Doshi, Bombay Diamond Bourse, Brahmrandhra, 486, Octroi and me

Bombay Diamond Bourse B. V. Doshi, Bombay Diamond Bourse, Brahmrandhra, 486, Octroi and me As election day was a slow day at the office, I had utilised it to rummage through cluttered drawers and came across these two old photographs that brought forth memories/proof of my strange encounter(s) with late Architect Shree B. V. Doshi. Though I am a product of the school he founded and (I suspect)…

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Urdu: A romantic love child or a product of a forced arranged marriage?

Once every week, some smart marketing kid wakes up an old ghost and sends roaming across the vast landscape of social media of India for it to get picked up by the right/left wing and thus procure millions of eyeballs almost free of cost. The process is so fast that before one can address the Urdu experts’ claims about Jashn-e-Riwaz, we already have the Karva Chauth gambit put forth so that we,…

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Google vs Common Man

I am fighting a David vs Goliath war, but not for me and I want you to know why. Last year, when I asked my son to upload our family photo album on his Google drive, he suddenly got a message from Google that Google is blocking his access to his Google drive as their AI has detected “explicit material” of “child abuse”. In one second, my son lost his twenty odd years of everything, from…

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If Shakuntala Devi circus is maths, India did and will (re)invent zero

Mathematics is nothing short of magic. It is the foundation of our existence in this “reality” that we cognize through our brains. For an absolutely inexplicable reason, we are armed with a tool that can (or rather appears to) describe and predict the behaviour of the universe/reality. Maths allows us to cognize, recognize and even model reality within our brains and now outside it. But, before…

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The Fisherman and The Intelligence (Human/AI and Biological)

I recently attended a brilliant lecture that explored the future developments in science, and strange that it may sound but it reminded me of this urban-lore that I am tempted to use as a prelude to what I think is the story of the real future! Once a rich American tourist saw a fisherman lounging lazily in his boat and relaxing. As a busybody trying to spread the capitalist’s American dream,…

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Interconnectedness: All that we humans need to learn to save ourselves

Occidental vs. Oriental Disconnectedness vs. Interconnectedness? (Or may be even Western Science vs. Advait?) AI or rather AGI is here and staring at us, asking uncomfortable questions. It is an infant, and it may be our golden hour, that, if we miss, may decide our future. As the real challenge before us is what we will teach not just humans but also to the machine. The future that we all…

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On doing “science” in an Onion-Universe

Ahmedabad Mirror 25th Nov 2023 As science tells me that pods of laburnum (garmalo) are toxic, this rose-ringed parakeet nibbling at the base of a pod caught my attention, and led me to an unlikely place, i.e., where universe meets “science”. Modern science is a child of the Renaissance, the “dawn” of reason, and it comes with a dark presumption. Science (of the waste, sorry, West) presumes that…

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With Winter Flower Ambush Ahead, A Request…

I personally find an average landscaped garden akin to a badly organised zoo where arctic foxes are made to rub shoulders with manned wolfs and hornbills are forced to sit with the penguins, but I have now conceded to the fact that these schizophrenic conglomerations are here to stay as toxic globalisation driven by economic forces is permeating across borders, be it political or…

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From a Spider to the Lady of the House

Ahmedabad Mirror 22nd October 2023 Dear Ma’am, With Navaratri half-done, I can sense rising agitation in you that I see converting into a nightmare for me every year. So, especially as you are the only gender gifted with listening and reasoning ability, I am pleading to you to consider my case. I feel that communication should be possible between us as you deal with the obstinate male of your…

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Perfect People living in an Imperfect World

Ahmedabad Mirror15th October 2023 There are two aspects related to “mental health” that always bother me. One is about modern medicine’s claim to have advanced to a level that we actually know what is ill-health in context of mind-brain and even if that is true, that we have enough qualified professionals to deal with the situation in a meaningful way on the ground based on what we know. As…

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Waterfront Development by my Architect

A few months back I had introduced my architect, the rain god, to the readers. As he is moving out of our city to render his services elsewhere, I am tempted to take stock of what he did. The project of my choice is a waterfront development he has done that I fondly refer to as Sacred Groves. Ahmedabad already has a huge waterfront development project, so my architect’s work is not comparable…

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Great being the cradle of modern architecture, but……

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Sthita-prajñasya kā bhāṣhā..?

Ahmedabad Mirror 2nd September 2023 As this festive week offered some free time, I tried whiling it by sorting some of the old photos, and as always it yielded some retrospection worth sharing. This photo is not at all unique for India, as our antiquity and history has left many of the finest sculptures mutilated or damaged thus, so there is no point sharing the location or the chequered…

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India gets the moon, but where is the nation?

This week has been as momentous as it can get, for us the people of Bharat, India, or Hindustan (depending on which WhatsApp group you follow). Though ISRO has moved about 1752 KG over 3 lakh KM, it clearly has also moved a 1.4 billion strong nation. The immense sense of achievement forged a nation out of the scattered masses otherwise divided into fans of Amitabhji and Salman, sarson-da-saag…

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American parents produce Americans, German produce Germans, Chinese produce Chinese but we Indian parents stand apart…..

We are a unique nation of people as we, the Indian parents do get mushy-eyed looking at the tiranga and share patriotic songs on whatsapp but when it comes to educating our kids about our beloved nation, something really strange happens. It is almost as if we Indian parents have recognised that our job is to produce citizens of USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and any other country on…

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Monkey stressed, Monkey ill

Just when we thought that we are done with one viral pandemic, we are back to the same seesaw ride with conjunctivitis spreading like wildfire. As we are now “sensitised” thanks to coronavirus, the knee-jerk reaction has allowed this fairly regular “epidemic” that visits us every two-three years to be a news item, so I am tempted to use it as a click bait. Epidemics have been around before…

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Boys/Girls, Sorry Hormones in the city

Though it is difficult to determine when a society has deteriorated into the malaise known as a metro-city, one practical way is to check the proliferation of PGs (the word Ahmedabad uses for places where young lonely people live). PGs mostly exist silently hosting young boys and girls who we like to imagine to be working/studying; but, are actually perusing what Freud audaciously exposed and we…

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