Just dropping in

Well, Ive been keeping myself busy enough over the past week and generally staying out of trouble, although sometimes I have this crazy urge to tempt fate ...the last few months were wonderfully numb, and now its high on emotions....what with this terrible sense of restlessness that I just cant shake off...

You know, a friend of mine recently submitted this blog for review and the reviewers said that it seemed as if a different person had written each post...isnt that funny?? :)  I would never have thought so...They also said that my blog needs a consistent personality and that they were not able to tag it...well, what do I say to that?? : )

But you know, maybe I should think about what they said...and its true that off-late I feel the lack of an anchor very keenly....seriously....and people are so grounded in reality...they find comfort in their routines and everything matters to them....sometimes a part of me wishes I was like them...and  sometimes I hope I never ever become like them....see, even my outlook is not consistent :(

I dont know what I am waiting for really....these small occasional surges of hope that everything will miraculously fall in place....but they wont no? Things will never get alright, will they??? Its like the seasons of the year...you live through each and they are different and so you dont feel the monotony..but thats just a sham cos its repetitive... and therefore Ive come to conclude that we are a very optimistic species :)

And I really dont like being made to feel like I have choices when I dont, if you get my drift....thats the only lesson Ive really learnt so far...and it applies to all of us...think about it...the shallower the waters you test, the less evident it will be to you...Huh!! So much for optimism !!!

Anyways, most of this is rhetoric and its not even fair that I waste blogspace on all this...esp on New Years Eve and all that....if I cant write peppy posts, the least I can do is to not descend gloom on you right ? :)

So I better sign off here...
Happy New Year!!

What should I say?

Theres this oft-quoted saying - If a diplomat says yes he means maybe, if he says maybe he means no and if he says no, he is not a diplomat.  

I think diplomacy is not for everyone simply because it doesn't work if it  is not natural. Often, people in their effort to be politically correct end up sounding weak-minded  and cowardly or worse, opinion-less. Instead of coming across as discreet, they come across as wimps, if you will pardon the expression.

On the other hand, there are lots of people who are forthright and blunt but manage to remain non-contravertial and retain confidences. This too is a skill and can go horribly wrong if you don't do it right. Personally, I dont trust people who are needlessly free with information nor do I consider what they say credible. They may be only being open or frank or whatever but they run the risk of sounding indiscreet (or blabber-mouths, like we would say in school) and therefore not trust-worthy.

Then there is this third, very tempting option - to say something but say nothing. If you observe the people around you, you'll be surprised to see how many people practise this, though they have different ways of doing it. Some resort to absolute non-responses like - are you sure?. Some choose to answer questions with a question, a tactic that works very well. Yet others use placebo words to soften the blow.

Its up to you to find the Golden Mean in all this.

You must be thinking - huh, why this exercise? Lets just be our natural selves. Yes, I wouldve agreed with you around two months back. But now, thanks to the lawyer episode, I am just a little wiser and I thought I must share this...

But personally, from having very little to say to anyone and not really caring to respond, I totally advocate Omerta!

Sweet Nothings!

Sometimes you feel there like you can never be happy the way you were...it happens...though I am not sure if to everyone...and the small hopes that surface once in a while get squashed quickly....I really dont know how to combat this...because even while doing the happiest of things, there is this cloud of sadness...

The only thing I can think of is to not let it stop you from doing the things you love...the small things that  once gave you joy...even if they dont anymore, and hope for the best....

Ive been living  this thought all week and I went ahead and did these things in spite of how I felt...

* I had ragi and sugarcane juice from a mobile food van for fifteen rupees..
* I made maggi with cheese and ate it over coffee and stories with my favorite aunt...

* Bought myself a whole lot of colored glass bangles from a pushcart vendor.

* Laughed to Calvin & Hobbes with a friend, eating mangoes with salt.

* Played cricket with kids on the road..

* Went for lovely Italian dinner with three of my friends and had loadsa cheese and wine and took lots of pics..

* Ate oranges in the sun while watching the traffic from the terrace, all by myself....

* Got drenched in the rain

* Went out for ice-cream with cousins

* Slept under the stars after a long time...

And I feel a lot lot better!

The 65th

I cant believe it is my 65th post....somehow 65 seems bigger than  even a 100..and I cant believe I lasted this long...

To write more of what matters to you or to write more of  what will be useful to others also? Thats a tough choice.

The lost wonders

I am not very well-traveled and thats something that really has to change. So a resolution I made (which I know I'll stick to simply because its so much fun) is to take a foreign holiday every year. Now I know what to save up for!! And the family trip next year to the Lasa Mountains has been on the cards for a long time now so hopefully it should materialise...I was thinking today where to go after that....whats the harm in a little wishful thinking? :)

My colleague once told me - you are a pro-UFO person. Well, yes!!! I most certainly am and I totally heart pro-UFO people. I firmly and sincerely believe that civilizations superior to ours must exist somewhere in the Universe simply because its very complacent to assume that they dont.

I vaguely knew that there is a whole lot of evidence that suggests this in South America, which is why I wanted to go there next. So today I spent a lot of time reading up on it. And I was totally unprepared for some of the astounding facts I found. The probable implications are impossible for me to contemplate which is why I felt I MUST share and hence this post....

