Greetings for a Happy New Year 2023

 

The dawn of a new year is time to invoke Alfred Tennyson “Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.” 

Wishing you all a very happy new year 2023.

At the dawn of each new year we pull out those ubiquitous old calendars to make way for the new calendars with a hope and aspiration that the new year dawns a better future. Now that the year 2022 is behind us it is time to spare a thought for human ingenuity to create calendars that have defined years, days and month, which are inextricably linked to our lives. Calendars govern our lives and are designed based on scientific system to reckon time in periods convenient to the conduct of our day today lives and help us knit in sync with each other, cutting across time and space and also in chronicling our collective history for posterity.

Calendars have held sacred status across all regions, for they help us in maintaining social order, provide the basis for planning of agricultural, economic and industrial activities and so also in chronicling our collective history for posterity.  Calendars provide a basis for maintaining cycles of religious and civil events. As we prepare ourselves to welcome yet another new year, let us spare a thought for the makers of the calendars, which have led us to celebrating the new year year after year.  

Calendar has its origin from the Roman word Calends or Kalends,  meaning a method of distributing time into certain periods adopted for the purpose  of civil life. The story of the calendar begins with the fascinating history of mans endeavour to organize our lives in accordance with celestial cycles of Earth, moon and sun. All calendars are founded upon some combination of the movement of these celestial bodies. Moon has always influenced the timing of different religious festivals, and seasons, and the Sun has influenced the time of sowing and harvesting. Calendars based on observations of moon are called the lunar calendars and those based on the observations of the Sun are called the Solar calendars. These two calendars have been used widely in different cultures of the world; Chinese, Hebrew, Islamic, Gregorian and our very own Hindu calendars. While each of these calendars are unique in how they are used, however, they all share a set of common features borrowing from each other.  Like all great efforts that require dedicated collective work of a group of people, the establishment of a standardised calendrical system was no trivial matter. It required knowing how to make observations, which observations to make, and how to keep records over a long period of time. 

One of the oldest calendar systems is our very own Hindu calendar, which is based on the lunar revolutions and included adjustments (intercalation/extracalation) to solar reckoning. It divides an approximate solar year of 360 days into 12 lunar months of 27 days each according to the Taitriya Samhita and also Atharva Veda. The resulting discrepancy was resolved by the intercalation of a leap month every 60 months. The months were counted from full moon to full moon and were divided into two halves Shukla paksa of waxing period and Krisna paksa of waning period. The new moon days were observed as amavasya and full moon as Purnima’s and most religious rituals were performed around these two events. Each of the months has thirty days (tithi) and the day (divasa) thirty hours (muhurta). A new form of astrology that is in vogue today is based on the old Hindu calendrical system, which did under go a change in its classic form according to the Surya siddhanta in 4-5th century AD. The year was divided into seasons, ऋतु, spring (वसॉन्था) from mid March until mid May; summer (ग्रीष्म), from mid May until mid July; the rains (वर्शा), from mid July until mid September, autumn (सरद) from mid September until mid November and winter (हेमन्त) from mid November until mid January and the Dews (सिसिरा), from mid January until mid March.

Most calendars had some or the other discrepancy, which needed correction. The discrepancy in the Indian calendars and controversy associated with it can be traced back to the period of the great epic Mahabharata. The epic mentions two periods - the Vanavasa (period of exile) and the agnyatavasa (the period of incognito living) - which the Pandavas were mandated to observe in obeisance of Yudhisthar’s commitment to the Kauravas. The epic battle of Kurukshetra was fought with a consideration that the Pandavas, according to Duryodhana, failed to keep their promise to stay in exile for twelve years and in hiding for one year. However, Bhisma reckoned that the Pandavas adhered to their promise and observed the two periods. Bhisma substantiated his argument with the fact that the calendar adds an extra month every five years. The interpretation of the calendar or the complications involved in the calendar making are therefore legendary.

From historic times calendar makers have relied on the sunrise and sun set to determine the day, while the period between the full moon determined the month. Even in modern times the celestial bodies continue to provide the basic standards for determining the measurement of the day, month and the year. The day can be measured either by the stars or by the sun. If stars are used, then the interval is called the “Sideral day” and is defined by the period between two passages of a star across the meridian. The mean Solar day is 24 hours, 3 minutes and 56.55 seconds long. The measurement of the month is determined by the passage of the moon around the earth. There are two kinds of measurements for the month, first, the period taken by the moon to complete an orbit of the earth and second, the time taken by the moon to complete a cycle of phases. The former is defined as the orbital month. However, the problem with this is that the moon's orbit is elliptical and it will be travelling faster when closer to the earth (perigee) and slower when further away (apogee) and therefore it has anomalies. The Anomalistic month is the time between perigees (27.55455 days mean value). The second measurement of the month by the phases of the moon is called the synodic month (synod = meeting, in astronomy it means conjunction or lining-up) which measures 29.53059 days.The synodic month forms the basis of the calendar month.

Determining the length of the year also has its own problems. The Earth does not rotate whole number of times for each revolution of sun. The Sidereal year is the time for the Earth to return to the same position relative to the fixed stars, which measures  365.25636 days and its mean value increases by 0.00000012 days per century. Because it is slightly longer than the tropical,  the equinoxes will gradually creep westward around the ecliptic by 1 in 71.71 years or 360 in 25800 years. The common year is called the Tropical year meaning the time between spring equinoxes (365.24219 days mean value decreasing by 0.00000614 days per century). Because the Earth's orbit is elliptical it will travel faster at perihelion (closest, now early January) and slower at aphelion (furthest, now early July). This means that the season around perihelion will be shorter than the one around aphelion. Currently the gaps between equinoxes and solstices are, starting at the Northern Hemisphere Spring Equinox, 92.72, 93.66, 89.84, and 88.98 days. The southern hemisphere gets a few extra days of winter and the northern hemisphere gets a few extra days of summer. Choosing either of the years leaves the calendar maker in an awkward position of having the following New Year beginning in the middle of the day.

The Julian Calendar : Of the several calendars of antiquity, the Egyptian and the Roman calendars developed into the Julian calendar, which was used for more than 1500 years. The Roman republican calendar, introduced around 600 BC, was a lunar one, short by 10.25 days of a Tropical year. It included an extra intercalary month, every two years, which fell in late February. Nonetheless, by around 50 BC, the lunar year had fallen eight weeks behind the solar one, and it was clear that the Romans were out of Sync. There was total confusion when Julius Caesar came to power as the Roman’s 355 day lunar calendar was 80 days out of sync with seasons when Caesar took the throne. Julius Caesar, it is believed got acquainted with the Egyptian calendar on the same trip during which he got to know Cleopatra. He then came in contact with the famous Greek Egyptian astronomer, Sosigenes. In the year 46 BC, Sosigenes convinced Julius Caesar to reform the calendar to a more manageable form. Sosigenes' message to Caesar was that the moon was a nice god but knew nothing about when things happen. Armed with this information Caesar returned to Rome and made big changes. The old lunar system with intercalary months was abandoned and a new solar system was introduced with fixed month lengths making 365 days and an intercalary day every forth year in February which would have 29 or 30 days. To shift the equinox back to March 25 he added three extra months to 46 BC, making it 445 days long ('the year of confusion') and the Julian calendar began on 1st January 45 BC.  In recognition of his contribution to the calendar reforms the month of July is named in his honour.

