The Most Important Thing My Father Taught Me

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

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

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

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

Two Thoughts about Technology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two Good Men

I wish to record two little experiences with two good men. The experiences are little, everyday ones. But something about them has touched me deeply. Something about them has given me a joy I intensely crave for -- the joy of believing that this world is inhabited by good people. It makes it sound reasonable to be good oneself. It makes me feel that perhaps the path to simplicity is not that complicated after all!

Irshaad
My first experience is with a person called Irshaad, the owner of Sana Cane Furniture in Shivajinagar. I first met him about half a year ago in connection with purchasing cane furniture for our living room. He turned out to be an apparently avid Muslim, beard and prayer cap on his head. His attire wasn't anything to drool on -- dirty shirt and trousers and a battered boot. A very workmanly appearance. And the funniest thing was his bike -- a very old 100 CC, one of the first which used to ply our roads, perhaps way back in the 80s. But an immediately noticeable aspect about him was his gentlemanly behaviour. A polite and articulate way of speech most Muslims can boast of. And a very Indian-accented but immaculately correct English. These contrasting colours in his personality caught my attention immediately.

My first meeting with Mr. Irshaad was in the middle of Queen's Road, from where we proceeded to his workshop which was approached through narrow, muddy lanes with Muslim children, Muslim ladies, Muslim shopkeepers selling clothes, food-items and everything -- a very typical old-city look a part of every big city would have. The workshop itself turned out to be an extremely unkempt tin-sheded place. Pieces of wood, cane, nails, dirty clothes, polish, strewn around to give the place the most classic look of untidiness. The entrance was a narrow opening cut into the tin-wall in the form of a two pane door, one of which has been kept locked for some reason. I had to struggle getting into the workshop through it.

On the one hand, Ramzan was round the corner. October 1, I think. Mr. Irshaad's workmen would go on a week's vacation after Eid day. On the other hand, we were expecting guests on October 2, and positively needed the furniture to be delivered before that. It was about a week to go. And the deal was made that he would give us our furniture before that. Going by our previous experience with some of the most professional (so-called) parties of Bangalore, e.g. Big Bazaar, we set our own expectations on a date about a week or ten days after Ramzan, never mind the urgency of our need for the furniture. In the meantime, we would of course keep pushing them, without which perhaps nothing would be delivered even in a year.

There were some other aspects of the deal which were particularly precarious. First, Mr. Irshaad literally chased us to an ATM and made us make half the payment in advance in cash. And second, the whole deal was made orally. There were no paper receipts. No bills. No invoices. No quotations.

The surprise came on the Eid day. By that time, work worth a day was remaining, as reported by Mr. Irshaad. But since Eid had arrived we reached an understanding (unwillingly on our part) that the delivery would be delayed till a few days later. However, on the Eid day, we got a call from Mr. Irshaad. Second day Moon hadn't been seen. Eid had been postponed to the next day. Work would therefore continue and be finished. So did it happen. We had our furniture in our living room on October 1. Taut cane weavings and the heady smell of fresh varnish!

That wasn't my final experience with Irshaad. A few weeks back, we needed some maintenance on our furniture. Since the service guarantee (again oral) was for five years, I called up Mr. Irshaad and told him that I had purchased my furniture from him about 6 months back and that they needed some attention. Without arguments, Mr. Irshaad said that I could come to his Shivajinagar shop and pick one of his boys. The explanation he gave for troubling me to come was that if he sent his boy by himself, he might just loaf around and go back and say that he didn't find our house. Anyway, I went to his shop and found it unattended. While I entered hesitently, the neighbouring shopkeeper came up and informed that Irshaad was in the Mosque for his evening prayer, had asked him to seat me while he was away and would be there in 10 minutes. Irshaad appeared in around that time. Another visit to his workshop. The boy was sent and the work was done. I was instructed to give the boy a token Rs. 50 after the work was completed. Given with pleasure!

Raghunath
He is a meek looking, greying, aging LIC agent. He carries a small handbag sort of thing which is full of his agency related papers. Each time he is needed to produce a document, he clumsily sifts through the contents of the bag. I noticed that sometimes he finds them; something he doesn't.

I got Mr. Raghunath's reference from my colleague Vijay who was both his personal acquaintence and a client himself. Vijay had more to tell about Raghunath. Raghunath's son used to be his classmate. Vijay had spent much of his time during student days in Raghunath's house and had received very affectionate treatment from the entire family. Raghunath is a past employee of HMT. He had incurred some heavy losses in the stockmarket etc. etc.

