Data mining for witches with Ngrams

So, the blog got neglected. I have been too busy at work, and following my vitrectomy at the end of last February, I slowly developed a dense post-operative cataract in my eye. This seemed to cause me eye-strain, as though I was over-taxing the properly functioning eye. Reading in the evening became very restricted, and so gratuitously working through texts on EEBO fell from my list of priorities.

Frustrated by this, and facing more months of the cataract getting worse before the NHS could schedule me, last Tuesday I had the procedure done privately, at Reading's weirdly luxurious new Circle Hospital. This has the ambience of a brand new hotel, an illusion only spoiled by the occasional medico shuffling past in ward pyjamas and plastic clogs. Art works are everywhere, and, astonishingly, a young woman with a concert harp was playing to relax those in the lounge area. At no point was she summoned up the lift into theatre to assist in giving a client-customer a reassuring departure, but it seemed a disturbing possibility ("Emergency, harpist to theatre 4, please!"). I had my original operation wearing beneath my plastic shroud my jacket, shirt and tie as usual; for this far less major procedure, Circle had me don a 'Patient Dignity Gown'. I thought this suited me a lot, and I will take to wearing it round my department, especially if the same suppliers can set me up with a 'Wounded Dignity Gown' to alternate it with.

But the chart above is nothing to do with my well-being. It's a Google Ngram, off Google Books. I just discovered these last week, when following an OED request for information into user responses. Someone had tracked a pre-dating (I think it might have been for 'Ironman Triathlon') using Ngrams, and I followed that up, not having heard of them.

Ngrams use the corpus of digitised books, and will plot you a graph for frequency of occurence of one word against another within the corpus. As all graphs would otherwise just show a fierce left to right ascent, the plotting is made proportional to the number of books being published within the period.

The results become more convincing if one plots related words in different graphs. My first effort, above, plotted 'witch' against 'conjurer', 1600 to 1800. It seems to indicate some quiet years after 1610, with not much chatter in print about the topic, and then, towards the end of that decade, a peaking concern (I wondered if it might be reflecting the Overbury case). Then, irregular peaks of concern between 1630 and 1650. There's a late 17th century minor peak (I wondered if one might see in that the late flurry of people like Glanville asserting the existence of witchcraft). Then a splendidly rational 18th century, before Gothic Romanticism brings it all back in.

These tentative results look a bit more convincing when a related graph looks quite similar. Here's 'witchcraft' plotted against 'magic':

Somehow, and perhaps it isn't entirely an artefact from the sample, the quiet years after 1610 show up, then the late decade rise, things going quiet after King James' death, until the 1630's take off again (Lancashire? Loudon?). Irregular peaks thereafter, the 1670's and 1680's still quite strong, an enlightened 18th century, and then Gothicism.

My third try just plotted 'witch' against 'devil': it merely shows the predominance of devil talk over witch talk:

Maybe the late 17th century peak in devil talk is as dissenting literature gets more widely published...?

The Renaissance course I teach on is called 'Love, Honour, Obey: Literature 1525-1660'. So I ran the key terms, this time between 1600 and 2000, with this result:

'Love', we see, goes up and down ("the way it does", as a colleague wittily remarked when I was showing this round). There may be a Cavalier peak, and a Restoration one. 'Honour' does well through the Stuart years, and then shows very solidly as the novel gets going in the late 18th century (a range established around the Richardson peak, as it were). 'Obey' is the interesting line. It's far less common as a word, but there just may be a peak around the end of the Civil War. Gradually, society loses interest in the idea, as people also did with 'honour'.

Are the results of this data-mining real? One obviously has to be cautious. I do not know if Google have had access to the work of the digital text creation partnership that's working through EEBO. When this happens, and also when all texts have been digitised, then the true detail will emerge. But this looks completely convincing to me:

This is 'prophecy' plotted against 'throne'. I couldn't use 'king', as that word appears so often that 'prophecy' gets flattened out. Anyway, just look at the peak in 'prophecy' before the Restoration, and the steep drop-off in interest once Charles II is installed. That looks like a very plausible result to me.

