Redrawing the Middle East

The Armed Forces Journal has this to say about redrawing the boundaries of the Middle East. American armchair ethnology. Look into it.

Nobody in their right mind could believe that redrawing International Boundaries in modern times could be anything but bloody. It does, however, reinterate just how fluid national (and individual) identities can be. The creation of National myths seeks to reinforce the collective identity, and gives citizens something to believe. For example, during the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqi government hired actors to grant 'visions' of the Twelfth Imam to troops, boosting morale. Soldiers on both sides were Shia.

Wahhabi Islam emanating from Saudi Arabia is changing traditional muslim identities the world over. Hajjis returning to their homelands bring with them ideas and concepts from the Holy Lands, acting as 'memetic fountains'. Traditional Islam in Indonesia and Malaysia is gradually being eroded by Meccan Islam. In Pakistan and India, Sufism is being denounced as too soft and theologically shaky, and the swift adoption of Wahabism. In Kashmir, where the purdah was restricted to upper class urban muslims AND hindus, the hijab has made swift inroads.

Petro dollars will do that to you.

Addendum: Steve Pinkler of Harvard on the evolutionary psychology of religion. Gene Expression also has something to say on the matter.

The Silence of the Lambs Genes

Gene Silencers get something to shout about! RNA Silencing has won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Medicine!!

The discovery of the RNAi machinery has been revolutionary in the field of genetics, and was expected to win a Nobel soon. For an overview of the RNAi mechanism, read this post on one of my favourite blogs, Gene Expression.
For an animated tour of the RNAi mechanism, see here.
A documentary on the world of RNA silencing can be seen here.

P.S: Jyoti, if you're reading this.... TREAT TREAT!!

Activators or Stabilizers?

The Daily Transcript reports on a new study that indicates Eukaryotic transcription may occurs in bursts. Transcription factors (regulators of when a gene is "on" or "off") are often characterized as 'activators' or repressors. The paper suggests activators may instead be stabilizers. Genes are always flipping back and forth between different levels of on and off states and when transcription factors bind they can hold one state steady. When upregulation happens a gene isn't 'turned on', it is just kept on.

This paper seems to indicate that cells (at least eukaryotic cells) have varied systems to regulate transcription. Even within prokaryotic cells, the initial 'jiggly' association of RNA polymerase and the promoter seems to be stabilized by Transcription factors. Once RNAP is associated with DNA, it was very stable. Could stabilizers be 'uncoupling' the initial weak RNAP-DNA binding? Could this be related to the phenomenon of abortive transcription seen in vitro?

Osman Sagar and its predatory denizens

Decided to go for a jog/run this sunday evening, to Osman Sagar and back.
Miscalculated. There's far too much traffic on that road on weekends to jog, so I walked most of the way. I sorta expected that, but I was NOT prepared for the wierdness. People stare. It's a common enough habit in South India, so I'm used to that. But guys driving by, going " Wooo Hoooo!" was new to me. I even got a "Kya baat hai!".
Huh.

Osman Sagar's pretty in the evenings. From the Tank Bund, the sun sets over the surprisingly blue water, as you can see here ... it's the blue one on the left. (The colour in the satellite photo is probably an artifact of the angle at which it was taken, though.)


This picture was taken on another occasion.

There are signs warning about crocodiles in the water, and I'm rather psyched about seeing one. Fingers crossed.
The views are amazing. In the evening you can see the lights of Hightech city in the distance, and even ISB, home of the Elastic Retreat.

I hope the jog/run materialises into a regular thing.

Crickey!

Steve Irwin was killed today while filming an underwater documentary.

The Crocodile Hunter is sorely missed.

... sounds like more than just moral support!

Thank God the Pakistanis are doing their bit for the War on Terror!

- From a Malaysian paper

The Henry Higgins of Genetics

I'd been hearing a lot about the way a particular scientist at my Institute speaks, and as an amateur linguist, I'm always fascinated by the choices people (and groups of people) make about syntax. Sometimes the choice of syntax can reveal quite a bit about the speaker, and its always interesting to see what information can be gleaned from this. Well, I finally had the opportunity to interact with him, and the level of overlap between his scientific and casual speech was significant.

