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Category: Excerpts

Meditating for Healthier Emotions – a Lesson from Ikigai

Posted on by Penguin India

Ikigai is the Japanese word for ‘a reason to live’ or ‘a reason to jump out of bed in the morning’, and we all have it. It’s the place where your needs, desires, ambitions, and satisfaction meet. A place of balance. It’s a small wonder that finding your ikigai is closely linked to living longer.

As we find ourselves in challenging times, it’s important to keep our minds healthy. Embracing the impermanence of things and meditating is hence, necessary and in this excerpt from Héctor García and Francesc Miralles’s book, Ikigai, you will learn just that.

Meditating for Healthier Emotions

In addition to negative visualization and not giving in to negative emotions, another central tenet of Stoicism is

knowing what we can control and what we can’t, as we see in the Serenity Prayer. Worrying about things that are beyond our control accomplishes nothing. We should have a clear sense of what we can change and what we can’t, which in turn will allow us to resist giving in to negative emotions. In the words of Epictetus, “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react that matters.”

In Zen Buddhism, meditation is a way to become aware of our desires and emotions and thereby free ourselves from them. It is not simply a question of keeping the mind free of thoughts but instead involves observing our thoughts and emotions as they appear, without getting carried away by them. In this way, we train our minds not to get swept up in anger, jealousy, or resentment.

One of the most commonly used mantras in Buddhism focuses on controlling negative emotions: “Om.

man.i padme hūm.,” in which om. is the generosity that purifies the ego, ma is the ethics that purifies jealousy, n.i is the patience that purifies passion and desire, pad is the precision that purifies bias, me is the surrender that purifies greed, and hūm. is the wisdom that purifies hatred.

The here and now, and the impermanence of things

Another key to cultivating resilience is knowing in which time to live. Both Buddhism and Stoicism remind us that the present is all that exists, and it is the only thing we can control. Instead of worrying about the past or the future, we should appreciate things just as they are in the moment, in the now.

“The only moment in which you can be truly alive is the present moment,” observes the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh.

In addition to living in the here and now, the Stoics recommend reflecting on the impermanence of the things around us.

The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius said that the things we love are like the leaves of a tree: They can fall at any moment with a gust of wind. He also said that changes in the world around us are not accidental but rather form part of the essence of the universe—a rather Buddhist notion, in fact. We should never forget that everything we have and all the people we love will disappear at some point. This is something we should keep in mind, but without giving in to pessimism.

Being aware of the impermanence of things does not have to make us sad; it should help us love the present moment and those who surround us.

“All things human are short-lived and perishable,” Seneca tells us.

The temporary, ephemeral, and impermanent nature of the world is central to every Buddhist discipline. Keeping this always in mind helps us avoid excessive pain in times of loss.

Finding your ikigai is easier than you might think. This book will help you work out what your own ikigai really is, and equip you to change your life. You have a purpose in this world: your skills, your interests, your desires and your history have made you the perfect candidate for something. All you have to do is find it.

The Night Sparkled and So Did All of Us

Posted on by Penguin India

Memory of Light is a tender romance of two young courtesans in Nawabi-era Lucknow. The entire novel unfolds through the narrator, Nafis Bai’s memory of events, lending it her unique voice, which stays with the reader.

Intrigued? Read an excerpt from the book below:

Late at night before the big occasion, I tried the outfit on her; the fabrics I had chosen kissed her skin, her skin not washed-out white like the English ladies’ but kanak kamini, warm as wheat, as gold.

‘Like lightning flashing in the summer sky,’ I said, as I tied the silver drawstring with its pearl pendants, gleaming through the pale blue swirl of the peshwaz and dangling below its hem.

While I dressed her she undressed me, discarding the purple I had selected for myself.

‘Purple doesn’t suit you,’ she said. ‘Parrot-green blossoms on you. Wear this green one with—let’s see.’ She threw her red orhni over me. ‘There—it’s like a flame on you.’

Until then purple had been my favourite colour. I’ve never worn it with pleasure since.

The night sparkled and so did all of us, lit by the sheen of youth. Even I felt beautiful when her eyes touched me. The whole town seemed to be there, troops of merchants with tributes for the English, foreigners with heavily powdered hair, and every dancer worth the name. Bands were playing foreign instruments, organs bellowed and fireworks fizzed above. A group of hijras performed and then Ratan. I looked up from a dark corner where I was adjusting Chapla’s shoes with their long curling toes, to see Sharad framed in a lighted doorway, chest half-visible through lacy white embroidery—a flowering tree covered with leaves and buds. His hair was abundant in those days, long curls almost out of control, and his eyes were on Ratan.

Mir Insha was in his element—flitting from group to group, alight with laughter. ‘Even the buds are proffering their glasses,’ he whispered to me, as champagne bubbled up in crystal for a fat European lady and her young daughter. ‘Look, flowers and bunches, all are imbibing.’ I giggled; the lady’s dress, billowing stiffly round her, did make her look a bit like a bunch of large showy flowers, the kind that the white people favour.

