Neem Jahan

Dear prem,

I`m sorry you did not enjoy my fantasy. For better or for worse the current developments in the world are exerting a strong influence on my brain, and are pulling me inevitably in the direction of politics rather than more simple entertainment. I wish that things would return to a calmer state so that I can safely leave the political thinking to the politicians and return to whimsical fancy. Alas, this is like wishing for another childhood as I`m sure you are aware. Nonetheless, I hope to find many more occasions to focus more on the science part than the fiction part in future writings.

In defense of this fantasy, I find your objection somewhat simplistic. Since the fast majority of humanity seems to concern itself with the same basic endeavors, namely food, education, reproduction, economic activity, and unfortunately, war, it seems reasonable to me that we ought to strive to work together on solving those problems? After all, the United States` success stems precisely from this kind of coordinated approach, and the European Union is a blatant attempt at imitating that success. The earliest civilizations were successful precisely because they were able to achieve more wealth through coordinated effort. None of this is to say that the world should or will become ``culturally homogenous``, though admittedly that is a very real danger. On the other hand, it seems to me that such a world would still be a better place to live than the distrustful, fearful and antagonistic approach that seems to hold sway today. After all, children born into this united world will not have any cultural baggage to hang on to. This effect is obviously at work in immigrant communities in the United States and elsewhere, my own family included. Furthermore, the world seems to be inexorably headed towards a ``united earth``, though it can always be derailed by catastrophe or massive disruption of course. So I figure we might as well figure out a way to make it work; I certainly don`t count on the United Nations becoming an effective world government anytime soon! Of course, when one door is closed, another is open! And so while the people of Earth are happily uniting, hopefully our increasing technological progress will allow the nay-sayers to escape the oppressive estimated 10 billion uniters, to form new frontier communities on Mars and elsewhere in the Solar system and beyond. After all, you should have the right and the means to opt out of my fantasy if it were ever to come true :-) As for me, if I live long enough, I would leave the Earth no matter what state it was in. I cannot imagine a more exciting adventure than that!

Q

Dear Harpreet,

Octavio Paz sounds great; I would love the reference! Thanks,

Q

Dear LaydAna,

Communism imho was an ill-conceived experiment for 2 reasons:

1. Despite the explicit statements by its inventors that it should not be attempted before a society had reached a certain level of industrialization, it was implemented by the Bolsheviks in pre-industrialized Russia, with the familiar disastrous results.

2. By seeking to wholesale replace an existing system of government, no matter how corrupt, without first preparing a credible alternative system of government, communism fell victim to the predations of those with the most thirst for power and the least scruples to achieve their ambitions.

Having learned those lessons I hope to articulate an alternative approach. Perhaps more appropriately called an evolution than a revolution, though the time-scales involved had better not be comparable to those involved in biological evolution of course :-)

If we are complacent and resign ourselves to democracy as the best possible system of human government, we are likely to end up where the United States is heading today, and Rome ended up thousands of years ago: an initially reluctant empire running itself aground. The democratic system put in place by the authors of the United States constitution has proven remarkably durable, and yet after 200 years of reasonable social and political progress it is proving itself ultimately unable to avoid the familiar catastrophe of military rule and financial corruption. While the electorate sleeps, the powerful make war and enact new laws to oppress the people. Not exactly my idea of an ``ideal`` system of government.

We can only hope that the current democratic hegemony will last long enough for us to invent something better. And of course there can be no success without experiment. So why not experiment now when we can afford it, on a scale that is unlikely to do major harm if the experiments should fail?

Why limit ourselves politically? We have developed incredible scientific knowledge and technological mastery. Is it too much to ask that we apply our amazing ingenuity and creativity to also making further progress on how to more effectively and fairly govern ourselves?

