About Meditation

I have been doing a little bit of meditation everyday for a few months. In fact, on and off, I have done this for a very long time. But this time, for the first time, I see tangible benefits. The first immediate benefit has been completely physical. I used to have a chronic neck-shoulder-back pain all the time for several years. It had started perceptibly worsening in the last few years. It was never very sharp, but was bad enough to affect the quality of my sleep sometimes. I hadn't tried any medical help, but had tried all sorts of exercises. Nothing had helped. But meditation has allowed me to feel largely free of that pain for the first time. I can't believe that making that pain almost disappear was in my hands and was so easy! I really feel very happy about it. I don't know if this state will persist for long or not. But for sure, at present, it seems to be working like a miracle.

The second benefit is more mental, and is about the overall feeling of well-being. I am able to stay calm in larger number of situations. I am not wasting precious energy by being unnecessarily tensed, physically and mentally. I sleep very deeply these days!

What's this meditation that I am doing? I think, I haven't followed any prescribed method. Firstly, it's based on a belief that the default state of being is that of meditation. Meditating therefore is about going back to the ground state. This means, that ideally, one should always be in a meditative state. Which also means, it's not to be effortful, but should rather be about letting go of unnecessary efforts.

How do I do it? I just do a periodic (say, every few minutes) mental scan of my body to detect if there's a muscle which is tensed or exerted without need. The next stage is to maintain this while doing something. By being self aware, I am able to analyse which are precisely the set of muscles which need to be exerted to do what I am doing. Then I try to make sure that no other muscle is exerted during that time. For example, if I am concentrating on typing this mail, why should my face muscle be clenched? If I am cycling why should be chest and back be tightened. Often, tightening of extra muscles seems to have something to do with avoiding pains and aches. If the particular muscle being used in a task is aching due to exertion, we involuntarily try to distribute the effort to other neighbouring muscles. Probably that's why, it's a good idea to do some exercises and asanas. To make sure that all muscles and bones of the body can do what they are supposed to.

I also try to do the same thing with my mental state. Think about one thing at a time. Don't exert the brain on unnecessary processing. Identify the negative emotions (fear, anger, ego ...) which send the brain on a flurry of unnecessary activities. This mental part is much harder, and at best, I am just a beginner in this.

 

(This is an excerpt from a mail I wrote sometime back to my friend Prachee.)

Persecution and Confidence

In my childhood, I felt constantly bullied and persecuted by many of my peers. They would call me 'studious', 'scholar', 'fundu' etc. all in a derogatory sense. I used to feel left out and socially rejected. My unhappiness with myself left me very lacking in confidence. But I still liked sitting by myself, peering into books, drawing, doing mathematical puzzles, ... instead of playing cricket, or gossiping about girls and movies sitting on the street culverts. I -- thankfully -- didn't try to fake myself.

As we all grew older, two interesting things happened. Firstly, those who used to call me names for being studious and academic, suddenly became serious about their studies. That was in the senior years in the high school. They scored an ace in the board exams and got into very good colleges. They proved that if they wished, they could actually study harder than I could. My scores remained the same throughout. These people are now doing very well in their lives. It was in the end all about the capability and competition for them. For them, studies were a vehicle to doing well in life, to prove their capability. What really got proved is that it was necessity which drove their actions, while it was mere individual taste which made me do what I did. They would do exactly what I had been doing, but only when forced by circumstances.

Secondly, I gradually grew out of my own nerdy self-image and turned into a reasonably social person. Thanks to my finding almost everything interesting, I found it rather easy to connect with anyone who had something about his personality that was driven by genuine passion, even in subjects which I wasn't good at, e.g. sports.

In my grown up years, I still keep encountering a similar, though a lot milder (or should I say, repressed) form of persecution. It affects me less and less by the day. And here's why ...

Firstly, people who initially come across as arrogant and rude on the first encounter later often turn out to be shy and introvert. People who avert eye contact in public places, always wait for you to start the conversation, appear extremely thankful when you are the one breaking the ice. So, in most cases, I find it a good idea to approach a person with a guilt-free smile.

Secondly, those who find it necessary to persecute someone, particularly when that person has done nothing wrong, are those who feel uncomfortable from the fact that there's someone who is not exactly like them. Most people draw confidence and reassurance by placing themselves in the middle of a group which has a bunch of individuals, indistinguishable from him and each other. The code of conduct followed in such a group is behave exactly like others. Each individual strives hard to understand the collective characteristics of the group: the activities, the body language, the lingo, the topics of discussion. And like classical sycophants, they pay lip-service to the collective unuttered beliefs of the groups. The DNA of such a large group (look out for a bunch of giggling, roaring youngsters at the streets, malls, and other public places who seem to look like a very happy lot from a distance) is that of insecurity. The social security felt by its members is through conformity to tacit rules. And those rules associate with the lowest common denominator of intellect and character, so even the lowest of the lowly don't feel uncomfortable in that group. The other typical behaviour of such a group is that of rejecting and persecuting all non-compliance. Their extreme discomfort at coming across people who aren't insecure enough to comply to the lowest common denominator rule is expressed through ridicule and rejection. Often, they will charge you of the same crimes they are themselves guilty of. They will call you studious (meaning to say that you work hard to get accepted by some order that you feel subservient to). They will call you scholarly or bookish (meaning that your field of vision is limited by what you pay lip service to). These are really the characteristics of the group the membership to which gives them the guts to call names at you.

