Few Thoughts on Google Wave

I have been using Google Wave (henceforth "Wave") for about four days now, and think I have a decent idea of what Wave is and what it is not. This is not a review, so I won't be discussing features or enumerating cool things that can be done with it. But if you want to know what makes Wave such an exciting product or the philosophy behind it, you may want to hang on till the end of this post.

The first thing I have found myself shouting to nearly everyone is that Wave is primarily a substitute to email. It is not meant to be (or ever, in my knowledge, advertised to be) a substitute to Facebook, Twitter, or sliced bread. What this means is that it is only as good as you collectively make it. If you have an email address that no one knows of, you know how lifeless and empty it can get. The real advantage of Wave cannot be felt unless a significant majority of your contacts use it proactively for communication and collaboration.

"Communication and collaboration": These are precisely the two words which are the driving philosophy of Wave. The Wave Development Team started to improve upon email, and while they were at it, found it easy to squeeze in instant messaging and document collaboration in the existing framework. The team working on Wave must have been quite understandably frustrated with the limitations of email. It is not that email can't be improved. But since it is a de-facto standard of communication with same rules, any unilateral change will not work very well. People will be vary of using the new features that will not work everywhere and the massive inertia of people would likely make the product a failure. This is the reason wave had be launched as a totally new product.

They haven't categorically mentioned it, but I feel a major driving force behind development of Wave was managing disk space on server. Whenever an email is sent to a list of recipients, the server has to store separate copies of that email for each one of the recipients. These copies are identical and offer no significant benefit other than making the system decoupled. A change in one does not alter the other. While this may offer some advantages, there are often cases when we want the changes to be visible to any interested party in a multiparty conversation. It is not without reason that the Reply All button is the most worn out button in an email dashboard. Wave makes it possible to have a single conversation hosted in the server that everyone can access simultaneously and independently. If you are no longer interested in a conversation, you can either mute it (still visible to you but no updates will bother you) or delete it altogether. The wave will remain on the server till the last user deletes it. So now the servers don't have to pass around volumes of email that you may not even read, and will only serve them when you request it. Also, just because you are a party to a conversation with huge attachments, it won't clog your mailbox. The Wave Team hasn't yet made it public if they plan to associate the space requirement of wave with a user (or a group of users). Probably just the fact that they have solved the problem of disk space management affords them the luxury to allow people to use and abuse it for some time before they can come up with a policy on it. Of course, the option to reply privately exists so that users of email will not miss something they have been used to.

But there are other issues that will require people to learn a lot of etiquette. Case in point is the Forward Email feature. While it is most intuitive to just add a group of people to a wave (which you mean to forward), the person who sent it to you isn't exactly interested in the LOLs blurted out by your friends. Never, ever mix friends from different groups. The Best Practice is to copy the wave and start a new thread yourself. Another issue that I believe that the Wave Team should address is the CC Recipients. As in traditional email, wave might allow in future to have separate class of people who have been added just with the intent of observers. Unlike traditional email where people get a new mail message irrespective of the fact whether they are active participants or CCed in (and have to actually open the mail to check), Wave users will often find themselves muting conversations that are not of their interest and Wave must provide a means to ping people back into wave even if they have muted it. It won't be Google's fault that they misuse the mute feature, but they have made it so easy that people are bound to misuse it.

Message playback is another feature that Wave counts as a strength, but frankly the thing I am most thankful to them is remove those pesky headers and legal disclaimer signatures. All that remains is just the contextual association of a blip (or a blurb) of text with a user. Since Wave stores just the changes made, Wiki style, it didn't take them much effort to incorporate the playback feature.

This brings us to the most visible thing people see when they first use Wave: The real-time relaying of messages as they are typed. Many people feel they have been betrayed into using Wave when all they got in return was real-time messages. It isn't cool enough to convince them to switch. Unfortunately they have misunderstood Wave because the trivial happens to be the most visible. In fact, the real-time relaying is a feature that most people want to be able to opt out of. They want a Draft Mode. This is not to say that this feature is trivial by itself, or otherwise unimportant. It certainly didn't call for reinventing the email and could have been incorporated into existing IM systems. I call it trivial in comparison to all other features that make Wave so powerful. If all you want to do is pure IMing, you may even find Wave clumsy, having to press Shift+Enter (or clicking Done) to sent the message for good. But if you want the freedom to do many things within the same framework without making it a mess, Wave is your best bet around. PS: If you find the real time message relaying cool, try Fuzzmail. Warning: Fuzzmail mails are public, so be careful with what you type.

