LIVE FROM LIFE

My Two Castles

2012-01-01T03:33:00.000-08:00

This piece is again a desperate attempt to ensure that I have at least one piece in every year, so that the “blogging” on my resume under the section “hobbies” is justified. Well, this is coming in a totally new setting. At work, I am, for the first time, doing something productive, and contributing to this huge economy. (At least I like to believe so!) At home, I am, for the first time, the master of a household. Not the master alone – I am also the cook, the dish boy, the sweeper, the butler, the works. In short, it is a perfect one man enterprise.

As far as work is concerned, Mumbai as one’s workplace poses its own troubles. There is no swanky (or even clunky) GoI ride for one. One has to travel the plebian way – the good old BEST and the Mumbai suburban rail network (may be First Class is not that plebian). There has not been any trouble with either as of yet, still, it does not feel like one has exactly ‘made it’! However, once one is inside one’s depot, it is all good. One is the master of all one surveys, even if it is not too much one surveys! This is one’s depot, these are one’s people. To these odd 300 people (and to the 10-20 odd ‘assistance’ seekers’), one is the boss. That is the power of the chair. I am not sure whether I have managed to inspire true respect till now, but I do get a lot of overt respect. I have given some good advice and some good suggestions around here, but I am still not exactly rocking the place with my genius – mostly, I am the learner. I have also been too credulous, and have been taken in to believe most strongly in the case of both parties in a number of disputes that have been brought to me.

To tell the truth I am not sure what I am doing here. A typical day is about surfing the web till an appreciable amount of the people is in, and most importantly, my clerical staff is present. Then I try to complete the task from the day’s checklist, and keep on noting the progress. By 11 or 12, both the desk phones and my official cell phone are ringing off the hook every 5 minutes. Then on, it is mostly a job of fire fighting – tickets exhausted, linen exhausted, oil exhausted, gases exhausted – and one has to find the supply – beg, borrow, steal (that would mean pressing a supplier due later). In the meanwhile, some odd ‘works’ are going on, and one has to ‘supervise’, even it’s just about moral support, since most of the guys handling the stuff are quite adept, certainly much more so than me. The lunch hour is an important marker of the day. It signifies the middle (or more than middle) of the working day. One is closer to getting home. One gets to leave the office (and the two desk phones – bless them) behind. One gets to discuss stuff with colleagues (who are much older in age) and the boss – that helps, but often ends up in more tasks piling up, because the boss is interested in a revamp of the Depot (and rightly so, this place looked like a dump). Then, one gets back to the office, the phones are again ringing off the hook, but mostly, it is about the wheels you set in motion earlier in the day. More often than not, there would be two or three thick piles of files and letters to sign – thanks to my indefatigable Progress section, and often to the Establishment section as well, since the APO has to be shared between the stores and the press. By 4:30, it is time to begin checking out the day’s task sheet, and to start writing the next day’s. Then we call out to the colleagues who are willing to walk to the station with us. The evening walk is more tiring, since it is uphill, that too in full sun. However, since it is about returning home, there is a spring to one’s steps. It is best to catch an Andheri bound train – Bandra bound trains end up on Platform 2 – not good, and Borivali and beyond bound trains are too crowded. Also, getting an auto is trickier in the evening – very few of these guys are interested in going to Carter Road. Once one is in, its 15 mins to the 2^nd gate of the Pali Hill Railway Colony. Home, sweet home.

Home time is also unlike what I’ve been having till last month. I mean, I return and I am off rolling paranthas and rotis as I change. Then I prepare the cheese sandwiches in the microwave and settle down to other more menial chores before getting settled to write the diary and read the newspaper along with nice melty sandwiches. By the time Express is fully read, it’s nearly 8 – time to start cooking – rice in the microwave – for precise 17 minutes, as I learnt from a blog – and the breads on the induction plate. Then comes the egg bhurji. Eggs are God’s gift to us bachelor working class. Cheap, easy to prepare, and always tasty. I have a weekly consumption of 28 eggs – you should see the jaws drop when I shop for them on the Shirley road shop. When all’s done, I put it all on a newspaper (no messy dishes later!), and get down to doing the dishes. Then, it’s time for fiesta - with something going on the lappie, may be a new episode of ‘Prison Break’. Post that, it’s promenade time.

The location of the Pali Hill Railway Colony is unlike any other railway colony – there is no railway line anywhere near it (nor was there, even in the past, unlike Badhwar Park). It is situated between the Carter Road, a broad, seaside, fast moving road, and the Pali Hill, the abode of film stars of the yesteryears. Both the gates are exciting walk throughs during the night. The Pali Hill is short enough to climb up and down in 15 minutes, and reminds one of nooks in Mussoorie or Shimla. Only dampener is the vehicular traffic – the roads are pretty narrow and winding, but the people are loaded, so there is a steady flow of Range Rovers and Audis, and even Hummers! Still, when the traffic is not so bad, the way is the most beautiful – it was a beautiful Christmas, to walk on, watching the candles lighting up the little churches, and listening to real carols being played / sung. However, the exit through the main gate promises much greater post prandial strolls, on the Carter Road promenade – a 1.25 km stretch of cobbled walkway along the Arabian Sea coast – the actual water being far out, except in the times of spring tides. One can put on some music and do the easiest 2.5 km in 20 -30 minutes, in the company of relaxed, beautiful and happy people. Having strolled for a week here, with my family, this evening ritual holds a special place for me. After that, it is time to retire – one or two episodes of “Prison Break” (I intend to replace that with reading – my other ‘hobby’, once I finish season 4), till 12:00 – time to doze off, to start another day.

I’ve never adjusted to the 6 day week – there is no weekend as such – I mean, now it starts, you watch some movies late in the night, wake up late on Sunday, and then you are already staring in the face of the Monday morning. Still, Sundays are special – for experimentation in the kitchen. Last week, I learnt that kneading the dough wasn’t a chemical reaction, but an advanced fine art. This week, I made myself pav-bhaji (looked the deal, but was not so palatable), and halwa (too runny, too lumpy). Well, it has been a big leap in my evolution – I now cook my own food from the basic grocery – I am not a Maggi kid any more (though I do appreciate a bowl now and then).

I guess that should be enough for the time being. Sundays are precious, and I can’t afford more than an hour on the blog! The work rolls on – I am not sure what I would show up at the COS inspection this month, and then at the year closing. I am not even sure that sticking to the IRSS and not joining the IDAS was actually a good idea. As the days roll on, to April, I am sure there will be more interesting things to write about. Till then, ciao.

the Media Revolution

2011-08-19T19:59:00.001-07:00

If one believes the news channels, especially the private ones, India seems to be in the throes of revolution these days. Antics of some self appointed representatives of the society has been elevated to 'the second freedom struggle'!

I have always maintained that this one is a mere photo-op for many, and a political stage for some.The 'kewl' generation wants it's own 'revolution', and so would clutch at any straw. The anger of the nouveau riche, who believe that they should, by default, own the country, at finding themselves as equal as anybody in dealing with the state, has been dubbed as the people's grouse. What's essentially a nice, harmless way for this anger to be vented, has been conveniently termed a ‘revolution’!

Well, they are only belittling the word ‘revolution’. Revolutions are not everyday shows. Revolutions occur when the troubles faced by the large mass of people become so bad, that defying the state authority and suffering the consequences is better in an absolute way. Based on the last statement, nothing about the current freak show is a revolution – for one, it is not a large mass of the nation, just a lakh or two of glory hunters and political axe grinders in a nation of 1.2 Billion. For another, they are not actually defying the state, though they may have made the government pretty uneasy. Nor are they suffering any consequences for their efforts – ask these ‘twitter freedom fighters’ whether they would be able to stand it if our largely benevolent state also started to play its part in their ‘revolution’ and started behaving like the colonial state. Finally, their ‘problem’ is not so bad. In reality, their ‘problem’ is just about enjoying the thrill of “Revolution lite”. Even if we take their claims at face value (that they are fighting ‘corruption’), still, their troubles are not the worst in the country. Those crying over graft on the internet can never really feel the actual trouble of the large body of people eking out a subsistence very precariously, without any sort of security in life. It is their revolution that we need to fear, as their troubles are already past the consequential costs of an uprising.

Then what about this ‘second freedom struggle’. Well, they hold annual “Civil War Enactments” in the United States – although they do not have the audacity to name it the ‘second’ civil war – they actually respect the Civil War heroes enough to not try and place themselves on the same pedestal. So, we might say it is something of that sort. Given the ease of having such ‘struggles’ in an internet connected, media covered era, we might soon have third, fourth, fifteenth freedom struggle. Just switch on the TV, and relax with a tub of popcorn. Revolution is here in your parlour!

The price of transparency

2011-08-19T04:06:00.000-07:00

A man’s social life is just a very well-orchestrated charade. As Shakespeare had so well said – all world is a stage. May be the bard did not mean it in the same way as I mean. I think that the way one pull’s oneself around in the presence of any other person is a just a well-played role in the charade mentioned above. The amount of time we spend in figuring out what to wear to work, what to say, and what to do, so as to create a ‘good impression’ can be explained only in this context. Recently it has been joined by questions of where one buys, where one dines and where one goes to movies, too!

Living the way one really is, at heart, requires no mental effort – it just comes naturally to us. Alas, very few are blessed with such a “presentable” real self. For most of us, this real self needs some sort of make-up before it can be paraded out. The amount of make-up is dependent on the level of closeness between the person (s) we are interacting with. For close members of the family, spouses, siblings, we might be putting on a very light make-up. Yet, who can, in all truthfulness, say that they reveal their all to anybody – their spouse, their kids, their parents, or even to the Almighty?

Is this bad? Speaking from a purely evolutionary perspective – anything that exists is not bad in itself. As I have already said, this play acting is merely a way to cover up our un-presentable self. If, god forbid, this ‘self’ was to emerge in all its glory, it can hurt many persons. Most individuals will have some clashes – they may be competitive (as in a business scenario), they may be related to tastes (one might not really like one’s spouses dressing style), they may be related to expectations (parents who might think their kids are losers) etc. Everyone aspires to be clash free; yet, the sad reality is that these clashes do exist. So, our playacting helps us avert the actual playing out of these clashes. So when a friend asks how well he played, you do have to say he played well. That’s the rule.

However, any play acting cannot, as a rule, be carried on for long. The difficulty of carrying on an act depends largely upon the amount of deviation from the real – the amount of ‘make-up’ we put on the real self. The really contorted displays of ‘self’ we put out to, say, business clients, cannot last more than the few hours of the presentation. The slightly modified ‘self’ we put out to school / college friends can last through the course. The minimal make-up ‘self’ we put out to spouses, kids, parents or siblings may well last a lifetime. Yet, for all these acts, we do need breaks, of ‘me-time’, where one’s true self can emerge, in the safety of complete privacy. Without these periodic ‘blow offs’, any act would be difficult to sustain, and we know how essential these acts are in keeping the social relations largely amicable.

So here comes the role of ‘transparency’. What ‘transparency’ actually does is to diminish the ‘me time’, and bring more and more part of our lives into public domain. People react by extending their ‘stage shifts’, working extra hours on their ‘self’; in other words, striving even harder to maintain the cover. All this while the supporting intervals of pure privacy are diminishing, and there is no opportunity to blow off the tension of the act. Ultimately, there is only one logical conclusion. The act breaks apart, and realities come out, to clash violently. No one is better off.

Anybody who has been noticing for the last few years would see that as a society, we seem to be more intolerant and more dissatisfied than ever before. So much of rioting and ‘protests’ were not so common earlier, and the rate of growth is alarming. There may be many reasons for that, but I think that the mushrooming of media is the main culprit. It has chipped away at all the act and left open the sores and wounds which pain us today. There are things one might tolerate, but one might not like to be seen tolerating – so put a camera this way, and you get the intolerance. There are things we might do, but would not like to be seen doing – put a camera this way, and you get inaction. There are stunts that we might not like to pull off, but we might not like to been shirking from it – put a camera this way, and you have 50 % of the rioting that is going on in this nation – ‘defending’ the faith, ‘defending ‘the language, the region, the nation, what have you. Many of these problems would have reached an amicable compromise, had they not been under the glare of spotlights. The society, unfortunately, does not have enough patience to play act 24 X 7.

The advocates of ‘transparency’ are very vocal. Unfortunately, this whole debate itself is subject to the laws of transparency – it is the ‘right thing’ to be seen supporting it. Well, the main point put forward in favoutr of transparency is that thit brings out the conflicts in the open, where the general pressure of the society helps their resolution. I would say that most of these conflicts are hidden by acts only because resolving them would exact a higher price and hiding them. then, there are some natural conflicts, that can never be resolved. The conflict of buyer and seller, the predator and the prey, and the like wise. Bringing out the truth of these relations will not solve the problem, but actually accentuate it by making it ever present. What is so sacrosanct about transparency itself, if all it leads to is conflict?

To conclude, we must say that there is a naturally ordained level of transparency in this world. What we show and what we hide is a blend perfected over millennia of human evolution. Let’s not disturb it in the name of some misplaced sense if ‘ideal’

An Apology; and a Warning

2011-06-03T22:01:00.000-07:00

"Be careful what you wish for; you may get it"

I am here to make amends for some of my posts from my rather 'immature' days - those dealing cynically with our polity and the instruments of our democracy. I take it all back - unconditionally. For this is the time that our democracy is being threatened by a coalition of the lunatic fringe and the the self righteous, who seem to have mutilated an iconic Tilak statement - for them, "Raj is my birthright". No body denies there have been failings from the side of the Establishment, and the anger to justified. However, being the 'dramatic' Indians that we are, there is a real danger of something irreparable happening here. While all the moral posturing that is being done is most definitely in pursuit of some objective other than the advertised one, there is a real chance that something very bad might emerge from this. There is an ancient quote - "Be careful what you wish for; you may get it."
It's not that nobody is seeing the fault in this.The Government of a Sovereign state is being blackmailed by a demagogue - over demands, which largely comprise of funny ones, really funny ones, and the dangerous ones. It's the third type that is really bugging me - demonetising the economy, rolling back the education to 17th Century, draconian laws. I am not alone in this. It has been commented on similarly by leading journalist in newspapers. However, in these times, newspaper reading is a drudgery left alone to competitive exam preps. the majority is getting its news from the television - where screaming anchors are trying to out do each another in becoming miniature clones of the 'holies' blackmailing our State. It's getting into dangerous territory now.
The problem with seeing things bad for a long time is that people fail to realize that it can get worse. People say that the State has failed to deliver. I say, just look around in the neighbourhood. Stop looking just at the developed world - look at the mess in the region to see how well we have done in comparison. If time is given the remaining miles will also be travelled. However, being the dramatic Indians we are, we revel in extremes. Either we'll bear it stoically, or we'll go all or nothing. What is not being realised is what happens if the State collapses under such pressures. Will it be 'all free no governance' - in other words - anarchy? While anarchy is not a good place to be in, even worse could be the entities that effectively replace the states. As long as there are societies, there will be governments. Currently we have one whose top is chosen by people, and whose machinery is designed on merit. If it fails the people, they have the option to bring in a new set at the top. Do they think a 'government' made of 'Civil Society' or godmen would be better. In my opinion, they qualify neither on electable popularity, nor on selectable merit. So they are doing what best they can to wrest power - blackmail the state in its moment of weakness. I appeal my non existent readers to not be a party to this daylight robbery.

On injustice, bureaucracy and Nuremberg

2011-01-29T08:07:00.000-08:00

Most, if not all, of the injustice done in this world is is at the hand of administrators - the so called 'cogs in the wheel'. Human beings, on the larger part, have a natural tendency to avoid hurting another being just for the whim. If one's actions evince clear discomfort in somebody, we take steps to make amends. However, the sheer scale of injustice around us shows that despite our best intentions, we have not been able to stop injustice as a species. May be the reason lies with the fact that we rely on administration.
Firstly, administration has the effect of separating the decision making from the execution. In bureaucratic organisations,with multiple levels of hierarchy, a vast chasm often exists between the person who signs the paper and the person who takes the action. When coupled with the fact that the person receiving the orders has to obey them completely, on the pain of severe disciplinary action if not anything else, it creates some interesting situations. There may be some error of grammar, or meaning in the orders, leading to absurd actions being taken at the ground level. There may be conflicting orders within the same letter, or between two letters from the same office. This can happen when the person signing the first letter is different from the second, because of a transfer. It may often happen that some order, framed and signed on whim by someone higher up ( or transcribed wrongly by someone middle up), who has long since been transferred,( or has retired, or has been dead and buried), is still in force, and is making life hell for all at the receiving end, simply because there is no concept of feedback, and no one has asked for the repeal. This can give rise to 'quaint' traditions - 'quaint' for those who are not at the receiving end. The machine rolls on, creaking and chattering, but the operator is in the soundproof cab. Sample this joke:
A new monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He notices, however, that they are copying copies, and not the original books.

