Sir MV was renowned not only for his punctuality, ingenious ideas, and unwavering dedication but also for his advocacy of the Kannada language.
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DNA Web Team
Updated: Sep 15, 2023, 06:49 AM IST
Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, widely known as Sir MV, was a distinguished engineer, statesman, and scholar who held the position of Diwan of Mysore from 1912 to 1918. Engineer's Day, celebrated on September 15th each year, commemorates his birth anniversary. Born in 1860 in the humble village of Muddenahalli, near present-day Bengaluru, Visvesvaraya is affectionately referred to as the "builder of India."
Sir MV's contributions to the public good were so significant that he was knighted in 1955 by King George V as a Knight Commander of the British Indian Empire (KCIE), earning him the "Sir" prefix to his name. Interestingly, Engineer's Day is not just observed in India but also in Sri Lanka and Tanzania in his honor, underscoring his global recognition. He is celebrated as one of India's foremost engineers, renowned for his work on the Krishna Raja Sagara Dam in Mysore (Mysuru) and his pivotal role in designing a flood protection system in Hyderabad.
Visvesvaraya faced adversity early in life, losing his father when he was just 12 years old. Despite his humble beginnings, he pursued his education in Chikballapur and later came to Bangalore for high school. After earning a bachelor's degree in Arts from Central College in Bangalore, which was affiliated with Madras University, he embarked on an engineering journey at the College of Engineering in Pune. Graduating in 1884, he secured a position as an assistant engineer with the public works department (PWD) in Mumbai. Notably, he designed and executed waterworks for the Municipality of
One of his groundbreaking innovations was the Block System, which effectively controlled the flow of water in dams, preventing wastage, and enabling automated doors to close during overflow conditions.
Sir MV was renowned not only for his punctuality, ingenious ideas, and unwavering dedication but also for his advocacy of the Kannada language. This engineering prodigy breathed his last on April 14, 1962, just five months shy of his 102nd birthday.
10 inspiring quotes by Sir M Visvesvaraya:
"Remember, your work may be only to sweep a railway crossing, but it is your duty to keep it so clean that no other crossing in the world is as clean as yours."
"Work is worship."
"Wealth is not a sign of greatness; the size of one's character is."
"Science is a beautiful gift to humanity; we should not distort it."
"To give real service, you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money."
"The future of India lies in its villages."
"The industrial development of a country depends mainly on the development of industries in rural areas."
"Do not undervalue, waste or misuse any useful thing in the world. Let no useful thing be in your eyes useless."
"The first step in the progress of a nation is to reform the character of its citizens."
"The mind should be trained to think of the welfare of others."
Friday, September 15, 2023
Saturday, June 17, 2023
How traditional Indigenous education helped four lost children survive 40 days in the Amazon jungle
How traditional Indigenous education helped four lost children survive 40 days in the Amazon jungle
Published: June 14, 2023 4.01pm BST
Eliran Arazi
PhD researcher in Anthropology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (Paris)., Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The discovery and rescue of four young Indigenous children, 40 days after the aircraft they were travelling in
crashed in the remote Colombian rainforest, was hailed in the international press as a "miracle in the jungle".
But as an anthropologist who has spent more than a year living among the Andoque people in the region,
conducting ethnographic fieldwork, I cannot simply label this as a miraculous event.
At least, not a miracle in the conventional sense of the word. Rather, the survival and discovery of these
children can be attributed to the profound knowledge of the intricate forest and the adaptive skills passed down
through generations by Indigenous people.
During the search for the children, I was in contact with Raquel Andoque, an elder maloquera (owner of a
ceremonial longhouse), the sister of the children's great-grandmother. She repeatedly expressed her unwavering
belief the children would be found alive, citing the autonomy, astuteness and physical resilience of children in
the region.
Even before starting elementary school, children in this area accompany their parents and elder relatives in
various activities such as gardening, fishing, navigating rivers, hunting and gathering honey and wild fruits. In
this way the children acquire practical skills and knowledge, such as those demonstrated by Lesly, Soleiny, Tien
and Cristin during their 40-day ordeal.
Indigenous children typically learn from an early age how to open paths through dense vegetation, how to tell
edible from non-edible fruits. They know how to find potable water, build rain shelters and set animal traps.
They can identify animal footprints and scents – and avoid predators such as jaguars and snakes lurking in the
woods.
Amazonian children typically lack access to the sort of commercialised toys and games that children in the
cities grow up with. So they become adept tree climbers and engage in play that teaches them about adult tools
made from natural materials, such as oars or axes. This nurtures their understanding of physical activities and
helps them learn which plants serve specific purposes.
A local Indigenous girl on an excursion to gather edible larvae. Image courtesy of Eliran Arazi, Author
provided
Activities that most western children would be shielded from – handling, skinning and butchering game
animals, for example – provide invaluable zoology lessons and arguably foster emotional resilience.
Survival skills
When they accompany their parents and relatives on excursions in the jungle, Indigenous children learn how to
navigate a forest's dense vegetation by following the location of the sun in the sky.
Since the large rivers in most parts of the Amazon flow in a direction opposite to that of the sun, people can
orient themselves towards those main rivers.
The trail of footprints and objects left by the four children revealed their general progression towards the
Apaporis River, where they may have hoped to be spotted.
The children would also have learned from their parents and elders about edible plans and flowers – where they
can be found. And also the interrelationship between plants, so that where a certain tree is, you can find
mushrooms, or small animals that can be trapped and eaten.
Stories, songs and myths
Knowledge embedded in mythic stories passed down by parents and grandparents is another invaluable resource
for navigating the forest. These stories depict animals as fully sentient beings, engaging in seduction, mischief,
providing sustenance, or even saving each other's lives.
While these episodes may seem incomprehensible to non-Indigenous audiences, they actually encapsulate the
intricate interrelations among the forest's countless non-human inhabitants. Indigenous knowledge focuses on
the interrelationships between humans, plants and animals and how they can come together to preserve the
environment and prevent irreversible ecological harm.
This sophisticated knowledge has been developed over millennia during which Indigenous people not only
adapted to their forest territories but actively shaped them. It is deeply ingrained knowledge that local
indigenous people are taught from early childhood so that it becomes second nature to them.
It has become part of the culture of cultivating and harvesting crops, something infants and children are
introduced to, as well as knowledge of all sort of different food sources and types of bush meat.
Looking after each other
One of the aspects of this "miraculous" story that people in the west have marvelled over is how, after the death
of the children's mother, the 13-year-old Lesly managed to take care of her younger siblings, including Cristin,
who was only 11 months old at the time the aircraft went down.
Iris Andoque Macuna with her brother Nestor Andoque and brother-in-law Faustino Fiagama after the
two men returned from the search team. Iris Andoque Macuna., Author provided
But in Indigenous families, elder sisters are expected to act as surrogate mothers to their younger relatives from
an early age. Iris Andoke Macuna, a distant relative of the family, told me:
To some whites [non-Indigenous people], it seems like a bad thing that we take our children to work in
the garden, and that we let girls carry their brothers and take care of them. But for us, it's a good thing,
our children are independent, this is why Lesly could take care of her brothers during all this time. It
toughened her, and she learned what her brothers need.
