Among other things...

Why don't women ask questions?

2012-01-27T11:52:00.000+05:30

Time: Today afternoon

Place: Klaus Computing Building, Georgia Tech- Parallel Computer Architecture Class

Context: Long argument between a guy and the teacher about why a particular cache coherency feature is essential to make that protocol sequentially consistent (Ya, ya Greek and Latin not only for the rest of you, but for many in the class :P) It is a conversation with one or two more guys pitching in once in a while- some normal guys, some of the other kind, you know, the kind who are always asking doubts in class and answering the teacher's questions etc etc

Most students are trying not to chat with their neighbors and looking at their notebooks or mobiles or at the prof and hoping he will somehow end this argument and move on to the next topic..

At this point...

Anonymous girl voice: Adding to his question, sir, if you just did this ........

80% of the class turns around and looks at her as if she is a Martian who directly landed in Klaus Building.

Note that the same 80% was looking at their own notebooks or the professor and nobody ever looked at those other guys who were discussing so long, even the normal ones, who probably spoke for the first time today.

And that got me wondering. When was the last time you heard a woman ask a question in class? Or at a monthly meeting? Or any public gathering? I remember how, in Intel India, me and my teammates used to discuss why very few women ask questions in meetings. And I can't remember girls asking serious doubts in class EVER in my undergrad. (Serious doubts here imply questions that involve some logical argument and goes AGAINST the teacher's line of thinking. And makes you argue with the teacher. The only kind of doubts I ever heard from girls was- "When should we submit the assignment?", "How long should the answer be?" or "How much weight-age does this chapter carry?"

I know I sound like I am biased here, (which is quite against my general tendency) but I have been thinking about this since afternoon. And I really can count the number of girls, who I have seen asking serious questions, by the fingers in one hand. Yes, it is THAT dismal!

In fact, thinking about this further, I remember one pattern which I observed at work. When a manager, or a higher authority made some kind of rule or decision that you didn't quite agree with, some of the men I knew used to fight. Not fight in the sense of shouting. But assert their opinion and disagree, argue and be firm with their decisions until something else happened (or they realized this was not going to work). This kind of thing could be so detrimental to their career, at first sight. But then again, maybe it isn't, if you look at it closely. Maybe that is how men eventually get what they want. Anyway, my point is I have not seen a SINGLE woman fight against bureaucracy or stupid decisions or any other kind of enforcement the way men did. Women crib about this kind of stuff a lot, they express "mild" disapproval, and they do argue with peers and sometimes direct managers. But they don't fight. Or if they do, they give up too easily. I know I have worked for a very short time and have met very few people, and so, I might be committing a fallacy here by over-generalizing. But no, as I said before it is not just work. It is everywhere. From not wearing "real" casuals to work at a "no dress code" company to being afraid to be normal in front of a teacher to not asking questions to drawing margins in notebooks and underlining answers with red pens.

Seriously. Why do women always play safe? Why don't women ask questions? Why are women generally afraid to be assertive and more ready to submit to authority?

I don't have a proven answer really. But I have some theories on why this might be so.

One reason is the way girls are brought up as against boys. For a girl, sweet and nice are the coveted adjectives. Soft-spoken, polite, neat (especially for handwriting), are all rewarded. You might argue that even boys are asked to be neat and polite when young. But think again. What is the most coveted adjective you would associate with a boy child? Sweet? Nah. Soft-spoken? Nah. Pretty? No way. Smart? Yes. Clever? Yes. Winner/fast runner/ good player? Yes. Strong? Very much.

You see the difference? The adjectives that are associated with a boy naturally require him to "perform". Whether at sports or at studies or anywhere else. Playing pranks is fine. Hitting another boy is punished, but expected, from a boy child. Bad handwriting is almost a macho thing by the time you reach the teens- a boy who writes neatly or comes to class on time or listens to anyone without asking questions is... "sissy" (note how that is again a female term). With so much of emphasis towards breaking the rules to prove "you are a man", the way boys look at the world is, obviously, as a challenge. A problem to be solved. Something to wrestle with and try your best at.

But going back to the sweet, soft-spoken, mild-mannered, pretty girl- what is rewarded really? Size zero figure. From thick eyelashes to beautiful hair to whatever else- if you want to be "girly" you ought to be good looking, or at least well-dressed. A girl who wears comfortable clothes (jeans or shorts or whatever) is "tomboyish". A girl who breaks the rules is also "tomboyish". A girl who is loud has a "masculine" voice. A girl who argues logically is "not a girl". (You would have no idea how many people have told me the last one!)

You might wonder how all this relates to questioning. The essential bottom-line in both the trends is that- a girl needs to be accepted and safe to be considered a "girl" (which she is already, and ideally none should doubt that, whatever her actions!) and a guy who takes risks and fights and debates is a "man".

But that is only part of the story. The other part is what happens when a girl does ask questions and argue. One possibility is she is labeled a "Weirdo". Or "Show-off". Or the best one- "What a silly question! Only girls ask such questions!" The last two are probably the worst. Any girl who talks to the teacher in class is considered to be "maska-fying" (buttering). While I know a lot of girls who do that, guys (and many girls) should realize that asking questions and arguing is not the best way for "maska-maar". The best way is the set of questions I listed close to the beginning of this post. And the last remark is even worse. First, there is no such thing as silly question. Only ability or inability to explain basic concepts clearly. Second, guys also ask silly questions. In fact, the best nerds ask the most silly ones. That is what makes their brains work, I guess. Third. What is silly to me might be complex to another guy. And vice-versa.

And that is just one end of the spectrum. While the girl is a student. WHat if she is a boss. What if she is the kind of lady who is good at her job and grows at her career? "She got to that post by flirting with her superiors." "They recruited her because she is a girl!" (which is not to blame on women, because only men recruit like that! :P ) Or if she is a boss who is tough and who knows your rightful place and is strict about serious issues? She is a.. "Hitler". "Tough nut". "Too bossy". "Iron Lady". What is bad is that most of these "Hitler" bosses are just as strict as any of their male counterparts who are labeled "wise with experience", "good taskmasters" and "successful leaders". With all this bias around, how can a woman even try to be assertive? How can she fight bureaucracy? How can she speak up against her boss when she thinks he is wrong? Or clearly communicate to her subordinates when they are doing badly? Obviously, women don't do any of these, for the most part.

So, then.. what can the solution be? Simple- a) Men, AND women, stop discouraging and labeling girls who are assertive, subconsciously reinforcing gender bias.

b) Women, dont worry about what others have to say. if you have a question, ask. As Asimov says- "We still need the (wo)man who is intelligent enough to think of the proper questions to ask"

Just one more thing. I know a lot of people who will object saying this is all old. Men these days are much better and more encouraging blah de blah. Puleez.. This incident is of today, and all my experiences are of the last twenty odd years. And note that today's incident is not even in India, but in the supposedly modern country of the US of A. (See PS) Men have just stopped accepting this stuff in public and support women equality where it doesn't harm them. But everywhere else, and in a million miniscule ways, they keep reinforcing that divide. So if you are going to comment, please think again and then do so!

P.S:-

1. I know this is a long article, but if I start to publish it in parts, I might take too long :( SO thought I would just do it this way.

2. Gatech students would argue that Klaus classes are majority Indian, so thats why the bias. To clarify, my psychology class doesn't have Indians other than me. There are about 4 girls and about double the number of boys. Even though our professor keeps asking us to ask questions,almost all the questions (other than mine) are from the guys. I don't remember a girl arguing strongly with our prof at all.

3. For those of you who realized- Yes, the title disproves itself and is reverse-rhetorical in some sense... Couldn't help it :)

Why soliloquies?

2012-01-24T09:54:00.008+05:30

I am taking this psychology course called "Experimental Analysis of Behavior". (Interesting to note that I haven't found any Indians in the class - maybe Indians are too "brainy" to study something like... um.. well... the "science of the mind" :P) Anyhow, it is an awesome class because we discuss a lot of interesting questions and there is so much to debate about (ya, totally my kind of thing and I'm LOVING it!). Add to that an amazing professor who is very sensible and makes the class so much fun etc etc... Anyway, what usually happens is we discuss some questions in class and often they are too deep for me to think about in an hour and a half with someone else voicing his thoughts about them as well. So I thought I should think about them later again, and maybe write my thoughts down- and that's how I ended up writing this post. Hoping I have enough time to do this, I intend to discuss some questions from my class and put down my thoughts on them and maybe let you wrestle with them yourselves too....

Disclaimer: A lot of the theories/concepts mentioned here are just based on my own readings of these topics and may not be the latest scientific view on the matter. In fact, if you know of new scientific evidence against any of this, do let me know in the comments section.
Also please view this article as a purely biological/objective discussion of the topics and do not read any religious/other belief-oriented interpretations in it.

So, one of the things we were discussing in the first class was "What is behavior" Sounds simple enough, but when you think about it- you end up with questions like- Is questioning behavior? And is thinking behavior? Apparently, they both are, and so, any pattern of actions, covert or overt can be considered to be behavior (and maybe I will let you wonder whether that is valid or not, and why so).

But what is more interesting is- How come we came to have covert actions in that first place?? And here, I don't mean actions like secretly looking at your neighbor's answers or stealing his pen. By covert actions, I mean actions that cannot be observed, like thinking and deciding and.. ya, you obviously guessed it ... soliloquies.

Let us think of just the last- a soliloquy. How did it happen that man, of all animals developed a tendency to talk to himself and that too, as a part of thinking... (Clearly, I am assuming here that the crows cawing outside your window are not really saying "To be or not to be" in crow language! :P) In fact, how did it happen that man alone began to think and theorize and debate and philosophize and ask questions from "How to cook food" and "How to build homes" to "Why am I here" and "Who brought me here" and "Is there a God"? How did it happen that man alone started to make these grand theories about a master creator and complex rituals to please him? And mathematical models of economic theories of an abstract theoretical concept called "money"? (Click Read more for more...)

Coming back to soliloquies, what would have prompted a man to think out loud to himself when he was alone? Maybe it was an extension of talking to other people? But then, did man begin to think first or talk first?? Biology seems to indicate that communication could have developed even before thinking, since even simple animals communicate but we assume that most don't think. So did he talk to himself first and then used it as a process to enhance his thinking?? But then again, no animal seems to ever talk to itself. Maybe, thinking and consciousness (recognizing that you are an entity yourself) would be needed to develop that kind of an action. In that case, did thinking man suddenly realize he could make his thinking a lot more effective by using the tool of communication??

And more importantly, what led man to "think" in the first place? If his body was anyway programmed to live to find food and run away from danger, what was the need to think? Of course, thinking in terms of problem-solving and tool-fashioning might have been useful. But how did that result in man thinking "I am a man" or "This is a bird" or "Why am I a man" or "Why is the sky blue". The "how" in the thought process is quite understandable- it helps man develop better tools and better lives. But.. why did primitive man need to ask a "why"? Was it just a strange genetic mutation that somehow got carried forward in generations and got embedded in human society? Was thinking just an accident? Or was the "why" a natural extension of the "how"? And the "Aham Brahmasmi" an extension of the "why"?

More interestingly, has thinking helped man a lot? Here, by thinking, I mean, thinking about himself and the cause of his existence and the nature of the world. I know one could argue that most science was a product of the basic questions that man asked about himself- and calculus and quantum mechanics are just the final products of man's basic wonder about why the sun rises and what makes the universe. But then again, has consciousness helped man? Has the theory of philosophy and the search for a purpose in life helped us at all? I sometimes really feel - if only I didn't think and know, I could have just been safely ignorant. One would not worry about sorrow and pain and disease and poverty, good and evil, right and wrong, and virtue and vice, if one did not have consciousness. And maybe, we would have lived nature's way and remained - "safe in non-understanding"!! I don't know if that's valid... Maybe not... Anyway, we can only hope science will have answers for why we think and how it helps in the future... But then again, maybe we should have just left those questions alone...

By the way, throughout this post I have assumed that animals don't think etc. While nobody knows yet of crows or dogs or monkeys building mathematical models, the debate is still on about whether animals really think or not... When a mouse runs away from a cat, does it just run as a mechanical response (like moving your finger immediately when burnt) or does it think whether running is the best thing to do under the given circumstances? Does it know that a "cat" is standing and "itself" (the mouse) has to run to avoid it? Does it "know" that it is fighting for "survival"?? So far, research has been unable to answer these questions.. But it is nice to ponder about them.. And maybe the next time you shoo a crow from your window sill, you will wonder if it knows "you" are shooing "it".... :)

New Year, New Place

2012-01-12T01:24:00.011+05:30

Yes, I have arrived in Atlanta and classes have started. I did want to write while I travelled and in my first week, but then my laptop got screwed up and I couldn't type entire posts from my mobile.
In any case, Atlanta is a beautiful city- lot of trees, though right now most of it is barren. But I can already see how it will look in spring. On a related note, this is the first time I am actually visualising seasons. We learn a lot about seasons in primary school, and "autumn" and "spring" are words we hear in 2nd or 3rd grade. But we never see them in India. Chennai had only summer throughout the year- harsh, bearable, mild and finally-some-showers were probably the only seasons I knew there. Kerala had the reverse- only rains throughout - you could just name the seasons as Summer rains, Monsoon rains, Winter rains, some-sun-in-between. I am not sure if it is still the same though. Bangalore was a little better. Summer and winter were clearly demarcated- Summer was definitely warmer and winter definitely colder. But again, I never saw barren trees in Bangalore. So, yes, right now I don't see any green for the most part here, even though this city has too many trees. And it is cold (it was -4 the day I got my college ID! )

There are a lot of other things I observed. Tiny things. Not-so-tiny things. Unrelated to each other.

This place is soooo silent. The pin-drop silence that teachers talk about in primary school and never achieve. Initially, it was a little irritating. Now I am getting used to it.
I never get used to vehicles driving on the right. I have to keep recalculating this consciously. More importantly, I always turn on a light switch when I want to turn another off. The on-off reversal is even harder to get used to.
Nobody writes cursive. (I mean, except Indians and some other international students). It is very funny to see adults, big professors write individual letters, simply because my mind is conditioned to thinking individual letters imply you are in kindergarten.
The receptionists here smile in a way that looks natural (Even if it is really plastic). Unlike our Bangalorean McD and Pizza Hut waiters who try to smile and say "Hi, how may I help you?" but end up appearing just what they are- artificially trained people expected to smile at you. I wonder what is missing.
Chili means 'beef'. (In some particular places. But it could mean chilli of course). It is among the funniest things I ever knew (thanks Pranesh and Kowshik, for telling me!) . But anyway, point is every other dish has some meat in it (As we are all told!) And you have to be reallly careful, if you want to remain veg. I can now see why most people start eating non-veg once they come here- it does require a lot of self-control if you are tempted to eat. But if you want to stay veg, you can. It is not as impossible as many converts claim. Of course, in my case, the temptation doesn't even exist, so I'm safe. Just that it gets tiresome to keep telling people- 'Sorry, I'm veg'.
On a related note, there is way too much alcohol around here. Way. Too. Much. Again, not something to worry about (unlike the way the 'chosen lot' who went to the US about 10 years ago used to scare everyone else.) In fact, I am sure Bangalore had a lot too, just not on a comparative scale. And there were fewer dishes with actual alcohol in them (unlike here, when people say rum-soaked they mean it!) Just that if you are someone who is tempted, and who is not good at resisting temptation, it is hard to avoid here. And it is tiresome for me to keep telling people "Orange juice please". But wait a minute, did I say way too much? Strike that out. What am I saying? Not so much that they have a state-sponsored TASMAC here yet...
Most professors like interactive classes. In 5 of 6 classes I attended, teachers emphasized and re-emphasized the importance of class participation. (And they try their best to make the class interesting.) Contrast it to the teachers in undergrad who believe that a student must silently take notes and listen and ask only relevant and quite obvious questions, that too without interrupting the lecture, and stay awake like a robot however badly or uninterestingly the teacher may be teaching. In fact, 3 of the six teachers themselves mentioned "I do not know everything. I might be wrong." or "I might learn something from you". Again, contrast it to the teachers who pretend they know everything and who resent doubts. (Yeah, I am over touchy about that topic. Maybe I will write a separate post on it.) Always wanted to. Anyway, the attitudes of teachers here-- I'm loving it!!
On a related note, people really don't bother what you do in class - text, fb, sleep, walk out, ANYthing. Again, contrast it to teachers who used to shut the door of the class and take pleasure in punishing students for talking in class. Which, in turn, gave way for the "Kadhal Konden" Dhanush style scenes where the student answers the teacher's question leading to a thoroughly embarrassing situation for the teacher. In any case, point is the studies is completely driven by the student's own interest. Which is as it should be.

There are probably a lot more, I will try to add them as and when I remember..

And yes, I know you have probably heard most of these before. Even I had. But when you experience it, it is very VERY different. Anyway, I am reading this interesting book called "Don't shoot the dog". It is part of my coursework (Yippee!). And there are some interesting parts in it which I wanted to post about.. Let's see if I manage to do so soon...

P.S:- 1. All my Atlanta posts will be tagged "Gone with the wind". I hope it is obvious why.
2. Nobody told me "pudhu varsham, pudhu ooru, pramadam" or "naye saal, naya shahar" yet! So I am telling it myself in the title! :P

A Flawed God

2011-12-27T09:34:00.000+05:30

This is probably the last book I am reviewing this season. And it was just about ok.

The title is quite intriguing, I expected to find some novel about one man who fights against different odds and probably comes up with some sort of theory about a flawed God and a flawed universe. Well, I couldn’t have been farther from the plot. Of course it is a story about a man who fights against some kind of odds in his organization. But then, the flawed God refers to the stock market. The book talks about how organizations are controlled by the stock market which is in itself a dicey concept, and how they don’t care enough about the employees. A little communistic? Yes yes…

Plot. Plot is essentially the story of how the protagonist gets recruited a s part of a secret organization and how he later on tries to take control of the situations he faces, with the new confidence he has gained from joining the organization. Also, how he later on discovers that most of these have been fabricated by his co-worker (and love interest) in order to help him realize his true potential. The pace is not too fast, while the mystery of the secret organization drives your interest, there are points where the pace is too slow to sustain.

Theme is definitely different. Someone has finally tried to talk about how employees are treated and power play at work and all the untold secrets of workplaces. However, there is a risk in writing a novel about a theme that is by itself considered a little boring. And a theme which people try to forget while at home. When you take such a risk, it is incumbent on the author to try not to use language that is too official or boring. In this case, the author has not written that way, and at some points his style has a tad too much legalese. In fact, talking about style, maybe it is his choice of words or sentence length or I don’t know what else, but though the plot is quite simple the story telling seems a little laboriously done. There are points where the book is too heavy on the reader. But then again, maybe that was intended, and maybe it adds to the theme :)

Charactewrs. Not much to say here, because there are very few characters being talked about. While the protagonist and lady love are the main ones, and it is obvious this guy is one of potential, but who needs a small push, while the lady is one who is clever enough to identify the right candidate and who can go great lengths to help him, there is not much else to understand about either. And the other characters are much worse- no one really stays in your mind for long. Maybe the author was too busy concentrating on the issues he wants to cover and the plot that he didn’t too much on this one.

So, overall- the book is ok. One-time read if you are interested in HR stuff and people and their interactions at the workplace. Else, it does have some interesting viewpoints to offer (the one that explains ‘flawed god’ is pretty good) and though a little red, it has some constructive suggestions as well. The booklet portion (games at the ‘playshop’) could have been included as part of the plot, as they seem to be quite interesting. And yes, great title! ;)

Well, that’s all folks! :)

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com.

101

2011-12-11T23:13:00.002+05:30

And, that was my 100th post!

A hundred- Seems like a big milestone. It makes me feel I have come a long way. I guess I have.

From the blog with a French name intended to publish poetry and issues to a blog with a name that is more down-to-earth that can cover reviews, sci-tech and almost anything that crosses my mind which I think someone might wanna read. From a blog that had a black background and sunset (and, many people told me, a font that was not very readable) to a blog which has more widgets and more link backs and (I hope) a much more user-friendly font and background color. Ya, I guess the blog has evolved.

The good thing is I have evolved too. I have learned a lot in this time (though not learned enough HTML yet! :( ) But many of the comments have enriched me. I have learned to write more concisely, and (I hope) in a less abstract and more user-friendly manner. I have acquired the courage to write posts that are bolder than anything I had ever written earlier (even if I did end up getting criticism for them!) and more importantly, I have started reading a lot more than before- especially in terms of variety, but also in terms of quantity- the different blogs and websites I am reading now and the books I get to review, thanks to BlogAdda. So, thanks all, for your encouragement, and for the criticism. Look forward to more feedback and more growth.

On a related note, do let me know the negative feedback. Maybe I am not consistent enough in posting (I know I have long gaps once in a while when I vanish almost). Maybe I am too serious in the topics I choose (I know this happens a lot :( ) Maybe I should make the content more interactive. Though, unlike Emraan Hashmi in DP, I have never slept reading my own blog, it is possible I am missing some kind of entertainment quotient. If I am, please let me know- I am all ears.

In any case, I was thinking this morning about what motivates someone to write. There is definitely the part about having someone read your blog. But sometimes you write for the sake of writing. For the enjoyment of seeing your own thoughts take shape on paper (ahem.. I mean computer screen!) And like Roark so rightly says, 'I could say I try to design for my clients the best house to live in. But I don't. Perhaps that's how I know how to be more considerate of them than if I were to think about them' (Quote summarized). So answering a comment from one of my previous posts, I am definitely happy when my readers like/enjoy my writing, but my motive is the joy of writing itself. And like Roark, I believe that motive adds to the integrity (if not the success) of the writer more than the desire to impress anyone would!

Anyhow, I have enjoyed the journey so far. Interestingly, this 101st post comes at a time when I am at a crucial milestone otherwise as well. So, as I enter a new country and a new stage of life, I hope my writing improves and the journey gets ever better :)

Thank you, all! So long...

