What Ho!

How To Tell If You’re Involved in Spot Fixing

May 18, 2013 in WHAT HO! REPORTS

Spot fixing antics of Sreesanth et al have quickly escalated into a national media circus (no surprise there). The affair has led to mysterious whispers of “more heads will roll” and “there is much more to come,” and apparently causing widespread panic among the citizens of this great nation. As Mr. Ramakrishna Iyer, avid cricket fan, Hindu newspaper reader and senior citizen from Chennai bemoaned, “It’s hard to fathom how deep this thing goes. It looks like about 30 to 40 percent of the country might be involved. So I voluntarily called Delhi Police to check if they think I might have been involved without my knowing. I am now seriously worried because they have refused to rule out my role in this matter. I am at my wits end. I plan to shoot off a barrage of letters to the editor of the Hindu. What else can I do?”

Responding to this surge of anxiety among cricket lovers around the country, What Ho! has issued a booklet in public interest, which can help an average citizen figure out if she may be involved in spot fixing. While answers to questions such as ‘Are you a bookie?’ or ‘Is your name Sreesanth?’ might easily confirm culpability in spot fixing, the following additional questions might help general members of public ascertain the extent of their involvement.

Hint: The more ‘Y’s you come up, the more likely are your chances of a hot date with the Delhi Police.

Have you ever met Dawood Ibrahim and/or have exchanged emails with him on who might win IPL this year?
Do you send hundreds of whatsapp messages to bookies?
Have you appeared on national TV any time in the past 12 months and made unnecessary and wild statements about being slapped by a disgruntled off spinner who was once called for chucking?
Have you ever done anything to upset BCCI or Mr. N. Srinivasan at any point in your petty little life?
Are you an unknown fast bowler with an inadequate bank balance, tremendous love for the game and passionate about bowling no balls off the last ball of a match?
Do you use the phrase, “I trusted him like a brother. See what he did to me?” often?
Do you spend a lot of time watching IPL matches while suspecting that match fixing may be rampant?

In other news

Mr. Sushil Kumar Shinde lauded the efforts of Delhi Police saying, “We believe that nabbing Sreesanth and his sorry cohorts is a critical first step towards the eventual capture and trial of Hafeez Saeed.” In the meanwhile, D-company based out of Dubai issued a warning to investors that they will likely miss earnings estimates this IPL season. A spokesperson commented tersely, “With Sreesanth’s arrest, the cost of buying IPL players has gone through the roof. It’s unlikely we’ll meet street expectations this season.”

On May 22, 2013, the UPA plans to commemorate the ninth anniversary of Mr. Manmohan Singh pretending to be the Prime Minister of the country. To mark the date, Mr. Singh has vowed to launch a full blown inquiry, led by a Special Investigation Team, aimed at finding out who’s running the government that he is supposed to be in charge of.

The What Ho! Report brings you headlines, baseless rumors and no news whatsoever. We read Times of India so you shouldn’t have to.

Tagged as: humor, india, satire, what ho reports

The Beauty in Uncertainty

May 11, 2013 in THE JAUNDICED EYE

Life is uncertain. As we grow, we learn that stories don’t always have happy endings. We see that poems don’t always rhyme. We are distressed to see that good does not always win over the bad. We find that truth is not always dressed in black or white. We begin to see shades of grey and so we adjust our sensibilities and beliefs. We sense degrees of uncertainty in events that transpire around us. We become uncomfortable and so we embark on a quest to seize control.

In the quest, we try to force happy endings onto tales that cannot be salvaged. We don’t notice or even deride beauty when it does not conform to our sensibilities. We look for patterns amid the disorder and we interpret them in a manner as to reinforce our biases. We mix effects with causes. We try to re-order chaos to make our lives more predictable. We constantly intervene. Sometimes we succeed. That makes us happy. Sometimes we fail. That makes us miserable. So we go on.

There are two fundamental problems with the way we view uncertainty.

Our brains are not wired to comprehend uncertainty.
There is nothing you can do about uncertainty.

The wiring of our brains

The first problem has to do with the way our brains have evolved. In biological terms, evolution is a process which promotes certain traits disproportionately to others. Human evolution, it appears, has promoted the ability to leap to conclusions over the ability to make carefully thought out analytical decisions. This explains why a fast thinking college quarterback or dashing batsman is more popular than a slow thinking chess club geek.

Example: Imagine (a 100,000 years ago) a cave man running into a saber toothed tiger on one of his daily hunts. As you’d imagine, his choices were to either fight or flee. If you think about it, he also had the option of whipping out his NCERT designed maths text book and calculating the odds of an average 20 year old Homo Sapiens male becoming fodder for a wild canine. It turns out that (not surprisingly) that evolution rewarded those who leaped to the swift and plausible conclusion that flight was the prudent course of action. Those paused to analyze and failed to take quick action were weeded out. Thanks to the momentum of evolution, this tendency to leap to quick conclusions persists to this day even in the absence of the threat of encountering sharp toothed felines on daily morning walks.

This is how our brains came to be wired. We are not good at understanding the concepts of chance and probability. Our brains don’t naturally construct normal distributions and assign confidence levels for events. At least, not in normal course of action. If you think back about the struggles with probability and statistics courses in school and college, I’m sure you’d agree.

What can we do about uncertainty?

The first coping mechanism was a belief in an entity called God, who is all-knowing and orchestrates the events of our lives. Pretty soon, salesmen claimed privileged access to God and added extraordinary tales of His powers and especially about His ruthlessness when it came to dealing with disbelievers. These middlemen are possibly ones who understood the nature of uncertainty (that you could do nothing about it) better than most, and exploited this arbitrage to their benefit.

And then came scientific determinism in Europe more than a thousand years after Aristotle spoke of it. Science began explaining events which would normally be interpreted as acts of God. Science began explaining nature in ways that undermined religious middlemen. Scientists began curing people. They made people fly in the skies. They explained why the planets moved the way they did and why stars twinkled. The moon was not made of cheese, they said. Scientists began displaying powers normally attributable to Gods. And it is possible that scientists began believing that they were Gods themselves.

