labyrinths of neonstein

Online Logic Challenge

2010-03-29T00:04:00.003+05:30

due to public demand, we present to you a pure and brain-twisting logic challenge, and the best part- it's online. send your answers to eesa.crce@gmail.com....here we begin-

0. It's my birthday today and i got myself a square birthday cake. it measures 24 cm by 24 cm with a height of 12 cm. we have three people who want to eat the cake equally. but only equal parts won't suffice us.The cake has dark chocolate frosting on all sides except

the bottom and each of us wants to have the same amount of chocolate frosting as

well as the same amount of cake. also there is a mouse made of icing in the center

of the top of the cake, and i ( as i am the birthday boy ) wants the entire rose, no cut may pass

through or touch where the mouse is. so how will you divide the cake???

10. News flash: Martians have invaded earth and taken some of CRCE students as prisoners. The prisoners are put in circular cells which are suspended . The cylindrical wall of the martian cell has four push buttons placed symmetrically. the buttons have two

states ,"1" or "0". But the occupants would not come to know, by any means,

what state the button holds at that time. The CRCE students would be free if the push

buttons are all in the same state, i.e. all "1" or all "0". They are allowed

to press any button any number of times in a bid to get free. But the problem is

after every wrong attempt, the wall of the cell will spin for 30 seconds and therefore the students will have no way of telling which buttons they tried. an attempt consists of 1,2,3 or all four of the buttons being pushed simultaneously. When a button is pushed, its state changes, i.e. 1 becomes 0 and vice versa. Tell whether they will be able to get out of the cell within 5 minutes!!!

1110. There are n coyotes and a roadrunner in a room. All coyotes are free to eat the roadrunner if they are hungry. Now if the roadrunner is eaten by a coyote, that coyote turns sleepy and hence is prone to be eaten by another hungry coyote. A coyote which eats another coyote also gets drowsy. Assume that all coyotes are sane and logical. Can the roadrunner survive at all? Justify your answer.

3110. you have 12 coins with you. can you construct a square and place coins on the sides, such that there are 5 coins on each side.

132110. give me the next number in the series:

1, 18, 35, 66, 176, 190, 408, ?

_______. if you noticed the question numbers are somewhat weird in this quiz...give me the question number of this question !!!

7. dexter comes to a shop in bandra to buy a few items. He chooses 4 things to buy. The shopkeeper tells dexter that he has to pay 7 Rupees and 11 paise. but dexter has only Rs 10 note . Now the shopkeeper in his boredom wants to confuse dexter and test his IQ. He tells him he

multiplied the prices of the four items to get the amount dexter had to pay. It turns out that dexter did his basic math and agreed with the shopkeeper as to what had to be paid. What were the prices of the four items?

happy brain-racking!!

answers to the quiz

2009-08-01T21:27:00.002+05:30

1.hindenberg-the zepplin.used by germans

2.assam

3.windows

4.fermet

5.sars

6.boston red sox

7.concorde

8.ins arihant

9.rod laver

10.spain

11.hannibal

12.sherlock holmes

13.gives the maximum milage

14.world war 1.the person in the third pic is bismarck.

15.ultrasonic song

16.fusion

17.laws of robotics.

18.largest female gathering

19. solar taxi

20.plane that was used in 9/11 attacks

online quiz for malhaar part 2.

2009-07-29T20:56:00.013+05:30

this is the second part of the quiz. please see the previous post for the first 10 questions..

11. he is considered one of the greatest military tactician of all times. the second pic also shows one of his famous tactics...identify him( dedicated to all aoe and warcraft freaks)

12. name this famous persona( everyone has heard his name atleast once in their lifetime). the first picture is of the person while the second shows his belongings.

13. this one is dedicated to all car and bike freaks....

identify this famous bmw car and what is its prominence?

14.link all the pictures of a famous war and tell me the war.clarify on the second and the third picture for a bonus point.

15. what is special about the song " a very silent night"?( a pure give away)

16.tell me the word which means the following

Biology: A cellular phenomenon that usually occurs during differentiation of cells Chemistry: A name for a particular phase change Physics: A process that has been observed in stars, though no human enterprises have succeeded in replicating it in a controlled manner

17. the book in the picture has short stories which gives us some revolutionary set of concepts...tell me the concepts

18. what is attukal pongala and what is its record claim?

19. un secretary general ban ki-moon commuted to his office using a special taxi developed by louis palmer and sponsored by swizerland. what is special about it?

20.

finally the last....it is a hard one

what is peculiar about this plane?

hint:think of news involving the airlines and a major event in world history

P.S. compliments and insults can be made to the quizmaster using the esteemed comments section

online quiz for malhaar

2009-07-29T19:53:00.007+05:30

this is the famous(hopefully) and a pathbreaking(in crce) quiz which has to be solved online under a pretty long time limit and will full allowance to cheat.usage of google and books is encouraged. you have to send the solutions to the quiz by 30 july 2009 by 10 pm. incase of a tie breaker, the team providing explanation to specific problems will be considered. send the answers to ameyasgaonkar@gmail.com.

let the quiz begin....

1.name the historic airplane in picture ,whose explosion is still a mystery.which country used it?

2.here's an easy one...

which state of india shares its border with largest number of states?(kill yourself if you googled the answer)

3.identify x.

there are different types of x .they have codenames like chicago,memphis,whistler,longhorn during its development.

4.who am i talking about and what did he do?

he was called as an amateur mathematician.the theorem he gave was in 1637 but got proven in 1995.it was one of the greatest maths puzzles of all time and the person who proves it was assured of the prestigious field medal.it is also dubbed as his last theorem.

5.for which diesease did WHO issue a travel advisory about a specific region for the very first time?( this is not difficult...think a bit).

6.identify the sports team which has the following logo..

hint:they ended one of the longest championship drought in the history of the sport by winning in 2004 after winning the trophy last at 1918.

7.identify the recently decommisioned aircraft

8. name the submarine in the pic (hint:observe the pic and the newspapers)

9.identify the player who was nicknamed "rocket"?

10. the national anthem of which country has been without lyrics since 1978....

there are 10 more questions ....due to restriction on iamge uploading...they are posted in the next post..

no man is an island

2008-08-12T22:41:00.000+05:30

so often, a prominent politician or social activist will take the stage and bemoan our dependence on some other party — whether they be another country, another ethnic group — for food, clothes, or any other necessity of life you can name. The rallying call for self-sufficiency is a resounding, clarion call; it is also an unfortunately deeply mistaken one.

In theory self-sufficiency sounds like a good, harmless idea: why shouldn’t we rely on ourselves, rather than having to go to someone else for the things we need? Prime Ministers have decried the necessity for Malays to buy clothes from Chinese textile manufacturers; social activists have opposed the privatisation of water companies lest they fall into foreign hands; politicians far and wide have suggested we should aim for self-sufficiency in rice. What’s wrong with self-sufficiency?

The problem with self-sufficiency is quite obvious when you wonder why more individuals aren’t self-sufficient. I can’t grow my own food, prepare my own stationery. I can’t type the words you’re reading on a laptop which I can’t build. It is insane to expect any human being to singlehandedly mine all the raw materials necessary and put them together to build his own notebook computer. Unless you want to do it as a hobby, being completely self-sufficient in almost any area of your life is impossible.

The reason for this is that every individual has their own particular talent. Mine happens to be writing, rather than farming or playing football. So I write, and use the money I earn from there to buy food and watch football. I could try to grow my own crops, but it would not be worth my time — and there’s the rub.

Being self-sufficient in most cases is simply not cost-effective: unless you are the most brilliant farmer the world has ever seen, and have an additional half dozen limbs, you almost certainly cannot feed yourself. Even real farmers specialise in a few crops and buy the rest they need. When every individual has a unique talent, it makes more sense to focus on what we do best rather than to try to do everything by ourselves.

So why should we expect a country to be completely self-reliant? To be self-sufficient as a country, you have to be bloody damn good at what you’re setting out to do. If you want all rice to be locally grown, you have to have extremely fertile land, the perfect climate and the right tools. This is not an easy task, considering we are still importing rice in spite of all the government’s efforts to promote local agriculture.

Why do we need to be self-sufficient in the first place? If we can earn more by setting up factories for microprocessors and Islamic financial institutions, why don’t we just take the money we earn from those businesses and buy the rice we need, rather than expending more unnecessary effort and unnecessarily sacrificing potential earnings for the sake of saying we do not need to import any rice? Except for some misplaced sense of “national pride”, there is really no good reason to waste money on self-sufficiency, in any sector.

Ultimately, we have no choice but to depend on someone. Even if we try to be self-sufficient in rice, to support rice production of such magnitude we would have to buy machinery and expertise from overseas. Wherever you turn, we cannot run from reliance on someone else — that is how globalisation and interconnectedness work.

The only half-plausible excuse for self-sufficiency is “national defence” — but this is disingenuous, at best. If we have so many enemies who are out to get us, they will have better ways of getting at us than contaminating our water supply (as many anti-privatisation activists fear) or refusing to sell us food. What sort of crisis can you imagine where another country would completely embargo us?

Empowerment and capacity-building are of course desirable things, but it is one thing to set up an industry and another thing to target self-sufficiency in a particular area. Unless the stars align perfectly in our favour, the only way to ensure we will “buy local” is to distort the market by taxing foreign competition out of the picture and wastefully subsidising local products instead. If you want a peek into a future of self-sufficiency, look no further than our local cars — much maligned and overpriced. When we know our limits and when we trade, we can play to our unique advantages, which will serve us much better in the long run than the wild-goose chase of hunting for self-sufficiency.

ortiz peom

2008-08-11T21:10:00.001+05:30

Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon last September 11th.
I would also like to ask you
To offer up a moment of silence
For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned,
disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes,
For the victims in both Afghanistan and the U.S.

And if I could just add one more thing...
A full day of silence
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the
hands of U.S.-backed Israeli
forces over decades of occupation.
Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people,
mostly children, who have died of
malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year U.S.
embargo against the country.

Before I begin this poem,
Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country.
Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of
concrete, steel, earth and skin
And the survivors went on as if alive.
A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people,
not a war - for those who
know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their
relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it.
A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of
a secret war ... ssssshhhhh....
Say nothing ... we don't want them to learn that they are dead.
Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia,
Whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have
piled up and slipped off our tongues.

Before I begin this poem.
An hour of silence for El Salvador ...
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.
45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas
25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found
their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could
poke into the sky.
There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains.
And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of
sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west...

100 years of silence...
For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half
of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand
Creek,
Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears.
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the
refrigerator of our consciousness ...

So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.

Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be. Not like it always has
been.

Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.

This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.
And if this is a 9/11 poem, then:
This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971.
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa,
1977.
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison,
New York, 1971.
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes
This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told
The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks
The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and
Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.

And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.

If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.

If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window
of Taco Bell,
And pay the workers for wages lost.
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the
Penthouses and the Playboys.

If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
people have gathered.

You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all...Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime. But we,
Tonight we will keep right on singing...For our dead.

j.r.r and lotr

2008-08-11T21:05:00.000+05:30

These days, the writing of heroic fantasy has become a mass-production industry; scarcely a week goes by without an author inventing a brave new world and subsequently being acclaimed as "the true inheritor of Tolkien's mantle", or some such. Unfortunately, fantastic settings alone do not an epic make, and 90% of new fantasy writing is crap - the same generic swords and sorcery, thud and blunder, repeated ad nauseam.

Tolkien is different. His imaginary homelands are not just names on the (by now obligatory) frontispiece map, they're countries, with rich histories and vibrant cultures; his invented tongues are not meaningless agglomerations of random syllables, they're carefully designed showcases of the linguist's art, with comprehensive lexica and detailed etymologies; his many invented beings are not cardboard cutout monsters, they're creatures who live and breathe and walk the pages of his books as convincingly as do his human heroes and heroines. The suspension of disbelief in Tolkien is total.

And then there's his verse. Tolkien's verse has genuine poetic merit, and it's not in the least bit self-conscious; when his characters break into song (which, mind you, occurs fairly often in his books), it always seems the perfectly natural thing to do. Today's poem is an excellent example: in "The Fellowship of the Ring" (the first volume of "The Lord of the Rings"), the eponymous fellowship are forced to detour through the dark and deserted Dwarven mines of Moria. One of the party asks why the Dwarves chose to live in such darksome holes; in reply, Gimli, the lone representative of that race in the Fellowship, half sings, half chants a poem describing the glory of the Dwarven kingdom in the Elder Days... at the end of the recital, the reader is left with the realization that the story of Moria couldn't have been told any other way: mere prose is simply too dry to communicate the wonder and the beauty that was Khazad-dum.

As always with Tolkien, the form reinforces the content to marvellous effect: the language is intentionally archaic, the alliteration pronounced (but never obtrusive), the sense of nostalgia and loss almost palpable. Notice how Gimli never explicitly states just what it was that caused Moria's abandonment: his reticence seems to imply that the events being recounted occurred at a great remove from the here and now; this in turn enhances the mystery, the vague undercurrent of dread that runs through the poem (and especially through the last stanza). This lack of particularity might be annoying in what is ostensibly a historical tale, but this is definitely one of those cases where less is more: a straightforward cataloguing of facts could never hope to capture the audience's attention the way Gimli's hypnotically beautiful couplets do.

And beautiful they certainly are: Tolkien's feel for the English language, for the music of words and the perfection of images, is flawless. It's a pity that his poetic output was (by and large) limited to within the confines of his invented universe (wide though they were); he could easily have been this century's successor to Kipling and Tennyson, so perfect is his verse, so effortless his prosody...

The World was Young, the Mountains Green

The world was young, the mountains green,
No stain yet on the Moon was seen,
No words were laid on stream or stone,
When Durin woke and walked alone.
He named the nameless hills and dells;
He drank from yet untasted wells;
He stooped and looked in Mirrormere,
And saw a crown of stars appear,
As gems upon a silver thread,
Above the shadow of his head.

The world was fair, the mountains tall,
In Elder Days before the fall
Of mighty kings in Nargothrond
And Gondolin, who now beyond
The Western Seas have passed away:
The world was fair in Durin's Day.

A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
With golden roof and silver floor,
And runes of power upon the door.
The light of sun and star and moon
In shining lamps of crystal hewn
Undimmed by cloud or shade of night
There shone for ever fair and bright.

There hammer on the anvil smote,
There chisel clove, and graver wrote;
There forged was blade, and bound was hilt;
The delver mined, the mason built.
There beryl, pearl, and opal pale,
And metal wrought like fishes' mail,
Buckler and corslet, axe and sword,
And shining spears were laid in hoard.

Unwearied then were Durin's folk;
Beneath the mountains music woke:
The harpers harped, the minstrels sang,
And at the gates the trumpets rang.

The world is grey, the mountains old,
The forge's fire is ashen-cold;
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls:
The darkness dwells in Durin's halls;
The shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khazad-dum.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in water deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.

-- J. R. R. Tolkien

P.S.: Some stuff in the initial funda isnt mine, thanks to Amit, a friend of mine.

eating a cake in maths

2008-08-11T20:58:00.000+05:30

The problem of fair division can be traced back a full 3000 years in history. Stated in simple terms, the problem is:

How do you divide a cake between n people such that each person gets a fair share of the cake? An additional clause is that if someone thinks they got lesser than someone else, then it should be such that, that person alone is to bear the blame.

Lets first consider the case of n=2. If there are two people involved, say Alice and Bob, the solution is simple -- "Alice cuts, Bob chooses". So the best solution for Alice in this scenario is to cut such that she feels both shares are equal halves, so that no matter which piece Bob chooses, she's happy with the other one. Best solution for Bob is that he chooses the piece he thinks is bigger. Now, if Alice didnt cut it into equal halves, and Bob chooses the bigger one, she has only herself to blame for being left with the smaller piece.

If you now extend this to n=3, the problem becomes extemely complicated. You can imagine how the above solution can be extended. Say Tom, Dick, and Harry are trying to divide the cake equally between themselves. You can imagine a solution where Tom cuts the cake into what he thinks are 1/3rd and 2/3rds. Then Dick cuts the 2/3rd piece into two halves. Harry picks one of the three pieces. Tom picks next, and the left over piece goes to Dick.

Some elementary analysis will reveal that this is fair to Tom and Harry, and not fair to Dick. Now, clearly, Harry is satisfied. There are three pieces and he picks the biggest of the three. Tom comes next. If Harry picked one of the pieces that Dick cut, then Tom can take the piece that he cut (as 1/3rd) and be satisfied. If Harry picks the 1/3rd piece that Tom cut, then Tom can take whichever of the other two he thinks is bigger -- at this stage it is a two-person problem betwen Tom and Dick, since he thinks the 2/3rd really was a 2/3rds.

The story for Dick though is very different. If Dick initially thought Tom's cut was fair, then he has no issues, and the solution works for all. However, if Dick thinks Tom's cut was unfair and the 2/3rd was smaller than actual 2/3rd, then no matter what, he will end up with an unfair deal.

The way to fix the solution is to not let Dick think Tom's cut was unfair. This is achieved by allowing Dick to "trim" Tom's 1/3rd version and adding that into the 2/3rd share before making the second cut. Now if Harry thought Tom's cut was fair, then he will pick from Dick's cut since he thinks that is bigger. Tom will also pick from Dick's cut. And Dick can take the "trimmed" 1/3rd since he thought that was a fair 1/3rd. The deal with this solution is it will take 3 cuts (one by Tom, one "trim" by Dick, and another by Dick). If you generalize this to the n player version, then this algorithm will take n*(n-1)/2 cuts.

This problem has been addressed by a lot of mathematicians in history. The first (erroneous) solution for the 3 person problem was provided by Robertson and Webb. The corrected n*(n-1)/2 cuts solution was provided in 1944 by Hugo Steinhaus. Since then advanced concepts in mathematics have chosen this problem to purvey their theories. We'll see a non-envy version of this problem later in this post. Fair division is a very practical problem in the real world. Be it geek-ish like bandwidth sharing, or esoteric like dividing Jerusalem and West Bank. As a twist, the problem gets very intricate and interesting when different parties believe different parts of the cake are better than other parts.

We extend the original problem to fair division without envy. In the earlier case, everyone got a fair deal, but we potentially still had people imagining that others got more than them. In fact, that was the case in all solutions except the 2 person scenario. The two person "I cut, you choose" scenario is guaranteed to be envy-free.

Lets define a cake-division as envy-free if no one thinks that someone else got a larger piece than they did. An envy-free division is always guaranteed to be fair. However a fair division need not be envy-free at all.

Lets look at a solution for the 3-person case envy-free fair division -- same drill: Tom, Dick, and Harry want to divide a cake fairly between them in an envy-free fashion -

First, Tom divides the cake into three parts which he thinks are equal 1/3rds.
Next, (a) if Dick thinks the two largest pieces are equal, he does nothing, otherwise (b) Dick trims one piece to achieve two equal largest pieces.
Now, Harry, Dick, and Tom in that order pick. If Dick trimmed a piece earlier, then he has to pick the trimmed piece unless Harry has already picked it.

At this stage, you have an envy-free fair division of three pieces. What is leftover is the problem of dividing the "trimming".

Now, if Dick didnt trim, then there is nothing to do. If he did trim, then either Dick or Harry took the trimmed piece. We'll assume Dick took the trimmed piece. (Substitute Harry for Dick in the rest of the solution if Harry took the trimmed piece.) Dick now divides the "trimming" into three equal parts.
Harry, Tom, and Dick in that order now pick. Harry picks first, so he's not envious at all. Tom picks next, but he's absolutely not envious since this trimming is already a bonus for him -- he thought his first three way cut was already equal 1/3rds. Dick picks the last one, but he isnt envious either since he divided the "trimmings" 3-ways.

When you extend this to a n-person scenario, the problem becomes extremely complicated. Found a wikipedia link on Fair Division. Wikipedia talks about many versions of the problem and how after a century of solutions Steven Brams and Alan Taylor finally solved it in 1995. That was the solution for the general n-person envy-free fair division. That came 30 years after the first 3-person envy-free fair division solution.

india:the next superpower?

2008-08-11T20:51:00.000+05:30

The state of the politics stability of the nation has been on tender hooks ever since the era of major coalition in politics was heralded by the then ruling party at the center by the NDA government.

Over the past few weeks ever since Dr.Mannmohan Singh took a definitive stance over his conviction that a nuclear allegiance with US will hold the country in good stead meeting some of the many varied usages of nuclear power for commercial and domestic purposes, there has been cloud of uncertainty over future of the UPA government completing it full term.

Stepping back from the messy state of current affairs, I shrug to think of the great opportunity that we as the largest democracy are missing out.

Is the utility of the democratic political creed we fought for so passionately 60 years ago to serve us as Indians to build a nation serving the cause of every citizen coming to a cropper?

As I see stalwarts after stalwarts coming up on television and print and striking an opportunistic alliance or put they elected status on sales, I am deeply pained to see the reality and the propose for which we elected them as representatives of people to work for the country in the office of the parliament being so blatantly abused! I am certain that the political stance taken by the leaders are most definitely not representing what a common man on the street and the fields’ cares.

Is it for this that the innocent farmer or an educated urban from the city cast his valued vote– to see his representative being traded like commodity in the political bazaar? Or lobby for minister ship (basically an opportunity to loot the public money) when there is barely enough time left in the last stage of the UPA government? Do you think that the ministers will perform wonders in this while when it takes at least 5 year term for a majority government and a cabinet of ministers to cause a mild impact of reform on the society?

Where has the Lefts secular stand gone today? For years they have been professing secular politics and hold a vision of secular India as sanctum sanctorum , will be voting with BJP to pull a government who they were part to so far ?

Is the Left then only custodian of Indian sovereignty? Which towering leaders like Sharad Pawar, Lalu Prasad, Karunanidhi, APJ Abdul Kalam, and Dr.Manmohan et al don’t worry about?

Where was Samajwadi party all these days? Where they waiting for the crisis to emerge before jumping in to support Sonia lead UPA like a knight in the shining amour?

Did Amar Singh wake up today to fight the cause of Windfall taxes to be imposed on RIL?

Mayawati ? What is her political legacy which has prompted leaders like Chandrababu Naidu , Ajit Singh and other to propose her as the next prime minesratial candidate?

Why are patriarchs like Atal Behari Vajpayee and Jyoti Basu salient? They may not be active in politics but may I question them to seek to understand “Is it the political legacy that they have left behind after their 40 plus years in politics? Aren’t they pain and bother to opine to the nation they helped build.

Where are Party manifestos? reading which the citizen exercises her/his adult franchise? Is there any reference to these documents or party ideologies before bargaining or horse trading?

Today, India is widely acknowledges as an emerging super power! The opportunity to lead by example on a global stage and set benchmark of global citizen is OUR lest we lose playing opportunistic petty politics.

The process of democracy is a powerful tool in our hands. Let’s take this opportunity to CHANGE the political constitution. We can today put the best and the brightest minds from the country to good use. The unbridled leadership be unleashed to make good of the time of our lives to become a model nation and global benchmark.

Time then to conceive a political constitutional blueprint for the future:

A blueprint which mandatory have issues pertaining to the national interest as a necessary precondition in every parties election manifesto:

Matters related to :

· Healthcare
· Education.
· Farming
· National Defense.
· National Integrity and Sovereignty.
· Human Rights.
· Pluralistic View point promoting inclusive agendas for all religions, cast and creed.
· One Country , One Nation concept and fearlessly condemning the likes of Raj Thackeray or other devious minds splitting the nations unity.
· Above all compete in the global society as one united nation honoring decisions taken by the elected state head unilaterally.

Only then shall we claim to be better than the best society and add meaning to being the world’s largest democracy. There are one too many challenges that we have to face as a united nation, challenges which are outside the country. High time we sorted the internal political skirmished and behaved like a mature democratic country. After all 6 decades of freedom should lend some civility to our societies.

This is the “Audacity of Hope” that I carry for my beloved nation “INDIA” the SuperPower by 2020.

will the great indian middle class please stand up!

2008-06-17T22:45:00.001+05:30

Where is the “Great Indian Middle Class”? Where are those conspicuously-consuming, frequently-flying, gizmo-toting, big car-driving, globalized offsprings of our jet-setting “new economy”? Don’t we see them all around us: living in highrises with blue-tiled swimming pools, with people living a few miles away getting water once in three days, shopping in glittering malls built on the land of evicted slums, driving around in Toyotas and Chevrolets on roads choked with traffic? From all accounts, and appearances, we have reached the heady days when the Indian middle class has finally arrived. They are the ones who supposedly constitute one of the biggest markets in the world, for whom multinational corporations are falling over one another to invest in India, for whom our governments’ policies are directed, for whom roads and airports are built, for they ARE the “people” of India. This great middle class is our hope, the engine of growth for our economy.

But is it true? Can we try to find out who, and how many, belong to the middle class in India? The data sets available from the surveys of the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) and from the 2007 report of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS), better known as the Arjun Sengupta Commission, make for sobering, and often startling reading. The last three surveys of the NSSO, possibly the most comprehensive surveys on employment-unemployment and consumption expenditure, were done in 1993-94, 1999-2000 and 2004-05. We will take a look mostly at the 2004-05 data in our search for the Indian middle class.

The NSSO surveys collect data on consumption from each of the selected sample households in a detailed schedule containing a list of every conceivable item of consumption ranging from edibles to fuels to clothing and consumer durables, and also include educational and medical goods and services. Based on these extensive datasets, the NCEUS computed the monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) and daily per capita consumption expenditure (DPCE) in an effort to evaluate the performance of the economy in terms of the consumption expenditure of our people. Based on these values, each household was classified as one of the following: “extremely poor” when the MPCE is less than or equal to 0.75 times the poverty line (PL), “poor” when the MPCE is greater than 0.75 PL but less than or equal to 1.0 PL, “marginal” when MPCE is greater than 1.0 PL but less than or equal to 1.25 PL, “vulnerable” when MPCE is greater than 1.25 PL but less than or equal to 2.0 PL, “middle income” when MPCE is greater than 2.0 PL but less than or equal to 4.0 PL and “high income” when MPCE is greater than 4 PL.

Before we go into the details of what percentage of our population belongs to each group, it would be instructive to know what the poverty line is. There is considerable criticism about the determination of the poverty line in India, which systematically underestimates poverty and deprivation. The authors of the report determine the poverty line from the data of the employment-unemployment survey (EUS) and the results are not very different from the official poverty line estimates. For example, the official poverty line for 2004-05 is Rs 356.3 for rural areas and Rs 538.6 for urban areas whereas the poverty line as computed by the commission is Rs 346.2 for rural areas and Rs 514.0 for urban areas. It is also important to know that for international comparison purposes, people below purchasing power parity (PPP) of $1 are considered extremely poor and those below PPP of $2 are considered poor. $2 at PPP therefore signifies a sort of international poverty line.

Now, coming back to the data from the NCEUS, we find that the extremely poor have an average DPCE of just Rs 9 (PPP $1), the poor has DPCE of Rs 12 (PPP $1.3), the marginal, Rs 15 (PPP $1.6), and the vulnerable, Rs 20 (PPP $2.2). The middle income group has an average DPCE of Rs 37 (PPP $4) and the high income group has an average DPCE, the highest in India, of Rs 93 (PPP $10.2). These estimates are nationwide averages including rural and urban areas. These data by themselves are startling. The extremely poor, the poor, the marginal and vulnerable on an average subsist on less than Rs 20 per day and on less than Rs 600 per month (remember that the average to and fro train fare for an overnight journey in the lowest reserved class is around Rs 600; therefore, not withstanding Lalu Prasad’s “populist” rail budgets, a train journey in a reserved compartment is out of bounds for all these people). The middle income group in India has an average daily consumption of the princely sum of Rs 37 and an average monthly consumption of Rs 1,098 which is just double the international poverty line (the airfare for a single journey in one of the low-cost air lines is around Rs 3000, which means that the airports and the proliferating airlines are not for these people). This leaves the high income group, and even the presence of the Tatas and the Ambanis, and the 53 dollar billionaires of India who contribute 31% of the GDP, and the thousands of conspicuously-consuming software professionals, does not pull the average DPCE of this group above Rs 93. This means that for an overwhelming number of people in this group, the DPCE would be much below Rs 93, and would be actually closer to the average DPCE of the middle income group.

Now, after we have an idea of “who” might (or might not) belong to the “great middle class” in India, looking at the percentage distribution of the above groups among the population will tell us “how many” of our people really belong to this group. The 2004-05 data on the distribution of population among these various groups classified on the basis of consumption expenditure show that 6.4% of the population is extremely poor, 15.4% is poor, 19.0% is marginal and 36.0% belongs to the vulnerable group. This means that together, a staggering 77% of the population lives on less than Rs 20 per day, which barely reaches up to the poverty line (therefore, a train journey with a reservation is out of question for 77% of our population, unless they go hungry for a month). Among these, 41%, the extremely poor, poor and marginal, live on an average expenditure of Rs 15 a day, which cannot afford more than a miserable existence in today’s India. The vulnerable section, which constitutes 36% of the population, is one mishap away from destitution. So, a death or disease or even a crop failure can drive them to desperation; we now know to which group all the “suicidal” farmers belong. This leaves the so-called middle income group which constitutes 19.3% of the population; but these definitely do not constitute our fabled “middle class” with an average monthly expenditure of Rs 1098, which wouldn’t even afford them a family dinner at any of the fancy restaurants. We finally come to the high income group, and find to our dismay that they just constitute 4% of the population. And remember, even this group has an average daily consumption of Rs 93, which is less than the price of two litres of petrol or a taxi ride in one of the big cities. Therefore, as we observed before, we estimate that an overwhelming majority, maybe 80%, of people in this bracket would actually be nearer to the middle income group than to the software professionals and business people who constitute our “visible” middle class. So, a back of the envelope calculation would show that the middle class, which we have been searching for, can be estimated to be around 0.8% of our population, which comes to around 8-10 million people. There is our “Great Indian Middle Class”.

So, we finally find that our “great” middle class, for whom malls and multiplexes are built, rail fares are reduced, airports are constructed, and “Nanos”, stained with the blood and tears of evicted farmers, roll off assembly lines, is more like the legendary Cheshire cat of Lewis Caroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. If you look at it deeply and deconstruct it using statistics, it slowly disappears until what remains of it is its smile, suspended in mid-air as a macabre joke on the Indian people.

child , gap and sweatshops

2008-06-17T22:39:00.001+05:30

Child workers, some as young as 10, have been found working in a textile factory in conditions close to slavery to produce clothes that appear destined for Gap Kids, one of the most successful arms of the high street giant.

Speaking to The Observer, the children described long hours of unwaged work, as well as threats and beatings.

Gap said it was unaware that clothing intended for the Christmas market had been improperly subcontracted to a sweatshop using child labour. It announced it had withdrawn the garments involved while it investigated breaches of the ethical code imposed by it three years ago.

The discovery of the children working in filthy conditions in the Shahpur Jat area of Delhi has renewed concerns about the outsourcing by large retail chains of their garment production to India, recognised by the United Nations as the world’s capital for child labour.

According to one estimate, more than 20 per cent of India’s economy is dependent on children, the equivalent of 55 million youngsters under 14.

The Observer discovered the children in a filthy sweatshop working on piles of beaded children’s blouses marked with serial numbers that Gap admitted corresponded with its own inventory. The company has pledged to convene a meeting of its Indian suppliers as well as withdrawing tens of thousands of the embroidered girl’s blouses from the market, before they reach the stores. The hand-stitched tops, which would have been sold for about £20, were destined for shelves in America and Europe in the next seven days in time to be sold to Christmas shoppers.

With endorsements from celebrities including Madonna, Lenny Kravitz and Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker, Gap has become one of the most successful and iconic brands in fashion. Last year the firm embarked on a huge poster and TV campaign surrounding Product Red, a charitable trust for Africa founded by the U2 lead singer Bono.

Despite its charitable activities, Gap has been criticised for outsourcing large contracts to the developing world. In 2004, when it launched its social audit, it admitted that forced labour, child labour, wages below the minimum wage, physical punishment and coercion were among abuses it had found at some factories producing garments for it. It added that it had terminated contracts with 136 suppliers as a consequence.

In the past year Gap has severed contracts with a further 23 suppliers for workplace abuses.

Gap said in a statement from its headquarters in San Francisco: ‘We firmly believe that under no circumstances is it acceptable for children to produce or work on garments. These allegations are deeply upsetting and we take this situation very seriously. All of our suppliers and their subcontractors are required to guarantee that they will not use child labour to produce garments. In this situation, it’s clear one of our vendors violated this agreement and a full investigation is under way.’

