Existential Crisis

'The Scream' by Norwegian expressionist painter Edvard Munch .

Acknowledgement: Thanks Sanket, for telling me about this beautiful painting. :)

The politics of economics

I am writing this article in response to an attitude, a frighteningly widespread attitude of ambitious criticism. By that I mean a type of criticism that adds little value to the subject under discussion and serves only the critic by catapulting his name towards his indiscriminating readers.

The occasional cause that prompted me to write this is this article from www.outlookindia.com. I will talk about this article per se later on in this post.

In any piece of writing, fundamentally, there are two aspects- 1. form, and 2. content. The form is the body of the essay that contains the content, the soul, of an essay.

An idea, if not embodied properly, doesnt remain presentable any more. It loses its appeal to the reader. However, it doesnt lose its intrinsic value. A good idea embodied in a bad word or sentence is like an idea in hibernation. It sleeps. It doesnt die. Sooner or later it reincarnates in a better frame and gets conveyed.

But the other way round doesnt exist. A form has little value in isolation. For a few moments it might amaze or amuse you by its words or wits but the effect is essentially ephemeral. It ends with the pages. It dies. A form without a content is like a body without a soul. It is like a dead body. It hardly matters how beautiful it is. Infact the more beautiful it is, the more sorry you feel about it.

Having an intrinsic value is very important for me. I have no taste for anything that lacks it. There are things that are very different or very difficult but these thing never charm me. One might spit 10 meters far or piss 100 meters high and claim a place in the books of records. Fair enough. But for me and people like me, these things have no value.

Oflate I have read a few articles about Indian economy. I have made a curious observation after going through these essays. I feel that most of these essays attempt to disseminate the (political) agenda of the writer rather than reflect his understanding of the subject. This trend is prevalent and pronounced in the field of economics more than anywhere else. Read this too. As a beginner I hardly welcome this disobliging skepticism but I cannt ignore the facts that I myself have noticed.

Rhetorics is also an element of form. It is a tool that helps the writer to create an effect in the mind of a reader. It is like the needle of the injection, it penetrates the skin but it is just a means to achieve an ends. It facilitates the ejaculation of both medicine or poison inside the body. What is actually injected depends upon whether the injection is in the hands of a doctor or a killer. The effect of the needle alone dies with the twinge but the effect of medicine or poison is more enduring and far more significant.

In a nutshell, how a thing is said is important only till what is said is important.

Coming back to the article (the link is given above) I feel that the writer must appreciate the difference between responsible criticism and ambitious criticism. The former involves adding value to the subject before demanding value for the writer. The latter involves omission of the first step.

A criticism is complete only when it suggests an alternative. Every system has flaws and anti-incumbency sentiments attached to it. It is easy to fan the fury of discontented people but it doesnt make any valuable contribution to the society. Deconstruction can be genius but it is never great. Only construction can be great. Only an irresponsible, power-seeking man indulges himself in subversive activities without having any idea of the alternative system. All he gives to the society is anarchy.

In this article the writer is not wrong when he says that GDP is neither the means nor the ends of our economic pursuits. But he goes on to say that it is not even a good indicator of economic development. I agree that GDP doesnt incorporate household activities and thus doesnt give us an accurate picture of the economic health. But we have no other better indicator with us. What if not GDP? How do we take decisions? The writer offers no suggestions from his side. Rather he repeats what many have already said.

Having an agenda is not objectionable as it contains a sense of purpose. But it must be supported by a sound understanding of the world around us. It is sad that young people fall for sides and slogans without proper study. One book of Ayn Rand can make us capitalist and the other one makes us a hardcore capitalist. This is ridiculous. A belief is discredited not by its detractors but by the frailty of its followers. It is bourgeois to accept or reject anything before understanding it. We must try to understand before making an opinion.

In this article the writer accuses finacial markets and IT industry for naxalism. He fails to see that naxalism is an endemic that is found only in the areas that are away from the reach of BSE and IT industry. The victims of the naxalite aggression are not IT professionals or BPO executives but the local land owners. The cause of violence is not poverty but hopelessness and injustice. True, the government has failed to control the growing economic disparity but in the same breath he says that IT and BPO industry has not provided any employment for the less privileged people. Nothing could be farther from truth. Whenever an industry thrives, other supporting industries also flourish. Apart from jobs that are directly created, many small hotels, restaurants, tea-stalls and other shops of small and big scale get opened. Many people earn and many people live. Just look around.