The spiritual side
For 40 days and nights, while the four children were lost, elders and shamans performed rituals based on
traditional beliefs that involve human relationships with entities known as dueños (owners) in Spanish and by
various names in native languages (such as i'bo ño̰ e, meaning "persons of there" in Andoque).
These owners are believed to be the protective spirits of the plants and animals that live in the forests. Children
are introduced to these powerful owners in name-giving ceremonies, which ensure that these spirits recognise
and acknowledge relationship to the territory and their entitlement to prosper on it.
During the search for the missing children, elders conducted dialogues and negotiations with these entities in
their ceremonial houses (malocas) throughout the Middle Caquetá and in other Indigenous communities that
consider the crash site part of their ancestral territory. Raquel explained to me:
The shamans communicate with the sacred sites. They offer coca and tobacco to the spirits and say:
"Take this and give me my grandchildren back. They are mine, not yours."
These beliefs and practices hold significant meaning for my friends in the Middle Caquetá, who firmly attribute
the children's survival to these spiritual processes rather than the technological means employed by the
Colombian army rescue teams.
It may be challenging for non-Indigenous people to embrace these traditional ideas. But these beliefs would
have instilled in the children the faith and emotional fortitude crucial for persevering in the struggle for survival.
And it would have encouraged the Indigenous people searching for them not to give up hope.
The children knew that their fate did not lie in dying in the forest, and that their grandparents and shamans
would move heaven and earth to bring them back home alive.
Regrettably, this traditional knowledge that has enabled Indigenous people to not only survive but thrive in the
Amazon for millennia is under threat. Increasing land encroachment for agribusiness, mining, and illicit
activities as well as state neglect and interventions without Indigenous consent have left these peoples
vulnerable.
It is jeopardising the very foundations of life where this knowledge is embedded, the territories that serve as its
bedrock, and the people themselves who preserve, develop, and transmit this knowledge.
Preserving this invaluable knowledge and the skills that bring miracles to life is imperative. We must not allow
them to wither away.
https://theconversation.com/how-traditional-indigenous-education-helped-four-lost-children-survive-40-days-in-the-amazon-jung... 5/5
Published: June 14, 2023 4.01pm BST
Eliran Arazi
PhD researcher in Anthropology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (Paris)., Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The discovery and rescue of four young Indigenous children, 40 days after the aircraft they were travelling in
crashed in the remote Colombian rainforest, was hailed in the international press as a "miracle in the jungle".
But as an anthropologist who has spent more than a year living among the Andoque people in the region,
conducting ethnographic fieldwork, I cannot simply label this as a miraculous event.
At least, not a miracle in the conventional sense of the word. Rather, the survival and discovery of these
children can be attributed to the profound knowledge of the intricate forest and the adaptive skills passed down
through generations by Indigenous people.
During the search for the children, I was in contact with Raquel Andoque, an elder maloquera (owner of a
ceremonial longhouse), the sister of the children's great-grandmother. She repeatedly expressed her unwavering
belief the children would be found alive, citing the autonomy, astuteness and physical resilience of children in
the region.
Even before starting elementary school, children in this area accompany their parents and elder relatives in
various activities such as gardening, fishing, navigating rivers, hunting and gathering honey and wild fruits. In
this way the children acquire practical skills and knowledge, such as those demonstrated by Lesly, Soleiny, Tien
and Cristin during their 40-day ordeal.
Indigenous children typically learn from an early age how to open paths through dense vegetation, how to tell
edible from non-edible fruits. They know how to find potable water, build rain shelters and set animal traps.
They can identify animal footprints and scents – and avoid predators such as jaguars and snakes lurking in the
woods.
Amazonian children typically lack access to the sort of commercialised toys and games that children in the
cities grow up with. So they become adept tree climbers and engage in play that teaches them about adult tools
made from natural materials, such as oars or axes. This nurtures their understanding of physical activities and
helps them learn which plants serve specific purposes.
A local Indigenous girl on an excursion to gather edible larvae. Image courtesy of Eliran Arazi, Author
provided
Activities that most western children would be shielded from – handling, skinning and butchering game
animals, for example – provide invaluable zoology lessons and arguably foster emotional resilience.
Survival skills
When they accompany their parents and relatives on excursions in the jungle, Indigenous children learn how to
navigate a forest's dense vegetation by following the location of the sun in the sky.
Since the large rivers in most parts of the Amazon flow in a direction opposite to that of the sun, people can
orient themselves towards those main rivers.
The trail of footprints and objects left by the four children revealed their general progression towards the
Apaporis River, where they may have hoped to be spotted.
The children would also have learned from their parents and elders about edible plans and flowers – where they
can be found. And also the interrelationship between plants, so that where a certain tree is, you can find
mushrooms, or small animals that can be trapped and eaten.
Stories, songs and myths
Knowledge embedded in mythic stories passed down by parents and grandparents is another invaluable resource
for navigating the forest. These stories depict animals as fully sentient beings, engaging in seduction, mischief,
providing sustenance, or even saving each other's lives.
While these episodes may seem incomprehensible to non-Indigenous audiences, they actually encapsulate the
intricate interrelations among the forest's countless non-human inhabitants. Indigenous knowledge focuses on
the interrelationships between humans, plants and animals and how they can come together to preserve the
environment and prevent irreversible ecological harm.
This sophisticated knowledge has been developed over millennia during which Indigenous people not only
adapted to their forest territories but actively shaped them. It is deeply ingrained knowledge that local
indigenous people are taught from early childhood so that it becomes second nature to them.
It has become part of the culture of cultivating and harvesting crops, something infants and children are
introduced to, as well as knowledge of all sort of different food sources and types of bush meat.
Looking after each other
One of the aspects of this "miraculous" story that people in the west have marvelled over is how, after the death
of the children's mother, the 13-year-old Lesly managed to take care of her younger siblings, including Cristin,
who was only 11 months old at the time the aircraft went down.
Iris Andoque Macuna with her brother Nestor Andoque and brother-in-law Faustino Fiagama after the
two men returned from the search team. Iris Andoque Macuna., Author provided
But in Indigenous families, elder sisters are expected to act as surrogate mothers to their younger relatives from
an early age. Iris Andoke Macuna, a distant relative of the family, told me:
To some whites [non-Indigenous people], it seems like a bad thing that we take our children to work in
the garden, and that we let girls carry their brothers and take care of them. But for us, it's a good thing,
our children are independent, this is why Lesly could take care of her brothers during all this time. It
toughened her, and she learned what her brothers need.
The spiritual side
For 40 days and nights, while the four children were lost, elders and shamans performed rituals based on
traditional beliefs that involve human relationships with entities known as dueños (owners) in Spanish and by
various names in native languages (such as i'bo ño̰ e, meaning "persons of there" in Andoque).
These owners are believed to be the protective spirits of the plants and animals that live in the forests. Children
are introduced to these powerful owners in name-giving ceremonies, which ensure that these spirits recognise
and acknowledge relationship to the territory and their entitlement to prosper on it.
