OutFocus August 2014 by the Feathers

QUANTUM 2 | AUGUST 2014 WWW . FACEBOOK . COM /FEATHERSINDIA

GAZA OR

ISRAEL?

ATHIF JEY

COVER STORY

AKSHAYA PREMNATH

06 12

PRO GAZA PRO ISRAEL?

CONTE CONTENTS

MOHAFIZ RIYAS

08 12 20 24 28 30 34

COVER STORY MODEL PORTFOLIOS LAST. EPISODE 2 INTERVIEW A GIRL’S PAGE GRAPHIC TALK INDUS VALLEY SCRIPT

I am a Narcissist Okay, now that so many of you have read the first issuu of OutFocus, maybe it’s time you know who I am. I am a narcissist. Some of you may know what that means but here’s for the others. What’s a narcissist? Narcissus, in Greek mythology, was a loner who kept staring into a clear fresh water lake every day. Alas. He did not see the beauty of the lake. What he saw was the reflection of himself in the lake. On his death, when asked the lake about how it felt about the death of Narcissus, who gave it constant company till his death, the lake replied that it missed seeing itself in the eyes of Narcissus. Thus was the origin of the word “narcissist”. It means “man who admires himself”. Two things can be interpreted. One. Narcissus was not just any guy. He did not stare at his ugly self. He was a guy of extreme beauty. Two. The lake was a narcissist too. I believe it is not wrong to admire your own good points. At the same time, overdoing it may be a problem. Overdoing anything, in that case, can be a problem. So, be a narcissist. Love yourself. Peace!

ENTS

EDITOR IN CHIEF ASSOCIATE EDITOR

AR MUTHU KUMAR SGA THOMAS

PHOTOGRAPHER NEENA S M & SAYED M S WRITERS

NIRMAL HENRY, SARU MATHI

EDITORIAL 03

Welcome to OutFocus. OutFocus is a free online magazine that is dedicated to NOT focus on a single subject, which we think, is so stereotypical. We publish various works from literature, photography and arts to graphic design, architecture and films. We encourage every one of you to participate in this major movement. #TenthEveryMonth

Happy Raksha Bandhan!

| 10th AUGUST 2014 |

GAZA or ISRAEL? 08

“Where is Israel and Palestine?” “Where did the Jews come from?” “What happened after that?” Where is Israel and Palestine? The land is in the Middleeast. Yes, the area which we know primarily as the world’s petrol bunk. The combined land of Israel and Palestine is surrounded by Arab countries, namely Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Egypt and has the Mediterranean Sea to its west. Now for Palestine and Israel. According to UN partition plan, 1940s, Palestine consists of the famous “west bank” of river Jordan and the entire Gaza strip. This is smaller than the Israeli state because of the prevailing Jewish population.

Historically speaking there was always a Jewish state in the place now called Palestine. The Biblical first Kingdom existed between 1000-586 BC. The second Kingdom existed between 538-63 BC. After that, the area was predominantly controlled by Turkish invaders and became a Muslim state. Jews had spread over around Europe.

But during the reign of Adolf Hitler, there was a massive genocide in Europe. Millions of Jews were killed. The Jews were forced to move towards a new place. And where did they go? Palestine. The country was under British occupation at the Where did these Jews come time so they were given refugee from? under the Palestinian state.

During the end of the British rule, problems had already alleviated and UN proposed a solution dividing Palestine into Israel and Palestine. A Jewish state and a Palestinian state. What happened after that? British rule on both countries were officially ended on May 15, 1948. Immediately after that, the very next day, the armies of four surrounding Arab countries (or all surrounding countries for that fact), Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Egypt attacked one day old Israel. Surprisingly, the Jewish state did survive. In 1967, it happened again when Egyptian dictator, Gamal Abdel Nasser, announced his mission “to DESTROY Israel”

COVER STORY 09

Israel immediately attacked both Egypt and Syria. But instead of attacking Jordan, Israel asked for Jordan not to join the war. But it did. In retaliation, Israel occupied the surrounding lands, including the west bank, Gaza strip and a part of Egypt to the south. In answer, the Arab countries met at Khartoum in Sudan and announced “No Recognition, No Peace and No Negotiations”. Israel had no option. Arabs simply did not want Israel to exist at all.

and air space. But considering the region’s troubled history, this was a major move towards peace. It opened up border crossings to facilitate commerce and gave the Palestinians 3000 greenhouses which were producing fruit and flowers for export. But then Hamas, the currently ruling party of Gaza strip, did not invest in infrastructure, schools and hospitals but created a series of tunnels in where to store thousands and thousands of rockets and newer weapons from Iran and Syria. And all the greenhouses were destroyed. Hamas has deliberately destroyed the possibility of Gaza’s becoming a thriving Palestinian state and turned Gaza into an anti-Israeli weapon store.