We now come to the topic that makes waves so strong: its customizable gadgets and bots. No review of Wave can be complete because there is so much in developers hands to make out of it. What truly constitutes a Wave experience is the limitless customization that can be done by making a gadget or a robots for it, making Wave a platform like Windows or Linux rather than an application software. You want a collaborative drawing broad? You got it. Wanna play chess? You got it. Want to have a multi-party video chat from inside Wave? You got it. A straw poll? You-Got-It. This makes it very similar to iPhone...if you can think of it, there's an app for that! In just the little time Wave has been out, I have come across over three dozen useful gadgets and bots. For the uninitiated, a gadget is a software code that will add a new kind of content to a wave, visible to all participants. This can be a drawing board, a voting module, or even a game board. A robot on the other hand is kind of automated participant that typically adds/modifies content. It can be as simple as shortening the bare URLs or even looking up definition on the web. The robots can also run back-end gadgets, adding content to the wave.

Based on what I have seen of Wave, I am confident that it will be successful in its niche. But I don't see email going anywhere anytime soon. There is a lot of inertia against change and people who have grown up used to the email-style conversations may even hate Wave. What eventually happens, only time will tell.

Elements of Logical Comprehension

We are all aware of the often-used literary technique in which the author shows interaction between the protagonist and a stranger. The stranger ends up being the villain of the story, doing things only expected of a mad man. Only by the very end, the author pulls off a shocker, telling us something that wasn't known before. It changes the whole meaning of the story, and we suddenly start sympathizing with the stranger. One famous story that comes to mind is "Broken Routine" by Jeffrey Archer. This technique works because we, as readers, place full faith in the author in telling us the complete account of events, both seen and unseen. Indeed, intentional gullibility is often the best way to enjoy classical literature. But this shouldn't stop us from understanding the essential principles to be followed to have a complete understanding of any event. What follows is my understanding of the elements that should be used in any attempt to understand events in a logical manner.

Any piece of information, by itself carries little meaning. If you hear someone saying "Yes", you can't expect yourself to form full picture of what was going on. However, it is common human nature to synthesize stories (or theories) around facts where none exist or are not immediately clear. This has the potential to create confusion, but often helps us guide through decisions based on incomplete information. It is not without reason that many people believe humans are much more suited for the real world than computers, who tend to wait for enough data before taking any action.

Any event comprises of three components: Context, Perspective and Expression. Take away one, and you create the potential of confusion.

Context is the most visible part. Context refers to the situation that exists when and where the event takes place, the metaphorical page everyone has to be on at the start of a conversation. Context can be defined as something that is easily visible to anyone present where the event occurs. Since physical presence is not the only way to be present, presence can broadly be described as ability to sense the essence. In a public speech, it is knowing and seeing (at least) the speaker and the crowd. In a teleconference it would be knowing the speakers, the agenda, and the mood. Gossip columns thrive best by quoting celebrities out-of-context, which is often the easiest way to tell half-truths.

Perspective is about knowing the background. It is seeing the unseen. The story I referred to in the first paragraph is an example of one with missing perspective. A missing perspective is easily left unnoticed. You can't know so easily if the labor union leader who betrayed his fellow workers was just greedy, or had received death threats. Whenever possible, we should try to establish a working communication with the person in question before forming an opinion, giving enough time to clarify his reasons and beliefs. But again, this is not possible every time. In such cases, the best we can do is asking question "Do I know enough to form an unbiased opinion?"

Expression refers to the active part of the event. In its most general form, it is a sentence (or sentences) in a natural language, though it can also be a facial expression or body language. Unadulterated understanding of the expression (cognition) is key to forming an unbiased opinion. Language and cultural barriers are the biggest hindrance in assimilating the expression. While lacking a funny bone is a case of missing perspective, having a poor understanding of the language is an example of inaccurate cognition.

I have tried my best to come up with all possible elements that make up logical comprehension, but there may be more that I missed. I will be glad to include any suggestions, which can be left in comments.

The North-East Paradox

This is a hypothetical problem I invented while my mind was idling for some time.

----

Suppose that Mr. Flight Pilot, a very capable pilot, decided to take an adventurous journey. This is what he planned:

From a point on equator, he would start flying north-east. Should he continue his journey for some time, he would have circumnavigated the world and emerged at the same location (a trivial solution). However, he had a wackier plan. Instead of going straight, he decided to direct his flight to the instantaneous north-east at each moment.

Take a moment to let that settle in and take one such imaginary flight in your mind to understand how this will turn out to be. You must have deduced by now that instead of going around the earth, his journey will be directed towards the north pole (only slightly misdirected by a mere 45°). It should appear quite logical that he would start spiraling into the north pole whizzing around the world at a faster rate as he closes in to the north pole.

Bonus Question: How long will he take to reach the north pole?

Bonus Answer: Never. Actually after infinite amount of time should he survive. As you can see from the image below (which is supposed to be taken from the top of north pole, like Stereographic projection), the direction of motion of the flight is always inclined with respect to the north pole. So although it would continue to get progressively closer to the north pole, he will never reach there.