Then he whispered to Chapla:

Chaar naachaar hu’a jaana hi Landan apna
Le ga’i chheen ke dil ek firangan apna

No choice, I have to go to London now
A foreign woman has snatched away my heart

At this, both of us burst out laughing and Ammi threw us a reproachful glance.

He brought it all to life again in his poem—glasses, bottles, free-flowing liquor, lights in the trees, delicacies laid out on tables. He ignored Azizan resplendent in magenta and gold, and devoted his attention to Chapla, doing justice to my handiwork:

With a silken drawstring flowing like water,
Satin trousers blooming like foliage,
A light blue silk peshwaz like a cloud,
Its skirt edged with silver like a moonflower,
A veil of moon and stars like a moonlit night,
Anklets tinkling like drops of rain,
Chapla Bai stood up to dance.
Seeing her, Khutan gazelles forget to leap
Nature made her replete with beauty
From her face the Pleiades borrow radiance
The envy of fairies, she’s called ‘Lightning’
Light’s world turns dark when she departs . . .
Who can praise the breasts of that infidel idol?
Oh lord, their curves and that rising youth—
Half-blossomed lotuses, two fine founts,
They shine like round swelling whirlpools
Or like chakva and chakvi sitting on two shores,
The string of pearls between is Jamuna . . .
That ring-watch blooming with delicacy
I’d sacrifice to it hundreds of sounding organs . . .
Her plait like the shade of a kadamb tree . . .

What an eye he had for detail—the verse I liked best described how her red heels made the white beads on her pearlescent white silk shoes reddish like ratti, those poisonous seeds used to weigh gold, or like red champa flowers with their creamy insides:

Those two arms boughs of the tree of Paradise—
Obtain from them what your heart desires

Her forearms male and female skinks
The sight of them drives men and women wild . . .
Those red heels make the pearls on her shoes
Look like red ratti seeds or champa flowers
. . . Today’s the fourth day of the month of June
This happy day shines with special beauty

To know what happens next, check out Memory of Light. 

The Star of India – An Excerpt

Posted on by Penguin India

From the glitz of Hollywood to the lush chambers of Indian royalty, The Star of India weaves a spirited tale of a strong-willed woman whose fate was deeply entwined with the momentous birth of modern India.

Read an excerpt from the book below:

 

–

 

But this weekend, it would be just us.

It was low tide. I ran down to the water, planted my legs and felt the icy surf rush over my feet. Sporty rolled up his trousers and followed, capturing me in his arms.

As we walked along the hard-packed sand, he told   me of a boyhood passed in two worlds, the traditional one where he was a demi-god to his people and the modern one where he studied at Cambridge and lived with a freedom he could not know at home.

‘You’re cast in two different roles—but in real life.

Does it feel confusing?’

His pace slowed. ‘I do need to change hats frequently.’ ‘Or turbans? Handsome, I’ll bet,’ I flirted, thinking how dashing he’d look in royal attire. A piece of dark red sea glass caught my eye. I picked it up and presented it  to

him with my head bowed. ‘Tribute, Your Highness.’

He studied the piece, rubbing his finger over its edges, holding it up to the light.

I was embarrassed. ‘It’s nothing really.’

‘Ah, but this is a jewel from the heart.’ The smile that had flickered across his face faded. ‘After a while, when one is surrounded by so much treasure, these things become commonplace.’ The smile returned. ‘Like pebbles on a beach.’ I glanced at the shoreline, trying to imagine such a life.

Such wealth.

‘I will tell you the story of another gift,’ he said. ‘An ancient ruby, red as blood. It was brought to India by the Central Asian Mughal invaders and passed from father to son as a symbol of their rulership. You may know the name Shah Jahan?’

‘He built the Taj Mahal! For his wife who died in childbirth.’ That I remembered from my research in the library.

‘Before her death, Mumtaz gave him four sons. To prevent their eventual power struggle, Shah Jahan had the Mughal Ruby set in a special ornament, which he alone would place on the turban of his chosen successor. He would, in effect, maintain control of the “crown.”’

I paused, the surf numbing my feet, my ankles.

‘But this was not to be. After all, Shah Jahan had rebelled against his own father. And so it was with his sons, for the most ambitious was his least favourite; he was disrespectful and close-minded. To prevent the ruby from falling into his hands, the emperor bestowed it on a raja of Bengal who had saved his life in battle—the King of Koch, my ancestor. But with the gift came a prophecy: If ever he or his descendants ever lost control of this precious jewel, our family would fall.’ We set off, walking up the beach.

The curse Tony had mentioned. ‘How terrible. Don’t you worry about thieves?’

‘Not really. The ornament is kept with our everyday jewels inside a palace vault, protected by a high official. I wear it on ceremonial occasions.’

Everyday jewels.  ‘I  never  read  about  any  of  that in

National  Geographic.’

