Duality

To wonder about reality is to wonder about illusion. What is it that we mean by the word 'real'? Do we refer to something deterministic and absolute; something fundamental in its essence? Duality exists evenly both in the question and in the answer. The fact that absolute realism is intertwined with the abstract, seems by itself to be an absolution. 

Nature is probabilistic. But this statement is a 'fact'. Or is it? If the statement allows for error bars, then the outcome, which is just another statement becomes the fact. And there starts an endless loop, a circle, encompassing a void.

The light emanating from a CO2 laser appears green to some people, and then to some more people, and then some more, until it experiences someone who is colourblind with respect to green. To the eye then, colour is an illusion. But the laser light has a definite energy (statistically). It has a measure. Does measure not reflect definitiveness? Well, no, it does not. To a non comoving observer, the frequency of the laser is something else anyway. And something else to somebody else. The Physical is an illusion, as is the Metaphysical.

To think deeply is somehow to not think at all. There was a void, there shall be a void, as there is a void...until there is the Physical. The touch. Fingers and water. Lips into each other. Feelings, continents apart. To awake, to know, to breathe, to know, to awake. To think deeply and to not think at all. The void is all there is, and the void encompasses it all.

To be And not to be; To be conscious and to be free of thought; To know and to lose it all; are but one and the same; dualities in each other's embrace, free together but bound as well. Everything and nothing; Nothing and the whole. What is, is what was. What shall be is just another duality.

Is it duality then, that is real? Or is it our ego that is?

What follows next in the article takes a more technical approach.

There's indeed a definitive skeleton of the classical world; the world run by laws of classical mechanics. Predictions are true to a very high degree, with accidents being rare events. An escape from this world that we inhabit, the world of our senses, ensures a trip through the inner randomness. To escape from what we know, what is boring, is then to delve into the laws of multiples, and thus towards the realms of dualities - of zeros and ones. 

True, everything can indeed be constructed from a collection of 0s and 1s. But is it necessary to break the existing into its 0s and 1s to reconstruct the same? Or is it also enough to understand the existing and consider that as just another building block? Enough, for whom? There opens a door for ambition and ego. This is also where in some sense modern Statistical Physics encounters duality. Do we try to understand Nature at the fundamental level by studying strongly correlated electrons, or do we ignore 'unnecessary' grains of sand and simply call a brick - a brick; and use it to build a pillar? An example of the later is the formulation of the physics of universality through phase transitions.

There is no definite answer to this dilemma either. This brings the discussion back to square one. What defines 'need'? For all we know, everything is Natural. Be it ego, or asceticism - anything that exists, the Physical and the Metaphysical - is but natural. 

To seek inward or outwards is the duality of humankind. Life is the superposition; of two conflicts. What happens to consciousness once the collapse comes into existence? What really is the collapse? Is it eternal Nothingness? Or does it have an alibi - the consciousness?  If consciousness ceases to exist, what does that even mean? Is consciousness only a captive to cellular organization, or does it pertain to all that is? Air, water, rocks, and illusion itself? Is illusion and consciousness one and the same? 

Let's argue that consciousness is information. Then, it is everywhere. What the universe then is, is a duality of compression and release of information. Life, or in a broader sense, anything Physical is the compressed state. That is all how we can 'feel' information. Both its release, and it, itself remain beyond our present physical bounds of 'understanding'. 

The next part of the article has deeper use of first person expressions.

The more I dive into my research, the same philosophical outcome I arrive at. It is as if I keep taking detours from the center, in search of a new destination. But all I seem to gain is the experience of the journey. It appears increasingly obvious that deeper quest for the 'fundamental' only leads to one answer : randomness. Whether one tries to negotiate through Vedic philosophy, quantum mechanics or statistical physics, all roads lead to randomness; the indefinite; the undefined. This journey at once seems to be a futile, pointless exercise and an enriching, humbling experience. The duality rests and resets eternally; enlightening the perimeter of a void that shines and veils equally.

But there's fulfilment elsewhere. In an embrace of love, in surrender. For some reason, it is here that duality ceases to exist! What emerges is unity; an union of souls, and union with the whole. There exists no quest for knowledge, or for decoding the unknown. But this too is only an illusion, for this freedom from duality, itself reflects duality by surviving in an association. But here it doesn't matter anymore. What matters is the Physical, the feeling, the touch and the unknown, uncertain future. A game ensues thereafter, between duality and unity. Duality of existence and the union of information; souls.

