Scratchpad of Life

On Effort Reuse

2012-01-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

When starting on preparing a new set of presentation slides, we often have 2 choices:

To start with an empty set, and add old slides conservatively
Twick an old set of slides to create a new one.

More and more, I find the first option a better one. Ideally, every presentation we make is essentially different from all its predecessors. If that doesn't happen to be the case with a particular presentation we intend to make, we should strongly review the justifiability of making it in the first place. So, once we decide on making the presentation, we should start with that point of novelty and build outward from it and add material as required. In the process, we may prefer to use material from earlier presentations.

The second option gives a feeling that we are reusing our earlier effort. But it puts severe mindblocks in thinking afresh. I inadvertantly tend to forcefit the new story into the old one. In the process, I sometimes completely lose track of the central point of the new presentation. And the worst thing to happen is when on stage I suddenly stumble on a slide I didn't expect to be there. The body language that moment speaks of the speaker's insincerity more than anything else. The audience doesn't view a presentation as a mass produced content from an intellectual factory. Every presentation should have an appearance of being hand-crafted for that particular audience.

The same holds for writeups and computer programs, to some extent.

2011 Balance Sheet

2011-12-29T21:02:00.000-08:00

Plus

Started staying close to office. less than half hour daily commute time.
Started cycling to work and have continued.
Reduced weight to less that 70 kg (from 73 kg) and stayed that way.
Got rid of samosas and vadas in the evening snacks. Took to fruits and nuts. Have stayed that way.
Have got into a healthy sleep habit. Have stayed that way.
Spent much more time than before with family. Have felt very happy during the evening tea time with wife and child.
Improved significantly in hardwork, discipline quotient.
Got smarter in many domestic activities.
Filed my taxes online myself.
Travelled to USA.
Kept a steady rate at writing and programming.
Read a few really good books: Small is Beautiful, The Shadow Lines, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Learned a bit about formal method techniques.
Became much more fascinated with idea of sustainable living, Zen and minimalism.

Minus

No publications. I am almost happy with the amount and quality of research I have done this year. But I have gone against my own policy that every once in a while there should be a short term deliverable. I have stayed with ideas and concepts for an over-extended period. Hope 2012 will bring most of them to fruition.
Water colour painting didn't improve. I have felt quite discouraged with my lack of progress in this. I think I have found some leads and will try and work on them in the coming days.
Concentration was insufficient. Though my ability to manage many little things improved significantly, I continue to feel that breakthroughs come through concentrated and continued effort. I haven't done so well in that front. Creating space with better organisation is fine. But to be able to use that space well is quite another. Must focus serious energy into this.
Weakened contact with many friends even after trying really hard. This year, for the first time, I see the truth in that, beyond a point, spending excessive energy in maintaining friendships is a waste. Some friends have clung on. But many have drifted away. I also have started accepting that the large network of friends I have always boasted of is not so much a magical blessing, but largely due to ridiculous amount of energy I spend on maintaining it. Now, I agree that with growing age and life conditions, there has to be a natural evolution in relationships. Some new ones will emerge, but many many of them will have to give way. I feel sad about it. But unless I accept and internalise this, I will only pain myself more. Probably, wisdom lies in nurturing the surviving relations, because they have survived the hard struggle for existence, and in accepting with grace the demise of those which didn't.
Weakened contact with extended family.
Failed somewhat in personal organisation. I have tried hard to be better and better in this. But seems I am not good enough. My professional productivity speaks of this. My low self-satisfaction in handling my domestic matters speaks of it. Of course, the contradictory idea is that personal organisation can help only as a fine-tuning step. The major impact depends on the intensity of one's style of working. May be, organisation only helps in managing breadth, not depth. And most of the work I need to do require depth. Let's see.
Couldn't sustain the Yoga habit

Lessons learned

Everything has cost

Progress matters more than completion

Overall score

fitter and happier than ever before.

The Agnostic's Faith

2011-12-18T20:38:00.000-08:00

Meaningfulness of life rests upon not our rationalities, but on some fundamental faith. I am firm that you need faith to find this life worth living.

I too have a faith. My faith is: I am good person.

People who love me know what I mean. People who hate me may think of it as the resounding substantiation of the hunch they have that I am probably an egotistic bastard. I think they are all right. Life's all about myself.

I believe that it's possible to approach a point where this fact is beyond doubt: for others (probably easier to achieve), and for myself (most difficult). Like all other faiths, my faith can't be proved or disproved. Like other un-enlightened creatures of different faiths, I too often waver on my faith, commit sacrileges, and then get back. Like other faith-fuls, what I never do is question my faith. Because, I don't find a way otherwise which would let me live with zeal and energy, and not get reduced to a passive vegetable waiting to be decayed or devoured. Believing in the beauty of life appears to me the only way of making life beautiful. Life may be an accident. But, whether it's going to be a beautiful accident or an ugly one is a choice. And this choice rests on one's faith, because rational thoughts can't resolve this issue.

My faith has another corollary: Everyone is a good person.

I feel, the urge to live is inseparably tied with the urge to be good. Because, being good is the only way you support the idea of life being a beautiful thing. Doing something ugly is an act of sacrilege to the faith of a beautiful life. It's hard to believe that murderers, rapists, corrupt people, ... they are all creatures of the same faith. But, I firmly believe, they too are creatures of the same faith. They too are seeking to make life beautiful. Just that their notion of beauty is in terrible conflict with their environment. Conflict and disharmony is the measure of ugliness.

Yes, life's all about myself. But the I exists in the context of a universe. Discord with the context affects the harmony within. Hence, the state in which the state of perfect goodness reveals itself in a stable glow only happens when the being is in perfect harmony along with the entire universe. This happens only if there's harmony everywhere. This happens when the barriers between the system and environment break down. This happens when the I consumes the universe, or the universe consumes the I. Whichever way. Shouldn't matter.

Probably, I sound similar to advaitists. May be. I don't give my faith any name for the moment.

Related posts:
The Spiritual Way of Life

Practising Presence

My Biggest Achievement

2011-12-12T02:06:00.000-08:00

Someone was being interviewed. He was asked about his biggest achievement.

I too wondered what was mine. I scanned in my mind through my many experiences. Many of the things I toil hard for: professional achievements, family achievements, social achievements, artistic achievements. In them, I am never completely satisfied; never fully happy. In fact, I walk around with a depressing feeling that I have never quite done so well in any of them. I just manage.

Cold sweat broke when I wondered what, if not these, have ever made me feel really happy, really proud. Have I lived my life so far in the empty mirage of becoming an achiever?

Then, it occurred to me. There have been moments when I have felt really happy. Really proud. That's when a childhood friend met me somewhere, and after a while of chatting, said: 'Sujit, you are still just the way you were in school! यार! तू तो बिलकुल नहीं बदला!'

Practising Presence

2011-12-04T22:09:00.001-08:00

We are all continually wondering all the time what we should do and what we shouldn't. At a very superficial level, we may seem to apply so many different criteria to decide the question. Physical, social, spiritual, egoistic, and so on. But, at a more fundamental level, we always strive to do something that yields more value.

The question of deciding the value of something is fundamental.

Here's one thought that more and more frequently appears to me as very sensible:

If a moment is spent in conscious joy, the moment goes in our account of valuable moments.
If a moment lacks either of the two elements -- consciousness and joy -- it's a moment lost.
And then the value of life (or length of valuable life) could be measured in terms of the accumulation of valuable moments.

(see figure below)

Also, for reference, we use the following definitions of both the above terms:

Consciousness: When you are mindful of the current experience
Joy: When you are enjoying the current experience. A significant part of you wishes the experience to continue for the moment.

The above may seem like a naive, simplistic criterion. The biggest disadvantage of the above theory is that it can't be directly put to use to come up with an universally applicable list of value-adders and value-subtractors. We aren't looking for such a list. We are looking for some further insight than nothing.

Let's illustrate our point through a bunch of examples:

unconscious, joyless: Coma, death, mechanical toil
unconscious and joyful: intoxication
conscious and joyless: Boredom, toil, fighting
conscious and joyful: Meditation, eating, sex, sleep, sports, nature-view, artistic pursuits, praying, love, humour, living

Not all examples in the above list belong to their respective quadrant permanently. The list is to just bring home feelings of familiarity to understand what we mean by the 4 quadrants. For example, mechanical toil, often when we are doing chores or when a mechanic operates a machine, we tend to loose ourselves in an absent minded way. The mind isn't necessarily thinking anything at all at that time, leave alone thinking something nice. In fact, in such situation, our mind often goes dull and numb to avoid feeling the pain of doing something we don't like. Similarly, eating or sex needn't necessarily be done in a conscious and joyful way. I have met many people who aren't even aware of what they are eating while eating like glutton. For them, getting done with their meal and getting back to what they think is useful stuff is the prime goal of their life at that moment. Similarly, think of prostitutes for whom having sex is merely a part of their job. It's unlikely that they enjoy sex in all its glory. It's hard to say which of the 4 quadrants such an activity should be put into.

Duality between Joy and Consciousness

Why should it be so difficult to achieve joyful consciousness? We often talk about how ignorance is bliss. It can be seen easily that there’s often a direct trade-off between joy and consciousness. The more conscious we are, the larger ground of knowledge we have to deal with; and larger are the chances that something won’t be quite right in the whole thing.

What's here and now?

At this juncture, we need to revisit the definition of consciousness. What does it really mean to be conscious. We observe that consciousness is always partial. Being conscious of one thing results in our being oblivious of something else. Being conscious of the present causes us to forget about past and future.

One may try to tackle this issue by deciding to focus on the here and now. However, to define here and now is, I think, a very metaphysical difficulty. To say that here is where my body is, and now is the time read on my watch, would be an oversimplification. Often the body becomes a very insignificant element of our presence. Similarly the fact that we are situated in a particular point on the time axis could be an equally inconsequential fact. To focus on either in such a situation wouldn't necessarily be the wisest thing to do. For instance, a poet may be giving birth to a beautiful poem thinking about his childhood friends who are geographically separated. Where is he? When is he? Where should he focus his attention to practise presence?!

Spiritual Perspective

Consciousness and joy aren't mere boolean values. They aren't merely determined by their presence or absence at a moment. There's also an aspect of intensity associated. Spirituality deals in intensifying both these parameters. An idea is that a moment conceals in its bossom a possibility of infinite joy and infinite experiences. An enlightened soul would be able to explore all these infinite experiences. That is the state of perfect meditation (समाधि, samadhi). An individual experiencing a moment in all its infiniteness has conquered death in a sense.

An important interpretation of the state of samadhi is the dissolution of the duality between consciousness and joy. In the spiritual state of being, penetrating consciousness is the source of intense joy, instead of being a deterent of the same.

The above idea is mystical. I would take it seriously, if not literally. The state of perfect meditation is probably only achievable in another world devoid of the non-idealness of a physical existence. But, I do believe that trying to approach it makes practical sense. Every finite bit achieved in the direction of infinite joy for infinite time has a non-zero value-add to this life.

I think I will not meet much opposition if I say that the prime goal of our life (apart from self-preservation) is stable state of joy and fulfilment. Worldly ways prompt us to take many circuitous routes to that goal, almost tangential to its direction. On the other hand, I feel, every step taken directly in the direction of that happiness, through self-discovery and deeper understanding of what really makes us happy, is a transcendation from these orbital routes to happiness, closer and closer to the actual goal.

Is it possible to apply the concept of alertness and joy to wider questions of ethics? I think, it is. We'll think a bit about that shortly.

Men, Women and Discussions

2011-11-20T21:10:00.001-08:00

Note: This discussion happened over Google Buzz. I reproduce it simply because I feel it deserves something less ephemeral than a buzz conversations. The reproduction is pretty much honest (through effective use of copy-paste). I have removed the timestamps, hyperlinks, and 'da' suffix to my name wherever they appeared.

Acknowledgement: I thank Pritesh, Ananth, Ayan, Hasan and Shipra for participating in the discussion.

You will find men often talking about women not being able to take part in serious discussions. Many impediments have been reported. They range from lack of originality, lack of breadth/depth of thought, taking things personally, not gracefully accepting it if their contribution to the discussion happens to be minor, getting too aggressive (as in turning a discussion into an argument) etc.

I feel there are people like that. But they aren't necessarily women. I have met many women with whom it is a pleasure to discuss on a wide variety of things. They don't just make good listeners, but have such valuable inputs as is suggestive of wide knowledge and piercing intellect. On the other hand, there are men with whom it's a pain to talk anything beyond meaningless pleasantries.

But more importantly, what we should realise is that such people who aren't good performers in discussions aren't necessarily intellectually inferior. Handling a discussion is by and large a matter of grooming. Good discussions follow certain patterns, which, through regular practice, are rather easy to catch. When a discussion is approaching one of its pitfalls, when it's straying, and how to avoid these and maximise the benefit of a session, are things which one could learn with practice and observance of discipline.

To this, probably it is relevant to look at how things culturally are in our Indian families. When men discuss, women cringe into the kitchen or some other part of the house only to appear to provide refreshment. Even now, in a lot of families, men and women form separate groups. No wonder, if someone is routinely kept away from opportunities of learning something, she will not learn it. And then, we attribute it to their intellect. And the sequestration intensifies. It's a vicious cycle! It's not as if men are forcing women to this plight. Men and women are equal parties to this folly. It's more like men and women, all, are playing puppets to a strange illogical custom. If there's any semblance of fact in the opening statement of this piece, I feel, it could largely be attributed to this strange custom (In fact, I was recently made aware of this by one of my cousin sisters, and it struck me like a thunderbolt.)

What a pity for us all that we lose out on about half the intellect of our race while discussing on matters! What a pity!

Related posts:

Discussions

Pritesh Dagur - It's a very very valid and thought-provoking point Sujju. I can identify with the pattern of women escaping to the recesses of the kitchen, with or without realizing. In spite of having more than equal opportunities of discussing, I tended to do this too (maybe, I still do it to a certain extent). So, I don't particularly blame the less-educated or less well-treated women doing so. I guess, this goes back a long way and will change very slowly, just like many other things about our Society. Conscious efforts will need to be made to bring the other half of the Society into actively discussing matters and ya, the discussing half to get into the kitchen and bring refreshments too! :-) Change has to happen both ways! :-) The other half of my marriage already does this, I hope the others can learn too and we can have a wider variety of inputs in every discussion :-)

Sujit Kumar Chakrabarti - Yes. Also, the groups that get formed in the living room should be more based on interests, and not gender. Why is it necessary for men to talk about footfall and politics, and for women to talk about recipes and cosmetics?! These days we have women heading prominent countries. Aur to aur, ab to ladke bhi cosmetics use karte hain! ;)Edit

Pritesh Dagur - Hahaha, this is true. But yes, it is also about taking an interest in other topics. I can contribute a bit or two about football now and Ananth can talk about toners and facewashes too! :D

Sujit Kumar Chakrabarti - ...and I will make a good listener to both! :D

Hasan Raza - I may not agree completely. You are trying to relate two things together. However, you are right that it's not the women but people who behave like this. But is that those men who behave like this go to kitchen when intellectual talk is happening, and appear to provide refreshment.

I didn't like the above post. As simple as that.

