Sunday, June 15, 2008

Look East, Not West

There is this tendency among a lot of well-to-do Indians of looking at America as a model of development. This could owe a lot to the US' pre-eminence as a super-power on this planet; its (relatively) liberal immigration policy (creating a million or so Indian immigrants); mind-boggling technological breakthroughs in its universities and corporations and the perception of glamour (a "sexiness", if you will) associated with all things American (such as Hollywood and the ipod).

Americans are a pampered lot. They have a lot of area for each person (there's only 36 people per square kilometer here: that's 10 times area per person than India) - which makes being an American an inherently prosperous proposition.

A more relevant model of development can be found further to the west of the US - across the international date-line. Japan.

With 330 people per square kilometer - the same as the Indian population density - Japan is the world's third largest economy in absolute terms (China replaced Japan in the second spot a few years ago). With the same amount of "geographical luck" as an Indian has, the Japanese have managed to make their people some of the most prosperous in the world.

Japan's per capita GDP (ppp) is $33k per year. Japan's energy consumption is ~4000 kgoe/year (kilo-grams of oil-equivalent/year), whereas the American values are $45k per year and 8000kgoe/year. Simply put, the average Japanese person is twice as green and twice as lean as the average American. (Links to GDP and kgoe data)

There's this interesting metric to measure how "energy-efficiently" each dollar of GDP is produced. It's the GDP per-capita on the ordinate and the GDP per MBTU on the abcissa plot, which is reproduced below:

Japan is clearly more efficient than the US even this perspective. (If you ask me, this perspective is skewed in measuring efficiency. Supposing a nation were to grow a lot of crops and throw them away in trash cans (like the US does - check out any fast food chain trash cans!), the above metric of energy efficiency would consider the energy in growing the crops energy well spent. As a matter of fact, I consider this a garbage metric for this very reason).

Japan's economic growth was characterized by decades of 10% + GDP growth (fueled by a cocktail of government protectionism and foreign investment). This was called the "Japanese Economic Growth Miracle", for that it was. This period of stellar growth culminated in a major recession - and finally in a hopelessly inverted population pyramid. It is unlikely that Japan will achieve significant growth again: but Japan is still an extremely prosperous nation. A Japan (or an America or a Europe) in recession is still in a much better shape than a 10% per-year growing India (or China) from the most important perspective: the social perspective.

Indian development will be more like Japan's than America's. (China's, on the other hand is more likely to be like a more slightly efficient version of America's - China lot more people (130) per square kilometer than the US (36)).

When this optimistic argument about India's future is made in front of people, they come up with a ridiculous theory of the Japanese being "genetically industrious" and that the Indians are "genetically lethargic". I think this is a load of poppycock. The Indian economy has grown leaps and bounds after Dr. Singh set it free in 1991; poverty has fallen (though the rich have become a tad bit richer) beyond what people could contemplate in the 1980s. (Yes, there are still pockets of poverty in India - farmers still keep committing suicide - but it is indeed becoming an actual electoral issue. This is exactly the kind of issue that populism can solve, I believe.).

And the next time people tell me that compared with democracies in the developed world, Indian democracy is too ugly: I have a few aces up my sleeve. I will tell them about the incredibly stupid gridlock in the Japanese parliament that let a $1 per gallon petrol tax expire for a few days - dropping the price of petrol ("gas") at the pump immediately. (Yes, this did happen! And the prime minister apologized for this retrograde step.).



Friday, June 06, 2008

Beedle Beedle Beedle

Jim Davis has given Jon Arbuckle (and Garfield, the fat feline) cell-phones. These cell-phones don't tring-tring or beep beep. They beedle-beedle-beedle.

My current cell-phone allows me to use any peice of music (any mp3) as a ring-tone. It allows me to use a midi of Beethoven's ninth (that I can download off the internet). It has that "I like big butts" disaster built in as a ring tone.

But when one searches for something that sounds like a phone ringing, alas, my cell-phone does not even get as close as beedle-beedle-beedle. The best I can do it that ghastly tune that at&t bundles every phone with.

I have toyed with the idea of tweeting into the phone (tring-tring). But I suspect that it would be extra-embarassing - so I won't do it. I could get one of those birds to tweet into the phone and record a ring-tone. But (a) Birds have an understandable tendency to wing it when one makes oneself proximate to them (b) Even if one does (somehow) manage to sneak up to a location close enough to one of those birds to record a statement, birds are remarkably recalcitrant.

Technology has scored one over me. It is almost impossible to install a respectable ring tone on my cell-phone. I shall enviously look back at the old days when men sounded like men, phones sounded like phones and little furry creatures from alpha centauri sounded like little furry creatures from alpha centauri.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Eternally Damned?

I had an interesting discussion with a "journalist" today. He walked up to me and started to talk about religion. Now, if someone comes and talks to me about whether I am religious, I lose all inhibitions and start talking about my atheism. So, when asked the reason for my lack of faith in all things religious, I informed him of my faith in the theory of Evolution and its ability to explain every little feature of life.

