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Musings
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "cakeofsoap" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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01:29 pm
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Information and knowledge
Parijat Garg, recently wrote an interesting piece about the need for information consolidation, that I thought merits a response through an independent blog. Parijat observes that we, as the human race, have over the last two centuries generated a lot of "knowledge". In fact the "knowledge" is in such copious amounts that its very volume is proving to be a challenge in its assimilation by us and in the development of further knowledge. He also points out that while innovation is remembered and recognized by the world, those who seek to organize the knowledge get very little appreciation. And he asks,"Does nobody feel this is inadequate. Does nobody feel we would do well to at least consolidate the ideas and the knowledge we have generated so far".
Fair question. But one needs to be more careful in analyzing this. Firstly, I think Parijat is confusing information with knowledge (and also knowledge with wisdom). Let me first clarify the difference between these. Data, trivia, information, knowledge and wisdom all differ from each other in how organized they are and what their applicability is. At the lowest level, in the least organized form, we have mere data: a collection of facts and records that are possibly isolated. Of these some are the kind that would be seen as interesting or startling, even if they are not accompanied by too much contextual information. These are trivia. Information is interrelated data that is organized in an intelligible way. The inferences drawn from this information form knowledge. Thus knowledge is the essence of information, it is what we extract from information. What one gains as an essence of all of one's knowledge, is wisdom.
As an example, I will use a proverb I had read somewhere. That a tomato is red and edible is data. That its consumption reduces blood pressure (say) is trivia. That it has seeds in it, that it grows on a wine, contains certain types of vitamins etc is all information. What we deduce from this information, by means of classification into categories that we have created, would be knowledge. So, that tomato is a fruit, is knowledge. Finally, that tomato should not be used in fruit salad along with other fruits, is wisdom.
As you can see in the example above, the boundaries between information and knowledge are rather thin. That tomato has vitamin C (say) could be information to some, and knowledge to some. Some distinctions between knowledge and information are induced by context. But with the availability of other information, knowledge also devolves and accumulates as information. The story of humankind's attempts to understand the world around it has been that of successively extracting knowledge from information and then extracting even more knowledge from the old knowledge, by treating the old knowledge as information. With evolution, we have replaced the information of our times with the knowledge that we have gained and left that knowledge and the wisdom we have gained from it, for posterity.
Coming to what Parijat is saying, I am not sure if are producing more information today than we were at any previous time of our history. That water washes dirt, that a potato if cooked and eaten tastes better than a raw one, was all information generated at some point in our evolutionary history. I think humankind has always generated tons of information simply because we are curious creatures. But looking back, all that we, as a current generation, see handed down to us, is knowledge and wisdom, which seems to be in smaller amounts than the information we produce today. I think this creates an illusion that we are creating more information today than ever before.
We are, though, more conscious of the fact that we are generating information. Consequently we have developed methods of storing it. Thus storing information has become institutionalized, information has become a commodity and information generation and dissemination has a more formal recognition as an profession in today's society. While this is happening, I believe that we, as humankind, are still not completely conscious of the fact that we are essentially attempting to extract knowledge from the information. Universally speaking (I am not talking of exceptional cases where we award knowledge creation for its own sake), we are still rewarding knowledge creation because it alleviates our need to store or assimilate more information, not because we are as a species convinced that knowledge creation is itself our pursuit.
So Parijat, as a part of consolidation of information, storage of information in a convenient way is already happening. But a more thorough consolidation into a form of knowledge, yes, is not happening.
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02:27 pm
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Sach ka saamna
I am blogging after a long time which indicates that I have been strongly compelled to do so. There was furore in the Rajya Sabha recently over the new show "Sach ka Saamna". The professed intention of the show (as per the statement of Siddarth Basu during a debate on IBNLive) was to provide a platform for discussing contentious issues. The MPs held that the show as a whole is against Indian culture and is detrimental to the social fabric of the country. A controversy such as this makes for a potent subject for clear analysis, and a bait tempting enough to make me blog again.
The question that I am writing about is not of whether the show will damage Indian culture or whether it should be banned on this ground or any other. What I am writing about is that the show is inherently unfair and often does not seek truth at all.
The eloquent and articulate Santosh Desai, in his superb article has raised a similar concern. Very expertly he notes that the show does not seek truth in general as the show's professed intentions suggest, but only seeks that truth which is scandalous. I do not understand why scandalous or shocking truth should be any truer than other truths which are more commonplace. Hence I don't believe, that by exclusively seeking shocking truths the show is leading us to any greater truth than we would be in a more balanced pursuit. This leads me to believe that the show is in fact hiding behind the noble facade of seeking truth, while its real quest is for voyeurism.
Even if the intentions and motivations behind the show are of dubious nobility, they do not make the show unfair. What makes the show unfair, is its format. The questions asked are required to be answered with either a Yes or a No. In the domain of human relationships and experiences only the most trivial and universal questions or questions that purely factual can be answered with merely a Yes or No. Questions that are interpersonal or deal with opinions and feelings are either too complex or too ambiguous to be answered in this manner. The show, by permitting only such binary answers forces an oversimplification of the question and its context on the part of the contestant and by the contestant's family. As an example, a contestant was asked "Do you believe your sister has not brought up her children well?". The ideal answer to this question would be "depends on the context. In some aspects she has, in some other she has not", for clearly, there are multiple attributes to upbringing. But forcing the contestant to provide either a yes or no as an answer makes the contestant combine all of his experiences from disparate contexts to develop one opinion on this matter. The logic for this combination differs from person to person and hence results in a difference of opinion. The show then preys on this difference of opinion and makes it into a spectacle.
The show by virtue of its format deliberately obfuscates and trivializes the truth and gives it the character of gossip. So not only does it seek only scandalous truths, it seeks them in a distorted, mutilated form. A fairer show would have questions that are unambiguously worded and elaborately explained and would allow the contestant more freedom to articulate his answers. While this show does provide the contestant occasional opportunities to offer explanations for his answers, these explanations are hardly given the same importance as the "yes or no" answer itself. Of course, a show that would be fair in the way I suggest would not be an exciting game show, but a dreary discussion. Such a show would lose its audience, but would nevertheless realize the ludicrous intentions of Siddarth Basu!
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10:55 pm
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Baffling...
I have been struggling to understand the overflowing sympathy that has the Times of India has been carrying for convicts of the Mumbai bomb blasts case. I read the TOI everyday and with even more care now, with the bomb blast case getting attention. With every passing day and every falling head, the kind of pictures TOI chooses to carry is baffling. I did not expect pictures of joyous celebration or images of policemen and blast victims going "hurray!" about a convict getting capital punishment, but the last thing I expected were maudlin pictures of relatives waving goodbye to a death-sentenced-criminal and family and friends in tears at their "loved one" being hanged. I understand and accept that death sentence is a solemn, perhaps tragic moment. But losing the bigger, positive picture of that of justice being done in a telling way, embodies in many ways the minds of our people and media work in our country.
Let me take a sharp opposite example -- when Saddam Hussain is hanged, the US media projects it as a national victory. While there exist people grieved by Saddam's death in Iraq, the media doesn't go on a sympathy trip for them. Why? (I am not for a moment implying that hanging Saddam was justified or that the US was in rights to attack Iraq). You may say the media everywhere looks for drama. True. Well then why this difference of perspective? Why does the US media choose to project a positive side of things and TOI, IE all project a negative side?
Cynicism towards anything that goes right in our country and depreciation of our own greatness is set not just in our media, but in the Indian psyche. We do it every single time: when the country grows at 10% we crib about inflation; the media never announces the completion of a new flyover, but it points out the first pothole of the season; when the LCA shocks the US at airshows, we crib that it took 20 years to build (imagine the genius of the men that envision such a superlative aircraft 20 years ahead of its time!); we deify the US and hunt for US-returned son-in-laws so much that we undervalue our own IIT Mtech programmes; we are depressed when Lagaan didnt win the Oscar, but never would be go ga-ga about our homegrown, humble yet remarkably beautiful film Shwaas! The Indian always shows a refusal to rationally assess his own value and accept his worth. This became even more obvious when I came to the US: every Tom Dick and Harry registers 4th of July conspicuously in his mind, but doesn't even realize it when 15th August goes by; every TD&H will struggle and acquaint himself with the minutest of details about US freeways, but will never have the same interest in knowing the major stations that dot the Central Railway from Mumbai to Bhusaval, even though both acts are equally dull and brainless; every TD&H will know all sorts of random stats about Sears Towers, but will perhaps hear of Hampi, Belur and Tanjavur from some American first. A few days ago I was talking to mother about possibly buying a pair of dark lenses that would fit on my regular glasses so as to serve as sunglasses. My mother was surprised that something like this is available in the US. I was nonchalant, and said "I am sure we get those in India too!". But she insisted, "No... I doubt if we would get something so advanced in India". This exhasperates me! That lens is nothing advanced. Yet simply because we don't see it commonly in India, we perceive it to be so superior that it would be beyond our humble reach. Somehow the Indian mind perceives anything "US" with an amplified, almost servile awe that is difficult to explain rationally.
Clubbed together with this cynicism is also a complete misplacement of values. I am amazed by the amount of public sympathy that is following Sanjay Dutt. Some wise guy I know posted this nonsense. In encourage you to read it. Public responses on TOI's website are equally funny. Most people seem to think the judgment is "harsh". Reasons -- "he has changed", "mistake was made long ago", "he was not directly involved in the blasts". Let me take them apart one by one.
1. For those who think "he has changed", one simple thought: having acted in a Gandhigiri film doesn't make him a follower/preacher/encourager/supporter of Gandhigiri. By the same token, he has also played several roles of a hideous gangster -- that should make you deduce that he is a gangster! :) To claim that he has changed, it is necessary to know him personally over the last 14 years.
2. "Mistake was made long ago" , yes true. All those convicted in this case made a mistake long ago. The antiquity of an error does not make it less punishable. That his judgment has come 14 years after the act is contributed only partially by the operational problems in our judicial system. Sanjay has been out on bail since 1995. Had he completed his term then, the way Yakub etal have been in, he wouldn't have had to get in now. To apply for bail and make frivolous appeals to prolong the case, was HIS choice.
3. "Not directly involved": But he wasn't punished for the blasts! He wasn't blamed for them either. He was punished for possessing arms illegally. No wonder his punishment came after the rest of the bombing gang. Also, ask yourself this question -- Suppose there is a man, whom you DONT know personally, just some random chap. Now suppose he has had a history of drugs, affairs, divorce, underworld contacts. Would you trust such a man with an AK-56 gun, especially one procured illegally from underworld goons? Would you not fear that this man could cause destruction and use the gun irresponsibly? The punishment for illegally possessing arms is for this POTENTIAL danger to society. That the arms were never used is irrelevant. If they were used, that would amount to even more punishment.
