Friends

There is enough said about the importance of family in our lives.
But don't you think friends play an important role too?
Coming to think of it, the existence, extent and depth of friendship in a society is an important indicator of the depth of its civilization.
Thinkers like Aristotle, Cicero and Montaigne have considered friendship as the pre-eminent human institution.
The need for friendship is atavistic. There are many who can live without marriage but there are very few who can be happy without friends. While the absence of justice and honor in our life can rankle but the absence of friendship is to be without the one thing that can salve all other absences.
Lovers face each other but friends stand side by side. So much of deep friendship is about thinking through important stuff together. What job to take? Whom to marry?.
Friends bring out better versions of ourselves. Haven't you noticed how unguarded and fluid we feel when you are around your friends? Wittier and smarter even?
Friendship is about forming a self-improving mutual admiration society of two. Very unlike Facebook which is mainly the mindless, mutual preening of a horde.
Friendship seems to be on the wane in modern times at least in the developed Western world. In the US in 1985 the General Society Survey found that people tended to have three really close friends. By 2004 a Duke University and University of Arizona Survey found that it had dwindled down to two. Something to do with the pace and stresses of modern life? The Frankenstein of proliferating media and entertainment consumption? The mass delusion engendered by an increasing number of Facebook friends, names on our mailing list and contacts on our smart phones?
For many of us who live in Belonger type societies like India might still not acutely suffer from a lack of close friends but in our dash towards achievement and prosperity we would do well to remember that life is a very ugly place not to have a best friend.

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh?" he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. "I just wanted to be sure of you.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh 

              

A Practical Man

The eminent 20th century philosopher of language Ludwig Wittgenstein used to cite an anecdote to illustrate the gap between reality and our powers of observation and expression:
An old lady walked up to Mr. Wittgenstein after a lecture to ask him whether he believed that the Earth actually went around the Sun. "I certainly do" Mr. Wittgenstein said " It has been proven by science Madam". "Well" the old lady sniffed "It certainly looks as if the Sun goes around the Earth". " Well Madam" replied Ludwig, "tell me what, in your thinking, should it look like if it is the Earth which is actually going around the Sun?". The old lady walked away in a huff, determined to tell her bridge club about the obnoxious Mr. Wittgenstein.
For the past three months the chatterati in India have endlessly perambulated around essentially one topic:
Is Modi the real deal or is he just the latest carpetbagger to enter the ancient nest of quintessential carpetbaggers that is Delhi?

I cannot pretend to know the truth. And when I once-in-a-while listen to the chatter on TV and at the odd cocktail party I, quietly to myself, recall Wittgenstein's anecdote on perception and observation. Those living in glass houses see only a reflection of themselves.

So is Mr. Modi the real deal? Like I said I do not know. Only time will tell.

But one aspect of him I think I have begun to grasp. Above all he is a practical man.

Only a thoroughly practical man could have given the speech that he gave on the 15th of August. No invocation of the greatness of India. No grandiose schemes. No heavy panting of ideology or idolatry.
Just an agenda setting of stuff that you and me can do: discipline our sons and value or daughters, keep not just our homes but our neighbourhood clean and rise a little bit above our self-interest.

Stuff that our primary school civic sense lessons should have taught us but alas! evidently didn't. It might seem a steep climb from being a nation striving to meet standards of basic civic sense to becoming a nation of world-beaters.

But to the super- practical entity that I think Mr. Modi is, the curve that results from learning to be  a nation of clean cities, towns and villages is steep enough to take us to greater heights. It is the smallest wheel is a geared arrangement that will set the bigger wheel moving.

Think of Modi as a practical man and his politics also falls into place. A superbly practical man will play superbly practical politics, in other words realpolitik. No pussy footing around niceties and reputation.
T
here was one other Prime Minister we had who was. I think, on par with Mr. Modi on being a practical person: Mrs. Indira Gandhi. But she carried the baggage of Fabian, socialist ideology she inherited from her father - an ideology, that like any other ideology, came in her way of being practical in managing the nation's affairs. However her practicality was in full force when it came to her politics. The realpolitik that Mrs. Gandhi played was world class by any standards.

             
                     
      

Macaulay's Children

The chaps who have give us TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) also left us the legacy of Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Lord Macaulay's lasting effect on  Indian society is captured in this extract from his infamous "Minute on Indian Education": 

 "We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population,"  

Can there be a more chilling elucidation of deep colonization?

There is a small and prosperous class of Indians who continue to benefit from Macaulay's vision. There is a Hindi phrase that is rife in India's heartland about such people: "Angrez to chale gaye. Aulad chodd gaye".

The polite translation is "The English left a long ago but left there children behind"" but the translation misses the true color and invective inherent in the Hindi phrase.

As I write this post I am acutely aware that I belong to the tribe of Macaulay's Children. People who owe their station in life partly due to their fluency and proficiency in English. 

My father's English too was good but his deepest expression was in his mother tongue Hindi which he was very good at. He was a private poet and his poetry was in Hindi.

My Hindi alas! is poor. I was schooled in the South where they had long ago decided that when it came to foreign languages they much preferred English to Hindi.
I am still ribbed by my uncles about a letter in Hindi that I, at the age of twenty five, wrote to my grandfather. A few weeks ago I asked my uncle to pull it out of his collection and read it again. Just to check. It was not just bad, it was deeply embarrassing. 

