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I just finished listening/watching a very nice conversation between Harry Kreisler and Kenzaburo Oe. I remember how much I had enjoyed his very touching style of story telling and how soon I had become a fan of Oe after reading his remarkable book ”A personal matter”. Oe’s “A personal matter” depicted an amazing journey of a father through the cultutal walls, creativity, honesty and responsibility. Since then, I have almost forgotten about him (and my reading has come down drastically, after I started working in industry). I think he is one of the finest writers of this century, perhaps not known outside Japan as much as he should be. I really enjoyed this conversation. It is quite touching, the way, he and his wife learned to react to his brain damaged child converse with them, for the firstime when their son was five years old or something. Incredibly human!
On a sunny Lausanne morning, I woke up much later than usual. A game of cricket last evening had its due share in settling my body parts and indirectly in this wake up delay as well. I was all excited to re start working on the one sided set constraint problem which I pondered about a little the other day. After a routine coffee, decided to check Indian newspapers on line and the first news said Kamala Suraiyya’s passed away. To most of us, especially the ones associated with Kerala, she is the one and only Madhavikutty known to outside world as Kamala das. A name change and a religion hop didn’t really bother a secular Malayali. However the truth remains that, she was easily one of the most misread, misinterpreted writers of this generation.
I have not read a lot of Madhavikutty’s major works. That is a shame, I must accept. But I remember reading many short stories of hers, published in magazines, newspaper supplements and weeklies. One of the stories I still remember is Punnayoorkulam where she touchingly depicts the life of a poor servant. Other short stories instantly coming to my mind are chandana marangal (Sandal wood trees, ചന്ദന മരങ്ങള്) and Pakshiyude maNam (Smell of a bird, പക്ഷിയുടെ മണം). Her story telling style was unique; most notably with her precise and careful selection of words. It is incredible that she could write so well in both Malayalam and English. Not many people know that she was nominated for Nobel prize in 1984. Unfortunately I didn’t get to know much of her English works other than a collection of short stories titled Padmavati the Harlot and Other Stories , which I happened to read sitting inside a book store in Trivandrum during the summer of 1996. That was an experience of some sort. I didn’t have money to buy books then. I used to spend a lot of time inside the book store (thankfully they allowed that) and spend nearly the whole day there. In two days of a week I could read quite a lot. I had restricted visits to two days a week to pretend that I was not exploiting that facility. Nevertheless, over a period, I had befriended with some of the shop guys and they politely let me enjoy this habit, realizing that I was a mere student who couldn’t afford to buy anyway.
Her life and works were dragged into so much controversy. I am not sure whether that helped her to increase the readership. I personally think she was an incredible writer who didn’t need these controversies to claim fame and readership. Her autobiography and the frank style of telling stories created public attention. Perhaps it came at a time when it was unusual for an Indian woman to be that open to express her emotions and life. I do not know much into that controversy, other than learning that it had some. I did not read her autobiography either to judge whether it had some explosive presentation of vivid emotions of a woman. Anyhow, such was her life. Some people would remember purely because of such controversies. Sadly many would have failed to realize the pure writing talent of such a bilingual writer, one of the best Kerala produced. Her death will surely create a void, considering that the language writing has become so thin these days.
Many people in Kerala were surprised when she converted her religion in the last stretch of her life. It was not because of the religion she chose to or the one she was born into. It was more because of the fact that she chose to give importance to latching onto a religion for keeping piece with her life. Anyway, that was her personal choice and everyone accepted it, period.
Madhavikutty’s departure is a big loss. May her soul rest in peace. I leave you with this documentary on Kamala das by Ignou:
I’ve finished reading the memoirs of Walter Rudin. It was a quick read for a few hours. His autobiography is titled The way I remember it, published by AMS in the history of mathematics series. It wasn’t particularly interesting, to say the least. From a mathematician who wrote excellent books on functional analysis and several others, I was expecting a much better story. Of course one cant write an imaginary story in an autobiography, but then the incidents in his life is pretty much the story of any European intellectual during the war days. The best I liked is the one from Karl Popper. However, I could connect many incidents from Rudin’s life, primarily because of the geography. There is a chapter on his days in Switzerland, which also touched upon Lausanne. That part for once enthused me! Was wondering how Lausanne would have been 70 years ago! If you are completely unaware of the life in Europe around the WW period, then this will give you a perspective. Like many scientific minds of that era, he had a long route to the United States. He discusses the path and family traits of that journey, in a somehat uncomplicated language.
