Leave a legacy behind, my dear friend

 

Leave a legacy behind, my dear friend

An all original poem by Sujay Rao Mandavilli                                 

 

Indeed the term legacy is misunderstood highly,

Even though people may claim to have fathomed it all vainly,

Legacies may multifaceted and multidimensional be,

Legacies may also large and substantial be,

Insignificant and trivial to some degree,

Tangible or intangible indeed,

Positive or negative veritably,

Pleasant and transformational suitably,

Intellectual or non-intellectual veraciously,

Ambitious, beneficial and non-ambiguous,

Or utterly odious and noxious,

This may be so to a large degree,

Either incorporating or not incorporating a fervent desire to grow and to give,

Therefore giving and yielding either expectedly or unexpectedly,                                                                        

To the wider public and general society,

Or in some case to near and dear ones only,

We only categorize them neatly and conveniently to suit our whim and our fancy,

And compartmentalization itself may be a logical fallacy,            

Many great men were but crooks and wretches,

Along with their unfortunate thumping boys, lackeys, lapdogs and stooges,

As was also sadly and unfortunately the case with all slothful and indolent slouches,   

And also with traitors and knaves that were, and are not to be trusted,

Let us on the other hand innovate and grow,

And our talents and flair demonstrate and show,

Don’t misuse your divinely granted powers if that is the case,

As most evil people in the world certainly did abase,

Clans, confederates and their chieftains too,

Reveling in their pedigree,

As they tumbled and fell from their elevated and elated apogee,

From the not so benign conquerors Genghis Khan or Timur the Lame,

Or the evils carried out in Stalin’s or Hitler’s name,

Even the evils associated with the great leap forward, if that is the name,                

And the horrors of Idi Amin and Pol Pot infame,

Ivan the terrible,

And all assorted and miscellaneous dictators wicked and horrible,

These are all cruel misadventures and wicked wrongdoings all the same, 

Just like Hannibal the wicked and dictator Mussolini,

However and contrarily, like those dealt by the benign likes of Mandela, Ambedkar, and Gandhi,

Legacy must be beneficial,

Make life useful, productive and not superficial,

Be worthy of the seriousness of life,

Do not degenerate it into a cauldrife,

Make life worth living,

And dedicate it to service and giving,

Don’t waste your life in banter,

Don’t waste your life in gossip and slander,

In idleness, gossip and tittle tattle,

Or needless prattle,

Don’t waste your life in machinations,

Don’t become schemsters or schemstresses, 

Don’t become manipulators,               

Dedication and commitment, those are our devoirs,

High living and high thinking are necessary adjuncts and concomitants for the intellect,

From useless tasks and meaningless rituals life we must resurrect,

Of what use is poring over others success stories mindlessly,

And amble and meander along aimlessly,                 

Let us not become visionless,

Or ambitionless and directionless,

Let us not our hopes and our chances torpedo,

And let us not in the least lose our drive or our mojo,

Up your ante and up your sails,

Let’s set new directions and blaze new trials,

Let us not into the concealing bosom of ineptitude precipitate,

Or from the righteous and unwavering hand of veracity and facticity deviate,

Let us not into some random and repugnant corner huddle,

Let detractors and sycophants us not bamboozle or mollycoddle,

Step out of your comfort zone,

And your skills and talents do hone,

Don’t hush your souls,

Or with depleted low self-esteem crawl,

And be contented with a random brawl,

Let us not wallow in run off the mill approaches,

Nor to say the least in dyed in the wool approaches,

Bester yourself and create,

Ruminate, ponder and investigate,                              

Therefore, redouble your efforts, cogitate and innovate,            

 

Life should be great rather than long,  

Travel light and be agile,

Don’t be infecund or sterile,

Life is no song,

Ambition, aspiration, perseverance, and hard work make it all, 

Not destiny,          

Not pettiness and all forms of niggardliness sundry,

Only positive forces cement you against the trauma of any catastrophic fall,

Accumulate nothing,

Amass nothing,

Yet, dream big,

And keep on imagining big,

Dream long and wide,                          

Think straightforwardly and harbor no snide,

Do not your well-meaning and well-intentioned compatriots deride,

Simple living must count,

High thinking must abound,

Hitch your wagon to a star,

Yet be kind and avuncular,

Don’t waste your life in pursuits trivial and hedonistic,

Live a life that is event-filled and altruistic,

Life but comes only once and never again,

Justify your presence on earth, all things done and said,  

People with humble moorings have left great wealth behind,

Why cannot we do so too in our turn, my dear friend?