As I grow older and  perhaps wiser, I realize that in gaining all the advantages of English being the language I think in, I have lost immensely.

I had lost the ability to communicate at the deepest level. The ability to communicate to the gestalt around me and perhaps the gestalt within me. Simply put my communication channel is now confined to  a sliver of the society around me and I am condemned forever to seek literary and cultural stimulation in ethos that are in essence alien to my deepest nature.

If I could write in Hindi than perhaps I would be a good writer and go well beyond the stilted efforts that you dear reader, giving in to sporadic bouts of generosity, tolerate. If could write in Hindi than perhaps the books that have been rattling inside my brain and my computer (I am at work on two works of fiction that I have not been able to bring to any sort of satisfactory conclusion for years now) would have found expression driven by a deeper communion with the milieu I live in.
But then again, as far as my writing goes, it might be a case of "naach na jaane angaan tedha" that is "those who can't dance blame the dance floor" or to capture the essence of the saying in the somewhat more straightforward idiom of English "excuses are the last refuge of  mediocrity". Or as my friends in Bollywood would pithily put "Pappu can't dance saala".
Enough said about me.
 Do I have anything to say about the current hullabaloo about the deep set bias in the selection process for the civil services  for not just the language of English but the world view that an education in English entails? Now that is a deep one. Such indoctrination was the intent behind Macaulay's edict and  now six generation later the indoctrination still retains its potency.
I believe there are no shortcuts to producing antidote to such indoctrination. It takes time and an even deeper phenomenon.
Many of us who got into the IITs in the seventies were Macaulay's children. We deprived many a budding genius just through the fact that the Joint Entrance Exam for the IITs those days included a test of English. However despite this test in English there were geniuses who was not schooled in English but who got through because of their immense superiority when it came to maths and physics, the other two JEE subjects and the ability to quickly learn what was needed to past muster in English. And I can wager a substantial sum of money that in the decades of the sixties, seventies and the eighties most IITians who went on to make substantial hardcore contribution in the fields of science and technology were these geniuses who overcame the English handicap and nearly all of Macaulay's children went on to figuratively speaking "sell soap" laying waste our sterling education in science and technology.
A couple of decades ago English was dropped from the JEE. That has brought it it's own set of problems. Now the corridors at IIT are haunted not just by Macaulay's children but also by coaching class superstars whose ability to slog at the coaching classes falls well short of any originality of thought and action.
However the genius still get in and it is still the genius that makes true use of the education. And here to, as in all walks of life, the production and nurture of one genius is enough to justify the existence of thousands of cookie cutter carpetbaggers.
And if real merit finds its way to the IITs than I am sure it finds it way to the IIMs and the civil services.
I believe that the true antidote to any form of indoctrination and injustice is, as it has been through the ages, merit. Real, pure merit. The rest is just one form of injustice and indoctrination replacing another.

                  

Dear Love

Dear Love,
How does it feel to be so misunderstood and misused by so many?
Take the case of Lust your younger, dare I say more popular, brother.
Do people really confuse Lust for you or is it just a ploy to get Lust to have his way?
Either way it must be galling. And look how this deception has crept into the very interstices of language.
' Make Love' they say when all it is about is getting into bed with Lust while you wait,shuffling your feet, outside the door.
Perhaps you should reposition the situation in your mind.
Look these days it is all about being spoken about never mind such silly things like truth and context. In fact they say infamous is the new famous.
So look at it this way. You are actually winning. People are talking about you when they really have your brother in mind. That is good not bad! More power to you!
Just imagine if you were mentioned when you were really present. Most of the time you would be unspoken about. How boring.
So what if it is really you that keeps humanity sane. Doesn't pay the bills does it?
All that merchandise that is sold in your name is certainly not about the unspoken you.
The movies, the songs, the books , the flowers, the chocolates are basically sold on your account when all those billions, should have accrued to Lust.
So you see it is not bad. You get all the fame, all the fortune. All Lust gets is the pleasure of the chase, few minutes of frenzy and in the best case a bout of lassitude to follow.
So cheer up. And smile. Because when you do all humanity smiles with you
Lots of You.

The Importance of (now and then) Being (slightly) Unwell

A protagonist who is seriously ill and dying is a shop worn cliche of commercial Hollywood and Bollywood movies. Being seriously ill makes this already beauteous person even more beautiful. Even more alluring. Even more wise. You get the picture.

Like most movie cliches this one is also preposterous and requires a willing suspension of disbelief to endure.
However like most cliches, this one too has a grain of truth.

While being seriously ill is a physical and mental train wreck with no redeeming qualities, I believe being just that little unwell to be guiltlessly bed-ridden for a day or two is beneficial to both the body and the soul.
I am not talking about malingering, sick leave pretensions or hypochondria. A genuine mild fever where the good doctor prescribes paracetamol and rest is great. A prescription of mild pain killers and of course, rest for a twisted ankle is also good. A stomach upset is a bit messy, not ideal but in a crunch will do.

The extra day or two of rest, besides ridding you of the mild illness, does your body a whale of good. It is like well-spent maintenance down time. But isn't a good vacation also greatly restful, some of you who are perhaps perennially healthy might ask. No my friend. Modern vacations and even weekends are stressful. Running around in strange places, engaging in strange activities. And the overeating which is usually the result of stress or boredom or both.