Professor Sheotaj Singh, co-founder of the DSV, or Dayanand Shilpa Vidyalaya, a Delhi-based rehabilitation centre and school for rescued child workers, said he believed that as long as cut-price embroidered goods were sold in stores across Britain, America, continental Europe and elsewhere in the West, there would be a problem with unscrupulous subcontractors using children.

‘It is obvious what the attraction is here for Western conglomerates,’ he told The Observer. ‘The key thing India has to offer the global economy is some of the world’s cheapest labour, and this is the saddest thing of all the horrors that arise from Delhi’s 15,000 inadequately regulated garment factories, some of which are among the worst sweatshops ever to taint the human conscience.

‘Consumers in the West should not only be demanding answers from retailers as to how goods are produced but looking deep within themselves at how they spend their money.’

the man-made famine

2008-06-17T22:37:00.000+05:30

For anyone who understands the current food crisis, it is hard to listen to the head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, without gagging.

Earlier , Zoellick waxed apocalyptic about the consequences of the global surge in prices, arguing that free trade had become a humanitarian necessity, to ensure that poor people had enough to eat. The current wave of food riots has already claimed the prime minister of Haiti, and there have been protests around the world, from Mexico, to Egypt, to India.

The reason for the price rise is perfect storm of high oil prices, an increasing demand for meat in developing countries, poor harvests, population growth, financial speculation and biofuels. But prices have fluctuated before. The reason we’re seeing such misery as a result of this particular spike has everything to do with Zoellick and his friends.

Before he replaced Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank, Zoellick was the US trade representative, their man at the World Trade Organisation. While there, he won a reputation as a tough and guileful negotiator, savvy with details and pushy with the neoconservative economic agenda: a technocrat with a knuckleduster.

His mission was to accelerate two decades of trade liberalisation in key strategic commodities for the United States, among them agriculture. Practically, this meant the removal of developing countries’ ability to stockpile grain (food mountains interfere with the market), to create tariff barriers (ditto), and to support farmers (they ought to be able to compete on their own). This Zoellick did often, and enthusiastically.

Without agricultural support policies, though, there’s no buffer between the price shocks and the bellies of the poorest people on earth. No option to support sustainable smaller-scale farmers, because they’ve been driven off their land by cheap EU and US imports. No option to dip into grain reserves because they’ve been sold off to service debt. No way of increasing the income of the poorest, because social programmes have been cut to the bone.

The reason that today’s price increases hurt the poor so much is that all protection from price shocks has been flayed away, by organisations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation and the World Bank.

Even the World Bank’s own Independent Evaluation Groupadmits (pdf) that the bank has been doing a poor job in agriculture. Part of the bank’s vision was to clear away the government agricultural clutter so that the private sector could come in to make agriculture efficient. But, as the Independent Evaluation Group delicately puts it, “in most reforming countries, the private sector did not step in to fill the vacuum when the public sector withdrew.” After the liberalisation of agriculture, the invisible hand was nowhere to be seen.

But governments weren’t allowed to return to the business of supporting agriculture. Trade liberalisation agreements and World Bank loan conditions, such as those promoted by Zoellick, have made food sovereignty impossible.

This is why, when we see Dominique Strauss-Kahn of the IMF wailing about food prices, or Zoellick using the crisis to argue with breathless urgency for more liberalisation, the only reasonable response is nausea.

why its india

2008-06-17T22:33:00.000+05:30

1. India is the world's largest, oldest, continuous civilization.

2. India never invaded any country in her last 10,000 years of history.

3. India is the world's largest democracy.

4. Varanasi, also known as Benares, was called "The Ancient City" when Lord Buddha visited it in 500 B.C.E, and is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world today.

5. India invented the Number System. Aryabhatta invented the number zero.

6. The World's first university was established in Takshashila in 700 B.C. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.

7. Sanskrit is the mother of all European languages. Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software - a report in Forbes magazine, July 1987.

8. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans. Charaka, the father of medicine consolidated Ayurveda 2,500 years ago.

9. Although modern images of India often show poverty and lack of development, India was the richest country on earth until the time of British invasion in the early 17th Century. Christopher Columbus discovered America trying to find an alternative way to get to India.

10. The art of Navigation was born in the river Sindhu 6,000 years ago. The very word Navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. The word navy is also derived from Sanskrit 'Nou'.

11. Bhaskaracharya calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: (5th century) 365.258756484 days.

12. Budhayana, was the first to calculate the value of ?pi?. He then went on to explain the concept of what today is known as the ?Pythagorean Theorem?. He discovered this in the 6th century long before the European mathematicians.

13. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Sridharacharya developed quadratic equations in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106, whereas Hindus were using numbers as big as 10 to the power of 53, as early as 5,000 BCE during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera (10 to the power of 12).

14. IEEE has proved what has been a century old suspicion in the scientific community, that the pioneer of wireless communication was Prof. Jagdish Bose and not Marconi.

15. The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.

16. According to Saka King Rudradaman I of 150 BCE, a beautiful lake called Sudarshana was constructed on the hills of Raivataka during Chandragupta Maurya's time.

17. Chess (Shataranja or AshtaPada) was invented in India.

18. Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2,600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted complicated surgeries like cesareans, cataract, artificial limbs, fractures, urinary stones, plastic surgery and brain surgery. Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India. Over 125 surgical tools were used. Deep knowledge of anatomy, physiology, etiology, embryology, digestion, metabolism, genetics and immunity is also found in many texts.

19. When many cultures were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5,000 years ago, Indians established the Harappan culture in the Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilization).

20. The four religions born in India, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, are followed by 25% of the world's population.

21. The place value system and the decimal system were developed in India in 100 BC.

22. India is one of the few countries in the World, which gained independence without violence.

23. India has the second largest pool of Scientists and Engineers in the World.

24. India is the largest English-speaking nation in the world.

25. India is the only country other than U.S. and Japan, to have built a super computer indigenously.

untitled laws of men

2008-06-17T22:29:00.001+05:30

1: Under no circumstances may two men share an umbrella.

2: It is OK for a man to cry ONLY under the following circumstances:

(a) When a heroic dog dies to save its master.

(b) The moment Angelina Jolie starts unbuttoning her Blouse.

(c) After wrecking your boss's car.

3: Any man who brings a camera to a stag night may be legally killed and eaten by his friends.

4: If you've known a guy for more than 24 hours, his sister is off limits forever unless you actually marry her.

5: Moaning about the brand of free beer in a mate's fridge is forbidden. However complain at will if the temperature is unsuitable.

6: No man shall ever be required to buy a birthday present for another man. In fact, even remembering your mate's birthday is strictly optional. At that point, you must celebrate at a strip bar of the birthday boy's choice.

7: In the mini-bus, the strongest bladder determines pit stops, not the weakest.

8: When stumbling upon other blokes watching a sporting event, you may ask the score of the game in progress, but you may never ask who's playing. -->

9: You may fart in front of a woman . If you trap her head under the covers for the purpose of flatulent entertainment (commonly known as a Dutch oven), she's officially your girlfriend.

10: It is permissible to drink a fruity alcohol drink only when you're sunning on a tropical beach ... and it's delivered by a topless model and only when it's free.

11: Only in situations of moral and/or physical peril are you allowed to kick another guy in the nuts.

12: Unless you're in prison, never fight naked.

13: Friends don't let friends wear Speedos. Ever. Issue closed.

14: If a man's fly is down, that's his problem, you didn't see anything.

15: Women who claim they 'love to watch sports' must be treated as spies until they demonstrate knowledge of the game and the ability to drink as much as the other sports watchers.

16: A man in the company of a hot, suggestively dressed woman must remain sober enough to fight.

17: Never hesitate to reach for the last beer or the last slice of pizza, but not both, that's just greedy.

18: If you compliment a guy on his six-pack, you'd better be talking about his choice of beer.

19: Never join your girlfriend or wife in discussing a friend of yours, except if she's withholding sex pending your response.

20: Never talk to a man in a bathroom unless you are on equal footing i.e., both urinating, both waiting in line, etc. For all other situations, an almost imperceptible nod is all the conversation you need.

21: Never allow a telephone conversation with a woman to go on longer than you are able to have sex with her. Keep a stopwatch by the phone. Hang up if necessary.

22: The morning after you and a girl who was formerly 'just a friend' have carnal, drunken monkey sex. The fact that you're feeling weird and guilty is no reason for you not to nail each other again before the discussion occurs about what a big mistake it was.

23: It is acceptable for you to drive her car. It is not acceptable for her to drive yours. -->

24: Thou shall not buy a car in the colours of brown, pink, lime, green, orange or sky blue.

25: The girl who replies to the question 'What do you want for Christmas?' with 'If you loved me, you'd know what I want!' gets an Xbox 360 End of story.

26: There is no reason for guys to watch Ice Skating or Men's Gymnastics. Ever.

27: We've all heard about people having guts or balls. But do you really know the difference between them? In an effort to keep you informed, the definition of each is listed below:
· 'GUTS' is arriving home late after a night out with the guys, being assaulted by your wife with a broom, and having the guts to say, 'are you still cleaning or are you flying somewhere?'

· 'BALLS' is coming home late after a night out with the guys smelling of perfume and beer, lipstick on your collar, slapping your wife square on the ass and having the balls to say, 'You're next fatty!'

my job application

2008-06-17T22:24:00.001+05:30

NAME: neonstein (Grumpy Bastard)

SEX: Not lately, but I am looking for the right woman (or at least one who will cooperate)

DESIRED POSITION: Company's Chief Executive or Managing Director. But seriously, whatever's available. If I was in a position to be picky, I wouldn't be applying in the first place - would I?

DESIRED SALARY: £150,,000 a year plus share options and a Tony Blair style redundancy package. If that's not possible, make an offer and we can haggle.

EDUCATION: Yes.

LAST POSITION HELD: Target for middle management hostility.

PREVIOUS SALARY: A lot less than I'm worth.

MOST NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT: My incredible collection of stolen pens and defunct cds.

REASON FOR LEAVING: It was a crap job.

HOURS AVAILABLE TO WORK: Any.

PREFERRED HOURS: 1:30-3:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIAL SKILLS?: Yes, but they're better suited to a more intimate environment.

MAY WE CONTACT YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYER?: If I had one, would I be here?

DO YOU HAVE ANY PHYSICAL CONDITIONS THAT WOULD PROHIBIT YOU FROM LIFTING UP TO 50 lbs.?: Of what?

DO YOU HAVE A CAR?: I think the more appropriate question here would be "Do you have a car that runs?"

HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY SPECIAL AWARDS OR RECOGNITION?: I may already be a winner of the Reader's Digest Timeshare Free Holiday Offer, so they tell me.

DO YOU SMOKE?: On the job - no! On my breaks - yes!

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE DOING IN FIVE YEARS?: Living in the Bahamas with a
fabulously wealthy Swedish supermodel and who thinks I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually, I'd like to be doing that now.

NEAREST RELATIVE....7 miles

DO YOU CERTIFY THAT THE ABOVE IS TRUE AND COMPLETE TO THE BEST OF YOUR
KNOWLEDGE?: Oh yes, absolutely.

even the world votes for change

2008-06-17T22:20:00.001+05:30

People around the globe widely expect the next American president to improve the country's policies toward the rest of the world, especially if Barack Obama is elected, yet they retain a persistently poor image of the U.S., according to a poll released Thursday.

The survey of two dozen countries, conducted this spring by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, also found a growing despondency over the international economy, with majorities in 18 nations calling domestic economic conditions poor. In more bad news for the U.S., people shared a widespread sense the American economy was hurting their countries, including large majorities in U.S. allies Britain, Germany, Australia, Turkey, France and Japan.

Even six in 10 Americans agreed the U.S. economy was having a negative impact abroad.

Views of the U.S. improved or stayed the same as last year in 18 nations, the first positive signs the poll has found for the U.S. image worldwide this decade. Even so, many improvements were modest and the U.S. remains less popular in most countries than it was before it invaded Iraq in 2003, with majorities in only eight expressing favorable opinions.

Substantial numbers in most countries said they are closely following the U.S. presidential election, including 83 percent in Japan _ about the same proportion who said so in the U.S. Of those following the campaign, optimism that the new president will reshape American foreign policy for the better is substantial, with the largest segment of people in 14 countries _ including the U.S. _ saying so.

Andrew Kohut, president of Pew, said many seem to be hoping the U.S. role in the world will improve with the departure of President Bush, who remains profoundly unpopular almost everywhere.

"People think the U.S. wants to run the world," said Kohut. "It's not more complicated than that."

Countries most hopeful the new president will improve U.S. policies include France, Spain and Germany, where public opposition to Bush's policies in Iraq and elsewhere has been strong. Strong optimism also came from countries where pique with U.S. policies has been less pronounced, including India, Nigeria, Tanzania and South Africa.

Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon have the strongest expectations the next president will worsen U.S. policies, consistent with the skepticism expressed on many issues in the survey by Muslim countries. Japan, Turkey, Russia, South Korea and Mexico had large numbers saying the election would change little.

Among those tracking the American election, greater numbers in 20 countries expressed more confidence in Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, than John McCain, the Republican candidate, to handle world affairs properly. The two contenders were tied in the U.S., Jordan and Pakistan. Obama's edge was largest in Western Europe, Australia, Japan, Tanzania and Indonesia, where he lived for a time as a child.

The U.S. was the only country where most expressed confidence in McCain. Besides the countries where he and Obama were tied, McCain's smallest gaps against his rival were in India and China, where neither man engenders much confidence.

The U.S. is seen as the world's leading economic power by 22 countries in the survey. Yet in 11 countries, more think China will replace the U.S. as the world's dominant superpower or has already done so than predict that will never happen.

At the same time, China's favorable ratings have edged downward since last year, with widespread worry over its military power, pollution and human rights record. The survey was taken during China's crackdown on unrest in Tibet, but before last month's earthquake in China.

The poll also found:

_Sixty percent or more had favorable views of the U.S. in South Korea, Poland, India, Tanzania, Nigeria and South Africa. One in five or fewer had positive impressions in Egypt, Argentina, Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey.

_Nine in 10 in South Korea and Lebanon say their economies are in bad shape, while eight in 10 Chinese, seven in 10 Australians and six in 10 Indians say theirs are strong.

_Hillary Rodham Clinton, who lost the Democratic nomination to Obama, generally was rated higher than McCain overseas but lower than Obama.

_There is growing pessimism that a stable democratic government will take hold in Iraq, with majorities only in Nigeria, India and Tanzania predicting success.

_Only in the U.S., Britain and Australia do most want U.S. and NATO forces to say in Afghanistan.

_Iran is viewed mostly negatively. Even the eight countries in the survey with large Muslim populations have mixed views. In six of those eight, Muslims oppose Iran getting nuclear weapons.

The polling was conducted from March 17-April 21, mostly in April, interviewing adults face to face in 17 countries and by telephone in the remaining seven. Local languages were used.

The number interviewed in each country ranged from 700 in Australia to 3,212 in China. All samples were national except for China, Pakistan, India and Brazil, where the samples were mostly urban. The margins of sampling error were plus or minus 3 percentage points or 4 points in every country but China and India, where it was 2 points.

with age beauty creeps inwards

2008-06-17T22:19:00.000+05:30

In April, of last year, Maya Angelou was interviewed by Oprah on her
74th birthday. Oprah asked her what she thought of growing older.
And there on television, she said it was "exciting." Regarding body
changes, she said there were many occurring every day...like her
breasts.. they seem to be in a race to see which will reach her waist first.
The audience laughed so hard they cried.

She also said this....

"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today,
life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow."

"I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she
handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled
Christmas tree lights."

"I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents,
you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.."

"I've learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as "making a
life."

"I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance."

"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt
on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back."

"I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I
usually make the right decision."

"I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one."

"I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone.
People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back."

"I've learned that I still have a lot to learn."

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will
forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them
feel."

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we might
as well dance.

mapping u.s.a. minds

2008-06-17T22:15:00.000+05:30

It would appear that more and more young Americans know less and less about the world they inhabit. A recent survey has revealed that the average 18 to 24 year old could only answer 54% of questions correctly. This is indeed a depressing and worrying figure.

Over 60% of Americans aged 18-24 couldn’t find Iraq on a map of the Middle East (yes, a map of the Middle East… not even a map of the world) in a 2006 survey (that’s three years after the start of the war). The survey found a few other interesting facts:

Only 50% think that map-reading skills are “absolutely essential”
Despite that fact, 75% couldn’t find Iran or Israel on the same Middle East map.
65% couldn’t find the UK on a world map.
88% couldn’t find Afghanistan on a map of Asia.
Half of people couldn’t find India or Japan on the Asian map
70% couldn’t find North Korea, and only 37% knew that the North/South Korea border is more heavily fortified than the US/Mexico border and the China/Russia border (both of which are mostly barren).
Only 35% knew about the huge earthquake in Pakistan, which had killed 70,000 people only a few months before the survey.
74% of people thought that English is a more common first language than Mandarin Chinese(which was picked by 18%).
When asked to pick the country with a Muslim majority (between Indonesia, India, Armenia, and South Africa), 48% thought it was India (which is only 10% Muslim) and only 25% picked Indonesia (which is over 80% Muslim).
More interestingly, people thought that the Mississippi’s flow had something to do with Hurricane Katrina.

Even for U.S. geography, the survey results are just as dismal.

Half could not find New York State on a map of the United States!

A third of the respondents could not find Louisiana, and 48 percent couldn't locate Mississippi on a map of the United States, even though Hurricane Katrina put these southeastern states in the spotlight in 2005.

Many young Americans also lack basic map-reading skills.

Told they could escape an approaching hurricane by evacuating to the northwest, only two-thirds could indicate which way northwest is on a map.

Perhaps even more worrying is the finding that few U.S. young adults seem to care.

Fewer than three in ten think it's absolutely necessary to know where countries in the news are located. Only 14 percent believe speaking another language fluently is a necessary skill.

Fewer than one in five young Americans own a world map.

This geographic ineptitude was further emphasized when young Americans were asked questions on how the United States fits into the wider world.

Three in ten respondents put the U.S. population between one and two billion (it's just under 300 million, according the U.S. Census Bureau). Seventy-four percent said English is the most commonly spoken native language in the world (it's Mandarin Chinese).

Although 73 percent knew the U.S. is the world's largest consumer of oil, nearly as many (71 percent) did not know that the U.S. is also the world's largest exporter of goods and services, when measured in terms of monetary value; half think it's China.

And what about India, which features prominently in the job-outsourcing debate, even more so in the USA than the UK? Forty-seven percent of young Americans were unable to locate where their jobs may well go on a map of Asia.

On a positive note, since 2002 the percentage of young Americans who use the Internet for news has more than doubled from 11 percent to 27 percent. Respondents who use the Internet were found to do better on the survey than those who do not. So perhaps as Internet usage increases so will Americans geographical knowledge. But as long as the American educational system is obviously failing its young people in this respect there is more and more likelihood of a dangerous trend towards isolationism born out of ignorance. It might be worth whoever wins the election in November giving this some consideration - just don't hold your breath.

why am i what i am

2008-06-17T21:52:00.003+05:30

i wake up in the morning after the stupid alarm in my cellphone has beeping in the most ultrasonic way possible.i go to the bathroom and begin bathing in the warm springs of h2o that have come from the shower.being a bathroom thinker,i wondered-how come i live in such a luxury?in the last few minutes,some things have saved me efforts which would have taken hours to do.so who is responsible for this?and the bulb of thought lits up and i get the answer,engineers.such small thing reassure me everyday that i have taken up a profession which will reduce the toils of humankind,this is why i chose to be an engineer.
from childhood i was fascinated by gizmos ,gears,gauges and giant working parts. i loved to repair stuff in my house,assist the handyman and sometimes just admire the complexities of simple things.that is why i never hesitated while making a decision about my career.the next question arises,why the subject electronics.i love the concept of currents,conductors,capacitors and everything that sparks.i am fascinated by the snot green color of the pcb and the beta and gammas of the transistors.you can say that i eat,sleep and breathe electronics,electronics was my hobby,which developed into a passion and now is my career.isn't life worthwhile when passion turns to work.
its difficult to say what would i do if i wasn't an engineer.but the next thing i am passionate about is writing.my alternate career option would be journalism.journalist has a interesting and adventurous life.they get to meet people,discuss issues and do something to bring about a change.we get a chance to interact with people,people who share experiences and experiences which are the ultimate and purest form of knowledge.journalist are the mirror of our problems,agents of change in the rising of India.
these are the two professions that my relatively vagabond mind adhere to and it says-"who determines which profession is superior to another.in an event of a drought,the need for a simple water bearer is much more then all the admirals in the world.

back from hibernation

2008-06-17T21:30:00.002+05:30

animals preferably hibernate in winter,but i chose to differ to do it in summer.actually i had gone for an research internship,which was immediately followed by my university engineering exam.at last,now i am 0.25 an engineer and will write ,hopefully,better basscrap and more stupid stuff for you to munch upon.

the red pill or the blue pill?

2008-04-13T00:30:00.000+05:30

The question of which pill to take illustrates the personal aspect of the decision to study philosophy. Do you live on in ignorance (and potentially bliss) or do you lead what Aristotle called 'the examined life'...

The Matrix is a film filled with religious and philosophical symbolism. The plot supposes that humans live in vats many years in the future, being fed false sensory information by a giant virtual reality computer (the Matrix). The perpetrators of this horror are machines of the future who use humans as a source of power. Humans are literally farmed.

The central character of the film, Neo, is presented to us in the opening part of the film as a loner who is searching for a mysterious character called Morpheus (named after the Greek god of dreams and sleep). He is also trying to discover the answer to the question "What is the Matrix?"

Morpheus contacts Neo just as the machines (posing as sinister 'agents') are trying to keep Neo from finding out any more. When Morpheus and Neo meet, Morpheus offers Neo two pills. The red pill will answer the question "what is the Matrix?" (by removing him from it) and the blue pill simply for life to carry on as before. As Neo reaches for the red pill Morpheus warns Neo "Remember, all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."

The film as a whole and especially the choosing scene is deeply compelling. Why is the choice between what you believe you know and an unknown 'real' truth so fascinating? How could a choice possibly be made? On the one hand everyone you love and everything that you have built you life upon. One the other the promise only of truth.

The question then is not about pills, but what they stand for in these circumstances. The question is asking us whether reality, truth, is worth pursuing. The blue pill will leave us as we are, in a life consisting of habit, of things we believe we know. We are comfortable, we do not need truth to live. The blue pill symbolises commuting to work every day, or brushing your teeth.

The red pill is an unknown quantity. We are told that it can help us to find the truth. We don't know what that truth is, or even that the pill will help us to find it. The red pill symbolises risk, doubt and questioning. In order to answer the question, you can gamble your whole life and world on a reality you have never experienced.

However, in order to investigate which course of action to take we need to investigate why the choice is faced. Why should we even have to decide whether to pursue truth?

The answer in short, is inquisitiveness. Many people throughout human existence have questioned and enquired. Most of them have not been scientists or doctors or philosophers, but simply ordinary people asking 'what if?' or 'why?' Asking these questions ultimately leads us to a choice. Do you continue to ask and investigate, or do you stop and never ask again? This in essence, is the question posed to Neo in the film.

So what are the advantages of taking the blue pill? As one of the characters in the film says, "ignorance is bliss" Essentially, if the truth is unknown, or you believe that you know the truth, what is there to question or worry about?

By accepting what we are told and experience life can be easier. There is the social pressure to 'fit in', which is immensely strong in most cultures. Questioning the status quo carries the danger of ostracism, possibly persecution. This aspect has a strong link with politics. People doing well under the current system are not inclined to look favourably on those who question the system. Morpheus says to Neo "You have to understand that many people are not ready to be unplugged, and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."

The system also has a place for you, an expected path to follow. This removes much of the doubt and discomfort experienced by a trailblazer.

Another argument on the side of the blue pill is how does anyone know that the status quo is not in fact the truth? The act of simply questioning does not infer a lack of validity on the questioned. Why not assume that your experience is innocent until proven guilty? Just accept everything?

So if the arguments for the blue pill are so numerous, why take the red pill? Why pursue truth even though it may be unpalatable and the journey to it hard? In the film, Neo risks death to escape the virtual reality and discovers a brutal reality from which he cannot return. As he discovers the trouble with asking questions is that the answers are not necessarily what you want to hear.

To justify taking the red pill we might ask what is the purpose of an ignorant existence? Further still, what is there in merely existing? Simply existing brings humans down to the level of objects; they might have utility or even purpose, but where is the meaning? Existence without meaning is surely not living your life, but just experiencing it. As Trinity says to Neo, "The Matrix cannot tell you who you are."

Given the potential disadvantages of choosing the red pill, the motivation for discovering the truth must then be very strong. The film makes much of this point. Trinity says to Neo "It's the question that drives us, Neo." and Morpheus compares the motivation for Neo's search to "a splinter in your mind - driving you mad." The motivation for answering the question is obviously strong as the answer will help us to find the meaning in our lives.

What we are looking at here is the drive to answer a question, but the key to this is what drove the question in the first place. The asking of questions about our environment our experience and ourselves is fundamental to the human condition. Children ask a seemingly never-ending stream of questions from an early age. It is only with education and socialisation that some people stop asking these questions. However, we remain, as it were, hard-wired to enquire.

This is an inevitable consequence of consciousness. A being with a mind, conscious of itself and its existence, experiencing a reality, needs to organise the data that it receives from its senses. Simply observing and recording does not allow for consciousness. It is what we do with that information that allows us to think. In order to process and store the vast amount of information received, the human brain attempts to identify patterns in the data; looking for the patterns behind what is experienced. This is asking questions of the sensory information, and requires reasoning. By definition a conscious mind seeks to know. Knowing something requires more than just data, but intelligence or reasoning applied to that data. To attempt to obtain knowledge we must therefore question the data our mind receives; thus, consciousness questions.

So the metaphor of the journey to truth that Neo takes is complete. The journey starts with a question, there is a search for the answer and the answer may be reached. This shows us that the journey does not start with Neo choosing between the pills, or with ourselves deciding whether to question. The act of asking the question is itself the starting point as the aim of asking the question is to seek truth and knowledge.

We have established that consciousness is aware and seeks knowledge and that thus the conscious mind must question. To question is to seek the truth and start on the journey to knowledge. Therefore the choice between the pills is surely made for us. The fact that we are conscious appears to require us to take the red pill.

However, this can be simply countered by someone who would prefer to take the blue pill. They may wish to seek the truth in a different way, or in a less mind jarring set of circumstances. They can choose the blue pill and not deny their consciousness, but to stop seeking the truth entirely would be to deny their consciousness.

Thus we are philosophically driven to seek the truth and the act of questioning whether to seek it is in itself seeking the truth. As conscious minds we will always seek the truth. However, the choice over the red or blue pills is not solely a choice between whether to question or not, it is a personal choice on the method of discovering the truth.

real time games

2008-04-13T00:19:00.000+05:30

my dear zohaib asks for some real-life examples of game theory in ethics.

In many instances where game theory intersects real life, we just play the game according to the (local) Nash equilibrium. The phrase "All's fair in love and war" says that one is free to pursue the strategy that will bring the greatest immediate individual benefit. We construct specifically ethical systems when for one reason or another, we have to go "outside" the game to achieve what we intuitively feel is the best overall outcome.

For example, I can go into a restaurant, eat a meal, and then be presented with the bill. This is an example of a related game, the asymmetric closed bag exchange. Regardless of whether or not I'm actually served a good meal, I am always "better off" not paying (I get to eat the meal and keep my money). Paying before I eat (like at McDonalds) just changes the asymmetry; whether or not I pay, it's always "better" for the restaurant to not feed me (defect) once I've paid (cooperated).

The Pareto optimum (and usually the global maximum), though, is for the restaurant to serve me a good meal and for me to pay.

In a small community, we can play tit-for-tat. If I don't pay on Monday (he cooperates, I defect), the restaurant won't serve me again until I pay without eating (he "defects", I cooperate). However, a rational person with foresight will simply see the outcome of the repeated iterations. We call this foresight the ethical evaluation that you should pay for your meal.

In a larger community, where there are more non-communicating restaurants than I can eat meals, tit-for-tat doesn't work; I can play as many one-shot games as I like without fear of reprisal. So we make laws which follow from our idealized tit-for-tat strategy (i.e. good laws follow from good ethics).

But we can observe that the law is relatively easy to circumvent: There isn't a police officer standing at the door to every restaurant. Instead, we cultivate in ourselves ethical habits. In this case, the the thinking is one level more abstract: If too many people in general were to eat without paying, no one (myself included) could eat at restaurants, so we police ourselves.

There are other examples. I can work hard (cooperate) or slack off and just look busy (defect); my company can give me a raise next year (cooperate) or stiff me (defect). As an exercise, use game theory to relate the Communist slogan, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," with the cynical Soviet observation, "we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us."

A lot of human behavior can be modeled just by reducing it to pure game theory and locally rational choice. But as the Prisoner's Dilemma shows, some situations are not so easy to reduce, even in theory. It is precisely those Prisoner's Dilemma and similar games which cause us to go outside the game and create ethics and laws.

multiculturalism

2008-04-13T00:16:00.000+05:30

The comments on Stephen Law's response to Ibrahim Lawson [link fixed] have become a conversation about multiculturalism.

Steve Chester appears to argue that condemning any behavior under the umbrella of a religion is tantamount to totalitarian oppression.

The problem with that stance, though, is that nobody supports absolute tolerance. We don't tolerate murderers, thieves, rapists, people who don't pay their taxes, or even people who jaywalk. The Nazis presumably had some sort of prosaic law enforcement, but we are not Nazi-like just because we enforce prosaic civil law.

The question is not whether to be intolerant of anything, it's about what specifically to be intolerant of; not whether but where to draw the line.

It's one thing to argue that we should tolerate some particular behavior. It's a horse of a different color to try to protect some behavior by arguing that we should draw no lines at all. It's so patently false — precisely because we do draw entirely uncontroversial lines — that one wonders why the speaker wishes to distract attention from the specifics of the behavior.

"Multiculturalism" has been assigned so many incompatible meanings that it's been rhetorically bludgeoned into meaninglessness. It can range anywhere from tolerating varying styles of dress to racial tolerance all the way to permitting and condoning the murder and mutilation of one's own children for trivial or even imagined sexual misbehavior.

Part of the problem is that multiculturalism and anti-multiculturalism have been adopted as smokescreens by people with objectionable hidden agendas. Right-wing extremists have adopted anti-multiculturalism to justify naked racism, racial oppression, and to justify wars of aggression to get those damn wogs off of our oil. Religious extremists have adopted multiculturalism to shield abhorrent misogyny and a genuinely totalitarian political ideology from democratic criticism. (Islam is not necessarily totalitarian, but Islamic totalitarianism is hardly a fringe movement, as evidenced by Saudi Arabia, the Afghani Taliban, the Northwest Frontier province of Pakistan, and any number of fundamentalist movements in other Islamic countries, even secular Turkey.

If people are going to live and work together, they need to establish some core values that are affirmed by everyone in that society. However, determining specifically what those core values are or should be is a nontrivial task, because it is also the case that beyond those core values, there is a considerable range of value that can be tolerated, and in many cases a range of values has value in itself.

It's a fundamental value of Western civilization from the dawn of the enlightenment that verbal criticism should never be suppressed. Although J. S. Mill makes the case most forcefully and coherently in On Liberty, it's arguable that freedom of speech is the sine qua non of Western Civilization. I view any attempt to suppress or condemn speech as speech on any basis — multiculturalism included — to attack the very foundation of my own values. Criticize the content of any speech to your heart's content, but to demand that anyone just absolutely shut up on any basis is beyond the pale.

Within my own (or other Western societies) if Muslims want to defend the practice of murdering their daughters, throwing acid in their faces, crippling their education, or restricting them from full civic participation and equal rights, let them argue the merits of these demands and submit them to full, vigorous democratic debate. To hide behind "multiculturalism" is nothing more than pure cowardice.

And if the racists and colonialists want to defend the practice of subjugating and denying full civil rights to brown people, if they want to defend wars of aggression and robbery on a national scale, if they want to enforce Christianity, let them defend those demands on their own merits. To hide behind "anti-multiculturalism" is equally cowardly.

Update: Here's an example of bullshit anti-multiculturalism (h/t to Political Crank):

Juashaunna Kelly, a Theodore Roosevelt High School senior who has the fastest mile and two-mile times of any girls' runner in the District this winter, was disqualified from Saturday's Montgomery Invitational indoor track and field meet after officials said her Muslim clothing violated national competition rules.

