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Adapt or Perish

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Today, I came across an article by Anne Applebaum of the Atlantic. She writes about how the new corona-virus has blown America’s false notions of superiority out of water. America has traditionally believed itself to be superior to every one else. They believe themselves not just to be better than the rest of the world but the best. So, when the information about Covid-19 epidemic broke out, the entire far-west (if China, Japan and South east Asia are far-east to the US, then they are far-west to us. Right?) was first very critical about the food habits of the Chinese, then far more critical about the way the communist regime failed in controlling the spread of the virus. The initial denial of a contagion, threatening doctors who tried to speak out and finally the lock down of an entire province. Each and every move by China was criticized by the western media. The New York times used the title ‘Made in China’ for an article on this new disease.

Now let us see how the US responded when the disease breached their borders. Was the government transparent about the situation? Did the government take the situation seriously? Did the government make sure that people have enough testing and treatment facilities? Did the US government allow private non-profit laboratories who volunteered for free testing? Why use the past tense? Lets ask, Is the US government doing enough today? The true and ironic answer for all the above questions would be an big NO. They stand 8th in the world with 5213 cases, with the case count rising rapidly everyday, they might be ‘the best’ here too. But how did a country like the US end up in such a situation? As Ms Applebaum reasons, just like the Japan in 1853, the US has been in a state of deep slumber of false pride for a long time now. Its failure to update its ways with a illogical argument of them being ‘American ways’ is now coming back to bite them. Do you know the number of countries in the world that officially use a non-metric system? 3 (Liberia, Myanmar and the US).

My mind has this incurable condition called the Butterfly effect condition. Don’t try to google it, I coined the name for it. The butterfly effect in lay-mans terms equates to saying a butterfly fluttering its wings can cause a cyclone. It may not make sense when put this way. In another way, if you have enough data, you can connect a large event to a in-obvious trigger. My brain is like that, anything I see or read can trigger a topic that is not very obvious. So, it you talk about butterflies, I may end up thinking about cyclones. This article in Atlantic was one such trigger. If you notice, most of my blogs start with a point and end up in a very different zone. Now back to the topic or in other words, back to all the stuff that came up to my mind when I read the article on the United states and Coronavirus.

The failure to adapt or update has caused many kingdoms and countries to fall/fail. A very good example of this is India. Just like Japan, India has always been a different place. The culture, the languages, the religion were all unique. So was the war fare. Indian kings used elephants in war for centuries, battles were also fought only from dawn to dusk. This meant that Moguls has repeatedly tried and failed to invade India for an extended period of time. So, when Moguls updated their war tactics and changed the rules, by using trumets & drums to scare the elephants and then attacked in the night, India fell into the hands of Moguls and remained there for 800 years. Then came the British with their muskets and cannons. Moguls lost because they literally took knives to a gun fight. So, not updating to the latest techniques in warfare has ultimately led to the demise of moguls and eventually the downfall of India as an economic power.

Economic history of the world

We have see the falling giant and the fallen giants, what about the tiny? What about people with humble beginnings in lower or middle class families? From wealth to personal preferences to habits, people need to keep updating themselves. The successful need it to sustain and others need it to be successful. Going back to America for a moment, when the country was formed using pounds for weight and Fahrenheit was OK. But when there were better alternatives, they chose not to adopt them. When you are born in a remote village and do not know any thing about the world, it was acceptable a decade ago. But when you have a smart phone with a 4G connection and still choosing to remain in your well, then you will quickly become stale and irrelevant. Updating doesn’t mean moving from Orkut to Facebook to Instagram to tiktok. It means upgrading your intellectual coefficient and expanding your knowledge.

An Italian building stating that it was constructed in A.D. MDCCCLXXXVIII (1888 A.D). Imagine modern Italy still using their old numerals.

Now a days, everyone is familiar with updates and upgrades. Either your phone or computer would prompt for an update at least once a month. This is because the threats keep on updating themselves, so these devices need to continuously improve to stay safe. Similarly, the challenges and demands of life are changing everyday. You have you adopt and adapt, else you perish.

Be open to change and embrace it.

Change is the only constant in life

– Heraclitus

The beautiful game

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This is the longest I have refrained from putting an idea into words. Technically I did do it. I first wrote a version of this on LinkedIn and shared the draft with a dear friend and colleague. He asked me not to publish it because of the flack I might receive as it challenges each and every practice of my own profession. In my head, The first ever version of this blog was purely about the sport I have developed an unexplainable devotion over the last 16 years. This was in 2017. It completely transformed into a different topic when the transfer of Matthijs de Ligt to Juventus was announced in August 2019.

