the red pill <.>

Sunday diary : Getting out of facebook

2011-10-03T01:31:00.001-07:00

I did it. I took the plunge. I bit the bullet. I belled the cat.

I deleted my facebook account.

The reasons for doing so are numerous. But at the bottom of them all is the desire to take control of my own life. Now I have fewer worries about distractions to my concentration. Fewer worries about editing privacy settings to anything I post or have posted in the past. Fewer demands to take good-looking photographs at every place I go to. Fewer worries that I would miss commenting on sharp status updates of my friends. Fewer misgivings if enough people would "like" the thing I share on my wall. Fewer demands to post "happy birthday, have fun" messages; or if I miss doing that, to post "belated birthday wishes" messages.

In retrospect, I am not missing much out of my facebook account. I don't miss the annoying ticker on the top-right corner, that updates the digital life of my friends in real time. I don't miss their digital gossip on awkward photographs. I don't miss keeping up to the trend on funny videos over the web. I do miss certain events like friends' birthdays, weddings or graduation ceremonies. But seriously, I doubt if I would compensate for my physical absence by a mere textual presence on their facebook walls.

Life goes on. It is surprising how much the stylesheets of facebook have carved my subconscious. Every time I open my browser window, my fingers involuntarily type 'fa..". Every time I get annoyed by somebody on the streets, my mind automatically keeps framing a pithy status update that summarizes the situation. Every time I read an interesting bit of news, I suffer the urge of sharing it on facebook, made all the more easy by the ubiquitous "share" and "like" buttons. But these withdrawal symptoms will subside at some point, and new forms of digital addiction will take over my life.

I still kept my google+ account. This is not because I trust Google any more than Facebook on my privacy. But this is simply because of how little keeps happening on google+.

The few people I follow hardly update their streams (excellent job folks) and it feels so snug and comfy realizing that there is nothing more you need to do to acknowledge the digital happenings of the day. Also for all its faults, google+ (and Picasa) has an excellent interface for sharing photographs. So I will keep using google+ until I find time to install my own web-server, probably powering it through Diaspora* or similar open-source software.

What else in life ? I have a greater desire to know people beyond all the appearances they put up in day-to-day lives. Can digital technology make it easier for us in finding deeper connections with one another ? I will try to explore this angle. One idea I have is to take portraits of people whenever I visit a new city. I will request them that I would take their portraits for my personal travelogue (I carry a pretty neat digital camera), and may be pepper them with a few questions that come to my mind.

"What is your favorite place in this city ?"

"What is your dream destination ? "

"From which countries do your best friends come from ?"

I can record their responses on my smartphone. I will send their portrait photographs later on email. The problem is this requires a lot more guts to do than just silently ogling at the passers by. So I have not yet managed to do this. But at some point, I will try to make this a habit.

Sunday diary

2011-07-31T05:23:00.000-07:00

Today I decided to open a new section in my blog called the Sunday diary, where I would just ramble on about simple nondescript things in my life. I hope this will give an inkling about my existence to my friends and pals, even though I don't think I will manage to write a blog every Sunday.

So what's happening in my life ?

Yesterday, I had the sudden urge to eat something really crunchy and fatty, so I made a "gratin aux endives". Endives are a type of salad that are quite bitter in taste. They come from the Chicory plant whose roots are blended with coffee to give its crunch taste. But tasting the leaves, you would never get this idea. I got used to the taste of endives when I was in France, but never cooked them before. But I reverse-engineered the dish, quite successfully I must say. A gratin is any dish with a lot of cream and cheese and baked in the oven. In Grenoble, the local dish was Gratin Dauphinois which was made with potatoes. Now I replaced the potatoes with endives. Since I didn't have cream, I cooked the endives with milk, putting a liberal chunk of butter inside. Once the leaves were tender, I dropped them into a casserole with some slabs of Gouda and Comte cheese, and sprinkled some garlic on the top. As this dish was getting baked, I decided to make some potato fries to give it company. In the end, I had a heavy meal of butter and cheese, and washed it down with some red wine. I was feeling quite guilty at the end of this experience, and thought I would go running the morning.

Hah, stupid me. Sunday had other plans in store for me. Running or going to the gym were of course not included in these plans.

I woke up quite late today, and after showering, was feeling so lazy I couldn't even cook food. Instead, I decided to go to the Nauwieser Viertel fest and catch some grub there. A viertel in German literally means a quarter, and the Nauwieser Viertel is this area in Saarbrücken that is generally popular with punks, new-age kids, retired hippies and other alternative crowd. I really wanted to live there, but could only find a house in its periphery. Well anyways, the Nauwieser quarter is celebrating its annual summer festival over this weekend. I went there Friday evening and met with Katrin and later with some other friends. By 8 'o clock in the evening, the place was swarming with people. A rough mixture of cologne, marijuana, sweat, fried oil, beer, tobacco and various feminine perfumes was hanging in the air. People had to go underneath each other's shoulders or thighs to get from point A to point B. It was funny to see the youngsters - the guys with preened facial hair and smelling of hair gel, the girls dripping in makeup and sizzling in their clothes - all sandwiched to each other into a viscous human jelly. It reminded me of the suburban trains in Mumbai during rush hour, where Newtonian mechanics gets suspended and Brownian motion takes over. The laws of physics give way to the laws of chemistry, and Boyle's law linking pressure and temperature of a closed system suddenly makes sense in one's head. Anyways, I couldn't take this goo anymore and rapidly escaped from the fest on Friday. But today I ventured to go there again, confident that the dispirited youngsters have not yet woken up from their hangovers.

I was not wrong. The whole place was locked in a charmed suspension. The noon was just breaking in, and the shop-keepers were gently rolling their shutters out. I walked along like a king, slowly drinking in the sights : the trinkets on sale, the faint smell of barbecue and grilled meat, the various fastfood outlets selling food from Thailand, India, Hungary, Spain, Italy etc. I settled down to eat the langos, that were recommended to me by Katrin. These are a type of dough patties from Hungary that are deep-fried in oil, a bit similarly to the Indian puris, and served with garlic cheese. I hungrily munched them on, and added on to the guilt accumulated from yesterday.

But the guilt was definitely relegated to the background, as I thoroughly enjoyed the taste and also the atmosphere. I was listening to music at a very low volume on my iPod - dreampop, david bowie, the blow monkeys, heaven 17 etc.; and it felt amazing catching all the notes and rhythm in the very same zone where agitated youngsters were jostling for space yesterday. Hah, bliss.

I took several photographs and then ventured into "Café et al." - another place recommended to me by Katrin. It is a small café selling fair-trade goods, special chocolate and spices, and generally oozing with awesomeness. I went in for some coffee, and asked if they also had some cake to go with it. The owner said yes, they had a home-made cake. I dug in; it was a sort like the French millefeuille, with several layers of fried dough sandwiched with cream. The cream had a faint taste of black pepper- reminding me of the "junnu" cheesecake that my mom made at home. The effect was fantastic, and I was pretty sure this stroke of genius came from somewhere else. So I asked the owner where he came from, and he said Iran. Oh Iran, bless you. I don't know how many times I admired the culinary mastery from that place : a lot of that trickled down into Hyderabad through loads of Iranian immigrants escaping the revolution and settling down to set up restaurants. These restaurants have basically defined the taste of the Hyderabadi biryani (which I woefully miss so much). Later on in my life, I sampled Iranian cuisine several times, and I never regretted one single moment. The man warmed up when I told him I am from India. He enquired what I am doing abouts, and when I told him I have been working here since about 5 months, he said he was greatly surprised by my German skills. This was a bit cheating on my part because my German vocabulary is quite limited and doesn't exceed into anything beyond the introductory parlance. Anyways, the guy told me he makes Iranian food occasionally for customers and that I should sample it sometime. I told him, of course, I will visit the shop again. I left with a box of peppercorns coated in chocolate.

Next to "café et al." is a whiskey shop called "Whiskey Fee". All these shops are open today, quite unusual for Sunday, because of the viertel fest. I walked in and asked the lady that I wanted to buy a single malt. She insisted that I taste a few before making my decision (thank you very much, but I am slightly drunk at the moment in the middle of the noon). I ended up with a highland malt called "Wemyss malts" - it has a slightly sharp taste and aroma. Not the taste I usually go for, but I like it nonetheless.

And then I walked back home, ruminating on Northern European summers. The skies are overcast, and have been overcast from as long as my memory goes. The spring opened up cheerfully to a bright sun, but the mood of the heavens has quickly turned to melancholy as the summer progressed. The place feels like an inverted pint of Guinness, the mushy air hangs below from the clouds and refuses to go anywhere. As I inhaled that mushy air and looked around to see how small this place is, I had this moment where it all felt so cozy. Ah, bliss.

Little girls selling toys at the viertel fest.

The girls are so adorable I decided to take them another picture.

These little guys are selling ties, but they didn't convince me to buy one :) yet.

The "brunch box im viertel" is another nice shop in this area that makes good breakfasts & brunches. They specialize in takeaways, but I prefer to eat inside as their glass windows soak in a lot of sunlight. A good place to wake up on a Monday, drink some orange juice and then go to work.

Shops selling some trinkets. The outlet on the right is called "Govinda's Vegi" and sells samosas and mango lassi. But as far I saw, there were no Indians working there.

This is the fastfood place selling the Hungarian Langos. Yummy stuff.

These guys are selling some cakes. Katrin and I sampled some chocolate cake here on Friday, not bad but not especially good either. They set up shop next to a second hand record store. I swear I am going to buy some records in that place. Just to make a point about how much I like second hand record stores.

The shop on the right is the Whiskey Fee. But I took this photo for the picture on the left graffiti'd on to the wall. That wall belongs to the "café et al" by the way.

Interesting stuff from "café et al.".

This is where you eat breakfast at "Café et al." I am rather pleased with the auto HDR photos that I took with my iPhone.

Rimpo and the Sparrow

2011-06-23T10:45:00.000-07:00

The mind is a labyrinth of mirrors. For Rimpo, this labyrinth is long and narrow - a straight line of a path that betrays no twists. On this path he marches everyday, towards the same point of no becoming. Measured thus against eternity, Rimpo became small and shrunk by the side of everyday objects. The axe he uses to cut wood became larger and heavier. The piece of land he tills became wider. The roof of his hut stood higher and the screeches of the birds above became more distant. And the mighty Himalayas next to his farm, he dares not even raise his eye to.

Rimpo has been living alone ever since his mother died. He has always been considered a dullard in the village, and possessing no great property, he has never received attention from any of the girls. He had his heart broken a few times in his boyhood and then he learnt how to not make similar mistakes in judgement. Life is a slow process of learning how to avoid the traps and the temptations. Along the journey, Rimpo grew hard in his eye and sure in his step. Now that his dear parents are dead, he hardly meets the villagers. They consider his farm at the end of the village as a vestigial organ, a reminder of a time where it was a part of the social life but which has far outlived its usefulness. From beside the farm stretches the thick Himalayan jungle and down below roars the torrent from the mountains. Rimpo and his farm are transparent to the villagers, they belong neither to the village nor to the jungle.

Rimpo knows every sound and color that invade the privacy of his mind. He knows their rhythm just as well as he knows the rhythm of his heart. The roar of the torrent below has a rhythm. The screeches of the birds above have a rhythm. The morning light that shines into his hut has a rhythm, and so does the breeze that comes by nightfall. Into this rhythm, he constructed his life; and into this, he weighs in his every step.

Years passed by without counting, and Rimpo shrank smaller and smaller. Days became seasons and minutes became days. Like an ant that lived for an eternity, Rimpo achieved a patient and non-judgemental gaze over the world, over himself, and over the insignificance of one towards the other. In the labyrinth of his mind, the color of the seasons blended harmoniously into a gray monotone - where yesterday meets tomorrow and where sound meets silence.

One day, this harmony is disturbed by a sparrow. Rimpo watched as it barged in indignantly through the window and started pecking on the pile of paddy grains that lay on the floor. Those pile of grains are his labor over the whole year, as he tilled his harsh land by the stony look of the Himalayas. He needs every grain in that pile for himself, to bear the winters to come. Rimpo knows the rhythm by which he shoos the bird away : how his hand raises up and swats the floor below, how his lips open and a sharp hiss of air whistles through his tongue. But now, he just waits and watches the sparrow. It pecks at the rice, grain by grain, as few as are needed to sate its tiny hunger. It then flaps its wings and flies away.

The sparrow comes again the next day, at the very same time. Rimpo watches it peck the grains and then fly away. He now knows the rhythm, how and when this would happen again. But he cannot let this happen. So when the sparrow comes, Rimpo stands there waiting and addresses it thus.

"Dear friend, I am honored by your visit to my humble abode. But I am afraid I cannot offer you enough space and succor for another day. I cannot shield you from the infinity of the world. I am a shrinking man, and soon I will be smaller than yourself. The span of your wings shall soon be greater than the stretch of my arms. Go find a bigger man for your friend, and a warmer hut to bide your winters in."

Then the sparrow replies, "Rimpo, Though you have not seen me much before, know that I am your friend. I am fickle as a sparrow and I do not step into the same door twice. Many people have found me walk in but never paid me attention. But I am as much their friend as I am yours. I hop from garden to garden, from hut to hut and over streams and meadows. I stay not in the same place for long, as I love this whole infinite world. My world is not to be feared. But you do not live in the same world as mine."

"What do you mean ?"

"Often man hears nothing but echoes of his own voice from the past, reverberating from the walls of his memories. Man sees nothing but the reflections of his own character, breaking from the prism of his mind. And man feels nothing but the cold of his loneliness, in the vastness of existence. Every thought that he weaves is a thread to cover himself from this cold. These threads knit together into a shroud that envelopes one's mind. Through this shroud, man cannot see the world for what it is. He cannot hear the world for what it is. And he cannot smell. When was the last time you smelt something, Rimpo ?"

Rimpo tries to protest. He definitely can smell, but does he care for smells ? When was the last time he cared for smells ? He answers, " I do not want to know."

"Smell is the basest and the most wicked of the senses. It is how nature tells man that he is her subject, that he cannot break free from her. Would you like to see the world of smells ?"

Rimpo puts on his shoes and trails the sparrow. As he comes out, he sees that spring is the season and that the Himalayan forest is full of its smells. A million shades of green lay basking in the rays of gold. Through these colors, Rimpo detects a smell that unearths a long forgotten memory from his childhood. Thread by thread, his thoughts get unravelled by the smells, exposing the core of his being to the mercy of nature. The sparrow flies above and guides him through trails that he has never taken in his life.

Rimpo asks, "How big is the world that a man can experience in a moment ? "

"Each man knows for himself. For the most part, a man has but four or five thoughts. They shape his goals and they mould his actions. The long threads of memories that a man weaves laboriously over his life are only felt for their weight, but never experienced in totality. But even this entire weight of memories is mocked for its finiteness by the infinity that is offered by the very moment of now. The mind is a labyrinth of mirrors, and rarely ever does one get to peer outside."

For the first time in his long journey of life, Rimpo sees himself in this labyrinth. And he sees it to be not straight, but spiraling into a thousand loops.

The sparrow continues, "Man becomes a slave for his own habit. Each loop creates an illusion of eternity, masking the finiteness of experience. True freedom is indeed freedom from one's own thoughts and habits. "

Rimpo finds himself now in a forest of Rhododendrons. The trees are in full bloom with colors of rose, white and red. The air is also lighter, the sparrow has led him up a mountain trail into a meadow. Rimpo asks, "Why do you bother yourself with me sparrow ? What makes you love me ?"

"Love is but a realization that each moment in a finite existence has a window towards infinity. When I realize thus, I cannot but feel love for everything in the world. But I should leave you here, my friend. I am but a sparrow and I cannot fly any higher. Beyond this meadow, you need no friend. I bring you here so that you can see what I cannot."

Thus saying, the sparrow flies back into the valley below. In that moment of clarity, Rimpo sees neither the sparrow nor the tortuous path that they have climbed together. Instead he sees a different person that has pored out of his own self - a person bigger than the mountains, and for whose step nothing is large. The labyrinth of his mind is dissolved. He sees nothing but the sun that is shining through his eyes. No mountain blocks his path nor his view. In that tiny window of time where he is truly himself, he sees that he is immortal.

Catching the bubbles of happiness

2011-06-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

Happiness is a substance that has some strange chemical properties. For one, it is an extremely short lived substance and disintegrates quickly into the surrounding atmosphere. It cannot be stored in a sealed container either, as it decomposes spontaneously in the absence of light. It has neither a distinctive odour nor a distinctive color. Due to its whimsical and short-lived nature, many physicists have long doubted its existence. A fringe few do so even today.

But owing to its indirect effects on other substances in controlled lab experiments, which are carefully studied, and to its numerous sightings in the wild, the existence of happiness is now established beyond doubt. What still remain controversial, however, are procedures to synthesize happiness and its effects on human beings.

Despite numerous failures in synthesizing it in a lab setting, it appears that happiness forms quite readily in nature and seems drawn towards life forms in general, and human beings in particular. The age of a person seems to be a critical factor in attracting happiness, with young children being particularly susceptible towards catching large doses of happiness when they are outdoors.

The most common form of happiness is that of tiny bubbles that drift in the air. These bubbles are transparent, but they sometimes shimmer brightly in the sunlight due to certain optical properties. The human eye seems to be partially capable of detecting these shimmers, with young children reporting that they see such bubbles drifting and dancing wildly at the corners of their eyes. One is supposed to see these bubbles sideways, as a direct gaze would rend them transparent. A more successful method for catching happiness is by listening.

Since the bubbles of happiness form and dissolve spontaneously, they make a curious crackling sound as they pop. A carefully trained ear can latch on to these popping sounds, and thus lead a person to the source of a large concentration of happiness. People have thus been led to happiness in very unsuspecting and nondescript places - such as the top of a crossroads, or next to a puddle in a stream. Sometimes happiness hangs in a thick cloud around a man carrying a big luggage and sweating profusely. Sometimes it trails the scent of a woman walking tip-toe on a quiet street. Sometimes it lurks behind a group of quarreling kids. And sometimes it flutters around two lovers who are lost in each other. These are by no means an exhaustive list of places where one might bump into happiness, indeed such a list would be impossible to make. With every passing day as the sun lights up the world, huge clouds of happiness condense in the atmosphere and drift around the place. Whether they do so with a pattern or just aimlessly is still open to debate.

When one comes within hearing distance of happiness, a curious manoeuvre can be followed to make the happiness descend directly onto oneself. The efficacy of this manoeuvre has been known in the popular culture, but the scientific reasons behind it are still under study. One is supposed to smile widely and look sideways towards the source of happiness. A simple lip-smile will not do - it should be accompanied by an eye-smile where the eyes glint in the shimmer of the bubbles. And lo, the cloud of happiness swooshes down to one's face and runs up one's nose. The after-effects are reported as widely varied, ranging from a sudden swing in one's step to one sobbing silently. The only common effect seems to be that of a general exhilaration.

It is also hypothesized that happiness is a fundamental ingredient of life, as essential as Oxygen. But the whimsical nature of its interaction with life-forms prompts many scientists to question such a strong hypothesis. If all life-forms need happiness to survive, how would they find their daily dose of happiness ?

We cannot say anything about this yet. But it is generally accepted that happiness is very good for the health of human beings. So we conclude this article by giving some tips for the interested reader on how to spot happiness.

Memory seems to be bad for happiness. Most people have bad memories that inhibit them from perceiving the fullness of the world around. This prevents them from spotting happiness even when it is lurking quite nearby.
Happiness appears to be contagious. The more the people one infects with happiness, the likelier that one gets a new dose when all of one's bubbles of happiness pop out.
As a converse, selfishness is quite bad for happiness. One's happiness won't last for long when one is alone.
This can be extended to also one's thoughts and actions. The more isolated one becomes, and the more sure in this isolation one becomes, the lesser the happiness that comes one's way.
Smiles seem to be particularly good at attracting happiness, even when it is several kilometers away.
Early morning by the sunrise and the early evening by the sunset are the best times to catch happiness.

Reducing Facebook : Increasing Attention

2011-05-29T07:11:00.001-07:00

After a long pondering over the problem, I decided today to reduce my time on Facebook - to a visit per every 3 days. Facebook now commands a lion's share of my time spent on the internet. This is natural since I, like any other person, value updates from my friends a lot more than other events. However, unlike a physical visit to my friends that always makes me feel better, a visit to Facebook often ends up making me feel worse and confused. Part of this is due to the inadequacy of virtual communication. But I believe part of this is also due to how stupidly Facebook is structured; and how that constrains meaningful engagement. In the rest of this blog, the reader can substitute Facebook for any social networking website; the problem is similar.

To understand this, we first have to go to the earlier times of the web when Yahoo was the dominant search engine. In those days, the home page of the search was cluttered with thousands of news snippets and gadgets. This distraction of attention was clearly annoying when the user had a definite purpose - to search for something. Then Google came along and introduced the clean search page that has become the standard for all search engines today. With Facebook, we face a similar problem today, but which is deeper and more menacing. The culprit is the destruction of one's attention.

I have blogged earlier about how the very nature of the internet (the hyperlink) shatters one's attention. This problem is manifest at a higher order on Facebook, which requires the user to post status updates in 420 characters or less. "What's on your mind ?" Facebook asks. Either you have something interesting on your mind which is often impossible to convey within the character limit, or you say something uninteresting and reaffirm to yourself that your life is boring. The end result is frustration. The replies from your friends, and your replies in return are necessarily shallow, owing to the character limit. But even if it is scarce, you do enjoy the positive feedback when it comes. Mostly, this comes from your friends clicking the Like button on your status updates or on photos. This marks the high point of your Facebook experience, and you get addicted to it like one gets addicted to coffee. The day is not long when neuroscientists shove people into an fMRI machine with an iPad in their hands, and measure their neurotransmitter levels when their friends click the Like button, and thus proving the obvious and getting their paper accepted in Science. But I digress.

The reason for the seemingly inane 420 character limit is simple : the guys at Facebook.com have no better ideas on how to pull updates from your various friends into a single webpage. So they push all and sundry in uniformly sized packets, and clutter them onto your face, knowing well that you will be watching that page several times a day. Thereby, you surrender your most valuable resource - your attention, to Facebook which destroys it completely.

Here, I should write something about attention, a topic few people are aware of. Often, people who talk about it are cognitive psychologists or new-age meditation practitioners. Both the groups outdo each other in scaring an unwitting reader to his wit's end. I will try to introduce the problem in a more straightforward way : imagine that you are shaving to a mirror. If your mind gets distracted for a second, you might end up with a cut on your lip. Luckily it doesn't happen often, since the impulses in your muscles get accustomed to these lapses of attention, but sometimes they cannot cope and you end up with a bloodied lip. As a second example, think of yourself baking something in the oven and taking the dish out. If your mind is distracted, you may end up with a burn on your fingers as you absentmindedly touch the hot grill. Or think of the scenario where you are leaving for work in the morning and keep your keys somewhere - so that you can grab your coat, bag or something else. It can happen that you forget where you left your keys, and spend several minutes frantically searching for them. The problem in all these examples is that you are not fully attentive in your present moment of experience.

These lapses of attention can cause more serious trouble. When you are working, you might miss hearing something very pertinent to the discussion. If you are a researcher like me, you might miss a crucial point in a paper that you are reading. If you are a computer programmer, you might miss a bug in the program. People who are normally competent can underperform because they are not "fully" present.

In eastern religions, especially Buddhism, being present in the "now" is considered a highly virtuous thing. People spend several years trying to improve their standing here, through practicing rigorous meditation. It is said that one whose attention is perfect feels a supreme happiness. I don't know about that, but I think being attentive to your own mind is quite similar to being attentive to the surroundings. A man wearied by fatigue or illness may not appreciate a magnificent natural scenery when it passes before his eyes. Similarly, a man whose palette is ruined by unwise food choices may not later appreciate the sublime taste of a wine. Starting with a clean slate is important for perceiving the fullness of an experience. This is also true for perceiving one's own mind - and for experiencing one's natural creativity. A man with low attention will not be creative and will succumb to the habit of yesterday. At a practical level, this will reflect in him being boring and not funny. At a deeper level, this causes an existential crisis and panic.

I think it is ineffective to speak of attention in the absolute - either there or not. It is better to speak of attention as a finite resource that can be measured. Then it becomes money. It can be invested and greater rewards be earned. Or it can be squandered and the person becomes poorer than before. There is an old saying, "time is money". But I think it is missing the point. One can have plenty of time, but still make nothing out of it. What I think was meant there was that "attention is money". When one is more attent, one saves time; and with the saved time, focuses attention on something more important. Just like with money, one can be rich in attention by cultivating good habits and by investing wisely.

Of all the five senses, hearing is the best friend when it comes to attention. This is because one's mind is completely focused on the incoming sound signal, and steps together along with time. This automatically reinforces the attention of the listener, and the attention-money thus earned can be spent on other things. These days, I listen to radio podcasts when I commute to work. They always make me feel better. When it comes to the sense of vision, distraction is easier. But this becomes a friend when it is coupled with the more stabilizing sense of hearing. So the second tip I have for you is to see things that you hear (either externally or internally in your own mind) for stretches of long periods of time. It does good to follow this in other senses as well : hearing, touching, seeing, tasting and smelling (each reinforced by the earlier one in the order). This rules out flipping channels on TV, browsing without a goal on the internet, or coming back to the topic of the blog - spending time on Facebook.

Facebook is essentially the opposite of meditation. Metaphorically, one is giving all the attention that one earned during the day (and in one's sleep at night) in a bowl to Mark Zuckerberg, who then spills it all over. One's mind is very similar to one's house : it periodically needs cleaning and keeping things in order. It needs open windows so that sunlight and air can pass through. But this shouldn't mean the trash from the entire city should be poured in. So I decided to let this happen just once every 3 days. This is a hard decision for me to take, as I am a single person in a foreign country and do not have many other respites for filling this vacuum. I do crave for the "like"s from my friends, and I am quite worried how long I will stick to this policy of limiting Facebook. But give it a try, I do nonetheless. Here is me hoping for an increased attention. :)

An atheist guy goes to Malta

2011-02-05T05:36:00.001-08:00

If you haven't yet seen this video on youtube, please see it. It is one of the funniest jokes I have seen. I see the narrative in this video as a metaphor to how conflicts happen between human beings - often due to misunderstanding.

Human languages are one of the most wonderful things in the universe. The expressive power in them is hardly matched by anything else. However, they still help us only in a limited way to communicate our deepest sensations and emotions. The language that runs in my head is hardly the same as that which runs in yours. To make things worse, these languages evolve rapidly over time. Is it possible to peek into the soul of a 12th century man, and experience the world as he experienced it ? I doubt if it is possible.

Languages have several layers to construct meaning - at the very outset is the vocabulary that maps sounds (words) to activities and ideas. Then there is the layer of syntax that encodes the relationship between these words. Then exists the layer of semantics that gives a specific meaning (amongst many) for a sentence from the words and the relationships between them. Beyond them, lies the layer of pragmatics which understands a given sentence in its broader context, how it is uttered etc. There exists possibilities for confusion in all these layers. And all these layers put together may still not express the very emotions a person felt before speaking.

Let me illustrate this. Imagine that I see colors very differently from how you see them. For example, every time you see "blue" I see "red", and vice-versa. Both of us would agree on how we give labels to these colors, i.e, we call the same set of objects as red. But in whichever language we might use, we will never be able to communicate the discrepancy that exists in our world-views. I first thought about this problem in school, when I heard about color-blindedness. A color-blinded person will see red and green objects similarly, and will get to know about his problem only when somebody else tells him about it. However, if I am suffering from the "color-swap" problem I mentioned above, I will never figure out that there is anything wrong with me. Being a kid that I was, this thought gave me a very cold chill in my spine. Much later in my life, I discovered that this issue is well-studied in philosophy and is called the problem of "qualia". Philosophers discuss (or dismiss) them in a very detached and nonchalant way that I find bemusing.

Considering these many layers in a human language and the endless possibilities in which we can confuse each other up, it is may be no surprise that we humans fight angrily at every other thing. What prodded me to write this post today however, is the growing debate about atheism in our society. Often this debate degenerates into funny conflicts, of the sort where the Italian guy goes to Malta.

Atheist guy : Sir, I think it is a bad thing to f*ck on the table.

Theist guy : But I really want a fork on the table, Sir.

Neither of the parties would agree on what words like consciousness, free-will, freedom or God means. And neither of them would know what they meant thousands of years ago when these words have first entered into our lexicon. I would consider this debate as just nonsensical fun, but for the presence of real evil idiots in our amidst.

Evil Idiot Theist guy : But my religious book has ordered me to indeed f*ck on the table, Sir.

I think as long as there are these evil idiot theists amongst us, I think atheism is the way to go !

** For the nerds amongst you, the color-swap (qualia) problem is actually a problem with a rotation in the color space. This rotation ambiguity (in the perception of H,S or V channels) cannot be recovered by communicating in human languages alone.

Stephen Hawking is reductionist

2010-11-09T03:44:00.000-08:00

I haven't heard the reductionist paradigm on consciousness expressed as forcefully as by Dr. Stephen Hawking. In his own words

What do you believe happens to our consciousness after death? —Elliot Giberson, SEATTLE

I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program. It will cease to run when the computer is turned off. Theoretically, it could be re-created on a neural network, but that would be very difficult, as it would require all one's memories.

Dr. Hawking's opinion is that consciousness is nothing but a peculiar sequence of symbols. This gives rise to the same kind of philosophical dilemmas as I have discussed in my post on Kurzweil's horcrux - opening up, amongst other things, the possibility of achieving immortality.

Kabir Project

2010-09-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

Ajab Shahar- Kabir Project film/music clip from Ajai Narendran on Vimeo.

This is a set of four great documentaries on the music of Kabir and its influence in India and Pakistan. Filmed by Shabnam Virmani and produced by the Srishti school of design in Bangalore.

Indian folk songs playlist

2010-09-11T07:50:00.000-07:00

I am composing a playlist of folk songs and dances from all corners of India. Please check it on youtube and enjoy :)

Please do recommend me more songs if you think of any.

Sliding through Grooves of Time

2010-08-15T09:42:00.000-07:00

The biggest questions of physics and of philosophy are one and the same. At the centre of all this is the notion of time. What is time ? Does time flow, does it have a direction ? What does it mean to be sharing a moment with others ? Is there a distinction between the past and the future of time - is there ever a choice for shaping the future ?

Answers to these questions, if they ever come by, would reveal us the true meaning of freedom. Since freedom is the most fundamental yearning for a human being, these questions ultimately define the human experience.