BPO and IT industry has given HOPE to Indian youth. It has provided empowerment to women. It has made India a force to reckon with on the international arena. Its contribution can hardly be negated without being incorrect. I hope this cloud to go to places where people are deprived of rains. I am waiting for this sun to rise in east.

A Letter to The Director, IITB

This is a letter from one of IITB's alumni to the director of IITB. It addresses some of the issues I have felt and discussed with Akshaya. Thought it might be interesting to you.

EFFECT OF UNLIMITED BROADBAND INTERNET ON CAMPUS LIFE & CULTURE: AN OPEN LETTER TO DIRECTOR, IIT BOMBAY

Author - ANIL CHAWLA

To,

The Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

Powai, Mumbai - 400 076

Sir,

Thanks for the courtesies extended to all of us from the batch of 1980 at our Silver Jubilee Reunion in the last week of December 2005. We enjoyed the meet and were really glad to see that the institute has grown during the past two and a half decades.

While we were enjoying ourselves and renewing our long-lost contacts, some of us visited the hostels and interacted with the present students.We learnt that the culture on the campus has changed drastically from our days. The hostels are different from what we nostalgically remember.

There have been significant improvements in terms of infrastructure - better-equipped messes, water purification systems, washing machines and an Internet connection in each room. Our batch was the last one to use slide rule. Calculators were allowed when we were in second semester.

When we came, hostel rooms did not even have ceiling fans (fans were fitted when we were more than half way through). When we passed out, personal computer was still many years away and all that we learnt of programming was using punch-cards. So, comparing today's infrastructure with our times is indeed mind-boggling.

We could have been envious of today's students. But, we saw a negative side of the picture that left us worried rather than envious. In our times, hostel lounge was a centre of activity. In those days, the lounge used to have a black & white TV, a music system, a carom table, a TT table, and a few magazines. It used to be bustling with activity, which was more often than not a bit too noisy for my liking. But, now when I visited lounge of my own hostel, it was a mere shadow of its glorious past. It still had the magazines, but everything else was gone. The furniture looked as if it had not been used for ages. The place looked dead and the silence was eerie.

The reasons for the change in ambience of lounge are not too far to seek. Every student now has a computer, which can be used for playing music - so coming to lounge and listening to music is passé. The computer has also replaced the TV. It appears that the computer has also replaced carom table and TT table. Now, students spend hours playing games on the computer in their respective rooms. We were told that counterstrike is the favourite on the campus, with some students playing it for hours at a stretch every day. I was even introduced to someone as the invincible champion of counterstrike. I tried to talk to this so-called champion. It was a futile exercise - he did not know how to talk. His language capabilities were limited to monosyllables and some shaking of the head as a zombie probably would.

Was he an isolated case? Probably yes, but more probably, no!

Unfortunately, it seems that the counterstrike champion was just a representative of the new crop of IITians - good at the mouse but very bad at almost all human interaction skills - an impression confirmed by the student who made a presentation to our batch about TechFest. His presentation used computer-generated graphics in a way that we could never have done as students. Yet, he failed to impress. His skills as an orator are unlikely to bring any glory to IIT.

Public speaking is a skill that only a few have. Even, in our batch, not many were (or are) good orators. So, if the present generation of IIT students lacks this skill, this cannot be a cause of worry. There is, however, one difference. Two and a half decades ago, while the average student at IITB might have lacked oratory skills, the leaders among students - the ones who acted as spokespersons - were comparable to the best in the world. The student leaders of IITB during 70's and 80s represented the tip of a pyramid. Most of us were nowhere near the pinnacle, yet had our own strengths when it came to putting a point forward.