My experience with Raghunath was very brief. Only 3 meetings. First, in office when he came for the introductory interview. I sent him back asking him to come home, as I wanted it to happen in the presence of my wife. Second, the very same evening at my house. He arrived punctually, gave an elaborate explanation about the policy which got very boring and tiring for me, and left after giving me a list of documents needed for initiating the policy. Two days later, Raghunath was at our office. I handed over the documents to him while we had coffee together. He left shortly. Within two-three hours, I got a call from him wherein he informed me my policy number.

So?
Why these little incidents have had a visible effect on me is not very clear. I think it's got to do with many things. And for those many things, some of which I can guess, some perhaps, I can't clearly see, I thought it worth recording these two singular experiences.

Recently when I was sharing this experience with my wife, she said: 'But they were just doing their job.' And immediately, we both concurred on the point that perhaps that's what made them such a rarity. None of these two men did a favour to me. They just did their jobs well. I felt so phenomenally thankful for the smoothness that my dealing with them enjoyed. This smoothness is a rarity in cases of the best-known organisations notwithstanding their process-orientedness, their customer-care centres, their 24 hour toll-free lines and their interest free personal loans.

Another more important thing to notice was the relative anonymity of both these personages. They aren't famous. they aren't important. They are ordinary people. In all probability, they aren't ever going to break free of their anonymity or ordinariness. But they cling on steadfastly to such standards of professionalism as might not meet any international standard, and yet result in the rarest of the rare experiences in business -- a feeling of complete satisfaction.

Mr. Irshaad took approximately Rs. 10000 from me as advance without providing a bill. He expected me to trust him. I don't know what gave him that confidence that I would trust him. But I simply had to. He returned my trust amply not just by delivering the furniture on time, but providing with immediate and hassle-free service. No paperwork involved. The whole experience was most fascinating how trust worked both ways without leaving one with a feeling of having been cheated. An example that even business can be done through trust.

You see many people sitting on positions of power and importance setting all sorts of wrong examples: researchers faking results, politicians and officials misappropriating public money, people travelling in big beautiful cars breaking traffic lights, artists selling insincere work, reporters selling sensation, TV channels selling endless soaps, not to mention scientistswriting blogs in company time. Among them, there are these Irshaads and Raghunaths, trudging about on rattling BMTC buses and old motorbikes, wearing the most indistinguished look -- who live by high standards of ethics.

What's the use of being good and anonymous? What's the use of being professional if it doesn't translate into riches? I don't know. But to me, I think they simply prove a point -- it's OK to be good people. It's OK to be honest. It's OK to do one's job with sincerity. Such a life is possible. And it's OK to live it.

Sensationalists at Workplace

We all come across numerous losers who get emotional about things in all ways except the correct one. This post is an ode to them.

Their behaviour is characterised by one singlemost quality: Whatever they are talking about, they will give you normative statements about it before giving out positive ones. In other words, they will impress you with how strongly they feel about a thing before they reveal their real understanding of it. A list of examples follows:

- It's a good site. (I have studied it.)
- It's a beautiful theory. (I have understood it.)
- It's based on raag yaman. Lovely raaga! (I know about this raaga.)
- Tolstoy's writings gives me goosebumps. So intricate! (I have read Tolstoy's work.)
- This country is going to dogs! You should shoot all the politicians. (I am concerned about the nation's welfare.)
- This is my favourite part of my thesis. (I have done my PhD with a lot of affection. Therefore it's a good thesis.)

- ...

It's generally understood that you get emotional about something you are deeply involved in. So, the easiest way to prove the existence of your deep involvement in something, particularly when the involvement is not there, is to show your emotions about the thing. It shows that you have it in you to get deeply involved in something, which needs you to be at some level of intelligence. So, if the listener is weak enough in logic not to see that emotions are not a sufficient condition for intelligence, and is gullible enough to believe that your emotional involvement is authentic in the first place, he'll interpret it as a sign of your intelligence.

I'm sure we all have learned to expect such people around us in parties, conferences, workplace etc. Also there are some disguises in which the same thing appears. For example, use of superlatives, e.g.
- I read it a long time back. (I have been involved in this for long. Hence, the involvement is ripe and deep.)

or casual/askance statements like:
- ...when I was talking with Queen Elizabeth last year ...(proves that I had been to England last year, and I mix around with monarchs, and most importantly it's no big deal for me.)
- I feel nauseous in the flight (Ya, I mean, I travel by air very often.)
- Man, M. G. Road parking situation is horrible! (I travel by car often.)

