OutFocus April 2015

QUANTUM 10 | A P R I L 2015 WWW.ISSUU.COM/THEFEATHERS

THE SECRETS OF

MELUHA 10

RELIVING HISTORY | PAGE

PHOTO: AARTHI GANESH | VISUALLY SNU

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COVER STORY SECRETS OF MELUHA EP. 1 TV SUPERHEROES SPORTACUS CRIME OF PASSION EP. 4 VISUALLY SNU THE ART CALLED WRITING

is ornamentation a crime?

Modern architecture was against all ornamentation. If an element doesn’t help in the functioning of the building, then it doesn’t need to be there at all. Postmodernism is against this theory. They preach that a building should be entitled to its historical context and should be a product of collective evolution, not a single person’s work. And contemporary architecture is half this and half that. Personally I am a modernist.

I believe a building should serve its purpose and ornamentation is a waste of time. But is ornamentation a crime? Is it justified? If so how?

Why waste so much time, money and everything on something that is not going to do anything for you? What do you think? Mail us at ContactFeathers@yahoo.com and let us know what you think.

ENTS

EDITOR IN CHIEF ASSOCIATE EDITOR COVER PHOTO WRITERS

AR MUTHU KUMAR SGA THOMAS AARTHI GANESH

SOMA SUNDARAM, SARU MATHI

EDITORIAL 03

Welcome to OutFocus.

We made it so far, and we’re not stopping here. OutFocus Magazine has been released as an app for iOS, so that Apple users can enjoy OutFocus right from their iPhones or iPads.

New apps will be developed for Android and possibly Windows phones soon, so stay tuned :) #TenthEveryMonth

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PHOTO: RADHIKA RAGHU | VISUALLY SNU

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VISHYANAND

a minor planet named after Vishwanathan Anand COVER STORY | SGA THOMAS

When chess grandmaster Viswanathan Anand first started getting congratulatory messages on April 1 about a minor planet being named after him, he was sure that someone was pulling an April Fool prank on him. But when he opened the NASA website to check for himself, it looked fairly real.

Indian chess Grandmaster Viswanathan ‘Vishy’ Anand has added yet another feather in his cap.

A minor planet discovered in 1988 has been officially named ‘(4538) Vishyanand’.

The planet between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter was discovered on October 10, 1988 by Kenzo Suzuki in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, but had remained unnamed till recently. The discoverer retains the privilege of suggesting a name for 10 years and a committee chosen from the working group of the International Astronomical Union has the final authority to finally assign a name to a numbered minor planet.

Michael Rudenko, committee member of the Minor Planet Center and a major Chess buff, who was invited to do the honors, decided to name it after the former world chess champion, Chess News reported on April 1.

“The idea of naming a minor planet for Anand was entirely my own. After careful consideration,

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I selected him because in addition to being a great chess player he is also a gentleman and an astronomy enthusiast,” Rudenko reportedly told the New Indian Express.

Very happy to be planet 4538.thanks for all tbe wishes. Would like to thank Rudenko for taking the trouble to name me !!

-Viswanathan Anand @vishy64theking “Aruna, my wife, jokes sometimes that I seem to be from some other planet,” he told Mint. “And now it turns out to be actually true,” he laughed.

Rudenko proposed the name ‘Vishyanand’, following the rules that require names to be 16 characters or fewer, and preferably without spaces, along with a brief citation explaining the reason for the name. And to his joy, the committee gave its nod and the name has been formally accepted.

So How are astronomical bodies named?

The official names of planets and their moons are governed by an organization called the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The IAU was established in 1919. Its mission is “to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation”. Its individual members are professional astronomers from all over the World. The IAU is the internationally recognized authority for assigning

names to celestial bodies and any surface features on them.

The IAU recognizes that astronomy is an old science and many of its names come from longstanding traditions and/or are founded in history.

For many of the names of the objects in the solar system, this is especially so. Most of the objects in our solar system received names long ago based on Greek or Roman mythology. The IAU has therefore adopted this tradition in its rules for naming certain types of objects in the solar system.

Approval Procedure: When images are first obtained of the surface of a planet or satellite, a theme for naming features is chosen and a few important features are named, usually by members of the appropriate IAU task group (a commonly accepted planet-naming group). Later, as higher resolution images and maps become available, additional features are named at the request of investigators mapping or describing specific surfaces, features, or geologic formations. Anyone may suggest that a specific name be considered by a task group. If the members of the task group agree that the name is appropriate, it can be retained for use when there is a request from a member of the scientific community that a specific feature be named.

