Plurality of Religions and Their Singular Ways of Treating Children

 Plurality of Religions and Their Singular Ways of Treating Children

When someone mentions child abuse, the thoughts of listeners go racing to sexual abuse of a child, as perhaps it should. Child abuse of the first kind. It is so obvious and so evil and visited upon such a defenceless and full member of society.

Yet, there is another kind of child abuse that starts even earlier that is equally vile but is not recognized so; indeed, it is celebrated, horror of horrors. I am thinking of religious indoctrination. Child abuse of the second kind. Some form of this type of indoctrination is physical. 

Infant baptism is a right of initiation in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy. Baptisms further down the road, for pre-adults and adults, are sacraments for many other denominations of Christianity. Basically, for a Christian–I am not a Christian, so give me some wiggle room–Christianity is proclaimed for them or they proclaim it for themselves.

I do not know why, but when I think of baptism, I think about the scene in The Godfather(1972) towards the end, which ends up enthroning Michael Corleone as the successor to Vito Corleone! Such violence. I am sure I see similar violence in this Christian sacrament.

Jews have their own stuff and so do both Sunni and Shia Muslims. Do not even ask about Hinduism, with special focus on Tamil Brahmins (Alas, I am one and I can speak with some authority).

In Christianity, one is born in sin. Would you believe something similar in Tamil Brahmin’s mindscape? You better. Till the 10th day, the new born, its parents and further up the genealogy on the paternal side are, in a supposedly “good” sense, “untouchables”! In my opinion, in whatever “good” sense it maybe, it uncomfortably still resembles the “born in sin” seal of disapproval. Only after the baby is christened with the attendant Vedic rituals, this seal is effaced.

Richard Dawkins, as much as I appreciate his views on Natural Selection through Random Mutation, religion, education, and other morality based issues, slithered away without answering when asked to comment on whether he thinks parents are committing child abuse when bringing up their child in the religion they follow.  

I would go one step further and answer with an unequivocal and loud YES. I would, however, add a qualifier: to quote, partly and most inappropriately, what Jesus said on the cross: “...[F]orgive them ... for they know not what they do.” To say it more bluntly: this is the worst aspect of religion that excuses ignorance when no effort is taken to remedy it.

Yes, this is how I excused my parents for having been so ritual-bound, just going with the flow. It is a sociological pardon and not a religious one; my YES is not de-intensified on this count. 

Now, to something on which I am fully with Dawkins: I quote him, “There is no such thing as a Catholic child; there is only a child of Catholic parents...” Ask yourself what religion you follow. The answer would be, “...of my parents.” You were branded at birth!

Again, I am going to take issue with a hero of mine, at a level much deeper than Dawkins, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. With a singular goal of Annihilation of Caste, he converted so many thousands of people to Buddhism which he saw as caste-free. Yet, he was blind to how that religion was susceptible to political pressures to bring about what is termed genocide in Sri Lanka, some two decades after his monumental efforts.

Let me take a few steps back. Dr. Ambedkar was not an atheist and more importantly, he could not have been an atheist. No matter how charismatic a leader is, there can be no mass movement behind them. Had he been an atheist, his temple tank movement could not have been a defining event (Chowder tank). 

I give you Shaheed Bhagat Singh, a deeply admired revolutionary who aimed at abolishing British rule. He did not have a mass following and one may attribute that to his atheism (Why I am an Atheist). Every atheist is different than every other atheist! 

Religion is distributed geographically. A religionist from South Asia would be hard put to establish kinship with an Anglican religionist in the UK. Buddhists from Tibet may not recognize Sri Lankan or Myanmar Buddhists as their kin. Ashkenazi Jews different than Sephardic Jews, geographic separation. 

I can only hope that there be no child abuse of the third kind in the future.

Raghuram Ekambaram

Child Abuse

Child Abuse

People are tuned to reading the heading in the context of sexual predation. Indeed, the previous Pope, Pope Francis, was raked over coal (before and even after his death) for his silence on sexual abuses of children that he merely chose to almost turn a blind eye to. But, the child abuse this post addresses is far removed from it. In the process, it may open up the vista of the readers to look actively for child abuse elsewhere too, and bring it to the notice of society. This is a task taken up by before now by Richard Dawkins. This post could be considered a follow-up effort, in a different place.

