Addas vs Electronic Screens

My father, Shankar Abhyankar (I call him baba) is 85.

Every morning, at 06.45, he goes to Shivaji Park. Shivaji Park is not exactly a park, it has just a little grass in the monsoon. Shivaji Park is circular, surrounded by a parapet for people to sit on. With a circumference of 1.2 km, two thousand people can sit on it at a time, and on weekends, nearly that many do. (See the clip). Baba meets his friends there. Each group has a historically earmarked place. They discuss anything and everything until they feel it’s time to go home. This is his morning adda.

The evening adda  

I sometimes take a morning walk at Shivaji Park, when I usually meet friends, familiar faces and soon-to-become friends. On one such morning, I met a couple of young boys. One of them I knew, and he introduced me to the other.

 “I am Ravi Abhyankar.” I shook his hand.

“Oh, do you know by any chance Shankar Abhyankar, the sitarist?” he asked me.

“As a matter of fact, I know him very well. He is my father. How do you know him?”

This boy must be about twenty-five.

“Your father and I are good friends. We drink together in the evenings.” The boy said.

Wrist and tongue workout  

This is baba’s evening adda. Its age range, as you may guess, is from 25 to 85. I am told the group gathers each evening at a bar. At the table, everyone has a glass in front of him. They talk and drink, drink and talk. The waiter keeps refilling. Whenever a person gets up, the waiter gives him his individual bill, which he pays off. I don’t know how long this tradition has been going on, but baba has been going to such an adda for the past thirty years. Obviously, some members pass away, and new members join. There is no way the twenty-five year old boy I met has been part of the group for long.

Conversation replay

Last month, on 13 April, I had thrown a party for my Moscow friends. Every time I visit Moscow, we have a meet-up. We talk, we eat and drink, we hug and kiss before parting for another year, until my next trip to Moscow.

I have similar gatherings, sometimes called reunions, with my school friends, college friends, relatives and ex-colleagues.

A few years ago, I bumped into a college classmate, A.S..

“I live just here. In that building. Come, come.” He fondly invited me to his house. We chatted for more than an hour. We recalled our classmates, one after the other, and shared whatever information we had on them. Some were successful CEOs, many had settled abroad, a couple had passed away.

Two years later, I happened to meet A.S. again at the same spot, and he invited me to his house again. After spending an hour there, an epiphany struck me. We had repeated our conversation from two years ago. Almost word for word. I decided not to visit him again and never have.

Electronic screens: man’s best friends

In the past, I would go to a travel agent to book my tickets. Mukesh, my neighborhood agent, knew everything about my family, and I knew about his. He started running after hearing about my marathons. I haven’t seen him for more than five years now.

Many years ago, I would visit my bank regularly. Take a token, wait in the queue, fill forms, and go to the teller. You talked to the other customers. You knew the bank staff personally, and they knew far more about you than just your bank balance. I don’t need to personally go to my bank any more.

I don’t visit bookstores any more. Not just books, Amazon delivers most things without me leaving my computer desk.

This internet magic results in a massive saving of time. One assumes we use this saved time to meet friends, spend more time with our families. But as technology makes our life more efficient, we seem to have less and less time. What happens to all the time that was saved?

The extra time is now devoted to electronic screens. Smartphones, tabs, Netflix, WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter.

Electronic screens are now man’s best friends. People are seen typing in their Smartphone at the traffic light, or if desperate while driving. The young generation has its neck permanently bent down, and ears shut with white plugs.

Virtual can’t be reality

Technology has now allowed us to remain connected. If we are connected, why meet in person?

But technology has managed to capture only two of the five senses. What we see and what we hear can be recorded, but not smelt, tasted or touched. On SKYPE, the girl’s image at the other end may be of a very high resolution, you still can’t smell the perfume she is wearing. The deliciousness of the bright yellow Alphonso mangoes can’t be tasted on the screen. And touch, human touch, can’t be replicated on a screen of any size.

Human touch is known medically to have health benefits. Hugs increase the levels of oxytocin bringing blood pressure down. Kissing a child makes us happier, otherwise why would we do it? Even in conservative societies, handshakes are accepted.

If the virtual world could substitute reality, we could have simply watched different destinations on YouTube. Why travel to other countries and face the long flights, jet lag, packing, unpacking? Because what we experience in the real world simply can’t be compared to the video clips on internet.

