Tattoo on my naked soul!

I will be turning 26 in a few days time. And I wonder what have I achieved…On reflection I realize all the promise of youth has been wasted. My maker endowed me with so much talent but right now I am a nobody. The struggles seem endless, successes few. I just want to write down what I am going through.

There are many things I could argue in my defence for a lack of success. Back surgery, a sisters death. So much I could claim, but at the end of the day what I measure myself against is the scoreboard and it reads 0 right now.

The first goal I set myself was to make it to Princeton University. Studied for that from a 1987 edition second hand book I found at a flea shop. Lacked parental support. Never made it. Failed miserably. The score read 0

The last major goal I set for myself was IIM Ahmedabad. Never made it. Bore the taunts of my batchmates at UBS, who laughed at me for dreaming so big. But nevertheless made it to FMS. Sort of a consolation prize. The score still reads 0

Now in this hurdle I aspire to become a Foreign Service Officer! No less! I don’t want this to end up like another consolation prize where they say “Son, here is your ticket to the Indian Revenue Service. You can catch Lalajees who shirk tax”

Nevertheless I am in real danger of ending up in that scenario with my terrible hand writing…In my previous attempt at this exam, I scored a pathetic 47/300 in my strongest paper, thanks to my handwriting…. I fear failure so much. Even if the Indian Revenue Service be a great success for my parents and friends….

But you know what? One thing has not changed…The innocence might be gone but my eyes are still as filled  with hope as it was ten years back! I still have that magical Pandorean gift-Hope! I still have belief… Its difficult but somewhere inside me I still believe in myself. Somewhere my Body still trembles with hope and inspiration as I pass the Foreign Service Institute in Ber Sarai..

My clothes are faded. Am tired of the same Dal rice for lunch for the last one and a half years but I just refuse to quit. As Ernest Hemingway pointed out “Man can be destroyed but not defeated!” And as I find washing clothes is actually good exercise!

Right now I think there is only one person who thinks I am a genius and backs me all the time without doubting me ever to beat all the odds…And that’s none other than me! Eagles never flew in flocks! :P

I really don’t know if I will make it. There are too many variables involved. But I know this fire and desire in my eyes of hope shall Never die! Till I am alive!

Sabu and The Iron Sheikh v/s Tarzan Goto and The DIplomat

It has been 13 months since I started on this preparation for the UPSC and it seems I have not made much headway. So a lot of people advise me that I should have a back up plan. So what exactly should be my back up plan?

Apart from Academics and a regular job I am a bit lost. So I wonder if I cant be a diplomat what can I be?....

I have been watching a lot of wrestling these days. The Lebanese American wrestler Sabu is my favorite.[1] . One of Sabu’s legendary barbed wire matches was with Tarzan Goto a Japanese wrestler who was just 5’9 in height-my height.

I also recall from the old days IRS the wrestler who was supposed to be a Federal Tax Collector.

So let us put 2 and 2 together. I want to be a diplomat, I love wrestling and there was also a wrestler IRS who was a tax collector.[2]

How about a wrestling career? I could possibly be billed as The Diplomat and come dressed for every match in a suit and tie. So I must have a punchline. Just like Stonecold Steve Austin used to have a punch line, “Why? because Stonecold said so!!” And the Rock had the punchline “If you smellllll what the rock is cooking!!!”, I could possibly have the punchline “Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!! Because the Diplomat said so!!!” Since Geography is my optional my finishing move should involve a globe. One of my finishing moves would obviously be my smashing the globe on the opponents head with the Punchline “There shall be no war!!!”

How about my Theme Song? I have zeroed in on two three songs…One could be Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan ……no no no the reference is a rather negative one “You used to sit on a plumed horse with your diplomat, who carried on his shoulder a Siamese Cat, Now you realize he isn’t as well as that,..After he took from you everything he could steal!”

How about For the Greater good of God by Iron maiden? “Are you a man of peace, a man of holy war? Too many sides to you , don’t know which anymore” No No even this is a negative reference and considering that the reference is to Christian zealots and considering that India is a secular country it just would not do!

Finally I have the option of Choosing a very socially appropriate song and modifying it “We are the world, we are the people” from Live Aid 1985. I could possibly modify the lyrics to “We are the diplomats! We save the people”

And so I teeter on the verge of insanity!