In 1978, Israel sued for peace with the Arabs by giving back the Egyptian occupation to Egypt when the new government in Egypt signed peace with Israel. The peninsula is larger than Israel itself and had valuable oil fields but they gave it all back in exchange What is going on now? for peace. This is at its roots, a religious In 2000, Israel proposed to and tribal conflict. The entire give the west bank and Gaza amount of dead in the Israeli strip to the Palestinians and to attack is about 800 in the last live in peace. Palestinians not two decades. We’re not talking only rejected the offer but also here to justify it. But to discuss retaliated by sending suicide why this has been given so much bombers to Israel. They did not want peace. They wanted Israel to non-exist. In 2005, following a unilateral disengagement plan, Israel removed every last soldier it had in the west bank and Gaza strip. Soldiers who had refused to leave were forcefully evicted from their homes. Israel still had control over Gaza’s borders, coastline

importance when compared to Bashar Al Ahmed’s massacre of 1,80,000 Syrians and ISIS’ and Taliban’s tens of thousands of murders over a month?Does the death of civilians really benefit Israel? It brings world media to attention, worldwide condemnation to Israel and diminishes Israel’s right to the land. Okay, consider ISIS to have the entire supply of Israel’s armaments, weaponry, army, air force and nuclear arsenal. They would have bombed all their enemies out of existence. If Israel truly wanted to destroy Gaza, it could have done it in a day or two. Hamas intentionally fires rockets out of densely populated areas into Israeli territory, rarely killing any Israeli citizens. Then Israel has to retaliate by sending rockets to these areas which are densely populated and results in civilian deaths. Hamas knows that if Gazan civilians are killed by Israeli rockets, it would attract world attraction towards Gaza. UN relief organization, UNRWA, has issued a condemnation when it found hidden rockets in not

one, but two children’s schools funds Hamas. “What could in Gaza. be more exploitative of dead children than attributing the IDF warns civilians to evacuate pictures of innocents killed before a strike. But Hamas by your own supporters to orders its civilians to stay put. your enemy simply because This usage of civilians as human you weren’t paying enough shield has been condemned attention when your own were by the Palestinian president killing your own?” – Ali A Rizvi. himself, President Mahmoud Abbas in saying “What are While this story is all about how you trying to achieve in sending bad Gaza has been, Israel has rockets?” And the Hamas not been at the best of heart spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri has either. Israelite warriors have plainly stated that this usage of been reported to have abused human shields has been “very women, tortured children and effective”. used Gazan teenagers as human shields. When a bomb When Gaza fires a rocket at strike happens at Gaza, several Israel, it alarms its citizens, Israeli supporters have publicly moves them to bomb shelters celebrated it just like how the and protects it citizens. Gaza, Arabs celebrated 9/11. But on the other hand has only this kind of thing happens on bomb shelters for the ruling both sides when there is 65 Hamas party and civilians years of enmity between the are not allowed to enter. The peoples. We cannot totally reason stated for this is that blame the Israelites for it. Hamas is poor and cannot Yes, to you Muslims, who say afford it. Of course, rockets that the state of Israel belongs and nuclear arsenal come at a to Muslims, it did. But it offered discount price right? refugee to fleeing Jews more In fact, according to a BBC than half a century earlier. report, those pictures we see Due to the larger Jewish of dead children in Gaza population, Israel was carved were actually killed by Assad out of existing Palestine. Now in Syria. Surprisingly, Assad is there are millions of second supported by Iran which also and third generation Jews for

whom Israel is truly home. You just can’t destroy them. There are 22 Arab states stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. But there is only one Jewish state, Israel. And the Arabs want that too. Why can’t the one Jewish state allowed to exist in peace? When there is a war, there is an inevitable war crime. As a country, Israel has pleaded for peace multiple times and Hamas has always destroyed the peace. Now knowing all this, “secular” people can chose to support any side in this tribal, and religious conflict, and alleviate war, or understand that a two state peace is required and pray for that. I’m open to mails and feedbacks on this issue, and as an independent and peace loving person, will respond and we might even have a small debate on the next issue of OutFocus. Thanks to Prager and Ali A Rizvi for their research articles, which has helped understand the problem. Ar Muthu Kumar, Editor. muthuvarma@yahoo.com