Q

Dear temporal,

Neem Jahan - I made that up :-) I checked with my Hindi speaking wife who confirmed that it could plausibly mean ``Tree of Life``. Poetic license and all that. Thanks,

Q

Re: afrasiyab, #11

Thanks, afrasiyab. I didn’t read it anywhere. I heard this phrase before and was just curious…

I just finished reading Pakistan: Eye of the Storm. An excellent book, if you ask me. Anyone who is interested in a short political history of Pakistan up until only a few months back should read this book. It is written by a BBC journalist based in Pakistan since 1998. He witnessed the coup and everything first hand. It is very objective, well-researched, well-written and, importantly, very readable. I just started reading Human Croquet. Read only first 20 pages. Haven’t formed an opinion yet…

I actually ran out of Urdu books for translation. Can’t even find Premchand’s book in my house for which I paid over $20. Anyways, I want to translate a different author each time I attempt to translate. Subhan Bhagat (actually, I think it’s Sojan Bhagat…Urdu script makes it look like Subhan, but when the script is broken down it’s Sojan…it was quite clear when I read the story.) You are right. This is a good story. I actually started to translate Premchand’s Shatranj Kay Khilari first, then, half way through, dumped it and switched to Nijat.

I will be taking a trip to Pakistan shortly. I hope to pick up good Urdu literature to translate for Chowk. I’d love to have recommendations from you to pick up Urdu books, if you don’t mind. Thanks.

Godot
Neem Hakeem is usually a mocking refernce to someone with nominal expertise in any area. Neem here means half literally, Hakeem means Doctor or Physician. Somebody who has only half of what it takes. Balayee Jaan is scourge of existence I guess.

So the entire thing sums up to mean Somebody with nominal knowledge can cause a great deal of pain or infliction on individual as indicated by Jaan or collectively as is clear from another usage of Jaan which can be termed collective as in the word existence.
Where did you read this. What are you reading these days. I was hoping to see some more of PC from you. Did you read Subhan Bhagat.

Dear Quinton,

I just read your profile and found it so interesting. I have been to Amsterdam lots of times and always noticed and was intruiged by the large number of Surinamese Indians that you see there. I find the whole Carribean/South American Indian culture fascinating, the history and society of Trinidad, Guyana and of course Surinam.

I have a book at home written by Octavio Paz, the great Mexican writer, who lived in India for some time, and he recounts a fascinating story about a Gujarati Hindu woman who, sometime in the 18th century, was shipped, by the Portugese I think, to Mexico as a slave, as a piece of exotica. Anyway, she ended up becoming a nun and is now coinsidered an anointed Catholic saint there. He points out the similarities between certain aspects of Hinduism and the animistic aspects of Latin American spirituality and how they manifested themselves in this womans worship and intruigingly he outlines his idea of how she remained a Hindu throughout her life as a Christian.

If you are interested I will get the reference to this book and this story for you.

Keep on writing

regards

-h-

Since we are talking neem...What`s neem-hakeem...???...n blaiaye-jaan, to add...anybody knows...???...will come in handy in my translations...thanks....

Quinton,

I have liked your other articles. But this science fiction left me shaking my head in wonder....

You ``enjoy`` this fantasy? A fantasy in which six billion people march in tandem?!

Lady,

Neem does not mean tepid, neem garam does,temporal has already explained both meanings,the tree and half.Here is what Meer Taqi Meer says:
Meer oon neem-baz ankhoN mein
saari masti sharaab ki si hai

Regards.

t,

You will appreciate that I did not quote Princess Zaib-un-NissaN`s famous
``neemay darooN, neemay barooN``in front of her father Aurangzeb;)

Regards.

Hmm.. wish it were that simple. Oh I wish.

hey;
as far as I knew neem garam meant lukewarm and neem means almost or even semi. therefore Neem Jahan could mean--almost world...maybe Quentin can confirm. Tree of life sounds pretty cool too. Calling Quentin for more light....?

neem also means tepid, but i forgot if that`s in urdu or slang.
jahan also means world / universe.

But I prefer yr tree of life version.

Quinton:

[... ``Neem Jahan``, roughly meaning: ``Tree of Life``...]

where di you get that from?...just curious...

in Urdu `neem` other that the tree also means `half` or `incomplete`


....more later after i`ve read your piece

rgds,

t

reads like a communist manifesto, what? :confused: