Midlife Popcorn

Anti-social

2012-01-29T06:32:00.009+08:00

When I asked the Supreme Editor to suggest an idea for a blog post, her first thought was related to the disappearance of one of my blazers, which was taken away by my older son when he went back to university after his winter holidays. She said that I could write something about hand-me-down clothes and recalled how, as a teenager, she would wear her father's, uncle's or grand-dad's kurtas to sport the intellectual "khadi" look.

I also sought the opinion of my younger son, who shall hereafter be referred to as the Junior Editor. He is a loyal reader and comes up with intelligent reactions, balancing candour with diplomacy. When he likes something, he says, "That was good". A neutral comment from him would be, "Well, you have expressed your point of view". And on one particular occasion, he came up with a monosyllabic yet brutally frank, "Meh". He is more interested in the nostalgic pieces I write because he is curious about how we led our lives as youngsters and, in the cryptic manner of a new age guru, said to me, "Delve deep into your past".

So, taking a cue from both Editors, this is about the memorable occasion when I first wore a shirt belonging to my father.

We had this annual thing in our hostel called a "social", where we would invite girls from Sophia College for an evening of dancing. Now, take a moment to reflect on this. On one hand, students of IIT, located in what was then a virtual jungle in the distant outskirts of Bombay. On the other, girls from one of the most elite ladies' colleges in the city who were so sought after that they were invited to social evenings almost every weekend by some college or the other. My guess is that the girls who volunteered to come to IIT treated the event exactly like a trip to the zoo, driven primarily by their interest in animal behaviour and a morbid curiosity to observe unusual and bizarre near-human specimens.

My parents were based in Bombay at that time and I used to go home every weekend. Sophia College was within walking distance of my residence. A bus was being sent from IIT to pick up the girls and drop them back after the social. A couple of other guys who lived in the same neighbourhood and I decided that we would also take a ride on the bus, to and from the hostel, so that we could attend the event and also spend time at home.

As a student of an IIT, sartorial elegance was never a priority for me. The very fact that we wore some clothes must have been a big relief for our professors. But an occasion like this was one where even we barbarians felt the need to show some passing respect for social mores.

I borrowed one of my father's shirts. It was shiny blue and had a high percentage of some synthetic material that gave it its lustre. I wore it with my only pair of Levis jeans (with the distinctive roll-up of the trouser legs). I honestly don't remember what footwear I chose for the occasion. I am sure it wasn't the rubber slippers that were an integral part of my IIT uniform. It must have been a pair of sneakers or maybe I borrowed my father's shoes. I sported an awful, straggly beard then and was too committed to it to think of shaving it off for just one evening. I did have a shower, though.

Here's the situation. An eighteen-year-old who went to a boys' school and then to an IIT, with virtually no prior contact with any female of the species, walks up to Sophia College to get into a bus with forty sophisticated, well-dressed, smart girls. It would be an understatement to say that I was overwhelmed.

I hope the girls who heard the guttural noise that emerged from my throat correctly interpreted the sound to mean "Hello". I sat next to a lass who appeared to me to be the least intimidating. I noticed that her shoulder was about four inches away from mine. That was the closest I had ever gotten to any girl. I don't know what I spoke about for the duration of the bus ride but she must have been busy making mental notes for her biology class about the vocal habits of the species Iitius boyus. At some point of time when the bus hit a pothole, I think I said something like, "It doesn't look like the shock-absorbers of this vehicle are too effective". She replied with a polite, "That's so technical".

The rest of the evening was a total blur as I did nothing more than try to unobtrusively lurk in some dark corner. Our hostel common room had been converted to a make-shift disco with strobe lights and loud music and it was easy for me to remain unnoticed. When some of my friends pushed me on to the dance floor, I bravely kept shifting my weight from one foot to the other. It was impossible to converse with my dancing partner above that din, so there was no need for me to try and think of anything to say. When we broke to have dinner on the lawn, I gave the girls more material for their term-paper on "The Knotting of the Larynx of the IITian Male and the Resultant Impact on Vocal Emissions". I must have spoken (assuming generously that we can classify my efforts as speech) with about four of the forty girls including the person who was unfortunate enough to sit next to me on the ride back.

When I returned home, my parents gathered from the shell-shocked look on my face that the social wasn't a great success. It is said that a person's attitude and personality are affected by the clothes he wears. I blame the shiny blue shirt.

Quote Unquote

2012-01-22T07:20:00.002+08:00

Every time I write a post, I try to find a relevant quote which I then put in the "Marginal Thinking" box on the right hand side. This time, since I could not get any ideas for a new blog post, I thought I would try the opposite - look up some quotes and see if any one of them inspires me to come up with something. That did not exactly happen but I managed to find several quotes that convey what I want "Midlife Popcorn" to stand for, and do so in a pithy, witty and straightforward manner. So, here we go.

"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." ~ Isaac Asimov.

"I think it is the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately." ~ George Carlin

"It is very, very easy to not be offended by a book. You just have to shut it." ~ Salman Rushdie

"I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it's the government." ~ Woody Allen

"Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government." ~ Milton Friedman

" " ~ Manmohan Singh

"It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry." ~ H. L. Mencken

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." ~ Christopher Hitchens

"If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe." ~ Carl Sagan

"A puppet is free so long as he loves his strings." ~ Sam Harris (on free will)

"In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: it goes on." ~ Robert Frost

What to write?

2012-01-15T18:27:00.010+08:00

First, a new year's resolution: no more than 1,000 words per blog post. I have occasionally exceeded that limit in the past but will strive not to do so in the future. If I need more words than that, either I am communicating poorly or the topic is not suitable for a blog post. I have lost the patience even to read longer pieces, so it's not surprising that my enthusiasm to write PhD theses has waned.

I spent a large part of the day thinking about what to write.

Cricket has vanished from the list of subjects that interest me. The proximate cause is the pathetic performance of the Indian team in Australia but the ultimate cause is the realization that there is a complete disconnect between what I would like to see and what the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) wants. The BCCI's main goal is profit maximization and the avenue to achieve that objective is to keep churning out IPL-like events that attract the eyeballs of grannies, aunties and others whose staple diet is made up of saas-bahu serials and who squeal with delight whenever Ravi Shastri bellows, "DLF maximum". Winning test matches abroad is not on the BCCI's (and perhaps even the players') list of priorities. So, bye-bye Cricket.

I have written extensively in the past about religion and politics and have nothing much to add on those subjects. Especially in the context of my view on the absence of free will, it is clear to me that I am deterministically impelled to write certain things. Some people are just as deterministically impelled to read what I write. My words act as environmental influences that impinge on their neurons. They trigger certain chemical reactions. Looking at things objectively and analytically, few minds are changed as a result, some are made to pause and think, most remain unchanged. And, as of now, my own neurons aren't pushing any new thoughts on these subjects into my consciousness. So those topics are also on hold.

Economic freedom was another hot-button issue that I wrote about in the context of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests and various discussions in the media on the global economic situation. "Inequality", "equality of outcome", "equality of opportunity" are all terms that have been thrown about wildly and have ended up creating more confusion than clarity. I'm all for "equality of opportunity" but think that phrase is misleading. In my opinion, the closest we can realistically get to achieving equality of opportunity is to minimize corruption, favoritism and nepotism. Those three evils cannot be eliminated, they can only be reduced. Beyond that, everyone is dealt a certain hand of cards. Some people achieve great success even with lousy cards through good play, others throw away great hands and fail. That's all there is to it. Making any more of it eats into economic freedom and will inevitably prove counter-productive. Artificial constraints will lose, free markets will win. That process may take years, decades or centuries but it WILL happen. Again, minds steeped in ideology will continue their futile quest for utopia while those that have the common sense to be pragmatic will thrive. Enough said on that too.

I could pump out one more list of Bollywood movies or songs. That has always been and will continue to be my default option.

Or I could talk about my annual medical check-up. In addition to the, er, "digital" examination of certain parts of my anatomy, I went through the usual battery of tests. The only observation of note was that my blood pressure is slightly higher than normal, which is not unexpected considering that my father was hypertensive and my mother is too. The doctor did not think there was any need for medication but just told me to exercise more regularly and monitor it carefully. The nurse who took the reading of my blood pressure told me that I should have more celery. The way she said it sounded like "salary" and my first thought was, "Sure, I can see how more salary will reduce my BP" but I quickly figured out what she meant and did not make any silly comments.

Of course, the reaction at home was more severe. The Supreme Editor has imposed various requirements on me based on her internet medical research. Knowing that I will not act on recommendations unsubstantiated by scientific evidence, she pulled out some article on how eating crushed raw garlic first thing in the morning is helpful. Obviously you don't need Sherlock Holmes to find out why my colleagues now recoil and flinch whenever I am within six feet of them and upwind. I happened to mention the bit about the celery. Even though I intended it as a joke, that has also been made a staple feature of my diet. Further, I have been ordered to consume some multi-vitamin tablet every day. I have absolutely no idea as to whether these things will lower my BP in any way. But I do know for a fact that arguing about them will definitely increase my blood pressure. So that's that. I comply.

Keeping all that in my mind, to the three and a half long-suffering regular readers of this blog who may have noticed the delay in the publication of this post, I would finally say, "Please bear with me". And thanks again for your support.

Quiz Time

2012-01-08T18:44:00.004+08:00

Here are a few questions from a quiz I conducted yesterday.

1. Who, in an Oscar acceptance speech made in 2003, said, "Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And, whenever you've got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up"?

2. All the following expressions mean the same thing. What?

"Assumed room temperature"

"Promoted to subterranean truffle inspector"

"Turned his toes up"

3. According to Hindu tradition and belief (as I have said before, I don't like the phrase "Hindu mythology"), who was able to spend time with her husband only from dawn to dusk?

(Hint: There is a temple dedicated to her in Manali in Northern India)

4. The most popular product of this company was launched in the late 1880s. At one point of time, this company was the largest industrial buyer of silver in the world. Which company are we talking about?

5. What does the internet abbreviation "DILLIGAD" stand for?

Hint:

6. In 2007, India decided to allow the import of Harley Davidson motorcycles from the US in exchange for being allowed to export what to America?

7. The name of which sport, included for the first time in the Asian games in Beijing in 1990, originated from an expression that means "holding hands"?

8. What is common to the movies Bawarchi, Shatranj Ke Khilari, Lagaan, Parineeta and Jodha Akbar?

9. Which four letter word means "sound" as well as "shade"?

10. Who comes next in the sequence?

Dan Quayle, Jack Kemp, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards, ____________

11. Which board game was originally known as "Mokshapat"?

12. Which cartoon character appeared on the cover as well as the centerfold of Playboy magazine?

FYI, all the above questions were answered by the participants. I'll put up the answers in the comments section in a couple of days.

A Sorry Tryst

2012-01-01T09:49:00.001+08:00

The “debate” in the Indian houses of parliament on the Lok Pal Bill was a total fiasco. It turned out be a real tryst at midnight with kakistocracy, kleptocracy and hypocrisy.

Two statements made by Winston Churchill are particularly relevant in this context. Firstly, he said, “Democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the other forms of government that have been tried”. He also said, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter”. There is no better example of those contradictions than India.

Democracy is preferable even if it means the voters will elect an absolute moron to public office just because they think he is handsome and that his dimples are ‘cute’. Democracy is still desirable even if an unelected and unelectable individual is not only slimed into parliament through the back door, but also affixed with strings to the Prime Minister’s chair. And democracy remains the best option even if a large number of elected representatives have criminal records. But the challenge is to see how democracy can be made to work despite such characters. And it is not democracy that is to be blamed for the rampant corruption.

Milton Friedman, in his classic book “Capitalism and Freedom”, has clearly explained that the fewer the number of things that are required to be decided through the ballot, the more cohesive the social fabric will be. It is not possible to have a referendum on every issue. Ideally, we would like to have unanimity or consensus. But that is rarely possible. Friedman points out that majority rule itself is only a last resort that we have to fall back on for practical reasons. There is nothing sacrosanct about it. This can be seen by the fact that the extent of majority required varies for different kinds of issues. Clearly, some decisions can never be taken on the basis of majority vote. Even a 99% majority should not have the power to decide that the remaining 1% should be killed. For various other significant decisions, we seek a three-fourths or a two-thirds majority. For less important items, we are satisfied with a simple majority. So, the process of deciding by vote is only a last resort in the absence of unanimity and consensus. The less we need to force certain decisions on unwilling members of society, the less conflict there will be.

If we trust people enough to let them decide who should govern them politically, we can surely give them economic freedom too. Economic freedom implies that we have voluntary exchange. In such an environment, we would want government to maintain law and order, ensure that contracts that have been voluntarily entered into are properly executed; define the meaning of property rights and interpret and enforce such rights; and provide a monetary framework.

A government needs to do little else in the economic sphere. The more power it has, the more opportunity there is for it to become corrupt and favor its cronies.

Elsewhere in the same book, Friedman also talks about the First Amendment to the US Constitution that guarantees citizens the freedom of speech. He asks us to examine what the likely outcome will be if we had to take a vote on whether certain specific issues should be freely discussed, such as abortion or communism or gay marriage. If each of those items became the subject of a referendum, chances are that the majority will want to suppress the freedom of expression of those ideas. But nobody will argue against protection of free speech at an aggregate level because they would want to protect their own rights to speak about causes that are important to them. That’s why it is more effective to have that protection as a generic guarantee.

Similarly, it would be advantageous to protect economic freedom at a consolidated level by constitutionally minimizing the influence of government. It’s not that the people of India are any more or less corrupt than the people of any other country. Human characteristics, including greed, are pretty much uniform across all nationalities, races, cultures and geographies. Yet, some countries are remarkably less corrupt than others. The key to that lies in cutting governmental control and bureaucracy in economic matters.

I do not believe it is possible to restrict the willingness of government to become corrupt. Rather, we must seek to curtail its ability to act in a corrupt manner. If we want to eliminate crony capitalism, we must deny government the authority to change the rules to favor its cronies. If government cannot protect the provider of any product or service from the market forces of demand and supply, no corporation will see any incentive in bribing the government. And that is the change that is required.

Obviously, that is not a transformation that anyone in government will seek to implement. It is in their interest to maximize their power so that they can continue to collect rent by engaging in cronyism. India was forced to undertake economic reforms in 1991 when it was on the verge of bankruptcy. (It is a different matter that the name of the Prime Minister who was in charge then has been redacted from the history books and credit for those changes has been usurped by a lackey who just happened to be at the right place at the right time). Another disaster is probably necessary to create the awareness that there is no alternative to economic freedom. Till that inevitable catastrophe hits the nation, the paralysis induced by a crooked Big Brother government will continue.

Nevertheless, here’s wishing everyone a very Happy New Year.

Year-end Post

2011-12-25T06:15:00.006+08:00

The earth is close to completing yet another revolution around the sun.

Looking back at the year as it draws to a close, I notice that I have churned out 44 posts (including this one) in 2011. "Help-less" was perhaps the most popular, but "Free Will" gave me the greatest amount of personal satisfaction, mainly because it was about me changing my mind. As someone said, "What is the point of having a mind if you don't change it?" but I see the irony in how that statement contradicts what I was trying to convey in "Free Will" (about the absence thereof).

