Shout-out for the Stunt Community in Tamil Films

Shout-out for the Stunt Community in Tamil Films

A-list stars of Tamil cinema get a lot of mention in all and every media outlet, including the social, particularly when they meet with an accident on the movie sets. “Oh, Vijay Sir (or any of the other A-listers) had a fall in the sets, his ankle got twisted.” I can understand the newsworthiness of this incident. 

The star will be out of action for about a week and this reflects on the finances of the film. This is why and how even the state of the ankle or the back of a star gets blared on the front page. The star is a performer-cum-entertainer, and his health is a legitimate concern for the investors.

But any injury that befalls one particular category of movie performers never makes the inside pages of cine magazines (if they exist now) or any cine website. If you expected that they would be acknowledged in the films, be ready to be disappointed. They are rounded up by agents (the way my wife’s cousin tells me and I don’t believe), brought to the sets, do their tasks (on a bad day, get hurt) and go their way.

My argument is that without these performers, though they may be way too many, which by itself dilutes their contributions, Tamil movies cannot be made. Hence this post to acknowledge them, not by individual names but by the collective name I have given in the title−the Stunt Community.

I know nothing about movie making, but I do know that if stars like Vijay, Ajith et al suffer any injury (God forbid) while they were shooting for a film, there would be newsflashes galore. Here, I need to mention Mr. Kamal Haasan, whom I rate as a ham and I do wonder why and how became a cine icon (which he is, whether I acknowledge it or not). He is perhaps the only a leading actor who has played a stuntman, in the movie Pammal K. Sambandam. The best part is he is gored by a bull as he is shooting a scene.

There is no mention that the hero Pammal Kalyana Sambandam carried any insurance. Let us take that as the truth; stunt people are perhaps true daredevils! “It won’t happen to me!” As I watch Tamil movies (hobby in my retired life!), I give myself a pat on my back for identifying many stunt instances as teaching opportunities, and have used them as such many times. I explain that in sports competitions such as diving, gymnastics, the athlete makes herself compact to make herself rotate faster and make 2 ½ or 3 ½ rotations; one can witness the same trick in Tamil stunt scenes, the villain’s henchmen before receiving a “kick” from the hero, compacts himself (with his arms tucked in close to his body) and his body rotates many times before he lands with a thud.

When the hero jumps off a second or third floor of a multi-storeyed building and lands he would take a tumble and there is a scientific explanation for why they do it, to make the action look natural. This is a hero doing the work of a stuntman! So, my appreciation for the stunt community holds good!

When you look at how swimmers in competition (long distance like 1500 meters) create a trough as their shoulders move forward and how they take their breath in that trough, you can understand how mechanics plays a part. In the Hindi movie, Tarzan: The Wonder Car, one of the villains is towed in water by a boat, and one can see what I have described above. Of course, it was a stuntman standing in for that villain! Hence, my appreciation, (though for something in a Hindi movie)!

Yes, at least in some movies, the name of the Stunt Coordinator appears in the credits, but name of the stunt man or woman. The same with dance choreography. The focus is always and exclusively on the hero and heroine, not even on their friends (that could be for another post!). But, it is time we realized that making a movie needs the clockwork coordinatedactions of many, and stuntmen and stuntwomen are such groups of professionals.

This post is a shout-out to them.

Raghuram Ekambaram

Some Criticisms on a Print Medium - Frontline

Some Criticisms on Print Media 

There was a time, about three decades ago that I eagerly read the letters from the readers published in newspapers and magazines; in fact, every morning that space used to be one of the first ones I visited (perhaps after the first page headline items). I sought out the various and varying viewpoints of the public on the issues of the day. The Hindu and Frontline, not to speak of the readers themselves, did not disappoint me.

These days, the self same pages repel me. If you scanned the "Letters" page of Frontline dated June 30, 2025, you would find six letters (four on the conflict between India and Pakistan, one on the rights of forest dwelling people, and one on Gujarat politics), each referencing an article in the magazine dated June 15,2025. These letters, I suspect, carry not a single idea that is outside of what is said in the magazine’s earlier issue. 