In his autobiography, Rudin has discussed some of his contributions to mathematics as well. That part appeared a little informative, but technical read. If you know his work already, you would connect it nicely. I particularly liked the chapter on Function Theory in the Unit Ball of Cn.
In all, not a book I would recommend, unless you are a Walter Rudin fan and knows his contributions in much more detail. However, this may be a motivating read for a young school kid aspiring to be a mathematician. Why did I say that? I don’t know! Don’t ask me why either!
While searching for the book Information theory, Coding theorems for discrete memoryless systems by Imre Csiszar and Janos Korner, I came across several sites which echoes the fact that this book is one of the rarest specimen on earth. However in the process, I found a blog forum which lists a whole lot of out of print books. This book, as expected is in demand already. We can even vote to request to bring the out of print books to a possible reprint. I am not sure how effective this is, but there is no harm in trying! We can suggest any books you may want to have a reprint. To me, this is a whole new and welcome idea. For learning, we should have access to the good books. Already quite a few demands (See this blog for instance) for the Csiszar and Korner book. Man, the world sometimes think alike!
On the day before yesterday, while on travel I picked up two books from the Bangalore airport book shop. One was the Helen Keller autobiography “The Story of My Life”. This was perhaps the first full volume autobiography book I had read, when I was a child. I still remember, the used copy of this book being given to me, by a family friend and teacher, when I was in early school. The vivid recollection of Helen Keller learning the alphabets and notably, words like ‘rain’ sill echoes somewhere in the back of my mind. I decided to buy this book, with the plan to gift it to someone, who I come across, preferably young kid in school or so. Eventually, I gifted this to a friend of mine who, when I mentioned about the same, was all excited to grab it. In a way I felt happy because I could instigate interest in some one about Helen Keller. Keller’s life has been a message in itself to humanity. Her strives and constant efforts to learn to react to this world is touching to say the least.
The other book which I have picked along is on the story of “Nicolas Bourbaki”. It is titled “The artist, the mathematician: The story of Nicolas Bourbaki, The genius mathematician who never existed”. It was authored by Amir Aczel, the author of the book on ‘The Fermats Last theorem’. I never heard about this book before, either in reviews or from friends. Well, I must confess that I didnt really search for books or reviews on a topic of this kind, to really hear about such a book. Anyway, the book is a recent print and the news may be just coming out only.
This book turned out to be quite an interesting one. On the flight and while on wait, I could quickly finish reading the book. Being a math and mathematician related book, I didn’t feel sleepy over the book. That helped to complete the reading at a stretch. The book is about Nicolas Bourbaki. Out of my innocence, I never heard about this character before, either. As the title says, there was no specimen of this kind in human form lived upon earth. Yet, there was an identity to this Nicolas Bourbaki. The real truth about this name is revealed a little later in the book. Nicolas Bourbaki was not just one person, but an identity for a collection of mathematicians, mostly French. Together they have published a lot of work in mathematics, under the identity of one name “Nicolas Bourbaki”. How does that sound? Well, it sounds a little weird and a little interesting to me. Can we say, Nicolas Bourbaki was an institution itself? (Well there is a story about Nicolas Bourbaki being applied to get an AMS, American Mathematical Society and gets a reply to pay the institutional pay to get the same. Of course, the AMS president that time, had known the truth about the name Nicolas Bourbaki!)
So, Nicolas Bourbaki represented a group of Mathematicians, post 1935 (between first and second world war period), who formulated a systematic structure to the study of mathematics itself. They have worked predominantly on the Modern mathematics (modern algebraic concepts) including the concept of ’sets’. As you would expect (because of the time line and French connection), the star mathematician André Weil was one of the founding members of this group. Some of the other well known French (connected) mathematicians also figured in the celebrated group. They iuncluded names like Henri Cartan, Claude Chevalley, Jean Coulomb, Jean Delsarte, Jean Dieudonné, Charles Ehresmann, René de Possel, Szolem Mandelbrojt. Some later entrants to the Bourbaki group had the likes of Laurent Schwartz, Jean-Pierre Serre, Alexander Grothendieck, Samuel Eilenberg, Serge Lang and Roger Godement. The group would meet regularly to discuss and debate on modern mathematical topics and eventually publish under one name Nicolas Bourbaki!
