Viswanathan K's Thoughts

In The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*** , Mark Manson talks of a Japanese Second Lieutenant from World War II, Hiroo Onoda, who was told to defend Philippines, to “never surrender”. The Americans landed with “overwhelming force”, and  most of the Japanese soldiers got killed or surrendered. But Onoda and 3 of his men retreated into the jungle and continued the fight. For over 3o years .   He never got to know that Japan had surrendered! He disbelieved the pamphlets that the Americans, the Japanese and the Filipinos dropped over the years as lies and propaganda. Sound too crazy to be true? That’s exactly why Onoda became an urban legend in Japan: “The war hero who sounded too insane to actually exist.” Another Japanese, Norio Suzuki, went in search of Onoda, found him and convinced him the war was over. Onoda had no regrets: he had fought for a cause, he had followed orders. And so he returned to Japan. And boy, was he disappointed: “A consumerist, capitalist, superfic...

If you thought India is polarized, take a look at the US. Granted, it’s election season, and this isn’t a truly representative time, but still…   Just 18 minutes into the first Presidential debate, the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden got so fed up with the constant interruptions from Trump that he snapped: “Will you shut up, man.” Biden probably said that in the heat of the moment. But the kind of outpouring of support his remark got shows how polarized things are. For example, Jonathan Capehart wrote an opinion-piece in the Washington Post titled “Joe Biden spoke for millions when he told Trump to ‘shut up, man’”…   In normal times, we acknowledge many decisions are hard, with no right answers. Like dealing with COVID-19: benefits of lockdowns v/s economic cost to so many. But come election time, everyone gets into black and white mode : “Trump told attendees in Carson City that supporters of his opponent would surrender their “future to the virus,” saying: “H...

In the last blog , I went over one half of the China Ascendant book, the part of the inevitable dual purpose of most China’s policies wrt almost every other country -its attempts to create and secure trade and oil supply routes. All of which leads to the need to have connections to the Indian Ocean.   And that is where they run into India. Build a port and a corridor from the Arabian Sea in Pakistan, and it spooks India. When China tries to hedge its bets wrt Pakistan and hence tries to build an alternate corridor via Bangladesh instead, India feels encircled. Try to secure sea routes from Europe/Middle East to China, and India feels the Chinese Navy is getting too close to India. When China takes possession of that Sri Lankan port for failure to repay loans, China is suddenly right next door to India. South East Asian countries feel threatened by China’s expansionism. When India tries to get close to them with its Look East policy, China wonders if India’s approach is dual us...

Given the increasing and prolonged standoffs with China, I read this collection of articles by Indian analysts on a rising China named China Ascendant . Since it is an assorted collection, there’s no unifying theme to the book. On the upside, the same lack of theme allows for different, even contradictory, perspectives…   The key point that emerges is that China is flexing its muscles to become the next superpower. And India is caught in the middle of that rise. For most Indians, this is too emotive an issue to be able to see or acknowledge. So I’ll focus here on the parts that are not “aimed” at India. And loop back to India in the next blog.   Like it or not, China is viewed positively by many, many countries. Its model of “authoritarian capitalism” (i.e., no democracy) appeals in areas where democracy is not well established, from South America to even eastern Europe. And China fishes in troubled waters, like lending to Greece during the 2008 financial crisis, when ...

All that velcro-strapped stints on the treadmill can’t prevent the changes to an astronaut’s body, writes Chris Hadfield in “An Astronaut’s Guide…” : “Without gravity, we don’t need muscle or bone mass to support our own weight, which is what makes life in space so much fun but also inherently bad for the human body, long term.” Thus, when he returns to earth after months on the International Space Station: “My arms are so heavy I can barely lift them… It’s like being a newborn, the sudden overload of noise, color, smells and gravity, after months of quitely floating, encased in relative calm and isolation. No wonder babies cry in protest when they’re born.”   And the effect doesn’t go away… for months in his case (actually, its a one-to-one ratio between time in space and time to recover). Why? “After five months in space my body hasn’t just adapted to zero gravity, it has developed a whole new set of habits.” Walking is very painful: the legs find the weight of the body...

In “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth” , Chris Hadfield says that unlike earlier times, when space trips were short, now they often last several months: “As the stints in space have gotten longer and longer, your temperament matters. Are you easy to get along with?” And you don’t get to pick your team-mates. So yes: “Sometime integration is not so easy, because we don’t get to pick our fellow travellers. It’s like a shotgun wedding.” When that happens, focus on building the wall with the bricks you have: “At some point, you just have to accept the people in your crew, stop wishing you were flying with Neil Armstrong, and start figuring out how your crewmates’ strengths and weaknesses mesh with your own.”   Why those months long space trips? To conduct experiments, fix and install things, and “help make space exploration safer”. So yes, a lot of work: “A lot of time the work isn’t glamarous, but that’s okay. The workplace itself is , after all, in a pretty great ...

The title of the book intrigued me: “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth” . Apparently, it isn’t enough to be the guy who gets to “experience yee-haw personal thrills in space”; Chris Hadfield is also wise. And a great writer.   Hadfield points out the “ yee-haw personal thrills in space” can happen only if you go to space . And no, not all astronauts go to space: “Getting to space depends on many variables and circumstances that are entirely beyond an individual astronaut’s control, so it it always makes sense to me to view space flight as a bonus, not an entitlement.” Sure, you’re super fit and able to withstand all those G-forces, but a Challenger or Columbia- like disaster can put all programs on hold. Or the only vehicle that can dock with the ISS (International Space Station) is a Russian one whose restrictions on height that you, sadly, don’t meet.   Therefore, do any training without expectation of reward, he advises: “You can’t view training solely as...