When death creeps in, and when we rust,

And when we inevitably and invariably bite the dust,  

All that will be left is our formidable legacy,

And the actions and the deeds of the just,

Chiseled and crafted for posterity,

And preserved elegantly and meticulously for eternity,

Kings, monarchs, and emperors may in their due turn fall,

But creators and generators of legacies shall stand tall,                                            

Only high thoughts and high deeds make man a man,

Only high thoughts and high deeds differentiate a hapless and a dispossessed creature from a true man.

 

 

Obsolescence, nothing escapes your wicked ways

 

Obsolescence, nothing escapes your wicked ways    

An all-original poem by Sujay Rao Mandavilli

 

Obsolescence, you always creep in,

Intransigence is your sister twin,  

Neither showing your fangs, nor raising your wings,

Non-change and non-progress are your veritable offsprings,  

Neither making your presence felt,

Yet everything scourged and bent,

You make everything seem and appear antiquated,

You make everything only fit in due course to be discarded,

You make everything seem and appear out of date,

Many are ready to bite your wicked bait,  

You make everything seem and appear old-fashioned,

With progress, growth and vitesse effectively pinioned,

You make everything seem and appear no longer fit for general use,

Everything loses steam in due course as your icy venom is let loose,

Obsolescence you always sneak in stealthily,

Obsolescence you crawl in and creep in through the back door sneakily,

Informing no one of your whereabouts or its coordinates,

Until all endeavour from its dyed in the wool tradition aberrates,

Unprepared, unsuspecting and ill-equipped you will be,

Though the results will eventually be there for all to see,                 

Never leave yourself off guard,

Never let yourself off the hook,

Obsolescence will catch up with you by hook or by crook,

Always be on your alert,

Always be on your vigil,             

Even the wise and the erudite shall not be spared,

Truth be told and bared,

Only the savvy and the adaptable will,

Technology is alone not to blame,

Though it has a role to play, too, all the same,  

Attitude, dogma and ideology are largely to blame too,

With self-imposed limits to the freedom of inquiry,

The vicious noise of other peoples voices snuff out all forms of enquiry,

Ideology makes us blind, it makes us immune to veracity,

To the perils and pitfalls of reality,

So is your inability to renew yourself anew,

And play your game wisely too,

Nonchalance is also a major culprit,                                          

Even as man cries out hoarse from the pulpit,

Innovation is stifled, its benign hands quashed,

Creativity is made a mockery of, and in turn smashed,

Despondency is let loose again,

Rigidity reigns supreme,

With no cautionary aposeme,

Ignorance is rampant,

And proves to be a veritable accelerant,

We wallow in his senseless arrogant proclamations and pompous naivety,

Dyed in the wool approaches lend their weight and abnormity,

And prevent you from bringing yourself uptodate with reality,

Drawing down all forms of preposity,

Only after its heavy and death clad hand has laid,

And all hope for the march of progress has smeared,

You blame your parents and your grandparents,

But obsolescence destroys in its wicked turn, all hopes for assonance,

And you shall fall victim and fall prey too,

Sooner or later,

To the mighty and unwavering hand of obsolescence,

All will fall and will be doomed.  