Finally, amidst all this "taking apart", there are 2 men who deserve loads of praise. Judge Kode, the first. I dont have the capacity to assess if his judgments and sentences were perfect, but I admired the statements he made. He said to Sanjay, what a lawmaker would say to any other talented boy who had lost his way. He gave him a stiff punishment, but told him to have faith in himself that he would come out better and stronger. It wonderful and admirable that while in the halo of Sanjay Dutt's star image all of us lose sight of the fact that he is a criminal, the judge puts Sanjay's acting skills and star image in right perspective and gives it only as much importance as it should deserve.
The second man, Zaheer Khan. If the jellybeans incident indeed spurred him on, I admire him. For here is a man who took no abuse or insults from the west, looked at them eye to eye without any shame or awe, competed hard and showed them their place. Fair and square.
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06:37 pm
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Game Theory and the BMW case
I was away from Bombay for 5 days hoping to escape from the heat, on a family vacation to Pachmarhi in MP (will post some amazing pics later). It turned out, much to my disappointment that Pachmarhi is actually a rather lousy place with very ordinary tourist attractions, and has more heat than Bombay!
I happened to follow the very interesting (and ofcourse appalling) BMW case on television. For the uninitiated this is the story in short. In Delhi, 1999, 6 people sleeping on a footpath were run over by a black BMW allegedly driven by Sanjeev Nanda, the son of a rich arms dealer. Of the 4 witnesses to the case, 3 turned hostile over time. There remained just this one man Sunil Kulkarni, a businessman from Bombay, who was the only eye witness still standing tall. Reputed criminal lawyer R K Anand is fighting the case for the Nanda's, whom the public believes to be guilty. Another reputed lawyer I U Khan is the public prosecutor, fighting the case for the Delhi police. It seemed likely that if Sunil Kulkarni's statement is recorded and taken cognizance of by the court, there is a good chance that the Nandas will lose.
With this, what changed was that NDTV came up with hidden camera recordings taken by Sunil Kulkarni himself, which revealed that Anand and Khan were in fact colluding. They had apparently asked Kulkarni to ask the Nandas for Rs 5 crore in bribe (which will get split between Anand, Khan and Kulkarni) in exchange for Kulkarni not recording his statement. The fact that money was discussed, and that the 2 lawyers who were supposed to be against each other, were in fact cooperating is clear from the tapes.
With little better on my mind, I took to analyze it from a game theoretic perspective. The question that was making me restless was this: Suppose we accept that greed for money is all that drives these two lawyers. Why is it that they necessarily profit from cooperating than from competing? Take for eg - while the market for coffee is enormous, CCD and Barrista dont cooperate. They rather compete. I tried to think of why the same doesnt happen between these lawyers. Of course one cant draw parallels between CCD-Barrista and Anand-Khan. But the question still remains- Under what condition would these lawyers gain more from competing, rather than cooperating? And can I come up with a system where this happens?
Here is my solution:
Denote CL: Criminal Lawyer, PP: public prosecutor.
The PP has 2 strategies: "SK" (sunil kulkarni), and "notSK". Let CL have 2 strategies: "strong" and "weak".
4 possible strategy combinations can arise out of this game. (SK, strong), (SK, weak), (notSK,strong), (notSK,weak).
We now need to define a payoff structure for the 2 lawyers. If PP loses the case, he gets a salary "salPP". But if he wins, he also gets an incentive, making his total earnings = salPP + incPP.
If CL loses the case, he gets his salary, but also suffers defamation because of his high profile position. Suppose he puts a price "defCL" on this defamation. If he wins the case, suppose he gets a reward from the Nandas = "rewCL".
Let us write out the payoffs for the 2 lawyers in each of the 4 strategy combinations.
(SK,strong). With these strategies, suppose m is the probability that PP wins the suit.
PP: (salPP + incPP)*m + salPP*(1-m) = salPP + incPP*m
CL: (salCL - defCL)*m + (salCL + rewCL)*(1-m) = salCL - defCL*m + rewCL*(1-m)
(notSK,strong). In this case PP definitely loses the suit.
PP: salPP
CL: salCL + rewCL
(SK,weak). In this case, PP definitely wins the suit.
PP: salPP + incPP
CL: salCL - defCL
(notSK, weak) Suppose n is the probability that PP wins the suit
PP: salPP + inc*n
CL: salCL - defCL*n + rewCL*(1-n)
To analyze this game further we need the solution concept of a Nash Equilibrium. A Nash equilibrium emerges in a competitive setting. It is a set of strategies from which the players have no unilateral incentive to deviate. If the players were to maximize their payoffs, since the payoffs depend on the player's strategy AS WELL AS the opponents, it is seen that the players would settle at a set of strategy that both would not like to deviate from.
In the above game, we see that (SK, strong) is such a strategy. Any unilateral deviation from (SK, strong) i.e. (SK, weak) and (notSK, strong) means that one of the players becomes worse-off. Thus (SK, strong) is a Nash Equilibrium. Similarly we see that (notSK, weak) is also a Nash Equilibrium. What that means is, that given the current setting, the 2 lawyers would play either (SK, strong) or (SK, weak). We can assume without loss of generality that they chose to play (SK, strong) - i.e. CL uses his strongest possible evidence, and the PP uses the witness Sunil Kulkarni.
If however these 2 lawyers decide to cooperate and share the total payoff, we see that their total payoff is maximum when the strategies played are (notSK, strong), which is precisely what is happening in this BMW case! The 2 lawyers have colluded and decided that they would not use Sunil Kulkarni as a witness and get Nanda to win the case. The term "rewCL" above can be interpreted as the bribe of Rs 5 crore Nanda would pay.
Now we can analyze the question I had posed earlier- In what setting would they prefer competing, than colluding. Weakly speaking, when is their total payoff at a Nash Equilibrium greater than their total payoff at a cooperative equilibrium?
i.e.
salPP + incPP*m + salCL - defCL*m + rewCL*(1-m) > salCL + rewCL + salPP ?
i.e. incPP*m - defCL*m > rewCL*m
i.e. incPP - defCL > rewCL
The answer is present in the last inequality. If the incentive to PP, "incPP", is large enough, competing is preferable to colluding. What that further means is that if the PP is provided with a sufficiently large bonus for winning a case, he would not do this corrupt act. How big should the bonus be? Well this answer suggests, that it has to be bigger than the bribe the Nandas would give + the defamation price the CL would suffer. Clearly as the Delhi police cannot provide an incentive worth crores, the PP preferred colluding.
Some more points worth noting.
- The inequality above is independent of the salaries of the two lawyers. What that means is that by simply hiking the salary of the PP, one cant hope to make him less corrupt. The general perception is that if the salary is good, temptation for more money is less. But from my simplistic analysis we see that whatever be his salary, there should be a differential incentive for winning.
- This applies also to cricketers in the case of match fixing. Raising their salaries would not stop match fixing. We need provide performance driving bonuses, and large prize money. It speaks of why although there is betting in every sport, sports like tennis, golf etc are clean from match fixing.
- The incentive also depends on the stature of the CL and the defamation price he puts on his loss "defCL".
Of course, now that we know incentives are the key, the question that lies open is how to generate this? I am not very knowledgeable in this matter. But I can venture a very simple guess: lets have a public issue for high profile cases and generate the incentive from the price of the shares. More the public at large believes the high profile accused is guilty, the higher the price will rise and lesser is the temptation for the PP to get corrupt.
Another, sillier suggestion is - instead of the incentive give the PP a direct entry to the hotseat of KBC :). Basically, an opportunity that can be worth huge amounts of money, and is difficult to get.
Any more suggestions? Please comment :)
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12:29 am
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English and Cricket
One of the great pleasures of being back home in India is being able to lie lazily on my living room sofa to watch a game of cricket. Many might disagree with the glorified value I am attaching to an act which we have all have done as kids only to grow cynical and dissatisfied by seeing our team lose, or by seeing interesting matches get washed out by rain or by seeing an ever-dominant Australia wash everyone else out. As a result, most people grow out of the romanticism of cricket sooner or later. But the fact that cricket still continues to attract the fanatic following of younger generations speaks of a unique charisma that is has.
I have been following the India-Bangladesh match and then continuing with the England-WestIndies test match a bit into the evenings. Switching from a queer, unheard of Neo sports! to the old and familiar ESPN made me observe something I had noted a long time back, but never got a chance to write about. There is a certain joy to watching English cricket. No, I dont mean watching the English *play* cricket - which in fact, has been good too as I got to watch two of my all time favourites, Vaughan and Pieterson, score centuries - but I mean in watching a match set in England, described to you by English commentators.
Matches in lush meadowed English outfields, with vibrant, bright coloured stands, soft sober sunshine and beautifully architectured grounds are a delightful sight. But what adds to the experience is the cleanliness of the commentary that accompanies it. When I switch from Neo to ESPN, I don't just switch from Dhaka to Leeds or from a laughable "expert" called Rohan Gavaskar to sublime connoisseurs David Gower and Ian Botham. I switch markedly between grades of sheer proficiency in English language.
Listening to Ravi Shastri, Tony Greg, Navjot Siddhu and the newer boys like Arun Lal and Lakshman Sivaramakrishnan makes me pity the lack of vocabulary and a trivialization of English and cricket that I see. Consider this: How often do we hear the phrases "despairing dive", "experienced campaigner", "corridor of uncertainty" or "lightening quick outfield"...? Very often! So many of these terms have become so common amongst Indian commentators that a less knowledgable viewer might construe them to be a part of cricket itself. Every dive that doesnt save a boundary, is NOT a despairing dive, for God's sake! If the outfield is fast, there are other adjectives that can be used to describe it, not 'lightening quick' every time. If a ball bowled is good, it is not always a 'peach of a delivery'. Corridor of uncertainty is used so ubiquitously that it makes one believe that it is a physical region of the field defined by the rules of cricket. If a player is experienced, its alright to call him just experienced. He doesnt need to be always described as an experienced campaigner! (A campaigner by the way, is some one who is a part of a campaign which is often a military exercise)
The list doesnt end here. After seeing second-rate repetitive and imitated commentary what exasperates me more is that some of it contains sheer blasphemy. Consider the phrase "hit like a tracer bullet" for instance. If you dont know already, I encourage you to google for "tracer bullet" and check out the answer for yourself. When a batsman hits a ball very hard and it races to the fence, Ravi Shastri exclaims 'he's that like a tracer bullet', to imply that it was as fast as a tracer bullet. A tracer bullet, my friend Ravi, is a bullet that leaves a trace behind after it has passed. It is not an exceptionally fast bullet! I would much rather hear "hit like a rocket" ten more times than hear an obscure analogy about tracer bullets. One more of Shastri goof ups - "this outfield is like breeze-lightening!". There is breeze, there is lightening. But there exists no term, scientific or otherwise called breeze lightening. And another one about LBWs - when a batsman is LBW, his leg is in front or before the wicket. Not adjacent to it!
