Unscientific optimism?

When i read my earlier post, I think it fits even better with the theme of optimism: another trait that often eludes and confounds me!

Unscientific happiness?

I can imagine the rolling eyes of those readers who know me in person... :-). I can be the very personification of a cloudy day, so what could I possibly contribute on the subject of happiness? I have found myself related to and surrounded by people who seem to me as having crossed the boundary into being "inexplicably happy". Similar to how one of those cloudy days also brings welcome rain, I attempt to mysteriously provide smiles through my disdain of excessively happy people :-).

The basis of this post is an article that I received by email about scientific thinking. The scientist (by profession and occasionally by personality) that I am, I have decided to find an explanation for the above phenomenon in a scientific way. My conclusion thus far is summarized in the title.

In what would seem as an example of the above personification, my first hypothesis is that the biggest reason for happiness in this world is ignorance. I propose this hypothesis by contraposition: I abhor being ignorant. Attempting to stay true to my profession, it leads me to long quests of thoroughly unnecessary and self-fortifying information (much like 24-hour news channels) all of which lead to less-than-happy conclusions (also much like 24-hour news channels). Notice how "frustrated" always seems to be linked to artists and scientists, but never to those who are "happy-go-lucky"? What seems to make people happier as they age is that either they or their brain learn to ignore the same facts that made them miserable earlier!

My second hypothesis arises from the reasoning behind my first hypothesis. Another reason for why people seem happy is that they are unscientific. Time and again it has confounded me as to how the same people who spend their money, time and strength to look pretty, young and vivacious also fervently celebrate the day of the year that announces that they are not as young as they used to be! No scientist of any repute could live with such a contradiction! Subjectivity of interpretation, the very bane of scientific thought, seems to be the strange key to happiness

I have to admit testing these hypotheses was tricky: logically arguing how a happy subject was in fact ignorant or illogical tends to invalidate them as subjects for this experiment :-). On the other hand the same test sometimes fortified the second hypothesis: happy people readily admit they could be unscientific and even mysteriously seem to conclude that this precise trait makes them happy!

So my conclusion so far is that happiness is just unscientific. Interestingly, that conclusion makes me happier!

We rule!

The tale goes that once Ganesh and his brother Kartikeya were fighting about who was more intelligent and able. Their parents suggested a race that circled the world 7 times: the winner would be declared the more able one. Kartikeya at once started his journey, while Ganesh thoughtfully circled his parents 7 times claiming they were the world to him. Needless to say he was declared the winner. But I wonder, did Ganesh actually circle the world and leave his mark?It seems so, because his name keeps cropping up in the strangest of new places and contexts. Here is the latest example I chanced upon, supposedly imagining a clash between Ganesh and Hitler.

Now let me be the first one to declare that although I do not know the details of this play, I would readily raise my objection to depicting our Gods in all kinds of frivolity (bikinis, chappals, burgers, etc.): read a previous blog of mine. But the outrage aside, it also undoubtedly signifies our dominance in today's world--we rule!

Think about it. If we were to portray Hitler and WWII as a clash between the divine good and the mortal evil, which Godly character would seem most uncontroversial? One cannot take a character from Christianity, Judaism or Islam because proponents of all three were involved in the war and are still involved in its aftermath. So a commercial venture that borrowed from any would run the risk of failing because of partisanship. Enter Ganesh! Totally incontrovertible, yet the proclaimed God of no less than one-fifth of the planet, and to add, with physical features that surely create worldwide curiosity if not amusement!

This play does not seem like a philanthropic act. It is a commercial venture. What does it say about Hindus if an Australian company thinks making a play around a Hindu God will actually earn them considerable revenue? Unless thrown together by Indians to cater to an Indian crowd (in which case all criticism seems either premature or moot) their market is Australian in nature. If they think Ganesh can pull audiences (especially in the context of Hitler) that is remarkable. This to me marks the reach and power of Hinduism. We don't even have to persuade, brainwash, threaten and train people specifically to spread the goodwill of our religion. The report says the play is "brimming with humour". I assume in good faith that humor does not translate into the belittling and deprecating kind. But I struggle to think of another religious personality who is simultaneously divine, accessible enough to be humorous and inviting laughter without the threat of consequence! Who says God has to be this feared boss that we spend our whole lives simply placating and hoping we don't anger?

In the above play, I don't see how they can belittle Ganesh. If it happens, Hitler has to be the one doing it. I think they won't risk portraying Hitler in any kind of positive, winning light.

A frank opinion to end this post: as understandable and justifiable is the public outrage at belittling our Gods is, in the end it satisfies the very purpose of the belittlement: controversy. Insulting and belittling is a symptom of great insecurity. It is when one feels the need to oppose or criticize but does not have any rational arguments to do it. If truly there were one powerful God and all others were impostors, why on earth or in heaven's name would the all-powerful God let the impostors exist and flourish, if he did not think the pluralism is worth preserving? So the next time you see Hindu Gods show up in unexpected places and contexts, try to swallow that outrage and exult in the new-found popularity of our Gods. Can China honestly even compete with us in this?

(These) Times (In) India

I remember a time when my father used to encourage me to read snippets from the Times of India to improve my English. Now that I'm a father, I intend to do the same thing but apparently to improve English through negation. Here is an example of journalism that is at best careless and at worst....well "non-journalistic".

Even though I would regard my current grasp of English as reasonably good, how did I get here? A good command of any language requires going beyond the school textbooks. Much to my parents' disappointment I never was an avid reader of books without pictures. However as a kid I partially made up for that impediment with voracious reading of newspapers. My mother tells me it started with making me underline specific letters in a clipping, followed by reading and explaining headlines and later in life, writing newspaper clipping to improve my handwriting. Those newspaper clippings helped me more in spelling, grammar and creative writing than probably anything else. As a Maharashtrian whose grasp of Marathi leaves a lot to be desired, four years of Maharashtra Times while studying in Mumbai did wonders! For a kid like me who does not catch the reading fever, what hope is there today of such avenues? (If the errors in the above news item weren't obvious, they are twofold: (1) the headline and the first paragraph span an entire generation (2) The portion of the news item that is actually relevant to the headline is almost as long as the headline.)