Something happened in 1927 which rocked the world of science. The scientific community which comprised confident men and women who believed that someday they would explain (and thus control) EVERYTHING were told that the creation was not as explainable and controllable as they believed it to be. They were told that, at the subterranean depths of nature where particles smaller than atoms exist, there was great uncertainty. Quantum mechanics described the fundamental aspect of nature as probabilistic (one of many possible outcomes) and not deterministic (a cause leads to a predictable effect) as Newton and Einstein had led them to believe. Wisp like particles with no mass interact in unpredictable ways to produce blocks called atoms and molecules which in turn combine to produce concrete things with mass (like babies, stars, flowers, bees, chairs, etc) which then interact with each other according to deterministic laws, thus creating an illusion of an orderly creation. Some like Einstein never came to terms with this notion of uncertainty. “God,” he complained, “does not play dice with the universe.”

In other words, if you were given a 300 qubit quantum computer capable of processing every single microscopic piece of data from the beginning of time and then were somehow able to construct a model that explained EVERYTHING till date, you would still not be able to predict what would happen the very next nanosecond because even nature does not know what she is going to do next.

To say that the only thing certain about uncertainty is that you can do nothing about it is a conundrum unto itself.

The beauty in uncertainty

Whether you choose to confide in God about your deepest hopes and fears, or to place your faith in text books and armies of scientists who toil unsung in far away laboratories, or to unconditionally embrace the uncertainty in this creation is your decision. However, there is something to be said about the beauty inherent in uncertainty. This beauty becomes pronounced and magical when we view it from a position that is separated from the self.

Happiness comes from simply listening to the music and swaying with your eyes closed without having to torment yourself about why and how the notes came to be composed. The greatest of joys sometimes does not always come from knowledge or discovery. It comes from the simple act of surrendering to the experience.

Tagged as: science, spirituality

A Man of His Word

May 3, 2013 in LAUGHING GAS

I’d like to share something that I’d written a while back as my little ‘ommage to the master of humor, PG Wodehouse himself.

This is a re-telling of a story from Mahabharat, about Pitamaha Bhishma and my conjecture of how he came to take a terrible oath of celibacy. The tale is written in an irreverent Wodehousian style and might seem a tad too irreverent to some. My apologies if this offends you, though I do sincerely believe that it will not offend. I count myself among the many admirers of Devavrata who was renowned for his sagacity and resolve.

Two days back, I had posted Part 1 of the tale with the intent to post the remaining 4 parts over the next few days. Clearly, I hadn’t thought this through. A few wrote to me saying that a week was too long to wait for the rest of the story to unfold, and breaking it up into pieces was disruptive to the reading experience. So, I have published the entire version here on What Ho! in one place, so you can do what you deem fit – either read it all in one go or bookmark and read it when time permits.

Here it is – the full version of “A Man of His Word” Hope you enjoy this! cheers.

Tagged as: humor, india, mahabharat

A Man of His Word – Part 1

May 1, 2013 in LAUGHING GAS

I’d like to share something that I’d written a while back as my little ‘ommage to the master of humor, PG Wodehouse himself.

If you haven’t read Wodehouse, you must go out and get a copy of anything by him immediately. If you have read the master, I’m sure that you just raised your eyebrows on hearing the ‘Wodehousian writing style’ claim. I hope this brings a few smiles and maybe even a couple of laugh out loud moments. As for whether it matches up to its billing, I’ll leave it you to judge. There’s a comments section and I’m sure you’ll let me know.

The entire story is about 8,000 words or so long. To make this readable, I’ve split the story into five parts and will publish them on alternate days on What Ho! starting May 1. Here goes!

Devavrata: A Man of His Word

As the sun set over Hastinapura on another Friday, it observed the denizens of the proud city quietly winding down, satisfied with their week’s exertions. A cool breeze wandered curiously about the city, discovering its spacious streets and the nooks in its sturdy walls.

As the shadows grew longer, traffic at the Cosmic Eye, the local watering hole, began building. Regulars that evening would not have been surprised to sight the Venerable Vyasa at the bar, engaged as usual in discourse with cohorts. The Uninformed Reader might react with justifiable astonishment and raised brows upon hearing about the sighting of saints in hooch serving establishments.

“Venerable Vyasa, sipping margheritas in a tavern? Saints, with souls filled to their gills with bliss, seeking intoxication from the worldly Tabula Rasa? Rubbish, I won’t have it!” she may exclaim.

It is entirely possible that mention of venerable sages raises visions of extraordinary men with souls forged in the white-hot fire of experience and quenched in the ice cold clarity of wisdom. One rather imagines their lives to be filled with unperturbed calm, spent in hushed contemplation of the Great Illusion of Life, unyielding to the temptations that hold allure for ordinary mortals. But, the Uninformed Reader must note that even the souls of great men require the kind of solace that comes only from a jaunt to the nearest public house and indulging in a robust tipple every now and then.

That evening, the discourse among the venerable gentlemen had started predictably with a debate on the relative merits of Shruti and Smriti. By the third round of drinks, they had found their groove and settled into an intense discussion of the Brahma Sutras. As the evening threatened to age into middle aged maturity, the conversation unexpectedly veered towards the discomforting subject of the Modern Young Man.

“The days of gentlemen are past. Decency lies moribund and morals are deceased. There is no regard left for courtesy and honor. The Modern Young Man has even less regard for his word,” the Irascible Muni glared down at his Soma-on-the-Rocks.

“One must agree with this assessment. Morals have retreated into the shadows of obscurity. In these dark days of Dwapara, Dharma stands but on two legs”, sighed the Morose Maharishi as he beckoned a refill of his stiff Amrit-and-Tonic as though to pre-empt an approaching doomsday.