‘And you never will. Even our curses remain a secret,’ he said with a twinkle.

‘My lips are sealed.’

Sporty gave me a searing look. ‘I hope not.’

I leaned down and splashed him. ‘You said you’d never known a woman with a real job. But your mother ruled when you were young. Sounds like she had a job, too.’

He tipped his head. ‘Ma was an astute ruler, strong- minded and protective of our people. They revere her, love her.’

‘What does she do now?’

‘Ma is not shy about giving me advice.’ He grinned. ‘She travels quite a bit—friends all over Europe. She leads a different kind of life there. Freer. She is a fascinating woman with a keen intelligence and great style. I want you to meet her.’

‘I’d like to.’ His mother had telephoned his Beverly Hills Hotel bungalow from Paris a few times, and I’d heard them talk about political events back home.

‘When your film is over, we will fly to New York and you can show me around. Then I can show you Paris. How does that sound?’

Boris had hinted Sporty planned to invite me to India, but this was the first mention of travel plans. Giddy with fear and hope, I inhaled the sharp salty smell, gazing down at a ruffle of white foam. When I looked up, the sun had appeared behind his face. For an instant, I couldn’t see his features, only his golden aura. ‘I’ll check my datebook.’ I tried to be nonchalant.

Do you Feel Lost without HIS Presence?

Posted on by Penguin India

To be a better spiritual being and to better even that with every step is the goal of every soul so it can then ultimately merge into The One . . .

Rudra is exactly where he wants to be-with his kind, loving BABA, talking about life and the laws of the spiritual realm. He is taken to various villages to see for himself what the right way to live and pray is.

As he serves his BABA and asks Him questions, much is revealed to him: ‘When you pray with such intensity that The One shall listen to your prayer, then your purity, intensity, devotion and yearning will get wings to reach The One’

BABA also talks about how we should be in life, how our relationships should be, how jealousy and anger are detrimental to the development of good karma and how conducting oneself without cribbing and complaining takes on to the higher plane.

Take the journey withing with The Fakir.

Here’s an excerpt from the book:

Very often baba would disappear for a few days and Rudra realized that on those days he was unusually preoccupied with some mundane things. Stuff that needed to be sorted out in the cottage or he was simply not in the zone to do anything and be dazed, all appointments cancelled, he preferred being by himself. He never understood how every time Baba would leave, Rudra’s days were either packed with worldly chores or just depressing.

On those days he drank far more than he should but always outside the cottage, never within its holy premises. He always made sure the oil lamps burnt twenty-four seven, and Baba would light a small fire, mainly burning embers, which Rudra would tend to in order to always keep the fire awake. Without Baba’s physical presence Rudra was lost, though he knew that he should not be as Baba was always with and within him.

Rudra always remembered Baba’s words to him. He had told him in the early days of their meeting, ‘Beta, heaven is filled with those who have failed but who have got back on their feet, dusted off their mistakes and follies, smiled and walked on with The Name on their lips and the comfort of a compassionate heaven in their hearts.’

Rudra missed serving Baba and massaging His feet. When Baba was physically with him Rudra’s day would be remarkably the same, making sure Baba was taken care of, from the innumerable cups of chai to hot bowls of soup to prayers and laughter and conversations ending the day with him massaging Baba’s feet. He loved to massage His feet.

The last time when Baba had left, there was a tremendous forest fire in California. Rudra always noticed that whenever Baba would leave the cottage, some place in the world would be going through unusual turmoil or devastation. It was as though He was needed and He had to be alone. Rudra never pried or questioned Baba. Rudra just served silently and joyously.

Blondie, Boy and Girl never left Rudra’s side when Baba was not present. It was as though they understood that he was alone and they rallied around him and sought his attention. On those days, Rudra would give them a bath and pedicures and pamper them as he needed to be active to prevent the ache felt in his heart because of Baba’s absence.

Heaven is filled with those who have failed but who have got back on their feet, dusted off their mistakes and follies, smiled and walked on with The Name on their lips and the comfort of a compassionate heaven in their hearts.

What other lessons can BABA teach you? Read The Fakir to find out!

The Economics of COVID-19

Posted on by Penguin India

On the eve of 31 December 2019, as the world celebrated the start of a new decade, the province of Wuhan alerted the World Health Organization of several ‘flu-like’ cases. Less than a week later, a novel coronavirus, was identified. In February, the disease it caused was named COVID-19. Even now, as the global infection rate crosses 1,00,000 and the death toll surpasses 3000, we are yet to understand the threat posed by this new coronavirus. There is no vaccination to prevent it, and no antiviral to cure the sick. While high numbers are being reported daily, agencies may still be unaware of many cases.

While some of us may find it easier to resign ourselves to fate, what we need most right now is credible and comprehensive information from professionals that can help us understand what the Coronavirus is, and how we can prepare and protect ourselves against it. The Coronavirus is the first book that addresses the history, evolution, facts and myths around the pandemic.