During the search for the missing children, elders conducted dialogues and negotiations with these entities in
their ceremonial houses (malocas) throughout the Middle Caquetá and in other Indigenous communities that
consider the crash site part of their ancestral territory. Raquel explained to me:
The shamans communicate with the sacred sites. They offer coca and tobacco to the spirits and say:
"Take this and give me my grandchildren back. They are mine, not yours."
These beliefs and practices hold significant meaning for my friends in the Middle Caquetá, who firmly attribute
the children's survival to these spiritual processes rather than the technological means employed by the
Colombian army rescue teams.
It may be challenging for non-Indigenous people to embrace these traditional ideas. But these beliefs would
have instilled in the children the faith and emotional fortitude crucial for persevering in the struggle for survival.
And it would have encouraged the Indigenous people searching for them not to give up hope.
The children knew that their fate did not lie in dying in the forest, and that their grandparents and shamans
would move heaven and earth to bring them back home alive.
Regrettably, this traditional knowledge that has enabled Indigenous people to not only survive but thrive in the
Amazon for millennia is under threat. Increasing land encroachment for agribusiness, mining, and illicit
activities as well as state neglect and interventions without Indigenous consent have left these peoples
vulnerable.
It is jeopardising the very foundations of life where this knowledge is embedded, the territories that serve as its
bedrock, and the people themselves who preserve, develop, and transmit this knowledge.
Preserving this invaluable knowledge and the skills that bring miracles to life is imperative. We must not allow
them to wither away.
https://theconversation.com/how-traditional-indigenous-education-helped-four-lost-children-survive-40-days-in-the-amazon-jung... 5/5
Monday, May 29, 2023
Quaint pencil shop in Teherans Grand Bazaar
Splash of colour: The Tehran bazaar's pencil seller
Mr Mohammad Rafi, a seller of coloured pencils at the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, sits at his shop on May 22, 2023,
AFP
TEHRAN (Iran) — In a dimly lit corner of Tehran's Grand Bazaar, Mr Mohammad Rafi is surrounded by all colours of the rainbow in his tiny shop that sells nothing but art pencils.
The world may have gone digital, but Mr Rafi has stayed true to his passion of the past 35 years, surrounded by thousands of pencils in every hue and shade imaginable.
With the pencils stacked from floor to ceiling, his tiny cubicle has become a photogenic splash of colour, hidden deep in the market known as a "city within a city".
"I don't know how many pencils there are but I have about 200 colours available," said the proud 50-year-old owner of the Medad Rafi (Rafi's pencils) shop.
Finding his shop requires a veritable treasure hunt through the maze of alleys and passages of the storied market in the heart of the Iranian capital.
Mr Rafi himself takes up much of the 3sqm shop in the market's arts and crafts section where he has welcomed generations of customers.
"Every time a customer shows up, I enjoy it, even if they don't buy anything," smiled Mr Rafi.
He then spent 10 minutes advising a schoolgirl in search of two pencils, one blue, one orange, who tried out different types, doodling on a drawing pad on the counter.
COLOURS AND TEXTURES
"Depending on what they want to do with it, I advise customers on the colour, the texture or the brand," said Mr Rafi, who only sells the pencils individually, not by the box.
He is proud to cater to all budgets, offering domestically made pencils and ones imported from Europe and America.
"The most expensive pencil costs 100,000 tomans (around S$3)," he said, "but it is one of the best."
A drawing lover since childhood, Mr Rafi has always adored pencils and, after his technical studies in the 1980s, began his professional life in a pencil manufacturing company before opening his shop.
He knows that, in the days of high-tech and touch-screens, the humble coloured pencil has had its golden age, looking back nostalgically at the past century when all children carried them in their school bags.
Unlike many other shop owners in the bazaar, he will not pass on the business to his son, a trained physician who "is not interested in this work".
Until he retires, however, Mr Rafi plans to keep serving his loyal customers, meeting their every creative need, including even "some pencils that are no longer produced".
"Fortunately, I have a large stock" accumulated over the years, Mr Rafi said, proudly brandishing the oldest pencil he has, "made 72 years ago". AFP
Mr Mohammad Rafi, a seller of coloured pencils at the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, sits at his shop on May 22, 2023,
AFP
TEHRAN (Iran) — In a dimly lit corner of Tehran's Grand Bazaar, Mr Mohammad Rafi is surrounded by all colours of the rainbow in his tiny shop that sells nothing but art pencils.
The world may have gone digital, but Mr Rafi has stayed true to his passion of the past 35 years, surrounded by thousands of pencils in every hue and shade imaginable.
With the pencils stacked from floor to ceiling, his tiny cubicle has become a photogenic splash of colour, hidden deep in the market known as a "city within a city".
"I don't know how many pencils there are but I have about 200 colours available," said the proud 50-year-old owner of the Medad Rafi (Rafi's pencils) shop.
Finding his shop requires a veritable treasure hunt through the maze of alleys and passages of the storied market in the heart of the Iranian capital.
Mr Rafi himself takes up much of the 3sqm shop in the market's arts and crafts section where he has welcomed generations of customers.
"Every time a customer shows up, I enjoy it, even if they don't buy anything," smiled Mr Rafi.
He then spent 10 minutes advising a schoolgirl in search of two pencils, one blue, one orange, who tried out different types, doodling on a drawing pad on the counter.
COLOURS AND TEXTURES
"Depending on what they want to do with it, I advise customers on the colour, the texture or the brand," said Mr Rafi, who only sells the pencils individually, not by the box.
He is proud to cater to all budgets, offering domestically made pencils and ones imported from Europe and America.
"The most expensive pencil costs 100,000 tomans (around S$3)," he said, "but it is one of the best."
A drawing lover since childhood, Mr Rafi has always adored pencils and, after his technical studies in the 1980s, began his professional life in a pencil manufacturing company before opening his shop.
He knows that, in the days of high-tech and touch-screens, the humble coloured pencil has had its golden age, looking back nostalgically at the past century when all children carried them in their school bags.
Unlike many other shop owners in the bazaar, he will not pass on the business to his son, a trained physician who "is not interested in this work".
Until he retires, however, Mr Rafi plans to keep serving his loyal customers, meeting their every creative need, including even "some pencils that are no longer produced".
"Fortunately, I have a large stock" accumulated over the years, Mr Rafi said, proudly brandishing the oldest pencil he has, "made 72 years ago". AFP
Sunday, April 9, 2023
Founder of Cramer-Rao Inequality and Rao-Blackwell Theorm
The Indian-American statistician Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao has been awarded the 2023 International Prize in Statistics, which is statistics' equivalent of the Nobel Prize. It was established in 2016 and is awarded once every two years to an individual or team "for major achievements using statistics to advance science, technology and human welfare."
Prof. Rao, who is now 102 years old, is a 'living legend' whose work has influenced, in the words of the American Statistical Association, "not just statistics" but also "economics, genetics, anthropology, geology, national planning, demography, biometry, and medicine". The citation for his new award reads: "C.R. Rao, a professor whose work more than 75 years ago continues to exert a profound influence on science, has been awarded the 2023 International Prize in Statistics."
What was Rao's 1945 paper about?
Rao's groundbreaking paper, 'Information and accuracy attainable in the estimation of statistical parameters', was published in 1945 in the Bulletin of the Calcutta Mathematical Society, a journal that is otherwise not well known to the statistics community. The paper was subsequently included in the book Breakthroughs in Statistics, 1890-1990.
