Influence or Choice

Many a times I have heard this statement : " The influence of the Western Culture has ruined our ..... " or something similar. And the context ofcourse is Indian culture , values and traditions.
I thought about it and my Axiom of Choice philosophy tells me that it is immature and a bit harsh on the West to categosie everything we do blindly as an influence.
Humans are superior animals because of their ability to rationally and logically think on things that come their way and it is nothing more than being stupid to categorise a rational and logical choice as an undue or unwanted influence.

Their are plethora of ills and illogical acts imbibed in Indian tradition and if the West can be smart enough to pick up the good ones for themselves like Yoga , Meditation , Faith & Belief , why cant we be wise enough to do the same when it comes to picking up things from Western culture. In any case I have not seen any European complain about bad influences of the Indian culture.
A concrete example was when I told one of my German colleague that my family denied the proposal of a nice , decent girl because our horoscopes did not match. Now that is something common in Indian society and I am no exception to be forced into believing that. But my colleague's 2 line explanation of that was : Future life is based on how we perform and not on position of stars and to him it was a ridicule and illogical. Well a die hard astrologer can argue with him but the bottom line is he agrees to be driven in life by logic and reason and he has no complaints. He is being uniform in his actions and thoughts.

On one hand we boast of the scientific though process we posess and on other we leverage in an negative sense to get rid of our wrong doings by imposing it on some one else.

We all must try and bring uniformity is what we think , say and do. To end , let me quote Kabir:
"Mansa , Vaacha , Karmna , Kabir Sumiran Saar ".
Meaning : What we think should be what we say and what we say should be what we should do.

The Reservation Debacle

And it has struck back with even more disastrous proportions, yes; it's the same devil which people call reservation. One does not have to go down long in the memory lane to recollect the pictures of young students (budding Engineers & Doctors) and intellectuals like Shiv Khera and the alumni of some of the best institutions of education in India. The uproar of Youth for Equality is still fresh at least in the hearts of those who would ultimately be affected. As they say , we all must invest in future , but here we find a perfect example of how to destroy the future , and yes it is the same old formula of slow and steady wins the race , but sadly here the win will be a national disaster( no less).
I assume that the petty politics of implementing reservations in elite institutions of India did not fetch enough votes to the so called law-makers of our country and hence they have started yet another round to completely eradicate "Quality" from the institutions that are not only the best in India but those who compete with the best in the world. And what more comical than to hear from our dear policy makers that: "Institutions like IITs, IIMs and AIIMS are no-where among the best in the world". I can't help but laugh at the above quote.
I remember sometime back a chain of e-mails which presented certain facts and the conclusion was that if all Indians come back to India, US would be in big trouble with some of its premier institutions like NASA being forced to shut down because of shortage of people. And the govt. says that IITs and IIMs are not the best? Are we to deny the long list of entrepreneurs ( including N.R. Narayana Murthy (co-founder and chairman of Infosys), Vinod Khosla (co-founder, Sun Microsystems), Anurag Dikshit (co-founder of PartyGaming) and Suhas S. Patil (founder and Chairman Emeritus Cirrus Logic Inc.) )that these institutions have produced? Are we saying that the companies having IITians and IIM graduates in their top-management (Rajat Gupta (former Managing Director, McKinsey), Arun Sarin (CEO, Vodafone), Victor Menezes (Senior Vice Chairman, Citigroup), and Kanwal Rekhi (CTO, Novell)) are fools? Are we saying that the Wall Street firms paying them comparable or more salaries than any Harward, Princeton, Caltech graduate or post graduate are wasting their money? Are we saying that Professors from the "top-rated" world universities prefer Indian students as their co-researchers because they have a certain Indian quota to fill? Are we denying the IIT, IIM brand? One can only laugh at the wisdom of someone denying the famous brand name that these institutions have set.
Myself being a part of one of the best Wall Street firms in business and seen people from all "top-rated" universities, I can definitely say that our Indian elite institutions like IITs, IIMs definitely draw respect and lots of it from everyone. What is even more distressing is that this time the politicians have decided not to dilute the quality of these institutions but to strike at the very base of the entire structure. Rather than looking towards constructive solutions to fill the already shortage of quality professors in IITs and IIMs, they are proposing reservation for the teachers as well.
If we look back at the start of IIT and realize that a young nation was willing to poured very precious resources into creating this institution. Most people back then didn't understand how important science and engineering would be and yet the early leaders who got behind IIT obviously saw through and knew that the long-term investment would have a huge payout. Prime Minister Nehru described IIT as representing India's urges, India's future in the making and the people here and the other graduates of IIT have made that come true. Can any of these modern day fanatic politicians answer for me why Nehru did not introduce reservation in IITs at that time if this was the destination? Why IITs were given autonomy from the bureaucracy of govt. while it continued in every other sector. Of course there are special reasons behind that and the present day law-makers cannot destroy what has been achieved in the last 40 years.
What a pity? The very idea makes me shiver with fear. I am sorry to say that the prudent govt. has just lost the plot completely. The very idea of introducing reservation was to help the underprivileged to move up in ladder in society but that did not include breaking the upper stairs in the ladder and boasting that now everyone is equal. This policy is nothing but an attempt to degrade whatever progress India as a nation has made and them project that all are at equal now.
Is it not discrimination towards those who are meritorious? What mindset they will have while entering a classroom? Someone is teaching them not because he has the desired skills but because he is from a particular cast. No one can deny the fact that teaching is all about inculcating interest for the subject in the students and I fear that all the students would be discouraged from the start and that leads us nowhere.

