The Faithful Hound

Get a room already

2011-02-10T22:51:00.001-05:00

If faith is sex, religion is porn.

Nuts

2010-05-20T22:34:00.002-04:00

"I hear you've been questioning my sanity?"
"What!!? No no no. Absolutely not. Are you insane?"

Time Out

2007-03-20T10:03:00.000-04:00

The Faithful Hound is hereby on extended vacation. I'm taking a break from the whole blogging thing to focus for a while on my comic strip at Atlas Drugged. I plan to put in a new episode every week or so.
Stay in touch.
-MT

Dynamic Duos

2007-02-16T13:39:00.000-05:00

So I'm reading this book on Jung's take on symbolism. A lot of it covers his slightly suspect interpretation of dreams, but other bits are pleasantly interesting, if not eye-opening.
One chapter is devoted to popular archetypes in social culture - the hero, the mother, the trickster, the divine couple and the male and female animus. This chapter also includes a really interesting theory on hero pairs. The book claims that many primitive cultures have legends about hero pairs, and that most of these pairs share an important characteristic. One is usually an introvert and the other an extravert.
The extravert is the popular and public face of the duo, loud and brash, lapping up attention and often courting controversy. The introvert, on the other hand, maintains a solemn presence in the background but is usually the more potent element of the pair. The introvert is not as active as his partner, but when it is time for him to make his move he quickly reveals the extent of his powers.
Fables across various cultures have stories of similar twosomes; Achilles and Patroclus, Krishna and Arjuna, Gilgamesh and Enkidu are among the more popular. The attraction that the audience has towards these pairings, according to Jung, is that the observer has a bit of each characteristic within him; the externally motivated extravert and the internally motivated introvert, the id and the ego. That makes the duo appealing in a multi-dimensional manner to the observer, who can associate with and emulate each member of the pair.
I think that the hero pair archetype has survived pretty much intact into modern culture, not so much in the Don Quixote-Sancho Panza and the Holmes-Watson type relationships in literature, where one element completely overshadows the other, but certainly in rock and roll bands where the singer-guitarist relationship makes for a great study of partnerships.
Think about it; the prevailing rock groups of our generation have always been focused around a dynamic singer and a talented but publicity shy lead guitarist. The singer has always been an over-the-top extravert who is the public face of the group while the lead guitarist maintains a serious, almost mysterious presence off centre stage at shows, coming forward occasionally with a mind-bending solo but otherwise content to leave the singer in the limelight. Plant and Page, Axl and Slash, John and Paul, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (Ok, in that last case the only mysterious thing about Richards is the fact that he is still alive, but he is a classic introvert never the less).
There are, of course, similar examples in Hollywood. Think Thelma and Louise, The Blues Brothers, Midnight Cowboy and any number of cop-buddy movies that are based on the same personality combination. Always a cheery sociable one who makes you laugh and a complex brooding one who makes you think.
I wonder if the whole introvert-extrovert thing applies to married couples as well. While marrying someone at the diametrically opposite end of the psychological spectrum is usually a sure-fire recipe for marital disaster, it does create an exciting spectacle for the external observer as long as it lasts. Look at Charles and Diana. They were media darlings in those early years. The perpetually smiling princess who tried to put a friendly (and sexy) face on the house of Windsor as her more reserved, but much more influential husband looked on condescendingly.
When they broke up and Diana hooked up with the equally outgoing Dodi Al-Fayed they made great gossip but did not really capture the public attention until their exuberance unified them with that tunnel wall in Paris. Similarly Charles’ union with the equally retiring and intelligent Camilla did not make much news outside the regular subscribers of Horse and Hound magazine.
The same applies to the couples I know personally. The ones whose company I enjoy the most are not usually comprised of individuals whose company I would enjoy seperately. The perpetually stressed-out investment banker with the chirpy bubble-headed wife, the brooding social activist dating the hard-drinking golfaholic. I don't know how they can stand each other but when they're together I couldn't ask for better entertainment without having to pay for it.

On a side note, I don't mean to gloat or anything, but did anyone take a look at the cover of the latest Economist? It heralds the demise of cash money and I quote "cash, after millennia as one of mankind's most versatile and enduring technologies, looks set over the next 15 years or so finally to melt away into an electronic stream of ones and zeros". I am so cutting edge that I had better start carrying band-aids in my wallet.

Contentious Opinions

2007-02-06T19:25:00.000-05:00

There are three topics on which I find myself constantly defending my views.
I believe that all three are cultural mythologies that have been accepted as common truths, causing anyone who challenges their validity to be held up as the worst form of villain.

1) Democracy is the best form of government: The biggest problem I have with democracy is that it is based on the false assumption that all people are equal. When it comes to choosing national leaders, a Nobel laureate has as much influence as an uneducated lout and a humanitarian has the same number of votes as a porno actor.
While I'm all for equal opportunity and equal protection under the law for all citizens, I firmly believe that indiscriminately handing out the power to select national leadership creates a class of leaders who cater to the lowest common denominator.
Just look at Hillary Clinton. Valedictorian at Wellesley and keen progressive thinker, she's forced to pander to the mob and pretend that she adores guns, foetuses and her philandering husband if she wants to compete for the Presidency of the United States.
Or, look at India; Most of our problems can be traced back to the lacklustre leadership that our democracy keeps shoving down our throats. Illiterate villagers, who sometimes peddle their votes for a sachet of hooch, vote in leaders that they can relate to, who in turn presume that good governance involves renaming our big cities (Bengaluru!!?), promoting communal strife and lining their own pockets. The right to vote should not be granted to a citizen who can not read up on the facts about his candidate and analyze them to make an informed decision.
My suggestion? Base governments on private enterprise. The mail clerk in a company does not help to decide who the next CEO will be. The cleaning lady doesn't get to judge how well the VP of accounting is performing. Countries should have a board of directors who earn their place based on their past merits and who in turn hold the CEO accountable for the progress of the country, based on a publicly available quarterly report. No political parties or elections. Just pure results-based decision making.
If a citizen does not like the way the country is being run then he can sell his stock and invest in another country that better suits him. Governments should be forced to work hard to attract citizens.

2) The Golden Age of Man is in our past: This is another one that always riles me up. Every generation believes that the next one is sinking a little closer to hell. There was a time, they claim, that man lived at peace with his environment. He filled his mind and body with pure thoughts and fresh air and his life was blissful and uncomplicated by the terrors and tribulations that plague us today.
What a load of bull crap! Life today has become much simpler and less dangerous than it was even a century ago. Our early ancestors did not enjoy their fresh clean environment because they were terrified of it. They huddled in their caves petrified that some terrible toothy thing would come out of the jungle and drag their children away. Yes it is sad that the big cats are endangered now, but better them than me. Do you think, if you were the last human alive, that a tiger might let you go if he cornered you when he was hungry? 'Go forth and procreate my poor endangered friend. I'll just eat some fruit instead'? Man may be a cancer upon this planet but, as cancer cells, chemotherapy is not in our self interest.
Modern society has made giant strides in health care, equal opportunity, engineering and world peace. Improvements in each of these areas have improved the quality of our lives, while possibly making them a little duller. But if excitement included spending my life eating rodents and dying at the ripe old age of 35 from beriberi, then count me in for all the boredom that modern life can pile on.
My ancestors suffered through ravaging diseases, vicious predators, hostile weather and uncivil neighbors. I thank them for their sacrifices but certainly do not feel guilty about enjoying the benefits of air-conditioning, wall to wall carpeting, refrigeration, plasma television and automobiles. In fact, I think they make me a better human being. The Noble Savage, when not contemplating his freedom from stifling social constraints, occasionally indulged in witch-burning, human sacrifices, slavery, cannibalism and the torture of his enemies. I, on the other hand, am content to simply spend my free time sitting on a couch and watching the Sopranos.

3) Anti-feminism equates to anti-female: This is a touchy one, so let me begin by saying that I think that violence and discrimination against women are serious crimes and should be dealt with in the same manner as would any other serious crimes.
Having said that, I have never been able to see eye to eye with ardent feminists (even the host of them within my family). There are and always will be stark differences between men and women. These differences cause friction, attraction, mistrust, affection, excitement, fear, passion, revulsion and a whole host of other emotions between the sexes. It's completely natural and it's never going to go away.
A guiding principle within the feminist movement is the goal to create a society that puts men and women on a completely equal footing and ignores any differences between the sexes. Aside from being unrealisable, I'm not even sure that this is a worthy ambition. A person's sex is a large factor of their being and it influences who they are, how they react to their surroundings and what they want from life. Your sex defines you as a person more than any other aspect of your self. It is certainly not something to be ashamed of and ignored.
Hardcore feminists, in my mind, are at the intersection of two obnoxious groups; the ideologues, who blindly tout the party line without reviewing every case on its merits, and the champions of political correctness who believe that frank discussion should be shunned and that uncomfortable truths should be repressed. The combination makes it very hard for an outsider to engage them in rational discussion.
A man who cannot respect women should be punished, but a man who cannot understand the feminist perspective should be constructively engaged with.

Rally the troops!

2007-01-19T08:42:00.001-05:00

I realize that I sometimes come across on this blog as a crotchety old bastard who steers clear of popular culture and television, but I do have one large weak spot in that department - American Idol.
The show completely fascinates me. Not so much the later, music focused rounds, but more so the initial weeding out segments that seem to draw out America's neurotic, psychotic, delusional and (I have to say) endearing fringe from under their rocks and into the glaring spotlight of public scrutiny and humiliation. For a few minutes they drop their inhibitions and parade their flaws for our amusement, while we mock them and crush their dreams before relegating them back into the shadows. I watch these early episodes with a mixture of amusement, embarrassment and pity. Sure it's entertaining, but should I really be laughing as a pompous British millionaire ridicules a clearly mentally challenged child for "looking like a bush baby"?
So it was a couple of days ago that I settled into my couch, dinner plate in hand, to watch the Idol juggernaut roll into what the host, Ryan Seacrest, called "the talent vacuum that is Seattle." The usual gang of misfits were present; the wannabes, the posers and the dead-enders. And then I saw them...
Shyamali and Sanjaya Malakar, siblings of Indian origin and offspring of a classically trained Indian musician. Waif like, vulnerable and completely adorable, they shyly introduced themselves to the camera while their proud parents watched from the sidelines.