Is the above case a symptom of mere carelessness in typing, or a more serious case of not caring about quality? This is not the only instance by any means: the above example bears sad testimony to the decline of one of the most respected English dailies in India. I also happen to belong to the "X->Y" generation, i.e. transiting from the X to the Y generation. As a professor, this is what I get in an email from a student: "Professor, can i cum to ur office at 3?". Call me cynical, but the previous generations that saved money by curbing words in a telegram were better off than the SMS generation. It is disturbing to see how callously students respond to concerns that their emails, letters and even resumes have typographical and grammatical errors. And (gulp!), all this despite having spell-checkers!

While I often become self-righteous about current times, since when did language become "accommodating and democratic"? What's next: maybe 2+2=5 will get you partial credit because more people remember the song than mathematics?

Of blame games and abstractions

Enough words and electrons have been wasted in the digital world about the current Anna Hazare movement in India, so I won't add to it. But the arguments offered in the whole debate are ....interesting. Let me offer some symptoms:

1.

Arundhati Roy's article in the Hindu: "...(Anna Hazare has said) Nothing about the farmer's suicides in his neighbourhood, or about Operation Green Hunt further away. Nothing about Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh, nothing about Posco, about farmer's agitations or the blight of SEZs. He doesn't seem to have a view about the Government's plans to deploy the Indian Army in the forests of Central India...."

2.

The insinuation that since Anna Hazare was himself held guilty for maladministration he is not entitled to lead such an agitation.

3. A rediff article on Anna Hazare and reservation: " ...Dalit, Adivasi and religious minorities are curious to know why Anna Hazare and his followers did not care to go on a fast when heinous atrocities were committed against their people ...", "...When the joint drafting committee for the Lokpal was formed and five members from 'civil society' were nominated for this purpose, not a single one of them was found to be from among the Dalits, Adivasis or religious minorities! ..."

(I'm tempted to add here that the existing categories of reservation far exceed the number 5)

If I interpret them correctly, the suggestion is that a person is qualified to demand action on corruption only if he/she is found to be squeaky-clean in absolutely all spheres of his/her life, and only if he/she also and with equal force demand solutions simultaneously to many or all of our other problems.

The first suggestion is Utopian. Great individuals don't reveal themselves in premonitions. The flagbearer of Indian great men, Mahatma Gandhi, was hardly known to the common peasantry in India until he moved back from SA (i.e. until he was over 40). Sitting in anticipation of that one divinely endowed person to take birth and solve our ills is a fruitless exercise, and hence such a demand smacks of nothing but procrastination. Since the basis of the current movement is pervasive corruption, I think it would be a good first step to concede that the person(s) eventually instrumental in mitigating it would have some dirt on their clothes. We cannot be so impossibly purist about this when we are so hopelessly accommodating about which worthless politician gets our vote. It sounds like a plot of an 80s potboiler where actors alone were enough to identify who the good and bad guys would be, so sharp was their distinction in the movie plot.

I find the second suggestion precariously rope-walking between specious and ludicrous. Let alone India, there was not, is not and will never be a country that suffers from only one problem. Suggesting that the fight against one ill assumes legitimacy only if accompanied by simultaneous and equal fights against all others is tantamount to admitting that no progress can ever be made. Such suggestions coming from learned social activists is even more disheartening. It falls flat in a very simple way: neither Ms. Roy nor the social activist have ever voiced their opinion as passionately about corruption, so they must not be serious about Adivasis or Dalits either. Such statements are made to refute claims of the movement being pan-Indian. Even Mahatma Gandhi will not pass such a stringent test, because if one considers geography about 30% of the Indian land was governed by princes during his time (who at best were indifferent to the freedom struggle), and if one considers population the set of people opposed to him then constitute two entire countries today.

Nothing good will come out of one passionate activist opposing another passionate activist over issues that have little to do with issues, more with personality. Do I trust Ms. Roy or Anna Hazare? Not necessarily. But does corruption cease to be an issue because other issues exist? A fight against corruption cannot be put down solely because someone who you disagree with happens to support it. Gauge the issue on merit, not on the words or background of the supporter.

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Then there is the second argument, represented by pieces like these. I call them the "academic mirror-show-ers". They exist not only in political commentary, but every aspect of life! The opinion of choice here is that the solution for every ill is "a systematic framework, a general awareness, a common resolve by everybody, a collective moral upliftment" and the likes. If anybody talks about a problem with "the system", show them a mirror to prove that the system is after all our own reflection and thus we need to improve, possibly before wanting to change the system. All noble aims, but when voiced during a movement like this, misconstrued as "maintaining status quo". Nobody can dispute that such changes will indeed eradicate all our problems. But the fact that it hasn't happened yet could perhaps mean that it is well-intended but impractical. So are there only two alternatives: status-quo or complete transformation?

=========

No movement is complete without the call to the memories of our ancient leaders, freedom fighters, etc. and associating with them. At what point do we stop limiting our memory of history to only the fighters and leaders while forgetting our past mistakes? History not only teaches us what to do, but also what not to do. Its high time we elevated our past leaders beyond the status of "keywords" and actually solve something without resorting to the "crab" mentality.

Harry Potter 7.2: the review

Saw the last of the Harry Potter movie series two days ago. I would summarize it as "(Small) Hits and (Big) Misses".

HP 7.2 is a Harry Potter movie made mostly for Harry Potter loyalists (a reasonably sound strategy since that is a big big club!). The movie has a sense of inevitability around it. Everybody knows Voldemort is going to die and Harry Potter is going to emerge victorious. Everybody also knows the path to his death: the Horcruxes. Since the books are so wildly successful, the movie makers didn't really have a lot of suspense to reveal in the movie. While that is true for all HP movies, it is especially true for this one because everybody knows the end of all good vs. evil stories.

First, the hits. The CG effects in the movie are pretty good. I must say they are much more inspired from the Mummy movies than previous HP movies (the bad guys don't just die, they literally disintegrate). A few significant parts of the last book were well depicted in this movie, most notably Snape's memory and the Room of Requirement parts.

