For the uninitiated ; a senager is a sixty-plus behaving like a teenager…
Senagers get particularly younger and light-hearted when grouped with the species of the same kind and when you meet up with classmates from a boarding school, it is the ultimate.
Having said that , this meeting at Pondicherry was very special for various other reasons; being the first post COVID get-together and coinciding with visits from long last buddies from UK and Australia.
After a couple of hiccups over two years to various reasons , the event when it did fruitify hit the perfect sweet spot over the two days spent at the coastal town.
The idea is not to write an essay on how you spent your vacations, but to capture the moments through videos , photographs and the text messages exchanged in the period by the participants themselves.
It’s an attempt to organize the various videos and photographs clicked by the revellers and to record the final impression as posted on WhatsApp.
It wouldn’t be fair to single out anyone for the success of the endeavour; and at the same time the organizers on ground, Gnanaprakasam, Jayakumar and Sathya do deserve a special mention .
What has been left out may please be added through comments .
That’s the reception Committee on 4th feb at Jeno Ramki Apartments Pondicherry.
…….And the first group photo on arrival….
At Apartment 4A Jeno Ramki , On arrival 4th Feb 2023
Veshti (வேஷ்டி) is a humble piece of cloth that was worn by kings and commoners for centuries in Tamilnadu. Now only a small group of boomers and some politicians from Southern India are keeping the flag flying high ( or is it flying low ?)
Prime Minister Deve Gowda at Moscow 1997 at a wreath laying ceremony . It was a cold windy day ; a solemn occasion and the only sounds heard were the sounds of fluttering of the flags and the Indian PM’s Veshti. (Quoting from a newspaper report 🙂 ) Photo : Courtesy AP.
Here we go
Firstly it is not veshti but vetti as it is called in Tamil. The cloth was woven as long pieces and then cut into pieces as required by people as per their needs . Vetti in Tamil means ‘ to cut’.
The Sanskrit lovers made it Veshti to make it sound sanskritised!
It is a simple white piece of cloth in cotton or silk worn by men , and in earlier times this was the only attire for men of all ages , all classes.
Though it’s worn as a wrap-around skirt style to cover the lower part of the body, it is actually a multipurpose cloth.
It can be a headgear or a waist band ; can be worn like a poncho to protect from cold or mosquitoes (Southern India enjoys a hot winter and a hotter summer)
It is folded half mast to be worn like a pair of shorts; oh, not a pair really. With a little ingenuity, it is tied dhoti style to be a pair of trousers, shorts or something in between.
There are no buttons , pins, velcros or even knots to hold the garment in place ; so how does it stay there ?
Easy does it. While wrapping it around just suck in your waist and gently roll down the edge. There you are , it’s your breath that holds it in place to cover your modesty ! Hold your breath for a second and the breath holds the veshti for the whole day! Sounds nice !
A simple search on you tube would throw up visuals of the breath control involved in getting the garment in place .
Whatever, accidents or wardrobe malfunctions as they are called today do happen and a hand is always poised to stop the costume from slipping away. These days you have nice velcro belts with big brand names , available, but a puritan wouldn’t use these kind of crutches .
Wouldn’t it be boring to wear just white all day , all year around and where is creativity ?
Not really, veshtis have borders narrow or broad; that’s where creativity shows. You may have intricately made motifs on the borders. In ancient days these were made in gold and now it’s all plastic ,but the skill shows.
The border design is also used to make a political statement. The Dravidian parties have made it a feature to wear their ideology on the veshti borders , not just on their sleeves as an angrez would say. So when a Tamil politician jumps party, he has to change his whole ward robe !
Then you have the color veshtis where each colour indicates the religious inclination; black for Ayyappa, Red for Parashakti etc.
What is really interesting is the Avtar s that a veshti takes after the original purpose is accomplished. It is white, it is pure cotton and it’s fine. It is ideal for any kind of reuse from bedspread to bandages. The famous puthur traditional bone-setters use yards and yards of this kind of cloth .
