5S -- the Management Mantra of Tidiness

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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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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!

The Man in Your Life

A piece got as a forward from one of my friends. The article talks about how a newly married girl copes with the difficult task of adjusting with her new environment, and implores the husband to be supportive to her in achieving this.

I felt the spirit of the piece very good and it makes its point well enough that I find it unnecessary to make any further additions. However, in the process of admiring the woman, at some points it repeats the old ultra-feminist mistake of putting down the man. This post is about that. Follows the poem, and then my comments.

I am making this post to address a wider problem of ultra-feminism. I appreciate this forwarded piece, and my words aren't directed only to that.

Note the points in the poem which I felt were in a bad spirit. The orange ones are which I feel just start being unfair, and the red ones are plain deplorable. Everything else is in good spirits and is appreciated.


Tomorrow you may get a working woman, but you should marry her with these facts as well.

Here is a girl, who is as much educated as you are;
Who is earning almost as much as you do;

One, who has dreams and aspirations just as
you have because she is as human as you are;

One, who has never entered the kitchen in her life just like you or your
Sister haven't, as she was busy in studies and competing in a system
that gives no special concession to girls for their culinary achievements

One, who has lived and loved her parents & brothers & sisters, almost as
much as you do for 20-25 years of her life;

One, who has bravely agreed to leave behind all that, her home, people who love her, to adopt your home, your family, your ways and even your family ,name

One, who is somehow expected to be a master-chef from day #1, while you sleep oblivious to her predicament in her new circumstances, environment and that kitchen

One, who is expected to make the tea, first thing in the morning and cook
food at the end of the day, even if she is as tired as you are, maybe more,
and yet never ever expected to complain; to be a servant, a cook, a mother,
a wife, even if she doesn't want to; and is learning just like you are as
to what you want from her; and is clumsy and sloppy at times and knows that you won't like it if she is too demanding, or if she learns faster than you;

One, who has her own set of friends, and that includes boys and even men at her workplace too, those, who she knows from school days and yet is willing to put all that on the back-burners to avoid your irrational jealousy, unnecessary competition and your inherent insecurities;

Yes, she can drink and dance just as well as you can, but won't, simply
Because you won't like it, even though you say otherwise

One, who can be late from work once in a while when deadlines, just like yours, are to be met;

One, who is doing her level best and wants to make this most important,
relationship in her entire life a grand success, if you just help her some
and trust her;

One, who just wants one thing from you, as you are the only one she knows in your entire house - your unstinted support, your sensitivities and most importantly - your understanding, or love, if you may call it.

But not many guys understand this......

Please appreciate "HER"


I hope you will do....



My comments:


Can't agree more especially at this juncture of life. I am just watching day after day the host of irreversible and significant changes that are coming about everyday in my newly wed wife's life, and can't stop marvelling at how she's taking them all with a smile on her face. My love and respect for her rises exponentially everyday. No professional achievement can equal this unearthly mix of maturity, flexibility, modesty and sacrifice.

I wish to tell a little less known thing too. It's often talked about a lot what a great transition it is for a girl to leave behind her past life to join her husband. I think it's true. Very true.

What's not quite right is to imagine that the guy doesn't go through similar anxieties. Nor is it fair to project it as if all sacrifices are only on the girl's side, and none on the guy's side. It mayn't really strike you as significant, but for record's sake let me point out that it's not trivial to change from a boy to a man overnight. Till yesterday, he was all alone, free to move around in the world, exploring everything with not a worry in mind but his own whims and fancies. All of a sudden, everything starts revolving around another person -- you. Your concerns are his, and he is responsible for your happiness, health and everything. He brought you home from your house where everyone was crying and wailing so to making him feel miserable and guilty of causing so painful a separation in a family. And now, he is immediately responsible to make that girl, who is badly missing her family and is coping hard with her new life, feel at home and loved. Do you think it's any easier?! I wouldn't be so sure!

He is aware of your capabilities. He is proud of it. It's a different matter that your feminist predecessors have ground it into you that it's you who always protects his silly ego and that's your job. I think, it's time to dump that bullshit. Men are better than that. Go ahead and conquer the world in the way you want. Dump the household work on him. It's his responsibility too. It's his right to struggle like you do. And most importantly, what you mayn't know is that he knows it. Where expression of capabilities is natural, it will receive admiration and cheer from all men and women; where it gets adulterated with false egotism and the wish to prove a point, it will invite scorn, not just from men, but from women as well. I think, one should stop blaming men of chauvinism in this capability business. Men are no more egotistic than women.

In this (ultra)feminist world, it's becoming fashionable these days to write poetry saying laudatory words about women and their sacrifices (every word of which they deserve) and bash up men for their insensitivity, and selfishness (not all of which they deserve). Perhaps, the pendulum of male chauvinism has now started swinging back to the other amplitude in the form of ultra feminism. :(

I have met many men and women in my life. And I can say confidently that men are every bit as sensitive and caring as women. Their modes of expression aren't so sophisticated as those of women. Women have many vents to their soft emotions. But it's not fair to imagine lack of sensitivity among men just because they are not so capable of expressing them well. While you may call up home when you miss them, or shed a drop of two of your precious tears to vent the emotional pressure, your man will be out there suppressing all that, trying to look strong and unaffected, more out of a habit of suppression society has imposed on him than anything else. Do you really think it's all nice and good for him while you are making all the sacrifices. Well, think again!

To conclude, marriage (and every relation of the world) is not a one sided affair. It's based on love and respect on both ends. It's good to mention the good things on the one end, but it's unfair to make it look as if the relation is tailor made to serve all the fair and unfair needs of one party while to give a raw deal to the other (presumably the nobler one). Guys and girls! Marriage is a very personal thing between you and your wife. The terms of your relations are defined as you define it, not how a chauvinistic tradition or a feminist activist would like them to be. I believe that mutual love, care and respect takes a relation to heights which no amount of political correctness can. Here's a simple mantra: Let's be fair. That's a good starting point for a relation.

And to set a good example, I am saying this to all men, and women too.

The Enemy Within

I want to draw your attention to a subtle point I have tried making
many times: "Don't give in to fear." For me, the importance of these
words can't be overstated. How hard I try to stay calm and
composed when it's the question of drawing motivation to work! I have
let go waste tonnes and tonnes of fear which I could easily have used
to push myself into working hard and getting professionally benefited.
I daresay, I would have been able to prove quite a few points had I
let that happen. I have tried very hard to never let that happen
(though I don't always succeed). Same has been true with other sources
of motivation like rivalry, ambition and professional conceit. I have
always shunned them when I could have used them. The central idea was:
"My research is the purest and most beautiful thing I do. I will not
malign it by letting it get driven by things I consider negative." I
mayn't have been always correct in being so pedantic about the matter.
I sometimes wonder if I hadn't looked at certain things like fear,
anger, rivalry and ambition as out and out negative things, I could
have found it easier to get into a habit of working hard. Once the
habit set in, perhaps, I could have worked towards purifying my
thoughts, and then driving myself with purer sources of motivation
then on. Well, perhaps. I will hopefully get a chance to validate that
hypothesis in future. But, let's not talk about that aspect right now.