An average student of IITB during the late seventies honed his skills at discussions, argumentation and debate in the mess, corridors and steps of hostels. I remember that when I came as fresher, I could hardly speak English. In less than a year, I was speaking fluently - albeit, with a lot of slang. Compared to that today's situation seems strange. The messes are too quiet; lounges are empty; wing corridors do not have any hot debates going on. The most surprising part was when a student of Hostel 13 told me that he did not even know the names of all his wingmates and there was at least one person in his wing with whom he had not talked even once during the past four months or so that he had lived in the wing.

The shocking absence of social and interpersonal interaction in the hostels is not something that can be taken lightly. IIT has a brand value today because of its alumni. On IITB campus, there are many buildings that have been funded by alumni who have been successful in their lives. How many of these alumni were outstanding in academics while they were at IIT? How many gold medallists of IITB have done as well as Nandan Nilekani or Manohar Parrikar? IITians who have shone across the world did learn a lot in the classrooms of IITB, but my humble contention is that they learnt even more in the hostels interacting at close quarters with some of the best minds of the country.

It appears that Internet and internet-based games have replaced the warmth that hostels of IITB had till very recently. A computer in each hostel room with an unlimited broadband connection was a technological dream that was too farfetched for us to even imagine when we were students. Now that the dream has come true, it is time that we took care of the negative consequences.

I understand that managements of various IITs are aware of the problem. IIT Madras Director is rumoured to have said in one of his classes that he was less bothered about porn and more concerned about computer games that are addictive and can take up hours at a stretch. IIT Madras puts off its server from 0100 hours to 0400 hours so that students can sleep and do not continue playing through the night. I am told that IIT Bombay has introduced compulsory attendance (80 per cent) in all classes to ensure that students come to classes instead of playing games in their rooms.

Poor attendance in classes is just one of the consequences of extensive computer-game-playing. As Director, ensuring high level of academic performance is surely one of your primary duties. But, academic life is just one facet of IIT experience. IITB, in particular, and all IITs in general have prided themselves on all-round development of their students. With the adoption of new technological advances, it seems that a crisis situation has been created - students are missing out the complete transformational experience that IITs traditionally offered. Classroom instructions are one part of what the students are missing out when they remain glued to the screens, but that is not the only part or the most important part that they are missing.

To stress my point, let me discuss about the recent suicide on IITB campus. The poor soul apparently was distressed due to some decision of IITB management. He was a genius in one field and was studying in another. But, was all these sufficient reason for him to take the ultimate step? Did he talk to his friends before that? As it seems, he was a loner permanently glued to his computer screen. He was an island all unto himself. It seems that too many of students at IITB today are islands with no bridges connecting them to others even around them. This is not a problem of just IITB. Last semester, even IIT Kanpur had a suicide.

IITians are known today across the world as great warriors who fight against all odds without losing their sense of humour and wit. None of the attitudes and skills needed for this grit can be picked up from a computer screen or in a classroom. If the future generations of IITians come without essential survival and human interaction mindsets, they may make good nerds but they will no longer be able to make much of a mark in various fields where IITians are shining today. If this happens, IIT will no longer be the big brand that it is supposed to be today.

Management, faculty and above all student community of IIT Bombay must discuss the impact of the present policy of providing unlimited broadband Internet connection in every hostel room. I am not against adoption of new technology. Probably, we need more technology to ensure that Internet technology does not become a curse. Should the broadband connections in hostel rooms block all gaming? Should there be metering of usage in terms of time or downloaded bytes? These are some of the questions that come to my mind. Surely, there must be many more questions, alternatives, solutions that must be discussed threadbare by the IITB community.

I am sure that IITB community will be able to face up to the problem and come up with solutions that will guide all other institutes, colleges and universities not just in India but also abroad.

Thanks & Regards,
ANIL CHAWLA

13 January 2006

15 Park Avenue

How I wish I could write a review of this movie! But I know I can not. I can not because writing a review, which could do justice with this movie, would demand much more competence and experience than I suppose I have. So I am going to write my general feeling and opinion about it which is based on the impression the movie has created in my mind. Please don't expect a detailed analysis or technical insights in this post.

To start with, it is a beautiful movie. Mind-blowing with all its possible limitations! Absolutely Amazing despite a few imperfections the professional critics would come up with!

