[Regarding Book] Games Indians Play: A prejudiced view without proper analysis

This is not a book review, but my impression of the book after completing 1/4th of the 200 pages. Games Indians Play is a book by V. Raghunath.

This book is supposed to explain the 'Why we are the way we are". It starts of with saying that we as Indians have typical characteristics which is not found anywhere else in the world, be it developed or developing or under-developed countries. The traits like: Jumping the Red light, Being late and untrustworthy, keeping the surroundings unclean, bribing and corruption, jumping the queue and being insensitive about needs to elderly etc. It has a foreword by none other than Mr. Narayan Murthy.

I completely agree with him that all the traits are completely valid and true. We see them day in and day out. But where I disagree is that these traits are special to Indian genes and are not found anywhere else. Having been to many countries and interacted with people of many different nationalities, I find this completely ridiculous. Here are my personal experiences:

1. The bus I was waiting for in Nice, France was 20 minutes late. The driver was unapologetic and kept chattering with a person sitting next to him all the while from Airport to my bus stop, many times taking his eyes from the road. All of these are supposed to be typical Indian characteristics.

2. People honk of impatience at traffic lights in Italy. I have seen them taking a shortcuts which are not exactly legal. So impatience on the road is not "India only trait".

3. Uncleanliness is quite rampant. Dog owners dont lift Dog-Shit from roads in Germany, they litter the downtown in most US cities, China is as dirty as India.

4. Taking advantage of a unsuspecting tourists is quite common in China, Italy, Greece etc. A friend of mine lost his Wallet in China and another friend lost his laptop in Rome, both incidents happened within Airport premises. My colleague was ripped off 3 times the normal fare in Beijing, China.

5. And if bending the law is typical Indian attitude, I cannot account for piracy of movies and music. And how can we take into account the Enron's and the Worldcom's? And china is not much better than India when it comes to bribery.

Overall this may be a good book from analysis perspective, but has been twisted for the sake of publicity. People tend to buy more if it is related to India rather than a generic behavioral science book. But this is unjustifiable when book shows India in negative light without any reason just for the sake of publicity.

I hope nobody buys this book and make success out of anti-Indianess.

Luck

And people say I am lucky
What do they know how much
I tried and what I left for luck
- Kavi RSV

Kavi RSV

Yesterday was cloudy and rainy,
Tomorrow will be damp and cold
But today I have decided
Decided to be jolly and bold
-- Kavi RSV

Alice in complicated land

It was a bright day with the big white clouds floating around in the nice blue sky. Alice was lying down under an apple tree and trying to make out which cloud looked like which animal. The last one was a horse, like a big stallion galloping at full speed. The next one was sheep with a small little nose and lots of wool. With the third one she was amazed, it looked exactly like a puppy and not just any puppy but the one with dreamy eyes and slight smile too.

She suddenly decided to get herself a cute little puppy.. and where else to go but to the wonderland with lots of friends to help. She was sure with so many friends she will be able to get the best puppy in the world. But...

There she was staring at the first puppy of the day. It was not exactly as she had seen in the sky.. but it was cute in its own way. She had almost picked it up, when the cat appeared.. first its teeth (all 32 of them) and then the body.
"Wait, Did you count the number of teeth the puppy has? You would not touch it if you knew it had only 31" said the cat.
'But how does it matter? It can chew as well as you do.." said Alice.
"You fool, last time a girl of your age took the puppy with 31 teeth.. and do you know what happened? She fell down and broke her hand."

Its Ok, thought Alice, I will find one with 32 teeth.. not more nor less.

Next she saw another puppy which was perfectly white like a fairy. She picked it up and the puppy immediately made a sweet little sound. "Common Alice" said the cat. "This one is not for you.. Did you see under its paw? It has a black patch. It will not be able to adjust with you".

And so came the third puppy. And went too.. because its age was exactly divisible by the age of Alice. "How in world you could even look at it, Alice" was the comment.

And so Alice roamed around the land looking at one cute puppy than another. And the cat got happier and happier. If the cat let Alice have the puppy, why will she think of him? She will be too happy with the puppy.

By making the life complicated, the cat ensures that people remember and offer it fruits daily. Not that the cat liked the fruits that much. But the adulation people gave was good enough.

So, will Alice be able to find her puppy? Lets wait and see.

