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Scroll.in
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
Twinkle, twinkle, little star: Cosmology and the composition of verse
Knowing someone on the field as a fellow cricketer is one thing. So too becoming privy to his engaging forays into Maharashtrian antiquities. Quite something else it is to listen to Professor Girish Kulkarni of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research giving a public lecture on the properties of the Universe in its first billion years. Among Girish Kulkarni's beguiling analogies and metaphors, I am particularly struck by his comparison of the way the further you venture out into space, that is also, given the speed of light, back in time, what is known becomes more fragmentary in the way archaeologists digging down under a modern city usually find fewer remains as they go until there is nothing at all. To this model or metaphor, apparently, there is one exception. At a certain distant 'epoch' in space, beyond the imagining except in esoteric mathematical formulae, there is a 'zone' so clear it is as if an archaeologist, digging down into ever lower levels, has come upon a city – some lost Harappa or Pompeii – relatively well preserved. This is a surprise and creates a puzzle for cosmologists since it fits ill with the otherwise established pattern of a diminishing series. History of poetry: 'The Star As a woolly-minded versifier, I find myself provoked to toy with the possibility of an analogy between this riddle of contemporary cosmology and the surprises that can be thrown up by the composition of verse as well as its history. First, a historical example. Let me ask a question such as Girish Kulkarni might ask about versification. Which is the most widely known verse of English poetry? Perhaps something by Shakespeare? Or Wordsworth? Or Byron? Well, that might be so but my own random sample taken from many rambles across the world might suggest by way of answer a verse with which you will surely be familiar. By chance, it is curiously appropriate for cosmology: 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky, Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are'. I have found so many people, especially but not exclusively children, from Beijing to Budapest, from Madrid to Montreal, who, even when knowing little English, can recite this verse. I have seen copies of it inscribed on plates and on wall-hangings. Of course you know this verse, surely we all do, but, since we tend to remember poetry just in fragments, do you remember – I didn't – how it goes on and elaborates on the theme of the twinkling star? The movement of the verse is tied to a constant refrain of its iconic first line in a way that is common to Indian prosody. It returns to it finally via a line no doubt equally congenial to cosmologists as they confront newer objects of astronomical ignorance such as black holes and dark matter: 'Though I know not what you are, twinkle, twinkle, little star'. As with much poetry, often assigned for reasons good as well as bad to Anon, you may have forgotten or never known the name of the author of 'The Star'? It is Jane Taylor who, along with her sister Ann, was a phenomenally successful and well-loved writer in the Victorian era and beyond, at home and abroad. If you have seen the film PK, you may also be surprised to learn that it is indirectly, as stories by Browning and Mark Twain were directly, indebted to another of Jane's works, 'How It Strikes a Stranger'. This moral tale pioneered a genre whereby a stranger from outer space – Jane's from her twinkling Evening Star – arrives on Earth and exposes while experiencing the absurdities of human behaviour. Jane's particular target was Man's greed for wealth and possessions in the face of mortality. Composition of poetry: The Rubaiyát of Omar Khayyám That it is out of an inchoate chaos the coherent patterns of polished poems are salvaged and constructed may be illustrated by the story of a poem as widely read among free-thinking adults of all classes in late Victorian times as the works of the Taylors were among religious families – pirate editions appearing in India as well as England and America. To an astronomer and mathematician, Omar Khayyám, is ascribed a series of verses, none or few of which he may have composed at all. These are the Persian versions of rubaiyát better known to us in Edward FitzGerald's English translations – transcreations more like, even occasionally total inventions. The rubai is, like the ballad, a people's form from the countryside and it is ironic that many of the Persian originals, made available to FitzGerald by his teacher, Edward Byles Cowell, a professor of Sanskrit in (then) Calcutta, were composed in the sophisticated courts of north India. Whether or not Omar Khayyám ever did toss off a rubai or two at the end of his lectures on science, FitzGerald gathered a selection of the ever increasing number attributed to him and, having first tried some in Latin, tesselated them, as he put it, into a mosaic, stringing the disparate and discrete originals into a coherent sequence they never had – and so providing us with a whole galaxy of twinkling stars. Readers frequently return the collection to its former fragmented state by singling out a particularly memorable quatrain, perhaps, for example: 'And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die, Lift not thy hands to It for help – for It Rolls impotently on as Thou or I' FitzGerald, who invariably deferred to his – younger – teacher, Professor Cowell, only once rebuffed him and that was to insist on his own more sympathetic rather than his teacher's far more laboured - if faithful – versions