World as I Think

Another Tamil Hypocrisy!

2009-02-13T10:15:00.000-08:00

Now, I got an opinion, Not that I am forced to, not even for the heck of it!
I am getting bored by this stance of human plight!

If you are asking me, if it’s wrong to get people killed in the name of race, caste, religion and innumerable distinctions this human race has created. YESSSSSS! My heart has equally wept for those souls. I don't do it just for Tamil-Lankans, I feel the same for Kashmiris, Bosnians, Shias or even Americans. Nothing to do with the Dravidian race just because I incidentally bred from them!

If you ask me on personal level, I would want such people who kill others in the name of identities to be scorched and smeared to death, but I am going to be more practical and align myself with the behavior outcomes of animals and their affliction to territory!

I belong to the camp that we are all animals and survival is the almost core principle of life!

Territory refers to any socio-graphical area that an animal of a particular species consistently defends against conspecifics (and, occasionally, animals of other species).

Behavioral ecologists have argued that food distribution determines whether a species will be territorial or not. Territoriality will emerge where there is a focused resource that provides enough for the individual or group, within a boundary that is small enough to be defended without the expenditure of too much effort.

In English, this means that I would not share my territory unless my resource needs are full filled or secured not only for this generation but also for the future to come! It is not about just food, we would not share power or any other resource with a non- identical group. What applies to Tamils in this context also applies to caste based identity and even family based identities.

There is no amicable egalitarian solution to this animal problem unless amnesia inflicts the Lankan brain. A cease fire is only a process of creating a bigger bang in the making! The non-identical group needs to accept that the land belonged to the incumbent powerful group before it was infiltrated by the former and try to live a second tier life or make a least resistance shift to a territory where it has enough sustenance!

I am not willing to buy the argument that we are evolved apes with six senses and need to be more humanitarian. I am sorry, I have never seen anybody who has reduced the greed and accepted to live a life which is less sophisticated. Neither have I seen any body who has given more emphasis to the non-identical group (read non-family and non-friends) than their identical group. I have not seen anybody who share an apartment with a complete stranger or given away the resources to a non-identical group when their group is at abyss!

By the way, I just thought of the 30% of India who are below the poverty line and living a slow death and we damn a care about them when we accumulate resources for our family. May be, our senses are attracted when it fast and sensual just like our masala movies.

Do I hear you right? HYPOCRISY. I am one tooooooooo!

Trigger for A Post

2008-12-02T04:07:00.000-08:00

At last i got the trigger to get me blogging again, Bomb blast in Mumbai. There was too much crap generated on television during the course of last week, It was a fashion statement to talk about the plight of people who lost their lives in the blast and try to sympathize. More were worried about the mental agony, Not that i want to be different or find so much solace in being a contrarian, i think it was filled with hypocrisy everywhere. I am aplomb with confidence that we will have a bigger blast in the next five years, may be even in the same places.

Some insane idiots even argue that the police men don't even have bullet proofs whereas the terrorist have superior armory. My dear buffs, we can't train police men to handle terrorists in the genre of Let!. People are outraged and want those terrorists to be publicly hanged; I think it would not solve anything at all. It would never be a deterrent to terrorists whose motive to be illogical and kill people for any plausible ideology and would not mind getting killed anyway. I am personally against capital punishment. The principle that somebody is hanged because he didn't have the right to kill somebody else seems a laughing paradox when we hang the person who committed the crime. They would have infinite reasons, may be, even very logically justice consistent, it might have been an outburst after cuckold politicians took the religion color in the Babri Masjith and Godhra incident. They might have lost their kins or close friends. I am not painting a counter defense just for the heck of it, i am just saying that if somebody is to be hanged please consider L.K Advani & Narendar Modi in the pipeline even before those terrorist are hanged. What kind of demeaning people are these, including the opposition who don't even have the balls to come to an all party meeting to discuss terror. I am no congress men, neither do i have affliction for them, they are play minority politics to garner votes. I just feel that they don't exploit the majority or provoke them against the minority which is far more deadly.Infact the BJP states were so power selfish to give away any state powers to handle terror in the last Conference on Terror.

People have suddenly realized that there should be accountability for power. Fuck you citizens; these so called newly reenacted citizens are lambasting their politicians for their (so called citizens) impotence to be part of governance. When all these castrated middle class want their children to be cutting and pasting in some IT company, how do you expect learned/competent people to be managing us. This Hun Gama will all be over, the same buffaloes (citizens again) will be basking in their sense of comfort not willing to take any responsibility to a worthy citizen. Let the so called hyperactive citizens pay their taxes and avoid paying bribes, if at they have balls left!. Suddenly these people are worried about the odd 200 dead in the terrorist attack not because of their humanitarian grounds, but because they feel, they too would have a fair chance to be dead in the next attack. It they really think about the fellow citizens being killed, let us smell our hypocrisy, there are so many farmers dying slow death every day. Don’t ever think that it is the government’s responsibility. If at all we pay our taxes properly they would have enough subsidies to make their lives better. If you thought why i should subsidize them, wake up they are subsidizing your food!.

About the accountability factor, if at all somebody is to be behind bars, all these insane experts on CNBC TV 18/financial advisers need to be hanged for all their opinion and suggesting investments at the end of bull markets. I know people who lost much of their wealth because some idiot advised them to enter the market at every correction. I know my friends who in spite of being in the investment community gave a damn before any opinion. I don’t know anybody in my floor or profession who took "moral responsibility" for vanquishing the wealth of their clients just because of insane advises.

I don't think terror can be wished away, it is here to stay. It would find many reasons. It might be religion, caste or economic disparity. Only solace could be if we have better responsive system!

Mind Your Language !

2008-07-22T23:46:00.000-07:00

I read somewhere that if there are living intellectuals of the century, there are notably three; Richard Dawkins, Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky. The first one, an ardent atheist/evolutionary biologist, the second, a philosopher and the last one a linguist. One thing common to them was that they dissected the society/human psychology in their own perspective. The protagonists critically claim that they did it more sanguinely and genuinely than the conformist.

Somehow, I didn't get the link of the study of language with the criticism of society for some time. Although the mind sublimely accepts that most often language correlates with a person's character. If we all progressed from the forests of Africa and spread all over the globe, there must have been a language coherence assuming we dispersed when we had reached critical levels of cognizance to even seek new places. I really can't even guess as to how we would think without language, of course, if we were from the apes, we would have rather survived with instincts.

In my view, If there is some invention/discovery that remarkably changed the way we evolved to live life, it is fire, as history claims but i would rather defiantly proclaim that language would have been the giga-leap which changed the way we live. I think that the invention of language levered the productivity of accumulated knowledge. Communication is essential for survival as a group, although non-verbal communication constitutes about 65% of the chunk, i think that written/spoken language plays a pivot role in knowledge transmission whereas the former might be a good indicator of behavior.

It always puzzles me as to how different languages have different sounds. It could not have been a mere coincidence or non purposefulness even though it may have been involuntary. As surmised in the kiss theory, i felt language must have a correlation with the climatic conditions. I believe in evolution and so extending it, I think that even phonetics/phonology of a language must have gone through the process of adaptation and mutation to accommodate the externalities. Survival is the key objective of evolution; energy is what drives life, so it is essential to conserve it incases of extreme conditions.

Heat in the body need to be conserved, so i kind of guess that the mouth needs to be shut more often in the western world (which is cold) than in the tropical countries to maintain the body temperature. The more it is open, higher the amount of calories needs to be burnt in a colder climate than a warmer one. (The more we open our mouth, the more we expose ourselves to the external work and heat is transferred from our body to the outer world. As Heat transfer occurs from to a hot to colder body, so more calories need to be burnt to maintain the body temperature).Extending it, may be that is why the western world (colder climate) is more crisp and articulate and the eastern (tropical climate) world is more ambiguous (there is less urgency to arrive at a solution)

While I was googling around, i came across interesting piece of research which suspects that there might me a correlation between the sonority of language and the climate .As i was thinking why people in cold countries communicate more closely, physics came to aide. According to thermodynamics the density of air is inversely proportional to the temperature. So warm the climate, the less dense the air. This effectively means that there is less hindrance for sound waves to move across in the medium (air here).This means that for the lowest energy to be expended for speaking, we need to be communicating nearer. For the same amount of energy, the people in warmer climates can afford to communicate at a far more distance than the colder ones.

The phonetics of any language is built with consonants and vowels. Vowels are open sounds whereas consonants are closed sounds. To produce varied and intelligible sounds the sound patterns need to be accompanied by the combination of open and close sounds (loosely syllables).To speak and produce different sounds the mouth needs to closed and subsequently open. In terms of sound production, a vowel is a single speech sound produced by vibrating the vocal cords without any obstruction for the airflow from the lungs whereas a consonant is a sound which is obstructed in some way by a tongue or lips. This effectively means than air flow is more continuous while vowels are produced and hence this should accompany with the transfer of heat from our lungs to the outer place.

According to the heat conservation principles the colder climate languages should have lesser vowels to retain heat. Deducing from the earlier air density principle, the warmer climate languages need more audible sounds (vowels) as they tend to increase the carrying power of speech sounds and, hence, audibility at a distance. The study also asserts that the indigenous languages of tropical and subtropical climates in contrast to the languages spoken in temperate and cold zones manifested high levels of sonority.

Coming to the energy utilization pattern, the minimum energy (Basal Metabolic Rate :BMR) expended while at rest in a neutrally temperate environment just sufficient for the functioning of the vital organs tends to be lower for warmer climates compared to colder climates, even after controlling for body size and composition. And for the climate effect, cold weather climates increase the body’s efforts to regulate its temperature more than hot climates. This is the reason why the bodies try to maintain a lower metabolic rate in colder climates to counteract the temperature effect. You must have felt hungry more often in winter than in summer, given the same activity cycle.

From the point of view of a speech-language perspective, breath is the basis of speech. All words and sentences are produced on an exhalation. At the end of each sentence, it is necessary to take a quick inhalation, after which the next new sentence is articulated on an exhalation. Since most sentences last anywhere from two to fifteen seconds, the dynamics of breathing require sufficient breath control to allow enough time for the person speaking to complete the sentence. The yogic practices advise a ratio of 1:2 (inhalation to exhalation time) or even longer exhalation time for better health. This has greater implications, in order to conserve heat the breathing frequency should be lower in colder regions, and this also means that the intake "ventilatory volume" should be more in colder climates to suffice a longer breathing cycle which tends to be longer to conserve heat. I was wondering if the syllabic structures of languages have evolved to suit different breathing frequencies to optimize the exhalation process.

As i was discussing with a friend of mine, he had another observation to share with me, he said that the economic status of the person/ general affluence of the region might determine the sweetness of the language. He is a marketer and tends to be across places and people. He said that people in Coimbatore tend to be more courteous and sonority tends to be sweeter (the place of "Kongu Tamil" which is claimed to be "Konjum Tamil" ), whereas the people in the Northern part of Tamil Nadu Vellore/thiruvallur/villupuram district" tend to be harsh. This kind of tweaked my brain and wanted to check if the perception was right. I asked people around me to rank people's vocal behavior (courteousness to harsh), Climate (pleasant to uncomfortable) and general economic Status (Good to Bad) across regions in Tamil Nadu.Boy, oh boy! Believe me; everybody was almost consistent in their rankings. Everybody ranked Coimbatore region to be soft spoken and the northern districts to be harsh. Adding spice to it, the ranking was almost similar for the climate and economic status (at least the first and the last were same in all the cases as the language sonority ranking).This cannot be pure coincidence.

If the above climate factor was true then language and economic status might be tied as well. The regions which are mostly arid mostly tend have a better economic status than the tropical ones.

There have been varied number of hypothesis which has been put across in this post but some seem to be divergent which reality. I feel that natural languages must have evolved to adapt climate and hence breathing cycles/metabolic rates/communication distance/vegetation and so forth. The dominance of a particular parameter might have defined the phonetics and syllabic structure to enhance survival.

As I had a gasp of relevance of language with the climate, it has sprouted another farm of questions. What is the impact of immigration of people in one climate to another? .The consequence of adapting to diametrically sonorous language? If different languages have different tones/rhythms, then what would be the impact of cognition at different stages of life? Why have some languages survived for a long time than others?

I seeee I C everywhereee

2008-04-29T06:19:00.000-07:00

If the last post was about superiority complex, this is about the other end 'inferiority complex', in fact as we delve deeper, both of them are the manifestations of the ego's abnormality arising out of our self judgment। It takes a lot of courage to accept that we might posses it and even more to overcome, if it’s necessary. There are various metrics to create inferiority complex: physical abilities, mental & material (m&m) abilities, emotional abilities and social dis-advantages.

Inferiority complex due to physical abilities is not consciously selected by the individual but is mostly a negative feedback from the society and this genre of 'complex' mostly cannot be reverted or adversely changed as there are limitations to overrule nature or the gene. Michael Jackson is a classic example of being a victim of this syndrome; in spite of being a genius he muffled himself with color. Stephen Hawking is a classic example of people who broke the clutches of the physical world to transpire into the world of intellectual glory. I am not going to advocate that beauty is inner and physical attributes can change. What is you see is what you see; abnormal things tend to signal aberrations in the mind unless we get use to it or respect things as they are. I still have an awkward feeling when i see reptiles. The mind has a way of relating abnormal features with morality as if gundas have crippled legs and scared faces (just stealing it from Anbe Sivam).This is a negative feedback from the society which seeds the semblances of IC.

About m&m abilities, now to the root cause, karmic humans are at least driven by a motive (desire); in this journey we acquire various identities through the facets of knowledge, wisdom and skill. The material and mental abilities are acquired through the blend of the above mentioned facets and of course luck (random causes).I would classify family wealth as physically acquired ability rather than oneself. Now as we move along, we set benchmarks (both voluntary and forced by the environment) to evaluate and more often judge our self in this game of progress towards what we want to be.

Its a tricky situation when we have to judge ourselves, in this ugly game we often end up judging our benchmarks when in fact we need to be observe it objectively. We can see the symptoms everywhere, some people identify themselves with every identify of the association (friends, schools, parents.. clubs.. education) they have, its an extreme case where the individual is trying to overcome the lack of their self identity based on benchmarks which they have set to themselves. "Yeahh even my xxxxx is ........ (MBA/ dancer/certified/millionaire...)".We try to overcome our inferiority complex by coupling ourselves with some superior ego with that attribute. This eventually leads to dilution of the self identity and becomes a vicious game to self destruct our personality. If this was total unguarded against the assault of one's personality, there is a case of outright cynical attitude about people who have the superior attribute. This kind of inferiority complex is worst of all, it creates depression and sense of negative vibes about the attribute which aboutwe have an inferior feeling .If somebody is a versatile dancer or thinker and we are not and feel inferior about it, we end being completely cynical about the attribute citing the drawbacks of possessing that attribute. This often flares up jealousy, outright rejection and ‘attribute' blasphemy which is unwarranted.

The inability to emote appropriately is another source of inferiority complex. Some cannot laugh, cry, romance, exhibit anger or express love and care. There is often a desire to express/receive those emotions. In cases of deprivation or malfunction (in certain cases), an IC develops, an aversion to the expression of such feelings. The signs of emotional IC are confirmed when emotional blackmail is used as a tool to get things done.

The IC complex due to social dis-advantages (economic class/ caste/ creed/ religion/ gender/ ideology...) is easiest to overcome on a individual basis but more difficult to overcome as a systemic mindset.

Inferiority Complex
A persistent sense of inadequacy or a tendency to self-diminishment, sometimes resulting in excessive aggressiveness through overcompensation.

“Inferiority Complex: a conviction by a jury of your fears.”

Mediocrities everywhere... I absolve you

2008-04-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

Salieri : I will speak for you, Father. I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint.
Salieri : Mediocrities everywhere... I absolve you... I absolve you... I absolve you... I absolve you... I absolve you all

This is the dialogue which Antonio Sallie leaves in the air at the end of the movie Amadeus , creating a sense of guilt in the mind of every mediocrite (almost all of us, at one point or another) who have incessantly crawled this world. It is a fictional play in the "technical" sense but very real, in its real sense. Initially, Sallie is jittered by the contention that there is somebody superior (Mozart here) to him with far fluent abilities. As he gets to indulge himself in the artistic expressions of Mozart, his brain accedes to the ingenuity of Mozart but his ego propels jealousy. He ultimately plots the demise of the genius and succeeds in it as well.

The crux of the story, a superior "ego" soaked in its own glare insanely defends the flare of another thought which questions the ignorance or assumptions of the bloated superior ego. I have been in this bloated plane many times and equally received the farce look as well. As I reckon and unbundled them, in most of the cases, there is either the over estimation of our convictions or the gross underestimation of the opponent. In the former case, once we are used to the expert image or evolved status, we eventually get drowned in the gravity of our own arrogance unwilling to admit that we have limited knowledge or experience as well. There is a stern defense to accept the truth as there is an inherent fear that we might loose our pseudo elite status. I was recently caught with an argument with a friend of me, in fact I look to him for any clarification on any subject matter, but it happened that I had to confront him in a topic which he was unaware। As I was quite comfortable with the topic I expressed my view but it was out rightly negated. The reason as I could see ,was the bloated superior ego was unwilling to accept ignorance as it could not give away the pride factor.

There is another instance which I remember .If you have watched this song "Pookuri Pongal" from the movie Pokuri. There is a tiny part where both Prabhu Deva and Vijay dance together. I was really surprised by the kind of nervy consciousness which Vijay was going through. Vijay is one of the most profound dancers in the Tamil film industry but Prabhu Deva is the pioneer of the concurrent form of dancing and one of the most elegant, compared to the peers. I would rate Vijay in the same ivory league when it comes to dancing.As i watched the song,I felt he was feeling too conscious about people judging him with Prabhu Deva, He was kinda competing hard to maintain the “supremo” status and end of the day could not justify the freaky section even though he possessed the natural flair for dancing.

At times, when I think of it and feel the gravity of my ego blinding me, I remember this dialogue in the movie Bharth quoted Rajini

"தான் தான் பெரியவன்னு எவனும் நினைசுட கூடாது ஆவனுக்கு அப்பனும் பிறந்து இருப்பான்"

None should think that he is the “one”, there would be some one far superior born

Can You Invest in Gold ?

2008-03-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

Its kinda becoming like a economics/ fianance blog still I thought it might help some people who are looking for cues to invest in gold.This is part of a mail which I mailed across to my friend penning my thoughts about investing in gold. I have tried to ascertain the direction of gold prices given my current perceptions and level of knowledge.

Below is the chart( click the image for a better view) of different asset classes compared with each other on the logarithmic scale.

Key Observations:

Equity and Gold have moved in opposite direction since 1970 .
Commodities including Gold, Copper and Oil have moved similary ( the linear trend ) .
US dollar moves in the opposite direction to gold (negative correlation is lower) but gold has moved more steeper in the upward direction in the recent past against the dollar.
Peculiarly, all the asset classes have been in the uptrend barring the dollar after a large infusion of liquidity in the global markets since the Fed cut the rates to 100 bps in 2001 .

Investment Corrolaries

Gold is a hedge against the dollar, it is presumed that it is better to invest in gold as it yields a higher return compared to the US dollar assets which would yield negative or paltry return (Fed has been aggressively cutting rates and is expect to come to 100 bps mid this year).Lower interest rates result in the depreciation of a currency (investors sell the currency with the lower interest rate and buy currency with higher interest rates{the supply demand theory} hence spot rates of $ has been tumbling) and the Fed is not expected to increase the interest rate again before growth picks up in the US.US is expected to get into a recession and feel the brunt for at least the next four quarters. Thus a sharp reversal in $ trend is not expected until next year, assuming US gets into a recession now.

Fed is expected to cut rates; as a consequence, liquidity is expected to be at higher levels once the credit crisis subsides, this should logically fuel the prices of all asset classes. Now if US gets into recession the equity class would not perform and it is widely expected that S&P 500 would fall by 20% if US gets into a recession, so ideally going by past, gold should be bought as an alternative to equities.

Commodities are expected to outperform given the demand supply mismatch due to huge demand from developing countries (esp China & India) but the real question is whether slow down in US & developed world would reduce the demand and hence reduce the deficit and hence result in a cool off in commodity prices.

To invest in gold or not now ?

Gold & commodities in my view are at least 10-15% below their peaks, so ideally, they must correct or reverse the trend after it. The real state of US economy must be clear by Q3 2008, so ideally any new trend should happen then. If the US Equities correct by 10-15% by then and economy picks up, we can be almost sure that the trend is going to reverse. That is when Fed should ideally start increasing the rates and dollar must see any reasonable strength. This would bring back the confidence in the dollar and investors must flee gold.

The risks to the above conclusions are that the US might enter into a stagflation environment (the US GDP/prices falls even though there is a steep increase in inflation/ cost of input materials which cannot be passed on to the cosumers as there is a lack of consumer demand in a recessionary environment).The probable reasons should be that commodities demand supply gap is persistent and the prices do not come down. This is a good scenario for considering gold as an investment.

If US shows the middle finger to the recession scare and returns to throttle in another two quarters, then gold would correct sooner or later.

It all depends of when uncle Sam is expects to come back with a bang.

The market and the Sadist in me

2008-02-01T01:10:00.000-08:00

I have always had this strong conviction, every living organism is selfish and it tries to protect itself and survive when things are against the tide and tries to ride it when it soars up and in both the cases tends to overrule the greater good. I could get the glimpse of the selfish sadist in me today.

I have been investing in the markets for the last six months and have made some healthy profit till the beginning of this year. Things were in euphoric mode, investing in any crapy stock gave handsome profit and irrational exuberance prevailed. Experts were divided about the journey the indices were about to take, I was strongly advocating a case that Indian markets were headed south before going north again. I was greedy as well, I knew i had to move into cash but the nagging greed of marginal profit kept me in the market, One sane thing which i did was to move most of my investment into a single stock which was fundamentally strong.

It was a Monday, at last I said enough is enough, I was planning to move in to cash and book losses, Murphy reincarnated, the markets crashed by 10%, there was a huge dent in my the portfolio and I was in a precarious situation, the loses were far from marginal to be booked. I decided to wait with a false hope that prices would go up although I had advised my other friends not to dive into the market as the markets are expected to see a further carnage. A rational decision would have been to sell the stocks at lower prices and catch them at even lower prices. The markets fell by another 10% next day. There were few who short the market (selling a stock at higher prices without owning it, expecting it to fall so that you can buy them back at lower prices and settle the transaction) who were happy and talking about a further trough. People who were invested must have seen at least 30% shaved from their peak portfolio value, we were thinking, How sadist of the people who wanted a further fall (in fact it is a very rational expectation about the course of the market after the illogical upward movement since last October).

Things calmed down in the market, I borrowed some money and bought the stocks at lower prices and averaged out my portfolio (process of averaging the cost of stock by buying the stocks at lower prices when one has the same stock at higher prices).The Fed came to the rescue of the US markets and sense of relief spanned across the globe, the markets recovered, the markets had technically rebounded from the bottom. I woke up yesterday and to my surprise the markets didn't bounce back even after Federal reserve cut the rates again, something told me that this is a temporary relief and almost completely sold my portfolio and moved to cash, booking marginal loses.

There are several logical reasons why I felt the markets are going to crash again

The US is expected to slow down significantly and hence the US markets are expected to severely correct. US still contributes to 25% of the world GDP and it would definitely impact the other markets. The markets would be first stripped completely before giving their due of "growth stories”. Any number of bailout, be it credit, residential, insurance or economic stimulus is not going to solve the structural problems of US. It's time for the cycleonomics, what goes up should comes down!.

It’s high time the bubbles burst; the cruel some part of the current bull run is that almost all the asset classes (equities, commodities and real estate) are at the peak. Sooner or later they are going to burst.

An market should go up to the extent to which the earnings grows. Indian companies have had an average growth rate of 20% and the trend is expected to growth by 15% to 20% for the next five years atleast.We gained a massive 50% in the last four months of last year without any valid change in the fundamentals, so essentially they have to correct by 25% to be fairly valued. The FII's who had parked the money in our markets are booking handsome profit taking it back to their country.

Technical analysis suggests that we are in the last leg of the downtrend of the "Elliot wave", so ideally we should fall another 15%.

So you must be asking what is sadist about this?. I am expecting the market to fall steeply, now that i am safe.Infact, I know that most of my friends have their portfolio are in negative territory and retail investors would get slaughtered if it moves further down but I still feel happy about my call. In fact, we are all facing the brunt for chasing greed and irrational prices but we all loose money and sleep!

The inheritance of nuisance.

2007-12-21T01:04:00.000-08:00

I have had a staunch view about inheritance of wealth, at least personally. There have been polar arguments with my parents about it. I have been expressing my intension to decouple myself from their wealth for some years now. They had a view that I was joking and was being naive, but, now, they are feeling the weight of the argument. They are under the pretension that I am taking this decision out of the arrogance that I am earning now, for i would have taken this decision even if i were leading a lower lifestyle strata.

I always respected their care to get me where I am now; I should owe it to them for giving me a good education and life style. I hear arguments which put forth "you accommodated the care shown by them then and now they are showing more care by passing on the legacy of wealth to me, why you are refuting it”. There are different ways of approaching life, but from my conditioning, I am convinced that only a life where we make our choices makes us responsible for our life, I am more a fan of Ayn Rand's objectivism flavored through Howard Roark and that makes me more comfortable in life. Its high-time we also come to terms that laziness to earn our basket of wealth through our own effort is not an excuse to take the least resistance path. It’s even insulting to relationships when i see families where there is a deceptive gel among them just because the hinge of wealth rests with their ancestor.

I feel that inherited wealth is like subsidy, it serves no purpose by providing to people who want it the least. The whole issue is the social construct around this practice of passing the wealth from one generation to another and the condescension that one has been be a responsible ancestor securing the life of the future generations. May be, it had relevance in the days when a family had to continue its line of business, as it had more of the skill element involved in it. Specialization and resource accumulation was more important for survival, it is even important now, but the distinguishing factor is that there was a lower chance of cross- fertilization of skills across different lineages. Now, it’s a different ball game, modern educational system allows a farmer's son to learn engineering, master in nano technology and become a entrepreneur.

There is another morally inductive behavior where the next generation has to guard the wealth/ business of the current generation just because they are born to them, although they might have a diametrically different interest in life.Personal freedom is taken for a ride. It is just a probability envisaged by nature to showcase its art in creating a creature when two polar genders voluntarily or involuntarily decided to experiment with coitus.

Black Swaned

2007-12-04T06:54:00.000-08:00

If you were wondering what Black Swan is, In the words of Nassim Nicholas Taleb (the person who coined it), it is a large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations. Taleb regards many scientific discoveries as black swans—"undirected" and unpredicted.

The term black swan comes from the ancient Western conception that all swans were white. In that context, a black swan was a metaphor for something that could not exist. The 17th Century discovery of black swans in Australia metamorphosed the term to connote that the perceived impossibility actually came to pass.

Today, as i was travelling in the auto, as i crossed the first leg of my travel, I witnessed a minor accident, a small girl and her father skid and bruised themselves. I was thinking to myself, may be there is a factor a safety with me, the two wheelers are more vulnerable to accidents than auto, more over I am not driving the auto, my mood doesn't reflect in the driving (ofcourse, the auto drivers' does!).I was gratifying my decision for not owning a vehicle as of now, for i dont have any dying needs, neither do i have a girl friend nor do i traverse large distances.Most important of all, i am not locked to the burden of EMI.

I was already in the second leg, Chennai was suddenly showering, the traffic had mellowed down, the two wheelers were scratching for the non-existent trees.The vehicles on the roads were splashing trails of acid water on each other.Some people were zipping around plugged to their new identity " mobile phones". Disssssshhhhhhhhh.. traaaaaaauuuuuukkkkkkkkk .... Oooooooopsssssss .. quacccccck quacccccccck......I was getting up from a tumbled auto, people around me asking " are you ok?" .My auto driver tried to turn the auto to avert an accident with a two-wheeler who had skit when he tried to take a U-turn!.Infact i did not panic, I got up with a smile, I was not hurt to any extent, the only thing which took a hit was my pant with renewed dirt.

It was perhaps a Black Swan to me, for I didn't expect this to me,Perhaphs it was a normal event to the traffic police who picked me up, as i lay on the road.Rarity of a event is just a field of experience.I learnt it the hard way in my recent venture in stock trading, I though that my stock would not fall by 50% in a month hearing to veteran traders who would tell their own stories.After my first investment in a stock, I now have a story to tell to a naive investor but they would not take it seriously.There are always hardways to learn!

if you were thinking that something was impossible.....

The Argument Lab

2007-11-05T01:19:00.000-08:00

I was as usual putting forth an argument with my colleague about the potential impacts of Rupee appreciation, this time I "edified" a mellowed down view while he was countering it. It was "this time" because only a couple of days back I was painting an aggressive view on this issue. He was quick to react, "How can you change your view so frequently?”I have been alleged of this "tricky" act, never have I denied it.