Zachary the slacker

Zachary Bogan, of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was a consumptive (he lived to be just 34), and seems to have been subject to depression; “I have been in a manner buried alive in melancholy, and spent my dayes in vanity. My distemper was such, as did not onely render me indisposed, by study to gather more knowledge then I had before (being not able for whole moneths together, to perswade my selfe to take a booke in hand…” (One has to sympathise, even if only as a blogger who has neglected his blog for months.)

For a conscientious believer of the mid 17^th century, a depressed state must have been heightened by their sense of Christian duty, of how vital it was to use your God-given talents (and Bogan, a probationary fellow at Oxford , was undoubtedly learned): “It was one of those things, which in my melancholy, my dejected spirit dwelt longest upon, that I had done God, and my brethren no service, having lived so long.” 

His first attempt at what we would regard as pious self-therapy came after “a year or two” of depression: “It pleased the Lord (who, I cannot say, did ever hide himselfe in my trouble, or despise my affliction; but was ready to know me in all my adversity) to set me in a way, wherein I might spend my time better, and passe thorow with more ease, some of the rest of those wearisome dayes, which he had appointed for me.” So Bogan, suffering malignant sadness, wrote his first tract, Meditations of the Mirth of a Christian Life (1653).

These meditations his mother asked him to put into print, and he dedicated them to her. In his own rather ingenuous account, in the course of seeing the work through the press, he got talking to his bookseller while looking at a book about God’s promises (possibly The Saints legacies, or, A collection of certain promises out of the word of God collected for private use, but published for the comfort of God’s people, by A.F.), and “I asked the Bookeseller, whether he knew of any Treatise of his Threats. Being answered (contrary to my expectation) that he knew of none; I was the more earnest to inquire further. And so I did; but could heare of none. Whereupon I told my Bookeseller, that I resolved forthwith to read over the Bible, and make a collection of them my selfe; and, if it pleased God to incourage me in it, to print them.”

The work poor Bogan was inspired to write would appear in print, very rapidly, as A view of the threats and punishments recorded in the Scriptures, alphabetically composed (also 1653). Once started, he seems to have worked with manic intensity: “in very little more then a fortnight’s time, that by the help of God I read the Bible over: and reduced every thing that I observed, to a certaine head, in Alphabeticall order. After this, I examined every place of Scripture, by the Originall, and the most noted Translations.” 

He records for his general reader the “marvellous encouragement, which it pleased God to afford me all along in this worke”. While, in his sickness, he had barely been able to read for a quarter of an hour, now he found himself “supplyed with a constant delight in what I did, and a desire to goe further. If at any time I was weary (as sometimes I was quite tired, through infirmities of body, and want of spirits) as soone as I had but turned aside, but a few minutes, I found a sudden supply of desire to follow my businesse againe, as fresh as ever.”

Bogan’s book is interestingly unreflective. He does not make any explicit connection between his own situation and his subject; he does not consider what he might be being punished for. Here he is on what he, if pressed, might have considered his own sin, ‘Unfruitfulness’, and it serves as a typical entry from the treatise. Under the heading (‘Unfruitfulness’), he makes a list of how “God punisheth men for it”. The divine punishment for unfruitfulness proves to be just an infliction of more of the same:

1. With leaving them to the wide world. ‘What could I have done more to my vinyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? and now goe to, I will tell you what I will doe to my vinyard, I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up, and break downe the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden downe’ Isa. 5. 4, 5.

2. Taking away the means of making them fruitfull. I’t shall not be pruned nor digged: but there shall come up briars and thornes, I will also command the cloudes that they raine no raine upon it’, ib. v. 6.

3. Taking away the power and meanes of being fruitfull (gifts and talents.) ‘Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him that hath ten talents’, Mat. 25. 28. So that for unfruitfullnesse the sinne, they have unfruitfullnesse the punishment; ‘When he saw a fig-tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only: and said unto it, let no fruit grow on thee hence forward for ever and presently the figtree withered away’ Mat. 21 19.

4. Cutting downe, as trees that have left bearing. It was John the Baptist’s doctrine, ‘every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewen downe and cast into the fire’, Mat. 3. 10. And it was our Saviours too, in the same wordes, chap. 7. 19. Luk 13. 7. He that had hid his talent in the ground, had his doome to be cast into outer darknesse, Mat. 25. 30.

I have said that the book is unreflective, from a modern point of view, in Bogan not seeing the connection between what he is doing, and his own condition as a man. He just doesn’t ask himself why he is suddenly energized by just this topic. A pious-minded consumptive and depressive somehow cannot see a connection between his list of God’s punishments and his own situation.

