A Trip to Minsk

From the very beginning, I had to fight with Jhuma, when she learnt about my intention of attending a conference at Minsk. She insisted, “We had the least idea about that country. It may not be safe. You should not go there.” But, I kept on pleading her. At last, she resigned, but gave me an angry look, and casually mentioned, “If your trip gets cancelled, I would offer a dala  (a collection of items including money, fruits, sweets, etc. meant for worshiping God) to the temple”.  I had no idea why she was worried so much. Even some of my friends were also curious, “Why Minsk?” But from my childhood I was always enchanted by the colorful pictures painted in the magazines of Soviet Union, which we could get then with a throw-away price. I always wanted to visit those places and talk to people, who seemed to live in a different system than ours. Even after the fall of Soviet Union, I am still having the same urge of visiting different places of Russia and its break away republics to know how their life was during Soviet Era. A few years before (in 2002) I did visit snow-covered roads and fields of Moscow, and was thrilled to see the famous statue of Lenin calling his countrymen to join the revolution, and the towering figure of Yuri Gagarin on the road side, while traveling by a car. We walked through the streets of Moscow, its red square and could see the remnants of displaced socialist system. This time too, when I had a chance to visit the capital of Belarus, I did not want to miss the opportunity. The only impression I had about that country, was that its gymnasts were very good to win many Olympic medals, and during Nazi aggression in the Second World War the people there fought bravely to defend their homeland. But it took a few months to get a formal invitation letter with some ministry clearances from my host, and finally when I submitted my visa application to the Belarus embassy in New Delhi, there was no decision on my application even after a few weeks. Somehow my travel agent managed to get it at the eleventh hour, and he promised me to hand it over with tickets and dollars on my arrival at Kolkata in the evening of my departure. That he did, and I could get through the immigration counter at Kolkata airport to board an Air India flight to Mumbai. From Mumbai I would fly to Moscow, and then from there to Minsk. When my plane left the runway, it was a huge relief for me, and I told myself that at least Jhuma did not have to take the trouble of offering a puja (worship to God) on my account.

There was only a gap of an hour and a half for catching the connecting flight to Moscow at Mumbai. I did express my apprehension to my travel agent, but he assured me, “Do not worry. You will find a person from Air India waiting for you in the terminal with your name written on a placard. They would transfer you to the Moscow flight.” Though my flight landed in right time, it waited for half an hour in the runway to park near the terminal, and then the passengers were brought to the arrival lounge by a bus. When I came out from the bus, only forty minutes were left at my disposal.  To my utter dismay I did not find anyone waiting there for transferring me to the Moscow flight. So, I rushed to the Air India transfer desk, and asked my boarding pass for Moscow. The person attending there answered casually, “Moscow? Who is in charge for Moscow?”  Someone answered him, “Nalwa.”

“Nalwa! Please take care,” saying this he instructed me, “Please go to him.”

Mr. Nalwa looked at me, and asked to his colleague sitting nearby, “Is there any flight to Moscow now?”

“Yes. A flight arrived today Morning.”

He took my passport, ticket and the boarding pass of my Calcutta-Mumbai flight, and then got busy with his work, answering queries to other passengers in between. I was counting minutes then. After a few minutes I requested him earnestly, “Mr. Nalwa! My boarding pass!”

“Oh! Your boarding pass,” and then he shouted “Who is taking care of transfer to Moscow flight?” Another youth came forward. “Please go with him. He will get you into plane.”  He gave my ticket, boarding pass and the passport to him.

The person accompanying me advised, “Run Yaar! You would miss the flight!”

“What about my luggage?”

“Chhoro Yaar! There is no time for getting your luggage into the carrier.”

My heart stopped! How would I manage without my clothes and other essentials in a foreign land? Anyway I was running as best as I could with my companion’s careful guidance.  We stopped near the security check point. There was a long queue waiting for me to join. My guide got nervous, “Wait Yaar! Let me see whether they would allow you to board.” He vanished behind the security line. I stood there for about ten minutes, and was still hoping for the best. Finally, I could see him coming out of the forbidden zone, walking casually and exchanging light remarks with some of his friends.  

“Sorry Yaar! They did not allow you to board without your luggage!”

I was totally dumbstruck! Yet in stead of being furious, I felt curious to see how the situation being handled by the Airlines.

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A year before, the movie ‘Terminal’ was released. I had no idea I would be in a state somewhat similar faced by the main character (Victor Navorsky) of that movie.  Of course contrary to his melodramatic experiences, mine was a real traumatic one.  In the movie, on arriving at the JFK International Airport at New York, Navorsky was denied an entry to USA, as his passport was no more recognized by the state owing to the change of guard in his country through a military coup. Neither could he go back to his own country for the same reason. So he had to stay at the transit lounge for days and weeks. I had also a problem to leave this transit zone. I did my immigration in Kolkata, and was waiting in the transit lounge to depart. So it was not possible for me to simply walk out from the zone without rechristening myself for an official entry to my own country.  I was not sure also, what the protocol would be, if I had to abort my journey and go home. So it appeared to me, only way I could resolve this paradox, was by going to Minsk, and coming back with those foreign immigration stamps in my passport. I had still a day to spare for presenting my paper. I still could make it, if I had the proper connectivity of flights in between. So I presented myself to the same Air India transfer desk, and demanded a solution. I also explained them my prevailing transit status. It seemed they were also confused, and felt safer to transfer me to Minsk or to any other place by any means. So they immediately flung themselves into action, and quickly discovered that about an hour later, there was a flight of Air India to Frankfurt, from where I could board a plane to Minsk. But, they were disappointed soon to know that I had no visa for Germany, and even not a transit visa for going out of the airport to spend the night there. I was also not feeling comfortable to go to Germany without a confirmed ticket to Minsk. Neither were they confident. Yet they sent a telex message requesting a confirmation for my ticket to Minsk from Frankfurt. So every five minutes, I used to go to the counter, and inquired whether they received any reply from Frankfurt. I never knew whether eventually they received any reply. It became irrelevant soon, as the AI flight to Frankfurt departed in the scheduled time.

In the mean time, there was a changeover in the duty-shift at the transfer desk, and I came across of a person, who had an appearance like the cricketer Sandip Patil in his playing days. He assured me that they were doing their best, and quickly they would resolve the matter. Finally, he told me, that they arranged my journey to Moscow via Delhi. There was a flight next morning from Delhi.  From Moscow, I would go to Minsk. However, in this case also, they were waiting for the confirmation for the last leg of the journey; that was from Moscow to Minsk.

“Please wait Sir. Once we get the confirmation, everything would be fine. We will send you to Delhi by tonight’s AI flight.”

I said, “I have no problem in waiting, if there is some decent arrangement for taking my rest.”

He apologetically told, “Oh! Sure Sir! Go to the Maharaja Lounge, and relax. I am arranging it. Take these coupons for your breakfast and lunch. Your flight to Delhi would be in the evening.”  

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What else could I do? I went to the so called Maharaja Lounge, and laid myself in a couch, haunted by several ifs and buts in my mind. I needed to get my travel itinerary, so that I could inform my host at Minsk about the change of my program. Though I informed her about my misfortune of missing the flight by sending an email, I needed to notify her alternative arrangements. I called my travel agent. He told me, “There should not be any problem in getting the confirmation. Let me also send a request from my system, so that we could get it a little early. Please check from the counter after half an hour.”

So every half an hour, I was showing my face to the counter, and was getting the same reply, “Please wait. Once we receive the confirmation, we will inform you.” In the mean time, in the lounge another Maharaja (King) turned up. In the earliest opportunity, he took a blanket and a pillow from the receptionist, and lied down on a sofa into a dark corner of the room. The young receptionist also advised me with a cheerful voice, “You too Sir, take rest!”  I took his advice. There was nothing much I could do in that situation. I started quite early that morning, and the best I could do was to get some sleep to release my tension. So I stretched myself on a couch, and closed my eyes.

Probably I slept for an hour. Immediately after waking up, I went for my routine query at the transfer desk. There was still no breaking news for me. After returning back, I found my co-passenger was also awake. In the morning, I had seen him. He was shouting against those people at the desk, and demanding to meet a higher official of the Airlines. I asked him, “Why are you here? Did you miss your flight?” 