Sujit Kumar Chakrabarti - There should be one '[:(] Unlike' option for buzz posts! That would have been even simpler! :)

ananth krishnan - @Hasan: I think what Sujit is trying to say here is that, being part of intellectual discussions is largely a grooming issue, not a brain issue. Less women are able to join intellectual discussions because they are groomed to cater to refreshments, not indulge in intellectual discussions. So when they are exposed to an intellectual discussion, they may find themselves ill at ease, even if they may actually have the aptitude or interest to join in such a discussion. But on the other hand, some men don't like such discussions, but are forced to sit through them because they cannot excuse themselves to go and provide refreshments.

@Sujit: One solution Pritesh and I tend to follow is the take turns in making intellectual (or non-intellectual) conversation and dropping into the kitchen to arrange for refreshments. If the party is smaller, then we shift everyone into the kitchen and talk while we preparing the refreshments with each of us handling some parts. In spite of that, Pritesh ends up spending more time arranging for the refreshments while I end up spending more time on the conversations.

@everyone: Usually the women too end up making conversation among themselves, often in the kitchen while arranging the refreshments, in a typical Indian party scenario. I think it would be stupid for us men to label their talk as any less intellectual than that carried out by men. I would sometimes say, their conversation may be more useful, than the so called intellectual discussions by men. As Sujit puts it, it is a shame that one half of the intellect is lost on the other half :-)

Hasan Raza - Ok, let me be more clear. There are two discussions running above:

(1) How to do a better conversation and lead a discussion to an end; and other interpersonal skills

(2) Intellectual strength of women

The first one is altogether different from the second one. I can't question the intellectuality of women, the difference is that the direction is different. Women put their intellectual strength in a different direction than men. Just take an example:

Skill of not to give up in a discussion - it needs lots of brain power to keep going with the discussion and poke out new things which pierce the opponents mind and stature, and be present with another cross question or incidence which can cancel the opponents statement, and prove ultimately that you are wrong.

The above is commonly found in women but even men sometimes behave like that (eg. here I am :) Now how does it relate to the way how women are treated in our culture and society?

The only difference is that people who talk smart (be it a women or men), always follow a path in the discussion and do not deviate from there.

Sujit Kumar Chakrabarti - Hello Hasan. Let me try to frame the above two things in one: 'Utilising the intellectual strength of women in discussions.' It's a composite topic. That's OK na?!

If I try to go into explaining the unity in the topic I had started, probably I'll end up repeating a lot of what I said at first. Let me still try by writing something like a paper abstract.

Women are intellectually equal. But they don't end up taking equal part in serious discussions in general. I have tried to analyse the problem. In the process I have agreed that the distinction between discussers and non-discussers exists but it's not fundamentally gender based, rather it's a matter of practice. I have concluded by giving a brief explanation as to why in the current society the bias of non-discussers might be towards women, by bringing in our social norms of isolating women from intellectual activities.

Do you still think I am trying to force two topics deserving separate discussions to fit into one?

Dear Ananth. Thanks for a solution to the 'refreshments' problem. I'm sure you understand, but for the benefit of all, let me just mention that I mentioned that issue more metaphorically, to represent the fact that normally, women in our society are meant to keep out of intellectual discussions.

Also, whether women end up making meaningful discussions among themselves is slightly besides the point once we have agreed that the distinction between discussers and non-discussers in not gender based. What is important to highlight is that there indeed are people who never learn to make meaningful discussions not because of their own faults but because prevailing norms never allow them to learn it.Edit

ananth krishnan - I guess the confusion is caused do the assumption that intellectual discussions are restricted to the living room which is usually inhabited by men during a typical Indian family party. Where I beg to differ from Sujit in the light of Hasan's comments is that, women in our society are meant to keep out of discussions which men have, not necessarily out of intellectual (serious) discussions. Because of the different practices of discussions between men and women, the intellect is not shared between men and women. But I have never heard of a man winning an argument with his wife about anything without resorting to violence. So obviously men are ill-equipped at having the kitchen variety of (serious) discussion.

ananth krishnan - But what I agree with Sujit is that men often subscribe to the belief that women can't make intellectual conversations, because of the social milieu of the Indian family and the gender roles.

Shipra Agrawal - that is one reason I am fan of open kitchens, my current kitchen is open, into the living room, that not only allows me to talk while I am making tea or something, but also encourages everyone including Piyush to be more involved in arranging the refreshments.

Sujit Kumar Chakrabarti - Wow! That's really a cool aspect of open kitchens. Never thought of it!Edit

Pritesh Dagur - I so totally agree with Shipra. Open kitchens (like we have in our Pune house) are a really cool idea.........

Ayan Kar - I like to idea of being able to interact.. but I prefer the big separate kitchens that include the dining area.. I can sit and chat with my wife and also we get to do a lot of joint cooking of tasty bengali maach bhaat or spicy chicken masala's my present house has an open kitchen and me and my wife hate it because it limits the options of food we can cook. You can accuse of both of us of being food junkies.. ;-)

Sujit Kumar Chakrabarti - Bindu! Point! I'm fine with both. There should be good food coming out of them prepared and eaten over interesting discussions. :)

The Correct Pronunciation

2011-11-10T20:39:00.001-08:00

Two Indians -- a North Indian and a Maharashtrian -- were fighting about how 'either' should be pronounced. North Indian said it should be pronounced as 'आइदर'. The Maharashtrian said it should be 'ईदर'. That's when a Tamilian passed by. So, both decided to ask him. The good-natured Tamilian thought for a while, and said, 'यइदर will do!'

Morale of the story: No point trying too hard to get rid of your local accent.

We, particularly Indians, work so hard to sound like British people (now Americans, of course) when it comes to speaking in English. Is it needed? If you look around, people from every country have their own accents. No one seems to fret so much as Indians do about their English. Nothing wrong in wanting to use a language well. But the unfortunate thing is, we end up thinking too much about being indistinguishable from the originators of English in terms of accents.

We should remember that the only way of enriching a language is by using it in ways other than how their originators did. The only inviolable rule of using a language is that it should communicate what you wish in the way you wish. Everything else is a dispensable trait. Various accents, particularly in India, makes language usage really interesting. Should we emphasise too much on making them all sound similar?

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Dr. Valli Rao for providing the above thought.

Thought Processes behind Ethical Decisions

2011-11-08T02:10:00.000-08:00

What do we think when faced with an ethical problem? What goes on in our heads in those excruciating split-seconds?

To help you in following the discussion below, try and imagine what would go through your head when faced with a situation like the one below to make a decision.

The traffic light is red. But there's no one looking (not even cameras). Should you jump the signal?

I tried to conduct the above thought experiment over several sessions of thinking. Follows a list of traces of thoughts that I could detect in my mind. Of course, the experiment was conducted with an attempt to be objective. So, I have tried to keep my own personal dispositions out of the way.

Reward and Punishment

Do that for doing which there is a reward, or for not doing which there is a punishment.

The above is an obscenely simple, and potentially the most profound of all mechanisms of practicing ethics. Why it is simple is because it works on grown ups, kids and even animals. Why it is profound is because it is parameterised with how one interprets the notions of reward and punishment. A reward may mean something as simple as a kiss from parents for which a child decides to eat his food quietly. Or it could mean a national independence that a freedom fighter lays down his life for.

Except in the most direct ethical problems of day to day life, this mechanism fails to provide a good and timely solution. In most cases but the most trivial ones, it will result in very narrow-minded behaviour if used in a time-budgeted manner. And if we try to use it in very fundamental manner, we mayn't reach a conclusion in time.

Religious Approach

Follow the scriptures.

There are people who do well in ethical sense by sticking to what's considered correct as per their religious belief. Don't cheat. Don't lie. Don't kill. Don't be greedy. Most of it is all there in any religious text and following one is a sure bet that you will by and large be ethical.

Difficulties arise in the implied aspects of religion. So, some people think women should cover up. Others think freedom to dress at will is a part of the notion of freedom. Some people say eating meat is violent. Some say eating some specific types of meat is OK, while eating others is bad. There are too many religions around and there are disagreements. One notion is that all religions are fundamentally in agreement. But the level of abstraction where the agreement is complete doesn't lead to anything actionable. Refinements and interpretations are essential to turn religious thoughts into actionable ones. And that's where disagreements creep in.

Spiritual Approach

Follow your heart.

There are many cases where we are well-aware of what's going on in our mind. We may be able to sugar-coat our greed as something really good. But, the heart is most often ruthlessly clear about such acts of deceit.

However, an act done with an honest sense of good could be disastrous. Even if we discount the direct ethical connection between an act and its consequence, we can't leave out the disagreements that may arise. And then comes the question of how strongly should one stand on one's opinion. For example, Gandhiji was known to be pretty rigid about what he thought to be right. People like Hitler must also have been pretty convinced that they were right in tried to wipe out a complete race. There are so many schizophrenics around. Spiritual approach doesn't help in telling one from others.

Civic Approach

Grant full loyalty to a social structure, movement, or concept and do what you think benefits it.

We can view ourselves as tiny little components of something larger than ourselves. You may call it the country, the world, the society or whatever. It's a human creation, and we all have teamed up to create it. This requires order and cooperation and we owe it in our conduct. Obey rules. Respect other fellows' requirements. You look at it this way, and it becomes rather simple to decide as to what should be done.

Whom to be loyal to? The faith here is that we are components of something which is inherently good. And here lies the tricky part. Let me illustrate this with an example. We find ourselves in membership of composite structures which more often than not conflict with one another. For example, trivially, we are members of our own self. Then family. Friend circle. Organisation. State. Country. Caste. Religion. Human race etc. It's hard to define at which level of this compositional hierarchy should we define our absolute allegiance based on which we drive our ethical decisions. For example, you may be working for a mining company which is taking away precious minerals from your country dealing it a profound long term damage. So, should you not act against your company in the interest of your country? Perhaps. Unless, your country is a hostile one which will eventually use all its mineral reserves to manufacture or purchase weapons of mass destruction.

Hope of effectiveness. The other difficulty arises when the effectiveness of our action is not clear. Then our decision completely rests on how hopeful we are that our act of loyalty will fulfill its intended goal. Most unethical acts fall in this category. Most ordinary people do something wrong not because they directly find it rewarding to do it, but because they feel foolish trying to do something good. Not bribing. Not jumping signals. Not producing false bills. Civic approach to ethics relies on an unflinching faith in entity to which you have vowed your loyalty. This approach becomes ineffective when one loses the faith in the above premise, or in the ineffectiveness of one's ethical act in really serving the charter of that entity.

Scientific Approach

Do what is objectively the correct thing to do. In case of no clear answer choose whichever you please, including nothing at all.

Let me go back to the example of driving -- an everyday act which, I feel, requires a huge number of moral decisions taken in split seconds particularly where application of reward-punishment duality is particularly tricky. The primary purpose of driving is to get from point A to point B. Everything that prevents us from being at B instantly on starting the journey could be taken as an impediment. This approach would lead us to look with hostility at everything: any turn on the road that doesn't directly point towards B, the traffic, the traffic lights, traffic rules, the finite power of the car...even laws of physics! I agree that there's nothing moral or immoral about taking this approach. The one thing problematic about this approach is its stupidity. The most logical approach here is to understand that nobody owes us a right of way in our journey unless its a mutual understanding. It's equally likely that we will not succeed in forcing our way through realities to our destination unless we get them to work in our favour through a mutually agreeable protocol. Similarly, it's ridiculous to think that anyone gains by not letting us be there at our destination as early as possible. In the light of this realisation, treating all the above artifacts with hostility appears stupid more than anything else.

Theoretically, the above seems robust. Except that in my view, I haven't found scientists doing too well in general when it comes to ethical living. They cheat at work. They envy and back-stab their peers. They misbehave with and disrespect the general people, sometimes even their family members. Pretty lousy people, sometimes. Why do people trained to think scientifically fail to work out the details of ethical questions? What goes wrong?

InterconnectionsThe above approaches aren't orthogal. There's a relations between religious approach and spiritual approach. Civic approach is similar to religious approach in most part except that the object of loyalty is worldly in one case and mystical in the other. Religious approach is similar to the approach of rewards and punishments when it's driven with the idea of securing a good after-life.

In fact as aluded to earlier, all mechanisms could be fundamentally based on a notion of reward and punishment. However, to interpret it literally would be dangerous and naive in the same manner as would be equating animal selfishness with principles of advaita.

Concluding Remarks

We must remember that ethics is one of the fundamental problems of philosophy. Like most fundamental problems of philosophy, it eludes a final, universally accepted solution. But like all problems of philosophy, it touches our lives in a very basic way. In some sense, practicing ethics is something we all, philosophers and non-philosophers, must do. In this article, I have tried to list and present a primitive analysis of the mechanisms we ordinary people employ for practicing ethics. Further thoughts on them will undoubtedly add clarity to our understanding of our own mechanisms of practicing ethics.

The Dead Pigeon

2011-11-02T22:38:00.000-07:00

On Diwali evening, a beautiful pigeon lost its way to my balcony. There were 3 little kids at my house who got very exited on seeing it. They screamed and jumped. The pigeon fluttered its wings in panic. But, blinded by night, and disoriented with terror, it only bumped against the pot with the withered tulsi. I drove the kids away and closed the balcony door hoping that in some time, the pigeon would find its way back out.

I checked up a few hours later. And found the pigeon dead. I picked it up and took it to the security with a weak hope that the dead bird would find an affectionate burial in their hands. They couldn't help. And I left it near the dustbin, to be picked up the next morning, along with that day's trash. I felt very sad. I affectionately asked the bird why it died like that. The only answer I got was an uncomplaining calmness of the dead.

That night, in wee hours, the thought of the dead pigeon visited me again. I thought how it would have been a glorious and beautiful bird that previous day. I mused if there would be near and dear ones at home waiting for the pigeon who would never come back. How would they feel when they learned of the inglorious death? How would they feel to learn that the corpse had got disposed along with municipality trash? Or was the pigeon loved by no one, in which case, being dead was also a homeless state? I wondered why it died like that. Did it get hurt by Diwali crackers, or the commotion of the bursting crackers and screaming kids scared it to death? I wondered what it may have thought of all this noise and fire: sports for the big and powerful; and death for the poor delicate creature.

I also wondered: how many pigeons die without anyone to mourn their death? With no ceremonies to mark their departure? No obituaries? How many beautiful lives are lost due to the splinters from the crackers of more significant creatures? How many beating hearts just wither away while the loud racket emanating from the sports of larger creatures goes on unceasingly?

The Spiritual Way of Life

2011-10-24T01:09:00.000-07:00

What is a self-proclaimed agnostic doing talking about spirituality? You may ask.

Just to clarify, it's one of my periodic exercises to revisit the questions: What the hell is going on? What do I want? What should I do?

Here, I will jot down my current thoughts on these fundamental questions. I will be as brief as possible. Disclaimer: It's an opinion. If you manage to read it through, please use it to trigger your own thoughts. I am not a spiritual guru for sure.

Two Stimuli. Whatever we do, we do as a reaction to two types of stimuli: External and internal. These stimuli are distinct, but they mix with each other in a complicated way. One of the important exercises of spirituality is to sort this confusion out. The spiritual way of life is strive and react to only internal stimuli.

How do I know if it's an internal stimulus. Internal stimuli lead to perpetuation of happiness. External stimuli cause temporary happiness without leading to anything perpetual.

The final destination. A state of perfect happiness and perfect harmony. And it will be characterised by complete lack of conflict. There will be no conflict between our inherent needs and wants. There will no conflict between inner and outer requirements.