I always considered contradictory thoughts to be perfectly normal, more convinced in cases where multiple views are quite evident and pragmatic. The whole process of argument is put to dust when we personalize the argument; we have this habit of identifying the person with the view and therefore assume contradiction. It would be far easier and productive if we show prudence in the thought that is being discussed rather than associating it with the person.

I can today talk for rupee appreciation and tom against it. It would be perfectly futile if we do the following things.

Claim that the person personally believes in the view that rupee appreciation or depreciation although he might express a counter view.It could be that the person per se is indifferent in regard with this issue although he might have expressed a view.
Claim that the person should believe in depreciation just because he works in an industry which is benefited by the factor.
Claim that rupee appreciation is worse than depreciation just because the counter argument was put forth. In this uncertain world, Rubin, the popular economist says, it is better to assume a probabilistic thinking rather than binary ones which is unrealistic.

I can speak for my blunders as well while arguing, when the emotions take forefront, the argument becomes less of an intellectual exercise and more prone to create relationship drifts. I kind of become very perturbed when the person sticks to his/her view due to an ignorance about the counterview or if it’s sheer case of reluctance to validate it. The burden of proof lies with the person who invalidates it due to lack of knowledge. The other thing is clinging to the view when there are ample evidences to counter it and refuting the same with a rare case. The other case is a pure idiot syndrome and winning the argument parade, there is no point arguing in such cases.

Finally the definition of "Argument"

A course of reasoning aimed at demonstrating a truth or falsehood; the methodical process of logical reasoning.

For people who are interested in common fallacies in argument

And for fans of Monty Python, No better way

Itz a question of faith?

2007-10-15T00:06:00.000-07:00

Faith has been such a sensitive topic, as over time, we have chosen to abide by the rules of respecting the other man's perspective. When controversies arise in such "tender" issues, there is an unparalleled consensus among these packs of diplomats iterating that issues of faith should not be scratched as they would hurt the religious sentiments of the masses.

We can never set forth an argument scrutinizing the basis of faith, for it can never be discussed under the umbrella of reasoning via logic. It is like the very many scientific theories which were built on the basis of axioms that are assumed to be true and out of which burgeon very many corollaries which form the basis of an entire vertical of knowledge. The good thing about scientific method of operation is the consistency of theories during the course of time and the process of feedback to accommodate new observations. Theories are dumped if they are proved to be false.

Religion is a different ball game; it is more of the morality syndrome which hacks the mind. It’s an unsaid rule, one should never dare to utter blasphemous statements, just becomes it hurts the religious sentiments. There has been a recent row regarding the Ram sethu issue, MK had a rationalistic attitude towards his remarkable question "Was Ram a engineer?", the response was even more thought provoking when one of the VHP senior head quoted a price for MK's head. My foot, If this is the dimension of morality that people of faith in Ram's principle come up with, I would rather screw Ramaology and his followers.

What would prudent Ram be happy about? an energy efficient route which can bring prospects of better economics to the people along the coastal line or congestion to the existing port capacities for a unused bride which was "built" some aeons back.Does'nt the BJP understand that it of vital military importance to us even if economic sense becomes bull shit. Leave along the contention that the Ram sethu is scientifically a natural sandbar formation which has been observed across many parts of the world. I would be happy to tinker a symbol created by a supreme hero if it helps some people improve their lives. If people with spiritual bent are willing to cite ecological reasons, let them first stop dumping idols of Ganesha into the shores. What moral courage do after they lent an idea to destroy an existing monument to create one, let us first stop reengineering mosques, churches and temples. If God is formless, why is there this hurray to confine the invisible to symbols?

A friend of mine who belongs to the Christian faith quoted this incident to me. A friend of his was quoting as to how Babaji is still in the Himalayas for about two thousand years now and is apparently breathing only once in a year. My friend exclaimed as to how it was so unbelievable. Somehow it instantly came out of me, I have the same doubt as to how Christ resurrected on Easter? What is believable to me might be unbelievable to somebody else. The consensus of something does not deny the human mind to inquire it. If god created me, it might be god's intention to question him thought me. Why is there a conglomeration of antagonism of people who reinforce faith? Let them either accept God's design as it or toggle to the rational wing. Why is there this partial subjection?.

I somehow cannot stand the hypocrisy imbibed into faith defined by morality without consistency. I pulled another argument with my Jain friend this time. He was quoting as to how he would not buy a bouquet, as it was reengineered by bidding floral lives to satisfy unnecessary human wants. My foot, where did their morality hide when they were charging exorbitant interest rates to real humans who were suffering in poverty? Were they seeking nirvana by evading huge tonnage of taxes? Were their morals convictions blinded from the fact that the taxes might help out the aam aadmi who were still suiciding due to lack of subsidy help when America was giving about $120 bn to their farmers.

Its is always this case of the creating deception of adhering to principles of faith which suits us. It is easy to sacrifice 50 cents 50 times and manifest selfishness only once when you were offered a dollar. We can still quote probability of self-discipline against selfishness and claim moral victory walking through the convoluted tunnels of faith!

Crumbling the Ice

2007-09-10T23:52:00.000-07:00

Slowly but steadily I am losing hope
Dreams of an ideal world is a mere dope
I am already tired of fighting in open space
Beneath the ground runs a parallel dark race

Now days, human psyche is crumbling the ice
All to scrutinize if it is nothing but water
Gone are the times when trust had no price
In Kali Yuga, everything is suspect to falter

Graving for the selfless world is a case for the immatured
Aroma of a blissful community is nothing but farce
Its the only feeling in harmony, humanity is to get ruptured
Living life wholly is a thought abundantly scare

I must admit, I have experienced glimpses of utopia
Now, neither can I run nor hide or fake of dyslexia
Nobody is spared of tears in this whole game
Who cares, on earth, oneself is just another name!

Whose lip is it anyway ?

2007-08-13T03:08:00.000-07:00

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.

Jack of All or King of One ?

2007-08-02T09:20:00.001-07:00

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 ?

Feeling blue, red or green?

2007-07-23T23:05:00.000-07:00

I have always felt that value system is a continuum measuring the same thing, its all about where we are comfortable being stationed, you cannot rigidly define something as right or wrong based on the purpose, for we can never completely understand the outcome. Even if the rules apply then, there is very little chance that we can carry it forward for the rest of our life.

As I was on a DVD buying spree last Saturday, this view got even more staunch and raunchy. I was escorted by a fellow friend to this "Pirate" shop which was a snooky place and it too crooky even for two people. We bought almost 20 DVDs, the shopkeeper agreed to price a disc at around Rs 40/- .I was fairly fine with it as I buy it around Rs 70/- at my place, what a bargain for me anyway. My friend was haggling for a lower price, I said "We spend lavishly on so many things and this Rs 5/- is not going to make any difference; It would make a lot of difference to them".

The deal was done, as I walked, he said "Fool", I said "what??????”My friend was a banker, He gave a starchy fact which paved a parchy look on me "There is no moral hegemony that you can assume, You know what, that guy has deposited 25 lacs in our bank and has about 15 lacs in the bank which is above us?". I felt like quacking, I was a demeaned flacker.
The selfish gene knows how to survive, for it is its basic instinct

There is a friend of mine living in another part of the world on a assignment, he uttered a strange statement which still intrigues me. He said that he would not invest in mutual funds in India because he did not want a return for which he had not "intelligently" applied himself; to be short he was not interested in free money. I didn't reply then, I was shouting in my mind "Do you think it is fair to earn in foreign currency and translate into a rupee which is at least 10 times more for the same job in India”. Leave alone the contention whether the domestic salary is justified, he was exploiting currency arbitrage and adding to inflation.
You can forgo the sugar candy, for you have a chocolate truffle in your lunchbox

Last year, a friend of mine was facing a dilemma about taking one of the two offers he had, one of them was an eye boggler when it came to pay package and the other one strict "enjoy your work" profile with a moderate package. I knew from his talks that he had already decided to forgo the later and I knew his staunch views that life can be sustained only with money and others would ensue. He asked for my view, I knew it was not worth arguing or convincing him, for he can never understand it unless he experiences it, good content job with a moderate salary is a great "happiness churner" than bad job with a great salary. I gave him hints but nothing could change his direction, Inertia prevailed over momentum. After a couple of months he resigned his high perky job and took the happy content job.
Nobody can teach experience, reasoning can, but nobody wanna try it unless experience invokes it

In my view, there is no selfless act I have witnessed, for helping others even at our expense give us happiness!.Wisdom is not in adopting rules but understanding them, so is value system!

(PS: even the story tags in Italics are futile rules but you never know)

Stereotypes

2007-07-13T07:57:00.000-07:00

"What do you want to be?"

How often do we come across this question from parents, peers, appraisers and who not? It could a genuine eager to know the other person, mere snoopiness to mock the present status or a mere "kill my time" question.

If you ask a twelfth grade guy, he would "instinctly" say that he would want to become an Engineer or Doctor. It would make futile sense if I gonna churn a para of crap as to why we have created such a stereotype answer. To be short, we have not even tried to get out of the hang over which procreated cocoons of security, illusionary pride and questionable materialism for toooooo a long. We have miserably failed be unique.

If you ask this question "what are you doing?" or "what was your background?”Maybe, I am skewed with my social conglomeration. You can be blind, deaf or even insane to guess it. Our current generation is far smarter, we would lop side the opponent with a mere objective answer "Analyst" (the prefixes may change- research, business, software, this and that...)

Not that we cannot do different jobs with same suffices, analytically it translates to "Cut, Copy & Paste" according to the mandates of the bully sitting in a different time zone, taking an outsourcing ride in this Flat world. Nobody wants to dare beyond the IT profiles to make a living, its kinda taboo, if you say that you want to be a journalist, civil engineer or a geologist.

The recent strengthening of the rupee was not a sweet spot to be, particularly for the companies which have thrived on low labor cost "advantage”. Infosys reported the first earnings dip as the rupee seems to be happy, flirting at around 40.Its going to be the same story which is to be reported across industries which built exchange rate as their source of competitive advantage.Kudoos to RBI, It's high time somebody teaches some real lessons to Corporate India which was buoyant with a dirty float!.

There is a buzz that we have to spend about $450 bn in the next couple of years in India , I am not even considering the private investment which is going to flood our country, the infrastructure boom is all set to hit us. The question is, do we have a talented pool or domestic competence to take this forward? There is such a deficit of civil engineers to execute such mass scales! There aren't able politicians or talented policy makers who can march us to the next level. Irrespective of their background, they have all been "Cast Away” in the IT Island, happily replicating "Ctrl X, Ctrl C, and Ctrl V" and that is what they could achieve out of their rigorous education.

Iam not denying that the surge in the economy started with such low value adding jobs and it kind of even catered to the mass employment of people who completed professional education. It’s time to wake up, maybe, we can survive for some more time, and we can be the back office for the world but for how long?. The world has billions of people who are willing to work at even lower wages. It is just a matter of time till somebody gives a taste of our own medicine.

We are trying to build hugeeee towers with a vacuum basement, we would eventually collapse. Our Indian companies don’t have a product we are just highly paid coolies.It high time to map Porter's model for India.

We need Products, Intellectual property and Indispensable talent pool.

Let's get rid of this stereotyping. We need to retain core talent and diffuse a more pragmatic approach to education. America is the superpower not because it has it dollar as the reserve currency of the world. It is because; it has the intellectual hegemony which is nurtured in their universities and corporate research labs of their country!

What women want

2007-06-20T02:35:00.000-07:00

I scaled totally into a new high of disdain after watching the recent episode of the talk show "Neeya Naana". The fabric of the discussion was to bring into "limelight" the perfect recipe for a complete man and women. That’s when the magic formula unfolded, the group of women had the following commandments to identify the male's fitness to marry them

- Rs 50,000 salary per month (mostly everybody agreed on it)
- A double bedroom flat with centralized AC
- Car and other accessories

I was really amazed, as to how, not even a single women wanted to affirm that they wanted a self-confident dude or a person who is aiming for a success in his career. They never stated that they wanted a male who had a good character; at least i wanted to assume that it was implicit in the whole argument, because i believe that our society has not become so progressive in morality.

If this is the clad our women are willing to adore, i feel ashamed of living in such a society where materialistic benchmarks are woven in a relationship which is to be build out of love, care and trust. To be true, let me acknowledge that i have been a feminist in most of my arguments and advocated them to be a better gene. Now i feel bitter, in an era when women are equally empowered as men in the current urban setup, they manage to come up with such disgusting fitness tests which could only impair happiness.

The reasons they give are quite substantial; they seek a high yielding fixed income generating securitiy not for themselves but for the well being of the family. The higher premium (100%) for men compared to their salary is to avoid unwarranted ego clashes. They believe that happiness can be derived from the higher level of income.

The complete complexion of the society changes when monetary benchmarks become a strict barrier. The males in our Indian society obviously want to get married to the opposite sex; we have not progressed to a point where marriage becomes an option. Let me be blatant, free sex or dating or gayly life or live-in is not yet a fad in India, you can't get married in late thirties like the western society. So the only limited solution for the males who wanna get married is to chase money, losing track of their career.

I can see people around me who get themselves blinded to money, get into a jobs which only shows the ugly face of incompetence. They end up as nincompoops who can't shift their career when they realize that the existing job doesn't suit them. When they leap out to find their passion, they are outcast due to the existing branding about them, they can't take a salary cut, they have enough burdens in the form of home loans and car EMI's. This is perfect prescription for unhappiness. We are creating a situation where we gonna face a serious midlife crisis where people would have money and no sense of achievement in their jobs because they lack competence or just that the job doesn't provide enough opportunities to exhibit them.

I was looking at this documentary in BBC last Saturday, which kind of outlines how marginal increase in economic prosperity does not contribute the happiness quotient. In a world of consumerism, happiness short lives as we have new versions of the existing product coming into the market every other day. A consumer who buys a N93 is unhappy when the prices slash in the near term and there is another XYZ 78, which comes to the market with better features. Consumerism is just the great grand daddy maneuvering the developed world, which have higher economic prosperity. It is a myth that economic prosperity beyond a level leads to happiness. The entire western world is caught with this disease; happiness-economist and sociologist are pleading governments to curtail advertisements, which provoke the game of consumerism and ultimately making people unhappy.

The erstwhile society had ugliness in the name of dowry that kind of sold the bride grooms to the brides. Now, are the women seeking revenge? I feel, this would do any good. I can't understand the premium issue that their counterpart should be earning higher. When we were are in a framework where women are fighting for equal status, why is there a disparity in seeking a partner with higher income. Are they treating themselves as unequal or inferior, have they lost the battle before it has begun, I never thought they were masters in meeky submission. If they feel that higher salary solves the problem, they have lost the battle because they agree even then. Please don’t tell me that women don't have egos!

Lets assume that the 100% premium is right to live a happy life. I atleast assume that they are cognizant of the fact that every company gives equal salary for men and women who are employed in every sector. Then how does their fantasy accept that a male can have a 100% higher salary for a male who is just elder to them? We can expect more bogus salary slips to entice women to marry them and many more versions of "Naan Aavan Illai".

Let us not sell and buy each other; we are not commodities who cater to supply, demand and market conditions!

If you are still convinced that the salary is a criterion, assuming a 50k salary per month, an expected market return of 10% and growth rate of 5% per year, the boy is worth 1.20 crore in present value terms. Don’t pay more than that for the dowry

(PS: Lets not complain that men are equally bad, obviously men are equally fantasy dwellers, just because somebody is bad, it does not give liberty to mimic them. Utlimately it would be a baggage of garbage)

Case for offspring Part - II

2007-06-11T01:15:00.000-07:00

I had some interesting comments for my previous post and of course heaps of offline conversations on ego and the "ego-leads-to-kid" theory.

The argument, which I was trying to put forth, was that kids are nothing but a natural outcome of every living organism. The ego theory could be a recently social constructed hypothesis, which could be true, but they are not a necessary condition for the underlying action. I certainly believe that people would have kids irrespective of whether they have or don't have egos or even managed to relinquish them one day.

Let me draw an analogy. If somebody asks us the purpose of sugarcane, it might be true that it is to make sugar in the current context. It’s purely incidental that we use sugar to sweeten our pastries, confectionaries and desserts. The entire gene pools of sugarcane would continue to persist till their gene pools have enough fitness to scrape through. The sugarcane is there not because we have grown them, its there because they are part of the entire natural evolutionary process.

It's the same case with kids, might be that people have found a use to them by identifying their egos with them. Some even go the extent of gratifying their ego's by begetting. This is just a case for utilizing the resource and exercising controlling resources, which are near and close to them. I feel that individuals with such egos without a kid would find a scapegoat by identifying and creating a homogeneous group, which helps to identify their egos.

I feel that intelligence which is the basis for rationality and ego is a tool, self-developed by the human species to solve the more fundamental problem of quest for survival. The single cell organisms that have little intelligence (No sixth sense at least) procreate because it’s how the chromosome is coded. The chromosome coding is of course due to the natural inheritance or the nurture phenomenon (environmental). It certainly influences the behavior, may be the cognitive ability to have kids to replicate their egos but the more fundamental characteristics of any species is to grow, adapt, mutate and evolve to survive!!!

Case for offspring

2007-06-05T06:04:00.000-07:00

This is a post to present another view to whatever has been deciphered by the "intellectual" Sk.He is a pinnacle of human evolutionary intelligence who in my kind opinion is far too progressive for the peers around him. He has provoked a thought and diligently questions the whole phenomenon of having kids. You would be bamboozled by level of arguments he presents to make us think that kids are just an extension to our ego. In his opinion, the apparent happiness you get from kids is from the satisfaction of your egos!

I thought, I would have to a give a brief background about him before you understand his arguments. Sk believes that he can achieve eternal happiness without a speck of trough in his life, which he had synthesized through his ”reasoning" that intelligence can lead to happiness without falling for the cycles of emotions. He advocates that emotion is an unnecessary crap and he can sustain happiness without sadness through intelligence. He believes that happiness is a thought.

You would want to read his post before getting forward.

Now to the story, I had put forth an opinion that having kids is just a very natural course of action encoded in our genes, which is the basis of all living organisms. May be, the social construct in the recent years has lead us to have arguments like economic support from the off springs, does that mean that people would stop breeding if parents are economically indepedent?. Would the highly evolved humans obstruct themselves from begetting if they can relinquish their egos?. In my opinion, the ego is a repository of identify. I would believe that, even ego has gone through an evolutionary state from its naive state when it was initially devoid of identification. Then why did the first ape with naiveness procreate?

I would look procreation as natural characteristics of all forms in nature. It is apparent right from the functions of cells, which are the basics of all living organisms. An organism cannot live without the optimal cell division. Cells divide, grow and create another cell, which is absolutely necessary for the whole organism to live; it is an endless cycle, if the organism has to live.

I feel that kids are just an extension of the natural process of having sex. It is just that the egg decides to accept the sperm to replicate the organism and it has the accompanying probability game in the heat cycle. It is natural that the libido in the male or female or both is provoked by the androgen, which provokes the mating process. It is a pure case of self-gratification through orgasm. May be, we are more conscious now that it may or may not lead to a kid in the current circumstances.

Now to the argument that the supreme thought of not having kids acquired through the process of evolved thinking is also a natural process. The process of evolution happens through selection, crossover and mutation. Mutuations can a be natural outcome of the evolution process. A cat born blind may be a natural outcome of the process but the organism is as such incomplete with a less limited characteristic it possess.

The other reasons why I would want the organism to offshoot a offspring is of the reason that survival of the species as such. No off-springs, No species! Only procreation can allow the carryover of highly evolved intelligent gene pools into the future.

Having a kid or not is an individual decision. I am just putting forth that procreation is the fundamental characteristics of nature as such, its up to the one's supreme intellect to inhibit it or not. The species can survive only if it can replicate and there is a survival gene encoded in the chromosome, which would always thrive to create offspring till it becomes extinct.

Law hates time, value, not money!

2007-06-03T07:26:00.000-07:00

I was waiting with anguish to write this post. I am writing this post after my L2 CFA exam, as usual the exam proved that ignorance is not blissful at all. It is the drama which unfolded for the past two weeks that has irritated me. They ruined the sleep and productive time of 6500 students who were slated to give their exams in India.

The CFA (Charter Financial Analyst) is the charter awarded by the CFA Institute based in the US. The exams were recently ordered to be cancelled and asked to cease it operations in India by an interim order passed by the Agartala Bench of the Guwahati High Court about two weeks back.

The verdict was based on the appeal by the AICTE stating that the institute did not get the approval for conducting its operations in India which is necessary for a foreign body providing "technical education" in India. All seems fair, I am not going to sanctity of this case where a globally recognized organization in the Investment body was being challenged by the Indian version "ICFAI".Everybody is same under the law and I am not questioning the merits of the regulation.

In my opinion, I would want to put forth the ulterior motive in this case.ICFAI was earlier challenged by the CFA Institute for awarding the CFA charter. Now you would know what interest ICFAI has in providing quality technical education to Indian students. Why don't institutions compete in providing great education to us in spite of blocking each other? A brand is not built by the charter; it is the competence of the students which builds the brand.

The CFA institute seeked an interim stay to allow the exams to be conducted in India, believe me or not, it took about three hearings by a Delhi High Court Judge to stay it. An 12th grade student would have given this verdict in an interim judgment to an institute which was seeking the court to allow it to conduct at least the exams which were scheduled to happen in about two weeks.

The exam has been conducted in the country for the past 20 years and oh my god it is a globally renowned prestigious institute which provides a self-study course. Common sense for a prudent man, allow the exam and ask the institute to withhold the result before the final verdict comes out. I am not demeaning their intelligence or their authority in law, I am furiated by the inertia the judicial system in our country is caught up with.

Interia which does not value time, money, people welfare and is happily addicted to bribery and power. No wonder I heard somewhere that there are 30 million cases pending in this country. The decisions in the lower courts morphs to the whims and fancies of the people who want to puppet it.Sathyam may jathae in the long tem but who has the patience to be with it with confidence.Nice it that it would eventually succed, not everybody has the money, power and awareness to do...

Oh Pity. I have only one question.How does the different courts give different decisions interpreting by prudent who have mastered law. Then why at all we need lower courts!!

Mere Bharat Magan!

2007-05-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

There was a huge row over the recent 150th year celebration of the 1857 revolution and the patrons did emphasize as to how it showcases patriotism. My rage hit its breaking point after a hard fought argument with my friend as we were battling about the so-called attributes of patriotism. The pressing judgment was as to how singing the national anthem or saluting the national flag was deemed to be a great act of patriotism. I could not stand it; there is a great deal of difference between being mad about symbolism and the underlying fervor, which might not warrant symbols. Symbols are created to identify or communicate the underlying principle, the principle as such lives eternally in the thought monuments even if the symbols, which identified them, cease to exist.

I get to recollect a popular example quoted by Kamala Hassan in his film "Anbe Sivam". Love would be cherished even if the Taj Mahal were to be ram shackled. Communism is a feeling, which would continue to amaze everyone when the underlying egalitarian thought is provoked in our everyday life moments. It was there and would be there, although an attempt in the Soviet Union has been faltered. There is a difference between validity of the concept and the fallouts in execution. We would be insulting Gandhi if we wore Khadhi, preached indignity of fellow beings, mocked self-respect and humiliated truth.

Now to the National Anthem, I surely admit that it is a good way to express our love for the nation by singing it. If at all we love our nation, we would have taken some time to know what it means. No excuses that it in Bengali, Let us not humiliate our beloved Bharat Matha that we didn't care to know what was praised about her in the past 26 years of our life.

I thought, I’d take this opportunity to revive the controversy about the acceptance of Jana Gana Mana as our anthem. The poem was composed in December 1911, precisely at the time of the Coronation Durbar of George V, and is a paean in praise of "the overlord of India's destiny". The composition was first sung during a convention of the then loyalist Indian National Congress in Calcutta on Dec. 27, 1911.It was sung on the second day of the convention, and the agenda of that day devoted itself to a loyal welcome of George V on his visit to India.

So what is this patriotism? It denotes positive and supportive attitudes to a 'fatherland'. Patriotism covers such attitudes as: pride in its achievements and culture, the desire to preserve its character and the basis of the culture, and identification with other members of the nation. Nationalism, in its broadest sense, is a devotion to one's own nation and its interests over those of all other nations

Oh My God, lets be true with ourselves whether we are being patriotic or nationalistic. We can't stop in our traffic signals, we can't stop breaking que's and we damn to care about the implication of breaking laws. Leave along being selfless for the sake of the nation, we would rather complain about how ruthless the nation is.

Now to the all important as to whether nationalism is relevant in this era. I feel, Patriotism is finding slimmer woods after the electronic herd hit us in the last decade. The cultural identities are becoming flat; we see globules of people in different pockets of the world trying to identify themselves with homogeneous compatriots past the physical boundaries of the nations. All we need is a yahoo group or orkut community to express our thought, which resonates with somebody else, who has a different cultural background.

PS:
(For people who wanted to know the meaning of our national anthem... if you feel it praises the rich cultural past of India, you might want to know it should be sung in 52 seconds. If you were left wondering where the praise hides in it, you have to seek some other way out..)

Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people,
dispenser of India's destiny.
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, the Maratha country,
in the Dravida country, Utkala (Orissa) and Bengal;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,
it mingles in the rhapsodies of the pure waters Jamuna and the Ganges.
They chant only thy name,
they seek only thy blessings,
They sing only thy praise.
The saving of all people waits in thy hand,
thou dispenser of India's destiny.Victory, Victory, Victory, Victory to thee.

Can we kill Howard Roark ?

2007-05-13T23:47:00.000-07:00

More often our state of living is a mere manifestation of our mind's decision to take various courses at different points in time. Here’s my disclaimer, I certainly don't believe in fate as such played by God. I would want to retrieve my color on the same as put forth in one of my previous post.

"We have to certainly face the effects of the causes created by us and that does not deny us the freedom to liberate ourselves from the clutches of our past actions by our own will. This is what I mean when I vouch that we create our fate by our own thoughts, will and action".

The bus did not stop there; it has a new junction to cross. I had an interesting argument with one of my friend about the abilities of the mind to overcome challenges, which accost us. The contention was as to how there are physical obstructions, which might limit the abilities of the mind to pervade into new territories. I had quoted "Stephen Hawking" as to how in spite of being severely disabled by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS (a type of motor neurone disease), he is still one of the most accomplished theoretical physicist of the century. I had a blatant straightforward answer "It is a very exceptional case”. Very fair, you can't argue with extreme analogies.

I was battling with this thought for entire the day, if we are freaked enough and initiate a race between two professional athletes, one of whom has his ankle minorly fractured and the other professionally fit, normally, the fit athlete is sure to win and there are no two thoughts about it.

The Formula-1 racing has some interesting insights for us, the car parse has a telling influence but not without the skill of the driver. When Schumi drove his first championship, he drove Benetton, which was not a great car, but it was his exceptional skills, which earned him four points in six races. Later, he went on to drive with Ferrari, which was an inferior car by the peer racing standards.The Ferrari team and Schumi with their unrelentless passion for glory (like the 300 Spartans) drove with a notion to win every circuit.

I am not trying to quote another exception here, the answer lies there, only people who have the courage to extend their boundaries and weather the storm can see the smile of the sky with the sun still scorching at them. I can't find a million examples who overcame all the Herculean struggles which haunted them, because some lost in their mind before they could confront it, some fought and didn't care a damn to tell their story to the world, some lived to caricature the challenges and some lived to take note of what they did.

Some existed hallucinating that they are living!!!

PS:(I read somewhere that the average uses only 3% of his brain's ability, Einstein tried to touch the 5% barrier. Come on, where is the case of limits?)

The Culprit in Indianism

2007-05-02T22:55:00.000-07:00

We are often proud to be an Indian, for we have a profound past underpinned by a rich diverse culture, which harmonizes humane values. I have bragged about our Indian culture for too long a time, I am now consciously aware of the nitty gritties of how our society works. I want to play the devil's advocate this time.

How evolved is a culture which forces two unknown people to have sex. It is even laudable that it has happened without the consent of one of them (mostly the female) in the past. I can't imagine how the crime ratios would look if the rapes in the "first nights" are to be accounted. The male partner mostly assumes the right to have sex with the female partner just because they are married. I don't know whether we would even accept this as a case of human right infringement.

There is a negative aura about dating and pre-marital sex, which is prevalent in the western society. In the western society, there is a sense of consensus if two people want to get married, each of them exercise the freewill to choose their partner. In the Indian society, the horoscopes seem to overwhelm the need for a blend of the characters that would want to be together for rest of their lives.