Scientists as a group tend to allow complex technical jargon to seep into conversational English. While this happens in every occupational group, scientific English has its peculiarities. Scientific English is vociferously international, and regional variations and quirks are unacceptable. The nature of peer review among scientists enforces a common syllabary, which sometimes deviates significantly from standard English. Given the stringent of the field, synonyms are rarely tolerated. The language is argument based, with no room for ambiguity. Analogies and comparisons are the bread and butter of science, and this makes its way into common speech as well. My friends are well aware of (and irritated by) my strong tendency to draw analogies. In addition, modern science uses standard English terms to define new phenomena, unlike the older practice of graeco-latin etymology. Words such as termination, interference, silencing, screening, and selection have very specific meanings, which can differ significantly from the standard understanding. There are almost field-specific 'dialects'. For example, Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic geneticists speak variant, though mutually intelligible dialects. Of course, it's not very pronounced, but it's discernible.

Earlier this week, I was assisting my guide review a manuscript for an international peer-reviewed journal. I was struck by the relatively poor "genetics" dialect of the authors. While the logic of the article was fine, their argument was on shaky ground. The authors lacked a sound understanding of the language of genetics, which fails to impress reviewers. As I later discovered, the authors were medical doctors. The idea behind any communication in the scientific world is to effectively convey your observations, and defend your findings. The logic should build upon previous findings, and therefore must employ the same jargon.

Googlisms: The perks of prison

Googlism for Aditya:

aditya is confused as he is attracted to shamli but has not thought of marriage & at the same time doesn not know prerna yet she seems to have everything that [plot of Ekta Kapoor serial?!]
aditya is the coolest and the sweetest guy [oh, ok... whatever!]
aditya is the first tanker of the indian navy to be built in the country [Sasta aur tikaoo]
aditya is sort of indifferent to her wails [take that, Be-yatch! And that! And that!]
aditya is a nice man who has been forced to take the path of crime by a wrong doing of the system [expect an angry letter to the Editor of the Economic Times]
aditya is caught by prabha because he's the prime suspect in the murder of an industrialist [crime doesn't pay... as much as it should]
aditya is a criminal who faced the charges for murder and is serving his life term in central jail of vizag [Are we waiting for something.... for Life?!]
aditya is anal [Yeah, prison will do that. Enjoy!]
aditya is glad that the onus is on him to carry the family heirloom [Careful with those family heirlooms in the prison shower]

Googlisms: Ridiculous demons

Googlisms for Tamal:

tamal is corn [I think they were going for corny]
tamal is wrapped in papatla husks [A straitjacket would be more effective]
tamal is the main murder suspect in srila prabhupada's poisoning [Say two Hail Marys Hare Krishnas]
tamal is untrustworthy [yeah, poisoning someone will do that for your reputation]
tamal is 3 feet long [more like 3 feet tall]
tamal is wrapped in the corn husk and baked [I think I had a dream where I did that]
tamal is ridiculous [As I've said myself many times]
tamal is stuffed with stewed chicken or pork [only at dinner time]
tamal is excellent [HAHAHAHAHA!]
tamal is a tamal is a tamal [how existential!]
tamal is exalted [...at least by me!]
tamal is always a surprise waiting to be opened [true]
tamal is sick from accepting karma [Ye shall reap what ye sow, chump]
tamal is running scared [... of karma?!]
tamal is in a very quiet crisis [I know]
tamal is a demon [... sometimes]
tamal is wonderful [... sometimes]
tamal is to die for… [can't argue with that. I agree]

Googlisms: Cool handsome God

Bumped into googlism.com. Spooky how accurate these things can be!

Here's a run down of googlisms of me and some friends.