Caesar’s nephew Augustus (originally named Octavius) also did some cleaning up of the calendar, details of which however are not very clear. One source (Britannica) suggests that the priests got the leap years wrong having one every third year for forty years so he had to skip a few until 8 BC. In recognition of this, they renamed Sextilis with August in his honour but had to pinch a day from February to make the month of August have the same length of days as July. The tradition has lasted until today and therefore contrary to any logic the immediate months of July and August have 31 days each.

Anno Domini : Things went smoothly for a while; the seasons were finally put in proper place in the year and festivals were happening at sensible times - almost. At the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, Easter was decreed to be the first Sunday after the full moon after the vernal equinox. The early Christians were keen to cleanse contrary ideas (like the spherical Earth) so in 526 AD; the Abbot of Rome, Dionysius Exiguus proclaimed that the birth of Christ should be the event from which years are counted. He also calculated the event to be from December 25 and asserted that it should be called 1 AD (Anno Domini = in the year of our Lord that has now been changed to CE or Common Era) and the year preceding it should be called 1 BC (meaning Before Christ, which has further been changed with a secular abbreviation BCE - Before Common Era) with prior years counted backwards. The omission of a year zero was a dumb idea.  About this time the seven day week was introduced. Although it may have appeared earlier in the Jewish calendar and also in the Hindu calendar, it was tidied up in the fourth century. Cycles of four to ten days had previously been used for organising work and play. Seven was chosen apparently in acknowledgment of the Genesis story where God rested on the seventh day although there is a strong suggestion that it also reflected the seven gods visible in the sky as the planets, sun and moon. 

Pope Gregory XIII : By the middle ages the seasons had slipped again. Pope Leo X tackled the problem in 1514 AD ( CE or Common Era) by engaging a number of astronomers, including the famous Copernicus, who quickly recognised that there was a more fundamental problem than rearranging the calendar and suggested the rearrangement of the universe by putting the sun at the center as against the earth. The Church though did not accept the suggestions. Half a century later Pope Gregory XIII was sane enough to have another go to sort out the discrepancy and assembled a team of experts, led by the German mathematician Christoph Clavius(1537-1612) and Italian physician and Astronomer Aloisius Lilius who spent ten years finding a solution to the problem. By 1582 AD the Julian calendar was full 13 days behind the seasons. By then the Christian churches had scheduled certain of its feasts, such as Christmas and the saint’s days, on fixed dates. The Julian calendar, which was running 13 days behind the sun, had little or no effect on the lives of the ordinary folks, but it disturbed the functioning of the Church, because it pushed the holy days into wrong seasons. This prompted the church to issue clearance to Pope Gregory XIII to implement necessary changes in the calendar.

Gregorian Calendar : The change made by Gregory XIII to the calendar envisaged skipping ten days, sometime to bring the seasons back in line and skip a few leap years now and again. The extra day every fourth year is too much so skip the leap year at the end of the century. This is now a touch short so put back a leap year every fourth century. The leap year is therefore defined as a year if it is a multiple of 4. However if the year  is a multiple of 100 it is not a leap year. There is an exception to it. If the year is a multiple of 400 it will once again be a leap year. Since this still produces an error of a day in 3,323 years we will also be skipping the leap year in 4000 AD. Applying all these principles in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII, decreed that the day after October 4, 1582, would be October 15, 1582. And according to the prescribed rule 1600 was a leap year but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not and the year 2000 AD was again a leap year.  

The changeover to the Gregorian calendar was not smooth. France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal changed in 1582; Prussia, Switzerland, Holland, Flanders and the German Catholic states in 1583; Poland in 1586 and Hungary in 1587. The Protestant countries weren't too keen to follow, so for nearly two centuries there were two calendars running in Europe ten days apart. Matters came to a head in 1700 when the Protestants had a leap year and the Catholics didn't, increasing the gap to 11 days. Denmark and the German Protestant states changed in 1700 and Sweden came up with the brilliant plan of simply skipping all leap years until they caught up in 1740. England and America switched over in 1752, skipping 11 days by making September 3 as September 14 and shifting the start of the year to January 1. There was much unrest in the US - 'give us back our eleven days' was a popular campaign slogan.  Many other countries were slow to adopt the standard and it was not until the early twentieth century that the entire world was finally synchronised. Japan changed in 1872, China in 1912, Bulgaria in 1915, Turkey in 1917, Yugoslavia and Rumania in 1919 and Greece in 1923. The Gregorian calendar is now recognised world wide although there are still many other calendars running alongside it, for religious purposes. 

In India, calendar reform took place in 1957.  The National Calendar of India is a formalized lunisolar calendar in which leap years coincide with those of the Gregorian calendar (Calendar Reform Committee, 1957). However, the initial epoch is the Saka Era, a traditional epoch of Indian chronology. Months are named after the traditional Indian months and are offset from the beginning of Gregorian months. In addition to establishing a civil calendar, the Calendar Reform Committee set guidelines for religious calendars, which require calculations of the motions of the Sun and Moon. Tabulations of the religious holidays are prepared by the Indian Meteorological Department and published annually in The Indian Astronomical Ephemeris. Despite the attempt to establish a unified calendar for all of India, many local variations exist. The Gregorian calendar continues in use for administrative purposes, and holidays are still determined according to regional, religious, and ethnic traditions. Years are counted from the Saka Era; 1 Saka is considered to begin with the vernal equinox of 79 CE.

The reformed Indian calendar began with Saka Era 1879 CE, Caitra 1, which corresponds to 22nd March, 1957. Normal years have 365 days; leap years have 366. In a leap year, an intercalary day is added to the end of Caitra. The calendars that we use today are  based on the recommendations of the Calendar reform committee,  which was headed by Meghnad Saha, one of the great Indian scientists. As we enter into yet another new year 

So while we enjoy and welcome the new year, let us also understand the Genesis of what the new year means and how has it evolved and become a part of our lives.

Once again wishing you all a very happy New Year 2023. 

Bapu and Shastri Jayanti.

What a providential coincidence it is that Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri - two of the most loved leaders of this country - share their birth date. Unfortunately, due to this coincidence, unwittingly, the saga of the extraordinary life, works and contributions of Lal Bahadur Shastri are often dwarfed in its public reportage. 

2nd October -  marked as Gandhi Jayanti - keeps reminding us of the Mahatma, the man about whom the great Albert Einstein said ‘Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one, as this, ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth’. While remembering the Mahatma on his birth anniversary - born on  02.10.1869 - we must also remember with equal reverence another legend - Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was also born on this day (2.10.1904). The physical stature of Shastri ji may have been very small but his standing is as tall as that of the Mahatma when it comes to his contributions to our country. Lal Bahadur Shatri and his ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ clarion call, that he made to the nation in the face of the Indo-Pak 1965 war, which came on the back of the defeat that we faced against the Chinese in the 1962 war and at the time when India was also facing shortage of food grains, served as a major boost to the nation, which reverentially supported our Jawans and Kisans in equal measures the tradition of which has perpetuated even today. Shastri’s  contribution must therefore be remembered with equal reverence.