P.S: I know 101 sounds like the 'moi' amount people give in marriages. Maybe, I should have created a landmark 108th post, sticking to true Iyengar tradition ;) Maybe if and when I reach the 1000th, I will wait for 1008 :P

The truth behind the apping process...

2011-12-03T13:21:00.018+05:30

AFL? - Part 2

2011-11-30T16:11:00.000+05:30

(Continued from part one)
And a long break later, I am back. For all those people who I disappointed in the first part, there are some clarifications I need to make on why I started this article and what evolution actually means. So I am making my Part 2 into a Part 3, and putting this up first.

There are 3 reasons I started this article. One was because of the way that particular argument was presented in the particular book I read. It sounded quite convincing in that context. Also, if you have read enough of evolution, you would understand that many human behaviors do actually rise from simple behaviors designed to hunt or kill in animals. That does not mean what you do today is to hunt or kill- just that that’s where your behavior started. So it is very well possible that many of current human behavior be an evolutionary consequence of lust. The third reason is that- in a country like ours this kind of argument is very easily accepted in private and seldom in public. People secretly relish any theory that moralizes the very acts they find immoral. And that is precisely why someone needs to bring out such a theory in public and list exactly what the flaws are.

However, I need to clarify what I call flaws.
Many people told me this theory is obviously wrong, because we can’t all be motivated by a low carnal desire. Now, THAT is not a flaw! Just because something does not “sound” nice or consoling does not mean it is not true. If science proves humans are selfish (for eg.) by nature, so we are. There is no point in saying it is not valid because it does not fit in my optimistic view of life. But, note the IF.

Anyhow, EVERY theoretical argument deserves to be examined and argued about. The arguments for or against may be obvious, but there must be LOGICAL reasons to accept or reject a theory. Anyone who says “I refuse to argue about this” is simply giving in to blind faith. Of course, if the question were something like “Can cows fly?” there isn’t too much to argue about because the arguments against it are obvious: a) cows are not light enough to fly b) cows don’t have any faculty (like wings) to fly with c) cows are not an advanced enough species to devise a mechanism to fly, and so on. But note that there MUST be arguments. If someone told me without thinking cows can’t fly because that’s how they are or God willed them to be so, I might someday find a genetically engineered cow which can fly (long-shot, but still!). Point being, I cannot and will not reject ANY theory without sufficient arguments against it. This theory is also being looked at from the same angle- with an open mind to see its for’s and against’s and then decide.
Another thing people tell me is something of this sort-- “I don’t accept this theory. I am not playing counter strike out of lust” or “I am not doing charity work out of lust” and stuff like that. “Of course you aren’t”. The theory didn’t say YOU as an individual magically transformed all your lust into your other motivations to study, work etc. What it said was that most of human action arises from an essential desire to impress other human beings (especially the ones who have impressed you!). And the desire to impress itself is evolved from the desire to impress a partner. Please read the last 2 lines again. THIS is the heart of the AFL theory. Go back to a list of your long term goals and see if you did not have any desire to impress anyone other than yourself at all throughout. Some of us might be able to say that, but more than 90% of humans work with an overt or covert, conscious or subconscious intention to impress. All that the AFL theory says is- since impressing someone itself started out as a side-effect of the impressing-your-partner gene, most of your actions are a by-product of this primitive behavior.

Second. I think I missed out a little on explaining what evolution actually means or implies. Most people look at evolution the same way they look at transformation. But there is an essential difference between the two. Evolution happens bit by bit. Piece by piece. Transformation happens drastically. Besides, evolution works in a scale of thousands of years on thousands of individuals. So a behavioral trait to impress could become a behavioral trait to lie to impress only in thousands of years. The reason this is so is because evolution is NOT metamorphosis. It is not as if early man was very truthful and 1000 years later one man started hiding the truth and another 1000 later some men started saying white lies and then they grew into grey lies. That is NOT evolution.

Evolution is like a sieve. Hundreds of humans would have lied and hundreds would have spoken the truth. Assuming lying helped some survive (or impress the partner better in order to survive and reproduce) and always speaking the truth didn’t, more and more humans who lied would survive and pass on their lying genes to their children while the truth-speakers would not survive and not pass on the genes. This would happen for thousands of years until no truthful gene was left out, or very few truth speakers remained or everyone evolved into a state midway between the two, which optimized the chances of survival. What this means is that for the lying gene to spread, millions of humans have tried to lie and succeeded and millions have spoken the truth and failed. All this hypothetically. (Please don’t comment saying there is no gene for lying :( )
In a similar way, when one says the desire to impress a female evolved into a desire to earn more- what it means is- more and more humans that earned more found it easier than those who didn't to impress others and especially a woman, and hence more and more of their genes survived and eventually, the male biological system optimally had genes that prompted men to earn more (so that they could impress a woman).* Once such a gene was created, there is actually no need for the man to really impress a woman. His biological setup (mental/physical/whatever) would still make him want to earn more, independent of his desire to impress a woman.

That being said, is there still a catch in the theory? If not, do I agree with the theory? Answer is- No. I don’t agree. But what’s the reason I refuse to agree with the theory? What was the real catch? Part 3 coming soon! :)

*Remember it is called "Survival of the fittest". It may be cruel, it may not sound nice, but so it is.

Resident Dormitus

2011-11-11T19:06:00.001+05:30

Can there be a person who doesn’t know what he wants? Yes. Can he be such that he revels in not knowing? Possibly. Can there be someone who not only revels in not knowing what he wants but also tries to trivialize every good opportunity he gets, who thinks that not defining any morals for himself is a way to be unique and who tries his best to be a nuisance to strangers while trying to do as little with his life as possible? Guess so. Can this person also try to understand his situation in a philosophical manner and eventually succeed in fighting his internal demons, though the answer dawns on him after committing a near-murder? Vikas Rathi answers this question with a “Yes”, as he sculpts the character of his protagonist in as inconspicuous a manner as possible.

Achet, a young man from Jaipur who starts off on his corporate career, after a business education, is the kind of person who never takes independent decisions. He tries to do as little work as possible (mental, physical, official, whatever) though he continues to exercise his brain enough to make innumerable trivial jokes at the expense of other people. Not particularly heartless in introspect, but selfish and cruel in action, Achet is the man who is nearly evil by virtue of not having done anything. He pushes his luck as far as it can go, until a murder pushes him back to the reality he has evaded for long.
Plot-wise, this book is just ok. It is interesting though Achet’s inactivity stagnates the book in many parts and one might just lose interest. However, the plot hook right in the beginning ensures that you will eventually return to the book, at least to find out why was there a murder at all.

The real essence of the book is in the character of Achet and the experience of seeing the world through his eyes. There will definitely be many parts of the book where Indian youth would identify with him- if you have ever taken a decision purely because that’s what everybody does, (or) if you found that you have started drinking for no reason tha the boredom fo the corporate jungle soon after you started on your career, and you know it’s bad for you, but you also don’t feel like stopping, you would relate to Achet. Of course, if you are plain lazy, you would still relate to him.

If you, like me, are none of the above- if you have taken decisions on your own (Whether right or wrong), if you generally have the courage to face your true self and shun inaction, then this book might help you understand your anti-thesis. (Often, it is most difficult to understand the other side of the coin when it might seem totally senseless from your side- that's where this book helps!)

One good thing about the style of the book is that Vikas talks quite sensibly about a good many serious topics, in a way that you don’t even realize he talked about them! The other thing is the way he ends the book (which, of course, I will not talk about!) Of course, I wouldn’t like the constant drinking and smoking pot and what not, but by now I have learnt to expect these as Indian authors’ tickets to sounding authentic and mature! Also, like Vikas himself says, one often finds the greatest insights from sources that are otherwise not to your taste. This particular insight was itself an example to that theory (Ya, I am obsessed with recursion! ;) )

There is one problem though.. Most vices have a tendency to infect you if you look too closely into them (that maybe why they are termed vices!) - primary one among them being laziness and inactivity. To some extent this books slows you down and infects you with a boredom and vagueness in your mind (which you can only remove by readng a different book or watching a movie!). However, that only proves that the book is true to its own cause.

So, do I like this book? Not greatly. But, it did offer me an alternate perspective and contributed in at least a small way to improving my understanding of people.

Will I recommend this book? Yes. If you think you are directionless, if you don’t know where you are and don’t even think that you might ever find your life’s calling this book might prove to be the “Resident Dormitus” for u. Or if, you are sure of yourself, at least to some extent, and, like me, you are interested in understanding people who are your opposites in life, you should. Whatever the side-effects, it at least leaves you with some insight. And for that alone, any piece of art would be commendable!

This review is a part of the " Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com.

All for Lust?? - Part 1

2011-11-06T12:58:00.002+05:30

“The world runs on lust”, Alex said. At this point I put down the book Resident Dormitus which I have been reading since yesterday (and which will be my next review candidate) and started thinking whether Alex’s theory is really true-- do people really do everything only for lust.. This post is a product of this particular mental aerobics session of mine. (This post became quite long, so putting up the first part here. Part 2 coming soon! And ya, I know I don't usually write adult stuff and this might not go well with some of my readers- you can still read on.. This post is very much in the style of "Love is in the air"... )

Ok. So the theory here is that everything that men (or women) do is with the intent of finding a better partner to bed. Actions like trying to find a better job (better job = better salary= higher chance of finding a more desirable spouse), or having spikes in your hair (looking cool= being more desirable to opposite sex) quite obviously substantiate the theory. But what about actions like becoming the CEO of a company? In the book, the guy argues that wanting to become a CEO is a product of the desire to earn respect, which is itself born out of the desire to find a better partner. He goes on to argue that in every action a person does, he/she seeks to differentiate him/herself from the majority in order to increase his/her chances of finding a better partner.

Looking at it from an evolutionary standpoint, this theory looks like it makes sense. As all animals, humans started out as a species whose ultimate goals were to find food and to reproduce, while staying alive, where there was always competition in finding food and sex; evolution would naturally lead to a set of humans whose every action would optimally lead them to both. To some extent, the act of reproduction is more important to a species in evolution than finding food, once the animal has passed on its own genes to an offspring (selfish gene point of view*), and hence we could hypothesize that the incentive from food eventually wanes out and all actions are intrinsically motivated by lust.

You could think of it as a game and some actions you do increase your HP (Hotness points!), where HP is a measure of your desirability/eligibility in terms of finding a partner. If the goal of the game is to get maximum HP and keep yourselves alive, and if you had a time limit or an energy cost for doing any action, with time you would end up doing only those actions that increased your HP, such that you might reach a time where all your actions shall increase your HP in some small way or the other. (Rather, you would stop doing anything that doesn’t give any HP). So with a game theory-like argument, it is quite logical that humans might have ended up as a species whose every action is essentially motivated by the prospect of finding a partner.

If you are like me, you would stop here and ask- wait, isn’t there a catch? Yes! Yes! Of course! :)

Imagine a society of people who value celibacy. The most desired man in such a society is the one who can resist the most irresistible of temptations and who remains single throughout his life. This is purely hypothetical, of course, but there is nothing to stop such a society from existing in this world. Men in such a society might still go after power and money, and they might also style their hair into spikes, but their motivation might be to become the best looking celibate ;) From an evolutionary standpoint, one might argue that such a society will cease to exist since of course, no one is reproducing. Again, not quite true. Such a society could have a small subset of its population, say about 10-20% of people who are not “allowed” to be celibate, and who “must” reproduce. The children might be adopted by the rest of the population. If anyone wonders how this arrangement would work, one can imagine it as a type of caste system with the upper caste being celibate and prestigious, and the lower caste delegated to the menial task of sustenance! This kind of arrangement can survive for centuries, if backed by the proper belief systems and religious approvals. Again, all this hypothetically.

But I hope you do see there is a catch in the “All for lust” theory we talked about. So, forgetting the hypotheses, what’s the catch in reality? Which loophole in evolution allows humans to develop into a society that values celibacy?

(To be continued...
Part 2 here. )

*Selfish gene point of view: Not going into the theory, here I mean that all organisms act in a way to ensure their genes' survival. Since after reproduction and sufficient growth of the offspring the gene does not require the organism to survive, the effect of food can be ignored.

Conversations

2011-10-31T20:30:00.002+05:30

Conversations. The synopsis said a book with poems and short stories which reflect your own inner conversations. The problem with evaluating (or critiquing?) such a book is that most people have not read much of introspective stuff so if they have a taste for it they would find it good anyway. It is difficult to compare the book with an objective standard unless you have done enough introspection yourself. And as a corollary, if at all you are the kind that reads classic poetry and classic short stories (aka the minority) you run the risk of writing harsher reviews and having higher expectations. Since I have done all this and quite obviously over-intellectualized and over-philosophized every small detail of my life, I must admit at the start that if I rate the book 3, you can read it as 3.5..

Having said that, I must admit I started the book with very low expectations. After having been disappointed by too many Indian poets and writers, I couldn’t afford to start with a filled cup again. Luckily though, the book was good. It didn’t sweep me off my feet, it is not in my top 5, but it is good.
It is a collection of short stories, and not the red herring types. More introspective and down-to-earth- just as the cover promises. Writer Rajeev Nanda weaves tales that touch very important issues that each of us faces (more about them later) and the fabric does come out pretty well. Not too bright and fabulous but home-spun, comfortable and yet, wise.
(Note- It also has some poetry, but that's not too great. I will not comment further on the poetry and this review will focus only on the short stories..)

Rajeev starts with a minor Tagore-style story about dreams, then he moves on to a good discussion with/about God. A tale of a peaceful soldier and a predictable taxi ride later, there is the chance meeting between two travelers (Ya, it reminds me of “The Eyes have it” and “The woman on platform 8” !), and then we are invited to listen to four eulogies for a man. If you pause at this point and observe, he has actually started with child-like dreams and the maturity level grows into touching adult issues like chance meetings that are part-attraction part-affection and part just that-- chance! Then we step into bolder territory- extramarital (and internet) relationships! After seeing two-three such, we walk into a group of friends who take the courage to face the truth about themselves and the book culminates with a peek into a euphemistic (and partly recursive) conversation about God and religion. But for 2 stories about God, the rest are mainly relationship-centric. Of course, there is a lot of liquor flowing through the book, as are physical intimacies and sex. Is it just me or is the world getting more openly carnal lately?!

The plots are not entirely novel, but then the story here is not in the plot, it is in the sub-text. There are some stories with a minor twist in the end, but I hope they were not intended to be twists, because I could see most of them coming all along. Again, it is not a big deal because plot is not the focus.
What about the characters? Some stand out (Like Melanie in Intersection- I just loved her!) Some were intended to stand out, but they fade away (Like Kundha in The Taxi Ride - this Roald Dahl style story somehow did not achieve the full surprise int he twist!). There are too many similarities between the characters in consecutive stories- men who try to push their limits, women who are both smart and good-looking, married men who are attracted to other women, mid-life crises, cynicism (the sheer number of times the word ‘cynical’ was repeated in the book was daunting!) -- with so many similarities, many of the characters fade to form one vague outline and few (almost none) stand out. But again, maybe they were intended to be inconspicuous so that one could identify them with themselves..

What I liked about the book are the many questions and many alternate viewpoints it offers. Some questions are fresh in the way Rajeev asks them, like “does commitment make sense in today’s world” (The Rabbit Hole) and “Would God care if mankind destroyed itself” (Tête-à-tête), some old yet haunting- like “Do we lose something by worrying more about the destination than the journey?” (The Truth Club) and “What is the most important thing in life?” (Splinters) and the mother of all questions- “Does God really exist?” (Conversation). If you read the stories and paused in between to think about the viewpoints, the book would truly reconnect you to your inner conversations. (As the cover promises, again!). Of course, personally some of these questions have occurred to me before, but then that was part of the book’s promise, right? :)
The bad part was that very few portions were striking and made lasting impressions. And yes, Rajeev needs to work on creating unique characters.

Anyhow, my favorite stories were Tete-a-tete, The Rabbit Hole and Conversation. Overall, it is a good book if you want to think and introspect. Not great, but yes, commendable. Must try if you have not read this kind of stuff before.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com

Space, your time's up!

2011-10-19T20:46:00.000+05:30

I know I haven't written in a long time. Been busy (yes, that's always my excuse! :( ) And I kept thinking I would do a review of "The Immortals of Meluhas" and a post on a Reading session I went to, then a post on the big questions in Life and then on "The Virtue of Patience". I hope I will do them some day. But today, I thought that my "To-do" List is always growing and I might as well post what I am thinking about right here right now..

So I was reading this article about Space Travel (Shared by Deepak) which talks about the end of the space age and I thought I would write about it. I don't know how many of us noticed when the NASA closed down its space shuttle program. It was the day when I felt that it was going to be the end of the charms of seeing the stars and imagining the vast beautiful (empty or dark-matter filled) space and dreaming of space travel. Of looking into a telescope and imagining man would be there soon. But even if you didn't fantasize all this, if you just noticed the news, this article is worth reading. It is very logical (and as most logical things, negative in some sense), so I do hope its predictions do not come true. But then, even the best of wishing cannot change the logical course of action*. Or could it??

The first question the author asks is, how far do you think man has traveled since 1980. It is a very good question to start with, simply because most people think that we have gone at least as far as the moon. Man did step on the moon once, didn't he? So we must be at least that far. But apparently, that isn't true. We have not gone anywhere beyond 0.1 times the Earth's radius post 1980!!

One might wonder why. Why not space travel? The answer lies in asking the reverse. Why was space travel funded in the 60s in the first place?? Nations thought then that they were going to colonize the moon. And there was a cold war going on. It made sense to invest in anything that helped you grow more powerful. Today it might just be too costly. Besides, today, there are no real superpowers. The developed nations worth anything at all are not leading the political game. (European countries, Australia, and so on). The only nation in a pseudo-superpower position is the US. And its economy is so hollow you never know when it shall collapse. There are a few potential powers- India, China mainly. But neither is developed fully today. There is no government today that would want to fund space science. Nobody can afford it. And if anyone could, there is no specific reason to. Besides, people are busy fighting terrorism and oil wars and the like- why would anyone burn their pocket to spend on something that wouldn't solve any problem for them?

The author also brings up some interesting points about the scientific challenges, assuming we get the funding. Rocket science is, well, ROCKET SCIENCE! It is not a fun filled cake-walk (or moonwalk, if you please). The challenges are many. The ROI is bleak. Fuel prices are ever-increasing. And NASA's action makes other countries think even harder about venturing into (this) space. Yes, we might not see a space race ever again.

We might, but chances are higher we might not. There was the day of assembly-line, the day of automobiles and then the day of rockets. Today is the day of iTechnology. It does not mean we don't use assembly line or automobiles anymore. Just that we may not innovate them a lot. Those paths may never again be broken, however well trodden. Already, not many students opt for astrophysics majors. And Star trek terms don't ring much of a bell to the Angry Birds Generation. It may be hard to accept, but the day of the large is over. It is the day of the nano. And continuing the philosophizing, I wonder, am I going to live to see the day silicon dies a death? Shall I be writing that the day of my favorite digital electronics and smart devices is gone? As always, only time can tell...

And oh, there was this line in the linked article- "Some future poet or composer, perhaps, will someday gather it all up in the language of verse or music, and offer a fitting elegy to the age of space." I hope I do. Watch this space.

* Aside, there was a similar line in The Selfish Gene - which made me simply love Dawkins oh, I need to write that review as well. And it really is too good a book to miss!

Love, Poetry and Aftermath

2011-08-16T12:22:00.000+05:30

And when those poets spoke of love, red roses and dewdrops
They did not talk of the arguments- the disappointment of not being understood,
Of the days his eyes went red in anger, and her's in tears
Of the long nights when sleep grew to become an elusive stranger
Of the flowers falling off the garland of love, and the thin thread stretching to elastic
To bear this. Even this.
Wonder why they did not imagine, the days when the magic of "love" faded away,
And the sparkling colors of the rainbow turned a dull gray
Of the days after love died, though when alive it was true
Of the days when love died, but only after killing you.
Maybe the poets were never successful in love to witness its aftermath
Maybe love is truly beautiful only in dreams...
Only in dreams.

Chanakya's Chant

2011-08-11T12:46:00.009+05:30

A book that has been on the bestseller list for about a year now. A book that is among the list of “Crossword Recommends” and “Landmark Top 10” and all the others. A book that has been called everything from “mesmerizing” to “very engaging” to “unputdownable”. And offered to me as part of “Sponsored Review” program. All the hype makes it very difficult for me to tell the world that 1) it is very much putdownable 2) it was just about average. But then, I believe in honest reviewing. So let me tell you at the start that this book is very much like a Bollywood movie- all plot and masala. And without even the ethics that Bollywood tries to have.

So if you are looking for a book that has a good plot but nothing else to offer (oh yeah, you get to flaunt to friends that you read a historical novel and sound intellectual), this is a very good Indian book. If you want to read a book that doesn’t tax the intellect or the conscience, and shows you the worst of India, this is again a good choice. If you have read enough history to know it well, or if you have some little morality left in you, this book will leave you with a bad aftertaste.

Getting on to the plot.. As the cover says it is a parallel story of Chanakya and Gangasagar Mishra. The former wants to crown Chandragupta (Maurya) and the latter Chandini Gupta. (Yes, it really IS that obvious!) Both use unconventional (read most unethical) strategies to achieve their goals. Not only bribing prostitutes (which is still ok) and hiring eunuchs to castrate a man , but also falsifying documents, double-crossing friends, murder- just about every wrong thing you could dream of is there in the book. Of course, you know they will win in the end. And you know it in the first scene when Chandini is sworn in as Prime Minister. (And if you did any history at all in school, you know Chandragupta also became an emperor). So not much of a mystery (which is why I found it putdownable). But yes, the plot moves fast, and Ashwin untiringly thinks up newer and newer “strategies”. The plot could have been better if Chanakya or Ganga failed at some point, and the reader would want to know how they shot back. But Ashwin makes them invincible, which also means unreal.

Characters.. The beauty of the story is that nobody has any sort of character (not even a bad or evil character). Like their strategy for winning elections, the character is to have no character. The only character I remember is the honest ex-home minister who is the only one immune to Ganga and who appears in the story for about 2 lines.