The biggest disappointment of this movie is the complete lack of closure. One of the biggest strengths of the HP series is how the author has managed to weave together the most innocuous of occurrences and give everything significance, that are finally revealed in the last two books. The last book obviously has some big ones, that the movie sadly ignores or merely glosses over. The biggest disappointment by far (spoiler alert!) is the killing of Voldemort. After 6.5 books of hardships, killings and torture, the bad guy is finally supposed to die. Lots of lovable characters have been killed in the process. The book offers a modicum of redemption for those alive by killing Voldemort in full view of all the survivors. Harry reveals at least some secrets before killing Voldemort for everybody to comprehend. Nobody including Harry knows whether he will succeed until about 2 paragraphs before he does, because it is all conjecture and hearsay for him. Unfortunately the movie decides to make the climax a personal and very short duel between the two, with nobody around. Harry tells nobody anything afterward, and nobody seems even a little bit eager to know either. Harry gets no redemption from revealing to Voldemort part of what he knows about him. Nagini's killing is simply a "oh here's a sword that magically appeared, there's a snake, let me put 2+2 together" rather than a "passing the torch on" moment that the book depicts. The biggest whopper of a revelation, the story of Severus Snape, is left for only Harry to appreciate. The book scripts a rather boring death of one of its most sadistic characters (Bellatrix Lestrange) by pitting her against the unlikeliest of rivals. Instead of spicing up this part, the movie only enhances its mundaneness. The rise and fall of each character that fits into the whole saga was portrayed quite reasonably by earlier movies, and this movie just makes the end too obvious for anyone to actually watch and enjoy. Its like watching the 4th or 5th sequel to Jaws: just going through the motions of showing a story the movie already assumes everybody in the audience is well-versed with.

For somebody who has never read the books, the movie may make some sense but only as a traditional brainless action movie. The essence of "action with a deep, complete story" is missed in such an experience. The mystery of why Harry Potter repeatedly survives so many assassination attempts that the last book explains (a bit implausibly) is replaced by "enough of the bad guy, this time the same duel with the same red-and-green light is going to inexplicably and fatally backfire" in the movie. And no curse names this time: the duel resembles that in the Ramayana, with the viewers only wowing the visual effects and not hearing the curse names that the books have familiarized so much. (And for those who have not read the book, there is significance attached to the actual curses used in the final duel).

This movie also takes the most liberties with changing the story line than what I remember from the others. Most of the deviations make sense in the movie, and in any case what the movie omits is much more sinful rather than what the movie changes. I was hoping the movie does deviate from the book in the end by publicly revealing more about Voldemort, but the movie went the completely opposite way.

And why is this movie called "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2"? The Deathly Hallows are almost absent in reel time and significance in this movie! The conversation between Dumbledore and HP while "in death" is critical to the title of the movie and to many mysteries, and once again, comes off as two characters mouthing off the keywords from the book chapter to merely preserve continuity.

Thus, the movie disappoints. By reading the books, I have irreparably lost the point of view of the unread movie goer and thus may be harsher than most. However I must reveal that it was the first four movies that finally compelled me to read the books. For a movie series that carried such power, the end was dull.

Every movie that owes its origins to a book is either an ode to the author, tries to effectively depict visually what the book says, or extends the book a bit by using visuals to accomplish what writing could not. The point of making a movie from a book is effective and emphatic storytelling mostly through execution and cinematography, because the script is already out there for everybody to read. There is near unanimity that when it comes to good books, the movies always fall short. This is true about the HP series as well, but the books begged for movie remakes because of their rich visual content. While others in the series omitted nuances from the story in the interest of time and still managed to be self-complete, this last one takes far too much liberty. Neither will it satisfy a Harry Potter fan, not will it "convert" a watcher into a reader like earlier ones did for me.

By the way, for those who have not read the books and/or have not seen the movies, here is my rating on them:

1. Harry Potter and the Sorceror's stone

Book: B

Movie: B

Tip: If you think HP is childish (like I did), don't start from this one as it is likely to enforce that belief.

2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Book: B

Movie: A

Tip: No other book seems so "retrospectively significant".

3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Book: Reading...

Movie: B

Tip: Since I haven't read this one, I'm very eager to see how the book is. The story of this book seems the best fit for a movie adaptation, and I'm not convinced yet such a concept can be captured more effectively in writing.

4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Book: A

Movie: A

Tip: This movie converted me to a reader.

5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Book: C

Movie: C

Tip: This book and the movie is too slow and not meaty enough.

6. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Book: A

Movie: D

Tip: The most disappointing of all the movies (the last one comes a close second). The depressing movie replaced the sentiment of the story from a fact-finding thriller to a melancholy inevitability of the end of one of its central characters. The last book is virtually "un-understandable" without this one, so critical is its content to the saga. The movie alas, can be skipped.

7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Book: A

Movie: B, C

The best argument yet for...

Here is a statement that will go down in the annals of history as...well you decide:

"If any vegans came over for dinner, I could whip them up a salad, then explain my philosophy on being a carnivore: If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?"

Hmmm.......here are three choices to guess who said this:

1. An English professor explaining the subtleties of the English language.

2. A sincere 8-year old kid trying to understand from mommy what a "vegan" is.

3. A hopeful for the post of the US President

My choices pretty much gave it away didn't they: the answer is 3. This irrefutable logic comes from the brain of none other than Sarah Palin. I am beginning to think the animals that she hunts may be dying of shame rather than mortal wounds.

I've deleted about three drafts of my rebuttal...but I cannot think of an appropriate one that would sound honest but not derogatory. I think the statement is so absurd that you actually need to think hard to come up with an appropriate response!

Broken news

Yes, the news channel industry is broken. That is unfortunately not breaking news, 'coz its been happening for a while. Two excerpts in particular that I find grossly inappropriate:

"I just got an SMS. It says 'Mr. Raj Thackeray, not Marathi manoos but NSG came from New Delhi to save Mumbai from the terrorists'. ..."

Context: The famous journalist Mr. Prannoy Roy read this out from his mobile phone during live telecast, shortly after the NSG had killed the last terrorist at the Taj in November 2008.