Even though Bourbaki does not exist (at least actively) today, it is believed that this has brought some ’structure’ in not only mathematics, but in European culture in general. Besides, the stellar contributions on the field of algebra and number theory by this group is acknowledged very well.
Now, another reason, why this book took my interest is because of the presence of the mysterious Alexander Grothendieck. The book talks rather in detail about this mystery man. He was regarded as a genius and had contributed immensely to the world of mathematics. His fields medal in 1966 and related absence from the Moscow event on his own Fields medal confer perhaps tells more volumes about this man. I took by surprise to hear about the current life of this once world star of mathematics. Post 1991 he is believed to be living in a remote jungle/outskirts of Southern France, far from any worldly contacts. I quickly recollected the 2006 Fields medal winner Grigori Perelman, when he declined the medal and began to live away from mathematics crowd. Like Perelman, who (now accepted by everyone) proved the Poincaré Conjecture, Grothendieck as well, produced some monumental contributions. He was considered as a Genius and it was recognized too. But in close resemblance to what Perelman did in 2006, he as well decided to quit mathematics altogether and decided to live a mysterious and aloof life.
What makes, genius folks like Perelman and Grothendieck to abandon themselves from the world? It is surely not fear, simply because they have contributed so much to us and can only be proud of it. What else then? There may be arguments that Grothendieck was disappointed by the fact that, he couldn’t get the results he wanted from his political activities (He had strong political views on certain things against the establishment). Others say that, the childhood miseries and leading an abandoned life early on triggered him to do an isolated life, out of frustration and despair. In Perelman’s case, it is surely a hurt feeling and the one that of ignorance by the mathematical community, for questioning his credentials on the Poincaré conjuncture proof. But can the human mind, which is otherwise so highly brilliant all of a sudden taken aback by a feel of hurt? I feel sorry for these two fine mathematicians, who could have produced much more (They have already done so much, but….) to the world. The life and fate of these two tells the story of the society we all are in, where jealousy, politics, lack of respect to others can completely eradicate a gem, which we should have preserved at all cost.
Tears and anxiety glues through my mind on the current whereabouts of Grothendieck. I hope he lives a happy life around Montpelier! Human mind, man is a highly complex black box. What all it takes and what all it breaks?
Felt a little sorry to hear that Art Buchwald passed away. The first memoirs of his humour columns which used to appear in the last page of “The Hindu” Sunday (and later on Mondays) newspaper, came calling once again. These days, those columns are hardly seen in Indian newspapers, but thanks to Internet, I still get to read some of his, very occasionally though. One of the recent one, I found very interesting was in the “The Washington Post” column [1] of his, titled “When the going gets tough, the war gets going”. In his own style he could sent the right message to the folks responsible. I thought that was very apt and brief to send a clear message to those proponents of war. Well, fact can be harsh and unpleasant, but the truth is that millions of innocent people pay the price for fault not of theirs. To be courages to tell the truth is wisdom in itself.
Interested by his writing, I was once curious to know his background. My intention was to find out, how and why he turned into writing humorous articles. Often, I hear that comedians and humourists and writers who write such articles have a very difficult life story to tell. In a way Buchwald too had his difficult childhood. His mother was in a mental hospital/asylum for a good part of his childhood. It is heard that he couldn’t see his mother for about 30 years or so. My heart goes to a child with such a terrible childhood. Perhaps, his intense sorrows made him to cover up all those and present a brighter spot to millions of readers all over the world, through his columns.
This morning, I came across with the news [2] of his demise. His unique styled articles will be a big miss from now on. But he has made a mark through his brilliant short columns. His death wasn’t entirely unexpected (I guess he was critically ill in early 2000), but the news of his sad demise had created an irreplaceable void in the literary circles.
[1]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/20/AR2006122001680.html
[2]http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/washington/17cnd-buchwald.html?ei=5088&en=fab0a134179122be&ex=1326776400&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1169195128-CMCmfOAbP7FKzWef9kPGtA
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