But if we accept travel can’t be substituted by watching those destinations in films, how are we happy degrading our personal relationships and friendships to text messages? Why is the practice of a group of friends (or people drinking together) meeting daily getting outdated?

In 2016, I went to Moscow four times. As usual, I called a wholesale party of my friends in January. On my second visit in April, I discussed the idea of another party with two friends.

“But you had a party only in January. It is too soon. Nobody will come.” Both were convinced. That year I didn’t call another party.

Nostalgia meetings

Annual reunions are formula meetings usually for the sake of nostalgia. Rarely will they have intellectual arguments or passionate debates. Mostly, people will recall the past when they were together, if curious find out what the others do, and hasten back home because kids (or now grandkids) are waiting.

Some of my friends stay a few hundred meters from my house. I haven’t met many of them for more than a year. Because they have no time. (Why bother to meet when there is what’sApp?). How are some people short of time when everyone is given exactly 24 hours a day? Should I continue to call them friends? Or ex-friends?

Corporate adda vanishes

I believe that personal human interaction is one of the greatest sources of happiness. Just as we are expected to interact with our family on a daily basis, historically,  people would interact daily with their friends and neighbours.

Earlier the workplace allowed you to interact with your colleagues on a daily basis. In the early 1980s, I worked for A.F.Ferguson & Co., chartered accountants. We worked with pen and paper. The partners dictated the audit report to their secretaries, who typed them on  typewriters. We chatted almost all the time while working. This was the corporate adda, if you like. It also allowed you to ‘kill time’, a major requirement for an office worker.

In a similar office today, you would see most people wearing glasses while immersed in computer screens. The office is like a graveyard. Screens have conquered the workplace as well.

Adda: an ancient tradition   

Addas are informal voluntary personal gatherings, ideally on a daily basis, for intellectual discussions. In ancient Greece, Socrates and Plato created their deep philosophical arguments through such dialogues.

In India, Bengal and Maharashtra are considered among the top cultural states. They have produced some of India’s greatest authors, singers, composers, musicians. Theatre is strong in both the states. Bengal and Maharashtra are the only two states that produce special Diwali magazines. But also, the adda culture is best developed in them. Bengal was a communist state, so Bengalis argued much and had no shortage of time. But Maharashtra is not far behind either.

The ultimate aim of life is happiness. Money and work satisfaction may be priorities for some, but if they don’t lead to happiness then what’s the point?

Having a group of friends whom you meet every day and talk to intellectually without an agenda seems like a simple recipe for happiness. My father is living proof of this. It is my dream to form a similar adda for myself. Possibly in this city of 20 million, I may be able to find five or six people who prefer real humans to electronic screens.

Ravi

Mother Tongue and Other Tongue

Last Saturday, 20 April, I was invited to speak at a book launch. Thousand Thoughts written by Larysa (Laura) Savinska is an unusual book. It has Larysa’s original poems in English, in Russian and as if bilingualism is not enough, three poems in Ukrainian.

Linguistic theory says you can write poems only in your mother tongue. Because poetry is about feelings and emotions. Our strongest sentiments are attached to our mother tongue, our first language, the language we learn naturally, without having to cram grammar books. Larysa proves that theory wrong. She writes her poems with equal passion in English and Russian.

*****

Jean-Marc Dewaele from the University of London has spent a substantial part of his academic career investigating how swearwords and taboo words, the F language, affect multilinguals. (Incredible the kind of things academics pick for research). His paper begins with the drunk and angry Captain Haddock. Tintin and Captain Haddock are surrounded by armed Arab bandits in the desert. (The Crab with the Golden Claws, Hergé, 1940). When captain Haddock’s whiskey bottle is shot to pieces by the bandits, he releases a mouthful of oaths in French, his mother tongue. The swearing, of course, is only as strong as the kids’ books can swallow. Anyone fond of Tintin is familiar with the ‘mille milliards de mille sabords’ (billions of blue blistering barnacles). The Captain’s swearing is so powerful, the bandits run away.

The conclusion of Dewaele’s paper is more interesting. His research finds that swear words in our mother tongue offend us more than those in languages learnt later in life. This emotional force in mother-tongue applies to both the giver and the receiver of the swear words.

Those of you who can use swear words or have been sworn at in various languages can verify how true his research is.

*****

In the discussion on multi-lingual writing, Nabokov’s story is quite telling.