Similarly, for example, throwing jargons, e.g
- Picaso, right? It's surreal!
- Plutocracy bla bla totalitarianism bla blah bla ... existentialism bla bla bla blah... emricism, idealism...

Sometimes, it requires a conscious effort to resist the temptation to be one of this kind at occasions. But, it helps in general to stay away from this temptation. Discipline in this regard the makes it possible to experience the actual fun of emotional involvement. Faking it closes all roads to the authentic experience; or at best delays it severely.

I also beg your pardon for a slight tinge of cynicism in this post. I definitely don't mean that all high-sounding discourses are phony. Often, trying too hard to sound simple and modest could be the worst form of vanity. But definitely, if one is conscious (without being paranoid) of the germs of vanity that is present in all of us, we would learn to minimise its expression in our behaviour. I do feel this discipline to shun vanity is very hard to get, but unfortunately lies at the root of all ethical behaviour in professions like research, art and social-service.

Presence of Good; Absence of Bad

When we want to see if something is good, do we count the good things about it or the bad things about it? Does something need the number of bad things to be zero in order to be called good?

Is a good person allowed to have no vices?
Is a time which I wish to call good allowed to have no bad memories associated with it?
Can a good job never have anything uninteresting in it?
Can a life not to be called good if it ever saw any rough patches?
Is sincerity and concentration characterised by absence of moments of distraction?

The common answer to all the above questions is easily guessed.

I know I am writing on something very obvious and spoken of million times. Yet, I find myself motivated to write about it. Because, I see that we do it again and again. We hate someone because he has done something bad, and forget all the good he has done. We often remember the bad moments of a time and forget the happinesses it had granted us. We call our jobs bad because we have to do many uninteresting things in it; and we forget that all the little interesting things that we get to do happen only because our job allows us the freedom to indulge in them -- officially sometimes, and sometimes unofficially. We think that life sucks because it's difficult; we forget its riches most of the times.

Yes, I am talking about the cliche called positive thinking -- the thinking about the good things about something. What I want to add are two things: One, you need not forget about the bad things in something to appreciate its goodness. Two, you should practice it when it's most tempting to do otherwise. Then only it would work. Otherwise, why should it? We all are very positive about everything when we are having fun in water-park. Can we, when we are fighting cancer?

Three Pillars of Enlightenment

We bought a farewell gift of three books -- one on popular science, one on Bhagwad-Gita, and one a humour novel by Wodehouse -- for one of our colleagues who spent his last day in our company today. The following message (edited) was written to bring them together:

Science: The disciplined approach of understanding everything through logical deduction, experiments and sensory observation.

Metaphysics: There lie truths beyond the boundaries of our 5 senses. Where science goes mute, mystical metaphysics becomes our guide.

Humour: Zen masters say that an acute sense of humour is the highest form of intellect; and a light-hearted laugh, the highest form of spiritual bliss.

SMS competitions

There's this new thing going on in TV in which you get a number in the Thums Up bottle. You have to SMS it to some number. There will be a lucky draw and you have a chance to win a Hero Honda motor-bike. Similarly, these days, every dance-show, music-competition or reality show on TV has a compulsory model of seeking feedback from the viewers. The feedback determines the fate of the competitors -- a method very questionable when looking for the real talent. Yesterday, I saw a question rolling past the bottom line of the TV screen:

Actress XYZ played the role of ABC in the movie PQR: A) Yes; B) No; C) Can't say. SMS your answer to DEFGH and win ...

I thought that was stupid enough to deserve a blog post. If someone sends 'C' as an answer, the person should be sent for psychiatric treatment. If there are sufficiently large number of 'C's coming as an answer, there should be national level red-alert. Having so many idiots in the country poses a serious threat to the national security and general well-being. The matter should be taken up at the summit level as a matter of highest concern.

But this article is not about choosing 'C' as an answer. It's about choosing 'A', 'B' or 'C' as an answer. It's about choosing to answer. I have often felt very uncomfortable with the very business model of encouraging people to spend money for a minuscule chance of winning a prize. The only party which is sure to gain in this game is the one who throws the competition. Of course no one is being forced, and people are being conned on their own. But, I feel, while the business model is a source of easy income for TV channels, mobile service providers and other business houses, it lies in a very grey ethical area.

Order and beauty lies in making improbable things happen through expert actions. It's been the nature of humans to be fascinated with things which couldn't have existed without an expert hand bringing them into being. But, what distinguishes man from others is his capability to cause the order that makes the improbable happen, to be that expert hand himself. A passive fascination with improbability, where a person waits passively for an improbable thing to happen and rejoices when it does, is characteristic of a baser nature. It leads to gambling.