At home in bed with a mild illness, eating right, returning the solicitousness of your caregiver with solicitousness, the quiet all round as everyone is out working and the happy contemplation of all the stresses that your colleagues at the office are at the moment undergoing. This is rest at its supreme, replenishing best.

And the soul? How is a day or two in bed with a mild illness good for the soul, you may ask.                      
Consider this. When did you last contemplate your life at leisure? Evaluated where your life is going and
whether you want to go there? Certainly not on the vacation in Europe last summer when you were evaluating the cost of the Euro and where you need to be next day. Certainly not last weekend while spending Saturday and Sunday helping your wife shop for dinner party on Sunday evening and certainly not during that Sunday dinner party.

But in bed with a mild illness in the familiar surroundings of your home there are no distractions. It is almost as if your life is sitting on the bed next to you  having a nice, friendly conversation with you. If that is not good for the soul, tell me what is?

The next day when you get back to work and your colleagues enviously and somewhat suspiciously remark on how well you look, give them a wan smile just like that crinkly eyed hero in the terminal phase of cancer did in last year's super hit.  

     

The Bubble of Power

You are the dramatic victor  of an astonishing election. You are now among the world's most powerful people. You are brimming with enthusiasm and resolve. 
And then it envelopes you. The bubble of power. 
You still see the world and hear it but through the bubble. The bubble seeps reality of it's edge. 
If you are the secure kind it adds a pink hue to everything you see and hear leading you to believe all is right with everything and everyone loves you.
If you are the insecure kind it adds a red hue adding everyday to your paranoia and you scheme and plot your little plots to set everyone and everything right.
And then one day the bubble bursts with a loud plop. And as you step out of it after years trapped within it, the very air seems to hurt you. As you stagger and struggle hark what is that you hear? Sniggers? But you thought they all loved you! The sharpening of knives? But you thought you had put your enemies permanently away!
I have never tasted power so the above is just me imagining what it is to gain great power all of a sudden. And what it is to lose it as suddenly.
Power is great drama.
 I avidly watch the Narendra Modi show unfold. Not just because what he does has import on the lives of all of us Indians. But because it is such a great narrative.
Will his genius overcome the transition from Gandhinagar to Lutyen's Delhi? Will he be the rare individual who manages to prick the bubble of power while he remains in power? Will he write history or be one of history's numerous footnotes?
It is going to be a great story. And you might be excused to think you can watch it unfold for free. But in reality there is no free lunch. Remember as the story unfolds it is also the story of our aspirations and dreams unfolding.

  
   
  

Mad Men

The brash boutique SC&P has sold itself to the establishment as represented by staid old McCann. Will Don Draper now get his mojo and life back? Darn! To know the answer to this and other gripping questions we will have to impatiently wait till the American spring of 2015. That is when the second part of the seventh and final (as of now) season of the seminal American TV series 'Mad Men' airs.
Why has 'Mad Men' garnered so much popular and critical acclaim?  In the US, a large part of the success could be attributed to the period it is set in and the meleiu it explores. Mad Men is set among advertising people in America in the sixties.The sixties were both the apogee and the nadir of the post-war American experience. The agony and ecstasy of being American, so to speak. As the post-war economic boom washed into the homes of every American, advertising and it's denizens on Madison Avenue came to represent the increasing servility of the avant garde to the popular.
A set of clever but unscrupulous people inveigled and then distorted anything out of the ordinary to serve the cause of the mundane and the ordinary. To showcase the sizzle to sell the steak. The fascination of today's American public with the lives of the men and women who populated Madison Avenue in its heydays is perhaps a fascination of tracing the beginnings of the consumer culture that is perhaps the central leitmotif of modern American society.
But then what about Mad Men's worldwide popularity? I believe Mad Men will be considered a landmark in television in decades from now because it will be the foremost representative of the era when the TV series became an art form to be ranked almond literature, music, dance, the theater and cinema. Mad Men is perhaps the first mainstream big-budget television series that gets into the he heads of its characters and, dare I say, it's viewers to create a stream-of-consciousness experience that goes deeper and beyond the specifics of the narrative. In doing so Mad Men transcends the limitation of the primitive stimulus-response-stimulus structure of the usual TV drama (as so painfully evident in Indian TV series) and gets into realm  of the full-bodied flavor of high quality literature, theater or cinema. Mad Men is not alone. Breaking Bad, a TV series set in New Mexico about a upstanding chemistry teacher's transformation into a ruthless criminal mastermind is mesmerizing and deeply affecting. I am sure there are quite a few more out there that I am yet to savor..
One final thing. I have worked in large advertising agencies, have been the founding promoter ofa small one and over the  past few years have been an adviser for a couple of mid-size others. How does the meleiu in Indian advertising compare to the one depicted in Mad Men? Well the human frailties and egos on display there are very much evident here. However the drama inherent in the process of creating and selling advertising here is only a pale imitation of that shown in Mad Men. That is partly due to the fact that in a TV series the mundane is hidden. And partly because the Indian economy is where it is. Still largely imitative, still largely stuck in the basics. I am sure as we, as a nation, find our own economic voice and realize our own potential for innovation  so will Indian advertising discover its very own voice, it's very own creative heat and drama. And perhaps one day it's very own 'Mad Men'

&

I followed the 2008 US Presidential elections very closely and in the process became a keen student of Obama's speaking style.