Names successfully reviewed by a task group are submitted to the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN). Upon successful review by the members of the WGPSN, names are considered provisionally approved and can be used on maps and in publications as long as the provisional status is clearly stated. Provisional names are then presented for adoption to the IAU’s General Assembly, which met triennially in

the past, and which now adopts nomenclature for planetary surface features as required. A name is not considered to be official — that is, “adopted” — until the General Assembly has given its approval.

Names adopted by the IAU must follow various rules and conventions established and amended through the years by the Union. These include: • Nomenclature is a tool and the first consideration should be to make it simple, clear, and unambiguous.

• Features whose longest dimension is less than 100 meters are not assigned official names unless they have an exceptional scientific interest.

• The number of names chosen for each body should be kept to a minimum, and their placement governed by the requirements of the scientific community.

• Duplication of the same name on two or more bodies is to be avoided.

• Individual names chosen for each body should be expressed in the language of origin.

Transliteration for various alphabets should be given, but there will be no translation from one language to another.

• Where possible, the themes established in early solar system nomenclature should be used and expanded on.

• Solar system nomenclature should be international in its choice of names.

Recommendations submitted to the IAU national committees will be considered, but final selection of the names is the responsibility of the International Astronomical Union. The WGPSN strongly supports equitable selection of names from ethnic groups/countries on each map; however, a higher percentage of names from the

COVERSTORY 07

country planning a landing is allowed on landing site maps.

• No names having political, military or (modern) religious significance may be used, except for the names of political figures prior to the 19th century.

• Commemoration of persons on planetary bodies should not be a goal in itself, but should be reserved for persons of high and enduring international standing. Persons being so honored must have been deceased for at least three years.

• When more than one spelling of a name is extant, the spelling preferred by the person, or used in an authoritative reference, should be used. Diacritical marks are a necessary part of a name and will be used.

• Ring and ring-gap nomenclature and names for newly discovered satellites are developed in joint deliberation between WGPSN and IAU Commission 20. Names will not be assigned to satellites until their orbital elements are reasonably well known or definite features have been identified on them.

In addition to these general rules, each task group develops additional conventions as it formulates an interesting and meaningful nomenclature for individual planetary bodies.

Naming Natural Satellites For those moons have been known for a long time (such as the Galilean moons of Jupiter), the names were assigned from mythological characters. For example, the moons of Jupiter were named for characters who had roles in the life of Zeus (the Greek mythology counterpart of the Roman God Jupiter).

For recently discovered natural satellites of the planets, they are first given a “provisional” or temporary name while additional observations are made to confirm their existence. This temporary name (usually consisting of the year of discovery and some number indicating the order of discovery in that year) is assigned by an organization called the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT). For example, when Voyager 2 found a bunch of new moons in its 1989 Neptune encounter, they were named S/1989 N 1, S/1989 N 2, etc. When the existence of the object is confirmed (and its orbit determined), it is given a final name. The name is suggested by the discoverer(s), but following tradition is strongly encouraged.

Note that the moons of Uranus are a special case in our solar system. They are named after literary characters (from works by William Shakespeare

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and Alexander Pope) rather then characters from mythology.

Naming Surface Features Landscape features on planets and natural satellites follow a set of complicated conventions set by the IAU Nomenclature Committee. The rules set restrictions on allowable names such as: a planetary feature may not bear the name of a living person or of a political or religious figure from the last 200 years.

Interesting Exceptions: When Mike Brown (the astronomer famous for killing Pluto), and his colleague Chad Trujillo discovered an object in the Kiuper belt that was half the size of what was once our solar system’s ninth planet, they named it “Quaoar,” after an important figure in the creation myth of California’s Tongva tribe, which still exists today. In instances like this, astronomers should feel compelled to ask permission to use the name.

Plenty of cosmic objects and features go by the unofficial names before they’re officially recognized. Eris — the dwarf planet, also discovered by Mike Brown, that helped shove Pluto off the precipice of planethood — went by “Xena” (after the TV’s warrior princess) before it went by its official designation.

Likewise, the IAU states that “features whose longest dimension is less than 100 meters are not assigned official names unless they have an exceptional scientific interest.” The result is a long list of small planetary features with unofficial nicknames chosen by members of the teams responsible for finding them. Highlights include “Space Ghost,” “Zorak,” “Marvin the Martian,” “Darth Vader” ‘Indiana Jones” and “Cookies N Cream.”

Martian craters measuring less than 60 km in diameter must be named after villages of the world with a population smaller than 100,000 people.

This is the rule that gives us such excellent names as the adorable-sounding and strangely fitting “Tooting crater,” named after the eponymous London suburb.

