I have just completed a hilarious and amusing book “Serious Men” by Manu Joseph – and I need to share with you some of his very Indian and very global philosophical views through some of the statements given by the characters in this very readable book.
First of all, the book is about a clerk (read low cast) who is the secretary to the Director (high cast Brahmins) of Institute of Theory and Research, a kind of sandbox for astronomy and even bioastronomy (?). One of the tasks given (or taken) carried out by the secretary is to write ‘Thought for the day’ on the Institute blackboard and as a low cast he also enjoys the possibilities of upsetting any of the researchers as they are all Brahmins and has been given education – he himself has 'only' an IQ of 148, but has still not been given the opportunity of higher education. When he writes the thought for the day, he picks up real quotes by famous science people, but he also invents some quotes which the said person have never given:
“It’s a myth that Sanskrit is the best language for writing computer code. Patriotic Indians have spread this lie for many years” – Bill Gates
“A greater crime than the Holocaust was the untouchability. Nazis have paid the price, but the Brahmins are still raping the rewards for torturing others” – Albert Einstein
“If souls are indeed reborn as the Brahmins say, then what accounts for population growth? Rebirth is the most foolish mathematical concept ever” – Isaac Newton
As you can understand, this is a must read book and I cannot resist some of the quotes by the Director himself, even though he is a Brahmin, he is being respected by his secretary, possibly because of his brilliance, but also because he is not concerned about petty things and is brave enough to say so. As a astronomer he opposes all theories about the big bang and he is not supporting any activities related to listening for aliens by spending lots of money on radio-telescopes etc. “The human search for aliens is now in the imbecilic stage that robotics once was” and he goes on “…I will not support people who presume that somewhere, far away in space, there could be beings so human that they will build machines that will send radio signal. Man is not searching for aliens. Man is searching for man. It’s called loneliness. Not science” he has got a point and its getting better “Scientist want to search for alien signals because that’s what gets them publicity. They are like Jesus Christ.
You know he turned water into wine. From the point of view of pure chemistry, it is more miraculous to make wine into water than to make water into wine. But he did not do that. Because if he had gone to someone’s house and converted their wine into water, they would have crucified him much earlier….”
Enjoy!!