I have a few requests to make, and I direct them to different groups of people.
First , let me request our dear policy makers to not being short sighted in their vision, not being bull headed while taking decisions that affect the nation, and understand the intricacies of matter before generalizing. Reservations are not going to take the country forward, it is the sacrifice that each individual has to make to steer the country in the right direction. We are witnessing a reverse brain drain in Indian context and let it continue, don't mar it. Please stop using the magic of reservation for your few votes.
I would also like to request all those Indians who have self-respect, who have faith in their abilities. Come on, till when we will be idle, till when we will see our country driven by vote bank politics than logic and common sense. By introducing this reservation for the teachers in premier institutions, the politicians are not only gathering some votes but it's a slap on our face saying we don't have enough zeal to get things done our way. Its discrimination to all who have hopes of doing something good in future. It's denting our ambitions, our plans, our future.
Please stand up against it and be counted, it's high time we do so!

The concentration of Life.

I still remember the titrations I did in my Chemistry Lab in class 11th and 12th and the importance of having exactly the same concentrations in order to have the color formation. On my favorite habit of relating academic things to life, I will try to interpret the "molarity"or normality or in non-technical terms the right concentration of life. How should we live our lives, how should we have the right mix of emotions? Where do we stand as of today and where actually should we?
Let us look at where we are today! The "should be" life as we all define is one which is full of joy, happiness, love, care, affection. Childhood dreams of a romantic date, a warm hug, a passionate kiss, a heavenly feeling on special occasions are what we put in our "should" be life. But cometh the mid of the 20s and we are disillusioned. We interpret life as something very harsh, practical, and rude and attach all sorts of adjective which make us realize that it is not a fairy tale as assumed. Many just take things as they come and call themselves the realists and few think about it and get confused.
I don’t know how many appreciate the fact that we ourselves have to take the blame for facing this jolt of the so called "reality". Crushes, affairs, relationships are the norm of the day. We all have them at some point of time and that "point" is surely before the disillusionment point. Have not we felt the emotions sometime? How many times can you use your emotions? Or better put how many times can you feel the same intensity of the same emotion. Using the titration analogy, I remember I used to run my base too fast and go a lil beyond the titre point and then almost always faked by putting a few more drops of acid ;). Are we ready to put that extra bit of zest in the second or possible third or more relationship of ours? Think over it, for feeling the same heavenly feelings again and making the relationship work exactly the way we want, we need that creativity, we need that fire within ourselves first. We have had felt those divinely emotions at some point of time and to appreciate them again or to derive the same pleasure out of them, we must consciously make efforts to enjoy them.
The Age of Seducers: I would not categorize myself as being audacious by declaring the present times to be the age of seducers. After having heart burn so many times (ironically, people still go for it, even after failing once, twice, thrice! I guess the search for happiness is ever continuingJ), people have categorized themselves as realists and anti-social. They have the repressed emotions. Repression from society, repression from themselves sometimes, they just want to break free. Any person giving them a sense of feeling of freedom would be so easily received that you need nothing more than a gentle push to start moving. In fact it would be a free flow without any natural resistance.
I would conclude by saying that it is not a bad thing to live your life as this but be brave to appreciate that you have had your share of feelings and next be generous to give the people their share of feelings. J There is nothing bad in taking the maximum out of life and breaking out of the norms but surely repenting should not be the culmination. :)

The Toughest Situations When It Comes To Decision Making.