I have been going through Brian Greene's book "The fabric of the cosmos". Though the book is occasionally verbose and indulges in lengthy prose, it explains clearly the scientific underpinnings of those questions. Einstein's theories of special and general relativity are particularly pertinent, as they blur the boundaries between time and space. The book conjures the analogy of a loaf of bread to visualize this space-time fabric, which I found quite captivating.

We can cut the loaf into slices, and these slices of bread are the "moments" of time that we experience passing us by. Each moment is a consummate set of objects in space that one shares existence with. What the theory of special relativity says is that these slices can be cut not just vertically but in any direction. So depending on how a person is cutting the bread, he / she would experience time in a different way. And crucially, the "moments" of time experienced by two persons need not be the same.

According to relativity, there is no distinction between the past and the future. The whole 4D-loaf of space+time may very well be frozen like ice. Visualize a bullet of light (a light-car) driving through this icy block, and that is the conscious experience of a human being. In this fatalistic world, a human being is a mere spectator to the machinations of the future.

Quantum mechanics, however, gives some provision for "choice", and potentially, for acting on free-will (for a human being, animal or any other object in the universe). This choice (or quantum indeterminacy as it is called) is a mysterious thing. We do not know what this actually means - whether it means the freedom to just choose the direction of our light-car through the loaf, or actually the freedom to shape the loaf itself !

Imagine that this 4D-loaf of space time has grooves, each like a slide in a playground or like the rails of a roller coaster. Once you step into a groove, you would slide through that path. If you can recollect your first experience of skiing or roller-skating, you would understand this easily. The path of the groove defines how you experience the ride. There is hardly any control (especially if you are not a skillful skier / skater) that is left for you after you step into the groove.

I think that our conscious experience as human beings is very similar to this. Decisions once taken in life pull us down the chutes of their paths. As we pick up speed along the chute, the conscious experience becomes repetitive - because it gets etched into our habit. We crave for the same kind of opponents, the same kind of building blocks to organize our thoughts. We expect the same kind of pleasures and pains, frustrations and release, boredom and excitement. We cannot afford to look beyond the patterns of repetition, as that scares us out of our wit's end, as we have to face the reality that we are sliding down a chute with no control whatsoever.

The more choices you exercise your will upon, the more bound to them you will be. From big choices such as the occupation of your work, the person you get married to.. down to much simpler choices like the friends that you see regularly, the food that you eat, the news that you read, the political causes that you feel passionate about, the websites that you visit.. With each of these choices exercised, there is lesser and lesser freedom for perceiving, inspiring and creating new ideas. This is possibly why the wise people of the old have said that children are God's beings. They have far greater freedom than adults.

In our modern consumer society, we think of choice as freedom. But they are not at all the same. Choice, when exercised without awareness of where it leads to, actually reduces the freedom of a person. But complete awareness is impossible to obtain, even the wisest human beings cannot see beyond a few days or months of where their choices lead. In a way, most of us people are blind and cannot see beyond a few minutes of our actions. When people make choices in such haste, they cannot but experience chaos and frustration.

In my opinion, the web-browsing experience is symbolic of the frustration that people feel in a larger sense in their lives. Whenever you see a hyperlink, you have to decide whether to shift your attention to a new page. This constant exercising of choice leads to browser fatigue. We human beings criminally waste the most precious resource that we have - our attention. Part of it is not our fault, because each past choice reduces our freedom in making future choices. The fatigue experienced by chaotic web-browsing is similar to the fatigue that experienced in modern life. The lasting aftertaste is that of disappointment, confusion and a distinct lack of freedom.

So what is the solution ? Can we escape sliding through these grooves in time ? Are there any sections in this space-time loaf that let us slow down and look around in serene dignity ? I don't know.. But if you ever find one such place, I suggest you make a habit of visiting it regularly. Because freedom is ultimately just a state of mind. If you visit that state regularly, it might even become a habit.

The Meru Mountains in Thailand

2010-05-06T11:44:00.000-07:00

I think the most beautiful renditions of the Meru mountain are not to be found in India, but in Thailand.

The Buddhist stupa was probably the first architectural construction that was consciously moulded over the concept of the Meru mountain (which is of high symbolic importance in Buddhism). The later Hindu temple architecture in India was undoubtedly influenced by the architectural model of the stupa.

As Buddhism spread to East and South East Asia, people there found several brilliant ways to represent this concept. The pagodas of China, Burma and Japan have evolved out of the stupa. In my opinion, the very best of these representations is the Thai temple. One day, I have to go and visit these places myself :) By the way, the traditional Thai headgear itself looks like a Meru.

The devas of Samkhya - natural or supernatural ?

2010-05-02T06:24:00.001-07:00

I came across an online text titled the "The Samkhya aphorisms of Kapila". It is an old English translation done in 1885 by one James Ballantyne. It seems pretty interesting, and should be referred if anybody wants to further explore Samkhya philosophy after my introduction in the last blog post.

The very first line of this translated text says : "Well, the complete end of man (liberation) is the complete cessation of pain arising from any of the 3 causes : adhyātmika (self-imposed), adhibhautika (arising from natural elements) and adhidaivika (arising from 'supernatural' elements)."

This line came as a huge surprise to me, as I understood Samkhya to be a very 'naturalist' philosophy. In fact, the classical version of Samkhya forcefully refutes the presence of a God (Ishwara) either external or internal to the universe. So what are the supernatural elements being talked about ? Adhidaivika is a compound word : adhi (from) + devas. So the supposed supernatural beings referred to here are devas. In this post, I will try to provide some background on them. But first, let's understand what supernatural means.

What is supernatural ?

Anything external to nature can be called supernatural. But this is an inadequate definition, because we have to first specify what nature is. From a simplistic perspective, nature can be defined as composed of matter. But then, modern physics talks about fields of potential, mass-energy equivalence etc. So more broadly, nature can be defined as any set of laws that can be observed repeatedly and experimentally validated by measurement. The key words here are observation and measurement.

In my last post, I have explained the division of Kapila on the measurable and unmeasurable parts of the universe. The measurable (maya in Sanskrit) refers to Prakriti in all her 5 layers. The unmeasurable refers to Purusha. In fact, Indian science text books simply use the word prakriti to refer to nature.

If there is anything in Samkhya philosophy that can be considered "supernatural" (beyond scientific measurement), that is Purusha. Do the devas belong to Purusha then ? No. Purusha is beyond all types of action and causation. The devas obviously belong to Prakriti. So why are they called supernatural ?

Reality check : Devas of Hinduism today

The word "deva" is translated in English today as "god" (or "demigod" in order to denote the polytheistic aspect of Hinduism). In fact, "deva" in many Indian languages today simply means "God". People refer to the God of a temple as a deva, and they offer him / her prayers - seeking progeny, promotion in employment, wealth etc. Many customs in Hinduism today can be considered as superstitious, and invoke various devas to act supernaturally on behalf of the devotees - raising back the dead, reversing time (I am not kidding). According to current language, the word "deva" can indeed be supposed to mean supernatural beings made of "woo". But in this post, I would like to discuss the ancient meaning of this word, as apparent in philosophical texts.

Another word from text quoted above "bhuta" is translated (correctly) by Mr. Ballantyne as a natural element. In fact, the word for physics in Indian science text books today is "bhautika". However, in common parlace, the word "bhuta" has come to mean a ghost or an evil spirit ! Languages evolve rapidly, and it would be stupid to use modern meanings to translate ancient texts.

Devas in Samkhya : Evolutes of Prakriti

Samkhya identifies pancha tanmatras or 5 essential properties of Prakriti that evolve in the very beginning of time : sound, touch, form, taste and smell. As described in the earlier blog, every element of nature has a different proportion of 3 qualities (transparence or sattva guna, increasing or rajas guna and intertia or tamas guna). The above tanmatras get manifest in various objects of nature based on the relative composition of the 3 qualities.

The pancha bhutas (5 base elements of nature) arise from the tamas aspect of the tanmatras :

akash (sky) possessing only sound
vayu (air) possessing sound+touch
agni (fire) possessing sound+touch+form
apah (water) possessing sound+touch+form+taste
prithvi (earth) possessing sound+touch+form+taste+smell

Everything in the physical nature can be represented as one of these. So the word "earth" here doesn't mean to the third planet revolving around the sun, but all the material universe. Similarly, "water" here doesn't mean H2O but all aspects of matter without the property of smell etc. Several modern textbooks continue to misinterpret these words, when reading not only Indian philosophers, but also Greek philosophers who used very similar terms.

The sattva and rajas gunas produce subtler elements of nature, which are as follows.

The pancha jnana indriyas (5 forms of sensing : literally "knowledge sensors") arise from the sattvic aspect, depending on which of the tanmatras they sense. They are hearing, touching, seeing, tasting and smelling.

The pancha karma indriyas (5 forms of acting : literally "action sensors") arise from the rajas aspect, depending on how many tanmatras they act upon. They are speaking, grasping, moving, procreating and excreting.

As you can see, the word for a sense organ in Sanskrit is "Indriya", which is what is used in Indian science textbooks today. The word "Indriya" literally means "that belonging to Indra". and the "Indra" here is the supreme king of devas as mentioned in the Vedic texts. Thus, Indra is basically the lord of senses, and "devas" refer to the various sense and action organs present in any natural object.

Such organs are present in various degrees amongst human beings, animals, plants and inanimate matter. A deva just represents a particular organ in any object present anywhere in the universe. So the correct translation of the word "adhidaivika" would be "that arising out of the process of sensing or acting". Nothing supernatural about it.

The 33 devas in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Samkhya is considered the oldest of all the philosophical systems in India, probably going back to the Indus valley civilization. The Upanishads are philosophical texts which were written several centuries later (around 500 BCE) - they liberally borrowed terminology from Samkhya to explain their ideas. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is one of the largest and most important of these texts, and it contains a very nice discussion between Vidagdha Sakalya (student) and Yajnavalkya (teacher).

Sakalya : How many devas are there in all ?

Yajnavalkya : 3003.

Sakalya : Yes. But how many devas are there in all ?

Yajnavalkya : 303

Sakalya : Yes. But how many devas are there in all ?

Yajnavalkya : 33

Sakalya repeats his question again, and Yajnavalkya replies as 6, 3, 2, 1 and 1/2 and finally 1. Then he explains that the 3003 are a projection or manifestation of the 303, who themselves are a projection of the 33, who are known from the hymn of viswedevah (devas of the universe) in Rig Veda. The 33 devas are as follows.

8 vasus (that in which any natural object is placed) : fire, earth, air, sky, sun, heaven, moon, stars

11 rudras (that which depart from any natural object) : the ten supposed breaths of a person and the mind as the eleventh

12 adityas (that which move carrying all the universe) : the twelve months of a year, literally signifying time

1 indra : who rules over the senses

1 prajapathi : who symbolizes procreation of natural objects

As with earlier philosophical terms, the words "sun", "moon", "sky" etc. carry very different meaning than the modern interpretation. All these 33 devas are a division of space and time in the universe across the 5 layers of complexity in nature. All of them are completely natural beings, and indeed define nature (prakrithi) for what it is. The ancient religious texts of Vedas and Upanishads just considered these elements of nature to be worthy of praise (stuti).

Sakalya then asks to explain how these 33 are described as projections of just 6 devas. Yajnavalkya replies saying that the 6 are : fire, earth, air, sky, sun and heaven. It can be seen that the certain tanmatras and Indriyas of Samkhya are compressed into grander terms - "heaven" and "sun".

Then Yajnavalkya explains that these 6 can be compressed into 3 : the three worlds of inanimate matter, the world of forefathers (signifying culture borrowed from the past) and the world of devas (signifying life, sensing, intelligent action etc).

The higher devas become more esoteric, and one would need a better teacher than me to understand what they mean. Yajnavalkya says that these 3 worlds can be compressed into 2 : "food" and "breath". Obviously these two words don't mean their modern interpretation, but something subtler. The 1 and a 1/2 deva is explained as "this air here that blows". And the 1 deva is explained as "the breath".

These devas are thus the most principal elements of nature, and become subtler as they get reduced in number. As I explained in my earlier blog, these layers of complexity in existence are represented pictorially by the mountain of Meru, which serves as the architectural basis for any Hindu temple. The various devas can be found as statues on the walls of a temple tower. They are to be contrasted with the idol of Ishwara that sits inside the temple, at the very center of the tower. As I argue below, the word Ishwara (and not deva) is the closest in Hinduism that can be rightfully translated as "God".

The Trimurti : the 3 great devas of the Puranas

The Puranas are mythological and philosophical texts, that were written around 300 AD. As compared to the earlier Samkhya, Vedas or Upanishads, they are very theistic and encourage the love and worship of a personal God (Ishwara). The epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata have also been edited significantly around this time. Current Hindu religion is defined primarily by the ideas from Puranas. This religion has evolved as a reaction to the complete neutrality (in the philosophical understanding about the Absolute) and equality (in the social relationships amongst people) by Buddhism. Each of the Puranas have created a mega-deva, of infinite wisdom, love and other such good qualities. They also solidified the different social inequalities into a rigid caste system. The several religions that evolved out of the Puranas can be considered monotheistic, and quite comparable to Abrahamic faiths. They usually glorify one deva as Ishwara and delegate all the others as his attendants or angels.

But the Puranas have not been written in a philosophical vacuum. They borrowed intensely from earlier systems, particularly from Samkhya. The various Puranic devas of today (such as Ganesh, Shakti, Lakshi, Vishnu, Shiva etc) are inspired from the devas of Samkhya.

At the core of this hierarchy of devas are the trimurti (literally 3 forms) which are three figureheads to represent the universe in its entirety. These 3 forms are meant to denote the 3 gunas of Samkhya, and are thus known as guna avatars. They can be visualized as the reflections of the infinite Purusha on the finite Prakriti from three angles. In a crude language, they represent the Purusha, and their wives the Prakriti into which they are being reflected. But it should be remembered that they are only the reflections, and not the true Purusha. The male and the female versions of the trimurti are exactly identical : the male gods signify actors and the female goddesses signify the corresponding actions. The two are equivalent ways of understanding the same concept, which is the dynamic evolution of Prakriti.

Brahma : signifies the rajas quality of increasing. Broadly speaking, he represents the intelligent being in any person, who observes nature and communicates by spoken word. This spoken word is represented by his wife Saraswati, as the goddess of speech and knowledge. Upanishads have unanimously stated that the spoken word is not sufficient towards understanding the absolute and essential nature of reality. So Brahma is disparaged in the Puranas, though Saraswati continues to be worshipped today, especially by students.

Vishnu : signifies the paradoxical sattva quality. As explained in my previous blog, this quality is related to the reduction to a zero in counting higher numbers. Thus, Vishnu actively participates in the evolution of this universe (including the human civilization) into forms of higher complexity, as represented by the order of his various avatars : fish (matsya), turtle (koorma), boar (varaha), lion+man (narasimha), pigmy man (vamana), hermit (parashurama), king of early civilization (rama), philosopher king (krishna), philosopher (buddha) and the awaited destroyer of all evil (kalki). Broadly speaking, Vishnu represents life, and his wife Lakshmi denotes the wealth and beauty that accompany life.

Brahma is said to germinate from the navel of Vishnu (just as a new series of numbers germinates at a higher place-holder when every preceding level becomes zero). Brahma, thus germinated, is considered the creator of the universe, which is preserved by the connection to Vishnu and by his constant engagement.

Shiva : signifies the tamas quality of inertia. This quality denotes death and destruction for all finite objects of nature. Hence, Shiva is considered as the destroyer of the universe, but he also represents the essential element that remains. He is symbolized by ashes, that which remain after any object is burnt in fire. This destruction of the relative and finite existence in nature is considered essential to realize the non-dual and infinite existence. Thus, Shiva is considered the most essential of the trimurti, and worshipped devoutly. His wife Shakti (Parvati) denotes the Prakriti in all its potential, and thus becomes the most essential of the female version of Trimurti. The word Shakti literally means energy and is thus used by Indian text books even today ! Broadly speaking, Shiva (or Shakti) can be interpreted as temporally symmetric laws of nature, such as the force-fields of physics.

Thus, at the core, even the devas of the Puranas can be interpreted in a completely naturalist manner. It is very amusing how they give rise to supernatural beliefs amongst the followers of the religion.

So, are the devas natural or supernatural ? I think it depends on how you "look" at them. It is just like asking if a creaking door is natural or supernatural.

Samkhya : The arithmetic of nature's evolution

2010-04-04T14:49:00.000-07:00

Let me introduce you to the most important thinker of India.

His name might surprise you; you might not have heard of him, even if you are an Indian. But his philosophy is the anchor on which Indian culture rests. Indeed, the thousands of religions that took birth in India can be merely considered as footnotes to what he said. They consider him as the greatest of saints ever lived, even though what he said is essentially atheistic !

A.N.Whitehead has once said that western philosophy is merely a series of footnotes to Plato. Such is the influence that Plato exerted on western thought. But here is the Indian counterpart to Plato, who has brought in far more lucidity in thought, and whose metaphysics is more relevant to modern science. Who is he ?

He is the sage Kapila. In an ancient time, at least 3000 years ago or more, Kapila reflected thus.

"Whatever can be named in this universe, I shall name it.

Whatever can be measured in this universe, I shall measure it.

Whatever can be enumerated in this universe, I shall number it.

For what can be named, can be measured. And what can be measured, can be enumerated."

And the legend goes that he has succeeded in doing it ! And that through this success, he achieved enlightenment. We do not know whether this is true. But the questions that Kapila posed himself have never lost their relevance - they are exactly the same questions that science addresses. So it is interesting to tally what Kapila said with experimental evidence in the modern day.

The first thing Kapila observed was that nature is dynamic, and that every object in nature evolves from one form to another. The second thing he observed was that every natural phenomenon has a cause, and every cause has a deeper cause. So if Kapila's philosophy has to be summed up in two words, it will be evolutionist and causal. Since Kapila wanted to enumerate every object in nature that can be enumerated, he proceeded to do it in a way which respects the evolutionary and causal relationships between objects. In fact, the treatise that he propounded is called Sāmkhya (enumeration), and it is the topic of this blog.

The order of complexity in natural objects

Kapila found 5 different layers of complexity in which natural objects exist.

Annamaya : The very first layer (colored indigo) is that of inanimate matter, composed of matter and energy.
Prānamaya : The second layer (colored blue) is that of life, composed of life-forms which breathe. So far, the only planet that we are aware of to consist such life-forms is the earth. This second layer is exponentially more complex than the first one, and it is reflected in the size of molecules that comprise organic matter.
Manomaya : The third layer (colored green) is that of mind, composed of life-forms that have a brain through which they monitor reality in a dynamic way. We can loosely say that this layer consists of animals, as most of them have brains. This third layer is exponentially more complex than the second one, and this complexity is reflected in the electrochemical signals that are transmitted between the nerve cells.
Vijnānamaya : The fourth layer (colored yellow) is that of understanding, composed of life-forms that can speak of both space and time in an abstract language of symbols. So far, we are aware of only human beings to possess this kind of communication capabilities. This fourth layer is exponentially more complex than the third one, and it is reflected in the size of messages that can be transmitted across people. We can consider computers to also belong to this layer as they communicate in very complex symbolic languages.
Chinmaya : The fifth layer (colored red) is that of ego and consciousness, composed of life-forms each of which has a self-image of itself, makes plans and executes them to achieve its desires, and reacts to the environment in a self-conscious way. Most human beings are in this level, except when they are very young children. But so far, we have not built a computer that achieved this level of consciousness. This fifth layer is exponentially more complex than the fourth one, and it is reflected in the complexity of plans (in space and time) that a conscious human being executes.

Of course, Kapila was not aware of computers, or bacteria, or the various types of elementary particles in modern physics, but the levels of complexity that he described are still as valid today. Kapila has also identified a cause for this exponential increase of complexity between successive layers - recursion. For example, the second layer is built by the same elements as those of the first layer, but whose interconnections form self-loops. Such recursion always produces an exponential increase in complexity.

The word "maya" which suffixes the words for each of these layers means "measurement", making clear Kapila's philosophy that all of these layers can be measured and thus enumerated in order. We can visualize all these five layers as consecutive circles. The outermost indigo circle represents the entire universe. The next blue circle represents the universe of life-forms which breathe (as far as we know, it is just the planet earth) and so on.. The layers of higher complexity are shown in smaller circles because they are much fewer complex objects in nature than the objects which are simpler. I showed the circles with linearly decreasing radius for easy visualization, but in fact, their radius is "exponentially" decreasing. The same layers can also be visualized with respect to their complexity, and this resembles an object similar to a Mexican hat, of the following image.

Kapila observed that the various forms in nature evolve across these 5 layers, and that the higher layers are built from the lower layers. What he set out to do was to enumerate all the objects in nature in all these 5 layers, and how they evolve between each other. He would give a number to an object based on how complex it is in this scale of evolution.

The reminder : what cannot be enumerated

There is a phenomenon in nature that Kapila observed, but judged that it cannot be either measured, or named (explained in words), or enumerated. That is the phenomenon of the conscious feeler who experiences sensations from nature. Kapila said that such "feeler" is present in all forms of life, including human beings. He named this feeler Purusha and held it in contrast to all the 5 layers of Prakriti (nature), including the layer of ego. He said that such a feeler cannot be evolved out of any of the these 5 layers of natural forms. He used the masculine to denote the Purusha and the feminine to denote Prakriti (nature). I will do the same in this blog, even though a Purusha can be present in women too.

What Kapila said was that either Purusha exists by himself, or he does not exist at all. Literally, this footnote of Kapila's philosophical system has become the bone of contention of million thinkers in India who gave million different answers to who this Purusha is and if he exists (some thinkers have answered in the negative), how he is related to the 5 layers of nature. This spawned a million religions in India, all of which recognize the validity of Kapila's 5-fold division of nature. They also follow the masculine / feminine division of Kapila. So any female goddess that you find in Hinduism is an aspect of Prakriti and any male god that you find is an aspect of Purusha (as reflected in Prakriti, because by himself Purusha cannot be described by any word or image). The totality of Prakriti and Purusha put together is called Brahmān, or the Absolute, which contains all types of existence within itself (please note the neuter gender for the Absolute).

We can loosely translate Purusha as the western concept of soul, but it is not at all the same. Firstly, a soul is created and then judged by God. In contrast, Purusha has no birth and suffers no change. He is constant and eternal - the closest western counterpart for that is God Himself ! Secondly, unlike God, the Purusha has no special powers. He cannot tamper with the laws of nature, nor the evolution across forms. Thirdly, unlike the soul, the Purusha is held completely distinct from ego (self-image), which is considered to belong solely to the realm of nature.

In Kapila's own system, the Purusha exists and stands at the very centre of these 5 circles (shown in the picture as a tiny grey circle), or right in the middle of the Mexican hat (in the 3D analogy). Of course, Kapila didn't call this a Mexican hat, but termed it the mountain/tower of Meru. This Meru mountain has mythic significance in all Indian religions, and indeed forms the architectural basis for every Hindu temple.

Kapila said that the vertical distance to the walls from where a Purusha stands in this tower of Meru gives the amount of happiness that is felt by him. Thus, if a Purusha stands within the outermost indigo rim of inanimate reality, he can feel only a minute amount of happiness. He feels an exponentially higher amount of happiness if he can somehow jump upwards into the layer of life, and so on. Ultimately, if a Purusha manages to reach the very centre of this tower, he would never touch the tower walls of happiness, and thus feel infinite bliss (termed as ananda). This infinite bliss is said to be within the reach of every human being.

In a Hindu temple, the main idol (murti) sits right underneath the vimana tower (symbolizing the Meru mountain) - signifying the infinite bliss of Purusha seated at the very centre of Meru. Devotees circumambulate this idol in an act of worship - in a symbolic act of witnessing the Divine from all possible views. They ultimately seek to merge in the Divine, which is supposed to reside within their own innermost selves.

Kapila says that this desire for higher and higher bliss is what prompts nature to evolve into more complex forms of existence. Just as the branches of a tree and its leaves go upwards to reach to the sunlight, the branches of the tree of life go upwards to layers of higher complexity. We cannot say how every single twig faces in a tree (and some of them do face downwards), but the general direction of growth would be upwards. Kapila has a name for the tree of existence -Ashwattha (which encompasses not only various forms of life but also inanimate objects). This Ashwattha tree is said grows on the walls of the Meru mountain and tries eternally to reach up to the top.

The arithmetic of nature's evolution between layers

Depending on the height at which an object of nature stands on the Meru mountain, it gets a number according to Kapila's scheme (To be short, I will call this the "Kapila number") . Every such object has a finite existence - both in space and in time. Eventually, it will die and a new object will take its place. In this finite existence, Kapila observed that it moves along the mountain, in a step-size that is capable of its finite reach.

Kapila mentions that every natural object has a decision with 3 choices with respect to the Kapila number :

To increase : proclination to do so termed rajas quality
To stay the same : proclination to do so termed tamas quality
To decrease : proclination to do so termed the satvik quality

Here is the most interesting (and most misunderstood) part of Kapila's philosophical system.

Let's observe choice 1. An object can only increase of a step-size that is delimited by the layer in which it exists. Since the next layer is at an exponentially higher level, irrespective of how much an object tries to increase, it can never reach to this next level. Consequently, the rajas quality (greediness) is disparaged by the Sāmkhya philosophers.

Let's now inspect the choice 2. For any object of finite existence, staying the same means only one thing - death. Consequently, the tamas quality (inertia) is considered the most harmful by the Sāmkhya philosophers.

Now, let's see the choice 3. Surely, decreasing would only mean the object goes down the Meru mountain. How can it be a good thing ? But indeed, it is so. To understand this clearly, we should see the number system that is most directly inspired from the Sāmkhya philosophy : the system of counting with zeros, which originated in India. If we use the base 10 for counting, the numbers go

100

If you look at the last digit, it goes to zero before the number advances to the next level. The same is true at every decimal level. This is exactly how the Kapila number of an object changes. It has to renounce (make zero) its current level of existence to proceed to the next level. This is the only way a finite object can advance up the Meru mountain and reach heights that are incapable of the rajas method of increasing.

This paradoxical quality is the reason why renunciation (of sensual desires, wealth, fame, ..) is so valued in Indian culture. Consequently, the satvik quality (translated properly as transparence or lucidity) is valued the highest by the Sāmkhya philosophers, despite it standing for decreasing / making zero the respective Kapila number.

However, each person is exhorted to cultivate all the 3 qualities in equilibrium. When the three qualities are exactly equal with each other, a person would not make a decision, but maintain equanimity against nature. This poise is considered essential for a person to make the right decision when the right time comes. Amongst Indian religions, only Buddhism exhorts people to renounce immediately, so that one can reach enlightenment. Other Hindu religions ask people to wait and take the right decision at the right time of one's life.

Pitfalls of excess greed

I will conclude this post with the practical system for ethics that is provided by the Sāmkhya philosophy.

Irrespective of where an object stands in the Meru mountain, it suffers from the temptation of excess greed. This would magnify the rajas quality and render it blind to the true reality of the mountain. Amongst the 5 layers of existence, the layers 1 (matter), 3 (mind) and 5 (ego) are considered primary. The other layers 2 (breath) and 4 (understanding) are considered as intermediate sheaths that connect the upper and lower layers.

When one tries to advance in the matter layer, one receives the pleasure of taste. When one tries to advance in the mind layer, one receives the pleasure of possessions. When one tries to advance in the ego layer, one receives the pleasure of fame and recognition. Each of these pleasures will blind oneself to the deeper reality of nature, and the greater happiness that is obtained by jumping to the higher layer. When one desires too many tastes, this excess rajas quality is termed as lust. When one desires too many possessions, it is termed as greed. When one desires too much fame, it is termed as pride. These three are considered the 3 primal enemies of one's journey life. They all occur due to excess rajas quality in a person.

The clarity that is provided by the satvik quality at the respective layer is considered essential to counter this pitfall. In order to prevent oneself succumbing to lust, one must sacrifice sensual pleasures and seek the higher pleasures of learning. In order to prevent oneself succumbing to greed, one must sacrifice the pleasure of possessions and seek the higher pleasures of recognition. In order to prevent oneself succumbing to fame, one must sacrifice the pleasure of recognition and seek the higher pleasures of self-knowledge. This is Kapila's advice for any man or woman on how to lead one's life.

In this blog, I presented a modern perspective of the Samkhya philosophy. I have used concepts and terms that were not known during the ages when Samkhya was developed, but which would help us modern people understand Samkhya in an easier manner. To compliment this understanding, an interested reader can refer to a traditional version of Samkhya philosophy, such as Samkhyakarika. A very good traditional explanation of Samkhya is available from Deshpande Ji's blog.

Taking the Obvious not for Granted

2010-03-21T17:03:00.001-07:00

If I should summarize intellectual pursuit in one phrase, I think I would do that with "taking the obvious not for granted". This is because

what we think of as obviously true, need not be true at all.
even if it is indeed true, there could be a deeper "cause" why it is so.

But the process of questioning the obvious will invite anybody to ridicule. This fear of ridicule is what makes most intellectual stalwarts of an age to not question the prevailing dogma. In fact, most people are even blissfully ignorant of the dogma : the fundamental assumptions on which their entire world view is based on. The only people who often end up doing this sort of questioning are philosophers. Scientists think of them as raking up the mud. As famously worded by Dr. Richard Feynmann "Philosophers are people who kick up the sand, and then complain they cannot see". But sometimes raking up the mud will open up unseen pathways in this maze of existence called our universe.

In the rare event that somebody musters up enough courage to ask these questions - neat and straight, in a language that is understandable by scientists and theoreticians, there are always easy and completely non-informative answers. They are on the lines of

It is just so. There is no reason behind it.
It is just a random choice. Nothing curious behind it except that you are interested in it. As far as the universe is concerned, it is just another random jump.
It is so because God ordered it to be so. And we cannot understand the mind of God.
There are some elements in the universe not comprehensible to human mind. We should just be humble enough to accept this and move on.

The basic outcome of all these answers is the same. "End of your question, let's get back to our daily life." It is funny that positions as philosophically apart as theism and atheism, absurdism and ignoramibusism adopt the same defensive mechanisms as far as inconvenient questions are concerned !

I would like to ask my share of annoying questions today. I don't claim to know the answers. I am just annoyed to the hilt with these questions and would like to spread my annoyance around. Please reply using all your defensive mechanisms. May be some of them will work for me. :)

Why is the universe evolving into forms of increasing self-awareness ?