While so much has been written on the Mahatma and his nonviolent freedom movement yet very little is known about his interest in science and technology, particularly astronomy - star gazing. During the culmination of the two year celebrations of the sesquicentennial birth anniversary of the Mahatma, the Nehru Science Centre had organised two online lectures,  the first one by Dr Rathnashri on ‘Bapu and Khagol Shastra’ and the second one ‘Mahatma Gandhi and Science and Technology’ by Sudheendra Kulkarni.  Here is a link to the blog which I had written, two years ago,  which describes in greater details the connect that Gandhi had with science, technology and astronomy, based on the above two lectures which Nehru Science Centre had organised. Those interested may please read my long blog leisurely. 

https://khened.blogspot.com/2020/10/commemoration-and-culmination-of-150th.html

Gandhi had fallen briefly in love with star gazing while he was incarcerated in the Yerwada Jail. Dr Rathnashri, Director Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi - who most unfortunately succumbed to COVID last year - has thrown new light into Bapu's interest in star gazing, which she converted into a Planetarium show titling it ‘Bapu and Khagol Shastra’. This planetarium show featured during the sesquicentennial birth anniversary of the Mahatma at the Nehru Planetarium. She also conducted several workshops across the country communicating the hitherto unknown facets of Gandhiji's interest in science, particularly his interest in star gazing.

The name of Shastri and his impeccable integrity and beyond imagination simplicity are legendary and synonymous. The diminutive Shastri ji had a Himalayan determination and trust in his fellow Indians, which was evidenced when the Pakistani General tried a misadventure in the 1965 Indo Pak war only to face a bloody nose and a defeat at the hands of the great Indian army. His eponymous 'Jai Jawan Jai Kisan' slogan touched a chord with the people and energised both our Jawans and Kisans to raise up to the occassion - the former in defeating the enemy, Pakistan, and the later in ushering the green revolution - with help of agriculture scientists, Normon Borlaug, Swaminathan and many other leaders - and the rest is history. Infact there have been many new slogans coined, which have mostly remained as slogans while the Jai Jawan Jai Kisan slogan was translated into reality in a mission mode, particularly the agricultural aspect of it. The slogan of Shastri is what drove the the mission made approach to ushering of green revolution about which lot has been written. It is time that similar mission mode approach be followed and focused efforts and attention be made to emulate the achievements of the slogan of Shastri ji it while making the new slogan - Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, Jai Vigyan and Jai Anusandhan translate in to its success and not just remain a slogan for sloganeering. 

Some of the often heard anecdotes of Shastri include his resignation as the Railway Minister while owning up responsibility for a Rail accident. Shastri ji was the Railway Minister in Pandit Nehru’s cabinet. There was a major railway accident in Mahabubnagar - formerly in the state of Andhra Pradesh and now in Telangana state - which occurred in August 1956. The accident resulted in the loss of 112 precious lives who were killed in this accident. Shastri ji owned up the moral responsibility for this accident and sent out a  his resignation letter to the PM, Nehru, who did not accept his resignation and instead persuaded Shastri to withdraw his resignation. Unfortunately, as misfortune would have it for Shastri, a few months later -  in November 1956 - there was another major railway accident in Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu, which resulted in 144 deaths. Shastri once again promptly submitted his resignation to the PM and pleaded for its early acceptance. Such was his impeccable integrity. Unfortunately,  his untimely death just after signing of the Tashkent agreement, continues to be one of those unsolved mystery where the last word has not yet been written conclusively. 

May both - Bapu and Shastri - continue to live in the hearts and minds of the people. 

Images - courtesy Wiki commons and Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai

Jai Jawan Jai Kisan Jai Vigyan, Jai Anusandhan.

Sathya Meva Jayathe.🙏🙏

Dissent, “Treacherous Eight” & the Birth of the Silicon Valley

 

                                         

18 September, in a way is celebrated as a birthday of sorts for the Silicon Valley in the US of A. It was on this day (September 18) in 1957, eight brilliant minds - Julius Blank, Victor Grinich, Jean Hoerni, Gene Kleiner, Jay Last, Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce, and Sheldon Roberts - who were working with a genius Nobelist, William Shockley in the Shockley Semiconductor company, resigned en masse to chart their own future. It was this historic decision which paved the way for the birth of what we now call as the Silicon Valley. The eight of them were collectively dubbed as ‘treacherous eight’ by their boss, William Shockley, an ‘erratic, mistrustful, and impatient boss’. Shockley was suspicious of his employees and went to an idiotic extent of spying on them by hiring detectives and sometimes asking them to take a lie-detector tests. It was therefore no wonder that eight of his best employees decided to call it quits.

Shockley was a brilliant scientist who had served for long with the Bell Labs and one of his most significant achievements at the Bell Labs was the transistor. It is pertinent to note that the computers of that time - ENIAC - used power hungry and bulky vaccum tubes which often times blew out due to extreme heat leading to the breakdown in the functioning of the devices. The discovery of the transistor effect and the subsequent mass production of the small transistors paved the way for a transformational change in the electronics industry. The market impact of William Shockley’s research at the Bell Labs can be understood with just one just example - The Sony Corporation. This Japanese company, which is now a global leader in the consumer electronics industry, owes its success to the Ball Labs transistors using which Sony began manufacturing radio transistors to make an international market presence for the Sony products. In recognition of his research, William Shockley was awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics which he shared with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain "for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect".

Bell Labs knew the market potential of the discovery of the transistor effect and therefore they organised an international demonstration of how their new device - transistor- could replace the power hungry Vacuum tubes and also reduce the size of the computers and make them more reliable, besides being economical. One of the beneficiaries of their discovery was Sony which helped Japan to become the consumer electronics leader in international market. Shockley therefore was expecting a reward from Bell Labs, which was commensurate with the market potential of his discovery. Unfortunately, the management of the Bell Labs did not entertain Shockley’s demand. Unhappy with the treatment that he was getting in Bell Labs, Shockley decided to part ways with his company and start his own semiconductor company. Until then, it is important to note that most of the business enterprises were mostly located in the east coast in US including Bell Labs, which was located in New Jersey. Shockley decided that he will not only quit Bell Labs but will move to the other side - the west coast, to establish his own company far away from the Bell Labs.

Shockley founded the Shockley Semiconductor company in 1955 with an objective to work on semiconductors and to build transistors. He managed to obtain funds for his new venture from Beckmann Instruments. Shockley Semiconductor opened its business in 1955 at Palo Alto, California, near Stanford University, which is now at the heart of the Silicon Valley. Shockley knew that if his company was to succeed he would need the best of minds. Moreover, Shockley had a knack for identifying the best of talent. He scouted for the best talent in the universities and managed to put together a team of highly talented young men to work for his company. His team was referred to as the ‘greatest collection of electronic geniuses’ ever assembled under one roof.

