Lack of Originality

Among many of our age old Indian habits, which we stick to as strongly as we ridicule them, is that of stealing music.

Apparently, it all started in the seventies. RD Burman started giving a western flavour to our film music. He also used to lift pieces off western compositions. But they used to be from folk tunes or classical tunes. And his originality did show in the way he would facade his dishonesty with very creative pieces surrounding those stolen ones. But the less original contemporaries and successors of his followed his trend with less finnese, and soon started copy-pasting tunes from western block busters. In a country double-blinded due to export import licences and duties, this practice could get away with any degree of shameless copying. I have subsequently learned that many of the tunes I used to love in my childhood are direct copies of some western tunes. The practice hasn't quite abated in spite of a far greater transperancy in the recent years. Now many of us don't get fooled regarding the credit of a catchy tune, since foriegn music now has a fairly good access to the general body of music lovers in India. There have been some famous lawsuits regarding intellectual property rights resulting out of lifting music. The practice continues nevertheless.

In fact the practice of lifting music has extended to another dimension -- i.e. in the dimension of time. Remixes have started occupying a non-trivial share of the music market. They are merely remakes of the old film songs with usually a very crappy lead singer replacing the voices of flawless Lata or Rafi, and a hell lot of other voices (read 'noises') to hide the mistakes of the lead singer.

Even at this moment, there might be going on a plenty of original composition in the field of film music, but very few to reckon with, in terms of quality. And all that is clearly overwhelmed with a flood of much less original, catchier and noisier form of music that's produced and consumed at a far greater rate.

However, if you look a bit more closely, the practice of lifting tunes is not all that recent as we might be tempted to think.

In the early days of Indian film and popular music, it was a trend to lift rampantly from folk music and classical music. The film songs would closely follow the rules of Indian classical music to depict the emotional content. I am sure there was hardly a need for the film music composers to be awefully original in their work anywhere. Tunes of woe and glee, tunes of disappointment or determination, of love or hatred, of rain or desert, of devotion or eroticism, of friendship or romance. You name it, you have it all readymade in some or the other raga in the Indian classical music. Or you could even find very subtle depiction of moods in folk tunes. So much so, that you can trace the origin of some of the ragas in classical music back to some kind of folk songs. Even classical music has borrowed, if not lifted, ideas from elsewhere.

That was an age we look back at with some nostalgia, and term as 'the golden age' of Indian film music. Keeping that in mind, I wonder if lifting tunes is at all that bad. Had there been copyrights on folk tunes and ragas, and had there been a ruckus everytime a song critically followed one of them to convey its emotional content, what form of legacy of film music could we expect to have on this day? It could have forced us to be far more original than we have been. Perhaps, it would have brought in a trend of originality the lack of which the anonymity of the composers of classical and folk tunes has fostered in the very first few decades of Indian film music; and the lack of access to international music has fostered afterwards. Or quite to the contrary, it could have put too much pressure of creativity on the composers resulting in the death of Indian film music as a respectable form of modern Indian music. There's yet another point in support of this practice of lifting of music. Today, contemporary music in India is extremely rich. It's not surprising to notice the symbiotic coexistence of various forms of music in a single composition these days. In fact, 'fusion music' is quite fashionable these days, blending Indian and Western music quite seamlessly. No, I don't mean that fusion music is about lifting music from anywhere. What I mean to say is that what appears as a practice of stealing intellectual property by our composers may essentially be an evidence of our tradition of never copyrighting anything. Music has been in production for much longer than practices of recording it and selling it have been. Perhaps, liberalising the intellectual property rights issues has been one fantastic way of ensuring the perpetualisation of compositions which were good. Compare this with the Open Source revolution in software engineering. Indians seem to have invented open-source practices quite early on with reference to music. Great composers leave the stage pretty soon, while their compositions keep reverberating years afterwards. What's like stealing music when the original composer is still around, sounds like a tribute to the great artist when he is gone. More importantly, even if you are essentially piggybacking on someone else's creativity when he is gone and forgotten, he has no way to come after you and sue you! Notwithstanding the legal issues, there's surely an ethical difference between stealing someone's work, and paying tribute to him by playing it to others. Where does one draw a line? I am sure there are many ways of answering this question, and not one good way of doing that. I will close by drawing your attention to my thoughts about India's response to terrorism. Do you see the parallel? Similar to that context, even here in the context of music, we Indians are steady in practices which look distasteful and dishonourable in a restricted logical sense. And similar to that other context, we seem to be doing no worse than anybody else in the field of music. In fact, at least in music, India can boast of a richer legacy than elsewhere, and an international recognition which is fast growing.

This contradiction between a logically distasteful thing apparently yielding good long term results is a fairly interesting matter to think on!

Mumbai Blasts

After coming so close to an incident of terrorism last december in IISc, my sensitivity towards these events has surely
increased somewhat. Earlier, it was no better than callousness. Like millions others, I used to think that these are
events of some other world, which affects me no more than events happening in a movie. Now, things matter at least a bit
more than that.

Mumbai blasts this tuesday was again rather close. Three of my bosom friends, and many BE classmates are in Mumbai. I
called them up, messaged them, and did all that usual lot to ascertain their safety after the blast. If at all, my use of
the wireless network was one more contributer to the collapse of the communication network immediately after the incident!

...And one would again wonder why Indians are so quick in getting on with their lives after such incidents. IISc was back
in its usual laid back way within an hour of that shootout. The terrorist escaped. A professor died. Prof. Vijay Chandru
got hurt badly. And yet, we were sipping tea at tea board within an hour, within 50 yards of that place.

Mumbai too is back into its usual hustle bustle. There's hardly any sign of anything having happened.

On the other hand, we hear about the aggressive ways of Israel in recovering that one soldier who was abducted by the
palestineans. And the memories of Russia's response to the Chechen hostage drama about two years ago is still fresh in my
memory. They killed every single terrorist. In turn they lost more lives than they could have saved by kneeling down to
the demands of the kidnappers. There's that way of responding to terrorist threats. Super-aggressive ways which make it
an issue of national pride when terrorists try being aggressive. A good sign to make it clear that the government can be
as aggressive and cruel as the terrorists. So they shouldn't bank upon the pacifism of the normal public. Quite opposite
to India's ways. The whole nation doesn't fight back. Rather they take it as if it's a matter of disgrace that should be
hushed up as soon as possible.

A rather queer parallel pops up in my mind at this point. Incidents of sexual-harrassment are dealt with rather strictly
in other places. In India, there's a strong tendency to hush up the matters. As if the disgrace is more with the victim
than with the perpetrator. Nothing can justify this. Yet, as far as I am aware, events of sexual harrassment are not any
more common in India than elsewhere. I also am not confident that women in India are indeed looked down upon as inferior
to men, any more than anywhere else. And yet, that hushing up thing is unjustifiable.


Acts of terrorism are like molestation of a complete society. And to incidents of terrorist violence, India responds like
its women do to incidents of sexual harrassment. By pretending to ignore it, or at least by not creating a hue and cry
about it. It's not justifiable. There are parallels even in the consequences. India is not any more marred by terrorism
than any other more aggressive nation. Yes, if you count the number of lives lost in various terrorist incidents elsewhere,
it would come nowhere close to the eighty thousand lives lost merely in Kashmir in the last decade and a half. And yet
India moves on. India, so frigid that she doesn't as much as groan when she is being gangraped!! Like an inanimate
automaton, she just gets up and keeps walking.

Our long tradition of non-violence might prompt us to believe that this ugly act of ignoring the wounds and disgrace others
inflict on us stands as a great weapon of survival in the long run. It's true that a handful terrorists will reach
nowhere close to even creating an twitch in a massive body of one billion people by sounding a few crackers. Yet, a long
life earned out of cowardice? Is it the main reason of our civilisation having survived so many millenia? Is this
longetivity worth having? Will the bane of terrorism ever lift from our head? Will we lay ourselves down to be raped
everytime waiting for the day when our violator finally just gets sick of our frigidity and loses interest in us?

Is my writing an angry blog any proof that I too am not one of those frigid Indians?

Postscript: Just watched a documentary in Discovery which talked about the psychological phenomena involved in turning a
person into a human bomb. Some notes from that:
* They are normal humans. Not ferrocious born terrorists as we think.
* Many of them aren't even strongly religious. Some even booze and party. That's contrary to the usual belief that religion
has anything to do with becoming a human-bomb. For instance, there's no positive suggestion in either Quran or Bible
about suicide attacks.
* Such groups originate as small local groups of 4 to a dozen young people and later on merge into bigger and bigger
terrorist outfits.
* All these start in a feeling of strong friendship. Often this feeling becoming so strong that the other relations,
including blood relations, go weaker. Social sequestration happens.
* Mob psychology is strongly at work. The strengthening bonds of friendship finally give place to a strong urge to be
accepted in the fraternity, even if the life has to be laid down.
* Victims don't appear as human beings, but just targets. Bringing into mind that humans are going to be killed could be
disastrous for the execution of their plans.
* 85% of the members of Al-Queda are second generation emigrants. People whose parents had relocated out of their country
are subject to certain unique psychological developments which might prompt them into becoming human bombs.