"...Everybody is jubilant and we're getting a lot of jokes right now and reading them as we get them...This latest one reads ' The Indian team has done what the Indian intelligence could not: keep Pakistan out of Mumbai'...."

Context: An NDTV reporter read this out again during live coverage and post-match interviews with Ajay Jadeja, Sunil Gavaskar, Dean Jones and another NDTV reporter on air.

---Dear and allegedly respected TV journalists of today---

What the hell is wrong with you guys! Do you think you are sitting in some restaurant chatting with their buddies? How unprofessional can one be! You are broadcasting live, people are hearing you all over the world. And worst of all, you're a reputed TV news channel. Reading out SMS jokes evidently without any sort of screening!

If you must relieve your mind of your personal thoughts or share a racy tidbit, do that in your own personal setting. Do not blurt out anything on national TV. When you don official attire, sit in front of a camera to read out news and call yourself a journalist, you better own up to the immense responsibility that comes with it. I'm sorry, but you don't just have an ordinary 9-to-5 job. You don't deserve to do it if you think otherwise. Neither are you a simple sales or marketing representative. What you say has a multiplicative effect--whether you like it or not. Every word that you utter in front of the camera is amplified by the number of your viewers.

But hey, don't these jokes somehow reflect the reality of thought? Maybe, but you are not a reality TV show, you're news. If reality TV is what you think will get you revenue, declare yourself as a reality TV channel and create outrage for a living. Please don't act like Rakhi Sawant and demand the respect befitting Sanjiv Kumar. Please don't mix sports with politics. Is this Pakistani cricket team necessarily associated with the political leanings of their country? By that measure absolutely everybody in the Indian team ought to be utterly corrupt and incompetent!

I'm sure these rants help your ratings. That's why you do it. Then why cry holy hell when players fix matches? Aren't they too helping themselves rather than the "ethical greater good of their country"? Why cry foul when ministers are involved in scams? Money to them is what TRP is to you (actually its not TRP by itself, it is again the money that TRP brings in). Please tell me respect and dignity has not become such a cheap commodity that you are willing to forsake it any day just to win more ad revenue. Why don't you just read the news in the nude? I'm sure TRP will skyrocket!

Our honest (-ly clueless) prime minister

I'm all for honest politicians. I don't even have a problem that they occupy high posts in a democracy despite their inability to win an election (this inability could be circumstantial evidence of their honesty). But there comes a time when the virtue of honesty seems almost theoretical, i.e. admirable but without any practical use. Our current prime minister Mr. Manmohan Singh seems headed in this direction.

Mr. Singh said the only understandable thing he could when his government was faced with one scam after another: "I did not endorse...", "...all part of coalition dharma...". Let us humour our PM for one minute and assume he is truly being honest. If one believes as bad as one's friends are our enemies (i.e. opponents) are worse, would one not concoct any excuse not to let power slip away? Seems a s-t-r-e-t-c-h, but let's believe there is benevolence behind holding on to his chair. However his latest act bamboozles me the most!

India and Pakistan are once again locked in battle for the World Cup, this time the closest to the final match than ever before. Skeptics on both sides are reluctantly admitting to their opponents' strength and cynically analyzing the weaknesses of their own sides. The collective rise in blood pressures in the subcontinent warns of intravenous tsunamis. And as if displaying the text-book symptom, our Prime minister, in what can only be described as momentary disorientation, cordially invited the Pakistan Prime Minister to view the game. Hardly a genuine gesture of friendship, the hope is to play the cricket-diplomacy card again.

When we will learn? I admit I do not belong to the partition era, but I cannot understand this obsession with proactive peace-gestures that our leaders seem to have. This is as inexplicable as those saas-bahu serials where in the face of utmost animosity the protagonists sensibly tolerate the atrocities of the antagonists who are after all, "family". Even the Britishers accepted moral defeat in the face of non-violence in 40 years. By that stand we face an enemy worse than what our freedom fighters faced.

What frustrates me most is not that yet another time it is we who have extended a fig leaf--I'm proud that we have the bigger mind here. But what is the use of extending exactly the same fig leaf again and again despite receiving a blowtorch as an acknowledgement? Is there anything new that we are proposing this time, or is it the same rewound tape from 10-20-30 years ago? It is almost as if 26/11 did not happen. The defeat hidden behind the famous "Mumbai spirit" seems to be going national now, with every citizen expected to adjust to the new reality. Time heals all wounds, they say. We are witnessing a different time warp here where one side has expedited healing while the other side does not have one at all.

If we should not engage in active enmity, at least let us be indifferent. Why make a laughing stock out of us by acting like the overly good brother who just won't learn?

I feel really bad for both the cricket teams. As if having the expectations of their countrymen wasn't pressure enough, they are now being used as involuntary pawns to address an intractable problem. As usual one would get bouquets, the other would get brickbats (literally). India's loss would mean an instantaneous deletion of our past perfect record against Pakistan in the WC to the extent that people would act as if we never won against them. Pakistan's loss would mean the end of the World Cup tournament for many Indians (As Yuvraj Singh said, fans would say "win the semifinal, it doesn't matter if you win or lose the final"). Either way, predictably difficult times ahead for our cricket team of budding talent, and our governing team of mythical talent.

(In baritone): I confess: I love this app!

Okay so seriously, a "confession" app??

That has to be the digital version of a drive-thru for Krispy Kreme donuts. So you want to be obese by eating donuts, and you want so much to keep every calorie you eat inside you that you don't even get out of your car before you get your pre-coronary snack?

This undoubtedly dilutes what is probably my favorite aspect of the church. Not only do you believe that God's son suffered for all your sins (according to my elementary understanding of Christianity and supported by the many churchgoers who knock on my door to publicize their church), you even refuse him the courtesy of getting off your chair, going into a church, confessing before another human and giving yourself that little chance of reviving your lost conscience? How forgiving do you expect God to be?