So, the new monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this. He points out that if there was an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other copies. The head monk says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."

So, he goes down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original. Hours later, nobody has seen him. So, one of the monks goes downstairs to look for him. He hears sobbing coming from the back of the cellar and finds the old monk leaning over one of the original books crying. He asks what's wrong.

"The word is celebrate not celibate," says the old monk with tears in his eyes.

Secondly, their is a tendency of obedience of orders in us humans. When we receive the orders of someone socially expected to order us, we tend to obey. Often there are rules and strictures to enforce obedience, but as the famous Milgram experiments showed, they are largely unnecessary. Ordinary people drafted into the experiment were willing to give 440 volts of electric shock to helpless 'subjects', simply because they were ordered to do so. In our daily lives, we see normal, caring human beings carrying out all manners of torture, simply empowered by a phone call or a scrap of paper.

In the Nuremberg war crimes trails, most German officials cited 'following the orders' as a reason behind their unspeakable deeds. That did not cut the ice with the jury, and all were punished. However, if all the injustice is done mechanically by us, is it right to punish someone for actions which were not done out of their free will?
In my most recent 'prisoners and guards' scenario, I have noticed one thing - whenever torture and injustice is being carried out by the administration, there are two almost distinct group of ground level perpetrators - those who are apologetic and restless, but are constrained to do so, and those, who are doing it with relish. Nail the latter; find out the one who is adding his own inventiveness to the mix, who is doing more than required. Just nail that vermin.

On Jholawallas (and similar creatures)

2011-01-25T05:18:00.000-08:00

I might be repeating this point, and I am not sure about it, since I hardly read this blog myself. However, since we had another of those NGO types forced upon us this evening, I had to write this. I'll keep it short and simple. JKR, through her character Arthur Weasley, once said - "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain." Ostensibly, these jholawalla 'do gooders' are in it for 'the betterment of mankind'. All I can say, given the multitudes of these types in our times, is that either we are living in the most saintly of ages - where we can see all these angels walking the earth, or these people's real objectives are really unmentionable. At least the for profit firms are making an honest day's living. Just think.

On 'Being a Man'

2011-01-10T05:34:00.000-08:00

This is a short and simple one. The society places a lot of value on facing your ordeal 'like a man.' We had that movie - where the protagonists were lauded as they went laughing to the gallows - one of the most memorable lines of the movie was - "Then I met the third kind..." At the time of writing, there are many luminaries who say that if you submit cheerfully to all the trails and tribulations, you become a 'master', and if you do it under duress, you are a slave. Well, I have a simple question - If someone is out there to rape you, and you submit to it without resistance, does it become consensual? Just think, when you laud the 'third kind' the next time.

On Revenge

2011-01-05T06:16:00.000-08:00

I may have lied in one of my previous posts. I do not remember all the times I've been wronged simply to avoid wronging someone else in a similar manner. I've always dreamt that I would, someday, be in the position to, umm, payback, with interest. Now, sages have always told that no good comes out of revenge - nursing the thoughts of revenge has been compared to 'holding a glowing ember in one's hands, in order to throw it at someone else'. I disagree. It was during my schooldays that I, after much saving, was able to buy my copy of 'the Count of Monte Cristo'. It was not the full version - it was an abridged, children’s version, meant for being read over a day or two, at the pace expected of a child. I devoured the book in four hours. This was on a Diwali night (that's why we had a chance to go to the town), and I had foregone the sweets for the purchase, and I gave away my firecrackers, as I was too much engrossed in the book. It was one of the best Diwali's of my life. For here was a book that gave meaning to the life of some of the most downtrodden people on Earth - The OG 'chicks'. I can never put the book on the stock 'my favourites' lists, simply because I've not read the real book - I tried it recently, but the sheer volume of it deterred me. However, even the abridged version told us an inspiring story of an innocent man, with his innocent ways, made to suffer at the hands of few persons, each having his own reasons for doing so. Ultimately, the man in question gets rich and powerful, and has the three persons at his mercy, before having his revenge. The literary critics may differ, but I felt that the Count really enjoyed the whole process of exacting revenge, and the book celebrated the whole idea of it. No questions of keeping the wounds green or similar wishy washy stuff.

Revenge, in its purest form, is a thing to be enjoyed. As I see it, all the wrongs that you have endured are sort of credits you have on your 'deed account' - like any credit on your account, the creation had to be painful, or in other words, involving reduction in utility. However, the credits gained are not painful. To get the credit in bank account, you have to part with your cash. However, when you look at your bank statement, you see your bank balance, and do not mourn the loss of cash you had to endure to get that balance. Then why do we have to be so distrustful of nursing a revenge motive? Similar to the cash / bank example, when you are wronged, you earn this moral, mental right to exact revenge. This is a credit, and like all credits, it is an asset. To enjoy this asset, you need to savour revenge. It is not so weird an idea. If you have no liking or use for money, all the credit in your bank account is of no use. Similarly, if you do not like the exacting revenge, the credits in your deeds account are of no use to you. So, for an appreciable increase in your 'net worth', develop a taste of revenge, or at least, fantasizing about revenge. Go and get your copy of the abridged 'Count of Monte Cristo' now.

There is a thing about nursing the grievances. It is all right to have a 'deed account', you might say, but the problem is, we are mostly helpless in exacting revenge, as people more ‘powerful’ than us mostly wrong us. We are not in a position to spend the credits we earn when we are wronged - in accounting parlance, we have a surfeit of Non Performing Assets (NPAs) on our deed account. However, the financial world has shown us that with careful planning and lot of perseverance, most NPAs can become productive. Surely you might be too small, too insignificant, and too feeble right now - but then, there is a whole lot of possibility of future growth. The only thing true about the pinnacle is that there is only one way from there, downwards. That s.o.b. boss you hate would retire someday, while you would still be in prime of your working life. Again, there is also the scope for future growth. The schoolyard bullies will, in all probability (considering the general IQ of bullies and the bullied) be working at a much lower level of socio-economic pyramid. There is a probability that you would meet them someday. The only thing required of you is to be prepared to exact your revenge - be more powerful than them in this second coming. To realise your current NPAs, one has to remember to strive hard for excellence, to reach at some station while the boss you hate retires and the bully you hate turns to delivering pizza or vending shoes. Thus, the very act of keeping an eye on your earned deed credit and having a desire to realise it is a big motivator propelling you towards excellence. Remember, Edmond had to strive a lot even after he was given a map to the treasure on Monte Cristo. Had the desire for revenge not been there, he would not have become a Count, and would have remained a mere seafaring smuggler.

So, I hope this piece brings some joy into the life of the people whose life is being made miserable by some other person, wilfully. Always remember, a credit earned by you is a debit raised against the offender. Always remember to exact the revenge from this very debtor, and not from 'his kind'. Remember the way of the Count. Happy accounting.

On Christmas

2010-12-25T01:32:00.000-08:00

Of all the festivals in the packed Indian calendar, Christmas occupies a somewhat special place in my mind. I mean, I like Diwali - that's usually when one can be at home for long stretches and meet family, I despise Holi - no offense meant to Bhakt Prahalad, but I just don't do colours and hooliganism, I have started liking Chhath since the whole issue of Heartland sub nationalism has grown up, and other religious holidays for me are simply that only, i.e. holidays. The national holidays, the way we celebrate them in our country, remain, sadly, official occasions only. So, in a land which has around 20 Gazetted Holidays, 40 Restricted Holidays and 5000 years of culture and civilization, I am stuck up on a festival which originated outside of India. I have never fully understood why. The right wing will term me as a westernized RNI (that's resident non-Indian), but I know that is not true. Let me clarify that my own Christmas is not the church Christmas, but the Santa Claus one. this Christmas has been despised by almost all 'religious' people. The really devout amongst the Christians find it as gross commercialization and trivialization. Closer home, it is seen as the evil effect of 'Westernization'. Yet, this ostensibly unwanted festival has been spreading across the globe, even into atheist China despite all the odds. Why? While for others, there might be various reasons, I feel for me, it is a festival that matches me.

I am a winter person. I love almost everything about winters - except, may be, for delayed trains. I mean winter, warts and all - not the bright sunshine alone. I love the cold waves, I love the hail, and the occasional snow. So any festival whose main motifs are associated with the celebration of winter is always going to good for me. Frosty the snowman, Santa's sleigh, reindeer, conifers - it is all perfect mix of the whole winter deal. Closer home, anything remotely close to a winter festival is Diwali / Chhath - but again, that is hardly related with winter except for the fact that it heralds it. We have festivals that sort of celebrate the ending of winter, in various phases - like the Makar Sankranti, Basant Panchami etc. the only festival that sounds anything like being related to winters is Sharad Poornima, but then, I've never seen it's popular celebration to judge whether it suits my taste or not.

Secondly, in my opinion, it is a festival meant for largely quiet and placid enjoyment. Both 'quiet and placid' and 'enjoyment' are important qualifiers here. As a culture, we lack quiet enjoyment - it is reflected in all facets of our cultural expression - our folklore, our dances, our festivals and our Bollywood. All our enjoyment is supposed to be loud - the Bhangra, the Holi and the Munni Badnaam Hui's. Quiet is meant to be dull, didactic. Our quieter festivals are much more about fasting, staying all chaste and pure and praying devoutly. In fact, much of our life is not meant for enjoyment - even our kiddie books are loaded with 'shikshaa', which is forced down your gullet with a ram - remember those stories in Champak and Chandamama etc. Then they wonder why Harry Potter has caused such a sensation in India. That would be the subject of another article. It suffices to say that most of our culture is not very fond of enjoyment of life as a whole. Our family ties are supposed to be built of respect and authority, which are our society's cherished values, as against love alone. May be all that lack of enjoyment leads to the over the top celebration whenever we get the chance. We do not have our festive equivalents of sitting near a hot fireplace, sipping chocolate or soup and just enjoying the moment, giving small gifts and opening them near the hearth. May be that is one need which is fulfilled by this festival alien to the indigenous culture.

Again, it might simply be all the Enid Blytons I have read in my childhood, and all the Christmas songs I have heard and enjoyed. A line or two about the songs would be necessary here. Many of them are plain worldly songs, about celebration. the religious reference in most has been kept subtle, and the tune is soothing, even in the one's that are about the Christ - 'Silent Night' playing somewhere far away on a cold winter night is just heaven. Despite all the bad things that happened this week, and are going to happen for quite some time now, the music stills soothes the mind. Last night, near midnight, when I stood in the cool night breeze on my balcony, with the Carpenters' rendition of the song playing from inside, I felt happy, despite all the murderous thoughts I have been having all the week. For my Christmas celebration is a thing where no evil eye can cast its glance. It is one spot of light in an otherwise dark world.

The Flotsam of the Raj

2010-12-24T05:50:00.000-08:00

Most people like to reminisce about the good old days. It may come naturally to the old fogies, and it is not uncommon among the 'young' too. May be, in a young country, there is this relative age, and hence normal people, who would be termed young in any normal population, are some what old with respect to the population. On the other hand, it may be this culture of ours that expects unquestioned obedience of the elderly that entices people to grey up at an accelerated pace. I am digressing - I just wanted to say that many of my classmates and colleagues review, with rose tinted devices, their school days, and their college days - especially the 'fun' they had when they were ragged (hazed, for my non existent American readers). It may not really matter that it might have been only 10 years at most since they have left school, and 8-9 years since their ragging period - they'd speak about it as if they went to school during the War. I thought I was one of the rationalists, for I remembered how insecure a school student really is. Hood may say,

"But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heav'n
Than when I was a boy."

However, I'd like to argue with the poet. Losing the heaven on the penthouse might have been a big loss, but that's nothing compared to the joys of adulthood - being able to go and take a leak without an embarrassing 'Miss, may I go to the toilet' and not being worried to death because one has lost one's pencil or eraser. The other thing was 'ragging' - don't even get me started on that one - to those who remember it fondly, I have one word to describe you - sick perverts (wait, that's two words - but then, they are used as one, just like ‘time and tide’). That may be a harsh judgement, but then, if your idea of fun includes holding a person's wee-wee, and having someone hold yours, all the while marching in a file as 'Nagla Express', that's what you are. So, I was thinking I was so much 'in touch' with the feeling of the oppressed categories of young people that I got a shock of my life when I had to relive those feelings and those insecurities once more and I felt so uncomfortable. For no one thing in the world forces one to relive all the bad school memories clubbed with the college ragging trauma the way a particular Programme in the Service does.

Set in the sylvan outskirts of a royal city, the College does not look like a sad place to begin with. In fact, it isn't. Since it is the home for my own cadre, I have spent some really good moments here. The accommodation and the works here are top-notch, especially for some one who has been exposed to the crumbling D-wing of Jwalamukhi hostel. Our sessions are held in a real palace of the erstwhile ruling house of the city. The schedule is hectic, but contained, and after a good class session, one has almost all major sports to choose from - I personally prefer swimming. Hearty meals, and nice strolls around the campus, and one is good for bed - life's good. However, in the midst, periodically, like the floods of Damodar, come things like the Programme. Ostensibly, it is supposed to make raw young recruits into 'gentlemen and lady Officers' - by 'improving their personality' and 'giving multidimensional inputs'. I have no trouble with the latter - these might not be the best classes I have ever attended, but they are generally amongst the better ones. However, I do have serious doubts about the efficacy of, and for that matter, the intention behind a lot of meaningless pageantry we have been witness to. I shall write, at some length, on both, taking up the issue of efficacy first, and giving people the benefit of doubt with regards to intentions. After all, it has been said, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

So, we are to become officers, and to develop (magically sprout) 'officer like qualities' in these 10 weeks. Good. So what is a good Service Officer like? Coming from a Service family, and a Service School, I have seen many Service officers. Barring one or two dandies, no one I have seen was as straitlaced as the ideal that has been set up in front of us. Even the dandies got their comeuppance - I have heared the case where a visiting principal HOD was so enraged to find a new assistant officer in suit that he fired him in front of all, and then made him run around the works for the whole day, till the time the suit met it's untimely demise! This service is field service, and for God's sake, it is not the Army - howsoever much some of our senior officers would like to believe. It does not need the glamour and pomp of the Army Cantonment life. It is good to take pride in being one of the Raj's legacies, but for heaven's sake, let's not actually try to relive the Raj (this one coming from a Raj history enthusiast). As a field service which is not the Army, the organisation needs to develop it's sartorial sense and identity accordingly - which in my opinion, includes sober T-shirts, lycra enmeshed jeans and Woodland shoes. Okay, if the guys want to live their suits and ties fantasies in here, there is a proper place for that - strictly office hours. But dinner? Come on! Are we really expected to go to the fields and the gym, sweat it out and come back and don all those formals again for supper, or one is supposed to remain in the formals till supper, and swim after that? Of the two stupidities, I've chosen the latter, and hence this piece has materialised, after a drought of more than two years. The 'lace and velvet' dinner wardrobe was developed when 'lace and velvet' was the only 'presentable' dress. The rolling wheel of time has given us many acceptable 'dinner wear' options. Let's evolve. The fashion policing has been reminding us of the days when one could get into trouble for losing the school tie or belt. My roommate was asking whether we could stroll in slippers. Really, is this what we are trying to make here - diffident wrecks and overgrown school boys? Apart from this assault on our wardrobes, many other PDP type activities look quite useless to be frank. For most of the skills that we are supposed to develop, the ship has already sailed. The mean age of the group is 28 years - these are not college kids, who can be converted, that too in 10 weeks, into Ivy League's dream students. It's clear to us - crystal clear. It would be a reasonable assumption that it is so clear to the powers that be too. That brings us to the question of intention.

