Movies and superheroes

I've always been a big fan of comics and superheroes. There is something magical about seeing a crusader standing up for the weak, and triumphing over not just evil people, but evil itself. Someone with the power to change the world, and someone who uses it. A person bigger than life itself.

There's a simple charm to such tales. It's much easier to see black and white separately in such stories rather than the muddled grey we usually see. Yet the people behind the heroes are very human themselves, they're usually shy, honest and truthful. They stand behind curtains looking at the ones they love, the ones they would like to be with, the ones they may never have. It's something I guess every geeky and nerdy guy, and comic fan would relate to. But oddly so, I think others do too. People are inherently nervous, in times where they feel powerless to prevent harm to what they hold dear, they tend to look to higher powers for help and guidance. Ample proof is provided by the thousands of miracle stories just about any recently devout person will tell you, how the lord helped them overcome great misery and problems. I feel that little scared kid never quite dies in anyone, he or she is the core of anyone's persona, and in times of peril, we tend to recede to that very persona. Every scared kid needs someone to hold their hand and tell them it's gonna be ok. Though this might sound like an extremely twisted proof to such a claim, an interesting "research" was published in the media some time back. The reason research is in quotes is that the authors were from the (in)famous Playboy magazine. They simply correlated the centrefolds' vital statistics to the times when people were under duress, for e.g. economic downturns etc. What they found was extremely interesting. Men (well , people is a useless generalization here) chose more curvaceous women in times of economic upturn, or when things were going well. In times of depression, they chose women who looked more liked they could take care of them.

Well you may ask what does this have to do with movies exactly? That's simple, try to find the biggest hits of the past 7 years or so, and they'll mostly be fantasy tales about superheroes and the like. 7 is kind of the pivotal number here, cause I'm making a reference to 9/11 here. It seems a lot of the american public hasn't quite emerged from the shock of that time. They still feel that the wrongdoers have not been punished, and they are still at risk. Movies have also adopted a very politically active role, making snide references here and there to the ongoing events.

One might ask, why do things take so much time to heal as we grow older. Well, a major part of the answer is in the question itself, we grow older, more rigid. Another big part is probably that as an adult you are expected to take care of others, and generally hide your fears. Our problems tend to accumulate inside us and we have no one to turn to for answers. And no one to put our problems in perspective, we're pretty likely to get excessively tense about trivial things.

I sometimes wonder if it would be better if there was someone who had all the answers, or atleast someone who could point us in the right direction. Someone who knew exactly what to say, when we're lost for words. Someone who could prevent bad things from happening and people we care about go away. Someone who could be our very own ... superhero.

There and Back Again, an Indian's tale

I recently arrived in USA for pursuing a Ph.D. . For people who know me and haven't been in touch :P , that might be a shock, but I believe my self from one year back would feel the same way. Anyways, I decided to enjoy some time before joining the course, and am staying for some time with my brother in New Jersey.

USA in general is very different from India, almost diametrically opposite actually. The first time I landed here, the scale of infrastructure is beyond anything ever seen in India. I once heard a slogan, "Everything is bigger in Texas", as compared to India, I feel the statement is fitting for the whole of USA. Everywhere you see, things are bigger, people are bigger ( :P ), and buy in bigger quantities. It really makes me wonder why George Bush thought that India and China are causing food shortages! no one there ever eats on this scale. The effects of having many magnitudes of land more, and a similar fraction smaller population is plainly visible. There's greenery everywhere, and things can be built to a larger scale. There are hundreds of small cities compared to a few huge ones. I feel the biggest difference is that people are, atleast on the surface, more polite and warmer. Strangers greet each other, cars stop for pedestrians, generally stuff that you would never expect in India.

All in all, people live very different lives than in India. That's probably why they like people from India, who focus on their work mostly, and pay very little attention to other things. A trip to the Indian dominated part of New Jersey quickly illustrates the difference. Cars suddenly don't stop for pedestrains as easily. A different odor hangs in the air, a smell distinctly indian, but from an unidentified source. The people, obviously look different. You can actually see people from every part of India in one place, something very difficult to see even in India. Once I entered an Indian store outlet and turned my back to the entrance, it was difficult to see that I was not in India. For most of my time, I was smiling and close to laughing, why? dunno, maybe it was that the sight of familiar faces brought back some sense of assurance. More so, it was the understanding that nowhere you go, indians will remain the same. I believe that throughout our childhood we learn to interpret emotions from facial expressions, and a lot more. Moving to another place with different people probably sets this instinct off, you no longer know what's the right custom, what people mean when they say the most common of things (apart from the obvious meanings of course) etc. etc. That probably is the source of culture shock, something that been "right" is not right anymore. You've suddenly been returned to the stage where u were as an infant, plus you don't learn as fast anymore. It's quite easy why it's unsettling for people, and the reason some need help.