Me:


rohan is cool [Duh!]

rohan is a handsome 7 [Again... can't argue with that!]

rohan is the leader of the mystic knights and the first to gain his armour [cool!]

rohan is not at all what he seems [how true]

rohan is the home of the eorlingas [well, I do love me some lingas]

rohan is an institution [true]

rohan is god [ditto]

rohan is unofficially ranked in top 10 in the world in international moth class [hey, who're you calling a moth?!]

rohan is the son of peter theobald and levana fletcher [bald?!]

rohan is only two and a half years old but his brain is matured to a hundred years old guy he is sharp and everybody is proud of this little babe [yeah, we tend to do that]

rohan is also seen in a lot of local television commercials [Dr. Batra's, mostly]

rohan is considered to be one of the best athletes [how am I kidding?!]

rohan is san francisco's first and premier soju bar [So-who?!]

rohan is one of them [I KNEW it!]

rohan is dashing and smart [how redundant]

rohan is an unusual one [true true]

rohan is aditya's attempt to trick him [Hey!]

rohan is his own man [true]

rohan is draganta [who's in drag?!]

rohan is not the only victim of feng shui [my first chinese words!]

rohan is now studying film technique and art design at the university level [...almost]

These are a few of my favourite genes....

David Ng reimagines the Sound of Music...

Sigma and the Tale of a new city

I recently joined the Computational & Functional Genomics department of the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting & Diagnostics, at Hyderabad, as a Doctoral candidate.

My Doctoral studies will focus on the molecular mechanisms of the sigma factors of Mycobacterial genomes. Sigma factors control initiation of gene expression, and act as the recognition domains of RNA polymerase enzymes for specifically recognizing DNA sequences. In effect, the presence (or absence) of sigma factors regulates which genes are expressed.

Individual genes are preceded by short tags, called promoters. These genetic beacons act as colour-coded post-its, read by the sigma factors. For example, lets assume the cell is exposed to excess heat. The cell ceases all activity, goes into red alert, and activates the heat stress sigma factor, the “in case of fire” secret dossier. This dossier contains the locations of all heat stress proteins (a sort of sleeper cell, if you will), which must be activated pronto. The sigma factor discloses the location of these genes to the transcriptional machinery, allowing them to be expressed.

The cell maintains an arsenal of different sigma factors, to be activated under specific conditions. For example, DNA damage, heat shock, osmotic shock, hypoxia, etc.

My Doctoral work will focus on the exact mechanism of sigma factors within Mycobacteria, the causative agents of TB and leprosy. Mycobacteria are extremely hardy bugs, and can survive under a multitude of conditions and extreme environments. They are also incredibly slow growing, which makes studying them very difficult. M.tb has 13 sigma factors, while the average gut bacteria has only 7. It is predicted that some Mycobacteria have as many as 26 different sigma factors. The implications of this are astounding.

Split down the middle

The other day as I was passing through Secunderabad, a guy in a nice shirt handed me an anti reservation pamphlet. It had a graphic of India split down the middle, half general, half reserved. Pretty strong stuff, I thought.

When the Mandal Commission fracas erupted all those years back, I was just a kid. My elder brother was one of the protesters. To me, he typified the sense of disenfranchisement the youth felt at the time. I could see in him a sense of powerlessness, of being unable to determine your own future against the heavy handedness of the government. Times were changing. A young, dynamic and modernizing Rajiv Gandhi was gone, and power seemed restored to the Old Guard. An Old Old Guard.

When school was closed due to the rioting, I suddenly aware of how vulnerable we all were. I realized my brother was gone all day, and would come back late at night, carrying anti-reservation material. He never talked about what exactly he was doing, and I never asked. My parents weren't thrilled, but they felt the students had no other choice. I still remember the sheer desperation everybody around me felt. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the big deal was about. Being bought up in the Indian ethos of looking up to authority, I always assumed they knew best. But why were my brother and his friends so worked up? In school I thought we all got along. So why can't people in the outside world? Were they worried about seats in colleges? SO worried that they were setting themselves on fire? I just didn't understand.

As I moved out of Delhi, I came to realize how the rest of India looks at caste. But it was only when I moved to the South that I truly began to understand what caste means.

