ARE YOU GETTING FORGETFUL?

Everyone has a tendency to be a little forgetful. We sometimes forget to pick up our car keys, an important file for work, or even someone’s name. But how much forgetfulness is too much? How can you tell whether your memory lapses are normal forgetfulness and within the scope of normal aging? A very benign question, but can we ignore it?

There are 7 types of memory related problems that we tend to suffer and they are often quite common.

1. Transience

This is the tendency to forget facts or events over time. You are most likely to forget information soon after you learn it. Our memory has a use-it-or-lose-it quality: memories that are called up and used frequently are least likely to be forgotten. Far from being bad transience may be beneficial because it clears the brain of unused memories, making way for newer, more useful ones. It is like cleaning your D drive of useless files!

2. Absent-mindedness

This type of forgetting occurs when you don't pay close enough attention. You forget where you just put your spectacles because you didn't focus on where you put it in the first place. You were thinking of something else then!  Absentmindedness also involves forgetting to do something at a prescribed time, like taking your medicine or keeping an appointment.

3. Blocking

Someone asks you a question and the answer is right on the tip of your tongue — you know that you know it, but you just can't think of it. Nominal aphasia, failure to remember names is another very embarrassing type of blocking. In many cases, the barrier is a memory similar to the one you're looking for, and you retrieve the wrong one. This competing memory is so intrusive that you can't think of the memory you want.

4. Mis-attribution

Mis-attribution occurs when you remember something accurately in part, but mis-attribute some detail, like the time, place, or person involved. Another kind of mis-attribution occurs when you believe a thought you had was totally original when, in fact, it came from something you had previously read or heard but had forgotten about. Mis-attribution becomes more common with age. As you age, you absorb fewer details when acquiring information because you have somewhat more trouble concentrating and processing information rapidly. Your hard drive is so chock-a-block full that it has slowed down considerably!

5. Suggestibility

Suggestibility is the vulnerability of your memory to the power of suggestion — information that you learn about an occurrence after the fact becomes incorporated into your memory of the incident, even though you did not experience these details. The suggestion fools your mind into thinking it's a real memory.

6. Bias

Even the sharpest memory isn't a flawless snapshot of reality. In your memory, your perceptions are filtered by your personal biases — experiences, beliefs, prior knowledge, and even your mood at the moment. Your biases affect your perceptions and experiences when they're being encoded in your brain. And when you retrieve a memory, your mood and other biases at that moment can influence what information you actually recall. So if you have perceived a politician as an idiot, you tend to carry this bias to the ballot come what may!

7. Persistence

Most people worry about forgetting things. But in some cases people are tormented by memories they wish they could forget, but can't. The persistence of memories of traumatic events, negative feelings, and ongoing fears is another form of memory problem. Some of these memories accurately reflect flashbacks of horrifying events, while others may be negative distortions of reality. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can result from many different forms of traumatic exposure — for example, sexual abuse or wartime experiences.

Healthy people can experience memory loss or memory distortion at any age. Some of these memory flaws become more pronounced with age, but — unless they are extreme and persistent — they are not considered indicators of Alzheimer's or other memory-impairing illnesses.

Exercise for the Brain

As we grow older, we tend to lose some of the gray matter in our brains which is responsible for memory, among other things. Just as to keep fit you exercise your body, to remain alert and to avoid becoming forgetful you need to exercise your brain. If you want to preserve this gray matter for longer these 7 exercises that will help keep your mind sharp at any age.

1. Use Your Non-Dominant Hand

If you’re a right-handed person, try using your left hand once in a while when eating, writing, and picking things up. It might sound difficult at first, but after some practice, you can do at least a couple of daily tasks this way.

The idea is to use your non-active side of the brain. This helps to expand parts of the cortex that are responsible for processing tactile information.

2. Do Some of Your Daily Chores with Your Eyes Closed

Do you remember how many steps do you take to get downstairs? How many light switches are there in your bedroom? There is a reason why we don’t recall these answers right away – we do our regular, daily tasks inattentively. But if we carry out some safe chores with our eyes closed like showering and moving from one room to another your brain will be extra attentive. You’ll touch an object and this will send signals to your brain about the object that you’re feeling.

3. Shuffle Your Morning Routine

We all have a set schedule which starts right from the moment we wake up. However, novelty is the key to a sharper brain. It’s important that you give your brain the newness of a fresh routine to keep it active and alert. For example, get dressed after having breakfast, jog a different route, or even watch a cartoon instead of the morning news.