The lesser sensitive people might feel I am making heavy weather of a small issue. But the urgency of the situation becomes clear when I compare the lousy commentary during the India-Bangladesh match to the England-WI one. I mentioned above that cricket is a charismatic game. That is because it is a game where finesse can be commonly observed, even if you dont have a keen eye for it. Take batting for example. There are millions of types of shots that batsmen play. Each is unique in the way it is played and the message that it conveys through the batsman's body posture and I feel the commentary must stay faithful to this fine detail. Listening to Gower comment on Vaughan and Pieterson yesterday showed how adept he was at this. A Shastri or a Greg would use "he's smashed/blasted/hit that" for every other shot, almost making it sound like boxing a match. Gower on the other hand choses his adjectives very precisely -fine shot, good shot, elegant shot, beautiful shot, firm shot, mighty shot, cracking shot, great shot, superb shot, splendid shot, authoritative shot, flamboyant shot ... Each of these are different kinds of shots. Gower sounds like an educated commentator with a great command over language, though he might not be as entertaining as Greg or Shastri. At the risk of being too correct and boring, he doesnt manufacture words to express his excitement. No ball for him is a "ripper" or a "jaffer" (God knows where these words came from in cricket), and no catch for him is a "sitter", or worse a "scorcher" (due to Arun Lal) and dives for him aren't always despairing- there are sprawling dives, lunging dives, lazy dives, outstretched dives... the list goes on!
My point behind all of this is to simply point out what I have seen. It is not that I dont enjoy a Shastri or a Greg commenting. I just feel that English is a beautiful, flexible language. And cricket is a beautiful, expressive game. It would be sad if in the race for catching the attention of the average listener and in the rampage for TRP rating, the delicate English language and the nuances of cricket are "blasted" away!
PS: Please comment :)
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04:03 pm
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Revival
It was October 2006. I look back at the last 3 entries in this beautiful mind-space where I often played with words and thoughts and ideas, and find that each of them begins with an apology. "I know its been long, very long...", "It has been almost a month.."... October 2006 was when I wrote my last blog. Orkut scraps have come by, personal inquiries have poked all asking why I have suddenly stopped blogging. Cliched as it may now sound, I begin this new entry after a hiatus of more than half a year with another apology.
A curse of not writing for too long is that too much has happened to now go back and take stock. One loses touch with one's blog almost the same way in which you lose touch with your friends over time. In my case IIT is done and dusted; life fresh, busy and reverberating has taken off at UIUC. My company has changed, thoughts have changed and if I try to "continue from where I left off" in my last blog, I struggle. In some strange way I feel like I have become a stranger to my own past.
As I try so hard to blog again it almost feels like I am trying to mend a long-lost relationship. Things have changed in a big way for me since I wrote my last blog. My last blog was perhaps the last piece of leisure writing I had done over the last 6-8 months. Since then it has been 2 conference papers and 3 journal papers that have found creation through this incessant knocking that I seem to do all day on my keyboard. As I separate paragraphs in this innocuous document I instinctively hit "enter" and type "\newline". When I read my older entries I can see a theme, a thought run through them. I know the thoughts are mine, but for some reason, I am not able to think them again.
I can think of several reasons to account for this disconnection. I am a markedly different phase of life now. I am student, who is also very much an employee. I have a life which is independent and which I sustain by my self. I do "mundane" things like pay monthly rents and electricity bills and do grocery shopping and (sometimes) house cleaning - things which never ever concerned me and my time in the last 23 years of my existence. I do not do dram anymore. I have spent my last 9 months in a country that is very different from my home land, among people whose whiteness is what I would find more noteworthy than brightness. I am grudgingly learning the ropes of American politeness which just a year ago I would have "cared two hoots for". I am no more the undergrad who cursed my professors and my system with nonchalance and disregard. I am now on the other side of the fence - a graduate student, teaching/research assistant with a broader world view - due to which, how much ever I may want to sympathize with my undergrad past (and fellow DD's woes), I now wholesomely "understand" why professors say the things they say and do the things they do. I am also not a loner in life anymore. I am in a serious, loving and dedicated relationship with Anupama. Every now and then I am mellowed by the realization of my ineptness at handling sensitive relationship matters, and humbled by how little I knew about the other half of humanity while I lived my life carefree on broken chappals, occasional baths and maddu mess anda dosas at H13 B715.
Having said so much makes me feel lighter. Makes me feel like I have bridged the gap between the last blog and today. So here are the facts: I am currently enrolled in a Master's program in IE and am aiming for a PhD. My research interests have zeroed in on Game Theory - mechanism design and evolutionary games, specifically. My research centers on theoretically developing efficient mechanisms for resource allocation in a price anticipating setting that is marked by uncertainty and dynamics. I plan to give my qualifiers in August. I right now in Bombay, on a month long vacation till June 25th.
Having said so much, I will stop. The theme for entry has been of revival and taking stock, to help me get back to writing and blogging. And, I must say, it has helped.
PS: Comments welcome :)
My temporary cell no here 9869023760. I dont have any of my old Bombay contacts. Hoping for a surprise call or two!
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01:44 am
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"Life affirming"
Its a strong word, "life-affirming", one that we never use loosely. It happened to fall on my ears when I saw this remarkable 8 min video of the Pink Floyd Live 8 rehearsals. I find it difficult to articulate in words all that is being said and seen in this video. Perhaps the most defining music bands ever that enthralled the world for so many years, Pink Floyd broke up tragically due to monetary and musical differences in the mid 1980s, with Roger Waters defecting. And now after more than 20 years, they came together for a charitable cause for this one event at Live 8 in London. This video talks of their practices for this concert. I have been in super-ego-charged practices myself during drams and PAFs. I have seen simple actions and words get misunderstood, misconstrued, stupidity coming in the way of reason and parts coming in the way of the whole. I urge you all to see this video and feel what is there in it. The tension, the awkwardness, the guilt, the egos - they are all so palpable!
This video brought me memories of all the all-night practices I had with Anshu, Ingle and the gang... Not for the regret that is evident in the video, but for that great uniting feeling that is present in it. For the beautiful syngery that I shared with these people, learning to forgive and forget petty things and move on to what is most important in life - the pure joy of shared experiences and that passion for the "doing". Let me quote Nick Mason's lines here -
"It's the shared experiences we have had... I think thats the most important thing about life, really. That business of things we've shared with people. It is that thing about the witnesses to your life. It is life-affirming, I suppose. Even if you've had the big arguments with people or whatever... they 've shared the experiences - In a way that you can only tell other people about"
I hope I am not speaking too soon, but I feel I have found myself "my-kind-of-guy" here - my advisor, Uday Shanbhag. He is brilliant -Btech IITB Aero, MS MIT, PhD Stanford and the recipient of the best Phd award worldwide in 2006). He is jolly - "Hey Ankur, whats playing on your Ipod today? Kishore Kumar?". He is honest - "The thing is I am not very intelligent and fast thinking. I think I think best when I am alone. Why dont you mail me your doubts instead of asking them face to face?"
He gives two hoots to any kind of donkey-work "Some student forgot these tomatoes in my office and I was bored of taking them home. Now they've got rotten!" :P :P
We crib together about all our tedious IITB Aero courses "Ankur do you still have that painful Sarvanamuttoo- that Gas turbine shit!" "Yeah Cohen-Rogers!" "Yeah some nonsense like that... All PV=nRT and crap..." :))
He summarizes his objectives of his course as "All I want from you guys, is that you think". A complete non-stickler for grading "Just forget about the grade guys! Enjoy the course!" and exams and such banes of pedagogy "It's ok if you dont submit assignments. That way I will have to correct fewer!" :))
He thinks most things in the world are ordinary and boring - "There's some 'tar minus some nonsense' you use to untar files in linux... Why cant you just double click and get done with it?" :))
And - "If you have any strong feelings about the code I wrote for my phd, go tell my advisor about it! I am not going to touch it again!" :))
And and when I do tell my feelings about his messy code, he comes up with - "Yeah man... if I was that organized a guy, I would have been a much bigger guy in life!" :))
But most importantly he is one who sees the world the way I do, and lets me be impractical ambitious Dog. That was evident in this incident that happened a couple of weeks back. He's introduced a course project in his NLP course. "If you guys do really well at the project, then you dont need to worry about the assignments and the exam" :) The hope is that this project leads to a publication. I was discussing with him the kind of problem I was wanting to work on. He had a problem in mind which was related to the work I was already doing, and also to his past work. I wanted to work on something totally different called 'mechanism design'. We were debating for a long time the pros and cons of doing it and he was trying to persuade me to do something in his field.
US: "Mechanism design is an interesting field... But the problem is that I dont know anything in it. I was wanting to get into it some time later..."
AK: "That's ok Uday... We can try..."
US: "No it might seem ok. But when you get in to a new field, results arent guaranteed. And it can be very frustrating. I have gone through this, and I am preparing you for that kind of frustration. But your call eventually. It difficult and its new... And its outside my comfort-zone. Thats why you might want to not do it..."
AK: "But, that is WHY I WANT to do it!"
(If my friend Prasanna would have heard this he would have called this a Dog-classic :)) Btw, whats up Kanna?) Uday beamed a wide smile and gave me a hi-five, as if in confirmation that he knows what I want to do and that 'we are going for it'. Mechanism design has become my obsession ever since! I love you Uday!
The thought of shifting from MS to PhD has always been playing on my mind. I was waiting, as I usually do in decisions like these, for that one magical moment to tip me over. I think that moment has arrived. In the next two months I think I will have shifted to a PhD program. I know this means that I forfeit all chances of a degree from MIT and Stanford and all that nonsense... But this chemistry with Uday is too good to let go of! He is a fantastic guy... He knows too well that God is in the detail, and not in the outer glamourous wrappers of success and failure, that true joy is in the journey, not in the destination, and the truly life-affirming feeling is in our shared experiences of overcoming challenges, regardless of where we reach in the end.
Here's one for you Uday! Cheers! :)
"Sing with me, sing for the years
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears
Sing with me, if its just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good lord will take you away
Dream on, dream on
Dream yourself a dream come true
Dream on, dream on
Dream until your dream come true
Dream on, dream on, dream on..."
PS: You know what to do- good/bad/crap - anything you wish to say, please comment! And make sure you leave your name :)
PPS: Abstract accepted at Miami! yoohoo! :) Looks like I have a week of relief during peak winter :)
Current Mood:  bouncy
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10:48 am
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Coming Back to Life!