The one word he uses most frequently and with the greatest of emphasis is "and". He uses it not as an conjunction that appeared mid-sentence but the beginning of a new sentence, a new thought that is not so much a conjunction with the previous thought but an extension or an expansion into another idea sphere.

He was therefore not saying "&" but "and". Let me explain.

Children in traditional schools in England recite "&" as the 27th letter in the alphabet and it is the belief that the representation "ampersand" is a corruption of what they would say "and per se  &" with "per se" being the phrase that signified that a letter can, like A and I, form a word on its won.

The Americans, more specifically Hollywood (when I was much younger I used to feel that instead of Hollywood being an American institution, America was a Hollywood institution. In fact I got into trouble for opining thus to a big shot from the US head office of the ad agency that I worked in. But I digress) has given "&" a much greater significance. In Hollywood an "&" between two collaborators signified a close partnership while the verbosity of an "and" signified an at-a-distance almost cold working relationship. So it is Laurel & Hardy and perhaps it should have been "Charlie and Chaplin" given the man's schizophrenic nature.

Therefore if one where to transcribe say George Bush's speeches (uh?) one would surely write "&" every single time he spoke the word "and". Given that the man was congenitally incapable of any extension and expansion of thought.

In the late nineties, I with another partner started an ad agency. We wanted to name it AB&U with A and B standing for the two of us and U standing for the consumer. A reputed astrologer and numerologist who was a good friend of the other partner persuaded us that it was in our interest to be a bit more verbose and the agency ended up being called ABandU. The agency did reasonably well for many years but the "and" in the name had it's say in the end, alienating the agency from it's marketplace ( I must add that my ex-partner continues to flourish in advertising and I continue to make a living in a related field).

And.. finally let me conclude with a deeper observation. To me the difference between "&" and "and"  is further illuminated by two creative processes. "&" is the "stream of consciousness" process where the artist or the writer flows with her consciousness to create. And "and" is the process of "second attention" when the artist or writer stands at a distance from his consciousness and observes it. I could go on about "streams of consciousness" and "second attention" (or is it "streams of consciousness" & "second attention") but that is material for another post. Au revoir.

   

  

                    

Memory, Deja Vu and the Objective Correlative

Memory you know is the key to all our emotions.
As you grow older while memory weakens in the domain of the immediate present, it becomes strangely persistent regarding the past. 
I say strangely because the persistence is insidious and seems to originate from the sub-conscious. 
The most commonplace of these calling cards from the past is the phenomenon know as Deja vu.(more correctly Déjà vu). 
Deja vu in French means "already seen" an is defined as "a strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced has been experienced in the past, whether is has actually been so experienced in the past or not". Somewhat like the unending reflections in a hall of mirrors.       
As I grow older my  Deja vu moments, have not only become more frequent but have changed texture.
Deja Vu these days for me has changed from the sensation of a repeated experience to a repeated emotional landscape. 
For example when I take a particular turn on my way home with the sun shining at a particular angle I experience the same identical sense of eager anticipation about the future. The sight of a railway platform at dusk invokes a fleeting but deep sense of despair. Such triggers are not restricted to the domain of sight but also related to other senses like smell, touch and taste.
Psychology textbooks explain Deja vu as the brain reacting prematurely to a particular object by creating a sub-conscious picture of the entire experience before it is consciously registered, thus fooling the conscious into believing that it is a repeat of an experience in the past.
The textbook explanation of a premature ejaculation (so to speak) of the sub-conscious might hold true for Deja vu that is situation related. However, I think, there is more than what meets the eye when Deja vu triggers a set of emotions.
I believe, the explanation for this phenomenon comes not from the science of psychology but from the domain of art. The "objective correlative" is a tool that writers use to evoke emotion int heir readers. The term was first used by the poet TS Elliot in his essay "Hamlet and His Problems". Eliot wrote "The only way of expressing emotion is in the form of an art is to finding an "objective correlative", in other words a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula for that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in a sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked"
Elliot's insight can perhaps explain the difference between popular art and the avant garde. Popular art uses already established formula for evoking a set of acceptable emotions while the avant garde creates not just new formulations for the existing set of acceptable emotions but formulations that create a new palette of emotions.
So what am I saying? That I am becoming, as I growing older, a set of formulas evoking a set of emotions? A row of buttons that get pressed in a set sequence? Perhaps there is a life lesson to be learnt here. That you are in the danger of becoming the prisoner of a set pattern of behavior (habits) and evoked emotions (gratifications) as you grow older. If you have to break free you have to do what the avant garde does in any walk of life: take risks and overcome the fear of failure. Not for the lure of success but simply to better express life's joy.
Remember even the dying flame struggles to flare brighter.