To this, a relevant footnote would be that this behaviour is by no means unnatural. Humans are social creatures, which means that it is in their nature to feel happy and secure in herds. The eagerness to belong to some social order, and the knee-jerk repulsion towards any show of non-compliance, are a very biological trait. Though innocent and involuntary by itself, it has often been a defining element in the history of human race: extremism and intolerance of any form is essentially a manifestation of this very characteristic, and lies at the root of most bloodshed that has happened on this planet.

To cut a long story short, through long years, I have realised that I have led a life driven by more honest and sane forces than those who used to persecute me in my childhood. When I meet many of them now, surprisingly there's an immediate feeling of kinship, with no bitterness remaining from the childhood days. Not so much because I have changed my ways and have become more 'social', but because -- I honestly believe -- these individuals have grown less insecure of themselves and are able to feel comfortable in the company of a person who doesn't try too hard to proclaim his indistinguishableness from them. Some of childhood peers who I come across after years of separation, haven't conquered their childhood insecurity. And with them, even after so many years, I get the same sense of rejection. This rejection no more can take the shape of ridicule, persecution, name-calling. Because the herd which was the prime source of the courage that allowed them to ridicule me, has dispersed. Now, therefore, this rejection appears very much in its true form -- insecurity!

The Path to Professionalism

While chatting with one of my friends this morning, I made a casual remark: "Disillusionment is the first step towards professionalism." Hm. I feel like patting myself for saying that. :)

We all have dreamt of attaining greatness in so many ways! How many of us really get anywhere close to becoming great? Let me talk about myself. At some or the other point in my life, I have wanted to do all of the following:

• Become a great writer.
• Become a great scientist.
• Become a great singer.
• Become a great artist.
• Become a great teacher.
• Become a great engineer/programmer.

I am usually called quite versatile by most people I know, just because I have become all of the above. Just remove the 'great' part of it. In other words, I can't claim greatness in anything as such. But, I have done most of the above list for a very long time, year after year. And I have continued to enjoy doing them. And for that, I claim some credit.

On the way to do anything non-trivial, disillusionment is the first and biggest milestone. Disillusionment comes in various forms. Let me try and list some of them:

• It's difficult, physically/mentally/financially expensive.
• It's 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration.
• If I don't finish it, it slides back to zero in no time. There's no way to build on my earlier work. It requires one heroic effort.
• I am not that good in it.
• Nobody cares.
• The people I used to admire have turned out to be fakes.
• I have to work with scoundrels who have no work ethics.

Some Examples

Let me give a couple of examples from my experience. 

Being a Scientist

My childhood image of a scientist was that of a chemist mixing colourful fluids with each other and creating funny fumes and explosions. That image was kind of cool. That image didn't have the various other components of chemistry in it: the eternal pungency of a chemistry lab, the taste of chemicals, the Ketone burns, the ever imbalanced chemical equations, the low grades ... While I gradually came to terms with the idea that I didn't have much of a future in Chemistry, I was fortunate to get exposed to other forms of science where my disillusionments weren't severe enough to kill my wish to continue with them. I continued in the path of science, but came across bigger and bigger disillusionments. You have to get good grades every time. You have to publish and keep publishing. You have to be visible. You have to continuously keep working hard to prevent yourself from getting caught in the vortex of anonymity. Sometimes, just in order to avoid being completely ignored, you have to fake interest and knowledge in some subjects. In conferences, you have to flock around the big names of your field. You have to flash smiles, laugh at bad jokes ... sometimes, even try to look good. Anything but what you would associate with a scientist. You have to tell lies about your work to get your papers through in journals: fabricate data, force-fit cool sounding themes, spew mathematical symbols where you could as well have done without them, cite papers of authors who you know are there in the programme committee.

Of course, a counter-argument to the above is: 'You be so good that you needn't do any of the above.' I agree. And I know people who haven't possibly gone down the above path and have still done well. And I know at least one individual who, having not done that well, has still managed to keep himself clean of blemishes -- myself. But that doesn't change the overall DNA of the system: which is ruthlessly competitive, and even corrupt in certain ways. And that makes it a day to day struggle to survive in the world of science. In short, being a scientist today (or may be any time in history) is far from the cool image projected to us of an absent-minded genius free of worldly worries discovering new scientific marvels everyday. A great disillusionment!

Being a Writer

I have been writing for as long as I remember. The wish to write a book that would take the reader into a different world, would show them things they wouldn't otherwise be able to see, occurred quite early in life, as early as the first time any book did the same to me. However, writing has turned out to be a much harder thing to do than my childish fantasies allowed me to perceive. It's not merely about having a great idea to share, and some grasp over a language to express it with. It's a continuous balancing act between brevity, simplicity, relevance, glamour, cohesiveness, and a host of other concerns. Writing a page in a diary and writing a piece for someone else are two completely different things. The first draft is ready in probably the first 10% of the time you spend in writing. The remaining 90% goes in the incredibly tedious process of reading, re-reading, revising, re-arranging etc., an unending struggle to give it that ever-elusive ideal form.

If it's a book, before you even get to write it up, you have to actively involve in networking and canvassing to grab the attention of a publisher. Then, you have to fight him to prevent him from modifying your ideas beyond recognition to make your work 'more acceptable'. Afterwards, you have to go around marketing the book to get it sold. I have personally come across people -- authors -- who employ fairly disgraceful methods of getting called as authors, getting invited as guest speakers, and getting on-air time in well-publicised events just to up the probability of getting the copies of their books being picked up by prospective readers from the book-store racks.