I have mentioned the following once earlier: A family I was close to had a three or four year old, who like any toddler of his age, refused to eat his vegetables. Then, I told him that eating okra would help him in his math. His father pounced on me for such nonsense. I would have needed less than a nanosecond (nanosecond was a new scale of time then) to respond angrily to his brainwashing his son on religion. But, I kept my peace for the situation warranted inaction on my part. Silence won that time.

Now, it is time to open up, and as loudly as I can.

“Catch them young,” is the buzzword in every discourse on religion. I know because I was caught thus; I escaped many years later. The competition to catch pre-teenagers is unimaginably intense. Take the Jews, Christians of all denominations, Muslims, Sunni or Shia, Hindus of any stripe, even perhaps Buddhists (extreme irony) ...

Watch in person or on TV, you would never fail to spot a significant number of youngsters in the congregations. I watch, under duress, at least three hours of spiritual singing (bhajans), chanting, cleansing, discourses, expositions on religious/spiritual messages passed on down to us by sages and others (from before 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM, at which time I transfer control of the TV remote control to myself!). It is hardly ever a two-way street, even a faux one; it is enacted by a faux student and a faux teacher. The Buddha was the real teacher, because he asked the students to teach themselves. But, even the Dalai Lama supposedly teaches his core group of disciples. God knows; the Buddhist in me winced.

And, the catchment people comprise children, exclusively, only because there is no danger of older fish escaping the torrent. No effort is to be wasted. 

To take a short detour, my father’s youngest sister’s husband was handed down the responsibility of “catching as many fish as he can,” in the days of forced sterilization in India under Sanjay Gandhi’s rule. No such despotic measures were needed on account of religion; fish jump into the net voluntarily! When my uncle, working for the Tamil Nadu state government, visited us, my father used to tease him, “How many fish in the net today?” and not, “How many fish did you catch today?”

Coming back to the main narrative, in one particular spiritual program, even the faux teachers are young, not to mention the students or the accompanying chorus. How young? At least the girl bhajan participants appear not to have reached puberty−that young. And, the leader of this gang may−the critical modifier−have reached that age, and hence perhaps the leadership role (?), not earlier than the previous year, unless, of course, the program was taped last year!

I am not being specific about the religion because, and only because, I am convinced this would be the same across all. In the evening I do get glimpses of such child abuses in one other major religion too.

I concluded that religions survive only because their catchment mechanism is flawless and is the definitive paradigm of efficiency. How I wish it were not so.

Raghuram Ekambaram

 

“retired scientist” and others

“retired scientist” and others

This post is a mishmash of a few things that I came across. It does not matter to me that these could be outmoded ideas. Some readers may like some mishes and others, some other mishes, and still others, some mashes. Let them be.

Does the Preamble Enjoy Primacy over Particular Articles of the Constitution of India?

Lest I be misunderstood to be a revanchist, let me assert that I am extremely apolitical. How so? At the age of 70 years, I have had perhaps nine or ten opportunities to vote in my life. Check that. I have voted in elections for hostel and institutional secretaries, and beyond that in none of the public/political elections.

Why do I actively abstain from voting? I do not believe my vote matters, even given the NOTA option (no one remembers what that acronym stands for anymore; let me remind you: None Of The Above). This acronym is weird; normally, articles, prepositions etc. do not get their place in acronyms. Example, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as highlighted letters indicate. Likewise, Mithi River Development and Protection Authority, in Mumbai, MRDPA. USA is United States of America. The “and”, “of” are missing from the acronyms in the three examples above. Readers are free to point out other acronyms that useuppercase letters for articles, prepositions etc. Not so in NOTA, a double jeopardy, “of”, and “the”! Perhaps this explains my antipathy to voting.

There is a big political brouhaha in Indian media over the suggestion by the ruling party that the words “secular”, and “socialist” be expunged from the Preamble to the Constitution of India. I think this made-up suggestion and the commotion come to nothing.

It would matter, of course, if the Preamble overrides what is given inside the main part of the Constitution. This is definitely not so. In fact, people should go into the minds of Ms. Indira Gandhi to figure out why she introduced these words into the Preamble, when there are adequate references to “secularism” and “socialism” in the Constitution. Perhaps we should look into what was in the mind of Sanjay Gandhi, if he did have one at all.