4. Read Aloud

Reading aloud isn’t always possible, but when it is, you must do it. It might take a couple of minutes longer than usual to finish what you’re reading, it’s totally worth it. In one of the demonstrations of brain imaging, 3 areas of the brain lit up whenever words were spoken aloud from a book.

5. Experiment with Different Foods

If you’re among those who always order the same cuisine or the same dish every time you go to a restaurant, try out a new dish. You will then ask your brain to smell the new food and send signals to the nose to activate its receptors. This new odor will also give your brain new sensations and feelings. You should also try experimenting with your daily dishes at home, use a different condiment or a new ingredient and challenge your brain out of routines.

6. Recollect your day hour by hour

Lying in bed and before going to sleep recollect your day hour by hour right from the time you left your bed in the morning. So what did you do at 5 AM, then 6 AM, then 7 AM and so on till you are back in bed. This is a wonderful memory exercise, easy to perform and will leave you with a sense of fulfillment!

7. Feed Your Brain

By “feed your brain”, we mean eating foods that are known to increase brain functionality. It’s important to include a decent amount of vitamins and fats in your diet to nourish your brain. Foods that are known to increase brain power are walnuts, turmeric, eggs, coconut oil, blueberries, avocado, and broccoli.

KUMBH – A LOGISTICAL CHALLENGE AND A CULTURAL AND SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

If you have never been to a  Kumbh Mela (fair), you will never understand the gigantic dimensions of its area, population, diversity, management, logistics, religion and culture.  The event sees a massive gathering of devotees who come to the historic city of Prayagraj, erstwhile Allahabad from every nook and corner of the country often by overcoming the travails of a long journey. Not only do they come from India but the Indian diaspora from all over the world and inquisitive foreigners in plane full descend on this historic city to be a part of this life changing experience! Devotees throng to Sangam (the confluence of holy rivers - Ganga and Yamuna and Saraswati) to take part in mass ritual bathing with a belief that the holy waters will cleanse their sins and liberate them from the cycle of life and death.

Mythology:

The tale of the Kumbh Mela dates back to the time when the gods resided on earth. They had been weakened by the curse of sage Durvasa, and the demons were causing mayhem on earth. On Lord

One of the many dwars (gates) to the Kumbh city.

Brahma’s advice, they started churning out the nectar of immortality (Amrit) with the aid of the asuras or demons. However, when the ausras realized that the gods would not be sharing the nectar with them, they chased them for a period of 12 days. During the struggle to gain this pot full of Amrit, a fight ensued between gods and demons and drops of Amrit spilled near Prayag, Nashik-Triyambakeshwar, Haridwar, and Ujjain. The rivers situated in these areas are considered to be carrying the nectar that fell from the pot. The Kumbh Mela is held on the dates when the nectar is said to have fallen in the river. Each year, the dates are calculated depending upon a combination of Jupiter, the Sun and the Moon’s zodiac positions.

History:

Probably the first historical description of this great fair in Prayag was found in 643CE in the writings of Chinese Buddhist monk Hsuan Tsang who had been in India. He wrote about the gathering of pilgrims in Prayag during the month of Magh as an ‘age-long festival’.

Cultural and spiritual Sangam:

UNESCO has already included Kumbh in the list of "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity". The Kumbh is a real treasure trove for people who seek more than the ordinary in their lives.

Kumbh Nagari

For people who are spiritual and seek liberation, there is no better place than the Kumbh. And for those who always wondered what is this liberation that so many people are after, this is a great place to be introduced to it.   Every denomination and sect of Hinduism and eastern thought is represented at the Kumbh. It is a one stop shop for learning about Hinduism, Eastern thought  and the science of Liberation – Moksha. Thus, in the Mystical plane, the highest possibility that is open for human beings happens at the time of the Kumbh. This is why all the Saints, Sadhus, Babas and religious leaders congregate at the Kumbh. Apart from the celestial event, the very presence of these saints adds to the energy of the Kumbh Mela.

We saw many Sadhus performing seemingly impossible tasks of endurance during their Tapas.  You can

Rituals galore on the holy bamks

meet one or more on every street corner. Sadhus who have stood on one leg for decades; those who can stay under water for hours; who can read your mind; pull trucks with their genitals; who stay buried in the sand upside down – for the whole duration of the Kumbh! And if you know where to look, and how to look, you can experience true miracles and spiritual powers – called as Siddhis – as opposed to feats of endurance or sleight of hand tricks that you are used to.  And maybe some of them may even initiate you in to these powers if you are lucky! I happened to meet and greet the aghori babas (hermits) who step out of their Himalayan caves only during this time!