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[1] Sabu is named after the Indian Hollywood actor of the 1940’s Sabu Dastangir who shot to prominence with the pre world war 2 film Sabu the Elephant boy

[2] For the Uninformed IRS can be taken as a pun on the Indian Revenue Service!

Turning 25

One benefit of the evolution of human beings is rationality. Which potentially gives us the ability to stand ‘apart’ from ourselves and look at our condition from a neutral perspective. Like most intelligent people I pondered on the essential existential questions such as “where do we come from” , “what is the purpose of life” during my teenage years and as with most people the phase of questioning passed and I entered a secular life like everyone else.
The ensuing ten years saw me battle personal tragedies, ill health and a rather difficult (by most accounts) transition to adulthood. I was battered sufficiently to have a deeper understanding of life , its purpose and conduct. But once again the old demons have risen.
Beyond the purely materialistic and worldly is there indeed a purpose to my life? None of money, power or prestige particularly fascinate me. And I believe I am rational enough to see that ties of love and kinship are not bounden enough to compel me to stay. The love of my parents will die with them. With the other relations I have cultivated in this existence I know my existence is not an inviolable condition to their continuance. Friends might weep for me, perhaps sorrow for years but these ties definitely will not compel them to follow me to a potential after life or void. A marriage is again contingent on my entering into a social contract the primary purpose of which seems to be continuance of the blood line, which seems to me to be an absolutely bestial proclivity.
One dream I did have was to leave behind a great work of art, which would be immortal and immortalise me as a creator. But I am sure someone among the Phoenicians too might have had such tendencies. (None of their works survive). But leave aside the Phoenicians, I have come to doubt the utility of such immortality. Within many families and clans there are similar claimants to filial immortality. But what truly is the potential of such immortality? To be honest nothing. I am reminded of the poem Ozymandias by Shelley. In the rare case I am well remembered it would merely be a servicing of my already dead ego and that of my potential descendants.
When I think of myself I have the dubious distinction of having rejected every stage of my life in the subsequent stages for some reason or the other. Most of my friends do not regard my opinions or words as consistent and dismiss my ’mutually contradictory’ opinions as an eccentricity to be ignored. But when I evaluate myself I feel this inconsistency has less to do with moral or intellectual confusion and more to do with my looking at every new phase in the hope of finding something rational and consistent I could believe in. Unfortunately every time I have been disappointed with mere simulacrums. I lack the worldliness and pettiness to contend myself with a regular corporate/government job and the wife-and-kids routine. And presently have no higher purpose. The only reason perhaps I pull on is the anguished and world weary faces of my aged parents who have had more than their fair share of tragedies and suffering.
I really don’t know if there is grace in living like this. It surely is painful and the ennui and vapidity seem interminable

It Flows...

Finally I am home. The prodigal, the wastrel…I watch as the rain drop slowly drips into my tea cup. Drip Drip Drip slowly and sing to me of the coming rains….The last time I had seen the rains dripping down seems so far away. A low hanging flight over oceans ,snow capped peaks and the parched dust bowls takes me to the embryo of my memory….its long back..maybe a decade. The blush of winters kisses on my cheeks had still not faded. I am standing in a slowly fading suspension of memory. In the shimmering of the lights at twilight at a distance distance I can see the peaks of Kasauli and Solan…Whisper to me Oh Winds gushing from silent lands..where the Sun’s warmth is sipped on lonely winding paths up hill sides. And in the distance the Pahari song is wafted to me by that mellow but sallow wind across time and space..
No ones home,as I take a puff on the precipice of memory a single thunderclap resounds across the valleys, the peaks and reaches my longing ears..And then it happens. A drop falls on my forehead.. A tingle in my nerves warms the spaces within…And I know Winter has truly arrived…with An itinerant droplet from across the Levant as its harbinger..
Yes the time is right..for resting my tired spirit on the anvil of destiny…And So forth..From Here to Eternity…..