(Pardon my poor illustrations)

I know you must have seen many problem like this, where you get progressively closer to the destination but never reach there. Problems that challenge your notions of a well-behaved world by throwing in infinities. But these problems no longer challenge us. In fact, these are so out-of-date, that they have become boring. The only reason I invented this problem is that I wanted to test my mathematical skills. The problem I gave myself to solve was: Solve for position of flight as a function of time, given the Radius of Earth (R), and speed of flight (v). You may want to try it yourself.

But it soon became clear that my mathematical skills aren't what they used to be. So after trying for a couple of days, I gave up on the problem. But since an idle mind is a devil's workshop, I had to invent a new problem.

Meet Mr. Polar Tourist. He wanted to travel to the north pole, but did not want to undertake the long, tedious journey . He heard about Mr. Flight Pilot, and his way of reaching close to the north pole. As he was a good mathematician himself, Mr. Polar Tourist decided to take help from Mr. Flight Pilot. His plan was simple. He knew that being in flight, he will never reach the north pole. So he decided that he will calculate the optimum location of jumping off the flight (using a parachute, of course) and walk the rest of the way. The way to calculate the optimum location was simple. As soon as walking (with his walking speed of w) will begin to take him closer to the north pole faster as compared to the flight, he will get down. Since he will walk directly to the north pole, and not at a weird angle, he will surely reach the north pole in finite amount of time.

But there was a big problem once he started doing the calculations. He couldn't figure out what would be the best time to exit the aircraft. You see, again following from the figure above, the instantaneous component of flight's speed towards the north pole is v/√2, which is faster than normal walking speed as v»w. Thus, the flight would always take him closer to the north pole faster than walking. The trouble is, this implies that he will always have to prefer sitting in the flight (although we have shown that it will never reach the north pole) over getting down and walking to the north pole (which obviously will complete the journey in finite time). This leads to a paradox. Can you explain why this paradox occurs, and what is the solution to this paradox?

As expected, I know the answer and will post it soon. Just try to solve this paradox for the time being.

Things to keep in mind while trying to solve this problem:

• This is a kinematics problem. So please do not include the solution of paradox as impossibility to undertake this flight (non-existence of ideal compass, delays in changing directions, fuel, longevity of pilot).
• Please also do not include aspects related to dynamics (role of centrifugal force)
• Arguments relating to quantum mechanics are also strictly forbidden (calculating the uncertainty in position for the given speed and stating the impossibility to undertake the exercise once the distance of flight from north pole goes below this number: via Heisenberg' uncertainty principle)
• Assume all ideal things for simplicity if you are trying to solve it by mathematically formulating the location in terms of time (spherical earth, flying at near ground level)
• It may make more sense to try thinking of other (similar) paradoxes like Achilles and the tortoise. The given example, however, is clearly not a solution to the problem as although the tortoise problem is infinite in steps, it is finite in time. The given problem is (apparently) infinite in both time and distance.
  

Update: Solution provided in the comments.

Get offended

The last few years have seen numerous cases of people getting offended for weirdest acts of crime; be it the offense over Ravi Shastri eating beef, Richard-Shilpa kissing, Saching cutting tricolor cake, or even Narayan Murthy playing National Anthem musical. There are many more cases of these kind, but the ones listed above are definitely representative of the ones dominating public memory. While the first one was seen as offending religious sentiments, the second one was about culture and the latter two were about national symbols. What is peculiar about these cases is that not only is there no hint of intention to cause offense, but the offense reported seems to come more out of the insecurity and inferiority complex of the people getting offended. What else can explain people getting offended on a thing like cutting a tricolor flag. I love my motherland, and if I had independently come to know of a person cutting a tricolor flag, I would have admired his love for India.

But the people directly involved are also not the only ones to be blamed for this. Unfortunately, our socio-cultural upbringing lays more stress on looking up to the west than being pride of our own culture. So when we see a person aping west by eating beef, paranoia reaches its peak as we start feeling insecure that someone our own has deserted us for the west; ditto for an Indian women receiving a kiss in public. Also since we look down at our country's past when compared to the west, we are again quick to take offense at something remotely offensive. Something that happened in 2002, should have actually taken place in 1947.

Moreover, it should be the intention that should count and not the end result. There are many things we see and experience regularly that would technically amount to religious (or national) blasphemy if seen with a different perspective. When a potter or sculptor makes giant Lord Ganesh statues for Ganesh Chaturthy, they have to invariably step on the chest (or sometimes the head) of Ganesh to make it perfectly. When Diwali arrives, every other local newspaper publishes a full page Goddess poster which ends up in the waste paper bin or the raddi-trolley. Ever visited a primary school? Just see the children singing the National Anthem and you will start rolling listening to the mistakes they make. Think yourself as perfect? Just sing the Anthem yourself. If it is even a second longer or shorter than 52 seconds, it would be my pleasure to sue you. Of course, there is a good possibility that once that I have pointed these out, some people would have already begun their hunt to get offended.