The Grim Reaper has been noticeably active this year, having targeted several high-profile celebrities including those whose departure was (in my opinion) regretted (Steve Jobs, Shammi Kapoor, Bhupen Hazarika, Dev Anand, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Christopher Hitchens) and not regretted (Osama Bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, Kim Jong Il). On the personal front, I lost a highly respected mentor who was one of the best bosses I have ever had. Two good friends lost their loved ones.

On a more heartening note, at least three individuals whose well-being I care a lot about have demonstrated exemplary courage, determination and good cheer in facing the most serious challenges to their health. They have all made great progress and here's wishing each of them a full and speedy recovery.

I wish I could be optimistic about 2012 but I have to admit that things look very bleak. The cumulative bungling of the governments of several leading countries in the world has brought the global economy to the brink of disaster as each nation vies with the other in populist profligacy leading to inevitable bankruptcy. As a colleague of mine quipped, "We have gone from an environment of risk-free rates to one of rate-free risks".

But that's not within my control. I can only focus on what is in my hands and acknowledge whatever good luck I have at present. Take things one step at a time and keep Plans B, C and D vaguely in mind as I deal with things day to day.

Right now, I am on vacation for two weeks. Yay! I have no plans to travel anywhere as my son who is in university will be coming back for the winter holidays. The half-empty nest will be full again for a brief while. I now realize the difference between having a child who normally lives with you come back from a journey outside, and having one who ordinarily lives away from you come back for a short stay! We may make a short two- or three-day trip somewhere nearby but it is mainly going to be a 'stay-cation'.

On the immediate horizon, is the Boxing Day test match. The plan is clear. Watch the toss tomorrow. If Australia bat, head straight off to the golf course. If India bat, watch TV as long as either Virender Sehwag or Sachin Tendulkar is at the crease. If both of them get out, head for the golf course. It's always nice to keep things simple.

Getting some regular exercise, eating sensibly and sleeping a lot are the main items on the agenda for now.

And, finally, today is the 25th of December. Let me conclude by paying tribute to a man who was born on this day - one of the greatest human beings to have ever lived, who revealed the most wondrous truths to mankind and changed the world forever.

Happy Birthday, Isaac Newton.*

*(Newton was born on the 4th of January according to the Gregorian calendar which was implemented after his death. Under the Julian calendar that was followed during his lifetime, he would only have recognized December 25th as his birthday)

Youtube Serendipity

2011-12-18T06:58:00.005+08:00

A couple of months ago, I was at a party where someone sang a very peppy song that got almost everyone else to join into the chorus. For the last one week, I was trying to remember which song that was and was unable to do so. All I could recall was that it was an old, folksy number by O.P. Nayyar. I went through the typical irritation and agony of a person who has something on the tip of his tongue but is just not able to recollect what it is. Then it dawned on me that I could use the internet to overcome my torment. It struck me that this song was probably similar in genre to "Ude jab jab zulfein teri" which I looked up on Youtube. I then examined the other suggestions that were thrown up on the right side and, sure enough, found what I was really looking for, albeit in the form of a remixed version. I promptly searched for the original of "Kajra mohabbat wala" and heard it all over again:

The audio is, as expected, great but the visuals of actors in obvious disguises and the sight of a menacing Shetty putting in an appearance towards the end make it even more entertaining.

Another suggestion that popped up with "Ude jab jab zulfein teri" was "Tere husn ki kya tareef karoon" which I had not heard for a very long time:

In this song, I particularly like the lines "Main bhi hoon ajab ek deewana; marta hoon na aahen bharta hoon.." and not just because the words remind me of Ajit's 'liquid oxygen'.

Alongside "Kajra mohabbat wala", I found "Kora kagaz tha yeh man mera":

This is one of my favourite romantic songs - the tune, the words, the setting, the situation in the movie, the sheer chemistry between Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore and the voices of Kishore Kumar and Lata Manageshkar all contribute to making it memorable. And, of course, the mischief of Kishore Kumar where, in a live performance on stage, he lapsed into "Tera... chaudah.... pandrah".

This led inevitably to "Yeh shaam mastani" which is yet another classic:

Every song in the "Kati Patang" album is a masterpiece and, not surprisingly, I could see "Pyaar deewana hota hai" on the right hand side:

For the benefit of people who are into useless trivia, Sunil Gavaskar had mentioned once in a radio program that this was his favourite song.

And jumping swiftly and randomly along, I spotted "Badan pe sitarein lapete huay":

I could go on and on but this just showed me that Youtube surfing is as good a way as any of putting together a satisfying "Chitrahaar"-like experience. In the process, you may also come across a few songs that you do not have in your collection.

O.P. Nayyar, Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Shammi Kapoor - forget Sunday, these guys can get you going even on a Monday.

Understanding Selfishness

2011-12-11T06:43:00.004+08:00

Some time ago, I wrote a post titled “Selfish Altruism” in which I listed at least four selfish reasons (originally elaborated by Richard Dawkins) that could motivate a person to behave altruistically:

1. Kinship: where one helps another who is genetically related and thereby aids one’s own genes

2. Reciprocity: where one helps another in the hope that one will receive a favor in return

3. Reputation: where one helps another to establish a reputation as an altruist either to gain superiority or in the hope that this will stand one in good stead in times of need

4. Superiority: where one displays largesse to demonstrate one’s higher status in society and gain the respect and admiration of others

All these factors can operate subconsciously and people who behave altruistically may not even be aware of them. They could be acting in that manner simply because it “feels good”, not realizing that evolution has created that feeling of goodness for the above reasons.

My aim in writing that post was to outline a secular basis for altruism and, therefore, I did not specifically mention altruism motivated by religion. Needless to say, religious people may also behave altruistically, driven by the purely selfish motive of getting heavenly rewards that they believe are attainable in the after-life.

Any of these possibilities can help us understand what is in it for the person who is behaving altruistically.

It is much easier to get people to behave in a particular manner if they can see how they will benefit from such a course of action. That’s why the “Golden Rule” of not hurting others is almost universally understood and widely accepted. People are able to realize that having such a rule also protects them from harm and are consequently more likely to abide by it. It is much harder to get people to comply with a rule if they do not see any gain to themselves from it.

Therefore, to the extent that everyone benefits, people will not object to taxes. Generally, that will cover expenditure on a few essentials such as national defense, police and, perhaps, the maintenance of widely used public infrastructure. However, when money collected from enforced taxation is used for the benefit of some, at a cost to others, there is much lesser willingness to contribute. This applies as much to taxpayer bailouts of loss-making corporations as it does to welfare expenditure. I don’t expect too much disagreement on the former, so let me focus on the latter.

These are just other forms of altruism on the part of the givers. But, in my opinion, the biggest difference is that they do not provide the contributors any of the selfish pleasures they would get from voluntary altruism. And that is why some forms of government expenditure are a harder sell. The rich do not even get a “Thank you” from the people who benefit at their expense. That is because socialist ideology has created a culture of entitlement where people have begun to take it for granted that is the duty of the rich to support the poor through taxes that they are forced to pay because the majority (usually made up of poor people) demands it. It is not difficult to see how that mindset develops because any self-respecting individual would hesitate to seek charity. What better way is there to get over that mental hurdle than to treat benefits obtained from other people’s money as one’s birthright?

The other alternative is to create the impression that the rich have all got their money by stealing it from the poor. Operating on that assumption, enforced redistribution becomes the same as retribution and can be portrayed as a ‘just’ action. This is not to say that rich people do not engage in illegal acts. Of course some of them do. But it seems to me that the sensible way of dealing with that problem is to legally prosecute the wrong-doers and levy suitable penalties. Applying a blanket tax on all rich people as a form of retribution for the bad acts of a few is, to my mind, as ridiculous as wanting to implant a microchip in the bodies of all poor people to track their whereabouts just because some poor people engage in robbery.

Freedom in general is incomplete without economic freedom. I find it hard to see any justification to force people to pay for something from which they do not think they benefit. The essence of economic freedom is voluntary exchange on the basis of informed consent. And that includes altruism. In my opinion, it is easier to get people to behave altruistically by appealing to their better nature. The predictable counter to this suggestion is that people are inherently selfish and need to be coerced. As already mentioned, there are many selfish reasons for which people will help others provided they get the satisfaction that comes with offering such assistance. History has shown that philanthropy flourished to the greatest extent at times when there was low taxation. The massive outpourings of generosity that are observed in response to appeals for help in the aftermath of natural disasters also demonstrate that altruism is very much alive. Moreover, I do not see why selfishness should be attributed only to rich people. It is just as easy to argue that poor people will continue to selfishly sponge off the productive efforts of others, thereby reducing the incentive to produce and pushing the economy into a vicious tailspin.

To me, it seems logical to operate on the basis that every single individual in the world is selfish and will look after his or her own interests. That includes industrialists, politicians, consumers and religious leaders. Consequently, I consider any system that assumes that some people will behave selflessly to be logically flawed. Selfishness does not imply anarchy (because of purely selfish adherence to the golden rule) and selfishness does not exclude selfish altruism.

I often hear from friends about how drivers and domestic helpers switch jobs for paltry increases in salary and how difficult it is for them to retain their employees. Hearing such things warms my heart because I see the free market operating in all its glory. At the same time, I know of several people whose helpers have remained with them for years even though they are not exorbitantly well-paid. Clearly, employees also value working in an environment where they are treated with dignity and respect in addition to being paid fairly. In a free and active labor market, employers who treat their employees well will naturally enjoy better rates of retention. Underlying all this are the basic concepts of freedom and choice. People should be free to buy or do what they want and not what some intellectuals think they ought to want.

Contrast this with the functioning of the average government department. The absence of the profit motive (and the attendant risk of being put out of business by demanding consumers) creates an environment of lackadaisical service. The American public school system is as good an example as any of disastrous inefficiency.

The other problem with governmental influence is corruption. The more power any government has, the more corruptible (and, therefore, corrupt) it becomes. There is no better way to assess this than to see what kind of people are motivated to go into government. If there were no opportunity to make money, it would never attract the dregs of society the way it does in many places at present. Even in the best of places, where there is a concentration of governmental power, top positions are taken up by people who have the ability to put together the biggest amounts of financial contributions.

The only way I see to break this nexus is to reduce the power of government. We have to understand and accept that government is an unfortunately necessary evil whose role should be kept to the bare minimum. It is not possible to define once and for all what that role should be, because society is always changing. I think it will be helpful, though, to have active debate about finding effective private solutions wherever possible and leaving government to do only the residual tasks. In other words, reliance on government should be the very last option and not the automatic first choice. Such a government will attract only those who are motivated (by selfish altruism) to serve because there will be very few other powers and fringe benefits. Any assumption that it is possible to have a powerful government run by selfless people is unrealistic. But, sadly, that is the trap into which Western capitalism is falling right now.

The Drive to Drive

2011-11-27T09:04:00.014+08:00

Yesterday, as I was driving in pouring rain and unusually heavy traffic, I was mentally running through different ideas for a blog post. Usually, I end up writing about some recent event that has triggered a reaction in me - positive, negative, amusing, nostalgic, thought-provoking or just plain irritating. The last category has been more than ordinarily represented in my mind in the immediate past but I was finding it difficult to motivate myself to vent my feelings. Doing that sometimes ends up adding to the aggravation. As I drove on with no ideas emerging, some guy abruptly cut into my lane and forced me to hit the brakes hard. I just about avoided scraping his car but that reminded me of various experiences I have had as a driver.

I learnt driving as an eighteen-year-old in an Ambassador car. I never went through any form of military training but trying to maneuver that vehicle was probably no different from driving a tank. There was obviously no concept of power-steering in those days and the big, heavy car had a very wide turning radius. Getting my father's permission to drive on my own was a huge challenge. On one occasion, I managed to convince him and went off to see a movie. On my way back home, in the free-for-all lane-less roads of Bombay, I happened to scrape the right side of a taxi with my front left bumper. We pulled our vehicles over to the side and talked about how to deal with the situation. I had very little money on me but my house was not far away and the taxi-driver agreed to follow me home to discuss compensation with my father. In my nervousness, I ended up in the wrong lane and was forced to take a turn I did not have to. The cabbie thought I was trying to escape from him and immediately went into James Bond mode. He moved from behind me to overtake and swerved in front of me to force me to stop. My reactions weren't the fastest and the right side of my front bumper scraped the left side of his taxi. Just for symmetry. My dad eventually sorted things out and I guess there were more scars left on that cab than in my memory.

Though my parents were based in Delhi for nearly four years, I only visited that place on holidays and never spent more than two or three weeks at a stretch over there. On one such visit, I had to attend the wedding of a friend. I took my father's Ambassador and set off on unfamiliar roads to find my pal's home from where the baraat was to proceed. Unlike South Indian weddings where the muhurtham can happen as early as 6.17 a.m. and 'lunch' is served by 9 a.m., North Indian weddings usually take place at night. After navigating through the dimly lit by-lanes of Delhi, I finally got to my destination. The house had an L-shaped drive-way and I knew I was at the right place when I turned the corner of the L and saw a flower-bedecked car parked in front of me.

I joined my buddy and a few others for some pre-baraat ceremonies and, finally, the time came for the procession to begin. The only minor hitch was that my car had to make way for the groom's vehicle. And getting the old Amby to back away and go past the corner of the L was a serious struggle. It required several back-and-forth iterations and my progress was closely watched by initially anxious and progressively more irritated baraati onlookers. The groom's brother was agitated and asked me to hurry up. I offered to let him take over the steering wheel if he thought he could do it any faster but he declined. With each passing minute, an assortment of visions passed through my mind. A worried bride waiting at the hall. Many heavily moustachioed men, each wearing a flowing pink pagdi, pacing nervously up and down. A fussy pundit intoning, "Muhurat nikla ja raha hai". More pacing. An ominous voice making the dreaded pronouncement, "Ab yeh shaadi nahin ho sakti". The moustaches getting into a heated argument on whose pagdi could stay on and whose had to come off. Guns being drawn. Shots being fired. Someone finally remembering to ask, "Kidhar hai voh $@£@ Madrasi"? And a lynching mob converging on me. Luckily, I managed to turn the corner and catastrophe was averted.

I don't think I ever drove an Ambassador after that.

On another occasion, I was driving back to Bombay after a weekend out of town with some friends and gently nudged a cow while passing through a village. The creature collapsed to the ground and I was left wondering if it was trained to perform that act because our vehicle was immediately surrounded by a group of irate villagers. Fortunately, the cow got up quickly enough, dusted herself with her tail, and walked away with no apparent injury to anything other than her dignity.

I have fallen victim to the trick perpetrated by con-men near Mahim where some kid slides under your car and pulls out the connection of the fuel pipe to the engine when your car is stopped in traffic. You don't know what has happened but find that your car has suddenly stalled. A few goons then materialize out of nowhere and offer to fix it and charge you a Wall Street CEO's bonus for the service. I have narrowly escaped being the victim of road rage in Bahrain when a crazed thug threatened to beat me up with a baseball bat for cutting him off. And I have been involved in a fender-bender when on holiday in Europe because I momentarily forgot to keep my car on the right (literally) side of the road.

By and large, Singapore is still a safe and disciplined place to drive. But traffic has increased substantially in the nine years that I have been here and the strains are showing. That's why I am quite happy to take public transport whenever possible. That way I can think more peacefully about the various irritants about which I may want to blog.

Bombay-returned

2011-11-13T08:28:00.002+08:00

I don’t get to visit Mumbai very often but each trip creates a unique set of memories and triggers different forms of nostalgia.