I have scanned and attached the Letters" age of the Frontline of Jue 1, 2025. And, in it you would validation what I have written above.

The above is one of the two criticisms I am going to level at the magazine Frontline. I will take a long detour here to set the stage for this post. 

I live in Srirangam, a suburb of Trichy, in an apartment building, and I cannot afford to subscribe to the magazine. Hear me out, please. The hardcopy would not be delivered to my apartment in the second floor, but dumped in a metal basket kept near the lift in the ground floor. I have missed erhas two or three issues, in all probability stolen to be monetized through a kabadiwala! There is no watchman (the other tenants argue that as there are only sixteen apartments, we cannot afford one; I disagree, but am a lonely voice). I have subscribed to digital publications of both the newspaper and the magazine of The Hindu Group (THB). I do access them once in a while, but I don’t derive the pleasure I gain from flipping the pages, adding marginalia etc. that convey a sense of my prideful ownership. I scan interesting pages on a flat bed scanner and store them in .pdf on my computer hard drive. I could do something similar with the digital pages but it is not the same thing.

In Srirangam suburb I have located only one paper/magazine vendor who gets a copy of Frontline (a hole in the wall who gets me a hard copy, not every issue) and he calls me out during my evening walks if he has managed to procure a copy (I have newspaper The Hindu dropped at my door step, though only around 8:30 AM).

The magazine vendor missed the copy dated June 15, and so I did too! Now, I am back on track. Luckily for me, I got my hands on the June 30th issue and I have referred to the page “Letters” earlier.

None of these letters do anything more than what must have been printed in the dated magazine. Not an idea more. This can mean one of two things or both. Readers do not read between the lines, analyze the ideas deeply, and write something at least moderately different, not necessarily opposing. No sir, they would not do so as it may expose them to the powers that be and there could be mid-night knocks on the doors (I am being facetious here!), and who has the time to invest brainpower in these matters.

Secondly, the magazine might not want to be shown the gaps in its thinking and/or analysis, which could possibly bring it down from its high perch.

I now come to the second of my criticisms. It is truly below substandard! In one of the articles under the rubric Book Review, Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar writes in A professional in full bloom and makes clear, in the fourth line and no later, that the author and he are on nickname proximity (in Hindi langotiya yaar!). 

How does that help what he has written? And, from this first mention, not once did the reviewer write the full name of the author! It is, twenty times, the langotiya yaar and not the name of the author. This, in my opinion, is a complete surrender of the chief editor of the magazine to the vanity of the politician, the reviewer. In what way does the nickname of the author (to his close friends of long ago) have more relevance to the topic than his given name? I can’t think of even one.

I would have criticized in the same manner whoever else has used the nickname that may times in an article, even the so-called Mahatma (the “so-called” is appended to the honorific only as I do not believe in atma, the soul). What exactly did the book reviewer think he was achieving stressing his long association on nickname basis with the author of the book? He was stoking his vanity! That should be a severe negative. What gets my goat is that even the magazine’s editor did not dare to correct this infirmity.

I had not much to add either of the two thoughts I have espoused here. Hence, I clubbed them and the magazine Frontline is the only connection. Please read the very tenuously connected two criticisms as two distinct pieces.

Raghuram Ekambaram

On Garib Rath Coaches Withdrawn from Services

PM Garib Rath Coaches Withdrawn from Services

I have had reliable second-hand experience on Garib Rath – my wife travelled from Chennai to Hazrat Nizamuddin station in New Delhi, which is like the appendix of a major junction, here the New Delhi Railway Station. This was at least a decade ago, not very long after the service was introduced.