Shockley Semiconductor became the first High Technology company in what would become the Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, things did not go well for the company from the beginning. Most of the brilliant young men hired personally by Shockley were actually attracted to the the glamor of working under the genius scientist, Shockley - the co-creator of the first transistor. Unfortunately, that was not to be. During those early days there was limited talent with specialised semiconductor knowledge in the market, and among those talent, the best of it was working with Shockley. The researchers working under Shockley faced a myriad of challenges. They were never given a free hand to work on their passion in the frontiers of the semiconductor technology. Their preference to work with silicon semiconductors was rejected by Shockley. They were constantly heckled by Shockley with micro-management, impatience, and skepticism. Moreover, Shockley’s paranoia of internal mutiny by his genius employees made him to resort to extreme measures. He hired detectives to spy on his employees and often put them to lie detector tests. Shockley had no sense of professionalism and his employees saw him as an incompetent businessman. The constant outburst of Shockley on his employees were a cause for mounting friction. The resulting work environment in the company, which was to work in the state of the art research field, was contemptuous, stressful, and stifling. What would happen next would give rise to perhaps the most influential birth of a tech giant companies in late 1950s

Among the people who were continuing to be ill treated at the Shockley Semiconductors were the ‘traitorous eight’. These eight best minds (Julius Blank, Victor Grinich, Jean Hoerni, Gene Kleiner, Jay Last, Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce, and Sheldon Roberts), who would become famously known as "the traitorous eight", went on to form their own company the Fairchild Semiconductors, which ushered in unprecedented growth and innovation and laid a strong foundation and a culture of innovation in the Silicon Valley. The description given by Arthur Rock, a Venture Capitalist, defines the nature of the eight people who revolted against Shockley to found their own company. “These were, by their résumés, very superior people. And I thought, gee, maybe there is something here, something more valuable than just being an employee.” - Arthur Rock, Venture Capitalist.

One fine day on a hot summer morning in San Francisco in 1957, the eight of the most talented young minds working for Shockley Semiconductors convened for a clandestine meeting at the Clift Hotel. They gathered over breakfast in the famed Redwood Room, a bastion of the city’s old guard. One of them was Robert Noyce, an MIT genius engineer, who is also to be credited for the invention of the Integrated Chip, for which Jack Kilby was awarded the Nobel Prize. Robert Noyce was the leader they needed. Noyce was initially not keen to revolt against Shockley and leave his company since he had a young family to care for. However, the remaining seven of the traitorous eight persuaded Noyce to join them for creating a new company in a new field based on nothing more than combined knowledge, faith, ideas, and passion. The result was the formation of Fair Child Semiconductor company.

It was on September 19, 1957, a day after these eight brilliant minds left Shockley Semiconductors company, that they signed on a dollar bill promising to establish their own company. Their startup, Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation, went on to develop some of the most important innovations in 20th century electronics technology and sowed seeds that spawned Silicon Valley and changed the world. In the formation of their new company the eight of them were assisted by Arthur Rock, who later formed one of the first West Coast venture capital firms. The eight men raised $1.38 million from East Coast−based Fairchild Camera & Instrument Corporation. Their timing was impeccable. This was the time when USA was lagging far behind their Cold War rivals the Soviet Union in every space venture and it was time for the US to recoup the loss of leadership to the Soviet Union. This resulted in the military contractors engaged in crash programs to miniaturize and improve the reliability of aerospace electronic systems. Fairchild founders identified this as an opportunity for a new kind of silicon transistor to serve these applications.

In just five months they outfitted an R&D facility in Palo Alto, developed new processes and equipment, and introduced a range of new transistors which found instant acceptance in the space market. Fairchild’s rapid growth in revenue, number of employees, and impact on the local community can be compared to that of Google 40 years later. This extraordinary level of success was built on revolutionary insights by three co-founders—Jean Hoerni, Robert Noyce, and Gordon Moore and amplified by what is called as a start-up and innovation culture with the best of creative engineers and scientists. Fair Child continued to innovate and churn out new products and services all through the 1960s. Fairchild scientists pioneered reliable metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) production and also patented the all-important complementary MOS (CMOS) technology which is so fundamental to mainstream chip manufacturing today. Fairchild also developed analog chips and the most famous among them is µA709 operational amplifier (op-amp), which was developed in 1965. This IC established a mass market for analog devices and a highly profitable business unit for Fairchild. Fairchild alumni started many important analog IC companies including Linear Technology and Maxim.\

The Fairchild company grew from twelve to twelve thousand employees in no time and was soon raking in some $130 million a year. Led by Robert Noyce, the company introduced what has become a distinctly "Californian" style of management, complete with casual clothing and laid back atmosphere. Fairchild was the seedbed for a great industrial complex, as over the years many of the founders left to form other companies. Dubbed the "Fairchildren," these defectors helped Silicon Valley grow into the semiconductor ‘Mecca’ it has grown to become today.

According to journalist Michael Malone, “Fairchild Semiconductor was a company of legend – perhaps the most extraordinary collection of business talent ever assembled in a startup company. If Fairchild had a corporate culture it could only be described as volatility incarnate... brilliant young engineers and marketers working long days, and partying long nights... And somehow in the middle of it all, they also managed to invent the integrated circuit, the defining product of the late 20th century, and in the process helped to create the modern world”.

The management style that emerged from this culture differed from the conventional, bureaucratic, almost feudal ethos of the East Coast companies. Youth, inexperience, undying spirit, passion, a diverse mix of immigrants from across Europe and Asia, particularly from India, a tolerance for risk-taking, and a strong engineering discipline evolved into a formula that was replicated across the Valley. This culture now spans to successor companies such as AMD, Intel, and National Semiconductor and on to Apple, Atari, Netscape and Sun and also to Cisco, Google, Facebook and beyond.

The Fairchild Semiconductor reached heights of influence in no time. But then as it happens with most companies Fairchild too was beset by inept absentee management woes. Key people started leaving the company to chart their own paths and to found new companies of their own. Among those who left the Fair Child to form their own companies included their founder, the MIT genius engineer, Robert Noyce. He co-founded Intel with Gordon Moore in 1968. This process haemorrhaging key people continued with the company and those who left the company went on to found new semiconductor companies like Intel, AMD, National LSI Logic and many others. It is estimated by some that more than 400 companies can trace their roots to the Fairchild Semiconductor company, which was formed by those "Fairchild Eight" the most famous being Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, who co-founded Intel Corp. in 1968.

Today, that culture which was created by the founders of Fair Child Semiconductors in the Silicon Valley continues unabated. And this culture is inextricably linked to Innovation and entrepreneurship and it is/was here that the so called ‘geeks’ work passionately in an informal work culture, alongside their unending and night partying- ‘to give birth to the future’. The origin of the raise and raise of this new knowledge culture in the Silicon Valley, where innovation is a norm, goes back to the decades of the 50s, 60s and 70s of the twentieth century. This tradition has continued to remain uninterruptible even today and the culture of innovation, creativity and birthing new technologies in the Silicon Valley has spread to far off places across the world including in cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Gurugram in India.

The semiconductor industry was, is and will continue to be the engine that drives the Silicon Valley. It ushered the much heralded Information Revolution, the computers, cell phones, satellites, internet etc. and these new technologies, which owe their existence to the semiconductor industry have completely transformed our lives and collectively led us to the knowledge society and to what is termed the Fourth Industrial Revolution - IR4.0.

The history of the Silicon Valley therefore owes its Genesis to the dissent by the eight brilliant minds who left en-masse the Shockley Semiconductors company on this day to not only found their own company but also create a culture which thrives even today in the valley.

India has been immensely benefitted from this culture. Bangalored, a neologism, which became famous because of Barack Obama’s, (former American president) election address to the Buffalo audience, where he spoke on the dangers of the Buffalo (American) youngsters losing their jobs to their Bangalore counter parts in India, reminds us of the spin off benefits that the exponential growth of Silicon Valley in San Francisco Bay Area has brought for India, particularly to Bangalore which is considered to be the Silicon Valley of India. Let us owe it to those traitorous eight who made this possible.