Vladimir Nabokov, the Lolita fame, wrote an autobiographical memoir called Speak, Memory in 1951. (In the USA, it was called Conclusive Evidence). The book essentially covered the period of his childhood and adolescence. As a child, Nabokov grew up in Saint Petersburg, in Tsar’s Russia. After the communist revolution, his family fled Russia and emigrated to England. Nabokov enrolled at the University of Cambridge. After graduating, he moved to Berlin. In the Second World War, once Hitler’s troops began advancing, the family fled again, this time to Manhattan, USA. That is where he wrote Speak, Memory, a memoir in English.

The following year, a Russian publisher approached Nabokov and requested him to write a book for the Russian readers. Nabokov offered Speak, Memory; now to be published in Russian language. Nabokov, being Nabokov, a prolific writer, didn’t want to translate. He began writing the same book in Russian.

A strange thing happened. Memories, associations, smells began to flood his mind. He recalled several stories he had completely forgotten when writing in English. The Russian memoir Drugie Berega (Other Shores) was published in Russia in 1954. Initially meant to be a simple translation, it was a very different book than the memoir in English.

Nabokov’s first two decades of life were spent in Russia. Apparently his memories, emotions, feelings from that period were closely associated with the Russian language. Though he was fluent in both languages, it was a mistake to try and capture the Russian period in English.

After the publication in Russian, Nabokov became restless and began translating the Russian version, which he considered to be authentic, back in English. In 1966, the memoir was published in English once again. Now called: Speak Memory: An Autobiography Revisited. In its preface, Nabokov acknowledged his difficulties in trying to fit the Russian memories in English. “This re-Englishing of a Russian re-version of what had been an English re-telling of Russian memories in the first place, proved to be a diabolical task….” (Pp.12-13)

*****

In 1980, our flat in Bombay got its first phone- an immobile landline. It had a six digit number – 465416. The six digit number showed how few people had phones despite Bombay’s large populace. We were among the last to get a phone. I began to memorise the numbers of my friends, relatives, and colleagues. By 1986, I was holding more than 200 Bombay phone numbers in my head. I didn’t work as a telephone operator or a spy; I simply loved numbers and was proud of my memory.

In 1986 I moved to Moscow, and began to memorise the Moscow phone numbers. Moscow had seven digits. By 1990, I could easily recite more than 100 Moscow phone numbers. The following year, Soviet Union collapsed. In 1992, Ruble collapsed. Calling India from Moscow became dirt cheap. I thought I should surprise a few Indian friends by calling them from Moscow. In my Moscow flat, I still had a dialing phone. I tried to recall the Bombay numbers, but struggled. I was confident about my Bombay residence number, but most other numbers were blurred.

However, as soon as I came back on vacation to Bombay, and put my index finger on the phone dial, all those numbers came back. Now I had difficulty trying to recall the Moscow numbers.

This was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. Both sets of numbers were stored in my head. But I could recall with ease only the local numbers.

*****

I notice something similar with the languages I learnt.

I left Russia 20 years ago. I rarely speak Russian now. But whenever I land in Moscow, words and expressions start flowing from my lips.

Since leaving Poland at the end of 2002, I have been there only twice. And still in November 2017, as soon as I breathed the Warsaw air, I could converse in Polish with the old fluency. On the third day, I was cracking jokes in Polish.

I may not have had as many lives as a cat does, but I have distinctly experienced Indian, Russian and Polish incarnations.

*****   

If you speak only one language and live in only one country, you have only a single life.

If you spend a considerable number of years abroad, learn the local language and customs, mingle with the local community, (marry a local), start talking in that language in your dreams, work along with the natives, immerse yourself in that land, more importantly love the place and the people, that is reincarnation. I don’t know how credible the philosophical or religious concept of reincarnation is, but I certainly know that people who become part of another country and culture are reborn in the same life.

This is what happened to the author of Thousand Thoughts. For the past thirteen years, Larysa has made India her home, married an Indian, at her home in Goa she speaks in English with her family. She has even renamed her Indian avatar – Laura. She works as a coach and motivator- all her clients are Indian. In those thirteen years, she has experienced emotional ups and downs that have found an expression in her poems. Her Russian poems were written in Russia, her English poems are written in India.

