Irony of Gavaskar's theories

I have always got irritated with the analysis of Mr. Gavaskar on the cricket matches. For the experience he has, first playing cricket for a long-long time, and second being associated in close quarters of cricket as commentator/analyst. I feel, his analysis is repetitive parrating of the age old theories. One of the big gems and stupidities has been this IPL's parrating of "How Indian domestic players cannot play on South-African pitches, and how this has been a great factor". This has been his favourite subject this IPL, and he invariably says this when a Indian domestic player gets out trying to hit the ball outside the boundary line.

In the hind-sight, before the IPL, any body who has a zilch knowledge of cricket would have guessed that playing in South-Africa would be challenging for the young Indian players who have played before, only in placid Indian pitches. But, unfortunately, the great thinker Gavaskar is, parrots the same thing again and again, as if he is the only person under the sun, who has predicted this great phenomenon. But the wonder of the situation is, the South-African pitches played in this IPL have been no different than any other Indian cricket pitch. The pitches have been wobbly and placid, and performance of spinners have been great example of state of the pitches in South-Africa this IPL. Still, our guy Gavaskar goes on and on about the In-capability of Indian players managing the Fast and Bouncy South African pitches. I hope, somebody teaches Gavaskar to talk about other things, which are happening other than this.

Yesterdays match between Royal Challengers (RC) and Deccan Chargers (DC) was a very good example of the capability or incapability of the players. The match was played on a strong pitch, which had nearly all the qualities of the South African pitch. A 19 year old kid, who has probably never seen anything else other than an Indian pitch (or Malaysian temporary pitches) played a brilliant innings and hits a century. This was in a circumstances where, No Indian has ever hit a century in IPL, either in India or South Africa. I started wondering what does Mr. Gavaskar has to say on this subject? He was no where to be seen yesterday, unfortunately.

The second theory of Gavaskar in this IPL was about run-outs. He increases the tone of his voice every time, when he says "One person has to call for the run". I wonder in disbelief who under the sun decides, who has to be the caller? In most scenarios, the situation is very clear as One batsmen is always in a situation to decide on a run and he decides to be the caller. But, most run-outs occur when both batsmen have the ability to decide, and the decision taken by both players are opposite, this leads to confusion and hence leads to run-out. And by the nature of T20 matches, which are fast paced and relatively new format, the factors affecting (Speed of the fielder, natural throwing hand, history of fielding skills, situation of the game, etc. etc.) the decision for RUN are varied and 2 players making the same decision is still improving as players gain experience of the format. Over and above this, players of different nationality, different strengths, different religions, different styles playing together makes more of a confusion and takes time, for players to reach consistent analysis for making a decision on a Run.

Man! complex entity this, taking a decision for a run. But good thing is, the batsmen do not get run-out every time they run. That is because, players use the age-old learning, (parrated by Gavaskar) and hence they do not get run-out every time. As most players are experienced in One Day and Test format of the game, there skills are honed to that affect. I am sure, with the experience of players increasing in the T20 format of the game, there ability to decide on a run will become more consistent and hence reduce the run-outs in the matches. I hope Gavaskar sees this fact and relieves the viewers of his irritating repetitions.

I was wondering and discussing with friends year or 2 back, why Gavaskar doesn't take a coaching opportunity etc. I guess it is easier to blabber theories on TV, rather than fail in implementing them. God save us from this dreadful commentary. And now I wonder, which team can risk implementation of these theories?

-- Madhukar Hebbar

Man, Woman and Understanding

We must have all heard most men saying "I do not understand my wife". This statement by itself does not make significant impact, as this is a norm rather than an exception. What surprises me is that, not many women say "I do not understand my husband". In fact, I haven't heard any women who has said this. They always seem so confident about understanding their husband. But when it comes to Men, they are mostly confused about understanding their wife. I guess, some of them, have given-up trying to understand.

Human personality gets formed by numerous amount of factors starting from the day of birth (or conceiving probably). To name a minimum few they are, upbringing by parents, neighborhood, education, friends, place, etc. etc. To stress again, this is a bare minimum list, each and every second of life impacts us in different ways. It is up to the individual how he perceives the scenarios of his/her life and what he/she/it understands from those scenarios. It is practically next-to-impossible to list all the factors which have made up the personality of person. Because of these huge amount of factors involved, a person understanding themselves itself is a big deal, live alone understanding of other person. Lot of philosophies have written loads of text on the matter of understanding oneself.

In spite of all these difficulties in understanding a person, I must admit, women have some special ability to understand their man. Some examples that I have seen are, women typically know the reason of their man being angry (Man himself might not know), women knows the needs of their man better than man himself, Women know the likings/disliking of their man, Women can pick-up cloths which a man will like (but the opposite probably is never true) etc. etc. I am sure each of you will have more examples for yourself to ponder upon. Despite of this understanding of their man, women, I have seen haven't shown much of understanding of themselves. But, in case of the children, women show an amazing clarity of understanding, which a man never can even dream of achieving I guess. This whole issue of Women's strength and weakness of understanding looks very complex.

As usual, I cannot stop myself from analyzing the reasons behind such great powers of the women.

From the days of hunter/gatherer humans, typical structure of a family is, Man has the responsibility of earning food, and woman has the responsibility of managing the family. Because of the responsibility, a typical man is always outside the house figuring out ways to earn the food for the family. (For most of the human life on earth, humans had to use physical energy to earn their food) When a man is home, typical objective of a man is to have rest, so that he can be ready for earning food the next day. Whereas typical woman, had the responsibility of taking care of family. Managing a family meant, managing the resources (food, money, house, utilities etc.) and managing the people (children, Man). Because of this responsibility, women have always put an effort to understand their Man, children, so that their needs are satisfied for the effective functioning of the family. Whereas, a man has never had a need to understand the woman to perform his duties for the family, only thing he had to know was the ways to earn his food. The balance of the family is maintained because of this, and the whole family lived happily.

For thousands of years, the responsibilities of a family has been structured in this way. And hence, women have built the skills needed to manage their family effectively. One of the skill being, understanding the people, especially the husband, they have mastered effectively. Probably over the years some of these skills have got into the gene of a women. Lately, there has been an argument for women making better managers than Men in corporate world. I guess the reason is, Women have been performing the role of managing the resources and people in a house-hold from thousand of years, it is very natural that they extend these skills to manage a corporate.

Over last 300 years, with the industrial revolution and all the technological innovations which have happened in the world, the need for physical effort to produce food has decreased considerably (The decrease has been continuously happening from last 3000 years starting with invention of wheel etc. But the industrial revolution has reduced the physical effort exponentially). With the advent of mechanization in clothing, making utensils, medicine, etc. in the society, the effort needed to manage an house-hold has reduced considerably also. The effort needed by both a Man and Woman to perform their duties in a family has been reduced considerably over last 2 centuries. Hence both Man and woman have put effort to re-define their roles in the family. The effect is clearly visible with the changing social structures, husband and wife working, decrease in importance of broader family, etc.

With the changing roles, the need for an Man for understanding his wife has increased exponentially over last 100 years. I believe, in today's world, more and more men are putting effort to understand their wife. I need to say, I have seen some who have even succeeded to a very large extent. Today's women, also expect their man to put effort to understand them, and hence the failure of a Man is more visible, when they fail and say "I do not understand my wife" in frustration.

In the historical days, woman looked for qualities like, ability to earn, strength, social status etc. in a man for choosing a husband. Whereas man looked at the qualities related to managing the family in a woman. With the nature of the world changing, today, both woman and man look at the qualities of "understanding, compatibility" in marriage.

Though, woman have head start of thousands of years in skills of understanding people, Man is making all efforts to learn the skills and continuously improve upon the skills, to live in the changed world. Best of luck for all Men! Failure is the stepping stone for success.

-- Madhukar Hebbar

I miss Mr. Bush

Today’s R K Laxman cartoon in Times of India (View Cartoon) followed by a coffee time discussion in office reminded me of impact of Mr. George W. Bush not being the president of USA any more. It has been around 4-5 months (I don’t care how long actually, so please do not try to correct me) since Obama has become the president of USA. Only thing we heard during the campaign trail of Obama was, “he is going to change something”. He is still running around the world, showing his face and smile in every news channel, news paper and telling about “Coming Change”. Has he made the impact of Bush? Don’t know what others think, but for me he has been a total disaster.

I realised today, generally I used to take about 25-30 Mins to browse through the news paper before Obama times. Typically I read only the headlines, and if some headline seems interesting, I read the article. Last 3-4 months, it takes just 15-20 minutes for me to read the news paper. If I have to drill down into my memory and see what was special before, it is all the interesting entertaining news which Mr. Bush used to create. Be it somebody “hurling a shoes” at him or “his use words of communicate something”, all made a very entertaining read, and much needed laugh to start the day with. The recent incident of a Journalist in Punjab hurling shoes at Mr. Chidambaram didn't have the same charm as Bush. Mr. Chidambaram was all political and diplomatic, killing the fun element in the whole scenario. Whereas the way Mr. Bush ducked the shoe-missile and commented later about the size of the shoe being 8, is the mark of great entertainer.