Caste is everything. It is your identity and your currency. It is your past, and your future. It determines who you marry, who you work for, and who'll employ you. It determines how you see the world, and how the world sees you. Caste is something that you wear on your sleeve, proudly or like a Star of David. That is the reality in India today.

My caste has determined what Institutes will take me. It has determined how much I pay for fees, and what benefits I was eligible for (in my case, zero). As a member of a 'forward caste', I was not allowed to take formal responsibility for my lab, a position the state government dictated could only be held by an 'Adi Dravid'. Proactive SC teachers cut my marks, while SC/BC/OBC/MBC students did suspiciously well in their classes. I know it sounds like circumstantial. Perhaps I was being paranoid. Or perhaps my paranoia stemmed from the university granting a special scholarship to students who were "SC converted to Christianity".

67% of my classmates were on reserved seats. They were bright, no doubt. I knew enough to understand that if it wasn't for reservation most of them wouldn't have gotten as far as they had. It's a shame, because they were indeed deserving and hard working. Most of them came
from relatively modest background, and state reservation allowed them to join a Centrally funded postgrad programme that otherwise might be outside their grasp. The Centre coughed up a LOT of money to establish a setup in a cutting edge research area, and to equip future
researchers with these modern tools. Sure, I can see no harm in ensuring social representation among future scientists. Perhaps there is indeed a dilution of overall quality, and perhaps that is
acceptable. To an extent.

An accreditation commission member was taken aback when I appraised him of the caste situation in the university. It was pretty funny, actually. I met him after a general student interaction with the commission. I knew I could never raise the issue in public and escape unscathed. I didn't have the balls to do that. Scratch that. I WON'T have any balls left. To scratch or anything. When I mentioned the level of reservation, the guy was genuinely shocked. Seeing me talking to him seemed enough to spook a professor who immediately shooed him
into a waiting car, while the guy stammered to me he'll look into it. Yeah, sure. Good luck with that! I won't hold my breath.

The last batch to be inducted had only 1 general category student. The remaining 3 seats were given to category students, without going through the general category wait list. Fair minded professors protested, while the proactive chairman of the school went ahead and authorized it when the others were out of town.

I honestly don't know where I stand on reservations. I'd like to think India will someday be a meritocracy, because that I've always been told is the eventual goal. But the idea of merit is inherently biased. Every merit exam has an upper caste bias. I come from a family that always encouraged me to read, where the pursuit of knowledge was seen as a goal in itself. My family's financial status allowed me access to resources others did not, and enabled me to develop abstract and random notions of intellectual pish-posh. What if my family background was different? How different would my childhood have been? Probably a lot. It'll have been all Campa, not Kafka.

Adam and the Snake

I am finally a Postgraduate. Yipeee! The last few weeks have been very hectic. My thesis left hardly any time for anything else.

My thesis, on the occurrence of distinct mutations on the Y chromosome in North Indian men, left many people confused. Admittedly, I was one of them. It all boils down to one particular mutation: M17.

This marker confounds me still. Here's why:

• Every single North Indian Brahmin I sampled (including myself) carried M17. Gaur, Saraswat, Kanyakubj... all were M17.
• Off the record, I heard some of the results of the NRY (Non recombining Y Chromosome) typing of some South Indian samples. These results are not in the public domain, and I'm not supposed to know this. It seems an ancient Brahmin settlement somewhere in Southern Tamil Nadu (I wasn't told which) turned up ALL M17s. This in itself is amazing news.
• I heard from my Guide, who is the South Asia Principal Investigator for the Genography Project, that M17 is turning up in unexpected numbers in Central Asia.
• In Eastern Europe, about half of all men carry M17.

Based on such figures, M17 has been called the Indo-Aryan marker. The frequency of M17 diminishes down the caste hierarchy, which further cements this presumption.

