Welcome back to the end of the week podcast and we are going to talk about one of the major headlines in Global news this week, and we're not going to talk about inflation. I said to Pierce He raised the topic of inflation because we had US inflation earlier this week Big event for markets and I slapped him down. Well, but now now you've now you've mentioned it We're gonna talk about it And we're not I'm sure people follow our social fees know all about the fairly boring inflation reading we had out of the US So we're gonna skip over that we're gonna talk just about tick tock and Not because either peers or I are Content influences on tick tock far from it But we definitely want to talk about this because it's interesting from lots of different things. It's interesting from a Technology company perspective. It's interesting from potential M&A perspective From a national security perspective from politics politics as well So there's a lot of angles to this story that I think warrants a thorough discussion on it So the headline is that the house of representatives Passed a bill on Wednesday this week that would require the tick tock owner bite dance to sell the social media platform Or face a total ban in the United States. So what I wanted to discuss with you Pierce is Firstly, why they being banned? How might that ban work in practice? What would it mean for actual users of tick tock is? tick tock a national security risk and can tick tock do anything to stop this ban and Any signals here from Trump about what might come down the pipe Towards the end of the year. So yeah, yeah, why are they being banned? Well because the US house of representatives Believe that tick tock which is owned by bite dance, which is a Chinese tech giant They're worried really about two things about security of data Does the Chinese government use and spy on American citizens? By having access to bite dance Data that's number one and number two Does it have an outsized influence on shaping people's opinions in America? With obviously an election year now here Obviously that then that that fear, you know bubbles right up to the surface. So those are the kind of two main Sort of incentives here as to why the American politicians are starting to try and take some action And using that app to Influence people's decision-making Did you know the stat of what the average user daily active user time on tick tock is what do you reckon? Well, I do know this it's actually I've got the global average and I've got the US average Okay, that's interesting. Which one of you got global Yeah, I'm not sure actually see you take the lead on this. Okay, so the global So the amount of minutes spent by a user on average, but this is kind of crazy stat but entirely believable It's 95 minutes per day. I mean That's that's insane. And so what next question then so what's the average length of a clip? So 15 seconds 30 seconds. So to watch 95 minutes Wow, I don't know what I don't know what you I don't know if you use tick tock that much But I use it. I mean, I'm not not a 95 minute a day, man. I'm maybe a 95 minute a week, man And the stuff I watch it's much longer than 15 second It might be a few minutes some of the stuff I watch but but anyway 95 minutes right globally. What do you think the US? Average is I think it's going to be a lot higher You're incorrect you're wrong. I'm just gonna stop you there. Oh, right. Okay, it's actually luck Well, according to the stats that the FT of no actually was the economist pulled out this stat So I don't know what if this is right, but look they're a decent source in terms of their credibility So they're saying 56 minutes a day for Americans versus 95 as the global average Hmm, sorry surprised by that. Yeah, but there's a hundred, but I guess there's a hundred and seventy Million Americans, it's basically half of the American population And given I mean, I don't know what percentage of the population don't own a smartphone, but obviously the kids I mean, wow kids get phones Pretty early on these days, right? But I don't know what the proportion of the population is let's say under 10 years old They're they're they're obviously not having a phone. So it's those that have phones It's we know well over 50% of the population that have tick tock are a tick tock user That is and so I guess yeah, that I mean we could tackle that You know an outsized influence on shaping public opinion What I found hilarious, I mean such a I mean couldn't have backfired Anymore so the House of Representatives So maybe we should take a step back for a second for these for anything to be Voted as a new law in America. There's kind of three pillars to their system Okay, it's the it's the House of Representatives. It's the Senate and then it's the president right the White House and any bill Needs to be voted through by all three parties Okay, now we know for sure Biden is all over this. This is Biden's bill So you've got that you've got the White House in the bag. They will sign this off Okay, the Joe Biden will sign this off the House of Representatives so they Announced that they were going to vote on this bill on the 13th of March. Okay on the 6th of March and remember One of the things that the Americans worried about is tick tock influencing public opinion So what did tick tock do to try and stop this happening on the 6th of March? They sent a notification to their users Encouraging all of them to call their own members of Congress to try and convince them not to vote so and there were loads of Congressmen that were on the fence here not quite sure what to do and then they saw that They absolutely do have an influence. This is the evidence of tick tock influencing a vote and so that's why actually turned out to be a landslide Vote through I mean it got voted through 352 to 65 so this was a big bipartisan, you know almost fully backed bill in the House of Representatives and tick tock a massive own goal in their attempt to try and influence it and So just to be clear here, I mean one of the things that the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in the state said is that the goal is ending Chinese ownership Yeah, actually banning tick tock because I think the headlines are all like we're gonna just ban tick tock Yeah, well, there's two So I guess there's two Solutions if this so well hang on before we talk about that I Talked about the three pillars, right? So Biden's gonna sign it the House of Representatives They've already signed that off, but there's still that third hurdle to get over this now goes to the Senate And it hasn't been voted through there yet only if it gets voted through the Senate will this actually will this bill pass? There's then still a legal a potential legal Challenge that tick tock can present. Oh, you know around, you know freedom of speech and this kind of stuff but but will the Senate vote it through is really the next question and Here it I mean obviously you look at that House of Representatives result and you think well surely it's just gonna sail through but There's a certain guy who's who's trying to put a spanner in the works on that with his own influence Right. Well, exactly. So basically and this is absolute classic Trump so I'm talking about Trump here because I mean I don't know you got you got to go back, but It was Trump himself that Basically in back in 2020 for national security reasons was forcing bike dance to Divest tick tock and so therefore this is one of the options right tick tock the US part of the business Bike dance sell it to a US buyer. Okay, and Trump was forcing this in 2020. So Trump himself Was doing this now here. We are in 2024. What's Trump saying the exact opposite? Trump has now come out in opposition to this idea. Why? because he's self-obsessed He has Billionaire backers who are bike dance shareholders. So self-obsessed right basically you'll remember the January 2021 riots on Capitol Hill in Washington and obviously Trump Has been accused of inciting those riots. Okay, and in response to that he got the platform He got cancelled and meta Banned him from all of their platforms. Okay. Now who would benefit? from tick tock basically closing in America who who is Ticktocks biggest rival. Well, it's meta right and it through Instagram And so who would benefit if tick tock suddenly vanishes while meta and Instagram would be the beneficiary But here's Trump saying and he actually he said it who would bet Trump himself has said who would benefit the most It'd be meta And so I don't think this should happen. But basically Trump say forget about national security now He just wants revenge Secondly there's a guy called Jeff Yass He's the owner billionaire owner of an investment firm called Susquehanna And he's a big donor to Trump Susquehanna happens to be one of the biggest stakeholders in bike dance So of course who else would would would get damaged here as shareholders of bike dance. So Yeah, it seems like Donald Trump is playing his self-obsessed sort of game here and coming out in opposition Despite he was on exactly the opposite side of the argument four years ago So so that so the timing here seems particularly interesting because we have got you know The clock is ticking now down to the US election and these things like you said There can be legal challenges and so forth. They can get dragged out for a prolonged period. So yeah It will be interesting if I were if I was advisor to Trump What I'd be saying is right. We need to be having some backdoor meetings with Republican Representees in the Senate and saying to them right we are clearly going to win this election And I want you beside me when that time comes So you're going to do this which is you're you're not going to ban it. You're going to vote against it And he will have his way. So yeah, I don't know this seems when you explain it like that particularly with the backing Factor You know choice or no choice. I mean if he serves his own Personal agenda. He just wants power to be president Come what may everything else is in consequential. I think that could be said of most politicians Yeah, in in that way. So yeah, I just wonder whether that actually is the secret here That's going to mean that this actually doesn't manifest into what a lot of the headlines are suggesting Yeah, indeed But look, let's just say it does right. Yeah, let's just say Trump fails to influence this and actually the senate voted through and let's just say I mean, well, actually, let's just make another point here The timing as you say is key given the elections in november, but Biden's obviously wanting to get this done like Before the election. I think biden sees this as a real positive thing you know possibly in terms of his election race, but Even if that yeah, go on. I just gonna say you said positive Well, I wonder like so the demographic you said that okay, let's let's strip out the bottom end So anyone younger than 10 Any old school people who are not so sophisticated with their phone? So there's a large proportion of people who who are tiktok users using it for an hour. You said in the u.s if you ban it I wonder, you know, if you I wonder how much of a deciding factor that is if you're Impartial neither this way or that But you have a reason then to vote because you're like, I want to use tiktok not thinking about the bigger picture I wonder if that could just be a catalyst to tip the balance Yeah, indeed. So there's definitely a risk here for biden But anyway, it seems like he wants to ram this through asap But look then there could be a legal challenge and you know how long that could take So chances of this getting done before november. I don't know it's probably unlikely, but um You never know but look, let's just say let's just say it happens, right? Then bite dance have got Well, they've got two choices One they spin it off and sell it and then obviously that would be their preferred choice because the second choice Is well if they can't sell it then well They'll have to close it down, right now from a you know, well, how much is this worth to bite dance? Well, it's hard to get data on this to be honest, but bite dance We know that they as a whole business generated 110 billion of revenue in 2023. Okay Now it's believed that about four fifths of that Was domestic revenue in china. It's not just tiktok That they own they also own an app called doyen and then another one called taotiao, which is a news aggregator So they're obviously that they're a massive player in mainland china. So 110 billion 80% of that in china. So you got 20 left. So that's like 22 billion dollars, right off international revenue generated Now what proportion of that is in the us? I don't know But you know, it's it's it's gonna be I don't know. Let's just say I know The advertising revenue fits for tiktok us is 9 billion. I think I was going to say let's guess 10 billion. All right. So nine billions about About there. So it's a nine billion dollar company, but There's no point in them going well.  