In real life. Do things which are uniformly good for oneself, and for everything/everyone else. No exploitation. No sacrifices. This will lead to weeding out of conflicts both from within, and from outside. Though inner harmony is what we really want, it can't be achieved without harmony with the external world.

What causes harmony? Any act of violence leads to disharmony. Anything done with the intention of creation a global win is a step towards harmony. Winning competitions are not harmonious. Gains planned over someone's loss are disharmonious. Creating knowledge through thinking or experimentation is harmonious. Creating hope of harmony is also harmonious.

Definition of violence. Anything that causes death is not violence. Anything that seeks death, or is knowingly based on death is violence. Peace can't be achieved via acts of violence.

Seeking harmony and meaning is harmonious. Leading a life which rejects the notion is disharmonious.

There is no logical reason I can think of which can tell if trying to lead a harmonious and meaningful life is any better or worse than not doing so. I think it's a choice one has to make. I even feel that people make these choices in their mother's womb. I haven't seen people switching midway.

My life. My choice is to look for a meaning. As I said, I consider it a choice. Not a logical deduction. It's similar to choices like being good citizens. I believe that all people (myself included) can be happy. I believe that all wars (including the ones within me) can end. It doesn't make an iota of difference if these beliefs are realistic or not. Living for this unrealistic ideal is every bit more fun than resigning to a dismal fate that terms life a meaningless Brownian motion leading nowhere.

Science and Marketing

2011-10-20T00:23:00.001-07:00

Science gives solutions to existing problems. Marketing gives problems to existing solutions.

Prof. Priti Shankar

2011-10-18T02:27:00.000-07:00

Sharing a sad news: Prof. Priti Shankar of CSA, IISc is no more!

She was the first teacher whose lecture I had attended during my stay in IISc. I feel indebted to all the support she had provided during my early and most difficult days in IISc. Throughout her days she has inspired innumerable students as a great human-being, teacher, researcher and as a woman. And beyond her time, she will continue to do so.

Remembering Jagjit Singh

2011-10-11T01:16:00.000-07:00

'ये आज़ान के स्वर हैं. ये पिआनो बाजे में नहीं होते.' It was one of those late live concert albums Jagjit Singh said this. During my PhD days, my labmate used to play it again and again, he being a big Jagjit Singh fan.

Jagjit Singh's songs don't sound hard. In fact, they appear ridiculously simple. But, Jagjit Singh is also the most hard to imitate singer. I was moved to remembering late Jagjit Singh several times in the last one day after his demise. And I tried humming his songs: 'शाम से आँख में...', 'एक पुराना मौसम लौटा...', 'होश वालो को खबर क्या...' Like every time in the past I have done that, this time too, I felt like a piano, which doesn't have all the notes in it. Jagjit Singh had those other notes in him. His voice weaved magic into songs which would be lifeless if sung in any other voice.

Like many millions, he was my introduction to ghazals. At least 2 of my good friends, who don't claim to be music aficionados, have been devoted listeners/collectors of Jagjit Singh work. I have not seen any other artist having such cult fan-following. So many of my life's emotions often sing themselves to me in Jagjit's voice: friendship, love, nostalgia, separation, pensiveness, tranquility, resignation...

Jagjit Singh's voice is like that aazaan which today's pianos can't create. With his demise, those mystical notes have died too. I join Jagjit Singh's innumerable fans in mourning his death.

Aarakshan

2011-08-27T04:59:00.000-07:00

I saw Aarakshan yesterday. It's a good movie, I would say. Not great from a purely artistic point of view. Good acting and dialogues. But some out of place songs. A gradually increasing portion of drama as the story progressed. There were even moments when one felt that probably the story has started draggingand had lost the crispness. But definitely overall the movie scores well in the way it deals with an inflammable topic in a sensitive way while communicating the maker's point of view rather clearly. Or may be it's actually the viewer's (my) view interpreted by him (me) as the maker's view. The climax resembles the Anna Hazare movement in its look. That adds an appeal to the experience of watching the movie, though rather coincidentally.

The way the storyline gradually drifts away from the issue of reservation and casteism to that of education wasn't accidental I am sure. In fact, it makes a very strong point: the issue of reservation and casteism are really not central to the woes of the Indian society. The central issue is that of education. The evils of casteism can't be mitigated by reservations. Not because the idea of reservations in itself is evil. It is not. But because, its correct implementation is probably impossible in presence of too many stakeholders in the game. It's impossible to prevent people from misusing it. In fact, it's not just reservation policies which are misused by politicians but the overall combination of reservations and class-struggle.

There were some dialogues which probably carried the maker's take on the matter. Once, the hero asks the question regarding why we don't have ITS (Indian Teaching Services) as we have IAS and IFS? There was one more where his wife asks why, instead of wasting so much money on reservations at higher education and job, government doesn't invest all its crores on improving the primary education system.

The way the hero deals with the overall situation in the movie was obviously very dramatic appropriate for a movie. But the message was valid for the real world. The key lies in making education accessible to everyone irrespective of their background.

I would like to add the following points from my side:

An idea worth considering for the government of India would be to have a kind of mandatory education service for all post-graduates of the country. If you aren't in teaching and you hold a post graduate degree you must devote x years (May be 1 or 2 years) of your professional life to education. Countries like Israel and Korea have successfully implemented compulsory military services in their country. I feel, it's practical to implement something similar for education.

The other thing, though slightly in a broader interest, is that education must be partially freed from being widely perceived as a professional training. Education is about life, not profession. It should be seen as a vehicle of sharpening thoughts and knowledge which are general tools for leading a better life, of which professional advantage is a small subset. But, let's leave all this to a separate discussion.

An Anecdote from a Team-Experience

2011-08-25T02:43:00.000-07:00

During the first few years of Rhythmica, when I used be active in it, I came across two kinds of people -- those who wanted the best out of the programme, and those who wanted the best out of the people.

Former category people were usually very talented; set very high standards for themselves and for others; and considered a musical performance as the output of the hard work. For them, it wasn't justified to compromise on the quality of the music. Substandard performance was unpardonable. At every stage of preparation, they advocated ruthless curtailing of anything substandard.

Latter category consisted of people who gathered in the music room for fun. They would, on an average, be less musically talented. They wouldn't have much to do with the highest levels of perfection. For them, a glitch here and a glitch there was absolutely OK. They would make friends, get into romantic relations, help out the more talented ones, and sulk if neglected.

Another example exists in all organisations. There are techies and there are managers. Techies don't usually think much of the managers. And managers give a damn to that. The tussle continues, and they thrive under the same roof.

It was when I was trying to characterise my responsibilities as a convener that I realised that both these types of people are required in a team. And whether one wants it or not, both these varieties would exist in any group.

Talented people are good to realise the potential of a group. The peak potential of the group is the peak potential of these individuals. Their presence is a must to take a group to the heights of achievement. The latter group are important for the existent of a group. They aren't dead weight. They are a cement which keeps the team together. A massive structure is required for resources to come together and create something that makes a difference. Usually individual talent is not enough to realise such teams.

A leader's job is to engineer two things:

- Realisation of potential

- Repeatability

The talented ones advocate such high levels of dedication and hard work as would cause severe burnouts in the less capable ones. As individuals, they may be capable of sustaining very high standards demanding exceptional efforts. That mayn't be true with others. A talented person, in absence of essential team-related qualities in himself, will look at this incapability as a disqualification, and will castigate anyone who doesn't concur. Often, this may create conflicts, not just with less capable people, but also with comparably capable people. Everyone is not at their best all the time. Being caught in the weak moment, and being reprimanded by a peer, who isn't necessarily more talented, for not meeting standards may sometimes be unacceptable to them, especially if they are inwardly rather confident that they do maintain high standards. Due to this reason, it is often seen that groups consisting of extremely talented people don't always do well, especially when it comes to durability. Music bands, research groups, etc. often form and fall apart in no time. I guess, the reason behind it could be the lack of team-related talents in its members.

A team will sustain when most of its members are happy, not just with themselves but with each other. They will come together again and again when they feel like meeting each other. A team will make its mark not just by one momentous performance, but by continuing to do so over and over again. A minimal prerequisite for that is the existence of the team.

An individual talent may look at this scenario as a parasitic relation between the less talented and the more talented. That's not justified. A team forms a critical mass for resources to come together and contribute towards the creation of something non-trivial. Such teams don't merely feed on the talents of the individuals, but gives them back a lot. The most important payback is the society of talents.

A society that's formed in an orderly fashion, and not by chance meeting between two maverick geniuses. When collaboration between such two geniuses is good, not just for others, but for themselves too, the presence of a happy group around them supports such an association, even when such an association mayn't be pleasant to the two geniuses themselves.

My Top Inspirations and Inspiring Moments

2011-08-25T02:26:00.000-07:00

A list (which I intend to keep editing for ever) of events, moments, people, experiences which have resulted in lasting changes in me (mostly positive) and have shaped my life in a profound way. I don't claim to have arranged them in any particular order.

Learn to understand: When my father had said in my fourth class that I should try to understand the subjects rather than trying to score higher. It affected me deep and has a lot to do with my future attitude towards studies.

Tintin: When I first came across the first Tintin book in eighth class in my friend Sumantro's place, I had never seen a comic any better illustrated than Chacha Choudhary, Phantom, Amar Chitra Katha. I asked my friend what this thing was which did look like a comic but was also like a book. He said it was the best comic in the world. That day, my outlook to comics, cartooning, storytelling, everything changed. In the next 2 years I had read all Tintin books. My style of cartooning still is influenced by it. I finally succeeded to procure the complete series much later, in 2002.

R. K. Laxman: My father had brought home a calendar with one Laxman cartoon per page. I learned from it that cartoons can be drawn with basic instruments like pencil, sketch pens and water colour.

50 Classics: A thick book that Sumantro possessed which contained 46 classics and 4 epics, abridged and translated into Bangla. I came to know that there are so many books which are called classics: novels which are old, but evergreen. My fanciful mind immediately set out on the path of writing novels. In seventh class I had already written a story which ran to nearly 80 pages. In my ninth grade, I wrote a story running into nearly 120 pages. Of course, I gradually lost momentum. But the fascination with books and writing stayed on with me. I continued writing short-stories and essays.

बातचीत : The first chapter in our tenth class Hindi reader, an essay by Pt. Ramchandra Shukla. It had tough Hindi, arranged in thick paragraphs, all of almost equal length (each of nearly half a page). It analysed various aspects of talking. I found it very inspiring that a simple day to day topic could be picked and a deep analysis could be done on that. I also came to see essays as the purest form of intellectual expression unhindered by narrative forms or poetic rules. Essays are, for sure, my favourite form of serious communication.

अरे तू तो अच्छा गाता है यार! : My cousin, who I always used to think of as sort of a bully, who otherwise used to dismiss me as a studious moron, once remarked when I was casually humming something (a Kishore song). The experience of being thus noticed was so thrilling, I actually started attempting to do some serious singing. This has led to an heretofore unbroken association with music.

Water Colouring: Book by Milind Mulick inspired me to revive my love for water painting. As my juvenile attempts to paint failed, I was instigated to give up painting for 15 long years. I suffered with the idea that I had poor sense of colours. However, around 2005, my love for painting came back in all its glory after I came across the above work. Thereafter, I have continued to make small attempts. Slowly, but surely, I have made significant improvements.

Academic books: There are many academic books which have been major influences in shaping my academic interests. Resnick Halliday (Physics) probably is at the top. But there were others. William Hayt (Electromagnetic theory), D. V. Hall (Microprocessors), C by Ritchie and Kernighan (Programming), OOAD (Booch), Compilers (Aho, Ulman, Sethi), Economics by Samuelson (Economics).

Scientists: The earliest inspirations were Marie Curie, Addison, James Watt. I used to think then that scientists run the world. After you are too intelligent to become a prime-minister, you become a scientist. Therefore, I decided to become a scientist.

Rail Shunting: I always used to wonder how a train stays on a track, and how it jumps from one track to another. I had tried to observed both the make of train wheels and the design of shunting while travelling in trains. I had never been able to make a complete observation. In sixth class, I could work out a design on paper which seemed to work. I cycled several kilometres to the nearest rail-track to my house to verify my discovery. And to my great delight, I found that I had got it exactly right.

Philosophy: I first came across Swami Vivekananda's ideas in 1993 through my friend Abhijit, who, in his first year BTech in IITK had got involved in these things, and had shared with me his initial experiences. He had once said that it's possible not to feel cold by simply imagining that it's not cold. I had tried it, and had found it works. I then bought one of his books in a book fair. It costed me Rs. 55. My father called me mad. I read much of it, and was launched into the pursuit of philosophy. It also sowed the seeds of my interest in spirituality which I have kept veiled behind piles and piles of verbose philosophy.

Ancient Manuscripts: In some TV programme, I had come across images of ancient Indian manuscripts written on this leaflets which then were tied into little stacks with a string. That about around 1986. The idea of the painstaking effort with which ancient wise men had documented their knowledge, with crude writing instruments and surfaces, and no method of automatic copying, had a lasting influence on me. There was a period when I took to doing my homework using nib pens which needed me dip the pen in an ink-pot every now and then. That was probably in seventh standard. Well, I couldn't stick to that method of writing for long. But I managed never to let go of fountain pens. I still use one. I still struggle to write in a good handwriting. And the idea of a beautiful thought written in a beautiful hand still appears very beautiful to me. I still often find it more natural to make handwritten notes of my thoughts before I create an electronic version of my writings.

Love and Patriotism

2011-08-14T10:38:00.000-07:00

In all these years, tomorrow's going to be the first Independence Day I will spend away from India. I don't know if I am missing my country. But I am missing today my home, my family, my people. I am missing my wife's chatter about her college lectures, my son's little antiques. I am missing the exhausted sigh I heave slumping down on the sofa on returning home from office after a heavy day, as if to breathe out all the tensions of life. I am missing the evening tea which, for me, stands as a pinnacle of affection and pampering care from my wife.

May sound melodramatic, but today I have been listening to the National Anthem since morning. It's bringing moisture to my eyes. I am even playing aamaar shonar bangla again and again. The images of rural Bengal, the ponds, the green fields, the mud huts, the palm and coconut trees -- the environs which I have never lived within, but have only visited and seen in pictures -- and those words of Tagore! Could a national anthem of a country be any more unassuming, any more innocent? It just says, 'I love you my Bengal!'

These tears of ecstasy aren't about patriotism. They flow in thankfulness for that divine blessing we humans have got which allows us to be aware of all the beauty that surrounds us. It needn't be for the richest nation of the world. It needn't be for the most popular tourist destination. It needn't be for the most beautiful person in the world. That beauty may lie in our poverty: in how we share our scanty provisions and help each other out through difficulty. In the sweat with which we build something together, however insignificant. That beauty could be in every little thing which makes us all happy and sad together.

Yesterday afternoon, I was walking through the university town of Ann Arbor. The fall semester is starting. I could see students moving into their apartments. Their parents helped them with the luggage. For fleeting moments, I could feel what they must be feeling. The nervousness and anticipation in the young heart. The strong pain of separation in the parents. The dirt in the new apartment. The chores of setting everything up. The experience of getting acquainted with a new roomie. There were students sitting around a table somewhere, doing their assignments probably. And there was a senior giving some orientation tips to freshmen at some street corner. The place appeared to me the most beautiful little corner of the world. It reminded me of IISc, Roorkee...and all my friends and all the good times.