Mr. Bush had been providing us with the much needed entertainment in various forms, News paper articles about him, his speech, his meeting with a statesman of different country, etc. etc. Everything he did and everything he told was entertainment. Mr. Jug Suraiya one of the journalist in the Times of India (TOI) group even created a cartoon name Dubyaman, with Mr. Bush as a super-hero. (I think mostly these cartoons were not so funny, sheer presence of Mr. Bush made it readable.) I have read some of Mr. Jug’s other articles in TOI; it has always been a pain reading those. I must confess, I haven’t fully read even one of his articles. I would typically skip to another article just after reading first few lines of his articles.

Other than the newspapers, Mr. Bush has been the subject of numerous amounts of forward emails. For the individuals, whose aim in life is to send forward emails, it must be very depressing to not find enough subjects. I have a feeling that, the “Good luck emails” (The emails which are supposed to be forwarded to more people to bring good luck) have increased considerably after Mr. Bush has lost the presidency. This has basically stolen me of the mid-day fun seeing these emails. A complete statistical analysis on the forward emails probably will throw more light on this subject. (I am game to do the analysis, but obviously somebody has to be generous to give me the research grant)

Mr. Bush though branded by media and people in general as a bad man, stupid person, etc. never cared. Probably he was following his Dharma of entertaining people without giving much importance to what people talked about him. I guess he must have been one of those great souls, who followed the great philosophy (from Bhagavad-Gita). I rate Mr. Bush, very next to one Mr. Charles Chaplin with respect to entertaining the public, and bringing smiles to peoples face. Probably Mr. Bush would have touched more hearts than Mr. Charles Chaplin. Another area for research, Institutions and organisations have to come forward to invest in research on these subjects. I believe, the output of the research will help improve the mental health of people of the world.

Mr. Bush, if you ever read this piece, I miss your smiling face on the television. I miss your charm and talk when dealing with the gravest problems facing the world. You do not have to be president to entertain. Please take world tours, and you will be on media again. I guess this is what all the retired presidents do, why are you not doing this? I hope to see you back again in media. Thanks for all the entertainment.

I being a pessimist started thinking, what happens if Mr. Bush never comes back in prominence in media. Will the world continue like it is now? Will I go into depression? Who else can save the world? Tunnnnnn… The bell rang in my head, and a name came to my mind.

Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Last 5 years, Mr. Lalu has subdued himself and has been staying out of the spotlight, as he wants to be Prime Minister of India one day. God knows, why he got this idea, it was probably because of all the negative publicity against him in the media (I get a feeling Mr. Bush never cared for all the negative publicity against him). Though, because of the great character he cannot miss being in spotlight once in a while. Nevertheless, his presence in media had decreased considerably over last 5 years, decreasing the importance of Indian politics in the media. A man, who can make most boring, recital of financial numbers, “Budget Speech”, entertaining, has to be respected for his humongous skills. I am sure; Mr. Lalu will get back his charm once he becomes a Primer Minister.

What we can do at this point in time, is to help Mr.Lalu become Prime Minister. My sincere request to all the readers is, NOT to vote for BJP or Congress, and to vote for any other candidate from any other party. Mr. Lalu has a chance to become PM this way. In this grave situation facing the world, people of India have a huge responsibility of saving the world from depression. Please use your “precious vote” towards saving the world.

-- Madhukar Hebbar

Religion and Science

The question I am trying to answer in this essay is, “why is that religion and science do not go together?”, “Are they really opposite ends?”, “Can they ever go hand in hand?”

I have listed definitions of Religion and science below, courtesy, www.dictionary.com. The essay will use this as the base definitions to deliberate on the subject.

Religion: “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.”

Science: “a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.”

As one can see, the glaring difference between the two is, Religion is based on “beliefs (faith)” and Science is based on “facts or truths”. Without going into much detail, we can see that “based on beliefs” and “based on facts” naturally form the opposite ends of spectrum of thought. At a high level, we can probably conclude that they cannot go hand in hand and never have a consensus on anything.

But is this truth?

Typically people believe something, when they do not know (understand) the fact. When they do know the facts, they understand something rather than they believe it. For example, people believe that “there is God”, whereas people understand that “touching fire burns”. When it comes to subject of “Purpose of Life”, “Who is God?”, “What will happen after we die?” etc. etc. type of questions, the facts (scientific truth) are not known by the human being and hence no facts associated with it. There are number of theories, some of the learned men have created to answer these questions. These theories are imbibed in the followers of various religions/castes/sects present in our society. Hence we can conclude that the “area of play” of Religion and Science is different. They are not opposites. In the scenario where scientific facts are not available, people are free to believe (have faith) in something which makes sense to them, (Typically theories, philosophies) with the purpose of finding the truth.

Over the years of human history, Religion and Science have been loggerheads with each other. Some of the glaring examples I remember are from the western society, where Copernicus, Galileo etc. had to face the wrath of the religion because, they proved a fact, which was against the general belief of the religion. The religious belief of the society was shattered by the revelation, and at that point in time not many people had the sense to try understanding and appreciating the fact in it. Darwin’s theory of evolution was not accepted by the Christian followers, as it provided a completely different view of the evolution than the Genesis theory in Bible. It took 200 years (Just recently in 2009, Vatican accepted the Darwin’s theory) for the religion to accept a very strong theory of Darwin. (Some of the evolutionary concepts can never be proved. Some of them related to Plants, Birds have been proved through the experiments and genetic engineering).

In our Hindu society, some of the examples of following of conflict between faith and science are the non-acceptance of staunch believers in the abolition of sati, child marriage, English Medicine (Still some villagers think, it is a sin to use them) etc. We can relate some of the ills of our society, back to faith and religion, and lack of factual thinking and lack of effort to find truth. Every society has got lot of good qualities also because of the belief in the religion, For E.g. Non Violence, Respect of others etc.. (I apologise, I couldn’t think of better examples of conflict between science and religion in our Hindu society. If reader can give some, it would help me.)

As we can see very clearly, through the Faith (Religion) and Fact (Science) act in a completely different “area of play”, their paths have crossed and ended mostly in a conflict. The reason is very obvious; the basic implementation (followed by people) of a belief is to believe without logic/reason. Unfortunately this has been the method of teachings of some of the religions hve followed to keep the support group strong. (“Never question God”. “It is written in the sacred book”. These are the statements which the preachers of such type of belief make). When a fact is proved, by somebody, it is a natural instinct (survival instinct) for a believer to instantaneously reject it. This is the reason that Religion and Science have not gone hand in hand most of the times.

When theory (logic) is thrown to counter a belief, the theory has to be countered with logic of the belief, instead of blind negation due to faith (Blind negation due to faith, will hamper the knowledge and hence the opportunity to know the truth). This process will give the best of both the “areas of play” to all the individuals. This process will make sure that, Religion and Science both benefit from each other.

One of the great examples of follower of the above process was Einstein. He was an avid reader of philosophy and religion. He has also made some statements regarding the greatness of some of the religious theories and how it has helped him. He has even proposed some theories on “Meaning of Life”, “Purpose”, “Soul” etc. (This article gave me an opportunity to search and find this site today - http://www.einsteinandreligion.com. One never knows where knowledge is available :-))

The example of greatness of this process in India is Shankaracharya; he traveled across the country, having arguments with the leaders, individuals, teachers of different beliefs. He spread his Advaitha philosophy across India though this method. There are examples of some great thinkers/philosophers accepting his theory after big discussions (Discussions with Mandana Mishra and his wife is very well documented one). One story about how an “Untouchable Fisherman” teaches the basics of his Advaitha philosophy (which Shankaracharya propagated) to himself is a wonderful example of the process. (Though both are theories, than facts, a stronger theory has a better logic and appreciating that will help in reaching the Ultimate fact.)

One can argue that, “Why have faith at all? When we do not know about certain thing, why not just accept and sit down saying, I do not know about this, I do not believe anything.”

Unfortunately the above thought process leads to inaction. If inaction is the happiness for somebody they can follow this. If the purpose is to understand the Truth of any matter, Faith becomes a very important vehicle. With the available knowledge, one will have to figure out the “unknown areas”, and start searching for answers in “unknown areas”. Since, the facts are not know, Faith is the vehicle which gives the individual the belief that the answer can be found. Faith is the vehicle which takes the individual across the difficult times in his search for the truth.

-- Madhukar Hebbar

What will I be born as in my next birth?

What will I be born as in my next birth?

The very first answers to this question were provided to me by good old stories of Hinduism. Based on the actions (Karma) I perform in this life time, my soul will be born again, to live the reactions of those actions. And the cycle of action and re-actions continue for ever, until, I live a life which will have actions and the reactions of which I will bear in the same lifetime. The whole objective for an individual soul is to arrive at a balance of action-reaction in the same lifetime, so that the soul is liberated from the cycle of re-birth.

I never understood this whole concept of re-birth. There are number of unanswered questions like,

How do we define an action in non-relative terms?

