What Ho! — Page 2

Plausibility versus Probability

February 17, 2013 in THE JAUNDICED EYE

I must have read hundreds of books over the years, many of which have been great. Of those I’ve read, I can point to two books which fundamentally and almost instantaneously transformed my views on life, love and happiness. They are (in no particular order)

Life after Death by Deepak Chopra
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

Now, there’s a third one. “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman. Prof. Kahneman teaches at Princeton these days. He’s a Nobel winner in Economics, and has done path breaking work over the last four decades in understanding the psychology behind how our minds process information. He’s truly a treasure.

I’d like to share some nuggets from the book over a few posts. If you like this sort of thing, you should get the book and check it out for yourself.

Background: Prof. Kahneman breaks the working of the mind into System 1, which processes data, reflexively forms patterns and draws conclusions, and System 2, which applies logical rules to examine the soundness of drawn conclusions. One of his assertions, borne out from his studies, is that System 1 is hyper-active, and System 2 is extraordinarily lazy.

Probability versus Plausibility

One of the things we humans often do is to mix plausibility with probability. To understand this, Prof. Kahneman and his colleagues designed what is now famously called ‘the Linda problem’. Consider the description of a fictitious Linda below.

Linda is thirty one years old, single, outspoken and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.

After reading Linda’s profile, respondents in studies were asked a simple question: Which of the following is a more probable alternative?

Linda is a bank teller.
Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

The correct answer is the first. Think Venn diagrams. The circle with ‘feminist bank tellers’ is wholly included in the circle of all bank tellers. Therefore, the probability of Linda being just a bank teller is higher than the probability of her being a bank teller AND a feminist. The more specific you are about an event, the lower are the chances of its occurrence.

Here’s the fascinating part. In the survey, 89% of undergraduate students at top ranked American universities picked option 2. When they administered the test to doctoral students at Stanford Business School, all of whom had taken advanced courses in decision sciences and probability, they got a similar result! 85% chose option 2. A majority of really smart people violated the most fundamental rule of probability. They chose the more plausible but less probable event over the other.

What (the system 1 of) our mind does is to jump to the most plausible or coherent conclusion. It does not consider the likelihood of the conclusion. The mind substitutes likelihood with representative-ness of the event. This is how we make errors in judgment that can have far reaching impact on society at large.

This is not to say that plausibility is unimportant and should be ignored. It has its benefits. Plausibility, for example, is the basis for profiling at US airports. Resistance to these methods may be a laudable moral position, but also a rather simplistic one. If your name is Shah Rukh Khan and there’s a known terror suspect out there of a similar age with the same name, chances are pretty high that you’re going to be detained at the airport. Such predictive techniques are based on pattern matching, where the preference is to form a quick conclusion and investigate at leisure. As long as such methods are not manipulated but implemented fairly, they will lead to benefits for the society even if it means costs for the impacted few.

People who are taught new statistical facts about human behavior are often impressed to the point where they will tell their friends about what they heard. This does not mean that their world view has changed. Learning is about applying lessons to our own experiences, and not about repetition of facts. The test of learning lies in whether our understanding of experiences (and how we live) has changed .

In the words of the good professor himself, “changing one’s mind about human nature is hard work. Changing one’s mind for the worse about oneself is even harder.”

Tagged as: books, science

What is Risk?

February 9, 2013 in PICTORIALS

We people have a funny way of perceiving risk. We tend to be “loss averse.” Which is to say that we worry more about losing than we look forward to winning. Losses have twice as powerful a psychological effect on us than gains. A person who loses Rs. 100 loses more satisfaction than the satisfaction gained by another person who wins Rs. 100.

All of what I just said are results of a host of fascinating studies on risk perception, done over the last three decades. Daniel Kahneman, a Princeton professor, has been at the forefront on several of these. Such studies have profoundly impacted the way products and services have been marketed over the years.

Loss aversion is used to explain why we put a higher value on a good that we own compared to an identical good that we do not own. The scientific term for this is ‘endowment effect.’ It’s also used to explain what’s called ‘sunk cost fallacy’ – when we make irrational decisions to put in more (good) money to recover (bad) money that has been lost.

Consider this example.

If you had to pick one of two choices: (A) a guaranteed prize of $1000 OR (B) Flip of a coin to win $2500 if heads or win $0 if tails. What would you pick?

Now, if you had to choose between (C) a guaranteed loss of $1000 OR (D) Flip of a coin to lose $2,500 if heads or lose $0 if tails. What would you pick?

