Memories of a War

It was some time in early December 1971. I was nine years old at that time. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, then a prominent leader of Jan Sangh, was in Ajmer on a planned visit, to address a political rally. He had already built a reputation for being a great orator. My parents, my younger brother (Varun) and I had gone to Patel Ground in Ajmer to listen to him.

A couple of days before that, Pakistan had attacked India and a war had broken out between the two countries. Vajpayee began his speech with words like these:

आज हमारे देश पर संकट आया हुआ है। हमारे पड़ौसी देश पाकिस्तान ने भारत पर आक्रमण करने का दुस्साहस किया है। आज मैं आपके सामने विपक्ष के एक नेता की हैसियत से नहीं खड़ा हुआ हूं। आज भारत में कोई विपक्ष नहीं है। आज पूरा भारत एकमन, एकजुट है। युद्ध के इस समय में पूरे भारत का एक ही पक्ष है और उस पक्ष की, हम सब की, एक ही नेता हैं, इन्दिरा गांधी। और हम सब पूरी शक्ति के साथ, उनके नेतृत्व में हैं। भारत की रक्षा के लिए इन्दिरा गांधी यदि मुझे कुछ भी आदेश करेंगी तो मैं उसका पालन करूंगा।

A rough translation: "This is a moment of crisis for our country. Our neighbouring country Pakistan has dared to attack India. I am not standing here today as a leader of the opposition. There is no opposition in India at this time. The whole country is united today. In this moment of war, there is unity in India and the leader of all of us is Indira Gandhi. We are all under her leadership with our full force. For the defense of India, if Indira Gandhi gives me any order, I'll follow that."

These words, sincerely uttered, were met with a thunderous applause. I don't have any recollection of the remaining half an hour of his speech, but these initial sentences have left a lasting impression on my mind.

My father has, all his life, been a voracious reader of newspapers. Thanks to his influence, Varun and I have been active followers of all kinds of news from early childhood. Even though 43 years have passed since India's victory over Pakistan on December 16, 1971, I still remember some aspects of that war fairly clearly.

There were no televisions in Ajmer then. Radio news and newspapers were the primary source of information. Cinema halls used to run News Reels before playing a movie. And in the months leading to the war, the news reels, inevitably, used to show snippets of the huge influx of refugees from Bangladesh (then formally East Pakistan).

I remember the Government of India had imposed an additional levy of 5 paise stamp to be affixed to all postcards, inland letters and envelopes under the "Refugee Relief Fund", to bear the financial burden of about 10 million refugees that had poured in from East Pakistan.

From around May 1971, I started reading the news articles about the freedom struggle of Bangladesh with a keen interest. Maps appearing in newspapers showing the areas of fight between Mukti Bahini and Pakistani army used to fascinate me. I knew the names of more Bangladesh cities at that time than I do now.

I remember the sense of shame and anger in the country when Indira Gandhi was snubbed by Richard Nixon during her visit to USA. And the threat of USA to send its naval fleet to the Bay of Bengal. And how Indira Gandhi appeared to remain strong in the face of such threats. And our own INS Vikrant which was adored by Indians. And the repeated vetoes by USSR in the United Nations, on the US-sponsored resolutions asking India for a a ceasefire once the war broke out.

I remember a special news bulletin on Akashvani (All India Radio) on the evening of 3-December-1971, informing us that Pakistani airforce had attacked various Indian cities that evening. Later, we heard the recorded speech of Indira Gandhi in the Parliament announcing that India would retaliate firmly. Every sentence uttered by Indira Gandhi was followed by loud applause of support.

During the war, our family went to see a couple of movies in cinema halls, primarily to see the news reels. One such movie that I clearly remember was Guddi.

I used to be an avid listener of radio. Trying to catch radio stations of foreign countries used to be my fascination. I managed to tune in to Pakistani Radio and we used to listen to their news bulletin every day at 6:30 am. Those news bulletins would report that one day Pakistani army had captured the city of Jaisalmer, the next day Jodhpur, the next day some other city, and so on. Indian radio stations were reporting the opposite of this, how Indian forces were defeating Pakistani army and capturing their territory. Though initially we did not believe Pakistani Radio stories, after a few days, we started wondering if Indian news bulletins could be false. and the Pakistani news true. But the doubts went away soon when, one fine morning, we heard Pakistani Radio announcing that the city of Ajmer (where I used to live) had been captured by the Pakistani army the previous day, and the Pakistani officers were offering prayers in the Dargah.

After the Pakistani Radio news, we used to hear a special, 10-minute program on Akashvani (Jaipur station) at 6:50 am called "Lade Soorma Aaj Ji" (the warrior fights today). Some poet used to read inspiring poems of "Veer Ras", as a way to keep the morale of the armed forces as well as civilians high. I wish I could lay my hands on the recordings of those daily sessions.