What is soul?

What happens to my soul when the cycle ends?

What is the meaning of liberation of soul?

I think the critical thing in this whole theory is the identification of entity called as “Soul”. There is no physical definition of this, and philosophies term it as related to the spirit of an individual. Soul is the spiritual me or whatever. The definitions are so vague and there is total disconnect from relating this to any of the physical elements was too-much for me to comprehend.

Human body is group of Atoms. Any matter is a group of Atoms, assuming Atom is the most elementary particle of any matter. (For the folks interested on the most elementary particles, please read on String Theory.) I tried to relate the soul to the physical entities understandable by me. I could come up with some definitions as below,

1. The sum total effect of all the Atoms (elementary particles) in any matter can be termed as Soul.
2. The first Atom of a matter when formed can be termed as Soul. (E.g. First atom formed due to a reaction of Sperm and Egg)
3. An important “group of atoms” which define a matter to its core can be termed as Soul (E.g. Group of Atoms in some part of brain)

Probably, one of these might be Soul as defined in philosophies or probably there is some other definition. I will leave this to the judgement of the reader to choose or not choose one of the definitions.

For me, the definition in Point 1 made a lot of sense. Each Atom of any matter has some sort of energy (polarity or electro-magnetic energy or whatever) in it. What defines an individual is the sum total of all these energies put together, such an important grouping defines an individual (any matter) can be termed as Soul. Whereas going by my physical definition, the Soul is ever-changing, it is changing every milli-second with the numerous amounts of chemical reactions, transformations happening in a human body (Any animal, tree, thing, for that matter). For e.g. when I eat a piece of matter (food :-)), there are new Atoms which are joining my system as proteins, carbohydrates are whatever. In the same way when I excrete, the Atoms which can not attach to me are thrown out of the system.

Having defined soul, the next step is to identify my future life using this definition of soul. When I die, according to my caste, my body will be burnt. My body will be transformed into various different forms of matter like, Gases, and Ash. There is no loss of atoms; it is just that the bonding which was holding them together disintegrates. This disintegration leads to the transformation of grouping of atoms to various other forms of matter. The ashes will be immersed in the water, a fish might eat that (part of me becomes part of fish), bigger fish eats the smaller fish, cat eats the bigger fish, dog eats a cat, so on and so forth. The atoms which were forming me, has dispersed and transformed into various other forms of matter, hence killing "Me" completely.

The above flow has basic conflict with the general theory of reincarnation, which is, Soul is immortal and Soul is carried forward to my next birth. Where as in my definition, soul disintegrates completely, and dies (Liberation?). Fortunately or unfortunately I subscribe to my theories only until proved wrong, and hence, though there is a conflict with age-old theory, I stand by mine. The thought that I die, is a comprehendable and safe option for me to live my life now.

As I was writing the above, I realised I had missed an important point. All those, Atoms which formed me, had a bonding of some sort, to be part of me. With the natural process, I have selected certain atoms to be part of me and rejected (excretion, vomit etc.) certain types of atoms. The reason an atom is part of me is because, it has found a natural bonding with my other atoms (electro-magnetic force?). In summary, all atoms which have made me, have found a natural bonding (natural attraction, natural affinity etc.) to be part of the group called me.

As I live my life, the energy polarisations (electro-magnetic force) which define these atoms, would have changed in some way depending on the way I have lived my life. The principle of atoms changing because of group behavior (Me) is similar to, “People in the same place (China, South Indian, Mangalore etc. etc.) typically look the same”. It is the set of individuals who make up the group, and these individuals typically have a common factor to be attached to the group. Going further, group characterstics gets built over a period and the individuals attaching to the group implement the group characterstics in them to be part of the group. In summary, concept can be simply defined as "group characterstic changes because of the individuals", and "individual characterstic changes because of the group".

Applying this concept to an "individual atom" which has formed "Me", all the atoms which have forrmed "Me" define "Me". Also, because of the group characterstic of "Me", each and every individual "Atom" which has formed me would have changed to implement the characterstic of "Me". When I die and get burnt, my soul disintegrates and I am re-born as various other forms of matter (atoms intergate into other forms of matter after I have burnt). My next birth is multiple (Trillions of Trillions probably :-)) lives. I guess it must be fun.

In summary, there are 2 answers I could arrive to my important question,

1) I die after I die
2) I will have multiple lives after my death as human

The second option looks more realistic to me, and I prefer that as the final answer for my next birth.

If you see a piece of wood after my death, love it, it might be me :-)

--Madhukar Hebbar

What happened to election festival?

As long as I can remember the past, elections in India were celebrated with energy and jubilation like any religious festival. Way back from times when I was 10 year old kid to now, I feel the energy and jubilation for an election has worn down considerably. Though there are number of factors which have changed over this period of time, it is difficult to pin down the exact reason for the change. This is an attempt to remember the lost glory of the election period and to list down some of the factors which might have affected the change.

In the earlier days, during any election, whole city had a colourful look. The colours were the different colours representing the different brands of the political parties. Typically the roads, buildings, bridges etc. in the main business areas would be garlanded with the party symbol printed on a flashy plastic paper. This garlands sort of provided a pleasant and festival look to the main business areas of the city. I guess, it also made it pleasant as some of these political parties would have used creative brains to identify the colours which they use.

I had always been fascinated with the creativity and the artistic nature of the folks who would do the cut-outs of the leaders. In the election season one could see the cut-outs of the majority of the leaders in every nook and corner of the city standing in different forms and shapes. Two cut-outs never looked the same, and the leaders would be wearing a different dress in each of the cut-out. Mostly the dress and colour of the cut-outs were designed to catch the eyes instantly. Mostly, all the cut-outs always would have been garlanded with the some sort of flashy material; even flowers were used to garland the cut-outs some times. I believe, when the fresh flowers were used in garlands, it would be changed before the flowers dried-up. These cut-outs always looked fresh and showed the leaders always in happy/positive mood. I think, with all these colours, happy faces; the cut-outs gave sort of very good feeling to move around in the city.

Auto-rickshaws were used heavily in the campaigning during the election days. A typical auto-rickshaw would be fixed with a loud speaker and with the cassette player. One could always hear a tune of a hit movie song, which would be plagiarized, and lyrics would represent the greatness of the leader, good work of the party, manifesto of the party, a meaningless jiggle about the symbol etc. etc. Though most of the songs used to be hardly bearable, going with the 80-20 rule, there would be some songs which would be brilliant. Most of the songs were always bearable for the first time because of the different type of lyrics on a famous tune. Some times, the owners of this auto-rickshaw would stop the cassette, hold the microphone and make the announcements, shout party slogans, shower praises on the leader, reminding public of the election day (Remember "Mareyadiri matha Bandhavare, Marethu Nirasharaagadiri" ??), reminding of the party symbol etc. etc. Generally speaking, these guys always had a good voice, and sometimes if we were lucky, we would have announcer who would turn himself into a orator, making a instant speech. If we are more lucky, sometimes these guys turn out to be witty and get us into a instant laugh. There are scenarios I remember, when everybody in the house were out on the street when one of campaigners would make a really witty speech.

As kids, whenever an election auto-rickshaw came to our street, we always used to run behind it, and one of the campaigners would throw the pamphlets with election manifesto on it. God knows why we saw this as fun, but anyways we always followed the principle of running behind the election auto. This used to be the scene in the most streets during the election days earlier. I even remember, reading some of these pamphlets, and obviously making boats and airplanes out of the pamphlets.

During the evenings, one could see most elders standing outside in the compound of their house discussing about the elections with neighbours. As kids, though we were playing something on the street, we could always make out a good discussion. The conversation would get very dramatic sometimes, with the individual showing his strong like or dislike towards a party or a thing. In such scenarios, the other people who are discussing in different groups would join the group fuelling the discussion into more dramatic moments. As kids, though we would not enjoy the content of the discussion, always joined the group and listen to the discussion. God knows, what we used to think, probably it was just entertaining to see a dramatic discussion between neighbours.

All the above is what can be termed as preparation for the festival. On the festival day, that is the voting day, one could see all people dressed in better dress (I can’t say the best) than what they daily wear, moving in groups to the election booth. I think, the best part of a festival other than the food is, everybody in the neighbourhood is on there best attires, with new cloths and in a happy mood. The voting day, always provided this view as most people would go to voting booths, with better attires, and with a sense of purpose and hope in their mind. One could see every bodies face lit-up to the task of voting, and as a kid, I always felt happy on those days without purpose.

Lot of things have changed today, we cannot see much cut-out’s, we cannot see the Garland of party symbols beautifying the streets, Auto-rickshaws with loud speakers have vanished, election songs is not there and unfortunately I cannot see much discussion among the neighbours on election subject. These days neighbours mainly discuss about some program on TV. I think over 20 years number of factors have affected the bringing down the festivity of an election,

1. Television gaining in prominence as main source of information for the public
2. Frequency of elections increasing dramatically
3. Increase in immaturity of the political leaders and the parties
   
4. Civic authorities believing that Party symbol garlands, cut-outs, loud speakers etc. reduces the beauty of the city
5. Election commission controlling the spend of political parties by tightening the rules etc.