This was an impressive achievement given Rao was only 25 at the time and had just completed his master's degree in statistics two years prior.
He would go on to do his PhD in 1946-1948 at King's College, Cambridge University, under the supervision of Ronald A. Fisher, widely regarded as the father of modern statistics.
The Cramér-Rao inequality is the first of the three results of the 1945 paper. When we are estimating the unknown value of a parameter, we must be aware of the estimator's margin of error. Rao's work provided a lower limit on the variance of an unbiased estimate for a finite sample. The result has since become a cornerstone of mathematical statistics; researchers have extended it in many different ways, with applications even in quantum physics, signal processing, spectroscopy, radar systems, multiple-image radiography, risk analysis, and probability theory, among other fields.
In an article published in the journal Statistical Science in 1987, the American statistician Morris H. DeGroot set out an intriguing story (corroborated by Rao's own account) of how Rao arrived at the lower limit. Prof. Fisher had already established an asymptotic (i.e. when the sample size is very large) version of the inequality, and it seems a student had asked Rao, "Why don't you prove it for finite samples?" in 1944. A then-24-year-old Rao did so in under 24 hours!
The second outcome of the 1945 paper was the Rao-Blackwell Theorem, which offers a method to improve an estimate to an optimal estimate. The Rao-Blackwell theorem and the Cramér-Rao inequality are both related to the quality of estimators.
A new interdisciplinary area called 'information geometry' was born as a result of the paper's third finding. This field integrated principles from differential geometry into statistics, including the concepts of metric, distance, and measure. Erich L. Lehmann, a renowned statistician, said in 2008 that "this work [of Rao's] was before its time and came into its own only in the 1980s".
ALSO READ
Remembering the 'Plan Man' of India
So overall, Rao's 1945 paper made an outstanding contribution, boosting the development of modern statistics and its widespread application in modern research. In a 2008 book, Reminiscences of a Statistician: The Company I Kept, Lehmann also discussed the generative nature of the paper – i.e. the goldmine of insights that it was – and acknowledged that "several of my early papers grew out of Rao's paper of 1945".
How did Rao enter the field of statistics?
The Australian statistician Terry Speed claimed that the "1940s were ungrudgingly C.R. Rao's. His 1945 paper … will guarantee that, even had he done nothing else – but there was much else."
Indeed, one of Rao's papers in 1948 offered a novel generic approach to testing hypotheses, now widely known as the "Rao score test". In fact, the three test procedures – the likelihood ratio test of Jerzy Neyman and E.S. Pearson (1928), the Wald test (1943) of Abraham Wald, and the Rao score test (1948) – are sometimes called "the holy trinity" of this branch of statistics.
Rao also contributed to orthogonal arrays, a concept in combinatorics that is used to design experiments whose results are qualitatively good, as early as 1949. A 1969 Forbes article described it as "a new mantra" in industrial establishments.
Given the magnitude and relevance of his contributions, it might seem surprising that Rao entered the field of statistics by chance.
Despite scoring first in mathematics at Andhra University, a 19-year-old Rao didn't secure a scholarship there for administrative reasons. He was also rejected for a mathematician's job at an army survey unit because he was judged to be too young.
When he was staying at a hotel in Calcutta, he met a man who was employed in Bombay and had been sent to Calcutta to be trained at the Indian Statistical Institute. He asked Rao to apply to the institute as well. Rao did so, for a year-long training programme in statistics, hoping the additional qualification would help him land a job.
P.C. Mahalanobis, then director of the institute, replied promptly and Rao was enrolled. That marked the beginning of a four-decade-long stay at the institute. Rao retired in 1979 and afterwards settled in the U.S.
The first half of the 20th century was the golden period of statistical theory in general, and Rao is undoubtedly one of the reasons for this being the case, thanks to his mathematical ingenuity. In the words of the late mathematician Samuel Karlin, Rao's contributions to statistical theory have "earned him a place in the history of statistics".
Indian statisticians also owe Prof. Rao gratitude for his enormous contributions to the growth of statistics in the country, notably at the Indian Statistical Institute (where this author works). As Lehmann wrote, Rao was "the person who did the most to continue Mahalanobis's work as a leader of statistics in India."
Atanu Biswas is professor of statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.
Prof. Rao, who is now 102 years old, is a 'living legend' whose work has influenced, in the words of the American Statistical Association, "not just statistics" but also "economics, genetics, anthropology, geology, national planning, demography, biometry, and medicine". The citation for his new award reads: "C.R. Rao, a professor whose work more than 75 years ago continues to exert a profound influence on science, has been awarded the 2023 International Prize in Statistics."
What was Rao's 1945 paper about?
Rao's groundbreaking paper, 'Information and accuracy attainable in the estimation of statistical parameters', was published in 1945 in the Bulletin of the Calcutta Mathematical Society, a journal that is otherwise not well known to the statistics community. The paper was subsequently included in the book Breakthroughs in Statistics, 1890-1990.
This was an impressive achievement given Rao was only 25 at the time and had just completed his master's degree in statistics two years prior.
He would go on to do his PhD in 1946-1948 at King's College, Cambridge University, under the supervision of Ronald A. Fisher, widely regarded as the father of modern statistics.
The Cramér-Rao inequality is the first of the three results of the 1945 paper. When we are estimating the unknown value of a parameter, we must be aware of the estimator's margin of error. Rao's work provided a lower limit on the variance of an unbiased estimate for a finite sample. The result has since become a cornerstone of mathematical statistics; researchers have extended it in many different ways, with applications even in quantum physics, signal processing, spectroscopy, radar systems, multiple-image radiography, risk analysis, and probability theory, among other fields.
In an article published in the journal Statistical Science in 1987, the American statistician Morris H. DeGroot set out an intriguing story (corroborated by Rao's own account) of how Rao arrived at the lower limit. Prof. Fisher had already established an asymptotic (i.e. when the sample size is very large) version of the inequality, and it seems a student had asked Rao, "Why don't you prove it for finite samples?" in 1944. A then-24-year-old Rao did so in under 24 hours!
The second outcome of the 1945 paper was the Rao-Blackwell Theorem, which offers a method to improve an estimate to an optimal estimate. The Rao-Blackwell theorem and the Cramér-Rao inequality are both related to the quality of estimators.
A new interdisciplinary area called 'information geometry' was born as a result of the paper's third finding. This field integrated principles from differential geometry into statistics, including the concepts of metric, distance, and measure. Erich L. Lehmann, a renowned statistician, said in 2008 that "this work [of Rao's] was before its time and came into its own only in the 1980s".
ALSO READ
Remembering the 'Plan Man' of India
So overall, Rao's 1945 paper made an outstanding contribution, boosting the development of modern statistics and its widespread application in modern research. In a 2008 book, Reminiscences of a Statistician: The Company I Kept, Lehmann also discussed the generative nature of the paper – i.e. the goldmine of insights that it was – and acknowledged that "several of my early papers grew out of Rao's paper of 1945".
How did Rao enter the field of statistics?