Similarly, in this Internet age, Most readers have a infinitesimal attention span. Clicking a link to a blog post (which is a reaction to a distraction in the midst of work or other competing distractions) is not at all equivalent to picking a book from a shelf (which is an act of volition in more than one ways). So, the time available before the prospective reader gets bored, closes the browser tab and moves on to the next distraction is in the order of a few seconds. You may have to do something really drastic to turn the visitor to your blog into a reader. For example, finishing up in one screen-full, using graphics, bullet points, politically charged statements, even sleaze. An Internet reader has no patience or time for slow build-up, and elaborate analysis. He wants quick pills of instant gratification which a sedately paced work will never give him.

In short, the imaginary world in which you wish to be an author was where a good idea just needed to expressed in order for a reader to read it and appreciate it. In the real world, an author, just like a real world scientist, is competing with many others, for the attention of a reader who is already deluged with distractions. The competition for the readers' mental real-estate is so cut-throat amongst writers that you shouldn't be surprised to find resistance and rivalry instead of intellectual camaraderie between two writers. Another huge disillusionment!

The Reality

The reality is, I am still a scientist. I think about new stuff, I read, I create ... every day of my life, I go through the rigours of a scientist's life like all other scientists of the world. The visions of greatness have faded before my eyes. One may think, I mean to say that now doing science is probably nothing but a drudgery for me. I do it because I am left no other choice at this stage of my life.

The reality also is that I keep writing copious amounts. Blogs, notes, diary, letters. I have stopped likening myself to Tolstoy, Premchand and Tagore. I don't even clearly visualise my words in print form any more. Yet, I keep writing.

One may think all this quite grim. I don't. I happily feel that I have made it across the most difficult part. I have made it across the ocean of disillusionments. This journey has left me humbled, but also clear about why I do the things I do. I am clearer about what I am prepared to do and what not in order to make advances towards possible acceptance, if not greatness, in these worlds of activity: scientific or literary. I now have solid evidence that I don't do my stuff because of a fantasy of glamour and greatness. Nor merely as a means for subsistence. Rather, there's something right there in the act of doing which pulls me irresistibly to these acts, and to do them everyday, apparently thanklessly.

A professional is a person who has survived the tempests of disappointment, depression and despair, voyaging in the ocean of disillusionments. He is a person who is driven by the very love of the act he earns his bread from. In fact, I would go to the extent of asserting that unless you go through the process of seeing layers of glamour and hopes of greatness being peeled off your profession, you don't even get called a professional in it.

A Musical Confession

I confess that in more musically fashionable circles, in the company of fans of A. R. Rahman and Ilaiyaraaja, -- or even worse -- Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Pt. Jasraj, MSS etc, I have joined hands to bitch about the musically famished decades of the 80s and 90s. The decades when the best that Bollywood could produce in the name of music directors were Laxmikant Pyarelal; when the playback singers who ruled the roost were no better than pathetic Shabbir Kumar, Mohd. Aziz etc. When singers like Kumar Sanu could become the singer of the decade and gems like Suresh Wadkar had to content with their status of really talented singers.

And yet, those were the decades when I travelled through my teens, grew into a man, experienced love, lust, longing, rejection, separation ... all in my own clumsy ways; when the biology of growing up made my senses so sharp that I looked for beauty in everything that came my way.

Hence, people, I wish to confess today that the many of the songs which I still hum in solitude, shower and while driving  or walking came out in those dark decades of 80s and 90s. And they were composed by such unmentionables as Nadeem Shravan, Jatin Lalit, Anu Malik, and even Bappi Lahiri.

Here's a list of those songs which I may have made fun of to try and belong in the class of Rahman lovers, but which I have always loved:

Aashiqui

Jaane jigar jaane man

Mai duniya bhulaa dunga

Ab tere bin

Tu meri zindagi hai

Saajan

Jiye to jiye kaise

Bahut pyaar karte hai

Mera dil bhi kitna paagal hai

Dil Hai ke Maanta Nahi

Dil hai ke maantaa nahi

Dil tujhpe aa gaya

Tu pyaar hai kisi aur ka

Khilaadi

Wada raha sanam
Tu shamaa mai parwana tera
Khud ko kya samajhti hai
Dekha teri mast nigaahon mein

Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar

Title Song

Pehla nasha

Rooth ke humse kabhi

Qayaamat se Qayaamat tak

Gazab ka hai din

Akele hai

Papa kehte hai

Ae mere humsafar

Papa Kehte Hai

Ghar se nikalte hi

Mujhse naaraaz ho to ho jaao

Ye jo thode se hain paise

Phir Teri Kahaani Yaad Aayi

Dil mein sanam ki soorat

Tere dar par sanam

Sadak

Tumhe apna banaane ki

Rehne ko ghar nahi

Here's another confession: It took me 10 times more time to set up the hyperlinks than it took to write up the post.