Theme.. Politics and history. Unfortunately, the politics shown is so dirty that at no point of time do you sympathize with Ganga. If the other guys are bad, he is worse. Why would a reader want him to succeed? Because he is the protagonist? That is so typically Bollywood movie type logic, which I am quite incapable of. And history. I can write a separate book on the number of anachronisms and wrong language usage in the book. If it was supposed to be a historical comedy, they would have been appropriate, I guess.

What makes the book really bad is that it was a very promising plot. A good writer could have created a masterpiece with memorable characters and real mind-blowing strategies. And yes, he could have used original quotes. There is no fun in reading a book where almost all the witty lines are lifted from brainyquote and thinkexist*. Google can do that. The talent of a good writer lies in his originality. If the plot was historical, one could have given it a fresh perspective. And one could have sculpted characters who nobody would forget. All I can say to readers is- if you want to read a real strategy story on Chanakya, read MudraRakshasa. And if you want a real modern day political novel, read The Prodigal Daughter (it has really amazing and “original” quotes and a pretty good plot, which is why Archer is such a successful writer.)

Sorry Chanakya’s Chant, but no donuts for you this time!

* As one can verify from the appendix, many of them are not even from Chanakya himself. And the few Chanakya quotes available are not among the best of his.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

Why Android is bad for you....

2011-08-04T15:06:00.014+05:30

And finally I saw an Android... No I don't mean I haven't seen any all these days. Just that I didn't get my hands on it and explore enough to make comments. So the last 2 days I got that chance, and explored it enough (I can't say in and out, there is too much to explore and I feel I have just begun). So, even though it is a late review, I hope it will help those of you who have not tried it yet.

Zeroth impressions: (before seeing the Android, that is)
Initially, I was just irritated by the people who kept on flaunting their Android mobiles and went on and on about it. But now I can see why they do it. If you are one of those people who heard about Android and did not try it out yet, and are put off by all the excitement around it, then listen- that excitement is very well deserved- as I discovered this week.

First impressions: It is a little complex at first. Complex not because it needs an instruction manual. It is complex compared to your usual phone because it is over-intuitive. (The iPhone was intuitive but somehow I didn't feel it was complex) So if you want to do something very simple, you would end up wondering how to do it or ask your friend, or spend a frustrating 20 minutes (like me) trying to find out how. But once you find it, it is so obvious that you wonder how all those phones before were built without this feature. On a different note, after using the Android, all the older smartphones appear "so dumb!". And the Nokia smartphone feels like a 1100. Like something out of a jungle. No I am not exaggerating.

What I liked about Android:
Just what it makes possible. From bar code scanning to calorie counting to swyping to photo editing to travel advice to what not (about this, below). The sheer number of apps available and the way they make so many things possible is amazing. Some of these apps were available before, but for some reason they were too basic to be useful. You would think that though this was available, it was a lot easier to do the stuff on your comp. But on the Android it doesn't seem that way. I feel I can do away with my comp after a while (which IS, i guess, the future)
The edge over iPhone: Ya. The inevitable question. Why not iPhone? Why Android when the same apps are available on both (at least, most of them). Because while iPhone looks loads better, it lacks some of the nifty features in Android- especially where apps for the same purpose are concerned. They are those tiny, unnoticeable differences, but which change the user experience drastically. Android cashes in on the exact minuses of the iPhone, and by having everything that the iPhone lacks, it just hits Bull's eye!

Must-have Apps:
There are loads of really good apps, some standard like converter, timer, flashlight, bar code scanner etc; some for social networking Twitter, FB, G+ etc and I am not including all of them here. There is one for Wordpress, but I have not tried it yet.
For lack of space, I am including only a sample of apps here, which are not-so routine (Note- Some of these apps are available on iPhone as well)
Swype: If you text (or) used to text before and like typing really quick, this is THE app for you. (It is not available on Android market) but it is among the best free apps I found. It is a little weird to use initially, but once you get the hang of it, it almost doubles your typing speed. (And Srinath, this app actually does what you said I have been doing all these days :D)
TasKiller: Lets you choose unused processes and kill them. Since Android does not have a close button for an app, this app is an essential.
Where's my Droid : Lets you locate your phone from your comp even if it is on silent mode. (I wish someone found an app to locate my wallet and glasses as well :( )
ShopSavvy: This is not really an essential, but I found it interesting. It lets you scan the bar-code for a product and searches the net for all sites where the product is available and lets you buy from the lowest cost. It also searches for reviews and additional info on the product. I tried this on my copy of Fountainhead and in a minute found out that I could have bought it for 0.1$ on a books site!
There are similar apps to sing the tune and search for the song, capture a photo and search for the object etc (which is awesome!)
Games: This is a whole new category and there is every kind of game available, so I 'm not listing too many. I don't think there is any point in me listing Angry Birds here, 'cos that's too obvious. I liked Alchemy as well (And I am sure my roommates are pissed off with the way I keep jumping out of the blue saying "bacteria+alcohol= alcohol". Oh, and best part is this game even has Quetzalcoatl!! :) ) Other games- I am still trying out my old favorites like Tangram, Mahjong and Text-Twist equivalents :) Some day I will make a list of new and interesting ones.
Misc: There are also GPS related apps, travel adviser apps, cookery apps, and even menstrual cycle monitoring apps! And there are some photo edit apps to change the lighting, color etc on your photo.There are guitar tuner apps, metronome apps, and other music related stuff. Essentially, if you have GPRS and an Android, sky is literally the limit.. (Ya they have the Google sky app also, which is uber-cool!)

Why Android is bad for you:
And that brings me to the point. Android makes just so much possible. And it is so damn interesting. That it is explosively addictive. My fingers are aching to the point of losing them, and for the last two days my right hand has been killing me simply because I was completely engrossed in the Android in the evening. But health effects aside, the real problem is that there is so much to explore, so much to try, so much to choose from, that if I were given a month and a half, I might still be exploring. And that kinda thing makes me forget all the real stuff I need to do in my life (like paying bills and folding clothes and clearing my bed :( )
It is also bad because once every person on this Earth has an Android, people are simply going to swype and fb and G+ each other and not talk; not walk holding hands together; not admire the sunsets and stare at the butterflies... hey wait a min, I think if I put air and worm together I should get a butterfly....... (Gtg.. 'll complete article wenever im done wid the 'droid.. :P)

P.S: I have mostly used "Android" instead of "the Android".. Whichever I write, people tell me the other version is the correct one and it is a moot point. Anyway, too busy searching for gold to bother :P

The 6pm Slot

2011-07-15T16:55:00.008+05:30

Nothing important in life ever starts with appropriate background music prepping you for it. The same is true of my first sponsored review. It started with me expressing interest to review books as part of BlogAdda's free review program... and here I am reviewing “The 6pm slot”- a book by Naomi Datta, whose amazing first line I just paraphrased! :)

Intriguing first line. Even better is the line that says "Everything important starts with a PPT" (I loved the author for that one!)
And intriguing cover (shown aside), to be sure. That is, if you have some taste for adult content. But if it leads you to think that the book, like the anchor whose picture decorates the cover, might be all looks and no brains, let me warn you. Luckily, that isn’t true.

The Plot:
As the backcover says the book is about this TV program supervising producer Tania whose show has to bring back the channel’s TRPs. And though initially it remains an unnoticed venture, the show shoots into limelight when Rajneesh starts a campaign based on one episode.
But let me cut here and add my idea of the plot. Yes, the plot is about the 6 pm slot and how it gets the wrong kind of publicity. But it is more about the workplace and the kind of bosses who can screw it up. It is as much a story about Rahul, the spineless whimsical boss, and his yes-man Harish as it is about Tania and her show. It is a story about how people with the best ideas often get walked over by higher officials and what would happen to them if they keep taking ‘the crap’.
Which, when subtly interweaved with your back cover story, makes the book pretty good.

The Style:
The language is natural. Though I must admit there is a lot of punning and use of "expletives" in the first half of the book. It maybe adds to the feel of the Television world, though at some point, it might have been overdone. The second half makes up for it partially, I guess.
The pace is ok, though somewhere in the middle of the book, it got a little slow. But once Rajneesh entered, it got back fine again.

The Characters:
One good thing about the book is that Naomi has thought enough about the characters in the story. Even characters who enter for half a scene get a paragraph of description on what they think. It is good because the reader knows what to expect from the character. It is bad because somewhere, it becomes too much. Just like the language.
Yet again, though some of the not-so-important characters are so clearly (or sometimes over-) defined, the protagonist herself seems a little half-made. In the second half especially, where she rarely appears, you almost forget that she is the main character. Besides, all along you don’t understand what she is really like. Why does she want to remain in the channel where she has a no-role? Why does she act like a prude at times, but at times doesn’t? What really drives her actions?
That said, I must agree, I liked the way Rahul, Harish, Bose and even Mohawk are defined. And most of all Aditya. Though he, like Tania is not well-defined, his sense of humor is what keeps the book going.

What I liked about the book?

Naomi’s understanding of workplaces: That, often, bootlicking and schmoozing are what get stuff done. That, often, your best ideas are trashed and later the blame for not implementing the idea falls back on you.
Naomi’s solution for (1): That, if these scenarios happen, and you are the standard scapegoat, it is YOU who is responsible for it. That it is time you realize your value and stand up for it. Especially where Aditya says “You will always be the victim Tania, if you let yourself be one!” and you need to fight, not for ideology, but "for survival"! But also correctly warns- Don’t overdo it. "Don't lose your sense of humor and don't turn into a prick!"
The tone: While it says all this, the book doesn’t aspire to be a boring classic. it doesn’t aspire to be a Bose. It aspires to be Aditya. The guy who understands the situation but is neither prophetic nor pompous. Matter-of-fact. And in doing that, Naomi has really nailed it.
Some amazing lines: Like “All is well that goes on forever” For more, read the book! :)

So in the end, is it a book worth reading?
If you like fiction, yes I guess. (If you have encountered bad bosses, then definitely. :P )
But let me tell you at the start that it is not the kind of book that you will read though it is boring and display to friends to prove you are intellectual.
It is more the kind that is entertaining and natural, so that you will enjoy reading it and still have something to think about in the end.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

ECE

2011-07-06T08:41:00.035+05:30

I was reading this math post. It is about puzzles and one simple method of solving most math puzzles- thinking of an extreme example. What he means is that you can assume some extreme values for the variables involved, and deduce the answer by logic. (I like the puzzles listed as well!)

Admittedly, this is a very useful method. Especially in your competitive objective type exam scenario (Though for this scenario, I personally think "Inky Pinky Ponky" is undoubtedly the method of preference!)

Few things I want to highlight though. One- You should think of the 'right' extreme example. Some extreme examples might not lead you to any conclusion at all! I remember how, in schools, teachers used to start explaining proofs by saying "draw perpendicular AD to BC" or "AM to NP" or some such thing. And immediately I would think how was I supposed to know which perpendicular to draw? Later on I realized that if you understand geometry well enough, actually rephrase- if you know well enough to think from a geometrical angle (Pun unintended!) you will know exactly which perpendicular to draw. But point remains that you need to choose the "right" perpendicular (Oh! Again, pun unintended!) In the same way, one does not always know which extreme example to choose. And if you don't choose the right one, you might end up a) getting a long and roundabout proof or b) not proving anything at all!

Anyway, why I brought this up here is that this method is not only useful for mathematical problems. I find it a good tool to understand human behavior. For eg: When someone says I value money but I value family more, one easy way to verify it is to ask the question- "if you had to give up all your money so you could retain your family would you do that?" or something of that sort. Basically pick an extreme scenario and check your statement. In fact, this method helps even if you are simply trying to understand your own selves.

Anyway, I have used this method before, and though not mine, I thought someone should give a name for it. "Extreme Case Evaluation" sounds OK by me. Maybe I should publish a paper on it someday...

P.S: I hope people found out why the title is ECE... Ya ya, I know I am wicked .. :P

Ephemeral truths?

2011-06-29T16:35:00.002+05:30

Talking about ephemeral truths and eternal lies.. I wanted to write about this truth test thing.

I personally find it funny/weird/childish for a CM to promise or ask someone to promise in front of 'God' about anything. Come on, even kids know how to lie.. Or in Hindu style, it is Kaliyug, for God's sake. Even if the CM had promised, I wouldn't have believed him entirely. But what he did in the end was funnier. He just dodged the issue entirely.

Huh?

He refused to take the truth test he himself devised and expects us to believe he is true? I hope he isn't as naive as that. But that brought me to another question. If you truly believe in God and if you truly believe God will punish you for misdeeds etc, isn't corruption a misdeed? Isn't trying to hide corruption a misdeed? If you are anyway going to be punished for all these, you might as well have promised. (Or) If you truly believed in God, why were you corrupt in the first place?

I have seen this kind of 'god-fearing' people a lot. (Like people who fast for one month thinking about Butter Chicken throughout!) People who spend their lives making black money, evading taxes, misappropriating funds, what not. ("Aisa nahi karoge, toh zindagi me kuch nahi kar sakte.." or the "Ner vazhi romba suthu kozhandai!"* types) And then they go and write off one crore to charity. I am honestly unable to understand if they think their God is that dumb- like he will forgive you if you pay him enough! It is like they believe in God in spurts when they realize he might punish them. And for the rest of their lives they continue without any morality. If I could be God for a day, I would spend at least some part of it ragging these people. You know, just keep arguing with them, until they accept they thought God was as big a fool as themselves.

Anyway, back to our CM. I was discussing this stuff with a friend and we came up with the theory that the CM thinks corruption is not wrong as such. But he knows lying to God is wrong. And that's why he didn't make the promise. That answered my confusion a little and the theory sounds OK to me, though I can't find for the life of me how anyone can think corruption is not wrong. I can imagine someone saying, "Everybody does it. Why penalize me?" or even "Without doing so, you can't become rich" but "NOT wrong"??? Honestly, either I am incapable of that level of self-deception or I am impractical by Indian politics' standards, but corruption IS wrong. Even to save your soul.

And if you really think God exists, forget your double standards and better believe in him fully enough not to be corrupt in the first place. Or you will land up in this funny "God-promise I didn't do it" situation. And then, don't blame me for laughing!

*This was one of Sujatha's most awesome dialogues. I really really love Sujatha for this one! For those who don't recognize it, it came in Anniyan.

Ridiculously online...

2011-06-16T12:41:00.000+05:30

Long morning. Continuous meetings and my head is really too full to get any work done until lunch. So was looking at some of my incomplete posts, and saw this one. It is a link I read long ago, and which is plain funny-- 6 RIDICULOUS arguments that actually happened on wikipedia.

I particularly liked this one "Is Adopting a Black Sheep on Farmville Stereotyping?" . Reminds me of a lot of things-- Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai put together, a Dilbert comic (Scott Adams is a genius!) and farmville days of my life....

P.S: Actually reminded me of this comic as well...

Mashed bananas, pyar and shopping....

2011-06-13T00:35:00.005+05:30

It is the end of a particularly awesome weekend. And after a long time. Started off mildly with a visit to Landmark where I ended up reading HP7 instead of looking at new books (I have been re-reading the series, ‘coz I had forgotten most of the finer details), but at least that helped my wallet a little. Anyway, watched a play yesterday evening after a long time, and 2 movies today- all of them were a real laugh! Ended it with Anand Bhavan coffee- so I really can’t ask for more.
Now for the stuff I watched.

Butter and Mashed Banana:
VERY GOOD play. It is really long since I saw one, the last I saw in B’lore was “Night of January 16th” and though I love the story, it was good-but-not-very-good. This time Rangashankara was full (never seen it like that before) and that only served to increase my expectations. Fortunately, I was not disappointed. The play is a satire about freedom of expression in India. The dialogues are amazing, and the actors did a great job. Each of them seemed carved for the role, and I liked many of their theatre techniques (Expressions, use of music, use of dance, almost everything). Thing is drama is something that not too many people watch, so you might think that this is only good for regular theatre enthusiasts. But no, not at all. Anyone who has watched a movie and heard a Beep where there should be some slang that anybody could have guessed, can watch this play and completely relate to it. Coming to think of it, even anyone who has ever used a dictionary can go watch this play :)
And that was the beauty of it. It was hilarious enough for the common man and creative enough for the serious art critic. I hate to tell out plots, so that is all I will mention, but I strongly strongly recommend you to watch it. There are 2 shows in Mumbai on Tuesday and Wednesday, and two more shows at Whitefield next weekend. If you have an hour, and haven’t seen a play in a while, it is a must-go. Actually, even if you have never seen a play at all, it is a must-go!

Pyaar ka Punch-nama:
This was a lighter movie, and was mostly comedy revolving around relationships. I expected the feminist in me to come out saying “that is not how women are” and “this is so chauvinistic” etc. But actually I didn’t. There were so many dialogues in the movie and so many situations which I could relate to real-life behavior of women I know, so I had to admit the movie was right about portrayals. Women ARE demanding, and women ARE confused. Not all of them. Not at all times. Not to the same extent. But then, women are all that. And more. It might be because of the way society views them, or because of the way they are brought up; it might be because “Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis a woman's whole existence”* or it might be because of natural selection but then women really are like that. (I know I must be the only jerk to think of evolution after watching Pyar ka Punch-nama, but I completely blame Dawkins for that- he has driven that angle too much into my head :( ). Anyway, I even came up with couple of theories about why women are the way they are and what men/women can do about this, but I am not gonna trouble you with all that.
Let me just say it was a good movie to watch, and hilarious. It is still on theaters, so if you want a good laugh, it is quite worth the money to go watch this one. (By the way, if you are taking your girlfriend, be sure to warn her that it is just for fun and surely she is special and ‘definitely’ not like the girls portrayed in it ;) :P)

Coas:
Confessions of a shopaholic- a movie I have seen at least twice already, second time only for Hugh, but he really suits the serious boss role. But I still liked watching it today. Shopaholism is quite an alien feeling to me, though I think B’lore is infecting me a little with it. But then, this movie always reminds me of why the “fish crisis” (fiscal crisis) happened in the first place, and why Indian parents are right about a lot of things, like teaching their children the value of money. Otherwise, nothing particularly great about the movie, but if you like shopping (and more so, if you are a girl) it is a must-watch.

So, that’s it. And to round up my list of recommendations- it will be very much worth the 15 bucks to finish this up with Anand Bhavan coffee, the way I did. :)

*That's by Byron in Don Juan. I hadn't read Don Juan until I wrote this article and was surprised to find it had so many wonderful lines (Including truth is stranger than fiction!) and also some great analysis of men and women. Find the original here.

The Artist

2011-06-09T15:15:00.000+05:30

Though this comes on a relevant date, this is not related to M.F.Hussain at all! I was thinking of something and merely found the artist to be a very good metaphor...

He stood, brush in hand, pondering. Again.
A dash of yellow on the cheek,
but even then the complexion was not right.
A tad darker, a tad lighter, it went on like the monkey fable.
And yet, that image in his mind, shining clearer than ever. Tantalizing.
With each brush stroke he knew what was wrong,
But correct this one, and the right eye’s hazel is too strong.
Search as he may, for the ideal in the real,
it could never be as perfect as in the mind.
Maybe that inconspicuous yet irritating flaw
was what made reality real, and he had to give up;
Maybe his mind's ability to imagine it was the true masterpiece
And he had to merely appreciate himself;
Or maybe it was both perfect and possible. And he was to go on searching after all...

Perspective

2011-05-05T12:25:00.009+05:30

Statutory Warning: This post is actually the result of one small MOSFET in TH-1 fluttering its gate- followed by a lot of chaos theory. It is weird, incomplete and random. Author not responsible for any brain damage. Or any other damage, like your company falling down 100 points on the market, because all of you are lost in deep thought after reading!

Warning (2)- If you clicked on the link for gate, and found the wrong one: I told ya, this post is random. Chaotic. Now don't start.

Perspective. It is one of my favorite words in English. (Most of you might have heard me say my standard "depends on your point of view" or "depends on what you want from it".)

I think sometimes that almost everything is a matter of perspective. No reality. Only shifting points of view and manifestations.

I remember the times in college when I realized there were a lot of things I had never even thought about while I was still at home, and suddenly they seemed weird from an outsider's point of view. And I keep claiming that my perspective has widened. Yet, when I say the "Indian junta is like this only", all I know of it are the few people I have met- maybe a 1000 odd. And we writers think we can talk about "mankind in general". Funny, huh?

Each time I think of the Big Bang and Big Crunch and Evolution (Ya. Selfish Gene remains on the list of posts "coming soon") and Bose-Einstein Condensates and Bhagavata Purana and F plasmids and DX 11 and 22nm , I am awestruck.

Maybe because "the sound perception of an ant does not include thunder"

Maybe in reality, each universe is just a giant petri-plate we are on and someone is just testing us all in a big lab. And after thinking of that, all of religion, politics, movies, small fights, pj forwards, technology look minuscule. Insignificant.

And yet again, when I look at my weekly status reports and deadlines and quarterly plans, nothing seems as important as hitting those targets. And I just can't help getting excited about the 3-d transistor. Until I remember the petri-plate, that is.

And I continue to wonder, what is the point of it all........

P.S: Actually, I changed my mind. Perspective, I mean. I can't help getting excited about the 3-d transistor. Even after the petri-plate! Maybe, that excitement IS the point of it all.....
P.S 2: I didn't know that I would write about the 3-d transistor thing when I started the article. The TH-1 and the 3-d tsr are unrelated. :P

To live, not To survive

2011-03-28T15:40:00.005+05:30

I have wanted to write on a lot of things in the last month. And somehow, it got postponed. There are always higher and higher priority things in my To-do list and I am falling into that abyss of endless working on things that are important but don’t make me happy. To be honest, almost throughout my life the things I considered important were also the things that made me happy. (For eg: studying. I enjoyed learning more than most activities, however much fellow students cribbed about it. I really loved the feeling I got after learning a new concept or acquiring a new skill- and the good part was these were the things I defined as important in my life.) But now, I am in a paradoxical situation. The things that are defined as important in my life today are not the things that seem to make me happy. They probably promised to make me happy when I started on them, but time has proven me wrong.