However, some recent data on Microsatellites on the Y Chromosome seems to complicate matters. Microsatellites are repeating segments of 2 or 3 nucleotides.... eg, AGAGAGAG..... they may be 10 repeats, 30, or 300. The genome is littered with thousands and thousands of distinct Microsatellites. The repeat number is mutable within the span of generations, so individuals with the same (or similar) repeat numbers are more closely related. Sample large enough numbers of people, and you can start to build something of a family tree. Now, simply put, if within a population, you find wildly different repeat numbers for a particular MS, that would mean that the population is more diverse, or in other words, more ancient. Here's where the story of M17 in India gets complicated. Look at Microsatellites on M17 men, and you'll see that there is enormous diversity, vastly more than was expected. Even Central Asia, the presumed birthplace of M17, doesn't have this much diversity. So what does this mean? On the face of it, this would imply M17 originated in India. If so, then how do you account for its presence in Eastern Europe? The Aryan Invasion Theory, or Sons-of-India?

Some scientists like to use popular terminology to explain concepts. Among them, Genetic Adam. Simply put, all men alive today share a single male common ancestor, dubbed Adam. He was the patriarch of a lineage that eventually dominated all other human lineages, till none survive. It is believed Adam lived somewhere in East Africa 40-60 Thousand years ago.

So one stormy night, while I contemplated Adam on my way back to the hostel, I nearly stepped on this Snake.

This is a Saw Scaled Viper, AKA the Carpet Viper. Kills more people than any other snake in the world.

It's Good Friday, Folks

Lately I've been seeing this quite a bit: Islam bashing on the blogsphere. People quote incidents in rural Bihar or Iraq, and make sweeping statements about Islamic theology. Personally, I didn't expect such vitriolic behavior from Indians. Understandably some people (ie, some Hindus) have preconceived notions about Islam, and those notions are culturally inherited. Understandable. Not acceptable, but understandable.

This view of Islam as the enemy of Hinduism is, well, old. For some time now, Hinduism has been facing serious onslaughts, and it ain't from Islam. Most Hindus are so blinkered into seeing Islam as the enemy, they fail to see what's happening under their very noses. The Churches are far more active than people realize, and they mean business.

When I was a kid, my folks kept a maid to look after me, and to ensure my older siblings didn't toss me in the trash (or scratch my eyes out). This maid also worked in the nearby Church, cleaning and stuff. The priest told her that if she and her daughter converted, the girl could join the school run by the Church, free. As the maid told my mother," If converting gives my daughter a better future, then why not?" Good point.

Years later, I would meet the occasional Bible Society fellow or Jehovah's Witness, who would talk to our family about THE Family. I guess we were nice enough, and listened patiently. As Hindus, we were open to all forms of worship, and tolerant of dissenters. But how much can you take, when someone comes into your home, and disses your belief system as mere superstition? No Sir. After a while, all Bible Society solicitations were answered by the snarling dog. Run Witness, run. The power of Jehovah compels you! Hehehehe.

In school I did have a rather pushy classmate, who seemed intent on scoring.... my soul. Funny how when they expect you to listen patiently while they proselytize, yet are scandalized when you do the same.

It was only in college that I came to appreciate the scale of these operations. South India is a virtual cesspool of Churches. Every bus is plastered with innocuous looking posters for "Youth Meetings", which turn out to be gatherings to praise His name. Gosh, it's all so cloak and dagger, they might as well be putting on white cloaks and burning Crosses, rather than worshiping them. It's common to see posters for firebrand preachers with names like Rev. John Kumar or Kishore Ezekiel Thomas. I've heard a few. It's all fire-and-brimstone sermons.

If you dig a bit deeper, you'll see that the traditional Churches in India are relatively quiet. The Catholic and Anglican Churches are comfortable to keep to themselves, and aren't looking to score major converts. But the American Protestant Churches are really stepping on the gas. In Tamil Nadu, you are never too far from a Pentecost Church. The Pentecosts are pilferaging from the traditionally sane flocks of the CSI (Church of South India). It's these American Churches that are doing the maximum damage. Students are actively working on their classmates. Not so long ago, after my father passed away, a classmate told me that I should think instead of the Heavenly Father, and how much Jesus loves me. I'd seen this before. They went after people who were emotionally vulnerable, and comfort them with Jesus. I saw it at work on another classmate, who finally succumbed to the Jesus-babble. I was carpet bombed with scriptural SMSes, biblical nuggets on grief and loss. I was told the "Living Word of God" would make everything all right. I was literally handed a Bible in class. I politely told her thanks, but I already have two Bibles at home, which I have read. I added that they sit quite comfortably between my two copies of the Gita, and the Quran. They seem to get along fine. Why don't you read what the Quran has to say?