The above maxim can be partially stated as: "Never let negative
thoughts drive you to do anything good." But it gets completed when we
say: "Never let negative thoughts stop you from doing what you truly
want to do."

That second part of the maxim came to my rescue two and half years
ago, when I had almost got paralysed after suffering nearly 2 years of
fruitless toil on a problem which wasn't moving anywhere. By some
miracle (which is also called 'introspection'), I realised that,
bigger and more immediate than the problem of my research not going
anywhere, it was that deep fear of having to face failure and
disappointment which was my problem. Slowly, I could get clearer and
clearer sight of that 'fear' which used to draw away my energy
whenever I would decide to sit and do something towards my research.
This fear was born and had grown within me; and yet, I could see it as
an external thing -- something which I had cut and throw away from my
system, something I should take pleasure in killing.

When I succeeded in looking at this fear as something not essential to
my personality, but rather something that I could easily throw out of
my system, and survive, I could actually get up and do something about
my plight. I realised that, for the immediate moment, my success lay,
not in doing successful research, but in honestly trying to do so. And
I wouldn't let my fear stop me from doing that.

I think I won that little battle. But the fear is still there and
sometimes becomes overpowering. But, due to that one triumphant
experience during my PhD, I know that it exists somewhere inside me,
am far more capable to identify it in many of its clever disguises,
and with hardly any delay, am able to get up and start smothering it
back to its little dark hole whenever it raises its head.

I do think (may be it's a fallacy) that this tussle with fear is an
essential experience of doing PhD. Perhaps the most important one.
People who have got that momentum right from the first day, due to whatever reason, mayn't perhaps face this problem now.
Perhaps, they already had faced this problem earlier, and have,
consciously or unconsciously, devised ways of handling it. Perhaps, we
haven't been so lucky (or wise) enough to have faced this problem
earlier in our lives. But, whenever someone is trying to do something
non-trivial, I think, this hurdle is bound to be faced. And only when
one learns to combat one's own fear (which is the mother of laziness
and procrastination), one is really going to have a smooth sail to his
or her destination.

All this is not an advice. I just want you to know something now which
I spent an unnecessary amount of time and toil to understand. I don't
know if it's one of those things which can be learned only the hard
way of experience. But, in case it isn't one of those things, I
wouldn't like to miss this chance to share with you this little
thought which was almost life-changing for me.

Two Sexes, Two Stereotypes

We always stereotype. That's a part of handling the complexity around us. When it benignly serves its intended purpose -- simplification -- we give it good names: abstraction, classification, categorisation. When it has significant side-effects, we call it names: stereotyping, pigeon-holing, generalisation.

I wish to draw your attention to a special kind of stereotyping. One men do about women. And the other which women do about men.

First, let's take on men. I feel the biggest stereotype ruling the male minds is that women are intellectually inferior. All we men suffer to a degree with this stereotype. How many ever women we see passing in front of us demonstrating how well they match us, or even exceed us, in intellectual capabilities, we seem to ignore them all, and fix our gaze on those who seem to strengthen our believe that women are intellectually inferior. I have observed some very intelligent men succumbing to the evil of gender stereotypes. For example, I have seen some very respectable men with respectable thoughts avoiding including women as their collaborators. It never occurs to them that women too can contribute intellectually. On the other hand, I have found many women themselves fostering such stereotypes in various manners. By being opportunistic, unduly ambitious and intellectually dishonest at many crucial points. For example, I have known such girls who have themselves accepted that they used their womanhood to gain academic mileage, be it in the form of shedding tears before a strict professor, or using their charms to gain professional favours.

Now, women. I feel the biggest stereotype ruling the female minds is that men are physically rogues. All women suffer to a degree with this stereotype. How many ever men do they see passing in front of them demonstrating how well they match women, or even exceed them, in emotional advancement, they seem to ignore them all, and fix their gaze on those who seem to strengthen their belief that men are sex-starved beasts always looking for the first chance to pounce on the nearest woman. I have observed some very good-natured women succumbing to the evil of gender stereotypes. For example, I have personally faced situations where I had to prove my gentleness to even those of my lady friends who would profess to know me very well. It never occurs to them that men too have a character, and can be morally upright. On the other hand, I have found many men themselves fostering such stereotypes in various manners. By allowing such jokes to be cracked, by behaving awfully to women, at many crucial points. For example, I have known good men who have never graduated beyond treating women as sex-objects. They would go about bedding women of all sorts before marriage, but would settle for nothing but a demure virgin when it comes to marriage.

It is not my intention to counter any of these stereotypes. I know pretty well that some of my male readers would be biased towards the male stereotypes, and some of my female readers would be agreeing happily with the female one. I don't want to prove them wrong. All I say is: stereotypes are given us by nature. Getting rid of them is a difficult exercise, a fight against our biology.

Men, as males, are designed to notice women who can satisfy their sexual urges which demonstrably exceed those of women in general. Women showing qualities which usually are vehicles of power and combatting capability -- be it physical strength in the stone age, or intellect in the modern age -- mean nothing to a man. They are additional details which only add clutter to the scene from where a man is trying to look for his woman, given the small set of qualities he is equipped to judge them by. Stereotyping is a process by which a man is biologically trained to filter the noise from the scene.

Women, on the other hand, are possibly hardwired to carry the opposite stereotype. The way their biology is trained to look at a group of men is a bunch of suitors from whom she has to choose carefully to ensure a healthy progeny. The instinctive dread of being sexually attacked by an inappropriate suitor is deeply engrained in their biology. The above mentioned stereotype is possibly a direct manifestation of that: Assume them all to be rogues. Be on your guards. A man showing emotional intelligence means nothing to a woman, since paying notice to such attributes takes her eye off from the difficult task of choosing the right man from amongst the wrong ones, all of whom are giving her attention. A woman is perhaps designed to take her pick from a horde of rogues. She'll eventually choose the best rogue.

Human species has evolved to such an extent that its members have an existence apart from that which their basic instincts command. In their world, men and women interact with each other as people. They do more and more such things which succeed due to good qualities like intellect and decency. And for very practical reasons, it doesn't matter to such 'human' projects whether such good qualities are possessed by a woman or a man. If a woman is intelligent, courageous, powerful -- well and good; if a man is decent, empathetic, emotionally sophisticated -- so be it.