Kelly was wearing the same uniform she has worn for the past three seasons while running for Theodore Roosevelt's cross-country and track teams: a custom-made, one-piece blue and orange unitard that covers her head, arms, torso and legs. On top of the unitard, Kelly wore the same orange and blue T-shirt and shorts as her teammates.

I'm no fan at all of Islamic dress codes for women. I think these codes are inherently misogynist and oppressive, and they deserve criticism. On the other hand, singling out Ms. Kelly in this manner is just egregiously stupid, and the supposed justification is just slavish, authoritarian adherence to a different arbitrary dress code. When multiculturalism vs. anti-multiculturalism becomes a heated argument over which kind of petty authoritarianism to enforce in society, we have entirely missed the point of liberal democracy.

meta-philosophologer

2008-04-13T00:06:00.000+05:30

In his latest essay, The Limits of Science?, Mark Rowlands holds up Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as (possible) paradigmatic (or at least exemplary) of an epistemic methodological alternative to science.

I'm not a philosophologer (I'm not concerned with having a detailed knowledge of the philosophical canon), and I read Critique of Pure Reason more than twenty years ago, before I was seriously interested in philosophy. I wasn't impressed then, and none of the commentary I've read about it since has given me much motivation to revisit the work.

Going by my general impressions from commentary and decades-old memory, I recall that Kant's overall argument rests on what we can (and, to his credit, much that we cannot) say about synthetic a priori propositions. A synthetic proposition is some proposition that states a truth about the world (e.g. "all crows are black"), as opposed to an analytic proposition, which is about the meanings of words (e.g. "all bachelors are unmarried"). An a priori proposition is some proposition that is known (or can be known) prior to experience, as opposed to an a posteriori proposition, which can be known only on the basis of (i.e. after) experience.

Kant's argument rests on our a priori knowledge of mathematics and geometry and our deep a priori intuitions about space and time. (One might also add our a priori intuitions about morality.) I think this sort of argument fails both on the specifics and in general. Kant cannot be faulted too much: He works at the birth of modern science, immediately after Newton (Kant: 1724–1804; Newton: 1643-1727). He precedes Lobachevsky (1792–1856), Riemann (1826–1866), Darwin, Gödel and Einstein.

Non-Euclidian geometry, chaos theory, Gödel's incompleteness theorems, and all the weirdness of 20^th and 20^st century mathematics casts considerable doubt on the a priori truths of mathematics. Furthermore, Tobias Dantzig's history of mathematics, Number, the Language of Science, shows us just how hard-earned were the mathematical concepts of even Kant's day. Dantzig argues persuasively that our "primary" mathematical intuition is very limited, and the sophistication of modern mathematics can be seen as groping for concepts that would allow us to understand practical problems; our mathematical discovery has been driven as much or more by the requirements of experience as by the exercise of pure reason.

Einstein puts paid to our ordinary, intuitive "Newtonian" intuitions about space and time. Worse yet, quantum mechanics subverts our core assumptions about reality itself. If paradigmatic synthetic concepts are actually wrong — or obviously limited to the conditions of our ordinary experience — it's suspect to maintain they are actually known a priori.

It's provably true that individual human beings have true synthetic propositional beliefs that precede their own individual experience. Someone of Kant's time would be justified in concluding that such beliefs are fundamentally a priori, the result of the exercise of pure reason uninformed by experience.

But someone of Kant's time precedes Darwin, and Darwin makes all the difference. Because, of course, it becomes a plausible counter-argument to say that our true synthetic "a priori" beliefs are actually a posteriori with respect to the experience of evolution. Our brains, far from being engines of "pure" reason, have been shaped by at least 500,000,000 years of multicellular evolution (and perhaps even by the full 4,000,000,000 years of the evolution of terrestrial life). Evolution is not only undeniably an experiential process, it is also scientific. The parallels are exact: theoretical structure = genome; creation of hypotheses = random mutation; acceptance or rejection of the hypotheses by experiment = natural selection.

I am almost certainly missing some subtlety of Kant's argument, and it's possible I'm missing it completely; like I said, it's been a long time and I'm not much of a philosophologer. But Darwin seems to rebut any argument that rests in any way on synthetic a priori propositions.

reventon-a car without equals

2008-03-26T22:08:00.001+05:30

The essence of the marque: just 20 examples of a design masterpiece

Clearly a Lamborghini, but nothing quite like it. A super car without equals: the Lamborghini Reventón is a road vehicle with an extreme specification and, at the same time, a limited edition masterpiece – a coherent style, angular with sharp lines, inspired by the very latest aeronautics.

With just 20 produced, each 1 Million Euro (without taxes) Lamborghini Reventón is a symbol of extreme exclusivity, yet still offering the extraordinary performance that makes the Reventón so unrivalled: under the completely autonomous design, the Reventón possesses the entire technical and dynamic competence of the twelve cylinder Lamborghini.

Lamborghini prides itself on being the extraordinary manufacturer of extreme super sports cars without compromise. Sensuality and provocation characterise every Lamborghini, with an aggressively innovative style. “However, the Reventón is the most extreme of all, a true automotive superlative. Our designers at the Lamborghini Style Centre took the technical base of the Murciélago LP640 and compressed and intensified its DNA, its genetic code,” affirms Stephan Winkelmann, President and CEO of Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A.

Born in Sant’Agata Bolognese

The Lamborghini Reventón has been entirely designed in Sant’Agata Bolognese, the original birthplace of the Lamborghini and the native home of every super car born under the sign of the bull. The design drawn up in Lamborghini’s Centro Stile (Style Centre) is fine-tuned in close collaboration with the Lamborghini Research and Development Department. Thus, the Reventón is not only “haute couture” but it also stands out for its elevated dynamism whilst being entirely suitable for every day use.

The Lamborghini Reventón is not destined to remain a one-off. A total of 20 Lamborghini friends and collectors will be able to own this extraordinary car and, naturally, enjoy the incomparable pleasure of driving it.

The name Reventón has been chosen according to Lamborghini tradition. Reventón was a fighting bull, owned by the Don Rodriguez family. It is included in the list of the most famous bulls ever and is known for killing the famed bullfighter Felix Guzman in 1943.

Inspired by the fastest airplanes

The present day Lamborghini models are distinguished by the clear language of their shape. The coherent proportions of the Murciélago and Gallardo highlight their power and dynamism. Sharp edges, precise lines and clean surfaces: these are ingredients of a style reduced to the essential. Each element is created exactly according to its function; ornaments and decorations are totally foreign to a Lamborghini.

With the Reventón the Centro Stile designers have coherently developed this philosophy, inspired by another sphere where speed and dynamism reign absolute: modern aeronautics, responsible for the fastest and most agile airplanes in the world. This has created an extremely precise, technically striking style with a new vitality: interrupted lines and contorted surfaces create a fascinating play of light, giving the car incredible movement.

Made of carbon fibre and precision

Although it is based on the extraordinarily successful Murciélago LP640, the exterior design of the Reventón is completely new. Just like the base model, the exterior is made of CFC, a composite carbon fibre material, which is as stable as it is light. The exterior components are glued and fixed to the body comprised of CFC and steel.

The front is characterised by the acute angle of the central ‘arrow’ and by the powerful forward-facing air intakes. Although they do not supply air directly to the turbine like an airplane, bearing in mind the 650 hp, an abundant volume of air is necessary to cool the carbon brake disks and the six cylinder callipers.

Characterized by coherent functions

Naturally, both doors on the Reventón open upwards – since the legendary Countach this has also been a symbol of the V12 Lamborghini product line. With their asymmetric configuration, the large air intakes below the doors provide an example of the extreme coherence with which a Lamborghini fulfils its function: on the driver’s side it is large to increase the flow of oil to the radiator. On the passenger’s side of the vehicle, the air intake is flat because in this case, it only has to ensure the flow below the floor. The aerodynamically optimised flat floor structure terminates at the rear with a diffuser featuring an accentuated shape. This guarantees excellent road grip and stability even at 340 km per hour.

In spite of the extreme and innovative language of its shape, the Reventón not only maintains all the strong features of the Murciélago LP640, but also offers further amelioration in terms of aerodynamics, the important engine cooling system, the air intake system and brakes. The airflow and the section of the variable geometry air intakes of the engine and the rear spoiler (also adjustable) have been modified.
Owners of the 20 examples will be able to test the performance of his or her Lamborghini in person.

Perfected to the ultimate detail

The engine hood made of glass laminate with open ventilation slits offers a glimpse of the beating heart of the twelve cylinders of the super car. The glass also features the marked arrow angle that characterises the design from the front to the rear spoiler. The Lamborghini designers’ love for detail is beautifully illustrated by the fuel tank lid: a small mechanical work of art, achieved by milling a solid aluminium block.

The combination lights transform the incisiveness of the design into light: the front features the most modern light-emitting diodes alongside Bi-Xenon headlights. Seven LEDs ensure continuous daylight while there are a further nine diodes for the indicator and hazard lights. Another technical innovation is found in the rear light LEDs. Because of the high temperature in the rear low part of the car, special heatproof LEDs are used for the indicator and hazard lights, stoplights and rear lights with a triple arrow optical effect.

A new body colour

Naturally, such a refined language of shape also demands an extraordinary colour. For the 20 examples of the Reventón, the designers from Sant’Agata Bolognese have created a totally new hue: Reventón, a mid opaque green/grey without the usual shine. However, thanks to the metallic particles, in the daylight this colour tone features surprising depth.

Opaque and brilliant colours for the wheel rims
This play of opaque and lustre is also featured on the wheel rims, especially created for the Reventón. Opaque carbon fins are screwed onto the black aluminium spokes, not only creating a visual effect with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel, but a turbine effect also ensures optimum cooling for the powerful ceramic brake disks.

TFT display similar to an airplane

The same innovative force applied to the exterior design characterises the cockpit of the Reventón. Designed and created using Alcantara, carbon, aluminium and leather that comply with the top quality standards, the interior is inspired by the next generation cockpits: just like in modern airplanes, the instruments comprise three TFT liquid crystal displays with innovative display modes. At the touch of a button, the driver can choose from two vehicle information display modes. The instruments are housed in a structure milled from a solid aluminium block, protected by a carbon fibre casing.

The G-Force-Meter is also completely new: this display shows the dynamic drive forces, longitudinal acceleration during acceleration and braking, as well as transversal acceleration around bends. These forces are represented by the movement of an indicator on a graduated 3D grid depending on the direction and intensity of the acceleration. A similar instrument can be found in the airplanes. Formula One teams also use a similar device to analyse dynamic forces.

Customizable instruments

The instrument on the left of the speedometer associates the number of revolutions in the form of a luminous column with the display of the selected gear. Finally, every Reventón is equipped with a robotised e.gear controlled by two small levers under the steering wheel.

By simply pressing a button, the driver can switch to the second, quasi-analogical display, where the classic circular instruments, speedometer and engine speed indicator are configured in an equally innovative way and transformed into luminous pilot lamps with varying colours. The G-Force-Meter naturally remains at the centre in this display mode.

Electronic system developed entirely by Lamborghini

All this is possible thanks to the fact that the entire electronic platform of the Reventón, together with all the control devices, has been autonomously developed by the Lamborghini experts.

The same process for integrating the electronic displays in the car was applied to the Lamborghini Engineering Department.

From the conception of the very first radical ideas, the entire Reventón has been developed in Sant’Agata Bolognese thanks to tight teams of remarkably creative experts. An extremely refined and efficient process was employed: CAD design and development, creation of the prototype in the Prototype Department, all carried out under the constant supervision of the Research and Development Department’s technicians and testers.

Atelier of creativity and high efficiency

Inaugurated in 2004, the Centro Stile is dedicated to design and characterised by a high degree of efficiency: an “atelier” of creators, designers and prototype constructors, who encapsulate the Lamborghini culture and spirit by using their remarkable skills to create aesthetic innovation.

The Centro Stile is located in a 2,900 square two-storey building. The large pavilion houses two test floors and related production and analysis equipment, while other rooms are set aside for the most advanced computerised workstations for designers and a style-model construction workshop. The Centro Stile is also closely linked to the nearby Engineering Department: the direct line between the Lamborghini development departments guarantees that ideas rapidly become reality.

Creativity and production under the same roof

The Lamborghini Reventón is a practical illustration of the streamlined functionality and efficiency characterising the Centro Stile: it took less than a year to progress from the first ideas to the finished car. The complete design process from the first sketches on paper, to three dimensional computer models with 1:10 or 1:4 scale, right up to the real size prototype is organised around streamlined, fast, efficient work groups. Thanks to the Centro Stile, for the first time in its history, Lamborghini is now able to create its own style philosophy in-house without having to rely on any external collaboration.

The 20 units will be manufactured in Sant’Agata, using a production process characterised by artisan perfection and rigorous quality standards.

A masterpiece with tested technology

The technology found in the Murciélago LP640 has not been modified. The engine in the LP640 forwards is the classic twelve-cylinder engine with 6.5 litre displacement. Only for this car, Lamborghini guarantees, an astounding 650 HP (478 kW) at 8,000 revolutions per minute (rpm). The huge torque, equal to maximum 660 Nm, ensures a powerful switch from any number of revolutions: even the slightest pressure on the accelerator is spontaneously transformed into thrust. The robotised e.gear changes gear faster than even the most expert driver. In addition, the permanent Viscous Traction four-wheel drive system ensures that every force is constantly translated into movement.

As in the original Murciélago LP640, the Reventón accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in just 3.4 seconds, with a maximum speed over 340 km/h.

Born to become a legend

Since its foundation, Lamborghini has been a creator of trends in the world of sports cars and has always manufactured cars with an absolutely unmistakable character. Models such as the Miura or Countach, for example, were veritable forerunners and rapidly acquired the status of timeless classic cars. From the moment they are launched, every new Lamborghini promises to become a legend, destined to become a sought-after and precious possession.

With the Lamborghini Reventón, Lamborghini has done it again; it has created an unequalled super car; the perfect synthesis between the exclusivity and appeal of a limited edition design masterpiece, and the dynamism and driveability of a standard sports car. Thus, the Lamborghini legend is further enhanced by another, stylish future classic.

tibet,india and the dragon in arms

2008-03-23T23:49:00.001+05:30

My north east friends haven’t been a happy bunch of late! They are upset by the happenings in Tibet and what they call the atrocious handling of the sensitive issue by China. But I guess what they are most irked by is the Indian response to the fight by Tibet! They expected more, wanted more, hoped for more. But felt a bit let down by the way we lay low. It seemed as if we were bowing to Chinese pressure, not showing support for a just cause. Not arguing the case of Tibet on a world platform or letting them have a platform to express their anguish. They were being curtailed because of Chinese pressure.

Many other Indians too have been debating on this aspect! While some agree that India is going too soft in its response to China’s attitude, some feel it is the right way to do it. I agree with the latter. India has to protect its own interests first! And that means having peaceful and friendly relations with all its neighbours. Sadly we don’t seem to have it until now. We have fought wars with Pakistan and China in the past. Some over land, others by trying to fight for someone else’s land! And none of it brought us much good. We always try to play the savior and I believe it has only backfired and will continue to do so!

Because let us face it, nobody is anybody’s friend where world politics is concerned. Every country obviously looks out for their own prosperity and advantage. So why should we get into a fight with China over Tibet when all it might bring in the end are some sour relations. We already are on tender hooks with the Chinese. There was a naïve Nehru who proclaimed a slogan that Indians and Chinese are brothers and sisters, well we paid for the Indo-Sin war with that! We lost a lot of land (got it back/still arguing about it) and Tibet fell into that gobble during that period. So while the case is ethically correct and people must support Tibet is it logical and practical to do is the question?

China is slowly gaining ground as one of the major nations of the world. One just has to see the progress to believe it! Read any financial journals to fully understand what is happening of the economy. Watch programmes to see the growth and processing of that nation. One can only then begin to realize the power that this nation will soon hold over the world. So is it wise to tick off a neighbour that is not only competition to us but also could be a worthful ally? I don’t think so! I believe we got nothing by trying to help Bangladesh procure its freedom from Pakistan. Today we have a steady pouring of militants from that part of the border and their migrant influx into our already populated territory isn’t helping. So what did we get? Nothing, other than making enemies across the other side of the boundary!

Why be the moral authority on this one? India has given refuge to the spiritual leader of Tibet and its people and continues to support them in any other ways other than political protests! I believe that is more than enough! If we get straddled in ethical concerns and emotional pleadings of our heart we shall be left behind in this century. We are an emotional bunch of people, which applies to other South Asian countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka too and perhaps that is what has been one of our major obstacles in achieving progress to our capacity so may be finally it is time to show some restraint. Let the world collectively decide what is has to do about Tibet-China. Continue to provide help through other means but not by allowing political activities or embarking on a war of words with China. It shall ultimately bring no good, because as far as it can be believed China will win whichever way it wants to!

So am I being self-centered when I say let India do for India? Yes surely! When we became a nation we decided we would fight for not only our rights but also that of the others! When the Iraq war or Afghanistan war broke out no one muttered much, even though it can be counted as one of the most horrific abuse of human rights documented! So why now? Why for Tibet? Because the Dalai Lama lives here? Because somewhere we understand and feel one with the Tibetans? Because that is the ethical thing to do? Because if everyone kept quiet it meant the death of free living and a just world? These are emotional reasons, give me some practical ones!

We need to keep quiet because frankly it isn’t our business and history has taught us that we must not meddle where it isn’t our business. Wait and watch how it plays. Let the UN decide, let other G8 partners of China come up with solutions. Being selfish you say? Yes, I think it is time India does become selfish or sensible (should I say)…

hocking cricket

2008-03-23T23:34:00.001+05:30

OK, I know you guys may have already read tons of material analysing India’s shameful failure in qualifying for the Beijing Olympics (this happened for the first tme in 80 years). That was the one reason I was hesitant to write on this topic for a long time now. But a speech at the India Today Conclave by Bishen Singh Bedi compelled me to write on this topic.

This is how he started his speech,

I would like to take you back to a time when India beat New Zealand in a five-day Test match. In those days Indian used to get Rs. 50 a day for a Test match. But Indians won the game in four days and the Indian Board deducted Rs.50. That was the incentive of winning the game in four days.

Heh. Rs. 250 for playing a Test match? And money deducted if the match finishes in less than five days? Incredible! But of course, that was years ago. Now, let’s get back to the present. When India recently won the triangular series in Australia, Team India got a bonus of Rs. 10 crore! That is over and above their usual match fee (which in itself is quite a large amount).

If cricket could be such a money-spinner in India, we can only imagine how much money-spinning potential sports like hockey and football must be having. Let’s be honest, one-day cricket is a dreadfully drawn-out event. Each innings lasts for a never-ending three and a half hours. I mostly fall asleep in the middle overs. They are damn boring. Effectively, we end up spending no less that eight hours seeing a match. Almost a whole day wasted! And still we love cricket

Contrast this with hockey. Each half lasts for 35 minutes and the match is over in under two hours. And to top it all, every moment is filled with excitement and adrenaline. There are hardly any sleep-inducing moments. And of course, there are almost no adverisements; unlike in cricket, where we are force-fed advertisements every five minutes

So why isn’t hockey the money-spinner that it could be in India? The answer to this question can be found by analysing Indian cricket’s success story. Cricket has had great administrators like Dalmiya, Bindra et al. They have done a great job in promoting cricket. They are the guys who have raked in the moolah, so to say, for Indian cricket. And therefore, Indian cricket is where it is today.

On the other side, we have K.P.S. Gill doing the best he can to kill hockey in India for the past 14 years. I wonder why he is still hanging on. Has he become so shameless? hockey needs is great administrators who can ensure that talented youngsters get a platform where they can display their skills. Merit (not stupid internal politics and regionalism) should be the only criterion for selecting a player in the national team. Everything else will follow; sponsors, money, crowds in stadiums, everything…

If only we could kick Mr. Gill out of the Indian Hockey Federation for a start…

the mindwork behind a rumour

2008-03-23T23:24:00.000+05:30

In the summer of 2004, Andy Martin, a colorful Web columnist and sometime Republican candidate for state office, put out a press release announcing his sadness at having to “expose” Barack Obama as a “Muslim who has concealed his religion.” Reporters ignored Martin’s charge, which offered no proof. But the story took root: Martin’s screed bounced about blogs, mutating over the course of a couple years into an e-mail message that suggested the senator is a kind of Muslim Manchurian candidate for the White House.

Though news organizations and fact-checking Web sites like Snopes.com have debunked the claim, the story just won’t die. In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll taken in December, 8 percent of respondents thought Obama was Muslim, half as many as correctly identified him as a Protestant.

The Obama-is-a-Muslim rumor does not seem to have hurt the candidate’s fortunes, at least not yet. But the myth’s persistence illustrates a growing cultural vulnerability to rumor. Journalists typically presume that facts matter: show the public what is true, and they will make decisions correctly. Psychologists who study how we separate truth from fiction, however, have demonstrated that the process is not so simple. And because digital technology fosters social networks that are both closely knit and far-flung, rumors are now free to travel widely within certain groups before they meet any opposition from the truth.

Consider, for starters, this paradox of social psychology, a problem for myth busters everywhere: repeating a claim, even if only to refute it, increases its apparent truthfulness. In 2003, the psychologist Ian Skurnik and several of his colleagues asked senior citizens to sit through a computer presentation of a series of health warnings that were randomly identified as either true or false — for example, “Aspirin destroys tooth enamel” (true) or “Corn chips contain twice as much fat as potato chips” (false). A few days later, they quizzed the seniors on what they had learned.

The psychologists expected that seniors would mistakenly remember some false statements as true. What was remarkable, though, was which claims they most often got wrong — the ones they had been exposed to multiple times. In other words, the more that researchers had stressed that a given warning was false, the more likely seniors were to eventually come to believe it was true. (College students in the study did not make the same mistakes.)

To understand this turnabout, says Norbert Schwarz, a psychologist at the University of Michigan who worked with Skurnik on the study, it helps to know how our brains suss out truth from fiction. To determine the veracity of a given statement, we often look to society’s collective assessment of it. But it is difficult to measure social consensus very precisely, and our brains rely, instead, upon a sensation of familiarity with an idea. You use a rule of thumb: if something seems familiar, you must have heard it before, and if you’ve heard it before, it must be true.

The rule obviously invites many opportunities for error. The seniors in Skurnik’s study couldn’t remember the context in which they had heard the health claims (research shows that we are quick to forget “negation tags,” like whether something is said to be false or a lie), so they relied, instead, on a vague sense of familiarity, which steered them astray. Repetition, psychologists have shown, easily tricks us. Kimberlee Weaver of Virginia Tech recently found that if one person tells you that something is true many times, you are likely to conclude that the opinion is widely held, even if no one else said a thing about it.

Is myth busting a lost cause? Nicholas DiFonzo, a psychologist at the Rochester Institute of Technology, gives Obama high marks on his handling of the Muslim rumor, particularly a refutation Obama offered during an interview late in January with the Christian Broadcasting Network. Obama offered a clear, point-by-point rebuttal to every argument in the chain e-mail, and he provided an important alternative story — “dirty tricks.”

But Obama’s well-executed refutation didn’t kill the rumor. One problem is that rumors are rarely static. “You will see them mutate,” says Bill Adair of Politifact.com. “They’ll pick up new pieces, while some pieces drop off. There’s a line that appears in one version now: ‘I checked this out on Snopes, and it’s true.’ ” At some point, it seems, someone added a line like that as a kind of defense mechanism. There’s an arms race between truth and fiction, and at the moment, the truth doesn’t appear to be winning.

scientological facts

2008-03-23T23:04:00.001+05:30

There has been much discussion about Scientology in the news recently. I am not one to dismiss a religion just because a few deem it a cult. I have done days of research and ask you to open your mind and digest the facts.

The following paragraphs are directly from the Scientology website.

The word Scientology literally means “the study of truth.” It comes from the Latin word “scio” meaning “knowing in the fullest sense of the word” and the Greek word “logos” meaning “study of.”

Scientology is the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, others and all of life. The religion comprises a body of knowledge extending from certain fundamental truths. Prime among these:

Man is an immortal, spiritual being. His experience extends well beyond a single lifetime. His capabilities are unlimited, even if not presently realized — and those capabilities can be realized. He is able to not only solve his own problems, accomplish his goals and gain lasting happiness, but also achieve new, higher states of awareness and ability.

In Scientology no one is asked to accept anything as belief or on faith. That which is true for you is what you have observed to be true. An individual discovers for himself that Scientology works by personally applying its principles and observing or experiencing results.

Through Scientology, people all over the world are achieving the long-sought goal of true spiritual release and freedom. Thats the official word. Below is a list of a few core beliefs of Scientology.

- People are half robot and half monkey

- We descended from aliens

- We live many times past this life

- Some dude named L Ron Hubbard is god

- One day Abe Vigoda will come back and ,with the help of

his pet armadillo, bring the dead back to life while eating cherry poptarts.

- Tom Cruise’s ass is a black hole that will lead you to a planet wholly run by pigeons

- Man is the highest form of life after chickens and postmen

- “Cocktail” and “Days of thunder” aren’t that bad. I mean I wouldn’t pay theater prices to see them but if they are TBS Ill watch them

Now you have a little more information on which to base your ridicule of Scientology.

honda,hippie and globalisation

2008-03-23T13:28:00.001+05:30

For all its little aggravations, bandstand can be a pretty nice place for a leisurely walk. Most of the year the weather is pretty nice, there are neighborhoods comprised of magnificent houses to gawk at, and if you’re in the right mood, there is a wealth of hilarity all around you.I was lucky enough to receive some free comedy while I was out for a stroll the other day. While navigating a winding street overlooking a babbling creek, I noticed a house set away from the sidewalk. In its driveway sat a car shaded by the limbs of dense trees that encircled the house. I walked past this scene without much thought, but a sudden realization forced me stop and backtrack to the foot of the driveway. I looked at the car’s bumper and saw the usual menagerie of trite neo-hippie bumper stickers urging peace, love, and Gore in 2000.(it belonged to a foreigner living in india i guess) Something special caught my eye, though: a bumper sticker that read “Buy locally, stop corporate globalization.”

It wasn’t the message that gave me pause for consideration: I’ve spent many an hour and many an academic course ruminating on the consequences of the global economy. What stopped me was a little piece of sublime hypocrisy: this bumper sticker was stuck on the back of a Honda Civic.

Without a doubt, the phenomenon of globalization is tricky subject, regardless of your personal feelings towards it. Some argue it is a means towards cheaper goods for everyone and economic development for industrializing countries. While it may create economic disparities, neo-liberal economic policy enthusiasts take the basic argument that a rising tide lifts all boats. On the other side, critics of globalization cite the gross human rights violations and the creation of exploitative economic practices that routinely occur as evidence it is a flawed system. They believe that such unbridled capitalism is immoral and that neo-mercantilism is the end result of such an ideology.

I believe both sides have their merits, and I do not want to make some grand judgement about the direction of the human race (in this post). I just want to write about why an anti-globalization bumper sticker on a Honda is hilarious.

As many of you know, Honda is Japanese company whose main focus is automobiles. Honda, along with other Japanese manufacturers like Toyota, have experienced great success in the car industry due to their vehicles’ fuel efficiency, reliability, and reasonable prices. They are the reason the American manufacturers like Ford are continually playing a defensive game while still losing money every year. I don’t think it would be controversial to say that a huge number of supposedly progressively minded, socially conscious folks love their Japanese cars. Guess who made the first hybrid? Honda. And all those Priuses on the roads? The ultimate eco-friendly status symbol comes from Toyota. After all, most people agree that Japanese cars are simply better products than their American counterparts (just check out the sales of the Toyota Camry, it’s amazing). But how are Americans able to buy products from a company based in Japan? That’s right kiddies: corporate globalization.

Since the early 1970s, Japanese cars have given Americans an attractive buying option in the car market. But the thing that’s really mind-blowing is that Honda has both manufacturing and R&D facilities in the in the good old US of A. Not only is America involved in consuming the products of foreign based company, it is actually manufacturing the product! What a brilliant and ironic way to encounter outsourcing: I doubt the folks working in Honda’s plants are cursing the global economy that provides them with jobs to support their families. In the Bay Area, kids are even taken to the NUMMI plant for school field trips. Surprisingly enough, it’s not to educate them about the horrors of the corporate globalization.

Globalization is taking place right here in our own backyard: foreign companies like Honda have exported manufacturing and engineering jobs to red-blooded American towns: Lincoln, Alabama, East Liberty, Ohio, and Torrance, California. If everyone began to heed the advice of the aforementioned bumper sticker, those folks would be out of a job, we’d be driving shitty cars from a monopolized market, and all the faux-hippies wouldn’t be able to feel smug. And we wouldn’t want that!

So what can we learn from all this? Some very useful things:

1. Don’t distill complex issues into bumper sticker slogans

2. Think for a second before putting crap on your car

3. The smallest (and stupidest) actions you take can provide endless amusement for a complete stranger

The world is really funny place if you can stop crying long enough to laugh at it.

juvenile......

2008-03-23T13:04:00.003+05:30

With juvenile crime rate increasing in india,i wonder if this is the same india of chacha nehru,the india of 14 november,the india of roses and culture,the india of innocence,,now lost
A child’s mind was once thought to be a mind of pristine innocence, free of rigid ideas. Alas it is no longer now. The city kids (all over the world), as young as 3 years old, have very definite views about what they want or not want, be it food, clothes, toys or even household gadgets. By the time they are of 6 or 7 years, they make their parents proud with their deft handling of mobile phones, internet games and TV sets. More than 50% of 3 year olds in UK have a personal TV set in their bedrooms and those in the age group 11-15 years spend almost 53 hours a week in front of the computer/ TV screen.

So much so that China’s health authorities have placed Internet Addiction on par with alcohol/drug abuse and gambling as it is responsible for most juvenile crimes. The situation is so grave that Internet De-addiction Centres are being opened in many south asian countries like China and Thailand as internet use (rather abuse) explodes. Recently Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, ( a world class premier engineering institute of India) restricted internet access in its hostels saying that addiction to surfing/ gaming/ blogging was making students reclusive and even suicidal and was replacing the old hostel culture of camaraderie with depressive and dysfunctional lifestyles.

From petty thefts to rape, abduction and murder JUVENILE CRIME has entered a deadly new phase in India, mostly in the upper strata of society. In October 2007, 3 Ahmedabad (India) teenagers killed their 6 year old neighbour to raise 25 lakh rupees in ransom to lead a life of luxury. In August 2007,a Mumbai (India) teenager was killed by 4 friends who demanded Rs.2 crore (approximately US$ 500,000) ransom from his parents. A 14 year old girl helped a woman to hack her mother in law in return for a new mobile phone. A teenager, near Sonepat, molested a girl and shot dead her brother when he protested.

Our kids are indeed living in violent times--violence in movies, within families, on the roads. The ‘Age of Innocence’ is over. It has been overpowered with the lust for easy money and substance abuse. Even those few, who are brilliant achievers in various fields, cite money and power as their main aim in life.

The exuberance of childhood has been replaced with an uncouth brashness. Niceties of manners and finesse of language have become obsolete. Instead, we have the crass I, ME and MYSELF attitude. ‘Shit' and ‘Bastard’ have become the most often used words in kids’ conversations.

And all this because primarily parents, elders, teachers have failed miserably in our duties and responsibilities. Changing lifestyles, crumbling joint families and a market driven society has left our children rudderless and valueless. Instead of giving them quality time and selfless love they are smothering them with material goods.

With education perceived as the only means of advancement in the ultra-competitive society (especially in Asian countries), parents expectations are unrealistically high. American psychologist Madeline Levine has identified a growing breed of ‘helicopter parents’, so called because they hover over all aspects of their children’s lives. They push them so hard to excel at everything, from Maths to English to sports and music, that they end up as hopeless failures.

The struggle to please over ambitious parents leads to violent and immoral behaviour and feelings of self hatred. (I come across many such parents of my pupils. Sadly, even when I point out their fallacy they refuse to listen saying they are doing it for the good of their child).

With both parents working long hours, preparing balanced meals at home becomes difficult. So salty snacks and fizzy drinks have become the main meal of cranky, pampered kids. This is fomenting a health crisis in Japan, the home of sushi, seaweed and world’s longest life expectancy. The US food chains are helping it to rear a generation of young sugar addicts spending their adolescence fighting obesity and acne. India unwittingly boasts of being the largest snack market in the Asia Pacific region. Emotional stress is linked with junk food faddism.

Only if could make our kids skip the fries and go hard on soft drinks. Housewives could take this as a business opportunity to supply tasty wholesome homemade food to working parents and school canteens.