What I said is obviously true. The stupid clouds of dust that the universe started out with are definitely stupider than the beauty of stars and galaxies. Then, we have the curious incident of life popping up out of nowhere on earth, which is a great leap beyond mere chemical existence. Then we have this life evolve into increasingly complex life-forms, proceeding to animals with brain mechanisms to model reality dynamically, and culminating with human beings who can do abstract and symbolic reasoning. The humans themselves didn't sit tight, their culture has evolved on an exponential curve. Over time, we humans have become more and more aware of what it means to be "human" and redefined our rights and responsibilities. We have this burning curiosity to understand more and more about the universe, producing artefacts of a scientific civilization that can only be described as "the universe looking at itself with a mirror, and understanding itself more and more clearly". This is a very very curious thing, why is it happening ?

What is the difference between a human brain and a car ?

Our human brains are supposed to be capable of self-consciousness. A complicated network of neurons somehow decide to breath into life and create an independent agent with goals and desires. We look at the human brain and claim that the frontal lobe is concerned with complicated reasoning, the left-half is concerned with language abilities, the limbic system is concerned with emotions etc.. But what is the guarantee that understanding these systems completely can reproduce human behaviour ? Imagine that we are looking at a car. We would find out that the combustion engine is concerned with converting chemical energy to mechanical energy, the stereo system is concerned with playing music, the steering wheel is concerned with choosing direction for the motion of the car etc.. But that does not mean the driver of the car does not exist. What if there is indeed such a driver for the human brain ? This is a very annoying question for neuroscientists because it conjures up the image of the Homunculus or the Cartesian theatre of duality which postulate a "soul" that sits in the brain and enjoys the show. But what is the guarantee that such a thing doesn't exist ? What can be done to "prove" that such a thing does not exist ?

And if such a thing exists, what is the guarantee that the same thing that is steering my brain is also not steering your brain ?

That will be my next question. What can be done to "prove" conclusively that the disturbance thing in both the brains is different ? If it is indeed the same thing, this gives rise to the conclusion that what I feel inside my head is the same as the entire universe. Then the obvious question to ask would be, "If this thing is so powerful as to operate millions of objects around the universe, why did it not put all these objects into coherence and make them all feel good ?" Why does there have to be diseases, earthquakes, bad food, failures in love and life, obese people, Bollywood films and all that crap ? Why is there not a single and happy universe that just knows what it wants and gets it ?

Why is there existence at all ?

It is the biggest killer question. That which Albert Camus once described as "the question which pounces from a street corner and punches you in the stomach". I don't think my stomach is any stronger than Camus', but I still do have a right to complain about the inconvenience caused by this question.

The Cat of Curiosity

2010-03-03T12:19:00.001-08:00

I have a cat, who roams free range

The cat of curiosity

His universe is sparkling strange

And shrouded thick in mystery

"Why do", he once asks, "things persist

In time ? what keeps reality

Together, and makes it resist

Breaking into absurdity ?

Why don't objects, from nought, alight,

Wobble, and then vanish from ground ?

Why is left left, and why's right right ?

Why won't axes swivel around ?

Now if you're not quite so upset

May I ponder, May I wonder

Why does it not, the cosmos, get

Spontaneously torn asunder !?"

"Hark", I warn, "these questions yield but

Spiritual calamity !"

"But", he says, "I can't them abort

For the sake of serenity !

Cynicism - a dog's good at

Etymologically he's

But were I only not a cat

I should wish be Diogenes

Let me jump to, zip in this bag

A cat can do only so much

To show why do questions me nag

Without leeway or recess as such

Where does the cat end, now explain

And where begin the bag's intents ?

Are we two, or do we contain

The same principal components !?"

"You are", I say, "curious to rag

But we cannot resolve this spat

The cat shall be out of the bag

When the bag gets out of the cat !"

Kurzweil's Horcrux

2009-08-16T03:57:00.001-07:00

Ray Kurzweil is a noted innovator and futurist, who has been consistently making the right technological predictions for a couple of decades. Recently, he has started making certain predictions that many people considered outrageous and way beyond the mark.

His predictions are about what is called the technological singularity, the point in time where machines become so intelligent that they don't need any human intervention at all for the further advancement of technology. Kurzweil predicts that this will happen in a matter of a few decades. The reasons for his optimism have nothing to do with our scientific progress in cracking the hard questions of complexity theory or artificial intelligence, but with the explosive growth of processing power in computer chips.

He has written several books and essays on the internet, highlighting this point. But I'd like to quote his argument in a few lines below.

" By 2029, sufficient computation to simulate the entire human brain, which I estimate at about 10¹⁶ (10 million billion) calculations per second (cps), will cost about a dollar. By the mid-2040s, the non-biological portion of the intelligence of our human-machine civilization will be about a billion times greater than the biological portion (we have about 10²⁶ cps among all human brains today; nonbiological intelligence in 2045 will provide about 10³⁵ cps). "

Kurzweil believes that when it is possible to computationally simulate an entire human brain, it will also be possible to download and save the configuration of a brain onto such a computer. Brain imagery and sensing have been making some progress in recent years, and it might be even possible to download an entire human brain onto computer memory, making Kurzweil's prediction come true. Kurzweil believes that this will solve the hard problems of AI, because the computer then would be capable of solving any problem that a human brain could solve.

For want of a better word, I would like to term this computational copy of a brain as a horcrux - an example of dark magic mentioned in the Harry Potter books. I believe that this concept is a very instructional tool in musing about consciousness, immortality and other such philosophical issues. So I'd like to exploit this connection in today's post.

The question I would like to pose is "Would a person achieve immortality when his neurological state is copied into a horcrux ? "

Kurzweil answers this in the affirmative. But I think he's wrong about this. To explain this further, let me introduce another philosophical thought experiment.

Imagine that aliens attacked earth and they cut off your hand from your body and kept in a glass-jar. If you look at this hand, would you say that it is "you" or just "your hand" ? Most people would reply it's just a hand, and not "you". Imagine that the aliens got more aggressive and cut off your brain from your face, wired cameras to your brain and oriented the cameras towards your face. Would you say what you are looking at is "your face" or "you" ? This is a tougher case, but when you think deeply enough, you would say it is just "your face" and not "you.

The reason for your reply is that even if somebody destroys your face, "you" would still live. "You" would keep on getting your sensory input and you'd be processing your thoughts. So your face is not "you".

Now let's ditch the aliens and get back to the horcrux. Imagine that you got your brain copied into a super-computer. Where would be "you" ? Would "you" be sitting in the computer or in the human body of yours ? Or would you be sitting in both places at the same time ?

I say that "you" will be sitting in your human body. If your body is destroyed, "you" would die. If the super-computer is destroyed, it wouldn't harm "you". (A further clarification of my position comes later). Kurzweil thinks otherwise. He thinks that "you" would be sitting "both" in your human body and in the computer. Even if one of them is destroyed, the other will survive. So, "you" would still live, achieving immortality in this fashion.

Kurzweil says that, irrespective of our theories, it will be possible to conduct such an experiment at some point in the near future, and thus we'll get to know an answer backed up by experiments. This will be the first time in human civilization, that a scientific experiment is conducted to deal with the questions of consciousness. Until now, consciousness has been a subject that's investigated only "internally" by meditation conducted by an "internal" eye. Soon, it will be possible to conduct such experiments on an "external" scale.

This is fascinating, and I think that such experiments will lead to some deep breakthroughs in physics and biology, apart from computer science.

Personally, I subscribe to the ancient Indian theory of Advaita, which says that consciousness is singular and universal. It says that it has no birth and no death. My individual consciousness in this human body is like a wave in the ocean of the universal consciousness. My human body is just like a particle that is being moved by this wave. What is moving "the wave" is the ocean, which is eternal and omnipresent. It is this wave that creates the sensation of "I" in my human body. This is consciousness.

Advaita says that what is speaking inside me and what is listening inside you is one and the same thing.

So actually, my position with the horcrux stands as that "you" would be sitting neither in your human body nor in the horcrux. "You" are omnipresent, universal and eternal. But this "you" is fooled into thinking that it is just confined to your human body. So after your brain is copied into the horcrux, this consciousness & its associated illusion would be still sitting inside your human body. Your horcrux, if it could indeed be created as an intelligent agent through copying your brain, will be an independent agent, powered by the same universal consciousness but suffering from a similar illusion like how "you" in your human body would be suffering.

According to the theory of Advaita, consciousness cannot be copied. It exists only in the singular. A good analogy is with language : a "word" can be copied, but its "meaning" cannot be copied. A "meaning" can be copied only by copying the person who understands this meaning. Thus, a "meaning" doesn't exist beyond the very consciousness of a person.

There is a certain amount of scientific backing for such a theory of consciousness. This comes from Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which says that for a quantum-particle (like an electron or a photon), only one of the variables of position and momentum (velocity) can be known. The very instant one property is measured, the other becomes indeterminate. Certain neuroscientists and physicists, such as Dr. Roger Penrose, believe that consciousness is a quantum mechanical phenomenon inside the human brain which operates through the so-called microtubules. If this is the case, then Kurzweil's dream might never come true. No cerebral photography can ever be able to copy the entire state of the human brain because such a thing is ruled out by the theory of quantum physics.

However, it might be still possible to build a horcrux, which will be a self-conscious entity which is capable of intelligent behavior. But that will just be a copy of "you" and not "you". It will be a copy of all your emotional and mental weaknesses.

Apart from the uncertainty principle, there is another phenomenon of quantum physics that is equally baffling, which is known as quantum entanglement. Several times, a pair of particles is entangled in the quantum world, at the very moment the particles are created. If you measure the quantum property of one particle (say the spin of an electron), the property of the other particle is automatically determined (the spin of its paired electron). This can be checked by another experimenter located several miles away at a much later point in time. This entanglement principle has been validated several times through experiment, and this is explained by various interpretations of what's happening, all of which are quite "weird" and counter-intuitive. Some of these interpretations (based on hidden variables) are less likely than the others, though they are not yet totally ruled due to statistical limitations in current measurements.

The entanglement principle says that either (a) reality is an illusion or (b) free-will is an illusion. Many physicists settle for the option (b), though it looks totally counter-intuitive from the perspective of a human being who can definitely sense a feeling of self-consciousness.

What Advaita says is that consciousness is real, but it is universal. So it is only one single person who is measuring the property of the first electron, and later that of the second electron. It is not two different experimenters even though the measurement is made from two different bodies. This way, Advaita dissolves the paradox by tying free-will to reality.

According to Advaita, free-will can only be defined upto a scale. An entity (whether that be an electron or a human being) is "free" only up to the scale of objects that it is "aware" of. Freedom comes from awareness. There is no meaning for one's freedom beyond one's knowledge.

Similarly, according to Advaita, reality doesn't exist beyond mutual agreement of the two particles. In other words, you are as real as I am. And both of us are real because we see each other. Take away this mutual awareness, and we shall cease to exist.

I like the theory of Advaita (and its parallel philosophical systems in Hindu religions) very much. But until now, they have only remained at the level of hearsay and speculation. But soon, it will be possible to conduct experiments and test the various theories behind this mysterious phenomenon called consciousness. Isn't it fascinating ?

Functionality I would like to see in my iPod

2009-05-10T04:27:00.000-07:00

Rating : The iPod should have an easy button to adjust the rating for a song being played.
Synchronization : When the iPod is connected to my computer, it should synchronize automatically with the iTunes database of how many times a song is played, and how well it is rated.
Sharing : The iTunes (or the cool iLike application) should provide an easy way of sharing my favorite artists across to my friends on Facebook and on other social networking websites.
Proactive Recommendations : I should be able to gift and recommend tunes to friends on my social network. I should be able to receive their recommendations when I plug in my computer. This should happen by podcasts.
Remuneration : Based on my profile of likes and dislikes (and the frequency with which certain songs are played), iTunes should compute a pie chart which tells how a dollar of my money is distributed to several individual artists. If and when I decide to patronize artists (at the beginning of each month, for example) iTunes should compute the list of artists on my favorite list and transmit their share of patronizing money (how many cents out of the 10 dollars I give, for example). All the money should go directly to artists, not even a single penny should go to middlemen.
Recognition : The fact that I have spent money patronizing artists should be visible as a certificate on my Facebook profile. Certain physical certificates (posters, buttons, mugs etc) should also be sent to my postal address as a reward for my patronizing.
Concert Alerts : iTunes should automatically alert me to the concerts of my favorite artists when they are playing in a nearby town. iTunes should compile a list of gold members who patronized these artists, and if I am amongst them, I should get seats closer to the concert stage.
Personal Communication : iTunes should provide an easy way of leaving comments, blog-posts, pictures, videos and emails to my favorite artists. If and when an artist or fellow-fan replies to my comments, iTunes should alert me in the corresponding artist's tab when I open it.
Discovery (Passive Recommendations) : Based on my profile of likes and dislikes, iTunes (or the iLike application) should recommend me similar and upcoming artists. This way, I will be able to patronize new artists when they will be badly in need of financial support. The recommendation algorithm should employ both feature analysis of music and also statistical analysis of correlated correspondences like how Amazon does (if my friends on Facebook share musical tastes with me, their favorite artists should be recommended to me).
Mixing of media : I should be able to mix media and publish this work online. iTunes should automatically prepare a copyleft document (such as the Creative Commons license) which provides pointers to the individual artists who have contributed to the pieces inside my work. If a user likes my work and decides to patronize it, he/she should automatically be alerted to the various artists who contributed to portions of my work. The user then is provided the choice of default patronizing chart (that prepared by me) or according to his/her own decision.

The Art of Politics : 10 Methods to Obfuscate and Manipulate People

2009-04-08T13:09:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post, I have mentioned a few techniques to win a debate against a worthy adversary. But in some cases, the objective is not to win the debate, but to just prevent the debate from happening. This is the case when one is very scared of losing.

This is when the art of obfuscation comes into play. I call this the art of politics because modern politics is based entirely on this art. Though I present several strategies below, I expect my readers to be ethical and respectful of other human beings. But it helps to know them as a means of defense.

As I argued in my previous post, the world today owes more to the actions of "artificial life" than to those of human beings. These artificial life forms are self replicating social programs with a mind and life of their own. To be short, I call these social programs "religions", but they don't have to deal with God. A "religion" relies on the blind faith of people in a certain theory, and there exists a "priesthood" which swindle the people based on this faith. The most dangerous religions in our times are economic and political theories, especially the Fractional Reserve Banking system.

The "priests" of these religions believe that they are successfully swindling and enslaving other human beings. But in reality, these priests are just limbs of a self-replicating beast that enslaves them, and the whole of humanity. Part of the techniques of obfuscation that I mention below might have thought out by the "priests", but part of them might also be thought out by the "Matrix" : the brain of the religion.

Sustaining the illusion of normalcy : The success of any religion depends on how effectively it can sustain the illusion of normalcy in the minds of people. For most of the time, a human brain is functionally equivalent to a copying machine. It springs into an "intelligent" state of questioning only when something drastic happens that shatters the impression of normalcy. Therefore, a religion has to work to provide the illusion of normalcy even amidst an extraordinary crisis. For example, in the current severe economic recession, people are constantly fooled on the media that life is going on normally. That a second and stronger Wall Street is rising from the ashes. And that all the loopholes in the financial sector are being fixed.
Keeping an issue complicated by jargon : If the illusion of normalcy fails, and a person is intrigued to question, he can be immediately assaulted by stating that the subject at hand is too complicated for his mind to process. This is achieved by presenting the case in legal and economic jargon with which he might not be aware. Complicated graphs and mathematical equations will be produced to scare the person away. Imposing persons with strings of diplomas at the end of their names will appear on the television to explain the situation, or better, to express their helplessness that the situation is beyond even their smart brains. In fact, any complicated scientific theory (including quantum mechanics and string theory) can be explained to the layman without the use of jargon. It all depends on the willingness of the speaker to communicate.
Keeping the opposition divided : Despite the above efforts, some opposition will coalesce socially against a religion. Then the success of a religion depends critically on how efficiently it can keep the opposition divided. The religion tries its best to emphasize the differences amongst the opponents, and provoke one party against the other. For example, one of the biggest heists of modern politics is to divide Libertarians from the Social Democrats. The former are told that the latter are opponents of freedom, while the latter are told that the former are opponents of equality. In fact, even if both of these accusations are partially true, they are usually not concerned to the topic at hand, which could be about monopolization of resources, to which both the parties are equally opposed.
Infiltrating the opposition by stone-throwers : The survival of a religion depends on the majority acceptance of people in the society. Whenever an opposition germinates against a religion, it will have to work to gain acceptance amongst neutral and undecided people in the society. If such people are worried that the opposition is filled with extremists, the religion has a better chance of survival. Hence, a religion actually infiltrates the opposition with spies who project this image of extremism. A very simple demonstration of this is when the opposition holds a peaceful rally - a few spies can throw stones, sullying the name of the entire opposition. More often, this stone-throwing phenomenon happens metaphorically in the media. Several writers will be paid to write radical essays or make provocative statements in the name of the opposition. For example, (a) a spy might shout anti-semitic slogans in an anti-war rally to protest against Israeli aggression (b) a spy might argue for totalitarian state ownership of means of production, during a critique of the current banking fiasco.
Exploiting false associations : In several cases, it will be possible to associate the opponent of a religion to evil actors, through similarity in name (for example, nuclear power to nuclear weapons), through evils of the past (for example, any mention of socialism to gulags in the Soviet Union), through a freak joint appearance (for example, anti-war activists with radical-Islamic activists), or through use by other evil actors (for example, Osama bin Laden sullying the name of Noam Chomsky). Human brain has an associative memory, and it has difficulties in differentiating correlation from causation, cause from effect, and the irrelevant from the relevant. If the false associations are repeated frequent enough, they will sink well in the minds of the population. It helps if the associations are phoenetically rhyming or have a sing-song about them.
Shaping the identity of people with empty attributes : The biggest threat of a religion are people, and the biggest weapon of a religion are again people. The success of a religion lies in infiltrating the identity of people. When people think that their own identities are at threat, they become extremely defensive, and go to the extent of even laying their lives down for the sake of the religion. A religion shapes the identity of people in terms of empty attributes that it claims to have a monopoly on : honor, self-respect, love of freedom, democracy, respect for elders etc. In reality, none of these attributes are actually related to the religion concerned, but people will find it extremely difficult to disentangle the associations. Whenever a religion is questioned on specific issues : such as the murder of human beings, swindling of money, or blatant violation of freedoms, the religion responds by whipping the people into a frenzy saying that their own identities are being questioned (defined on empty attributes such as honor or respect, of course).
Not overdoing the exploitation : The success of any slave-owner depends on how well the slave is fed. Nobody can be exploited till exhaustion. A human being will first rebel before he succumbs to death by exhaustion. And if people are famished, the rebellion will be exceedingly difficult to control. So a religion alternates between exploiting people and providing them with a small respite. This is especially true with democratic governments, which provide tax-breaks, or poverty-alleviation schemes just before elections. Human brain is extremely sensitive to alternating stimuli of pain and pleasure. Any pleasure felt in the aftermath of pain is exceedingly strong, and people will be very well-disposed towards a religion when they receive their shot of pleasure.
Socially ostracizing the skeptics : The religion creates an aura of taboo on certain topics, forcing people not to discuss them. Anyone who starts a discussion on such topics has to fear that he/she will be socially ostracized. For example, the issue of race is a strong taboo in several societies. The religion inflicts strongly negative and unpleasant sensations in people whenever such topics are mentioned. In this way, a debate is terminated even before it could germinate. The history of human beings is replete with brilliant scientists and artists who produced masterpieces even during the worst periods of oppression and enslavement. Most likely, these great minds would have questioned the religion, if only they had less to fear that they would deeply offend their colleagues.
Developing a symbiotic identity from diverse ideologies : This is the most subtle form a religion can take. In nature, animals and plants have symbiotic relationships. Predators are necessary to ensure that a prey species doesn't overpopulate, and thence suffer extinction. There exists a complex give and take relationship between different forms of life : an entire environment, known as a "biome", is created out of such relationships. For example : the sea-anemone and the hermit crab often occur together. The anemone protects the crab from enemies with its poisonous sting, and the crab carries the anemone around. We don't need such exotic examples, every plant and animal requires millions of other species for survival. Plants need bees for pollination, we human beings need thousands of bacteria for digesting our food. This type of symbiotic relationship is also the norm for artificial life, or religions. For example : the extreme right-wing sections of two religions need each other to reinforce each other. A right wing party needs to alternate the government with a center-left party in order to provide some respite for the people (point 7). In such cases of symbiotic existence of a religion, the agents of exploitation and enslavement are present in all the parties that participate. When there is no clear enemy that they can identify, people will be totally at a loss on who to blame and silently accept their fate.
Anticipating the opposition, coalescing it, and then crushing it : A really smart religion actually has a functional wing to catch all the exceptions and skeptics. It might pay a spy to create an anti-religion organization and let all the opposition gravitate towards it. In that way, the religion knows clearly who its opponents are and what they are up to. When the numbers become too many, the religion implements the plan of destruction of opponent. This can be done by physically harming the opponents, or by spreading fear amongst the population that a major conspiracy is being hatched, or by sowing cynicism into the minds of opponents through spies. This strategy works well as long as the opponent group is not too large to be beyond control.

In fact, artificial life (religions) employ as many tactics and complex behavior as done by real life in order to survive. A naturalist or biologist will immediately understand the nature of this complexity. It is difficult for normal amateur human beings to stand against such forces. But ultimately, there will come a time when this illusion of religion will be shattered. Such is the law of life.

Petrodollar Slavery

2009-03-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

This is 2009. It has been 320 years since Issac Newton published his Principiae Mathematicae. It has been 233 years since James Watt made his principal modifications to the steam engine. And it has been 104 years that Albert Einstein proposed his theory of relativity

But we still live in a world rife with poverty, disease and warfare. In Haiti, hardly a stone's throw from USA, human beings are forced to eating mud-biscuits to avoid the pangs of hunger. Around the world, every single day, 29000 children under the age of 5 die from completely preventable diseases.

Poverty may have been the natural state of mankind. But this was made obsolete by the advent of automation technology. Nevertheless, right in the 21st century, we still suffer from 16th century problems.

I request you to take a moment and contemplate. Why is this so ?

What is the most optimal way of utilizing technology to improve human well-being ? Are our current political and economic systems facilitating or hindering this process ?

Let it be known

At the current state of technology, it is possible to provide a supremely comfortable lifestyle for every single human being, something unmatched today by that of even the richest person on the planet. All forms of boring, mechanical or back-breaking work can be automated. We have enough resources of land, minerals and energy on this planet to do so for all the 8 billions of our population. If we see poverty, malnutrition or warfare on this planet, that is purely due to social and political reasons.

And the problem is not just limited to human beings. Vast numbers of plant and animal species are going extinct at unprecedented rates. The world's rivers, lakes and seas are suffering extraordinary amounts of pollution. The very air surrounding the planet has changed in nature. Our planet is on the brink of an environmental disaster due to climate change. Again, let it be known that we already have all the technological know-how needed to address these environmental problems.

What choices have we made to be against technology, against the planet, and against happiness ?

In this blog, I would like to convince you that we have not yet made that choice. In other words, a part of us is still enslaved and we have not exercised our freedom.

My discovery of the petrodollar

I am interested in sustainable energy sources for the future of humanity. Thus I discovered nuclear power and breeder reactors. In 1994, a very promising research program called the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) was terminated by the US senate. The official explanation was that this program increased the risk of nuclear proliferation. But nothing can be farther from truth. (I advise you to read the excellent book of Tom Blees to get the whole story). Several US senators across the political stripes have voted to terminate the program. In reality, the IFR project could produce vast quantities of energy from depleted Uranium (U238) that is currently treated as nuclear waste. It is far safer and proliferation resistant than the current light water reactors (LWR). More interestingly, it would have no fuel supply crunches that exist with LWRs. I was forced to think what could be the political opposition to the IFR.

Clearly, there were the environmentalist groups who were opposed to nuclear power. These people did not care to differentiate the IFR from the older LWRs. But Greens never had a vast political support in the US senate. So who were the real opponents and what were they against ?

There were the coal power plants and the giant oil corporations who could be worried about an alternative energy source. But the IFR was a research project which could not have made a difference in the market for at least another couple of decades. As any corporation, these energy giants would never plan for that far in the future. In all likelihood, when it gets ripe for the market, they would have purchased the rights to use IFR technology.

Whoever terminated the IFR project was worried about the scientific and technological dissemination of this knowledge. Nothing less. In fact, the IFR scientists were gagged, and asked not to speak about the project.

When you compare the IFR project with existing nuclear reactors, the key difference is that it doesn't have fuel supply crunches. Is there someone who desperately wanted to maintain a monopoly on nuclear fuel supply ? But the current nuclear industry is very tiny and doesn't have plans of growing much. The existing LWRs need a rare isotope of Uranium (U235), and there is not enough such fuel to run the entire world for more than a few decades. The IFRs would not eat into this market, but create a new market for themselves. And in any case, it would not be ripe for the market for another decade at least.

Now I enlarged the question and asked myself, is there someone who desperately wanted to maintain a monopoly on energy fuel supply ?

And I discovered the answer is yes.

Oil accounts for most of the energy consumption in today's world. And the interesting bit is there is a monopoly of US dollar in the crude oil market.

Fiat currencies & the extraordinary privilege of the US dollar

Until the major economic depression in 1929, most world-currencies were convertible to gold. The national reserve banks of countries maintained gold reserves in their vaults. But the gold standard was abandoned after the depression and the currencies were floated on the foreign exchange market. However, the national reserve banks still maintained gold in their vaults as a security against their currencies.

By the end of the second world war, 80% of the world's gold ended up in US vaults. This created an extraordinary prestige for the US dollar, with several countries treating "dollar safer than gold". Many countries started to buy dollar assets and storing US dollars in their vaults, as a security for their currencies. US dollar remained convertible to gold.

For some reason, in 1971, there was a serious lack of confidence around the world in the US dollar (my guess is that this is probably due to the US oil-peak in 1970). France was the first country to demand the USA to exchange the dollars it held for gold. USA has flatly refused, and announced that the dollar is no longer convertible to gold. Instead, it approached Saudi Arabia and reached to an agreement that OPEC prices crude oil entirely in US dollars.

When I spot a monopoly, my first reaction is that something would be wrong. This monopolistic privilege would surely be abused. So what are the ramifications of the monopoly of US dollar on the pricing of international petrol crude ?

The OPEC US dollar agreement (to be called petrodollar from now on) effectively means that the entire world's oil reserves serve as security for the US dollar. These are not gold reserves sitting in a vault, but mineral reserves deep underneath Arabia. These reserves are estimated to be far more in value than the entire quantity of gold ever mined since the dawn of humanity.

With such extraordinary privilege, the US Federal reserve can keep on printing paper dollars. And keep buying petrol. Effectively, the USA owns the world's petrol for free. Since every country needs petrol to run their industrialized economies ,there will always be a demand for dollars in the world market. Other countries have to worry about inflationary pressures when they over-print their currencies. But not USA. These inflationary pressures are propagated throughout the world.

USA buys the entire world's goods and services in exchange for these paper dollars. Thus, the entire world's economy is based on exports to the USA. Manufactured goods and services are sold to US consumers in return to paper dollars which are stored in the vaults across the world's nations.

The USA has the largest trade deficit in the world. For any other country, such huge budget deficit will spell death to its economy. But not to the USA. Any devaluation of the US dollar will hurt countries across the globe. China and Japan hold trillions of US dollars as assets in their national reserve banks : they will sink along with the dollar in case of a crash. In fact, it is not just countries, most global corporations have their assets in dollars.

With such special privileges, USA can afford to do several adventures across the globe. A large portion of US government expenditure is spent abroad, mostly in warfare. The Iraqi war costs several billions every week. This money is all borrowed from the US Federal Reserve, which just prints the dollar bills. But who exactly is working to pay for the Iraqi war ?

Shock propagation by oil & commodity prices

Everyone still remembers the recent increase of oil prices, when a barrel of crude shot up to 125 dollars and more. But we have seen that the dollar is immune to inflationary pressures. Well, almost ! The oil producing countries would not want to sell their crude to empty dollars. Moreover, when futures-trading was allowed in the oil market (there exist only two oil-bourses in the world, in London and New York, both owned by Americans), the oil price was artificially shot up.

In order to buy oil, every country had to spend 2 to 3 times more money than they would otherwise. This has given leverage for the US Fed to print the extra dollars that it needed to sponsor the Iraqi war.

Now, the oil prices are immediately linked to the retail prices of products in the supermarket (because most of the transportation is done by oil) and these have shot up correspondingly. Such inflationary pressures are experienced throughout the world, and consumer spending was reduced. The worst of these pressures were felt in the poorest countries, of course.

When the market goes to a downturn, all traders rush to buy commodity shares which are supposed to be more resistant to market fluctuations. Consequently, these prices have shot up (food, minerals, metals and raw materials) in the aftermath of the oil price hike.

Thus, the economic shocks of US budget deficit were propagated around the world by oil and commodity prices. The global market came to a slowdown.

The wiggle room for financial thieves

Anybody who has done a course of accounting knows the concept of the wiggle-room. The account books are checked periodically, and if the company is making profits, the guy who is keeping the accounts can hide a tiny share of the profits for himself.

At the end of the year, the company still registers a profit, but that would be slightly lower than what it would have naturally registered. If the stolen amount is small enough in comparison to the profits, nobody would ever notice.

The knowledge of this critical threshold on how much to steal is what makes a successful thief. The stolen amount can be used by the thief for several purposes (a) blow it away in luxury goods and holidays (b) invest in casino shares which are super risky (c) invest in properties with no production utility for the economic engine, such as real estate.

All will be fine in a normal scenario. But what happens in a stock-market slowdown is that several financial thieves will discover that their knowledge of wiggle-rooms is not good enough. What should have been a small profit for the company ends up in a major loss. What should have been a small loss for the company ends up in a major bankruptcy.

If small companies file for bankruptcy, it is okay. Not many people shed tears, life goes on. But if major economic giants file bankruptcy, that will spell serious trouble in today's interconnected financial world.

Thus we enter economic recession. All prices fall down in this scenario to reflect to the new scenario of lowered consumer spending. Even the oil and commodity prices fall down, and behind everybody's backs, the US dollar rises in value against every other currency.

The incentives provided by petrodollar

The hegemony of the US dollar provides certain weird incentives for the market.