I also recognise that we, as a species, might have advanced even to a degree where for some of us, the stereotypes might actually have started breaking. Today, a man may get turned on by a woman's intelligence; a woman may get stricken by the empathetic nature of a man. But I think, it's more of an exception than a rule.

As a man, I take two lessons from the above thought:
- I am a man. I am bound to have some inherent male attributes (higher sex-drive, tendency to seek physical dominance) and stereotyping tendencies. I can't hate myself for what I have got from my biology. But I have to be wary of them.
- I have to learn to accept the presence of stereotype among women, and me being involved in it inadvertently and inappropriately. I get very disturbed when I am treated in any way that smells of that stereotype. I think, I must check that. I must learn to live with that. Women don't always mean it when they fail to recognise or appreciate the authenticity of your gentleness. Their affliction from the tendency to stereotype is as strong as ours. Even if she is honestly fighting it, she may fail to resist it once in a while. It's OK.

I, and many many of my fellows, belong to a portion of the human species, whose interaction with the members of their opposite sex is barely sexual in any way . During such interactions, we aren't looking for a mate, even in a remotely biological sense (I honestly think so). Mostly, we are dealing with them as human-beings. Even our way of finding our mates has now a well-defined social process -- be it a love-affair, or an arranged marriage -- which has hardly any biological elements. Therefore, it should be to everyone's advantage to fight the above natural stereotypes to as great an extent as possible. Men should accept that women, in spite of their niceties and emotional hysteria, are intellectually their equals. Women must accept that men, in spite of their physical propensities and higher sex-drive, are morally their equals.

Jokes can always be made on how women can't keep secrets, how blondes fumble with mathematics, how women get late making themselves up; or about how all men want is sex, how they are dirty creatures, how their emotional intelligence is next to zero. We can always have a good laugh sharing such jokes. But behind that, I feel, we should be conscious that these jokes are possibly the only healthy vent we are allowed to give to our natural instinct of gender stereotyping. Whenever it comes to practical interactions, by fighting our stereotypes honestly, we personally stand to share a much more rewarding and fulfilling relation with our friends in the opposite sex, and our entire species would stand to gain (again, I honestly think so).

Cricket Craze, Racism, National Inferiority Complex, Corruption of Media and All That

It's now well-known that the the number of bad decisions in the test. OK, Bhajji's ban was revoked. Bucknor was removed. Fine! Just a few points to remember:

- Popular anger at all this is as meaningful or meaningless as our love for cricket -- passive.
- Media is corrupted, and would love the public go berserk.
- It's the call of people directly involved in the matter -- players and umpires. I don't think we figure anywhere here.
- It's sometimes good to take a tough stand. Australian cricketers are quite a spoiled lot. Let's accept they are the best in cricket, and then look eye to eye. It's very easy for them to say that we are fleeing after facing defeat, and that we are trying to hype up other things to takes peoples' eye off from the match results. Let's join them to hype up their victory to whatever extend that it can be. But if something's wrong, then it is. And it should be punished. Let not we fall prey to our age-old docility and national inferiority complex every time.

Hey! I haven't seen a cricket match in the last 12 year. But, I do see how people get affected by it, especially when the media wants them to get affected.

Just Do It!

The Nike tag-line might be seen as something to infuse aggressiveness in a person, possibly causing him to take to running, and buying their footwear. Over many years, I have looked at it in a different light, and have realised that it has got a message for people like me, who don't have any serious plans to do anything aggressive in their life.
I would like to recount a discussion I had with an ME student in CSA department of IISc about 6 years back. We were cycling towards the lab early one morning. Those were the days of doing piles and piles of assignments. I was struggling with three subjects. I was on the verge of giving up. The other guy had taken those three same subjects, and three more, all of them as tough. I put forth a simple and straightforward question: 'I'm getting a heart attack with 3 subjects. How the hell are you managing 6?' His answer was simple: 'Who's managing? I just keep doing what's right next in the queue!'

That discussion had a deep effect on me. And they started showing in increasing instances in my day to day life years afterwards. After that day, I started becoming more and more conscious of how much time and energy I spend in trying to schedule my day/life. Most of the times, the prospect looks daunting when I try to plan meticulously. Almost always, there's too much to do. To make things worse, there's often no real correlation between the importance and interestingness of things. Unwillingness to do boring chores, and the resentment over the lack of the correlation often used to paralyse me into complete inaction.

Slowly, I made certain observations.

First: there's indeed too much to do. So, there's no point in trying too hard to come up with a beautiful schedule.

Second: The amount of time that one has in coming out with a fairly good approximate schedule is also fairly limited. Most probably, with my kind of intelligence, the only scheduling algorithm that would work is first come first serve.

Third: Life is not a hard real-time system. Deadlines can be broken. They will be. It's good to be ready for that.

Fourth: With increasing business, the feeling of enjoyment diminishes and a numbness sets in. There's a point where the numbness starts eating upon the joy of completing a task. That's where, slogging any harder becomes pointless. Moreover, numbness opens the gates towards dying of heart-attack sooner and sooner.

Fifth: Thank your stars when you have too much to do. Having too much to do is far better than having nothing to do.

Sixth: Concentrate. That's the only way you can enjoy what you are doing, and that's the only way things get done. Concentrate even when you are doing the most insignificant work of the world. Concentration also takes your eyes off such questions like what's the use? which more often than not kill the enthusiasm to do most good things. Concentration is the magic potion of enjoyment and often an effective substitute to brute-force discipline.

Whichever scheduling algorithm we use, it is rather important that we do what gets scheduled next. There we could say: Just do it! But there, the name of the game is not aggressiveness, but discipline. As I am not very good at it, I have found a particular reward-system pretty helpful. I use one task as a respite from another. When, while doing the most urgent thing, we get bored and fatigued, we can take up another lower down in the priority, and do it for a while. That has double benefit. It reduces stress caused by monotony and boredom; and it also gives a sense of satisfaction in that we are actually reducing backlog in the future. I have a peculiar dread towards concentrating for a long time. This automatically results in my finding every other work look more interesting than the one I am currently doing. Therefore, the chance to do anything apart from what I am currently engaged in, appears like a reward. So, I reward myself with this indulgence whenever I make a designated progress in the thing I doing. The rewards usually ring this way in my head: 'Get rid of this bug; then go for coffee.' 'Implement this feature, then write a paragraph in the report.' This reward system, which builds upon an essential cowardice I have, helps me in fooling myself into viewing a work as a fun activity, as a reward, or respite. On the other hand, this habit also helps me turn an otherwise frivolous things into some productive. For instance, going for a coffee may get clubbed with catching up with a friend, or having a technical discussion that's been pending for long.