“While evidence suggests that the Modern Young Man is not on the straight and narrow, our pessimism might still be overdone. There is much good that is remnant. Why, my once removed step-cousin, Devavrata, comes to mind as a fine example of a upstanding Modern Young Man with impeccable morals and unimpeachable integrity. While Dharma stands on two legs, but two sturdier lower limbs we may not see for ages to come.” The quiet voice of Venerable Vyasa lent steadiness to the proceedings as he downed his third Tabula Rasa calmly.

Although temporarily intrigued, his audience listened with practiced disinterest and lack of conspicuous gusto. To men who look at proof and pudding as mere duality of the cosmic coin, enthusiasm does not arise easily. And, so Venerable Vyasa rolled on relentlessly, much like the chakra of time.

Dev, (did I mention that we are cousins) was the son of King Shantanu, and grew up a handsome, strapping young man. By the ripe age of sixteen, he wielded the bow with uncommon skill, and mastered the art of shooting through series of metallic rings into eyes of various aquatic and aviary species, blindfolded and with very little advance notice. He swung the mace with such natural grace that even poetry in motion might have a hard time matching his elegance. Nimble feet, brawny arms and a steely grip ensured that he was not to be trifled with in the wrestling pit. Ruthless gladiatorial skills with the sword belied his gentle nature and impeccable manners.

It is not uncommon for Mother Nature to withhold some favors to compensate for others that she bestows. The astute reader may have noticed that imposing height and muscles of steel are gifted to men resembling gorillas. Extraordinary beauty is cursed with inexplicable and tragic lack of sagacity. In the rarest of cases, nature breaks her own rules to demonstrate the containment of perfection in a single specimen. Tall, handsome and wise, Dev embodied singular perfection, and was the pride of Hastinapura and the envy of the Gods.

Even the godliest of lives are not immune to the surreptitious influence of Fate, who chose a breezy spring morning to make her presence felt in our young prince’s life.

It was customary for King Shantanu, once he had completed a light round of morning calisthenics and had followed it up with a heavy dose of carbohydrates, to develop an inexplicable craving to seize the bow and quiver, leap into the nearest chariot and dash off to the nearest jungle to fire a few rounds of arrows at the local wildlife.

Of life’s little pleasures, there are few that compare favorably with the thrill of the chase as crisp air fills the lungs. That morning, as the chariot crossed the jungle and approached the mighty Ganges, a strange noise filled their ears.

“Do you hear that?” the king enquired. “Does that not strike you as remarkably similar to the sound of an elephant gurgling by the river banks?”

“Yes, Sire, the resemblance is indeed striking. It is distinct gurgling that I hear,” replied the royal charioteer.

The king trembled in anticipation, as he drew an arrow in the direction of the unsuspecting mammal. A momentary doubt prevailed, and he paused to wonder.

“Or, then again, could it be an old man filling his pot with water?”

The charioteer paused and listened.

“Sire, now that you paint this different picture, it does appear entirely plausible that the sound emanating could be that of an elderly male engaged in the domestic chore of gathering water in an earthen vessel.”

“And if that were to be the case, it would be imprudent to fire off a few arrows in that direction, I’d imagine. I’m willing to wager that fossils are unlikely to react favorably to unannounced deposit of sharp metallic objects into their posteriors.”

“Sire, it will undoubtedly cause unpleasantness unwise if your arrows were to inflict damage on unsuspecting elders. Perhaps, you will be advised to remember old King Dasharatha, who found himself in an unfortunate predicament after having rashly discharged a full quiver without investigation.”

“Yes, I recall hearing that tale when I was a stripling lad. Wasn’t the old king cursed with lifelong rashes all over his behind or something equally foul?”

“Sire, the circumstances while similar in some regards to your recollection, differed in that King Dasharatha’s arrows struck an old gentleman’s son and caused his unfortunate demise. Upon which…”

“There it is again”, the king interrupted hastily. His interest in hearing the remainder of the sordid tale evaporated upon repetition of the gurgling audio.

“Sire, if I may suggest, you may consider proceeding on foot to gain full possession of the facts at hand. That may prove useful in choosing a course of action”

“Good thinking, my man. Take good care to protect that noggin of yours. It is indeed an object to be treasured. A fact finding mission is what this calls for. I will proceed on this stealth mission immediately.”

The king alighted and treaded cautiously towards the river, taking care to avoid rash collisions with lumbering pachyderms. As he peered out from the bushes, the landscape was distinctly devoid of wildlife. But it was not entirely devoid. His keen eyes caught glimpse of a female kneeling by the banks, engaged in filling her pitcher.

King Shantanu thoughtfully scrutinized the scenario, trying to note similarities between the kneeling woman and elephants to rule out any possibility of misjudgment. Although there was no prima facie evidence to support resemblance to elephants, the woman was undoubtedly robustly possessed of broad shoulders and ample girth. If a wandering poet had described her as a cross between an Amazon queen and a sumo wrestler, the king would have readily concurred, along with gifts of pearls and lapis lazuli.

As the king watched in idle curiosity, his heart thumped with an oddly increasing rhythm and his nostrils twitched in accompaniment as blinding insight dawned. His court poets often babbled about how the light spring breeze carried Cupid on its wings. As he gazed upon the serendipitous Amazon, the king knew that was no idle babble. The woman was a certified goddess in human form. Lesser men would have dawdled. But, Shantanu was not a dawdler, especially when confronted with goddesses in human form. He sprang lightly from the bushes and sauntered confidently towards the object that had possessed his senses.

Meanwhile, the Amazon had taken notice. She suspended her immediate activities and looked up in alarm at what appeared to be a rhino rapidly charging in her direction. As the unidentified charging object came within sight, she was relieved to note that she was soon to be in the neighborhood of a middle aged male, who appeared to bear the ravages of inordinate luxury and unrationed nutrition. Soon, a breathless king and the Amazon were within a range of proximity that allows conversation.