The Australian statistician Terry Speed claimed that the "1940s were ungrudgingly C.R. Rao's. His 1945 paper … will guarantee that, even had he done nothing else – but there was much else."
Indeed, one of Rao's papers in 1948 offered a novel generic approach to testing hypotheses, now widely known as the "Rao score test". In fact, the three test procedures – the likelihood ratio test of Jerzy Neyman and E.S. Pearson (1928), the Wald test (1943) of Abraham Wald, and the Rao score test (1948) – are sometimes called "the holy trinity" of this branch of statistics.
Rao also contributed to orthogonal arrays, a concept in combinatorics that is used to design experiments whose results are qualitatively good, as early as 1949. A 1969 Forbes article described it as "a new mantra" in industrial establishments.
Given the magnitude and relevance of his contributions, it might seem surprising that Rao entered the field of statistics by chance.
Despite scoring first in mathematics at Andhra University, a 19-year-old Rao didn't secure a scholarship there for administrative reasons. He was also rejected for a mathematician's job at an army survey unit because he was judged to be too young.
When he was staying at a hotel in Calcutta, he met a man who was employed in Bombay and had been sent to Calcutta to be trained at the Indian Statistical Institute. He asked Rao to apply to the institute as well. Rao did so, for a year-long training programme in statistics, hoping the additional qualification would help him land a job.
P.C. Mahalanobis, then director of the institute, replied promptly and Rao was enrolled. That marked the beginning of a four-decade-long stay at the institute. Rao retired in 1979 and afterwards settled in the U.S.
The first half of the 20th century was the golden period of statistical theory in general, and Rao is undoubtedly one of the reasons for this being the case, thanks to his mathematical ingenuity. In the words of the late mathematician Samuel Karlin, Rao's contributions to statistical theory have "earned him a place in the history of statistics".
Indian statisticians also owe Prof. Rao gratitude for his enormous contributions to the growth of statistics in the country, notably at the Indian Statistical Institute (where this author works). As Lehmann wrote, Rao was "the person who did the most to continue Mahalanobis's work as a leader of statistics in India."
Atanu Biswas is professor of statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
Vessels from 'paatis' kitchen
Peep into grandma's kitchen
In days of yore, each utensil in a kitchen had a specific purpose.
May 01, 2014 07:14 pm | Updated 07:14 pm IST - chennai
Pradeep Chakravarthy
On the Internet or in a book shop, we find dozens of recipes. Somewhere in them is a reference to a grandmother's kitchen. It is wonderful to recreate the recipes of the past but very little mention is made of the vessels that were used to cook them.
Those days, cooking was amongst the greatest acts of devotion and it started with the clay oven being washed and decorated with a kolam followed by a a prayer. Women from earlier generations, were themselves expert potters and could make the clay stove. The slow cooking using firewood and other organic ingredients, and the loving attention, lent a unique aroma to the food, something the best chef of today cannot often capture! The vessels were just as important.
Different dishes
Vessels for cooking and storing came in sets or as single pieces. The taller kuthu adukku and the wider aria adukku came in sets of three or more of varied heights. The mooku chatty was used to serve rasam and had a little spout. Rasam was cooked in an iyyam or lead chombu , a wide bottomed but spherical vessel with a narrow mouth. The kothu chatty comprised four cups fused in the middle with a serving handle, used for serving vegetables.
Kal chatty, made of soapstone, was used for mashing spinach as well as making Pulikaachal – the slow heat made the food tastier. The more orthodox families preferred to keep salt and pickle in jars of soapstone rather than ceramic jadis .
Jadis came as parangi jadi – shaped like a pumpkin -- or an osara jadi (a tall one). Generally, the pickles were protected by covering the jadi with a cloth called vaedu , and then covering it with the lid.
Then there were special utensils for different dishes. Like puttu was made in a kuzhal , an oodhu kuzhal was used to fan the flame, an idly kopparai was for idli, there was the sevai naazhi and dosais and adais were made on a dosai or adai kal . Stir frying and sautéing were done with an illupai chatty. While, a bosi served a similar purpose but being wider, was used to cool hot food and dry food in the sun. The was a plate with holes in it to drain the water from the rice. An uruli was for payasam and a bhogini and kalyani came from Karnataka, shaped like a bosi . Cups for worship were called vattils , spoons were udhrini and the cylindrical water vessel was kolapathram or panchapathram . The tirukaveri had a spout with a yazhi for pouring water.
Serving utensils had their own names too. Kidiki was tongs, mathu was a pestle for squashing greens as well as churning buttermilk. An akhapai was for rice, muttai karandi , which was rounded and deep for liquids like ghee, jharini with holes for making boondi, elai karandi shaped like a folded banyan tree leaf. Plates were thambalam and thattu , cups, kinnam and along with the coffee filter was the tumbler and davara .
Kalayam was a pot with flat sides for oil. Lota and chombu were used to drink water. Chombus with a curved neck were popular in Thanjavur while the more angular ones came from Tirunelveli. The Vaishnava chombu was sharply formed as well as taller. Maambazha thumbi/chombu was wide and spherical at the bottom but tapering towards the top. The thaazhi was an almost oval vessel with a narrow neck for storing butter. The kooja was the predecessor to our water bottles.
Vessels for water
Vessels for storing water were indispensable those days. The kudam had a narrow neck and the thondi had very little of a neck. A charukku had a sharp slope on the top. The andaa was cylindrical in shape while the gangalam was an urn shaped vessel with handles through which a bamboo pole would be slipped to move it about. Some of the larger kodams had a little peeli or a tap at the bottom as well. A kopparai (like a pot), jorthavalai and kuvalai were smaller vessels to store water. Many of the larger vessels sat on a kodathadi, a ring that stabilized their spherical bases.
Outside the kitchen was an ammi for grinding spices, ural with ulakkai for pounding, (The women sang songs while doing this),yanthram for grinding to powder with a challadai or sieve and an ural for grinding idli/dosa batter. Ingredients were dried in a muram (winnow) or sholagu (round tray with a rim) made of palm leaves. Rice was stored in a kuthir and measured by a veesam padi . Liquids were measured in palams and seer . The final addition to the list, kitchens were called madapalli or adukalai. And cooking was referred to as samayal or thaligai.
Vessels were made of bronze, brass (coated inside with lead), iron or copper. Often vessels on which food was served were made of silver.
We may not use these today or even display them in our homes but they teach us the number of words – each reflective of unique usage – we have forgotten and in forgetting the words, we have forgotten a piece of our identity as well.
(With inputs from Dr. Rama Kausalya, V. Banu and S. Saraswathi. For vessels, Umaidorai of Malleswar Handicrafts , R A Puram, - Ph: 98406 66884).
In days of yore, each utensil in a kitchen had a specific purpose.
May 01, 2014 07:14 pm | Updated 07:14 pm IST - chennai
Pradeep Chakravarthy
On the Internet or in a book shop, we find dozens of recipes. Somewhere in them is a reference to a grandmother's kitchen. It is wonderful to recreate the recipes of the past but very little mention is made of the vessels that were used to cook them.
Those days, cooking was amongst the greatest acts of devotion and it started with the clay oven being washed and decorated with a kolam followed by a a prayer. Women from earlier generations, were themselves expert potters and could make the clay stove. The slow cooking using firewood and other organic ingredients, and the loving attention, lent a unique aroma to the food, something the best chef of today cannot often capture! The vessels were just as important.
