"I thought he was a Gujarati." "Hey, a white man is coming". Me they're talking about?

One of the most profound questions in Hindu philosophy is "who am I?"  The "mahavakyas" provide the path to understanding that question.  (An atheist quoting these is quite an interesting mix, eh!)

It is a good thing that I am not trying to answer that question based on how I am sometimes described by others.

An older gentleman a few years younger than my father came in and conversed with the people there.  A few minutes into the conversation, dad directed his attention to me and said "this is my son. He has come from America."

The gentleman's response was very different from anything I could have expected.  "Oh, really?  I thought he was some Gujarati visiting."

Seriously?

And then it struck me: perhaps he also sees in my face a resemblance to "the one from Gujarat who shall not be named" and, therefore, he thought I was a Gujarati?  I hope not.

A couple of days after this incident, I was, again, off on my own, to explore the nearby areas.  I told the cab driver that once were done with my agenda, he was to take me back home via interesting places. 

As we were driving, he stopped the car by the roadside.  We were looking down a gradient.  "Do you see the sea, sir, at the end"?  I did see a lot of blue at the end of the slope.  In fact, the sea seemed to be at a higher level than somewhere at the middle of the slope.

"When the tsunami came, this is why all these areas got damaged so much, sir.  A lot of people live in this low-lying area, and they were swept away."

What a catastrophe it was!

We then drove over to a nearby beachfront.  Mostly rocky it was, like off the Oregon coast.  Absolutely gorgeous, but miserably hot though.  

The driver stopped at the parking place, and I got off the vehicle.

I was appropriately equipped for the hot and humid conditions: cargo shorts, t-shirt, sunglasses, a hat over my head, and a camera in hand.

As I started descending towards the beach, I spotted a group of young men/boys.  About 25 or 30 of them. 

They could easily be high school students, I thought to myself.  Thirty high school boys all by themselves, in an isolated beach, and me walking there by myself dressed in cargo shorts, t-shirt, sunglasses, a hat, well, I knew this would not go well.

So, I paused by a big boulder's shadow, and quickly came up with a couple of different responses to heckles or comments or even worse.  And then I resumed walking towards the beach.

I suppose they, too, saw me.  I heard one guy yell out to his buddies, "ஏய், வெள்ளைக்காரன் வரான்டா" (Hey, a white man is coming.)

I was glad I had paused to draft a couple of responses, including to this comment.  Pretty sharp, I complimented myself :)

I didn't stop walking even though I saw a group of about ten running towards me. 

"Take photo, sir?" said one, while the other said "group photo sir."

"வேணாம் பா. நான் தமிழ் தான்" (No guys. I am a Tamil) I told them. 

Understandably, they were shocked.  They were confident they were rushing towards a white guy, perhaps to hassle him and get something off him, and now they had to re-calibrate everything.

I kept walking, and could hear them sniggering in the background but couldn't make out the words.

A minute or so later, I came across the last set of boys.  One said, "welcome to India."  I smiled at him and replied "நான் சென்னை பா. தமிழ் ஆளு தான்" (I am from Chennai. I am a Tamil.)  This guy simply froze.  He was way beyond shocked into silence.

I reached a gazebo kind of a structure for shade and some cooler winds.  Obviously, the sabbatical has not clarified for me who I am and what I want do with the rest of my life; apparently I need to first figure out whether I am an American, or a Tamil-Indian, or a Gujarati-Indian, or a white guy.  Philosophy, shmilosophy can wait :)

The "rare earth" chemistry

My grandfather earned his metallurgy degree back in 1938.  Yes, that long ago. For reasons that will be a tad too long for this post, he chose to study at the university in Benares (Varanasi) by the Ganga, far, far, away from his home in Sengottai--which is very close to the peninsular tip in southern India.  If not for his mother threatening to kill herself should he take up a job far away from home, grandfather would have put his education to far greater use.

But, playing with the cards he was dealt, grandfather worked for quite a few years at Indian Rare Earth, and split his time between Manavalakurichi and Chavara.  He worked there until his horribly untimely death when he was just about 51 years old.  (Since then, family lore is that every male in the family goes through a crisis at that age; I wonder what awaits me then; bring it on, cosmos!!!)

I was four when he died.  Soon after that, my parents thought that I as a four year old kid might be a great distraction for my grandmother from her grief, which is how I ended up spending about eight months with her, while the rest of my cohorts went to kindergarten :)  Throughout my growing up, I was immensely influenced by the fantastic stories about him that my grandmother, my mother, and my aunts always had about him.  Not one had anything even remotely negative to say about him.  As kids, we thought it was strangely interesting to see test-tubes of sands of different colors tucked away in a cabinet, and I recall mixing them up wondering whether they would explode :)

So, why "rare earth"?

The rare earths start at lanthanum, Element 57, and run to lutetium, Element 71, and if you look them over, there's a good chance you won't recognize any of them.

Why are these rarely heard elements in the news?  Why is this important?

some patient chemists have learned to exploit the subtle differences among rare earth elements to create amazing technology. Neodymium and gadolinium now make unprecedentedly powerful magnets, which can cool and refrigerate things for pennies, replacing nasty, expensive, ozone-killing chemicals. The Honda Prius uses neodymium in fuel cells. Cerium makes great catalytic converters to clean pollution up, and europium makes energy-efficient LED bulbs. Many superconductors use yttrium, and even simple wind turbines need dysprosium and terbium to store energy, among other things.

Fascinating.  Absolutely wonderful that these rare elements play such significant roles.  So, is America leading the charge on this?  Ahem ... while we were busy fudging mortgage loans, waging wars, and watching reality shows,

China has half of the world's reserves and produces a staggering 95 percent of the ore on the world market. That's because the Chinese government made a shrewd guess in the 1990s and invested in the infrastructure necessary to tediously separate one rare earth from another on an industrial scale. China's dominance wouldn't be a huge concern except that the government has put strict quotas on exports lately. Some rare earths now fetch more than $100 a pound in the United States. (The U.S. once mined rare earths but let the industry flag and would need about 15 years to catch up.)

You got to be kidding here ... come on, isn't there anything that the US can do anymore?
Oh well ...