“I am Shantanu. Err, the king Shantanu”

The king broke the uneasy silence. The Amazon remained silent and unsure. It was jarring to be filling one’s pot one moment, and then look up to find the place swarming with kings.

[ To be continued. ]

Tagged as: humor, india, short stories

God and the Pythagoras Theorem

April 19, 2013 in THE JAUNDICED EYE

I know I haven’t written on here in a few weeks. I haven’t been on Twitter either. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that I’ve teamed up with some really cool folks to start a company called Positive Integers (www.positiveintegers.com). We’re in the data analytics space, and already have the fortune of being able to work with a few big customers. Wish us luck. We’re working hard on the projects we have, setting up our office, getting ourselves organized, hiring great people, etc. In the last few weeks, I’ve been focusing a lot on that.

The other reason is that I’ve been spending time on weekends with my older daughter, who just went through her final exams and is now entering the tenth grade. We’ve been working together on preparing for Maths and Physics finals, and then having all kinds of chats about what she could be doing in college. It might seem a tad early to start this conversation. On the other hand, it’s not a bad idea to start mulling things over.

These two forces combined to consume pretty much all my time. But, it’s been great fun. The downside is that it came at the expense of blogging. I guess that’s the way things happen, at times. Having said that, I plan to set aside a couple of hours a week for at least one blog post, and another couple of hours for Twitter ( it’s actually fun to engage with folks on there) going forward. I also plan to blog regularly on our company blog. Let’s see how things play out.

Going through the final exams grind with my daughter reminded me of a fascinating aspect of mathematics education in middle school, which relates to the Pythagoras theorem. Pythagoras was an interesting chap. I’ll save that for another day. But, you probably remember his 2,500 year old theorem which states that the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle equals the square of its hypotenuse. This pretty much forms the foundation for areas like trigonometry. The fascinating aspect of Pythagoras theorem is that while it is introduced in middle school (either 8^th or 9^th grade), the students are not taught the proof of the theorem itself at that time. Rather, the books and teachers tell the students to take the theorem as ‘given’ and motor on. As a matter of fact, the proof for Pythagoras theorem, which is such a fundamental theorem in mathematics, is never taught in school. I’m told that only Maths majors learn to prove the theorem in college, and that too only in some countries.

Do you recall learning the proof? I don’t believe we were ever taught this. Try asking a friend or a colleague. The answer is likely the same. The chances are that very few of us can actually prove the Pythagoras theorem if asked to do so. This is because we never learnt about it. Obviously, it raises the question of why is it that we were not taught this in school? Why are school kids still not being taught the proof for one of the most famous mathematical theorems?

The answer is that the proof for the theorem is apparently considered too complicated to be taught to eighth grade students. So, students are taught to understand this empirically. They’re asked to construct right triangles and physically verify the truth in the theorem by measuring the sides and then by applying the theorem. There’s no “proof” given to them. They’re asked to go along with it. The reason they are asked to ‘blindly’ accept it is because there is a great benefit to knowing and applying the Pythagoras theorem from the eighth grade onward, and because without it, further learning and advancement is not possible in some areas. This is interesting.

It struck me that much of religious and spiritual belief works the same way. We are asked to place faith in a notion (say, the existence of God), the proof for which is complicated and hence unavailable at that time. But trust and belief in the notion is fundamental and critical to moving oneself forward to a state where the proof for the notion may become self evident. Fascinating.

ps: if you’re curious, here’s a simple way to prove the Pythagoras theorem below. cheers.

pyth theorem

Tagged as: religion, science

Maha Kumbh Mela: Part 2

March 20, 2013 in THE JAUNDICED EYE

Here’s the link to part 1 of the Maha Kumbh Mela series if you want to read it first > Part 1

Day 3

When we set out for Ram Janma Bhoomi, I don’t think we knew quite what to expect. It’s fair to say that we were surprised, even stunned by what we saw. Before I get to that, here are a few of my thoughts as context, related to the questions of “Did Sri Ram exist? Who built the mosque? Was it built by destroying a temple which stood at that site?”

Did Sri Ram exist?

Believe it or not, this question crops up every once in a while. At the root of it is the argument that Sri Ram is a mythological figure, and that there is no historical proof that he existed. And by extension, the question of things such as birthplace, etc. is void. This is a slippery slope. If we go down this path, we’ll have to tear down every temple, church and mosque in this land and convert them into strip malls. I don’t think that any reasonable person disputes the value brought by the Puranas to the Hindus or by the Quran to the Muslims.

The question of if God exists or incarnated on earth is out of bounds to all except the believers. We must respect belief and put this question aside.

Who built the mosque?

I haven’t yet read Babar Nama, the diary of Babar. Who better than Babar himself to hear from? Apparently the pages from the relevant period of Babar’s life have gone missing from the diary, and the rest has no reference to Babri Masjid. Also, there does not seem to be definitive proof that Babar had the mosque built. There are accounts of Aurangazeb having done it. The accepted version seems to be that Mir Bakshi Khan, one of Babar’s underlings, built the mosque on his boss’s orders. In any case, there seems to be no dispute that the Babri mosque was built by the Mughals, though architecturally it pre-dates the Indo-Islamic style which came into vogue during Akbar’s era.

The answer to who built the mosque is irrelevant to the dispute. Let’s ignore it.

Was the mosque built by destroying a temple which stood at that very site?

This is the central, unavoidable question of the dispute. Naturally, there have been frenzied attempts by several camps to prove things one way or the other. If interested, you should read up on this. There’s plenty of information available on the internet and in books.

We live in a country where it is hard to prove your own birth place if you should need to. Something tells me that we’re going to have a hard time proving Sri Ram’s birth place. To arrive at a sensible solution, there’s no point in trying to decipher specific details of what happened in 1528. The only approach can be to look at patterns and trends instead. In other words, if we don’t have reliable eye witnesses, we must look at circumstantial evidence.