A friend lent me his car for a drive from Nariman Point towards the north and introduced his driver as “Prabhu”. Eager to practice my rusty Marathi, I started chatting with Prabhu in that language and we happily carried on for about half the journey. Then his phone rang and the ring tone was a Tamil song. When I asked him how that happened to be the case, he told me he was a Tamilian! And we spent the next half of the journey chatting in Tamil.

Another friend was complaining that she could not at all get along with her boss. When I asked her why, she merely said, “Arre, woh Dilli ka aadmi hai.” And just stopped, in the manner of one who regarded that sentence to be self-explanatory. Though I could guess what she meant, out of impish curiosity, I asked her to elaborate. She went on, “Hamesha bolta rehta hai ki usne yeh kharida, voh kharida. Kuchh char ya paanch karod ka ghar liya. Liya hoga, lekin apne ko usse kya matlab? Usko maloom hai kya apni Mumbai mein ek chhoti kholi ka bhi kya bhav hota hai?” Nothing could have been more typically representative of Bombay than that sentiment and the language. Only the need to maintain lady-like decorum even necessitated the use of so many words. If my interlocutor had been male, he would simply have said, “Woh _______ hai.” Many non-Mumbaikars just don’t get it. There is no point in flaunting one’s wealth in an attempt to create an impression. True Mumbaikars just don’t give a damn. The only way to get their respect is to earn it, by demonstrating more than ordinary competence in one’s work.

I could still see a few men walking around in safari-suits. Many years ago, it was a big source of amusement for many of us “young professionals”. There was one broker who used to visit our office in a brown safari-suit which my colleagues used to refer to as a “supari-suit”. I too laughed along until I saw a photograph in a magazine of that broker carrying a body of someone, dead or wounded in the 1993 blasts in the Stock Exchange, towards an ambulance. The blood on his suit made it look even browner. It must have been around then that I stopped judging people on the basis of their sartorial tastes.

Bombay is a city of distances. Going from one place to another requires an effort. And motivation. Getting together with a group of old friends is always a wonderful experience. It is even more special in Mumbai where people have to congregate from different corners of the place. I was fortunate that many of my friends made that effort and I got to see them.

I was initially quite relieved to note that my hotel was just across the road from my office. Then, I felt rather sheepish when one friend told me that his eighty-four year old father, who had not yet retired, still travelled by bus to get to his place of work and another mentioned that his father, who is in his seventies, still goes to work by train and then by bus, six days of the week, from Dahisar to Ballard Estate. Travel is such an integral part of life in the city that anyone who lives there gets used to it. And they wouldn’t trade it for anything else. Many people even have “train friends” – buddies they travel with on the same local every day and, in some cases, play cards with on the journey. That’s another amazing sight. A briefcase with rubber-bands around it forms an improvised table and cards that are played are inserted under the rubber-bands to keep them in place. Some commuters even travel for one or two stations in the opposite direction on a train that is going to turn around, so that they can assure themselves of a place to sit.

One evening, I had gone to towards the south for dinner at a friend’s place and took a black and yellow Premier Padmini taxi back to my hotel. It was almost like riding a ‘Victoria’, given the abundance of newer and sleeker automobiles on the roads. But it was great fun.

There’s hardly anything that I have not done in that city where I have spent nearly half my life. Yet, playing golf over there was a first time experience! Many thanks to Mr. A, who is a long-suffering reader of this blog, for organizing that.

I am often asked which part of India I belong to and that’s a hard question for me to answer. I am ethnically a Tamilian, who has lived most of his years in India in Bombay (and left before it officially became Mumbai) and now has family connections only in Bangalore. However, there is no doubt as to what I am at heart.

Ich bin ein Mumbaikar.

And, even when said in German, that statement doesn’t sound the least bit incongruous.

Preoccupied with Wall Street

2011-10-30T08:30:00.004+08:00

The “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS) protests occurring in the United States have become a major preoccupation for a whole range of interest groups.

The protests are a cry of pain from people who are suffering as a result of the current global economic situation. Many of them are unemployed, see future prospects of employment as bleak and simply do not know what hit them or how it should be fixed. They are voicing their legitimate right to protest and demand a solution. Their problem is genuine and their approach is honest.

Using that as a backdrop, many people with vested interests are seeking to push through their own ideological agendas and pretend to understand what the protesters are really asking for – which would require incredible powers of divination because the protesters themselves don’t know what they are asking for.

It is particularly intriguing that those who are most vociferous in advocating the OWS cause are also the ones who were just as vociferous in opposing the “War on Terror” on the grounds that it was ridiculous to have a war on an abstract quantity such as “terror”. I am curious to know how exactly these individuals interpret the equally abstract term “Wall Street”. Against whom do the mind-reading pundits think the protests are targeted? ALL investment banks? All investment AND commercial banks? Only the CEOs? Or only those who have actually done something crooked or wrong?

In this post, I will express my opinion on some of the common arguments made against the financial sector. These are real arguments one often gets to hear and not imaginary “straw men” that I have concocted for my own convenience.

One frequently heard grouse is about the magnitude of CEO salaries. There are those who think there are “fair” levels of compensation. But how much money an individual makes is purely a function of demand and supply. I might think that Himesh Reshammiya does not deserve even a penny for the “entertainment” he churns out but I cannot decide how much he earns. The market determines that. There is no point in my trying to point out how “unfair” that is.

The argument against CEO packages is often sought to be bolstered by the claim that the tax payers bailed out several financial institutions. But the main reason the government stepped in was to protect the common man whose savings would have evaporated had the institutions been allowed to fail. So the taxpayers were actually helping themselves and not evil old “Wall Street”. Also, (correct me if I am wrong) many if not most institutions that were given such financial assistance have repaid the Treasury, with a handsome return on the people’s investment. To that extent, the profits are also public, contrary to the claim that gains are privatized and losses are socialized. Even if that claim were true, the responsibility for such a policy lies with the government and not with “Wall Street”.

There are those who demand higher tax rates for the rich. As always, this is a proposal that is acclaimed as a “fair” method of generating funds for the state. Scott Adams correctly points out that “fairness” is a mythical concept and people invariably pursue their own interests, conveniently choosing to ignore the benefits they get. There is no such thing as a “fair” tax rate. Assuming we are operating in a democracy, there is always a conflict between “majoritarianism” and private interests. The majority has the votes. The private interests have the funds. The law makers need both. Usually, some sort of a compromise solution is devised.

And, finally, there are those who opine that “fairness” is all about creating a level playing field where no one gets an unfair advantage. That is a noble ambition. I too would like to live in a world where the most talented actress gets the part and not the one who performs her audition on the casting couch and the most qualified candidate gets the job and not the one who was the nephew of the hiring manager. But, again, the responsibility for setting the rules lies with the government and the regulators. So why vent on “Wall Street”? Why not “Occupy Capitol Hill”? Or “Occupy the White House”? Or the Fed or the SEC?

If there is credible reason to believe that any individuals or organizations broke any laws, there is always a process of investigation that can be initiated. And, indeed, as the cases of Bernie Madoff, Raj Rajaratnam and Rajat Gupta indicate, action has been taken where warranted. But complaints based on gut feel just because someone seems to have made a lot of money are meaningless. It does not make any sense to force fit one’s favorite ideological bugbear into the contours of a knee-jerk reaction by the “have nots” against those who are perceived to be the “haves”.

I am sure there are some individuals on Wall Street who have committed irregularities and they should definitely be brought to book. But that is just one problem faced by the United States. It is not by any means the biggest problem. Portraying it as such is nothing but an attempt to divert attention from the real issues. I could talk about the ever-increasing American dependence on oil, the gargantuan expenditure on needless wars, the changing global landscape that is constantly taking low-end jobs away from the US and the burgeoning fiscal deficit that is a consequence, inter alia, of populism overtaking pragmatism. But those are just symptoms.

The most serious problem facing that country is an electorate that evaluates political candidates, not on their administrative capability or economic policies, but on their views on abortion, homosexuality, guns and religion. Such a society will get the government it deserves and should not be surprised to find itself trapped in an economic mire. The only real tragedy is the impact it has on the rest of the world.

Ideas, Ideologies and Reality

2011-10-23T14:02:00.003+08:00

I posted this article, by Timothy Ferris, on Facebook. It triggered an extensive discussion with a few friends who had differing opinions.

The gist of the article is simple. There are ideas. Some of them become ideologies. There are facts. Some ideas and ideologies are in consonance with facts. Others are not and may, indeed, have been disproved by facts. Those ideas that are supported by facts are true. Those that are not are either speculative or false. There are “intellectuals” who are so wedded to their ideas that, even in the face of facts that contradict them, they continue to hold on to those ideas in the form of “ideologies”. To resolve the cognitive dissonance that arises from facts that are obviously at odds with their ideologies, they concoct the notion that there is no such thing as an objective fact.

That’s basically what the writer was trying to convey.

The tendency to portray reality as a subjective phenomenon is not uncommon. Unfortunately, even if you write a whole book on philosophy where the average length of each word is seventeen letters, you can’t change facts. They exist. Objectively. And if they happen to contradict your ideas, it is your ideas that have to change. Because facts will not.

I find it very hard to understand the concept of subjective reality thrown about by “intellectuals” whose ideas have been clearly refuted by hard facts. No one denies that ideas are essential and that they provide the inspiration for change. Ideas are often the source of efforts that lead to progress and welfare. However, ideas can be said to “work” only when they are supported by facts.

I may have an idea that “thought travel” may be possible. I may believe that the “energy” of “thought waves” can be used to transport people from, say, Singapore to New York. For all I know, at some point of time in the future, that may even happen if we discover things about the mind we currently do not know. But, today, no one (I hope) will accept that the idea “works” unless I can demonstrate that it can happen. And if people laugh at the notion, I cannot hope to convince them by saying that just by imagining that I am in New York, I am actually in New York, in the “reality” that is subjective to me and, therefore, “thought travel” works.

There is an independent, objective, benchmark against which things can be compared to determine whether they are true or false. In this case, if, even after hours of intense concentration, I am still physically in Singapore, my idea that “thought travel” is possible cannot be considered to be true. There is no point in my getting “offended”, upset or angry if someone criticizes my idea as a pipedream. If I can’t prove it, they have every right to dismiss my idea as nonsense.

Contrast this with another idea. I may believe that tossing a porcelain vase off the top of a skyscraper may cause it to shatter into several pieces. If someone were to write a harshly worded opinion piece calling this idea of mine as “infantile”, “ridiculous” or “stupid”, I wouldn’t get “offended”, upset or angry. I am more likely to laugh at the person who challenged my idea and, perhaps, even feel sympathy towards him because he probably needs help. That’s because I can easily demonstrate that this idea of mine is “true”. I know that it is a fact.

It is only when I cannot prove the veracity of my idea, when I experience severe cognitive dissonance due to the objective reality that unequivocally contradicts the notion inside my head, that any criticism of that notion causes emotional discomfort. And to alleviate that discomfort, I may seek to silence the person who is criticizing the idea or fall back to the notion of “subjective reality”.

The history of the world provides innumerable examples of ideas and ideologies that have worked, and those that have not.

Only if you are open to evidence that represents objective reality, a reality that you don’t seek to deny, will you be able to change your mind. Denial of objective reality is just a psychological defense mechanism adopted by those who wish to retain their dogmas and avoid having to change their minds. Those who are genuinely open-minded will understand that ideas can be said to “work” only if they are substantiated by facts.

As John Maynard Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?”

Strong Medicine

2011-10-16T08:34:00.006+08:00

My younger son left last night for a week-long school trip. The older one is already at university. This is the first time we are at home with both children away. I know this is something we will have to eventually get used to but, right now, the house seems quite desolate. The situation does not augur well for the flow of creative juices. In fact, I need some strong medicine to pep me up. At times like this, there is only one option. I reach out for "The Golf Omnibus" by P. G. Wodehouse.

If I had to pick just one short story that I would take with me to a desert island, it would have to be "The Clicking of Cuthbert". I have lost count of the number of times I have read it, but it never fails to get me chuckling. It is a golf story, it's a love story and it's a story with a great moral message where the divide between good (golfers) and evil (pseudo-intellectual snobs who discuss the 'Neo-Scandinavian movement in Portuguese Literature') is clearly defined. Here's just a snippet:

And not long before this story opens a sliced ball, whizzing in at the open window, had come within an ace of incapacitating Raymond Parsloe Devine, the rising young novelist (who rose at that moment a clear foot and a half) from any further exercise of his art. Two inches, indeed, to the right and Raymond must inevitably have handed in his dinner-pail.

I envy those who have not yet read the story. I still remember the incredible delight I experienced when I first read it.

Then, there's "Archibald's Benefit", where Archibald, an ardent but incompetent golfer, falls in love with Margaret, mistakenly assuming that she is the kind of person who likes poetry. He hides the fact that he is a golfer from her and actually starts reading copious amounts of poetry, much to the detriment of his mental health. The story reaches its climax when he is late for an appointment with Margaret on account of having played (and, incredibly, won) a golf-tournament and has to reveal the true reason for his delayed appearance:

Margaret uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"Playing golf!"

Archibald bowed his head with manly resignation.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you arrange for us to meet on the links? I should have loved it."

After clarifying that she herself played golf, Margaret said she kept that fact hidden from Archibald because he seemed "so spiritual, so poetic".

Archibald took a step forward. His voice was intense and trembling.

"Margaret," he said, "this is no time for misunderstandings. We must be open with one another. Our happiness is at stake. Tell me honestly, do you like poetry really?"

Margaret hesitated, then answered bravely:

"No, Archibald," she said, "it is as you suspect. I am not worthy of you. I do not like poetry. Ah, you shudder! You turn away! Your face grows hard and scornful!"

Archibald, of course, is ecstatic and reveals that he too hates "the beastly stuff" and had only pretended to like it because he thought she did. That helps him score even more brownie points and all ends well.

In many other stories, Wodehouse describes the techniques of various hopelessly bad golfers in his own inimitable style.

There was the man who seemed to be attempting to deceive his ball and lull it into a sense of false security by looking away from it and then making a lightning slash in the apparent hope of catching it off its guard.

Or,

Poskitt, the d'Artagnan of the links, was a man who brought to the tee the tactics which in his youth had won him much fame as a hammer thrower. His plan was to clench his teeth, shut his eyes, whirl the club around his head and bring it down with sickening violence in the general direction of the sphere. Usually, the only result would be a ball topped along the ground or - as had been known to happen when he used his niblick - cut in half. But there would come times when by some mysterious dispensation of Providence he managed to connect, in which event the gallery would be stunned by the spectacle of a three-hundred-yarder down the middle. The whole thing, as he himself recognized, was a clean, sporting venture. He just let go and hoped for the best.

In direct antithesis to these methods were those of Wadsworth Hemmingway. It was his practice before playing a shot to stand over the ball for an appreciable time, shaking gently in every limb and eyeing it closely as if it were some difficult point of law. When eventually he began his back swing, it was with a slowness which reminded those who had travelled in Switzerland of moving glaciers. A cautious pause at the top, and the clubhead would descend to strike the ball squarely and dispatch it fifty yards down the course in a perfectly straight line.

The contest, in short, between a man who - on, say, the long fifteenth - oscillated between a three and a forty-two and one who on the same hole always got his twelve - never more, never less. The Salt of Golf, as you might say.