I went to the station to receive her and the train did not arrive at the appointed time (accommodating the mandated one hour beyond the ETA). And, none behind the counters had even an idea that such a train is running, much less when the train would arrive. I waited another one hour before there was an announcement that it would be delayed by six hours. So that left me with four more hours of waiting. I unwillingly bore the expense−both time and money−of going home and coming back (that gave me a clear relaxing time of 2 hours!). 

Well, the train was further delayed by half hour, and finally it chugged in, puffing and panting. The particular passenger (my wife) had a horrific time, no food, awful toilet and many other severe infirmities in service. I tried pacifying her saying, “After all, it was ‘Garib Rath’, travelling by it you have identified yourself as one of the garibis and you have no right to complain!” My attempt at humour merely aggravated her. That was my only experience with Garib Rath, thus far, and per news reports, I won’t have any more opportunities.

The ICF-made coaches of Garib Rath have been withdrawn last year, I learned, and in their place the Link Hoffman Busch (LHB) coaches have been introduced. I have travelled by these coaches and the difference is like between day and night. But, the ICH-made coaches were not condemned. They were used in the so-called Special Trains Indian Railways (IR) runs to accommodate surging crowds on account of some religious event at a particular holy place. This is the kind of respect given to Indian Hindu pilgrims. Go figure, even as religious tourism is large enough to demand a separate heading in the accounting by the Finance Ministry, within the hospitality (services) sector!

As an engineer by training, I noticed that the wheels of LHB coaches have a larger diameter and the links between two coaches are very short, a worker may possibly able to squeeze through. When I tried to indicate these details and how these may improve her travel comfort to a sixteen year old when she was travelling to Mumbai from Delhi, she sort of dismissed the matter. This is the perfect example of scientific ill-temper! I have digressed.

Recently I read that the Railway Board has received complaints on the ICF-made coaches even from travellers on the Special Trains, such devotees looking a gift horse in its mouth. So, finally, these have been condemned. The next time when you travel by train, look for abandoned coaches in the shunting yards of major stations, like between Basin Bridge and Chennai Central, you know how they were used to transport cattle, as Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar so famously called out the economy class on flights as cattle class! We would never know why IR hadn’t auctioned off these for scrap.

Good for Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar when he travels by train−if he were ever to do, like for reaching some half-village half-town places in his constituency−by an upgraded cattle class coach!

Raghuram Ekambaram

Perpetual Motion Idol in the Spiritual Universe

 

Perpetual Motion Idol in the Spiritual Universe

I had to set aside what I learned in my science classes that there can never be a perpetual motion machine. I forgot to add an important qualifier in the opening sentence. The set of principles that lead to the conclusion is applicable only in the material world. But in a spiritual world−there are some who are working hard at the task of converting the material world to it−perpetual motion machine is possible, indeed it is a certainty.

You have to watch a particular spiritual (actually, you may call it seeking lost glory) TV program on a TV spiritual channel (I watch it non-religiously, per the house rules) to, first, recognize perpetual motion in the spiritual world, and second, believe what your eyes do not see.

There is this lady who hosts a show−she is in her eighties I understand, and she seems to stand the strain of non-stop talking quite well−who, for her followers, is the grandma that they may not have ever had. The role she plays is that of home-made apothecary of her days, and her mien and her language give the show its legitimizing ambience.

What do the above have to do with perpetual motion machines? Hold your horses! To make the set more dynamic, the producers of the show have introduced a statuette of Lord Ganesha swinging merrily in a toy swing on which he has been seated. Throughout the half hour show (less the time for commercials during which Lord Ganesha is invisible), the swing does not creak, just as Lord Ganesha does not care! Your eyes do not see the material stuff as immersed as you are in the spiritual world.

If you saw this show every day, you would be driven to the conclusion and would swear that a perpetual motion machine exists. Understand this phenomenon can exist only in the spiritual world.

“Beam me down, Scotty!” (from the spiritual world to the material; perpetual motion machine is boring to watch!). I want to watch Madonna in her Material Girl song video!