 

 

 

 

Why Indus script decipherment-based approaches must be abandoned in Indology

 Trying to read the Indus script as any one language is practically untenable and absurd. This is not only because the average length of the inscriptions is short - 4.6 signs, but also because most of the signs would obviously have been word signs (even though the Indus script was a logo-syllabic script as evidenced by the Dholavira signboard which points to the existence of larger inscriptions perhaps for more specialized use) -the presence of a large number of word signs would have been in large part due to the polyglot nature of the Indus valley - the signs would have had to be read by merchants, traders and artisans speaking different languages from different regions of the civilization - Trying to use prefixes and suffixes to read it as any language is obviously absurd and highly unworkable. I can use this "method" to decipher it as half the languages on the face of the planet earth. Naturally, people trying to decipher it as Sanskrit, Dravidian or any other language for that matter have also been unsuccessful. This approach is not just outdated or obsolete - it is antiquated, prehistoric and antediluvian. The first step must be to jettison it before we can make any meaningful progress in Indology.

Read my two papers on the Indus script and my paper on literacy in Post-Harappan India

THE LANGUAGES OF THE HARAPPANS AND THE LINGUISTIC IDENTITY OF THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION

 

THE LANGUAGES OF THE HARAPPANS AND THE LINGUISTIC IDENTITY OF THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION 

This is an extremely complex issue and needs to be treated with the attention it deserves. We also need to be prepared to deal with a high level of complexity always, and at all times. The IVC was pre-Sanskritic given that the IVC went into terminal decline in 1900 BC, and disappeared entirely by 1300-1400 BC unlike Vedic culture which flourished till 600 BC and beyond. The IVC also lay to the west of the Aryavarta. The IVC began from the Baluchistan region where Mehrgarh is located, while the Vedic homeland is to the north of the Punjab. It is also unlikely that so many millions of people all the way up to the Iran border were conversing in Sanskrit. There are also many different aspects of Indian religious traditions, not just Vedic. There were many different languages and language groups in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent, even though a majority were speaking so-called IE languages. We had Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian languages, Burushaski/Proto-Burushaski, (isolate) etc. Since the people living in the Gujarat -Saurashtra region of the IVC did not migrate eastward to the Gangetic plains, it is likely that the early languages of this region were linear antecedents of the present-day languages of this region, albeit subsequently Sanskritized. We also had the vassal Ahar, Jorwe, Banas, Kayatha cultures to the east of the IVC who may have been speaking their own distinct and separate languages. Some researchers also claim that some Munda like languages were spoken by some people in the region, though all claims needs to be constantly scrutinized and validated. Therefore, the linguistic situation in the region is extremely complex indeed as it will be, given the fact the we are dealing with an area that stretches from Iran in the west to the Gujarat-Maharashtra border in the south to the Punjab region in the north-east.  All these hypotheses are also of course, not mutually exclusive. I had proposed that the Harappans were speaking "Many different languages (probably many different language groups) that included many languages that much later came to be known as the Prakrits of the Gangetic plains - when the migrations to the Gangetic plains took place in 1900 BC- It is also of course highly unlikely that terms such as Prakrits were used in the Indus valley for obvious reasons. This is a no-brainer. Post-Harappan artefacts have been found in many places in the subcontinent as observed by Gregory Possehl. Therefore, there was a continuity between Harappan and Post-Harappan cultures in many places of the subcontinent. Coming to Dravidian, a Dravidian language called Brahui was spoken in Pakistan by relatively small numbers of people- This language has not been proven to be very ancient. However, the presence of Brahui in the region will not automatically preclude the existence of other languages/language groups in the region given the fact that real world issues are always extremely complex, and it is not possible to oversimplify. Read the concept of non self-canceling contradictory evidence. Contradictory evidence is also the biggest blessing we can have in a study of Ancient India. Any one who tries to condense 5000 years of history of a vast region into a few lines will fail spectacularly. Brahui is also classified as a northern Dravidian language, and its speakers do not genetically resemble South Indians. One theory posits and postulates that Brahui speakers migrated from central India in the tenth century after Christ. (Josef Elfenbein and Jules Bloch) All theories must be critically evaluated and interdisciplinary and cross-cultural teams be instituted. Indeed, this is the way forward. The classification of languages into language groups and language subgroups must also be critically reevaluated from time to time. It is also our responsibility to pursue accuracy, and lay the foundations for a scientific temper in India and beyond. A script-based or a decipherment-based approach may not mostly work given that most inscriptions are short, and most signs may have been word signs. This is not withstanding the fact that the Dholavira signboard displays random sign repetition.   