I mean india have already banned tiktok. This was actually back in 2020 this was that in response to Yeah, military skirmishes on the border with china And so one of the they're kind of one of the indian retaliations was to go look We're gonna ban tiktok here for national security reasons So it has happened already in india. Who's to say, you know, the uk europe who whatever right australia You know, who's to say that they're likely gonna follow, right? You would assume So I think for bite dance. I think this is more like well not spinning off the us part. It's really spinning off potentially you know x Mainland china part in a way So it gets really complicated here and that might complicate who the buyers might be But look, let's see Let's see who the buyers might be because you've obviously got the big tech giants, right? Because the point I guess is Let's just say it's 22 million revenue. All right outside mainland china. This is a big company We're not messing about here. Well, yeah, I read the figure that they were previously valued at around 300 billion Right, well bite dance the whole company or is that's that's the us tiktok Oh, so there's that I at the comment I had is the company I bite dance a previously valued the app That around 268 billion Okay, well, I think you can safely say we're talking north of 100 billion here valuation, let's just say roughly so who can afford that Not many right. I mean look the the biggest capital raise In history that that would like I'm pretty sure that would double The biggest deal like ever done. I think the sandia ramco deal What was that like 25 billion when they IPO'd I think and that was like one of the so anyway That immediately eliminates The vast majority. So you've got the big tech giants the problem there, of course alphabet and meta particularly We'll forget forget that because the antitrust regulators would block that because of the They already own a large portion of the advertising market, right? So They wouldn't allow alphabet or meta to come in and buy tiktok So then you've got the other big tech giants Who are potentials, but again, there's possible antitrust roadblocks so you've got amazon You've got Like apple and netflix and actually both those last two apple and netflix They were both sniffing around in 2020 on this deal when trump Said right less ban tiktok and forced them to divest it So both apple and netflix were interested and it would make sense like for apple You know, obviously we're concerned about iphone Sales growth. So this would be a very nice way for them to enter that, you know, social media Market that they've kind of missed out on netflix as well, you know Streaming subscriptions, you know, we're worried about growth on that. Um, so that makes sense Yeah, I guess one thing is is that In 2020 tiktok was like the emerging app Super like potential growing at an incredible pace And I think yeah, their revenues might have gone from I think us one to nine billion in the last four years yeah, but One of the things here would be a are you now going to pay too much because it's that much bigger and in b You're you're buying what appears to be a little bit like an app You know with with apps. I think you do always run the risk of with social media and You know the evolution the change that happens so quickly Yeah technology that you can fall in and out of favor Yeah, you know, it was only 12 months ago and we were kind of you know podcast title the deathbed of facebook and here we are You know, they are phoenix from the flames sort of scenario Yeah, um, and you know flipping this on its head a couple of stats here Because instagram overtook tiktok in new app downloads Last year and the percentages I think are quite Quite meaningful. So instagram's total number of app downloads grew 20 percent Last year. Yeah, whereas tiktok was up four percent So it's it has flipped quite a lot I think one of the major things that I've read about given that you know, my job is to do a lot of content Is this idea about Being able to have an achieve overnight viral success But how do you monetize that and you monetize it by converting your audience over to the more matured platform In terms of getting paid And then there's a couple of other things, you know, one thing that zuckerberg is great at obviously he's shown throughout his career Is basically pinching other people's ideas And the real Thing which they implemented Definitely has been a big game changer. Also instagram has benefited from bite dance. I don't know if you ever see on instagram You'll you'll see that they are there are tiktok watermarked videos that people share So again, this is all part of that transferring of user base from one platform to the other where actually It's almost again bite dance Almost shooting themselves in the foot allowing their content to just be used thinking that actually they're going to steal the user's back Yeah, it just hasn't happened. No, and it just hasn't happened So I just wonder then is you know, what is the appetite of big tech to even touch this thing Right. So you really make a very very good point, you know, you can list off all these big tech firms and yes, you could make a A business case as to why it might be a good Acquisition for an apple, let's say, but you're right if they wanted to buy them in 2020 Well, that'd have been a great Great time to buy them and they've obviously had explosive growth But here we are in 2024 It's a much mature asset and as you say the trends aren't good and in fact their user numbers declined So in quarter four of 2023 um They were down 12 million like and so when you start getting You know, you saw what happened to um the meta share price A couple of years back when they started to they almost looked like they'd reached peak usage And the user numbers started to decline and their share price got hammered So the current trends user trends for tick tock are not good And looks like meta has really Come back with their reels and stolen back the market There's another good point you made there, which is the demographic of the users So tick tock is incredibly narrow and concentrated on the younger end of the spectrum Whereas as we know Facebook kind of captures quite a multi-generational demographic because they have the facebook Platform, which is the old the old geezers like you and I and then you've got Um younger people who are still using instagram But one of the things here is because the two are so almost integrated that you get a blended usage case across People like you and I using insta as well as using facebook. Whereas would we use tick tock? I mean, I can say I never use it. I'm definitely I think I clock about one minute a month So I've got some interesting stats here on right Take the user Take the tick tock user base and what other apps do they use, right? So for example, the highest crossover is as you'd expect instagram So 80 percent of tick tock users also use instagram, right? next 78 percent of tick tock users use youtube Then it drops off quite sharp at 53 percent of tick tock users use x and this one really surprised me Only 35 percent of tick tock users use snapchat Apparently which like like what from what I see with my kids. They use tick tock and snapchat. That's it Forget about even instagram Um, so I was quite surprised that there wasn't much of a crossover with snapchat So what you're saying is there's not a lot of pickup then for these big tech firms. Well, yeah That's that appears to be the case so And I think the other are quite I haven't mentioned Microsoft yet But obviously as we've been talking about if you were an interested buyer in 2020 doesn't mean you're going to be an interested buyer in 2024 but microsoft were in 2020 they submitted a bid not just for the american Tick tock also the australian the canadian and the new zealand tick tock So they were trying to buy all of those but actually bite dance backed off the deal because might want to microsoft's One of the things with their bid is they wanted to take control of the apps data and the source code And bite ants were going whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, you're not having the source code That's sort of the kind of deal sort of I'm not sure if that would be too much of a deviation for microsoft's current strategy of I know there's ai integration into a lot of these platforms like tick tock and so on to optimize in certain ways But I think they're where that they're heading Is much more an enterprise scale. Yep And so I don't really see that strategically as a fit So there's one and I'm talking about microsoft by extension the the the x owner of Activision blizzard the founder a guy called bobby coty. Oh, yeah he apparently is trying Trying to convince sam altman to team up with him To try and raise some finance to uh to to to do this deal. Uh, so that's like an outlier So outside of the big tech you might not be interested anymore. Anyway, probably would get blocked by antitrust You know who's left with such a massive price tag And this is bite dance's issue. Um, and it might be that there aren't any buyers in which case well um Happy days for mark zuckerberg because do you want to know what happened in in india? So went pre tick tock being banned Insta so tick tock was the number one app download in india. Okay Instagram was only sixth on the list Of the most downloaded apps Then they banned it in 2020. Okay by 2021 instagram was number one Top downloaded app in the country. So it went from sixth to first As a direct result of tick tock getting removed from the equation. So There's a lot to gain here from yeah, so so how we're talking then is the likelihood of Um, the goal of ending chinese ownership and this us buyer coming in is pretty small So what about then let's say there is a ban What what does the ban look like? Well, it gets removed the app gets removed right from From app stores right so apple google yeah from google play and Just just gets removed. I mean, yeah, I mean like I mean, I don't know I mean this obviously has never happened right, but I don't know in terms of I assume due to apple have control over Can they just switch the app off? I mean you've obviously already got it downloaded on your own phone, right? Can they I guess I guess they can just switch it off on their end and it's not downloadable anymore Yeah, and I'm sure you can still use VPNs and so forth to bypass restrictions if you really wanted to access it And look, there are a lot of people like thinking about from the other side now There's a huge amount of americans who Who don't want to see this happen because they're very reliant on tick tock as a platform To reach their audience, right? So You know, there are people that would