“No. My flight is in the evening. But I arrived here in the Morning from Bangalore. I was supposed to be put into a hotel during this period. The staff at Bangalore told me, that they had sent a telex message about my accommodation. But, these people simply denied receiving any such message. Even I cannot leave this place on my own as I am now a transit passenger.” 

I told him, “Yes. As far as I know, that is true.”

“Me too! I told that same dam thing to the Airlines staff in Bangalore. But they told me that there would be a separate arrangement for taking transit passengers by a bus from the airport. Dam liars! All false promises! I will not leave this matter. I will sue the Airlines. How could they harass a passenger in this way? Just imagine, I have to be here from Morning to Evening, just for nothing!”

“Where are you going?”

“Bahrin.”

“Are you Indian?”

“Yes. But I have my property there. Almost a year I am living in Bahrin.”

“What do you do?”

“I am a Civil Engineer, as well as an Architect.”

Then he asked my reason of becoming a ‘Maharaja’ in that lounge. I told him how I missed the flight. He remained silent for a while, looked at me with sympathy, and then advised me bluntly, “You won’t get anything, if you don’t shout against them. No one will care for you. That is why I was asking for their boss in the Morning. But could not get any one! Even they were not able to trace out the telex message sent from Bangalore. Good for nothing!”

The receptionist  came to us and suggested, “Sir! The lunch will be available now. Please take it early. Very soon other transit passengers will come there. You may not get anything, if you are late.”  He was really a good host, always taking good care of these unfortunate Maharajas!

After finishing my lunch, I reported to the desk, and this time got the news to my delight. “We received the confirmation. Please come after an hour. Around 2:30 PM. We will hand over you your tickets.”

I asked, “May I get my new travel itinerary?”

“Sure.” I was given a print out from the computer. I found that I had to leave for Delhi at 8:25 PM. Next morning at 5 AM, I had my flight to Moscow. It would reach there around 8:45 AM. From there I needed to catch the flight to Minsk at 10:45 AM. Finally I would arrive at my destination at 11:05 AM.

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At 2:30 PM on dot, I went to the desk for collecting my tickets, and discovered that a new person was sitting there – much younger than his predecessor. When I asked him about my tickets, he replied, “No confirmation yet!”

It was a real blow to me. I said, “But I was told that my ticket is confirmed, and was asked to collect the tickets now.”

“Nope!” he reasserted after checking the system, “There is no confirmation for your travel.”

I showed him the print out given by the previous person managing the desk. He went through it, and returned it to me, “In my system, still I do not find it confirmed. Please wait for some more time.”

Then another gentleman, a senior colleague of his, came to my rescue. He told, “Yes! There is a confirmation. You can put him in the flight to Delhi. He would be given boarding passes in Delhi.”

But the young man was not convinced, and was still hesitating on this matter. Then on the insistence of his senior colleague, he told me, “Okay! I am putting you in our flight to Delhi. Please go with our staff, and identify your luggage. We have to put a new tag on it.”

So I went with a staff of the Airlines, and ignored the frown of security guards at the entry gates being escorted by him. We came near the exit point of the departure terminal. There I found my VIP-suitcase was lying like an orphan child with some other luggage on a dusty floor. There were a few persons talking among themselves. The moment I identified my bag, they were more than eager to put a tag on it. After coming back to the transit lounge, I went to the desk again and asked for my tickets. The young man replied, “That is not necessary. We are sending a telex message to Delhi. Our staff will help you to get the boarding pass.”

I expressed my concern, “As far as I know, even if I have a boarding pass, I need the ticket to board the aircraft.”

But, he assured me, “Don’t worry! We are taking care of your journey. Our ground staff at Delhi will be informed, and they will arrange everything required for you there.”

I rang my travel agent and told him the new arrangement. He was also surprised, “They should have issued you tickets. However, the telex message might do. They might be arranging E-tickets for you.”

Though I was apprehensive of going to Delhi without having the tickets or boarding passes, I tried to draw comfort from his words.  At least, I could see an end to my waiting at Mumbai.

---

The flight AI 310 was going to Seoul via Delhi and Hong Kong. We boarded it in the scheduled time. Still I was anxious to know whether my wandering luggage finally got a place in the carrier. I requested the captain, whether he could verify its loading. He was nice enough to comply, and made a check with my tag. Finally, he informed me that it was in his list. It brought me an instant relief. I started enjoying the comfort of my short trip to Delhi. Beside my seat, a lady was traveling for the first time to a foreign country. Her husband was working at Seoul. She was going to meet him. She was quite nervous to make the journey. I gave her a few tips on international travel. As soon as the plane took off, I could not keep my eyes open. But I had to wake up soon at the call of  the air-steward. Our dinners were being served. After that, hardly could I close my eyes, as I was eagerly waiting to see how the ground staffs of the Airlines at Delhi handle my case.

The plane reached New Delhi in time. While coming out from the aero-bridge two airlines staffs were checking our boarding passes. They were tearing a part of it. I told them, “I am a transit passenger.” They looked at me, but did not reply back. As usual they tore a part of my pass and went for the next passenger. After coming out I took the direction for transit passengers, But while trying to enter into the transit area, I was denied the entry. The security guard told me, “Only Airlines staff can go through this gate, Sir!” I said, “But no one received me here.” He suggested, “Please go downstairs. They might come there.” I was confused. Instead of going down, I went back to the gate of the aero bridge. Those two staffs were still counting those torn parts. I told them, “How do I enter into the transit area?” One of them took pity on me. He told me, “Come with me. We know you have to catch the Moscow flight”. He started calling some-one using his walkie-talkie, “Please come. Your passenger has arrived.” I was relieved to know things were placed in order. He brought me into the transit area, and asked me to wait before the Air India transfer desk. However, no one was there at that time. But he assured me, “Please wait here. Within five minutes, Mr. Nanda will meet you.”  By saying this he left the place calling over his walkie-talkie, “Nanda! Nanda! Nanda! …”  He vanished from my eyes for ever, and never came back to see whether some Mr. Nanda took the trouble of meeting me. But for the next few hours, his loud call to Mr. Nanda was resonating in my ear drums.

The next one and half hour was the testing time of my patience. I must admit that I was miserable at that. The transit area was thickly crowded. Always there were movements of passengers, airlines staffs, airport workers, and many others. I was waiting there standing in front of the counter, leaning against a pillar in the hall, holding my hand trolley. It was a catch twenty two situation for me. Neither could I leave the place with the apprehension that Mr. Nanda might come, and would return back without meeting me. Nor I was sure whether I would be able to get him by standing whole night there. So any one, whom I met, looked different from a passenger, I started asking whether he or she was an Air India staff. I could find none. One person told me, “Sir! I draw trolleys and carry luggage. That’s why I am here. Those babus (officers) are in the Maharaja Lounge upstairs. If you go there you could meet them.”  An Indian Airlines staff commented, “Shout! Man! Shout! Go up, and shout.” A few passengers also noticed my long waiting, standing with an expectation to meet someone. One of them advised me, “Why don’t you go to the lounge and ask the receptionist to call an official?” I considered his suggestion, and went to the lounge upstairs. The receptionist helped me calling the PRO of the Airlines over the telephone. She told me, “Please wait before the desk. One of my colleagues will attend you.”

At last, a person, named Mr. Kumar, appeared before me. He told me wryly, “We know your problem. These people from Bombay! If they face any problem, they always pass it to us. Let’s see, what can be done. If it is not resolved, we will send you back to Bombay.”

I could not believe what he was saying to me. I told him, “I was informed that they had sent a telex message to you. There should not be any problem in getting the boarding pass.”

“Why did not they issue you a ticket?”

“I asked for it too!”

“I do not know how these Bombaywalas (residents of Bombay) run the business! Just a telex message! Is that all? Anyway, let’s see. The Aerofloat counter will open around 2 AM. I will come then. Let’s see whether they agree to take you.”
I looked at my watch. Still I had to wait for one and half hour to know my destiny!
Mr. Kumar further added, “ But, your luggage hadn’t arrived here.”