Only if we would not treat our kids as our prized possessions whose achievements alone are to be showcased as trophies. They need our love and assurance the most when they deserve it the least. Let them know that failures are as much part of growing up as success. Let us consciously try to remove the imbalance of power (still prevalent in most Indian homes) which makes the sons believe that they can get away with everything. Let us give them a sense of belonging and not expensive gifts. Let us respect the law and not indulge in a sick display of opulence.

We may have our own dreams about our children but as they grow older we need to respect (rather than kill) their interests and choices in life ,as happens so often literally in Indian homes in the name of ‘honour killings’ of adult sons and daughters.

Let our children grow to be a trifle more sensitive about the needs of the millions of those underprivileged Indian children who are working under miserable conditions in stone quarries, in the carpet industry, as domestic help, as ragpickers or in the sex market, with no access to schools and two square meals a day.

Let all of us try to gift our children their ‘Age of Innocence’ sans junk food, TV/internet abuse, conspicuous consumption, sedentary lifestyle and an insensitive couldn’t-care-less attitude. Let us guide them lovingly yet firmly on their path of self discovery.

the omnipresent walkers

2008-03-23T13:01:00.000+05:30

DRIVING ALONG the streets on India is an enriching experience. Driving on an empty stretch of road, with the cool breeze ruffling your hair, and some fine music playing in the CD player - all regular car drivers will know that this is ultimate bliss. So that’s how it all seemed to be panning out one fine afternoon, when I took my car out for a spin. But, as they say, great dreams are short lived; and to jolt me awake from my stupor, out came this man from nowhere, right in the middle of the road! I had to summon all my reflexes to slam the brakes, simultaneously honking at the guy who decided that walking in the middle of the road was something in vogue. ‘Chacha’ (uncle) turned back, quizzically, as if to wonder what a TATA Indica was doing on ‘his’ road, bang in the middle of the afternoon. Finally, after ensuring that he had made it clear that under no circumstances would he tolerate any more vehicles on the road, and that it was meant solely for enjoying a leisurely stroll, he gave way.

This is the usual scene on Indian roads. Everywhere you go you have to spend most of your energy and concentration in trying to remove pedestrians from the streets. And it is no mean feat, mind you. These so called ‘owners of the road’ seem to materialise out of thin air. You are driving peacefully, and poof! There they are. You are left wondering where they came from: The road seemed empty just a moment ago.

Of course, the travails of the hapless driver don’t end there. Not only do these ‘fine victories of evolution’ make random appearances, but some of them make it a point not to move out of the way despite repeated honking. How middle aged females can walk in the centre of the road, listen to a horn pleading them to move, turn around, see a ten wheeler heading towards them, and still continue with their ‘this is my property’ walk is amazing. I wish I were so brave. But then again, I’m thankful I wasn’t born with the IQ of a napkin.

Another class of this malice is the children. Now, I can accept the fact that little kids cannot be held responsible for venturing out on the street. Believe me, the last thing someone wants is to see a toddler run across the road, eyes transfixed on the puppy or the ball just in front of him. And even more frightening is when there is more than just the one.

It is not just the pedestrian that walks in the middle of the street that is the problem. Even good law abiding (common sense?) people who use the footpath present a danger. How? Just accidentally run into a ‘road walker’ and you’ll see what I mean. For some inexplicable reason, you will be held responsible for the collision, and the first to come to the aid of the hit will be the people on the footpath. “Can’t you see where you are going?” they ask. "I could, but this smart Alec here didn’t find it the least bit strange to decide that he will use the road,” you argue, but to no avail.

So, that’s the scene here. Wherever you go for a drive, you are bound to bump into (pun intended) one or more of the fine class of persons called the all knowing (ignorant probably? You decide) pedestrian. They will appear out of thin air, will try and outrun your vehicle, will not budge at all if you dare to sound the horn, or sometimes, just harmlessly sleeping on the road (yes, this happens too). It may yet turn out to be an advantage though: It will ensure that the driver has his eyes firmly on the road at all times, with peak levels of concentration. No wonder us Indians seem to produce geniuses by the million!

hope,change and pissing in the wind

2008-03-23T12:50:00.002+05:30

CHARISMATIC, ARTICULATE, SMOOTH, AND INTELLIGENT, Barrack Obama is the living embodiment of his vague, ethereal, and tantalizing messages of "hope" and "change." To the millions upon millions of US Americans desperate to purge the naked imperialism and blatant criminality of the Bush administration from the White House, Obama IS hope and change. Yet like many establishment liberals before him, Obama is no cure for the malignant creep toward fascism plaguing our nation. If elected, at best he will merely serve to postpone the inevitable a bit.
To understand why Obama and the ilk he took with him to DC would be little or no better than the human excrement currently occupying the tangible, visible positions of power in the US, let's examine various facets of Obama and of our rotten-to-the-core socio-political and socioeconomic systems.

Issue one is that Obama or no Obama, we are still stuck with a bourgeois democracy. Which means that despite all the rhetoric and mythologies about equality, freedom, meritocracy, opportunity, and a host of other lies that placate the masses and maintain the social order, the United States is a nation of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.

Even if we suspend our critique of Obama for a moment and pretend he is a man of saintly virtue, trusting an Obama or a JFK or whomever to do the right thing by the nation, the environment, the people, etc. rests on the assumption that the American president is indeed an all-powerful figure capable of enacting or precipitating policies of tremendous consequence for the country. This illusion holds when the person in the executive office is moving within the traditional confines, values and methods of the capitalist system, which even such a "radical" as FDR observed. In such a case, the media would not align and uniformly attack him and there would not be a capital strike (as savage capitalism has waged against true left reformers like Allende); we'd just see a sectoral division within the ruling class, and factions would develop-but the policy dialogue would remain within the historically acceptable parameters of capitalists elites. Their principal interest would be to maintain and preserve as many of their privileges and as much of their way of life as possible. That was fine for FDR's time.

However, let's look at the larger picture we traverse today.

In the current circumstances we face, we see a rapidly degenerating empire, in which the logical evisceration of FORMAL aspects of democracy proceeds accordingly. The prospect is for endless wars, more super-exploitation of the planet, and so on. If any "remedial" policies are implemented against judicial abuse, planetary death, or human/non-human animal exploitation in various contexts, these cannot take hold and neutralize the overarching slide toward worse because "toward worse" is embedded in the dynamics of the system-and how could it be otherwise in a socioeconomic structure premised on greed and selfishness? There are systemic contradictions at play that almost force the hand of capitalists to do what they do-for example they are now trying to roll back the social democratic gains of the European working class during the postwar period. Merkel, Brown, Berlusconi, and Sarkozy are no accidents. They represent the concerted effort of the European bourgeoisie, egged on by the American elites, to push back on the working class and take it all back under the pretext of "remaining competitive" and a plethora of other fraudulent reasons.

Capitalism faces insoluble issues. As the world's population continues to grow, it cannot hope to cure unemployment-ever- because the dynamic of modern capitalist industry is toward ever larger portions of machine labor replacing human labor. Neither science nor technology can be stopped. And advancing technology naturally makes work production routines continuously more efficient, thereby reducing the need for human workers. This phenomenon can be seen nearly everywhere now (it was always there lurking right under the surface, but remained hidden from most via cultivated ignorance, lies, and the complicity of the media) including in "cheap labor" zones such as India and China, which at last count had more than 150 million unemployed. In many places in Europe one paycheck has to be spread among 2 or even 3 "employed" workers. That means that 2 jobs have vanished and the fiction of smaller unemployment is kept alive by musical chairs, a trick which is becoming increasingly transparent to many.

The American people, in keeping with their reputation as the most misinformed people on the planet, have been the slowest to recognize that as citizens of a clearly fibrillating bourgeois democracy they are perpetually teetering on the brink of fascism. Meanwhile, while the world edges ever closer to the edge, the media-including those revered phonies on the PBS Lehrer Newshour-rarely talk about these things and the politicians even less (both out of sheer ignorance and a sense that such topics are taboo), which enables the cancer to grow unchecked. What we do receive are fictions like those of Robert Reich and his ilk, who go about preaching the pseudocure of "better education" and job retraining for technological unemployment. Reich-a terrifically intelligent fellow-may really believe his own message, but either way, it doesn't matter because the solution is no solution. This is not to say that under any and all circumstances it's not better to be educated. However the structural aspects of a capitalist economy at this point make that posture moot: all the titles in the world will not get you a job when the economy says it needs only 5 PhDs and 10 skilled technicians while there are 25,000 PhDs and 15 million technicians clamoring for jobs.
Those who bank on stopping the slide to fascism through a liberal president are deluding themselves, because the American president is powerful ONLY when he's playing with the consent of most of the ruling class and the institutions it controls. Such personal power deflates rapidly when playing against the values and consensus of the US power elite, at which point a "rogue president" would likely suffer a wave of opposition that would literally bring them down-via impeachment or through a coup orchestrated during a state of tumult created by capital strikes, agents provocateurs, and the media. Not to mention even a military takeover.

Further, we must recall that the slide to fascism is both a witting and unwitting choice by the bourgeoisie in power. The very essence of capitalism is anarchy: anarchy in production, anarchy in distribution and so on. Military precision may rule the day within each business entity, but from the larger societal perspective there is little coordination, only the selfish pursuits of the companies in play. Hence the horrific duplication and waste we see. For example, in the health care sector up to 1/3 of costs are squandered on paper-shuffling. None of this is likely to change until one deals with the fatal flaws of capitalism, which an Obama is about as likely to do as a lion is to go vegetarian.

Remember that FDR's reforms (FDR representing the classic example of the "savior" liberal president), radical as they seem now (and denounced at the time by many fellow capitalists as sheer communism and rank "class betrayal") were never such; they were just realistic measures to save the store that remained at all times totally respectful of the rights of private big business property. Thus FDR never really went deep into the question of workplace democracy, production choices, income distribution, or many other issues that would have meant a true clash of class interests. And the War of course obscured all that. Sure, FDR entered the war against the Axis, and MOMENTARILY a segment of official propaganda shifted to demonize the Germans and Japanese insteads of the "Reds", but those were not so much antifascist/anti-imperialist sentiments as nationalist power calculations.

The above means that if the ruling cliques deem it necessary to take the "nice mask" of democracy off (a big gamble since they may never restore the "legitimacy" they retain through this ruse), it will happen, no matter who's nominally in charge at the White House. In the case of the Bush/Cheney duo, they were born to stage the perfect friendly fascist coup and have almost pulled it off in slow motion over the last eight years. But if confronted with a less cooperative president, the power elite would find a way to neutralize him. We're dealing with a huge cast of actors here, many with colossal stakes, and who have enormous resources at their disposal to create all sorts of mischief, which they have done at taxpayer expense all over the world for years. These criminals will not give up their accustomed ways without a fight. In fact, they will do as Bush/Cheney have done and go on the offensive in a nearly transparent way.

What the world needs-desperately (and we are using this word sans hyperbole here) are dramatic changes in policies and top personnel and new models of advanced democratic enfranchisement. That means real democratic restructuring, proportional representation, certifiable elections, workplace democracy, a disenfranchisement of the power and income rights of the reigning plutocracy, and an effective global program of ecological respect and sanity. Do you see that being initiated under ANY establishment politico, including "Mr. Change" himself? Do you see any of these radical (yet utterly necessary) changes being implemented without a HUGE fight from capital and its affiliated elites around the globe?

Even if, and that is a big if, Obama wanted to institute beneficent change, he would be facing impossible odds. Need proof? Consider one of the ugliest and most absurd contradictions of American capitalism. Despite frontpage acknowledgement by the crypto-fascist WSJ in 1973 that 68% of US Americans supported a universal, single-payer healthcare system, the fact that even fellow capitalist nations have such a system, and the reality that our existing health care system is ruining many capitalists in the US (especially those in the small and middle sectors but even making corporate giants like GM uncompetitive), the health of the masses remains tertiary to the profits of health-care industry giants and to the availability of the gold standard in health care to a relative few. Think Obama and his family don't have the best medical care known to man?

The American people must de-link themselves from our farcical presidential election circus, turn their eyes to a different kind of electoral politics, develop and field new forms of oppositional struggle, and create mass mobilization instruments such as a real popular party. In all these tasks, the Democrats like Obama just stand in the way, beguiling the people with illusions and sucking up precious oxygen. That long journey has to be made, and the sooner the better. Trying to avoid the arrival of fascism by appealing to the "good cop" of the bourgeoisie is an illusion; fascism can only be stopped when the masses are organized-and fully aware.

Some think we gain time for such organization under the Democrats. Problem is, the Democrats and their half measures that appear to thwart the capitalist juggernaut are what keeps the masses enthralled with the system and in effect dissuade them from joining the struggle against it. The public will not do what needs to be done until professional and charismatic charlatans like Obama are revealed for what they are. Band-aid solutions by the Democrats will not stop the slide toward the disaster and chaos guaranteed by the dynamics of the system.

Simply look at what has happened with the subprime crisis, an abortion that wriggled and writhed its way directly from the foul womb of a freewheeling, mature, ultra-cynical crony capitalism. It was a deep-rooted phenomenon that happened as inevitably as the transformation of undifferentiated cells into cancers. Politicians could not see it or stop it because that's not their job under the traditional task distribution of the system.

Obama or anyone else in the establishment can't cure the myriad ills of capitalism. These ills can never be cured from within or through playing by the accepted rules of the world's plutocracy. That's why all American politicians are into tinkering and superficialities. Their programs and "solutions" to the most glaring and obvious aspects of a severely broken system are complex, almost ludicrous Rube Goldberg contraptions (the health system comes to mind yet again). Obama and his fellow liberals are incredible illusionists: they give the people the distinct impression they are acting to cure the very disease that provides the life-blood to the opulent class whose interests they strive so hard to preserve. This would be obvious to most US Americans and the WaPo, the WSJ, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, the NY Times and even the CIA headquarters would have been stoned and razed to the ground already if so many of us were not braindead and kept in that vegetative state by the corporate media, an entity that more aware Latin Americans justly call, the "falsimedia."

So if Obama-let alone Hillary-won't and can't guarantee the defeat of friendly-fascism in America, what's the point? Sure, Obama very intelligently trades on HOPE. And many people, us included, are always loath to give up on hope. Hope is a powerful drug. Cyrano is in itself a work of HOPE. So this is tricky territory.

But hope must always be tempered with reason, especially in politics and war. And no reasonable human being could conclude that putting Obama at the helm of the USS Titanic will avert disaster for anyone but him and his cronies in the first class berths.

Suddenly Ralph Nader doesn't sound like such a ridiculous option, unless you're a plutocrat or a corporado.

are americans communist?

2008-03-23T12:41:00.001+05:30

U.S.A. has been a staunch opposer to communism ever since the second world war.but when we look into the manifestos of marx and the united states policies i find a strange similarity.is america communist too?lets have a look......

The 10 PLANKS stated in the Communist Manifesto and some of their American counterparts are…

1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rents of land to public purposes.
Americans do these with actions such as the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1868), and various zoning, school & property taxes. Also the Bureau of Land Management (Zoning laws are the first step to government property ownership)

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Americans know this as misapplication of the 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 1913, The Social Security Act of 1936.; Joint House Resolution 192 of 1933; and various State “income” taxes. they call it “paying your fair share”.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
Americans call it Federal & State estate Tax (1916); or reformed Probate Laws, and limited inheritance via arbitrary inheritance tax statutes.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
Americans call it government seizures, tax liens, Public “law” 99-570 (1986); Executive order 11490, sections 1205, 2002 which gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment of “terrorists” and those who speak out or write against the “government” (1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill); or the IRS confiscation of property without due process. Asset forfeiture laws are used by DEA, IRS, ATF etc…).

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Americans call it the Federal Reserve which is a privately-owned credit/debt system allowed by the Federal Reserve act of 1913. All local banks are members of the Fed system, and are regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) another privately-owned corporation. The Federal Reserve Banks issue Fiat Paper Money and practice economically destructive fractional reserve banking.

6. Centralization of the means of communications and transportation in the hands of the State.
Americans call it the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Department of Transportation (DOT) mandated through the ICC act of 1887, the Commissions Act of 1934, The Interstate Commerce Commission established in 1938, The Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, and Executive orders 11490, 10999, as well as State mandated driver’s licenses and Department of Transportation regulations.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
Americans call it corporate capacity, The Desert Entry Act and The Department of Agriculture… Thus read “controlled or subsidized” rather than “owned”… This is easily seen in these as well as the Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Park Service, and the IRS control of business through corporate regulations.

8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Americans call it Minimum Wage and slave labor like dealing with the Favored Nation trade partner; i.e. Communist China. We see it in practice via the Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor. The National debt and inflation caused by the communal bank has caused the need for a two “income” family. Woman in the workplace since the 1920’s, the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, assorted Socialist Unions, affirmative action, the Federal Public Works Program and of course Executive order 11000.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of population over the country.
Americans call it the Planning Reorganization act of 1949 , zoning (Title 17 1910-1990) and Super Corporate Farms, as well as Executive orders 11647, 11731 (ten regions) and Public “law” 89-136. These provide for forced relocations and forced sterilization programs, like in China.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
Americans are being taxed to support what we call ‘public’ schools, but are actually “government force-tax-funded schools ” Even private schools are government regulated. The purpose is to train the young to work for the communal debt system. they also call it the Department of Education, the NEA and Outcome Based “Education” . These are used so that all children can be indoctrinated and inculcated with the government propaganda, like “majority rules”, and “pay your fair share”. the philosophical concept of “fair share” comes from the Communist maxim, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need! This concept is pure socialism. ….

so i rest my case

script writer

2008-03-23T12:34:00.002+05:30

i recently wrote a play for my college fest and acted in it also.we,being,first years were not taken seriously in the competition.but we emerged out to be davidians,defeating the goliaths of the college and securing the first prize...here's the script of the play.its a espionage thriller.enjoy!

CHECKMATE

RAW Headquarters Delhi Headquarters—Home of India’s external intelligence agency

Agastya rai, head of personnel (AR) enters…his secretary stands and wishes him...

SEC: good morning, sir.here is the papers to be stamped and signed.

AR: ok……any other priorities.

SEC: sir, here are some greetings in the envelope and this one is from the pm’s office-

AR: what a bunch of hypocrites! I have bee a straight talking pain in their neck for the last 25 years and now they show concern.

SEC: Also sir, you have a conference today.

AR: today! That too a conference!

SEC: sir, it’s important, it’s about tyagi.

AR: ok fine. The last day in office .I will miss this place. I actually had imagined retirement differently but…this thing is still pretty good. When is the conference?

SEC: Actually it will start in a few minutes. You must start now. By the way sir, I have also filed my resignation.

AR: Ok, give it to the head in the conference. Now let’s move.

(In the conference room ...there is a table in the centre, a projector... RAW head and four other directors are sitting, Placards read. External intellugence, Crypto and cipher, internal affairs, Communications and Head of Operations)

AR enters...

AR: Last day par bhi conference...

Comm. J.D.: Arre yaar (hugs) happy retirement...Agle saal main bhi aa raha hoon…

Head: If your Oprah moments are over, can we please start with our work!

Mr Rai, you must have forgotten the importance of today... so let me brush your memory. Tomorrow Abhimanyu Tyagi is being executed in SERNA prison in Burma. .The RAW doesn’t stop working on your retirement and we need to conduct this meeting...

AR: Enough I very well remember.. Age never degraded my mind. Right now I actually don’t give a shit for RAW(takes the envelope , crumples it,) all these greetings mean nothing to me. Nor does this bureaucracy..( Throws the paper in the bin)

Ext JD:Sir we need to close this file Tyagi was your agent and protégé . So help us fill this missing information in this file and then you are free..

Crypt JD: Common now, Gussa thuk Last day par toh khush rahe

AR:Thik hain.So what do you want to know about Tyagi.

Head: everything. His name,place,shoe size. Spare no details. So lets begin,(Tyagis profile on screen)tell us how did you recruit this person and why.

AR: I was in charge of the Ludovico project and Tyagi was my creation

Int JD:

Ludovico project was conceptualized by internal affairs and Personnel Dept.We wanted to create agents who did not have a conscience.These agents don’t reflect retrospect or object. They just do what is told to them

AR:

In short I was to make a killing machine without remorse. After going through various applications I found this person, Abhimanyu.No family , hardly any friends , ready to do anything..Ready to die ..Our perfect weapon.

Cry JD:yes sir, I personally took him under my wing…kamala ka banda tha.usko infiltration aur sniping to maine hi sikahi thi—

Int JD:apne!apko magnum kya hai pata bhi hai?

Head: will you please!

Comm JD:He was made to go through various trainings and tests. He killed people , he was made to cut them. We destroyed his soul , his conscience. He could kill in 256 ways and knew how to make 29 different poisons using kitchen articles

Cry JD: He had an IQ of 160 . Brilliant code breaker ,knew 7 languages and had more than 10 identities.

AR: I succeeded in making a perfect monster . He was our James Bond . a one man army.

Head: And his file says he was involved in many important RAW operations apparently

AR:He was the person who killed the CIA mole in RAW .The CIA still thinks that he died due to his peanut allergy. The MI6 infiltration to find the nuke deal details was engineered by Tyagi. His biggest achievement I feel was the killing of the ISI agent in the embassy,Tyagi killed him in a theatre using a champagne glass and a nylon ball. He was a superlative!

Comm JD:

He also headed a operation to plant a communication tower at Siachen.We are receiving class A intelligence from that tower till now

AR: Arre , you remember that,Kashmir main apni haddiyan sikud gayee thi.??

C JD: This kya , meri toh ab tak sikudi hui hain,,

Head: Can you please come to the point .your friend’s reunion for a later period perhaps.

Int JD:Arre jaldi karo yaar bhook bhi lagi hain, insulin lene ka bhi time ho raha hain

Head: Ok ,let’s hit the topic now , operation Silver Fox, let’s begin. I want to know everything what happened This is going on record any lies can affect you later .somebody can get hurt. Keep this in mind,mr.rai.

AR:Just because you are the head doesn’t mean you own me .

Int JD:Calm down sir , don’t work on your Bp too much..

AR:Operation Silver Fox Burma was in a state of civil war ,the govn. and the refugees along with the civilians were up in arms and rioting. India has a non-interference treaty with Burma .A US humanitarian Shalini Bhattacharya alias Jane was in Burma to nurse the wounded in the civilian area.She was caught by the soldiers and put in the prison of SERNA,Burma. We had been told to extract the officer from SERNA, and deport her safely back to the US of A.

Int JD: Can we please take a break ?I need to eat my lunch and take my insulin shot.

Head: OK, 30 min lunch, These things are deteriorating the quality of work at RAW.Everyone works at his own leisure..(storms to his office)

(conf room ,,directors sitting for lunch..)

Cry JD: Salla , this Head toh gets on my nerves, PM’s Office main setting hain is liye apne sir pe baitha hain…

Int JD: ( comes after taking his shot) Rai tu toh bahut lucky insaan hain yaar . abhi toh full family man banega

AR:Pata hain!! Main toh aaj raat ki flight se hi Panama jaa raha hoon ,apne bete ke pass.. Wahan toh duur duur tak RAW ka saaya bhi nahi hain… South American treaty..!!

Cry JD : Any plans for the evening?

AR: I am actually going out on a dinner with my wife .I hope this meeting ends and I can go..

Comm JD: I know , I rarely see my grandson … I too am contemplating VRS now.

( office murmurs continue .. Head’s office …head on phone )

(voices on the other end of the line ..)

So have you taken care of Rai and Tyagi..?

Head:Tyagi is getting executed tomorrow ..I think I will get the location of the humanitarian official by evening..

Voice:

She is of importance to the Burma govn. She has witnessed something… We are on her lookout for three years ..

Head: I will take care of her myself ,,she will disappear from the face of the earth.

Voice: At least be your money’s worth..

(back to conference hall)

SEC : Sir you have a call..

AR:Excuse me(ans the phone)..Ya surely, its confirmed,I will send it .Just do as per that.Ya Dinner Out is a Go. Chal.See You.

Cryp JD: 25 years main RAW ne teri English badal di. Wife ko “It’s a go”. Bechari kaisi bardaashth karti hogi tuze!!

Int JD:Don’t pull his leg too much ,Last day toh enjoy karne de.Head ne toh uska din waise bhi kharab kar diya hain..

Head (entering): So we were in Burma, (to ext jd), what does your report say..?

Ext JD: Our Embassy in Burma was redundant Tyagi was on his own in this operation. Due to political constraints we couldn’t do anything for him in Burma He was behind enemy lines with a bull’s eye on his head..

AR: Under such adverse conditions Tyagi managed to infiltrate SERNA.He had devised the escape plan .He planned the prison break impeccably. The plan was flawless

Ext JD: Was he successful?

AR: let me complete! He located the officer ,but at the prison he came across someone else

Cry JD: Kya baat kar raha hain!

AR:He saw his ex-wife there .She was working for an NGO in Burma and the military police caught her .Tyagii successfully managed to rescue the officer and she was deported from Burma .Then he did the biggest mistake o his life.His emotions killed his decision making skills .He went back to rescue his ex wife , but this time he failed.He got caught by the govn..Tomorrow he will be executed..

Head: Nice story.But whatever you said for the last 5 mins,is the most moronic fairytale I ever heard. The officer never reached US.

Ext JD: We sent our agent at the airport, but she wasn’t even in the plane.

Head:She vanished into thin air(rises ).You thinks we all are buffoons out here..The truth is your most dear agent failed in Silver fox, He failed and you are covering up for his failure..You have been hiding information for the last three yrs..

Int JD:The officer might have really disappeared or the Burmese could have captured her..

Head : You think I didn’t find that out .She is missing from US,from India, from Burma..Now Mr Rai , tell us where the hell is she..

AR:I don’t give a damn as to what you think, she could be anywhere why do I care .!And who are you to point my mistakes. Enough!!

Head: Remember you are talking to the Head of Operations..

AR:Everyone knows who am talking to ,you think your contacts in PM’s office will deter me bring it on!. You political games cant do anything to me..

C JD: But why didn’t we try to save Tyagi, after all he was one of our best agents…

Ext JD: Because he wasn’t supposed to be in Burma, there would have been a major scandal.

Head: Plus I didn’t want to waste my time behind such incapable agents and directors…

AR(Stands):Just because you are going to sign on my retirement certificate you think

you can do anything. Well I don’t need this ,(throws certificate in bin..)

I don’t need you pension, canteen benefits, free liquor .I don’t need RAW .I’m going right now .Lets see if you can stop me .the conference is over. I have told everything that I know.

Head(shouting):rai….you will pay for this…come back this instance.

(AR walks away, others still around doing paper work, Jane bends and finds paper from bin..)

SEC: Sir, I know that Mr.Rai was rude. But sir, He has been in this institute for 25 years. Please sign the retirement certificate .It will be a memento for him. Half of his life has been RAW. Even if he tries he can’t take RAW away from him.

Head: Ok (signs)

Jane: Sir even I am resigning with him, here is my resignation. Thank you sir.

Head: Hello, please transfer all phone lines of Rai to my office. I am in charge of Personnel till a new director is appointed. Also tell security to check that rai departs from the building as soon as possible.

(In anger. throws the vase on table in disgust)

Some time later... (Some one comes and gives Head a fax...)

Head: What the hell, operators call all the directors, it’s an emergency meeting. And get me all employment records and files on silver fox in the conference room fast.

(All directors in conference hall. head enters.)

Head: there has been an emergency. Can we get the records of silver fox?

Int JD: yes sir, but according to standard protocol, we delete important information after the operation.

Head: I want to know about the officer.bhattacharya.she had a code name right.

Ext JD: it was Jane sir.

Head: do we have any photos of her?

Int JD: no sir, as I mentioned standard procedure. But why is she so important?

Head: check this employment record.rai’s secretary’s name incidently is Jane. Jane menezes.her date of appointment is exactly 1 week after silver fox. All this time he kept her in one place no one would bother looking.right in raw headquaters.under our noses. (Very furious).can you please check the bin?

Int JD: (checks bin) there are no greeting cards…and this is rai’s retirement certificate!

(All directors stand in shock)

Comm. JD: so what did you sign sir?

Head: there were no greeting cards. And what I signed was a sanction for an extraction operation.rai was playing with us all along. Here have a look at this fax.

(Fax on projector. it reads)

OPERATION DINNER OUT WAS A SUCCESS.ABHIMANYU TYAGI AND HIS WIFE ARE SAFELY EXTRACTED FROM SERNA AND DEPORTED TO PANAMA.

Head: talk about checkmate!

die...caste

2008-02-21T11:54:00.002+05:30

Caste system in modern India has divided the nation into different communities with different perceptions and the most divisive factor. While the majority adheres to Hinduism as their faith, caste divides them for wrong reasons often.We have to have a re look at the failed social engineering experiment of reservations, since even after 50 years the number of people under privileged and disadvantaged keeps growing only due to faulty delivery mechanisms.There is a theory that the caste system has denied equality to many and gave opportunities to a few. Caste system has been perceived as being practiced by the front line castes to the disadvantage of the other communities. It is also said that caste system led to the oppression of disadvantaged caste groups. But the matter of fact is that India was ruled prior to independence for hundreds of years by the Muslim and British rulers who invaded the nation and governed the destinies.Caste system has led to reservations of every kind among the citizens. The focus is not on helping the less privileged or under privileged to compete with the so called forward castes. The political system only perpetuated the continuance of the caste system and succeeded in creating vote banks on the strength of which rulers are elected. It is agreed by one and all that equal opportunities be given to all its citizens irrespective of caste, creed, race and religion. Those people who used the benefits of reservation continue to enjoy the reservation facilities for their progeny though they are no longer under privileged or under developed. The creamy layer that benefited the most from the caste reservation system continues to claim the rights and privileges that are no longer needed by them. They appear to be expressing their loyalty to the caste from which they came and benefited, and there by attracting other still to be befitted people to flock round them only to benefit the already privileged among those oppressed castes.If we have to stop this divide within this great nation, the only way is to categorize people as haves and have nots and make economic condition as the sole criteria for judging whether a particular person is privileged or under privileged. All the financially backward people must be treated equally and benefits be made available to them so that they equip themselves to compete with the haves in the society.It must start with education system. Income be made the sole criteria and seats for the underprivileged or back ward classes and children of such parents must be given choice to admit their child in any school or college of their choice and the government should reimburse the entire expenses for education to the economically dis advantaged families. Those rich and powerful, to which ever caste they may belong to must be asked to pay for the education on their own.This ensures that quality education is made available to deserving children without financial burden for those families that can hardly afford quality education. This financial backing must continue for the economically under privileged classes till they get a reasonable job with good salary.Then such family must be removed from the list of beneficiaries irrespective of caste affiliations so that the benefits will go to deserving candidates. Caring for education must include health care of children, their dress requirement and their food expenses. Quality must be the watch word and the delivery system must be made accountable with prominent citizens playing watch dog role. If this is done there will be no need for reservation in jobs as equal opportunities arise for all based on competence and merit. This will eradicate the inequities and social engineering will give way to economic well being. This is the bounden duty of a welfare state.When such generation joins main stream with a feeling that they are not disadvantaged on the basis of caste, the vote bank politics will vanish and the merit and talent will find their rightful place.Such drastic re look only will help Indian democracy qualify as not only the largest democracy but also best quality democracy. Otherwise it will be mobocracy, castocracy and divisive and harmful to the nation and its citizens.If we are unable to judge what is good for us and ensure governance that is responsive, responsible, and continue to dabble in caste vote banks, one day it may lead to social upheavals since the delivery mechanism for helping the under privileged and oppressed sections is so faulty that the number keeps growing despite billions and billions are spent for that cause.What the underprivileged want is eradication of hurdles that continue to create inequities mainly on account of economic reasons.Why to add cream to cream? It is better to identify constantly and transparently those who really need cream to sweeten their fortunes.Till India finds real solution to the caste problem and take steps for eradicating caste factor from politics, India will continue to be a divided house where the energies of the nation are wasted without real gain for the people at large.

statements and sayings

2008-02-21T11:41:00.002+05:30

my computer's damaged and that is the reason for a long gap..i have written articles and will publish them as soon as possible.till then enjoy some quotations unheard

-"There's a truth deeper than experience. It's beyond what we see, or even what we feel. It's an order of truth that separates the profound from the merely clever, and the reality from the perception. We're helpless, usually, in the face of it; and the cost of knowing it, like the cost of knowing love, is sometimes greater than any hear would willingly pay. It doesn't always help us to love the world, but it does prevent us from hating the world. And the only way to know that truth is to share it, from heart to heart,

- Loves are like that. You heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and independence. After a while, you started throwing people out - your friends and everyone you used to know. And it's still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it's going to take down with it. I've seen that happen to a lot of girls. That's why I'm sick of Love.