Of all the things that stand out on the basis of sheer oddity, the PT is the most 'outstanding', if I may use the word in an ironic sense. The basic idea peddled here is that one has to be 'fit' in the service of the lifeline of the nation. So noble a motive, you might say. However, barring a few persons, yours truly included, most of the new batch is quite fit, and almost all, again yours truly included (at least till the fashion policing made it difficult), participate in some sort of physical activity, whenever the powers that be are benevolent enough to leave our evenings free. If this is a health and fitness thing, why doesn't the older resident population follow through, since they must be in the need of fitness much more - handling work pressure of elevated posts and battling ageing all at once. Why this insistence on shorts in cold December morning? I think the answer is that it is an exercise simply to show a person 'his place'. Looked at from this angle, it all starts falling into place. I mean, what can show a person that he is worth a piece of festering turd in a more emphatic manner than calling him in half nudity in wee hours of the morning to gyrate his hips at the command of his supposed subordinate. All the other inanities of this Programme, all the useless pageantry that we are supposed to do but others aren't, are, in sum, a big bird flipped in one's face. It's a triumphant, "Yes, We can! (make you do all this, and there isn't a goddamned thing you can do about it, coz we got the Bomb - bless Dennis Leary).” Can the reader notice the similarity between this and the other two experiences of the youth? This is the same life that school kids live - with separate standards for themselves and the grown ups. This is the way ragging in college happens - a bright young person is made to do things against his / her will despite there being no logically arguable reason behind that, except for the presence of absolute power and the need to exercise it with impunity, or may be the fact that the perpetrator was a victim once, as is true in this case too. Let me tell the readers, it wasn't pretty 10 years back, and it isn't pretty now. I hope this blog and this service survives to the day when one is able to have a say in the way the show is conducted, so that one is reminded that the old, romantic days were not so romantic, and one can make the changes that need to be made without being nostalgic. Many who know me know that I never forget any injury inflicted on me by anyone - and they attribute it to some 'hit list' I am keeping for exacting retribution in the future. While that is an interesting idea, it is not true. I just try to keep these negative experiences alive in my mind (unsuccessful, to a large extent I may be) in order to take my own decisions in their light, so that someone else’s life may not contain them. Let’s hope so, because, as Andy Dufresne said to Red in The Shawshank Redemption, “hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

LIVE FROM LIFE -THE EARTH HOUR

2009-03-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

The lights have gone, as had been said. This is going to be the longest power cut I may have to witness in this 8 month stay at the IIT Delhi – where power cuts mean small 20 seconds flip – flops. The occasion is the celebration of the Earth Hour. A ‘voluntary’ moratorium on the use of electricity for one hour on 28th of March, 2009. Well, the voluntary nature of the drive has been lost somewhere in the translation from IAS English to peon English, because I heard the mess workers saying that the lights will be shut down, per force, from the main board, for an hour – like the blackouts during an air raid. As they had said, the power has gone, and I am left with an hour with only my laptop as a companion. Luckily its batteries are not under the jurisdiction of the government of NCT of Delhi!

Well, let me make myself very clear – I am not one of those who support indiscriminate exploitation of the Earth for human greed. Yet, I am definitely against the environmentalists and their gimmicks. In fact I am against any sort of gimmick, especially if it is purportedly based on some ‘serious’ issue. I feel the gimmicks make a mockery of the issues involved. I hate the candlelight vigils and candle light vigilantes, I hate human chains, the rallyists, the pamphleteers and I hate the Earth hour. So I intend to justify my hate in the following lines.

First of all, there is the simple cost benefit analysis. How much electricity will they save – if we do turn down our electrical systems for a measly hour in this long period of unabated industrial usage? I am sure more electricity would have been used in the publicity for the event. Quite a lot of trees would have been felled for the pamphlets.

Secondly, would it be wise to suddenly unload all our power plants and power infrastructure? I am not an electrical engineer, but I have read a little bit about power generation turbines, and a sudden 8:30 unloading by the whole population might be too much too quick for the governors and other feedback controlled devices there. Again, I am not crunching the numbers (simply because governors are the toughest things in the Theory of Machines!) but seriously, it is a step that might be regretted later – for a week or two.

Thirdly, how is a power cut of an hour any sort of Earth hour celebration in India? I do not know much about the durations of power cuts, but I would guess 83 % of Indian cities would be celebrating 3 to four hours of Earth Hour every day. The provincial towns might be dedicating half the day to the celebrations, while most villages would do so for about 20 hours. In fact, despite the Government of India’s promises to the contrary, there are villages in India which have been celebrating Earth since their existence – where people live and die celebrating an Earth lifetime! So, I am really amused when our government issues directives to celebrate Earth Hour – aren’t you?

[ As I finish typing this, the power returned – not the full hour! May be it was not even about the Earth Hour, but the violent thunderstorm that is raging outside. Still, it felt good writing it, so I am going to post it.]

LIVE FROM LIFE - THE LAWS OF THE LAND

2009-03-02T02:38:00.000-08:00

Recently, a discussion on Orkut's IC 370 (India) community touched the topic of corruption in civil administration and police. This made me think a lot on an important point that I have been thinking about for long, but in another case. The point is that we have lot of inconsequential laws and rules. Laws which were useless to begin with and laws which have been rendered useless by the passage of time. Laws that place undue restrictions on people, and give the enforcers the leeway to extract bribes. I will try to keep it short. Let us begin with why do we need rules in this world, when it is assumed that all men are born free (and so are the women, I am no sexist). Of course there are people called anarchists, who believe the best law is no law. Everybody is free to do what they may like. Utopia - did you say? Wait a little - what would happen if some lunatic took to the idea that he would 'like' to run a dagger through your guts? Or for that matter, what if he would like to run his Hummer over you, for fun? We need laws - just to avoid people hurting others while exercising there freedom. As has been said - your freedom to swing your arms ends where the other person's nose begins. This can be extrapolated to past and future as well - that is why we need laws protecting monuments (some one's creation, which the builder might have expected the law to protect) and environment (the green laws are simply lines drawn to help us avoid hurting our future generations - Mother Earth needs no saving, she has already survived 4.5 billion years without our help).

Does that summarize all the laws we need in this world? I think so - laws a re simply the rules so that we do not step on each other's toes as we dance the dance of life. Yet, we have many laws, useless laws, if you would call them that, or at least inconsequential laws - that do not serve the purpose laws are supposed to. There are laws that shackle personal freedom, in domains in which nobody else is involved, or if somebody is involved, it is with consent. Laws that ban alcohol and drugs, laws that decide in the way two consenting adults can form relationship, laws that simply increase the paperwork involved, laws whose enforcement is more costly than their end. Another new set of laws that I think can join this list is the slew of laws against hurting sentiments. Laws that police personal choices are the most ridiculuous, if they still exist. I am no alcoholic, but for the point of argument, let's say I was one. So, what right does the state have to deny me my 'legal' bottle? Or if I were a junkie, why can't I get crack legally. Why does the state decide which forms of relationship are permissible? Curbing these acts does not solve any real problem - but they do increase the work of the police force, and give them the opportunity to take bribes - want to know how? Let's see. Does the common man on the street care if the junkie next door gets his fix or not. (And here I am simply talking about the transaction of the junkie getting his drugs, and we are not discussing the supply chain behind it) No, I don't, and unless you are the moral police type, I'm sure you would not bother. It's the junkie's life - let him 'use' it the way he wants - you got your own life to control. And the policeman knows that - if drugs get to the junkie, the society will not come to an abrupt end. However, the law says it is wrong. Hence, the policeman can take his bribe in lieu of allowing the junkie get his fix. No problem was there to fix, so none got fixed, and money changed hands. However, the law has created the problem in itself. By outlawing the simple junkie getting his fix legally, the law has made the supply chain pass into the black market. The prices shoot. As any economics student worth his salt will tell you - ideally, the price of anything should be equally to the cost of making and delivering it. However, in this black market scenario, the prices are way above the cost. So what happens to the surplus? It gets channeled into guns (illegal ones), and other really dangerous pursuits. It bankrolls the whole underworld - for God's sake - this law has not done an iota of good, but its adverse effects are too many to jot down. Did I mention that the explosive used for the 1993 Mumbai blasts used the same supply chain? The police personnel involved took bribes and winked the other way as the deadly cargo was unloaded, thinking it was some junkie's fix. Think clearly - would they have taken the bribe and looked the other way, had they known this was explosive, and had they been guided by a law to prevent explosives landing on the beach? I do not think so - they would have known that explosives can cause mayhem, unlike drugs, and would have taken due care - they would not have let explosives pass for a few bucks, as explosives are not inconsequential. Again they would not have to deal with decoy drug landing boats, because drugs are in the market - not on the beach. So, we can see how the laws can aid far more heinous crimes than the ones they set out to prevent from happening.

Another problem with the useless laws - laws which are not enforced because imposition is more costly than their violation - is that they give the corrupt officials free hand to victimize those who do not do their biding. Who is a law abiding person? A person who does not break the laws which are clear. Yet, many of us may break laws whose existence was unknown to us - much less their raison d'etre. Can I give an example? Yes, I can. Considering this case is still 'hot', I cannot take the names for the obvious reasons - to avoid rubbing these useless laws the wrong way. Recently, one of the political party's filed slander case against a net user, who had caused some 'uncharitable remarks' about the party to be aired on the net. The 'law' did nothing to prevent the same party and its siblings from unleashing mass terror on a great city on the slightest pretext, but the game is over for the poor blogger. Should I say more??

LIVE FROM LIFE - The Yoke

2009-01-31T01:17:00.000-08:00

Many of my readers have commented to me, directly, that my entries are too long. I take notice of it, and hence am trying to be short. Short articles benefit me too – need not ruminate for so long that the idea originally being ruminated on is lost! Today, I will tell you about an interesting phenomenon. Imagine a whole lot of students, weary from a loaded work week, pulled out on some week-end morning, early, on the threat of hefty fines and other sanctions at the extreme and strong social disapproval at the minimum.
Imagine a bunch of wise guys, who are probably more weary from a more loaded work week, pulled out on the same weekend morning, a bit late than the students – on the pain of constant badgering on the phone and the cyberspace, so that putting the whole badgering to rest by acceding to the request for company becomes a necessity. Both groups are sleepy, both groups are weary – neither wanted this to happen, but both are really ‘happy’ – as one group thanks the other for ‘gracing the occasion’ while the other is pleased for the ‘invitation’. Both have a distorted view of each other – the wise guys thinks the students, of a renowned school, must be really learned, and may feel a bit scared. So they try to salvage their pride by speaking stuff which is intelligible neither to themselves nor to the students. The students, meanwhile have to show that they belong to this ‘renowned institution’ and hence, they nod as if they are understanding all of it – and when their turn comes, ask questions that are not in anyway connected with all the proceedings going on – but now it is the turn of the wise guys to nod, as if they understand it all – and such exchanges go on till the week end is wasted. The end result – institution-corporate relationship!
What exactly does the institution corporate relationship achieve? No idea. Some say it increases the job prospects of the student. Well, let’s examine that statement critically. Looking from the business perspective, the students in the job market are trying to sell their services to the businesses – who are ‘business customers’ – hence, a flashy ad campaign will not do much to increase the chance of the sale – corporate buyers want value for money – sadly the value that has to be created in the students is normally lost in the excessive focus on relationship. Agreed it is a marketing driven scenario, but even then operations cannot be ignored totally. Yet, the hard selling of half baked cookies to the new ‘relatives’ might get one or two batches off the roster, but in the end, all has to get back to the basics.
Another problem with this trend is the fact that it starts a round of competitive relations building – if one college goes for wasted weekends, another might try to top it with wasted weeks! I have seen people trying to squeeze three wasted weekends in one month, so that the relationship edge is not lost! So, it starts following the vicious competitive circle that I have talked about at length in the previous post. In the end, all the time of the academic session might be put to relationship building, whereas the building of knowledge and intellect is ignored.
As I have always said, such edifices would not survive for long – built on unbacked promises, unverified claims and pretense. Sadly that is going on across the country – it is one of the worst kept secrets of the Indian education system – ask anybody individually to speak truly, be it student or wise man, and they will tell that it is all a charade. Yet, collectively, we are unable to throw off this yoke of our own making, and it keeps on getting more and more loaded. When is this going to end? I cannot say that, but it is important that somebody high up in the system calls the bluff. For now, it is good bye from a fugitive from the yoke.

LIVE FROM LIFE - The Rat Olympics

2009-01-09T02:34:00.000-08:00

In the beginning, there was just the primordial soup bubbling in the prehistoric oceans, in which a few big molecules, in an entirely chance event (or a couple of chance events) combined together to form the first living cells – then came the primaeval eukaryotes and later multicellular plants and animals. The animals had it tough (and so do they do still today) – fighting for survival – for the resources for living and growing – life in the wild was and is an existential struggle. Then, some furry little upstarts took the opportunity given by the death of the rampaging dinosaurs and started developing bigger and bigger brains – compared to their body size. From tiny lemurs, they went to the giant gorilla. One off shoot of this family started walking on two legs, developing a straight, far looking posture, and utilized the opposable thumb to shape the primitive tools, to tame fire, to hunt instead of being hunted. Yes, life kept on becoming more than a struggle for existence – humans (as the members of this off shoot were known as, eventually) found leisure, a meaning to life, a sense of enjoyment. The uncertainty of the next meal was countered by agriculture and husbandry, the uncertainty of the weather was nullified in effect by the dwellings built. In this way, the many uncertainties of life were done way with, and human life was made distinct from the general animal life. The life was now meant for enjoyment.

Or so it was, until some smart Alecs hijacked the whole agenda – and management literature became replete with ‘competitiveness’ – and competitiveness was made the ‘buzzword’ – how to make your organization competitive, how to out compete your competitors and all that. Well, they started by slashing prices, so that they, along with their ‘competitors’ bleed – which was good, as long as the competitor bled more gushingly. They started on a noble venture of giving customers what they asked for, then went for giving them what they had in mind, but did not ask for, and soon, they started pre-empting customer wants! Of course, they had to stay ahead of competition. And, thus through our own smart thinking, in the late twentieth century, we squandered one great thing our forefathers had achieved gradually from the time when they had toiled over flint stones to build the first fire, or shaped the first spear – peace of mind and exclusion from a struggle for existence.

Is competition a good thing – that is a question that should vary with the degree of competition involved – of course, it is good if the aim is to weed out the lethargic and useless. But sadly, once started, competition does not stop on its own, once the unworthy have been weeded out – as is said, everything is fair in love and war – so when you arouse competition, be prepared for anything. So if one starts working for 10 hours a day ( to weed out those useless 9 to 5 good for nothings), one’s competitor might start doing 11 hours a day. Third may respond with 12 hours – soon the hours start piling – you hire two or three sets of employees and start working 24 hours. When all are working 24 hours, and there are no more hours to put in, it may get down to setting up two shops, then three and so on. All very good – but we can see that the original purpose was to maintain a 10 hour working day – the norms might have been achieved in that much – the rest is the price of competition – it is like a fire you lit up to warm your room in the winter, and it ends up consuming your house – not a very good bargain. It becomes what my professor likes to call the ‘Red Queen Effect’ – you have to run very fast to stay at the same place! Is it good? Yeah, some power drunk corporate boss might say – we like to smash the unworthies to smithereens, and to win like a good sport. I object. I object seriously. This is not some bloody sport – this is a question of livelihood for people – and it is not about winning or losing, it is about living with dignity and pleasure. Rampant competition is different from back yard play – there, those incapable of playing generally stay away from play, and let the jocks struggle in the play. But there is no such thing in the business world – if they start the stampede, the small ones will get crushed, whether they like it or not. Human life is a journey, with death as a destination – so in the end, the destination is not what we are after, but the quality of journey. When your company, after all of scheming and aggressive techniques, do put a ‘competitor’ out of business, you are not scoring some Wayne Rooney goal on some cosmic scoreboard, but putting a few people away from their source of income – and do not for once think that you have done the customers a great service by the offering that proved to be the final nail in the coffin. The customer was satisfied (in most cases) good enough with the previous offers made by you and the slain. And do not give me that ‘just good ain’t good enough’. Of course, what do you think; can you rest of your laurels now? No, the others are behind you – ready to kick you out as you did to the dead. Where will it stop – God knows – and do not worry about the customer – his appetite is being whetted continuously, worry about yourself – you started off feeding a poodle and turned it into a rottweiler. If you stop feeding him, he might bite.