It was standard modus operandi for Mughal rulers to demolish temples and build mosques at sites which Hindus considered sacred (Kashi, Mathura, etc.). Speaking as a student of history and an objective observer, this fits the pattern of an aggressive new conqueror attempting to stamp his authority and power by replacing ‘your God with mine.’ The Ottoman Turks converted the Parthenon in Athens into a mosque until they lost control of the city. This has happened pretty much in every part of the world where there have been conquerors and vanquished. The temples of the gods of the vanquished have always been collateral damage. One of the first things a conqueror must establish is fear. And the best way to create fear is destroy the temples of the Gods of the defeated, and demonstrating courage by inviting punishment for the sin. There is nothing right or wrong about this. It’s just the way things once were.

I’m pretty sure that no one is going to fall out of their chairs in surprise if it is somehow conclusively proved that the same approach was taken by Babar in Ayodhya as well. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it must be a duck; even if the duck was born in 1528.

Ram Janma Bhoomi

Coming back to our trip, I mentioned our surprise and shock. We live in a world where it has become commonplace to conduct our religious business while under the supervision of armed forces. We expected heavy security. That was not a surprise. There was a failed attempt in 2005 by terrorists to breach the wall here. So, in a sense, I appreciate the extra vigilance that is being maintained in Ayodhya. That we were body checked a half dozen times seemed a tad excessive. There are snipers in watch towers watching us as we walk through what I can only describe as crude metal cages, which are frankly claustrophobic and a public safety disaster in the making. I wouldn’t fancy anyone’s chances of getting out of these cages alive if there were to be, say a fire or a stampede. I wish we did better. Surely pilgrims deserve to be treated better than being herded like Holocaust victims in a concentration camp. I exaggerate not.

After about an hour of queuing through the cages, we finally caught a short glimpse of Sri Ramachandra Murthy, who has been graciously accommodated inside an Army tent. The story of Sri Ram and Sita-ji is about upholding dharma and dignity in the face of trials and tribulations. Perhaps it is fitting that their devotees have to undergo the test too.

My take

Are courts designed to resolve religious disputes?

The current approach of placing such a monumentally emotional decision in the hands of the courts is flawed. Courts are good at making binary decisions when there is reasonably solid evidence (or lack thereof). Courts are meant to enforce the laws of the land. They are good at interpreting rules, not creating them. They are not designed to make subjective judgements and interpret history. Courts don’t work well when it comes to arbitrating emotional issues or deciding relative merits. Plus, it’s not fair to place the burden of such a decision, and potential security hazards such a decision may bring about, on the shoulders of a handful of judges. Fear for personal safety may delay or distort decisions. It’s time to disengage this issue from the judiciary.

A group of villagers listening in rapt attention to a bhajan in Ayodhya

A group of villagers listening in rapt attention to bhajans at a store in Ayodhya

Or should this be a decision of the nation’s collective conscience?

The Ram Mandir decision is one that has to be driven by the collective conscience of the Indian people. And the people who represent the public and thus its conscience are unfortunately our MPs. We have no other choice but to force them to get involved. There ought to be an attempt to construct a multi-party bill and take it through the Houses, which is then voted upon by our representatives. While I’m all for keeping the affairs of the state separate from affairs of religion, I must admit that the train has left the station, with the matter already in courts which effectively are government bodies. If a resolution were to be drafted and made to go through the Houses, it would be interesting to see how our representatives vote on the issue. It will give us a sense for how much they are in touch with those they claim to represent. It will give us an idea of how fair and balanced we are as a nation. Our best option to arrive at a sustainable solution may only be a legislative one.

The ball has been set rolling. Where will it stop?

There is a beautiful part of Kambar Ramayanam in which the Tamil poet describes how ‘all the sins of Raavana over the centuries accumulated and manifested as a single white hair on King Dasaratha’s mane.’ Upon seeing the white strand, the long reigning king realized that the time had come to hand over the throne to Sri Rama, thus triggering the sequence of events which eventually led to Raavana’s demise.

Similarly, the sins of the Congress party over several decades may have manifested themselves in the form of the alimony petition brought forth by Shah Bano in 1985, which was then upheld by the Supreme Court. The ensuing protest by Muslim conservatives led Rajiv Gandhi to amend the constitution to effectively limit the powers of a secular judiciary from delivering judgments in conflict with Muslim personal law. The amendment created yet another backlash, this time by the Hindus. A ‘balancing’ appeasement measure led to the opening of the mandir at Ayodhya, which had been under lock and key for a good part of 200 years. The ball which was set rolling by Shah Bano in 1985 may well lead to the eventual end of the 125+ year old Indian National Congress as we know it.

As Chairman Mao famously replied when asked what he thought of the French revolution, “Let’s wait and see.”

Do share your thoughts. I remain open to insights, counter viewpoints and new information as always. Please note: Comments denigrating or mocking religions, religious heads or beliefs will be deleted.

Tagged as: hinduism, india, spirituality

The sword of technology

March 20, 2013 in THE JAUNDICED EYE

Although I work in the high technology sector, I don’t write much about it on What Ho!. I get enough of it at work that I haven’t felt the need to spend my leisure on writing about it. Recently I had a mild epiphany which I felt was worth sharing and eliciting opinion on.

Technology is pretty much taking things over. We see it all around us. By technology, I mean anything that has a logical, programmable element about it. Today’s technology involves chips, devices, software and the layer of things that connect them. Tomorrow, it could look different. Maybe it will be more intrusive and less visible. But the principles will remain the same.

Pretty soon, humans are going to come under assault from technology as an inevitable expansion of this trend. There are professions today that can be immediately replaced by technology. Examples you ask? Here you go.