Like me, you may be under the pressure not to publicly accept your liking for these songs, but nothing stops you from clicking the links above and enjoying them when none of your more technically gifted friends is looking! Don't worry! Google will not tell them! ;) ;)

Enjoy! And do suggest if you think anything's there that can't be left out of this list! :)

The Thin Thread of Logic

Sometime ago, while driving a relative's car, I was trying to wear the driving belt, as is my habit. The belt was stuck. I struggled for a while and got it unstuck and then wore it. A part-praising, part-remonstrating remark about how I must follow rules came from the other passengers of the car. The fact is, I couldn't care less about rules (I wasn't even carrying my license with me at that time). But I think that driving is dangerous, and driving without a seat belt increases the risk of turning an accident fatal. Wearing the seat belt is easy, and I don't feel uncomfortable at all wearing it. More than once, I have gone more than 10 hours at a stretch behind the wheel, all the while wearing the seat belt. So, it's logical for me to wear it.

Interestingly, when we took to the road, the topic of upanayan (sacred thread) ceremony came up. My relatives were interested to know when I would like to get it done for my son. I said, I wasn't too interested. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, somebody probably asked, why? Or probably no one asked. Anyway, I provided my reason. I felt that the thread served no purpose. Our belonging to a Brahmin community has no significance. I don't see a point in celebrating that fact. I am not a Dalit apologist, nor do I think of all castes as evil. Quite to the contrary, I feel that the concept of Brahmin is a very elevated one. Most of us Brahmins, who revel so in our Brahminism, are not Brahmins by virtue. A Brahmin is supposed to lead a life of complete renunciation, austerity, scholarly pursuits, modesty, compassion and service. A Brahmin is not supposed to horde wealth. He is not supposed to be proud, hot-headed, aggressive and deceitful. How many of us tend to be even some of all the above? I don't think I have any of the above in significant quantity. I stopped wearing my thread a very long time ago. Brahminhood is not an inherited wealth, it has to be earned. And a person with the above qualities is a Brahmin irrespective of his or her birth. However, today, the idea of Brahminism has got reduced to a ceremony, a mark of a community's covert wishes to be distinguished as elite without having to work for it (one of your key claims to that elitism is your lack of wish for it). The thread ceremony today is not a relic of our age-old tradition of celebration of a scholarly way of life; it's a remnant of the evil phase of history which turned a social role of scholars to an entitlement to unearned privileges.

Just as an aside, let me mention that among Bengalis, most Brahmins eat meat. Now, I don't mix the issue of meat eating (though I have my stand on it) and castes. But, I am mentioning this because I remember a very amusing argument given by someone in defence of Bengali Brahmins being non-vegetarians. According to her, Bengal was ruled by Brahmins. Therefore, the Brahmins of that region were historically supposed to be physically strong and aggressive by nature. Hence, they took to meat eating since it is supposed to give physical strength and infuse aggression (I don't believe either).

But really, the reason for my writing this post isn't really about all the above. It's actually about two things which aren't at all related to the above topics of road safety or casteism. The first thing is about the amusement I felt at the weird connection between the two topics: a thread! In the road safety topic, we are talking about tying a seatbelt; in the casteism topic, we are talking about tying a allegedly sacred thread. This similarity, the strange temporal proximity between the two discussions, and the mysterious creative process which allowed me to get amused from this to conceptualise a cartoon was immensely interesting. So, that's one.

The other is the amazing fact that logical thinking is not all that easy to come by to us. As they say, common sense is uncommon. I am not trying to ridicule particular people at their lack of rational thinking. I wish to say that we all in general are prone to lose sight of reason and have conflicting views on things. I would loved to quote examples where I have failed. I am sure there must be such examples. Unfortunately, we aren't very good in seeing our own logical failings. Had we been good in that, there's no reason to fail in them in the first place. In short, I would not know my own examples. So I am forced to relate others'.

On a related note, I also find that we all are much more driven by emotions than logic. Over time, we get tremendously adept in putting what's an expression of an emotion or at most an opinion in the garb of a logical argument. Often, our subconscious mind works in the background to create arguments in favour of what's just our emotion: fear, greed, lust, anger, jealousy, laziness etc.

To conclude, logic is good -- probably the best thing that has happened to humans. But unfortunately, it doesn't work all the time. We humans are tied to logic through very thin threads which quickly break under other forces acting on us which are much stronger than those threads. Worse still, logic often becomes a slave to those other forces.

So, what's actionable in this? Here:

• Be careful to check if your beautiful arguments may just be smoke coming out of embers of emotions.
• Avoid being unkind to others for their logical fallibility. Know that you too are fallible because of the very nature of your connection to logic.
• Train yourself for making fewer mistakes by being aware of the weakness.

Offending Art and Religious Tolerance

There was some controversy surrounding the movie PK which shows an alien taking on God men. The movie took a strongly critical stance against superstitious beliefs and traditions. All in all, there appears to be a fair degree of agreement that the movie is a good piece of satire. No wonder, the movie has already grossed more than 200 crores (in fact, just discovered that it's already become the highest grossing Bollywood movie ever!), a good portion of which can be attributed to all this controversy, I am sure. I wonder if, in general, it would not make sense for the producers to divert some of their advertising money into fabricating controversies around their movies. It seems like a very effective way of catching public attention.

It would be a pity if I didn't do a post on this topic. Particularly because I have already seen the movie, partially due to the curiosity the controversy aroused in me. And also because I recently got involved in a group debate on the same topic.