The duel of unity and duality; the union of both.

Decoding 15th August 1947 through February 2022.

"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom."

As India listened to Nehru's voice on the midnight of 15th August, 1947, I assume the general (and by general I mean "typical" in statistical terms) mood in the nation must have been one of elation and frenzy. India's umbilical cord had not yet been severed. And no, not just from the British Empire but from its own eternal past. History says that India was being born.

When we think of events preceding a child's birth, what comes to our mind is the care that the mother provides for the unborn. When the new nation state of India was coming into existence, then who was her Mother? Can we imagine a pregnant lady playing soccer just moments before giving birth? How would you interpret the man-made Bengal famine of the 1940s, which starved millions of people to death; the same people who produced the harvest only for it to be shipped off to the "Allied" forces on the European battlefield? A mother does not want to kill her unborn child. A mother is not an imperialist, neither is she a Bourgeois elite.

One might argue that Nehru in his speech only mentioned about India awakening and not about being born; and therefore lobby against my initial line of argument. Of course, I disagree. His speech did mention someone as the "Father of the Nation."

The theme behind this article is simple. There was a crusade at play between three competing powers: Liberalism, Fascism and Communism. Two of these at any point were competing against the third, and it so happened that eventually  it was Fascism that was put to sleep. The Liberals were the greater power and they were both power drunk and tired enough to have allowed Fascism to propagate in a huge country like India. So a guy who had flirted with both the Communists and the Fascists would never have been accepted by the Liberals. This is why I argue that India was 'probably' better off without Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

I am a Bengali and I strongly believe that India has never produced a stronger spine than Netaji's. A spine's job is not just to hold humans erect, but it also houses the spinal cord; our survival instincts. But as we know, blades sharp enough, can cut through both the spinal cord and the soul. In 1947, the blades pointed at India were quite sharp, and I think Nehru had the fluidity to counter the edges.

What we see today unfolding in Ukraine is exactly what India would have been subjected to if the Bourgeois elite had not been in bed with the Liberal structure. Just to be comprehensive, I refer to the ruling class, the Congress party as the Bourgeois center. The nation state of India bulldozed through the five hundred and eighty four princely states quite simply like an imperial power, and both the Liberals and the Communists let this happen without any hindrance. The only exception is Kashmir, but there had to be a buffer state, as we can understand from the current geopolitics of the world. Had Netaji been in power (as some Indians would like to imagine as an alternate history for themselves), I think the country would have been torn apart by civil war. This is not because Netaji wasn't an able leader, but due to his fascist ideological views. The world had just fought a bloody war, and I strongly believe they were in no mood to let another fascist leader emerge out of a land that harboured deep resentment for anything foreign.

This is what the Indian political establishment knew all too well. The principles on which India was founded reassert this claim. Our constitution if anything, is inward looking. Very rightly our politicians attacked not the symptoms but the deeper lying pathogen - they identified the need for reservations - to hold the new nation together. Our constitution was aimed at liberty, fraternity, equality, and sanctity. We decided not to be an aggressive power, but a defensive one. We decided to build our future by straying away from the rule of might. We were speaking a different language from the rest of the world. We were finally looking deep into our past, and were trying to decode a lost grammar. We defend the right of our state to be sovereign, and then we defend the sovereignty of individuals. In other words, India, the nation, was founded on the ideology of Nationalism, and NOT on Liberalism or Socialism. The Bourgeois elite decided to go on an economic path of social justice, as they thought that that was the only way to earn the trust of the working class. The Naxalite movement that ravaged Bengal a couple of decades later bears testimony to the fact that it was a different (from today) world back then. It would have been impossible to simultaneously maintain peacefully both democracy and capitalism in such a large populous landmass, which had had a long history of slavery. Interestingly, a socialist plunge by the Congress party in the 60s seemed to push the country more towards authoritarianism and this fed strongly back into the Naxalite principles. It is no less than a miracle that democracy in India has not only survived, but is flourishing! It is our constitution that has stood the test of time, and I doubt that the story would have been similar if we ever had a dictator in power.