Raghuram Ekambaram  

    

Reforms – The Much Abused Word

 

Reforms – The Much Abused Word

Everybody and her cousin have used the word “reform”. In political speeches, it matters little what the politician is going to talk about, it has to be reformed; and I am here to lead the reformation though I am not Martin Luther King and I do not have a readymade list of 95 theses.

I read an interview of the Chief Minister of a state of India who only recently regained his seat (yes, there appears to be a sense of entitlement/ownership. So, he has the readymade anchor, if not the theses, for his reforms; a human anchor, his predecessor who was dethroned, not very recently but recently enough that memory of his efforts are fresh in the minds of the people.

When he resumed his rightful place on the throne, he was surprised by the challenges he was facing, his administrative inheritance from his predecessor. Never mind that he would have run his campaign on the selfsame deficiencies! The state’s brand name, so assiduously built-up by his earlier administration, was washed away. Hence, the necessary rebuilding/reform.

The next thing he says is very bold for a politician and I appreciate it, “...we need to recover slowly.” No politician admits to a need for time. Ask any bureaucrat and she would have heard the following phrase a million times from her politician boss: “I need it done yesterday!” Thanks CM, I say as I genuflect before him.

His predecessor had “pledged government properties for borrowing.” The tone is one of, “How could he have done this!” His predecessor halted nearly a hundred development schemes for which the Union Government (Central Government does not sound right) had set aside the money. Now, the current CM has to rejig the whole, schemes and monies, from the starting gate. But, he is a thoroughbred and I am sure he would get everything on track.

The funniest lines read, “My agenda is welfare, development, empowerment of people.” To which of the three items the word “people” applies, to welfare, and/or development, and/or empowerment? Whoever wrote down the interview (?), probably the Principal Secretary to the CM, an IAS officer, dropped the ball. Let him/her take the cue from a non-IAS Indian, the individual without any horns on his forehead, me: the rewrite, “...people’s welfare, and their development and empowerment.” The reader may comment.

The CM is creating, as he claims, the P4 mode [of development]: “public, private, people partnership.” The original P3 mode ran thus: “Public Private Partnership.” Public is people; Private is people; and the partnership is between the people, albeit of two different kinds – the moneyed and the others. Where is the need for the third item “people” that merely pads up the 3P to 4P without protecting anyone?

The CM has revived the old, yet “futuristic” projects. He is looking for new revenue models, and of course, consultants are waiting in line outside his office, each to pitch his own set of models−one for agriculture, one for export/import, one for port operations, one for hydrocarbon, one for minerals and so on. It may end up being mix-and-mismatch.

Every model, sure enough, is aimed at enhancing revenue. The critical question is whose revenue? I speak from experience. A top-notch consultancy firm was hired to enhance the profits for the company I was working for then. They came, asked questions, created spreadsheets, trained us in filling the dozen or so forms and showed impressive, indeed incredible profits for the company, on paper and in the future. The Sethji was impressed and the workers toiled under the additional burden. At the end of the financial year, the numbers were still in deep red, not even pink!

I can only hope that the CM would think twice before leaping into the arms of consultants.

The Union Government promoted Three Language Formula is not a threat to his state, indeed to any state, the CM says. “[L]anguage is not an issue at all.” Then, why the focus on one of the two official languages, Hindi, one is tempted to ask. Language not being an issue for the CM does not make it a non-issue for the others. He shall remember that he is a representative of his people.

“Hindi can be taught along English and mother tongue.” Neither Karnataka nor Tamil Nadu has prohibited anyone learning Hindi. They merely say, do not load onto the shoulders/backs of school students additional material.

People would learn whatever language they find necessary to unburden themselves in daily tasks. My brother lives in Hyderabad and he tries to pull along with smattering of Hindi and is successful only to the extent he finds necessary, and has refused to learn Telugu. He talks to the vegetable vendor in Hindi and I had to laugh when I heard him speak in that language! You may put a gun to his head and he would still refuse to learn Telugu, I guarantee.