Even about 50 years back a Tamil Brahmin housewife would have struggled without these worn out Veshtis. The cloth was white, fine and unstitched. It was used for all purposes like Idli cloth (anything steamed), drying papads in the sun, making jaangri ( imarti or the South Indian cousin of Jelebi).
Thooli for the baby
Outside the kitchen , generally it was used as hammock for the baby. (thooli as it is called in Tamil )
In short there was more demand for old veshti than for the new ones. There are husbands who keep searching for their veshti all over the place only to find that, it has become a bedspread or hammock for the baby , too prematurely. God forbid, if the border had rich zari, a clever housewife would exchange it for some utensils at the first opportunity. There was a thriving industry for extraction of gold from veshti zari.
The only item of clothing that a man had to buy was veshti. This could also be gifted during functions as everyone used it and it was not only free-size but multipurpose.
Wish we go back to those times when life was simple.
The ancient Tamil poetess Avvaiyaar said ” உண்பது ஒரு நாழி, உடுப்பது நான்கு முழம் “; Meaning one can eat only about a cup of grains for food and four feet of fabric for covering ; but thoughts (desires) are in thousands bringing misery to man.
Man, that’s simplicity!
Are the activists keen to save this Earth listening?
On the lighter side, I can hear the advaitin expounding ” it’s all one , some call it veshti, some call it head gear or a waist band, some may call it idli cloth or hammock ; it’s all the same. The divine weaver weaves his magic cloth ; it’s all Maya !”
The Streetwise Investor: Steering Clear of Investment Traps Pitfalls and Other Dangerous Lures – Charles Fahy .
I came across this book in the Army War College Library about 20 years back when I was not much into investing. Later I tried looking for it , but could never trace it; and on Amazon, it cost over Rs 2700/-, a book of about 200 pages.
Recently , going through some old diaries , I found some notes that I had then made.
Here’s a digression right at the beginning; Mhow enjoys the privilege of hosting three great institutions of the Army; and along with it comes the privilege of having three great libraries, in a radius of about two Kms.
One of the most important aspects of library management is procurement of books; right numbers and content for the available budget.
These days budget seems to be generous and often there is pressure to expend the amount before the year end. Book vendors are called in Feb and latest books are ordered and sadly, many ‘competition’ books are bought as that’s the phase when people look at books when preparing for some entrance exams.
Ironically, after gaining entry to an educational institution, reading stops.
In the earlier days , there was more time and less money ; so, procurements were well considered. Some of the best books are in the old libraries in a dusty shelves.
Let’s come back to the book , the streetwise investor.
What I liked about the book was the focus on an investment system rather than any tips and tricks.
He goes on to prove again and again that a human mind is hard wired to lose money. One needs to identify or evolve a system of investing and follow that to accumulate money.
He uses interesting illustrations to show how the Chinese Whisper phenomenon turns a sell call to buy call and how the media amplifies these signals to create irrational spikes.
Obviously, the ideas are tailor-made for the American system, but can be well related to Indian environment; and in any case we have almost moved to the American system in earning , spending and investing habits.
Some pearls of wisdom:-
1. Human nature will always tearaway at your investments if you don’t have patience and a good accumulation system.
2. Remember the difference between investing and speculating.
3. Don’t be greedy.
4. Before investing, make certain all your basic needs are provided for and that you have ‘extra’ capital for your financial program.
5. If you decide not to handle your own portfolio, choose a broker or money manager who uses a low risk, long term accumulation system that offers consistent performance over a five year or a longer period of time.
6. Continue to educate yourself.
Some ground rules
1. Pay down debt. Pay off the 12%, 18% on higher credit card interest. Your money can’t earn that on a guaranteed basis; so pay it off .
