the phundit

then there are phundits.

I define a 'phundit' as someone who seeks to benefit materially or otherwise from the knoweledge base he has built over time either specific to a subject or in general context *and* is unafraid to share it with others so as to influence the opinion that ultimately suits his clients or who pays his bills.

For example if you were to listen to FOX news or CNN, they may have guests on it who portray each and every policy in a certain light. I have no issue with those unless they are being compensated with a self-serving exposure just because their view suits the particular audience. One day they will be writing a book from the half truths they told (even when they knew the full truth). One day they will be writing a policy paper on the subject they talked about (again telling only a half of the story).

A quality that distinguishes these phundits from others is that they 'reach' and 'grab' answers that are outside of their experience and knowledge. They do that first when prompted. And they do it as a rule afterwards -- because they would already have mentioned it before, now their Phunditry passes as Punditry.

The Phundits also have some fun looking at their well dressed mannerisms in full-length mirrors. They are the used-car salesmen of the intelligentsia. They tell you what you like to hear. They cash in on you when the time is right. They push you and prod you toward a maximum utility point on the curve where you and he/she benefits most, "together". Your own utility value is of concern only to the extent that he makes that 'sale'.

You are of some value to the Phundit. He has to make that sale. He has to guide your ill-informed and clumsy soul toward a point of sale for his idea. He has you by the balls after he convinces you that he is the Phundit -- you both together are going to have fun.

The lectures on Economics, Morals, Philosophy and especially about humans at war -- and specifically if it involved Arabs and Jews; Iraqis wanting to stand for their freedoms and the tribal leaders for their fiefdoms; Pakistanis and Indians going to the brink of a war and oscillating back to peace; home grown terrorism in England; the so-called revolutionary maoists in Andhra Pradesh -- they spare nothing. They are experts at everything. I heard a columnist on C-SPAN of all things, that India and Pakistan were within a 15 second timeframe to begin a nuclear war. He said the war could come that quickly. He writes for DAWN, a Pakistani Newspaper. He is not worth the mention on this blog. It is the reader who must make a distinction -- whether to trust a columnist, ever. I would say, never.

Every columnist is a Phundit, to some degree. I am not outside of that sphere as well. It is easier when you are one among them to write about and speak about.

I have other updates to the blog coming up. Thanks for reading.

Responding to the blog: Ramarao Kanneganti

If I had more time, I would have written a more thoughtful response to the blog that Viplav wrote. Of course, I was confused as to how torespond. I could respond as Ramarao Kanneganti about the inaccuracies inportrayal (for example, I did lift bricks and so on). Or fallacies inlogic (Does truth depend on whether I covet a BMW, or struggling to payfor health care bills?) But then, it could have been ego satisfying, butnot particularly interesting.

I could have responded as a "new intellectual", but the definition proved much elusive. The post has a bunch of statements about "newintellectual", with only some of the statements demonstrably valid forme. In any case, the only statement that resonated with me is that I am depending on limited amount of information to make pronouncements. The rest are either red herrings or plain fantastic.

If I am accused of coming to a decision with little information thanavailable, I agree. But then, it is the process of decision making aidedby statistical inferencing, monotonic reasoning, and backed by an incremental weltanschauung. There is a strong precedence for it. Infact, if there is anything I am an authority on, it would be that -- my PhD thesis is about such models and reasoning.

Lest you all should think I am too smug, I am constantly aware that that my model is incremental (at times, parts of it invalidated throughlearning), and work to incorporate any new knowledge into my world view.Through my experiences I am aware that more information does not always been different judgment. Or, information can provide different "wisdom"in different people.

In any case, there is a name for what I do, or what I am: it is called"intellectual gadfly". I am not an intellectual. I am so painfully awarehow people mistake my playful, ahem, brilliance with intellectual discourse.

I would have very much liked if he had written how I am much mistaken about virasam Ban. At least it could have been an illuminatingdiscussion. I could have said why I did not condemn the arrest of NVenugopal or Vara vara Rao or Kalyan Rao. I could have said why "choice"is not the motivating factor, if any. I could have said lot of otherthings.