In my view, I didn't find anything religiously offending in the movie. An alien doesn't share with us the sense of shame and scandal that we usually attach to some notions or words. Example: sex, urination and nakedness. In fact, I consider it a really wonderful way to examine the objectiveness of cultural concepts by pretending to be an alien. It would force us to ask some truly fundamental questions: Why God? Why ask Him for anything? Why expect Him to give us a preferential treatmenet? An alien is a symbolic creature who is agnostic of our cultural biases and hence can ask questions that we can't.

I also don't see anything for which Hindus should take offence. All religions were criticised. In fact, it wasn't religion which was criticised. It was the practices followed in the name of a religion. Hindu practices got special attention simply because it's the majority religion of India.

One issue is that Aamir Khan is a Muslim. What if the dialogues which so offended some people were delivered by a Hindu actor? Would it have created the same reaction? I guess not. Protests which arise owing his religion are presupposing evil intentions on his part. That's a fundamentally racist thing to do. It's so easy to dismiss the perfectly admirable social work he does by saying that he is a showman, that he is showing off. There's no objective basis for such wording, and can be dismissed right away.

As a movie, as a work of art, I would give PK a complete clean chit if I had a say. In its less than 3 hours, it has to give impactful messages, some of them even jarring. But as a critique, I have to say that religion as a concept gets targeted a bit too often. And that's unfair. But this criticism is not for PK, rather for the entire popular culture which exempts so many other elements of our lives which more evil than religious malpractices. One was brought up by the dhongi God man played by Saurabh Shukla. Arguably, liquor and tobacco bring more grief to the society than religion (with all malpractices in its name) does. Why are these not targeted as much. There are many others: consumerism, vanity, anything that eventually results in wastage of natural resources, and therefore deprivation. How is bathing Shiv Linga with milk any worse than splurging thousands on liquor in a pub? Is there nothing wasteful that the makers of that movie, or anyone who criticises religion for promoting lavishness and wastefulness, have in their life? My personal take on the matter is anything wasteful is evil and should be criticised.

I would infer that many people criticise things which it is fashionable to criticise. Dowry, racism, terrorism, corruption ... evil though they may be, the reason why they meet such widespread public criticism is not so much their evil nature, but but the wide acceptability their criticism has attained in the popular culture. Various sections of society provide us with many examples of the fact that people at large do not have a very original moral code. There are people who, without any introspection, consider eating non-vegetarian food acceptable, but consider alcohol and pre-marital sex bad.  There is clear discrimination exercised in sexual liberty given to men and women in almost all sections of the society. Appealing to your greed, insecurity, sexual frustration etc. is acceptable in advertising; appealing to your superstitious belief is not as much. There are so many who swear by their sympathy for the poor, but consider expensive yearly pleasure trips to foreign locales a necessity in their lifestyles. There are people who take pride in switching off appliances to save energy at home, but aren't ready to be questioned on why they drive their fuel guzzling car to work, alone. In a recent debate that happened in our apartment complex, people were quite unanimous in their view that bachelors shouldn't be allowed into the apartment complex as tenants. These people must have, at some point or another, talked against racism in fashionable circles. Just a little thought will reveal that racism isn't merely discrimination in terms of colour, religion or caste.

So, examples are in plenty that prove beyond doubt that what's considered acceptable in the popular culture mayn't stand the scrutiny of logic. On the other hand, people criticise things which they find being criticised by those who they identify themselves with or idolise. Therefore, for a thoughtful person, what may be a thoughtful criticism of a social evil, may just be another instance of herd behaviour for the general people.

Having said all the above, I consider it an artist's prerogative to use his art to convey messages he wishes to give the society. It's not sensible to criticise this act. The message itself may be criticised. Tolstoy, towards the end of his life, preached about his own customised variant of Christianity. Ayn Rand advocated eloquently in favour of capitalism and selfishness. Both thoughts may have raised public debates in their own times, but are things of the past now. It is a regular thing for artists to make social, philosophical or moral commentaries. Even the greatest of them may meet a disastrous public reception, a fate which is completely in the hands of the public. Therefore, to ask an artist to not cross his border, and continue doing non-serious art is foolish. Nor can it be demanded from them they mustn't go wrong or offend anyone. If you decide to send any message, it's bound to offend someone. That something appears offensive to some section of the society to be made the basis of a sweeping ban or censorship, isn't logical. You may control viewer ship by giving a more restricted censor certificate.

... and I think, PK deserves an 'A' certificate. It has caused some misery to some kids who get offended by innocuous references to body-fluids.

Another View of Indian IT

Some interesting observations about a country that boasts to be an IT super power or some such thing:

- Dearth of Domestic Market. Most of the money in IT sector comes from service export. Ironically, IT companies find it hard to find deserving customers (who can pay them as much as US/European customers) from within the country. We all use software systems purchased from outside, probably developed by Indians.

- Downloaders' country. We download and download. No, wrong. We do upload: tweets, facebook likes etc. But, open-source software, experimental results in tech. magazines and journal? Rarely.

- A Dumb Country. Literally. A country with millions of software engineers hasn't managed to come up with a (programming-)language of its own.

But above all are indicators. The disease is deeper.

- How many software engineers in our country are indeed capable to think beyond if-else-for-loops?

- Can we conceptualise products?

- We may flash stylish UML diagrams in executive meetings; but do we really know what software design/architecture is?

- Can we trust ourselves when it comes to writing an algorithm, data-structure on which someone can bet his money/life?