Visitor from India and abroad have been coming to Sangam for the Kumbh since ages and for each one of them it has been a life changing experience! Jack Hebner in his book on the 1990 Kumbha Mela wrote “The very foundation of my conception of life, the reality in which I lived, was shaken at its root. I was forced by circumstances to find a new identity within myself and adopt a completely new value system. My western values were not enough to deal with the profoundity of the Kumbh Mela. What ensued was an unforgettable experience and a true understanding of the Kumbh Mela. I began to understand why millions of people attend the Kumbh Mela and I began to imbibe an inkling of their faith”. Nothing can sum up a Kumbh experience better than this.

The logistical scale:

This year’s Mela had a footfall of whopping 150 million over the 55 days of its course, The number is more than the populations of 222 countries individually- Germany (81,914,672), UK (65,788,574), France (64,720,690), South Africa (56,015,473) and Australia (24,125,848) among others (Source- UN List of

Shahi Snan on Makar Shankranti

Population). The number of people expected to attend is also more than the population of over 100 countries combined. The Mela has mainly the three traditional 'shahi snan' days which are especially auspicious days of bathing in the Sangam, the confluence of three rivers – Ganga, Yamina and the mythical Saraswati. The first is the Makar Sankranti, then Mauni Amavasya, and lastly Vasant Panchami. Besides, there are other spiritually auspicious bathing days - Paush Purnima, Magh Purnima, and Maha Shivratri. In each of these six bathing days 20 million devotees took the holy dip! Incidentally, that is the total population of Australia or Sri Lanka!

A whole city came up temporarily at Prayagraj spread across 2,500 hectares on the banks of the the Ganga and Yamuna. The huge Mela area had 250 km long roads and 22 pontoon bridges and, for the first time, the Mela area was brightened up by installing over 40,000 LED lights. The government installed more that 1,22,000 toilets ahead of the Kumbh Mela. The decision to spread the movement of 'Swachh Bharat' to the Kumbh Mela was natal as hygiene is all the more important due to such a huge gathering of people.

The state of the art technology:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) was used for the first time for crowd control by Indian Railway to tackle the massive rush of passengers to the holy city during the Kumbh Mela. IBM Intelligent Video Analytics were pressed into service at the stations and its adjoining areas. 

Special trains to Prayagraj for Kumbh

Not only were there hospitals, trauma centres and eye camps doing free cataract surgeries but the government deployed  'epidemic intelligence officers' who could coordinate with medical units to keep Kumb under strict disease surveillance and prevent outbreak of infectious and communicable diseases.  

The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) tirelessly towards facilitating safe passenger movement for Kumbh Mela. It set up four floating terminals, one each at, Kilaghat, Sarasvati Ghat, Naini Bridge and Sujawan Ghat and deployed two vessels, CL Kasturba and SL Kamla, for pilgrim movement. Countless boats all furnished with safety kits and life jackets and with life guards watching the bathers from vantage points made this a very safe Kumbh.

A very useful App and a website was developed to help people find the lost belongings and loved ones in this deluge of humanity.  This app developed by UP Police could guide one to everything he/she may need - face trouble in hunting for hotels/lodges, routes to reach the bus stop and railway station and in finding their way on the mela ground. For complaints of missing children or lost phones or valuables, an FIR and report could be lodged in the control room using the app. The control room was linked to Kumbh police website. The website displayed information on lost and found articles and missing people. 

Accommodation:

A luxury tent

There was a place to stay for everyone. From dormitories to 5 star accommodation, everything was available in Kumbh nagari. Delhi-based Hitakri Productions and Creations set up one of the most luxurious tent cities at the Kumbh – ‘Indiraprastham – the City of Eternity’ – in public-private partnership mode with the Uttar Pradesh government. Set on the banks of river Ganga, a 900-sq feet suite in an expansive tent, comprising two bedrooms and a living room with upscale upholstery, was the most premium accommodation on offer at Indiraprastham at nearly Rs 35,000 a night. Other economical alternatives - cottage tents, including luxury and deluxe tents were available at Rs 16,000 and Rs 12,000 a night (plus taxes) respectively. The setting son would flood the tent with an amber hue which was simply divine!

A Lucknow-based firm, Lallooji and Sons, was offering budget accommodation at its ‘Kumbh Canvas’, with cottages in the range of Rs 2,500 a night and dormitories at just about Rs 1,000 per bed. And then there were the hotels all over the city of Prayagraj to suit every pocket. 