I analyzed the things I marked as important. What makes them important? Not going into too much detail, it is mostly that in the particular situation(s) that I am in, if I don’t do these things, I can’t survive. But then, I think that only things that make you happy in the long run can be important. If ever you find yourself in a position where the important things are also the things that cause your worries, then you should move out. These things could be your family responsibilities or your relationships or your career, or whatever. There may be a hundred reasons to stay on and keep giving importance to those things; there are a hundred societal pressures and hundred expectations we must meet simply because we do not wish to tear the shoddy fabric of society. But then, as I have always believed and professed, I feel there is no point of it all unless it makes YOU happy. (Well, I hope I don’t have to emphasize that your happiness should not be at the cost of your own morals, but I shall leave that part for now!)

Point is that if you find yourself in a situation that forces you to do things you do not like and accept a fate that you think you do not deserve, do not accept it. Fight or move on, as the situation demands. If you are in a situation where you are stuck, but you know you have made the right choices, you must fight it out. If you are in a situation where you don’t belong, where you have come because you made the wrong choices, you must move out. But “I think that it is a sin to sit down and let your life go, without making a try for it”*

So why write this here? One reason is I personally know many people who are facing similar dilemmas. And I hope that in my words they would find the confidence they need to move on. I value my own life too much to let it go in ways that I do not want to stand. And I am sure, if you think about it, nobody wants to live his/her life in a way he/she doesn’t like. Then why do it? It takes a little courage to question our own assumptions and decisions of the past, and maybe to go for the change, but if you think it is right- nothing should stop you from going for it.

The second reason, and probably the truer one, is that I want to record this for myself. If ever, I am not able to take the right decision, if ever I find myself clinging to the old simply out of complacency or a fear to move on, I want these words to remind me to do the right thing. As today. (Or yesterday, to be precise, when I thought about all this). I have decided that one must never give up or put up with fate. One must fight it. I have decided to live. Not to just survive.

And coming back to the first paragraph, I want to try to prioritize writing whenever I want to write. Because I enjoy it more than many other things. Hope to do so in the next few weeks at least- let me see.

Anyway, I owe a lot (but not all) of the confidence in this post to 2 people. Ayn Rand - for many of her lines, but especially the one I have quoted; and Tom Hooper- for making a movie that gave me a positive feeling and reminded me of many of my own convictions which I seemed to have forgotten lately. The latter, is among the list of things I wanted to write on, so let me see if I can post that soon....

P.S-
1. *Line from Atlas Shrugged, spoken by Jeff Allen to Dagny.
2. People, please don’t comment asking what exactly made me write this. No, it is not my job or a relationship or anything like that. If I had wanted to mention it, I would have. Since I haven’t, take the cue.

Love is in the air...

2011-02-12T13:34:00.002+05:30

It is the season of roses and heart shaped candies and chocolates and teddy bears ... And MRIs. The last? Maybe not yet, but MRI might just be your most sought after Valentine thing in the future. (For those of you who know me really well, I hope you saw something like this coming :P Magnetic Resonance Imaging instead of mushy dialogues :P)

Actually I read “this” article sometime in December, and had been thinking of blogging about it for long. But you know how I get stuck with one thing or the other never get around to writing. However, with Feb 14 around the corner, I thought what better time to write about love..

So basically, this article is about a guy who just participated in a neuroimaging experiment related to how exactly he loves his wife. And how do you find that out? They take images of his brain while he is thinking about his wife (he is shown pics of her to create that scenario) and they see which parts of the brain are more active when he does so. For a comparative study he is also shown the photo of Angelina Jolie (he gets to choose who) and in between both there is a neutral face (which bores him) to cleanse the brain activity.

Reduced to first principles, the brain has 3 systems related to love- the sex drive, the romance system and the attachment system. (I don’t think I need to explain the first, the second refers to the idyllic dreamy stuff and the third to the more mature friendly attachment you would have with your partner). Of course all three are part of any ideal romance, but how much of each is the question. I will leave you to read the results of his particular scans in his article.

What I was more interested in were the implications of something like this. Look at it- (if you believe in MRI) today’s technology can tell you exactly what you feel towards your wife. Or your extra marital girlfriend. Or Katrina Kaif. That kind of shakes the romance, eh? First of all, to say that all of love could be reduced to chemicals is a little disappointing. (You can read about the vasopressin-oxytocin experiment in that article itself). But this kind of theory has been around for a long time- that all of your anger, disappointment, premenstrual stress, were all chemicals all along. Maybe not ALL chemicals, but mostly. There was nothing divine about love (Nothing like Guna “Manidhar unardhu kollla idhu manidhar kaadhal alla.. Adhayum thaandi punidamaanadu... ")...
But this imaging experiment shakes love even more fundamentally- it not only potentially implies love is all chemicals, but it “analyzes” love. I am sure there are loads of people who would tell me that to analyze love would be to kill it. The beauty of love is in the parts not explained. (“Joh hai ankahi, Joh hai ansuni....”) To be honest, I am not too sure I agree. Sometimes I think so- it is the same of music or poetry or painting. At the outset, you feel that something is so beautiful that if you explain it in purely rational, mathematical terms you would not be able to enjoy it. However, there have been times when I enjoyed something I didn’t understand (mostly songs) and later enjoyed it much more after I understood it. (Entamaatramuna is one song I loved listening in MS’ voice. And after I read the English translation, I love it lots more.) So maybe, just maybe, analyzing your love might bring you closer. Or at least be an objective proof of your love. And truth, should ideally, never cause any harm.

But then again, look at the social significance of it. I can picture a Facebook App in the future that would analyze your MRI results for all the girls in your list (assuming you are guy and straight etc) and then give you a summary of how many people you are infatuated to, how many you have a crush on, how many you like “intellectually”, how many make good friends and so on. And imagine publishing that kind of info. That could do a lot to your relationships. There might be people you have a crush on but better not express it to, simply because it could hurt your career or your daily life to do so. And there are always people you never liked but must be civil to, and to have them know the truth (they probably already suspected it) might be a disaster- like this neutral girl face in the article- you can imagine the consequences of the writer telling her he finds her boring. And there might be guys who propose “I never thought I loved you, but that’s what my MRI says! I didn’t do anything really, my MRI did it!” :P And maybe bharatmatrimony would load your MRIs instead of horoscopes.

Plus, each girl would compare all her beaux’ scans and rate them. And even though you might really like the girl etc there might be that other guy who likes her more. (If you think of it, there are probably some people who exercise these portions of the brain more than the rest). (And then we would have companies that sell tablets or strange berries to help boost your MRIs.) Or maybe you never wanted to tell the girl that the sex drive and attachment was there, but you were never really into the romance.. (Unmai Sonnal Nesipaaya....) Maybe, sometimes the truth was better left unsaid.

Of course, on the non-romantic end, there are a whole bunch of applications possible for this kind of study. I show you my brandname and take a brain image. What does my brand name connote to you? I study your image and plan my marketing strategy accordingly. (This is something people are conducting experiments on). Or, I look at the brain images of my son/daughter and see which subjects he/she responds best to and, hey, choosing the field of study was never so easy. You can imagine Brilliant Tutorials and T.I.M.E coming up with their own quick study of your child to help “tailor the best path to his/her successful career” and so on. Lucrative business in India huh?

Anyway, for those of you who noticed, I began the looking-at-the-results paragraph with an if statement. And so, here comes the else.
If you do NOT believe in MRI, all this is probably meaningless. But then, why would you not believe in it? Well, (as is also mentioned in the article) there are many many neuroscientists and psychologists who feel that we might be reading just a little too much into the results. How much of the brain imaging is directly proportional to the brain function, or how much of statistical averaging is necessary to really make conclusions etc is still being debated. (A little Googling can yield loads of more material on the minuses of MRI interpretations, which I leave you to read.) So maybe, all is not lost yet. Maybe, the MRIs will never become trendy. And you can safely say “love is in the air”

But you can never tell. Someone might just correct you- “Love is in the head” or to be precise “Love is in the dopamine”...

P.S:
I simply loved the beginning of the article. The ideal proposal statement to tell a girl like me- “I love thee with serotonin produced by my raphe Nuclei. I love thee with testosterone receptors deep in my hypothalamus. I love thee with dopamine that floods my primitive lizard brain.” Lol....

Lines. And points.

2011-01-11T12:49:00.004+05:30

This is a math post.. Link rather... And folks who do not have a taste for it, don't blame me- you were warned!

I can't say I possessed a great liking for geometry at school, for whatever reason. Arithmetic was good (i am still in love with complex numbers), calculus was awesome. Algebra lost its charm later- maybe it got a little mundane, but for starters it was almost like solving some mystery ;) Trigonometry still leaves a bad taste as I think of the word. Computation is a word I learnt long after I had started liking it. Geometry on the other hand, and here I mean the Euclid kind of geometry, was one topic I developed a liking for after finishing school. As much as I hated the chapter on tangents and the 29 questions in the CBSE text, I loved geometry theorems after school... I still can't go past a new geometry result and resist the temptation to prove it.

(Ahem.. And if you are still thinking about the 29 questions- no I don't remember the exact number. I just conjured up a convincing one ;))

So when I came across this post on Pascal lines I thought I would post it for fellow math lovers to read... The beauty of geometry lies in its essential simplicity- who would have thought that one circle and some lines across it could result in Steiner points, Kirkman points and so many other points named after people*. AND Cayley lines. AND theorems with Cayley lines and Steiner points.. It is really all beautiful. Especially when I think about whether my circular pen stand and all the refills it holds form pascal lines and hexagons and blah de blah... (Curse my imagination, huh!)

Anyway, check out this link... :) And for today,

Image Courtesy: http://talent.randomoriginal.com/2010/09/13/thats-all-folks-the-open-call-is-officially-closed

*Someday I should catch hold of some new points and name them after myself to leave an indelible mark in the math world :P

Fast- II

2011-01-08T14:57:00.002+05:30

I didn't intend writing this post really... I wanted to write about my New Year vacation, but then I think that will take some more time.. So thought will do a "quick post" instead... (And before I start, Happy New Year! :) )

This is about fasting.. (Somehow this every year around this time, I end up writing about this huh?) But really, this is a more serious take on fasting...

Right now, I am listening to a phone conversation in Tamil... (not sure if it is eavesdropping, but then this person is clearly loud and also knows others might be listening-- so not my fault you see ;) )

"You must treat me man... Come on, you got married"

"You didn't even treat me for your birthday"

"Just one rum will do da... "

......

and so on. (translated, of course!)

Whoever it was at the other end was trying to escape, and as I type the conversation is still going on...."Wait a second.. this post was about fasting", you tell me, "and you are writing about some useless phone conversation?!"

Ah right. Cutting a long conversation short, many dialogues later, this guy goes..
"Dei, I have fasted last month da... Ages since I had good food... And I even missed the new year bash for this cursed Shabarimala"..

To be honest, I am quite disgusted with this kind of thing. You might say I am over-reacting, but maybe you should hear me out...

Whatever my personal views on religion and rituals, I usually do not mind others following their own. "To each the boulders that have fallen to each", so to say. But then, I guess this was an exception. I just wanted to ask "Why did you fast in the first place, if all you wanted was to have a new year bash?" No, I am not saying something like -it is against the rules of fasting to even think about celebrating blah blah... Maybe it is, but I am not an authority on religious rules. However, I believe that if at all you try to follow some religious thing, you must do it fully. If you believe the 40 day fast and the climb up Shabarimala will lead you to salvation, fine. Just do it with complete involvement. There is no point whatsoever in fasting just because a) it is a custom b) my father used to and I think I must c) i don't know why I am doing it. If you fast, fast because you want to or you believe that you will get something out of it- maybe spiritual growth or salvation or whatever.

And yes, the same applies to going to a temple and discussing local gossip. Praying is a personal choice, and if you think God resides in a temple and all that, fine- please go. But if you really believe in that stuff, shouldn't you be praying standing there? Or was that just some social status thingie? If all you needed was a place to gossip in, the temple seems kinda beside the point, huh?

Anyway, back to fasting. I have tried it sometimes, a little out of curiosity and maybe as a test of my own self-control.. but, as I said, to each .... And I think fasting is one of the few good things Gandhi taught India. However, if all I was doing throughout my fast was thinking that I was better off without it,I needn't do it at all... Nobody is gonna take you to task for not doing it...

Ya, I agree, when you try to go on a diet, you can't help thinking about food, and it happens. But then, at least you are on a diet because you are convinced you must do it. And if you are sufficiently convinced you wouldn't be regretting going on the "cursed" diet all that much.. Same applies to the fast...

So, that's that... And my post is getting longer than I intended. So signing off... Don't mind my using the second person (made it easier to write).. And ya, if at all you go on a fast without conviction, at least get a new state for it ;)

Life...

2010-11-26T14:49:00.000+05:30

The sea of life washes all into her
A concoction of the good, the bad and the dirty,
And as I watch in astonishment and impenetrable sorrow,
My precious little pearl floats with the gutter rat's carcass
Ah, for the rat she has great mercy maybe,
To me, she has but little justice!!

P.S: No reason why I wrote this in the middle of the day, when i was busy thinking about loads of other things... Maybe, life washes poetry into graphics tests as well!

Raavan

2010-10-28T11:54:00.003+05:30

This is a poem that is intended to be both generic and symbolic of Raavan. This is what I had thought someone who wants to portray Raavan's character would say, but of course, Mani failed that in Raavan to a large extent. So narrating the part of the story that was left unsaid...

She was a princess, I, ruler of the world,
I, the first to break the laws of love, I, unjustifiably villainized.
I, cursed from the beginning of time, for I, would be blinded by her delicate beauty.
A beauty- so fragile and yet so strong from within
a beauty that compelled her into the cruel jungle with him.
Lady, my heart cries, if I had to take you to the jungle, I would rather die.
Isn't love such a heartless thing, princess,
that you like the man who would banish you, and walk you into fire;
and, I, a woman who doesn't respect me even as grass*
And yet, that hopeless love unites us
for the heart always desires what the hand cannot touch
and desire is the seed of the illogical in the mind.
So let the world laugh at me, woman,
For I know, no man will remain unswept by the passion that washed us away
For I know, you love me by loving him, without repay.

*This line is based on the beautiful explanation Vishaka Hari gave for the event where Sita tells Raavan she doesn't even respect him lesser than she does a blade of grass!

P.S- You may already know that Raavan was an extremely talented man, accomplished musician, poet (his poem on Lord Shiva is really awesome), and of course, a great warrior etc etc. While Ramayan says Ram was also very talented (Remember he fought Maareech and gang at 14), I somehow never felt the respect I felt for Raavan (and no Dravidian bias here). Maybe because he was not as chauvinistic. Maybe because Valmiki secretly intended him to be the hero ;)

Robot

2010-10-24T00:26:00.004+05:30

Ok. This is not really an Enthiran review, though I do have a few things to say about Enthiran. I saw it a while ago, and it was ok. But what made me write today is, as usual, reading something. As can be expected, this time it is Asimov. For a real Asimov reader, I had been scoring low, because I hadn't read any of his novels till today. Of course, I have read MOST of his short stories (primarily thanks to Padmini, whose collections lured me out of studying before cycle tests in 1^st year!! :) ) Anyway, today's reading brought me back to this whole debate (which explains the length of this post :D). And I am keeping the Enthiran review at the end- so you can read it only if you really want to know my take on it :)

Anyway, one thing good about Enthiran is that it brought some really important debates to the masses (and gave me something to start with)- what would happen if we had a robot that could act as an independent entity? Can we be sure it won't turn against us? Can we make it understand human emotions? Will the robot become the same emotional, sentimental failure that men sometimes become? Or will it show some yet unknown characteristic or emotion?! Will it end up having psychological disorders? Will the randomness that is so part of life on Earth, play a role in robotic development as well?

These are the questions Asimov asked in his stories, and they are as relevant today as then. While we are building bigger and better computers and Japan is speeding with artificial intelligence- someone should ask the question- Do we really understand what we are doing? Do we know enough of the human brain and human emotions to understand what an object equipped with a similar (if not better) brain is capable of doing? I am not trying to be pessimistic here. I am a big fan of technology alright, but these questions are a little inevitable.

Humans believe in a lot of abstract things like spirituality, justice and ethics. Do these laws that seem to apply to us, apply to the objects that we create as well? (Aside, as a reverse question, I wonder if the laws that apply to us, apply to God- it is tricky because if they do- then it means the laws are supreme and not God himself. And if they don't, it means we have an unfair God in our hands! :D) Will the factors that motivate us motivate our robots? Or will they be motivated by things that we shall never understand?

Even further, we have observed that with ~~knowledge~~ competency and talent comes the desire to be independent (it comes even without, but at least some amount of submission is possible in an ignorant man)- will a computer with almost infinite knowledge be able to choose to be independent? Will it choose to prove to us that it is better? And the question that was lurking behind all along- will we become slaves of the robot? Or will we be simply destroyed eventually?

I know you are saying the day is far off when we will leave the computer with such a choice. I know we are not there yet today. But aren't many of us really living our lives for the sake of the computer- spending our lives designing it, testing it, feeding it, enhancing it- or maybe I should say breeding it?! If half the world can be addicted to facebook today, and a piece of code called Farmville can create an extraordinary experiment on living neurons- with just today's compute power- what might happen when we really have humanoids?

It probably sounds a little overstated. And anyway, I am digressing.The point is do we know the impact of our machines on us? Or whether thinking machines will obey us at all?

An even more interesting question is- do we really have a say in this? I know Steven Rose says each creature has its say in evolution- he is possibly right in the fact that we have a choice. But we have ~~constraints~~ limitations on our choices. And we don't have complete knowledge of the consequences of each choice. Maybe, maybe like Asimov postulates in his story, we shall never have a say and ultimately machines shall rule us. Or maybe they won't. Or maybe the question just needs a positronic brain to find the answer... And until then we just have the cliché- "Only time can tell"....

(Click read more for Enthiran review)

By the way, on Enthiran- same comment I would have told most people in person- It is really too good for a Tamil movie; in fact, for an Indian movie. Like a lot of people say awesome graphics (The fights towards the end, man!) and I so like the part where the robot becomes a bad guy. But in a way, it is all Rajni in form and it is so so Sujatha in spirit. (I can almost see Sujatha writing the "zeta byte" and "terahertz" and "neural schema" and I am so sure NOBODY in the Tamil film industry has the faintest knowledge of words like these. And ya, the "de-worming" program as well!) Of course all the graphics and megalomaniac stuff is obviously Shankar- but I think this time at least he has used the money well! The Santhanam comedy track was so not-Shankar (I know Sun pictures is plugging him, and I really can't see why! :( ) Aishwarya Rai- looks good, though initially some of her dress selections were pathetic. Her smiles are so plastic and she is not even homely, so I don't know why she is a "Rajni-heroine". Luckily, Shankar saved us from the "mannuketha tamizh thotta ponnu" crap that happened in Sivaji (and make Shreya dance in some bikini-ish outfit later on!) Wunly Wun qoshtin for Ash- Are u made for the Sita in AshokVan role? Or does it just happen?! :P

And oh, won more qoshtin for Sankar saar- didn't the "give the robot to army" thing sound a little like VijayKanth? :P

On the negative side- well, it had a good number of logical hitches. And of course you can say Rajni did the same things he does in any movie, but with the license of being an andro-humanoid! But remember, I said it was good for a "Tamil" movie, not that it was a good movie as such! He.. He....

The evening’s promise

2010-09-02T18:46:00.000+05:30

Sometimes, the sky is an irresistible blue,

and the breeze, a tempting embrace.

The silent noises from far away,

calling me to a long walk, a respite after a long day

The cool air, the sights and sounds- a beginning, a promise.

They promise me something, I don't know what,

but the red pump in me gains life from their unsaid words.

Maybe it is the promise of a sight unseen,

Or of a song, unequalled.

Maybe it is a person who I shall meet at the turn of a long road-

who shall change, with a magic sweep of his wand, the world for me.

A flower, a river, a breathtaking hour-

anything to fill this emptiness that swamps me.

Sometimes, I give in and walk and walk

but nothing but the orange sun would be.

Fairy tales promise well, but they were tales you see!

And the next time, when the evening invites me,

I give in again and embark in a quest for that hidden delight,

even when knowing what evening conjured for me was only a tantalizing dream.

Yet, I continue to hope

Some day, I will meet evening's prize

And maybe,

maybe, then, everything will be alright!

Inception

2010-07-19T09:44:00.003+05:30

I had to write a review on inception. I had to, because, it is among the BEST movies I have ever seen. Even though it does not fall in my usual definitions of best. I could say I had to do this, even though I am very much stuck for time, because, it is a movie that makes me take my "hat off and bow and kneel before and say 'that was great!'" But the real reason is what "lightning strikes everyday" says on his blog- "It is a movie that treats the audience with intellectual respect"

It is a movie that is not only intelligent, but demands an equal intelligence from the audience (not equal maybe, but at least approximately so) to appreciate it. (Of course that doesn't include people who read Wikipedia explanations or fake an understanding of the movie.) But each person individually would know how much he understood of the movie, and also that that indicates a lot about his intelligence, which was in itself a great feat!*

In any case, it is really refreshing to see a movie that demands something of you- some sort of a challenge, expects you to think on your toes etc, if only to understand, instead of making you a mere spectator. Because Nolan wastes very little time in explaining his concept- he expects you to grasp it as quickly as his characters and move forward! In fact, while I was watching the movie I thought maybe in future, we should have interactive movies. Games are like that already, but somehow they don't feel the same way! Anyway, that was really enjoyable- like a puzzle. And seemed to show the sense of respect the director had on the spectator- if you get what I mean!

But that was not the only thing. The plot and the screen play were so cleverly done, you did not have a minute to think about all that I just said, or find flaws, or notice the theme or acting. Not that I found any problem with any of these. But the beauty was that they were so perfectly executed to form an extremely enjoyably riveting tale. Each minute you were waiting for the next, caught in the dream (metaphorically speaking) Nolan had managed to create and hungry for more.