It feels good. Believe me, it feels superb! To be yourself once again!
Last week I was feeling as if I have reached a dead end in life. Nothing seemed normal. The head was heavy with memories of IITB. My eyes ached everyday as I went back to sleep and I slept too tired to, as I had promised myself, practice the guitar before sleeping. My humour was slow and lagged, and completely devoid of the "fart" in it. Things I did - they seemed either rehearsed or completely alien to my own being. I woke up, I ate, I slept at the same damn time every day. I went to lectures on time and took down detailed notes, humbly listening to all that was being said objecting to nothing, not nodding off at anything. I saw the moon grace the skies at night but didnt feel its splendour strike my retina and drive me into deliriums of "Abe kya fundoo hai!". Everything was so normal, so ordinary, so mundane and so boring. Excitement, delirium, and the quintessential fundooness that I had perennially yearned for and found in things around me seemed to be a part of a far lost universe.
Where was that stupidity, that insanity, that thing that just 2 months ago made me go to remote parts of Bandra in the middle of the night and take pictures of the moon? And which after a night full of beauty made me run around showing them to people saying "Yeh dekh kya fundoo photo hai!"? Where was that arrogance and that complete disregard for method and stereotyping that made me argue vehemently with the dumb profs like Pant in IITB? And then cavalierly declare "abe isko kuch nahi ata..." and sleep off in his lecture? Then things got worse... I actually cracked 10/10 in a quiz. I dont remember when was the last time I did something so outrageous! :O
I had bought the guitar and not practiced for 2 weeks. I pranced around here and there in Reebok shoes when for 3 years I have worn broken chappals in my wing. I looked down and I couldnt recognize my own feet! I was roaming around in the house doing nothing but housework and then complaining to Pritam saying this is a "pakav" place. I walked the cold sprawling lawns of the UIUC campus, from home to office to the Quad and back home with a heavy bag containing 3 textbooks and printouts of 4 research papers. I was sitting upright, reading them over and over again, wrestling with the algebra, feeling dizzy and tired. In the wide green Quad as pretty legs jogged around, equations tumbled and fumbled inside my head, teasing me, constantly running away from my grasp... Oh man... Things had rarely seemed as tough. As I walked back home, bewildered and weary, I could almost feel my back ask me - Abe idiot, when was the last time you sat upright to study? Every time I had read a paper before this it had felt like a slowly unraveling mystery (or as I had remarked once about Schonlau's thesis- like a slowly undressing woman :D). Why did every paper here feel like a bloody sermon? It made me wonder... Where is that beautiful world of elegant, insightful and poetic mathematics that I travelled seven seas to the US for? In the fast approaching winter, where were those little things of beauty that would keep my heart warm? Where was all that music that sounded in H13 B715? Where was Pink Floyd? Where was Jagjit Singh? Where are all those stupidmax and sillymax jokes that I found so funny that they made me smile in my sleep? Where was everything? Where was the Dog/Takli inside of me?
I spoke to JK and he put it as succintly as he possibly could "Dog, this is serious. Cracking quizes is very unlike you!" :P. And I told Adnan... "If I continue like this I'll become like Rege!" :P. And that scared me...:D I realized had started living in a world that I didnt belong to. Things were just not right. At times like these its often just that one thing that sets a hundred other things right. One cog in the right place and all the wheels begin moving... And thats exactly what happened... There was a maths exam. I screwed a simple limit problem. Man! It felt so good! I told another IITian here... "Abe exam hugne ke baad feel aati hai be..." I went back to orkut and did a whole lot of nonsense scrapping. I went back home and practiced the guitar, painless and happy. I went back to office put my feet up and listened to all my good old music. I looked out of the window and smiled at the moon. I went back to the research paper... Things seemed so much more natural... There was no pressure, no weariness... I went over the stuff again. My mind was catching the right things...Turned out I proved a fundoo result! I spoke to my prof and he said we should send to a conference in Miami this Jan!
Suddenly things have started feeling better here. The air is crisp around Champaign... the old jokes are back... It sure feels good to be yourself again - from the Dark Side of the Moon, Coming Back to Life.
PS: Anything you wish to say - good/bad/crap - please comment here. And do leave your name when you comment :)
Current Mood: bouncy
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08:09 pm
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Thanks for everything!
One sound, one single sound
One kiss, one single kiss
Faces outside the window pane
However did it come to this?
Ah! Pink Floyd exceptional as ever... (Ref: Yet another movie)
I know its been long. Very long. Perhaps too long. I look back at the entry before this one- July 9th. Its been more than 2 months! All of July was spent penning down "Loneliness to Solitude"- my first novel... Half of August was spent in frantic preparations for the US journey... And begining with my 23rd birthday, on August 15th, I have been in Champaign.
Lets wind back... On July 9th, I was waiting for my visa interview. I was just back from a south India trip. I wrote something to soothe Krishna, who was in the US then, from the pangs of missing Bombay. I wrote of Bombay and its rains. I put up pictures of Bandra flooding with water. I wrote of how much I love the city... And I ended the blog saying these pithy words-
"I have lived almost 23 years in this great city, romancing every bit of its unique and baffling beauty. Last year during my intership I met a girl in Rome who asked me "Which is your favourite city in the world- Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Nice, Venice or Rome?". I said Bombay. Thanks to the schol I craved so much for, the next 2 years will be spent in the US. Next 2 years... may be 4! My visa interview is scheduled for the 13th. I am dazed by the thought of staying away from Bombay for so long... 4 years is unbelievably long! Four years ago I wasnt even an IITian! I wonder what will keep me company. May be words such as these, and pictures such as those."
These words have turned out to be too prophetic for my liking. Exactly one month has gone by, since I threw that kiss at my friends and family, standing outside the window panes of Sahar airport departure gate C. That evening my younger brother was helping me pack stuff in... He was recalling all the stupid jokes we used to create and laugh at. JK got me to meet Sushree (who will perhaps be my first bhabhi), just in case I dont get to attend his wedding. It's easy for my bro to guess when I am sad, but that day even Sushree could guess that I wasnt happy leaving... Then at the airport, the glass doors slid by, past those waving hands and smiling faces. I think I faintly heard someone shout 'We love you dog', and then there was no recognizable sound. Just an enormous void... Of time, of distance, of uncertainty, of future. It is still unbelievable... However did it come to this?
The US is nothing like India, and UIUC is nothing like IIT. I wont write now about how I like it here... Or how I hate it here. I am just writing this as a dedication to my friends back in India. (I wont dedicate anything to my parents or bro- this blog is too trivial a thing to dedicate to family) 2 years are seeming like 20. Guys, I miss each and every one of you. Some of my farewell pics are there below... I might have seen them at least 15 times over the past month and I have still not had enough. Thanks for all the fun, people... Thanks for everything!
Let me end with one more of Pink Floyd- High Hopes.
Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young
In a world of magnets and miracles
Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary
The ringing of the division bell had begun
Along the Long Road and on down the Causeway
Do they still meet there by the Cut
There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps
Running before times took our dreams away
Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground
To a life consumed by slow decay
The grass was greener
The light was brighter
When friends surrounded
The nights of wonder
Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide
At a higher altitude with flag unfurled
We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world
Encumbered forever by desire and ambition
There's a hunger still unsatisfied
Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon
Though down this road we've been so many times
The grass was greener
The light was brighter
The taste was sweeter
The nights of wonder
With friends surrounded
The dawn mist glowing
The water flowing
The endless river
Forever and ever
I think Zod took this one :)
And finally... That pineapple cake! :)
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09:21 pm
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Chimera
Krishna said the previous entry made him senti -
"bluddy ankur! you made me senti! go die!
i miss bombay :(
~ Krishna"
Poor chap Krishna, has been doing his PT in NY. He's been there less than three months and has already started missing the city. Here's a poem for you Krishna, one that I wrote last year during tthe rains... some where around Ganesh Chathurthi. Hope this soothes wounds more than rubbing salt into them :)
Chimera
Clouds stride on the lake, and conquer the greens,
They caress my face, leaving a reminescence of dew,
Soft cool breaths whisper to me, my ears tickle,
A smile crosses my face, like a child I chuckle,
My brain chides my eyes, incredulously,
A miry metropolis, or a thriving chimera?
Bombay baffles me. Oh! It is Bombay I am seeing!
Vinayaka Gajamukha, am I dreaming?!
I have lived almost 23 years in this great city, romancing every bit of its unique and baffling beauty. Last year during my intership I met a girl in Rome who asked me "Which is your favourite city in the world- Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Nice, Venice or Rome?". I said Bombay. Thanks to the schol I craved so much for, the next 2 years will be spent in the US. Next 2 years... may be 4! My visa interview is scheduled for the 13th. I am dazed by the thought of staying away from Bombay for so long... 4 years is unbelievably long! Four years ago I wasnt even an IITian! I wonder what will keep me company. May be words such as these, and pictures such as those.
PS: Same thing.. comment karo :) Naam daalna mat bhoolo!
Current Mood:  calm
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12:08 am
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Faces of Rain
Its been very long since I wrote my last entry. I suspect not too many might have missed my blog or my "read my blog and comment" reminders :) Reservations was what I had been blabbering about on my blog for quite some time. Someone had also started thinking if mine was a reservations-only-blog. Some thought in glee that I had stopped blogging. To whoosh away all these ghosts of doubt about the diversity of my interests, and about my crabbiness to continue blogging, I am back with something thats quiet and new. Something that speaks more than a thousand words. My first photo-blog: Faces of Rain.
These are some of the pics taken by me on the 4th of July, 2006 at Bandra, Bombay. The complete album is up for view here The church you see below is a ASI recognized heritage structure- called St. Peters Church and is a part of my school- St. Stanislaus High School. The sea face pics are from a place called Bandstand.
Its my first attempts with pics, hence I have not been able to do any great formating. As always anything you wish to say, please comment! And dont forget to put your name! :)
Current Mood: loved
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11:31 pm
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Razor's edge
I had started writing this entry a few days back, but just couldnt finish it because of an enthralling test match in the West Indies that spent my nights. Its a pity that such a superb match will go down in the records merely as a draw. In any case, here is the entry.
A couple of very interesting developments have taken place in the past few days which have left the entire reservations issue, the way I see it, on a razor's edge. Its a little difficult to understand how finely balanced the stakes are right now, but let me explain. Those who know me well know how much I like this whole process of elaborate explanation :) This entry is dedicated to that explanation.
Lets take a look at the whole reservations issue, which is essentially an issue of seats in leading educational institutions in the country. The media has done well to highlight various aspects of this issue, viz. questions like "what is the proportion of OBCs?", "what % of the reserved seats are filled by IITs?", the concept of the creamy layer, the basis for defining OBCs and so on. I think the media is missing the core point here.