Perhaps it is fair to give a thought to what acts behind the psychology of gambling. The instinct of gambling seems to be encoded in our genes, like many other unfortunate genetic quirks of our species. The genetic explanation of gambling identifies that risk-takers of the past reaped rewards in the form of survival and progeny. So, the 'risk-taker' genes have been passed on to us by natural selection. We are hardwired to feel a thrill in taking risks.

However, while the fact that this gene has survived in us also is a proof of the fact that though the risk-taker ancestors ultimately managed to clinch a jackpot in the struggle for existence, risk taking by itself may not be a formula to a highly probable success. The gene just gives us an urge to take risks. It doesn't encode the intelligence in us to count the number of risk-takers who have perished due to the same instinct, a number which must have been very much larger than that of the winner ancestors. Like many of the intelligences that are critical for giving us not just an edge over other species, but the barest chance of survival, this intelligence doesn't come naturally to us; we have to groom it.

The import of the last two paragraphs was just to know that the fascination to see an improbable thing happening exists in us thanks to evolutionary reasons. In that, we can't look for an answer to whether it's justifiable to act in accordance or opposition to this instinct. It just tells that in spite of all conscious knowledge about it, all of us will fall prey to it some of the times; and some of us will fall prey to it often enough to ruin themselves and others around them. But the answer to the question of ethical justifiability of gambling, whether done once, occasionally or compulsively, has to be sought elsewhere.

In any kind of gambling, the odds of winning are abysmally low -- making it illogical for the gambler to gamble, and a very profitable business for the organiser of the game. To quote 'illogical' as 'unethical' may be something of moral belligerence. Being illogical at times is considered 'indulgence', and in general is allowed to all of us, albeit in sparing amount. For example, we sometimes binge on ice-creams and chocolates. We spend exorbitant sums of money in travelling to exotic places. We drape ourselves in expensive clothes, jewellery and make-up. Non of which makes any direct logical sense (except again a digression into the evolutionary antecedents of the instincts of vanity etc.), but we are allowed to do them in controlled quantity, and nobody frowns. In fact huge businesses exist around each of these indulgences. Is occasional gambling an indulgence in the same parlance; and should businesses flourishing around it be looked at in the same way as any of the other businesses that cater to our 'indulgences'?

Gambling done in moderation indeed seems to qualify as a harmless indulgence. In opposition to traditional forms of gambling, SMS gambling has two peculiarities. One, they make it extremely easy to start gambling, which raises a red flag against them. Two, they don't seem to scale in a way that a person could turn into a compulsive gambler by indulging in them. The very tedium of typing an SMS makes it infeasible that a person could lose a significant amount of money by sending too many of them. That might be a thankful aspect.

All the above arguments seem to advocate a lenient attitude towards this phenomenon of SMS gambling. I have my own doubts and can't decide either ways. There are some intractable questions associated with this business as with any business thriving on any indulgence. In a macro way, if such businesses grow relentlessly, I do feel that it sends disturbing signals about us as a race. Indulgences are like respite points from the tyranny of being logical. But if indulgences pervade our lives -- be it SMS gambling, making fun trips, wearing expensives clothes or sporting fuel guzzling fancy cars -- it fundamentally shapes what a life stands for at both an individual level or at a more collective level. Is life an instrument to achieve something noble, making it permissible to loosen up only to make it sustain its productive existence for longer? Or are all noble deeds of life just a fuel to the inextinguishable need to indulge and entertain oneself endlessly without regard to anything more meaningful than that?

Well, I must say that the fact that in the end I had to invoke a very lofty argument to defend my initial stand of opposition to SMS competitions, shows that my argument has weakened quite a bit over the course of writing this article. So, to sound fair, I must accept that these competitions seem harmless to an extent. But I would continue to feel unhappy if I see an individual indiscriminately indulging in it and never thinking that after all it's all stupid; and that we are allowed to behave stupidly only very very rarely. I would be full of blessings for a person who could bring me a data that such businesses are profitable but small enough not to matter in the grand scale.

Trip to Shimoga

Find the actual post here.

An Ugly Duckling in the Ugly Corporate World

It's one and a half years now in the Corporate. And I find myself having learned a lot about what industrial research is all about. How they get funded? What people want out of them? What people perceive them as? and so on. There's been some disillusionment as well as enlightenment.