I have never seen a professional football match before 2004. When I moved from my hometown to pursue higher education, my dad bought me my first computer. Being an avid fan of computer games and someone who was utterly starved by the available range of them in my small town, I was very eager to play every game I could get my hands on. Earlier, the only place I could access a computer was in my school lab and I had to beg our teacher for some time after school to play on it. Now, back to 2004. A classmate lent me his bootlegged copy of FIFA 2004. I installed it and started playing the only way I knew. Get the ball, run with it and try to score goals. This is what everyone in my school did and our physical education teacher never told us otherwise. But it didn’t work out. The computer kept beating me. So, I told my classmate that it was an impossible game to play. He disagreed and gave me an advice. Till date, I buy the latest FIFA release every year and it is the only game I play. My most visited website is http://www.espnfc.com. Most of my screen time goes to either watching football or reading about it.

Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.

– Bill Shankly

What he told me that day was to watch professional football to understand the game. So, I started watching the English premier league in a 14 inch black and white television. It was the only football telecast in my country at that point of time. Now, I had to pick a team right? I picked the first team in the list of available ones in FIFA 2004. Arsenal. Its was just a coincidence that they were not only the first team when sorted alphabetically but were also reigning champions. Gradually, my interest grew and I started watching every game possible and then started doing what’s love. Analyse. Over the years, I found more teams that I like. Barcelona, Ajax, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig, The list keeps changing every year. Because my loyalty now, is for the game, not any particular team. I am mostly going to talk about Ajax FC, Amsterdam’s most prominent football club. Because If I talking about football in general, this blog will end up being really long. On that note, I ran a word count on this and its already 482 words without really getting into the business.

The dutch football is ranked 12th in Europe by UEFA, the football administration body of the continent. In terms of TV and other revenues, there is a huge chasm between the Dutch league and the likes of English premier league, Spanish La liga, German bundesliga and the Italian Sirie A. So, naturally, Ajax is run on a relatively shoestring budget. If a rich club comes to poach their players, they simply cannot refuse. But they still have a glorious history of European dominance. So, how is this possible?

Jong Ajax – Produce, don’t procure. Since they don’t have the financial might of clubs from other countries to hire players who are a finished product, so they have developed one of the most efficient scouting network to identify young talent and them train them. Their youth academy called Jong Ajax (Young Ajax) takes care of both education and football training. Another advantage this brings is that every player is trained to play the ‘Ajax way’ which is total football.

Total Football – Johan Cruyff, the architect of modern Ajax and the person how took them to their pinnacle both as a player and coach embraced the ideas of Jack Reynolds, Jimmy Hogan and Gusztav Sebes. The idea that challenged the age old notion that each player in a football team can only be trained to do one thing. There are no defenders or Midfielders or offensive players in an Ajax team. From childhood each player is monitored to identify the strengths and weaknesses. Accordingly, they are trained for a specific position. This is what all the other clubs do too. The famed La Masia of FC Barcelona and Ballspielverein Borussia of Borussia Dortmund also have excellent scouting network and academies. But Ajax goes one step further, they then teach every player to play in every position. This makes the team extremely flexible and unpredictable on the field, it helps them deal with injuries, suspensions and finally helps them cope when one or more layer leave.

Birds leaving nest – As a club that finds and nurtures talent, Ajax has always faced the problem of their players being poached by richer clubs by offering huge salaries, something that Ajax cannot afford. But they don’t mind it. Because the revenues from player sales help them fund their academy and for every super star sold, they can create 10 more super stars. They never come in the way of their players growth. Its like a family. When a child comes of age and announces that he wants to leave the house, parents don’t get upset, on the contrary they feel proud and happy. This is one reason most of the club administration and coaching staff comprises of their ex-players. Once the players have see the world and quenched their thirst for fame and success, instead of retiring and enjoying their earnings, they always return to help the club out with the next generations.

Leadership ~ Experience? Finally, the most intriguing thing that Ajax does. The only qualification for becoming the captain of the team is to have true leadership qualities. This is where Matthijs de ligt’s story is an example. He became the club captain at the age of 18 years, after having played just 37 games for the senior team and zero games for the national team. That too in a team that consisted the likes of Klaas Huntelaar who was 34 and Daley Blind who was 29 (and the son Danny bling who was an ex Ajax and Netherlands player and coach in addition to being the board member of Ajax). “Age is just a number” is a quote used by many to justify things they do in their old age. But can use the same quote to justify leadership qualities. A person cannot be trained to be a leader. One doesn’t become a leader with experience. A person is born a leader, anyone who pretends otherwise is just play acting.