Gen next identified with Kumbh:

Taking a trip to the Kumbh was the new cool for India’s millennials this year. Generation X wanted to

absorb and post the offbeat culture of the Kumbh on social media, while exploring the local cuisine, art and craft of the holy city of Prayagraj. Online travel booking platforms note that 25-30% of the bookings to the Kumbh came from millennials this time especially photography enthusiasts and art lovers. Direct flight connectivity to Prayagraj from the metros and social media craze were factors. Youngsters are narrating their Kumbh journey on Instagram which includes clicking sadhus who are using heavy headgears and flashy sunglasses, to attract the crowd. Generation X and Z were travelling for cultural experience rather than spiritual tourism.

Overseas Visitors:

Over 40,000 overseas visitors visited the Kunbh this year, thanks to the special effort put in by the government in giving it bue publicity through its High Commissions and Embassies. Guided by the

Boat ride 

ancient Indian philosophy of (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam), which means "the world is one family”, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) took the initiative of inviting one foreign representative from each country of the world to witness the Kumbh. The delegates, from all walks of life, have been nominated by Indian Missions abroad and include senior politicians, social reformers, Yoga practitioners, academicians, artistes, senior bureaucrats, medical professionals etc. This initiative was aimed not only to apprise the foreign representatives about India’s rich cultural traditions but also to convey India’s message of universal brotherhood, peaceful co-existence and global unity to the world.

A bonus:

It is also for the first time in the last 450 years that the devotees who visited the Kumbh got an opportunity to pray at 'Akshay Vat' and 'Sarasvati Koop'. According to a legend, once the sage Markandeya asked Lord Narayana to show him a specimen of the divine power. Narayana flooded the entire world for a moment, during which only the Akshaya vat could be seen above the water level.  It is a banyan tree mentioned in Ramayana and Rama, Lakshmana and Sita are said to have rested beneath this tree.

WHERE DO THE MONTHS GET THEIR NAMES FROM?

Do you know that the calendar that we use today is a fairly new one? The ancient Romans used a different calendar system, and their year began in March and ended in February and had ten months! In 1582, Pope Gregory adjusted the calendar, so most western nations began celebrating the start of the year on January 1. This new calendar became known as the "Gregorian calendar." However, England and the American colonies continued to celebrate the New Year on the date of the spring equinox in March. It was not until 1752 that the British and their colonies finally adopted the Gregorian calendar.

Even though our modern system may be quite different from the ancient Romans', they gave us something very important: the months' names. We have known these names since our school days but do you know how these months got their respective names? We get used to these names and have taken them for granted. They have become as familiar as a festival or a ritual or favorite food of that particular time of the year. A month's name is hardly ever given any thought. Let's take a look at where these names have stemmed from: 

January

This is named after Janus, the Roman God. In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the God of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. It is represented with t he was a god of spring, growth in nature, and fertility, and the protector of cattle. he was a god of spring, growth in nature, and fertility, and the protector of cattle. o heads that are back to back, signifying that he is looking back at the past for perspective, or looking forward to the future for hope. This duality perfectly coincides the end of one year and the start of the next. 

February

Derived from the Roman period of Februa, back in the day this was a festival of purification, also called the festival of Lupercalia. February was named after the Roman God Februus who represented purification. This festival took place on the 15th day of the month. It included some cleansing rituals which were believed to improve health and fertility. 

March

In the Roman calendar, the third month of our calendar was their first month. It was named after Mars, the Roman god of war and identified with the Greek god Ares. It was a time to resume war after the winter had thawed out. An ancient Roman deity, in importance second only to Jupiter he is also an agricultural guardian, he was a god of spring, growth in nature, and fertility, and the protector of cattle.

April

Aphrodite or Venus

This month is considered to be the month of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexual love and beauty. The word itself comes from the Latin word apeire. This means to open, and is usually referred to in connection with flower buds opening to bloom in the spring. Then again April may have got its name from the Latin word meaning “second" since April was the second month. Aphrodite is identified with Venus by the Romans. The Greek word aphros means “foam,” according to Hesiod's Theogony, she was born from the foam in the waters of Paphos, on the island of Cyprus. She supposedly arose from the foam when the Titan Cronus slew his father Uranus and threw his genitals into the sea.

May

Derived from the French word Mai, and named after Maia, the goddess of spring and growth. Maia is the daughter of Faunus, one of the oldest Roman deities and the wife of Vulcan. In Greek mythology, Maia is known as the mother of Hermes. Both the Greeks and the Romans considered Maia to be a nurturer filled with warmth. She causes the plants to grow through Her gentle heat,

June

June is named after Juno, the Roman goddess of love and marriage. According to Roman mythology, Juno watched over pregnant women and children, ensuring their safe births. For this reason, getting married in June is considered good luck. Not only is June an ideal time for weddings, it is also a good month for renewing vows and conceiving children. She is often thought of as the Roman version of the Greek goddess of love and marriage, Hera. Juno was the wife and sister of Jupiter, and the two of them were worshipped along with the Goddess Minerva on the Quirinal in Rome.