The fact that Indians mostly overcome greater problems, fighting for everything against others and the system, is probably the reason why they are successful. They can battle anything, succeed in spite of all odds. That is the difference with China as well, China is an example of how, a system perfectly optmized for attaining certain goals can work. On the other hand, India is more of a game theory playground, how even when everyone selfishly thinks for himself, a country can progress at such a pace. In spite of apathy from the government, other people, the people still have created a wonderful example for success. Usually at this point, people say how if there was a better "system" and "governance", India could so so much more, but what they miss out is that the bad system has made the people this way so that they can tackle anything. It's a simple give and take, adversity shows the best or worst in people, but it always shows the extreme, and optimized response, which ensures the maximum possible results, good or bad.

Political correctness

Today I was reading an article on how the USA's negotiator with Brazil for the upcoming WTO trade negotiations, Susan Schwab was hurt by the Brazilian counterpart's remarks. He had apparently compared the tactics employed by negotiators from developed countries to Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda chief, and Schwab is descendant from Jewish holocaust survivors. His exact statement? as quoted by Yahoo, "Goebbels used to say if you repeat a lie several times it becomes a truth," and "I am reminded of Goebbels", quoting certain parts. Though I know that forming an opinion on the basis of incomplete comments is dangerous, my point is not entirely based on this.

Recently Britain's schools have changed the nursery rhymes taught in schools (see here). Britain, or the United Kingdom to be more correct, has almost been at the forefront of political correctness, replacing black with rainbow, etc. etc. Some of the changes are actually quite hilarious. Before you start raising fingers at me, let me point out that I'm also a "coloured" person. But the simple fact is that when you say baa baa black sheep, I can't see any semblance of racial discrimination. In a contorted way, possibily yes, but then you can see innuendos in just about any statement. Language, any language is an approximate representation of what we wish to express. In algebra, we call this dimensionality reduction. One of the most common ways of doing this is PCA or Principal Component Analysis, which is that you try to gauge the common thread in the data, to put it very crudely. This is done with almost rampant disdain in computer vision to remove noise in data collected from natural sources (:D no offense, I know it's necesary). Which is why it's quite beyond my comprehension, why we haul up someone based on some part of a statement. Isn't it relevant as to what thread was being followed and the context in which the statement was made? I always find that the media, press in particular, tends to highlight such things to gain TRPs, taking out small sections of statements and contorting them. Problem is that these sections are used by a majority of people to form opinions even without knowing the full fact.

While I do accede that little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and the press may claim that it is the responsibility of the people to find the truth, but the press are most people's only source for such information. Even more so, we must allow some leeway for people's inherent stupidity. You may not notice it, but everyday you'll make many insensitive comments to a multitude of people. But, being part of everyday occurence, people ignore them, as part of the lost art of common sense. If you feel that you're not part of such a group, try and listen to what you said, you'll be shocked.

Every statement can be taken in atleast 2 ways, so don't try to create a context out of a statement. Like my favourite PCA, gauge the common thread. And though I concede I've never as yet been a victim of discrimination on the basis of colour or the other common things, I still feel some judgement call should be made the statements that are held as discriminatory. Though it's probably a better thing for people not to say stupid things, but that's quite a thing to ask, don't you think? I mean, in India, being a general category male is like a curse. People have a tendancy to blame this category for all evils that plague society. And being part of this category implies that you have to slog for everything a little more than everyone else, meaning people having reservations, even though I myself didn't do anything against them, nor have anything against them. Without digressing, let me just say that reverse discrimination is as prevalent as discrimination.

To conclude, I just want to say, that it's been more than 50 years since the Nazi's were overthrown. Give them germans and others a break. Referring to a person of that group doesn't mean that you condone their actions, you're simply using them as an example. They did terrible things, and it can cause a lot of hurt to be reminded of them, but they're still the past. A new generation has now emerged who don't grasp the brutalities of the actions done in the past century, as well as people of the developing world who didn't have anything to do with it. These people are already paying some price or another for what happened, even though they were direct or indirect victims, and not the perpetrators. Political correctness can seriously stifle free communication, and lead to more problems that it can solve. In my opinion, though people should be educated to be more careful about what they say, they should also be educated to be more tolerant. Being all prickly and quick to get insulted is probably not the best way to go about things. In that spirit, I apologize to anyone who finds this article insulting in any way.

Art, depressed artists and nervous exam takers

I'm one of those people who, when looking at some piece of modern art, do seriously wonder what people see in them. Mind you, some pieces are seriously good, but some actually look like someone's baby puked on them. I once took a philosophy course in college, called art and technology (though I never quite saw the tech part :D ). It was interesting, to say the least. Though my limited philosophical skills saw me scrape throught the course, I did pick up some interesting insights into what is art, and how do people perceive it.

As part of my class presentation, I picked up music as the art subject of interest, and tried to go about thinking, how and why do we actually like music?? or even hate it, or worst of all, go from hating to liking it!. Trust me, songs do have this way of growing on you. And I saw these 2 concepts, "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder", and the obvious one, that beautiful things, are beautiful cause they have something in them. Which actually contradict each other, so u can't pick both.