COVER STORY 11

12 ATHIF JEY

Athif Jey Athif Jey is an upcoming actor who has done a few short films and has featured alongside Nani in “Aaha Kalyanam”. He is also starring as one of the heroes in upcoming movie “Snehavin Kadhalargal”. Contact: Athif Jey +91 9944 089 079 e-mail : athifbijli@gmail.com

PORTFOLIOS 13

14 AKSHAYA PREMNATH

Akshaya Premnath Birth Place : Trivandrum,Kerala Zodiac Star : Libra Hair Colour: Brown Height: 165 cm Weight: 53 kg Occupation: Film Actress, Model Education: Persuing B.Tech second year, computer science Debut Movie: Ohm Shanthi Oshaana Recognitions: Miss MGP in 2012. Languages: Tamil, Malayalam, English Contact no : 9995246130

PORTFOLIOS 15

16 MOHAFIZ RIYAZ

Mohafiz Riyas Mohafiz Riyaz is a fun loving, passionate model and actor. He is doing is M.Arch at Measi and is looking forward to work with short filmmakers and feature filmmakers. Interested can contact him @ +91 9940246715

BLUE BEAUTY

SAYED M SALAHUDDIN f/4.5 1/500 sec ISO 2200

FOTOGRAPH 19

LAST. dreams of future

I heard a creepy sound. Woke up. Each day, the start of the dream seems to be the same. But endings, different. So does life. Silence haunts me during day and dreams during night. A week moved like a year. Food started to become scarce.

“I heard a creepy sound. My heartbeat rose...” *** A kid was playing with the sand. He was building his own castle and then he put his two clay toys. “So, how’s life?” It was my best school friend. “Good”. We were in the Coffee shop near to the beach. Meeting him after a long time. “What have you planned to do next?” “Clear my backlogs” “Backlogs?” “Yeah. What about you?” I tried to divert the topic “Me? It is done.” “Done? What do you mean?” “It is over. Wake up dude !!!” I woke up. Sun rose. It was Monday. *** The same kid, playing with the same sand. He added few water drops to strengthen it. Then he put two clay toys. The first one seems different. It looked like a female. “So. How’s life?” I turned back. It was my sister. “Fine”. “What have you planned to do next?” she said after having a sip.

“What have you?” “Me ? I think I need to go France again. It was nice. I will ask father.And I loved Dubai. What have you planned to do next?” “Nothing !” “Can you get me some water?” “What did you say?” “Get me some water” “Why?” “I need them.” “I can’t” “Why? Please get me some water” “I can’t. They are out there” “Where are they, my son?”. It was my father. “Here is your water, Darling”. He turned back to me and asked “Where are they my son?” “Dad!” “What have you planned to do next?” “Don’t know” “GOOD FOR NOTHING.” He smiled. “Dad please!” “Your Haircut looks good.” “Thanks dad.” “What are you gonna do? They are waiting for you outside, don’t they?” “Yeah.”

“So , What are you gonna do?” It was my mom! “Mom!” “Run, my son! They are gonna kill you!” “No, don’t. Face them!” “But dad, how?” Sudden Applause. *** The same person who gave the speech in the college! “If hope would cure a cancer patient, then fear would kill even an ulcer patient. Fear. It is the biggest weakness for the whole human society. If man would have feared lightning and fire, he wouldn’t have survived. He came across that fear and made leaps in the history of civilization. Never fear. Never ever.” Applause in an Empty Seminar Hall. “Be alert. For the world would stamp you down, if you aren’t.” “Run, my son. They are gonna kill you. Go to Zee polis” “Wake up dude. It is over.” *** Woke up. I heard a creepy sound. My heartbeat rose. (to be continued)