July

Initially known as Quintillis, or the fifth month, this month was named in honor of Julius Ceasar after his death in 44 B.C.E. as he was born in this month. July is the first month of the calendar which is named after a real person.  Julius Caaser introduced a new calendar, the Julian calendar, that corrected astronomical discrepancies in the old.

Augustus

August

August was originally called Sextilis, from the Latin word sextus, meaning six. Its name was then changed to honor the Roman emperor Augustus, Ceasar's great nephew. Augustus brought peace to a conflicted area and inspired growth, reform and a stronger infrastructure within its cities. He was a statesman and military leader who was the first Emperor of the Roman Empire, controlling Imperial Rome from 27 BC until his death in AD 14

September

September comes from the Latin term septem, meaning seven, as it was originally the seventh month in the ancient Roman calendar - which until 153 BCE was originally ten months long. September depicted the celebration of Ludi Romani, which lasted several weeks and featured chariot races, gladiatorial contests and lots of feasts. Spiritually, September can be thought of as the month we celebrate our personal victories and accomplishments. 

October

Derived from the word octo, which means eight - as this was the eight month of the Roman calendar, which then became the tenth month with the Gregorian calendar. October is marked by many festivals that take place around the world, including Oktoberfest in Germany. 

November

This is derived from the Latin word novem, meaning nine. Its name stuck, just as the other did, even after January and February were added to the calendar. November is associated with Thanksgiving in the states, a four day weekend that includes a lot of eating, Black Friday and the start of the Christmas holiday season. 

Decima in the middle of the three fates

December

Coming from the Latin word decem, which means ten, this month of the Julian calendar is the tenth month, while it is now the 12th month of the Gregorian one. The Latin name is derived from Decima. In Roman mythology, Decima was one of the three Parcae, or often known in English as the Fates. ... the thread of life with her rod, like her Greek equivalent Lachesis. Her mother is the Goddess of night and her father is the God of darkness.

So that is how the months got their names! 

SALVADOR DALI - the man, the genius, the marvel

The Persistence of Memory (1931)

Salvador Dali is one of the most celebrated artists of all time. The Spanish painter was one of the best-known surrealist artists (artists who seek to express the contents of the unconscious mind). Blessed with an enormous talent for drawing, he painted his dreams and bizarre moods in a precise way.

His fiercely technical yet highly unusual paintings, sculptures and visionary explorations in film and life-size interactive art ushered in a new generation of imaginative expression. From his personal life to his professional endeavors, he always took great risks and proved how rich the world can be when you dare to embrace pure, boundless creativity.

Salvador Dali

The artist, author, critic, impresario, and provocateur Salvador Dalí burst onto the art scene in 1929 and rarely left the public eye until his death six decades later. The auspicious occasion was the debut in Paris of Un Chien Andalou, a film Dalí made in collaboration with Luis Buñuel. Filmed in Paris, Un Chien Andalou strung together free-associative vignettes and made full use of the avant-garde technique of montage, including, most famously, a scene of a razor slicing into a woman’s eye. Shocking the viewer was his style and he made them feel his creation in their gut.

Diffidence was not in his vocabulary. “Compared to Velázquez, I am nothing,” he said in 1960, “but compared to contemporary painters, I am the most big genius of modern time.” Dalí spent much of his life promoting himself and shocking the world. He loved creating a sensation, not to mention controversy, and early in his career exhibited a drawing, titled SacredHeart, that featured the words “Sometimes I Spit with Pleasure on the Portrait of My Mother.” This meant that he had more than his own share of critics – art critic Robert Hughes dismissed Dalí’s later works as “kitschy repetition of old motifs or vulgarly pompous piety on a Cinemascope scale.” Dawn Ades of England’s University of Essex, a leading Dalí scholar felt “He had a reputation that was hard to salvage. I have had to work very hard to make it clear how serious he really was.” Dalí’s antics, however, often obscured the genius.

Early childhood:

Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí Domènech was born May 11, 1904, in the Catalonia n town of Figueres in northeastern Spain. His authoritarian father, Salvador Dalí Cusí, was a well-paid official with the authority to draw up legal documents. His mother, Felipa Domènech Ferres, came from a family that designed and sold decorated fans, boxes and other art objects. Although she stopped working in the family business after marriage, she would amuse her young son by molding wax figurines out of colored candles, and she encouraged his creativity. But she was surely not prepared for his unique style. She died when he was 16 and that left him heartbroken.