Well you might say that competition is good for the society at large – after all, where ever there is innovation, there is competition – well, again this is based on the implicit assumption that innovation is good – well let me clear the air here – airplane was an invention, and ‘Sensational’ journalism is an innovation – are both really good. I doubt so – spreading spicy misinformation does nobody except the owners of India TV any good. And does this innovation start competition – yes, it does – a previously respected news channel Aaj Tak is now giving India TV a run for its money, if not winning. Similarly we have many such ‘design’ innovations, and ‘pricing’ innovations and such many business innovations, accounts of which fill libraries of respected business schools. Well, they do not make life good for anybody – but do make our life more ‘competitive’.

What else can competition do – well, it can make us, and our organizations evolve into mean ‘competing’ machines – so that the prime task is not anything else but competition – in the perfect competitive scenario – we would first compete, then breathe, drink, eat and live in that order. Maruti will specialize in competition and making cars. The local barber would specialize in competition and mushroom cuts. You find that funny – well, if you do not believe me – just go to the Rajasthani city of Kota – here people are schooling in competition – at a time when half of them should be doing their High School education – they are doing that, but that is after they are done schooling in competition – and the result is good enough – kids who know how to solve the most complex numerical problem in thermodynamics, but have absolutely no physical idea of what enthalpy is! They know little, but can compete in the toughest engineering entrance examination. That is the result of a competitive evolution.

Still worse, competition can make us wiling to do anything to survive – be it fudging our resumes – or at least filling it with complete unadulterated ‘bull-business’ like – ‘I have done a certificate course on six sigma’ – which means nothing but what it says – still, that might be better than not having done a certificate course in six-sigma. And the less I say about six-sigma, the better. It can lead to leading business schools fudging the placement data, to inflate the average salary offered on campus placements, to a Ramalinga Raju inflating Satyam profit figures, to boost share prices. Survival is important for all, and if we, as a society make the legitimate survival too ‘competitive’ – we might push some people into doing the illegal.

And after all, this is not for free. Well, one might argue that the per capita income of the world has increased very high in the recent times. Well, are the people more happy today for it – I am not being philosophical here. Old timers may argue they were happier in the time of Auld Lang Syne, while youngster may not imagine a life without the modern day comforts of electronics and service industry. So, we can safely conclude that people are in general as happy now, as they were in the, say, 17^th century. What has changed – the per capita consumption – we are eating our planet out – we are not getting anything from outside, for all our innovations, but simply getting ways to squander all we have got, at an increasing pace. The Earth might have enough for everybody’s need, but not everybody’s greed.

So what is the solution – the way out of this rat race – this rat ‘Olympiad’ if I must say? Well, in the USSR, they stifled it completely – to oversee the ultimate collapse of the economy. So, we cannot so away with competition altogether. Let me take the playground analogy again – we have hard boiled footballers tackling each other hard, and we have badminton novices trying to keep a rally on. The former try hard to defeat the other, the latter get the joy out of effortless play, their joy emanating from the length of the rally – the former try by all means to knock down others, but the latter do not make any attempt to score a point on the other. Well, that is what we need to recreate in the economy – a sort of ‘cartel of the willing lazy’. This cartel has to be large enough to encompass most possible goods and services being offered. The basic idea behind this cartel is that – Look, I want to live my live, in pursuit of small leisures, and so do you. Let’s promise that we will not kill ourselves in a bid to ‘satisfy’ each other – I will work 8 hours a day, at peace, and make enough pots for us both, and you work 8 hours a day, at peace, and make enough bread for us both. It is a sort of Communist economy, with an important difference, the option to opt out and go into competitive world, if you so desire, and under obligation, if you defy the cartel. Let the novices rally, and let the big ones tackle and slide. And what better time to get to this, than the current recession.

LIVE FROM LIFE - Snake Oil

2009-01-01T06:45:00.000-08:00

I always used to wonder what sort of losers read the self help books that come out by the dozen every week and are well advertised by the ‘best seller’ columns of newspapers. I am not talking about DIY help books on cookery, gardening, yoga etc. I am talking about the books with names like ‘You can win’, ‘Formulae for success’, ‘Creative thinking’ etc. I mean, don’t people realize that the only winner in question here is the author, who, after being a successful corporate executive and drawing hefty salaries, is adding to his big pile of money through the royalty. The problem does not arise if we read autobiographies or biographies – they are akin to what history is for the civil administration. The problem arises when the retiring luminaries do not write a simple autobiography, but a self help book. To make the common sense truisms presented in their writing marketable, they often write them down in a very abstruse language, and invent new terms. Arguably, their only intention could be just to make their writing lucid and easy to understand – for example, Khushwant Singh’s ‘Operation Colombo’ cut short a lot of writing that would have otherwise been resorted to. However, the management education world makes these plot elements bigger than they were intended to be – these in-book guiding arrows are brought into real life and thrust down people’s throat. I am sure De Bono had thought to tell people to force themselves to think factually, critically, emotionally, positively, creatively and holistically at will – the ‘six hats’ being simply a metaphor to help people visualize adopting a thinking strategy consciously as similar to putting on a different coloured hat at will. Yet, the hats have continued to live beyond the thinking, and have acquired a life of their own. It has become expected of a business student to speak in terms of hats – Hey man, your work is getting monotonous! Time to put on the green hat!!
Not only in these self help books, but in many other management education scenarios we find terms living beyond their utility and hence usurping the space rightfully reserved for a single thing – common sense. Is it that essentially we all realize that management is inherently an un-teachable (new word!) concept, and hence, to justify the two years we spend doing an MBA, we hide behind big words, and reinvent the wheel innumerable times. The management literature is replete with such examples – the whole of organization management, systems thinking, marketing management and all such branches of management in which one finds ‘big words’ are essentially consisting of two things – disguised common sense, or personal opinions being taken as gospel truth. Well, if you do not know how to do a thing to the t, and still, the thing needs to be done – obviously you will go at the work, and learn along as you do the work. Common sense? No, some joker has ‘propounded’ this as a theory of ‘Action Learning’, by masking this very truth behind neat words. If you drive your car and control the wheel, compensating every time the road turns you will reach your destination, and if you simply step on the gas and leave the wheel, you might end up upended in one of the innumerable possible ways. Common sense? No, some leading light has put it as the ‘Law of equifinality of the system in case of negative feedbacks’ in the Systems theory. WTF?? I mean, this ends up being taught in B-schools? Are the people who take some very tough tests and interviews to get in, many after leaving well paying jobs, supposed to be treated to this? Well, this is the ground reality. There are courses on ‘Creative Thinking’ – where people have to cram up the ‘six hats’ and regurgitate in the examination. How creatively are they being made to think? All the flights of fantasy, taken by senile (no doubt great, but definitely senile at the time of writing) managers, are duly taught to people – to emulate their success. Now, do you really think an organization of, say, 100000 employees can be directed like a clockwork to perfection? I do not subscribe to that view. In the end, a good working organization simply is a chance phenomenon, which then survives and outlives competition – much like the first living cells which formed, by sheer coincidence, out of the primordial soup, and then survived well enough to ensure I write this blog today and you read it. Yet, there are innumerable books written by countless CEO’s and MD’s who happened to oversee great working organizations when they retired, all talking about their ‘formulae for success’. I read it once – when in doubt, look intelligent. Is it a manifestation of this dictum? I bet some nosey journalist had gone to, say Jack Welch, and asked him how the hell did he make GE into the behemoth that it is. Trying to look intelligent (I, a mere MBA student, might be committing blasphemy here by commenting on Jack Welch’s intelligence, but then, fair chance he won’t be reading it), Jack might have given an answer, partly coated in high sounding words and lofty ideas. The journalist might have written it all down and put it on the paper the next day, and the academics would have been discussing it the day after – behold, a new theory in management studies was born. Then Jack, and other top level businessmen, seeing what suckers we were for such ‘theories’, and being the shrewd businessmen they are, started giving out more of them, for substantial royalty, of course. I am not speculating here. We have, at our B-School, symposia, where top business leaders are invited, by constant pestering, and an audience of weary students is collected on the pain of hefty fines (remember, it is a Saturday, and no one likes to spend the week end delivering or listening to boring lectures.) Well, they come, deliver something on topics as enigmatic as ‘India poised, but is it? And oh, will InfoTech play a role, or will we melt down before that, and creative ideas to solve this whole thing’. Of course, that is not a real topic, but I have forgotten the real ones, but this one gives a near estimate of what is discussed there. Then some of our classmates ask ‘insightful and intelligent’ questions, to which they gives equally ‘creative’ answers. These answers are duly noted by the faculty and students alike (though I would like to assure you that I am not guilty of this crime), and then, it enters the popular discourse, and ends up being written in term papers, examination scripts and thus legitimized as ‘theory’. I have often asked my very enlightened and intelligent classmates if the things we are studying here are even remotely useful in the field – they give really interesting answers. Some are candid – man, this is BS, and we know it, but still, whatever it takes to get the MBA degree. Some are a bit rebellious, like me, and do not study such things, and concoct their own theories in the examination – if you need BS, it does not matter who the bull was. Interestingly, some do not think it is all BS, and tell me that we need to take our understanding to a higher plane to comprehend it. All I can say, either they are delusional, or they are our future business leaders.
In the end, I repeat the same old question – are we doing the right thing by wasting our time learning made up stuff? Is it a time to call a spade a spade and cut out all this useless stuff from management curriculum? I have no personal grudge against them – after all, writing for ends on systems theory is much easier than trying to solve a capital budgeting numerical, because you cannot go wrong. But, in the end, we end up wasting our time, in the prime of youth, when we would have been better occupied doing actual work. Think again.

LIVE FROM LIFE - Life, the key factor

2009-01-01T06:41:00.001-08:00

How often does one hear the question – ‘Will you give it your hundred percent?” Equally common is the oft repeated ‘strength’ in the bogus HR questions in the interviews – ‘Sir, I give every task my hundred percent.’ Whether actually giving ‘hundred percent’ to ‘all tasks’ is physically possible or not is another question – my point of discussion here is the very idea of giving ‘hundred percent’ to something.

Let us begin with a very general question – what is the thing that is the most valuable and most irreplaceable of all that we own. Moralistic (and politically correct) answers aside, it is our life – we see stories of riches to rags and back to riches, but barring the Easter miracle (I am agnostic tending to atheist, but this example is etched in the thoughts of most of the English understanding populace, so there), there has hardly been any instance of someone losing his her life and then gaining it. One cannot even get back a single second of one’s life to live again – here, as I am typing away on a vacation, I am forgoing precious moments I could spend with family. The old Kansas song is so true – ‘I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment’s gone.’ Will you give up, say, a month of your life for, say, million bucks? Well, most of you might say yes, but ask that question from a man who is dying – he might be willing to buy for a billion or more! So, we can safely conclude that our life is a valuable resource for us, and a key one at that. What returns do we expect for the investment of our life moments into the economic machinery? All monetary turnovers will go pale in comparison to the basic but essential returns expected – the so call hierarchical needs pyramid, as is often quoted as Maslow’s need hierarchy pyramid. We need to satisfy our physical needs, security needs, affiliation needs and the other learned needs, and later the transcendental needs, in that order. The first two are needs that are being fulfilled by lower life forms too, so an apt return to investment of the human life would comprise only of the other three levels. On the basis of these observations, let us examine some of the common ideas we have about what to do with our lives –

1. Have one aim and dedicate yourself to it. Is this suggestion, often told by the ‘wise’, correct? Now, that you agree that our life moments are resources to be invested, let’s take an analogy – suppose you have a given sum of money. Is it advisable to invest it all in one stock, or one sector? While in some cases this might pay huge dividends, in most cases, it is advisable to ‘diversify the portfolio’. So, if we do that with our money, why not do that with our lives? Some may argue that a minimum level of efforts are required to anything at all in some venture, we are just belittling our potential, thinking that we cannot get to the threshold in more than one front of effort. So, if we view our lives as resource, it is simply a natural follow up that it is wise to diversify as much as possible.
2. Work very hard and diligently, as rewards take time coming in. This is another wise man’s advice – and often shining examples are put up of Abe Lincoln, or Faraday or Lal Bahadur Shastri and similar personalities, who rose from low places to their successful ends by virtue of hard work, which paid in the end. The taught, like us, lap it up and start a grueling struggle for an education, and a career, with eye’s firmly on some future gain, neglecting the comforts of today. Well, for one Abe Lincoln, we have got thousands of name less and faceless people, who work really hard, unmindful of whether actual gains are being made or not – and toil on into obscurity. Coming back to the money analogy, going for a lot of ‘hard work’, without any immediate rewards, is like taking up a project with huge fixed costs, and that with a very long investment turnover period. Both are cardinal sins according to the principles of financial management. So what is the advice from me to those who have lost their way to this article – redesign your effort reward system e.g. if you are studying for some exam you have to take in a couple of years time, it is important to constantly check your progress, and reward yourself, with small things, such as a movie, or an eat out – this gives both a feedback, and a shorter break even period of effort – rewards, both sound investing decisions for the key resource called life.

These were two small ideas on how life decisions could be simplified and objectified if we do not take it for granted, and see it worth what it is. A whole book may be written on how such a model may be applied to more interesting situations – but perhaps that would stifle the libraries full of ideas that could be generated if the discussion was confined to these two hopefully stimulating examples. Invest wisely.

LIVE FROM LIFE - HOW TO TACKLE TERRORISM

2008-09-15T02:27:00.000-07:00

I don't know if there is anything like a really wrong time for writing your blog, but if any such thing is defined, this will certainly belong there. I have got innumerable number of examinations, both 'classified' and unclassified lined up, and am hard pressed for time. Still, this idea came to me just like that, and i have to put it in before, like good ideas, vanishes. The Saturday's bomb blast hurt me at a more personal level than ever before. Earlier, bomb blasts and terror attacks were news items - this time it was about real places. Two days before the blasts, i was out into the busy markets of Nehru Place, and a week before, I was at the Palika Market, using the afflicted main gate. Had these terrorists been a week too early, I would not have been writing this piece - not that I am suggesting that I am back from a brush with death - claiming so would be an insult to the actual sufferers - yeah, I too suffered that Saturday evening - but it more of an uninvited lecture in a room with AC gone wrong - I just meant to say that when these things happen close by, they make a deeper impact.
For days now, I have been racking my trustworthy brain to find a solution to this problem - many suggest that taking a hardliner stance will be the best, as in the USA. It is a known fact that after 11th September, not a single attack has been carried out on the US, and it is the Great Satan according to the Islamists! On the other hand, our supposedly liberal, secular, cosmopolitan (the whole unity in diversity hogwash) country has had uncountable attacks in the past few months themselves. So, what are we supposed to do - just sit back and commend the 'never say die' spirit of Delhi or Mumbai, which is often paraded on the media after every terror attack - the truth is that the people have no option but o come out to work - there is no spirit involved, it is survival instinct. So what can be done. I am a humble mechanical engineer turned MBA student, but I will like to put forth some ideas, which I think can be used to tackle this bomb menace.
First of all, we must be ready for the big brother watching over us. Well, I am the biggest advocate of privacy, but now, the time has come to surrender it for a greater good. I say the law authorities be given complete freedom to snoop around the calls, the SMS, the emails. However, it is important that the information is used to curb terrorism, and terrorism only. Our moralistic police would like to use this open freedom to see listen to amorous couples making plans for their next tryst, or to monitor some frustrated teen surfing for cyber porn - well, they must desist from it. The lesser the activities are classified as 'wrong', the lesser are they driven into the 'dark', and then the 'dark' consists of undiluted dark matter only, which can then be monitored for signs of the next budding plot. People would not take kindly to violation of privacy, because we think some things need not get out - so the authorities need to ensure that any information dug up does not leave the official databases. Secondly, we must loosen the laws on irrelevant stuff, say, for example, drug dealing, romantic liaisons and other things that our police seem to be very involved in dealing with. It all needs to be done away - these people should not be driven into meeting clandestinely, so that whenever there a clandestine meeting does take place, we know it is a terrorist cell hatching its plot.
On the technical side, I think we should start to look for a photochemical equivalent of radars - you know, special beams of em waves, which are beamed all around, and they pick the characteristic of material they impinge on, pass through etc. The return waves could thus tell us about the substances around the probe. Or we could use the method in which heated elements absorb a particular signature wavelength of the incoming em waves - can this be done for things at room temperature? And we can maintain a checklist of substances which should not be lying too close e.g ammonium nitrate and paraffins. It's been 5 years since I've studied physics and chemistry, so I do not have a clue what I am talking about, but I believe the technical support has to come from em wave spectroscopy type techniques.
This is badly put, and I apologise for the erratic flow of ideas, but they are presented as they came. Have a terrorist-safe day.

