One or many?

We read so many glowing descriptions of China's investment and interest in Africa - they're building roads, bridges, buildings, ports; what couldnt be achieved in decades is being done in months. But if you ask people whove been to Africa, theres only one response - Dude, the Chinese so rule the place. They're just ripping it off all the resources, just like what happened to India. Roads and rails to transport raw material out, ports and freight to flood the market with Chinese goods, labor intensive work to serve as employment for the Chinese...its just like a remotely controlled SEZ!

Not that I really care about the debate but statements like China is or India is doing something are a bit sketchy, with all due respect to historians...

In Prey, one of my all-time favorite science fiction books, a cloud of nano particles that are actually independent seem co-ordinated simply because they emanate each other. 

Both are just herd-mentality right? Difference in the degree of externality aside of course...

Back to basics

They say history repeats itself. And my belief in the statement gets reinforced each time I see the so-called rich kids squandering money and doing nothing else. And I wonder when it will catch up with them and how many generations it'll take when they eventually fall back to being financially mediocre, even poor. Because thats what it takes to understand the value of something you dont have and work to earn it. And when someone comes along that conveniently inherits it, the cycle continues...

This post was actually inspired by the "alternative" lifestyle choices we make not realizing it was in fashion centuries ago!

If I ruled the world - Part I

So me decided to go on this deluded trip and pretend I am in charge of the world. To my surprise, I found that there are quite a few things I would like to change. I'll write them in parts to keep it simple.

Ive always wondered who on earth decided that for every 5 days we work, we should get 2 days off. And why do we follow it generation after generation without even thinking if it is a good idea? 

I get the logic for 24 hours in a day, we cant really help that, and even perhaps for 12 months in a year..But I dont get the 4 weeks in a month and 7 days to a week logic. Can someone tell me the reason? I recommend  that our week should have 6 days and we should have 5 weeks a month. It all works out the same. And it is neater because it fits better into the number of days in a month - because 6 * 5 = 30 days is a lot better than 7 * 4 = 28 days. Right?

Now for, every 4 days we work, we should have 2 days off. Its only common sense that we rest atleast half of the time we work. 

This way, we have 4 days * 5 weeks = 20 days a month of work.
And in the current system, we have 5 days * 4 weeks = 20 days a month of work.

Its the same see?..and definitely so if we were to argue on a minimum number of working days...and this way, our holidays are better-spaced and life will be easier....Nice na? So why dont we adopt this???

There are countries that have as little as 3 days in a week to as many as 20 days. But they are a depressingly small percentage of the world, which largely swears by the 7-day week with 5 working days and 2 holidays...well, not if I ruled :)

Types of poverty

I didnt know I was poor. Well, spiritually poor! You may be economically rich but your maid is socially richer because she has more friends and more goodwill.  Lack of fitness is physically poor.

And theres intellectually poor, emotionally poor, etc..Dont have a strong mind? Mentally poor, arent you? :) But the best Ive heard is if you are artificial, you are naturally poor.. :)

On a more serious note, I guess all of us are poor in one way or the other and thereby there is an equality of sorts prevailing....

Should be interesting to see what happens if these ideas become mainstream and translate into real gains. This kind of a leveler will  definitely lead to some well-deserving inverted-snobbery :)

Too bad we cant derive much mileage out of these though. Not yet, anyway...Whatever!!

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!

A Grassroots' View

Some pics I took in the field recently...

They seemed like a pair of  super-aggressive, persistent and really pesky kids who keep trying to ask you for stuff. But if you think about it, its really sad to see kids so small fighting so hard for everything when they should be playing around....

Unfortunately, I was given the un-accomplishable task of getting taluk maps from a local Government office. This office was a very huge building with lots of people but it had no windows, brick-thick dust lined the walls, did not have electricity, the officials used handfans if you please, 7'o'clock blades to tear papers and slide rulers to draw lines....The pic shows their neat and organised filing cabinet. 

Women going to work at a garment factory. If you read the reports on their working conditions, the indignity and hardships they endure is truly horrible. It also makes me very uncomfortable to see people herded in trucks like this. Dunno why...

Who needs that penthouse when you can live here :)

It was so hot that I couldnt even bear to stand there...But this is their life...day after day after day after day....

This man is 34 years old. He has not gone to school, he works as a wage labourer for 35 rupees a day. He lives off Govt schemes and says he cant remember when he last saw a 100 rupee note.

Tender coconuts the size of helmets :) 4 rupees each :)

A group of children waiting at a Govt school for their "mid-day meal". The food they serve is half cooked and the rice is full of stones. But still, kids fight over their share for it.

This kid doesnt mind working while her friends play. She makes 150 rupees a month, washing vessels.

Mind-boggling superstition. Your caste is your identity. The "difference" between the two dominant castes in this village was that one did not wear a nose-ring because decades ago, when someone went to get a nose-ring for a person from the other caste, he did not return. The two sects have been at logger-heads ever since and are bitter enemies.

 

Every morning, women queue up to take water from the  pipe which is there only for 3 hours in a day. Each family is allowed to take only two pots.

Ragi roti and chutney :) The famous staple food...Impossible to eat, atleast for me. Half the pic was lost but you get the idea?

Why on earth does man do this???

I want to live here :(...fix a tyre on this tree and swing away to glory :(.be lost to the world :(

Well, these were just a few things that caught my eye but I really wished I could capture and freeze every little detail. Because, you know what - its actually true... India really lives in her villages !

Is everything ok?

On a sleepy sunday afternoon last weekend, as I lay reading, I decided to ....you wont believe it...meditate...

Now call it wishful thinking or whatever, but I did...and heres where it took me....