The expected outcomes are $1000 (gain) for choice A and (50% of $2500 =) $1250 (gain) for choice B. Similarly, the expected outcomes are $1000 (loss) for choice C and $1,250 (loss) for choice D.

In studies, it turns out that a majority of people picked (A) and (D) – both irrational and inferior choices. That’s because we humans are wired to prefer certainty in gains and to *not prefer* guaranteed losses. This is why fixed-income funds are popular. And why life insurance premiums are bundled along with recurring deposits, and sold as ‘savings’ plans.

Another example.

Teachers at Chicago public schools were split into two groups. One received bonuses (8% of salary) at the BEGINNING of the year. This group was told that the bonuses would be taken back if they did not meet goals. The other group was told that they would be paid bonuses (same 8% of salary) if they met goals, by the end of the year . The group that received bonuses at the beginning of the year outperformed the other significantly. Why? They went the extra mile to achieve their goals so they did not have pay back the money. Once received, paying back was perceived as a “loss.” Interesting!

So, the next time you make a decision, watch yourself closely to see how much your loss aversion is influencing you. You might be surprised at what you find.

I’m now reading Daniel Kahneman’s latest book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, perhaps a topic for another blog post some day. Cheers.

Viswaroopam – A Review

February 5, 2013 in THE JAUNDICED EYE

Many years ago, after watching a mind-numbing atrocity called Aala Vandhaan (Tamil film), I swore to never again spend money on a Kamal Haasan movie. I broke this promise by watching Viswaroopam. Although I don’t do movie reviews on What Ho!, I really must do this to get a few things out of my system.

First, if I were to list out the many flaws in this movie, being offensive to Muslims would not make the cut.

Second, there are no spoilers in this review. The movie is about a Kathak dancer who turns out to be an Al Qaeda fellow who turns out to be an Indian RAW agent who foils a bid by Al Qaeda to blow up New York city. If you are the type who sits on the edge of your seat waiting to find out if Kamal will foil the bid of a one-eyed sheikh, all I can say is that you should have drunk more Complan while growing up.

Third, this review will offend the sentiments of an increasingly fringe group known as Kamal fans, of which I’m probably still one. Brothers and sisters of the fringe group, I anticipate your anguish upon reading this. But look upon this as a much needed dose of tough love and reality that all of us, Mr. Kamal Haasan included, sorely need. If you’re offended, be offended. Stay offended. Outrage. Do your thing. Like I’m doing my thing here.

Dey PR people, you may call this a spy thriller. I don’t.

A supposed ‘spy thriller’, the movie has neither proper spooks nor is thrilling. Unless you count a RAW agent deputed in Afghanistan with nothing more than an interesting surname as a spy. Or unless you get your thrills from amateurish buffoonery performed by a confused and overweight man running around with an even more confused and equally overweight FBI dude and two clueless but not overweight women in tow. For heaven’s sake, while our one eyed Al Qaeda sheikh apparently learnt to speak Tamil on an all-expenses paid trip to Coimbatore, our Tamil dude didn’t bother with the ABCs of Pashtun before going into the field. If only he had read the ‘Lonely Planet’s guide to Afghanistan’, he’d have found that they speak a different language over there.

The film has Kashmiri Sambaar..

The story (Caution: I use this word loosely) is of a Tamilian chap whose mother inexplicably appends the surname Kashmiri to his Wisam Ahmed, making him out to be some sort of a Kashmiri sambaar. Why Wisam? Because it goes well with Viswanath? So it can be shortened to ‘Wiz’? Only the Lord knows. The first we hear of this “Kashmiri” dude is when his wife admits to marrying him so she could come to the US to get a PhD. Tam Brahms can be a resourceful lot when it comes to finding new routes to America. But, this innovative approach to getting American PhDs through marriages to Kathak dancers paints the Tam Brahm academic commitment in a refreshingly new light. By the way, this is the only propah mea culpa we get in a movie littered with far more egregious blunders.