You know, there was something taught in school which I never quite figured out a purpose for, resonance. It's quite wonderful in essence, and it says that everything, i mean everything has a certain resonant frequency. Which means that if u send waves of a certain frequency into the object, it'll vibrate like hell, much more than any other frequency. Still don't get it? remember that cool gadget Bond used to shatter glass? that's it. In school we actually had this experiment to determine the resonant frequency of something, don't remember what. In fact, there's this story that while walking on bridges, armies march out of step so as not to accidently make the bridge collapse, cause supposedly it's happened.

So you may ask why does resonance come into the picture?? well the answer's half already there. Forget the physics of it, and just focus on the concept, everything responds more to a certain input than any other. For more clarity, try and remember any memory in your head, and apart from that vivid image in your head, notice that you'll remember how you felt then. Sometimes those emotions might not even make sense to you, most people just ignore them. But the fact that your brain records them in the same detail as any sensory input gives an important clue to the importance your brain gives to emotions. Before I finally state my claim, consider this fact, you'll always like certain songs when you're in certain moods. It may differ for different people, but there are certain clear trends, like mopey songs when you're sad etc. etc. Well, that's it, isn't it, resonance. Your brain responds to certain types of songs when facing certain emotions. It's like your radio receives signals (resonance again :P) you tune it to a particular frequency, and voila music. Similarly, I believe, emotions tune your brain to accept certain input better, or look at things in a different way.

Still don't believe me? try playing different songs when in different moods, they'll seem seriously different. For me, when I'm pensive, like when writing this blog, I like songs more like Friday, by Goldspot, when i'm depressed or trying to drive myself to work, Linkin Park or other heavy metal style music is more like it. Forgive me, if my music classification is off, never got around to figuring it out. I especially give an example of music, because more people experience this form of art than any other.

With this done, you should be wondering, why does this resonance happen? well your brain gives you clues. It'll faintly reminisce about the past. I believe your brain keeps recalling memories, it's its way of understanding stuff, fitting current experiences to past ones. Which is why, if the song brings back memories whose dominant emotion matches your current state, you'll like it. But you'll still have stronger reactions to sad emotions, that's something I never quite understand. Which brings me to art in general, its appreciation requires that you have experiences some of those emotions expressed by its creation. And creation of art is even more problematic.

Most of you would have noticed, how many artists die of depression related stuff like suicides, drug overdoses etc. And as I said, people have stronger recalls of adverse emotions. Even more personal experiences, I feel that creating art requires a certain amount of depression, sadness. When seems plausible, when you're happy, why would you go through the whole process? why wouldn't you rather enjoy. This probably requires more thought, and so I'd rather leave it for another post considering how long this one has become.

My last topic for this post, nervous exam takers :D, well I'm one too. This too does have some relation to all of this, cause, as I said recall brings back emotions as well. So if u were not too confident while studying, in addition to having low confidence, you run the risk of having those emotions come back during your exam. Try thinking about it sometime.

Well, that about does it, that should clarify some things about art, but u're always welcome to use my opinions about some work of art when I don't like it, a baby could've done it!

Moments...

Have you ever felt, for a moment, that time would stop, and this moment would stop forever? Know it sounds awefully cliched, almost movie worthy cliched, but it's interesting. Better minds than me, have said “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” So it might be worth paying moments more than a cursory glance. I truly do believe in the statement, so if have never have had any such moment, look for one, mebbe you had one but never noticed.

In your free time, try reminiscing for once. What you'll notice, that with each memory, you also tend to recall some bit of the emotions that you felt at the time. In fact, the moments clearest in our minds tend to coincide with our emotional moments (ya that includes being angry as well). Depending on the kind of person you are, you'll probably pay more attention to certain emotions than others. If you think I'm picking up from some theory, nope, in fact I'll be highly surprised if there's a theory that says so.

Why is it important? if what I'm saying is right, then maybe at the fag end of your life, with nothing much to do, you will reminesce. And it's these moments that'll come up in your mind, so it pays to pay some attention, as you might just have some choice in what your life's movie reel look's like. This is mirrored in a lot of literature you'll find, and I'll mention one line from one very nice poem I read once, "Don't dance so fast, time is short, the music won't last"

So try and live life in the moment, mebbe you'll pick a memory that you'll cherish for all life. But don't live in that memory, it's a memory, and is best left in the mind, not to be wondered about. It can never come back, never be changed, only remembered.

Wonderful childhood

As kids, we're always in a hurry to grow up. We want to outgrow the dictatorial regime that is our parents and get the freedom to do whatever we want, do whatever we want (and probably eat whatever we want :D). We're carefree, have nothing to think about, and tend to generally have fun. Ok, this is getting a little movie-like perfect, but that's an opinion of a grown up. One of the most, if not the most wonderful parts of childhood, in hindsight, is the freedom from making decisions. Everything is decided for us, be it which school, what to wear (to a certain extent) etc. etc. At that time, we little realise what a perk this is. Resolving a quarrel is so easy! a parent just has to intervene, and we're done, their word is the law.