of Omariana being published first. In the event the first edition of his Rubaiyát of 'Omar Khayyám (1859) fell dead from the press, the next edition, published curiously in (then) Madras, did no better and FitzGerald died before quatrains from his poem became as familiar as stars in the sky. Reading poetry: 'The Disillusioned Bride' If the composition and dissemination of verse is as volatile as anything in the cosmos, the reading of it can also be as various and puzzling. Scroll back towards the beginnings of Jane Taylor's career and one poem attributed to her is so unlike anything else she ever wrote that it is widely supposed it cannot be hers. The timbered Guildhall Museum in Lavenham once housed an extensive exhibition of works by the Taylor family. A visiting stranger from the 21st century, as if from another star, would have been struck by the difference as well as coherence of their cultural universe. Their tales and verses all have a strictly moral tone. Throughout the long 19th century, these made a substantial contribution to a strain of English-speaking culture that prized domesticity and duty above all else. The works of the sisters outlived them and they were still superstars of the nursery when an enlarged centenary edition of their Original Poems was published to greet the new century in 1903. Two years later their supernova even survived the threat of collapse into a black hole brought on by their own gravity. In his Cautionary Tales Hilaire Belloc published a series of hilarious parodies of their verses for children in which particular boys and girls don't simply suffer a bit of retribution as do Ann's Meddlesome Matty and Jane's Dirty Jim but all die in agony – and of course quite ridiculously – for such minor misdemeanours as slamming doors or chewing bits of string. Perhaps only that alien stranger to the Taylor family exhibition would have been idle or impertinent enough to look behind a door leading out of the room and find hanging there a manuscript poem that simply doesn't fit the picture at all. An adjacent note attributed it to Jane and gave its title as 'The Disillusioned Bride'. This poem has a newly-married young woman, in twelve increasingly spirited stanzas, berating her husband for growing cool towards her and threatening to leave him if he doesn't pay proper attention to her and her feelings. Surely the attribution of this poem to Jane has to be misplaced? Jane herself never had a husband. But did she perhaps have had a friend who, like a young woman in a later moral tale she wrote, 'Display', jumped into a showy marriage she soon regretted? If the subject of Jane's – never published – poem is puzzling, the form of it (pointed up in the title of a second unattributed variant secreted in a Suffolk archive) compounds the puzzle. Jane's poem begins: 'The twentieth week is well nigh past, Since first in church we two were ask'd, Ah would we had not gone at last! My husband…' This use of a stanza form composed of a triplet followed by an apostrophe was also used by Jane's sister Ann in 'My Mother' (published 1804), a poem destined to become as popular worldwide as 'The Star'. But it was not from Ann that Jane borrowed the form: both sisters were indebted for that to William Cowper, a poet whose works were much admired in Non-conformist circles for their domestic pieties. In 1803, 'To Mary', a poem by Cowper, had been published posthumously. It sadly regretted the terminal illness of a longtime companion: 'The twentieth year is well night past Since first our sky was overcast, Ah would that this might be the last! My Mary…' While it is easy to see why Jane could not have published a poem that explicitly followed the syntax of Cowper's so closely, it is puzzling why she would have chosen to speak at all in a loud spirited tone the very reverse of the quiet piety heard in Cowper's poem. Quite possibly Girish Kulkarni, familiar with the peculiarities of the entire cosmos, would have hit upon the answer rather more quickly than I did. The truth is that the lens of the Telescope of Time through which we now look at Jane's poem has been adjusted, if not changed. It is not Jane but we who have upended and abandoned her customary moral assumptions. In reading a dramatic monologue such as these three poems are, we tend to identify with the speaker – unless and until our own values cause us to take exception to what they are saying. While we today may hear the voice of Jane's disillusioned bride as that of a spirited young woman putting her negligent husband right about the needs of his new partner, Jane would have heard it as that of a strident one who needs to learn, as does the young woman in 'Display', to make the transition from being a petulant bride to a sensible wife. Of course it could still be that something of Jane's heart has gone into her portrait of the bride, even as her head has not. Could it be that her bride is simultaneously an admirable and independently-minded young woman and a pitiable and petulant one? Perhaps she owns a cat called Schrödinger? Cosmos Conceptions of the cosmos, so I understand from Girish Kulkarni's lecture, are likewise composed of fragments that might be perceived diametrically differently and re-arranged coherently in diverse ways. That said, can there really be any comparison between earth-bound scribblers mired in the maya of drafting pretty little verses and cosmologists far out in space intent on measuring as they are wafted along on it what the ancient seers referred to as the Breath of Brahma? Girish Kulkarni's recent public lecture on Cosmology at Kaapi for Kuriosity may be found here. John Drew's latest collection of essays and verses, Bangla File, is available from ULAB Press, Dhaka.