India has every right of abstaining from giving its view on whatever crisis the world creates. It's not just about " India's interests" , as some would like to say. We, Indians speak a different language - the language of non-alignment - the language of being atmanirbhar . I get that the world finds it difficult to understand our ethos. I laugh then when the same world sings praises of Gandhi. It took smartness more than anything else to rid our land off foreigners, to earn our sovereignty. We are still smart enough to keep it that way.

Rhythms in silence

Lest I forget, for when I'm forgotten,

The realm of reality extends

Much beyond the five elements;

The universe rhythms in silence

Neither from a start, nor to any end

My love, we'll meet each other again.

Till then, let's accept what's written

By ancient travelers, eternal cosmic rays,

As they traverse boundaries, of our fates;

Intertwined strokes on a dynamic fabric;

As the comets encircle, and the Earth rotates

So do we, across mountains and planets.

 

Like the invisible thread that binds together 

Truth, to whatever is pure; like the cover

Of clouds touched by breath of the full Moon

Such is the bond that binds me to you

And your effervescence, in confusion and in chaos -

Aeons, days, moments; only destined to pass too soon.

Link to the magical inspiration

The mountain and the sea

He stood on top of the mountain,

Proud, yet conscious of his feet;

On top of the world so tiny, but

Nevertheless, still out of reach.

He looked beyond the horizon,

Spread his two magnificent wings

Floated through the changing air

To reach the pebbles along the beach.

Thus, he set out; on his grand voyage

He set out now to conquer the sea;

He rode and fought the waves

On his one remaining conquest -

And he arrived; nowhere, in the middle

Or was it even the middle? He debated

And plunged into the depths of the sea

Met life, light and colours, forever unseen -

And he felt proud again, small again

As he looked for the first time at his fists 

Although he could grab life off the water

The water, itself was never meant to be his.

He floated back up on the surface, breathed in;

He saw the mountain standing tall, he felt ill;

He swam back calmly, to the sands of the beach

And formed a palace with utmost care 

Then he waited, for now he understood it all;

He watched the waves break apart his creation

And take some of the truth back into the sea;

He looked up, smiling, towards the mountain -

Dark clouds had now covered the peak.

As rain poured down over the flesh of the world,

He could finally see that it was all the same -

Past and the present, the mountain and the sea,

It was all the same, to be or not to be.

"What was the remainder then?" he thought,

And let his mind wander into the skies.

For aeons he would search, for vanity he would ask

And he would know the answer, again and again.

The broken palace, the formless existence

Would reveal itself in his dreams.

The remainder was what always remained,

Beyond the start, along the hymns.

Beyond the veil

 The Sun rises around the bend of the land,

Slicing its light on elements and the whole 

There's wind, but no temperature;

There's sound, but without a comprehending ear 

What is existence in the absence of experience?

What is then the Sun, the sand, or even the land?

What is depth, and what is the surface?

What is something, and what exactly is nothing?

What is beauty? What is rhythm?

What is a shell, and what is within and without?

The setting of the Sun, the burial of the day,

Of the truth, the knowledge, of conscience;

What is left, when I am not there anymore -

Where, but am I to be? In someone's hymns?

Who am I? Beyond this flesh, beyond what's seen?

Where am I, who am I, once it's no longer me?

Cambridge: Formals and all

The full Moon dazzles along the ripples on the Cam, as they make their way towards Ely and Waterbeach, to meet with the Great Ouse, and thence towards The Wash to be one with the North Sea. As I sit in my well-lit living room, a couple of miles away from the river, waiting for Eunice to pass, I wonder about the Moonshine. I wonder specifically about the chain of reactions that excited some photons to travel to the Moon, get reflected, and make their way towards the Earth to eventually diffuse into the cold of the Cam. Riding along life's dualities, when we truly desire, we get to hear echoes of the past.

When I first came to know of formal dinners at Cambridge, I laughed at the archaic beats of the idea: You go to a dining hall, dressed in a specific attire that consists of gowns and ties, and get served food and (real) fine wine by butlers. If you are a 'Fellow', you get to seat at the High Table (on a pedestal), orthogonal to rows full of  undergrads and PhD students! Harry Potter, much? (Oh wait!) 

