Vladimir Putin – The Russian Microsoft

Sun. 5 February:

While interviewing Donald Trump, Fox news host Bill O’Reilly referred to Vladimir Putin as a killer.

Wed. 8 February:

Russia’s loud opposition activist Alexey Navalny was found guilty and given a five year sentence.

Fri. 10 February:

US investigators corroborated some aspects of the 35-page Trump-Russia Dossier published in January. It was purportedly prepared by a British spy - an MI6 agent, Christopher Steele. The document claimed, among other things, that Kremlin had secretly videotaped Trump engaged in pervert acts in a Moscow hotel room. That Kompromat will enable Putin to blackmail and control the US president. That’s one possible reason for Trump praising Putin, and talking about removing sanctions.

2016:

US intelligence agencies confirmed Putin personally directed the influence campaign to assist Trump. Apparently, Russian intelligence groups Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear conducted hacking and other cyber attacks at Putin’s behest.

As a result of the US presidential election, Vladimir Putin and Russia are suddenly part of global headlines every week.

 *****

In April 2015, N.K., my Russian teacher from Pushkin University had invited me for lunch to her Moscow house. She holds a linguistic doctorate, is widely travelled, rational, elegant, articulate, a Moscow intellectual, has worked as an expat teacher for several years in Delhi and Germany, and is a well read person. N.K. was my teacher in 1986-87. Since then we have remained in contact despite ups and downs in our personal and national lives.

When we sat down to lunch I thought it was inevitable we would talk politics. The Russia-Ukraine conflict was red hot, Crimea had just been annexed, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was murdered outside the Kremlin walls, a Malaysian passenger plane was shot down by Russians in Ukraine; oil prices, the Russian economy and sentiment were depressed, Putin was still in power and the next presidential elections were three years away.

“Thank God we have Vladimir Vladimirovich” N.K. started, “may God give him a hundred years. He is the savior of Russia. Putin is the real muzhik, the only man capable of running the largest country on the planet.”

N.K. went on to say how Americans were out to destroy Russia. (They always have been, she added, and the end of the cold war hasn’t stopped them). Without Putin, they would have succeeded. Ukraine was definitely to blame for what happened. Crimea was anyway Russia’s, and we’ve got back what was ours. Hopefully, we’ll be able to capture more territory from Ukraine where Russians are in majority. And Nemtsov? No wonder he was killed. Did you read who he was with? A Ukrainian model in her twenties. What moral turpitude. And a national disgrace. Imagine a man in his fifties going around with a Ukrainian girl just out of school.

*****

In December 2016, during my latest trip to Moscow, I was walking with G., my Russian friend who is part of the Moscow Hare Krishna community. The Hare Krishnas in Russia were persecuted and prosecuted during Yuri Andropov’s regime. Many landed in Siberian penal colonies, and some in psychiatric hospitals. I’ve written extensively on this subject in the past. (Brest Border: open diaries weeks 1/2/3/4: 2008).

G, this Hare Krishna friend of mine, is a strict vegetarian, non-drinker, non-smoker, practices yoga on a daily basis, and passionately studies Indian philosophy. He is a music composer and teaches music at a British school. He is another intellectual (like most of my friends), broad minded, appreciative of market economy and capitalism, is strongly opposed to communism, KGB and most things Soviet. Last year we celebrated 30 years of our friendship.

“G., who did you vote for in the last presidential elections?’ We usually discuss literature, music, philosophy, anything but politics. I had never earlier thought of asking a Krishna devotee a political question.

‘Who? Of course, Putin.’ G. said.

‘G., you voted for Putin?’

‘Yes, he’s the only one able to run Russia competently.’

I thought this must be the influence of Russian television which is Kremlin-controlled. When listening to N.K., she sounded like a Russian TV anchor. And now G... Since we are close friends, I asked him if Russian television had managed to wash his brains.

‘No, I never watch TV.’ G. said.

‘But you don’t have democracy any longer- like the one you had under Yeltsin.’

‘Under Yeltsin, we had chaos. Chaos and crises. One after another. Yeltsin razbazaril (frittered away) Russia. In Yeltsin’s time, we were ashamed to say we were Russians. Now we can proudly say it. Putin has brought stability and order. Pensioners get their pensions on time.’