A theoretical problem

The drive of the human spirit stems more from emotion than from rationality. Rationality is more of a driver in that it enables us to actualise the possibilities we envisage. Be the possibility an Olympic medal, an award winning Film, A polio vaccine, a casual sexual encounter or even a murder. Emotion is what helps us see the possibilities. For that matter even an unproved theorem of pure mathematics is not purely rational. It originated with a fascination about that particular area of Maths and was evolved by intuition.
The need to subjugate emotion to rationality has been stressed by many including philosophers and so called Gods right from Krishna to modern day gurus like Robin Sharma. But even then we are left with a gamut of emotions to deal with, master and improve.
I will not talk about the negative emotions here. Christianity with its seven deadly sins serves as a reasonable guide to negative emotions. I intend to deal with positive emotions. Posit a hierarchy of them and look to your opinion and your hierarchy as these are highly disputable matters
The positive emotions that come to mind include love, caring, nurturing, respect including self respect, protectiveness, sympathy, pity, admiration, gratitude, compassion. (I do not include aspects as Motherly love, fatherly love, brotherly love, altruism, inspiration in this category as they are combinations of the above emotions. A Combination of caring nurturing and loving make the mother figure; A combination of Loving, protectiveness and enforcing respect become fatherly love, and a combination of love and caring becomes altruism. Patriotism is a combination of loving gratitude, admiration and protectiveness). If I had to prioritise these, this would be my list from lowest to highest. 10 is the highest and the best
1) Sympathy
2) Admiration
3) Respect
4) Pity
5) Protectiveness
6) Loving
7) Gratitude
8) Caring
9) Nurturing
10) Compassion

The discerning reader will observe one thing at first sight of this list. The scope of the emotion reduces as you go down. You are sympathetic towards many, admire and respect some, protect love and care for a few, nurture maybe just a couple of people in your life- your children and compassion! Ah that golden feeling is rarest today. DO not mistake pity or sympathy for compassion. Pity and sympathy are purely reactive forces , a product of “If I were in his place” they do not involve acceptance.
Most of the list is obvious but still I think I need to clarify a few points which are

1) Why does respect score so low?
2)Why not sympathy over admiration?
3) Why Caring over Love?
4) Why pity above respect?
5) Why Nurturing over Caring?
6) Why Gratitude over loving?
7)And foremost why compassion foremost?

Feel free to skip any discussion you feel you do not require

1) Why does respect score so low?
One thing I have observed is the human tendency to proceeding from respect to deification or unquestioning obeisance. This is an attitude I notice particularly towards parents. We tend to not even think once that our parents may be unjust in their dealings say with a maid servant. Even in the professional sphere I see so many people simply refusing to argue points out with their bosses and taking opinions at face value. This goes against the heuristic of progress. 4 out of 5 times our boss may be right but the marginal improvement that was possible in the 5th is missed out. At the least arguing a point out clears your thinking process about the decision

2) Why not sympathy over admiration?
Sympathy is a feeling that rarely excites more than a cluck of the tongue and a few words. On the contrary admiration has a greater ability of enforcing positive behavior both for the self and for the group. Admiration is often what translated into inspiration and then on into action. Sympathy rarely translates into say charity

3) Why Caring over Love?
As a language lover I can tell you the word Love is the one of the most abused words in every language. It has been given so many meanings of which most are mistaken. In its purest sense love means a feeling of reciprocity and specialness with someone. The problem with love is it involves anticipated reciprocity. If you doubt that remember that there is some truth to the old sexist English adage “Hell hath no fury like a woman spurned”. On the contrary caring does not always expect reciprocity. This reminds me of the beautiful Booker winning book English Patient and also how Nursing is indeed as noble a profession as medicine.

4) Why pity above respect?
This is an important distinction to make. First you must be clear that pity is NOT sympathy. Pity implies action, sympathy does not. Also you must have noted my observation on respect blinding us to others faults. Thus pity ranks higher. You must also wonder why pity is ranked so low. It is simply because pity is quite often a post facto emotion and also it does not last very long. You can care for a person for years but pity rarely lasts more than a few minutes. Also being a post facto emotion pity often is compensatory in nature than just

5) Why Nurturing over Caring?
Nurturing and caring are very similar emotions. Some might call it a semantic difference but by definition nurturing helps a person grow. Caring on the other hand is a conservative force. It might prevent someone from degenerating but rarely does it help a person grow. This focus on developing another individual makes nurturing a better emotion to foster

6) Why Gratitude over loving?
This is a vital difference. Gratitude as an emotion does not begin with your action. It begins with someone else’s action progresses to your feeling of gratitude and your reciprocal action. Do not mistake gratitude for reciprocal altruism or in simpler words “ you scratch my back I scratch yours “ behavior. Gratitude also forms emotional ties between the two people. Reciprocal altruism forms rational ties. And in relationships just as your personal ties are more important than your professional your emotional ties are more important than your rational. Love on the other hand is a mutual feeling, there is no feeling of obligation of origination. This makes love a slightly inferior feeling

