On my menu: Orientalism, Tesla, Edison and Nepal monsoon menace
This past week, yours truly spent some spare time studying about about and thinking about the following things.
Orientalism: Edward W Said's seminal book points that Orientalism is a western construct. Its premise, as far as yours truly understands, is that Western scholars involved in the study of this construct take orientals as an inferior race, as peoples, who need to be saved by westerners as they don't know what is good for them and what is not.
Said's Orientalism is centred around the biased, preconceived view of the Islamic world, seats of ancient civilisation like Egypt and Syria. Said, citing Western scholars' works, points that the latter do not take oriental men and women in high esteem. In the eyes of these scholars, the Orient is far inferior in comparison to the Occident.
Edison vs Tesla: Listening to the National Geographic documentary on the two great inventors -- Thomas Alba Edison and Nikola Tesla -- was indeed enlightening for yours truly, who grew up reading about the many geniuses of the former and not much about the latter. Yours truly now feels that this was an act of injustice to Tesla.
Yours truly's respect for Edison, who has been credited probably with the highest number of inventions thus far, including the light bulb and the phonograph, went drastically down when he learnt that the "ínventor'' had financially exploited Tesla while the latter was working in his factory. Edison had also sunk to new lows to highlight that the Alternating Current, Nikola Tesla's invention, was very harmful and that his own invention, the Direct Current, was 100 per cent safe. As per some some documentaries, Edison would make children gather stray dogs and cattle, and would use AC to electrocute them to display its harmful effects and discredit Edison and the Westinghouse, which was investing in the endeavour to distribute electricity produced at the Niagra Falls powerhouse in different American cities. At one instance, he even made prison authorities use AC to execute a death row inmate.
As the Westinghouse was not in sound financial health, Tesla relinquished his patent of AC to keep the company afloat. Broke and suffering from OCD, Tesla died at a ripe old age at a Washington hotel.
Lemme conclude this piece thus: For yours truly, Tesla is a hero, whereas Edison is more of a shrewd businessman than an inventor, with a kin sense of which idea and which product will work and which won't. The world needs more selfless innovators like the Teslas than the Edisons.
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| Devendra Gautam |
The monsoon menace: What happens every year during this time of the year in Nepal happened this year also. Rainfall created havoc as swollen rivers turned into agents of destruction causing huge loss of life and property, once again showing how the state has been unable to take mitigation measures against the menace that happens every year without fail.
Also, our patriotism rose to a new high with swirling tides and so did our anger towards the southern neighbour, whose water regulatory structures, built unilaterally in blatant violation of international practices, have inundated huge swathes of Nepali territories in the plains and cause loss of life and property, a loss that's irreparable and inconsolable.
Apart from the southern neighbour, we should also not forget that our mindless development activities, conducted without scant regards for the fragile environment, are also to blame for this havoc.
It's time we learnt lessons from the recent spate of disasters and apply them to stay safe. But will we bother to do that?
Text: Devendra Gautam
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