Every country will be working day and night to export to the US consumer. In fact, even highly industrialized economies such as Germany and Japan are totally dependent on exports to the USA.
US consumer is encouraged to waste energy (that he can get for free), food (that is subsidized by undervalued animal feed exports from across the globe) and consumer goods (that he gets for lower value, and that he trashes every other Christmas to buy new ones)
The US government strives to maintain the petrodollar monopoly. That is, it has to work to (a) prevent alternative energy sources from spreading across the world, which eat into the oil-market (b) prevent any oil producing country from pricing their oil in euros, or any other world currency. If needed, the internal politics of that country may be altered by regime change or military invasion.

It might be interesting to reflect that Saddam Hussein started selling Iraqi oil in Euros in 2000. This was revoked back to the US dollar after the Iraqi invasion, when western oil giants gained their lost foothold in Iraq. Currently, Venezuela and Iran are openly rebelling against the US dollar.

Solution : Energy Dollar Equivalence

All the three incentives that I described earlier will disappear if there is an equivalence between the mechanical notion of work (measured in physical units such as Mega Joules) and economic notion of remuneration (measured in dollars). In an industrialized society, most mechanical work will be done by automated machines that run on energy resources.

In today's world which is run mostly on oil, the notion of energy dollar equivalence translates into a fixed price for oil, or an oil standard for all the countries' economies. Who will be up for it ?

Every oil producing country in the world wants to have a fixed demarcated price for oil. This will help them plan for future oil explorations carefully. Countries which have unconventional oil resources such as Venezuela or Canada (with its tar sands) would welcome such an initiative.

Every oil consuming country would also welcome a fixed oil price : because the consumers will be protected against inflationary pressures and oil spikes.

Alternative energy industries (solar / nuclear) would support a fixed oil price too, because that would provide stable economic incentives for their development (incentives which work for the long term, so that their usually high capital costs can be safely repaid).

If there is a democratic vote, there will be a unanimous yes for a fixed oil price, ranging from the leftmost end to the rightmost end of the political spectrum.

That will however shatter the petrodollar relationship, and institutions dependent on that will be affected, such as the US Federal Reserve (despite its name, the Fed is a private institution run by certain corporations).

Occam's Razor vs Conspiration Theory

Since I am a computer scientist, I subject every theory to the occam's razor. In layman's terms, this means when there are multiple theories explaining a situation, we ought to prefer the simplest one (the one which makes the least number of assumptions). Most conspiracy theories fail in this test because they usually create extra variables which do not have sufficient data to support them.

For example : (1) 9-11 was an inside job (2) Iraq was invaded to preserve the petrodollar (3) Afghanistan was invaded to preserve poppy crop cultivation (4) Omar Torrijos, Olof Palme or Yitzhak Rabin were assassinated by the CIA. The problem with these theories is that they equate correlation with causation, and they do not have sufficient data to support their hypotheses.

But what I have mentioned in this post is not a conspiracy theory. The relation between US budget deficit and oil prices is well known. The relation between oil prices and commodity prices is well known. And several influential economists have estimated the high costs of the Iraqi war.

The petrodollar hypothesis for our economic woes might still be wrong, but it has a nice property. It is falsifiable. That is, we can experimentally test it - revoke the special petrodollar privilege of USA and measure the state of the world's economy.

The twin aspects of slavery

Slavery has existed since ancient times. Iron chains were used to bound the slaves, and any rebellion amongst slaves was punished by horrific means.

Let's keep the ethical and moral arguments aside, and check if there is any social need for slavery today. And the answer is no. Due to our technological advances in automation, every single mechanical and tiresome work can be automated. There are three areas with applications for computers, automation and robotics : (a) work in hazardous or dehumanized conditions - radioactive zones, sanitation, waste disposal.. (b) repetitive and boring work - fruit picking, agricultural labor, repetitive industrial labor.. (c) work requiring excessive mechanical energy - transport, construction..

If we see such chores still being performed by human beings, that is purely due to a conscious choice of our society. We do not need slaves, but we choose to have them.

Slavery as we know, has two aspects (1) the theft of human labor (2) the lack of choice of labor.

Though iron chains no longer exist to bound our necks, these twin aspects of slavery exist in subtle forms even in modern times.

(1) According to leftwings, human labor is stolen by existing social structures. According to righwings, human labor is stolen in the form of handouts by the welfare state. But beyond these two simplistic views, the biggest theft of human labor happens unnoticed : by financial crime and stock market crashes, the causes of which we have observed earlier.

(2) Most people take the lack of choice of work for granted. We human beings had a long and painful cultural history, and the lack of choice of work is etched onto our subconscious. So, we can measure the gravity of this problem only by the opportunity cost. We have no need to have dreadful and mechanical chores, but we still have them. Even supposedly creative professions such as research or art have strong pressures from the market. Musicians are bound to the dictates of the recording industry and sacrifice their creative freedom to keep their contracts. Researchers prefer short-term targets and applications because they need to publish and keep the research grants coming. Both these pressures are especially high when the artist/researcher is young. However, the biggest lack of choice comes on the eve of financial earthquakes : when all the research money disappears and aspiring scientists have to look for ordinary worker posts.

In fact, what is being enslaved is the human creative spirit. And the culprit is not capitalism, not the petrodollar, and not large corporations. It is our own fear.

Politics : the art of obfuscation

I hope that by now you acknowledge the existence of modern slavery. And may be, you have a few hints on how to eradicate it. Since this is a global problem affecting the economy and the environment of the entire world, it can only be solved at the global level. Participating in elections etc. in individual countries will not lead us to a solution. And the bad news is that we have absolutely no functional political institutions at the global level.

Let us look for inspiration on how our ancestors have earlier eradicated different forms of slavery.

Jesus has taught to love the fellow man as one's own brother. Buddha has taught the same thing in India. Some people were moved by these ethical exhortations, but slavery or caste system still remained.

In fact, physical slavery was never completely eradicated until the success of automation. Slaves were toiling in American fields till the 1860s.

Mahatma Gandhi has rebelled against racial discrimination in South Africa. He has agitated by non-cooperation and non-violence. He might have stirred the Indian independence movement, but colonialism perished only after the second world war. And racial apartheid continued in South Africa until the 1990s.

The interesting thing is that in both scenarios, normal people have accepted slavery as something without escape. If somebody rebelled against bad working conditions, he was told that other slave owners treat their slaves much worse.

Today, if Indian laborers ask for better wages in Dubai, they will be asked to leave the country. If Mexican visa applicants are ill-treated at US consulates, they accept it as a part of their Karma. But when he was asked to leave the first class whites-only compartment in a train in Durban, . Mahatma Gandhi did not accept it as his Karma. He started to think why.

This is what I would like all you people to think (especially immigrant workers in developed countries). Thoughts lead to ideas, and ideas lead to action. This is when we should be prepared for politics - the art of obfuscation.

In a democratic society, an existing social institution can prevent a threat not by actually destroying the opponent, but (1) by sustaining the illusion of normalcy amongst the populace (2) by creating sufficient confusion amongst the populace about the opponent (3) by keeping the opponent sufficiently divided.

A politician is a person who perfects this art of sowing confusion. For example, we are led to believe that there is an inherent dichotomy between liberty (as exemplified by libertarians) and equality (as exemplified by socialists). We are led to believe that there is an inherent dichotomy between our environment (as exemplified by Greens) and human well-being (as exemplified by free-market idealogues). Our first task should be to destroy such dichotomies.

There will be G20 discussions starting 2nd April, and there will be thousands marching in the streets of London demanding to end world's poverty, to save the environment, to cancel off the debt to poor nations etc.. There will be also be thousands who disdain these marchers, but at the same time complain about the financial crisis and handouts. What we need is an open dialogue between both people, and find common evils. We start from an issue that we agree on, and proceed from there.

If only every single marcher in London shouts "fixed price for oil", that would bring in faster change than anything else.

Bon Appetit, Indian Democracy

2009-03-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

Hello my friend and compatriot,

Come April and May, our country will be witnessing elections. 714 million voters will have to cast their votes out of a total population of 1 billion and 150 millions. This will make this the greatest democratic exercise in the history of mankind, ever.

We human beings have absolutely no mental conception for numbers of the order of one billion. I will help you visualize. How many are 1.15 billion people ? Well, let's say that I would like to shake hands with every Indian. Assuming that I line up all the Indians in a queue and shake their hands one by one, and assuming that a handshake takes 3 seconds, I will need 109.398 years to complete my job.

The thing is I don't have that much time.

So let's do something drastic. Let's stack Indians one on top of the other in a pipe. And then I send a radio signal from one end. Assuming that the average height of an Indian is 160 cm, and that we stack the Indians up in vacuum (because that is where light travels the fastest), I would need 6 seconds for my radio signal to reach the other end of the pipe.

That's more reasonable.

So what is my message ? Okay, I want you to remember this.

"Take it easy !"

Elections are overrated. Casting a vote is not the same as tying the knot in a wedding, so don't get too tensed up, alright ? Life goes on.

Well, now that we are past that important message, let me elaborate.

Imagine that you go to a restaurant to get your meal served, you expect basic courtesy and service from the waiter, right ? You expect him to lay down the table, give you the menu and look at you deferentially with a polite smile. And when you make up your mind, you expect him to take the order carefully in his notebook, answering any of your questions carefully if you didn't understand the items on the menu. Then, you expect the food to be prepared well in time, and be served to you in the most appetizing manner. Well, then you pay for the meal. And if you are happy with your meal, you appreciate the waiter and leave him a tip. Simple ? Precisely.

So, where were we ? Yes, elections. In a democracy, we have the honor of selecting the waiters for picking up our orders. We do it once every five years. So my advice is simple : just pick the most polite person, one that actually listens to you, and not one that treats you like you are a worm. Don't get too worried this step, or you will never get to eat anything.

It is the job of the waiter to note your orders. Do check if the waiter you picked is doing his job correctly. So here comes my first demand : (1) Every Member of the Indian Parliament (MP) has to hold a public internet forum where the demands of their constituents can be edited and displayed. To cater to constituents without internet access, every MP hires a team of journalists who interview the constituents and list their demands in the above website.

After the orders are noted down, the waiter should go to the kitchen and convey the information to the chef. In a democracy, this step is done by parliamentary debates. You want to be sure if the waiter is doing his job properly. Thus comes my second demand : (2) Every MP displays his attendance of the parliamentary sessions on his website, summarizes the proceedings of the sessions from his viewpoint, via text and video. At the end of every parliamentary season, each MP produces a thesis document, for evaluation on the progress of his tasks.

Then the chef actually starts to cook your meal, and you would be happy to know if he understood the waiter properly. In a democracy, the chef is called the executive. Here comes my third demand : (3) Every executive committee of India displays the plan and proceedings of its undertakings in an open and user-friendly format, with all geographical data superimposed on Google earth for better navigation. Such websites should be welcoming comments from the users. And whenever needed, each such website has a resident team of journalists who interview the users and note their comments on the plan.

Finally, the meal is cooked and arrives on your table. You expect the waiter to lay down the table, and serve you the meal with the utmost decorum. (4) Every MP should interact with the constituents and help them utilize the projects after completion. The opinion of the constituents should be noted down and published in a concise summary over the MP's website.

Then you happily finish your meal and proceed to pay. In politics, this process is called paying taxes, and is the least comfortable part of the whole experience. (5) The tax receipts of every single citizen should be put up for display, and the accounting of how every single paisa of that money is spent should be furnished with detail. It is the obligation of the MP to do this for the constituents.

Finally, if you are happy with the meal, you cast a benevolent gaze at the waiter and leave him a tip. (6) There will be a public voting held at the end of every year on the efficiency of MPs. This is done similar to the Indian Idol program with votes cast by cellphones. The best MPs are selected in various departments and they are given job perks.

See, digesting a democracy is not that difficult. I hope you are as convinced as I am. Here in India, we are living in a free country. So let's celebrate this. The way of doing that is by shouting. Just make sure that you are heard by as many people as possible. Stack the people up in a tube of vacuum if that's necessary (-:

I don't care what you have to say. You want your wife to get a free manicure every week ? Go for it. Shout it out ! You want the coconut tree be recognized as the official tree of India ? Good. Shout it out. You want mosquitoes to be exterminated from the face of earth ? Very good. You want to exterminate human beings ? Sure, oh wait, there is a problem. You don't exterminate human beings, that's outside the rule-book. (But please go ahead and shout so, if that makes you feel any better).

Why should Indians care about Afghans ?

2009-02-19T13:34:00.000-08:00

Because the Sarod originated from the Afghan Rubab.
Because Kabuliwala is one of the best stories penned by Tagore.
Because Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Dileep Kumar, Sanjay Khan and Fardeen Khan are all born in Afghan immigrant families.
Because stalwart musician families such as those of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan have come from Afghanistan.
Because Afghans have helped Netaji Subash Chandra Bose in his escape from the British, and in raising the Indian National Army.
Because sculptures in Hindu temples owe to the Gandhara tradition of Afghans.
Because Sher Shah Suri, the great reformer of India's administration, was an Afghan.
Because Maulana Abul Kalaam Azad, who ended communal electorates and shaped India's secularism, was born in an Afghan immigrant family.
Because the Pathan brothers are the pride of India's cricket team.
Because Bacha Khan was a most loyal friend, and a brother in spirit, of Mahatma Gandhi.

There is a large amount of apathy amongst educated Indians about what's going on in Afghanistan and in the Pashtun provinces of Pakistan. Many people look upon this conflict in communal terms, as a problem of Islamists, which is very unfortunate. Innocent people are being murdered here by the fundamentalist Taliban, or by the Pakistani or American armies. Journalists, secular politicians and educated people are specifically being targeted. Afghan people are trapped in a nefarious network of religious extremists, drug mafia and geopolitical actors.

Whatever aspirations that Afghans have about peace, democracy or prosperity are being crushed under the weight of this misfortune. Indians need to be aware of this problem, and should stand in solidarity with the Afghan people.

Shattered over the Internet

2009-02-02T12:45:00.000-08:00

I hate buffet dinners. I get frantically confused when I am presented with an empty plate and a dozen dishes to pick from. I make the trivial choice - that is, I choose them all.

I put a tiny bit of each dish onto my plate. Quite usually, the plate is too small to hold all of them. Nevertheless, I manage to make room. The sauce of each dish slowly seeps into the rest, and the boundaries between the dishes become fuzzy.

When I start eating, I have no idea on what order to follow. I apply the round-robin algorithm - which is to say, I pick each dish by turns. After the first round is completed, I have a vague idea of what each dish is. But by now, all the sauces will have mixed up and formed a composite mixture : which is at the same time, sweet and sour, creamy and tangy, and bitter and salty.

I gobble this primordial soup in big gulps, and feel full in the stomach. But there remains the nasty feeling that I haven't eaten anything at all.

I made a very annoying observation today : that I am living an entire life which is equivalent to eating a buffet dinner. The culprit, since we always want to push the blame onto something else, is the internet.

Let me explain. The easiest example I can provide is that of browsing. Here comes the first confession. I am addicted to news websites. I keep checking them every minute and a half, just to keep myself abreast of the happenings in the world. It is almost as if the world would not function without me being aware of it. When I don't check the news for a long time (that is to say ten minutes), I feel as positively guilty as Atlas would have felt when he gave up his burden of carrying the world to Hercules.

Then comes my annoying habit of leaving comments on blogs. When I don't leave a comment, I get as restless as a dog which hasn't relieved itself.

Third comes my commitment to checking emails. Depending on the time of the day, I can survive from between five minutes to half an hour, without looking at my inbox. And I suffer from an odd feeling of loneliness when I find my inbox empty. To avoid this, I subscribe to several mailing lists (each of which I despise from the bottom of my heart) so that they can fill up my inbox as flowers (or cactuses) in a garden. However, these are not sufficient to fill up my inbox as rapidly as I need . So I also spend considerable amount of time looking at the spam folder.

Fortunately, I am not addicted to the curse of chatting with friends online. But if I were, I think this would have come fourth in the list.

Instead, the fourth addiction happens to be the browsing of wikipedia. Over the years, I have diligently swollen my head with several mega-bytes of wikipedia text. Usually, the wikipedia browsing occurs in tandem with checking for news. No person, place or activity mentioned on a news website will escape my referring to wikipedia to complement that information.

All these activities have transformed me into a new cyber-being which should be called me 2.0

If one might imagine the length of the day as an empty plate, me 2.0 fills it up with several hundreds of thousands of dishes : sweet and sour, creamy and tangy, and bitter and salty. In the end, me 2.0 feels full in the stomach. But there remains a nasty feeling, that me 2.0 has done nothing at all during the day.

In fact, this nasty feeling is very much the reality. The productivity of my work has drastically went down over the years.

However, the story is not just about work. My friends have transformed into their new cyber-version called friends 2.0. These days, most of my communication to friends happens via status messages on Facebook or via commenting on the status messages of others. My 2D circle of friends has evolved into a rapidly morphing 3D sphere where new objects dash in and fade away at lightning speeds. Nowhere is it more obvious than with the opposite sex. The amount of time that I stay interested in a girl (without actually beginning a relationship) has diminished exponentially.

Even with old friends who existed before web 2.0, I find myself communicating in odd packets of messages. I might chat utter junk for hours with someone, but serious issues such as wishing a dear friend on his wedding get condensed into one-liner emails ending with a smiley.

The same odd feeling permeates my communication with my parents and loved ones. If there exists a part of the brain which specializes in the prioritization of affairs, that little part of my brain is seriously in need of help (or more likely, in need of total replacement).

What is happening to me can only be described as an assault on my senses. I am bedazzled and boondangled by the amount of information that is thrust onto me. I have absolutely no clue on how to divide my finite attention span amongst the infinite. What worries me to the bone is that this is only going to get worse in the future. The technologies of the internet and virtual reality are growing at an exponential pace, and the processing power of the human brain has remained static.

In the good old days, which I can still recollect from my childhood (and that was barely ten to fifteen years ago), news is read in the morning in the papers, mail arrived by the post once a day (or once a month in the form of comic books, for the kid that I was), and knowledge is accumulated by reading books. Oh, how much I long for those days ! The duration of a day was divided as a nicely prepared meal of several courses.

But this is true no longer. Welcome to Buffet Lifestyle 2.0

We are desperately in need of a new thinking to channel our energies and to realize our potentials : in a new world that offers infinite possibilities for each one of us.

Lest anybody forgets

2009-01-30T11:22:00.000-08:00

61 years ago, a Hindutva nationalist fired his bullets on Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhiji undertook a fast unto death demanding that Rs. 55 crore be rightfully given to Pakistan, that were withheld by the Indian government.

Pakistan was at that time under armed confrontation with India, sending its troops to occupy Kashmir.

Indian leaders tried to plead Gandhiji, saying that Pakistan will put that money to bad use, and intensify its warfare against India. Gandhiji didn't budge. He didn't stop his fast until the Indian government released the money to Pakistan, and until the leaders of both the Hindutva and Islamist movements personally promised him to lay down their arms.

Gandhiji didn't undertake his fast for the sake of Pakistan, whose creation he vehemently opposed. He undertook it to preserve the very soul of India.

Gandhiji didn't die on his fast, and he didn't die on the day Nathuram pulled his trigger.

Gandhiji will die on the day when Indians forget the very principles that drove this loin-clothed man from Gujarat onwards his idealistic journey towards freedom and brotherhood of man.

As Tagore has immortalized in "Ekla Chalo Re", the journey that the Mahatma began will not finish as long as there are people who are not afraid to walk alone.

Fresh water crisis - The forgotten battle of environmentalists

2009-01-26T15:13:00.001-08:00

Karen Street has encouraged me to write on the fresh water crisis, and has kindly hosted the post on her blog.

... Water conservation and prevention of water pollution were one of the earliest battles of environmentalists - much before climate change was ever heard of. Though they have become the green equivalents of 80s fashion, these battles are as relevant today as they were ever. In fact, fresh water is the most important battle in the war against global warming.

Fresh water is the elixir of life. The entire bio eco-system is based on this. Any minor disturbances to the supply of fresh water will have catastrophic impacts on biodiversity. The scariest effects of climate change are not rising sea levels or massive tornadoes, as exemplified by films such as The Day after Tomorrow. Scary though they might be, there are scarier problems : desertification of rainforests, severe droughts, drying river beds due to melting glaciers...

Karen has helped me a lot in the writing, in proof reading the essay, and in searching for the right images to explain the story. Thanks a bunch, Karen, for all the motivation you gave me.

Karen is a committed environmentalist, and writes very informative essays on the climate change problem. I hope you people visit her blog to learn more about these pressing issues.

Skills of debating

2009-01-21T13:48:00.000-08:00

I don't know if there is a text on the art of debating. This is a very interesting discipline. Let me list a few strategies that can be used in a debate. Please remember that any weapon can be used for the good or for the bad, depending on the wielder.

I am not talking of the list of logical fallacies, which are a primer for any debater, and should be quickly identified if the opponent resorts to any of them. I am also not talking of the arts of sophistry, rhetoric, evading information and the diversion of attention (also known as politician-speak).

In this post, I will write on some sublime strategies for winning a debate against worthy adversaries.

1) The principle of least information revelation :

This is probably the most important tactic in debating. One should not reveal more information than is necessary for the debate in question. Any unnecessary information can be contested and important time will be lost. One should never give the opponent a chance to stereotype oneself. Revealing more information than necessary will permit the opponent to brand one as an extremist, or to divert the attention on unrelated issues.

2) The battle for the middleground :

The debater should make an attempt to rephrase the opponent's views. This will convince the audience that the opponent is being listened to. The primary battle in any debate is to capture the middleground. Any attack from the middleground will be more vicious than usual.

3) The art of providing examples :

The debater who can provide a right example to elucidate or summarize the scenario gets a huge bonus in the fight. This technique is an art, and gets better with practice.

4) Accession to a wrong strongpoint :

To weaken the opponent's argument, the debater should concede to a faulty strongpoint in it. This would project a false win for the opponent, and divert the attention from the more vicious strongpoint.

The debater would essentially set the language in which the debate is conducted.

5) Invitation of attack on a wrong weakpoint :

It is important to waste the opponent's energy in the battle. And more time spent on a wrong weakpoint of a debater, means less time spent on a real weakpoint. So the opponent should be lured into attacking a wrong weakpoint.

6) Identification of the unpreventable :

If there is an issue that the opponent opposes, but which happens as an inevitable consequence of a host of other issues unrelated to the debate, it has to be identified at the earliest. Such an issue will make the opponent lose credibility. Even though the debate is not actually won, such a pseudo-win will make the debater look good.

7) Juicy trail for the opponent's escape :

The debater should actively lay down a trail for the opponent to escape from the debate. No opponent will succumb to a painful death in a debate. Most debates are won when the opponent escapes, as in "I will have to read on this and get back to you", "This looks very interesting, I am not aware of this" or "I know you are wrong, but cannot tell you why". Such escapes should be accepted graciously, and the opponent should be thanked for escaping ('Thank you. We can discuss more on that later'). In fact, the debater should lay down juicy morcels all along the escape route, so as to lure the opponent.

8) Identification of inconsistency :

When the opponent makes mutually inconsistent claims, this should be identified immediately. Such an exposé would be deadly to the opponent, more so than a revelation that an opponent's claim is false.

9) Projection of the image of cool :

One need not always keep one's cool in a debate, but one should definitely project one's cool to the audience. Voice should be raised only most sparingly, only to stress certain phrases amidst a monologue.

The personality of the opponent should be held distinct from his viewpoint, and the former should always be shown the utmost respect. Never should the audience be given the impression that the opponent is shouted down.

Nightmare in Swat

2009-01-08T08:26:00.001-08:00

I wish to draw people's attention to the plight of innocent villagers in Swat. This beautiful place has been facing an unending nightmare for several months. After Mumbai, I hope everybody realizes that terror holds no borders : the horror of one innocent human being is the horror of entire humanity.

Letter from Swat

The main town of Swat, Mingora, has now virtually fallen to the militants. The police are escorted by army officials and come out from their ‘hide-outs’ only for a couple of hours. One of the busiest squares, Grain chowk, was renamed by the shopkeepers as ‘Khooni chowk’ because when they come to their shops in the morning on each day they find four or five dead bodies hung over the poles or the trees. They see dead bodies scattered along the foot path in the morning. The bodies are usually headless. The practice goes thus with an average of four deaths daily in the square. Similarly on each morning there are found bodies with their throats slit in Qambar, Kabal, Matta, Khawza Khela and Charbagh. This practice has been going on for weeks; and unfortunately does not seem to stop.

Jan 15 is the deadline set by the militants to close all schools, especially those of girls. As the deadline approaches people are getting more and more terrified. The government’s writ is all but absent. Nazims have been killed, women are not allowed to visit bazaars (which are deserted), NGOs have stopped working and children play a ‘Fauji Taliban’ game. The people live a miserable life in the cold. Most bridges have been damaged and beyond the main town phones have been dead for months. Most people live in darkness at night because the fighting has badly affected the power infrastructure as well.

Curfew is imposed constraining the people inside for days on end. And security forces personnel sometimes fire indiscriminately. The residents can do nothing – they cannot protest against the high-handedness of the military or stand up to the militants. The Taliban gain from strength to strength, partly aided by the use of FM radio. Various checkposts set up by the security forces seem to be no little use. Scores of militants entered Kalam last week in spite of six checkposts set up from from Bagh Dahri to Bahrain. It is quite clear that for now the victors in the war are the Taliban – and the losers the people of Swat.

But who cares about that in the rest of the country. The government seems too busy dealing with the aftermath of the Mumbai carnage. That said, the predicament of the people of Swat is worse than even of the people of Gaza. In Gaza the enemy is well known but in Swat the people know not who the enemy is and whom to hold responsible.

The civil society of any country is regarded as a great force to mobilize the general public against the violation of civil rights and liberty. It is considered as a bulwark against the violation of human rights. It is deemed as the upholder of people’s rights where the state fails to deliver. Its mettle was tested in the lawyers’ movement but we in Swat wonder why it is silent now? We hear no voice raise against the atrocities committed in Swat. No civil society organization has its voice against the plight of the women and children in Swat. We have not seen a single demonstration in the big cities against the monster of militancy in Swat, or in FATA for that matter. The media also seems apathetic about the plight. The print media does well to some extent but their scope is limited.

The people of Swat ask you to come out on their behalf and mobilize the general public against the war tearing the valley. We implore you to come out of your drawing rooms and stage protests so that the government does something about our plight.

The author is Zubair Torwali, from KhyberWatch.

Recipé for building strong politics

2008-12-26T13:19:00.000-08:00

A strong leader does not make a strong nation. A strong people do.

What do we mean by strong people ? A society of citizens where every individual is strong and has his voice heard and respected. In other words, what we need are strong politics.

From Kashmir to Afghanistan and from Pakistan to India, I hope my message reaches every thinking person who is patriotic for his motherland.

When a random young person is asked about the biggest problem facing the country, he replies without blinking "corrupt politicians". And the solution to this problem is equally simplistic - "Good people should get into politics", "We need strong leaders". Unfortunately in real life, nothing is black and white. There are no absolute good people. Every person is a little bad. Depending on people, the badness ranges from moderate to extreme.

In such an unsure world, it is always better to postpone our judgement. We should trust that together, we will find a solution in the future. The art of doing this is called politics.

The word civilization comes from the Latin word civitas meaning a city. When you have a lot of people living together in a city, there are bound to be disputes and disagreements. But for the success of a civilization, the basic requirement is to avoid conflict - to ensure that these disagreements do not result in violence, and that they are settled in a civilized manner with the utmost respect to human dignity. This is the ultimate objective of politics (coming from the Greek word polis meaning a city) : to ensure that nobody resorts to violence on any grievance.

Thus having defined our objective, what can we do to bring in strong politics ?

There are two principal requirements, and the entire public needs to participate in both of them, as I will explain in detail.

1) We need to respect the facts :

We are all entitled to our opinions, but not to our own facts. The facts are the common meeting ground for any dispute, and they have to be investigated objectively and independently. This is usually the work of journalists, scientists and media watch-dogs. The facts also need to be transparent and open for the entire public. In today's world, the facts pertaining to any dispute can be displayed over the world-wide-web.

Sometimes, a complete inspection of facts is sufficient to resolve a dispute. For example, imagine that we want to construct a bridge that offers the best value for money. What we need to do is to select the best design amidst competing bidders. When all these records are public, independent investigators can validate whether the government has indeed done the right job.

As another example, consider the global warming problem. In science, we develop a theory that best explains the facts. For anything that has not been validated, we need to cultivate scepticism. The art of doubting (what is explained by facts and what isn't) is the main driving force of science. Today, there is a scientific consensus (with more than 90% scientists agreeing) that global warming is happening and that it is extremely dangerous for the future of the planet. In such an issue, the government should listen to people who are competent in reaching this judgement. Again, all the facts are transparent and open for the entire public.

2) We need a left, and we need a right :

But facts are not sufficient to resolve every kind of dispute. There are disputes which require finer levels of judgement and which appeal to the collective mores and ethics of the society. On such issues, most people don't have a fixed opinion and stand in the middle. This is where politics gets interesting.

A good example is the Indo-US nuclear deal. True, there were lots of half-facts and lies that were tossed about in the parliament. And these can be eliminated by a thorough fact-check as I have advocated earlier. But even after this, there are bound to be divided opinions on whether nuclear power is essential for the country or not, or whether a strategic partnership with USA is good for the country or not. If you read the other posts in my blog, you will know that I strongly support nuclear power. But this is a judgement that I do not want to impose on the society. On such a matter, I will agree to go with the collective mores and ethics of the society as represented by a majority vote.

Another very good example is the human rights of homosexual people. I think that no person should be discriminated based on his/her caste, religion or sexual preferences. But some people do not think exactly like me. Even though we cannot agree on this topic today, we should trust that we will reach a solution in the future. This comes from my belief in politics : we need to be patient and mutually respectful of each other. Barack Obama has mentioned a very good similar example in his historic speech on race : the US constitution was tainted with the original sin of slavery. But the very constitution had provisions to reach a mutual judgement to abolish slavery, as people did at a later time.

In reality, there are a huge number of similar political issues : Should we have a common civil law for every Indian citizen or have laws based on religion ? Should we have a strong central government or strong provincial governments ? Should the government control banks or leave them completely deregulated ? Should the defence budget be decreased for spending on education ? Should women have a right to abortion or not ?

A strong politics would ensure that every single individual has his voice heard and presented in these debates. This means that there has to be a political current that represents each of these positions, and which presents them with character. As Voltaire has said, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". This is the responsibility that we owe to every fellow citizen.

