Tag Observation

Coincidence

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I’m feeling lucky

Luck seems to top the list of things people want and that start with L. It kind of corrected a misconception. I expected the top result to be ‘How to get laid’. That being the most primal and basic instinct of humans. May be people already know that or may be they thought luck would get them laid anyway. But Luck seems to be one every ones wish list.

Google even has an I’m feeling lucky button if you just in case have previously googled and already got the luck from that place where they give away luck. It sounds sarcastic but there are oodles of places where you can get luck. To be more accurate, where you can ‘Buy’ luck. Just to see what the worlds best search engine would suggest if I asked it this question. It took me to a page where there was a list of things ranging from most silly to most obvious (Lucky charms to Working Hard).

Now, one can be impatient to make their own luck. It might take some time and effort to make it, so they just buy it. They buy charms, stones, gold or some even buy blessings. That’s a story for another day. But most people are not rich enough to keep buying their luck so they make their own.

People make their own luck by doing things at a lucky time or on a lucky day or wearing a lucky color or wearing a lucky shirt. You name it they have a it. May be there is a lucky under wear too. So, how can a time/day/color be lucky? It doesn’t make sense.

It is a great insult to associate success to luck. This happens especially if one has an inferiority complex and a lack of self belief. Suppose a student prepares for only 2 of the 5 chapters in syllabus for the test and looks at the test paper to find most of the questions are form the the 2 chapters he/she prepared for. They associate this with the deity they prayed to that day, the mode of transport they took, the breakfast they had, the seat they took, the first face they looked after they woke up, the pen they brought, the shirt they wore, the shop where they bought the text book, the song that they heard on the way, the girl they saw before the exam. You name it, they have it. They have a self documented scientific proof of the event that made those questions appear in the test.  The poor guy/girl who prepared for the other 3 chapters will be cursing all the things I mentioned above. Clearly he/she did not put in the total effort logically required to take the test. They just did part of it and so now, they have to associate their success to some external element because they know that they are not the reason for it. 

People do not believe in coincidence.Yet, they buy lottery tickets. Do one of their lucky things and think they got lucky if they win. But ignore their lucky charm if they don’t win. That’s very hypocritical and also being lazy. But they are still justified as they don’t know the reason for their success, so they are trying to associate.

I’m no saint here. I was part of the brigade, my thing was color. It first started with fear. As a kid I was involved in 3 minor accidents through no fault of mine. All 3 times, I was wearing a black shirt. So, I associated it with bad luck. Then, I gave an exam where I was not very confident about. I aced it and I was wearing a white shirt that day. So, it was established. Black is bad, white is good. Then I was involved in a potentially fatal accident and again  through no fault of mine. I was wearing… no.. not black. It was white this time. See, It happened on the way to another exam. How could I be not wearing white to exams? No, I escaped this potentially fatal accident with minor injuries. Luckily. No. Due to a couple of coincidences. Guess what I did now? I thought I was saved because I was wearing white.

Subconsciously, I have already trained my brain to associate black with bad and white with good. Now even if something bad happens white, I search for a bright side. That is still acceptable, makes me a more optimistic person. But the other side of the coin is bad. I was scared to wear black, predetermined that no matter what I do, black will cause problems. This is bad. very bad. It wasn’t until a lot of years later that my brain started to realize the nonsensical nature of my black and white logic. I turned the corner with one logic, put in 100% effort, do not expect 100% success. There are too many variables in the equation for each and every thing you do. So, trying to control the outcome is a futile exercise. All you can do is try with all your heart. If it doesn’t happen it’s not just because of you, its not because of you or something you wore or saw that day. There are a hundred things that can happen. Always look at future as one with infinite possibilities being influenced by infinite events.

What infuriates me the most is that most of the people who are armed with sufficient will skills and talent to execute something get bogged down by some stupid concepts that guarantee 100% success with no logical sense.

Above is one of my all time favorite scenes in Movies. It basically explains how the universe works and also the point I’m trying to make in this post. 

So, I will not be wishing you best of luck. I’m wish you all the very best.

Dystopian destiny

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Civilization or C-Evil-ization?



What is common between the movies in the above collage? Take a guess. May be the title will give a clue! Not the movie title, I’m talking about the title of blog.

Before I tell you what I meant, lets look at some more movies. Have you seen “You’ve got mail?”, a nice romantic movie, very popular no doubt, you wouldn’t bat an eye lid on the plot. Its very genuine. But it wasn’t when the movie was made. Movies main plot is something that you would call Online dating today. It was completely unheard of in 1998.

So, this movie predicted something that we see today. It predicted future. Now let me rush through a list of movies that spoke of concepts that were total fiction when they were made.
Jim carrey’s The cable guy talks about Online gaming and Smart TVs. Air plane part II shows full body scanners in air ports, Minority report shows personalized advertising, Total recall shows TV’s on public transport & self driving cars/ Back to the future features flat screen TVs, Video conferencing and wearable technology. War games introduced us to cyber war fare. Blade runner said digital bill boards are possible. The true man show is about reality television (the writers can sue the Kardashian’s for copy wright infringement). The running man is about a reality show where contestants had to do dangerous tasks. 2001 A space oddessy gave us the first glimpse of virtual assistants. Smart phones, Virtual reality, Robots, Digital snooping, Identity theft, Smart homes, Face transplants, Nuclear meltdowns were all part of movies even before we had a name for such a thing.