We have all wondered whatever possessed the pre-Incan people to build the Nazca Lines, or how was it possible that a hundreds-of-years-old calendar having equinoxes, astronomical seasons and even the positions of the Moon for every hour was found in a mud pit in Tiahuanaco?

But check out this drawing on a cliff at the Bay of Pisco, hundreds of years old.. It is the drawing of an 820 foot high stone sign which is there on the Red Cliffs...You tell me, is it not madness on their part to build something like this? Assuming they did not have the modern machinery we have, it wouldve taken decades, if not more!! Why is it there?? What does it mean? It has a long rope in the centre which serves as a pendulum...it is a sign-post..but for whom??? Who on Earth needed an 820 foot long signpost at that age???

Then theres the Great Idol which I CANT die without seeing. The symbols on it  record the state of the Heavens some 27,000 years ago and is a sort of  a knowledge base for future generations. And its still not clear if it was devised by men on Earth or handed to them from....I dunno...Anyhow, disregarding the superb precision of its symbols or its construction and the quality of the sandstone  which must have been inconceivable during that time, it contains a huge mass of astronomical knowledge, which were indeed based on a round Earth and differs from the present day estimates by 0.4 seconds....it even conforms to the Theory of Satellites published in 1927, five years before the idol was discovered....alright, but 27000 years????

Then there is the Gate of the Sun....the weight of this single piece of masonry is something like 10 tons. How did they even build it at that time? It depicts a flying God. It talks of a golden spaceship and in it came a woman  who said she was the Great Mother of Earth, she had four webbed fingers, and she returned to space. Could this have happened? Why not?? We will also seem like Gods with amazing powers and abilities to a civilization which has just begun...

In the city of Sacsahahuaman, we have a rock that  is thousands of years old...and is something like 20,000 tonnes standing on its head....it has been quarried and transported...with rock vitrification possible only at the highest temperatures...HOW did they manage that???? and in it are inscribed calculations which if we convert to our notation is 195955200000000...a 15 digit number...well, the Greeks never rose beyond 10,000 even in the best of their times..

I could go on and on but I wont, mostly because its too tedious to type all this...but I simply cant wait to visit all these places with their fascinating histories...the expenses might get prohibitive since some of these cant be reached even by road.. but it'll be a tragedy if we dont see all this no??.....

Talk about lost worlds!....and yes, I am more pro-UFO than ever today :P

Financial help - need vs want

An email I received in response to an article I wrote: 

Hi 
I have built delinquency models for a leading bank in the sub-prime market. I was really shocked about the high interest rates and the profits generated in the sub-prime market. This was before it collapsed.

Your article "Micro-credit Bubble?" of August 2009 makes interesting reading.

I am one of the many Indians “doing well” in Canada. Today, my house value is $500K. In 5 years it grew from $350K. My wife and I have two cars and an outstanding mortgage of $200K and a car loan of $10K.

In reality if I look back, I have been brain washed to: 

1. Have a good house, all appliances, latest gadgets, cars and keep increasing my wealth.

2. On getting a good job, I was brain washed to buy a house and build equity. The price of the first house was $200K, which was more that what its actual economic price must be. Having a good job and good credit score never made me think it was highly priced. The first time I learnt about high price was recently – when the housing market collapsed in the US.  Housing prices kept on rising and within 5 years of buying my first home, its market price was $280K. At the same time, my salary and my wife’s salary had grown but not at 40% over 5 years.

3. I and my wife were made to feel we could go for a house worth $350K. We sold our first house bought the second at $350K and new furniture and new appliances. Now 5 years later it is $500K

What did I achieve? 

1. A significant portion of my earnings have gone to repay interests on mortgages and house taxes and insurances.  My real purpose of earning was not for paying mortgages and house taxes. 

2. I have a loan of $210K. I had no loans when I stepped into Canada.

3. We have a very luxurious house. I and my wife come from very simple families. We now feel all this is a waste. It does not serve any economic purpose. We are stuck in the system. In reality we do not have economic freedom.

4. The market price of my house is $500K when its economic value is around $200K or less.

I see "economic growth" in India or is it an opportunity for the rich to become richer? I have been talking to those “benefited” by financial help. Unknown to the person who earns and pays his or her loans - there are many in the system who keep on "benefiting" by this financial help. These FI’s keep on making people go into higher and higher loans every time they clear their earlier loans. The interest rates in India are much more than in Canada. Anyone like me can borrow at 3.25% or less and give at 12.5% or more as a micro-finance loan. In the process, rather than helping the needy, the MFI is helping the rich become richer.

I want you to think about it. Build economic values and not capitalistic values. Ensure the women who the targets of MFIs, do not end up financially exploited by MFIs.  Reduce greed.

I look forward to your views.

A visit of sorts - nD musings

It will take around 14,000 million years to travel to the edge of the observable Universe, even if we travel at the speed of light. 