Venusian valleys more than 400 km long are simply called “Venus,” but in a different language.

This is where we get awesome sounding feature names like Apisuahts Vallis (Apisuahts being the Blackfoot/Algonquin name for planet Venus); Citlalpul Vallis (Aztec for planet Venus); and Kallistos Vallis (Ancient Greek name for planet Venus). Smaller ones, in contrast, are named after river goddesses.

COVERSTORY 09

THE SECRETS OF

MELUHA

This series is a brief look back at history – the way we are shown and the way it should’ve been. Don’t get intimidated already, this article is meant to be interesting. I should warn though, that I am no proper historian, and the following is not based on a very in-depth study of history, but a questioning of the superficial level of history presented in wide scale through contemporary Indian education. Some of my statements might counter-act my previous statements, but this was intentional – to provide a wider theory and not to restrict ourselves as the Europeans did.

History is a very ambiguous word. “HISSTORY”? Who’s story? Well, mostly it’s a European’s version of the events that have happened decades, centuries and millennia back in our mother Earth. And by “version”, I mean that facts have been altered to present the Europeans

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EPISODE 1

AR MUTHU KUMAR

as a dominant and superior race above all the others – Asians, Africans, (native) Americans and (native) Australians.

The Indus Valley civilization, or the supposedly so, was not based on the valley of the river Indus as was initially believed.

It was based on the river Saraswathi – and so better called the Saraswathi Valley civilization. But for ease of reading, we will stick to calling it the Indus Valley and the “Indus Valley civilization”.

According to history, the Indus Valley Civilization existed between 3000 BC and 1500 BC – a bronze age civilization like the others – Mesopotamian and Egyptian. The Indus Valley Civilization, which I will refer to from now as the Meluhha (adopted from the Sumerian word depicting the so-called “Indus Valley Civilization”), gradually develops into settlements from 4000 BC and starts becoming cities in a

millennium. They understand nature and start developing agriculture. But that’s not all they developed; the Meluhhans developed complicated systems of writing, economy, architecture and society. They developed a system of uniformity – they used standardised weights, sizes, etc.

of Shiva – that of the lord of the beasts – Pasupathi. This should by itself establish that the basis for a religion called Hinduism existed before the supposed Aryan invasion. The theory that Aryans bought religion with them is again proof that European historians wanted to depict the most advanced civilization in the world as a barbaric tribe. Meluhha had a After their existence of over a thousand properly standardized way of life and they and five hundred years, the Aryans did not have any beliefs? Even a child could invade India, and the civilization comes question that. to an end – or develops further into more complicated cultural systems, depending And as for the invasion itself, I do not believe on the kind of theory you have been that a tribe travelled all the way from the midreading. Who are these Aryans? The east, past the great plains between the Tigris Aryans are supposedly an Indo-European and Euphrates and past the giant Himalayas tribe from Eastern Europe (near Iran, to be in freezing temperatures and ended up only specific) who either invaded or migrated into in India. Nowhere else. Not in Europe, not in the Indus Valley coinciding with the decline of Mesopotamia, not in China, not in Egypt. Nope. the latter.

Only in India.

The real end of the Meluhha was possibly There is only one nagging question I have. If in due to the drying up of the Saraswathi either fact an Indo-European invasion did happen in by the shift of the river bed or by gradual India, there should be archaeological evidence decline. There is again no geographic evidence of a homeland for that tribe. There is no supporting the claim of shift in tectonic plates claim that there was a Mesopotamian or later around the period – we will get back to how the Sumerian invasion into India, just an Aryan river might have dried up in another episode one. There is no background for this Mr. Aryan though. For now, it is ‘out of syllabus’. who suddenly appears out of a corner of a page when you flip the pages of history. He has no For now, we have broadly questioned several past, only a future; nowhere to go, except India aspects of the theories we have learnt in school (all later barbarian invasions are wide-spread. – the standardised, packaged and labelled Not focused on a specific area. The Huns, for European theories. Modern historians have example invaded all the way from Punjab to already questioned and rejected some of these the then western Roman Empire). foul theories about Aryans, but mainstream education still preaches that the Indian Several historians believe that the religion subcontinent owes all its culture to an Euripean now called Hinduism emerged after the Aryan invasion, which leads to why this article in the invasion of Meluhha. They believe that the first place. In the next episode we will see caste system was created by the fairer Aryans something else before we head back to this to distinguish themselves from the darker line of questioning. And please don’t stop Meluhhans – the Brahmins and the other reading here, OutFocus will be published castes. This is strongly baseless because there every 10th so head back here next month is evidence of religion in the Indus Valley and we shall see more. Adieu. itself – possibly an earlier version of the Vedic religion – that evolved into modern Hinduism.