STORYSERIES 21

Ian Somerhalder is the very talented

actor and model, from the famous TV show “The Vampire Diaries”, in which he starred as Damon Salvatore. It has finished its 5th season now. He also starred as Boone Carlyle in the TV drama Lost. Ian Joseph Somerhalder (born December 8, 1978) is 35 and was born and raised in Covington, Louisiana. He began modeling at age 10, modeled for Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabanna, Gucci, Versace and Guess. In the summer of 2000, Somerhalder starred in the short-lived WB series Young Americans, a spin-off of Dawson’s Creek. In 2002, Somerhalder played bisexual character Paul Denton in Roger Avary’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel, The Rules of Attraction, alongside James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, and Jessica Biel. In 2004, Somerhalder scored his breakthrough role when he played Boone Carlyle in the hit TV show Lost. In 2009, Somerhalder appeared in the movie The Tournament where he played the role of an assassin participating in a lethal competition with other assassins. In June 2009, Somerhalder was cast in the role of Vampire Damon Salvatore as a series regular in The CW television drama series The Vampire Diaries. The series has continued to be the highest rated series on its channel with both Somerhalder’s performance and the show receiving a positive response from critics. This actor has won and got nominated for People’s Choice Awards, Teen Choice Awards and Young Hollywood Awards for his roles in TV series Lost and The Vampire Diaries. Ian is the founder of “Ian Somerhalder Foundation” launched on December 8, 2010 on Somerhalder’s 32nd birthday, which he hopes will educate people on the importance of protecting the environment and animals. The IS FOUNDATION aims to empower, educate and collaborate with people and projects to positively impact the planet and its creatures. “There’s no such thing as a bad idea. Just poorly executed ones.” - Damon Salvatore

SPOTLIGHT | TV SUPERHEROES 23

The true potential of

INDIAN GRAPHIC INDUSTRY

Today we have Sivaprasad from Realwork Studios whose team has made it clear that Indian talent can be used to produce high quality graphic and animation work by making India’s first totally open source software produced 3D trailer titled “Ranadheeran”. We liked their intentions so we made small talk with him. Here’s what we learnt. To those of us unaware of open source software, could you explain what that means? Open source Software means, a program or a software application, whose source code is freely available to download and explore.

What it means is that not only anybody can download the application and use it, but also can modify the source code, thereby customizing the application itself. Linux is one such example of a very powerful Open source project. How did you get introduced into the world of graphics and animation at first? What fascinated you? I have been, interested in drawing from a very small age, and have been sketching and painting in different mediums since then. What fascinated me in art was the way our minds learn new things around us to create believable art. For instance , we learn about light, surfaces, optics and composition etc.,

Digital graphics, has “UNDO” which in a way, saves paper, paint and more importantly time. Asset re-usability is one other factor, which is a strong fascinating point of working in Computer graphics. What are the projects that you undertake? Though we have been branding ourselves as an Arch Viz studio, we at Realworks take up any kind of 3D visualization projects starting from, Logo animations to 3D animated videos. And process animation to commercials. We have been creating 3d content from 2009. How does the team of Realworks work on a project? Is there a hierarchy?

There isn’t any steep hierarchies. Mostly its a flat structure. Everyone knows about the entire pipeline. Members do specialize in areas like Modeling, Texturing etc., But everyone can pitch in other areas as well when there is a need. Can you tell us the notion behind the making of your animated trailer “Ranadheeran”? We are a bunch of artist passionate about Computer Graphics. Though we have been in the industry trying to achieve photo-realism in Architectural Visualization, we have always been inspired by Game Cinematics and 3D animated movies. So when we heard a dramatic sound track “Heal Me” from Greendjohn’s Loophole, we were driven by it to

create something fitting. That was the spark for RANADHEERAN. WE also wanted to test a pipeline using Open source tools for creating cinematics. What are your future plans? Do you have any plans for Realworks? We are open for any kind of work that involves 3D graphics. More challenging the better. Challenges have brought us to the level that we are in today. It helps in the growth of the team. Plans? I think you should wait for our announcements in the months to come. (Interview by Ar Muthu Kumar)

“WHAT IT TOOK US

756 man hours of work, 10 weeks of project time and 22500 minutes of rendering 4500 image frames! It takes only a fraction of the industry standard budget & time. Open Source software can be used in a production pipeline.

“

INTERVIEW 25

UPSIDO!

SAYED M SALAHUDDIN f/6.3 1/160 sec ISO 200

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Live the moment!

SARU MATHI

Beautiful sweet memories to cherish. Wish I could get ‘em back... those lovely days of my life. OMG! My long-yearned-to-buy-now-bought-icecream’s gotten over. But how did it taste? I tasted it all by myself but know not a bit of its taste. No problem, lemme buy another one. Dreamy wonderful goal of mine. Wish I would accomplish it with flying colors. OMG! Second one is gone too! Sounds like an usual story? Well, yes it is. This is what happens in our everyday life. We take pride in thinking about our glorious past at times obsessing about ‘not-so-good’ memories. We enjoy drafting colourful plans for a bright future. We dream about our past and dream about our future. But do anyone of us know about what we lose? Yes, what we lose is our most precious “PRESENT”. In the ocean of fantasy we lose the very essential boat that keeps us alive and awake. What benefit is there in thinking about the past and future? It’s all our present that dictates our life.It is the most precious part of our life that needs utter care and attention. This is it. Bury the past (for, it can never be amended); push aside the big mystery of future (for, we know nothing about it). Think nothing. ACT NOW or NEVER. Love your life and Live the moment!!