                 

The Rational and The Spiritual

One of the earliest memories of my childhood is of the reveries I used to lose myself in, triggered by a snatch of music, the sight of a new landscape and even while staring at myself in a mirror. These reveries where a state that was above and beyond the everyday concerns and desires of a child and quite pleasurable. As an adult as I look back they seem to have been in the spiritual realm.
And then I got an education and these reveries disappeared only to come back of late as I begin to pay as much attention to unlearning as I do to learning.
One of the primary aims of modern education is to inculcate rational thinking. And quite rightly. The modern world runs on rationality. Like they say you cannot eat spirituality.
But is it an either or world when it comes to the rational and the spiritual?
Lets compare this dichotomy to the dichotomy between classical and quantum physics.
Classical physics, at whose core are the three laws of Newton, is sufficient to explain the world that we directly observe and underpins most of the rational domains of science and engineering that create the modern reality that we all live in.
Einstein's theory of relativity takes classical physics to the extremes of the observable universe in terms of speed and distance and give us a glimpse of the what lies at the edges of commonplace rationality.
But it is quantum physics, the physics that tries to penetrate the deepest of nature's mysteries to get to the very core fundamentals of reality, that everyday rationality goes only thus far and no further.
I believe quantum physics is the deepest manifestation yet of human thought. Roger Penrose's book "The Road to Reality" will give you a comprehensive introduction of what it is. It is the most entertaining read especially if you give up trying to understand what he is saying and just flow along that mighty river of mathematical genius that has been the evolution of quantum physics (I love reading books written by physicists and cosmologists that explore, for lay readers like me, the deeper reaches of modern physics. Perhaps they are the pleasurable adult counterparts of my childhood reveries).
Sample this from quantum physics. It is the act of observation of a reality that makes reality happens. That is reality is a wave function of probabilities that collapses to particular version of reality upon the act of observation! And why does the probability function collapse to a particular reality? Because it is entangled (or as the quantum physicists call it, quantangled) with another reality that has already been observed in some other part of the space-time. Delicious isn't it?            
It is my contention that even a hard-core, stick-in-the-mud rationalist muggle upon reading a well-written account of quantum physics will experience a fleeting glimpse of the spiritual and the untold delights it has to offer. It is because the rationalist cannot deny the strong mathematical and scientific credentials of  quantum physics and thus leaves his mind open for the first intimations of the spiritual world to sneak in.
Einstein spent the last years of life struggling and failing to arrive at the Grand Unified Theory that would combine classical and relativistic physics with quantum physics. The struggle continues till date.
Similarly humanity is yet to reconcile fully rationality and spirituality.
However, to my mind, Roger Penrose in "The Road to Reality"  shows us a way to reconcile the two (though the reconciliation of the spiritual and rational is not a concern of  the book). I had written about this in a post on this blog dated February 1, 2010.
The post is reproduced below:
http://www.hardrainindia.com/2010/02/road-to-reality.html

The Road to Reality

Roger Penrose is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford.

That he is one of the world’s greatest scientists, does not stop him from being a skilled writer who has to his credit lucid books that take the lay person into the fascinating realms of high physics and metaphysics.

His book “The Road to Reality : A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe” lives up to the title while being within the reach of the intelligent and interested lay reader.

His two earlier books:”The Emperor’s New Mind” and “Shadows of the Mind” vividly bring alive the road that Penrose traveled before he could bring himself to write the complete guide to the laws of the universe.

There is a concept in “The Road to Reality” that continues to fascinate me and I go back to it often.

Penrose calls the concept “Three worlds and three deep mysteries”.

The concept is that mathematical existence is different not only from physical existence but also from an existence that is assigned by our mental perceptions.

And yet there are deep and mysterious connections between the three worlds.

Only a small part of mathematics has relevance to the physical world.

The vast preponderance of the activities of mathematicians today has no connection to physics or to any other science.

Implied, I think, in Penrose’s visualization of this connection as reproduced in this post is that the world of mathematics can explain the whole of the physical world.

The second mysterious connection is that the Mental World comes about in certain physical structures that are a small-subset of the physical world (most specifically, healthy, wakeful human brains- and to smaller extent the “brains” of other living things).

Think about the above two mysteries in conjunction with the third mystery which is that the Mathematics World is only a small sub-set of the Mental World and you get a cycle that folds on to itself and gives me, when I meditate on it, a deeper glimpse of reality.

If you don’t hate thinking, take the time to think about it. It could be worth your while.                  
                