One of the interesting disillusionments has been that PhD is not just all about being called Dr. Sujit and being respected for the knowledge and depth of thinking. It's also about managing people's perceptions and insecurity. In the initial days, I observed with some perplexity that I occasionally used to get into trifle conflicts with many people around during discussions. The matter of conflict could be as trivial as the interpretation of terms. Slowly, the nature of the conflicts started unfolding when they showed themselves in more significant moments -- when the charter of a research project was being drawn; when deliverables and timelines were being decided; when the very process of conducting the project was being figured out.

There are people in this industry who are around my age and have worked their up to a very respectable and powerful position in the organisation. I unwillingly learned to understand, and was also pointed this out by some, that my entry into the scene creates a very unsettling effect on the ecosystem. What existed before me was a fairly stable ecosystem, with well-defined power-hierarchies. In this place where most people have achieved success not through a degree from a premiere institute, but through the more difficult way of proving their mettle in the ugly corporate world via a prolonged struggle, I figure as a foriegn particle. I gradually learned to recognise the look of threat in many eyes, as if saying: "Don't you try throwing about your weight around just because you have got a degree." These days, when I introduce myself, I make sure not to mention anything about my academic background. My business card, my nameplate, and any other communication has my name, but no mention of my PhD. It's easier for acceptance here to mingle in the crowd and work one's way ahead as one of them. Being singled out as an alien ousts you from the race in the first lap itself.

And yet, I understand that the way I can add value to the organisation is not by conforming to the pre-existing culture, but by bringing in fresh ideas. It's not got so much to do with my PhD, but by the fact that I have struggled hard elsewhere, have learned things apart from those which can be learned here, and am able to raise questions which a person having spent his life here might have learned to ignore.

It's a tricky struggle. And perhaps the fun lies therein. Let's see how it shapes up.

Character Certificate

Today, there was this funny news article in The Times of India which talked about landlords asking for 'character certificates' from single ladies who wished to rent their house. The character certificate should be issued by the employer it seems. There was then the part of the article which talked about how disgusted those ladies feel about this abominable demand.

I don't know if the demand is abominable. It's definitely stupid. An employer can't know more about its employee's character than is necessary to employ her. And actions speak louder than words. Why would he employ someone whose character he is not sure about? The employment is a stronger proof than any other written statement by the employment. An employer is well off taking care that his employee does her job well and her academic credentials are authentic. What kind of an employer would go to the extent of examining how many men she sleeps with? It's therefore more reasonable to ask for an employment proof.

As far as this being seen as a reproachful act in itself, my sympathies (temporarily) lean towards the landlord, particularly because we men have put up with this nonsense forever now, and no spinster ever stood up in our support. There have been landlords who have warned me (me, the Sujit; can you beat that?!) not to involve in 'all the nefarious activities of a bachelor' when I was about to take his flat on rent. There are still others who have their doors permanently closed to bachelors. Only married people please! I have found this very unfair, seriously. And have tried to raise my voices in many occasions. All my objections to this unfair and demeaning attitude to gentlemen has always been taken lightly. No one protested! Men, by default, are assumed to be nasty, lecherous, characterless. No one finds it odd if they are treated that way.

On a wider front. Perhaps, tomorrow there will be spinsters who would be insulted with suspicious glances in buses, trains and everywhere? Such looks as tells: 'Hey! I know what you are upto, huh! Don't you dare!' and there will be protests. Then, may be, pubs and discos will be closed to spinsters (not because they are in mortal danger of being beaten up by saffronists, but to prevent them from behaving badly with sober visiters). And there will be reproofs.

There should have been protests earlier though, when all this started being done to bachelors -- millions of years ago. It never happened. It's so easily accepted that men have been treated rawly in such matters. A man of genteel ways has always had to tolerate a treatment that the more lecherous brethren of his deserved.

But hold on! Perhaps we don't need any protests. Perhaps all these reproaches are side-effects of an upcoming gender equality. It's not a steady state, but a transient. Slowly, perhaps, women are starting to get an equal share in everything -- opportunities, responsibilities, power. And suspicion and reproaches as well. Perhaps, it also shows another non-obvious good thing. Women are indeed more liberated these days. They too have fun. They go to pubs. They drink. They check out guys. Some of the bolder ones even give a damn about premarital virginity and figure out everything the experimental way regardless of marriage. I feel all this is fine. Why not? Guys have been doing this for ages. Why can't girls? Particularly when both are equal, which means an equal propensity to any kind of behaviour? But there's an obvious side-effect. There are people in our society who don't approve of this kind of lifestyle. Such people want to stay away from any intercouse with people of a more adventurous kind. This kind of people have been asking for some sort of a character certificate from bachelors for ages, unless they had decided on not letting out their place to bachelors at all. These days, thanks to gender equality setting in, women have started getting rid of their age-old idea of their being any less craving for excitement, and have started indulging in what they really are, that is, very similar to men. Naturally, they too are coming into the firing line of those conservative people, who have forever subjected poor bachelors to this indiscreetness.