A GIRL’S PAGE 29

ART BY DENIS AMIRTHARAJ | THE GIRL WHO CAN’T CHOSE

ART BY MIDHUN RR | THE TEAR

GRAPHIC TALK 31

Design Spotlight of the month: RUCEVEL A Antique pen and cap Software used: 3ds Max, Blender and MentalRay.

GRAPHIC TALK 33

RESEARCH:

DECIPHERING

INDUS SCRIPT

SGA THOMAS

The Indus Script The Indus Script is a corpus of the symbol produced by the Indus valley civilization during the mature Harappa period between the 26th and the 20th centuries BC. Most inscriptions are extremely short. It is not clear if these symbols constitute a script used to record a language, and the subject of whether the Indus symbols were a writing system is controversial. Decipherment of Indus script is one of the biggest challenges in the archaeological decipherment. This is because there is no multilingual text that has been found and the underlying language is unknown. The problem becomes even more challenging because the script occurs in very short texts. Infact, the average length of an Indus text is five signs and the longest text in a single line has only 14 signs. The total number of signs in the Indus script is generally agreed to be around 400 though some archaeologist have identified about 676 distinct signs. In spite of many attempts at decipherment, it is un-deciphered, and no underlying language has been identified. The Indus script is predominantly found on objects such as seals, sealing’s, copper tablets, ivory sticks, bronze implements, pottery etc.

While denying the status of a writing system to the Indus script, Farmer, Sproat and Witzel point to the extreme brevity of the texts (averaging less than five signs) and the presence of numerous “singletons” (signs with only one occurrence). On the other hand, Iravatham Mahadhevan argued that “Seal-texts tend to be short universally. Further, the Indus script appears to consist mostly of word-signs. Such a script will necessarily have a lesser number of characters and repetitions than a syllabic script. Thus the proper comparison should be with the number of words in later Indian seals or cave inscriptions. The average number of words in these cases matches the average number of signs in an Indus text. There are, however, many seal-texts that are much longer than the average.” “As for singletons, they appear to be mostly composite or modified signs derived from basic signs, apparently meant only for restricted or special usage. An apt parallel would be the difference in frequencies between basic and conjunct consonants in the Brahmi script.” So if it is a writing, what will be the underlying arguments? The answer is still unknown. But many hypothesis has been proposed. Out of those, most accepted hypothesis are the Dravidian Hypothesis and the

Sanskrit Hypothesis But once again there arises a question if Indus script has an underlying language. The problem is simple. Indus Valley Civilization is huge, comprising of about 1500 settlements of varying sizes, and geographically includes all of modern Pakistan, part of India as far east as Delhi and as far south as Bombay and parts of Afghanistan as well. So there is a possibility for many languages. Is Indus script a composite of languages or a single language ? Hunter (1934) pointed out that frequency and the combination of the signs at Harappa and Mohenjadaro are the same showing that the language used there must be the same. However he pointed out an exception. In some of the Indus Valley seals found in Middle east, particularly round seals, the order of the signs and their combination are totally different from what is found in Mohenjadaro and Harrapa. How do they say that the underlying Script is this language ? Let’s say that a lingustic researcher is coming to an Indian Museum. He sees an Indus seal. He asks the guide “What language is that written on the seal?”. The guide refers his book and says that “Sir, it is Indus script and it is unknown”. The curious researcher takes out his smartphone takes pictures

RESEARCH 35

of all the seals (and ofcourse a selfie), then looks on net about Indus Valley Civilization. He then starts analysing what languages could have possibly there during Indus Valley civilization. Then he goes to some museums having ciphered language artifacts, takes pictures of it and analyse them using computers and mathematicians. If he could partially get a reading, he could propose a hypothesis and could backup his theories with archeological evidences. And that’s how they claim that the Underlying language is possibly any ciphered language.