Some time back, there was a brief phase when I almost believed that 'Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious' (Oscar Wilde). But he must have been talking about its bellicose variant which drives people to wage wars on others. Probably, that variant happens only when you think your nation is great and it needs to be greater still.

Love doesn't arise from the sense of greatness of the object of love, but from the fineness of our sensitivity for little details of beauty. Your beloved mayn't be the most beautiful in the world; but it doesn't diminish the truth in your saying you love her. Your child mayn't be cutest; but that doesn't reduce the satisfaction you get from embracing him. Your life mayn't be a shining example of success; but you may still serve it, love it. When someone builds a house, he falls in love with it, however small and dingy that house may be. The love resides in his awareness of each brick he has laid, each ounce of mud he has used as cement, each straw he has collected to make the thatch.

The ability to be aware of the all pervading beauty also serves us to stay away from becoming overly footloose. If there is something specific that takes us afar, well and good. But if the absence of something here takes us there, we will probably never stop shuttling here and there. Before setting out on a journey to faraway lands, it's good to make sure to some extent that the absence, the void, is not within ourselves. It takes effort to grow the ability to find that thing you are looking for right where you are, preferably within yourself. That's love. That's patriotism.

This day, I am separated only for a brief episode from my wife, my child, my country. Tomorrow morning, for the first time in life, I will not hear the Independence Day celebrations and National Anthem playing at some nearby school. But, I am happy I played the national anthem today. I am happy I am thinking about my dear ones today. I wish I could preserve those two drops that escaped my eyes today. Because they are full of love. Those precious two drops are full of the feeling of being alive.

Endurance and Enjoyment

2011-07-05T04:39:00.000-07:00

In my personal life, I see the benefits of endurance and patience on an everyday basis. Sometimes, with many things in my mind, all of them individually capable of messing my mind up completely, I feel like giving up everything and running away. But with growing age, I see that the frequency and intensity of occurrance of those frustrating moments is going down. I see that there's great merit and benefit in not reacting violently to certain conditions. Things often don't need a herculean effort to sort out. They just need us to stay put for a moment. They pass by themselves, giving us that space to think clearly again.

But there's also another lesson I have learned which I wish to share with you. Crises keep coming and going. In between, there are invariably moments when we have the space to think clearly. Let's call them open moments. As crises pass giving place to open moments, it's very necessary for us to switch from endurance mode to enjoyment mode. This means that, while crises are often just to be endured, it's very essential to leverage the open moments to feel life in its beautiful form. As these moments come, we should quickly gather all the positivity in us and start leveraging. Those are moments to enjoy life, work hard, dream, do something creative and charitable, and often to prepare for the next crisis, which may be just round the corner.

I have found that the ability to switch between endurance and enjoyment modes with agility is a great way to make life more valuable.

Global Variables and Globalisation

2011-06-14T03:33:00.000-07:00

Isn't globalisation in economics a bad design choice in the same way as global variables are in a computer program?

In computer programming, global variables are sometimes a convenient shortcut. However, they are discouraged for larger programs as anything happening to a global variable results in a large part of the program getting affected. In such cases, the cost of detecting the extent of impact and correcting them exceeds the benefits of global access to the variable. In design terminology, this condition signifies lack of modularity, and is plain BAD! On the other hand, in economics, we have many global variables. We have middle east for oil. Japan for motor spare parts. Asia for cheap intellectual labour and so on. If anything happens to any of them (as happened to Japan recently), the impact is immense and damages incalculable.
Going by the tradition of modularity as observed in engineering discipline, we would probably have done well to engineer our society in smaller modules, and limiting interaction between disparate modules to the bare minimum.

The principles of modularity has another important lesson. While we use encapsulations (i.e. hiding details within modules from other parts of the program) a lot in computer programming, the read-only access is a lot more liberal than read-write access. The socio-economic equivalent to this situation could be that we decide that there remains much less restriction in the flow of information than restrictions on flow of goods. Going by this principle, things like right to information, lokpal bills etc. would be encouraged. On the other hand, patents and copyrights, export and import would be discouraged.

Of course, this thought, though interesting for sure, has difficulties:
Legacy. The human civilisation is the oldest, biggest and most complex legacy system that we have to deal with. It's been under construction since much before concepts of good design were known even in the field of engineering. So, strictly speaking, we are maintaining it rather than designing. It's ridden with lack of modularity, redundancy, inefficiency and dead-code. Attempts to correct it have more often than not resulted in genocide and war. However, like it happens in software system, a lot more stuff gets added to the economy at an ever accelerating rate as time passes. Ideally, we should apply principles of good design in what we add. Quite ironically, it doesn't happens. Our economics is more and more globalised than before. It's funny that something similar happens in the software world. A software system is usually at its best when it begins its life. It's design superiority deteriorates progressively through its maintenance phase, eventually leading to its obsolescence.
The Human Element. The elements of the socio-economic system are -- ah! the ancient problem -- humans. They can't simply be asked to pretend not to know how to reach out and seek connections.
Definition of Modules. How do you define boundaries for socio-economic modules? Geographical proximity? What should be the ideal size? National populations? What's the measure of size? Population? Area? GDP?
Apart from these fundamental difficulties, the fact remains that running, maintaining or designing the socio-economy is an act more akin to industrial software engineering, where it turns out to be critical that we respond quickly to emergent situations and market pressures, than to cleanroom software design where we have the luxury and time to follow good principles. But we mustn't forget that while we design our socio-economy, there's no external customer, no competition, no time-to-market pressures. Yet, all the haste gets created within the system all the same!
What's the hurry? What's this speed achieving? And more than that, this speed is of what?Where do we want to get? Where are we really leading our society to?

These are more philosophical questions, though.

About Being Rich

2011-06-05T23:09:00.000-07:00

Isn't our obsession to become rich essentially biological? Probably, death by starvation has been prehistorically a dominant reason for deaths of members of our species. And therefore, it has probably entrenched such a deep rooted fear, essentially genetic, in us for starvation that we wish to push it as far away from ourselves as possible. Probably, so far away that it can't affect any of our progeny, leave alone us.

But if you were to think logically, isn't it such a waste of effort to try to be endlessly richer and richer? We live in a chaotic world where there exist such possibilities as could wipe us out of existence in no time: diseases, accidents, wars, natural calamities. Yet, we struggle and struggle to diminish the unlikely possibility of starvation to more and more minuscule proportions than ever! We never stop for a moment to think how bloated our perception of this exceedingly minute probability of starvation, and of our ability to prevent it from touching our n-th generation by mere accumulation of material resources, is.

The auxiliary aspects that associate the sense of power, sexual attractiveness, and status to being rich are also seemingly fallouts of the same prehistoric notion where hoarding more and more resources was the only way to ward off starvation. We are not only biologically driven to try and be richer and richer, but are also prisoners of our instinct to idolise those who have more money. This re-inforces our primitive obsession for more and more money, and gives it this power which more or less defines how our society is today.

The instinct which drives us to the obsession to hoarde money is probably rooted in ancient forms of adaptation, but is probably completely inapplicable in the present conditions. Surprisingly, the above very biologically driven thing is perpetrated by those who, on the face, are the most clever and designing ones!

Such puppets we are to our biology! Really fascinating!

The Hunger-Strike Approach

2011-06-03T06:27:00.000-07:00

Baba Ramdeo's decision to go for hunger-strike against corruption and the Government's unprompt response to the resolutions made following the Anna Hazare strike is ... well ... striking!

I definitely appreciate the Yoga guru's concern to contribute in yet another way to the society's ills apart from bodily or mental ones. Probably, lots of people have pointed fingers at him on the point that his trying to change his role like this is uncalled for. While I would say that the point shouldn't be ignored, I feel it's someone's fundamental right to decide to do whatever he wishes within the limits of Law.

However, there's a deeper, more long term, concern. What is corruption for these people? Black money in Swiss Banks? Politicians misusing their powers? Bureaucrats taking bribes? What will happen if these instances of corruption are removed overnight? Nothing! Thousands others will come to take their places.

Corruption, like education, poverty, unemployment, is a deep rooted social disease which can't be solved with a revolution. It will require a deep, sustained process of cleansing that has to happen over a protracted period of time. Oversimplifying it and presenting it to the community as if it's something outside them is misleading. I don't even know if it will result in more harm than good.

One point in favour of this is, of course, if the initiators realise that these revolutionary events may mark a start of a national movement. May be, it will awaken the people to stand up when they see corruption being practiced in their field of vision. Hope it happens.

Meanwhile, I would plainly say that I find it unbecoming of Baba Ramdeo talking of gallows for corrupt politicians.

Keeping Sanity Intact

2011-06-02T04:48:00.000-07:00

I don't necessarily do a good job in the above. However, surprisingly perhaps, I have never felt that my professional commitments have played a major part in ever tiring me out. But when I club that with many interests and hobbies, family commitments, social interactions etc., sometimes it gets overwhelming and I just lose it.

But when I am managing well, I think the following are the mechanisms:

Concentrating on one. Even if there are many things to do, it helps to forget about all others for a while but the one immediately at hand.

Learning to let go. It's important to realise that since there are too many good things to do in life, we are anyway going to end up not doing most of them. So, it's best to pick a handful and stick to them.

No hurrying. I feel seriously fatigued if I have to do anything in a hurry. Doing things in a soft pace allows me to get into the flow and enjoy the job.

Time-management. All standard time-management techniques: planning, scheduling, tracking, discipline. Also, where possible, I don't try remembering anything. My life runs on zillions of reminders on phone, Lotus Notes, gmail, yahoo...my wife ;)

Breaks: Getting up once in a few minutes, and taking a day off every now and then. I don't think I tire out more these days. But I have recently learnt to acknowledge fatigue. Also, I have stopped denying my body and mind a well-deserved rest. Well, most often.

Fitness. I am not a fitness guy. But as years go by, I seem to be tending a bit towards it. I would like to think that I have several years of active life ahead of me. A sick body is a big impediment. A fit one is an instrument to carve out higher objectives. So, a bit of exercising: walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, yoga...whichever I feel inspired to do. I have moderate dietary habits. So, that's taken care of, more or less.

Masochism. Over the years, I have developed a taste for the torturous feeling that one gets on seeing hordes of incomplete assignments. A half-read book, a half-written story, an incompletely developed software, pending research, incomplete drawings...earlier used to drive me mad. These days, I feel at home with this predicament. I don't feel uncomfortable even with the idea that when I die, I would be having plenty of unfinished stuff to do with me. The ability to add a tiny bit every once in a while -- taking a tiny steps towards the destination of a long journey -- often gives me a heady feeling.

Fair Deal to Women

2011-02-16T02:44:00.000-08:00

I don't know if there's any such thing as male domination for it makes it appear as though males are responsible for whatever wrong is happening to women. But, we don't need statistics to know that women have a tough life to lead. I am not talking about women who are fighting for reservation in parliament, but women in our daily life: our mom, sister, wife, daughter. While I strongly oppose any attempt by anyone to show that 'only' men have caused all this, I really wish to see some real fairness on a day to day basis. That'll happen when
- our women will be able to walk with a feeling of safety on our roads.
- when they are treated as intelligent people by everyone, including, by other women.
- when they don't have to cover their true potential with aggressiveness or sexuality to be noticed.
- when feminine sense of aesthetics don't just get accepted, but define future art forms.
- when women are able to lead a fulfilling life where they feel that their potential is being utilised, not necessarily in career sense, but in overall sense.

I invite you all (particularly women) to add to this list. Just one request: please don't let it turn into a male-bashing session. Give thoughtful and insightful inputs. Not grievances.

Thank you Mom and Dad!

2010-12-21T01:31:00.000-08:00

Research is a way to continue to wonder like a child all your life. It's not about how smart you are. It's not about how you did in your exams in schools. It's not even about fame and recognition. It's about the thrill in discovering an added level of order in the chaos around.

What would I have done if I hadn't known to wonder? To ask questions? And to seek their answers? What a drudgery life would be devoid of questions! I would have had to seek pleasure in owning cars, houses, being in top positions...being successful, in convincing myself of the meaningfulness of my existence by spotting envy and admiration for me in others!

My parents. They didn't send me to the best schools. They didn't expose me to the best sources of knowledge. They just left me free to wonder. I feel thankful to them!

The Thin Line

2010-10-21T22:59:00.000-07:00

There's a thin line between scepticism and cynicism. Since it's our occupation to be on the leading edge of scepticism, we researchers often tend to cross that line. To be brieft, scepticism is good, because it earns us our bread. Cynicism is bad, because it makes us bitter, suspicious (of people, not just concepts), sometimes bitter and almost always unapproachable.

In our lab in IISc, I feel, we all used to suffer from the highest degree of cynicism. People were too eager to be looked at as top-notch computer scientists to each other. Lest they appeared as something else, they would refrain from talking anything else with each other apart from computer science, that too cutting edge. The show of intellectual vanity was rather ugly. And to see some really good, likeable people (author included) being consumed by it was disgusting. There could be, and happened, only one consequence. We were hardly interacting but in the shallowest of matters, because we just didn't have so much computer science in us that we could talking about only that. The plight was such people did their work as well-guarded secrets. I didn't have a clue what my neighbours were doing. I am sure, the ignorance graph was complete. The situation explains to a large extent why researchers are so often associal geeks. Being a researcher myself (of whatever calibre), I can vouch for it that no research subject is designed to make a person callous and ignorant about his physical surroundings and fellow-beings. It has to be a result of a deep insecurity which forces one to recede into a shell, to carry their laptops to meetings, and to get their coffee to their desks!

Researchers are humans. More than anyone, they ought to remember it themselves. And they shouldn't shy away from interacting with their peers on terms which don't re-inforce their image as authority in their field of study. There are other more valuable aspects of one's personality. Why not be comfortable with them?

What's this anxiety?

Reply; Don't Forward

2010-08-19T00:17:00.000-07:00

I don't ever forward chain mails. I delete most of them. To some, which have meaningful contents, I find replying to the sender a more meaningful thing to do, than forwarding it to many. Some reasons are:
- Down the recipient tree, the seriousness of the thought about the issue discussed in the mail is diluted to near zero-concentration.
- I think, getting a reply to a casually sent mail suddenly makes you take the contents more seriously. Particularly, it's a prove that someone read the mail seriously.
- Throwing the matter back up into the recipient tree has a larger chance of meeting more sincere audience than down below.

An Example
Please read on for an example of a reply I wrote to a problem we all feel about.

For a change I pressed the reply button.

I agree with the idea of this mail, i.e. stopping the squandering of public money would help. But, I do wish to add a bit to this view. Even if the figures are authentic, saying that all this money would make the life livable for crores of poor people may be over-optimistic. Poverty and deprivation aren't mere lack of material resources. They are more deep rooted. Merely by diverting money from the plentiful to the deprived is not a solution to this problem. It won't take any time to turn those crores into worse demons than our few thousand politicians are if only they had money and power.

I feel, there's no evil in providing good facilities to public servants, provided they do their job. If they misuse the resources, it's a pity and they should be prevented from doing so. Not so much to save those resources (or money) but because that money symbolises the trust and respect that public places on these people. These people must exhibit very high work ethics so this trust is justified. But the problem of low work ethic is not limited to only politicians. It's a larger problem which pervades the society. Merely by replacing a person in a position of power and influence is not a solution; nor will diverting resources to other sectors of the population answer this huge issue.

