If you have a problem, fix it. But train yourself not to worry, worry fixes nothing. - Ernest Hemingway

Friday 22 March 2024

Sexual dimorphism

 


The header of this article is a phrase I have come across recently. To be honest, this brief note is an attempt to show off my newly-acquired vocabulary, but I guess you will enjoy if you read on, particularly if you are interested in the animal world or the evolution of life forms. 

“Dimorphic” means “representing two distinct forms”. Sexual dimorphism means the differences in sizes, strength, and behaviour patterns between the two sexes of the same species, and how different they look. For example, among wild mammals, males are often bigger and more aggressive than females. Females, on the other hand, take care of their infants. Among birds, males not only have attractive plumes and colours, usually, they are the ones that sing! The male deer has antlers, a cumbersome accessory, but it adds to his visual appeal, besides being useful during fights with other males. 

Males and females are different because the struggle for reproductive success has each of them along different evolutionary trajectories. Male birds / mammals have to win sexual contests with other males. To put it simply, they must impress females, a situation you come across in humans in campuses and everywhere else. 

Interestingly, sexual dimorphism is much less pronounced among domesticated animals because they don’t have the same evolutionary pressures as wild animals! Their survival (or suffering) and procreation is ensured by their human masters. Among humans, in so-called civilized societies, physical strength has taken a back seat in personal contacts. Even if a man has a contest with another to win the favours of a woman, they don’t try to beat each other to pulp. Usually! Consequently, sexual dimorphism is less pronounced among humans. According to an estimate, 10% of US men weigh less than the average weight of an American woman. Men don’t need a bigger body or muscles to impress women these days. Instead, they try to enrol in Ivy Leage universities. IITs in our country.

However, certain forms of dimorphism, like bright colours among birds and antlers on deer should be a disadvantage for their survival. These make them more visible and easier targets for predators. But the paradox is easily resolved if you consider that the reproductive success of an animal is often more important than his/her life span. For example, a wild male pheasant lives half as long as a female. (Nature is perhaps not as partial to males as it might seem at the first glance!) A male pheasant’s reproductive success depends not on how long he lives, but on how many females he can mate with. Bright plumage improves his chances. On the other hand, among insects, females are often bigger than males as they need volume to produce a large number of eggs.

I got interested in the topic while reading some books. Of these, one I read at a stretch over the last two days: a beautiful Bangla novel for young adults and children like me. The story is around the evolutionary success of migratory birds in particular and birds in general. The title of the book is অচিন পাখী  which literally mean An Exotic Bird.

The author of the book is Debashis Moitra, who besides writing in Bangla, teaches civil engineering. Humans are no less intriguing than birds!

More about the book later. Please watch this space!

20 March 2022 / edited on Friday, 22 March 2024

Picture of male and female orioles from Marin Independent Journal, e-edition


Wednesday 20 March 2024

রবীন্দ্রনাথ কি সত্যিই বড় কবি ছিলেন?

সুনীল গঙ্গোপাধ্যায় কোথাও লিখেছিলেন: আমি যদি রবীন্দ্রনাথের শ্রেষ্ঠ কবিতা সঙ্কলন করি, সেটি একটি চটি বই হবে। দুঃসাহসের জন্য দশে দশ। এবং এই বাক্যটি তিনি উঠতি বয়সে, যে সময়ে তিনি এবং তাঁর বন্ধুরা রবীন্দ্রনাথের মুন্ডপাত করে নিজেদের পায়ের তলায় মাটি খুঁজছিলেন, সেই সময় লেখেননি। লিখেছেন পরিণত বয়সে।