2008-08-23T22:48:00.000-07:00

Fair chance nobody is reading it, but still, with heavy heart, I have to announce that no posting will be possible till mid November. Oh, how itching I am to type for the whole day, telling you about the famed and overkill ‘B School life’, and about some really ‘noteworthy’ profs. Alas, survival comes first. Fair chance I may flunk the minors, or even the degree. I have no qualms – just the thought of what the folks would think pisses me off. As far as I see, I was totally right about Management education. Worst part is, I am in the middle of it, battling for survival in the dog eat dog world. And I got to take the Civil Services Main exam in midst of this. So for now, take care.

Live from Life - B School Blues

2008-08-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

This is my first post form my new location, and hopefully my location for the next two years. ( I say hopefully, because there are chances that one fails the programme and drops out – I don’t know the time period for that evaluation – maybe one semester or one year: in any case, it is going to be my location for the next 5 months – or as they said in the orientation, 14 weeks.) The location is Jwalamukhi Hostel, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (known ‘affectionately’ as IITD ). I have enrolled here for the two year full time MBA programme, and lasting those two years seems to be a priority concern for now. This post had to be coming this week – I had so much to share. This being my first weekend at IITD when I have not been pestered with more existential tasks ( like paying the fees, getting hostel rooms, depositing the required certificates which need to be transferred half way across the country.) So here I am keying down my report of my ‘B School Experience’ – in fact, a few days ago, we had an official opportunity to write about our ‘B School Experience’ for the official forums, but I could not do that – the deadline was too short for a person down with serious influenza and viral fever to meet. Besides, what’s the fun in writing for the official channel, where one has to keep only the sweet memories, and manufacture some if not present already! So I prefer this uncensored version – my own ‘Snapshots from Hell’.
My interaction with the IIT system began a few hours later than planned, because my train, which was supposed to touch New Delhi at 8 o’clock did so at 12 o’clock. So all my plans of relaxing at the Lothian Bridge Rest House for a while before proceeding for meeting the unknown vanished, as I hastily tried to lug the whole lot of luggage across the NDLS to get an auto to the Lothian. Here again, I was met with the same old ‘Delhi behaviour’ – how so ever much I try to like Delhi – it is the capital of India, the home of Virender Sehwag and Delhi Daredevils (my next favourite after the Kolkata Knightriders), and most probably my home for the next two years – Delhites come to bite me back. Here the autowallahs, when asked for the fare to Old Delhi, demanded sums as obscenely huge and inappropriate as Rs.200! They must have seen a sweating guy in distress, with a laptop on the shoulders, and made their move! It was after a very long search that I did manage to find some one to go for Rs.60. Once at Lothian, I barely had chance to change a bit and moved out in ten minutes. Hailed another auto, at Rs.150, and moved to the IIT. Well, though it gives an impression of being within the city limits, IIT Delhi is really far from the main railway stations: unless you are loaded enough to be flying in, IIT is going to take time to reach. Once there, it took some long walk in the sun to reach the institute building (the ‘insti block’ of FPS). Here the guys like us who were yet to receive their hostels formally, were given the letters for the same, and then I walked the long walk to Jwalamukhi – stopping for a few drinks and stuff here and there – it was too hot. Reached the Jwalamukhi, and the stark realization hit me – be it Pantnagar or be it IITD; the officialdom has a love for paperwork. I was handed a big wad of papers to fill up – lots of them with photographs and stuff. Then I realized I did not have a pen, and since I did not know any place nearby (only 10 meters away), I walked a kilometer to the Bersarai market to get the stuff. Well, the job was done in some time, anyway, and I turned in the paper to the caretaker, a small, friendly looking guy – too young to be ‘authority’, and he assigned me a room – D-89. A sweeper was deputed to show me the room – who left me halfway through the ground floor with the instruction to climb to the top floor and get into the first room from the stairs. Well, I did that, and found myself looking into a storeroom of sorts – cupboards, chairs, bedsteads, and kitchen sink (!!) all lying pell-mell. It obviously had to be a mistake – a big one. I went back to the caretaker, who came with me this time, to the foot of the stairs and showed me A-89, marked ‘Deluxe Room’. He said my room was the ‘Deluxe room’ on the 3rd floor. So, it was no mistake – this ‘Deluxe Room’ was my room for the next year. Well, quick decisions had to be made – how to live here. All my engineering insight told me the room could be made into two operational halves – and it also told me that the side which was further from the door was a better deal in privacy, whatever limited part of that a person could have here. So I got down to hard work, pushing and pulling the chaos around to give it some semblance of a room for two. A job, when finished, looked decent enough. Now came the problem of marking the territory – how was I, in absence of my luggage and bedding, to take the far side as my own? I did it by locking the cupboard I had pushed into that corner – after all, if my new roomie arrived behind me, he would go for a cupboard that was not locked – and his civilization would flourish around that cupboard. Anyway, I need not have worried too much. My new roomie arrived when I was there, so that I could formally ‘claim’ my side of the room. Then I started back to Lothian to get my luggage. This autowallah, though not overcharging, was repulsive in a different way. First of all, he was behaving as if he was a bit drunk. Secondly, he was a home grown ‘aviation enthusiast’ – so much so that he stopped on the Safdarjung Flyover to take a look at some small business jet that had made the rarity of landing at Safdarjung. When I insisted that we had to go – time was running short, he made such nice puppy eyes that I could not ask him to leave this treat and come with me. When we finally started again, he bored me all along with his theory of ‘how the airplane flies’ that really changed the rudimentary stuff I had learned in my engineering degree. Anyway, once at Lothian, I took the opportunity to get showered, and lie down in the AC and finish my diary and some paperwork. Leaving the air conditioned two big bedroom suite at Lothian for the hot, dusty, one kitchen for two beds D-89 was one of the toughest decisions I had to make that day. Anyway, once I had reached Jwala once more, and had lugged my entire luggage to the top floor, and spread my bed – it started looking like a raft I had in a stormy sea – a battered looking raft, but still a raft. Of course, the almirah did not have shelves, nor did it have rods. So my suit, which I had bought so affectionately two days before, had to go under the mattress, and in absence of hanger pegs, my chair, which was redundant in the face of the fact that my bed touched the table, was turned to be used as a receptacle for the clothes. As I reclined, alone (my roomie had decided to stay at some friend’s place) and listened to FM music, it was a sleep of a tired sailor who had found land – maybe just a barren island, but still land.
The orientation and registration had other small problems. The orientation was short and objective – unlike the one at my UG place, where they just went on and on and on. However, after the orientation, went straight to registration, as registration sheets were distributed. My name was not in the list of the students of MBA telecom systems, and the person distributing the cards, with the official nonchalance, asked me to ‘wait’. Wait for what? I stood there, and it was purely by chance that I saw my name on the management systems list. Wow, so I had been upgraded to the regular course. But then, another big problem had been created – this upgradation changed my entry number from 2008SMT6575 to 2008SMF6575. Now entry number is a very basic thing in one’s existence at IIT. It is one’s identity, on which one’s room is allotted, on which account the fees are deposited, and lots of other things. So there was this new problem of getting the entry numbers corrected in the registers. Again, there was a problem of much bigger proportion. Soon we came to know that our original JMET rank cards had to be deposited in here. Now I had not brought the card with me – to Delhi. I remember that halfway through to Patna from Sonpur, I had realized that I had not packed the rank card. But I had brushed it off with the thought that they had not included that in the list of documents required. Also I had wanted to avoid inconvenience of getting the card fetched from across the river. How wrong was I! Here I realized that these guys wanted the documents they wanted, and it did not matter that the item was on the list or not. I had to call Dad, who had to send the card by train, across the states, by booking a person, and spending helluva money for it, so that goes for avoiding the inconvenience part. It is very hurting on the inside to be a 22 year old man, who has spurned a decent enough job to stay a student, and to go crying to Dad for some small problems – unfortunately, life does that sometimes.
The experience within the Department of Management Studies was a bit better. The welcome was short and good, the snacks better – the time table the best – 4 days with 3 off, though it is a matter of seeing whether it stays that way. The registration was easy, being online. The classes, as they began, had their own characteristics. Some, like quant or Accounts and Finance, or Managerial Economics are water tight, with a clear idea of what to study, and what would be expected in the examinations. Some are not so – creative problem solving, systems thinking, marketing management etc are, so to say, like talking in the air – trying to form theories about really complex and abstract things. It is like the question of Adams – the life, universe and everything. So it is really hard to study – at least to study in the conventional sense. Then, another peculiarity of the system is the sadistic reveling in misery – people talk about assignments for the sake of assignments, running hither and thither for the sake of it. One prof. does not give his powerpoint presentations to us as soft copy, but expects us to get them copied though a long proper channel. Leave alone the profs – even the seniors are in to it. Enjoy suffering – they tell us proudly about the hours they have to toil, and the meals they have to miss, and the late nights they have to put in, for a pittance, as if they are describing a holiday on a cruise ship in the tropical seas! Oh, I do miss the seniors of my UG place, who always told us to take it easy – don’t worry, be happy. Both approaches are extreme, and life takes a middle path, but still the latter advice soothes frayed nerves. In the profs, we have the extremes – One Dr.HC is the ultimate genial prof – his lectures seems like a visit to the shrink – what do you like, what are your dreams, your goals etc. ( And for those who start thinking he is some quack who has nothing better to offer, he is an IITK, IIMB product and a top consultant ). On the other hand, we have a Dr.VSG (another luminary, former Head, DMS, founding director of IIMK and the lead figure for the setup of IIMS ) – whose full class we are yet to have, but a 10 minutes encounter has really assured me I am not going to take his electives. For those from my UG place, multiply Rocky ten times, and you begin to understand what I am talking about – don’t wear T-shirts, behave like executives, behave like adults, and a lots other areas of dressing down for no apparent reason. I really dread the next Thursday!
The hostel life at IITD has its upsides and downsides – perhaps more of latter. One can cite many reasons for that – smaller campus (it is the smallest of the seven IITs, not counting the new ones, as their campuses are yet to be built), lower endowment funds from alumni etc. But for ones who have been dazzled by hostels 12 and 13 at IITB, Jwala is going to be a rude shock – especially if you are supposed to live in the ‘deluxe room’. The only redeeming feature for Jwala is the mess – the food is good, and that is when speaking from the point of view of a seasoned veteran of hostels. The menu is richly varied, and the delivery is efficient. Apart from that, the hostel has little to offer – the old walls look dilapidated, and the patchwork fails to hide the decades of abuse. The loos deserve a special mention. For a big population, it has just three WC’s. Now that would be misleading – one is a Western Style without the jet or the paper holder, or an alternative sink. God knows I don’t know how to use that one! The next is the normal Indian style thing, that bears the abuse of the whole of the D – Indiresan wing. The masterpiece, however, is the third one. Open its door, and there you find no pan, in fact no floor – a sheer drop through to the ground floor, like an elevator shaft – what is it that they were trying to do about it?? I have an idea – put an elevator car with a shitter in that. Market the idea as – ‘When you have to go on the go!’ I am not worried about much for myself – I have two years to stay here, and anyway, the JMET did not require much preparation from my side. Nor do I have to ‘do’ the MBA – for all I know and hope, I could clear the Engg. Services and leave. But I do care for the B.Tech undergrad population – these guys have invested two to three (or more??) years of their lives trying to get through to this place, and now they are living like chicken – cooped in a rooms, three to one in a room hardly meant for two!
I might have been getting too negative and bitter in the last paragraph. It so happens that whenever I think about my prospects here, my heart does sink a bit – I am not an MBA enthusiast, so it’s like fitting into a suit not cut for me. For long times in lectures going overhead, where I am wondering WTF, the guys are putting up their hands and asking questions from the professors. Yeah, mostly it seems like they all are bluffing – trying to create a place for them in the social hierarchy. So all are behaving like competitors now – good corporate competitors, who are suave and polite, with their ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and refined language. I guess it will require the first minor to happen before the hierarchy is defined naturally, and guys put the masks off, so that true friendships can be formed. Only then will the college life truly begin, and the negativity will go off.