And Kathak dancing, chicken eating Tam Brahm chicks …

Wisam surfaces at the opening as Viswanath, an effeminate Kathak dancer, whose Tam Brahm wifey Dr. Nirupama’s biggest complaints about him are his girly, long hair and lack of manliness, and not strangely enough about his cavorting freely with his much younger, nubile, chicken eating Tam Brahm dance students. On behalf of all Tam Brahms, I’d like to thank Kamal for his use of the slur ‘paapaathi’ to describe a Tam Brahm woman, and getting this formality out of the way within the first 10 minutes of the film. Considering the other names he’s called the community in the past, we’ll take this as a compliment. Other noteworthy points about Mrs Wisam aka Mrs Viswanath aka Dr. Nirupama, in addition to being portrayed as a pucca stereotypical scaredy cat Tam Brahm, are that she’s a ‘nuclear oncologist’, is dating her boss, having her husband tailed by a private detective and generally considered by all to be a clueless moron.

The bizzare murder of the aforesaid detective, the details of which are best left untouched, leads to the uncovering of Viswanath as first Taufiq, then Nasser and then Wisam Ahmed, all in a matter of a few minutes. What, O Good Lord, was the point of those three names?

When they cut costs, do they also cut casts?

And why was I not surprised to find out that the boss dating Kamal’s wife eventually turns out to be a complete a-hole, dealing with terrorists and the like? Hey, no man looks forward to another guy dating his wife. But, to paint the other guy as a terrorist reveals insecurity and a certain lack of imagination. I’ll admit that there are budget constraints while making a film. But, to start bundling completely disparate traits and activities into the same character to save money? I draw the line there. And I wonder, how do they cast roles?

Kamal: “Hey you random fellow, here’s your part. You’ll play the suave suit-coat guy. You will speak Tamil with an American accent. You will run a nuclear oncology lab. You will first employ and then date my wife but you may not lay a finger on her at any point in time cuz we don’t like that kind of crap. By the way, you’re the main money launderer for Al Qaeda. And if we can squeeze it in, we’ll also try and get you to play the lead pitcher for the New York Yankees. And yes, you will be shot at point blank range at some point like the dirty dog that you are. Enna thambi, what do you think?”

Random Fellow: Ok, saar. Kamal padathila chance kadaikkum naa, enna venum naalum pannuven, saar. (I’ll do anything to get a chance in a Kamal film)

Okay folks, this is the INTERMISSION. Go get your popcorn and then come back to watch me lose my way and destroy any semblance of the plot in the second half.

And the review resumes…

Viswanath is thus exposed as Wisam, rendering his repertoire of Kathak skills unusable and forcing all to flee through a secret hidden door down to the basement when they could have simply taken the steps downstairs to the garage. Before fleeing, he does find time for a hair cut and slip on a trendy leather jacket, thus causing his previously unyielding wife to instantly fall in mad love with him.

I have a lot of friends who have obtained PhDs. I’ve noticed them to be generally intelligent and quick to absorb complex information. If tested, I’m confident that they will score above average IQ-wise. For example, if I were to tell them that I was a secret agent named Wisam masquerading as a Kathak dancer named Viswanath, they would raise their eyebrows in surprise. They might ask me a few follow up questions. But they would get it in about 30 seconds. Aanaa, appadi illiyey indha Dr. Nirupama madam. (Alas, this Dr. Nirupama Madam is not like that.) What to do? Her wide eyed histrionics at every trivial revelation makes you wonder if she got her Ph.D. from Madurai Idly shop at a discount. Kodumai. Aanaalum romba kodumai saar.

And then you have Andrea Jeremiah who plays the other Indian RAW agent whose name I forget and whose only noteworthy contributions to this fine film are to offer to take Kamal’s pants off and generally tower above him in those scenes in which they let her appear.

Where do they upload the photos? Flickr?

Rahul Bose tries to come across as a gullible one-eyed Al Qaeda honcho, Omar, who loses his family in an American air strike. Dey Omar, I’ll tell you one thing. If you keep bombing other fellows, those fellows will bomb you back, da. You might want to live in a different pin code from your family, boss. This fellow Omar tries to get sympathy, but his weird looking glass eye and repeated attempts to blow up NYC unfortunately prevent him from getting any. Rahul Bose as Omar puts up a good show in the movie. Omar grunts. He whispers. He speaks Tamil. He smiles broadly as his people take group photos with a 14 megapixel fixed-lens camera. He’s, in fact, the most believable guy in the entire circus.

Oh.. the difficulty in finding good foreigners in a foreign country..