I envision a time when there won't be character certificates asked for renting accommodation (because it's stupid and illogical). No generalised restrictions will be effected in places of enjoyment. No suspicious glances thrown on anyone for percieved chances of lechery. Both in case of men, as in the case for women.

That will be the Age of Gender Equality. Till then I prefer fair indiscreetness to unfair discreetness.

Ghosts of The Wild

New post here.

Dostana - A Review

Sorry guys! Things have come to the pass that the things which occupy my mind these days are crappy movies. But if that's the case, then so be it. Here's a review for Dostana, the crappiest movie of the year (I know the year's not over yet, but for the sake of human-race, I hope there won't be another movie matching it in quality).

The movie is about gays. Sorry! It's about gay jokes. For three hours, they torture you with slapstick jokes about male-homosexuality. All possible bad jokes that can be made about gay-matter, are made during the movie. There's no more cheap-talk you will be left with about gays after you have experienced it.

Of course, if you are a teen-ager, or a young adult with brains of a teen-ager, you will laugh throughout the movie, because gay jokes are an in-thing today, and not laughing at them may result in your being tagged as prude. The show we went to (for which I did an advanced booking of tickets) was filled with teenagers and young adults with brains of a teen-agers, and they were all laughing throughout the movie. For everyone else, the time was spent waiting for the jokes to get over and some substance to come in. It never happens.

Miami. We got late and missed the first five minutes. I had confidently predicted that there would be an item song or something with bikini clad babes on the Miami beach. No story. When we entered the theatre, that song was getting over. I guess, it featured Shilpa Shetty. She's gorgeous. Waste your money if you consider seeing her for a couple of minutes worth the long torture that follows.

Here's ths story. Don't bother skipping it. It doesn't make one bit of a difference.
- These two guys are looking for a house.
- They find Priyanka's house where she lives alone and where they are looking for two new tenants. They shouldn't be guys due to security reasons.
- These guys pose as gay couple, and hence are taken in as they pose no threat to the girl.
- Subsequently, both guys fall for the girl.
- The girl gets involved with her boss (Bobby).
- These guys do some jerky stuff to shoo away the new-found lover. Of course, they go awry.
- Some chaos follows.
- The climax scene contains a kissing act (mouth to mouth) between Abhishek and John, which is basically done to establish their friendship and loyalty to Priyanka. She actually gets convinced.

Good things about the movie: Priyanka Chopra carries off her skimpy dresses in neat style. John Abraham looks good. Music is quite nice, sometimes even the lyrics.

I don't feel like writing anymore. Very bad! Don't watch this movie please!

Mob Mentality

Pritesh wrote this piece on mob mentality. I tried posting this comment. But seems it's too long. So, I am posting it as an independent post.

I had a very close encounter with mob behaviour some time back when Dr. Rajkumar passed away. We were sipping coffee at the
Coffee Board and the procession was passing through the adjacent main-road. Suddenly, they started pelting big stones on us.
Each stone would have caused severe wound if it had found its target. However,
thanks to the sun-shades, no one got hurt. We quickly ran to safety near inside the building. In that process, I had a
glimpse of the people who were throwing the stones. They were smiling and laughing, like small kids.
Soon afterwards, there was a lathi-charge, and the mob started scattering. Many of them jumped the IISc boundary-wall into
the campus. Many of them were caught hold of by the security-guards, and even some students. They were slapped, kicked, and
abused. One slap and they would fall down and start begging for mercy!
I was really astounded to see these 'monsters' becoming so insecure and weak when caught away from the security of
anonymity (as you have rightly pointed out).

Looking at the scenario from another angle, I realised that these poor people lead an utterly uninteresting life. There
life must be such a meaningless drudgery and ethics and morality are theoretical banters for them. A slight bit of
excitement, even if it's got through destruction, gives them that thrill we used to feel drawing on the walls or doing
anything mischievous when we were kids. The sight of that smile which showed that childlike innocence, and that helplessness
when faced with the slightest punishment, made me feel very unhappy at how their life hasn't seen many things interesting
after their childhood that they jump at this first opportunity of excitement, without giving a heed to its implication.