get You know, they'd be collateral damage here if they just suddenly pulled the plug overnight Yeah, I wonder then thinking as now an advisor to biden about this whole thing going back to the political angle Is the is one of the main Kind of Things that trump really leverages is china in previous election cycles So you kind of take that weapon away from him By you're the one who's being the aggressor saying, you know, we want to safeguard the american economy For the best interests of the u.s people And therefore we're being anti appearing to be anti china And then you kind of take that away and force trump to act on the other side So actually for biden, it's not really a case of this goes through this doesn't go through This is all just positioning For the election essentially Yeah, it's just yeah, I guess these candidates want to be They want to put themselves up as having opposing views and differences of opinion so that ultimately voters There's there's a different choice, right? And you and you I guess you pick aside um, so I guess trump now has to pivot from china to just Anti-wokeness and double down on that as a key issue and the di and all the rest of it will probably become more polarized Probably imagine. There are other things. I'm just looking here like bite dance. They have been trying to allay concerns you know around around the kind of The security risk so they've actually they've actually enlisted oracle, which is obviously a u.s company importantly um, so oracle they've got oracle into fence off and like ring fence data From american users so so they they they are trying to segregate the businesses but but ultimately I don't know if the lawmakers will ever be satisfied that that gets you know 100 bulletproof Done and and there'll always be that lingering risk I would suspect that no matter how much ring fencing might be going on There's always a there's always a hole in the fence somewhere When money's involved pierce there's always a hole to find But okay, so look you've heard pierce and I discussed this but we want your opinion On whether you think This will go through or not and tick so it will be banned in the states or not so On Spotify if you're listening i'm going to drop a poll It's going to be banned no ban Or if you listen to this and you've accessed it via linkedin or the other social feeds So drop us a comment and let us know what you think and if there's anything we missed and you want to add into the argument For or against then we'd love to hear But yeah, thanks pierce No worries. See you later


This lecture is titled Indian writing writers and narrators. It is the third part of module 2, which is exclusively devoted to Indian writing and contemporary Indian generative possibilities. In this lecture, we have focused our attention on narrators, so that we can give you a glimpse into plural oral traditions and their contemporary renderings. This will help us understand our own background and our own cultural context in a renewed fashion, because the kind of self-reflexivity that you saw in Atwood or Camus or in any of the other writers that we have mentioned so far. You would find that similar kind of self-reflexivity or also the concern about the form of narration, the kind of cultural space that it creates, this exists in great abundance in the oral tradition as well. So, it is really indeed quite exciting to be able to share this rich material with you. The outline of the lecture is provided for your clarity. The lecture is divided into three parts. In part 1, we will look at narratives and narrators from oral tradition. You remember, we had talked about oral traditions while talking about Atwood's elusiveness. She herself had singled out many examples from the western oral tradition and she had also pointed out how in the transition from the oral to the print culture, there are major changes that occur in the relationship of the narrator and the audience, the writer and the audience. So, here also what you would find is the focus on the orality of these folk tales and therefore, we have used the word narrators for those who narrate the tales because the narration imposes a very flexible relationship with the audience. So, therefore, the first part is titled narratives and narrators from oral tradition, folk tales and folk plays. In the second part, in terms of folk tales, we look at their types and examples and the formalist elements because after all, we are interested in the process of writing and certain unique ways of looking at the world that mythic and folk material evokes in us. In the folk plays, we will look at their relationship with the masses and we look at some examples and with the sense that they have also been evolving over a very long period of time. Part 3 is devoted to the folk material in contemporary context. We look at issues of translation which A.K. Ramanujan has highlighted while translating folk tales from India. We look at the creative imagination of writers like Rishiti, Mahasweta Devi and other performers and different kind of contemporary narrators like Tijan Bai in order to understand the prolific nature of this relationship. So, then let us first of all look at some of the critical positions that we had identified while looking at the writing processes. We had looked at the notion of the other with reference to what Saeed had to say about the othering process and the problems that are involved in the process of othering, looking at someone not like you or someone different. So, in that sense, one would like to point out that our reading of Indian material also requires the same level of alertness. We cannot assume that all our definitions, all our perceptions, all our influences are problem free. They may be very, very immediate, our sense of connection to many of the things that we are talking about, it may be immediate, but at the same time we would like critical acumen to play an important part in understanding these readings. So, that is why I have listed a few points here for your consideration that our reading of non-Indian writers was taken with critical awareness about the writer, the text and the context. A similar alertness is necessary for reading Indian writers, their texts and their context. Though, of course, an immediate sense of connection can be felt inwardly and therefore, it would have a very, very different relationship and we will show through examples how that also can be seen in terms of productive ways of developing your own writing work. Now, so far as our own scene is concerned, our own country is concerned, it is us, you know, it is fraught with issues that a billion plus people pose with their own sense of cultural nuances. No two people see the world in the same way and added to that are issues of diversity. So, on both these counts, I think one has to realize that there are, you know, weakened billion voices speaking at the same time. I think Rishithi captured that very well and you can read Rishithi to understand that sense. But certainly, the issue of multiple voices, the cultural nuances, the question of many languages and also the fact that we are conducting this discussion of diversity through English language. All of this puts pressure of an unprecedented kind. It also can be turned, it can also be turned into a creative process, but I think the difficulties should not be undermined so that you can examine it, this process critically. So, we will keep this richness and this diversity, this, you know, complexity in mind and then with all these ideas in our mind, we begin to look at the folk material. I have labeled this classification in terms of the term narrative tradition. What of course, I have implied here is the transition of material from orality to its narration, that is, its movement from orality to print culture because some of the material that we are looking at, it begins to make the stories, the ideas about the stories available in print culture. So, therefore, I have used the word narrative tradition which is a larger term, not necessarily applicable to the oral tradition, but please keep that in mind in terms of how I have contextualized the discussion. So, within this, there are three classifications that scholars in the field make. The classifications are described as the classical, the folk and the modern. So, despite cultural diversity that we talked about, the ancient myths and epics, they resonate in the Indian imagination and also contemporary thought processes in an absolutely unprecedented manner. So, our focus on folk enables understanding of loosely structured narrative come performative aesthetic forms. In other words, what I am trying to suggest is the fact that the folk forms are not really an exclusive terrain which has no connection to either the classical and now the modern. The folk forms have very deep ties with the mythic and with all the epics that we know very deeply and you know, they are sort of part of our cultural environment, but definitely what the folk stands for is its quality of retaining a very loosely defined narrative structure. It is not bound by rules, regulations, prescriptions and regimentation. So, it is this element of freedom and flexibility that I think speaks to a lot of us in different ways as it did to the audience for which the stories were, you know, narrated. Folk tales are in that sense ancient stories which as I said, they continue to circulate and are told and retold their meanings anchored in the different contexts of telling. They have deep roots in oral tradition and folklore and they are steeped in the life of a community and often they are performed in front of or presented to an audience and of course, their revival in print culture is another phenomenon, it gives it a different kind of flavor. So now, when we begin to look at more features of this form, what is visible is the ability of the oral tales to be narrated and performed in wide variety of innovative forms. So, not only does the text change even the manner of telling changes, the aesthetic form within which they are performed that also changes. So, there are lots of innovations there and the teller of the tale though is not described as a writer. Although there are professional narrators, tellers and performers and often you would hear of certain such narrator who is better than anybody else, but they never get the status of a writer with all the modern associations that we have with the writer as a person who stands out in the social framework with his or her unique presence and voice. So, there is a great degree of anonymity that is associated with these narrations. One can also say that there is also a great degree of democratic you know element involved in sharing these stories. There is as if they belong to everybody and in that sense even if we know about a great narrator or teller or performer, we always think of that person with reference to a specific form, a specific way of doing things and the person is not given that much of individualized attention. The element of writing and copyright all these are also modern issues. So, the other context of narration of course, they are not only in public spaces, these are also narrated within the domestic framework and they have their own tradition. There are male centered tales and there are women centered tales especially within the domestic framework. These two kinds of forms have proliferated and there are also ritual tales which of course I think is an absolutely amazing phenomenon and so the vratakathas are also something that one can look at. So, we have all these folk tales that are part of our cultural environment and then we can also look at another kind of folk phenomenon where the element of performance is more dominant. In the stories the element of narration is important and these are narrated and therefore performed, but in folk plays the