Long live Creative culture which was birthed in the Valley to create more opportunities for India.

Eulogy for Frank Drake, the man who is immortalised by the Drakes Equation and SETI.

Eulogy for Frank Drake, the man who is immortalised by the Drakes Equation and SETI.

“It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow”. - Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard. 

 It is perhaps these prophetic words of Goddard that keeps many scientists engaged in what can be called an impossible task of finding answer to an elusive question, Are we alone in the universe? And one of the early astronomers who can be credited for trying to answer this question was Frank Drake. Frank Donald Drake, an astronomer who has been immortalised by an equation named after him - Drakes Equation - which he had advocated to initiate a dialog among ten astronomers who had gathered in a conference at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, West Virginia in 1961, died earlier this month on September 2 at the age of 92.

The Drake Equation is now considered as one of the most famous equation / formula in scientific history. This formula was advocated by Drake early in his career - November 1961- soliciting a brain storming discussion with the ten best brains, including Carl Sagan, who had gathered, to discuss on an elusive question ; Are we alone in the universe? This meeting goes down in history as the first scientific meeting, which was devoted to SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). Frank Drake wrote an equation on the blackboard that took the difficult question of estimating the number of civilizations in the Galaxy and broke it down into a series of smaller, more manageable questions. Ever since, both astronomers and students have used Drake equation as a means of approaching the most challenging question: Are we alone in the universe? 

Speaking of this question, as per our understanding - with all the powerful scientific and technological tools in our arsenal - our Earth seems to be unique and perhaps it is the only place in the universe, which harbours biological life, as we know it today. The uniqueness of our planet reminds us of that famous book with that poetic out look for our earth - 'Pale Blue Dot' - written by Carl Sagan. Incidentally Carl Sagan was one of the ten astronomers in whose presence Drake wrote his famous equation on the black board. Sagan’s book was inspired by a pale blue dot image taken, at Sagan's suggestion, by Voyager 1 on 14 February 1990. 

In the unending expanse of our ever expanding universe, which harbours billions and billions of galaxies, including our very own Milky Way Galaxy, and each galaxy birthing billions of stars that include our very own life giving and life sustaining star - the Sun - which is just one among those billions of stars that make up our 'Akash Ganga' galaxy, our Sun, as we know it today, is perhaps the only known star in the universe, which cradles our life sustaining planet Earth, where life in its myriad forms and unending diversity has evolved on our pale blue planet. But then the pale blue dot also reminds us of how tiny we in the vast expanse of our cosmos, which necessarily leads to that curiosity of question, are we alone. This question has haunted astronomers and biologists for long and the beginning to guesstimate this preposterous question started with what now has become universal, the Drakes equation and with this equation Frank Donal Drake become synonymous with SETI, which has inspired many movies including the ones made in Bollywood - Hrithik starter Koi Mil Gaya.

Frank Donald Drake was born in Chicago on May 28, 1930, the oldest of three children. His father, Richard, was a chemical engineer, and his mother, Winnifred (Thompson) Drake, was a music teacher. Drake became excited about the possibility of extraterrestrial life as a child since he studied astronomy in school. He was also interested in chemistry and electronics.  After his schooling he enrolled at the Cornell University as an undergraduate and a participant in the Navy’s Reserve Office Training Corps. This entailed that Drake had to take up a naval assignment post his graduation with a bachelor's degree in engineering physics, which he completed in 1952. On completing his graduation, Drake was posted to the U.S.S. Albany where he was assigned the task of attending to the ship’s electronics. He served in the navy for three years as the electronics officer on the Navy cruiser - U.S.S. Albany, 

On completion of his assignment with the navy Drake joined the prestigious Harvard’s graduate school from where he obtained his master’s degree and a Ph.D. in astronomy in 1958. All through this period his interest in electronics served him well and further attracted him to radio astronomy, a relatively new subject. Around this time, in 1958, there was a old Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory in the Green Bank, which was hardly known. However, in order to start some research at the fledging observatory, the Director of the observatory decided to purchase a radio telescope “kit” from the Blaw-Knox Corporation. This was to be a make shift arrangement which would pave the way for building a larger antenna, based on some early research. Drake joined this project and a year later, the assembled telescope, with its 85 foot reflector, was outfitted for observations and Drake began his research program with this telescope. This was the time when Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory, was transformed into the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) a newly constituted body. Drake began using radio telescopes to listen for signals from nearby stars. He identified two near by stars for his early examination and focused his attention on Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, each about a dozen light years away. This project was dubbed Project Ozma and it is considered as the first attempt under project SETI. 

For several weeks Drake alternately pointed the telescope at these two stars aiming to receive some signals from his commercial receiver, which was designed for shortwave listening. He chose to look at ‘frequencies adjacent to the radio emission line (1420 MHz) of neutral hydrogen, on the grounds that this naturally produced line would be known to any technically proficient civilization, and therefore would serve as a marker for the guidance of societies who might wish to make contact’.  Incidentally unknown to Drake, a paper was published in 1959 by two Cornell University physicists who had postulated that anyone with technology that was at least as advanced as our own could send detectable radio signals. 

The project to detect possible signals from the two near by stars by Drake became the first, modern SETI experiment, which was named Project Ozma. Although Drake was not successful in detecting any extraterrestrial signals, this project caught the attention of astronomers from across the world, including the astronomers at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The NAS suggested to the Director NRAO to task Drake with organising a small conference to brain storm on the possibility of trying to find evidence of ‘intelligence’ in the cosmos. This resulted in a group of about ten prominent scientists and engineers who gathered for attending this conference in 1961 in Green Bank. In order to kick start the brain storming discussion in this conference, Drake came out with an idea and wrote a simple equation, consisting of seven constant terms whose product would be an estimated number of galactic societies, who perhaps could produce signals that could be received and interpreted by their observations. This formulation has become known as the Drake Equation. Incidentally many people say that this equation is cited as the second most-famous equation in science (after Einstein’s E=mc2). 

Incidentally the worlds prestigious space agency NASA too joined in the early efforts of SETI project in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Some of the projects which NASA supported as a part of the SETI project included Project Orion, the Microwave Observing Project, the High Resolution Microwave Survey, and Toward Other Planetary Systems. However, since the Congress was not keen on supporting this project the SETI program was cancelled by NASA in 1993. By then the interest in SETI and aliens among the masses had only increased courtesy films like the Star Wars and many more. 

Before the closure of the SETI project by NASA, Drake was also involved in co-designing the Pioneer Plaque with the father daughter duo of Carl Sagan. This plaque was the first physical message, which was sent into the space. It was designed in such a way that the underpinnings of the message may be interrupted by any of the scientifically advanced extraterrestrial life forms, out there in the universe. Drake was also involved in writing the first interstellar message which was transmitted deliberately from the Earth for some intelligence out there in the universe to intercept it. 

Although NASA announced the official closure of the SETI project the interest in this project did not come down and the SETI project is continuing as a private entity in California even today. Drake had became the president of the SETI Institute after its founding in 1984.  Drake He continued to promote SETI, even after his official retirement in 2010 at the age of eighty.  During his retirement when asked whether he will be associate with the SETI project, Drake said, “I’m never going to retire from SETI.” Drake has influenced a generation of young astronomers and students who have now become SETI practitioners. Although in his life time - Drakes lifetime - there have been no scientific evidence whatsoever, which points to the existence of ET life, but then the efforts of SETI scientists may someday deliver that seemingly improbable news that the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ may have company some where in the universe true to the prophetic words of Robert Goddard ‘It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow. 