You might write it off saying its all about technology and technological advances were bound to happen. You can also strike me down that there is a whole bunch of stuff that did not become a reality. But that’s exactly what a prediction means. It may happen. It’s not a guess. A prediction is an educated guess. Sort of the one you make at half time of a game. 

Now getting back to the photo collage at the top.At the heart of every plot is the message, Human species is on path to self-destruct. They are not the dystopian dreams of a writer, they are the the result of a prediction that some people made looking at where the human race is heading. The central theme of every movie is problems that arise out of over population of Humans.


Also, there has been an increasing trend where the villain is a guy meaning good. He takes the decision that the only way to save earth is by eliminating significant amount of human beings. So, he is actually trying to be the hero for future generations but we brand him as a bad guy just because we don’t like his modus operandi.

Look at V for vendetta, its based on a book, it is about futuristic Britain. A politician uses fear mongering and comes into power, then systematically establishes an authoritarian regime. Then there is a revolution to over throw him. I think we are seeing the first phases of this movie plot already in action. 

Before humans walked the earth, the only way there could be destruction was through Nature. Humans call them natural disasters. But there is an important thing to note here. They are not disasters to nature. They are occurrences in nature that prove disastrous to Humans. Well, Flora and Fauna also perish. But what ever happened in Nature was for the greater good. You might call it suffering short time loss for a long term gain. Even when a global scale extinction events like the an asteroid struck to wipe out the dinosaurs or an ice age or magnetic reversal of poles occurred, Earth and Nature have always found a way to restore balance and make Earth a hospitable place. But this took a lot of time. I mean a lots & lots of time. 



But since Humans have become so called ‘Civilized’, the magnitude of destruction we have caused is unreal. Its even more unsettling that majority was done in the last 100 years. Earth is been in a non-molten state since at least 3.8 billion years. At least that is oldest rock ever found till date. Fossil records state that life has been on earth for at least 3.5 billion years. Humans have existed for about 200,000 years. The first vaccine was invented in 1796 and now we are in 2018. Humans couldn’t disturb the harmony of the eco system for 199778 years that is until we found a way to cheat Nature’s fix for everything. Nature always balances the scale by allowing only the strongest to survive, even the population strongest of the species was controlled using disease. Once humans found a way to bypass this, the population exploded. 



Now, in any eco-system if the population of a particular species explodes, then the species in the lower level get decimated, then this over populated species starves to death. This way in some time, the natural order is restored. No Humans are different, we don’t just feed on what is available, we grow our own food. Including the live stock used for meat consumption. We not only just eat when required, we store for future needs. This means the rate at which we consume natural resources is faster than at the rate they are replenished. For eg: it takes more millions of years for nature to create crude oil, we now process in days and consume it in minutes. If you look at the relative time taken to produce and consume hydrocarbons, the model we follow is not at all sustainable. So is the carbon foot print we add to earth.

Just at some of the statistics below on deforestation and CO2 emissions 



All this data points to only one result. There are more movie predictions that are about to come true. We may not be alive to see it, but I’m sure someone in future will look at movies like 2012 & Day after tomorrow and think. Man, they said that this would happen decades ago. Wish someone cared.




Wrong packaging

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Expected vs Actual


Ever seen a wrongly packaged item? At least one of the toy in the below image is wrongly packaged. Right? What if the package was opaque? You wouldn’t know the mistake until you go home an unpack. What if you ordered online?

My wife once ordered a shampoo online, they sent conditioner. I requested an exchange citing wrong product. There was a guy to collect the old item and 2 days later, got a new package. Again a conditioner. Now I was really pissed, I called customer care and gave them an ear full (we all know that the customer care executive doesn’t give a rats ass about our problem and is just going to read out pre-scripted responses, but venting out anger is very satisfying). After a lot of apologies and another exchange request. I finally for a new package the next day… Voila… another Conditioner. I was laughing because I didn’t know what else to do. My wife said let it be and I accepted the delivery. It then turned from funny to hysterical. Next day, i even got an email asking me to review the product.  

Now here I was not happy because we sort of had a contract when I made the purchase.I agreed to buy a specific item. Actual item was different from the expected item.
  1. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
  2. Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
  3. Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal
These are the official names of North Korea, Sri Lanka and Nepal respectively. Now, the official names carry a lot of prefixes. I know you wouldn’t mind calling Sri Lanka a democratic country or Nepal a federal republic. But I know its ironic to call a dictatorship in North Korea a democracy. This is wrong packaging. Right? I mean the name on the package is different from the product that is inside. 