Here’s an excerpt from the book below:

‘Give me a one-handed economist. All my economists say “on the one hand”, then “but on the other . . .”’
—Harry Truman

Since the economists that President Truman sought are even more elusive than Sundarbans tigers, the ambidextrous opinions of even-handed experts could map our strategies.

Each new infection moderately severe or worse is estimated to cost approximately $570 million or 0.7 per cent of global income, according to the World Bank. On 9 March, economists at the United Nations estimated the economic impact of COVID-19 to range from $1 trillion to $2 trillion, depending on the ability of various governments to mitigate its impact.

According to World Bank estimates, six major zoonotic outbreaks between 1997 and 2009—Nipah, West Nile fever USA, SARS, HPAI or bird flu, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or mad cow disease, and Rift Valley fever—have cumulatively cost the world at least $80 billion. While the global economic cost of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918–19 is unknown, McKibbin and Fernando have estimated that if it repeated itself in the year 2020, it could cost the global economy up to $9 trillion.

The SARS outbreak of 2002–03 cost the global economy about $54 billion as per World Bank estimates. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 exemplified the grave economic toll of an emerging infectious disease in an unprepared region. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in Liberia and Sierra Leone dropped from 8.7 per cent and 5.3 per cent respectively, to less than 1 per cent between 2013 and 2014, despite the illness-related death toll falling during the same time. Guinea saw a GDP growth of 0.1 per cent for 2015, compared to the 4 per cent predicted. The outbreak cost these three nations a total loss of $1.6 billion, whereas the rest of the world lost about $550 million.

MERS hit South Korea in 2015. With over 16,000 quarantined and thirty-eight deaths, 41 per cent fewer tourists visiting the country, residents avoiding public spaces like malls, restaurants and theatres, the impact on the economy
was severe. Eventually, the Bank of Korea was forced to reduce its interest rates to a record low, and the country faced a total loss of roughly $12 billion. Saudi Arabia was estimated to have lost $16 billion during the MERS outbreak due to a complete standstill on pilgrim activities. The Zika epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean drained their economy of an estimated $7–18 billion between 2015 and 2017. Influenza, which returns annually causing about 700,000 deaths, costs the economy roughly $500 million each year, according to a 2017 WHO study by Victoria Fan and colleagues.

Disease outbreaks affect economies, both directly and indirectly. Government expenses increase as it intervenes to provide basic amenities to its people. Often this involves lowering prices of goods and commodities and reduced direct taxation on companies. Companies face setbacks as sales plummet with people less likely to spend on non-essential goods and leisure activities. This further lowers income from value-added taxation. Illness or forced quarantines impact labour and production and manufacturing abilities of industries. At the individual level, people face increased medical costs, lost pay due to sickness, mortality and loss of close ones. Private and foreign investors do not invest in an uncertain market.

Even if the disease is contained, its aftermath lingers. With business hurt, economy disrupted, stigma and fear plaguing citizens, with the most vulnerable populations hardest hit, the outbreak has far-reaching social, economic, political and psychological effects.

The Coronavirus: What You Need to know about the Global Pandemic brings together medical experts Dr. Swapneil Parikh, Dr. Rajesh Parikh, and Maherra Desai, to present a timely and reliable narrative on the Covid 19 pandemic and possible ways forward.

What Makes India Different?

Posted on by Penguin India

First published in 1996 when he was eighty-eight years old, The Meaning of India is a selection of nearly six decades of Raja Rao’s non-fiction. It is an audacious contemplation on the deeper significance of India. A combination of fables, journeys, discussions and meditations, the book advances the view that India is not just a geographical entity, or even a civilization-state. India is, above all, a metaphysic, a way of being and regarding the self and the world.

Read an excerpt from the book below:

In  The  Meaning  of  India,  Raja  Rao  declares,  ‘India  is  not  a  country  (desa);  it  is  a  perspective  (darsana).’  The  word  ‘darsana’, incidentally,  is  the  Hindu  word  for  philosophy;  it  means  seeing,  experience,  vision,  perception,  standpoint,  insight  and  outlook.  But  what  darsanadoes  India  embody?  Absolute, non-dual consciousness, according to Rao. Even if there  was  no  India  in  a  physical,  material  sense,  India  as  an  idea would always exist. As Rao puts it, ‘India has no enemies. She only has adversaries’ , and she ‘has to turn defeat into victory’.

The  entire  universe,  sentient  and  non-sentient,  in  its  own infinitely rich and diverse ways, also seeks the Absolute. That, I think, is what the Buddha meant when he said that the whole universe is on fire: ‘“What does not disappear does not  exist.”  For  every  sense  perception  is  afire.  “Look,  the  universe is burning!”’ Again, to quote Rao, “There can be  no  world  without  duality,  yet  there  can  be  no  peace  in  duality.’ Duality is primordial unhappiness. That is why everything  that  exists  experiences  this  dukkha, which  is  the  very essence of duality. Duality, two-ness, implies separation from  the  source.  Whatever  has  individuality  is  therefore  separated, ego-bound, vibhakt (divided), and therefore seeks self-transcendence—in  dissolution  or  union—as  the  means  to regain its lost wholeness.

