Berlin:

A 19-year-old has been detained in Austria for allegedly plotting to kill people outside a stadium at a Taylor Swift concert, prompting the cancellation of the pop superstar’s three shows in Vienna this week.

Two other teenagers have been identified as suspects.

Here is what security officials have said about the three.

THE 19-YEAR-OLD

The Austrian national with North Macedonian roots was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday during a police operation at his home in Ternitz, a town near the Hungarian border.

The teen, who had posted a video online confessing to the plot, quit his job on July 25, telling people that he “had big plans”, public security chief Franz Ruf told reporters on Thursday.

The suspect had recently changed his appearance and had been consuming and sharing Islamist propaganda online, security officials said, adding that he had pledged allegiance to Islamic State but also held sympathies for Al Qaeda.

A neighbour told Austrian broadcaster Puls24 that the young man kept himself to himself and that he had grown a “Taliban beard”.

During a search of his home, law enforcement authorities secured various substances and tools used for building bombs, as well as Islamic State propaganda, 21,000 euros ($23,000) in counterfeit money, machetes, knives and blank ammunition.

The Kurier newspaper, citing sources familiar with the situation, reported that the suspect had stolen the chemicals from his former workplace, a metal processing company also in Ternitz. Officials did not comment on where he got the chemicals from, adding that this was a focus of their investigation.

THE 17-YEAR-OLD

After initially being tipped off to a single suspect, Austrian investigators came across the other two, including a 17-year-old Austrian national with Turkish-Croatian roots who was arrested in Vienna on Wednesday afternoon.

He had been acting conspicuously in the area of the Ernst Happel Stadium, where Swift’s stadium shows had been due to take place on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The 17-year-old had been given a job with a company a few days ago that was providing services at the stadium.

The boy, who also appears to have been radicalised and was already known to authorities, had recently broken up with his girlfriend, Ruf said.

He is still to make a statement to police so his exact role in the plot is unclear, but he had extensive contact with the main suspect, officials said.

THE 15-YEAR-OLD

The third and final suspect is an Austrian national with Turkish heritage.

During questioning, the youngster said the main suspect had changed considerably in recent months and had also regularly enquired about devices to ignite explosives, officials said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Writing in the Times Literary Supplement in October 1921, English poet and critic Thomas Stearns Eliot remembered John Donne thus: “Tennyson and Browning are poets, and they think, but they do not feel their thought as immediately as the odour of a rose. A thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility.”

Eliot’s assessment of Donne was true of some others too whom Samuel Johnson had in the eighteenth century called the the-extinct “race” of metaphysical poets. Not incidentally, however, the crown of thinking-as-experience is also befitting for Indian poet, lyricist, author, and filmmaker, the Sahitya, Oscar and Jnanpith awardee, Sampooran Singh Kalra, better known by his takhallus (pen name), ‘Gulzar’.

Renowned Indian poet and novelist Padma Sachdev once called Gulzar saab the Pablo Neruda of Urdu poetry. But it would be as precise to call him the John Donne of ‘Indian popular culture’. And I use this composite phrase instead of ‘Hindi cinema’ or ‘Bollywood’ because a bulk of Gulzar saab’s unexplored philosophical insights far exceed his filmography, poetry, and writings. What is often missed in his language and poetics are his metaphors from quantum mechanics. 

A ‘Phenomenological’ Poet

Born in 1934 in Deena, now in the Jhelum district of present-day Pakistan, Gulzar saab’s early life and his harrowing journey to India before the Partition of 1947 – memories that found lauded expressions in Shyam Benegal’s 1994 classic, Mammo – would make for a fertile backdrop for many a biographer. But not many may pay attention to the cosmic and quantum-like figures of speech that decorate his perceptions of reality. “NASA is my favourite website,” Gulzar once acknowledged. “The universe with its abstract nature attracts me. The abstract element in my poetry comes from there.” 

Watch | Why The Left Is Weak Today In India, According To Gulzar

Had Gulzar saab’s modesty allowed him, instead of calling his poetry “abstract,” he might have called it “phenomenological”. The word ‘phenomenology’ means the study of experience, along with studying the nuances ‘qualia’, that is, the way fundamental units of reality are experienced. Gulzar saab’s poetry often represents reality in minuscule slices. “Qatra qatra milti hai” (“droplets and droplets appear to us”; Ijaazat, 1987), or “jale qatra qatra, gale qatra qatra” (“the kindling of slivers, the melting of slivers”; Saathiya, 2002). 

In certain other cases-as in “main chaand nigal gayi, daiyya re” (“I swallowed the moon, my gosh!”; Omkara, 2006)-Gulzar saab appears to swap the microscopic reality for the cosmic, where swallowing the moon signifies the quest of a mythical oscillatory body, or, in worldly terms, a lover in heat who swallowed the moon to soothe herself.  However, his deeper aesthetic sense resurfaces in moon-related metaphors elsewhere, as in “dhaage tod laao chandni se noor ke” (“pluck slivers of moonlight from the cosmic ray”; Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, 2007). The metaphor reminds one of that famous ‘double slit’ science experiment, where photons split to reveal wave-particle duality. Gulzar saab’s words are nowhere ‘abstract’. In a liminal way, they escort the listener into a scientific world.

