MA Durga came riding on a horse this year, signalling a season of war and turbulence. When the mother brings peace, she sails in a boat.
Divinity, having let men specialise in havoc, has an explanation for death but not an answer. Old men ignite and reignite wars in which the innocent young die to appease another round of bloodlust in the history of timeless hatred: young lives lost in their infancy or prime; of innocent, hapless babies killed in the rubble of wreckage of air strikes, victims who fill silent graveyards while revenge, reborn in generation after generation, screams for blood again and again. Death turns into an arid, countless number. Television and intrusive social media have brought death into every home, which is a good thing, for ignorance is no longer an alibi.
I seek the illusion of evasion when the images become unbearably searing, switching to another channel from the comfort zone of illusion, even as the mind and the heart recognise that this is the option of the coward.
Is scripture any solace? No. War rages through the annals of religion, from origin to eternity; and in each narrative it is the young, still yearning for the years in which they can fulfil their dreams, who die and are quickly forgotten while the brutal old trick us by offering some meaningless medal. Heroism cannot bring you back to life.
The most famous metaphor of death is the image of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the New Testament: death, famine, war and conquest, or death and its three synonyms. War remains the stark face of death, but its synonyms must be redefined for modern times when Big Business is the Big Power: Energy, Technology, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), and plagues of the 21st century like Covid.
Tech apocalypse
There will be many, not least those vested in the future of tech, who will object, with reason, to the inclusion of AI in the Armageddon Four. For me, the past has always been less attractive than the future; new technology is always welcome. But what is one to make of this bit of information published in the Times, London, on October 5?
The chief executive of OpenAI, Sam Altman (net worth, at least $250 million and rising with every word one writes) believes that AI could cause “significant harm” to the world, even perhaps extinction. He keeps “a stash of guns, gold, antibiotics, potassium iodide and gun masks in his California home in case civilisation implodes”. Is this over the top Californian, or does he know more than he is telling?
Cloud control
Cloud stopped play. I suppose this is entirely logical if you are playing cricket in Paradise.
We went up to Dharamshala for the weekend in search of good cricket and found a fabulous experience. The upper range of the Himalayas was capped with a sprinkle of early snow; the hill city echoed with the cheerful goodwill that only sport, and the expectation of the national team’s impending victory, can bring. There was bonhomie in multi-tier restaurants where dosa joined eggs and toast for breakfast, and mountain trout topped the menu for lunch and dinner. The streets were alive with the sound of Tibet, thanks to the sanctuary created for the Dalai Lama and his innumerable exiled followers in McLeod Ganj, a town nestled on a higher ridge.
On Sunday, the day of the match between India and New Zealand, excitement was palpable as crowds walked and motored towards the highest stadium for international cricket.
The continual roar of the crowd during play was infectious. But no one was quite prepared for the sudden fairytale descent of clouds on the ground in the middle of India’s innings. This was not silky mist, far less a dense fog; we were inside a translucent cloud, with enough visibility for chirpy merriment but not enough for a cricket ball travelling at 140 kmph. The umpires called a halt; but the unperturbed spectators used the break for analysis and diagnosis.
Every Indian at a cricket game is an expert. Those spectators who did not begin as one finished as one by the time India won.
We knew the law of the skies. Every cloud is a passerby.