Now, let me get to my country. India. India is just referred to as India. But it’s a also called Republic of India. So that’s setting low expectations than the above countries. But there is a catch here. 
Here is the preamble of Indian Constitution:

 WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens
 JUSTICE, social, economic and political;
 LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
 EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all
 FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
 IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this  26th day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

In the preamble of the constitution, India is called  
a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.
Yes, that’s all the words from your civics book. I mean literally all the words that can be put in front of a country name and that sets the bar very high. I can kind of understand the folks who wrote these words. They wanted India to be the good boy of the class. But these are not just words, these are the principles on which they wanted India to run. 

So have been able to uphold these principles we set for ourselves?

I’m not going to list the dictionary definitions of each of these words. I’m just going to use layman’s language to do a fact check.

Theoretically India became a Sovereign on 15th August 1947. The British left for good and that meant that we were our own bosses. But have the governments acted with authority of their own? Every government for the fear of loosing votes and also due to greed gets influenced by not just internal forces but also to multi national conglomerates. So, that’s principle flushed down the drain.

Now, do all the citizens get an equal share of resources in India. No, so we are not socialist.
Then is India secular? India has been melting pot of world religions. In a true secular country Government doesn’t interfere with religion and Religion doesn’t interfere with governance. Now we all know that it’s not the case in India.

In a democracy, government gets elected by the people and all people have equal say in the election. But if you look at it in simple words, this also directly means that if a 100 people vote and at least 51 people want a thing, the rest of the 49 should suck it up and shut the fuck up till the next election. Looking at the number of protests, PIL’s, law suits and agitations – It is any thing but a democracy in India. 

So what are we left with now? Yes, Is India a republic? For this I do have to go back to a Wikipedia definition. Its easier that way.
A republic (Latin: res publica) is a form of government in which the country is considered a “public matter”, not the private concern or property of the rulers. The primary positions of power within a republic are not inherited. It is a form of government under which the head of state is not a monarch.

Now, In India rulers behave like the country is their private property. Most positions of power are definitely inherited. Politics in India are a family business and finally, though our head of state is not a monarch. There has been more than one Monarch like figure who was directly head of the state or worse, held no position of power but made all the decisions. So, I’m going to flush that down the drain too.

Just like my wife gave up on the shampoo and adjusted with the conditioner. Indians have turned a blind eye to what we aspired to be and what we turned out to be.

Well, its good that we do not call our selves SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC of India or SSSDRI.  It sounds silly,awkward, ironic and would be lying through our teeth. Lets continue calling our country just India. But for the sake of sanity, lets amend the preamble to the below text.

 WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN* SOCIALIST* SECULAR* DEMOCRATIC* REPUBLIC* and to secure to all its citizens
 JUSTICE*, social, economic and political;
 LIBERTY* of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
 EQUALITY* of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all
 FRATERNITY* assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
 IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this  26th day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

*SUBJECT TO CHANGES

Reading material

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Where to write and where not to write?

Paper was invented for writing. Then with the invention of computers and the internet, writing got digitised. Not every body can write quality stuff. It takes even more brains to write or say a quote. Great people are often remembered for their brainy quotes. These are found in their rightful place. In books, articles and other stuff both in print and online.

But there is an interesting phenomenon with some human beings. They started to write stuff or buy stuff written on it and put them every where they don’t belong. But this same phenomenon provides me reading material in most unusual places.

The walls of Golkonda fort in Hyderabad or for that matter any construction with historical significance can give you a very good indication of the number of low IQ couples in the city. In fact their names are carved on the walls in the hope of their names replacing Romeo and Juliet when referring to great love stories. Ramya and Ashok as demonstrated below are deeply in love and want to show case their love to the historians of future and tourists of present. Its just sad that Anil Kapoor’s son choose Mirza Sahiban’s love story for his debut, instead of Ramya & Ashok.

Then come the public toilets. The male toilets in public areas are a small version of telephone directory. (I obviously cannot comment on female toilets coz I haven’t been in one) This telephone directory is a list of all sluts available in the area. Name and phone number followed by venereal services offered by her. I’m sure there are very few women who know this. But anyone who get vulgar messages or calls from unknown callers will now know the reason. Some macho man you rejected has inked your name and phone number in a shitty place(literally shitty place).

Clothing started as a basic necessity and then became an obsession for a lot of people. There are now dedicated brands that sell apparel with stuff written on it. 