These last 2 lines are probably the most important. As you come to the nervous teens and adolescence, you realise how much decisions can hurt, and haunt. Your decisions can be small and insignificant, or ones that shape your life. Don't know about you, but I'm cursed to wonder about what ifs, about each an every decision I make. I'm probably built that way, and my upbringing and having to sit cooped up indoors for long times (I was sick a lot as a kid, asthma), makes me wonder about each and every decision I make, and how that affects me, and more so, others. I always remember my carefree childhood, when the most difficult decision to make was probably which ice-cream flavour to take. Talking about the best time, the worst time is probably adolescence. I have had the opportunity of going to one of the best universities in India, but as I near the end of the degree, I still wonder whether how I spent my 5 years here was right. Whether doing something differently would have made things different, whether the path I've picked is the right one. I believe, decisions taken during this period will stay with one for all life, be it as cherished memories, or nightmares that haunt. This is what makes one realise the true value of the innocence and carefree times that were our childhood. Which is why I hate reports of child prodigies, a child should live their childhood with as little burden as possible. Let them go outside and experience the world, don't push them to work 3 hours a day to master some instrument or chess. What you do as a child makes or breaks you as a person. Most of us focus on working harder and harder, making our minds toil to the ends of their limits, trying to push a little further. Don't trust me? try asking some undergrad from a top institute to sit down and do nothing, just relax and take in the atmosphere, they won't be able to. Why? because your mind aggressively trims powers in the early years which it considers irrelevant, to make space for what, we and it, consider important. And running in the rat race makes you exactly that, a rat, running mindlessly in its wheel, unware that it can stop. Still wondering why many brilliant minds burn out? or sportstars retire in their prime because nothing drives them? See if Phelps or Hingis ring bells. When you work hard, so hard, something inside you dies, that child. That child inside you lets you laugh, to enjoy, to love, and look wonderously at every new day.

Remember my next point? that wonderous resolution of quarrels? well, as you grow up, you become more and more sure of yourself. Gaining knowledge breeds confidence, and whether we like it or not, confidence breeds arrogence. Just as courage is not lack of fear but the ability to overcome it, humility is not the lack of arrogance, but the ability to overcome it. As we become more and more sure of ourselves, we disregard authority, of everyone around us. As we become powerful, even more so. Why do you think that global problems are so hard to resolve? there no one to scold the 2 idiots and make them say sorry. Plus, the slight problem that things that people do as adults tend to become hard to tide over by a simple sorry. Maybe they are, but we attach more to them than as kids. Maybe resolving things this way would be easier, but we'll probably never find out.

So, the next time you try to look at that little kid and think you're better, think again. They have a lot more things you can never have, and can be someone you never will.

Things getting hotter!

The topic of global warming is the hot topic these days (pun unintended :D). Especially singers the world over seem to be concerned more than everyone else about it. Why singers is something that escapes me, some other people, notably politicians are always averse to talking about it. In fact, the biggest user of fuels, the USA actually refuses to commit to any changes. The fact that emerging powerhouses, China and India, also do not wish to do anything, doesn't help anyone. They can probably hide behind the argument that their fragile developing economies cannot take the load. While the USA hides behing their fragile developed economy. Actually a lot of people also place doubts on the accuracy and truth behind claims that our actions are responsible for global warming. Some data has been thrown around that it's actually become cooler at some place, god knows where. My hometown has become progressively hotter in the summers and colder in the winters, rainy season is now dry (it rains more in the winters), and the list goes on.

The wonderful work of researchers is evident. Someone (Aaron Levenstein actually, who's he??) once said that, "Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital." . I'd like to add, like a bikini, what's revealed depends a lot on ur vantage point. You can make interesting conclusions from the same statistics, even completely contradicting stuff.

Still, no one can deny that the earth is definitely heating up. And sense dictates, that like any other natural calamity we try our best to avert it. But, most world leaders seem to be convinced that this is not the case. From what I know, this phase is usually a precursor to a coming ice age, meaning the ice caps at the poles will melt completely, flooding the planet, and eventually freezing to ice. Kinda like Day After tomorrow showed, but a little less dramatic. Well, maybe we'll be around to see whether things actually happen the way it's claimed. Maybe it will, the earth hasn't lost its supremacy to any puny creature as yet, it has ways to show who's boss.

The big fuss about religion

Whether you like it or not, religion remains one of the most powerful phenomenon in this world today, and, has occupied this position of power and prestige for most of known civilized human existence. The kind of blind belief that religion can attract is, in the least, quite amazing. Even though most people would like to believe that religion has been separated from state, it's not true (ya, even in the predominantly christian west). Need proof? for islamic nations, it's simple, but even in the USA, evidence is clear. According to current rules, the USA enforces a limitation on the AIDS funding it provides that one third of it must go to spreading awareness on abstinence. Though some would find this contentious, this is something that stems primarily from religion.