For fact, we all want to help the "really needy" people. The problem, the way it is projected by the media is that of foolproof identification of the needy, and then of a corruption-free implementation of the policy that we plan to use to help the needy. The approach we are using to solve this problem is that of trial and error- try various definitions for "needy", see which one fits the bill best. The problem is that any such sterotyping automatically leads to the formation of fuzzy groups, which in turn mean the existence of exceptions to the definition of "needy". No matter what you try, in a diverse primitive democratic society like ours, exceptions will exist to all rules. If by chance they dont exist, then the absence corruption-free implementation will help distort the definition. This problem of incomplete or incorrect inclusion is common to any kind of macro-policy making on large sample sets.
This situation reminds me of a problem that has emerged on the IITB campus lately. LAN had proliferated through the entire hostel area. Every room had a computer. Students were smarter than the authorities. The VSNL internet link was ravaged by indiscriminate humongous downloading. Soon, LAN replaced everything else as a source of passtime. EAsports replaced the main GC. Google news replaced the newspapers in the lounge. Streaming replaced TV-rooms. People got isolated. Smileys replaced smiles and "chat" and "buzz" replaced and "meet" and "talk". Authorities complained of students sitting in their room all day and not engaging themselves in the other, hitherto popular, group activities and hence missing out on more thorough interpersonal interactions.
Just as today in this reservations issue, everyone could see what the problems were. And people tried to come up with foolproof rules to solve them... Suppose we get rid of LAN altogether?- but LAN has several undeniable advantages too... IITGuwahati puts its LAN off in the afternoon as a attempt to drive people out of their rooms. Why dont we try that? ... But the question of the exception immediately arises- what if someone has some urgent unaviodable work on the LAN at that time? Are we not preventing him from working? ... The hostel lounge used to be a common place for people to sit, talk and read newspapers. With the internet everyone read the news on the net, leaving the lounges dry!... Oh fine, then we should block the news sites so that people are forced to come to lounge to read! Oh well. Now thats as stupid as it gets!
The truth is any kind of rule you specify, one could come up with a plausible situation which could warrant an exception from the rule.
I had thought a lot about this predicament at that time and had come up with a solution that I think could solve the problem entirely. The problem, we must remember, is not LAN. LAN by virtue of its existence is not bad. The problem is with the concentration of LAN access in rooms in hostels. The need was not for regulation of LAN access, but for a deconcentration of LAN. My solution was that IIT Bombay had to go wifi - Let LAN not be limited only to rooms. Strike a deal with some dealer to provide laptops at concessional rates to everyone. Allow laptops in class rooms for students to take down notes. Put lots of well maintained computers up in the lounge making that a modern, improvised reading room. Decentralize LAN completely and make it all pervading. In short, bring the mountain to Mohammed. My guess was that soon you would start seeing students in hostel lounges, MB lawns, coffee shack and everywhere, sitting and smiling and talking and interacting and may be playing games but with a laptop each.
Let me now come back to the reservations problem again. The way the media projects it, it is seen as if it is the problem of who gets what share of the pie. The problem is not of portions of the pie for which a whole nation is haggling. The problem is that the damn pie is too small! The supply for quality education in this country is WAYYY too less than the demand. No wonder then that the US universities are satiating a part of the demand. That is why, crazy as it may seem, I am not opposed at all to the increase in the number of seats or of IITs. I think we need many many more them.
Ok ok, I hear it. "what happens to the brand name?", "Dilution would lead to lesser quality". True. Very true. But there is a catch. Brand, we must understand is different from exclusivity. Exclusivity is one way of ensuring a brand's value. The other way is by maintaining high standards of quality. With more IITs/IITians we will lose exclusivity, but not necessarily brand value. Brand value can still be maintained by maintaining high quality. The way things are right now, IITians are able to enjoy the benifit of a good life only by virtue of the brand name and regardless of their own effort or merit, simply because of the exclusivity that exists. That sort of elitism is horribly unfair to the rest of the nation. Why cant we have lots (say 5 times as many as we have now) of young people with the same quality of education? On one hand their salaries (read price of an IITian in the market) would go down. But that's fine. Let their salaries get determined by the logic of competition. After all that's the language the world speaks! Why do quality educated people need the garb or the bluff a exclusivity to help them succeed in the world? On the other hand we would see an unprecedented flight of our GDP. I think if we can maintain the quality of these institutes and have more of them, an optimal number of them - since too many would result in saturation again - the bargain would be very fair.
Given all this, I was in principle for the suggestion of increase in seats floated by the PM. Simply because that is the need of hour and a step in the right direction. I suspect that the media has missed a trick here by highlighting it more as a face saving strategy for the UPA than as a correct bold step. The media, and all of us, should have opposed instead to the time frame of 1 year set for increase in seats. I am afraid no categorical position on this has been expressed by any section of the media.
Having said this I also find it quite surprising that the PM has volunteered to increase seats, and that the HRD is moving towards a continuous increase in seats. The reason for the surprise is simple- it is because the pie is so small and the demand is too high that the politicians can blackmarket fragments of the pie in exchange for votes. As you keep on increasing the size of the pie, after a point the divisions and quotas you have made in it become redundant. At this stage it would be impossible to swing votes by a simple play of numbers. Looks like, in a billion plus strong India, that stage is very far away. There is also another reason for this surprise. Little bit of cutting corners here and there is always easy. But any kind of fundamental policy change requires tremendous courage and foresight. One of the reasons we dont have wifi LAN in IITB is a sheer lack of courage and committment to address the problem student interaction.
So this is why I think we are on a razor's edge right now. Just before the Supreme Court intervened, the students' agitation was really catching fire. People from all walks of life had started contributing. The government was under pressure. Undoubtedly. Chidambaram had said to the YFE students that "You guys are being too idealistic. Caste based reservations are a reality in India. You will have to accept them and learn to live with them." The government was already willing to do one right thing- i.e. increase seats. May be the goverment could have been pushed to considering other options to appease the agitators- like increase in the 1 year time frame, may be a step wise increase in reservations, may be even a judicial review. But then came the Supreme Court to spoil the fun. The SC has asked the goverment some embarrassing questions, but also asked the agitators to shut up. That the SC, in its complete legal correctness, will rule overwhelmingly in favour of YFE cannot be said for certain. It has at least right now rejected an appeal for a stay order. Besides governments have had a history of overruling SC orders by ammending the constitution. I am not sure if its really wise to go the SC then, given that you are in a position to talk to the govt itself. This is the problem of having a chaotic movement like this. Had there been a proper think tank at the head of this movement, then perhaps it would have been deliberated whether Shiv Khera should go ahead with the PIL or not. 5 weeks later we will know whether or not approaching the supreme court at this critical stage was the strategically right thing to do. Till then we are walking the razor's edge.
PS: A sincere request to all who read this- if you have anything to say, good/bad/crap, please comment. Secondly, when commenting please put your name as well.
Current Mood: relaxed
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02:05 pm
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From counter strike to hunger strike- group dynamics and absolute gems
For the past several days I have got a monkey on my back in the form of driving classes that I have got myself enrolled for. Just half an hour everyday, but 5 days a week, with an utterly insolent instructor (with whom I keep arguing and debating), mean that I have to stay at home in Bandra during most of the week. Which further means that I am not able to give myself to the anti-reservations protests at IITB, Powai in a fullfledged manner. I resent it quite a bit, having this monkey-handicap and not being able to "go out there and give it all", the way I would like to, and the way I usually do when I am motivated towards something. Nevertheless I have continued to contribute to the protest in whatever way I can. And being on hunger strike for a day on Wednesday at IITB was one more such gesture.
This is the first time I have been involved in a "student protest". Though not the first time in a collective student activity. Due to the fact that I get only about 1 day every week to contribute to this movement, it prevents me from playing a larger role in trying to take charge of things. On the other hand it allows me the luxury of doing something that I truly relish - observing human behaviour. The protest at IITB is a thoroughly disorganized affair. There are lots of students of different hostels, different ages, different backgrounds, people who have perhaps not known each other at all before being united by such a movement. Hence the protest is chaotic, disorganised, random and directionless - more or less the way YFE is. Without any doubt though, the group is strong and its behaviour heartfelt. The collective dynamics of such a group, where each individual is there for his or her own heartfelt purpose, as against being there for one indoctrinated objective, is very interesting to observe. The group has many extreme characters- easily excitable people, very emotionally tied to the outcome of the movement and very apathetic disinterested people. Plus a group of IITians implies flying egos and lots of arguements and face-offs. The presence of a large number of diverse characters means that the group as a whole has a very fine balance of sanity, constantly susceptible to cascadingly go overboard in complete delirium or cascading collapse to complete dejection and fury. Such a boiling pot full of spices from all kinds of human nature, served for me a wonderful opportunity indeed.
It's quite amusing, when you are on hunger strike, to simply sit back and observe how people behave so differently in the presence of crowds when under the influence of some overwhelming emotions and how they end up contributing to the group behaviour. Lets take them one by one, following some sort of gradation pattern. A lot of this has been gathered through my experience in the student protests and in other student activities like PAFs.
First there are the some people who are the purely emotional kind. Being emotional is not the same as being melodramatic - these guys dont cry. Nor do they beat their head against walls like characters from a saas-bahu soap. Their problem is rather subtle. They make the ultimate falacy of believing- thoroughly and very strongly- that everyone thinks like them, and everyone has to think like them. Faces often tell a lot about the way a person is and what he is going through. These people have joined the movement thinking that everyone thinks like them. When you look at their faces you see them with their eyes flared and their countenance shocked. Shocked in sheer disbelief of knowing that everyone around them doesnt think like them. The very fact that everyone doesnt think like them leaves them shattered. Any small bit of arguement that the group may go through leaves them dejected and sorry about how such discussions are bad for the group and makes them shout out slogans for the unity of the group. Suddenly, however, finding anyone who does think like gets them elated! Their life in the group is a cycle of constant ups and down. Any small piece of good news that arrives, verified or unverified, is enough to make them start daydreaming about the success of this movement and a world of merit and justice and equality. Many many years later they are the ones who would tell their grandchildren about how the 2006 student movement was a real roller-coaster ride.
Second, the passionate-michiavellian kind: These guys really feel for the cause and want to change the way things work around them, and are ready to do anything that it takes to make it happen. They naturally end up leading the group, finding it difficult to keep themselves away from taking charge of things. They listen to everyone and make smart, quick, clever decisions. Their decisions are not always strictly logical or ethical but instinctive and correct. If you look at their faces - they are calm and alert and focussed, driven by sharp undercurrent of passion for the cause. They are not dismissive, but not overly compassionate listeners either. They usually dont like "too much" of an arguement, and like things to happen fast. My guess is that most high achieving UGs in IITB fall under this category- they make superb managers and are excellent at crisis management.