We live in a world that speaks increasingly of equality in every sphere of life. We want our universities to imbibe values of fraternity and liberty in students, and to abolish hierarchy as much as possible. It is then quite surprising that a world leader like Cambridge still maintains traditions from more than half a millennium ago.

When the first chance of attending such a formal dinner came (at my own college, Holy Trinity) last year, I was not too keen on it, and ended up giving it a miss. Maybe I didn't know too many people at the time because of the pandemic, or I was just being my lazy self. Nevertheless, the intrigue did remain in me. So, when my office-mate , who is also a Fellow at St. John's College, invited us for a formal, I let my inquisitive mind take over and accepted her invitation. One, I had never stepped inside St. John's in these sixteen months of living in Cambridge, even though I have punted along its waters; and second, this time I was having Tim and Rosalba for company.

Although both Trinity and St. John's boast of famous main gates, there is a subtle difference in the ambiance when one walks through them. While both campuses are divided into several courts by old concrete structures, the entry court of St. John's turns out to be much better illuminated than Trinity's. However, if you suddenly miss the old world charm, John's won't disappoint you. To enter the dining hall, one has to walk across the first court to enter the inner dimly lit courtyard. There you are, transported in a flash to a bygone era half a millennium old. Then, as if you have walked into the Slytherin common room, you head to the shady dungeons to hang your jacket (but not the gown). The place was lit by two small-wattage sources. To assist Tim in hanging his jacket, Rosalba tried to light up the room twice, and on either attempt only managed to shut out each light source once. 

Then we joined all the other Fellows in the "Green Room" before proceeding towards the dining hall together. (I am not sure if its purpose is / was to serve as an actual green room, or is it simply because the walls are painted green.) As the doorkeeper held the door for us, I noticed that this entrance is immediately by the High Table. We walked in, reached our chairs, as all the "lowly" undergrads and PhD students waited for the older guys to hurry up. On reaching our spot, well..well.. there was Latin! Someone said a prayer (I assume he was the College Master; I also noticed people touching their chairs while the prayer was on), which ended with others saying Amen! We then took our seats. Apparently, the custom is to not leave any vacant seat between two occupied ones, and I was saved from making that mistake by my companions.

I was sitting next to Prof. Buzz Baum, who offered to pour me some water, while mentioning that the mugs are actually silver. I showed him my surprise while hiding the fact that I have childhood memories of silver glasses at my home (and  those made of white and black marbles, especially reserved for Sharbat). One of the butlers then neatly poured us a glass of Chavignon (2020) each (now that's some wine!) as I waited for the three-course specialty.

First, some tomato soup arrived at the table, and the waiter inquired whether I am a vegetarian. I wondered whether that had got something to do with the soup, and to be on the safe side, answered in the affirmative. I could see Salmon on the main course menu, and immediately figured that the question corresponded to the fish! Of course, the well trained butler then brought me a vegetarian risotto, which did turn out to be tasty. But you know, when an entire table devours Salmon around a Bengali, the Bengali mind becomes sharp enough to cook up its own recipe for peace! In the meantime, I struck up a conversation with Buzz, about the kind of experiments he does. As it turned out, we have a common professional interest (in membranes) and I hope to pay his lab a visit sometime soon. Meanwhile, I had to ask him, "Buzz, like Buzz Aldrin?" (Yeah, I know...) He said with a smile on lips, and a serious enough tone, "Yes, I'm named after him". I haven't lived in Britain long enough to truly understand the sarcasm of the land. Coming back to the food, the dessert was some cake served with whipped cream, and a flower petal!!! Needless to say, the petal graced the plate at the end and not my intestines.