Let me humor the idea that this is merely a "fun" app and is not supposed to be used by any genuine confessor. Really? When was the last time you met someone who thought it would be fun to confess to something, and pay $2 for it? Its not as if the app responses with relevant, sin-specific advice to make it seem like an interactive game! I don't really see a confessing game succeed unless it shares something with other successful games of today: violence, adult content or strategy. Good luck including that in a confession!

Casual sinners can now do the unthinkable: commit the sin as they are trying to confess it. How does any religious person, let alone a body of churches, think of this as a good idea? This has to be right up there with performing Hindu abhishek via webcam, or uttering "talaaq" by text message. If religions are to be believed and God's wrath will indeed fall upon us, the religious bodies aren't doing such a great job at delaying the inevitable! A significant portion of that wrath will be directed at our collective stupidity, not our sins!

I confess: I love this app!

Technology has at last caught up with religion! Not wanting to stay behind the times and other religions promoting "remote abhishek" and "talaak by SMS", the church has okayed an iPhone/iPad "confession" app. Here is the info: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/02/08/smartphone-sins-catholic-church-approves-confession-by-iphone/?hpt=T2. According to its maker: "it has already helped one person come back to the church after 20 years away."

I love this idea! It will start a new debate about which is easier: committing a sin in today's world, or atoning for it! This is truly a win-win for everybody:

The sinner: Heaven is just a click away! How guilty can a tablet make you? (Mind you, not the original 10 commandments tablet, but the iPad). In fact it is estimated that the average number of punishable sins worldwide will decrease because the middle"man" (literally, the priest) has been eliminated. Governments all over the world, are you looking?

The church: This will surely help their cause. They can now compete with other age-old religions in the 21st century. Instead of the confession box, now there will be a confession cubicle complete with an air-conditioner (for the computer, not the priest) to receive confessions (in a later release, as it seems that current app is just for guilt resolution, not absolution). Church steeples can now be turned into broadcasting towers so that confessions are digitally sent to God above. And eventually they would need technical support. Thus in the greatest of paradoxes, China will support the church!

Apple: This is a masterstroke. With one swoop they have targeted a long-neglected demographic: criminals. Apple is projected to earn millions in ad-revenue around prisons and courts. Look for the "There's an app for that!" sign outside every courtroom and prison and the related addendum to the law allowing out-of-court settlements.

Skeptics warn that modern-day sinners could fall into a loophole where they mistakenly went to hell because their confession did not get through due to poor signal strength. Apple is mulling using antennas shaped like religious symbols so that their apparatus does not suffer divine signal loss.

Rival Google is smacking its lips: it plans to collect statistical data on worldwide confessions and create interesting visualizations to see which sins are popular in which demographic. Of course it promises that no humans will read them: only bots manufactured by atheists would be used.

Several other religions are considering alternative "Paap ko jala kar raakh kar doonga" apps on the rival Android platform which is slated to overtake the iPhone in popularity by 2014.

Note: For those of you who didn't get it, this is a sarcastic article (I must have read way too many legal notices living in the US to think of writing this note!)

Misplaced outrage

Thanks to the recent stream of Indian news that I have been getting via DirecTV I am hearing much more about the current 2G scam and shady conversations between Niira Radia and journalists than any other Indian news in the last 8 years.

The internet is full of blogs, comments and articles castigating Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi for their conversations with Radia that seem to border on the unethical. While all the criticism may be warranted, I am personally appalled at how misplaced it is! The whole episode may showstreaks of substandard journalism, but it pales in comparison to the actual scam and the focus of the tapes: the conversations and horsetrading of politicians.

So after a democratic election, one party tries to browbeat the other by demanding juicy portfolios for its kith and kin, many of which have been at least suspected of corruption before. The other party entertains this notion merely because it wishes to come to power. One might say "what's new in that, we always knew politicians were scum". Exactly! How can journalists evoke so much outrage while politicians are treated with an almost defeatist pithy!

Neither Niira Radia nor Barkha Dutt make utter fools out of us. We didn't elect them. We didn't elect their bosses. So we neither employ them, nor do we pay them. Nor do we trust them with our own money. One can be safely removed from one's everyday life, while the other can be easily switched off. So why so much outrage over someone else's employee when our own government employees are so inept, corrupt and incorrigible? What about these leeches--politicians? Such is their shamelessness that they will garner our votes on the names of such non-issues as caste, religion, community, or a simple claim that they are the least of all evils. And then they will loot our money (yes ours, we don't just print crores of rupees), in effect making us seem foolish, and then be right back to get our votes four years later (if we are lucky). Why no public outcry for them?

If Barkha Dutt is forced to resign, will we be satisfied or will we demand a possible ethical investigation against her? Since when is resigning from a plum post any punishment? Day in and day out politicians thump their chests and claim that while their party forced their chief ministers to resign, the opposition did no such thing. Since when is that punishment?

If Dutt and Sanghvi wish to clear their name, let them follow these politicians like hawks and refuse to kill this story with time. If it takes a year to finally file charges and prosecute, so be it. I fail to understand how there cannot be enough TV time with 24x7 news channels. There is plenty of room, if you're looking to fill it meaningfully. Please don't claim esoteric discussions in a cosy studio as the only contribution that you can make. You can do much more: you have important lobbyists and politicians talking to you. If they think you're that important, its time to capitalize it instead of protecting it. I promise them--that will satisfy their TRP hunger more than anything.

What can the public do? I really think we should shun elections once. There has to be a law about election quorum. We will lose crores of rupees in a wasted election, but that can be gained back by preventing a single scandal that any of our elected representatives will incorrigibly cause.

Us fragile souls

Comedy is no longer limited to the Shiv Sena. I used to find it hilarious that the Shiv Sena claimed at the drop of a hat that the sensibilities of the Marathi manoos (i.e. me) were hurt when anybody did anything that the Shiv Sena did not approve of. Then came the "Billu Barber" controversy that shockingly the courts approved of! Now it borders on the silly and frivolous:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-interviews/Dhobi-community-sues-Aamirs-Dhobi-Ghat/articleshow/6611691.cms

This time sanity prevailed and the judge saw the PIL for what it was: a publicity stunt meant to get cheap attention. Political correctness has turned into reality TV, and it is not simply limited to India. Initially I thought frivolous lawsuits like these were a by-product of the American justice system that works so efficiently that it has the time and resources to devote to such claims. But I was wrong.