2. Save money and build your liquidity by using any possible tax-deferred system such as pension account.
3. Remember the human nature flaw. Don’t give in to greed and impatience . Long term investing will prove to be your most successful ally. Don’t trade the markets unless you are experienced at it. Use a system.
3a. Corallary to the above; when you have bought into what you think is a ‘buy’ market and you are too early, don’t lose your cool.It will recover and go to new highs. If you have bought quality stocks, they will follow the market.
3b. If you must trade the market,learn to buy in, when it seems scary.
In the last two three years , there have been a number of books authored by Indic writers , not to be mistaken for Indians writing in English. Some people call them right wing, though it doesn’t make much sense to me.
Before going in to Biography of Veer Savarkar by Dr Vikram Sampath ,it is worth going through a brief biodata of the author himself.
Dr Vikram Sampath was raised in Bangalore and completed his schooling at the Sri Aurobindo Memorial School and Bishop Cotton Boys’ School . He was trained in Carnatic Music since the age of five; among his teachers were Jayanthi Kumaresh and Bombay Jayashri. Sampath graduated from BITS Pilani with a degree in Electronics Engineering, and later with a master’s degree in mathematics.
Against the wishes of his professors, who wanted him to pursue a PhD in topology (an avatar of pure mathematics) , he shifted to finance and obtained an MBA in Finance from S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research. In October 2017, Sampath received a doctorate in ethnomusicology from the School of Music at University of Queensland, Australia.
His first love of music ; and as can be seen from his qualification in Science and Finance, one wonders what motivated him to write about Veer Savarkar , a name that would automatically slot him into Right Wing. A point to note is that his first book was on Wadiyar Dynasty of Mysore, second on Gauhar Jaan who was India’s first classical musician to record on the gramophone and the third was on the life of Veena maestro S. Balachander. The common thread running through all these subjects is the love ‘India that is Bharat’ .
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar or Veer Savarkar is not the kind of household name in our country as Gandhi or Nehru; though it should have been.
Veer Savarkar had founded the Abhinav Bharat , a revolutionary movement in 1904. It was a secret society founded on the lines of Mazzini of Italy towards an armed struggle to win freedom for the country.
He served for 15 years in Andaman and by the time he was interned in Ratnagiri Mahatma Gandhi was already leading the Congress.
Everybody knows , that Indian National Congress was sharply divided into moderates and extremists.
It is the story of moderates we hear; Gandhi, Nehru , Patel and so on. There were contributions from thousands of others who believed in different paths to liberation of their nation . They were great patriots , no doubt, but their stories were given a quiet burials by their own countrymen, as the British did not approve of their methods.
Among extremists , Lala Lajpat Rai , Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal of the Lal, Bal and Pal fame are known to some extent. Who all have heard of Madan Lal Dhingra ,VVS Iyer, Vanchinathan, Neelkanta Brahmachari,or Thirumalacharya ?
Before ECHS came into being health care for ex faujis was simple . One simple command “Report to the nearest MH” did it.
Post ECHS, we nave so many terms , MH, polyclinic, empanelled hosp, non empanelled hospitals, OPD ,IPD, labs ( empanelled and non empaneled) and so on. A person from a cantonment like Mhow , more often than not ended up having to go to touch every base , in the right order at the right time for right test or treatment at the right price.
ECHS , in typical fauji style issues one short paragraph letters preceded by one page of references to previous correspondence over past decade.
The notice boards overflows with just the ‘current’ changes while the Red Book on ECHS rules has more amendments than original pages.
There are many attempts to compile these letters , in the form of web links , apps , folders and so on.
Sourcedot.com has come out with an app that can be accessed from here
I have installed, but have not been able to register.
ECHS web site has all the policy letters uploaded but there are too many letters and many are scanned documents not legible enough to read.
Incidentally, GitHub is a site used by software developers to keep track of versions.
then there are videos on youtube, where you can take your pick ; available in both English and Hindi. A few samples here.