We acclaim that the system has worked in spite of all this; we have lower divorces, single parents and lonely elders. Indian society has been a male dominant society where the female is curtailed of her right to even pursue a career and which eventually forces her to depend on somebody to even live her life. This essentially clips her thought of even revolting any hegemony by the males or the family perse which forces her to fit their boxes. Now that the society is slowly acknowledging the freedom of the XX chromosome, I feel that the females would essentially question the practices, which can put her in unfair clutches. If the divorces number looks healthy after 20 years, I would accept the Indian culture does posses some integrity. Its not fair play to clip a bird's wings and be proud that it does not fly beyond its current boundaries.

I know a couple of Indians who condemned the insanity over the recent shoot-out in Virgina Tech by an desolate college guy, some even dared to extend the argument that such inhuman activities are prevalent in the western society and can't be imagined in the Indian society. I don't know whether these people have the memento effect, they have a short-term memory loss, they cannot even recollect the communal violence’s in Godhara or Tirnelveli which is a manifestation of the cruelties of the caste system, which is deep- rooted in the Indian society. I don’t know as to how we dare to even boast about an inhuman society, which can carry the legacy of the caste system for 2000 years.

North and South are different directions

2007-04-13T06:17:00.000-07:00

There is a friend of mine who has been in North India for some time now; he had made a very interesting comment about the general attitude of people in the two halves of the country. He observed that his north Indians colleagues do not take things personally in a professional realtionship.Every body recognizes his position in the strata and does not go through a compelling need to fight supremacy. For example if there is a peon/assistant and he is chided by his superior (could or could not be at fault), he does not take it personally and doesn't put across an ego show. Having been in Chennai since his birth hood, he remarked, an auto driver (example) in Chennai would put across a competing show even when he is at fault or try to hallucinate a notional power element, to establish supremacy.

This was another discreet conversation which I had with my fellow colleague. He was from Ahmadabad and he had observed as to how a server in Chennai thinks that he is doing a favor by serving him and does not see an obsession to serve the customer better for whatever he pays. I would not deny it for I have experienced such disgusting moments when the server piles agony into me when he needs to be doing his duty for whatever is paid. I would not ask them to leave their self-respect in the process of doing their duty, for I would never loose it in any case.Arrogance, negligence and Self-respect are very different things.

I know that Mumbai is totally a different place when it comes to duty when a service is provided; Bangalore is okay, Chennai a notch down and Kolkotaaa (Oh My Godddd!!!).I thing this more to do with the culture /attitude prevalent in the society. I don’t whether I can really extrapolate this to the entrepreneurship which is based on the ability to see business opportunities and serve the customer with utmost diligence. I also feel that education is certainly a prime component when it comes to boosting ones self-respect and invoking a sense to appreciating egalitarian values. North India for sure has more successful entrepreneurs than South India. South India is for sure, has more literacy levels and they tend to offer their professional services.

Good, Bad and the Ugly

2007-04-04T20:48:00.000-07:00

This post is based on the arguments which I have had with many people in the recent weeks, all fierecly fought to contemplate reality as and when it colludes with our own boundaries.We fought like every other evanlegist who fights for the supremacy of his ideology.

I had a long heated dialogue with my fellow colleague after my last post which kind of kissed the issue of tax paying.My intensiom was not to make a moral judgement as to whether paying or managing taxes was right or wrong.I don't believe in defining good or bad, neither do i think we can do it, it is more defined by the individual and the prevailing social construct.

I was arguing for the validity of the liberty we take, to break our own rules which configure good or bad.We can't shout foul when we ourselves don't follow the "guidelines" which we set to judge other's action.We can't blame our politicians for corruption when we can't pay our taxes properly (Infact, a salaried person effectively pays only around 15-20% of his total gross salary which is quite afforable I guess). Either we shall accept that we are as corrupt as they are and stop the blame game or atleast we don't break the rules of the game which govern our own judgement to even judge others.We always seek accepted "excuses" to substatiate our deviation.

There is this other argument that we can always comment on what is right or wrong inspite of our own actions.A chain smoker can always plead a new smoker to refrain from smoking and it could be out of genuine concern.I feel that the probabilty of the new smoker taking the advice prevails in a case of a chain smoker who has quit it compared to an existing smoker who himself can't quit it.

The other common stereotyping is that people who drink, smoke and use foul language, inherently have bad elements ornated in their character.I can vouch, I know people who drink and are inherently good compared to people who have "excellent " habits and disgusting abilities to hurt.Suprisingly, both the species are equally dispersed in the society.I did observe something, the "goodies" who follow "good" virtues have an unconscious ability to have a superior feeling and nuture an ability to use that "image" to conduct otherwise non-advisable acts (Infact, I observed this condescending feeling arise in me when I am proud of a "good" virtue defined by me).

I would not deny the fact that drinking murkes the brain and in overdozed cases provokes socially ( or personally) not acceptable acts.I have to make a deliberation here, we need to ascertain as to whether drinking perse invokes the otherwise "don't do" acts or that we simply take the "mask of booze" to script our otherwise "don't do acts".Is it a conscious effort to findle with our ulterior intensions by finding the scapegoat in the form of drinking?.

I need to comment on this phenomeon of SMS opinion polls and passing whole hearted moral judgements using the same data.If you want to know what I think about these things." Why don't the f**king news channels confine their their role to analysing news and giving their opinion and let the individuals take the bloody judgement on it.Who the f**k has given the media the libery to pass judgements when most of the people responding to the same are ignorant of the underlying issues or they are simply skew-brained by the thoughts plugged by the discussion panel or just that they simply respond to the emotional outcries waving rationality.

Who is paying for your food?

2007-03-18T21:46:00.000-07:00

We always have these fancy arguments about why we would not want to pay taxes or to be politically right why we would want to manage our taxes properly. We would rather blame the government institutions for it, Neither do we get social security nor great infrastructure, the entire system is corrupt, there is no point paying taxes as it does not reach the right destination.

We always want to argue "Why should I pay taxes when most of the country does not pay taxes?"Rest of the country evades taxes and whats wrong if we only manage them?. I don't get facilities like what the citizens of US or any westerner cherishes. A fair argument, isn't it? We always compare the developed countries for everything else?.

Lets for a change take the example of the developed world in terms of what they do to their agriculture sector. In the US, during the year 2003, agriculture exports continued to be sold well below the 1970 and 2000, EU share in agricultural exports increased from 28.1 per cent to 42.7 per cent. France increased its share from 5.7 per cent to 8.1 per cent, Germany from 2.6 per cent to 5.9 per cent and United Kingdom from 2.7 per cent to 4.1 per cent

The world is expected to behave like an ostrich when it comes to the WTO violations from the world's only super cop. Whether it is the additional federal support of US $180 billion for the next 10 years that has been promised for American farmers, or the grant of US $110 million for export promotion that has recently been announced, the WTO seems helpless. There are 6 million farmers in the US compared to 600 million in India.

The total quantum of farm subsidies given by the developed countries works out to 340 billion US dollars a year or almost a billion dollars a day.

Impromptu, you might want to say this, Even the Indian government gives subsidies to the farmers, they get free electricity, free seeds, and fertilizer subsidy and sometimes they even get a waiver on all the loans. Very true, but did you know this, in effect the farmers have to incur a negative subsidy(Measured by Aggregate Measure of Support), i.e the farmers have to forgo thier income. If only the government procured their farm products at the prevailing global prices or marginally increase the minimum adminstered price for the commodities, their lives would be better.

Now, who is enjoying food at lower prices? of course, you and me who have our food subsided by the farmers. Next time, while we eat, lets remember the 600 million farmers out there who are subsidizing our food.

Undisclosed

2007-03-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

It’s very hard to consume a secret whose undisclosed recipe is only in your head. You cannot actually cook it because the dish was precisely meant for somebody else to taste. It’s even more fun when you have to digest the fact that you just can’t reveal the dish to the person. How’s that for “Catch 22”?

We all do things in life; sometimes they don’t have a plausible reason. Sometimes we think and do things which can’t find the courage to reach out to the eardrum? Some saner said “A picture is worth thousand words”. Keats said “Heard melodies are sweeter but those unheard are sweeter”.

Does anybody have something to say about “the silent secret which has tobe heard”.

1 + 1 = 2?

2007-03-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

You might laugh after reading what ensues, Bertrand Russell proved that 1+1=2 in one of his work which he did with Alfred and it was published in the book Principia Mathematica. Something, which is the foundation of modern mathematics had to be proved .What we take for granted and pretty kids stuff had to be proved to move forward . What if 1+1 was 2.00001 (You might not know, may be it is), it might completely change everything we know about the world around us, indeed it's how all Investment banks mint money, defying number laws in mergers and acquisitions.

Yesterday, I was watching this strange program in National Geography as to whether The Da-Vinci Code was real? If I am right, I remember the same channel telecasting a program, about how Da-Vinci Code could be true, the timeline was when Dan-Brown hit the market with the concept that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and their bloodline is still out there.

Everybody kind of gives their own interpretation as why something would be right or wrong and nobody is sure about anything. I would give a damn if it was true or not, because it does not affect my ability to appreciate the principles propagated by Christ irrespective of whether he was a virgin or not. It would make more sense to inculcate something good out of what was told by Christ rather than proving whether he was a virgin or not.

I think, it's rather the psyche of the human mind to understand, substantiate and interpret that drives the fury to prove something. You might have heard this often "It's a kind of intuition and there is no specific logic to what I think". Intuition is often defined as the act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational process. I might want to dispute this; in fact it is the highest form of knowing.

A person does not automatically learn to balance the bi-cycle, the first time he learns to drive. He does not consciously balance when he becomes a matured driver, this does not mean that the process of rationality is lost, it's so imbibed and quick, we are not cognizant of the underlying rationality.

The more we try to prove something we come across facts that there is a probability to be untrue. The more we are ignorant of the proof, the more is the tendency to entertain uncertainty. The more we accept the proof with constraints, there is limitation to the boundaries created by concept itself. The greater the limitation, there is always the better one which overwhelms it soon or later.

Its income disparity again

2007-03-03T05:21:00.000-08:00

The previous two posts have kindled me and I have more queries and answers for myself. I had a interesting comment by Deepak who had completely agreed that the growth/income distribution was definitely lopsided but suggested that the benefits of this have however started to trickle down albeit slowly. He had remarked that we should not forget that the so called higher income people who are earning higher income for the nation as a whole and contributing their best possible. I would certainly accept it, I can see it everywhere, the construction industry, hospitality industry, the security guards so on and so forth.

The IT/ITES sector currently contributes about 3.6% to the GDP and currently employs about 2 million people (India's population is 1100 mn).The recent CRISIL Survey done on behalf Nasscom suggests that for every job created in the sector, four are created in the rest of the economy. Several of these jobs are created among the less educated workforce. It effectively translates to about 8 million jobs created by IT. It is a good picture isn’t? It has done what it could do best.

Let me plug in some figures which shows the growth rate of various sector of the economy

I tried to crunch the growth rates of different sectors. The growth rates from the period 1990-2007 are 2.85%, 6.71% and 8.41 % for agriculture, industry and services respectively.
We are becoming a services driven economy and it shows up in the following table which paints the contribution of different sectors to the economy

The following observation tells the story, about 60% of the people have grown at 2.85% and about 20% of the people have grown at 8.50%.

This is not the end of the story; real growth of the income is much skewed. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) has increased by about 7.93% for agricultural labors and has increased by about 7.5% for industrial workers for the period 1990-2006.

The essentially means that 600mn people have de-grown by 5% and about 200mn people have grown by 1% in effective. Let me probe a little more, about 2mn (0.18%) people contribute to 3.6% of the GDP and the per capita contribution is too much. (That’s why I shout that these people have too much of money compared to rest of the population).When the per capita income is high they have enough money to spike the demand and contribute the best to the inflation.

I have no two views that we should grow as an economy but we can leave about 60% of the people behind us. All I want is the means to improve the life of rest of India.

The FM did something of the aam aadmi stuff this time and you know what Pranab Roy said during an interview with the FM, he freaked out saying that the markets would go down if this was the reformist attitude FM had to paint to the corporate world. Mr. Pranab “Why don’t you understand that the investors are a bunch of 50mn people whereas there are also other people in India as well”.

I certainly believe that Capitalism is the way out to bring about economic prosperity to the society. I don’t believe in skewed capitalism and it is the duty of the government to take everybody together.

I don’t want a future where we would have reservations for the farmers and downtrodden for the mistakes we commit now!!!

Is the Indian housing bubble a myth or a reality?

2007-02-25T08:50:00.000-08:00

It would be easily the most scrutinized topic in any casual or serious discussion of recent times; the real estates are tooo hot in Chennai. The prices seem to have consistently risen over by 30% every year for the past three years. There seems to be a mad rush for apartments and individual properties in every damn place in the city, in fact the real estate prices have skyrocketed in any corner where there have been signs of economic activity.

There are innumerable theories floating around to explain the recent spike in prices

The builders are artificially constraining the supply of apartments and hiking prices till the prices spiral up to desirable levels.
There is too much NRI money, estimated to be around $15Bn, which has been infused into the system and that has lead to the speculation of the prices.
There is hot money chasing properties which would be sold out once there is a desirable appreciation.
The Morons in IT industry/new economy jobs have higher income levels and can’t stop the mad rush for home loans irrespective of interest rates.
There is a supply side shock and if we consider the demographics we need millions of homes and limited land supply.

Every reason seems to be possible, I thought, I'll give a shot at this. There is gonna be some finance in this post and non finance reader have to pardon me. I would try to explain the concepts in a common man's perspective. Here we go

I have collected the prevailing rental prices and the flat rates in the city and have summarized the same in the table below

The rent column specifies the Rent per Sq. ft and the Flat price gives an idea about the average price per Sq.ft demanded by the market in the existing scenario. The rent and land prices have been averaged out in each of the areas although there exists a undeniable parity in the prices within the area itself. On an average the consumer pays a monthly rent of around Rs 9000 for a 1 BHK flat (assumed to be 1000 Sq.ft) and has to pay about 40 Lacs if he was to own them.

Now, I would try to value the real estates considering them to be an investment option. Suppose I borrow some money from the bank and invest in real estates. I have to pay my EMI's (Equivated Monthly Installments) to the bank. I can always rent the flat to somebody and use the rent to pay a partial portion of my EMI.

Although the flat may cost around say Rs.10 lacs (I am just assuming at least in this example).The building would usually cost only Rs.2.50-Rs3.50 Lacs whereas the remaining (Rs.6.50 - Rs.7.50 Lacs) would be the land cost. Suppose that, you decide to sell the flat after 25 years, the flat/building per se has null value whereas the land has value. Now, we have two sources of income, one is the rent that we get every year and the other, land appreciation value.

Are you shouting tax benefits for the home loan you have availed?. I am coming there. Of course the Indian Government gives a capped tax exemption of 2.5 lacs (Principal (Max 1 Lacs) + Interest (Max 1.5 Lacs)).We could essentially avoid paying Rs.75000 in taxes for the income spent towards paying home loans.

The valuation summary has been presented below

You might have understood the first two columns, monthly rent (per Sq.ft) and yearly (per Sq.ft) rent which are quite straight forward.

Then what is this thing called PV of Rent. It is in the present value of the rent, which I would get from the asset in financial terms. It is essentially the current worth of the monthly rent which I would get every year. i.e getting Rs 60(current year)+Rs 60 (next year)+Rs 60(year after that) and Rs 60 in eternity which is worth Rs 895 now.

It is not worth Rs 1200 (Rs 60 *20 years) because the value of the money decreases due to inflation (rate at which my purchasing power decreases) and it has some adjustment for the risk in the asset (I am not going to confuse with risk adjusted expected returns so on and so forth) .Just get the concept that it is gettin an mothly rent of Rs 60 is worth only Rs 895 now.

It is assumed that the investor would expect at least a return of 10.5% (current floating home loan rates). The net rental present value is computed after considering a 3% annual maintenance expenditure of the annual rent .it is assumed that the annual rent would increase by about 4% year on year.

Suppose, we demolish the building, we may loose the rental income but there is always this value of the land that we can get. On an average the land price is at least 60% - 70% of the flat cost. So if we buy a flat for 10 Lacs, the land price is at least 7 Lacs, to be precise. If a Sq.ft cost about Rs 1000, a healthy proportion of about Rs 700/- can be easily apportioned towards the land price.The present value of the land essential captures this component of the price paid towards the flat price. The land price is assumed to be around 65% of the existing price while valuing the properties.

Now we need to compute the current worth of the tax benefits. We can avail a waiver of around Rs 2.50 lacs and save ourselves about Rs 75,000 every year. I have assumed the exemption amount to be around Rs 2.0 lacs (the interest component in the EMI is expected to decrease over the period) over the loan period.The current worth of the tax benefit is expected to be around 5.0 Lacs which translates to an average tax benefit of Rs 374/ Sq.ft (Rs 494 -1000 Sq.ft; Rs 353 -1400 Sq.ft; Rs 274 -1800 Sq.ft ).

The present value of the asset (6th column) is computed based on the expected future income (rent), land price and tax benefit.

The current price is based on the regressing the current market prices of rent and land prices. The equation turned out to be

Market Land Price/Sq.ft = -983.4 + 574.1 * Market Rent/Sq.ft
Current Asset Price = Market Land Price/Sq.ft * (1+Registration charges)

The government registration charges are usually about 10% of the Land price.

For all people who thought the Indian housing bubble is a reality we have to reconsider it, the calculations say that the asset prices are trading at a discount of about 10.8%.

There is more incentive for people to buy small homes which are in the suburbs where the assets are at a discount of about 25%.

If you were a frenzy fan of real estates and you wanted reasons to invest in the real estates, you can be sure that the real estates are not in a state of bubble. If you were skeptical of the valuations (Actually I was not convinced at that point) and need to cross check various scenarios,here we go.

we would try to take the worse case scenarios to the various variable that can signigicantly affect the valuations.

Upward bias on the Land Price

There could be a current upward bias in the land prices due to higher rentals which have been prevailing in system due to supply constraints of apartments. The other thing could be that the rentals could be on the higher side compared to the prevailing land prices. For instance, parts of velachery demands a rent of about Rs. 8/ Sq.ft, whereas land prices float around the Rs 2800 mark. We can test them right way

We can see that the current market price of the assets are at a premium of about 30%, if we consider that the land is worth only 30% of the current flat price, which is approximately the land price before three years. It seems to be fairly priced if the land is worth 50% of the current flat price.

The housing starts in sub urban areas, redevelopment in the existing areas and the SEZ (Special Economic Zones) can put the prices down as the demand would ease in the future. The demographics of India however suggest that the housing demand isn’t going to stop in the mid term. The demand rentals are expected to be in the upper spectrum as there is a constant movement of labor in the country towards zones of higher economic activity.

Concerns on Interest rate moving north

The next concern is about interest rates, the home loan rates have been increasing in the recent past and are slated to be high in the mid term (that is what the treasury yield curve seem to suggest).The table below kind of summarizes the premium or discount in the property if the interest rates increases or decreases.

The market prices seems to be fairly priced even if the homeloan rate rise to 14% levels.

Limited Tax benefits as the Property value increases

The next issue could be that a segment of people who buy the flat may not have the tax benefit and the tax benefit is capped to the people who buy properties of higher value.

The table below summarizes the premium or discount in the asset according to the property value purchased..

It is the same story, the asset prices are at a discount for all the classes of home buyers irrespective of the tax benefit

Conclusions

The real estate prices are fairly prices considering the current prices. However we can expect the real estates to rally deep north for the next two years. The prices would become expensive going forward. The premium which the buyers can pay depends on how fat their purses are.

It depends, as to what propostion of the disposable income one can spend towards real estates, However it also depends on how debt struck one wants to become !!!.

One more thing, the bottom of pyramid can never afford a real estates and would be the most affected by the recent spike in rents and land prices.

(PS: I started this excercise to prove that the real estates are in a dream bubble)

The Other side of IT, Onsite & NRI's

2007-02-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

There seems to be fuss around, as how the inflation (the rate at which my money loses value) has reached the 6.73% and even slated to kiss the unprecedented 7.0 % levels . The government has come up with knee jerk reactions like cutting down the fuel prices; it has taken steps to ban exports of wheat and milk powder, announced import duty cuts on cement, steel and edible oils. The happy news is that it would take time to show results and we can now live in an inflated environment.

The latest spike has occurred due to increased prices of manufactured products and primary articles like vegetables, eggs, meat and fish, oil seeds, condiments and spices.You know who this hurts the most ?

RBI recently increased the Cash Reserve Ratio CRR (the portion of total deposits in a bank that need to be deposited with the RBI) by 50 basis points to 6% in two stages. The first hike of 25 basis points will be effective from February 17 and the second from March 3 of the current year. The CRR increase will drain Rs 14,000 crore of liquidity from the banking system, on top of Rs 13,500 crore drained in the last week of December and the first week of January.

As the CRR is increased, the excess money would be drained out of the system; banks would have lower money to lend. This would essentially translate to lower credit growth and the consumer would not have excess money which would reduce the demand for goods and hence prevent the price from seeking north.

You might ask me as so what the point. The banks have had a credit growth of around 30 % over the past few years (Can you recollect so many tale calls pleading you to get credit cards and personal loans) and there is culprit in the form of real estate funding. Somebody needs to stop the real-estate from hopping up every another day.

Blame the IT & the new economy jobs, people have too much of money earned out of the dollar arbitrage and they are like irrationally bidding higher prices for the real estates. We can expect the FM to tinker the tax sops on the interest and principal now availed on home loans. No other prudent way to keep the prices down.

The salaries have compounded by 25% for the past three years and they are in reality unsustainable even in the mid term. All would vanish once the RBI decides to abstain itself from dirty float on the dollar rate. This is exactly what creates the supply side shock. People have too much money and they feel like buying too many things and that’s keeping the prices high (of course which company would not price the goods high if people are willing to pay any price just because they have too much money)

You might be wondering as to why I pulled the NRI's and the people who are retreating their hard earned money back to India. They are the people who are putting abundant money into the system. The RBI is unable to control the money supply as the money from NRI's are routed into the Indian system. Just compare this, a software engineer earns around $15,000 per in India gets to earn around $50,000 in the US. They are so kind enough to send the money back to our sweet homeland India. Now he is all eager to invest in Indian real estates. They can afford a flat for 50 lacs because they earns $50,000 and now how about the people who earn only $15,000.Infact the Per capital Income of an Indian is around $650.

The government needs to take some serious steps to lower the cap interest rate offered on NRI money. The RBI is like buying $2Bn every week just to keep the dollar hovering around 44 and keep exports attractive to rest of the world. This dirty game would end soon or latter, the market forces would eventually take guard. have seen what would happen if we try to control the exchange rates. The Central bank can certainly see the images of East Asian Crisis, the Russian imbroglio and the Tequila effect of South America looming over.

When the rupee is allowed to float, export would become expensive and margin would take a hit and think about the repercussions of this in the IT/KPO sector where the personal expenses currently contribute to around 45% of the total expenses.

Somebody needs to be rational else the electronic herd can take us for a ride!!! .There would be no hip, hop and hurray.All this happy feeling would vanish in a hurry

Thinking <-> Feeling about Love

2007-02-13T09:50:00.000-08:00

Unconditional

Possessive

Strange

***

Begins with the senses

Gradually Embraces the Mind

Stays bouyant in the Heart

***

All is fair in Love & War

***

Joy <--<------>--> Pain

Hurts <----------> Forgives

You<------> I

Listens <--> Express

Feel

***

Its what Life is all about

I hate hypocrisy

2007-02-09T21:26:00.000-08:00

I somehow did not want to write this post but Its itching me in my brain and I had to put it down somewhere.How does it feel when you know that somebody dramatises things and is taking unfair advantage of somebody.It is quite expected out of hyenas or wolves but not out of the lions.It's hard to digest that somebody wears a social goodie mask and wears an hyena's clad in personal life.

When we can influence somebody and we know that it could make all the difference to turn the tides towards them, the genuine would certainly abstain from it.There is this dark side of the masked one, the so called "goodies" somehow would substantiate the influence with an ulterior motive to influence them.Why would you make somebody vulnerable and be the vanguard as well.

I really appreciate the courage in the pack of hyneas to accept their inherent nature of deceit and I certainly admire them because they are what they are.I always confess this,its not the bad people that create all they problems in the society, they are there to do their part.It is the trans-qualified that disorient the equilibrium in the system.

I always wonder how they kind of mange to keep their conscience at bay.They need to be acting all the time.it is easy to be bad but it's very difficult to act like not one of those.

The Crush Factory

2007-02-02T08:00:00.001-08:00

So when was your first crush on somebody? I must be getting you people back to those sweet teens when only a few glances from "that person", would invoke a butterfly which got to mellow in your heart. Gone are those days when I gottu to swim the "Crush Pond”. I had half mushies and tender masculine voices and would blush like a colgatEEEE when I get to be in the vicinity.

That’s a tough question indeed, as who my first crush was? I think it must be my seventh standard and I won't stop gazing at that girl. It was like nine pins, I fell into the "Crush pond", so often, with so many people. I was such a naughty guy that I would be "punished" (Don’t tell me its a punishment my dear teachers) to sit between girls in my higher secondary, no wonder it was a habit to me. I love examinations as I would have the greatest three hours, writing the examinations with senior and junior girls and in most cases I gottu sit with pretty girls ("at least in my eyes").I loved the annual examinations rather than the monthly test which were of shorter durations.

Age was no barrier to me, I can't tell you as to how I would concentrate in Physics just to get the attention of my Physics Mam, No wonder I have varied interest in most subjects. I love language classes, that was when I could have the chance to gaze at those Section "E & F" girls with sweet eyes and chinky looks. I can still remember that day; I would sit in that hot sun to look those cute faces in the bus stop when I was asked to take vanguard in our dad's business place during my school days.

When I asked this around in to my close chums, the experiences were even fascinating, Somebody had a crush on the nurse when he got out to see the world, some took advantage of his principal father to follow that girl in the school, some would borrow news papers so often with that neighbor to see that bubbly girl, somebody could remember that girl with the color purple dress and nothing more, some had the crush on that lovable aunty, some had crush on the receptionist, some had it on that cultural secretary, some had it on Shilpa Sheety , Some had it on their project manger, some had it on that girl who sit right nexts to him, some had it on his girl friend's best friend.

Ohhh My Godddd, So many people, so many experiences. Somebody even floated a theory that there is a higher probability to have a crush on a elder person when we are in teens. It’s an endless journey to fall into the crush pond.

How I loved those happy days buoyant in that "Crush Pond"

Deconstructing anger

2007-01-26T08:41:00.000-08:00

Anger has different destinations. We try to be angry with ourselves, first persons (close ones) or the third person (society).There are people who are like demi gods of patience and can stand cool like a cucumber, even if the solar winds have a romantic tryst with them. At other extreme, there are people who play fiddle with anger now and then. There are of course people who can play the tradeoff game with high levels of efficacy.

I always felt anger to be a natural window for emotions. I can't remember anybody (people who have been close to me) who have not let them out in the topology of anger. Just that people have different trigger levels and the person to whom they showcase it changes. Sometimes we regret for letting the dogs bark and there are sometimes when we feel relieved once we have expressed it. It is a kind of negative emotion and it needs to be vanquished at the earliest for our own good.

I was just digging around for the cause of anger. We tend to show our anger once we are disappointed with an outcome which might relate to us. It can be directly correlated to the expectation which was built into the outcome. Humans cannot live without expectations and we ought to meet situations where our expectations are not met. We have several ways of handling them; the first course of action is to show anger. If we fail to do so and the notion of disappointment still stays within us, it may manifest in the forms of digression and depression which are all different grades of handling disappointment.

We often don't possess the strength to face disappointment and find ourselves in such states. I certainly accept anger to be an inevitable avatar of emotions; I was trying to decipher the purpose of its incarnations. Anger comes out in every relationship when expectations are not met and it is fascinating dimension of love. It is a part and parcel of every relationship, it's a mere mirage when the cajoling happens and pardon beckons.

There are extreme cases as well, some people used it as a weapon to achieve means, it is often used to acquire power and in certain cases to create fear to protect one's ego. Anger in such cases arises when one is not able to entertain disappointment, gets hurt, feels insecure and safety wears the mask of anger.

So many forms, so many reasons, I can't stop admiring anger.

Thick Red Line

2007-01-17T00:59:00.001-08:00

I was traveling on my way back to home on a cold Sunday night, which seems to be the new apparel of Chennai. I could smell global warning which has permeated us gradually but with a conscious undertaking. No wonder Thomas Friedman claimed, "The world is flat", I can see signs of "thanksgiving" in its own way by nature.

I was a pillion, as an equally lean friend of mine rode the bike on the roads of new Chennai, no cents for guessing, it was the Keelkatalai-Velachery road. I could sense the new epicenter of middleclass burgeoning out there, after they managed to topple bids of real estate prices with an irrational upward bias.