Modi the Meme

Last week my post "The Unhappy Election" was about a bitter, enervating campaign that had the whole nation on a boil.
This week we have emerged out of the tunnel and it smells like new beginnings.
I am a left-leaning, English medium type who voted Congress in all previous elections but this.
According to a whole host of gurus - political, marketing, branding etc- and a whole lot of general gas bags currently pontificating on TV screens and newspapers, I was persuaded to vote against all my inclinations and past affiliations because "brand Modi" was "marketed" so well.
That I think is just the kind of glib, mindless analysis that is so common in our media on any issue that requires even scratching below the surface, forget about doing a deep dive,
I am sure that we will over the next few months and years have serious, well-researched analysis of what happened during this astonishing election and of the phenomenon called Narendra Modi.
One strand of analysis will be about the changing nature of the Indian electorate. The obvious one is of course the demographics - the 100 million first time voters and the total of around 500 million below the age of 30. Going beyond the demographics and perhaps related to it, there could be lurking a deeper change. Ironically among the first spotters of this trend, at least among those who get widely quoted in media - was P. Chidambaram, the outgoing Finance Minister. Indian society has rapidly moved away from being a petitioning society to being an society driven by aspirations -simply put even the poor and the disadvantaged in India do not want handouts they want jobs and a better quality of life. In other words they want the opportunity to fish for themselves not just be handed small portions of rotting fish.In that sense it was India's first middle-class election.
The second strand of analysis will be about for what made for winners and losers in this election.
In my post dated November 20th 2013 titled "Memes and the Coming General Elections"  I had written about how memes are much more powerful entities and brands and what role memes are likely to play in elections. To my mind the landslide nature of the results of this election is a sure shot sign that what was operating in this election was a  powerful force that was not a brand but a meme. Brands create markets and market shares, memes create civilizations, societies and revolutions.
The thesis could be that Modi is much beyond a brand, he is a newly-made meme.A meme that digs as deep and resonates with the generic timeless memes of "Change", "Success" and "Youth". The harnessing of the power and promise of Change, Success and Youth is the result of a conscious strategy brilliantly executed by Team Modi. However that alone would not have lead to the astounding results but for a happy accident: Modi evoked across a wide swathe of the electorate the meme "Indian". It is my hunch that every Indian, except for perhaps among the most Westernized of us, recognized in him a kin. In his scraggly appearance, in his earthy idiom, in his unfettered aggression all of saw a personification of the Indian gestalt - of a tough life faced with courage, forbearance and innovation.
Well the above are just thoughts and perhaps just as glib as the ones I was complaining about. Let me end by wishing the man well before I go back to contemplating what my stock portfolio will be worth a couple of years from now.

The Unhappy Election

The heat and dust of this scorching summer has got to all of us who live in India. Adding to the heat, the noise, the dust and the countless irritations of daily life has been the cantankerous din of an unhappy election campaign.

I say unhappy because the overwhelming sub-text of this campaign has been unhappiness as much as the sub-text of the 2009 elections was happiness. 

Nearly everyone is unhappy with the central government's functioning over the past five years. For many of us this has translated to voting for Mr. Modi. Others have decided, unhappily of course, to vote against Mr. Modi, driven by mankind's oldest enemy - fear (see my post titled "Fear"  dated 23rd March 2014).

One of the slogans that is driving Mr. Modi's campaign is 'Acche Din Aanewale Hain" which in spirit ( not in exact translation mind you) means "There is light at the end of this tunnel'. 

For some of us, the hope is that we emerge into the light on the 16th of May, whatever the result! For this apolitical lot all politicians are basically the same and elections are like a visit to the dentist, to be borne with forbearance.

For many ardent fans, new and old,  if Mr. Modi  emerges to be the next Prime Minister, it will feel like they have emerged from Stygian darkness to a brilliant vista of unending delight. Caution my friends. Remember nothing much would have changed for ordinary people like us. The quality of government services will remain abysmal if not absent on the 17th of May. The depredations of pervasive corruption will still be with us. It will take hard resolve, hard work and time to make change happen. So mute the elation, lower the expectations and wait and see. Because after emerging from one tunnel if we enter another, the depression of darkness would be multiplied manifold by dashed hopes.

And those among us for whom a Modi victory feels like the beginning of a nightmare, I can only say, please wake up and smell the coffee. India and the idea of India are much too strong and rooted for any one government let alone any one man to harm its basic fabric. And also do remember that the past is seldom a good predictor of the future. Furthermore the pervasive color of humanity is grey and not black or white. And if you believe in secularism (by which I presume you mean the separation of the State from religion - all religions) than you must also believe in democracy. And if the people have spoken, accept the fact with a smile, reiterate your belief in the mysterious wisdom of the collective and give the man a chance, even if it is in the form of a long rope.

All in all it has been a summer where the zeitgeist has definitely been blue. And if the general unhappiness continues after the 16th I will seriously consider retiring to a remote mountain top and descend only with happier times.

PS Here is something to wash away those election blues:

   

Exit Interview

Good morning Mr. Singh. Can I get you some coffee or tea?

Thank you. A glass of water will do. Room temperature please.

Sure. Subra could you send in a glass of water please. Room temperature. Right Mr. Singh may I begin with asking you the reasons fro quitting your job? 

Isn't that obvious? There is somebody else eagerly waiting to take my place.

Sir I did not ask the reasons for your demitting office today. That as you say is very clear. The question is why did you quit your job years ago? Let me rephrase the question Sir. when and why did you quit doing your job Mr. Singh?    

Silence

Mr. Singh?

Well I respect your right to be rude to me but time will be a much kinder judge.

Well as a wag once said time is what happens while we are busy doing other things. But Sir many people feel that sometime after the election of 2009 you went on autopilot. Unseeing. Unheard. Unknowing. What happened? Was it the illness? Or was it the sterile bubble that power produces suffocating you into a stupor.

I have a very simple philosophy about power. The less you use it the better it gets just like the yogis control lust to reach a higher state of being. And then history judges you kindly. Also one more thing. I always thought of myself as a servant.

A servant of the people you mean?

Umm.. that too I guess.

Are you surprised that there is already a book about your years in office. It is like an obituary before you are finally and actually dead!