Any discussion of "The Golf Omnibus" would be incomplete without reference to "Chester forgets himself". (You can read the story online here if you have the patience to flip pages). Chester Meredith is an excellent, though impatient, golfer who is given to expressing himself freely and colorfully on the course at events that irritate him, including slow play by poor golfers. Chester falls in love with Felicia and, in typical Wodehousian style, assumes that she would not like a man who is intemperate with his language. He tries to control himself but that actually creates the opposite of the intended impression.

Felicia, who respects golf and feels that it should be taken seriously, is disappointed that a person who has so much potential as a player, can be so irreverent as to not care when he misses a shot and merely giggle, or say, "D-d-d-dear me" when some other undesirable event occurs. She feels things will never work out between her and Chester and decides to discontinue their association, after walking with him one last time on the golf course as he plays a round.

Chester plays incredibly well and is in position to break the course record. He only needs to get up and down from near the green on the last hole to break the record and, as he is setting up for his chip, is hit on his backside by an errant shot played by the group (nicknamed 'The Wrecking Crew' on account of their incompetence) behind him. That causes him to duff his chip which barely goes a foot and a half in front of him.

Chester Meredith gave one look at his ball, one look at the flag, one look at the Wrecking Crew, one look at the sky. His lips writhed, his forehead turned vermilion. Beads of perspiration started out on his forehead. And then, with his whole soul seething like a cistern struck by a thunderbolt, spoke.

"! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !" cried Chester.

Dimly, he was aware of a wordless exclamation from the girl beside him, but he was too distraught to think of her now. It was as if all the oaths pent up within his bosom for so many weary days were struggling and jostling to see which could get out first. They cannoned into each other, they linked hands and formed parties, they got themselves all mixed up in weird vowel-sounds, the second syllable of some red-hot verb forming a temporary union with the first syllable of some blistering noun.

"______ ! _______ !! ________ !!! _______ !!!! _______ !!!!!" cried Chester.

Felicia stood staring at him. In her eyes was the look of one who sees visions.

"***!!! ***!!! ***!!! ***!!!" roared Chester, in part.

A great wave of emotion flooded over her. How she had misjudged this silver-tongued man! She shivered as she thought that, had this not happened, in another five minutes they would have parted for ever, sundered by seas of misunderstanding, she cold and scornful, he with all his music still within him.

Chester is taken aback, but Felicia quickly clarifies that she not only thinks his words were justifiable but that she also wholeheartedly admires him for his eloquence. Things are quickly settled and Chester nonchalantly chips in from outside the green to break the course record.

As a person who does not hold himself back from speaking his mind on the golf course, I find that this story resonates closely with my own personality.

There. That took some time to type out, but it makes me feel much better. As long as "The Golf Omnibus" is around, I think I should be able to avoid therapy. That's why I never let it out of my sight. I never know when I may need it.

A friend posted a link on Facebook mentioning that yesterday, October 15, was PGW's 130th birth anniversary. Happy Birthday, Plum. You are still very much with us.

Current Events

2011-10-09T07:11:00.005+08:00

I can't think of any one subject to write about in this post. Therefore, I will ramble on about a few current events.

First of all, there's the death of Steve Jobs. On my Facebook feed alone, I have had at least four friends provide a link to the speech he gave at Stanford, five who shared the famous Apple advertisement featuring Einstein and Gandhi, six different versions of the Apple logo altered in some way to pictorially commemorate Jobs, nine friends who posted variations of the "Jobs/Cash/Hope" joke, and about a dozen who came up with iSomething status updates - iSad, iMourn, etc. I'm not kidding. iSwear.

There have also been innumerable articles, TV programs, blog posts and speeches eulogizing Jobs. Most of them have only restated information that was already known to most people. That's why it was refreshing to come across this piece, by John Gruber, where he provides a personal touch to a lesser known detail:

Those grass stains [on his shoes] filled my mind with questions. How did he get them? When? They looked fresh, two, three days old, at the most. Apple keynote preparation is notoriously and unsurprisingly intense. But not so intense, those stains suggested, as to consume the entirety of Jobs’s days. There is no grass in Moscone West.

Surely, my mind raced, surely he has more than one pair of those shoes. He could afford to buy the factory that made them. Why wear this grass-stained pair for the keynote, a rare and immeasurably high-profile public appearance? My guess: he didn’t notice, didn’t care. One of Jobs’s many gifts was that he knew what to give a shit about. He knew how to focus and prioritize his time and attention. Grass stains on his sneakers didn’t make the cut.

Late last night, long hours after the news broke that he was gone, my thoughts returned to those grass stains on his shoes back in June. I realize only now why they caught my eye. Those grass stained sneakers were the product of limited time, well spent. And so the story I’ve told myself is this:

I like to think that in the run-up to his final keynote, Steve made time for a long, peaceful walk. Somewhere beautiful, where there are no footpaths and the grass grows thick. Hand-in-hand with his wife and family, the sun warm on their backs, smiles on their faces, love in their hearts, at peace with their fate.

Then, the Nobel prizes were announced. As usual, the prize for literature went to someone I hadn't even heard of, leave alone someone whose works I have read. And, as always, that did not trigger in me even the slightest inclination to want to read some of that writer's works. Off the top of my head, I can't think of even one winner of the Nobel prize for literature whose writing I have enjoyed reading. The reason has been best articulated by R. K. Narayan who, in reaction to the fact that he did not get the prize in 1986 even though he was one of the leading contenders, speculated on what the committee responsible for making the decision must have felt about him:

…His writing is too simple, and too readable, requiring no effort on the part of the reader. …He has created a new map called Malgudi in which his characters live and die. Story after story is set in the same place, which is not progressive, a rather stagnant background….. We hope some day Narayan will develop into a full-fledged writer deserving our serious consideration.

The day the Nobel prize goes to someone whose writing is simple, readable and requires no effort on the part of the reader, I promise I will read the works of that author.

I have not watched even a single match of the Champions' League T20 (CLT20) cricket tournament. I am delighted to note that my Facebook feed has been amazingly silent on this too. I have many cricket-crazy friends but not one of them came up with any post or status update related to CLT20 until yesterday, when I saw just one post that read "RCB in CLT20 final - yay!" If the Facebook barometer is anything to go by, interest in this is waning. It may be too early to make a definitive prediction, but the trend is heart-warming.

I hardly watch any TV these days. The only program I make an effort to catch is "Kaun Banega Crorepati" (KBC). Amitabh Bachchan makes it truly worthwhile. To me, the most admirable thing about the show is the compassion, empathy, grace and gentle humor with which Bachchan relates to the common man. He is good enough as an actor to fake those emotions but I would like to think that he is being genuine. I am a little concerned, though, that the Left-Liberal "intellectuals" of India might brand him as a "fundamentalist".

After all, he did the Gujarat tourism commercials for free.

Then, in one episode of KBC, there was a question, "Which Indian Chief Minister's middle name is 'Damodardas'?" The participant did not know the answer and took the "Expert Opinion" lifeline. The expert said, "It's Narendra Modi, and I am a great fan of his work." Ooooooh, it may not have been the Big B who actually said that, but it did happen on his show, right?

In another episode, there was a contestant whose husband was a farmer who had committed suicide. She too sought the expert's opinion on a question and Bachchan then asked the expert, who was an economist, for his view on why those suicides happened. The expert said that such incidents were not at all unavoidable and the only thing that was required was good and efficient administration and that, while the condition of farmers in Maharashtra may be deplorable, just 200 km away, in Gujarat, the farmers were thriving and happy. Tut tut, Big B, how can you allow such brazen propaganda to be aired?

I will leave you with this clip, which was one of my favorite moments from the previous edition of KBC (KBC 4):

Free Will

2011-10-02T18:12:00.007+08:00

"Free will" is one topic on which I have changed my mind. I used to go along with the intuitive notion that we are the agents of our choices and choose whatever we choose through something called 'free will'. After much consideration to various arguments on the subject, I concur with the scientific idea that human decision making is nothing but a purely deterministic process and the result of neuro-physiological events that are essentially chemical reactions and electrical impulses that occur inside our brain. It is only the final decision that appears in our consciousness. That is all we are aware of. We do not know everything that went into making that decision because all of that happened at a subconscious level.

You can look at this as a combination of hardware and software. Your genes determine your intellectual capacity, your hormonal influences, your physical attributes and several other parts of the hardware. Your life experiences, your education, the social influences that act on you, the exposure you get to various ideas are all components of the software. Given exactly identical hardware and software, the decision made by that particular combination under certain specific conditions will be the same every time it is asked to make that decision.

So, if, at 8.37 a.m. on the 25th of January in the year 2007 you bust a red light while driving, you will still bust that red light if we could rewind time and take you back to that very instant and make you face that same choice (without, of course, any memory of subsequent events such as an accident that may have occurred as a result). All the components of hardware and software leading up to that moment are still the same. In other words, the configuration of the black box responsible for making the decision is the same. The inputs that go into it are the same. There is no reason for the output to be different. Therefore, the decision made by that combination of hardware and software will be the same. If you argue that randomness can cause a change, you will have to agree that it is randomness and not free will.

This is a counter-intuitive notion and there are differing opinions on the subject. But philosophically and scientifically, I find it hard to see how something called "free will" can exist or what logical reason could cause a different decision to be made at that point of time.

This also raises very interesting questions on the subjects of morality, justice, motivation, effort and personal responsibility. The absence of free will does not mean that we should stop striving to improve ourselves. It does not imply that we should deny responsibility and ownership for our choices and decisions. It does not suggest that we should simply refuse to get out of bed. It just means that we have to rethink and, perhaps, revise certain intuitive notions that we hold about how we make decisions in our minds about our lives. Who is the 'we'? How is that 'we' different from the physical brain that houses the thought process? Therefore, how are 'we' and 'our minds' influencing 'our lives'?

There are many leading thinkers who have expressed their opinions on this subject, ranging from Albert Einstein to a whole array of philosophers and scientists.

I happen to have read, in the past few months, the opinions of a few writers on this topic. One person who has expressed the concept very lucidly is Sam Harris. Here are a few articles that I found particularly interesting:

1. Morality without "Free Will" - where he argues against retributive justice

2. Free Will (and why you still don't have it) - where he responds to reactions to his earlier article

3. You do not choose what you choose - where he quotes Einstein who himself quoted Arthur Schopenhauer and said, "Man can do what he will but he cannot will what he wills."

4. A video talk by Harris in which (from minutes 4:43 to 14:52) he talks about free will

I also came across this interesting thought experiment that seeks to demonstrate how, contrary to our intuitions, it is logical to conclude that we will always make the very same choice if we were able to go back in time to the point where we had to make it.

Some time ago, I had a debate on this subject over email with a friend who was arguing that there was no such thing as 'free will' and I was trying to state that there was. I now realize that he was right and I was wrong. It took me a while to overcome my intuitions on this but I am now convinced about the deterministic nature of human thinking. I know there are many who will not accept this argument. In fact, I have still not been able to convince the Supreme Editor despite having had a very, shall we say, "intense" discussion on the subject. But I am sharing this just to provoke thought in the minds of readers. Beyond that, only determinism or "free will" will decide whether their minds will change!

The Scientific Method

2011-09-25T08:46:00.003+08:00

There are news reports that a scientific experiment has established that certain sub-atomic particles (neutrinos) may have travelled faster than the speed of light.

It is an experiment that has yielded that result. It is not an idle claim pulled out of thin air by someone lolling on an armchair who can’t even spell the word ‘neutrino’.

Yet, the reaction to the results of that experiment in the scientific world is guarded. This is a result that could completely erase the understanding of the universe as established by Albert Einstein from the time he came up with the concept of special relativity in 1905. Even the person who performed the experiment and observed the result has called for independent replication and validation. Einstein has not (yet) been consigned to the scrap heap.

That is how science works. Nothing is accepted without evidence, independent validation and replication. Even an idea that is regarded as valid is open to criticism and will be discarded if proven to be inaccurate or erroneous. I wish the same could be said of several other notions that many in the world regard as ‘true’.

In spite of its rigor and discipline, science is the target of the ire of several groups who are inimical to it, perhaps because their own domains are threatened by it. The standard refrain that rages among these groups is, “Science doesn’t know everything”. Yes. Science doesn’t know everything. Most importantly, science knows that it doesn’t know everything. Otherwise, as Dara O’Briain says in this hilarious video, it would have stopped.

Even if there are gaps in scientific knowledge, that fact does not give license to anyone to use anything they can imagine to fill in those gaps. Any claim that is made about the nature of reality has to be substantiated by evidence. In the immortal words of Christopher Hitchens, “Anything that can be asserted without evidence can be discarded without evidence”.

A standard response to this point of view from the science-baiters is to claim that there is no such thing as objective reality. They even use the findings of one of the most precise and rigorous forms of physics (quantum mechanics) to propagate the idea that reality is subjective. But as Lawrence Krauss says and Robin Craig also points out, quantum mechanics actually shows that reality is “uncompromisingly objective” and “by testing our ideas against it, we can arrive at the truth no matter how strange or alien to our minds and preconceptions it may be.”

Rationalists are committed to the truth and emphasize that one must follow the scientific method to get at it. Those who disagree with this view try to vilify the rationalists by calling them “strident” and also accuse them of not following the “live and let live” principle. I find it hard to see the validity of those allegations. No one is coercing others to pay any attention to what is being said by the scientists. Those who wish to live in a non-scientific manner can simply ignore the rationalists and go about their lives as they please.

All that the rationalists are doing is to advocate the scientific method. They do so by writing their own books, blogs or articles and by responding to criticism that is leveled against them. They do not intrude into anyone’s private space to propagate their view. Debate over matters of logic is always acceptable and welcomed. Complaining about the tone of arguments is nothing but a weak escape route. Or, is that the only course of action open to those who continue to try and defend the indefensible?

So, let me try and sum things up in simple terms:

1. Science does not know everything.

2. Science knows that it does not know everything and that is why it is perpetually in the quest of new knowledge.

3. Nothing is accepted as true unless it is substantiated by evidence. Even what is accepted is open to being overridden by new evidence that is thrown up by the relentless march of science.

4. Anything that can be asserted without evidence can be discarded without evidence. (I know I am repeating myself but this statement deserves to become a universal motto).

5. Therefore, gaps that currently exist in scientific knowledge cannot be sought to be filled with claims unsubstantiated by evidence.

6. There is such a thing as objective reality. I repeat another quote that I have used before. As Philip K. Dick said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

7. Subjective personal fantasies are not universal truths and, hence, not ‘reality’.

8. Science is not merely the best way to know reality, it is the ONLY way.

Humor and Music

2011-09-18T09:24:00.016+08:00

We all make mistakes. I made a big one when I convinced the Supreme Editor to come with me to see the Bollywood movie “Mere Brother Ki Dulhan”. She had earlier expressed her opinion that it did not look promising and would most probably turn out to be a disaster. She was right. She is far too gracious to rub it into me by openly saying, “I told you so” but, after twenty-one years of marriage, one is acutely aware that not all communication needs to be verbal.

To me, the best part of the film was when, for just a few seconds, they played a clip of the song “Meri pyari Bindu” from Padosan. And then someone came along and smashed the TV screen on which it was playing. That about sums up the movie.