- Indians are the Italians of Asia and vice versa. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is the music inside the body and music is the food inside the heart. Amore or Pyar makes every man a poet, a princess of peasant girl if only for second eyes of man and woman meets.

- Every day, when you are on the run, is the whole of your life. Every free minute is a short story with a happy ending.

- If fate doesn't make you laugh, then you don't get the joke.

- Nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn’t meant to be.

- It’s a characteristic of human nature that the best qualities, called up quickly in a crisis, are very often the hardest to find in a prosperous calm.

- One of the ironies of courage, and the reason why we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for someone else than we do for ourselves alone.

- Lovers find their way by insights and confidences; they are the stars they use to navigate the ocean of desire. And the brightest of those stars are the heartbreaks and sorrows. The most precious gift you can bring to your lover is your suffering.

- There’s no meanness too spiteful or too cruel, when we hate someone for all the wrong reasons.

- The sane man is simply a better liar than an insane man.

- Fate’s way of beating us in a fair fight is to give us warnings that we hear, but never heed.

- The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men,It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds and there are bad deeds. Men are just men —it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good or evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone —the noblest of man alive or the most wicked— has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God.

- Guilt is the hilt of the knife that we use on ourselves, and love is often the blade;but its worry that keeps the knife sharp, and worry that gets most of us, in the end.

- If you make your heart into a weapon, you always end up using it on yourself.

- Despotism despises nothing so much as righteousness in its victims.

- It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realized, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was till free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn't sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when its all you have got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving,can become the story of your life.

- I know now that it's the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and its a sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love.

- The past reflects eternally between two mirrors - the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn't do or say.

- One of the reasons why we crave love, & seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, & shame, & sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.

- Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that's all there is. Love & its duty, sorrow & its truth. In the end that's all we have - to hold on tight until the dawn.

- The difference between news and gossip-News tells you what people did, gossip tells you how much they enjoyed it.

- At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. What we should fear and dread instead is that we won't stop loving them, even after they are dead and gone.

- A dream is a place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare.

- Men reveal what they think when they look away, and what they feel when they hesitate. With women, it’s the other way around.

- Happiness is a myth, which was invented to make us buy things.

- The lies we tell ourselves are the ghosts that haunt the empty house of midnight.

- We know that crying is a good and natural thing. We know that crying isn't a weakness, but a kind of strength. Still, the weeping rips us root by tangled root from the earth, and we crash like fallen trees when we cry.

- A good man is as strong as the right woman needs him to be.

- Anything that can be put in a nutshell should remain there.

- Fate always gives you two choices, the one you should take, and the one you do.

- The cloak of the past is cut from patches of feeling, and sewn with rebus threads. Most of the time, the best we can do is wrap it around ourselves for comfort or drag it behind us as we struggle to go on. Sometimes we see the past so clearly, and read the legend of its parts with such acuity, that every stitch of time reveals its purpose, and the kind of message enfolded in it.

- There is no man, and no place, without a war. The only thing we can do is choose a side, and fight. That is the only choice we get - who we fight for, who we fight against. That is life.

- Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting.

- Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow.

- You are not a man until you give your love, truly and freely to a child. And you are not a good man until you earn the love, truly and freely, of a child in return”

- Being in love we often pay no attention whatsoever to the substance of what lover says, while being intoxicated to ecstasy by the way its said”

- "Be true to love where ever you find it, and be true to yourself and everything that you really are."

- Truth is bully we all pretend to like.

- “We all strive to do one good thing to balance all the wrong that we have done in the past”

- There's no believing in God...We either know God, or we don't.

- Sometimes, you have to surrender before you win

- "Silence is the tortured mans revenge."

-optimism is the first cousin of love- it is exactly like love, it is pushy, has no real sense of humour, n it turns up when u least expect it.

-real trick in life is to want nothing, n to succeed in getting it.

-People always hurt us with their trust. The surest way to hurt someone you like is to put all your trust in him.”

the young and the restless

2008-02-01T22:45:00.000+05:30

recently my mom completed her 25 years in the bank.she was awarded memento on the annual day of the bank.it surely was a happy moment for everyone in the family.but this also brought about another feeling in my mind.my mom had just one job,just one bank in her entire lifetime.but now-a-days the young working class changes jobs faster than the time between equinoxes,seeing this scenario ,i guess,the 25 year mark in a company will be substituted by a 5 year mark.complete 5 years in one place and dude,you are eligible for honor.but what has changed in these years.why has the youth changed so much?why does the ignited mind be the rolling stone throughout the life?is the chance of growth less?maybe,but is the job all about money?the office used to be the second home.we have friends,mentors,our space,memories and anecdotes embedded in that very job.then how does the youth break all this?is the bonding among people all lost or have people become insensitive ?me ,being a youth,can assure you that human bonding is still deeply embedded in our hearts and we still can go beyond all degrees for someone close to our heart.then why is this thing occuring?
after some retrospection i managed to stumble about a few things which can lead to this reason.now-a-days jobs are all about high rise and high stakes.almost every job which pays you amazing salaries is mostly an multinational company.all the jobs which the employees work on are outsourced.so basically these "nighthawks"(this is what the people in u.s.a. call their employees in India as we work when its night there).the nighthawks do not know whom do they work for.they don't even know their own bosses.plus looking at the enormous stream of people being recruited in this industry especially the IT industry,personnels are available in plenty.co-workers are changed every month or so,to increase efficiency.a person working in such a company has very little contact with anyone.all he has is colleagues but no friends.earlier ,people used to bring lunch boxes ,share stories along with each others meals.these things just evaporated by this IT and coffee culture.the work which we do today lacks human touch.the corporation do not have any respect for your emotions or feelings.they want you as long as you can do the job.the minute you are inefficient,there are several ready to occupy your place.you don't have a friendly chat with your clients or your boss as you don't know any of them.so the only thing you are working for is money.without humanity there is no life.this is precisely what the people in the IT industry feel.they get high salary and lucrative offers but hardly anyone is satisfied with their job.this is why people are changing jobs at the speed of sonic boom.no creative satisfaction,no job satisfaction and no fun,just work and work.and you are getting paid for it.but is that 5 figure salary enough a repayment for everything that you have lost?
this lack of human touch is a prime cause of sadness among the working cause.but we also see the young generation which is studying,depressed.i rarely find a student who is happy from the inside.the time we pass our 10th exam and start our so called career deciding ascent,depression and bouts of sadness are seen cropping up among students.the amount of students smoking and drinking have increased enormously due to these very reason.but why are we always sad?why is the youth under so much of pressure?the rat race??is the competition this bad?i completely agree to the cut throat contest among the students when everyone is trying to secure the checkered flag,but is this all?look deep inside the heart and you will find a sense of emptiness?why has that feeling arrived?when we were young this hasn't been experienced.this is not due to any rat race.then why is this feeling in my heart?is this because of the same absence of human touch?but then you will argue that we got good friends in college.i agree and i am never stating that my observations are always the truth.they can be very much a big fat lie also.but my friends,didn't you guys notice the growing hypocrisies and double standards increasing day-by-day among the students of today?can you affirm that every friend of ours is a person who will do everything possible for you,whom you can trust with anything and everything ,who will help you in times?if no,then the person is not a friend.then who is it?why are you telling yourself that this person is a friend of yours?i see people faking all the time.students never show or are afraid to show what they really are from inside.everyone wears a mask behind a mask behind a mask...students are good to even their enemies,conveniently stabbing in the back when time arrives.people don't really care about you and will do everything to pull your leg and climb over you to attain success.money,parties,standards and etiquettes are becoming the criteria of friendship.do we really need such people,if you ask me no...but then you will find yourself living the life of a recluse.when everyone is wrong,the right one often is considered wrong or an idiot.a person must have immense mental strength to rise above this ugly system.a few good friends is ,more precious than 100 of friends who praise you and abuse you behind your own back.and to tell you the truth,sadly ,many people of this new generation are in this system.i have seen birthday parties where expensive gifts are being exchanged but there is no emotional bonding in them.its a give and take, i give him something now expecting that he will give me something later.if this give and take doesn't happen then you become and bad friend.the purity of friendship is pruned by politics;and the life in this lifestyle has made the person selfish and hollow.
i just wanna conclude asking you one thing-"how will you be conscious if your soul is ugly and parched?"

we the people

2008-01-30T21:04:00.000+05:30

We are educated

We are liberal

We are indians

We are hindus

We are muslims

We are christians

We are sikhs

We are jains

We are budhists

We are communists

We are marxists

We are trotskites

We are maoists

We are naxals

We are brahmins

We are tribals

We are the marginalized

We are the the scheduled castes

We are the other backward castes

We are the minority

We are the congress

We are the bjp

We are the janta d or u

We are poor

We are rich

We have a heart

We do charity

We speak no lies

We hurt no flies

We pray

We bow before gods

We chant

We don’t believe in gods

We are atheists

We are pantheists

We love animals

We don’t spit on the road

We don’t litter

We are not class-conscious

We resprect all faiths

We respect women

We protect our children

We are incorruptible

We do no wrong

We are all liars

We are racists

We are exploiters

We hate the less-fortunate

We use god as an excuse

We can kill if we want to

We will kill

We can bomb each other to rubble

We will bomb

We beat our husbands, wives, kids, fathers and mothers

We are selfish

We deserve our misery

Because

We know not love.....

times are spinning

2008-01-30T20:51:00.000+05:30

Mr. Ponting is an honest man. He is being uneccesarily targeted by the Indian team. What are a couple of bad umpiring decisions and few lies by the Australian cricketers. Come on, grow up to the real world.

As for Mr. Ponting, he is the perfect role model for all kids, Australians or otherwise. Parents across continents should buy posters of Mr. Ponting and hang them on their walls. Pray to the lord of success to bless them…how to play hard and win at all costs. All this is not sarcasm.

Mr. Ponting after all is an honest man. He is after all a the national asset of Australia and of all ambitious people across the world. What is a little bit of abuse?

A little bit of abuse should be part of school curriculum in fact. Will toughen up kids who want to make a mark. A bit of verbal and in the coming days, physical also, is good. Makes you win. And that’s all that matters.

You have no option but to win.

So you think you can play?

Play like us, that is.

Can you abuse? Can you taunt? Can you ridicule? Can you rile? Can you irritate? Can you make me lose my focus? Can you make me lose concentration?

This is the way we play. Can you play like us? You can’t? No matter, we will still play the way we do. We are what we are. We will abuse your mother, father, your kids, your wife, your country, your honesty and integrity.

We will not stop at anything. We have to win because that’s all that matters. Who cares for the way you play. I don’t. I hae to defeat you. I have to rub your nose in the ground. I have to prove that I am superior to you. You are nobody. Your talent is irrelevant. Your skill is of no importance. I don’t clap when I see you doing good. I am not awe-struck when I see perfection at what you do.

I cringe. I hate myself when I see you succees. I loath the ground you walk on. How can you be better than me? How can I let you defeat me? Because my country will hate me. My fans will hate me. The Board will throw me out of the team. The advertising agencies will disappear. How can I not win everything I participate in?

My wife too will shoos me away when I lose. She fails to understand that it’s just a game. My kids will,in future, shoot me down with their toy guns when I don’t emerge victorious. Chants of sissy engulf me in the locker room if I am not like the others, shouting, cheering, inciting, cheating, lying. They will throw me out if I don’t become like them.

Success at all costs. The Australians are good at it. Do they have a nuclear arsenal also? They might just get riled and decide to bomb it because like Hemingway said ‘ the world is a fine place and worth fighting for’. The Australians too, like Morgan Freeman in 7, will most likely agree with the 2nd part, and kill everything in its wake.

That’s the sign of the times. It’s time Indians stop complaining and just play. Cheats will be seen as cheats, even by fans. And there will be a time for everything… a time for war and a time for peace, a time to win and a time to lose.

ASHES OF GANDHI

2008-01-30T20:44:00.000+05:30

Does it matter, thought the ashes? I have been dead for so long. 60 years isn’t it? The million specks asked themselves and didn’t even bother to answer. Long, in fact, all of them agreed.

I have been here, in darkness. Why was I kept and why am I being set free? Am I being set free? Well, I can’t do much, can I? I shall stay where they put me and go where they send me. Air, water, muck everything’s the same for me.

But inspite of these and many more suspicions and apprehensions, the ashes woke up; ready for the final journey. No bath or towel, just stay put, it advised itself. As the morning gave birth, birds could be heard. Some unfamiliar sounds and some completely new. But I remember all of them. From tomorrow I will not be able to hear any of them. So long, my friends, the ashes said, silently and wondered if anybody hears anything silent? A little while later, footsteps could be heard. The light was switched on in the room and more than usual activity could be thinly guessed. What is going to happen?

Incense. Can’t they stick to the old ones? These smell synthetic; are they? Too many questions, old man, came the internal rebuke. O.K let me sail through today and then…

These footsteps are different, small…ah some kids have been marshaled. Will they sing songs?

Noises, more noises, who are these people? Some noises I know. Do they still love me or is it all? Why are you so suspicious, Gandhi’s ashes asked Gandhi? Just relax. You are dead, gone and they are laying to rest your last remnants. Be happy, you can sleep peacefully from today. You will take less space on earth. Lesser people will remember you, exploit you and your belongings and life…well, it will move on.

O.k from now on silence, vowed Gandhi.

Garlands…their smell mixing with the incense. Feet. Phones, so many ring tones. Murmurs. Bhajans. That little girl has a good voice. Dignitaries I think by the tone. Now what? I am being lifted. Is this my last day here? These walls, curtains, Mani Bhavan, my friends, I will miss you all, always.

Ah, the sun. So the journey begins again. Are there many people? Traffic and horns, too many horns. Am I on a hearse, again? Am I blocking traffic? the horns must be for a reason. Do they know that I am going forever today? Move on old man.

I hear the waves. Is it Girgaum? Must have changed in these years. I am enjoying this in fact. Why this silence?

Oh the sun stings. Haven’t seen rays in 60 years. Thanks for opening me up to the radiance. I love it. I thank you all.

The water looks dirty. Those days…they are gone, it’s o.k.

Water is cold. I am traveling. Where will this lead me? Ah, it’s the deep end of the ocean. Fishes. Beautiful.

pics of my microcontroller bot-prarabhm

2008-01-29T00:29:00.000+05:30

DOLLAR A DAY

2008-01-24T22:06:00.000+05:30

Guntur, southern India, is a city short of money but not of entrepreneurs. Stroll through the main thoroughfare of the largest slum at 9 in the morning, and outside every sixth house you will pass a woman sitting behind a kerosene stove, ready to prepare dosa—rice-and-bean pancakes—for passersby with a rupee to spare. An hour later, each woman will be onto her next job. One woman earns cash by sewing fancy beads onto cheap, plain saris. Others are laborers, rubbish collectors, or pickle-makers.

The scene is described by two MIT economics professors, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, in their recent article, "The Economic Lives of the Poor." They set themselves the task of explaining how very poor people make money and how they spend it.

The "very poor" are those who live on less than $1 a day. That benchmark—a rare piece of brilliant marketing from the World Bank—is both more generous and more frugal than it seems. Generous, because the benchmark dates from 1985 and has since been adjusted to take account of inflation. But frugal because the dollar is adjusted for purchasing power. In other words, a Kenyan farmer might have 50 cents a day to spend but still not count as "very poor" because 50 cents in Kenya buys more than $1 would in the United States. However you look at it, a dollar a day is a tiny income.

Perhaps surprisingly, then, even the poorest find the resources to let their hair down. Duflo and Banerjee, looking at economic surveys of the very poor from 13 different countries, conclude that about one-third of household income is spent on stuff other than food. The alternatives to simply trying to consume more calories include shelter, of course, but even the poorest find some money to spend on things such as tobacco, alcohol, weddings, funerals, or religious festivals. Radios and televisions are also popular. Looking at food spending itself, although the very poor do focus on the cheapest grain—millet—they also spend on wheat, rice, and even sugar. This is expensive and offers little nutritional benefit, but it certainly makes lunch taste better.

The very poor even seem to have some consumer power. For example, in the countries where free public schools are especially bad, some parents scrape together the resources to send the children to private schools. The teachers may be largely unskilled themselves, but at least they show up.

The same is true for health care. A pair of World Bank economists, Jishnu Das and Jeffrey Hammer, examined the quality of public and private health care in Delhi, India. They found that while publicly employed doctors tended to be far better qualified than the private doctors, the private doctors tried much harder, spending more time, asking more questions, and examining patients more carefully. Competition works even for the poor.

It would work better yet if the poor were less destitute. One of the problems is that so much of this entrepreneurial activity is carried out on too tiny a scale to make much cash. Scaling up would be more efficient but requires capital equipment. That's hard to come by in a world where bank loans are scarce (this is why people, including the Norwegian Nobel committee, get so excited about microcredit), and cash savings are at risk from inflation and theft. It would be better, too, if it were easy to set up a legal business. According to the World Bank's "Doing Business" reports, the poorest countries often boast red tape that means it takes months and costs a small fortune to set up in business.

But do not despair entirely. In 1981, 40 percent of the world's people lived on less than $1 a day, according to Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion of the World Bank. The figure plummeted to 21 percent by 2001 and may be as low 15 percent by 2015. We can hope.

the distance paradox

2008-01-24T22:01:00.000+05:30

It stands to reason that distance is dead. Electronic communication is better and cheaper than it's ever been. Sitting on the sofa just now, I used a cheap laptop computer and my neighbor's wireless network and ordered a free quad-band mobile phone that—I am told—will let me make calls and send e-mails from almost anywhere in the world.

More to the point, nobody would be remotely impressed with my phone's features. Virtual worlds, BlackBerrys, video-conferencing from the local ccd—it has all become so easy—and so commonplace—so quickly.

Intuitively, that should mean that geography has become less important. E-mail and video-conferencing mean fewer flights. No more business conferences or meetings at delhi. Telecommuters don't need to clog up the roads, and property prices in London and mumbai should slide as people carry out their investment-banking responsibilities from nashik or udaipur.
Click Here!

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's something wrong with this argument. Despite the ease of communication and the drop in the cost of transporting goods, geography seems to be as important as ever for most of us. People haven't stopped flying to meetings and conferences. The World Economic Forum meetings are now a round-the-calendar circus in more than 10 countries. New York is one of the few places in the United States where the real-estate market isn't stuttering.

So, what is happening? To some extent, the same thing that happened to the paperless office. It turned out that all these computers made it easy and cheap to produce a lot more documents. Yes, the documents could in principle have been viewed on-screen, but why not print them out?

Similarly, e-mail, Internet networking, and cheap phone calls have made it easy to maintain a lot of relationships. In principle, some of the relationships could be restricted to cyberspace, but how much fun is that? The same e-mail that allows you to maintain long-distance business relationships also creates demand for more travel and more conferences as people try to establish those relationships in the first place. Mobile phones, Web mail, and BlackBerrys also make travel less costly because it is easier to keep working on the move.

Closer to home, communication technology makes it easier than ever to arrange a drink with friends. Just send a quick e-mail to a distribution list or post the invitation on your online journal. This sudden spontaneity isn't much use if your friends are hundreds of miles away. Mobile phones, far from fueling a flight to the countryside, make big cities more attractive and more manageable. E-mail and mobile phones aren't substitutes for face-to-face contact at all. As economists Jess Gaspar and Ed Glaeser have pointed out, they are complements to it.

Other technological changes have also strengthened the importance of place. If you can buy cars or films or insurance from anywhere in the world, why not buy from the place that is host to the best or cheapest producer? Cities that were once nationally dominant can now become international champions. It suddenly becomes more valuable, not less valuable, to locate in New York or London.

The modern economy demands ever more complicated, fast-moving, innovative, and creative projects. Formal contracts just aren't up to the task of keeping us honest in these circumstances, which means you need to be able to trust your colleagues—something that still requires you to look them in the eyes. Face-to-face meetings have always fostered trust and clearer communication, and they still do. So, the conference circuit is likely to be with us for a while.

its a goal!!!

2008-01-24T21:46:00.000+05:30

Soccer being a famously low-scoring game,matches often finish in a draw and must be decided by penalty shootouts—a competitive form at which England has a particularly harrowing record. Perhaps England's players should study a little more economics.

In soccer, penalty kicks pit the goalkeeper against a lone striker in a mentally demanding contest. Once the penalty-taker strikes the ball, it takes 0.3 seconds to hit the back of the net—unless the goalkeeper can somehow get his body in the way. That is simply not enough time for the keeper to pick out the trajectory of the ball and intercept it. He must guess where the striker will shoot and move just as the ball is being struck. A keeper who does not guess correctly has no chance.

Both striker and keeper must make subtle decisions. Let's say a right-footed striker always shoots to the right. The keeper will always anticipate the shot and the striker would be better off occasionally shooting to the left—because even with a weaker shot it is best to shoot where the goalie isn't. In contrast, if the striker chooses a side by tossing a coin, the keeper will always dive to the striker's left: Since he can't guess where the ball will go, best to go where the shot will be weak if it does come. But then the striker should start favoring his stronger side again.

So, what to do? The answer comes from a wartime collaboration between economist Oskar Morgenstern and mathematician John von Neumann. They produced a "theory of games," which mathematically analyzed situations of strategic interaction—that is, any situation where participants have to take into account the other side's responses. A free throw in basketball is not a strategic interaction, but a soccer penalty is. A "game" is a mathematical description of how all the possible payoffs to the different players vary with their different strategies—so if the goalkeeper jumps to his left while the striker shoots to the keeper's right, the striker will get a high payoff and the goalkeeper will get a low one.

Von Neumann and Morgenstern did not, in fact, analyze penalties, although von Neumann did produce a simple analysis of poker that still influences that game today. But rather than aiming to help footballers or gamblers, von Neumann and Morgenstern believed that game theory could illuminate anything from pay negotiations to waging war. The strategic question could be translated into game theory's mathematical language, solved like any old mathematical problem, and then translated back into the real world to explain what to do.

The trouble is that for these real applications, the wrinkles of reality always obscure whether ordinary people actually follow the strategies that game theory predicts they should. Yet penalty taking is different. The objective is simple, the variables easy to observe, and the results immediate.

Game theory, applied to the problem of penalties, says that if the striker and the keeper are behaving optimally, neither will have a predictable strategy. The striker might favor his stronger side, of course, but that does not mean that there will be a pattern to the bias.

The striker might shoot to the right two times out of three, but we cannot then conclude that it will have to be to the left next time.

Game theory also says that each choice of shot should be equally likely to succeed, weighing up the advantage of shooting to the stronger side against the disadvantage of being too predictable. If shots to the right score three-quarters of the time and shots to the left score half the time, you should be shooting to the right more often. But as you do, the goalkeeper will respond: Shots to the right will become less successful and those to the left more successful. It might sound strange that at this point any choice will do, but it is analogous to saying that if you are at the summit of the mountain, no direction is up.

Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, an economist at Brown University, found that individual strikers and keepers were, in fact, master strategists. Out of 42 top players whom Palacios-Huerta studied, only three departed from game theory's recommendations—in retrospect, they succeeded more often on one side than the other and would have been better altering the balance between their strategies. Professionals such as the French superstar Zinédine Zidane and Italy's goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon are apparently superb economists: Their strategies are absolutely unpredictable, and, as the theory demands, they are equally successful no matter what they do, indicating that they have found the perfect balance among the different options. These geniuses do not just think with their feet.

darling,lets get divorced!

2008-01-24T21:33:00.000+05:30

Yesterday we looked at the way competition for partners made men lazy and drove women to stay in school. Once you have found yourself a partner—or decided that you would rather stay single—how do you manage the household? What, to an economist, is a family? To answer that question we need to take a short detour to an 18th-century pin factory.

KIRKCALDY, Scotland, 1776

Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, traveled Europe as tutor to the Duke of Buccleugh. But despite his travels, Adam Smith never actually visited a pin factory. While sitting at home in Kirkcaldy and penning the most famous passage in economics, he was inspired by an entry in an encyclopedia. The passage is no less important for that.

Smith argued that a general handyman who turned his hand to the business of making pins,

… could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head.

Smith reckoned that ten specialized pin-makers, using equipment designed and built by specialists, could produce 48,000 pins a day. Ten generalized handymen could produce perhaps one pin each. In the "trifling" business of making pins, quite rudimentary division of labor multiplied the output per person almost five thousand times. From a rational choice point of view, dividing labor is a no-brainer.

The division of labor is utterly fundamental to the wealth we enjoy in modern economies. Complicated products, such as the computer on which I am typing this paragraph, are unimaginable without the combined and cumulated efforts of the countless specialists who worked out how to manufacture integrated circuits or how to control a computer using a mouse and a pointer on the screen. Most of those specialists couldn't boil an egg, let alone survive alone on a desert island. They are dependent on other people's expertise, if only the expertise of the cooks at the local Chinese take-out, and computer users the world over are dependent on theirs.

Even simple products like the short cappuccino I have beside me would be impossible without the division of labor. Is there anyone in the world who has mastered ceramics, dairy farming and the art of the perfect espresso roast? I'd be bowled over by someone who had any two out of three.

That is all very well, but what does it have to do with marriage? There is not much reason to think that Adam Smith gave the matter much thought: a bachelor, he lived with his mother. Yet marriage used to be one of the fundamental ways to gain from division of labor. Before there were well-developed markets for anything much, and long before you could order a cappuccino, men and women were able to enjoy some of the gains from the division of labor by getting married, specializing, and sharing. Back on the Savannah, one might hunt and the other might gather. In the more recent past, one might be good at guiding a plough and sewing while another would specialize in cooking and household repairs. Nothing about Adam Smith's story suggests division of labor according to traditional sexual roles, but make no mistake: the family has rational roots. It is the oldest pin factory of all.

By the 1950s, those traditional sexual roles were fundamental in the division of labor within marriage. The ideal husband specialized in breadwinning, getting an education, a good job, working whatever hours were necessary to win promotion, and earning ever more to supply the family with a car, a fridge, a nice house in the suburbs and frequent holidays. His adoring wife specialized in homemaking, cooking, cleaning, entertaining, bringing up the children to be smart and wholesome and taking care of her husband's emotional and sexual needs.

That was the idea, at least, and in 1965, the average married woman worked fewer than 15 hours a week in paid employment. For the typical woman, a stay-at-home mom, that would be zero hours. The average was pulled up by empty-nesters and the very poor. Meanwhile, the average married man worked over 50 hours a week. The roles were neatly reversed for household work: married women did almost 40 hours a week of non-market work, men fewer than ten. This was division of labor all right, and it was division of labor along sexually lopsided lines.

It was economist Gary Becker who showed the implications of Adam Smith's pin factory for marriage in the modern age. How had the division of labor become so sexually lopsided? The answer was the interaction of three economic forces: the division of labor, economies of scale, and comparative advantage.

As Becker knew, division of labor works because it unleashes economies of scale. In plain English, one full-time worker earns more than two half-time workers. That is often true for the most basic jobs, but much more so for the most demanding positions. How many top lawyers do half a law degree and then work twenty-hour weeks? How many successful business executives work only Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday mornings? And the top earners, at the peak of a long, full-time career, earn much, much more than those half-way through their careers. It is a harsh truth about the world of work that for many professionals, the more work you have done in the past, the more productive each additional working hour becomes: a perfect example of economies of scale.

This means that a household in which both parents work part-time on their careers and part-time looking after children and the home does not make rational economic sense. Two halves are much less than a whole. Economies of scale dictate that, logically, one partner should apply himself or herself full-time to paid work. The other should work at home-making, and only work for money if there is some spare time available after the household chores.

So far this is classic Adam Smith. Where did the traditional gender roles of the 1950s come from? Becker pointed out the implications of the third economic force, the principle of comparative advantage. Comparative advantage says that division of labor is governed not by who is most productive in some absolute sense, but in a relative sense. In Adam Smith's pin factory, if worker Elizabeth can sharpen two pins a minute and mount four pins a minute in paper, while worker James can sharpen one pin a minute and mount one pin a minute in paper, the logic of comparative advantage says that James should be sharpening pins, even though Elizabeth does the job faster. The relevant comparison is not whether Elizabeth sharpens pins faster than James but whether, relative to him, she sharpens pins faster than she mounts them in paper.

Imagine that James and Elizabeth are married; now, replace mounting pins in paper with looking after babies. Elizabeth is a more productive worker than James but also a more effective parent. James is a bad worker but a worse dad, and so Elizabeth takes the rational decision to stay home baking cookies and looking after the kids, while James tries to scrape together a living as a real estate agent. The logic of comparative advantage highlighted something that most men—except economists—have found it hard to get their heads around: there is no reason to believe that men were breadwinners because they were any good at it. They might simply have been breadwinners because getting them to help around the house would have been even worse.

Gary Becker's contribution was not to suggest that women make good parents, but to realize that because of economies of scale even a very small difference in innate capabilities could lead to titanic differences in how people actually spent their time. A small difference in relative expertise between men and women would be enough to cause a sharp division of labor across traditional sexual roles. That difference might be because of biological differences, because of socialization, or because of discrimination against women in the workplace, quite likely all three. Rather than arguing for any particular explanation, Becker showed that the difference didn't have to be big to have big effects.

In the late 1970s, Gary Becker was a widower and a single parent, pouring all his intellectual energy into "A Treatise on the Family," published in 1981. (A happy footnote: he remarried shortly before the treatise was published.) One of his aims was to understand what was happening to the institution of marriage. Divorce rates had more than doubled in the past two decades, both in the US and many European countries. It was clear that the world of marriage had changed dramatically.

Some commentators have blamed changes in divorce laws for the trend: Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California, signed a bill introducing "no fault" divorce in 1969, meaning that either partner could simply walk away from the marriage by demanding a divorce. Other states followed. But Becker knew that couldn't be the answer: if the husband wanted a divorce to run off with his mistress, "no fault" divorce didn't make it easier for him to do that, just cheaper—before "no fault" divorce, he had to get his wife's agreement, which might mean higher alimony payments. This reasoning suggests that "no fault" divorce rules wouldn't change divorce rates at all. The only thing that would change was who paid whom to get the divorce. And sure enough, although there was a brief spike in divorce rates as "no fault" divorce allowed a backlog of divorces to be processed more quickly, the legislation appears to have produced no more than a blip in a strong, steady upward trend.

Instead, the divorce revolution was driven by a more fundamental economic force: the breakdown of the traditional division of labor identified by Adam Smith. At the beginning of the 20th century, housework took many hours, and only the poorest and most desperate married women had jobs. As the decades rolled past, technological change made housework less time-consuming. It became easy—and quite common—for older women to enter the workforce after their children were grown and housework was easily manageable.

Once divorce rates first began to climb, it was no surprise that they increased dramatically. There was a rationally self-reinforcing loop at work: the more people divorced, the more divorcees—that is, potential marriage partners—you could meet. That meant that it was easier to get divorced yourself and find a new spouse.

Furthermore, once divorce started to become conceivable, women knew they could no longer think of themselves as one part of an economic unit. Rationality, you will recall, is about thinking ahead and responding to incentives. Realizing that the economic unit might break up, at which point a woman who simply specialized in having children was in serious trouble, it became rational for a woman to maintain career options as divorce insurance. In the division-of-labor world of the 1950s, unhappily married women would rationally stick it out: they had few alternatives. But as more older women were finding jobs, managing their housework more quickly with the aid of washing machines and electric irons, women started to realize that there was an alternative to an unhappy marriage. Divorce was still financially tough but it was no longer economic suicide. And then the contraceptive pill came along, making women—as we have seen—more highly educated, career-minded and employer-friendly.

Did women really need career options before they could get divorced? In all but the most desperately unhappy marriages, they did. Contrary to the popular bar-room grumbles of divorced men, alimony alone doesn't take women very far financially. Fewer than half of single divorced mothers get any child support at all, and for those who do, child support is just a few thousand dollars a year, typically about one-fifth of the mother's total income. If a woman, especially a mother, was determined to get a divorce, she almost always needed to find a job. More and more women realized that they had the ability to do exactly that.

That started a second reinforcing loop—some people regard it as a vicious circle. Because divorce was conceivable, women preserved career options. But because women had career options, divorce became conceivable. It became less and less likely that a woman would become trapped in a miserable marriage out of pure economic necessity.

A close look at the statistics backs up this story. Even today, when so many women work for fun or the enjoyment of spending the cash, women tend to work more when they face a higher risk of divorce. There are several ways to guess at that higher risk: you can look with hindsight at who did get divorced and assume that the woman involved might have seen it coming beforehand; you can look at variables such as age, religion and whether parents went through a divorce; or you can ask women how happy they are with their marriages. Whichever way you slice it, women at risk of divorce are more likely to head out for work. The increase in divorce is not because of a change in the psychology of love: it is a rational response to changed incentives.