At the end of it, I have found a kind of fatalistic approach towards many things very helpful. As in: Do your best, and leave the rest on God. At most points, I don't find myself in a position to answer the question: How am I doing? We all have a particular style and speed of handling things. It's not easy to bring about drastic changes in these things. If one wants to get a clear estimate about how one is doing, one should look at life in its totality. For example, if I try it, I get both a reassuring and a humbling feeling about myself. I feel, overall, I haven't been doing too badly. The panic that I feel when I fret about my slowness in doing things looks pretty much unnecessary. It's almost surely true that I am slow in most things. But it's just a disadvantage; not an undoing. I keep losing miles due to that. But there are other things which also put me a couple of miles ahead. All in all, it looks like I am a fairly above average person, possibly brilliant, but definitely not a genius. The most rational answer to the question: 'How is the future going to be?' seems to be: 'Most probably not very different from the past.' So, I seem to be safe. But if I am looking for an extra-ordinary life or something, possibly I am not on my way. At least, there's no way to know now. So, why worry?

To conclude, the central point here is not to imitate Dale Carnegie or Steven Covie. It's just trying to document some realisations, and the following advice is not to someone else. It is to me. Here it is. Just keep doing it. Don't make too frequent assessments of yourself. You are probably doing okay. Be disciplined. Sometimes, numbing the sensations for the sake of getting over with some chores is good for health. It lets you defy fatigue which is often laziness in disguise. But don't do it too often. Then, you may get a heart attack. Mostly, it's a good investment of your effort to learn to enjoy the work. That makes your efforts effective as it's easier to concentrate when you like doing something (converse is also true). It saves you from numbness; hences it's good for your heart.


Ah! A predictable preachy preachy post! :)

Essential Evil

Every non-trivial effort requires coming together of resources. Nothing is achievable unless things from many quarters gather at a place to make it happen. Does it also entail an essential evil?

If you came to know how much thought it takes me to structure up this one piece of writing, without losing the fluidity of thoughts (assuming that it does have a certain degree of structure and fluidity of thought), it would no more appear to you worth anyone's while to write it. To me, the thought behind this one post might be pretty massive. What portion of that gets transmitted to you could be a very trivial portion of that. For most, the sheer length of this piece must be an insufferable deterrent from reading it. For other more tolerant of my readers, I already am known as pretty verbose, even though, the fact is, I work quite hard to walk the line between orthogonality and seamlessness between each successive sentence. If I was to do some cost benefit analysis of my investment on this, the only thing that would justify my putting in so much serious effort into this would be many many people reading it, to compensate for the attenuation that the communication of my idea suffers while reaching its each individual reader. I have a fair idea that the general number of people who really even visit my blogs is rather small. In such conditions, it becomes difficult to justify so much writing.


That was just for example. Economy of scale rules as the cardinal rule for justifying any non-trivial effort. The need to scale up things before one can invest effort into a project, and the number of good things that are prevented from happening due to a way never being found to find this economy of scale for that idea, is a rather peculiar aspect of the way we human-beings work. And I feel, it's not just about humans, but about the way the whole nature works. This lies behind much wastage, much misery and violence. I wonder if this dichotomy of attenuation of effect of any deed, and its compensation by scaling up is the root of many, if not all, evils. Let's talk about it here.

As another slightly bigger example, in Rhythmica, I have always been extremely conscious of how much effort each performance takes. The efforts vary from plain donkey-work to those requiring immense talent. There are people with rare talents involved in the coming up of a programme. It involves a full month or more of gruelling preparation for them to prepare a programme. Often, I get quite taken aback to find the attitude with which our esteemed audience receives us. For most of them, it's just a bunch of 'smart' people performing on stage. Hardly anyone is quite aware of either the effort or the artistic aspect of the performances. Of course, there is another quite opposite kind of people who think that Rhythmica is a substandard team doing crappy Hindi film songs. Their demand is of a much more artistically dense performance, comprising of original compositions, and definitely not of Hindi film songs. On the other hand, Rhythmica and its members enjoy a fair degree of celebrity status in IISc campus, from what I have observed. People don't look at them as artists or musicians. They look at them as popular people. Girls in Rhythmica enjoy tremendous attention from guys (not necessarily because they are very attractive looking, or even talented). Similarly, some guys in Rhythmica are indeed looked at with some interest by other girls. The rewards of being talented gets processed into something quite different from mere admiration of talent. Again, the picky observers take it as an evidence of how Rhythmica is a pop band which gives a damn about the quality of music they do, and runs after popularity, and that's what they get. Rhythmica, for such people, is an obnoxious idea. When this name is spelled, they flinch, and turn up their noses.

For both these kinds of onlookers, one thing about Rhythmica that never gets seen is the effort and tremendous talent that makes each of its programmes, and what it really is, that makes it worthwhile for such a big team of researchers to put in so much effort. For most of them, it's the popularity and celebrity status that, in reality, comes merely as a by-product of the performances. Fans give that kind of an attention liberally; critics hate Rhythmica for the very same thing. Both are pretty happy about their impression about what really makes Rhythmica exist.

Each soul in Rhythmica knows that it's not the fan-following or the envy that Rhythmica enjoys which keeps Rhythmica going (though Rhythmica often says something to that effect during its vote of thanks after every performance). People will find it impossible to believe that Rhythmica has many shy and introverted people who wouldn't open their mouth to speak, but who get passionately drawn to everything musical. Rhythmica does need an audience to keep performing. But what they would ideally wish to have from their audience is sincere praises and honest criticism; not fan-following or turning up of noses. I think Rhythmica knows it's not going to get what it wants from anyone. So, it has learned to get contented with what it gets -- fan following and turning up of noses. Ideally, a more knowledgeable audience would have been as effective in keeping Rhythmica going. In its dearth, Rhythmica does well with something else. For Rhythmicans, Rhythmica is a place to listen to, learn, and do music. That's the soul of Rhythmica. For others, it's a thing of idolisation or flinching about. Both are meaningless from Rhythmica's point of view. But, it brings in funds and visibility, which are as necessary for the survival of the team.

Rhythmica is small fish. I took the example, because I have seen it from close quarters. The phenomenon I wish to talk about is rather more general, and as I said earlier, results in much hypocrisy, wastage and violence.

There's been some buzz in the glossy newspaper supplements about how unfair the film industry is to actresses, when it comes to remunerations. It seems that the heroes charge over 15 crores per film, while the heroines charges a paltry 2 crores! The figures are so unreal for us! Somehow, we might manage to get brainwashed into talking about the unfairness. But is that the starkest of all facts about this whole business when most of us can't even comprehend the magnitude of these sums? It's similar to making two villagers argue about whether Sun is further away or Moon, when none of them has ever set his foot out of his village. And yet, such chit-chats fill so much journalistic real-estate. Who one star is going out with; which director is tying up with which actor; their foreign trips; even their cosmetic exploits(e.g. 'what I always keep in my handbag.'). We get to know, and are interested to know, about every trifling gossip that concerns film-stars, absolutely regardless of whether they contain even a speck of reality. SRK's 6-pack abs, Shahid-Kareena MMS smooch, and subsequent breakup (both events incidently closely preceding two of their joint releases), are things which can make such gossips go around as to eventually result in massive amount of commerce happening as a result.