focus is on performance and again within this there are the categories of classical folk modern that we found in the narrative framework also. So, in terms of classical you have Sanskrit theater and drama, ritual and devotional traditions. In terms of the folk popular traditions there are also forms that have evolved and during the process of decolonization they became highly politicized and in that sense they are also described as intermediary forms. So, they have features of the classical they also have features of the modern and the modern is in terms of the political engagement with the contemporary issue. So, we will look at the examples briefly so that you can also expose yourself to more possibilities in terms of the riches that you already have. The third category is that of modern theater which is placed around 1800 in terms of the influence of the western forms of prose plays. So, now the folk plays therefore are placed within this trajectory they are intermediary form with some features of the classical and some features of the modern. The other aspect of the folk forms is related to these ideas that Farley Richmond and others they pointed out in a book devoted to Indian theater traditions of performance that this is what they have to say. The focus on folk forms according to Richmond and others whatever their origins they depend on patronage on the masses and that is a very very important feature. Patronage comes from people masses not the very powerful who also sometimes mould the content. So, this is really a people's form they are given more to entertainment and profane rather than sacred purposes that is in instead of trying to reinforce the worldview of a power group or an existing powerful hegemonic situation what they do is to tweak it a little bit. So, the third attribute that Farley Richmond and others have pointed out is related to folk popular forms and their concern regarding the mundane life of human beings rather than gods and this is rather interesting because what it does therefore is to give a sense of intimacy to the form while you read it there is a kind of sense of intimacy with the content because it is really about the audience or it is about this framework where we lead in which we lead our lives the domestic framework the intimate framework of day-to-day existence. So, this is where they are located. So, these are very interesting aspects that you can reflect on as you look at the examples. The other observation that we wish to place before you that Richmond and others have made is related to the fact that in these folk plays what they do is to the performers integrate in varying proportions vocal and instrumental music dance and mimatic action and although the forms may vary in their position in the sacred profane continuum all are set within the sacred context as indicated by some form of religious preliminary. That is why I pointed out to you earlier that they are sort of intermediary forms because they have some features of the classical and at the same time they go into another kind of territory of certain amount of tweaking of these traditions. What perhaps will be useful for us is to look at some of the folk tales in terms of types and examples specially tales that show their concern with formalist elements. How are these tales constructed? What are the spaces that they create this it would be useful to have a look at those and we will also look at some examples of folk plays and their links with the masses and also the fact that within each one of those examples there has been tremendous amount of evolution within each form. We have selected A. K. Ramanujan's selection of folk tales and he himself actually examined 22 Indian languages which cover most of the country's regions and he went on to comment on the diversity of the folk tales and their overlap. So, this resource we have placed before you in order to strengthen our understanding of folk forms and their flexibility and the aesthetic lessons one can learn from them. According to Ramanujan there is an interacting continuum of the classical, the folk and the popular. All of his work is based on intensive research and therefore the illustrative folk tales actually do give us the multiplicity of our cultural background and at the same time there are certain types that are repeated across the various regions of the country. As he himself put it what it has shown to him is not only the multiplicity of languages and dialects, but also the incredibly complex braiding of traditions and counter traditions. Now of course the version that we will place before you will be the version that has been worked out in the print media which makes it a very different cultural artifact. What Ramanujan has said in the preface to his folk tales from India is related to the fact that other resources such as the Sanskrit, the Kathasarit, Sagar, Panchatantra, the Pali, Jatak tales and Hindu or Jain Paranas can also be explored by you independently. These are great resources, but he has been trying to concentrate on forms that are not easily accessible to people and therefore the translations work around the more of the domestic framework or the intimate framework within which many of the folk tales work out. The canonized epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana often are sources for some of the tales, but these you are already familiar with in there many versions, translations and media. So, you know you will be able to immediately connect to the tales. According to Ramanujan although his is the print version, but he still thinks that there is a quality of improvisation that one can cherish and enjoy as he puts it. Every tale here is only one telling held down in writing for the nonce till you or someone else reads it, brings it to life and changes it by retelling it. So, consider me the latest teller and yourself the latest listener who in turn will retell the tale, but of course, so far as I am concerned I do have to think about the copyright and in that sense his tale becomes a fixed entity, but still the spirit is very very close to the spirit of folk tales. Ramanujan goes on to say that a folk tale is a poetic text that carries some of the cultural context within it. It is also a travelling metaphor that finds a new meaning with each telling. Based on Ramanujan's notes with reference to international indexes of folk tales, we have selected three or four types to place them before you. The first one is a story in search of an audience which according to his notes is a motif which has a number is called prophecy, the future greatness of unborn child and this particular form is available in Gandhi, Hindi, Kannada, Punjabi. Vratakathas like these are yet to be classified and indexed. The example that we have in mind which you know again out of many examples that he has provided we have chosen this is related to the you know vrata in which the person in this case a woman has to narrate a story to someone and only then she can break that vrat. I would not go into all the details of this story right now but certainly you can read the vratakatha that is included here where this woman she goes around looking for an audience and she is not able to really convince anyone to listen to her and therefore then finally in great despair she sort of a chances on a pregnant woman who is poor and very hungry. So, this pregnant woman agrees to listen to the tale provided the narrator would provide her with food so that she can sort of satiate her hunger which is actually doubled because she is carrying the baby within her. So, the woman the woman who has to break her fast she goes back and gets her something to eat the woman eats and goes off to sleep she has been so tired and now again the old woman is in a fix till she hears a voice from the womb saying tell me the story and so she narrates the story of the sun god and you know thereby after that she breaks the fast and blesses the unborn child who later on finds this boon to be a boon that transforms her life. So, this is the kind of a tale here where again as I said you know that sense of the urgency of a story that is captured through this ritual now it can speak to us in many many different ways we not part of the culture where we are necessarily going to fast and narrate a story, but it really speaks very eloquently of certain you know cultural habits and thoughts and also this preoccupation with generation. The other form that we thought of placing before you is a very interesting form of which is typified by this label that Ramanujan has given it the literal fool and these are Tenali Ram stories specially the stories surrounding Ramayana. These pranks our stories according to Ramanujan they tend to literalize the fiction or the metaphor to show what happens when you break the barrier between imagined fiction and lived reality. So, again it sort of deals with the kind of transformation that occurs when you tell a tale one of these I have placed before you where you know once a courtesan invited Tenali Ram to recite the story of the Ramayana and he began the story by saying Ram and Sita went to the forest and stopped there he said nothing more the courtesan waited and waited and finally asked then what happened don't be impatient said Tenali Ram they are still walking in the forest. Another story in this sort of framework is the story that I would just briefly paraphrase. So, therefore the other story is related to this gentleman who is very crude and not given to finer thought processes and his wife agonizes a lot about this absence of you know involvement with cultural phenomenon and conversations with him. So, she sort of forces him to go and listen to Ramayana tales being you know narrated in her neighborhood and he sort of finally you know agrees to keep awake he used to go and fall asleep. So, on the fourth day however his wife she went with him and she was able to keep him awake he got very absorbed in that narration because he suddenly found that the narration was truly enchanting and gripping and as she began to enjoy that narration came the part of Hanuman who actually you know Sita Sita's ring is dropped by him by mistake in the ocean and then Hanuman agonizes about this mishap and he gets so absorbed in this narration that he gets up and says wait Hanuman I will go retrieve the ring and he jumps into the ocean he retrieves the ring and brings it back to Hanuman. The audience is enchanted also by this other event that has surfaced and from that day onwards this particular gentleman you know gains new kind of respect in the community and he becomes a very transformed person and the story ends with this pronouncement that this is what happens when you hear Ramayana being you know. So, these are sort of tales which are slightly within the sacred and at the same time they also deal with this imaginary space the space of vivid imagination that you engage with when you listen to the stories or when you narrate these stories also. The other kind of story that we found fascinating was stories about stories you know there is this sense in the collection of Ramanujans that tales have to be told there is that sense of urgency he has captured through multiple examples. These stories and narrations they also take you to another level of your existence they have the power to break the barrier between reality and fiction resulting in deepening of experience. There are also stories that show that stories should not be repressed or stories like truth cannot be repressed. So, there are stories like the Baba's secret where the Baba you know while he attends to the king he suddenly discovers that the king has the ears of a donkey and at the same time he is not able to reveal this truth because the king forbids him from revealing the secret to anybody else for obvious reasons because people would then lose all