Please read my papers on Indology. 

Ideologies, you shall come to naught An all original poem by Sujay Rao Mandavilli

Ideologies, you shall come to naught

An all original poem by Sujay Rao Mandavilli

 

 

You were born nobly and were well-born as the 'science of ideas',

Though later regressed to the status of pariahs,

Of gentle birth and aristocratic pedigree,

Cloaked and masquerading as science by any measure or degree,

A noble and praiseworthy endeavor indeed, and for sure, 

Impressive and first rate by any measure,

Your claimed intentions were there for all to see,

Oh! wretched of the earth, you may indeed nut cases be,

Your ideas were touted to be pursued at leisure,

In a gentle and a genteel context birthed and gestated, paradoxically, 

But have not so thankfully devolved, diversified, digressed and scattered ever since pitifully,

And have horribly and irretrievably lost your way, 

And are doomed to grope in the calamitous shadows till death's day,

You have lost all your sense of direction and you have lost sight of all your goals,

And have run aground to the shoals,

Things gradually and steadily fell apart; you have lost your coherence and direction too;

Ideologies have the propensity to make you nutty, too,

You plod on aimlessly, and have generally failed to reinvent yourself anew,

Chaos, disorder and disarray are let loose on society at large,

You, your quotidian duties cleverly and deviously dodge,

 

Spreading your fangs like a venomous snake,

Depleted intellectual faculties, illogical, irrational ways,

As you bid your common sense farewell and adieu,

Loss of personal self-respect and dignity shall ensue,

You, your opponents and adversaries shamelessly berate,

And in vain the intellectual course of affairs try to dominate,

Your ideologies make you impervious to reality,

In spite of your apparent lack of shame and tenacity,

You turned against the very culture that fostered you and nourished you, 

And against the high tides of civilization itself, oh mind you,

Turned against the society whose cause you should have served,

Earning the praise that you should have deserved,

Time will no longer serve your cause, you pitiful souls, 

You understand little and know little,

You comprehend little and perceive little,

Profoundness and comprehensiveness are not your forte,

Profoundness and comprehensiveness are not within your intellect's grasp,

Puffing it all up under the vain cloak and garb of substantiated knowledge alas,

Ensconced prettily in your intellectual cul de sacs, 

You with your intellectual capabilities crippled, walked upon the land,

Throwing tantrums when cornered,

Proffering rants when pressured,

You ways may be subtle or gross,

Your subject matter at times barely discernable or out of the closet,

Your ways of the world may be stated or unstated,

Your techniques may be explicit or implicit,

Your recipe, though generally ossified, may be either discernible or intangible to boot, 

You may take on myriad forms and dimensions too,

And all qualms, inhibitions and subtleties overshoot, 

With external manifestations and pretensions that abound,

With many a complex declension if that is the word,

But ideologies you are all doomed,

Ideologies you shall perish only too soon,

Ideologies you shall stand no ground,

The vested interests you create will run you to the ground, 

Leaving chaos and confusion all around,

Deceit and calumny though your vehicle for propagation may be,

Deception and duplicity too may your name be,

You shall dissipate entirely in vain,

As you are already moribund, and therefore in trivialities deign, 

And are already a near-fatality,

Of the ever-escalating echelons of civilization and progress a casualty,

You shall come crashing down,

Without any lingering fame or renown,

With scarcely a remnant or a footprint left for posterity,

Born half-heartedly and purposelessly as that is the case, 

You shall vanish and be effaced from man's collective consciousness in any case,

You shall all but come to naught,

You memories shall be effaced from the ground,

 