The changing incentives also altered the way couples behaved within the relationship. In states which introduced "no fault" divorce, while divorce rates did not show a lasting increase, women knew that their husbands could walk away from the marriage without having to buy their agreement with a generous side-deal. That made it riskier to make an expensive commitment to the relationship: riskier to have children, riskier to financially support a husband through school, and riskier to become a homemaker while hubby focused on his career. The economist Betsey Stevenson explored this question using a research approach that should now be familiar, looking at the timing of the new law, state by state. And she found that when states introduced "no fault" divorce and thus gave the husband an easy escape from the marriage, wives were less likely to work while their husbands went through school, but more likely to work full- time and less likely to have children. All these effects were quite large; for each decision, between five percent and ten percent of women changed their behavior as the law changed.

A young woman in the early 1970s faced a different world to that her mother lived in two decades earlier. She could see that career opportunities for women had opened up, and there were jobs available if she wanted them. She could see, too, that divorce rates were on the rise and she should not, if she was wise, simply rely on a husband to provide her with an income, because extreme division of labor was too insecure for an age of divorce. Other women her age were marrying later, meaning that there were more men to date and marriage could be postponed. To cap it all, she had access to a safe, reliable way of postponing children until she was ready to have them, meaning she could plan for a long education and several years to establish herself in a serious, high-powered career.

This analysis links divorce, the pill and women's increasing power and achievement in the workplace in a reinforcing loop. But it would be wrong to "blame" an increase in divorce rates on an increase in women's professional achievements. There is, after all, no evidence that people are more unhappy with their marriages than in 1950. The opposite is likely to be true, because when they are unhappy with their marriages they can do something about it. One influential study by economists Andrew Oswald and Jonathan Gardner finds that divorcees, unlike widows and widowers, are happier one year after the marriage ends than they were while still married.

Perhaps a more positive way to express the trend is that women's entry into high-powered careers has given them the option to get divorced if the marriage isn't working out; and the recognition that that option is important is one of the factors encouraging women's entry into high-powered careers.

That may sound a little abstract, but economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers discovered a chilling example of the way that the increased availability of divorce empowered women. As states passed "no fault" divorce laws, women acquired a credible threat to walk out of the marriage. (The statistics suggest that many of them did not, actually, do this. But the threat is enough.) Stevenson and Wolfers show that the new laws had an unexpected—but rational—effect: by giving women an exit-option, they gave men stronger incentives to behave well inside a marriage. The result? Domestic violence fell by almost a third, and the number of women murdered by their partners fell by ten percent. Female suicide also fell. It is a reminder that the binding commitment of marriage has costs as well as benefits.

Perhaps we should celebrate divorce just a little bit more. First, we should recognize that divorce is no longer increasing. That is rational. The peak in divorce in the 1970s was not, fundamentally, caused by legal changes but by changes in the underlying economics of family life, changes which reduced the incentives to be married.

In the long run, the rational response is not for couples to marry early and marry often; it is to divorce less and marry less, too. Now that the stock of marriages has been decimated by divorce, romantic couples are moving from the boom and bust of marriage and divorce to a more stable arrangement where marriages are delayed until couples are more sure of themselves. And perhaps delayed indefinitely—two of the leading economic researchers in the field, Stevenson and Wolfers, have been a romantic couple for ten years, and remain unmarried.

While the divorce rate has been falling for three decades, it would be a shame if it fell too far. Justin Wolfers comments, "We know there exists something called an optimal divorce rate, and we're 100 percent sure it isn't zero."

The serious entry of married women into the workforce has meant that they spend a little less time baking cookies, and perhaps also that their husbands spend a little more time with the children. It has empowered them to leave marriages that are not working, making them happier and safer from abuse. It has truly been a revolution, and the price of that revolution is more divorce and less marriage. That price is very real—but it is almost certainly a price worth paying.

polygyny economics

2008-01-15T23:10:00.001+05:30

After more than a decade of war between separatist rebels and the Russian army, there are not many marriageable men to go around in Chechnya. So, acting Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, probably not a feminist, proposed a radical step: "Each man who can provide for four wives should do it.Polygyny (having more than one wife, as opposed to polygamy, which is having more than one spouse) is admissible under Islamic law but not Russian law, so Kadyrov is unlikely to make much progress with his proposal. But what difference would such a law make? It's natural to assume that polygyny is bad for women, partly because most of us would rather have our spouse to ourselves, and partly because we look at a place like Saudi Arabia, where polygyny is not uncommon, and note that women aren't even allowed to drive.I'm not quite so convinced. A lot of the knee-jerk reactions against polygyny are from people who can't add up. In a society with equal numbers of men and women, each man with four wives gives women the additional pick of three men—the poor saps whose potential wives decided they'd prefer one-quarter of a billionaire instead. In the Sahel region of Africa, half of all women live in polygynous households. The other half have a good choice of men and a lot more bargaining power.
it's hardly surprising that in most polygynous societies, the bride's family gets large payments in exchange for her hand in marriage. If polygyny combined with women's rights, I bet we'd see more promises to wash the dishes. Not everybody would have to share a husband, but I can think of some who might prefer half of Orlando Bloom.in a society such as Chechnya, where there is a shortage of young men, we would expect the reverse effect: Men get to pick and choose, playing the field, perhaps not bothering to get married at all. We don't have good data on Chechnya, but we have excellent information about an unexpected parallel.A little over one in 500 men are in prison—but there are several regions where one in five young black men are behind bars. Since most women marry men of a similar age, and of the same race and in the same state, there are some groups of women who face a dramatic shortfall of marriage partners.Economist Kerwin Charles has recently studied the plight of these women. Their problem is not merely that some who would want to marry won't be able to. It's that the available men—those not in prison—suddenly have more bargaining power. Goodbye to doing the dishes and paying the rent; hello to mistresses and wham, bam, thank you ma'am. The women whose potential partners have had their ranks thinned by prison are less likely to marry, and when they do marry, are likely to marry a man less educated than they are. Meanwhile, the remaining men, finding a surfeit of marriage partners, suddenly seem in no hurry to marry. And why would they?

The women's response makes sense: girl power. The women affected do everything to make the most of single life, including staying at school for longer and hunting for more paid work. The prison system hasn't left them much choice.When men are taken out of the marriage market by war or by prison, women suffer. The reverse is probably true, too: When women are taken from the marriage market, men suffer. In China, the policy of one-child families coupled with selective abortion of girls has produced "surplus" males. Such men are called "bare branches," and China could have 30 million of them by 2020. Perhaps polyandry—women with multiple husbands—would be the logical response to the situation in China. What will happen instead is that these lonely, wifeless men will end up sleeping with a relatively small number of women—prostitutes—with severe risks of sexually transmitted disease all around.
All this suggests that Kadyrov has a point about Chechnya. And perhaps the new HBO series big love will rekindle the idea further.nevertheless, I am resolutely against the practice of allowing several women to marry one man. We men are downtrodden enough already.

of coffees and feminism

2008-01-15T22:55:00.000+05:30

i am back after a pretty long time.had my exams going and then i need to spend some time freaking out.i also am reading a lot of books which are influencing me a lot and my writings.i am writing a series of articles related to day to day life which i think u will enjoy reading.no complex economics ....just plain observations.

I’m a real cappuccino lover myself, but many of my female colleagues don’t seem to go for the stuff. I’d never thought too much about that until recently. I suppose I carelessly assumed that men and women have different tastes, probably as a result of different social influences. Now I know better: my female colleagues don’t go to coffee shops because they’re shabbily treated when they get there.

That’s the conclusion of the American economist Caitlin Knowles Myers. She, with her students as research assistants, staked out eight coffee shops in the Boston area and watched how long it took men and women to be served. Her conclusion: men get their coffee 20 seconds earlier than women. (There is also evidence that black people wait longer than white people, the young wait longer than the old, and the ugly wait longer than the beautiful. But these effects are statistically not as persuasive.)

Perhaps, says the sceptic, this is because women order froufrou drinks? Up to a point. The researchers found that men are more likely to order simpler drinks. Yet comparing fancy-drink-ordering men with fancy-drink-ordering women, the longer wait for women remained.

It is also hard to attribute the following finding to a female preference for wet-skinny-soya-machiatto with low carb marshmallows: the delays facing women were longer when the coffee shop staff was all-male, and almost vanished when the serving staff were all-female.

It is not clear whether women were held up by male staff because the men viewed them with contempt, or because male staff flirted furiously. The “contempt” explanation seems more likely, as the extra time that women wait seems to increase when the coffee shop is busy. Who would take extra time out to flirt just when the lines are longer?

This is an intriguing piece of research because coffee shops appear to be a competitive business, and one thing we think we know about discrimination is that competition should tend to erode it.

The idea comes from an article published 50 years ago by the economist and Nobel laureate Gary Becker. The reasoning is simple enough: a business that deliberately offers shoddy service or uncompetitive prices to some customers, or that turns down smart minority applicants in favour of less-qualified white male applicants, is throwing money away. If it is a government bureaucracy or a powerful monopolist, that’s a loathsome but sustainable choice. But racist or sexist businesses with many competitors are likely to be shut down by the bankruptcy courts long before the human rights lawyers get to them.

Becker’s theory is powerful, and there is evidence to back it up, too. Economists Sandra Black and Elizabeth Brainerd found that the surge in international trade, which has increased competitive pressures in many markets, has reduced the ability of firms to discriminate against women.

But what Becker cannot say is how reliable the competition mechanism is at crushing discrimination, nor how quick. (In fairness to him, economics in general has a real blind spot when it comes to the question “when?”) The research on coffee shops is an interesting curiosity: coffee retailing seems to be fiercely competitive. How can discrimination continue?

One answer, perhaps, is that a rival coffee shop would have to be very close indeed to justify a trip aimed at avoiding a 20-second wait. Even coffee retailing isn’t that competitive.

But an alternative explanation is that the market is still working on the problem. Over time we’ve moved from gentlemen’s clubs to male-dominated pubs to coffee shops, which are far more female-friendly. Perhaps it is just a matter of time before some entrepreneur decides to set up a big chain of coffee shops with “No men allowed” on the door.

after all,the kenyan people lost the election!

2008-01-04T22:34:00.000+05:30

Kenya is entering a protracted crisis. No one really knows who actually won the presidential elections. Given the overwhelming number of parliamentary seats won by the ODM and the dismissal of some 20 former ministers who lost their seats, it seems likely that the presidential results probably followed suit. But it is no longer really a matter of who won or lost. For one thing is certain: it is the Kenyan people who have lost in these elections.

That the elections results were rigged – of that there is little doubt. The hasty inauguration, the blanket banning on the broadcast media, the dispersal of security forces to deal with expected protests – all these have given the post election period the flavour of a coup d’etat. What was not expected was the speed with which the whole thing would unravel. The declaration of the members of the Electoral Commission that the results were indeed rigged only added to the growing realisation that a coup had indeed taken place.

People across the country took to the streets to protest and were met with disproportionate use of force by the police and GSU. Emotions ran high. And there is evidence that politicians from all sides used the occasion to instigate violent attacks against their opponents constituencies. There have been rapes, forced circumcision and forced female genital mutilation. The western media has been quick to describe these as ‘ethnic clashes’ – but then they appear only to be able to see tribes whenever there are conflicts in Africa. What is ignored by them is that the security forces have been responsible for the majority of killings.

What we have in Kenya is a political crisis that could, descend into civil war if the political crisis is not resolved soon. And therein lies the problem.

There is no coherent political direction from the ODM. First Raila Odinga declares he’s the ‘people’s president’ (shades of Blair’s ‘people’s princess’ speech – the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce, some might say – and says he is going to arrange to be inaugurated. What happened?

Then he says that he is not willing to meet with Kibaki, then says he will meet provided there is an international mediator. He says he will form his own government, and then takes that no further.

Then he calls for a million person march into Nairobi, and when faced with a banning order and massive police attacks, backs down and calls for another demonstration the following day.

But what is this demonstration seeking to achieve? Such events are usually a means of showing the size of popular support: but ODM has already demonstrated its popular support in the stolen elections. There are no coherent political demands for this event that would bring the support of the many who, though they may not have voted for ODM, would feel that they would nevertheless want to express their support. There is no real strategy for enabling PNU’s own political base to be won over.

The election results were rigged, sure. But the failure to demand that an independent judicial inquiry be established to investigate only leads to suspicions that even the ODM were not keen to have the results investigated. It is now probably too late to conduct a satisfactory investigation since original records may have been tampered with – which might explain the Attorney General’s sudden willingness announced today to allow the ECK records to be inspected without recourse to use of the courts.

The mass demonstrations could have been used to call for such an investigation and to protest against the media ban imposed by Kibaki and to challenge constitutionality of the ban. Instead, it served no purpose other than what some see as an infantile response to the theft of the elections.

Why has there been no public appeal to the armed forces and police – whose families have no doubt suffered in the violent upheavals – to refuse to fire on citizens, or to defend and protect citizens from the violence that has been unleashe?. Kibaki can retain power only through the use of force – and so long as the armed forces and the police remain loyal, he will be able to retain his hold on power.

ODM has failed to challenge the existing government by encouraging all sections of society to create a viable alternative to the present government.

But the real tragedy of Kenya is that the political conflict is not about alternative political programmes that could address the long standing grievances of the majority over landlessness, low wages, unemployment, lack of shelter, inadequate incomes, homelessness, etc. It is not about such heady aspirations.

No, it boils down to a fight over who has access to the honey pot that is the state. For those in control of the state machinery are free to fill their pockets. So the battle lines are reduced to which group of people are going to be chosen to fill their pockets – and citizens are left to decide perhaps that a few crumbs might fall off the table in their direction.

And the electorate – the mass of citizens who have borne the brunt of the recent violence and decades of prolonged disenfranchisement from accessing the fruits of independence – are reduced to being just being fodder for the pigs fighting over the trough.

The Kibaki regime seems unlikely to concede any space – for to do so would confirm the suspicions of election theft. And the longer that the current impasse continues, the more likely it is that people will seek to vent their anger and frustration in senseless violence – energy that could so easily be turned towards organising to building a new world.

So what is going to be the way forward? Will there be an independent inquiry into the election results? Into the violence that has taken place? Will the contending parties agree to the formation of an interim government that would oversee the re-run of the elections?

Whatever happens, the present crisis has demonstrated that there is a serious lack of any formations that can articulate a coherent political programme for social transformation. Politics will remain forever about who gets access to the trough so long as there is no alternative.

philosophy of time

2008-01-04T22:19:00.000+05:30

The concept of time travel has tantalized mankind for as long as there has been literature, and has become especially prominent in recent decades with the rise of Science Fiction as a genre. How can a past still vivid in memory or an inevitable future be completely inaccessible to us except for the instant in which it passes, and what would happen if it was not? Various branches of physics have been trying to answer this since Einstein postulated that one could slow the passage of time by accelerating one’s self. Yet like so many other esoteric branches of science, ignoring the technicalities of achieving time travel in the first place (widely regarded to be impossible anyways), the topic lies firmly in the realm of philosophy and religion to qualify any theories.

The feasibility and nature of time travel lie in three questions:

Is there free will?
What does this imply about the nature of the universe?
If that nature does not preclude time travel, what are the consequences of it?

The fundamental question to all of this is the first, for in it is vested a greater question: is there a soul - a supernatural? From a purely evolutionary and atheistic standpoint, free will cannot exist, for a human being is no more than the complex interaction of his molecules, ultimately completely predictable could we account for all the molecular motion in his body. Though the brain is so complex as to give the illusion of self-awareness and choice, it is still just an illusion and we are no more than the sum of our parts.

If, however, free will does exist, then it would imply that we are greater than the sum of our parts, self-awareness being the hallmark of having risen above being a bundle of molecules interacting in complex fashion - having a soul, so to speak, something that is separate from yet manifest in the matter comprising the body.

So what does this mean for time travel? The first case - one of pure determinism - means that any human endeavor, no matter how complex or grandiose, is nothing more than the inevitable emergence of high-level order from the force with which the universe began long ago. Time travel then would then not be something creatable by mankind, for we cannot affect the universe in any proactive way. If this is the case, then any paradox caused by time travel chanced upon by wormhole or other natural methods would necessarily be inconsequential, meaning that one cannot change the past because will have already been changed (unless you’re bill gates, in which case your salary has sufficient mass to distort space-time to your bidding). And in the case that time travel is the intersection of parallel universes at different points, then any change in the past will not affect the future in which one travelled there, your presence in the other inevitable anyway. Changes made in a deterministic universe cannot be recursive.

If however, we do have free will and our will is formed outside the physical realm, then we do have the capability of affecting the universe in a substantiative way. Assuming time travel is possible, only in the case of the existence of souls could one build a “time machine”, so to speak, and cause the universe to behave in ways it otherwise would not. It is only in this case that a recursive paradox could exist: Since alternate universes are inherently deterministic being probabilistic, their presence precludes the existence of the supernatural, at least dwelling in us, so our universe is all we have to deal with. Time travel of any sort then, assuming the existence of the soul, is necessarily impossible, if we are to assume cause-and-effect are inherent to the nature of time-space (rather than artificially introduced by a deity, as one would draw a flip book - in which case we are still determined beings, only by a different determinant).

One’s views on time travel and physics is then dependent on one’s fundamental philosophic and religious assumptions. As in universal origins, the question for each of us is which set of assumptions we will start from: Will our views on the nature of the universe affect our belief or lack thereof in the soul, or will we draw our views on the nature of the universe from our belief in the soul?

the daughter departs

2007-12-28T20:41:00.000+05:30

A suicide bomber thought to be tied to al-Qaida managed to murder Bhutto as she was leaving a political rally Thursday in Rawalpindi, the very headquarters of Pakistan's military.

Running for prime minister, Bhutto had openly vowed to defeat al-Qaida and deny it the sanctuary it had gained in Pakistan under President Pervez Musharraf.

Benazir Bhutto, assassinated Thursday, votes for the first time in 1988.

"I am what the terrorists fear most," she said.

Her assassination was a tragic blow to her party's bid to check Musharraf in the Jan. 8 election, a contest that is now meaningless. She was the leading opposition candidate.

Musharraf, who had twice placed Bhutto under house arrest, no longer has to worry about an increasingly frustrated West using her as leverage to force democratic reforms or action against al-Qaida.

The former prime minister told CNN upon returning to her country that the risks of her assassination were worth it to save Pakistan from Islamic extremism and to stand up for democracy.

"I know the dangers are there," she said, "but I'm willing to take that risk."

Bhutto, 54, showed uncommon courage, and a genuine love for country, despite charges that she and her husband were corrupt and embezzled public funds.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai praised her as a "very, very brave woman" who "sacrificed her life for the sake of Pakistan and the sake of this region."

Karzai, no fan of Musharraf, had hoped Bhutto would grant what Musharraf has refused — U.S. boots on the ground in the tribal areas where the Taliban and al-Qaida are staging cross-border attacks on Afghan and U.S. forces.

In his recently published memoir, Musharraf had some nasty things to say about Bhutto, the first female prime minister of a Muslim country. He called her a liar who brought "sham democracy" to Pakistan while plundering the treasury.

But Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup, has been doing some plundering of his own. Congress is now probing $5 billion in U.S. military aid that has gone unaccounted for.

The funds were intended to help the Pakistani military attack al-Qaida in the tribal areas, but reports say they were diverted instead to help buy weapons designed to attack India.

It's more evidence that Musharraf has been taking Washington for a ride. Even now, no anti-terror metrics are tied to the annual $1 billion they are sending to his regime.
Bhutto personally asked Musharraf to beef up measures, such as providing jamming devices to thwart bombs, after she narrowly escaped a similar assassination attempt in October.

By all accounts, Musharraf ignored her pleas and never mounted an investigation of the earlier attempt on her life.

In an Oct. 16 letter to Musharraf, Bhutto reportedly shared information she'd received about three officials within his military intelligence services who wanted to kill her. And she asked him to help secure her safety ahead of the election.

That request, too, apparently fell on deaf ears.

The fact that this successful second attack occurred in Pakistan's military headquarters signals that "there may be some low-level military involvement," terror expert Peter Bergen said.

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton agreed, telling Fox News that "radical elements of Pakistan's military" may have had a hand in the attack.

Despite Musharraf's denials, it's well known that Pakistan's military intelligence — the ISI — is infested with al-Qaida sympathizers. And Bhutto tried to push ISI out of politics in her first term as prime minister.

Musharraf also has been the target of at least nine assassination attempts since he signed on to our war on terror seven years ago. But it speaks volumes that Bhutto, back in the country just a few months, would be killed before him.

Al-Qaida, we hear, took credit for the murder. And who is the bigger threat to al-Qaida?

We have to wonder if under Bhutto, Pakistani authorities would have allowed the mastermind behind 2006's trans-Atlantic sky-terror plot to escape from custody.

Last week, Rashid Rauf, who has ISI connections, went missing from a mosque after police let him pray there. He escaped just days before he was due to be extradited to Britain.

Earlier this year, Musharraf freed from jail an al-Qaida lieutenant who plotted to hit U.S. financial and government targets. U.S. officials privately protested the release of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, but to no avail.

Even so, being realists, we understand Musharraf is still in control of Pakistan. While the terrorists just seem to get stronger under Musharraf's rule, he's probably still the only thing standing between Pakistan and chaos — or worse, a fundamentalist Islamic regime that would have access to nuclear weapons.

A faithful opposition leader and true friend of the 'West', Benazir Bhutto showed herself to be courageous in a way few leaders are.

Her death is a tragedy not just for Pakistan's fledgling democracy, but for all of us. We only hope that Musharraf has the strength and resolution to fight those who would drag Pakistan back into the Middle Ages.

ABOUT WILLIAM

2007-12-25T22:52:00.000+05:30

William’s mind tried to outrace his heart. The clock was ticking too slowly and the dog next-door moving too loudly. William thought it was the dog, but he wasn’t sure. Maybe it wasn’t the dog. Maybe he should check.

William checked.

It was the dog.

It was always the dog. William was sick of anxiety attacks. He was sick of pills. He grabbed the pills from his top drawer. He emptied the bottle into the neighbour’s yard. William hopped back into bed. Outside he could hear the dog munching on the pills. At least he thought it was the dog.

But maybe it wasn’t the dog. Maybe he should check…

William tried harder to get to sleep. Unfortunately for him the clock still ticked by too loudly and the dog still moved too slowly, and William was cold. He hopped out of bed and switched on his radiant heater, standing with one leg either side like you’re apparently not supposed to do. William got warmer and sipped on water.

The water was old and William stared into it, looking for some sign of contamination.

After some time, William’s bare skin brushed up against the hot metal on the heater. William screamed and pulled away, knocking over the heater. He clutched his injured leg hysterically.

When he calmed down William took a peak. Festy-pus oozed out from the burn-mark. Maggots crawled in and out of the wound. William screamed again and curled up crying on the floor.

William’s mother came running in. When William calmed down he showed her the wound and the pus and the blood. William’s mother placed her cold hands on the pink skin where he had brushed the heater. There was no pus, there were no maggots. She checked outside. It was the dog. William’s mother turned off the heater and moved it away from the smouldering carpet. She sat with her thirty-three year old son and cried too.

She couldn’t save her son, just as he would probably not be able to save her.

Mary had to dodge the cow crap when baby Jesus was born. “Not enough room in the inn…” they all told her. So the Son of God spent his first night squealing from a trough. It wasn’t a very regal beginning for someone who would later be called the king of the Jews, but there was just no room in the inn. At least not enough room for a pregnant young girl about to give birth to a bastard child, even if that child was the messiah

Two thousand years later Williams’ life started in a similar way. Not the same, just similar. There was plenty of room in the maternity-ward for those with private-healthcare but Williams’s mother definitely wasn’t one of those. There were no animals in the public restroom that night, and no one visited with gifts (not even a card from Nan). A drug-addict stuck his head into the cubicle to see what the noise was about but ran away when William’s mother asked for help. The infant William and the infant Christ were both born out of wedlock in a room that stank like faeces, but that’s about where the similarities ended.

Not that it stopped William’s mother from making comparisons or from having outrageous aspirations for her son. Hopes and dreams that she would constantly remind William about. “It’s not how you start but how you finish,” she’d say “Jesus Christ started out in a cow-shed.”

As he grew William began to hate that Jesus guy.

At thirteen William perplexed his Sunday school teachers when he asked “If God is so good then why did he let my dad die?” William’s mother never took him back to church after that and no one asked why. They talked and had ideas, but no one asked. Some figured that William’s question had caused Williams mother to do some doubting of her own, or that she was embarrassed when reminded that she was the only single mother attending mass. The truth as to why William’s mother turned in her rosary beads was more practical than that though: she knew William would not be able to handle finding out the truth about his biological father.

And so it was that William never had to hear about that Christ fellow again. At least not for a few weeks, after which time Williams’s mother began the comparisons again. They were a good few weeks though.

The bar was full but William was empty. He peered through the noxious fumes of cigarette smoke at the clock. It was about seven o’clock and the normal crowds were beginning to wander in. William was just leaving. He hated a full bar and he hated the crowds. Besides, William had been sitting in the bar for five hours. William knew his mother would have knocked off work by now and would be wondering where he was.

William was bothered. You see William’s mother asked too many questions… too many probing questions about William.

William was bothered…surprisingly not by his mother or by the questions, but by the 'about William' factor. This was a factor he couldn’t escape for it was a factor he was born with and reminded about every day.

William’s mother had cut back the Christ-comparisons recently. No matter how deluded you are, it’s pretty hard to compare your thirty-three year old son with the saviour of the world when he can’t even hold a job. This bothered William too… not the job thing or the thirty-three year old thing but the change in his mother. William began to wish for more comparisons with Christ because he had developed hopes that, like Christ, he would die at thirty-three.

William was nearly thirty-four and still very much alive… or at the least very much still breathing.

Perhaps this was William’s first miracle, to still be breathing at thirty-three. When you are the only child of a devout but unmarried catholic who has, since your birth, constantly compared you to Christ you don’t want to be still breathing, you want to be dead. However, alive by default is still alive and by living out his days in such a non-deliberate way William had performed the miracle of not having done himself in yet.

This was Williams only miracle to date. Unless of course you count the time that he convinced young Irene McLaren to show him her underpants. William counted it as a miracle. It didn’t matter that they were both thirteen years old at the time or that afterwards William ran away, underpants are underpants and William hadn’t been that close to a girl since.

William smiled as he remembered this miracle, probably the greatest achievement of his pathetic life. Given his lack of abilities with the ladies, William considered Irene even speaking to him another miracle. William thought that three miracles was a pretty good effort, and that maybe he was more like Jesus Christ than he gave himself credit for. He polished of the rest of his beer and left the bar.

As he made his way home William decided that his being alive was not only a miracle but a mistake. Walking home that day, he figured out a way to put the mistake right.

William sat near the old games machines. The café owners had long switched them off, but William appreciated the nostalgia and a familiar something.

To the passer-by William seemed consumed with and trapped in the early nineties (ten years later revelling in what most considered a nice experience and an even nicer distant memory). However William actually preferred to linger in the late eighties and to William, who was around for both, there was a big difference. Vanilla Ice was blaring in his iPod but the ‘about William’ factor was blaring louder.

It wasn’t really his iPod; it belonged to a girl at the library. She had left it there and William grabbed it before the librarian saw it. He hoped to run into the girl one day and return it, but thought that she wouldn’t mind him borrowing it in the mean time. It wasn’t really an iPod either; it was one of those cheap replicas that people buy on eBay. Still, William figured it was the closest he would get to the real thing and thought wearing it in the café would make him look cool.

William didn’t look cool. Two young children were trying to get the games machine to work. William guessed that they were probably somewhere between eight to fifteen years old. These days it’s hard to pick someone’s age, thought William, everyone is trying to look older. William wanted to look younger. He figured the fake iPod helped, but the two young children weren’t fooled.

“Excuse me …” one of the children asked hesitantly, “are you a retard?”
“What?” William asked amazed at the child’s brash openness.
“Take your friggin’ ear-phones out you big, fat thirty-three year old turd!”
William took his ear-phones out and stood up ready to clobber the kid.
“What did you say?”
“I’m sorry sir; I just asked you whether you know how to get the machine working…”
Remembering the maggots William knew that sometimes his mind played tricks. He realized that the kid was sincere and William showed him that the cord wasn’t plugged in. Then he showed the children how to get free games out of the machine, a talent he had learned when he was still trying to look older.

Upon imparting his wisdom to them, William hung out with the kids for a while, talking about whatever came to mind- comics, girls, sport. William didn’t know a lot about girls or sport, but that didn’t matter because neither did the kids. It was nice to have someone to talk to besides his mother. Normal people didn’t usually talk to William.

Just as William was beginning to loosen up and be himself, a voice came from the café door.
“Marcus and Steven, it’s time to go. Stop annoying that strange man…”
The kids ran out the door without even finishing the game leaving William friendless again. The words of the children’s mother echoed in his mind. Strange man…? Was that really how normal people saw him?

It was moments like this that William longed for his mother to say something, to compare him to Christ, or Buddha, or Tom Cruise. He wanted her to tell him that he wasn’t strange, and that when you looked at the lives of successful people they were all called strange once.

William expected that his 34th birthday would only lower the expectations and hopes of his mother. He had hoped that there were miracles still to come though. He didn’t want the word ‘strange’ to apply to him.

William knew it did.

He decided to go home quickly and to take his own life.

William got home, opened the front-door and waited. Normally his mother would be cooking food, or waiting at the table for William, or both. Normally she bombarded him with probing questions about his day and comparisons with Jesus Christ. Today was different… the television was blaring and there was no food cooking.

William’s mother lay still on the floor.

She had fallen and had knocked the heater down with her. It was Williams turn to save the smouldering carpet. He picked up the heater, and then checked his mother’s pulse.

He checked again.

Then William lay down next to her for a while.

Waking up in the little hospital room William was relieved to hear that his mother had had a heart attack. He’d thought she was dead when he walked in on her the night before. William had actually thought that his mother may have killed herself. She wasn’t dead though and the heart attack was from natural causes. She was alive… or at least, still breathing.

William was glad his mother was still breathing, and that she would be home soon but he wanted to make her life better. He knew how he should do it too. William kissed his mother, and headed home.

William searched through his bedroom, tidying it up so that when he was gone his mother would not have to clean the room. That’s what he told himself but he was really motivated by guilt. In his room William gathered up every piece of incriminating or embarrassing evidence into a garbage bag. There was pornography, credit card statements, and even a homemade bong from high-school. William was glad nobody would find these things when he was dead, especially his mother.

William emptied his near full sack of sin into the neighbours wheelie bin. Not the neighbour with the dog though, the neighbour with the wheelie bin. Evidently the neighbour with the dog was on holiday after their pet dog overdosed on bipolar pills. William wished he’d thought of doing that.

When everything was disposed of and the house was tidy, William grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer. He decided not to write a suicide note.

William thought back on his life, on his conquests, strife’s and on bipolar. He remembered game machines, comparisons with Christ and underpants. He remembered he was strange and he remembered the ‘about William factor’. He held his wrist out in front of him and stared at his veins.

William remembered his mother. He remembered lying on the carpet, he remembered being afraid and being held, and he remembered that she loved him.

It’s a hard thing to think of loved ones when the moment calls for selfishness. However, as the only child of a devout but unmarried catholic who had since his conception always been there for him it was especially difficult in that moment.

Williams’s heart outraced his mind. He pressed the knife harder as the clocked ticked by faster and louder.

William threw down his knife.

This was his biggest miracle: his first unselfish thought.

William realised his mother was more precious to him than he was, than the “about William” factor was. William went back to the hospital. There was someone there who he needed to see, and who needed him.

For love to reach such a strange man in such a dark place, William knew there were miracles involved, and that there would need to be many more miracles to come.

DREAMING TILL I WAKE

2007-12-25T22:37:00.000+05:30

I sit, huddled... no, not huddled, hunched, hugging knees to chest like a terrorized child. I sit hunched, as I have for so long that I have lost all sense of time. I sit and I stare from the cave mouth, stare over a landscape that no sane mind could hope to imagine, or ever want to see.

It is a terrain without any living thing, an endless scape of blasted and blackened rock without relief. Mountains reach into a low and heavy sky, holding aloft a ceiling of clouds as thick and inflexible as iron. Crevices delve down into the rough stone, their plunging depths perhaps the equal of even the highest mountain. There is no soil to support growing things, nor water to nourish them. The land is gripped in an ongoing storm, a storm without rain. Deafening thunder shakes the mountains, awesome lightning bridges the earth and the heavens, as regular as a beating heart.