Let's humour this particular case. The petitioner claimed that the film "Dhobi Ghat" had nothing to do with a dhobi ghat. And according to an act of law, it is a punishable offence to call somebody by their caste name. Really? I'd like to see their politically correct caste certificate that is issued by the same Government that enacts this law. Once again, if the storyline were the autobiography of a dhobi, would it make this law moot? Apparently not, because Billu Barber was the story of a barber.

May be the clothes cleanliness provider will go to the hair maintenance expert for some advice! By the way, should the judge be called a judge? Its so judgmental!

Institutionalized bribery

We all know the extent of corruption in India. I was recently told about two such glowing examples:

1. When a friend of mine booked a flat in Mumbai, he was asked to pay a certain "booking" amount by the builder. The booking amount contained legitimate government fee and a set fee for bribing the corporation officials so that the deal goes through. The bribe was quoted as part of the booking amount!

2. Apparently one can get a passport in India without any verification. Agents quote a fee that is roughly double that of the normal amount. Half of it goes towards bribing the passport officer and the police so that there are no hassles. In a truly perverse reversal of roles, the applicant is supposed to visit the police station to verify that he is indeed who he says he is. The original intent of the police enquiry was that the police would be able to verify the permanent address claimed by the applicant.

The first instance is almost a case of social evolution. The main cause of bribery in India is inadequate pay. The first instance effectively increases the pay packet of these officials. A set bribe for a particular operation almost makes it detailed and deterministic enough for tax purposes! The second one is purely dangerous: think of who can get an Indian passport this way!

Where morals have failed, technology has succeeded. The only way to weed out these parasites is to make them obsolete. One can imagine how many bribes stopped changing their resident pockets when the Government of India allowed one laptop per international traveler entering India! The illegal railway touting business went out of business with the ability to book tickets online.

My limited experience with passports leads me to believe that the state of the passport authority is roughly what railways was about 2 decades ago before computerization. How else can one explain a renewal application finding its way to the office that issued the expiring passport? I simply fail to understand how the government of a country that is the object of envy of the world as an insane IT producer cannot embrace IT in all its branches. Maybe the politicians have long realized what I am realizing now: technology will strip the grease right off their palms!

An "easier" computer science

Contrary to the situation in India where everybody is dying to be a computer engineer whether they like it or not, the situation in the US is quite opposite. Computer science has been plagued with major recruitment problems, many factual and other mythical. Almost all universities struggle with student recruitment in the IT field, a scenario that was as amusing to me as somebody actually wanting to be darker than they are :-) As I have crossed over to the side of academia, I realize the seriousness of this problem and the solutions being proposed to address it. My take on the whole thing is that it is a largely perceptual problem, and at least some solutions, according to me, seem to address it by creating other erroneous perceptions.

The first major hurdle in convincing someone to take up computer science as a career is its difficulty. Indeed, subjects like operating systems, algorithms, system programming and even flat-out application programming are not for the faint-hearted. My take on the issue is: that is precisely what makes them so special. The reward of mastering something that is inherently difficult is great! The question is, how does one convince others of this?

There have been great efforts at making computer science more "fun" in the classroom, almost all of which I support. There is teaching algorithms through games, programming through commodity applications like multimedia, programming using the iPhone or Droid both of which are immensely popular among consumers, etc. All of these examples represent the "coming out" of computer science, from a field based in mathematics to a field that is responsible for all the digital fun in this world. The fact is that even the biggest bully on the block who would ridicule nerds cannot go one day without some digital gizmo. So why not make the connection between using it and creating it? I wish we had some of this when I was in college.

But efforts to portray computer science as "easy" or commodity defeats the purpose. Are we really sending the correct message by saying there is something that is simultaneously lucrative and easy? College education should be as much about personal prestige as it is about getting a job. It is a great feeling to hold a college degree: why would it be if "anybody" could do it? A college degree is and should be the result of consistent hard work and about mastering skills that are worthy of the money that they will bring in.

One of the subjects that is simplified and diluted to make it "easy" is programming. Programming is like what mathematics is in school: everybody says its important, but it just appears too difficult. In every programming class that I have taught or been a part of, there have been people who struggle throughout the semester (and many more after it), and others who snap their fingers on their way to an A grade. Many introductory programming courses start by taking a "word processing" approach to programming: click here, drag that and you have a running program. It does make it look easy, and there may very well be some who are attracted towards computer science because of it. But it portrays the field incorrectly, as these students realize in more advanced courses. Instead of portraying programming as "so easy even a caveman can do it", why not portray it as "its difficult, but look what you can do once you know it"? I think an honest introduction of the subject would be that it is tough, but always enjoyable. My personal experience has been that programming simply fortifies that age-old truth: "no gains without pains". You want to act smart and make money: you have to work hard. Isn't that true of all lucrative professions?

Another myth about computer science is the seeming dullness of those who adopt it. Nerdy bespectacled people working in their dark cubicles and talking to nothing but their monitors, seemingly without a life in general. Now I know all the computer scientists of today will readily debunk that scenario, but that is what the rest of the world really thinks about us! I have a two-pronged defense against this myth.

First, the seemingly sedentary nature of this job is also its strength. We are one of the few types of engineers who can work very hard in the comfort of a chair and a controlled indoor environment! It is what makes this field perhaps the only one to offer "remote" jobs: people working for a company in a setting of their choice. This has become an increasingly popular option both for companies and for employees.

Secondly, "so what"? In this day and age, can you honestly find even one person who has daily access to a computer (but is not an IT professional) and who does not spend hours on drivel like facebook, twitter or other social networks? How is that life any more exciting or adventurous than spending the same amount of time and actually earning money for it!

So for all you skeptics: computer science makes a great career! Yes it is difficult, but that is what makes it worth every hour you will spend struggling with it and every penny you will spend mastering it!