Live From Life - for the Greater Good

2008-07-16T07:10:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered why the voting rights are available to us Indians only after we turn eighteen? Why not a truly 'Universal Franchise'? They say this age limit is put forth because those below that age are not 'mature' enough to decide what's good for them. Isn't that pure hogwash? The guys much below that age are taking the boards, the IITJEE, the AIEEE, the CPMT, the AIPMT and what not EE's and PMT's. So these guys are deemed fit to take some of the most stressful and rigourous exams in the world ( stressful for boards, just check the suicide rates ), but they do not have brains enough to decide which idiot is a better idiot to govern us? No, you say. Very well, that was not my point, but now I will start on it. You agree that some people are not just fit to govern themselves, or, to put it mildly, they do not know what is good for them. Can't vote before 18, can't marry before 21 and can't drink before 25. Two things must be noted - in a country claiming to be a democracy, there are restrictions on what one can't do if one does not qualify according to some criterion; secondly, that this criterion is always the age. Behind these age limits is the thinking that the person is not knowledgeable enough or world-wise enough before some given age – it’s all got to with the brains. And brain keeps on developing till about 18 years of age - that means anybody below eighteen has scope to grow brainwise - some grow fast, some slow, and that is why we have the concept of Intelligence Quotient - I.Q. = mental age / chronological age in percentage. That means that if a kid 10 years old shows a mental age of 12, i.e if a fifth grader can solve seventh grade problems, he has an IQ of 12/10 X 100 =120. But this model applies only for upto eighteen years of age. Does than mean after 18 years, all human beings have the same intelligence. No, the intelligence follows a bell shaped curve, with a mean (average) of 100 (i.e. on an average, an adult shows an intelligence of an adult). Here is appended a graph of IQ of the human population. As you can see, quite a few people are above 100, and quite a few are below it. And this is the data for the adult population, which means that some of the adults, who have the right to vote and might be using it at the next elections, are simply not in the knowledge of 'what is good for them' (according to the criterion on which below 18 are barred from voting), and with their unqualified voting, they might be wreaking havoc on the system. Similarly, nearly the same are above 100, that means many are too well equipped with their faculties, and the single vote accorded to them is simply not doing justice to the collective human intelligence stock - its like selling Darjeeling tea and ordinary tea at the same rate! One might say that there is no great harm in this system, after all, the damage done by the below par would be covered up by the judicious voting of the above pars - that is the beauty of the bell curve - in the end, everything is balanced. But is the damage rectified in the end, in the real system. We have not yet looked into one important piece of theory that is essential to this whole idea - The Market for Lemons. This theory is being brought to you lifted straight from the Wikipedia page, because I feel they have explained it way better than I could:
“The interaction between quality heterogeneity and asymmetrical information can lead to the disappearance of a market where guarantees are indefinite. In this model, as quality is undistinguishable beforehand by the buyer (due to the asymmetry of information), incentives exist for the seller to pass off a low-quality good as a higher-quality one.
The buyer, however, takes this incentive into consideration, and takes the quality of the good to be uncertain. Only the average quality of the good will be considered, which in turn will have the side effect that goods that are above average in terms of quality will be driven out of the market. This mechanism is repeated until a no-trade equilibrium is reached.”
To see this theory in the context I am writing about, one will have to take a very loose interpretation of the Lemon Market. It is assumed that the higher educated and intelligent group of voters expect a good economy, national prestige, equality of opportunity, honesty at work and all such stuff one can find in a moral science book (Why is it called ‘science’ anyway??), and those on the wrong side of intelligence curve, with lower education would want to see a leader who vouched for their caste, their religion, their region, their language etc. This type of group may also like a leader who subsidises products, bankrolls useless projects for bogus employment etc. most of these issues have little or no bearing on a person’s standard of living, and are basically petty prestige issues, or may be good for it in the short run (reservations and subsidies) but are detrimental for the country in the long run. Now, consider these groups of people ‘selling’ their votes on the electoral ‘market’ in exchange for ‘good governance’ – good according to their own ideas. Now, the netas buy these votes – both high quality and low quality. Assuming the even distribution of the bright and dull minds across the country, a neta does not know if a particular voter is high class or low class. Low class votes come cheap – incite a communal riot or just bash up ‘outsiders’ in your state – voila! Votes! High class votes require real efforts, real management skills: efforts that are reflected in the country’s , state’s or constituency’s economic and social health. When running companies requires a person to clear the really tough management entrance exams (to prove intelligence, diligence and aptitude), just imagine the aptitude, intelligence and diligence required to run the whole states and countries. And though the cost price of both types of votes for the buyer (netas) is different, their satisfaction utility for them is the same i.e. one vote. Remember that Deepika jee advertisement for Nirma Super – “ Jab wohi mehge damon waali quality, wohi safedi, wohi jhaag, kam damon mein miley, to koi yeh kyun le, woh na le?” ( If you get the quality, whiteness and froth as given by the costly detergent with the cheap one too, why not go for the cheap one?”) So, the netas pay only for the low class votes – they come cheap, and in numbers.
Now, the higher end voters do not find any takers for their votes, i.e. no market – so they leave the market, thus lowering the average level of the ‘seller of votes’ still further. Again the politicians does not know about individual voters – so he would aim for the cheaper ones among the reduced vote bank – in the process driving out the cream of the reduced vote bank. Thus the level of voters keeps on falling and falling – our no trade equilibrium is reached – not that the votes are not polled now – it’s just that the trade is not present – even the promise of roast chicken and a quarter of desi daaru is enough to get the votes.
In the standard market for lemons scenario, the solution is given – inform the buyer about the products and its quality, and how to distinguish between the high quality and low quality products. Now, in a standard used car market (the scenario for which the lemon theory was proposed), a buyer has the incentive to know about high quality goods. But then, there is no incentive for netas to go looking for the high quality votes. So, an incentive needs to be introduced. This is what I call a ‘Meritocracy’, or ‘Rule of the Brainy’ or some other fancy name I will think of later. (Gotta search for fancy Greek words to go with -cracy ). Assign a weight to the vote according to the IQ of the voter, those above hundred getting more than one and those below 100 getting less. Now here comes the catch – most IQ tests are designed by the West – which may not give a true estimate of a non-English educated/ uneducated Indian intelligence. So, what is to be done – we could design non language based tests, as used in the case of uneducated. Or, verbal questions can be asked audibly in the language of the voter, who is to press buttons according his choice in the objective type test. But won’t the ‘higher class’ get organised together, and use its increased voting power to marginalize the ‘lower class’ issues, and perpetuate an IQ apartheid. Of course they can. Till now I have considered that the higher class needs to be benevolent and dedicated to the long term greater good, but if you see the chat threads on the India community on Orkut, this belief is shattered violently. So what is to be done now? Simple! Include personality type tests in the judgement criteria in deciding whether to weigh a person’s vote up or down – the questions need to be subtle – as in MMPI or Rorschar tests etc. We could put the positive personalities (whose judgement is deemed to be pro-development) for a 1+ voting rights, while the negative personalities could get 1- voting rights. To avoid the organization of ‘Super Intelligent Tyrants’, the tests could be done at the time of polling itself – after all, it is a long process – verifying ID’s, striking off the names, taking the ballot papers, voting and putting it in, getting the fingers marked. Introduce another stage – taking of test – make it quick, and do not even disclose the result of this intelligence-aptitude test – so that the person does not know the amount of voting power he has as he enters to the next station – the polling machine. Just multiply his vote by a Correction Factor CF, and put it in to the account of the candidate the person has voted for.
Still, a big question remains – how to calculate the CF? Well, the purpose of the CF is to make the buying of the higher end votes profitable for the netas, i.e giving them their efforts worth. Now I will be going a bit technical to answer this technical question – we have assumed that the demands of the intelligent/development oriented are more money/effort consuming as compared to the demands of low end/dimwitted/chauvinism oriented. Now efforts can be monetized, and we can say that the cost of satisfying a voter want is a function of his IQ, where IQ now means an overall coefficient, a combination of intelligence and aptitude – perhaps more of the later. i.e. Cost/vote = f (IQ). This cost can be calculated if the system is actually to be brought in – just tabulate the cost of chicken and daaru, the cost of organizing riots (Molotov cocktails, spears, swords, sabers), the cost of subsidies & the cost of pursuing long term economic policies etc. against the IQ level of the people to whom the ‘effort’ is aimed at, and plot a recursion curve to get the trendline – this is the Cost/vote(IQ) function. Now for break even, the cost = the income. That is, the pay-off to the netas should be commensurate to the cost incurred in satisfying that vote bank – i.e the CF(IQ) curve should model the Cost/vote(IQ) curve. So, it means:
CF(IQ) = [Cost/vote(IQ)/Cost/vote(100)]
Well said, but how to get this system into place – now that is a question I do not have an answer for at this stage!

LIVE FROM LIFE - SAVE THE ENGINEER

2008-06-05T00:55:00.001-07:00

SAVE THE ENGINEER

Well readers, the time has come, the time for which I have been waiting for from aeons (that would be 2004). The time to stop being an undergraduate and to become a graduate. Hell, that tells that you have arrived. You turn adult legally on your 18th birthday, but for those studying in educational ( and social ) backwaters like the place where I am, you are not treated like one till you call yourself a student of the campus. So finally I am about to taste real freedom, and I feel like the immigrants approaching New York who have just spotted the Statue of Liberty. So what’s that tinge of sadness. Am I feeling pulled apart from my alma-mater. Hell, no! If I had it in my powers I would make it so that no one remembers where I graduated from – they would say – he did his schooling at Oak Grove, Mussoorie, and did his Post graduation from so and so place, but we know nothing about his graduation college! Like some sort of Lord Voldemort, I would remove all traces of my origin, my middle years. Sadly, I am no Dark Lord, and I guess this would remain just wishful thinking. I am not sad, but a bit apprehensive. Apprehensive of the great unknown called ‘responsible life’. I have got my job, and to tell you, that’s almost as good a job as you could expect around here. Moderate salary and good perks. For those who are born motorheads, this would be a job to kill for – you are making more than thousand cars a day ( about 2000, in fact), at the heart of the car making behemoth of the country – good learning on the job, and a chance for advanced learning in exotic lands. Well, what’s the problem dude? Why am I not really pulled towards it ? Reasons could be many – I am not an automaniac, and I have stated it before also. So this job is not that special to me. I have a classmate who is dumping a government job, that would involve just 8 hours a day, and is going to pay at least 25 % more (and further more, subject to the Sixth Pay Commission), in face of vociferous opposition from folks, for the same job. That’s because he is what we call a motorhead – he eats drinks and breathes petrol, he is a moving talking Automobile-101. I wish I could feel the same way about it, but I just can’t. Earlier, I had not thought much about tit, as we still had a very grueling medical test to go through, where many big ones had fallen – where no GPA or automania could sail you through, but now since even that is over, I have to set my priorities very clear. Let’s see the options I have. Soon I would be a graduate, but even before I heave a deep sigh of relief and good riddance, I could become a Graduate Engineer Trainee. Or I could go on to become a post graduate (PG) – that really sounds too academic – and in that I would have two choices – a post graduation in engineering, or a post graduation in business administration, or management, to the layperson. How to weigh the options – that’s easy, man. Just check out what my job holds for me – some four hundred and thirty grands a year, minus taxes. Or it could be some seven hundred and fifty, if I am chosen eligible for the exotic training. It could also give me a chance to live in what goes by the moniker of the ‘Millennium City’, and is the backyard of a bigger city, a city which I love to hate. Is it worth signing up for four years of it? Mind you, it’s nearabout the highest my sort of engineers are expected to get. If that is what a grad makes, what about a post-grad. I had the call for interview from the best post grad institute in the country, which ranks something on the world level too. Post graduation in engineering, I meant. It meant going south to the ‘Garden City’, more south than I have ever traveled, clocking more continuous train hours than I have ever clocked, in such crowded circumstances that I had to get tickets for the highest class one could ever travel, to get a seat. It meant leaving a week of classes unattended, leaving myself at the mercy of Professors, a fickle species. Lots of investments, plus the risk of flunking for the first time in my whole 19 year long educational life. (I really suck at Mathematics, and I know I can’t be getting lucky forever.) So I decided to check out how my life will change with this PG – I traced on Orkut communities, and contacted those in know how, got a number and called. That was ‘the call that changed my destiny’. ( I love Backstreet Boyz – not in that way – I am straight) It was all fine for the time we were discussing the interview and stuff, but when I discussed ‘package’, I discovered it wasn’t a ‘big package’. Seeing how the place is a ‘riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’ ( I love Churchill, too), I won’t reveal the figure here, but that is in no way compensating anyone to rack his head over more sines, cosines, exponents, differentials and integrals for two more years! I love science and technology, and the place I am talking about is to an engineer what Mecca is to devout Muslims, what the Holy Grail was to those Knights, what the Champions’ League is to Manchester United fans and what the Deathly Hallows were to Albus Dumbledore. Sadly, dreams are just dreams, and life does not feed on ideals, it feeds on currency – crisp banknotes, and sadly, not much here. That leaves me with the third option. Become a management PG. It’s called MBA, and it’s more of a pandemic than influenza could ever be. What is management – getting things done by the others. That’s not a smart alec definition – I swear by God and my GPA, that is the textbook definition! How blunt! Why would one do that – getting things done by the others? To take credit for it. After all, the great Taj Mahal was not built by teams of labourers in teams of 20,000 over a decade and a half, nor was some poor chap called Essa involved. To us, the Taj was built by Shah Jahan, the Great Moghul. How to do it – politely, its called directing – but I call it bullshitting. Doling out crap to workers and engineers so that they think you are the Boss, and without you the enterprise would simply collapse, and blinding them to the fact that it’s their skill and expertise that is actually making things happen, doling out crap to media to show how buoyant it has been under your charge, doling out crap to all and sundry. If you do not believe me, look at how they select B-School grads – first they have a test, where you must do questions in half the time required. Oh, you must be smart to get to a B-School, real smart – you have to think clever ways to see that your dolings of shit are not mistaken for shit – understood ? Once through, you go through GD-PI. That’s group discussion and personal interview. I have nothing more futile and more hilarious (even if I am down and out) than GD – ten-fifteen guys packed in a room and given 10 minutes to ‘discuss’ a topic, which, in a normal canteen discussion, would leave all silent, with no thought to speak out. But since this is a selection procedure, thoughts do come out, thoughts unencumbered by a rational mind, thoughts presented half baked, half mixed. It is said that when opinions collide, freedom rings (that’s from Adlai Stevenson). But in a GD, opinions do not collide – they run parallel, and take opposing curves, go on tangents, swerve, bounce off the walls, levitate and fall, and then annihilate together like electrons and positrons. You know what rings out – not freedom, but stupidity. Stupidity enrobed in sagacious phrases is passed off as sagacity, just as caramel enrobed in chocolate is being passed off as chocolate. Anyway, it’s not the thoughts that matter, but the words – those who have difficulty with words ( did I hear you cough - **engineers**) take it for granted that those with the words are meant to rule over them. Anyway, engineers come way above ‘workers’. Even engineers read a course or two on management – by God, the way ‘workers’ are written about, one might think we are talking about dogs or something – doesn’t a discussion on ‘how to reward worker so that the production does not go down’ sound frighteningly similar to ‘how much salt you can feed your dog so that his hair does not fall off’? Or those Hawthorne experiments, on how workers react to changing light level in their rooms – aren’t they similar to works of Pavlov with the dog? Don’t I hate this profession – they are worse than lawyers, and better at it – have you ever heard of manager jokes? I have an offer from a B-School, not the exact top dog, but still a significant one. It is in the city I hate with all my heart. So why is this option even in the picture? Just because if a put myself through this cesspool and wade out to the other end, I might be making 1.2 million or more, at the average going rates! Are you kidding me – did I hear – an exotic land trained auto engineer gets nearly half, and these crap cannons get 1.2 millions? Exactly, and that is an irony. What am I going to do. Earlier, I was all for my job, or a technical PG and an honest day’s job, but in all that B-School fever, I took a few steps closer to the other side, and now I am steadily being pulled by the gravitational pull of all that money. But what about my dreams, and my revulsion for this ‘side’? It is said that there is a bit of the whore in all of us, so let’s just quote our price. (that’s from Kerry Packer, I think) So simply think it that way, if despite all my efforts, an engineer dies, and a new manager is born – all suited up.