But it made me want to listen to that song fully:

It also made me think about the connection between music and humor. There are pieces of music that automatically move you to tears with their poignancy. There are other compositions that energize you and pep you up. But there is hardly any piece of music that can make you burst spontaneously into laughter (except, of course, my singing).

I have been thinking about this since the time I saw the opera, “The Barber of Seville”. It was recommended to me as a comedy and we happened to see it at the Sydney Opera House a few months ago. It was, no doubt, an amazing experience with the atmosphere, the quality of the music, the acoustics and the sheer grandeur of the venue. But it did not really make me laugh. We had the benefit of having the Italian lyrics translated into English and displayed as suRtitles (appearing on the top of the screen as opposed to suBtitles that appear below) but it was still not particularly amusing.

This post is about a few songs that spring readily to my mind when I think about comedy and humor. I am sure readers will have their own preferences and I would be interested in hearing about their choices. Essentially, for something to be really funny, we would need a combination of situation and lyrics. And it can last only for a few minutes – not a few hours.

There is the all-time classic, “Ek chatur naar”, also from the movie “Padosan”:

I love “Jahan char yaar” from “Sharaabi” and have also been guilty of belting it out personally on a couple of occasions much to the agony of a few friends who had to bear the brunt of it but were, I hope, at least somewhat anaesthetized by copious amounts of alcohol:

Then, there is the zany “Guni janon bhakt janon”:

The amazing versatility of Kishore Kumar is displayed at its best in “Aake seedhi lagi” where he sings in both the male and female voices:

This may not exactly be a ‘funny’ song, but “Mere paas aao” from “Mr. Natwarlal” always brings a smile to my face, especially the line, “Yeh jeena bhi koi jeena hai, Lallu? Hein?”

In the same vein, a really light-hearted number that demands not to be taken seriously is, “Woh ladki hai kahan” from “Dil Chahta Hai”:

Among English songs, I never tire of listening to Harry Belafonte’s “The Woman Piaba”:

And for quintessential British wit and humor, you can’t beat “Why can’t a woman be like a man”:

Heck, there are worse ways to begin a Sunday.

9/11

2011-09-11T06:32:00.006+08:00

In the ten years that have passed since 9/11/2001, of all the countless analyses and commentaries that have been written on the subject, I think this one (by Richard Dawkins) is the best. I reproduce the text below:

Religion's misguided missiles
A guided missile corrects its trajectory as it flies, homing in, say, on the heat of a jet plane's exhaust. A great improvement on a simple ballistic shell, it still cannot discriminate particular targets. It could not zero in on a designated New York skyscraper if launched from as far away as Boston.

That is precisely what a modern "smart missile" can do. Computer miniaturisation has advanced to the point where one of today's smart missiles could be programmed with an image of the Manhattan skyline together with instructions to home in on the north tower of the World Trade Centre. Smart missiles of this sophistication are possessed by the United States, as we learned in the Gulf war, but they are economically beyond ordinary terrorists and scientifically beyond theocratic governments. Might there be a cheaper and easier alternative?

In the second world war, before electronics became cheap and miniature, the psychologist BF Skinner did some research on pigeon-guided missiles. The pigeon was to sit in a tiny cockpit, having previously been trained to peck keys in such a way as to keep a designated target in the centre of a screen. In the missile, the target would be for real.

The principle worked, although it was never put into practice by the US authorities. Even factoring in the costs of training them, pigeons are cheaper and lighter than computers of comparable effectiveness. Their feats in Skinner's boxes suggest that a pigeon, after a regimen of training with colour slides, really could guide a missile to a distinctive landmark at the southern end of Manhattan island. The pigeon has no idea that it is guiding a missile. It just keeps on pecking at those two tall rectangles on the screen, from time to time a food reward drops out of the dispenser, and this goes on until... oblivion.

Pigeons may be cheap and disposable as on-board guidance systems, but there's no escaping the cost of the missile itself. And no such missile large enough to do much damage could penetrate US air space without being intercepted. What is needed is a missile that is not recognised for what it is until too late. Something like a large civilian airliner, carrying the innocuous markings of a well-known carrier and a great deal of fuel. That's the easy part. But how do you smuggle on board the necessary guidance system? You can hardly expect the pilots to surrender the left-hand seat to a pigeon or a computer.

How about using humans as on-board guidance systems, instead of pigeons? Humans are at least as numerous as pigeons, their brains are not significantly costlier than pigeon brains, and for many tasks they are actually superior. Humans have a proven track record in taking over planes by the use of threats, which work because the legitimate pilots value their own lives and those of their passengers.

The natural assumption that the hijacker ultimately values his own life too, and will act rationally to preserve it, leads air crews and ground staff to make calculated decisions that would not work with guidance modules lacking a sense of self-preservation. If your plane is being hijacked by an armed man who, though prepared to take risks, presumably wants to go on living, there is room for bargaining. A rational pilot complies with the hijacker's wishes, gets the plane down on the ground, has hot food sent in for the passengers and leaves the negotiations to people trained to negotiate.

The problem with the human guidance system is precisely this. Unlike the pigeon version, it knows that a successful mission culminates in its own destruction. Could we develop a biological guidance system with the compliance and dispensability of a pigeon but with a man's resourcefulness and ability to infiltrate plausibly? What we need, in a nutshell, is a human who doesn't mind being blown up. He'd make the perfect on-board guidance system. But suicide enthusiasts are hard to find. Even terminal cancer patients might lose their nerve when the crash was actually looming.

Could we get some otherwise normal humans and somehow persuade them that they are not going to die as a consequence of flying a plane smack into a skyscraper? If only! Nobody is that stupid, but how about this - it's a long shot, but it just might work. Given that they are certainly going to die, couldn't we sucker them into believing that they are going to come to life again afterwards? Don't be daft! No, listen, it might work. Offer them a fast track to a Great Oasis in the Sky, cooled by everlasting fountains. Harps and wings wouldn't appeal to the sort of young men we need, so tell them there's a special martyr's reward of 72 virgin brides, guaranteed eager and exclusive.

Would they fall for it? Yes, testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to get a woman in this world might be desperate enough to go for 72 private virgins in the next.

It's a tall story, but worth a try. You'd have to get them young, though. Feed them a complete and self-consistent background mythology to make the big lie sound plausible when it comes. Give them a holy book and make them learn it by heart. Do you know, I really think it might work. As luck would have it, we have just the thing to hand: a ready-made system of mind-control which has been honed over centuries, handed down through generations. Millions of people have been brought up in it. It is called religion and, for reasons which one day we may understand, most people fall for it (nowhere more so than America itself, though the irony passes unnoticed). Now all we need is to round up a few of these faith-heads and give them flying lessons.

Facetious? Trivialising an unspeakable evil? That is the exact opposite of my intention, which is deadly serious and prompted by deep grief and fierce anger. I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite - or too devout - to notice: religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human life. I don't mean devaluing the life of others (though it can do that too), but devaluing one's own life. Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.

If death is final, a rational agent can be expected to value his life highly and be reluctant to risk it. This makes the world a safer place, just as a plane is safer if its hijacker wants to survive. At the other extreme, if a significant number of people convince themselves, or are convinced by their priests, that a martyr's death is equivalent to pressing the hyperspace button and zooming through a wormhole to another universe, it can make the world a very dangerous place. Especially if they also believe that that other universe is a paradisical escape from the tribulations of the real world. Top it off with sincerely believed, if ludicrous and degrading to women, sexual promises, and is it any wonder that naive and frustrated young men are clamouring to be selected for suicide missions?

There is no doubt that the afterlife-obsessed suicidal brain really is a weapon of immense power and danger. It is comparable to a smart missile, and its guidance system is in many respects superior to the most sophisticated electronic brain that money can buy. Yet to a cynical government, organisation, or priesthood, it is very very cheap.

Our leaders have described the recent atrocity with the customary cliche: mindless cowardice. "Mindless" may be a suitable word for the vandalising of a telephone box. It is not helpful for understanding what hit New York on September 11. Those people were not mindless and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from.

It came from religion. Religion is also, of course, the underlying source of the divisiveness in the Middle East which motivated the use of this deadly weapon in the first place. But that is another story and not my concern here. My concern here is with the weapon itself. To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used.

To me, the most significant line in the in the above article is "Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end."

And, as long as that dangerous nonsense continues to be purveyed and tolerated, humanity will remain exposed to the scourge of terrorism.

Unsung Hero

2011-08-30T00:07:00.003+08:00

I am generally a modest chap. That’s mainly because I usually have a lot to be modest about. I rarely go out of my way to draw attention to my few meager achievements. But there are times when I must let the public know about certain events of vital significance that would otherwise have gone entirely unnoticed.

Here I am on the East Coast of the United States. Hurricane Irene chooses the same time to make a visit. That pretty much ruins our weekend and all of us are forced to remain indoors. There is great trepidation and concern about the potential damage that could be caused.

But, as it turned out, the impact of the storm was much less than was feared. Our area, in particular, was almost unscathed and we did not experience loss of power or any serious inconvenience. We just saw a lot of rain. This post reveals the true story behind that near miraculous turn of events.

On Saturday night, under virtual house arrest, with nothing much to do, the other members of the clan decided to have a karaoke singing session and roped me in to join them.

I have said before that any attempt to make me sing is fraught with danger. I am the true avatar of Cacophonix the Bard. I normally duck away from such activities and avoid tempting the fury of nature. But since Mother Nature had already made it abundantly clear that she was pretty miffed anyway, I figured it couldn’t get much worse.

I unleashed my own tornado through the microphone. With every note that I belted out, the others in the house cringed, ducked for cover, burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter and stuffed wads of cotton wool into their ears. But my musical effort must have produced a counter-hurricane. Just as the rendition of raag Malhar by Tansen would bring forth the rain clouds, or a performance of the raag Deepak by him would light fires all around, my foray into the world of music produced an anti-tempest of gigantic proportions that, I’m sure, neutralized Irene.

You may well ask what evidence I have to support this extraordinary claim. I can only point to the scoring mechanism of the karaoke system. On a previous occasion when I was coerced into taking part, I was the only participant to get a flat zero (out of 100) as a score. Apparently, the machine was so useless that it could adjust neither to my pitch nor to my tempo. Seriously, of what use is modern technology if it cannot catch on to the frequency of a human being’s voice? One kind-hearted person who was present at that time consoled me by saying that if I had set the key three notches lower and sung a little faster, I may well have scored around 70 but the device simply did not have the capacity to factor even those subtle adjustments into its stone-age calculations.

That’s my track record. So how else can you explain my consistently getting 92 this time around if not for the inclusion of the social benefit of my actions into the accounting? Mind you, 92 was also the score that the Supreme Editor got. The only compliment I have ever received from her about my music was on the one occasion when, at a dance party, she grudgingly conceded that my singing was better than my dancing. She is a trained vocalist and, on Saturday, must have felt exactly like how Charlie Chaplin must have when he entered a “Charlie Chaplin look-alike” contest and won the third prize. Clearly, the karaoke contraption knew that there was more at stake here than the mere comparison of tonal scale and the timing of beats. It may not have the ability to reflect minor technicalities but it sure does know how to look at the big picture.

You could technically argue that it was my singing that saved the day and, therefore, it would not be entirely appropriate for me to call myself an “unsung” hero. But I am scrupulously honest about such things. Using the term “singing” to describe my vocal performance is stretching that term way too far. I will politely and humbly acknowledge my contribution to humanity but will not state that I am anything other than an unsung hero.

The Grammar of Anna-rchy

2011-08-20T19:43:00.002+08:00

I saw on TV a placard held by one of the supporters of Anna Hazare that read “This is not Anarchy. This is Anna-rchy.” Whether the detractors of Anna like it or not, that is true. Anna rules.

I think people who disagree with Anna can be broadly grouped into three categories.

1. Sycophants of the Congress Party

It was already well-known that the Congress party is the fountainhead of corruption and that the present national government that is run by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is unquestionably the most corrupt administration the country has ever seen. It did not need Anna to tell us that. But the recent events have demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that, in addition to being crooked, this is an evil, autocratic, arrogant, callous, high-handed and delusional government. So taken up is it in its own hubris that it cannot even begin to understand the extent of popular sentiment that is raging against it. By insulting Anna, impugning his character, attempting to throw him in jail for merely expressing non-violent dissent and cooking up the laughable suggestion of a “foreign hand” behind the local protests, the government has painted itself into a corner. It is now evident that it is incompetent, incoherent, intransigent, insensitive and intolerant. Unfortunately for its sycophants and fortunately for the nation, it can do no more than squirm in impotent rage and watch its stock nosedive. It is only natural that toadies of the Congress party will be against the man who has single-handedly exposed these stark facts. I have no sympathy for them.

2. Procedural Pedants and Idealists

These are people who feel that the constitutional process should be followed down to the last detail, that forms should be filled in quadruplicate and submitted for action to the very government against which the protesters have a grievance. As legal expert Fali Nariman said, it is the constitution that is supreme - not the parliament, the judiciary or any other entity. And, in the constitution, “We, the people” come before the parliament and the ultimate authority rests with the people. They cannot be expected to wait silently for another three years of unabated and unabashed looting and pillaging till the next general election comes around. This government needs to answer for its crimes and needs to answer for them NOW.

The group of procedural pedants also includes idealists whose stance is that all of us are party to corruption - the givers as well as the takers - and we all need to change. That is a fine concept in theory. In practice, we have to realize that this utopian principle will work only if each and every single member of society behaves correctly. Think about it. You have a crooked government. You are a small businessman. You face a system of licenses and permits that is designed for the very purpose of extracting bribes. You avoid making the illegal payments. Someone else who is less scrupulous than you goes ahead. They start running all the businesses, hand in glove with the government. You are out of business. Even if we, as individuals, can avoid bribing traffic policemen and other minor government functionaries, the corruption that goes on at an industrial scale cannot be combated unless it is cut off at source. No entrepreneur whose work is held up due to the lack of approvals can continue to endlessly meet his working capital needs. And, as long as there are even a few rotten elements in society (and there always will be), they will form cartels in conjunction with the government and drive the honest people out of business. Eventually, only the crooked will be running businesses. By and large, that is what we are seeing today in India. With a few exceptions, mainly in sectors where governmental influence is minimal, most areas of industry, real estate and infrastructure are steeped in corruption.

We cannot afford the luxury of indulging in intellectual posturing of an idealistic nature. I have no time for procedural pedants and idealists.

3. People with objections to the actual provisions of the Jan Lok Pal bill proposed by Anna and his team

This is by far the most sensible argument against Anna’s cause. Yes, there is room for disagreement on the demands made in the Jan Lok Pal bill and that is a matter to be debated rationally. My own view is that Anna and his colleagues are taking an extreme position as a bargaining tactic in opposition to the ridiculous Lok Pal bill proposed by the Government which is an insult to the intelligence of even a half-witted mosquito. There is no doubt that a compromise - between the useless bill proposed by the administration (that will only perpetuate the government of the corrupt, for the corrupt and by the corrupt) on the one hand and the Jan Lok Pal bill on the other - is a desirable solution. However, if such an option is not available, and I am forced to choose ONLY between the Jan Lok Pal bill and the Government’s pathetic proposal, I know where my vote will go.

I am well aware that even a strong Jan Lok Pal will not eliminate corruption. But it will certainly reduce it significantly. This movement is the only ray of light that a frustrated populace can cling on to in its battle against deeply entrenched and powerful forces of darkness. I don’t know to what extent it will succeed. I can only hope for the best. And raise the long-suppressed but, for now, unstoppable cry of “Vande Mataram”.