I recommend you to watch this if you are interested in meaningful cinema and if your perception of fun doesn't belong to the genre of 'keep-your-mind-at-home' type. I will suggest you to watch this movie in theatre. I'm sure you'ld find it worth your while and worth its cost as well as its opportunity cost. For me this movie was an audio-visual treat that had made a heartfelt effect. This effect is still fresh. I can still feel its sweet fragrance.

Now let's talk about the movie as such. What's so great about this movie? Well, where should I start from?

Konkana Sen Sharma: I admit I don't have appropriate and adequate adjectives to adorn her with. I am afraid my adjectives will only understate the sheer genius of her acting. She is a sensational phenomenon. She leaves you bedazzled by her brilliance. She impales your heart by her penetrating performance. She gets you transfixed to your chair and doesn't even allow you to blink your eyes as long as she stays at the screen. She plays the role of Mithi, a schizophrenic girl who has delusions about her husband and kids who don't exist in reality (obviously!). She gives life to Mithi, she makes her breathe, she makes her so irresistably real! That's what an actor does to a character that is otherwise nothing but a collection of words on a piece of paper. In this movie there are many moments made momentous by her impeccable histrionics. Watch her when she says "Who are you who look like my parents?" while resisting her being taken away. You will not be able to forget the ferocious yet poignant look in her large watery eyes. Look at her while she comes back from the asylum. You will not be able to forget her defeated, shattered image. She looks like an innocent flower untimely withered by the sadistic scorch of a revengeful sun. The pathos stays in your mind. She stays in your mind.

Konkona has a courage to look ugly on the screen, without hiding those two eyes! And it matters a lot to me. Here I remember Nargis with great fondness and respect. No actress has done till date what she has done in Mother India. I want to write about her sometime. With the same feelings I also remember Raj Kapoor in Jagte Raho, an absolutely amazing movie and an absolutely brillaint performance! An actor need not always look pretty if he/she wants to make the character real. Konkona very much looks like Mithi would do in her real life. She does it very honestly and very convincingly. And it takes more than just a 'no make-up' look to achieve what she has achieved. Her theatrical skills are incredible. You have to see Mithi to get a glimpse of Konkona's genius.

Shabana Azmi: Shabana Azmi plays a beautiful and a very complicated role. She is Mrs Mathur, Mithi's elder sister in the movie. She is a divorced woman, an ambitious professor of physics with kind but impetuous disposition. She looks after her ailing sister and old mother. Bound by her familial obligations, she is bound to ignore the courtships of his colleague she likes. She consciously tries not to punish her family for her sacrifices and she rejects the label of 'saint' etc but in weak and trying moments her anguish belies her otherwise poised countenence. There was, I think, an immense scope in this role and consequesntly a menacing responsibility attached to it. But Shabana delivers it with perfection, panache and above all, control. Her mind is torn apart by heart-rending conflicts and such is the force of her acting that we feel the stress in our minds. She takes us in a different plane. We shuffle between our postures in anxiety and apprehension while she effortlessly goes on. We feel sorry for her. We empathize with her despite the conspicuous lack of a background score. Only she could have done it. We admire her without her doing much melodrama. Shabana has done justice with her reputation as a great artist. We want more of her.

Waheeda Rehman: Oh what an actress! I have seen her in Pyaasa but it was this movie that made me realize her potential.

In 15 Park Avenue, she looks so tender and so vulnerable that you unconsciously get cautious of her. Her frailty and fragility scares your soul. She looks like someone precariously standing at the edge of a cliff where even a slight touch could push her into the abyss. She trembles like a dry leaf. "It is so awful to be old and helpless", she says and she sends the shiver down your spine by letting you see imagine for a moment the horrors of senility that is more horrible than senility itself. Look at the naked shock at her face when Shabana shouts at her and says that it was her family that stops her from doing things she would have done otherwise.

Rahul Bose: Odd man out in this ladies' movie! We again get to see the same 'goody-goody' sophisticated, urban gentleman who fails to make any mark in the intimidating presence of the scintillating triumvirate. Sorry Rahul I can't ignore Mr and Mrs Iyer while writing about you. I found the similar character in 15 Park Avenue too. You were great in the former but not so great in the latter despite your being almost the same. More presicely, because your being the same. The similitude in the roles you choose to play is disconcerting and disappointing. Every artist has limitations but within those limitations an actor must display a minimal variety in his roles. So unlike Konkona, you hardly do anything but be yourself! That's what you have done is this movie. Do you call it acting? I don't think so. Enacting oneself can hardly be called acting. Every man at the street enacts himself. Big deal!