General physicians

Think about your today’s experience consulting with a general physician. Say you have a fever and cold. And you want to assure yourself that you don’t have the chickungunya. So you mosey over to the nearest clinic which you’re familiar visiting when unforeseen ills plague you. You are told to wait until the duty doctor can see you. You look around and the place is chockfull with similarly indisposed fellow citizens waiting their turn. Disgruntled kids are running around actively spreading disease to all and sundry in the clinic while nurses are busy figuring out how to reuse syringes or siphon off hospital supplies. At this point, all you know is the doctor’s name and that you’re 8th in line. For all you know, the doc is a Dexter with a dark passenger, and slaying people when the sun goes down. If you’re lucky, he’s just a guy who forged his degree at the local Xerox shop and bought his seat at the clinic for an ‘entry fee’. Chances are that he didn’t graduate from Harvard Medical School. You wait for at least 30mts and then they call your name.

You enter room 3 and encounter a youngish chap, who has the impressive ability to ask questions without making eye contact. If he’s in the mood, he’ll check your tongue or temperature as he might with his pet dog which may or not also be in the room. As he fiddles with his smart phone, the guy will reel off things like ‘viral fever’, ‘antibiotics’ and ‘Rs 200’ as he scribbles an illegible prescription and waves you out of the room towards an adjunct pharmacy accessible through a hole in the wall.

Any attempts to ask questions are met with rolling of the eyes, exasperation and the impatience of a teenager dealing with parents. 45 minutes of waiting, 2-3 minutes of consultation, Rs 200 consultation fee and 15 minutes wait at the pharmacy + Rs X for medicines. That’s what it comes down to. No personal touch. No assurance. No healing. Just diagnosis and educated guessing with a 2 minute clock running down. Most doctors have become robots, running simplistic IF-THEN rules in their heads. We don’t need them.

God forbid that you should live in a country like Canada or the UK with socialized healthcare. A doctor sighting may be rarer than a lunar eclipse. They will put you on the “list” and call you in a month when a ‘slot opens up.’

Mark my words. 80 percent of doctors will be replaced by technology in 20 years or less. It’s coming. Personally, I don’t find it hard to visualize health care kiosks which are as ubiquitous as phone booths. Feeling under the weather? No problem. Step this way into the booth please, swipe your credit card and seat yourself in that comfy chair and strap that thing around your arms. The thing measures your temperature and pulse, and scans your eyes and asks you a few questions and out comes a bag of medicines with a prescription. Who knows, we might even play your favorite soothing music in the booth because we know who exactly you are.

Doctors are not doing their jobs. And they will lose their jobs to automated health kiosks. We will save money by firing them.

Other examples

Architects: It’s possible to design entire buildings using software. You get the aesthetics done by the creative types and input the specifications into a box. Hey presto, out come a set of blue prints checked for compliance, building codes with a fully costed bill of materials including lowest cost vendors by line item. A 3D printer spits out a miniature model to scale, which you can take with you to bankers when you ask them for a loan. This can be done. And it will be done. In twenty years or less.

Speaking of bankers.. well, let me not go there. It could take a while. The point is there are very few jobs that are immune to replacement by computers. Traditional constraints of cost of computing performance, programming sophistication, storage and connectivity have all melted away. Everyone is replaceable now. Almost. I rather dreamily fancy a day when we can replace entire governments with a huge piece of software, which actually feels guilty when it lies to us.

Jobs of the future?

So, tell me this. If you have kids or planning to have some, what kind of a career would you guide them towards? This is a pretty scary question if you think about it. A career for the next generation is likely to last 70+ years given that life spans are going up. That is a long time to be on the run from the sword of technology and dodge the threat of obsolescence.

The brightest people will never have a problem in any era. They will be the innovators and the creators of things that will disrupt others. There will only be two types of people. The ones who create and others. Those in ‘others’ will have to be wary. They will likely be run over by either a computer or a 12 year old in China.

Sounds insane, doesn’t it? But, it’s going to happen. What do you think are the jobs of the future? I think we can safely cross doctors and architects off that list.

Share your thoughts and maybe I’ll compile them in a follow up post.

Tagged as: technology

Maha Kumbh Mela: Part 1

March 16, 2013 in THE JAUNDICED EYE

Would you take the trouble of going to a place where lakhs of people gather and jostle for limited space and other resources, and incur obvious health risks posed by such an environment?

A bunch of us did. And this is my account of that.

Why?

It’s hard to explain why we chose to go to the Kumbh Mela. It’s one of those things which, once you allow it to seize your imagination, will not allow any negativity to be associated with it. We were a group of five college classmates used to travelling together. We made the decision in January to go, and we never had a second thought about it.

A lot of people go to Prayag to celebrate the Kumbh Mela. They go for many reasons. There are the millions of pilgrims, who come with belief and hope of absolution. There are saints and ascetics who descend from the mountains to renew their vows. There are the onlookers intrigued by the notion of belief and fascinated by the spectacle that is the Kumbh. I think we started as onlookers and crossed over into the zone of hope by the time we left. The way it turned out, we kept aside our cameras, mobile phones and facebook and twitter accounts for the most part and allowed the sensory experience to take over. There is something liberating about just seeing something as it transpires, and not being burdened with having to capture it anywhere but in your memory.

The Plan

We executed on a straightforward plan. We flew into Lucknow and drove to Allahabad. And with Allahabad as the base, we made round trips to Varanasi and Ram Janma Bhoomi on two separate days. The third day (Maha Shivaratri) we spent with Ganga-ji and Jamuna-ji at the Triveni Sangam in Prayag. I’m glad to say that things went without a hitch.

I’ve divided the account into three portions covering our experiences in Varanasi, Ayodhya and at the Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayag.

Disclaimer: This was my first time travelling in Uttar Pradesh. For those of you familiar with that part of the country, my observations may seem trite. Apologies in advance.