Third, the passionate-logical/philosophical kind: These guys also feel for the cause as much as anyone else, but differ from the above category in the horizon of their thought. They dont care much about the step-wise firefighting that the movement has to go through, but are more worried about the overall trajectory of the movement, its macro-socio-economic implications, and what should be the exact agenda whom should we align with and what other policy level decisions should be. Their faces are calm, smiling and thoughtful. They are always so willing to have a discussion, that it sometimes makes you wonder whether they are a part of the movement for its cause or simply for the opportunity to discuss. But they are always willing to give their best for the group. These chaps serve by giving inputs to the second category. People of category 1 are constantly wary of them. I know it, because I think I fall in this category :)
Fourth the passionate-maniacal kind. They are passionate. Just that. And mad. They dont think, they dont reason. They are ready to do *anything* for the cause. These people are very dangerous for group they are leading. They should never be entrusted with that responsibility, simply because of the extent foolishness they can show. If the media is against them, they will go ahead without an iota of thought and start bullfighting the media. If the pro-quota people are seen nearby, they will go barking after them. If they read that Prof Om Damani has given a statement that is proquota, they want to take a morcha to his office demanding an apology. They are the ones shouting the loudest slogans and they have the most animated faces. If you let them talk to the media be sure that they will make the most atrocious remarks you have ever heard. That apart they are mostly harmless. It is up to category 2&3 to make good use of them and to ensure that they dont talk to the media!
Fifth the dispassionate selfish kind. They dont feel much for the larger objectives of the movement as a whole but are a part of it for their own personal agenda. This personal agenda may be anything from opportunity to come on TV, to a hot babe in protesting group, to their own personal gains from the objective of the movement. They usually do anything that it takes, as long as their selfish micro-motives are satisfied. Such people are fairly useful for the collective progress of the group and but can never be relied upon to make any startling momentous contribution. Sad as it may seem, most people in any group activity are of this category. I think most people in the world are of this category.
Sixth the dispassionate selfish annoying kind. Such people are always on the border of participating and not participating. Once in a while make their appearance in the group, hang around and do some annoying inconsequential small talk like "kaisa chal raha tum log ka protest?", try fooling around a bit here and there, look at the passionate chaps preoccupied at giving their best and laugh from a distance about it, try distracting people and gather some attention and other such stupidity. They have some sort of a superiority complex because they dont feel as driven, or as serious as the others. Whenever they occasionally make an appearance they expect to be entertained and entrusted with important tasks. Because they dont understand the drive, they usually make silly and cynical remarks about how the group is performing and are on the look out for the first opportunity to leave the group. They have a thoroughly cynical view of life too - "yeh sab kyon kar rahe ho? Is se kya hone wala hai??". They treasure their efforts so much that they need an apriori guarantee of results for every bit of effort they put in any endeavour. These people need either tremendous convincing to make them join, or need to be completely ignored so that they dont annoy the group any further.
Seventh category- absolute gems. I wrote this blog so that I could write about them. Absolute gems are people like Kshitij Sharma. They are always willing to give it all for the group, have no ulterior motives (like urge to talk in front of the cameras), and in fact end up contributing more than just their ostensible role in the group by virtue of their personalities. For those who dont know, Kshitij is this big fat guy, gaming god, with a clean soul, amiable personality an amazing promptness of thought, and a superlative sense of humour. He fasted for 2 consecutive days during the hunger strike. First day when no one of us were around and there was a dearth of people and the second because all of us were around and wanted his company. Two days on a hungry stomach but still high on spirit he kept us rolling in laughter throughout the day. Late at night, the atmosphere was sapping our energy and sadness was hanging in the air. News came in that the cabinet has decided to go ahead with the bill. Sarwan was hitting the Indians all over the St Kitts oval. "Ab kya baki hai?? Suicide hi kar lo!" said some idiot. "Sabhi jagah kat raha hai.. ab bhooke rehne mein koi point bhi hai kya?" said another. My stomach had already started growling in pain. I could imagine how Kshitij might have been feeling. He was lying down beside me, talking about how much he wished he had a better CPI so that he could perhaps app into maths. He spoke about the past 4 years and how wonderful they were. He spoke about everything, but saying anything negative about the protest and its prospects of success. "Fight maarte hai na.." was all he said. He was jolly, he was selfless, he was cheerful, he was calm and when he spoke to the media he was sensible. From counter strike to hunger strike - he made the transition look so easy. Thats exactly what he was- an absolute gem.
PS: A sincere request to all who read this- if you have anything to say, good/bad/crap, please comment. Secondly, when commenting please put your name as well.
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: My immortal
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01:09 am
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Understanding...
Shriram had once pointed out how my blog is so odd. Odd, in the way that it is not about me. I always seem to be talking about an experience in which I am a nondescript third person observer, or I am talking about some of my friends. Perhaps its because friends mean a lot to me. And perhaps because its these larger issues in life-issues like that of brain drain, and reservation and politics and existential issues like a man's dreams and passions mean much more to me than things like "Ohh its raining today!" "Oh! I had ice cream.." "XYZ is a fundoo restaurant" etc etc. Perhaps its a conscious effort I make because there are so many blogs I have read that stink of being so full of themselves - every time the author chooses to write something, the best thing he can think of is himself/herself and whats happening to him/her! I find such stuff too low in intellectual appeal to read. And hence I prefer not to write about it.
Today though I am writing something about myself. The reason for making this exception from what has been quite a policy, will be clear as I write the blog below.
The campaign against reservations was started predominantly by medical students. Very fervent and heart-felt protests were rampant all over the country. As IITBians, we too were making some efforts, though they were not of the noisy kind. I found it very difficult (as I admitted in my previous blog) to come to a stand on this issue. I decided that given the fact that I am not the who is in the legal capability of passing a judgement on this matter, and the other factors that this whole issue is incumbent on, the best I can do is oppose reservations.
Once having decided that I will be opposing reservations, the next question is what was I going to do against them? I have personally not been in favour of making loud emotional protests when you have the option of making more solemn, well-thought-out remarks as protests and more importantly through a better medium. I hence decided that I should support the anti-quota movement, but from the "outside". "From the outside" means by lending the others in IITB who are protesting some kind of passive support... say by helping out in logistics, or by helping out in their reasoning through making correct logical arguments.
With this stand I was continuing to participate on the IITB mailing list. Until, something happened that is making me rethink. My younger brother is a first year MBBS student at Nair college. He was lathi-charged in that brutal attack by the police. I was not at home when incident happened, I came home and saw videos of what had happened. Students crying out for their desire to study fairly, crying out for their futures, their simple and noble dreams, their parents' expectations were beaten up and shooed away. It is a sight that makes me loose faith in democracy. It makes my heart cry out for my brother. And it makes me sit in this seat right now and wonder, "what am I doing??"
Tomorrow there is a protest at IITB. Some sort of reasoning that I was very confident of had made me think that I should be a part of this struggle from the outside. My brother - aspiring doctor- is sleeping beside me. His face is clear- valiant and unmoved in this struggle. He was cutting newspapers reports, sitting late in the night, while I lied down "thinking" and watching the Ind-WI cricket match. Mails are pouring in from the rest of IITB protestors with people wanting to volunteer for making banners and posters. Had a chat with Parijat Garg to help clear my mind. He has just said "Ankur, it will be good to have you there tomorrow". I am confused. I want to know, if at all I go tomorrow to the protest in IITB, why will I be doing it?? To avenge my brother's bruises? Or support the cause??
I am writing this blog to help me go over my thoughts and try to reason. To try and understand my mind.
Do I feel shy/awkward of a loud protest?? Am I being too intellectual/elite by only contributing passively?? No I dont think so...ummm.. but... I dont "think" so?. The word think itself has no meaning right now. Emotions smudge the mind and "feel" smudges "think".
The question I have asked above-"why will I be doing it??"- is that the right way of asking the question, though? I wonder. Shouldnt I rather ask- Do I WANT to go? But "want" automatically implies desire and selfishness. Reason loses its place. Let me go over my hypothesis again... How confident am I of all my reasoning? I like to think I am clear and unbaised.
Fine. If thats true then lets come to a bigger question? What is MY purpose in this society or on this planet?? Is it to follow what I interpret as reason, regardless of anything else? Even when the very definitions of reason are fuzzy and unreliable??
I am still confused. But not as much as before. Perhaps here is the answer- MY role is not that of a peddler of justice. My role is multifaceted. That of an IIT student, that of a Indian national, that of a rational thinker, that of a brother and so on. Which one of these presumes a higher importance over the others is a difficult question, that has no stereotyped unidimensional answer. I realize, it is good to reason, to check yourself and to introspect. But reason is not the only thing that I am supposed to do on this planet of woes. It is okay to not have reasoned carefully each time. And decisions like these have to be taken in a manner that is not algorithmic or logical, but more instinctive. I again ask myself, "Do I want to go?". There is a voice inside that says an emphatic YES. Something calls me there. I find it difficult to understand, but yes something does call me. I think will go. I WILL go.
PS: A sincere request to all who read this- if you have anything to say, good/bad/crap, please comment. Secondly, when commenting please put your name as well.
Current Mood:  thoughtful
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01:37 am
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The ransom
The entire debate about reservations has been playing on my mind ever since the issue first surfaced on the front pages of newsprint, and then when we formed an unofficial forum in IITB to oppose it. I joined the forum on orkut without having made up my mind against reservations per se, and took my time off to analyse as well and as objectively as I could the various issues involved in it. I finally came to the conclusion that even though I might not able to converge on a strong opinion on something like this - given the complicated mix of philanthropy and individualism that my mind talks- I should support the opposition to the reservation policy.
I took me a good 4-5 hours of comtemplation to come to this stand. I sat down and noted down all the issues that arose out of it, going over and over all the hypotheses involved and questioning their bases. Several interesting issues and thoughts came up while I was going through this. But this blog is not about them. May be I will write a separate one for that later. This blog is about an incident that is tangentially related to this issue of reservations.
I had gone to the Main Building some time back to get some bills reimbursed. These were expenses of the order of Rs 800 (==1 treat at CCD :p ) that I had made for the student mentor programme. For those who are not aware, the Main Building in IIT Bombay is the home of one the greatest identifiers of the nation we live in- bureaucratic sloppiness. Every office in MB is like a zoo. You find creatures of all kinds there. Lots of lazy sloths glued to their chairs. Lots of dumb dogmatic babus who have pulled he plug out of their thinking brain to stay glued to their "assigned" portfolios. Some advanced dumb dogmatic babus who think it is criminal to do any work that is not a part of their portfolio. Then there is a class of afternoon-nappers whose bodies have adapted through years of service in MB to enable them to sleep in all positions, and even in the presence of someone trying to wake them up. If you encounter these creatures in the middle of their sleep they usually greet you with "udya sakali ya (come tomorrow morning)". In some other corners of the office there are also the smart ones whose most notable skill is that of adeptly passing the buck. These people have the ability of looking perpetually busy, even when they are not. Then there are the genX and genNOW babus who are furiously engaged in setting new standards in the realms of Solitaire and then some who are busy discovering the power of expression through emoticons on yahoo messenger. Their ability to chat and play games makes them the envied animals of the zoo. Ruling over such a typical office in MB is a deputy registrar. The registrar is like Lord Indra - he combines all the virtues of the other subordinates in his office. He has the amazing ability to show one or more of their characteristics at any given time.