Film-stars are talented people, who work very hard for what they earn. Even if their acting skills may often be questionable, the amount of work they put in, either for maintaining their good-looks or in making a film, is phenomenal. But, to say that people pay them for that, would be simplistic. It may be true that they do deserve such massive remunerations for what efforts they put into their work, but it's not true that they do get paid for that. They don't even get paid for entertaining people. They get paid for setting up an environment of unreal glamour in the world. On screen, on newspapers, on film-magazines, they look like what people would like to
look like. In tingling the fantasy of people that it's indeed possible to always look glamourous; that's it's possible for at least someone to go through the unbearable pain of multiple love-affairs and breakup; that for some, sex is -- far from being an extremely inaccessible pleasure -- a botheration, a daily chore. If one puts one bit of serious thought, a lot of it is what they work a lot extra harder to make us believe in. And whether we believe all that or not, the beast inside us does get tantalised by that possibility. I feel, that's the singlemost reason why celebrities get such huge fan-following and money.

I hope, with many of the above examples, I have succeeded to bring out a common pattern. The pattern is the following: A person becomes an expert, and works hard for something. To sustain in that activity, the work needs to be sold to someone. Usually, the buyers of that work don't have the slightest understanding or appreciation of the core input of the work. However, the expert in question finds out something else about the work they do, that appeals to the buyers of the product of their work or expertise. That something is most often something far far below the real content of the work, a by-product which is not related fundamentally to the spirit of the work, but relates to some lower end wants which are by and large unsatiated for most people -- good looks, attention, sex, and in some cases, money, fame and such things (which we already are brainwashed to look at as liquid resources that can buy us the above mentioned objectives -- good looks, attention, sex).

Earlier, I alluded to the extra hard work that actors invest in putting up an image of a glitzy life full of fashion, romance, and sex. That, in part, is the explanation for the wastage that the above pattern causes. This phenomenon is in no way restricted to the world of glamour. A similar waste of effort happens wherever something needs to be sold. Motorbikes should look muscular because they are an ultimate representative of the male vanity. Cars of today employ sophisticated (and expensive) technology into features which are nothing but vain and ornamental. The differentiators between most high-end commodities sold in market are not functional, but ornamental. In short, quite pitiably, it appears that most major activities depend on their being bought by a large number of people whose requirements are restricted to a very limited set of animal-like urges -- greed, vanity, sexual lust, viciousness etc. Every product has to be packed up in those glitzy, vulgar foils, however noble and elevated their core spirit might be. An exemplary example of this is our dear Hollywood actresses baring themselves for such noble causes as eco-friendliness, prevention of cruelty towards animals etc.

I understand that to say that the same thing might also be behind a lot of violence is rather daring. But it's unfortunately the case, as I look at it. The limitedness of what most people really care about to a small set of animal urges gives rise to the massive area of marketing. Marketing is a lot about lying. It's not true that for most, having a very attractive and sexy girl getting irresistably attracted to him rests on his choosing to buy their product -- be it a shaving gel, or a motorbike. The products often don't fulfil these requirements. They just kindle them, with the assistance of a lot of marketing. I am not making a value judgement on marketing. Being presentable is one thing -- a good one. But telling a lie about the product's capabilities is another. And filling a person's field of vision with pictures of an unreal, fantastic world, is quite another. As an example, the complete and honest statement of facts about a shaving gel to a potential client might be something like this:
"We are one of the top selling brands in this field. So you may like to believe that we are a good shaving gel. You would like to know that according to our survey, the success of our male customers with women is a good 0.01% higher than those others. As per our preliminary counting, there are just 10,000 other factors in a man which might be responsible in his effectiveness with women, we can assure you that by using our product, you stand a good 0.000001% extra chances than your competitor in scoring with the lady of your dreams."


However, it is but sure that no shaving gel manufacturer ever conducts a survey as to how many of their users really get beautiful girls twining themselves around their body, just because their cheek is smoother, or because they know that this dude shaves with XXX brand.

I am not condemning marketing. I am trying to point out the element of exaggeration and lie inherent in marketing. It's not necessarily with the object of deceit, but possibly for the purpose of presenting the best face. We all do it at various levels. Product manufacturers just do it a million times more than us.

What does it all have to do with violence?

The principles of a capitalistic society are pretty plain to state in a few words. Work hard for money, and get rich. The benefits to the society are an obvious by-product of your honest work. The bad thing about capitalism is that it's a very natural system. Nature works in a capitalistic way. And our instincts are well-tuned to it. But not always in a way that makes use of it to the fullest, but in a way by which we are susceptible to play into the hands of anything that projects competition as a sacrosanct concept, which projects not being a winner as a sin, which adds to our fallacy that not getting the best in the world is the end of the world and life for us. This is a basic instinct we have inherited from olden ages when it was indeed a hard enough thing to survive, and hence was correct to make a go for whatever best was available. Now, survival is no more an issue for most of us; hence logically, this instinct is vestigial. But our instincts to look at every advancement in resourcefulness with the same urgency as if it were a life and death matter, hasn't died down. Quite unnaturally, this instinct is the prime target of all players of a capitalistic market. People who work on the leading edge of things -- who work on matters requiring large amount of effort and resources to come together -- for them, it might still be a matter of life and death to be the best in their respective fields. But for most other people lower down, nothing is so urgent. Their lives are hardly ever so exciting or active that anything they can ensure their existence or extinction.

Marketing people regularly tell two lies to them. One, that they can do things that can change their lives drastically. Two, that it's very important for them to do it. Till this point, the job a marketeer seems very similar to that of a counselor. A counselor infuses hope and motivation in a person to do something meaningful. The difference between a counselor and a marketeer lies in the last word -- meaningful. A marketeer will try his best to completely upset what a person considers meaningful. If a marketeer had his way, a naive subject would get brainwashed completely to completely throw away his whatever existing value system, replacing it with what the marketeer wants him to believe as valuable. Then, the subject would spend all his efforts in acquiring the commodity.


Perhaps, the above picturisation of marketing may seem over-dramatised. For each isolated case, it's true that it's upon the subject to protect himself from falling for false promises. But in reality, marketeers are tremendously successful in pushing into our hands, goodies we don't really need. The landscape in front of us is so full of sceneries which sellers want us to see and believe in that our defense systems against these canards fail sooner or later, because there are just too many of them. The neon lights flashing from the advertising billboards are so flashy that one can't see the stars, the moon, and whatever is naturally beautiful. Marketeers, to an extent, are right in claiming that they never removed the needles we are looking for for. All they do is to make the stacks of hay higher and higher from which we have to find out those needles.