Do we have strong politics in our country ? Absolutely not.

Opportunism has become the rule of politics. Communist parties rub shoulders with Islamist parties on opposing the US imperialism which they see as a joint evil. The right wing Hindutva parties rub shoulders with socialist Janata Dal to grab power. None of this makes any sense whatsoever.

So here I propose a clear distinction of left and right, which we need for bringing in strong politics. These are related to be innate human desires of "drawing together" (left) and "having an individual space" (right) - both of which are obvious in any human relationship. These left and right parties are expected to complement each other, and serve as the yin for the other's yang.

Needed - Right wing with a character :

To support individual freedoms, including the right to possessions.
To reduce the size of the government.
To preserve the identity and ensure the authenticity of a race, religion or language. (Michel Serres argues that these loyalties are related to the oral, writing and printing eras of human society respectively. Thus, language-based loyalties ought to be more respected than other loyalties).
To ensure that native populations have priorities over immigrants.
To ensure proper defence of the society, and protection of its citizens.
To ensure that the government is extremely federalized, with maximum control at provinces.

Needed - Left wing with a character :

To ensure that all basic human rights are respected, as mentioned in the universal declaration of human rights.
To ensure that there is a minimum wage for every person.
To ensure that every person achieves basic requirements on education, health and nutrition.
To ensure that the society permeates a spirit of tolerance for religious, cultural and sexual minorities.
To prevent war and ensure that peaceful dialogue is attempted before drastic measures are taken.
To increase the size of the federal government and provide it with the necessary funds to oversee these obligations.

From the very nature of these parties, it can be noticed that the objectives of the left are antagonistic to the objectives of the right (and vice-versa). Every political problem needs to be a trade-off between the two. As people, we need to explicitly recognize these contradictory requirements and evolve a collective societal judgement and ethic.

The right wing is a "local" party which targets the interests of each region and group of people. Such a party is difficult to be formed at a federal level. The left wing is a "global" party which speaks out on the common brotherhood of man. They are difficult to be formed at a provincial level. To ensure a strong politics, we need to have a thorough representation of both these political currents - both at the provincial and federal levels.

The practical way to achieve this : Make every political party list explicitly whether it stands for right-wing objectives or left-wing objectives. Let the party split if the members disagree on the nature of their work. When forming coalition parties either at the federal or at the provincial level, we need to ensure that it is either a left-wing coalition or a right-wing coalition. This kind of binary nature of coalitions also eliminates political opportunism and the uncertainites of having a hung parliament.

To ensure that a real debate is made and heard, a few members of the opposite-wing should be accomodated into the government as a good-will gesture. This is already a common practice in several western countries.

I would like to conclude with two finishing remarks. Firstly, being part of a federal union (such as the Indian Union or the European Union) has distinct advantages for the nurturing of a democracy, as it explicitly encourages the formation of a strong left-wing party devoid of any particular nationalism. However, the right wing parties tend to be very fragmented, and this could inhibit economic growth. Secondly, terrorism is often an unholy mixture of the right and left wing ideas into one single ideology (the left-wing idea of a prophet merged with the right-wing idea of a king, who has used the religion of the prophet as a conquering device).

Anatomy of Terrorism

2008-12-09T14:38:00.000-08:00

When somebody commits a rape, or a murder in cold blood, do we ponder about the reasons why he did that ? Do we worry about the socio-political reasons, or economic reasons behind the crime ? No.

Then, why is it that people break their heads over the reasons behind terrorist acts ? Several intelligent and well-meaning people are linking the Mumbai murders with the Kashmir issue, Muslim subjugation in India and so on.

This is all nonsense. The reason is simple and plain. A person who killed innocent civilians in cold blood did that because he found pleasure in doing that. There are some people like that twisted in the brain; we should accept this fact. There will always be paedophiles on this planet. Likewise, there will always be serial killers and rapists. And there will always be terrorists.

We can sure try to understand what motivated them for their crimes. At the core of their beliefs, all criminals feel they are victims. "Oh poor little me. The world is out against me.", is how any criminal thinks. This thinking is an elaborate ploy to erase their conscience - if it exists, before they proceed with the pleasure of murdering other people.

No, the question that we need to ask is not "What is the motivation behind a terrorist act ?", but "How come murderous people like these get the guns, money and political backing to carry their games ? ". Let me answer this question in this post.

When treated on an individual by individual basis, human society will never accept the pleasure of murdering, raping and pillaging other human beings as the right of a person. However, these acts get a social acceptance when it is thought that

There is a group that is entirely pure, virtuous and shining.
This group is being oppressed and violently being subjugated.

A chillingly vast majority of people actually subscribe to these simplistic black-and-white combo of (1) and (2). Not all of them will do murders, obviously. The actual acts will only be commited by a special few - who actually take pleasure in the murder of other human beings. But by believing in (1) and (2), an enormous section of people are willing to turn a blind eye on their consciences. This mixture of (1) and (2) is a poisonous addictive drug that consumes the soul of a human being.

I will give you a few examples to justify my theory.

In Nazi germany, it was thought that (1) the Nordic race is pure and shining (2) this race is being humiliated in the world in various forms. This heady mixture of ideas soon consumed an entire country, and precipitated the second world war, and the holocaust of Jews. Not every German person did murder obviously, these acts were only commited by a select few individuals - which are present in all human societies. But the rest of the population gave power, guns and political backing to them.
In the Bolshevik revolution (or during the French revolution), people are led to believe that (1) only the working class is pure and honest, the rest are a bunch of thieves and cronies (2) the working class is being oppressed. This led people to actually murder the royals and feudal lords, including women and children. Again, the actual murders were commited by a select few people. The rest gave them power and guns.
In most of the independence movements (or separatist movements, depending on how you think) around the world, violent agitators subscribe that (1) their country is pure and virtuous, and that the occupiers are filthy and (2) their country is being oppressed.

Neither (1) or (2) are sufficient by themselves to provide social justification for murder, but taken together they do a very good job. For example,

During the civil rights movement, the Black people acknowledged that (2) they were oppressed. But they did not necessarily think that (1) they are pure and virtuous, to the exclusion of other people. This is the reason the civil rights movement maintained a dignity and proceded by non-violent means.
A lot of people still harbour racist feelings thinking (1) that their community is the best and most influential. But they don't necessarily think that (2) that community is being oppressed.
A lot of scientists think that they are (1) an elite class, at a level above the others. But they don't think (2) they are being oppressed as a community.
Indian independence movement was a hugely non-violent effort because even though (2) people thought they were being oppressed by the British, they did not think that (1) Indian culture was the best and the purest in the world. In fact, most of the freedom fighters were very open and welcoming to western culture. (A few groups did hate western influences, and these groups used violent means).
The Tibetan movement (atleast the majority headed under Dalai Lama) thinks that (2) they are being oppressed by the Chinese but they do not think that (1) their religion is the only truth or that their people are superior to the Chinese people.

Now coming down to specifics, I am quite terrified of two ideas that are increasingly gaining mainstream acceptance in India.

There is a large section of Muslims who believe that (1) Islam is the only path to God, and that every other religion is a falsehood (2) Muslims are being oppressed in the world. I don't find fault with either (1) or (2) - though both of these appear quite simplistic and silly to any intelligent person. But put together, they are as lethal as RDX.
There is a growing section of Hindus who think that (1) Hindu land is the fountain of all culture and civilization in the world - atom bombs, space ships etc were all invented by ancient Indians (2) Hindus were slaughtered throughout history by Muslims and continue to be oppressed. Either (1) or (2) is an intellectually shallow argument. But put together, they can result in the rape of Christian nuns, or in the murder of Muslim shopkeepers.

Of course, these are not the only set of dangerous ideas in India. Often, there are racist idealogues who think the Thakur-race/Kashmiri-race/Naga-race is superior to the Harijan-race/Hindu-race/Indian-race.

Whatever be the idealogy, there are huge media networks which publicize this type of information. Often, they put graphic images and videos to show how brutal the oppression is. They evoke images of young innocent girls getting raped, or pregnant mothers getting their bellies torn open. At the same vein, these people propagandize about how glorious and pure their religion/race is.

These media networks are not illegal. In fact, they are free to publicise in mosques, temples and even schools. In today's internet era, there are a huge number of blogs / youtube channels which do this propaganda. None of the people who do this propaganda are poor or uneducated. They are all talented and successful people, who are just addicted to a drug of black-and-white.

This type of propaganda is nothing short of an indictment to murder. So the next time I hear the dual propaganda of Muslims as a community being oppressed and Muslims being the purest religion, I will face the propagandist with my complaint. I will act similarly if I hear the same from a Hindutva propagandist.

Though rare, some of these rich and educated people who do propaganda might even be itching for some real blood. A high ranking professional working for Yahoo in Bangalore became a key planner for the Indian Mujahideen terrorist group. Ayman al Jawahari was working as a qualified doctor in Egypt, before he became an Al Qaeda chief. Any successful terrorist operation (the recent Mumbai carnage included) has several extremely intelligent , rich and qualified individuals behind the operations table.

However, the actual foot soldiers who murder people (and usually get killed by police) do not come from rich families. A rich person would never waste his precious life away for a minor thing - killing a dozen people that he hates. The actual terrorists come from poor families, with limited education opportunities. They usually have personal problems - like a failed love affair.

But most importantly, both rich and poor, these guys take pleasure in murder. Their brains are twisted.

Under normal circumstances, such a twisted brain is not dangerous. But under these special circumstances of propaganda drugs, such a person has no barriers of conscience to overcome. Such a person readily finds guns, money, political backing and social acceptance to carry out his secret games of pleasure.

And these games of pleasure will shatter families, will break the hearts of several loved ones, and will make us lose several caring, pious or creative human beings.

What can we do ?

We can never eradicate such people. So it is always good to be prepared.
We can reduce the pool of suicidal recruits, by removing poverty and illiteracy (though this is a huge task)
We can actively look for hate speech of the (1)+(2) mixture that I talked about. We can try making this type of propaganda illegal. Or if we do not want to sacrifice free speech, make this hate speech conditional to continuous police surveillance of the person who makes this speech.
We can try to have democratic governments - which act as a nice filter to eliminate these kind of twisted people from capturing political power.
We make the army and police swear total alleigance to the people of the nation, and never should they think they are superior to the civilian citizens. We monitor for people of the "twisted brain" syndrome before we present them with any weapons.

Irrespective of our individual differences or ideologies (whether one is a fundamentalist Hindu or a fundamentalist Muslim, whether one is a patriotic Indian or a patriotic Pakistani, whether one is a Communist or a Libertarian), we should make a commitment to all these 5 steps. Otherwise there is no future for any ideology, because the future of our very humanity is at stake.

Deccan Mujahideen from Faridkot

2008-12-07T05:01:00.000-08:00

So now we know where that bad Hyderabadi accent comes from. The Guardian Observer has identified the family and home town of the lone captured terrorist from the Mumbai attacks.

I hope the Pakistani government stops acting like a defence lawyer of the terrorists, and treats with attention whatever clues are provided by the Indian intelligence agencies. After all, closing down terrorist camps and those hate-breeding religious schools is for the own good of Pakistan.

A bomb has exploded in the Peshawar market and killed 27 people, clearly a result of the tribal warfare fueled by these kind of terrorist camps. Apparently, the locals at Peshawar are suspecting Indian involvement. I hope somebody reads my earlier post, to understand what India actually thinks of Pashtuns.

If all it takes is one prank call to let nuclear tensions run loose, then every single person in the subcontinent should be deeply worried. Let's all hope that sense and sanity prevails.

Long Live Pashtunistan

2008-12-04T14:52:00.000-08:00

Earlier in my blog, I offered my respect to the Kashmiri people and to their right to unity and self-determination. In today's post, I would like to pay my respects to another brave people who also suffered a lot - the Pashtuns.

The history of Pashtuns is written in valor and heroism. Their fierce independence and love for freedom were mentioned in the most ancient texts, including the Rig Veda and the Mahabharata. Never surrendering to any empire or army, these people always maintained independent tribal republics. Even the mighty Alexander could not annex their lands. As chronicled by Megasthenes, his army fought a fierce battle with the Assakenoi (Ashvaganas / Afghans). Instead of accepting defeat, entire tribes (including women) took to arms and sacrificed their lives. Their feat is as stirring as that of the 300 Spartan warriors of Leonidas. One of the reasons why Alexander didn't cross the Indus river is because of the fear these warriors put into the hearts of the Greek soldiers.

Coming to modern times, even the greatest empire in history - the British empire could not succeed in occupying the Afghan lands. Afghanistan remained a sovereign state since the early 1700s, making it the most ancient sovereign state in this region of the world.

Pashtuns, with their love for freedom and their gratitude to loyalty and honesty, are an inspiration to people everywhere in the world. A few of these valiant people settled in India, called Pathans, always known for their big generous hearts.

Pashtuns love music, and a lot of famous singers and artists in the Indian subcontinent come from this region. Several ancient Indian / Iranian mathematicians and scientists originated from Gandhara (Kandahar) and Balkh.

All this history stands in stark contrast to the way media portrays Pashtuns today - as medieval tribal warriors. This portrayal comes in handy for two souces - the NATO forces fighting them in Kandahar and the Pakistani forces fighting them in Waziristan. Why did Pashtuns get dragged into this warfare is a sad story.

It begins with a betrayal. And it is we Indians (precisely Nehru) who have to suffer the blame of backstabbing Pashtuns.

Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan (fondly known as Bacha Khan) was the most inspiring freedom fighter from the Pashtun region. A devout Muslim, and also a staunch Gandhian who abrogated violence, he inspired the entire Pashtun community to stand up to the British. He said, "I am going to give you such a weapon that the police and the army will not be able to stand against it. It is the weapon of the Prophet, but you are not aware of it. That weapon is patience and righteousness. No power on earth can stand against it." He was known as the frontier Gandhi and his followers were known as the Khudai-khidmatgars (servants of God).

As the idea of partitioning India was picking up steam, Bacha Khan firmly opposed it and remained staunchly secular. He didn't want Pashtun provinces to become part of an Islamic Pakistan. At the urgency of independence, and at the threat of religious violence between Hindus and Muslims, Gandhi and Nehru have forced Bacha Khan to agree to the merger with Pakistan. Bacha Khan moaned to Gandhi, "You have thrown us to the wolves". After the merger, Bacha Khan was labeled an enemy of Islam and imprisoned several times. His followers were carefully decimated by the opponents with support from Islamabad. Military generals such as Zia-ul-Haq have taken advantage of the illiteracy and backwardness of the region, and appointed religious fundamentalists as leaders.

The second part of the story began with the attack of Afghanistan by the Soviet troops. Seeing their brothers dying across the border, many Pashtuns took to arms. Taking advantage of the situation, USA and Pakistan funded this war and supplied them with weapons and missiles. As the superpowers played their colonial chess games, ordinary Pashtuns died in large numbers. War and violence have further eroded the spirit of Pashtuns. Illiteracy and economic backwardness became rife.

The third and final part of the story was the infiltration of the Pashtun lands with Arab fighters. First arrived to fight the Soviets, these militants then started to use the lands of their hosts against new enemies - the USA. The stationing of US troops on Saudi soil, became the reason of hatred for one Osama bin Laden. He abused the hospitality of his hosts by using Afghanistan to hatch terrorist plots, which serve the purpose of no Afghan citizen. After the 9-11, the USA started bombing the Afghan lands killing Pashtuns in large numbers, but still unable to locate the main culprit.

The spirit of Bacha Khan seems so far away, and we are left to wonder what happened to the Khudai-khidmatgars ! The brave Pashtun people are left with no strong leader and are being made to fight foreign wars - against India and against USA, by cowardly people behind the scenes. This has to stop. Indians have to reaffirm their love and respect for the Pashtun people. The Americans should attempt to understand their fierce love for freedom, and stop a war which they can never win.

When will Pashtuns stop fighting foreign wars, funded by cowardly people from the back ? When will Pashtuns see a return to peace and prosperity ?

I wish the Pashtuns the same thing I wished for the Kashmiris - an affirmation of their self-respect and dignity, an end to the murder of their race, and a tearing down of the artificial walls which seperate brothers.

How to live with urban terrorism

2008-11-28T04:36:00.001-08:00

India is at war. And the enemy is inside.

The notion of warfare in modern times has changed rapidly. Large scale battles between neighboring countries will happen much less, because these might degenerate into the use of nuclear weapons.

More collateral damage can be inflicted by terrorist attacks, and this can be targeted to specific high-profile locations and personalities. We will continue to see an upswing of these form of attacks.

The defence spending of the country should be changed to suit this reality. We should allocate a lot more portion of our funds to anti-terrorist squads, and they should explicitly be made part of the army.

It is easy to say can root out terrorism and flush out all the terrorists, but it is much more difficult to do that. This is a sensitive issue, and has to be done without any specific community feeling victimized. Increased espionage and a very efficient intelligence mechanism will help. But they are not foolproof.

In this post, I would like to mention a few measures that we need to adopt, to prevent the kind of attacks that we have seen in Mumbai (and in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Delhi and Bangalore).

The Mumbai coastline was quite vulnerable. There has to be an increase of naval check-points, particularly around our harbors. Each ship / boat should be made to pass through at least two such checkpoints.
All major road and railways coming to the city should be subjected to such checkpoints.
Major traffic cross-roads should have automatic alarm systems : these junctions should be sealed off in the case of an emergency. The response latency to alerts should be brought down to the bare minimum possible.
There should be an increase of numbers in the reserve civilian police, which can react to such situations.
The water supply system should be subject to severe monitoring and double-checks.
The public transport infrastructure (particularly commuter trains) should have more intensive checks and inspections.
Periodic inspections need to be done by dedicated squad members for the detection and disposal of bombs in public markets and crossroads.

These measures are necessary to prevent large scale collateral damage in urban terrorist attacks.

The Case for God

2008-10-05T10:08:00.000-07:00

Does God exist ?

A very loaded question. People have very strong opinions on this subject, and they will not like you for being lectured. However, I will take this risk and write on this topic today. Please treat me kindly.

Till very recently, my position on the question of God's existence could be termed "nihilistic". A nihilist is a person who doesn't care. God doesn't exist ? Okay. What matters is that there is a reason behind everything. And life and nature are so lovely, we don't have to care about God. God exists ? Cool. But then, he has some explanation to do.

I have been quite happy with my position. I was raised in a family which encouraged me to question everything and have a rationalistic and scientific view of life. We were not religious, and we were definitely not into religious custom.

I was never an atheist - a person who strongly believes that God doesn't exist. To prove that something doesn't exist, you should first know what it is. The concept of God seemed so unimportant to me that I didn't want to spend time disproving all its attributes.

I did agree with several atheistic points : such as that God doesn't have anything to do with the origin of man (I go with the theory of evolution), the creation of earth and the elements (I go with the big bang theory) etc. In general, I have suspected (and do suspect now) God as a hypothetical being which is created as a ready-made answer for all the questions by lazy people who don't want to think. For this reason, I have been hostile to the idea of God, even though I wouldn't want to call myself an atheist.

There were times in my life, when I experimented with alternate positions.

In my childhood, I once actively engaged myself with believing in God : God is this guy who is playing a game with you, something like blindman's buff. It was my task to discover who it was, by tricking him to have a conversation with me. For example, I did something nice, and checked what God gives me in return. It was a nice game, but I was soon tired of this.

Then , sometime in my adolescence, I have been fascinated by Mathematics. I thought that if God exists, this should be proven. Not by some strange or weird thing that happens occasionally, such as you magically getting saved from an accidant (I was, once), or a statue starting drinking milk (it did). No, God should be proved as a theorem. Not hypothesized as an exception. I was amazed to learn that there were several branches of philosophy which specialize in this. But they all seemed very esoteric and insipid, so I decided to look into them when I get old.

But there was one strand of philosophy which fascinated me. It was called logicism, that everything comes down to logic. This is the idea of Leibniz, and at that time I was a big fan of Leibniz as I was starting to learn calculus. I called myself a logicist, to the utter incomprehension of my friends. They thought I was just showing off (which was partly true). The thing with logicism is that if everything gets down to logic, then God is logic.

But this quaint world was shattered during my engineering days, when I learned Godel's incompleteness theorem. Damn, logicism was not cool anymore.

If God exists, God cannot be logic. It should be something else. What is it ?

Well, I decided I don't care. I became a nihilist. And started quoting Nietzsche, again annoying my friends.

A couple of weeks ago, I realized there exists something which can be called God.

I will try to explain with a few examples.

1) You are watching a soccer match on television. You are cheering for your team, "Come on guys, you can do it.. I know you can make the goal. Yes, move on like that".. Deep down in your mind, you are thinking that these whispers of yours are being heard by the players and motivating them. But, let's take an objective viewpoint and check if these thoughts of yours make any difference to the performance of the team. There is no known law in physics which can prove this for you.

2) You hear that a family member of a close friend of yours is in hospital over a severe illness. You tell your friend, "Don't worry my friend. Everything will be alright. She will survive." Your friend smiles a little on hearing your words. How can your thoughts make any difference to the chances of survival of a remote patient ? There is nothing in physics that can prove this.

3) The person that you love deeply is going to live faraway. You don't know whether she will lead a happy life, or if she finds herself in the midst of troubles. You wish deep inside you that she is happy, and you believe that it is true. How can your love make someone else happy at another location, if you are not even communicating it ?

What I am trying to argue is that there are several things such as hope, love and wishes which are not quite logical. They cannot be proved by science (atleast, they are not yet proven). But we believe in them anyways. This is what I say is God.

When you look objectively at the meaning of God, it has always been this. It is a sincere wish of a human for the wellbeing of another human. This is called hope. In all our culture, God was a synonym for this hope.

I wish upon Athena to look kindly upon me when I debate with someone. I wish upon Neptune to let my ship pass peacefully through his seas. I wish upon Lakshmi to bless you with wealth in your endeavour. And so on.. When you leave from my place, I say good-bye - a shortening of "god be with you".

If you understand God as hope, I will vouch for you that God exists. It you understand God as love, I will vouch for you that it is true.

Let me elaborate. I suspect that there is a hidden ether which connects all human minds (and even plants and animals) and their wishes. When you wish for something deeply for someone, this wish propagates through this ether and reaches the other person. It will make it nicer for that person by modifying the parameters of the physics around. This concept is not yet discovered in science, but I am sure that it is true. We will discover it one day, as we all discover it every day in our lives.

Sacrifice Delhi , Save India

2008-08-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

There is a nice verse in my language which says, "A nation does not mean land. A nation means people". This is what I meant when I said Save India.

Let's abolish theologies, let's abolish nationalism. Let's give respect to the human spirit. Nothing is more sacred before that, not even the constitution.

Before you get your passions inflamed, try asking yourself a simple question : Do you like India or do you like Indians ? If you choose the later, then you are a true patriot.

India does not mean the empire of Ashoka. It does not mean the pillars of learning of Shankaracharya. It does not mean the kingdoms of Ramayana. It does not mean a mega utopia which was supposedly destroyed by some invading Muslims. It does not mean the glories of the Mughal empire. It does not mean the eastern bulwark of Islam. It does not mean anything in the past. India is a living notion. It exists in the "now". And it exists in its people.

These people might have had a past, but they live in the present. We should accept what they are right now.

In our journey as an independent country, we Indians are at a crucial juncture : we have to choose between territorial integrity and human integrity. Should we continue our abnormal military presence in Kashmir ? Should we subject every person to getting frisked seven times a day before he reaches to work ? Should we subject our own citizens there to continuous curfews ? Should we continue to impose the rule of the army in one of the states ? Should we give no regard to the democratic aspirations of our own citizens ? Is this what we want to achieve as a nation ? Is this our idea of India ? How many of our own brothers do we have to kill, torture and make disappear for preserving this idea ?

If we continue to tighten our fists, we risk to alienate our own citizens. This is not nation building.

India is an amazing land of diversity. In its richness or heritage, it is no way inferior to the continent of Europe. In what way is Telugu inferior to Spanish ? Then why is it that nobody outside India is even aware of Telugu ? In what way is Kashmiri culture inferior to Polish culture ? Then why does Poland deserve a flag but not Kashmir ?

These questions can be suppressed for years when the population is poor or uneducated, but they are bound to prop up in the minds of the people. What prevents the rest of the Indian citizens from the fear of a cultural subjugation from the Hindi heartland ?

You can shove these fears under the carpet, but they will keep multiplying and keep surfacing with increased ferocity. We will see ethnic strife against minorities in Mumbai. We will see the kidnap and murder of Bengalis in Tripura. We will see Naga rebels fighting in the hills. And we will see a minor issue of 40 acres rise into a full blown freedom struggle and eventually demand the lives of 30 Kashmiris.

No, we cannot shove our fears under the carpet. We have to look at them straight in the eye, and solve the problem. If we do not do that, our country will suffer the fate of Yugoslavia. When it happens, the break up will be rapid, and it will be bloody. Horrors such as genocide will be commited. Hindus and Muslims will massacre each other. India and Pakistan will face outright war, and heaven knows if nuclear weapons will be used.

Before you jump onto the pseudo nationalistic bandwagon of Hindutva, trying to build a glorious Ram Rajya or avenge for the historical wrongs of Islamic invasions etc, please think about where this will lead you. The same is true for people who jump onto the pseudo bandwagon of Islamic glory.

Under the horrors of genocide and nuclear war, can we preserve even a portion of our civilization ? Will we be able to preserve the temple of Madhura ? Will we be able to preserve the Taj Mahal ?

What can we do to avert these dangers ? This is where comes the other part of the title of this blog - Sacrifice Delhi. We have to sacrifice our union government. We have to sacrifice some of our symbols. We need to provide more autonomy to the states. I don't know what this autonomy means : does it mean different flags ? does it mean different constitutions ? does it mean different passports ? I don't know : we need to innovate and we need to do it quickly. It is inevitable, the faster we do it, the more bloodshed we will save.

I have just visited Strassburg, a lovely city of a thousand years of history. This city had a bloody past with periodic occupations from France and Germany. Now it houses the European parliament. Why can't Srinagar be given a similar status, serving as a bridge between India and Pakistan, instead of as a dispute ?

When we think about it, the issue of autonomy is exactly where differences creeped in between Nehru and Jinnah. Let's go where our freedom fighters dared not tread. Let's try to create a union of equals. Let's redefine democracy in the internet age. Let's redefine the notion of a constitution.

Let's take our subcontinent to the true place it deserves. Can Punjab be united ? Can Bengal be united ? Can Kashmir be united ? Yes, let's break the Berlin walls of the east.

Let's forget the horrors of partition. Let's rediscover our true heritage of 5000 years together. Let's model the union of SAARC countries in the fashion of the European Union. Let's have our parliament in Srinagar. Let's have our court of human rights in Jaffna. As we sacrifice Delhi, we will save our India. We will save the spirit of brotherhood between Indians.

James Hansen on Charlie Rose : Nuclear Now

2008-08-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

Humanity should look forward to using 4th generation nuclear reactors. Breeder reactors are essential for a sustainable energy future.

Solving global warming requires us a moratorium on using coal. If we wish to leave an inhabitable planet for our future generations, we should stop using coal right now.

Dr James Hansen, one of the first scientists to alert us on global warming is here on an interview with Charlie Rose. I highly recommend everyone to read the book of Tom Blees, which details all the technologies that will make a huge difference in our future (about to come out). The introduction chapter is free. (I am glad to have met Tom on grist).

Another technology of breeder reactors that have a lot of promise are the Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors. This model is different from the Fast Breeder Reactor that India is developing. India should invest a lot more money for the development of breeder reactors in general, because we have huge reserves of Thorium.

Eco-Dollar : Future Global Currency

2008-08-12T13:01:00.000-07:00

What is money ?

It is the index of the capacity at which you can consume different resources - food, clothing, housing, ornaments, entertainment etc. What determines your capacity to access these resources is the amount of energy that you possess. For most of the history of mankind, these resources have been in very short supply. Most of the population remained poor, illiterate and lacking health opportunities. In an era of scarce resources (until 17th century - not so long ago), the only energy that could be tapped was that of human beings and that of beasts of burden. Money represented your societal influence and how you could manipulate other human beings.

Then, something extraordinary has happened (in England) during the 18th century : man started automating the modes of production. Slowly but steadily, several amazing changes have come by. Food became plenty and hunger was banished. Health care become available to all and death rates plummeted. For the first time ever, the entire population became educated. As resources became more accessible to every person, the meaning of money started to change. What determined your capacity to access resources is no longer your societal influence, but (a) the amount of fuels that you possessed and (b) the degree of automation available to you. This became the new meaning of money. Historically, the fuels-(a) have been fossil fuels such as coal and gasolene. The amount of automation-(b) that can be achieved is determined by the initial capital that you possessed. This marked the begining of capitalism.

The process of automation was not painless. Man had to start at step zero, with very little energy / capital available to his disposal. To make the first machines, this available capital was not even sufficient. So more capital was obtained by robbing other people. This robbery took several forms : colonization (asia), slavery (africa), ethnic cleansing (americas), pathetic working conditions and open wars (europe). This is the reason industrialization proceeded very slowly. But every single step of automation brought further amounts of energy to the disposal of man, making this a chain reaction. With the progress of industrialization , the economic product of the society grew exponentially. You can visualize this process as a rapid increase of the size of the tappable energy and resources pool.

In the two factors that determined money (a) energy available and (b) initial capital, (a) became so high that (b) started to become negligible. In other words, the world economic product became so high that capital no longer presented a constraint for further industrialization. This was first demonstrated during the Marshall plan when USA pumped in significant amounts of capital to the industrialization of war-torn economies of Europe and Japan. This marked the first signs of maturity for the process of industrialization, and the beginning of an age of plenty, when capital is no longer a constraint and it no longer need be robbed from other people. (At the end of the second world war, USA was very rich, accounting for one half of the world 's economic product).

The lack of capital, however, delayed the industrialization in countries which adopted closed economies. There was not a lot of initial capital available in the Soviet Union, so its industrialization suffered a lot of hiccups. These constraints on capital became further apparent when the Soviet budget was stretched during the space and weapon programs. Iran to this day has a lot of oil and gas, but it still cannot exploit them completely due to lack of sufficient capital. This makes it apparent for developing countries to adopt the strategy of inviting foreign capital for industrializing their societies. In our globalized world, the surplus capital is being exchanged for profits. As demonstrated by China and India, developing countries are industrializing rapidly at rates unseen before. This is a direct result of the increased magnitude of the current global economic product. When African countries industrialize in the future, their growth rates will be higher.