Even more interestingly, most interpreters of religion, i.e. the clergy, defend their right to interpret it the most. Clergy will never tell you to go read the religious texts, even if they do, they find it ok till your interpretation matches theirs. Anyone who has even a basic knowledge of any language, knows that language is inherently ambiguous. Even the same sentence can say a lot of different things depending on the context, and our frame of mind. But first, one must understand the need for religion. For this, I'll borrow from my previous post, the purpose of life. Simply put, it's a question that tends to haunt us throughout our lives. And interestingly, we always wait for that one enlightened one who we wish would come and tell us all the answers we need. And religion tends to pretend to be this one. Though it's irrelevant to this topic, I also feel that this urge is also our basis for our love for superheroes, even more so for ones who are commoners who rise to the challenge. Getting back to topic, this stems from our inability to decide. To quote "Taken", a choice is the death of all other possibilities. And we dread making a choice as it means losing out on the other 'goodies'. So, I actually dread having more options than not having sufficient ones. Having a lot of options usually tends to lead to a lot of heartburn later on whether your decision was correct. It's this insecurity, that religion, and for that matter, most of society exploit for their benefit. They tend to provide answers sanctioned by higher beings, or, just everyone else. Answers that will make you belong, to a group at least. Our herd mentality is legendary(refer to the Gaussian paradox, my post). We find security in the company of others.

I love history, and so know much more about it than most usual people. An interesting fact is, that Christianity itself was born a few centuries after the birth of christ. It was born at a council conducted at the time of Emperor Constantine. Now this emperor is one of the legendary rulers of history, he carved out his empire from the collapsing roman empire, and built the foundations for its successor, the Byzantines, and Constantinople, or modern day Instanbul in Turkey. It's famous walls were of such repute that very few ever dared to even challenge it, and while europe went through the Dark Ages, Byzantium was a haven for new thinkers. And while his empire was safe from outsiders, it was torn by some civil strife within. Romans took pleasure in rounding up christians (which at that time had multiple sects having vastly different beliefs) and putting them in the colloseums, and basically killing them gruesomely. This was the time, when romans were mostly jews. This had started to turn by Constantine's time, and christians were a large enough number that could not be ignored. Hence he organised the first Council of Nicaea(google it), where bishops argued, and decided that Jesus was divine, and not mortal, and basically most of what you see today, including his teachings etc.

So, interestingly, current versions of christianity are basically what a few people felt at some time in history, as the "correct" beliefs, a choice. What, Jesus actually wanted to tell people, we may never know, and whether he was a son of god, well, lets not even get to that, no one can answer that. The point i'm trying to make here, is that most, if not all, religions are attempts by some enlightened to answer the important questions of their time. And after that, these answers have been twisted and filtered by others to what they see fit. And over time, more people have tried to interpret and and fit the phrases to current problems. It's kind of like Microsoft Windows, it's changed so much over time, that little of what it originally was, remains. The same is true of religions. The original texts were translated into different languages, and again went through multiple sequences of interpretation. The Church, islamic leaders, and others, have changed their interpretation of the texts over the ages, sometimes under pressure from others. Otherwise, how come religion has changed its attitude towards women, no god came over later to tell people to change the texts. Religion is really a function of its texts and the needs and demands of society. To put it very crudely, it's like a very, I mean very long running play. Which is why, it is necessary to read and understand the religious texts on your own, if you wish to make them the basis of your decision making. And to be completely correct, you also must understand the historical background in which these were written, otherwise it's an incomplete picture, like trying to recognise someone from a picture of their butt. But it's necessary to do so, because most of what you hear is someone's interpretation, and that someone stands to lose his job if you bypass him. The clergy is like a fast food chain for religion, to serve the needs of people who have no time to pay attention. And don't get me wrong, it tends to get interpreted to suit the needs of people in power. As for considering the clergy holy, that's almost laughable. If you look at the number of cases against clergy of any religion or country, especially those of sexual exploitation, you'll find my statement correct.

The reason for my writing this is that religion has done more to split up this world than any other force. A large part of our problems are due to people sticking fast to their stands, and trading insults over whose religion is better. The problem is, innocent people are brainwashed into doing rash acts in the name of religion, which don't serve god, but only the selfish wishes of some. So next time, before trusting any holy man or clergy, remember what Sigmund Freud said, man first thinks about his primal needs - food, water, survival, and to the clergy, keeping you from the texts is most essential for fulfilling this need.

Quotes

Some of my, and others' quotes

"There's a big difference between tourism and immigration"

(me :D)

"One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them,

One ring to bring them together, and in darkness, bind them"

(The one ring, LOTR)

"After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things. Terrible! Yes. But great"

(Ollivander, Harry Potter)

"The beauty of war is that it simplies things, it simplifies them to a binary choice, life, or death"

(me again!)

Gaye Firdaus Barruye zameen ast,

Hameen asto, hameen asto, hameen ast

(If there is heaven on earth,

It is here, it is here, it is here)

(Humayun, Mughal emperor, on Kashmir)

The purpose of life

This is one question, I believe everyone has asked themselves atleast once in their lives. Believe me, I've asked this question many many more times than that :D . From childhood, we're brought up to believe that we can make a difference, that we can change this world. In our parents' eyes, there is probably no one more deserving for anything, or more intelligent, than us. We even spend most of our childhood and adolescent life to further such goals of achieving more. Yet, this one question tends to stop u dead in your tracks, knock you down while you search for some hope or answer to cling on to. That's because the question tends to go hand in hand with other questions like "am I doing the right thing, or choosing the right path". I think even a lifetime of pondering is unlikely to give you a satisfactory, or more accurately, a mind pleasing answer.