But if everyone and everything seeks the same ‘thing’ that India seeks, what makes her different?

The  difference  is  that  it  is  in  India  where  this  seeking  has  become  self-conscious,  reiterated  generation  after  generation,  down the centuries. Not just that, one might even say that India has not only sought but found the Absolute. There is a prevalent Buddhist belief that if the world is to be saved from destruction, the  inspiration  for  the  radical  transformation  in  consciousness  must come from India.

Rao also states this position quite unequivocally:

There are, it seems to me, only two possible perspectives on human  understanding:  the  horizontal  and  (or)  the  vertical.  They  could  also  be  named  the  anthropomorphic  and  the  abhuman. The vertical movement is the sheer upward thrust towards the unnamable, the unutterable, the very source of wholeness. The horizontal is the human condition expressing itself,  in  terms  of  concern  for  man  as  one’s  neighbour—biological  and  social,  the  predicament  of  one  who  knows  how to say, I and you.

The  vertical  rises  slowly,  desperately,  to  move  from  the I to the non-I, as non-dual Vedanta would say. It is the move towards the impersonal, the universal (though there is no universe there, so to say) reaching out to ultimate being, where there are no two entities, no you and I.

The horizontal again, on its long, arduous and confused pathways, will reach the same ultimacy by stripping the I of its  many  vestments,  through  concern  and  compassion  for  the other . . .The vertical then is the inherent reality in the horizontal . . . (139–140)

Or again:

There  are  only  two  pathways  to  looking  at  the  world:  the  causal  way  or  the  unpredictable:  or  to  use  my  metaphor  .  .  .  the  horizontal  or  the  vertical  .  .  .  In  the  context  of  Indian  philosophy, we could say, either there is duality or non-duality.(194)

Rao,  using  a  method  akin  to  scientific  reductionism,  ensures  that the crux of the matter boils down to one contest—between duality and non-duality.

For  him,  ‘There  are  indeed  no  horizontal  solutions,  the human  has  no  answer  ever.’  Locating  this  contrast  in  a  trans-civilizational dialogue with André Malraux, Rao quotes the latter as saying, ‘You remember what Dostoevsky said: Europe is a cemetery of ideas—yes, we cannot go beyond good and evil. We can never go, as the Indians can, beyond duality.’

Excerpted with permission from the “Introduction to the New Edition”, written by Makarand Paranjape.

The Meaning of India is available now.

Who is a Minority?

Posted on by Penguin India

The Minority Conundrum, the second volume in the Rethinking India series explicates what it means to be a minority in majoritarian times. The contributors identify vulnerabilities that encumber the quest for the realization of substantive citizenship by minority groups. The essays deal with educational attainments, employment prospects in a liberalized economy, possibilities of equal opportunity, violence of the state and vigilante groups, emerging questions of citizenship and employment, linking language with the material life of its speakers, and the receding political voice of minorities amidst a majoritarian upswing.

 

Here’s an excerpt from the book:

In a country marked by multiplicity of faiths, speeches, castes, ethnicities and geographies, the question ‘who is a minority?’ is riddled with complexities. What adds to the intricacy is that each of these collectivities is segmented into status groups, sects, forms of worship, and regional variations to the extent that the difference offsets the commonality. Identities are multiple, and each of these intersects with the other to complicate the situation further. A Santhal convert to Christianity bears no resemblance to the Syrian Christians in Kerala, be it in language, custom or the status that she enjoys in the wider society. A Tamil Muslim has far more points of interaction with a Tamil Hindu than with his co-religionists in Kashmir and in Urdu-speaking areas. This is a complexity that afflicts the formation of majority identity as much. Minorities are contextually produced, and violence is key to it: Biharis in Maharashtra, Tamil speakers in Karnataka during the language riots, Bengalis in Assam at the peak of the Assam movement, Sikhs in 1984. On similar grounds, the rise of Hindutva nationalism in India corresponds with the exclusion and demonization of and the use of targeted violence against the Muslims, and occasionally the Christians.

India represents one of the most complex multinational and polyethnic societies to be governed by modern democratic structures. The presence of at least 1600 speech communities has been recorded by the Indian census, of which at least thirty-three are more than one million strong. More than 3000 castes and nearly 350 tribal groupings form the Indian cultural mosaic. Further, the adherents of almost all the world’s major religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and various forms of animism—are to be found here. About 80 per cent of the population practises Hinduism, which in itself is a highly plural system of beliefs and practices. The disaggregation of the population along regions and religions provides an intriguing scenario. There are merely 2.3 per cent Christians in the country, but they form the majority in three states, namely Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland, and are a significant proportion of the population in Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur. One of the most prosperous states of India, Punjab, has a Sikh majority. The Indian Muslim population, though only 14.1 per cent according to the latest census, constitutes the third highest in the world in its sheer magnitude. Given the situation, quite often, the neat compartmentalization of majority and minority appears mythical. Stretching the argument to an absurd extent, a single- judge bench of an Indian court declared in 2007 that Hindus were a true minority if caste and sectarian divisions were to be taken into account. The judge’s order read that Muslims were in fact the ‘only majority religious community in comparison with other religious communities’, and all others were ‘in minority comparison to the Muslims of India’. Mercifully, realizing the preposterousness of the order, and its far-reaching consequences, a division bench of the high court swiftly overturned it.