When the news of India's victory came on 16-December-1971, there was jubiliation all over the country. The newspaper headlines the next day were ecstatic. I remember the headline in Hindi daily "Nyaya" as "Bangladesh Azad" (Bangladesh is free), spread across the entire width of the front page.

A few months after the war got over, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was freed from jail by Pakistan, and he visited our country to acknowledge India's contribution in their independence struggle. He also visited Ajmer, and addressed a public rally in the same Patel Ground where Vajpayee had delivered his memorable speech a few months ago. Again, my family was there to listen to him. He was also warmly received by the people, like a popular Indian leader. He spoke in Bengali, and somebody else used to translated his speech in Hindi.

Sanskrit: Lesson 1 (alternative)

Original text (with corrections)

नेहरूजन्मदिनम्

भारतवर्षस्य प्रथमः प्रधानमन्त्री पण्डितो जवाहरलालनेहरूः नवम्बरमासस्य चतुर्दशे दिवसे संजातः। देशे विदेशे च लब्धविद्याभ्यासः नेहरूः भारतप्रजानां सर्वतोमुख्यै अभिवृद्ध्यै सदा अश्राम्यत्। नवभारतशिल्पी इति स वर्णितः इतिहासज्ञैः। तस्य जन्मदिनं शिशूनां दिनमिति आचर्यते। शिशूषु नेहरूमहाशस्य असीमा प्रेमा तत्र कारणम्। प्रजातन्त्रव्यवस्थायां जात्यतीतत्वे च तस्य अचलो विश्वास आसीत्। विज्ञानाधारेण देशस्य प्रगतिः साधनीया इति स पुनः पुनः ब्रवीति स्म। वैज्ञानिकं मनोभावं जनेषु जनयितुं तेन बहुधा प्रयतितम्।

नेहरूमहाशयः श्रेष्ठो लेखकश्चासीत्। आंग्लभाषायां तस्य प्रभुत्वं प्रश्नातीतम्। तस्य ग्रन्थानां पठनेन भारतदेशस्येतिहासः स्पष्टं ज्ञायते। सर्वेषु मतधर्मेषु समानं गौरवं रक्षणीयमिति तत्वं तेन राष्ट्रनायकेन तत्र प्रतिपादितम्।

Version without sandhis

नेहरू-जन्म-दिनम्

भारतवर्षस्य प्रथमः प्रधान-मन्त्री पण्डित: जवाहरलाल-नेहरूः नवम्बर-मासस्य चतुर्दशे दिवसे जातः। देशे विदेशे च लब्ध-विद्या-अभ्यासः नेहरूः भारत-प्रजानां सर्वत:मुख्यै अभिवृद्ध्यै सदा अश्राम्यत्। नव-भारत-शिल्पी इति स: वर्णितः इतिहास-ज्ञैः। तस्य जन्म-दिनं शिशूनां दिनम् इति आचर्यते। शिशूषु नेहरू-महाशस्य असीमा प्रेमा तत्र कारणम्। प्रजातन्त्र-व्यवस्थायां जाति-अतीतत्वे च तस्य अचल: विश्वास: आसीत्। विज्ञान-आधारेण देशस्य प्रगतिः साधनीया इति स: पुनः पुनः ब्रवीति स्म। वैज्ञानिकं मन:भावं जनेषु जनयितुं तेन बहुधा प्रयतितम्।

नेहरू-महाशयः श्रेष्ठ: लेखक: च आसीत्। आंग्ल-भाषायां तस्य प्रभुत्वं प्रश्न-अतीतम्। तस्य ग्रन्थानां पठनेन भारत-देशस्य इतिहासः स्पष्टं ज्ञायते। सर्वेषु मत-धर्मेषु समानं गौरवं रक्षणीयम् इति तत्वं तेन राष्ट्र-नायकेन तत्र प्रतिपादितम्।

Inter linear, literal translation

नेहरू-जन्म-दिनम् Nehru's birthday

भारतवर्षस्य India's प्रथमः first प्रधान-मन्त्री prime minister पण्डित: जवाहरलाल-नेहरूः Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru नवम्बर-मासस्य November month's चतुर्दशे on 14th दिवसे on day जातः was born। देशे In country विदेशे in foreign country च and लब्ध-विद्या-अभ्यासः educated नेहरूः Nehru भारत-प्रजानां Indians' सर्वत:मुख्यै for all round अभिवृद्ध्यै for growth सदा always अश्राम्यत् toiled। नव-भारत-शिल्पी Modern India's Architect इति so स: he वर्णितः described इतिहास-ज्ञैः by historians। तस्य His जन्म-दिनं birthday शिशूनां children's दिनम् day इति so आचर्यते is followed। शिशूषु In children नेहरू-महाशस्य Nehru gentleman's असीमा  boundless प्रेमा love तत्र there कारणम् reason। प्रजातन्त्र-व्यवस्थायां in democracy system जाति-अतीतत्वे in antiquity of caste system च and तस्य his अचल: firm विश्वास: belief आसीत् was। विज्ञान-आधारेण through science-foundation देशस्य country's प्रगतिः growth साधनीया achievable इति so स: he पुनः again पुनः again ब्रवीति says स्म in past। वैज्ञानिकं scientific मन:भावं mindset जनेषु in people जनयितुं to create तेन by him बहुधा often प्रयतितम् attempted.

