Wednesday 18 April 2012

Have you heard of a name called Panini?

So here was an expert. He is not a scientist. Arrogance is a quality that scientists are often accused of. This guy was supposed to talk on an Indian classic written in Sanskrit. Three talks, I went to listen to him with great expectations.
In his first talk, he probably did talk about the subject text for a couple of minutes scattered through the one and a half hour he spoke. He began with the typical 'I hate lecturing - let us be interactive..' And once he began, he was still going on unstopped when I left after about one and a half hour.  No sign of being interactive until then. So what did he talk on? He talked on things he did not seem to know much - history, consciousness, a whole lot of things with mostly mumbo-jumbo interpretations. Among other things, he said the Moghuls came to India in the ninth century. And the Indian sages had to hide the classic texts - so they went to far away places like Burma and Nepal to save them. And then some scholars (including his own forefathers) in nineteenth century discovered these holy texts back.
The pinnacle was his question - in an institute that prides itself on language technology research - he suddenly asked: Have you heard of a name called Panini?

OMG, did I say arrogance is a quality that scientists are accused of. Needless to say, I chose to remain unenlightened and made better use of the time when he spoke again for the other two talks.

But why are the Indian revivalists so full of it? Great expectations and what a let down!