I was amazed to find how a fact confirmed previously could so easily be negated on the next occasion! I was going through these experiences since I missed the flight.  Had I not confirmed from the captain of my previous flight, I had no other means to verify the fact, and would have accepted it meekly to my great distress. However, I told him, “I confirmed its loading into the carrier from the captain while boarding at Mumbai.”

“Is it? Then we have to check it properly.  It might not have been unloaded from the plane. I could not trace it in the arrival hall. Anyway, I have many other things to do. I have to look after passengers of three flights, though you are our top priority. I will come, when the counter opens.” Thus saying Mr. Kumar took exit from the arena.

Now I had the privilege of occupying a seat. It was good to know that someone from the Airlines was working with my tickets and boarding passes. After a while I found airline staffs from Aerofloat were looking for passengers to Moscow. I told them, “I am also a passenger of this flight. I will go to Minsk from Moscow.” I also explained them how I missed my flight to Moscow from Mumbai the day before. Immediately they took my passport and ticket. I requested them not to tear any page from it. My return tickets were also with it. Already the ticket from Mumbai to Moscow was taken away by the Air India staff at Mumbai.  Sometime later they came to me, “We are not getting your name in our system. There was no luggage either against you. Where is the staff from Air India?”

I told, “He was supposed to come here around 2 AM. Could you please check whether you get anyone from the Airlines? His name is Mr. Kumar.”

They tried to get him, but failed to trace him. So they returned my ticket and passport, “It is better you find him, and clarify the matter.”

Mr. Kumar came around 2:30 AM. He assured me, “I am working out your problem. I have arranged a ticket for you from my Duty Manager.” The duty manager of Aerofloat also came to meet me. He told me, “Your ticket is alright. But now we have to enlist your luggage. For this we need to screen your luggage in the X-ray machine and put a tag there.” Mr. Kumar gave this responsibility to one of his young colleagues. I was still in doubt, whether my luggage really reached there. So I asked the duty manager, “If my luggage hasn’t arrived here, may I board the aircraft without it?”

“Why not?”

“In that case, I am ready to board the plane without it, if necessary.”

Next half an hour I spent in planning how to manage my tour with a few things which I was carrying in my hand luggage. Around 3 AM, a lady from the Aerofloat Airlines came to me and informed, “We could trace your luggage. Everything is fine. Give me your ticket and passport. We will issue you a boarding pass.”

Oh! Dear! What great news! I was in the state of supreme happiness then, and started dreaming the sunrise at Minsk. I kept on waiting and was eagerly looking for the return of the Aerofloat staff for handing me over my boarding pass. Precious time was ticking away. The security check had started already. There was a long queue of passengers before it. I was feeling tensed again. Would there be sufficient time for me to clear the security check?  Once I had a glimpse of the lady who took my ticket and passport. She assured me, “Everything is fine sir.”

At last the duty manager came to me. I told him eagerly, “Give me my boarding pass. I needed to clear the security.”

He smiled at me and said, “You have a problem. For going to Minsk, you require a transit visa from Russia. You do not have that. Otherwise, you might have to give a hefty penalty at Moscow Airport. Even they may not allow you to return back.”

It was a bolt from the blue! The last nail in my coffin! I was not sure whether I should believe him or not. But I understood that I was not wanted in the fight. I told him, “So far no one told me about this.”

“Yes. Air India should have checked it.”

He returned my ticket and passport. I told him, “Could you please inform the Air India?”

He said, “That’s a big task! It is difficult to get those people. Anyway let me see what I can do.”

---

After half an hour, the duty manager came with Mr. Kumar. Mr. Kumar told me, “Now we will be sending you to Bombay.”

I told him curtly, “I am not going there. What business I have there? Now I have to return to Kolkata. Make an arrangement for that.”

“But there is no flight to Kolkata.”

I suggested, “My return is via Delhi. I have to go to the Domestic terminal. Please arrange my immigration clearance.”

He replied, “I have many things to do. I cannot afford to give so much time for a single passenger. If you want I can send you back to Bombay only.”

I pressed, “Please note that as a transit passenger I am now your responsibility. If I do not want to go to Bombay, you have to arrange my Immigration clearance. Please try for it. Otherwise, I do not see any other solution to this problem.”

He finally got convinced, and said, “Let me talk with my duty manager. Whatever he says, I will follow. Let’s see whether we can send you back with the immigration clearance.”

---

Around 5:30 AM, he came back, “With a lot of persuasion, I could make the head of the immigration department here, agree to let you go. He would clear your immigration. After that you can go outside to take the flight to Calcutta from the domestic terminal. Please give me another half an hour. I need to write a letter to them.”

I was relieved to know that I would get back my freedom of movement in my own country. After that, the unfolding of subsequent events could be described in brief. Nonetheless they were very vital for regaining my freedom. I was indeed grateful to Mr. Kumar for bringing an end to my floating citizenship. Being lead by him, I could manage to sneak through different security zones. He brought me at the office of Immigration Department. The head himself stamped my passport to cancel my immigration. Then I came back to the transit area to get my luggage. Finally Mr. Kumar took me to an unconventional exit door for my uneventful   departure from the terminal. Though I had the disappointment of not making my final destination, it was a great relief for me to become free from the imprisoned state of transit. My return to Kolkata was through a Sahara Airlines flight. As I had missed its Morning flight, I had to wait day long for taking the afternoon flight, which was scheduled at 4:40 PM.

So that’s it. When I reached Kolkata, it was about thirty eight hours after I started from the same place the day before. Till date I am not sure, whether I really needed a Russian transit visa for boarding the flight of Minsk from Moscow. Neither, did I ask Jhuma whether she had kept her promise at the altar of almighty after my trip got terminated.

25/03/2012

A Game of War

‘War’ and ‘Patriotism’ – seem to be two favorite topics of American TV channels – especially in their news channels, as if these two are integrally built in their cultural heritage. During my stay at Dave’s place in the year 2007, every evening I used to surf these channels and often find programs related to them.  It is also a fact that no other nation fought as much as Americans did in recent times, in particular in last twenty years or so, and none of those wars, were fought in their own land. Nevertheless you would find American soldiers fighting through out the world for some reasons or so; be it a peace keeping mission, or a mission for eliminating weapons of mass destruction.  The only major war or aggression, they faced in their territory in the last century, was from Japan during the Second World War. That too took place far away from their main land in Pearl Harbor. In return, the horror and devastation that it brought into Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was beyond anyone’s imagination. No doubt it brought a quick end to the Second World War, but it also terrified the whole world by sending a clear and loud warning of beginning of the era of nuclear warfare threatening the very existence of this planet. Then in the beginning of this century, a similar mistake, though in a different magnitude, was committed by a little known terrorist group, Al Qaeda. They blew the twin towers of New York using their indoctrinated followers in the September, 2001. This single act of terrorism was sufficient enough to invite the American wrath and war in this part of world. They showered all the modern conventional weaponries from their arsenal in the hilly terrains and caves of Afghanistan to chase the then rulers, Talibans, away from their safe havens.  In 2007, America was at the height of their Iraq campaign, and was bleeding heavily in the battlefields there. So it was quite natural, that all the pro-establishment media would take proactive roles in fanning sentiments around ‘war’ and ‘patriotism’ to counter a rising popular dissent against the campaign. When Dave told me, “Next Sunday, let’s go for watching a game of war,” I was curious, but not surprised at all. The week-end before, the nation observed the Veteran’s day. I thought the show, Dave was referring at, must be a continuation of that event.  But he clarified, “It’s like enacting an incident of our civil war, with all the melodrama and fan fare. It’s a part of our tradition.”

“Where will it be held?”

“In a place near my brother’s house.”

“Does it take place every year?”

“Probably.”

“Is any particular day fixed for it?”

“I am not sure. Even I do not know the place, where it is taking place. But round the year we have this fun. You will find soldiers in two camps dressed differently, are fighting with each other. It would be interesting to watch their mock fight. Let’s go. We have to go to my brother’s place first. He has also invited you to the dinner.”

“Oh! Great! My pleasure!”  

