holds a lot of fascination for everyone and the idea of studying the cosmos captures the imagination of every kid at one point or the other. However, it is very few of us who indeed work at the forefront of things like these. Even those scientists who are working on cosmology and gravitational waves are usually disheveled and sitting in a corner breaking their heads over a missing comma in their code or a plus sign gone astray in some calculation related to another calculation related to another calculation which can possibly have some consequence is some case for a probable realisation of the early universe, all complete speculation of course. You have to be consistent with the known laws of physics and the observational data, but there are infinite ways to be so.

Even for a person working very closely with the kind of question that has direct pertinence to something very close to a field of such fascination, the everyday work is rather dull, requiring immense studiousness, attention to detail, patience and gumption - the qualities required for any field. No one is sitting and meditating upon the cosmos, waiting for the Eureka moment. When you peer closely enough, all scientists are seemingly doing the same things - doing some calculations, running some codes, fiddling with some instruments. It is like whether you walk in to the Department of Finance or the Department of Defence, you will see the same thing at the micro-level - people pushing files, having 45 minute chai breaks and seeming important. But the job descriptions read "running the ministry" and "governing the state". "Understanding the cosmos".

It is being done, but you can never see anyone actually sitting and doing it. Understanding nature is an overall motivation, a backdrop. My most recent project for example began with the objective of studying clouds and cloud droplets - and while I've read up a lot of literature on this, the work I do is only very tenuously related to clouds. Maybe, it is mildly possible, that it could have relevance to a real cloud. But the drive to run those codes and do those calculations daily comes from clouds. Maybe, 30 years from now, after decades of hard work from self and collaborators, I might play a not insignificant part in one detail out of the 3025 aspects of understanding the behaviour of clouds. Inshallah. Or 30 years from now I might be working 9 to 5 at a Software company using the tools I picked up while trying to computationally study clouds. Is it worth the other 25400 aspects of clouds that were studied, published in papers and presented at conferences but eventually turned out to not be very important? Very smart calculations, brilliant ideas, honest work. All leading to nothing. Well, the 3025 would not be possible without the 25400, but maybe if people weren't given all the freedom and the whip was cracked on scientists more, the 25400 would be just 6000. I think I'm rambling now.

Let me come to the second reaction of people to learning that I "do science". "Your work will be useful to somebody". "Maybe you can solve some of our country's problems with your knowledge." And this reaction always leads me to give a sheepish smile. How many things that scientists do can directly go into making something that helps a fellow human being? Let us assume that my current work goes well and I end up doing that which is the benchmark for a good scientist - publish a paper in a decent journal on this topic. Where will the paper go in the annals of history? If I'm lucky, another confused Masters student will read it and perhaps he will use something from it to write another paper after bringing it to the notice of his professor. And then seeing this, another scientist will write yet another. Then seeing her paper, another person will write a paper. Maybe some one in this chain will think that my piece of work, with my professor and lab-mates, is interesting. And that the person who was the brains behind it was a smart chap.

That's about it. The trouble starts, I believe, with the public perception of doing research as something cosmic and something that can help people. Perhaps relative to a person working at an office to help some multinational company get richer, doing science, any science might be (strong emphasis on might - not undermining any profession here, underlining my ignorance) more useful for the world or humanity in general. But hardly more useful than a painter who, by virtue of his/her painting, gives joy to a few people on earth directly. Maybe the astrologer who assuages people's fears with false hope and charlatanism has helped lot more people than my research trajectory will ever allow me to.

And then there is the romanticism associated with the human pursuit of knowledge and the human desire to uncover the secrets of the universe. This is purely an aesthetic, almost spiritual venture, not one of pure rationality and pragmatism - the supposed pillars of science.

This reminds me of something I read in a book recently. The book was talking about the philosophy of American science funding after the second world war.  On one side were the pragmatists, who believed that science must be conducted solely to attain clearly defined end results which would help fellow human beings rather than be an open-ended pursuit of "truth".

"Basic research—diffuse and open-ended inquiry on fundamental questions—was a luxury of peacetime. The war demanded something more urgent and goal-directed. New weapons needed to be manufactured, and new technologies invented to aid soldiers in the battlefield. This was a battle progressively suffused with military technology—a “wizard’s war,” as newspapers called it—and a cadre of scientific wizards was needed to help America win it. The “wizards” had wrought astonishing technological magic. Physicists had created sonar, radar, radio-sensing bombs, and amphibious tanks. Chemists had produced intensely efficient and lethal chemical weapons, including the infamous war gases. Biologists had studied the effects of high-altitude survival and seawater ingestion. Even mathematicians, the archbishops of the arcane, had been packed off to crack secret codes for the military. The undisputed crown jewel of this targeted effort, of course, was the atomic bomb, the product of the OSRD-led Manhattan Project. On August 7, 1945, the morning after the Hiroshima bombing, the New York Times gushed about the extraordinary success of the project: “University professors who are opposed to organizing, planning and directing research after the manner of industrial laboratories . . . have something to think about now. A most important piece of research was conducted on behalf of the Army in precisely the means adopted in industrial laboratories. End result: an invention was given to the world in three years, which it would have taken perhaps half-a-century to develop if we had to rely on prima-donna research scientists who work alone. . . . A problem was stated, it was solved by teamwork, by planning, by competent direction, and not by the mere desire to satisfy curiosity.” The congratulatory tone of that editorial captured a general sentiment about science that had swept through the nation. The Manhattan Project had overturned the prevailing model of scientific discovery. The bomb had been designed, as the Times scoffingly put it, not by tweedy “prima-donna” university professors wandering about in search of obscure truths (driven by the “mere desire to satisfy curiosity”), but by a focused SWAT team of researchers sent off to accomplish a concrete mission."