While we’re on the subject of casting, I have to mention the firangi guys. There are white guys. There is one African guy. And one African American woman. Of the Caucasians, the “MI-6″ guy takes the cake. Note to Indian film makers: When casting white fellows, please don’t cast guys who look like they passed out while doing drugs in the sixties and woke up only recently, as secret service agents. Think a little bigger. Well, just think. The African guy is the guy who’s supposed to blow things up. And why he prepares for it by shaving his entire body like he’s about to plunge into a pool for an Olympic freestyle gold medal is never explained. And did they hire that African American woman who plays the FBI interrogator from the checkout counter at a local supermarket? Dammit, Kamal. You can do better than this. You should have done better than this. You feel my pain, right?

The Faraday Shield

The lesser said about the FBI guy the better. But I will say more. He looks like a guy who would not even be cast in a used car commercial in the heartland of America. And they’ve made him out to be some sort of a mentally challenged individual. When he finds out that Kamal is a RAW agent, his mind is BLOWN. “Who are you?” he asks. Let me clue you in, my FBI dost. We were all asking the same bloody question too, at that point. And wearing a jacket with FBI emblazoned on it does not make you an FBI guy. Knowing shyte does. And you don’t rush into a room when you have a nuclear bomb sitting in the middle of it. You call the bomb squad. And if you don’t call the bomb squad, at least have the decency to conduct a public debate over if you should cut the blue wire or the green wire. Dude, we have all watched enough Bruce Willis movies to know this shyte. At this juncture, I’m sorely tempted to talk about something called the “Faraday shield.” But I won’t spoil it for you. I’ll be nice and let it be an unpleasant surprise for you.

The right to free speech.. and making rubbish..

There were a lot of people whose sentiments were apparently hurt by this movie. They got the screening of the movie suspended in Tamil Nadu. They have now got some scenes removed. They have created the impression that this movie is offensive to Muslims. I watched the ‘uncut’ version in Bangalore. It really is nowhere close to being offensive to any group but perhaps sincere Kamal well-wishers. Dey people, if you don’t like what you hear about it, don’t watch the film. Criticize. Yell. Shout. But don’t shut down someone’s shop because he’s not selling what you want to buy. We live in India. Not in Afghanistan. We are a free, democratic country. We’re like that. We tolerate stuff. Everything goes. Even rubbish. Even blasphemy. Although this film is not blasphemous that way. The most worrisome part of the movie came at the end, with the threat of a sequel left looming large over our heads.

The best comical film since MMKR..

Viswaroopam ends up as a deflated balloon called Buss-waroopam with its hodgepodge of Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, FBI, Kathak, Tam Brahms and other podalankai (snake gourd) things. The nicest thing I’m willing to say about it is that it’s possibly the best comical film Kamal has made since Michael Madana Kaama Rajan. I did get a few laughs out of it.

Before we go: Dear Kamal Haasan Sir..

Dear Kamal sir, you’re a great actor. But you’re not a good director. Please stop directing films. And you’re a great actor only when you work with good directors. So work with only the good ones. As for me, I’m going to watch Nayagan yet again for the hundredth time to cleanse all these disturbingly bad memories. And I’m going back into my self-imposed ban on Kamal films and stay there. I refuse to watch a once-great actor descend into the pits of mediocrity and destroy the image I have of him.

And as for you people..

Please go watch Viswaroopam because Kamal Haasan deserves our support. Perhaps, just this one last time.

Note: This review has been cleared by the Censor Board, cut by 223 words, then approved by 58 fringe groups and blessed by Amma before being published.

Tagged as: bollywood, movie reviews

The Trolley Problem

January 30, 2013 in THE JAUNDICED EYE

There’s a famous philosophical dilemma called the ‘trolley problem.’ In this hypothetical scenario, there’s an out of control train on a track which five workers are repairing. You’re given just a second or two to decide if you want to to flip a switch and divert the train onto a second track. The dilemma is that there is a worker on that second track who will be killed if you flip the switch.

The opposing philosophies which apply here are ‘utilitarian’ – overall good of many, and ‘thou shalt not harm’ – leave it to a higher authority, and don’t consciously kill another person.

Studies have shown that 90 percent of people opted to kill one worker to save five when presented with this dilemma. The studies were then repeated with a twist. Subjects now wore virtual reality gear which projected an avatar of the worker. Surprisingly, 90 percent of people still opted to flip the switch and kill the lone worker even though they could now see their ‘victim.’ There was no change in the results.

Here comes the interesting part. When subjects were told that they had to physically push the worker and kill him instead of flipping a switch to save the other five, only 50 percent opted to kill him. And here’s the kicker. When people were told that the worker on the second track was either their spouse, sibling or parent, only one-third opted to save the five workers.