As the initial capital that one possesses is becoming less important, the world is entering a state where energy becomes the true currency. All global currencies of today are tied to energy prices. In our fossil fuel economy driven by gasolene, countries with huge oil reserves automatically became rich.

But fossil fuels are not sustainable. Further, they are dangerous for the environment (increased CO2 levels cause global warming). This makes it imperative that we shift to a new economy where we depend on alternative sources of energy. There are two possible sources : solar power and nuclear power. Solar power has the advantage of being completely renewable, but has the disadvantage of being very diffuse. Nuclear power, if driven by breeder reactors, can sustain us for a very long time. Our future economy will be driven by a combination of solar and nuclear energies.

Developing these two technologies will require capital input. But as we have seen already, capital is no longer a constraint in the current world. What poses a challenge is an established pecking order in business which has deep ties to the fossil fuel establishment. This needs to be overhauled.

Economic growth of a country can be reformulated as increase in the degree of automation in that country. If you want to ensure economic growth, use the money (energy) you possess to do two things (1) to create an infrastructure of automation to consume resources (2) to create an infrastructure of producing new energy. When (2) is completed, redirect the energy to (1).

This is a failsafe method of economic growth, with no stagflations or busts. Our current markets periodically suffer from busts because they lose track of these basic principles. The money is squandered as direct waste (such as waste of food, waste of fuel, stuff purchased but never used) or as investments in non-productive sectors such as real estate.

With solar and nuclear technologies, we will soon enter a world of abundant energy. In this world, neither capital nor energy will pose a constraint for further industrialization.

Instead, what will become increasingly important are the effects on the environment due to extensive consumption of resources. These effects will be visible as deforestation, depletion of soil due to intensive agriculture, loss of biodiversity, air pollution, large scale mining etc. These ecological constraints will be added as costs in the make up of money.

Let's call this new money the eco-dollar. We can define 1 eco-dollar as 1 kilo-watt-hour of energy, as produced from environmentally friendly sources. This will be the future global currency. The price of different commodities in eco-dollars will be calculated as a mixture of (1) the energy that is needed in their production and (2) their environmental side effects. For a comfortable life of an industrialized economy, Dr David Mackay estimates that each person needs 125 kwh of energy per day. In our future economy, this is equal to 125 eco-dollars per day. This will be ensured as the guarenteed minimum wage of everyone.

Imagine a world where each human being is given a robot and that the robot is powered by solar or nuclear energy. Imagine that the robot does all the work for the human. What does the human do ? Have fun.

In reality, there will be no single robot for each human but a huge automation network will be working for the entire human society. But human beings will work less and less, catering more time to finer things in life such as art, science and philosophy. This should be goal of our economic activity.

(In this post, I tried to compress several of my ideas spawned out of discussions on the grist environmentalist community. As I started to think deeper about sustainable energy, I became more and more convinced about the inevitability of human progress, industrialization and eradication of poverty. This is in some contrast to my earlier opinions as expressed in these posts).

H u m a n i t y . V s . E a r t h

2008-06-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

My old roommates were a very intelligent and environmentally conscious people. We used to chat a lot. After a furious debate one day, I remember having this conversation with them.

"Imagine this hypothetical scenario. A large explosion is going to destroy our planet. You have two choices - save all the mankind and destroy the earth, or save the earth but destroy mankind. What would you do ? "

"But what will become of mankind if earth is destroyed ?"

"Imagine that we can ship us all in a spaceship, which has enough resources to keep us floating in space for a few centuries."

"But why will the earth be destroyed ? "

"Yeah. If you choose this option, earth will be destroyed with all the plants and animal life."

"And if you want to save the earth ? "

"Then not a single man will survive. That will be the end of mankind. The earth will remain intact though, along with all the plants and animals."

"But we don't understand. What are you talking about ? Why would it be like this ? "

"I told you it is a hypothetical scenario. Something like science fiction. I presented it just to know your judgement. Well, imagine that an asteroid is going to hit the earth, and that it contains a poisonous chemical. Contamination with this chemical in the atmosphere will kill all mankind, but it harms no other life form. To save mankind, imagine we can build a huge spaceship which is driven by some nuclear fusion energy. And to obtain this energy, a huge particle accelerator has to be built, which is known to create a black hole and destroy the earth. Now you have this choice - save the earth or save mankind. What will you do ?"

Then, my roommates gave me an answer which I did not expect.

"Save the earth, ofcourse. This whole spaceship plan for mankind is very silly. What about you ?"

"I think I will destroy the earth, and save mankind in this spaceship."

Instead of resolving the debate, this hypothetical scenario exposed the crux of our differences.

"Kiran, I didn't know you can be so cruel and insensitive. What is so great about mankind ? This planet is like our mother. How can you be so selfish as to destroy it for your own sake ? Infact, throughout history, we did nothing but damage to this planet. "

"But look at what is at stake. We human beings have discovered science, we have discovered art. All this will die along with mankind."

"What is so great about the things we have discovered ? Nature is a thousand times more beautiful than all the art that man can produce. Is there anything as pretty as nature .. with its waterfalls, forests and oceans ?"

"Yeah, I agree. Nature is amazingly beautiful. But I think you are underestimating the value of mankind. Imagine the great masters of art - Van Gogh, Beethoven, Kalidas. And all the great mathematicians and scientists that have come about."

"But this is nothing compared to the earth. If not for man, earth will produce another life form. We are no better than dolphins, or peacocks, or tigers. It is the earth that has the genius. Can man ever engineer something more amazing than an animal which occurs in nature ?"

"I think human beings are different from the rest of the animals. We do abstract thinking, which no other animal can do. Also, compassion is the sole propriety of human beings. The rest of the animal world is full of violence."

"This is crap. Human beings are the most selfish creatures to have ever evolved. To top it all, would be people like you, who want to destroy the earth to save themselves. You call this compassion ?"

"No, aren't you human beings as well ? You are even considering to kill yourselves to save the planet. This kind of thinking would not exist in other life forms. As for my decision, it has nothing to do with selfishness. I am arguing objectively for the sake of humanity, which I think deserves a lot of respect for its genius."

"Okay, we agree that human beings have some good qualities. But a good human being is an exception, and not the norm. There are only a few human beings that are intelligent, creative or compassionate. Most of the rest are selfish idiots that are better dead than alive."

"I think it is the opposite. I think the vast majority of human beings are creative and compassionate. There are only a few selfish persons who are evil."

"What kind of a world are you living in ? You have no commonsense. You will go about trusting every random person that comes across you ? "

"No, I don't completely trust a random person. But I give him a huge probability that he is good natured. I will confirm this opinion in a few interactions. More importantly, in a huge crowd of randomly sampled individuals, I trust that the majority will always make a good decision, provided they are all well informed."

My roommates laughed at this. "Look at our grand democracy, here in France. You think the majority makes a good decision ?". My roommates were referring to the president Sarkozy, quite unpopular in the student community, and always the butt's end for a lot of jokes. "No, the vast majority of them are selfish and stupid."

"I agree that the majority makes a bad decision, but only because they are uneducated or malinformed. I trust in the general goodness of mankind."

"That makes you a very stupid person. I agree that there are a few people who make all mankind proud. I will trust such a person and will do anything for him. But to destroy the earth for a handful of these people is stupid and also selfish."

"I think each single human being is capable of a genius, either in creativity or in compassion. This is what makes us different from animals, and why we are so precious. Each person is a candle waiting to be lit, an inspiration waiting to happen. It is unfortunate that most of us die without ever coming close to realizing our potential. Earth is our home, and ofcourse I love it. But would you like more the house or the people who live in it ?"

"Earth is not just an appartment, she is our mother. Even if you are so self centered as to think earth is your house, what will happen to you if there is no earth."

"It will be a sad day, but the genius of mankind will find a solution. May be we will colonize another planet. Also, you see, human beings live on multiple abstract planes, not just on the physical plane of this world. Imagine we might create a world of virtual reality as in Matrix, and float in the spaceship".

"There you go, you are degenerating from stupid to insane."

At this point, we agreed to disagree. My roommates were visibly angry with me, for what they thought is a selfish attitude. Myself, I was dumbstruck that such nice people as my roommates would devalue humanity over something so mundane.

This difference of opinion was vital in the way we thought about the world's problems.

I believed that global warming will be solved, by something very creative, such as carbon sequestration through sea algae, or by genetically modified bacteria which eat C02. My roommates will want to reduce the speed of the economy and stop pollution.

I contested that we can revert to nuclear power, and emit no greenhouse gases at all. They believed that nuclear waste would be an artificial damage which we human beings cannot consciously impose on this planet.

I argued that reducing the speed of the economy will push some people towards perennial poverty. They believed that reducing global poverty is important, but only secondary to saving the planet.

According to me, the biggest criminal thing in the world is extreme poverty, how several children die of hunger and diseases, or get pushed to perennial poverty without ever coming close to realizing their potentials and genius. According to them, the biggest criminal thing is the way we human beings mistreat the planet by our obscene consumption.

It is true that they and I often support the same issues. But we differ on a few points.

Not to disparage the environmentalist cause, but one should remember that Nazis were environmentalists too. For all my readers who haven't made their minds yet, I echo the Russell-Einstein manifesto. "Remember your humanity, and forget the rest."

F a t M e n R u n n i n g

2008-06-17T15:18:00.000-07:00

Imagine a fat man running with a certain velocity. You watch him from aside, and notice that there is a sharp drop ahead of him. If he keeps running, the fat man will fall off into an abyss. You shout at him , asking him to change direction.

He replies, "I cannot do it now. According to Newton's first law of motion, I have to keep moving ahead with a constant velocity".

You say, "But you should change direction. You will die otherwise".

He replies, "You see. I am a body with a large mass, so I contain a lot of inertia."

You exclaim, "You have enough control in your muscles. Please force yourself to turn a bit. If you keep running forward, you will fall off the cliff in a couple of minutes."

He replies, " My eyes are clogged due to exertion. I cannot see anything beyond the next few metres. Since I don't believe in what I don't see, I will not listen to you."

You tell him. "You are getting tired. May be you should slow down."

He huffs and puffs, looks at you in anger, and retorts "You tell me I cannot keep running. I have enough energy within me to keep running for atleast 10 minutes".

You tell him, "But you are right about to fall off the.. "

There we end the story. The fat man dies.

It is immaterial if he fell off the cliff or if he suffered a heart attack due to over-exertion. What matters is that he has experimentally validated Newton's first law of motion, and that he prove himself to be a large object with a respectable mass and a strong inertia. May his soul rest in peace.

Let me tell you a frightening peace of information. The economic levers of the world are held by such fat men running (FMR). When they kill themselves, these FMRs take you down as well.

Most problems in the world have already their solutions discovered. If the problem persists, it is because of an FMR.

For example, we can solve the world's energy crisis by switching to nuclear power run on molten salt reactors. Some of the several FMRs behind the problem : oil industry, motor car industry, environmental protest for the sake of protest industry, nuclear fuel fabrication industry, strategic nuclear deterrent aka nuclear bomb industry.. All these FMRs have a mixed bag of joint investments ranging from media to retail, and from politics to toilet paper fabrication.

In fact, the FMRs care about nothing but their own momentum (momentum = mass * velocity). To keep their momentum going, these FMRs engage in noble duties such as looting, murder and the tough job of throwing bullshit around.

I present a few morsels of such bullshit for your examination

a) There is no energy crisis. You don't have to change your habits. We will increase oil production. Please stop entertaining silly ideas such as renewable energy.

b) We don't have enough resources in the world. Some population should necessarily starve or die from preventable diseases. We can't keep worrying about all and sundry. After all, what is the value of a human life ?

c) There are all kinds of bad guys out to get you. These include aliens, mutant cockroaches, ninja turtles, komodo dragons, chinese people and religious fundamentalists. So believe in us, and we will keep fighting a noble war against all these miscellaneous bad people.

I implore all you nice and goodlooking people to stop believing things as they come by.

Food, Daily Needs & Nuclear Power

2008-05-09T06:40:00.000-07:00

What is the stupidest thing ever conceived and consistently executed by mankind ? Arguably, it is burning fossil fuels for getting energy. Oil, coal or natural gas release paltry amounts of energy as they burn with Oxygen in the atmosphere. These minerals are otherwise useful for making fertilizers, plastics and several valuable things. But as they get burned for energy, these mineral reserves get depleted at an enormous pace, and will vanish completely within 200 years ! The costs of energy rise exponentially, and so do the costs of everything (everything uses energy for production and for transport). As oil and coal reserves go downhill, so does the purchasing power of people. People will starve and governments will tumble.

The only people that get richer are those who control access to the tap. There are 23 countries in the world that derive at least 60 percent of their exports from oil and gas and not a single one is a real democracy !

But above all, fossil fuels are one of the dirtiest ways to derive our energy. Combustion of oil or coal releases thousands of waste products directly into our fragile atmosphere. Most of them are poisonous and a few of them are even radioactive. They are tremendously affecting the thin layer of atmosphere that sorrounds us - these effects range from global warming to acid rain. As a result, millions of people are dying and millions of plant and animal species are going extinct.

Why do we continue with this insanity ?

A green world run on nuclear energy

Let me present you an alternative scenario. We use solar energy to cater to about 30% of our energy needs, that is as much as it makes economical and ecological sense. For the rest of our energy needs, we construct nuclear power reactors which utilize Uranium and Thorium reserves. A new design called the breeder reactor, though slightly more costly to build, makes 100 times more efficient use of the nuclear fuel. Energy equivalent to a gallon of petrol will be produced as cheaply as 0.5 cents (6 paise for a litre of petrol in Indian terms). The electricity production will be entirely clean; the radioactive waste of the entire world for one year will fit into a small room. We convert this waste into glass, seal it in multiple layers and store it deeply in the rocks. We construct an elaborate railway network, and heavily discourage road transport. We replace gas-guzzling cars in the cities with noiseless electric vehicles. We run those indispensable road vehicles of the countryside using biofuels, and later shift to Hydrogen. In terms of safety and cleanliness, this economy will be million times more efficient.

In principle, this nuclear-fission based economy will be sustainable for several million years. But within a few hundred years, science will inevitably discover newer, more efficient ways of producing energy.

In this series of posts (tagged nuclear), my objective is to untangle a few strands from the cobweb of doubt and fear which sorround nuclear energy. Many people have legitimate concerns about nuclear, and I treat them with respect. My intention is to add some more information and perspective into this debate.

" What's at stake ? "

Opposition to nuclear energy is costing us the battle with coal and oil. This opposition is fuelled discretely by oil and coal company bosses, who might infiltrate green environmental groups with their spies ! Solar energy cannot fight coal and oil by itself, and it is not just good people who are aware of this. A shift away from oil based economy will hurt certain people, and they will do their best to prevent this shift from happening.

The US dollar is tied to the oil prices, and a falling dollar is accentuated by an immediate rise in oil prices. These oil prices drive the prices of food and daily needs everywhere around the world, as is happening right now. Whenever there is talk of investing in clean energy options, the oil prices are strategically reduced. The very next moment, they are rised again. A lot of FUD is spread over all kinds of alternative energies, including nuclear. Unconsciously, several environmental groups become party to this strategy. Breaking from the vicious oil economy through nuclear power is vital to ensuring the security of food and daily needs in poor countries.

If the primary concern with oil is inflation, that with coal is pollution. The statistics are alarming. China is building 10 times more coal plants than nuclear plants. A similar story repeats throughout the world. The filth dumped by coal into the atmosphere affects the world in entirety. This is why it is important to encourage clean energy production, particularly in developing countries such as India.

"Breeder reactors can never be built, so nuclear energy is a lost hope"

2008-05-09T01:17:00.001-07:00

Answer : Without breeder reactors, the nuclear resources in earth will not last for more than 600 years. And without breeder reactors, there will be enormous amounts of nuclear waste awaiting disposal. But breeder reactors lie at the heart of nuclear hope. This is because these reactors use 60% of the Uranium fuel instead of the 0.3% used in the current light water reactors(LWR). With breeders, nuclear resources will last for several millions of years ! There have been several efforts in the world to construct breeder reactors, but most of these reactors have been abandoned now. Sly anti-nuclear activists look upon this fact as a proof that breeders can never be constructed.

The truth is more intriguing. Firstly, breeder reactors have been successfully demonstrated, and we have 300 reactor-years of experience in operating them worldwide. India has been operating an experimental breeder reactor since 1985 ! Indian nuclear scientists have demonstrated a revolutionary design in 2005 of 'A Thorium Breeder Reactor' that can produce 600 MW of electricity for two years 'with no refuelling and practically no control manoeuvres.' This has been dubbed as the world's safest nuclear reactor. With such highly efficient designs available, why do we not construct breeder reactors ?

As it currently stands, reprocessing spent Uranium in breeder reactors is more expensive than mining fresh Uranium from earth. As long as shallow reserves of Uranium are available (for the next 60 years), breeder reactors will be economically unfavorable.

An MIT interdisciplinary panel has discouraged breeder reactors for not making economical sense currently, but this anti-nuclear activist has quoted this to say that the breeder design itself has been termed infeasible. This type of reporting is extremely dishonest.

Even though breeder reactors are currently uneconomical, we do well to construct them because they are essential for securing our energy's future.

Breeder reactors have also drawn a lot of political ire due to the fact that they produce high grade plutonium, which can potentially be used for bombs. The India-US nuclear deal had been in hot water for a few months due to the perceived US objections against breeder reactors. These objections have later been resolved in the current version of the deal.

The most visible example of a discontinued breeder reactor is the Superphénix reactor in France. The reason it stopped working was because of a missile attack by a radical environment group !

Technically speaking, ther are absolutely no hindrances for constructing breeder reactors. However, there are several political hurdles that need be overcome.

"Reduce consumption and use solar energy. Don't go nuclear."

2008-05-09T01:16:00.001-07:00

Answer : No doctor will prescribe the same medicine for obesity and malnutrition. There is a humongous disparity in the consumption levels of the world today. It is true that most of the consumption in Western societies is wasteful and directly harmful to the environment. But nuclear energy is a valuable aide in lifting up the living standards of the developing world. The energy-consumption levels of the third world will have to inevitably rise to obtain decent living standards.

Apart from producing greenhouse gases, we are rapidly depleting mineral and water reserves (Consumerist societies are meat eating. Production of meat consumes 12 times more water than the production of vegetable protein). Some of the clean energy options such as bio-fuels, wind power and hydel power compete with food production for these resources, so they have to be used with care. The depletion of these resources will cause famine and war all over the world. As I have mentioned earlier in my blog, bio-fuels could be a valuable tool in making land profitable in the developed world, thus ending the food subsidies that are enjoyed by big farmers there. Developing countries should look upon bio-fuels more carefully, because they are more pressed for land and water.

Both nuclear and solar energy are valuable towards desalinating water, and averting famine. Along with attempts at reducing consumption, these novel sources of energy will prove priceless in improving the well being of the world.

"Nuclear reactors are unsafe. Nuclear waste is very dangerous."

2008-05-09T01:15:00.000-07:00

Answer : The Chernobyl disaster clouds the vision of most nuclear opponents. But what many fail to note is that this faulty Soviet design is no longer currently used in any reactor in the world. We have several thousands of reactor-years of experience in running safe nuclear reactors worldwide. The safety record for this industry has been outstanding. Unlike coal plants, nuclear plants release no harmful products into the atmosphere and all the bi-products are carefully accounted for. Most people are unaware of the fact that coal energy releases far more radioactive substances than nuclear energy, and that all this radioactive waste is dumped directly into the atmosphere. Coal mining remains one of the most hazardous occupations of the world, and claims hundreds of lives every year.

Nuclear waste is carefully monitored and stored in a confined environment. The risk of contamination of this radioactive waste with air or water is miniscule. The levels of radioactivity fall drastically with time, and after 600 years, this waste will be no more radioactive than naturally occuring Uranium in the earth's crust !

Politics is all about taking calculated risks. The risks of not using Nuclear (reverting to coal and oil, ruining the environment, letting millions of people starve) far outweigh the risks of running nuclear reactors or storing nuclear waste.

"Nuclear reactors are expensive to build. Nuclear Power is very expensive."

2008-05-09T01:14:00.001-07:00

Answer : It is true that nuclear reactors are more expensive to build than coal plants. But, if environmental costs are taken into account, nuclear plants quickly rise to be much cheaper. In the USA, there have been several re-legislations for improving nuclear safety, which required the removal and reconstruction of nuclear reactors. These made the costs of construction to spiral out of control. Thus, nuclear power industry had a political death in the US. In other countries, several nuclear power reactors have been built to operate on profit. France currently obtains 80% of its electricity needs through nuclear power. The produced electricity is the cheapest in Europe. Now that we have designs of very safe reactors available to us, scale-economics come to play in the construction process. Nuclear plants of today are already cost-competitive with coal plants.

Clean energy is expensive in the first stage of construction - whether it be nuclear or solar power. But we cannot afford to build coal plants for the reason of meagre short term profits. The long-term costs far outweigh any such benifits.

"Let's encourage solar energy, because nuclear can be evil"

2008-05-09T01:12:00.000-07:00

Answer : The energy in sun's rays is so dilute that we need to have a really large receptacle to capture a reasonable amount. We cannot cover up the surface of earth with solar panels to derive all the energy that we need. We would need land for agriculture, forests, housing and so on. Solar energy is renewable and clean. But alas, the current technology cannot provide us sufficient solar energy for completely replacing oil and coal. We can nourish warm hopes for a future based on solar energy, just as we can nourish warm hopes for a future based on nuclear fusion. But failure to act in the current moment has enormous costs due to continued dependency on oil and coal.

Being a tropical country, India should use solar energy for all the potential that it has to offer. It can be used for water purification, and for airconditioning during the summer time. Nice pocket applications such as these are easier to be conceived and deployed. We need real efforts in this direction.

Wind, tidal and hydel power are basically solar energy in disguise. Each of these energies have their costs and limitations. For example, hydel power projects inundate large swathes of forests and agricultural land. Each of these media need to be used in moderation, and energy production should be diversified. But there is only one hope for putting an end to the evil fossil fuel monster, and that is nuclear energy. In this epic battle, all the other modes of energy production will serve as sidekicks to nuclear.

"Nuclear energy means nuclear bombs"

2008-05-09T01:10:00.000-07:00

Answer : A knife can be used for making dinner.

Nuclear power generation has one of the least established links for making nuclear bombs. All the bombs that have been made till now, have been made without a nuclear reactor being built for power generation. The very first nuclear bomb had been made in the Los Alamos laboratory of USA during the 2nd world war, before a nuclear power reactor was even ever conceived. It is true that a power reactor can be used for producing fissile material, but this method remains the most expensive and ineffective way of building a nuclear bomb. There are cheaper and quicker ways of making bombs, which are easier to conceal. No sane person would choose to build a power reactor for making bombs.

The only country to have used Plutonium from a (research) power reactor to build an explosive device was India, in the Smiling Buddha test of 1974. But this has to be looked upon as a wary reaction of India towards official recognition of China as a nuclear power in 1968 after the bitter war which happened in 1962.

Nuclear proliferation and bombs are scary, so we expect the international law to place proper safeguards against them. But there exist practically none today. The IAEA inspects the longwinding procedure of nuclear power generation in each country, for possible loopholes. It leaves all the other channels of building nuclear bombs royally open. We desperately need methods for preventing nuclear proliferation, and for rapidly diminishing the bombs already existing in the world. Carping against nuclear power is an idiocy that we can hardly entertain in the current moment.

Q u e s t i o n s O f O u r T i m e

2008-03-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

I would like to summarize an amazing lecture by Michel Serres, which I had the fortune of listening to in person.

A society undergoes a complete upheaval when there is a transformation in the way information is organized. Most thinkers have assumed in the past that major societal changes will be brought forward by advances in hard technology - such as the steam engine, wind mills, electric bulb etc. This textbook version of history is not true. Infact, all the major changes are brought in by soft technology - the technology that deals with information and messages.

The history of human civilization so far, can be distinctly divided into 4 eras :

Oral Era : All communication was done through speech
Writing Era : After the discovery of a written script for language
Printing Era : After the discovery of the printing press
Computing Era : After the discovery of a machine to process and communicate information

Each of these advances brings a significant change in the way information, in the most general sense of the term, is handled by humans. These soft advances literally tear the world down, and a completely new order emerges in terms of politics, commerce, science, law, religion and culture. These six spheres crudely summarize the entire human activity. So let us understand what has happened.

Oral Era

Politics : The society is organized as tribal units, each governed by a collection of clan elders. The individual owes his loyalty to the tribe, as exemplified by race relations coded through genes.
Commerce : Commerce is done through barter. Gold and other precious metals serve as useful benchmarks for barter.
Science : Primitive theories try to explan natural phenomena. Making tools and weapons is considered an art. Education is provided purely within the family.
Law : Law is loosely conceptualized as the honour of the tribe and the family. Each person is required to defend this honour.
Religion : Animistic and polytheistic worship function as ways of attaining harmony with the world, and of explaining away troubling natural calamities.
Culture : Epics are weaved together by bards travelling across the land.

Examples : Vedic India (till 600 BC), ancient Greece before Pythagoras (till 580 BC), Europe before Rome (till 100-200 AD), societies of uneducated people who cannot read or write (40% of current India, 64% of current Afghanistan)

One word which defines state : Race

Writing Era :

Politics : State is invented, with a legal code written on stone (Ashoka's stone proclaimings, Hammurabi's code) The state has a physical boundary that has to be protected by an army. The government quickly develops into a monarchy with a hierarchical control of feudalism.
Commerce : Money is invented (a value written down on metal). A new mercantile class emerges which deals with money and commerce.
Science : Geometry is invented. Mathematics emerges and engineering is no longer an art. Natural phenomena are explained through observation and measurement. Education is provided by monasteries, and the notion of a teacher is born. Libraries are few and far in between. A teacher has to remember a lot.
Law : It is no longer unwritten family honour, but the written law of a state. A special class of policemen emerges to defend and enforce the law.
Religion : Monotheistic religions of a book emerge. Now written down into a strict set of rules, the belief system becomes static and resilient to change.
Culture : The artists are sponsored by the court of the king. A language emerges for writing down music. Art and sculpture are carefully studied with the exactness of measurements.

Examples : Pre-colonial India categorized by caste (till 1600 AD: Mauryas, Guptas, Chalukyas, Moghals), Pre-renaissance Europe categorized by class (till 1500 AD : Greece after Pythagoras, Rome), Tibet till 1950, Arabia till 1900, sections of contemporary India where caste is still strong.

One word which defines state : Religion

Printing Era :

Politics : Books spread knowledge, and the idea that "all men are equal". This gives birth to democracy - a representative government elected by the people. The world is divided into nations.
Commerce : Banking is invented. The notion of solvability and economic trustworthiness are born. Cheque and printed money give rise to the capitalist system of commerce.
Science : With printed books at hand, a teacher is no longer required to remember all the topics of instruction. Education begins in earnest, and the entire population gets educated. The scientific method is born, with the notions of experimental validation and support. Science explodes into a thousand new branches.
Law : The notion of a constitution is born. Religion gets separated from law.
Religion : "Every man is equal to the Pope, with the Bible at his hand", proclaims Luther and begins the Protestant reform in Europe. Religion becomes a private affair with no intermediate person. Church loses its power and monastic orders slowly disappear.
Culture : Art is viewed as a product in the market. The entire population gets to sponsor artists, through direct purchase of their art. A new class of middlemen emerges to control these means of distribution of art.

Examples : Modern Europe after renaissance, USA, Modern Japan, the educated middle class of developing countries (India, Brazil, China..)

One word which defines state : Market

Computing Era :

For the first time in human history, the entire world is connected at the distance of a mouse click. We are only entering this era. Just like the revolutions before, the entire world is about to be torn down. A new political and economic system is going to emerge, of a world without borders.

We can already trace some changes. In commerce, ATM and e-commerce have redefined the way of doing business. Globalization is changing the economic levers of the world. New economic frauds are surfacing, which will demand investigation towards new ways of doing business. In science and education, internet is begining to redefine the role of a teacher. Scientific exploration is at an exponential growth, through computational simulation and global collaboration. In law and politics, we need investigation into new ways of governing.

Here, I finish summarizing Serre's lecture. What follows are my own comments about the computing era. We need to ask bold questions : Can we get rid of representative government and usher in a new internet democracy? Can an individual be completely free ? Can the security of an individual be assured without violating privacy ? Can everybody be an artist ? Can an artist be assured of intellectual freedom without worrying about the economics of his business ?

These are the questions of our time.

Different parts of the world currently adhere to each of the above 3 eras. But ultimately, they all need to progress towards the 4th era. As we see clearly, each of these eras is antagonistic to the others. There will be a lot of resistance to change. As the era tries to fight back against its child, its uses the wisdom of its own battles with its father.

A society living in a religious writing-era conjures images of violence and lawlessness of its father, the oral-era. But the battle will be finally won, and it has to succumb to the capitalist printing-era.
Example : In 16th century Europe, the church has fought quite hard against democracy and secularism. It employed scare tactics, by frightening people that without monarchy and a strong church, there will be utter anarchy. In contemporary world, radical Islam frightens the believers that liberal democracy is kafir, equivalent to idolatry.

A society living in a capitalist printing-era conjures images of religious fundamentalism and monarchy of the writing-era, during its own battle with the computing-era.
Example : In fact, Europe, USA and Japan are fighting this very battle now. The right wing tries to poison the minds of the population about the battle against fundamentalist Islam. A scheming recording industry scares the people of internet piracy. The existing order tries its best to divert attention away from the questions of our time.

Before Michel Serres, another philosopher Karl Marx has attempted to a similar diagnosis of human society. But his theory of Marxism is as away from a correct diagnosis, as Lamarckism is away from Darwinism. Lamarck indeed had a revolutionary idea - that animals could change their form over the course of time. He theorized that the giraffe has just protruded its neck to catch the tall juicy leaves, and the neck just got longer and longer. But this is just not true. The unit of evolution is not the animal (phenotype) but the underlying gene (genotype).