*****

I can go on and on. I tend to trust my friends and people I personally talk to more than media.

I feel most issues have two views: an insider’s view and an outsider’s view. An insider lives and feels the issues, an outsider merely hears about them as distorted by whichever media he is exposed to.

If a majority of my Russian friends are willing to vote for Putin, if my teacher calls him a savior, and my pious friend trusts him, I’m willing to accept Putin’s popularity numbers are what Russian media claims they are. If the Russians are happy with their leader, it’s surely their own business, and not anybody else’s.

*****

Rulers for life: Since the Russian revolution that happened 100 years ago, the Soviet rulers were expected to be rulers for life. Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev and others ceased to rule Russia only because they died. Gorbachev didn’t die in office, only because his office, along with the country he governed, died before he could. Unlike in the West, a ruler’s longevity is not a source of discomfort in Russia. Ruler for life has been the norm during Russia’s entire history. Assuming all rulers are devils, an established devil is more acceptable than a fresh one.

*****

Putin, the KGB chief: A universal misconception is that Putin’s KGB background led to his becoming Russia’s president. In fact, Putin’s resigning from the KGB brought him into politics. True, in the 9^th grade at school, he had explored ways to join the KGB. However, in his career, he was a relatively small, insignificant cog in the KGB machinery. During his posting in Dresden, Germany (1985-1990) he was the Head of the local House of Friendship. His work as a Russian-German translator was possibly more useful than his intelligence activities. At the earliest possible opportunity, on 20 August 1991, the day the coup failed, Putin was among the first ones to resign from the KGB.

After the fall of the Berlin wall, Putin worked as a deputy mayor of St Petersburg, under the mayor Anatoly Sobchak, his mentor (1990-1996). In 1996, Sobchak lost the re-election, and Putin was sent to Moscow. As a hard working, competent administrator, he gained Yeltsin’s trust.

In July 1998, Yeltsin appointed him the head of FSB (KGB’s successor) for a year. This loyal man was the only person Yeltsin could wholeheartedly trust. Putin’s appointment as the head of FSB was simply a transit step to carry out any necessary cleaning for enforcing the deal (Putin becomes president and in exchange Yeltsin and his family gets immunity from corruption charges).

Yuri Andropov was the KGB chief for 15 years before becoming the head of USSR. What drove Putin’s political success were his other qualities, not his KGB background.

*****

A sophisticated dictator: One biographer describes Putin’s devotion to the State, pride in his country, fierce sense of personal honour and loyalty, ferocious work ethic and profound fear of disorder as his hallmarks. He is a competent, efficient, rational, assertive, and straightforward guy. I have watched his annual marathon Q&A sessions, a direct line with the Russian people. Without a piece of paper, he answers questions with a degree of depth. I’ve not seen him hesitate or evade a question. His ruthlessness comes from his Judo and Sambo skills as much as his KGB background. At the same time, he possesses a wry sense of humour, and a level of sincerity one doesn’t expect in strongmen.

Putin appears to believe in market economy and the benefits and ills associated with it. His dictatorship is not the all-encompassing Soviet type. Under Putin, Russians can become rich, can go abroad, can practice religion, and can speak freely as long as they don’t threaten his political power. Castro, Saddam, Mugabe, Khamenei, Mao Zedong, Stalin, Kim II Sung, Franco, Tito…. Putin doesn’t fit into that list. He is more intelligent, modern and civilized than most of them. His leadership as a CEO stabilized Russia for a decade (2000-2010). During this time, he was comparable to Lee Kuan Yew, the (almost) benign dictator of Singapore.

Russia’s fortunes swing in line with oil prices. With low oil prices and without nuclear weapons, Russia would be irrelevant. Putin makes sure Russia remains relevant in global politics.

*****

Self-censorship: Putin’s political power and aura are such that media, legislative bodies, police or judiciary routinely practice self-censorship.

In 2010, I was in Khanti-Mansiysk, Siberia, supporting the team of Karpov and Kasparov for the Global chess federation election. Not a single media person interviewed Kasparov. I asked my friend Y.V., a top sports journalist, as to why he refused to talk to Kasparov. He had interviewed Kasparov for years as a chess player.