In her poem Golden Cage, a lovely metaphor, Larysa writes about the people who shy away from experiencing another life: (Only an excerpt here)

There was a bird in a golden cage

A tiny singing bird

I loved her songs, I sang along

Enjoyed her voice a lot

One day I thought I’ll free the bird

Allow her to fly

It must be sad to stay inside

And never hit the sky

I’ve opened the little golden gate

But the silly bird stayed in

It’s all she ever knew

She was quite happy here

I’m like that bird, the whole sky is mine

And what do I choose instead?

I’ve locked myself inside the cage

Of what I thought is my nest

I look outside, perhaps I feel

That there is more out there

But I’m not ready for the sky

It’s so familiar here….

*****

Linguistic theorists who claim poems can be written only in one’s mother tongue didn’t take into account that reincarnation in another land can produce poetry in another language.

Ravi

Killing Chickens

Manas was my classmate in college. His academic brilliance was often accompanied by eccentricity in thoughts and expression. It made him an interesting company for a short while. After all these years, I am still happy to meet him over lunch or dinner, but would probably refuse an offer to share with him a day-long journey or a weeklong vacation. For many years, he has been a professor at a reputed American university. In December, when he visits Bombay, we occasionally arrange to meet. This week, we had gone out for dinner. The place was Manas’s choice. He ordered a tandoori chicken, and I  asked for a vegetarian platter.

“You should try tandoori chicken here.” Manas said. “It’s terrific.”

“Well, I prefer veg.” I said.

“I thought you were not religious. I hope your vegetarianism is not based on some religious principles.”

“No, no. Not religion. But it’s true I don’t like someone killing animals so that we can eat them.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Isn’t that unethical? Isn’t all killing wrong?” I asked. Killing anybody, even chickens, can’t be right.

“But those chickens, the broiler chickens, are more than compensated for their killing. They have got the gift of life.” Manas said.

“What do you mean – compensated? They had a life, and that life has been cut short by somebody with a sharp knife beheading them. Kill them young, so that we, I mean people like you, can eat them.”

“You’re missing a point. Their life as you call it wouldn’t exist if I was not eating them.”

“Are you trying to justify killing those poor chickens?”

“Listen. I don’t think you, as a vegetarian, know or care how the broiler industry works. There are two types of chicken, those that give eggs and those used as meat. The second type is called broilers. They’re specifically bred and raised as meat.  Do you have any idea how many chickens are raised annually? More than 50 billion. If we were not consuming them, most of them would never be born. You know if the world had only vegetarians like you, a few trillion chickens would have never existed.”

“So, what’s wrong with that?”

“We’re talking about the ethics of killing chicken. I accept the chicken is eventually killed. But that happens in one day, in a matter of few minutes. What about the two or three months of life the chicken enjoys till then?”

“Manas, what sort of enjoyment you are talking about?”

“Look, at least in the USA and Europe, the laws governing the poultry farming are strict. You need to look at the health and welfare of the broiler chickens. They are free, not in cages. Until the day they die, they enjoy company of thousands of other chickens. They are treated well, fed well. They see the blue sky, run around.”

“But at the end of it, that life is terminated – brutally. A butcher cuts its throat.”

“Listen, in the west, laws regulate the way broilers are killed. It needs to be quick and with minimum pain. But even if it was brutal and inhuman as it may be in this part of the world, the chicken has still lived its life until then. The joy of breathing, the joy of enjoying the power of senses, the joy of looking at different colours, the joy of mere living... the chicken got that good life only because somebody finds its meat tasty.”

“Manas, but speaking from the ethical point, who has given us the right to kill them?”

“I’ll tell you who. Since we the people breed them, we have the right to kill them. It’s like god. God has created human beings, and god kills them one way or another. And if you wish to compare us with broilers, God is not always a civil butcher. Look at all those cancer patients. God could have easily killed them in one minute. The time that it takes for a knife to separate a chicken’s head. But God opts to torture many innocent men and women, even children, for years before killing them. How is that ethical?

What I’m trying to tell you is that the billions of broilers that exist today, and have existed in the past were created by men, not God. In a vegetarian world, god would not send them at all. And since man specifically breeds the broilers, he has the moral right to end their life as well. And the trade-off, according to me, is fair. The chicken gets to experience life that it would not have otherwise.”

“ Manas, I think you attach too much importance to experiencing life as you call it.”