LIVE FROM LIFE - ENGINEER ABOARD

2008-06-05T00:47:00.000-07:00

Hello there, and thanks for visiting this post. I feel the most honoured that you have taken minutes off your busy schedule to look at what’s been posted on ‘Live from Life’. Though remote, chances are that you might have visited this page a few times before this occasion and wondered if the owner of the blog had expired. Well, dear Sir, (or Ma’am), I had not died, but barely so. I was fighting a few big battles in the Great Patriotic War of Career, and have returned, scarred but experienced. Not that I had forgotten about the blog- how could I? This blog had entitled me to mention ‘Blogging’ on hobbies column in my CV, and that must have given me an edge over routine stuff like reading, music, philately etc. So why have I suddenly returned to revive this blog when its purpose seems to be over (embellishing my resume, that is). I have returned as I have some real nice stories to tell. This particular instant occurred on 29th March, 2008 – the day I fought the Battle of DMS – IIT Delhi. First of all, let me make it clear, I hated Delhi, from the bottom of my heart and from the heart of my bottom. I am fascinated by Calcutta, I have never been to Madras and I am awed by Bombay, but I simply can’t put into printable words what I felt about Delhi. Why? That’s because I felt that in Delhi, everybody was out to make an ass out of me. Some examples – in Bombay, you ask a cab driver the location of some place you do not know, chances are high you would get an honest reply, and an honest estimated charge for getting you there. (‘Estimated’, as in Bombay, cabs run on meters – for Delhi guys, that’s the funny thing dangling on the left flank of the auto, because chances are you have never seen one being used) Do the same in Delhi, and you would hear that the place is very far, and it would take a fortune to transport you there. To give a more concrete example, this one happened on 27th February en route Bombay for the Battle of SJMSOM. Have you seen the DMRC Chandni Chowk station? How far is it from Delhi Railway Station? Far!! It is on the same campus! That I did not know, and I managed to ask an auto wallah about it. Well, he told me the nearest Metro was 5 kilometers far, and offered me a ride there at a small price of Rs. 50 only! How sweet! Luckily I was in no hurry, and I thought that maybe I would wait a while before going to New Delhi, and as I turned to my left, there was the Metro station, just where we were standing! Be fair to me, I was new in the city, and DMRC does not really mark its stations in bright colours, they look like a crossing subway stands. Anyway, the auto wallah was not new to the city, and yet he had tried taking advantage of the ignorance of a stranger. Cut to 22nd March, after the Battle of VGSOM. It was Holi, and any means of conveyance was hard to find. So we found this auto, who agreed to drop me to New Delhi Station for Rs.120 ( the normal fare is Rs.70, never mind) So we were off. On the way I reminded him to drop me at Pahargunj Terminal and not the Ajmeri Gate Terminal. Well, the two are separated by a rail underpass, and it takes hardly 5 minutes to go from one to the other by auto. It so happened that we were approaching from the AG end, and the guy decided he did not want to do those extra 5 minutes. Well, he could not refuse outright, I hadn’t paid him. So the rascal racked his brains, and came with a story that really showed his IQ level. He told me that the police had closed off Pahargunj station, because of Holi, and all the trains are leaving from Ajmeri Gate station. May be he had never been inside New Delhi station, or he would have known that it was one station only, with two sides, and it was not really possible to close one of the ‘stations’. Well, I told him to drive on, and that I have got curfew passes to get into the besieged Pahargunj ‘station’! All this, just to avoid five more minutes of driving (in a one hour drive)! So naturally, whenever in Delhi, I always keep my guards up, seldom ask for locations and advice from people, and even if I do, I take them with a pinch of salt. So it so happened that on 29th March I was in the city again. I had already fought two battles: The Battle of DMS IITD and the Battle of MSIL Medical, and I had already won the latter. So I had gone to Nehru place, to get spare parts for my ailing PC. (That’s one reason I have to give points to Delhi – Nehru Place!) Well, I had to return to Delhi Railway Station to catch a train back, so I started my search for auto – and I got some really obscenely exaggerated demands- Rs. 150, Rs.200. Now I was in no mood to fork out that kind of money in the situation- I was in no hurry. It was 3:30, and my train left at 10:30. Hell, I could walk to the station in that much time! It was then I met this guy, who had not parked his auto near the rest. He told me to hop in, and pay what the meter shows. I could not believe my ears. Meters, in Delhi? I asked him again, what would he charge for dumping me at DLI. He refused to go that way, and said the law was to go by the meter, and he would respect the law. Okay, fine by me. We started. I asked him how did I have this pleasure of riding by meter in Delhi. He said that all Delhiwallahs are ‘chor’, ‘haraamkhor’ and lots of other things I cannot type here. He said that they are fleecing unknowing commuters with impunity, and they did not have a soul. My feelings, actually. But then, wasn’t he a Delhi wallah himself. No, he said. He was from Ayodhya – the birth place of Lord Ram, and one who hails from the birthplace of the Lord does not indulge in ‘do number business’. I nodded my head in agreement, but for me, he was still a Delhi auto wallah, and I was not going to fall for his sweet talk. I was wondering why was he so keen on going by the meter. I glanced at it. It had already clocked about Rs.40. I thought, this was it. His meter was running free of the wheels, and it was going to conjure up some really big figure in the end, in the most lawful way! We stopped at a red light. I kept on glancing at the meter. If it was free of the wheel, it should have been clocking away at the stop. Strangely, it was not. It seemed the meter was working as it was supposed to. Still there was the possibility that it was clocking away at a higher rate than normal. I checked the fare against the kilometers and ran a few numbers through my mind. It worked out to about Rs.4 per kilometer – not unreasonable. Now, only one thing was possible – his meter was showing more kilometers than we were actually moving – not much needed to pull that one off, just separate the meter shaft from the drive shaft by a step up gear train. Well, I could not demand to see his auto’s innards then and there, so I sat and waited for my destination. It was when he asked – Sir, are you working or studying? Studying - I replied. What is your highest degree? – he asked. B.Tech – I lied – technically I was still 3 months away from being a Bachelor of Technology, but telling him that I was a Class XII pass was also an understatement! He exclaimed – O, that means you are an engineer. I needed an advice sir. I tell you, that’s one ‘O’ moment engineers from regional colleges like mine dread, when some layman asks for engineering advice. I must digress to elaborate. Once a few of my mates were returning to the hostel from the University market on a rickshaw, and were discussing some stuff from the last paper. The rickshaw wallah asked – Are you from the College of Technology? Yes – came the reply, and the ride became hell for the hapless guys. The rickshaw wallah asked them about advice on how to improve his ride quality by tampering with the springs and stuff like that. Had it remained till that, it would have been fine, but then, the rickshaw wallah left ranting about his springs behind and began discussing some tractor back home. Our guys, who had completed three years of engineering education on one night fights before the papers, were made to look like total morons. So here I was, in an auto rickshaw, in nearly the same situation. Not that I was completely ignorant of what I was supposed to learn in these four years. The Great War of Career had made me battle hardened – but still, one could not know the extent and variety of a question a layman can field – after all, genius has limits, but stupidity is unbound. I braced myself for it – but the question was totally out of the blue. He said – I have a kid in Class X. Can I make him into an engineer like you? Wow, an engineer like me! That felt good. Of course – I replied – nowadays, anyone can become an engineer, with a bit of hard work and determination. I was feeding the guy the same dog crap anybody of some minor success feeds tip-seekers – hard work and determination indeed. I hoped I had buzzed him off, but I was wrong – he had dodged that lump of crap and asked me to be specific – how could he make his son into an engineer. Well, since the station seemed nowhere in sight and we seemed to be stopping a lot at lights, I decided to help him out – but what could I say – I could never figure out how the hell I was studying engineering when my original love had been particle physics. I am still not sure if I would remain an engineer after this June, or would I turn into a manager, and administrator, or God knows what. How could I, then, tell somebody how to become an engineer? I started at the basics. How is this kid in class – I asked. Sir, he is a topper – came the reply. Well, I thought to myself, nowadays everybody is a topper. If you are not a topper you are nobody. It was alright till I was in school. 80 percent marks were considered very good, and only few got 90’s. In my brother’s batch, there were guys getting 100 in social science and literature! So I thought – another topper! Well, I could not be blunt with a guy dreaming big for his kid, so I asked - how is he in Mathematics. Mathematics, my biggest bugbear, my biggest roadblock. Sir, he gives tuition to other kids of class X in Mathematics – said the cabbie. Now this was some serious stuff – guys who can teach others are something to be serious about. I, with all my grades, can’t teach anything to save my life, leave alone teach Maths. I hold Maths teachers in the greatest awe, same way Harry Potter was awed by Dumbledore, or the way the Mancs are awed by Sir Alex Fergusson. They have mastered Maths, which in itself is a big achievement, and then they are helping others do it, which is simply unbelievable! I said – Wow! He teaches Maths to kids his own age! What is he doing now. He is studying at the village school at Ayodhya only – replied he – but I am planning on bringing him here soon. I said – This boy shows potential for engineering. Then he asked – Sir, do not give me these clichéd answers. I am a man of limited means. Considering that, please tell me if I can make my kid an engineer. Now that was a tough one – how much money does it take to make an engineer. As much as one can put in – I know persons who have taken 5 years of coaching, at about 60 to 80 thousand p.a. or more, to arrive here, and I can’t imagine how much more these guys would have had to shell out if they had not rested before cracking the JEE! Still, I replied – your son sounds good in studies, so he does not seem to need any coaching. I personally did not join the Kota queue despite lot of coaxing, so I felt this guy should take his shot raw. Then, if he made it to a state funded institution, the expenses would come to about 30 grand p.a. He said – 30 to 40 grands, I can handle it – beyond that, I would have to think. Well – I said – hope your kid makes it to a state college then. Then I wondered if this was possible. State colleges are for high ranking students only, and unfortunately, in these days, it means students who can avail coaching. This kid, no doubt bright, would find it hard to rub shoulders with the coaching bred contenders. Chances are that he may clear the entrance exam, but with a low rank, which leaves the private colleges – where education could cost an arm and a leg. Clearly this cabbie was not in a position to give donations and pay six figure fees. So chances were high that one good candidate for engineering would lose out, just because his dad was a cabbie and not an officer. These kids do need help – maybe financial, maybe reservations. But I did not ask this man if he was an SC, ST or an OBC. In this great country of ours, we have not learnt from past mistakes – we are trying to annul the caste based negative discrimination of the past by caste based positive discrimination. Economic criterion based reservations are not talked about, as they are not vote-effective for the politicians. But is this a fault of the politicians, when they tender to vote banks- aren’t they supposed to do that only, what their constituency wants? Till the time the masses identify themselves by caste and religion and region, the politics will be based on the same. So a non SC, ST or OBC poor kid will not get into an engineering college – as he would not have coaching enough for a state college and money enough for private college. Soon, we passed the Red Fort, and I saw the old station at a distance. Here we are, Sir – said the man – would to alight here or at the gate. I glanced at the meter – it was in 80’s, and I thought that better take it to the gate, and make it near 100 to avoid change hassles. So I asked him to take me in. If I was suspecting foul play in his meter before, now I was thinking the other way – it hardly crawled into the nineties and we were at the gate. Anyway, he had been a good hassle less cabbie, so I pulled out a 100 note and gave it to him and left. Soon I felt a tap on my shoulder, and it was the same man, offering me loose change from my 100. I said – there was no need for it. To that, he replied – Sir, one who earns from hard labour would never accept others hard earned money for nothing. That was humbling. I felt bad for myself, how I had stereotyped Delhiwallahs and Auto wallahs as crooks, and how I had doubted the man’s well intentioned actions and sayings, looking for the trickery where none was involved. We shook hands as friends, and bid farewell after wishing each other well – he wished me success in my interview and I wished his kid the best in engineering. Now, sitting in my room, I am typing this piece as his wish has come true. In fact all the things I had planned for that Delhi trip in a single day had gone very well, and now I have an offer from the Institute. So I write this article praying to the Powers that be to let my wish for him come true, and implore any reader who has read this far to pray for the same.

P.S: After this article was finished, I came across an interesting piece of news – now they are offering coaching kids coaching to crack the entrance exams to the elite – wait for it – coaching institutes at Kota! God help the next generation!

LIVE FROM LIFE -RANTINGS ON DEMOCRACY

2008-06-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

Let me begin with a very famous joke from the end of the Cold War period. (Circa 1990; it may have been in currency even before that, but I read it in a publication from the said period.)
An American (yes, it always has to be an American, I don’t know why) and a Soviet were discussing the merits of their government systems. The American says, “Hey man, in the US we have got democracy, and hence freedom. For example, I can go to the center of the town square any day and yell, ‘President Bush is an asshole’, without any fear.” To this, the Soviet replied, “What’s the big deal about that? Even I can do that.”
Let me follow up with the disclaimers. First of all, I am no writer/ columnist/ journalist or whatever else one is required to be in order to have one’s works read and criticized. I am a simple Mechanical Engineering undergraduate, and by the nature of my trade, I am supposed to know absolutely nothing about how the ‘great minds’ which lead our nations (or businesses, colleges, or anything which can be ‘led’) work. I have had political science only till junior high school, so it might happen that I occasionally overstep my jurisdiction and mistakenly refer to one thing as another. So a handy reading tip would be that it is all about ideas- the terms may not mean what their classical definition means them to be. ‘What’s in a name? A rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.’ Secondly, I have not taken English after school- so just don’t expect what the highbrows call ‘classical writing’ to flow from my pen (or keypad). I had thought of rendering this piece in the best and the richest of language, going to my highest limits (which are very modest, relatively speaking). Then I had a second thought, and switched to common, layman’s parlance, for two reasons- firstly, I know as much about serious, formal, ‘inspiring’ writing as a eunuch would know about the Kamasutra. Secondly, I am posting it on a far corner of the great, big blogosphere, where it has to compete with many other, ostensibly more interesting blogs, like lonely girls and their lonely machinations, for attention. Let me explain mathematically (don’t think I know my maths?? You are so right..). At the time of writing, the web has got about 60 million blogs. If I give my blog a catch attention value of 2 out of 10, i.e 2 out of every 10 who come across it will have a peek at it (I know I overestimated!!), the chances are 1 to 120000000 that somebody will read this article. A highbrow writing will surely piss the poor guy off (a 99 to 100 chance), so I decide to stay clear of it. I forgot to mention that I am writing this piece when I am really bored up on a Sunday afternoon, and have seen all the movies and played all the games my PC has got. So the writing may go astray at points, winding up nowhere before returning to track. So forgive me as you would forgive your roommate/ girlfriend / boyfriend / spouse / boss / customer, or any other person who has had a bit too much of booze last night. With that we are over with the disclaimers, and we can get down to business, really serious business, business that would ruffle up feathers, business that would get people calling for a ban on the blog, business that would set people demanding my head. All this is expected, because I am going to present my ideas about democracy.
Abe Lincoln said, “Democracy is a government of the people, for the people, by the people.” Did he say that it was good for the people? No. Great men seldom give the complete ideas to lesser mortals, leaving us to guess for ourselves. Most guessed that it was good, so it became good, and those against it became bad, and thus began a classic good versus evil clash, and heads began to roll- Charles I, Louis XVI, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Mullah Omar, Saddam Hussein, to name a few. ( No points for spotting that a few of these heads had rolled before great Abe had uttered the magical formula) Did these heads necessarily have to roll? Is democracy worth the fuss being made about it? To put it mildly, is democracy the right thing for everybody?
Let’s start by examining what democracy means to laymen like us (assuming a specialist won’t be wasting valuable time going through this). Since the days of grade one we are being taught that democracy is about liberty, equality and justice. The three hallowed pillars of democracy (may be there are more hallowed pillars of democracy, but they were not hallowed enough to register on my radar screen). The three great principles have guided the famous French revolutionaries, the American freedom fighters, the Nepalese anti monarchists, to name a few. Yet, it takes all but a cursory glance at the three words before one spots contradiction. Let’s set aside justice for a while, and examine equality and freedom. Aren’t the two mutually contradictory? If you have not got it, let me explain, in detail. Freedom means one’s guarantee to ‘life, liberty and pursuit of happiness’. In a free society, one cannot stop another from ‘pursuit of happiness’, as long as it is through legitimate, fair efforts. So far so good. Now another thing is that no two human beings are similar in all characteristics. So it is sure that one’s effort at ‘pursuit of happiness’ may be better than the others. Now let’s bring in justice. If there is justice, the person whose legitimate efforts in ‘pursuit of happiness’ are better than other’s is bound to get more of ‘happiness’- higher remunerations, higher grades, higher status. Concentrate on the word ‘higher’-‘higher’ implies that there has to be a ‘lower’ to be compared with. That screws up the equality. Now let’s begin with the equal, egalitarian society. In this society, everybody is equal, which means that all have equal wages, equal status. That means those putting in better efforts in ‘pursuit of happiness’are getting the same returns as those putting in feeble attempts. That screws up the justice part. Now let’s assume the third case. It is an egalitarian society, where every body has equal status and equal wages. Justice is taken care of by making everybody put equal efforts in the ‘pursuit of happiness’. Now, since the laggards cannot match the efforts of the frontrunners, it is front runners who have to come down to the level of the laggards. So the better part of the society is forced to under perform. That screws up the freedom part. This analysis, in a nutshell, is the difference between a capitalist democracy (e.g. the USA), a socialist democracy (e.g the Republic of India) and a communist state ( e.g. the USSR). Of course, there are many more ways to solve the problem. In place of reining in the frontrunners, one could just cleanse off the laggards - that screws up both freedom and justice, and the result is a fascist dictatorship (e.g. the Third German Reich). All I wanted to show by this long series of assumptions and hypotheses is that one cannot have all the three pillars of democracy standing under the same edifice, as long as the individual humans are unique. So that’s something similar to the second law of thermodynamics, as it defines an upper cap to the level we can achieve democracy in the real world. It was meant to simply show that there is nothing called an absolute democracy- we just have different blends of democracy. Don’t you commit the mistake of not counting the communists in the list of democracies, it’s just that they do not confirm to our ideals of the first kind of democracy. If everything else is discounted, the communists are the most fond of wearing democracy on their sleeves- the Red China styles itself ‘ Peoples’ Republic of China’ and the East Germany was also known as the ‘German Democratic Republic’ !! ( By the way, I just remembered that North Korea is also called something with ‘democratic’ in it)
Let’s get back to the Lincoln quote. Which one of these contenders for the title of ‘Democracy’ was he referring to? Since we do not have the means of accompanying Bill and Ted in their excellent adventure (if you do not get the last one, watch the movie by the same name- not related remotely to the topic, but a good entertainer), we must guess- and the obvious guess is the American form of democracy- which stays primarily on the posts of liberty and justice. Equality is confined to political one, and not force-fed down people’s throat as our leaders would have here in India. Obviously, the system has its merits and demerits. Merits are just hard to ignore- the country with hardly half a millennium of history is the world leader. Its military is the strongest ever assembled on the planet. Its economy continues to lead others by a huge margin. Its culture (yeah, the culture which has been developed in a short span of 100-200 years) is spreading throughout the world without any prodding, worrying all those swamis and mullahs all over the world over the ‘degrading’ western influence. It won’t be altogether wrong (although it will be politically incorrect) to state that today we are living in a sort of superstate led by the USA. Believe it or not, it is my view that world history has entered one of those long phases of relative large scale peace, e.g. Pax Romana, when large scale power struggles cease e.g. WW II, the Cold War, and one big power minds over the smaller ones. The journos have dubbed this phase as Pax Americana, and not wrongly so. There will continue to be small skirmishes, and Uncle Sam would be really irked by the way some of his recalcitrant nephews work, but one good hard spanking on the derriere would do the trick of putting them down, and none of them is really going to grab his collar and chuck him out of the house, at least in the foreseeable future. What the hell drives such huge machinery so efficiently? Liberty, for sure. People there are free- free to call Prez Bush an asshole, free to worship the God, or to spoof Him, or to have nothing to do with Him, free to decide if they want to watch sexy commercials or Tom n Jerry, free to take their girlfriends out to the city park if they want to. I may be getting a bit emotional here, counting the blessings of those Yanks, as most of these have been denied to us in the ‘world’s largest democracy’. Yet one cannot deny that nothing has been muzzled in the US. The industry is free to produce whatever it wants, and they may include death dealing machines like the F-16’s and the F/A-18’s- Uncle Sam will keep the large part, and for the rest, there is always some small scale conflict going on somewhere, isn’t it? Nobody is told what to do, what to make, what to sell, what to watch, what to eat, as long as it does not really cross the line .( You cannot really expect to assemble a nuke in your backyard and get away citing the right to freedom.) What happens next? All and sundry go on in their ‘pursuit of happiness’, and since happiness is something which is to be pursued very keenly, all go for their best chasing shoes. The best of efforts, statistically speaking, bring out the best of results. The results are out for every one to see. As we had previously derived quite mathematically, this total liberty has given rise to inequality- and definitely there are the poor guys out there, but then, they are not so poor as poor can be. While going through the Times of India a few weeks ago I read an article about poverty and came across an astonishing fact- the income level that determines the poverty line in the USA is what is considered middle class here. If that’s what poverty is, it is not so bad a poverty. It has been said that it’s better to rule in hell, than to slave in heaven, but I guess the guy who said this had not seen hell firsthand!!! What I mean to say is that in a whole perspective, most of the West’s poor are better than the middle classes of the third world. So why not take on this system and be done with it?? Did I hear you mutter Iraq? Or Afghanistan? Yeah, strangely, the Yanks and Brits type of democracy does not seem to function everywhere. The reason is simple- for a world class sophisticated machinery to be installed, one needs world class infrastructure. The western democracy is based on the strength of general education, a sense of nationhood and responsibility, and above all, a morbid fear of wars close home. The education makes one aware of one’s right- so that no one tramples them, and of other’s rights , so that they are not trampled by mistake. (Just another digression, but how many of you know that the cops who participated in the Meerut and Aligarh moral pogrom actually thought they were doing their legal duties!!) A sense of nationhood and responsibility is needed to allow for a bit for self policing, so that we do not cheat our fellow citizens, and the nation, and do our best for a positive growth. A fear of war will avoid daily brawls ending up as communal clashes. The last two together go into eliminating the need for eliminating a heavy policing- which means a true liberated society. Needless to say, Iraq hardly qualifies, and Afghanistan would be a poor joke if even compared on this scale. What about India? I think at least twenty more years are needed. That’s the least- I’ve not accounted for the socialists and moralists yet.
Let’s examine the third type of system at the second place, because the third one hits closer home, and shall have to be taken in detail at last. The communist model-all work equally, all earn equally and all rot equally. This type of model had a really short shelf life and has gone out of stock in 1990’s ( a few of them have been kept preserved in India, of course). I say this because China has left that communist market model at the time the communist edifices were going crashing down in Europe. Now it’s a case somewhat like the fourth minor form of ‘democracy’ I had described. Yeah, we do not have any parallel for Herr Fuehrer in the Chinese government, but essentially the system is same. The market is free, the governance is not. The government leaves the market alone as long as the market does not mess with the government. Symbiosis, anyone? Of course, we are digressing. I was writing about communism- not much to write in layman’s terms. It was an enforced equality at the expense of liberty, and may be sometimes even justice. The standard of living was low-across the linguistic, national or any other sort of boundary. e.g. the GDR was the most economically developed of the Warsaw Pact members. ( You must have guessed it why- because they were Krauts- really these guys have a thing for development.) Yet, the GDR economy did not even came close to comparison with FRG economy, and that economic polarization was so severe that even 17 years after the reunion, the west is pumping money into the east to bring it up to scratch. So that shows the difference between a free Kraut and a commy Kraut. Yeah, the commies were all equal, and all equally poor. Were they happy at their equality, at the thought that the neighbour next door, and the one next to him, were feeling as deprived as they were? If the records of the no. of persons who died trying to scale the Wall show any thing, the answer is a big no. The mere presence of the wall showed that the entire system was repulsive. Obviously its creators had got their priorities wrong. Now I haven’t read Marx’s ‘The Capital/ Das Kapital’, nor much about his ideas, but I’ve heard he thought communism was the next step in the evolutionary ladder, after feudalism and capitalism. Well, as history has shown us, it was not as much of an evolution, as that of a genetic engineering job, that too horribly botched up. Their intentions might have been good- they saw the proles starving, while the bourgeoisie swelled their bellies. So they thought, lets kill these fat GFN’s ( good for nothing- for the uninitiated- go learn the SMS lingo, that’s what we will speak in late 21st century) Then these GFN’s wealth could be divided amongst the proles, who would now get their daily bread, and would be happy. Unfortunately, they did not see beyond this point while planning their system. They did not see that once the proles got their daily bread, they would try to have bit of butter too. May be some cocoa or red wine. Why not meat? Unfortunately , the system was already built, to ensure that each of the prole- the hard working prole, the lazy prole, the pious prole, the drunkard prole, the eastern prole and the western prole, the prole who has the potential to rule, and the prole who is surviving on grace- in short each of the prole, could get the bread- whether their efforts were bread worthy or not. Well, the breads do not rain, they are made by efforts- one bread per one bread worthy efforts, two for a ‘bread-n butter’ worthy effort, three for a ‘bread, butter and cheese’ worthy effort, and so on. Initially, all worked to their full strength, and on an average, the non bread worthy attempts were cancelled out by ‘bread and butter’ worthy attempts- and in the end, all had bread-but just the bread. The writing on the wall was clear- YOU GET JUST THE BREAD. So the one’s capable of ‘bread and butter’ worthy attempts moderated their efforts to match the yields. In the aggregate, this meant lesser no. of breads, and hence all got less than one bread-even those who had made the ‘full bread’ worthy attempts. This led to gradual resentment. Some capable of ‘bread and butter’ worthy attempts fled, others were shot while fleeing. The result- continuously lesser and lesser number of breads-until an implosion occurred- the reaction time was approximately 70 years, a wink in the long history. Communist system, though the best in theory, has failed most miserably in all the places it took roots. Worker’s took just 20 odd years to get disenchanted with the Worker’s paradise, and 50 more years to overthrow it for the humble ‘earthy’ freedom. Communism is best when everybody is very poor and hardly gets a subsistence, because then any sort of help from the government will be welcome. Life is definitely more important than standard of living. Yet, once the life attains a certain degree of security with respect to food and shelter, a man craves for more- and this ‘more’ cannot be achieved in the shackled communist regimes. Kudos to the comrades for lifting the czarist Russia and the largely underdeveloped China of 1949 to the present level of standing. However, the roads further cannot be traversed by muzzling the human free will, but by channelizing it properly in a free market.