----

We started a bit early in the afternoon.  Dave’s brother  lived at a place which was around 40 miles from LA.  Dave took a bottle of wine for his brother’s family. I bought two packs of Indian sweets from an Indian store on our way. We had also the company of a young Saudi student – Adil. He was doing Masters in Computer Science in the USC. We were introduced before. He also rented an apartment in the same housing complex, where I lived.  During our introduction Adil did embarrass me by asking my year of graduate study in the University then. When I replied that I had finished it exactly two decades ago, and was visiting the University on a different purpose, he himself became embarrassed, and observed, “You should have a few more grey hairs by now to account for your professorship!”  Dave was quite fond of him, though he did not approve his love for Western culture and neglect (according to Dave) of his own culture and religion.

Dave loved to talk while driving, and there was no dearth of topics on which he could not speak. However, his favorite was anything connected to religion, and the next would have been on his utopian project of bringing peace and harmony among all religions.  I found Adil was also equally eloquent on different matters. He seemed to be engrossed with contemporary US presidential election, and started discussing on the election of possible Democratic candidate. A few days ago the first debate of Democratic candidates took place. Though Hillary Clinton was supposed to have an initial advantage to win this race, there were a few other names also drawing attention of the media. In fact immediately after the debate, Barak Obama, the young Illinois senator, was declared as a dark horse in that race. Adil thought Hillary would finally be the candidate.  He asked me, “Who do you think, should win this election? I am for the Democrats.”

I told, “How does it matter? Will there be any difference?”

Dave replied, “Oh! Sure! There is a lot of difference between these two parties. It matters who in power is. I am out and out Republican. I give huge donation to their election fund.”

I was aware of his affiliation before. There were a good number of certificates and receipts of donations displayed on his door. Even I found a picture of George and Laura Bush there.  I told him, “Dave! You may feel the differences in your domestic affairs. But, an outsider like me does not find any difference in policies of these two parties.”

Adil told, “But if a Democrat candidate wins the presidency, she will stop war in Iraq and withdraw American forces from there.”

I disagreed, “This decision is not merely a decision of an individual. Finally it is the bureaucrat and the corporate lobby, which matter. You can see Hillary was evasive on this aspect. Though Obama was a bit explicit, but he also played a dubious role in voting against Iran. None of this candidate promised any immediate withdrawal of force after their win. I do not think there is any soft ending of this war.”

Dave changed the topic. He said, “Last weekend my son came to see me. He drafted a will for me. He wants my signature. What he wants do you know?” He looked at me expectantly, and then replied on his own, “He wants my property. The whole bunch of it!”

I asked, “What would you do?”

“I’ll sign.”

I was surprised at his meek submission to his son’s demand. I knew he loved him very much, but he was also not very happy with his life style, which he confided to me previously. As Dave was always strong in his opinion and quite outspoken on matters of his liking and disliking, I thought he would not relent to this demand. So I asked, “What about your daughter? Will you not keep something for her?”

“No. She is not fit for keeping the property.” He was candid enough to declare his intention, and continued, “She has a disease. A very infectious disease!”  He winked at both of us, and explained, “She wants to see everyone happy in this world. I hope you understand. Is there anything worse than this craziness?”

I tried to argue, “But, Dave! Is it proper to keep you daughter left out?”

“Why not? It is my property. I can do whatever I want. Don’t you think that is where the justice lies? Besides, my son will take care of her sister. So where is the question of injustice?”

I found him a bit irritated, and kept mum on this subject. After a few minutes, he said again, “But, I went with him to a party last week, and realized that he is insane.”

Adil reacted, “Nonsense!”

Dave said, “It is true. He could be very rough. Suddenly he could become very angry. At that moment, he may even kill a man. When he returned to Santa Barbara, I wrote him a long mail. I told him that he should realize that he has a crack in his brain. He should take care of this. He replied to my mail in one word – ‘agreed!’ A real CrackJack!”

After a few minutes, Dave once again asked Adil, “What do you think? Will he kill me for the property?”

Adil replied, “I do not think so.”

Dave agreed, “Me too.”

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There was quite a bit of gathering in Dave’s brother’s house.  He was a lawyer, as well as an accomplished lyricist and singer.   A few weeks ago I met with Dave’s brother and his niece on the occasion of a concert, where his brother played guitar.  That day, he invited also many of his friends and his secretary, a lady in mid-thirties, with their families. Dave’s niece welcomed us.  When I handed over the sweets, she wanted to know how to eat them.  I told her, “Just take them raw. You require neither heating nor cooking.” They were in fact laddus and barfis (typical North-Indian sweets).

The house had a small backyard lawn. There we played a game called ‘Croquet’. I never played it before. However the rules appeared to me simple, though I was not a good learner of the game. I had to pick them while playing only. We played in teams of  three. Dave and Adil were my partners. Each team had a colored ball and a player of a team in turn would have to hit the team’s ball by a stick fitted with a short bar. The stick was called ‘mallet’. The ball had to go through wickets; nine of them were placed on the ground. There was a typical tour path that had to be traversed through these wickets. Each wicket had to be crossed twice in a complete tour. A ball could advance for a wicket only if it goes through the wicket placed before it in the charted path. There was a starting position and a wicket marked to begin with.  Finally, a person succeeding in finishing the track, became a monster or poison. He or she could hit any one’s ball and put the opponent out of the contest. I played quite poorly among all of them. I was not sure how the game ended. It appeared to me, near the end Dave’s brother became a poison and started hitting opponents’ balls to conquer them one by one. However, there was not much of time left for a conclusive finish. We had to rush to the battlefield as Dave’s niece sounded the warning bell for being late at the show.

---

When we reached the venue, we could see that a good number of people were walking across a field to reach the final point of assembly. We also joined the procession. After traversing the field, we walked over a small wooden platform to cross a very narrow ditch. Immediately after it, was the arena of the war-game, which was almost hidden from our eyes by trees, and bushes around its fences. No sooner than we made our entry into that soft muddy corner of the ground, it revealed its secret antique world.  I felt as if we went back to an eighteenth century hamlet, where bearded men wearing top hats with knee long black suits and tight trousers pushed into the leathers of  high boots, were roaming on the pebbled road. Some of them were accompanied by ladies with long striped skirts and long sleeved jackets. They too were wearing colorful and feathered hats. By the side of the roads there were wooden houses, displaying items of yonder days. There were shops with different house hold items for sell. They had kitchen stuff, knives, dresses, mirrors, flutes, toys, hammocks, candles, hats, etc. There were drugstores displaying different colored bottles on a table. It had a old fashioned wall clock and a calendar displaying the dates of 1864. On the road, a few horse drawn empty carts were lying.  In our left side, a makeshift high-wall was erected. We could hear the sound of beating steps of marching soldiers and the shouts of their commanders coming from the zone behind the wall. A soft sweet tune of flute complimenting their marching beats was being played all around us. Occasionally we could hear blowing of whistles from here and there. Against these good number of people in their ‘go as you like it’ nineteenth century dresses roaming, gossiping, laughing, or selling different items in shops, we in our usual attire looked like foreigners there. But very soon, we could also feel our attachment to this new world.  Like us there were many other visitors of this century. However, everyone seemed to be enjoying becoming a part of this field drama on depicting an episode of the American civil war.

Our group came to an area where several tents were fixed by the two sides of the pebbled road. In those tents there were soldiers with their blue uniforms.  By looking at their uniforms Dave commented, “This is the Union camp.” The soldiers in their tents were busy in various activities.  Some were cleaning their rifles, some reading newspapers; even some of them were having a chat with friends. A few of them had special badges indicating their status of officers. At places, a small group of soldiers were standing in rows, and were getting addressed by their commanding officers.  In front of some tents there were also small gatherings of visitors, who were satisfying their queries on tactics and ammunition used during civil war. We also listened to one such conversation. The person was explaining the mechanism of loading a rifle with seven gun shells in a magazine, and removing it after the firing. Dave as usual joined the conversation, and carried on satisfying his queries on different aspects of war tactics. There was an aged man standing aloof from these gatherings. He had many badges in his uniform. Dave went straight to him and asked, “What is your role in this battle?”

“I am the General,” he replied.