Then I saw the Fellows stand up, signalling that the dinner was over (at least at the High Table). Another Latin verse was uttered, and then we walked out of the dining hall, all Fellows together. The next custom is to walk upstairs to the coffee room, which incidentally is also the room where Fellows have lunch. As me, Rosalba and Tim walked upto the butler holding the coffee tray, a very kind Prof. Steve Edgley poured coffee for the three of us. Of course, me and Tim were simply enjoying the benefits of being guests of a Fellow, but Steve seemed to be in a chatty mood. We were then joined by Prof. David Williams, who himself is a veterinary surgeon. These two old chaps then guided the discussion from snakes' eyes and mercury buried underneath Cambridge to models of the universe. While this is understandable as the three of us are Physicists, but for me, personally, this conversation touched a note. Steve and David started reminiscing about Fred Hoyle, his personality and his model of the Steady State universe. Now here's something interesting. Of course, for Indians, when we speak of Fred Hoyle, we do not mention him as a singularity, but rather alongside his companion, Jayant Narlikar. As it turns out, Narlikar's student was Prof. Thanu Padmanabhan who in turn mentored Prof. L. Sriramkumar. Sriram was my Masters Thesis advisor at IIT Madras, and one can access my project report through this link on his website.

Yeah, I know that that was a bit of self indulgence, but Sriram and IIT Madras made a student out of me; and I never let an opportunity pass to thank my Alma Mater.

That's it. That's my first formal experience in Cambridge. Like everything else about this city, it is just one more positive addition to the list. The formal at John's at the end felt more about respect for a certain profession, than about hierarchy.  Cambridge is a special place. When I walk by the lush green meadows, or bike along the Cam, I see something here that I haven't seen elsewhere. It is a city of brightness; of the human mind, pouring out through the eyes to light up the lanes, the punts, the pubs, the equations, the computers, the food, the cultures, the fairs, the books, the chapels, the friendships, the lovers; the future. Cambridge isn't Moonshine. It's a star whose destiny is to light up the Earth.

                                       

বাস্তবে জলভরা

 আমরাই যারা গণতন্ত্রের শিকার 

আমরাই যারা চোরা শিকারির সাজে 

আমরা যারা রাস্তায় নামি আজও 

রাস্তা ভাঙার দাম বাড়ানোর কাজে।

আমরা যারা নকশাল বুঝি আবেগ 

আমরা যারা বন্যা মানেই ত্রাণ

আমরাই যারা ট্রামে ট্রামে কলকাতা

ময়দানে ভ্লগ; মুছে ফেলে কটা প্রাণ।

আমরা যারা হালতু বলতে ফ্লিপকার্ট 

পকেটে আগুন, জানালায় চেক শার্ট 

আমরা যারা ইতিহাসে বোলপুর 

এবং বর্তমানে রঙে - ভাঙে হই চূড়।

আমরা যারা ঘরে ঘরে এম এ পাশ 

আমরা যারা মজ্জাগত সন্ত্রাস 

আমরাই যারা স্বাধীন করেছি দেশ 

হায় নেতাজি ! হায় বিনয় - বাদল - দীনেশ!

আমাদের আছে নতুন কিছু রেস্তোরাঁ

দেশী - বিদেশী বিদ্বেষে জলভরা 

আমরা যারা শহর গড়েছি গ্রামে 

শিল্পের হাতে পড়িয়েছি হাতকড়া।

আমরা যারা অকালবৈশাখি বুকে 

ঘুমিয়ে পড়ি প্রেমিকার চোখ এঁকে 

আমরাই যারা চাকরি খুঁজেছি স্রোতে 

শুধু অন্য দেশ, অন্য রাজ্য পথে।

আমাদের নাকি গর্ব বিদ্যাসাগর 

ফোন খুললেই ম্যাট্রিমনিয়াল ভীড়

আমাদের শুধু শ্রদ্ধার দিন গেছে 

আগে পুড়েছিল কপাল, এখন পুড়ছে নীড়।

তাই বলে কি প্রেম দেবে না?