But the other unreflectiveness about the book is that Bogan does not seem to have considered the overall effect his work would have. From the point of view of any conventional piety, the book is crassly conceived (if we take the notion that ‘God is Love’ as the basic persuasion of the ordinarily pious). Bogan blithely ploughs on, assembling God’s punishments for the various failings of His accursed creation. (Maybe I am the naive one here, and that Bogan's work was at some level a subtle striking back at God.)

Of course, open the Old Testament at random, and you will generally find a whole lot of smiting going on. Assembled together, the vindictiveness, the indiscriminate retaliations, the irascibility, gross favouritism, the general moral insanity of the Godhead becomes the foreground, the middle, and the background - to say nothing of the continuous recourse of the Almighty to horrible threats.

So here’s a selection of Bogan’s examples. In brackets, I give the sin, and then examples of the punishments Bogan eagerly collected from the Bible:

(Whoremongering) “When the Israelites committed whoredome with the Moabites, God (by a disease, or fire, or some other extraordinary plague) slew no lesse then foure and twenty thousand of them, Num. 25. 1, 9.”

(Adultery) “If those that commit adultery escape death, a thousand to one that they escape these ensuing punishments, viz. 2. Retaliation, or being done to as they have done to others thus David was punished, Thus saith the Lord, behold I will raise up evill against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes and give them unto thy neighbour, And he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of the sun’ 2 Sam: 12. 11.”

(Talkativeness, punished by) “2 Destruction (as by discovery, provocation, & an hundred otherwayes) ‘He that keepeth his mouth, keepeth his life but he that openeth wide his lips, shall have destruction’, Prov: 13. 3” 

(Not being improved by the punishment meted out to you) “And I also have given you cleannesse of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: YET have yee not returned unto me saith the Lord.”

(Being a disobedient child, punished by) “Stoning to death. If a man have a stubborne and rebellious sonne, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that when they have chastned him will not harken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him and bring him out unto the Elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place. And they shall say unto the Elders of this city. This our sonne is stubborne and rebellious, he will not obey our voice, he is a glutton, and a drunkard, Being rebellious is the maine crime, and being a glutton and a drunkard, are brought in as evidences, though crimes too) And all the men of his City shall stone him with stones that he die.” 

(Being an enemy to Christ) “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision Ps. 2, 4. Oh fearfull threat! how sad is the condition of those men at whose calamitie God rejoyceth! or at whose wickednesse he laughes! suffering them to run on in their sinnes because he seeth that their day of punishment is coming Ps. 37, 13. Give me any anger, rather then a laughing anger, whether of God, or man. See the threats Ps. 59, 8. Prov: 1, 26.

(Curiosity) “He smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they looked into the Ark of the Lord: even he smote of the people fifty thousand, and threescore & ten men 1 Samuel 6, 19. wicked men commonly are more desirous to know the things of God in a way of curiosity then godly men”

(Murmuring in dissent) “while the flesh was yet in their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague”

(Incest punished) “With Losse of Birth-right. For thus Jacob (as he was dying) cursed Reuben, for lying with (his Concubine onely) Bildad. ‘Unstable as water, thou shalt not excell, because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.’ Gen. 49. 4.”

(Mocking of God’s ministers, punished with) “1. With Wrath unappeaseable … 4. Violent death by wild beasts. ‘As Elisha was going up to Bethel, There came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Goe up thou bald head, Goe up thou bald head. And he turned backe, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord, and there came forth two shee beares out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them’, 2 Kings 2. 23, 24”

(Injurious dealing, punished with, number 4) “Destruction of the whole world, (which otherwise perhaps had not come before God, so soone as it did:) ‘The earth is filled with violence through them, and behold I will destroy them with the earth’, Gen: 6. 13.”

Bogan industriously turns a basic tenet of his faith inside-out. God is hate.

We can only imagine what Bogan’s clerical contemporaries might have said about the exercise. His tract found its way into the library of Baron Brooke, among the ‘Divinity English in Octavo’ (Catalogus librorum ex bibliotheca nobilis…). Perhaps people we simply less sensitive – what was in the Bible, after all, was in the Bible, and so beyond question. Maybe it was in fact regarded as a valuable guide: if you wanted to denounce some sin or other from your own pulpit, as must have happened in most parishes on most Sundays, here was a quick route to the relevant divine combination.

