Monday, August 13, 2007 

Whose lip is it anyway ?

I used to wonder why smooching is not a common scene in India in our common lives, after all males/females irrespective of spatial differences must have the inherent nature to express their love. Somehow we have the knack of attributing it to the so called "Indian Culture”. If at all somebody kinda does that in public, the prejudice has vocal manifestations,” Don’t those people have decency, why can’t they avoid these thing in public places?", as if they are inhumane actions. How can a country with a high level of AIDS afford such moral hegemony?

Does that mean that people in the western world are a bunch of hooligans who have no ethics?. Westerners could give a snare, if such statements are put forth. They would counter "Don't you think, it is indecent to intrude in to one's personal space or action, You have all the right to follow what you feel is right and no monarchy over what should be followed by somebody else or pass a ruthless judgment, when particularly it has nothing to do with you".

I was trying to construct the plausible reason why people in the western world started French kissing, i could think of only the climatic variables as the reason, it kinda cold as we move close to higher latitudes, the heat need to be conserved and parts of the body cannot be exposed, that should precisely be the reason why people smooch rather than kissing on chins (ways of expressing love) which is commonly observed in tropical or equatorial regions. People in the latter regions feel uncomfortable hugging as there is this sweat element or high levels of humidity. At the end of things, it is just a convenience to express oneself which became rigid rules during the course of time, where is the case of moral judgment/ethics here?

So now that we have air conditioned places and the temperatures have moderated with climatic changes, why can't people smooch in public? I used to wonder why newly married women were sent to their parent’s home during "Aadi"(Mid- July to August), the copulation was forbidden because a pregnancy could result in a child during the summer month of April. It is quite understandable as infant mortality was higher during those ages and the probability of mortality was even higher due to extreme conditions leading to dehydration. It is completely irrelevant now, people now know to use a "rubber", can take maternal care in air conditioned rooms and of course avail a cesarean child in complex cases. Where is the case of "Aadi”? The relevance of the action ceases to exist once the limitations are no longer valid.

If you search for trends for the keyword "sex" in Google trends, you can find that the Indian metropolitans top the ranks, out casting the so called "sexually suggestive" westerners. Indian society is such a sexually deprived one, the more they hide, and the more is the case for oppression in other ways. I don’t know, how our grand fathers could afford 8 or 9 children and abused their partners when they didn’t even cross their mid-teens (and these people talk about decency or civilization, don't tell me that forcing one's partner to sex in their teens is symbol of evolved civilization).Our grand fathers must have been deprived of sex, they forced the partner to pregnancy, deprive themselves of sex for the next 10 months, build frustrations and start the cycle again once the baby was delivered, they could have at least used the 14 day cycle to prevent pregnancy’s.I can't stop shouting as to who were masochist?, which society was more prone to such abuses?. The westerns would rather ask "How is that your country which is conservative, produced Kama sutra?".

Now to this thing called virginity and the over duly importance it is given in Indian society, Virginity is seen as a moral tool to differentiate, Does that mean that men/women in the western world are morally inferior?. I am just thinking of reasons again. When is a rule imposed? Only when they had cases of it’s unduly overruling in the precedent past? It suggests that pre-marital or post marital was quite common in the past; we should look at our epics (especially Mahabharata) to know how prevalent it was? It is an off late phenomenon, Women were never not given their freedom, men slaved then (signs of a highly evolved civilized society), and they were pseudo servants in the name of house wives. Nobody can live without self esteem, they need something to uphold, a metric by which they can justify and judge their lives, preferably something which does not hurt the men, for they could easily strip it. Men could sleep with many women but never would women.If women were morally superior, then whom did these men sleep with? They would even go to the extent of accepting their husbands in any form but they would proclaim themselves to be morally sacrosanct, because they had nothing else to judge others.

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Thursday, August 02, 2007 

Jack of All or King of One ?

