Love of Light

I love light.
To be in the light
Not in the limelight
Is my might.
I love fight
To be in the light.
For that I hate
To be in the limelight.
Light is bright,
Transparent and fast.
That's why I hate
What is not light.

Feast of Denha

Denha is the second great Feast after Easter that was being celebrated from early centuries in the Universal Church. Denha which means Sunrise or Dawn is celebrated to commemorate the Baptism of Our Lord and through that His public manifestation to the world by God the Father as His Beloved Son (Mt.3:17: Mk. 1:11; Lk. 3:22). The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove (Mt.3:16: Mk.1:10: Lk.3:22; Jn. 1:32). Thus the three Persons of the Holy Trinity also were manifested on that occasion. Therefore in the early Church the Holy Trinity also was commemorated on this day. 

In the Nazrani Church, this feast is celebrated in two distinct forms viz., Rakkuli Perunnal and Pindi Perunnal. To commemorate the Baptism of Our Lord in the River Jordan, the Faithful at Palai and Pulinkunnu used to take a holy dip by night (Rakkuli) in the streams flowing near the churches in these localities after the solemn celebration of Ramsha, the Evening Liturgy. Faithful in and around Thrisur light small oil lamps and pin them around plantain trunks (Pindi) erected in churchyards or in front of the houses and go around them chanting in Syriac El payya. These Syriac words mean God is radiant. The thought underlying the lighting of lamps and the chanting is that God sheds His light over the human race through Mishiha (Lk.1:76-79). We may also allude here to the tradition in the Syriac Church which says that when Jesus was baptized in River Jordan, a great light shone in that River. This also might be linked with the introduction of lamps into this festive ceremony. In recent years this Pindi Perunnal ceremony is celebrated in the southern regions also.

Peace to the World

You train gun,
We drain fun.
You train fun,
We drain gun.
You drain gun,
We train fun.
You drain fun,
We rain fun.
Gun's no fun
Have gun of fun
Let's go to the man-ger
Peace be with us

The Prodigy that was Shakuntala Devi

Shakuntala Devi was the best known face of popular Mathematics in India. She was renowned for her mindboggling calculations.  Indian Mathematics was synonymous with two names late Srinivasa Ramanujan and the other being Shakuntala Devi herself.  While Ramanujan is associated with the pre-independence period, Shakuntala Devi flowered in the post-independence India.
Ramanujan was famous for his longstanding contribution to the modern Theory of Numbers, including the methodology to estimate the accurate value of Pi. On the other hand, Shakuntala Devi, who lacked formal education, attempted to eradicate ‘Arithmophobhia’ or the fear of numbers among the masses.  Her public performances sought to convey the message that Mathematics is fun and not necessarily esoteric.

When Shakuntala Devi established herself through the 1960s and 1970s the television era did not exist   in the country. The only medium available to her was public performances at schools, colleges or clubs.      Shakuntala Devi was inherently gifted with the power of calculation that started as a child through association with her father who performed card tricks. She gradually mastered the art of Mind Dynamics to astonish audiences worldwide with her almost instantaneous calculations of complex Mathematical operations. The lady was not a qualified classical Mathematician in the true sense of the term, considering she did not focus on development of Mathematical theories like CR Rao or SR Varadhan. Instead she concentrated solely on her amazing ability to calculate with super speed.

On 18 June 1980 at the Imperial College of London, Shakuntala Devi outdid the then fastest computer to multiply two thirteen digit numbers with each other. This earned her a coveted place in the Guinness Book of World Records.    It would be relevant to mention that the techniques that Shakuntala Devi used to wow the world with her superhuman skills were gleaned from the Atharva Veda.  These included:  ‘modular ‘arithmetic to figure out the day of any given date to find the nth root of any integer power; besides, movements of celestial bodies aimed to generate astrological predictions. Shakuntala Devi through her public performances was able to restore some of the glory of Vedic Mathematics.
The fact that Shakuntala Devi did not go to school never deterred her ability to grasp the nuances of numbers along with their permutations and combinations. Her father who was born in to a family of traditional priests had the courage of his conviction to pursue his passion as a vocation and became a circus artiste. This resulted in financial instability which hampered Shakuntala Devi’s formal schooling. Despite this disadvantage, she authored a dozen odd books on Arithmetic skills and Mathematical puzzles which are well received across all age groups and even beyond Indian shores.  
Clearly her life suggests that learning is as important as teaching.  Otherwise the lady applied her mathematical capabilities to Astrology in an era when there were no computers. This helped her become a celebrity astrologer and earn some wealth.

Clearly Shakuntala Devi possessed a God- given gift that coupled with her circumstances nurtured her capabilities to calculate to flourish over time. To that extent, she was born with mathematical abilities and lends credence to the thinking that Mathematicians are born and not made. Interestingly Shakuntala Devi’s birth and death, from a mathematical viewpoint have mystical significance. She was born in November 1929 and died in April 2013 aged 83 years. To a Mathematician these numbers 19, 29, 2, 13 and 83 are all prime numbers --- the building blocks of Counting Numbers.      
Shakuntala Devi was a unique individual and India’s gift to the world of Mathematics. Her life serves as an inspiration to one and all. It sends the message of the importance to identify one’s hidden talents and thereafter nurture them irrespective of one’s circumstances or grooming.