The Baptist and Pentecost Churches also seem to encourage a schism with the rest of Indian society. A lot of people identity more with the Mother Churches in the US than with other Indians. It's this that has me most worried.

The picture above is a sticker on a door near mine, by a group called The India Church Growth Mission, or ICGM. It is Psalms 128:5: “The LORD bless you from Zion. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.”

Tamil: to be or not to be

One of the first things I became acutely aware of in Madurai was the notion of identity. It excludes as much as it includes. So which is it? What defines identity? Ethnicity? Primary language? Religion? Caste?

The first billboard I saw in Madurai was a bilingual one, the only bilingual billboard I have ever seen in Madurai. It said, in Tamil and English (in that order), "Tamil language, divine language". I'm told such billboards are scattered across Tamil Nadu. Now, what I don't get is, why English? In all such matters, the use of English is anathema to the "Tamil-is-divine" bunch. So why have a billboard announcing the greatness of Tamil; in English? It's obvious: for the benefit of people like me. Just what they wanted me to take from it, I still dunno.

Something that's always confused me is the sense of Tamil identity. Tamils are probably the most divisive people I know, yet there is a strange sense of belonging. What's stranger still is the number of ethnically non-Tamils who identify themselves as Tamil. When non-Tamils (especially northies) think of Tamil (or any other group), we think ethnic group. A lot of the pro-Tamil people I know turned out to be ethnic Telugus, or Mallus. One recent expat from Andhra went so far as to tell me he now preferred Tamil over Telugu. Back in Bangalore, the first person I
knew from Tamil Nadu (and identifying herself as Tamil) turned out to be Telugu as well.

Yesterday I passed by two Badagas chatting. For those of you who don't know, Badagas are the largest tribal group in the Nilgiri hills, and speak a dilect of Kannada. I thought I'd use my scant knowledge of Kannada and eavesdrop. Well, whadya know? They were talking in Tamil! I don't get it. Every Badaga I've encountered is very proud of his heritage and language. Yet at least one Badaga I know speaks to his parents in Tamil.

This sort of identity-cross-connection is something I hadn't encountered in the North, at least not at this scale. In the North people are more prone to think in terms of religion=language, but that's definitely not the case here. Most Christians here (again, unlike the North) dress, speak, and behave much like everybody else. Women dress in Indian attire, and sport bindis and Hindu-inspired jewelery. Tamil Churches depict Mary in a sari, again, unlike in the North. In fact, in Bangalore I discovered that pilgrims visiting shrines of Mary for her Feast Day wear
saffron, since it is a holy colour for Indians (as told to me by one such pilgrim).

In contrast, Christians from the North (or the North-East) are far more uprooted (if I may use that term) from their ancestral culture. While most South Indian Christians have Sanskrit names, most North Indian ones do not. There is a denominational bias here. Most recent converts to American protestant churches are especially critical of "Indian" systems, and take special pains to distance themselves from anything “Indian”. It's a cultural thing too, after all. There's a greater identification with the US as the Mother Culture, rather than their
heathen ancestral one.

In recent times, these American churches have made serious inroads into South India, and I hope to cover that in a later post.

2001 : An Identity Crisis

Odd, how we feel when a long term goal is accomplished. For me, that was watching 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I first discovered this film back in school. After the exams, you gotta kill time somehow. Well, for me that meant the library. I discovered this coffee table sorta book, full of visions of how the future might be. Flying cars, giant laser beams, and all that jazz. That's where I first read about 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was hooked.