Ar Muthu Kumar | muthuvarma@yahoo.com Indus Valley seals show a possibly older version

MELUHHA 11

LEONARD NIMOY SGA THOMAS

Leonard Simon Nimoy was born on March 26, 1931, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Nimoy was the youngest child of Max and Dora, Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants who had escaped from Stalinist Russia. The family settled in the West End of Boston, where Max was a popular local figure and enjoyed his life as a barber. The young Nimoy brothers—Leonard and older brother, Melvin— were neighborhood fixtures and sold newspapers in Boston Common. Raised in a tenement and acting in community theaters since age eight, Nimoy did not make his Hollywood debut until he was 20, with a bit part in Queen for a Day (1951) and another as a ballplayer in the perennial Rhubarb (1951). After two years in the United States Army, he was still getting small, often uncredited parts, like an Army telex operator in Them! (1954).

He worked his way up from small roles in the likes of Queen for a Day, Zombies of the Stratosphere and Them! to major guest star turns in such shows as Broken Arrow, Dragnet, Sea Hunt, Twilight Zone, Wagon Train and The Outer Limits. At one point, he

acted in an episode of The Lieutenant, a show written and created by a rising behind-the-scenes talent named Gene Roddenberry, and he acted in an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. with a young Canadian by the name of William Shatner.

It wouldn’t be long before their lives intersected again. After roles on Dragnet and The Twilight Zone, Leonard Nimoy earned the attention of producer and writer Gene Roddenberry and was cast on Star Trek as Mr. Spock.

Star Trek premiered in 1966 and turned Nimoy into a legitimate star. Nimoy always stayed active as an actor with other projects, working as a photographer and director as well, while his role as Spock on the television show and Star Trek movies over the years dominated his reputation.

Beyond Star Trek, Nimoy’s many film, TV and stage credits included Mission: Impossible, A Woman Called Golda, In Search Of..., Equus, Never Forget, Vincent, Standby: Lights!

Camera!

Action!, The Simpsons, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Fringe. With his friend and

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TNG’s Q, John de Lancie, he created Alien Voices, which staged and recorded radio play-style productions of classic and original sci-fi/ fantasy stories.

Nimoy passed away on Friday, February 27, 2015 succumbing to the end stages of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), an illness that resulted from years of smoking and which afflicted him despite having quit smoking three decades earlier.

“I quit smoking 30 years ago. Not soon enough.

I have COPD. Grandpa says, quit now!! LLAP,” Nimoy tweeted, using the abbreviation LLAP for Spock’s famous line “Live long and prosper.”

“A life is like a garden.

Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP.” – Nimoy’s Last Tweet.

Editor’s note: Leonard’s short recurring role in the science fiction TV series “FRINGE” created a good impact on me. If not one of the main characters, Dr. William Bell was probably the most mysterious one.

SUPERHEROES

CRICKONOMICS SOMASUNDARAM

In my child days whenever I hear the word ‘Cricket’, with all my knowledge’s effort, I end up with picturing the image of Sachin Tendulkar.

For me by then, Cricket was a synonym to Sachin.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a pause button to give a break for my world knowledge’s growth. The result is, now it has grown up to ‘Mauka Mauka’. Of those stuffs, the thing that most fascinate me is CRICKONOMICS. He is the guy Kerrey Packer, when I saw the precise shots of Sachin, who saw the market and money making potential of the Game as a televise sport. Post Packer era had got a considerable changes in the cricket game with colored dress, protective helmets, field restrictions, cricket under lights. Of them the main thing is that he gathered a very huge audience for the game. In economical term, ‘The Market’ of game was extended to a vast extent.

In simple words, if you hear or see the word ‘Aahaan’ for seven times, the statistics says that you will not only start using the word but also become one seventh influential factor for a new user.

Therefore for a new product, it should find at least seven ways to reach its consumer.

Even a novice manufacturer, if he is smart enough, will pick up ‘Cricket’ as one of his choice.

Honda – A Japanese multinational company, when started a joint venture with Hero, they selected Cricket (Cricket is a colonial game, hence Japanese don’t prefer it) as their medium for marketing in India. ‘Dhak Dhak!!!’. I remember my First Cricket Bat. Poor soul, I was, thought Hero Honda to be a Cricket Bat manufacturer. To its peak was the fight with my friend - Hero Honda bat could hit many sixes than what MRF Have you ever heard could do.