We had this aged, unsolved argument between us, how should one tradeoff one's freedom with the obligations which engulf him, leave alone whether we should tradeoff. I could recollect another conversation where one of friend told me that he would want to get settled in life by forty and then live the rest of his life following his passion. I don’t know what sense it makes to salvage one passion for the socially constructed obligations which can only give only leave dissonance and frustration till forty. Everybody wants to "achieve" success in his or her career to acquire a respectable economic & social status.

Continuing our bike journey, I quipped as to whether he would be free to follow his passion once he had achieved the "economic status" & family obligations. He was as confused with his predictions about such a state, as my were intensions to ask them. I defended as to how success in career along with choosing the career itself, the economic status and balancing out once freedom is a social construct. Most of us merely follow the norms of the society only to safeguard our acceptability, which is an outcome when we subscribe to them. May be I can even extend my argument that accepting conformability is social construct itself.

I really picked up this great line from a blog " hallucination is the best medicine”. I had my own deliberation. There are three states, we understand the social construct and follow our freedom although it could be following the social construct. Then there is this other state, we are "blessed" with ignorance about the construct in our lifetime, which leaves no dissonance but a latent obsession to accept fate.

The other state is that we really don’t know whether there is a construct but it keeps peeping in then and there, we decide to submit to the construct, to leave our freedom to take refuge in submissiveness. The outcome is quite evident we are face dissonance and we reflect the society rather than our freedom when we unconsciously want to liberate ourselves.

Juggling with sex ratios

2007-01-08T08:13:00.000-08:00

I have been in a big propoganda about sex ratios and their implications in our society, It all started after I saw this video in youtube .It had a staggering fact, the crux is that there are more females than the males in the western world.Atleast Newyork has 1mn more females and there are atleast 25mn gays in USA which leaves a estimated net deficit of around 30 mn males in the U.S.It is all the more omnipresent in France, Germany, Russia and U.K

When I buzzed this around, my friends were all eager to cramp themselves in to Newyork and the Western world.They had ample reasons, even Adam Smith's grandma can tell you the reason.Those may be jocular moments for people to crack jokes and shows intent to join the bandwagon although most of them didn't have an ulterior motive.The fact remained to thinked about, because Sex is the basic instinct of a human as with any creation of god.Ofcourse "moral values" subjective by itself goes for a toss now if we need to satify the basic needs of a human.

I had some seemingly funny suggestions, we can immigrate more men into the western world where the supply of men is relatively higher.When capital and labour can be moved across borders why not men.The implications of such skewness in the sex ratio was unbelievable.

It was only after someweeks that I came across this video in youtube.It is an AIDs commericial run by MTV (You may have to avoid it if you are in the office although the message is daring).The core of the issue is simple,the fastest group of people affected by AIDs in the US is among hetrosexual women under the age of 30.I guess you can relate the first issue and the second issue.

As putforth in the first BBC report "Let her die" about 300 fetuses are aborted in India once they are identified as females which gathers to around 1mn females in a year.India's sex ratio in 2001 was 933 females/1000 males (1029/1000 in the U.S.A) which handsomely leaves a net deficit of 67mn females in India.

What is the net result?.Men will compete for brides and ofcourse the imcompetent ones( judged by economic & social status) would be driven out of the race.There are about 4mn (reported or estimates) people infected with AIDS in India and men are more prone to get infected than males(you know the reason why).Another interesting article which came across in the web, its core issue is about how cover is not a cover!!

How do we solve these puzzles which might change the entire framework of the scoiety ?

Sweet November

2007-01-06T09:39:00.000-08:00

It was only within a span of three days
I was caught contradicting my views in two ways

Past years had taught me this learning
Relationships are what give life its meaning
I was half-baked with the intellect
That’s when emotions made me feel perfect

Trust me, I had to tell that on Friday
Don’t know why, I took a U-turn that Monday
Day before, I saw the movie "Sweet November"
How funny, I forgot the truth to remember

Sad, I confessed, I don’t believe in relationships
My friend listening to this had his own hardships
I was not caught napping with a brain trigger
Just reiterated the truth that nothing is forever

Both the occasions, I was in vivid conscience
They were moments of truth advocating resilience
Maybe, the truth was an immature half lie
Could be, future has more to life's learning pie

Relationships are like a flowing river
Streams join as rolling stones slowly wither
Parents give us love conditioned by gene
Siblings accompany us like our vein

Friends can accept what we are
They can construct what you are
Chums have no rules or inequality
They are there, in all our reality

Life moves, you might fall in love
That is when you are your complete true
Spectrum of emotions engulf you
For a change, you tailor to the "other you"

In all of them, there are no boundaries to roles
Time and life define its own rules
The butterfly counts not months but moment
It has enough time to live when it really meant!!

Ideology, Religion & Science

2006-12-30T08:56:00.000-08:00

Let me start with the gross definitions for the above terms about which I shall put forth my views.

An ideology is an organized collection of ideas or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society. The main purpose behind an ideology is to offer change in society through a normative thought process (what the world ought to be). Ideologies tend to be abstract thoughts applied to reality.

Religion is the adherence to codified beliefs and rituals that (generally) involve a faith in a spiritual nature and a study of inherited ancestral traditions, knowledge and wisdom related to understanding human life. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to faith as well as to the larger shared systems of belief.

Science is "knowledge attained through study or practice," or "knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws. It uses observation and experimentation to describe and explain natural phenomena. Science continually seeks to gain increased understanding and, where appropriate, the possibility for control of many specific aspects of the world.

Its time to take head-on on this bullshit. The BJP national council meeting concluded recently and the party had amended its constitution to induct RSS 'pracharaks' into important positions and reaffirmed one of its core ideology to build Ram temple in Ayodhya.Not that BJP is bad, our PM has recently remarked that minorities must have the first claim on the country’s resources and it was obviously a move to appease the Muslim community in large.

There was another comment which has been irritating me for sometime now, the Pope had reminded us of an earlier quote by Emperor Manuel II Paleologus "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”. I shall not delve on the atrocities of the Church to gain power during the 11-15th centuries.

I really can’t understand the vigor the saffron heads possess to build Ram temple when there are so many issues lined up against us and at least 30 % of our population is below poverty. It is a holy crap statement Mr. Singh when there is such a wide income disparity building in the society which may lead to a social oppression in the near future. I never expected such a naive remark from the pontiff who heads the one billion Catholics when there are signs of a religious cold war between Islam and Christianity.

I don’t know how long they are going to take the commons for a ride in the name of Ideology. There is nothing wrong in having faith and to practice it. I don’t know what sense it makes to provoke negative sentiments of other faiths by people who can make all the difference between life and death for a mass.

I shall take the liberty to distinguish the religion from ideology. Ideology involves the invoking of a superior attitude whereas religion may not encourage a condescending feeling. The classic case of BJP is to invoke the ideology of Hindutuva identity although Hinduism does not preach such a superior or narcissist attitude. There has been an inclination to collaborate faith (which is based on complete trust) with ideologies which is dictated by a pioneering group. As faith is completely decoupled from reasoning, a sect of the society try to invoke impulsive emotions for their own thirst for power.

There was another disturbing news item which was showed on Christmas eve in CNN-IBN.It had indicated how caste system has stayed intact in the churches. I can't sound more than "what holy crap!!”.Atleast my basic understanding about the basic principles of different faiths is that they teach us to live a god life in harmony with the world around us codifying different morals for them. I don’t know what justice we can provide to what is being done or instigated.

As I try to understand religion or science, I see both of them as a methodology to understand. Religions seeks to understand god whereas science seeks to understand the nature. Faith operates on trust whereas science seeks the truth through reasoning. Religions claim ultimate wisdom through god whereas sciences postulate theories to understand them.

At least I reasonably assume that both seek to understand the truth. I shall quote the recent issues such as stem cell research and the concept of intelligent design where both science and religion have tried to overwhelm their supremacy rather than seek co-existence. Both of them have their limitations; faith cannot be proved whereas science is limited to concurrent knowledge.

Science allows a feedback system where current theories can be challenged and the celebrated theories can be replaced by new theories which more accurately represent a phenomenon. Adaption is the cardinal rule for a theory to survive, if it cannot release a new version it becomes obsolete. At times both science and faith show arrogance and adamancy without any respect for its basic purpose of existence, to provide us a better life!!

Right or Wrong?

2006-12-21T08:35:00.000-08:00

The other day, I took a break from my hectic work ( I know you don't want to believe it, if you were to extrapolate my last few months).It was quite late, the cubicles in my floor were filled with some of my fellow compatriots who were giving their contribution to increase the revenue of youtube, some were appreciating the CG abilities of online games, some were enriching their networking abilities through Gmail and Orkut and there were others like me who self proclaimed the liberty to talk about anything.

One of my colleagues had remarked, as to how one person took the license to treasure two long hours to watch friends series in the office. It was not a kind of surprise to me because I had on one occasion cherished a four hour limit on the friends series in office. I could empathize with him, I confronted “What is wrong if people can amuse themselves with such activities when they have no work or deliverables".

My colleague acknowledged as to how even he had found such Time Relishing Tactics (TRT), but he would not prolong it for more than half an hour. He said it was not fair to do such non-value adding activities for such long durations in office. I knew that the only way people find respite for doing certain ( I am being conservative) dirty jobs is by regaling themselves with such offline (non-value adding to the business).If I can speak for myself I find it offending to kill boredom and all I can do is to procrastinate or dissipate my frustration only by such activities. I can neither complain of the work because that is where Indian companies are in the value chain.

I was traveling in my friend's car enroute to meet our undergraduate friend. It was really intimidating to watch four people packed up in a two wheeler. Both of us dissented, as how foolish those people were, without any respect for safety. I offered my opinion as to how they could not afford a car,the had the necessity to travel faster amidst the state of public transport. Everybody had their own reason to judge whether something was wrong or right.

How often are we caught up with ethical dilemmas and moral judgments?. Pre-marital sex or divorces do not undergo the same moral judgment as in the western world. Does it mean that people in the western world are a whole bunch of unethical people?. What kind of moral judgment flourishes our mind when somebody quits a job for the want of money, what is wrong in subjecting ourselves to higher valuations in the market.

What was perfectly right to me was absolutely wrong to somebody else although each of us had valid reasons. Each of us had our own definition or measure as to what was right or wrong. The proportion of the activity had determined the outcome of the judgment rather than the signs of the activity itself.

We are more often influenced by the judgment of the pertaining societal guidelines as well. I felt that the framework for moral judgment is determined by the individual freedom or constraint to think or act about the same. Our judgment of right or wrong most often reflect the liberty of our mind, conditioned by the past, the experiences of the present and our willingness to give a chance for the same in the future.

There are no rigid rules to what is right or wrong and it is more determined by the dimensions of our mind and experiences. Is there something called half right or wrong?. Is it possible for something to be perfectly right without being wrong?. Is it always possible for something tobe right or wrong for eternity?.Who am i to determine what is right or wrong?.Can i live without judging whether something is right or wrong?

Am I Right or Wrong?

India & Sports: a Good Joke?

2006-12-14T10:17:00.000-08:00

It gives me an awkward feeling when I think that India managed to siphon only around 9 gold medals by now whereas our close neighbor plundered 147 gold medals in the Asian games. I really cannot stop refuting nor can I prevent myself from showing my dissent against the commentators who happily blame the poor athletes for putting up this abysmal performance. Dare shall we have the guts to spur such disrespect for their spirit.

If anybody has to be blamed for this pathetic state, it is the process and the attitude of the people about sports. How many of our parents would have allowed us to take up sports as a profession. We would rather be highly paid coolies morphed in the name of engineers and business graduates working for the progress of any other economy than bring laurels in sports for our country.

Let us not put a hollow statement that there is dearth of talent in this country. I certainly feel that If we cannot find talent in this 100 crore population, we can never find it elsewhere. There is a huge hue and cry that the Indian hockey team has put us to shame as they have failed to qualify to medals phase. How many of us have know that Holland has around 200 stadiums and India has hardly 20 turf stadiums and still we claim that hockey is our national sport.

We have very often observed our friends or acquaintances who were good sportspersons but dissuaded themselves from taking sports as a profession. They would choose or be forced to be a mediocre analyst rather than show their proficiency as great sportsmen. There is either the lack of parental support, social acknowledgement to take such a sporting career or financial stability to do so. There is always this fear which prevents them.

Success at the highest level of sports is all about high levels of competition and we can achieve high level of competitiveness only when we have a good talent pool. To attract the best of the breed, there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way we perceive sporting as a career option. There need to be a major impetus on sports & the essential infrastructure at all levels to breed a competitive talent pool. We need to understand that sports are as important as academics in developing a holistic personality and nation. An innate sportsperson can be identified at a very young age and they should be tuned from there.

There is this argument which crops up, in this nation when half of them are impoverished by poverty and illiteracy, is it really necessary that sports be given such impetus. If we are going to accept this fatalism, we shall at least have the grace to abstain ourselves from blaming the people who had the passion or at least the guts to take a risk to choose a sporting profession inspite of depleted infrastructure and adequate competitive environment. I am not going to deny the politics in the system but I can vouch that talent would prevail in the end if the system is corrected..

I am encouraged by the way the corporates sponsor the non mass sports like formula racing, tennis and golf. I get some respite that encouragement and funds are flowing from the private sector when the government has it own focus.Atleast we need to have the courage of what China did some years ago.China abstained itself from Olympics and other sports events till it reached a competitive level.

We should cultivate the culture to enjoy sports other than cricket atleast !!

That Ever Lasting Smile

2006-12-06T10:36:00.000-08:00

There used to be a professor in my class who used to religiously ask this question before he starts his lecture “Are you Happy?".I always thought that it was not such an easy question that can be answered nor did it make prudence to self interrogate to ascertain the same. It is true that we can always distinguish the moment of happiness from other states although the source of happiness somewhat conjugates itself with fluid partners.

There is a guy who serves tea to us in our company, He does not serve the best of beverages although the monotony of the same composition might have lead me to this conclusion but there is something that I relish about him. He has this ability to judge the mood of people by looking at them. Last Wednesday, He suddenly put across this statement to me; he said "You look happy”. I was amused by this because it was the first time in a year that he had to say this to me although we shared a good rapport. I refuted "I am always like that”. He replied " May be you are more happy than what you were earlier”. I could not resist admitting it in private to myself. May be he is right, I could discern the change when I consciously evaluated it. It was the penultimate day, I had opened myself to one of my close chum about the worries that had promulgated my mind for sometime now. I was feeling better after I spoke out.Could be, that is what reflected in my attitude and happy feel factor somehow surfaced.

There is one important thing I had to concede, people who observe you would know if you are really happy. Now, that lead to "What is happiness?”. I came up with answers like smiling, pleasure, joy or feeling good. The more I got to scrutinize my answers; I realized that those were mere outcomes or synonyms to happiness. After some mind wars to reach consensus, I refined "Is happiness the state of feeling when one is satisfied when he gets what he wants?”.The want may be both tangible and intangible. Okay that a fair attempt but I wasn't completely convinced.

Maybe, happiness is the state of being oneself when somebody is satisfying his needs. I got to contemplate "Is happiness a balanced state when one is satisfied ". It couldn't be that way because in such a state of neutrality caused by satisfaction, we cannot enjoy happiness. I got to observe another thing the more we are conscious that we are happy, the state starts to sizzle away. The more we are conscious of having satisfied of our needs, we are not happy.Oops, then what the heck is this happiness, I know for sure that some damn thing happens when we are happy. Something ringed somewhere "Is happiness the state when we are unconscious of our needs in spite of our needs?". I really don’t know.

WTF moments

2006-12-01T03:45:00.000-08:00

We always undergo these moments in life when we are in deep rage to blurt out "What the f**k (WTF) ". Some of us are naive enough to share them with others, some are pompous enough to fake them and others are diffident enough to hide them. I just felt like sharing such discrete events which currently occupies the troposphere of my mind.

Indian cricket is what comes to me first, although I have refused myself to be a diehard fan after the betting scandal. I cannot resist following the game, for I lack options where India has to show its sporting skills. It is not that i am agitated about the recent performance in South Africa, I never had the guts to expects better stuff after witnessing chronic inability of our team to play in seaming and bouncy conditions outside the subcontinent. It is the moment when our honorable MP's took this issue, even one of them had to suggest Greg Chappell about coaching. One of them had a great thought; we should cut their match fees. Our honorable speaker had to say that Greg Chappell does not have to talk about the job of parliamentarians. WTF, it even applies to people who suggest to Chappell. Just because BCCI churns crores of money not every tom dick and harry can comment of how cricket should be run.

Next on the glutinous pipeline is the spurring comment of our own L.K Advani who said in the Lok Sabha that "the conviction of a Cabinet minister in a murder case was an “unprecedented’ development in the annals of India’s Parliamentary history and the situation caused by it was ‘extraordinary’ ". The PM, he demanded, should clarify his position and tender an apology to the nation for re-inducting Soren.WTF, what moral conviction does Advani have to say this after committing the sin of outraging communal thoughts which provoked killings after he had the courage to take up Ratha Yatra in a “secular" country like India.

This has some local content; I was traveling in an auto and suddenly a two-wheeler passed across us like an insane crook. As typical of our auto drivers, he called him names which didn't impact me. What really created havoc in my mind was the way in which the auto driver took the liberty to cross the imminent signal even after it turned red which would have almost triggered an accident. WTF, is judgment of insanity drowned with such bias towards others. Is it that everybody is jobless on the road and the auto driver is smart enough to gain time?

There was a discussion amongst our colleagues about how our corrupt politicians are ruining Indian growth which has the potential to outpace the growth of China.WTF?, How can we expect this from them when we don’t even pay taxes properly. I am not against tax savings, I am more concerned about the method of faking claims to evade tax?

I don’t say that we need to perfect, we just have to understand that we have our own deficiencies. We need to consciously understand them and correct them!!!

Did you say WTF after reading this post?

Murphy Meets Me

2006-11-26T10:16:00.001-08:00

We come across incidents in life for which we hardly would have given a faint chance. Once the event happens, we only combat our luck as to how we got to experience them. It must be at least four weeks now; nature had candidly remarked that I added one more year of my experience since I landed here on earth.

Oops, it is not strange that I grew older. It was bound to happen, neither was it a stray incident. It was different from my last four birthday’s atleast.The moment it struck 12, one of my close chums rang me to wish me and then another followed. I felt like a baby again, I confessed that I was younger than what most people thought and gradually gave leeway to sleep.

I was happy that nobody dare aunt kick me at places where I had least fat. The following day was a bit of surprise to me. People around me completely lost track that I had reinvented myself one more time. So many of my friends called me to wish me about the advent of light festival but their memory defied my new age.

It was the concurrent events that impressed me. I was only reminded of Murphy's Law "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong”. To be candid, I hardly remember people's birthday except who are very close to me. I totally depend on birthday remainders. You know what, all the birthday remainders failed then.

Event1 (E1):
We always send a birthday remainder in our BIM group and it did not find my name.
Event2 (E2):
The HR our company sends birthday remainders and it did not find my name.
Event3 (E3):
The Orkut birthday remainder didn't work for those particular days.
Event4 (E4):
It turned out to be long weekend cascaded with the festive holiday.
Event5 (E5):
I have a peculiar case, my certificates show different date to my actual DOB and it confuses many people.

Now I am going to assign probability to them

P (E1) =1/100 (approx 100 people in my batch)
P (E2) =1/500 (approx 500 ppl in my company)
P (E3) =1/300 ~ (1/365 - 1 day in a year)
P (E4) =1/10 ~ (5/52 - Weekend cascaded mega festivals)
P (E5) =1/100 ~ (2/200 - I know at least 2 people who have the same kind of problem in my college)

Now the joint probability of all this happening

=P (E1)*P (E2)*P (E3)*P (E4)*P (E5)
=1/100*1/500*1/300*1/10*1/100
=1/30,000,000,000

May be that was what Murphy predicted!!

How about a date with disorder ?

2006-11-23T10:14:00.000-08:00

A post after a long time.I gonna take you for a ride about disorder which in the view of a sect of people is strangely in order. I keep wondering at people who keep their imagination in high gears looking to model random process. Can we ever model the shape of clouds or think about replicating the contours that are seemingly crazy figments in our perception?

To understand the observed's behavior, it needs lots of intellectual courage and a smart brain to identify the variable tweaking it.Onething for sure; most of nature's system is non-linear. That leads to the inevitable question, are things so complex that it cannot be modeled or is it that, we have camouflaged ourselves to simplicity by overlooking simple rules?

Have you heard of Chaos theory? Well if you have not, then I shall take the liberty to confuse you. Chaos theory refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules. The two main components of chaos theory are the ideas that systems - no matter how complex they may be - rely upon an underlying order, and that very simple or small systems and events can cause very complex behaviors or events.

There was crazy guy who was trying to study the cotton prices a trying to predict the cotton prices, the more he tried the more he failed.Atlast he came across a great observation, there was an underlying similarity between the change in monthly and change in yearly cotton prices adjusted for scale.

Each particular price change was random and unpredictable but the sequence of changes was predictable independent of scale. Curves for daily and monthly price changes matched, the degree of variation had remained constant over a tumultuous 60-year period that saw two world wars and a depression. Although it was almost next to impossible to predict the local price the system's behavior as a whole was close to deterministic. In Sierpinski's lingua the system is locally random and globally deterministic.

Have you ever wondered how the fern/pine tree looks similar to its branches, they in turn are similar to the leaves and they are in turn similar to the veins of the leaves. I don't know if this inspired somebody to think of fractals. Fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced/size copy of the whole.

Fractals have something very important to say, that things are self-similar. May that is the geometry of nature and to be more refined what is in the microcosm in the macrocosm. Nature has simple elements which create complex elements using very simple rules. No better example than basic genes which are self similar but create complex beings like humans. How fascinating isn't it? The moral of the story, what is apparently envisaged as disorderly is in fact very orderly, just that we don't understand them.

Whenever things comeback and remind us of similar things, we are confounded by the perception that life's a full circle but we feel that they are not exactly the same. Fair enough, true they had some other interesting observation about dynamic systems.

In dynamical systems, an attractor is a set to which the system evolves after a long enough time. For the set to be an attractor, trajectories that get close enough to the attractor must remain close even if slightly disturbed. Geometrically, an attractor can be a point, a curve, a manifold, or even a complicated set with fractal structures known as a strange attractor.

Look at the trajectory of a ball tied to the end of a thread which is slowly winded around our finger. It never repeats its path nor does it overlap but the paths traced are self-similar and it has the centre of the spiral as the "strange attractor”. This is the example of a simple dynamic system. Think about the complexities perceived, if the ball traverses a path which has two centers and the paths are never repeated nor overlapped and yet self similar which is nicknamed "Lorenz attractor".

That’s how most things in life and nature are, disorder seamlessly falls in love with order. So the next time you think things are complex, we need to acknowledge that we did not understand certain simple rules.

Suddenly I find myself

2006-11-13T07:09:00.000-08:00

Suddenly I find myself

breathing Chaos
fighting Depression
chocking Emotions
seeking Illusions
bundling Despair
venting Gloom
singing Solace
investing Pessimism

all omipresent in my mind
without any reason
how strange ?

Your Attitude Sucks!

2006-11-12T10:36:00.000-08:00

I still vividly remember this statement “Your Attitude Sucks!” which was announced to the students of our college. It was the vocal chords of a visiting professor which uttered this after witnessing an array of presentations. I am not going to salvage some pride by negating the statement; we have heard this from enumerous number of teachers, only that they had the courtesy to change the semantics and tone during other occasions. It’s natural that teachers expect more from us and we never want to disappoint them by giving them any quantum of surprise.

We had to slog ourselves to get into a good college and all we did henceforth was to present a turncoat after that. We were assiduous and talented on a local individual level but somehow choose to avert high levels of enthusiasm on a global group level. Could be that every individual concedes to the "collective freewill" of the group. We were suddenly adhering ourselves to the "group behavior", as usual there were exceptions here and there.

I could somehow recollect a conversation which I had with my friend about the difference in attitude between North Indians and South Indians. North Indians are generally the happy go type, broad minded and live their life enjoying moments in the present. South Indians are conservative, they live their life as if their lives are going to start after 40.They are more concerned about savings to make a great life in the prime of forties.

What could be the plausible reason for such a starching difference in life styles? One of my South Indian friends who had spent most of his time in North India dissected it for me.History reveals us one thing for us, it was North India which was most affected, be it Invasion by warriors for centuries now or the partition which happened recently. They have been tormented by more pain, their living was more uncertain than the bunch of people who spread the southern part. That’s what inculcated the culture of living their life to the moment than wait for some fine day far from the present.

There was yet another observation made by another friend, people in North India somehow tend to somehow identify people by their religion. There is a latent feeling of hurt tracing back to the Islamic invasion. The culture of people is more driven by the experiences of the past.

Have you ever wondered why Australians are so competitive? Japanese are hard working?, Americans mean business when its business?, Marwari's value money so much?, Jewish are powerful?. All have different stories to their chemistry.

Isn't it fair on us to give and get good experiences?

Freaked by Free will

2006-11-07T10:35:00.000-08:00

When something uncontrollable happens, people always blame fate or destiny for it. There are other occasions when we attribute freewill when we are able to take things into our control irrespective of the situation. It seems contradictory that a person can exercise freewill when the outcome has already been programmed. If such is a case, choice is just an illusion.There is also a tendency to ascribe events to the invisible hand of the supernatural.

I really see God to be a real unimaginative/dull guy if he has already determined our fate and we are just playing our roles to the predestined outcomes of the game. He would have played a fair part in betraying us, giving an illusion of having choices.Onething for sure; he must be one pure genius to have designed various systems with such level of fascination and awe.

It would be unfair to blame the super designer for none of his fault. It would be equally unfair if he helps out a select few who seek his help because he would become unfair for not having helped a person for not seeking his help. In my kind opinion he can give only the ability and it is all up to us to apply it.

I am not here to deny or mock at fate, it would be equally fallible to do that. I see fate to be just the set of imminent outcomes which are the consequence of our past actions. We are facing something because we have construed them by our past thoughts, action and will. This is no path breaking concept; it has been preached by all the philosophies and called karma as well. In short "As we sow so shall we reap".

Isn't there any respite? What if we want to change our course of action? We can really take a course of action but not without the constraints of options generated by the outcomes of our previous actions which I can safely term as fate. We endlessly face a world with options created by our own pasts but possess the freewill to choose our options. To be precise we program our fate and freewill.

Let us suppose that a person is at the point A now, and he has the freewill to move in any direction and suppose that he moves to point D intially.Now he has again the freewill to move in any direction although he has a liking to move to point F, but chooses to move to point E with his freewill for some reason. Now he decides to move to point F with freewill but with a difference, he has the current options are certainly influenced by his past actions.

He could have taken the shorter route at D to F, but now that he has chosen to move to point E, he had to travel some extra distance to reach F.Now we can say that he would still reach F , but he would have spent extra time or extra energy (speed) to reach there.

We have to certainly face the effects of the causes created by us and that does not deny us the freedom to liberate ourselves from the clutches of our past actions by our own will. This is what I mean when I vouch that we create our fate by our own thoughts, will and action.

I have some interesting questions? What determines the ability to see and generate options? What makes us to choose a particular course of action?

It is our perception that gives us the ability to do so. As usual, the age old story, perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. Our perception is limited by our field of experience. We define our courses by the limitation of our perception perse.

Till now I just discussed about the freewill and fate of a human in an isolated way. We obviously interact with the system around us and each of the individual components has their own freewill and fate. I can't resist telling the impact of one's freewill on the other.

What about our famous butterfly effect which refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately causes a tornado to appear (or, for that matter, prevent a tornado from appearing).

I certainly feel that even our system as a whole has is subjected to freewill and fate. What about the possibilities of applying freewill and fate to the creation and creator (nick named god)?

What is a degree worth?

2006-11-01T10:29:00.000-08:00

I have changed courses like random horses and I did them with atmost conviction that even chaos has some order, as does randomness flourishing uncertainty.I was particularly talking about my education although my life remains even more elusive.

I giggle at myself as to how I became a Production Engineer after specializing in Computer Science in my senior secondary. It remains even brain bare as I mastered in Finance and Systems in my M.B.A after working in an Auto ancillary for a year. Now, I want to become a journalist leave alone my affection for philosophy. My brain still dreams of becoming a global economist.

I don't whether I am confused now or was I confused earlier? Am i seeking what i really want or was i directionless earlier ?.Have experiences changed my courses or is it that, it is the natural way of life, only that I am trying too hard to blow it up.

One thing for sure I would hardly apply 10% of the knowledge I had acquired in my schooling. I shall pledge that I never questioned things in depth during my schooling or was I given the liberty to do so by my teachers, they too were grinded from the same system. I have read logarithm for so many years and it took me so many years to understand the significance of base "e".