- How many of us do look beyond the fad (analytics, big data, cloud ...) into the real core of software (algorithm, data-structure, complexity, design, elegance, ...)?

(Reproduced from my Facebook post)

LIving off Inherited Glory

I, along with Shilpi, Niranjan, Rashi, and Varadharajan, had been to a very interesting magic show in IISc this Sunday. The magic show had a very interesting theme: thoughts and philosophy of D. V. Gundappa, a famous Kannada writer. Each item was presented with a very nice philosophical commentary taken from the great writer's work. I felt the concept was unique and was presented brilliantly!

One criticism though. Certain lightly said things, like how we Indians have always known various scientific theories while they have been discovered only in the last couple of centuries by the West. I feel, those weren't in a perfectly good taste. I am sure, this was some sort of inadvertent misquoting of the great DVG. As a joke, it's fine. However, certain things make it undesirable: over-repetition, unsubstantiated claims, and feeding a nationalist ego of people (us) who anyway want to believe those stories.

I feel, as a nation, we Indians are going through a very difficult phase. We have been handed down a very low self esteem resulting from centuries of difficult times. I think we are recovering, though very slowly. In such conditions, one thing that's not going to help is to get deluded by any unsubstantiated claims of our superiority (as well as inferiority). Particularly based on stories, whether real or imagined, of the glories (or shame) of our ancestors. We must stop trying to live off inherited glory, and stand up for ourselves. Of course, we should beat our drums aloud, but only when we have something great to show that's created by us, the current Indians.

(reproduced from my Facebook post)

Happy Karva Chawth

There's a list A: the list of 'choices' that a woman exercises and does to express her individuality, sexuality, aesthetic sense, love and/or devotion.

And there's a list B: the list of things women have to do because of a male dominated society.

These two lists are built and maintained by an anonymous, distributed group of people who consider themselves the custodians of womens' rights.

I feel that two of the very important tools of female subjugation that our society employs are:

- Equating regressive traditions to choices that women make to celebrate their womanhood. Be it Madri's sacrificing herself on Pandu's pyre, today's Karva Chauth, or fashion trends for which 'modern' women 'choose' (with due consultation with beauty and fashion brands through the very balanced means of aggressive advertising) to follow expensive purchases, time-wasting routines, non-functional, uncomfortable and sometimes harmful dressing, and beauty procedures ...

- Dismissing those who point these things out while it's not yet deemed fashionable to do so by the custodians of women's rights, as regressive and supporters of rapists.

Surely a few years from now, someone will toss the tradition of fasting and praying and dressing up for someone near and dear from list A to list B.

While we wait for that to happen, thus making it acceptable to talk about them in intellectual circles, I wish a Happy Karva Chauth to all of you!

(Reproduced from a Facebook post of mine)

Phoney Smartness

To Celebrate My Recent Shift to Smartphones ...
----------------------------------------
बीवी के साथ डिनर पे जाऊँगा 
उसकी बातोँ पर ध्यान ना देकर 
Twitter पे लगा रहूंगा 
अंत में उसके साथ एक प्यारा सा
सेल्फ़ी खींच फेसबुक पे लगाउँगा 
लोग 'लाइक' करेंगे, पर मन में जलेंगे:
'साला पढ़ाकू professor चला हीरो बनने.'

मैंने भी इस्मार्ट फ़ोन ले लिया.
यारोँ मैं भी इस्मार्ट बन गया.

कहानी, उपन्यास तो दूर,
अब अखबार के लेख भी लगने लगे हैं बोर
टेम्पल रन की तेज़ी
और whatsapp की काना फूसी, बस
बाकी सब है शोर

मैंने भी इस्मार्ट फ़ोन ले लिया.
साला मैं भी इस्मार्ट बन गया.

पंछी के कलरव हो या traffic का कोलाहल.
सुनूंगा तभी जब इंटरनेट से downloaded हो.
सूर्य का उदय, या शिशु की हँसी
देखूंगा तभी जब youtube पे uploaded हो.

मैंने भी इस्मार्ट फ़ोन ले लिया.
अब तो मैं भी इस्मार्ट बन गया.

सब से नज़रें चुराए रहूंगा.
बस हो या बगीचा, lift हो
या सड़क का कोई मोड़
हैडफ़ोन, hands-free FM में मस्त
देखूंगा भी तो यूँ कि मानो हो
'Do not disturb' का बोर्ड

ग़ैर तो ग़ैर, अपनो की बातें सुनने का भी
अब धीरज ना होगा।
कल जो था attention deficit disorder,
उसका नाम अब fashion होगा।

जैसे ही की किसी ने अटेंशन की मांग,
Facebook, Twitter की शरण में जाऊंगा.
कोई update ना हो तो
candy crush से ही काम चलाउंगा.

इतनी बड़ी इस दुनिया को
पाँच by तीन के चौकोन में ढूंढूंगा.
सब लोग तो आजकल यही करते हैं
मैं भी ऐसा ही करूँगा.

चंद सिक्को के एक खिलोने से.
अब तो मैं भी स्मार्ट बन गया.

देर से ही सही पर आखिर
मैंने भी स्मार्ट फ़ोन ले ही लिया.