The scene of all-pervading urgency, which capitalism and the aggressive marketing entailed in it cause, create such a stampede as surely accelerates the economy, but creates a society which is disoriented and frizzled. A place, where lots and lots of things are done by people enslaved by false promises and false urgency created by those more capable ones, who consider it their right to enslave others through sophistries of marketing. That's the way capitalism contributes in creating a violent society, because slavery, wrapped in how many ever layers of sophistries, is a violent act. I consider it redundant, after so much explanation, to elicit examples of how this results in 'real', visible violence. I leave this exercise to the esteemed reader.

It's now customary for me to make a clarification at the end of any such piece of writing I do, that I am not speaking against capitalism. And hence, the reader shouldn't hurry on to conclude that I am not a socialist (which my being a Bengali seems to make it rather likely). The above writeup was merely an attempt to put into paper many questions which I have in my mind about these things. Here goes the summary:

To gather resources to do non-trivial things, one needs to gather takers. Marketing is a prime force to do so. Lying and deceit has become primary tools for marketeers to gather takers. Each act of deceit is pardonable in isolation because it after all never forces the buyer. However, cumulatively, everybody doing aggressive marketing creates such a clutter that the really meaningful pursuits of life hardly ever get a thought; and sooner or later, we all fall into a pattern of pursuing things which really don't satisfy any of our deep requirements and are really difficult to achieve. This increases efficiency. But most of our energy goes into wasteful and violence pursuits.

I will soon devote another post to pen down my imaginations of an alternative world. A world where benefits don't suffer tremendous attenuation in reaching its subjects. The fact that most of us aren't capable enough to look for anything more meaningful than what others force us to look for is the prime justification behind con-marketing. Had we been able to really find out for ourselves what really matters to us -- just a hypothetical case -- what would the world have been like? I will ask this question, and try to conjure a hypothetical answer in a piece coming soon.

Right now, I am too tired. I don't think I was very clear. :( It's too complicated a topic. Will refine it later!

My Two Pence to a Good Movie

I watched Aja Nachle on December 5. It's a good movie.

Good story. Good direction. Clean. A steady flow. Good screenplay. Terrific lyrics.

Rakhna samjhal ke yeh pather
Kal ko woh din bhi ayega
Jab pather honge yeh makan
Inki bhi hogi ek zuban



Damn good!

Reading further may be a spoiler. Carry on at your own risk.
I was initially afraid that that it would turn out to be one of those movies depicting a wannabe dancer, her ambitions smothered by the ruthless society, finally finding her way to name and fame. I really get repelled by that idea now.

Instead, it showed mellower thoughts. An established dancer's wish to fulfil her late master's wish. Her struggle to achieve something emerging from love and respect, not from ambition. The leading character isn't shown as a typical ultra-feminine male-basher. She's a courageous and graceful lady who behaves like a lady, and beats the shit out of the bad guys in her own way. She is a mother of a kid, and isn't shown to be younger than 40 + something Madhuri would look. She nevertheless looks quite beautiful. Her acting is good, and dancing is definitely better.

Some beautiful things are shown happening. For instance, a guy who's declared ultra-boring by his wife decides to make himself over. Though, this topic may look comic and cliched to most, I guess, it's more grave than most of us wish to realise, particularly in middle-class families. For a change, the topic was given the kind of treatment such a serious topic deserves -- a serious one.

The background of the movie is a small North-Indian town named Shamli. It deals with small-town issues which concerns a large majority of the Indian population.

The climactic half-hour ballet shown in towards the end of the movie was eminently artistic -- terrific choreography, beautiful expressions, story-telling, cinematography and art-direction, and music. It was grand and pompous. And yet, something was quite realistic about it.


With many such out-of-the-way nice things about it, I think, it mayn't have shocked even the makers of the film when the film bombed. Indian public has little tolerance for things which deviate from their narrow perception of entertainment. In our cracked society, the metropolitan gentry doesn't identify with the outlook of the small-town populace. And the small-town populace are too displeased with their reality to want to see any of it on screen, even if it's done with finesse and affection.

Notwithstanding box-office response, notwithstanding reviews, I would advise my friends to go and have a look at the movie. It's a nice movie, and quite entertaining, with not a dull moment anywhere.

Cracking a Walnut

I think, immediately following global warming, poverty and war, the most pressing woe faced by humankind is the fact that cracking a walnut is so difficult. Access to its heavenly innards is made such a tough thing, which -- ahead of its price -- makes access to walnuts so difficult.

A kashmiri gentleman taught me today how to break the nut barehanded. God bless him! It's unimaginable that breaking the shell -- to break which, such heavyweight tools like hammers, concrete slabs, furnitures; such complicated contraptions like door hinges; and such tiring exercises like propelling the nuts at walls, are used, and that too with such minuscule success, and with such amount of mess that to salvage microscopic bits of the walnut kernel from the debris so created often makes the act of sacrificing the temptation to try cracking that tough nut look nobler than otherwise -- with bare hands -- even the most femininely delicate ones -- is so miraculously easy!!!

I have decided to tell the general populace about how to do it. And that ways, I will be satisfied that I have already contributed my bit to relieving the world of one of its prime miseries.

Here goes the method!


Place the nut vertically on the table or floor so that it stands on its sharp end. Of course, keep holding it with one hand so it doesn't roll away.
Make a fist of your other hand. Hit the top of the nut with your fist with the little finger end of the fist facing down. Not too strongly, nor too delicately. You will hear a cracking sound. In most cases, it won't be the sound of a bone breaking. It's the nut which is cracked! And that too into two neat halves. All of its soul lying bare in front of you to devour!

Can't believe it? Try it yourself.

My Virtual Social Network

The numerousness of these social networking sites is driving me crazy. I have already started losing track of which all portals I am a member of. Here I try creating a list, with idea about which is for what.

My experience is that it's better to stick to few networks. We can't be active in many networks. It would soon go out of hand if we tried to be active in all in which are signed up.

Blogspot: I use this for blogging general stuff. I started blogging here. So, first mover advantage in my case. I don't have anything particularly good or bad to say about this site.

Sulekha: I use this for blogging creative stuff -- particularly short stories. This is fairly well-read ezine, and widely popular among Indians, world over. Its blogging interface is very sophisticated. Blogs can be put wide number of categories. So, searching for interesting blogs is easier, and so is reaching out to the pertinent audience to your own writing. There's a point system in place, which rates the blogger as per their activity. So, there's this lure of becoming famous.