--
~RSV

Two Lives

Part-1
It was a bad day. It started with a headline in the newspaper. 'H1B visa quota exceeded in 1 day'. "What the hell, we work so hard here and America doesn't even have consideration to let us live our lives peacefully" thought the Vimla. She had been eagerly waiting for the new year so that she could restart working. It had been a long wait, but worthwhile now that their son was in school and she had free time to start thinking about supplementing the family income. She had even managed to get a sponsor for the H1B after long process, even agreeing to drive 2 hours one way to work. And now all the hopes were dashed. She was cursed to this wait-for-husband-and-kid routine for one more year. And over that, the plans of buying a new car will have to be postponed.

But what wretched life this was. She could not work. Ram could not change his job. The expenses were rising. And the forever illusory 'Green Card' was taking forever to be granted. She had just heard that the backlogs were enough to last 5 years. And this was going to increase with time. Without the green card, they could not settle in life, could not buy a house, get scholarships for their children.

The archaic laws were forcing them to lead a life of relative poverty and was unsettling. Why was that happening to them. Most of her friends in the US had got their green card, bought a house, sending the children to best of the schools and now even planning for a second home. She took another dose of anti-depressent, hoping that she will be well by the time her son returns home, cursing the US and its weird laws at the same time.

Part-2
It was a bad day. It started with traffic snarl in the morning. The maid had taken another day off without informing. Vimla was already late for the office. So many problems. The new home they had bought was farther than her office and road worse than thought earlier. It would have been so nice had her husband Shyam took up the job offer in US. She would have a comfortable life like her sister Bimla. How nice it would be to be out of this traffic and cruising on a free-way. It was year since she had started working again after a long break. Now with the new job of Ram and the additional income she was earning dint heart in any way. They had a bigger home, sending their son to one of the most expensive school in the city, and also managed to buy a new bigger car. But still the heat was killing her. The car she was driving dint have an AC and the roads were jammed. Why did India has so much population. Why did Shyam ignores her nagging. It was such a comfortable life her sister was leading. And she took an anti-depressent from her purse and drank a bit of water. Cursing under her breathe, she started honking hoping that the additional noise will clear the traffic.

Modern World

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

-- from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies

Microsoft

Microsoft is dead, Long live Microsoft

Haiku: The Great Indian Game

Drunk Captain, Fallen team
Murdered Coach, Missing diary
Big Billion Wins, Gentelman's game

Note: This was written before end of Srilankan innings.

The 2 Indias

Here is the story of 2 Indias. 2 sides of the same coin. 2 extremes of injustice.

All of us know and expect that the mail/blog will be about the difference in standard of living. The rising income of the city dwellers while the poverty and debt ridden village farmer. But expect the unexpected.

This is from a different perspective. From the Casteist perspective.

City is where the "other" castes are empowered. They know the power they hold. It is the place where the injustice of thousands of years is vindicated. They get the reservations in education institutions and jobs generations after generations. May be the first person in each family deserved some concession. But this "Chalta hain.. waise bhi IIT mein admission mil hi jayegi" attitude lowers the performance of the individual as well as the country.

This is the place where the employees make false complaints against their bosses, falsely alleging casteist comments. This is the place where they form unions and monopolize several businesses. This is the place where they get loan and freedom to not repay however rich they are.

And this class of people are the main cause for opposition to reservation in the minds of the upper caste.

And then there's the other India. They dont even know what freedom is. They dont have access to water, toilets etc. They have to get up from the seat in government bus if an upper caste person enters. And the administration is not with them. Hardly any lower caste IAS officers/Police commissioners want to work for the upliftment of these people.

And these are the people who deserve the reservation more than any one else. And they get nothing. No dignity. No opportunity.

Miles to go before I sleep.

On climate change..

After warm ice free winter in Europe, Frosty California, over cold east coast, string of typhoons in US and finally a big storm raging across most of Europe the developed world finally woken up to the ultimate truth, that of global warming caused by the "Waste is development" philosophy led by US and followed by most of the developed world.

This is the first time in many years that the common man in Europe and US is being directly affected by the effects of global warming. After trying to stifle the voice of scientist on global warming for years, the American administration has not be able to completely eliminate it. And now the public opinion in the countries that matter is totally in favor of reducing the environmental impact.

A few hours of watching BBC and CNN will show the amount of change in the perception of media:
1. Toyota ad with tag line "aiming for zero emission" is broadcasted multiple number of times per day
2. Number of advertisements from many funds advertising the projects they undertook to reduce emissions.
3. US Congress rejecting the multiple billion subsidy and stating that the money is better used for renewable technologies

World is changing. But are they doing enough to save the world from catastrophe?

The new and emerging manufacturing powerhouse China, still does not care about the environment as long as it gets to manufacture and sell cheap products. And the materialistic world will not care how a product was manufactured as long as it is cheap and desirable.

India with its population is not much behind. As the affluence increases the consumption, we dont care what is the impact on the world.