India represents one of the most complex multinational and polyethnic societies to be governed by modern democratic structures. The presence of at least 1600 speech communities has been recorded by the Indian census, of which at least thirty-three are more than one million strong. More than 3000 castes and nearly 350 tribal groupings form the Indian cultural mosaic. Further, the adherents of almost all the world’s major religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and various forms of animism—are to be found here. About 80 per cent of the population practises Hinduism, which in itself is a highly plural system of beliefs and practices. The disaggregation of the population along regions and religions provides an intriguing scenario. There are merely 2.3 per cent Christians in the country, but they form the majority in three states, namely Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland, and are a significant proportion of the population in Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur. One of the most prosperous states of India, Punjab, has a Sikh majority. The Indian Muslim population, though only 14.1 per cent according to the latest census, constitutes the third highest in the world in its sheer magnitude. Given the situation, quite often, the neat compartmentalization of majority and minority appears mythical.

 

From a strictly juristic reading, the Constitution of India recognizes religious and linguistic minorities for the purpose of conferring special rights to establish educational institutions of their choice. Articles 29 and 30 carry the empowering provisions in this regard. The reticence of the Constitution-makers in defining who constitutes a minority has led to endless litigation. Were they to be decided numerically? Given India’s federalism, were the minorities to be determined at the level of the state or at the national plane?

 

In its cognitive framework, the volume The Minority Conundrum privileges the material lives of the minority groups over the spiritual or the cultural. In the real world, the two spheres rarely exist in compartments. Nonetheless, the task is to identify vulnerabilities that encumber the quest for the realization of substantive citizenship by minority groups. The essays therefore singularly emphasize educational attainment, employment prospects in a liberalized economy, possibilities of equal opportunity, violence of the state and vigilante groups, emerging questions of citizenship and employment, linking language with the material lives of its speakers, and document the receding political voice of minorities in times of a majoritarian upswing.

The Minority Conundrum is available now.

Power of Poetry: Memorable Verses from Tamil Magnum Opus “Tiruvaymoli”

Posted on by Penguin India

During this difficult time, we tend to turn to powers higher than us. The ancient poet-saint Nammalvar’s magnum opus “Tiruvaymoli”, or “Endless Song”, is a grand 1100-verse Tamil poem in praise of Tirumal—among the many names for Lord Vishnu. On the auspicious occasion of Ram Navami, here are some verses on the devotee’s love and longing for the supreme lord, in Archana Venkatesan’s dazzling translation, that will light you up from within.

*

I.1.5 Each knows what they know,

each finds a different path

Each has their god

each reaches his feet

Each of these gods lacks nothing,

everyone is fated

to find their way to the great lord

who’s always there.

—

II.5.1 In that place he loved me

fused with my breath.

the lord who wears lovely garlands,

a crown conch disc thread jewels:

His large eyes like a pool of lotuses

his lips red lotuses, his feet too lotuses,

his red-gold body glows.

—

IV.3.8 You’ve entered my breath,

radiant light of wisdom

filling the seven beautiful worlds.

My breath is yours

Your breath is mine

I can’t describe how this is

I can’t describe the way you are.

 

Archana Venkatesan’s Endless Song is a dazzling translation of one of the most revered ancient Bhakti poems.

Ingeniously weaving a garland of words-where each beginning is also an ending-the poet traces his cyclical quest for union with the supreme lord, Visnu. In this magnificent translation, Archana Venkatesan transports the flavour and cadences of Tamil into English, capturing the different voices and range of emotions through which the poet expresses his enduring desire for release.

We are turning to poetry and its power to heal; are you?

The Business of Match-fixing

Posted on by Penguin India

Why is Royal Challengers Bangalore one of the worst-performing teams in the Indian Premier League (IPL), despite having batsman like A.B. de Villiers and Chris Gayle, and being captained by Virat Kohli?

In Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 Revolution, Tim Wigmore and Freddie Wilde take us on a whirlwind tour of the cricket format that has taken the world by storm. From its inception, when T20 was accepted by a narrow vote of the Marylebone Cricket Club, to its current global popularity, from its original superstar Chris Gayle to newcomers like Rashid Khan and Sandeep Lamichhane, T20 has become a phenomenon that has resurrected the game of cricket.