‘The Rule of Seven’? It is Pepsi – I never ever liked a marketing rule and it its taste. But, Cricket has says that a buyer or user made me drink it many a consumes a product, if he time. Pushing the products hears or see the marketing towards the consumers message for at least seven rather than the consumer’s times before. drag is really a smart

job, isn’t it?

Whenever I see some cricketers for its advertisement, unresistingly my ‘papez’ ride me to 23rd Puli Kaesi ‘Kapsi’ advertisements.

We know that Virat Kholi is always dandruff free.

We know that Virat Kholi likes Boost Chocolate flavor. But do we know that Virat fronted the election commission campaign in Delhi urging youngsters to Vote? Do we know that Sachin Tendulkar gave a part of the fund from his autobiography for the alleviation of malnutrition in children and for providing clean water to under privileged?

Therefore Cricket’s Market never ends with commercials.

Cricket icons are also used to deliver important public messages.

Concluding, one can never define Cricket as ‘just a sport’, for it is ‘Adukum maela…’.It is a religion.

The happiness, when the umpire awards a ‘free hit’ for your home team is incomparable. Cricket is always awesome! (Task for you: Chant the last three lines to your Japanese friend, if you have one, and try a verification over the rule seven)

SPORTACUS 13

episode 04

L

uckily the dinner went peacefully if not as romantically as Sheela wanted. There was remnant anger, but they came around to enjoy whatever was left of the evening.

And for the next few days Siva carefully avoided references about Ram and also successfully evaded him. He was worried that Ram might drop in unannounced, but it was not to be so. It appeared that Ram picked up the cue uncannily and though it avoided the unpleasantness in general, it was also troubling Siva that Ram would be very upset about the developments.

Sheela had this power to attract men, not in a sensual way in a more aspiring way that as if the interactions with her would elevate them. There was some magnetism which drew men to her, but her

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poise and her careful & orchestrated demeanor sent a message straight across to all. Don’t mess with me, just because I am willing to have meaningful interactions with you, it doesn’t mean that we have those dialogues in my bed, was the message subtly delivered to every guy who tried to cross the line. And between them the marriage was good in all senses. Even after 7 years the magic remained and sex wasn’t bad either.

Obviously, like any other continued partnership, priorities had changed and the space was demanded on either side.

But both of them managed it without causing hurt to each other and the lack of breath under each other’s neck constantly, made it so exciting when it happened in bed once in a while. But, Siva was very confident that Sheela was finding her life as exciting as he was despite the fact that the time they spent together was getting lesser and lesser.

But maybe that’s the reason she is finding even Ram as an unwanted intrusion. Or was it that she was afraid she may succumb to the advances of men and with Ram being the closest; does he present a clear and imminent danger? Is Sheela giving signals that something is cracking and she doesn’t want that to lead any one of them the wrong path? Whichever way it is Siva decided that he should reorganize his priorities and make some essential changes in their lives. This creative bug takes all the free time he had apart from his day job and that should be channelized properly if things should not go out of hand.

He decided a trip away would help him in many ways. He can focus on the task in hand in terms of completing the story; spend time thinking about whether unwittingly he was drifting from Sheela by being unmindful of her challenges in not rocking

A GRIPPING SERIES FROM THE PRO

CRIME OF PASSION

-SHRIKANTH VEERAVALLI

STORYSERIES 15

the boat? Is he bored with her? He will soon find out. Even today after 7 years & even after a short one night trip he longed to come back home. The question was what he longed for? His home or is it Sheela?

Does Sheela make it a home or is it the comforting familiarity of the territory that comes as a primal instinct for all living things? He decided to check that out. He decided to take a week’s break and come back as an enlightened man.

happen.

Sheela appeared not too happy about his plan. She felt that she should accompany him on the trip. After all, they haven’t been away for a long time. And Siva can still find time for both her and his story. The time which was now spent on his work can be the one she takes in the holiday and he can go back to his writing table in the rest of the time. But she wasn’t aware of the inner trip that Siva planned to take and Sheila’s presence would not allow that to

And when he really left home in a couple of days, he was feeling heavy and guilty to go like that. Siva was feeling that he already knew the answer. He missed Sheela already and he may even cut short the trip and surprise her. The task is to get the story right. Get it right in both the capacities he was holding, as a husband and a writer.

Sheela obviously sulked and she acted like a discarded kitten. Her natural instincts to make this happen are making her cozy up with Siva and it was obviously checking his resolve. After all it is not easy to say no to Sheela and surely not when she is at her seductive best. The outcome was a win-win for Siva. A very erotic night after a long time and still holding on to his plan!

(to be continued)

“The task is to get the story right. Get it right in both the capacities he was holding, as a husband and a writer.”