To create a movie that engrosses the spectator requires talent, though it can often be achieved by speed of plot, and incorporation of impasses, that the hero shall eventually come out of- in short, a mindless race is all that u need! To create a movie that makes the spectator think a lot after watching it, that sows interesting questions in his mind to ponder about, and performs the "inception" of new ideas and possibilities in his mind about the world, is an art; but often, movies that make you think are a little boring, over-serious, slow or too documentary-like.
Inception was both engrossing and thought-provoking! And if for nothing else, it is a great movie on this account alone!

Well, (Spoiler alert!) about the plot itself, there were many interesting ideas in the tale. For instance, I had thought about this dream-within-dream funda long ago, when it had just seemed an interesting recursion. But the way Nolan has used it is amazing. Again, about being lost in the dream world (or limbo, as he calls it) is an idea worth pondering about. And even the fact that ideas are like cancer! That statement simply makes me go "!!!!!" Anyway, too many such interesting thoughts in the movie, so I won't go into the plot or ending in any further detail. (Am welcome to any offline discussions on this topic...)

All that I will say before I finish is- Inception is one of those movies that make you wonder if all the other movies you saw were movies at all- they simply look like trash in comparison with this one!***

*It just struck me- I think I would have people watch such movies, or better still, create them to prove their intelligence instead of written entrance exams. I mean, I would have an exam where I would make them watch a movie or video alone (obviously syllabus not mentioned before) and then give them questions on the video and see how well they answer them. That's all. I can already see how many of the toppers and so-called intelligent people I know would fail such an exam! And imagine how interesting an exam that would be!!! :)

**Going further on my exam idea, I think it might still not work in India, because our students would attend coaching classes on all movies that may or may not make any sense and practice 45000 questions before the exam! So my pursuit for the ideal exam continues!! :(

*** Especially, all Indian movies! Man, if I were a standard Indian director, I would have committed suicide in shame after seeing Inception!

In one word...

2010-06-18T11:22:00.000+05:30

I discovered something today morning, Nothing like gravity or relativity. Just a small observation.

That every person has a basic flavor. Or essence (as Jonathan Stroud would have it). By this I mean each person can essentially be described by one word. Just one word. To describe all actions, thoughts, principles- literally everything- about the person.

I had tried to do this long ago- just to see if I hit upon anything- tried to describe each person I know in a single word. A word to describe what impression I had of that person. I wasn't all that successful at that time, but today's task, I think, should be possible. The difference here is that this one word should not be what that person reminds you of. It should be a word that explains his complete nature.

For example, I know someone whose nature, in all its totality, can be described as "Argument". This person would not listen to half a sentence of yours without arguing. In fact, even when he is talking, or writing a program, or any other such thing, you would see how his mind falls back to "argument" in every step.

Another person I know can be described by "I-don't-want-to-be-blamed".* This person, while having a lot of attributes, is always trying to ensure he is not wrong in anybody's eyes. I am not saying he tries to portray himself as good etc, he really is a good person as far as I know, but even while simply talking, or maybe even thinking his mind always goes back to this precept. Any stand he takes on any issue and any example he might give can be derived from, or at least, traced back to this.

I have a lot more examples- but the last I will mention here is someone I talked to yesterday. And I must mention this person because yesterday's conversation was what triggered my discovery itself. His word was "Action". Whatever you spoke to him, his mind would automatically go to what could be "done" about it. You could talk to him abstract philosophy and still his mind was continuously asking "anything to be done here?" However much u tried to divert it to concepts or theories, it always leaped back to action.

So, what do you think? Can all attributes of a person be described in one word? Try thinking of someone close to you... Or someone you know very well... And try to describe them in one word... You might discover a lot about their nature. And maybe even yours!!

*I know that's not really a single word... Writers' license u see ;)

P.S- Someone just asked me what word best describes me. I have found the word, but I don't think I ought to reveal it. Like they say, some mysteries of the world are better left unsolved! ;)

Link of the day...

2010-06-16T16:56:00.001+05:30

Quick link...

It is on Tamil Nadu politics and tweeted by krishashok. I have a lot to say on the topic myself, but most of it has already been said in this article.

(Especially on how the current government tries to appreciate only certain aspects of Tamil literature and ignore everything else! Thiruvalluvar being the epitome of this policy. I admit Valluvar's writings were very good, but he was not the only good writer of Tamil Nadu.)

Plus I like the style of writing- Point Blank. No beating around the bush. I wish our journalists wrote this way...

Team work- mankind’s prehistoric secret?

2010-05-26T14:42:00.003+05:30

So continuing on that one about evolution....Well... There are all these theories about how man evolved. However, what is more interesting is not "how did man evolve", but "why". There are billions of creatures on planet Earth and some of them with really interesting features (like the ciliates, about which I started a post and never published!) and yet, none of them achieved what man did! (Or maybe they did, but that is a premise I don't want to talk about today).

WHY did man become the most powerful creature? What in him that wasn't there in other creatures made him invent computers and visualize robots, and make artificial cell cultures?

An advanced biology? As in, anatomy, physiology? A better brain? (The first answer that occurred to me was something else, but about that, later!) While it is true that man is seemingly the most developed of animals, there are a lot of arguments against this (some biologists point out the more optimized bodies of other organisms, or question the authenticity of brain size as an indicator of development). One such interesting argument is that while most of development (both physical and mental, as well as making tools, etc) had happened in the first half a million years, mankind seemed to suddenly sudden takeoff 45,000 years ago- what we might call mankind's big break!

Now how did this happen? If everything was in place by that time, what was man waiting for, to go big? While one might think it was some sort of genetic thing (or maybe Erich von Daniken's alien gods), recent research says something a lot simpler. And a lot like what our management gurus tell us. "It's all team work"!!!

By this they mean that exchange of thoughts/goods stimulated innovation by bringing together different ideas and different people. And THIS was what triggered rapid progress. (Read this article for a more detailed explanation of this theory.) Wherever huge numbers of people settled, and had trade, development was a rocket! Which is a little obvious. Meet different people, grasp different perspectives, discuss and argue, and you become a lot wiser! Or, like a lot of people from our previous generation did, move from your village to a bigger city, which is essentially a hub for more diverse people, more opportunities and more exposure, and again, you become a lot better. And quite amazingly, this is what happened to the Neanderthals!!

(I have often discussed the plusses of staying away from home- in terms of how your perspective broadens, how much exposure you get, and how much the experience can teach you! It seems that more wisdom is to be had in dialogue than classes and books; without denying the merits of the latter.)

In any case, another interesting thing this theory says is that- not only should a lot of people stay at a particular locality, but they should be involved in as much "exchange" (or interaction) as possible! In other words, "not just a population, but an argumentative, interactive population". I particularly like the statement "Trade is to culture as sex is to biology", because I have always found meiosis and genetic recombination to be among the greatest marvels of nature. As are arguments and reasoning, marvels of human minds! In any case, "team work" seems to have been the mantra ever since the beginning of existence! And maybe, as "Argumentative Indians", we must take the cue and have more discussions, interactions and exchange of ideas!

P.S- Did I leave off without giving my answer for the question at the start of this article? Well, the first answer that popped up in my mind was curiosity... Man has always been curious about his existence, about the nature of the world, its origin (which laid the foundations of science and philosophy and all that stuff). The reason for his progress has probably been the question why apart instead of only how! But I am no biologist and I don't know if other animals are as curious as man is- so can't really tell!

Links...

2010-05-21T21:23:00.000+05:30

An awesome video (based on an abstruse goose comic, but still very good!) - Something I am always amazed by - evolution, life, biodiversity!!! Wow....

A hope against hope hopen....

2010-05-20T10:54:00.008+05:30

Aha! How flies time! Before I know it a month is gone! (I wanted to put some awesome Shakespeare line, which talks about time stealing away from him, but I don't remember the exact words! Will be grateful to anyone who can point that out...)

And before I move on to the post- link of the day- An extract from "At home" by Bill Bryson.... VERY interesting...

So the update goes thus-- I am back from my vacation. And am into the normal mode- work, eat, sleep, read novels, etc. Was reading Jonathan Stroud. Expect a review on that one. And that apart, I have been reading online. Lot of random stuff. Mostly... It even surprises me that there are so many things to write about in this world!

And having mentioned Shakespeare and writing, I should quite automatically slide into .... grammar. Most people who have argued with me, would have been horribly irritated by my constant correction of grammatical errors. (Like when you are explaining the most irrefutable point you have got to make, I go "It's not with, it is by!" I know it kinda gets on your nerves, but I have some sorta automatic grammar sensor in my head which goes beeping [and which sometimes turns off, if the speaker has an absolute lack of grammar-- some things are beyond repair!] In any case, I have mostly been particular...

So then it surprised me when a quest across OUP blog, visual thesaurus, etc. made me find a very obvious (but not so obvious till then) grammatical mistake I tend to make. And quite often.

It was the use of the word hopefully. I have often used it (but luckily, not on this blog) to mean "I hope" e.g. "Hopefully, I will write more on this topic". However, the actually meaning of the word "hopefully" is "full of hope". So in the previous sentence while I intended to say "I hope I will write more on this topic", I ended up saying "I will write more on this topic full of hope" (which was OK, if I had been talking about the recession etc :D) In any case, this discovery led me to discover a class of words said to be skunked (no, not the animal). But more on that one 2 weeks from now (Thinking of doing a regular grammar update every alternate week. But don't know if that will materialize...) Anyway, will at least get back on skunked words soon... Hopefully... (Ahem!)

P.S. - Aha! The title, (X CBSE students of 2003 batch and earlier might remember) is from Ogden Nash's dentist poem "This is going to hurt just a little bit". While the poem wasn't great, I had liked this particular line, and also the part about the vicious circle....

Why facebook is bad for blogging...

2010-04-29T09:46:00.002+05:30

Uh oh!

I didn't want to do this ever again. Ever. This whole ordeal of I will post more regularly etc.

But you see, last month I was playing a lot (actually, any time I could get out of office!)

On facebook, I mean. Farmville and Cafe World.

I kinda wanted to be the first person to reach level 50 or something. (I had thought I will reach that and stop). Which isn't all that tough if you play after giving it a little thought. I sure reached level 20 odd in both, and quite quickly at that. And then somehow my mind wasn't into it at all. Last Saturday, when I was really free (I wanted to work too, but was too lazy to go to office), and I was just sitting at home in the heat, and amid many power cuts, which was really very ripe time for me to be playing, I simply didn't play. I guess I got too bored of it.

And by the time it was Monday, I wasn't even opening facebook. I don't know if I have mentioned, but before I began playing, I used to login to fb once in 6 months or so. Now you know why I didn't approve your friend request, huh? :P

Well, I observed a few things about the way these games were designed, about zynga.com, about facebook itself, and of course, as always, about the human psyche. Will put them up in a later post maybe. Off home for a week, so until then wouldn't be around... So long...

(Hmmm. Good. Confession done :) Got over quickly enough :) )

P.S- In case you thought I'd do a serious post related to the title, well, sorry for disappointing you... Some other time, I promise :)

Immigration and India

2010-03-26T10:19:00.003+05:30

Ok. This is a little of Intel and a little of India.

Intel had this science contest in the US (which I had read about briefly on the LAN). Of course, just another science contest (though probably a big BIG one). And without going into details I can let you assume all that you know about science contests. What was interesting, (as I had already noticed in our LAN article) was the list of winners-

Linda Zhou, Alice Wei Zhao, Lori Ying, Angela Yu-Yun Yeung, Lynnelle Lin Ye, Kevin Young Xu, Benjamin Chang Sun, Jane Yoonhae Suh, Katheryn Cheng Shi, Sunanda Sharma, Sarine Gayaneh Shahmirian, Arjun Ranganath Puranik, Raman Venkat Nelakant, Akhil Mathew, Paul Masih Das, David Chienyun Liu, Elisa Bisi Lin, Yifan Li, Lanair Amaad Lett, Ruoyi Jiang, Otana Agape Jakpor, Peter Danming Hu, Yale Wang Fan, Yuval Yaacov Calev, Levent Alpoge, John Vincenzo Capodilupo and Namrata Anand.

What a diverse group! Ummm… not really! What an Indian-Chinese group! Same as what Friedman has mentioned in his column. (List is from the column) But while Friedman is concerned about US' policy on immigrants, I am thinking more about it in generic terms.

(By the way, before I forget, I have noticed how Intel US has a good number of Indians (and in key positions -- actually they actively encourage diversity) though I am sure that would be true of most companies. I know we were supposed to know it, but sometimes it gets at you! Ok. No more company propaganda.)

So what I am thinking is - Is allowing immigrants good for a country? Yes. Obviously. And not only because new ideas, new mixture of people and all that blah. But because the guys who are ready to move on are precisely the kind of guys who can spur improvement. And I think we should ponder a little more about that one.

That being said, is allowing people to immigrate good for us? Obviously not. Like I said, we would be left with a lot that is mostly complacent (though of course there might some folks genuinely interested in development).Besides, we would be losing a good number of resources, as is usually claimed.

Point is that it is high time we thought about valuing our brainforce and giving them a healthy environment. Correction. It is high time we started respecting people who know more than us and I mean this as individuals. The problem with India is not only money. It is the environment, the politics, narrow-mindedness and lack of sensible, objective, mutual respect. I could have ended this post with the first line of this paragraph. But I think the issue here is not that India needs x or y. Issue is how many Indians, as individuals, really practice what they claim India lacks. The day, that bridge vanishes, we would have an age of rationalism in India.

And I am waiting eagerly for it ….

Links...

2010-03-17T12:34:00.001+05:30

While the buzz of #nithyananda slowly spirals down, here is a quick link on an interesting blog about him. (Rather, against him).

Very good for fiction. A little obvious when you realize it's real, but good work by those guys. And I like the writing style :)

While I do not consider him a topic worthy enough to dedicate a blog to, I will try to get back on "The God Market", as it goes today.

Frigid

2010-03-15T11:13:00.000+05:30

Another poem.... Seems to be my non-sonnet week!

When I was about 4 years old,

and the world stretched in front of my curious eye,

Innocent, amazing and simple- reassuring as the pale blue sky.

I stood at my balcony,

still struggling my little hand the edges to reach

and watching day in and day out

The march of the red ants, their silent screech,

to a little anthill they had carved in the wall,

A refuge for winter, and the two week fall.

They walked all day collecting morsels of dead insects

and anything they could find-

collecting and cherishing as connoisseurs do wine;

years of patience and solid determination,

desire, motivation, focused hard work, deliberation

modeling all those values self-help books instill, and innately

sure formulae for success, and fame, stately

One day, as they marched along towards their "success",

I pulled them all out with a thin brown stick

and dissolved their long stored food into a little yellow mug,

Then poured it down the drain-

A four year boy rendering years of work futile -

years sewn from millions of impatient minutes

with the thread of hope and perseverance, undying enthusiasm-

all in vain now!

And years later, as I see you today,

I feel like the ants once did

Unable to get my shattered dreams rid.

Unable to remain. Frigid.

Swan Song

2010-03-09T14:08:00.000+05:30

(A poem, after a long time!!! That too, a non-sonnet!!)

As I crawl out of one minute into another,

Time squeezing me into a shapeless jelly

On this endless day,

Each squeeze painting images afresh in my mind,

Of all the joys we had, of the sunny days,

I think of the lone phrase that had always dwelt in my mind

Its existence real, to me alone,

That popped yesterday in a moment of impulse,

Now reborn in this crowded world of thoughts,

Finding its joy, and slashing mine across.

I know I was wrong, I know you didn't deserve it.

And the confession was long due.

Yet sometimes the past is a ghost,

That haunts you long after you tried to bury it,

Long after you forgot.

You think 'it was just a mistake'-

And yet there can be nothing just about a mistake!

As time paints my world in black and white, draining all the color,

I can only erase myself out of existence, now

And give birth to the vacuum that has long consumed me.

And while in the vacuum labor, I hold at my tongue

the word I had always hated, knowing its innate iniquity,

But in the spasm that my vacuum was born,

In the moment of extreme pain, and shame,

Sinking in the shrouds of death, I say,

with a furious hope, and fear and qualm

"Forgive me! Give me a chance again!"

MFNIS

2010-03-02T14:16:00.010+05:30

Huh, it's only 10 days! It seemed like aeons since I posted. (Wrote this on Feb 26^th).

Anyway, I watched another movie. MNIK. So much of noise about the movie. Though one should know better than to expect Shah Rukh Khan to make a convincing "different" movie. (Long ago, he made one Asoka, and we all know how conwinceing that was!)

But you see I was torn by confusion. On the one hand, I know Shah Rukh. And on the other, I know that Sena most often opposes good works (except for M F Hussain), whatever the stated reason. Anyway I somehow made myself watch the movie, at least for curiosity value.

Note that. I "made myself" watch the movie. It was an ordeal at best, catastrophe at worst. I wanted to tie my hands to my seat so I do not punch the screen. But hey, hadn't a lot of people told me the same, before I saw it, if only in kinder words? Ya. I admit I was only a prey to curiosity, and this time it nearly killed me.

But I am digressing. My point was not how bad MNIK was. I can simply say that SRK was horribly unreal and Kajol was (I-already-used-the-word-unreal, eh?) made-up, and I don't mean it in the dressed up sense. I can't tell you how tired I am of those reviews that give MNIK five and a half stars and the ones where the newspaper guys says he can't have enough of Kajol. (Can't find the review online, don't remember the date. It was on THE HINDU). Well, I had enough of her in less than two-three minutes, which was, let's admit, quick!

But what made me write this post (apart from the boredom of travelling in a day train for 5 hours) is this new obsession of Bollywood with mad guys. Ok. I know we don't use the word mad anymore. I should say mentally disabled. No, mentally challenged. No no, people with mental disorders. (Don't intend to be rude really. **) Especially weird sounding ones. I think I'll become a director by simply doing a wiki search on mental disorders, locating some xyz syndrome and then saying, "hey, guess what, I am making a movie on xyz syndrome". And if u r a star actor u'll go like, "yes, yes. I very much want to do serious movies. I am tired of all this superherodom. And then I'll take the script of two three superhero-ish movies, to add enough romance and fight, and confidence ("We shall overcome", remember?) and all the related stuff, and then add a single twist that will make the movie a duper-luper-hit (no typo ;)) -- I'll make the hero suffer from the wikipedian disaster.

Bas. Done. That's it.

I can also make a super-duper dad-son combo play progeric-son-dad and get away.

No, they don't need to act. They can remain horribly unreal. They can remain emotionless. They can crack awfully silly jokes "to show their confidence" that makes them 'oh-so-cute' to their heroines/mothers/everybody else. They can sing, dance, fall in love blah blah. The same monotonous things that all masala-movie heroes do in their movies. But of course, nobody can criticize them. That would make the critic heartless, you see. "Can't you see the hero has a disorder? You must be utterly heartless"

Well. Well. So you can expect the next big movie from me. MFNIS (My father's name is Singh. Since after your name, the next thing you say is your father's name, right? *groan*). And it is about a guy with …. Ahem .. with a new kind of disorder. That affects only one in a million. No, not S J Suryaa's disorder. Something else.

Lemme Google and see.

Maybe he has sudden mood swings-- total mania or complete depression. Bipolar I disorder. That way, I can make him do both romance and action. And make him get ferociously angry with the villain AS WELL AS unimaginably kind with the poor. But not good enough…

Or oppositional defiant disorder (that's self explanatory, right?). He can simply fight any guy who opposes him. On anything. But that sounds like politicians..

Hmmm…. I should find something that says the hero cannot act. Or maybe… maybe he can only overact. U say that's not a disorder- ha, ha it is. It is the Histrionic Personality Disorder. (HPD ;) ) And it affects 2%-3% of the general population… Bingo :)

Ok. Producers, and popular actors. Please apply quickly. The next duper-luper hit is ready in my mind….

And ya, only one last thing. The talent of Bollywood and most of Indian cinema lies in the ability to masalafy the most artistic topics. (I mean topics with the most artistic scope.)

**I can't tell you how much I feel for people with mental disorders. But I think changing terminology or making films about them is similar to feeling sorry for the people Indian slums and making Slumdog Millionaire. If you get the comparison.

P.S.-- (few clarifications, in case I haven't been clear)

1. I am not against changing terminology from mad to mentally unique. I just find it a superficial change; as long as what we think about them doesn't change, there is no point in changing terminology.

2. Again, it is not that people shouldn't make movies on mental disorders. Point is taking a mental disorder as a theme does NOT make up for bad film making. I am not talking from the point of view of awareness creation etc, purely from a good-film-making perspective.

In the name of education - an update

2010-02-16T11:19:00.004+05:30

This is a continuation of a previous article linking to the Careers 360 article on IIPM. They have an update.

It is a must-check ...

Also worthwhile is the link given in the letter pointing to the Belgium education authorities particularly the questions about diploma mills .

I don't think I need to say anything more about this.

Sometimes, truth is so self evident. If only it weren't as disgusting...

Bus day

2010-02-05T12:52:00.002+05:30

Yesterday (Feb 4th) was Bus Day in Bangalore.

We were supposed to use public transport and I had been flooded with mails/forwards/pamphlets about Bus day. So much that I thought it would go pretty well and maybe there would be lesser traffic on the roads (if not cleaner, less pollluted air etc, as the pamphlets had suggested!).

Morning came, and I went to office as usual (in company bus, which I thought was public transport enough) and we were stuck in Airport Road for the same number of minutes that we are stuck every morning (if not a few more). We nearly hit (but never really hit) the same number of vehicles and pedestrians who were callously crossing the road few cms in front of our vehicle.

And did I see crowded buses? Nah! If you have stood at Adyar Depot at 8.30-9 in the morning (Aside: Why is it that we Indians can never tell the time accurately? I have never heard anyone say 4PM, only 4-4.30!), and tried to squeeze yourself into the lopsided 21H, you would know what a crowded bus is. But even by Bangalore standards, I don't think buses were any more crowded than usual. Not noticably.