That is, neither the ruling party nor a couple of the almost fully emaciated opposition parties and its cohorts have any valid reason to take out these words or retain them in the Preamble. You might say the ruling party is getting its foot in the door, for future leveraging. Nonsense. The opposition has no leverage now and any effort to mobilize against the ruling party is bound to result in failure, this far out from the General Elections.

But, I am apolitical, and what do I know. 

Do People Belong to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) Due to Factors of History?

As per a column in the Editorial/Opinion pages of a newspaper, the societal classifications that can avail reservations in jobs give the details for each of these. And, EWS “enjoys” (my quotation marks) 10%, which is higher than what the Scheduled Tribes do, at 7.5%. Lower percentage of a lower base? Perhaps. Equitable? I would not think so. Efficiency sacrificed not too much? I am not sure, unless you equate Scheduled Tribes to intrinsic inefficiency.

The newspaper column here, there and everywhere (and in such peregrinations, there indeed are some valuable stretches to which only those in the know would be aware (mainly senior level academics) to ponder over: how the changed system for faculty recruitment−from calculating the number of faculty to be recruited for a university as a whole as the parameter to that of an atomized department as the basic unit) undermines precisely those categories deemed eligible for reservations, to stress what is obvious: I may call it social cohesion.

A senior level administrator says to the candidate (in a sophisticated sign language!), “You and I belong to the same (upper) caste and I am choosing you.” This happened to me though my father’s name (taken as my surname) is not exactly Brahminic, and my English accent was not TamBrahm’s, but my place of residence, Srirangam, could have been one, and my sort of positive response to whether I am aware of the Kanchipuram Mutt (not a mongrel dog!), I answered, “My parents were ardent devotees,” and that could have been another.

I did need the job but was not going to sell my upper caste roots, and I got the job, based on my qualifications and performance in my previous job. Even to this day (and I quit the job after 10 years), I do not know whether I got the job on my merit alone. That, I think, is injustice done to me.

Over the next decade or so, I might become one of the EWS candidates eligible for some doles from the government, if that be the case then. Yet, there is no factor of history in it. Therefore, I would not stretch my hand out. I have prepared myself for it, resisting pressure from my family folks to get a ration card for me and my family, if for no reason other than establishing my identity. I also do not have a Voter’s ID, for the simple reason I would refuse to vote. I have my AADHAAR number. That should be enough.  

The writer wishes for a “political vision of the ruling [read, with hereditary power] class to make public institutions more inclusive...”

To end this segment why not private institutions too? 

Anthropology and Archaeology Coming Together under the Fingers of a ‘retired scientist’

This is about a study published by researchers at Peking University in Beijing (why is it not the Beijing University?). I believe the ‘retired scientist’ would have typed out his material before sending it out as email to the newspaper for possible publication in the Science page of the daily. What scientists do to get their research published in prestigious journals like Natureis mind boggling. They could have dug up cemeteries, retrieved some teeth and also bones for their analyses. Such dedicated efforts, though much of the article was overhead transmission for me, not a biologist, even by a long distance, cannot be left unappreciated. 

Therefore, I do not have much more to say about the article, except the following: The bylineis usually given at the start of the article, just below the heading. In this article, it was not any different. Yet, something caught my eye, at the end of the article. It said that the writer “is a retired scientist.” I took a sharper look at that.

Does a scientist have the luxury of leading a retired life? By the time a scientist reaches the age of retirement the attitude that made him/her a scientist is baked in, more than the dirty clothes made deliberately dirty by someone’s three or four year old, as in TV commercials for laundry detergents. I retired from researching in 1991. Yet, I research anything and everything inexorably, with no tools at hand. My neurons fire in different directions, at odd moments (particularly when I am in the toilet when I experience the Eureka! moment quite often).

The writer could have been a retired scientist from an organization, say, ISRO or some molecular biology research institution (CCMB or IMTECH) and others. But, without naming the organization from which the scientist retired, he/she cannot exist as retired! 

It is not impossible that the organization could not be named due to lack of space. So, the blame should be squarely transferred to the print setter for that page from the writer. Yet, I would treat that “retired” no better than appendicitis! Even an “out-of-work researcher”, or “an idle scientist” would have sounded better. 

This has been rambling, even by my standards. My readers should allow me this slack. Thanks for coming down the post this far.