Part 1: Varanasi

Day 1: Impressions of Lucknow-Allahabad

The first thing that strikes me on landing in Lucknow was – this could not be Lucknow! The Charan Singh airport is pretty nicely done. No paan stains in corners. And when you come outside, there aren’t any unruly mobs or vehicles like a typical Indian airport. Shame on me for having these images of Uttar Pradesh being filled with dark caves, and Neanderthals roaming around with clubs over their shoulders. The roads are magnificent! Lucknow appears better than Bangalore or even Chennai, at first glance. Mayawati gets credit for this, we were told. Of course, we were just driving out of the city through the cantonment area and had not yet gone into the city. We did eventually go into Lucknow on our final day, which altered the impression slightly towards being like any other town in India. But the positive impressions linger.

The drive to Allahabad (pronounced I-laha-bad by locals) took us a little over 5 hours. We took the longer route via Kanpur, which seems to resemble an industrial and less attractive cousin of Lucknow. Traversing the roads tells you that you’re in UP, where casually driving on the wrong side of the road seems as normal as ambling to a corner dukaan for a chai. Vehicles, broken down or not, can occasionally be found parked on the fast lanes of major highways. If you can’t handle this sort of thing, I guess you’re just not cut out for the Darwinian jungles which are this state’s highways.

Upon arrival in Allahabad, we checked into the neatly maintained, friendly looking Chinmaya Mission ashram, which is about 10km away from Prayag. Awesome rotis and hot daal later, we turned in for the night. The town is empty. There is no sign of a Maha Kumbh mela here. Although this could change on Shivaratri, I can’t say we’re complaining about the lack of crowds yet.

Day 2: Varanasi, the timeless city.

Today was a day in which things didn’t go per plan, and yet everything turned out brilliantly.

First, we get off to a later start than planned. En route, we take a detour to Sita Marhi, where the consort of Sri Rama was embraced by mother earth. And by the time we reach Varanasi, it is late afternoon.

As we drive through Varanasi, the mind fills with images of how it must have once been. Legend has it that Varanasi is the site of the first Jyotir Lingam. A place where Lord Shiva appeared as a pillar of fire stretching between the earth and the sky. The mystical significance of Varanasi was established even before Ganga-ji had an opportunity to appear here. One of the holiest towns in the land lying on one of the greatest rivers in the world, Varanasi was also an important trading destination. It was ruled by eminent kings and filled with prosperous merchants who patronized art and intellect. Imagine standing in the bazaars of Varanasi two thousand years ago. They were filled with the foreign tongues of adventurous Greeks, Parthians and Scythians who would come from Mathura and then travel eastwards along Ganga-ji to the famed Pataliputra.

On the dip in Ganga-ji, what can I say about a simple act of contrition other that you feel its momentous nature only when you immerse yourself into the mother of rivers and engage in the experience. I don’t know if a dip in the Ganges washes your karma away. But watching everyone there, you get the sense that surrendering to Ganga-ji is about asking for a second chance and about renewal of faith in a power higher than the self. And the Lord knows we could all use some faith and a second chance.

Gangaji at Varanasi

We must have stood in line for over a couple of hours before we got to glimpse Kashi Vishwanath-ji for the briefest of a minute. As you enter the temple through its heavily guarded entrance which lies below the ground level and walk past multiple checkpoints with diligent soldiers with rifles who frisk you repeatedly, that’s when you begin to grasp the sacred significance of the reigning deity of the second oldest city in the world, whose name fittingly means ‘the lord of the universe.’

The Kashi Vishwanath temple structure has been destroyed by invaders and rebuilt many times. Mohammad Ghori, Qutb-ud-din Aibak and Firoz Shah Tughlaq were the early invaders. Akbar rebuilt the temple (through his minister Todarmal) which was destroyed yet again by Aurangazeb, who built the Gyanvapi mosque in its place. Ahilya Bhai Holkar, the Maratha queen, rebuilt the temple which stands today. The reign of Aurangazeb lasted 49 years, the reverberations of which have been felt over hundreds of years. The Gyanvapi mosque stands vacant today, a mute testimony to the misguided emperor’s failed attempt to erase a way of life in a city, both of which have an insurmountable, timeless nature to them. I have more to say about this in the context of Ayodhya and Ram Janma Bhoomi, to be covered in Part 2.

Coming soon: Part 2 – Ram Janma Bhoomi.

Tagged as: hinduism, india, spirituality

What if I became the Prime Minister?

March 15, 2013 in LAUGHING GAS

Here’s what I will do.