“Of course I do. Each day of life is an experience that offers unlimited possibilities for joy and creation. It has nothing to do with how the life ends. Take the case of Mahatma Gandhi or John Kennedy. Both were shot dead. You may even say brutally and unfairly. Does that diminish the importance of their lives in any way? Until the day they died, they lived life to the full. They not only enjoyed their life, they also contributed to the world. If I were to apply your argument about broiler chickens, you are saying it would have been better if Gandhi or Kennedy were not born, rather than getting brutally killed.”

“Well, I’m not sure if Mahatma Gandhi and chickens should be compared.” I said.

“If you are talking about ethics, there is no difference. I believe that the gift of life the chicken gets as a result of our meat-eating is so great that getting beheaded prematurely is a small price to pay.”

Manas then called the waiter, and ordered another Tandoori chicken. “It’s excellent!” he offered his compliments to the waiter.

Ravi

A bit about bitcoin

If you were fortunate (or freak of some sort) to have invested 1000 dollars in “bitcoins” six years ago, the value of that investment would have become 4 million dollars today. Why go so back; investing 1000 dollars in “bitcoins” a year ago, in December 2016, would have fetched 20,000 dollars now. What else can multiply your wealth twenty times in a year?

Many of my friends have discussed with me the bitcoin phenomenon. Some of them are PhDs. The conversations are usually short, ending with something like, “I don’t understand it at all. Is it a new currency of some kind? Where can I buy it?” Since nobody I know knows even as much as I think I know, I will venture to use my limited knowledge about economics and superficial research to share with you my understanding of the bitcoin phenomenon.

What is a bitcoin?

It’s a currency, but unlike the currencies in your pockets, it is virtual. Interestingly, no government or regulator introduced or controls it. Apparently, bitcoin was the innovation of one Satoshi Nakamoto. The name sounds Japanese. However, no such person has ever been found in Japan or anywhere else. We can be certain of the existence of Jesus Christ, possibly of lord Krishna, but Satoshi Nakamoto has remained enigmatically missing since bitcoin’s launch in 2009. To pay him tribute, the fractional denomination has been named Satoshi. (Dollar-cent/ pound-penny/ bitcoin-satoshi, except 100 million Satoshi make a single bitcoin). People have wondered if Nakamoto was a group of software engineers rather than a single person.

Do banknotes or coins exist for this currency? Banknotes don’t, coins may. However, the coin itself has no meaning or value. The currency is virtual. You can create, acquire or sell it without having anything to do with physical coins.

Can anything be a currency?

For centuries, perhaps millenniums, world ran its business through barter. A carpenter built a shed for a farmer. The farmer in exchange supplied the carpenter with potatoes. A need was felt for a medium of exchange that would make such transactions convenient. Initially gold was used. When rulers launched money as we know it, it had to be backed by enough gold in the government treasury. This was the Gold Standard. In theory, you could take your cash to the government treasury, which was obliged to give you equivalent gold. Over the years, the gold standard was abandoned. As we know, money supply got further expanded with plastic cards. One may get his salary in the bank account and pay online or with credit card. Transactions can and increasingly do happen without involvement of any physical money. Governments, through their monetary policy, still need to monitor the total supply of money. Very loosely speaking, if the total supply of a particular currency is doubled without any change in the number of goods that money can buy, the prices of those goods will double as a result of the money supply. Printing of money usually fuels inflation, and done in excess can result in hyperinflation like in Germany (1923) where you carried money in bags to buy something that fit in your pocket.

It is, therefore, very important for any currency, however created to have at least four elements. (A) Hard to earn (b) limited in supply (c) easy to verify and (d) trust and acceptance. We will now see how this applies to ‘bitcoin’.

Mining of bitcoins   

Bitcoins, like gold, need to be mined. But gold is a natural commodity; the deposits of gold exist in places like South Africa, China and Russia. Through a laborious physical process, involving miners wearing helmets and risking lives, gold needs to be extracted and refined.

Mining of bitcoins is a computer, software process. In theory, you or I can mine bitcoins. In practice, perhaps only those with a PhD in computer science, cryptology and game theory can mine them.