Finally, the CM mentions that he would want many languages to be taught in colleges whereas the issue is school education! His diversionary tactic is too transparent. I hope his administration is not of this kind of diversionary transparency.

When something has to be reformed one has to understood why whatever that exists does so because it was beneficial. So, by reforms, one can enhance only the usefulness an idea. You cannot throw the idea into the trash bin without sifting through it. Isn’t it overreaching on my part to demand that politicians first sift, then sort and then discard before bringing in the new, reformed ideas? If yes, so be it.

Raghuram Ekambaram

When Mobile Phones Became a Means for (unintentional/playful) Suicide

 

When Mobile Phones Became a Means for (unintentional/playful) Suicide

More than two decades ago, my wife and I went on a day picnic to a tourist spot. There we met a newlywed couple and the man had a camera in his hand. It was a digital SLR but seemingly not selfie-enabled. I understood his quandary and offered to take their picture against a rock outgrowth.

The young man was about a foot taller than the young woman. I accounted for this difference by requesting the chap to flex at his knee or hip so as to make the height difference a little less. The photo came about very fine and both of them thanked me profusely.

The 100 words above are just my effort to pad up this post. Yet, there is a crucial detail in it that would justify the heading. “...seemingly not selfie-enabled ...”. I read a news item in the front page (actually the third page, as an advertisement occupied the first two pages) of the daily newspaper I subscribe to of June 16, 2025.

A “...British-era iron bridge collapses...” The bridge is an iron truss bridge, built at least 75 years ago (British-era truly ended when India became a Republic). The National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) was called in and one of its officials is quoted as, “Despite the warning sign at the entrance of the bridge [from one bank], which was weak, rusty and on the verge of collapse, tourists were walking on it.” Apparently some of them drove their two wheelers trying to reach the "Selfie-point", so helpfully pt up by, perhaps, the tourism department.  

Four years ago, a signboard reading “Caution: Accident Site” was erected and it must have cause confusion in the minds of people who did take in the meaning. But the meaning itself is creates ambiguity. It could mean that it is a site of an accident, recent or some years ago, or it is a site that is prone to accidents. Touristy people do not take such warnings in the spirit they should be taken; they are nonchalant, “Would not happen to me!”.

OK, don’t our authorities who regulate these matters−for example, tourism authorities, rural administrations, flood control departments−know that our people become illiterate and innumerate in touristy places, egged on by private tourism developers? When we realize that the tourists give but a passing nod, if that, to garish, glaring danger signboards, how could we expect that they would abide by a chapter and verse of Bhagavad Gita version of the warning? No. We must physically forbid people in acts that create public danger. A wishy-washy warning written in long form cannot help.

The Chief Minister of the state condoles the deaths in his own words (perhaps not vetted by his personal secretary, most likely an IAS officer), “I pay my heartfelt tributes to the deceased.” The part message took me a couple of steps back.

A tribute is something of a praise to someone that helped in some cause; as relevant to the incident where four people were dead in a raging river, an NDRF person who sustained an injury or, God forbid, lost her life is someone deserving of a tribute. NDRF rescuers deserved tributes for saving as many as, or more than 50 people.

The tourists who lost their lives in this instance too deserved a tribute, as human beings who had contributed to or has the potential to contribute to life/society (this is not an assumption, but a normal matter of fact). Not anything more and anything special. Yes, a tribute may also be paid to achievers on their personal life, like Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani (?), Mr. Ratan Tata (?), Mr. Steve Jobs (?) ... I am not sure any such star personality was involved in the accident in River Indrayani, in Pune district in Maharashtra. Then, why the “heartfelt tribute”?

Just one more thing. Instead of responding to an accident, foreseen or otherwise, why could the authorities not have dismantled the bridge and sold the iron for scrap? OK, even if it could have contributed to the GDP of India at 0.0000xxx001%, add to it the potential economic productivity of the people whose life had been lost. A few zeroes in the percentage would have been erased. Across India, we see many such dated infrastructure items that were ready for destruction eons ago (I am, of course, exaggerating), yet have not been.