Reality, Bite-Sized

This miniaturisation of reality or spacetime has over the last century come to be known to physicists as ‘quantisation’. Neither poets nor quantum mechanics have a monopoly over the art of quantising. However, both enchant us by deconstructing and experiencing reality at a subatomic level. Among physicists and mathematicians who did that with ease and panache, we recall James Maxwell, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, Paul Dirac, David Bohm, and even modern-day names like Sean Carroll and Jim Al-Khalili. Among psychologists and cultural thinkers, we find Carl Jung and Jiddu Krishnamurti at the helm. And, among poets, Gulzaar saab qualifies as a natural citizen of a sphere that was once dominated by Albert Einstein’s contemporaries, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound (to take a reference from Daniel Albright’s 1997 study, Quantum Poetics).

Also Read | Gulzar On Why He Doesn’t Intend To Return To Films

It is amusing and staggering at once to witness how quantum entities-whether with conscious will or subconscious genius-inform Gulzar saab’s figures of speech. “Ik baar waqt se lamha gira kahin/ wahan daastan mili, lamha kahin nahin” (“once upon a fickle time, a moment dropped somewhere/ there a legend sprouted its wings, and blurred the moment in air”; Gol Maal, 1979). Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle-that is, the limits of human measurements in calculating the momentum and position of subatomic particles simultaneously-is writ large upon this couplet.

Revelling In Uncertainty

This scheme of uncertainty becomes both ambivalent and yet emboldened in “yaar misaal-e-os chale, paayon ke tale firdaus chale/ kabhi daal daal, kabhi paat paat, main hawa pe dhundun uske nishaan/ sar-e-ishq ki chaaon chal/ chhaiyan chhaiyan” (“my beloved trails a dewy guise, as her toes sail aloft paradise/ from branch to branch, from leaf to leaf, I search the wind for her trace/walk in the shade of heavenly love”; Dil Se, 1998). Undoubtedly, these words are addressed to a cosmic being personified as the beloved. The uncertainty about the beloved’s shapeshifting forms reminds one of Biblical, Quranic and Upanishadic figures of speech. But in these words is again embedded that poetical quantisation: the ransacking of woods and the wind to spot and accord a location to a formless beloved. If this were science itself, it would almost be akin to the despair of the observers of the double-slit experiment, struggling to measure quantum entities in waves, particles, or definable units of spacetime.

Also Read | Gulzar on His ‘Scribblings’: I am Not an Artist

Then there are these two couplets: “humne dekhi hai un aankhon ki mahakti khushbu” (“I have seen the wafting fragrance of those eyes”; Khamoshi, 1969), and “apki aankhon me kuchh, mahke huye se raaz hain” (“your eyes are the home of fragrant mysteries”; Ghar, 1978). There are critics who could never understand how “eyes” and “vision” could be compared to the senses of smell and odour. Yet, these lines contain scintillating lessons for those studying the philosophy of quantum mechanics. As Al-Khalili explains in his documentary Secrets of Quantum Physics (2015), the human perception of smell is processed through a “quantum nose”, which interprets molecular oscillations as particles, not waves. Essentially, our “quantum nose” is capable of evoking certain memories through certain odours, which are, in turn, produced by molecular configurations that are of a highly visual nature.

Love, Longing, And Everything Else

The critics who fail to sense Gulzar saab’s brilliance are, in Eliot’s words, like “the ordinary” being whose “experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary”, to whom reading great philosophy and falling in love “have nothing to do with each other, or with the noise of the typewriter or the smell of cooking”; nevertheless, in “the mind of the poet these experiences are always forming new wholes”.  

Another Indian poet, the legendary Rabindranath Tagore, took science very, very seriously. He had once met Einstein to discuss a scheme of galactic union between science and poetry; the West and the East; the human and the divine; the quantum and the cosmic. One such union also appears in Gulzar saab’s famous ghazal, “ruke ruke se qadam, ruk ke baar baar chalen” (“these hesitant feet have again hesitated, and they have walked again”; Mausam, 1975, and Mammo, 1994). There is an unmistakable Upanishadic allegory in the lines that follow: “uthaaye phirte hain ehsaan jism ka jaan par/ chalen jahaan se to ye pairahan utaar ke chalen” (“I have carried the burden of my flesh on my being/ when I leave the world, I’ll take off this garb”). In Mausam, this divide between the garb and the soul symbolises a permanent truth against the backdrop of the separation of lovers. In Mammo, it symbolises the enduring pangs of the Partition. Like logic and love, like waves and particles, the lines distinguish between the ‘garb’, the material aspect, and ‘soul’, the immaterial aspect of human life. One cannot exist without the other. 