“It means, you are General Grant!”

“Yes.”

Dave turned towards me and whispered, “Just imagine, the General Grant himself is standing before us.” Then he asked again, “When will the fighting  start?”

“About half an hour later.”

“Where is your  opponents’ camp? I always side with the opposition.”

“The other side of the ground.”

“Who will win this battle?”

“Today it is the turn of the confederate army.  This is the battle of Cold Harbor. In this battle on a single day, 7000 soldiers of the Union camp were killed.’

Dave remarked, “Great to know that! Then we need to place our loyalty to the victors. Let’s leave these losers, and take shelter in the Confederate camp.”

In the camp of Confederate army too, the soldiers were busy in drills and in other preparations for the war. They were wearing grey uniforms. We did not stay longer there. We had to be near the battle ground for the final show. So we went for visiting various other exhibits in that ground. We visited different shops selling replicas of old items during the days of civil wars. Dave wanted to get a hat. He gifted me one too, and said, “Now, let’s have some vintage touch. Put it on.” I had to wear it. That was the first and the last opportunity I had for wearing it.  After my return, when my wife discovered it, she immediately took it into her safe custody, and would give you a cold look, if you mention about its existence.  She was afraid that I would be crazy enough to ask for it again.

---

There were fences around the battle field. All the spectators were lined up around it. Though there were chairs to sit, many of them remained unoccupied. Most of the spectators preferred to watch the show standing on the ground. The field was quite large. We were standing near the trenches of the unionists, where soldiers took positions with their rifles. The ground was made uneven. At places there were heaps of muds. However, mostly it was an empty corn field. One could see the dry foliages, traces of reaped corns, and their roots scattered around. The other end of the ground was extended towards the left, and met a wall of the compound. Near the wall a barricade was constructed with sacks, wooden planks, and tree-trunks. The confederate soldiers were behind it waiting for the battle. 

Before the show began, a brief description of the episode was narrated over a PA system. The particular battle took place in Cold Harbor in 1864 on the 3^rd June. Cold Harbor was a place at a distance of about ten miles from Richmond, the capital of the Confederate States. At this place both the generals from each side assembled with their soldiers. General Grant was encouraged to attack General Lee’s camp to cause severe damage in his battalion. He wanted a decisive victory at that stage. On the other hand the confederate General Lee was more than determined to save his bastion. Initially the unionists made a good progress and did make push towards the confederate territory.  However that proved fatal for them. The soldiers got exposed to the open fire of the confederate army, who were waiting behind the barricade, and a lot many (7000 as mentioned before) union soldiers died on the spot. From the confederate side, the number of deaths was about 1500. Later, General Grant in his memoir regretted the fact that he gave a marching order on that ominous day. Incidentally the battle of Cold Harbor was the last one, where Confederate army had a major victory. Very soon they were defeated in subsequent battles loosing a great number of their ranks and files. In the absence of new soldiers joining for their causes, the army became thinner, and lost its capacity of mounting any serious attack on the unionists. Finally in April 1865, General Lee surrendered to General Grant thus bringing the end of the civil war.

Finally the phony war started. The excitement of the evening was settled with the sounds of firing from guns, and cannons from both sides.  A group of confederate soldiers took positions around the middle of the field and crawled on the ground with guns pointing towards the union camp.  The union soldiers too crawled near the mid-area, and then the exchange of fires between them started. As told, initially the unionists marched forward, while the confederate army moved back behind the barricade. During the exchange of gun-shots a few soldiers from both the camps were found lying on the ground.  Presumably, they were dead or seriously injured.  Then began the bombardment of cannon shells, and firing of gun shots from the barricade on the advancing soldiers of the Union camp.  Most of them fell on the ground. A few could run away towards their trenches. The whole field was filled with smokes and smell of gun powder.  The grayish shadow of the autumnal dusk was spreading its wings over the battleground. Through the smoky fog, we could see the outline of a tall figure limping across the field. The dejected general was returning to his camp stooping his head mournfully, sometimes stopping near a fellow soldier lying on the ground, sometimes watching carefully at the enemy camp. All of us knew that it was merely a staged drama, and were taking consolation from the fact that none of our soldiers died that day. Yet the depiction of the bloody war befell a supreme silence across the arena.  We could feel the trauma, helplessness and sufferings of soldiers in every battle-field. Yet so many are bleeding and dying in today’s world!

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On our return, there was a long queue of cars waiting to take the exit from the venue. I was in Dave’s car, and his brother was also accompanying us. Adil was in the car driven by Dave’s niece. Dave became impatient while waiting behind the pool of cars for a few minutes. “Let’s do something else,” by saying he drove aside on a non-metal road. None of those cars before us vouched for it. Yet he wanted to check how far he could go driving along it. His brother got nervous and pleaded him to enter the queue. He told him, “What are you doing? No one is following this lane. It should not lead us to the exit. Please turn back, or at least get into the queue from the side. We would be in trouble! You do not know where this road ends. We might have to come back again and wait behind all of them.”

But Dave kept on driving.  He laughed at his brother, “Let’s see. Who knows where it ends?”

It took around five minutes to reach the end of it, meeting at a junction of the entry point of the highway. All other cars were patiently and slowly making their turn to take the exit.  Dave joined them without any difficulty. Throughout this journey his brother never stopped pleading him for turning back, and was scolding him for his impatience and for being unscrupulous. Moment we reached the main road, he called his daughter, “Take the non-metal road running beside. Otherwise you have to wait there for hours.”

10/03/2012

Living in a Digital World

Pythagoras, the famous Greek philosopher and mathematician, once said, “Everything is a number.” For a long time, people thought the idea is overstretched and metaphoric in his interpretation of creation. How could you convert everything a number, or how numbers could justify the existence of this material world? However, in today’s world of internet and digital computer the maestro’s metaphor is thriving with resounding resonance at every corner of this planet.  We can have everything now in numbers – music, art, dance, movies, images of every animate and inanimate object, the three-dimensional flora and fauna – they could be described by numbers – their colors, texture, seamless interactions with the environment – it is the Pythagorean world mirroring our existence as well as aiding its sustenance. This virtual world maintains a symbiotic relationship with our real world. We create it by digitizing the objects and concept, and it recreates our experiences; thus guiding us to face and overcome new challenges and stresses of life. The synthesis of our life with this virtual world is so strong that we have also become numbers in various ways. We now have digital codes for almost everything be it’s a subatomic particle or a large galactic body in the Universe – sometimes using a global standard, sometimes a local number limited to a specific system of operations. Thus our personal identities are numbered in the form of different IDs including in the recent Aadhaar scheme of the Govt. of India intending to provide every citizen of this country a unique identifier (UID). 

Digital Characteristics

How digital being differs from our common notion of this material world, in particular in space and time?  What we see, feel, touch or listen, appears to us as a continuous stream of experiences over space and time. An object in a space could be of finite size and discrete. But, object occupancy in that space, however infinitesimal it may be, is considered to be continuous. The same is true over time. A period of time interval could be also finite and very precise. But, it has infinite number of time instances (or moments) within it. In digital form a finite space and a finite time interval has a finite number of cells and time instances, respectively. So an object in digital form is described as a collection of cells, occupied by it. Similarly, over a time interval, only discrete events are recorded or observed at a finite number of time instances.  Since the cells or time slots are countable and could be specified using numbers (integers) only, the digital representation becomes an ordered set of numbers. Not only the object occupancy, but also various properties or attributes of objects at those locations, e.g. surface texture, volume transparency, color, etc., can be represented in the digital form.  The values of these attributes over the digital space or time are encoded by numbers.