Ask for Your 25p

In TMC canteen most things are priced some rupees twenty-five paise. And it's been my observation that the man in the counter invariably returns you 25p less for any purchase, even though he has got plenty of 25p coins in his drawer. I had been noticing it for some time. I asked him today. He silently returned me that 25p. I persisted. I politely asked him what happens to the 25p that they regularly don't return. Who takes it? He first tried to ignore me. I still persisted. He became very uncomfortable, and started fidgeting. I told him, very bad! And requested him to hike to prices.

Anyway, there's some corruption going on there. No good at all!
If you or any of your friends, visits TMC canteen, please make sure to ask back your 25p.

Maintenance Overheads of Human Systems

This was yet another interesting part of the very interesting discussion that I had with Shipra and Piyush this Saturday afternoon.

The discussion started at a slightly comic note. I was asked how my water painting was going on. I said fine. Piyush said something about water paintings. I thought telling him a word or two about other intricacies would impress him favourably. Looks like it didn't. His reaction was that when you hear some technical jargon whose realism, utility, and hence necessity you are not convinced of.

He gave quite a eloquent voice to that impression of his, amounting to that humans are in the habit of creating complicated structures which form ecosystems within themselves which are self sustaining and very energy consuming. In most cases such social systems spend most of their resources in maintaining themselves. Some examples that came up to backup this point were:

• Infosys/TCS/Wipro etc. build software solutions for financial firms which earn money out of investments by individuals related to Infosys/TCS/Wipro etc.
• Bell-Labs uses routers sold by Cisco to build solutions which are useful to Cisco.
• Researchers spend enormous resources to write papers most of which are never read by anybody. The best of them get appreciated by a very limited number of people.
• Artists create art that's understood by less and less number of people as they become bigger and more famous.

Piyush was particularly of the opinion that these are overheads. The value consumers of any such things could be modelled as a pyramid with very steep sides which start growing flat only very close to the feet of the pyramid. I asked him if he wanted a pyramid which remains flat throughout (which, by the way, shows that I am a Bong researcher from IISc, Bangalore). He said that he wants a very high pyramid, and a linearly steep one. In fact, he was talking of a structure like a column: Whatever is up there, comes down to everyone (which shows that he's a PG from IIML).

Well, the scenario is factual. But, there's another way of looking at everything. And that's what my key argument was in that discussion. Humans have created a very strict crediting system that prevent intellectual despots from hailing people with whatever junk they conjure. A fairly large portion of the population is the consumer of ideas created by a very small number of people. The whole population is composed of a continuum of everything in between. But it's experimentally proved that ideas which change the face of the earth are hard to get. They come once in decades or even centuries (e.g. Newton's laws, DaVinci's perspectives, the number 'zero', The Turing machine). Then there are subsequent intellectual efforts that build upon these epoch making ideas. If the parent-child relations between ideas are drawn in a treelike structure, the shape will resemble that pyramid we were talking about -- very steep in the top, very flat towards the bottom.

This pyramid must stand. Its power of sustainance and growth gets generated at the apex, and has to trickle down. Each idea generated tries to maximise its reach.

If every idea were allowed to reach a wide audience, it would have been a phenomenally flat pyramid. However, due to small height, it would have been easy for non-authentic candidates to reach the top, may be for a short while. Good ideas would have got mingled in the sea of bad ideas. There would not be any way to tell the good from the bad. A high structure is indeed needed so that the ideas generated are well-uthenticated before they tricle down to the grassroot.

If it had taken the shape of cuboidal column, the top would still be crowded. A fertile mind would always be generating ideas. If there isn't created a sharp enough heirarchy at the top, again there would be race between ideas to maximise their impact.

The steep at top and flat at bottom social pyramid is essentially some kind of equilibrium structure that has been created. One thing to note is that every idea down under is a child of of some seminal idea high up. Hence, it's the manisfestation of that seminal idea in some sense. The fact that esoteric ideas at the top make it to the bottom is an ultimate evidence of their authenticity. There comes a point when the society accepts this and allows that work of intellect to affect its grassroots.

Hence, in summary, a high intellectual structure is essential to create a credit system that saves the society from being impacted by not-so-good ideas. Elements that can contribute to the vertical part of the pyramid are numbered. Hence, the fact that elite circles are also inaccessible to most is the result of the limitedness of the number of people capable of making it there.

Some amount of fraud is involved in this. Unworthy people are heard making comments about art that they don't understand. Greedy industrial houses have a strong influence in determining most of the research that happens. These are essential evils. Well! They exist, though they should not!

But the essential aspect of the high maintenance cost of all allegedly elicist social systems is its attempt to be credible enough before it reaches, and hence impacts the lives of, the general populace.

PS: All that's fine. But it's fun-tastic to mentally change the shape of this pyramid into many things -- a tall column, a flat slab, a cubical box, a tall/short cone, a 3D Gaussian etc -- and see what happens. Each will represent a realistic/hypothetical social/intellectual/economic heirarchy. Each will have its sociological impacts! Nice time pass unless you are too well-read about economics and sociology! :D

How Intelligent Are Humans?

I proposed the following model:

On the one hand, a species, if it is beastly enough, will follow simple natural laws. In case of crisis, the species will usually strive directly for survival, and in most cases it will survive.

On the other hand, as sophistication of the species grows, it will start turning away from the natural rules. An intelligent enough species will have enough predictive machinary with it so that it will be able to predict way before a crisis strikes. Therefore it will be prepared for a larger and larger set of crises. Its survival will be longer.

However, there's this gap between these two varieties. A species may be just intelligent enough to be able to defy natural rulings, but may not be intelligent enough to avoid the following:

• By deviating from the natural rules, it brings on itself crises which grow at a rate faster than its ability to counter them. Finally the species gets annihilated by some demon of its own creation. For example, global warming and other environmental damages caused due to human development.
• By not being able to predict enough and be prepared. Like aliens, natural disasters, epidemics etc.
  
• By having intellectual features which aren't present in other less intelligent species, which eventually turn destructive. For instance, anger, hatred, jealousy, etc that men feel goes beyond the usual features of struggle for existence. Man is well capable of meeting death for something he feels his life stands for. If God forbid, it's associated with something very destructive, the species might wipe itself out in a moment of rage.

Next I suggested that perhaps human species lies in this gap. We might be intelligent enough to create technological dazzle, but might be too weak against our own failings like greed, corruption, terrorism, widespread poverty. Is it possible that there might be growing incipient cracks in the social structure which will eventually so alienate a big portion of the species from the other, that the resulting strife proves fatal to the species. I felt that this musing is more serious than those of science fiction writer. There does seem to be signs that we organisms may just decide to cease to exist when perhaps a simpler organism would try its best to live on and leave back one more generation to prevent extinction. Humans are capable of hating so much that they may decide to finish everything including themselves.

It was a very long discussion. Piyush and Shipra nicely contradicted me on this point. From what I got from their arguments, it's never the case that anybody turns completely suicidal. There's something that one tries to protect even while laying down one's own life. The species is the last thing that everybody would agree to sacrifice. In fact, if everything goes, even humans will behave exactly like other beasts and try their best to protect their progeny.

One interesting insight that Piyush provided was of backup social systems. No human being is a member of a single community. We all create associations with many groups. If one falls, we still belong to multiple others. Therefore, even if a system which seems to pervade our existence collapses, people will quickly fall back to their backup memberships. People always have people who are like them in some way or another. There's always a reason to cooperate. The society can never be neatly and completely get divided into two. These little communities create such intricate mesh of relations that nothing is a strong enough reason to be able to divide the society. The most stark examples of social divide are the world wars. But they reached nowhere close to collapse the social systems of humans. Humans were far far from becoming extinct as a result of the worst things they have done to themselves.

P and S argued that only external factors -- like alien attacks or natural calamities, or internal -- like epidemics -- provide any possible dangers of extinction to the species. Social elements, man's intellectual shortcomings, which might cause him to degrade his surrounding to the point of his own extinction without coming to know of it while he could do anything about it, aren't possibly ever going to wipe out the human race.

I couldn't disagree. But there wasn't of course, anything conclusively proved. We might still be nurturing germs of our extinction. And the danger that we might face from those germs would be because of the fact that we are unaware of their existence, and they might be breeding in the things we take the greatest pride in : our development, our high standards of living...

If such a metaphorical germ exists, then there's no way to know about it. But of course, then it becomes something like a ghost, or an alien. We can't disprove their existence. But that doesn't prove that it makes sense to be scared of them.

But it's a possibility. We should be wary.

A Note on The Notebook Drive

I got slightly involved in this year's notebook drive. But only slightly. I am perhaps not in a position to aggressively participate in social activities right now. But more importantly, I realised that the whole thing was not my type of stuff.