Instead, this analysis leaves me in an unenviable position: defend myself and come across as a egotistical blow hard; not defend myself andappear as all that I am accused to be. Ignoring it is the easiest optionthat anybody would advocate, but somehow I could not do it, perhaps outof past impression of the author:-).

--
Rama

the tree counter

I have not planned on returning to update the blog this soon, within Twenty-four hours. If you have any hiccups with what I am going to say, please take it up with Satya Pamarti. I would be careful with Satya Pamarti if I were you, because he can pull your legs faster than you think.

Satya Pamarti asked about 'old intellectual'. A smart question, except that there was no 'old' intellectual until the 'new' intellectual was born, out of sheer necessity & craving created by other 'intellectuals'. So, we talk about normal, good old intellectual before the advent of this new intellectual (please see Aug 19th post). Since we defined the new intellectual in previous post, we can safely now refer to the previous form as the old. The reader understands that this has nothing to do with age or concept of time.

One did not have to be particularly bright in order to be counted as intellectual. One had to be diligent, focussed and not stray afar in order to have an in-depth scrutiny of the issue at hand. 'Focus' is a key word for the intellectual. What he did with the focus was to fine tune the issue and plunge into the depths in time and brought out relevant questions. The 'unusual brightness' aspect began only with the new intellectual who seem to have an obsession equally shared between western philosophy and vedas, all at the same time.

The 'old intellectual' (now that we defined 'new') counts trees. If you trusted a hundred people to count trees, I would not dispute the count the old intellectual comes away with, such was the resume of the old intellectual. He goes out all prepped with a map, a shovel, a fire, guards and any paraphernelia at his disposal to do the task. He completes the task with utmost confidence and diligence. In contrast, the new intellectual as referred to in the previous post would not even enter the forest. The old intellectual may have noticed the color, topography, height of the trees or even the continuity of the tree line or grouping but the question he prefers to answer would solely be about 'a number'. He does not stray into other areas unless prompted. When prompted for more information, he goes back over the tree line again with the same material he took before, and even improvising on his previous mission at times, and examines each of those for that question in order to provide an "informed" answer. Each of those aspects merited a discussion on its own for him. There was no need particularly to be scholarly about it. Old intellectual cared little about being scholarly. Such things mattered little to him. Questions related to the forest will come off of the knowledge base that was built in a consistent manner, in time. Who posed those questions also mattered little to the old intellectual. Cataloguing came naturally to the old intellectual. And did I say, he was focussed?
Charles Darwin published the origin of species. He examined the minutia. He would not answer about the evolution of a humanbeing. He leaves that question to others to be answered. Despite genius, he was a pragmatist. The old intellectual is a pragmatist. In a way he is also a schemer. Churchillian kind. He uses his knowledge for his own purpose that is limited by his perception. He made theories of balance of power based on his knowledge & he rarely would share that information with others except as and when it suited him. His theories would not see the light of day. Old intellectual does not seem to care much about theory yet in his grand scheme of things he is able to match any theory with the data he has.

The old intellectual could bring a few houses down if he chose to, based on the data he built over time. He lacked the courage to act with his data and specificity available at his fingertips. That also changes with timing. There is enough information out there, more often than not, readily at his disposal because he spent considerable amount of time on it. He chose not to act on it. It was purposeful. Everything the old intellectual did have a purpose. His purpose ended with the collection of information some times. He shared it occassionally when it suited the larger setting according to him. That occassional perspective did not sit well with the new intellectual who craved & pursued bigger questions, sometimes out of not having enough time and interest for the small stuff. The old intellectual chose to act only when his own existance came into question.