7) And foremost why compassion foremost?
“How Can I Complain of Injustice in this world when the dreams of those who sleep on feather beds are no more beautiful than the dreams of those who sleep on the hard earth” Kahlil Gibran
These words of one of the Most compassionate poets of all time echo in my ears. The beauty of compassion lies in the following. Every person I know is engrossed in the concerns of his own life, some grapple with illness. Others with deaths of loved ones, yet others with financial issues. To each his problems are foremost and he defines his reality in terms of his limitations, his aspirations and his means to reach them. Each one struggles but still never comes to terms with his own trauma and defines his boundaries within it.. The beauty of compassion as an emotion is that it helps us transcend our self set boundaries, our walls of perception. Mind you it is not the same as pity and sympathy. They are reactive feelings. Compassion is proactive. You just don’t feel bad about something that happened to somebody( Sympathy/ Pity), You FEEL the same pain it in your veins and at the same time you have the wisdom and the perspicacity to think of a solution to not just the specific trouble but to the generic. Compassion opens you up the possibility of entering and accepting other worlds and other realities. And most importantly compassion cleanses. No sorrow, slight or hurt is too much for a person who knows compassion. You can understand that sorrows are collective as are joys, that slights are always enacted by people who did not experience sufficient love or nurturing in their lives, and that hurts are not permanent. For every family members death you face and every illness you undergo you know for every person among your family and friends who shares your burden there are a million children who have never known a family or a true friend. Compassion is not a reactive feeling as compassion is what stirs you to lead a braver, more difficult, eventful, challenging life. And truly a more fulfilling life.

And yes revenge indeed is the purest emotion! Darkness always comes before light!

A simple piece

This essay deals with the difficulty of choosing a suitable response with strangers to both hostile and friendly behavior and how in the end it is always better to go for a “tit for tat” rather than being persistently vindictive.
Ever since I shifted to Ahmedabad I have had a problem finding a decent place for food. Either you have the small Thepla, Dabeli, Khandwa sellers or the Expensive Restaurants. Luckily for me one day I chanced upon a nice Udipi Hotel very near my hotel. It was a very small place and consisted of a cook, a helper cum waiter and an occasionally present proprietor. It was not too popular. The menu was not exactly wide with hardly 30 dishes on the menu which reduced to about 8 if you discounted the various variants of dosa and uttapam. It became my regular haunt for dinner. Over time they came to recognize me as a regular patron and the waiter who happened to be South Indian exchanged smiles whenever I came or left. I also used to tip him handsomely
The issue I deal with took place when I visited the place after a gap of 2 3 days. It had just been pay day and I chose to eat at rather exotic places in the interregnum. Normally I used to order a curd rice, a sambhar rice and a couple of papads. Today I decided to substitute the curd rice for two sandwiches. One a butter sandwich and the other a cheese Jam sandwich priced at 10 Rs and 30 Rs respectively. As usual the service was swift and I was given a plate with 4 quarters of a slice of bread and butter. The slices seemed unusually thin which made me realize that there was hardly any butter in it. My first reaction was of disappointment and anger. The second was whether I should protest and make a fuss to which a permissive inner voice told me “After all we have been exchanging smiles and been friendly for the past two months, why raise a fuss, after all it is priced at Just Rs 10”. Then spoke the Services MBA in me who remembered the gyaan guest speakers at conclaves had given about how we were moving from “customer delight” to “customer ecstasy”. Of course yet another inner voice told me that all that was gas and I should just lump it. Nevertheless I called the waiter and showing a slice to him asked “where is the butter? He replied “inside the pores”. It was not meant to be an insolent reply but it got on my nerves . I raised my voice and gave him an earful including telling him to price it at 20 if he wanted but not present such a charade before me again. By this time the owner also came over and took the sandwich to be buttered again and smiled at me to placate me. When it was brought back there was far more butter on it, sufficient for a 10 Rs sandwich. I had my meal and was leaving without tipping. I realized they might try and be friendly to me. I decided I would walk out in a huff without returning their smiles. And indeed they did smile at me both the proprietor and the waiter. They were genuine and simple hearted smiles especially the waiters. Now naturally I am a polite person and instinctively wanted to smile back. But I walked on. I was thinking to myself what must their motivation to smile at me be? Surely business interest? Or the familiarity we shared? Or Both? BY this point I was quite a few steps ahead a voice inside me was telling me “Hriday be man enough you can still go back and wave goodbye to them as always”. I ignored it and walked on, the voice retorted “Don’t be a stuffy adult. It wont make you a lesser man to go back and wave to them” So indeed I walked back. I waved at them, they waved back. And I felt good! Warm inside!
The sceptic inside me still doubts if it was the please all Hriday who waved goodbye or if it was my response to make peace not having a more convenient place for dinner. I don’t know who is right. The child who waved goodbye to the passing trains or the sceptic who is a born again cynic. In fact I don’t even know if I will go back to that restaurant again. But I do know that I felt good when I waved and they waved back! And perhaps that if I had not waved back my mood would have been sore now unlike the pleasantness I feel now!