I cringed as they walked into the audition room, feeling that familiar empathetic nervousness I undergo when a fellow desi walks into the spotlight. Indians, as a people, are awkward on the public stage and only one of our countrymen has ever really made it on national television - Appu, of The Simpsons fame.
But the Malakars had moxie, and more importantly they could sing! Both have mellow, bluesy voices and share an unassuming, almost timid, self confidence on the stage. They were both liked by the judges and were selected to move on to the next round.

So here's my plea. A couple of years ago a talentless Hawaiian girl, Jasmine Trias, stumbled into the final rounds of American idol on questionable merit, but was buoyed from one level to the next based on the sheer volume of call-in votes from the Hawaiian community who wanted to see a fellow islander do well.
It's time that we desis got our act together and rallied around our own. Rumour has it that at least one of the siblings has already made it through this pre-recorded contest and is in the final group that depends on audience votes to move on. If that is true then its time that we dropped our disdain for our Bharatiya brethren (and sistren) and jammed those phone lines with our votes.
How large is our diaspora in this country now? At least a couple of million? If even a few hundred thousand of us phone in repeatedly we could generate enough traffic to create our Indian-American Idol. Now wouldn't that be something?

The fascinating Orient

2007-01-17T09:00:00.001-05:00

These two posts were taken from this week's News of the Weird

Scamming the Horny Panda: One trick that zookeepers have used to get male pandas interested in mating with dowdier females (according to a December dispatch from Sichuan, China, in Australia's The Age) is to let an attractive female roam around a pen, leaving her scent, and then, in darkness, with the male in the pen and frisky at the scent, to introduce the less attractive female into the pen, back-end first, so that the pre-excited male will quickly begin copulating. Said zookeeper Zhang Hemin, "When the males find out (that they've just mated with unintended partners), they get very angry and start fighting the female. We have had to use firecrackers and a water hose to separate them." [The Age (Melbourne), 12-17-06]

Recurring Themes: News of the Weird has previously mentioned how difficult some Japanese and Singaporean people find it to smile, even when their jobs depend on it, and Chinese people preparing for the 2008 Olympics are having similar problems turning Beijing into a "city of smiles," as the campaign is called. Said one man attending a class on smiling: "At first, I thought (it might be) difficult to smile after you became tired. But later I realized if you don't treat smiling as ... work ... you may find it very easy to smile all the time." (In popular literature in China, people who smile frequently or for no particular reason are often regarded as either silly or devious.) [China Daily, 11-24-06]

The solution to all the world's problems

2006-12-20T15:28:00.000-05:00

The three word answer? Abolish paper currency. If there were no paper money and all financial transactions were conducted directly between personal, institutional and governmental bank accounts then there would be no scope for money to change hands without leaving a trail.
Politicians could not accept bribes in secret, criminals would not be able to steal or profit from illegal activity, charitable contributions could not be siphoned before they reach those in need, terrorists would not be able to get their funding without exposing their patrons. In short, the world will be a better, though slightly big-brotherly, place.
Certainly there are pitfalls. All the fringe illegal activities that we indulge in will be curbed. No buying soft drugs, no bribing the maitre de for a good table, no friendly gambling, no prostitution (not that I advocate it, but I'm pro free market on everything), no cheating on your taxes and no underage drinking. And if you're a beggar - tough break pal, get a job.
But I think that it's a small price to pay for an incorruptible government, a dis-incentivized criminal population and the disappearance of black money from the third world.
Sure the logistics are massive, but technology makes it easier and cheaper than you would think. Every human being would have to have a centralized bank account and a small hack-proof wirelessly accessible memory device to store their account information. When a financial transaction has to be made, the payee would enter a passcode into his device to view his account balance, select the paid party's device (in a similar manner that bluetooth enabled cell-phones currently recognize each other), select the amount to transfer, confirm the transaction and he's done. The device synchs up with the central bank using the nearest Wi-Max network and everything is squared up.It will be a large initial cost, especially to get the technology and infrastructure in place in the poorer parts of the world, but once it's done the rewards will more that pay for themselves.
Why am I rambling on about this? I just spent half an hour rummaging through my desk drawers to come up with the change I needed to get my afternoon sugar rush out of the office vending machine. When I got there I found that one of my coins was a Canadian quarter that the machine disdainfully returned to me while keeping the rest of my money. Time to move on I say. I've had enough.

How droll

2006-12-01T15:55:00.000-05:00

Iain Hollingshead, the winner of the British Literary Review's 14th annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award, accepted the 'honor' very gracefully. His novel Twentysomething won the award for its dubious erotic imagery, including the line "...and everything is pure white as we’re lost in a commotion of grunts and squeaks, flashing unconnected images and explosions of a million little particles", as well as a reference to "bulging trousers".
Mr Hollingshead commented "I was delighted to be the youngest ever winner of this prestigious award and hope to win it every year. I even got to meet Courtney Love, although I was disappointed that dinner for two wasn't part of the prize. Instead, I have an alabaster statuette of Hermes' foot on my mantelpiece. I am very proud."
Thank God for the British. Their self deprecating sense of humor, good sportsmanship and general refusal to take themselves too seriously is something that the rest of us can learn a lot from.
Can you picture an aspiring Indian author's reaction if he had the same distinction bestowed upon him? I cannot imagine it being a very pretty sight. Our thin skin and self important posturing deny us the pleasure of laughing at ourselves.
A recent article in the Economist spoke of the stark differences in the personal ads placed in the US as compared with those in the UK. The American versions spoke of 'physically fit, good looking bankers who enjoyed long walks on the beach' while the Brits (who are terrified of making self serving observations that are not ironic) usually poked fun at themselves while making subtle, humor wrapped references to their own virtues.
The dearth of good humor probably has its roots in the media. In India comedy was historically used to entertain the masses, while the upper crust believed that laughter was undignified. As a result comedy in Indian cinema or television rarely ascended the plane of Mehmood or Tun-Tun making funny faces as they slipped on banana peels.
American media did once have a decent sense of humor but, as Hollywood went commercial, the search for higher revenues resulted in the creation of products that appealed to the lowest common denominator. The difference between the US and Europe when it comes to comedy today is the same as the difference between the chocolates across both continents. American chocolate is much more in-your-face than its understated European equivalent. It is mass produced and goes with a 'sweeter the better' philosophy. A hint of bitter is too much of an acquired taste for companies to cater.
Does anyone else feel that mainstream American entertainment has completely lost its subtle edge? Was Rodney Dangerfield the last comic in this country who realized that saying nasty things about yourself is much funnier than saying nasty things about other people? And could someone please tell Alanis Rain-on-your-wedding-day Morissette that she has no clue what the word irony means?

The domain of unfinished accounts

2006-11-17T11:34:00.000-05:00

I sometimes find myself torn between two streams of thought. First is the desire to approach every question or problem in my life with a purely rational thought process and second is the knowledge that the bounds of human experience are infinitesimally small relative to our universe, thereby trivializing the scope of rationality.
I was discussing this with my father and he told me of someone else who was able to balance the two while leading a productive and fulfilling life.
This is an excerpt from Amartya Sen's introduction to Rabindranath Tagore's 'Boyhood Days', translated by Radha Chakravarty (Puffin Classics, 2006)

"Tagore's commitment to reasoning was strong - sometimes fierce - throughout his life. This is well reflected in his arguments, for example, with Mahatma Gandhi (whom he chastised for obscurantism), with religious parochialists (whose reasonless sectarianism upset him greatly), with the British establishment (for their crude treatment of India, in contrast with what he admired greatly in British intellectual life and creativity), with his Japanese admirers (who received, despite Tagore's general admiration of Japan, his sharply angry critique for their silence - or worse - in the face of Japan's newly-emerging supernationalism, including the Japanese treatment of China), and with the administrative leadership of both British India and the Soviet Union (he compared the Soviet achievements in school education across its Asian and European span very favourably with the gross neglect of school education in British India, while also chastising the Soviet leadership for its intolerance of criticism and of freedom of expression).
Tagore's commitment to a reasoned understanding of the world around us came through also in his wholehearted support for scientific education (his school insisted on every child's exposure to the new findings emerging anywhere in the world). The same commitment to reason is seen also in Tagore's cultural evaluations, including his firm mixture of pride in Indian culture and rejection of any claim to the priority of Indian culture over all others. It is also seen in his refusal to see something called "the Indian civilization" in isolation from influences coming from the rest of the world: this remains very relevant today, not just as a critique of what is now called the "Hindutva" approach, but also of the widely popular theses of the "clash of civilizations," which is frequently invoked these days as a gross - and rather dangerous - simplification of the complex world in which we live. In every case, Rabindranath's firm convictions were driven explicitly by critical reasoning which he clearly spelt out.
And yet to many contemporary observers in Europe and America, Rabindranath appeared to be anything but a follower of reason. It was faith he was identified with, and with a penchant for mystification over seeking clarity. While some of Tagore's admirers (of suitably mystical kind themselves) loved this "re-done Tagore," others found it unattractive, even detestable. A clear formulation of that interpretation of Tagore can be found in two unpublished letters of Bertrand Russell to Nimai Chatterji. On 16th February 1963, Earl Russell wrote to Nimai Chatterji: "I recall the meeting [with Tagore] of which Lowes Dickinson writes only vaguely. There was an earlier occasion, the first upon which I met Tagore, when he was brought to my home by Robert Trevelyan and Lowes Dickinson. I confess that his mystic air did not attract me and I recollect wishing he would be more direct. He had a soft, rather elusive, manner which led one to feel that straightforward exchange or communication from which he would shy away. His intensity was impaired by his self-asorbtion [absorption]. Naturally, his mystic views were by way of dicta and it was not possible to reason about them."
In a later letter, dated 26th April 1967, Russell was even sharper in his denunciation of what he took to be Tagore's flight from reason: "His talk about the infinite is vague nonsense. The sort of language that is admired by many Indians unfortunately does not mean anything at all."
..
...
Rabindranath's understanding of intellectual priorities did, in fact, have some special features which contributed to the misunderstanding that is being examined. One of them was Tagore's willingness to accept that many questions will remain unresolved and their answers can remain uncompleted. The domain of unfinished accounts would change over time, but not go away, and in this Rabindranath saw not a defeat but a humble - and also beautiful - recognition of our limited understanding of a vast world, even an incomprehensibly large, possibly infinite, universe (the kind of remark that so exasperated Russell). Rather than seeing this as a defeat of reason he clearly saw this as the way reason works in human life, at any point of time. He also saw some aesthetic beauty in the continuing incompleteness of our answers: this is where, I presume, Russell would have walked away had Tagore not been sitting at Russell's own home."