their respect for his power and position and therefore now this whole story is about what happens to the barber and how he tries to sort of deal with this situation till he literally falls ill and finally he is not able to contain himself and speaks the secret to the tree hoping that at least the tree would not reveal the secret but even that did not happen and when a drum is made out of this tree and the drum is played in the king's court the secret comes out loud and clear. So, there is again that sense of urgency that sense of intimacy in these stories the sense of certain amount of subversive quality also that you begin to notice and again there are lots and lots of stories that Ramanujan has collected in order to show this desire to tell the story as if you know if the stories are not told then some they would be lost to the community. So, the notion of the story has a very interesting standing within the folk imagination. There are two or three things that Ramanujan has pointed out he says that in the untold stories where the secrets are revealed finally like the barber's tail and many other stories there is a cathartic function that they play. So, let me read out what he has to say stories cry out to be told passed on and so kept alive if they are not told they take other forms and exact revenge on the one who holds them and suffocates them. So, for example, the other story which we have not shared with you tell it to the walls or the barber's secret and therefore, again as I said this is you know there are lots of interesting formalist elements in these tales that you know really you immediately evoke an interesting connection to content form and the context also. There are other elements in terms of the starting point of the story where the starting point usually you know goes like this once upon a time in a certain town and these kinds of starting points these are keys for our entry into a tale world and a tale time and they let us cross a threshold into another kind of space. There are also characteristic endings that I am sure you will be able to also pull out of your own context too or your own experience of these narrative traditions, but he has pointed out these interesting endings like when the tale ends the narrator says we had to send our clothes to the washerman so we had to come home. So, end of story there the story went to Kanchi and we came home end of story again they are there we are here that is the third type. So, what they do you know these starting points or that those end points and also the transformation that occur in the middle there are these elements of identification and disidentification of the listeners with their characters and these have triggers in the tales and they happen at different stages of a tale or a performance. So, you become the other and then you come back to yourself those are the kinds of trajectories that are being referred to here. For example, Ramanujan says at the end of a romantic King and Queen story the oria teller says I saw the prince other day in the market, but he would not talk to me. So, you come back to earth again folk plays are very different though from these narrations which are intimate and here in the folk plays there is an element of self conscious performativity. There are lots and varieties within these, but let me just quickly point out some of the examples of folk forms that really you may be familiar with already Jatra of Bengal is extremely well known. There is Bhavai of Gujarat, Nautanki of North India, Tamasha of Maharashtra, Burakatha of Anta Pradesh, Pandavani specially Tijanbhai's rendering which we will show you towards the end of this lecture. So, these forms we have described as narratives you know from narratives they have gone to performance in theatre spaces. So, they have more of a public presence and therefore, the nature of these folk forms although it is still very flexible, very fluid, but at the same time I think we need to look at some of the features quickly. So, folk forms they have had a kind of political role in the decolonization process and one of the examples that highlights those traditions is related to Mahasweta Devi's own political theatre for the oppressed in which she has used folk imagination, folk tales and also the close bond between people and these tales because those tales almost define certain communities. The concluding Tijanbhai clip we definitely want to draw your attention to that even within the form you know even if let us say it is very community oriented form and even within those community oriented forms within a strong tradition the changes that have occurred in contemporary period are really worth looking at. For example, Tijanbhai is the first woman to really perform the Pandavani form and play a whole lot of roles herself. Similarly, when we talk about Mahasweta Devi we are really actually not talking about the sense of community in the way let us say Tijanbhai feels that sense of community because she belongs to the folk tradition from within. Whereas, modernist interpretation of folk forms is a slightly different realm although we are equally interested in both, but the second one I think has greater impact on our imagination. But let me just quickly also point out that the issues of translation they loom large in our connection to whatever is available to us in terms of print culture, but perhaps less of that is a problem when we look at it as a performative form. While we talk about translation Ijaz Ahmed had already talked about it in theory classes nations and literatures where he had pointed out that English translations create a very, very big problem because they are so different from our cultural context, but at the same time the largest archives of translations in India are available in English. Pramanujan also was sharply aware of this problem although he himself is a bilingual poet he did not take the translation process very lightly. He pointed out that nothing can reproduce the original telling of a tale these were all translated the tales that he translated these were all translated by different hands at different times and places and I have retold them making slight changes in some and more than slight in others where the language was full some cumbersome or simply outdated. So, it becomes a different version from the original, but there is nothing like a fixed original because the stories are constantly circulating and they are being improvised they are being recreated and as I said they become a part of the collective you know resource of a community. In terms of translations and transcreations I therefore now want to draw your retention to contemporary writers who have also been greatly influenced by the you know the kind of freedom the kind of celebration that the folk forms really allow us they have exposed us to those possibilities. In Salman Rishhti too you would find an internalization of the oral narrative tradition then there is this exuberant blend of the interacting continuum of the classical the folk and the popular in the mix of fantasy and reality in Midnai's children he has the he has used the form of tales within tales like the Kathasaritsagar including Salim Senai's life story which is recounted orally to Padma and I like to read what he says about Padma in the chapter called my tenth birthday because that immediately gives you some sense of what I am referring to that is this sense of our cultural context its surfaces quite surprisingly and quite suddenly in many unexpected ways and this is what that write up or that part of the novel captures where already Salim and Shiva there they have this intermixed identity the children have been exchanged at birth and now of course Salim Senai he talks about Padma to whom he is narrating his tale I find myself overwhelmed all of a sudden by an older learning while here beside me is my Padma whose return I had so earnestly desired my Padma the lotus goddess the one who possesses dung whose honey like and made of gold whose sons are moisture and mud and he cannot really stop once he starts on this trail he just cannot stop and as he says that suddenly he is overwhelmed by this older learning and this is what I was trying to suggest is so unexpectedly overwhelmed by many of these stories the symbols the travelling metaphors that we really sometimes begin to speak in a way that we didn't anticipate there is this very famous story of Girish Karnad who wanted to write in in English actually when he started off his career as a writer but Kannada his mother tongue that surfaced in his consciousness he didn't quite expect that not only that the Yajati myth surfaced as a sort of unifying element of his consciousness but to come back to Rishni he says again within that same segment Padma who along with the Yaksha Jini who represent the sacred treasure of the earth and the sacred rivers Ganga Yamuna Saraswati and the tree goddesses is one of the guardians of life beguiling and comforting mortal men while they pass through the dream web of Maya Padma the lotus scallops etc etc it goes on and you can read the book yourself in order to enjoy the sudden surfacing of Salim's you know connection to these ancient narrations metaphors etc what they seem to do is to just in some ways dazzle us with their possibilities I think of Ashish Mahal as a sort of metaphor that comes to my mind where suddenly the same person you begin to see in ten different ways or hundred different ways now moving from Salim Senai to Mahasweta Devi in Mahasweta Devi's world view where the issue of the oppressor the marginalized is an extremely important issue she in water has Magai dome the protagonist and not only just the protagonist but the dome community which is completely defined by their belief in certain tales and they narrate these tales about their origin and about their you know community all the time now during the play at one point there is a strong struggle between Gura the son of Magai dome who feels that his father who is a water diviner he divides water but at the same time that water is denied to him because of the caste system but Magai is passionately devoted to this idea of divining water which has been actually given as a blessing to the dome community and this is what he has to say and this is again I am reading this in order to show how intensely these stories define many communities that the folk tales are not only tales for entertainment but these are also tales that seem to also define the identity of certain groups so Magai dome here he says to his son Ganga told Basumati hold the nether Ganga in your bowels and his son Dura says then and he says rising to his feet to enact the drama of how it all happened so the nether Ganga flowed into the secret depths of the mother earth my earliest ancestor had come all prepared to offer puja to the holy river at her advent but by the time he arrived Bhagirath had already left with Ganga so he stuffed himself up with booze gathered all that he had brought with him to offer to the holy river and offered puja to the nether Ganga once he closed his eyes to do a bisance the drunken stupor took over and he fell asleep when he opened his eyes there was no sign any longer of Ganga it was emptiness all around he was just a dome after all and naive and so easily fooled so he thought I must have dreamt it all then from the bowels of the earth the nether Ganga herself and then he raises his folded palms to his head and Magai goes on to say the mother deity of all the hidden waters spoke you are my chosen priest I am the goddess the nether Ganga whenever men dig for a well or a pond you will gather the offerings pray for water and go around looking for where the water lies hidden till I tell you where to dig so such intimate contacts and relationships and also talents are defined in this way because I am sure Magai dome