And, of course, the Bible is just rather good at these things, infinitely wise, pithy, apt. Just look at the texts cited in this last list of God’s punishments:

Company of any too much keeping it punished with hatred: ‘Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbours house lest he be weary of thee, and so hate thee’ Prov: 25. 17.

Gluttons punished by “Loathing of that which they loved. ‘The full soule loatheth the honey-comb’ Prov: 27. 7.”

The Idle, susceptible to “Continuall desiring, and not having their desire: which must needs be a great punishment, because it is a great vexation. ‘The soule of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing’, Prov. 13. 4.”

Lying, punished by “2 Discovery in a little time. ‘The Lip of truth shall be established for ever: but a lying tongue is but for a moment’, Prov. 12. 19.”

Smart, untethered, floating in cloud

That’s what we will increasingly become this year. It’s New Year’s Day today; and like every year, time to stick our necks out to make a few predictions on what will rule cyberspace and gadget shelves in the coming months. Here we go:

Internet of thingsPhones are smart, most things around us too will soon be. Televisions have made a beginning. There will be a better fusion of TV and internet, and it will get more popular. Next will be camera. You will be able to upload and share better quality photos. Soon Kwon, MD, LG India, says, “Home appliances like refrigerators are all set to become the next generation of smart devices by adopting new, interesting features like Calorie Counter and Smart Shopping.” Imagine getting an SMS while in office that your son has just taken the last egg from the fridge and you will need to replace the stock before you reach home. Another possibility: a box that reminds you to have the medicines on time.

Personal cloudMore people will have multiple devices that are interconnected, move to the cloud and use applications like Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive and Dropbox. Instead of copying files on portable devices like pen drive and passing on to another person, people would rather prefer to share files on cloud platforms. As Sunil Dutt, MD, RIM, says, “Spurt in smartphone adoption, increasing use of tablets and growing comfort levels with technologies such as cloud are making it easy for consumers to access data from anywhere at any time at seriously low costs.”

Mobile TVWatching TV channels on mobiles will gain huge traction. “Many people have moved away from ‘appointment viewing’, and are consuming content at their own time, convenience and on the device of their choice,” says Vishal Malhotra, business head, New Media, Zee Entertainment, which has the Ditto mobile TV app. Now, you don’t need to be at home to watch TV. G D Singh, director, Digivive, that brings out nexGTv app, says, “Mobile TV adoption is expected to grow with advent of 3G and 4G airwaves, better screen resolutions and affordable mobile phones.”

Design-driven devicesForm-factor will rule the roost. Multiple permutations and combinations of specs will tailor devices to user needs. Phablets (phone-tablet combo) and convertibles (tablet-laptop combo) will become more popular, blurring distinctions between devices. Harish Kohli, MD of Acer, feels, “Designers will be more in demand than engineers.” The USP will be the options for the consumer to use any device any time depending on need. Prices of convertibles are high as of now, but as they become popular, the increased volumes will drive the prices down.

A Leap aheadClick progressed to touch; and soon you wouldn’t have to do even that. Your laptop will understand your movements. A small device, called Leap, set to be released this year, will make a dramatic difference to hand-free motion control. Leap creates an 8 cubic ft area around a laptop. Inside that area users can interact with their PC with gestures. The ability to detect movements with an accuracy of a 100th of a millimeter, makes it the most powerful 3D motion-sensing device. "Moulding clay took 10 seconds in real life but 30 minutes with a computer. The mouse and keyboard were simply getting in the way. Since available technology couldn’t solve our problems, we created the Leap Motion controller," says the company website.

Edge of seat gamesThere is considerable speculation on how the gaming segment will pan out this year. Every big player is scheduled to come out with a new console, though there is no authentic official word on it. All the buzz is around Play Station 4 and the Xbox 720, that are due to come out this year, to replace the earlier ones that run on old platforms. Xbox 720 will have an eight-core CPU and support Blu-Ray, 1080p 3D and DVR functionality, says online journal IT Article. "Media critics believe Xbox 720 will be at least 6 times more powerful than the Xbox 360. This is one of the gaming consoles to watch out for in 2013," it says.