Just guessing how many million deaths will be needed to actually open the eyes of the world.

And how feasible is it to save the earth as we know today from the conflicting and competitive citizens of the earth.

[Book Review] Guns germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

A "brief history of last 10000 years" is what the book promises. And we get much more than that. A complete paradigm shift of how and why civilizations developed only in Europe-Asia region, while people of Africa, Australia and Americas lagged behind.

Book starts off with an anecdote when the author, a naturalist, is roaming around in the jungles of New Guinea with a local tribal as a guide. As they prepare to cook dinner, the guide gets some mushrooms as food. The author is afraid as he knows the quite a few varieties in the jungle are poisonous and even experts in the field cannot distinguish between the poisonous and edible ones. However when the guide realizes the real reason behind the skepticism to eat mushrooms, he starts listing the varieties available not only in that jungle, but also in the whole island, and their uses and their characteristics. This anecdote is used to make a point that the reason some tribes dint civilize is surely not due to lack of intelligence. All the native tribes in the world have complete knowledge of their environment. If there was anything to be discovered, the natives would have discovered. The author proves convincingly numerous reasons leading to civilization in Eurasian region. And none of them depends on the intelligence of the local tribes.

Reason 1: Availability of appropriate plants and animals
The golden crescent, one of the three areas where agriculture was first developed, has some unique characteristics. 5 out of 7 grasses with largest seed size are found in wild in this area. Also it has an unique topology of mountains and plains due to which the olden day tribal could sustain agriculture throughout the year. Similarly the lack of domesticable animals in Africa, Americas and Australia led to continuation of "Hunting based" lifestyle of the natives in those places.

Due to the surplus created due to agriculture/domestic animals, professions like philosophers, soldiers, doctors etc could be sustained and which are necessary for development of civilization.

Reason 2: Axis of the continent
The reason for development of civilizations across Europe and Asia is the East-West Axis of the land mass. The east west axis provides a conducive environment for spread of the newly developed crops as for example the crops which grow in Mediterranean face similar climate 5000 miles across in China. Compare this to the north south axis of Americas. Every few hundred miles, the climate changes drastically. For eg. The Day length variations in US/Canada border is significantly different that one found in the Mexico US border.  This hampers the spread of plants from one place to another.

Thus the book conclusively proves that no-other tribes residing outside of Eurasian land mass had any chance of development. May be they would have reached the same level of advancement in technology, had they got enough time to progress. But clearly they were not supposed to get the required time.

And hypothetically, if the American continents had the environment and conditions which we have in Eurasia, the history might have been very different. American Indians would have been the ones who would have discovered Europe and Asia. And they would have wiped of all the natives of Europe and Asia and would have Ruled the World.

Overall, this book provides an excellent insight into the factors influencing the development of human civilization and the significant role natural resources and environment played in the development. This is quite contrary to the "casteist" belief held by the conservatives across the world. And this book provides a refreshingly new outlook of looking at things.

--Rahul

Internet, second best leveller?

When I was a kid of around 12 years of age, there was a competition in Economic Times, where they asked quiz about Switzerland. We did not win the competition, but it was great fun answering the questions. And the biggest aid we had was the Encyclopedia gifted by my uncle. Well, I can be considered to be lucky the treasure trove at my disposal. Considering the state of libraries and other resources available at the time in the small scale city in which I grew up, it was gold mine.

But not many were lucky like me. Even I remember struggling to complete the different projects given to me in school just due to lack information and means to access the information.

As I grew to went to college, the main difference I found between the students from Bigger cities and other places was the exposure they had to information at very young age. It caused the difference between an outgoing smart students good at oratory etc and an introvert, shy student who is equally intelligent but with small city background.

But not anymore. At least the middle class families even in villages afford the luxury of a computer and a net connection of decent speed. With tools like wikipedia, google search etc, there is not much advantage that a big city student has over the smaller city cousin. Well, the children will need the attention to check the journey down the wrong path, made easier with the advent of Internet. Every invention is a double edged sword and it is upto us to be careful.

Hence the title. Internet the second best leveller (next only to death :) )

Canadian Experience

Big buildings, fast cars, nice people (the best among the Caucasians I have ever met ), and lot of money.

This is the experience I had in the first 2 days of Montreal, Canada. Second largest city in Canada after toronto, this is a beautiful place with old buildings and skyscrapers residing harmoniously. All was idyllic in this place except for the weather (its damp and cold right now). Or so I thought.

On the third day as I walked out of the hotel for a quick lunch, a lady approached me and my collegue and started speaking in french. When she realised that we dint know french, she swicthed into english effortlessly.  She wanted some money as she had lost her job and dint have enough to eat. She was crying.