Whatever is the reason, I am not sure if we are going to get back the glory days of election festival back in our society.

I miss the fun of election festival.

-- Madhukar Hebbar

An argument against sena outfits

What is our culture? This is the question which is ringing in all the news mediums last 3 weeks. Unfortunately, so-called custodians of Hindu culture, the different Sena outfits, have not come out with an answer for this question. Instead of answering the question the Sena outfits have made statements like “Drinking alcohol in pubs is not our culture”, “Women wearing skimpy cloths is not our culture”, “Celebrating Valentines day is not our culture”.

Though the statements clearly state the expected result from the culture, the reasoning of how and why these expectations became part of our culture is not clear. It would be better for the all the Sena outfits to come out with the definition of our culture and reasoning behind it. The reasoning when it depicts the benefits offered by following of the culture, will have more takers. Who knows? This might lead to a cultural revolution of the world leading to never ending joy of human beings.

Anyways, we do not have the definitions and there is no point of rattling on wondering what might happen. What we have today is the statements made by the Sena outfits, and it wouldn’t be justice to disregard the statements as insane without an argument against it. The article will not delve into the good or bad certain things will cause to the society. In absence of scientifically proven proofs regarding good/bad of an object, every individual has his right to make his decision regarding the object (off-course within the premise of law).

If we view some of these statements in the light of history of last 100-200 years of culture, then some statements sound true. But to really understand our culture we need to refer to texts of our civilisation (Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana, Mahabharata, etc.) which provide us the perspective of way of life during those days. This will provide us a logical base and definition instead of generalising from examples which some individuals might have seen. Individuals might have seen 50-100 years of life, and am sure no one individual can see the various probabilities life has offered in such a short period of time.

In Vedas, there are instances of people drinking “Soma” for intoxication. Most commonly available knowledge of the historical way of life for everybody is Ramayana and Mahabharata. These poems/stories are worshipped as sacred text in Hindu way of life. There have been numerous examples of people drinking intoxicating drinks for entertainment in these texts. There also have been instances of mis-use and abuse of intoxicating drinks in the same texts. Drinking Baang (Processed marijuana mixed with milk) on Holi is still followed as a culture in lot of parts of North India. One common factor in all these texts, the taking of intoxicants has not been restricted to Men.

These are just examples to prove the use of intoxicants in our culture based on authentic material. It is also common knowledge that the people have been using the intoxicants in our culture in various forms. There is also a secondary argument to this by the Sena outfits that says, “Women in our culture did not drink”. This argument comes out of the near history (last 100-200 years), where our people have generally not seen women taking intoxicants. If this was really the case, then it is the decision made by the women of yester years not to take intoxicants. There is no restriction on women alone which can be found in history of our civilisation. General effects of intoxicants have been known and it is just that women tended to go by the decision of not drinking. But today, if some women tend to take intoxicants, there is nothing binding them culturally not to do it.

Indian civilisation has gone through drastic changes in the clothing aspects of the culture from its historic days. Going back to the vedic days (1000-2000 Century BC) till around 12th century AD, the clothing of the people within the Indian civilisation can be defined as “Skimpy” (In today’s terms). The proofs are available in the various “carvings” around the temples which can be seen even today. The carvings around the temples, consistent across different regions should be identified as an artist’s representation of the people of those days. After this period, Indian dressing habit was heavily influenced by Moghuls, and Europeans (mainly British) during the later period of time.

(I had read a research paper on the how the dressing habits of India have changed over a period of time. Unfortunately, I do not remember the source/name of this material. But I am sure research books/materials regarding history of India will throw light regarding this subject)

Sena outfits are seeing the general tradition and way of dressing over last 100-200 years to generalise our culture. Ideal representations would be the way the people dressed in various carvings in our temples, which was during the period of no external influence. Indian way of dressing was driven from the climatic conditions of the country rather than some godly thinking. Climatic conditions of our country have not changed and hence would be ideal to get back to our roots and culture instead of withering under external influence. Going by the rules of Sena outfits, which is bound by our culture, I guess Skimpy dressing by the people is after-all not a sin. In fact Sena outfits have to support the movement of going back to the dressing styles of earliest of our civilisations.

Valentines Day is not part of our civilisation (and hence culture probably?). It was part of western civilisation and Indians off-late are trying to adopt this as part of our culture. The basic premise of Valentines Day is expression of love by one individual to another. Expression and celebration of love have always been part of our culture right from the Vedic days again. The biggest example is the life of Krishna, his exploits of love have been part of out folklore from time immemorial. Krishna is worshipped today as God, with an appreciation of the fact that he showed and followed Love in his life. Life of Meera Bhai, who wrote poems and sung it in love of Krishna cannot be forgotten. She has been part of our culture and has been worshipped for her love towards Krishna.

If the argument against Valentines Day is regarding the physical show of Love in public, then one has to go back and check out the carvings on our various temples. That is a proof enough to show that, Physical love of 2 individuals was respected by our civilisation during the earlier days. One doesn’t have to visit Kajuraho for seeing this, visit any temple which was built before 12th – 13th century AD and there certainly will be carvings on the physical love of individuals. I think the respect of the civilisation for the physical art of love allowed them to carve them on the temples. This is enough proof that our culture holds love and celebration of love with respect, instead of rubbishing it as shameful affair.

This is probably the reason that younger generation of India is trying to adapt to Valentines Day very easily. This is the greatness of Hindu culture which doesn't restrict people from following something not their own.

Another perspective of people supporting the Sena outfits view of “Hindu Culture” which the article doesn’t delve into is, “Young Indian is blindly following the western tradition”. I do not know if this is really the case, as there is no effort put in to understand the minds of young generation. The argument is based on superficial understanding of what people have seen from outside. Neverthless, do these same people want the "Young Indian to follow the Hindu Culture blindly"? Following any culture/tradition blindly without understanding the consequences will lead to disaster. Think of any atrocity in any culture and root cause will lead to the blind following of the culture.

The article was intended to show the lack of depth in the understanding of our culture by the Sena outfits. I believe, Sena outfits and its followers need to put effort in understanding our culture and then educate the public with the reasoning to achieve there goals. The current process of making statements without depth of reasoning will reduce the value of our wonderful culture in the eyes of a non-believer.

-- Madhukar Hebbar

Who is the Boss?

"We live in a male dominated society"

This has been the argument of the society from time immemorial. The common understanding of the world is woman have been dominated and controlled by Men. Woman’s rights and freedom have been curtailed by Men.

From the perspective of an outsider, probably the understanding is true. We can state numerous examples and generalise by saying, "Men have controlled the happenings of Woman’s life". Some examples are “Man shouting at his wife seeing a small mistake”, “Women not getting educated to the level of Men”, “Woman marrying the person decided by Father” etc. From the birds eye view this looks like Woman were actually being controlled by Men.

In a general house-hold during early days of civilisation (till around 100 years back), Man was supposed to work in the fields all day long, he was supposed to do the heavy energy intensive jobs like, cutting firewood, watering farms, etc. etc. Whereas woman would always be in the shade of the house typically cooking, taking care of the garden, weaving baskets, making a broom, taking care of children etc. Women used to enjoy the best of the life. Yes, there always used to exceptions and cross-over of responsibilities during special periods. But generally the break-up can be defined as above.

If I see the above work break down structure, I get a feeling that Men were actually treated like slaves. They were supposed to work in hot sun the whole day; they were supposed to do all labour intensive jobs. Woman did the relatively less labour intensive job and more of skill oriented jobs. At a high level, we could define the structure as “Men earned” and women had the responsibility to "manage the earnings (house-hold)". One can relate this to the corporate world, to identify the boss in this relationship. Manager of earnings and cost is the real boss, and everybody works on the instruction of the Manager.

I feel, Women always were the boss, and it is well kept secret and superbly managed conspiracy. They never made this known to the external world, and I guess, they managed there tight control on men because of this secret. The execution of the conspiracy was done with such precision that most of the Men never got a hint of it, women made the Men look-up to themselves as boss. This was the master stroke of the whole conspiracy which allowed the supremacy of Women not to be questioned by Men.

Could such a conspiracy really exist? Or, I do not understand the life of people when farming was the primary profession? Since, I couldn’t really comprehend the life of a farming family, I thought of trying to understand the life in city. That would be the best way to reason my feeling with logic, as city is the life I have seen.

A general city family of 1970-80, would be structured as, Men going to work/business and earning, and women had the responsibility of managing the house-hold. I could just state “Men Worked” and “Women Managed”. One might argue that is how people structured themselves and there is nothing called as Boss in such a structure. Is that so? General behaviour of a Man always used to be controlled by women. For Example, After a hard days work, a typical man wanted to entertain himself by gambling, or drinking alcohol. But such privileges were never allowed by women, and I believe these were made as social evils by Women. Men would have to answer numerous questions for not reaching home early from their work place. In some cases, woman would even torture their husbands with crying, whining, not eating, and other special tools. The height of ingenuity of these tools is that, Man never got a doubt of the conspiracy and always thought woman are weak. And woman’s behaviour of crying, whining etc. was considered as their weakness, and men felt the responsibility of supporting them. How Smart?!!