had some scientific basis for his ability to find where the water exists water bodies are but at the same time it is this myth come folk tale that almost defines his sensibility and that of his community the concluding clip that we would like to place before you in order to help you think about the many formalist elements of folk forms and what they can do to your own imagination and also how you can allow many of these tales to surface in your consciousness because I am sure you may have your own eclectic blend of stories the clip pertains to Tijan Bai and I have titled it transcreations being and multiplicities and the reason I have called it being and multiplicities is related to the fact that Tijan Bai plays the part of many many characters in her narrative and she has a musical instrument in her hand and you will be able to see directly how through this form she is able to transform herself constantly and become many others and at the same time come back to herself as Tijan Bai the very bold and innovative performer in a sense then that offers other kinds of lessons about otherness which we also perhaps can leave to your own imagination you can see what you can do about it this is of course a performative form but what happens if we bring it to the discussion of writing and writing with a sense of multiplicities we will see what we can do with that our reading list of course is provided here some of which we have shared earlier in another context but Ramanujan's folk tales I hope you will read and enjoy them similarly Salman Rishdi's book we had referred to earlier and I think his introduction where he talks about India being a horn of plenty I think that something that again evokes our own sense of how despite the English translations and despite our own relationship to English as a language of thought and creation one can see that we still remain very very Indian and with that I would conclude this session and you know plays Tijan Bai's performative piece before you thank you


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What's up guys evil deer here and today I'm going to a startup meetup the name of the meetup and also the organization That runs it is called fish burners.  Maybe it's like related to some type of slang word I don't know honestly. I don't know maybe the guy who just created it's like I want a really random name That's a random name. Good work random guy So I'm pretty sure the Organizations down that way on that street normally I'd walk along there But today I just kind of kept walking and yeah, I got lost but yeah I'm pretty sure I'm on the right path if you haven't noticed This is like my third time ever being here and every single time I've kind of come from different directions because I'm like Oh, there's an event. Oh, okay. Well, I'm gonna go there by the way pro tip If you're ever homeless and you're starving for food Just go to meetup.com because of course you've got internet You know internet's more important than food but go to meetup.com look for business meetups that day go there There's always like so much food. They just prove they give out so much food There's like little mini buffets. I've literally not had dinner for a week sometimes because I just keep going from meetup to meetup to meetup I'm just getting free food. I don't know what you can do about like accommodation Maybe you can like find a corner and just sleep and people won't notice Actually that might work. There's usually like a lot of little rooms. You could probably find spot.  Okay, let's see how far off I am come on come on come on Yeah, yeah, that's the one I want to go to directions, baby. Give me some directions. Hey What? No No, I swear to God it was on this street.  I swear it was here. I remember going down those freaking stairs. They've moved location on me I've been walking for about 10 minutes now.


All right, welcome everyone to the sugar seminar. So today we're happy to have Eli Kasby from Northeastern telling us about the representations of a fine quantum groups and the Kevarian homology of a fine grass man. Please take it away, Eli. Thank you. Thank you so much. So I would like to thank the organizers for this very, very kind of opportunity to present my work at the seminar. I'm very pleased. So yeah, as it has been said, we'll talk about representations of a fine quantum groups and equilibrium homology of a fine grass manians. So it's a joint work with Chien-Rong Lee at the University of Vienna. So part of it will be results that have already been published like one year ago. And parts of it will be ongoing joint work which is like in the sequel of this. So the plan is as follows. I will start with a very gentle, very gentle reminders on the algebraic, so some motivation and some algebraic setting. So basically algebraic structure of coordinate rings, their basis, and yeah. Then we'll move into more geometry representation theory. So I will explain how we can construct a basis of coordinate rings called Merkowicz-Wieland basis using the Geometrics Attache Correspondence. And then we'll see how we can have a different approach, more categorical approach. This is where quantum affine algebras or affine quantum groups will be involved. And then I will present results and perspectives. So yeah, so for this talk, I will have Lie Algebra G which is going to be finite dimensional simple. And in fact, it will always be ADEK, so always a simply laced Lie Algebra G. And so the so-called coordinate ring is the ring of regular function on the Lie group of nil-potent sub-algebra of G, maximum nil-potent sub-algebra of G. So C of n where n is, so it's really like an affine space. So it's a nice polynomial ring. But somehow there is much more to say about this algebra than just that it's a polynomial algebra. So I will not mention it too much here, but this algebra admits interesting quantizations. So this is related to the theory of quantum groups. And the study of these quantizations led many people beginning with Luxtic and Kashiwara to study nice bases of, so bases as vector space of this ring. So there is, so this began in the 90s. So there was Luxtic dual canonical bases and Kashiwara upper global bases, which were proved to be the same. And then there is also Luxtic dual semi canonical bases. And then a bit later, the Mirkovic-Villain bases that I will, yeah, I will say, we will study it in a bit more detail in a few minutes. And there are many others like theta bases and coming from theory of Gloucester algebras, et cetera. So then it's kind of a, there are many questions like, are these bases the same or not the same? So usually they're known to be not the same. So my running example will be Fr3, so type A2. So then my lead group is the group of upper unitriangular matrices with complex coefficients. So my algebra C of n is really regular functions on this affine space. So we can consider, so these are four nice examples of, yeah, four examples of very nice regular functions on this lead group. So we can take, so delta subset i subset j means you take the minor of, yeah, this is the set of row. This is the set of columns and you take the minor. So these are, so of course there can be much more complicated functions, but these are four very nice examples of regular functions on this affine space. And yeah, so on this example, of course it's a complete triviality that you can check that if you compute the function xx prime, you get the same as if you do y plus z because of this. So we have this nice identity in C bracket. And so in this very gentle example, it turned, so in this very, but it is some kind of accident, right? But in this case, all of these interesting bases that I mentioned are the same. And they split into two family of monomials. So you have the monomials in x, y, z on the one hand and the monomials on x prime, y, z on the other hand. And these two packs of monomials form a basis as a vector space of C bracket. Yeah, so now I will talk a little bit about class algebra, but really not too much, just strictly what I need for just motivations, but it will not be very crucial for the talk. So if you're not, if you don't want to bother too much, that's perfectly fine. But yeah, so this C of n, this coordinate ring has nice structure called cluster structure. So basically what does that mean? That means you're starting with n the nice regular functions x1 to xn. And starting with these, so for us n will be the number of positive roots of g, typically, but it's of course more general. So, and starting from this initial, from these n well chosen functions, you will cook up many, many more regular functions in an inductive one. So for this, we need a quiver with n vertices without two and two cycles. So the data of these variables and the quiver is called the seed. So for example, I'm gonna have my x, my y, and my z. So in SL3, there are three positive roots. So I have three functions x, y, z with this quiver. And this quiver tells me how I should produce new functions. So how does that work? So for each k in one blah, blah, blah n, you have this procedure called mutation in the direction k where you leave all the variables xi and change except the kth variable xk that you replace with this new function, this new, yeah, new element. So this is where the quiver q is involved. So q tells you how you're supposed to cook up these monomials. And you replace q by a new quiver q prime.  And then you can carry on this way. So for example, if I apply this procedure here, then y and z are unchanged, then I mutate here. So then I get x prime, which is gonna be, this is gonna be y because there is only one incoming arrow, sorry, z, one incoming arrow, one outgoing arrow. So this is why I get y plus z and I divide by x. So one over x times y plus z, so this is my x prime. Okay, so it's consistent with what we saw here with this identity here. So basically this identity is the baby example of a cluster mutation in this ring. So yeah, the general definition of this cluster algebra is that it's the algebra generated by cluster variables, cluster variables being all the possible new variables that you can produce using this procedure. So you start with your initial data. For each k in one n, you can mutate in the direction k. And for each of these n and new seeds, you can again mutate in all possible directions. So of course you can get infinitely many variables, not all the time, sometimes you get finitely many. But yeah. So it's theorem due to Bernstein-Familien-Zelevinsky and Geisler-Klashchera. So the coordinate ring, c of n, has a structure of cluster algebra. So the rank of this cluster algebra, meaning the capital N, the number of variables in each seed is the number of positive roots of g. And usually this algebra has infinitely many cluster variables, infinitely many seeds. However, there are still a certain finite collection of them that is well understood called standard seeds and which are indexed, sorry, by the reduced expressions of w zero. And the cluster variables of these standard seeds are called flag miners. So typically this procedure will produce all these so-called flag miners like typically in type A, they will correspond to regular functions on the form of my first line, so of this form. So then if you keep going and going and going on this mutation procedure, you can get uglier functions. But the point is at first, the first functions you will find applying this mutation procedure will be functions of this form.  