Rest in peace Frank Donald Drake.

Images courtesy : Wiki Commons and Project SETI.

Clarence Saunders & his Revolutionary Super Market - Piggly Wiggly

 

Super markets - which are now a norm - have mushroomed all across the world, India included. The genesis for the supermarkets stem from a remarkable innovation that came from an young American (born in poverty) - Mr Clarence Saunders - who introduced the first ever super market to the world - the Piggly Wiggly. It was on this day - 6 September, 1916, that the first ever truly self-service grocery store of the world was opened with great fanfare in Memphis, Tennessee in US. Piggly Wiggly store was completely different from any other contemporary grocery stores of the time. The store had wooden shopping baskets (plastic ones are used in current times) open shelves, aisles for the movement of the customers, and no delivery boys to choose the products for the customer. The customer to the Piggly Wiggly was welcomed and s/he had a complete freedom to choose what to buy her leisure, walking through the aisles of the store and check out paying for what s/he picked to buy – all of which were previously unheard of. The rest, what they say is history.

The humble neighbourhood किराना (kirana) shop (grocery shop), which most of my generation grew up with, has changed with time as a result of Clarence Saunders and so also with technological advancements. It was not until the era of economic liberalisation in India that the humble kirana shops remained the prime movers of serving grocery and such other utilitarian food items to their customers. My generation and so also those who live in the hinterland of the country continue to depend on the humble neighbourhood kirana shop for their grocery needs. The Kirana Shop - grocery stores of that time - encouraged their customers to prepare a list of the groceries that they wish to buy and this hand written list - on a small piece of paper often times on the back of a used envelope or a newspaper etc. - was required to be presented to the boys manning the kirana shop, standing behind the owner who would be seated on a chair controlling cash box. These boys would then gather the groceries and other materials listed on the piece of paper from the store shelves. Although the customers did have the facility to see some small quantity of samples what they wish to buy, but most often they had literally no choice to touch and feel the product they wished to buy.

Clarence Saunders, a dynamic and innovative man, who was serving as a sales man in a whole sale grocery store in US, was expected to increase the sales. This mandated Saunders to travel extensively and meet retailers hold discussions and motivate them to place orders with his whole sale store. During this period, Saunders watched very carefully each of the retail shops and how they are functioning and how their owners are managing their stores and how they interact with their customers. He was convinced that the method followed by all the retail stores resulted in wasted time and expense. He also observed that often times the customers were expressing their unhappiness for not being able to personally see and select what grocery items they wish to buy for their homes. He, therefore, came up with an unheard-of solution that would revolutionize the entire grocery industry. He developed a way for shoppers to “serve themselves” and the result was the founding of the first self-service super market concept which we now take for granted. He strangely called his grocery shop Piggly Wiggly, a rhythmic sounding name, which also speaks of his interest in poetry. The supermarkets and the ultramodern stores, which we see today - with an ever-improving technology embedded in these super markets - owe their genesis to a journey of their evolution that began with the outstanding innovation by Clarence Saunders, who founded his revolutionary concept of self service in the retail market.

Clarence Saunders was born on August 9, 1881 in a poor family in Virginia to his parents Abraham Warwick and Mary Gregory Saunders. Mary was the second wife of Abraham. Clarence was born when his father was 47 and his mother just 26. As fate would have it his mother died when he was 6 years. This meant that Clarence had no formal education. He went to school only for two years and the rest of his learning is all self-taught. He started working for a shop when he was just 12 years of age at 4 Dollars a month remuneration. He was expected to clean the lanterns and the wicks used in these old and decorative lanterns. He worked so passionately on his job and wanted to be the best lantern cleaner in the city. His vision to be the best in the market was taking roots at this young age. He worked in this shop from early morning to late night. Impressed by his commitment and his impeccable workmanship, his boss doubled his remuneration in just a month. The character to excel in whatever you do started taking shape in the young Saunders. He then changed many workplaces, each time gaining not just the experience but also increased remuneration. Even as he was working so very hard, he found time to read books, particularly literature and had up made up his mind to be self-taught. He also learnt maths – arithmetic - which he thought was important to succeed in life. This would serve him well in his career. At age 14, Saunders started working part time in a grocery store.

Armed with his experience of working in a retail store, Saunders soon found a job in a whole sale market at age 19. In 1904, at 23, he moved to Memphis and landed up with a good job in Shanks Philips and Company as a salesman in the whole sale market at 85 Dollars a month. All through this period he had continued to be self-taught including taking keen interest in literature and poetry. His love for books drew him closer to be his wife – Caroline Amie Walker who he married on 6 October 1903. His wife too loved books, particularly poetry. He wrote poetry for his wife. In just two years of his joining Shanks Philips and Company, his salary was increased to 125 Dollars a month. This gave him space to improve his living life style and provided space and time for his entrepreneurial ambitions. While serving in this company he made fair number of notes and observations on how the retail stores work. He had also established good rapport with many of the retail stores. In fact, he had motivated an organised movement of the retailers who had collectively formed a store with all their stakes in this store.

Having made a name for himself as an expert grocery wholesaler, Saunders decided to embark on a plan of revolutionizing the grocery store - common supermarket. He believed that there must be a better way to serve the customers. He therefore, envisaged removing unnecessary material handling boys – clerks - creating elaborate aisle displays and rearranging the store to force customers to view all of the merchandise. His experience and innovative mind helped him found a new revolutionary concept, of self-service shopping in retail market. All these features were some of the characteristics of Saunders’ Piggly Wiggly stores, which was opened on this very day, 6 September, 1916.  It became   a ground-breaking enterprise that changed the face of retail market. When Piggly Wiggly opened its doors in Memphis, Tennessee on September 6, 1916, it became the first truly modern American supermarket. Though the Piggly Wiggly Store was in complete variance from its competitors, the style became the standard for the modern supermarket, and in 1922, just six years after it was opened, Piggly Wiggly had grown into 1,200 stores in 29 states.

Until the beginning of the Piggly Wiggly stores, customers were typically forced to wait behind a counter to request items stored beyond their reach and view. With limited employees manning the counters, often times, the customers had to wait a while for their turns to get what they wished. If other customers were in line, people had to wait even longer. In the newly opened "cafeteria grocery", Saunders moved the stockroom into the front of the store and allowed customers to roam the aisles and select their own groceries, the idea of which was truly revolutionary in 1916.

Saunders innovation, the Piggly Wiggly, a strangely sounding name, turned the then existing retail market model on its head. Shoppers no longer needed to be at the mercy of the grocer. They were invited into the store, handed a shopping basket, and left free to move around the grocery store to touch and feel their chosen items and know the price of each of the items. Shoppers to Piggy Wiggly could pick and choose what they liked at their own pace and fill their cart and checkout of the stores paying for whatever they selected. This may not sound very impressive now, but imagine this concept one hundred six years back when no one had ever thought of self-service grocery shopping the way Saunders thought of it. Commemorating the centenary of Piggly Wiggly innovation the TIME magazine paid tributes by stating “Piggly Wiggly was the original grocery store, which not only introduced grocery carts, but also price-marked items, employees in uniform, and the supermarket franchise model.”