(A version of this appeared in The Times of India, Bangalore, today.)

Rapists have nothing to fear

What we are seeing in Delhi is much more than a protest against the brutal crime against a woman in a bus, and the inability of the government machinery to ensure citizens’ safety. It’s also an overwhelming outpouring of our frustration with the system. This unprecedented surge in emotion that took the agitators to the very heart of the power centre in Delhi, is also riding on the momentum set by the series of similar popular upheavals against systemic inadequacies.

The fact that people in such large numbers, especially young women, have been forced to take their protest to the hallowed precincts of our capital, like Raisina Hill and Rajpath, in an unprecedented manner, is a reaction to the rapidly plummeting standards in the state of the nation. It is also a reminder to the government that, inspite of all the talk of determination to set things right, nothing much has changed on the ground.

While dissecting the immediate provocation, let us also not lose sight of the depressing overall social milieu we are living in. Our state machinery is unimaginably weak. The lack of state authority virtually comes across as an encouragement for hooligans to indulge in the worst forms of violence with the full confidence that they can get away scot-free. The majority of law-abiding citizens are held to ransom by the small minority of people who seem to enjoy a carte blanche.

Pause and take a look at what is going on around us. Men have the full freedom to stand in public places, expose their private parts and relieve themselves. One, he has no shame. Two, he has no respect for the society he lives in. Three, he has no fear of the law. He knows very well that no one will come asking for a fine of not even Rs 10, forget being hauled to the police station and prosecuted.

My friend recently told me how he doesn’t feel safe to use his motorbike after 11 pm because he feels he might be mugged and in the process beaten up. There’s nothing to deter the miscreants and give us a sense of security.

A scooter mechanic in my neighbourhood has extended his garage on to the recently built, good, broad pavement; as a result, now pedestrians have to get off the footpath onto the busy road. The mechanic knows pretty well that no one will haul him up; and if at all anyone did, he is confident of circumventing the arm of law.

Our roads, and junctions in particular, present appalling scenes of insensitivity as drivers violate all decency and laws of the land.

Not just women, every sense of human values, and laws are raped.

Sad, our rich cultural and religious heritage is not good enough to infuse a sense of morals in some of us. At least they should have a fear of the law of the land. A weak government machinery has ensured that people needn’t be scared of the law either.

When we can’t fix little things going wrong in our society, I don’t know how we can fix complicated matters like cases of rape that often get entwined in legal and forensic issues. It’s a depressing scenario.

Hope we have reached the tipping point, at least now. Hope the girl’s trauma and suffering will pay off. Hope there will be not only some serious introspection but a series of inviolable steps put in place and activated so that we can all live our lives peacefully without being scared of miscreants, hooligans, thieves, rapists and murderers.

(Crossposted from Kaleidoscope)

Connecticut shooting: Need for introspection

Friday's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut, is the worst of such tragedies in recent times. Twenty little angels, aged 6 and 7, fell to a barrage of bullets. Six elders too died. What makes this horrendous and numbing is the way the violence was perpetrated.

A 20-year old man, Adam Lanza, kills his mother, Nancy, using her heavy firearms, then he proceeds with all those weapons in her car to the school where she teaches, breaks through the security, and opens fire all around on tiny tots. He is said to be an intelligent but introverted person. His mother is described by neighbours as a normal, quiet housewife.

With Adam and his mother dead, there is only his immediate relatives and friends, who can give some clues to what possibly must have led to this tragedy. Answers to whether the hard times in Lanza family had brought emotional trauma to the teenager, and why his single mom felt compelled to buy those heavy firearms, are only in the realms of conjecture.

As with any such tragedy, the one question being asked is could this have been prevented? Did Adam show any deviant behaviour? Did anyone notice him disturbed? Did anyone bother to provide him help? He is said to have been an introvert, who wouldn't reply to questions. Most people have said that he didn't behave extraordinarily different from how any normal teenager would.

Katherine Newman, who has researched and written a book, "Rampage: Social Roots of School Shootings" says that in most cases someone had noticed something wrong in the person who later turned out to be the shooter, but failed to inform people who could provide some help. The Connecticut case may or may not fall in this category.