Which makes me conclude the Bus day wasn't a success at all.

And why?

We know that, don't we? Lack of direct buses, infrequency, and of course, the fares. In Chennai, I can go pretty far (as in more than just walkable distances) on 5 bucks. Here, it takes me 5 from just Bhima Nagar to CMH (which I sometimes walk). Plus the conductors never know where to go. I have some infamous experiences of landing in the wrong places (and being late for office) because of misguiding conductors. And after 8.30 PM or so, the bus frequency drops to 40%, I think (I have waited for long long long times to get buses on otherwise popular routes!), which makes it necessary to take an auto.

Besides, there was no incentive as such to take the bus on Bus Day (unless you wanted to prove to your friends you were environment-friendly or something, which I don't think is all that motivating). BMTC could have subsidized rates for the day. Or increased frequency of buses. (I would prefer them to give a toffee to every passenger, but that is not economically feasible :( )

I don't know if BMTC is listening, though they have this survey. Since govt organization surveys are pretty much treated equal to kadalai-madikkara-paper, I guess not. But if they are, I hope they change Bangalore bus services at least slightly, so that Bus day is not just an over-hyped ineffective fiasco, but a real Bus Day.

And I do wish they start a follow-traffic-rules day! My heart is really exhausted with the BP shoots every time we are about to dash into a scooter gone mad on the roads.

Too much to ask for, I guess ....

Update--

Check this link... I am surprised!

Are you significant? -Part 2

2010-01-29T15:25:00.002+05:30

Before I begin- link of the day. Makes me nauseate and I don't know what else :( (Got it from Shruthi's blog)

(Continued from Part-1)

So yes, I am back after quite a few months with that same nagging question- Are you significant?

But wait, doesn't asking this question implies asking a few more questions-

What is significant and what is not?

Why should I be significant? (Rather, should I be significant at all?)

Well. Going in reverse order…. It pretty much is left to the individual to choose whether to be significant or not (Not considering infamous *ollywood heroes who were ordinary young men till fate played a bad hand with their lives). There are quite a few people who wish to be one in a million- safe and faceless. There does seem to be some pleasure in being one among many; people who enjoy all the little things of life and do not aspire for anything more than a simple, contented life away from the hubbub of the world.

But almost all of us, deep underneath have always had a desire to stand out, if only to be appreciated for being unique. When you won your first running race, or were named the fastest tree climber of your neighborhood, there was an unmatchable pleasure in that! And why? Because nobody could climb as fast as you could. Nobody could climb that very slippery tree behind the temple, but you could.

Yes, all of us want to be unique. And remembered. For our lives to be ... ya, SIGNIFICANT. If someone were to tell us that all that we strived for and all that we did were utterly pointless, we wouldn't like it at all.

As often as we join the mob and hoot along, and enjoy the fun of being one in a group, we always feel better when we do well. When we are good at that one thing we like. And that one thing brightens our life like nothing else does. (Not even mega-serial-heroines-ethura-kuthuvilakkus!)

Well. So that's the point. Why be significant? Because that is what we want in our heart of hearts. And if we can do it without encroaching on anybody else's significance (unlike Tamil cinema villains who go "EAI…… Enaku kedakaadadhu vera yaarukume keadakoodadhu da…") why shouldn't we be?

On Blogging and Grammar....

2010-01-19T10:30:00.003+05:30

I read this on Laugh it Out :) and LOL ever since...

The original post is here!

The Auric-models-of-the-Earth and the cinema-of-rebirth

2010-01-18T15:56:00.005+05:30

Is this the season of screwed up awards?!

Maybe the end of the world is really nearing, so people thought they could just give away awards to whoever they please. (Or wish to please).

Obama getting the Nobel was one thing, and now Avatar getting the Golden Globe! Whatever happened to the days when a movie had to be "good" to win an award? Or a person was expected to really "do" something before getting the Nobel?

Maybe 6 months down, we can get degrees without even being a student of the college (or being a Tamil politician!). Imagine how good it would be to chuck the whole coaching-entrance-counselling routine! Or to get jobs without the written-GD-PI process! (Maybe you would suggest one gets married without the muster your courage-propose-date routine, but that is already there in the Indian system!)

But hey, you tell me, the Avatar guys made a movie after all! And they earned a lot of money with it! Ya, they pleased the masses. And ya, they had good graphics. But since when have we started calling technological advancement as artistic greatness?! Then I guess we should start awarding the Googles and TIs (and Intels ;) ) and Microsofts of the world the Oscars for Best Motion picture, Best OST etc. And the Sunfeasts and Tru-Nices the Olympic medals for weight-lifting and archery! (No. They have no connection AT ALL with sports!) Or Sania the Wimbledon! (Don't tell me she shouldn't be awarded, because she really plays tennis!). Or how about "Two States" for the Man Booker? …

Ok. Enough of that. But seriously, after you see a movie like "The Lives of Others", how can you even imagine Avatar is good?! (No, I am not going to tell you how beautiful TLO was, or how they had narrated an utterly simple story so well!) And after you read this perfect description of Avatar's story, how can you even call it 'good' cinema, let alone 'great'?!

Well, well, I only hope the world doesn't get stuck in this award-anybody-anything mode!!

Epilogue ...

Trinnnggg!!!!

"Hello… Ya, speaking… What? Did you say you want to award ME "The Best Trasher Award"? MEEE??? :) :) :) Instead of Sudish Kamath (THE HINDU) and The Vigil Idiot? But… of course… I truly deserve it, don't I? Ya, ya, thank you…. And ya, the Nobel guys were right… and so were the golden globbies… oh come on, who cares about TLO………"

Another idiot review

2010-01-11T14:37:00.001+05:30

3 idiots.

Much has been told about this movie already, if not too much. And yet, when I saw the movie, there was at least one minute when it touched my heart. And for the fact that most movies don't do that these days- the movie was awesome! :)

Yes, standard theme. And clichéd characters. And Bollywood masala moments. And yet, it was narrated well, and acted out so well that it was a good movie.

Now of course, I could tell you the flaws, as I usually do--

That, as all Hindi movies do, they missed out on some fine details- like what exact branch do the characters study in- I thought Mechanical but somehow the dialogues seem to point to Electrical!

That there were too many standard Hirani stuff- (refer to Munnabhai) -- the ragging scenes, first day speech by the strict (and weirdo) director of institute, who is taught a lesson in the end, and who has a motherless doctor daughter on the hero's side- a daughter who gives a showdown towards the end, the dad trying to set a tough paper, the hero trying to be a life-saver, the senti bit about "AAL IZZ WELL" (similar to the hugging funda in Munnabhai)-- so many that you could have thought this was "Munnabhai III- the rise of FPS"!

That most jokes were internet forwards that most of us already knew.

That in the real education system, if your teachers don't like you, you aren't topping the college (unless it is an external university examination!), however much you know.

That painting poverty in black and white doesn't make it funny (I didn't like it at all! L )

And so on …

But what was sparkling in the movie was the way all those redundant fundae were interwoven into a beautiful narrative. In fact, since they were cliché, it is all the more astounding that so many of us enjoyed the movie as much as we did!

And then there were the few moments where those splashes of reality really got u. For instance, when Prof Irani told Rancho ki "tum har baar sahi nahi ho sakte". I think I loved him at that moment- when you discover the most basic things you thought about life were wrong, it shakes you badly and he showed that well. Or the fact that even though he mugged, Chatur was also a wealthy guy in the end (which is the reason why people still want u to follow the herd!).

And that line about engineers doing MBA- why do I think they were hitting Chetan Bhagat with that one? :P

Also the ending, when you knew Aamir would be Chatur's Wangdu, and yet enjoyed the whole fun of finding that out and proving it to Chatur-- we all like giving it back to the bad guys, don't we?!

In any case, I have always felt that a movie should do at least one of two things– make you think and entertain. Some movies just entertain, they can't be real and don't have a moral, but are still worth watching. Others are there to make you think, at least for a minute.

3 idiots did both! And while I still think it could have been without the minuses, I think everyone should go watch it anyway!

Links...

2010-01-08T11:54:00.000+05:30

Two links I stumbled upon and wasn't happy with just tweeting-
Amit Varma's awesome article on pasta ;) and this video on the three idiots hassle.

I don't think they need any further commenting really.

And as for my resolution, I had wanted to write on the whole 3 idiots blah, maybe by EOD...

A New Year, A New Name

2009-12-31T11:16:00.004+05:30

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of issues--and reviews--and -- little tales
Of literature--and Olympic rings--
And why twitter is (boiling) hot--
And whether this blog should talk other things."

*****************************************

And yet another new year goes by. And it kinda makes me awestruck and guilty at the same time – this is the third New Year this blog has seen. And yet, I have an average of 15.67 posts per year and 1.5 posts per month (including the 5-6 I-shall-blog-more-regularly-from-now-on). As for New Year resolutions, I know that the trend today is to say "I don't have any resolutions, anyway everybody breaks them" (Another statistic- 11 out of 15 celebrities have said this in THE HINDU). And I can't say I have ever been much of a fan of New Year resolutions myself. Not that I think resolutions are useless, but I don't think I need any special day to make resolutions.

Anyway, last month I resolved to post more often. And to change my blog a little- and the poll on the sidebar and the ratings etc were a result of that. And now that I know I can keep that resolution for a month, I presume I can keep it for a year.

And as my little paraphrase states, the time has come for you people to tell me what else can be done about this blog. So please vote. (Or more welcome- mail me!)

And continue to comment.
And the time has also come for me to rename my blog-

"Among other things"

Why- you might ask. Because French is difficult to pronounce. And this phrase best describes my blog. Of course, I was strongly tempted to use "Inter Alia", but I have decided not to repeat my mistake. Also to keep my posts short. And simple. So that's it with my New Year resolutions. Let's see how long they last.

And of course, wish you all a Happy New Year! :)

My own million dollar recipe!! -- inspired by Avatar :)

2009-12-24T12:41:00.007+05:30

Here is my recipe for a dish that sells for millions of dollars (73 million dollar opening) and will make you an instant hit cook (Cost of the dish was also in millions, but assured returns!).

Serves four (all of them men, preferably)

Ingredients:-

Graphics – 1kg (more graphics, like more noodles, will serve MORE people)
Machine guns – 1 cup
Missiles and other blah machinery- 1 cup
First-story-Pandora puree (See instructions below) – 500ml
Hi-tech fundae* -1 teaspoon
Good looking hero (cut) – 1 (preferably cut at the leg)
Second-story-patriotism sauce- 2-3 teaspoon (Instructions below)
Spirtuality and some arbit oriental blah- for garnishing
Story- to taste

For the puree-
Tribal guys – ¾ jar
Sci-fi stuff straight outta Asimov books (like long ears, bluish skin)- ¼ a jar

For the sauce-
Standard American morons- 2-3 (though 1 should suffice)

Recipe:-

Take the graphics in a frying pan, pour the one teaspoon of high-tech fundae (like how arrows block neurotransmitters and kill humans instantaneously; or bodies reinforced with carbon fibers) and allow to fry till golden brown. (Maybe, I should say grayish black since most of the lighting was in that color, maybe coz it's inside the forest**)

While the graphics is cooking, you can make the puree and the sauce.

First-story-Pandora puree
Take the tribal guys in a jar. Shake them well with the old-world sci-fi stuff like long-eared aliens and tails.
Take just one tribal piece (a gal, of course) and place her in a pan with the good looking hero-alien (not cut) who is a villain to the clan. (Culinary tip- Ensure that she is the daughter of the head of the clan and has a bro who doesn't like the hero) On cooking for few minutes on simmer (and asking the girl to teach the hero the ways of the land), the stew shall become a brilliant bright love-rose red.

Then the rest of the tribals from the jar can be added.

Some standard masala should be sprinkled, such as- 1. When the heroine teaches the hero to hold a bow, he should turn to look at her instead of the target. 2. When they walk on some narrow path, the hero should slip and the heroine should save him even though she hates him from the bottom of her heart. 3. Whenever the heroine scolds the hero, he should give a sweet reply and she should go blushing. (Culinary tip- blushing makes the puree a more delicious red)

For spice lovers- add one or two good kisses.

Second-story-Patriotism sauce

Take 3-4 war loving American heartless morons and place them in the bottle with the Pandora puree. Due to space constraints, the American morons will overflow outta the jar. But being Americans, they will try to break the jar itself and send the tribal puree out. No amount of sensible speech OR biology bullshit OR soul-connection-theories shall push them out. In any case, some of the puree shall also boil in fury at the encroachment of its territory. And the hero piece will give enough speeches to raise them. (No yeast needed. The hero shall act as yeast-cum-human-cum-tribal-alien) When the puree is just about to overflow, shove the American guys inside and firmly shut the lid. (You can watch the ensuing commotion and boiling inside the jar and not bother how much of the stew overran itself into destruction). Time tested technique (what with the hero in the puree), so you needn't worry about the safety of the bottle; it will eventually calm down.

Back to the main recipe.

While you have been making the puree and the sauce, the graphics would have cooked marvelously well. (Perfect detailing, amazing special effects). Now you can add the machine guns and machinery and good-looking hero (cut) and mix well. Then pour copious amounts of puree and sauce and leave to cook for few minutes.

Remove from the stove and garnish with the stuff like souls talking and uploading of mental data into a tree of souls and conservation of energy *** (Needn't add story to taste, unless you are particular).

Additional culinary tips-

If you are not a seasoned (pun intended) cook, better refer to popular cookbooks like Harry Potter (especially on flying dinosaurs and hippogriffs) and Pokemon (for strange looking animals).
Also trying out simpler recipes like video games might help.
Don't think adding scoops of good music will make it taste better; you can still manage with pathetic unimaginative music.
If you can afford it, cooking on iMax 3D can enhance the taste to a great extent.
My grandmother says- add a one-on-one combat between hero and villain in the end- nothing adds to the pungent taste of action like that one. Now that is what I call grandma's touch!

* hi-tech fundae should be of the same flavor as all English action movies, state-of-the-art machinery, mind-transferring technology and so on.

** I must admit the lighting and the depiction of the forest was very good. Perfect to the smallest details! Truly admirable!

*** The heroine says- "We believe that 'All energies are borrowed. And someday you have to give them back to nature' "

Disclaimer-

I am known to be a bad cook. I am assuming this recipe will work since it is working for Cameron. Please adjust if it tastes bad.

A verdict?

2009-12-23T16:58:00.005+05:30

So I found this site that tries to predict if a blog is written by a man or a woman.
And when I tried it for this blog, Gender Analyzer says-

"We think http://suchithraravi.blogspot.com/ is written by a woman (60%)"

(And I had thought I wasn't writing any girl stuff here!!! :( )

Though I am sorri-er for the guy who got 83% on his blog even without writing much of guy-stuff.

P.S.:-

Gender Analyser also says-

1. We guess http://indiauncut.com/iublog/ is written by a man (50%), however it's quite gender neutral.

AND

2. We guess http://indiauncut.com/ is written by a man (53%), however it's quite gender neutral.

(To me, Amit Varma seems to be writing for the average-Indian-man; at least all the booze and women blah on his blog seem to make it obvious it is written by a man! But maybe genderanalyser is made by a man too :P)

P.S. 2:-

If you thought I didn't think of checking the gender of gender-analyser itself, you are mistaken :P
The result says-

An error occurred

Sorry, we could not extract enough text from http://genderanalyzer.com/. We could only find 185 words. We need more than 300 words to analyze a web page. More text gives better result!

And so, at the EOD, I have realised there was no point in the whole exercise!

Fast

2009-12-16T15:16:00.013+05:30

And guess what! I am beginning my fast today. Till Pongal. (No, it is not some Margazhi thing that I am into. I don't think even Andal fasted the month through. But on second thoughts, it makes sense right? Even if my fast fails politically I would have the remnant satisfaction of having done some puja, however unintentional, in the most auspicious month. (Krishna himself says- "Among all months I'm Margazhi!") But the explanation for why it will work, even if I unintentional is a longer story.)

As you might have guessed, I am trying to follow the footsteps of KCR. But, wait a minute- which region do I want a new state for......

Chennai? Nope. Too big. And already my beloved chief minister's son has his eyes on it (From the day he became Mayor, till date with the post of deputy CM- his stronghold has always been Chennai.) And since I don't wish to enter the realm of dirty politics, I better not ask for the whole of Chennai itself. But I have decided to fast. And I better have some demands.

Ummm…. Well….. How about Besant Nagar? Yup. I think that suits me. I have always been this big fan of Besant Nagar (not to mention that I have lived MOST of my life there.) It's cool. And I mean literally. In a place as hot as Chennai, you realize it is a seaside city only in some places. And anybody who has taken a 29C/47A/anything-else-that-goes-to-Besant Nagar (you can ask why I mentioned the first two when the third was coming- to make it authentic, I say ;) ), would know that when you turn left at the Adyar Depot, the temperature automatically goes down by a few ⁰C. Besides, you get most things you want there. I mean, if you buy yourself a house somewhere in 5^th Avenue, you can live the rest of your life there without crossing Adyar.

Which brings me to the point. We are self-sufficient. A good reason to ask for a separate state. (Though any good reason is not a reason in politics!)

But that isn't enough right. Newton's law of
political remonstration says that the force of your protest is directly proportional to the product of the mass of un-reason and poverty on your side and inversely proportional to the square of the similarity between you and the rest of the world, constant of proportionality being G which is 6.673*10^-11 Nm²/kg². (If you want a proof of this theory, ask Newton, as it was he who proposed it. And if you want to know why he used the same constant for 2 theorems, I think it is because students already have too many constants to remember and calculator memory gets wasted by storing them. But Newton may have his own reasons. In any case, you can check it experimentally if you like).

F_pr=G(m_um_p)/R_s²

Anyway our plea itself has enough un-reason that I don't think we need to worry about that. As for poverty, there are all those slums there, and a few pics of the place where the fishermen live near the AshtaLakshmi temple and of the people who sleep on the footpath near the beach should suffice. But how different are we from the rest of Chennai is a tough question. Honestly, I wouldn't know. However, since honesty is NOT the best policy in politics, I can ask them how different Chennai is from the rest of Tamil Nadu, and how different A is from B and so on till whoever asked the question gets chaated enough. Fact is every state/city/region has its own differences and similarities and culture and all that blah that it doesn't really matter in the end. If you look at the number of telugu people inside IITM, you would think it should be made part of Andhra. Luckily, nobody in IIT is jobless enough to fast and ask for a separate state! :) In any case, I can always say that Besant Nagar has always been ignored by everybody else and not given enough attention etc. Though if you look at it that way, people from Salem, Dharmapuri, Namkkal and so on can have their own states since Tamil Nadu's development has been concentrated in Chennai, Trichy, Madurai and Coimbatore; and each state will have its own districts jinka number ab tak nahi aaya; which is an inherent downside of any system- but hey, this is too much of reason- so let's chuck!

Bonus for the state of Besant Nagar is that it is essentially a minority area. Everybody knows that the richer and more posh junta lives there; and everybody also knows that "rich" is always a minority term. It is also a locality with more Tam-Brahms (being part of Mylapore assembly constituency) and if you go by numbers, the number of all people other than Tam-Brahms obviously is much much more than the group itself, but I better not mention that yet!

Anyway, having given my reasons and substantially increased my "force of political remonstration", and having read Margazhi thingal (which is todays' thiruppavai), let me start on the fast.

But hey, looks like a lot of people are fasting now. Not a good idea to implement my plan at the same time lest it goes unheard. Fine, I will do what KCR did. Wait for all the brouhaha to die. And for all the media guys to start talking about price rise (which they seem to have done today itself!), rape cases, and swine flu again. And for all politicians to forget fasting unto death as a sureshot way to rise in TRP (Trick-the-junta Rating Points). And then the people of Besant Nagar shall rise.

And by the way, for the rate at which I am putting on weight, by then it will help my plans of dieting ;)

P.S.- Somebody asked me why it is not a fast unto death. Simple. I know that nobody REALLY can fast for a month. And I know our government is stupid enough to grant me anything, including my own state, if I just "threaten" to fast unto death, long before my deadline of Pongal. And of course, if at all they don't grant it by then ... oh commme onnnnn, u don't doubt the stupidity of the Indian government, do you? :P

2012 (the movie)

2009-12-08T14:36:00.008+05:30

Yes, now it's time for me to write about the movie. Maybe it's late but in true thalaivar style, late ah vandalum naanga latest ah varuvom ;)

So, here is the movie that people eagerly waited for … And it's very much the Indian masala movie you wanted to see. Did you say it's not Indian- it's Hollywood? (Alas! I thought "Hollywood was made of sterner stuff"… "Et tu brute!") In any case, I don't wish to review as such. I will just mention a few things I noticed/thought while watching the movie. Whether they make the movie good or bad is a decision I leave to you.

So here goes- 24 things about '12 –

(Apart from the obvious question- what is with Americans and destruction movies??!)

Good graphics. Yeah, as everyone says, it had good graphics. Though sometimes that was funny too. I mean, the way you could see the land bubbling up etc (did the guys think that when the crust gets displaced it will be like the top layer of some overheated sambar and will boil up in any way they like?!) it looked more like a cartoon than a serious depiction!
(Oops, I forgot that scene where all those cars fall into the sea- if it wasn't funny, I don't know what it was!)
That Charlie Frost guy was good!
Disaster follows them wherever they go. Reminds me of Coleridge- "As who pursued with yell and blow /Still treads the shadow of his foe" Though it also makes me wonder 4,6,9, 10, etc..
Nothing ever falls on John Cusack (a.k.a Jackson Curtis). There are huge boulders, balls of fire, snow/lava/whatever… And not a SINGLE one falls on the hero! This isn't fair and clearly breaches the universal law of Vijay movies- "Nothing ever hurts Vijay and Vijay alone!"
Humorous (apart from the unintentional stupidity… the way that guy says nothing can split us apart and immediately the ground below them cracks etc). You know, I always liked subtle humour…
That woman's boyfriend (Thomas McCarthy) can fly anything he sits on?! I mean, gimme a break, dude… Even the best pilot would fumble a little in the face of danger. (Yeah, I know that guy looks freaked and everything, but clearly, he doesn't fumble ENOUGH)
The Indian guy (Jimi "Mistry"- good pun, eh? ;)) and his Hindi! (ham-re sah-man leh-na ….) I thought there were enough Indians in US for the director to get the pronunciation right! It was simply unbearable, even to a not-much-of—Hindi-person like me! :( (Considering that even some guy like Shankar does enough research before his movie, couldn't the Hollywood guys try a little more?)