I guess it was the same case with all the subjects which I had learned so far, right from under graduation to post graduation. The system had moulded me to recollect what was taught and religiously reproduce them in the answer sheet and still flaunt superior grades. I have now discussed the process aspect of the education.

Now, I shall dwell on the other aspect of specialized education. I don't know what sense it makes for a Production Engineer to specialize in finance and end up in equity research betraying the knowledge and skill I had acquired in the four years of education. I always seek solace that an engineer has a better ability to understand the process than a Chartered Account / Commerce graduate. It gives me greater embarrassment when I have to reveal that they are better, at least that is what my fellow colleagues in the form of CA's have taught me in the last year. It takes more of common sense to comprehend the business process and immense inquisitiveness to learn and excel.

It is really amazing to see how gold medallions/ top rankers in a particular domain choose to work in a completely diagonal field. I am not blaming them and it is not fair to do so. Isn’t it complete futility when we fail to apply the knowledge we acquire in a particular area. I can only giggle at people who start an hue and cry about IITians who brain drain our country. When are we going to realize that the brain drain disguised in non relevant profession selection. All this appetite for salary disparities would go away with the recent cross industry normalisation.Would our attitude change then?

It is shameful to know that only 25% of the engineers out of colleges are employable in jobs (including call centers).Our educational system is screwed up somewhere, are we just producing people who call speak tolerable English. Are engineers and Business graduates the only way of life? Is professional educational the only sacred society. Would there be someday when becoming an anthropologist or an historian be common?

We can give answers that professional education improves the thinking process and problem solving skills if we sideline the relevance of the knowledge. I hardly can see any path breaking inventions in India unless we streamline career with relevant application. We should focus on understanding rather than diversifying our risks in multiple domains. It is nothing wrong in being jack of all trades but it is wise to be king of at least one.

We shall bear the tag of highly paid coolies till then.

Newyork Nagaram

2006-10-30T06:32:00.000-08:00

This song " New York Nagaram Urangum Neeram..." from the movie Silunu Oru Kadhal (A Cool Love) has capitivated me so much than most songs that hit the screen in the last two years.I have become a extreme devout to this divine melody that I set this song as my caller tune and would call my mobile from my land number when I feel like hearing it.

After a long time, A.R Rahman's mellifluous voice has ascended to crown this heart throbbing melody.Rahman's voice is a genre of his own.I fell a prey to voice after he sang the romanatic harmony "Iru pookal kilai melae " in the movie "Uyire".

The editing and photography is exemplary as it perfectly personifies the theme of the song.The frames are shown in scrambles which gradually collates to gratify his memory about his love.It a neat melancholy blended with subtle emotions and nostalgic happiness.I can not stop admiring Surya and Jothika who have glorified the subtle feeling factor which had crosshatched the tune.

Its out of authentic selfishess that i am posting this video in my blog,I have even tried my hand in the translation although the image is moderately legible.

Rahaman Rocks !!!

What is Normal?

2006-10-25T11:32:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting insight during the course of a conversation. I was talking to a colleague of mine who had returned from onsite. We were discussing about his experiences in London as he had low comfortable levels with Anglo food (of course even I can't accustom to other cusines on a regular basis).I inquired about a fellow colleague who is currently in London and his acquaintance with discos and pubs.

He said that the person goes to pubs but doesn't drink. I quipped "What ?, He doesn't drink , is it?”For a while I thought that the concerned person had relinquished drinking, how nice. I was interrupted “He drinks only beer" .I was taken back, I asked "When did they classify drinking beer not to be apart of boozing?”. I was at least confident that the chemical laboratories would accede that most of the beers contains 5% alcohol. He said “drinking beer is no more a part of boozing by the current standards”. I needed no consensus.

I started relating this incident to similar norms which changed as we moved across various timelines. It took long time to scientifically substantiate that gulping egg would not create hindrance to the tag of vegetarians who could not resist eggs. People now accept it a norm to breach signals even if red greeted them, they don't understand that accidents don't happen every day and when it happens a life may be lost. It's like, we have started to accept that half nudes are no more extreme taboo in current bollywood films.

It’s more like fashion or music, what is accepted by most people becomes the norm or common experience then. It is a vicious circle, we seek change as we strive for it, change creates change as we observe and experience it. Change which becomes the norm, generally reflects the tone of the society which has its own boundaries defined by ideologies.

There are norms which change and stare a full circle. There are changes which can neither be revoked nor be neglected. Just like the way nuclear families are more a way of life now while erst while Indian society believed in joint family system. It is how families are bound to be in the current context. There are changes which die out as time passes, people may absorb it initially as it surfaces but it loses its charm as time moves.

Fine, it is accepted that the society defines norms at various stages although the norm is fluid by itself. What is right or wrong now need not apply to other timelines as the context changes. Fashion or Music does not make a big impact in the societal setup. There are certain dangerous norms which fragment the harmony in the society.

The ancient Indian society had a disgusting norm in the name of caste (I would want to explore in depth on this in a later post).Everybody was assigned a social status based on their birth and the society defined their occupational role as well. It later showed it ugly face in the name of social discrimination within humans.

Now there is another popular trend which is catching up, people have changed the norms to evaluate people. It is a blatant truth, the modern society evaluates fellow humans by salary packs, asset backings, bank balance, profession, designation, social infleuence, power and character may find a place somewhere.

As a person who needs to be recognized by the society, it’s now a norm that the person needs to earn hefty packages and pay EMI's for all the investments (flats, cars, electronic goods & fashion accessories) to earn a better social status. Don’t even think of investing in people or character, it would become a norm to refer to them in novels as we go forward.

I don't know how better we are than the people who created the caste system. We endlessly create norms in the name of caste, ethnicity, religion, belief, money, lifestyle, intellect, qualification or any tool we want to discriminate people.

Society finds a norm now and then; it is certainly a way of life. Music or fashion as a norm doesn't really disrupt the society. Think what would happen if people accept money as the major norm of life. If this creates so much havoc, think of the other norms which have been created in the society and impact of creating them as well.

As i leave the post, think about this

who decides what is norm and why ?

Deception & Dissonance

2006-10-24T00:35:00.000-07:00

There are certain characters that bug me a lot and I can't stop pondering about them. At times I deliberately ignore their provocations as i got to understand that, they are just the reflection of the experiences, which the society gave it to them. As life moves ahead, we come across a fraction of people with absolute mental corruption and I can vouch that there is such a kind of shaded person in everyone of us, although the frequency, intensity and duration differs. Everybody undergoes positive and negative emotions but as we gain experience, we mature and the proportion skews towards the positive side for most of the people who want to make their life a better one.

I have observed a peculiar person for sometime now, imbibed with the natural pros and cons of the human mind. The person has a peculiar habit, the person speaks gregariously when the person is with him and you won't believe he can do an equally good job back talking with authentic derogation when the other person is not around. The fact that the person points out the other side of the person does not disgust me; it is the duality of the character that bugs me. I can agree that not every person has the time to share his views in person about the first person; I can’t really take the fact that people can show deceptive emotions to people who interact with them very personally.

I really pity the plight of such a kind of person who morphs every now and then. The person would have to emote positive emotions when it is really not the person's real feeling. There is this element of constant dissonance which disturbs the mind, as the conscious never fails to ponder on the deception. Now the person can never be true to himself or to the other person. The consequence is that the person creates a turmoil in his interpersonal relationships as everybody gets to know of this deceptive emotion sooner or later.

The consequence is that the person understands this sooner or later and changes himself. The other consequence is bad, the duality persists and the person starts to defend the interpersonal turbulences attributing it to the "negatives" in the other person. He tries to substantiate his stand and it becomes a way of life. The person fails to accept the faults in him and it is really dangerous to do that. It brings a very defensive attitude and person builds a rigid wall pointing fingers at others rather than accepting that every human has faults including him.

Any person with self esteem would not agree to share his time with them leave alone formal or mandatory relationships. What is the way out? What if the somebody points this out to the concerned person? There some chances that person realizes it. The other option is bad, what if the person still swears that everybody else is wrong and stands by his virtue. Feedback only affects an open mind and we can only hope that the person changes to make their life a better one at least.

Expecting too much?

2006-10-21T00:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I wanted to pay my Airtel DSL bill which was already five days past due. I initially searched for an option to pay it online and the web page flashed

"As a part of our continuous effort to enhance our services we are upgrading this site so Registration will be not available for Broadband and Telephone Services/DSL. Kindly call up our Call Centre (121) for any support"

It reminded me as how the message remained static although the calendar has moved by two months now. I murmured to myself as to what kind of customer service is this which does not allow me to pay online. Do they expect the customer to go all the way to their showroom and pay it? Fine, now that it’s already late I decided to pay it in a showroom.

I searched for a nearby Airtel payment centre and they had some obscure street name in T.Nagar. I grumbled again "Can't they have a map or at least link the place to Wikimap ?".I don't whether I was asking for too much, I felt it to be a definitive need to help the customer out.

I was already in an auto seeking the place. I was in for a surprise, the bill counter was completely devoid of people, and the only point of contention was that nobody was there to collect the bill. I inquired, the representative replied "The card payment system isn't working and you can pay cash there” pointing at a long que.I grunted again "What holy crap, What if I didn't have cash. Won’t they have a back up system or Business Continuity Plan (BCP)?”I stood in the queue for another 15 minutes till the collector lended his hand to collect my bill. She asked "DSL sir?”I said "Yes”. She said "We only collect mobile bills here and you need to pay the DSL bills in the center which is in the parallel street".

I almost lost my temper and didn't speak out. I blurted within me "What holy crap %#$%#$, the representative could have at least told me before I stood in the queue or at least they could have had a notice banner stating..".

The avalanche of grunting continued, the security in the other centre greeted me "Sir, the shop is closed and the bill collection is over" and it was equally acknowledged by the representative. This was it, I had reached the limit. I peaked with disdain “I have been roaming around this place for at least an hour now, what kind of customer service is this ...blah ... blah...”.The representative looked at the billing person, I payed the bill.I thanked the representative who offered a good smile to me.

As I left the showroom, I condemned my own act to show my temper to a person who can't come back at me, what a cowardly act. I found some respite contemplating the fact that the business world has evolved now, everybody is focusing on customer service levels and even setting standards of 6 sigma. I was happy that I had fought like a responsible customer for my own rights.

I even thought as to how the world was about a decade ago, we had to wait in a long queue for at least an hour to pay our bills. Customer service was like a taboo to the public sector. Now things have remarkably changed, people show courteousness to the customer and there are people to help you 24 x 7.

We always seek new limits as we move, we would not even compromise the erratum in the existing system which is far more superior in the erstwhile system which would have been experienced. The human mind can never be satiated... "Dil Mange More !!!". Now is it fair to contempt the existing system? What incase the latter system is better than the former system? Now, was I expecting too much in the name of progression?

Women & Clothing

2006-10-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

It has been a long pending topic on my blog and it took a debate in Vijay TV to provoke me to write this post in my blog. The views expressed have been amassed from the show with the infusion of my views as well. The subject of discussion was as to whether there needs to be a dress code for women in our society? If you ask me, I'll vote nudity for both the sex.Now that it isn't possible atleast in the near future, I shall deliberate on the concept of women & clothes in this post.

Women and Men are inseparable from the society and so is process of getting attracted to each other. Of many things that attract males to the opposite gender, clothes would obviously find a rampant place in the list. There is a proverb in Tamil that goes likes this "Aal Pathi Aadai Pathi" which means Clothes and Men are two halves, it emphasises that clothes are as important as the mental personality.

Now the whole issue arises when clothes are halved, I don't know whether women gossip when a male adorns revealing clothing, I'll tell you this, it’s like the topic for the town hall / small hall for the male society. We males obviously comment on how attractive or seductive a dress is on women when it really attracts the pupil.

There was an argument in the show that women should resort to the ancient Tamil clothes of sari and forbade their current clad collection of Jeans/Salwa_Kameez/ Skirts/ Nigh ties/ Shirts/ Pants and like everything under the sun except the saree.The reason quoted was that women look attractive in those apparels and it provokes the male gender to indulge in sexual harassment.

I felt like an extreme female chauvinist, what bullshit? Why would you want to do it to them, are they like slaves to society that we can puppet them to perfection to undercover the vulnerability present in a faction of the male community?. It's high time males change their attitude to look at women with a human attitude rather than look to poach them with animal instinct. The small faction with such urge would commit harassment even if a woman is wrapped like an Egyptian mummy.

Okay, I was at least convinced that we can't change the attitude of those desperate dudes by changing the dress code for women. What about the major chunk of the male community? I can vouch for something, a compressed jean and T-Shirt is more attractive than a churidhar, at least personally I find a sari to be an equally attractive apparel.

There are people who argue that a sari presents a conservative look and does not garner the attraction of male community. I tell you one thing; the only distinction is that nobody notices the skewness in the costume back at home.

The society has changed by leaps and bounds; women are now part of the working community. It is really comfortable for them to wear churidhar/jeans/pants in the current working environment instead of consciously maneouring the sari now and then. It’s really unfair to wrap them in such clothes in a hot and humid climate like India.

I was really taken back by some of the revelations by a psychologist who was in the show

The Sari in the current form was just persuaded by the conservative Englishmen into the system. Whatever hosiery that accompanies the sari now never existed in the system. To those entire traditionalist, Do you want to still persist with the argument that sari in that form would have been less attractive compared to whatever modern dress women wear now?. The logic was fine as well, it suited the climatic conditions and for people who think they were locked up in home, they played an equal part in the agrarian society.

Men are biologically designed such that, there is a tendency for men to be more sexually active than women due to the secretion of an hormone called testosterone. On an average, the adult male body produces about twenty times the amount of testosterone than an adult female's body does. This explains the fact why men talk & write more about sex than women.

There was an interesting observation as well; Men tend to recollect the visual factors about women while women recollect the feeling factors about men. If somebody needs to be held responsible for it, we need to pull the God damn architect to the court.

There is also another interesting observation, Men & Women wore similar dresses in traditional cultures.For example both the genders of Scottish wore a kind of skirt, the North Indians wore Khurthas and People wrapped a Dhoti kind of clothing in South India. Culture gave equal importance to both the genders by allowing them to embrace similar kind of clothing. Now men wear Pants and Shirts andI feel it would be fair to allow women to adorn them as well.

I certainly feel that all this huss and fuss about clothing would go away in a few years. I still remember the days when women wearing a churidhar were looked oddly by even fellow women in the eighties and now it’s a norm. I feel that the same kind of transition is happening with women wearing Pants and Jeans. There is always a stiff resistance to change and eventually comfort would take guard.

I won't say that revealing clothes or transparent clothing don't disrupt me. I feel there is a point where conscious women draw a line. They do understand the limit to which they can give the freedom to the other gender to admire their beauty. Its high time men understand the difference between admiring beauty and trying to abduct it.

12 reasons why people leave a comment in a blog

2006-10-12T10:55:00.000-07:00

I borrowed some inspiration to write this post from a random blog which had a post named as to why people don't leave a comment in a blog.

The reader has been a fan of the blogger and never fails to acknowledge the interesting thoughts posted in the blog which are of a rare breed.
Can't stop admitting the fact that the reader had the same thought latent in his mind and is all pumped to share his views as well.
Being a fellow blogger himself, could not seek a better revenge by counter arguing for stealing the idea of the post before he could post it.
The post was based on such a common sensual theme that everybody could share their views as well.
The reader could not bear the weird crap in the post; he had no better way to express his agony than to launch a semantic assault in the comment section.
The blog belongs to an influential blogger and it was equally important to comment in his blog regularly so that people visiting his blog get to notice the reader's blog as well.
The reader is absolutely jobless that he had the patience to read the tiresome druggy post and get the intellectual stimuli to comment on them as well.
The blogger had ventured in to blogging recently and is a close chum of the reader. The only way the reader could confirm that he hit the blog is to leave a comment.
The reader is of an intriguing type and is genuinely interested in any thought which is being posted in the blogging community.
It was the best way to increase the visitors to one's blog and expect an equivalent gesture from the fellow blogger.
The reader could not stop expressing the joy (anguish) after he reached the blog through a goggle keyword "kamasutra" and only to find that he did (not) get what he expected.
It is the best way to say how to felt about the post

After you read the post don't forget to leave a comment about commenting in a blog .I personally like people commenting in my blog, It gives a authentic feedback as to what the readers get to think and feel about the post !!!!

Inventing God

2006-10-09T07:48:00.000-07:00

I can’t resist rambling about God; it’s one of my favorite topics.

Being addicted to statistics, I understand that the sole purpose of an experiment is to infer the results to scrutinize a hypothesis. Let me put a valiant and omnipresent hypothesis

Ho:(Null Hypothesis)
God is fair and unbiased

Let me take the example of students writing examinations. Having been a student myself, this is what happens when we have gone through a tough examination. We always try to blame on the toughness of the question paper rather than taking onus for not preparing well.

I know people who spent time to track the question paper leaks, study only particular topics based on previous year question papers, imitate the answer sheet of the student before him, string the textbooks in their body instead of preparing for the examination which is more relevant.

I have even tried to bribe god with offerings, if he gives him me an easy question paper which contains questions which could be answered by the level of preparation. I feel that luck is an illusionary payoff for the underestimation of the system or the lack of the ability to appreciate chance.

Lets take the scenario of different students

A) Student is well prepared and seeks the help of God
B) Student is under prepared and seeks the help of God
c) Student is well prepared and doesn't seek the help of God
D) Student is under prepared and doesn't seek the help of God

Suppose all the students write the exam and God helps out the person who is under prepared/help seeker. Suppose the candidate scores more than the person who is under prepared and doesn't seek the help of God. If that happens there is no doubt that God is being unfair and biased, I guess we agree that he is not that.

God is unconditional as per our null hypotheisis. It is the same case, if God tries to help the well prepared/help seeker. Now, if God tries to be merciful and helps the under prepared student, he would become biased w.r.t other creation which he created as well. There is a negative incentive to prepare now.

Now, why do we need to seek the help of god when he would be unbiased? .I’ll take the help of the student who is under prepared and seeks the help of God. The students feel that there is more probability that he would end up in low scores, if the examination turns out to be far harder than his level of preparation. There is a tendency to unaccept the negative potential inherent in the outcomes. That is crudely call fear for you.

In my view, fear is the state, which is right there when we don't understand the consequences of our actions. Unacceptabilty of the consequences is just the extension of it. May be, if the under prepared can accept that he would score low; he would better start preparing for exam rather than seeking the help of God.

I am not completely going to discard the process of seeking help from God, I'll tell you from my personal experience that it always helps to bask with the confidence that there is somebody to help us out when we are uncertain about the consequences. Don’t ask me to relate this to the life's trinity; thoughts/words/actions. I shall not be provoked to say that life's trinity have their consequences and there is a tendency to be unaware/unaccept the consequences.

There is another precarious hypothesis, which I was forced to think as an extension.

Does God exists and is responsible for what happens around us!!

I'll tell you the preliminary results, there is God and the scope of the definition only varies. May be, I was stranded with my limited field of outcomes.That is what makes the concept of God more interesting.

Inspired by Jackal

2006-10-06T00:35:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday was interesting, not that i was thinking seriously about how can to quick fix all the problems persistent in this world. I was induced into investigative cognizance by this novel called "The Day of the Jackal" by Frederick Forsyth.A great story with intense thrill and infallible logic, portraying an attempt to commit homicide of the French president, by an anonymous contract assassin coded "Jackal".

Deeply convoluted in my novel stint with the Jackal, the mobile suddenly waked up and the male voice at the other end identified himself to Sriram.He was in town and wanted to know if we could catch by twilight in Spencers Plaza, which is the common hangout mall for people in Chennai. There were couple of others including Bilesh, Chandru, Dhilip & Sandeep who were expected to sway the lengths, breaths and heights of the plaza on a buzzing weekend. It was long since we meet, at least (24*7) hours had separated us from the last confluence at Rajasekar's Wedding reception, which culminated the avalanche of bondages that happened last season.

I peeped in to the mirror to adorn my freaky hairstyle, which i accept, would compete with an equally admirable porcupine contour for a nominee in the best "horry hairy" category. I had an healthy colossal of beard which took some inspiration from teddy bears. I decided to be socially acceptable this time, not that people would have a hokky pokky look at me if the status quo persisted, I just didn't want them to spare their "valuable time" intriguing my charm. I went to the saloon and salvaged some pride for Tom Cruise.

My new LG polyphonic mobile glimmered again, I heard the same male voice, which plugged into my mobile last time. Sriram apprised me; he was on his way to Spencers and would reach the gates in another 20 min. It was quite a walk able distance from my home and i expected to reach there by 10 min started after around 15 minim traversed linear and perpendicular roads that lead to Spencers, enroute i glanced at the Crowd waiting outside Sathyam Cine Mutliplex, Man, i knew it was only a preface to the Visual Carnival which i was expecting that evening.

I reached the facade of spencers phase-I and seeked the help of my mobile to ask Sriram about his whereabouts. Surprise, Surprise my mobile had been switched off and i thought i had mistakenly switched in it off. I tired giving power and it announced "Low charge and Iam switching it off". Tit for Tat, I had starved it out of power last night and it gave me a good lesson to my memory and negligence.

Boy, what do i do now?. I don't have his mobile number, Infact i can only recollect my mobile number in the entire phonebook. I sweared, how technology has infused memory handicap to me and this sad state of communication isolation. I had to go back to my home and get my mobile charge; I was not willing to do that. I got some inspiration from Jackal and wanted to be investigative, deductive and solve things when i am caught up in nomad’s land.

I thought I'll wait for another 10 min in the corridor and i had to take a call which entrance and opted for the phase one, I did this because that is where we had met about 6 months back.15 min raced, I could see no signs of Sriram or others. I decided to give a try as to whether they were waiting at the other entrance and the same result. Onething for sure they must have reached Spencers by now and got through the Phase-II entrance or everybody reached before me, entered through the Phase-I entrance and are in the mall now.

I decided to go in, now the question popped in, where do i search them in this entire huge landscape, which would have higher densities of moving population on a weekend. I had to short list a couple of common places where i can find them now and i decided to sequence it in the following order; Food world (G-Floor,P-I), Music world(Irst Floor,P-I), Landmark (P-II) and then the food court in P-III.Why this sequence ?, they were geometrically logical and all were places where we generally hang around.

Now this was not enough, i must have an idea about the five some appearances because you never know which direction they would be oriented and there is no way all the five can walk together.Sriram is lean, tall and usually wears T-shirts with lighter colors and they are usually striped, Chandru also is moderately tall and has more flesh and usually adorns plain colors, Bilesh is little short, has more flesh and mostly wears a Jean and T-Shirt, Sandeep can be identified by his scattered hairstyle from any nook or corner and he usually has the Jean combo,Dhilip is tall with a graded hair color and usually unpredictable with apparels. Everybody has a unique walking style and i need look at them as well.

I started walking towards the short listed spaces, swiveling my head all around looking out for the fivesome.I was looking for those familiar walks and colors. I was observing colors for a change, I could see people in lucid white, virile green, Marmalade orange, stringed purple, authentic black, classical yellow, stubborn gray, conventional blue and even neo pink.

I could see clusters of people entangled in various proximities and spatial tolerances. Some were breaking distance barriers and some occupying the entire lane spaces. There were jubilant juveniles in their adolescence glancing their counterparts, twined men and women who were immune to the biosphere, children in the custody of parents and self obsessed creatures as well. Simply could not resist appreciating the diversity dispersed in this topology.

I had reached the exit of Landmark by now, although I wanted myself to be amused by the "up to 60% sale”. I have not found them yet, I didn't want to loose hope, I walked rapidly to station myself in the escalator that lead to the food court. I had a quick ramble inside the food court and especially the Pizza space. I peregrinated the hallway gendering into Mittai shop, Fruit shop and Arun Ice-Cream,the result remained the same although i meandered the entire plaza once again.

I thought where any hoodoo had struck me, I could not believe my luck, and I am not going to give this up. I stood by the escalator and gave a full visual circle for a final time. I decided to be thrive on intellect rather starve on luck.

An idea struck me, I franticly searched for an Internet browsing centre. I had hope revived, I wanted to see the contact list of BIM which Arun sends us every month which had the latest contact numbers. I asked the guard about the near bouts of a browsing centre, he couldn't recognize it, I tried Internet, this keyword worked, and he pointed north.

I reached the browsing centre, logged into my mail, got the contact numbers of both Chandru and Sriram to be absolutely safe. I went back to the guard, thanked him and spelled phone booth this time. He pointed south this time, i hurried and dialed him, I said "sara pesuraendaaa".He quipped **&^*^%$ ennghada irukka ^&%^&%.He asked me to come to the exit of landmark, the same place where i inquired the guard.I went there and was welcomed by his trademark language.

Not again !!!

2006-10-03T02:15:00.000-07:00

Trying to define

2006-10-01T02:52:00.000-07:00

Testimony unchallenged
Eyes

Incentive to be happy
Smile

The most lethal weapon
Words

Abundant and Unwarranted
Advice

Chance to be yourself
Love

Takes you as you are
Friend

Never play with this
Trust

Man's greatest enemy
"I"

Defining the undefined
God

Undeniable
Change

Universal solvent
Care

Action's Climax
Substantiate

Unescapable
Memory

Reason for Existence
Purpose

Greatest Boon
Humor

Invention that changed this century
Communication

We'll fight for this next
Water

Designer's greatest invention (stealing it from my friend)
Women Jeans

Foolishness defined
Trying to define

I tried defining what was in the top of my mind and you can always give yours.

When its a dead end

2006-09-28T03:11:00.000-07:00

People who know me for sometime would acknowledge that i could pick an argument about anything and everything; I would definitely vouch for it. Not that i am a fighter cock, i like discussing about things and my way is of the questioning type. I happily rely on logic for my arguments.

I recently picked up an argument with my fellow colleague. He was leaving our company and seeking another career. Out of genuine interest, I asked him as to what he wanted to become in life and as to why he chose this new career and the particular domain. He told me that he was interested in management and didn't want to do a content type of role. I asked him as to how he knew that he was good in management. He said that he wanted to be in the decision-making arena rather than truck on the operational issues.

It was getting interesting, I wanted to provoke him with what i learned in MBA and with good intent, I told management needs a lot of interpersonal skills and asked him whether he was comfortable with it. He replied that he was comfortable with people. I wanted to dig deeper, I asked him as to what he was good at, for example being analytical, creative, leadership or intutive. He out rightly replied without any reflection "I would excel in whatever i do and it should not be problem".

I said that its fine that you can do everything but there must that something which comes to you naturally. He was still stubborn on defensiveness and replied that there is nothing that i am so good or bad but i can do what i am given. He started coming personally at me and asked why don't you tell me what my dreams were in life and what comes to me naturally. I apprised him about my dreams and what comes to me naturally. He gave a very brunt reply "I really can't accept what you are saying". Oops, I didn't know what to say when somebody was trying to negate my views without giving any reason to it. I am not feeling bad about somebody opposing my views; i was rather disappointed that they had not cited reasons for it.

I knew if the argument continued, it would unnecessarily end up in a personal tussle rather than contesting on the content, which we were discussing. I stopped and observed his body language and found that he had his hands pocketed.

As he was a good friend of me, after sometime i told him that it is not necessary that two people need to have the same point of view. I just asked him why don't you reflect on what i say instead of out rightly rejecting. I also told him that even his body language suggested that he was very defensive and that’s why i didn't want to continue. He dared to give a damn about it and quipped I don't believe in body language and it is not true. Boy, oh Boy, how do we deal with people who don't want to accept a point of view without even quoting a reason for it. As i know him, he was very logical in his work and somehow got illogical in this one-off situation.

It happens everywhere, the stock markets crash not because the companies performed badly, its merely because that greed propelled by irrationality overwhelms logic. We follow humpty number of procedures and superstitions with full confidence on our ancestors. Most of them could be really being built on the context and could have perfectly fit that situation. We need not totally discard them, we need to just understand what we are trying to do and that comes through reasoning.

Logic has its own limitations as well, that’s what Immanuel Kant tries to say in his book "critique of pure reason”. Everything cannot be logically explained, as they may not be comphrendable by the limited dimension of our thinking. That doesn't give the liberty to waive off logic; it can be applied to the extent where it can be and most of the times reasoning ends at the apriori which need to be taken in good faith.

Now to the all-important question how do you combat non-rationality with rationality? Simple, its either we need to impart rationality, the basic premise is that we can discuss something only when everybody understands the subject of contention in the same way and have substantiation for it. If we can't, it’s better not to argue because we cannot understand what the other has to say. Now what if we have to co-exit, its better to accept as they are and wait till each of them reach a capability to understand each other

Appendix to Crap

2006-09-24T23:41:00.000-07:00

Until my venture into blogging,I had seriously under estimated my caliber to create, process and output crap.I always wanted to be very sensible in what i do and i truly acknowledge that sensibility is very relative. A chum of mine used to call me up and ask me, as to how i could crap so much in my blog whereas he had to slog the entire week in work. The funny part is that work seems to be coming at him incessantly. I ended up only in an inevitable question, as to how people read, write and discuss crap?