‘Why interview him?’ Y.V. asked me. ‘He is a destructive personality.’

‘Has your newspaper got an order not to interview him?’

‘No, not at all. If I wished to interview him, I easily could.’

None of the media people I knew talked to Kasparov. I am convinced nobody had officially blacklisted him, nor had Putin given any written or oral order. But since Kasparov is passionately anti-Putin, journalists have decided to self-censor Kasparov out.

*****

Putin and Microsoft: Putin is a law graduate. As much as possible, he tries to follow the framework of constitution and existing laws.

After the defeat of Russia in the cold war, Russians tried to copy what is considered good in the American constitution. They agreed that a Russian president, like the US president, should enjoy a maximum of two terms, each lasting four years. Living in Moscow at that time, I had witnessed those debates on television. In the final version, in a typical Russian fashion, a single word was anonymously inserted – a maximum of two consecutive terms. Putin used that legal loophole in 2008 to swap places with Medvedev.

In Russia, a Prime Ministerial post is largely ceremonial. It’s the President who has real power. For four years (2008-2012) Putin became the Prime Minister and Medvedev, his proxy or puppet, became the president. The Russian voters happily joined in this legal farce. Putin could have suspended the constitution, he didn’t. He followed the letter of the law, not the spirit, and was free to become president again for two terms in 2012.

He then played out another legal charade. In December 2008, President Medvedev and the parliament agreed that the president’s term (from 2012 onwards) should be 6 years rather than 4 years (nobody asked why). Medvedev did it, Putin didn’t. This ensured that Putin, on his comeback could be the president for 12 years, until 2024.

***

Do you remember the Microsoft case? Or Intel?

The USA has fairly strict anti-monopoly laws. Intel (inside), the chip maker, has always allowed its competitor AMD to gain around 25% of market share (not more) to make sure Intel is not charged as a monopolist.

In United States v. Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft was accused and tried for abusing its monopoly. (Each of us has experienced it). Microsoft had, for years, engaged in anti-competitive practices. Bill Gates was fairly evasive at the trial, and earnestly considered Microsoft’s monopoly to be the result of its superior products.

As Microsoft is to Gates, Russian political power is for Putin. He sincerely believes he is the most capable man entitled to monopolize it, and tries to stop possible competition. In 2003, a year before the election, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia’s richest man then, anti-Putin and politically influential, was charged with fraud, stripped of his fortune, jailed for the next ten years. Later, he was pardoned and sent on exile to Switzerland a year after the 2012 election.

Alexei Navalny, a Russian blogger and activist, was allowed to stand for the election of the Moscow mayor in 2013. He got 27%, which is fairly healthy. This week, in a bogus trial, he was given a five year suspended sentence. More importantly, as a result, he is barred from contesting the election next year. Not certain if Russian voters would have preferred Navalny over Putin, but Putin doesn’t like to leave anything to chance.

By the way, Russia does have separation of executive, legislative and judiciary powers just as in the USA, UK or India. Prima facie, Navalny was convicted by the independent judiciary, and not by Putin. In playing out all these farces, Putin is quite child-like. His conscience dictates him to engage in ludicrous games.

In Soviet days, every election had a single candidate. (You had to say yes or no, and 99.96% said yes).  Like Intel allows AMD, Putin in each election has non-threatening opposition candidates lined up who collectively gather 30-40%. That way the sanctity of the constitution and multi-party elections remains intact.

People struggle to name Microsoft’s competition. And we know we can’t live without Microsoft, a top class product. Putin also believes himself to be a top class product, the best for Russia, and Russians can’t imagine who can compete with him. By barring Navalny this week, Putin has ensured he remains Russia’s president until 2024 – a single man in charge for 25 consecutive years.

Ravi

The Case of the Untraceable Man

On Saturday, 7 November 2015, in Hereford, UK, an ambulance was called to pick up a man lying face down at the bus parking lot near Credenhill. A passerby had noticed the old man, probably in his seventies. He was conscious but dazed when delivered to the local hospital. The hospital conducted all required tests, and realized the man was afflicted with dementia. He couldn’t even tell his name. They looked in his pockets for an ID. Surprisingly, his pockets were absolutely empty. He had no wallet, no money, no ID, not even a train ticket. Someone must have robbed the poor man, thought the nurse.