Very unfortunately, problems of ethical poverty are deep rooted, probably a consequence of centuries of oppression. They have taken time to set in. They will most probably take time to go away. Probably, we may have to wait until the complete generation infected with this virus fades away giving place to a newer, more ethical, generation. I am rather doubtful about how much success, attempts to accelerate the pace of this social reformation will meet.

To end this, I want to thank you for the mail. I don't find forwarding it to an endless number of thoughtless, emotional junta (almost all of whom will probably rid themselves of their responsibility by forwarding it to some more people) of much use. Instead, replying to the more thoughtful audience in this group, along with my 2 paisa thoughts will probably matter more.

Thanks and regards,
Sujit

- Hide quoted text -

On 19 August 2010 12:17, ... wrote:

Politician's drama

mail of the week… Natak

Mr. Rahul Gandhi do this work just for an hour....without media.
Then tell us what you got...
If you really want to Change our India....No need to show us.....
We will follow you......Definitely.

“Karunaa”Nidhi Fasting

First time in the world history fasting only 4 hours and that too with an AC …….
This is the comedy of the year 2009….Fastingstarts after breakfast and ending before lunch. Interesting one!!

Dont forget to forward this mail, We have to show these type of drama's to everyone

stop this....................grow up to be an indian

Govt. Concessions for a Member of Parliament (MP)

Monthly Salary
: 12,000

Expense for Constitution per month : 10,000

Office expenditure per month : 14,000

Traveling concession (Rs. 8 per km) : 48,000

( eg.For a visit from kerala to Delhi & return: 6000 km)

Daily DA TA during parliament meets :500/day

Charge for 1 class (A/C) in train: Free (For any number of times)
(All over India )

Charge for Business Class in flights : Free for 40 trips / year (With wife or P.A .)

Rent for MP hostel at Delhi : Free

Electricity costs at home : Free up to 50,000 units

Local phone call charge : Free up to 1 ,70,000 calls.

TOTAL expense for a MP [having no qualification] per year : 32,00,000 [ i.e. 2.66 lakh/month]

TOTAL expense for 5 years : 1,60,00,000

For 534 MPs, the expense for 5 years :
8,54,40,00,000 (nearly 855 crores)

AND THE PRIME MINISTER IS ASKING THE HIGHLY QUALIFIED, OUT PERFORMING CEOs TO CUT DOWN THEIR SALARIES.....

This is how all our tax money is been swallowed and price hike on our regular commodities.......
And this is the present condition of our country:

855 crores could make their life livable !!
Think of the great democracy we have.............
PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO ALL REAL CITIZENS OF INDIA .....
but,
STILL Proud to be INDIAN

I know hitting a delete button is easier..........bt.......try 2 press fwd button 2 make people aware of it!

A Proud Moment and a Wishlist

2010-06-28T02:57:00.000-07:00

Saina Nehwal scored a hat trick winning 3 tournaments in 3 weeks repeating Padukone Sr.'s feat. She is now going to be World No. 2, probably. That's a wonderful achievement. A very proud moment for India. I hope she keeps doing well for a long time. Would it be wrong to say that India isn't doing that bad in sports these days?

A wish-list:
- Hockey must improve.
- Not being in football map is disgraceful.
- Sania Mirza must get back to her form and put India back into tennis map.

This is the first time I thought so seriously about sports. But this morning while going through the newspaper, I honestly felt proud on seeing Saina's achievement. Really great!

A Thought on Thoughts

2010-06-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

There's this angel and devil model of our mind that comic books and cartoons have popularised to such heights. I feel there's a lot of truth in it. The subconscious part of our brain which is supposed to be stronger than our conscious brain, is home to both these gentlemen (or ladies as your case may be). It's also the battleground of moral war which these two people wage against each other. The result of each battle is the verdict of our subconscious. This being the stronger part of the brain, might also be the output of our brain itself. That is, if we equate ourselves, not considering the fact that our conscious brain is equipped with some unique qualities, to beasts.

This may be source of pessimism for some of us. Particularly those, whose brain hosts a strong devil and a feeble angel. If all our actions, and hence our life, are slave to the dictates of these two people, isn't there any hope for us to grow beyond our born destinies?

But there are a few things to note. One is that our conscious brain is the gatekeeper guarding the exit of all things coming from the world of thought to that of actions. And secondly, most importantly, even though its own raw powers are dwarfed before the subconscious's, conscious brain has the capability of learning from years and centuries of conscious thought that has been done and recorded by the entire human race. Subconscious lacks the power to learn (except through the slow process of evolution). Conscious can choose to act on results which it mayn't be equipped alone to arrive at. This incremental process of knowledge acquisition has made conscious mind, potentially a much stronger part of the brain.

Of course, exercising of this power depends on education, learning, reading and listening.

All this sounds so sickenly similar to discourses on karma, praarabh and free-will! That's the downside of learning. Over so many centuries, so many people have thought up so much that it's awfully difficult to sound original every time.

About Value

2010-06-13T23:39:00.000-07:00

Why do we do research, man?! In fact, why anything?
One simple answer is: to make ourselves happy, prosperous, richer etc. That's OK.
But the 'why' becomes significant when we are talking about making choices between various things.
Often, there's a question raised about the practicality of the topic of research. For example, should a person do research on philosophy, or on digital electronics. Simplistic answers are:
- Whatever you feel like.
- Whichever is funded well.

These formulae may work in very clear cases. But, sometimes, things aren't clear enough. For example, whether you have enough funds for a research project depends a lot on whether you are interested enough in it or not. As long as the settlement of this balance between interest and funding is with one person, it may reach a steady state after some soul-searching. But what happens when the researcher is not the one who funds the research? His interest will hardly work as a great motivation for the military general who may be the one to sign the funding cheque.

Framing the whole problem of deciding research can be framed conveniently as a business problem where everyone has different (sometimes conflicting) motives. But the motive of profit-making unites all motives. Economic forces reign supreme. A capitalistic model.

But ignoring the fact that this model is insufficient to define motives of research could have disastrous effects on everyone. If economic forces are allowed to decide all research policies, it will drive the frontlines of knowledge in such directions as will mutate the whole body of human knowledge into an ugly monster.

The point is: what really is the meaning of the word 'useful'? What are those basic acts A, B, C... etc which are useful. If we are able to define that set, we could just argue on that basis to define the usefulness of other activities on the basis of laws like the following ones:
Law of composite activities: Say, some other composite act X is a combination of acts A and B. If A and B are known to be useful, we may conclude that X is useful.
Law of enabling activities: Say, an activity X results in increase in the ability of people to do activities A and B, then we may conclude that X is useful.

There might be many such laws if we give it a thought. That's the easy part to come up with such laws. The difficult part is to define a fundamental tenet of usefulness. The law that lets us conclude that atomic activities like A and B are useful. Their usefulness isn't derived from the usefulness of some other activities.

Let me dwell a bit on why our current knowledge falls short of achieving the above. Say, arbitrarily assign some positive value to some activities. If more of such acts are done, there is an overall rise in the 'value'. Thus, these acts are useful in that sense.

Say, one such act is 'eating'. A person who eats feels happy. So, there's a sense in assigning some positive value to eating. The more people eat, the more value there is. Nice and simple!

But there's trouble brewing there. If I eat too much, I get indigestion. My arteries may clog and I may die of heart attack. So, eating too much now may result in my dying early reducing the total number of times I enjoy eating. Also, suppose I am a criminal psychopath. I like killing people. The more I eat, the longer I live. The longer I live, the more number of people I murder. Hence, my eating results in many other people not living enough to enjoy eating. Hence, whether my eating indeed is valuable overall depends on what other activities it enables or disables, and the value contained in them.

Both the difficulties above are operational. They talk about the difficulties in computing the actual value of an activity. The difficulty arises from our inability in determining what other activities it may enable/disable. This difficulty, though significant, is not fundamental. It doesn't still present the fundamental difficulty of defining usefulness, or 'value', to be more precise.

The sense of that fundamental difficulty can be got from the apparent vacuousness of the idea of assigning value to such mundane things like eating, sleeping, having sex, etc. To me, doing this makes the whole idea of life appear vulgar! So, it's all about maximising eating and making merry?! There's nothing more than that?! Even computer programs, which can be broken down into a sequence of bits, or an electronic circuit, which can be looked at as a combination of numerous gates, seem to have a more respectable existence. At least when brought together, they serve purposes which can't be served by individual bits or logic gates. On the other hand, it appears blasphemous to compute the value of the most elevated life on the basis of the number of meals, sleeps and copulations it eventually results in.

There lies the problem of value. That hunch: That the value of elevated acts must lie in something less vulgar than can be reduced to a large series of mindless animal acts. I haven't read much of ethics, but I surmise that this is, in some way, the essential problem of that subject.

...and that's also my underlying thought when I ask: 'Why do we do research?'

Note: I foresee a link to this post appearing in many many of my future posts.

Programming and Home-making

2010-06-07T01:52:00.000-07:00

What a tedium it used to look to write functions, let alone classes! During my ME, while I was generally regarded as a good programmer, my obsession with good programming practices was almost jeered at by my colleagues. Once, one labmate of mine had some programming issue which he said he wished to take my help in. While I waited later for a few days, he never came to me. Finally, I asked him what happened. He said that he was afraid I would use a lot of functions in the program which would then make it difficult for him to understand it. Instead, he had taken help of another PhD student there. He had made a program which was one straight line monolithic piece of code with not a single function call. Then I had felt funny. These people are definitely stupid -- incapable of appreciating the beauty of programming, I had thought.

About a decade afterwards, starting to live with a wife who was pedantically disciplined in keeping the household in shape was a shock. It was a toilsome process to learn that each thing had to have a designated place for itself, and that every time after being used it was supposed to be put back to that place. It automatically created an entry barrier to introducing housing articles. The process of procuring a domestic article was invariably accompanied by the process of figuring out where it would sit. The need to avoid cluttering the house with unnecessary articles was paramountly important. The household must be lean and mean. It was more in the fear of meeting with angry stares and words from the better half than from any real appreciation of the method that I learned it.

I haven't changed much fundamentally. I am still a bit untidy and need some monitoring to keep things in place; I am very much absent-minded and need uncountable reminders to keep doing my stuff. But, where I have really changed is in my appreciation of that household discipline that I had to initially imbibe with so much unwillingness. Now, I can see how similar it is to maintain the household in order to the problem of writing a large and complex computer program that is usable and enhancable by others. Same principles apply.

Intuitive variable/function/class naming; using of namespaces/packages and folders to arrange the source code, these are all programming parallels to the discipline of having a place for everything and everything in its place. Encapsulation and modularisation are similar to the division of responsibilities. Maintaining punctuality at home is not so much about mindless discipline. It's objective is the same as that of the discipline of concurrent programming -- to optimise use of processors, to about race-conditions and deadlocks, to keep multiple threads/processes from interfering with each other in destructive manner. All this eventually boils down to good timing. Each process doing its job isn't enough; it must do it when it's supposed to, so that other processes who arrive expecting a readymade output from the process don't have to wait.

Now I am surprised how, in my younger days, I couldn't see that what good principles and practices apply to my intellectual life are applicable to my day to day life too. In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that loyalty to good methods in professional life, if not present to the personal life, loses much of its meaning.

Related post:

5S -- the Management Mantra of Tidiness

Thanks Uncle!

2010-06-06T22:49:00.000-07:00

Today, at the gate of the Manyata Tech. Park, a young chap, clad in trendy T-shirt, jeans, goaty and iPod plugged asked for a lift to IBM building. I gave him. And he paid for my favour by saying 'thanks uncle!'

Rascal! *^%*^@%*&^

The Unreality of Reality Shows

2010-06-02T01:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was watching Indian Idol - 5. My wife likes it a lot, and dotes on some of the competitors. But for her thriftiness, nothing stands in her way to send zillions of SMSs to make some of them go ahead in the competition. I am not jealous of those competitors. And that's definitely not the reason for my writing this article

But this article is indeed with the motive of expressing my disgust with the reality shows being aired these days. That's a tacky topic to write on. But I will be more specific in things which I disapprove of.

First, a mention of things which I approve of. I think the competition has risen to unprecedented heights. Competitors are awesome. They are superbly talented. And more than that, they generally show tremendous grits in handling stress.

But beyond that, everything is a minus. Firstly, the way things are judged there is really aweful. SMSs sent by by and large a section of population with nothing better to do are far from representative of the public opinion. More serious listeners (assuming it's a music-based show like Indian Idol) will send a few SMSs under the influence of disgust that's caused by the feeling that undeserving candidates may win because of good looks and other gimmicks. But they can't continue to do so. The scepticism of the knowledgeable and judicious portion of the population about these SMSs mattering is pretty much of the same nature as in democracy -- when people think that there are far too many morons voting for a junk candidate for our votes to count

This pressure of impressing a very thoughtless majority audience brings out startling acrobatics on screen. In the opening episode, a girl is hailed as a simple village based contestant who has struggled her way to the competition against general opposition of her traditional village patriarchs. Some million votes (and SMSs). A couple of episodes down the line, she is found draped in all sorts of dresses which don't fit in well with her village background which was such a strong sympathy earning factor for her in the first episode. But, it doesn't matter if those who voted for the upliftment of an underprivileged talent in the first episode turn up their noses now. A few episodes' survival in the show has already earned the lady a semi-celebrity status. Now there's another -- bigger -- section of the audience for which the co-effecient of reflection of her bare shoulders and calves wins far more support than her underdog beginnings. Millions of votes again. As many SMSs.

Similarly, singers are made to dance, act and make faces. Dancers are made to fight with each other in well-rehearsed manners. Judges applaud and insult competitors in such melodramatic ways! Often they engage in verbal broils with each other which look supremely unbecoming and unnatural. It sends shivers thinking what kind of incentives make these great people behave in such artificial ways in the sets.

On the one hand, these days, judges' participation in the actual fate of the competitors has been drastically reduced by SMS competitions. On the other, during the performance, and in the few critical minutes that follow the performance, the judges bias the audience's judgement critically by making faces and hailing applauds and insults of their choosing. I am sure that most of the people who send their SMSs are impressionable enough to be seriously affected by minor twitches in the face of the judges. The whole thing appear like a setup where people are made to pronounce the judge's opinion. Additionally, it appears that the bias that the judges sometimes show during the performances aren't merely their personal opinion; they could even be pre-fabricated verdicts of the entire strategy of the organisers geared completely towards maximising TRPs.

Overall, the gaudiness of today's reality shows far outweighs the increased levels of talents. I'm not ready to believe that exposition of talents is critically dependent on fake spices of melodrama being played in the name of 'reality.' They stink of a systematic manipulativeness that arbitrarily alters the mass behaviour, and creates business models around them, thus closing the gates of redeaming oneself once the negative aspects start surfacing. In this world of mass-production, there has been little knowledge created on ramping down industries. They have just learned to grow bigger and bigger. And by the time the justifiabilty of their existence becomes questionable, it's too late to wind it up gracefully. The only way is to stretch them, at the cost of manipulating the consumption patterns of the population in unnatural ways. Companies keep getting bigger first devouring other companies, then governments, and then entire nations; soaps keep running for ever and ever, news programmes keep reeling the same sensationilsed coverage of a news item for hours, days, weeks.

Heck! What am I writing?!

I have equally disgusted thoughts about news channels, soap operas and the way the experience of TV viewing has become off late. But, I will speak of it some other time, if I do.