I watched the movie Vetaiyadu Villaiyadu for the second time last week; it was only out of my penchant for Kamal Hassan, although the film would only find three and an half stars in my rating. It is an investigative story where our hero unravels the "mystery" of two psychopath killers who are on a killing spree, right from their adolescence. They murder and only murder, for a change, the modus operandi was more explicitly shown, compared to the earlier psycho thrillers seen by the Tamil audience.

When i saw it the first time, i felt the movie was stretched a little too much in the second half. The identity of the psycho killers is disentangled just 10 minutes after the intermission. There is a bloody tryst with the hero and one of the killer briefs us, as to how they muttoned and chickened people during the course of their journey. Guess what, we had to wait for another hour for them to be captured and be given an equally admirable departure from mother earth.

By Hollywood standards, the movie should not have prolonged for more than 25 min once their identity was revealed. This movie had to be filled with a cop romance and a spicy number in the remaining reels to keep them glued to their seats. Had the movie been tailored of the fillers, it would have been a better psycho thriller, which we don't get to see that often in Indian cinemas.

When i watched it the second time, there was no excitement in knowing the mystery but i started to get into the screenplay. I just waived off the fillers in my mind, know what, the impact was very intense. It would easily affect a vulnerable mind (Only one in a million becomes a psycho killer) and now i got the importance of the crap in between. I am not saying that romance is needed to dissuade the violent stir in the mind. I just got to understand that the may be the audience are not mature enough to leave the impact when they leave the cinema halls. May be that is the reason we don't get to see Desperado or Basic Instinct type movies in Indian Cinema. I am encouraged that bollywood movies are catching up with vigor.

May be, this was a specific case where crap was essential, i started to rewind the crapy things i have done in my Life. Believe me or not, when i used to be in my teens, i would watch cricket, be it local/ domestic/ international of both one day/test format played between any two countries. I used to ponder, had i spend that time preparing for IIT-JEE or in any reading books of interest or learning an art, i would have been a better individual now.

Nothing has changed now, only the means has changed, we have a session called "Chaya Bench" with some of my fellow colleagues in my company where we take no shame to kill time, to amuse ourselves of even non-intellectual/ insensible discussions. We give all names to it "de-stress ourselves amidst work”. I have started reading very weird topics, all in the name of, thirst to seek answers for my questions

When i walk through Landmark now, i really wonder as to how people have the bent to gulp volumes of self help books when the truth is that nobody can teach us to live life rather than ourselves. The local lingual papers publish such crap when there are so many burning social issues, when we think about in our right senses; it’s hard to resist a dream of kicking the editor. Some times it amazes me as to how govt takes the honor of setting up liquor shops instead of banning them all together. Why at all we need social workers?.How do people have the patience to watch illogical movies?

Am i trying to act too smart in suggesting that most people are insensible and they have no lucid thinking?. I would have succeeded if gave you had a glimpse of it at least once during the time you read this, if you didn't i have succeeded even then.

I badly want to give conclusions, analyze the behavior of people, get to the roots of why crap is necessary for life. I want to write another crapy article about it. I suddenly felt i should not burden the reader anymore.

I'll just say this. As long as we are humans we cannot resist thoughts, actions and deeds. Everybody goes through different stages in life. There is as such nothing-called sensibility and absurd. It is very contextual and subject to judgment.An idle mind is devil's workshop.

I 'ill seek the help of Pareto's 20-80 principle this time
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity) states that for many phenomena, 80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes

In order to live free and happily you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice

-Richard Bach

When the herd thinks its smart

2006-09-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

In my endless drive to observe things, i got to tweak on this incident.I usually take an auto to my office after the autowalla and me unconsciously play game theory, arrive at the intended mid thirties although we start at extreme ends of tweens and bi-tweens.

Primarily, the autowallas take two routes to my office with minor modifications at the end.The routes are almost such that we can either take the sides of the right triangle or travel along the hypotenuse.For people who are trained to pythagoras theorem, would obviously choose the hypotenuse as we save distance as its logically the shortest distance.

Today my autowalla took the path along the sides, thats when i suggested that we could have taken the hypotenuse route.He gave me very an astounding answer without any sense of pride, but it revealed immense insight.He said its true that the distance is short, but the time taken would be longer.He didn't stop there, he followed it with his logic for it as well.

Most of the people think that it is the shortest route and the road ends up in heavy traffic and we loose time.Giving wings to my green thinking, I thought we would atleast save on petrol as we travel shorter distance.He clipped that even before i had thoughts of flying.He said that we have three signals in the hypotenuse road and the amount of petrol burnt waiting for the signals is far exceeding the amount spent by taking the sides of the right angle.I wanted to revoke my B.Tech degree in utter shame.

The herd thinks its smart and ends up only creating an illusionary perception that we can reach our goals faster.We fail to recognise that everybody is as smart as we are.I started to recollect some of the herd phenomenons which i got to observe in the past .Everybody wanted to do engineering when i came out of my higher secondary education and the craze has eased out now .Everybody wanted to be in IT & Software industry as the fad gained momentum, later only to find that, they don't find commensurate jobs due to extreme competition and inadequate competence.

Now i kept thinking, what do really smart people do, they don't take the popular route.They deny the mass-thinking.I could recollect of a popular Wall street analyst who would not track a stock which is tracked by more than 10 analyst, his logic was that there is no fun tracking them as the market would be overloaded with piles of information , which gives least thrill in tracking a stock.There is friend of mine who is serious biblomanic, he had a strange rule, he would not read a popular book, he would say "if its for the commom masses, its not for me".

I thought, i was coming to some premature conclusions.May be what i say is right in the short term, but in the long run every system try to reach a equilibrium when all routes take similar time periods and petrol consumption.Now the tricky situation is that we all live only for short periods and its not easy to determine the period as well.

"To succeed, one should be the first or the best or different"

Priorities in Life !!

2006-09-18T02:37:00.000-07:00

As we go through our day we follow a set of task which are based on certain rule of priority or ally randomness (At times i feel that randomness is also chosen with will/consent).There was priority when you choose to browse this article or you may leave it midway as you have a better work to do.

This even applies to our decisions in life as well, we are always confronted with humpty number of decisions and we seek the decisions based on our judgment prudent then.The complexities arise when we need to take mutually exclusive decisions, to be lucid , the "now or never decisions" which are totally irreversible and exist in monopoly.

I was trying to apparently peep into factors that contribute to our priority, the first factor that beckoned my attention was the "being - tobe factor".It depends on what we are currently and what we want to be in future.These factors are completely an outcome of our conditioning which is a close proxy to our value system.There are values which we hold very close to us, which are basically the core values which are hardly compromised and the other type called the attributed values which are compromised when situtions arise.When we try to look back at our past decisions, we can observe that our priority was mostly taken to align with our core values.

Now what if we are confronted with a decision tree which has branches which are mutually conflicting with our core values (everthing is possible you know).What if both core values are equally important (I don't believe in equal importance because there can't be one like that, atleast that is what my past conditioning has made me perceive) and that state leads to a intersting situation, we choose to succumb to randomness (most of the times, the outcome of the decision is the core value which is superior although we might be confused about the priority in core value).

The other factors that came to me was inertia and time.There are times when we totally move with the factors that guided us in the past to guide our current decision.Having caught up in world of casuality determined by space-time, certain decisions are taken with insufficient time its rule is mostly determined by inertia and core values.

As days get by, our priorties change in life as we continously evolve in a flux of situations and our values find a new equlibrium at every moment.Every decision is right at that moment and can't be ridiculed as well.Its absolutely essential to have our core values tuned before we make big decisions in life. Never should we be struck in interia, we should strive to learn what is right and wrong and what priorities we have in life.The funny part is that what might be in the list now may not exist as we contemplate later in life.

Eureka!! Eureka!!

2006-09-14T03:17:00.000-07:00

I just discovered the ammunition in the human mind.

Boy, Oh boy! How i wondered at these GI soldiers with ultra sophisticated weapons when they scavenged the Middle East during their mind-blowing holy wars against terroism. It compounded with awe looking at the precision of the artilleries, which pounded the dumbfounded people and spaces out there. It tweaked a couple of my neurons and ended with this question why on earth did the great souls invent weapons?

Weapon is a device, which is used to defend us from possible injuries and the most common way to defend is to attack. The nature of a weapon is also interesting, it has a focus to create intense pressure (less surface area), stores energy and has a perfect launch pad, all for its supreme purpose to inflict pain or to proclaim threat.

It's fine, we need to protect us and it's natural, as does our immune system to fight foreign bodies in our human body. I too vouch for the natural instinct to protect, as i believe that we constantly try to imitate the microcosm into the macrocosm. It kept me thinking as to whether the use of weapons is a mere physical phenomenon giving color to an underlying surge in the mind? Is it a physical response to an emotional stir? What if we have a level playing field, we combat only on an emotional plane?

It gave me grave answers, may be we are carrying loads of ammunition with us and firing it at each other constantly. We are playing war-mind games to protect us from emotional vulnerability. I started dissecting the humanoid weapons and the first thing which struck me was, "words and words all i have, to take your heart away”, nothing hurts like words. Could be i am finding the wrong scapegoat in words, they are just the instrument for communicating and an effective means than silence.

The other commonly used tools such as anger, insult, ignore, suspicion, disgrace and mistrust. These are the most common defense mechanism to protect one self and to attack others very effectively. Onething for sure, everybody is carrying one or the other weapon to protect them with utmost efficacy in using them.

Every human mind has a breaking point to show its ugly expertise in using the lethal weapons and its own behavior barometer levels as well. If we are seeking peace, it should start with the microcosm with a true conviction to dismantle the instinct to use Mindy weapons to instigate Mind wars.

Theeiyinaal sutta pon ull aarum
(The fire-burnt wounds do find a cure )
aarathe naavinal sutta vaadu
(tongue-burnt wound rests a running sore)
-Thirukkural(Self control-129)

Real life Illusions

2006-09-11T06:39:00.000-07:00

For the past 9 months, I have been passing via Panagal Park circle near my office, which leads to four roads. There is this road which leads to Pondy bazzar, its quite tricky to take a left turn, given the voluminous herd of traffic wanting to get into that road. It quite a risk to the pedestrians who try to cross the road on an illusionary zebra crossing.

There is a feeble blind spot good enough to hinder the vision to defeat the braking instinct if a motorist encounters a crazy pedestrian out there. I have been a victim to the vocabulary of the motorist and i have seen quite a number of people stranded in the road to an unexpected vehicle.

Every one another day as i walk through that corner, I would see a pack of crumbed vehicles and I’ll swear the Chennai traffic police blurting out unparliamentarily language about their negligence and inefficiency. Infact there is a traffic police station right at the edge of the road; I would think how immune these people have become to accidents instead of taking steps to avoid them by providing proper barricades.

It was not until last week i realized this, it is not that the corner is accident-prone; the vehicles which were crumbled in an accident in an area under the jurisdiction of the traffic police station were parked there.

Yet another incident, I gave my level-II CFA examinations last June and i knew that i would not get through for sure as i was totally under prepared for the examination. I told my friends i would flunk for sure after i gave my exams, nobody took it seriously given my track record in academics and the cribbing i gave after my previous exams and still managed to scape through. I did flunk the L2 exam and it was a surprise for quite number of them even though i never expected to pass. Some people thought that i was bluffing to mitigate treats.

I really wonder how we are caught in illusions everyday; we tend to give meaning to events based on our limited field of experience. Sometimes we are pre occupied with perceptions about the observed. There are occasions when we give meaning to something based on a predetermined conclusion to meet our conditioning. There are occasions when we distort the meaning to meet an illusionary image.

I would not deny illusions, may be we should strive to overcome them by increasing the field of experience and unconditioning us.

Blindness 2020

2006-09-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

This thought unraveled here is not an outcome of weird explorations; it’s a sincere step to confront the maze of logic and ethics, which has provoked more anguish than its intended purpose. It is out of genuine madness to give us a better world. The past drove us to this convincible answer to all our problems.

It had to survive the darkness of tumultuous eras, to see the light today, not to create enlightment but to unchain humanity from vision, to lead us back to darkness which is our true nature. We have been waiting for too long, to unleash ourselves, we had to conceal ourselves in dumb minds, only to reveal the darkest of secrets now. We are going to shatter the brilliant architects who have been maneouring this world for too long.

History would assume a definite skewness today. We have had subtle patrons in the past who took this baton all along. Should I reveal them, it's time we acknowledge them; Valmiki, Socrates, Van Gough, Michael Faraday, Thomas Alva Edison, Michelson, Mahatma Gandhi and many others us still living with us. We are the "Lampiratti" leading this world back to darkness, to the place where we belonged.

We have had enumerous imitations like the Priory of Sion, Night Templars, Free Masons, Ku Klux Klan and humpty number of them who wanted to forge sadness into the human minds.

Did your history book say, Socrates was killed of poisoning, that’s how it was morphed, to bundle us out. He never propounded logic, why would somebody do it, knowing it to be the most treacherous futile process. They killed his twin brother Pocrates, after having found that Socrates rode a horse all the way to India,that was the reason Alexander followed suit after a couple of years, in search of the inevitable truth.

Socrates seeked asylum in his last days at Porbandar in Western India, contemplating the legacy. A conviction was born, thats when he gave birth to the defining artifact, which contained the definite truth leading us to divine darkness. He wanted something to be fixed everywhere not guide us, but to lead us to the inevitable truth.

You can see it everywhere, breaking the barriers of ideologies, aptly disguising it, only to achieve its ends everyday. Are you still wondering what it is? my goodness, if you can't find it, we have succeeded, its the electric bulb whose foundation was laid in a lamp. We wanted a symbol which would permeate every walk of the human life. We proliferated the lamp post, the symbol of the truth everywhere; we put it in every nook and corner of this world, to remind the society of the truth that was abandoned in darkness.

Have you ever wondered what causes problem in this society, which is frantic search of something or other, there is always some fad to tag with, be it money, fame, power or ideology.

What causes all the problems in life?.We are continously churning the remanants of our vision in the name of thought.It's a holy war not against any sect, it's against the imperialism of thought.What is the way out, we can't remain in this vicous circle of thought forever.We wanted to stop it but still be alive in eternal happiness.

We have been in the society, perpetrating our plans, you can see its final outcome out there in another 14 years.

We wanted to get rid of monetary system, there would no physical fiat money any more in the future, we would have only plastic cards. When the dark truth reveals itself, the entire banking system would collapse, there is no distinction between the have and have nots.

When every belief is waiting for the their avatar to be back, we would air a morph of them high in the sky, only to reveal there is only one god. We’ll stop all the war in the name of God.

There is one thing without which the humans can't survive; we are going to be an agrarian society again. We are going to be naive farmers again.There would be only one universal staple food, what else? opium which stops us from thinking, the root cause of all the problems in the society. We would initiate a mass scale cultivation of narcotic drugs in all corners of the world.

We would one day run this world only with electricity and exhaust all the known sources of energy in this planet. There is will one fine day nick-named the Armageddon when everything would come to a standstill devoid of power without anything to burn anymore.Know what, we would be left with complete darkness. ,nothing to see and nothing to think. We need not think of the electricity bills anymore!!

The slaves in the name of science would say, there is always the sun to help them out. Sorry people, we have plans for it, we can't see the sun in a couple of years, we have meticulously played games with the biosphere, the atmosphere in its current state would be lost, only to hide the planet completely from the sun, source of all energy in this planet. Don’t worry there would be no wind, no flowing water, no nuclear waste (we would have exhausted all the resources by then), we have plans for every alternate energy which bondages man to thought.

We do all this to unchain the humanity from the clutches of light and leads us to darkness and that is where we belong. The next time you see a lamp post remind yourself, the dark days would be back to save us all from vicious circle of thought.

Lampirattians

Hari..Sara...............

Are you ready to see the dark days?

Is God having fun?

2006-09-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

I am going to go on a rampage with more than a bundle of questions about this concept of God. Every human mind has some conception about God, which could have been embraced voluntarily or would have been an involuntary outcome based on the individual's conditioning to customs and practices.

The world is made of about 6.4 billion people who follow different beliefs. I am not going to take the principles of individual religions and use my sagacity to question them. I am giving a try to question the DNA of God. It’s still a riddle to me, with such naiveness, I am not going to give suggestions or answers; I would prefer to stop with questions.

This was the statistics which I picked from Wiki about the number of adherents to the major approaches; Christianity (2.1 bn), Islam (1.3 bn), Secular/ Atheist/ Irreligious/ Agnostic/ Nontheist (1.1 bn), Hinduism (900 mn), Buddhism (708 mn), Chinese folk religion (394 mn).We have approaches like Sikhism, Judaism , Jainism, Shinto, Zoroastrianism, Neo-Paganism and others which have a sizeable following.

I would start with the role of God in our daily lives; I really want to know if God really controls our actions.If yes, does that mean that we are merely programmed to enact his script. If yes, then why should I bear all the pain and misery for his sadist pleasures? If No, if he does not control our actions why at all should I pray to him to for my life.

If I am getting pain because of my sins, why doesn’t he program us from committing it instead of giving leeway to desires?. If he is all powerful, can't he do this simple task which a humanly programmer can do?. If he is also learning, does that mean he is not perfect as well. If he is not perfect, how can his creation be perfect?. Who is to be blamed for this jugglery due to incompetence? .Why should we suffer for his mockery?. Am I such an insane psycho to say that I don't have any pain when I really feel it?.

Is God good or bad? If he is good, why did he create all bad creatures as well when he is so powerful?. Why did he create all things in duality?. If he did not create the negative balances, what was he doing when it was created, when he knew that it would harm his creations? If he did not know them, should we suspect his abilities?.

If God is love, then what the heck is he doing when so many people kill each other in the name of religion, leave alone politics and wealth?. Why doesn't he come in public and identify himself with a particular approach and solve the dilemma. If at all he belonged to a particular approach, why did he allow so many approaches to sprout only to end in conflict?. Is he going to wait till there is a sizeable bloodshed; I am pushed to believe he is no better. If he thinks that non-believers are to be punished, then where is the concept of love? .If he discriminates people by their belief, doesn't he have universal love, Is he humanly as well?

If he gets only to people who approach him, is he biased? If he is biased, then how can he lovable or indiscriminate?. If he is biased, what is the difference between human and God? Is he male or female? Is he black, white or brown? Is he short or tall? What language does he speak? What is the sacred book which I should read to reach him? What is the customs which I should diligently follow to reach him? Which place should I go to worship him?

What fun does he have by playing games with us?

Take me as I am

2006-09-04T00:41:00.000-07:00

When somebody listens to you, you feel important. When somebody reflects your thought, you get excited. When somebody thinks like you, you get moved. When somebody thinks for you, that is when we loose track of you and I. The boundary ceases to exist, we are submerged in a butterfly feeling which blossoms to mutually reinforce that both are indivisible.

It doesn’t happen out of the blue, it's a very sublime and continuous process of evolution, delving every granule of time, only to reach new peaks of experience everytime. It conjures up only to annunciate that they are the reflection of each other.

The fusion of thought goes through different grades of thought alignment. I don’t know whether I am getting it through to you. May be, i' all seek the help of a printer which attempts to imitate the process of thought alignment.

The infant stages are blotted with a binary view, its either black/white perception about the thoughts emanating from a person, there is a conscious endeavor to align. This is when the process of listening is dominant and we are trying to cross the barriers of reflection.

Then we move on to the zone of comfort, we are mindful that there is many to many mapping of the thought, stimuli and the sequel. We are cognizant of the heterogeneity and strive to decipher it by more of reflection and it gradually leads to imitation of the thought process.

Finally, we move on to the zone of mutual instinct, we have a bent empowered by intuition to recognize the multitudinous flavor of thought, just like a 256 color cartridge that emulates the complete spectrum of thought, understanding both the preludes and the postludes to the thought. May be that is what people call the six sense and its when the barricades of the observer and the observed vanishes. This is complete nirvana from identity.

Not every relationship goes through this cascaded process and it is not necessary as well. The strength of the relationship depends on the stage where it is stationed.

May be, that is what people seek when they want to be completely understood with a latent thought, "Take me as I am"

India - Hip, Hop and We'll Rock

2006-08-31T08:23:00.000-07:00

It must atleast be 10-15 years back, when 40 bucks used to be colossal sum to me.It was the maximum shell out to be expected after a bunch of friends (atleast six) had samos, egg puffs, candy of choice and sugarcane juice for a birthday party in a local confectionary.Such occasions used to happen only once in a year for chld who comes out of a typical middle class family.

Now i sit in a porche Barista Expresso bar with my friends in a cozy corner tuning ourselves with the jazzy music and flashy videos plugged into the tv screen and order ourself a Caffe Mocha with whipped cream.I think it was around 60 bucks and gone are the days when i care about the bills which popped before me.I atleast possess triple credit cards with comfortable credit limits.I belong to the brand new genre of youth employed in the new economy sectors.The disparities between the old economy and the post-90 sectors are converging, for the lack of quality supply in them as well after most of us herded towards software and services.

You must be hailing our Manmohan Singh for liberating us to this levels of income levels by opening of our economy, his work is commendable, i am not here to deny it, he was a master when it came to removing the systemic problems in the economy, which were really stoppin our growth.Should i reveal the real hero for all this, of course you and me, who were breeded out this country for the past 25 years.Did you know that about 60-65% of our population is young (>25 & <40)>

You must have heard this teasor term called "BRIC report" by Golman Sachs for aeons now, they are predicting as to how the league of emerging countries Brasil, Russia, India and China would change the economic lanscape of the world in another 40 years.This is basically attributed to the population or to be precise the demographics, which is nothing but the Population or consumer statistics regarding socioeconomic factors such as age, income, sex, occupation, education, family size, and the like.

The UN predicts that By 2050, world population is projected to reach nine billion, a 38% jump from today's 6.5 billion, and more than five times the 1.6 billion people believed to have existed in 1900. The Demographers foresee declining, aged populations in many industrialized nations, and growing, younger populations in the developing world. If projections hold true, future global population growth will be heavily concentrated in Latin America, Africa and South Asia. There is no natural growth in Europe and the U.S.

Now,how is this going to help us grow?.Who contributes to the spending in an economy, its Sara's like me till we reach 45's.I earn and spend.Now imagine 500 million sara's spending and churning the economy, its a better vicious cycle for once, We'll grow and the gross income levels increase, we invest the excess money out of our savings.Oops!!, thanks to our Great Grandmaaa's and Grandpaa who could procreate 10-15 offsprings in their journey of life!!

Onething for sure, the new economy jobs are here to stay, the outsourcing is not going to stop as long as there is wage and population differential, there are'nt much people to do the jobs.The babyboomers of the U.S ( US is almost 25% of world economy) have already crossed their 45's and that means they are more of a liabilty in terms of the economy, they spend more than what they earn.It's the same story in all the developed countries

Leave alone the dependence on the world, if we can develop a economy to meet the needs of the 1 billion people, we can develop a robust economy.I have given enough of a rosy picture and convinced you that we are going to be happy.Nope,We can't sustain the growth untill we find enough resources in terms of energy, basic materials and technology.We need to bridge the gap between the have and have'nots, are we going to be enjoying everything at the expense of the lower strata.I am sure we can't live happily in the future without giving a socio-economic security to all of them, else we would find rebels sprouting out of the economic oppression.

Let the Youth Hip, Hop and Rock !!!.

Great One Liners

2006-08-31T01:37:00.000-07:00

I just felt that i have tried thinking too much about too many things , I have post few one liners which i enjoyed

If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either.
Join the army, see the world, meet interesting people, and kill them.
Until I was 13, I thought my name was 'Shut Up.'
Is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's blunders?
I've never been drunk, but often I've been over served.
Marriage is one of the chief causes of divorce.
Work is fine if it doesn't take up too much of your time.
When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
Everyone has a photographic memory; some people just don't have film.
Life is unsure; always eat your dessert first.
Smile -- it makes people wonder what you're up to.
The hardest part of skating is the ice.
The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot; the guy who invented the other three, he was the genius.
The trouble with being punctual is that there's no one there to appreciate it.
If you tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe, he'll believe you. But if you tell him a park bench has just been painted, he has to touch it to be sure.
It's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop at the end.
Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups.
If you can't convince them, confuse them.

Can you people share some oneliners which you did enjoy in the past and post it my comments section...Just out of curiosity, to know what attracts different people, i would have been oblivious to them.

?

2006-08-28T11:22:00.001-07:00

There are a lot of things which i like in my current life: Melodies of Illayaraja, Language of the Eyes, Arrogance of Howard Roark, Logic of Immanuel Kant, Depression of Linkin park, Sensousness in a Smile, supposing Neutrality of Vivekananda, Conviction in Concepts, Tornado of Tears and it goes on and on, but the onething which never loses my charm is asking questions.

It's yummy to me, being rheoteric, questioning things in life.People say its a cycle and its very true with me.I was such silence personified in my younger years that i am compensating by being a jibber-jabberer now.

I would do any damn thing when took something by the face of it.I was such a dumb fellow ( my close chums would say that i am still one) that i had parted away my brand new cycle to stranger, when he told me that he wanted to collect some insurance documents for my dad which my father had requested.I was caught in a maze of supersitions.I would take bath only after i toggle the tap flow three times, I would only walk in steps of three multiples to reach a destination, i would always worship lord vinayaka and swap vibudhi at three places.I still laugh at those days when i tend to give advise people to avoid dumb assumptions.

I was caught up in the world of constraints, i was not willing to get out of orbit, i started to see the world only in my view and i could feel that it was becoming very rigid everyday.I had to delete something called a "balanced point of view" from my vocabulary.I never knew the other side of the argument.

I had immense pain by being foolish, thats when i started to question everything around me. I started to ask questions which were beyond my age.I started enjoying a lot of thinkers in the lines of Vivekandanda, Krishnamurthy, Richard Bach and Osho taking things which were relevant to me.I suddenly saw a sea change in me, my thoughts became boundarless to some extent, my emotions were unleased.I saw myself as an instrument to the experiences.

I started whying everything and when i felt that the solutions were absent or uncomphrendable in a paricular domain, i would seek new domains.I started spanning Science, Metaphysics, Art, History, Love and psychology.Nothing was futile at the time of my exploration.Everything had a common thread or a cross linkage somewhere.I understood one great thing, we need to understand an counterpointing view even before trying to completely understanding ours.I tend to persist give counter pointing view in an argument even if it was not mine to have a complete view.

Not that i have become enlightened by gulping these books or understanding my life.I still experience joy and pain, but i can atleast take them in the respective amplitudes and frequencies.

The Tao of questioning has some basic principles, you can't ask all the questions to everybody, in some cases nobody except yourself.There are questions for which we will find answers with time, some with maturity and others with complete ignorance.

Most of the questions acquire answers through a process of complete questioning till you reach the absolute assumptions or the apriori.Everything has a basic assumption and it is absolutely necessary to question the apriori itself before taking it.Like the way, the organism is the manifestation of the basic gene, so are you the projection of your fundamental assumptions in life.It's not only you that you are affected but the whole world around you which is influenced by it.

some of my favorite quotes from Illusions

"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours."

"Learning is finding out what you already know.Doing is demonstrating that you know it.Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. "

"Everything in this book may be wrong."

-Richard back at the end of his book Illusons

Prison of Memory

2006-08-27T02:00:00.000-07:00

"Past is Past ,We should look ahead into the future",You have must heard the echoes of these kinda para-phrases humpty number of times in the past and you will find it rheoteric in the imminent future as well.

As a student of Artificial Intelligence unravelling the mysteries of the brain, I know onething for sure, we cannot annul the past.The brain activates itself based on the information which is impregnated in the neurons spanning our neural network.

The past experiences are stored in the "damn memory " with the aid of the incorrigible neurons.The input to this infallible process comes to the brain from the all saddistic senses.A whole network of guerillic neurons are activated by the electrical signals to recognise an event, person, object or feeling.

That is why when we come across a partial set of stimuli which we experienced in the past, we get to have the "pleasure" of reminiding the past to ourselves.

There are stimuli which are almost certainly not to happen in the rest of our life.May be, we could be salvaged from such deja-vu's in the future.There is also the other kind, those which created the most remarkable impact in your life.The distinguishing part is that, it might have been a part of everything which might have been unseperable from you.We could always get the plaudable aid of the imperishable artefacts, music, stereophonic names, blended events, dodgy calendar, polyphonic tunes and what not.

Even if we can manage to find some courage to annihilate them we cannot evacuate the damn data in the neurons.We can pretend the absence of the omnipotent stimuli around us.We are caught up in the prison of the past.It can be apparently denied but not defied.