British hospitals clearly can’t deal with patients with no names and no IDs. The nearest police, West Mercia police, were contacted. Sarah Bennett, the middle aged, smart lady Sergeant, took charge of the case. She visited the hospital to talk to the man. The old man looked calm. A white man, tall and slim, grey hair, blue eyes and grey stubble- she noted on the form. Probably was a handsome man in his youth, she thought.

‘What’s your name, Sir?’ she asked. He talked but what he said was not connected to Sarah’s question. What immediately caught Sarah’s attention was his speech. The man spoke with an American accent. They conversed for some time, if it could be called conversation.

Sergeant Sarah then made an inventory of his clothes. The old man wore the hospital clothes, but as per Sarah’s instructions over the phone, the staff had carefully kept all his clothes in a bag. Though his accent was American, the clothes were all English, very English. The man probably came from the USA as a young man, made UK his home, and had lost his way because of dementia. She followed the standard procedures. Photos and fingerprints were taken. Within two hours, they became part of the national database. Posters with his photo, and a big MISSING were plastered in a radius of ten miles from where he was found. Most missing people are traced within hours, no reason why this man should be an exception. However, when she left the hospital, Sarah was uneasy. She had a feeling something was odd, but couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

Four days passed without any response. Meanwhile, the nameless man was moved to a nursing home. Except for his dementia, he was fine. Smiling and talking, eating breakfast. Sarah visited him in the nursing home, and once again couldn’t get his name or nationality. But this time she grasped the oddity about his clothes. They were brand new. Not only his shirt, sweater, socks and shoes but also his underwear. She asked for the clothes bag again. She was right. None of the clothes had ever been washed; you could still see the ironing crease and smell their newness.

She remembered the Hound of the Baskervilles, and how Sherlock Holmes explained the significance of the return of the stolen new shoes of Sir Henry. That had to do with training the hound with an established smell. What was the significance here?

The West Mercia police became super-active. All CCTV recordings from the area were retrieved and scrutinized. The American embassy (and for good measure the Canadian embassy) was contacted. Generally you have the details and you look for a man. This was a novel manhunt. You had a man, and you needed to hunt his identity. Interpol was persuaded to upload his photo, his current whereabouts, and the American (or Canadian) accent.

Three months passed, and the case had not moved an inch forward. The media in the UK, USA and Canada had broadcast his videos, but nobody had come forward to claim him or to say who he was.

*****

Amanda Bow was the manager of the untraceable man’s nursing home. Among other things, she asked the old man his name three or four times a day. Sergeant Sarah met her at the clinic. Amanda said he was content but lost in his own world. He enjoyed chocolate muffins and the odd sherry at night. A gentleman he was, kind and sweet.

Name? I’m not sure, she said. Once he said ‘Roger Curry.’ But only once.  

‘Roger Curry?’ Asked Sarah.

‘Yes, but he has dementia. Who knows he could have been asking for curry, he has started eating well. We call him Roger, though. He is a blank canvas. But we love him, we have adopted him.’

Sarah went back and ordered the renewal of the campaign. This time the name “Roger Curry” was added to the databases. BBC took an active interest and started a facebook page to find out who Roger Curry was. It was a long shot. But Sarah knew that an American with dementia is unlikely to ask for curry as a food item. Curry, coming from the subcontinent, is more of a British expression.

*****  

In early November, 2015, on another continent, in a place called Whittier, close to LA; Kevin, 36, and his mother Mary Jo, 71, were packing their bags to leave for Europe.

“Mom, what’re you worried about? My plan is super, awesome.”

“I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do.’

‘Mom, listen, you’re in no great shape. But your brain works well, just as it worked 20-30 years ago. Dad is a goner. Look, he’s sitting there in the corner, we talk about him and he understands nothing. You know, his brain is dead, but he may live for another 25 years. Who’s going to spend on him? You? Not me for sure. You know how expensive this trip is? But I’m doing it, once and for all - I want to get rid of the old man. And I want no comebacks.’