नेहरू-महाशयः Nehru gentleman श्रेष्ठ: excellent लेखक: writer च also आसीत् was. आंग्ल-भाषायां in English language तस्य his प्रभुत्वं mastery प्रश्न-अतीतम् question-beyond। तस्य his ग्रन्थानां books' पठनेन by reading भारत-देशस्य India-country's इतिहासः history स्पष्टं clear ज्ञायते is known. सर्वेषु in all मत-धर्मेषु in beliefs and religions समानं equal गौरवं respect रक्षणीयम् to be kept इति so तत्वं matter तेन by him राष्ट्र-नायकेन by nation-leader तत्र there प्रतिपादितम् propounded.

Natural translation

Nehru's Birthday

India's first prime minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14th November. Educated in India and abroad, Nehru always toiled towards all round growth of Indians. Historians describe him as the Architect of Modern India. His birthday is celebrated as Children's Day. His boundless love for children is the reason behind this. He had firm belief in democracy and irrelevance of caste system. He repeatedly said that the progress of the country was to be achieved based on science. He often tried to instill scientific mindset among people.

Nehru was also an excellent writer. His command over English language was indisputable. One can understand the history of India by reading his books. As a national leader, he emphasized on equal treatment of all faiths and religions.

Sanskrit: Lesson 1

From the issue of Sudharma, dated November 14, 2014

(Original text of the news article, with some corrections)

For an alternative structure of the lesson (I am more inclined towards this now), click here.

नेहरूजन्मदिनम्

भारतवर्षस्य प्रथमः प्रधानमन्त्री पण्डितो जवाहरलालनेहरूः नवम्बरमासस्य चतुर्दशे दिवसे संजातः। देशे विदेशे च लब्धविद्याभ्यासः नेहरूः भारतप्रजानां सर्वतोमुख्यै अभिवृद्ध्यै सदा अश्राम्यत्। नवभारतशिल्पी इति स वर्णितः इतिहासज्ञैः। तस्य जन्मदिनं शिशूनां दिनमिति आचर्यते। शिशूषु नेहरूमहाशस्य असीमा प्रेमा तत्र कारणम्। प्रजातन्त्रव्यवस्थायां जात्यतीतत्वे च तस्य अचलो विश्वास आसीत्। विज्ञानाधारेण देशस्य प्रगतिः साधनीया इति स पुनः पुनः ब्रवीति स्म। वैज्ञानिकं मनोभावं जनेषु जनयितुं तेन बहुधा प्रयतितम्।

नेहरूमहाशयः श्रेष्ठो लेखकश्चासीत्। आंग्लभाषायां तस्य प्रभुत्वं प्रश्नातीतम्। तस्य ग्रन्थानां पठनेन भारतदेशस्येतिहासः स्पष्टं ज्ञायते। सर्वेषु मतधर्मेषु समानं गौरवं रक्षणीयमिति तत्वं तेन राष्ट्रनायकेन तत्र प्रतिपादितम्।

नेहरू का जन्मदिन

भारतवर्ष के प्रथम प्रधानमंत्री पंडित जवाहरलाल नेहरू का जन्म नवंबर महीने की चैदह तारीख को हुआ था। देश और विदेश में शिक्षाप्राप्त नेहरू भारतवासियों के सर्वमुखी विकास के लिए सदा श्रम करते रहे। इतिहासकार उन्हें नए भारत का शिल्पी कहते हैं। उनका जन्मदिन बाल-दिवस के रूप में मनाया जाता है। बच्चों में नेहरू का असीम प्रेम इसका कारण है। प्रजातंत्र व्यवस्था में और जातिप्रथा की समाप्ति में में उनका अचल विश्वास था। विज्ञान के आधार पर देश की प्रगति होनी चाहिए, ऐसा वे प्रायः कहते थे। वैज्ञानिक मनोभाव लोगों में जागृत करने का उन्होंने बहुधा प्रयास किया।

नेहरू कुशल लेखक भी थे। अंग्रेजी भाषा पर उनका अधिकार निर्विवाद था। उनकी पुस्तकों के पढ़ने से भारत देश का इतिहास भी स्पष्ट होता है। सब मतों और धर्मों की समानता पर भी उस राष्ट्रीय नेता ने बल दिया।

Nehru's Birthday

India's first prime minister, Pandit Jawahallal Nehru was born on 14th November. Educated in India and abroad, Nehru always toiled towards allround growth of Indians. Historians describe him as the Architect of Modern India. His birthday is celebrated as Children's Day. His unbounded love for children is the reason behind this. He had firm belief in democracy and elimination of caste system. He often said that the progress of the country was possible on the foundation of science. He often tried to instill scientific mindset among people.