Time of India
10-05-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Med board to weigh cancer survivor's MTP of 24+ weeks
Representative image MUMBAI: Bombay HC directed that an independent medical board be set up to decide on the termination of an over-24-week pregnancy of a woman who is in remission from breast cancer. "In our view, the interest of justice would be served by passing the following order," said Justices Girish Kulkarni and Advait Sethna on Thursday. They directed JJ Hospital dean to appoint a board of experts, including a psychologist, to examine her and submit a report to the vacation court. The woman, aged 40, moved HC to permit medical termination of pregnancy as she had crossed the 24-week legally permissible limit. Operation Sindoor India-Pakistan Tensions Live Updates: India hits back after Pakistan violates ceasefire; Nagrota sentry hurt in brief gunfire Operation Sindoor Live Updates: Drones shot down at multiple places in J&K as Pakistan violates bilateral understanding Pak drones enter Indian airspace, explosions heard just hours after truce deal Her petition stated that in Aug 2020, she was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer. Between March and Aug 2021, she underwent treatment that included 8 rounds of chemotherapy, surgery, and 21 cycles of radiation, which she completed in April 2021. She was informed that the treatment would have a permanent impact on her future chances of conceiving. After experiencing abdominal pain, an April 25 sonography report revealed she was 23 weeks pregnant. Since her pregnancy was over 20 weeks, on May 3, she approached the JJ medical board constituted under the MTP Act. On May 6, the board declined permission, citing no lethal congenital anomaly noticed in the foetus.
Time of India
10-05-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Ind med board to weigh cancer survivor's MTP at 24+ wks: HC
Mumbai: Bombay High Court directed that an independent medical board be set up to decide on the termination of an over-24-week pregnancy of a woman who is in remission from breast cancer. "In our view, the interest of justice would be served by passing the following order," said Justices Girish Kulkarni and Advait Sethna on Thursday. They directed JJ Hospital dean to appoint a board of experts, including a psychologist, to examine her and submit a report to the vacation woman, aged 40, moved HC to permit medical termination of pregnancy as she had crossed the 24-week legally permissible limit. Her petition stated that in Aug 2020, she was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer. Between March and Aug 2021, she underwent treatment that included 8 rounds of chemotherapy, surgery, and 21 cycles of radiation, which she completed in April 2021. Operation Sindoor Pak drones enter Indian airspace, explosions heard just hours after truce deal Sirens, explosions in border districts after Pak breaks deal: What we know so far 'What happened to ceasefire?' J&K CM after explosions heard across Srinagar She was informed that the treatment would have a permanent impact on her future chances of conceiving. Further, that hormonal therapies and chemotherapy induce a menopausal state that was likely to lead to the cessation of menstruation or irregular experiencing abdominal pain, an April 25 sonography report revealed she was 23 weeks pregnant. Since her pregnancy was over 20 weeks, on May 3, she approached the JJ medical board constituted under the MTP Act. On May 6, the board declined permission, citing no lethal congenital anomaly noticed in the woman's petition stated: "Continuation of pregnancy will cause grave injury to her mental health considering her past history and possible relapse." Since the cost of treatment was significant, she took a loan and paid it off until Nov 2024. She has to spend on check-ups and tests to monitor the recurrence of cancer or other health issues. She is neither financially, physically nor mentally in a position to have another child. The board "did not consider the impact of continuation of the pregnancy on her overall well-being and state of mind".Her advocate, Meenaz Kakalia, said it is imperative she is examined by an independent board. She "is not in a state of mind to undergo the rigours of a complete pregnancy". Kakalia cited a Supreme Court decision that the medical board evaluating a pregnancy above 24 weeks must opine on the physical and mental health of the person. She said SC emphasised the right to choose and reproductive freedom, a fundamental right under Article 21 (Right to Life), adding, "The earlier board did not consider the legal requirements, thus necessitating a reconsideration." The judges agreed an independent medical board be constituted "to assess the physical as well as psychological condition of the petitioner...".