And no cenotaph or epitaph shall bear your name,

You do not deserve the limelight, make no mistake,

That regardless of your sophistry is indeed unfortunately the case,

You are not erudite and well informed,

Dogma, rigidity of thought, and intransigence is what you chase,

You are only assuming and overbearing, indeed that is the case,  

Clumsy, ponderous, overarching and pedantic,

Ghoulish, hideous, and eccentric,

Pompous, naïve and vain,

You have been torn asunder and gone astray, you saboteurs, 

Oh! ideology-drenched and ideology-soaked practitioners,

Subtle or gross,

Half-awake and half-aware, or shrouded in utter secrecy,

Wedded into human relationships and institutions to a fault,

Often your thorny swords you do brandish, 

Seeking out the naïve and gullible to ambush,

Your endeavours shall only be in vain and come to naught,

Some have only highly misplaced intentions as that is the case,

The rest have gone awry or were birthed in cold blood, 

You are self-serving and self-seeking in the name of altruism,

Your activism academic or non-academic is a name for absurdism,

Pandering and catering to your respective egos alone,

You only pretend to be sacrosanct and are sanctimonious too,

Pretenses of impudent sassiness notwithstanding,

Your saving graces are none at all,

You are doomed to fail and doomed to fall,

You shall bite the dust with your trophies, bronzes, and them all.

It is only when ideologies expire or are made redundant and unnecessary,

More clearly will we be able to far and near see,

All things meticulously and creatively assessed, analyzed and said,

It is only then will the foundations of civilization will be laid.

 

"Man, be not proud": An all-original poem by Sujay Rao Mandavilli

 

Man, be not proud

An all-original poem by Sujay Rao Mandavilli

 

It is yet unknown how the universe stemmed from void and naught,

Or life from non-life arose without an explanation or a thought,

The mysteries of the cosmos, the self and the being are indeed, baffling and profound,

Man as yet wallows in his senseless arrogant proclamations and pompous naivety,

Unconvincing half-explanations in the wicked garb of truth and pretentiousness abound,

This is an attribute man has carried with him since eternity,

Therefore, hazy speculations are rife, and with great dangers are fraught,

The mysteries and origins of life are yet unknown and proven to be,

Conjectures are rampant, and substance not forthcoming as it perhaps never shall be,

 

Man knowest not how,

Man knowest not why,

Yet thinks or pretends that he does, and stumbles on without an inkling or a clue,

He still carries his egos and pompous vanity sky high,

Man skims on the surface shallowly even appearing pretentious and loony,

Man researches and blunders on dully and prodding drearily,

Yet thinks he comprehends all mysteries deep and profound,

That is why intellectuals may well be the greatest idiots of all time around,

Intelligence is subjective and relative truly,

His perceived intelligence may be no more deep than paganism, heathens and idolatry,

And no more wise at the outset than utter ignorance and stupidity,

 

That is why man botches up and fumbles on aloof and proud,

With his cronies, cabals, lead hands and all and sundry smitten,

Man is incorrigibly proud just as Donne on death had written,

Man in all his self-proclaimed glory nature bullies,

His reputation for posterity ever sullies,

Man, pompous, bratzy, domineering, will learn his lessons some time,

Even as he sullies and leadens the atmosphere with slime and grime,

 

Man proudly traces his life and existence from epoch to epoch,

From aeon to aeon and from age to age,

Claiming that he has become successively wiser with each epoch or with passing time,

Or successively more foolish, naive and petulant may we state,

Other species have plus points too but have carried them low,

Without haughtiness or even raising an eyebrow,

 

The earliest amphibians were accomplished in their own way too,

As were the earliest reptiles and the earliest birds in their primitive majesty,

Dinosaurs whether august and striding gallantly, gigantic, subtle-footed or puny,

Without waxing eloquent or raising their eyebrows unnaturally,

Stone age humans progressed and regressed a little both in equal measure,

with progress both material and non-material only slow and steady,

and flamboyance reserved for posterity,

 

We are ignorant still, and lack a holistic and a long-term view: man be not proud,

Each culture has its perils, just as its ego is unlimited and in sum remains infecund,

And tramples down on contemporaries with unfailing regularity,

Parochialism is always a new found reality,

Man has not learnt his lesson even with the launch and passing of industrial revolution or the internet age,