Here’s an excerpt from the e-book below:

During the mid 1990s, regarded as the modern golden age for cricket fixers, virtually all betting in cricket was concentrated on matches involving the nine nations who were permitted to play Test cricket. The simple reason was that very few other matches were televised internationally – and, without broadcasting coverage, there was a lack of funds in the betting markets. Without enough liquidity in the betting markets, corruptors couldn’t make enough cash for it to be worth their while getting players to fix.

T20 changed this equation. It meant that the number of games with enough money bet on them to be worth fixing went from in the region of 150 a year, the total number of top-tier international fixtures each year in the late 1990s, to five times as many. In 2018, there were 719 T20 fixtures played worldwide. And the potential pool of players of interest to corruptors – barely into three figures in the late 1990s – was now 2,119, the number of cricketers who played any official T20 games in 2018. So there were about 15 times more players worth corrupting than 20 years earlier.

Simple mathematics explained the burgeoning threat to cricket. ‘The amount of cricket being played now is phenomenal,’ the anti- corruption insider explained. ‘It’s the amount of opportunities that people have got.’ While the surge in interest in domestic cricket begat by T20 was celebrated, criminal gangs recognised the trend as a new business opportunity.

The years ahead would show that domestic T20 matches did not merely share the same vulnerabilities that international games had long possessed. Instead, domestic T20 was even more susceptible to corruption. The historic lack of interest in domestic games meant that authorities were initially blasé to the threat of fixing – so matches were not policed as rigorously as the international game, which itself remained vulnerable. Player education about corruption was also less thorough at domestic level, with a solitary brief PowerPoint presentation at the start of seasons generally considered sufficient; players who arrived late often did not even have that.

As the matches included players who were paid far less than in international games, getting players in on a fix was less expensive. Low-paid and insecure players, unsure of whether they would even get another contract, appearing with or against international players earning millions a year could also foment jealousy. It was not uncommon for players earning only a couple of thousand for a league season to play alongside players earning hundreds as much for the same work.

And so for players who fix, taking money to underperform could be entirely rational, as the sports economist Stefan Szymanski wrote. ‘On the “selling” side, the players must balance the reward from fixing against the potential cost of being caught. This cost is the probability of being caught multiplied by the penalty for fixing.’

The first great fixing scandal to be exposed that was caused by the new T20 ecosystem allegedly began in a hotel room. In 2008, the former New Zealand international cricketer Lou Vincent was playing in the Indian Cricket League, a T20 league in the country that was launched before the IPL, but was never approved by the Indian board. Vincent would later claim that he received a phone call from someone claiming to be a cricket equipment manufacturer, inviting him to a hotel room. He went to the room, but found no equipment. The man offered a prostitute as ‘a gift’ – along with a huge wad of American dollars.

This, Vincent would say, was the start of his involvement in match-fixing. In return for promises of US$50,000 per game, Vincent deliberately started underperforming. In the ICL, it was not uncommon for teams to move from odds of evens – suggesting a 50% chance of winning – to near 3/1 on (or 1/3) – suggesting a 75% chance – on betting exchanges for no apparent reason, suggesting a high degree of fixing.

‘I probably had a chip on my shoulder over my career. I left New Zealand pretty heartbroken and a bit angry at the system,’ Vincent later told New Zealand’s TV3. ‘And as the match-fixing world opened up to me . . . I thought, “Yeah, I’m going to make some big money now, so stuff the world.”’

Until his career ended in 2013, Vincent was a fixer. The next year, he admitted to 18 charges of fixing and was banned for life. A teammate he claimed had encouraged him to fix – Chris Cairns, the captain of the Indian Cricket League franchise Vincent was playing for in 2008 – was acquitted after a bruising trial in London in 2015. Indeed, the lack of criminal convictions for fixing, partly explained by the difficulty of explaining the mechanics of fixing to a jury who do not understand the game, may heighten incentives to fix if players deduce that there is scant chance of being caught.

Vincent’s claim that he initially thought that he was simply meeting a cricket equipment manufacturer was typical of how many corruption cases begin. Corruptors often approach players by befriending them in a manner that Ronnie Flanagan, the long- time chairman of the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit, has likened to grooming. Players are approached by those claiming to be businessmen in bars or even over WhatsApp, and cultivated for several weeks.

This can be done in a subtle way: for instance, by pretending to offer a clothing contract. Mohammad Ashraful, the former Bangladesh captain who was subsequently found guilty of fixing in the Bangladesh Premier League in 2013, originally got gifts to celebrate his successes. Fixers can befriend players – then feigning personal financial debts, they will ask a player to underperform in a one-off way as a favour. If the player agrees, corruptors can threaten to reveal their corruption if they do not oblige in future. Sometimes, criminal gangs use honeytraps; a player can then be blackmailed – with the gang threatening, say, to release images to his family – to be persuaded to fix. ‘They tend to hunt the bars for you,’ Chris Gayle wrote in Six Machine. ‘You’ve got to be careful out there.’