The recent outburst by the intellectuals in Vividha of Andhra Jyothy (August 22 issue of the literary section in a Telugu Daily Newspaper) confirms a few things about old intellectuals. None of the people wished to speak up when those revolutionary writers went off the track of writing and on to welcome death with a kiss. Yet each of them had everything at their disposal to write about their disagreements in an open manner. It is only when they perceived a threat in the form of a ban, they reacted, apparantly for their own sake more than any other reason. You can read volumes between the lines from Prof. Velcheru Narayan Rao: ఇవాళ విరసాన్ని నిషేధించడాన్ని మనం సహిస్తే, రేపు నిన్నూ నన్నూ నిషేధించడాన్ని సహించాల్సి వస్తుంది. (If we tolerate the ban on Virasam today, we will tolerate banning you and I). The fact is he failed to stop the hijack of reason by Virasam (at times with personal attacks) and he let Virasam speak for his idea of revolution all these years. Today he can not distance himself from Virasam.

Such a pathetic scene when relayed to the new intellectual, gave a sense of a higher ground, how ever true or false it might have been. As a result abstract attracted the new intellectual. He preferred to take flight and preferred to stay atleast a ten thousand feet or so above ground. He is able to tell how far the forest went or even where the water began. But he lost every sense possible with regard to the nitty gritty detail. The tragedy is that the new intellectual is completely aware that the detail exists. He just does not want to limit himself to the detail.

In America among Telugus, because there are so few of them that reflect on issues on a consistent basis, recognizing these cognoscenti becomes easier. The old intellectual comes to represent the cognoscenti, where as the new intellectual wishes to be known as Intelligentsia, indefinable and abstract term in itself. A name stands out & worthy of mention on my blog, with initials VCJ as an example of old intellectual. He epitomizes the intellectual that is talked about in this post. VCJ created RR, the new intellectual. The new intellectual is born from the mutation of the old as the old did not do enough with the knowledge he has. They both are two sides of the same coin. This is a paradigm that has been developing for a while with regard to the yin and yang of reasoning. There is the dueling of the personalities that shape reason & never again a single perspective is sufficient on any matter at hand. The reason will not be the same again.

To end it, I would say Satya Pamarti is wrong in assuming that one is worse than the other. Both do not serve the purpose on their own. Readers are to take everything with a grain of salt. It is the awareness about these great minds for the reader that would serve a purpose, as the reader must infer and interpret from both these minds, often doing the interpolation or extrapolation as needed.

the new intellectual

Rama Rao Kanneganti is an intellectual by many standards. Now you must wonder why I would begin the first post of this blog with his name. For one thing, starting a write up with "rama" is considered auspicious. Hope that is enough of a reason. If you think that is silly, you have come to the right place. In the end, I would hope for you to leave the silliness here and go back to the intellectual inquiry -not- as an afterthought but to engage it in a serious manner.

Let us begin again, Rama Rao personifies the 'new intellectual'. In all likelihood he is reading this in an air-conditioned (not just any a/c but a centralized a/c that rarely sees an interruption in power) office space, with atleast two windows overlooking a silhouette of a creek, urban jungle or plain old world with some lighter oxygen - just about a hundred feet above ground. Frankly, it could be you or I, the reader or the writer, in his place.

Please don't feel sad if you are not him or do not belong in that group. Take comfort in noting that you are working toward that dream. It is a comforting thought to grow up to be RR. What more, I am a living testimony for living that dream.

This new intellectual, you, I, Rama Rao -- or who ever -- takes comfort in reasoning until all reasoning comes to end. When there is no end in sight, the reasoning will have an entertainment value at a minimum. It is considered a value added insight to the intellectual curiosity in the end. In all likelihood, the new intellectual has things to worry about for 'his' (yes, meant to be sexist!) immediate future: home-mortagage, financing childrens lives, other aspirations like eyeing that newest of the 7 Series BMW, comfortable retirement on a beach, savings and more savings and if there is time left, may be, entertaining one's wife - who also happens to contribute to the dream of living it up.

{Just to be clear I speak about my self not outside such a periphery, not holding any thing against our RR, the new intellectual persistantly touches everyone in this sphere -- especially those with access to blogging or those who can read a blog}

With this many worries - the ego, that only comes with being a male species, and cultivated from the same male speicies to females, still does not get enough of satisfaction. This 'egotistical new intellectual' layer that makes the most of you and I, defines not only our understanding of the worldly affairs but also reflects in the way each of us react. We do it with ease, we do it with less than fuller attention. It is our passion to react, to satisfy ourselves. And we do it without spending too much time on it. Time a luxury for the new intellectual.