"We Indians"

As an Indian, how often do we use the phrase "We Indians are ...". Or more familiarly, the "desi" attitude towards things, etc. Upon introspection I find that "we indians" are experts at finger-pointing, mostly towards other Indians. If you are an Indian, choose a region. Now recall the word used to describe people of that region (legitimately, not in a derogatory manner). So for example I would be a Maharashtrian. Now remember the last phrase you heard that began with "Those XXX (Maharashtrians for me) are ...". Sound familiar?

Being away from our country has the strangely integrating effect of laying blame on "all indians" instead of a particular region (we all hear our share of those ones too, but more commonly it is the "desi" attitude). Recently I came across a forum on a website managed by local Indians in which an (allegedly) American was complaining about the commonly found obsession of tuition classes that Indian parents have, and how he had a problem with a particular person providing tuition classes outside of his job, and how tuitions were stressing the poor kids. If you have come across such fora online, you will be able to correctly guess the eventual outcome of this particular thread--the discussion became a rant on racism and jealousy.

My personal interest in this particular discussion was the issue of a person providing tuitions clearly in violation of his visa status. Evidently this person is good at teaching--the kids seem to be doing very well thanks to the guidance. As an immensely law-fearing human being I find it impossible to relate to people who would do such a thing. Unfortunately this is more common that one might think. Students working beyond their allowed 20 hours, professionals earning extra (read cash and thus unreported) income by doing odd jobs (sometimes completely belying the status of their legal job), etc. As someone who has been a student and is currently a professional I can empathize with some of the reasons provided, all centering around money. Yes, it is an expensive country, often one has non-earning family members to provide for, or a loan to be paid back in India, etc. However these are excuses nonetheless. The most basic and crystal-clear truth is that doing such things may be illegal depending on your visa status. There will be very little to argue against legal action that will be taken if such activities are discovered.

Personally I am of the opinion that if you are in a country that is not your own, you have to live by the laws of the land, no matter how unjust they seem to you. Unless you were kidnapped, you chose to live and work in another country. If you do not agree with a particular law to such an extent that you seem to have no choice but to break it, you must seriously consider returning back to your country. Despite all the protection that a country would provide to its foreign workers, the fact remains that you being there is a privilege. Yes you pay their taxes, but you also draw an income. So nobody's really obliging anybody here. In this particular forum, the alleged wrongdoer holds an H1-B visa. That means he has a decently paying job, and is unlikely to be in need of money for survival.

So the question I find myself pondering upon is: why do it? Is it just a case of doing something because there is a decent chance you can get away with it? If so, is this attitude cultural--is this another characteristic of "we indians"? Or is it a subconscious training that all Indians are inevitably subject to thanks to the pervasive low-level corruption in India? The biggest question that I have is: will we be consistent and pardon someone else indulging in an illegal activity that is somehow detrimental to us, if there is a reasonable explanation for it? Or as with all illegal things in this world: it is alright so long as we are on the profiting side of the equation?

Can a reader help me to understand this better?

P.S.: This particular forum contained elements of another "we indians" characteristic. One individual immediately pointed out that lots of Americans also have undisclosed incomes and thus swindle the same tax authorities. In short, the "catch them first" argument. I think as a world of 4 billion people, we have comprehensively lost track of "who started it", no matter what the issue is. So again in my opinion, such arguments may contain vestiges of truth, but are totally useless and thus pointless.

The above is a hint to a potential reader who'd like to point out that immigrants of all origins indulge in such activities. Law, unlike democracy, cannot be a victim to the vagaries of a majority. Just because lots of others do it does not make it legal, nor morally correct.

My Name is Khan--the review

I know its a bit late, but I just saw the movie last week!

My Name is Khan is the journey of a Muslim man through Indian riots and American 9/11. It is the story of a man with Asperger's syndrome (which I am told is a form of autism) who is incapable of understanding unsaid things, and has several child-like mannerisms. He tells his own story through his life's struggles, especially those following his son's death in a hate-crime.

Nothing to take away from the scriptwriter because the story is for the most part original, but MNIK is inspired at a high-level from Forrest Gump. For it too is the story of a man with limited mental capabilities facing untold hardships while possessing uncanny luck. The subsequent comparison to Tom Hanks does not undermine SRK as he has performed quite well in the movie. Granted, the role invited a lot of histrionics, but SRK acts admirably and shockingly, manages to keep his hamming under check. His narration especially is quite effective. His body language too. I don't know how people with the actual disorder behave, so I cannot speak for the genuineness of his performance. But sincere it is.

The movie itself has many nice things about it. For one, it moves away (not completely) from the American stereotype and shows Americans of various hues and shades. The usual blatant racism exists, but hey, that's the subject of the movie! 9/11 provides a good backdrop to justify the injustices shown in the movie. Its the (surprisingly high) American content in an Indian movie about NRIs that struck me--usually such movies are about little Punjabi islands in foreign lands.

Alas, this movie's biggest liability is the same as other Karan Johar movies--Karan Johar's direction! He has the ability to stretch the simplest of scenes till they break, and beat you on the head with a hammer several times until you are tired of getting the point. Showing the loyalty of a Muslim man in the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina was a nice touch, but why the "we shall overcome" followed by immensely filmy rescue sequences and public outpour of help? The two dialogues between Rizwan and President Obama could not have been more contrived and to me were the mother of all anticlimaxes. Johar also manages to make Kajol's character overly dramatic. The whole justification of SRK trying to make it to the US president alone is just too filmy to fly. Kajol's presence in the movie was largely to showcase the SRK-Kajol jodi to attract more audiences.

Overall though, I recommend you give MNIK a chance if you haven't! The overall movie eventually feels okay once you have forgotten the intermittent scenes that refuse to end.

Paap se dharti phatee...

"Paap se dharti phatee, adharm se aasmaan,

atyachar se kaapi insaniyat, raaj kar rahe haiwaan.

Jiski hogi taakat apoorva, jiska hoga nishaana abhed,

Jo karenge inka sarvanaash, woh kehelaenge...Tridev."

Remember that opener from the 1980s blockbuster Tridev! It seems at least part of it was a prophecy! Apparently, the ground does really rupture due to sin, according to this enlightened soul.