For corruptors, the beauty of the fix is that getting one player, once, is enough to get them forever. A player who has fixed once can then be blackmailed: should they refuse to be involved in fixes again, then the gang say they will leak details of the fix, or threaten the player more directly. ‘Some of it starts very young . . . If I get you as a 19-year-old I’ve hooked you up,’ said the anti-corruption insider. ‘If I’ve recruited you I’m going to use you whenever I can.’

One-time fixers could effectively be trapped in perpetuity. Ruthless gangs moved to target players ever-younger, including in U-19 tournaments. A fix in one of these tournaments, which might have seemed relatively innocuous – a player could be enlisted to bowl a single no-ball, not for the fixers to make money off but simply as a way of blackmailing the player subsequently – could put the player on to the path of fixing for life.

Fixers using youth competitions as a way of recruiting players highlighted the importance of player education. But standards of education varied hugely around the world, meaning that gangs could pick off teams who offered the greatest likelihood of succumbing when their players were young. Such historic differences in player education are one reason for amnesties, such as for those in Sri Lankan cricket in 2019 – which allowed personnel to report their involvement in corruption without being reprimanded – could help protect the sport from future corruption.

Corruptors did not need to fix a match to enrich themselves; instead, they often merely needed to corrupt one player to make a profit. By knowing that one player was going to underperform in a certain way – either that a bowler would concede a large number of runs, or that a batsman would get out early or score much slower than required (preferably both) – corruptors could bet against this particular team before the period of deliberate underperformance. Then they could bet on the team after their period of deliberate underperformance, meaning that they traded themselves into a position when they could make money on the match market regardless of the actual final result. So players could be paid to fix, but their team would still be able to win without affecting corruptors’ profits.

T20 signaled a shift in cricket in more than one way. To know more check out the e-book of Cricket 2.0!

Moral Dilemmas and Networking: How Facebook Began

Posted on by Penguin India

How much power and influence does Facebook have over our lives? How has it changed how we interact with one another? And what is next for the company – and us?

As the biggest social media network in the world, there’s no denying the power and omnipresence of Facebook in our daily life. And in light of recent controversies surrounding election-influencing “fake news” accounts, the handling of its users’ personal data, and growing discontent with the actions of its founder and CEO, never has the company been more central to the national conversation.

Award-winning tech reporter, Steven Levy presents a never-before-seen inside look into the making and building of the company. Find below an excerpt that gives you one of the many investor stories for Facebook in its early stages:

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Moral Dilemma

In March 2005, Thefacebook finally moved into an office. Parker secured a second- floor space on Emerson Street in downtown Palo Alto, over a Chinese restaurant.

By then Zuckerberg had moved out of the Los Altos house. As the company was getting bigger it was less seemly that the CEO was bunking with the underlings. After crashing in different locations for a few months, Zuckerberg would move to a small apartment in downtown Palo Alto, a few blocks from the office. He had no TV, just a mattress on the floor and a few sticks of furniture. He was the CEO and biggest shareholder of a company with more than a million users and he still stacked his clothes on the floor.

In the first few weeks in the office, Thefacebook faced a financial crisis. Though it hadn’t yet spent all of Thiel’s angel money, the server bills and other costs were accumulating. The company still needed a new pot of cash, ideally coming from an investor who could act as an adviser to a CEO who had never even worked for a big company before, let alone run one. There would be no problem getting the money. But the choice of lead funder was fraught.

Zuckerberg had a strong preference for who he wanted to fill that role: Washington Post chairman and CEO Don Graham. Not a venture capitalist. Chris Ma, the father of one of Zuckerberg’s Kirkland House classmates, headed business development for the Post, and his daughter Olivia’s description of Thefacebook’s conquest of the college market intrigued him. In January 2005, Parker and Zuckerberg went to Washington, DC, to explore a business relationship. Ma invited Graham to the meeting, and the Post CEO listened in fascination as Zuckerberg described how Thefacebook worked. He wondered, though, whether privacy was an issue. Are people convinced that their posts will be seen only by those whom they want to see them? he asked.

People were indeed comfortable with sharing, Zuckerberg told him. A third of his users, he said, share their cell- phone numbers on their profile page. “That’s evidence that they trust us.”

Graham was startled at how emotionless and hesitant this kid was. At times, before he’d answer a question— even something that he must have been asked thousands of times, like what percentage of Harvard kids were on Thefacebook— he would fall silent, staring into the ether for thirty seconds or so. Does he not understand the question? Graham wondered. Did I offend him?

Nonetheless, before the meeting was over, Graham became convinced that Thefacebook was the best business idea he’d heard in years, and told Zuckerberg and Parker that if they wanted an investor who was not a VC, the Post would be interested.

Facebook: The Inside Story is crammed with insider interviews, never-before-reported reveals, anecdotes, and exclusive details about the company’s culture and leadership. In the process, the book explores how Facebook has changed our world and what the consequences will be for us all.

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