Nehru was also an excellent writer. His command over English language was undisputable. One can understand the history of India by reading his books. As a national leader, he emphasised equal treatment of all faiths and religions.

1) भारतवर्षस्य = भारतवर्ष का। Of India; India's

2) नवम्बरमासस्य = नवम्बर महीने का। November month's

3) तस्य = उसका। His

4) प्रथमः = प्रथम, पहला। First

5) पण्डितो जवाहरलालनेहरूः = पण्डितः जवाहरलालनेहरूः। 

यहां ‘पण्डितः’ का ‘पण्डितो’ हो गया है। यह एक ‘संधि’ है। ‘अः’ के बाद यदि ग, घ, ङ, ज, झ, ×ा, ड, ढ, ण, द, ध, न, ब, भ, म, य, र, ल, व, ह हो तो ‘अः’ के स्थान पर ‘ओ’ हो जाता है। इसी का एक अन्य उदाहरण है ‘अचलो विश्वास आसीत्’, जिसका मूल रूप है ‘अचलः विश्वासः आसीत्’। विसर्ग के बाद ‘व’ होने पर भी उसका ‘ओ’ हो जाता है। ‘विश्वासः’ का ‘विश्वास’ एक अन्य प्रकार की सन्धि के कारण हुआ है जिसकी चर्चा फिर कभी करेंगे। एक अन्य उदाहरण है ‘श्रेष्ठो लेखकश्चासीत्’ जिसका भी मूल रूप है ‘श्रेष्ठः लेखकः च आसीत्’। 

Here ‘पण्डितः’ has become ‘पण्डितो’. This is a "sandhi". If ‘अः’ is followed by ग, घ, ङ, ज, झ, ×ा, ड, ढ, ण, द, ध, न, ब, भ, म, य, र, ल, व, ह then ‘अः’ is replaced with ‘ओ’ . Another example of this is ‘अचलो विश्वास आसीत्’ the original form of which is ‘अचलः विश्वासः आसीत्’. विश्वासः  has become  विश्वास due to a different kind of sandhi which will be discussed some other time. Another example is ‘श्रेष्ठो लेखकश्चासीत्’ the original form of which is ‘श्रेष्ठः लेखकः च आसीत्’.

Sanskrit Lessons: An Introduction

Welcome to this experimental project to help people learn Sanskrit from the comforts of their home, at their own pace.

The idea is as follows. There is a daily Sanskrit newspaper, Sudharma, published from Mysore. (Yes, unbelievable though it may sound, there is a Sanskrit daily; only two pages of tabloid size; but nonetheless, it is as amazing endeavour. The annual subscription of this newspaper, in India only, is just Rs 400. It is also freely available on the Internet here.)

Using one news article from this newspaper, I would write a periodic email / a blog which will 

• provide a Hindi and / or English translation,
• pick just five words or concepts from that article and explain them. I would love to (and tried to) include more examples of the same, include some exercises, with solutions posted in the next mail / blog, but realized that that is too much work and I would not be able to sustain that.

Link to the first sample lesson

A sample post, as the first lesson, is available here, for you to comment on. 
For an alternative structure of the lesson (I am more inclined towards this now), click here.

This is the first attempt, and based on readers' feedback we may refine its structure, presentation, depth of coverage, etc.

I am not sure whether the format and presentation I have in mind will work for people who are absolute beginners in Sanskrit. in fact, I am doubtful if it will. But it should, I hope, work well with people who have some exposure to Sanskrit, perhaps in their school days in India as the "third language", or through some other means. They may have lost touch with it for years but if they have had some foundation of Sanskrit, I think it would work better for them compared to people who have never learned any Sanskrit in their life earlier.

In the current format, it will certainly not work for people who are not familiar with the Devanagari script. I am not, as of now, fluent with, comfortable with, or keen on the phonetic transliteration of Sanskrit text in the Roman script.

The idea for this experiment had been there in my mind for a long time but it was dormant; it got a boost during a chat I had with my American friend in the virtual world, sometime a student, and a keen Sanskritophile, Mark Bordelon late last week.