As this point, I had no idea that the gentleman in question was not a journalist and the book he held in his has was in actuality, the Bible. Turns out he was trying to convert me into Christianity. This was an opportunity I was waiting for for quite some time. I had always fantasized about arguing with someone who is trying to convert me. And this gentleman in question did not disappoint. His mentors had coached him what to say when people confronted him with arguments regarding their enemy no 1: Darwinism. So he was armed to the teeth with quotes from the Bible and information regarding apparently evolution-defying bacterial flagella (though this paper would beg to differ). If nothing else, he was passionate about his job.

His main contention was the following:

1. Everybody has sinned. (lied, lusted and so on)
2. God hates sinners who do not acknowledge His (God's) existence.
3. One must acknowledge God's existence (and then can presumably continue to sin)
4. Failure to perform (3) will result in eternal damnation in hell.
5. The planet is 6000 years old. Dinosaur bones (and the like) were planted on the planet by God (a-la-Slartibartfast).
6. The only truth in the world is the Bible. (The other religious books are just pure sophistry)


I am proud of myself not laughing out at these ludicrous contentions. But I did manage to squeeze in a few alternate competing faiths, viz. great-green Arcklesiezurism (the dominant faith of the Viltvodlites) and the Kansan Flying Spaghetti Monster. I informed him regarding the equally strong (weak is more like it) cases favoring the worship of each faith.

And then the discussion moved on to the other standard cliche: "there's a little of god in everyone. That's what tells people the difference between good and bad.". I told him it's my ego that tells me the difference between good and bad - and God has precious little to do with it. He looked a little taken aback: so I had to go into the details of being a left-libertarian.

And then the wife materialized and immediately joined this discussion. She's quite well read about Hinduism, Buddhism and the like. She holds the "comfort zone" theory: believe in whatever makes you feel comfortable. And she gets worked up like no tomorrow when someone tells her what to do. (I would know). So, clearly, some guy clutching the Bible telling her what to do (otherwise go to hell) would be unlikely to gain favor with her. And he did not.

But, I am sad to say, we lost the condescension-war. I did manage a few gems including "religion is a placebo that makes people happier - and that's why I am in favor of it". He pulled this beauty out of his hat: "I will pray for you guys".

Monday, May 19, 2008

A Horrible Week.

Take all the people that have been killed by "islamic terror" in the last couple of decades on one side. The same islamic terror that John McCain and Barack Obama and Bush keep talking about like their lives depended on it. (It is interesting to note that most of those lives lost are in India - not in the U.S, not in Israel.).

And then take, for instance, just the people killed by Earth-Quake in China on the other side. It is sobering to realize that the Earth-Quake in China killed much more people than the entire of islamic terror did in the last 20 years. [http://www.start.umd.edu/data/gtd/]

And then add the Mayanmar Cyclone. The number of people killed by the tragic combination of a horrific natural disaster and a murderously incompetent (genocidal seems apt) military government is more than double the death toll in the Chinese cyclone. And last year's Bangladesh Cyclone that killed 10,000.

Let's not even get into the South Asian Tsunami. I think I've made my point without it.

And then you understand how idiotic the infatuation with islamic terror is in American politics (or in world politics). It is distressing to see international politics governed by fear rather than rationality. (But that's how democracies are hard-wired to function, so let's face it). Fear Sells.

--------------


If we were to consider terror unleashed in Iraq and Afghanistan by unjust wars, then perhaps numbers would start adding up - but calling these deaths islamic terror is unrealistic as the root cause of this terror is unjustifiable foreign aggression which goes against every bit of international law.

* There's this pathetic argument that apologists for the Iraq invasion often keep giving: Saddam Hussein was killing as many people as are being killed in Iraq right now. He did mercilessly kill people; no doubt - but he certainly did not kill 100,000 in the space of 5 years. And certainly not a million.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Ineffeciencies in the US

This post is a response to George Bush's assertion that the Indian Middle class is the "root" of the world food crisis.

Americans, "stratospheric-gas prices" notwithstanding, are indeed the planet's pampered children. In this post, I will point out a few inefficiencies in the American way of life: a consequence of having more per-capita resources than the rest of the planet - and devising a system to exploit these abundant resources to the hilt: free market capitalism.

Since denying "man-made" global warming (and evolution, for that matter) is such a passionate pursuit for the disciples of Limbaugh, O'rielly, Hannity and (presumably) Dobbs, I will refrain from looking at inefficiencies from a global warming perspective. This does not mean that I count myself as a global warming denier (the term "skeptic" sounds a little too erudite for a disciple of Limbaugh). I want to prove that the American way of life is grossly unsustainable - and would still have been unsustainable had the world not been boiling over.

Vehicles for Everyone

Does everybody in this country have to be driving? Even if they have to be driving, why SUVs? Why not a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla?