Btw, Jimi is a half-Indian by birth, who has played a lot of Indian/NRI/Indian-origin-guy roles. Funny that even he can't pronounce Hindi!!
The girl (Morgan Lily a.k.a Curtis' daughter) is cute :)
Law of heroes in floods- "Whenever a hero is in a place where there is a flood (or a submerging spaceship)the waters behind shall follow him (and whoever is with him), giving him just enough way to move ahead and close right behind him"

But don't think that is some law for heroes in movies alone… Even "Sri Krishna" on Sunday mornings had Varuna deva closing right behind Vasudeva as he walked along. Though, to give Vasudeva credit, he at least prayed to Varuna to part his waters… Cusack doesn't even do that!!
You thought only Vijay wants to corner the city-bus-la-board-adikara-vetti-pasanga (i.e. the young Indian male junta)? No, even John Cusack does. If Vijay can board running buses, extrapolating to Hollywood, John can board flights while they are taking off!!!
And the ethics of it all (Yeah, I know I have ONE DARNED philosopher inside me, who goes to this in every little thing I see). Jackson Curtis can leave 100s of people and run away in a flight with Yuri and his family to save their own lives; but Chief of state Anheuser can't?! I really don't see why Curtis is the hero!
The end of the world begins in America? –Good one! Symbolic! (Even better, it is an Indian who predicts it! –LOL( And an African who saves everyone!- ROFL)) **
There is more man-made destruction than natural- In any scene, more people die from crashing buildings and cars and everything else than the natural blah. (Logical, though)
Their phones work even while the world is coming to an end??!! Not a single one of their towers/switching stations/whatever else crashes?!
Their planes work? They don't have radio issues, landing issues, nothing?!
Interesting study of behavior- The way different people behave once they know that the end is nearing is good- at least one thing that the movie has really done well!
The question the Russian guy asks- "If you had as much money as I did, would you not get a ticket for yourself?" Very valid. What is so heroic about trying to save your own kids?! And what makes Curtis better than the Russian?? What's with Americans in pulling at Russians, even now??
The cup is full! – An old joke I am really tired of. Though, did you notice- even to save the religious guys of the world, it was the scientists who had to make the spaceship!!And in the monk's "wisdom" it was said- give the guy the car keys to escape!
Isn't titanic an old enough movie (it released when I was in primary!)? Or was it so good that we need a repeat performance? (I mean the last ten minutes, of course!)
I wish Curtis had died in the last minute (when his kid returns, but he doesn't; and everyone gets tensed!) After sitting through the movie (and having seen that pilot boyfriend die) it is way too obvious Curtis has to come back! Why add so much of waiting for nothing?
And guess what! Even AFTER the world comes to an "END" (I know it sounds fishy to say AFTER the END), their comps work on the spaceship! (Intel rox ;) )
And even better, while the whole spaceship was flooding with water, their books weren't soaked! Maybe, the whole spaceship wasn't. In any case, just one month AFTER the END of the world, people have time to sit and read "books"?! Instead of finding out what to do next! (I know that there is Africa left, but about that, later on)
There is wonderful bright sunlight! Ok, I know that is acceptable if it is only some crust displacement that caused the end of the world. But hey, wasn't it the END?
And the best of it all—the African continent remains unharmed. . AFTER the END? I am simply dumbfounded!
(One min… But isn't Africa part of the earth's crust??!)

Summary:-

Mega "ice" for Obama
Mega mega "ice" for Africans (Africa will survive, Africans are the only people with hearts, Drakensburg is higher than Mt. Everest...ayyo… mudiyala!)
"Ulti" comedy story if you are looking for logic (beware though, the joke's on you!)

** I have started using recursive brackets… he... he…

To value or not to value?

2009-11-26T23:06:00.005+05:30

I read this post some days back… Are Indian values simply habits??

[ 2 answers to this question---- value systems are in general inherited, whether we like it or not. Second- read on...]

Before I start let me admit I have no interest whatsoever in correcting the writer. In fact, apart from this post, his blog is simply one of the best I have ever read. However, wrt this post, I think he is partially correct (which implies partially wrong), but I don't think it necessary for me to correct/convince him. I am posting this only because his article triggered an interesting thought process in my head)

Anyway, in answer to the writer's question, let me first ask a different question. (Ya, Dharumi technique ;) ) Question is 'What exactly is a value?' (Dictionary.com says- (Ethics) any object or quality desirable as a means or as an end in itself) This question is easily answered (without dictionaries) in a practical context by asking a second question- 'Why do we need values'?

As most of us would know, answering this question is simple. As we go through our everyday lives we face a million choices, however simple or complex they might be. Each of them can be modeled as a situation that demands us to act, where there could be different courses of action. The choice of the action to be taken is based on "Which option is right?" or "Is this action right or wrong?" As you might have guessed, one's system of values is what one uses to make this choice. And each of us, however unphilosophical we may be, has a set of values. For instance, most of us think that murder is wrong. That stems from valuing one another's life. There are other things that people value, in different degrees and manners- honesty, truth, independence and so on. And even though these sound like the things that people take for granted and do not question (nobody ever dares to say honesty is bad), people make choices wrt them as well. For example, while everyone agrees that truth is good, almost everyone also agrees that truth is not good in all circumstances. And each person has a different set of circumstances which they consider to be enough justification to lie. Again, some people hold pride as a value, while others hold modesty. Though they conflict with each other, nobody can dictate which of them is a value and which isn't. Because, values, very much like religion are a question of belief and opinion. (Not to the same extent, of course; since values can be proven to be right or wrong in some circumstances. But at large, the nuances are only a matter of opinion)

And therefore, nobody can really dictate whether what I hold as a value is really a value or not.

*********************************************************************************

That being said, I must admit that the writer had a point in saying that a habit is not the same as a value. But there is a catch.

Consider drinking. Many families in India consider it to be a vice, something pretty much on the same lines of theft and adultery. This they do, knowing at the same time that for most other countries/faiths, drinking is pretty much normal. (Jesus can turn water into wine and a great many Nepali pujas are followed by a drinking ritual. The same can be said of many tribal cultures within India itself.) Now the writer here says 2 things- that being a teetotaler is not really holding a value; and also that it could probably be called a value if your parents drank and you chose not to drink. The first is not correct while the second probably is.

What (I presume) he intends to say, is that a value is something that we CHOOSE to value and not something we blindly follow. Rather, a person can be said to be adhering to values etc, if he CHOSE those values himself, after some retrospection, and not if he simply followed what was given him. And I agree with that much. If I never knew what it was to lie, and I don't lie, I am not doing anything very special here. After all, I did not have any choice to make and hence I am not worthy of any special credit. The same can be said of vegetarianism, smoking, drinking, and any other such thing you can choose to name. And the hypothetical (or real, I don't know) father that he is talking about, may not really have thought about what he was doing. He might have not tried drinking, simply because he was taught that it is wrong. This does not mean that he DID NOT make the choice. In our world, the way it is, there are enough opportunities for a boy or a young man to try drinking without the knowledge of his family. So there is some room for us to believe that this father had tried it once and decided not to pursue it for his own good. And since he made that decision himself, he obviously chose his value.

Further, if we think that he really has never tried it (from my knowledge of Indian men, I don't have much of an inclination to believe this, but still, for the sake of argument….), it is still a value. This is because he probably believes in following his own tradition as a value, and not drinking is a part of that package.

The bottom-line here is that people always have a choice- to follow or not to follow a particular course of action. If I choose to follow a particular set of rules, I still hold MY values. The fact that I value a different thing than u, or that I chose my values in a different way than u did, doesn't imply I don't have them.

In fact, if you observe, there are enough people in this country who profess to follow their culture and yet give in to small temptations. (How they chose their values is a question I will answer later on) The father A is said to be a "principled" man here because, he adheres to his own principles strictly- no matter what the circumstance. It is his determination that is rewarded when the speaker says he is a "principled man". And from that angle, he surely is!!!

(To be Contd.)

P.S.:-

Oops! The writer has already written part 2 of his article which explains most of what I say and what I was about to say in the next part (how he chose his values and why the writer is right in criticizing) Call it the 21st century speed! :( In any case, for the sake of completion I will put up my reply as well... Maybe in the next 2 days....

2012

2009-11-11T14:08:00.012+05:30

(Pre-script ;) :- The title itself seems to announce some doom right?! )

And now what! 2012!

I don't know if I should laugh or not… But seriously, I am seeing too much of this world ending business lately. It's all over the net; it's everywhere! A bookstore-shelf full of 2012 books, and then of course, the movie…. (In any case, I am armed with at least one article that speaks some sense- check out this link!)

I don't know how many of us remember that, before 2000, people actually said the world would end by that year. This, complicated by the Y2K was enough to make many people lose their sleep. And 9 years later, here we are, facing the end of the world. (Quite funnily,) AGAIN!!!

And I really don't want to laugh- it pains me not to understand why people love hearing about the end of the world. Just look at it! No hype stories, not much of war news and economy moving out of recession—and then another end-of-the-world frenzy starts over. I can't even blame the guys who start it—it is such a perfect formula to make a quick buck – simply write a pseudoscientific theory and go to your publisher—and of course, while the sceptics' voices continue to get drowned, IT WORKS!!

What surprises me is why people buy these theories at all. Why do people like to hear of an end to this world? I don't think it makes anybody any happier (don't tell me it does—then we have something really fishy about mankind here!) And if it does make us feel worse, why do people keep subscribing to it? The only other alternative that occurs to me (yeah, I know I have a poor understanding of mankind's queer ways) is that people are so tired of this world, SO very troubled by it that they want this whole ordeal to end. But I don't think we are THAT troubled yet. Any day, living on planet Earth and enduring it till a better tomorrow seems to be a much better option than dying altogether! Or maybe they want to meet God and have the judgment day over with! Yet, if you consider the fact that most of us would rather not have to face a judgment day, surely the majority of us doesn't want it any sooner.

And come on, so what if the world is going to end --Is there anything we can do about it now? I mean, if some planet or asteroid or something like that is going to hit us and it cannot be averted, of what use is worrying anyway? If something is beyond our control, is spreading the bad news going to help? Wouldn't it be better to sit down and hope for the best?

And I mean it even for the religious-- Do we really think that God will change the design of his creation if we worry too much about it? Or if we pray enough? He didn't ask us before he created us, and we can be quite sure he is not going to ask us about the destruction either. (Thinking of it, if we knew enough to advise him on what to do best, why would he be God in the first place?!) Maybe he has his own reasons- anyway, we can't tell!

So… what is my point? Yup, don't believe in the theories. But even if one chooses to believe in it, the best way to welcome the end of the world is with a happy, contented face- content that at least from the minute I heard about it, I lived my life happily. Yup, That's what I mean- if the end of the world is nearing, it only gives us more reason to be happy and make others happy, for whatever time is left. (Another reason why I like the Cadburys' guys… he.. he…)
In short, enjoy maadi! :D
P.S.:- The second part of "Are you significant" is on it's way; expect one or two posts on other topics before it arrives!

Are YOU significant? - Part 1

2009-10-13T09:48:00.010+05:30

Are you significant?

When I saw this title on one of my company blog pages, the first thought that struck my mind was- “why am ‘I’ not writing this stuff?” For the fact that I am forever lost in thoughts about the world in general and the world in particular and what we are doing here and … in short, the “meaning” of life, why am I writing this stuff AFTER reading this title by somebody else, who claims never to think about it!
And after all, I always wanted to write precisely this kinda stuff on my blog.

Anyway, as it goes, I keep wondering-

“AM I SIGNIFICANT?”
“ARE YOU SIGNIFICANT?”
“DOES WHAT WE DO DAY IN AND DAY OUT MAKE ANY SENSE TO US, IN THE LONG RUN?”

Now don’t expect to find the perfect answer to this question in the following posts- I intend to take up the question rationally, and merely analyze..

But more so, I consider it necessary for everyone, and I mean EVERYone, to think about this question at least once. It may sound a lil profound, and a lot “this is not my kinda thing man”, but at least take five minutes off and think about it, and it might add a lot of sense to what you do everyday. And who knows, you might be the one to find the answer not only to this one, but a lot more questions that continue to haunt mankind!! :)

(See Part-2)

Mundaneness and Maxims

2009-10-07T10:09:00.004+05:30

Ha! A blog topic…

These days I am so lost that when I really found something to rant on, this was the first expression that came to my mind…

(For those of u who don’t like what we Chennai people so fondly call build-up, skip this para.) Anyway, while I was chatting (as I always am), my friend made a statement… it was routine, normal, nothing spectacular; but it takes a really ordinary statement to spark an idea in your head!

It’s simply that there are a few adages that you come across .. (Call them ideas/fundae if you like). You love them the first time u hear- they actually seem mind-blowing. And with time, they get boring. (chaat is the right word for it! Bless the soul who discovered the word- one legacy of NITT-ians to the world.. he… he… For those of u who dunno “chaat”, see end of article) Like, yesterday, somebody’s status message says- “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, only today is a gift- that is why it is called the ‘present’ ”

Ya, it is true, quite valid, and very much the same good idea that it was when I heard it the first time. But by now, I have heard it so many times, that anyone starts saying it, and I go “chaaaaaattttt” in my head. And yet, it does seem an injustice to the idea- I mean, what harm did it do, that one day I think its brilliant and later I think it’s pathetic? Even worse, the first person who told me that (maybe then I was only a little kid)- I’d have thought he was oh, so bright and given him an extra 5 points in my mind. And today if anyone says the same thing, I think, “O, what the hell!” and zoink! my impression of that person has spiraled right down (in other words, -20 points!).

Crazy how the human mind works, eh??

Anyway, it’s almost like we lose the charm that life held for us when we were small (ya, i know- “return to childhood” is a really stupid theory, as all “return to this or return to that” theories are.) But I remember one speech I heard at Jawahar Bal Bhavan, Trivandrum… hey wait, that’s not what we were discussing, right… We were talking about adages and not childhood-is-the-best-phase-of-life. So, let’s keep it for another day – though I know those “another day”s never dawn, but still… After all, hope is what keeps life running (n now, u don’t say “chaaaaatttttt”)

<“chaat”= “boring” version 2.1.0.899 with advanced features and additional meanings … for that ultimate language experience… download NOW!!!---- ahem, u got what chaat is, didn’t u? ;) >

P.S.:-
1. The phrase that triggered this post was “Change is the only constant”.
2. There are a lot more phrases that are chaat. I will add them as and when I remember- For instance,
"Winners don’t do different things, they do things differently" (And anything else you read in ‘You can win’ )

Life... Inundated!

2009-08-26T14:08:00.002+05:30

A dream a dream… a dream I float along
Swept off my feet, off the forlorn song

Ripples of a shock so electric quickly flutter through me
And the very recollection of it leaves me overtaken by ecstasy

Was this me that lived yesterday and the day before?
Or has my soul been stolen by some spirit of lore?

Is this the same Earth that we walked on?
Or has it been replaced by the paradise this morn?

As the whispering autumn leaves crumbling under my feet
string a song of memories on a thread of the scorching heat

a glance, a wisp, a sudden bright phrase,
a breeze a nod- all merge into a single face

Was that just a word? Or a solid iron clasp-
that gripped my struggling soul and wringed this euphoric gasp?

Was it only a brief movement of your finger?
Or did the air turn piano and make that sweet music still linger?

Was that just a glance? Was this just an inadvertent touch?
Why did the air suddenly turn solid and yet radiate you so much?

This must be a dream, for the world is upside down;
For if this is real, in pleasure does life drown!!

In the name of education...

2009-06-17T09:33:00.001+05:30

Most of us have seen the IIPM ads. N a lot of ppl know its trash. However, here is a page I saw (Courtesy: Avinass. It was his status message!) that gave proof.
And for the sake of those people who might not have realized it is a fraud, I thought we should spread the word.
http://careers360.in/lead-story/iipm---best-only-in-claims.html

Do check the page, if you are interested. But even if you aren’t, please forward the link; you never know which of ur friends might forward it to someone who was about to ruin his life by joining!!!

2009-05-26T19:39:00.003+05:30

Ah! I had almost forgotten the pleasure of writing (or typing, to be precise!). But the big machine of daily life tends to crush you in its monstrous wheels (why the hell do I sound like Im a damned 18th century writer??!!), and you are unable to squeeze those minutes from your day to blog.

(Well done, Suchithra, as ever you retain your ability to spin yarn! :) )

OK readers.. The real reason is this.. I had a very short vacation and couldn't blog. And Im joining work next week so I ve no clue when I will be back next. Hope its soon...

So long...

The Mysterious Stranger

2009-01-17T18:21:00.007+05:30

(This post was formerly published on Christmas day, but later removed since I was not sure of some of the sources for the claims on theism.I have verified them, and hence, put it back again!!)

Beautiful!! That is the only word I have for it- for Mark Twain’s “The Mysterious Stranger”. I’d suggest u read the book because it’s not a long book, nor a boring one, so even if you are a poor reader, you can try it. I know it’s supposedly a classic, but effectively, it is only something like a fairy tale.

I’ve read classics before and they are usually quite boring. Even when they try to be interesting, they are such a pain to read. It is as if the author wanted to strain you to your maximum before you finished the book. And here is one, that is very very simple. Childish, in fact. And yet in its childish simplicity, it talks about some of the most serious issues in this world. Issues that shall probably remain unresolved till the end of the human race. Yes, it talks about the human race, about ‘our childish fantasies’, as Twain calls them, and about our frailties and about how stupid we can get (especially with respect to religion)!! (It is quite a weird coincidence that I happened to read this book on Christmas day!!)

Anyway, I was surprised at the intellect of Twain in comparison with the best of authors of his time. When people were still writing about society, love and marriage, here was a man who wrote about why we exist (or whether we exist at all!). And his great talent lies in the fact that he makes the book so delightfully interesting! Every minute that I was reading, I was eager to know the end, even though there was not much of a mystery! In fact, the element of magic made the book quite implausible, and I knew anything could happen anyway. And yet, I was wondering whether it shall have a good ending or not, whether the hero shall be happy in the end etc etc.

Oh, of course, as usual I forgot to tell you the story- it is a tale of three boys, (one of them, the narrator) and how they meet a mysterious stranger- who claims to be an angel, and even performs a great many actions that normal men cannot. They story goes on to tell you whether he is an angel or not and whether he could do any good to the boy or did he bring about further ill luck?!

But as part of this seemingly simple plot, Twain raises some beautiful questions that are very profoundly philosophical. It would probably take me days to discuss each of them, so we’ll keep that for the future, but I’ll just mention them here.

• How important are we in the universe? Is our lifespan too short for us to be of any real significance??
• Why do men always follow the majority, even when it’s against their own interest?
• What, in effect, have we achieved through civilization? Have we progressed at all?
• Who exactly is God?

Actually Twain talks about the insignificance of human life in comparison to that of angels’- a part that almost made me discredit him for his irrationality. Only in the end does he let you realize that he had only been sarcastic and he is as scornful of superstition as you and I!!

Then there is the beautiful statement “There is no other (life)!!” All rationality can tell us that we must be bothered only about our life on earth, which is such a struggle in itself! But how many people do we see, who talk of a life after death and how to pave way for a good one there??!! Isn’t there enough left for us to do to better this world for this life? Why would we want to waste our time thinking about another?? Or even worse, fearing it?
Anyway, the best part of the book, as I found it, was the angel’s speech against God. I can’t say I’ve read a more direct and beautiful argument against the more common portrayal of god!

“God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; … who mouths justice and invented hell—mouths mercy and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; … who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all;”

He prompts us to ask- Isn’t such a god another figment of our imagination?? How can such a God be “God” at all???

Maybe, our definition of God is wrong; maybe we are not even sure what kind of God we should have??!! The point is not that. It is not even whether God exists or not. Only that, as believers of God, shouldn’t we able to answer these questions? If we were right shouldn’t we be able to find some reason for God’s actions? And explain the sorrows of the world??

I am reminded of the dialogue from the movie ‘Dasavatharam’, “If God wanted to prevent catastrophes why should he invent clever remedies; why couldn’t he just stop us from thinking these horrible inventions for mass destruction??”

They are serious questions, and we may not find the answers for years to come. But it might be useful for us to remember them, and try to find answers as we continue to live!!

(P.S.:- Yes, I missed the most important thing he said in the book- that all life is a dream! I don’t think it is.. but that is an even more abstract topic to talk about, so maybe, some other time!!!)

(P.S. as added on 21.1.2009:- Most of the statements about God are made on the basis of 'Genesis' in the Bible. It makes a good read, honestly, and would probably enlighten you a great deal about Christianity! Of course, the Hindu religion's portrayal of God is quite different, and in fact, there are numerous opposing theories within the religion itself; so we cannot really analyse it from Twain's statements! But yes, there are overlaps, and maybe we can send some time pondering over them!)

Happy New Year!!!

2009-01-07T09:04:00.004+05:30

Hmmm... Another year went by, and little do we know, whether it was for the better or the worse! I read enough posts saying it was a bad year, posts primarily prompted by recession (and of course, the terrorist attacks), i presume! And yet, I do not have the heart to call the "International Year of the Potato" a bad year!! :D Besides, we never know if some bad event was really bad, or did something good in the long run! So let's just welcome the new year saying (from Longfellow):-

"Trust no future, however pleasant,
Let the dead past bury its dead,
Act, act, in the living present,
Heart within, and God overhead."

Wish you all a very happy new year!!