I was pondering over how our lives have become mono-dimensional; we specialize in a particular skill and try to churn/perfect it during the course of life. We are in such a stage of evolution that we need a specialist for everything, in due course, we could also have a expert who teaches Samba dance to South Indians with a BharathaNatyam fusion for a drama which unfolds in the midnight of a atypical summer season which has had heavy showers.

In the view of evolutionary biologists, all that sits, walks, talks and shouts on this earth now, evolved from unicellular organisms and gradually mutated to be what we are now. It is not just the organisms, it is with the organs as well, it is the same gene morphing as different cells and it activates itself to form a nose and inhibits itself from becoming a hand. If that is how nature conducts itself, no wonder in spite of being similar humans, we specialize in skills and create a "niche" for ourselves.

Some thousand years back, the way of living was very different, even as we leaped out of nomadic life, man was kind of versatile, he was kinda jack of all, he would do most of the activities which would be part of his life style, right from growing and rearing what he wanted to eat, building an home for himself and guarding it.

He was kind of self sustained to meet his needs. It was only with the advent of specialization and the thought to explore beyond the basic needs that things became complex, the barter system had to be instituted to exchange goods or services. It lead to another problem, what one produced was needed by somebody but the counterparty cannot give what this person needed. This was the most complex problems of all, it led to the most dangerous invention man has ever invented "Money", it solved the problem, and people could avail goods/services irrespective of the counterparty.

Over diversification in fact produce inferior results, it is precisely the reason why we don't produce great films compared to Hollywood. An Indian film is always produced with the motive of mass entertainment, it has to necessarily have five songs, four scenes with social perspective (including fights), three comedy scenes, two romantic scenes and one goodie goodie climax. Most important of all, the entire screenplay, dialogue and direction would be mostly done by a single person. The hero is supposed to possess every dimension, he needs to be exemplary in dancing, kissing, fizzing, sentimentizing and what not, how on earth can somebody be adept in enacting all this, which is why we produce very average films.

This attitude gives a great understanding of the Indian psyche, If films can be dubbed as the satisfaction of the mind's fantasy, then we are trying to heal our egos by accepting a fantasy that somebody can be so versatile and this is accepted by the society as a whole, it even means that the society as a whole is deprived of a life which they want to pursue.

In the world of investing, a prudent investor with an average risk aversion would have his portfolio diversified into various stocks. It would be ideally distributed among growth stocks which have a large upside potential, market stocks which move with the market and defensive stocks which are quite muted when the market falls. Essentially we are trying to mitigate the risk associated with the return in our portfolio. Over diversification is discouraged as it only adds to the cost of monitoring many stocks with very marginal reduction in risk.

The general sense is that Indian investors are risk averse, given an option; they would ideally put their money into a stable asset rather than a risky asset with higher upside potential. I know people in India who would take an assured sum life insurance for 10 lacs and pay a premium of around 50,000 per year just because bcos there is a stigma around "sum assured".Infact they can take a term insurance for Rs 10 Lacs (where you get no money if are alive after the end of the term) for a premium of about Rs 2,500/- per year and invest Rs 47,500 every year (Rs50,000 - Rs2500) at comparable deposit rates of 8.0% and happily get 20 Lacs at the end of 20 years whereas we would get Rs 10 Lacs in the former plan.Infact they would fund LIC for their channel inefficiency rather than securing their family.

If that is the case why is the society creating stereotypes in life styles? have we miserably failed in a creating balanced individuals or muti-chrome society?. Infact, Indians are the most risky investors in life as such!

Nature has evolved in a consistent logical way over the past 4.5 billion years, only fitter genes have survived in a certain environment irrespective of their specializations. Organisms which over specialized themselves to the existing conditions could not make it over to the next era as they had little ability to adapt to transient or abrupt changes.

It is natural to be singular as one starts, unchallenged singularity creates its own barriers, it is necessary to be divergent when it comes to building competencies whereas over diversification is futility

Jack of all and King of one can make one complete and content ?

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