I became a member of 'IISc for Equality' orkut community. I sympathise with anti-reservation protests. I personally don't think that reservations do any good to the country. Hence, I joined the group. The other day, while I was sipping on my tumbler of milk near the mess, these people started gathering for one of their meetings. Quite nonchalantly, I joined them. I was quickly given some small responsibility. I realised that I was getting sucked into the thick of activities quicker than I was comfortable with. Perhaps, I chipped in at the wrong time -- when the activities of the group had already gained momentum; members were pretty excited, almost hyper. I didn't get a fair chance to refuse the little things I was being asked to do. However, my only reason for joining the meeting was coincidence and curiosity!

They are still busy in a very successful notebook drive. A commendable collection of nearly Rs. 80,000 has been done. More is coming. And there's additional contribution in the form of notebooks and other stationery. These will eventually go to the students of the nearby schools which are under-provided with facilities of teaching and learning. A very noble cause! And done with amazing effectiveness.

When during the meeting I came to know of their plans, my interest started getting somewhat kindled, and hence the lack of resistence to responsibilities.

However, in the night, another aspect came to light. 'Notebook Drive' is an event that has been going on in IISc for the last 5 or so consecutive years. It's fairly popular, has earned itself a name, and was already going to happen this year too. There weren't any fine prints to the movement. No political messages.

This time, however, the movement has been taken over by this 'IISc for Equality' people. The message of equality is being passed around along with the notebooks. The idea is: 'This is how you uplift the underprivileged. By providing them with their need for basic education. Not by reserving seats in the premier institutes.' I again nearly fully agree with this message.

I am therefore fully supportive of both 'IISc for Equality' and the 'Notebook Drive.' However, I wasn't comfortable with the idea of mixing them. ND has earned itself a brand name over the last several years. Especially because, noone could call it names in terms of its political leanings. This year, the scenario has got changed. Its effects will probably be felt even in the subsequent years.

I mentioned this issue to the leaders of the movement. They were quite logical in that this was more of a compromise solution, in preference to not doing anything at all or putting in divided efforts as two different teams. They had a point. I suggested that perhaps a better solution would have been to back the 'Notebook Drive' people as outside supporters. Another solution was to make the message of equality loud enough so noone felt cheated after contributing to it. I strongly felt that a person wishing to contribute to ND and not sympathising with IfE should neither be cheated into contributing to a cause he doesn't support, nor should he be prevented from contributing to ND. There's got created a sacrosanct aspect to the concept of ND. Mixing IfE is like violating that!

Unfortunately, these suggestions weren't listened to. I realised that there's some significant amount of game-playing involved here. Negotiations over control, over which message should be louder were going on; statements were being smuggled into the poster which passed IfE messages without letting ND people having a strong argument to oppose it due to its indirectness. I could also sense that there no more was any place for people raising any kind of doubts. I was listened to patiently only perhaps because I share good personal relations with them. But, I could see that their regards to my Devil's advocacy was also almost reaching its limit. The team, all due to its leaders, was all set for action. Time for doubts and arguments was assumed to be past.

Things are overall good. A noble cause is being served with great zeal that's not always seen in IISc. It's being done without too much noise. There's this glitch which made me uncomfortable. But I realise that it's not my business to term the whole thing wrong on that basis. I must say I still support them, although I still say that they should've kept away from the Notebook Drive. They could've actively supported it, and could've posteriori endorsed it. It was somewhat wrong taking control of an almost holy movement with political motives. The response created is a confused mix of people supporting the EfI and those for ND. If EfI claims that the collections denote how much support there is in IISc for their cause, it will be propagating a fallacy.

My stand was therefore to observe caution. I decided to be reactive. I was with them, but was not ready to take strong stands. I am sure, that earns me the status of a coward in the appraisal of the stalwarts of EfI, the way they have been functioning in the past couple of days. But voicing an opinion that's not mine is further from my nature than not voicing my opinion at all.

This episode is a proof of how good things sometimes have to be done with non-ideal methods. I appreciate the EfI/ND people for being active. Their status in this whole game is above mine who is judging the sides sitting in his armchair. This blog is with all due regards to their spirits.

Nice Guys Finish Last!

Topics raise their heads. I reject them if they are cliched. I write them up if they are close to heart. This topic is cliched. Yet, it's too close to heart. And sooner or later I would finally write on it, repeatedly.

Today this wonderful blog motivated me to add my words to it.
(Female readers, in most part, would find the whole thing meaningful from their point of view if they invert the genders in all places in what follows)
Lots of us are unhappy for our singlehood. The loneliness is authentic component of this unhappiness. And there are additional components. Having a girlfriend is the best enough testimony that you have those 'things' in you which a girl likes. It means, you definitely have some attractive components in you. Once that's done, you don't really need to figure out what they are. Having had a girl does irreversible good things to the confidence which then bootstrap the personality in some magical way. Having had an affair, and having broken up, is also better than never having had an affair. Breaking up is a misfortune, an accident. Never having had an affair is a failure.

That's the general line of thought. For most of us, this 'failure' aspect seems far more dominating than the 'loneliness' aspect and contributes majorly to that unhappiness.

Well. I have had my share of woes regarding this matter. As many many other nice guys, I have never had an affair. It hurls me into an abysmal darkness of self-doubts. The summary of all those doubts is: Am I so unattractive that in three decades, not a single soul found me attractive enough to want to make me her own?

One of the instances of the success in brooding away my sorrows is this issue. Brooding hard on this matter has indeed opened up many aspects, which would otherwise have required first hand experience. Clarity has removed some confusions. It's far more peaceful now than it was some years ago. I provide the jist of my self-argumentations on this matter.

1) There might be some relation between one's quality with one's chances of getting a partner. But I feel the correlation is pretty weak. Here, the term 'quality' subsumes everything that can be objectively judged as a good thing to have: nice appearance, intelligence, character, wealth,...
I feel the things which trigger attraction in the opposite sex are either fairly shallow and random, or are far too deeply biological. It might involve some deep rooted calculations regarding the sexual appropriateness as partner. This is evident in the difference in the people's choice of a partner. There's not a single set of qualities which can be marked as sure bet as attractive qualities. In a simpler species, it can be said that a female looks for evidence of masculine powers in men. In humans, it doesn't work. Tastes take a 180 degree phase shift with changing fashions. Many film heroes of past decades who would have young girls swooning about them would be intigating laughter amongs girls of the new generation.

In short, I find that trying to reason about what makes someone attractive to the other sex in terms of things like physique, intelligence, characters and any denomination of power will always prove rather superfluous. Mostly attraction -- not just the first sight one, but the one that sustains longer and has lasting emotional impact -- happens due to unaccountable reasons. These reasons are neither provably shallow and sexual, nor logical and calculable, nor mystical or spiritual.

So, as far as the issue of being qualifiably attractive is concerned, perhaps all of us have some qualities which someone or the other would find very attractive. Which are these qualities? Well, nobody knows. And it depends. If there had been a clear cut answer, the league of royal stags wouldn't have been so big as it is.

2) Of course, this argumentation doesn't bring in a great deal of peace. The next one does.

We are like particles in that cuboidal box -- the one we had been taught about in our lesson of kinetic theory of gases. High energy particles collide more. Low energy particles collide less.

There mayn't be a question of being good or bad (in attractiveness terms) in any universal scale. But there's surely a question of appropriateness of pairing. A good pair of mates requires certain compatibility. It's not the qualities of a person that make him appropriate or inappropriate for pair formation. It's the reactivity between two characters which decides that. Simply put, not all guys can make pair bondings with all girls.

Now, there are guys who are comparable to high energy particle, and guys comparable to low energy ones. Same is the case with girls. Here 'high energy' and 'low energy' don't carry any positive or negative connotation. Some people are active, extrovert, restless, in the move; while some are quiet, peaceful, introvert and sedate. The former class is 'high energy'; the latter, 'low energy'.

Barring some exceptions, it can be said that high energy guys would pair well with high energy girls. Low energy guys would pair well with low energy girls. But due to their very nature, the high energy men and women will check each other out with a higher likelihood as compared to the low energy ones.

A nice guy is not unattractive. He's just low energy. He is less likely to express his emotions and take chances. More likely than not he will create ripples in the heart of a girl of his kind. They in turn are equally less likely than more aggressive damsels to give voice to their feelings. Nice guys, therefore, are quite scientifically less likely to hit it off with an appropriate partner than the more aggressive guys by some kind of square-law.

This unlikeliness and these barriers of shyness also make the first contacts -- if and when they happen -- more intensely emotional. The passion may still remain hidden but they are there. There's a possibility that such people have a way of experiencing love in a way which is inaccessible to the more experimenting creatures. This might also be a kind of protection mechanism for those more sensitive at heart.

3) Yet, it's unfortunate! Here comes to rescue the third argument which might sound somewhat fatalistic, but is sound nevertheless.

A nice guy is a nice person. He mayn't be a nice mate. A human being is just not a biological species. Biology may have its deep definitions of fitness which keep working on us all the time with invincible force. But human beings have created their own definitions which differ from the biological ones. These definitions can't be marked as shallower in an overall sense of the word.