Some of these are power transmission towers. How does one prevent an adventuresome youth climbing up such an out-of-service tower (as in the River Kollidam in its stretch through Srirangam, slip and fall into the river and get taken down the river but not saved (unlike James Bond in Skyfall)?

Now, his friends would be using their mobile phones to record this derring-do. Without these, just think, where was the motivation for the lad to do what he did. Definitely not zero and more definitely not as much as when your friends have a mobile phone to record your feat.  

No, not in terms of GDP, but as a concern for an unfortunate human being, that would be a loss to humanity, a human lost; out of 1.42 billion, no not to worry. I do. I do not offer my thoughts and prayers as they are decidedly useless. My crying here is also useless, but could impel someone to act.

 This is to hoping.

Raghuram Ekambaram

 

Can a disaster be foretold and be prepared for?

Can a disaster be foretold and prepared for?

... But disagree with him less (my ego prevents me from saying I agree with him, howsoever lightly it could be).

There was a senior employee in the consultancy company I was employed in, and he took much pride in how he sees things differently (based on structural designs as developed and deployed in Russia). It was not just his effort to distance himself from all of us, the hoi polloi, but his smugness (many characteristics one can ascribe to me! Like poles repel each other, after all) that rubbed me the wrong way.

One day a heated argument ensured about safety becomes a concern only after a disaster. Today, if my senior remembered it at all, he should feel vindicated. In response to airplanedisaster in Allahabad, the Indian government has instituted a body of experts to find ways and write-up a report on how to avoid such incidents reoccurring. “Ha, ha, I told you so,” I hear my senior guffawing, but with a sneer! Not so fast, I tell him.

My argument about three decades ago was not that society does not respond to disasters in the way he described. Rather, when a disaster has been averted and none being aware it does not register in the conscience of anyone−the professionals, regulators, the constructors, and fabricators, the first responders including medical professionals, disaster management authorities, layman, and lastly, religionists.

It is not outside the capability of the professionals to design a super-safe anything, but it would cost a bundle. Is the system of governance designed to accommodate this luxurywithin its public fiduciary responsibility? If it is a luxury yacht as you go around the globe in a multi-million dollar super-yacht, affordable only by a select few and about which the nation can crow for decades to come, what is its implication for government finances? Typically, the government would allow the owner to write-off that cost under some head or the other. You see, the word super appears readily and nonchalantly. Let me know, if other than the cruise ship workers, any layman was on the ill-fated Titanic. I doubt very much.

Does anyone remember the L’Aquila earthquake in Italy in 2009 C.E? It is good to revisit that even if you remembered it. A team of experts in earthquake discounted the possibility of an earthquake in L’Aquila; as bad luck would have it, they were asked to assess the probability as a crackpot pseudo scientist posited that that Radon concentration is high in the air and this foretold the earthquake. The team of earthquake experts discounted that too. Yet, the earthquake happened and the team were imprisoned. I believe it was the author of the report who was incarcerated while the others were released on appeal (there might be errors in some details−only in details−as this disaster happened fifteen years ago; please excuse).

Just for the asking: under that scenario, would any expert (comb for one, worldwide) come out and say positively that any plane ever taking off from any airport (again worldwide)guarantee safe landing at the destination? And, given the reputation of airlines, add the following: would their checked−in baggage come down the carousel at baggage retrieval?

It is all probability. As biologists and neurologists aver our brains are hardwired for probability, they need to go back to school to learn about human beings in the 21st century! Apparently, people are asking how in that cataclysmic event one passenger, only one, survived. They are fishing for controversies. Go tell them about probability. I did, but I don’t think I got to the neo cortex of the brain in that human being. Sad.