Just for the moment imagine what would have happened if the writing on the wall had not been so damning. What if it had said- YOU GET THE BREAD, AND YOU MIGHT GET THE BUTTER. This is the second form of democracy, the socialist model- welcome to India. In this system, you can get the butter, at least theoretically so. So the people do not try to flee the system as much as in the communist system- they hang on to that hope of butter. Sometimes, they feel frustrated at the bread they are receiving in lieu of ‘bread and butter’ worthy efforts, and rein in their efforts. The number of breads goes down, and all get less than usual share of bread. However, in the long run, the optimists win, and again efforts are made to get to that fleeting butter. Meanwhile, such system evolves such people who subsist only on the butter, some who denounce the butter as evil- against the morality of frugality our forefathers have been teaching. In the end, some of the lucky ones do get the butter, but majority get less than the required share of even bread. However, the writing on the wall remains unchanged. While living under this sort of system is less torturous physically as compared to that under the communist regimes, it can be argued that it is much more frustrating mentally. So I cannot clearly say which form of democracy falls behind. The commies were bad, but so are ones running the show called ‘world’s largest democracy’. In the words of the great KS, the politicians here are congested with too much of power and often let out puffs of malodorous gases. In my opinion, this ‘socialist democracy’ is the worst form of democracy after the demise of the Nazi state and the communist bloc. Time and again, history has shown us how people have risen against tyrants and tyrannies to put in a better system. However, these socialists are no tyrants in the sense of the word, but they are killing the country. Don’t think of a stab or a gunshot wound- think gangrene or consumption, or in words of Lyngdoh, a cancer. One can either run away from the tiger, or fight it with all one's strength, or get mauled by it; but one faced with a barrage of mosquitoes often gives up after a few swats here and there. Same is the condition here. No great stalinist purges, no tsarist pogroms, but quite obviously, the State is at a battle against its own people, with the help of its own people. It has happened before- white colonists have done it before, and now the brown colonists are doing it. Yes, we still have some examples of a few exceptions, who dare challenge this system and get their bread, butter and cheese despite the system, but the majority is still like the horse on blinkers. If this is democracy, then God help us!
[P.S. This one article has been written over a cumulative period of many damned hot holiday afternoons, when one does not have just anything to do. So there may seem to be really big chasms in various ideas put out there. The problem is that I really have so much to say about all this (yeah, I just love yakking) that I cannot put them serial wise one at a time. If you do care to read this one and want to know more, just contact me.]

On Driving

2007-09-03T22:53:00.000-07:00

This summer I had planed to learn three things- How to swim, how to play a guitar, and how to drive? Of the three, I had rated them the hardest to the easiest respectively. Swimming would naturally have been a tough thing to learn for an overweight and overgrown kid. As far as music is concerned, I felt I was adept at playing the synthesizer, and graduating to a string instrument like guitar felt like the logical next step. Driving- that had to be a piece of cake- I am a mechanical engineer, and recently I had been hired by the country’s biggest car makers- of course driving was going to be no sweat.
The result in the end- I know how to swim a distance of 30 metres or so after a lot of huffing and puffing. Breathless gliding was easy as no effort had to be made in order to float, but that was no swimming, and definitely no fun. I made lesser progress with the guitar- never got ahead of my Do-Re-Mi. It’s just so effing irritating. I kept on plucking the wrong string while pressing the right one on the fret board, or the other way. Yet, however hopeless I was at playing the guitar, I was never pissed off. (Of course, I could always accompany with a synth.) The thing that hurt me the most was the fact that I was hopeless at driving. That’s it. I have said it. In a world where boys are rated according to their toys, and all talk is about the latest hot chick or the latest hot bike, I am a misfit.
Not that I was always so inept with the devices of locomotion. In my toddler years, I was an accomplished tricyclist (if there is such a thing!) . It did not take long to switch from three wheels to two. When I was six, I got my first kid bicycles, the one with short stunt wheels on either side, and soon I was zooming along at high speeds, and soon the stunts came off, and I was riding a true bicycle.
Then came my boarding school years- in the heart of the Himalayas, where one had no scope for any sort of biking or driving. Ten ignorant years passed, and in 2004 I was back in the big mean world, a world where most of my peers knew how to drive. In my Oak Grove days, I had replied to inquiries about my driving experience by stating the fact that I had no driving license, but now I was 18, and no such excuses could be made. Well, before going on to the big things, one ought to begin small, or so I thought. So I once took myself to a go carting rink.
Well, a go-cart is a really treacherous machine assembled by engineers. It looks so bloody simple- a small engine, powering the rear wheels, while a rudimentary steering steered the front end. One pedal for gas, one for brakes. No gears, no tension. So I went on and had my Schumacher moment . It was really simple. Push the pedal, gain the speed, slow at the turns. So I was feeling really good, but that feel good lasted only a few seconds. I saw my younger brother really tear the tracks down with an exceptionally fast lap-zooming along. Well, the good old vixen called envy rose from its slumber, and I paid for a second lap. This time, I meant business. Pressing the pedal into the floor, I just let the speed soak in like some drug. It was easy, zoom full speed to the curve, slam on the brakes, while steering, and then slam on the gas again. The low height cart had no danger of toppling over. It went all good until the last curve. I was waiting to get there in order to unveil my masterpiece. I wanted to negotiate it in an exceptionally high speed, by waiting on the brake till the last second, while accelerating all the while till the moment. Those who have seen dive bombers in low dives, pulling off at the last moment, know what I was thinking of achieving. Well, Math has never been my favourite subject, and I miscalculated. I could never make that curve at that speed without stopping. I t would have spoiled the neat show I was about to make ( how often do dive bombers pause in mid dive above the skyline, ponder a moment and then go back up??) Still, the worse was yet to come. In my haste to stop, I pressed on the pedal hard, only to realize that it was not the brake pedal- no points for guessing, it was the gas. What happened next was spectacular. My cart went into the banks of old tyres flanking the rink, and packed enough punch to uproot the steel frame fence beyond. As for me, I was flung right out of the seat, over the steering wheel, over the tyres and the fence into the soft flower bed. I don’t remember it, but the folks told that I lay still for a few seconds, and they feared I was hurt badly. Of course I was, but not physically. Miraculously, I was totally unscathed, the flower bed was soft, and luckily the fence had gone down , because those jagged edges could have done some good harm. However, the way I was hurt on the inside cannot be put down in words. It all happened in full public view, and as my folks remarked later, in a Tom-n-Jerry fashion. They rued that the camcorder had no spare reel left to catch the incident!!
So it was this year that I took it upon myself to learn driving once more. Well, in the job interviews, they often ask of mechanical engineer, “While driving, have you ever noticed…..” It felt very odd to tell them that I haven’t learnt to drive. Once again, I tried to begin small, and took a scooter for the job. Well, a scooter is definitely, a tougher beast than a go-cart. It has got ‘gears’. I knew the theory, courtesy the AutoBook I had crammed up earlier in order to appear in that interview. Start the engine, revv it up, engage the gear, engage the clutch slowly while increasing on the gas. Well, practically it was much tougher. First thing was learning how to mount the beast. Bicycles are mounted by throwing the right leg around and across, and I tried the same on the scooter, nearly bringing it upon myself. Then I was told to mount it like one would mount a ladies’ cycle. Well that was accomplished. Next came the starting. After getting the kicker slam on my ankles a number of times ( and for the love of God, it hurt!!) I managed to get it started. Now came the real problem-releasing the clutch while increasing the throttle opening, just in the right amount to glide along slowly gaining speed. It looked so damned easy, but it wasn’t. Either I was wringing the accelerator so much that I was racing along towards the nearest wall, or I did it so feebly as to stall the engine: Worst was the case when I released the clutch too quickly and shot off like a Jack-in-the-box. Wow, after half an hour of careful and anxious guidance, I managed to take one round of the ground, and then another. That’s all the ‘flight hours’ I have ever logged on a geared vehicle, and even that exhausted me so much that I didn’t touch the scooter or the 4-wheeler after that. I have foot plated on railway locomotives, and even driving a locomotive seems easier than driving a vehicle!!
Nowadays I see perfect idiots driving along easily, and I get a big inferiority complex, more so when I spotted one of my Professors-I cannot name him for obvious reasons- riding along on his bike. This Professor is the worst of the kind- a duffer who does not know elementary stuff. Till our last course with him, we suspected he did not know the spring-mass frequency equation-he kept on messing it up even after copying from the book- and this semester, he proved us wrong; he doesn’t even know primary school geometry, when he designated an obviously obtuse angle as 180 degrees ( and he is an M.Tech, Ph.D, and MBA- you can just imagine how good his professors were!!) Yet, though the big duffer he is, he knows how to drive- and that has really inspired me-when the most stupid person alive can learn it, why can’t I ? So see you guys next vacation, hopefully with a driving license!!

LIVE FROM LIFE

2007-08-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

Raveesh Gupta, reporting live from the my great journey called 'life'- still a short one, but which has taken me into various places and situations which are, in one way or the other, special. It has also laid, in front of me, little nuggets and big boulders of experience-resulting into some abstract cognition. Some of the results of the mental churnings may also be dished out from time to time- on issues with a diversity ranging from political systems to Harry Potter, or from cricket to astronomy. It may look like an e-extension of my diary, or like a badly done ICS paper!! Well, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, so open the beauty vistas of your eyes and join me in my journey.