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SHANMU UNCLE 2

MARXISM

SGA THOMAS AND AR MUTHU KUMAR

Shanmugam uncle was a very active communist in his teens. Now that he’s old enough not for his energy to wear off, he is less interested in revolution and more interested in teaching. “Those who can, do it. Those who can’t, preach it” he says often. One day we got him going on about economy theories and there he went. Marxism.

“Most people agree that we need to improve our economic system somehow.

Yet we’re also often keen to dismiss the ideas of capitalism’s most famous and ambitious critic, Karl Marx. That’s where the real problem is.

“This isn’t very surprising. In practice, his political and economic ideas have been used to design disastrously planned economies and nasty dictatorships.

Nevertheless, we shouldn’t reject Marx too quickly.

“An important aspect of Marx’s work is that he proposes that there is an insidious, subtle way in which the economic system

colours the sort of ideas that we ending up having. Mostly, Marx wrote about Capitalism, the type of economy that dominates the western world.

“A capitalist society is one where most people, rich and poor, believe all sorts of things that are really just value judgements that relate back to the economic system: that a person who doesn’t work is worthless, that leisure (beyond a few weeks a year) is sinful, that more belongings will make us happier and that worthwhile things (and people) will invariably make money.

“But in that case, we should - thought Marx - make leisure admirable. We should redistribute the wealth of the massive corporations that make so much surplus money and give it to everyone.

“This is, in its own way, as beautiful a dream as Jesus’s promise of heaven; but a good deal more realistic sounding.

“The supposedly “natural” political evolution involved (and would in the future involve) “feudalism” leading

SHANMU UNCLE 17

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to “bourgeois capitalism” leading to “socialism” and finally to “utopian communism.” In bourgeois capitalism, the privileged bourgeoisie(rich) rely on the proletariat--the labor force responsible for survival. Marx theorized that when profits are not reinvested in the workers, but in creating more factories, the workers will grow poorer and poorer until no shortterm patching is possible or successful.

At a crisis point, revolt will lead to a restructuring of the system.

Part of the problem is that modern work is incredibly specialised. Specialised jobs make the modern economy highly efficient, but they also mean that it is seldom possible for any one worker to derive a sense of the genuine contribution they might be making to the real needs of humanity.

Marx argued that modern work leads to alienation (Entfremdung). In other words, a feeling of disconnection between what you do all day and who you feel you really are and would ideally be able to contribute to existence.

Marx insists that at its crudest, capitalism means paying a worker one price for doing something that can be sold for another, much higher one. Profit is a fancy term for exploitation. Profit is simply theft, and what you are stealing is the talent and hard work of your work force.

Marx believed that the capitalist system forces everyone to put economic interests

at the heart of their lives, so that they can no longer know deep, honest relationships.

He called this psychological tendency commodity fetishism (Warenfetischismus) because it makes us value things that have no objective value.

Marx did not think capitalists were evil.

Capitalism is bad for capitalists. In short, one of the biggest evils of Capitalism is not that there are corrupt people at thetop— this is true in any human hierarchy—but that capitalist ideas, teach all of us to be anxious, competitive, conformist, and politically complacent.

Marx argued that marriage was actually an extension of business, and that the bourgeois (rich) family was fraught with tension, oppression, and resentment, with people staying together not for love but for financial reasons. He wanted people to be freed from financial constraint so that they could - at last – start to make sensible, healthy choices in their relationships.

Marx didn’t only outline what was wrong capitalism: we also get glimpses of what Marx wanted the ideal utopian future to be like.

In his Communist Manifesto he describes a world without private property or inherited wealth, with a steeply graduated income tax, centralized control of the banking, communication, and transport industries, and free public education.

Marx also expected that communist society would allow people to develop

lots of different sides of their natures: “in communist society…it is possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”

Communism isn’t just an economic theory.

Understood emotionally, it expresses a deep-seated longing that we always have a place in the world’s heart, that we will not be cast out.

After Marx moved to London, he was supported by his friend and intellectual partner Friedrich Engels, a wealthy man whose father owned a cotton plant in Manchester. Engels covered Marx’s debts and made sure his works were published.

Capitalism paid for Communism.

But Marx was like a brilliant doctor in the early days of medicine. He could recognize the nature of the disease,

although he had no idea how to go about curing it. We ought to see him as a guide whose diagnosis of Capitalism’s ills helps us navigate towards a more promising future.

At this point in history, we should all be Marxists in the sense of agreeing with his diagnosis of our troubles. But we need to go out and find the cures that will really work. As Marx himself declared, and we deeply agree: “Philosophers until now have only interpreted the world in various ways.