The only way I see out of this to start taking pride in our own culture and stop teaching our children that we Indians are inferior to our western counterparts. What was started by the British to save their crown seems to have been dutifully followed by our countrymen even after independence. While nearly all developed countries do official business in their native language, India still clings to English.

Interestingly, I quizzed myself on what would come next: the BIG thing of taking offense. My search did not last long. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you this video to take offense to.



Needless to say, this video is an insult to our country. Not only does it distorts the way our National Anthem is sung, it even has regional dialects thrown in. What is more, this one has big names involved (Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, A R Rahman, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, and many more), enough to get you good publicity if that is your sole motive. Grab this opportunity before someone else does.

I can hardly wait to see a news coverage on this video controversy.

Majboori Ka Naam Mahatma Gandhi

"Godlike movie! Must see."

"Watch it yaar. Its five times better than the previous one."

These were some of the half-a-dozen approving comments that I heard about the "Lage Raho Munna Bhai" movie that compelled the movie-wary person like me to finally watch it. After watching it, to say the least, I was not impressed. Mostly this happens when the expectations are built at a level that the movie can't deliver to. But in this case, there was an additional reason. The very theme of the movie is something I am not impressed with. It is quite likely that this may be one of the best way the theme of Gandhism may be presented (in the form of Gandhigiri)in a movie that can appeal to the masses. But a wrong start can only get you so far.

My first impressions about Gandhism were formed in some of my early school days when this concept was presented in a glorified way by the textbooks. Yes, it did sound rosy till I started my own experiments with truth. The first result I got from it was a startling fact that shook my belief in Gandhism right down to its foundations. It was a simple yet powerful truth: Truth is relative.

The very basic principle of Satyagraha in Gandhism was rejected by this result. Gandhism propounds that in a fight for truth, Satyagraha will fetch you your ends. But it never delves into the possibility that what is truth for you may not be for the other party and vice-versa. Without going into the correctness of our struggle for independence, if the Britishers also felt that they are rightfully occupying India and resorted to Satyagraha, it would have led to a dangerous, yet seemingly harmless deadlock. For those who can't comprehend any neutral situation where there can be two truths, a very common example is with regards to custody rights of children in case of mutual divorce. In most such cases, it is nearly impossible to rightfully point out whose truth is stronger, let alone absolute. Imagine how things would turn out if both husband and wife resorted to Satyagraha as a means of salvation to their ultimate truth.

The second result I got was that Satyagraha has very limited application: Satyagraha is applicable only when there is no other truth. This result is different from the first in a sense that the first dealt with truths of conflicting nature, while this one has to do with all the truths in the life of the person asking for the truth (the Satyagrahi). Satyagraha will only work if there is just one truth in the life of the Satyagrahi. We have all heard the phrase "Majboori ka naam Mahatma Gandhi" but I wonder if anyone today has tried to appreciate the wisdom enshrined in these five words. The second result I got is, in fact, an appreciation of this wisdom. India's struggle for freedom was successful by the application of Satyagraha. This was possible because Indians were deprived of any meaningful existence by the Britishers and they had nothing to lose. Satyagraha would not have been applicable if the masses had careers to pursue and lives to make.

Imagine the situation in the life of a lover who pursues Satyagraha to get his beloved. He sits in front of her house till her father agrees to the match. The first day, he gets a lot of raised eyebrows and a couple of warnings. In comes the next day and the case of harassment and stalking is lodged with the police. In a few hours, they come over, warn the lover, and when he refuses to budge, force him out of the colony. The lover, strongly pursuing Satyagraha, returns as soon as possible to his ground zero to continue his struggle. The police, this time, take him into a preventive detention for a day and after a strong warning of stricter actions, leave him back to his house. As expected by the hardcore Satyagrahi, he returns to his post; and as expected by the police, he is arrested again and presented before a district magistrate. The magistrate notes the details of the case and leaves the lover with a last warning, violating which he would be required to keep out of the city's municipal limits. The story can be constructed further, but it is clear that the guy will end up losing his job, his (good) name in the locality and what not. It may so happen that the bride's father gives in to the to the lover's undying love for his daughter after five years, but the lover would have definitely lost everything in the meanwhile. This is the essence of the popular Hindi phrase that has not got its rightful glory.

It is a common and accepted practice that nations glorify their history, but if ours is really about truth, shouldn't we publish it with disclaimers?

The Saxena Test

Has my computer turned into a human?