In this "developed" country, a lady was begging on the road. She had lost her job may be at no fault of hers. No social security net to rescue her. No food to eat. And had to beg on the road to unknown strangers in that damp and cold day. I am not even sure she had someplace to sleep warm.

Money doesnt buy everything. But at the very least it should give enough heart in people to provide certain level of security.  Here, almost everybody has more than enough to spare for every poor person in the country if not the world a decent shelter. Then why is that not being provided? Capatilist nature of society? Or just plain natural greed?

Pathetic.

"Play on our Strengths"

The greatest physicist of the past century won the Noble for Photoelectric effect. It simply states that every element has a stable state and this stable state can be different for different atoms. If the atom is excited by external means, the atom moves into another state but only momentarily. They return to the stable state almost immediately.

Similarly every community has its own characteristics. These characteristics have been developed over past few thousand years as a result of interaction with natural environment, historical events and for small part character of original community. Hence we have "the straight" German, Tight Upper lipped British, Hard working East Asian, Economiser Jews etc. Similar I would like to attribute Indians as the Rebellious Free-Thinker.

In 2-3 thousand years of history India has never united. It was always a amalgamation of different thoughts and practices. Different people with different cultures were welcomed. Their identity was neither dissolved into common pool, nor were they kept separated from the community as a whole. And even then we had a common thread of culture running among all of us.

India was the only country in the world where "monotheistic" religion was never developed. May be thats because of our rebellious attitude. Majority of us do not want some person like Pope from Vatican or Mulla from Jamma Mashjid to be sermonising us on what to do and what not to. We had 100 different flavours of Hinduism based on some common foundation.

And may "pluralistic" attitude which might have caused us not to progress beyond a point. The Western definition of progress meant mass production, and mass production meant big investment. This also meant that 99% people follow the 1% of the leader. This was the east Asian economies grew as they have the culture of "dumb follower" of the leadership.

But times are changing. The cost of implementing new ideas is dramatically reducing day by day. We have knowledge revolution ahead of us. Here the mass production wont hold sway. Here the winner will be one with a good IDEA. And this should be the to our strengths.

May India become a super power soon.

Amen.

Advantages of being a Marathi person in Karnataka

This is purely from personal experience.

1. I know 1 language more than other marathi or kannadiga.
2. I have twice the number of friends.
3. I am comfortable to roam around in double the area.. i. e. Karnataka and Maharashtra.
4. I can take up job and still feel at home at Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur etc
5. Since I know one dravidian language, learning other dravidian languages is easy. I learnt Telugu in 6 months to quite a good extent.
6. I can comfortably watch twice the number of Good Movies, read twice the number of Good Books.
7. Enjoy good food.. from Ukadiche Modak to Obbattu, from Bajrichi Bhakri to Ragi Mudde.

And all this without any extra trouble. I dont even remember how I learnt to speak, read and write kannada. And I never felt being out of place either in Karnataka Or Maharashtra.

And I notice most of the people making noise are those who are Maharashtrians in Maharashtra or Kannadigas in Karnataka.

And what about so many non-localites getting settled in all parts of the country from Mumbai to Bangalore, Chennai to Mangalore, Pune to Kokatta. So is solution is to make all cities as "Union Teritories" ? This is the age of globalization and universal language (English) is used in all these
cities.

While people are free to use their mother tongue at home, studying one more extra language will not cause any harm.

Linguistic divide of the state was a mistake.. and politicians want to take even more advantage of this. I apeal to all Maharashtrians staying out of Maharashtra and Kannadigas staying out of karnataka to speak out against this politization of the issue and spoiling peace and prosperity in
both of these 2 states.

Human, the Great Conquerer

Not long time, Aids was held in horror and infection meant slow and painful death, not only of the victim but many times of his/her partner, and quite a few times children too. It was argued that it was a punishment of God for non-virtuous living. And almost everybody used to tend to agree. It seemed so unconquerable that people believed that no one but God could create such a thing.

But not anymore. The third generation drugs are now so effective that if used regularly, the patients can lead an almost normal life. The children will grow up normally, can get married and also have children. The probability of children of HIV mothers being HIV positive has gone down less than 50% already.

Even though HIV has not been cured as such, but bringing it under control in some 20 years or so is a big achievement in itself. We can expect that next few years will bring in vaccine for HIV and a cure for it too.

So conquest of plague of 19th century, influenza in 20th century, HIV in 21st century.

Long live the curiosity. Long live the progress.