2006-08-24T21:48:00.000-07:00

Beyond the Limits

Could be, I could mind travel !!

2006-08-22T23:57:00.000-07:00

As i left the last post i was as confused as the people who were confused, after reading my last article on time travel. I was left with total exhaustion trying to solve whether i can go to the past.

I thought, I’ll start with other example. Let us suppose that two people decide to compete a 3,000,000 km race. One decides to rotate the earth at a speed of 300 km/hr till he completes the distance, whereas the other decides to take a space travel for the same distance at almost 99.99% of the speed of light. Suppose the race starts at around Jan 1 rst, 12.00 am. It would approximately take 1 day and 8 hrs to complete the distance of 3,00,000 km for the normal person whereas it would apparently take only 1 s in the clock of the person who took the space travel. It would be hardly 12,0 clock and a second on the 1rst of Jan, in the clock of the person who took the space travel when the race completes. When the space travel ends and the guys comes back to earth it would be Jan 2nd ,2006 8.am whereas his clock would show Jan 1rst 12.0 am and 1 s.

Another twist to the story now the age of the person who has traveled in the earth is apparently 1 day and 8 hrs more, isn't it?.You must be wondering how at all this is possible.It does not match which what happens in this world where things move at normal pace. Neither can we discard relativity theory because it only could explain black holes.

I need to tell the basis of relativity theory, it is based on the apriori that speed of light is constant and various experiments have confirmed it. yet another example, suppose you are in a platform and watching a person running at 10 km/hr in a train which is itself traveling at 60 kmph.Now what is the speed of the person as it appears to a person who stands in the platform. Elementary physics would say that it 10+60 which is 70kmph to the observer.

Now, suppose the train is traveling at the speed of light and you want to measure the speed of light, which emanates from a torch in the hands of a person inside the train. What do you think is the speed of torchlight to an observer in the platform?

We would be tempted to say that it’s twice the speed of light. Isn’t it, amazingly its still the speed of light as too many experiments have confirmed this. This lead to the theory of relativity, which indicated that time is relative and not absolute. Constancy of speed of light irrespective of the system in which is observed has a daring conclusion, light cannot seem to travel faster than the speed of light.

I was thinking of the speed of things around me; Winds-200kmph;Sound-330 km/s;Hypersonic planes-8 Mach; Light as we know is 3,00,000 km/s.May be, it is the constraint of the physical existence. Suddenly, it struck me what if i travel with something, which is intangible but can still can travel with it. What about traveling beyond the speed of light with my thought. It has happened to me, when a thought comes into me about somebody they call me immediately. Did my thought travel to them to inform that i am thinking of them or was it my hallucination ?.

Could be, this is what Nostradamus did , time travel with his thought!. Could this be a way out to travel in the past and future without belonging to any time?.

Timing my travel to the past !!

2006-08-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

I was earlier reading this article on time travel in Rampi's blog and started to think, as to how great it would be, if I could travel back into the time warp and change the things which changed my life. May be, I need to first tell, how at all time travel is possible theoretically.

Now, how do we perceive this world? This world which we interpret is set of events which may or may not be related to each other. We conceive this physical world as being three dimensional. Dimensions by itself do not make sense to us. We need time to make sense an event. Only when we try to relate space and time, we can give meaning to what we perceive. Let me give an example, imagine yourself watching a cube which is 3-D.The cube by itself not make sense to us. We need time as a metric to interpret an event, even if the ball is stationary. Now a stationary ball can be interpreted as an object in the same space (3D Co-ordinate) after the time co-ordinate has changed.

All this is fine when things happen at our normal pace. We can predict the world's motion using the three laws of motion propounded by Newton. Now there was a genius who had the arrogance to ask, how would the things behave if they travel at the speed of light? One thing for sure the Newtonian laws could not explain them. That is when Einstein came up with theory of relativity which fair explained them. Do you remember the formula E=M*C^2.May be I’ll deal with quantum physics in another article. I’ll go ahead with some formulae’s which are of interest to the time travel.

Length : L=Lo*sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)

Time : T=To/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)

Mass : m=mo/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)

In the above equation L indicates length (dimensions), T indicates time and m indicates mass. The parameters with a suffix “o” mean the value of the parameter at speed zero or normal mass. ”v” indicates the current speed and “c” indicates the speed of light which is around 3, 00,000 km/s

Now see what happens if we travel at the speed of light, Length becomes zero; Time becomes infinite and mass becomes infinite. Now what if we can travel faster than light the L&T is an irrational number and mass is negative. Now you must be asking as to what we interpret from this zero and infinity. I’ll go step by step using a crude example.

Consider two people who are observing an event of a car traveling from place A to B which is ‘m’ kilometer apart at the speed of ‘s’ kmph. One is the normal observer and the other person is one who travels at the half the speed of light.

Now for a normal person has no problem with the metrics m & s, he measures them in the same way as we do. Now what do you think would be for a person who is traveling at almost half the speed of light, suddenly it seems like he has had more time. Now it appears to him that is this clock is slower. This is precisely called Time dilation

Now what if we are traveling at the speed the speed of light, time becomes infinite and we have all the time in the world whereas the normal person has a definite time. What would I do if I had more time? How about time traveling, there is a possibility that I can go to my past and change events which are slated to happen? Mind boggling isn’t it?

Now we are caught up with an interesting paradox what would happen if we can time travel and kill our great grandfather before he meets our grandmother? This is famously called the grandfather paradox. There is something called Twins paradox which you can search happily and find out!!!

Now the infinite dollar question, can we travel at the speed of light?

Intellectual Orgasm!!!

2006-08-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

The familiar teasing topic in a college or any co-education institution is, as to how two people talk and talk and keep talking, which people term "kadalai" (meaning ground nuts) in Chennai parlance. The time changes, lanes change, subject changes, chair changes, latitudes change and even the sun changes position. Everything in the background and foreground changes, but there in no stopping to them.

Now many questions arise to the observers;

Where do these people get such endless topics to talk?
How do people get immune to the external system?
Most important of all, what do this people eat and drink to have such abnormal energy levels?

Not only here, I have observed it in myriad things.

There is a friend of mine who eats, drinks and sleeps with books. He is so obsessed with books that he does not even need a female companion to meet his "kadalai" needs. I asked him as to how he can do this endlessly.He had a astounding reply "Nothing like the intellectual stimuli when you try to understand or have undergone the process of understanding something".Thats when I coined this word "Intellectual Orgasm" .I named it so because its more of the brain which does the understanding although it all begins with the senses.Thats why I always claimed that the brain is the sexiest organ in a human!!

May be that is what people frying kadalai experience, they endless seek to understand the various dimensions of the other person. Now I can empathize with Archimedes who jumped naked out of his bath tube when he understood buoyancy. Could be, that is why, there is so much relish when we hear or hum a song which sinks with us, a theist wants to be filled with god. When we understand something completely, it takes us to the peak of joy, the distinction between the observer and observed ceases to exist.

One thing, it captivates to be an observer, the observed and neither of them as long as we seek to understand them.

Be a Rebel..Rebel..Rebel

2006-08-15T00:47:00.000-07:00

If at all we can learn something from history, we can assimilate that a rebel sprouts in the society at every point in the timeline; there is somebody who wants to fight against the existing norms which may be good or bad for most in the society.

Gandhi was a rebel who raised his remonstration with a tool called Ahimsha against the white men. Karl Marx was a rebellion who wanted equality with communism when the whole world was humming capitalism.Manmohan Singh was a rebel who hugged liberalization when protectionist attitude was mood.Martin Luther was a rebel to have given a new face to the protestant movement when Roman Catholics were already one-third of the globe.

The rebel instinct is out there in every group, it's naturally bound to happen in a group. Every group has a primary focus/common norm which all the members are willing to accept. Every person in the group has something common with group but has his own distinctive whims and fancies which may differ with others in the group.

Now when the group becomes larger, there are more views and what is the way out to keep the group intact? A strict norm is followed to keep the primary focus of the group undiluted. There is always a faction who feels intruded by this strict norm and what is the next logical step? To be a rebel and nurture a group which suits them.

The other reason why you can find a rebel could be of the reason that the norm followed by the group does not meet primary focus after they have been part of the system for along time. As usual we have another group which rebel the existing group.

Yet another phenomenon why people rebel the popular movement in a society is based on the premise that when something is followed or comphrended by a majority, it's either outdated or too weak in principles.

Now the million dollar question ,when are you going to rebel the exiting system. It's better to be pioneer. Are you ready to rebel?

Bored of Boredom

2006-08-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

Suttrum Vizhi Suddare,
(Revolving light of eyes)
Suttrum Vizhi Suddarae,
(Revolving light of eyes)
Enn Idayam Unnai Suttruthae!!"
(My heart revolves around you)

This popular tune from the movie "Ghazini" which caught the murmurs of too many people last year was a serious loveburster to the listeners. The score was enchanting, voice-mellifluous, the choreography-elegant; a complete awesome combo inspiring love.

All the Tamil music channels had this number played humpty number of times and you could bet a billion dollar on the probability of finding it in a contemporary jukebox. I am not getting into a romantic groove now, even though I want to.

It must have been atleast three weeks when I was flipping the channels in our antiquated Solidaire TV. Sun Music played "Suttrum Vizhi..” I tuned to "K TV" they played it," I changed to SS Music , they played it, I even tried DD, they played it.. I could never imagine the conditional possibility of such a cascaded event. Its not that I didn't like the song, I still love it, but I could not take the over exposure.

Now days, I have even started an anti-campaign again this song, I just got to understand how I have built a wall around myself to a stimuli which used to inspire me. It happened out of sheer monotony, I have started abstaining myself from an erstwhile positive stimuli.

Its not only this; I find this phenomenon with many things. I enjoyed my current project for the first six months and I am now struck with authentic boredom, as I am left with very little marginal learning.

When we are struck with boredom, it may mean two things, one may be that, the existing stimuli does not give a new experience to us or the stimuli gives an experience which isn't desirable. This may be because we have been exposed to an alternative stimulus which is more exciting than the current one or the current stimuli cannot be allowed to persist of various reasons.

Now, what is the way out? May be we can try different means to achieve the same purpose which may rejenuate some interest.The other way out could be to comfortably move towards a different end. I even tried this, I was literally bored traveling to my office by auto via the same route. I suddenly broke it by walking one day, I tried the bus next day, I walked and caught a bus another day, I started playing with departure/arrival times. Even that uncertainty caused monotony and i am now trying the erstwhile method.

I only understood one thing "Its cycle and new experiences which entertain life"

Being a Bunny!!

2006-08-10T12:01:00.000-07:00

Certain things amaze me as to how puppet shows happen in reality. What we see as an action performed by somebody, is not what they might have intended to do, the actor is merely enacting the script which was thrust on him. What we see is the puppet show, but behind it, there is somebody playing the chords at their will.

The puppet might have consciously consented to it or was unconsciously exploited by the puppeteer. Look at the famous Lallo-Rabri show in Bihar, everybody knew who ran the govt when Laloo was foddering with his fellow species yet he was left scot free. We have seen many scandals where somebody ignorant becomes a scapegoat to protect an invisible hand. How often have we witnessed the allegation by a mother in law accusing the daughter in law of maneuvering his son?

Leave them alone, don't we do it in our life, we do something which is not our wish but for the sake of somebody else. It left me thinking as to how men of prudence will be somebody's bunny. Won’t they at some point in time realize that they are not themselves but merely a shadow of some unknown?

There are several reasons why someone concedes to be a bunny very consciously, it could be either because of our inability to overcome the supremacy and weakness inherent in the relationship.I could only recollect one thing about bargaining, It is not about who can argue with supreme logic to find success, its more about who loses one's temperament to persist their stand. We give away many things and concede to be puppet mostly when we succumb to our emotions.

The other thing is being unaware of it, this happens because we are trapped in it by our unconditional bondage to the invisible hand. In these cases there is no rationality or the actor is trained to be irrational.

All of us are bunny's one or another. For somebody its fame for somebody else its sex and it can include any of these: ethics, morality, beliefs, intellect and what not..

I am proud to be a bunny!!!!

Women: the better gene ??

2006-08-07T09:47:00.000-07:00

There were occasions in life when we boys ("then")used to discuss how girls are not as intellectual as men.Everytime we get to scrutinise the results of IIT-JEE, IIM admissions or the entrance examinations which need a little intellectual stimuli, the male faction seem to perform better.If we could look out at the top CEO's in the corporate sector they are mostly men and women are catching up with atmost aggression.The Noble laureates are predominatly men and i can go another para..

May be that was how the society was moulded, it was mostly a patriarchal society where the men did the earning stuff for the family and women would take care of the family.Even If we are willing to go a strata below, to understand the basic chemistry of both the sexes, we can observe that men are in dire need of appreciation, admiration, trust, acceptance, approval and encouragement whereas women need caring, understanding, respect, devotion, validation and reassurance.

That explains why men are task or goal oriented and women believe in the process!!.Men tend to be logical whereas women are more of the intuitive sect.Women know how to handle stress throughout their life and Men are only know how to blurt out!!!. Men are more of the thinking part and Women are the feeling part.

Aren't both sexes a perfect oxymoron ?.One does not posses what the other have in excess.That's why people fall in love or get marrried to each other!!.What does a Man expect from a Women apart from sex?. He needs trust and admiration .What does a Women want ?,she needs enduring care and understanding.

Women used to seek a sense of security from men because they were managing the family part and they needed a sense of financial/resource stabilty from the male partner.They tended to be physically weak and needed a support from the male partner to protect them.Women are now equally financially stable and have pistols & martial arts to guard them.

Now the real important question "Do women really need Men?".I am excited about this question because men can no more dominate women in the name of money women.women will stick to a man only if he is really a worthwhile partner and the vice-versa.

A little bit of human aspect now, the outward projection of the humans is the behavior part which is basically manoeuvred by one's emotions.Emotions are stimulated by the intellectual process giving perceptions leading to emotions.Now men are great thinkers and are apprentices when it comes to controling emotions.Women are adolescent when it comes to brain tweaking but are great masters of emotions.They can leverage their intellect by streamling their emotions.

Thats why i keep wondering why women are a better gene in the current context!!!

Its a cycle isn't it?, Its time for women to rule us !!!.When i meant men, i didn't always mean men and when i talked about women i didn't always mean women.I am talking about the masculine and feminine part in each of us.It is all about which is predominant in one's expression.May be thats why Shiva(Inertia) is incomplete without Shakthi(energy).There is something called Para-Shakthi who is supreme to everybody and thats why i laugh at men!!!!

Are you masculine or feminine?

Deep South is where $ belongs?

2006-08-03T11:56:00.000-07:00

We have this popular concept in our mimes, the dollar would depreciate from the current levels of 50 Rs/$ to 1 Rs/$.I thought, may be i'll give a shot at this for a change in one of my favorite areas Economics!!.As usual funda's first.

A country interacts with its outside world by offering its products,services and capital and in turn enjoys them as well.Now if a country gets more products/services than what it can offer it ends in a trade deficit.We need to understand that products/services and capital are mostly counter flows.There is a outflow of capital when we get products/serices and vice-versa.The Balance of Payments(BOP) which is (capital account + trade account) is always zero, i.e the trade deficit is always funded by the capital Inflow (surplus) and vice-versa.

A country's government also interacts with its stakeholders like Households and Coporates.It has its own revenues(the taxing stuff) and the expenses (for the sweat of our government employees).If there is more expense than the revenue we end up in what is called the revenue deficit.Doesn't our goverment also do a hell a amount of capital expenditure towards infrastructure and the social sector now a days?.Yea, If we combine these two, we end up in something called fiscal deficit.Managing the fiscal part is what our finance is what our finance Minister does in the budget.

Now that we have so of much deficit, how do we fund it ?.There are two means of doing it, either do it through internal funding by allowing the RBI(the central bank) to print money or through external funding by borrowing from the global community,IMF and various organisations.Can we print money just like that?.There is a formality involved in it, the goverment issues soverign bonds promising to repay(Haaa haaaa) it back to the central bank.

The obvious question why don't we print money and make everybody rich in the country.There is the hitch, if artifical money is floated in the country, there would be more money chasing fewer goods/services and end up in artifical increase of prices (Law of demand, Is'nt it ?).What do we now do to prevent the prices going north and protect the poor.It's quite simple, hike the interest rate (the cost of money used to get goods/services).If the cost increases the, capital spending reduces and prices are now kept at an affordable level by reducing the demand.This is called monetary policy, this is what the central bank governor does !!!

Now if you got this in your mind, you are all set to understand why dollar would move south soon or later.

The United States has swung from being the world's largest creditor to the largest debtor nation(i.e its funding its operations by borrwing). At the end of 2004, it had net external liabilities of $2.5 trillion, or 22 percent of its GDP (around $10.2 trillion). The current account (goods and services, transfers, and capital income) is massively in deficit about $670 billion in 2004, or about 6 percent of GDP. If corrective measures (US fiscal adjustment and a further decline of the dollar) are not taken, the current account deficit will reach about 7½ to 8 percent of GDP by 2010, and net international liabilities will reach about 50 percent of GDP.

Now what should the US do to reduce its debt? Failing which it would become bankrupt,as it would be unable to pay it liabilties to the foreign countries.Just a clarification as to how US goverment is liable, most of the countries with trade surplus with the US like China (around $200 billion in 2005, approx 30 % of the total US deficit) invest their money in the US government bonds which need to be repayed one day when they want it back.

Do you want to know the easiest way out ?.Devalue the currency.To be short with an example, If we got to give back the $100 which was borrowed at an exchange rate of 50 Rs/$.Return it back when the it is 10 Rs/$.Now in term of Rupees, the liabilty has decreased from 5000Rs to 1000Rs which is awesome gain isn't it for the US.

Then Why doesn't the US wipe of the deficts by devaluing it now rather when it would be worse some years later?.There are two vital aspects involved in it

No American would accept to this for the simple reason that his standards of living would go down.An American who was earning about Rs 50,000/- in Indian terms ($1000 at an exchange rate of 50 Rs/$) ) would earn only Rs 10,000 ($1000 at an exchange rate of Rs 10/S).His earnings power has decreased he can lead a better by importing chaeap goods from China and India.

Dollar is still the reserve currency(more than two-thirds) of the world, Most of the corporates and country have their wealth in the form of dollar.What do you think would happen if dollar depreciates?.Their wealth is decrease phenomenally as the value of their financial assests would see abnormal loses.who would want this?.That's why they keep dollar at this artifical levels even when US is running record levels of trade and fiscal deficit and there are no signs of it fading away.

Onething is for sure, the rising imbalance will increasingly put the US economy and hence the world economy and especially developing countries at risk of a major crisis, as foreign investors lose confidence and US protectionist pressures mount. The longer the needed adjustment is delayed, the more wrenching it will be, triggering high interest rates, US recession, a greater decline in US households' living standards, and more damage to the global economy

The problem recently has been that both private wealth-holders and foreign governments have begun to fear that the unsustainable value of the dollar spells a decline in the currency that could sharply erode the value of their assets.

The only way out for the US deficit is by taking measures to control the fiscal and trade deficits, gradually devaluing its currency.The global money minters are already looking for other reserve currency options like the Euro.

1 Rs/USD, is it a myth ? Keep Thinking !!!

Fear of Death

2006-07-31T09:37:00.000-07:00

Dealth is realised when our brain has had its last laugh.May be that is the happiest moment in one's life, we have no more worries about anything.We have no goals to chase and nothing to be disappointed.We have overcome the sensous world and are free of any bondages.Then why do we deny dealth like we are going to be here for aeons together.We think that we are going to change the world around us by our existence, don't tell me!!

May be it's not dealth that we are afraid of, it's the mere process leading to dealth which we can't deal with.It's like success, the moment of triumph isn't as interesting as the tons of hardwork we thrived on.More like love, the moment of sharing is just the culmination, it is the process that leads to it, which makes people mad.

Now think of somebody who is haunted with a thought of dealth day in and out.He would feel that dealth is far more relieving than the cause of living with immense fear.May be, this is wot people in all the terror world are experiencing.The fear of dealth which is far more excruciating than dealth itself.Can you understand the pain?

There are humpty number of civil wars, currently around 26 in only 33% of land left in this world.More that a fifth of our fellow hearts are throbbed with this fear of dealth.We all talk here in south India which is quite free from the terror attacks that we need to fight for our boundaries to preserve our nation's soverign status.Most of the civil wars involve ethnicity or religion.I don't know which God would acknowledge it.They are all politically or economically motivated for one's greediness to abduct resources.We are fighting for acres of land taking away millions of lives.

May be, the best thing we can do to help them out is give them instant nirvana instead of the fear.We all acknowledge that life is the greatest gift given to us.We are all here to life a live and not be thinking of dealth!!

Would you be willing to face the fear of dealth in whatever name you do it?.

The Naked Truth

2006-07-30T01:05:00.000-07:00

What would happen if we wake up tomorrow as cave men who were naive like the men who had evolved from apes.I guess we all would be naked aligned with nature,won't we be ?.Everything in nature is naked with its own inherent protectional cover.Now the question arises, why at all did man explore this concept called clothes?.

May be he wanted to protect his vital spaces and there would'nt have been a better intension.Would he have felt sensous after seeing his opposite sex in the bare form ?.I think they must have been more refined than us.Animals are completely exposed and they do what needs to be done when it feels it needs to be done.

Have'nt we passed those adoloescent times when we would scramble for that first moment of nudity potrayed in Playboys and Debonairs?.We would have desperately googled and hit those desi sites.We would have the urge to guzzle those romantic (correction erotic) stanzas in those teasing novels.We would have pooled and dumped those X stuff in our hard drives.Does'nt it all fade away, once we see the hidden things.Curiosity is persistent only till we know it!!

Nudity is not as interesting as Semi-nudity or Complete concealment.A millimeter revelation between the cup and the lip is more provoking than anything else.I certainly know that with the current trends in apparels and cosmetics, we are only building up more fantasies in our dreams.

Many problems would be solved with nudity, people can no more differentiate or flaunt about their clothes, the deprived need not patch up those torn spaces another time, we need not wash them (washing machines and house wives would be spared), say bye bye to all those magazines and masala numbers.

I need not expell my energy dreaming about my dream girl being naked.When i don't have erotic thoughts, where is the need to quench that filthy mind ?.

Now to that all important question,Why did he find clothes ?.What would you do if you possessed something which you don't want others to know?.Simple conceal it !!!.Concealment creates curiosity, it leads to jealousy and wot next its cousin hatred ...

Would i be nude again one day and be free of fantasies?. let me dream of that world!!!

Art of Judging

2006-07-27T03:19:00.000-07:00

I recently had some pleasant surprises pounded at me by some of my close pals.A revelation which had reflected the truth of that moment but morphed as time escalated.

A rude remark from an intimate chum stating that he thought me to be a guy with lots of underlying glitches,then came another remark for another pal, he perceived me to be a filthy guy with whom long distances can never decrease.Another past colleague of mine who said "He never expected me to be so naughty" after atleast a week of silence.My relatives never expected me to be so unscrupulous after they had my first discourse of my values after years of indifference and public shyness.

Just put this question across to me intriguing the world which is with me.why did people judge me so when it did'nt sustain for long.What is this process called "Judgement" ?.After a night of brain tweaking, i came out with this.Judgement is drawing conclusions about the object based on our field of experience.Judgment is almost accompanied by its siblings opinion and prejudice in most cases.

Facts are things that you can prove to be true. You can prove that the deepest point on earth is the Challenger Deep at 11,033 metres.Opinions are statements we believe to be true, but they are difficult or even impossible to prove. Though you may be able to use facts to add credibility to an opinion, it is still an opinion."People want peace' is an opinion that would be very hard to prove true.Prejudice is the process of coming to a conclusion before a direct experience.The Bush administration demonstrated a prejudice that Iraq has a nuclear armament program by inferring that its biased assertion implied that Iraq has a nuclear armament program.

Judgment is based on some limited evidence which is little fine.Opinion is based on our own ideas which can neither be proved nor disproved which is tolerable.Prejudice is a preconceived opinion or bias which is passed before proper examination of the circumstances which is very dangerous.

Why at all we need to Judge people?.We are in this would of flux where everything changes and the mind can't take unpredicability easily.We are all desperate to predict the behavior of an object, we give the attributes based on our experience.Funny isn't it, we try to predict the unpredicable, we learn that its not possible and still we do it.May be we can start Judging when we have had enough(???) experience to judge it.

The Orginal Sin - Israel

2006-07-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

Think of an illusionary moment now, about 10 million Red Indians who earlier lived in Latin Amercia come back from an asylum in Mars after 2000 years and ask for a part of their country now.May be, being an Indian you could not relate with it.What do you think about a proposal to evacuate all non-Hindus from India claiming India to be the homeland of Hindus.What would be your immediate reaction ?.Won't you instantaneously say "Can't we co-exist without displacing each other?".

Let's move on to the story of Israel, we need to understand its history before we can debate on the attacks and the counter attacks.

Have you heard of this term called Zionism in your history books ?
Zionism is a political movement and ideology that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, where the Jewish nation originated over 3,200 years ago and where Jewish kingdoms and self-governing states existed up to the 2nd century.

We all know that the World War-I happened and this is what happened after that
From 1517-1917 Turkey's Ottoman Empire controlled a vast Arab empire, a portion of which is today Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. During World War I (1914-1918), Turkey supported Germany. When Germany was defeated, so were the Turks. In 1916 control of the southern portion of their Ottoman Empire was "mandated" to France and Britain under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided the Arab region into zones of influence. Lebanon and Syria were assigned to France and "Palestine" (today's Jordan, Israel and "West Bank") was mandated to Great Britain.

The first of declarions by Britain!!
Great Britain may have been ruthless in building colonies and harnessing their wealth, it has had the genrosity to part away its mandate for a better "cause".Yet another declaration

The Balfour Declaration was a letter dated November 2, 1917, from British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour, to Lord Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation, a private Zionist organization.The letter stated the position, agreed at a British Cabinet meeting on October 31, 1917, that the British government supported Zionist plans for a Jewish "national home" in Palestine, with the condition that nothing should be done which might prejudice the rights of existing communities there.

What next, now that we have decided to create a home for the indigneous Jews?
With the defeat and dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, and the establishment of the British Mandate over Palestine by the League of Nations in 1922, the Zionist movement entered a new phase of activity.

Its priorities were the escalation of Jewish settlement in Palestine, the building of the institutional foundations of a Jewish state, raising funds for these purposes, and persuading or forcing the British authorities not to take any steps which would lead to Palestine moving towards independence as an Arab-majority state. The 1920s did see a steady growth in the Jewish population and the construction of state-like Jewish institutions, but also saw the emergence of Palestinian Arab nationalism and growing resistance to Jewish immigration.

Hilter rescued the zionist movement?
Later our own Adolf Hilter rescued the zionist movement, you must me thinking i am a fool.How can an Anti-Jew help them out?

The rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany in 1933 produced a powerful new impetus for Zionism. Not only did it create a flood of Jewish refugees but it undermined the faith of Jews that they could live in security as minorities in non-Jewish societies.

The revelation of the fate of six million European Jews murdered during the Holocaust had several consequences.

Firstly, it left hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees (or displaced persons) in camps in Europe, unable or unwilling to return to homes in countries which they felt had betrayed them to the Nazis.

Secondly, it evoked a world-wide feeling of sympathy with the Jewish people, mingled with guilt that more had not been done to deter Hitler's aggressions before the war, or to help Jews escape from Europe during its course.

Thirdly, it swung world Jewish opinion almost unanimously behind the project of a Jewish state in Palestine, and within Palestine it led to a greater resolution to use force to achieve that objective

Try, try untill you suceed !!
The world War-II ended and Hilter's side saw defeat.Now its time to concentrate on the Jewish state!!

In 1947 Britain announced its intention to withdraw from Palestine, and on 29 November the United Nations General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state (with Jerusalem becoming an international enclave). The Jewish Agency accepted the plan, while the Arabs of Palestine and the neighboring countries rejected it and commenced to use force to abort the establishment on a Jewish state in the area allotted to it by the UN. Civil conflict between the Arabs and Jews in Palestine ensued immediately.

Yahooo !!! we formed Israel our Homeland atlast
On 14 May 1948 the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine made a declaration of independence, and the state of Israel was established. This marked a major turning point in the Zionist movement, as its principal goal had now been accomplished. Many Zionist institutions were reshaped, and the three military movements combined to form the Israel Defence Forces.

In 1950 the Knesset passed the Law of Return which granted all Jews the right to immigrate to Israel. This, together with the influx of Jewish refugees from Europe and the later flood of expelled Jews from Arab countries, had the effect of creating a large and apparently permanent Jewish majority in Israel.

