X r e a t i v i t y

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 ?

"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

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

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.