Piggly Wiggly permanently changed the face of grocery shopping not only in America but around the world. When people asked Saunders why he gave his grocery store such a funny little name, he is reported to have said, "So that people will ask that very question." It seems to have worked, because even after the centenary of the Piggly Wiggly stores, people still ask the reason for naming it with a strangely looking name. Saunders was also a master marketing man and the launch of his new store was truly memorable and one could quite easily compare his launch with the launch of the Apple products by their founder late Steve Jobs. Saunders grand opening of his first Piggly Wiggly in 1916 had included a jazz band on top of one of the refrigerator units, a beauty contest, flowers for the ladies, and balloons for children. History was made, and reportedly several thousand people showed up to witness Saunders self-service grocery shopping.

Piggly Wiggly store was an immediate financial success -- quicker for customers, less labour intensive for the shopkeeper, the new format allowed multiple customers to shop at the same time, and led to the previously unknown phenomenon of impulse shopping. Saunders soon patented his self-service concept, and began franchising Piggly Wiggly stores. Within five years, the chain had more than a thousand stores, and was the nation's largest grocery retailer. Sadly, during the Great Depression, Saunders was forced to sell the company after a long financial battle with Wall Street investors. He went through bad times in his business including losing his Piggly Wiggly and starting new ventures, which initially succeeded but later failed.  Having built and lost two major fortunes, Saunders died on October 15, 1953. Leaving behind a legacy which will remain etched in the annals of history and he will be remembered as the man who brought the retail store into the twentieth century.

On this day which happens to be the 106^th anniversary of the first super market – Piggly Wiggly, we must remember that we go to a supermarket, we must spare a thought for Clarence Saunders innovation, which made these self-service markets possible. them possible. Long live Innovation, which is more than mere conversion of knowledge into a workable technology. It implies an S&T-led solution that benefits economy and human society and today when we are celebrating our seventy five years of our independence – Azadi Ka Amrut Mohotsav – it is time for us to invest more in the field of science, technology and innovation as we aim towards becoming the second largest economy of the world much before the targeted year, 2047.

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Ganesh Festival, Mumbai: A Religious - Cultural Saga that Exemplifies the Cosmopolitan nature of the City.

 

Ganesh Festival, Mumbai: A Religious - Cultural Saga that Exemplifies the Cosmopolitan nature of the City. 

After two-years of COVID pandemic restrictions, the Ganesh Festival (Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav) - the socio cultural, religio-spiritual tradition, celebrated with great fervour across Mumbai and Maharashtra, the history of which goes back to the late 19 the century that has subsequently spread to most other parts of India – a ten-day mega festival will be celebrated without any restrictions or limitations in Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra. The Ganesh Festival is celebrated by the devotees of Lord Ganesh, the god of wisdom and good fortune, to mark “his birth” during the Chaturthi Tithi of Shukla Paksha of Bhadrapada month (August or September). This year, the Ganesh Chaturthi has fallen today - August 31, Wednesday. Accordingly, the Ganesh Visarjan will take place on Anant Chaturdashi, September 9, Friday. Ganesh Chaturthi is also known as Vinayaka Chaturthi and is celebrated with much enthusiasm across Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Goa and Kerala, among other states.

The announcement of the decision to remove all the restrictions in organising the Ganesh Festival this year had motived the organisers of the Ganapati Pandals (Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav) to make a beeline at the BMC seeking approval for their respective mandals for organising the Ganesh festival. The Mumbaikars, who could not celebrate their favourite Ganapati Bappa festival in the last two years, in that quintessential manner that Mumbai is known to celebrate this festival, are eagerly waiting to celebrate this year’s Ganesh festival with great religious fervour and fanfare. The organisers of the Sarvajanik Ganapati Mandals in Mumbai are once again vying with each other to bring out their creative best in attracting as many devotees as possible to their respective Pandals. Approximately some 3490 applications were received by BMC for the erection of Ganpati Pandals this year, and 2284 mandals have been given permission. This almost matches to the pre pandemic level when in 2019, BMC had received 3723 applications out of which 2483 pandals were approved for erection.

This year’s Sarvajanik Ganesh Festival has a special significance since it owes its genesis to Indian independence and this year marks the completion of seventy-five years of our independence – Azadi Ka Amrut Mohotsav. Therefore, it is apt to recall how the Ganesh Festival began to be celebrated as a community festival owing its genesis to the freedom struggle. The Sarvajanik Ganesh festivals have played their role in freedom movement by uniting all sections of the Hindu society to gather under one platform as devotees of Lord Ganesh and to seek his blessings for a free India. The Genesis for the celebration of the Ganesh Festival in public goes back to the nineteenth century – 1893 to be precise.

The first battle of Indian independence fought in 1857, which the British had dubbed as the Sepoy Mutiny, had given an impetus for the freedom movement in India. A communal flare up between the Hindus and Muslims in 1870 and the fear that it can adversely affect their governance, the British Government in the year 1892 imposed a ban on any gathering of native Indians more than 20 in number. This had made it difficult for the nationalist leaders and reformers to address any gathering and create any socio- political awareness. The ban however, allowed only the public gatherings in form of ​Namaj or Muharram ​taboots procession by the Muslim community, who are known for offering of their prayers in public. The British were clever not to hurt the religious sentiments of their subjects, more so Indians who are largely religious.

The use of public gatherings to create an awareness in the society was first used by the social reformer, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule. He founded Satyashodhak Samaj (a society of truth seekers) under whose auspices he encouraged public gatherings - called Jalsas. These Jalsa’s had proven to be an effective medium to take socio- political messages to all cadres of society. Realising how adversely the 1892 ban was impacting the public gathering and how impartial the ban was towards the Hindus, Bal Gangadhar Tilak conceived an innovative idea to bring Lord Ganesh out of individual homes and onto the public space. Moreover, Tilak needed a platform where he could bring together all the Hindus, who were a fragmented society divided on the caste lines - this division was encouraged by the British who believed in the policy of divide and rule.

Tilak was aware that Lord Ganesh was a God of the masses in Pune and Maharashtra and that Lord Ganesh was worshipped by all sections of the Hindu community. The city of Pune, from where the movement for Sarvajanik Ganesh festival started, was ruled by the Peshwas who served as the Prime Ministers to the Maratha kings.  Peshwas worshipped Ganesh as their kul devta and therefore it is no wonder that Poona is surrounded by Eight Temples of Ganesh - Astha Vinayak. Incidentally even today the Ashtavinayak Yatra or pilgrimage covers the eight ancient holy temples of Ganesh which are situated around Pune. Each of these temples has its own individual legend and history, which is distinct from each other.

The history of the annual worshipping of Ganesh - by consecrating the statue of lord Ganesh and offering Pooja in individual houses - actually dates back to at least 16th century in Maharashtra. However, the Ganesh Festival was mostly observed in the aristocratic individual households of the Peshwas - the Prime Ministers in the Maratha regime, who were also responsible for making Ganesh the God of the masses.