The point, however, is to change it.”

Capitalism is going to have be reformed – and Marx’s analyse are going to be part of any answer.

Why don’t we all think a bit more like marx?

We were too engrossed in thoughts to answer that.

“Capitalism is going to have be reformed – and Marx’s analyse are going to be part of any answer”

SHANMU UNCLE 19

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THE KILLER INSTINCT

SHORT STORY BY NIRMAL HENRY

“Who is your favourite psychopath?”

A terrifying conversation started indeed.

It rattled my train of thought. I looked at him with mild anxiety. He was a man in his twenties. He looked at me expectantly for an answer. I was looking everywhere but at him. My mind was formulating to say “I beg your pardon” when our eyes suddenly met and my mouth blurted out “The Zodiac”.

A moment of silence followed. There was no reaction on his face. Then he said, “Well, that’s interesting. He is my favourite too.”

I smiled weakly at him and turned away half hoping the conversation is over. The train was hurtling at a great speed with the countryside rushing past without demanding a moment of appreciation. The compartment was nearly empty except for a family down the aisle. I see an occasional passenger or vendor walk past our cabin. It was eerily quiet for most of the time save for the chugging sound of…

“Why? That same voice that disrupted my train of thought earlier emanated from the opposite side of the cabin once again. Much time passed by since the last exchange that I was beginning to forget that he ever spoke to me. I thought for a moment and decided to play along. It‘s going to be an uneventful journey otherwise.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why do you like ‘The Zodiac’?”

“I just do. Why do you?”

With a cynical smile he said, “He inspires me” I was shocked at his reply. I was left speechless. Then a random terrifying

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thought struck my mind, “What if the guy sitting across me is a serial killer?”

“I’ve always fantasized to be a serial killer.

How it would feel to possess the power to kill, to be able to unleash a silent reign of terror….to play God?” He closed his eyes as if he was enjoying what he was saying immensely. I felt terrified to the core of my heart. I looked at the half open cabin door and contemplated the thought of making a run for it. I could feel his eyes all over me. I felt as if he could sense my fear.

“Well don’t fret. I don’t intend to turn my fantasy into reality”. I smiled awkwardly at him hoping to disguise my tension.

“At least not yet” I could feel the fear returning to me, the surrounding sounds drowning out and my heartbeat pounding. I reached for the bottle of water in my bag and took a sip. The cool rush of the wind brushed against my face and I wiped the sweat off my forehead with my handkerchief. I could yet again feel his eyes on me.

“I see that your handkerchief bears the initials of A.D. Well that’s one hell of a coincidence.”

I looked at him wondering if he got the same name or initials as mine.

“Those are the initials of the nickname I chose for my serial killer avatar” Curiosity got the better of me and I asked, “And what is that?”

He flashed me that wicked little smile again and coldly weighing each word he said, “Angel of Death”.

His demeanour sent chills down my spine

and my suspicions of him being a coldblooded ruthless serial killer became stronger by the minute.

“You seem intrigued. Let me tell you what my modus operandi would be” Intrigued? I was petrified. Before I could say no to the question that wasn’t asked, he went on to explain me what his method of operation would be. I couldn’t possibly hear what he was saying. My fear overwhelmed my other senses. I sat there frozen in rapt inattention, my stomach churning, my mind disoriented and my body shaking. With a depraved fervour he talked, his hands enacting his thoughts in the air and his eyes intent on mine. It was sadistically hypnotic.

In what seemed like an endless soliloquy, his lips suddenly stopped moving and his hands petite like mine slowly reached into his pocket. My whole world seemed to lapse into ultra slow-motion as his hands brought out a pocket knife with a blood red handle.

In that singular moment, my numbed world came to a catastrophic crash and the sounds of the real world engulfed me all in a rush.

It was asphyxiating for my mind to take in a storm of things that suddenly plunged into my reality. “. . . gifted by my grandfather who was a war veteran. Look here” With his eyes glittering with a decadent pride, he brought up the knife to my eye level running his index finger across the edge of the blood red handle revealing the engraved words ‘Angel of Death’ to me. He took it back to himself but did not place it into that pocket again. Whistling the ‘Murder by numbers’ song, he now ran his finger across the blade testing its sharpness.

It was a bloodcurdling moment. Abruptly he looked up and caught me staring at his knife. I tried to act casually by looking out the window.

“Do you know what the most defining moment of a serial killer is?”

My blood froze as I slowly turned. His eyes locked into mine. We kept up the gaze unperturbed inhibiting our emotions to reflect on our faces. The silence was surreal.

