Book Review of " Francis Ittikora" by T. D Ramakrishnan

Genre: Malayalam Fiction, Alternate history.

Plot

Xavier Fernando Ittikora, a U. S military soldier who participated in the Iraq war is disappointed about his falling libido after witnessing the atrocities of the war. He contacts 'The school' - a secret 'school that teaches you the art of love making' situated in Kochi, Kerala and run by three friends Bindu, Rekha and Rashmi to help him regain his vitality through their expertise in sexual gratification. He also requests them help him in collecting more information about his ancestral links in Kerala thought to originate from a man addressed as 'Korappapan'. ' Korappapan' is said to be a spice merchant operating out of earlier port township of Kunnamkulam in Thrissur, Kerala. In their inquiries Bindu, Rekha and Rashmi  come into contact with a secret society run by an influential family named 'Pathinettam Kootukar' who considers 'Korappapan' to be their God.

Ittikora's friend Hashimotto Morigami, a Mathematician who earned her PhD from Princeton in 'The history of Non European Mathematics' is already busy collecting information about 'Korappapan' as a part of her research publication coauthored by the world renowned Mathematician Paul Erdos. Her quest leads her to startling conclusions about how 'Korappapan' or 'Francis Ittikora', might be the real father of European Mathematics. She discovers that against its commonly assumed history, European Mathematics is largely based on theories of Hypatia- a Greek Alexandrian Neoplatonist philosopher in Egypt who lived around AD 350.

What unravels after this is an exciting story that threads through the history of Mathematics, lives of famous mathematicians like Hypatia of Greece, Paul Erdos, Alexander Grothendieck, Peruvian revolutionary Tupac Amaru and a cannibalistic secret society that survived him, Italian statesman Lorenzo de medici and Italian painters Michelangelo and Raphel.

My opinion

Being a history freak, what got me engrossed was the fascinating fictional history(blended with real history) of various famous people, world events, secret societies and the possibility of how most of them could be tied to one man named 'Francis Ittikora'. I also enjoyed the way author progressed on multiple story threads spanning various characters, timelines and countries without loosing grip only to tie them into a beautiful knot at the end. However, I felt that the climax was rushed through and the curtains fell before I could anticipate them.

Bottomline

This book is a nice example of how interesting 'alternate history' could actually turn out to be. So if you find topics of history and mathematics  interesting, this fiction will be a joy to read.

Book review of "Why I am not a Christian and other religious essays" by Bertrand Russel

"Why I am not a Christian and other religious essays" by Bertrand Russell

Introduction

Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, social critic and political activist. His strong condemnation of organized religion, imperialism, war, communism met with severe opposition from religious groups and governments alike. Another topic on which he was severely deprecated was on his liberal viewpoints on sexuality. On more than one occasion American press had termed him as " a desiccated, divorced and decadent advocate of sexual promiscuity... in this libertarian rules for loose living in matters of sex and promiscuous love and vagrant marriage...".

"His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science,computer science  and philosophy, especially philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics[1]".

Read more about Russell here.

Essays I found interesting

1. Why I am not a Christian

2. Has religion made useful contributions to civilisation?

3. Can religion cure our troubles?

In these three classic essays Russell constructively presents his arguments in favor of his disbelief of organized religions. In the first essay, he is particularly critical about the Existence of God, Christianity and concept of salvation. He suggests fear to be the foundation of religion and that Church has retarded the progress of human consciousness and free thinking than elevating it. He also comments that Church's indoctrination of sex as a 'indulgence' and its firm opposition to birth control techniques are dangerous to the human welfare. He also decouples the idea of righteousness from religious dogma. 

4. What I believe

In this essay Russell holds the view that : " The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge". He discusses the idea of 'love' in depth. He maintains that love is a right mixture of delight and well wishing. It is stupidity, he says, to disseminate love from knowledge. He also notices that morality in its essence must arise out of scientific inquiry and not superstitions. He advocates that a society which works towards eradicating fear in people will flourish intellectually.

5. Our sexual ethics

This essay is a deep analysis of sexual morality in the context of modern society.

6. Freedom and colleges

Russell argues that academic freedom in America was threatened by Plutocracy and Church. In his view, minority opinions howsoever diverged they are from the majority opinion must be given due regard. This hold especially in the case of academia which is supposed to instill in students ability to weigh arguments without prejudice. Collective wisdom in his opinion, is not above individual intelligence. He proposes that in a working democracy there must freely exist independent bodies that criticizes the state. He also strongly condemns the taxpayers' demand for right to interfere in the nature and direction of education in universities simply because they are paying for it.

Other essays

 Do we survive death, 'Seems,Madam? Nay, it is', On Catholic and Protestant Sceptics, Nice people, The existence of God- A debate, Religion and Morals.

I personally enjoyed reading Appendix too where the history of a particular instance of American opposition to Russell's appointment as Professor of Philosophy at City college, New York is accounted. It shows the strong opposition and denunciation faced by him from the zealots and the enthralling support he enjoyed from the intellectual community spanning the world.

Bottomline

Like most of his other works, this collection of essays are intellectually stimulating and food for deep thoughts. His authoritative reasoning is a joy to ruminate upon. I must however warn you that its not a easy bed time read. True to his nature as a mathematician, he will present you the most intricate reasoning which will demand some time and tease of your mind.

Milk testing - The conclusion.

In my previous post I had brought to the attention of mess council and the hostelers possibility of presence of formaldehyde/formalin in the milk sample obtained from the hostel. However, recent test done by the council members and a government accredited laboratory has confirmed the absence of any trace of formalin in the samples. I hereby restate the tests and compare the results obtained from tests done by my team and that from the council members.

Test procedure:

 Take 10 ml of milk in a tests tube and add 5 ml of con sulphuric acid from the sides of the wall without shaking. If a violet or blue ring appears at the intersection of two layers then it shows presence of formalin. 

Test results:

Result for test performed by my team

Close up of the result for test performed by my team

It is observed from the above pictures that there is a distinct brown coloration of the sample with the addition of con. Sulphuric acid. It should be noted that I did not observe any violet/blue coloration as a test result as proposed in [1].  

The council team has repeated the test procedure stated above on two milk samples of the same brand. Formalin is intentionally introduced into one sample(sample 1) while the other sample is kept free of any intentional addition of the banned adulterant(sample 2). Intentional addition of formalin was performed to reconfirm whether violet/blue coloration really happens when con. Sulphuric acid reacts with formalin as mentioned in [1].

The test tube on the right shows the result of test performed on sample 2.  The distinct brown coloration as observed in my test is noticed in this case also.
However, the result in the left tube, which pertains to sample 1(which has intentional addition of formalin) shows a distinct violet/blue coloration instead of a brown one. Referring to the test procedure, it can be concluded that such a violet/blue coloration is the real indication of formalin as opposed to the brown coloration observed in my tests or that performed on sample 2.

 Hence, it is conclusively confirmed from the above observations that the milk brand does not contain any presence of formalin in it. 

I would like to state that misinterpretation of the results from my side has lead to misleading conclusions in my previous report regarding the presence of formalin in the milk sample. I would like to apologize for the same. 

In this regard, I would also like to thank the council members for taking active measures for ascertaining the scientific validity of my claim. I hope that council will hereby take active interest in extending such test to other food items served in the mess for the common good of all. 

References:
1. http://fda.up.nic.in/household_tests.htm