Talking in the language of electrical engineers , its important to grasp where the signal changes by a lot. In mathematics similar phenomenon is captured by the first derivative , that is , slope. The similar situation in life is when you have to take decisions. Ofcourse what counts is that how many you took right considering that its important to get the important one's right as well.
We often find ourselves in a tussle when we have to decide in life based on an scenario. Its easy if there is only one or few options and one stands out in comparision of all the others.
Its difficult when we have two competing alternatives. In this category , I find the situation described below as the worst possible base case scenario.

Consider a decision in which you have the two option ( obviously competing ) as follows: 1. It is in accordance with what you have believed in or something you are totally passioante about. 2. The intellect compels you to have this option which goes totally against your conviction so far. You are lost completely between yourself and the self which is doubting your own self.
Imagine having an passion you are really obsessed with which you have carried with great vigour and tenacity thus far in life and you dearly wish to hold on but the intellect argues against the eventuality in which you will be deprived off that passion of yours. Where do you go ? What do you do ?
The pessimists would give in and accept the defeat but what about an enthuthiast or a positivist? Is not it fighting an eventually lost battle and you dont loose physically but mentally and spiritually as well? You start doubting your own decisions where you actually started such an passion and aplied so much of resporces to it? Was it an intellectually correct decision ( is acutally you ever made it ? ).
Can you increase your efforts in the hope that things would be better for you? I would do that but to be true I really dont judge this decision of mine. But i have to do it because i took the decision at some point of time and i should not let myself down at this moment.
I guess it is the most distressing thing in life , When you start doubting your own convictions. :-)

Contradiction in Relationships

Today i wish to propose something and here is what it is:
" There is inherent contradiction in all relationships. "

I will be true to the mathematician in me and will try and supply a proof of the above statement although i know that the realms of human emotions , feelings and interactions is not an easy field to generalize things. I recall one person who i adore a lot saying this ( although in a totally different context ) : " where there are human involved , there is inherent certainty". I dont feel like substantiating this because it is kind of obvious , infact that's the major advantage of a machine over humans.

Anyone who is not always sleeping or have a feel of what's happening around can see where we are heading towards when we come to the domain of human relationships. I am not going to compare or contrast things with the past, the only thing i will say is that things which are in progress or the processes that are happening are not ideal.

Let us start by looking at a relationship , generally people meet each other and fall for each other ( although i firmly believe that they dont give themselves enough time to learn more about each other ,which might have helped them eventually). Ok fine , its only being human to be not perfect. The relationship matures , the harsh reality starts biting you , some start repenting on whether they should have thought about the same a bit harder intially. At least one of the parties believes that they have been cheated , or the other partner has been unfair to them. Does this suit any logic ? You are in love with a person one day and he/she means a world to you and the very next day because of "something" he/she seems to be worse than anyone else on this planet ? Is this discontinuiy justifiable ? Is not nature a smooth system? I totally believe in the continuity of the human thoughts and emotions and their behaviour , that is something we should ideally follow , but we are being discontinous about things and that is what is hurting us.
Ofcourse some relationships carry on for long and they do tend to achieve lows in affection ,care for each other but that is alright when we consider that there has to be a change at some point of time , but this change is gradual and assimilating and it does not produce pain.

Even if we are too lineant towards ourselves , and can justify these things for once or twice in the wake of the argument that "to err is being human", I want to look at those who go into relationships and with EXPECTATIONS , with HOPE where they already have been deserted on at least twice on previous occasions. Are not these expectations follishness ? Is not this hope desperate attempt for nothing?

That is why when i see people holding hands and showing theya re ind eep love with each other , i cant es cape myself having a smile and a nod of head. I am not saying they are faking but there is something that is not just right.
Seems contradictory to me at least :)

The senselessness of sense.

Let us examine the relation between bliss and senses. Ofcourse we must make sense most of the times , But when it comes to bliss , i am not so sure whether senses are required at all. Infact i propose that we must nullify the senses in order to achieve bliss.

I wish to propose an inverse relationship between sense and bliss. To substantiate , let us recall all those states when we have extreme happiness or when we feel that we are close to bliss.
When we are ecstatic , are we in senes ? My stance : No , we are not.

Think of a situation when we consume alcohol , we are in a state where our senses are depressed, but we forget things , we get relieved of the worries and tensions that have haunted us for evry second of our time.
Think of making passionate love to your soul mate, are you in senses ? No you are not , Infact the height of pleasure is the point we have no control on our senses. Is not it ?
Think of someone who has just got news that he topped in an examination , the joy takes over the control from the senses. When do we get the best of sleeps ? When we are totally exhausted and have drained out all of our energy. There is that intoxication within ourselves which serves to take control away from senses.
I just wonder whether it makes any sense to really care about the senses at times ?

My final word on this , Senses can give us satisfaction but it is senselessness that gets us pleasure.