The full text of the introduction can be found here. TR and WS, you will find an interesting criticism of translations further along in the text.

The Mysticism of DaRaKu

2006-11-12T02:37:00.000-05:00

Dr Rajkumar, the late doyen of the Kannada film industry, known to his legions of adoring fans as DaRaKu, was a man born way ahead of his time. His genius transcended the silver screen and shone through every aspect of his life.
A fact known to few is that this great man earned his title by completing a Doctorate in Applied Physics at the prestigious Technische Universität München in Germany. Captivated at an early age by the works of Einstein, the young genius from Gajanur devoted his academic life to research in the Unified Field Theory. His work in particle dynamics almost brought him a Nobel prize in 1953, but, in an act of graceful humility, he rejected the nomination, opting instead to return to his homeland to share the secrets of time and space with his countrymen.
A true man of the people, DaRaKu decided to share his learnings only with the poor, the illiterate and the downtrodden masses of rural Karnataka through the one medium that appealed to them - film. Embedded into song, dance and fight sequences in his 206 movie appearances were subliminal messages that explained the secrets of the Universe to his impoverished audience. It was through these teachings that Bangalore eventually rose from the dust to become the world's foremost destination for technological outsourcing and scientific research.
Below is an example of DaRaKu explaining the Theory of Relativity through an English song and dance number titled "If you come today". Please watch it with the volume on before reading the explanation below.

DaRaKu begins the number with a flashy dance sequence showcasing his characteristically smooth moves. He does this to gain the audience's attention and make their minds receptive to his teaching. Once he has accomplished this, he begins to sing;

If you come today, its too early
If you come tomorrow, its too late

Upon initial consideration, these words are conflicting and confusing. Assuming that today ends at 11:59:59 PM and that tomorrow begins at 12:00:00 AM and that the former is too early and the latter too late, the audience is left with the question - When would be the right time?
Again, DaRaKu sings;

If you come today, its too early
If you come tomorrow, its too late

The audience gives up. There can be no right time!
Then the good doctor gives us a clue;

You pick the time

What was that? Today is too early and tomorrow too late, but any time I pick is correct? How can that be?

tik tik tik tik tik tik, Darling!

DaRaKu tantalizes his audience with the sound of a ticking clock, reminiscent of the unyielding passage of time. 'Time is your master!' he seems to say mockingly, 'You will always be its slave.'
He continues;

Did you say morning? No, no, its not good,
Did you say evening? No no, its too bad,
Did you say noon? No no, its not the time

What is he telling us? 'It's not the time'? The audience looks at each other, searching for answers.

What did you say?
Hey, what did you say?

DaRaKu encourages his audience to think deeper, probing through recesses of their minds that they never knew existed. Light begins to dawn where once there was darkness.
DaRaKu gives us one final hint;

Nothing? oh its all right
You pick the time
tik tik tik tik tik tik

Now it is clear. There is no right answer! There is no right time! Time is relative. It does not exist. Time is not a universal constant, but a personal measuring stick to help quantify other physical phenomenon. Time exists only in the mind of the individual observer.
The brilliance of this observation thrills the audience who rise up and dance in the aisles with 'Annavuru', their symbolic elder brother. Any time they pick is the right time because they are now the masters and time is but their slave.
DaRaKu senses their enlightenment and he is elated. In his joy, he bursts out;

Million drums beat in my heart,
Million dreams haunt my heart,
Million desires spring in my heart,
Million memories seize my heart

His aspirations for his people are slowly coming to fruition and his ecstasy knows no bounds.
He reminds his followers;

You pick the time,
tik tik tik tik tik tik

You pick the time because you own time. The ticking clock is now the drumbeat to which his victorious army marches, as they ascend to a higher level of awareness.

Next:- The wit and wisdom of Rajnikanth

Using my Religion

2006-11-08T16:12:00.000-05:00

When I was very young I read a book about a boy who had magical powers. It was one of those Soviet children's books that flooded Delhi back when India was experimenting with her socialist side. The boy's name was Ivanushka (or maybe it was Misha or Kolya or something) and he awoke one morning to find that he had the power to make things happen just by thinking about them. The rest of the story was the usual rot about the pranks he pulled (with the milkman and the school-teacher and such) and about the eventual responsibility that such power brings, but my imagination was fired. I could not get the idea out of my head and I always wondered when my own dormant magical powers would awaken.
A few months later I read a magazine article about Uri Geller, that fraud of a spoon-bender, and then I saw the movie Star Wars and pretty soon I was convinced. I simply had to practice and concentrate to build up my powers and the world would be at my feet.
When I went out with my parents I would focus, for example, on the car ahead of us at a traffic light. "Turn-left-turn-left-turn-left..." I would say in my head as I squinted at it in total concentration. If the car did indeed turn left I was further convinced of my powers. If it did not then I knew that I had to work harder to hone my skill.
As I grew older I began to use my powers on more difficult tasks. I tried to get India to win cricket matches on TV ("Four-or-six-four-or-six...") and to make the skirt of the hot girl in my school bus ride higher when she crossed her legs ("Move-up-move-up-move-up.."). Again I was largely unsuccessful, but the rare occasions that things went my way gave me the confidence to go on (Kind of like my golf game, come to think of it).
The big turning point came about when I was around thirteen and was visiting my grandmother. Her dog had some kind of seizure and collapsed in a heap after eating something weird in the estate. My cousins and I all loved that young mongrel dearly and were in tears assuming that the poor creature had bought it for good. My grandmother was a strict and pious old Catholic and she ordered the lot of us into the chapel (she had a large, fully functional chapel inside her house) to pray for the animal. Since I was the only half-Hindu among the cousins, I was 'allowed' to wait outside while the rest got into a vigorous bout of Our Fathers and Hail Maries. I figured that instead of twiddling my thumbs, my time would be better spent putting my super-powers to good use. "Rana-get-up-Rana-get-up-Rana-get-up..." played over and over in my head as I concentrated the full force of my magic at the backyard where the mutt lay wrapped in a towel.
The next morning we woke up to find Rana waiting for us at the breakfast table. He was a little more reserved than usual, but otherwise bright eyed and waggy tailed. "Pass the sausages" he said with his eyes.
My grandmother instructed us all to give thanks and rejoice in the wonders of the Lord, but I was too busy rejoicing in the wonders of myself. I knew exactly who had saved that dog and it wasn't anyone in heaven. Rana's savior was sitting at this very table and stuffing his smug face with buttered eggs and toast.
Over the years, common sense and practical reasoning took the place of childish fantasy and my belief in my powers diminished, but never completely disappeared. All the way through engineering college I would sit in exam rooms muttering "No-laplace-transforms-no-laplace-transforms.." at question papers before turning them over. Once a classmate noticed my lips moving and asked if I had been praying. "Sort of" I replied.
You see the whole thing had become almost like a habit at this point. The same way that religion is to most people. I didn't really believe it worked but what the hell, when the chips are down then there's no harm in trying anything right? It was probably a habit that excused me from any kind of religious belief at an early age. If religion is a crutch that people need when they feel powerless, then what's wrong with having an internal crutch rather than a super-natural one? In fact I think it’s healthier.
So, good reader, the next time you need a miracle and feel the urge to pray, why not drop me a line instead? I will apply my powers to the matter and I guarantee you a strike rate as good as anything the big Guy in the sky can give you. And at least I will call back and apologize if it doesn't work out.

Here we are now, entertain us

2006-10-13T15:54:00.000-04:00

It would not be an original observation on my part to note the extent to which entertainment moulds us. We are what we watch, read and listen to. But what I will point out is that the rapidly changing nature of entertainment in India is producing rapidly changing generations of young Indians who can barely relate to the bunch that walked the streets a few years before them.
The US has seen changes in its movies, music, literature and popular culture in general over the decades, but the changes have been gradual and have allowed the generations to be well spaced and nicely transitioned. The "greatest generation" of the forties and fifties, the flower children of the sixties and seventies and the gen-xers of the 80's and 90's were far enough apart in age to justify a generational shift. In India, on the other hand, we have people around 30 who can barely keep up with the folks around 25 who, in turn, raise their eyebrows at the 20 year old crowd.
It's not surprising I suppose. People my age, the first bracket (I freely admit), grew up back in semi-socialist India. Our limited exposure to Western television comprised of Star Trek on Sunday mornings, the annual Grammy awards, some outdated BBC crap and scratchy pirated videotapes from the library (do they still exist?) down the street. Our regional television comprised of Buniyaad, Chitrahaar and Krishi Darshan. Children's books were not really much of an option, considering that most were 1940's style adventure stories that we could not relate to beyond a point (Forget all the ginger ale and scones for tea, the smugglers I knew sold nice cheap watches and were not the sort to be thwarted by four children and a dog). As for music, sure we all had re-re-recorded audio tapes in shoe boxes under our beds, but the music was just a background for our regular lives. We never cared who the singer was dating or what he was wearing. Given all that, organized entertainment was never a substitute for real life. It was simply a brief diversion before we went back to the business of throwing golf balls at lizards and playing tennis-ball-cricket in the garage.
Now move along five years or so and everything changed. Cable TV came in and shifted a number of dynamics. Girls sat at home in the evenings to watch The Bold and the Beautiful and Santa Barbara with their mothers, while the boys couldn't stop talking about Baywatch. The whole perception of sexuality was turned on its head. MTV created legions of black T-shirted, ripped jeaned college boys who headbanged in synch to Metallica and Judas Priest. The channel's VJs quickly became cultural icons, replacing our staid old mustachioed Bollywood stars. Everyone wanted to dress like Danny McGill and Sophia.
You know how they say that we all play certain roles in life. We find characteristics in other people that we like and then do our best to absorb them into our own personalities. Cable television gave us access to characters that we had never experienced before. Kids who used to try to behave like their older cousins now patterned their lives on American soap stars. I'm not claiming that my generation was not affected by Western media. I admit watching 'The Gunfighter' some 50 times when I was 12 and crying each time Jimmy Ringo got shot by that filthy punk. I dressed up like a cowboy for a year or so after that. But, even in my infantile head, I drew the line between entertainment and real life. I did not legitimately expect to ever actually become a cowboy, or Spiderman or Johnny Sokko (of Giant Robot fame).
Another five years went by and the information revolution pretty much exploded over our heads. If cable TV gave Indian society a glimpse through a window, the Internet threw us headfirst out of it and into the great big world outside. Pretty soon there was no difference between the scale or scope of social interaction available to a 15 year old in Paris, Chennai, Dhaka or Omaha. They were all spouting the same cliched expressions of the day, speaking the same IM-based language and dressing in the same celebrity-inspired clothing.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to sound like my grandfather here. I love the concept of a global culture and do not think much of people who cling to the past. My only concern is with the speed at which things are changing in a country that is unused to rapid change. The difference between those with access to information and those without has never been more acute. If I can barely keep up with my 20 year old cousins, I wonder what a rickshaw driver would think of them.
The West, and the US more so than others, is moving towards a social dynamic where everything revolves around entertainment. You expect to be constantly entertained by your politicians, your news anchors, your friends and your coworkers and they expect the same from you. Rational discussion, personal introspection and unbiased information are being replaced by meaningless catchphrases, blind consumerism and blatant spin. It would be a shame if a whole generation of young Indians went the same way.