We want to talk about current day politics. Policies of GW. The war on Iraq. Ban on Virasam.

Viplava racayitala sangham (virasam) in Telugu stands for Revolutionary Writers Association. It is a different animal in that it means less about writing and more about association. It is unclear so far if 'Revolution' is a simple code-word for this association or if they do define that word in more comprehensible terms. Those who formed 'virasam' however, have been more or less non-committal to the part of their self-styled revolution or to writing. Please do not get me wrong on this, they do write. One of their writers, who brands himself a journalist, wrote recently that maoists were on the verge of taking control in Nepal. Coming from a journalist you expect him to be making that assessment from the jungles of Nepal to begin with. How about expecting him to be somewhere closer to the borders at a minimum? Or atleast that you trust him to be writing from his memories of a few days or weeks spent visiting Nepal. This new intellectual wrote from the ever more weakest position of dreaming about places he never visited, about things that never happened and about people he never met. I would have said, the new intellectual rivals our RR. RR & I made this new intellectual. And you the reader's guilt can not be condoned either, so don't think you are off the hook for the lapses in verification of pronouncements by others such as above.

Unfortunately there is more to Virasam than just some members being cloned as journalists without any inkling as to what it means to be a journalist or aspiring poets to write about things, especially when the poetry is about issues, they do not have a clue about. Virasam is an ideological group that purports Revolution (viplavam) as an ideology. Not just any viplavam but revolution through the barrel of a gun. The question that was asked, if these writers believed that guns are the only means to bringing revolution why would they ever believe in any other form of reason, goes unanswered. They would perhaps say they completely believed in their theme that no other queries will be answered, unless I also bring a gun to the table, then they will have something to talk about. I have no such intention. The new intellectual can not 'act' on the threat or even threaten an action. Because any thing such would jeopardize his standing in every other aspect he has been carefully working for.

Virasam, as an association, says we do not have democracy, as a rule. That is their mantra. Yet, virasam claims to live in a Democracy, trying to avail of the freedom of speech. To them laws are made only at the barrel of a gun, yet they do not seem to apporve of the gun weilding government. Their only objective is to overthrow the current form of democracy with their own will. None of the new intellectuals have developed the capacity to form a questionnaire toward an association. The reasons are deep. We can not afford such learning. The new intellectual goes with the scent of the past memories -- more often with little more knowledge than what we knew as kids. Such an interrogation of both the government and the revolutionary is out of the new intellectual's scope. He is more interested in the entertainment value as hinted in the beginning.

Virasam and its leadership insists that our people, Indians, are not conditioned to rule themselves. Its former president, Vara Vara Rao, who until recently loved to snitch (write letters to their own militant wing/armed faction -- do not be surprised, every virasaM member now pledges allegiance to the militant wing more than they would to their chosen profession, writing) on his own members and leaders, says the following: "parliamentary politics is not suitable for a country like India." Vara Vara Rao will not tell us what kind of politics will suit India. He hints at his allegiance to Maoists to give the new intellectual a curious juxtaposition. Abstract is loved by the new intellectual. Anything beyond abstract demands too much of time, space and resource by him.

Rama Rao enters the picture and makes an announcement from his memory that this reasoning passes as freedom of thought and expression & I concur. You have no choice either, if you have read this far, especially if you wish to belong to our group of intellectuals. Therefore, together we reject banning any such groups of writers for the sole crime of holding unpleasant or even irrational thoughts. Having Choice always intrigued the new intellectual and robbing of it, never appealed to him. Having Choice makes him feel empowered. Without violence, one can not learn the value of peace, he reasons. Violence or writing and speaking in support of violence as the only basis for a ban is not good for human kind, he declares.