Different dishes
Vessels for cooking and storing came in sets or as single pieces. The taller kuthu adukku and the wider aria adukku came in sets of three or more of varied heights. The mooku chatty was used to serve rasam and had a little spout. Rasam was cooked in an iyyam or lead chombu , a wide bottomed but spherical vessel with a narrow mouth. The kothu chatty comprised four cups fused in the middle with a serving handle, used for serving vegetables.
Kal chatty, made of soapstone, was used for mashing spinach as well as making Pulikaachal – the slow heat made the food tastier. The more orthodox families preferred to keep salt and pickle in jars of soapstone rather than ceramic jadis .
Jadis came as parangi jadi – shaped like a pumpkin -- or an osara jadi (a tall one). Generally, the pickles were protected by covering the jadi with a cloth called vaedu , and then covering it with the lid.
Then there were special utensils for different dishes. Like puttu was made in a kuzhal , an oodhu kuzhal was used to fan the flame, an idly kopparai was for idli, there was the sevai naazhi and dosais and adais were made on a dosai or adai kal . Stir frying and sautéing were done with an illupai chatty. While, a bosi served a similar purpose but being wider, was used to cool hot food and dry food in the sun. The was a plate with holes in it to drain the water from the rice. An uruli was for payasam and a bhogini and kalyani came from Karnataka, shaped like a bosi . Cups for worship were called vattils , spoons were udhrini and the cylindrical water vessel was kolapathram or panchapathram . The tirukaveri had a spout with a yazhi for pouring water.
Serving utensils had their own names too. Kidiki was tongs, mathu was a pestle for squashing greens as well as churning buttermilk. An akhapai was for rice, muttai karandi , which was rounded and deep for liquids like ghee, jharini with holes for making boondi, elai karandi shaped like a folded banyan tree leaf. Plates were thambalam and thattu , cups, kinnam and along with the coffee filter was the tumbler and davara .
Kalayam was a pot with flat sides for oil. Lota and chombu were used to drink water. Chombus with a curved neck were popular in Thanjavur while the more angular ones came from Tirunelveli. The Vaishnava chombu was sharply formed as well as taller. Maambazha thumbi/chombu was wide and spherical at the bottom but tapering towards the top. The thaazhi was an almost oval vessel with a narrow neck for storing butter. The kooja was the predecessor to our water bottles.
Vessels for water
Vessels for storing water were indispensable those days. The kudam had a narrow neck and the thondi had very little of a neck. A charukku had a sharp slope on the top. The andaa was cylindrical in shape while the gangalam was an urn shaped vessel with handles through which a bamboo pole would be slipped to move it about. Some of the larger kodams had a little peeli or a tap at the bottom as well. A kopparai (like a pot), jorthavalai and kuvalai were smaller vessels to store water. Many of the larger vessels sat on a kodathadi, a ring that stabilized their spherical bases.
Outside the kitchen was an ammi for grinding spices, ural with ulakkai for pounding, (The women sang songs while doing this),yanthram for grinding to powder with a challadai or sieve and an ural for grinding idli/dosa batter. Ingredients were dried in a muram (winnow) or sholagu (round tray with a rim) made of palm leaves. Rice was stored in a kuthir and measured by a veesam padi . Liquids were measured in palams and seer . The final addition to the list, kitchens were called madapalli or adukalai. And cooking was referred to as samayal or thaligai.
Vessels were made of bronze, brass (coated inside with lead), iron or copper. Often vessels on which food was served were made of silver.
We may not use these today or even display them in our homes but they teach us the number of words – each reflective of unique usage – we have forgotten and in forgetting the words, we have forgotten a piece of our identity as well.
(With inputs from Dr. Rama Kausalya, V. Banu and S. Saraswathi. For vessels, Umaidorai of Malleswar Handicrafts , R A Puram, - Ph: 98406 66884).
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
How a butcher schooled the short-tempered scholar
How a butcher schooled the short-tempered scholar
By Renuka Narayanan
The old books can be so contemporary that it takes your breath away. For instance, the hugely popular Vana Parva or 'Forest Section' of the Mahabharata.The epic goes back millennia and the Vana Parva is the third of its 18 sections. It is also the longest section of 'the world's longest epic', with 21 subsections and 324 chapters. It describes the 12-year stay of the Pandavas in exile and the adventures they had. In this story that I would like to retell, Rishi Markandeya teaches Yudhishthira an enduring lesson about the nature of dharma:
There was a very learned scholar called Kausika who devoted himself for many years with utmost diligence to the study of the holy books. He sought out the best teachers and was able to flawlessly recite the scriptures in full. Once, having stationed himself in the shade of a tree, he began to recite a portion of holy verses. He had barely begun when a sarus crane, perched high above him, innocently let fall its droppings on his head. Angered by this 'disrespect', Kausika glared at the bird with such fury that the poor creature, unable to bear the scorching heat of his gaze, fell down dead.
Gratified by this evidence of his mental power, Kausika rinsed the droppings off his head and sallied forth to beg his lunch from the townsfolk. He stopped outside a small, trim house and called aloud for alms. "Coming," he heard a woman's voice say and waited expectantly, alms bowl ready. The minutes went by but nobody appeared bearing food. Kausika frowned, tutted in impatience, and decided to wait just a little longer. After at least a quarter of an hour had passed, the lady of the house appeared smiling at the door with a well-filled plate of food.
"Greetings, respected sage. I am sorry to have kept you waiting," she said in a pleasant, contrite manner. But Kausika snapped, "How dare you keep me waiting?" and glared furiously at her.
Nothing happened to the housewife. Instead she looked at him thoughtfully. "Did you think I too was a crane?" she asked in an amused voice.
Kausika was totally taken aback. "How did you know?" he said perplexedly.
"I knew, that's all. I did not mean to keep you waiting, you know. My husband is an invalid. I was attending to him when you called, which is why it took me some time."
"If that's the case…" said Kausika awkwardly, wonderstruck by her omniscience.
She nodded wisely at him. "I think you have a lot of questions but I must get back to my duties. You have studied the holy books at great length but the meaning of dharma eludes you still. If you won't take it amiss, my advice to you as a well-wisher is that you seek out the wise butcher Dharmavyadha. He will set your feet on the right path." She smiled and went away.
Kausika wondered what he could learn from a butcher. But his curiosity was fairly caught and he inquired about the butcher's whereabouts. As he approached the meat shop, the butcher glanced up and saw him.
"Welcome, O learned guest. I see that the good housewife directed you to me after you burned the bird with your gaze. Please come in."
Kausika was amazed. "This is my second big surprise," he told himself. The butcher took him home, seated him comfortably and went in to check if his elderly parents needed anything. He then asked how he could serve him. But Kausika had a question first. "If you are such a virtuous person, why do you sell meat?" he asked.
"Learned guest, my family has sold meat for generations. There is nothing improper in this. This work, too, is part of society and it is how I earn an honest living. It is not contrary to dharma or right conduct."
"Very well, my good man, please tell me what constitutes dharma," said Kausika.
"Practising dharma is a combination of two kinds of actions," said the butcher musingly. "One is to hold back on negative emotions like anger, greed, jealousy, malice, unrestrained lust and untruth. The other is to be proactive in the things that build a good atmosphere and also make you feel well, things like politeness, kindness, compassion, giving gladly to the needy, being helpful and telling the truth—the virtues that hold society together."
"Hmm. Yes, that does make sense. But I am amazed that you knew about me and so did the housewife, as if by divine instinct. How did that happen?"
"It was intuitive awareness. May I give you some personal advice if you won't be offended?"
"Please do," said Kausika somewhat warily.
"You went away to fulfil your ambitions, did you not—leaving your old parents to fend for themselves? They are lonely, sick and afraid. It is good to have personal goals but we cannot abandon our personal duties either. I advise you to go home and look after them with loving kindness, not out of an arid sense of duty. If you can do that, the nature of dharma will light you up and you will never be angry or dejected. Active kindness will take you to true spiritual happiness."
Kausika winced. He thought of his mother and father trying not to weep inauspiciously when he left home without a backward glance. His mother had cooked his favourite food for his last meal at home and his father had fetched new upper and lower cloths for the dakshina or ceremonial present that Kausika would have to give the guru who accepted him.
Great waves of regret washed over Kausika, cleansing his soul of its hauteur. Well, if the holy books taught you one thing, it was not to flinch from the truth, however unpleasant, he thought ruefully. He took leave of the butcher with genuine affection and made his way home, feeling light as a cloud.
Renuka Narayanan
Monday, January 16, 2023
Me grand dad ‘ad an elephant: Celebrating a British Professor who fell in love with Malayalam
Many credit Professor Ronald E Asher, who passed away recently, for spreading the renown of the Beypore Sultan, as Basheer was known, and Thakazhi across the world.
By Cynthia Chandran
Even in Scotland, they are yet to let Professor Ronald E Asher, the British linguist who died a day after Christmas in Edinburgh, fully go. With the long holiday season there thanks to Christmas and New Year, the coroner is yet to release the body of the good professor who passed away in his sleep at the rich old age of 96. Here in India, Malayalam literature lovers might be even more loathe to do so.
The late Edinburgh University's linguistic professor's love for the language and especially for Vaikom Muhammed Basheer and Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, both of whom he translated into English, made him a much-loved and much-revered name in the literary circles of Kerala. Many credit Asher for spreading the renown of the Beypore Sultan, as Basheer was known, and Thakazhi across the world.
Professor Asher's initial involvement with Malayalam was almost accidental - only because an Honors degree in French and German did not naturally lead in that direction.
His first Indian association, in fact, was with Tamil in 1953, after he reached Changam in Tamil Nadu's North Arcot district during his stint as an assistant lecturer in linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. It was ten years later that his love spread to encompass Malayalam too. And how it would go on to blossom!
"The spur was provided perhaps by an interest in comparative linguistics, and therefore a feeling that, having embarked on the study of Tamil, I ought to know something about other Dravidian languages. My first contact with the sounds of Malayalam was following a course on phonetics of Malayalam given by a Mrs Eileen Whitley at the School of Oriental and African Studies (where I spent the first 12 years of my academic career). My first real initiation into the language was when a friend who was a post-doctoral fellow (Dr Joseph Minattoor) at the school taught me the Malayalam script by going through some primary school readers with me.
"This was fun, but I'd say that getting a real grip on the language was indeed tough, given that it is typologically very different from English -- or any other European language. It takes time to learn a new language. If you don't have constant practice over a long period, then you tend to forget the words. I didn't live in Kerala. My only contact with the language was through reading books -- a very passive occupation. The lack of any discourse or exchange made it very difficult," Professor Asher recalled in an interview with this journalist many years later.
And yet... And yet!
Once conversant with the language, he went on to focus his attention on two of Malayalam's most difficult writers to translate -- Vaikom Muhammad Basheer and Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai.
In 1975, he translated Thakazhi's 1947 novel Thottiyude Makan as Scavenger's Son. Reading translations of Thakazhi's own Chemmeen and Chandu Menon's Indulekha, Professor Asher once confessed, had fuelled his love for Malayalam literature. Was this his way of repaying that debt?
Then there was Basheer.
Professor Asher had in fact met the writer in 1963, the year he came down from London to Kochi to learn spoken Malayalam "with the help of Nalina Babu and his friend, N Unnikrishnan Nair" as he told Shevlin Sebastian in an interview with The New Indian Express many years ago. Nalina Babu introduced Professor Asher to Basheer's works through Paaththummaayude Aadu.
Soon, he would meet the great man.
"I remember my first visit to see Basheer. After telling him the day on which I would arrive, I took a bus from Kochi to Calicut, and then another one to Beypore. When I got off the bus, he was waiting at the bus stop. I was amazed. How did he know the exact time I would arrive?!" he recounted in the same interview. Those were the days.
Asher found Basheer to be "likeable, warm-hearted, fascinating, enthralling and amusing. He was a wonderful person to talk to. His oral anecdotes were of the same quality as his published stories".
Professor Asher went on admit that Basheer's "style, his skillful use of what is superficially very simple language, his humour, his variety, his versatility and the poetic quality of his language" -- qualities that made him the truly great writer he was -- also made it difficult for the translator to capture the same shade of meaning.
But then the Professor was not one to give up. The famous story of what happened when he came across the seemingly insurmountable kuzhiyana in Entuppappekkoraananendarnnu (Me grand dad 'ad an elephant) speaks eloquently of his tenacity and also, how translating Basheer was for him love's labour.
Asher checked with Basheer when he came down to Beypore on what the insect giving him this much trouble in translation actually was. An on-ground investigation was arranged and Basheer showed Professor Asher what soon gained life as an 'elephant ant' in English. Were discoveries of a word sweeter in those pre-WhatsApp days?
ALSO READ | A bakery which served Cochin raja, Mountbatten and Basheer
Paaththummaayude Aadu was published by Edinburgh University Press in 1979. In 1980, Entuppappekkoraananendarnnu, Balyakalasakhi and Paaththummaayude Aadu were published in a single volume by Edinburgh University Press under the title, Me grandad 'ad an elephant!
Professor Asher admitted that he never showed the translations to an expert in Malayalam "(doubtless a mistake!), so, any faults in the translations are my responsibility alone!"
One of his favorite films was Basheer's Mathilukal, the Mammootty starrer. He was quite familiar with Mammootty, as he had already seen him in Manivathoorile Aayiram Sivarathrikal.
The late Professor always considered himself fortunate to have met a whole lot of Thakazhi's contemporaries during his earlier visits to Kerala.
"I remember going to Kozhikode in the late 60s or early 70s to meet a young writer who turned out to be MT Vasudevan Nair. He is one of the outstanding writers of his time," Asher had remembered.
Omana Gangadharan, an accomplished Malayalam writer, recalled her three-decade-long association with the Professor. "I lost track of the number of times we had met, but each meeting was enriching, a mutual opening of doors to not just Malayalam literature, but the world's best literary works," she said.
Professor Asher could easily pass off as a Malayali. But he was too shy to speak Malayalam in public, lest he erred.
He never used a mobile phone. Only on rare occasions did he even use a landline in the course of his illustrious life. All his communication was done through the British Royal Mail and emails.
During his leisure time, Asher found time to listen to European classical music by Joan Sutherland, one of the most remarkable female opera singers. He was a tad disappointed that the impact of globalisation on Indian languages had affected the reading habits of even the young in Kerala.
His advice for budding translators on how to excel was illuminating.
In one interview, he spoke of how the translator "should be sensitive to shades of meaning in the source language and the language of translation. He should also have a love for the work being translated".
While talking to me, he emphasised the need for them to have stylistic fluency and versatility in the language of translation, qualities that would help when it came to reflect the stylistic qualities of the source text.
To this he went on to add the need for having a real liking and appreciation for the work being translated. Finally, he said he had also found that, where living authors are concerned, it also helps to get to know the author personally.
Wise words from a very wise and very kind man.
By Cynthia Chandran
Even in Scotland, they are yet to let Professor Ronald E Asher, the British linguist who died a day after Christmas in Edinburgh, fully go. With the long holiday season there thanks to Christmas and New Year, the coroner is yet to release the body of the good professor who passed away in his sleep at the rich old age of 96. Here in India, Malayalam literature lovers might be even more loathe to do so.
The late Edinburgh University's linguistic professor's love for the language and especially for Vaikom Muhammed Basheer and Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, both of whom he translated into English, made him a much-loved and much-revered name in the literary circles of Kerala. Many credit Asher for spreading the renown of the Beypore Sultan, as Basheer was known, and Thakazhi across the world.
Professor Asher's initial involvement with Malayalam was almost accidental - only because an Honors degree in French and German did not naturally lead in that direction.
His first Indian association, in fact, was with Tamil in 1953, after he reached Changam in Tamil Nadu's North Arcot district during his stint as an assistant lecturer in linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. It was ten years later that his love spread to encompass Malayalam too. And how it would go on to blossom!
"The spur was provided perhaps by an interest in comparative linguistics, and therefore a feeling that, having embarked on the study of Tamil, I ought to know something about other Dravidian languages. My first contact with the sounds of Malayalam was following a course on phonetics of Malayalam given by a Mrs Eileen Whitley at the School of Oriental and African Studies (where I spent the first 12 years of my academic career). My first real initiation into the language was when a friend who was a post-doctoral fellow (Dr Joseph Minattoor) at the school taught me the Malayalam script by going through some primary school readers with me.
"This was fun, but I'd say that getting a real grip on the language was indeed tough, given that it is typologically very different from English -- or any other European language. It takes time to learn a new language. If you don't have constant practice over a long period, then you tend to forget the words. I didn't live in Kerala. My only contact with the language was through reading books -- a very passive occupation. The lack of any discourse or exchange made it very difficult," Professor Asher recalled in an interview with this journalist many years later.
And yet... And yet!
Once conversant with the language, he went on to focus his attention on two of Malayalam's most difficult writers to translate -- Vaikom Muhammad Basheer and Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai.
In 1975, he translated Thakazhi's 1947 novel Thottiyude Makan as Scavenger's Son. Reading translations of Thakazhi's own Chemmeen and Chandu Menon's Indulekha, Professor Asher once confessed, had fuelled his love for Malayalam literature. Was this his way of repaying that debt?
Then there was Basheer.
Professor Asher had in fact met the writer in 1963, the year he came down from London to Kochi to learn spoken Malayalam "with the help of Nalina Babu and his friend, N Unnikrishnan Nair" as he told Shevlin Sebastian in an interview with The New Indian Express many years ago. Nalina Babu introduced Professor Asher to Basheer's works through Paaththummaayude Aadu.
Soon, he would meet the great man.
"I remember my first visit to see Basheer. After telling him the day on which I would arrive, I took a bus from Kochi to Calicut, and then another one to Beypore. When I got off the bus, he was waiting at the bus stop. I was amazed. How did he know the exact time I would arrive?!" he recounted in the same interview. Those were the days.
Asher found Basheer to be "likeable, warm-hearted, fascinating, enthralling and amusing. He was a wonderful person to talk to. His oral anecdotes were of the same quality as his published stories".
Professor Asher went on admit that Basheer's "style, his skillful use of what is superficially very simple language, his humour, his variety, his versatility and the poetic quality of his language" -- qualities that made him the truly great writer he was -- also made it difficult for the translator to capture the same shade of meaning.
But then the Professor was not one to give up. The famous story of what happened when he came across the seemingly insurmountable kuzhiyana in Entuppappekkoraananendarnnu (Me grand dad 'ad an elephant) speaks eloquently of his tenacity and also, how translating Basheer was for him love's labour.
Asher checked with Basheer when he came down to Beypore on what the insect giving him this much trouble in translation actually was. An on-ground investigation was arranged and Basheer showed Professor Asher what soon gained life as an 'elephant ant' in English. Were discoveries of a word sweeter in those pre-WhatsApp days?
ALSO READ | A bakery which served Cochin raja, Mountbatten and Basheer
Paaththummaayude Aadu was published by Edinburgh University Press in 1979. In 1980, Entuppappekkoraananendarnnu, Balyakalasakhi and Paaththummaayude Aadu were published in a single volume by Edinburgh University Press under the title, Me grandad 'ad an elephant!
Professor Asher admitted that he never showed the translations to an expert in Malayalam "(doubtless a mistake!), so, any faults in the translations are my responsibility alone!"
One of his favorite films was Basheer's Mathilukal, the Mammootty starrer. He was quite familiar with Mammootty, as he had already seen him in Manivathoorile Aayiram Sivarathrikal.
The late Professor always considered himself fortunate to have met a whole lot of Thakazhi's contemporaries during his earlier visits to Kerala.
"I remember going to Kozhikode in the late 60s or early 70s to meet a young writer who turned out to be MT Vasudevan Nair. He is one of the outstanding writers of his time," Asher had remembered.
Omana Gangadharan, an accomplished Malayalam writer, recalled her three-decade-long association with the Professor. "I lost track of the number of times we had met, but each meeting was enriching, a mutual opening of doors to not just Malayalam literature, but the world's best literary works," she said.
Professor Asher could easily pass off as a Malayali. But he was too shy to speak Malayalam in public, lest he erred.
He never used a mobile phone. Only on rare occasions did he even use a landline in the course of his illustrious life. All his communication was done through the British Royal Mail and emails.
During his leisure time, Asher found time to listen to European classical music by Joan Sutherland, one of the most remarkable female opera singers. He was a tad disappointed that the impact of globalisation on Indian languages had affected the reading habits of even the young in Kerala.
His advice for budding translators on how to excel was illuminating.
In one interview, he spoke of how the translator "should be sensitive to shades of meaning in the source language and the language of translation. He should also have a love for the work being translated".
While talking to me, he emphasised the need for them to have stylistic fluency and versatility in the language of translation, qualities that would help when it came to reflect the stylistic qualities of the source text.
To this he went on to add the need for having a real liking and appreciation for the work being translated. Finally, he said he had also found that, where living authors are concerned, it also helps to get to know the author personally.
Wise words from a very wise and very kind man.
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