On the other side were those believed that since we do not know which discovery can lead to what applications, the open-endedness and freedom of scientific research is crucial to the advancement of humanity.

"“Basic research,” Bush wrote, “is performed without thought of practical ends. It results in general knowledge and an understanding of nature and its laws. This general knowledge provides the means of answering a large number of important practical problems, though it may not give a complete specific answer to any one of them. . . . “Basic research leads to new knowledge. It provides scientific capital. It creates the fund from which the practical applications of knowledge must be drawn. . . . Basic research is the pacemaker of technological progress. In the nineteenth century, Yankee mechanical ingenuity, building largely upon the basic discoveries of European scientists, could greatly advance the technical arts. Now the situation is different. A nation which depends upon others for its new basic scientific knowledge will be slow in its industrial progress and weak in its competitive position in world trade, regardless of its mechanical skill.” Directed, targeted research—“programmatic” science—the cause célèbre during the war years, Bush argued, was not a sustainable model for the future of American science. As Bush perceived it, even the widely lauded Manhattan Project epitomized the virtues of basic inquiry. True, the bomb was the product of Yankee “mechanical ingenuity.” But that mechanical ingenuity stood on the shoulders of scientific discoveries about the fundamental nature of the atom and the energy locked inside it—research performed, notably, with no driving mandate to produce anything resembling the atomic bomb. While the bomb might have come to life physically in Los Alamos, intellectually speaking it was the product of prewar physics and chemistry rooted deeply in Europe. The iconic homegrown product of wartime American science was, at least philosophically speaking, an import."

And so the debate has rumbled on in my mind as well. When one thinks about the poverty, the destitution and the disease present in the world today, and if we believe that well-thought out, inventive scientific research can bring us unique solutions to the problems of society, it certainly behooves one to consider the current time as not "peace-time", even though there isn't large-scale war. We do need an urgent, complete war, a war against poverty. A war against poor farmers not being able to manage their crops because of a lack of scientific knowledge about their crops, a knowledge gap that can perhaps be plugged by a few months or a few years of dedicated study by smart people (perhaps one of the prima-donnas referred to earlier) who are instead occupied working to "satisfy mere curiosity". If satisfying curiosity about the inner mechanism of rain and clouds cannot bring rain to parched regions of the earth, is it a worthwhile endeavour? Is a painting a worthwhile endeavour? Are these the same things? 

And there is the clarity of the arguments made on behalf of such "open-ended" research and a search for knowledge. The scientists tinkering with the absorption and emission of radiation had no idea that they would create the laser, which has revolutionised so many fields. How far are we prepared to allow this open-endedness? Shouldn't the approach be different in poor countries and developed countries? Can't Sweden go about funding armies of scientists looking at "basic science" while India and Brazil build "SWAT teams of researchers" to look into agriculture, medicine, tropical forests and a whole host of other topics with pressing concern? 

Perhaps 19th century and 20th century science had enough undiscovered and untouched knowledge that the tactic of buying as many lottery tickets as possible and hoping to win the lottery would work. Now it seems the number of lottery numbers is much much larger, as we go into more and more speculative knowledge. How many journals have sprouted up in the most recent decades that exclusively spew nonsense and are essentially scams? How many research papers are simply thrown on places like Arxiv? The entire scientific ecosystem seems to have become one huge organism itself. If you're a single bacteria cell, you need to worry almost exclusively about the outside. Survive when it is too hot, survive when it's too cold and somehow engulf some nutrition. But now you have to worry about not overheating from your own body heat, not tripping one leg on the other. Increasingly obscure journals servicing specific fields which are sub-fields of already obscure fields which haven't seen any advances in knowledge after a hundred years. Must we really still try to solve the Navier-Stokes equation exactly (or rather, prove that there is a unique, real solution for given initial conditions) when, for all practical purposes, all its characteristics are revealed to us by inexact computational methods? The existence of the solution will not help us predict the weather any better. 

And then there is maths. What to do with maths? I have stopped thinking about this - it is so exasperating. Why must anyone do it? Alright, once in a generation a deep inquiry into some abstract maths translates into some crucial insight into something in physics - but increasingly this is in the abstract physics of more than three dimensions or far-outer space. Is it worth the cost of all that funded mathematical enquiry? Is it worth the cost of such bright minds whose labours could have been spent elsewhere?

I'm not going to try to answer any of the questions here, because I think there are no answers. The absence of utility in doing something is hard to prove to anyone. What's the point of holding the umbrella and watering the plants in the pouring rain? Ooh, it builds character. Instills discipline. Teaches you valuable lessons in life. You never know when you might the chance to enjoy a quiet session of plant-watering in your garden. Maybe that's true. Maybe that's speculative baloney.

"The large-scale emphasis on science education and research builds a generation of critical thinkers and problem solvers who can covert our economy into a knowledge based economy from a service based economy built on mere imitation of foreign technology to leverage our scientific capital in the world in exchange for technical know-how which will help boost indigenous manufacturing and provide for large-scale employment, both skilled and unskilled for our young population." Sure dude, I believe. If you say so. Sounds like it makes sense.

I'm just pondering.