People think that they are witty and funny to wear them. But you are actually just showing off someone else’s talent. If quotes had patents, a lot of people would have been sued under copy right law. I’d be one of them. In my collage days. I bought a tee that had ‘I’m what I am’ on it. It cost me around 1000 bucks. 1/3 rd of my monthly allowance. Later with the maturity that comes with age, I realised I was dumber than dumb & dumber to wear it. Even now I have a couple of tees with stuff written on it. But I don’t wear them out. They are my sleep wear and I don’t mind what’s written on my sleep wear as long as It fits my budget. Coming back to t-shirts with quotes on them, I don’t mind them, I just laugh at you inside just like I laugh at my old self. But girls wearing such t-shirts put me in awkward situations. Unfortunately my education and general reading habits result in me trying to read anything I see and if its on a girl’s tee, it puts me in a very awkward situation as they think I’m starting at something else. So a Small suggestion to girls, if you wish to wear something with stuff written on it, please make sure it’s on the back.
Then comes my favourite reading material. Vehicles. People get a great variety of stuff written on their vehicles. I’d actually need a separate post to aptly describe my feeling towards these writings. They give something to think about it traffic. I’ll try to keep it short and just continue in this post .
The names of on the car. Are they his/her children? Or siblings? or just a couple of names he likes? I he a sadist to give his children such awful names? What if somebody reads these names, follows him home, sees his child playing outside, approaches them, calls out their name and tells them that he is their dad’s friend and nabs them? A lot of if’s but its a possibility. You can get anyone’s attention by calling out their name. I’m sounding paranoid but so many vehicles with names written on them and so much of time in traffic can give rise to a lot of thoughts.
Some people also try to tell me who they generally vote for. Some times just hailing a political party and some times they even mention their caste with the photo of a politician who belongs to their community. Some people just write the name of their caste as if its a badge of honour. I feel like running them over with a war rig from that Mad Max movie. Now I sound like a psychopath but if I feel that these people do not deserve to live in a sane society. These people pride themselves in being born to a couple who belong to a particular caste( a result of poor social practices and a genetic accident). These would have made sense in olden days when Caste told a person’s profession. Like a doctor mentioning his profession on an Aeroplane just in case there is an emergency and someone needs them.
I try to maintain some distance to these vehicles. Its always better to stay away from mad people.
Some people tell me their religious preferences. Some through photographs of their gods, others trough writings from their sacred books. I have 6 words for these people. Keep thy religion to thy self. The rear windshield is for visibility, not to make it a holocaust memorial or the Berlin wall. Some automobile owners tell me that their parents love them, through their vehicles. What else does ‘Maa Baap Ki Dua’ behind a vehicle mean? 
Some people advertise the financial source of the purchase of the vehicle. I’m not talking about the ‘Financed by State Bank of India’ on a Cab. I’m talking about the Mom’s gifts and Dad’s gifts. You are a spoilt brat,  good that you know it but why tell me? Unless your sponsor is generous enough to buy me a vehicle too, why would I care?
Some people tell me their profession. Especially lawyers, judges, politicians and doctors. I wonder if there is an accident, I can stop one of the cars with lawyer symbol and one with doctor symbol on it and ask the former to take legal action and the latter to perform first aid. Then there is also a next level. If one person in a family is a cop, then his entire extended family have ‘Police’ written on their vehicle. What purpose does it serve? Its still a mystery to me.
Some people tell me that they are car enthusiasts. This is done by buying a sticker from Team-BHP – a popular gearhead website. But ironically I find each and everyone to be very bad at driving. Apparently, just like quotes on your clothing –  a sticker on your car doesn’t change what you actually are. 
The other type of car entusiast takes a different route. Have you ever seen a rally/race car?  If you haven’t, this is what it looks like..
All the stuff that is written on it is for advertising the sponsors or the company parts that are installed on it. But some people for no reason get these company names written on their normal.. any thing but sports cars. They should be sued for false advertising. Some people go extra length and put expensive car logos on their cheap cars. I never tried is, but may be putting an Audi logo on their Maruthi car does increase their engine output. Don’t believe me? I too did not believe my eyes when I first saw it.
Lastly as if it wasn’t enough to write in all these places. So people get stuff written on them. Its called a tattoo or getting inked if you want to be more funky about it. They write all kinds of things mentioned above. Their loved ones names, religious stuff, funny stuff. You name it and they have it. 
So, these are some unusual places where I find interesting reading material. Well its not that interesting. I use my imagination to make it interesting. If you write something on you or your clothing or your vehicle, I’m going to judge you. Judge your intellect, judge your IQ and judge your decision making skills. 

What’s in the name?

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What are you wearing today?


Ever see the red carpet event of the Oscars or any other award ceremony. The anchors ask all the damsels in uncomfortable attire the same same question. “What are you wearing today?”. They mention some famous designer and talk in some language I’m not familiar with. Apparently there are some nouns and adjectives only a fashion conscious person would know. I’m out of dept here or if you can say – ‘Fashion unconscious’ person.  Every year I wait to see if some celebrity would say ‘Duh! I’m wearing clothes’. But thus far it remains to be a dream of the unconscious mind.

Anyway, designers have their own brands and mostly named after them. They are not affordable to normal folks. For normal folks there is an entire lower range of respectable brands.  In India, clothes were not bought ready made, they used to buy cloth and get it made stitched. But a lot of Indians of current age have moved on from this. They moved away from custom made clothing to mass produced clothing. Its kind of a statement to wear these branded clothes. They are more expensive even if they are mass produced. Funny, Cars actually have an inverse logic in pricing. Rolls Royce is way way expensive than a Volkswagen. 
Where a I arriving at? I just wanted to put out some context for my thoughts.