A nice guy may indeed be the loser, an unfit species, in some deep biological sense which might be real, but very inexplicable. He is a winner in terms which are more logical and explicable. Noone has been able to define what that biological fitness means in 100% accurate sense for human race. So, gropping for it is quite unnatural for a nice guy to do. One of the defining aspects of his niceness is his logical and balanced nature. It doesn't suit him to grop around in identity crisis. Rather, it's not in his nature to do it that way. If he tries, he'll make a fool of himself with great odds. Accepting the misfortune associated with being a low energy particle makes much more sense.

Well, again that may sound like quiting the race. But, for a nice guy, the race is merely a nightmare which lasts some moments of naturally unavoidable insecurity. In other times, he's not necessarily in the race of finding a mate. Therefore, he mayn't end up finding one. Again, since biological bases have the advantage of sounding 'natural'; since most of crowd who have paired up already are 'high energy', which means that they would usually be the more visible ones, the feeling of losing out may become quite imposing. But a louder statement mayn't necessarily be true.

A nice guy is a loser in a race which has a larger fan following. Hence, his loss gets more media coverage. This hype may even pursuade him to spiral into self-loathing. But, there're races where he's making great strides. Not many are looking. Not many care. But some do.

Those who care are like us nice guys. Sitting quietly and doing nothing more than reasoning about their loneliness. This will hardly ever make good a real contact. Sigh! But they are there. They must be there. :)

Steve Jobs' Commencement Lecture at Stanford

Listened to Steve Jobs' lecture at Stanford just now. Had read it earlier. But listening and seeing makes a different kind of impact.

And a while ago I was musing about people, their talents, and what they end up becoming.

I have realised over the the years that most of us are endowed with nearly equal amount of intelligence and muscle power in the beginning. OK, not exactly the same, but almost all those gifts considered, the things nearly balance out for most of us. Yet, most of us end up doing well in our lives in varying degrees, and in a variety of ways. The thing that causes that is the motivation. Motivation is like most other god given talents.

If I run and sprint, my leg muscles will grow stronger. If I lift weights, my arms and shoulders will build. If I keep singing, my voice will grow. If I solve lots of puzzles, my analytical skills will improve. Almost all talents grow sharper with practice. In fact, it's only practice that brings in the difference between 'just talented' and a brilliant person. Practise enough, and one can do anything.

But unlike what impression this statement gives, practising is not so much a matter of chance as it looks. Whether we end up practising hard on any of our god-given qualities is determined by another more fundamental god-given qualities. Motivation.

And sharpening this talent, enjoying higher levels of motivations on the average is usually quite hard to achieve. It requires other things. Bringing up, culture, triggering circumstances (like something very tragic or something really happy) and perhaps good genes.

How does one, with whatever initial conditions he has been born with, increase his motivation to live a fuller life?
Well! Will tell you when I find it!

Tolstoy

Tolstoy's stories make us look closer at ourselves. He knows and represents us better than we know ourselves. Each trepidation, each tribulation of the mind is exposed so vividly that we just can gape at the eventfulness of this little mind of ours. And yet, he creates this illusion of innocence as if he is just an observer and has no thoughts of his own. He just describes, without mentioning any opinion, any bias -- just description. But that description will be so excruciatingly clear that if you survive it, you can't but come away with a sea of thoughts, confusions, confessions, resolutions and revelations.

Tolstoy is God!

(Perhaps, it's a bias of an Indian, but I have found Premchand a master of comparable calibre as far as psychological vividness of description is concerned.)

My friends,
  My letter to you in the morning, and the adjoining thoughts, have been churning in my head. There was one old bookmarked link I had grazed through once, and had refused to think over again, in a more optimistic mood. Today, I was drawn to re-read it, and think a bit on it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,,1746948,00.html

  No! Don't listen to Ayn Rand. There's still hope. We can bring up a new
 generation that manufactures love and harmony at the same rate as they
 manufacture money. We can't change the corrupt politicians. But we can
 change their kids who can be gradually shown the falseness of the maxim
 that one can't prosper (live) without dishonesty.

   And don't think Adam Smith's postulates work in India too. Our
 becoming rich doesn't ensure the nation's wealth.
  It needs us to accept that there's something bigger than our individual
 prosperity which needs a conscious design and intellectual and emotional
 inputs. We can do something. We must!

 We can change the world. Come back, you all!  :)  Love,
Sujit

Ritesh Toshniwal wrote:

Dear Sujit,
> 
> Rightly said that we can't do a Rang De Basanti - kill the politicians and
> end the apathy. But we can definitely instill these values in our kids -
> values that are progressive, that don't recognize casteism etc.
> 
> I didn't quite follow your argument about economic prosperity though - our
> becoming rich doesn't ensure nation's wealth. Are you asking every person to
> rise over money matters and see the problem from a high level view - give up
> materialistic views and accept the spiritual or more wise views of humans
> loving humans? Or are you saying that capitalist approach is not good for
> India and it wouldn't benefit India in the long run? Why do you think that
> way? That will be interesting to hear.
> 
> Junta,
> 
> What do you think of the current situation in India? How do you see it?
> 
> Hoping to see some intellectually stimulating thoughts from the thinking
> gurus of our group!  :) 
> 
> Take care.
> 
> Cheers,
> Ritesh
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  

Hi Ritesh,

ABOUT THIS GROUP
---------------------------
 I feel this group does well in keeping us informed of each other --
who's moving to which part of the world, who's getting married and who's
not, who's getting kids, who's switching jobs etc. I am thankful to this
egroup for that. But what's been lacking is a visible sign of the fact
that each one of us is an engineering graduate, stationed advantageously
in profession and society in general. I feel, we all are doing
reasonably well in our lives. We are in a position to build and share
with each other our views about other greater, less trivial things.
Other guys! Please be vocal. Bash me up if I sound offending (though the
fact that I have been generously allowed to be a part of this group
indicates that a bit of frankness won't be taken as an offense. And
after all why do you have scientists? To ruffle up a few feathers, na!).
But do voice your opinions, abashedly.

THANK YOU!
-----------------
 Having said that, I thank you Ritesh a hundred times for responding. I
was thinking that my two letters would be lost after causing some
momentary disquiet. I am hopeful that some good and wise thoughts will
be exchanged on this matter in this group.

THANK YOU AGAIN!  :) 
------------------------------
 By putting forth your questions, you encourage me to be a bit more
explicit about my opinion.  :) 

 You got it right! I do think that our becoming rich doesn't ensure
nation's wealth. Am I asking every person to rise over money matters and
see the problem from a high level view - give up materialistic views and
accept the spiritual or more wise views of humans loving humans? No! Not
every person. Yes, perhaps I am asking you to do that, and Nachiket, and
Shruti, and Raji, and Shailesh, and RiteshP and Suyog and Suvarna ...
and all my friends in this group. Most importantly, I have always been
asking 'ME' to do that! I am asking only those whom I love and feel I
have a right upon; I am asking only those, who, I feel, have the
capability of giving it a serious thought.

STATUS DIFFERENCES AND MERIT
I don't think there's a possibility of an equally rich society in any
foreseeable future. Differences will be there. Those differences will
generally be respected if it's provable that they arise out of
differences in merit. There'll be aberrations: Criminal elements who
don't respect these variances and attempt to violate the equilibrium.
But in such a society which has variances closely commensurate with
merit, such elements will be rare and few, and can be handled by
symptomatic methods: force, appeasement, rehabilitation.


 The whole issue of reservations is such a rage because of one single
reason : the status of merit as the singlemost determining factor of
one's place in society. Reservations are institutionalising the idea of
status being matter of chance, being decided by a vote-hungry corrupt
government for its potential vote-bank. The general faith in the
proportionality of status to merit is going to disappear after this.
Every chap who loses his faith will be a potential criminal. And
tragically, there will be a very big overlap between this set of
potential criminals, and set of the most meritorious and potent members
of the society.



SOCIETY AND BODY
---------------------------
 But if variances are created by chance happenings -- lotteries,
robberies, discovery of oil-reserves by a tiny few, sudden focus of the
developed world on the cheap intellectual labour in the country --
riches do suddenly start flowing into the society, but, it doesn't
trickle through in a healthy manner.

 Similar to a starving chap suddenly hailed with endless source of food.
He will eat and not exercise. He will grow fat and unhealthy.

Similarity:
 I feel, in some sense, we all are cells in the body of our national
society. This body, off late, has suddenly started eating more. Some of
us are at points in the body which have the advantage of getting the
lion's share of this extra intake. It's not our fault. But mind you,
it's not fully our merit too. It's a chance happening. If it continues
happening for too long, soon starving organs will stop cooperating.
Noone will have an argument against this lack of faith in them. The
differences should be provably commensurate to merit. If they aren't, we
can't expect conformance from the disadvantaged ones.

Dissimilarity:
 But unlike cells of the body, we are intelligent creatures who have the
capability to be aware of this obesity and its consequences. The
individual cells, whether starving or overfed, will last only as long as
the body is alive. We can't ignore the fact that the whole body must
consciously get up and work out for staying fit. If this working out
hasn't been in the regular schedule of this body, it has to be inducted
consciously. It just won't happen by itself. Helpless cells are in no
position to make that happen to the body. But human members of the
society do possess the power to start that process in their society.