What can we infer? That evolution has selected a majority of those who will make split second decisions to kill another? That we don’t like to get our hands dirty? That we’re selfish and will sacrifice others in order to save our own? That there are powerful evolutionary forces which propel us into horrific acts when it is a matter of survival?

Are we condemned to always play out our Darwinian impulses? Will our humanity always beat out the divinity in us? That’s not a cheerful picture, if true.

What’s your take?

Tagged as: opinion, philosophy

10 Things You Need to Know About Twitter

January 26, 2013 in GUEST POSTS

To be honest, I’ve not (yet) met Subhorup “Subho” Dasgupta. But I look forward to that conspiracy of circumstances. I’m a regular reader of his blog. How I stumbled on the blog is not interesting. What’s interesting is what happened after that. As I idly browsed Subho’s quirkily named Jejeune Diet, I did what any self respecting stalker would do, which was to click on his ‘About Me.’ There I found a person, who was about ‘intelligent writing and conversation’ and wished to be remembered for ‘doing something about it.’ Fascinated, I read more on his blog. A fan of Subho was thus born.

So, when he recently asked if I’d write for Jejeune Diet, saying yes was the easy part. Then came the pressure of having to live up to his readers’ expectations. When you write for a blog of which you are a fan, you become the writer and the reader simultaneously, and worry if you can bridge the twain.

Here are a couple of things I’d like to request, before you click through and get over to Subho’s Jejeune Diet.

Read his ‘About Me’
Read some of his wonderful posts. For starters, I recommend this moving piece about Janis Joplin

Not everything appeals to everyone. Indeed, I don’t always relate to everything Subho writes about. But, here’s the thing. Sometimes, what is being written about doesn’t really matter when the quality of writing is high. That is the reason I read Subho regularly. I hope you will too.

Ok. I’m done. Without further ado, I present “10 Things You Must Know About Twitter” – my contribution to that awesome something that Subho is in the process of doing so well.

Click to continue reading.

Tagged as: guest posts, humor, twitter

What is Luck?

January 25, 2013 in PICTORIALS

I’m sure we’ve all wondered about luck and what it means. It’s said that luck is what happens when opportunity meets preparation. Somehow, I’m not entirely comfortable with that definition. It seems to give more credit to free will than it really ought to. The notion of preparation meeting opportunity implies that cause and effect follow each other closely enough for us to see their linkages. There are times when we get lucky even when we don’t deserve it. When our preparation was inadequate. Sometimes, things don’t pan out even when preparation and opportunity co-exist. And I suspect, more often than not, cause and effect are so much separated in time that we’re no longer able to see what cause led to which effect. In that spirit, I get the feeling that luck resides at the intersection of destiny “what will be” and free will “what you want it to be”.

Luck seems to be that which happens when things conspire in your favor and you go along for the ride. It’s that thing which happens when its time has come. A time when things seem unstoppable for good or bad. When all the causes that have accumulated over time combine into a singularly fortunate or unfortunate effect. Good luck and have a great day!

luck

“You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don’t help.”

What do you think?

Tagged as: philosophy, pictorials, science

Life Lessons Bollywood Has Taught Me

January 23, 2013 in LAUGHING GAS

I’ve watched my share of Bollywood films. And here are some powerful lessons Bollywood has taught me on this rocky journey.

Disclaimer: Truth be told, I enjoyed watching some of the films referred to here. And of course, I mean all of this in a somewhat flippant, irreverent and humorous manner.

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

I came away from this movie convinced about the urgent need for a Jan Lokpal who will be dedicated to making sure that Karan Johar will never make a film again. KANK makes a telling point that if there are two couples, both unhappily married, the last thing they should do is to ask KJo to make a film about their marriages.

Veer Zaara

The biggest lesson from that incorrigible romantic Yash Chopra, bless his soul, was not in the movie. It’s in what happens after Veer and Zaara get married, a story yet untold. They lived as man and wife happily for many years until discovering that Zaara had, in fact, been born in India and adopted and raised by Pakistani parents. Since there’s nothing like the disappointment of marrying a fellow Indian when it comes to killing romance, Veer and Zaara naturally filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. Which just goes to prove that age old truism when it comes to selecting a mate, “Only opposites attract.”