If we go into some thought and facts for answering this question, things don't look as good. History tells us that "making a difference" is something that changes with every civilisation. Our current society tends to measure this by power and wealth. Don't get me wrong, these are the more prominent factors in defining success over the ages. But, some other factors tend to trump these over time. For example, Spartans, or even the samurai, gave more preference to bravery on the battlefield than money or power. Then if you go into mathematics, well, mathematics and statistics are never known to let you down easily. They tend to hit u in the face with knockout punches. Quantum physics and statistics paint a picture of nature playing a game. Where nature tries out every possible alternative, or so to say, an answer to a question. Since there are so many of us, it can be taken as a continuous curve, which in most cases, is close to my favourite Gaussian curve(see earlier post). Then, we must wonder, if we are only an infinitesimal speck in a curve, then what's the point of undertaking any activity?

Well, then, after the bad news, the good news. This statistical curve( or hyperplane in many dimensions - for u purists :D) tends to change itself over time. Society tends to dictate what most people will choose and this is a kind of average or mean of the curve. So, the choices some people make will change this curve. One must also wonder, why do people choose different options?? some answers can be found in the study of Game Theory, a marvellously simple theory that answers many complex questions with simple logic. Even a layman can understand its intricacies with ease. Then, I also must quote something I heard in Steven Speilberg's mini series called 'Taken' (ya i'm a sci-fi fan and sort of fixated on aliens), that "a choice is the death of all other possibilities".

So, in the end, what is the purpose of life? It means different things for different people. To me, it means the fulfillment of your one truest desire, be it money, family, career or anything else. A life lived while suppressing your desires is probably not quite worth it. You get only one after all. Some (and, well religion) might call this the wrong way, but does not even religion ask for total devotion to it as the best way to live life? So you might say, what about your parents who slogged their entire lives without enjoying themselves to earn so that we may not have to undergo the hardships they did? well, in doing so they made improving their childrens' lives their topmost priority, and someday go and ask them so, they'll tell you that they find even more happiness in your achievements, than they would have found in something else.
Some even say, that those who look for the purpose of life are doomed to never find it, while it'll drop into your lap if you're not looking. Seems weird? try looking up at the night sky once, look at a star and u'll notice lots of other stars near it, look towards them, and they'll disappear(It's not a trick, it's called peripheral vision, rods are better at finding low intensity objects - google it). To conclude, I'll quote one statement from 'Taken' again, "In our lives, we ask questions that we know we may never find the answers to, but finding answers is not that important, what is important is that we never stop asking questions"

Wars and terrorism

Some give the credit to the oldest profession, to, well we know what. But I believe we've been having wars and fights for about as long. Which makes the soldier as roughly the second oldest profession. Soldiers have always been the focus of our attention, be it accolades or derision. And they've always been needed, wars have never been a rare quantity in our history. And if you ever track what wars actually accomplish, they mostly cause more wars. The most famous of these are the crusades and ensuing battles over Jerusalem. I always found them interesting as religious wars never quite die out. And one can consider the modern day phenomenon of terrorism as an extension of the conflict. The current "war on terror" as dubbed by the media always reminds me of a story in Hindu mythology. It's the story of a demon named Raktabeej, which literally translates as blood seeds. His power was that for each drop of his blood that fell to the floor, he would be born anew with a thousand times strength. Eventually, the goddess Kali slayed him by collecting all his blood in a tumbler, and drinking it while she was fighting him.

This story, atleast to me, has odd similarities with the terrorism situation. The problem that most of the west faces is the seemingly deluge of people who come up to replace slain terrorists. This to me has eerie similarities with the demon I talked about. And it seems like the west is trying to almost bleed the monster to death. to truly resolve the problem requires something other than war. Like Kali drinking the blood, the west needs to address the actual source of the problem. Though neither party may agree on the actual issues causing the conflict, it is obvious that a direct assault is futile, they simply have to resolve the underlying issues. And even though terrorists have done some very bad things, they have had some pretty bad things done to them and their families as well. So unless both sides come together and drink each drop of their sins, a solution is unlikely, and the future remains dark.

The men that shaped this world

When we usually talk about men who shaped this world, names like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and others are tossed about. I always feel that this is a slightly one sided view, as these are people who did good. You must also look at the other extreme, i.e. the accepted "bad" people. I quote from what Harry Potter, where Ollivander says about Voldemort, that "After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things. Terrible! Yes. But great".

In recent history(the past century I mean), none are remembered with as much hate as Adolf Hitler. The wounds of his deeds still have to heal completely. The second World War shaped this new world, and caused much of its problems as well. If it were not for the war, we may not have the current Palestine problem. After the war Britain decreed that Israel was the new home for all Jews, as it was a British controlled territory. The ensuing events displaced a lot of the existing residents and caused a catastrophic chain of events which is a big factor in the terrorism the world faces today. I leave the details of the events for historians, as they obviously are contentious.