The Hypotheses Brahmi Hypothesis Some early scholars starting with Cunningham in 1877, thought that the system was archetype of Brahmi Script. This idea was supported by Hunter and F. Raymond Allchin. The theory behind is “ The Indus script survived and slowly became linear and ultimately lead to Brahmi script.” But this is not likely as most scholars point out that “There is a gap of 1000 years atleast before the introduction of Brahmi script and the complete collapse of Indus script.” The Sanskrit Hypothesis

Indo-Aryan languages have

been spoken in the area once occupied by the Indus civilisation and gradually all over North India since at least 1000 B.C. It is natural to assume that they were spoken there even earlier. Speakers of Hindi, Bengali and other Neo-IndoAryan languages especially have been prone to interpret the Indus texts as Sanskrit (understood in the broad sense of Old Indo-Aryan), from which their own mother tongues have evolved. One of the latest decipherment attempts, and partially a convincing one, is Prof. S.R. Rao’s Sanskritic reading. Indian archeologist Shikaripura Ranganatha Rao claimed to have deciphered the Indus script. Postulating uniformity of the script over the full extent of Indus-era civilization, he compared it to the Phoenician Alphabet, and assigned sound values based on this comparison. His decipherment results in an “Sanskritic” reading, including

the numerals aeka, tra, chatus, panta, happta/sapta, dasa, dvadasa, sata S.R. Rao’s hypothesis seems to provide a double check: on the one hand, the language written on the Indus seals is a language roughly known to us (certainly better than a hypothetical North-Proto-Dravidian to be constructed from Old SouthDravidian of the Sangam era, at a distance of more than two millennia and a thousand miles), and on the other, it uses signs of which many are known from another place as well as from another time. The language is a dialect of Sanskrit, the script largely similar to the Semitic alphabets that appear around 1600 BC and to the Brahmi script attested since about 400 BC. The Sanskrit hypothesis, however, is difficult to reconcile chronologically with the date of the Indus civilisation (about the second half of the

third millennium B.C.) and antecedent Early Harappan neolithic cultures which were responsible for its creation. Comparison of the Vedic texts with the Avesta and with the West Asian documents relating to the Aryan kings of Mitanni suggests that the Vedic Aryans entered the Indian subcontinent from Northeast Iran and Central Asia in the second millennium B.C. Moreover, it is abundantly clear that the early Aryans were nomads and that the horse played a dominent role in their culture, as it did in the culture of their Proto-IndoEuropean-speaking ancestors. The horse is conspicuously absent from the many realistic representations of animals in the art of the Indus civilisation. Comprehensive recent bone analyses have yielded the conclusion that the horse was introduced to the subcontinent around the beginning of the second millennium B.C. The Dravidian Hypothesis There is archaeological and linguistic evidence to support the view that the Indus civilisation is non-Aryan and pre-Aryan:

urban, while the Vedic was rural and pastoral. • The Indus seals depict many animals, but not the horse. The chariot with the spoked wheels is also not depicted. The horse and chariot with the spoked wheels are the main features of Aryan-speaking societies. (For the best and most recent account, refer to David W. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel and Language, Princeton, 2007). • The Indus religion as revealed in the pictorial depictions on the seals included worship of buffalo-horned male gods, mother-goddesses, the pipal tree, the serpent, and probably the phallic symbol. Such modes of worship are alien to the religion of the Rigveda. Ruling out Aryan authorship of the Indus civilisation does not automatically make it Dravidian. However, there is substantial linguistic evidence favouring the Dravidian theory: • The survival of Brahui, a Dravidian language in the Indus region. • The presence of Dravidian loanwords in the Rigveda. • The substratum influence of Dravidian on the Prakrit dialects. • Computer analysis of the Indus texts revealing that the language had only suffixes (like

Dravidian), and no prefixes (as in Indo-Aryan) or infixes (as in Munda). There are several structural and lexical Dravidisms even in the Rgveda, the earliest preserved text collection, pointing to the presence of Dravidian speakers in Northwest India in the second millennium B.C. The discovery in Tamil Nadu of a late Neolithic (early 2nd millennium BC, i.e. post-dating Harappan decline) stone celt allegedly marked with Indus signs has been considered by some to be significant for the Dravidian identification. However, as the Dravidian models of decipherment have still little in common except the basic features summarised above, it is obvious that much more work remains to be done before a generally acceptable solution emerges. The Truth? Over the years, numerous decipherments have been proposed, but none have been accepted by the scientific community at large. So to know the truth, go get the TIME MACHINE. Unless there exists a rosetta stone these theories will fight.

RESEARCH • The Indus civilisation was

RESEARCH 37

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THE FEATHERS