This question is troubling humanity for quite some time now. Many people have tried to answer it by giving our beloved computer tasks that only a human can be expected to complete, most of which have historically been intelligent tasks. One of the most famous such test is the Turing Test. According to Alan M. Turing, a computer can be considered intelligent (and consequently human) only if it passes the Turing Test. Here's the deal:

You are sitting on one side of a curtain. The proposed human being (PHB) is on the other side. You can interact with it through a neutral common language, say printed questions and answers. If it is not possible to determine if the PIB on the other side is a human or a computer, then a computer that is able to remain undetected by this test would be considered intelligent. The test is very simple, but till date no computer has been able to pass this test. Numerous attempts have been made to develop intelligent computers, based on humongous memory background. But since these have not been extensive, and thus, these machines have failed to pass the test. So is this test the holy grail, and should our search end here?

Not quite. The rate of advancement in computer sciences is extremely rapid, and predictions that such a computer is just round the corner are rife. This brings us to the fundamental question: What task (or test) can be performed by a human being, and not a computer? Furthermore, if we can frame a test that also distinguishes a human by evaluating human traits other than intelligence, it would definitely be more desirable. Such a test should have the capability to differentiating how a human thinks, as against the database searching capability of a computer. Most of the questions asked till now have been based on soft computing theories. But with even soft-computing approach applied to computer's thinking, these methods have limited application. Based on the discussions above, it is clear that to frame the ultimate question, we should concentrate on topics where the computer can't be applied rather than where computer is traditionally "slower" than humans. One such task that I thought about is the ability to understand Jokes! I call it "The Saxena Test".

The idea is simple. To the PHB, present a plain text of English prose and ask whether it considers the prose a valid humorous prose (i.e. a joke), and preferably rate it on a scale 1~10 how much humorous does the PIB find it. The beauty of this question is that computers can't be taught what jokes are, it is something we have in our instincts. Although we differ on how much humorous we find certain jokes, there is an obvious pattern of rating among rating too humorous jokes, and less humorous ones. Also, it is possible to tell if there is any joke in the text or not.

Since the set of jokes in an infinite set, when a computer would be developed to try and solve this problem, it is clear that instead of building an exhaustive database of jokes, it would be taught recognizing the language patterns in the joke. But here also, since the exceptions are so many, a computer would definitely fail. As an example, consider this prose:

"Man 1: Hey, would you come to play golf with me?
Man 2: Yes, but only if you call me once."

It is clear (at least to me) that the sentence above is not a joke. But it is easy to recollect innumerable jokes that fit into this pattern.

On many occasions, the humor in the joke is dependent on extra information not present in the joke. For example, consider this example:

Two atoms were coming around a corner, where they collide against each other and fall down.
The first atom asks the other: Are you all right?
The second atom replies: I think I have lost an electron.
First atom: Are you sure?
Second atom: Yes, I am positive.

To those who don't understand atomic structure, this wouldn't appear like a joke. Let us take another example:

Descartes is sitting in a bar, having a drink. The bartender asks him if he would like another. "I think not," he says, and vanishes.

It is possible for us to use these cases to our advantage while testing the PHB. Thus after giving one of the standard task of understanding an English prose, a book on history of logic, the computer should start considering the prose above as a joke, and the joke-rating of the prose above should rise substantially.

The next task is quantification of whether the PHB is human or not. The joke-rating provided by the PHB should be normalized and compared with ratings given by actual human beings. If there is high positive correlation, say around 0.8~0.9, then the PHB can be considered as a human.

I thought about this test years back, and thought it was high time I publish it; before someone else does! Neat?

Blasphemy Inc.

A few days ago, we all witnessed how a 'godman' was harassed into submitting his stick at the airport. The uproar that followed at Mumbai and Aurangabad airport is also remembered by all.

Incidentally, the godman claimed that seizure of the 'dharm-dand' started a period of repentance during which he will be expected to maintain strict discipline by not doing either travelling, eating food, drinking water or speak. What confuses me is that this was realized by him after he travelled from Lucknow to Mumbai and sprouted angry sentences from his mouth.

I had never heard about the particular godman before, but was told by the media channels that he is very acclaimed by many people. However after witnessing a conduct that befits only politicians, I dispelled all doubts in my mind about his being a saint. A real saint in his place would have either refused to travel or tried to calm the people as soon as he would have heard about the angry response of the people. It should be noted that it was not a police raid in which his stick was taken away, but due to a security requirement that forbids people from carrying any dangerous articles inside the aircraft. Had the godman decided not to travel, there wasn't any question of having his stick taken away.

Now let us discuss the issue of disrespecting the godman's right to travel with his stick. As far as I remember, the government doesn't mantain any list of approved godmen, which in fact makes sense as they don't require government's approval for their sainthood. But this creates a problem as to who should be considered a godman and who not. What I mean to say is that if a saffron-clad person comes to the airport carrying a trident and having a hundred supporters behind him, does this qualify him to carry his weapon with him? What seems most obvious to me is that the security officer at the Lucknow airport was as ignorant as me about the godman's support base. He was just doing his duty by not allowing any unscrupeless thing onboard. Even if being aware of such a thing, one should avoid personal convictions while following duties.