Raghuram Ekambaram

Is there a Mahatma Other than Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Is there a Mahatma in India Other than Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi?

The readymade answer to the question in the heading would be an unequivocal NO. There can be only one Mahatma in India.

Well, I read in an article on Bihar elections (whenever that be) that Jyotirao Phule won the race to be given the Honorific Mahatma in 1888 CE, decades before Mohandas KaramchandGandhi was honoured likewise.

I am not concerned about Mr. Phule being demoted, as just about everyone recalls only the other Mahatma when the honorific, always to be capitalized, is not followed by a proper noun. That is such a narrow view of what India is, don’t you think?

An India, with a population of about 300 million in the decades immediately prior to the nation gaining independence from the British (excluding the regions that became Pakistan at Independence), could celebrate only one “Great-soul” is an insult to the nation, I feel.

OK, Mr. Phule was a Maharashtrian, a very localized reformer, and his activities were confined to his linguistic land. He could never have been the Father of the Nation. So what?

His reform movement encompassed making humanity universal, no caste distinction, no regional appropriation (if you wanted to buy into his ideas and ideals, no one stopped you), no sex discrimination (women welfare, education, widow remarriage ...), infanticide prevention, the opening strains of eradication of caste system, opposed idolatory and so on; no mean list, for a shudra, the untouchable.

Just one more point before I sign-off.

My reference to much of the above is from the single mention “Mahatma (my emphasis) Phule” in an article about Bihar elections, to be conducted before the end of 2025. That is, though a “very local reformer”, his name seems to reverberate from Maharashtra all the way to Bihar, crossing Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, all densely populated states. 

That is, Jyotirao Phule might have geographically contained, but not so in the mental space. He does not need to carry candle for the other Mahatma.

Raghuram Ekambaram

One Puzzle Begat Three

One puzzle Begat Three

A few posts earlier I had said reasonably confidently that solving puzzles have the potential to rejig one’s brain cells. The process of reconfiguring the puzzle involves minimal brain work, but it is the process of solving the new avatar (after having solved the original) that appears to be important. In this post, as mentioned in the heading, I tried solving the shunting yard puzzle when I was perhaps in the sixth class. I was successful, as even then, at least six decades ago, I remember that the solution just snapped into place in my mind.

Then, recently, within the past two years or so, I tried to solve the same puzzle (as I remembered) and it took me more than the time it took me earlier to solve. My brain is not just as plastic.

The following sketch shows the puzzle.

The straight segments I, II, and III are long enough to accommodate the two carriages A1and A2 as well as the engine ‘E’. The goods carriages are symmetrical about the axes parallel and perpendicular to the tracks. 

The puzzle asks you to transpose the goods carriages A1 and A2 (get A1 to where A2 is and vice versa). Lose shunting is not allowed. The further task is to get the engine to its starting position. This is quite trivial, if ... 

...if you are allowed to park the engine in the direction opposite to how it was initially parked. That is, instead of the engine facing right and down as at the start, after effecting the transposition, it would face left and up. 

I tried very hard to get the engine to face right and down after the transposition exercise; and I failed, miserably.

Then, I extended the puzzle further. What if the engine starts of in the straight zone I? This is shown in the sketch below.

The task is the same, and, unfortunately for my pea brain, the results precisely the opposite. That is, I can get the engine back in its original position with the original orientation, but not with the 180o turned around orientation!

I did learn one thing: each of the two configurations (one having the engine on the straight arm II, and the other with it on the straight arm I) has its own rotational symmetry, or mirror symmetry. I might be wrong on these speculations, like no symmetry of any kind anywhere!

What do I know?

Yes, I did know one thing: it takes very little to get more puzzles out of the one given. 

Raghuram Ekambaram

When a Spiritual Channel Breaches its Bunds

 When a Spiritual TV Channel Breaches its Bunds

River Cauvery and its feeders above the Stanley Reservoir appear to be in spate. And, so is the spiritual channel that shall remain unnamed.

This channel finds that there is not enough downpours in its catchment area for its spiritual messages to spread their devastations. Hence, it is invading the social (may also be called secular, meaning no religious affiliation, for want of a better word) sphere, but after applying revanchist cultural make up.

Yes, you read it right. This particular spiritual channel is more than that. In almost everything it broadcasts there is a flavour of cultural revanchism–been there, done that with a yearning to go back to those Golden Ages of the long gone past. And, in the particular aspect I am going to talk about, it does not go back as far back, no more than a hundred years.

