Review: Purple Hibiscus

 I recently read the debut novel of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called "Purple Hibiscus". What's so special about the book - the sublime yet powerful narrative by Kambilli - the 15-year old who has always mapped her achievements in life against how her Papa would approve of them. Her Papa is the overtly religious - almost fanatical - patriarch who has always controlled every aspect of his family's life. What is interesting is that Kambili is not the hero of the book. It is in fact her brother who openly defies their father trying to find some meaning of life in a house dominated by Christ and Papa's whims. The planting of the purple hibiscus bush is thus symbolic - something that happens after the visit to their aunt's house which, although poorer, is much more happier and alive. 

Though she is the observer, Kambili's thoughts are alive thanks to her continuous turmoil as she tries to debate between what's right and what's expected of her - idolizing her Papa despite his increasing violence towards the family, falling in love with a young priest, trying to fit into her cousins' lives and most importantly deciding between right and wrong based on not just what the Bible says. All this set against the political, economic and religious conflicts of the post-colonial Nigerian society makes for a thoroughly absorbing read. The contrasts although well defined are a bit cliched - 'papa'- a devout wealthy Catholic vs. his impoverished pagan father; the strict colonial product Father Benedict vs. the more contemporary indigenous Father Amadi; the wealthy but dull life of the Achikes vs. the poor but vibrant and loud life of Aunt Ifeoma's family.

 
Despite the ending remaining an open question, the book left a happy, almost peaceful, taste in my mouth and I am looking forward to picking up Adichie's next - Half of a Yellow Sun.

Everyone loves to hate Suresh Kalmadi

or so it seems... not a day passes when TOI or HT or any of those umpteen 24/7 news channels don't splash at least 2 pages on Kalmadi n Cronies Inc... n then Suhel Seth wonders at Kalmadi being globally more recognizable than Usain Bolt.

The deep-rooted problem here is not about the OC thugs but the non-performing, babu infested so called public bodies like MCD, PWD et al. Scams come and go but they continue to flourish like the Hydra in the Lernean marsh of our sab chalta hai mentality. It surely will be a Herculean task for this city's citizenry to fight against this malaise.

I am not concerned about the so called national pride associated with CWG. I am sure the Games will salvage themselves at the last moment and they will be "Not are bad as we all feared". Why i think so.. well we are a nation of ingenious jugaadus. Somehow at the last moment we always manage to scrape through..And if nothing else the slumdog millionaire version of India will anyways be too much of a distraction to the tourists to notice leaking roofs and sub-standard floorings in the stadiums.

So the "national pride" will survive through but this issue which is so burning at this point of time will be simply swept under the carpet once the Games are over and done with. And that is the big worry. Kalmadi might get the boot once Games are done (and once he has siphoned off tax-payers' money at the rate of a crore a day) but we will also forget about it all because some other scam would have come to take its place - bigger and worse than the last one.

What can we do?

Well we as a united citizenry can be constantly vigilant and report any corrupt babu to our law-keepers who will ensure the law is upheld and the babu is behind bars.

Or can we?

Hmmm... I guess for the time being it will just be Suhel Seth on Times Now or PR gimmicks like Jaago re..

Is it Art or is it Science?

When it comes to science, ever since the Renaissance period, we believe or at least like to believe that scientific principles are based on observations and experiments. Newton’s apple and Galileo’s falling bodies’ experiments are what ushered in the scientific mode of thinking.

If we look at its early beginnings, seeing was believing in science (especially if you did not want to be declared a heretic) and several theories were deduced empirically from observations like the work of Archimedes, Copernicus, Galileo et al , which then paved way for the likes of Newton and Kepler. In modern times however, we also see that theories are first being propounded based on individual facts or ideas or assumptions and then being generalized to a scientific theory.

In Physics as with most other natural sciences, a theory can be falsified if any one conclusion derived from these theories yields false results. True premise should lead to true consequences. That is, if the theory fails to prove a point, either the assumptions (the premise) is rejected or is modified. Hence the Bohr Model of an Atom, which was one of the main hypotheses propounded by the Nobel winning physicist Niels Bohr, was trashed when it failed to explain among other things spectra of larger atoms. Same with Newton’s classical mechanics. They all gave way to the now generally accepted quantum physics (They are still taught to under grad students but are not included in any modern research currently happening in the field of physics)

Now however, consider some of the latest research going on in the fields of physics like understanding the universe in its entirety, or unifying the laws of physics. The string theory is possibly the most fiercely debated theory which attempts to explain above mentioned. But as we know now, its validity is still to be established which essentially means that we are still on the premise part.

Curiously enough, this does seem to be the case with many modern principles in science - the elusive Higgs boson, supersymmetric particles, black hole radiations and many more - most are a priori or thought experiments or based on assumptions which in turn are based on either past theories/observations or failures. That is somewhat how quantum mechanics emerged.

So we come to the following –
Even though unlike economics and other social sciences, physics is the natural science which can explain everything about the universe and all that it contains, however, premises are shaped by certain thought process of the times we live in and by past observations, theories and most certainly past failures.
Consider what if Einstein had not propounded his idea of the theory of relativity based on certain assumptions (constant speed of light and the independence of physical laws from the choice of co-ordinate system) neither of which were validated with any known laws of thermodynamics and mechanics in 1905 and were also contradictory to the classical mechanics, then where would have the world of physics been?
Most of Einstein’s research in fact was based on the a priori thought experiments and his own viewpoint that a single theory in physics should explain all observations which he then set out to prove. Special relativity was one of first a priori principles
Therefore, we get an interesting thought experiment - propounding a scientific premises is an art and when it is vindicated by sophisticated experiments several years later does it become science.