Here I remember the famous tale of King Harishchandra who did not allow his wife to use the 'shamshan' for burning the dead body of his own son. Even though the person in concern was his own son, he didn't waver from his responsibilities. I have always laughed at his mixing truth with hallucinations (giving his kingdom to a saint based on a dream), which create serious doubts in my mind about his saneness, as a ruler is expected to work for the welfare of his subjects. What prompted him to hand over the future of a vast kingdom into incompetent hands (the saint wasn't an established 'good' ruler) is beyond me. But I have always regarded him for his decision at the graveyard.

Also, we shouldn't forget that a belief for one means blasphemy for the other. I am sure that the saints/godman who frequently travel abroad for sermons (ignoring the warnings that going overseas will debar them from being a Hindu, leave alone godman status) have to face similar treatments but keep quite as they know they are powerless there.

Now let us take a broader perspective of the whole issue. These things happen when people prefer 'idol worship' over 'ideal worship'. What is surprising is that it is prevalent in even the religions that ridicule 'idol worship'. When we are expected to worship hard work and dedication, we start worshiping Hansie Cronje and Md. Azharuddin instead. No wonder when idols betray, we either assume that the ideal has betrayed us or start seeing it as mirage; both of which are not the truth. What I mean to say is that instead of idolizing Mahatma Gandhi, we should idealize non-violence; instead of idolizing George Washington as a champion of freedom, we should idolize the spirit of the never-say-die attitude. People should only be a source of inspiration, not the source of ideology. It is easy to change whom you want to draw inspiration from, but difficult to change the ideology. When one attains such wisdom, it will be possible to draw inspiration from even the likes of Adolf Hitler.

Let us look back at the primary incident now. A quick look at the profile of the godman indicates that he was earlier absconding for a forgery and later emerged as a godman by preaching peace. There is nothing wrong in idealizing peace. Also that he was a (suspected) conman before cannot be held against him as history is full of such people who have raised from being conman/dacoits/plunderers to saints. But definitely, the manner in which he had reacted to the incident makes me feel that this shows a weakness in personality. This let-down wouldn't have taken place if instead of idolizing a person, his supporters would have idolized the ideals set forth by him. Of course belief is a personal issue and I am not asking anyone to change it, and am merely expressing my views. On similar lines, they should also understand this and have a distinction between holding one's views and forcing their views (the airport incident).

Freedom of speech is very different from right to harass.

What Women Want

"Tall, dark and handsome".

That's it, not a word more, and not a word less. I often wonder how this wonder-line made inroads into the minds of a majority of girls (at least amongst those I know). Of all the girls I could ask what they looked for in a man, this was the answer I always got. Even inquiring from my friends who have asked this question to their (girl) friends, this quote has been overwhelmingly quoted.

I must say that I was surprised, even a bit shocked to learn this some one year back for the first time. It meant changing the way I perceive girls. I had previously thought that girls look for rich, smart and caring men (in the preference order stated). But alas, my beliefs have been rubbished comprehensively. But thankfully, as the cliché goes "Men will never understand women", I needn't worry. I don't know whether this statement is a sufficient condition for being a man or just necessary. I mean, if a woman doesn't understand other women, is she a man?

Coming back to the point, I decided to check whether this is just an escape-out sentence (read: proxy statement), or whether women really practice what they preach (I know they didn't preach as I forced them to tell, but never mind). So out of those whom I could genuinely ask to show a snap of their boyfriend, I was again surprised by their identical responses: "I don't have any photograph right now, but anyway you will be disappointed to see how he looks like". I am not sure if the first part is correct, but the second definitely came from the heart. So this leaves me with another surprising question: Why do women keep boyfriends they would be ashamed off to show others?

To find an answer to this question, I again asked some of my friends. Thankfully one of them had an answer.

The aspirations of women root from their sub-conscience insecurity. All women want to be fair and lovely (read: beautiful). Which is reasonable as this is what men advertise for (read: matrimonial columns). But not all achieve this. So from their understanding of the theory of relativity, they conclude that if they can get men in whose comparison they are fairer and more beautiful, they need not seek any further. Also, to avoid "Main, Meri Patni aur Woh", they want men who are taller by at least by a couple of inches. The word handsome is just to give them a veto power; otherwise all the tall and dark men will start claiming to be their dream-man. It is always advisable to keep a vague discretionary power like this with oneself.

Speaking the word "rich" in public is considered taboo. That's why if you want a woman say that that she wants to marry a rich man, you will perhaps have to eavesdrop into their girl-talk.