The control never stopped at some of the vices of Men. Control was more pronounced, when after a hard days work, they were supposed to help Woman at home in doing house-hold stuff. This helping in house-hold work is not so pronounced in the society and even if they were helping, not many men shared the information to the external world. This was because Men were made to believe that their status increased by that. I guess, this was the thought process of men, which helped women to hide the conspiracy. How Stupid?!!

Everyone might have heard of the way a Man is terrified, when his Mother-In-Law visits their family. This fear is real, and Man has always shared some of the truths like this to external world. One should just have a watchful eye to understand the reality in those truths. I believe, these visits by Mother-In-Law were the training ground, as the mother views the ways of the daughter first hand and advices the daughter on how to take control of their man. I guess, this is how the technique and method of control has been handed down over generations.

Yes, there were certainly some men who were exception, but generally most Men fall into category of being controlled.

Dowry is believed to be used as a tool by Men to show their dominance over women. Guys, just sit-back and think for a while. Shouldn’t dowry be termed as a process of women buying a Man? Isn’t it simple, women pays money and buys a Man. And women always wanted the best Man who can take care of her needs with the available money. That is what it is. I believe this is another master stroke of the conspiracy to always make the Man believe that he is in control, whereas it is women who are practically in control. You just have to visit some of these house-holds of dowry marriage to realise what has been told above. Yes, there were always exception cases (atrocities based on dowry), but general behaviour was women controlled men.

I suggest you folks to visit and see the life of some widowers and widows. Visit specifically the widows/widowers who have been married for 30-40 years and then lost their partner. I have always seen an old widow leading her life peacefully without generally having a feeling of loss. Just like a manager would feel when he has lost an employee, they just have a tinge of sadness and then they continue to lead life normally. But widowers I have seen, end up being lost in this world. They never have the energy or knowledge of coming out of this loss as they were always managed. Moreover at that age, they do not know how to manage themselves. The scenario is similar to a prisoner, who has been managed in the prison for, say, 30 years, and then released. He doesn’t know how to lead his life. He has the feeling of loss.

Over last 10-20 years, the scenario has changed and women are working shoulder-to-shoulder with Men. I am not sure, if this is just an adaptation of the conspiracy to the new world or something else. It might be also that, somewhere down the line, the knowledge of managing this conspiracy has been not communicated or not understood by the younger folks. Probably the young women folks of this day have been misled by the opening of the communication channels through Papers, TV etc. and believe that working and earning is the way for control/independence.

But whatever has happened for whatever reason, all Men have to be careful not to be controlled. In the times of change, Men have to be more careful to understand where they stand and free themselves from the chain of the control.

For all men,

Best of Luck!

-- Madhukar Hebbar

Logical Architecture of Brain

A brief description of the different components of the architecture are provided below.

Senses: Various Senses of the Human Body receives inputs from the external world. The inputs are termed as eyes seeing something, ears hearing, tongue tasting, etc. etc. Each and every sense of human body is passed to “Processor” of brain to perform an action.

Processor: Processor can be termed as the engine of brain. The Engine is triggered by an input request. Input can be either from an “External World” or from an internal “Background Process”. Processor identifies the relevant rules from the “Rules Storage” according to the input, Arrives at the result, Stores in “Memory” or/and Passes a message to perform an action to relevant “Body part”.

The process of starting from an input till deciding on a action is called “Thought”.

To relate this to the computer world, Processor (CPU) is running a thought (thread) to perform an action according to the defined rules and objectives (Programs) on the data available in memory (Database).

There are 3 different processors, which can run multiple threads at any point of time. These processors are built for a specific purpose and have the ability to pass a thought across to another processor based on the defined Rules and Objectives.

The different processors or

a. Background Processor – The purpose of the background processor is to perform the house-keeping operations for rules, objectives and memory. A thought in the background processor is not triggered by any input. Some examples of house keeping are

1. Arrange and label (Indexing) the memory according to the ever changing rules and objectives.
2. Prioritise the data in memory and move the data to “Memory Cache” according to the rules and objectives
3. Provide inputs to Sub-Conscious processor in case of any exceptions to the rule found while house-keeping

As an example for point 3, a person might have taken a decision sometime (week, month, year, infinite) back. But after a certain amount of time, the person realises what he did was not correct. This might happen at the middle of the night, when he is thinking of completely unrelated subject, etc.

Another example of Background Processor is a person wakes up fresh every morning after a good nights sleep. Sleep is when the background processor is most active and house-keeping operations performed by it is what makes the mind fresh.

b. Sub-Conscious Processor: The purpose of the Sub-Conscious processor is to collect the inputs, validate rules and perform an action as defined by rules. Sub-Conscious processor is a low energy consuming processor. The Sub-Conscious processor can also be defined as the processor which works in a mechanical/defined way. Any exception in this process of thought, the thought will be transferred to the Conscious processor. Some real world examples of Sub-Conscious processor are

1. A person is walking on a road, steps aside when a tree comes in the path without even realising. The decision is Sub-Conscious and the person doesn’t realise this had happened.
2. A person doesn’t touch a fire as he knows Sub-Consciously that his hand will burn.
3. People doing monotonous jobs use Sub-Conscious processor only.
4. Sub-conscious processor is typically associated with all scenarios related to “inactive state of mind”.
5. Involuntary activities are performed by Sub-Conscious processor. (Heart beat and various other functions of body)
   

c. Conscious Processor: This processor has the sole responsibility of creating, changing and deleting rules and objectives. This is highly energy consuming process as creating, changing or deleting requires the validation of multiple existing rules and objectives in the system. Conscious processor when using high energy levels can reduce the working of Sub-Conscious and Background processor to reach the result.

The process of using the full energy reducing the working priority levels of other 2 processes to minimum is called as “Concentration”.

Sub-Conscious processor whenever finds an exception scenario in its process, passes the thought to Conscious processor to create, change or delete rules and objectives. Real world examples of using of Conscious processor are

1. Reading a book
2. Playing a game actively
3. Person reading a news paper suddenly transfers to active state of mind when he sees the news of Aliens in his city. An example for shifting of thought between Sub-Conscious to Conscious processor.
   
4. Conscious processor can typically associated with all scenarios related to “Active state of mind”

Rules and Objectives Storage: This is the component which has the ability to store and manage the relationships of various rules and objectives using which the processor has to work.

a. Rule: Rules are always created with a definitive result. Processor uses each input to look-up the rules related to that. Each thought in the brain system will validate multiple rules. Though the result of each rule is always definitive and absolute, the end result of all the results might not be definitive. In scenarios like this, the processor uses the collective result and validates it with the defined “Objectives” to perform an action. Every action performed by Brain is defined by the rules and objectives, Even if a brain decided to take No-Action, it is defined by rule whose end result is "Take No-Action".

Rules can have all sorts of relationships anybody can perceive. Rules can be configured to override certain rules based on some other set of rules. Rules can be written to In-validate rules in certain conditions. Etc. Etc. There is no-restriction, constraint to define any sort of rule by any Processor. Rules are always specific to each brain.

Some examples of Rules are,

1. Touching fire will burn the hand
2. A person defines a rule that, eating sugar is bad.
3. A person defines a rule that, "do not drink alcohol". Person also defines the rule that "alcohol is fun". When in a party with friends he decides to drink in-spite of the rule as Objective of “Having Fun” takes priority.
4. Person has created a rule that, gambling is the only way of making money.

b. Rule/Objective Formation: Brain when created always comes with some basic rules/objectives associated with them. These basic rules are termed as “Instincts”. These are installed into the system through Genes. Though over a period of time, with creation of more and more rules, these “basic rules” can be changed by the Processor. There is no restriction towards changing of any basic rules during the lifetime knowledge earning of an individual. E.g. People committing suicide, swamis not having sex, homo-sexual people etc. fall into a category of people who have changed the basic rules (instincts).

Memory: This is the component which is designed to store huge amount of relational data in the system. The data store can manage N-Dimensional relationships between different pieces of data in the store. Data of a life time of an individual has to be related at each level for easy search and access by the Processor. In a typical scenario, Processor applies various rules on the data to arrive at the result.

Memory Cache is an area, which is used for quick access. For example, a student studying for an exam the next day, sets up the priority of the objectives so that, the data related to exam is available in Cache for quick retrieval.

Another example is, 2 individuals see the same movie. But after an year, one individual is able to remember the hero, heroin, music director etc. of the movie and the other is not. The basic difference between the 2 individuals is the priority given to this data by these 2 individuals is different. Priority in-turn is dependent on the rules and objectives of both the individuals.

Actions: Any activity, movement, of each cell of human body is performed by the process of a thought in one of the processors. In case of an input to the Processor discarded by a rule, "No-Action" taken by body is also considered as "Action".