News Channels, Movies and Books

I mostly do not watch TV. Well, sometimes I do. I flip lazily through movie channels (in search of a highly gory action scene or a sci-fi or fantasy scene), music channels (old movie songs, ghazals, bhajans), travel/cookery/documentary channels (some NatGeo documentary on space/physics/computers, or some fat chef cooking something unhealthy and delicious, or rich, beautiful women in skimpy clothes talking about spirituality and world welfare holidaying in expensive resorts in South Pacific where I will never go), entertainment channels (soap operas, reality shows, just as a preparation to switch off the TV).

In that order.

Mostly, a fairly cursory pass through all these channels exhausts the 15-20 minute window of mentally vegetative state that allow myself.

My behaviour while going over the newspaper is similar: I start with the glossy supplementaries, I feed my morbid side by lapping up a few items reporting suicides, murders, accidents, rapes and robberies. Then, past all news on international politics, commerce, sports ... I jump straight to the editorial page.

If I really have some time in hand and am looking to spend it with myself while enriching myself, I pick a book. If I want to watch a movie (I love movies), I get a DVD or go to a threatre. I don't find it worth trusting the movie channels to telecast the movies I would like to watch, where they decide the time, and also the number and duration of commercial breaks.

An interesting observation is: I don't remember myself ever having sauntered into one of the numerous news channels. Not even when looking for information. In the days of Doordarshan, I remember having sat through the 20 minutes newscast where the very beautiful, elegant and impersonal-faced Salma Sultan would monotonously read out headlines worded crisply, impartially and lifelessly. Though I was still a kid, I would appreciate that those newscasts were talking about something important. And though I was still a kid, I was grown up enough to admire Salma madam's beauty (of course, there were others: Manjari Sahay, Avinash Kaur, J P Raman, Ved Prakash ...)! But never in the current days do I remember having survived a single news channel show.

There's plenty said about how the news channels have become sensationalised, loud and biased. So, I will not go there. I will sign off by just mentioning that however much I rationalise with myself, I haven't been able to motivate myself to keep up with current affairs, particularly by the way of TV news or newspapers. I do pick up magazines like Frontline and India Today sometimes. But I find keeping up with the day to day updates beyond my capability. In other words, my interest in certain current affairs gets aroused only when they lose some of their currency.

For me, a chunk of time devoted to entertainment or enrichment is often scraped out with some effort. I can't bring myself to squandering it. If it's entertainment, I would like the taste to stay in my mouth long after that. If it's for knowledge building, it can't depend on raw nuggets of information/rumour/gossips dished out to me in loud voices, sensationalised wordings and fake emotionalism, but on crafted/distilled/verified pieces of work with a direct connection of it to things I hold dear to my thoughts.

Whether entertainment or knowledge, I can accept only things which have a dash of timelessness in them, not anything with false claim of quality but essentially volatile.

Thank You All for Your Birthday Wishes!

In my years of Youth, I used to resent birthdays. I used to think of them as yet another milestone in the journey to an inevitable darkness. I used to feel depressed that I wasn't famous and popular. I felt ashamed that I was still not in love, or in a one-sided one! :)

Yesterday evening, I went to the store, bought a packet of Cadbury Eclairs, and distributed among the children playing in my neighbourhood, the way I used to do in school. It was silly and childish. But I felt happy, uncomplainingly satisfied about how my Birthday had been, how my life has shaped. I spent the entire morning yesterday in solitude. I breathed the openness around me. Then, later in the day, I opened myself up to my family, then to my friends. My birthday was spent in serenely, carefully, observing my entire existence, layer by layer. And today I can proudly say that I accept myself in my entirety. My physical being: lazy, unfit, achy. My mind: unstable, egoistic, insecure, jealous, hiding a savage beast under a thin layer of intellect which peels off at the slightest touch of indignation. My soul: pure and lovely, in harmony with everything within and beyond.

And I feel that this transformation which has come over me, from a complete lack of acceptance, to this peaceful acceptance of me, has been nothing less than miraculous.

As years pass, I get to see as real the invisible threads which connect me to the Universe. I feel with more and more clarity that a part of me lives in various ways outside of me, and pieces of this Universe have an image in me.

Some of these threads also connect me to you, my friend! I wish to thank everyone who wished me on my birthday, and those who didn't but thought about me for a moment.

Related:

Birthday 2013

Faith

If faith is for you the kind which makes you stand before a God praying for your or anybody's welfare, or to be optimistic that good things happen to good people, or that everything happens for good, or somebody out there created you, loves you and takes care of you, well, consider me an atheist.

And yet, I am sure that there can be no action, no life, without faith. But that faith needn't be only of the above kind.

What is faith? The most important characteristic of Faith is that it is irrational. This is not yet to mean that faith is bad; remember, I just asserted that without faith, life would be impossible. Then? Faith is a meta-physical belief, which means that you believe in a thesis or proposition which isn't yet proved or may be actually unprovable within the framework of scientific methodology. For example, believing that God exists is a faith. Believing that God doesn't exist is also a faith. Not believing that God exists or doesn't exist, is agnosticism, and is not a faith!

An extreme version of faith is blind faith, in which you have decided on your faith a priori, and in order to preserve it, resort to selective observation, misinterpretation, misrepresentation and even manipulation of facts. An even more extreme version of blind faith is fanaticism. If the facts which go against your faith come through human beings, you decide to silence them through intimidation, persecution and even murder.