But when I finally saw the film a few days ago, I was intrigued instead by something else. This film asks obtuse questions about the essence of humanity and consciousness. But I was struck by what shapes our outlook of the world in the first place, and how fluid and dynamic that really is.

Case in point: Scientific concepts trickling down into the public domain and reshaping how we see ourselves and the world. Take for example the descent of man from apes. A concept now so rooted in the public imagination. Hardly the case even 50 years back.

So much has changed. Spiderman is now the result of genetic manipulation, not radiation. ditto with the Hulk. Genetics is the new unknown frontier. Everybody now knows what DNA is. You can have a scene like the Terminatrix performing real-time Genomic sequencing of John Connor's DNA, and everybody can understand what just happened. 20 years ago, could an average audience understand such a scene? 30 years ago? Hardly. It's not like sequencing is a new concept, it just wasn't a part of the public imagination.

Perhaps what I find most disconcerting is how half baked scientific ideas are being paraded in the public. I'll provide an example. As you may or may not know, I am currently working in the population genetics of North Indians, for which I've been analysing the DNA of North Indian men, looking for evidence of migration patterns. I discovered that I carry a genetic marker called M17, which is predominant in Central Asia, Iran, Russia, and Eastern Europe. It is sometimes ubiquitously called the Indo-Aryan marker due to its distribution. Based on its genetic signature, it is believed M17 probably appeared somewhere in the Ukraine region, and spread outwards. M17 is widespread in Iran and North Indian upper castes as well. Curious, I decided to look around for any mention of this marker in the lay media. Well, I was shocked, to say the least. It seems for quite some time now; this and other serious genetic work has been tossed around in the media. People with no understanding of genetics are grossly misinterpreting such work to push forward their own narrow minded agendas. Several articles quote M17 to show an Indo-centric view of the world, the Hindu right-wing notion that the Aryans came from India, and spread outwards. They quote bits from serious research work, and it all looks real convincing.

For that matter, I’ve seen many scientists with a very wrong notion of the basics of Genetics. Especially in a sensitive area such as population genetics, that can be explosive. Take for example the politics of Tamil Nadu. The Dravidian movement seeks to brand Brahmins as outsiders, alien exploiters plundering the innocent Dravidians. Half understood genetic evidence would only serve such bigots. But it’s happening. Even among my classmates, who represent the cream of Tamil Nadu society in terms of education, caste is a dirty secret. Everybody expects caste to come around and bite them on the ass. Caste politics is BIG here. So it’s best not to reveal your own caste affiliations, especially if you’re a Brahmin. I know this because as part of my work, I have to collect details about the person’s ancestry, including nativity, and sub castes. These details are things many people are not comfortable disclosing, even to me.

Funny, isn’t it? In just a few generations, we’ve gone from being proud of our ancestry, to being embarrassed by it. Just goes to show our notions of identity aren't as deep as we like to think.

Munich: Ho hum

Munich was a mixed bag for me.

I must confess, I had a major misconception about this film. I thought this film dealt with the Munich massacre. Not the case. This film deals with what happens after the massacre itself.

Considering the touchy subject matter, and the fact that it’s Steven Spielberg, of all people, I was hooked. A fine film, on the whole. The quality you come to expect out of a Spielberg. Eric Bana is always a delight, and was nice to see more screen time devoted to him. Not the brightest bulb in the store, but pleasant, nonetheless.

That said, this film can be a major yawn fest. Pacing is a problem. You soon lose touch with what exactly is going on, and that’s never a good sign. Some parts of the story seem seriously flat, and it tends to really stretch creditability. Bana may be OK, but the sore spots really bring him down.

I don’t why Spielberg does this, but he has this penchant for inappropriate sex scenes, when it tends to hurt the film the most. Why? The bit right at the end just made it silly. Not cool, Mr. Spielberg. Two reasons for this. One, it undermines the character. Two, inserting key story elements within racy sequences begging for the censor’s scissors. Whether you like it or not, censors exist, and this is a great disservice to the audiences who lose out.