...and speaking of Star Trek (and to prove I'm still with it), you HAVE to watch this. Turn the volume on.

..and finally this tag from Szerelem.
The ten most played songs on my iPod (..and not the ten songs I wish were most played on my iPod) are:
1) 18 and Life - Skid Row
2) Wings of the Storm - White Snake
3) Trust - Megadeth
4) Poison - Alice Cooper
5) Bad Apples - Guns 'n Roses
6) Love Hurts - Nazareth
7) Wherever I May Roam - Metallica
8) Paranoid - Black Sabbath
9) Out in the Cold - Judas Priest
10)Mama I'm Coming Home - Ozzy Osbourne

In my defense, they're all on my running playlist.
If you've read this far, then you're tagged.

News preview from the People's Daily

2006-09-21T16:46:00.000-04:00

August 22nd 2023
Beijing, China

The Chinese Premier Mr. Yong Chun, addressing an international press conference in Beijing today, declared that Chinese troops have been successful in putting down the insurgency in America's Texas province, but cautioned that hard days lay ahead in the struggle to bring freedom to the people of America. He said that four hundred thousand additional troops were being deployed to help stabilize the region and called for patience and resolve from the Chinese people.
Mr. Chun has been facing growing local and international criticism over his controversial decision to invade the US three years ago, on the grounds that the Republican regime of President Jenna Bush was poised to launch a Death Star styled spacecraft that would be armed with proton torpedoes capable of annihilating the entire world. No such weapon was found during the subsequent occupation of America. Mr. Chun pointed out that the inability to find an actual Death Star was not proof that plans to build one did not exist. Mr. Chun also clarified that although not explicitly stated prior to the invasion, it was his administration's goal to bring real freedom to the American people who he claimed had been suffering under the oppressive rule of a President with approval ratings below fifty percent.
Mr. Chun also pointed out to reporters the plight of American women prior to the invasion. "American girls were encouraged to starve to conform to unrealistic, media-driven standards" he said. "It was a shame to the international community that no one before us had stepped in to rescue them. Today, we have them all dressed in loose fitting grey uniforms as they work in factories. They are finally free from social pressures and can spend their lives in the blissful pursuit of their work."
When asked if he had expected the American people to rise up in revolt against his occupying troops, Mr. Chun replied that he had expected the Americans to greet the sight of Chinese tanks at Times Square with flowers, but instead the ungrateful wretches met them with bullets. The Premier reiterated that while a majority of the American people were peace loving, or perhaps too overweight to take up arms, it was only a small fraction of the population that had joined the local militias that resisted the occupation. Dubbing these individuals 'terrorists' and 'evil-doers', Mr. Chun promised that they would be dealt with harshly.
When questioned about the widespread reports of civilian killings, rape, looting and prisoner abuse being perpetrated by Chinese soldiers in US cities, the Premier's only response was that "stuff happens." On being pressed for more details, Mr. Chun replied that often when Chinese troops conducted late night raids on American houses suspected to be supportive of the resistance, families were too terrified or perhaps did not know enough Chinese to understand and respond to the troops. In these situations things sometimes got out of hand, to the disadvantage of the members of the household. Mr. Chun said that in cases where a crime was proven to have occurred, the soldiers involved were given a warning or even docked a week's pay.
The Premier also continued to make the tenuous connection between the invasion of the US and the Rape of Nanking in 1937. "They attacked us first" he said repeatedly. When reminded that the massacres in Nanking had been carried out nearly a hundred years ago, and had been perpetrated by Japan and not the US, Mr. Chun grew agitated. He said that while the Americans may not have directly ordered the carnage at Nanking and may have actually been at war with Japan at the time, their complicity could not be ruled out entirely.
There has been widespread speculation that Chinese movie tycoons had used their influence with the State Council to persuade Mr. Chun, who has long standing ties to the Kung-Fu film industry, to go to war with America so that they could raid Hollywood's stable of internationally acclaimed stars. While brushing off the reports as "baseless rumors", Mr. Chun also issued a stern warning to Canada, saying that they could be next if they did not do more to control the flow of talentless Canadian actors to Hollywood.
In other news, eighty two American college students were killed when their spring break beach party in the Eastern province of Florida was mistaken for a terrorist gathering and bombed by Chinese jets. The event did not receive any coverage in the local media here as it occurred on the same day that popular actress Bai Meng announced that she may be pregnant.