Mathematically, we denote the variation of values as functions over space or time or both. Consider an example in one dimension. Let x be a variable, which takes any value within the interval [a,b] in the real axis. We denote f(x) as a function of x. In this case f(x) is a function in continuous space. Its domain is x. We may refer it also as an analog function. An example of a digital function g(i) following f(x)  could be in the form of a finite sequence say, g(i)=round(f(a+ik)), i=0,1,…,n, i.e. g(0)=round(f(a)), g(1)=round(f(a+k)), g(2)=round(f(a+2k)), …., g(n)=round(f(a+nk)), such that (a+nk) ≤ b.  In this case, rounding of real numbers into an integer value is expressed by the operation round(.). Hence, the values in the sequence are integers. The process, by which a sequence is generated selecting functional values at regular intervals, is known as sampling. The length of the regular interval is known as sampling period.  In our example, the sampling period for generating g(i) from f(x) is k. We find that the digital function in some way approximates the analog function f(x). It gives almost the same values at points of x from where the functional values are sampled. Even the intermediate values between two points could be computed by using interpolation techniques, say by imagining a straight-line passing through these two points, and determining the functional value at any intermediate point lying on the straight line. More we take the number of samples within the interval of a and b, better is the approximation. This implies that we need to take smaller sampling period. Suppose these points are plotted on a paper. With decreasing sampling period, the gaps between these points become smaller, and the curve would appear to be closer to that of the analog function. So one may naturally ask a question, how small this sampling period should be so that f(x) could be obtained faithfully from g(i)?

Science of digitization

The answer to the above query comes in the form of a theorem, the Nyquist sampling theorem, named after the American Scientist Harry Nyquist, who discussed it in 1928. Let us understand this theorem intuitively. Consider a sinusoidal function in the form of A.sin(2πmx+ɸ). From its mathematical form, we attribute A to be its amplitude, so that in every cycle the functional value varies from A to –A, and -A to A. The length of the period is 1/m. m is also called the frequency of the function, and ɸ is the phase term.  Given a sampled sequence, both the positive to negative and negative to positive transitions of the function could be captured, only when there are at least two samples per cycle. This implies that for sampling a sinusoidal signal, the sampling period should be at most half of its period, or in another form, the sampling frequency (number of samples per unit scale of x) should be at least twice of its frequency. Now by performing Fourier series analysis (introduced by  Joseph Fourier, the French mathematician and physicist, in 1830), we express almost any function f(x) as a superposition of a number of sinusoid functions. Each component sinusoid is called a frequency component of the function. In most cases, the number of components is infinite. However, for functions related to a physical system (for example a time varying signal of an electrical circuit), the contributions of high frequency sinusoids become negligible. In that case, beyond a frequency m_h we need not bother to sample any component. This requirement guides us to select a sampling frequency no less than 2m_h, twice the highest frequency component of the function. Nyquist sampling theorem says that the minimum sampling rate should be twice the bandwidth (the length of the frequency interval of the components) of the function.

The other factor, which is also associated with the approximation of the analog function in digital form, is the conversion of a functional value to an integer. In the example given previously we have used rounding function to get this conversion, which keeps the difference between an actual and the corresponding approximate value within 0.5. Not necessarily rounding is the only method of conversion. For example, truncation could also be another form, in which only whole number part of the real value is retained, by throwing away the fractional part. Even in a more general situation, one may divide the values by a scale factor and keeps only the integral quotient to represent the digital functional value. In the reverse process of computing analog values from their digital counter parts, the same scale factor is used in multiplying with the quantized values. The scale factor is also referred as quantization threshold, and the process of converting real values to integers in this way is called quantization. The reverse of quantization is termed de-quantization. Smaller we take the quantization threshold; less becomes the error of conversion.

Reconstruction Process

Let us consider the other side of the story. Given a digital sequence, how one could get back the analog function? As intuitively we have seen earlier, one may carry out linear interpolation between successive samples to get the values at every point in the domain. However, it is far from a close approximation of the original analog function. This can be understood from the digital representation of the sinusoidal function. As we have discussed, it is sufficient to recover a sinusoid function with two sample values per cycle of it. However, the linear interpolation of successive sample points would provide us a triangular periodic function. So, is there any better way to recover this sinusoidal variation?

The answer to the above question is provided by the linear system theory. In fact the Nyquist sampling theorem is based on the assumption of reconstruction of a function through a linear shift invariant (LSI) system. A system is something, which accepts input in certain form, and provides an output in the same or a different form. It is characterized by its input-output relationship. In a simpler form, a system may be considered as a function, which takes an input (say, x) and provides an output (say, y). However, in general, a system is more than a function. Rather a function could also be its input (say, f(x)). In that case, its output would be another function (say, g(x)). For example, in a radio set the electromagnetic wave (or radio wave) transmitted in free space is its input and the sound played by its speaker is the output. A linear system follows the superposition principle of input-output relationship. It implies, given an input x₁ if the output is y₁, and for x₂ if the output is y_2, a linear combination of the inputs (say, ax₁ + bx₂) produces the same linear combination of their respective outputs (i.e. ay₁ + by₂). A system is shift invariant, if a shifted input produces the same shift in its respective output. For example, if f(x) produces g(x) in a system, in a shift invariant system f(x-x₀) produces g(x-x₀). An interesting property of an LSI system is that given an input in the form of a sinusoid function it also produces a sinusoid function of the same frequency as the output. However, the amplitude and phase of the output sinusoid go through changes. Due to linearity, output amplitude changes with the same proportion of the amplitude of the input. This proportion is called gain. Similarly, due to shift invariant property shift in phase of the output sinusoid function from the input at the same frequency remains constant.  Hence, an LSI system could be characterized by the variation of gain and phase shift over varying frequencies of input sinusoids. This is known as the transfer function or frequency response of the system. If the frequency response is known, it is possible to determine whether a sinusoid of a specific frequency would provide a significant output response or not. If the gain at that frequency is very low (nearing zero), the output response would be negligible and in all practical purposes it is ignored. As we have already seen that almost any function f(x) can be expressed as an additive combination of sinusoid functions, applying the principle of superposition of a linear system, it is possible to determine the output from its frequency response.  In the output, depending upon the gains at varying frequency, some of the sinusoidal components would be present and some of them would be filtered out. As an LSI system is capable of selectively passing and modulating the frequency components by the respective gain factors and phase shifts of its frequency response, the system is also referred as a filter. A filter which suppresses the high frequency components and passes low frequency components till a cut-off frequency m_l is called low-pass filter (LPF), whereas a high-pass filter (HPF) passes only high frequency components beyond a cut-off frequency. There is also another class of filter known as band-pass filter (BPF), which allows frequency components within an interval to pass through. The reverse of the BPF is a band-stop filter. A physical LSI system has characteristics similar to those of an LPF or a BPF. This means that there exists a high-frequency cut-off beyond which the sinusoid functions do not respond. For example, the human auditory system responds to sound waves between 20 Hz and 20 KHz.  Our color perception is restricted within a band of wavelengths (roughly 390 nm to 710 nm) of electro-magnetic radiation, which we term as the visible spectrum. This property of physical systems enables us to process the input with an LPF or a BPF, and then apply sampling with a sampling frequency at least twice of the frequency band of the processed input.

Now, let us consider the response of an LSI to a sampled digital signal as its input. As an example, we may consider how our auditory channels would respond to chopped off sound waves at regular intervals. As expected such a discrete sequence would be a nuisance to our hearing. This is due to the fact that in this digital form the function has a lot many high frequencies, additionally introduced due to sampling operations. Those frequencies within the allowable range of the LSI would make a chaos in the output. However, the sampled function still has the frequency components of the original function in the same proportions. If the Nyquist sampling rate is used, the original frequency band would be well separated from those additional high-frequencies. Hence to recover the original analog signal, we need to design an appropriate LPF, which allows only the desired frequency components of the sampled function. This is how we get back the function again in the analog domain from its digitized version, i.e. by processing it through successive stages of de-quantization and low pass filtering.