Each age thinks it is the greatest and the most triumphant till date, 

He has neither learnt any lessons from the past or may never even do so,

Nor can dream or aim a moonshot for the long-term too,

Bereft and devoid of a long-term and a holistic view,

Even as he makes claims of having conquered the depths of space anew,

He paddles on in his own self-proclaimed majesty and directionless stupidity,

He schemes his wicked machinations endlessly, deviously, and cunningly,

 

This despite all his pretensions of civilization and culture, is what man unfortunately is doomed to be,

This unfortunately speaks volumes about the capaciousness and caliber of man's intellect indeed;

In this regard and connection you may not be the pinnacle and epitome of creation, man,

Even so-called zeniths and nadirs exist in your self-conception only,

Man must not just be judged by his technological inventions or accomplishments alone,

Or by the senseless wars and battles he has waged or been privy to full-blown,

Man must also be judged by the perils and the limitations of his intellect; Man, be not proud.

 

Rules for awards, prizes and scholarships

Institute for the Study of the Globalization of Science (Registered as “Globalization of science trust”)

Mandavilli foundation (Separate dedicated website will be up at a later date)

Rules for awards and prizes

1.       Researchers must be active in any field of the social sciences. This includes anthropology, sociology, economics, psychology, philosophy, political science, historiography, etc. for any clarification, please write to me.

2.       Must have demonstrated a commitment to freeing social sciences from the shackles of Eurocentrism or laying the foundations of social sciences in the developing countries. This must preferably not be limited to one single country, but to developing countries, and to science as a whole.

3.       Must be from a developing country in Africa, South America, South Asia, South East Asia, Middle East, Near East and the Philippines. Due to technical and operational challenges, we are not accepting submissions from Pakistan and Afghanistan. For any clarifications, please write to me. 

4.       Researchers must have carried out research in the aforesaid regions, and must be still residents of those regions at the time of claiming the award.

5.       Must have had a history of research and research publications at least five years.

6.       Must have published at least five research papers in peer-reviewed journals.

7.       Publications must have been in English. In case the original paper was in another language, translation must have also been published in a peer-reviewed journal in English.

8.       Journal must be reasonably reputed, and must not be classified or categorized as fake or non-genuine.

9.       Researcher must be associated with a university, reputed research institute, or a think tank.

10.   Non-affiliated researchers may apply provided they furnish two references or two testimonials from reputed affiliated scholars.

11.   Researcher must have a valid Masters degree in any field.

12.   Copies of the papers must be submitted for evaluation.

13.   No registration charges are applicable at present.

14.   We will issue a certificate and a testimonial. These will be in soft copies only. There are no cash awards at present.

15.   Selection will be purely based on merit.

16.   There are no limits to the number of awards that can be given in a year. Alternatively, no awards may be given in a particular year in the absence of meritorious candidates.  

17.   The main categories of awards are “Global star award for the year …..” (Unlimited), and “Global Best researcher of the year award for ….” (only one)

18.   Special awards shall also be given for outstanding papers in Economics and Pedagogy for work that boosts economic outcomes in developing countries.

19.   The form attached must be fully and properly filled in.

20.   Claims may be referred to a subcommittee if required. The decisions of the judges and the panel shall be binding and final.

Rules for Ph.D scholarship

1.       This scholarship is applicable to researchers pursuing research in an Indian university.

2.       The Ph.D program must be approved by the UGC or the University Grants Commission.

3.       The Ph.D program must be in the humanities.

4.       The Ph.D program must be centered on the ideals of the globalization of science movement, and must benefit developing countries greatly.

5.       Letter of admission must be provided from the university.

6.       Research proposal must have been approved by the university.

7.       Letter must be provided from the guide.

8.       We are starting with one scholarship per year. Rs 5,000 consolidated for the course. Program may be expanded at a later date.

9.       The form attached must be fully and properly filled in.

10.   Proposals may be referred to a subcommittee if required. The decisions of the panel shall be binding and final.

 

 

Sujay Rao Mandavilli

Founder Director

Institute for the Study of the Globalization of science

(Registered as “Globalisation of science trust”)