Reviewer in the high

2008-12-20T22:38:00.006+05:30

You know what, I was reading Salinger. And I feel sorta weird after the book. You see, it’s like this. Whenever I read some book (except Sheldons and the like), I mean any book that has any sorta feeling in it, I have to review it. Or at least say something about it. Books and movies leave me with a million words surging in my head. So here I am. Writing about Salinger. But I can’t review him, you know. The book was written some 50 yrs ago. (I think I’m wrong about that, but honestly, who cares?) And I am sure if you google, you’ll find a million reviews. And it wasn’t all that great a book for a review. Just a very very weird book that left u feeling weird too. And ruined your language (which I am sure you can see in this review).

How did I get to the book? Well, I had heard of Salinger of course, but I never caught hold of his books. And last week I was reading this beautiful short story where the gal says she is reading him. And since it was vacation, I thought I’d do a google on him. I couldn’t find the books initially, of course. I mean, not free editions. But finally I did. And then I just started reading this afternoon. Its only 115 pages, so u can finish it in less than half a day. And it’s quite a fast read- what with ungrammatical language and very simply understandable stuff. But the funny thing is you don’t understand what’s happening till the end. And honestly, I thought I only liked the last two-three pages. But once I was done, I could get the whole point. And then suddenly, I knew I liked the book.

God, that sound pretty much like a post-script to “Catcher in the Rye”- same tone, I admit. And I’m sure u wouldn’t understand this post at all unless u read it right after the book. Anyway, what I got outta the book was- the problem of a guy who really didn’t fit into this so-called suave and sophisticated world. That’s really a good issue to write a book about. And the really wonderful thing is, if u asked an Indian to write a book about a guy that didn’t fit, he would make the protagonist a real weirdo. And he would exaggerate situations beyond despair. And in the end he would kill the hero or something. As if weird people can’t live on. Honestly, till I finished the book, I was half expecting the guy to die or something. Or I thought that they would put him in an asylum soon. It’s the thing with us, you know- Indians are so crazy about the system. They just wanna run the mad rat race, however mad it gets. And the worst part is, even when they want to laugh at the system they do it in such a stereotypical way, u get sick of it. Maybe we should name our capital “cliché”. It would suit the country.

Anyway, this book is quite humourous, if u get to understand the humour at all. And it’s also quite insightful. (I know our college MOC guys call anything from the HOD’s welcome addresses to the chairmen’s vote of thanks “insightful”, but this time I mean it!) And it got u thinking about the world- about how crazy it really is. And about the people who live life the way they want and not the way they have to (I know that phrase is another of those clichés, but I really couldn’t think up anything else, u know.) And come on, why do we all have to earn and smile at everyone we hate and be called cultured? THAT is the question the book asks. And a very good question. I could, of course, go about answering it, but that would make our discussion too long. Anyway, the point is that society creates these crazy rules that are really not necessary for us as individuals. And it is true that the world would be a mad place without those rules. But then it is probably a mad place anyway.

(Incidentally, I picked this quote today afternoon, and till now, I didn’t realize how much it fit the book I read. It says- “Society needs rules that are quite meaningless as individuals. For example, it doesn’t matter if a car goes on the right side of the road or the left. But when there are many cars it makes all the difference!”)

Then there was this thing about innocence- how a guy cannot remain innocent for too long in this world. In Salinger style, I should say “it killed me”. It is one of the few things I often wonder about- the fact that innocence is so terribly lost in this world. And it’s such a pity. But I am not too sure if we’ll all be happy if everyone retained their innocence as adults. We’d probably get tired of that too. Anyway, that was a beautiful thing about the book.
There is more, actually. Like how the guy uses decent language though it’s all colloquial. Take any book today and you find it full of filthy language. And this book wasn’t at all classical. It was very much American schoolish. But no obscenity. (Unless u think ‘bastard’ is an obscene word!) Or maybe even if he talks obscene stuff, they don’t sound bad! At least they didn’t get me disgusted.

And there is also this part about brother-sister relationships. It’s not the way they show it in our novels and movies, u know. U must have a younger sibling to know what it feels like. But every minute the Caulfield guy was admiring his sis, I knew exactly what he felt. Younger siblings can drive you crazy at times. (both positive and negative) And he had captured that feeling pretty well. Not sentimental or any sobby stuff. Just the fact of liking your sister or brother and having a great time with them.

Anyway, the book wasn’t a whiff of fresh air into your mind or anything poetic of that sort that reviewers usually say. Nor did it stir a storm of revolution into your heart. It just made u think about the world. Actually, I dunno. I’ll only say, try reading the book sometime. It may be worth it.

P.S.:- I just read (about ten minutes after first publishing this post) in wikipedia that this was one of the most challenged book etc. and that it has too much profanity, quite contrary to what I thought. But maybe there is so much more profanity in the world today. Another thing is that the book is supposed to be abt a guy who is "growing up". I leave you to read all those interpretations. I ve written exactly wat I thought about the book. If it is not the right interpretation, well, there is wiki neway! :)

Dead mists

2008-12-19T18:44:00.005+05:30

This is another of the poems I wrote the other day, and you can see it is very much in the same tone as the rest. I leave the 'kindred spirit' metaphor open to your interpretation...

As the city pulls the thin shroud of mist over itself,
Falling deaf ears to the calling thrushes and nightingales
I watch the skyline- the silhouettes of buildings
and look for you amidst the shadows, and the whispering winds.
I know you shall not appear though your heart beats still-
Death was so much better to handle!
The sun rises in understanding pity-
the only kindred spirit alive watching over a dead city,
bright as a bride’s cheeks or my mother’s fiery bindi
my sole accomplice in mourning over loneliness!
The only other to have found love and not known how to claim it!
I know the cruel sorcerer time shall show me
Your love and long walks with someone else,
And I don’t wish for an escape, or oblivion, I only seek a rebirth.

Oblivion

2008-12-07T19:26:00.005+05:30

(This one is slightly abstract, and that is probably why I am particularly fond of it. there is some pleasure in knowing that not evryone might understand what you are saying, you know... :D ;) )

Words pop like mushrooms in my mind, waiting to materialize in ink-
brave bridegrooms awaiting their marriage with my thoughts.
I write and write, and they come in greater numbers,
maybe it’s my war with the words,
Yet I feel only a little compassion for them, no hatred!
After all, they are my sole companions in love,
and grief.
Guileless souls that know not their own purpose for me,
Know not that love blossomed in my heart but once
And that it was stillborn!
I pity them for they are unaware of your greatness
Of how I thought you gave meaning to this futile world.
Or maybe, they know, and only revolt out of their own sorrow
"And maybe when they blunder into my poems, they seek but oblivion!!!"

P.S:- For those of you who realised, the last line IS by Sylvia Plath- rather a modification of what she wrote. The original reads- "And when they blunder into bed, they seek but oblivion", talking about two lovers. However, when I first read the line, I could only think of words blundering into poetry, so I used it here; and to pay due reverence to the original, put that line in quotes.

Perception

2008-12-07T19:12:00.006+05:30

I know I haven't been around for quite a while. But by now, you are probably used to it!! Anyway, here is a poem that I wrote yesterday morning (There are a few others I wrote too, but not got much time to put them up now. Maybe some other time this week....). It is titled "Perception" and I ll leave you to guess why.. :) :)

Forests of green and lemon yellow, birds of purple plumes
Sunlight on dewdrops and primroses on the brook side…
As I walk along the mountain paths, not so struck by the beauty
The clouds try to charm me and the twittering behind- music
Yet my ears have become tone deaf today!
I have never walked with you on these paths,
Never once told you how much I love the moon,
Never did we have the time to speak of my dreams, and yours
But all through there had been a chance, a silent promise…
Maybe they were only fireflies and I mistook them
But I always thought these footprints shall be filled by yours,
And today, when I know you shall not return,
Though the beauty remains guileless and chaste- I only think-
"What a magnificent waste!"

I am not a 300 word blogger!!!

2008-10-04T18:34:00.005+05:30

5 days (actually, only 4) holidays, and a hostel empty enough for me to get online at any time I please... Now you know why I have been posting daily! :D (i wanted to put a wicked smile there, but dunno which smiley to use for that!!!)
Well, this time though, I didn't try completing my short stories- after a point, you know it's getting futile... I decided instead to go on a round of blogs (mostly my collegemates') and do a little reading. I must admit it was an interesting exercise. But what struck me a lil too glaringly was that when a post got to be more than 300 words, I read ONLY if it was a review or something. I jus skipped the ones that were abt coll events n stuff if they wer long. Im a VERY impatient reader, I guess. (On second thoughts, that is also not true! I don't mind staying up for 1000 page novels, but I just can't stand staring at the monitor, for beyond 400 words! Maybe, I m not that modern yet! :( )
Anyway, the moral of the story was a lil too bitter for me to take! Cos on my own blog, I ve very few posts tat are short. But I try making them as short as i can. Maybe I have too many things to say. (That is a chronic problem with me, u know- I always have too much to say; and torture my friends by non-stop talking! :D) I thought and thought and thought.... (on how to reduce the length of my posts, of course!!)
And then it dawned on me- yes, a simple statement that proved to be the remedy ( i was too tempted to use 'panacea' here! :P ) to all my problems! --- The simple realisation that "I am not a 300 word blogger!!"
I mean, I just can't write posts that short, conveying at least half of what I wanna say... I ve really tried.. Only Microsoft Word can tell you how many sentences I delete, and how many phrases I replace with single words, and yet, word count never decreases!! :( So, now i ve decided... to leave things as they are.. and continue.. And declare to the world with head held high (Tagore likes that, doesn't he?!) that I shall write what I like, n rattle on and on, till they shut their ears, and then to proudly smile and say- "
I am not a 300 word blogger!"

(Special Note:- T S Eliot is more popular for his 1000 line poem than for his shorter verses! :) :) )

(Bonus special note (NOT added to increase word count!):- Pls dont comment saying I need a course on more effective communication or something. ;) U kno I don't take advice... N ya, i really like writing long posts... :D )

A Review

2008-10-03T07:27:00.005+05:30

(It is probably too late to write this review, as the movie was released quite a while ago. But I couldn’t resist the temptation of reviewing it; and doing a little advertising for the movie, just in case, someone didn’t watch it yet!)

It’s rare that you feel a sense of completion after you see a movie. I have always believed that the easiest way to judge a movie is to see what you feel once it is over. You know, there was ‘Sivaji’- which made you feel empty, ‘Dasavatharam’- that made you marvel at Kamal’s talents, ‘Mozhi’- that made you feel happy about life, that filled you with hope and told you that the world is a happy place, whatever our problems, ‘TZP’- which woke you to the world of children, and made you want to do something for them.

And there is this amazing movie I saw yesterday- (quite surprisingly, Hindi)- that filled me with energy. For one thing, the movie itself was racy, and had your adrenaline pumps working on overload. But not just that, when the movie was over, you were so overflowing with energy- you wanted to face a hundred new problems, meet them square in the face, and yes, you knew you could make a difference in this world. It was not just a feeling of completeness, but as if u refueled ur mind! It did not just rejuvenate you, it made you feel empowered! N yet, it did not have beautiful cars racing (unless you call police vans and yellow buses beautiful), or hot women running, or romance or dupatta-udne-wali songs. (It did have a pretty(?) gal on the run, and the angry young man hero but not really the masala type!) In fact, what made it a beautiful movie was the simplicity, and the genius in story telling…. O, I am sorry, I didn’t mention the name of the movie, did I? It was “A Wednesday”.

(Note: Please don’t read the review before watching the movie. It is too beautiful to be spoiled by knowing the plot beforehand! And as usual, the review may not make much sense if you haven’t seen it yet…)

When the movie began, since I had already read the review, I knew the basic storyline- that it is an encounter between Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah, that it is a bomb scare etc. However, thankfully, I didn’t know the ending. And reading the review usually keeps me from getting caught (I mean, over engrossed) in the story and helps me to stand apart and look at the movie as a pure critic. However, in this case, I must say I lost to Neeraj Pandey. Though, initially I was trying to analyse each shot, it didn’t take long for the director to get me trapped, and he had me biting my fingernails in eager.

The beginning is not spectacular, and THAT is the beauty of this story. It starts off with a simple man walking into a police station and then climbing the stairs up an unfinished building with a bag of sabzi (the way he pays attention to details and picks that one tamatar that fell, as though it were the most important element of the story- man, do we have a great storyteller here!) The simplicity of Shah holds you on for a little while, (and the gag at the news creators of our media, is good), but these things can’t sustain your interest for long. And at the precise moment before which you might begin to lose interest, Shah sits in front of a table of gadgets (the changing sim part is pretty outdated) and makes that much awaited strategic phone call and the momentum picks up, what with Jai and Arif running behind men, and the police headquarters getting busy and before you know it, the race has begun. (I was regretting I didn’t have popcorn in my room, to add to the mazaa!)

Then it’s all running, and waiting for the next phone call, and I really don’t know how time flew. The scene about the hacker and reiterating the fact that the best equipment of the police is still outdated, fit. Of course, the cartoonist gimmick to figure his face is too old, they should have used a computer instead!! The video about a man who might be the mastermind behind the blasts is cleverly done, though the author could surely have come up with better tools to divert the spectator's attention!

But there were many instances that made me marvel. One being the depiction of Kher. He is the man in complete control of the situation, and in his decisions lie the fate of a city. But he doesn’t shout, no melodrama; only a subtle play of emotions, and knitted eyebrows! The other, of course, is Shah! He is brilliant, to say the least, though I am still not sure whether it is his acting or the role itself. But it takes some mettle to underplay and still convey. Besides, in the scenes where the city stands in his background, you can smell raw power. You think- this single man, unpretentious, quite ordinary, but as he sips tea, holds the power to blast an entire city. And all the action behind, the running, the police, the guns, the blood, the Ethernet cables, and the network trackers , all revolving around and being defeated by his brain! Beautiful…

Of course, the twist in the end is clever, and the (Shah’s) dialogue, very intelligent. But what stands out, even in such moments is the simplicity. We have seen so many of Shankar’s movies- all of them trying to tell us that the common man can and should question atrocities. However, there is so much drama built by Shankar, and so much hype and glitz that really masks the theme; and reduces the movie to one among many others. That, is where, “A Wednesday” stands out. Even Naseeruddin’s dialogue is not sophisticated. And his reasons are amazing. He is not fighting because his son dies in a blast. It is for some unknown stranger. Again, he doesn’t say it is for the society, it is for his own self. And the statements about ‘aam aadmi’ –wah!!

If you thought that was the end, hold on. There is more to appreciate this movie for. Though the movie is about violence, there is very less bloodshed. It is an action movie alright, but no unnecessary gore! Again, no unnecessary romance. No hero running behind heroine, and all that crap. N more importantly, the hero (which is definitely Shah and not Arif) is an old man wearing specs and carrying, with effort, a bag of vegetables. Makes me wonder if Hindi movies are really improving! Also, no unnecessary bad dialogues- most action movies use such vocabulary that you really wanna watch them muted. Of course, these things make the movie very serious. Not much of humour except the poor attempt at it, initially. But what the movie lacks for in glamour, it more than makes up for, in speed and storytelling.

Of course, there are a few plot glitches too- why Ibrahim Khan had to be shot by the police and didn’t have to die in the blast. If it is only to add spice, well, that was poorly done. Or worse, still, if it was to tell us that terrorists are not all that brave when they face death, how very farfetched! And the whole idea that anybody can make a hoax call and get away with it- is our police force THAT bad?? Surely, logic was seriously lacking there…

But I guess we should forgive the director for these minor errors, and applaud anyway…

N yes, last but never the least, it is a movie you can go watch with children (if such a breed still exists!). It might be a little too serious for them, but it surely does not have any vulgar or violent content. That is itself very commendable, as most Indian movies have lost the habit of being watchable with family. Most of the times, we are forced to accept whatever is shown and loosen our own norms of censorship, out of very less choice. And if nothing else, in that sense alone, “A Wednesday” is an amazing movie. Or in the words of the director- “Sahi ya galat- pata nahi; lekhin jo bhi tha, achcha tha!”

Summary:-
Movie: A Wednesday
Genre: Action
Director: Neeraj Pandey
Actors: Naseeruddin Shah, Anupam Kher, Naseeruddin Shah, Naseeruddin Shah, …
Story: One man has the whole Mumbai police force running on a bomb scare
Bottomline: Don’t miss it!!

(P.S:- If it sounds like I am only praising movies, I would like to tell you about “Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na”. I heard raving reviews of it, and it had done very well at the box office, so I quite expectantly wasted more than two hours on it. It was an ordeal to watch, and had me desperately wishing it would get over soon. The story was obvious, and the treatment poor, but the worst part was there was nothing to grip you. Nothing that touched you either. A poor attempt at cinema, for, even with a simple storyline and popular stars, the director was unable to use the medium effectively. Incidentally, the only part I liked there too was Shah, and his Rathod dialogues! Luckily, a few movies like “A Wednesday” relieve us of the burden, and make us feel hopeful about Indian cinema.)

The horror of stampedes...

2008-10-02T09:02:00.001+05:30

In an attempt to implement my resolution on becoming more regular in blogging, I had decided I should put something up these 2 days (hols, u know…). Of course, I had thought I should finish the story that I had been trying to complete for very long. But as usual, "The Hindu" came in my way, and made me change topics yet again. Yes, it was the Chamunda Devi stampede…

For those of u who did not check the news, 147 people (not considering the confusion about the exact number) died in a stampede yesterday at the Chamunda Devi temple, Jodhpur, Rajasthan. (The picture accompanying the article in the paper is quite horrible, and is sure to make you frown, but then, it depicts the situation quite well. Not putting it up, as I don’t believe in sadism!)

The first question that came to my mind when I saw the paper was- "Is it right to stamp a hundred people just to have a glimpse at the lord? " Would a God really save you only if you visit his temple on the first day of Navarathri? I did not think about the relief measures, only about what I’d have done, had I been there. Most victims were trampled or suffocated. But was it worth it? I mean, is standing in a crushing crowd justified by the darshan of the lord on an auspicious day? Maybe, I am not devotional enough! But then, what could anyone have done once they were part of the crowd? I don’t think there was any option but to continuously push, thrust and move forward, once the stampede began. But then, the photo returns to my mind…

Imagine the horror of having hundreds of people walk right over you! I know it is gruesome. I know it is not something we’d like to talk about. But that’s how most important topics are- "we don’t wanna talk about them!" It’s so safe and comfortable to pull the mask of civilization over our faces and evade the responsibility. Child abuse?- C’mon… No "respectable" girl writes that on her blog; only weirdo feminists! Foeticide? Eve teasing? –Oh, pulee..eez.. grow up! And legalizing homosexuality? –I can already see "taboo" on your face. Not that we don’t talk about these issues. Only, not in public; or mixed company. It is so easy to be able to walk into star hotels and have oh!-so-romantic candlelight dinners and enjoy the luxuries money can buy us, and talk about the nuke deal and be called intellectual anyway. Why write dark stuff on your blog? After all, it’s more enjoyable (even for the author) to write humour, ManU, movies and college news on his blog. And definitely so much easier (read fun) to read?!! Well, I guess someone has to do the dirty work, but maybe we are digressing too much…

Any mass debacle is sad. But an earthquake or flood is not really in our hands. We are still not equipped enough to put out the fire of nature’s fury in such cases. However, a stampede is caused by men. N not world leaders greedy for power. (How easy it usually is, to talk about World War II and say all the destruction was caused because one man named Hitler got greedy! The picture of a power hungry politician causing a mass massacre is such an easy one to paint and shrug the guilt off your safe guileless shoulders…) But, in a stampede, there really is no politician to blame. It is plain obvious that it was caused by another so-called common man, who very well could have been u or me! It’s just lucky that we didn’t go to the Chamunda Devi temple yesterday. But there are millions of temples across the length and breadth of our country, and hundreds of ‘special pujas’ that offer innumerable occasions for stampedes to occur. No, I don’t mean to psyche you out in Reader’s Digest style, and say that each of us is guilty and must be punished- that is not really necessary! But then, we very well could have been the cause. I know so many of my friends who push their way to the front in queues. And that is precisely how the stampede began yesterday: somebody in the queue wanted to get the darshan over with asap, and decided to push his way through. And the others followed. This happens at temples most of the time- maybe standing in queues just doesn’t suit the Indian temperament! And the worst part is that, once u are in the queue, even if u don’t wanna push, u are sure to get rammed.

However, the story doesn’t end here. What about the victims? Of course, the government pays them a lakh in compensation. For one thing, the money won’t’ last long; what with inflation still not under control. And for another, there is always the cliché I can quote- that any life is too valuable to lose. What if there was a boy in the crowd, on whose salary his family depended? Ok, that is old fashioned. What if there was a youngster all brainy who could have invented a new generation of computers and changed the way the world runs? Those of us who believe in God can only hope he isn’t THAT cruel. Or maybe, our governments should think of offering jobs and not money in compensation. (I will not talk about the ordeal of getting the compensation money, for that is another long story).

Then there was the lawyer (or former judge or somebody) who had been asked to submit a report about the debacle. Honestly I don’t see the point. How many government executives read these reports? And how much action is taken based on them? And come on, what can the report contain- figures of numbers attended, injured, died; a theory for the cause of the accident and suggestions that nobody implements anyway? Nobody can report the failures, the dreams that became castles in the air, shattered down to dust, the hopes, the ambitions, and all the happiness that was lost. And is this report all the answer that we have got, to give the innocent victims?

But really, what else should have been done? The authorities have said that "temples should have better arrangements for devotees on special puja occasions!" Now, (Forgiving the innate Indian tendency to take measures post- crisis) that does make sense, but it only brings me back to square one. What can a host of guards do if hundreds of devotees decide to shove their way in? Isn’t it more the fault of the devotees than the authorities? Isn’t it more the small fault in your and my mindsets that grew up to such horrendous proportions?

Ok, so what can we do? Start respecting queues and hope that since you have done your bit, the world shall do its. I know it sounds old fashioned and straight out of a sermon to say ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’, but then it does seem to work in our world. Or at least, let’s hope it does…