Vara Vara Rao, Rama Rao, I and You are afterall intellectuals who never had to move a single brick from one place to next. In telugu it will read: ఒక్క ఇటుక అటుది తీసి ఇటు పెట్టలేదు. We are too busy with our lives. Vara Vara Rao or his so-called journalist colleagues do not have time to verify the manyam (north-east part of Andhra Pradesh state) fever deaths -- whether they are 7 as confirmed by the state or is it 3,000 alleged by the opposition party? The new intellctual will not care for the proof positive, he bravely declares that it is not his vocation. We do not know what vocation a journalist is supposed to have other than verifying a specific incidence. We will not have time ask such questions. Several hundreds of us write poetry around fever deaths, hunger deaths and suicides. We do not have facts. The new intellectual loves drama.

Comrade Vara Vara Rao never had to move a single brick in his life because he was going live the life of a leader, under the red banner, walking on a red carpet, in all likelihood turning the AP State Assembly as a Red Square with Mao's statue and all the paraphernelia. He would go to jail as a leader. As a matter of fact, his friends, other philosophers and guides who have theorized for virasaM including late "Tirupati Mao" lived that dream. They died in their dreams, is a different matter. The only that mattered to the new intellectual is how he lived, not how he died. They all wanted their children, nephews to toe the same line toward developing a never ending clan of monopoly on their politics.

That is his ticket to power. It was their ticket all-together. Ultimate power. Virasam, revolution and writing all were to be the pillars of their future dream. The new intellectual likes to speak volumes about their work never without studying it all ever. Virasam have cornered a market in the new intellectual. RR and I must appreciate that freedom of thought and laissez faire treatment to their ideal.

It will be amiss to go without mentioning a few other examples of the new intellectual. The understanding begins with us, so believes the new I, the new intellectual. Therefore we must learn of those who are like 'us'. Current PCC President, Keshava Rao who makes utterly ridiculous and childish peace marches claiming to be the follower of Gandhi is one of us. The Chief Minister of AP, with an acronym YSR, makes people believe that he is a true Gandhian. An MLA who was a thug himself, was shot between the eyes in his term. He did not make a peace trip to the district. He sent his goons to make those trips telling them 'how to win' elections. He hires hands like ABK Prasad who have the history of asking questions, in a pay-off. He knows how to silence and domesticate trouble makers and certain elements. He is not a subject for the new intellectual. Because that would mean more trouble.

The new intellectual has history of not asking questions, he has no time for listening to answers.

It does not matter which ever way one's leanings are. The new intellectual with or without a bias toward revolution never bothered to ask any of our current ministers or write about them when they were alleged to have sold lands donated to Temples centuries ago. They never bother to ask questions about those who sold rice that was meant for workers. They never bother to ask about the fleecing of hundred million (Ten Crores) of rupees in broad day light and still managed to stay in power. Those 'who act' under people's faith are the ones who managed to get elected. Therefore they are beneath the new intellectual. Such a bothersome digging and staying with it to verify and cross-check does not leave a single mark on the new intellectual. The new intelletual does not care for detail. He often considers himself above the voting public in order to interrogate the collective decision of the voters. But he would not want a lasting mark on his thoughts.

Is it fair to conclude with RR? RR also makes up his mind, aligns his thinking with fewer detail sometimes solely based on the appearance of people on Television. He recently thought Home Minister Jana Reddy came across on Television, as some what "uninformed, thoughtless person, who is thrust in the position of power" -- and it was not meant to be an informed or intellectual comment. I do not know Jana Reddy so, I, the wanna-be RR would assume that it is possibly true. I myself had drawn such conclusions about the former CM Naidu who happened to have the looks of a bore. But we have to rely on others -- the new intellectual relies on others more often than any time in the past -- to correct our impressions, hoping to get some thing closer to reality establish. We speak sooner than necessary, more than needed & often misjudging everyone and everything. I might have misjudged YSR, Keshava Rao, the journalists of virasaM or Vara Vara Rao, based on what I know from Newspapers alone. I will stand corrected after others judge these judgemental comments. That is a true quality of the new intellectual, I hope RR will approve of that.

I will sign off here, I hope you the reader will not mind to be counted among 'us'. In the end it is not about RR or myself - I hope the reader understands that. It is about pretentious, modern life of all our intellectuals who have the luxury of not studying the detail. It is the pernificating* anathema we all continue to pursue.

*It is not a word I think but it ought to be.