See the wheels of history have been set in motion already and did you notice how this book, for all its faults, underlined a trait in me I am most proud of - my  unending capacity to be a good, sagacious and uncomplaining servant. Umm. Of the people. I mean.

Sir since you are refusing to open up and I am not inclined to be any ruder to you let me end this interview by asking you who would you like to thank as you leave this august office.

I am a man of few words. Thank you Madam.

     
   

The Importance of Forgetting

I have been practicing meditation for years now. A simple daily 30-40 minutes routine end-capped by breathing exercises. There have been many gifts that this practice has given me. The chief among them is the realization that the default state of human consciousness is happiness.

So where does unhappiness come from?

J.. Krishnamurti, the philosopher, has approached the human enigma of the pursuit of happiness from many angles. To my mind the deepest and most fundamental of which is captured in this paragraph from one of his lectures:

Happiness is not the product of time

The thought process brings about psychological progress in time, but is it real, as real as chronological time? And, can we use that time which is of the mind as a means of understanding the eternal, the timeless? Because, as I said, happiness is not of yesterday, happiness is not the product of time, happiness is always in the present, a timeless state. I do not know if you have noticed that, when you have ecstasy, a creative joy, a series of bright clouds surrounded by dark clouds, in that moment there is no time: there is only the immediate present. But the mind, coming in after the experiencing in the present, remembers and wishes to continue it, gathering more and more of itself, thereby creating time. So, time is created by 'the more', time is acquisition. And, time is also detachment, which is still an acquisition of the mind; therefore, merely disciplining the mind in time, conditioning thought within the framework of time, which is memory, surely does not reveal that which is timeless.

Collected Works, Vol. V,139,

The operative thought is that happiness is timeless and conditioning thought within the framework of time, which is memory, does not reveal that which is timeless. 

In other words forgetting is the key to happiness. Countless pop psychologists have told us that it is important to live in the moment. And like with many a worn-out cliche, beneath this commonplace assertion lies an abiding truth about the human condition.. 

Living in the moment is to let go of the past. This letting go. it has been my experience, cannot be a consciously willed act. It is a scrubbing that is accomplished by the deeper reaches of human consciousness.  Dreaming, I believe, is a manifestation of this scrubbing but it is slow, done in small doses, painful, unproductive and not under our control. Meditation is quicker, far less painful (in fact after a point quite joyful) and under our control. However the most striking manifestation of this scrubbing is in the highest of human activity - the act of creativity and creation. Most artists, sportspeople, writers, scientists, thinkers and even managers will tell you that their highest achievements happen when they enter the "zone". This "zone" is the same "zone of acute consciousness" that results from deep meditation but the crucial difference is that it is entered through the act of doing as opposed to the act of withdrawing. In other words in losing oneself (all one's memories, disappointments and joys) in the here and now of an act. It is the "blink" that Malcolm Gladwell writes about. It is the central core teaching of devotion to selfless "karma" or duty that is the central teaching of the Bhagwad Gita:

karmaṇy evādhikāras te

mā phaleṣu kadācana

mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr

mā te sańgo 'stv akarmaṇi

In fact one of the strands of thought that the highest reaches of physics is now exploring is that time itself is a chimera that is only a manifestation of the mind and not a physical reality. Julian Barbour in his provocative book "The End of Time", Barbour lays out the basic evidence for a timeless universe and shows how at the same time we experience in the world in a intensely temporal way. It also points the way towards the bridging of the greatest chasm in modern science - the gap between classical and quantum physics- leading to the holy grail of The Grand Unification Theory. 

 For those of us who dismiss high faulting philosophy, physics and/or teachings and would like to see direct and more tangible evidence that "forgetting" is anything more than one of the numerous in-capacities that advancing age subjects us to, may I point to an abstract of an article from a recent issue of Scientific American titled "Forgetting is Key to a Healthy Mind". So there you have it, any which way you like it. Or you can just forget it and turn the page.

   

              

  

Drafting Change: A Letter to Narendra Modi

Dear Narendrabhai,

It looks like you are set to be the next Prime Minister of India.

If you do, it would be clear that the singular mandate you have been given is the mandate to change the status quo.

Here is an idea that I believe can bring lasting change at the core of Indian society:

The Draft: A year of mandated  and paid community service for all young people through internships with the various arms of the Government and the Services. To begin with we could start this program with all college graduates.

As soon as I put this idea down on paper I can hear the hue and cry rise from all side. "An impingement of individual rights" some will protest. Others will say it is impractical and too expensive to afford. In fact one of the themes you and  your current election campaign is pushing is that of "Less Government. More Governance" and this idea seems to fly directly in the face of such a theme.

"Less Government More Governance" is an idea from the capitalist right, borrowed by your campaign, lock, stock and barrel, from the Republicans of US and the Tories of UK. India is a unique place and time where change will not come through borrowed ideas. Anyway what does "governance" mean?  Wouldn't the involvement of the people directly and hands-on in projects of the government be "more and  good governance"? Wouldn't the direct scrutiny by eager young minds of acts by the government be "less and better government"?

As for costs, yes the costs will be untenable if we put this army of young people on unproductive tasks. But surely we can avoid the MNREGA trap of putting people, figuratively speaking, to dig trenches and then refill them? Surely we can use the talents and the clear-eyed enthusiasm of India's educated young to productive use in sectors where the government has a role to play? If we do so, I can bet my bottom rupee that the money we spend on the Draft will be more than repaid in both qualitative and quantitative terms through impact on the quality of life  as well as impact on GDP.