 The objective of drawing the parallel between the society and the body
was to hint at the fact that riches don't have an inherent property of
getting distributed in the social body so as to cause an increase in the
overall health. Increase in overall consumption will not just not mean
an increase in health, it may even prove detrimental, if healthy methods
of disseminating that extra intake aren't consciously devised by the
responsible members of the society

BRAINS OF THE SOCIETY
----------------------------------
 Unlike brain cells, which never accumulate fat, the brain cells of the
society consider it their right to accumulate and grow obese.

  Now, who are the brains of the society? If we claim that it's we,
then we also must relinquish our rights to grow obese, to accumulate. Am
I talking about renunciation? Am I talking about spiritual
enlightenment? I don't know! But in this social body, every cell has a
choice to take up a role. But definitely I am saying this: Every one
doesn't need to be a neuron; once someone selects that role for himself,
a lot of onus comes in.

 Perhaps the comparison is simplistic. But it does give us many
directions to think in. There're similarities as well as differences. We
need to carefully examine them and be wiser.


CONCLUSION
------------------
 I will dare answer your question on my views about 'capitalism' if I
see that this discussion is indeed evoking interest in everybody in the
group. Otherwise, as they say in all angreji talks 'May be, we will take
it off-line!'  ;) 

 In short, my arguments will sound similar to the above. But will be
more directed towards economy and India.

LOVE
-------
Cheers and love,  :) 
Sujit

Reservations

I started this blog by copy-pasting an emotionally charged letter I wrote this morning to my engineering classmates' group. I thought, I could add value to the blog by chronicling the developments regarding this issue in as I see it.



HI friends,
AIIMS people have confirmed that this is a hoax. The earlier SMS (or
mail) reporting that certain students had collapsed during the strike
was also denied. I myself have no way to know. But I feel, in moments
when emotions are running high, a single hoax may cause things to go out
of control. Be careful in forwarding unconfirmed information. Lots of
people have already taken to streets, petitions are being signed, and
there is a general concern on the whole matter. Rest assured there's no
apathy in the intellectual community regarding this issue.

I don't know if we will succeed in stopping this bill from being
passed, but this will be a crucial point in the history of our country.
We had just started thinking that India is arriving. We thought that
with a bit of more hard work, perseverance and faith we could make our
nation what we think it actually is. This bill brings us down with a
thud! There isn't a way to tell whose fault it is. Perhaps, the notion
of India shining was a hoax. Perhaps because GDP and Forex is rising,
some handful of us are enjoying a more expensive lifestyle, we have been
fooled to assume that India is going ahead. May be in the dazzle of so
much riches, we have forgotten many of our fellows. Their jealousy is
not justifiable, yet it is understandable.

Or perhaps, it's being framed by social parasites who depend on merit
never realising its own value. There are definitely elements in the
society who don't have enough survival capabilities in them to survive
by themselves. They need a host whose vital power they can suck out for
their own survival. They will live only as long as the host survives.
They won't let the host die; nor would they let it go. Ayn Rand would
ask us to leave this country and go elsewhere. She would say that the
virtue we have been taught as 'patriotism' is the first vicious dope
that has been planted in us so we will never be able to free ourselves
from the clutches of our parasites. Perhaps, Rand would argue that at
this juncture forsaking the motherland would be the greatest service
that we could do her. Parasites will automatically dry away in absence
of the hosts.

I don't know! It's very tragic.

Love,
Sujit

Interesting links:
Protest Rally in Bangalore (Pritesh's account)

A fumbling Arjun Singh - Interview given to IBNLive

An Economically Divided India - Could these developments be but side-effects of the skewed development that we are so excited about?

Youth for Equality

Voting for the Closest Competitor

Mao's best students - Chandan Mitra

What's So Special About R. K. Laxman?

Some Zen master was heard saying 'A good sense of humour is the highest form of intellect.' Think of a person who could churn out humour for now nearly 60 years, day after day, year after year. With unabated standards. That's RKL for you!

Making a good cartoon once in a while is one thing; making excellent cartoons everyday for so many decades is nothing but genius.

A sense of humour at someone's cost has an element of inherent malice. But what do you say of a humour that's at the cost of oneself? I feel the cute Common Man always placed at a point from which he can't do anything but hopelessly observe the ludicrity of current affairs is a deep hurt in the heart of all Indians. RKL satires, not on politicians or corrupt bureaucrats, but on the Indian's absurd helplessness -- that's the invariant feature of all Laxman cartoons.
...and yet Laxman must have unsettled many a corrupt person by the very menace that all his cartoons seem to make silently to all parasites of the society: 'The common man is watching you; and one day he will give you his verdict.'
Let's see when.
Hats off to the genius!

A Bit on Drawing and Cartooning

I have observed that drawing is one of the forms of art that the largest number of kids try their hands on. However, it's one of those, which suffers a horrendously large number of dropouts too. Among the grownups you will find almost every body saying 'Ya! used to draw in the childhood. But then ...'

On the contrary, you may find a plenty of people retaining, and often even developing, their interest afterwards in their adulthood in various kinds of performing arts: music and dramatics in particular.

Drawing is a private art. Stardom either doesn't come or comes very late. The process of drawing is a lonely toil and mostly very boring for the impatient.

But I feel what makes drawing a particularly difficult thing to master is the big gap between being skilled and being artistic. After working hard for years, the rewards from copying another work are limited. Creating original art is the real challenge. And is very very difficult! Having a skillful hand is of course the bare necessity. The second level, which borders at artistic is the ability to break down a given drawing into components and handle them dexterously.

But what qualify drawing as an art -- which essentially has to be a medium of expression of something original -- is the third level. It is the power of observation and the power of imagination.

When the subject of drawing, whether a painting, a sketch or a cartoon, start popping out of the real life surrounding, it's an entry to the wonderful world of art. The artist's interpretation of the real world translates the beauty already present in the world, into a form that is visible to even an eye which is not so astute as the artist's. That beauty could be present in the colour, tone, composition, shapes. Or the beauty could lie the subject being depicted and the style of depiction. It could be an emotion, an event, an idea, a story, a joke or satire. Or just in the abstract something which can exist only in the mind.

But even further, when the mind starts conjuring magical realities in spite of the real world, the artist has really arrived.

Drawing deals with the most predominant sensory capability: sight. Yet, there's so little formalisms available. It's said that 'sound' directly connects to the soul. Perhaps that's why music could be so well formalised. Just a thought, that was.

Cartooning is a difficult form of drawing. It has to tell a story, joke or pun through a picture. Its casual appearance makes it look easy to draw. I think we grow up thinking of cartoons as a bad form of painting or sketching. Moreover, most of us hate drawing human figures in our childhood, simply because they are harder to get right, and harder still to get impressive. This removes cartoons from our good books early on, since cartooning is not just all about drawing people, animals and all living creatures, but about distorting them beyond proportions. And through the distortions, the essential features of the subject aren't just to be preserved, but have to be accentuated. I think, this habit of cartoonists to show as if drawing living creatures, which already is a more difficult thing for beginners, is such an easy thing for them, intimidates many. What's funniest about a cartoon for an onlooker is the put off for the aspirant cartoonist.

I feel that the state of affairs in the field of cartooning in India is very pathetic. We have very few cartoonists to reckon with. R. K. Laxman, of course. But he has had his career. After the stroke he got a couple of years ago, he has put up a brave fight and has continued to draw. I can only feel my reverence for him growing with his passion for his trade. But unfortunately, the draughtsmanship in those cartoons has deteriorated, and quite expectedly so. One side of his body is now paralysed. His movements are severely restricted by the after-effects of stroke.
We have Ajit Ninan and Mario Miranda. We have SD Phadnis, but he's now quite old. I am sorry but that's it about the list of Indian cartoonists to reckon with! :( You can count them on your fingers!

Arranged Marriages and Love Marriages

In the dinner party of Niranjan's birthday, this topic came up: Which is better -- arranged or love?

Like the debate on beauty pageants it's a cliched topic. But unlike that it fails to sound repetitive, because it closely concerns all of us. We, almost all of whom are at a juncture of marriage, perhaps. We all have to make that choice sooner or later.

One of us -- a female -- had become quite sour about the whole process of arranged marriage. The parental intervention, the stiff introduction between prospective bride and groom, everything is 'yucky' for her. She had faced things like 'What are your interests?' 'Are you religious?' 'You must adjust with my parents.' 'Do you want to work after marriage?' etc so many times that she found it disgusting, almost hateful.

The whole idea of getting into a lifelong relation with a person whom one hardly knows, all because parents like him and his family, horoscopes match, and he is earning well and is settled abroad, seemed to her awefully obnoxious.