The wind blows hot and fierce across the open ground, horribly moist and cloying. And if this is the breath of this blasted land, so too is it the voice, as it whistles and howls across the cavernous hollows in the mountains.

Hollows such as that in which we shelter.

I have long since surrendered any effort to further converse with Clarke. Even were we not reduced to shouting our throats raw over the banshee winds, we have been here too long to have anything left to tell one another. There is no day or night in this hellish wasteland, merely intervals where the lightning is more or less frequent, making a precise time impossible to determine. It is long enough, however, that the last of our supplies have long gone.

Supplies! Laughable to call them such. Snacks, intended merely to pass the time on our journey, never to maintain a man’s survival. We have neither eaten nor drunk in so long, I fear I have forgotten what it is to taste. Worse, I fear that it is a skill I shall never again require, for while I can no longer be certain of the sun’s rise, nor that a road I have traveled a dozen times will lead to the same destination on the thirteenth, I have become certain indeed that I must soon die.

And then my soul, which I had thought battered into submission and inured to further horrors, shrivels just that little bit further, as from behind I hear an abominable scream, even over the rushing winds. The voice is unknown to me, though nobody resides within the cave but myself and my two closest friends, for never have I heard either of them make a sound like this I hear now.

Phillips lies dead far back in the cave, his body convulsed in a terrible spasm that must apparently follow him into the grave. Clarke stands above him, his eyes haunted and empty. I do not know how Phillips died, and I fail to ask, for I fear to hear the answer.

We are starving, have long been starving, and we both know what must happen.

We sit with that body behind us, staring again into the blinding lightning and blasted rock, for what might be hours or might be days, until we can make ourselves allow it to happen.

I believe I fall asleep after my first meal in days, and try to forget that the taste upon my tongue is the blood and flesh of a man I knew well. I doze, fitfully, until I am awakened by yet another scream. I look out over the blasted waste, and only in the flicker of the lightning can I see Clarke as he disappears into the shadows of the towering peaks, leaving me forever.

“And then I wake. Truly wake, I mean. Always there and then, Doctor Augustus. Never so much as one moment earlier or later.”

Augustus, a gaunt and hawk-like man, nodded toward me as though that final point had been the most interesting and vital, as though he understood something he had not understood before.

I knew that he could not, not truly, for I had not truly conveyed the horror of my nightmare. No description in words crafted by mortal minds could do it any justice. The bleak and barren wastes, the burning lightningbolts that cooked the air and seemed to seek us out should we dare venture from the caves, the atrocious hot scents in the wet wind that could have been nothing but the breath of the land itself... how to explicate such details to a man who had never experienced them for himself?

Yet whatever the inadequacies of my descriptions, I had communicated enough to pique the doctor’s curiosity. His expression was concerned as he gazed at me over his notes, as any good doctor’s should have been, but he could not hide the light of his interest.

“Indeed, it is a most disturbing dream, Mister Ashton. I cannot imagine it a pleasant thing from which to awaken, particularly if it truly comes upon you every night, as you say. It would be my pleasure to direct what techniques I have available toward your treatment.

“However,” he persisted as I prepared myself to reply, “I wonder if you have truly considered all the ramifications of what you ask. Though your admission here would be of your own volition, still there is a minimum stay required for treatment. You cannot just wake up in two days, or even a week, having changed your mind, and expect simply to walk through the door.”

“I understand fully,” I assured him, all in earnest. “I wish to stay as long as I must, to free myself of these nightly horrors.”

Augustus nodded yet again. “I must say, Mister Ashton, institutionalization seems a rather dramatic step to rid oneself of a dream, no matter how unpleasant or regular. Do you fear it symbolizes some particular trauma or defect of personality?”

I could not but laugh at him, a reaction that doubtless served to reinforce in his mind that my faculties were not in order.

“Doctor Augustus, you misapprehend me. My dream symbolizes nothing at all. It is no phantom of the mind’s eye, nor any window into my persona or my soul.

“Two years ago, my closest friends and I set out on what was to be a regular visit to the mills of Nartok, just across the border, to acquire some good Darkonian lumber. It was, you must believe me, a journey that we had made, together and severally, many a time before. Yet on this day, we became lost in a bank of mist that rose in all disregard for the weather, and when we emerged, we found ourselves in no land where reason holds sway. Only I, alone, discovered another bank of mists in later days and blindly groped my way back home.

“My dream, Doctor Augustus, is no tale spun by any part of my mind. It is memory, clear and unblemished, of events that truly happened!”

“I shall have Nurse Roberts show you to your room,” Augustus said.

She was a pretty thing, Nurse Roberts, short, with dull golden locks and a roundness of features and form that bespoke the best of what femininity had to offer a man such as I. In other circumstances, it would have been I attempting to coax her into my room, rather than her showing me the way. Friendly she was, certainly, an open conversationalist, and possessed of a kind heart. She served in a place like this out of genuine desire to help those troubled by demons of mind and soul.

Yet, other than my insistence that she call me Howard, rather than Mister Ashton, I found myself unable to muster much enthusiasm to engage in my accustomed amorous banter. Under present conditions, and in these dim and dour halls, it seemed to me ill-appropriate.

Had I made my selection of doctor and institution based on appearances, my shadow would never have darkened the vestibule of Dharlaeth Asylum. The building was of heavy brick, whatever color they might once have boasted long since leeched from the stone by years of pounding sun and rain and wind. Demonic visages and inhuman forms hunched above the eaves, glaring angrily at all who dared pass. It had once been a cathedral, this asylum, or so I’d been given to understand. Doctor Augustus and his staff had scarcely proved able to afford the property, and thus had done little to render it any more attractive or suitable for the comfort of patients. All appearances aside, however, Augustus had a wide-ranging reputation, from Lamordia to Darkon, for competency and skill at his healer’s arts.

And so here I had come, when the dreams and memories finally weighed too heavily on my mind for me to continue life as I had known it, when it became clear that the oblivion of hemlock or the noose might soon become more enticing to me than another waking dawn.

Long I continue to watch, one hand raised to shade my eyes from the sporadic blinding flash of the lightning, though Clarke has utterly vanished into the shadowed valleys and nigh-bottomless crevices of the wasteland. I stand in the cave’s open maw, a morsel of food not yet chewed and digested. I grow stale, clammy, sticky, as my own perspiration and the hot wetness of the gale sit upon my skin.

Then, though I scarcely know where it is I intend to go, or even why I have chosen to set foot beyond the meager shelter, I step out across the blasted stone.

Heavily as I perspired in the dream, I am certain I did so at least as heavily when speaking with Doctor Augustus the following morn.

For over a week, we had met for many hours every morning, and I had consumed a specially prepared meal, along with a cocktail of calming herbs, every evening. These, it was explained to me, were intended to permit me to face the imagery of my dream with composure, studying it via the lens of reason rather than that of emotion, fear, revulsion, guilt. I was, Augustus told me, to study not the events themselves, traumatic as they had been, but the associated reactions. How did I feel about having consumed the flesh of my dead friend? How could I make sense of a world where such a place could exist, or where I could suddenly find myself stranded without ever straying from roads I knew? To understand and answer these, he instructed me, was the initial step to overcoming whatever derangement of the mind caused me to continue reliving the instigating events night after night.

It seemed to me a waste of time and effort, for surely I had already considered all such possibilities in the years since my waking nightmare. Still, the next stage of treatment were this to fail involved all manner of unpleasant medications, mesmerism, even electrical shock, none of which I was in any hurry to experience.

For over a week, as I say, this went on, with no change to either my emotional or mental states. And then, that night....

“Extraordinary,” Augustus remarked, and for a moment I could happily have throttled the man. To reduce this experience to an interesting exercise....

“Did you not tell me,” he continued, scribbling fiercely with his quill upon the topmost of a stack of papers, “that the dream was ever the same? That, in fact, it precisely relayed and repeated a series of very specific events?”

“Indeed, it always had!” I was ashamed at the quaver in my voice, but I must confess that I was terrified, more so than ever I had been since I escaped the hellish territory of which I dreamed. “But now it has changed! For the first time ever, Doctor, it has changed!”

“And the events you dream of now, Mister Ashton? These are not, perhaps, memories as well? Perhaps images of a sojourn you made from the cave that you had since forgotten?”

I could only shake my head. “I am certain, Doctor, that I never once departed that cave, until the day I saw the mists rising once more behind the nearest rise. I never followed Clarke into the wasteland. Never.”

“Then it seems your dreams are, indeed, more than mere memories, my friend.” Augustus rose and paced the room before me, scratching at the thin beard that clung, moss-like, to his chin. “Else they are indeed true memories, and you have fully and deeply repressed the remainder of your experience.

“In either event, Mister Ashton, I believe the time has come to attempt more vigorous avenues of treatment.”

I clamber across the unyielding rock, over rises and down from ledges, across crevasses that threaten to swallow me whole, along slopes whose angles threaten to send me tumbling. My palms are chapped and bloodied, like raw sausage, and my ankles threaten to turn with every step, yet I persevere. The wind blows harsh but brings no relief from the sweltering miasma, serving only to sting my eyes and chafe at my face, yet I persevere. I know not where I go, struggling directly into the face of the gale only to offer my mind some sense of direction. I flinch at every clap of thunder, at every stroke of lightning, for it seems they draw ever nearer to me, the arrows of an archer honing in upon his prey.

Yet I persevere.

And finally, finally, I crest a vicious rise, a hummock laden with razor-sharp protuberances of slender, fragile rock. The agony of my lacerated flesh is enough to drive me onward, upward, forward, those last lingering few feet that stretch before me. The lightning flashes yet again, as though in premeditated effort to illuminate my view, and below me, so terribly far below, I see a fearsome crevice, greater than any I have heretofore encountered. It gapes open, the earth’s own maw, and it is hungry. The wind, the terrible breathing wind against which I have so continuously struggled comes not from across the open valley, but from deep within that crevice itself!

I look above, and though the clouds are low and the lightning bright, still for the first time I can see the stars. They gaze malevolently upon this terrible land, and they are not sparkles of guiding light, but rents in the sky, holes to places that never were. Colors never before glimpsed by any man leak from them, and they make me ill to look upon for long.

From within the gasping crevice, I hear the low hum of voices, far and faint. Despite the wiser angels of my nature, I find myself beginning the long climb downward....

“Bluetspur.”

This was all that Doctor Augustus’s mesmerism could draw from me. Just this, this nonsensical, meaningless word, no matter how deep the trance, how pliant my mind became beneath his unfathomable words and gestures. It held no connotation for him, and for a time it hadn’t any for me, either. But with each session it recurred, forming around my throat and tongue, and each time it burrowed ever deeper into my psyche as well, until finally I felt I understood its meaning.

Bluetspur. It was nothing less than the name of the nightmare realm itself, the blasted land in which I saw the last of my two dearest friends, the dreamscape which my mind continued to visit with every death of the sun’s light.

Augustus, of course, had grievous doubts, wondering at the source of that knowledge, or how it should just suddenly come to me. Yet as he had no alternate definition to ascribe to the term, he accepted my explanation, at least for the nonce.

If breakthrough it was, however, it proved disappointingly insignificant. Possession of that name did nothing to change the nature of my dreams, and the many sessions of mesmerism offered neither of us any further insight into the events in question. Finally, after days of such attempts, my dreams had changed again, and I conveyed just that to Doctor Augustus.

That, and more.

“I’ve begun to fear, Doctor,” I confided in him, after telling him of my latest dream. “I feel a terror in my chest in all my waking hours, like a lump of ice that refuses to thaw.”

“And what is it you fear, Mister Ashton?”

“What if I am still there, Doctor?” I shuddered merely at the thought, and felt myself grasping at the arms of the chair. “With each change in my dream, I move that bit further into that empty hell—into this Bluetspur—yet I know, as surely as I know my own name, that I never did any such thing! What if I am there still, driven by desperation to explore, and it is my time here, with you, with Nurse Roberts, that is the dream?”

Augustus assured me over and again that such was not the case, but his assertions served to ease my worries only slightly. As all those who know fear can attest, even though their terrors be of far lesser magnitude than my own, worry and anxiety rarely see defeat at the hands of logical and reasoned argument.

When it became clear that I was too distraught to be easily assuaged, Doctor Augustus leaned forward and put a calming hand upon my shoulder.

“I’ll not lie to you, Howard,” he said softly, and I could not but view his use of my first name as a poor omen indeed. “While we have spent only a few weeks on your treatment as of yet, and thus could not expect any sort of substantial improvements, I must confess that I’m rather dismayed at our lack of progress. While I would still dearly love to understand the emotional underpinnings of your troubles, and believe that doing so would be helpful and healthy for you, I must concede that this appears not to be your road to recovery.”

I shook off his comforting grasp and stood, that I might pace away at least a modicum of my agitation. “What do you propose, Doctor?”

“If we cannot rid you of your dreams through understanding,” he told me, “the next logical step is to find a means of encouraging your mind to shy away from the most troubling images. This should, at minimum, provide you some distance and time from the initial event so that you might heal.”

I almost wept at the mere thought of it. A means of preventing myself from experiencing these dreams? A chance, however brief, to forget? I was as a lonely sinner suddenly granted a vision of some backdoor into Heaven.

Perhaps alarmed by the sudden elation in my countenance, Doctor Augustus raised a cautionary hand. “Understand, Howard, that what I propose is no easy thing. There are dangers, some significant indeed, inherent to either method.”

He explained to me that he saw two possible means of ridding me of my night terrors. The first he dubbed “shock-aversion therapy.” I would be strapped, he told me, to a great steel mechanism, bound so that I could not harm myself through spasm and movement. I would be bombarded with a series of stimuli, visual imagery, ambient sounds, even artificial scents produced via alchemical wonders I could not begin to comprehend. Should any such image trigger a memory of my dreams, I was to indicate thus with a switch beneath my thumb, resulting in a painful electrical shock. Should I fail to cooperate, perhaps out of fear of the agony, the doctor would take it upon himself to decide which images seemed related, though he believed it would work better if I did so myself.

This technique, he explained, would take many sessions, until my mind instinctively associated the images and the pain, and thus should, by his theorem, refrain from revisiting those memories. It meant many days of torment, and though the shock was relatively light, still there was danger of damage to muscles, or even to the brain, the heart, and other organs.

Alternatively, he might offer me a medicine of his own invention, one intended to stop the mind from germinating dreams entirely. It meant no pain, no days of effort before I might see results.

Yet this medicine carried its own risks, risks that Augustus could not elucidate so well as he had those of his shock treatment. It had seen its use before, this medicine, and safely enough, but only in light dosages, used to calm a restless sleeper’s nightmares for a single evening. I would be the first man ever to subject himself to its effects for multiple consecutive nights, and in necessarily higher quantities as well.

Long I pondered this dreadful choice, until nearly time for supper. I thought for a time about accepting neither treatment, for both seemed ghastly, but the thought of living forever with these dreams was ghastlier still.

In the end I selected the machine, as I think the doctor hoped I would. I have never been a coward, for all that I had spent the prior two years in relentless fear, and was unafraid of physical pain. It seemed a safer gamble than the unknown poisons of ill-tested medicine.

The process was, if anything, far more brutal even than Doctor Augustus had implied. By the conclusion of my first session, I had to be all but carried to my room. Nurse Roberts was to occupy the chamber beside mine for the night, with the curtains drawn from the intervening window, that she might observe me as I slept. Ostensibly her mandate was to ensure that I had no ill reactions to the treatment, but I believe Doctor Augustus was more interested in having an observer present to determine whether or not I dreamt.

They seem almost designed for climbing by some higher being (or lower), the walls of this great gaping chasm, with many a niche or ledge on which to rest one’s weary weight. With gashed and bleeding hands, with sore and aching feet, I make my way, a clumsy spider, down the gullet of the earthen maw. The humid wind rushes past me, upward and over me, until finally I feel solid stone once more beneath my soles. Somehow, here at the base, the air has ceased to move, no longer a rushing wind but a miasma that squats, bloated and reeking like something long dead.

As I had stumbled my way here across a nigh-featureless landscape, so too do I find a path, all unwittingly, through the twisted passageways below. Again I cannot but think of a spider, for had the tunnels been the strands of some arachnid’s spun web, they could not be any more ornate, complex. And still, on I walk, on I stagger, on I crawl when the height of the claustrophobic ceilings or exhaustion of my limbs demand it. On and on.

How I can find my way through these caverns and catacombs I know not, for I should certainly be groping about blindly in wretched darkness. Yet always there remains just enough ambient light to guide my steps, its source hidden from any effort I might make to find it.

Ahead of me, now, the light brightens. Ahead the voices grow louder. I know that I should turn, that I should flee, return to my sheltered cave, starve to death if that is to be my fate, rather than to continue one further step. I continue nonetheless.

The passage twists upward, narrow, ungainly. I struggle to reach its culmination, only to stand on a ledge, a tiny tongue of rock, overlooking....

Ah, gods! Would that I stood upon the precipice of Hell, for even that must be less terrible than this!

The cavern stretches wide, so vast it seems that it must swallow the world entire. Above, a gap in the stone, a festering wound that admits the poisonous light of the stars to dribble down into the inner dark.

Below, I stare deep into... something, something almost fluid, something with the scent of brine, the consistency of drool. It roils and burbles in a pool of stone, and within a horrid shape pulses and beats like some monstrous heart. I cannot see its form, for it defies shape itself... a pulpy, fibrous mass delighting in its own vile excretion, the afterbirth of things never born... a horror not of flesh, nor of organs, nor of bone, a repulsive sac of substances beyond any man’s capacity to imagine. I can see no more of it, for my eyes are obstructed by the viscous substance in which it bides, by the shadows that grow thick between my vantage and the tableau below, and for both I am pathetically grateful.

Around the pool, a thousand dancing horrors, and again I am saved only by the feeble light and the flickering shadows. I can apprehend only the most vague of details, and even these are loathsome to behold. Tendrils I can see, reaching from the darkness, reaching from maws and orifices that were never sculpted by any god of man’s. And lying at their feet as they parade about their monstrous sire, the shapes of a dozen men and women, two dozen, three.... It is from them the voices come, voices without words, the endless cry of maddened minds, broken by contemplation of their coming fate. I know Clarke lies among them, though I cannot possibly hear or see him. And I see those tendrils reaching for these poor prone souls, sliding almost gracefully into succulent flesh....

And even what little I can perceive has become too much, and I have run screaming into the darkness of the catacombs.

That I woke screaming, my throat raw and head throbbing, must come as no surprise to any. Nurse Roberts was already at my side, for apparently I had thrashed and tossed about long before the dream grew fierce enough to haul me from my slumber. Others had heard my screams as well, and it was but moments before Doctor Augustus, clad in robe and slippers, hurried through my door.

“The medicine!” I am certain that I must have shouted, and certain too that I sounded, at that moment, as mad as any lunatic that ever he had treated. “By all the gods, give me the medicine!”

The doctor spent much of the following day questioning me on the content of my dream, but I refused utterly to speak of it. Merely reflecting on it sent me into such a terror, I feared I might truly perish of heart stroke or apoplexy if I dared dwell on what I had seen, or imagined I had seen. To speak of it was utterly unthinkable.

He agreed, finally, as night drew near once more and my agitation only swelled, to permit me to try this last, desperate remedy. He insisted, however, that Nurse Roberts again spend the night in observing me.

I cared not a whit, one way or another, so long as he granted me his medicine.

I have no words for the following night, for no words exist in any language to describe such emotions. How can you, you who have never been troubled as I have been troubled, haunted as I have been haunted, comprehend the profundity, the glorious wonderment, of a night’s sleep uninterrupted and unmarred by dreams?

Yet I cannot say my slumber was completely unmarred. I remember feeling, in that drowsy state of half-sleep, that some weight had finally withdrawn. Or rather, relented.

I woke this morning, blinked open my eyes, and only then it dawned on me that the night had passed. I literally wept with joy, true and unbridled joy.

And then... oh, gods, and then I raised myself up and turned my gaze toward the intervening window, toward Nurse Roberts, with whom I wished to share my newfound delight.

It was shattered, that window, the glass all burst inward from my room to hers. It lay glittering across the floor, a constellation of tiny reflective stars. Roberts herself sat upright, one might almost have said stiffly formal, in the room’s most comfortable chair. She sat turned away from me, facing into the far corner.

A corner painted with darkening crimson, a corner that I could see clearly, for the entire back of her head was absent, and there was nothing within the cavity of her skull to block my view of the far wall, a view through the three gaping hollows of her eyes and mouth!

I have had long hours to think on what has occurred as I sit here, strapped to this bed, awaiting the authorities to come and take me away for this abominable crime. Perhaps I may yet convince them of my innocence, perhaps I may not. In truth, it matters little enough.

For I understand now, I think, what happened to me on that long ago day, in that tiny sheltering cave that overlooked an impossible world. Those terrible things to which necessity drove us, Clarke and I, more than any sane mind could bear. I died a bit that day, I think. I left behind a part of myself, a part of my soul, in the high peaks of Bluetspur.

And took a part of Bluetspur with me in its stead.

It is vile, this unholy, indescribable thing. It is monstrous. But it is trapped, trapped within me, unable to escape....

But only so long as I remain trapped with it.

Tonight, I may lay myself down to sleep in another asylum, one far less friendly than this. I may lay myself down to sleep in a foul dungeon. I know not.

All I know is this: I will lay myself down to sleep.

And though I know they can bring me nothing but unimaginable horrors that must slowly consume what remains of my rational mind, I will fervently pray for dreams.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?

2007-12-18T19:48:00.000+05:30

So do you believe in God?

As a person who discusses weird theories and psychology, I get this frequently. So I’ve decided to make a better effort to reply. To be honest, I don’t like the question because it presumes we know what those words mean. Here are some responses, touching on more or less serious aspects of the topic.

1. Which god? Do you mean Zeus, Baal, Athena, Shiva, Allah, Jehovah, or some other? If you mean one of those, then no. I am not a theist. I don’t believe in an individual being that created and now controls the world.

2. What is belief? Is it a cognitive conclusion that I have reached basic on logical consideration of evidence? That would assume I have access to all the information, and I do not. Is it an emotional feeling for something beyond myself? Well, my emotions vary, and some days are hopeful, other days are dark. Emotions are a rocky basis for “belief.” Do I make a leap of faith, not knowing anything really, but simply wanting to “believe,” and putting stock in a “scripture” to give it support? This is also difficult because knowing about the origins of “scripture,” I know the complexity; they were not simply dictated. Also, the strength of my blind faith can also vary and I’m not sure how completely I am supposed to convince myself in order to say I “believe.”

3. The concept of “God” usually meant by this question is some sort of being that exists “out there.” The god of the Bible is very separate, superior to humans, but anthropomorphic in many ways. Other gods are also considered “out there” and have controlling powers we do not have. A more New Age notion of god includes “the divine” in all of us, and still involves the notion of “spirit” infusing people. There is an assumption in most approaches to spirituality of a kind of “force,” which can be called by different names, but which is a thing in a universe of other things. As such, I do not resonate with this idea of “god” as an entity.

4. If I must use the concept at all, I would equate it with the “nature of being.” This is close to “ground of being,” a phrase coined by John Robinson many years ago in Honest to God. For me it involves a perception of existence grounded in the profound science of modern physics. Most ordinary people do not know much about this. Yet, we now know from findings in both relativity theory and quantum physics, that the universe is much more strange and incredible than we ever realized. It calls for massive humility because there are things no one understands, yet we now have good reason to question all of our basic assumptions about “reality.” The difference is bigger than finding out the world is not flat. We have evidence for questioning our ideas about matter, linear time, cause and effect, and more. String theorists agree there are eleven dimensions. Yet the general population operates all day every day assuming things that are completely out of date. The knowledge has not reached the masses. This is akin to having everyone act as if the earth is still flat. The issues are intensely profound, with implications for everything we do. The big words for me are “mystery” and “possibility.” Feelings are humility, awe, and excitement. There is no religious description of “god” that matches the grandeur of the universe as it is – elusive, ever-changing, impossibly mind-boggling. And this includes us. We are part of the fabric; there is no separation. If this is believing in god, then by all means, a hundred times YES! But I’m still not drawn to the language.

A couple of quotes that I find consistent with this:

“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant’? Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’ A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.”`
-Carl Sagan

“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
-Albert Einstein

5. Dispensing with the “god” word, it makes a little more sense for me to address “spirituality,” although this word has often meant a focus on other-worldly things. I prefer to describe spirituality as a way of living which is here-and-now. These are attributes rather than a definition. They involve feelings and perceptions and experiences which depend on openness. This openness can be chosen and developed. Rather than escaping into a different realm, I think of spirituality in terms of how we live our lives – the choices, the consciousness, the texture of daily life. There are several aspects of this:

Accord. This is the experience of feeling attuned with the rest of existence - a feeling of belonging on earth, being a part of the rest of nature, and in harmony with everything around. When you are in accord, you move along with the vast river of evolutionary change, feeling connected in a fundamental way with the harmony and power of the whole. You feel as though you are tapping into a rich resource that is beyond you, much larger than yourself. Your inner spring of god-within connects with the vastness of god-beyond, a "deeper power" rather than "higher power," a subterranean aquifer connecting all of life. This produces a sense of trust and safety, a knowledge that you fit, that you have a place.

Awareness. With awareness you are alive and awake, fully experiencing life. This means being totally grounded in the here and now. Your sensory experiences are vivid, and you notice what is happening when it is happening, both around and inside you. You do not reject uncomfortable experiences or deny pain; you are open and embracing of all that life has to offer. This makes it possible for you to enjoy things more intensely and to learn from difficulties. You are not trying to be on some other plane of existence, but are willing and happy to be here now, like a curious child.

Growth. Growth is a natural process. You are not static or inert; you are a changing, growing being. And your experiences can propel you to develop further. As a plant needs the attention of water and food to grow, you need to attend to your needs and consciously make opportunities to learn and change. This aspect of spirituality is active, complementing the more receptive elements of accord and awareness. As humans we are granted the exciting option of making conscious loyal commitments to move in positive directions. Learning will often occur anyway, as a neglected plant will often survive, but informed with a sense of accord and awareness, you can take action on your own spiritual behalf.

Transcendence. There are moments of awe for us in life, those times of being overwhelmed with wonder at beauty, or love, or natural power. At these moments you get clues about the immensity of the cosmos, like pinpricks in the veil around your limited consciousness. You are humbled and thrilled as you gaze at a sunset or a torrential waterfall. A moment of pure love can be ecstatic. Let your vision extend into the night sky, and you may experience a blissful dissolving of your individual ego. Not needing to understand or control, you can experience a sense of total Mystery. These moments are gifts that reflect your spiritual capacity, gifts that become more available as you open to your sense of the ultimate. This is not ultimate in the sense of above or better, but simply beyond your usual mode of consciousness. These are moments of realization knowing that the sense you have of “god” within is not only in contact with but one and the same as the transcendent “god”-beyond. You are a wave in the ocean, individual in a sense but also part of something much bigger – the immensely huge and powerful ocean of existence. You don’t understand and you don’t need to understand. All of this is multiverses away from “believing in God.”

So even though I would have to say I don’t believe in God and I am an atheist in the true definition of the word, ie, not a theist, I obviously feel compelled to question and reclaim the language being used and make this rather inadequate stab at describing my lived experience. It’s a bit defensive and that’s because the stereotype of the cold, shallow, hedonistic, selfish atheist needs to be challenged. In my opinion, it’s all about how we live, and not what we “believe.”

on literacy and education

2007-12-17T19:48:00.000+05:30

this is dedicated to teachers,its time they have to change the "study for marks" mentality as i mentioned in my last posts,this mentality is degrading the quality of education and the teachers are primely responsible for it.so this one is dedicated to all you teacher(except a few one who really want students to get knowledge then marks).the basic difference between education and literacy is that moulding of character and absorbtion of knowledge happen in education while a literate person has the graduation degree only...

All learning is either by instruction or by discovery; that is, with or without the aid of teachers. The teachers who serve as instructors may be alive and in direct contact with those whom they instruct, as is always the case in classrooms or tutorials, or they may be present to the learner only in the form of books. The teacher who instructs by his writings cannot engage in discussion with those who are reading his works in order to learn; he can ask them initial questions, but he cannot ask any second questions—questions about the answers they give to his initial questions. He is, therefore, seriously limited in his performance of the art of teaching, though he may have done what he could to apply the rules of that art in his effort to communicate what he knows.

That the effort to communicate what a man knows is not, in itself, effective teaching follows from the fact that such efforts are seldom if ever successful and, at best, they succeed only in part. Successful teaching occurs only when the mind of the learner passes from a state of ignorance or error to a state of knowledge. The knowledge acquired may be either something already known by the teacher, or something about which he himself is inquiring. In either case, the transformation effected in the mind of the learner is learning by instruction only if another human being has taken certain deliberate steps to bring about that transformation. What the teacher does must be deliberately calculated to change the mind of the learner. Merely motivating someone to learn is not enough; stimulation is not teaching.

Since whatever can be learned by instruction must necessarily have been learned first by discovery, without the aid of teachers, it follows that teachers are, absolutely speaking, dispensable. Nevertheless, they are useful because most human beings need instruction to learn what they could have learned by discovering it for themselves. If we recognize, as we should, that genuine learning cannot occur without activity on the part of the learner (passive absorption or rote memorization does not deserve to be called learning), then we must also recognize that all learning is a process of discovery on the part of the learner.

This alters our understanding of the distinction between learning by discovery and learning by instruction. If the latter is not to be identified with passive absorption or rote memorization, then the distinction divides all active learning into two kinds—unaided discovery, discovery without the aid of teachers, on the one hand; and aided discovery, or discovery deliberately assisted by teachers, on the other. In both cases, the principal cause of learning is activity on the part of the learner engaged in the process of discovery; when instruction occurs, the teacher is at best only an instrumental cause operating to guide or facilitate the process of discovery on the part of the learner. To suppose that the teacher is ever more than an instrumental cause is to suppose that the activity of a teacher can by itself suffice to cause learning to occur in another person even though the latter remains entirely passive. This would view the learner as a patient being acted upon rather than as an agent whose activity is both primary and indispensable. In contrast, the instrumental activity of the teacher is always secondary and dispensable.

These basic insights are epitomized by Socrates when, in the Theaetetus, he describes his role as a teacher by analogy with the service performed by a midwife who does nothing more than assist the pregnant mother to give birth with less pain and more assurance. So, according to Socrates, the teacher assists the inquiring mind of the learner to give birth to knowledge, facilitating the process of discovery on the learner’s part. If the learner suffers birth pangs because errors block the way, then, as Socrates tells us in the Meno, the teacher may have to take strenuous measures to reduce the learner from a state of error to one of admitted ignorance (by “benumbing” the mind of the learner), so that motion toward learning can proceed unhampered by obstacles.

Before we consider how the good teacher, following the model of Socrates, cooperates with the activity of the learner, which will develop from our understanding of teaching as a cooperative art, let me call attention to two erroneous uses of the word “teach.” It is often said that “experience teaches,” but however much we may learn from experience, it teaches us nothing. Only human beings teach. We also frequently say that a man is self-taught—an autodidact— or that he has taught himself this or that. He may have learned this or that entirely by himself; all of his learning may have been unaided discovery. But to say that it occurred without the aid of teachers is not to say that he taught himself. One individual can be taught only by another.

Teaching, like farming and healing, is a cooperative art. Understanding this, Comenius in The Great Didactic again and again compares the cultivation of the mind with the cultivation of the field; so, too, Plato compares the teacher’s art with the physician’s.

In arts such as shoemaking and shipbuilding, painting and sculpture (arts which I call “operative” to distinguish them from the three cooperative arts), the artist is the principal cause of the product produced. Nature may supply the materials to be fashioned or transformed, and may even supply models to imitate, but without the intervention of the artist’s skill and causal efficacy, nature would not produce shoes, ships, paintings or statues.

Unlike the operative artist, who aims either at beauty or utility, the cooperative artist merely helps nature to produce results that it is able to produce by its own powers, without the assistance of the artist—without the intervention of the artist’s accessory causality. Fruits and grains grow naturally; the farmer intervenes merely to assure that these natural products grow with regularity and, perhaps, to increase their quantity. The body has the power to heal itself—to maintain health and regain health; the physician who adopts the Hippocratic conception of the healing art attempts to support and reinforce the natural processes of the body. The mind, like the body, has the power to achieve what is good for itself— knowledge and understanding. Learning would go on if there were no teachers, just as healing and growing would go on if there were no physicians and farmers.