The reason my friend asked me to refrain from posting the ideas in this blog on LinkedIn was because so called Managers of the corporate world. The ones who hold expensive degrees and certifications in Management will not be able to digest this and will lash out against me. They will see it as something that undermines them. This is where the exact problem lies. Managers are there to serve the organization, not themselves and their egos. Again, we can take a leaf out of the football world here. The salary and net worth of a player follows a bell curve. Mind that almost every football manager out there is a retired player. Now, their salary reaches the highest point when they are in their prime playing days and goes down once they become managers. Yes, in football managers are paid less salaries than most of the players. Yes, the people who do the work are paid more than the people who supervise the work. This happens only in sporting world. This is because the value someone adds to a football team is visible to everyone in plain sight. This visibility ensures that everyone gets the fair compensation.

Now that we have seen some innovative ideas Ajax has brought to their club and football world in general, don’t you think the same principles can be applied to every organization in the world?

The predators

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Sharks can sense a single drop of blood in an Olympic sized pool. Hyenas by the virtue of the lion king and their unfortunate appearance are one of the most hated animals. Leeches are worms that survive by sucking the blood of animals. They are different species, they live in different habitats. But, Guess what’s common between them? Yes they are all carnivores. What else? Something less obvious. All three of them do not kill their prey. They feed on them when their prey is still alive.

Why God did made the snake before lawyers? To exercise.

A popular but illogical joke. I’ll tell you why.

When it comes to comparing professions with a animals, lawyers are compared to snakes. But snakes bite and kill their prey or at least paralyze them before eating them. But an attorney doesn’t do that. Attorneys are leeches, they have to keep their food alive in order to sustain. What more, just like a leech sucking on a buffalo, they have the ability to numb the prey, so that the client doesn’t realize the blood sucking part. Now a days some other professionals are also taking a cue from leeches. For example, doctors in India have been employing different scare mongering tactics to squeeze as much as possible from every patient. So is education industry.

There are some professional scammers out there who are always stalking the group of prey to identify the weakest link. From email to sms to phone calls, these people try to bait people and try to make money of them by offering free treasures to millions in inheritance. Hyenas follow the same rule, identify the weakling and gang up on it.

Recently, i have been seeing a lot of sharks around. Both physical and virtual. The physical ones, set shops in our office building as soon as the salary day comes. The virtual ones have discount sales and offers when ever there is some major/minor calendar event or some times just for the sake of it. These sharks are attracted to our office building by the smell of salary being deposited in our bank accounts.

But there is an another class of predator out there, that I am still struggling to correlate with any thing in the animal kingdom. I guess even Darwin would struggle to classify this species. Perhaps they are a mutation of capitalism. They call themselves Marketing executives. They hound, harass and invade the privacy of everyone. What’s more infuriating is that they do it with a smile on their face.

Just like some types of predators, these people set traps and then they stalk and track their prey. In this digital age this has become a very easy thing to do. It’s now even automated. There are plug and solutions available that can do this for anyone. This is not a new idea, its just an exaggerated implementation of an existing idea. In a street market, have you ever faced a situation where a hawker would leave you alone once you have inquired about his product? For him its expression of interest. Digitization of this concept is the reason why we are in a state where majority of the notifications, emails and SMS we get on our phones are advertisements or other promotions. John Oliver explains to the ridiculous lengths these people go in the name of notifications. The tracking is done through hidden scripts of websites. The website that hosts this blog as 2 such trackers. The company I work for, it’s website has 11 trackers. They do analytics, user data collection and prepare stats for businesses on potential customers and their potential preferences. In the earlier example of the street vendors, the digital equivalent would be that you look at something in a store and the sales guys gets behind you for eternity. I say eternity because unlike the street vendor who leaves when you buy the product or strongly refuse, the internet will never leave you. If you don’t like product A, they have gazillion other things to offer. Also, they share their customers generously with others. I can give you an analogy and its not going to be pretty. Imagine writing your phone number on the photo of a beautiful girl and sticking it in the notice board of your apartment. Almost every guy who sees it will call you. The paper boy, the guy who delivers milk, the security guard, the delivery guy, his friends, friends of his friends.

This is how what every telemarketer imagines when he sees your phone number

Now imagine writing your number on a billboard. This is what you did when you gave your phone number to anyone. Weather it be your email provider asking it for extra security, the guy at a billing counter offering redeemable points or the guy who hands you out free lottery draw for exchange of phone numbers or accept to terms and conditions on a app or a website or sign any document when you take a service. In the pretense of selling you something, they want to sell you to the world.