I know my sample was neither representative (as it comprised entirely of girls with similar socio-economic status as mine) not sufficient (not even a dozen), but still it was sufficient to convince me owing to the overwhelming nature of the responses. But some people are not convinced....

'Fair and Handsome', are you listening?

The IIT Dream

A couple of weeks back, Prof. Gautam Sinha (Training and Placement-In-charge of IIT Kharagpur) held a meeting with the students to discuss the changes in the the Training and Placement schedule commencing this year. As major changes have been introduced, he wanted to take the students in confidence by meeting them in person.

Here's the jist of the change...Starting this year, the training and placement process of all IITs will begin in December.

Definitely, if there's smoke there had to be a fire. So what was the collective 'fire' in all the IITs that resulted in this collective decision? The answer is obvious to the insiders, but hardly guessable to any outsider.

It was observed that IIT students (regardless of the IIT they study in) have been making the T&P process an excuse to miss classes. Regulations allow students to miss classes provided the timing of the Test/GD/Interview of any company clashed with the lecture hours. But it was observed that many a times the students start skipping classes even a day before the event, and missing all classes on the day in question is considered a birth-right. If the students were really serious, there would have been no problem, but the truth is that the students hardly utilized this time to prepare. What most of them do is spend the time on their computers, looking for new movies to watch, or just spend it playing LAN games.

And this wasn't difficult for the T&P section to find it out. With a majority of students flunking the tests, one doesn't need a sixth sense to guess. There is one very famous incident about the student's attitude that many of us know. It so happened that Tata Motors came for an interview last year for jobs, and majority of the students (including the department topper) flunked scoring less than a score (20) per cent. And what more, the guy in question argued that its not possible for him to get so bad marks and challenged the integrity of the Tata Motors selection panel. What happened next brought shame to all of us. Tata Motors sent back his copy to show that his answer-script has been graded according to the established norms and standards. What more, they pulled up the T&P section for having such mediocre and arrogant students, and claimed that the same question paper in other colleges like Jadhavpur had plenty of students scoring well above 80. The reprimanding trickled down the level and our Head of Department scolded us for being similar to him.

And this was another issue that Prof. Gautam Sinha discussed with us in the meeting. He told us how the times are changing and the IIT stamp is losing ground to the NITs faster than expected. He told is how the other colleges have started scoring better than IIT Kharagpur in the placements.

Companies are fast realizing that the IIT stamp is fame and no longer valuable as it used to be. Many companies have even started to avoid coming to IITs as they believe that IIT students are usually aloof, don't work hard enough, expect higher salaries and leave companies early. Even those who come to the IIT campuses have felt that the IITians are no longer the material they used to be.

But what has changed over the last few years that has spelt doom on the IIT dream? Here's the things that have changed.

IITs have emerged like a brand, brought popularity by the strong alumni, and over-hyped by the media. But IITs are not soap-making factories that can churn out good soaps given the quality of the raw material remains the same. The IITs have been based on discipline that has been inculcated in successive batches given the competition they faced from their peers. Getting into the IITs was tough and then competing with the 'chosen few' made the IITians strong as a rock when they went on to face the world. All the IITs strived to keep themselves out of politics and set aspirations for higher standards. This created the IIT brand as we know it and the recruiting organizations knew they would get the gold if they came to recruitment here. But what the media did was a doomsday spell. It created an atmosphere that made people feel that cracking the JEE was the final frontier, and failed to account for the IIT system and the real value addition. This had a very bad effect. People who aspired for IIT felt that once inside, the IIT will take the trouble of giving them good jobs regardless of whether they are serious or not. And this was apparent from my very first year in IIT Kharagpur and the same experience continues till date. And it has been this attitude that has spelled doom. As years pass by, more and more companies are realizing that judging a batch based on its predecessor is getting more and more illogical.

Even the assumption that the raw material is the same is no longer valid. With centres like Bansal's that make the student mug their way into the IIT, the proportion of mediocre students in the IITs is increasing.

Another major change that the IIT system has seen is the introduction of free internet facility for the students. While originally meant for education, it is hardly used for what it was originally established. This started some four years back in most of the IITs, and the result is obvious. Instead of reading in libraries and playing outdoors (read:enhancing their personality), people glue onto their computers and do all sorts of activities, even bringing their IIT into the news for the wrong reasons. And today, the LAN of IIT Kharagpur boasts of 10 TeraBytes of data, most of which is pirated softwares/videos obtained from the net.

A person who joins an XYZ college knows that the world is tough. And throughout his education, he is reminded that if he has to survive, he will have to improve himself. Its a different story about those who don't have any inclination to succeed, but those who want good, do good. And at the end when they emerge out of the college, they are prepared to handle the world. An IITian on the other hand, feels that he already has success stamped on his back and need not stress himself any further. In the IITs, there are many people who want good results but refuse to stress it out. And the trouble is, this tribe is fast increasing.