But I repeat that faith, this irrational belief, is central to anything sentient beings do. Here's a list of some faiths that drive many of us, even those who would claim to be avowed rationalists:

1. I am the best.
2. Knowledge is power.
3. Money can buy happiness.
4. Humans aren't an inherently vicious race and can be educated to behave.
5. Technology is benign.
6. Consumption drives the economy and leads to prosperity.
7. Competition, as long as fair, leads to ethical business.
8. We are in a mess right now. But something will happen, somebody will do something, to take us all out of it.
9. Some animals are crops. It's OK to eat them.
10. And this one probably applies to all of us living: It's better to live than to die.

Many of the above are blind faith, and they are kept by very rational people.

I too have a bunch of faiths. Which means that they are irrational. They can't be proved. Yet, I feel as if they were planted in me before I could have decided whether I wanted them or not. They, of course, have evolved and have taken an articulated form over time. And surprisingly, I don't resent them. For me, another of those who swear by rationalism, they form the foundation of my life. Here they are:

1. There's something called goodness. Value exists. Beauty exists.
2. I am good.
3. Life is good.
4. Universe is beautiful.
5. I am a part of that beauty.
6. We all get glimpses of that universal beauty, some in more quantity, some in less.

For me, to remember those glimpses is an act of faith; to forget that is heresy. To try and turn that glimpse into a vision is an act of faith; to ignore, benumb, or kill it is heresy. To contribute to that beauty is faith; to destroy it is heresy.

Would love to hear what your faith is!

Aam Aadmi Stories

Picked up the image from somewhere on the Web. I know not whom to credit but the legendary R. K. Laxman

Last Friday, in Yeshwantpur Railway Station, I encountered two instances of the abysmal moral standards of the common man. Here are the accounts:

Pay and Use Toilet

Like in many other Pay-and-Use Toilets in the city, this had no board stating how much we should pay for using it. I am sure that this disappearance is by no means incidental or an act of God. The attendant, sitting and reading the newspaper, said without even looking at me, three rupees. I knew he was overcharging, but gave the money nevertheless, thinking I would save my energy to fight corruption at some other occasion. However, I lost my patience when I found no water in the tap. I informed him about it. He said, 'Yes, probably the tap's not working. Why don't you take water from the bathroom.' I asked him why he wasn't sure if the tap was working or not. And how was it appropriate of him to expect me to take water from bathroom. Wasn't it his responsibility to get the tap repaired?

I continued bombarding him with lecture: 'One, you are overcharging. You are getting your salary, and are also pocketing this money which should go to the government. Two, you are sitting here and reading the newspaper. Even if you are looting the public, at least you should carry out your responsibility properly, shouldn't you?'

To this he retorted, 'OK. You come and sit here.' To which, I told him that I have another place where I sit, and there each penny I earn has my sweat on it.

 My little son was with me. And I can't bear the discomfort he feels on seeing this other side of me, to which mostly he and his Mom are occasional witnesses. So, I left, fuming and frustrated. My 3 rupees donated at the alter of Aam Aadmi's corruption!

Parking Lot

When I was entering the parking lot in the morning, I had noticed that the parking ticket didn't mention the amount, and had foreseen trouble.

While leaving, I asked the attendant how much. He said 20. I said, it's 10. He said 20. I said, I don't think so, show me where it is written. Suddenly, the person forgot Hindi, and started off in Kannada. This time I was better prepared, and already in fury due to my above experience. So, I said, half-Hindi, half-Kannada. 'Why is it not written anywhere. It used to be 10 rupees earlier. Why should I give you 20?' and kept repeating this mechanically without raising my voice or visibly losing my cool. In the end, the guy gave up and said in the very Kannada villain/hero style, 'E! Hog ri!' with a rude wave of his hand. I left after giving him 10 rupees.

Observation

Just an Outlier. Out of the above two incidents, I lost money in one, and saved in another. But in both, I know well enough that things would proceed just the way they had before my being there. I could fight corruption in neither case, and felt equally frustrated in both the occasions. If you protest against an act of corruption, the corrupt service-person will fight you, intimidate you. He'll do everything in his means to defeat you, to break your stand. But his most effective weapon is to ignore you, to let you have your way this one time. Because, as things stand today, a customer demanding honest service is merely an irritant, an anomaly, an outlier in a statistical distribution for him. An outlier hardly changes the overall distribution which anyway is heavily biased toward hopeless resignation that we all have submitted to through years of defeat and subjugation. It costs them nothing to let you go if you are merely one outlying point against a million points which have meekly and hopelessly fallen in line.

Power to Aam Aadmi. I have asked this question earlier. I ask it again. What excites us so much about the Aam Aadmi getting the power to rule? Do we really think that this Aam Aadmi and our politicians are two different creatures? They are both products of their respective circumstances, and fundamentally behave in an identical manner: opportunistically.

Vote for AAP. Am I asking you not to vote for AAP? No! I still feel they are a viable alternative to an already devastated governance. We don't lose anything by bringing them in.

I also feel that one of the most valuable contributions of AAP to the Indian society has been to bring in a wave of hope in the middle class in particular. Though, some of their moves have disillusioned people, and have surely marred their chances as a political party, the waking-up effect they have had on us is for real and undeniable. I anticipate that this year, a distinctly larger portion of Indian population will exercise their voting rights. Not all, or even most, of these additional votes will go to AAP. But whoever people may vote for, they will. That, more than anything else, is a fundamental change, and a ray of hope for all of us. I would give a part of the credit for this to AAP.