Now, to get to where I started. One should be careful in extending any aposterioriknowledge. You know a disaster happened and prior to that there were these sequential events. Taking the cue from these prior events we should not have allowed the plane to fly. Someone screwed up. Go get him/her!

My senior is wrong in asserting that disasters can only be responded to and not foretold. This is correct only if we define disaster as having caused losses. There could have been any number of collisions that were averted due to the alert pilot, train driver, the ship helmsmen, and others, including alert drivers on the highway. These people took their responsibility seriously, and in the case of the Allahabad air disaster, the pilot was helpless. He could not have done anything, as I now understand. The experts in Italy bet the wrong way. 

If we understand the nonsense term “near miss” in aviation as “near collision”, and include all the “near collisions” as disasters with a lower weightage, say between zero and one, than a realized disaster (at weightage 1.0), we are on a truly meaningful platform and my senior’s idea goes for a toss.

Raghuram Ekambaram

Does Interest in Solving Puzzles Help?

Does Interest in Solving Puzzles Help?

I do not even know that solving a puzzle helps anyone in anyway whatsoever. But, I am wondering if we assumed that puzzles do help, what manner of help that would be.

Would it be a slow and steady realization, the result of systematic working it out? Or, would it be the so-called Eureka moment? Osmosis, perhaps? Would new links between what we thought of as distinct pathways spring forth suddenly? Would a serendipitous solution to a puzzle help? Does visualization help in solving non-visual puzzle help? Or, its converse?Would stating a puzzle to others trigger a line of thought leading to the solution? Does a puzzle take your mind off a nagging thought in one’s mind, and in the process declutter the mind?

My considered opinion is a puzzle helps in many ways, jointly or severally (that is the language one finds in a contract!). There is a puzzle called Magic Squares. This engaged me and my friends in high school, ninth or tenth standard; not merely 3x3 squares but higher orders. like 5x5, 7x7. My friend got it from someone but would not reveal to me the patternfor the 3x3 Magic square. Yes, the word, pattern. This pattern almost repeats itself for the 5x5, 7x7 and on up. 

I set about finding it, only for the 3x3 but could not. One day, out of the blue, the logic appeared to me magically. It was all a matter of, for 3x3, filling up each of the square with a number between one and nine, after pencilling in five in the central square. The clue is in fixing logically the central square for the digit five. Now, the pattern made sense to me! I could easily do any odd-numbered Magic square!

Even prior to that, when I was in the eighth standard, my father showed me the famous Seven Bridges of Knigsberg Problem that Leonard Euler found the surprising answer to. My father uncharacteristically reduced the illustration to a simple line diagram. The challenge was to draw the line diagram without taking the pencil off the slate (yes, I was using slate in those days) and not re-tracing any line segment. I did not sweat over it, and got the answer−the task cannot be accomplished!−in very few tries. On my own I thought further and checked my line of thinking with a number of line diagrams I took from a book of puzzles, tried the alternatives and I knew that my logic held good, in every case.

I do not want this post to be a long line of how I solved this puzzle, that puzzle and so on. The last sentence about my own addiction to solving puzzles (and failing more often than not) in this post is that it came to me as trying to connect the dots.

If your toddler at a restaurant wants to try to trace the path to the money bag in a puzzle, let her do that. It may enable her to look at the details as well as the overall puzzle simultaneously, if not at the first try, but definitely subsequently! She needs no help from you.

Or, find the six differences between two seemingly identical sketches, appreciate it. If a pre-teen (but double digit aged) wants to unjumble a set of letters to form a word, that is the brain of a pre-adult engaging itself with the world outside of his home, school and friends, learning what an anagram is. Encourage that. Solving the daily newspaper crossword puzzle lights million light bulbs in the brain, most definitely.

Railway shunting yard problems offer fantastic opportunities to convert images to algebraic manipulation and do the reverse too, with and without additional complications. Isn’t this analogous to what is done in using transforms in math, like Laplace transform, Fourier transform?

To answer the title query, YES!

Raghuram Ekambaram