Interestingly, most of the other problems, Hitler or the Nazis did not cause. The problems I refer to are the wars between split up nations that propped up after the war. World War II did made some very important changes to the power equation of the world. Europe, was destroyed by the war, and other countries largely weakened. Britain, which was the dominant power of the world before the war, was heavily in debt to America, which effectively was the arms supplier and financier for much of the war. Britain and other countries had taken large loans to finance their campaigns in the war, and most of these came from the USA. This made the dollar the dominant power, and Britain never recovered it position of power. Its weakness resulted in the freedom of most of the nations which were under its control. The interesting concept pioneered by the British, and much of the west, was divide and rule. The new countries mostly got freedom as 2 independent nations. Be it India and Pakistan, North and South Koreas, and Vietnam. These are the big examples of the wars that resulting from the partition of the nation. Vietnam did eventually unite, but the wars and hostilities between the other 2 pairs still continue and form a large part of the terrorism and arms race problems.

If I'm right, close to 6 million jews were killed at concentration camps. No one has as yet attempted an estimation of the number of people killed to date by the wars in the above cases and the Palestine, Israel struggle. If you calculate, you'll probably find the number is a lot more than the 6 million. So who's more evil, is upto you to decide. Just remember Winston Churchill's famous quote, "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it".

The things that ail the education system

Any Indian would be familiar with the pivotal exams of one's academic life, the boards, entrance exams, and seemingly to a lot of the press, DU entrance exams. Bear in mind, that I'm from the north so forgive me if I focus on the region's torture chambers. Students go through hell to try and succeed at these tests, and they tend to become the focus of one's life for long periods of time. I have myself gone through some of these trials by fire, and emerged, on the surface unscathed and relatively successful. And I believe, this gives me an authority to comment on these milestone in academic life. I'm personally not a fan of these tests, because, contrary to what u might believe, these tests are not always the best indicators of 'intelligence' and are not designed by hallowed individuals who can do no wrong. Actually, once you get to the higher echelons, u realise that these tests are simply a reflection of what the people at the top of academia, feel, is necessary to succeed at a something. And the execution of their best laid plans are never something to be proud of. Which is why I feel there's something wrong, because these exams tend to stratify all test takers into atleast 2 categories, our lauded winners, and the forgotten losers, and so it's essential to ensure that everything right, cause u're scarring a child for life here.

Just the other day, I was reading in the papers, an article about cracking the boards, quoting last year's topper, a girl who'd scored somewhere around 97%(that's crazy marks man!). She told her formula for success was mugging up the entire NCERT books word to word, and vomiting them on the paper. Now, in computer science, this phenomenon is called a linear file traversal, i.e. u store stuff in a file (like a web page) and simply get the section that matches the stuff u're looking for, and outputting everything around it. That's a simple picture of how search engines work. Hmmm, so our tests reward being a computerized search engine, so where's the test of excellence and intelligence? It would seem our educators are turning a generation into mugging machines. But saying so would be sacriledge, anyone would agree to that.

Turning to entrance exams, I gave the engineering ones. It's quite well known that IIT's are the most reliable way to increase the quantum of ur first paycheck, which is what drives the 'best' minds there(forgive the sarcasm). problem is, that's how most students perceive it as an option. 14 years of training about the importance of mugging, doesn't quite develop a great love for any subject. Coupled with the livelihood issue, this compells the students to choose by money. And after 4 years, they choose money again, in this case, the best paying jobs, who's title has recently been taken over by investment banks, where astronomical amounts are promised to the top performers. Now this, expectedly irks the faculty, as their efforts in teaching are seemingly pointless, if u're gonna leave the field anyways. And the answer to the question of how to encourage the children to stick on, still eludes all. The problem is, the government expects IIT's to feed the growing IT industry with new computer science graduates. Problem is, the industry does little to improve it's image to fresh graduates. The pay is meagre, the job description is quite dismal, there's none of the intellectually challenging work u'd expect. Instead, the people they expect are coders, quite simply, they don't quite need ur analytical ability. That's like a frill, but that's not what they're shopping for. Which is why they lobby for 'vocational' training, aka make them coders. Ministers, then push faculty to make children go to these companies. This, interestingly, has resulted in a practice in a few IITs that some of you might find shocking, others quite right. It is to restrict the internships(and even jobs in some cases) to indian locations only, that too in companies. Now people expect that this would encourage the students to join these companies. But, if u're read Freakonomics, u'll appreciate this. After these measures, I saw even less people going to the IT sector in India. People going abroad for further studies also decreased, because now students don't have the recommendations of people from abroad, and no research project experience.

Interesting hmm? things at the premier institutes are not as hallowed as one would imagine. but the source of the problem lies at the roots, not here. The problem is, while earning a livelihood is an issue, people will choose money over everything else. Another problem is that, most people don't know anything about the branches of engineering u offer, how in hell do u expect children to choose then??!! or even have a semblance of interest, when choices are made purely on the basis of rank. so getting into textile imprints that stamp of being in a not so good branch. That obviously will hinder any further development.

