A Smorgasbord

 

A Smorgasbord

I have been to a smorgasbord eatery not more than twice; and, that is one time too many for me, not a meat eater. It was not the meat that put me off, but the smell.

What I had to contend with when my stomach was empty and my wallet nearly so, I want my readers to enjoy the same.

The Official Seal of the President of the United States

It says precisely “President of the United States” and NOT, “President of the United States of America”. I bring this to the notice of Donald J. Trump so that he would (I am hoping) change the seal, adding “of America” to the official seal of his office. Then, his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico would be founded on a more rational and stronger sea bed.

The Problem with Canada Becoming the 51^st State of the USA

(As a Trump acolyte, and hoping he would agree with the above suggestion; no more “the US” for me)

The number 51 has only two prime number factors, 3 and 17. This number is unaccommodating when it comes to the spangling of the 51 stars in the flag of the USA in a neat and condensed manner (6x5 + 3x7 = 51 could do, but it is not visually clean, at least as clean as for 50 = 6x5+5x4; four rows of five stars, and five rows of six stars). This could be accommodated only by randomly sprinkling the stars in the blue field; on-line dictionary does not differentiate between spangling and sprinkling. This would also characterize the nation as ever changing, as randomness is built into the definition. What about the anthem that goes, “...Star Spangled Banner...”. Merely change it to, “... Star Sprinkled Banner...” I do not know how to mark of the syllables of a word and I approached Google. It said there are two syllables for both spangled and sprinkled. This must be OK for the revised anthem. Most importantly, it would different than the flag of the EU, in which the stars are arranged in a circle.

India Needs at least Two Time Zones, Maybe as Many as Four (just to clutter the time tables for trains and air traffic controllers)

I have raised this issue long time ago. The easternmost longitude of India is 97^o 25^’ and the westernmost, 68^o 7^’; the stretch is 29^o and 18^’. Google tells me that Mirzapur’s latitude is the representative longitude of India for time displacement from CTU, advanced; Hence, IST is 5 hours and 30 minutes ahead of CTU.  Kids go home when it is already dark in the eastern reaches of India. I came to notice this when I was kid visiting my uncle for the summer holidays and seeing the Sun not quite set at past 7:00 PM in the then Bombay. India has to do something.

High School Syllabus for India

The above should be non-existent, no matter what the education authorities say. India is one nation only as politically reckoned. Culturally speaking, it is perhaps as many as thirty distinct regions. I, a TamBrahm from Tamil Nadu, joined the locals in Tejpur, Assam in celebrating Sarawati Puja in February in 1996. In TamBrahm houses it is celebrated as the ninth day of the Navarathiri (spelt in English as transliterated from Thamizh) Festival, falling mostly in October. There is NO WAY the cultural differences can be accommodated under a single umbrella howsoever configured with patches.

Talking of patches, one bit of mathematics here. Suppose I give you an outline sketch of an area in a map (India) on a sheet of paper with internal divisions marked by arbitrary (not necessarily straight) lines, yet the area of any division (State) is unitary (no State to have disconnected areas). For examples, the city of Jhansi tenuously hangs from the state of Uttar Pradesh as the Appendix in the human body hangs from the large intestine (one may refer to India map showing the state boundaries).   

What is the minimum number of colors required to be applied to each distinct division such that no adjoining divisions carry the same color? The so far mathematically unproved number is 4. Hence, I would say, India should carry four time zones (tongue firmly in cheek!), each time zone to be marked by saffron, white, green (the tricolours of the flag) and blue (the color of the Ashoka Chakra).

What Kind of a Federated Union India Is?

It is not. I do not know why India is even thought to be some kind of a federation. The word “Federation” is alien to Indian polity. It is a union and only a union. Excuses are offered as to why we are not a federation ... the blame lies on the need to get the so-called Princely States to gather under one banner. Now, this “one banner” mindset has sprouted arms of the octopus: One nation, one language. What would be the next arm, I wonder.

So, if a state whose dominant language is not Hindi, should demand the substitution of the word “Federation of India” in place of “Union of India”, things could get interesting. We do not have Princely States anymore–thanks to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel– and the given reason for making India a union vanishes. What else could vanish if India persists with this “Union” stuff, I would not hazard a guess.

There are five items in the above smorgasbord and each with its own recrudescent smell. Enjoy your meal.

Raghuram Ekambaram