The very thought of going to MB for work like the one I had brings resisting feelings inside me. The typical MB-ride involves running from table to table listening to indifferent aunties and uncles to find the "right one for the job", coming back once or twice to check if the job has been done, then waiting like mad for signatures from some awfully busy guy, then running to get signatures from other awfully busy guys, then coming back and getting it stamped by other indifferent uncles who dont seem to know what kind of stamp needs to be put, then running to other indifferent aunties to figure out what stamp is needed, who send you to other aunties whom they think might know better, whose mother-in-law incredibly decides to fall ill the very day you had come, which make you start to curse your ill-luck and by which time it is 4.30pm and MB has starts closing down rapidly like an avalanche, and when you walk back to hostel to the ubiquitous sounds of "udya sakali ya".
But it was my money at stake, so I had to go. I really had to. Got the signature from DoSA, and went to Deputy Registrar F&A, after lots of desperate searching to find what the hell F&A meant. Only to find he was not there. Then went to a senior babu. He was clueless whom I should approach. Went to senior aunty and she was busy talking on the internal phone. I waited. But she didnt stop. I got bored and went to another senior aunty, she was also clueless. Ditched the effort, came back to DoSA's office and waited. Asked Shanta madam to recommend whom I should go to. Turned out that "chosen one" was some Sulekha. Full of enthusiasm, I went to F&A section, eagerly asked for Sulekha. Alas! She was out for tea. I waited, but she didnt turn up. I came back the next day. Again asked for Sulekha, she wasnt there. Then I pleaded the others around if they could do my work. But they all refused. It was not their portfolio. And after all, the DoSA's office had pronounced it- Sulekha was the chosen one. I left my application on her desk, assuming... actually praying she would get it and then work on it.
I came back the next day, searching for my saviour, my tomb raider, my emancipator Sulekha, hoping that she would rise out of the dusty files in the F&A section armed with a pen and a computer and write for me with style and grace my bill to victory and freedom. But! Just as I entered, a sense of deja vu gripped me! Sulekha wasnt there! I asked around in the office. All the uncles and aunties were in a quandry. Mystery hung in the air. Where is our superheroine Sulekha?? Then, hitting me like a brick in the head, someone uttered the I-word. It was not her, but her mother-in-law. Yes, her mother-in-law was Ill! It was unlikely that superherione Sulekha gets back to office in the coming few days.
By this time I was sick of it. Thoroughly sick of MB. I asked the others if they could only check and tell me if Sulekha has worked on my application. My pleas fell on deaf ears. The lazy sloths never left their chairs. The dogmatic ones stuck to their "its-not-my-portfolio" stand. Some didnt even look at me, unable take their eyes off a rivetting game of Solitaire. A few good men ventured out of their chairs only to see her desk and whine that it had so many papers that it will be difficult to find my application. Along with all of this sounded interludes of "udya sakali ya".
I was frustrated completely. This Sulekha had got to my nerves. I decided to go to Lord Indra's court. On fire with anger I went straight to the Deputy Registrar. I waited outside for sometime and was then summoned in. "Sir, its been more than 3 days now. I have been trying to get some expenses that I made from my own pocket cleared. Everytime I come here I find that no one here seems to know who is supposed to do my job, and if at all it has been done" ... "Your application is for which programme? Mentor programme no? Prof Gadre... ahh yes yes... It should be given to Sulekha..." ting! ting! (a peon enters) "jara Sulekhala bolav" .. "Sir, Sulekha.. she is not there..."... "No no wait.. I will talk to her and get it done"... "Sir she is not there!..." He doesnt listen. Peon returns saying Sulekha is not there. "Accha Kulkarni... see the concerned person is not there. So you will have to come on Monday and give her your application"... "Sir I had kept the application on her table..." "Oh.. ok then you will have to come on monday and collect the bill" "Sir cant it be done today?" (in the meanwhile he has opened some other file and is reading from there) "Actually see Sulekha's mother-in-law is not well. She has been admited to Sion Hospital. You know Sion Hospital, where it is?" ..."Sir, all I want to know is if she has got my application and processed it. If she has, then please give me the bill number so that I can go to cash section and get it done"... "No no see Kulkarni, on her table there are so many papers. It is not correct for me to go and mess it up" ... "Sir there are no papers on her table. Her cabinet is locked" "Oh.. then it is impossible. You will have to come on Monday."... "Do you not have a spare key?" "Spare key we are having but we usually do not use it... we will also have to find it first (smiles sillily to the peon)..." I got sick of the man and started leaving without letting him complete his explanation. Completely raged, I banged the door of his cabin and angrily paced out the office. I walked with a good, rapid gusto. A couple of uncles and aunties looked at me amused. Then when I was walking out of the office in the corridor a peon walked up to me from behind and tapped my shoulder. "Saheb bolavtayt (sir is calling you)"
I went into the DR's office again, expecting the worst. That guy yelled at me. "How can you behave like this in a deputy registrar's office?? Do you have no manners??..." he went on and on. I looked down and stopped listening. When he finished I told him in one quiet sentence "Tumhi amhala ashe ithe kujavtat, ani mag mhanta ki mule desh sodoon Amerikela challe (you make us rot here like this and then complain about students leaving the country and going to the US)" There was a still silence after I spoke. The registrar looked at me with a speechless anger. Then he rung a bell, the peon entered - "Sulekha chi chavi aan". The peon came with the keys, the DR opened her cabinet, pulled out the file, found my application, found my bill, and gave me the number. In less than 2-3 mins. I dont quite remember but I think I said a thank you as I left.
The objective of this blog is not just to describe the going-ons in MB, IITB. It is to throw open a larger perspective on this reservation issue. What is the future of this country with reservations? It is something worth pondering about. According to numbers that are doing the rounds off late, open category boys form a minority in this country. Hence if left to vote bank politics alone, the government will only gain from more and more quotas. Governments might change but the quota system will continue. With time, IITs will become defunct ordinary engg colleges. Excellence will be plundered. Quality will be forgotten. Years of disregard for merit would mean more and more frustrated deserving candidates-more and more young bright people who would be sick of the way things work in the country, just the way I was in MB the other day. And this, I really think, would mean more and more quality people finding routes to the US, just to escape from this rut, this lousy bureaucracy and all this general "bullshit".
Given this scenario, when will the politicians stop this plundering of excellence? The answer is clear- the day it affects the country economically. The day they themselves realize that they have created an environment in education that is so wretched, that it is proving directly detrimental to the wealth and progress of the country (which in turn would mean loss of votes again!)
A lot of us friends are going to the US this year, and I am sure everyone of us has contemplated a bit about what justice we have done with the tax-payers money that was spent on our undergrad education. I tend to think that it is the same tax-payer that drives people out of the country. I would be lying if I claim that the only reason for so many people apping to the US is better education, and not better life. It personally gives me no pleasure to betray the confidence the tax-payer had put in me. But I cannot deny that it is the middle-class tax-payer who funded my education, who spits paan on the road, who pees on the railway platform, who elects this damned government, and who throngs those despicable, corrupt and lousy bureaucratic offices that make normal living so miserable for everyone that those who have the option, feel like leaving the country. It might be a thoroughly pessimistic point of view, but if things allowed to go the way they are going now, I think a time will surely come when the bright ambitious young people of this country will unequivocally react to the corruption and bureaucracy in the country by together holding its progress to ransom.
PS: A sincere request to all who read this- if you have anything to say, good/bad/crap, please comment. Secondly, when commenting please put your name as well.
Current Mood:  thinking wild today!
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01:03 am
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Change
Happiness had come pouring down on me on the 15th of March, a day I acknowledge now as the happiest day of my life, after an email containing an offer of full funding with an RAship to UIUC had landed into my inbox. Life has changed ever since. I could concentrate more on the PAF, slept later than late night, slept off during a quiz, had almost stopped having food in the hostel, regularly found a reason to go out by taking treats and giving treats, installed a game on my comp, started day-dreaming about life at UIUC and planning for touring around India in the vacations, and in more ways than one making the best "use" of the my time left in IIT.
Among the myriad treats that followed with myriad stupid reasons, one was to Abhisekh Sankaran- my close friend for a long 7-8 years now, having known him since our first day in college at SVJC. There are lots of people I still am in touch with whom I have known for the past 7-8 years... We all are truly good friends even today. Every time I think about those days from SVJC I am filled with a unique sense of energy, ambition and camaraderie.
And then I compare them with what exists today... Its remarkable where we have all ended up, not geographically or monetarily, but personally. Everyone seems to have changed. Changed in strange ways that 8 years ago would have never been predictable. Sometimes we ourselves dont realize that we have changed. Some of us realize it, but dont accept it. Some realize it, but dont like the way in which they have changed. On an average though, the most important thing is that everyone seems to be happy to have changed.
There is one chap however, who I thought would never change, an attribute that made him a subject of both, my ridicule and admiration - Abhisekh. Abhisekh, was a geek of geeks. His studies were his religion- worshipping which he got an AIR of 180, ranked 4th in Maharashtra state, Physics Olympiad Trainee, ranked second in IITB CSE dual degree. Its natural to ask where this stud guy is now headed - Google? NO! MIT? No! He is headed for a research assistantship. Where? US? NO! Take a guess! - Its IIT Bombay. This guy hasnt apped, didnt sit for campus placements. Forget that, this guy hasnt given his GRE, hasnt even got a passport!
The obvious question now is why an RA now? And in all sincerety he answers saying "I am not ready a PhD right now" Ok so why dont you want to do a job? "No no.. not a job..." Then why RA? "Basically I am looking for a stable lifestyle where I can manage myself, my studies and my music with ease. All these years in IIT I dont think I have been able to do that. Every time I wanted to, I had the option of going home. This liberty wont exist abroad..." So what makes you think that you are incapable of managing these things? "I want to go abroad, only after I am sure I will be to manage them, which requires me to be in IIT for one more year"
Baffling and exhasperating as his explanations may seem, if any one has known Abhisekh well, he would agree that this kind of apprehension, meekness, under-confidence and over-carefullness inspite of his talent and achievements, is his hallmark. I was not surprised one bit that this man has not changed.