Any help to claim our holy land?
Since 1948 the international Zionist movement has undertaken a variety of roles in support of Israel. These have included the encouragement of immigration, assisting the absorption and integration of immigrants, fundraising on behalf of settlement and development projects in Israel, the encouragement of private capital investment in Israel, and mobilisation of world public opinion in support of Israel.

How about a Short and Sweet Six-Day war?

May be the Israelites thought the land acquistion is slow !!

During the Six-Day War (June 5-June 11, 1967), Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Sinai has since been returned to Egypt in a phased withdrawal in 1979-82 and in August-September 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. The war also created a new wave of 200,000 to 300,000 Palestinian refugees. They also have neither been allowed to return nor granted citizenship in their host countries.

Where did this three letter world PLO come from?
The faith of the Palestinians in the willingness and ability of the Arab states to defeat Israel and return Palestine to Arab rule was destroyed by the war, and the death of the most militant and popular Arab leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, in 1970 reinforced the belief of Palestinians that they had been abandoned. The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation), created in 1964 after a proposal by Nasser at the first Arab Summit, took on new life as an autonomous movement led by Yasser Arafat, and soon turned to terrorism as its principal means of struggle.

Yet another accord ?
The Oslo accords call for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of the Gaza Strip and West Bank and affirm the Palestinian right to self-government within those areas through the creation of the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian rule would last for a five year interim period during which a permanent agreement would be negotiated (beginning not later than May 1996). Permanent issues such as Jerusalem, refugees, Israeli settlements in the area, security and borders were deliberately excluded from the Accords and left to be decided. The interim self-government was to be granted in phases.

Until a final status accord was established, West Bank and Gaza would be divided into three zones:
Area A - full control of the Palestinian Authority.

Area B - Palestinian civil control, Israeli military control.

Area C - full Israeli control.

We are almost done!!
We are almost done.I totally agree that terrorism is not a way out to fight our rights.We don't have right to take away the lives of innocent people.I feel neither do we have the right to displace people by force in the name of indigeneous holyland.There can be few explanations, given the act of holy acquistion of around 80% of the erstwhile palestine by those merely had 10% of it at the beginning of this century.

If we accept this concept of morality, one day dinosaurs will come back to evacuate us all.Let's all learn to live together and co-exist.We are all humans at the root!!!

Are Humans an endangered species?

2006-07-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

Don't ever think i am writing this article in concern about this f**king humans who have breeded this world.I am genuinely blotted with anguish to know that humanity (sorry for spelling this taboo out) has dwindled.I see almost everybody to be hypocrites eating away their own thoughts, words and actions.I see this world to be absolutely absurd.Evil seems to be the new ethical code of the so called human species devoid of humanity.

Everybody wants to be a parasite sucking each other to satiate their own personal paramount interests.We keep a deceptive charming face with an underlyin wicked thought.We are in a sad state where we'll do anything in the name of pursuit and ambition to embrace power, money and esteem.We are a bunch of wolves bounded by caste, creed and beliefs hunting on the vulnerable ones.

I know i am part of the same society which gradually built a species with an ugly mind behind a beautiful face.I am enacting these dreadful deeds day in and day out.I am ashamed and hate myself to the core.

Rendezvous with Hari

2006-07-22T11:57:00.000-07:00

It was yet another friday,15th of July ending with lots lull in work, all to be rejenuated by my exciting weekend with Hari in Bangalore.For a change, Chennai had the coolness of Bangalore outsourced to its biosphere.There was a mild drizzle bidding adieu to me..

This trip was quite a reversal in the aspect that i was travelling from Chennai to Bangalore on a friday and the emotional plane was rewinding my nostalgies about my previous weekend shuttles.To add spice they rekindled some joy by playing one of my favorite movie " Thiruda Thirudi" in the bus for a while.

I was gazing at our landscapes and slowly inspired some sleep at the fag end, with the help of Plato's Republic.I suddenly woke up to some frisking sound, they were looking out for terrorists related to the Mumbai blast.I laughed within myself, do you except them to be travelling by normal buses, they must now be travelling with supreme comfort escorted by z-class security.

I woke up searching for comfort in that romantic cold when i crossed the border.Such a lovely place for inactivity and was wondering how people worked in the cyber capital.I breached the tenderness of the breeze, closely cuddling myself looking out for Hari's place.I had reached his apartment with the evident landmarks, still bamboozed by the kannada script in our cosmopolitan city.

An elegant figure welcomed me and i was startled by his courage to have a french beard in his face.His hairstyle travelled northward, must have dated with an antiquated novel on an obscure concept and thats what makes him interesting.He is our very own humanized wikipedia having gulped so many pages all his life.

He asked me to take some rest so that we could explore the rest of the day.I had erupted "am i here to sleep ?".He pacified me and had cooked egg-toast with his naive skills.He quipped "What's the plan for the day?".

We as usual started with an argument as to how important it was to pay taxes and a cess for a general cause.Hari was staunchly against any taxes for this infertile and inefficient government.I never thought he was always with me but was arguing to make me happy and to keep the conversation going.He had the generosity to give away Rs 251/- (could have been more if the person had a hunch about Hari's !@$#@$@) who had come to ask a donation for a known "unknown" cause.I felt a little tired after witnessing this act and complied my body with the bed by then, planning to awake in 10 min.

The sunrays had collated enough by now to make our appartment little warmer.I woke up and found that the short hand had reached 2 by then.I had Hari apologise to me for eating away our time.We had north indian delight this time.Hari had me pushed underneath my blankets by then, promising to return after he cleansed the vessels.

I woke up to see Thomas Alva Edison's invention blink before me, Hari pleaded for mercy.I had pardoned as he had two great people introduced to me in Landmark at the Forum.It was a pleasure meeting Arthur Schopenhauer against my will and Keirkeagaard with an ambigous either/or appearence.I had to wait in that damn long que only to see a young couple quench the distance between them.We had got some genuine junk food this time Mcdonald's burger and some pesticide.

Hari had another trick this time, he made me watch "Immsai Arrasan 23aam Pullikesi". I had to scramble my way in the dark to get into the custody of my blankets.I woke up the next morning only to smell noodles this time.I guess he had added some sophomoric tablets, to make me long for those blanket again.He blurted "2-minutes and i'll be back".He must be a real saddist to put me to sleep,must me a conspiracy to wash his clothes at his comfort.I woke up with my brain hooked to sleep.

I don't know who teaches all this to him, he appeased my palette with hot bathed rice coupled with pulliotharai mix and hot chips.I had no answer to his courteousnous.I was struck with awe wondering how lucky his partner would be.I was only disgusted to know that he has no intensions to marry.He believes in some weird concept about living.It's better,if he is castaway from women.I felt depressed only to realise how doctors were true, depression leads to the secretion of a fluid in the body which makes you sleeply.

Now finally, I woke up to watch me pack my way back to chennai.I can never can forget this weekend for the energy propelled during it.Hari, now i can feel with understanding why he incidently named his blog as boreyoutosleep.blogspot.com.

I left somebody who gave company to me in my banglore trip, Santhosh, in my dreams..

Matrix-Vedanta Reloaded?(short ver)

2006-07-20T05:48:00.000-07:00

Did you know a Sanskrit Sloka is chanted at the end of the Matrix Revolutions movie?

It's all about old wine in a new digitized bottle ready to be embraced with the ignorance inherently in us. Somebody must have been canny enough to have synthesized the major concepts engraved in the Vedas and Upanishads into a multi-media capsule.

Don’t start an argument saying that even this truth is indicated in our sacred books. All sacred books are sacred because they had some truth in it to suit divergent people. The artifact is not as important as the truth that emanates from them. No truth is invented, it can only be discovered, and even the Vedas are not out from the cradle of truth. Even if somebody destroyed every damn artifact in this world and we leave back a couple of nuptials, when they want to understand the nature of the universe, the Vedas will be reborn.

The Matrix series has perplexed and confounded it's audience with its ambiguous yet relevant questions. There are different segment of people who watch the movie, people who want to identify themselves with those Sci-Fi cult club, sects who are fascinated by the flaying and swaying in the movie and another sect who feel that something is offered in the movie but it's being saladed with illusion. I had been taking the blue pill for long and out of authentic boredom chose to take the red pill this time.

I have had the chance to understand the basic principles of Hinduism from the works of great philosophers who lived in this world. It’s my view that Hinduism is not a religion and it's more of philosophy to apprise people of a methodology to understand and live life.

The Matrix trilogy was plugged in three parts Matrix, Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions. The Matrix series moving revolves around a theme wherein Neo conceived as "The One" is fighting against the machines propelled by AI (Artificial Intelligence) which wants to dehumanize this planet for their energy needs.

Matrix is a computer generated dream program created by the Architect wherein all humans live without the knowledge that their life is an illusion contrived by the mind. This is grossly called "Maya" in Hindu Philosophy.

We live in a world of perceptions driven by the mind and intellect. The inputs to these are the through our senses which are mere electromagnetic pulses to the brain. Isn’t it easy to give the artificial stimuli without the real stimuli?

There is a feeling in Mr. Anderson (Neo in the movie) that something is wrong in this world and it’s not real. Morpheous who is from the real world discusses about this with Neo when he first meets him.

It's really a very looooooong article; i could not help it out. May be you could get to the concepts which interest you. The concepts discussed are

Maya
Karma: Free Will and Fate
Duality
Yugas and Avatars
Athma: Jivathma and Paramathma
Nature of the Universe

Following is the excerpt from the movie, great one to start!!!

Morpheus: I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, this is not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
Morpheus: I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is but it's there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Neo: The Matrix?
Morpheus: Do you want to know what IT is? The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.... Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends; you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.... Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more.... Follow me...

Maya
Maya but a dense cloud cover prevents us from seeing it. When the clouds disperse, can be compared to clouds, which cover the sun: the sun remains in the sky we become aware that the sun has been there all the time. Our clouds—Maya appearing as egotism, selfishness, hatred, greed, lust, anger, ambition—are pushed away when we meditate upon our real nature, when we engage in unselfish action, and when we consistently act and think in ways that manifest our true nature: that is, through truthfulness, purity, contentment, self-restraint, and forbearance. This mental purification drives away the clouds of maya and allows our divine nature to shine forth.

"Maya" illustrated in disguise during the course of the conversation

Morpheus: What is real. How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. This is the world that you know. The world as it was at the end of the twentieth century. It exists now only as part of a neural-interactive simulation that we call the Matrix. You've been living in a dream world,

The famous Spoon boy in the Movie at the Oracle's place

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon. Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

Karma, Free will and Fate
The next important concept in Hindu philosophy is Karma. The word "karma" comes from the Sanskrit verb kri, to do. Although karma means action, it also means the result of action. Whatever acts we have performed and whatever thoughts we have thought have created an impression, both in our minds and in the universe around us. The universe gives back to us what we have given to it. Good actions and thoughts create good effects, bad ones create bad effects.

What you are now at present is the result of what you thought and did in the past. What you shall be in the future will be the result of what you think and do now. You find an environment, which is best, suited to the tendencies you acquired in a former life. You can create better conditions for the future.

The following is the conversation between Oracle and Neo during their meeting in Matrix Reloaded and the choice part is the karma we are talking about. Our present choices are because of our past choices. A little Insight into free will and fate

Neo: I suppose the most obvious question is, how can I trust you?
The Oracle: Bingo! It is a pickle, no doubt about it. The bad news is there's no way if you can really know whether I'm here to help you or not. So it's really up to you. You just have to makeup your own damn mind to either accept what I'm going to tell you, or reject it. Candy?
Neo: D'you already know if I'm going to take it? (About taking the candy)
The Oracle: Wouldn't be much of an Oracle if I didn't.
Neo: But if you already know, how can I make a choice?
The Oracle: Because you didn't come here to make the choice, you've already made it. You're hereto trying to understand why you made it. I thought you'd have figured that out by now.

The following is the conversation between Smith (the bad guy in the movie) and Neo

Smith: Thank you. But as you well know, appearances can be deceiving, which brings me back to the reason why we're here. We're not here because we're free; we're here because we're not free. There's no escaping reason, no denying purpose - because as we both know, without purpose, we would not exist.
Smith 2: It is purpose that created us,
Smith 3: Purpose that connects us,
Smith 4: Purpose that pulls us,
Smith 5: That guides us,
Smith 6: That drives us,
Smith 7: It is purpose that defines,
Smith 8: Purpose that binds us.
Smith: We're here because of you, Mister Anderson, we're here to take from you what you tried to take from us. Purpose.

The following is the conversation between Oracle and Neo when they meet in Matrix Revolutions.

Neo: You helped me to get here, but my question is why? Where does this go? Where does it end?
Oracle: I don't know.
Neo: You don't know or you won't tell me?
Oracle: I told you before. No one can see beyond a choice they don't understand, and I mean no one.
Neo: What choice?
Oracle: It doesn't matter. It's my choice. I have my mind to make [up],same as you have yours.
Neo: Does that include what things to tell me and what not to tell me?
Oracle: Of course not.
Neo: Then why didn't you tell me about the Architect? Why didn't you tell me about Zion, the Ones before me - why didn't you tell me the truth?
Oracle: Because it wasn't time for you to know.

Duality
The Hindu world-view holds the cosmos to be holonomic and symmetric, but within that symmetry the existence of two opposite and complimentary principles is recognized. The Supreme Reality is an indivisible whole, but within that unity of the whole is a fundamental dualism: of a male principle Purusha and a female principle Prakriti.

The Nyaya-Vaisheshik school of Hindu philosophy holds the cosmos to be composed of two halves (dvikapalah ghatah: the cosmic pot is made of two halves). Variously represented and described as Purusha-Prakriti and Shiva-Shakti, these two complimentary principles also represent the passive and the active; the matter and the energy; the gross and the subtle; and the right and the left.

The following is the conversation between Oracle and Neo about duality and oneness when they meet in Matrix Revolutions.

Neo: The Architect told me that if I didn't return to the Source, Zion would be destroyed by midnight tonight.
Oracle: *rolls eyes* Please... You and I may not be able to see beyond our own choices, but that man can't see past any choices.
Neo: Why not?
Oracle: He doesn't understand them - he can't. To him they are variables in an equation. One at a time each variable must be solved and countered. That's his purpose: to balance an equation.
Neo: What's your purpose?
Oracle: To unbalance it.
Neo: Why? What do you want?
Oracle: I want the same thing you want,
Neo. And I am willing to go as far as you are to get it.
Neo: The end of the war. *Oracle nods* is it going to end?
Oracle: One way, or another.
….
Oracle: *nods* Very soon he's (Smith the bad guy) going to have the power to destroy this world, but I believe he won't stop there; he can't. He won't stop until there’s nothing left at all.
Neo: What is he?
Oracle: He is you. (Smith the bad guy w.r.t to Neo) Your opposite, your negative, the result of the equation trying to balance itself out.
Neo: What if I can't stop him?
Oracle: One way or another, Neo, this war is going to end. Tonight, the future of both worlds will be in your hands... or in his.

Yugas, Avatar and Cycle
The Eastern philosophy thinks in terms of great cycles: ascension and descension, creation and destruction, growth and decay; these cycles are seen as continually repeating waves in an eternal cosmic process. Civilizations, religions, and individuals are all part of this on going cycle. The appearance of the avatar is essential to this eternal movement of spiritual decline followed by regeneration.

At the end of the movie after Neo gets back to the source having overcome Maya and the bondages in the real world.

Athma: Jivathma and Paramathma
The unity of existence is one of the great themes of Vedanta and an essential pillar of its philosophy. Unity is the song of life; it is the grand theme underlying the rich variations that exist throughout the cosmos. Whatever we see, whatever we experience is only a manifestation of this eternal oneness. The divinity at the core of our being is the same divinity that illumines the sun, the moon, and the stars. There is no place where we, infinite in nature, do not exist.

If you unite yourself with Him, you will obtain immortality and eternal bliss. Cut the bonds of Karma through Knowledge of the Eternal and enjoy the Supreme Peace of the Atman, thy innermost Self and Inner Ruler. You will be freed from the round of births and deaths. Freed from sin, freed from passion, you will become a Jivanmukta or liberated sage. You will see the Self in the self and see the Self as all.

The methods or ways of approach to the Goal are different to suit people of different temperaments, capacities and mental calibre. But they all have one aim, viz., removal of ignorance and its effects of pain and sufferings and the attainment of freedom, perfection, immortality and eternal bliss by union of the individual soul (Jivatman) with the Supreme Soul (Paramatman).

Nature of the Universe

The conversation between the Architect and the Oracle giving gyan on the nature of the universe and the intensions of the creator (Brahman ) behind it.

(Matrix: a lake. a bench)
Oracle: Well, now, ain't this a surprise.
Architect: You've played a very dangerous game.
Oracle: Change always is.
Architect: Just how long do you think this peace is going to last?
Oracle: As long as it can.{Architect starts walking away}
Oracle: What about the others?
Architect: What others?
Oracle: The ones that want out.
Architect: Obviously, they will be freed.
Oracle: I have your word?
Architect: What do you think I am? Human?

The conversation between the Architect and Neo in Matrix Reloaded (near the end of the movie) giving gyan on the nature of the universe and the intensions of the creator (Brahman) behind it.

Architect: I am the Architect. I created the Matrix. I've been waiting for you. You have many questions, and though the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo some of my answers you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelevant.
Neo: Why am I here?
Architect: Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the Matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which, despite my sincerest efforts, I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden assiduously avoided, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably... here.
…….
Architect: The Matrix is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the 6th version.
……
Neo: Choice. The problem is choice.

(Conversation about Yugas)

Architect: The first Matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art -flawless, sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being. Thus, I redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature. However, I was again frustrated by failure. I have since come to understand that the answer eluded me because it required a lesser mind, or perhaps a mind less bound by the parameters of perfection. Thus the answer was stumbled upon by another - an intuitive program, initially created to investigate certain aspects of the human psyche. If I am the father of the matrix, she would undoubtedly be its mother.
Neo: The Oracle.

(Conversation about Free will and Fate)

Architect: Please. As I was saying, she stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly 99% of all test subjects accepted the program, as long as they were given a choice, even if they were only aware of the choice at a near unconscious level. While this answer functioned, it was obviously fundamentally flawed, thus creating the otherwise contradictory systemic anomaly that if left unchecked might threaten the system itself. Ergo those that refused the program, while a minority, if unchecked, would constitute an escalating probability of disaster.
Neo: This is about Zion.
Architect: You are here because Zion is about to be destroyed - its every living inhabitant terminated, its entire existence eradicated.
Neo: Bullshit.

Architect: Denial is the most predictable of all human responses, but rest assured, this will bethe sixth time we have destroyed it, and we have become exceedingly efficient at it.

(Conversation about Oneness with the Universe)

Architect: The function of the One is now to return to the Source, allowing a temporary dissemination of the code you carry, reinserting the prime program. After which, you will be required to select from the Matrix 23 individuals - 16 female, 7 male - to rebuild Zion. Failureto comply with this process will result in a cataclysmic system crash, killing everyone connectedto the Matrix, which, coupled with the extermination of Zion, will ultimately result in theextinction of the entire human race.
Neo: You won't let it happen. You can't. You need human beings to survive.

Architect: There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept. However, the relevant issue is whether or not you are ready to accept the responsibility of the death of every human being on this world. It is interesting, reading your reactions. Your 5 predecessors were, by design, based on a similar predication - a contingent affirmation that was meant to create a profound attachment to the rest of your species, facilitating the function of the One. While the others experienced this in a very general way, your experience is far more specific - vis a vis love.
…….
Architect: Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the anomaly revealed as both beginning and end. There are two doors. The door to your right leads to the Source, and the salvation of Zion. The door to your left leads back to the Matrix, to her and to the end of your species.

The Matrx Revolutions movie ends with this sanskrit sloka chanted at the end !!!!

Asatoma Sadgamaya
Lead the world from wrong path to the right path,
Thamaso Maa Jyothir Gamaya
from ignorance to knowledge,
Mrithyor Maa Amrutham Gamaya
from mortality to immortality and peace'
Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi

Disclaimer: The thoughts expressed about different concepts in Hindu Philosophy may be in variant with mine. I have tried to express the thoughts of Hindu philosophy in this article

My Old Jean

2006-07-17T01:43:00.000-07:00

I wore my Newport jean for the last time in my life.It was my first branded jean which i got for my Class XII farewell.It had the conviction and we had the commitment to be with each other for the last eight years.It had mantled me for a plethora of occasions from party to bruisy falls.I still can recollect it, i had got it out of my savings for 399 bucks in Rex fashions.It was the first luxury i could afford in my life.I had seen my friends wear elite brands like Lee and Levis and was adviced to take one of them, as those brands had the long history of being affiliated with fashion icons and correlated with supreme ruggedness.I too was convinced that a brand like Lee would get along with my long term aspirations.Suddenly a thought revoked it, what's in a brand,it's almost the same denim which gets into all of them.I grabbed the jean without further thought and it has been with me till now.

It's totally a different world now, i earn a hefty package and have acquaintance with people who wear the Friscos, Lees and Wranglers.I have learnt that there is a perceivable difference between a Newport and other elite brands.The looks are enticing, fits are comfortable and the social acknowledgement is greater.I decided to get with an authentic Lee this time and ingest my long deprived dream of an elite brand.I went to Lifestyle this time, a new euphoric experience, i experimented with the brands that cascaded the entire length and breath of the floor.Suddenly a hallucination struck me, my old Newport jean came before me and asked "Just because i was greased, wrecked and shorter, would you ignore me".After a moment of numbness,I had the sterness to reply "I have tried too many jeans in the store and it was my moral responsibilty to get one, i can neither fool the jeans nor the store keeper".I wanted to continue, i said "Even if i lose this Jean, i would not wear you again in my life".I felt convinced and the image hid itself for now.I finally picked up a rinsed blue stretchable Lee jean and walked down with bountiful hautiness from the store.

I went to my home and leaped with amusement, paraded in my new Lee jean before my parents.They aknowledged it with all imploring eyes and felt elated that i had atlast got a Jean which suited me.I felt intoxicated with this feeling, i started calling my friends and even pinged a creative mail flauting my new jean.I had just opened the wardrobe and saw the signs of that antiquated jean again, it asked me "Good that you have got a new jean with great looks, you seem to filled vibrancy".I know, it was talking out of despair, I immediately quipped " Yeah, atlast I got a jean which comforts me and everybody around me are happy about it.I have been destined with such a blessed jean".I put the Jean in the bottom shelf and said atlast "It's sure that i wont wear you anymore, all i can do is to get to dry cleaned when i can or should".I Remembered it,'I had to remove the embroidery which bear my name on it, I furiously removed it and felt that "the Old Jean is done forever!!"

Resisting Change

2006-07-14T04:27:00.000-07:00

As it happens to me everyday for the past few days.The celsius scale has shed down in chennai and it's a new cozy thing to survive.I walk to shower and stand near the periphery of its influence.I gently open it and don't go the whole hog into it.I first let the tip of my fingers interve the shower and tame it with the temperature tutorial.I keep it going for around three minutes and get myself aliced in meanderland.Suddenly, i realise the water wastage guilt and put me vertical under the nozzle.I do it very conscioulsy everyday and still don't overcome it.A case where i had consciously conceded to resistance to change.

I think Newton some how deduced my need long before to explain my actions (Yahooooo, fortunate that I am part of the nature and the system which he observed).Newton's first law to rescue me this time

"Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it"

I resist the immediate change in the morning because i have not mentally(neither my body) prepared myself for the temperature differential, that's why my fingers peep in before the water droplets hijack me.

This does not happen in the hot summer or when i am deprived of time.I have kinda of mentally overcomed my fear/anxiety of the chillness then.It is of the reason that the change is not phenomenal or my mind dwelled itself in something else .The external force has already gained momentum and the process of change is not as conscious as it used to be.

Change is imminent and nothing is constant in this world.We need to endlessly cope up with relative changes in space, time and people.It is true that we need to accept that, let's know how to change !!

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly

-Henri Bergson

Why people believe the unknown ?

2006-07-13T02:56:00.000-07:00

When a stranger gives you a bunch of coins and says that there are 20 in them, you wont believe in him, you would immediately count them to verfiy it.If sombebody says that there are millions of starts in the universe, although you might have hardly seen thousand of stars in your life, you would believe him.Even more worse, we won't believe the humans around us and build faith in them, we would believe in the supreme.Why is this strange thing happening in us?.

Lets take it case by case.It's fair that people verify what they see, it's of the simple reason that we can comphrend and fairly understand what a coin means, we know how to verify the hypothesis that there are 20 coins by the process of counting that we have learnt.The more you understand something the more predicatable it is, the more comfortable we are with it.All wisdom in this world begins with doubt, doubt leads to questioning, follows with a seeking to understand and finally you'll know the truth.

You must have undergone through this a couple of times in various circumstances.If you understand a subject and comprehend it properly, you will deliberate/discuss on it with anybody in any forum.You would not mind any anti-motion against it.It is because if you don't understand the opponent view completely, it means you have not understood your stand of view completely.

Let's take the other case where we tend to believe that there are millions of stars, we tend to believe.It is because we don't understand the nature of the universe.when we have this weakness of ignorance, we tend to accept without conviction in whatever is being said out of it.This is typically the mugging procees which happens in schools, students don't understand the subject, they end up memorising cues to reproduce in the examination.Nothing was achieved in the end except for the worthless grades.The student is now incompetent and lame to any concept expressed in the subject.He would need books and artefacts even to authenticate the basics.He now believes in the unknown without deliberating becauses he does not understand it !!

Nobody is a master of everthing and none can be.All we need is the spirt to overcome the ignorance by increasing our domain of awarness.Lets strive to be aware of the unknown!!!

How did Buddha die?

2006-07-12T00:55:00.000-07:00

I know you must be lingering in your heart, i must be very cranky to write such an article.This was a vivid argument which i had with a close friend of mine for hours together and end up in a deep silence.I was just asking to myself, is the process of death so important?.

If dealth is concerned with the physical absence of somebody, i am really not interested about it.Everything which has a beginning should have a end in nature.Neither is the process of dealth nor birth with oneself, the only thing i have with me is living.

Mahathma Gandhi would have been revered as a great person who lived for the masses, irrespective of whether Godse pounded his body.Rajiv Gandhi would have been admired as a great modern visionary of India inspite of the Tigers tearing his flesh apart.They were all killed because there were a category of people who dreaded martyr's deeds (a purposeful living). Is'nt the process of living more fundamental than the method of leaving this ethereal world.If great soldiers die and the people gather in masses to pay them homage, it is not for the way they were muttoned by the enemy, its for their spirit to save and die for the country.

Let's live Life in a better way instead of worrying about death which can never be controlled!!!.

Even i was curious about how buddha died and googled it.SHORT ANSWER: The Buddha died of old age, when he was eighty years old. The death was triggered by his body reaction to a dish of wild mushroom. He died peacefully and mindfully.Buddha still lives in the lives of people who follow his principles

Why do people hurt and get hurt?

2006-07-11T06:55:00.000-07:00

Feelings of hurt and pain are normal parts of everyday life. There must have been days when you must have been begging for sleep.you would want to sleep, but never would it embrace you and you wake up in the morning with a sick feeling.you would be struggling with anguish, isolate yourself from the entire world, feel like relinquishing your life, burn away your aspirations and blurt in pain.These are all signs of hurt caused by emotional and mental suffering. When someone lashes out at another person, they are expressing their hurt in a destructive and irresponsible manner.

Most people pounce on others as they do, when they do, not because they want to cause pain, but because they’re afraid of being hurt. To see this truth is to realize that the real enemy of relationship is fear itself; for this dark state that dwells in the heart knows that the best way to protect itself is by being first to find fault with another.

There are typically four stages as how people express their negative emotion .It initially starts with anxiety, anger, regression and ends in depression.Its better to vent out the anger without hurting others.

I went through an interesting article which give some guidelines to control anger which is the primary outlet of hurt

four questions that you should ask yourself:

Important? Is this matter important to me?
Appropriate? Is what I am feeling and thinking appropriate to the facts of the situation?
Modifiable? Is the situation modifiable in ways that will reduce my negative feelings or thoughts?
Worth it? When I balance the needs of myself and others, is it worth taking action?

These four questions can help you manage your anger. If you answer yes to the first question, go to the second. Even if you have four yeses and you think you have to take action, it doesn't mean you blow up. You just practice assertiveness.

Here are some ways to deal with anger:

Exercise. This is a natural mood elevator and a great stress buster.
Count to 10 and breathe slowly. Deep breathing slows heart rate and blood pressure.
Express your emotions on paper. Then throw the paper away.
Avoid using statements that start with "You." This puts people on the defensive and makes a volatile situation even worse. Start sentences with "I feel" or "I think."
Cry and laugh

We can't avoid getting hurt, let's atleast avoid hurting people.If we cant do that, let's know how get out from hurt.If even that is not possible, let's know that we are atleast hurt or hurting people!!!!