In 1892, the year when the British imposed a ban on public gathering, Bal Gangadhar Tilak wanted to defy this order but lawfully. He knew how intricately Lord Ganesh is connected with the people of the region. Tilak conceived of an idea to bring Lord Ganesh out of the individual royal households and onto the public space to channelise, unite and ignite a divided Hindu society for a larger national sentiment against the oppressive British rule. Incidentally, this movement also helped lord Ganesh to become Lord Ganapati, the God of the masses. Bal Gangadhar Tilak had commissioned two newspapers, Kesari, in Marathi and Mahratta in English, which were published from Kesari Wada, Pune. Tilak used the loop hole in the 1892 ban imposed by the British, which exempted the Muslims from their Friday prayers, to appeal to his readers to start the Sarvajanik Ganesh Festival. He was sure that this being a religious festival the British would be afraid to ban it. More so since the British had permitted the Friday prayers of the Muslims. Tilak used his Kesari Marathi paper to drive home this message among the Hindu community and he appealed to the people to organise community Ganesh Festival.

This was a well thought out decision. Tilak knew how religious the Indian society was. He was therefore sure that the British, who were successfully managing to crush the freedom movement, particularly gathering of large number of people on the streets with that inhuman and barbaric force that is associated with the colonial rule in India, would not succeed in disrupting a religious gathering of people. He knew that the call for the Sarvajanik Ganesh Festival would serve two purpose, first it would unite the divided Hindu community under single platform and second the platform could be used in strengthening the freedom movement by creating a sense of cultural unity among the people. The Ganesh festival provided the much needed impetus for the freedom struggle and ever since the Ganesh Festival has come on to the public space in Mumbai and Maharashtra and has also spread across different cities and towns in India. The Ganesh Festival, particularly in Mumbai, connects to people of all faith and is considered more a cultural worship space. One can witness this across different section of society in Mumbai, which I am privy to for several years.

The first Public Ganesh Mandal - Keshavji Naik Chawl Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Mandal at Girgaum - in Bombay, as it was known then, was commissioned in 1893 and ever since the Ganeshotsav Mandal in Girgaum has been celebrating this auspicious Ganesh festival in the same traditional way each year. Lord Ganesh, the moorti of the elephant god, comes in varying sizes and in different shapes and styles, which depend on where the lord is commissioned for the worship. The Girgaum Ganesh pandal does not use loudspeakers nor expensive lights, or any of the modern day style pooja traditions, which are observed in most of the Ganesh Pooja pandals across Mumbai and other cities in the country. The Keshavji Naik Chawl Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Mandal in Girgaum has continued this tradition for over a century now.  However, there are other public Ganesh Pandals, across the city including the famous Lalbaug ka Raja and so also in various other cities in India - Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad etc.- which celebrate the Ganesh Pooja and the festival with modern day fanfare with DJs and lights and sound and crackers and what have you. This year all this will be back to its peal in Mumbai and Maharashtra, owing to the removal of Covid restrictions. 

Post-independence, the festival has undergone a change and during these 10 days of celebration, the economic activity gets accentuated leading to increased employment, income and production of variety of goods and services. In that sense the Ganesh Utsav has become a ‘cultural product’ of the city, which has great economic and market value. Today, the Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav is one of the most celebrated festivals of Mumbai. One of the primary reason for the success of the auspicious Ganesh Festival in Mumbai is the Mumbaikars - the rich and mighty, the powerful and powerless, the poor and the insignificant, the lettered and unlettered, sheltered and unsheltered, the males, females and the transgender, the believers and non-believers, Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, the religious and non-religious, young, middle aged, old and the very old. That undying spirit of unity in diversity in India gets exemplarily played out during this festival in Mumbai.

The Ganesh Festival in Mumbai has now become a ‘cultural product’ that has large economic impact. It includes goods and services bought for reasons other than those that are used purely for the utilitarian purposes as envisaged by Abraham Maslow. Interestingly, festivals such as the Ganesh Festival in Mumbai, are among the fastest developing cultural events in the world. Currently, festivals are treated as an important element in promotion of cities and regions which attract tourists and encourage them to spend their money. In that sense we must all encourage celebration of the Ganesh Festival, which besides being spiritual and religious in nature it also serves as a catalyst for the economy and job creation. The economic imprint of the Ganesh Festival is evidenced in a study conducted by ASSOCHAM (2015). The study revealed that the annual revenue from Ganesh festival was around Rs. 20,000 crores in the year 2015, growing annually at CAGR of 30%. The GSB ​Seva Mandal​, known to be the richest Mandal in Mumbai, sought an insurance coverage of Rs 300 crores in the year 2018 for their Pandal, which further evidences the market value of the festival.

According to the Brihanmumbai Sarvajanik Ganeshutsav Samanvay Samiti (BSGSS), a Ganesh Mandal coordination committee in the city, a single major Ganesh Mandal normally spends about 3 crore rupees for the 10-day spectacle. An estimated fifteen to twenty lakh visitors visit a single idol, ​Lalbaugcha Raja, ​ over ten days, with as many as five lakh visitors on a single day, contributing about 25 crore rupees in cash as their offerings, while a similar amount is also raised by the auction of gold- silver and presents, which are also offered by the devotees to Lord Ganesh. The scale of operations of this 10-day Ganesh Festival event was constantly increasing until Covid played spoilsport, during the last two years. It is so heartening to note that the enthusiasm among the public and also the organisers will ensure that the years lost due to Covid will more than be compensated this year and the years thereafter and that no untoward incident happens.

The economic impact of the Ganesh Festival is also seen in the opportunities of employment and income generation that this festival offers for the Mumbaikars around the ten days of the Festival. The Festival creates demand for the music industry - in terms of composition and productions of devotional music albums. It creates market opportunities for the Gold, silver and gems & jewellery - both for the purpose for offerings to the Lord Ganesh as well as for personal use. The flower and decoration markets experience a much larger turnover during these ten days. The sale from food industry – primarily sweets - increases many more times than regular. The city enjoys higher number of offers for sale and discount from the real estate sector and financial sector. A conservative estimate of all these economic activities are destined to give a push to Mumbai’s economy to the tune of Rs. 25 thousand crores for which owe our reverence to Lord Ganesh.

Whether a sombre pooja or an ostentatious collective celebration, one thing remains central to this Ganesh Festival, which every Mumbaikars and Maharashtrians celebrate - the festival is celebrated with Shradha and Bhakti. This in essence is the very spirit of India - the socio, cultural and spiritual land that is home to most religions of the world. The administration and all other stakeholders, including the public, who ensure that this extraordinary 10 days Ganesh Festival passes of peacefully with the immersions of the Ganesh murthis and the festival becomes a grand success time after time and festival after festival, must be saluted for their efforts to make this grand festival successful.

In the CSMVS Museum campus, where we are currently staying, Mr Sabyasachi Mukherjee, DG, CSMVS, organised a community Ganesh Pooja for the families who are residing in the staff quarters - inside the campus - and we all had the honour to celebrate the Ganesh Festival in a traditional Maharashtrian way with devotional songs and offerings for the Lord of wisdom. Incidentally every year we also celebrate the Ganesh Festival at home, bringing home Lord Ganesh. It was on this Ganesh Chaturthi day in 1958 that my elder son was born and ever since our family has been celebrating the Ganesh Festival brining home Lord Ganesh.   

May Ganapati Bappa bless us all and may he guide this nation to ever increasing heights with peace and prosperity and may the people living in the bottom of the pyramid and all other disadvantaged section of the society continue to be blessed to lead a happy life.

Ganapati Bappa Morya.