There is a Tamil movie (1960s vintage) song filmed on the heroine that goes something like, “When a girl/lady thinks of a boy/gentleman [in that way], what happens?” to which her lover (as imagined by the lass) sings, “Love happens!” These lines, a so-called Bharatanatyam dancer tries to give a visual imagery to through her dance moves in the program on the so-called spiritual TV channel that runs every Sunday.

This is the problem. I have seen how, in the film, the actress sings and dances through the screen conveying through the short clip, and it is classic flirting, developed gradually as the actress lip-synchs. Yes, “gradually” within the less than twenty seconds the clip plays that includes the one-word response of her real-life lover, but imagined! Her eyes start flirting once the initial anxiety, quite expertly conveyed, has been quelled.

Most unfortunately, the dancer is unable to convey the myriad emotions her performance. I am sure the dance form is fully equipped to address the situation fulsomely, without a hint of exaggeration. But the dancer is definitively incapable of doing justice to the meaning of the lyrics.

And, more importantly, why was this song, so obviously carrying the meaning of carnal desire, is allowed on the so-called spiritual channel? It is all about seeking patrons from hither, thither and everywhere. No discriminating sense, and universal acceptance and fraternity, precisely the opposite of what its founding documents, the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and such claim! 

Can a so-called spiritual channel appear to be non-discriminating? I think not. Perhaps the channel senses a slow decline in its kind of spirituality, and feels the need to prop it up. Flood the channel with this faux spirituality. While Cauvery could shortly be in real spate, the river of spirituality can only be running dry in this space.

If only all kinds of flow of spirituality actually declined at a faster rate!

Raghuram Ekambaram

In India, Cricket is Religion and Also a Few Other Things

In India, Cricket is Religion and also a Few Other Things

I am going to develop a nascent idea in my mind about Indian cricket as manifestations of various human thoughts and endeavours.

Many have said that in India, cricket is a religion. I do not disagree with that take; yet, how it is a religion, how I draw a parallel between the two is likely to surprise you. Therefore, I will take that up at the end.

The thing that comes to my mind first is that Indian cricket is a circus. What? I am not taking about some of the acrobatic stuff players execute, but a lot more of breath taking turns, tumbles, falling forward or backward and so on. More acrobatic than what acrobats do. More like what the Joker in a circus could be called on to do in a moment’s notice; ride a tall mono cycle, maybe, or do the high wire act, like Charlie Chaplin does in one of his movies.

If I were to do an fMRI on the mind of a fielder in whose way a ball is descending from high up this side of Heaven, I would not be surprised to find him praying to his God. Cricket is outside of government control. So, who are players praying for? To tell the truth, for themselves. 

Every breath they take, every move they make, (song by The Police, duly altered), God is watching them, players seem to think. Even more importantly his pay check must be on the line. Yeah, that would occasion a prayer!

Cricket is superstition. Just watch the stands, particularly players’ families. Many would have their fingers crossed. This is superstition. Praying to God could also be a mild form of superstition, but one that is baked into the player’s mind is another. There are two rituals that are hard wired (more severe than “baked into”!) in their minds. If a boundary is hit (a four or a six), the two batsmen have to amble across to do a fist bump. This is superstition. Would any two batsmen avoid doing this? I bet they would not. Any takers? Superstition is the super controller. But, the next ball, one of the batsmen gets out! There goes the superstition! Check that. If only it were that easy to remove a superstition from one’s mindscape!

The other superstition is to never acknowledge that your partner in batting (only about a fewseconds ago) is walking back to the pavilion (dug out for today’s generation, though nothing has been dug out). It is the same thing about luck, only this time it is bad. 

Before going into religion, I would touch upon passion. Indian cricket fans are passionate, if nothing else. Their passion has no bounds, just as the religious have no limits to their passions. Long time ago, fans in Eden Gardens in Kolkata, started a fire as more tickets were sold than there were seats. Yes, not only passion but greed, of the institutional type also  has no limits when it comes to Indian cricket. Where passion is, would religion be far behind?