I had a short stint with the process of arranged marriage last year, by starting to look for a bride. I failed miserably to get myself really going in that direction. Unlike my lady friend above, I really don't have anything strictly against arranged marriages. But one reason why it didn't work out for me was that I was not at all enjoying the process. Something was wrenching my heart through the whole thing. I didn't know what it was, but I had to finally give up pretty early. The ordeal was just too much to bear. Also, it was a huge overhead for my mind, and was clearly interfering with my thoughts. In interest of my research work too, I had to postpone it to some later time if at all.

But, there are strong arguments made in favour of arranged marriages. The most commonly cited argument is statistical. It looks that success rate of marriages is higher among arranged ones. Love marriages also have a higher divorce rate. Another argument that is made is the logicalness and well-roundedness of the process. The decision is taken not under the effect of some strong -- almost mind boggling -- emotion which potentially warps our decision powers, but through a logical and social process, involving many opinions and taking into consideration many authentic points. Arranged marriage needn't be looked at as it used to be 50 years ago. Things have changed. The opinion of the bride and the groom are duly included in the decision making. A sufficiently long courtship period follows the initial negotiations in which the bride and the groom get to know one another and develop the bonding that may lead to a marriage they look forward to. An abortion of the whole thing if the bride and groom don't get along well is also not completely out of order for some forward looking families.

The arguments against arranged marriage are as follows. The 'success rate' of arranged marriages is more a 'survival rate'. Often couples drudge on in their marriage just because of social stigmas about separation even though they may just hate each other. This predicament can't be counted as a success. It's worse than a separation. Regarding the initial negotiation and the ensuing courtship, a major objection is the intentionality of the process. Right from the first step, the fact that it all would end in a marriage is there in every body's mind. Interactions, evaluations etc. all get biased in presence of this.

Counter-arguments to this are again that marriage is indeed a social arrangement, and that aspect can't be ignored. The involvement of the society in the making of a marriage is undeniable and can't be wished away. The elaborateness of the the processes leading to a marriage, and the elaborateness of the associated rituals of marriage, are all symbolic of the social importance of this contract, and are partially directly toward adding the 'social balast' that would keep it going at times of low spirits, perhaps at the cost of never letting it become a roller coaster ride of love and romance.

Well, things are in flux. I think there're people for whom arranged marriage is appropriate, while for some love marriages are appropriate. I don't deny the possibility that for some perhaps a live-in is correct, for some a marital commune is correct, for some perfect promiscuity may be the right thing. Right diagonally, a life of avowed celebacy may also be right for some.

Leaving out the extreme cases, let's try to identify the sections for whom arranged marriages might work, and those who should go for a love marriage. The ulterior motive is also to find out where I belong.

First and foremost, the concept of marriage is open to individual interpretation. The proportion of social involvement and personal emotions is subjective. Mind you! I am not saying 'arbitrary'. I am saying 'subjective'. That is, it may be different from person to person, but is decided not on personal whims and fancies but on a whole gamut of factors.

These factors are: our cultural background, our nature, our personality, our occupation and practical issues like location, nature of profession among others. I think, doing justice to each of these aspects is impossible within a writeup that wants to be called a blog and not a book. I will try to contemplate on as many in as limited words as possible.

Our background defines largely what the marriage would circumstantially lead to eventually. In a traditional Indian setting, it would mean a very highly increased interaction between two large families. Even to this day, this setting persists in many of the very affluent and modern families. Reports galore that this family system is regaining its vitality among urban affluents due to the many advantages it provides. In this setting, the highly social nature of marriage can't be ignored. A nicely arranged marriage would be a wise thing here.

A different scenario arises in the typical urban people. Nuclear families with much reduced interaction with the extended family, fast paced professional life, frequent migrations, have reduced the presence of the concept of family as a strong binding force in people's life. Parental bonding, after the kid is grown up and has moved out of home, is predominantly at the emotional -- and not practical -- level. In this case, the relation with the spouse is expectedly going to be strongest bonding that a person would have in his life. The interaction of the spouse with parents is going to be occasional. Marriage is hence a much more personal affair here. Love marriage looks fine here.

Secondly, a clarification is in place here as to what we mean by a 'love marriage.' There're hybrid forms : arranged love marriage (both know each other through family; families are tacitly OK with the alliance; emotions grow under the auspices of the families), and love arranged marriage (emotions are already there; families are consulted at a late stage with high probability of consent; subsequent proceedings happen like in arranged marriage). There's yet another form : 'personally arranged marriage.' The bride and groom 'decide' to marry each other, may be or may be not involving friends and family in the decision process. The emotional dynamics don't radically differ from that of arranged marriage, but, as is clear, the marriage is a personal event, not a social one.

A marriage preceded by conditions straight out of a Mills and Boon is what we can all agree to mean by a 'love marriage.' Somewhere in the course, there'll be this stretch where there's a storm of uncontrollable emotions, attraction (which I will refrain from calling 'sexual' considering there might be some romantically inclined among my readers). A stage where nothing matters but that fact that separation is very painful, and togetherness is just bliss. No reasons, no decisions, no society, no nothing. Just a rapid undulation between deadly pain and heavenly ecstacy. That's usually understood as the feeling of 'love'. That feeling may become the prime motivator for a marital alliance. If that happens, the marriage is undesputably a 'love marriage.'

What leads to such stormy feelings? Sorry to say, but I am inclined to attribute it again to our biology. We all are looking for mates, and the presence of suitable mates instigates biological reactions which are way too deep in our genes for us to be able to comprehend them, leave alone controlling them. I am almost convinced that a purely conscious appreciation of good qualities may lead to appreciation, admiration, or in the extreme case, to love of the friendly kind. To stir up attractions of such unearthly proportions as happens in a romantic relation must require something else than mere conscious appreciation of good qualities. It's either biology, or mystical. Being of an agnostic type, I prefer the former.

The above clarification was to point out the involuntariness of the process of falling in love. Love happens; we don't do it (here I am reminded of some very forgettable Hindi movie song here which says that in Hindi). Hence, one can't really decide to fall in love. Yes, one can decide to stiffle that storm while it's still brewing in interest of other considerations; or may let it go full-swing and take control. A marriage is a deliberate action and is always arranged. It may follow the event of love (if that's already happened), or may not.

So, neither the falling in love, or the premise of social circumstances are controllable in some sense. Both may be the reason for marriage. If God forbid, they contend, and not cooperate, for being the prime antecedant of a marriage, which ought to be chosen?

The uncotrolledness of love (AKA attraction) definitely speaks against it and has been used as an argument by elders to support arranged marriages. But the biological aspect, instead of being taken as a debasing factor, should be considered a great natural indication of the appropriateness of an alliance. The biological attraction has been said to result from some kind of deep biological calculations that happen at the level of our genes. It might be an indicator that there's biological match there. This may result in the creation of a healthy progeny, which again has never been ousted from the list of prime reasons of marriage.

Predating all these arguments, there's an issue of a much more practical nature. Many of us have been brought up in a strongly traditional upbringing. This has given us a corresponding personality. Then, we have been hurled into circumstances where things are in no way traditional. Our present speaks for a typical love marriage. Our past warrants an arranged one.

Talking very practically, to create a sufficiently large probability of success in falling in love and coming across a suitable alliance through it would mean going through it several times while you have time. This requires certain degree of aggressiveness in the disposition.

I have known people who have gone through several full-blown relations within a span of a few years. Within this span they have gone through all the experiences that qualify each of those flings as a full-blown affair. These people, assuming they have an idea what it means to be in a love from which you won't eventually fall out, stand a very high practical chance of coming across a suitable alliance.

On the other hand, I have never been in a relation. I have been in circumstances which I could say as threshold of a romantic relations. It's never worked out for me beyond that. But the shock and dejection that has followed each of these experiences has always left me numb with pain, enough to keep me from feeling any tingle of similar emotions for many year to come. Clearly, people like me surely stand far fewer chances of meeting a suitable aliance through the way of love. All that just going by numbers.

This puts us (me!) in a very knotty predicament. Love is no commodity one can purchase in the market. You wait for it to come your way. Experience has told that for people like me it's not an everyday matter to meet love. Time's limited.

On the other hand, somewhere deep down, that high school lad, who had very timely turned into a man, still craves for that creature who will turn my life topsy turvy, and more importantly, will allow me to do the same to hers! We all simultaneously live in several worlds. Spiritual, intellectual, social. And at some point we have a natural propensity to seek a proof of our suitability in that world. We also live in a biological world, the Darwinian world. We all have a natural wish to prove our fitness in that world too!

Hm.

Well, I know I am exposing myself in a very obscene way. But that with a confidence that I am echoing the predicament of a huge number of eligible bachelors and spinsters of the world.

The bottomline is: For many of us, it's hardly the question of whether we should go for love marriage or arranged marriage. I don't think, many of us are in a position of making many choices regarding this. For us the prime question is: how on earth do we reconcile with whichever of these two might eventually come our way?

Debate on Beauty Pageants

Well! Cliched topic! Not my cup of tea.

Writing it because the other day, late in the night, I saw almost a complete TV programme after ages. I don't remember when I had last done that. It was a public debate being conducted by star journalist Barkha Dutt on 'Should Beauty Pageants be Taken Seriously?' Although cliched, I still got to hear some interesting points of view. I will try to record them impartially. I will end with a slightly partial view of mine.