Another example of mob mentality is seen every day on roads. Be it breaking the signal, or be it clogging the traffic by violating
lane discipline, it's a pure example of mob mentality. I feel the presence of that instinct in myself when the red-light in front is
about to turn green, a few seconds to go, and my side traffic has already started moving, of course against the rule. At
that time it's very difficult to resist the temptation to fly myself. I have held stead against the temptation most of the
time; but haven't succeeded always!

Mob mentality is a basic-instinct. It comes from the age-old wisdom of behaving similar to the majority, since, it's the
majority which survives. Its parent instinct is the instinct to immitate, which again is also the greatest tool of learning
for humans ('apes') and other species. The people who turn into mobs are no different people. We all are susceptible to this strong
tendency. It's only that when this is topped with ignorance, boredom and frustration, we become puppets to the signs
from anyone who wishes to make use of it.

The act of preventing oneself from turning into a mob just involves a moment of thought, as you have rightly pointed out.
But just like any other thing which involves just a small change in the thought pattern (corruption, violence, suicide etc)
these are the very things which will take the most fundamental changes in the people and society, since the circumstances
which brew these instincts are there for a long time. They are related with poverty and ignorance.

The real solution of mob-mentality can't be expected before these precursors are taken care of. And I even think, that once
(if and when) these precursors are somehow solved, mob-mentality is so fundamental in us, that it will find another way to
manifest itself.

Sarkari and Private

In a recent discussion with some of my socially enthusiastic friends in IISc (not a rarity there), we were lamenting in a usual manner about how things are with the administration of IISc. IISc remains the same old, with its administration being extremely high-nosed and unfriendly in general with the students. I have come across many less efficient government departments. But, having spent a really long time in IISc, the level of inefficiency in many things are quite an eyesore. Particularly because IISc can't complain of lack of resources to be the reason of whatever inefficiency there is.

I had a recent bitter experience with the finance department when I felt extremely harrassed while trying to get my no-dues from there. In IISc, students pay their tuition fees through the bank in the beginning of the semesters. When we are a few semesters old in the Institute, and have already paid our tuition fees many times, we learn that while leaving the Institute, we need to take no-dues from the finance department. To get the no-dues certificate it's necessary to produce the counterfoil receipts of all the semester tuition fees. If we don't, the clerk will go through a clumsy process of trying to figure out if we have indeed paid our fees for all the semesters, which includes manually sifting through a large number of files. If she doesn't find any of the entries, either due to gross error which is quite probable in such a task, or due to the very fact that she doesn't like you for a reason only she knows, then the fines due to late payment are daunting. Rs. 20 per week from the due date. I ended up paying Rs. 13,000/- approximately, out of which around Rs. 5,000/- went as fines. Thank God it was because some fees I allegedly hadn't paid in my 5th year, and not in my first.

This clumsiness is quite inexplicable. Why can't this process be completely automated? How is it possible that the accounts section doesn't maintain a strong report of when and how much tuition fees a student is paying? A degree of automation was introduced since 2005. Till then, all accounts were maintained in some sort of paper files. Accounting and book keeping is an ancient business. I don't think, maintenance of foolproof records of financial transactions have ever critically depended on computers, especially when the bank where the fees are being paid and the account section are within a kilometre (within the campus) of each other. Then why are students harrassed like this? The only record of our having paid the fees is in the bank challans! How ridiculous! And if it's really that important, why aren't the students explicitly directed to preserve their bank challans right when they join the Institute? Regarding late payment of fees,
if there are defaulters, why aren't they intimated through an automated mail? Why isn't there any broadcast mail reminding students to pay their fees?

Another example. It's been a prolonged debate between the administration and the students about how the scholarship renewal process be handled. Students are supposed to initiate this process by themselves. Each and every student in the Institute has to apply for scholarship renewal every year. And yet, the only way a student has a chance of doing it in time is if he remembers it himself which the admin would ideally have him do, or his guide or the Departmental Curriculum committee reminds him. The admin, as ever, will not ask for it. The penalty for failing to apply for scholarship renewal is quite substantial: You lose your scholarship! The money -- tens of thousands of rupees -- simply vanishes into thin air. The worst part is that if you fail to apply for scholarship renewal during the stipulated period, most likely, you won't remember to do so till the next year, or when you finally notice that your scholarships have stopped getting credited to your account. If you are one of those geeky kinds who don't look at their bank-balance until there's no money in your account (and there are quite expectedly many of this type in IISc), you will most probably realise your mistake when it's too late. One of my labmates lost close to Rs. 150,000/-. By any standards, that's a lot of money. No amount of begging or fighting got him back his money. The administration didn't just refuse to help him, but humiliated him when he approached them. Our professor and the Director refused to act on it, and took the side of the admin at all crucial points. I know of many such instances, which means that this is not a rare event. Still, the admin insists on sticking to this archaic process. The process of scholarship renewal can be automated. Or, at least, it can be transformed into a pull model wherein the admin reaches out to the students to fill their scholarship renewal. A broadcast mail can be sent. The possible defaulters can be personally contacted. I don't think, it's asking for too much. The administration works through its various branches in each department. The load on these offices is not overwhelming. If there are maximum 10 defaulters in a department on an average, they can be reached out personally. This exercise, done once every year, doesn't add to their workload by any unreasonable degree. It's quite atrocious to set the penalty of being absent-minded and forgetful at such a high mark.