Now, I am getting ready to wind down. This is going to be along narrative, as much as half the length of this post. The first news about people dying in a stampede that I heard happened while pilgrims were waiting for the darshan of Lord Venkateswara in Tirumala (Tirumala Tirupati Devastanams). This was in the mid 1960s I think. Eighteen people died. The event made a mark on me, for the simple reason it could have been us, my parents, my brother and me.

In those days, the Tamil month of Margazhi (December-January) was considered inauspicious by Telugu people, and the crowds were manageable, like we getting a cottage for overnight stay with one darshan squeezed in late night, and five different darshans the next day, starting at about 3:30 AM (such an ungodly hour, but made godly enough by God Himself!). It is merely because of that, we escaped stampedes. We were the privileged, in the eyes of God!

Talking about stampedes, that which happened when people in Bengaluru let out their long let out a huge sigh of relief at the local IPL franchise winning, after seventeen long (short of two months per year) years, sometimes just falling short, nevertheless falling short. But, such disasters occasioned by release of pent up frustration or demand for celebration occurred at the recent Maha Kumbh Mela. God’s abode was short of space for the million strong crowd (He had not heard of Hilbert Hotel!); it could accommodate only those who died in the stampede, lucky enough to be received with open arms by God Himself. 

Do not accuse me of being callous, please. Look, governments cannot be responsible for foolish acts of masses of people. Haven’t you heard of the stampede in Mecca? I have. The so-called Hinduism and Islam appear to be Siamese Twins separated at birth. I have not heard of Jewish, Christian, Jain, Buddhist stampedes. Just the truth, as I know it.    

The above clinches the argument that in India cricket is religion, more than it is a circus and a basketful of superstitions. Religion is what compels you to do truly macabre stuff, only to lose your head.

 

Raghuram Ekamabarm

Aspirational Inspiration

Aspirational Inspiration

Come Sunday morning (June 29, 2025, IST) global media would find it easy to fill up space and time. They must be working on the superlatives to be used to describe the things that went on in excess in the Venetian wedding of Jeff Bezos and his partner.

If I remember correctly, Lakshmi Mittal may have started this trend for the wedding of his son or daughter, I do not recall, in Paris (?), France. That was in the spirit of the times, The Great Indian Wedding! Not to be outdone, Mr. Mukesh Ambani threw a grand celebration of the wedding of his daughter/son (I have difficulty remembering the sci of the super rich). That is another of The Great Indian Weddings! Mr. Adani is chomping at the bit, waiting for his chance. That did not come out well, as he is already married. I was taking about the wedding of his son/daughter. That would complete the Indian troika.

Suppose it is an Indian USD billionaire’s son, would the billionaire demand that the father of the bride foots the total bill? That would be so cheap. But, do not put it past the small group that comprises Indian USD billionaires! Even, say, a thousand among 1.4 billion is only 0.00007142%! Truly, less than a minuscule!   

Where India has reached, would the westerners like to be seen not to be reaching for? God forbid. I am not very sure of the chronology but my general thesis would stand. Perhaps it was the umpteenth wedding for the multi-billionaire, Fox Chairman Emeritus, Mr. Rupert Murdoch. I think the nuptials in Bel Air, California reached the truly rock bottom city/location for the wedding of a billionaire. Yet, it was a billionaire’s wedding, to be taken note of by the tabloids and also the broadsheets, not to speak of the sundry websites, seeking a few clicks.

Then, from California, we go to Venice. George Clooney was 53 when he tied the knot (I think westerners have resurrected an old Celtic tradition, merely to be seen as being competitive with the customs of Indians, tying the knot). It was a four day affair, couched in secrecy (the current US Defence Secretary was not in on it; he might have given it away through Signal)!

Mr. Elon Musk, though the world’s richest man does not stand on ceremonies. It is only ceremonies. He would rather spend his wealth on bringing up scores of his children. Though Mr. Richard Bronson is a billionaire, and other than splurging his wealth on Virgin Galactic, and perhaps buying some super yachts, has started planning for the weddings of his scions. He has a son and a daughter. Looking at Jeff Bezos, Mr. Bronson has already started planning for the wedding of his scions. And, it should be in Greenland, and President Donald J. Trump would be invited but not welcome!

I have mentioned a six pack (or more) of richest-o’-the richest and that should be enough for the post. The others, who are a rung or two below will now aspire to join the club.

That is, these richest-o’-the richest are the inspirational clans for the aspirational not-so-rich.

Raghuram Ekambaram