Epilogue

2006-08-31T17:02:00.001-04:00

"Hey!"
"Eh?.. oh wow! Hi"
He blinked as he tried to take her in. Her face revived a cascade of old memories that now inundated him.
She laughed, and her laugh brought back so much more.
"Close your mouth and stop staring at me like that."
"Sorry" He snapped it shut, embarrassed. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to meet Gautam Bhaskaran, the poet. I'm interviewing him for a book."
"Haven't heard of him. What book?"
"Oh, nothing special. It's a coffee-table book, 'Art and Culture in Bangalore'" she made quotation marks in the air with her fingers.
He smiled, she smiled back. They looked at each other in silence.
"Well, are you coming in?" He asked.
"The watchman won't let us in. This fellow was supposed to meet us here, but we're early and..."
"Us?"
"Yes, this is Pooja, she's a photographer."
He had barely noticed the plump girl a few feet away. She was wearing a faded green T Shirt with the word 'SEXY' written across it in sequins.
Odd choice for an interview, he thought.
"Oh, hello." He wondered if he should offer to shake hands with her, but decided against it. She wasn't near enough and he would have had to step forward.
"Hi." Pooja smiled back uninterestedly and then turned away, watching the traffic on the street with her arms crossed.
They were silent again.
"Anyway, why don't you come in with me. I'll ask the watchman to tell... Gautam is it?... that you'll meet him in the lobby."
"Oh, ok... thanks"
They walked into the club together, Pooja trailing at the back.
"Listen, do you want to get a cup of coffee while you wait? You could tell your friend to stay in the lobby and call you when he arrives."
"Umm... yeah, ok... give me a minute."
She walked over to Pooja and spoke to her briefly.
He watched her as she returned. She looked older, her face had filled out and her eyes seemed more deep set than he remembered. But then the sun caught her hair as she reached him and he got a whiff of her perfume. He felt as if he had traveled back in time.
"I can't believe you still wear those ridiculous flowery skirts."
"Hey, behave! You can't talk to me like that anymore."
He smiled. 'Anymore', as if they had broken up yesterday.
They walked in silence to the coffee shop. Their shoulders almost touching.
"Where's your wife?" she asked "I heard you were married."
"Out shopping with my mother."
"Really? I can't believe your mother actually approves of someone you're with. Didn't she always think that you were too good for anyone?"
"I don't know what you mean" he smiled back.
"She couldn't stand me, remember?"
"Nonsense" he lied, "my mum always liked you."
"Oh right, that must have been why she called me a slut."
"Oh come on, she apologized to you for that. She was just upset because she came home early that day when..."
"Okay, okay, I remember."
They sat down. A steward recognized him and hurried over. "Good morning sir."
"Hello Shivram."
He ordered two coffees and a plate of chicken sandwiches without consulting her. She didn't take her eyes off him while he ordered.
"You look the same" she said.
"Thanks... I guess."
"I was hoping you'd be fat and bald by now."
He laughed, embarrassed again. He tried to think of a witty comeback, but couldn't.
"Sorry to disappoint you... but at least that means you've been thinking of me, right?"
"Hmm..." She looked out of the window, her profile towards him, her chin resting on her knuckles.
There was a strand of grey hair above her ear, tucked back among the curls.
"So what does your wife do? Is she working?" She still faced the window.
"She was in advertising, but she quit when we had our son."
She turned back, eyebrows raised.
"I didn't know that. So you're a father now? Wow. You really are domesticated."
He looked at her intently, wondering how to say it.
"We actually lost him soon after he was born. Sudden infant death syndrome." He spoke the words carefully, as if each weighed progressively heavier on his tongue.
She raised a hand over her mouth in shock.
"Oh my God! I'm... I'm so sorry, I..." She reached out to touch his arm, but he flinched away visibly and she hurriedly withdrew.
He was already wishing he had never mentioned it. He detested the sympathy the whole thing elicited and normally never spoke of it.
"Don't worry about it" he said awkwardly, looking at the table. "It was more than two years ago, and we're trying again now..."
Trying again now! There was another phrase he hated.
They were quiet again for a while and he thought he saw tears in her eyes.
"What about you?" he asked, trying to break out of the moment. "Any men in your life?"
She smiled again.
"Actually yes. I'm engaged to Vivek. Remember him?"
"Vivek...? Oh, Vivek! Yeah, of course I remember him. Ha! Not bad."
"What do you mean 'not bad'?"
"I always knew the bugger had a crush on you. How long have you two been going out?"
"A while, six... seven years."
"That long? And when are you getting married?" He leaned back as the waiter placed two cups of coffee in front of them.
"Soon I hope. He's searching for a new job. My dad's not so keen about me marrying a 'struggling writer'" She made the air quotes again. When had she picked up that silly habit, he wondered.
"Can't he get a job in one of these call centers?" he asked, stirring the sugar into his coffee. "I hear they hire anyone who can speak English."
"You're still the same you know" she snapped, all traces of sympathy gone from her voice. "You're so condescending about everyone."
"No, no... that's not what I meant." He was secretly glad that her tone had changed. "I really was just trying to be... you know... constructive."
"Whatever" She looked out of the window again.
He remembered why he had broken up with her.
"Honestly, I hope he finds something soon. Tell him I said hello, I haven't seen him in years."
"He hates you" she replied. "He said that anything you touch turns into shit."
"What?" He was offended. "That's a nasty thing to say."
"Can you blame him?"
"I guess not" he said, remembering, "...but come on, we've all grown up since then."
"Not all of us."
"What do you mean?"
"Vivek's still a boy" she replied, smiling fondly "He's always so worried about giving up on his writing and 'selling out'" She made the finger quotes again.
"That's just like him" he said. He was about to say more, but checked himself.
"Sometimes I feel like his mother. You know he still collects those comic books?"
"Oh, I remember... Marvel, right?"
"As if I would know" she shrugged.
"I can't believe you're making him give up on his writing."
"Don't say that. It's for his own good."
"You don't think he should decide that for himself?"
"We discussed it and decided together." She seemed flustered. "Anyway, tell me more about yourself. You're in the US, right?"
"Yup, Chicago."
"...and you're with Morgan Stanley, or was it Merryl Lynch?"
"Something like that" he replied.
"It's exactly where I pictured you ending up. Does it make you feel more secure, surrounded by all that money? You were such a pseudo character even back then... all that big talk and strutting around with your 'bad boy' image. I knew you were actually an 'establishment type'..."
"Could you stop doing that with your fingers?" he exclaimed. "It's fucking irritating."
She sat on her hands and scowled. "Vivek says it's sweet."
He would, he thought to himself.
"Hey" she said, cheering up suddenly "I saw your dad's name in the papers the other day, there's something about him in the news every other week."
"Yeah, he's keeping busy. What about you? Have you written anything new?"
"Nothing serious" she shook her head "I stopped soon after you left. There's no money in it anyway. I was writing children's stories for a few years and then I got this coffee-table book job. It should be published sometime next year. It's mainly write ups on local artists and galleries. If you want..."
"Listen..." he interrupted.
"What?"
"Nothing... I'm just.."
"Just what?" She leaned forward, eyebrows raised with an encouraging smile.
"I'm really sorry for everything that happened back then" he blurted out. "I was such an arsehole."
"Oh" She leaned back again.
"Honestly. I made a fucking mess of things and I'm really bloody sorry."
"It's okay."
"I've been wanting to talk to you about it forever. I just feel terrible about the way I handled the whole thing. I was young and stupid..."
"It's okay."
"I can't believe you're even talking to me now. You must have hated me for so long."
The steward walked briskly up to their table.
"Madam, your friend is calling" he said, beaming at her.
She turned around. Pooja was waving frantically from outside the lobby. A sour looking bearded man waited besides her.
"I have to go" she said, standing up hurriedly. Her eyes were glistening again.
"Wait, do you have a number I can reach you at?"
"For what?"
"I don't know... maybe we could meet up again some time."
"I'm not going to sleep with you."
"Oh come on, don't talk that way..."
"Bye" She leaned down and kissed his cheek. "It was nice to see you again."
He caught her hand "Stay in touch, please."
She wriggled free "Bye"
He watched her as she walked out. As she turned the corner he pulled out his cell phone and began to dial.
"Hi love, how's the shopping going?"

To each their own

2006-08-24T11:51:00.000-04:00

The new season of Survivor, in its attempt to stay as controversial as possible for the ratings, has decided that the four 'tribes' this time will be divided by race. A white tribe, a black tribe, a Hispanic tribe and an Asian tribe (which I assume includes people of Indian origin, although for some reason most people in the US seem surprised that Indians tend to categorize themselves as Asian). Some observers worry that the show is meant to exploit racial stereotypes; The hot-blooded Latino, the athletic black and the super-intelligent Asian etc. Gambling websites are already laying odds that the white tribe will win (I checked purely out of curiosity).
Am I reading too much into this, or does it seem to be part of a growing trend? Is political correctness seriously ill, if not on it's deathbed? The entertainment industry usually grasps on to impending social phenomenon before the rest of us do. Has it seen signs that people are becoming more open about the fact that they are most comfortable around others of their of own ethnicity and mistrusting of outsiders?
A recent BBC bulletin reported that in England "some communities were leading 'parallel lives' with little or no contact with each other." The article, while primarily dealing with disaffection among Muslim youth, pointed out that in many diverse communities there was a tendency for ethnic groups to remain largely segregated from each other and that the British government was starting to see that multi-culturalism may not be a rainbow colored dream after all.
Islamic fundamentalism among segregated minorities may have shone a light on the problem, but it certainly did not create it. Simply take a look at American jails to see how groups of people function when devoid of social obligations. California Prison Focus, a human rights group for inmates has this to say in an article on segregation in state prisons - "Inside prison everything is determined by race. Housing, exercise, eating, clothing and access to various jobs and programs depend on skin color. One prison in California had weightlifting equipment labeled 'B' for black, 'W' for white, and 'L' for Latino to avoid fights over it. Each race might have its own barber who uses clippers only on members of one race. Prisoners segregate themselves at meals. Whites and blacks prohibit their own from exchanging food, candy or cigarettes. Just walking the halls with someone of another color can bring angry questions, taunting or assault."
The US Supreme Court in a recent attempt to bring a halt to segregation in California prisons ruled that the state must abandon its policy of assigning inmates to racially segregated cells when they arrive. Andres Romero writes in the Pasadena Weekly "Behind prison walls, however, you have no choices. You stay within your own race and keep away from other ethnic groups. No ifs, ands or buts. Break the rules of segregation here and you could end up injured or dead.... what prison officials understand, and the Supreme Court fails to think about, is that this is not the free world. This is prison. Segregation in here helps maintain a sense of stability and civility."
Who's to say which approach is right? Do we try to continue with the politically correct notion of being color blind and pretending that the average person is not at least slightly racist deep inside? Or does that mean that we're just ignoring the big dead elephant in the room? And if we choose to accept the notion that people, left to their own devices, prefer to be segregated, then is it correct to shove integration down their throats?

Social Mobility

2006-08-04T16:02:00.000-04:00

Today my office is having its carpeting replaced and the whole place is overrun by an army of movers, installers and handymen. The work crew rubs its large, tattooed, sweaty shoulders with the starched shirts of my pencil-necked colleagues. They yell across the hallways and laugh heartily when one of them drops a 200 pound cabinet on his toes. My co-workers cower in their cubicles, obviously uneasy with having to share their breathing space with the kind of people that they would cross the street to avoid in a dodgy neighborhood.
Watching the two groups side by side, it's easy to understand why liberals bemoan the lack of social mobility in today's America. The two are practically different species. I cannot see how anyone from the mouth breathing section of the population could transition to the heads-up-their-asses segment, without some form of early life miracle.The American dream of the hard-working mail clerk struggling up through the organization to become CEO is not just dead, it's laughable. A child from a poor and uneducated family will not be able to join the white-collared throng that clogs the freeway at rush hour in their tin coffins, unless he has a great deal of luck and significant internal motivation when he is still young.
While making the inter-class leap may be difficult in the US, it is virtually impossible in India. The flattening world has given the well educated minority a huge boost, while leaving the vast unwashed practically untouched and staring at a rapidly growing rift that they never will cross.
A maid from my college days in India sent her son to meet me when I was down there, in the hope that I could give him some career advice. Honestly, I was stumped. The boy had dropped out of school after the 5th grade and now helped his uncle at his electrician's practice. I racked my brains for a practical and honest answer, trying to put myself in his shoes. If I were him and knew what I know, how could I get back to an economically secure position without my college degrees, social connections and inside information of the system? The only answer I think of was this - if you're ballsy then get into crime, if you're glib then get into politics (although, come to think of it, the latter is just a slightly polished version of the former). Of course I didn't voice my thoughts, but instead dismissed the boy with some meaningless platitudes about working hard and trying to complete school.
If I had to guess then, based upon current trends, I would say that eventually the whole world would be broken up into the uneducated poor and the educated ownership class and that the gap between the two would increase substantially.
Rich countries would outsource the old service sector jobs that were once used as a bridge from one class to the next, to poorer countries. People in management or those who own shares in large companies will grow richer as productivity increases, while the uneducated and even the poorly educated will find it increasingly difficult to land a competitive job.
In developing countries again, those who have a good education will land high paying employment in global companies and those who are already wealthy will grow even more so as their assets appreciate in value. Children born to uneducated, poor families will never be able to accumulate the tools required to compete in one lifetime - unless, again, they turn to either crime or politics (After all Dawood Ibrahim was the son of a beat constable and the Rt Hon Deve Gowda used to haul sacks of potatoes at the Mandya railway station).
My advice? The chasm is going to grow increasingly large as the years go by. If you're born on the wrong side of it then at least try to lay the foundations so your children can cross it. If you're fortunate to start your life on the right side of the tracks then start accumulating blue chip stock (Big companies are always going to get bigger) and real estate (God isn't making any more of it) as soon as you afford it. That way even if your children grow up to be potheads or art history majors, they will still have a decent shot at a good life.