If you haven't lost interest yet, and have looked at the first post, I would request you to provide me your detailed feedback, including the following:

• ·         Feedback on its structure, presentation, content, etc
• ·         Are interested in learning Sanskrit through this initiative? If yes, then why?
• ·         Will you be interested in mails / blogs as per this first draft? If yes, then why?
• ·         What would be a suitable platform for such lessons: an email group / a blog / a free site like Google Site / some other?
• ·         Do you think the lessons should be in Hindi / English / both? Writing them in both the languages, of course, means that much more work for me, though it widens its reach at the same time. Also, there are more typing related challenges when the text uses two languages, in switching from one keyboard to another, or in converting from a Hindi font to Unicode for proper rendering on a webpage. If I have to type only in Hindi, I can type at a higher speed using MS Word and then convert it to Unicode using a free web-based tool. But if the text contains both Hindi and English, then I have to convert each chunk of Hindi separately.
• ·         What frequency of such mails / blog posts do you think would be appropriate?
• ·         What is your current level of familiarity with Sanskrit?
• ·         Any suggestions on how to make this initiative popular?
• ·         Would you be willing to take some responsibilities if we try to build a community of people interested in this experiment? Such as translating my lessons from Hindi to English or the other way round?
• ·         (To the three in this list who are masters of Sanskrit: any additional feedback from you? Would you / somebody else you know be willing to take up responsibility for at least some such lessons?)

After running the pilot with this small group for a few lessons, we may take this initiative public using an appropriate forum.

I look forward to hearing from you, even if to decline.

Thanks.

Pradyumn

PS: Just in case, you are cusious. The genesis of the idea came from a variety of sources. Oneof them was reading about some work done by FC Kohli, former Chairman of TCS, reproduced in his own words below (http://courses.wcupa.edu/rbove/eco343/040Compecon/S.%20Asia/India/040920tech.txt):

Q: Tell me about your computer-aided adult-literacy program. What made you       pursue it?

      A: [For years,] the Indian government has been spending a lot of money and

      resources on adult literacy. It has been using conventional methods. While

      there has been some progress, it's inadequate, considering that about 250

      million adults in India are still illiterate. There are constraints: You

      need 200 hours of instruction for full literacy, and you need trained

      teachers to teach. If I'm 25 and working in a field or as a housewife, how

      will I find those 200 hours? As for teachers, we need 500,000 trained

      teachers to come to 500,000 villages. Where will they come from?

      So I started thinking: How can we learn, recognize images, retain, recall.

      I found that we usually look at images and icons -- pictures, faces, and

      words are all icons -- and relate it to a sound pattern. Then it sticks.

      Maybe someone in the world has tried this out, but not in this manner. The

      key was, when done with the program, the person should be able to read a

      newspaper in their own language.

      It needed a vocabulary of 400-600 words. So, starting in early 2000, three

      or four of us -- three TCS engineers and a linguist -- prepared a

      vocabulary of 500 words. And we prepared the lessons in a month or so.

      Then we experimented, and the first lesson was in a village called Medak,

      outside Hyderabad. We upgraded the keyboard in Telegu [the local

      language]. And we got 20 volunteers for lessons, thrice a week for 1.5

      hours each. After 8-to-10 weeks, people started reading the newspaper. Our

      major experiment was in Guntur, again in the same state. We had the same

      results.

      We have experimented in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, and Bengali with the same

      results. Our experiment was complete. We've told the government to take

      over. We've shown what we can do with a sampling of 50,000 people in five

      languages.

      We have a social message: We want people to not just read the newspaper,

      but read their land records, the political manifestos -- not just hear

      speeches during election time. People are reading their children's books

      now.

Another inspiration was the site: www.mindurmarathi.com. And some other mailing lists and FB groups on somewhat similar lines.

Syed Abdul Rahman

Today is Teachers' Day and an apt occasion to remember some great teachers that I am privileged to have been tutored by. There are about a dozen teachers, from primary school to high school, college, IIMA, and even post-formal education, whom I consider as influencers on my life and whom I remember fondly, but Rahman Saheb (as we used to call him) tops my list.

He taught me mathematics in the last three years of school (St Paul's School, Ajmer). He was in his mid-thirties then. Undoubtedly, he was a master in his subject but that is true of many other teachers. What is more memorable and remarkable about him is his dedication to making us, the students, master the subject.

He never wasted a minute in the class. He would make us understand the concepts and not just memorise the formulae. He was always willing to help us after the school with additional guidance or clarifications. He was firm but fair in the class. He was (and still is) a simple man, humble, highly principled.

About a month before the board exams, we would have break from school for exam preparation. During that period also, he used to conduct free, optional, two-hour long coaching classes in the school premises, for revision and practice. Such was his sincerity and the benefit to us that almost everybody used to attend those classes.

He would, in fact, run two classes simultaneously in two adjoining classrooms, one for the tenth standard and one for the eleventh (we had eleven years of schooling in those days). He would, in one class, teach us something, give us some problems to solve, then dash to the other class, teach them something, give them some problems, and then come back to our class. That was truly amazing.

His hard work inevitably showed in the board exam results. We all would perform well in maths, even those who did poorly in other subjects.

It felt nice to speak to him early this morning on phone, greet him and receive his blessings. I pray for his health and peace.