More importantly, our system places quite too much importance on mugging and pure hard work. Not that it's bad, but the crux of engineering is to develop new solutions, you remember einstein and newton, because they gave solutions that no one else saw, solutions so simple, yet powerful. which is why, i feel, creativity is also essential for being successful, and even at a younger age, students must be encouraged to think creatively. because making someone mug up 21 points about Raja Ram Mohan Roy's contribution to society will not enthuse him to the actual impact of his work, showing him the impact will. because eventually, Roy will mean 21 points to him, not his work. I do understand this is hard work, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to fix. People usually counter with, why don't u do something to fix it, but understand this, I can show you a mirror, I'm not a plastic surgeon.

The Gaussian paradox (?)

As computer science students, something that we encounter very often is the gaussian curve a.k.a. the normal distribution. The bell shaped curve fits the behaviour of most large scale phenomenon, including human behaviour, among other things. It says that out of some observations of something (anything measurable), most will near the average value, while only some will differ by a large amount. Laymen know this as the herd mentality, if we talk about people. The more interesting part is, that there is a small percentage will be far away from the mean, equal percentages towards the left and right ends of the scale. The paradox that I talk about, comes into being when you try to apply this to human intelligence. Now, what intelligence means is slightly controversial, but i'll stick to the usually accepted paradigm. What I intend to look at is people who we call 'geniuses' and 'luminaries' as compared to others who are deemed 'psychotic' and 'anti-social'. This is where the gaussian curve gets interesting. The simple fact is, the curve doesn't differentiate between + and - around the mean, it only cares about the magnitude of this deviation. It is we who assign the + and the -. This takes an interesting connotation to this question of accepted intelligence and socially acceptable behaviour. It is society that assigns the tag of good or bad. Keep this in mind that the currently acceptable norms of good or bad won't remain the same over time. A few hundred years ago, black slavery was acceptable to most white people, before the world wars, even Hitler wasn't considered evil. Even nowadays, every goverment doesn't call all dictators evil, even the torchbearers of democracy tend not to criticize certain absolutist regimes, while reserving their contempt for others. Which brings us back to our gaussian curve. As I said, it simply measures the magnitude of deviation, not the nature of the deviation. Problem is, that deviation can be of many types, and some are more visible than others. Over time, we have assigned different worth to different deviations, and even at any time, the measure is different for different people. Killing people is accepted for soldiers, whilst not for other people. Not that I support people killing each other, but the fact is that we overlook certain things based on certain justifications. A generalist decision on all such factors is impossible, and so pointless.

What I'm essentially trying to imply is that look at differences with a fair eye, without the views society puts on you. You never know how society might change tomorrow.

December 21, 2012

I was watching this program on the History Channel pertaining to another doomsday prediction. The expected date of the end of earth was put to the date in the title, December 21,2012.

The program then proceeded to give us the people over time that have independently made this prediction. Few specifically pointed to the date, but most pointed to the year. The people who said this? the maya(or mayans), merlin the magician(yup the arthur one), one prophet in one of the native american tribes, and one gentlemen who made his interpretation of the I-Ching, an old chinese book, that can answer questions.

If you wish to find out more, you only need search 2012 prophecy, or 2012 mayan prophecy and you'll find no dearth of resources on the topic. Now I'm a pretty big sceptic of these doomsday prohpecies and prophecies in general, but I do respect the maya. You may consider them barbarians who sacrificed people (they had a belief that the sun needed human blood to rise like we need food) and had weird rituals, but they were top of the line astronomers, atleast from what I know. They had a set of calenders, that can accuratelt predict solar eclipses and other celestial phenomenon highly accurately even today. The sad part it, most of their knowledge was destroyed by christian priests who considered it the work of the devil, and hence sacriledge. Hence precious little survives from their culture due to the exploits of Mr Cortez, the conquistador who was the first to invade these lands. Whether the maya calender actually says this or it is someone's speculative interpretation of their writings is something that is beyond me to check. But if they do actually say this, it would be worth the time. The calender predicts the alignment of the earth, sun and a black hole at the centre of the milky way in a single line, that is likely to predict the shifting of the earth's poles. If that seems far fetched to you, it's known to be a regular phenomenon in earth's life, and the next flip is way overdue, this much scientists do concede. Why that matters? simply because that field protects life on earth and prevents radiation from coming through, and instead form auroras, the beautiful lights. Without it, no life stands a chance of surviving, at least not the kind we belong to.

So people, mark the date on the calender! this is something that may happen during our lifetimes, and though statistics are against doomsday predictions coming true (we're still alive yet, aren't we?), it's always interesting to see whether this one does.

Naamkaran

It's interesting how we put in so much thought over names. Fact is that I used this name after spending 2 days unable to come up with a name for a blog that I liked and wasn't taken. On a different note, I was reading Freakonomics, and read this chapter on how names don't quite affect anything, they're merely a reflection of our selves, be it our children's names or our creations. Quite simply, this is what I felt after the effort spent in trying to come up with a decent name for a blog, and so I christened it with the name. Believe me, I even tried noname, :D , even that was taken!!

And in keeping with the spirit of the naming, I'd not like to disclose my name. But I believe, a little effort and brains will get u my name.

ps: Naamkaran means christening in Hindi, that's the first clue!