Every time I see Alia Bhatt showing off her Caprese handbag or Varun Dhawan sprinting around in his skyBags back pack. I wonder if they would have the same appeal if they had some other logo. Let’s say
What do you think? Well VIP is an Indian luggage manufacturer based in Mumbai, it had a lot of good will in previous generations for good quality. I think every middle class family owned a VIP suitcase and may be even its still there. As good as it was. Back to my question, would Alia Bhatt with a clutch branded with VIP logo have the same appeal as the Caprese logo? Its the same purse, same quality, only a different badge. Thought so!!
Ironically both Caprese and SkyBags are brands of VIP. Why would VIP do that?

There are a lot of Indian brands that aren’t marketed like Indian brands. How would you like Madras Rubber Factory tyres on your car? Fancy a Da Milano hand bag? Like a washing machine from Indian Fine Blanks limited. There are tons of brands like this. Flying Machine, Van Heusen, Monte Carlo, HiDesign, Louis Philippe, Allen Solly, Peter England, Lakmé, Hawkins, Westside, Ching’s Secret, White Mischief, Raymond. The list goes on and on. 

Let’s come back to the topic of the post. What’s in the name? Apparently everything.
Why do these Indian companies make their brands sound like foreign? This is because of US. Not the United States, I mean you and me. 

Some kind of colonial hangover in us makes us believe that Videsi is better than Swadesi. Well, these brands are not per say cheating you, they never say ‘Made in Milan’ for Da Milano bags. That would be illegal. They just don’t say where they are made and count on us to assume they are Italian. Italy is famous for leather goods, Milan is in Italy, Da Milano sounds Italian. So the bag must be worth 12500. The similar bag I saw at street vendor for 250 is just a poor imitation. Well the last sentence is sort of correct but the ones before that may not be. 

Apart from the colonial hangover, we also suffer from another problem. Showing off. Showing off is a primal behaviour. All animals do it – when they are looking to attract a mate. But for humans, 365 days are mating season. Add to that a fact that we associate value to Brands. Thus, a Levis T-shirt with nothing but Levis printed on it can be valued at 999 when its actual worth is not even 99. Last year, I bought one such shirt and after a couple of washes, I wear it at home now. Because it just isn’t good enough to wear out. I bought 3 t-shirts from a brand called Gritstones. Never heard of it? I too heard it only when I found them online. They are actually in a great condition even after a lot of washes. You may say that’s just a one off things. I’m not writing this post because I feel Levis ripped me off. If you feel so, you missed the point I;m trying to make. I love cars. Let me give you a car analogy. If a brand new Mercedes or BMW is available at half price and you can afford it, would you buy it? What if I say there won’t be any branding on it? Nowhere on the car will be a logo or a text saying which company it belonged to. Does the offer sound equally good to you now? I doubt it.

There is nothing wrong with buying a BMW for driving pleasure or Levis jeans because you like them. But before you buy something, don’t just go by the name. Look at your options, compare quality and then make a wise choice. Remember Shakespeare – 

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Stuff

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Essentials things that you don’t need

Stuff is defined as the material of which anything is made. But we use it in a different context. We call all material things stuff. Every one has their own stuff and they love their stuff. 

This is not just a human tendency, this can be seen in all animals. Animals are possessive about only 3 things. Food, Mate and Offspring. They defend all three at all costs and do not care about anything else. Primitive humans also started the same. The cave men also only cared about these three things. Next came shelter. Unlike other animals, Humans evolved their brains and in this process, their bodies became delicate and prone to natural elements. So, they needed shelters. They built shelters and made clothing to be able to survive. These were the basic necessities. Food, Clothing and Shelter.

But over the course of mankind, each passing generation kept adding more and more stuff to their necessities list. More interestingly, overwhelming majority of this stuff came in last 200 years. That’s .005% of the time bipedals have walked the earth. This is in one way related to assigning value to stuff. A banana is less valuable than an apple. Ask a monkey which one is more valuable, it might have a personal preference, but values both the same. Assigning values came with invention of money. In barter system everything was equally important. You make/grow stuff, you exchange some of it with stuff you cannot or do not make/grow. I think money was invented because of people like me. I have good problem solving skills which got me the job of a programmer. A couple of thousand years ago, I’d be pretty useless. Would you give me a dozen apples for letting you read my post? Didn’t think so.
Its not all that bad to assign values but we keep that value assigned not just when we buy stuff but also after we bought it. This is because, once own something and you loose it or damage it, you want to be able to replace it. You want to be able to afford it again. This is why a rich person doesn’t mind crashing his sports car (as long as he doesn’t die of-course) but a middle class person would go ape-shit if there is a scratch on his.

 The present generations take this to a whole different level. So, I want to list a few things that we feel are most essential but actually do not need them.