There are moments when you try to act but you try too hard and you nearly make a mess of the scene. Any discerning spectator will be puzzled by your inexplicable pauses and postponed responses in heated scenes. Why would a husband be so irritatingly and provokingly devious to his wife while answering her simple questions? Why would he unnecessarily let himself be suspected by his circumlocution and evasion? Your acting in those few scenes indicates insincerity on the part of Joydeep which is incongruous with the portrayal of his character. That reminded me of second-rate suspense movies in which the actors deliberately stammer and glance sideways to create cheap mystery.

Anyways, you manage to save the wicket. You stayed put at the pitch. You shared the screen with these formidable women and that, I understand, could be pretty unnerving. Keeping that in mind, you didn't do that bad. You did rather good. You deserve this much credit. But you don't play awesome shots which was expected from a man like you who, Media says, is an actor of great caliber.

Aparna Sen: I should have started with her. I would certainly have if her daughter had not overwhelmed my mind by her pyrotechnical performance. She is the mother of this movie. I have few words to say in her praise. She has proved again that she is a consummate director. She has an understanding of the subtle nuances of human emotions and human relationships and she portrays her characters with meticulous care and credibility. She respects the intelligence and sensitivity of her audience too. There are dialogues and situations in the movie that substantiate my feeling. I am sure you will notice the fine treatment of such emotions especially in Shabana's dialogues. All I would like to say that as a movie-goer I am thankful to her for making such a beautiful movie. Hats off to you, Ma'am.

Schizhophrenia: I am not sure whether schizophrenics behave like mentally retarded people. I am not sure if they urinate at the carpet. I am not sure if they don't recognize people they see in their hallucinations. I am saying all this because the review at rediff.com says that this movie makes the understanding of the word schizophrenia clear in our minds. I beg to disagree.

But still, unlike other movies, the patient is not shown to be a dangerously smiling psychopath who does all sorts of somersaults with his eyeballs to prove that he is really sick.

The End: This is controvertial and deliberately made so. I repeat - consciously and deliberately. If you understand this point, you would find yourself less judgemental about it.

Apart from the classic reason of leaving 'the end' at our imagination, the writer-director might have other motives to choose such an open-ended end. I think that the director didn't want to do anything dramatic to bring about a more palatable and popular end. Most of the directors do it. And it is ridiculous. However we are habituated to it. We take it as a necessary rule of the game. But our being habituated doesnt make it less ridiculous. On the other hand we are not habituated to such endings. We felt betrayed for not been told the whole story. But there is more to human life than a story can contain. That's the point and we must know it.

And without a spectacular upheaval it was almost impossible to conclude the story in 3 hours. There were many lose threads in the movie and a conventional end would have involved doing things that would ineluctably have threatened the quality of the movie. The director chose to be uncompromising about it and I respect her for that.

Verdict: A don't-miss movie.

The Power of Congratulations!!

"...and compliments became more and more unbearable to me. It seemed to me that the falsehood increased with them so inordinately that never again could I put myself right." - Albert Camus (The Fall)

How beautiful!! How true!! Camus bares the soul of the modern man. How undeniably true is our secret craving for compliments in spite of our awareness of the fact, continually corroborated by thoughtful observation, that most of the people have little or no 'sense of compliment'.

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I vaguely remember a story that I had read in my childhood. It was about a little boy. One day he came home with some fruits that he had stolen from his neighbour's backyard. His mother became very happy with him and patted him for it. Encouraged by his mother's praises, the boy involved himself in more acts of thefts. He brought more fruits, vegetables and other eatables to his home and saw his mother brimming with joy. As he grew up, he gradually mastered various skills of picking pockets, bluffing, cheating and dodging police. After a few years he became a highway robber. He looted many people and brought home money, gold and other valueables. His terror spread in the areas nearby. The local government issued a warrant on his name. He absconded and tried to escape but finally he was caught and jailed. The police implicated him in various criminal cases and he was proved guilty. The court pronounced a capital punishment for him. His mother came to see him before his execution. The man, who had dolefully reviewed the course of his life in the solitude and leisure that the prison provided, slapped his mother and looked at her with a seething hatred in his eyes. After a while he burst into spasmodic sobs. He said to her on his way to gallows, 'Your praises ruined my life. If you had scolded me the first day I had stolen fruits, I might have been a different man. Oh mother! Your compliments killed me! '.