Inspite of his courage in thinking of human society in a scientific manner, Marx had a wrong theory. He theorized that hard technology (phenotype) brings about societal changes instead of soft technology (genotype). Indeed, the communist philosophers of the Soviet Union just hoped that Lamarck had been true. Russia had been no capitalist country when the Bolsheviks imposed the socialist pattern. Neither had been China or Cuba, or any other communist country. The Russian communists aspired that, if only they pushed their necks long enough, they might catch the tall juicy leaves. But this is disastrously wrong. Each of these revolutions had been a retrograde step : killing a capitalist printing-era in favor of a monarchical writing-era. It is for this reason that communist countries exercise a severe censorship and thought control. It is unfortunate that Indian communists are still flaunting the same rubbish which has been tested by time to be utterly wrong.

The job of the progressives is to help the world get in terms with the technology, as quickly as possible. This would mean favoring a writing era over an oral era (religion over race), favoring a printing era over a writing era (market over religion) and favoring a computing era over a printing era (internet over market) - in the above order.

S n o w g r a p h

2008-03-25T05:20:00.000-07:00

I have always been facinated by snow. The shape of a snowflake, its size, and the path it takes as it falls on the ground - each of this is the output of a complex mathematical equation that has thousands of variables. What would take a supercomputer a couple of hours to simulate is done by nature in a couple of seconds. And what more, there are billions of them snowflakes in one single day of snowfall. Each of them is uniquely beautiful.

After a long hiatus of 3 years, I resume to muse on this blog over the philosophy of snow. The topic of today's musings is what I call the snowgraph - the particular pattern describing which parts of the earth are covered by snow and which are not. Given a terrain with some variation of texture, windwardness and overboard traffic, nature solves a binary labeling problem - which parts of the terrain to cover with snow and which not.

The problem is interesting if the temperature of the earth is a little higher than freezing point, that is, so sufficiently high that a single isolated snowflake would melt away immediately after touching the ground. But when a crowd of snowflakes fall on the ground, a pattern will still emerge. The snowflakes will be floating islands of lower temperatures, sorrounded by a warmer ocean of atmosphere.

This accumulation of snow into a pattern will happen, if and only if the average frequency of a random snowflake hitting a portion of the terrain is higher than the time it takes on that terrain-portion for an averagely sized snowflake to melt away. Both the above variables depend on a complex assortium of factors such as the thermal conductivity of the terrain-portion, the windwardness of the terrain-portion and the thermal energy generated over the terrain-portion by traffic passing overboard (people/cars/water/..). Nonetheless, all these factors integrate with each other to produce the snowgraph. The snowgraph captures all the complex dynamics of this integration. This is nature's way of compressing information.

Now the interesting question is, can we discover the hidden forces that gave rise to the snowgraph (for example, by observing and analyzing an aerial photograph of the terrain) ? This is a fascinating piece of detective work. Given a photograph of a terrain in summer and in winter - one bare and one covered with snow, can we detect if either of them is fake ?

Most of the interesting questions of nature are of this kind. We have the snowgraph standing before us. But we have no idea why it is like that - why only parts of the terrain are covered with snow and why not the rest.

Why do we have five fingers on each limb ? Why do we have hair on top of the head but not on top of our palms ? Why are our palms soft and sinewy instead of hard and metallic ? Why do we have eyes on the top of the face, instead of having them over a prehensile object like our hands ? These are questions interesting not only to biologists, but also to roboticists who want to simulate these phenomena. Each of us is a snowgraph. Each custom in our society and culture is a snowgraph. Each object and each phenomenon in nature is a snowgraph - uniquely mysterious and uniquely beautiful.

The laymen amongst us abandon these mysteries and proceed with the daily routine. The believers amongst us give a ready answer - saying that it is God or whoever they believe in that did it all. But those few men amongst us who are bit by the curiosity bug, they dig deep and wide, and they unravel the mysteries of each snowgraph.

T h e P r i m a l R i g h t

2007-07-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

Jimmy is drunk. He is been to the annual bacchanalia that happens in the local forest, in the name of remembering a certain sum of soldiers who died there during the war. A couple of bands perform guitar music to a crowd of jolly juveniles, who come there with the sole intent of having a good time. Apart from setting the crowd in spirit, this music disturbs the annual mating season of the marmots which live in those woods. Well, a couple of marmots going without sex does not weigh too much of a sacrifice as against those soldiers who died fighting the Nazis. Does it ? And ofcourse, there shall be no shortage within the crowd to pick up on that job of having sex, which the marmots have left unfinished.

Jimmy is drunk. He is already begining to see inanimate things do swing-dancing. Everything seems to have been jazzed up. The general size of the women's breasts seems to have gotten much bigger. He can hear his friends shouting his name, as they continue to deeper glories of alcoholism. Jimmy decides to take a stroll. He needs to ponder about the general outlook of his life in the safe precincts of numbed down mental powers, which otherwise would scare him off the above pursuit.

He finds a cosy tree away from din of the crowd, sets himself down, and commences the process of ruminating. He looks at his life, his job, his prospects in the near future, his personal life - everything seems glossy and gleaming. With a huge smile pasted on his face, he falls asleep.

In the middle of his slumber, he gets woken up by a loud conversation.

"So, you think he will get past his next birthday ?"

"Well, it is unlikely, but there is always a sliver of chance. You see, this chap Jimmy is born an idiot. He may not realize that he always has the right."

"Yes ofcourse. The primal right. But, two more years, that's what I will give him."

"Not even that, what does his life offer him ? An unending slew of disappointment, rejection, confusion. More disappointment. It is surprising how he still has not gotten to see the truth."

"Yes, the truth, that the whole world is just a pretence. That it is just an elaborate theater set up so that we can look at his misfortunes, laugh at them, and get our share of fun."

Jimmy is alarmed. He opens his eyes and sees two shadowy figures clad in black cloaks, standing next to the tree. It is their voices that have woken him up. He cannot see his friends or the rest of the partying crowd. He must have walked quite deep into the woods.

Suddenly, one of the cloaked figures turns towards him.

"Can't you see Jimmy ? Your life is just for us, a piece of entertainment. Nothing in this world actually exists. You are just being fooled by us, and how well you are being fooled."

Jimmy lowers his eyelids in terror, lest the two figures see that he is awake.

"Haven't you seen the game Jimmy - where they use bloodthirsty hounds to chase the rabbits. The silly rabbit runs maniacally, never wondering why it is getting chased, may be it is for somebody's pleasure. It never knows. Hasn't it ever occured to you Jimmy, that you are probably participating in a similar game yourself ?"

"Ahh. Let's leave it at that. This chap Jimmy is dumb to his bone. He will not realize, for example, that he will never find a girl that truly loves him."

"That is part of the script. Isn't it ?", chuckles the other figure.

"Yes. He is like a stale vegetable in a vegetable market. The one that always gets picked up by the customers, only to be tossed down with a deep scorn. The kind of vegetable that finally ends up in the trash."

"And he will never get true appreciation for anything."

"Poor Jimmy, he will never learn how to dance, he keeps trying, only to produce jeering laughs from everyone around."

"He will never play any sport properly. His friends keep him only because they are short of a person. They hate him and make jokes about him behind his back. ".

"He doesn't realize that his life is a big joke by itself."

"If only he can realize that he can end it all. That he can pull the plug."

"That is his primal right, isn't it ? The right that comes automatically for every creature. He doesn't realize it."

"No, but we have also kept too many hurdles behind that. He has to think about his family. He has to think about what hopes they have kept in him, only to be constantly depressed about how he is letting them down."

"Yes, he cannot pull the plug, but he so wants to. Oh Jimmy, but this is your primal right". The figure bends over Jimmy. It keeps its hands around his cheeks as if caressing him.

Jimmy feels himself getting asphyxiated. In silent horror, he sees his blood dripping away from his brain.

"Keep struggling Jimmy, I can see you are awake, but it is too late by now. You will soon be out of this misery. Let me handle you gently. "

Jimmy tries to shout, but he can hardly open his mouth.

After what seems like an eternity, he suddenly manages to spring to his feet.

"Hey listen, this is Jimmy, speaking for myself. I know about the primal right, but it is not about pulling the plug. It is not that obvious. It is the right to see and the right to speak. That is my fucking primal right. You cannot deny it from myself. I will live to see, and I will live to speak. "

Jimmy is staring into the wide eyes of his friends. It is bright sunlight now, and he is standing outside their tent. They are looking at him like he is the devil.

"What the devil, Jimmy ? What the hell are you talking about ?"

Jimmy looks back into the woods, "I was sitting under a tree, somewhere beyond those woods over there. I had a real bad nightmare, I cannot understand how I walked down here all by myself."

One of his friends says, "There are some strange woods down here, I heard that some of the trees discharge hallucinational substances at night, which get washed down by the dew. You look quite crazy Jimmy. Those bloody eyes look like they are ready to pop out any minute. Come in here, have a sip of water. "

I n t e r a c t i v i t y I n A r t

2007-06-06T10:47:00.000-07:00

Why does India continue to miss its renaissance ? What does one mean by renaissance, anyway ? It is the time when a culture discovers a new dimension of growth, and explodes into it. This kind of cultural explosion would become unmatchable to any other place in contemporary times. As the European renaissance demonstrates, this process is literally something which makes a center-of-the-world phenomenon. India has frankly not seen such a process.

Making renaissance happen in India does not mean to mimic the elements of European renaissance. That would achieve nothing. What should instead happen is the discovery of a completely new dimension, something which is till that moment unknown to the world. An apt example would be John Sebastian Bach's discovery of counterpoint in music. Till that point, western music did not have a great element of harmony in its compositions. But after this, the theory of music changed course completely.

So, what is it that needs to be discovered now ?

In this post, I will try to point to one specific direction which could possibly lead to a discovery. That direction is that of more interactivity in art.

To make my point clear, I will specify three levels of interactivity that exist in art.

The first level which is the least interactive - is to consider art as a form of personal self discovery. There is only one party dealing with art here, and that would be the artist himself. His art is a process of talking to himself - raising questions and discovering answers. Most often, the artist looks at this process as holding the conversation with not himself, but with God. But Indian philosophy (Adwaita) considers both of these views to be identical.

The second level is to consider art as a form of performance. There are two parties dealing with art here - the artist and the audience. The art-form is created by consciously keeping the audience in mind. This can be considered as the equivalent of the artist cooking a meal for the audience. Without the audience, the art-form would not have any meaning.

The third level which is the most interactive - is to consider art as a form of sport. There are two (or more) parties involved here - and all of them are artists. The art-form is created purely for the sake of having fun together. Art has a socializing value here, and the notion of fun is defined accordingly.

Art created at all these levels can produce delight to the beholder. Though Thyagaraja (18th century musician) did not have Kiran (me) in his mind during his compositions, his art indeed produces a great delight to the second party.

Given its reputation for being a warm culture with very few socializing barriers, we expect India to have more art-forms in the third level. But the opposite is the case.

Indian Music : Strictly falls at the first level in India. This has been for historical reasons. Great saints and philosophers (like Thyagaraja) turned to music as a form of worshipping God, and have produced real gems of music. The later generations have followed their example. Due to the extremely personal nature of the art-form, Indian music tends to be very solitary. The notion of multiple instruments is practically absent in the Indian musical tradition. Consequently, Indian music does not exhibit harmony. There is a high element of improvisation in music which corresponds to the personal element.

In contrast, European music has historically been considered at the second-level. The notion of a concert hall and performance to a seated audience were crucial aspects in the development of European Renaissance music. Consequently, the music exhibits grandiose harmony. I do not intend to say that European musicians didn't have a personal element to their compositions. One of the most popular works of Bach "Mathew's Passion" is considered to be a deeply devotional/personal offering. But the nature of the composition, by itself, is at second-level. It is written for a huge orchestra. This feature is a significant element in western music.

After the advent of cinema, Indian music has started to experiment with the second-level. Unsurprisingly, this has necessitated a huge borrowing from the theory of western music. Marrying Indian raagas to the western theory of harmony is a hard task, but offers a huge potential for cultural explosion and renaissance. The best musicians of India (Ilayaraja, Rahman etc) have indeed been those well versed in western music. Though the barriers have not been breached yet (several mathematical problems remain), Indian popular music is set forward to bridging this gap. But several of the best brains in Indian classical music tend to shy away from the notion of thinking of music at the second-level. Consequently, Indian music keeps missing its renaissance. As a medicine, I propose the musicians to create musical operas based on the stories of Indian mythology. Why not an opera based on the story of Eklavya ? Would it interest Bhimsen Joshi, or Balamurali Krishna ??

Indian Dance : Has historically been considered as a performance, thus at the second-level. Most of the classical dance forms have been patronized in the courts of the Maharajahs. They ended up being elaborate performances requiring great skill.

In contrast, European dance has primarily been considered at the third-level, as a form of socializing. A vast majority of the dances exist just for the sake of giving pleasure to the dancers, usually a man and a woman. There are a few instances where dance is considered at the second-level (as in ballet), but the influence of the third-level is so huge that the dance-moves in the performance tend to draw from the more popular varieties. This tradition keeps alive to this day, and most of the invention in dance is done in this direction, for the dances of a couple.

Even in the era of the modern cinema, Indian dance has surprisingly kept to its second-level. Most of the moves in the dances shown in film are created by keeping the audience in mind. Even though it is a couple dancing on the screen in the wilderness of the mountains, they tend to dance as if they are on a stage. Several times, the actor dances alone on the screen to the applause of the audience. The cultural attitude of India would not change. Since dance has never been thought of at the third-level, Indians do not tend to understand the notion of a discotheque. It has not caught on well in India, as compared to Brazil or Japan, for example. As a medicine, I propose the great dancers of India to run discotheques, and organize events where they teach young adults to dance together. This direction offers a huge possibility of innovation in dance.

As an aside, there exist a few traditions of dance in the world which are considered at the first-level too, such as the whirling of the Sufi dervishes.

Indian literature : Has traditionally been at the second-level. Just like in Greece, the bards of India have always been patronized to recite songs and poems. Great poets like Kalidas have written plays as their major works. This tradition has recently changed worldwide, due to the impersonal medium of the book. Here, the poet is at more liberty for personal exploration. Modern literature is turning rapidly into the first-level. The audience is usually ignored, unless in a few cases where the work of literature is a short story or a novel. As the spectrum shifts towards poetry, the audience is largely ignored in the current age. This may not be considered bad by many people, but there are several traditions which are dying out as literature becomes less interactive.

In fact, there exist several traditions in India where literature is even considered at the third-level. The Telugu tradition of Ashtaavadhaanam and the Urdu tradition of Qawwaali immediately come to mind. As the current era of poets keep themselves busy publishing books for a certain faceless reader, the human element of literature is slowly disappearing.

As a medicine, I encourage all writers to use the online media such as blogs and discussion forums, to rejuvenate these dying forms of literary tradition. Such websites can indeed be patronized by readers/advertising if the quality of the contents makes it worth. This kind of patronizing has indeed turned into a reality today, due to the extraordinarily high ratio of engineers (people skilled in high-tech) amongst the richer sections of the Indian society.

Indian visual arts : The very same thing can be said about visual arts such as painting. These have traditionally been at the second-level, and the artists worked for adorning temples, palaces, mosques etc. But in the current age, these art forms are increasingly turning to the first-level. As a medicine, I encourage the visual artists to participate in the growing revolution of computer graphics and aid in the production of movies and computer games, thereby working at the second-level. This also provides greater opportunities of monetary compensation for the artists, apart from triggering new discoveries in the forms of art.

In conclusion : I encourage all artists to explore more interactivity in their art-forms. This is a very promising direction for realizing a renaissance in India.

P l a y i n g B l i n d

2007-05-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

There was once a monkey, clutched to the branches of a tree, in the thick of a green rainforest, that sees an extraordinary thing. That its eyes blink.

It cannot believe what it sees. Because at that moment its gaze is transfixed to the ground, on the lookout for a leopard.Fear is what breathes life into every living creature. In this game for survival, every moment remains critical, vital. The punishment for laxity is quick and severe. There will be no looking back.

The monkey is petrified. It has experienced a moment of complete helplessness. It's a moment when a curtain falls before the eyes, dissolving reality into a whiff of smoke. It is only a moment, but a moment, before reality reappears before the eyes. As the cold golden eyes of a leopard, only closer.

Having survived that moment, the monkey is bothered with a greater fear. What's wrong with its eyes ! It closes them, it opens them again, trying to assert its control. It twitches its arm, wiggles its tail, squeaks with its mouth - all seeking some comfort. But the monkey is still bothered, there is a force, invisible, troubling it. What was wrong with its eyes !!

Again, it closes them slowly, this time for longer. It is dark, thick as a night. The monkey hears sounds - pleasant sounds, alarming sounds, sounds from afar, sounds from the deep. It can hear sounds from other monkeys in the herd. It has to get back to them. Can it get back to them, in the darkness ?

This is a game it has never played. The monkey opens its eyes. Everything is as it had been. No sight of the leopard anywhere close. The monkey closes its eyes again. The game is now on.

It feels for the grip of the branch with its arms. It moves along it slowly, carefully feeling the wood as it tapers gently into a tiny twig. The monkey knows what it has to do, it has done this thousands of times. The reflexes are stored deep down inside its body.

It jumps.

The ground gives way underneath its feet. Its fingers clutch gently against the vacuum. Then slowly, the ground reappears, firmly touching the feet. The feeling sinks in with a very strong smell. A smell the monkey has just felt. Just like the blinking of the eyes.

The monkey keeps moving across the branches. Then it jumps over to the ground, and starts walking on all fours, taking in the smell of the wet grass as it moves along. It comes across a tiny stream of water. It crosses it gingerly, feeling the ripples of the water across its legs. Its feet can touch the round pebbles on the surface. Where will the next step lead to ?

Its feet get onto the hard ground again. The monkey can now feel the sharp rays of the evening sun, tickling across its skin. There are sounds of birds, coming gently from a stationary point. There, is a tree.

The monkey feels for its trunk, and then starts climbing it. It moves across its branches. It can hear sounds of other monkeys nearby. They are close. It moves gingerly across the tree in that direction.

But it comes to an end. The monkey knows what it has to do.

It jumps, taking a strong plunge with its legs, manoeuvring its tail as a prehensile instrument. And slowly, it lands onto the firm branches of the next tree.

There are hurried cries from alarmed birds. The monkey moves forward. It feels instinctively for a fruit. There, it picks it up and puts it into its mouth.

The monkey opens its eyes. The fruit is delicious.

There are green leaves all around. Thin veins are running across each one of these leaves. Thin veins in yellow. Then, there are the birds. They have brilliantly colored feathers. Each one of these feathers is split into thousands of tiny little hairs. The monkey looks around - the earth is huge. The possibilities are endless.

It stands up on its hind legs. In the orange evening sun, it is standing erect, no longer blind.

S í t á y a n a

2007-05-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

I have decided to publish a personal correspondence - just as a means to show how one can protest democratically against perceived defamation by an artist. One should not resort to arson, hooliganism or legislation to curb the freedom of speech of an artist. Art and culture require no patrolling of policemen. Instead, we should always remember the famous adage "Satyaméva Jayathé - truth always wins".

Here is my correspondence with Nina Paley, a brilliant illustrator from USA. She is the creator of Sitayana - a very cute comic on the story of Sita. I urge all of you to visit her website. My contention was against her portrayal of the character of Rama.

O r p h a n s O f S a r a s w a t i

2007-05-13T15:34:00.000-07:00

"Ambitame Sindhutame Devitame Saraswati"

The best of mothers, the best of rivers, the best of goddesses, Oh Saraswati.

This is how the Aryans addressed the mighty river that flowed through the green valleys of Rajasthan and Gujarat. As a result of tectonic plate shift, Saraswati lost its waters. The vedas are filled with hymns expressing the anguish of the Aryans at the loss of this river - their mother.

The bulk of the settlements of the majestic Harappan civilization were along the river bed of Saraswati. After they arrived, the Aryan people were as tremendously inspired by this great civilization as by the great river. Since it nurtured the civilization, the river Saraswati was equated with the very notion of culture.

Though now reduced to a tiny broken stream that dries up in the summer, the mighty Saraswati once flowed as the greatest of all rivers. But Saraswati would forever be preserved in the consciousness of India. She became the goddess of culture and learning. Vaagdevi (the goddess of speech) became another name for this river, because the ancient people knew about the equivalence of ideas and rivers.

The waters of the Saraswati got diverted to flow into the Sindhu and the Ganga, making them mightier than before. Sindhu in Sanskrit means river, and the people who lived by the banks of this mighty river are termed as Sindhu people. This got corrupted as Hindu by the Persians, and further got corrupted as Indians by the Greeks. Thus, Indians actually mean river people - the people who acknowledge the equivalence of rivers and ideas.

The other name for these people is Bhaarateeyas, meaning the people who live in the Bharata country (bharata means dazzlingly beautiful in Sanskrit). The knowledge goddess Saraswati earned another name Bhaarati (the one who is bharata - the one who is truly beautiful). Thus, the second name for the Indians - Bhaarateeyas means " the children of Saraswati ". Due to the equivalence of rivers and ideas, the two terms Indians and Bharateeyas become equivalent. The only other people who share a similar nomenclature were the Athenians who were named after Athena (the goddess of knowledge in Greek).

It is with this knowledge that I bemoan the current state of the Indian citizens. Just as the river Saraswati dried up turning lush green valleys into desert, the ethos of India is drying up turning it into a wasteland of cultural vacuum.

The mother Saraswati has been forsaken by the Indians and she has left them. Thus, Indians have become the Orphans of Saraswati. Does anybody have any craving for their mother (knowledge) anymore ? In the blind rote of religion, they have forsaken the very essence of Hindu thought.

God the omniscient is understood in terms of creation (Brahma), preservation (Vishnu) and destruction (Shiva). Each of these forms are equally represented by their female equivalents - knowledge (Saraswati), beauty/wealth (Lakshmi) and energy (Shakti). Even though they have separate names, all these three forms are one and the same. That is the essence of God (Brahmaan). Call Him by any name you want - Yaahveh, Elohim or Allaah - He is essentially the Brahmaan. The very act of worshipping Brahmaan means invoking his wife, Saraswati / Vaagdevi. Every word that is spoken (vaak) is a form of worship to God. The highest form of worship is an act of genuine creativity. Thus, the dearest sons of Saraswati would be the very people who get the closest to God (Brahmaan).

One need not even believe in Brahmaan (God/truth), but one needs to believe in Saraswati (prayer/knowledge).

Such people are already on their way to salvation. The mumbo-jumbo about God is unnecessary. This mumbo-jumbo becomes all the more useless if the very belief in prayer (knowledge/beauty/energy) is lost. Such orphans of Saraswati do not even deserve to be called as Bharateeyas / Indians.

Such people seem to populate the very shores of the once mighty river Saraswati - in the state of Gujarat. Mr. Niraj Jain, a politician of the Bharateeya Janata Party and his goons have entered the campus of a university in Vadodara and beat up Mr. Chandra Mohan, an art student.

An artist is the best chosen son of Saraswati and his creations are the most sublime forms of prayer. Just because one thinks that this art is offensive to one's own misunderstood religion, one does not hold any rights to suppress the freedom of speech of an artist. But, the state of Gujarat seems to license such behavior. These people are no less than Raakshasas (filthy demons) who torment the sages who meditate in the forest.

Just like Sri Rama, who came to the rescue of these sages and drove away the demons, the youth of Gujarat need to wake up and offer themselves in service to the sages (artists).

But instead, they would rather shout angry slogans of "Jai Sriram Ji" and go butcher other human beings. These people are nothing less than Raakshasas. Seeing his name sullied like this in the Kali Yuga, Srirama is bemoaning his fate. He is questining sadly, "Oh Saraswati, why did you turn these people into orphans ?"

That is the feeling of every Indian who knows about his mother and his roots "Oh mother, why did you turn us into orphans ? Please come back and make green valleys out of these desert lands".

Like Bhageeratha, who convinced the Shiva to let go of the Ganga and let it flow on the earth, we need Parama Bhageerathas who could bring the Saraswati down onto this orphaned land, and let it flow once again like the mighty river it used to be.

Vandemaataram.

R i v e r S p e e c h C o n g r u e n c e

2007-04-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

"Acharya, what is the purpose of life ?", asks Jaya with his hands folded before Dheesara, the chieftian of the city of Vaishali.

"You need patience, Jaya.", curtly replies Dheesara.

"I am thirsty for answers, Acharya. My entry into this world has been unwanted. I never knew my mother. I do not know the reason she left me for. I do not know if she has died immediately after she gave me birth, or if she is still alive at this very moment now. If I only knew, I would have asked her. All that my life presents me is a single question - why. I tried to learn patience. But if is of no avail. I am consumed by restlessness. Please help me Acharya. I am damned. Please show pity on me. And as a kind person offers a morcel of food for the starving, you offer me a tiny spark of knowledge.", implores Jaya.

"Jaya, you are more to me than a son. A father reserves neither the right nor the ability to force his thinking down his child. You should understand that these answers to your question will not come from me. You will find them yourself.", replies Dheesara with kind affection.

"When would I find the answer, Acharya ? "

"When you ask the right question, Jaya. You will find the answer immediately. My blessings for you will only be that you shall have the patience that is needed until you discover the right question."

"I am deeply afraid about that, Acharya. I am consumed by hate. I hate the stupidity of people around me. And I hate their cupidity. Of what purpose are these sacrifices, these sham religions that they follow ? Of what purpose is their blind drive for money ? Of what purpose is their cruelty to fellow human beings ? For that matter, of what purpose is love ? I know answers to none of them. Whenever I hate people, I only hate myself, because I am only their equal. The Bodhisattva has once said that a person consumed by hate would never find the answers. Please pray for me Acharya - for the blessings of the exalted one that I may find peace in my soul. "

Dheesara smiles at the young man before him. He then points to the mighty river flowing at the edge of the city. "O Jaya ! Look at the river Ganges flowing in front of us. Does it have a purpose ?"

"This river is born at the feet of the mountain Gangotri in the Himalayas. Only the mountain can tell us about the purpose of this river."

"You are wrong, Jaya. The mountain would indeed tell us the purpose of this river, if only it had been the true parent. But it is not. By crediting Gangotri to be the only parent of the Ganges, you will be ignoring the mountain Yamunotri which creates the river Yamuna that flows into the Ganges. You will also be discrediting the thousand little brooks that flow and build this mighty river up. Where are they born, my son, each one of these brooks ?"

"You are correct, Acharya. But all these tiny streams are born inside several places within the Himalaya. Surely, Himavan, the collection of these mountains, will know the answer as to what is the purpose of this river."

"Surely he would, Jaya, if only he is the true parent of this river. But he is not."

"What do you say, Acharya ?"

"It is the cloud that rains on these mountains, stocking up the lakes and the glaciers. Without this action of the cloud, the river would not have been born.", explains Dheesara.

Jaya gets to see the light of the argument. He says humbly, "O Acharya ! But neither is the cloud the true parent of the Ganges. Because he draws the water from the ocean through the action of the sun. It is the ocean who is the true parent of the Ganges."

"No Jaya, the ocean is no better than either the cloud or the mountain. The water in the ocean comes from every river flowing on top of the earth, as also through the continuous action of the clouds and the sun. So, the ocean would not be the true parent of the Ganges, and thus it would not have the answer to our question."

"Then, O Acharya ! Who is the true parent of the Ganges ? "

"That, my son, would be the Ganges herself. Along with every single river on earth. They are all children and parents of each other at the same time. Now, I will ask you the question - what is the purpose of each of these rivers ? "

"I do not know, O Acharya. Only the Ganges will know the answer to this question, she being a self-born. I will meditate before the Ganges and request the answer to this question."

"You will understand my message, Jaya, only when you understand the exact congruence between rivers and ideas. Ideas do not have an existence until they are spoken, neither do rivers until they start flowing. This principle is called the river-speech-congruence. Vahini (the word for a river) and vani (the word for speech) mean one and the same thing. The ancient people have understood this congruence and thus equated the river Saraswati with the very goddess of learning. As a conscious human being, you are no better than an idea. And the idea would not have an existence until it is spoken. "

"And that will be the time when I ask the right question ?"

"Yes Jaya, just as a river finds its form revealed when it falls as rain on the feet of a mountain, you will find yourself revealed when you ask the right questions. What you should not forget is that, as an idea, you are neither born nor will you die. You will meet every other idea, inspire them and be inspired by them. Just as the Ganges gets into contact with every other river through its waters, through the ocean and through the clouds, you will meet every other idea before you reveal yourself."

"Like the exalted Bodhisattva, a person who discovers the right questions will flow like the mighty Ganges. A person who does not, he will only be a tiny droplet of rain falling down the sky.", says Jaya and bows with respect before his Acharya.

D e m o c r a c y O f A r t

2007-02-15T14:41:00.000-08:00

On a Sunday, I walk into the center of town and see a middle-aged man playing accordion. It is a romantic instrument - the accordion. As he plays the music, joy wraps itself unconsciously around me. What a sunny day ! There could even be little fairies dancing here, hiding in the soft glow. I walk upto the man and drop in a euro in his tin on the ground. He smiles graciously. I feel elated.

Art is a divine message. It needs to be propagated for its own sake. By dropping a coin, did I have any claims to the music ? No, because art belongs to everybody. And yes, because it belongs to me too.

We are stepping into an epoch where the economic relations that bind the artist and the audience are going to be revolutionized. The pace of change that is happening now is extremely rapid, and it requires a complete overhauling of existing economic paradigms. However, the tidings of this change will not be music to many ears.

The corporations which will suffer immediately are the Times-Warner company (hollywood production house, owner of the CNN, the Times magazine etc), Virgin records, Paramount and the like. Most of the global media industry is in the hands of these few mega corporations which are currently facing nightmares on how to cope with this change. The truth is becoming increasingly clear - these mega-corporations do not hold a right to existence any longer. Irrespective of how much they try to distort the facts, or to fool the people, or to contort the markets (DRM), they stand to lose the battle with technology.

Elton John cursed in the middle of his New York concert that his recording label are a bunch of bastards. George Lucas almost gave up in despair when his script for Star Wars was rejected for 3 years consecutively by production houses. Kurt Cobain commited suicide when he was unable to cope with the marketization of his music. What do all these incidants have in common ? The servitude of art to the brokers of the industry,

What characterizes these companies ? They control the means of distribution between the producers (artists) and the consumers (audience). The trade that they specialize in is art. The phenomenal thing that happens to go unnoticed is that such a trade has never existed in the history of mankind, except in our own age spanning about 150 years. And it is going to end mercifully soon.

Trade has been the reason for prosperity ever since the dawn of civilization. Markets offer an efficient means of distribution for products (goods) and services. Every time a person purchases a product, he is effectively casting a vote about whether the product should survive. Thus, markets are an indispensible form of economic democracy.