“I laugh at the irony of people screaming out against privacy invasion by governments on twitter and Facebook. The platforms that offered them a chance to look at some memes, videos and probably what their friends had for dinner in exchange for their private information”

– Me

Today I got a call from a person representing my bank. I have a car loan and they were offering me a “top-up” loan on it for the umpteenth time. This was at 12:25 PM. I was so pissed off that I told them that I don’t have a car or an account with them and this was a wrong number. I was just tired of saying no. The most amazing fact about these telemarketers is that the same person never calls you twice, they tell you that they will update their database that you are not interested and then another one will call an hour later. Then exactly at 12:27 PM, I got a phone call from the credit card department offering me an enhanced credit limit. Then I blew my fuse. It then took me 47 minutes to revoke subscriptions from all promotional calls.

Percentage of total calls that were either spam or for marketing in US

Above is an info graphic on the raise in marketing calls in the United States. So, why have we come to a situation where you cannot even live one day of your life without faceless people bothering you?

For example, India has a great many number of prospective customers for all types of businesses. But what they lack is purchasing power. Now, how does one increase the purchasing power? Ideal way is to improve the quality of life, increased wages, better social security, better insurance etc.. there by increasing disposable income and willingness to spend. But, it takes a long time and effort. More importantly willing and efficient governments. Another way is to let people accumulate wealth and then spend it. Lets say you want to buy a car. You can save money for a few years (depending on the car you would like to buy) and then buy it. But some times these few years may become few more years because things like inflation, or unexpected expenses or emergencies. Well, it is good to have some money for the rainy day. Right? But that would mean you buying a car is still an ‘IF’ for the business. So, the bank will give you the loan to buy the car now and then repay it over the same ‘few’ years. That makes you paying them an obligation, not an option. They don’t care for your emergencies, for all they care, if you are already short of money for buying a non-necessary thing, then you will be forced into another loan when you need money. That’s a double win for them.

This is why people in India get so many calls like personal loan inquiries, real estate offers. Types of sales, where you can be put on a leash for a long long time. A common man would be scared of defaulting any loans. Most defaulters are actually people who are inherently wealthy, for them cost of a law suit is much less than the cost of repaying the loan. It is vice-versa for a middle class person. These ‘marketing folk’ are like a mutation in the natural food chain, they create their own prey rather than hunting them. Also, the hunter you see is not he actual predator, like in the case of Ants where the entire colony works for a queen and even hunts and gathers food for the queen. The people who call you or email you get only a miserly bit of the flesh.

May be Jerry Sienfeld foresaw this in 1992. That is why he made the below joke in his show. With all the greedy people out there, the situation will only become worse. We are not in the age of personalized marketing as shown in the minority report. But we are getting there fast.

The Purge?

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Its here, Its there, its every where. There is a new epidemic town and every one is going bat shit crazy. If George Carlin were alive, he would have said ‘I told you so’ and showed you his middle finger.

Words of wisdom

Humans as a species have been on a path of self destruction for over a century now. In the name of technological advances and progress we have been going down the scale of the most important aspect for survival. Immunity.

I am a prime example for this. My parents wrapped me in cotton wool since childhood, making me very fragile physically. They were always scared that something might happen to me and now after taking so many precautionary medicines, my immune system is so weak that even the common cold takes 2 weeks and tons of antibiotics to go away.

The only thing on every ones minds these days is the Corona virus. As of 4th March 2020, the corona virus has infected people in 79 countries. There are 16 people in Iceland who have it. 16 people. A country with a population density of 3.5 people per square kilometer have a disease that is spread through human contact.

I always admire the new ways Nature tries to put us in our place time and again. I also admire the foolishness of our race because we never seem to learn.

When ever we put people in difficult situations, their true nature comes out. All the racists out there have been spewing hatred on the Chinese. Insulting their culture and food habits. Its like pot calling kettle black. As usual the wise ass clowns on social media are spreading all kinds of shit on the social media. Forwarding unverified, false information adding to the mass hysteria. They forward a bunch of messages a day and think they saved the world. But one thing is true, Nature has this time come up with a new plan and its going to take a monumental effort to get out of jail this time.

Lets look at the numbers. Scientists say that if not properly dealt with, the virus will infect about 60% of the world population. The death rate after infection is about 3.5 percent. For the first time in history, lets assume that the governments and politicians do their job efficiently and the percentage remains same. 60% of the world population is about 4,661,186,400 and 3.5 percent of it is 163,141,524‬. That would be 2% of the total population. That’s peanuts when compared to the black death that killed 30% of the world population. It wont even cause a dent to humanity. Its just a scratch.