Riots and Inequality

2011-08-14T09:42:00.004+08:00

There are many people who blame the recent riots in England on economic inequality. I am trying to imagine how exactly that would act as a trigger. An underprivileged person sees others, who are far wealthier than he is, conspicuously displaying their riches. He does not see any prospects of advancement for himself. He is in financial strife because he is unemployed. So, he goes off and loots a shop that sells 42” plasma TVs. Conceptually, in what way is this action different from that of a sexually deprived man who sees a woman in what he considers to be skimpy clothes and, therefore, rapes her? Does that mean that the woman has to change her dress code? Isn’t it obvious in the latter case that it is not the woman who is at fault but the man? Then, why is the looting and pillaging carried out by the poorer classes sought to be explained in terms of economic inequality? Why is there an attempt to somehow shift the blame on to the rich?

The second story that usually surfaces in such discussions is about the alleged wrongdoings of the financial sector. “They have perpetrated white-collar loot and seem to have got away with it, so why is it surprising that others also rob?” is a common argument. Even if investment bankers have done something illegal (and we don’t know that for sure), is it justifiable to try them in the court of ill-informed public opinion? Aren’t civilized societies supposed to follow the rule of the law? And if the laws themselves have been inadequate aren’t there other ways to campaign for change?

There is an unfortunate mindset that seeks to explain away even the most inexcusable actions of certain groups who are considered, for any reason, to be the underdogs. You have the Arundhati Roys of the world who attempt to find justifications for Maoist violence. You have others of the same ilk who seek to attach legitimacy to the most gruesome acts of terrorism by bringing up political or even economic grievances. And it is precisely this sympathetic sentiment that is mercilessly exploited by the evil elements.

It is impossible to eliminate these civil disturbances until we all understand and agree that there is absolutely no justification, no grievance and no cause that can entitle anyone to violently break the law. Such violence, especially against innocent civilians, is inexcusable and cannot and should not be tolerated. Period.

The third point that is brought up is that of equality of opportunity, as opposed to equality of wealth. There is no doubt that every society should strive to have a level playing field and give each of its members an equal and fair chance to realize his or her potential. But that is not going to eliminate economic inequality. Take something as basic as education. Even if you have an excellent education system, with highly trained teachers and provide it free of cost to every child, some children will inevitably do better than others. Some who are wealthier may be able to afford extra help and may do better as a result of such private tuition than equally capable children who cannot fund any additional assistance. And even if you are draconian enough to ban such private tuition, how can you stop better educated parents who have the time to teach their children from having a greater impact on their children’s performance than parents who do not have the same capability?

Inequality is inherent in nature and is unavoidable. If it were to become acceptable as a justification for violence, the very concept of civil society will disintegrate.

In the particular case of England, let us not forget the advanced levels of social security that citizens of that country enjoy. The sad reality is that large sections of that society have become accustomed to the benefits that automatically accrue to them at state expense and have lost the incentive to acquire skills that would make them employable.

The world is changing. Many leading Western governments are technically bankrupt and are literally handing out their dole out of borrowed money that they cannot repay. This is an unsustainable situation. On top of that, globalization has taken jobs away from the developed world to the developing markets. In the past, these very governments erected barriers that prevented the entry of cheap labor. Now, they cannot cope with the truth that, even if they can stop workers from coming to their countries, they cannot stop the work itself from going to where the laborers are. Those who take their privileges for granted need to understand that they have to settle into a lower wage environment and take whatever jobs they get, if they do not have the qualifications to obtain the kind of employment that they want. And, if they think that the only way out of their predicament is to loot and pillage, they need to clearly get the message that they are wrong.

There has to be a cultural shift in thinking. You do not borrow and spend your way to prosperity. You borrow and spend your way to bankruptcy. This is as true for governments as it is for individuals. There is no quick fix solution to this. Only a prolonged period of belt-tightening and hard work can solve the problem. The West needs to go through a phase similar to what Japan experienced immediately after the Second World War where a new society is rebuilt from scratch.

The rich are the easiest targets. There are always more poor people than there are rich people and any stance against the wealthy will inevitably be popular. But what is popular is not always right. The philosophy of entitlement has to change. Individuals have to take responsibility for their own lives and actions. And looting is not to be excused. It is not understandable, it is not justifiable and it is most certainly not to be regarded as the inevitable consequence of economic inequality.

Addendum:

This piece has triggered an interesting discussion with some readers. Thanks to all who have posted their comments. My basic contention is that two (or more) wrongs do not make a right. I was reminded of this scene from the movie “Deewaar” which sums up my point of view quite nicely:

The Cricket Habit

2011-08-07T07:23:00.007+08:00

Over the last few years, I have been trying very hard to kick my cricket habit and to get myself to tune off from the sport. I have succeeded to some extent. I never got on to the T20 bandwagon, so that form of the game leaves me completely cold. I have managed to lose interest in all ODI events other than the World Cup. I have even got to a stage where Test matches against the lowest-ranked teams don’t excite me. But, when it comes to Test cricket involving high-quality teams, I am inevitably drawn to it just as an alcoholic is to one for the road, a junkie to his next fix or the typical Indian batsman to a swinging ball outside the off-stump.

And seeing the Indian team flounder in that elite arena hurts. Big time. I see a lot of similarity between the present state of Indian cricket and the current condition of my own golf. I know that there are only three things about my golf that I need to improve – my long game, my short game and my putting. Likewise, all that the Indian team needs to do is to fix its batting, bowling and fielding.

Maybe I am being a little too harsh on the batting. It has performed well over the last two or three years and it is true that a batsman has to make only one mistake to get out. As I have said before, there is only a coat of varnish that separates a nick to the keeper from a play-and-a-miss or an inside edge that crashes into the stumps from one that streaks to the fine-leg boundary. That’s why it is vital for the whole team to contribute with the bat. If the top order fails, the tail-enders have to pitch in. England has consistently demonstrated that in this series. Their openers have failed all the time, they were 60-something for 5 once and 120/8 on another occasion, but still managed to recover. So the absence of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir is not an excuse the Indian team can rely on.

What the team needs to rediscover is the “can do” spirit and the willingness to fight down to the last man - something Ishant Sharma demonstrated in his partnership with VVS Laxman against Australia not so long ago. I think it is a question of attitude and mind-set. I was sorely disappointed when the team did not attempt to chase down a target of not even 90 runs with 15 overs to spare and seven wickets in hand against the West Indies. Contrast that with what Alan Davidson had to say (the article makes great reading) about the approach he and Richie Benaud adopted in what is arguably the greatest Test match of all time, the tied Test of 1960 in Brisbane between Australia and the West Indies:

I must admit, when Kenny Mackay got out, that was a blow for us. We were 90-odd for 6 and Richie came in, and we started off aggressively. We were trying to take the initiative.

We came in at afternoon tea and that was when Bradman, who was the chairman of the board, said to Richie, "What are you going to do?" And Richie said, "We're going to have a go." If you were six down at tea and you have a whole session to save the game, 90% of the time you could say sides would just play for the draw. But to go out and want to score 130-odd in the two hours was a pretty daunting task. But that was our attitude, and we got there and virtually had it won.

That still doesn’t change the most basic reality of Test cricket. The only way to win regularly is to have the ability to consistently take twenty wickets, and to get them cheaply. Without the bowling firepower to achieve that goal, there is no way a team can dominate. The West Indian team of the 1980s had its awesome array of fast bowlers and the Australians under Steve Waugh had Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne who could do that almost all the time.

It is a pipe-dream to think that a team can count on chasing down big totals in the fourth innings of a Test match. I did some quick research on Statsguru and found the following details about the number of times teams have successfully chased targets of greater than 200 in the fourth innings:

Australia 25
Bangladesh 1
England 23
India 10
New Zealand 6
Pakistan 6
South Africa 11
Sri Lanka 2
West Indies 17
Zimbabwe 0
Total 101

What this shows is that, of the 2000 Test matches that have been played in the history of the game, only 101 have been won by teams chasing more than 200 in the last innings – a 5% probability of success. That’s why I find it hard to understand why a team like India, whose batting is supposed to be its main strength, would want to ask the opposition to bat first after winning the toss. That strategy would make sense only if (a) you expect conditions to change significantly enough to favor batting over the next few days or (b) you can dismiss the opposition for a low score AND amass a huge lead, thereby batting the opposition out of the contest. We put England in both times this series and a fat lot of good it did for us.

Another thing that boggles my mind is the whole drama about the Ian Bell run-out. Back in my, ahem, cricket-playing days, I remember a match I played in the “H” division of the Bombay league. The only reason our team was in the “H” division was because there were no “I”, “J” or “K” divisions. And, in that bottom-of-the-barrel encounter, I blocked a ball that dropped dead near my feet and, unthinkingly, patted it back with my bat to the bowler. Our opponents appealed that I had “hit-the-ball-twice” and I was given out. I sulked but did not get much sympathy even from my team mates, who said that I should have gestured to the umpire before striking the ball again with my bat. That was in a low level amateur game. And we want the top professionals of the sport to be given a reprieve for not abiding by the rules?!

There has been far too much hype about the Indian cricket team reaching the No. 1 spot in test cricket. There are mathematical No.1’s and there are real No. 1’s. When Tiger Woods was the No.1 golfer in the world, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind as to who the best player in the world was. I don’t even know who is ranked No.1 in golf today. Whoever it is, has achieved that ranking by playing well in several tournaments but his position is just a statistic. What matters is creating an aura of invincibility. Let’s see if the Indian team can fight back to truly establish such dominance. It’s crunch time.

From Bangalore

2011-07-31T10:17:00.003+08:00

For a person of Indian origin living outside India, any visit to the country involves a lot of memories.

Some memories that have disappeared into rarely-accessed recesses of the mind suddenly swing into prominence almost as soon as you land – like when you go, “Oh, yeah! There is such a thing as the car-horn.”

Other memories are instinctively activated. Just as you don’t forget swimming or cycling once you have learnt those skills, you automatically remember the intricate art of crossing an Indian road. You smoothly move into position amid traffic moving in all directions, intuitively judge when an oncoming vehicle has to veer away to avoid a pothole thereby giving you the room to advance another couple of yards towards your destination on the other side, and use your well-honed sixth sense to sidestep the scooter that is inevitably hurtling down the wrong side of the road.

I know I can rely on my road-crossing memory but, in my own case, have less faith in my driving memory. I have only driven a car a couple of times in India since I left the country in 1995 and, though I used to manage quite efficiently before then, have very little confidence in my ability to navigate the maze of non-existent lanes, diagonally moving traffic, and sudden and random changes in direction by an assortment of mechanical and animal obstacles.

Then, there are memories that you hope will function. I am not an NRI who carries around bottles of mineral water wherever I go. I drink the same water that others imbibe in the restaurants we go to or the houses we visit. I trust that my white blood corpuscles have retained their memory of how to fight the various germs they have battled with since the time I used to glug from the tank in my school.

There are fuzzy memories that I struggle to pin down. My sense of geography is pathetic. It takes me ages to remember routes where there are no distinctive landmarks. Technically, Bangalore is now “home” and I have been coming here on holiday every year since 2001. But I have never spent more than a couple of weeks at a stretch in this place and still find it hard to get around without a clearly drawn map. There is no way to create lasting memories of the kind I have about Bombay where I have traversed most parts of the city on foot and by public transport.

There are tired memories of things that may never change such as having to deal with a driver of an auto-rickshaw who refuses to take you where you want to go or demands an unreasonable fare to transport you there.

There are positive memories related to the food specialties that you identify with, the music and art that are an integral part of your psyche, and the faces, smells and strains of language that immediately arouse a sense of belonging.

There are negative memories about the unending sagas of political machinations that play out time and time again. In the past, you didn’t have twenty-four hour news channels to repeatedly drill the sordid details into you. Now, you have to acquire the memory you need to promptly switch off the nonsense.

And, finally, there are memories related to people – new memories that are formed with every fleeting encounter, fond old memories that are revived in the course of conversations and overwhelming memories that are triggered about people who are no longer with us. For a while, these provide a change from the memory of the life you know you have to get back to when you return.

Home Alone

2011-07-17T23:18:00.002+08:00

Everyone else is on holiday. I am all alone.

The day begins early, as usual. The Tam-Bram genes ensure that one wakes up at the crack of dawn even on a Sunday. I fold back the bed-cover over my side of the bed. Why take it off completely and go through the hassle of walking around all sides of the bed to put it back on, is my logic. Economy of effort is vital.

No golf and no work. There is a strong craving for idli-sambar. I head off to the kitchen and set about the various pots and pans, the grinder, the flour, the masala, the dal, the grated coconut and the idli stand. Not. The Supreme Editor (SE) has done her best to make the kitchen a disaster-free zone by disconnecting the gas so that I do not accidentally set the place ablaze.

I do know how to operate the microwave oven. That’s a lesson I learnt nearly fourteen years ago when my second son was just a newborn. After months of being housebound, the SE decided to go out one evening with her friends, entrusting me with the responsibility of ‘baba’-sitting. The domestic helper was also away that day and I was instructed to prepare a bottle feed for the little one with specific guidance on how much milk powder to add, what parts of the apparatus I should take care not to touch with my fingers and how many minutes to set on the timer. Easy. And something I accomplished effectively and efficiently. Yet, the only thing I ever hear about that incident from the SE and those friends is that I called her with a minor technical question: “How do I switch this thing on?”

Seriously, I am quite competent at surviving by myself. I can pour milk into a bowl of cereal. I have lunch near the office any way. I either have dinner before I head back home or use dinner as an excuse to drag my posterior to the gym at the club. And digging into a carton of yoghurt with a spoon is hardly a problem. Yes, I have to wash the spoon thereafter but if I put my fingers into it I would have to wash my fingers. Economy of effort.

I can manage the laundry. I wait for a sufficient load to accumulate, bung it into the washing machine, and then the drier. I am capable of using an iron to press out minor wrinkles and creases but am totally incapable of getting a shirt that has emerged from the washer and drier into a condition suitable for wearing to work. That part is outsourced to professionals. Golf attire that is made of synthetic “Dri-Fit” material does not need ironing any way. Pajamas, gym clothes, T-shirts and Bermuda shorts are dealt with in a manner I learnt from my grand-mother. I fold them and put them between my mattress and the wooden board of my bed. Serves the purpose and beats unfolding the ironing table, going about the pressing, re-folding the ironing table, and carrying the ironed clothes back to the wardrobe for storage. Economy of effort.

Unexpected situations do arise occasionally. I finished my shower and realized that there was no towel in the bathroom. If others had been there in the house, I would have yelled out and asked for a towel to be handed to me. With no one around, that option was not available. But, then, there was nothing to stop me from casually walking out of the bathroom to get myself a towel. There is always an alternative solution to most problems. Of course, that caused a little bit of water to drip onto the parquet. The angelic part of my conscience advised me to wipe it. The other side gave scientific-sounding advice, “Wiping it is not going to cause the floor to dry. It is only going to accelerate the natural process of evaporation by increasing the surface area over which the water is spread.” I was in no hurry. Economy of effort.