The operative word here is observable. This fact never ceases to astound me. How distressingly small are we! It is as if the Universe and its existence is this wondrous machine and we on Earth have access to one tiny part of it. And with our limited resources and our exposure to that tiny part, we are trying to fathom how the entire machine works...

This may never happen because we are limited by our abilities. For example, we know that some animals and birds can see colors that we can’t see or hear sounds that we can’t hear. There may be countless other such things  we may never know of. So how can we understand something if we are not aware that it is there?

Moreover, we are limited to a mere three dimensions (apart from time) while the Superstring Theory accurately predicts ten dimensions of space and time in existence. Think of the huge limitations we face because of this!

Just as an example of what we might be missing, imagine a 2D world like a sheet of paper. Take a look at this picture I’ve painstakingly drawn. Person A (the one with a red left arm and a green right arm ) can never assume the position of person B (arm color reversed) in a 2D scenario simply because there is no height or rather the space to make the transition. Left and right cannot be interchaged on a 2D surface. But we in 3D can lift him up, simply flip him over and he can be converted to person B. So what seems impossible in a 2D world is easy in 3D.

Interestingly, A can be converted to B if he moves on a Mobius Strip (see pic). Just take a strip of paper, twist it in the center and join the edges. So if A moves along the surface of the strip, even in a 2D world, he can flip over. So it is possible, after all...Wouldnt it be awesome if we too had something like this? Ive racked my brains enough to come up with a possible counterpart in 3D, but no avail. If you have any ideas, please tell me.

Imagine the miracles we can perform if we had access to just another dimension. But unfortunately, we can’t even imagine it :( Access to a fourth dimension would definitely give us God-like powers. For instance, we can walk out of closed doors, pass right through objects, see everything that happens on the Earth at any given moment, etc. To understand this, once again consider a person who is in prison in a 2D world (see pic). So for him to get out, the circle around him should be broken. But we in 3D can lift him out; wont it seem miraculous to the other people in 2D that he got out without breaking the circle? So think of similar miracles someone in a higher dimension can perform on us?

Ive thought a lot about this. Its very unsettling. The possibilities are unending. Think about this – we believe that our Earth is rotating and revolving around the Sun. What if someone from a higher dimension who can see it from outside in its entirety tells us that the Earth is actually stationary and it is everything else that is moving? Yeah, I know this is far-fetched :) But really, what if all our beliefs are false?

That’s anyways happening now - Space is flat is turning out to be a baseless assumption – we now find it more likely to be curved. Moreover, the shortest distance between two points need not be a straight line. It could be an interstellar chasm. Oh, the possibilities….

Anyhow, the laws of nature formulated on Earth seem counter-intuitive since they are fragmented and disparate, almost inelegant I would say. And by saying this, I mean absolutely no disrespect to all the brilliant theoretical physicists who spent their lives discovering and formulating them. All I am saying is that it seems as if they are the parts of a jigsaw puzzle which even after pieced together completely makes no sense. And that’s supposed to be the beauty of the fourth dimension - the laws have “space” to fit there and that one glorifying equation can emerge.

But speaking of nature, I think man is unnatural. This is my personal opinion – because as we know, nature always abhors a gradient but man totally thrives on it.

Tell it like it is

Make believe you're brave and the trick will take you far...
You may be as brave as you make believe you are...

These lines from the King & I sure have replaced counting sheep these days.....

Who will guard the guards?

News comes to us in fragments. Scandals, accidents, allegations, verdicts - we rarely connect the dots and see the power-play involved in what seem like isolated incidents stretched over many years. More so because we are so totally removed from it and dont have any stake in it. They are after all, stories of  "other people".

This is the story of a family friend, which I learnt just yesterday. I had no idea whatsoever, and it left me shaken to the bone. Here is the gist, without too many details.

Building a medical institute from scratch is no easy play - the licenses, the paperwork, the permissions, the bureaucracy, the brown envelopes, the marketing, building the competencies and facilities, the investments, the risks - many a time people give up because it doesn't seem worth all the trouble. But this gentleman was not one of those - he persisted and succeeded in building  what went on to become one of the  biggest and most well-reputed medical institutes in India.

Once it was established and started earning good repute, he got a call from a  Union Minister asking him to resign from the institute. The Minister wanted to gift his son-in-law the Directorship of the institute. This gentleman (lets call him SJ) refused. But not wanting to earn the wrath of the political party in power, he agreed to have the son-in-law co-appointed as the Joint Managing Director.

They didn't agree to this compromise. SJ had the patronage of the Chief Minister in the state (from a different political party, of course) which protected him from life threats and so he was able to continue  without any problems for a while. But then, the Union Minister and his party hacks decided to discredit SJ and filed a false case on  him, accusing him of fraud. They created dummy witnesses and bogus evidences. But still, he refused to resign from his post.

In the meanwhile, the Chief Minister changed because his party lost power in the state. Now, there was no hope for any help from them. But SJ and his family fought till the last - they lost their assets, their house, their land in their effort to save their own repute and that of their institute. They fought for seven long years. The case went up to the Supreme Court and finally, the verdict came in their favor...all their struggle had paid off....

The very next day, there was yet another false case filed on him. He resigned immediately.