Kevin’s father, Roger Curry, sat in the corner of the same room, could neither understand nor react to the talk between his wife and son.

*****

Kevin Curry and his two parents landed at Gatwick airport. If his father looked a bit weird, the immigration officer didn’t comment on it. Since the old man was travelling with his wife and son, he was safe.

Gatwick to Credenhill is about 160 miles. On the way, the rented car stopped at Swindon. Swindon has a massive hypermarket called TESCO extra. It has a large clothes section. Kevin bought clothes for his father, not expensive, but brand new. He removed all the price tags. In the large bathroom, he helped his dad change into the new clothes.

The old American man wearing new British clothes returned to the car. The car drove ahead to a bus parking lot. Kevin had stopped dad’s medicines for the past 48 hours. That way he would be unwell enough to be hospitalized. Though it took longer than expected, a passerby saw his father lying next to the bus stop and called for an ambulance. As they lifted him, Kevin, through his dark glasses, saw the man with dementia for the last time. The pockets of the new shirt and trousers were empty. No comebacks.

The same day, Kevin and his mother Mary Jo, proceeded by Eurostar to Belgium for a vacation, to celebrate the feeling of relief, to enjoy their newly found freedom.

*****

But Roger Curry, through his dementia, mentioned his name once. Debbie Cocker, a web research enthusiast found he could have been a student in Edmonds high school in 1958. BBC sponsored a trip of its investigative journalist Darragh Maclntyre who managed to meet Roger’s classmates. Roger Curry, before his dementia diagnosed ten years ago, had worked as a nurse. He had served in the air force during the Vietnam War. Maclntyre then traced Roger’s home in Whitter. He confronted Kevin who repeatedly avoided him.

Roger was sent back to Los Angeles on 14 July, 2016. He is now placed in the care of Kaiser Permanente, a care centre. At the end of the documentary shown this week, the BBC journalist regrets he found Roger’s roots. He was taken much better care of in the UK than in the USA. And probably more loved.

The papers filed in the court claim: “In late 2015 Mr Curry was taken surreptitiously to England by his wife Mary and his son Kevin Curry and abandoned there.”

*****

Post-script:  Ubasute is a Japanese custom where poor Japanese left their senile elders on the mountaintop. Japan is currently reviving this tradition. 27% of Japan’s population is elderly. Adult diapers far outsell baby diapers. Unlike in the past, you can now drop your elders at charity homes or give them for adoption. There is a service called the senior citizen postboxes, which transfers abandoned parents to a local retirement home.

Thalaikoothal is a traditional practice of getting rid of burdensome parents In India’s southern state of Tamilnadu. The old parent is given a ceremonial oil bath in the morning. He is then coaxed into drinking plenty of coconut water, so much that his kidneys fail. Alternatively, a cold water massage to the head can cause a heart failure. In milk therapy, cow’s milk is poured into the nose of the elderly until the nose stops breathing.

Ubasute or Thalaikoothal usually produce death in two or three days. The equivalent expression in America is “Granny dumping.” Because of the exorbitant cost of medical care in the USA, elderly people are sometimes abandoned at hospitals.

In all the Granny Dumping cases, the case of Roger Curry must hold a record for the distance travelled by a son to dump his unwanted father.

Ravi

PS 2: To see the characters from this story, you may want to watch the 28 minute documentary called The Mystery of the Unknown Man, presented by BBC Panorama on 30 January.

R.

Mass Personalisation

Dear Ravi,

Today, on 23^rd January, on behalf of Tesco India, I have great pleasure in wishing you a very happy birthday!  You have been one of our most valuable customers since 2010 when you shopped at Tesco, Parel for the first time. As a token of our appreciation, I am attaching a free coupon for three tickets at PVR for Raees, a film with your favorite star Shahrukh Khan. A free bottle of Chianti, the red wine that you so often buy, is also waiting for you. You can pick it up at any of our three shops; Parel, Kemp’s Corner or Church gate, by using your club card.

Our travel counter informs me that you have booked a trip to Hong Kong in March. I take this opportunity to wish you a wonderful vacation.