Internet 

In this day and world its important to stay connected but you do not need to be online 24/7. You are not an worker in emergency services. There are a lot of things that can wait. There is no need to type in a LOL as soon as your acquaintance forwards you a joke. A Facebook ‘Like’ of your friends selfie with his first attempt to make breakfast can wait till you finish braking your fast. We often find our selves without time for important things in life. Imagine you do not have internet for a week, you can only access it to do your job. You are not allowed to even google non work related things Now tell me your daily schedule. How much spare time will you have everyday?

Gadgets

There are a shit load of gadgets flooding the market every day. There is no need to own them immediately. You can buy stuff when you need them. You saw that video of a couple capturing their vacation with a drone, cool. Just don’t go online looking for a deal on drones. 
                                        

Social media 

How important are social media platforms like? Facebook, twitter or Instagram. Having friends is important. Probably sharing with them is too. Lets say your Facebook or an Instagram post got 500 likes. How many of them are from people who really care about you? I bet everyone of you has no less than 100 friends on Facebook. Lets say, you broke your leg skiing and post a photo of the leg casting, how many would come to visit you? How many would care to call you to check on you? How many of them would you personally invite to your wedding? As I said, having friends is important. Having a lot of friends would be great. Pretending to have a lot of them is not.

Swag

How do you identify a person with swag? He would be the one wearing a shitty hat sideways(defeating the whole purpose of a hat) accompanied by chain large enough to secure luggage around the neck, a T-shirt with a cocky caption on it, half his ass falling out of his pants. Now do you really need Swag?


Idiot boxes

In one of the episodes of the sitcom friends, Joey makes a profound observation. 

That’s the sorry state we are in(including me). The idiot box has taken over our lives. In addition to television screen we have other screens we point our heads at. The phone screen or your tablet screen constantly grab your attention even when you have the television screen on. This means that people can sit next to each other and not interact. So, living rooms resemble hospital waiting rooms. If you start adding more screens, like a television in each bed room, we will start living like a dormitory, meeting only to have food. So, the least we can do is sit in a single room and keep the possibility of a conversation with your family members still open. 

Looking at the world from a lens

Gone are the days when you need a photography was for photographers. Cameras haven’t become cheap, the purchasing power of people has increased. So, we see DSLR cameras, GoPro’s and not to forget mobile cameras. 
-Having a DSLR is not a crime, but having to use Photoshop to completely alter a photograph you shot with a very expensive camera and then putting a water mark on it to convince people that you shot it(haven’t downloaded it) is a crime against cameras.
-GoPro is a great gadget, something that adventurous people can use to capture their passion. But I’ve seen people picking up so called adventurous habits just for the sake of it. Its like buying a car because you have place to park it. 
-Don’t even get me started on mobile cameras. It doesn’t hurt to have a camera on your mobile phone. You might even say, you don’t want to miss a wonderful moment. But the chances of you capturing a moment of a life time are less than the odds of you catching on fire or having a stroke. But I don’t see you buying a fire extinguisher and defibrillator. Then there are selfies. No better way to tell the world that you are Narsissitic than you selfies. Pouting your way around the social media only highlights your self-centeredness. 

Cosmetics

I’ve seen not just women but also men spending so much of their earnings on cosmetics. Cosmetics were made for models. Others do not need them. That’s a simple truth. Your creams and gels are promoted by makers just because they want your money. It must be just an measurably low confidence that drives people to use so many cosmetics. They are not happy with what they are. They want to look like what people expect them to be. 

Deodorant 

If the coal miners and oil drillers didn’t need it. You will never need it. This is the latest craze in India. The moment I get into elevator in office, there is an assault on my nose with an orgy of deodorants. People who spend the whole day in air conditioned environments do not need to bathe in perfumes unless they sweat like a pig. 

The meaning of life is trying to find place for your stuff – George Carlin.
George Carlin is my favourite philosopher. His profession was a stand-up comedian. But I consider him one of the greatest modern philosophers. If you know his philosophy and have read my other posts, you would have realised that He has influenced me a lot. Carlin had a gig on a topic called ‘Stuff’. Its funny and profound. Have a look at it.


I’m not a sage, I also need my stuff. I’m not immune to the urge to own stuff. It might sound hypocritical. But more than once in a while, I do make an effort to distinguish What I need and What I like.

Lost in translation!!

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The Chinese whisper with Google translate

Imagine playing Chinese whispers but where each player speaks a different language.

Language is a very local thing. You may learn a 100 foreign languages but you can think in only your mother tongue / native language. This is the reason why things get lost in translation. There is no perfect way to translate one language to another. Why is this? The movie John carter has a scene where a guy meets a Martian. They try to introduce themselves. See what happens. Only nouns, no other parts of grammar are involved but what they wanted to convey is lost.

Now lets add an Adjective and set the scene in South Africa. An English guy says Merry Christmas. How do you translate it to Afrikaans? See what happened when I used Google translator. 