Small Things In A Big World

This non-duality is brought to life magnificently in these lines: “aadmi bulbula hai paani ka” (“humanity is a bubble in water”) … “na samundar nigal saka usko/ na tvareekh tod paayi hai/ waqt ki hatheli par behta/ aadmi bulbula hai” (“neither the ocean has engulfed it/ nor has history deconstructed it/ like lines that crisscross the palm of time/ humanity is a bubble in water”). Gulzaar saab refrains from ascribing primacy to the ocean, the origin of life, or to human life itself. Instead, Gulzar, the poet of cosmic and quantum consciousness, is like the microscopists of philosopher G.K. Chesterton, who “study small things and live in a large world”.

Feeling bedazzled, bemused, belittled before Gulzar’s poetical expressions is a sign of us coming to terms with our infinitesimal place in the universe, and understanding it in infinite metaphysical feelings. 

(The author is thankful to Harshita Mishra and Nitin Thakur for their valuable insights.)

(Arup K. Chatterjee is Professor of English, O.P. Jindal Global University)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

Health appears to improve when one listens to music

The annual world music day was held on June 21, 2024. It is an occasion to look back at how music and rhythm have evolved from ancient times. As the study by Hattori and Tomonaga points out, when a rhythmic piece was played to a group of chimps, they began to dance in tune! However, their vocal cords have not evolved to singing; they can only grunt: listen to them. So, we humans not only owe many of our genes and our blood groups to the apes, but also our sense of rhythm!

So then, when did we humans start singing and playing music on instruments? Researchers have established that we began speaking during the Old Stone Age (2.5 million years ago and continued until 10,000 BCE), and ‘singing’ a little later. That we could sing and play instruments came about 40,000 years ago, when it was discovered that a flute was made using an animal bone, with seven holes in it to play ‘in tune’. It is well worth clicking on this site and enjoy it fully.

Ragam and talam

The actual musical notations seem to have been established in Europe and the Middle East during 9th Century BCE, with spaced notations (‘do, re, ma, fa, po, la, ti’), for singing and instrument-playing Hymns. And in India, it is believed to have been from the Vedic times (1,500- 600 BCE) with the notes (‘sa, re, ga, ma, pa, da, ni’). Dr Jameela Siddiqi writes, that we have had the swaras (‘sa, re, ga, ma, pa, da, ni’). When you can hear M S Subbulakshmi sing ‘Sobillu Saptaswara’ in Raga Jaganmohini, and Rupaka Talam, composed by Saint Thiagaraja (denoting that musical notes come from the navel, heart, tongue, and nose of our body). We have thus made significant advancements since those days by organising the notations in a geometric and classical way and inspiring our musical tastes.

But one does not need to be a connoisseur or a listener of only classical music, and only listen to M S Subbulakshmi, Bismillah Khan, Bach, Beethoven or Mozart, but also enjoy jazz, qawwali, popular and film music as many people do. They too are composed of the octave or parts of it- and with proper beats. Folk songs across the country, and even the world, are eminently enjoyable. A recent report by Allison Parshall in the May 17, 2024, issue of ‘Scientific American’ points out that folk songs across the world are similar and are enjoyed by everyone for their tone and tenor.

Benefits of music

When you listen to music, your health appears to improve. It does not matter whether it is prayer, vocal or instrumental, classical or traditional, popular and film songs. The Johns Hopkins University site says that if you want to keep your brain young, play or listen to music. Learning to sing or to play an instrument improves attention, memory, mood and quality of life. This is particularly important for school and college students. Some sources have even suggested that music learning or even listening helps elderly people avert age-related problems.

India has several music academies across the country, which hold periodic festivals, where we listen to both established musicians and prominent youngsters singing and playing instruments in Carnatic, Hindustani and Western styles. Let us attend them and enjoy!

File picture of Eminem performing at the MTV Video Music Awards in Newark in 2022. The rapper has asked Vivek Ramaswamy to refrain from using his music during his presidential campaign
| Photo Credit: AP

U.S. rapper Eminem has asked Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire former biotech executive, to not use his music during his presidential campaign, according to a letter disclosed on Monday.

In the letter dated Aug. 23, which was reported first by the Daily Mail, BMI, a performing rights organisation, informed Mr. Ramaswamy’s campaign at the rapper’s request that it will no longer license Eminem’s music for use by Mr. Ramaswamy’s campaign.

“BMI has received a communication from Marshall B. Mathers, III, professionally known as Eminem, objecting to the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign’s use of Eminem’s musical composition (the “Eminem Works”) and requesting that BMI remove all Eminem Works from the Agreement,” BMI says in the letter.

Mr. Ramaswamy’s campaign told CNN it will comply with the request to stop using Eminem’s music.

Mr. Ramaswamy, a businessman with no political experience, has been rising in some opinion polls and has branded his rivals as “bought and paid for.”

The 38-year-old tech entrepreneur was at the center of many of last week’s first Republican primary debate’s most dramatic moments.

Mr. Ramaswamy, a fierce defender of former U.S. President Donald Trump, faced plenty of incoming fire from his more experienced rivals, who appeared to view him as more of a threat than Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has been trailing Trump as a distant second for a long time in the Republican primary polls.

Mr. Trump, the overwhelming front runner in the primary contest, skipped the first debate last week. He gave an interview to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which was released on X, formerly called Twitter, at the same time as the Republican debate.