Teaching of History

-- by Acharya Vinoba Bhave

Prejudices Due to False History

Though there are many flaws in the modern education, one big flaw is that in the name of history, many ideas are forced in the minds of the people. The biggest danger in education is created by this teaching of history. "Itihaas" means "iti ha aas", i.e., it happened this way. But these days, something that did not happen is also written as history. Even the imagined stories are not as false as history is, as the story-writer makes it explicit that all stories are imagined. At least this is the element of truth in them. But a historian claims, "I have written the complete truth, and others write falsehoods". Do you think that what is taught in the name of history is anything worthwhile? Two world wars have been fought, their history must have been written by the Germans in one way, and by the Russians and English in another. Who committed a crime, who did some injustice, what event happened and when, this is all falsely stated. Important documents are destroyed and fake documents are produced as evidence.

Read an interesting news in the papers recently that the Russian history will be corrected and rewritten. What do they mean by rewriting? Stalin has died, but will they write that he has not died? Stalin created a big name for himself in his lifetime. All that will be denied and rewritten. Mahatma Gandhi was against violence, this used to be written about him in history. Now it will be written that he was a saint. Thank God, they do not write that he never existed. They do not change the history so much, it is their kindness.

In short, history is written as per one's wishes. In order to influence people's minds in a particular manner, old events are doctored and presented to them. Such history will be taught to the children. Historians have died and the minds of the students are dying under the excruciating weight of their stories. What is the sense in memorising the names of kings? Which event happened when, there is no need to hear that. There have been countless kings. You see the leaves on these trees, there have been so many kings. What is to be gained by reading their history? In the name of history, people's minds are being moulded. As a result, the masses become prejudiced.

***

History highlights evolution. About two to two and a half thousand years ago, founders of religions were born. Buddha, Mahavira, Confucious, Lao-Tse, Zoroastra, and then Christ! All almost in the same era. Everywhere you find the ideas of founding religions. They did not even know of each other. Later, this feeling of founding religions abated, and saints emerged everywhere. There were saints in Maharashtra, and all over India. When I read the history of Europe, I found that similarly they also had saints like Francis. First there was the age of giving importance to religion, later bhakti (devotion) gained importance. Later there was a wave of nationalism. During the last one or two centuries, the feeling of independence for their countries is visible everywhere, and is still continuing. All over the world, you see a wave of independence.

What next after independence? What will be the next age? The next age will be a global age. For that, we will have to give up our narrow-mindedness. We shall have to give up the pride of Marathi, Gujarati, caste, religion, and even that of India. The new age requires "Jay Jagat". The universe as one country, India as its one state, Maharashtra its one district, this will have to be the new scale. Such broad-mindedness should come in the teaching of history.

***

In the teaching of history, we should discard the stories of battles between kings that were due to their jealousies, etc. It is a mistake to treat history as the chronology of the lives of the kings. Punjabis today do not know the kings who ruled Punjab, but everybody knows Guru Nanak. Nobody knows the Sen and Pal kings of Bengal, but everybody knows Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Who can ignore the names of Dnyanadeva and Tukaram in Maharashtra? Therefore, give importance to these great people in history, and make only cursory mention of the kings. But it does not happen this way.

Shivaji maharaj's father's name was Shahu. He was blessed by a fakir, and was subsequently called as "Shahji". That fakir was a sufi saint of those days. In those days, the sufi saints taught Islam to people. Kings only indulged in violence. They had nothing to do with religion. They destroyed the temple of Somnath and looted. Koran repeatedly states that religion cannot be spread with force. But nobody teaches this. Samarth Ramdas Swami saw that the sufi saints were reading out the "Karima" of Sheikh Sadi, and the people were getting attracted to that. Then he wrote his "Manache Shlok" on the same pattern. For example: "Mana Sajjana Bhaktipanthen Chi Javen". Now how many of us know that the "Manache Shlok" of Marathi is based on "Karima"? Therefore, I say that either history should be written in a new way, or we should just give up.

I got a specimen of the kind of history that is taught today. The education minister of Maharashtra came to me and asked what kind of changes should be made in the teaching of history. I said, "First let me see what is being taught currently, then only I can give my comments". He gave me the history textbook, which had 622 pages. In these 622 pages, initially there is a brief introduction to Buddhism. After that Sultan-shahi, Khilji dynasty, Lodi dynasty, the pillars of Muslim rule: Babar, Humayun, Jehangir, Shahjahan, Aurangzeb, and then Chatrapati Shivaji, Rajaram, Tarabai, then the Portugese and French, and then Hastings, Minto, Bantics, Dalhouji, Harding, Dafrin, Canning, Curzon, etc. It is like, "Keshaway namah, Narayanay namah", etc., namaskar to all 24 names.