Merry is translated as Geesende when used with Christmas and Blessed if used without it. Merry is translated to vrolik but vrolik instead means cheerful. You might get the context of the sentence, but not the true meaning. Simple words loose meaning when translated. What about ancient texts in ancient languages like Prakrit and Sanskrit? Sanskrit and Prakrit were the languages in which ancient knowledge of Indian-Subcontinent was documented. It included simple social practices to things so complex that Indians scholars have been trying to decipher them for years. 

 I started this post by saying ‘Language is a very local thing’. The structure of the sentence, the grammar, forms a word takes can all differ greatly. A lot of times there is no word to describe certain things in a particular language. Why? I’ll give a list of things a 4 year old would know and have no words for in Indian languages. Kangaroo, broccoli, strawberry & soda. These were non existent when the languages developed. Unlike English new words are not incorporated into most Indian Languages. So, how do they describe new things? Well there are other ways. Eg: There is no word for Train in my mother tongue Telugu. Its described by a word that translates to ‘Smoke carriage‘. When my people first saw a train, it was a carriage that emitted a lot of smoke. Now consider the job of translating scientific theories and theology documented by ancient Indians into European languages. 

I’ve given you on my take of the science of linguistics and yet haven’t arrived at the point. I’m getting to it. My point is very simple and you will understand the reason I gave you a linguistic lecture when I get to it. 

Heinrich Himmler was a prominent member of Nazi party of Germany. He was one of the architects of Holocaust. He was also obsessed with India and Hinduism. Himmler had a keen interest in the Rigveda and the Bhagavad Gita. Himmler carried a copy of the Bhagavad Gita in his pocket from 1941 until his death four years later. The book was a translation by the German theosophist, Dr. Franz Hartmann. In 1844, the German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling highlighted in his lectures the same passage from the fourth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, which 100 years later would fascinate Himmler – so much so that he dictated this passage to his massage therapist. This passage emphasises that a person’s identity does not have to be defined by one’s actions — that is, even if they commit evil acts, they can still remain untainted and unaffected by ones’ own actions. Talk about taking things out of context. 

Texts written in Devanagari and Bramhi scripts, translated by a German, for a German and then used to justify their actions. Great. Then there is the Aryan Invasion theory. Nazi’s thought that Indians are descendants of Aryans, who were early Germans that migrated and invaded the Indian subcontinent. A theory that has been proved wrong using DNA tests. 
Let me quote an example of how Sanskrit can be interpreted in multiple ways…

keśavaṃ patitaṃ dṛṣṭvā
pāṇḍavāḥ harṣanirbharāḥ |
rudanti kauravāḥ sarve
hā hā keśava keśava ||

(Seeing the fall of Krishna,
The Pandavas jumped with joy.
All the Kauravas cried aloud,
“Oh! Oh! Krishna! Krishna!”)

Clearly, there is something amiss here. The Pandavas are such dear friends and admirers of Krishna that they would obviously not rejoice in his fall. The Kauravas so hate Krishna that they would surely not wail at his collapse. The real meaning of this kind of trick verse is often understood by splitting the words in a way that is not readily evident. 

The word keśavaṃ (Keshava is another name for Krishna; Keshava means “the lord of creation, sustenance, and dissolution”) can be split into ke śavaṃ (ke = in the water; śavaṃ = corpse). The word pāṇḍavāḥ (Pandavas are sons of King Pandu) can be split into pā aṇḍavāḥ (pā = water; aṇḍavāḥ = born from eggs). The word kauravāḥ (Kauravas are descendents of King Kuru) can be split into kau ravāḥ (kau = who; ravāḥ = noise, howl).

Now, with the word-splits, we get the revised meaning:
Seeing a corpse fall into the water,
The fish jumped with joy.
All the howlers cried aloud,
“Oh! Oh! A corpse in the water! A corpse in the water!”

(Here, “born from eggs” refers to fish while “one who howls” could refer to the wolves or other wild animals who can’t access the meat; or it could refer to the crows cawing loudly).

If one verse can be misinterpreted in such a different way, imagine what can be done to 700 verses. Then they took the ancient symbol used to denote well being. Turned it into and made it a house hold name of anti-Semitism, genocide, war and destruction.


This symbol has a great prominence in Indian culture. Its as important to Indians as a cross is to Christians. Even to this day, when Indian’s buy a new house or a vehicle, we put the symbol on it. Imagine an Indian buying a car in Europe and putting the swastika on it. At the very least, his neighbours will call the cops. The worst case scenario is that secret service will take him in for interrogation. All because… things were lost in translation. 

In Mein Kampf, and also Third reich literature the symbol was called HakenKreuz. A HakenKreuz literally means Hooked cross in English. But  when James Murphy, an English Christian Priest translated Mein Lampf, he conveniently used the word Swastika. By the standards of James Murphy, “Fledermaus” becomes “Fled he mouse” or “Fleder mouse”. By the way Fledermaus is a Bat. Not a sports bat, but the bat in Batman. Sure it does look like a mouse with wings but its no reason to call it a mouse. That’s ignorance. But Mr. James was anything but ignorant.Just because he wanted people to forget centuries persecution of Jews by Christians. Cross reminds everyone of Christians. Nazi’s were not the first ones to hate Jews. Jews are termed God Killers by the new testament. 
                                      

Above is the so called Swastika in Lambach Abbey Christian monastery. You can call it a swastika if and only if Austrian Christians adopted Hinduism in 11th Century. That didn’t happen, so its actually Christian symbol. Mr. James’s translation was an intentional mistake. But still its a mistake in translation. 