Orkut: The first proper social networking site I became a member of. It's got the first mover advantage for me. I have over 200 contacts here as of now. I have got back in touch with many many old lost friends though orkut. And also have met people with matching interests (water colouring, cartooning etc.) Its scrapping feature looked crazy and silly in the beginning. But it later became the prime medium of reconnecting with old friends, as I would often bump into old friends while browsing someone's scrapbook.

LinkedIn: This is a very popular professional networking site. Its professional networking and referral system is its novel feature. I have heard that some companies officially demand referrals through LinkedIn.

Minglebox: This is a campus networking site. It's an Indian site. The number of colleges listed in this seems large, but the number of members in each doesn't seem to be too good. IISc has only a little over 20 members. That shows that it hasn't yet taken off. It has got a groovy online chatting facility with your campus mates.

Tagged , Frienster , namesdatabase : These are similar to orkut. Their UI is mostly more sophisticated than orkut's, but they have lost out to orkut on the first mover advantage. Haven't had a chance to explore the features to be able to give a detailed review.

Having Food

I thought let me grab the chance of giving you some advice. :)

If one does not enjoy good appetite, I
was wondering if there's a way out of that. Well, the problem may be
with some 'chemical locha' in the body or brain. In that case, I
don't know if what I say below would work or not. Here are two things
you can do:

1. Trying to reduce the number of people you eat with. I find the
company of zero or one people ideal during my meals. I like talking
little while eating; and if at all, I like talking on thing which are
peaceful and quiet. I don't like having any discussion that requires
surge of adrenalin or intellect or both. For example, Science,
music, philosophy, literature, art...anything that I am serious about
is a no-no during meals. The idea is to pay full attention to whatever
I eat and spend as little energy on talking

2. When I used to fuss about food in my kidhood, my Mom used to say,
"Chander moto mukh kore khao" (eat while having a face like moon.)
That has had deep effect on me since. I have made it a point to try
feeling happy about the food I am eating. Food hides good tastes
behind bad taste. I found that it was fun to look for what tasted good
in that food. If anyone in the world can enjoy a particular food, I
try finding out a way to relish that food in the same way. I often
succeed. :)

In short, we must give full attention to our food. We should eat it
with affection and joy. :)

May we all be blessed with good appetite and even better bowel movement! :D
Jaihind!

Excerpts from the early days of PhD

Follows excerpts from a letter I wrote sometime in the second year of my PhD. The mood is that of pride, exuberance, hope, and a lot of inexperience. I had no idea yet what lay ahead of/for me. A lot has changed since then. Much that's written here would never have been written later, if not then. But, that proves it: This PhD has been worth its while!

letter 1
W Bhaai, hum abhee bhee IISc mein hee hain. PhD kar rahe. Aur kucch saal to lagenge hi. And what do
you want to hear of my experiences? I wonder if they will appear interesting to you at all. OK for your,
here're a few lines:
I am working under Prof. Y. N. Srikant (Chairman, CSA dept.,
http://purana.csa.iisc.ernet.in/~srikant/). I am working on automatic verification of theoretical models of
software, with emphasis on Software Architectural Models. So, it's mainly a combination
of Software Architecture, Compiler Design, Program Verification.

How do I do my research? I keep reading books and papers, with a view of finding out what remains to be
done. If I find something of that sort, I try more seriously to search out whatever is
available on that matter all over the world. Ideas start coming automatically.
Till now, I haven't hit an idea that's not been done by anybody else. Often
I have come up with brilliant looking ideas; worked on them for a few
days, and even for a few weeks; and then have found that they have already
been worked on before.  So, it's a long journey. Like this, I keep learning
new things; and hopefully sooner or later, I will be so good in my subject that I will be
the first to come with some idea. That's generally about my research.
There're many
many other things I do here.

I am convenor of the IISc music team. That takes away around 25-35% of all my mental
activities. It's a large team consisting of nearly 30 people. Since, it's a
high talent zone, it suffers all the problems of a normal organisation.
Miscommunications, ego clashes, irregularity. and even people running away
and layoffs! Being a convenor of this team is quite a full-time job, I assure you!
I am also the official cartoonist of the IISc monthly newsletter. So, a
day a month has to be fully devoted to that. I am also a part of the Students' Support Network. A
team of 8-9 people trained in lay counselling to help students with
psychological problems (there're quite a few here, due to the stressful life). I underwent a
short course in providing lay counselling some time ago.

Apart from that I usually socialise a lot. I have a large circle of
friends. Almost everybody in the campus knows me. So, that's an overhead,
as well as an advantage.

After telling so much, all my well-wishers usually give me a worried look
asking: 'Sujit, hope your research is going on well!'
Well, I usually don't answer that question. Let time figure that out for everybody! :)
Love,
Chakku

letter 2
Hey W,   That letter of yours gives a lot of openings for the egotist within me to speak up.
Well, I will keep him quiet for now and try to be brief (I may not succeed!). 
...
...

PhD life (for me, atleast) is vivid, active and exhausting
experience. I learn a lot lot more than an average man does any day.
Simply because I find this environment far more condusive to keeping your
senses alert and awake. It's a blessing not granted to many. Some never
get even a taste of it. And some unfortunates get it and never realise
what they're whiling away. I am fortunate, very fortunate!

Darker sides? Well! None really, if you're talking about me and my
life. I am just fine. I get a modest 6k/month. Much more than enough to
lead a perfectly splendid life in the campus. Anyways, it'd take quite a
rich man to be leading a life full of so many experiences, such greenery,
such great company, such facilities and simplicity. All my needs are more
than met.

Perhaps, you're talking about the lack of the 'feeling' of a
growing bank balance. Well, I was never good at deriving any pleasure from
the feeling that I must be having a large bank balance. This fulfilling
life more than compensates for whatever that means. I am already richer
than most, forever!

(One reason for this post is also is also to push that previous post down. It was more an experiment with that Hindi typing than making a point. I consider that experiment a failure.)