Day 1 morning: I will conduct my swearing-in ceremony at 9am on a Monday over video conference from my desk in the office, while finalizing a proposal to completely eliminate paper money in five years. The bill will be taken to Lok Sabha by 11am. It will be passed within 15 minutes because every MP who votes for it will be “creatively rewarded” for doing so. Rajya Sabha MPs will be arrested if they don’t vote for the proposal. Eliminating paper money will effectively eliminate bribes, kickbacks and theft of public money. Now that I’ve solved the problem of corruption in the first 2 hours of assuming office, I will now don my bullet proof vest and move onto other matters.
Day 1 post lunch: Unknown to everyone, I will have sneaked in fine print in the aforementioned proposal which will impose a mandatory 1-term limit on every elected official in the country. This term limit will stay in effect for 50 years. In other words, no one will be allowed to return to any elected position irrespective of whether they have done a good or a bad job. I will thus have stripped the incentive for crooks, thugs, criminals, perverts, cheats and liars to become career politicians and increase their influence. Instead, this will lead to ordinary citizens stepping forward to represent the people by donating 5 years from their careers. They will hopefully make decisions in the best interests of the country. I will announce this in a nationally televised press conference, during which I will release my own post-dated resignation letter with a legally binding commitment to not contest elections at the end of my tenure.
Day 2: I presume that today will be Bharat Bandh, supported by all political parties including my own, who will all be deeply unhappy with me. I will smile wistfully as I prepare for a direct televised address to the people of India. In the address, I will inform citizens that rules of voting have been changed as follows:
1. If a citizen is qualified to vote and is found to be not registered to vote, a fine of Rs. 10,000 per unregistered voter will be collected from the winning candidate in that constituency.
2. If a citizen is qualified to vote and is registered to vote but has not voted, that citizen will be arrested if they use Facebook to bitch about me.
3. Citizens will be asked to pick their top three voting issues. They will be given an exam for 100 marks on these issues. Votes will be assigned weighting based on marks in the test. For example, if a voter obtains 75 on 100, his vote will be assigned a 75% (=75/100) weight when counting. Voters will be assigned ranks based on their marks and they will vote in the order of the rank received. Voters obtaining 100% will be unconditionally granted the Bharat Ratna and allowed to treat the State Raj Bhavan as their personal guest house.
4. I expect Kota and Hyderabad coaching centers to be set up by enterprising entrepreneurs to help citizens crack the voters exam and improve their ranks. Once these centers become successful, I will nationalize them.
Day 3: It’s likely that the country has descended into shock and chaos by this point, and Arnab Goswami has been taken to the hospital after suffering a heart attack. I will take the day off to golf. This will give everyone time to ponder options about how they can get rid of me.
Day 4, morning: I expect to have the login credentials with passwords for all Swiss accounts held by Indian citizens, from the team of four B. Tech. computer science students from IIT Madras whom I have hired for this purpose. The five of us will spend the morning sipping hot cups of coffee and silently transferring money from all the accounts into the government treasury. I expect to net $1.2 trillion dollars or higher. I will publish the final audited figures here on What Ho!. Each citizen will be mailed a check for $1000 equivalent in Indian rupees along with a box of Swiss chocolates within 14 days, through registered post, acknowledgement due.
Day 4, Post lunch: I will announce a bill that will provide the constitutional rights to every citizen to 1. Drive on the wrong side of the road 2. Never have to stand in queues 3. Receive refund with interest to every Ram Gopal Verma movie he may have seen in his life. I will also announce the appointment of superstar Rajnikant as the only minister in my Cabinet. He will hold approximately 64 portfolios at any point in time, and will be assisted by fresh IIM grads. I expect these measures to create an unstoppable wave of popularity that will overwhelm and remove all ill-will I may have created on Day 2.
Day 5: I will conduct a triumphant Rath Yatra in four major cities during which I expect to be mobbed like Justin Bieber by school children. Songs from Dabangg 1 & 2 will be played at full blast wherever I go.
Day 6: On this day, I will move with the purposefulness of a lion and the speed of a cheetah.
Day 6, 11am: A call center with approximately 100,000 employees will be in place, made possible with the help of Airtel. These call center employees will call every elected official in the country to get status updates on projects. For example, “Have you fixed those three potholes on 2^nd main 4^th cross Koramangala?” will be repeated every 2 hours with the local councilor until the job is completed. A fine of Rs. 1 lakh will be levied on any official who does not answer the call.
Day 6, 1pm: I will now grandly announce that we have nabbed Hafiz Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim through “Operation LeT Them Come To Us.” This operation will involve luring the duo to Mumbai on the promise of a Hindustan Times Leadership Summit keynote speech and a personal, warm interview with Barkha Dutt on NDTV.
Day 6, 4pm: I will attend a special screening of Viswaroopam 2 only because both Kamal Hassan and Rajnikant invited me to join them, and that’s the way I roll.
Day 6, 9pm: I will pour myself a stiff one, lean back on the sofa and watch the 1983 Prudential World Cup finals through the night in loop.

Day 7 onwards: Now that I have accomplished every goal I had set out to, I will spend the rest of my term solving the following more complex and intriguing problems, which pose a clear and present danger to the country’s well being:

Can we get a minimum of 3 fast bowlers who can bowl at 140kmph+ into the Indian cricket team?
Can we somehow ensure that neither Laloo Prasad nor ND Tiwari produce any more progeny?
Nitin Gadkari & Khaki shorts: Can this be made to NEVER EVER happen again?
Can we constitutionally levy super-taxes on any person who spouts uninformed opinions on Twitter?
Can we work with the scientists at CERN to investigate Rahul Gandhi to identify specific skills, if any, that he may possess. These CERN guys found the God particle. This should give them an even bigger puzzle to solve.

Jai Ho. God bless India.

Tagged as: humor, india, politics, satire

Ask Dr. What Ho!: How accurate are fortune cookies?

February 24, 2013 in LAUGHING GAS

Dear Dr. What Ho!,

I recently went out to dinner at this Chinese place, where I opened a fortune cookie which said the following-

“This year, you will be promoted because of your hard work and accomplishments.”

My annual review comes up in two weeks. Should I submit the fortune cookie message during the review in support of my demand for a raise and a promotion?

PS: I haven’t done any work over the last year. And neither do I have any accomplishments to speak of.

Yours truly,

Sushil Shinde.

*****

Dear Sushil,

The Chinese have been right about a number of things over thousands of years. Unfortunately, their fortune cookies which contain pearls of prognosis are not always accurate or trustworthy. Consider the following message I once got, much like you, at a reputable Chinese establishment.

“Your purse may be emptied, but your heart will be filled.”

Now tell me, what do the following have in common: Three sets of pillow covers+fitted sheets, half a dozen potted plants, a box of scented candles and a statuette of ambiguous gender which also doubles as a scented candle holder.

They will all appear as charges on your credit card after your missus has been out shopping, and will add up to thousands of rupees in (in my mind) needless emptying of the purse. This fortune cookie message clearly didn’t specify what my heart was going to be filled with.

As I said, deciphering fortune cookie messages can be fraught with peril and uncertainty. If you have accomplished as little as you have candidly confessed, I’m afraid that no amount of ancient wisdom can come between you and your imminent sacking which I foresee. You should perhaps cherish the days that remain on your job. Your days are numbered, my friend.

Best Regards,

Dr. What Ho!

Tagged as: ask dr what ho!, humor

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