Tam Brahm, Thank You Ma'am

2006-07-18T09:22:00.000-04:00

"The Iyer you go, the Iyengar you get" a Tamil Brahmin friend used to remind me in school. There was no species of Brahmin as pure and orthodox as the Tamil Brahmin, and no Tamil Brahmin as chaste and uncontaminated as the Iyengar. Or so I once believed... A recent conversation inspired me to do some research and here's what I found; Iyengar Brahmins are, of course, Vaishnavites. The core of their belief system is the worship of Vishnu. A large part of this worship is Bhakti, or unrestrained devotion to Krishna, who is an aspect of Vishnu. Krishna is worshipped in a number of formats including his lover boy format where he seduces the married cowgirl Radha and her (similarly married) friends.
Apparently a cornerstone of the Iyengar Bhakti belief was the concept of oneness with the Lord through passion, especially sexual passion and especially sex outside of marriage in the format of Radha and Krishna. It was believed that sex outside marriage provided one with the purest form of love or passion that was possible, and that this was the only way to experience God.
It was this set of beliefs that made many olden day traditional Iyengar marriages open relationships, where the wife often became the mistress of a local nobleman and the husband took up with some young pupil. And it was all perfectly acceptable. And this was the most orthodox of all the Indian sub-castes. A few centuries of Islamic and Victorian British rule later and look where India is today.
Isn't it amazing how social mores vary back and forth across the ages? I read somewhere that every generation believes that it invented sex.

In other news...
I'm back from India. Trying to work off the seven pounds I gained from the daily aunty-hopping feasts ("How skinny you children get in that country, come now, have five more puris") and giving my liver some time to recover from the nightly sessions on the Bangalore Club lawns. (The only place our Nazi city allows you to drink past midnight).
Also, someone whacked my camera while I was there, so the pictures I planned to post here are all gone - the sign that says "whoever urines here is a scondrel!" on the Cash Pharmacy walls and the long line of enthusiastic young hopefuls trying to sign up at the air-force office will have to be photographed again on my next trip.

If countries were people

2006-06-29T05:24:00.000-04:00

...and you met them at a class reunion.

The US would be the super competitive over-achiever who stepped on everyone's toes while trying to make people like him. He was a solid student and captain of the football team. He always had more determination than talent, but went on to get an ivy league MBA, make a lot of money and marry a movie star. Now the pressures of the job seem to be wearing him down and he looks a little frayed around the edges. But he still laughs the loudest and throws a fit when things don't go his way.

England, Germany and France would be the snobbish rich kids who didn't mingle very much back in school but, having been through tough times, they seem a lot more mellow now. Their childhood rivalries have given way to a laid-back camaraderie, as they sit together and reminisce about the 'good old days'. Although stuck in dead-end jobs today, they seem pathetically indifferent towards their lot in life.

Israel would be the sharp little kid who always managed to get on the right side of all the teachers, and to get the bigger boys to fight his schoolyard battles for him. Street-smart and quick witted, he always landed on his feet but his mean streak made you slightly wary of him. Today he sells used-cars and makes enough to get by.

Mexico would be the scruffy child who always got to class late and then spent the whole day daydreaming. His dog ate his homework and he tried to copy yours a few minutes before handing it in. Now he works at McDonald's and seems to have developed a bit of a drinking problem. He keeps asking if you can get him a job at your company.

Russia would be the sullen, slightly overweight boy who sat quietly in the back of class, rarely talking to anyone. A bully by nature, he picked on those who couldn't fight back. Once relatively successful, he lost most of his money when his poorly conceived business failed. But he doesn't seem too upset about it. Or does he? Who knows when it comes to him?

Brazil would be the big, boisterous kid who threw spitballs at the teacher when her back was turned. Anything for a laugh. Restless and over-energetic, he spent most of his afternoons in the principal's office or in detention. Today he's still great company, buying drinks for everyone and making off-color jokes, but you wish he'd get off his ass and do something productive with his life.

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq would be the gang of troublemakers who usually skipped class to smoke behind the gym. Always in trouble at school because of their poor grades and bad habits, they stayed close to each other, barring a few violent internal fights. Proud and fiercely independent, they always believed that no one else understood them and banded together every time an outsider confronted one of them. Today, unsurprisingly, they are in trouble with the law.

Saudi Arabia would be the wannabe-gangster who craved respect from the guys above, but was too soft to cut it. Instead, he lavished his ample money on parties for them and on blingy gold chains and leather jackets for himself, hoping this would buy him some street cred. He still does not work and lives off his generous inheritance, but you've been told that it may run out some day.

Australia and Canada would be the good natured, cool guys who played in the school rock band, smoked weed and grew their hair long. Never concerned by what the others thought of them, they led a cheerful, relaxed life without pissing off any one else. Not much has changed today - they're both fairly succesful, but still seem uninterested in what's happening out there in the real world.

China would be the guy from a poor family who sat at the front desk, worked his ass off and finally made it really big. Although his success is well deserved, his lack of emotion leaves you cold when you meet him now. You suspect that the years of silent suffering have left him emotionally scarred and that he may completely melt down some day.

India would be the other hard working poor boy, but his misplaced morals never allowed him to succeed in the way that China has. Geeky and awkward as a child, he seems to have finally come of age, starting up a tech company that's doing pretty well. His nouveau-rich status sits uncomfortably on his shoulders and makes his former classmates treat him with suspicion and disdain, but he takes it all in his stride.

Free will and crime

2006-06-06T14:37:00.000-04:00

Let me begin with a disclaimer.
I am not an expert on philosophy, psychology, sociology or judicial process. As a matter of fact, I do not even read very much any more, except for the odd business or trade journal. As an enthusiastic teenager I struggled through some Camus, Kafka, Voltaire and various other depressing old buggers, so I could impress people at parties. I also picked up a volume of Desmond Morris' theories on behavioral evolution (mainly because of a picture of a naked woman on the cover) and found it quite fascinating (the theory, not the cover...well actually, maybe the cover too, given that I was 18). But therein lies the extent of my expertise in topics pertaining to free will, causality and evolutionary conditioning. I have no in-depth knowledge of the latest in theories or research in any of these fields. If anyone reading this does, and finds weak spots in my arguments, then I welcome you to poke holes in them. I will not be offended. I wear the tag of 'arm-chair theorist', if not with pride, then at least with comfort.
That being said, here's my burning, though not novel, question of the day - does free will exist? And if not, how then can we hold any criminal accountable for his crime?
Given that the brain is eventually a biological machine, conditioned by generations of evolution, moulded by individual experiences and full of genetic quirks, can its owner really be responsible for its vagaries?
If you were short or puny as a child, then chances are that you will grow to be crafty and passive aggressive. Those were the qualities you needed to survive while growing up among your peers.
If you were exposed to violence at home while young, then you will probably have a greater tolerance for giving and receiving it when you are older.
If you have the misfortune of contracting Lyme disease, then you are likely to experience sudden bouts of uncontrollable rage.
If you come from a primitive society, you are likely to be accustomed to practices and cultures that are shocking or even criminal to a more progressive observer.
Overall, every facet of who you are and how you behave today can be explained by what you were born with and what your circumstances have done to you. Free will, the ability to choose between one option and another and thereby control your own destiny, is an illusion.
People take every decision to maximize their own self interest at the time, to the best of their knowledge. Your most altruistic act of self-sacrifice is done with an inherently selfish motivation, in that you value someone else's happiness above your own. Similarly, your most despicable deed is done with the knowledge that the gratification it brings outweighs the risk of getting caught or any potential weight on your conscience. In short, when taking a decision on how to react to a particular situation, a person really has just one option - the one that maximizes his or her current, perceived self interest. It’s the one option that ensures that the actor is best obeying all the pre-programmed rules of genetics, pre-conditioning and past experience that wire his brain. It’s just like a computer program that can produce only one result with the exact same set of inputs. So where does independent thought come in?
I realize that this is a tough pill to swallow. The illusion of free will is so persuasive that it is hard to see past. But if we drop our egos for a second and examine the facts - it seems pretty self evident. The workings of our brains are eventually explained completely by physics, chemistry and biology. Neural networks, synapses and memory cells are all measurable physical entities. Their functioning controls who you are, and together they define your individuality. If it were possible to build a supercomputer capable of measuring the exact position and velocity of every particle in the universe, then it would also be possible to map out your brain perfectly. It would map every cranial bump and every misfiring neural receptor. This supercomputer would therefore predict how your brain would react to any given situation. Since this computer would also know your environment perfectly, it could also compute every facet of your life from this point out - always predicting your decisions, their ramifications and the decisions you take based upon your new circumstances. The fact that such a computer does not exist, does not take away from the fact that your life is already mapped and that you do not have the capacity to impact your own destiny. Omar Khayyam's moving finger has already written everything that there is to write. You are left to simply follow your script.
Now, for the second part to my argument; given that there is no scope for individual free thought, why then should any action resulting from your pre-programmed brain be punishable? If the criminal has no control over his actions, then what purpose does punishment serve? Other than the motivation of revenge, as per the ‘you-hurt-me’ ‘I-hate-you’ ‘I-am-happy-when-you-suffer’ school of thought, can punishment for a crime achieve anything positive?
In fact it can. It deters the crime, even if it is unfair to the hapless criminal. The fact that a murderer is not personally responsible for his actions, does not in any way decrease the severity of the crime itself. The crime must be punished and its occurrence diminished, regardless of the helplessness of the criminal. The fear of punishment will influence the general environment surrounding other potential criminals and therefore help to prevent future crimes.
I'm obviously not the only person who believes that punishing those who cannot control their actions is unfair. The judicial system does allow for leniency for crimes committed by the mentally unstable and by those in the grips of a 'temporary insanity', and the list of what qualifies as a mental disease seems to increase every day. Road rage was recently ruled to actually be a medical condition caused by "intermittent explosive disorder".
I am simply advocating that the argument be taken through its next logical steps. Temporary insanity suggests a condition in which a person is not in control of his or her own actions for a short time. I am merely pointing out that people are never completely in control of their actions. A fit of anger, bad circumstances, poor values imparted during childhood - all these factors can cause a person to commit an act that a rational, well balanced individual would be incapable of. Why should common criminals be treated differently from people who have "medically certified" mental diseases? In my opinion we should completely separate the mental state of the criminal and the nature of the crime. The two should be addressed separately. All criminals should be sympathized with, as secondary victims of crime, while crime itself should be treated as an evil that should be eradicated. If that means punishment for the perpetrator, then that is unfortunate but essential.
Well, I suppose I have rambled on for long enough, but let me close by saying this. If losing complete control of one’s decision making power is considered grounds to declare one insane, then we are all insane. However that does not mean that we should ignore actions that are detrimental to us as a society. Punishment maybe unfair to the criminal, but it remains a necessary disincentive to crime.