Please pass on my regards to Mena and Devyani.

Best Regards

John Smith

Customer relations, Tesco India

*****

This week, on 23 January, my birthday, the first few emails and messages I received were from CITIBANK, ICICI Lombard, Birla Insurance, Toyota, Amazon, Lufthansa Miles and More, Vodafone and for an unknown reason Asian paints. All of them addressed me as Dear Ravi or Dear Mr Ravi Abhyankar.

*****

In 1995, TESCO, the giant British retailer, launched a Club card Loyalty Scheme. Customers joined by providing their name, address, date of birth, email, family details, dietary requirements and product preferences. A customer’s shopping at Tesco was recorded via his/her Club card. Attractive discounts were given and promotions run for loyal customers. TESCO also did a clever thing. By using this detailed data, its computers began generating “personalized” letters. Each letter was carefully tailored taking into account the recipient’s preferences and shopping history. In 2004, TESCO sent an estimated 4 million variations, none of them identical to any other.

The letter at the beginning of this article is fictional. TESCO doesn’t yet exist in Mumbai. However, Tesco club card members in the UK get similar letters on their birthdays. John Smith who signs at the bottom of the letter as Customer relations manager, TESCO, has never in his life met the person to whom he writes the letter. For all we know, John Smith himself may be fictional.

*****

On the same day, I actually received dozens of messages that simply said ‘happy birthday.’ Short and crisp. Each message at the top told me the name of the sender- a human being I knew from some walk of my life.

Earlier, you needed to actually type this message. Type ‘happy birthday’ letter by letter, don’t forget the space between the two words. Facebook has now come up with a beautiful feature to make your life more comfortable. On 23^rd morning it tells you It’s Ravi Abhyankar’s birthday today, wish him well! When you see that, you simply press 1 on your Smartphone - that’s it. Ravi Abhyankar has instantly received your ‘happy birthday’ message. You have performed your duty without wasting time. The box is ticked with supreme efficiency. You’ve let Ravi know how valuable your friendship is. He now knows you remember his birthday, and have taken special efforts to wish him on this special day in his life. Simply press 1, and ensure a life-long friendship.

*****

In our Bombay flat, we got our first landline, the immobile phone, in 1980. Which meant I received birthday wishes during my first eighteen years exclusively face-to-face, with people hugging me or shaking my hand. It couldn’t be more personal.

After that, until 1996, I think, those of my friends and relatives who couldn’t meet and wish, did so over the phone. Our voice, like our fingerprints, is unique and a live phone call is a very personal interaction.

Not everyone could call. Phone calls were expensive then, and my friends were spread across the world. We sent handwritten birthday letters. You had to remember the person’s birthday, estimate the efficiency of your country’s postal service, calculate back, handwrite a nice letter and send it. The lazy ones sent a pre-printed greeting card and signed at the bottom. They still needed to remember the birthday on their own, write the address and take the trouble of posting it beforehand. Handwritten letters were a personal communication, the result of an action far more laborious than simply pressing 1.

*****

And now, in 2017, machines send personalized messages and humans send impersonal messages.

*****

The decline in personal communication started with automated answering machines, I think. Press this, press that, listen to Tchaikovsky music while you wait, and keep reminding yourself that the sweet voice at the other end is a taped voice, she is talking to you but she’s not actually there. Even today, in Bombay, I book my kitchen gas cylinders exclusively by talking to taped voices and instructions.

*****

Every time we interact with a gadget connected to the internet, we are telling the machine something about ourselves. The ads we see on our laptop are specific to us, a result of the websites we have browsed recently. Amazon and Netflix recommend to us books and films to suit our individual taste, based on the history we have created in collusion with them. The ads we see on the right hand side of our Gmail are a product of the contents of our personal emails, that are no longer as personal or private as we imagine. European Union will soon require all cars (eCall initiative) to be equipped with wireless transmitters ostensibly to track accidents. However, it also means a man can’t drive to his lover’s house without leaving a trace.