Training:

The precocious Dalí was just 14 when his works were first exhibited, as part of a show in Figueres. Three years later, he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid but, once there, felt there was more to learn about the latest currents in Paris from French art magazines than from his teachers, whom he believed were out of touch. When it came time for his year-end oral exam in art history at the academy, Dalí balked at the trio of examiners. “I am very sorry,” he declared, “but I am infinitely more intelligent than these three professors, and I therefore refuse to be examined by them. I know this subject much too well.” Add to this he was briefly imprisoned for political activities against the government. Academy officials had enough of him and expelled him without a diploma.

He was strongly influenced by the dreamlike works of the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978). He also experimented with cubism (a type of art in which objects are viewed in terms of geometry—the science of points, lines, and surfaces).

Surrealism and the Paranoic-Critical method

The Great Masturbator (1929)

The surrealists believed in artistic and political freedom to help free the imagination. Dali's first

contact with the movement was through seeing paintings; he then met other surrealist artists when he visited Paris, France, in 1928. Dali created some of his finest paintings in 1929. He introduced the Paranoic-Critical method in which he trained himself to possess the power to look at one object and "see" another. This did not apply only to painting; it meant that Dali could take a myth that was interpreted a certain way and impose upon it his own personal ideas. Thus he took surrealism to a whole new frontier where nobody had ever been before.

A key event in Dali's life during this time was meeting his wife, Gala, who was at that time married to another surrealist. She became his main influence, both in his personal life and in many of his paintings. Toward the end of the 1930s, Dali's exaggerated view of himself began to annoy others. André Breton (1896–1966), a French poet and critic who was a leading surrealist, angrily expelled Dali from the surrealist movement. Dali continued to be very successful in painting as well as in writing, stage design, and films, but his seriousness as an artist began to be questioned. Dali however became the most influential Surrealist artist; and perhaps the most renowned twentieth century painter after Pablo Picasso.

His famous works:

The most famous paintings of Salvador Dali include The Persistence of Memory, Galatea of the Spheres, The Great Masturbator, Swans reflecting elephants and Christ of Saint John of the Cross. 

The Great Masturbator is thought to reflect the erotic transformation that the artist underwent due to the arrival of his wife Gala in his life. 

Christ of Saint John of the Cross is based on a drawing by the 16th-century Spanish friar John of the

Galatea of the Spheres (1952)

Cross. The composition consists of a triangle, which is formed by the arms of Christ and the horizontal of the cross; and a circle, which is formed by the head of Christ. The triangle might be seen as a reference to the Holy Trinity while the circle may represent unity. This was voted Scotland’s favorite painting in a 2006 poll and it is considered by many to be the greatest religious painting of the twentieth century.

Galatea of the Spheres is one of the most renowned paintings from Dali’s Nuclear Mysticism period after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This painting is again a portrait of Gala Dali, her face is composed of densely populated spheres, representing atomic particles, which give a marvelous three dimensional effect to the canvas. 

The Burning Giraffe is seen as an expression of the personal struggle of Salvador Dali with the civil war going on in his home country. 

Swans Reflecting Elephants is considered a landmark painting in Surrealism as it enhanced the popularity of the double-image style. It is the most famous double image created by Salvador Dali; his greatest masterpiece using the paranoiac-critical method; and one of the most well-known works in Surrealism. 

Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937)

The Persistence of Memory has been much analyzed over the years as Dali never explained his work. The melting watches have been thought to be an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time; as a symbol of mortality with the ants surrounding the watches representing decay; and as irrationality of dreams. 

There’s no better surreal imagery for Dalí than the equally bizarre tale of Alice in Wonderland. In 1969, Random House asked the artist to illustrate a limited edition of the Lewis Carroll classic and the results are as good are you’d think. Only 2,700 copies were created, but luckily a new reissue ensures that the work will live on.

His life inspired his work

When Dalí was 5 years old, his parent took him to his brother’s grave, a brother who died when he was not even born,  and told him that he was his brother’s reincarnation. It was a concept that Dalí himself believed, calling his deceased sibling “a first version of myself but conceived too much in the absolute.” His older brother would become prominent in Dalí’s later work, like the 1963 Portrait of My Dead Brother.

While Dalí’s surreal artwork and eccentric behavior led many to believe that he was into drugs, he once famously stated, “I don’t do drugs, I am drugs.” One way he kept himself in a dreamlike state included staring fixedly at a particular object until it transformed into another form, sparking a sort of hallucination.