Related post:
SMS Competitions

Some Interesting Links

2010-05-31T05:27:00.000-07:00

Some interesting links:

salilchaturvedi.blogspot.com
www.dailydump.org
www.freecycle.org
http://www.storyofstuff.com
YouTube videos:
Search keywords:
Century of self
Happiness machines
Engineering of consent
http://toxicslink.org/e-waste/

The Meaning(lessness) of it All

2010-05-27T23:03:00.000-07:00

A trip to cafeteria found a news report running on the latest train derailment that has killed 65 people. Again supposed to be a Maoist attack! Interleaved with it was the report where little girls in Rajasthan are being injected with growth chemicals before being pushed into prostitution. Then there are reports of Pramod Mutalick's alleged vandalism contract. An illness in the family of a childhood buddy is going to cost him all the money he has earned so far. I know about the struggle he has gone through to earn that money.

Visions of ugliness and meaninglessness around is overwhelming me at this moment. I often momentarily archor on such thoughts . I writhe for a few weeks in the pain of 'kuchh karna padega' (to borrow the phrase from the classic Hindi satire 'Raag Darbari' by Shrilal Shukla) feeling. Then the currents of everyday life take me away on my way. Sometimes, it feels as if the meaningless chores of everyday life are the only shelter from the burning flames that pierce our eyes the moment we try to look up, look around.

Am I doing anything good by even cribbing? Sitting in an air-conditioned office, being paid a salary which an impoverished fellow no worse than me except in the initial conditions of life would never dream of earning...As one of my dear friends rightly pointed out in response to my earlier posts, even talking about it brings up the question: 'Will you give it all up to save the world? So why talk about it?'

Really! Am I doing any good even talking about it, thinking about it? Wouldn't I better be busying myself feverishly in the chores of life without bothering about the bigger context. So, is that what Krishna meant by 'Karmanyavaadhikaaraste...'?

Did he say it because anything beautiful we make has an ugliness in the context that nurtures it? Because every thought of love has hatred hidden in it? Every building or highway we build destroys the ecology around? Every convenience we earn causes inconvenience to someone else we don't know? Every slurping sound we make over a delicious food is distilled out of the cries of helpless creatures dying? Because every instance of affluence causes many instances of poverty?

Or isn't there anything real called beauty without cruelty?

Side-Effects of Healthcare

2010-05-25T01:44:00.000-07:00

The other day, discussion over lunch turned towards the popular subject of Jews. How brilliant they are. How shrewd they are. How most of the Nobel prizes in basic sciences have gone to Jews and so on. We also got to hear the natural selection arguments -- that says that the centuries of persecution of Jews has made sure that only the best of the best of them survive. That has resulted in a small but extremely purified gene pool among the present Jewish population.

This naturally led us to the undying arguments about the fundamental effect of improved healthcare on human race. In short, healthcare's main function is to support the life of the diseased. In general, it also means that it supports those lives who would otherwise have been lost because their bodies are too weak to survive. That means, healthcare is defying the basic law of natural selection which results in the survival of the fittest. Healthcare will result in the survival of the unfit too. We being in the healthcare industry can say how much rejoicing there is in the industry because the world population is growing older and there's a huge growing market for healthcare products and services. How, then, do we expect the human race to become stronger in the long run?

I think the argument is strong. But I have the following doubts:
Is it possible to defy the law of natural selection in the long run? If these bad guys whom healthcare is making live longer are finally going to meet their grievous end a few hundred generations down the line, the point of natural selection is reaffirmed, albiet a bit late. What big deal is that in the billion year long Earth calender? Natural selection seems to prove its point whether it sets in or not. What I mean is if these bad guys do manage to survive till doomsday, then they are the fit ones. It's just the 'fitness' gets redefined. Whoever said that fitness is just physical fitness?
The above point apart, is there any harm done by letting these unfit individuals exist by the side of the fit ones? OK, there will be cross breeding resulting in poorer gene pool. But there will still be some to carry the pure genes. How does that reduce the chances of the survival of the entire species is hard to comprehend.

Anyway, just to give a corny philosophical close to the discussion, it's said that death is nature's way to give way to new things. Had there been no death, there would have been no need to evolve, no need to innovate, no need to improve. No species would have seen the best of itself had there been no death. Death is after all not such a bad thing. If the average human life is about 75 years, we anyway lose 1/75 of the world population every year. That must be a huge number! Then why does death shock us so much? Why do we care so much to avoid it? These are innocent comtemplative questions, not condescending ones. Which means, death does shock me. And I care to avoid it at all cost for myself and my dear ones. But I don't know why!

Buzz off!

2010-05-21T00:46:00.000-07:00

My addiction to Google Buzz is very recent. No doubt it's got potential. To an extent, it's an integrated substitute of all the social networking one does with twitter, or facebook. In short, it's Google's trump card to reaffirm its monopoly on the Web.

From my personal viewpoint, Buzz, Twitter, and the whole bunch of social networking sites are methods of quenching my insatiable thirst for distraction. They all keep me from facing the painful reality that a working day is after all about a few hours (at least) of focussed effort. Mails are quick and practical ways of communication. The problem is that it's not insane. In emails, one has to explicate the list of recipients of that message. In other words, one has to own the responsibility of where his words go. In consequence, evesdropping is illegal. This drastically reduces the traffic bringing it down to sane limits. Even with 3 to 4 mailboxes open, I don't get enough material enough to remain forever distracted. After reading a message, I have to again go back to work.

Buzz and twitter legalise eavedropping. Everyone is listening to everyone else. Now, things are insane. There's a chaos, noise all around. With Blogger, twitter, ... all integrated to create buzzes, there's no need to get back to work anymore. Buzz is continually buzzing while you are unwillingly pretending to try to get back to work. Since it buzzes you, you are saved from the guilty feeling that's associated with browsing the wikipedia, which involves a initiation from yourself, either voluntary or compulsive. This is the jackpot that tweets and buzzes have hit against emails and scraps.

Buzz is good. But it's got the potential of doing to me what Orkut had done 6 years back -- throwing me completely off track. So, begins the long process of disciplining myself and learning defense mechanisms against the messages buzzing off on my machine.

The Dark Night

2010-05-19T00:16:00.000-07:00

Power condition in Bangalore has been pretty bad as it is. Sunday evening's storm has made things worse. For the last two days, we are facing long power outages at home during the night lasting for 2-3 hours. My little son Vigyan wasn't able to sleep due to the heat and mosquitoes. I stood there fanning him with a magazine for about an hour, non-stop. Seeing him in trauma is a far dearer price to pay for me than an hourlong torture of standing in dark, sweltering heat of the night, myself bathing in sweat, trying to comfort him with a medieval apparatus. Seeing him slide back into a peaceful sleep was more than a compensation.

But this post is not all about showing off what an affectionate father I was last night (though I can't claim that not to be in the fringe of the agenda). The main purpose is to raise an alarm from my personal side.

I think we have started scraping the edge of the precipice. There will soon be a sudden disappearance of earth from beneath our feet, and then will begin a sudden, fatal fall. The way weather has been off late, the uncontrolled shortage of power and water, basic necessities of civilised life, all these is somewhat too ugly, too regular, to be caprices of nature. I think we are in a decisive stage of our battle against our unplanned, uncontrolled growth as a species. And we are going to lose this battle!

And at every moment I see instances of how we have abused our surroundings. How we continue to do it, thinking that it's normal to do so. Thinking that worry about it is a sign of one's own morbidity.

At office, the instances are most rampant.

People travelling to office by car, all alone. Shame on all of you!

People who don't switch off their computers while leaving office. Shame on you!

People who waste tissue papers and water in the toilet. Shame on you!

People who waste food. Shame on you!

You, who are often good people otherwise, often you are my friend, my colleague -- you are the reason why last night was such a long dark night for me and my son.

A long dark night awaits. A very long, a very dark night. Then, we'll most probably not have the luxury to exchange pleasantries at cafe. There will no lunch and snacks to go together to, because there will be only so much as only either of us will be able to eat. Not you and me. It'll be you or me! In those dark times, we may have to avoid each other's eyes. For it's hard to look into the eyes of a person you are killing. We will soon be fighting each other. Killing each other. Just like beasts! Because there will soon be so little left to survive on, that we have to reduce ourselves to savage ways even to exist.

Meet you in the battleground. Meet you in the jungle. Meet you in the dark night.

I had written this post for the company internal blog. But found it relevant to be reproduced here.

Beauty without Cruelty

2010-05-11T01:37:00.000-07:00

I bumped into this webpage today, again reminding me of the ever-elusive issue of cruelty towards animals.

Where one draws the line of cruelty is subjective. One may go to the one extent of saying that nothing -- absolutely nothing -- should get hurt by what one does. Or he may choose the other extreme, saying, nothing that I don't 'know' as cruel death, is to be considered cruel. Both the stances have pitfalls. The first one has the oft quoted pitfall of considering plant-death as cruel, and hence, farming is cruel. On the other hand, the second one has the pitfall trying to explain why killing humans for food should be considered cruel. In fact, one doesn't need to go so far, since, the scene of Indian non-vegetarianism is rife with contradictions. Some people consider it OK to have fish, some draw the line after chicken, some after mutton. Beef, pork etc. are out for some people who, otherwise, neither swear by religion, nor give a second thought before relishing a mutton recipe.

There are unpleasant discussions between people arguing about whether indeed killing plants isn't as cruel as killing animals. After all how do we know that they don't feel pain and fear? What is the nature of this knowledge of ours? After dwelling shortly on themes of touch-me-nots and chemicals which flow in plants in response to physical stimuli, the problem eventually drifts into the dubious realms of epistemology!

And there are contradictions in human nature too. From my own experience, the most soft hearted creature I have ever met was this Muslim girl in my earlier office whose diet included everything that moves by itself. And the most aggressive of creatures I know are those who observe vegetarianism with Brahminical austerity. For one, I am not sure that my giving up meat-eating at an early age against the remonstrance from my family was a sign of my docility. Going through the unpleasantness of explaining myself everywhere, getting into ugly arguments every now and then with those who took my ethical vegetarianism as a personal attack on their non-vegetarian habits -- all these needed a determination bordering at arrogance. It was nothing short of a war against my circumstances. So much for the saying that vegetarian diet breeds peacefulness. I have met vegetarians with extreme conceit, laziness, greed, ...and every vice vegetarianism is supposed to protect you against. I am really not convinced that there exists any positive correlation between human nature and vegetarianism.

Then, is it a subject about which there's no constructive thought possible? May be people will/should continue with whatever food habits they inherit from their parents. I feel that's a very natural and just criterion for choosing one's food habit. We indeed have our eating ways too well-drilled in our basic nature. By basing our choice of our pallete on such general principles as 'cruelty and kindness' would be a mistake on this present day. The basic nature of 'cruelty' isn't known too well today. If tomorrow's philosophers do figure it out for us, only to find out that any kind of food is indeed based on a cruel act, will we have the guts to stop living?

Or is 'cruelty' such a big unknown? I feel, all philosophical problems are nearly unsolvably difficult when we try to solve them in general. But are exceedingly simple when we try to answer for ourselves. For it's very easy to know if what we are eating is due to our sense of righteousness, or is it because we are afraid to face an obvious question lest it makes appeal on us to give up our gluttony. I think, we should all face the question at our very personal level but we shouldn't argue with anyone. For all we know, asking someone to give up something he loves without sufficient convincing could be as cruel as killing. But examining our beliefs, our faiths, our personal sense of right and wrong, is not cruel.

The only prescriptive statement I would make here is that we should, in solitude, give these questions some thought. We needn't talk about it to anyone. But think, we must. Even if we are able to accept to ourselves that some item we consume is fundamentally a product of cruelty to someone, even if we mayn't be in a position to give up consuming it, or even to openly proclaim our finding, it'll be an act of momentous courage.

Hunger Helpline

2010-03-14T23:34:00.000-07:00

I don't know if posting the content in my blog is a healthy compromise between continuing a chain mail and just being callous. But the content seems authentic.
रोजाना जो खाना खाते हो वो पसंद नहीं आता ? उकता गये ?

............ ... ........... .....थोड़ा पिज्जा कैसा रहेगा ?

नहीं ??? ओके ......... पास्ता ?
नहीं ?? .. इसके बारे में क्या सोचते हैं ?

आज ये खाने का भी मन नहीं ? ... ओके .. क्या इस मेक्सिकन खाने को आजमायें ?

दुबारा नहीं ? कोई समस्या नहीं .... हमारे पास कुछ और भी विकल्प हैं........
ह्म्म्मम्म्म्म ... चाइनीज ????? ??

बर्गर्सस्स्स्सस्स्स्स ? ???????

ओके .. हमें भारतीय खाना देखना चाहिए ....... J ? दक्षिण भारतीय व्यंजन ना ??? उत्तर भारतीय ?

जंक फ़ूड का मन है ?

हमारे पास अनगिनत विकल्प हैं ..... .. टिफिन ?

मांसाहार ?

ज्यादा मात्रा ?

या केवल पके हुए मुर्गे के कुछ टुकड़े ?
आप इनमें से कुछ भी ले सकते हैं ... या इन सब में से थोड़ा- थोड़ा ले सकते हैं ...

अब शेष बची मेल के लिए परेशान मत होओ....

मगर .. इन लोगों के पास कोई विकल्प नहीं है ...

इन्हें तो बस थोड़ा सा खाना चाहिए ताकि ये जिन्दा रह सकें ..........

इनके बारे में अगली बार तब सोचना जब आप किसी केफेटेरिया या होटल में यह कह कर खाना फैंक रहे होंगे कि यह स्वाद नहीं है !!

इनके बारे में अगली बार सोचना जब आप यह कह रहे हों ... यहाँ की रोटी इतनी सख्त है कि खायी ही नहीं जाती.........

कृपया खाने के अपव्यय को रोकिये
अगर आगे से कभी आपके घर में पार्टी / समारोह हो और खाना बच जाये या बेकार जा रहा हो तो बिना झिझके आप 1098 (केवल भारत में )पर फ़ोन करें - यह एक मजाक नहीं है - यह चाइल्ड हेल्पलाइन है । वे आयेंगे और भोजन एकत्रित करके ले जायेंगे।
कृप्या इस सन्देश को ज्यादा से ज्यादा प्रसारित करें इससे उन बच्चों का पेट भर सकता है

कृप्या इस श्रृंखला को तोड़े नहीं .....
हम चुटकुले और स्पाम मेल अपने दोस्तों और अपने नेटवर्क में करते हैं ,क्यों नहीं इस बार इस अच्छे सन्देश को

Discussions

2009-12-23T00:19:00.000-08:00

Since morning today, two discussions have happened. I came to know a few things which I will remember for my life. More than that, I got to think of thoughts I wouldn't have bothered about otherwise.

I am not much into hyperboles when I am talking about something I feel passionate about. But I just want you to know how passionate I feel about discussions. Discussions about anything. As long as they are sincere, come from your heart, and are constituted of sentences and passages that have gone through some degree of refinement.

I am not going to write a long essay here. People who know me, and have met me for anytime, know well about my love for discussions. Sometimes, it's a matter of fun to my dear ones. But all in all, I am sure they all understand well that it's not my way of killing time, socialising, or pampering my laziness; it's one of my life's greatest passions.

Discussions turn into speaches, lectures, discourse, essays and books. But above all, a well conducted discussion shapes thoughts, cleans the mind of clutter. It often touches lives.