Now, my bed time is also entirely within my control. Again, the Tam-Bram genes cause drowsiness to set in rather early. With a non-Tam-Bram cohabitant and children who don’t seem to have inherited the good old Tam-Bram genes, it is only by the cranky assertion of unrecognized authority that I can get the environment to quiet down sufficiently on days when I want to sleep before the others.

The process of getting into bed is also a lot simpler now that I am alone. The movies paint a very unrealistic picture. There is a lot more to it than snuggling straightaway into what someone aptly described as “those nice L-shaped sheets that come only up to the waist of the man but extend all the way up to the neck of the woman.” I am ready to hit the sack the moment I feel sleepy. With the SE, it is always an elaborate process. There is a whole series of complex rituals that has to be completed that includes, but is not limited to, face-washing, application of skin lotions and systematic brushing of the hair for a minimum of eighty-seven smooth, downward strokes of the brush. And all this after getting one lad to tone down his Skype-chatting with some friend in Puerto Rico or Bratislava and the other to cut out the incessant sound of gun-fire emanating from the X-Box.

These are the things I grumble about when they are here. When they are not, I miss the laughter, the mutual leg-pulling, the high-fives and the hugs. We are like that only.

Humor and Sophistication

2011-07-10T12:02:00.003+08:00

I saw the Bollywood movie “Delhi Belly” yesterday. Reactions to the film have been mixed. There are those who loved it and there are others who thought it was crass and gross. My own view is that it was entertaining and worth watching, even though it won’t make it to my list of all-time favorite comedies.

This post is not about the movie itself. It’s an attempt to think out aloud about the nature of “sophistication” and relate it to humor. We have a general understanding of what the word “sophisticated” means and many of us associate a positive connotation to it. We want to be seen as “sophisticated” and don’t like things or people who we think are not “sophisticated”.

I started off by looking up the Concise Oxford Dictionary for the meaning of the word “sophisticated”, which is the past participle of the verb “sophisticate” that means:

1. involve (subject) in sophistry; mislead (person) thus (where “sophistry”, in turn, is derived from “sophism” or false argument, especially one intended to deceive)
2. deprive (person, thing) of natural simplicity, make artificial by worldly experience, etc.; and in the past participle form it means “worldly-wise” or “cultured”.

Here, I take the word “cultured” to mean what it does when you say “cultured pearls” and is consistent with the concept of artificiality included in the earlier part of the definition.

The dictionary also talks about “sophisticated” in the more objective sense as it relates to equipment, techniques, etc. where it means ‘using advanced methods, highly developed or complicated’.

In common usage, I think we often apply what is valid in an objective sense to matters that more subjective, where the use of the word may signify something totally different. It is not wrong to say that, when it comes to measuring time, an atomic clock is more “sophisticated” than a sun-dial. But I don’t think it would be correct for me to say that I am more “sophisticated” because I prefer Test Cricket to T20, especially in the context of feeling superior about “sophistication”.

There is definitely a tendency towards snobbishness that we seek to define as “sophistication”. We like to form little clubs and cliques of people who dress similarly, speak in accents that we think are “proper”, like the same kinds of movies, music, literature, food, or drink. And we pretend that others who are not members of these clubs and cliques are, in some way, “unsophisticated”. In India, there is a tendency to look upon people who are proficient in English as “sophisticated”, an idea that is not necessarily valid in other parts of the world.

The more I think about it, the more I feel skeptical about the meaningfulness of the word “sophisticated” in this context. A man who wears a suit that is considered fashionable is “sophisticated” to the extent that he has conformed with the prevailing opinion of a particular set of people, but not in the sense that he is “better than” or “superior to” others who have not.

The same concept holds true for people who like one form of music or sport or art over another. Just because some people like to engage in a complex ritual involving the repeated striking of a little ball over yards of turf with the aim of eventually getting it into a small hole, it does not mean that they are more “sophisticated” than others who can’t see what the whole point of that exercise is. Or maybe they are more “sophisticated” only in the sense that they have artificially converted, from a natural state of simplicity that attaches no great importance to trying to put little balls into small holes, to a “sophisticated” state where they start imagining that there is a phenomenal amount of significance to that act and all the tribal war-dances that surround it.

I like golf and am entitled to my preference. But I can’t claim that there is some objective intrinsic quality to the game that gives it a superiority that is independent of my own preference and that people who don’t see it the same way are inferior to me. The notion that it is an ethereal experience to knock little balls into small holes is just as valid or invalid as the notion that it is a complete waste of time.

It is perfectly legitimate to say, “I didn’t like that movie” or “That book is not what I would want to read”, but it is not fair to say that others who liked that movie or enjoyed that book are missing some larger cosmic issue that only I, from my privileged vantage point, can see. Art, beauty, taste and humor (unlike science or mathematics) are all in the minds of those who behold or experience them.

Getting back to how meaningful it is to dismiss some forms of humor as “crass”, it is useful to understand the psychology of humor. Steven Pinker, in his wonderful book “How the Mind Works”, says, “The butt of a joke has to be seen as having some undeserved claim to dignity and respect, and the humorous incident must take him down a few pegs. Humor is the enemy of pomp and decorum…” Sexual or scatological humor is popular because “sex and excretion are reminders that anyone’s claim to round-the-clock dignity is tenuous.” Such humor takes all of us down a few pegs from the undeserved dignity that we like to attach to ourselves. Perhaps some of us don’t like being taken down.

Pinker also says that laughter is a form of communication and is involuntary because it serves the social purpose of convincing others that an internal state of mind is heart-felt rather than a sham.

That’s why I don’t see any reason to “sophisticate” laughter.

Selfish Altruism

2011-07-03T09:10:00.003+08:00

Is the phrase “selfish altruism” an oxymoron?

In many ways, selfishness is the norm in the natural order. Richard Dawkins, in a fascinating article, asks (and answers) the question, “Why don’t animals have wheels?” Many of the greatest human inventions appeared in nature long before we came up with them. Echo-location through radar and sonar (bats and dolphins), infra-red heat detectors (snakes), electric batteries (certain forms of electricity-generating fish), the hypodermic needle (mosquitoes), pumps with valves (hearts) and several other examples demonstrate how human scientific efforts lagged Darwinian natural selection by millions of years. Yet, the wheel, which is one of the most important instruments in the human world, does not appear in animals. That is simply because wheels are completely useless without smooth roads. And no animals will get into the business of building roads because it is a purely altruistic activity that, in the human context, is only sustained by a complex social system of government and enforced taxation. Animals that waste their energies in building roads for others to use will eventually go extinct and parasites who take advantage of roads built by others will flourish. Altruism is not exactly ‘natural’ behavior.

We are all driven by selfish genes. Our genes don’t exist to look after our interests. On the contrary, we are just vehicles built by our genes to ensure their propagation. In most cases, that would lead us, as organisms, to look after our own interests first because that is often the best way of protecting the interests of our genes. Yet, we regularly see innumerable instances of human beings conducting themselves in the most unselfish manner. How do we reconcile the selfishness of our genes with the clearly observable cases of altruistic conduct?

Again, Dawkins provides a possible explanation in his book “The God Delusion”, in which he describes four scenarios where acting in someone else’s interest may actually benefit our genes.

The first is kinship. Close relatives share some of our genes and, by helping those individuals, we are helping our own genes, whose copies are present in them. By programming our minds through the process of evolution to care for our kin, our genes ensure their own survival by enticing us to aid other vehicles that carry some of the same genes.

The next scenario is reciprocity – the classic “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” principle. I am not sure where I read this (it may have been in the book “Mean Genes” by Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan) but it is stated that, before the invention of refrigerators, the best place to store food and ensure that it did not get spoilt was either in our own stomachs or in the stomachs of others in our group. By sharing our spoils with others, we hope that, when we are facing a shortage, we can rely on the principle of reciprocity and that others who have a surplus will share some of it with us and contribute to our survival and, thereby, to that of our genes.

This concept is closely related to the third scenario that promotes altruism, which is to establish a reputation. As social animals, we engage in gossip and also maintain accurate mental records of how generous or otherwise our acquaintances are. Just look at the meticulous lists we maintain of gifts we have received at birthday parties, just so that we know what to give in return when we are invited. It is in our selfish interest to build a reputation as persons who are fair in their dealings with others, are helpful and even charitable. That way we can ensure that others will have less hesitation in coming to our assistance in times of need.

Finally, in some ways, altruism is also a signal of superiority. Anthropologists have observed that rival chieftains of some remote tribes compete with each other to demonstrate who can spend more, even if it leads to their own ruin. The “winner” of such a contest may end up bankrupt and the “loser” may be only slightly better off, but the aim is to show that only a genuinely superior person can afford to give an expensive gift. By proving that one has these means and resources, individuals gain social status and literally buy success in many spheres, including areas such as attracting mates.

In all these cases, what appear to be altruistic acts actually create selfish benefits. We do not consciously think through these outcomes but react on the basis of instincts that our crafty genes have built in us that make us feel good when we perform an act of kindness or charity. These are instincts that have evolved in our minds from the time we were hunter-gatherers moving around in small groups (where reciprocity, reputation and superiority could be easily tracked) and continue to exist even today when the world population is immensely large (and there is greater anonymity).

We engage in altruistic acts to experience that feeling of goodness without realizing that, at a deeper level, we may actually be serving very selfish interests.

This does not cheapen or invalidate the worth of altruism. Dawkins compares the “feel good” factor associated with altruism to the feeling of pleasure we get from sex. Our minds have evolved to experience pleasure from sex because, in seeking that pleasure, we will reproduce and, thereby, serve the interests of our masters (our genes) which are using us as vehicles for their own propagation. However, most of the sexual activity that takes place in the world today is non-reproductive in nature because of the widespread use of contraception. But the fact that the underlying evolutionary reason for sex being pleasurable is not being met in such cases does not, in any way, detract from the pleasure we experience.

Similarly, the fact that there may be unconscious and inherently selfish reasons that prompt us to behave altruistically in some cases does not reduce or nullify the feeling of genuine happiness that we experience when we do something good for others.

A closer look at evolutionary psychology resolves the apparent conflict, between the selfishness that our genes impose on us and the real occurrence of seemingly unselfish behavior we frequently see, in a manner that makes sense to me.

Help-less

2011-06-26T08:33:00.003+08:00

When it comes to news of great significance and import, I am incapable of breaking it gently. I have to convey it simply and bluntly. So, here goes. Our domestic helper, R, has gone off on a well-deserved and hard-earned two month vacation.

The Supreme Editor (SE) and the boys will also go away in a few days. Till then, the lads and I are trying our best to chip in and help to the extent of our respective levels of incompetence, but there is no doubt that the brunt of the burden of managing the household is squarely on the shoulders of the SE.

While things are generally smooth in most areas of domestic activity, there is one particular dimension that causes great stress in the absence of the redoubtable R. She is an amazingly competent lizard hunter and her skills in this field are most sorely missed.

It is perfectly legitimate for people who are unfamiliar with the psychological disposition of the various members of the Jayaram family towards Hemidactylus frenatus to wonder why this is such a big issue. Let me explain.

My own approach towards house geckos is one of studious indifference. I have never had any of them intrude into my personal space and I am quite content to ignore them. My older son’s attitude is broadly similar to mine. My younger one is a nature-lover and has a particularly morbid fascination for all creatures that belong to the class Reptilia.

The SE, however, (and I don’t know how to put this delicately) has a pathological aversion to lizards. She will not enter a room even if there is a 2-inch specimen that is barely visible in a distant corner where the wall meets the ceiling.

In the book, “Where Eagles Dare” by Alistair Maclean, it is said about the main protagonist, the imaginatively named John Smith, that “Some people have a sixth sense. Smith has a seventh, eighth and ninth and a built-in radar set for danger.”

When it comes to lizards, the SE has not merely nine, but ten senses, a radar monitor, an infra-red detector, an X-ray scanner and a sonar device. She instinctively knows when one of them is present. When R is around, she is summoned and unleashed on the poor, unsuspecting animal. The good lady has several techniques in her armoury to take out the enemy intruder. If the foe is within reach, she slaps a piece of special sticky paper onto the target with her bare hands and traps the invader. Even if the adversary appears to be out of reach, R knows how to balance that lethal adhesive patch on a broom-stick or similar contraption and impale the antagonist.

I have to admit that my own talent in that department is seriously deficient. Yet, in R’s absence, I am the one who is required to take the necessary action because one of our progeny couldn’t be bothered to engage in such procedures and the other is opposed to them as a matter of principle.

The drama begins when I hear a call, “Raju”. It is different from other, and more ordinary, “Raju”s. There is a strong undercurrent of urgency, unmistakable seriousness and palpable evidence of the exercise of utmost self-control without which it would have been, “RAJUUUUU!!!” I know immediately that I have to drop everything on hand and rush to the mission. The lizard alarm has been sounded.

Like the government of the United Kingdom that cannot afford to avoid responding to a summons issued by the USA, I have to step into the fray. The young’uns can play France and Germany, but I have no such choice.

This time the infiltrator was in the kitchen, high up on the wall, no more than 3-inches in length and nestled strategically in a crevice. If it was somewhere on the floor, I could have easily carried out the task using a slipper as a blunt instrument. Past attempts by me to attack such inconveniently situated villains have all been ill-fated. The sticky paper would keep falling off any implement I endeavoured to balance it on, the lizard itself would unhelpfully scurry away to an even more unreachable location or I would end up breaking something when I wildly swung whatever I was holding.

Despite the extraordinary valour with which I showed up for battle, I could do nothing because the lizard was at an unassailable vantage point. The expertise required to launch the only form of tactical warfare that had any chance of success was conspicuously absent in me. My opponent could taunt me with a jeering “Chak chak chak” but I could do no more than glower helplessly. The situation remained a stand-off.

From the safety of the dining room, which was still within earshot of the war-zone, the SE suggested an alternative plan. “Hold up the sticky paper near it. The chemical has a smell that attracts them. It will come and get stuck”, she advised.

I stood on a chair and placed the sticky paper on top of a kitchen shelf, still one whole metre away from the evil source of torment and, in an almost perfect imitation of Amrish Puri as he was feeding pigeons in “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge”, said, “Aao. Aao. Aao.” For some strange reason, instead of gratefully accepting my invitation, the lizard ran away in the opposite direction. In what can only be described as a “Eureka” moment, my highly scientific and rational mind hit upon the brilliant discovery that H. frenatus does not understand Hindi. I rushed out of the kitchen to share this ground-breaking revelation with the SE. She was in no mood to allow even the most admirable breakthrough in human understanding of animal behavior to distract me from my objective and ordered me to go right back and get the job done.

But, when I returned to the theatre of combat, the enemy had disappeared. After careful surveillance and sufficient waiting, I gave the “All clear” signal. Gingerly sticking her head into the kitchen by leaning as far forward as she could from the dining area, the SE activated all her ten senses and various items of sophisticated instrumentation, but the readings remained negative. Some semblance of normalcy was restored.

I know this is only a temporary respite. I don’t know when I will hear the next “Raju”.

Sleeping Furiously

2011-06-19T08:53:00.004+08:00

This post is a follow-up to what I wrote last week and is also on the subject of atheism. Those who are not interested in this topic should exit now.

There is a tendency, both among believers and non-believers, to dub some atheists as “militant”, “fundamentalist” or “dogmatic”. These adjectives are generally applied to writers who are vocal about their atheism and do not care if their words are considered to be politically incorrect.

This characterization deserves some detailed examination.