So, why are most people behaving like its the end of the fucking world? May be we have become too sensitive? May be we are reading too much into this disease? Or may be we are even underestimating it and it is a purge by planet earth to offload some of the burden it is having to bear because of humans. We will only know this once the dust has settled.

I mean, to be fair, the planet probably sees us as a mild threat; something to be dealt with, and I’m sure the planet will defend itself in the manner of a large organism. Like a beehive or an ant colony can muster a defense, I’m sure the planet will think of something. What would you do if you were the planet trying to defend against this pesky, troublesome species? Let’s see, what might… hmm… viruses! Viruses might be good. They seem vulnerable to viruses. And viruses are tricky; always mutating and forming new strains whenever a vaccine is developed. Perhaps this first virus could be one that-that compromises the immune system of these creatures. Perhaps a human immunodeficiency virus making them vulnerable to all sorts of other diseases and infections that might come along and maybe it could be spread sexually, making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of reproduction.Well, that’s a poetic note. And it’s a start and I can dream can I?

George Carlin on Plant earth

But one thing is for sure. Again in the words of George Carlin, “The planet is fine, we are fucked“. May not be immediately but we definitely are eventually.

The Judge, the jury and the executioner

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It is a fact that no two people are alike. I am not talking about appearances, DNA. finger prints, iris scans or all the other bullshit that the governments are using to tag us like some endangered species. I am talking about the nature, qualities, behavior and other things that are almost impossible to quantify or classify. There are words in every language to describe these things but the combinations and scale of intensity of these things is so unique to everyone that we would have to invent a new word for each one of us.

My brain is some of these at times, many of these at other times but never all of these.

As a person who seldom makes a good first impression, I want to ask you this. How long does it take for you to judge a person? But, more importantly, I would like to ask you. Why do you need to judge another person? What purpose does it serve? The only people in the world who should be concerned about what a person is is a psychiatrist. What is the urge to classify and categorize every person in your life?

We do that right from the moment a person in born into this world. We put them into one of the 12 buckets available based on the day they were born. They are called sun signs or moon signs, depending on the place you are born. I don’t believe in astrology. I am so self-centered that I assume that no-one knows more than me, so I start with a presumption that every one is wrong and accept anything only after fact checking. I am like Sheldon cooper with out a PhD. But I do have a confession to make. In my first week of my first job, I was bored and someone send me a link to a website that has all the content from Linda Goodman’s book – Sun signs. As any one would do I clicked on my sun sign and started reading.

No, I still remember the website and the content so well because I was very surprised it to be so accurate. Its been over 11 and a half years since I read it for the first time. But over the last decade I have been revisiting the site. As they say, age generally brings maturity. What I took in from this website changes over this period. The 21 year old was blown away by the content. The 25 year old started looking into the content for other sun signs. Finally the 30 year old understood why the 21 year old was blown away. The content for all the sun signs is highly positive. Even some of the negative traits shown in a positive way. This makes every one like their own stuff. Though I am still a little spooked about the accuracy content, I have also realized that I am not just what was in that web page. There is much more to me. May be it represents 10-15% of me.

If I were on a mission to make every one like me. I would have to print out those pages and distribute them like visiting cards. Underlining the less desirable traits in me and asking people to bear with me because they were manufacturing defects. On the other side, every one around me will have to make an algorithm out of the content to figure out the probable reaction I give to different situations. Its highly impractical and also illogical. Because I change every day, the content of the page has remained same since 1st December 1984. When I say I change every day, I don’t mean like a chameleon. I mean that I evolve everyday. Based on different circumstances, I keep changing my opinions and thus my responses to same events keep changing.

But we keep trying to stereo type people based on gender, region, religion, blah blah blah. Thereby we miss the point. Its none of your business. Deal with people in a case to case basis. In each case, start with a clean slate. It takes a lot of self control to do this. I do digress sometimes. But eventually try to go back to do the correct thing. React to situation based on the facts and only facts of the case.

Don’t try to be the Judge, Jury and Executioner for everyone around you. Judges are corrupt, Jury are gullible and Executioner don’t get to use their brains. In the current society, if a person with a criminal record is found at the scene of another crime, they assume he did it.

Next time you see a news article with something bad written about somebody, try reading it as – a person did a bad thing rather than a bad person did a thing.Don’t generalize. If you do, you will be a person doing the same bad thing again and again.