Ok Abhishek that doesnt answer my question, so what makes you think you are still incapable? "Well its quite complicated... But its more like this. In my first 3 years in IIT I didnt do anything outside my academics. But I have realized in the last two years that in order to be able to do my acads, I have to do my music. In the past two years I have changed... Started playing for inter-IIT... sung and played more... I have changed for the better. Basically I have realized that to be successful my acads and my music have to co-exist"
It surprised me then that the guy I was assuming to be incorrigible, unchangebale also claimed to have changed. What is even more surprising is the magnitude of change- that he has found something to parallel his academics with, that he has found a something without which his means of livelihood cannot co-exist. Something so strongly endearing that he is willing to leave the worlds top companies and top universities aside just to be with it and learn a way of living with it. Something so over-powering that he has to struggle and LEARN a way of living with it. That something is what people call passion.
It was past midnight. We had missed the last train to Kanjur Marg. We were night-outing on the sea face at Nariman Point. The queen necklace was glowing yellow. The moon was glowing yellow, begining to set into the black sea. I watched in silence, it change from a mellow yellow disk to nothingness eaten by black clouds. No cars passed us by. Lights in residential buildings were few and far between. All I could hear was the swishing sound of the sea-waves. And the slow breeze. If one has to chronicle the most important changes that an IITian undergoes during his stay at IIT, its ironical that the most significant would not be one related to his academics. It would perhaps be finding his true calling - the one that helps him realize the difference between living a life and making a living.
I told Abhisekh something I had read somewhere - At funerals the greeks didn't read out orbituaries, they just asked "Did the man have a passion?". We have met after that and I still ridicule him for having made this choice of staying on in IIT for an RA. But heart in heart I am so glad he has changed.
Current Mood: calm
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08:40 pm
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Lost to the ether
I wrote "Pie in the sky" (check out the next entry) some days back and waited, in the hope that someone will catch its hidden meaning and respond to my blog. I even tried buzzing people asking them if they could "get it". Now that no one has chosen to respond, I shall surrender myself to heartbreaking task of explaining it.
We all have dreams, surreal and beautiful, and marked by impossibility. They are, what Paulo Coelho says, we are born with, and what our inner calling seems to be talking about.
Dreams however are not the same as ambitions. Particularly so when one is of my age, when the world seems to repeatedly make stern demarkations between the achievable and the unachievable, the unreachable. Dreams reside in the fantastic and unreachable part of our future only to remain through our life as a feeble voice and a distant and often laughable memory. On the other hand we tune our amibitions to the part of our future which is acheivable and gettable.
The naivety, ... perhaps the stupidity, of childhood infuses a pleasant fuzziness between the achievable and the unreachable and between our dreams and ambitions. It is this stupidity that makes us chase our dreams, thinking of them as our ambitions. Age unfortunately brings with it wisdom and perceptiveness. The fog of naivety begins to clear and the future stands divided between what "I can do" and what "I cannot do". The intellectual inside our brain continuously modifies our ambitions such that they fit into "what I can do", so that when we eventually do what we can do, we feel like we have fulfilled our ambitions, and lived our "dream".
Sometimes however, some very rare times, all this wisdom and perceptiveness breaks down. And thats what "Pie in the sky" is all about. There come times everyone now and then when passions outdo reason, and no voice is louder than your inner calling which yells at you repeatedly to leave the soft shelters of the achieveable and make the quantum leap into the unachieveable. But the more you think about it, the more you realize that this leap is into a vague, untested, untried realm. History tells you tales of all those who took the jittery jump and were lost from the ether. But your passions tell you to, come what may, jump! At moments like these the key to stop thinking and simply listen to your heart. When the times tell you to do something that history is denying, all that matters is what you believe in. "To believe is to do and to do is to defy"... "After all every dream begins as just a pie in the sky"
I wrote this poem as I was just about to leave for the last PAF. PAF is something I have been so passionate about and was very keen on winning it in my last year. Our PAF was performed second out of the 4. It was a stupendous, passionate performance. The theme was the Hindu-Muslim riots, everyone said we would win. It was the PAF of the year. I was overwhelmed and in tears after we performed it. I couldnt get sleep all night even after a week full of night-outs. We even partied after our PAF, and yet I couldnt sleep. Dailogues rang loud in my head and the heat of the performance remained simmering inside. Such was the PAF- 120 characters, 35 voice overs, prod of 3 stories, 1.5 hours, live music, superb choreos, live matki-phod. I had not seen a better PAF, nor did I think I would see a better one ...
For the past 2 years however, the last PAF had always won. There are serious advantages in doing a PAF last, which as I left for the last PAF made me apprehensive about our chances of winning it. In half faith I wrote the poem to convince myself that though our PAF wasnt the last PAF it could still win. We had after all gone for a bold theme, a theme that we were quite passionate about... This was the time to defy history.
It was such a beautiful piece of coincidence that though we didnt win the PAF, the meaning of the poem remained vindicated. To put our PAF-of-the-year to shame, Hostel 1-4-9-11 performed what everyone hailed as the best PAF ever. It was a PAF about PAFs. A PAF about IIT, a poignant PAF taking a hard look at us, a PAF about us-the dark us, us and our multiple problems, us and our depressions, us and friends, our friends and their suicides. It was a PAF that made me cry. It was a PAF that IITB would forever thank H-1-4-9-11 for making.
The theme of suicides was one that we had discussed when we were making our PAF. It was a story all of us wanted to tell, but none of us had the courage to tell it. A PAF about IIT seemed virtually impossible to pull off before the rowdy IITian audience. To explain the complex and vague problems of the depressed IITian is so difficult that we couldnt think of a script that could bind this theme in it. Hence inspite of the billowing passions that underlie the theme, we didnt attempt it. We listened to "reason". We played safe. We went by statistics. We went by popularity. We went by convention. And we went down. We went down to a PAF that refused to make the mistakes we made. The H-1-4-9-11 PAF listened to their passions and took the leap into the impossible. The vague and the untried didnt matter to them. All that mattered was that they were speaking their heart out.
And just like everyone else who has chosen to break away from the beaten path, they too were lost to the ether - our ether. Our ether of mediocrity.
Salute to the H-1-4-9-11 PAF team!
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08:21 pm
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Pie in the sky
Bird on the tree,
Looks to the sky
Feet that tremble,
Tear in the eye
Claws crouch it back,
A fear to fly.
Worry, anxiety,
Amidst moments of joy,
The vague, the impossible,
For the untried, the try.
The danger of falling,
As you embrace the sky.
When things come a full circle,
And passions run high,
And times come haunting,
What histories deny,
To believe is to do,
And to do is to defy.
Open your wings birdie!
Leave the tree behind!
Smile at tomorrow,
And begin to fly!
After all, every dream begins
As just a pie in the sky!
Current Mood:  PAF nbd!
Current Music: Quiet
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12:21 am
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Impossible is nothing
South Africa chased down 434 and gunned down the Aussie ego. Like an idiot I missed it when I was out of home. Well ... I did get a long walk with my mom on Juhu beach and fantastic dinner at Holiday Inn (rationalizing, consolation etc)... But... history is something that is IMPOSSIBLE to miss! It makes me feel so stupid! It proved what I had suspected for so long. Just as Adidas, Sachin and the title say - impossible is nothing, as for the most gallant as for the most stupid.
Just to guess what might have happened while I was away, here is a collection of yahoo messenger status messages, I see right now:
Aus actually lost
and we celebrated the petty NATWEST victory... c this now!
Who said 435 was unchaseable?????
when you cant defend 434...
Leap of faith, ... Now I believe!!
Lets support the South African fightback!!!
The cup of joy runneth over :)
WHAT A MATCH!!
life mein happy ho gaya :)
The greatest ODI match till date!
I believe in miracles!!
Impossible is nothing
Current Mood: energetic
Current Music: nothing.. just humming khalbali, if that counts for anything
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03:26 am
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Whats the "use"?
Melody after melody was floating by. The stage was bathing crimson light. The air outside was cold. A thousand souls breathed in the sound of the music. The air inside the auditorium seemed warm. Well, at least I felt the warmth. The heat, may be... may be the angst of a good man undone, sitting beside me, X. Thrice as deserving, but thrice rejected. Three mountains climbed up, and three slopes walked down, wondering what he did wrong. He was speaking his heart out. "I am a loser, dog... All I can do is mug for courses and get marks in exams... There is nothing that I can do which is original... I am applying for a Ph.D. in so many places, but I dont know what I am going to do..."
Do you realize X that there are very few in this insti who can do what you can do? How many people are better than you are? A handful at most! You are an IR! Cheer up man... "Look dog if I dont get an app then all of this is going to be of no use...!"
Even as I tried cheering him up I thought about all my futile attempts at maxing courses... the frustration, the anguish and the feeling of being unfairly undone... and how I thought I was better off choosing my own battles, outside of courses and doing something more "useful". But I honestly find myself as clueless as he is. Over the past four years we have walked divergent paths and have reached divergent definitions of success. Yet at this moment of truth we cant help but wonder, feeling as a loser as much as the other, "what is the use?" ...
... Priyadarshan had started singing "Kabhi khud pe, kabhi halaat pe rona aya..." His soulful voice pestering me with uncomfortable questions...
...Yeah, seriously _What Is The Use_ of what we have done during our educational tenure? Well, what is the use of education then? The more you think about this, the more you realize that there are numerous such "useless" things stacked up in company of education...
..."Kis Liye Jeete Hain Hum Kiske Liye Jeete Hain, Baarha Aise Sawalat Pe Rona Aaya..
Kabhi khud pe kabhi halaat pe rona aaya..."...
...On similar lines, what is the use say-let me stretch the context- of music? What is the use of individual notes? What is the use of solitary beats? Why then do people combine them? And why on earth did we stupid people come to listen? Music is much more than the collection of its constituent notes and beats. Music is not just rhythmic sound... it is a synergy, its an experience.
Its a peculiar idea this, something like education being of "use" for something like admission. Is it even possible to define an attribute as crass as "usefulness" for education? Is education some kind of a device that you simply plug in and expect it to open doors to jobs, admissions, scholarships and happiness? I think it isnt. The objective behind getting educated is not acquire it and then put it to "use" for something. At least the objective of IIT education isnt! (May be NIIT is!) The act of learning, experience of getting educated is a beautiful one, the usefulness of which cannot be calculated by summing up individual uses... the whole is much more than the sum of its parts.
..."Hum To Samjhe The Ki Hum Bhool Gaye Hain Unko
Kya Hua Aaj Yeh Kis Baat Pe Rona Aaya..."
Cheer up X, you are much more than the sum of your grade points! You will get more than what the sum of your grade points deserve.
Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Youth of the nation
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