Your I-phone is a spy, a stalker that records almost everything in your life. And you pay a high price for something that can spy over you. It’s like Trump building a wall to stop Mexicans entering the USA and asking them to pay for it. In order to connect to people, we are getting connected more with machines; perhaps machines already influence our lives more than people. We can stay away from people, sometimes happily, but to be away from gadgets produces immediate withdrawal symptoms.

Ericsson, the leading maker of wireless network equipment, has forecast as many as 50 billion machines connected by 2020. This figures includes 10 billion cell phones and tablet computers. Contrast the 50 billion machines with the 8 billion population then. Most machines will talk to other machines and not to us. Your house windows will open or shut, your air-conditioners or heaters will go on or off automatically, by some censor measuring temperature and humidity telling them to do so.

Robotic chatter is already a major problem for mobile networks. They were initially set for human communication, not for machines. My friends in the age group 18-40 prefer to send a text rather than talk. Though induced by a human, texting is also a communication between two machines. Mobile networks are planning a whole revamp of the system to recognize that machines will talk far more than humans. Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and France Telecom have established separate business entities to develop products catering to machines.

*****

I don’t understand why a facebook birthday greeting app requires the user to press 1. It should automatically send ‘happy birthday’ to the friend without human interference, just like the Tesco letters. The recipient could also install an app that automatically thanks the sender.

In future, the machine-to-machine talk will ensure that birthdays are remembered, birthday wishes are sent, acknowledged and thanked for, without either the sender or the receiver knowing about it.

George Orwell’s Animal Farm ends with these words: Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but already it was impossible to say which was which.

I am afraid in the not so distant future, you can look from man to machine, and machine to man, and it may be impossible to tell which is which.

Ravi

Accidental Brains

In my Trump diary last week, I talked briefly about savants and wondered if Trump was a savant of some sort. While researching the subject of the Savant syndrome, I came across several interesting stories. Savants can be of two types, natural and acquired. Acquired savants are those who are normal, ordinary people who suffer some sort of a major injury (usually to the head), and their lives change thereafter - they cease to be ordinary. How? You will find out in the following five stories.

*****

Dr Anthony Cicoria was a practicing orthopedic surgeon in New York. In 1994, a 42 year old then, Tony was talking inside a payphone booth. The weather was awful, a storm raged outside. Just as he was leaving, a nasty bolt of lightning struck and flattened him. His heart stopped breathing. Luckily for him, the woman behind him in the payphone queue was a trained nurse. She resuscitated him, saving his life. Tony suffered burns to his face and left foot, the entry and exit points for the lightning bolt. He later recalled seeing his own body on the ground surrounded by a bluish-white light. In a few weeks he recovered, all his reports normal.

Everything seemed normal, but he was seized with an unstoppable craving to listen to classical piano music. Having never played before, he bought music sheets, a piano and began teaching himself. Instead of playing Chopin and Bach, his head was suddenly filled with music that he would describe as “coming from the other side.” Within three months of his electrocution, he began spending all his time in composing and playing music.

In 2007, he presented his compositions to the world. A year later, he debuted with his public performance on the piano, recorded live by BBC and German television.

(You can listen to one of Dr Cicoria’s albums here and you can watch him play on piano here).

*****

Orlando Sarrell: On 17 August 1979, the African American Orlando from Virginia was a 10 year old boy. In academics and indeed in all walks of life he was an ordinary boy. That day, a baseball hit him on the head. The ball used in baseball is almost 150 gms, and it can be lethal at the speed at which it travels. Orlando fell to the ground, was unconscious but fortunately recovered and got up himself. His head hurt for many days. Eventually the headache disappeared. But Orlando noticed he had developed a new calendar ability. He could tell instantly the day of the week for any date from any year.

Now this is an ability some of us may have witnessed in autistic people. One man in my neighbourhood, who is socially inept, amazes us with this uncanny ability. Without being autistic, or knocked down by a baseball, I can also perform this calculation mentally. (In my Open Diary week 47 (2007), I explained how anyone can do it. But that is calculation. To see it instantly requires something special).

But that is not all. Starting from that day when the baseball hit him, he can unerringly recall what he ate every day, what the weather was like on any given day, and what he wore on each day of the past 37 years. He has been repeatedly tested by scientists, and has not failed once.