Hindustan Times
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
HC pulls up Maharashtra govt for not paying compensation to villager for land acquisition in 1990
Mumbai, The Bombay High Court has come down heavily on the Maharashtra government for evading its obligatory duty by not paying compensation to a villager after acquiring her land for a public project in 1990. A bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Somasekhar Sundaresan held that acquiring a person's land without following due process of law and/or without paying compensation amounted to a violation of constitutional rights. The order was passed on May 2 in a petition filed by Sumitra Shridhar Khane, who said the government had acquired her land at Vhanur village in Kolhapur district in September 1990, but she hasn't been paid compensation to date. The court noted that the case depicted the breach of the petitioner's constitutional rights guaranteed under Article 300A of the Constitution, which is the basic illegality and a wrong done to her, and it was also a case of continuing wrong, as she is yet to be compensated. Irked with the government's lack of empathy, the court said the sad reality could never be overlooked that every person in such a situation may not be so fortunate, in the first place, to be informed of their legal rights and then to receive legal advice and thereafter to knock the doors of the court. "Not every person has the means/ resources to do so. It is for such a reason that the State officers posted on such duties are under an onerous obligation to adhere to the lawful procedure and protect the rights of such citizens. This is a constitutional duty," the court said. The court cannot be oblivious to the State's basic constitutional responsibility and obligation, it added. The bench said that the State's lackadaisical approach and actions or inactions have exacerbated the injustice suffered by the petitioner. It was "quite astonishing" that the state government would intend to evade its obligatory duty of paying compensation to Khane, it said. The court declared that Khane was entitled to compensation for the acquisition of her land and directed the government to compute the compensation payable to her and disburse the amount with interest within four months. It further said that since there was a patent breach of the petitioner's constitutional rights, it is appropriate and imminent in the interest of justice to direct the government to pay her ₹25,000 for legal expenses. In a society governed by the rule of law, there can be no discrimination in law, the court said, adding that there cannot be different standards, yardsticks and methods in the application of the law to persons of limited means who are not literate or well versed of their legal and constitutional rights. "Likes should be treated alike. This is a constitutional guarantee of equality before the law and equal protection of the laws in a welfare state," the court said. The bench remarked that it was the solemn duty and responsibility of the State to uniformly apply the law, as also take corrective actions when it is noticed that the State's actions are in breach of law and the constitutional rights. "Any breach of such fundamental mandates has no place in a civilised society," the bench said. As per the plea, Khane owned a hectare of land at Vhanur village in Kolhapur. In 1990, some lands in the village were notified for mass acquisition for a public project of rehabilitation of persons affected by the Dudhganga irrigation project. The petitioner said pursuant to the acquisition notice, she had voluntarily handed over her land to the government in September 1990. While the government claimed that since Khane had voluntarily given the land, she was not eligible for compensation, the court noted that she had never given up her right to compensation at the time. The court also refused to accept the government's contention that the petitioner can't seek compensation three decades later and said it cannot fathom that in a civilised society, a situation of continuous wrong is being caused to a person. The court, in its order, said under Article 300A of the Constitution, a person can be deprived of his or her property only by a process known to law and hence, any action to take over or acquire land without following the due process of law and without payment of compensation would amount to an "unconstitutional and arbitrary" action. It said such action not only results in a breach of the constitutional right guaranteed to a citizen of this country but also renders the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, under which the person is sought to be deprived of his or her land, nugatory.