Walmart in India

2006-04-17T15:34:00.000-04:00

One of the things that I hate the most about traveling around in the US is that the cities and small towns across the country are all so standardized. Sure, some of the larger cities have their own particular characteristics and charms and the scenery varies from state to state, but on the whole America is pretty generic from sea to shining sea.
The main reason for this is the presence of national level retailers and brands that have dominated and practically shut out small scale local competition.From Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts and Taco Bell to The Gap, Express and Macy's, practically every American city and town (except those in Vermont where large retailers are still shooed away) has the same set of merchants, dealing the same set of wares in its streets and malls.
The marketing processes employed by these retailers are so sharply attuned to the psychology of their consumers that they have persuaded Americans to spend more than practically anyone else on earth, sending their savings rate to an average of less than 1%. For instance, by using Simmons market segmentation data (just to prove that I didn’t sleep through my marketing classes), we can quickly find that suburban New England housewives are big buyers of sports utility vehicles and also that they read a lot of travel magazines and that they aspire towards higher social standing. To exploit this knowledge, retailers advertise their SUVs heavily in travel magazines in New England with ads that feature well coiffed women. Successful sales are practically guaranteed.
The high degree of consumerism that results is what keeps the American economy running, resilient to the vagaries of the market and to international pressures. Consumer spending is what pulled the country out of its last financial downturn and it has never flagged since.
While Macy's and Sears cater to the cities, no American small town would be complete without a Wal-Mart in driving distance, peddling the same array of cheap shiny Chinese products across it's six thousand stores. By purchasing $15 billion-worth of goods from China every year Wal-Mart has helped erode America's manufacturing base for consumer goods, while at the same time given poorer US consumers access to a host of products they could otherwise never afford. The company also employees 1.3 million Americans in low-paying, but readily available jobs.
Wal-Mart is now poised to expand its retail operations to India, a country with a rising middle class and increasing spending power. The move comes on the heels of Walmart's expansion into China. Wal-Mart operates 43 Supercenters in China and has two distribution centers supplying them. From just over 200 employees a decade ago, Wal-Mart has grown to 26,000 in 2005 and expects to have 40,000 employees in China (20% of whom have college degrees, unlike their US counterparts) by the end of 2006.
India's slow deregulation process currently does not allow for international retailers to set up base in the country, but this seems about to change. The country's complex foreign direct investment (FDI) regulations, which currently bar international retailers from directly entering the Indian market are slowly being relaxed, now allowing "single-brand" retailers such as Nike or Toyota to own 51 percent of their business operations in India and will probably soon also allow Wal-Mart like retailers that sell a variety of brands in their stores to operate within the country.
Local opposition is already forming to inhibit the entry of large scale foreign retailers into India, with many of the country's opponents to free markets prematurely bemoaning the end of India's small scale retailers. The fear is that Wal-Mart with its state-of-the-art supply chain, globally sourced products and heavily reduced prices will push the little village corner-shop retailers out of business.
I believe that we should welcome Wal-Mart, Sears and any other interested retailer into our country with open arms. For too long rural and small town Indians have limited their purchases to the weekly groceries and the occasional new garment for the festivals. Indians save 15% of their incomes and we do not keep our capital working.
Another problem in India is that our current agrarian economy is not operating to the best of its potential and needs to be tuned up as well as supplemented by a competent consumer economy.
When rural Indians have access to a wide variety of low cost goods - bright plastic mugs, hairclips, towels, cheap electronics, toys and other trinkets I predict that we will see a retail revolution the likes of which the world has never seen. Shrewd Western style marketing, targeting rural Indians, will help kick start consumerism outside the cities. In addition Indians already possess a naturally high degree of social competition and if Americans are constantly trying to keep up with the Joneses, then we're trying to keep up with the Joshis. In short, consumerism will breed more consumerism in rural India and this will be the last nail to be pulled out of socialist India's coffin as the country jolts back to life.
High rural demand will create a strain on supply and small Indian manufacturers will ramp up production to keep pace. Employment rates will rise as retail and manufacturing jobs are created and Western style production efficiencies will be put in place to keep prices competitive. This technology will soon spill over from manufacturing to help improve the country's vast agriculture economy that currently has wastage levels of 25 - 40% because of low quality supply chains and bad inventory management. This will reduce the cost of food and further increase the quality of life in rural and small town India.
The only drawback that I can foresee is that Indians will stop saving as much as they do and borrow more to maintain their new lifestyles. Is this a bad thing? I don't think so; not as long as we continue to produce at high levels and maintain a decent trade deficit. Wal-Mart and other large international retailers have already said that India is one of their fastest growing sourcing destinations for low cost manufacturing, so I don't see rampant rural consumerism in India resulting in huge deficits to China.
Some may point out that rural India could become a boring landscape full of generic low-price retailers. I don't think that's as bad as it sounds. It's selfish to want rural India to remain unchanged at the expense of rural Indians. A Wal-Mart near every Indian village and small town may sound unattractive, but try telling that to the local farmer's wife as she shops for a shiny new handbag.
I think its about time that Indians started enjoying their money instead of saving it up for lavish weddings and unwearable jewelery for their children.

On being cool

2006-04-05T09:41:00.000-04:00

Opening disclaimer: I know that it's completely un-cool to write about being cool, but anyway here goes...

Someone at work sent around this ridiculous video link of a group of desis dancing like jackasses around a swimming pool and then I never heard the end of it.
"Hey, the one on the left looks a little like you.", "Wow, you guys really know how to party back in India." and "So, why are they swimming in their clothes ?"
I had to face up to the question that's always been left unspoken at the back of my mind. Are Indians really an un-cool people? Speaking of which, what exactly does it mean to be 'cool'?
What is it about so many of my countrymen that sometimes makes me laugh, blush or cringe?
I think I have two possibilities here. Either there's something wrong with me or there's something wrong with them.
Let's explore the first possibility. Could it be that I am so sensitive about being a foreigner in the US that, even after all these years, I still try to disassociate myself from desis who are fresh off the boat (FOBs) because they remind me of my roots?
It's possible, but unlikely. I never tire of talking to people about my Indian roots. Most of my friends here are Indians, some of whom I have known since childhood. While I am not uncomfortable around Americans, I find their sense of individualism a little chilling and I usually prefer the company of people I can be more comfortable around. That being said, I accept that I am affected more by socially inept Indians than I am by similarly behaving people of other nationalities.
Could it be then, that I'm an arrogant ass who pooh-poohs at those who I feel are less sophisticated? Again, I won't deny the charge, friends have often called me stand-offish, but no one has ever accused me of being a snob. Four years at a small town engineering college kicked all the big city snootiness out of me and instilled in its place an appreciation for the simpler side of India. I don't think I have ever looked down on those who were brought up without privileges since then, and I have always had friends I could never introduce to the genteel.
That brings me to the second possibility. Is there something about many Indians that makes them look ridiculous while remaining oblivious to the fact? (Notice how I say "them", and not "us". I don't think any one considers themselves to not be cool.) I think back to groups of desis eating at a nice restaurant without taking off their oversized winter jackets, or Indian contractors walking into work with unkempt greasy hair and smelling of garam masala, or of over enthusiastic FOBs at posh nighclubs drinking themselves silly and showing off their Bhangra dance steps on the center of the floor, or of Indian graduate students openly cheating at exams in American universities.
Why does this get to me? I don't know, it just does. I feel as if people judge us expat Indians as a single entity and that somehow the desi who argues with a waiter about why 2 bucks is a good enough tip at a buffet drags me down with him.
Am I saying that Indians are clueless as a community? No, not really. But I think that if we are observed out of our familiar environments, we can be jarring to the senses. By that I mean that when Indians act like Indians in India there's nothing wrong, but when they go to other countries and then only partially alter their behaviour to adapt to a new culture there's a problem. A fakir sitting half naked under a banyan tree in India and smoking pot is cool, put him on a subway train in Boston and he's just a bum. Traditional Kathak dancers are cool, Govinda doing his funky moves in Paris in front of throngs of bemused spectators is not. And, I have to add, spitting paan on the sidewalk in Delhi is not cool, doing it in Manhattan is simply disgusting. Bachchan? - He's just always cool.
Uncouth tourists are not purely an Indian phenomenon. I have an American colleague who hates travelling abroad with his girlfriend because she loudly proclaims that shopkeepers in foreign countries should all learn English.
So I suppose that to be cool, one must either integrate completely with one's environment or stand out completely and unselfconsciously without upsetting one's surroundings, like the Tibetan monks you sometimes see in full regalia walking benignly through the streets of New York. It's the "neither here nor there" crowd that really make me uncomfortable.