So these are, yeah, so that's why they're called flag miners because in types other than A, they can be constructed in some kind of similar way. Yeah, so yeah, for my running example, in type A two, there are two reduced expression of w zero as one is two as one as two. Each of these reduced expression gives you one standard seed. So this reduced expression tells you that the quiver should be this and the variable should be those same for here. And the mutation is the one that I already depicted. So this is x, this is z, this is y, this is x prime. And if you, so if you multiply the blue guys, you get the sum of the red guys. And the mutation between these two seeds correspond to a braid move on this reduced expression. Yeah, this is just a comment. So is the reason you have a closed loop on the right and you don't have a closed loop on the left? Yeah, that's a good point. So honestly, on this example, these variables are called frozen. So it doesn't really matter if you drop this arrow. But if you look at more general examples somehow, like the general procedure of mutation, then it's very important that that's, it's part of the algorithm to go from, so the algorithm that tells you how to cook up q prime from q absolutely requires that you close the loop here. If you start from this guy, you should really get this guy. So on this specific example, it's not going to matter really. But yeah, the more general procedure, you really have to take it into account. Other questions or should I move to equivalent homology of affine rest minus? Okay, so yeah. So I'm going to talk about the geometric strategy correspondence, which allows us to construct one of these beautiful, important bases of C bracket N. And we'll do some equivalent homology, which allow us to have some nice invariance. Yeah, to record the geometric data into some nice invariance. Okay, so brief recollection on geometric strategy. So it's kind of vast topic. And I'm far from being an expert on this, but yeah, so I put only the strictly necessary material here, which is already a lot. So we still have our little algebra gene, which, so yeah, so for me, it's going to be simply laced. So if you don't need really to bother with the Langlans dual here, I just put them for, yeah, you can just forget them. So we have a borrel inside G and a maximal torus inside the borrel. And so we look at the affine rest minus of G, which is the K-points module, the O points, where O is this formal series ring and K the tracking field of O. So this is affine rest minus of G and there is a natural torus action on, so T acts on G. So there are infinitely many fixed points. So the fixed points are indexed by the weight lattice of G. Okay. So this is a very complicated, it's a so-called in-scheme. So it's a complicated scheme and there are infinitely many fixed points, but we are going to focus on certain nice finite dimensional variates called MV cycles. So... Do you take the simply connected version of the group G or it doesn't matter? I think in my situation, it's not going to matter, but in general, I pretty much think you should take the simply connected version, yeah. Okay. Yeah, mm-hmm, yeah. So it's kind of, yeah, so we have some kind of, so very, very roughly speaking, MV cycles are going to be some kinds of rich arson variates. So I don't want to make it too precise as a statement, but very waving hands, it's like some kinds of rich arson variates. So how does it work? Well, this GURG has two different stratifications. So one stratification indexed by dominant weights and another stratification indexed by our weights. So yeah, whatever they are. And so what you do is you intersect one stratum and one opposite stratum. And so you can consider as this variety. So girl lambda bar intersection girl mu. So girl upper lambda intersection girl lower mu. So this is going to be a nice variety. And you look at, and so the geometric sataki correspondence tells that in its weak version, in its weaker form, tell us that the homology space of this variety is isomorphic to a vector space, to as a vector space to the, to weight spaces of highest weight irreducible finite dimensional representations of G. So for iso lambda is a dominant weight. So for each lambda, we have a L of lambda, a unique up to isomorphism, a unique irreducible finite dimensional representation of the G of highest weight lambda. Okay. And now for each mu, we have, we can look at the mu weight subspace of L of lambda. So especially if mu is less than lambda. And so yeah, the geometric sataki tells us that this mu weight subspace is isomorphic to the homology of space of this, yeah, of this nice variety. So in particular, we have a nice basis here, given by the homology classes of irreducible components of this variety. So this isomorphism tells us, so thanks to this isomorphism, we can cook up a basis. So this is called the MV basis of this, of the right hand side. Okay. So this is what's written here. So the classes of irreducible components, so the irreducible components of this variety are called MVs, Amirkovich, Villain, and Saigons. And their classes give us a basis of L of lambda mu and fixing lambda and putting all of this together for all possible mu, mu smaller than lambda, you get a basis of L of lambda. This is called the MV basis of L of lambda. So you can do that for every dominant lambda. Okay. So these, in simple example, these varieties are really concrete, like if you take in type A, lambda is a fundamental weight, these guys are going to be sugared varieties. Yeah. And then there is a classical fact that all of these L of lambda can be embedded into this algebra, into this ring. And in fact, it's even more than this, is if you embed, so the embeddings of the L of lambda for various lambda usually overlap. But still, if you put them all together, you can actually get the holes here. So I will not get too much into details here because it would be super technical and boring and lengthy. But like, yeah, basically, if you have a basis of L of lambda for each lambda, then if you are careful not to count twice some guys, you can cook up a basis of this ring C bracket, which is called the MV basis of C bracket. And its elements are going to be indexed by certain MV settings. So yeah, so usually this basis is very hard to compute. So it's a, there are many, there are still open questions on this basis, like does it contain cluster variables or this kind of things? So yeah, so this is the construction of, so are there questions on this construction or should I move to a covariance homology? Okay, so what I'm going to talk about now is due to work due to Pia Poman, Joel Kamnitzer and Alain Knutham. So basically what they did is they related some algebraic properties of the MV basis of C bracket N to certain geometric invariance of the MV cycles themselves. So that's the right model. So they consider equivalent Euler classes or also called sometimes equivalent multiplicities of MV cycle. So concretely, you dig an MV cycle in this affine-grasse-minion. So it's a nice closed irreducible variety inside this affine-grasse-minion. So now this MV cycle had, there are only finitely many fixed points for the torus action on Z. And we denote by epsilon of Z, the equivalent inverse Euler class with respect to the action of T at the point P. So concretely, this is going to be a rational function. So it's going to be a nice rational function in little n variable, alpha one, alpha n, where a little n is the number of simple rules of G. And not so, if you, so basically, whether that these invariants record the local action, of the weights of the, so locally around the point P, this invariant records the weights, the eigenvalues if you want of the action of T on the tangent weights, on the tangent space at P. So if you look at the class in this equivariate homology space, you can decompose it onto the basis of fixed points and these guys will appear as structure constant. Yeah, and one classical fact, so I don't know. Yeah, I think it's due to Brion, but probably I don't know Michel Verne and probably many other people. If Z is smooth at P, then this inverse Euler class is just the inverse of the product of tangent weights of the action of T at P, okay. So then if Z is not smooth, you're probably gonna have a complicated numerator here. But yeah, if Z is smooth, you get one on the numerator and on the denominator, you just get a product of weights. So very concretely for us, these weights will always be positive roots. So you can view positive roots as nice, I don't know, like linear polynomials in terms of simple roots. So I don't know, alpha one plus alpha two plus alpha three, typically. So these are the kinds of weights that will show up here for us, okay. So Boman-Kanit-Zachnetzen constructed a certain algebraic morphism D bar. So I put here the definition which we really don't need. So you don't need to bother reading all of this. So basically there is a way to, for each regular function on M, you can build up in a natural way, a nice rational function. And somehow the magic of this is that in addition to being a linear, this is actually multiplicative, it's actually an algebra morphism. So it turned out, it's not deep to prove, but it's, yeah, it's not like super obvious, but it's not like a deep theorem, it's just, yeah. But it's a good thing. So this mess is actually a morphism, an algebraic morphism. And now the deep theorem comes now is that if you take a, so an MV cycle Z and you look at B index Z, the corresponding element of the MV basis of C of N, then if you plug in this MV basis element, so this now is a regular function of N, if you plug in this guy into this machinery, you're gonna get some rational function. And what you get is actually the equivalent multiplicity of Z at a well chosen fixed point. Okay, so this Z has finitely many fixed point and there is one fixed point that in some sense is, yeah, it's like a good fixed point for each Z. There is a good fixed point and you look at the inverse Euler class at this particular fixed point and this rational function is going to be the same as D bar evaluated at BZ. So it's really saying that, yeah, this geometric data on Z can be like, yeah, can be seen at the level of the MV basis. So this MV basis is constructed through, so geometric sataki tells you how to go from Z to BZ. And then you plug in BZ into this and yeah, you get the same, right? So, yeah, so at the end of my PhD thesis, I noted that this guy here, this morphism, seemed to behave well with respect to the cluster structure that I mentioned earlier on this algebra. So I was able to properly prove, so basically in type AN and D4, but otherwise I was not able to prove it in full generality that if X is a flag miner, so this kind of nice collection of cluster variables in CN, then D bar of X is of the form one over some product of positive roots. And also these polynomials that appear here on the denominator are related to each other by some kind of very distinguished algebraic identities. So, yeah, so the motivation for our workers with Jean-Rongly was to prove this conjecture in full generality, at least in all simply days types and to understand, to give an interpretation of these remarkable identities here. And another question that, yeah, that turns out to be very much related to these first two question. Another question is, okay, so this morphism here has very strong connection to geometric satake via this result, and through its very definition, it has very natural, so these numbers here can be interpreted in a nice way via different categorifications, so like KLR algebras or representations of, yeah, finite and like preprojective algebras. So you can kind of give an intellectual interpretation of this, but this is really the definition of D-bar. But somehow there is a very interesting, another categorification of C-end due to Hernandez and Leclerc, which involves representations of alpha and quantum groups. And so we were curious to know whether with this categorification, we can have an interpretation of this morphism. And I think this is a very good place to have a break. All right. If there are questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Yeah, so let's take a five minutes break.