Discrete sensing and perception

It is not that our perception of continuity of any event itself is continuous. Apparently we are immersed into a continuous flow of events and sensation. However, if we consider the anatomy and physiology involved in this process, we find that there is discreteness both in sensation and perception. Our sensory organs receive the stimulation from the environment through different nerve cells. As these cells are discrete, there is an inherent sampling in the process of receiving the stimulation. For example, in our retina of eye, there are about 120 million rod cells and 6 million cone cells. Hence the images formed by the retina are sampled by them. Moreover, the sensation is processed by these cells and transmitted through the visual path to our brain, where the final visual perception takes place for understanding the scene before us. The whole process roughly takes 100 ms, out of which around 3 ms are spent for the transmission of the excitation through the optical nerves. The rest are almost equally shared by processing at the source of reception (retina), and at the final destination (brain). However, due to this latency, our brain is not capable of processing any visual sensation within this period of 100ms, which implies that it works at the rate of 10 scenes per second. This fact is used in cinematography, television sets, etc. Similar discreteness is also observed in other sensory mechanisms. Our auditory nerve takes around 0.4 ms for conducting auditory sensation. Hence, though our ears are sensitive to sound wave with a frequency as high as 20 KHz, our audio perception, for which we have a very little understanding till today, should be limited by a rate of 2.5 KHz. In fact, the speed of cognition is much less as there are processing in the receptors as well as in brain. This is the reason, why we cannot understand any fast playing audio recordings, sometimes used in advertisements broadcast in television channels, where the law dictates a compulsory announcement on financial risks (say, of new investment bonds issued by a company), health hazards, etc.  In general, any sensation needs to be carried to brain or muscles through nerves. There is a finite time by which this could be accomplished. Besides, there is a refractory period in our nerve cells, within which it does not accept any new stimulation. In addition, it requires also processing in the source as well as in the destination. All these put a limit in the cognition rate and sometimes, even at the rate of sensation. Hence, not only the creation of digital content of the real world analog entities, such as sound, images, 3-D objects, etc., is guided by the principles of sampling and quantization, but also their realistic rendering takes place by exploiting the discreteness in our sensory and perceptual mechanism. Next we would examine, how through identification of the factors responsible for sensation of depth, direction and color, we can stimulate such illusive sensation from the virtual world.

Creation of illusion in virtual digital world

It is not clear what processing precisely goes in our brain, which empowers us to perceive the depth variations in an object in the 3D world. But we could identify the factors responsible for this sensation. These are from the two images of the same scene formed in the retinas of our left and right eyes, respectively. The corresponding image of a 3D point goes through a lateral shift in the right image, with respect to its position in the left image. This we would be able to sense, if we look at the same scene with one eye (closing the other eye) at a time, first by the left, and the next one by the right eye. It is observed that the amount of shift is inversely proportional to the distance of the point from us. Technically, these shifts are called parallaxes. Our depth sensation has causal relationship with these parallaxes. Hence to provide an illusion of depth in images, in 3D movies, we project two images of the same scene simultaneously on a screen. One image is meant for viewing by the left eye and the other one is for the right eye only. In addition, necessary care is taken so that a viewer does not see them by both eyes at the same time. This is achieved by various means of technological advancements. One is to use polarization of light in the projection of superimposed images, and watching them through polarized glasses.

A processing somewhat similar to visual stimuli goes in our hearing system also. We hear the same sound by our two ears. However, sound wave received by one of them reaches faster than the other. This difference of phase between these two simultaneously received sound waves gives us a sense of direction of the sound source. This principle is used in the recording and playing of stereophonic sound.  While recording, two channels are recorded by two separate microphones with a phase shift in their sound tracks, and during production of stereo sound, they are played simultaneously in two different sound speakers. This provides a relative depth variation in the source of sound in our surroundings. However, the sensation becomes more realistic, if we use a stereo headphone attached to our ear, as it reduces the effect of interference of surrounding sources during hearing. Moreover, with this gadget the emulation of phase differed sound tracks in our ear-drums, becomes more flawless.

Compared to depth and direction, our color sensing is better understood. In our retina, we have three types of cone cells. Each of these types acts like a filter, allowing only a certain band of optical wavelengths in the process of stimulation. One category of cones operates around the wavelengths near red colors. The other two allow those around green and blue colors, respectively. Though physically color is the property of the wavelength of light, in our sensation it is perceived by the superimposed stimulation of these three filters. This implies that even an appropriate mixing of these three primary colors, i.e. red, green and blue, respectively, can produce the same color sensation. It is not necessary to have an external simulation of the light energy of the precise wavelength representing the color in the optical spectrum. This enables us to design a system which produces all different colors using just three colored light sources, as opposed to use of infinite number of light sources of pure wavelengths. This principle is used in production of colors in a television set. Even in capturing color information also, we use the same principle. In this case, we use optical filters corresponding to the frequency (or wavelength) response of our cones, and then use optical sensors for capturing colors of an object. This is what is done in color cameras, both in analog and digital forms.

The above are only a few examples by which we realize how information related to the objects and various sensations of this real world could be put in the form of numbers, stored into computer memory, and used in their rendering as and when required. Day by day with the technological advancement we are increasing our power of recording our existence for the posterity in the digital form, so that at any point of time our 3D surroundings including us, are captured digitally with colors, sound, smell, touch, taste, emotion, etc., extending an invitation to others to share our experiences and emotion in this virtual world.

The Real Digital World

So far we talked about a virtual world, which may act as a mirror of our real world, and is capable of recreating itself with reliability and authenticity. In reality in sensing this illusive world, the discreteness in our sensation and perception plays a major role. Naturally one may ask the question, what about our real world? Does it exist with discreteness too? Or, is it inherently continuous? Let us see how modern science explains our existence in its very fundamental forms of matter, force, energy, and life.

The thing which should form the core of our understanding is our objective observation of this world in terms of measurements and quantifications of physical entities. From our school physics we know that basis of all such observations lies in measurements of three fundamental concepts, namely, mass, distance or length, and time. Whereas the last two are related to measurements in space and time, respectively, the first one is a measure related to matter. For a long time as our common intuition dictates, we considered the invariance of these measures in every state of an object anywhere in this universe. In particular for a moving object with uniform velocity, though its velocity is measured with respect to the inertial state of the observer, the measurements related to mass, length and duration are considered to be the same for identical objects or periods in any inertial frame. However, a simple physical fact posed a paradox to this apparently sensible assumption. The speed of light in vacuum for any observer in any state of motion is always measured the same. As the measurement of speed is associated with measurements of distance and time, the foundation of their invariance in any inertial state becomes fragile. Albert Einstein by proposing his famous theory of special relativity resolved this riddle. According to this theory, none of these measurements has any absolute frame of reference. They are all relative with respect to the inertial frame of an observer. The only quantity which is invariant in these frames is the speed of light in vacuum. Hence the length of a speeding vehicle would appear differently to its rider and to an observer standing on the road. The road side watcher would find it shorter than the rider. Even the duration or period between two events occurred within a vehicle would deem to be longer in the frame of reference of the observer at rest (with respect to the road). The measurement of mass of the object also becomes relative. Its value increases for an observer with a relative motion compared to that obtained by an observer who is at rest with respect to the object. We practically do not observe this variation in our common day experiences, as speeds of common objects in our inertial frame (stationary with respect to Earth) are much below the speed of light, and the variations are negligible. But for subatomic particles which move with a very high velocity, the measurements of their masses are shown to follow the laws of special relativity with high accuracy. Their observation for a longer period (their life-times in free space) is also possible due to time dilation in the static reference frame of the observer. Even though these measurements are different in different inertial frames, the laws of nature are the same and uniform in each of them. Hence, though the measurements are relative for a given inertial frame, they are dictated by uniform scales set by their standards. For example, a stationary rod of length of 1cm will always be read the same in every inertial frame.  However, there is no apparent discreteness in time and space even in relativistic world. Let us consider whether the same is true for the objects and events, which occupy a certain amount of space for a certain period of time.