The Burning Giraffe (1937)

Elena Ivanovna Diakonova, known as Gala, was ten years older than Dalí and married to Surrealist

poet Paul Éluard when she first met him in 1929. A love affair quickly developed, with Gala eventually divorcing Éluard—though they remained close. The couple married in a civil ceremony in 1934, despite Dalí’s family’s unease with him marrying an older Russian divorcee. She had a pivotal role in the artist’s career, becoming his business manager and muse but most importantly, a very vital inspiration for his creativity.

Fashion and jewelry designer

When we think of Vogue covers, photographs of supermodels come to mind. But Dalí created four covers for the legendary fashion magazine. He moonlighted as a fashion designer and worked closely with Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli, who created designs based on his artwork. In 1950, he collaborated with close friend Christian Dior on a project about fashion inspired by the future. Dalí’s contribution was “A dress for 2045.”

The Royal Heart is a dazzling masterpiece crafted from 18k gold and covered with 46 rubies, 42 diamonds, two emeralds, and other precious gems. And that’s not the most impressive part. An internal mechanism causes The Royal Heart to beat as though it were a live human heart. The Royal Heart is the centerpiece of the Dalí-Joies collection now located at the Dalí Museum in Figueres, Spain.

Dali created his own museum

Dalí not only created his own museum, he’s also buried there. Located in his hometown of Figueres, the project started in the 1960s when the mayor of the small Catalan town asked Dalí to donate a piece of art to the city museum. Dalí decided to do much more than that, transforming the town’s theater—which was nearly destroyed during the Spanish Civil War—into the Dalí Theater and Museum.

The museum officially opened in 1974, but Dalí continued to expand the museum and even lived there during the final years of his life. After his death in 1989, he was buried under the stage of the theater. Today, the museum draws more than 1 million visitors a year, who flock to see the largest collection of Dalí’s artwork.

RESERVATION – NOW IN ‘Y’ AXIS….. BUT NOT WITHOUT QUALITY EDUCATION

The tug of war is between social justice and meritocracy. Reservation quotas, also known as affirmative action, have generated much anxiety around the world. At the same time, it has also eased social tensions and economic problems, bridging the gap between the elites and the underprivileged to some extent.

At the time of India’s independence, untouchability against Scheduled Castes was a major problem that had existed for centuries. The practice of untouchability accompanied social exclusion for the community and they continued to exist in isolation from other classes. The lawmakers while debating the Constitution wanted to correct this evil by creating a provision to address this social and economic gap. A close study of the Constitution Articles 14, 15(1), 15 (2), 15 (3), 16 (1), and 16 (2) reveals that the basic objective was ‘equality for all’ on the basis of ‘non-discrimination’. The word ‘caste’ was completely avoided from any reference, however, there was a provision in Article 16 (4) to provide for reservation in favour of backward 5 classes. So, we have come to live with this inherent contradiction in the Constitution which on one hand offers ‘equality for all’ without discrimination, while on the other, offers ‘reservation in jobs’ for the backward classes as a tool of social upliftment against centuries of oppression.

History:

In the United States till 1970s it was thought that the African-Americans were inefficient and ineffective. However, with the state's affirmative action this underprivileged section has caught up with the country's white coloured people to large extent. Although collective backwardness is still there, from Oprah Winfry to Barack Obama, individual success stories of the African-Americans are literally incalculable. The single important reason for this is opportunity of good quality education for all.

Singapore and Malaysia is a classic case as far as meritocracy versus reservation policies is concerned. Amid racial tensions and ideological conflicts Singapore was expelled from Malaysia in 1965. It was widely believed that the new born country could not survive on its own, due to scarcity of land, water, markets and natural resources. However, in less than four decades Singapore has transformed itself from a third world to a first world country with a thriving economy and an enviable quality of life for its citizens. Meritocracy has been one of the guiding principles of the city state which ensures that the best and brightest, regardless of race, religion and socio-economic background, find a level playing field to develop their fullest potential. On the other hand, Malaysia's affirmative action programmes, also known as the Bumiputera policy, that favoured its local Malay community is generally identified as the reason behind the country's failure to overcome the middle-income country trap.

In South Asia no country has probably experienced more social tensions over the issue of merit versus reservations than India. Dr Ambedkar, the key architect of reservation policy in the independent India, raised his voice in the parliament in 1927 to address the extreme economic and social backwardness of the Dalits (untouchables), originated in the Hindu social order. Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, advocated affirmative action to overcome the country's social and economic disparities. In 1990 India's higher education institutions, public sector units and government bodies kept 22.5 percent of available seats reserved for scheduled caste and scheduled tribes which was raised to 49.5 percent in 2008 by including reservation for other backward category. Sensing that meritocracy was being critically threatened the Supreme Court of India stepped in and ruled that the pie can be diced no more and the remaining 50.5% will remain unreserved.