Devdas

I can’t say I learnt anything from the fifteen minutes of watching this film, by which time I had swooned and fallen senseless by the coffee table. As I lay pondering in the ambulance on its way to the emergency ward, it dawned on me that if you spray enough perfume on it, even rubbish will exude an exhilarating aroma before it knocks you senseless with poison gases.

Munnabhai MBBS

If a lout coming in from the street can fake his way through medical college and rehabilitate a brain-dead person, the day is not far before computers begin replacing doctors. I was astonished to find that chronically ill people preferred “magic hugs” from a fake doctor from the neighborhood slum over systematic medical care. I was, however, not astonished to see some of them die before the movie ended.

Kal Ho Naa Ho

Until I witnessed this magnificent opus, I was just another ignorant puppy cruising merrily through the park of life. The movie’s brilliance stunned me in ways I would have never thought possible. For example, if you see a guy strolling around with a wistful smile, and breaking frequently into song and dance routines, it can mean only one thing. That he will reveal at some suitably inconvenient time later that he has cancer. And what I discovered about this guy was that – amazingly enough – for the sole reason that he has cancer, he can give Dalai Lama a run for his money when it comes to making profound observations on life. And, he does all of this with aplomb, wearing orange cargo pants and partying it up with neighbors who look like models from an ethnically diverse Benetton ad. MIND = BLOWN.

Lagaan

Cricket is a game of such glorious uncertainties that a bunch of untrained, clueless country bumpkins can beat the guys who invented the game on any given day. It was equally revelatory to discover that English belles find short, tanned, rustic Indians irresistible.

Zindagi Na Milegi Do Bara

If you put three guys in the Spanish countryside, I guess it’s only a matter of time before they start dancing in the village square. I found this film to an excellent example of the oft-used Bollywood formula which involves shooting film footage in exotic locations first, then adding a soundtrack and finally inserting dialogues and actors into it, before releasing in theaters.

Chak De India

There are many lessons we can learn from sports. Put Bollywood and sports together and the possibilities begin to boggle the mind. The best coaches are mediocre players who’ve suffered some grievous humiliation in their own playing days. I confidently predict that Ravindra Jadeja will become one of the all-time greatest Indian cricket coaches around 2025.

Never ever miss a penalty stroke against Pakistan. Especially when you’re down 0-1, in the final few minutes of the game. The movie nicely drove home the point that, but for India-Pak sporting contests, we would all have turned into unpatriotic wretches by now.

Dabangg

You can be an aggressive fellow with anger management issues. You can be an eve teaser. You can even be a corrupt cop. No problem. All will be forgiven and forgotten if you are the local Robin Hood Pandey with a cool pair of Rayban glasses. Heck, if you’re the charismatic, roguish Chulbul, you can even suffocate the neighborhood ruffian to death right before you scamper off to tie the knot and walk around the fire with the girl of your choice in tow. And while this might seem obvious, it’s worth calling out that it’s never advisable to let a gloomy looking chap, whose factory just burnt down, bring a crate of mangoes into the premises.

Hum Tum

This movie provides rare insights for men on the fine art of wooing women. The best way to win a woman over, I observed, is to be sensitive, patient and thoughtful. You must give her enough space and time. This is how it works. Fall madly in love with her. Wait for her to marry some one else. Then bide your time patiently until her husband dies in a car crash. And, that’s when you make your move. To set her up with your best friend. By this time, the woman cannot have failed to notice the bizarre patterns in your behavior. She will naturally interpret it as ‘your feelings’ towards her. Deny the allegations immediately because you’re a sensitive guy and wouldn’t want to rush her. Then, accept these feelings exactly one year later. By this time, since you’ve exhausted all other options, go ahead and marry her. And have a baby girl right away. This movie taught me the important lesson that you should take an excruciating amount of time before you get married, but you must not bat an eyelid before having a baby.

A Wednesday

As Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar warned, “beware of lean, hungry men.” Nasiruddin Shah’s character has so many layers and much to teach us. He’s lean. He’s hungry. He’s disgruntled. He’s learnt how to rig computers, phones and SIM cards to be untraceable. He’s second to none when it comes to assembling remote detonators and dirty bombs. This movie makes a pretty solid case that higher education in engineering and science is a complete waste of time when Wikipedia is handily available.

Tare Zameen Par

If you’ve not been a good student while in school, don’t worry about it. Someday, like Aamir Khan, you too can make a movie to explain it away. This movie opened my eyes to the possibility that an art teacher hired on a temporary basis will go to extraordinary lengths to make his job permanent. It taught me that most fathers are evil men who want their children to do crazy things like study well, get great jobs and lead comfortable lives, while, at the end of the day, it is art teachers who continue to remain solitary beacons of hope to children everywhere.