There is more complexity in health policies sold by private insurance companies. Yet , they manage to condense their terms and conditions in 4-6 pages requiring no reference documents. It’s a different matter that sometimes the terms are literally condensed to micro print that they are hardly readable.
Why can’t we have ONE annual issue of a single document to spell out the rules for that year ?
Not a single word needs to be typed. The database is fully populated including the details of all beneficiaries. As a member logs in all his particulars are displayed.
Should take just about a minute or two even on a slow internet connection. I feel that’s how it should be.
200-500 users should be able to login and transact in a day.
Of course , there will be always more and more customization and features required. That’s the best part of a DIY approach. Once you have the framework ready , it is easy to customise it to your requirement , as every line of code is your own!
Information technolgy is a field that’s ever expanding, touching every industry , every activity of the commerce, education, administration , the world over.
India , surprisingly has taken to digital transactions and e commerce like fish to water. A kirana store in Kerala is taking orders and supplying to buyers at Madhya Pradesh. Bhanwari lal halwai, Mhow has pan India clientele because of e-commerce.
All these activities require good programmers for design , development and maintenance of web sites. No country has even a small fraction of the number of people required with aptitude for coding. Even if they do have, it’s just not possible to find time for so many businesses, so many websites and web applications.
So what we have today are tools to automate design and development of software.
Gone are the days when men were men and did their own coding.
Welcome to the world of drag and drop development with zero knowledge on HTML / MySql /CSS/ Javascript /PHP and languages that were once like mother tongue for a developer.
WordPress started as an open source CMS for bloggers. Now it has expanded into other fields to the extent that 70% of web sites today are powered by word press.
A word about web site development. Skills required for developing a web site includes knowledge of Front end , Back end, Database , Dev OPs and Mobile App.
Someone who does everything is a full stack developer .
Now coming back to word press, it is a free of cost platform that facilitates a novice to create a complete web application in an hour or two , what a full stack developer with five years experience may do in two months.
All hunky-dory, right ? It’s not always so .
Now let us compare wordpress site vs a DIY customised application.
You will find a number of articles on the subject , I stick to my own experience in the field. As some one who has moved on from dbase to foxbase / foxpro /ms access and mysql I have always loved learning database . HTML and CSS have been a pain to learn ; an unavoidable pain . But there is no front end without HTML and css and front end is all that people see.
After a long night of coding in php to achieve that wonderful, intricate calculation for producing a balance sheet , all you hear on the next day from a user is that ” why can’t that column be aligned a little more to the right ?”. Front end is all that people see; and the efficiency of an application depends on the code behind , that people don’t see.
php as a scripting language is also fun learning as it works wonderfully well with mysql; a great couple that can produce absolute magic when waltzing together in harmony.
A Tabulation Word Press Vs DIY
Word Press
DIY
1.
Time to develop
If you want to start an e-commerce business, in a day or two you can set up your web site and start selling right away.
Will need a couple of discussions between the developer and user just to understand the requirements. Will take a month or two.
2
Customizability
Very limitted
Sky is the limit
3
Adding features
Depends on plugins to add features. Can be done on the fly with the right plugins
A skilled programmer can add features on the fly.
But mostly it takes a day or two.
4.
Maintainability
Requires a deep understanding of WordPress and when something goes wrong, it is extremely difficult to detect.
Very easy if the documentation has been done right.
5.
Size
Bulky and can become unwieldy very fast if not cleaned up regularly.
Absolutely light and easy to keep it so.
6.
Appearance
Often, looks can be awesome as it just involves installing an awesome theme; but changing the color a shade up or down can be next to impossible.
Requires front end skills that not everyone can master easily. These days people like me depend on frameworks like Bootstrap for front end design.
7.
Upgradation
WordPress version gets regular upgrades. Each plugin is upgraded separately. If for some reason a plugin is not being maintained by the author, it can lead to compatiblity issues.
only php version needs to be upgraded and some functions in the code may be required to be modified. But rarely requires an upgrade.
