jabdakhata

Artificial Intelligence is a term that is being widely used nowadays but as a concept it had captured human interest and imagination since last two centuries. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was perhaps one of the early thoughts. Robots captured human imagination with limitless possibilities in the last century but the journey has been slow and tedious. Now Machine Learning and Deep Learning, the key ingredients of AI open up the frontiers to new opportunities. Machine Learning with Neural Networks based on Supervised and Unsupervised learning of data depend on a new paradigm called Data Science for training an algorithm with very large set of data so that the algorithm is able to predict results closer to the actual through minimization of errors. Neural Networks that are modeled after the interaction of neurons on human brains extend the possibility. Even though the AI concepts were theorized back in the 1950s and 1960s, the possibility of them concepts becoming practical could hav...

Silver - The spy who did the unspeakable Silver – this was the name of Bhagatram Talwar who helped Netaji cross Indian and Afghan border. Documents unclassified in the 90’s revealed that Bhagataram, an active member of the communist Kirti Kishan Party, was a quintuple agent during the work, working closely with Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. He also worked as a Russian, German, and Italian agent but most likely his allegiance lied with Russia, the communist heaven, even at the cost of his country’s interest. Since Russia was an ally of the British, he and his party therefore actively helped the British by providing confidential information about Netaji Subhas Bose in Germany and other Indian revolutionaries and provided false information to Bose through German agents. Why did Silver help Netaaji cross the border? Reason was simple. At that time when Netaji crossed the border Russia was still an ally of Hitler. In fact Russia had attacked Poland and the Balkan countrie...

In this narrative we are trying to present some of the facets of Indian freedom movement in which individual as well as the collective heroism and betrayals shaped the dynamics of the overall movement esp. in its later stage. It is upto the readers to decide as to who were the betrayers and who were the heroes. We’ll only present some facts that can be easily verified from various sources but not from the school text history books, nor from the so called “facts” presented by the historians who conveniently forgot to acknowledge the contribution of many who actually shaped the course of Indian history. Among historians perhaps the most honest and accurate analysis came from Dr. Ramesh Chandra Mazumdar which helped us in assessing the facts and discriminating between fiction, propaganda and truth. Let us therefore try to form an independent judgment by going beyond the traditional history books. Bose – The forgotten Hero “ I was a fighter, one fight more, the last and the best. ...

Sara Bull had one daughter, Olea Vaughan, who although not in the scale of Holy Mother’s Radhu, nevertheless was a constant source of her worldly tribulation. Devoid of her father at a very early age Olea perhaps was too submissive to her dominant mother during her early days, but grew to be a rebel during her later stages. There is a pattern here. Both Radhu and Olea were sickly. Both of them suffered from chronic depression and would often react violently. Like Radhu Olea lost her father early enough, like Radhu she was of a rebellious streak, like Radhu she was a source of many troubles to her mother, like Radhu she had many opportunities and open doors to a spiritual life and like Radhu she suffered for her worldly actions and died of tuberculosis. Like Radhu who had Bonobihari who died soon after Holy Mother left her body, Olea had a child Edwina who died young. Their husbands neglected and even mistreated them. But the similarities end there. Radhu was perhaps more unfortunate...

Another facet of the Holy mother Sri Sarada Devi was that she was immensely practical in all matters, esp. the worldly. To her there was no distinction between the sacred and secular. While it is true that some of her grooming in the practical and worldly matter were done in her early days by Sri Sri Thakur himself, it would not be unfair to claim that her second nature was practicality. Sri Ramakrishna acknowledged it many times, like the occasion when she did not travel with him to the religious festival in Panihati. When Sara Bull had asked her whether Guru’s directives should be obeyed in non-spiritual matters, Holy Mother said that in matters of the world sometimes Guru’s directives can be disobeyed if done in an unselfish way and if personal judgment finds other, more favourable courses. Sara Bull was sometimes overbearing and controlling, esp. in her dealings with Swami Vivekananda in her earlier days when she tried to teach him in some ways of dealing with people in the soci...

The Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi was the very backbone, nay even the foundation and pillar of the Ramakrishna movement. Holy Mother and Sri Ramakrishna are regarded as one and the same by all the direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. Sri Ramakrishna Himself has proclaimed that he was in her and she was in him – as Shiva and Shakti. So to classify her as spiritual consort of Sri Ramakrishna as many of the scholars and academicians have done, would be singularly wrong because a consortium is an association of two or more individuals for a common purpose. Ramakrishna and the Holy Mother are one and inseparable, not two individuals in spiritual sense. After Sri Ramakrishna left His body it was left on Holy Mother to carry on the mission in a different way, through the practical demonstration of the motherhood of God. She took the reins of a fledgling organization indirectly, without imposing herself in any way. Yet the Holy Mother’s words were final in all matters. One of the reasons for...