I will tag the negative points with a (-) and the positive ones with a (+).

(-) Commodification of women : The central theme of beauty pageants is still physical beauty. It's a repackaged repetition of the age-old treatment of women as commodities.

(+) But these days, the beauty pageants involve non-trivial amount of intelligence. The participants are not just physically beautiful, they are smart and intelligent.

(-) It's a short cut to fame.

(+) People have various strengths, strong intelligence, strong bodies, etc. They all use it to their own benefit, for making money, fame, career. What's wrong if some one has a beautiful body and uses it for making a career?

(+) A pageant contestant prepares rigorously; and a model's life is a hard one.

(-) The beauty and confidence of the pageants is more a media projection. There're much more beautiful and smarter women walking the streets. Winning a pageant doesn't mean in any way that the person is one of the most beautiful really.

(+) People's consciousness about staying and looking healthy has improved over years.

(-) Appearance related stresses, depression is also on a rise. Anorexia is becoming a common problem.

(-) If beauty queens are fit to be someone's role models, why do beauty queens always announce Mother Teresa as their role models in the QA session?

(+) The particular beauty queen participating in the debate (can't recollect her name; she was quite a beautiful lady) quickly announced that she'd mentioned Sushmita Sen as her role model.

(-) Pageants vow their commitment for the upliftment of the society, helping starving children and other charity. They are quick to forget that as soon as they get their first break in bollywood.

(+) The beauty queen said that she has been involved in charity activities for the last 6 years and continues to be so irrespective of the title.

(-) Why Miss India? Why not Miss Femina, or Miss Palmolive? They aren't the picture of 'the' perfect Indian woman. They shouldn't be named what they are far from.

(+/-) Kiran bedi said that it's a very lucrative career attracting many talented young women, and involves big money. It's good, nothing wrong about it. But it's another good career. It doesn't define a universal role model for anyone. It may, for some; but not for every body.

There were many more points made both in favour and against the motion. I don't recollect all of them right now.

My point of view

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Well! Expectedly, I lean more towards the traditional picture of an Indian, and my views aren't unexpectedly liberal.

But, I don't shun beauty pageants. No way! To an extent, I admire the 'nominal' spirit. The pageants showcase are genuinely bright girls in most cases. They should be given points for that.

But, to the question of whether beauty pageants create role models, and whether they should be taken seriously, my answer leans gently towards negative. The most prominent output of the pageants is a brand ambassador whose skyrocketted fame can be used for a definite period of time (which is usually rather brief) by the multinationals sponsoring the event. The second important output is starlets for the Bollywood releases of the next couple of years. Almost all beauty queens end up in bollywood. A small fraction of them make it really big there. But definitely their end target is Bollywood or modelling.

Media's coverage of such events is tremendous. That happens because a large number of people are interested. And such large numbers are created not by the intelligence factor, but by the (physical) beauty factor. The large number of people who show interest to see those programmes are interested in seeing pretty faces flashing beautiful smiles, fluttering their eyelashes, moving gracefully in revealing evening dresses. In the swimsuit round, the judges and pageants might be genuinely interested in judging the pageant's health and comfort with the entire body. But the large number of spectators, who make the extravagance of the events possible, have no such noble intentions which scrutinising the exposed flesh which goes on air. This large number causes a bloating up the importance of such events. The competition becomes commensurately cut throat. But all said and done, what's tested in a beauty pageant are qualities of an ordinary order. A fairly ordinary level of intelligence, a fairly ordinary level beauty and grace, packed in an extraordinary amount of guts, only to stand on stage and beam plastic smiles. It's a model, and film-star. A product. Not an ideal woman.

We have idolisable women all around us. Two people present in that debate were two instances: Kiran Bedi, and Barkha Dutt. There are many extra-ordinary women in the acquaintence circles of each one of us. What good qualities -- grace, intelligence, courage, confidence, love, care, feminity -- we get to see only in meagre quantities in a beauty pageant are available in plenty among the women we know personally : our friends and colleagues, that simple Mom back home, those school teachers we remember from our childhood. The only thing that's available in plenty in a beauty pageant is that same thing -- female flesh -- which has always topped in the list of man's desire, but has never, and will never, be considered at par with the above qualities. Men will look for female flesh in nondescript places - movies, sleazy magazines, so-called fashionable streets...even brothels, and now beauty pageants. Wrapping that up with trivial amounts of other higher end qualities is like draping a naked body with a translucent dress. It may add an aesthetic aspect for the artistically inclined, but it doesn't anyway take away the nudity.

I repeat, it's nothing wrong to sell flesh. I consider even prostitution a very legitimate trade from the prostitute's point of view. I consider it a great hypocricy to look down at prostitution as a wrong thing, leave alone sinful. The only thing that makes it a trade of a low order is the requirement it satisfies: man's carnal desire. Prostitution is not characterised by a lack of sophistication, intelligence, courage etc. We have high-profile prostitutes who garnish their skill set with plenty of these qualities. Neither does prostitution get characterised by the mere act of commercial copulation. What characterises prostitution is the requirement it targets. It doesn't target intellect or aesthetic sense, though a call-girl may very well display her intellect and aesthetic sensibility to ensnear her client, a strong turn on for many sophisticated gentlemen (well...me included ;) ). Prostitution targets sexual desire, and uses it as its prime vehicle for money earning. Prostitution wouldn't survive if man hadn't been grappling around to satiate that insatiable fire. Any trade which critically depends for its existence on this grappling around of man, be it movie-stardom or modelling, can't be put in any different category than prostitution. It's just a matter of degree; there's no qualitative difference. The other aspects, which are boldly advertised as the higher order aspects aren't dominant enough to figure as the prime aspects of these pageants. As I mentioned earlier, beauty pageants depend for their existence on a large body of audience whose objective of taking interest in such events has none of those higher end requirements. Beauty pageants would fail to be so extravagant in absense of these lusty viewers. Modelling would have failed to reach such high-profile status in absence of this extravagance. How seriously should such events be taken? I don't know!

Regarding creation of role models, I see a distinct priority inversion happening in beauty pageants. Priority inversion between brain and beauty. Brain is an asset of higher order than body. I won't listen to arguments disputing that. An intelligent woman who is also beautiful stands strong as a role model. She will be respected, worshiped, loved and desired in proper proportions. A physically beautiful woman who is also somewhat brainy is a very different thing. Most will give a damn to intelligence if it's the secondary attribute. A model, or a film actress may be a very intelligent woman in her private life, but the huge crowd of youngsters who idolise her and want to become like her will hardly have anything to do with that. It's her physical beauty, and her stardom (which doesn't have much to do with her intelligence) which draws fans. If someone asks what's wrong in younsters idolising someone because of her physical beauty and the resulting stardom, I don't have a clear answer. All I can say is, if many-many youngsters go that way, something wrong will happen to the community in general. I will always pray that the number of youngsters choosing beauty-pageant winners as their role models be limited to a small number.

This leads to the final aspect of my opinion: the loudness of glamour world. I felt a little worried by the fact that glamour of movies and fashion world has a strong effect on the young mind. A yet to mature mind sees only that aspect and gets drawn without bothering to consider the matter in all its aspects. The largeness of fan-following that glamour world draws is not surprising. But my worry was partially extinguished because I also realised that the effect of this shallow glitter is also shallow on most. Our teachers, our mothers -- who on the one hand have only a very limited number of potential fans -- have a much more profound effect on our psyche. Intellectuals, social workers, teachers and mothers (sisters and wives) have their own respective sets of fan-following and idolisers: restricted in number, but far more stronger. The scenario seems beautifully balanced!

For me, the nobility and idolisability of our profession (or occupation) depends on which of our qualities is it that creates the fan following, irrespective of the number of fans. We deeply idolise our Moms -- or saints like Mother Teresa -- because it's created of the greatest of all qualities: love, which connects to the soul. We idolise intellectuals, politicians, teachers, scientists because of the quality of the next order -- intelligence and brains, which connects to the mind. We idolise film-stars and models because of their beauty and celebrity status, which connects to the body.

The preference order is rather clear.

Terminator Which Never Started

A question about the story of the film Terminator has always intrigued me. The other day, I asked this question to the instructor of the Philosophy of Science course. He didn't give a direct answer, very like a philosopher. He, instead, tagged me as a 'believer'. I couldn't fathom his response, hence won't comment on it. I will reiterate my question instead.

The story of Terminator is summarised as follows:

Terminator 1
John Connor is going to be a saviour of some kind of human kind in a futurististic war that's going to happen in 2029 -- humans against AI machines. To ascertain a victory in this war, the machines decide to assassinate John Connor, by killing his mother, way back in 1984, even before he's born. A Terminator is sent to kill Sarah Connor. A soldier from that 2029 war is sent by Connor (of 2029) to save his mom. Lots of violence. Terminator gets destroyed. In the process, the soldier and Sarah mate, conceiving John Connor.