-- Madhukar Hebbar

Walk the Talk

From the age old times of the human evolution, people have expected that life would be beautiful if all people Walk-the-Talk. People always believed that, life would be easy and neat when “everybody thinks before talking” and “act as they have talked”.

Is this a fact? Will our life be beautiful if everyone Walks-the-Talk?

As I was thinking, I realised that life would be chaos if everybody started walking the talk. 10-15% of the people will go out of jobs and the world will end up in a big depression if everyone walks-the-talk. This depression is nothing to do with economic or financial but all to do with psychological aspects of people.

The first breed of individuals whom people expect to Walk-the-Talk is Politicians. Fortunately enough, this breed never do what they talk and have been the key factor in maintaining the sanity of the world. One can imagine, what will happen to the whole set of news channels, national news papers, state news papers, city news papers, street news papers etc. etc. etc. if politicians started to Walk-the-Talk. All these people working in these industries will go out of job for the very simple reason that, they do not have anything to publish.

Most of these news communicators are typically filled with very entertaining stories about “how politicians didn’t think before talking?” or “how politicians didn’t act as they talked”. If politicians do not provide an opportunity for this scenario, the much needed entertainment for the viewers and readers will be lost, and hence will loose there purpose of existence. Can you see the catastrophe of thousands of employed people loosing there jobs? Worst, can you see the catastrophe of you loosing your much needed share of entertainment?

For example, If we think of a scenario where Politicians say “There will be equality among all human beings”, “Everybody will get jobs”, “Poverty will be erased”, and they actually strive towards achieving this, worst, lets assume they actually achieve it. What will the news paper report on? What will the TV news channels show? Even if they show all these wonderful people, trying to achieve what they have talked about, will you watch? Will it be entertaining enough? One can contradict the above the statement by saying this hypothetical scenario and we might watch or read about all these wonderful things Politicians are doing.

The best example of the breed that Walks-the-Talk in today’s world is business men. It is not that these are great people, but if they do not Walk-the-Talk, they will be kicked by hundreds and thousands of investors. Hence, these guys cannot be careless and need to Walk-the-Talk. How many TV Channels, news papers are present to depict the business world? Handful, right? Even if somebody consumes this material, that will be from a sole purpose of knowledge rather than entertainment. Do you want to have such an impact on all the politics related news?

I wonder, if the politicians really start Walking-the-Talk, what would happen to us general people? What would we discuss with mates during tea breaks? One can imagine mates in office having coffee/tea with blank minds and faces. There would be nothing left for the friends to talk in the pubs. Can we discuss on the efficiency of the politicians and the good things happening around? NO! No! no! I would prefer dying of boredom instead of discussing about efficiencies and smartness of politicians.

What will barbers talk about? Hair-cutting exercise which has been made refreshing by the energetic chit-chat of the barbers would tragically move towards boring exercise. In fact, my prediction is people will stop visiting hair cutting saloons to escape from the boredom of the exercise and will start looking like pre-historic people.

Celebrity lifestyle is the second biggest source of entertainment in this world. I can’t imagine the scenario if Paris Hilton and Britney Spears decide to marry somebody, go ahead with the plans, have kids, and live happily ever after. This would be a disaster for the whole entertainment industry, right? Who would call such a story as entertainment? My prediction is people will not even care for Celebrity works, if they started to Walk-the-Talk. If Sharukh-Salman don’t fight in public for Katrina, Would you watch their movies? I believe brand value of the Indian cricket team would go down, if Harbajan Singh starts to act like sane Walk-the-Talk individual. The whole entertainment industry will crash, as the basic purpose of entertainment of the individuals will not be met.

I hope the reader realises the gravity of the problem, if everybody starts to Walk-the-Talk. We are in grave danger of loosing entertainment and loosing stuff to talk about if every one tries to Walk-the-Talk.

One might think that these are external factors and we will find different sources of entertainment in the eventuality of everybody Walking-the-Talk. Let us try to, get into our house and our lives, to understand the impacts.

Imagine the scenario when, all the members of your work-team Walk-the-Talk. People with shorter view of life might say such a thing would be fantastic for work life. But I think the impacts are hugely negative, this actually means that I need to do work. I can’t go for long tea breaks discussing about the stupidity of my manager. I can’t give reasons for my failure to meet the deadline. I can’t miss deadlines. I can’t blame team mates for my failures. I can’t blame my manager for my failures. Life is going to be hard battle, and life would suck if this actually happens.

If this is the scenario in office, life and relationships are going to loose all the masala if everybody starts Walking-the-Talk. I can’t even imagine how boring it would be, if all my friends reach the party on-time. More so, if everybody starts walking-the-talk and life of all our mates is the bed of flowers, what the hell will we talk when we meet? Why the hell do we need friends anyway? We wouldn’t have an opportunity to bitch around anything and anybody if everybody Walks-the-Talk. Can you imagine the impacts when you say “I wont be able to meet you today, as I am having beer with my friends and we all are enjoying it.” to your girl friend?

I hope reader, understands the importance of people not Walking-the-Talk. We cannot compromise on our share of entertainment. From the bottom of my heart I request the readers not to expect people to Walk-the-Talk so that the life continues with full entertainment.

by Madhukar Hebbar

Dust Bin, an essay

Dust Bin, is one of the wonders of the modern world, which has been under-valued by the people of the world. One can see Dust Bin in every nook and corner of the world. It can be seen in every house, office, railway station, bus station, space ship, water ship, air ship, 5 star hotel, no start hotel, palace, hut etc. etc. One can name a place in this world and there certainly will be a Dust Bin, quietly doing its job of collecting waste without complaints.

The necessity of Dust Bin is even needed in a virtual world, and hence every computer comes with “Recycle Bin”, which does its job of collecting waste. Though the primary purpose of Dust Bin is to collect and segregate the waste, unfortunately, in computers, people named it as Recycle Bin, which is a secondary use of a Dust Bin.

Dust Bin’s come in various sizes and forms. In a typical Indian house, it would typically be an aged plastic vessel which has retired from its primary purpose (Water Bucket, paint box etc.). It’s funny that in an Indian house hold, a vessel which has retired never gets classified as waste, but gets used as waste collector Dust Bin. This is a very interesting nature of enterprising Indian house hold I guess. From an Indian view point, any vessel like structure which can hold piece of matter can become a Dust Bin.

Modern people have shown ingenuity in creating Bins in new shapes and forms. Some examples are, Bins which can opened by foot pedal, bins with swiveling tops which helps in automatic closure, bins which come in colourful pictures, etc. etc. Dust Bin’s have been made from plastic, steel, copper, silver, gold (anything and everything) etc. Reader might be startled by seeing Gold in the list. Rich people in India, used gold or silver bins to spit the Pan Juice (Juice created when one chews betel leaves with nuts and tobacco). In the modern world, the quality of Dust Bins, also determines of the status and culture of an individual, hence, has gained value in its status.

It is difficult to say, what point in time of the human evolution, Dust Bin was invented. In the historic world, the collected waste was used as manure in the farm lands or in the Garden. One could guess this was one of the reasons, why people started collecting the waste. As the world created lot of crap in the name of science and ease of use. Usage and processing of waste became a bigger challenge to the modern world.

One of the interesting characteristics of Dust Bin is, every individual at some point of time in their life have skimmed through the contents to find something. Most searches for lost materials in any place either start or end at the Dust Bin. It is also interesting, the amount of useful things which can be found in a Dust Bin in searches like this. One can relate Dust Bin to Pandora’s Box in such scenarios.

There are a lot of professions in modern world that are dependent on Dust Bins. The collection of Dust Bins of the clients and skimming through them for information is the first step of any detective assignment. Interestingly, detectives do not have a hesitation in skimming through waste of their targets. This is one of the professions which value the Dust Bins and the content within it.

In the bigger cities, big business institutions have been born to manage the huge amount of waste produced by the population of the city. Dust Bins are a bread earner to people employed in these industries. These organisations deal with Dust Bins of various sizes and shapes and can be called as experts in the area. I guess if there was a God for Dust Bins, people in these industries would be worshiping them. Interestingly, India being a country of multiple Gods has not created one for Dust Bins. It is shame on the modern India for not having created a God for Dust Bins.

Other than the formal professions, there are individuals who have made a profession out of searching through the Dust Bins of streets, area etc. These people make a living by searching, finding and selling material found in these Bins. These people can be typically be found in cities skimming through the Dust Bins, in search of plastic, wooden, metal, paper etc. Dust Bin is such an instrument, which holds the things which are waste for one set of people and also things that are valuable for another set of people.

Dust Bins, have been the source of art also in the modern era. Various artists have created wonderful art works out of the stuff from the Dust Bins. House wives of 1970-80 eras, were very skillful in creating art out of the material from the Dust Bin. This breed of artists, have increased the status of Dust Bins in the modern era by seeing art in the contents of the Dust Bin. Thanks to these artists, peoples knowledge of Dust Bin has increased.