Interwoven Parallel Threads in the Seemingly Independent Universes If we follow the lives of Sara and Ma Sarada closely we see that there are many interesting parallels in the lives of them. This could be classified into three distinct themes. 1)       Marriage: Sara Bull married an extra ordinary musician, who was intellectually perhaps the best of his time. She could only live about ten years with him. He was much older than her, the age difference being about forty years. The Holy Mother on the other hand was the Shakti of the avatara or the divine incarnation for the present age. It is to be noted that Sri Ramakrishna was an artist per excellence. He excelled in painting, music, clay modelling and fine arts. He went into Samadhi by listening to the Veena recital of Mahesh Veenkar in Varanasi. So he would probably have highly appreciated the compositions of Ole Bull. Moreover both shared a distaste for worldliness, although in different ways, Sri Ra...

Sara’s Life in Brief Let us first get to know Sara Chapman Bull. She, as we have already mentioned, born in a wealthy business and socialite family of Thorps.  (Prabuddhaprana, 2002) She was married at the age of nineteen to Ole Bull, the famous Norwegian violinist, and one of the greatest musicians of that time, who was then sixty years old. The couple had one daughter Olea (later Olea Vaughan). Sara spent ten happy years of marriage with Ole Bull, organized his concerts, helped the spendthrift and out-worldly man in his financial affairs, became an ardent admirer of his music and was also the inspiration behind his compositions. Ole Bull and Sara spent several years travelling between Europe and America till the death of Ole Bull in 1878. Sara was a pianist and often she would spend lovely evenings with her husband accompanying him on creating divine music. They had an interesting social life with leading intelligentsia, artists and philosophers like George Santayana, Willi...

The Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi and Sara Chapman Bull are two very important personalities in the whole history of Ramakrishna Movement. Although Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi is perhaps the larger figure in comparison being the embodied divine mother Herself, Sara Bull nonetheless had a very important role to play, esp. in the mission of Swami Vivekananda in the West. Sara Bull was probably four or five years older than Sarada, being born in 1850. She was born in a wealthy and influential family in the pre-civil war America, Sara’s father Joseph Thorp being a senator and a businessman while mother Amelia being a noted Socialite. Sarada, on the other hand, was born to a poor village priest Ramchandra Mukherjee and his wife Shyamsundari in the remote hamlet of Jairambati, under British East India Company’s hegemony, just a few years before the mutiny of 1857. Sarada had learnt to respect the Queen Victoria who through a royal proclamation took India under her sovereign crown post 1857. ...

On the occasion of National Youth Day there were two interesting blog posts on him. One was in Times of India and the other was in The Tribune. Both the blogs had one common theme, that how the brand Vivekananda has been usurped by the rising tide of militant right wing whose outlook they derisively call as "Hindutva". The term was coined possibly by the Times of India that takes pride in claiming itself as a "secular", "liberal" paper. They carefully chose to distinguish it from the "Hinduism". If you are a little bit knowledgeable about Sanskrit you will know that both the terms are actually same, Hindutva is tva pratyay added to the word Hindu, depicting the Hindu way of life. However in Times of India and "secular liberal" parlance it became equivalent  to a derogatory way of referring to the right wing extremists and they chose to depict the non right wing Hindu way of life with the English ending of "ism". Laughable per...

When Avataras or special manifestations come to the world to embrace a worldly life they have to behave exactly like ordinary human beings. Otherwise every body will know them and their mission will not be successful. They would play a role knowingly and thus like the best actors they would act so convincingly that it would be difficult to distinguish them from ordinary men. However, their powers will still manifest through their selfless actions and love for humanity and they will reveal their identity to a select few through whom they will leave a message for the mankind. As human beings they too will be subjected to suffering and will have passions like happiness. Rama was grief stricken by the loss of Sita. Krishna too had his moments of weakness. When he left Vrindavana there is no account of how he felt for the loved ones he were leaving behind, knowing fully that he wont be returning to them, that these simple village girls and boys loved him with their everything and he too re...

The conquest of Jarsandha had to be done in a way that would not get attention from his allies. They would not have time to react against the Pandavas and Krishna. They would be awestruck by the policy and the swiftness. Also it had to be a just battle so that it did not cause any censureship on Yudhisthira who was conducting his Rajasuya. Jarasandha was notorious for another reason. He was planning to conduct a great nara medha yagna or sacrifice of human beings to become invincible by begetting divine power. He captured eighty four kings and small chieftains and was waiting to capture sixteen more whom he would have sacrificed to Mahadeva to get a boon of invincibility. So he had to be stopped for saving the lives of his hapless victims through his foolishness and fundamentalism. There was no other person who was capable of fighting him, other than Bhima. Bhima was young and powerful. Moreover he had Krishna on his side and Arjuna to back him up. So the three went to Magadha disgui...