(You can watch in this 4-minute clip his incredible autobiographical memory)

*****

Alonzo Clemens: as a three year old suffered a bad fall. So bad, now in his late fifties, his IQ is around 40, he is unable to read or write, or tie his shoelaces. Alonzo is technically a disabled person. However, he is the world’s best animal sculptor.

He needs to look at an animal for a few seconds, and with clay in his hand, he makes an exact replica within thirty minutes. He can take a fleeting look at an animal on television, and sculpts a three dimensional masterpiece based on that image. He uses only his memory while sculpting, no photos. And he has created a horse sculpture in the horse’s real life size.

The film Rainman (Dustin Hoffman) brought to the world’s attention autism and the savant syndrome. That film benefited Alonzo. He has sold one sculpture for 45,000 US Dollars.

(You can watch Alonzo making the sculptures in the 90 second clip and see and order his sculptures here)

*****

Jason Padgett: graduated from school only because he had friends who did his assignments. He had no interest in academics whatsoever. In 2002, after singing with friends at a karaoke bar in Tacoma, Wisconsin, he was attacked by two thugs. He tried to fight them, but they hit him hard on the back of his head.

When Jason woke up in the hospital, the world looked different. Literally. He could see everything in geometric shapes. Frame by frame. It was like zooming in a picture so much that you see the individual pixels. He was both fascinated and frightened.

Over the next three years, he developed several phobias, never went out of the house, but suddenly fell hugely in love with math and expressing math through geometrical shapes. Instead of saying 8x8x8=512, he would draw a beautiful cube with 8x8 on each side, making the shape with 512 tiny cubes.

When he finally got over his stress, he enrolled for a math degree. He saw math equations as geometrical shapes. People found that he had a unique faculty to hand-draw those shapes. Jason uses only a pencil and a ruler. Most of his fellow students said they would have loved math as a subject if they could see it expressed in such lovely shapes.

“I see shapes and angles everywhere in real life – from the geometry of rainbow, to the fractals in water spiraling down a drain. It’s just really beautiful.” He said in an interview to Live Science.

Today, Jason is the only person in the world who can hand-draw fractals. As to what fractals are you can see here.

And you may want to watch his 13 minute TedTalk called ‘How math saved my life’.

*****

Daniel Tammet: is an Englishman, 37 years old now. As a child, he suffered epileptic fits. Unlike the four examples before, Daniel is autistic; he can’t drive a car, change a bulb or distinguish right from left.

He is, however, obsessed with counting. He has accurately recalled ‘pi’ to 22,514 places. He can multiply numbers and find cubic roots faster than a calculator. Since his epileptic seizures, he sees numbers as shapes, colours and textures. He considers 289 as very ugly, while 333 as very attractive. For him 117 is a handsome number, tall and lanky. ‘When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The two shapes merge, and a third shape emerges. That’s the answer. It’s a mental imagery. It’s math without having to think.’

Daniel is important for science because unlike most savants, he is able to describe what is in his head. He knows ten languages. He took part in an experiment where he learnt conversational Icelandic in seven days (Icelandic is a type of language that most people would struggle to speak in after months of study). At the end of the seven days, he was interviewed on Icelandic television – in Icelandic language. This outstanding feat can be watched  in the clip titled ‘Brainman’.

*****

After reading the stories, the first thought that occurs perhaps to each of us is that our brain is full of superhuman abilities; we just don’t know how to tap them. It may be tempting for some to bang their heads against the wall to become a maths genius or a symphony composer. It would be a risk, we don’t know exactly which point to bang our heads at.

I wonder if yoga practitioners have tried to access those abilities through meditation or self mortification. Does enlightenment have anything do with this awakening of an ability through some blow? Did the Buddha experience some sort of a shock while meditating?

Prof. Allan Snyder from the Centre of the Mind at a Canberra university says: “Savants have usually had some kind of brain damage. Whether it’s an onset of dementia later in life, a blow to the head or, in the case of Daniel, an epileptic fit. And it’s that brain damage that creates a savant. I think that it’s possible for a perfectly normal person to have access to these abilities.”

I am sure one day science will find the ways to access these abilities, ways easier than getting electrocuted or knocked down by a baseball or thugs.

Ravi