Probably, I will write a lot more about discussions in future, in disparate pieces maybe.

House Shifting Blues

2009-12-15T03:21:00.000-08:00

We shifted our house this weekend. And like any other experience, I have all the wisdom now that I would have needed then. Well, it may be useful the next time I make a shift. But for now, let me jot them down. I hope that someone planning a shift will have a look at it and will have something to gain.

Packers and Movers

For one, don't hire shady packers and movers. We hired someone called T.T. Transport in R. T. Nagar. They charged us a modest Rs. 2500/-, which was cheap I hear. But in return, we got an aweful service. Four starving drunkards who evoked no confidence in their strength or integrity arrived late on Saturday morning. They didn't understand our language. They didn't have the necessary patience to listen to our directions (which gradually turned into desperate pleadings). Everytime they would say, 'tension nakko. damage kya bhi nahi hota saab!' (means 'Don't worry, there won't be any damage, sir!' in a wierd sort of a way). They didn't have the necessary skill or tools to move things without damaging them. They broke an expensive cot, our washing machine. And created dents in our almirah. As far as now, we haven't discovered any thefts. So, I can't raise any warnings in that track.

Packing and moving is an integral part of the shifting. And one can't take it lightly. Spend money. Don't settle for shoddy service. Take feedback from your friends and hire only those of whom you hear words of appreciation from past customers. Even after all this, take precaution to prevent them from damaging your belongings. For instance, we now realise that we should have called the Godrej guys to get the cot dismantled properly. It would have costed us some money. But damages to expensive belongings leaves scars on your heart that ache each time you see those damages (because they are not always completely repairable).

Knowing the Destination

If possible, visit the destination house many times over. Learn about it intimately. Here's a checklist

Plan

This will be needed to determine which major furniture goes where. And it will be critical in many of innumerable decisions to be taken post-shifting.

Storage places

Just as you need to find out where the big things go, similarly, you must find out where the small ones go. Do it in chunks by knowing where and how much you have got space to stuff things. Create a map between the source and destination storage units. Pack things in accordance to those.

Condition of all the accessories

Check if all taps give out water; and check if all drains are functional.

plug-points, geysers, fans, lights, switches. All the doors. See if the bolts and locks and keys are in place.

Try figuring out where you are going to place your electrical appliances. Find out if there are plug-points within acceptable distance. Find out if the plug-points have current ratings necessary to drive the appliances you are planning to connect to it. Similarly for TV and phone which require connection lines to pulled to them, give a thought as to how you will do that. For instance, if the cable TV output is given on one wall, and you have decided to place your TV on the opposite wall, it will mean that a long wire has to be pulled across the room. Similarly, if you have decided to place your landline phone at a point, figure out where the telephone wires come from and how you are going make them reach that point.

Packing, Labelling, Tagging
Each unit of storage should be stuffed into one single unit of moving. This means that articles belonging to one cupboard should go into one carton.
Fragile items should be tagged appropriately.
Get plenty of cartons: We are a family of two adults and an infant. We have made a shift from a two bedroom house to another of similar measurements. We used close to 30 cartons to pack our stuff.

References
http://www.betterliving.co.nz/net/section/articleForm.aspx?id=15

The Tangle of Network Marketing

2009-12-11T05:21:00.000-08:00

A week ago, a lady named Ms. M who had met my wife at the Bangalore Book Festival recently, and had got her number there, visited us at our home. This was because she had been eversince calling my wife repeatedly asking for an appointment, and Shilpi had to give in.

Ms. M is a lady in her early 40s, of Sindhi origin, with an immaculate English and a pleasant getup as us. And she was there to tell us about a wonderful new thing called Educational Technology that had a potential of turning our 10 month old son into a super-kid...in 13 years...with a payment of about Rs. 135,000, made over a period of some years through EMIs. She had stories about there being 1000 trillion or so nerve connections in Vigyan's brain. Those would drop to 500 trillion by the time he is 8 year old. We were supposed to interpret it as the death of half his brain. Next, we were supposed to make haste to pound as much learning as possible before this calamity happened. That was possible only by buying Educational Technologies which is a result of 15 years of research. We were supposed to make special haste in deciding that we would make haste. In fact, we had just a few hours' time (till the next morning) to avail some out-of-the-world concessions on their products. In short, we were being asked to commit more than a lakh rupees within a few hours on a technology which claims to be a revolution in child development.

During our discussion Ms. M showed perfect confidence that we all have studied only by cramming and not understanding, that my being in IT was an accident which should have been avoided at all costs. Blunders upon blunder she made during those 2 hours of our interaction. She had some interesting things to say. But unfortunately, the zest and faith she exuded appeared rather fake. Her knowledge of the great things about Educational Technology was ridden with those same holes she claimed Educational Technology wouldn't let come in my child's development.

Towards the latter part of the discussion, Ms. M offered Shilpi if she would be interested in joining her in expanding the network of Educational Technology. That revealed the fact that all this was network marketing happening.

I have nothing to say about the authenticity of the claims made by Educational Technology, or about the products sold by companies using network marketing. All I have to say is about the fake confidence of the marketeers selling miraculous products like educational kits, toiletries, coin collections and what not, on the effectiveness of the economic model of network marketing.

A short tutorial ridiculing the inefficiency of the current economic model of the world, and how network marketing has the power to completely change that is the first step in the induction of a large number of people into the tangle of network marketing. What lacks in their induction is the sincere rigour that ought be there in anything that claims to be radical enough to change the world.

The economic world is like this not for no reason. Its inefficiencies are a cost for the credibility that people must earn before they sell a product. If it had been practical for every person on the street with a good idea to sell -- whether original or borrowed -- it would have been useless to pay people like Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bacchan amounts like Rs. 25 crores for featuring in stupid advertisements of toilet products. It wouldn't have been necessary to build institutes like MIT and Stanford when all knowledge is available at dirt cheap rates. It wouldn't have been required to look at the publisher's and author's name before we read a book, when there's so much text available on the web that we could spend our lives in reading that. The act of doing something is not always just about having the wherewithalls to do it; it's also about earning the credibility to sell something.

I feel that's the greatest flaw in the model of network marketing. It undermines the inherent cost associated with brand-building. The idea of listening to pep-talks from half-wits who parrot memorised speeches about the wonders that network marketing can do to a person's wealth just doesn't scale. When everyone's willing to give a pep-talk, we have to have a way of telling who should be heard. The process of filtration of that noise is the process of brand-building. That's where all the inefficiency of the traditional economy comes from.

I have close relatives and friends falling into the trap of network marketing. Before they did fall, they used to be good happy people with something better to do with their lives than running behind the lure of easy money. Network marketing has an amazing ability to convince people that money is the central goal of all serious activities, and hence it makes sense to get into an unending cycle of selling-buying-earning. Some of those dear ones got disillusioned rather early; some late; and some continue to struggle. Only a very small minority of network marketers have earned themselves that credibility that made them rich. That small ration is surprisingly close to the ratio of success in the traditional economy ridiculing which usually is the opening statement of a network marketing speech!

Please be careful!

More Advices to a Youngster

2009-12-10T00:22:00.001-08:00

Tapas Mukherjee, one of my nephews, is doing his BSc in Microbiology. He was recently at our place for some training at IISc. Among many things, he wished to hear me out on my thoughts about individual development. I shared some thoughts with him during one of our chats, and later scribed it down in the form of an email. I now feel it's apt to find a place in my blog. Here we go (the reason why some of my statements appear in past-tense is because the mail was written as a recap of the a discussion which had happened recently):

Algorithm, Computer Science
I suggested that it's a good idea for you to be acquainted with basic computing. One thing is that in your work you may have to use computers more and more. But the prime reason is that if you happen to work on structural biology, or on genomics etc., you may even have to do rudimentary programming. It would help to be conversant with programming methods, a couple of programming languages like C, Perl and Java. Then your dependence on computer specialists would be minimised. Finally, algorithmic way of thinking augments logical thinking which is in general a researcher's best friend.

Basic Methods of Problem Solving
In order to be able to make quick switch between subjects -- which everyone will have to do more and more in his career in the coming times -- one must be able to promptly get to the core issues of things. My assertion was that there are a few basic tenets or characteristics of problems that are shared by pretty much all problems that we solve. And the fundamental tools to solve such problems are also few in number. We should be able to grasp these basic characteristics and methods. What are those basic characteristics? It's not easy for me to tell you. I am just on my way to prepare a list of my own. For example, one problem that recurrently appears in the world of computing is 'inconsistency'. It appears in so many various avatars. But there's a way to model them all as instances of inconsistency. In programming the solution to this problem comes as modularity and re-use. Right now, I have been able to work out a handful of such fundamentals for my field. I have reasons to believe that there are fundamentals which apply across fields. All this mayn't make immediate sense to you since they are specific to my field. Your field may have its own list of fundamental problems and their solutions. Be on a look out for them.

A very simple interpretation of the above paragraph is: keep your fundamentals clear.

Importance of Literature Review
You had asked how a researcher ever finds out whether what he has come up with is novel or not. My answer to that was that you must spend a majority of your efforts in reading the literature in your area so that you have a feel of the cutting edge. It also depends a lot on your experience to find out roughly if a given problem has likely been solved or not. However, at the end of the day, it boils down to finding it out from the community. You share your work within circles of progressively increasing radii. Eventually, you share it with the open community in the form of a paper. If no one comes out with a feedback that the exact idea has already been published somewhere else, the paper gets published. It's then that it's novelty is an accepted fact, not through a formal proof, but by the consensus amongst the experts of the area.

Therefore, you must know that as you grow as an expert, you also become partly a keeper of the forefront of the knowledge in that area. When a paper comes to you for review, it's a great responsibility because a wrong decision on your part may lead to a good idea not coming out into the open, or the credit of an idea being misappropriated by a wrong person. Both these things are unacceptable.

Hence, both as a producer and as a reviewer of scholarly work, the importance of literature review can't be over-stated.

Knowing the Important Players in the Research Field
Unlike traditionally believed in our country, research is no more a lonely act to be performed in solitude. Now, the process of proving your credibility gradually makes you an accepted member of a community. Unless you belong to a community, you run little chance to be believed for your ideas easily. Hence, socialising is very important. Knowing the right people, starting from those who are the most important people, not only makes you aware of the hierarchy of the work, but the power structure that is inherent in a scholarly community. It also helps you determine where you belong in this community.

Therefore, find out the greatest guys in your area. Your search for information may end you anywhere, but it'll pretty much always start on the webpages of these big guys.

Role of Guide
The guide's role is central in defining the quality of the PhD thesis, sometimes even your career as a researcher. When you start your PhD, he will guide you out of your immaturity. He will criticise you when you are being too naive, and will reassure you when your confidence takes a nose-dive. He will give your the action points to work on as you gradually learn to walk around in the intellectual space you are out to master. The guide's importance is infinite in the beginning. By the end of the PhD, it should be your joint goal to reduce his role to a name in your acknowledgement, which means, that at the end of your PhD you should have learned to define and formulate your problem and work out a solution to it without anyone's guidance. Till then, guide teaches you to do that.

Be careful in choosing your PhD supervisor.

How to find out if your work is new

Please see 'Importance of Literature Review.'

Interacting with Others
This is where I have plenty to tell you, worth a separate mail. But anyway...

First thing to learn is to respect others. Always remember, people you interact with everyday are pretty much as intelligent as you are, if not more. Your body language and speech should express that respect in plenty. Show eagerness to listen. Don't be too eager to present your point of view in everything and anything, particularly when it doesn't bring value to the discussion. Giving uninformed opinions on things often doesn't give an impression of your being an all-knower. Among intelligent people, such people end up being shunned as incessant blabberers, bores. It's a good habit to weigh one's words when saying it. Always, before saying anything, give a moment of thought on 'Is it going to make this discussion a more fruitful one; or is it just aimed to increase my share in the discussion, even though with garbage.' Don't spew garbage. Maintain your dignity.

On the other hand, those who carefully listen to others end up imbibing enormous amount of information and knowledge. So, listen. Listen carefully. Even passively. Which means that while you internalise the information being given by a speaker, do it without colouring it with your own interpretation, with daydreamings, with ulterior thoughts. It's easier said than done. It requires a lot of discipline to become a good listener. Frankly, I myself continue to struggle.

While discussing, if you have a choice, always try to keep the focus on the other person and his work. Ask more questions. Exude interest and curiosity. Make the other person amply aware how fascinating you find their field and their ideas. It will encourage them to reveal more and share more. It's not with a cunning intention that you do so. It's to make the discussion valuable to all parties involved. If required, speak about your thought frankly, with a balance of pride and modesty. But always be factual. Always try to make it valuable to your listener. It hardly helps to brag. It hardly helps to speak more than you know. It hardly helps to keep blabbing endlessly about things your listener doesn't want to hear.

Given that, you should always try to find out the commonalities between your field and the other person's. Remember the thing about fundamentals? There are fundamentals common to any two areas, however disconnected on the surface. A discussion which at least indirectly reveals a set of commonalities between you and his interests is more than just fruitful. It's fabulous.

One Page Presentation of Your Idea
In various scenarios, this one page could be called an abstract, an introduction, a synopsis, a summary etc.

A general sequence of coverage is the following:
- Introduction to the problem
- Existing work to solve the problems
- Gaps
- Your work and explanation as to how it fills the gap
- Your reason to believe that your work indeed fulfils the promise, presented via proofs or experimental results.

You will learn with time that the above is just a guideline. You have to make a structure of your own. Remember, through your introduction, you must evoke interest in your audience to look deeper into your work. Always imagine that the audience is asking you: 'Why should I listen to you? Why should I believe you?' Your introduction should answer those questions somehow.

At this stage, I can't speak more on this topic. But with time, we will get plenty of opportunities to revisit it.

Related Post:
Advice to a Youngster

The meaning of 'quintessential'

2009-11-10T20:34:00.000-08:00

I roughly knew the meaning of the word because I had heard it being used rather often. Today, I hit something interesting when I decided to look it up in dictionary.com.

Quintessential element is the fifth essential (quint for five) element of universe, which is ether. The other four are air, earth, water and fire.

What surprises me is the fact that the same set of objects are quoted in Indian text as the panchbhoota, or the five elements. It's not a trivial co-incidence again, if at all a co-incidence.

Anyone has any idea regarding the origins of this idea of elements in both latin and sanskrit scriptures?

Ironies of Soft-Skill Training

2009-09-16T23:36:00.000-07:00

The good thing about soft-skills is that they apply very well to all parts of life, not necessarily just professional. The bad thing is, they are easy to theorise about, but very hard to practice.

Last week, Thursday, I did a one day training in time management. I felt it was a great experience. Got all enthused to apply my learnings to every aspect of my life. Since, the weekend almost immediately followed, I spent it planning my leisure very well. Since, anyway there was little to do, planning worked very well. I got further encouraged. Sunday night, before going to bed, I had ready with me, a detailed plan for Monday. It ran into 2 pages of my notebook. Even activities taking just a few minutes had been planned. I slept well looking forward to a busy but neatly executed day at office. Got up in morning and did my exercises rather peacefully. After all the days was planned. The success lies in working smart, not in hurrying around.