The mining process is like solving a giant mathematical puzzle. Imagine you are a hacker. You need to crack somebody’s birthday and a four digit numeral (pin) to access his account. You have no idea how old the person is, but feel he was born between 1965 and 1974. Let’s also assume you are allowed any number of attempts online. (If you insert a wrong pin number three times, some ATMs swallow your cards. Not a case here). You need to start with 1 Jan 1965 and go till 31 Dec 1974, each day combined with 9999 numbers. In effect you will need to try 3652 days x 9999= 36,516,348 times. To perform this manually at the rate of one try every minute, you will take 300 years.

bitcoin mining farm 

Mining a bitcoin is as difficult as this. It requires huge computer power, and astonishingly high power consumption.  The global bitcoin mining activity is estimated to consume 3.4 gigawatts, about the same that the whole of Bulgaria consumes in the same period. To lower the costs, mining is set in places like Iceland with its cheap geothermal energy. In China the miners use hydroelectric power. To save on time, mining pools are formed. They share the reward when anyone from the pool succeeds in mining a bitcoin.

In short, I’m certainly not volunteering to become a bitcoin miner.

Limited in Supply

A successful miner is rewarded with 12.5 bitcoins per block (I will explain what a blockchain means later). In 2020, the reward will be halved to 6.25 bitcoins per block, and every succeeding four years it will keep halving. By 2140, when neither I nor any reader of this article will be around, the bitcoin supply will stop at 21 million bitcoins. That is the limit set by whoever has created this game. After that, the miners will be rewarded only by way of transaction fees (similar to how your bank charges you for  transactions), and not bitcoins.

Easy to verify: Blockchain

Since no government or regulatory body controls the mining or the transactions, how can we trust the bitcoin manufacture and trading? The mechanism is complex but transparent and fairly secure. The bitcoin software takes care of this.

The “blockchain” is a public ledger (of course, not physical but virtual) that records all bitcoin transactions. If X pays Y with bitcoins, the transaction is broadcast with its history not only to X and Y, but to all the bitcoin owners in the world.

In our normal world, when X pays Y through a bank transfer, the bank statements of X’s bank and Y’s bank will reflect that transaction. However, those statements will be available only to X and Y. With bitcoins, it is as if those bank statements are available to everyone in the world. Through this public ledger, blockchain, you can trace the history of each bitcoin and every transaction. Every ten minutes, the system stamps the page with a special serial number (hash) and glues it permanently into the ledger book. With the bitcoin price skyrocketing, there is huge competition to get into that ledger. It’s like thousands of volunteer software geeks (miners) putting their names into a hat, and every ten minutes a single name is drawn out from it.

Private key

Each bitcoin or its fraction has a complex but unique private key. A bit like a password. All transactions happen anonymously. This private key is the only way to preserve your bitcoin wealth. If you lose the key, the money is gone; there is absolutely no way to recover it. In the early days, when people were casual about bitcoins, some owners have left the private key written on slips, misplaced those slips, and have potentially lost millions. Someone can also hack into your key and steal your money, but this is not as easy as with conventional accounts and credit cards.

Private Key is similar to the Swiss bank account keys. In the past, I believe the notorious Swiss banks let the clients hold money with them anonymously. Anybody with the key to the locker could withdraw its contents.

Who accepts bitcoins?

Of course, not everybody. Paypal, Microsoft, Dell and Newegg accept bitcoins for payments in certain countries. Reportedly, some hotels and airline tickets can also be booked. Last month, PWC, the big accountancy firm began accepting bitcoin for advisory services in Hong Kong. (Inspired, I hereby announce I’m willing to work as an advisor for anybody for bitcoins as well).

As can be expected, bitcoins are popular with drug dealers, smugglers and other tax evaders.

Globally, an estimated 800 bitcoin ATMs can allow you to buy bitcoins, most of the ATMs are located in the USA.

This month, apart from stock market trading, futures trading is allowed for bitcoins.

Trading in bitcoins as opposed to mining

I have established above that people without PhDs in computer science are unlikely to succeed in mining bitcoins. If you notice, most critics including Warren Buffet who call bitcoins a fraud are old. They are too old to understand the structure and complexity of the bitcoin game.

Now, middlemen like Coinbase have appeared. Without being a miner, you can buy and sell a bitcoin or a fraction of it using your smartphone. (Since 1 bitcoin was nearly 18000 dollars at the beginning of this week, most buyers are thinking of buying fractions).

You need to ask yourself a question. If you buy a bitcoin, who is getting the money that you pay? It’s not going to any government. The money goes to the bitcoin miner, the anonymous maker of the bitcoin, and the middleman who connects you with him.

