The meritorious sixteen: An anthology of social and scientific poetry

Description

Poetry in some way or the other, and in some form or the other, touches our daily lives in multiple and
in myriad ways, often beautifully and touchingly. Poetry dates back to prehistoric times, and has been
found in diverse cultures and diverse regions of the world such as Asia, Africa and Europe. In a vast
majority of cases, formal, written poetry branched out from oral poetic traditions, and in some cases,
folk songs. The oldest surviving epic poem, known as the Epic of Gilgamesh, dates from the third
millennium before Christ in Sumer (in Mesopotamia, in present-day Iraq), and was written
in cuneiform script on clay tablets and, later, on papyrus. Loosely and crudely defined, poetry is a form
of literary art that uses aesthetic and rhythmic techniques to bring out deeper and hidden meanings and
bring about a maximum emotional and psychological impact on the reader. It can also be used to convey
a deep and hidden meaning on a set of topics related to social cultural and scientific issues: This, as a
matter of fact, is a particular hallmark of social and scientific poetry. This is what we deal with in this
anthology of social and scientific poetry, as we hope they create maximal impact on readers and
gradually but willy-nilly bring about social and cultural change in societies particularly emerging and
developing ones. This is a potential major use of poetry but has not been tapped into or realized fully
and completely. Some other forms of poetry are less serious and deal with other aspects such as love,
war and chivalry. We do not deal with such classes and categories of poetry here. Poets and poetry also
make use of a wide variety of techniques called poetic devices, such as alliteration, onomatopoeia,
assonance, rhythm, euphony, cacophony, metre, and sound symbolism, in order to produce verse,
structure, format, symphony, pleasant harmony, musical or other acoustic and artistic effects. There are
many different forms of poetry such as epics, limericks, hymns (Such as the ancient Indian Rig Veda) and
ballads, some of them being unique trademarks of particular cultures or ethnic groups; famous
contemporary poets and poets of yore have included William Wordsworth, Edgar Allan Poe, William
Blake, Rudyard Kipling, WH Auden, and others. Rumi was a famous non-English Islamic poet, and was an
eminent and a very famous theologician to boot. Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey also stand out in this
context. Poetry continues to change and evolve in the twenty-first century, and traditional forms of
poetry are being increasingly challenged. We therefore are witnessing the birth of postmodernist and
other schools of thought, and these are essentially work in progress at this stage. Poetry is also often
read out in popular public audiences and is accompanied by music, song, drama and vibrant theatre. We
do not wish to get into all of them here, but would hope, anticipate and expect that readers enjoy and
make best use of our poems. The following are our meritorious sixteen from our perspective and these
drive home the core and central mission of the globalization of science movement aptly and succinctly.
We hope that readers will not only enjoy them but will also take in and soak in their message.

About the Author

Sujay Rao Mandavilli is an IT professional (Governance Risk and Compliance) (Still practising as of 2025; Served major clients such as Tata Group, Mahindra Group, NECAM, Verizon and BAT, and also previously worked in IBM) and a born-again Anthropologist, researcher, and post-colonial thinker with major contributions to various fields of Anthropology and Social Sciences. He completed his Masters in Anthropology from the prestigious Indira Gandhi National Open University in New Delhi, India in 2020 with a first class, and with specializations in ethnography and environmental anthropology. He has made major contributions to Anthropological Economics, the Sociology of Science, theories of socio-cultural change, Identity theory, population studies, Historiography, language dynamics, Indo-European studies, the Aryan Problem, and the identity of the Harappans. He has also contributed greatly to scientific method, and the philosophy of science. His hypothesis is that most fields of Social sciences which are based on a study on social and cultural variables, are based on old Eurocentric paradigms, and that better theories can only come from intellectual multipolarity, and Ethnographic data collected from different parts of the world. He believes this will lead to better scientific research, and greatly boost scientific output in different parts of the world that have hitherto lagged behind the West in scientific research. He has also attempted to synthesize Anthropological theory with other fields of Social Sciences such as Economics and Pedagogy, generating several new paradigms as a result. He strongly believes that the ‘Globalization of Science’, with a particular emphasis on the social sciences, must become one of the major movements of the Twenty-first century. He has called for an "Indian Enlightenment" as well as similar renaissances in the developing world through a horizontal collaboration among developing nations. He has published over ninety core research papers, and eight books. All papers have again been republished through Social Sciences Research Network or SSRN. He is the Founder-Director of the Institute for the Study of the Globalization of Science (ISGOS) (Registered in India as the Globalization of Science Trust) which is has already started empaneling a group of researchers and scientists to plan its next course of action. In 2023, he launched the "Scholars and intellectuals for mankind" (SCHIMA) forum, which is reaching out to scholars and intellectuals from throughout the world to draft a common agenda. In 2024, he launched the "Open, transparent, high-quality and ideology-free science movement" (MOTHIS), riding piggyback on his large number of publications on scientific method. In 2024, he also created the blog and the video channel "Abhilasha: This is not Utopia" to discuss burning and pressing issues of the day, particularly in relation to science, knowledge and society. In 2025, he launched the Mandavilli foundation to provide cash-free awards to social science researchers from developing countries who actively engage in globalization of science pursuits. He also launched a scholarship to Ph.D researchers in India whose primary thesis deals with globalization of science in the humanities. He also writes “social and scientific poetry” in order to contribute to the globalization of science movement, albeit humorously.

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