The numb and number

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Anesthesia with Amnesia

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Written by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson , 1988

I first heard the song “Every body knows” in opening credits of the movie Justice League. It was a song filled with pessimism. It made sense, the plot starts where Batman vs Superman ended. Superman is dead. All hope for mankind is dead along with it. 

(Side note: I have always found movies from DC comics to be light years ahead of Marvel in their quality. Marvel is a money making machine where as DC is a purists delight)

But the original song doesn’t have the same melancholy in it. It feels like Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson who wrote and composed it were being very pragmatic. Though the song was criticized for being bitterly pessimistic. But I disagree. It is one of the most realistic songs ever.

If you believe that everything in the world is fair, you are naive if I have to be gentle. Stupid if I have to be straightforward. But it may not be your fault. The people who are dealt with a good hand in life always make sure that the others don’t realize it. Just like the game of poker, if you want to win more money, you need others to feel safe at the very least and over confident & cocky at the very best.

There have been many ways to keep you distracted enough not to know your own plight. Mobile phones and social media have taken the baton now. Now a days, people treat their mobile phones like a drug addict treats his stash. They are obsessed and addicted to them. A single person or an organization cannot achieve this. It has to be a conscious nexus of various power centers.

Blackberry messenger, first introduced in 2005 was the pioneer in multi-media messaging and voice telephony over a data connection. They did it efficiently and securely. They respected privacy of their users. Then came the iPhone in 2007 followed by Android phones in 2010. Tons of applications started popping up. But 2G was slow and expensive which limited the use of these devices to serious users. In the next decade, the phones became cheaper along with the internet. 2G was replaced by 3G and 4G.

The cost of the infrastructure didn’t go down. The profit margins did not increase. The biggest change was the source of income. Till 2010, profit was made by selling mobile phones. Now the profit making starts after the purchase. Mind you most of the people use their phones because they are affordable on top of being addictive.

The society has somehow transformed into one where four of the five senses are mostly used for interaction with a mobile phone. Phones still don’t have an odour (yet). At least it is not mainstream yet. But the day is not far.

We are growing numb to the realities of the world. We are in a way becoming that is why we start seeing pragmatic people as pessimists. Deep down I believe “Every body knows” this, but they are just far too distracted to realize it.

The puppet show

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Illusion of choice

This blog started out as the episode 2 of my new ‘Over analyzed movies’ series. But once I started structuring the thoughts, it became more of a ‘Song’ review rather than a ‘Movie’ review. A few minutes later, it started evolving into the following….   Now, the song in question is the title track from the movie Rangasthalam. It is a movie about the lives of some people in a village by the name ‘Rangasthalam’. But the word literally means ‘the Stage’. The one used for theater kind, Not the Stage 1, Stage 2 kind. Now the lyrics of the song when translated to English (Translation cannot do justice to any piece of poetry, it can only be truly enjoyed in its original form) go something like…..

In Rangasthalam, we are all puppets of an invisible puppeteer. Then it goes on to describe how people in Rangasthalam are gullible and innocent etc.

The first time I heard this song, before watching the movie. I liked the philosophical side of the song as I Interpreted it as a play of words referring to the world as a stage and god as a puppeteer. But, once I completed watching the movie, I realized that it had a far more literal meaning in the context of the movie. As, every aspect of the people of Rangasthalam is actually controlled by the anti-hero of the movie. He is a landlord who casts his shadow over entire village with a pseudo-god like status.    Now, that was a clever use of words. Ones that have both metaphorical and actual meanings. In fact all great art does. Please mind that I am not referring to the tons of double-meaning-ed pieces of literature out there that replace obscene and vulgar words with the words that infer those things. I am talking about literature like ‘Animal farm’ which captures the idea of communism and social revolutions thought the story of animals in an actual animal farm. I am talking about the movies like I-Robot,  Inception, The true man show. I am talking about smash hits songs like London calling, Like a virgin and Summer of 69. The art which needs a lot of context to understand the true meaning.

If this was to be a movie review, then I have to stop here. But it isn’t. The song in question has always triggered a lot of after thoughts, every time I listened to it. Its is a metaphor that refers to all of us. Aren’t we all puppets? Or do you strongly believe that you are acting on your own free will on all decisions you make?  

Depending on the your financial and social/political might, you might just be a puppet or both a puppet and a puppeteer. There is a clear hierarchy in our society, the people who pull the strings also have their own masters. The logo of “The God Father” and the plot of the book is a perfect analogy of how a city is controlled by a single guy. May be the phrase “Pulling strings” also originates from the puppet show.