Time of India
02-05-2025
- General
- Time of India
HC declares city's biggest dumping ground a 'protected forest'
1 2 Mumbai: Fifteen years after BMC began using almost 120 hectares on the eastern coast at Kanjurmarg as a garbage dumping ground, Bombay high court on Friday declared it a protected mangrove forest. The HC gave BMC three months to take necessary measures to comply with its judgment. These include restoring the land, one-third the size of New York's Central Park, to its 'private forest' status, as assigned by the state in 2008. The two-judge HC bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Somasekhar Sundaresan, citing an earlier HC ruling, noted that the Kanjur plot has mangroves and was a ' protected forest '. The HC, however, said for the next three months, dumping could continue at what happens to be the city's biggest landfill for solid waste. The HC declined a stay as sought by the state. The govt will now approach the Supreme Court. NGO Vanashakti and its member Stalin Dayanand, who moved Bombay High Court to challenge the state's 2009 decision to de-notify 120 hectares of protected mangrove forest at Kanjurmarg for garbage dumping, said the govt followed no due process of law. The NGO, through senior counsel Gayatri Singh, contended that the state govt lacks absolute power to de-notify or deserve or delete any protected forest without approval from the Centre under the Forest Conservation Act of 1980. The Supreme Court in 2003 had allowed dumping on 141 hectares at the site on condition that the state would abide by pollution norms. State advocate general Birendra Saraf argued that the land was only marginally covered with mangroves and those patches were excluded from the dumping ground and would be protected. However, the HC bench on Friday ruled that the walls constructed by BMC around the landfill stunted and denuded the mangroves which would normally have grown. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Google Brain Co-Founder Andrew Ng, Recommends: Read These 5 Books And Turn Your Life Around Blinkist: Andrew Ng's Reading List Undo A series of public interest litigations (PILs) have been filed since 2004 for mangrove protection in and around Mumbai. Given the need for a new dumpyard and the fact that other landfill sites in Mumbai were nearing their limit, HC had passed a slew of orders. The disputes travelled to the Supreme Court as well. Acting on a 2005 HC order to protect mangroves, the state notified over 425 hectares of Kanjurmarg land as 'protected forest'. But it de-notified almost 120 hectares from it in 2009 to create the landfill. It is a challenge to this de-notification that was heard by Justices Kulkarni and Sundaresan at length. BMC, along with the state, challenged the protected forest status as a 'mistake'. BMC senior counsel Anil Sakhhare and AG Saraf said the Centre, through the Deputy Salt Commissioner, had petitioned the HC in 2022 to question the 'protected forest' status given by the state govt to salt pan lands held by the central govt. The state wanted HC to clarify that since the SC in 2003 directed Kanjurmarg land be used as a dumping ground, its own 2008 decision to call it 'protected forest' was a "mistake". But the HC held that the 'private forest notification' of 2008 was not 'simply erroneous' as the state and BMC sought to argue, since it was the product of studies, imaging, and due process of law. The HC, in a detailed analysis of the law, rules, and copious extracts of orders in an 87-page ruling, said, "The state verily found that the land was a mangrove area and it complied with the Forest Act and the HC's Mangrove Direction. The argument for de-notification was therefore not based on the factual position." The HC said the subsequent deletion of 2009 can't be defended as a 'rectification' of error without following mandated process under the Forest Conservation Act. The SC order enabling dumping at Kanjur also directed that pollution laws should be strictly complied with. The SC order can't be a cover, said the HC. Significantly, HC said, "The issue of mangroves growth on the subject land and the declaration of the law that mangrove land is indeed protected forest (and therefore cannot be used for garbage dumping) was not even brought up before the SC." Advocate Zaman Ali, who represented environmental non-profit Vanshakti, in a 2013 PIL, said, "BMC now has three months essentially to find a new location for a dumping ground in place of the Kanjurmarg plot."