 প্রেম করছে স্বাধীনচেতা নারী 

প্রেমে পড়েছে স্বেচ্ছাচারী যুবক 

দিকে দিকে প্রেম, কিছু লাল ঠোঁট

দিনে দুপুরে হঠাৎ যত আদা - বেগুনে জোট

জোটের টের পাচ্ছে গোয়াবাসি,

দূর বাঁশিতে ওরে গৃহবাসি 

ভাঙন লেগেছে ইস্কুল খেলাঘরে 

উত্তর প্রদেশ প্রশ্নের মুখে পড়ে।

মূল্যবোধের ছাঁচ হারিয়ে ফেলেছে মূল

তাই পুষ্পক বোঝাই শুধু অঞ্জলীর ফুল - 

আকাশ টুকরো টুকরো প্রেমের বন্যা ক্ষণে 

বৃষ্টির রূপ দেখি আজ বসন্তও জানে ।

চিচিং ফাঁক

আলি কাসীমের গুহায় চিচিং ফাঁক 

আমার মাত্র গুরুপল্লির বাঁক

বাঁকে বাঁকে আছে প্রহরের মৃদু তাল 

তালে তালে মৃদঙ্গ, আর কিছু কাল 

কালের চিন্হ তোমার জশোধরা

আমার কেবলই বলরাম - মঞ্জিরা

ধূর্ত বাঙালি ধরা পড়ি প্রতিপদে 

আঙুল ছুঁয়ে কপাই অজয় নদে 

রাত পোহালে বসন্ত আঁকে রেখা

সূর্যোদয়ের মলায়ম দুই ঠোঁটে

কবিতার কথা স্নিগ্ধ শিশির শোনে

সন্ধ্যে তখন তুলোর চাদর বোনে

দিন পেরোলে মনে করিয়ো আবার 

কবিতারা যেন তোমায় স্পর্শ করে।

পাশা

কপটের সাহায্যে, বিনা রক্তব্যায়ে যে যুদ্ধ জেতা হয়,

সেই যুদ্ধ কি প্রকৃত যুদ্ধ নয় ?

যুদ্ধ মানেই কি লাশের স্বাক্ষরে রাঙা ভূখণ্ডের ধুলো,

বাজারে বাজারে পাণ্ডুলিপির অট্টহাসির ইতিহাস?

যুদ্ধ মানে কি প্রতিহিংসার ন্যায্যতা, হার স্বীকারের পরিহাস?

যুদ্ধ মানে কি ১৯৮৯, ছিঁড়ে ফেলা ঐক্যতার মহাস্বপ্ন?

শাস্তি মাখা বনবাসের জমতে থাকা হীরে-রত্ন?

রাশিয়া বলে ইতিহাস দাও, শুধু পাঁচ গ্রাম চান কৃষ্ণ 

"কিসের অধিকার?" বুঝতে চান বিডেন-দুর্যোধন-কর্ণ। 

 

যুদ্ধ নামে মহাভারতে, ধ্বংস হয় ঐতিহ্য 

এতেই নাকি ধর্ম রক্ষা; এটাই নাকি প্রাপ্য!

লুন্ঠিত হয় কৌরব-কূল, কলি-ধ্বজা হয় প্রতিষ্ঠিত 

ইতিহাস নাকি বিজয়ীর বাণী, তাও মছে না কলঙ্ক। 

তৃতীয় প্রহর

 রাতের পাহারা শেষ হলে যে আলো ফুটে ওঠে 

আকাশের বুকে না, এই পৃথিবীর নিঃস্ব কিছু বুকে -

সেই মৃদু স্নিগ্ধতায় মুখ ধোয়া ভালোবাসা, আলাপের টান 

বাস্তব থেকে কিছুটা দূরে, কিছুটা সুনসান। 

শীতের ঠোঁট-ভেজা যে রাস্তা মুখ তুলে চেয়ে থাকে 

শিশিরের স্পন্দন আরেকটু বেশি শোনার তাগিদে,

এরম প্রহরে ক্লান্ত দিনের মাঝ-ঘুমে সে পায় নিজেকে 

ছড়িয়ে থাকে অঙ্কের মাঝবয়সী কিছু কণার মাঝরাত্তিরে। 

অতি-অভিন্নতার রাস্তা ধরে যে পথ মিশেছে বিশৃঙ্খলার স্রোতে 

গা ভাসিয়ে দেওয়া সেই  নদীর কূল খোঁজে কি কোন পথিক?

খোঁজে না নৌকো বাঁধার ঘাট, অথবা অসম্ভবের হাত;

 মেঘের শিরদাঁড়া জুড়ে লেখা আছে কেবলই বৃষ্টিপাত। 

তাই বরফের আঁতকে ওঠা এই পৃথিবীর সিংহাসন রক্ষার্থে -

তাই ভালোবাসা স্নান সেরে মিশে যায়, ক্ষণিকে; নিঃশব্দে ।।