We are born into this world with the strings of Gender, Family, Religion & Region. To be more specific the cultural and habitual obligations that come with being born into a gender/family/religion/region. These obligations become a norm for us. The society adds more strings. Moral obligations, the expectations of your kin and society in general. The compulsion of education via schools with a predefined syllabus. The obligations of degrees, jobs, marriage, kids. Which major to pick in college, which domain to choose for a job, whom you marry, when you marry. Everything is either decided or influenced by someone else.

Lately, capitalism has added more strings. What you buy, where you buy, when you buy something is not exactly in your hands anymore. It is decided by tech giants running machine learning algorithms to dangle stuff that you don’t need and financial giants allow you to indulge with money you don’t have through credit cards, loans, EMIs and installments. Businesses try to put you on a leash by offering attractive memberships.

Elections campaign slogans and political manifestos are decided by data mining. The hastags that you add to the posts are not to search trends. Its is to judge the pulse of people from silly to serious things. Text processing engines burn millions of watts of electricity every day going through the non-sense called social media counting for and against count on each topic and then sell this information to companies that think that data doesn’t lie and machines can think better than us. then shove the outputs of these algorithms down our throats. 

Do you still think that you make your own decisions? Or did you start counting the number of puppet masters you have?

The underdog detective

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Over analyzed movie review – Episode 1

I like movies a lot. That is why I don’t watch many. 


Spoiler Alert: The following blog contains spoilers. Please stay away if you haven’t watched the movie.

Well to start with a gist, better get it from IMDB, “Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya is an authentic humorous investigative thriller revolving around the adventures of a detective based out of Nellore.“

Now let me try it in my own words. It is a low budget comedy thriller that has a very good script and screenplay. An ambitious detective who watches loads of English detective films to learn his trade and operates from a shack in the middle of a vegetable market. He gets dragged into a very sophisticated criminal operation. He thinks that he is on the right path, so do we. He ends up being framed for a couple of murders and now has to clear his name while also find the real culprits.

Phew! Those were some long sentences. But to the topic of my interest. Why did it work?
Traditional movie goers in India prefer movies with big name stars to ones with a good script. So, how did this movie do as well as it did? Well a movie, irrespective of language will always do well if it manages to play with the emotions and instincts of the audience. 

In this movie, some of our basic instincts (not Michael Douglas’s) are played with. In any detective movie you expect the lead to solve the mystery. But casting a rookie as the film’s lead trigger’s the underdog effect. Let’s say you are watching a James Bond/Sherlock Holmes/Mission impossible, if the lead were to fall into any peril, you wouldn’t be concerned. How can any harm come to such a powerful character? (Same logic used in reverse to blow your minds again and again in Game of thrones) If you are not concerned or connected with the character, you wouldn’t be blissful when he wins. In this movie, the lead is not very powerful or well built. You wouldn’t expect him to win any fights. So, it makes him the underdog. In a neutral situation, one always roots for the underdog. So there is a connection established with the audience. Its always satisfying to see a deer escaping a tiger than a tiger devouring a deer or a tiger fighting another tiger.

Next, Us being Judgmental. Movies have always generalized bad people. Their appearance,body language, the facial expressions have always been stereotyped. But, How does a bad person look?  Here is a test for you. If you haven’t watched ‘The Usual Suspected’, play along. Look at the image below and find the culprit.


Before you answer, think again, this may or may not be a trick question. Watch the movie to know the answer. I will not reveal it. 
Another test if you are interested. Below is a poster of “Murder on Orient express”.The poster of the better version of 1974 was not very convenient for the task, so I am using the 2017 version. Who among the below is a cold blooded murderer?




Now coming back the topic of discussion. At no juncture in the movie, the audience get any information on who the bad guy(s) is/are. There is no attempt to mislead you either. They genuinely show characters in different situations. Besides appearances, People mistake attitude for character. So, for major part of the movie, our brains keep passing judgments on everyone we see on the screen.

Side note: This topic alone deserves a separate post. On how we assume ourselves to be the judge, jury and executioner for everyone.

Coming back to the movie. A detective movie is only good if the audience cannot figure out the mystery themselves. There are different ways the narrators achieve this. Some make the plot so complicated/illogical that its impossible to find the culprit. Others mislead you on purpose. But only a few master the screenplay of audience coming to their own conclusions and making sure they are wrong conclusions. 

So, this movie plays at 2 habits of ours. One always supporting the underdog and the other, us being judgmental about everything. This is why it hit the right cords.

Collective compass

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Ants

 
Ants are curious organisms. They are always busy. I mean always. Have you ever seen an ant that is not in hurry? Its unfair that bees get the idiom ‘Busy as a bee’ just because they start with same alphabet. I have see plenty of bees that are just sitting idle of a wall or a leaf. Though, I cannot change the existing language, I can add another idiom. ‘As industrious as an Ant’.