Then how come we still have IITians among the successful in business world and even in IIMs, etc. The reason is similar to the gambler's world. Only those who make it big make the news. Only the alumni who are successful will come back to his alma mater with a head held high, giving us the false impression that all IITians are successful.

So is it the end of the story? The end of hope for all those who pursue IIT as a brand? Thankfully, the answer is "No". And there are enough reasons for this.

Ironically, it will be the media again who will bring back the glory to the IITs. And this process has already started. One regularly gets to see news that a certain college student has achieved something big and then the newspaper claim "and he isn't an IITian!". The stories of NITs and other colleges doing well will also find welcome approval with the media as this is "News". Slowly the horror of these details will trickle into the minds of the IITians and they will stop seeing themselves as special. The technologies that made the IITs elite (like the internet) will reach these colleges pretty soon and establish a level playing field. And this will happen before a student freshly out of school starts to choose an NIT over an IIT giving the IITs an edge with a better raw material. Amen.

Being the Black Sheep

I read a few very interesting articles today. The first one was a blog by Don Blohowiak about the people's mentality to make them look different. It was said that many of the law and order problem arise because some people want to look different. I am not talking about Salman Khans and Amisha Patel sorts, but those among the commoners who proclaim that "Rules are meant to be broken". By breaking rules they simply want to be different from the crowd. Just after I read this blog, I stumbled upon another one by Ian that went...

"This was a great reminder for me that too often our conflicts and mis-communications are about holding our position and being right. Wouldn't it be better to seek out the point of divergence or confusion and work on that?"

Although they look quite different in message, I got a line of thought on people's mentality. Here's how I perceive it.

Man is a social animal. This explains the "Herd" mentality that people develop over the years. This is seen abundantly in Indian context. People vote for people of their own caste no matter how worthless they may be and how worthy the opponent be. This "ghettoism" has plagued our society for a long time since for thousands of years, there was discrimination on the basis of caste in the society. People believe that of all people, the one that belong to their caste will hold them for the longest time. The caste offers them something equivalent to a Social Security Number. Instead of being a person, they are reduced to just "Baniya" or "Aiyer". But the story starts here. Now that they are reduced to a tag, they find it difficult to stand out. And not just in caste system, this thing is applicable everywhere.

After finding security in rules, people want to be famous. And they do it by being the "black sheep" of the herd. As is aptly put in one Hindi saying "Badnaam honge to kya naam nahi hoga", which when translated to English means "By getting a bad name, aren't we getting a name". This satisfies their ego. After joining a school (read: "Institution run by rules"), although people will always cheer for their team, they will also plant crackers in the toilets. The former gives them security and the latter, identity.

Now comes the importance of the second blog I read. We will find that there are always people who will never leave their point and keep on arguing even if they realize that they are wrong. This is because by conceding they are wrong, they run the risk of not being taken seriously. "Would people care for a person who goes wrong every time". This even holds good for boys who don't cry. To always appear right seems to be the key hold the head high.

Another aspect of this social behavior is the "Pull-Down Mentality". Seems like a big coincidence, I had written about it at length in one of my other blogs today itself. I will take the relevant sections from it to ease the reading.

The two things I hate most about the student culture I have seen are GPLs and forced treats. For those not into any Indian Colleges, GPL refers to the practice of kicking the butt of a person using all the force you can gather, doing it in a group big enough so that by the time you are finished giving GPLs, the guy on the receiving side (howsoever sturdy and with cushioned buttocks) is also finished. GPLs are usually given to people who have recently got a reason to be happy, like a birthday or an appointment/promotion. No sooner than a person has got a reason to be happy, is he reduced to a limping and weaning lump.

Of similar nature are the treats that I see around. Treats are usually asked when a person gets success in doing something big, which usually amounts to money. So no sooner does the person gets the money, he is hounded to part with it by giving lavish treats at the place the receiving group finds suitable. So the happiness comes at a cost. This aptly looks to me as the pull down mentality of the masses.

"If you don't get success, scare the others from success by punishing them for it."

Though working on an unconscious level, this mentality has telling effects on the way people behave. "Jealousy" is the word I feel apt to describe this phenomenon. That's why we will always have Teacher's chamchas (feet-lickers) telling them who put the crackers in, and Shiv-sainiks who will never allow youths to celebrate Valentine's Day. At this point of time, many of you will be pointing a finger at me that Shiv Sainiks aren't showcasing jealousy by burning down Archie's Galleries. But I will beg to differ. Most of them are not jealous of youths celebrating. They are jealous of America's progress. They perceive Valentine's Day as an American Festival, something whose celebration undermines the pride of being and Indian. Inferiority complex is the twin sister of jealousy.

People will always try to kill the black sheep.

To be a hero.

To be the whitest sheep.