Addendum

From my recent posts, it might seem Madurai is a horrible place. Hardly.

Without a doubt, the people I have met in Madurai are the nicest I have met anywhere. They are friendly and helpful, to the point of absurdity. PhD scholars offering me lifts to the department is pretty common. Scholars who have gone out of their way (way out) to help me with something. Students and classmates who have offered to do something, out of their own accord. I haven't gone to the bank to pay my fees in over a year, because everytime somebody who was going there offered to do it. This is a big deal, considering it requires forms to be filled in triplicate.

I have complete strangers do completely unexpected nice things. Like the old man on the bus who indicated his stop was coming, and I take his seat. That has never happened to me, EVER, in Delhi or Bangalore. But its not that uncommon in Madurai. Or the time this guy called up three different people (from his own phone) to get me directions.

These are the people of Madurai.

Old women who called me Thambi

When I first came to Madurai almost 3 years ago, I had the approach of an idealist. I thought people do bad things, but they do what they think is right for them. I thought the real India would be pretty much how I imagined it: just like urban India, only different. I thought people would be free of the petty meanness that comes from urban living. I sometimes wonder; everywhere you look in India, there is desperation behind every face. Fathers running themselves into the ground to feed their kids. You want the best for your kids, you want them to be safe, to be healthy, to have a secure future. But even the basics take so much. No matter how hard you try, it's not enough. It's like Alice through the Looking Glass, who runs as hard as she can, but she stays right where she was.

I once visited the home of a classmate in another part of Tamil Nadu. She lives so far out of the city, it takes a 15 minute ride in a private coach after the last bus stop, over very bad roads. Even that late at night, the coach was packed, so I guess a lot of people live there. Her home turned out to be tiny and spartan. Minimalist, even. When I heard they get fresh water in a 10 day cycle (10 days water, then 10 days no water, and so on. We were visiting during the dry cycle), it certainly put things into perspective. I bitch and moan that my home on South Delhi gets only 300-400 litres a day. It turned my trip into a guilt trip. Her family was so nice, it was heartbreaking to think people live like this.

For what it's worth, her father is a manager in a nationalised bank.

Funny, isn't it, our sense of perspective? If you live in India, no matter where you are, you will encounter quiet desperation. Maybe the kid holding the tissue boxes outside your car, or the man holding open the lift. We learn early on that they are not part of our world, and we learn not to see them. They float through our world, phantoms crossing our path, but never intersecting.

One time Aditya and I were coming back from visiting some friends of mine, and after waiting 15 minutes for a bus, we decided to take an auto. As it turned out, the driver was pretty chatty. He chatted about his brand new digital meter, commended us on our scant Kannada, and impressed us both with his hindi. But I was really taken in by this man. He was an engineer, but with no job, he drove this rickshaw at night. In the day, he went job hunting. With a huge grin, he produced his laminated certificates from under his seat, and told us he had gone for an interview that morning. This guy had it pretty rough, but he was so cheerful. We wished the best of luck, and went on our way. A few days later, I was talking to a guy in my hostel who was from my school in Delhi. All I remember from that conversation was something about driving his dad's Mercedes at a 120 Kms/hr on the highway outside Delhi... without a license. Talk about perspective, huh?

When I first came to Madurai, I was taken aback by the things I saw. Things you know happen, just not right in front of you. At the main bus stand, there were people sleeping on the platforms, some of whom I noticed hadn't changed positions in days. Many had barely a rag to cover themselves. Old women who called me Thambi, hoping for some spare change. Men who walked as if there was nothing to come home to.

And what was I doing? Well, to the old ladies I said, "Kaas illa"; and watched a DVD of a french film made by a polish guy, while eating a Chicken Sandwich, a Mars bar, and washed down by Diet Coke (ironic, I know). When a single tear runs down Juliet Binoche's cheek, I am all choked up. Such grief! Such loss! As Kaushik would say, so pathetic! I was overwhelmed. But the poor sods I saw earlier that day at the bus stand? Eh.