Ants have a social hierarchy. The queen is the founder and responsible for laying eggs. Drones are the males responsible for mating with the queen while worker ants are responsible for building and maintaining the nest, protecting the colony from other ants and, most importantly, feeding the colony. The most fascinating aspect of worker ants is the way they carry food. If you observe the below animation closely, you will notice that Ants keep changing places. Its not like they are taking turns at the job or taking frequent breaks from their task. You will also notice that each time a new ant joins the effort, there is a slight alteration in the direction.

Worker ants have a collective goal. They trust each and every one of the ants to work towards the same goal. When ant leaves its position and wanders around, it is actually scouting for the direction they need to travel in and when it comes back and tugs in a different direction, the rest of the group just follow the new direction, without even a slight hesitation.


A compass is a tool that tells you direction. But it does its job only if its working properly. A broken compass will show a wrong direction. Lets look at it as each ant has its own compass, each member of the group, takes turns to check their compass and tell the rest of the group to follow their compass. The rest of the pack ignore the readings in their compasses and just follow the latest information. Also there is no single ant forcing others to follow only its directions. It sounds like a very inefficient plan. But it ants always make their way back to their nest.
 
Now, if we give a group of human beings a compass each. Some working and some broken without telling them who has the proper ones and repeat this experiment of asking them to go from Point A to Point B with no single one having any idea where their destination is, I would bet one of the two things with happen. They will either remain at the same location arguing or end up being influenced by the most dominant member and leave the result to the change of the dominant member’s compass being correct.

All this might seem like a stupid Idea. When would anyone be in this kind of situation. Well, this happens often in life and more often at work. Whenever we embark of a journey to uncharted territories with a group/team of people, almost everyone in the group has an opinion on how to go about it. But they seldom trust each other. They fail to consider that they might have a broken compass.

I don’t mean to say the one must follow everyone’s advice. It would be ridiculous. But one should at least give a benefit of doubt to other ideas. There is a very good quote in the movie “Ratatouille”. It says “Everybody can cook”. It doesn’t mean that each and everyone of us would make an excellent cook. It means that a great cook can come from anywhere.

 

 

 

50 shades of Red

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What’s left of left?


I have stopped watching news. I have deleted all my social media accounts. No, I am not depressed or on a digital fast. I was really sick of the hypocritical trolls out there spewing hatred 24/7.  Religious, regional and political affiliations often bring out the worst in people. Until a few decades ago, these topics were dealt separately. But the information age started making a toxic cocktail of these affiliations. 

I have already spoken about the religious and regional affiliations. Its time to hit the trifecta. 
Almost all political parties in the world classify them selves as the Right, the Left or the moderates. But there are many shades of these ideologies. In US, the Red represents republicans who are right wing. Where as every where else in the world Red represents communism which is far far left. This is the reason I called this post 50 shades of red. These many shades make the whole deal very kinky.

Now what is left and what is right? And why are there wings? Is the government an aircraft or is it a bird? How come it can fly with a single wing?

The terms “left” and “right” appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left. The right is always the party sector associated with the interests of the upper or dominant classes, the left the sector expressive of the lower economic or social classes, and the center that of the middle classes..

Speaking honestly, are any of the political parties working for the non-rich? 


Just like bloodstock horses that are bred to run others races and die earning money for others, the lower and middle classes spend their lives making meager money while the people who employ them reap the actual benefits. 

There is another part of horse racing analogy that applies to politics, politicians make sure that the common folk is not distracted by the realities of the world, So they tie blinds called religious and regional feelings to their eyes. The working class throws common sense out of the window, don’t complain about getting whipped by their jockeys and run until they die.

The true sense of liberal or left philosophy was always a myth. Soviets embraced it to overthrow czars only to surrender to another equally totalitarian leadership. In US, communists are seen as terrorists but lobbying is rampant in both their major parties. The plight of Chinese has been very similar to that of the Russians. Over the last decade, the right wing parties have been gaining momentum in each passing election and pushing even the theoretical left parties to the brink of existence. I say theoretical because, I have never come across a self proclaimed socialist and liberal government truly work to improve the lives of the less privileged. 

From reds of the US to the reds of rest of the world, all political parties do is to fill their pockets with money from the lobbyists and businessmen. The only difference is their choice of rich. If they preach hardcore religious values then they pay the right and if they are less religious, they pay the left. Thus, every citizen is having to pay (a far more costly price).