As for the rights of the individual, what good are rights without responsibilities? Total freedom is a contradiction in terms. Like Vivekananda says you cannot give up the world unless first you earn and have something to give up.

Narendrabhai I am told that you are a believer in the teachings of Vivekananda. As you would know, a central tenet of his teachings on education is "man-making". And a person is made in the first few years of working life. That is when he or she assimilates ideas and passions. A year in community service will give this assimilation a far greater scope and depth than landing straight into the rat race, which is what most young people currently do.

In community service a person is much more likely to imbibe the paradigm that what we give to our work is much more important than what we get. A paradigm that not only makes for greater productivity all through a person's life but for greater happiness too.

Finally, it is my belief that a year spent in public service  will persuade a lot many brilliant and dynamic young people , for the right and informed reasons, to choose politics and public service as a profession.

With best regards  

    

      

   

Comfortably Numb

Time was when my generation was young. And pain was our fuel.

Time was when rebellion was our default state. Rebels without a cause maybe but rebels still.

Time was when  money was just those few notes in our pocket, soiled and crumpled, something to pay for the cigarettes and the bus fare and the occasional street food treat and not a string of electronic zeros defining our self-worth.

Time was when we rooted for the underdog because we were him and not because it made us feel good.

Time was when we had the freedom of the dirt road instead of being prisoners of the white lines of the freeway.

And then life happened.

Success happened. The underdog became someone who didn't make it and the devil did take the hindmost. And money became the deep shadow in which forgotten, long dead dreams lay.

Middle-age happened. And as the aches and pains of an aging body multiplied the aches of the soul are forgotten.

Life happened. And we all became comfortably numb.


PS In the 70's when I first heard "Comfortably Numb" from the seminal Pink Floyd album "The Wall" I thought of chemically-induced mind expanding trances. How was I to know that 40 years or so down the line it would take on a meaning almost exactly opposite? Whatever the meaning, it remains one of rock's greatest songs with an all-time great guitar solo embedded in it. Enjoy.

             

                                                         

                                                              "Comfortably Numb"

Hello,
Is there anybody in there
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone at home
Come on now
I hear you're feeling down
I can ease your pain
And get you on your feet again
Relax
I'll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts

There is no pain, you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb

O.K.
Just a little pin prick
There'll be no more aaaaaaaah!
But you may feel a little sick
Can you stand up?
I do believe it's working, good
That'll keep you going through the show
Come on it's time to go.

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
And I have become
Comfortably numb.

                  

The Outsider

Have you felt on the outside of whichever side there is? Welcome to the exclusive club of the Outsiders. Except that, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, a club for Outsiders is no club because, by definition, its members do not belong.

But seriously,the Outsider has always been a fascination with all students of mankind and society.

Colin Wilson's book  "The Outsider"  is a fascinating study of the Outsider in literature and his place in the modern mindset.

Dostoyevsky made the Outsider an angry young man and Salim Javed took the cue. Tennessee Williams explored the social politics of the world of the Outsider and Woody Allen made tons of money in portraying the Outsider as a yuppie.

However there are two books of the post Colin Wilson era that are, to my mind, searing completely unique portraits of the Outsider.

The first is "Waiting for the Barbarians" by J.M. Coetzee, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

It is about a middle-aged magistrate of an insignificant outpost of a unnamed empire, seemingly disintegrating under the weight of his "outsiderness". However, at the core of his hero, Coetzee discover a rock of rumination that nothing can change, nothing can reduce. This book would leave the student of the Outsider personality type wondering whether being the consummate Outsider is being the consummate philosopher.

The other book that belongs to the very top drawer of Outsider literature is John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces". Toole himself was the archetypal tragic Outsider. Very gifted as a writer, Toole was rejected by the establishment and suffering from paranoia and depression committed suicide at the age of 31. His mother's efforts got "A Confederacy of Dunces" published which then went on to become a cult classic and posthumously won Toole a Pulitzer Prize. The protagonist of  "A Confederacy of Dunces" - Ignatius J Reilly - is what Toole would have been if he had lots more moxy and a lots less self-pity. Ignatius Reilly breaks the typical tragic hero mould of the Outsider. In many ways the character Woody Allen plays in his movies is Ignatius Reilly given a coat of Manhattan polish and a popular culture airbrush.

The art of advertising at its most powerful takes memes that are outside the mainstream culture and insidiously adapts them to build mainstream brands. Apple starting with it's "1984" commercial was built on an Outsider meme. The iconoclast image that this strategy built for Apple survives (just about) many advertising mis-steps since.

It is not advertising alone that has demonstrated the atavistic appeal of the Outsider meme to the modern psyche. Look at twenty-first century politics. Obama was the ultimate Outsider as a Presidential candidate.

His difficulties as a President only proves the first principle of being an Outsider. Sort of the opposite of  the refrain from "Hotel California" - "you can check out any time you want but you can never leave".

Does India now have it's own Outsider contending successfully for power? Mod as an Outsider? It might be a startling new framework with which to examine this man who might be important to India's fortunes this decade and perhaps decades to come.