Welcome, and get ready for this hilarious Michael Jordan story. This story showcases MJ's fierce competitive spirit, his brilliant humour, and his unwavering determination. If you're loving content just like this one and you want more, be sure to hit that like button for more videos just like this. Let's aim for 3000 likes for the next video, and don't forget to hit that subscribe button. All video credits and footage are right here on the screen and also linked down below in the description, so be sure to check them out for their entirities. I don't want to keep you guys waiting, so let's dive into the video and I hope you guys enjoy. What do you think Mike's competitive edge was? People talk a lot about a skill, they talk a lot about shooting ability, IQ, but is there a thing specifically that you thought set him aside? Just wanted to win man, he didn't care and that's easy for me to say that he didn't care, but at the end of the day he's going to have a huge say in that win. You know what I mean? It's like a quick story about Bob, I just heard this yesterday, rest is soul, rest is soul. He told me a story about Jordan, they were playing in the Olympic, he was the last guy to coach of a basketball team from America to win a gold medal that didn't have professionals. Right? So in 1984 I got invited to the Olympic trials, and that's probably at least 30 Hall of Famous was on there. We started with like 120 players, and my coach says, Charles I want you to go to the Olympic trials, you've been invited. I said coach, you know Bobby Knight, I don't know about him, blah, blah, blah, blah, he said no, just go, he said I think you're the best player in the country, I want you to go to improve it. Number seven, a 6-6 junior from Lee, Alabama at Auburn University, Charles Barclay. 1984 was an Olympic year, and the U.S. men's basketball team would win the gold medal. But before that, the American team had to be chosen, and trials were held at Indiana University. 80 of the best players in the world, and we're all there trying out for 12 spots. It was a who's who of college players in one gym, with the goal of building a dominant national team. But even then, there was one player who stood out wherever he went. Well, Charles from the beginning was an interesting guy because, you know, we had this incredible personality. So I go there, so we go, we got 120, and like I said, it's probably the 30 or 40 Hall of Fame for everybody who ever played, and then being the last 30 years was there. So they go 120 to 180, 60, 40, 20. What I distinctly remember about that is Charles dunked the ball so many times, he would just dunk everything. You know, any kind of drill, if he caught the ball in a scrimmage, he dunked everything. And that didn't sit well, Olympic head coach Bobby Knight. Bobby was a proponent of giving the ball to the guard. Well, he would do the same thing again, rebound, coast to coast and dunk it. Everybody's going crazy, so already we're going to probably have a little bit of a banging of the head, so to speak.  The night, they completely deadpan said, not for long. I don't think Barclay really cared that much whether he made the Olympic team or not. He knew that this was an opportunity to show everybody that he could, in fact, dominate at this level. And then they finally cut me, and I was pissed at Bobby Knight because he never gave me a fair chance, because I was the second best player there by far. Barclay was a RPIA, Royal Pane. I was definitely the second best player there. I'll get to the story. I go back to college and son says, hey, I talked to John Thompson. I see what he says, you were the second best player there. I say, I see a coach, I was the second best player there. And he says, who was the best player there? I said, coach, I just saw the best basketball player I've ever seen in my life. His name is Michael Jordan. He's from North Carolina. A good five junior from Bloomington, North Carolina at the University of North Carolina at Keppelville, Michael Jordan. I said, I've never seen a basketball player like I thought I was a really good player. But I said, this dude is the best I've ever seen. Yeah, Michael Jordan's the best player that's ever played anything, any team sport. We're ahead of Spain in the gold medal game. I walked into the locker room after the first half of our game with Spain in 1984 for the gold medal. We're ahead by 29 points. They're up 29 points. USA and Bob Knight's walking across the court to go in the locker room in halftime. He's like, what am I going to say to these guys to get them going?  And I'm walking off the floor at the forum in Los Angeles. I look up the scoreboard and this is halftime, 28 halftime. And I'm with one of the great people in Athletics, C.M. Newton, who was with me through the Olympics.  And I'm a great believer in, let's say, something that's going to get us going in the second half. Let's just don't go into it. We played great. What a great half this was. Let's relax and go play the second half. I always want to think of something that I can say that kind of gets their attention and they know we've got another half to play. We've played basketball as well as the game can be played. Michael Jordan has played 12 minutes. Out of the 20, he has 11 rebounds, nine assists and 19 points and 12 minutes. And I still haven't thought of what I can say. And the first guy I see is Jordan. I think to myself, if I can say something to Jordan, everybody else is going to pay a little bit of attention. They're going to say, Jesus, if he's on Jordan, what's he think about the way I've played? You know, and he grabbed the stat sheet. As you walk, I say, Jordan, she's called Jordan's name. Jordan played 12 minutes in the first half. Jordan's played 12 minutes. He has 19 points. He had 11 rebounds and nine assists in 12 minutes in the first half. Wow. And he's thinking, what I'm going to say is I got it. So I walk in and all of a sudden it hits on what I'm going to do, Michael Jordan sitting over here. As soon as I open the door, I see Michael Jordan in the first one. So what do I do? I walk over here and I stand in front of Michael and Michael looks up at me and I said, Mike, I said, you know how important screening is to us.  You know, and I'm trying to get us in shape to play the second half.  What are you doing? Are you going to, are you going to set any screens tonight? I haven't seen you set one damn screen tonight. When the hell are you going to screen somebody? When are you going to set a screen when you're in the game? We got four guys screening, but you're not screening. When you're out of the game, we got five guys screening. We got good movement. We got good screening. All you've done the whole first half is score, rebound and pass. When the hell are you going to screen someone? So Jordan, you know, God gave Jordan a lot of gifts and among them is one of the great smiles of all time. He said, MJ, looked up with a little grin, not a big one. He said, coach, didn't I read recently where you said I was one of the quickest players you've ever been around? You remember last week when you told the whole world that I was the quickest person you ever seen on the basketball floor?  And he looks up at me and he says, he said, I'm set. I'm so quick. I think I set him faster than you can see him. I said, just slow down a hair. You got to love a kid like that, but the coach can never lose. So there are three kids sitting here. So I walk over for two kids sitting there. So I walk over and they're laughing, you know, about Mike's comment to me and I said, all right, I said, you two guys thought this was really funny.  And if he doesn't set four screens in the first five minutes of the second half, I'm taking you two some of the bitches out of the game. I turned around and walked away. Coach always has to win somehow. I don't care how. Steal, cheat, lie, whatever. Coach got to win in these circumstances. You know, I said, Mike, I said, I want this game over with with four minutes to play in the game. I want it completely over with. So Mike on his own with about, I think it was seven minutes to go in a game, cause time out. So I'm wondering what the hell is this all about? Michael calling time out. So we get in a huddle and Mike comes in, puts his arm around my shoulders. Remember, I told him I wanted this over with four minutes to go. Mike puts his arm around my shoulders. He says, coach, take a look at the time clock. We're seven minutes ahead of schedule out here. Is that, is that unbelievable? I thought that was a good story.  Yeah, man. That's Michael Jordan. You know what I mean? The kid is just an absolutely great kid. If I were going to pick the three or four best athletes I've ever seen play basketball, he'd be one of them. I think he's the best athlete. I've ever seen play basketball bar none. If I were going to pick people with the best ability I'd ever seen play the game, he'd be one of them. If I were going to pick the best competitors that I'd ever seen play, he'd be one of them. So in the categories, competitiveness, ability, skill, and then athletic ability. He's the best athlete. He's one of the best competitors. He's one of the most skilled players. And that to me makes him the best basketball player that I've ever seen play. I've had some tremendous memories doing my professional basketball career. But the memory of standing as a representative of the United States at the Olympics is one of the proudest moments of my life. You step up on that podium representing your country. It's no greater honor than doing that. 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