আমার সামান্য পড়াশোনা দিয়ে মনে হয় সুনীল আমাদের প্রজন্মের—মানে জীবনানন্দ পরবর্তী সময়ে—দুজন শ্রেষ্ঠ কবির একজন। কবি হিসেবে তিনি হয়ত শক্তি চট্টোপাধ্যায়ের চেয়ে একটু পিছিয়ে, কিন্তু সাহিত্যিক হিসেবে নানা রাস্তায় (কবিতা, গল্প, উপন্যাস, জীবনস্মৃতি, অনুবাদ, প্রবন্ধ, রম্যরচনা) সুনীল গঙ্গোপাধ্যায়ের অনায়াস গতি আমাদের বিস্মিত করে। তাঁর সম্মন্ধে আরো একটা কথাও নিশ্চই বলা যায়, গদ্যের জগতে এমন মেধাবী বাঙালী কমই এসেছেন। সেই সময় উপ্যনাসটিকে ঐতিহাসিকরা কত নম্বর দেবেন জানিনা, আমার কন্যাসমা দুই পন্ডিত আছেন, তাঁরা বলতে পারবেন। কিন্তু আমার মত সাধারণ মানুষ বইটি পড়ে উনবিংশ শতাব্দীর কলকাতার ধনী-দরিদ্র, পন্ডিত-মূর্খ বাঙ্গালী সম্পর্কে যে ধারণা তৈরী করতে পারে তা বোধ করি অনেক ইতিহাস বই পড়ে সম্ভব নয়। (প্রথম আলো এই অর্দ্ধশিক্ষিতের চোখে পড়েনি, তাই ওটি বাদ গেল।) তপন রায়চৌধুরী লিখেছেন ঐতিহাসিক হিসেবে তিনি অতীতের মানুষের হৃদস্পন্দন শুনতে চেষ্টা করেন। সেটা লক্ষ্য হলে সুনীল গঙ্গোপাধ্যায়ের মত ঐতিহাসিক কমই আছেন। সুনীল তাঁর আত্মজীবনী অর্দ্ধেক জীবনের এক জায়গায় পাঁচ-ছ পাতায় দ্বিতীয় বিশ্বযুদ্ধের একটি বিবরণ লিখেছেন। এমন জটিল একটা বিষয়কে এত প্রাঞ্জল করে ক’জন লিখতে পারেন আমার জানা নেই।

অতয়েব রবীন্দ্রনাথের কবি প্রতিভা সম্পর্কে তাঁর মতামত ফ্যালনা নয়। কোন তর্কে না গিয়ে একটা ব্যক্তিগত কথা লিখি। গত কয়েক দিন ধরে কয়েকটা লাইন কোন কারণ ছাড়াই বারবার ঘুরেফিরে আসছে।

বর্ষ তখনো হয় নাই শেষ, এসেছে চৈত্রসন্ধ্যা।

বাতাস হয়েছে উতলা আকুল,

পথতরুশাকে ধরেছে মুকুল,

রাজার কাননে ফুটেছে বকুল পারুল রজনীগন্ধা।

ফুটেছে বকুল পারুল রজনীগন্ধা! শুধুমাত্র শব্দের ঝঙ্কারে যে সৌন্দর্য সৃষ্টি করা যায় আমরা যারা সংস্কৃত পড়িনি তাদের জানা হতনা রবীন্দ্রনাথ না থাকলে। আর এমন সেই শব্দের জোর, তারা কারণে-অকারণে, সময়ে-অসময়ে আমাদের মনের মধ্যে ঢুকে পরে, আমন্ত্রণ ছাড়াই! শুধু এই একটি মাত্র কারণে সুনীল গঙ্গোপাধ্যায়ের মতামত নাকচ করে দেওয়া যায়। রবীন্দ্রনাথের অগুন্তি কবিতায় শব্দের এই ঝর্ণাধারা আমরা পাই। তিনি না জন্মালে বাঙ্গালীদের কপালে অনেক দুঃখ ছিল।

 দ্বিতীয় যে লাইনদুটি মাথার মধ্যে ঘুরছে তা হল :

 হায় কাহার পথে বাহির হলে বিরহিনী!

তোমার আলোক ঋণে করো তুমি আমায় ঋণী।

 এই লাইনগুলি মনে হবার কারণ আমার অন্ধপ্রদীপ শুন্য-পানে চেয়ে আছে গানটি প্রথম শুনেছিলাম অনুজপ্রতীম বন্ধু অরূপ মুখোপাধ্যায়ের  গলায়। এখন মাঝে মাঝেই শুনি অন্তর্জালে, কিশোর কুমার অথবা পঙ্কজ মল্লিকের গাওয়া।  অরূপের কাছে এই গানটি আর শোনা যাবেনা। আমার চেয়ে অনেক ছোট অরূপ আমাদের ছেড়ে চলে গেছে কয়েক বছর আগে।

২০ মার্চ ২০২৪

Rabindranath ki sotyi boro kobi chilen

 আমার অন্ধপ্রদীপ শুন্য-পানে চেয়ে আছে

 

Monday 9 October 2023

Decoding Brand Modi

The Secret of Survival for 10 years

India Today Conclave, Mumbai 2023

Beloved Modi-ji has been the PM for 9 years and 4+ months, but INDIA TODAY would like us to believe he’s been in power for 10 years. It’s a minor trickery, somewhat counter-parallel to Bata selling shoes for Rs.999.95. In a discussion anchored by Rahul Kanwal (a proud Modi bhakt) and another journalist, a group of marketing / advertising big cheeses laboured  hard for 33 minutes to prove the invincibility of “Brand Modi”. 