What if something similar happened to the western world. How would they take it? What if someone took a cross, put it on a flag, kill 100 times as many people as the Vietnam War? Oops. This already happened and there is a name to it as well. I just described the crusades. Still, you can buy a Jerusalem cross pendent and wear it around your neck and go out. No one will give you a second glance. 

Apparently some things are lost in translation and some things are some other things are polluted in the name of translation.

World history comes with a ‘Conditions apply!!’ disclaimer. 

The good, bad and ugly

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Blessing in disguise

What connects Mongolia with Europe? The only thing Mongolia has been famous for is Genghis khan. Apart from laying foundations to the longest continuous empire in the history of mankind, he also laid a lot of other foundations. Apparently 0.5% (35 million) of all people in the world are direct decedents of Genghis Khan. Apart from this freakishly fertile conqueror. There is nothing much of note about Mongolia. Wrong!!! 
Mongolia played a direct role in changing the face of Europe for ever. 

Imagine a place with huge unemployment, great divide between rich and poor. The streets were filled with hundreds of thousands of homeless and the poor. People starving, 10’s of people competing for every available job.  This is not Draravi . This was Europe in 14th century. With the living standards declining, the land going barren Europeans were struggling to make ends meet. Europe was about the enter a point of no return.

Lets go off topic for a minute, I want to mention the actual thing that inspired me to write this post. If you compare all Dan Brown works, Inferno will definitely be the worst. The book was all that bad, but unlike his other work, it doesn’t dazzle you. In the book, a very talented scientist creates a weapon capable of wiping out 1/3rd of the Earth’s population. Robert Langdon has to stop him. In the movie adaptation he does, but in the actual book he fails. Its revealed that its a airborne virus that makes 1/3 of the population infertile. So, there is no blood bath. Only substantial decrease in population(eventually). The scientist actually wanted to save mankind from destroying itself and this was his solution. Clever! was my first reaction. Then, I thought It would really help the Earth if something like that really happened. It was a lot of time later that I realised, Dan Brown actually took a incident from the history and tweaked it into a book. 

So, Europe was in a bad state. What did Mongolia have to do with it? Did it give a financial aid? No. The concept in Inferno was problems of mankind being solved by a sudden decrease in population. The picture of a masked girl should have given you a clue of what I’m arriving at. The Black Plague of 1347. The thing that killed about 1/3rd of European population. From Russia to England. This originated in.. Yes Mongolia. It plague spread like a wild fire. It arrived in Sicily in 1347, in the next five years it killed millions of people. It did not go away easily. There were cases reported for next 3 centuries. There is no exact record of how many people died. Only speculation. Some studies say, it might be as high as 200 million. That’s a lot of deaths. In the above picture, the mask and the costume are of a ‘Plague doctor’. They are the ones who cured(tried to cure) the plague victims. The masks were designed to protect them from putrid air, which was seen as the cause of infection

How did this solve Europe’s problems? India has a lot of similar problems. Imagine if India’s population were to reduce from 1.3 billion to 870 million by year 2020. That’s same as the country’s population in 1990. What would happen to the Unemployment & poverty? Get it?

A lot of demand for work was created. Labour could demand good wages or the rich were left to work in their own fields. This reduced the economic divide. The availability of labour was scarce, so people started looking for options. They invented machines. Army had fewer men. So, muskets and cannons came into being. A lot of advances were made in the field of Medicine. Earlier hospitals only separated the sick from healthy. Now they started looking for ways to cure them. The power of church weakened, because people lost hope in the catholic church when it couldn’t help cure their ailments. Once the Plague was gone, there was renaissance. Not of just arts, but every aspect of life for Europeans. 

Some thing good happened from a very bad event. Now let us get to the Ugly part. Humanity did not learn from its mistakes. The earth is getting over crowded with humans. The only species that cannot exist in equilibrium with its surroundings. The polar ice caps are melting. There are more and more natural disasters. The campaigns of ‘Save the trees’, ‘Save the planet’ you see now a days are in-fact self preservation attempts. Will they work? Can we save our selves or will the Earth throw another epidemic in our face? Humans think they are an advanced race because they can have a video call on the move. Do you think Nature cares about stuff like Internet of things, Artificial Intelligence? All your gadgets will turn to paper weights you don’t have electricity for a couple of days. 
George Carlin did an amazing piece on this topic. (FYI, I love George and his point of view). Rather than quoting an excerpt from this gig, I’m including the video. 


History repeats itself. Ebola and HIV are attempts by Nature to restore balance. We have been able to survive(for now). But how long before the Nature figures out another way?