While the global experience on the merit versus quota based development discourse is at best mixed, there is a tendency for countries to move from an affirmative action to a meritocratic system with their economic and social progress.

Quality of affirmative action:

Over the years, several constitutional amendments have been made to protect the weaker and underprivileged sections but have failed to bring about the desired results. This is because very little was done for the upliftment of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes and our efforts were misdirected. Even after seven decades of Independence and we still have large pockets of communities that have very little access to ‘quality’ education and therefore have very little chance to compete with other privileged sections to improve their economic status. So increasing the quota, as is often advocated by our self centred and myopic politicians with an eye on electoral politics, is not the answer. The noble objective of ‘Reservation’ was that the government would extend special attention to education and infrastructure to enable the backward classes to bridge the knowledge gap and therefore, the social and economic gap with the rest. This unfortunately did not happen. So it is not the quantity of affirmative action but the quality that is important.

Do we need an alternate plan?

The Constitution was written to prevent discrimination of any kind with ‘equal opportunity for all’ to improve social, economic and political development. However, what we see today is a perverse interpretation of what comprises SC/ST and OBC classes. All communities are now fighting to be included into one of the above categories. Whether it is the Jats or the Patidars or the Marathas everyone is running after the reserved quota! A system, which has not given dividends, which has not reached the last person in the social ladder in seven decades, is a mirage which everyone is chasing! There has to be a course correction. There has to be an alternate plan.

The first step to remove backwardness and poverty for ALL classes is ‘education’. The next is ‘opportunity’. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) talks of an alarming learning deficit year after year. In 14-18 years age group, only 43% able to do a simple division correctly, while 47% of 14-year-olds could not read a simple sentence in English, says the ASER study. Learning deficits seen in elementary school in previous years seem to carry forward as young people go from being adolescents to young adults. When your secondary level students are not learning like the elementary students, the problem becomes bigger. It is because of two reasons—one, this 14-18 years age group are ready to enter the workforce and thus has a direct bearing on the economy; second, the families depend more on this young cohort for doing free work. What good will ‘reservation’ do to acquire this standard of education? There has to be a course correction. There has to be an alternate plan.

Quality of education and not just reservation

Today, the gap in quality of education imparted in some of the best schools and those in semi-urban and rural areas is wide and therefore this creates an ‘unequal’ opportunity rather than an ‘equal’ opportunity. This is about urban-rural divide and not a ‘class’ divide issue. The poor quality of educational infrastructure, especially in government run institutions, has been a major hindrance to the overall socio-economic development and opportunity for its people. Education is a state subject and therefore, all states must take the blame for the poor state of education in schools and colleges. Besides, poor quality of education delivered through poorly trained teachers, ‘language’ remains a major barrier.

Thanks to electoral priorities and chauvinism, all states have promoted their own languages as the medium of instruction; as a result, today’s generation struggles to communicate when they travel outside their respective states and reduces their chance for employment. Andhra Pradesh and Telengana have 400 engineering colleges, everyone abiding with our reservation policy, and churning out at last 40,000 engineers every year, but are they getting employment? ‘Quality’ and ‘inability to communicate’ is the biggest drawback for most of these engineers and this has nothing to do with their caste but is a planning error. They are not unemployed but unemployable.

Now, with this quality of education in offer, how does ‘caste’ based reservation for this quality of education help? And where is the need for it? One can understand if a student from an economically weaker section who is qualified but cannot afford the fees of say a good school or college, but this can be easily addressed by financial scholarships or loans. Reservation alone has not helped him/her in the past and cannot be expected to do any better in future too!

My plan:

No, I am not against ‘affirmative action’ and I am not an anti-reservationist by any standards but my humble submission is that our reservation is misdirected and reservation alone will not do any good to anyone. I have in one of my previous blogs http://surajitbrainwaves.blogspot.com/2015/09/reservation-for-me-too-my-answer-to.html?showComment=1443347729585#c2452465957907146685 suggested three years back that I would prefer Economically weaker section (EWS) to get the fruits of reservation and those how have had one or two pieces of the pie should not be greedy but should be prepared to share it with their poorer cousins. Towards this direction I welcome the government’s new 10% reservation for EWS but this effort is incomplete. It should be 10% across the board – 10% of General, SC, ST, Backward Classes every category, excluding none. If the caste based reservation was in X axis, let the EWS reservation be in Y axis. This will allow the poorest in every caste, creed and religion to avail the same opportunity which their creamy layer has enjoyed till date. This along with education reforms is the only way forward to strike a balance between meritocracy and social justice.