So evidently women cause earth-shattering lust in the male mind. And since no moral codes exist for men, it may be presumed that no matter how lascivious men may be and behave, they simply do not evoke any interest from women! For if they did, women would go astray due to immoral men and cause earthquakes. What an indictment of the male ego!

The Ramayan provides an interesting contrast. During agni-pariksha, Sita begged mother earth to swallow her to end her humiliation and mother earth obliged. So is an earthquake an indictment of immoral women, or unjust men?

But women need not despair, for they are not the most harmed by this interpretation of earthquakes. It is God! For all the earth-shattering immoralities in this world can simply be reversed by prayer and repentance. It is a confirmed case of divine bribery. If only we could all agree on which God to beg to for forgiveness!

Thought-provoking philosophy

I can be occasionally found pondering on issues well beyond my realm of understanding or control. Although the title of my blog suggests so, I'm not a philosopher and neither have I read philosophy very much. But the following article featuring Amartya Sen's latest book is very thought-provoking:

http://news.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/apr/13/slide-show-1-in-conversation-with-amartya-sen.htm

What struck me (I haven't read the actual book, but now want to) was his unending optimism regarding all the world problems that he talks about, and how the subject of his latest book seems to be the pooh-poohed approach of actually learning from history.

His opinion about the importance of public debate in democracy is particularly intriguing, and very relevant to India. Many if not most social problems in India seem intractable and impossible to solve because of our biggest curse: population. I can safely claim that a good part of my post-school life has been spent in wondering just how much fluff we were fed in school and how the world and indeed our own country is so much more complicated than that. This realization is the harbinger of halt, because every incidence, phenomenon and problem in India seems positively hopeless thereby discouraging any activity towards addressing it. How does one eliminate (or reduce) corruption, poverty and hunger in India?

Which makes his reference to Mahatma Gandhi eye-opening. Here was a man born in an era where technology was primitive, and its application was further hampered by foreign rule. Disease and famine ruled society. Forget email, even telephones or snail mail weren't readily accessible to the ordinary citizen. Virtually half the country was under princely rule (which means that the grand stories of our independence struggle largely covered only half the country). Indeed the Congress party was somewhat elitist until he walked in and made it a grassroots party. Granted that we were then at less than 33% of our current population, but the above challenges dwarf the "manageable" population. How did Gandhi manage a grassroots campaign (with the able help of many many others)? The parallels to me are striking! Given the daily struggles of poverty, hunger and untouchability, how would one make the common man care about an elite concept like independence of governance? Given the daily struggles of today's hectic life in urban and suburban India, and the poverty and backwardness of rural India, how would one make the common man care about concepts like good governance, social change and national security? Like then, once again the number of people killed in violent crimes (whether local or international) dwarf in comparison with deaths due to illness, malnutrition or just plain hunger!

The answer seems to somewhere within Sen's observations. The ability to empathize with others' suffering renders the proportion of population useless. And as a society we may be rightly accused of being callous (the infamous "chalta hai" attitude), but at a personal level we Indians are extremely good at empathizing and helping each other out. So at least part of the solution seems to be not creating a social revolution from scratch, but sharing our empathy with like-minded people to convert it to action. I guess that's what NGOs, social workers and doctors do :-)

The "Instant" Syndrome

It is said that the longer you work in a profession, the more it starts affecting your entire personality. A businessman thinks of personal relationships in terms of "profit-loss", "risk analysis", a doctor tries to diagnose, a research scientist looks for a cause-effect in everything, etc. As I sit here for the 12th straight year in front of a computer, I wonder how we computer scientists are affected by our profession. The more I ponder upon this question, the more convinced I am about something unique to me and my next generation: the "instant" syndrome.

We computer scientists (and others who use a computer for more than 3 hours a day) are so used to doing everything instantly with our fingers that sometimes we fail to understand the ways of the world. Over the years I have realized that my patience in some aspects has been dwindling. I attribute it to my "instant" syndrome.

1. Why does it take so much time to find out something? Every week I have an episode of frustration where I try to find out about something and "google" search does not give me the desired results. Sulking I have to make my way to the library. And of course I'd like to find out whether they have what I need without actually going there. So I use their "search" tool. And no, it is not nearly as good as Google. And then I wonder, how did my previous generation conduct any kind of research? The possibility of sitting in a library basement surrounded by actual manuscripts has haunted me many times when I was a PhD student!

2. The other day I had to send my car to the repair shop. The guy said he would call me when its ready, but it would take 2-3 days. I spent the next 2-3 days waiting for a call, waiting to get a "status" check. If I buy something from amazon or dell, it provides me with the ability to track in real-time the status of my order. Why doesn't the rest of the world work this way?

3. The other day I had to erase the whiteboard in my office to explain something to a student. Immediately after I erased it clean I remembered a piece of information that I had written on it that I needed! For a split second, I experienced frustration at not being able to "undo" it :-)

4. A new Aamir Khan movie? Music by A R Rahman? Great! Can't wait to hear it! Literally! As a child I used to see it on Chitrahaar (there weren't really promos on TV then). In my college days I saw promos on TV and posters on screen. Now that I'm away from India I listen to them on the radio. But most in my profession can't wait even that long: the DVDs of My Name is Khan are available in our Indian grocery store for pittance. The gut reaction of everybody nowadays is: sounds interesting, let's download it! Now why can't everything else be free and downloadable?

5. One of the funniest examples of the "instant" syndrome is email. Answer these seriously: how many times have you emailed a person who sits right next to you? How many times have you chatted with a person via messenger when he/she happens to be sitting in the next room? Even funnier, how many times have you emailed someone and then called them to verify that they received and read the email! I am unequivocally dismayed every time someone asks me to "fax" something to them, or submit "copies" of some documents.

Look at world news to find all kinds of examples of the "instant" syndrome! 24x7 TV making the most mundane of activities seem like "breaking news" (its by far the slowest motion I have seen if something continues to be "breaking news" for 4-5 hours). People twittering about their daily errands, orkutting and facebooking about themselves (I once got an email from a person (not the website) informing me that he had added me as his friend on orkut and that I should respond!) No wonder I and my generation represent a section of the populace most frustrated with the governments of the world!