Most surprisingly, in such a big book of 622 pages, the lives of Dnyanadev, Tukaram and Namdev have been covered in just seven lines. It says: "From Dnyanadev to Tukaram-Ramdas, the saints in Maharashtra created religious, social and political awareness. It strengthened the belief among the masses that there is something like "swadharma" (my religion) in the religious discourses of the saints and that they should follow it. It should be defended. Though the result of this increasing awareness was not immediately visible, when Shivaji took upon himself the task of establishing an independent state, and thereby protecting their religion, he immediately got the support of the masses". That is all there is about the saints of Maharashtra in those 622 pages. The Maharashtrian mindset has been greatly influenced by the great men like Dnyanadev, Eknath, Tukaram, Ramdas, Moropant, Mukteshwar, Shreedhar, Mahipat, etc. Even today, lakhs of people dance, chanting Dnyanadev-Tukaram, Dnyanoba-Tukaram. And still, only so much description about them!

This is followed by the chronology of which important event happened when. It does not state when Dnyanadev was born. When Dnyaneshwari was written, there is no mention of that. It accurately describes when Edinborough came, when he was born, when famines hit various states, when the meeting with Prince of Wales took place, etc. Such history is taught to the Marathi-speaking children. Indeed, it is a mentality of slavery. When will the teachers revolt against this?

(Translated by Pradyumn Sharma)

Neo4j: A NoSQL (Graph) Database

A graph database uses a significantly different model from relational databases ("graph", in this context, is NOT synonymous with "chart", it refers to "things that are interconnected"). As a simple example, consider a social networking site where you can record information like:

• Amar follows Akbar
• Akbar follows Anthony
• Anthony follows Akbar
• Akbar blocks Seeta
• Amar likes travelling

Using Neo4j (a graph database) traversing such relationships to query things like the following is a snap, both in terms of simplicity of the queries and their performance:

• Persons that Amar follows
• Followers of Akbar
• Followers of followers of Anthony
• Persons who have blocked Seeta
• Akbar's followers who like travelling

Use cases of Neo4j include:

• Social networking sites. For example, think of LinkedIn, and consider results like: "Sam is your third connection", "Ways in which you are connected to Sam".
• Recommendation engines. For example, "people who bought so-and-so book also bought …", "pages recommended for you…" (based on likes by some of your friends who share common interests with you, or those you have frequent conversations with).
• Fraud detection systems, based on connected intelligence, going beyond basic statistical analysis and pattern recognition, providing an enhanced degree of insight about sources and perpetrators of frauds.
• Network and data center management. Techniques for operating and analyzing electronic networks, including network failure and degradation analysis, quality of service mapping, network inventory mapping, network asset management, etc.
• Many more, such as biometrics, authorization and access control, content management, knowledge management, parcel routing, etc.

Industries using Neo4j include: telecommunications, finance, life sciences, media and publishing, education, gaming, and many more.

Prominent customers of Neo4j include: Adobe, Cisco, Deutsche Telekom, Glassdoor, HP, Huawei, IDMission, India Times, JustDial, Lockheed Martin, Telenor, ThoughtWorks, University of South Australia, and many more.

For more information:

NoSQL Databases (A Brief Introduction)

Coming up soon:

An Introduction to Apache Cassandra (coming up soon)

Architecture of Apache Cassandra: How It Delivers Blazing Performance

An Introduction to MongoDB (coming up soon)

An Introduction to Neo4j (more detailed than the one linked above)

An Introduction to Riak

About the Author

Pradyumn Sharma is the CEO of Pragati Software Pvt Ltd, a leading IT training company based in Mumbai, India. Pradyumn has 30 years of experience in the IT industry. He regularly conducts training programs on NoSQL, Agile Methodologies, Application Architecture, Solution Architecture, Enterprise Architecture.

NoSQL Databases: A Brief Introduction

NoSQL databases have emerged as a serious alternative to the traditional relational database management systems (RDBMSs). This article, the first in a series on NoSQL, provides you a high-level overview of NoSQL databases, and a comparison of some of the leading offerings under this umbrella term. Subsequent articles will explore specific NoSQL products and their use cases in more detail.

The Challenge of Data Volumes with Relational Databases

First, the "why" of NoSQL. Consider the huge volumes of data that need to be stored in today's internet era. As a few examples:

• Twitter reported, in March 2013, that they had about 200 million active users, and about 400 million tweets per day.
• Facebook reported, in August 2012, that they had about 100 PB (PB is petabytes; a petabyte is a million GB, or a thousand KB) of data, with daily addition of about 500 TB (or half a petabyte) of data. This was a long time ago, and surely their data would be growing at a much faster rate today. Even if we assume only a slight increase in their rate of data growth, it is a safe bet to say that they would be storing, at the very least, 400 PB of data.
• Walmart has about a million customer transactions per hour.
• And not to forget the grand-daddy of data volumes: Google.

Can you imagine storing such volumes of data in a relational database? Even with a storage area network (SAN), it is difficult to imagine a storage system so vast. And how will you get the processing power to respond to hundreds of thousands of online users at any point of time with Facebook and Twitter, with almost no down time ever. There is a limit to scaling up. NoSQL databases opt for scaling out. In simple terms, what this means is: rather than adding more power to a server, add more servers to a cluster.