8.
Website Speed
It works very well when there are no compatibility issues between theme and plugins. When there is a problem it can drastically bring down the speed.
Can be very fast .
9.
Database
the entire database is created, populated and maintained by WordPress and its plugins. Since it has to cater for a wide range of applications , the number of tables are very high. I am aware of an e commerce application having about 230 tables with only six of them being used.
Uses a complex method to store data.
Often the number of tables are very few and all are in use by the application .
uses a simple method to store data.
The write up would not be complete without a brief on plugins.
WordPress is written in php and uses MySql for its database. WordPress is written for blogging and so the database is created to hold contents like posts , category,comments etc.
For diversifying into applications like E commerce or education , the same model is used and every input is stored in tables . Since these tables as required are not avilable by default , a plugin for say e commerce creates these tables and also code snippets for data handling.
For other functions like forms, you have more plugins with code snippets. Since these code snippets are produced by different developers over different periods of time , compatibility is most important.
Most plugins use existing tables and that’s how you find some tables with over 200,000 records and occupying about 100 mb. It slows down the system. The solution is not to just delete old records but to weed out the debris left behind by some plugins unused or later removed.
The WordPress environemnet along with its 30-40 plugins is like an office with 30-40 members of staff each doing his job. Some plugins are created keeping in view the design of other plugins while some are designed as stand alone .
In short , a web application created using WordPress can be like an office where three or four members of staff don’t talk to each other at all and hence would not know what the other is doing. There would also be three four members who always keep talking to each other only to fight for system resources.
When these plugins work in harmony , well integrated to the installed theme , it’s sheer Music !
This is a common refrain that a particular website is too slow to work on.
Some blame their computers, some the ISP(Internet service Provoder) and there are people who blame the web site itself ,may be , rightly so.
Here I would stick to the web site issues only. How to isolate that ?
The easiest way to confirm if the problem lies with the website is to go to
https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/
The url is aptly named as “Down for everyone or just me ?”
The page displays a box where you enter the url and click and you get the report instantly. Slow sites are also catgorised as down as it has a time out feature.
Once you have confirmed that the problem lies with the web site , let us try to understand what could be the problem.
Ease of accessibility of a web site depends on the servers installed.
1. Web server – serves web pages .
2. Database server – serves data.
3. Email server …provides email services.
4. Scripting languages…the most important aspect to decide the speed of transactions on the web site.
1. Web server.
Even a shared hosting can easily support 500 hits , 50 of them concurrent.
( My web site on which you are reading this page can easily support 500 users though it is shared web hosting ; it’s a different matter that my blog posts are read once in 1000 days! 🙂 )
2. Database server .
Need to design the database correctly. ( Nowadays most of the data driven web applications use WordPress. WordPress is inherently less efficient because of too many plugins and each plugin needs to be checked . Removed plugins also leave debris behind and need to be cleaned. )
A customised application based on php mysql is always superfast as compared to wordpress sites.
3. Email server . Normally no problems are faced unless there is too much spamming or the system is infected with worms.
4. Scripting language .
php and python , perl etc are scripting languages that act as interface between front end and the backend. Once you understand this , let’s say in a restaurant parlance , you wont be increasing the kitchen area or the dining area when you know, it is an errant waiter who is slowing down the services. You would just change the waiter or just set him right.
One bad script can stall the whole server. When a server gets slow ,this is where one should first look.
A brief Comparison of Two Historical events of great significance
First Battle of Panipat
Battle of Bahraich
Year
1526
1033
Belligerants
Timiurids under Babur and Ibrahim Lodhi
Raja Suheldev and Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud
Force Levels
Babur – 12,000[1]–25,000 soldiers [2][3]
15–20 field guns[1]Lodhi20,000 regular cavalry[3]
20,000 irregular cavalry[3]
30,000 infantry armed with swords, pikes, bows and bamboo rods[3][2]
Salar Masud
1,00,000
Raja Suheldev and Confederation of 21 States
1,20,000.