When I reached office and opened my Outlook, there popped up a reminder saying 'Customer Orientation Training - 45 minutes overdue.' I was enrolled in this 2 day training! I looked at my 2 page plan. Hesitated a while wondering if I could back off from the training still. Realised, I couldn't. And ran to the training room in a tremendously frustrated state of mind. An example of how it's going to take a while before I really learn how to manage my time, if at all. For now, I surely learn a lesson that I must try to keep only one task list so that conflicts don't occur and even if they do, they are known.

The second instance of irony happened at the end of the Customer Orientation course. The trainer asks all trainees in the beginning what their personal expectation from the course are. At the end of it, he reviews this list to see if they have been fulfilled. My expectation was the following: to be able to handle situations where there is a gap between my understanding of value in a proposal with my customer.

Just as an explanation (which I shared with the class that day), it's often seen in our research projects that our customers come with the idea that the result of our research projects will prove directly financially beneficial to 'their' projects. Our perception often differs. We tend to think that we need to produce knowledge through the exercise which will be found beneficial to the organisation in a long-term sense. This difference in perception is natural. No one is wrong at his respective role. But this difference in perception has to be managed.

During the course of the training, the fact about my being a researcher and PhD bla bla was naturally revealed. In response to my expectation, my trainer said that it would be my responsibility to try showing the value of the proposal to my customer. It wouldn't be fair on my part to expect him to buy my idea of value from the project. I think my trainer was right on that. However, rather unexpectedly, he continued further saying something about how people from premier institutes tend to expect others to buy their ideas just because they are from premier institutes. He opined that being from premier institute doesn't help. One must perform to show his value.

While technically my trainer was again right, I found this remark very out of place. In fact, I felt embarrassed because it was directly in response to my query. It seemed to indicate that I had in some way given an impression that I was trying to throw my weight around because of my being from a premier institute. Though the whole training had been quite valuable, I came out of it with an uneasy heart. So much so, that I wrote a mail about my feelings to the trainer, explaining that I had never meant my ideas to be accepted easily simply due to my background. A very unpleasant exchange of mails followed which left me even more uneasy. I could see no hint of eagerness in him to understand what had bothered me. He took a very defensive stance. Something in complete contrast to what he had taught for 2 long days. Unfortunately, it's no assurance in soft-skills matters that your being a preacher gives you the ability to practice.

Chhotu and Storytelling

2009-08-27T01:27:00.000-07:00

I agreed with George -- our 'public speaking' trainer -- even before I had even seen him, leave alone hearing him say: 'If you want to practise voice modulation, try telling stories to kids.' Chhotu, better known as Vidyut Chakrabarti, is my 5 year old nephew. And he loves listening to stories. He listens open-mouthed (the fact which is nefariously made use of by his mom for feeding him when he's unwilling) while you practise every conceivable voice modulation exercise pretending to tell him a story. What you tell him has a simple precondition to satisfy: It should be anything with liberal sprinkling of interesting characters (like kings, queens, demons and dinosaurs). The events don't matter. Event sequences, of course, don't matter too. Lots of figures of speech, and lots of voice modulation.

This time when I went to my native place, he engaged me in some story-telling exercises. And I had my share of funny moments. I enjoyed telling him 'Beauty and the Beast'-like stories. Possibly, I had less than 5 different stories in my kitty. His hunger for stories was inexhaustible though. He kept asking for more stories. To which I answered truthfully that I didn't have anymore stories to tell him. He had an easy solution. He said, no problem tell me one of the old ones. But I had just told him that was not a problem at all. So, I started telling him the whole thing all over again; he started gobbling it with open-mouth with every possible expression of mytery and intrigue on his face. Looking at him no one could've told that he knew the story to the last detail, except when I would, for the sake of novelty, or may out of sheer forgetfulness, miss out on or alter some of the details. He would quickly correct me on those and return back to his perfectly hungrily receptive mode of listening. It was very funny and cute beyond what words can tell!

Another time, when he was behind me to tell him some stories, I tried to avoid accepting that I didn't have any more stories to tell him, by saying, 'I know many stories. But they are for bigger people. You won't understand them.' This was not a problem for him. He said, 'I anyway don't understand much of the stories. I still enjoy them. You tell. No problem.' I found this limitless innocence on the one hand and self-awareness on the other a very uncanny mixture. Not to say, it was very cute again!

Once, I succeeded turning the table on Chhotu. I insisted that at least some time it had to be his turn to tell a story. So, this particular time, he unwillingly agreed. The story he tried telling was that Tenalirama/Birbal/Gopal Bhaad story wherein Tenali finds out that a burglar is hiding in his house waiting for them to go to bed before he would clean up. So, instead of panicking he makes the best out of it. Being aware that his garden needed watering, he tells his wife, making sure that the burglar is within earshot, that he has hidden all their jewels in the garden well. When they go to bed, the burglar goes out and starts pulling out water from the well and throwing them into the garden. He keeps doing it the whole night hoping that eventually the hidden jewels would come up with the water. The garden gets its water. The burglar gets caught in the morning.

Chhotu's version 1: A burglar comes to Tenali's house and starts taking out water from the well and pouring them into the garden. And the garden gets irrigated.

My question: "But why does the burglar come to Tenali's house?"
Chhotu: "Because he wants to steal."
My question: "Then why does he start taking out water from the well."
Chhotu: "!!!!???!!!!"

Chhotu, like a worthy prospective Windows user, tries pressing the restart button, and starts all over again.

Chhotu's version 2: Tenali tells his wife that he has hidden his jewels in the well. The burglar comes and starts pouring water into the garden...
My question: "But why does the burglar pour water into the garden?"
Chhotu: "???!!!! Because he wants to water the garden."
My question: "But why does the burglar want to water Tenali's garden?"
Chhotu: "!!!!????!!!!"

At this point, Chhotu found it all not worth it to explain such petty stuff to me, and went ahead with some other game. What can I say. The story holds its magic in Chhotu's mind sans its logical sequencing of events. I have been wondering eversince, what, if not the logical sequence of events, holds its appeal for a story in the eyes of a child! :)

Flexibility in Education -- A Thought for Future

2009-08-06T01:01:00.000-07:00

As I see my child growing day by day, it's a vivid experience tracking his progress. There are things he is quick to learn -- babbling, meditating on something, relishing food .... There are things in which he seems to be falling back when compared with his peers (other kids born within a span of a few weeks) -- grabbing things, turning on his tummy, sitting up etc. Comparisons are always being made. Wherever there seems to be a backlog, it tends to trigger negative thoughts. Elder and experienced people are quick to settle that matter by saying, "Hey! All children are different. He'll learn. Eventually. Let him go at his own pace."

For some months now, I have been turning the pages of books on probability models. Fortunately, my job affords me chances to go back to textbooks and learn things I never tried, or had tried but had given up or was made to give up. Probability used to occupy a part of our mathematics curriculum every year after 9th standard for all the years that had a mathematics paper. I think I was fairly good in probability then, but wasn't exceptional. I learned it to a certain extent that was possible for me during those math courses. After those courses, I hardly ever got a chance to study probability until recently. There were other friends of mine who didn't show an initial aptitude towards probability. They got a few years to demonstrate a growth in their aptitude. Most of them ended at the same level where they had started. They never studied probability after that. Unlike me, they will never study it again.

Perhaps, to a large extent, that's a thankful thing. We ought to be spared of having to struggle with the same set of subjects forever even though we show no inclination or necessity to learn them. There should definitely be a quick and efficient method in place to identify the natural gifts of a child, and propel him in that direction with all resources possible. But there is another side to it. We don't develop our aptitude for certain subjects at the same time. Each child develops his own way of learning. Certain subjects which appeared like Greek in my adolescence now appear easier to grasp when I pick them up after a while. I can upfront think of a few reasons: one is experience which prepares us to look at the subject from another angle. Another is the fact that over years, we develop techniques of thinking and reasoning. Arguments which might have appeared exotic to me when I was 18 now appear quite mundane to me.

Children pick up life-skills at various paces, in different order. Most of them finally arrive. It's not more probable that a child learning to walk early is not more probable to become more athletic than his peer who learns to walk later. An early talker isn't more likely to become an orator than the one who learns to speak a little later. Nature doesn't put us in rigid curricula where we learn our subject along with our peers at a predesignated period of our life; in which we don't get another chance to learn once we miss the first few.

It would be good to learn our subjects in a slightly more flexible way too. If I don't understand probability in my 9th grade, can I take it in my 11th? If, during my 5th grade, I show a strong propensity towards literary skills, can my curriculum be enriched with language and literature subjects, scheduling my other subjects for a later coverage? If before that I show a prodigal aptitude for literature, I may simply be spared of doing my science courses and allowed to grow in my natural order at a much accelerated pace. If I flunk math due to bad performance in some of the modules, can I be allowed to move on, keeping those modules for a repeat visit at a later point in my student-life?

In short, I am talking about flexibility. The tyranny of perpetual comparison with peers will be broken. The growth of the child will be with the direct intent of making him an employable citizen depending on his aptitude. The child will get an almost unlimited opportunity to learn subjects in a customised order. Moreover, there will be possible to maintain a much finer grained profile of the student's strengths. For example, currently it's impossible to know if a student of commerce had, at one point in time, shown exceptional calibre in problems of graph theory. Then, such profiling will be possible. Straight-jackets of science, commerce and art streams are outdated and rotten. This system will allow each student for designing his own stream. Students will seek absolute excellence. Competence (being good in something) will not confused with competiveness (winning games and wars).

Looking closely, it's hardly a revolutionary idea. I see subdued forms of it in the current system of education, particularly in higher education. To implement this idea in all its glory, we need a much more developed way of assessing a child's progress. It may be expensive to implement as it will obviously call for more attention to be given to the individual growth of each student.

May be, something of this sort will work out for a future society. Your inputs please! Particularly, as to how this proposed system could be broken.

The Most Important Thing My Father Taught Me

2009-07-28T01:05:00.000-07:00

I was inspired to write this after I saw a blog on the same topic.

When I was in 4th class I once scored poorly in a test. I think it was English. I didn't talk about it to my parents with the fear of being scolded. When I finally revealed, I also blurted out why this delay. On this my father didn't react with anger. He merely said that I shouldn't make such a big deal of the score I get in a subject. It's important to understand the subject. Scores fall in line automatically.

The gratification of not being reprimanded and the joy of getting a new perspective had a permanent effect on me. It appeared intuitive to me to see that trying to understand a subject in the same way as the author himself was necessary aspect of actually understanding anything. I started reading things with the end goal in mind of day-dreaming that I was the originator of the work. It needed deep understanding. I got into the mode of asking repeatedly: 'Is there anything I have not understood? Is there anything I seem to be taken for granted?' This day-dreaming style of learning things opened to me joys of learning which are non-existent to rot-learners.

Learning to understand revealed to me why becoming a scientist is such a cool thing. I could see that it's not about being (or proving oneself to be) intelligent. It's about understanding something clearly, asking the right questions till the point where I and the creator of that knowledge are one in our understanding of the topic.

Two Thoughts about Technology

2009-07-22T22:47:00.000-07:00

Both thoughts have been languishing in my head for long. Recently they got some space in my conscious mind while attending a very insightful talk about the life-cycles of technologies.

Thought 1 -- Falling into the Chasm
It was about the Tornado theory of how technologies evolve and how businesses get created around them. In that there was one particular concept of a chasm that exists between early adopters and early majority market segments. It says that most consumers are such that they wait for the technology to get proven for its usefulness before they adopt it. They constitute the majority segment of the market. On the other hand, early adopters test out the technology due to its technical appeal, or simply due to its novelty. When a company introduces a technology into the market, it must first hit the early adopter market. Gradually, as the technology matures, the company must adapt its strategy to start covering the early majority market segment. This transition is crucial, as in, many technologies die during this transition as the its proponents make some strategic mistakes at this juncture. This transition point has been visualised as a chasm; the event of failing at this point is called falling into the chasm.

About this, I had one small thought to add. That is, aren't there technologies which are designed to fall into the chasm? In the sense, their not making it into the next market segment may not actually be an accident, but a designed thing. The technology may well be a stepping stone or throw-away prototype or pilot for a more mature technology. The example I have upfront in my mind is pager technology. It was very popular for a short while with the more savvy and business class people. But just when it was graduating into a mature technology, it was promptly taken over by mobile-phones. I don't know the details, but I would say that mobile-phones are a similar technology. Both the technical and business aspects of these two technologies seem to have great overlap. Without really trying to prove my point, I would say that technology-makers must have foreseen that mobile-phone technology, if realised, is a superior technology to pager, and would overtake it sooner or later. But introducing pagers into the market temporarily might actually have helped in many ways. First, it was easier to implement. Second, it created the demand for such a convenience and created awareness. Third, the infrastructure that would be required to set up mobile-phone technology got created to a large extent when pagers were introduced. Fourth, the running of pager business must have acted like a tutorial for the mobile-providers on how to run the mobile-phone business in the short future. In short, pagers were designed to fall into the chasm; it wasn't an accident. It paved the way for mobile-phones to cross the chasm with perfect ease.

Of course, all the above is not rooted in my awareness of how the mobile-technology actually evolved, but it's just a conjecture of how it must have happened. More than that, you could take that as a hypothetical example of the main point I am trying to make: Falling into the chasm needn't always be an accident; but could be a well-thought business strategy to ease the entry of a superior technology into the majority market by sacrificing its inferior alter-ego.

Thought 2 -- Basic Nature of Technology
This was not really part of the talk, but it appears as a nagging possibility. It might be so significant as to be a distinct indicator that our race is actually programmed to self-destruct. sooner or later. The conjecture is that there doesn't seem to exist any technology capable to reduce overall consumption of resources. Mathematically, say, there's a work W that a population P does resulting in consumption of resources amounting to C. The consumption per person is CPP = C/P. Enter technology T. It reduces the consumption per person CPP to CPP'. This makes it lucrative to consumers to adapt T due to their personal gain. However, the total consumption changes from C to C', and ironically C' is always greater than C. This is because, the number of people who consume T is no more P, but P', and P' >> P. That makes total consumption C' = CPP' . P' > CPP . P > C. Moreover, even with all its merit, T would never make economic sense to the businessmen who push it into the market unless the above happens. In other words, there can never be a technology which really reduces consumption. All it will do is to drastically increase the profitability of consumption, thus causing orders of magnitude rise in overall consumption.

As a concrete example, trains cause tremendous reduction in per person consumption of fuel as compared to individually arranged travel. But, the rail business would never be profitable unless large volumes of people travel, resulting in overall increase in fuel consumption.

Another example. information technology has resulted in tremendous reduction in the cost of communication of one unit of information. However, none of the business thriving around IT, be it computer software and hardware, mobile, etc. would have made economic sense unless there had been such manifold rise in the flow of information that the overall expenditure on information handling has grown several times than before.

In fact, the power of certain technologies lies in so altering the behaviour of consumers that they end up spending more resources (count in money) on the same task due to the ease of consumption. For example, even though the cost of travelling per kilometre is perhaps less than before, it's so convenient to travel that we end up spending much more on travel these days than before. Similarly about communication. In other words, human race doesn't seem to have invented a technology that's so powerful that, even after accommodating business concerns, it results in an overall reduction, or at least maintenance, of the consumption of resources in the task that technology aids in. If this conjecture is true, we are doomed to continue inventing technologies because they make good business sense for the businessmen and individual consumers, but which will continue the ever accelerating approach to an ultimate destruction of our race resulting from exhaustion of natural resources.

If someone provides me with a counterexample to disprove the above conjecture, I will bless him/her from the bottom of my heart.