शाकाहार और मांसाहार

इस दुविधाजनक परिस्थिति में कई बार पडा हूँ जब मुझसे किसी ने पूछा कि शाकाहार क्यों।
मेरा शाकाहारी बन्ने का कारण शैधान्तिक है। और ये मेरे मांसाहारी मित्रों को पसंद नही। मेरी माँ को यदि कोई प्रश्न करे कि आपका बीटा शाकाहारी क्यों है तो वो यही कहती है कि उसे हाजमे कि तकलीफ है। माँ अनर्थक बहस मे ना पड़ने के लिए ऐसा कहती है।
मैं इस विषय में झूठ नही कहता। मैं शाकाहारी हूँ और इस बात का गर्व कर्ता हूँ। मांसाहार को मैं अनैतिक मानता हूँ और इस विषय में तर्क वितर्क से मुझे कोई परहेज नही।
पर इससे पहले कि कोई मेरे विचारों पर पर कोई धारणा बना ले मैं कुछ बातें स्पष्ट कर देना चाहता हूँ। पहला ये कि केवल मांसाहार करने से ही कोई हिंसक नही बन जाता ना ही शाकाहारी बन्ने पर कोई महात्मा हो जाता है। व्यक्तिगत तौर पे नैतिकता की परिभाषा वह नही जो सामान्य तौर पे होती है। उदहारण: हमारे खान पान की आदतें हमारी नैतिकता के ज्ञान पे नही बल्कि हमारी परवरिश पर निर्भर करती है। जब तक खान-पान में हम अपनी तरफ से मूलभूत परिवर्तन ना लायें तब तक उसपे सिद्धांतों की कोई प्रासंगिकता नही।
मेरी परवरिश एक मांसाहारी परिवार में हुई। मैं एक आयु तक स्वयम मांसाहारी था। मैंने जान-बूझ के अपनी आदतों में परिवर्तन लाया। मुझे अधिकार है कि मैं अपने इस फैसले का पूछे जाने पर सही कारण बताऊँ। मैं नही मानता कि इसमे किसी को कोई बात व्यक्तिगत आक्षेप के रुप में लेनी चाहिए।
खैर! मंसहरियों से जब भी मैं इस तर्क में पढ़ जाता होन तो एक मेरे बताये कारणों का एक जवाब सदैव पाटा हूँ। क्या वृक्षों में प्रान नहीं? क्या तुम्हे यकीं के साथ पता है कि उनकी ह्त्या वक़्त उन्हें कोई तकलीफ नही होती?

Men and Women

Here was one quite a nice poem written in praises of women, that I got in an egroup.

Why Women Cry
 
Why are you crying, a young boy asked his Mom?
 
"Because I'm a woman," she told him.
 
I don't understand," he said.
 
His Mom just hugged him and said,
"And you never will, but that's O.K.".......
 
Later the little boy asked his father,
"Why does Mom seem to cry for no reason?".
"All women cry for no reason," was all his Dad could say......
 
The little boy grew up and became a man,
still wondering why women cry.
 
Finally he put in a call to God and when God got back to him, he
asked "God, why do women cry so easily?"
 
GOD answered......
 
"When I made woman,
I decided she had to be special.
I made her shoulders
strong enough to carry
the weight of the world, yet,
made her arms gentle enough to give comfort...
 
I gave her the inner strength
to endure ch! ildbirth
and the rejection
that many times will come
even from her own children.

I gave her a hardness
that allows her
to keep going and take care
of her family and friends,
even when everyone else gives up, through sickness and fatigue
without
complaining....
 
I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all
circumstances. Even when her child has hurt her badly....
 
She has the very special power to make a child's boo-boo feel better
 and
to quell a teenager's anxieties and fears....
 
I gave her strength to care for her husband, despite faults
and I fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart....
 
I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife,
 but
sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him
unfalteringly....
 
For all of this hard work,
I also gave her a tear to shed.
It is hers to use
whenever needed and ! !
it is her only weakness....
When you see her cry,
tell her how much you love her, and all she does for everyone, and
even though
she may still cry, you will have made her heart feel good.
 
She is special!

I felt that there was need to do a balancing act. After all guys, particularly nice guys like me, have seen or done none of the atrocities that their kind have been charged with for milennia. We keep hearing that we belong to that sex-starved, beastly kind called 'male'. After all there's a need to recapitulate on our true nature. So, I wrote the following:

Baap re! Are women so very good! Let's write something parallel for men...
***********************************************************************
Quoting God...
I gave him a kind and noble heart. Covered that up with muscles, so he
could be powerful enough to carry the load and sorrows he must bear.

It was him for whom I secured all the bothering of finance for
his family. I also gave him the forbearance to never show its difficulty
to the family he loves. He too wanted to sit back and sulk on somebody
along with his kids. But he couldn't. As a man he must see to it that they
live on.

I gave him the responsibility for making his family feel secure. Even if
he is left with no strength he manages to make his family safe and secure
from the greatest dangers of the world. He too wanted to tremble like a
leaf. But he couldn't. Because he is a man!

I gave him the role of always acting the ideal person for his children so
that they grow up to be as good as or better than him. Even at the face of
being ridiculed as old-fashioned and boring by the very children he lives
for. He too wanted to cry and scream expressing his pain. But he couldn't.
Because he is a man!

While the woman could care, love, caress, laugh and cry with her child --
and be called the Mother, the greatest friend, guru etc. The Father had to
go out in the heat so that his child and wife could eat. He too wanted to
caress and love his child. But no! he is a man!

But then I just had stop short of making him the perfect creature. I
couldn't give him a single drop of tear. For, I had already given all of
that to women.

A women thus can express her love, hate, fear, happiness and sorrow all
through TEARS! And earn love and regard as 'Oh so feminine!'

Man keeps taking the blame of being unfeeling, heartless, mean, physical,
base, and what not - because he can't cry!

Poor men!

***********************************************************************
In summary...

Hey, we all are the same, with some minor external differences. Don't
romanticise unnecessarily. Let's love and respect everybody equally (I
know, that's easier said than done).

I will be happy to see the day when men will be actually enchanted by
women showing the talents men think themselves good at.

I will be even happier to see the day when women can see a man crying
without thinking, 'how...!'

Casteism

A cross posting (edited) from a discussion in the casteless community in orkut:

Everything that's accumulated by means of capabilities will have a tendency to accumulate unevenly. Take the simple example of money. In a purely capitalistic society, even if we start with an initial condition of hypothetical fair competition, the more capable ones will soon march ahead of others. Then, when that generation passes away, they will always tend to bequeath their wealth to the people they consider as their offsprings, and heirs. Therefore, from the very next generation, people will start their lives (read 'races') from varying degrees of advantage. Over several generations, this difference will have a natural tendency to widen leading to plutocracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, and finally feudalism.
This is true for all valuable things : money, power, social status and even knowledge. Casteism is culmination of intellectual and social aristocracy.
Casteism exists in various disguises in our society. The evil of casteism is much deeper rooted than the archetypal 'casteism' that we usually talk about. Getting rid of casteism in a true sense would mean that people must bequeath their earnings and wealth (whether of currency, power, knowledge etc) to those they consider worthy heirs of it, not to those who are their natural offsprings.
Not at all easy because of many reasons. One hurdle is that we are hardwired to be biased to our biological offsprings. Not obeying that is hard. Not commenting about its rightness or wrongness. But each act done against the dictate of nature creates an added element of tension. We have still done many such things and have succeeded. I am hopeful even this can be achieved. But it's quite tough. Another hurdle is, doing so, it may have unpredictable consequences on social structures like family, which, otherwise have proven rather effective, and again come to us through our biology.
But as a good start, let's try and understand the problem of casteism and class-feelings in its entirety. Let's not hurry to promise to get rid of them.