“That one final moment when he looks into

his victim’s eyes before the act of killing” He broke the gaze and went about dealing with the knife again. Strangely my mind let go of the fear it held just as an eerie calm settled over the cabin. It was like we never spoke a word to each other in the entirety of this journey.

Like the world returned to the point before when he asked me that weird question.

Half expecting a word from his mouth or a look from his eyes, I turned away to the window and watched the rapidly rushing countryside impassively.

In all this chaos my mind was put through, I couldn’t deny feeling for the man’s unfulfilled passion. How some of his thoughts resonated with mine disturbed me more. Am I like him too? Am I just obscuring or failing to acknowledge my feelings while he has openly talked about them? I felt that all our lives if broken down to the fundamental level are essentially the same.

The train began to slow down hooting its whistle now more often than ever. I craned my neck against the window to see my station approaching in the distance. I began to retrieve my luggage from under the seat just as the train started to enter the station. My eyes darted over to the person waving his hands frantically trying to grab my attention and recognized him as the one who had come to receive me. I got up and moved towards the compartment exit.

After the train came to a complete halt, I stepped onto the platform just as he caught up with me. We exchanged the pleasantries and started walking. Just as we passed the now empty cabin that I travelled in, he asked me, “Did you have this entire cabin all to yourself?”

“Yes. I reserved it all to myself” I paused for a moment and continued, “. . . but it wasn’t as lonely as you’d think”.

I felt my pocket for my engraved pocket knife. Reassured by the knife’s presence, I looked at him, flashed him my wicked little smile and asked, “Who is your favourite psychopath?”

SHORTSTORY 23

Visually SNU is the photography and film society of Shiv Nadar University, Noida, UP. OutFocus has collaborated with Visually SNU to provide quality photographs every month on this special section dedicated to Visually SNU. Here are some of the amazing photographs for this issue of OutFocus!

WEATHERMAN SAYS CLOUDY SKIES | AKHASH VARUN

RAM ROHIT | THE SILHOUTTE OF A NATION

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HIMALAYAN BLUES, ANYONE? AGASTHYA GANNU

VISUALLY SNU : FOTOGRAPHY 25

GRAPHICTALK SPOTLIGHT Christopher Richard has product visualization as his favourite hobby and hence he has made a variety of astounding renders. We thought it would be nice to bring this to publication so here we are.

Model: Solidworks and 3ds Max Rendered in Keyshot Christopher | chrisnu14@gmail.com

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The above renders are for product visualization demonstration purposes only. Any proprietory designs of Audi and or any third party are wholly their own property.

GRAPHICTALK 27

THOUGHT BUBBLE:

the art called WRITING

A number of people have asked me - how to write a story. Well if not in depth, in this article I’d like to share my philosophy of writing.

I started writing poetry when I was 11 and kept at it for a long time. A lot of people would like to tell you that you need to read a lot to be a good writer.

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MUTHU KUMAR

AR

Someone once told me that for every thousand words you read, you can write five. I do not believe in this. While reading a lot gives you a lot of insight into the language and understanding of people, it also gives you a lot of ideas to appropriate. And in any case, does anyone tell an artist that for every thousand painting he sees he can paint five?

I believe that for every word you write, you can write one more.

Everything is achieved through practice and patience. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

That said, for any kind of writing, in my opinion, there are only three parts - the stage, a problem and a solution.

Firstly you set a stage - you let your audience understand what you are speaking about. It’s the description of a character in your play, the time period in which your story happens, definition of the words you are going to deal with in a contract or anything in that context.

win the war? Or how limited is the contract. Keep in mind however, That the solution need not be positive. The character could end in prison or the country could lose the war. The solution, although a major part in classics, is omitted in some contemporary styles of literature - short stories for example. Some movie directors now like to let the audience decide what the solution should be.

While traditionally all three of these should be part of a writing - a play, a story, an essay, a poem, a research paper - contemporary writing allow for more freedom, essentially skipping one of the three parts. While the absence of stage or of solution (but not of both) might still make sense, and allow for a more interactive audience, it gives ambiguity to the writing, which in some instances is good, and in some instances is harmful. One must know exactly the line which to cross or not to.

Next you bring the audience to the problem - whether the character owes money to a money lender, the country is at war, the terms of the contract and likewise. This part is the most important of the three and cannot be ignored under any circumstances. The problem is the primary reason for the act of writing.

With hope that this was useful, this is Ar Muthu Kumar, on behalf The third and final part is the of OutFocus. Happy writing! :) solution. How did the character pay back the loan? How did they Ar Muthu Kumar | muthuvarma@yahoo.com

THOUGHT BUBBLE 29

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