On Categorization

Seminal expressions have never been comprehended fully in the contemporary analyses. Even derivative expressions are never fully comprehended due to the fallacy of categorization. Amplification of the same by the common agencies of transmission particularly the mass media including the print medium have denied ideas their deserved spectrum of meaning. Forgive my using as crass a word as categorization but I cant think of a better word to describe the way every commentator tends to compare a work to an earlier cannon.

A movie like Gulaal escapes the attention in the contemporary discourse just because it does not fit into an established category nor does it gel with the zeitgeist. This is similar to the case of a movie like Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron which at its time of release was never as much of a cult classic as it is now. This is in contrast to a mediocre novel like the Reluctant Fundamentalist or a construct polemic like Snow which become popular just due their relevance to the contemporary agenda.

It is not just the arts which are prone to vagaries of fashion and what is in vogue. If you look at even the physical sciences, accepted truths today, like Galileo’s proposition and that of the uncertainty principle were rejected due to firstly the prevailing ecclesiastic order and secondly, the force of a dominant personality, Einstein.

In inexact disciplines like the Social Sciences this is taken to an extreme. The cognitive biases in accepted economic theory are being accepted only belatedly as can be noted by the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Danny Kahnemann after several years of ostracism.

The problem of categorization stems from several things just as its transmission does. I shall discuss the major source from where the problem of categorization stems. It is to use an analogy; that of Jungs Archetypes. A long forgotten lesson from my Brand Management classes on Archetypes was that the cognition of Human beings centres around forming pigeon holes in which to categorise knowledge and personalities and develop perceptions.

The aspect of transmission of the same or interpretations of expressions into categories clearly stems due to media reporting not being a lucrative profession in crass terms , in slightly better terms we can call it a sub optimal allocation of resources to a particular job role.

The question that arises now is not if one can avoid ones work being a subject of trends or categorization. That is inevitable. The real question that arises is how can one keep one’s eyes open to possibilities in pursuing an independent point of view.

There are two contrasting and opposite views towards the same
The first process of shutting out:
The first step towards the same is shutting oneself to any kind of broadcast media. (I do not include the internet in broadcast media for reasons discussed soon). The TV is called the idiot box for a very valid reason. As various studies have shown broadcast media numbs our ability to think and we are in a far more receptive mood when we are viewing/listening as there is no time to pause and think.
The second step is to rely on textual media only as a source of information and keeping an open eye for any putative analysis and reject it outright. I include the internet to be a textual media as you have time to pause and think which freedom is not there in broadcast media. Blogs are a great source of heterodox opinion and perhaps the greatest gift of the internet. The only problem is that the linking back of blogs too is based on personal liking which again is a product of internal categorizations. Sadly there are no good search tools for blogs as yet. The most heterodox blog is out there lonely somewhere with no comments on its page!

The second process of letting in:

This can be done in two ways. The first way is to read only propaganda on any issue. Choose propaganda from both sides of the table and read only that. And then make up your mind. Do not make the mistake of reading ‘neutral’ ‘analyses’ on media. That is sure to have a slant.

The second way is tougher and perhaps the best way and not that practical. That is to learn analytical frameworks( Which are the foster parents of categories) in as diverse fields as possible while keeping an open mind for the possibility of there being areas where newer frameworks are possible. The objective is simple- expand your awareness of categories to be aware when a commentator is falling into the category trap. But there is no true erudition just as there are no polymaths anymore resulting in the battle against categorization being a step ahead of you always! The distance being the time between such encounters
Right now on TV they are proudly announcing an upcoming movie as having 4 stars. It is clearly a promo but not so for the gullible. For them believable and ensuring ‘a one time watch’. So I guess now you know where I am coming from! And I have not watched TV for 3 years!