Like the farmer and the physician, the teacher must be sensitive to the natural process that his art should help bring to its fullest fruition— the natural process of learning. It is the nature of human learning that determines the strategy and tactics of teaching. Since learning which results in expanded knowledge and improved understanding (rather than memorized facts) is essentially a process of discovery, the teacher’s art consists largely in devices whereby one individual can help another to lift himself up from a state of knowing and understanding less to knowing and understanding more. Left to his own devices, the learner would not get very far unless he asked himself questions, perceived problems to be solved, suffered puzzlement over dilemmas, put himself under the necessity of following out the implications of this hypothesis or that, made observations and weighed the evidence for alternative hypotheses, and so on. The teacher, aware of these indispensable steps in the process by which he himself has moved his own mind up the ladder of learning, devises ways to help another individual engage in a similar process; and he applies them with sensitivity to the state of that other person’s mind and with awareness of whatever special difficulties the other must overcome in order to make headway.

Discipline in the traditional liberal arts imparts the skills by which an individual becomes adept at learning. They are the arts of reading and writing, of speaking and listening, of observing, measuring and calculating—the arts of grammar, rhetoric and logic, the mathematical arts, and the arts of investigation. Without some proficiency in these arts, no one can learn very much, whether assisted or not by the use of books and the tutelage of teachers. Unless the teacher is himself a skilled learner, a master of the liberal arts which are the arts of learning, he cannot help those he attempts to teach acquire the skills of learning; nor can his superior skill in learning provide the learner with the help he needs in the process of discovery. The teacher must put himself sympathetically in the position of a learner who is less advanced than himself, less advanced both in skill and in knowledge or understanding. From that vantage point, he must somehow reenact—or stimulate—for the learner the activities he himself engaged in to achieve his present state of mind.

The Hippocratic understanding of healing as a cooperative art provides us with analogical insights into the cooperative art of teaching. Hippocrates distinguished between three forms of therapy: control of the patient’s regimen, the use of drugs or other forms of medication, and recourse to surgery when that drastic remedy cannot be avoided. He regarded the first of these as the primary technique of the physician as a cooperative artist, for, unlike medication, it introduces no foreign substances into the body and, unlike surgery, it does no violence to it. By controlling the patient’s regimen— his diet, his hours, his activities, his environment—the physician helps the body to heal itself by its natural processes.

In the sphere of teaching, the analogue of surgery is indoctrination, the result of which is rote memorization, or some passive absorption of information without any understanding of it. Indoctrination does violence to the mind, as surgery does violence to the body, the only difference being that there is never any excuse for indoctrination, while there can be justification for surgery. The restoration of health may be facilitated by surgery when that drastic remedy is needed, but knowledge and understanding can never be produced by indoctrination. Even so, Hippocrates did not regard the surgeon as a physician, though the physician may find it necessary to have recourse to his services. The physician and the surgeon are distinguished by the line that divides the cooperative from the operative artist. By the same criterion, the indoctrinator is not a teacher.

Lecturing is that form of teaching which is analogous to the use of drugs and medication in the practice of medicine. No violence may be done to the mind if the lecturer eschews any attempt at indoctrination, but the lecture, even when it is attended to with maximum effort on the part of the auditor, is something that the mind must first absorb before it can begin to digest and assimilate what is thus taken in. If passively attended to and passively absorbed by the memory, the lecture has the same effect as indoctrination, even if the lecturer scrupulously intended to avoid that result. At its best, the lecture cannot be more than an occasion for learning, a challenge to the mind of the auditor, an invitation to inquiry. The lecture, in short, is no better than the book as a teacher—an oral rather than a written communication of knowledge. Like the author, the lecturer cannot ask the second and subsequent questions, and unless these are asked, persistently and vigorously, the learner is not aided by a teacher in his own process of discovery. Unlike the indoctrinator, the lecturer may have the same aim as the teacher, but his manner of teaching is at best second-rate.

Analogous to the fully cooperative therapeutic technique of controlling the patient’s regimen is the fully cooperative pedagogical technique of engaging the learner in discussion—teaching by asking instead of teaching by telling, asking questions not merely to elicit answers for the sake of grading them (as in a quiz session, which is not teaching at all), but asking questions that challenge the answers elicited, and asking still more questions that open up new avenues of inquiry. Lectures audited and books read may provide the materials for teaching by discussion, and there may be advanced learners, highly skilled in the liberal arts, who can learn from lectures and books without the aid of teachers. But for those who need the help that good teachers can provide, listening to lectures or reading books without discussing them yields little profit to the mind. The help that the good teacher provides takes the form of conducting the needed discussion. Socrates did that without any use of books or lectures, and there may be others who have taught by asking questions without employing any “teaching materials” to ask questions about; yet for the most part even the best teachers find lectures heard and books read useful accessories to teaching by discussion.

why i killed gandhi ??

2007-12-13T14:47:00.000+05:30

i wanted to write this blog for a long time.there are many misconceptions on the times and reasons on mahatma Gandhi's death.the views of the 'killer'nathuram godse is not known and the conditions in the country during the assassination is long forgotten.this blog is a self interpretation one.i am a huge supporter of satyagraha and Gandhian ideologies but somehow i feel mahatma Gandhi tended to be a bit of a manipulative politician.the Truth always has a certain way to be brought forward,but sadly nathuram godse chose the wrong way.the killing of a person doesn't kill his ideas.nathuram godse had thoughts which were correct and could have been proved to be true.but killing Gandhi to voice the thoughts was not the correct thing to do.it portrayed that thinking to be terroristic and anti-national.but looking the ideology from a different angle,we also tend to think that maybe the man's action were wrong but his thinking was correct.
i wont say anything further.i will just let the last words of nathuram godse speak for themselves.

" Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other.

I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and' Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.

All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well-being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to
render true service to humanity as well.

Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, hunour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would
consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the
revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.

In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and
non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for the freedom they brought to them.

The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very good in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and every thing; he was
the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail'
was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.

Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their
intelligence at his feet to do with as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster.

Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect, it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and cross-breed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. But in his
desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.

From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi's infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork. The Congress which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and
abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but
Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established
with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we consider a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger.

One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.

Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless.

Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House.

I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a
leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi's persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims.

I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day
in future. "

make your own cult following...

2007-12-13T08:25:00.000+05:30

Cults maintain their following by putting members through a cycle of ups and downs. There is a psychology behind these tactics and it is to exploit the the members and keep them dependent on the cult. This brainwashing is very effective and it is important for people to understand how it works.

From Wikipedia, “Cult roughly refers to a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture considers outside the mainstream.”

Thus all religions are cults. Whether or not a particular cult is considered a religion depends on the local customs and traditions of the area.

Now onto the psychology of brainwashing.

Brainwashing or thought reform is the technique that all cults use to keep and recruit new members. The goal is to modify the attitudes, behaviors and beliefs of a recruit so that it conforms to the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs of all of the members.

Let me be clear that this can happen in a variety of situations. It does NOT require an isolated environment, physical abuse, or require complete control of a recruit. These tactics do help to make the brainwashing more effective, however, they are not a necessity.

The important feature about brainwashing is that it is done over and over again to achieve the desired goal. When people stop thinking independently for themselves, when they stop questioning their own personal sense of right and wrong, and when they refuse to listen to information that conflicts with their own beliefs… then they have been effectively brainwashed.

Find or create vulnerable recruits

People experiencing the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, an uncomfortable or frustrating situation, etc. can be considered vulnerable (basically anything that can make you sad, anxious, or angry). Cults are especially good at finding these people. Many large cults will send out missionaries to 3rd world countries and war torn areas where many of these people exist. In more developed areas the cults will target places with lots these vulnerable people, such as college campuses and hospitals.

A cult recruiter will “reach out” to let these people know that they are “missing something.” The recruiter will claim to have the solution to this problem. Scientology uses a “personality test” to show a recruit how they can improve their personality. Recruiters for Christianity and Islam will often tell you that you are going to “hell” or will face “eternal damnation” when you die, and that you can be “saved.”The cult recruiter’s whole intent at first is to exploit the recruit’s vulnerability and to make them feel worse about their situation.(this is used over and over by naxal)

Make the Broken Down Recruit Feel Good

The recruiter will then reward the recruit with social support when he or she listens and agrees to the propaganda. Often the recruiter will offer personal assistance to get the new recruit to enter the cult’s isolated environment. This positive interaction helps to get the new recruit to a cult owned building. These isolated cult environments go by different names: church, synagogue, temple, mosque, dianetics center, jinja, mandir, kingdom hall, and shrine (to name a few). The encouragement from the recruiter makes the new recruit feel good and boosts their self esteem. This step reinforces that the cult and anything involved with the cult is good.

Use Guilt to Break the Recruit Back Down

In the isolated cult environment a member of the cult will explain to the recruit why he or she is bad/evil/impure. The things that make a person “evil” are usually normal, acceptable human behaviors and thus it is inevitable that the recruit is guilty of these “evils.” Things like sex and drug use are almost universally rejected by cults. Behavior that is actually adaptive in many situations, such as dishonesty, theft, and violence, are looked at as always bad. Therefore according to the cult it is NEVER alright to lie, cheat, steal, or maim in any situation, regardless of potential harm or personal gain. Many cults will also claim that a belief in a supernatural being/s is a requirement to be “pure.”

The recruit ends up feeling guilty about their impropriety and believes that it is his or her own fault that they were unhappy to begin with. The recruit’s self esteem will go down because of this guilt. Christianity and Judaism have the 10 commandments. Islam and Mormonism has an even longer list of commandments. Buddhism has the 5 percepts. Hinduism has the rules of karma and dharma. And every cult has its own unique set of rules.

Bring the Self Esteem of the Recruit Back Up

Now that the recruit has been broken down again by guilt, the members of the cult will go about bringing the recruit’s self esteem back up. The cult will ask the recruit to confess all of their wrongdoings to other members. When the recruit exposes their guilt to the cult, the members give the recruit praise and will declare that the recruit is on their way to being “saved.” The release of guilt makes the recruit realize that it’s not he or she that is wrong, but his or her beliefs that are wrong.

The cult will tell the recruit to follow these rules and return on a regular basis to the “holy” place. This means returning to the isolated cult environment at least every week if not more often. The new recruit then leaves feeling happy and relieved.

Continue the Cycle of Breaking Down and Building Up Cult Members

Within the week the cult member will probably commit one of the “sins” and feel guilty. They will attribute any sadness, anxiousness, or anger to their flawed beliefs. They will return to the cult environment at a low. At the weekly meeting the cult will use the social influence of a large group of people to now induce guilt and break down members further. The confession of wrongdoings and the “goodness” of the cult will once again be used to build up everyone’s self esteem.

This cycle is repeated week after week.

The Loss of Self and Exploitation

Eventually the cult member’s self worth becomes dependent on the cult. The cult’s self worth replaces any independent self worth. The cult member feels that any and all happiness is because of the cult, and the “sins” of the real world are the cause of their unhappiness.

Once the individual has reached this point they will have also lost most of their independent thought. The cult then exploits the member for their time and resources. Donations of money are mandatory in all cults. Cult members will claim that donation is not mandatory, however failing to donate or taking money from the cult is a major “sin.” Tithes, voluntary contributions, sacrificial giving, voluntary stewardship, tzedakah, alms, and zakat are some names for these mandatory donations. In all cults donating money is considered “sacred” and met with praise (how odd that even the supernatural obey the almighty $$).

Like businesses the intent of the cult is not really to help members, but to make money from them. Unlike businesses, though, cults do not pay taxes. This distinction is a result of politicians and other government officials being members of cults themselves. The influence of cults is widespread in all countries of the world. Hopefully information like this will help people realize these mind control techniques and manipulation.

“1) Find lonely, desperate people

2) Break them down: Make them feel much worse about themselves

3) Build them back up: make them feel good about themselves again

4) Repeat 2-3 until their sense of self-worth is completely dependent on you

5) Reveal the “true” beliefs of the cult and take all their money

Et Voila. Combine those with other brainwashing techniques and you have yourself a nice little cult.

So it is not so much “what do these people get out of the cult?”, as it is “what does the cult take from them?”. They take your independent sense of self-worth and turn it into a cult-dependent sense of self-worth.

edit: the strange part is, a lot of other organizations use the same tactics but nobody tends to notice them. The army, marine corps, navy, sports teams, pimps ;), etc.. all use the same break em down, build em back up tactic, which is brainwashing 101.”

anecdotes and scrap

2007-12-12T18:52:00.000+05:30

many email and orkut posts make rounds saying "forward this to seven people or u will be doomed "and such similar things.and the best part is the so-called computer literate and educated people actually believe in such stuff.i actually wonder is our government has taken notice of this.just imagine what would their email be like

dear user,
i am dianna(this is for the foolish orkut users,grow up),speaking from the government of maharastra.as you know the government has a large deficit to fill which is about 27000 crores.in view of this we have make a tie up with gmail,msn,rediff and other important email providers that for every forward you send they will give us 0.123 rs(exclusive of VAT).we are of great need of money as the chief minister's nephew's third cousins wedding is happening and so all our funds are being utilised in that procedure.
also"jai bhumbhum bhole".if you send it to 689.32(taxes included)people within 34 min,your will receive blessings from the pundit presiding in the wedding.if you don't forward and delete this message,you are doomed for the rest of your life.
special attention:
1.sc,st,o.b.c,have special concessions.they will get 5 more blessings and their forwards will be accepted separately without vat.
2.all those belonging to vt,nt etc. will have the concession of not being doomed for the rest of the life.
3.person doing the most forwards will get the ice cream served in the wedding(tutti fruity or malai pista).
4.all forwards are a property of the goverment and all disputes regarding it will be done in the jurisdiction of maharastra state.
5.forward kar varna thok dalunga.

in America,almost 40 percent of the students suffer from dyslexia ,according to recent reports.i fail to get the logic_40%??are you serious?are the dyslexia genes punjabi that they have the desire of going to america as soon as they are formed.i think there if i child doesnt perform well in studies he is suffering from dyslexia.its a cool word you see.we in india call the child is dumb or stupid or dunce.in america they say the child has dyslexia.if a child is weak in studies...u know what he suffers from dyslexia.its so popular that after some years ,there will be a new diesease."news flash-new survey says about 10 % of our population have the fast learning diesease"people who learn fast will undergo psycological treatment to 'slow' themselves down.you cant say anything after all its america,anything can happen.

a dream

2007-12-08T10:54:00.000+05:30

someone told me that i should write more peoms because someone thinks i write pretty ok.so i decided to experiment a bit to try writing another one and lets see how it turns out......

DREAM ON.........................
Where the mountains touch the sky

Where poets dream, where eagles fly

A secret place above the crowds

Just beneath marshmallow clouds

Lift your eyes to a snowy peak

And see the soon- to- be we seek

Whisper dreams and let them rise

To the mountains old and wise

Climbers climb, it's time to try

Where the mountains touch the sky

Take me there. Oh take me now

Someway, Someday, Somewhere, Somehow

Where the ocean meets the sky

Where mermaid dance and seagulls fly

A place in dreams I know so well

The sea inside a single shell

Far across the living sea

A pale blue possibility

Beyond the castles made of sand

Tomorrow in a small child's hand

Only dreamers need apply

Where the ocean meets the sky

Take me there. Oh take me now

Someway, Someday, Somewhere, Somehow

Where the forests reach the sky

Men are equal and doves still fly

No thorns of war, a perfect rose

This is where the green grass grows

Out beyond the crystal stream

Like Dr. King I have a dream

Imagine such a goal in sight

For red and yellow, black and white

Whisper now, let the dream begin

It's time to trust the truth within

This is where we seek and find

A gift in being colorblind

Dream on Dreamers, hopes are high

Where the forests reach the sky

Take me there. Oh take me now

Someway, Someday, Somewhere, Somehow

Now, listen close, the future calls

"Build your bridges and tear down walls! "

For time has taught and so it seems

Realities are born of dreams

*********************************NEONSTEIN***************************************

OF IRAQ WAR AND PHILOSOPHIES

2007-12-08T10:10:00.000+05:30

I have noticed something in the year or so I have been doing this.this post is long due i know but my restricted intelligence takes a long time to analyse things out.

What I have noticed is that certain types of Iraqi aims and ambitions and values are consistently hooted down by the American media-and-policy people as nothing more than rationalizations for power-grabs on the part of the people expressing them, or else are completely ignored. And yet certain other types of ideology or organized sets of values--namely religion and race-- are puffed up by the American media-and-policy people as the major motivating factors in Iraq and in fact as the standing in the way of implementing the benevolent and wise policies that the Americans had been proposing.

The first group includes Iraqi nationalism, Sadrist social-group loyalties or any other expression of social solidarity, along with regional loyalties of many types. These expressions of nationalist and other values are either completely ignored, or else debunked as mere "instruments" in a power struggle, not actual bona fide expressions of meaning.These types of aims and ambitions and values (including such things as national, regional and group loyalties) are regularly either debunked in this "instrumentalizing" way, or else completely ignored.

And by contrast other expressions of values and loyalty and so on are not debunked, but on the contrary they are elevated to the status of the major motivating factors in the whole country, in fact in the whole region. These are sect (Sunni versus Shia) and to some extent race (Kurd and Persian versus Arab). What is the difference between these two classes of values, that causes them to be treated by the Americans so differently?

The first idea that suggests itself is that Sunni/Shia is the Americans' instrument in a power struggle, and in order to be used as an instrument, the Sunni/Shia theme has to be built up and armed, so to speak, not only with real arms, but also with ideological importance. Hence in the aftermath of the invasion the use of Chalabi and the others to harass Sunnis, and more recently we have the arming of Sunnis to provide "military balance" against the Shiites. This kind of policy wouldn't be even explainable if it were not that "Sunni" and "Shia" are touted as almost military or at least militant and powerful enemies of one another. For which of course there was no real pre-existing evidence at all, and for which the evidence has to be provided by this American media build-up of these. This is so not only in the media sense, but really in terms of arming the two sides respectively.

In other words, the American strategy has been to aggressively sideline anything having to do with nationalism, or social solidarity, or regional loyalty, or any of the other civic virtues that would be so highly praised and prized in any other situation, debunking all of this in Iraq as mere fancy words dressing up the respective groups' roles in a brutal value-free struggle for power. While at the same time the American strategy has been to elevate Sunni-versus-Shia and to a lesser extent racial loyalties to a level of supposedly decisive importance. (If you say this is only a reflection of what happened, you are begging the question. What happened was that the Americans invaded, and they invaded, if not with a particular strategy in mind, at least there was a strategy that was quickly developed).

And the American people have bought into this. People have been expected to believe, and have believed, that nationalism, social solidarity, regional loyalties, and so on, are, in the Iraqi case, essentially nothing but covers for respective roles in a brutal struggle for power. And people have been expected to believe, and have believed, that the struggle in question is "really" religious, that this religion (or these religions) are not a mere cover for anything, but are the real thing, the real motivating forces. (Now you will say that people are gullible and succumbed to the media bombardment, but again I would like to take a step back and see if that isn't another case of begging the question: Why were people ready to believe that?)

Here's a proposed explanation for that part of it: People feel, as part of their overall moral upbringing, an obligation to be universally benevolent and good to one another, and in the Iraqi case the only way to justify the brutality of the invasion and the occupation was to buy the idea of "promoting democracy". Democracy is a "secular" value, an expression of universal equality not dependent on religion or any other factor except for the people themselves. This idea of a pure and religion-free value, and more particularly the idea of "promoting" it in a far-away country like Iraq, carried with it from the beginning a heavy burden of hypocrisy. And when it went wrong, who to blame? Here's where the proposed explanation gets a little "philosophical". Who you blame is you blame those factors that historically had to be overcome in creating an ideology of democracy: primarily religion. You blame, primarily, "Sunnis" and "Shiites" as natural enemies of democracy (as was specifically done in the aftermath of the 2005 and 2006 elections). Never mind that "Sunnis" included nationalists and a variety of other more particular loyalties; or that "Shiites" included a variety of different social loyalties and affiliations. It was all, supposedly, the fault of the Sunni-Shia difference in religion. Certainly the media megaphone was responsible for a lot of the touting of this, but the point I am making is that perhaps there was a preexisting disposition in Westerners to go for this "blame it on religion" approach, as a reflection of the historical archaeology of their whole moral world.

(Charles Taylor talks about "benevolence on demand" as part of the moral world we have inherited ultimately from religion, often bearing with it a latent sense of hypocrisy, and he warns: "The threatened sense of unworthiness can also lead to the projection of evil outward. The bad, the failure is now identified with some other people or group. My conscience is clear because I oppose them, but what can I do? They stand in the way of universal beneficence; they must be liquidated." Pretty clear-sighted, I would say).

And if moral history can help explain the puffing-up of the Sunni-Shia theme as the scapegoat in the story, what about the other side of this? What explains the ease with which people have fallen for the idea that expressions of the other sets of Iraqi values including nationalism and regionalism and so on, have been nothing but instruments and weapons in a power struggle, as opposed to bona fide expressions of values? As I read some of the would-be debunking that has gone on over the last year or so, I get the feeling the debunkers think of this as something like hard-headed realism battling against the naivete of listening to hollow expressions of emotion-laden tradition and the like. In fact I myself have been the target of this "don't listen to their words, look at the killing they are all doing" type of objection whenever I have tried to propound what it was the nationalists, for example, were saying. These expressions of value are merely "rationalizations", and should be debunked, so the argument went, because all these types of "rationalizations", whether emotional or calculating, need to be debunked in principle. All that matters, and all that underlies those types of discourse, is the drive for power or a share in power, and deploying the tools and weapons for that, including these verbal weapons. (Of course those making the claim think they are exempt from that: What they say is a genuine and sincere expression of values, but what everyone else says is a rationalization or an emotional sideshow of some kind).

And here's the philosophical part: This debunking attitude is a distant but living remnant of the Enlightenment idea of the power of (what Taylor called) "disengaged reason" to beat back all the superstitions of religion and tradition and the rest of the bad old medieval world. This "disengaged reason" has had a long and complicated history, but certainly it lives on in various forms, and one of them is this idea of our ability to debunk expressions of mere tradition, authority, prejudice, and so on. But here, in this case, in the Iraq-war context, this debunking "reason" is turned against bona fide expressions of value, merely because these people are thought of as the enemy. It is another example of a living part of our moral history gone bad.

This is all very sketchy. But suppose the above discussion is basically right. Suppose both of these mass-mediated phenomena--the (knee-jerk) condemnation of Sunni/Shia as the obstacle to Iraqi democracy; and the (knee-jerk) debunking of what would otherwise be considered valuable civic virtues--suppose both of them reflect living parts of our cultural heritage, that have gone bad or more likely been manipulable and manipulated to help support the vicious demolition of a great nation and maybe a whole region. What would that mean?

I don't know, but for me what it suggests is that for America to have abandoned the study of its own moral and philosophical history--and the liberal arts in general--is possibly having effects that are far more destructive than some mere "loss of depth and richness in our lives".

And if you don't find the above general line of argument convincing, then how do you propose to explain the fact that Americans are at one and the same time against this war and occupation, and powerless to mobilize to stop it? Isn't it plausible to think that in some way or another (even if not in the ways I suggested here) the moral power that one assumes would be fired up in a case like this has been hijacked or disabled in some way? Is this not worth thinking about?

observations of the roving eye

2007-12-07T20:23:00.000+05:30

i was in iit recently for my kvpy interviews and made a lot of observations. some relevant,some important and some utter bullshit.but i decided to put then down.and i hope many people will learn from them .........
1.iit is a foodies worst nightmare.the food there is among the worst you can find in the world.the paneer is liquid or in some undiscovered state of matter.idli,sambhar,dosas,,,u name it and the mess have left no stones unturned to make a screw-up of the delicacies.and how many days can u survive on pizzas and hotel food.10 days 15 days max...then u get fed up of it.with so many funds going why cant they cook up something nice?i got a theory of my own.if the mess at iit makes nice food,people will actually start eating instead of gobbling the food.this can cause more demand resulting in more production.the cooks will have to work more to cook more food.therefore its better to cook bad food and avoid unnecessary hardships and saving the supplies.
2.there is a misconception that iitians have an excellent life.hostels,living with friends,excellent sports facilities,huge campus,.........but its just novelty.after 4-5 months of the campus,no one goes to these sports facilities and gym .forget that,the student don't even talk to any other fellas
there is absolutely no social life in iit.this is the precisely why iit has festivals at such a large scale.
the festivals make students interact with people and improve their pathetic mental state.the daily routine of students there is wake up ,go to college,sit on computer ,eat, and sometimes study...no other activities.no wonder obesity cases have been springing up and suicide are occurring at iit.
iit students have become zombies.their lives are sucked by the Internet.god help them!
3.i also saw the textbooks and subjects which they use.the mumbai university and iit has almost the same subjects and even some same textbooks(those people also refer balguruswamy).then where does the difference lie.why is iit 100 times better then mumbai university.the difference lies in the mentality of the students.the students there learn for knowledge.they apply what they learn.they got to the core of the subject and learn because they want to.if they learn microprocessors they will try to do something with microprocessors.they update their knowledge.the people at mumbai university study for marks,people study for placements.even the professors here encourage this behaviour.we never apply what we learn.we just want go pass this four years.and the few people who actually want to learn something are suppressed.at the end of four years the student of m.u.cant even make a radio.robots to m.u.means a wooden plank and 2 motors...kids have better toys yaar....while iitians can actually design a fully autonomous robots.
during my stay i realised that how pathetic this mentality is and i decided never..no matter what the pressure,to go into such a mentality and become a stereotype engineer.i also want people to ask themselves...do you study for knowledge or just marks????

i had my say....my rest observations can be obtained by meeting me first hand...also u r free to discuss about this if you want to...

good night and good luck
==========================NEONSTEIN==============================

ragging rage

2007-12-01T05:42:00.000+05:30

dedicated to serpentine;

Indu Antos, promising student and a keen violinist, painter and poet, was 16 when she died after being ragged in her college in August 1998.
Nine years have gone by and Indu’s parents haven’t got justice against people who had harassed and traumatized her. Indu’s father C L Antos was a management consultant but now all his time is spent fighting in courts and her mother is still in shock. Indu Villa in Chalakudy town of Kerala is still in mourning.
Indu studied in the Class XI in Mumbai's prestigious Sophiya College. Her parents got a call on August 4, 1998 that their daughter had died after falling off the third floor of the college hostel.

Indu had been in the college for 14 days but in that short period she had written home that she was being abused and harassed by her seniors every day. C L Antos says Indu’s letters mention that she was forced to dance naked, smoke, take drugs and take part in “sexual perversions”.

“She complained and on her behalf I took up this matter with the authorities twice or thrice. That was a mistake. After I complained, Indu was summoned in front of the principal. The people Indu had accused—Melissa and company—of ragging threatened her. That day Indu called me and said she was ready to leave the college,” says C L Antos.
Indu last called home on August 3 and a day later she was dead. Sophia College, which has the backing of the Church, said it was a suicide but an autopsy confirmed she had 27 injuries before death.

Indu’s diary says Melissa D’Souza, a final year B.Sc. student, and Greta Collasco, a Class XII student, had ragged her. The High Court accepted as Indu’s diary as her dying declaration but that didn’t lead to arrests. C L Antos’s only victory was that the court ruled that Indu was murdered.

“Society has made us orphans; Sophia College has made me an orphan. She was the light of my family and now she is gone,” says C L Antos.

Ragging begins in schools
Sridhar would have understood the Antos family’s tragedy if he hadn’t lost his sanity after being savagely beaten and thrown off a train by school bullies.
Sridhar, 22, was a Class X student of the National School in Tambaram, Chennai, five years ago. He abruptly stopped going to school one day and would lock himself up in his room and not talk to anyone.

He left home after lunch one day and was found hours later in a hospital with a hand cut off. It was then that his family came to know that Sridhar had stopped school because he feared bullies who ragged him every day.
The day he was found in the hospital the school bullies had caught him near a railway station and beat him up after pulling him inside a train. When the train started moving, the bullies threw him out and Sridhar fell on the tracks unconscious.
Thirty minutes later Sridhar woke up to find his hand ripped off and a train speeding towards him. He was bleeding but managed to pick himself and walk to a station.

Doctors later found that he had lost hearing in one ear too.
Sridhar lost his mind after that day. A promising young man now mumbles: "I don't like my name; Manoj is my name. Tamil has destroyed me—Spanish, Italian all good. They laugh at Tamil” and keeps asking his grandmother what happened to his arm.
Any mention of school or books gets him agitated. "I don't want to go to school, don't like it," he says.

Sridhar’s tormentors fled Chennai after that day and the police has now closed the file. His grandparents, who look after him, are old and unaware that their grandson is severely traumatised.

Indu and Sridhar’s tormentors were young but psychologists have long warned that ragging or vindictive behaviour is becoming common in schools.
“There is no age for this. We have got cases where the ragger was eight,” says psychologist Aruna Broota.

Don’t crib, don’t snitch School or college, obscure institute or prestigious IITs and IIMs, ragging has become a norm. In 2003, over a hundred new students or ‘freshers’ were stripped naked and paraded in the corridors of IIT Delhi’s Kumaon Hostel.
ragging has taken on a “sexual connotation” and a “pathological connotation. “You are trying to torture somebody by forcing him to undress, pulling his private parts—you are trying to ridicule somebody and you absolutely enjoying torturing.”

Rajendra Nikunj was a student in smit college and was harassed and tortured for six months.
Nikunj, who lives in Bhopal, almost went insane and it took him three years to recover from the trauma. “They used to forcibly take us in the rooms and beat us,” says Nikunj, who hinted he was molestation too.

Nikunj’s father, Ran Mohan Ram, admits he knew his son was being tortured but asked him to continue at the college for a better career. “I kept telling him to do whatever they asked him to. After all his future was at stake,” says Ram.
Nikunj was in psychiatric care for over two years and changed college after recovering. “I wish that in future no student faces or suffers what I had to go through,” he says.

The Madhya Pradesh Human Rights Commission ordered a probe into the case, but Nikunj and his father gave written statements to the enquiry denying any incident of ragging. Ram says he doesn’t want his son's trauma to play out in public.
And its not just parents, even students are wary of reporting ragging cases. Akshay, an undergraduate student, too believes that one must not snitch.
“If you do that, for the next few years you will be known as a person who snitched. I think your self-esteem and respect in the college—all of it—would go for a six. There is a social stigma to complaining about ragging,” says Akshay.
It’s no excuse Hostel space is considered to be a completely private domain. The biggest mistake a fresher can make is to complain to authorities, like the warden or the principal, who are considered outsiders.

Ragging cases are increasing because of this don’t-snitch mentality. Andhra Pradesh has reported the highest number of ragging cases (23) in the last years out: 21 cases were made public a landmark Supreme Court ruling on ragging in 2001. In UP, 21 out of 22 cases have come in the last six years. In West Bengal 19 ragging cases have been reported after the 2001 ruling.

The common excuse for ragging is that it helps break the ice between students but that argument is now considered indefensible and the Supreme Court has forbade the practice.

Some campuses now ‘break the ice’ between students through induction programmes and counselling. IIT Kanpur has a proactive induction programme that makes new students feel at home, not humiliated.

IIT Kanpur’s programme 'ensures' a 'zero-ragging' environment and asks seniors to be friends and mentors to new students. But such peer interaction is rare in other institutes. The Supreme Court’s ruling holds institutions accountable for ragging, so though colleges may warn students there is no guarantee that trouble-makers will be kept at bay.(dont ask me whether its working or not,,,u all know the answer)

T Bhaskar Rao, president of the Sri Lok Bandhu Educational Society, says his educational institutes are very serious against ragging and have committees to keep a watch. Rajendra, 18, wishes Rao had been as sincere last year. Rajendra joined a course in the Thandra Paparaya Engineering College, which is run by the Rao’s society, in Vijaynagaram in 2005.

Nine days later, Rajendra’s life was ruined. Drunken seniors took on Rajendra, angry that he had not turned up for a ragging session. An ugly fight started and Rajendra slipped off the roof and fell on high-voltage power cables. He lost a hand and damaged a leg.

The incident occurred five yrs after the SC judgment and three years after his own college had constituted an anti-ragging committee. “When I was in hospital some parents told me how they lost their children due to ragging. Seniors cut off a student’s ears. Many families were too poor to do any thing against culprits,” says Rajendra, who has now left the engineering college.
Ragging hasn’t defeated Rajendra though. “I've lost my hand and I have a damaged leg but I have decided to cope with the situation. Everybody has 100 percent but I've only 50 percent. But I will continue to utilise that 50 percent and aim for 100 percent,” he says.

People say ragging is harmless fun—it wasn’t for Indu, Sridhar and Rajendra.