Ra One

Sometimes one person’s bad karma manifests itself as a desire to make this really horrible movie which many others will watch due to their own bad karma. Let’s please observe a moment of silence in memory of the suffering, and unite in our firm resolve to never let a tragic calamity of such horrific proportion ever repeat in our lifetimes.

3 Idiots

Watching a movie can sometimes be the only way to wipe out the bad memories of the book it’s based on. Amen.

Talaash

When your subordinates see you making empty gestures in the air, and having conversations with an imaginary girlfriend, and yet they don’t feel comfortable giving you feedback about it, then something is clearly amiss with your management style. These are exactly the sorts of things they don’t teach at the IIMs. Talaash puts forth a powerful new management concept which involves building vibrant, friendly teams, and encourages open dialogue with things other than ghosts. It was fascinating to learn that women continue to wear high heels, lipstick and short skirts long after they are dead, but dispense with high heels, lipstick and short skirts if they’ve been married a while.

Tagged as: bollywood, humor

Why I don’t watch news on television

January 22, 2013 in THE JAUNDICED EYE

I stopped watching news on TV more than five years ago. I’ve tuned in only on rare occasions, like during elections or recently when the India Gate protests raged. I can count the number of these occasions. By and large, I’d rather have root canal surgery than watch television news. Here’s why.

The media plays at least 3 roles in a democratic society.

1. To inform.

It’s the job of the media to keep us informed of the facts. To be perfectly honest, I don’t watch TV to find out what Rajdeep Sardesai’s or Barkha Dutt’s opinions are. I could definitely do without Arnab Goswami’s histrionics. None of these “anchors” have expert training in economics or public policy or defense or anything else for that matter. They are (I believe) trained journalists and were hired to play the role of skilled interviewers. I’d prefer if they kept their opinions to themselves. I’d like them to tell me the facts, please. Then, I’d like to hear what experts have to say on the matter. And by experts, I don’t mean mouthpieces of political parties or former editors of semi-porn magazines or activist Bollywood actors or self-styled marketing gurus. There are smart people out there who’ve invested their time and careers in analyzing social issues, running businesses and researching and implementing policy matters. Go find them. Bring them on air. Allow us to hear what they have to say, even if they conflict with your opinions.

News anchors should be good at what they are supposed to be good at. If you talk more than your panelists, it means you’re not a skilled interviewer. If your show turns into a free for all among the panelists within a few minutes into the show, it means that you are an embarrassment to your profession.

2. To investigate

Media organizations are the watchdogs of a democratic society. They are our conscience keepers. It’s their job to find where the fire is burning when they see smoke. It’s their job to separate fact from fiction and help us tell a real scam from a smear job. We live in a complex world with complex issues. We want someone to tell us what’s going on so we can make up our minds about it. We are looking for someone to trust. Not someone who makes us live in perpetual anxiety.

It’s not really important to me as to who broke the story. What’s important is that the truth does not get bent in the process. I find our media stunningly incompetent on two counts. 1. They are not the ones to break stories. Stories get handed to them on silver platters. 2. And when they are handed stories, they make no effort to uncover details. In fact, they go through great trouble to obfuscate matters.

The last time we saw high quality investigative journalism in India was in the late 1980’s when the Hindu broke the Bofors story.

3. To build consensus

The media plays a critical role in building public consensus on matters of national importance. It’s not an easy job to take on emotional issues and steer the public towards thinking objectively about them. It’s a lot of hard work to assemble facts about an issue and to paint a clear picture. Instead, we have television channels which take the lazy route by fanning flames and obscuring facts that they end up doing incalculable long term harm to the country. The cornerstone of a democracy is the ability to engage in public discourse. If we don’t get this right, our democracy will fail.

Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States said, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” Unfortunately for us in India, we seem to have neither a functioning government nor media.

I hope you now understand why I don’t watch television news any more. I’m amazed that anyone watches at all. Is a little competency and integrity too much to ask for?

Tagged as: media, opinion

Why our approach to Pakistan is messed up.

January 19, 2013 in THE JAUNDICED EYE

I think our approach to Pakistan is messed up. Here’s why I think so.

Pakistan is not our equal.