Dust Bin, have been reason for humour from age old times. There have been funny scenarios enacted in movies, dramas, stories, showing the incidents around searching for material in the Dust Bins. The scene from the movie Pushpak where an individual finds a neatly covered package in the Dust Bin, and ends up in a mental asylum is part of the folklore in India.

Dust bin is a symbol of equality, in this god-forbidden world of in-equalities. This is the only place, which can hold gold, paper, religious texts, non-religious texts, money, dust, etc. etc. without worrying about the perceived value of the material. It brings equality to all matter, by segregating the perceived false notions of material from truth.

Next time, when you see a Dust Bin do not get disgusted by it, instead remember the values offered by it and say a small prayer to God.

by Madhukar Hebbar

Forrest Gump, a review

This is one of the most inspirational movies I have ever seen in my life.

Reader might get surprised by the above statement, as view of the world on this movie is

"The film tells the story of a man and his epic journey through life meeting historical figures, influencing popular culture and experiencing first-hand historic events of the 20th century while being largely unaware of their significance, due to his low intelligence" (source: Wikipedia)

For me this movie is about "Story of a man and his journey of life, being an example of the way to LIVE LIFE. The movie depicts the hypocrisy of the world contrasting it with the life of a so called stupid individual".

Though the character of Forrest is fictional, I believe, the character is realistic. In other words, there is a huge possibility that character like Forrest living with us in flesh and blood. Objective of this review is to explain how inspirational character of Forrest is.

The movie starts with depicting the life of Forrest, who is "Stupid" (so called), below IQ individual. Movie depicts half of Forrest's life and his amazing achievements in life, some achievements are, being part of All-American Football team, excelling in military training, getting a medal for military service, becoming a ping-pong champion, becoming a shrimp business tycoon, etc. etc.

Most of the movie reviews attribute these achievements as "Accidental". This definition doesn't make sense, as any achievement needs a lot of work put in by an individual and doesn't happen by luck. It is loser's definition to term achievement as an accident or luck. It is failure of the reviewer to understand what made the individual achieve those feats. Forrest had some amazing characteristics which made him achieve what he did. To name a few they are Focus, Love towards everything, Art of Living.

Focus:

Through out his life, Forrest comes across as a very focused individual. Depiction of his focus starts with the running episode, when he is bullied by his friends. His focus on running allows him to give out his best efforts. This results in Forrest being the best runner around. When he is included in the football team, his focus remains on running rather than other skills of football. Because of his focus on running, his team derives value and he gets into the All-American team.

Another example of focus, comes when he is in the military training. His expression and the body language while he is assembling a Gun show this focus and conviction on the work. The result, speaks for itself as he becomes the best in assembling the rifle.

Focus on the job is best displayed, when Forrest carries the wounded soldiers to safety without even caring for his life. The best example of focus is when he forcefully carries his captain to safety in-spite of protests from him. This is what is called as commitment to work. Through out his life, focus of Forrest is displayed in each and every activity, be it playing Ping-Pong, be it catching shrimp, be it running, be it telling a story, for that matter, anything in the movie he does is focused with heart, mind and soul.

Is there anything impossible for man of such focus?
How many people have you seen who can show this focus and determination in their job?
Is Forrest stupid?

The movie contrasts the focus of Forrest with the Hypocrisy of the general world. The world tries to solve problems by killing presidents and people, waging war, worrying about how war is bad, people taking into drugs, captain worrying about the lost glory by not dying in war. But Forrest is focused on Living his life by doing work, without worrying about things out of his control.

Are these people intelligent?
Are these people of high IQ?
Have these people achieved anything?

Love:

There is not a single moment in the movie when, Forrest shows hate against anything or anybody. He doesn't show hate against his bullying mates, school mates who doesn't want to be seen with him, his girl friend who rejects him, his captain who hates him. There is no trace of hate in Forrest through out his life.

In fact, he loves them all.

He shows the pure love for everything life has to offer. He loves Bubba, Jenny and Lt. Dan for what they are. He respects everybody for what they are. Forrest was an individual who lived life according to the teachings of great philosophers and beings like Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi etc. Love it all. Love them all.

In the incident when there is a commotion near the college of allowing African-American people into the college, Forrest displays his natural love by picking up the book dropped by an African-American female and giving it back to her. The act comes very natural to Forrest because of his love for everybody. The incident depicts the qualities of natural respect and love for all from Forrest. Whereas, the world has to force itself to accept an African-American entering college with whites. And the world believes, it is a great incident and celebrates with pomp and show.

The most defining moment of the movie is when 2 individuals whom Forrest loves transform themselves to Live Life, instead of Dying their Life.

Lt. Dan, transforms out of his sorrows and teaches himself to Live life. He gets himself an artificial leg and pulls himself out of his distress and sorrow of his life.
Jenny, quits all the bad habits, and starts living life as a waitress. When Forrest meets Jenny at the end of the movie, glow in the face and positive body language of Jenny depicts the happy state of mind.

In any other times of world, this achievements would have been called as miracles. These are the miracles which Jesus and Buddha performed. Forrest's love for them and love for the world, is what made Jenny and Lt. Dan see the light of the matter and learn to live life.

Can a stupid person achieve such miracles?
Is Jenny, Lt. Dan so called intelligent people really intelligent?

Art of Living:

Forrest is one of those few guys under sun who knew the Art of Living.

There are number of spiritual courses, workshops, etc. which teach people to keep a positive mindset. People flock to these courses to get a peace of mind. They just have to see Forrest Gump live his life, to learn the art of living.

In-spite of various deficiencies, Forrest never shows any sort of negative emotions through out his life. Through out his life, Forrest is a picture of peace. No other emotion came to my mind, other than peace, while seeing Forrest Gump living his life. A small tinge of negative emotion is displayed, when his mother dies, when Forrest feels he is alone. But the negative emotion is very momentary, he goes on Living his life to the fullest enjoying whatever he is doing.

Forrest, never cribs, worries about anything external life/world has offered him. This is in-spite of the fact that, external world doesn't offer him anything good. He goes on living his life, be it running, football, army, vietnam, ping-pong, shrimp business, mowing lawn. Anything and everything he does, is with conviction and commitment and hence the he becomes the picture of peace.

Contrasting this to the world, all the happenings around the world was filled with negativity and hate. Most of incidents, be it killing of president and important people, or be it anti-war processions, had a huge amount of negative emotions associated with them. Forrest was the only example of complete positive mindset and the knower of Living Life.

Do you think Forrest was unaware of the significance of Life?
Did 20th century world understand the significance?

If the world learns even 10% of the characteristics of Forrest, it would be a better place to Live.

Finally, My heart full thanks and salute to each and every one involved in creation of such a character and a story. I am blessed to watch Forrest Gump.

-- Madhukar Hebbar

Painting Competition

I was lucky to be part of Independence day celebrations in Hubli city this year (2008). One of my friends is Government official in Hubli, and he had invited me to see the folk dance program which was organized by city corporation. On the Independence day morning, he told me about a painting competition and asked me to accompany him. Since, I didn't have much to do on that day, I went along with him.

I was always, confused with the concept of paintings and need to confess, never understood the concept clearly. There was a time, when I thought people were making bakra out of general people by drawing some stuff :-) and naming it as art. And Painting as art always used to be tagged with the saying "Only intellectuals can understand" which I do not appreciate much. Hence, I was not much impressed with my friends idea of taking me to painting competition.

My friends argument was, The competition was open for students of painting schools only. The students quality of knowledge of painting was pretty good. He also explained me, how he had an opportunity to see, some of the works of these students and how he was impressed with the quality.

The subject of painting competition was "Independence Struggle".

Process of Painting:

Only products I had created as a process of my thoughts were, software products. Funnily enough, I ended up comparing the process the artists followed to achieve there end product of painting with my experience of creating software products. This comparison, came to my mind while I was pondering over the subject on my way back to Bangalore.

I could classify the structure of an artists thought process to below 3 process steps,

1) Scoping
2) Structuring
3) Development

1) Scoping - Scoping is about identifying the layout of the painting. Artists identified different sections (modules) of the painting and defined boundary on the canvas. Typically people used, proper geometric devices to arrive at the layout of the painting. This is the initial step and for me, this basically defined the clarity in the mind of participants on how they are going to create the end product.

To relate it to the IT world, this is a sort of high level architecture of the end product.

2) Structuring - This was a stage, when all the participants used hand drawings to represent the structure of the end result. This had more drawings with curves, figures, people, etc., this can be called as rough sketch of end product. In this step there was more clarity on what the end result would look like.

Relating it to the IT world, I will relate this to something like a low level design.

I need to confess, I couldn't follow 80% of the sketches. I never could guess, how the end product might look like. In some of the cases, which I could guess, I ended up being terribly mistaken at the end. I guess, the way each individual designed their end product was different and for a third party like me (and novice), it would be difficult to understand the perspective.

3) Development - This is the step during which, people took up their paint brushes, and started painting their end products. I was awestruck by the amount of detail in which they were going to choose a color and mix it. And some of them startled me with their skills of layering their structure on top of the other structure they had already painted. The foresight of the artist to achieve his end result through this layering method astonished me.