The incident prompts us this question: If we ever suspect anything disturbing or potentially dangerous in anyone whom we know, should we intervene or just leave that person to his or her privacy? I can well imagine, if someone had even remotely suspected something wrong in Adam, he would have preferred to respect the Lanza family's privacy rather than raise questions about the young man's personality giving an impression of intruding into their personal matters. This is all the more likely given the western social custom of keeping a reasonable distance from each other to ensure personal space.

The Newton shooting is not an isolated one. Such incidents have happened elsewhere in the world, regardless of affluence or social mores. Only the scale or method have been different. Often such tragedies have belied the calm these societies have been known for. Antagonists, single or in a group, would have been under deep stress; and the violence was an outlet to prove a point or grab attention to issues which had hitherto gone unnoticed or unresolved.

There are people among us who are troubled. Hard feelings, caused mostly by insensitivity of others, often go unnoticed as everyone else is busy trying to outdo one another, in a ceaseless race to reach some goal which like a mirage is never achieved. These unattended, unhealed wounds fester over  a period of time and manifest in some form of violence, minor or major. How much ever we try, all problems aren't solved, all wounds aren't healed; but at least we shouldn't regret we never made an attempt to set things right.

(Crossposted from Kaleidoscope)

Simple tips to be trim and healthy

Obesity is a major problem. People put on weight for various reasons -- mostly due to two factors: one, excessive and irregular eating habits, mainly fatty food; and two, lack of exercises. There are also cases where neither of the two are responsible; it could be because of the peculiar body constitution, in which nothing much can easily be done.

Food gives us nutrition for the body to grow; and it gives us energy to work and play. But it can also wreak havoc, if you don't keep a watch on what you eat.

Food dipping in ghee, butter and oil are good for children. So too meat, even red meat, for those who don't mind eating them. Fatty food pack lot of energy in them, and they get expended while the children play and work. But that's not the case for grown-up people, especially those above 30 years of age. At that age, the body also loses its capacity to burn the fat.

As we grow older, there should be increasing regulation of the food that we eat. Avoid meat, especially red meat. Fish is good, but avoid the fried form. That should take care of most health issues. It's not easy as it sounds.We are talking of nearly monastic diet; food that has minimum content of fat, salt, sugar and oil.

If one tries this out, with some determination, the effect on health can easily and immediately be seen. What works best is not complete ban on these villainous food additives, but regulation. Avoid them most of the time, but indulge once in a while. It'sn't easy; but with some steely resolve it's possible.

To be healthy, there is no need to go to a gym and employ a physical trainer. Just make sure you do enough of physical activity - anything from getting up from chair and walking around, to climbing stairs, to washing clothes to mopping the floor, to going on a long walk. Additionally, do some 20 minutes of breathing and stretching exercises daily. Rather than vigorously exercising for long hours once in a while, it's better to exercise in short spells more frequently.

Here's an article from New Scientist that says in order to lose weight one mustn't skip food, but cut down on fat.

Tiger on the prowl in Wayanad shot dead

Quite shocking. Not just because an animal has been killed, but because we didn't have an alternative to keep it alive.

Over the past 17 days, a wild tiger had been straying into living areas of Wayanad and attacking and killing many domestic animals and pets. This caused considerable dismay among the people, who were  pressing the authorities to do something to rein in the wild animal. A couple of days back residents blocked the main road and said they would lift the blockade only if their safety was ensured.

Photo courtesy: Mathrubhumi

So, forest officials from Kerala and Karnataka were called. They apparently tried their best to trap the tiger. But it failed since it was constantly moving from place to place. Then a decision to taken to fire tranquilizers. A few were fired. But the tiger wasn't tamed, and, according to officials, it had turned its ire towards people. Sensing danger to human beings, the officials decided to shoot the tiger dead.

Wildlife activists have said they would approach the court against the unlawful killing.

The issue brings to fore our inability to tackle such crises in a more even-handed manner. Indeed, safety of human beings -- from other human beings and animals -- is of paramount concern. But, it is a  bit hard to believe that the tiger couldn't be tamed with tranquilizer shots. Probably the dosage wasn't properly estimated or the shots were not properly fired.

I doubt if even the villagers would have wanted the tiger killed. They only wanted protection for themselves and their domestic pets.

Probably, the forest officials had come under too much pressure to resolve the situation. But, it's sad that a better solution couldn't found in all those two weeks.