--
Rahul Vaidya
[ http://reasonablethoughtsfromme.blogspot.com/ ]

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same
-- Oscar Wilde

Leasons from Roman Empire

Roman empire ruled over half the known world for as long as 600 years. May be a longest period for any empire of that size including the british empire 'On which the sun never sets'. Even though it was an 'empire' in the sense that it had a king, for a long time the king had only nominal power. And the empire was really at peace most of the time without tyrants who were common in history all over the world.

Roman history can be split into 2 parts: Roman Republic when a senate was strong and Roman Empire when king was all powerful.

During Roman Replublic, the senate was chosen by people but was generally made up of very inteligent and educated of the people. They had enough knowledge to rule. Also the election was not restricted by birth or money nor by nationality. Hence every citizen of roman empire whether italian or not had an equal chance to become a senator and gain respect. Thouhg this was an ideal way of governing, after around 300 years of success, ambitious senators and generals started looking for gaining more power through absolute monarchy. Thus started the Roman Empire with Julius Caesar

Speciality of  Roman Empire: They ruled for 300 years..long enough considering may monarchies of this size were broken in 1 or 2 generations. Some unique points:
1. The heir to the empire was NOT present emperor's son or any relative.
2. The heir was chosen from general public, one who showed capablities to rule well.
3. Even when in the last stages when the "tenets" were broken, there was no case where same family ruled for more that 2 generation. And only 2 instances where son actually succeded the father.
4. There were many instances where a person from obscure person became emporers based only on their capability.

Are these the secrets of the success of Roman Emperor? Are we providing equal opportunity to everybody? Are our politicans really the ones most suitable to rule?

What can India learn from it? What can we do to spreat "PAX INDIANA"?

Open debate.

--
Rahul Vaidya
[http://reasonablethoughtsfromme.blogspot.com/ ]

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same
-- Oscar Wilde

Call for Majesty of Indian State

Majesty of Indian State. A term used by an author and reused by many to indicate the "Proactive" action against the perpetrators of violence. Examples: Israel and United States of America. Reason: It gives terrorists something to fear. Result: Not even a single act of terrorism in USA since 9/11.

Difference:  USA is not in close proximity of its enemies. And it is far more powerful than all the rest of the world put together. India is in close proximity of the its worst enemy, and the enemy's power is comparable with India's. (Whether you like or not, that is true).

Fact: Who has decided that majesty lies in the show of power. Its a typical stone-age logic which fortunately Indians never believed in. Today the games are played in the brain rather than on the field. Every time an industry comes to India, Everytime an Indian gets global recognition in his chosen field, Every time somebody praised India's peace loving past, India is winning. What is more important for us as Indians is that we should show the world that inspite its duplicity in action by helping Pakistan to wage a proxy war, we dont balk under its pressure.

Time will come when the world will support us and Pakistan will have to stop the violence. Majesty lies in that rather than waging a futile war which will starve millions of Indians. That will be our real victory when India will be an leader which Pakistan can only dream of following on the path to prosperity.

History: We were ruled by the British for nearly 300 years. For an outsider we were taking it with an laid back attitude. But internally India was seething. And come 1942, Quit India movement gained momentum and the British not only had to free India, but free most of the other countries in Asia and Africa as well. The Majesty lies not in how a Bully (US) boxing weakling(Iraq, Afghan), but in  how  a  country  which rose to the call and  freed the whole world  along with itself. That is the real Majesty of Indian State.

24 hours

Everybody has only 24 hours in a day.

One has to choose between family, Friends, work, hobbies, leisure etc etc. And there is no right way of distributing the time among these things. What is correct for one might be entirely wrong for the other.

And if wrongly distributed, life can be highly frustrating, not only for oneself but also to others around.

Hence the most crucial thing is to distribute the time to your satisfaction and not anybody other's. That's the secret of Happy and fruitful life.

Karmanyewadhikaraste ma faleshu kadachana!

Poorva Karma.. I think it is a beautiful concept from indian philosophy which serves 2 purposes:

1. It brings in a kind of fear in people doing sins. Many people for eg. todays politicians do lot of sins thinking that they cannot be touched. Also almost everybody has some or other chance of doing some thing bad with nobody knowing about it. The "Karma" concept helps to bring more social harmony by stating that karma will revenge itself.

2. It gives solace to people who are wronged by people they or law cannot touch. Almost all of us are surely negatively affected by the corruption, philandeering etc. Yet we cannot do anything and thinking that he will pay for it himself surely helps.

I have my opinion that philosophy was built to increase the social harmony and social happiness as a whole. And the Karma concept surely fits the requirement perfectly.

People might and will disagree.. But this is my point of view.