In the normal course, I wouldn’t have watched the video, but I did, because a friend sent the link with an intro that read: Sorry for sharing the video so early in the morning. Indian Today anchors are live examples of what described the media during the Emergency: “When asked to bend, they crawled.” In fact, I think it’s more than crawling now. Let me explain why I think so.

In one of his memoirs—I don’t recall which one—physicist Richard Feynman describes the difference between a scientist and a salesman: A scientist, even the most unspectacular one, would invariably mention the downsides of the theory proposed by them, and in what conditions the theory doesn’t work. But for a salesman, hiding the negative aspects of their product is de rigueur, a part of the job. The Indian mainstream media today is more salesmanship than journalism. And for the modern-day marketing executives, who often build a false narrative—sometimes a myth—about the product and call it  a brand, one cannot but feel a little pity. These smooth-talking, smart, and well-informed men spend their life inventing beautiful lies. 

Personally, I hadn’t heard the name of any of the INDIA TODAY panelists except Dilip Cherian, who spoke glowingly about Modi’s event management skills. Watching four of them waxing eloquent about Modiji was a learning experience for me. In the 33 minutes they talked, none of the essential issues concerning Modi and his prime-ministership was touched. If an intelligent being from another planet had watched the video, the poor fellow would imagine India had zero problem with the economy, her social harmony was perfect, her democracy was functioning beautifully with its pillars such as the judiciary, parliament, and media in good health. The conclave sidestepped all the critical issues in the context of which Modi should have been examined. 

Instead, the panelists said something that were both bizarre and startling: 

• Modi rules over the hearts of the people. Evidence: Survey by some unnamed US organisation which found Modi is the most popular national leader in the world with 76% approval rating. (Not a word about the methodology of the survey or the size / nature of the sample they used.)

• BJP doesn’t win elections by creating religious divides, but because of the development they have brought about. Proof: “Religion doesn’t fill stomachs.”

• The panelists talked eloquently about the comparability of Modi and Xi Jinping. They had no problem about the fact that Modi was a leader in a democracy and XI, of the biggest totalitarian state in history. Actually, by making the comparison, they let the cat out of the bag about their own concept of democracy.

• When asked about the weaknesses of the “Brand Modi”, the panelists struggled hard to find an answer. Their innocence was touching; perhaps they hadn’t noticed Modi’s proclivity to take decisions without consulting anyone, his disdain for democratic processes, his shameless hatred for Muslims and Christians, his abject failure to manage the economy of the country, ... his lies. In particular, the panelists seemed to have missed the following.

o The economic distress caused by demonetisation with zero prior study, and ignoring the opinion of RBI.

o Haphazard implementation of the GST by relying on a single IAS officer from—where else but—Gujarat, which caused more damage.

o the enormous suffering of the migrant workers when Modi announced a nation-wide lockdown at 4 hours’ notice, once again without any evidence of planning.

o The delay in introducing vaccines, countless documented instances of people dying because of lack of oxygen, and the bodies floating on the Ganga during the second wave of COVID.

o Muslims attacked and killed in every BJP ruled state with no legal action against the criminals.

o Systematic destruction of Muslims homes, again by BJP ruled states in complete and egregious violation of legal provisions.

During the discussion, Dilip Cherian said that Coca Cola, the most successful brand of the 20th century, contains 30% sugar, but the company doesn’t reveal the fact. (It’s not obliged to?) Similarly, Modi doesn’t have to acknowledge his weaknesses. It’s the brand that matters.

It does seem we have evolved from the idea of the media bending or crawling. From the idea that a leader must be measured against his/her performance. Modi is a brand around which an aura is to be created. Modi has to be marketed, like Coke, whether it’s poison or not. Just as capitalism is value neutral as long as there’s profit, in today’s India, anything that Modi does is fine, as long as he wins elections!

You have to decide if deserves to win the elections in 2024.