Relational databases don't do a very good job of scaling out. They have not been designed for distributing data across servers. Well, to some extent, you can do so but that introduces a lot of additional complexity.

Performance Challenges

Relational databases emphasize data "normalization", that is, avoiding duplication of data. This results in an increase in the number of tables, which often need to be "join"ed in order to present a report that collates data from various tables. This makes data easier to maintain, but there is always a  performance cost attached to the joins. For most OLTP systems, joins between a few tables is a routine thing, but when you have to deal with gigantic data volumes as described above, and a very large number of simultaneous users, these joins can result in unacceptably poor performance of the respective websites.

NoSQL as an Alternative to RDBMSs

NoSQL is an umbrella term that refers to a whole bunch of relatively newer database platforms that either don't use the relational model at all, or use very little of it. Some of the characteristics that are common to most of the NoSQL products, and which differentiate them from the RDBMS platforms, are discussed below.

• Data distribution: NoSQL platforms are usually distributed systems; they run on clusters of commodity servers, which may consist of hundreds or thousands of machines. Data gets automatically distributed to various servers based on some hashing mechanism.
• Data replication: In a cluster of commodity servers, at any point of time, one or more servers may be down. Data replication (automatically copying the same data to multiple servers) provides protection against data loss due to server failures.
• Schema-less, or flexible schema: In most NoSQL databases (like MongoDB and Neo4j), you don't provide a "table structure" upfront. You just start adding data to a database without any pre-defined structure. In some NoSQL databases (like Cassandra), you do specify a table structure, but you can add or drop columns on the fly, or even change the datatype of columns, if required.
• No joins and transactions: NoSQL databases compromise on various features of RDBMSs, including joins and ACID transaction, in order to deliver significantly higher performance, scalability, availability and flexibility of database structures.
• Lower Cost of Ownership: Most of the NoSQL databases have community editions that are free and open source. Organizations would typically pay for support and services.

Categories of NoSQL

As indicated earlier, NoSQL is not the name of any specific product. It is a generic term for a number of database products sharing most of the common traits discussed above. There are four major categories of NoSQL databases, briefly described below with one prominent example from each of the categories as the basis:

Column Family Databases, such as Apache Cassandra. These databases are usually the closest to the relational database systems. Using Cassandra, for example, you issue commands that would be familiar to SQL buffs, such as create table, insert into, update, select … from … where …, etc.

Cassandra delivers extremely high write performance (not only compared to RDBMS products, but also compared to other NoSQL databases), and a very high read performance as well. You can store collections within a table. For example, you can store a set of email ids, an ordered list of favourite books, a list of dependent family members as key-value pairs of dependent name and the relation, all within a single record.

Document Databases, such as MongoDB, a prominent user of MongoDB in India being Aadhaar project of the UIDAI. MongoDB is a schema-less database, and it stores data in the form of JSON documents. (JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation, and is a lightweight alternative to XML). A document may be as complex as you need, with collections and sub-fields (called sub-documents).

For example, you may store a person's data consisting of fields like name (further broken into first name, last name), gender, date of birth, a list of qualifications (each qualification stating the name of the qualification, institute, years of study), an ordered list of languages known with proficiency levels in each of these languages. Somewhat like Apache Cassandra, but with a completely different syntax, and higher flexibility of database contents.

Graph Databases, such as Neo4j. Think of social or professional networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. There are persons (you, me and other), there are organizations where we work / have worked, there are institutes where we have studied. And there are connections or links between them: you like someone, you follow someone, you have worked in an organization / studied in an institute, you have interests and hobbies.

And now we want to traverse these links to meet a variety of needs such as:

• people you may know (perhaps because many of your friends know that person)
• products you may want to buy (because you clicked on ads for other, similar products)
• other people sharing common interests or hobbies with you

Graph databases are a good fit for things like: social networking sites, recommendation engines, fraud detection systems, network and data center management, etc.

Key-Value Databases, such as Riak. These are perhaps the simplest of all NoSQL databases. They essentially are just a key-value pair, where the "value" can be anything, such as an XML record, a JSON document, a picture, a movie, a text document, etc; the value being identified by a "key", which can also be pretty much anything.

For more information:

Neo4j: A NoSQL (Graph) Database - A One Page Introduction

Coming up soon:

An Introduction to Apache Cassandra (coming up soon)

Architecture of Apache Cassandra: How It Delivers Blazing Performance

An Introduction to MongoDB (coming up soon)

An Introduction to Neo4j (more detailed than the one linked above)

An Introduction to Riak

About the Author

Pradyumn Sharma is the CEO of Pragati Software Pvt Ltd, a leading IT training company based in Mumbai, India. Pradyumn has 30 years of experience in the IT industry. He regularly conducts training programs on NoSQL, Agile Methodologies, Application Architecture, Solution Architecture, Enterprise Architecture.