Stone cutting blues

2006-03-30T13:43:00.000-05:00

Last year my parents decided to upgrade their kitchen and bathrooms. My mother went through all her old issues of of Good Housekeeping and finally came up with layouts and designs she liked. She called a couple of my old friends, one of whom was now an architect and another a builder and got her plans approved. The builder sent in one of his contractors and a troop of laborers and work was soon underway.
I was in Bangalore on vacation at the time and volunteered to oversee some of the work when no one was home. The problem with vacationing in India is that everyone I know who's still in town is working in the daytime when I'm free, so I didn't mind killing some time supposedly watching over the workers, but actually enjoying the air-conditioning and a stack of '3 in 1' DVDs while they sweated outside. After a while I realized that it was impossible to watch TV and enjoy my sweet lime soda over the din of hammers and electric saws, so I stepped out into the backyard to watch them. To quote Jerome K Jerome - "I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours."
The contractor had left for another site, so there were just the three laborers hammering away at the granite slabs and cutting them into shape. I smiled, they grinned back, I asked to borrow a beedi, one of them obliged and even lit it up for me, I asked if they needed some water or anything, they said no and we all settled back to our posts - they hammered and sawed away while I sat on the steps and opened up some old 'Amar Chitra Katha' comics that my mother had lovingly saved up at the bottom of my cupboard.
At around 1:30 in the afternoon I went back into the house for lunch and asked the cook to send out some plates for the men. She returned and said that they told her they weren't hungry and would eat later after they were done.
At around 4:00 one of them knocked on the window to say they were leaving. I went out and distributed some baksheesh which they happily accepted.
"What are your names?" I asked
"Amit Mukherjee", "Ranjit Roy", "Mukesh Sen" came the replies.
I was surprised, but did not say anything. When my father returned in the evening I told him about it and he was horrified. Good Bengalis reduced to breaking stones for a living. Why, one of them may have even been a distant cousin.
After a few days it was Durga Puja and the house was bustling with the usual festivities. On our way out to the pandal my father and I stopped in the backyard to give our Bengali brethren the rest of the day off to enjoy the holiday.
"Where's Mukesh?" I asked, noticing that one was missing.
"Who?" They seemed puzzled.
" Mukesh Sen, your partner."
"Oh Mukesh" They looked at each other quickly. "He's at another site, he'll be back in an hour."
"You can take the day off, go enjoy the Pujas."
"No, no.. that's all right.. we'll finish our work and leave later."
My father seemed troubled and he stayed back to talk to them in Bengali as I proceeded towards the car to join my mother. He walked over after a few minutes, smiling happily.
"They're not Bengalis" he said, obviously relieved. "They're from Bangladesh. Illegal workers."
Well, that explained it. The fake names, the fasting (it was Ramzaan) and the willingness to work through Durga Puja.
Apparently there are close to 15 million Bangaladeshis living and working illegally in India. That's almost double the 8 million odd illegal Hispanics in the US. They migrate for the same reasons, better living conditions, willingness to work cheap and the lack of employment in their home countries. They have become an essential component of the manual labor workforce in many states. The Indian government is starting to be more active about the phenomenon and is tightening up border security, but a 4000 km long border is not easy to monitor, so the trend is likely to continue.
Frankly, after seeing the crap that immigrants have to put up with in the US, I'm more than a little sympathetic to those who travel far from home in search of a better life. Maybe I saw myself in the stone cutters - working hard in a foreign land, unappreciated but essential. I wish them well and hope they find what they're looking for.

Altruism and evolution

2006-03-25T12:42:00.000-05:00

Let me start by saying that this blog entry was inspired by the comments posted on my previous blog entry.
What exactly is altruism? It is an emotion, possibly unique to man (I use the term loosely throughout this essay to include both sexes), to protect others of his species, often at a disadvantage to himself. It is the feeling that inspires charity, social welfare, intervention in foreign genocide and even the bravery of a stranger who rushes into a burning building to rescue an unknown cripple.
While the well-informed reader will quickly point out that most herd or pack based animals display similar sentiments - for example elephant cows nurture motherless calves and penguins stand guard over each other's eggs - I believe there is one fact that makes human altruism truly unique.
We are the only species that goes out of its way to protect those who cannot contribute back to society. In the animal kingdom, the runt of the litter is often deliberately killed or starved at birth. Older, sicker and weaker animals meet a similar fate. Protection within the herd is granted mainly to younger members that will soon grow to be strong and will eventually contribute back to the herd. A slow gazelle slows down the group and is not protected when the lions attack.
In the case of man, altruism has blossomed into a more generous sentiment. Protection is not offered simply to those who can eventually repay the kindness, but even to those who will never be able to fend for themselves, and who will always be dependent on their benefactors. This is more clearly visible in the West. In some American cities generations of a family live off social welfare that provides them with adequate comfort to never feel motivated enough to work. In Germany a growing number of young people are choosing to move back to their parents' homes and live off state funding that often pays more than a start-up job.
While India has not reached the levels of state protection seen in the West, the Indian left wing has not been inactive. The progress of society has often taken a back seat to the protection of the downtrodden. This can be seen in initiatives to prevent global trade, forgive loans to poor farmers, impede the development of large dams and slow the privatization of the incompetent public sector. The fact that you may feel that some of these initiatives are worthy shows the degree to which altruism has become ingrained into our DNA.
This brings me to the second part of this post. What is evolution? It is the process of slow mutation of a species allowing it to better adapt its surroundings. This is accomplished by giving more access to resources to those who are better suited to survive, thereby allowing them to reproduce more.
For example, Darwin studied finches in the Galapagos islands. When a drought caused smaller seeds that the birds ate to disappear, only the finches with beaks large enough to eat nuts had access to food. The rest starved to death. The next generation of finches were the offspring of the survivors and they all had large beaks which now made the species more resistant to drought.
So what am I saying here? Am I saying that altruism is counter-productive to evolution? Yes, in a way that's true. Man's attempts to always provide for the weak ensures that the human species will not evolve any further. Those that are physically or intellectually ill-suited for survival will continue to be cared for and will continue to feed the gene pool. In my opinion this will lead to the creation of two permanent classes of society - those that constantly contribute and those that are constantly dependent.
Now is this a bad thing? I leave that to you to decide. In my view it's not as bad as it sounds. Man does not need to evolve any further. He has already established his dominion over most forms of nature and has no vital threats to the survival of his species. At this point altruism is a luxury that we can all afford. But a luxury is not a necessity.

Left, right, left

2006-03-20T10:38:00.000-05:00

How do you tell a liberal from a conservative in America? There are many ways to broach the topic.
"So, what do you think of the current administration?"
"Do you think there were ever any actual WMDs?"
"Did you watch Bill Maher last night?"
"Are you done with your taxes yet?"
"Isn't Ann Coulter hot?"
In today's label conscious world, what clearer tag to put on yourself than your black or white political predilection?
What strikes me the most though about the left vs. right debate in America is that there are so many questions whose answers place you on one extreme or the other of the political spectrum. There's no middle ground on your religious conviction, political affiliation, thoughts on minority rights, degree of patriotism, choice of media outlet or level of sexual tolerance.
You can either be a flag-waving, gun-toting, gay-bashing, Fox-news-watching, fetus-loving, tax-hating conservative
...or a war-hating, Clinton-worshipping, abortion-defending, beard-growing, free-loving, welfare-supporting liberal.
There's no in-between.
So, what happens to people who have varied views on some topics, and no views at all on others? I don't think that society in the US gives you that alternative any more. You choose a political direction and then you stick to it. Your opinions on all social issues will be decided for you, based on the political side you have chosen. Usually you're a liberal until you're 30 (if you have a heart) and you're a conservative after that (if you have a brain).
It's easier to have a political leaning in India because politics do not govern all aspects of social life. You're on the left wing if you're a Bengali or a Malayali who wants to start up the next communist revolution, save the Narmada valley and burn down the nearest McDonald's to protest against those filthy American capitalists. In this case, you dress in khadhi and call your friends 'comrade' (also if you're a woman you stop shaving your legs and OD on kajal). Instead, you're on the right wing if you want to tear down mosques, save cows from slaughterhouses and burn down the nearest McDonald's to protest against those filthy American missionaries. If you fit this description, then you usually dress in saffron (or khaki shorts) and carry a trident to work.
But, if you’re in the other 98% of the population, your opinions are usually your own and you make them without worrying whether they allign with any greater cause. You aren't being constantly indoctrinated by the media, your peers and your political candidates, so you try to approach issues from your own perspective. Perhaps this is because most Indians completely distrust their politicians and don't consider their opinions to be worthy of serious consideration.
It would seem that America could learn a lot from India when it comes to independent thinking on social issues.

If you're curious about my personal political beliefs, I guess I would consider myself a social liberal and a fiscal conservative - Do whatever you want, as long as you can pay for it.

Unique business proposition for you

2006-03-15T13:41:00.000-05:00

Where do these guys come from!!?
It seems like I always attract desi pyramid-scheme marketers in malls, gas stations, movie theatres etc. It's like I have a neon sign saying "Scam Me!" on my forehead.
Here's the general modus operandi -
You're walking through a mall and you stop outside the Aldo window, wondering how the new extra-long Nygels will look on your feet. Someone clears his throat behind you to attract your attention.
"Excuse me..." It's a chubby desi guy with a surprisingly attractive wife who's beaming away at you.
"Yes?" You slowly drag your eyes back to the guy.
"Are you from India?"
Duh!.. No, I'm Swedish.
"uh... yes"
"I think I've seen you at the temple before."
"What temple? I've never been to any temple." You don't want to seem unfriendly to fellow countrymen, so you attempt to keep smiling.
"Oh... might be someone else. " He's unfazed. "My name is Ashok and this is my wife Deepti."
"Hi Deepti" How the hell did this dimwit snag a woman like this?
After a couple of minutes of banal conversation - where from? how long in the US? etc. - he gets to the point.
"I have a unique business proposition for you." Alarm bells go off in your head. "I run my own online marketing company and I'm looking for a partner."
Sonofabitch!! They're bloody Amway scamsters! So that's why this silly cow has been grinning away at me.
"For a small fee, you can be a part of this great marketing concept." He goes on, oblivious to your red face. "You can work at it after hours, it won't take much of your time. By the way, who do you work for now?"
"I work for the INS. Immigration control. By the way, what is your visa status? Are you here legally?"
You search around for rocks to hurl at them as they flee in panic.
I mean honestly! Where do these guys come from? This is the fourth time this month, always a different approach, but always the same dumb line about a 'unique business proposition.' If you make the mistake of giving them your card they'll hound you with telephone calls for eternity, never remembering the curses you heaped on their head the last time they called.
Can you imagine their lives? Skulking around malls, shunned by family and friends, preying on the weak minded.
If you're one of them and you're reading this - SHAME ON YOU!