The trouble with art is that it cannot be categorized into either as a product or as a service. Thus, it has never been part of the market in the conventional sense.

So, how did the artists of the past earn their livelihood ? They are provided for by the society. In pastoral age, the bards were provided for food by everyone. Honoring artists was considered to be an opportunity unmatchable. It is considered to be the same as donating money to God, both being creators.

In the feudal age, artists were provided for by the kings. But since the kings themselves were living off the working class, it is in effect the working class that provided for the artists. When they donated money to the artists, the kings did not expect to confine the art to themselves. At best, they could expect a dedication of the material to their name, but even that is not usually forthcoming. It has to be noted that, the really great of the artists did not even court the favor of the kings.

Here in the capitalist age, a new form of transformation has imposed itself on art. This is the diabolical transformation of art into a product. Since this transformation is so unnatural, it does not deliver justice to the product in question. The people who make money are usually the people who don't deserve to make it.

Art is created for the sake of itself. It is created for the sake of self expression and self discovery. When I say art, I mean it to include mathematics, science, philosophy, painting, literature, music and so on. Seasoned computer programmers also consider themselves as artists. None of the great masters of the past worked on art for the sake of earning money. An artist uses his creation as a means of communicating with the society, with the universe and with himself. Who can quote the price for art ? It is priceless.

The transformation of art into a product is a diabolical violation against nature. In Sanskrit, it is termed as the sale of Saraswati, the goddess of learning. In Christianity, it is akin to selling one's soul to the devil. It is a fact no artist would be proud of. But, the mega-corporations I was talking about achieved the unthinkable , this by brainwashing people that they are providing for the artists.

How many people are aware of the fact that out of the 10 dollars they pay for a CD, less than 50 cents go to the artist in question ? How many people are aware of the enormous number of talented artists driven to suicide in a state of rejection and despair after failing to court the recording elite ? How many of us even do consider exploring our creativity as a possible way to earn livelihood ? The thought of swimming through the mafia of the big production houses is debilitating to say the least. In the process of selling their souls to the devil, many artists are forced to sell their bodies as well, in forced prostitution to the power-brokers.

In any case, how much of the output of these production houses (Hollywood or pop music) classifies for being considered as art ? As expected, these situations are much worse in India. What we have now is a complete lack of democracy of art. Markets, in their conventional form, do not provide the required economic democracy for artists.

Can the brokers be dispensed with completely ? Can the audience patronize art directly ? The answer to these questions is "yes". In the current age, one need not be a king to patronize art. One can provide money directly to the artists of one's choice via the internet.

In fact, these type of donations have always been the means for sustenance for most of the artists during their budding stages. It is usually friends and fans who donate money so that the budding artists can pursue their interests. Most of the best work ever done by artists has been done in this stage, when they are independent of the wishes and whims of the mega-corporations.

What we need now is a new means of banking - a simple means of disseminating money to the artists. Like Google helps in searching for websites, a similar service is needed for transfering money by search. For people who do not have access to internet, a similar service could be provided at physical locations. This service can even deduct some charges for the transfer. If you want to be the next big internet millionaire, take my advice and start this service. This is going to be the next revolutionary thing after free email.

You might question me that this form of service will never raise as much money as done by recording companies. Maybe yes, but it will definitely raise sufficient money and provide immensely greater freedom for the artists.

What about making a movie such as the Lord of the Rings ? It would be impossible, right ? To sceptics of my economic model, I would like to counter this by relating the story of the biggest emblem of freedom - the statue of liberty. When the architects decided to build the statue, they realized they needed a lot of money. So. they did first build a part of the statue - the hand holding the torch. They put that piece up on a truck and showed it at several cities for fundraising. To their own surprise, they could raise the necessary funds much earlier than they expected to.

In fact, a similar thing does happen in the movie industry. First, a director has to build his credibility before attempting a mega movie. George Lucas had to prove himself with American Graffiti before he could dare mention about Star Wars (though he had written the script for Star Wars much earlier). Peter Jackson had to earn his credibility with a bunch of movies before he could broach about the Lord of the Rings.

What the new economic model would do is to connect the artists directly to the audience. Instead of courting a filthy rich power-broker in closed doors, the artist would directly court the public.

Irrespective of any viable new economic model, the existing model is bound to fail. With the reach of the internet, the mega-corporations can no longer control their assets from being pirated. No amount of digital rights management (DRM) will suffice. In the end, these corporations will be forced to demand a tax from the government to sustain their businesses. Ironically, these corporations will be soon demanding the socialist answer (centralized planning) to save their assets.

Instead, we can dispense with the mega-corporations altogether, thereby realizing the much cherished economic democracy of art.

P i s s e d O f f P i x i e s

2006-12-28T01:56:00.000-08:00

"What's going on !!? I cannot seem to find a decent program on a single channel for the past one hour", complains Zuick.

"Duh. That seems to be the normal state of affairs these days", quickly surmises Wopie.

Zuick and Wopie are pixies, little mischievous fairy-like creatures with wings.They live in the pixie-verse, which is a universe with the laws of physics quite similar to our own universe, except in areas such as time travel, teleportation, remote mind-control etc. One of the fundamental discoveries that changed the life style of pixies was the invention of the pixie-television.

Pixies are a relaxed and romantic species by nature. They love watching television. The pixie-television is none like our own television - it is a hyper-dimensional projection of 3D images, scents, sounds and emotions. It is no wonder that pixies are quite glued to it.

The interesting thing that has to be admitted is that the life of the Homosapiens on this planet called Earth is not, as you think, a collective outcome of several conscious entities. But, it is, in fact, the program on the pixie-television.

Yes, that is right. Our universe is nothing but the plot-verse for their television program. Human beings are merely characters created for the entertainment of pixies.

This arrangement worked fine for a long time for the pixies. Their romantic sentiments were well addressed during the several previous episodes of the television programs. In human beings, there had been characters strong and gallant. There had been characters cute and lovely. Pixies had a good time following all the mess that these characters got themselves into.

In fact, the pixie-television is interactive. And pixies can even interrupt the lives of the characters if they wish to do so, like as recounted by Shakespere in his Midsummer Night's Dream.

But, these happy times are soon getting to an end.

"These characters on the TV are turning into a joke", exclaims Zuick.

"Yeah. I mean I just do not get the whole concept", wonders Wopie, "Nobody seems to be fighting a war for the sake of love. Isn't it supposed to be the plot, during the episode of the Trojan war ? Now, what are they fighting for ? Oil !! Can it get any stupider than that ? "

"They are all a bunch of confused idiots. Why do they work like donkeys ? And why do they spend all their money eating junk food ?"

"I don't even feel like getting inside their universe anymore. It stopped being like fun."

"And when is the last time you saw a character love something for the sake of love ? "

"Dear God Pixeus !! You are right Zuick. Love is becoming dead."

"I think we should demand an explanation. If it is not about love, why are they showing all this crap on pixie-television ? "

Zuick and Wopie form a club, the PTCC - Pixie Television Condemnation Club. They spread the word amongst all their friends - Blooter, Wigwag, Tria, Lymee and so on. They finally meet Qonsper - the resident nerd amongst the local pixies.

"You fools of pixiedom. You don't have a clue of what's going on. Do you think it is accidantal that they are showing all this crap on pixie-television ? No, my friends, no ! The evil government is planning a massive brainwashing operation for us pixies. They are sending such images on the television only to subdue us into brainless and robotic creatures."

"Whoooa !! "

"I say, we should rebel against all this. Rebel against the television. When pixies no longer watch any of these programs on the TV, they will finally abandon them due to the fall of ratings. I think we should get riddance of these dumb human beings for good. We have had them for enough time on the TV", explains Qonsper.

Everybody responds enthusiastically, "Yeah !! "

S á g a r a k s h é t h r a

2006-12-25T03:43:00.000-08:00

The ancient Indian epic of Mahábháratha narrates the story of an apocalyptic war. This is not a war between the good and the evil. This war is about too much greed and its necessary culmination into a major battle.

Kauravás, led by Duryódhana, are consumed by greed and blinded by absolute power. They deny their cousins, the Pándavás, the rightful share of their property. Fighting on the side of the Kauravás are great warriors and righteous men. Ranking first amongst them are Bhíshma - who is the greatest warrior of all time, and Dróna - the greatest teacher in the art of warcraft. The forces of Kauravás are ten times stronger than those of Pándavás. But above all, Kauravás have a great archer to fight on behalf of them - Karña, a warrior born of low parents. In times of adversity, Duryódhana befriends Karña and gives him respect and a position of power. In return to friendship, Karña would sacrifice his life for the sake of Duryódhana.

The interesting thing that is revealed later is that Karña is actually the eldest of the Pándavás. Due to a sad episode, he gets abandoned by his mother in his childhood. If the Pándavás win the war, the throne would naturally go to Karña. But, Karña still keeps his loyalty to his friend Duryódhana, and fights his own brothers in the war.

Legend has it that the epic war of Mahábháratha repeats itself throughout time, whenever people are consumed by greed, whenever equality and justice are burnt in the flames of arrogance brought through by absolute power.

In our times, the greed of the Kauravás finds its reflection in the greed of the corporations. The absolute power wielded by Duryódhana finds its counterpart in the nuclear arsenal of the USA. The mighty Bhíshma and Dróna find their equivalents in the great universities and the research labs of Europe and the USA. We have our own Karña - the emigrant researcher employed by the drug development corporation, the musical artist employed by the recording industry, the software developer employed in the big industry...

The starving peoples of the world who are denied access to their rightful resources by their own cousins - they have only a handful of Pándavás to fight on their behalf. But, these Pándavás are great warriors undaunted by their adversity. They have a resource which the Kauravás do not possess - Krishna, the greatest philosopher of the entire mankind.

In the approaching future, the world is set stage for another apocalyptic battle. But, this time it will be fought on the sea.

The sea is everywhere. In the begining, people fear it, they run away from it. But they occassionally receive sudden outbursts from the sky - messages from the sea, constantly reminding them of their duty - to discover the deep, to discover the beyond.

Gradually, people get rid of their fear for the sea. They make ships and sail into it - reaching faraway lands, meeting people and making friendships.

This sea is called information.

But, the levels of the sea start rising suddenly. Indeed, they rise at an alarming pace. So, people build dikes and dams to prevent the sea from flooding. These dams turn into fortresses denying entry to the sea and denying entry to people from outside.

But, trade over the sea continues. Soon, this trade turns into a massive robbery operation. Huge ships of gold and wealth start to sail from disadvantaged lands into the lockers of the massive fortresses.

"greetings. would like to reach raider"

"raider answering. who signals ? "

"plumber. I find strategic information"

"concerning ?"

"PNS"

"lose no time"

The message is transmitted in no time over the sea.

" US NUCLEAR STRIKE FOILED
A secret message captured directly from the President of the USA, the supreme commander of the US miltary forces, over a preemptive nuclear strike on Beijing is transmitted on several websites over the internet. China gets alarmed. All the nations of the world get on a red alert. The highly encrypted military intelligence of the USA seems to have been broken by a secret group of computer hackers. The possible reasons for the nuclear strike are still disputed with no explanations forthcoming from the US government. Massive protests have commenced in the USA demanding an urgent inquiry behind the episode. The Security Council of the United Nations meets in session with the notable absence of the USA. "

The dikes preventing the sea from flooding get broken. The entire people of the planet become sea-borne.

The epic war on the sea commences.

X r e a t i v i t y

2006-11-14T01:27:00.000-08:00

Most of the good stories are written about travellers. Whenever a culture meets with another, a new story is born. May be I can generalize and say that, all good stories are about the meeting of two places or cultures. Sometimes, the second party in the meeting will be the audience themselves, the first party being the protagonists. For example, this happens with a story set in the future or in a fantasyland.

The problem with the current generation of writers is that very few people seem to notice this fact. All the great writers of old have spent considerable time traveling. Somerset Maugham has wandered throughout Europe and in the Far East - his stories are weaved from those travels. Roald Dahl has found most of his creative inspiration from his experiences in the second world war where he has served in the Royal Air Force. O Henry writes a considerable section of his stories about the Mexican neighbours to his south, and the rest of his repertoire are about con-men bitten by wanderlust. Even the great epics of the past - Illiad, Odyssey, Ramayana, Mahabharata etc. are about the travels of people or the meeting of cultures.

One of the reasons why Bollywood keeps churning out soulless jibberish ad infinitum is because it has forgotten this recipe for a successful story. Instead, it keeps trying out weird formulae such as boy meets girl, girl's father dislikes boy and so on ..

There is no culture without creativity, and there is no creativity without crossing cultures together. So I call this xreativity.

India probably ranks first in the world with respect to cultural diversity. But nobody seems to take notice. Logically speaking, there should be a huge number of TV programs about the travel & life in several parts of India, made for several Indian languages. India is so big - we can have TV channels such as Discovery, Animal Planet, History channel, AXN etc. which are restricted to only within India.

Even in universities, we do not have the tradition of celebrating cultural days. In US campuses, people celebrate China day, Singapore day, India day etc. Why not hold a Telugu day, Gujarathi day, Bengali day in a similar manner within India ?

Indians are a very inquisitive race by nature and are pokey about other cultures. Write a story about a Kabuliwallah parading in the streets of Calcutta, and the whole of India takes notice (This happens to be a lovely story penned by Tagore). Indian writers are currently doing a pathetic job in milking out this diversity for nice stories.

Where is the story about a Punjabi truck driver roaming in Karnataka ? Where is the story about a Rajasthani software engineer working in Hyderabad ? Where is the story about a Tamilian school teacher living in Bihar ? Where are the stories about Malayali armymen serving in Nagaland ? ...

Another thing glares at me now. I wanted to write stories in this blog. Instead, I have been posting brainwashing articles for the entire last year. What has happened to me !! ?

So friends, there will be no more lectures from my side. I will try concentrating only on writing short stories.

É g a l i t é

2006-11-13T02:19:00.000-08:00

Égalité is a concept totally lacking in India. If I ever make a decision to leave India for good, it will most probably be because of the lack of égalité. Loosely translated, égalité means equality. But it is more than that. It is a principle of accepting that each person is equally interesting.

In India, we live in the tradition of sucking it up to the stars. A person is either a star or a bozo, nothing in between. I will give examples - Sania Mirza is the face of Indian tennis, Aishwarya Rai is the face of Indian cinema .. I feel disgusted enough when such epithets are mentioned in domestic press. But when they are uttered on the world stage, I feel nauseated.

How about the girl in the neighbourhood who plays really good tennis ? How about the guy in the campus who sings really well ? How about spending some money to purchase tickets for a concert of the local rock band ? How about paying some money to buy the book written by the new writer in the town ? "What !? Does he think he is an Amitav Gosh or what ?" These people are greeted with a fickle smile - "Yeah, we have seen people better than that !".

This is the reason India will never produce anything great or in copious quantities. It is not just about the feeling of disappointment that is imparted onto the minds of talented people. It is the total sucker attitude of the entire population.

Such people can never realize a true democracy.

M u r d e r e r O f M i n d

2006-11-12T10:46:00.000-08:00

What was India doing when the fever of renaissance was gripping Europe ?

Listening to this lunatic. This person holds responsibility for the degeneration of Islam into mere puppetry.

One of the most evil persons to have ever walked on earth, he effectively killed the movement of Indian argumentative thought. I feel ashamed to see people glorifying him in current society.

C o n j u g a t e G r a d i e n t M e t h o d

2006-11-10T10:05:00.000-08:00

When a person believes that he is doing something for a right cause, he becomes indistinguishable from a robot. Most of the great things happen because of these type of people. Most of the nonsense that we see in the world is also committed by the same kind of people. So where is the distinction ?

The distinction lies in the vision of the people - in what they see.

The problems of the world can be visualized collectively as a function which forms a peak over several dimensions. The solution for these problems lies at the top of the peak and it has to be reached somehow.

In mathematics, the technique that is used to solve this problem is called the conjugate gradient method. When there are thousands of dimensions, we have to first choose a direction to travel. The most simplistic answer - go in that direction where the descent is maximum (called the steepes descent method) - is also ignored by the junta of the world.

Every person has his own direction where he thinks he'll reach the top. In a sense, he is true. Each one of these directions yields an improvement. But the funny thing is that several of these directions are contradictory to each other. Look at the following figure to understand this.

So we see maniacal people (red and blue) fighting with each other about the correct way to reach the top. Sometimes, things get funnier with somebody (yellow) choosing the least important direction for reaching to the top. I could demonstrate this on a simple function over 2 dimensions, so you can imagine what could happen in real-world problems.

Take the problem of improving the status of traffic in India - the problem lies in several dimensions
a) Controlling the really large vehicles and routing them away from the city
b) Controlling traffic in peak hours by urban planning
c) Controlling traffic blockades by specifying seperate pedestrian districts, parking places etc.
d) Getting riders to wear helmets.

Amongst all these dimensions, the traffic police of Hyderabad demonstrate their zeal in (d). Like mad men, they keep digging in this direction and ignore everything else.

As a second example, take the problem of university education - it needs improvement in several dimensions
a) Establishing world class research facilities with proper accountability
b) Getting the students to have a real dialogue with the world around
c) Getting the students to attend the classes

Again, it so happens in India that all the zeal is demonstrated in (c).

Now imagine that we have a sane bunch of people in the world. You would imagine that things would be a lot better. People would choose the best direction to solve all the problems (cyan) instead of the stupidest (yellow). But, even then, it so happens that steepest descent is not the optimal method to reach to the top. We will eventually get there, but not in the most optimal manner. Because we might follow a zig-zag path with two opposing directions choosing alternate steps, taking a very long time to converge. This is what we would see in elections (assuming each step to be of a 5 year duration) with power alternating between left wing and right wing policies.

The Conjugate Gradient Method is a way of obtaining the peak in just "n" steps where "n" is the number of dimensions. The logic is simple - once you choose a direction, do the best you can in the current step, never repeat the direction.

It so happens that all these "n" directions would become perpendicular to each other (In mathematical terminology, they are said to form an orthogonal basis). If you want to understand the logic behind how to choose the right direction at each step, read this document (only for people with a mathematical bent of mind)

I have attended a fascinating mathematics course by Prof Mike Erdmann at Carnegie Mellon. Each one of us students had to choose a topic for write up, and when my turn came, I jumped at the chance of writing the proofs for the conjugate gradient method.

I think this method gives a lot of intuitions about how to organize a debate. When you are debating with another person, you are presenting a view. That is, you take a picture of the 3D function in the above figure, from an angle. Each person has a seperate photograph and you compare these photographs with each other to understand what could be the true shape of the function in 3D.

But most often, a debater fails to see this main purpose of the debate. He keeps insisting that he has the only photo that can capture the 3D shape and keeps digging in that direction. I call this the "root of all the evil" syndrome.

If only we have a smart bunch of leaders, we would end up choosing the right set of directions, and the problem of all the "n" dimensions will get solved in just "n" steps.

D e d i c a t e d T o H y d e r a b a d

2006-11-08T09:48:00.000-08:00

I am defending my Masters work in IIIT Hyderabad. It deals with matching planar patterns in perspective images.

After a long love-hate relationship, I am dedicated this work to the city of Hyderabad :)

Apart from obvious applications such as the reconstruction of architectural scenes, this work shall have implications towards the holy-grail problem of computer vision - take a clothed girl as input, produce a naked girl as output

So what is the state of the art ? As an insider, let me confess to you - we are already there !

The technology will be available within 15 years. Now you know exactly what Vision 2020 means !!

As a wise old man has said long before, science has a wicked male gaze. People thought he was talking about nuclear weapons etc. Nah, wrong. This is what he has actually meant. Free and juicy porn forever. (The first post on this blog discusses the horrors of this scenario in a poetic vein)

I am leaving to France to pursue a PhD on a related topic. Future generations of teenagers will look back upon me and my brethern as some kind of heroes, I think.

A G o l d e n W i s h

2006-11-01T09:01:00.000-08:00

Otthaina maa bhásha ki putthadi pandagalu

Maró Gurajáda neeku kongottha sogasulu diddu gaaka
Maró Vémana neeku tatva chaitanyam'osagu gaaka
Maró Chinnaya neeché kammani kathalu palkinchu gaaka
Maró Thyágayya neek'impaina svaramul'arpinchu gaaka

May another Gurajáda gift new embellishments to you
May another Vémana teach depths of philosophy to you
May another Chinnaya narrate sweet stories with you
May another Thyágayya offer melodious salutations to you

May we see them all.

C o u n t i n g W i t h Z e r o e s

2006-09-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

When people say that Indians have discovered zero, what they mean is that they discovered the way of counting with zeroes.

Without using zeroes, counting would proceed like this

1
11
111
1111
11111

The number 1000 would need to be represented by 1000 digits instead of 4. In fact, due to the Indian method of counting, the storage (representation ability) for a number "n" came down to log(n).

What Indians have discovered is an exponential gain in data-storage. This significant invention made possible the basic arithmetic (multiplication, division etc) to be done in an exponentially less amount of time. It also opened roads for algebra, number theory, trigonometry and so on ..

0
1
10
11
100

The Counter is the most basic digital circuit. The key operation in counting is the toggle operator which reverses the digit on the right most side (called the least significant bit)

At first sight, it feels unnatural to count like this. But the genius of India has discovered this method of counting not less than 3000 years ago. I wish to claim that Indian philosophy takes its roots from this method of thinking.

In the Upanishads, the path of evolution is always a circle. However, a new dimension gets added every time a circle (yuga) gets finished. In this sense, the Indian thought is not fatalistic but progressive. The notion of progress has to be understood from the mode of counting.

In the Taitaríya Upanishad, five dimensions of human existence are mentioned - anna (matter), prána (life), mánasa (mind), vignána (understanding) and ánanda (bliss). Each of these dimensions is held in common with inanimate matter, plants, animals, men and enlightened men respectively.

The goal of scientific endeavour is to discover the ways of operation for each of the above 5 dimensions. In fact, ancient Indian philosophy is extremely accomodating for the theories of cosmos, relativity (matter) and evolution (life), that have been produced by centuries of scientific development.

Indian philosophy welcomes scientific endeavour to be made for understanding the remaining 3 dimensions as well. Currently, slow inroads are being made for undestanding Mánasa (mind) - through computer science. The future awaits similar revolutions to be made in the remaining dimensions. In India, progress and justice are truly symbolized by a wheel, as identified by the great emperor Ashoka, and as imbibed in the national flag. The wheel signifies the circular motion of progress through various terrains. It is also the symbol of the dawn of civilization.

I will also offer a surprising connection to Marxist thought from the Indian method of counting. Marx says that the society progresses through several stages where each stage is exactly the negation of its preceeding stage. Feudalism is the opposite of pastoralism, capitalism is the opposite of feudalism, communism is the opposite of capitalism etc. How is that possible ?

000 hunting-gathering
001 pastoral
010 feudal
011 capitalist
100 socialist

You see that the right-most digit of each stage is the negation of the previous stage. This is the Marxist method of understanding economic progress. (Need not be yours, if you don't use the binary system for counting)

You may also see that the right-most bits of socialism and feudalism are in alignment (both 0), thus supporting my earlier complaint that the communists in India are obstructing the end of feudalism from happening.

On a final note, the anecdote I narrated in my previous post also alludes to this method of counting.

W h a t I s L i f e ?

2006-09-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

"You look troubled, Jaya. What is on your mind ?", kindly says Dheesára - the chieftian of Vaiśáli.

"Áchárya, why is it difficult to absolve oneself from attachments ? ", asks Jaya.

"Ask a simpler question, Jaya ", says Dheesára.

Jaya thinks for a few minutes and asks - "What is the relationship of oneself with the world, Áchárya ?"

"Ask a simpler question, Jaya", Dheesára repeats.

Jaya thinks for a few more minutes and asks - "What is the common aspect between the world and oneself, Áchárya ? "

"The answer is evident, Jaya. It is called life. "

'Then what is life, Áchárya ? "

"If you want to understand life, you have to first understand death. Death is the total absence of life. It is the consummate negation."

"Yes Áchárya. But what is life ? "

"But Jaya, do you understand what death is ? "

"Yes Áchárya. I do understand. "

"Life is the convolution of life and death."

"How is that possible Áchárya ? If death be the negation of life, how can life be composed of death ? "

"Have you studied arithmetic, Jaya ? "

"Yes Áchárya."

"Take the number zero. Isn't it the consummate negation of any kind of existence ? "

"Yes Áchárya."

"Now take the number one. It signifies existence."

"Yes Áchárya."

"A one is composed of a one and a zero. Moreover, if you want to look for higher numbers, you can compose them with ones and zeros by changing the place value of one."

"Yes Áchárya. But how does it relate to the question of life ?"

"Jaya, when you want to look for the existence of higher forms of life, death is an inevitable part in one of the places. You can choose to ignore it, but it is always there. When you look at the joy in the world, there is always suffering behind it. So do not make aversion to the suffering in the world. It is always an invitation to higher joy. "

"I am glad with your answer Áchárya. But there is still a doubt in my mind. What is the reason for the origin of life ? When does the equation end - the equation of infinite recursion of life and death ? "

"I am sorry Jaya. The mathematics required for answering that question is neither within your reach, nor within mine."

V i s i t T o T.D.P O f f i c e

2006-09-19T08:12:00.000-07:00

I have decided to give the letter to Chandrababu Naidu gaaru, so today, I went to the NTR Bhavan in Jubilee Hills. I didn't have any decent clothes with me, so I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I didn't expect to meet Naidu, but was planning to give the letter to his secretary.

The TDP office was swarming with political leaders from all over the state, and I looked definitely the odd man out. I heard people murmuring "So it has finally come down to this. Kids getting into the office building wearing shorts !".

Then, I was shocked to know that if I intend to meet Naidu gaaru, my turn would be just at number 7. Growing up in IIIT and around Hitec City, I always had some awe about Naidu gaaru. Already tense, meeting him in shorts was out of the question. So I gave the letter to his P.A and rushed out of the place.

I hope Naidu gaaru will get to read it, atleast in a quick glance. In any case, I feel relieved now. And I will be getting back to my research work.

P s e u d o P r o b l e m s O f I n d i a

2006-09-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

What is the real problem of India ? Every aspiring intellectual charlatan claims to know the answer.

Qorruption : This is the favorite answer from the film industry. Everyone likes to believe that qorruption is the root cause of all misery and poverty. Blame the politicians. Blame the police. Blame the government. But in the end, this leads us nowhere. Qorruption is a part and parcel of the package of homosapiens. It is human nature to look for shortcuts to earn wealth. When we face poverty, we should not blame qorruption, but blame the vulnerability of our economic system. Qorruption is like carbon dioxide, it does not become an evil until it gets out of control. And when it gets out of control, it happens due to a deeper reason.

Qleanliness : Or rather qleanlessness. Homecoming NRI princes complain about the filthy habits of the Indian crowds. About dust clouds hanging over the cities, sewer spilling onto the roads, gaudy newsprint adorning the walls, and backyards reeking of garbage stink. Since qleanliness is next to godliness, qleanlessness should be next only to dastardliness. But before you equate Indians with the scum of the earth, you should realize that this is an extremely racist argument. Qleanliness has been used throughout the history to justify racial hatred - it has been used by the Nazis against the Jews, it has been used by the Brahmins against the Pariahs, and it has been used by Jews against the Arabs. Qleanliness is like body temperature, it is the symptom rather than the real cause of the sickness.

Qultural Degradation : This is the most dangerous of all the pseudo problems. Because it not only diverts attention away from the real problem, but it also creates aversion to the real cure. It is not the fault of the masses that the cultural values are eroding, but the fault of the self appointed cultural vangaurd. Any kind of philosophy loses its value when it doesn't come to terms with science and technology. In today's world, we need to read and recompose the Upanishads after studying physics and biology, not after studying vedas and brahmanas. In today's world we need to learn and perform classical music with electrical and electronic instruments. If we fail to do so, qulture will inevitably degrade. Qulture has meaning only in motion, only in change.

So what is the real problem of India ?
Here is the answer. In one word. Feudalism.

India never had an industrial revolution. Its society is still suffering from the vestiges of a bygone era. An era which ended by 1700 in Europe. No, these are not vestiges, but living and thriving bacteria. They are called the Qaste system and the Quota System. As long as these survive, India will never see a true capitalist democracy.

Qommunists - Phenomenal Idiots : I have respect for Marx and his treatise on capitalism. I have respect for the selflessness of some people who believe in the ideals of the Qommunist party. But I believe the Qommunist movement hijacked a more necessary revolution before it has even begun. In Europe, this revolution was called the capitalist revolution, or the age of enlightenment.

Marx mentions that a society progresses through several stages depending on the economical control of the means of production. Hunting-Gathering to Pastoral to Feudal to Capitalist to Communist. This order is inevitable and all these stages are necessary. Particularly, Feudalism can be destroyed only by Capitalism, and this happens through the industrial revolution.

Marx urges communists to fight along with capitalists to eradicate feudalism. Because until the advent and maturity of capitalism, communism has no meaning.

However, Marx has overseen an important and necessary ingredient in industrial/capitalist revolution - colonization. This was his biggest mistake. I discussed this issue here.

Colonies are necessary for the industrial revolution to occur, and not the other way round. Lenin in his extention to the Marxist theory, made exactly the above mistake. He said that colonies are necessary for capitalism to continue and survive. He made no mention about how they are necessary for the advent of industrial revolution. This argument had been needed for supporting the Russian Red Revolution. But even to this day, Qommunists religiously believe in this nonsense. Doing so, they go against the very ideas of Marx.

They claim that MNCs are the post-imperialistic equivalent of the East India company. They fight against any pro-business deal saying that it is anti-societal. They try to bring in job security when there are no jobs to begin with. They claim that industrial revolution can happen through state-based control (going against all evidence of the great-leaps forward of qommunist countries, which have ended in disastrous failures).

Who are the qommunists helping in doing all this ?
They are not helping the society, they are not helping the workers.

They are helping the wicked old witch of feudalism who refuses to die. They are stifling the throat of capitalism before it becomes strong enough to fight the ills of feudalism.

If Qommunists have their way, we will never see an age of enlightenment in India. Neither will we see an end of poverty. But I do believe that communists (not qommunists) have a role to play in the development process. They have to ensure that the promises of capitalism are kept intact - increase of jobs, increase of literacy and increase of opportunities.

So my dear friends, remember these slogans lest the qommunists hijack them. These slogans belong to the age of Indian Capitalist Awakening.

Kill Qaste System. Quit India.
Kill Quota System. Quit India.
Kill Feudalism. Quit India.