Terminator 2
1992 or something. John Connor is already born and is being brought up by some foster parents as a genius brat. His mom is in some kind of assylum for keeping on talking about Terminator and impending dangers on mankind. The microchip of T1 was recovered and used by an industrialist to found a AI robotics company.
Set on this background, a more advanced Terminator the T1k is sent to kill Connor. A replica of the earlier Terminator is sent by John (of 2029) to save himself from T1k. Similar, more violent, fights happen with the same outcome. T1k is terminated, and the good Terminator is voluntarily destroyed.
A small, but very critical episode in this movie involves that AI robotics company. It is mentioned that it goes on to produce the AI machines which finally turn against human beings in the future. Hence, our heroes, John and Sarah, try to destroy this industry and kill its founder. There attempt doesn't succeed.

My Doubt

Who is the originator of the idea of Terminator? I know, it's James Cameron or someone. No! I mean, in the movie!
The industry is set up with the remnants of a microchip fished out of the remains of T1. That results in the future mass production of Terminator like machines? Terminators are not naturally occuring objects. They have been shown as 'artificial' things -- machines -- conceptualised and manufactured by men. We are habituated to see all engineering creations as having been created by some human mind, some mind at least. They can't just hang around there just like that, and then go around in circles between present and future!

Thank God they didn't show that soldier who comes back to 1984 to save Sarah Connor -- and impregnates her with John -- as John's son or something. My consternation would have known no end then! After all someone has to be someone's father, and cycles are not allowed in parent child graphs!

Well, on second thought, that makes a good subject for a sci-fi flick. A BOLLYWOOD sci-fi flick, that is!

Convincing and Confusing

figure 1. The communication process

While we communicate, at least two objectives are always there: one is to get across the matter to the listener. The other is to showcase one's ability to create that matter to be communicated.

The first is clearly always, without exception, the announced objective. In fact the title of a speech, essey, poem, painting, musical composition, book...the title of all these announces this. However, it's quite surprising to realise how important the second objective hypocritically is. Regulating the mix of these two objectives makes communication such a tricky affair. How do these two objectives interplay? The objective of this blog is to analyse this interplay. Well, the first objective, that is!

Let me start by right away busting away the notion that the second objective is the essential objective for the communicator; the first is essential for listener. I mean to say, this notion would propose that a communicator is always essentially an egotist flaunting his skill, creativity or whatever. The proponent of this idea would then non-chalantly add, 'Well, there's nothing wrong in wishing to show off your things.' thus trying to create comfort in a pricking conscience of a creator. I feel, it's an oversimplification followed by an ugly looking patch.

A communicator (I think of everybody doing anything meaningful, as communicators of some sort: artists, scientists, politicians, actors, musicians, writers (but of course), players, dancers, teachers...you name it) communicates because he wants to. The essential part of communication happens in the discovery of the substance of communication within the mind of the communicator. A self discovery of sorts. Letting it out to the world is just just a translation (here, you would perhaps like to go through Pritesh's blog Lost in Translation and my comments on that). Therefore, communication is an act of instrospection and self-discovery in its essence. Its relation with egotism can't be denied; but that can't be treated as the primary characteristic of communication.

Another very charming characteristic of communication is the reverse translation of concrete artifact of communication -- i.e. a prose or poetry, a painting, a play, a movie or a song -- into an abstract thought at the receiver's end. (ref. my earlier blog Communication).

This whole thing about it being possible to transfer a completely abstract thought, an emotion, an idea, an argument or opinion through concrete media creates the charm of communication. A good communicator has senses which are awakened enough to express joy at this phenomenon of encoding an abstract arising at one site in concrete, and its effective back translation into its original form, but at another site. Something like shown in figure 1.



Credits that the communicator (a person who mediates the above miracle of communication) earns would be an added benefit from the essential act of communication. But, its place is only complimentary to the first objective. It never can stand for the first of the two benefits, let alone compromising it for its own sake.

Then how does this heinous act of bartering communication happen for the sake of the communicator's vanity? To understand that, let us try to list down a few things which tend to assist an essentially good communication, and those which fetter it. Now, for the sake of concreteness, I will take the example of one of communication: writing prose. What you are reading right now is that, and can be directly put through the acid test.

* Simplicity/complexity ( = 1/simplicity)
* Shortness/longness ( = 1/shortness)
* Linearity/lateralness ( = 1/linearity)
...and many more.

Each A/B pair are opposite to each other. B improves the quality of the content, A improves the effectiveness of information transfer.

Computation of Primary Efficiency of Communication

I feel, the primary efficiency of the communication is simply:

E1 = C(M1)*E(T1)*E(T2).

where C(M1) is the content of the source.
E(T1) is the efficiency of the T1 translation
E(T2) is the efficiency of the T2 translation

Looking closely you would observe that C(M1) is a monotonically increasing function of complexity, length and lateralness. That is, other aspects being constant, the source content would increase if you increase any or all of these three.

Similarly E(T1) and E(T2) are monotonically increasing functions of simplicity, shortness, linearity.

This simple mathematical model gives us a few precious hints. There is one factor on the RHS, C(M1), which increases with increasing complexity(length and lateralness). And there're two factors on the RHS which decrease with it. Depending on the gradient of the rise of C(M1), and of the fall of E(T1) and E(T2), we could analytically find a value of simplicity, shortness and linearity that would result in maximum E1.

Computation of Secondary Efficiency of Communication

We define the secondary efficiency E2 of the communication as the amount of credits that the communicator achieves through his act of communication. Before that a word or two about what exactly comprises of that credit. The basic invariant is the display of intellectual or sensual assets : command over language, ability to handle complexity, to organise large volumes of information, the possession of that information, patience to develop, maintain, enhance and present that information etc.

All these are monotonically increasing functions of length, complexity and lateralness. From the viewpoint of E2, there's a clear and direct benefit in increasing all three of these.

Reconciliation between E1 and E2


Very simply put, the overall efficiency of communication is:

E = alpha(E1) + beta(E2).

The proportionality constants alpha and beta are results of the communicator's maturity and other circumstantial factors. For a more matured communicator, alpha may expectedly have a high value whereas beta may be close to zero. They are immeasureable I believe. A cunning communicator may even fake them to others. A psychotically cunning chap may be able to fake them even to himself.

To be a bit more precise, E, alpha and beta are not the innate traits of a communicator, but the environment of communication. For instance, in a typically corporate scenario, an inherently honest chap may be forced to become a communicator with a low alpha and high beta values.


But assuming that a person is at least honest enough to himself, and is roughly able to figure out the values of alpha and beta for himself, E looks like a good measure of efficiency.

The above mathematical modelling is no great work of scientific brilliance. It's an attempt to mathematically characterise the needs that we are typically trying to satisfy during a session of communication. During this process, the contents of the communication are at display. So are the communicator's communication powers. A communicator (after all a mortal) would always expect that his customers pick up some of these secondary displays along with the primary ones.

A communicator's maturity constant can be defined as (alpha/beta). So, a clean thing to do in order to improve one's maturity is to be concerned more and more towards improving E1 and not E2. Seems simple, but becomes Herculean when tried.

A more pragmatic suggestion to all communicators is that we all will try to smuggle out a bit of our vanity along with authentic service to the mankind in any form. Subtle vanity is accepted well. Vanity taken to the levels of vanity(!) makes it gaudy and ugly: be it physical beauty, artistic beauty or intellectual beauty, when displayed in a vulgar and unwelcome manner becomes a subject of ridicule and harassment.

What to say more! I am confused about the alpha and beta of this article. You decide!

Musings of An Overfed Intellectual

(taken down directly from a note on a loose sheet written late one november night)

Being an intellectual (alleged!) comes with its own share of feelings of guilt. We all are the not-so-privileged lot born in a land where the greatest and the most powerful men chose lives of austerity and ascetism. As a thriving success story of capitalism tries to create a sanguine attitute about the overall rise in physical living standards, a deep rooted something makes many of us doubtful. Roarkes and John Galts of early youth coax us to feel proud at eating the fruits of our own virtues; Valmis, Vyasas and Buddas of our childhood keep gnawing at our heart. They keep talking something about growing out of our needs! If there has been a real battleground between the coflicting ideologies of Capitalism and Socialism, it's the mind of an Indian!

Prof. ... delivered a talk on 'Sustainable Rural Development' in Astra on November 8. The candid and sincere oratory of the Prof. flared up smouldering embers of disquiet. 'What's meant by development?' 'What do you mean by fair competition?' 'Are things really so fair as we pretend they are?' The talk raised myriad philosophical, political, sociological and economic questions. In the course, the projects undertaken by Astra found a mention. More than their magnitude or economic impact, it was the noble intention, and indegenous attempts to solve practical problems that stood out as the main feature of all those projects.

The essential message was that sustainable development can never be achieved by following a fundamentally narrow minded and short sighted model of economic deve,opment. The deceit of fairness that we so hard to maintain will sooner of later break in front of the great economic divide. The real development of people will happen by fulfilling their actual needs, not by braiwashing them into defining their needs as per what's profitable to people who are already in an advantageous condition.