The opacity of administrative processes is the bane of IISc life. It's a well-known fact that corruption abounds in mess, hostel, estate, and every conceivable administrative department. There have been instances of workers being caught smuggling material out of the messes by students. Such stories don't go a long way. They die out of the public memory after causing a temporary sensation. Malpractices are common and are the prime reason for systems not working in favour of the students. Students are usually too oblivious to notice the leaks in the services supposed to be there for them. For them, their research is a hard enough problem to solve. Meanwhile, corrupt official are enjoying unprecedented freedom to indulge in all sorts of malpractices, ranging from callousness, laziness and corruption.

On the other hand, I have a good experience in private corporate organisations like Philips and TCS. They aren't so complex and huge as IISc. But the reason that things work here is not their small size but the agility with which the facilities, administration, accounts and finance departments work. Automation is brought in aggressively, wherever applicable. Things are clean, transparent and paperless.

Why can't many things be automated in IISc? One of my friends had a simple answer: IISc is a government organisation. More than serving the declared purpose, it also implicitly must provide employment to a certain number of government employees. The day automation is put in place, all these buggers will be out of their jobs. On the other hand, private corporate organisations work on fear. One does his job well, or loses his job. Unlike a government organisation, there's no place for laziness and non-performance.

Our country is inhabited by a series of generations who are just garbage due to centuries of dependence and complacence. The current government (which of course is constituted of members of that garbage generation) is doomed to feed this generation until they die their natural death. I am afraid that these issues won't go with a generation or two. We carry those genes which have expressed and purified over hundreds of years. It will take a comparable time to get rid of those genes I am sure.


Was just trying to remove dust off my pen. :)

Related post: Automation for IISc

5S -- the Management Mantra of Tidiness

Click here to read the article.

If you wish to drop a comment, and don't have a Sulekha account, please drop it as a comment to this article on Blogspot.

To Waste or Not to Waste is the Question

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If you don't have a Sulekha account and wish to post a comment, kindly do so here to this post.

Coorg Trip

Click here to read about our recent Coorg trip.

Chains of Freedom

Chains of Freedom on Sulekha.

Cross-Posting

Hi reader,

Each blog service comes with its own pluses and minuses. Blogspot allows anonymous visitors to leave comments, but doesn't feature the post on the main page, nor does it allow you to profile your blog to see how well a particular article is doing. My guess is, a blog written on Blogspot doesn't get read by so many people as compared with Sulekha. But Sulekha doesn't let anonymous comments.

This is my attempt to extract the best out of both worlds. I will henceforth write in Sulekha, but will simultaneously create a post here with a link to that article. Visitors having a Sulekha account may leave their comment there. Or else, they may leave their comment here on blogspot.

I have a slight misgiving that this is not considered fully ethical. But given the circumstances, I feel, I am not left with any option. :(

Regards,
Sujit

Summer Vacations

A chat session I had with one of my friends who's in school, and is enjoying her summer vacations!


For us they are things of the past! :(

I never had no summer vacation in the last 10 years.

Can you believe it?!

:(

When I was a kid...

we used to go out all the time with friends....

barefooted...half pant clad...slingshots in hand...pretending to be bird hunters.

...and we would go climb some tree and sit there and gossip.

It was fun.

...and when I grew up a bit, say, to your age...

it was card games and chess with friends in the morning.

Exchanging novels (only classics for me please!)...and reading them...

as if finishing as many of them as possible during the vacation would give us some trophy.

...sleeping in the afternoon for 2 hours!

Having afternoon tea and then going out again with friends...

and staying out till dinner...

having evening bath.

TV.

Night time again friends.

Wow! Those were the days!

Lovely!

Ya. Feeling nostalgic!