Discreteness in material existence

Since the birth of modern civilization, ancient philosophers thought about matters composing of tiny indivisible particles. The Greek philosopher Democritus and his teacher Leucippus named them atoms. In the modern scientific era, the English scientist John Dalton proposed that atoms of elements combine to form compounds and hence they combine in a definite proportion of their masses. Till the end of the nineteenth century this was the single most discovery showing the discreteness in the behavior of material world. However, the scientific world started to wonder on the rule of numbers in nature by observing the periodicity in the molecular weights of elements with similar chemical and physical properties. The famous Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev catalogued these elements in a periodic table paving the prediction of existence of many other elements, which had remained undiscovered till his time. It is only at the end of the nineteenth century, subatomic particles were discovered by observing the phenomena of radioactivity (discovered by the French scientist Henry Becquerel in the year 1896) and cathode ray discharge in a vacuum tube. The English scientist J.J. Thomson in 1897 explained the cathode ray as a stream of negatively charged small particles confirming the hypothesis of existence of such a particle by the Anglo-Irish scientist G. Johnstone Stoney, who named it electron in the year 1891. Using radioactive emission Ernest Rutherford in the year 1907 showed the existence of a heavy concentration of positively charged mass within an atom, which he named nucleus, and proposed a model of atom where electrons are revolving around the nucleus. Later in 1918, Rutherford confirmed the positive charge particle in the Hydrogen atom and named it proton. In 1932, another subatomic particle in the nucleus, named neutron, was discovered by the English scientist James Chadwick.  The mystery of periodic table became unfolded with these discoveries, as we understand now that the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom does uniquely identify an element with its distinct physical and chemical properties. On the other hand arrangement of electrons (the same number as of protons in a neutral atom) around the nucleus, specifically the number of electrons in the outmost shell, provides explanation to its various chemical properties. As the number of electrons in the outmost shell varies periodically with the increasing number of protons (or the atomic number of an element), we observe similar properties in elements separated by a length of a period, which could be 2, 8, 18, or 32.  Even the arrangement of electrons also follows a rule of numbers (called quantum numbers) as they exist at discrete energy levels while revolving around the nucleus.

Within a few decades the simple picture of atoms containing only the above three elementary subatomic particles got shattered by the series of discoveries of many more elementary particles. Of course, electron itself is found to be elementary, and falls under a group of subatomic particles called lepton, which gets affected by electroweak force. In the group there are five more particles (besides electron), they are mu-meson (or muon), the tau-meson, and three types of neutrino. The second group of particles is known as hadron. This group contains more than 100 subatomic particles, which includes proton and neutron also. However, hadrons are formed by more fundamental particles, called quarks. There are six types of quarks, up, down, top, bottom, strange, and charm. For example, a proton is made up of two up-quarks and one down quark, whereas a neutron is composed of one up and two down quarks.  The combined family of hadrons and leptons are called fermions. It is not only in their material existence, but also in their interactions, these sub-atomic particles exhibit discreteness. They interact among themselves by exchanging another type of particles, force particles, called bosons. There are four fundamental forces observed in nature, namely strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, electromagnetic force, and gravitation. Out of these four, the first two are observed within nucleus, and the third one (electro magnetic force) is observed in the microscopic world of atoms and molecules, and also in the macroscopic world. However, gravitational force is so far observed only with the bodies in our macroscopic world. We are yet to explain its presence in the subatomic level. The strong nuclear force is responsible for holding the quarks together in hadrons by exchanging a type of particles known as gluons. There are eight types of gluons. The weak nuclear force is responsible for the decay of large nucleus, and there are three force particles associated with it namely, W⁺, W^-, and Z-bosons, respectively. The electromagnetic force acts through exchange of photons. In 1905, Einstein proposed that the light, which is also a type of electromagnetic radiation, contains stream of photons, each carrying a finite amount of energy (in quanta). In atoms, energy transfer takes place discretely through the exchange of a number of photons. It is similarly hypothesized that gravitational force is also carried out by a force particle, named graviton. However, the existence of graviton is yet to be confirmed experimentally. There is also another particle which is much smaller than any of the above particles predicted theoretically, called Higgs boson.  It is hypothesized that the mass of a matter is determined by its interaction with Higgs bosons. Its existence is also yet to be confirmed, as for its generation and observation for a longer duration, one has to collide two hadrons using a very high energy particle accelerator. The recent experimentation in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of European Organization of Nuclear Research (CERN) is an attempt towards this. The analysis of the experimental data is yet to be confirmed. However, there is an initial report of success, which requires much more careful investigation by the scientific community.

Life in discrete form

It is not easy to define life. In comparison the definition of a matter is simpler, as we may term it as a substance with a mass. According to this definition, a living being is also a matter. But then, what is the essence of life in it, is a mystery, a very little of which is understood today. However our modern understanding of life started with the observation that it functions in discrete form within the cells of an organism. That the smallest unit of life is a cell, was discovered in the middle of the seventeenth century. In 1665, the English scientist Robert Hooke observed the cellular structure in a cork using a microscope, invented by a Dutch tradesman Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. Inspired by Hooke’s work, Leeuwenhoek on his own extended the microscopic study in other substances, and reported existence of bacteria and protozoa in 1678. Finally the proposition that all living being are grown from pre-existing cells came from the German biologist, Rudolf Virchow in 1858. The most fascinating discovery of discrete nature of transmission of inheritance in the reproduction of organisms came from the work of an Austrian Augustinian friar, Gregor Johann Mendel, considered to be the father of modern Genetics. However, Mendel’s work remained unnoticed for a long time, and rediscovered again in the beginning of the last century with its revolutionary impact in developing the theory of genetic transmission of inheritance, and understanding the fundamental role of genes in cellular metabolism. During the same period of Mendel’s work, Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution as the origin of species and variations among them. Evolution and inheritance play an important role in sustenance of life. That is why in a modern perspective life is defined by NASA in their program of astrobiology as “a self-sustainable chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution.”  In view of this, the discrete form of genetic components and their pivotal roles in orchestrating a chain of events in the form of synthesis and interactions of proteins, RNAs, etc., are truly fascinating, as these are essentials in the sustenance of life.

In the second half of the nineteenth century it was understood that the hereditary factors are residing in chromosomes. There are always a fixed number of chromosomes in a cell for a specific organism. For example, a human non-reproductive cell has 23 pairs of chromosomes. Today we know more about its structure, which is a thread of double helical structure consisting of two DNA strands. A DNA is a sequence of four types of nucleotides, namely, adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine.  In this long chain of nucleotides, there exist segments, which are responsible for synthesis of proteins, and RNAs.  Each such segment has a specific sequence, determining the amino acid chain of a protein, or a chain of ribo-nucleotides of an RNA. In fact a triplet of nucleotide in that segment is mapped to a unique amino acid in this process of synthesis. These triplets are termed codons, as they carry the protein translation code. There are twenty possible amino acids, and four types of nucleotides. Hence, we have 64 different codons, which are to be mapped to one of these twenties. This shows that there are multiple codons meant for a single amino acid. Moreover, there are a few codons which control the process of synthesis (called transcription followed by translation). They take part in initiation and termination of synthesis. It is amazing that this codon table is almost universal for every living, and extinct species of this earth. As more and more the secret of nature is unfolding, and the technology is moving fast with digital precision and robustness on synthesizing biochemical molecules in our laboratory, the scientists hope today what was unimaginable even a few decades ago, synthesis of life from lifeless inorganic chemical substances.  In June 2010, an attempt in a very nascent form was reported to the amazement (and also with some concerns!) to the scientific community. Dr. Craig Venter and his team of twenty scientists of the John Craig Venter Institute, USA, were able to create artificial life by implanting synthetic DNA containing around 850 genes into the cytoplasm of a bacterial cell.

The dual world

We live in a dual world. Nature works with both continuity and discreteness in our real world. We could find this discreteness in existence and interactions among living and non-living substances. On the other hand, they exist with the continuity of space and time. Who knows one day with new findings and new realization of laws of nature assumption on their continuity would not be at stake? In material existence also, the discreteness has a vague boundary. We know that a particle too, has a dual existence of a wave. Hence, it is not possible for us to determine exactly both the position and momentum of a particle. Nature has put limits in the precision of these measurements.  At the same time it offers us new challenges to uncover its mystery.

In our social life also we have to face another duality. We have to interact with both the real and virtual world. Day by day, it is becoming difficult to ignore the digital world in our social interactions. This digital world is created by us. It has many facets. It could be bothering your privacy, and monitoring you at every sphere of your activities. Again, it could be refreshing and entertaining. We could fly our imagination in its exploration. It can act as a tool for better understanding our nature, and thus controlling its resources and energy to our advantages. It is true that with the help of digital technology, we are presently going through a very exciting phase of social interaction and information sharing. But it has become possible only through our continued pursuit of knowledge to refine our understanding of this real world in its dual form.

12/02/2012