Commodity or currency?

Finally, is bitcoin a currency or a commodity? It’s a money-like global commodity. However, as a commodity it has no intrinsic value, you can’t wear a bitcoin necklace or eat from a bitcoin plate. In that sense, it’s clearly an absolutely useless commodity. Because it has no intrinsic value, and is not tangible, its bubble not only can but ought to burst. If you want to buy it as a commodity, I have a one word advice. DON’T!

If bitcoin was merely a currency and not a commodity, its life expectancy would have been longer. With a stable value, people wishing to conduct transactions anonymously would love to use it. Bitcoin as a commodity may destroy bitcoin as a currency. With the price volatility, its acceptance as currency is in danger. More than that, the volatility and gullible masses joining this new Ponzi scheme will make governments the world over regulate or ban it sooner or later.

Virtual coins, when they become extinct, are worthless as antiques.

Ravi

The Case of the Disfigured Husband

On 28 November, A. L. Narayana, a senior police officer from Nagarkurnool, was the first person to speak to the petrified wife over the phone. Her name was Swathi Reddy. Her speech was incoherent. Four assailants unknown to the family had attacked her husband, thrown acid and petrol on his face, set fire to it and fled. Swathi was trying to get her husband to the hospital. Her neighbours had advised her to report the assault to the police.

“You don’t need to come to the police station. I’ll see you at the hospital.” Said Mr Narayana. A young woman whose husband was disfigured in an assault should be given all possible help, the police officer thought, getting into his jeep.

He met Swathi Reddy at Hyderabad’s well-known Apollo hospital. She stood shaken and crying next to her husband, Sudhakar Reddy. Mr Reddy lay on the hospital bed bare-chested, wearing just a pair of jeans. His ash-coloured face had patches that showed how unevenly the face had burnt. Burn marks were also visible on his neck, shoulders and chest. An oxygen mask was attached to his face. His eyes were shut. A bad job this, thought Narayana. God knows if the victim would ever recover his original face. 

Narayana started filling out the required details himself. He could do that much for the ill-fated woman. Swathi Reddy was 27. She was a trained nurse and worked in a clinic. Her husband was 32. He had a stone crushing business. They were married for seven years, and had two children.

‘Where were the children at the time of the attack?’ Narayana asked.

Fortunately, they were with their grandmother. Swathi had dropped them off at her mother’s house only the previous day.

The police officer wrote out descriptions of the four strangers who had poured acid and petrol over Mr Reddy’s face. Swathi was screaming at the top of her voice, so the culprits had run away. Another few minutes and they would have succeeded in killing Mr Reddy.

Nothing was stolen. Swathi Reddy could not say if her husband had any enemies. She certainly didn’t know. Her husband’s business was a small scale enterprise. They owned a car, but other than that it was a middle class family. It was unlikely the assault was related to Mr Reddy’s financial affairs.

Apollo hospital was expensive. Mr Reddy’s brother stood in the corner of the room. He had somehow managed to cough up Rs 350,000. Far more would be needed until Sudhakar could get his face repaired and go back home.

‘Will you please talk to the plastic surgeon?’ Swathi said to Narayana. ‘They should do a plastic surgery urgently. I can’t bear to see his face.’

Narayana didn’t understand why the police should speak to the surgeon. Surely, surgeons knew their business well. On the other hand, you had here a woman in shock. She worked as a nurse; she probably knew the way hospitals functioned.

‘I’d taken him to a private clinic before coming here. That clinic specialises in plastic surgery. They refused to admit my husband, saying this was a police case. So, we had to bring him here.’ said Swathi. ‘This hospital’s doctor said the burn injuries are not deep enough for plastic surgery. What does he mean? Look at my husband’s face. Anyone can tell he needs plastic surgery.’

Narayana made sympathetic noises. He took Mr Reddy’s brother out of the room, and asked him similar questions. He didn’t know anything. Sudhakar had not yet said a single word. Yes, his face had become unrecognisable.

‘It’s horrible.’ Said Mr Reddy’s brother. ‘It’s not only his face. Something terrible has happened to him. I couldn’t recognise him at all.’

*****

Mr Reddy’s brother called the police station the following day. This time, he s0unded as agitated as Mr Reddy’s wife had the previous day.

‘Is your brother all right?’ asked Mr Narayana.