Not economically. Not in population size. And certainly not in the way they conduct affairs of the state. Pakistan now stands teetering at the edge of a precipice. India, on the other hand, has a much brighter future notwithstanding our many flaws. They should not be treated as an equal. If you can believe me, I don’t mean this in a dismissive, contemptuous way. I mean it as a matter of fact. A junior minister of state in external affairs should be deputed to engage with their foreign minister. Our external affairs minister should engage directly with their President, and none less. Our Prime Minister and the Leader of Opposition should not comment publicly on or engage with anyone from that country.

I support the position of our Prime Minister when he recently remarked that the recent provocations from Pakistan deserve no more than a tactical response, that we should not indulge in jingoism, and that the matter of how we deter the Pakistani army is best left to professionals in the Indian Army. In contrast, I found Ms. Sushma Swaraj’s “Get me 10 heads for one” response deeply disturbing and alarming.

Never get into a fight with a country which has nothing to lose.

At times, it may be tempting to engage in one-up-man-ship. What we have to remember is that by doing so, we’re going out of our way to keep an irrelevant nation in the public eye and thus make it out to be more important than it really is. In other words, there’s no gain for us. It’s all upside for them. Don’t stoke a dying fire.

The opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference.

Pakistan works pretty hard to earn our anger. In return, we must offer our indifference. We must stop putting every act of theirs under the microscope and agonizing over it. We must stay focused on fixing our ownselves, and moving quickly ahead in this very competitive global economy. The best “revenge” – for those who tend to like this sort of a thing – is one that will be served someday when Pakistani people wake up and realize that we’ve left them miles behind in the race to prosperity. Those obsessed with things like “honor” and “izzat” should remember that it takes more courage to walk away from a fight than to get into one. Patriotism is not about having a misplaced sense of honor or a narrow view of the world or flag waving and chest thumping. It’s about being a committed citizen and taking the time to understand complex issues, how they intersect and doing what’s what’s best for the country and making your opinion heard in a constructive manner. In my opinion, Pakistan should cease to be a voting issue for Indians, and anyone who attempts to make it one should be discouraged.

There is no such thing as Pakistan.

There are the Pakistani people. There are the politicians. There is the Pakistani army. There is ISI. There are many niche centers of power, controlling narrow domains. None of them are in control. It’s impossible to negotiate when there is no decision maker on the other side of the table. We have to recognize this and understand the difficult job that our government has, when it comes to dealing with Pakistan.

They are people like us too.

Perhaps, a way forward might be one that involves building direct bridges to the Pakistani people and creating economic opportunities for them so they, over time, have something to lose by harming our interests. Pakistan is like this evil twin of India, separated at birth and adopted and raised by a gangster. In many ways, their people have suffered more than us. I refuse to believe that an average Pakistani wakes up in the morning and looks for ways to destroy us. I think the average Pakistani is like the average Indian. He/she just wants a good job, a hot meal and a peaceful life. An “economic version of Aman ki Asha,” which promotes free trade and collaboration – as much as it sounds like a fairy tale – might not be a bad way forward if we’re willing to be patient for at least a couple of decades.

Heck, we don’t have be nice to them, if we don’t want to. But we really ought to stop obsessing about them and move on.

What’s your take?

Also read: O Pakistan, Whither Goes Thou?

Tagged as: opinion, pakistan, politics

Ask Dr. What Ho!: I want to enter politics. Kindly advise.

January 18, 2013 in LAUGHING GAS

Dear Dr. What Ho!

I’m tired of working hard to make a living. So, I’m thinking of entering politics. But, I don’t know how to lie. I’m generally a truthful person. Will I ever be able to change my ways and become a successful politician? Kindly advise.

Sincerely,

Middle Class Muggle.

Dear Middle Class Muggle,

Thanks for writing.

Lying is easy. Just think of the truth and then say exactly the opposite. I’m sure you’ll become good at it over time, if you practice hard. But, I’m afraid that you might have misunderstood politics to be all about lying, which is not the case. I hope you’re aware that the word politics derives its meaning from the greek word ‘poly’ which means ‘many’ and ‘tics’ which are blood sucking insects. Research shows that successful politicians spend their time as illustrated in the chart below.

politicians

As you can see, being an idiot is by far the single most important part of being a politician. Unless your IQ is lower than your age, I’d strongly recommend against pursuing this career option.

Sincerely.

Dr. What Ho!

Tagged as: ask dr what ho!, humor, politics

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