While watching this step in action, I really couldn't guess, how a painting would end-up even in a single case. I guess this is the power of true creativity of the individual, and my inability to understand artists thoughts.

To relate this stage to the IT world, this is more like coding stage. Where an individual is trying to execute the design and give a practical form. The margin of correction is very low in case of a painting, which is unlike analytical world (IT).

The first 2 stages, helped artists to make the idea concrete, using analytical techniques. And then the pure creativity in execution flows, is what I felt seeing the process.

About the paintings itself,

I was awestruck by the variety of thoughts, through which people represented the "Independence Struggle". During the start of the competition, I also started thinking about how I would represent this subject in a picture. My brain stopped working, once I started to
think :-) whatever levels I tried, couldn't come up with an "Visual Idea" to represent independence. Need to think sometime in life about why I couldn't come with an image?, What part of me doesn't work? etc.etc. Probably I am suffering from unnamed mental problem which is completely opposite of Dyslexia.

Coming back to the variety, I was impressed, as most of the artists (Around 50%) used the idea of independence, which has nothing to do with "Indian Independence Struggle". Me, coming from the background of Gandhi's thinking, "true freedom is 'freedom of mind' rather than freedom of the nation from British" liked the idea very much.

Some of the representations of Independence struggle were,

1) Independence of society from wine, cigarettes and other social problems;
2) Independence of society from AIDS;
3) Some of the female artists were writing about Independence from dowry problems, female Infanticide, AIDS etc..

to look at the funny side,

there was one person, who had immersed Indian map in a wine Glass :-) ha ha ha :-)

there was another drawing, where I was not clear if he was asking people to drink/smoke/etc.. or stop them :-)

Sad side of the affair was, I think all the artists represented the Independence Struggle with a negative concept. to top, this I couldn't even think of a positive way to represent this subject.

Evaluation:

Frankly, there was no way in which I could have chosen first/second/third from the lot of around 50-60 paintings. Again, my analytical brain failed to think of a way to segregate the paintings as best/better etc.. I got a opportunity to talk to a internationally acclaimed painter who was one of the judges.

My first question to him was "How will you evaluate this?"

His answer was simple,

First step - We will evaluate and eliminate based on craft. The elements of craft are,
a) Lines (Differentiation between different sections of the paintings show the brush skills of artist)
b) Colors (how presentable were the color combination etc.. )

The second step was to judge, how an individual has been able to represent the concept of competition. The judge agreed that this was a very difficult part, as understanding of what an individual has represented needs understanding of individuals mind. I couldn't discuss the nitti-gritties of this step with the evaluators, as they had to started the process of evaluation by then.

At the end, I didn't agree with some of their evaluations :-)

But overall it was a very pleasing experience for my senses, and I need to say, I thoroughly enjoyed each of the painting time and again. In hindsight, I enjoyed the effort I put in to try understand, the painters perspective of subject. It was a very fulfilling experience. Starting from my initial worry of attending the competition, I had spent around 6-7 hours on that day looking at different works of the artists (multiple times). This experience, has helped me look at paintings and art in general from a different perspective.

This is how, I ended up with this definition for painting, "painting is a expression of individuals thoughts through color and picture". I further have, abstracted this to "all art forms" and "all things creative" saying "All art forms are expression of thoughts of an individual".

-- Madhukar Hebbar

third party perspective, an essay

This phrase is used in the corporate world as a tool to resolve issues between individuals. An pretty effective tool to make sure emotional states of individuals do not effect the individual relationships in the company.

This is an effort to understand what this actually means. what is the practical significance of this? Is this a corporate jargon or does it have a significant psychological meaning? can we use this in our personal life?

There are 2 things come out of definition from the corporate world,

1) emotional states of individuals might create issues
2) usage of third party perspective to resolve the issue

Emotion and problems with that:

Emotion can be defined as below, (This is my vice to create my own definitions of terms)

"A mental state of High (Positive Feeling) or Low (Negative Feeling). The effect of the feeling might result in happiness, sorrow, crying, frustration, anger, etc. "

The reasons for emotions are varied and specific to each individual. Children get a high by eating a chocolate, whereas an adult might need alcohol to get an high :-)

When a individual is in a mental state of High, individual is driven by the inertia of positiveness and sees the world around with goggle of positiveness. Without explaining much, I request the reader to think of situations where they were extremely happy. And how they perceived the world during that time of high. Think of scenarios like, the first time you got a cricket bat, you got your dream job, you did something out of complete concentration, etc. These scenarios, took you towards an emotional high which due to its inertia stayed on for a period of time. During that period, everything you saw, make you see the positive side of things.

An Example: To take a simple scenario, In my job profile I had to provide an architecture diagram for a complex business solution. The architecture was for a end to end life cycle of business process which I was not fully aware of. To start with the assignment, I was confused on where to start and where to end. But using the process of breaking the problem to few and solving it piece by piece, I came up with an architecture diagram which was instantly accepted by everybody who saw it. More than anything, I was satisfied with the effort and the out put.
I generally have a good 45 minutes walk home for the sake of health improvement. That day when I delivered the output, I could feel a jump in my walk (this is literal not figurative), I was singing a song very loud without aware of my surroundings, I easily ignored the other irritations in the office. I was on a High!! Everything I saw that day was good!, everyone was good!.

When a individual is in a mental state of Low, individual is driven by the inertia of negativeness and sees the world around with goggle of negativeness. Again I request the reader to think of scenarios where they have gone through this phase. There is so much of negativeness in this world, unfortunately this is a easier scenario to understand. To take an example of an forward email, where an individual fights with his wife for spilling of food on his shirt in the morning, and how he feels bad about traffic, his spoilt car, his inability to buy new car, screwed up boss etc. etc. He completely fails to see the good side of life that day because of the negative inertia.

This inertia of the emotion is what causes problems in life for the individuals. A person seeing the world with goggle of negativeness, sees anything and everything as negative without giving a consideration to the factual nature of the matter. This inertia of negative energy makes the person shout at people while driving, get people depressed seeing the traffic, make people hurt another individual, feel everybody hates me etc. etc. etc.

This inertia of positive energy, brings in foolishness, make a person forgets the compassion towards another individual, etc. etc.

According to Indian philosophy, emotional high or low are not considered to be effective way of experiencing life. Indian philosophy subscribes to the idea of individual being in the mental state of consistency (stitha prgna) to enjoy the Joy of life. This is exactly the median between the High and Low of emotion. I guess, we can call it the opposite of emotion.

Solution:

Whenever an individual is on a emotional high or a low, it is typically a third party which will allow the individual to be pulled out of emotional inertia. There are various types of third party who help us come out of the inertia, The impact of each third party will differ on the proportion of inertia,

Sleep: Typically the lower proportions of inertia is lost over a very good sleep.

Movie/newspaper/life: There are times, when you see a thing, movie, hotel, office, and that provides a perspective which pulls us out of the emotional inertia.

Unknown individual: It so commonly happens that, when we are under emotional inertia. There is this person X, who gives a perspective with such conviction that it makes us think and helps us to get out of the emotional inertia. Wonderful thing is we might not even know that person.

Parents, Friends, Spouse - The people who are close to us are best equipped to give a perspective, which will pull us out of the inertia. The emotional bonding which we have with these individuals, helps us to see the light of the fact removing the negative elements. The Love, compassion, eagerness with which these relations deal with us, is what helps us think differently. It happens so often that, we do a certain mistake (however big the mistake is doesn't matter) and support of our loved ones, pulls us out of the negative inertia. Loads of bollywood movies are made on this subject :-)

Psychologists: Their are this breed of doctors/psychologists who have sessions with patients. Their main job is to listen to the patients thoughts on different subjects. They help the patient by giving a different perspective and help the patients see the light of the fact.

Doctor: Today's doctors have interesting medicine which plays around with the chemical composition of the brain to help us get out of the inertia of emotion. This is only used when the emotional inertia is in the advanced stages. Emotional attachment helps us to do different things, out of blind faith and trust, which typically kicks us out of emotional inertia.

Important fact to note here is, no individual can force another person out of the emotional inertia. Every individual comes out of the emotional inertia with his own efforts. It is just that design of the world, provides him/her opportunities to come out of the emotional inertia.

The best example is, all of us would have seen a fight in the streets because of some stupid problem. And I am sure most of us, would have gone through a similar type of a fight ourselves. But whenever we see it with the role of an observer, we invariably see the childishness and immaturity of the fight. But when we are ourselves involved in the fight, we are in such inertia of the negative mood that, we fail to see the obvious FACTS which we can see as an OBSERVER.

Typically for us to get out of this inertia, we get help from a third party. What third party provides us is, different perspective, which helps us to see the fact of the matter. But if we build this third-party-perspective in ourselves, we can always see the fact of the matter for ourselves without needing any help. This process will take us to "Stitha prgna" state and everlasting joy associated with that.

-- Madhukar Hebbar