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We must be cautious of compliments. We must be aware of their power over us. Congratulations-driven actions are exciting but dangerous. It is like riding on a lion. It gives you immense pleasure and a sense of power nothing else can afford. It gives you a high. You feel like God! But remember - you can't let yourself fall. You just can not let yourself fall! The lion will tear you apart as soon as you fall. You die with a mutilated face. You die another man.

At other times, this word - Congratulations is meaningless. It adds no value to our aspirations. What's the value of thos word for a man like Sachin Tendulkar? Nothing. It says nothing. It is like the unfortunate one that is added to infinite, only to be neglected and humiliated.

To a successful man, the gratification it provides is similar in nature to the delights of revenge. Indifference is answered with indifference, though belatedly.

I am the best

It is an interesting exercise to study the cultural disparity between our homes and our workplaces. And consequently the adjustment one has to make between accepted behavioural patterns, which can be quite exacting sometimes, that stands in direct proportion to the depth of our roots. We are grown up in a particular moral environment and internalize a set of values by education and observation. And then we are expected to exhibit a behaviour that is based on an entirely different and alien, predominantly American, set of values.

This is like subjecting a Sitar to Rock! Those whose musical sense is awakened can find a false note. A discord. Cacophony.

Life has given me ample oppotunities to register many false notes. I am going to share just one or two. This idea has been developed on phone while my conversations with Ashutosh.

We agreed that humility has no place in the corporate world. In the age of appraisals we are made to project ourselves better than our peers. We are made to sell ourselves. No wonder, after all we are living in the market where almost everything is on sale. There are certain items that are costly, that's it.

On the contrary, our culture seems to rest on a few pillars, humility being one of them. For us, who used to blush when someone ever praised us at our face, it seems really embarassing to convince someone about our being better than others! But this is what we invariably do in our institutes and especially in our workplaces. In presentations and seminars we ask questions just to show how smart we are. In SOPs and interviews we project ourselves as a super-smart wiz-kids capable of bringing about an economic earthquake or something of that effect in no time. Every second city-slicker knows how to do a smart-talk. We all have apparantly mastered the art of talking. We hardly let go any chance to let others know how unbearably great we are.

In a nutshell, we have bartered humility for verbosity.

Just try to watch a group of 'Modern School' kids and you'll see where we are leading to. I get shocked by their affectedness. Dont get surprised if an 8 years old giggles and smirks at your 'behenji' outlook or your having no girl friends! Sometimes I feel like slapping them. But more than that, I feel sad about them. After all, it's our failure and we must take the responsibility for it. We want them to be smart before being anything else. We make them lose their innocence long before they actually should. We condition them the same way as they are conditioned in Brave New World. Ohh I am getting goosebumps!

I remember my own childhood. And I remember Doordarshan and the programmes I used to watch. I remember Malgudi Days. How protected I was! And how defenceless these kids are against the blinding glare of MTv and Remix videos. How will they guard themselves against Sex and The City? Who will save them?

Maturity, if comes prematurely, remains shallow in character.

But shallow character is never a block in running a market, so let it be! Who cares anyways!

Happy new year

Darkness is nothing in itself, it has no separate entity. It is just an absence of light.

Depression is nothing but the absence of hope.

Read this article by Akshaya. An excerpt from the same -

"It doesn't matter whether the new year brings something new or not. What matters is whether you believe in the new year or not. It doesn't matter whether 'that morning' arrives or not, but if you refuse to look outside the window in the morning, it shall not. A man is just as alive as his dreams are, just as human as his hopes are."

Lets light our lives by the flame of our dreams. Lets keep our ideals alive!

Lets make this year a happy new year.