08/10/2023

Photos courtesy commons.wikimedia.org

Left: By Prime Minister's Office (GODL-India), GODL-India

Right: By Ralf Roletschek - Own work, Public Domain


Monday 18 September 2023

Hope or despair? The choice is ours

Can you recall the name of the political party Hitler belonged to? Or Mussolini? Or in our time, Recep Erdogan’s party in Turkey? Probably not. But everybody knows what party Joe Biden belongs to, or Sheik Hasina. Unlike in democracies, political parties don’t play a pivotal role in a dictatorial or fascist state. In these regimes, one man comes to power riding on a party, and over time, he makes the same party irrelevant as he gradually usurps all the powers of the state. I think we have come to a stage in India where BJP and even its ideological big brother, the RSS have become irrelevant. One man calls the shots in India today, Narendra Modi, MA (Entire Political Science).

And this man has basically done two things during his nine years of (mis)rule. 

He has systematically weakened the foundations on which the structure of our democracy stands: the parliament, the judiciary, the election commission, and the agencies that maintain order, like the CBI and the ED.

His other major “contribution” is that his followers and a section of the media systematically spread hatred against minorities, of whom Muslims are the first target. Hate campaigns humiliate them relentlessly. Muslim Indians—most of them don’t have a forefather who ever lived anywhere outside India—are told they have no place in their country. They should go to Pakistan. They are lynched; they are killed in manufactured riots; the culprits aren’t punished. Rather, mass murderers and gang rapists jailed in an earlier regime are released prematurely and feted by the master’s followers. In the states ruled by Modi’s party, the situation is the worst. If you go to Ahmedabad, the laboratory of Hindutwa hooliganism, you will see that all Muslims, from former IAS officers to peons live in a ghetto, where the civic amenities are terrible. In at least three states, UP, MP, and Haryana, for every real or perceived offence committed by Muslims, the state government sends bulldozers to destroy Muslim homes. No notice, victims get no opportunity to defend themselves in court. Bulldozers arrive and demolish their homes. The news is carried in some newspapers the next day and that is the end of it. No legal process, no judge has the courage to call out the grotesque illegality. 

All these monstrosities go unchallenged because a large section of the majority Hindu community has been blinded by hate against Muslims (and Christians). Hatred and anger are a dangerous mix. It makes decent people blind and unable to think rationally. (This fact was seen time and again in history and also proved experimentally by psychologists.) In India today, there are millions who don’t believe demonetisation lead to massive damage to the economy. Millions think if bodies floated in the Ganga during COVID, the Modi government had no fault. Millions believe—without a shred of evidence—that Muslims will somehow become a majority in the country and decimate Hindus. Hindu khatre mein hai!

By an accident of birth, I am a Hindu. And I am ashamed of the poison that many of my friends (or former friends) carry in their dysfunctional brains. If you haven’t succumbed to the poison, please open you heart to your Muslim friends, colleagues, and neighbours. Please tell them you don’t belong to the bigoted, insane lot. It will not change the system, but it will be your contribution to the sanity of the nation.

 There is no sign that the Modi bhakts’ collective madness will be cured anytime soon. No let up in the blizzard of poison. Rather, there’s every sign that Indian politics will become even more poisonous. As things stand today, there seems little chance that Modi will be defeated in the elections in 2024, although a lot can change in politics in the next eight months. And it is more or less certain that if did win next year, he would possibly be able to change the Constitution and convert India a Hindu Rashtra. We are already following Pakistan in a similar path of destruction. If Modi wins next year, we will reach a point of no return.

But however bleak the immediate future may seem, if we gave up hope, it would be our defeat at the hands of autocracy. That cannot happen, despair is not an option for us. We must speak up and speak to anyone who cares to listen. The message must be kept alive. The revolutionary poet from Telangana, Varavara Rao, who has spent many years in jail, gives us hope. Let me close this short note with a few lines written by him.

“Political prisoners know the meaning of hope but they do not know the meaning of despair. Chera called me a frightful optimist for this, and yet I must honestly admit that although I have known pain, suffering and anxiety along with hope, happiness and enthusiasm, never have I been plunged into despair and frustration even in the most trying times. … In personal matters, I felt sorrowful indifference at moments and said, ‘Let troubles and hardships come if they must.’ I have felt detachment, but never have yielded to cynicism even for a moment in my solitary cell.”


Varavara Rao, quoted by Arvind Narrain in his book India’s Undeclared Emergency p199 (Westland Publications Pvt. Ltd., 2021). 
Varavara Rao’s picture courtesy Wikipedia.