The Pain of Trekking

Rock on the rock on the rock is a hill
Uphill is to climb on the rock on the hill
On the top of the hill, at our feet are all
Hilarious, jubilant, exulting, we're above all

Tip of the top of the hill is not all
Lonely, the mind isn't willing to be that tall
Descend, descend and descend, we're with all
Hilarious, jubilant, exulting, all at our fall

On the plains, back from the hill, we're in pain
First on the feet, up on the knee, up is the pain
On the hip, on the rib, in the chest, we're in pain
All joints, all nerves, all cells, it's all pain

No problem, it's temporary, we'll be alright
What's the problem? Is climbing not right?
It's not a habit. That's the problem.
Hardwork as a habit, is never a problem.

Be true trekkers, mountaineers in real life.

Mathematics of the Blind

How does a blind know the other person is blind or not? One of the toughest explorations of humankind is the exploration for the truth. Human search for food ended with finding food. In some way, it is parallel to what other living beings also do. Hunger for food brings human beings, animal and plants on the same platform. They work towards getting good, sometimes good food. As a rational animal, human beings went further ahead. They searched for the truth behind it. They found that there is much more in the truth.

Among the three types of living beings, human beings and animals are superior to plants because of their capacity to change their positions. They find better positions, in the face of threats and sometimes for comfort. Hence we may say that plants live in the first dimension.  Human beings are superior to animals because of their capacity to change their positions in thinking. Though animals think, their thinking is a very static thinking. Hence, we may say that animals live in the second dimension. They live according their instinct. Human beings live in the third dimension. They have life. They can move. They can remember the past and dream about the future. They can imagine.

Among the many capacities human beings have, the most important one is the capacity to reason. Reason is the reason for human beings to search for truth. Human beings, in general, are in an incessant search for truth. Some search for the truth of life. Some others search for the truth of the nature. There are some others who search for the truth of the truth itself. This search for truth is the basis of recording and documentation. Documentation is the backbone of all the developments in the world. As human beings change their styles and modes of living, a continuous progress is visible in the world. It is by encountering and polishing the truths of the nature, the truths of the truths, human beings progress towards better life.  In this pursuit of progress, the most important and precise recording is in the form of Mathematics.

Many say, “Mathematics is the study of anything that has reason.” Mathematics is about recognizing patterns in the world and contributing suggestions for its repetition and improving.  In establishing the claims of what is right and what is good, mathematicians use a technique called “Proof.” In fact, everyone with rationality does proving, in many different ways. Hence, in general everyone is a mathematician. However, academic mathematicians do more documented proving. There are various methods of Proof.

One without the capacity to see things using one’s own eyes is termed as a blind. Of course, blindness is not a hindrance to reasoning. Hence, a blind person also does proving. But, can a blind person use a visual proof? To be precise, we come back to the initial question, “how does a blind know the other person is blind or not?” One can always bluff the blind by pretending to be blind or not. Here comes a beautiful mathematical proof method, named as “Zero Knowledge Proof.” It is illustrated in the case a blind person (B) who tests the blindness of another (A).

B has two identical marbles of different colours.

B knows that the marbles are of different colours. However, B cannot distinguish them by their colours. B holds the marbles in either of the palms. B asks A to identify the colours of the marbles. There is a possibility that A might come with the two colours correctly. But, B is still not sure if A is truthful. Hence, B keeps swapping the marbles quickly for some time between the palms with the perfect knowledge of the movement of the marbles. If A is blind, A has no clue whether the marble is exchanged or not. B then asks A to identify the location of the different colours. This procedure is repeated a couple of times more. If A is not blind, then A can never deviate from the initial identification of colours of the marbles.

In modern cryptography, Zero Knowledge Proof is efficiently utilized. It was initially conceived and published by the trio Shafi Goldwasser, Silvio Micali and Charles Rackoff.* The power of Zero Knowledge Proof is that the prover never passes the proof but a verifier can always test the prover of the knowledge of the proof and be satisfied.

*S. Goldwasser et al. “The knowledge complexity of interactive proof systems,” SIAM J. Comput. vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 186-208, Feb. 1989.

A priceless surprise

O my beloved ones!
You pinned me
To a night-less day 
To a sleepless night
With such a thoughtful gift
Which is the second best gift
In the last eighteen months.
No wonder, the first,
O my beloved ones,
Who else?
What else?
Other than you,
ALL OF YOU.

On the day after, 
When paper money became just paper
When a dump triumphed over the wise
You pinned me 
To priceless papers of wisdom
Which no one can ever demonetise
To countless numbers on papers
Which no dump can ever triumph over...

With the fullest sense of its humblest
Exhibit ever possible,
Permit me to use the word, THANKS.

Love you all...