The philosopher, A. C. Grayling, has addressed this phenomenon in a couple of pieces that appeared in “The Guardian”.

In the first, he says:

"What would a non-fundamentalist atheist be? Would he be someone who believed only somewhat that there are no supernatural entities in the universe - perhaps that there is only part of a god (a divine foot, say, or buttock)? Or that gods exist only some of the time - say, Wednesdays and Saturdays? (That would not be so strange: for many unthinking quasi-theists, a god exists only on Sundays.) Or might it be that a non-fundamentalist atheist is one who does not mind that other people hold profoundly false and primitive beliefs about the universe, on the basis of which they have spent centuries mass-murdering other people who do not hold exactly the same false and primitive beliefs as themselves - and still do?"

And, in the second, he adds:

"Well, firstly, I think the charges of militancy and fundamentalism of course come from our opponents, the theists. My rejoinder is to say when the boot was on their foot they burned us at the stake. All we're doing is speaking very frankly and bluntly and they don't like it," he laughs. "So we speak frankly and bluntly, and the respect agenda is now gone, they can no longer float behind the diaphanous veil – 'Ooh, I have faith so you mustn't offend me'. So they don't like the blunt talking. But we're not burning them at the stake. They've got to remember that when it was the other way around it was a much more serious matter.

"And besides, really," he adds with a withering little laugh, "how can you be a militant atheist? How can you be militant non-stamp collector? This is really what it comes down to. You just don't collect stamps. So how can you be a fundamentalist non-stamp collector? It's like sleeping furiously. It's just wrong."

I think Grayling’s analysis is accurate. The mere act of frank and blunt speaking is enough to get the frank and blunt speakers labeled as “militant” and “fundamentalist”. Religion has, for long, been accustomed to having both followers and non-followers kowtow to it. Until perhaps ten years ago, atheists rarely bothered to openly criticize religion. But all that changed with 9/11. Further, the Internet has proved to be an excellent medium for rapidly and effectively sharing opinions and has contributed significantly to the spread of rational thinking. It has also helped many non-believers come out into the open and challenge the religious dogma that kept them oppressed and silent. “Atheist” is no longer a bad word.

And this does not go down well with religious people and with some “liberal intellectuals” who are caught in a twist of misguided political correctness.

The basic point that the vocal atheists are making is that religion is just another idea. In their opinion, it is a bad idea. And just as others express their opinions about ideas that they are opposed to, the atheists are letting the world know exactly what they think. They see no reason to give religion any special treatment. If you don’t like a political ideology, you would not hesitate to speak out against it – whether it is in the form of caustic Op Eds or satirical critiques or witty cartoons or comical TV talk shows. So why use kid gloves when it comes to religion?

No one is arguing against the fundamental right to religion. People are, and should continue to be, free to believe whatever they want. It is important to note that it is that fundamental right to believe, and not the belief itself, that is worthy of universal respect. This crucial distinction, unfortunately, is not well understood.

Just as people are free to lampoon the blunders of a Sarah Palin or heap scorn on the stupidity of a George Bush, they should be allowed to target religion in whatever manner they choose.

There is no point in saying, “Don’t be rude about religion” to someone whose very argument is that there is nothing unique about religion that should exempt it from censure.

Supporters of religion continue to remain free to extol its virtues as they please. They are welcome to counter the arguments of the atheists in debate. Or they can just ignore what they don’t like to hear.

For centuries, religion has managed to suppress criticism by brainwashing children from the time they have no way of knowing any better, by restricting access to scientific knowledge, by intimidating or even terrorizing those who have opposed it and by using its significant financial clout to influence political decisions.

But, thanks to the Internet, the power of religion is waning. And calling those who dare to speak against it as “militant”, “fundamentalist” or “dogmatic” is not going to change that trend.

Karma Chameleon

2011-06-12T08:52:00.005+08:00

The world can be a really ugly place.

There was this news item about a six-month-old child and a five-year-old girl being raped in Delhi. And another about an eight-year-old girl being raped in Klang, Malaysia.

Unfortunately, these are not isolated or rare instances. These things happen with sickening regularity.

A few years ago, when news of yet another such incident appeared, I was talking to a friend and expressed my anguish. I also mentioned something along the lines of how pointless it was to ask “Why” such things happened. My friend looked at me as though I was missing something really obvious and, in the air of someone who is explaining something very simple to someone really stupid, said just one word, “Karma”.

For a moment, I was speechless. Then, in as polite a manner as I could manage, I asked, “So you think this was a punishment for something the child did in a previous life?” Needless to say, that’s exactly what my friend thought was the answer.

So, the theory is that there is a great court in the sky, where various cases are tried. In one such case, a soul is found guilty of some crime and the Judge announces, “The Grand Court of the Universe hereby sentences you to being born on Planet X orbiting Star Y in Galaxy Z as a member of the species known as Homo sapiens and, after living for a short while in normal circumstances, you will suddenly be subjected to the most gruesome form of physical violence imaginable. And you will have no memory of this judgment or of your crime in this life. Next case, please.”

Here, we ordinary mortals are trying to find ways in which our legal process can be made more “humane” and, there, we have this charming code of justice.

If the very idea of an innocent victim being saddled with the guilt of an unknown and unknowable crime, and of the most despicable act of violence being regarded as pre-ordained cosmic punishment, is not abhorrent enough, take the argument one step further.

If the rape was nothing more than punishment for a prior crime, the perpetrator is merely carrying out the sentence. Surely, a hangman who executes a person sentenced to death is not guilty of murder. Similarly, the person who just carried out the cosmic rape sentence is only performing a judicially sanctioned duty. Unless, of course, the punishment given by the Grand Court of the Universe in his case was second-order in nature, to be experienced on Planet X after committing yet another crime. Allow your imagination to extend this logic and see how much more recursive this can get.

I honestly admit that my mind is incapable of engaging in the logical gymnastics required to make sense of this line of thought.

What is really strange is that when I ask believers in the theory of ‘Karma’ if they have any explanations for such apparent contradictions, they tell me not to be ‘arrogant’. They also accuse me of having my own system of ‘belief’ under which I refuse to allow for anything that cannot be understood readily by the human mind but is still a part of a mysterious reality.

I have lost count of the number of times the questions “Why are atheists so arrogant?” and “Isn’t atheism also yet another form of belief?” have been asked, not only by believers but also by other non-believers.

The intelligent, humorous and effective answers this video gives to those questions are worth hearing.

The Big Final

2011-06-05T06:56:00.002+08:00

Tonight’s the night.

Roger Federer plays Rafael Nadal in the French Open final. That’s about as good as it gets in world tennis.

I have only recently renewed my interest in the French Open. As a teenager, I remember tracking the tournament quite avidly in the newspapers and on BBC radio, given that only Wimbledon (and that too, just the final) was telecast live in India back then. Then, something happened in the 1984 French Open that made me stop following the events at Roland Garros. I can’t quite remember what it was but it must have been heartbreakingly painful considering that my mind has blocked it out completely and erased it from my memory. But I do have a vivid recollection of Wimbledon and the US Open from that very same year, when John McEnroe, at the peak of his prowess, demolished Jimmy Connors in straight sets on grass and then Ivan Lendl by a similar margin on the hard courts of New York. It wasn’t that Connors or Lendl played badly in those matches. They probably produced their best tennis but McEnroe was playing as though he was from some other planet altogether and came up with magical performances that gave his opponents absolutely no chance. It was just sublime.

Then the decline of McEnroe began. Various others emerged and achieved different levels of greatness. And the French Open was always the most unpredictable of all the Grand Slams. Pete Sampras never won at Roland Garros. Until Nadal came along, there was never any clear favorite to win on that red clay. It may have been this very unpredictability that kept me from following the French Open too closely. There was a period when the most popular bet related to this tournament was, “Pick five players who you think will win, and I will bet that it will be none of those.” That bet must have paid amazing dividends, especially from 2002-2004 when the winners were Albert Costa, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Gaston Gaudio.

There was always the fear that the Coupe des Mousquetaires would never adorn Federer’s mantelpiece. But the miracle of 2009, thanks in no small measure to Robin Soderling who took out Nadal, saw Federer complete his collection of Grand Slams. A win is always a win but I am sure even Federer feels in some way that it would have been more satisfying if he had defeated Nadal.

Well, now’s his chance. Even the most die-hard fans of Federer will admit that he is the underdog. Not even his victory over the in-form Novak Djokovic in the semi-final would be enough to make the rational tennis enthusiast consider Federer to be the favorite over Nadal on clay. Through sheer physicality, determination, relentless perseverance, strength and stamina, Nadal has come to own Court Philippe Chatrier. It’s his turf and it’s his crown to lose. The head coldly says it will be Nadal but there is always the tiny flicker of irrational hope in the heart that springs into being only for Federer.

After McEnroe, the only player who has captured my imagination is Federer. Unlike McEnroe, he has a personality that is most endearing and his conduct, both on and off the court, is exemplary. But I can’t even begin to express why I love his game. The only way I can hope to put my feeling of pure awe into words is to say that he brings a kind of effortless elegance to tennis. There is a fluid grace about his movements that is aesthetically delightful, an uncanny anticipation that creates the illusion that it is the ball that seeks him out, power that is generated through sheer timing as opposed to brute force, and an all-court game that is orchestrated with almost balletic artistry. Quite simply, I could never tire of watching him play.

A friend of mine used to say this about Boris Becker, Lendl and McEnroe: “Becker’s game is like a German blue film, all force and no subtlety. Lendl is like science fiction, because he plays like a robot. But McEnroe’s tennis is like the Kama Sutra, supremely effective yet full of finesse.”

In my opinion, Federer has the same quality. He has brought the Kama Sutra back to tennis. For that, I thank him and wish him well in the clash of the titans. Only time will tell whether this encounter will be a memorable epic like the classic at Wimbledon in 1980 between Bjorn Borg and McEnroe or a damp squib like the 2008 French Open final where Nadal stomped all over Federer.

OK, enough about the small final. The BIG FINAL is what I am about to set out for in a few minutes. My younger son’s cricket team has made it to the final of the local cricket league for his age-group and they take on their arch rivals for the championship. Preparations for this day have been thorough and there is a lot of emotion riding on the occasion. Their coach sent a message to all his wards asking them to go to sleep early on Saturday night and not waste their time and energy on some movie, video game or party they will never remember but to stay fresh and focused for the grand game that will define their cricketing experience. The email also articulated the strategy and defined the roles and responsibilities of each player. As my brother said on hearing about this, I only hope the opposition has not been able to hack into this top secret missive.

Anyway, it’s time for action. Go, Warriors!

Yet another IPL

2011-05-29T10:04:00.003+08:00

Strangely enough, this time around, I didn’t feel the kind of visceral distaste I felt towards earlier editions of the IPL. It may have something to do with the fact that the only match in this tournament that I saw was the final. Even my younger son, who is generally quite enthusiastic about cricket, did not express any interest in subscribing to the telecast. As a result, I was spared the incessant agony of listening to Ravi Shastri, Harsha Bhogle et al. The resultant peace of mind must have contributed significantly to the mellowing of my attitude.

Last night, I kept switching channels from the French Open to the IPL final to the England/Sri Lanka test match in a partially successful attempt to stay awake. I still dozed off from time to time but, every now and then, a stridently yelled cliché from Shastri would jolt me back to consciousness.

I can’t help feeling that the Royal Challengers Bangalore team this time were like the Indian cricket team for most of the 1990s and early 2000s – entirely dependent on the performance of one man. And the day he failed, as any human being is bound to, the team was toast. I wonder how long it will take for Indian cricket fans to realize that it is not individuals who win or lose cricket matches but teams that do. There is no doubt that it was the team with the greater all-round depth and consistency that won the championship. And that, to me, was the success of IPL IV.

Another reason I am psychologically unable to attune myself to the IPL is that I just don’t know which team to support. There is always the instinctive alignment I feel towards any side that has Sachin Tendulkar in it but I still don’t see myself as a fan of the Mumbai Indians. I have always been, and will always be, a fan of Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy but I don’t feel the same sense of loyalty towards MI. As I said in an earlier post, I see no reason to prefer the Reliance Polyesters to the Kingfisher Beermugs or Shahrukh’s Blockbusters to Preity’s Cuties. These teams are just motley assemblies of global mercenaries who have nothing intrinsically to do with the cities they supposedly represent. That has always been the mental roadblock I have never been able to surmount in following any sport at the club level.

The departure of Lalit Modi has done a lot to make the IPL more bearable in my eyes. He was the personification of sleaze. I doubt if the tournament has suddenly transformed into a shining example of pristine corporate governance but, at least, there seems to be no appearance of the blatant in-your-face skullduggery that man symbolized. I was particularly irritated by his grandiose proclamations of the greatness of the IPL and how it would surpass even Formula 1 racing in terms of global appeal. Fortunately, I don’t have to listen to such nonsense any more.

It is clear that the IPL has successfully established a niche for itself in the hearts and minds of a vast audience in the Indian subcontinent. There is no need for it to even bother to be a global phenomenon. Cricket itself is played in only a handful of countries. The IPL is a highly localized extravaganza and there is nothing wrong with that. Other than North Americans, no one knows or cares about the Stanley Cup and ice-hockey. But it still is an amazingly popular sport that provides huge entertainment to those who like it. So let it be with the IPL. And, in terms of sheer volumes of spectator interest, the IPL wins hands down.

As I have always maintained, I will never argue against free market economics. Whatever sells, sells. I may feel a nostalgic sense of regret about the declining popularity of the traditional form of the game but that’s just reality.

And reality does not have to please everyone. It is what it is.

The Writing on the Wall

2011-05-14T18:43:00.005+08:00

Cultural (T)issues

2011-05-08T09:50:00.003+08:00

The other day the Supreme Editor was returning home from a visit to the supermarket.

As she was waiting in the lobby of our building for the elevator, our elderly security guard came up to her. Glancing at what she was carrying, he noticed a jumbo roll of tissue.

Demonstrating that age had neither dimmed his eyesight nor dulled his powers of observation, he said, “Ainh? So much tissue, ah?”

Peering more closely at the merchandise, he applied his faculties of deductive reasoning and exclaimed, “Not kitchen towels. Toilet paper! Your community use toilet paper, ah? I thought you Indians wash?”

And, just to make absolutely sure that there was no lack of clarity about what he was trying to communicate, he proceeded to subtly but unambiguously simulate the action by moving his hand behind his back near the area that would be washed under such circumstances.

Realizing that his remark was motivated not by any mischievous intent but by simple-minded and genuinely guileless curiosity, the Supreme Editor was amused rather than irritated.

Reacting with a considerable amount of diplomatic aplomb, she responded with a neutrally worded, “We have lived outside India for many years. My sons are more like foreigners than Indians.”

But, clearly, the subject was very close to his heart and something about which he held strong opinions. “Washing better”, he declared. And reaffirmed, “Washing much better. Much cleaner.”

The Supreme Editor was spared the enlightening experience of having to gain any more revealing insights into the man’s views on personal habits by the arrival of the lift, into which she quickly darted and made her get-away.

This incident reminded me of the Superstar of Youtube, Wilbur Sargunaraj.

(WARNING: Sophisticated readers are advised to use their discretion).

As Wilbur may say, whether you follow the Eastern method,

or the Western,

the key is to get the job done hygienically and tidily.

Different… er… strokes for different folks.