As I closed my eyes, I became aware of the noise of the traffic, a TV blaring in someone's house and the  peaceful breathing of my Grandma, who was also sleeping in the room...

Me: Oh no, how can you meditate in all this noise?

Me: Hey it is ok, soon it wont bother you, you wont even hear it...

Me: Thats rubbish... noise is not ok because with it, you'll never get to the stage where you cant hear it...

Me: You dope, don't make excuses, you know its ok...

Me: Oh? Anything is ok is it?

Me: Everything is ok

Me: Everything is ok?

Me: Everything is ok....

Me: Everything is ok....

Me: Is "Everything is ok" ok?

Me: Is "Is "everything is ok" ok" ok?

Yes, because everything is ok, remember? Alert readers will spot that although the second question is not answered, the argument is totally circular and it gets bigger and bigger. If you code this line of  thought into a C program or something, you will get a sort of an increasing spiral......try it and see...some meditation it was!!!

Takes you to dizzy heights before you snap out of it.....

Oh..and the noise...totally forgotten....

The objective craze

Ok, maybe this is totally crazy, but I think that we are all slaves of objectivity in one sense or the other. Oh, and I  also believe that subjective is NOT the "opposite" of objective - merely the absence of one does not mean the other. Now what does objective mean? In layman's terms, it refers to being able to put a value to or measure or assess something  in concrete terms and will take the same value irrespective of who is estimating (the extent of)  it. In philosophical terms, it is mind-independent.

Well all this is fine (the scientific method and all), but I have begun to believe that we need numbers (the most popular manifestation of objectivity) to believe something. To give an example, "hot" does not  really mean anything without how hot. The same applies to almost all things - global warming, traffic, wildlife, light, sound, colors  intelligence, emotions (EQ and what not), even success - and we have defined indicators to measure processes like evolution - hey, we even have a Happiness Index now :) We are well on our way to putting a value on most things.

Some things are however left untouched fortunately - for instance, we still believe that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder - we havent yet formed a standard for how beautiful something or someone is. But we're slowly getting there, even though its fragmented by tastes (stuff like the stupid "fairness meter" that we see these days).

I am not sure what the dangers are in this system of thought, since we live by and take most decisions by it. We do know and acknowledge that the world is not ruled by numbers in all cases - the simplest example being that often simple geometry can capture things that numbers cannot. 

The point I am making is not about numbers actually. It is about neatly classifying everything into boxes and gradients. Thinking "out of the box" also ends up being back in some other box, since its only about box within boxes :)

When bad is good

"You will also be given a 'third world country hardship allowance' of $5,000 a year for any inconvenience you may face or because the location of overseas employment is considered less than desirable".

I guess this is pretty derogatory. Or its just the term that is offensive and not the concept? It used to be LDC - Less Developed Countries, then because that was too offensive, HRRC - Human Resource Rich Countries (read: grossly over populated and begging for money), then Developing Countries aka Third World...by the way, why the hell Third and not Second World? What is the Second World anyways?

I always wonder of the impact (if any) of these brackets and labels on these countries. Sure there is some, like the influence on investors and policy-makers at the very least. But I would like to know what impact there is internally? It is India's dream to join the G7 I guess , even if it gets nothing out of it. Just to be able to say you belong to the G7 is good enough maybe , just like the Presidential post.

I can think of enough instances where people, states even countries preserve their "less than desirable" status because it suits them. Like a person refusing to give up his BPL (below poverty line) card to continue qualifying for Government schemes, or a BIMARU state refusing to develop to continue receiving generous grants and tax breaks.

Seems like everyone gets a good ride on this gravy train. The donors and funders live on a subsidised ego trip thinking they are God's gift to humankind (social goals and what not) and the subjects laugh behind their backs beating the system by turning the ostensible "discrimination" to their benefit...a good win-win situation there !!!

All thats well ends well, I guess.

The not so vast debatabase....

Well, you could say I was totally jobless at 4.30 am in Thanjavur railway station waiting for someone who was supposed to arrive at 7. So for two hours or so this morning I didn't know what to do with myself...Amidst the stares (its actually more pronounced in Tamil Nadu, that is a proven fact now), I decided to be the Devil's advocate for everything I wouldve died defending otherwise...yes, I know there are better ways to kill time...Anyways, after musing for a while, I more or less concluded the following...

Apart from factual/ existential debates, everything else we opine on comes under one of these 2 categories :

1. Whether something ought to be/ have been done and in this/ that way.
2. Who ought to do it/ not do it.

Really, I couldn't find a third...I somehow see a distinction between black-white, on-off, true-false etc and the categories above...I feel it is a subset of the on-off but a super-set of the spirit of the actual debates. Please let me know if you have any that does not fit in...Try it, pick a topic and see. Moreover, all questions more or less agree with any one side of the should be/ should not be controlled frame also. But I haven't thought this one through though...2 hours was not enough you see :)

If you are wondering why this exercise, well...this may sound vague, but I have always wondered (in the biggest possible scheme of things) if everything is same or not, in the sense of belonging to some kind of unifying equation at different levels...I am not really able to articulate what I mean to say coherently, so I will leave it for now....

As I see it

The play of perspectives !!!

Flatland - No bird's eye view!

Take a good look before you comment :)

Details - God or the Devil ???

I urge anyone who subscribes to the good ol God is in the details or the more cautious Devil is in the details to re-consider the "details" part and why we think it is always needed. Step back and look at it and you will wonder if the details themselves translate into God or the Devil, constructive or destructive, good or bad, friend or foe.....This argument can be extended to almost anything which would then lead us to wonder whether somethings are more beautiful when not completely known.