‘No... I mean... I don’t know. My mother and I would like to see you urgently.’

In less than half an hour, the two had landed at the police station. Narayana offered them water.

‘Sir, this man... this man can’t be my brother.’ The visitor looked at his mother, who suddenly broke out crying.

‘Hang on; you said yesterday he was unrecognisable. And I’ve seen his face. It’s quite understandable...’

‘No, no. This man can’t be my brother. Both my mother and I thought it was very strange how an acid attack could change his height and overall appearance. When we tried to talk to him, he wrote. He refused to say a word.’

‘It’s possible he is not in a position to talk yet.’ Narayana offered.

‘The hospital offered him lunch. The plate contained a nice, hot mutton soup. Sudhakar, my brother, loves mutton soups. This man, whoever he is, told the nurse he is a vegetarian. He is not my brother, he is an imposter.’

‘But his wife... Mrs Reddy... what does she say to that?’

‘That’s what is strange.’ Mr Reddy’s mother spoke for the first time. ‘She says we’re all wrong. The assault has affected him badly. She maintains the man as her husband. We can tell you he’s not.’

‘Well,’ Narayana thought, ‘the wife says the disfigured man is her husband. The husband’s family says he is an imposter. Why should the wife lie?’

Narayana contacted Mr Jogu Chennaiah, the Additional Superintendent of Police. The case warranted someone senior.

*****

An  Aadhar card is a biometric identity document introduced by the Indian government. De facto it is mandatory, because it must now be linked with bank accounts and mobile SIM cards. When you apply for an Aadhar, you submit fingerprints which enter the world’s largest biometric database.

When the Nagarkurnool police visited the private room in the Apollo hospital, the man with the disfigured face was asleep. Mrs Swathi Reddy had gone to see her children. Narayana took the electronic device out of his pocket. He delicately pressed the fingers of the sleeping man on its screen.

Within an hour the police officer was standing next to a man in the government lab.

‘Good fingerprints.’ said the man. ‘They match exactly.’

‘What’s the name?’ asked Mr Narayana.

‘Rajesh Ajjakolu.’ said the lab assistant. ‘Here are his contact details.’

*****

Rajesh Ajjakolu worked as a physiotherapist. Two years ago, Mrs Swathi Reddy, a mother of two, consulted him about her backache. A young woman visiting a young male physiotherapist is a tricky situation. The two fell in love and started an affair. In India, with more than two billion prying eyes, it’s difficult to keep an affair secret for too long.

On 23 November, some of Sudhakar Reddy’s relatives saw his wife with a stranger in a car. They promptly informed Sudhakar. Sudhakar confronted Swathi and they had four unpleasant days full of quarrels, suspicion and fights. Swathi took the two children and left them at her mother’s house. She then spoke to Rajesh, her lover. They decided to get rid of Sudhakar. But after killing Sudhakar, Swathi and Rajesh wished to live a happy family life together. How to manage that?

*****

Three years ago, Swathi had seen the popular Telugu film Yevadu. She loved it. In Yevadu, a young man (Allu Arjun) suffers facial injuries when a mafia man tries to kill him. A lady plastic surgeon saves him by giving him the face of her deceased son (Ram Charan). One man dies and another starts living with his face, thanks to the great innovation called plastic surgery. Once Rajesh gets Sudhakar’s face, Swathi and Rajesh would move to Pune with her children and live happily ever after.

*****

Early morning on 27 November, Swathi gave her husband an anaesthetic injection. She was a professional nurse, after all. She and Rajesh then clobbered him to death with an iron rod. They took him to an isolated spot 150 km away from Nagarkurnool, and burned him after dousing his body in petrol.

On their return, Swathi poured acid and petrol on Rajesh’s face and lit a match. For love, it appears, men are willing to suffer much.  Swathi waited until Rajesh’s face was sufficiently burnt. She then began screaming; hoping that the neighbours would soon turn up to see the disfigured face of her husband.

*****

Sudhakar Reddy’s family spent Rs 500,000 on the treatment and on learning the truth, stopped. As a result, the hospital has refused to let Rajesh go until someone pays the balance hospital bill. The police have promised to take Rajesh to jail as soon as the hospital releases him.

Swathi Reddy is already in jail. That was the price she had to pay for failing to appreciate that a perfect plastic surgery can happen only in films.

Ravi