Outcome of Battle
Babur defeated Lodhi and captured the throne of Delhi
The Turkish army was routed and every single barbarian marauder was killed in the battle.
Impact
200 years of Islam’s Tyranny .
160 years of peace .
Almost every Indian would have heard of the battle of Panipat but a few would have heard of the battle of Bahraich
This book by Amish Tripathi is an attempt to fill that huge gap in our knowledge of history of Bharat.
The book starts around thousand years ago, in 1025, describing the looting of Somanath temple by Mahmud of Gazani. The temple is defended by a small force led by Prince Malledev of Suhasti (100km from present day Lucknow) Every single defender is brutally killed by the Turks and the temple is looted and destroyed.
This raid is followed by a period of sporadic raids and plunder by the Turks. The kings of small States make peace with the Turks , at an to enormous cost , to be on the winning side as the invaders were considered invincible.
Raja of Suhasti, Mordhwaj thought otherwise. He made a valiant effort to unite the hindu kingdoms against the islamic invaders , to defend Bharatvarsh.
In the course of his efforts to unite the kings, he travels across the country , sometime in stealth , with only a small contingent of soldiers , along with his son, Prince Suheldev.
In one such trip , he encounters a band of Turkish marauders, that he manages to defeat with very little casualty to his own troops.
That’s the time the Prince Suheldev makes up his mind to wage a guerrilla warfare against the Turks , till such time a united front could be established.
Years passed; the king continued in his efforts to create a confederation of States while the Prince and his band of soldiers made a name for themselves ,in the border villages as the nemesis for the Turkish Barbarians.
In 1033, the King dies and Prince Suheldev succeeds him.
Around the same time the nephew of Mahmud of Gazani, Salal Maqsud invades with an army of over 1,00,000 soldiers.
This time , his aim was not to loot and scoot but to rule over Bharat and establish an Islamic State.
The Chola empire under King Rajendra Chola was too powerful and the Turks intended to subjugate the northern kingdoms first and thereafter gradually expand southwards.
King Suheldev had forged a formidable alliance with 21 Kings and a large army was mobilized to confront the barbarians.
King Suheldev chose the plains near Bahraich to take on the Turks as the terrain was protected on both sides from possible outflanking moved ,by forests and a Lake.
What followed was a complete rout of the invaders. For once, the Turks were paid back in their own coin; there were no prisoners taken and every one of the invaders was killed in battle.
Till today ,the grave of Salar Masud stands testimony to the botched invasion. Ironically there is a cult following of Indian muslims for this barbarian while a memorial for Raja Suheldev is still in the making. That’s the typical Indian brand of secularism.
———————————————————
On 16 February 2021, the foundation stone of Maharaja Suheldev Memorial was laid in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, through video conferencing by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the project that would include the installation of an equestrian statue of Maharaja Suheldev.[23] The Government of Uttar Pradesh, headed by Yogi Adityanath, celebrated the day as the birth anniversary of Suheldev and issued an official note on stating, “King Suheldev had fought, defeated and killed the Ghaznavid general Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud in a famous battle held on the bank of Chittora lake in Bahraich in 1033.”[24]
———————————————————–
Like all Amish Tripathi novels, the style is racy , descriptive and totally absorbing.
The book has been written not by one writer ,but a team of writers. The genesis of the story and the final writing was done by Amish Tripathi while composing of the first draft was left to a team of writers, who were given the general idea and recommended reasearch materials.
That’s the reception Committee on 4th feb at Jeno Ramki Apartments Pondicherry.
I came across this book in the Army War College Library about 20 years back when I was not much into investing. Later I tried looking for it , but could never trace it; and on Amazon, it cost over Rs 2700/-, a book of about 200 pages.