Don't answer these questions. We know why Americans* drive their Ford F150s. They could afford to. Fuel was cheap. That's because the rest of the world (China, India, Africa...) was so poor that the Americans* could do their consuming for them. And fuel was so cheap that mass transit was never a priority for most parts of America. (If you go to Houston and utter the word "mass transit" in a bar, I am convinced that people will look at you like you're an alien from outer space).

Meat, Wastage and Biofuels

It might trouble a few people to know that the pigs, cows and chicken that Americans* raise to eat are better fed than actual human beings in Asia and Africa.

It is fairly well established that consuming meat is more environmentally unsustainable than eating vegetables (I won't even go into the ethics of causing a sentient being pain - and into carbon foot-prints.). Food from plants (American* attitude towards plants: "That's what food eats!") tastes extremely good - and has all the requisite proteins and carbohydrates . And it does not need animals fed with what lots of people on this planet cannot afford.

In my younger days, when mum used to run around the house attempting to shove some food down the throat of a recalcitrant yours-truly she would inevitably meet with stern resistance. But then she would say "Think of all the people who don't have enough to eat! You're lucky. Throwing food is a terrible idea.". These statements would usually suffice in humbling yours truly into consuming the remainder of the solids on the plate.

In stark contrast, when I turn on the TV, I see Dr. Sanjay Gupta (that CNN "fitness" mascot, ironically of Indian ancestry) advising the hoi-polloi to push half-full plates away to avoid resembling an obese sphere. Food wastage in the US is as American as that half apple pie in the trash.

A distorted subsidy policy encouraging the conversion of food into fuel has been ranted about before. So I won't sound off on it here.

Huge Mansions; Climate Control

What's worse than living in a castle with six bedrooms, seven bath-rooms, three massive living rooms, two kitchens the size of the average inner city apartment and an outdoor swimming pool? Air conditioning the whole damn place.

The place I have described above is a typical upper-middle class American house. (The more "liberal" Americans add on a little solar panel on top of the house to power a reading light).

I still have no idea why kitchens, bath-rooms, foyers and corridors need to be air conditioned. Air conditioners are energy hogs (running that hermetically sealed compressor kills you). If the whole world decided to live like this, I am sure the then World-President-Equivalent would be Bombing Mars (or something) to take over their oil. (The disconcerting fact is that China and India (less so) are beginning to try to live like this - as Bush contended in his speech).

Other inherent inefficiencies include 42" plasma TVs, 23" monitors (like the one I am using to type this post on), that huge 120 page monster that is the Sunday News-Paper, massive distances in most American Cities, to name a few.

I would like to emphasize that I do not hold Americans responsible for these massive inefficiencies. Americans are rational agents - as greedy as any other average human being. It's just that they managed to create a system of free-enterprise that allows people to get whatever they want. Anybody would have acted like this if they had all they wanted. Not to be forgotten: America has only 30 people per square kilometer - compared with India's (and Japan's) 330.


Sunday, April 27, 2008

Tibet, IPL and "Earth Days"

It's been a long time since the last post - a hiatus attributed to work and Cable TV (whose days in our apartment are numbered, so the wife tells me). The hiatus (at a personal level) was punctuated by a trip to the Grand Canyon (a travelogue to follow eventually) and the pilferage of our cycles. (Both mine and the wife's). Suffice it to say that the individual responsible for the abstraction of the bicycles is none too popular with both of us right now. We are not sure what we would like happen to the robber in question - we are still choosing between water-boarding (which is not a form of torture) him (or her) at Guantanamo Bay - or getting him (or her) bitten by rabid weasels.

Of course our personal issues fade into insignificance in comparison with what other people are going through on this planet. Take, for instance the recent protests by those "peace-loving" Tibetans against the Chinese government - and half hearted efforts around the world to lend them a supporting hand. The utter-impotence of these protests just implies the following: China is indeed a world super-power. This is not a unipolar world anymore.

The protests about Tibet are a tad bid odd - and naive. Tibet's per capita income has gone up and order of magnitude since the Chinese took over- and more tellingly, the life expectancy has risen from 35 to 67 years. China's autocratic rule, from a fundamental point of view, is terrible - but isn't this mind-boggling economic progress (thanks to Tibet being a part of the Chinese Juggernaut) a form of human-rights enhancement? N. Ram (an editor of the Hindu) seems to agree.

Of course, the pseudo Apartheid in Tibet makes one sympathize with the Tibetans - but in my opinion we have bigger fish to fry on this planet. The exploited Sudanese, the Iraqis, the Palestinians, those Israelis living under the shadow of Hamas/Hezbollah fire - and the millions of Indians and Africans living under the poverty line - to mention a few.

This blog endorses the Indian government's apparently pusillanimous stand on this issue.

And then let's talk about Cricket, more specifically, the Indian Premier League.

This blog has always held that the cricket market in India is massively under-tapped. Therefore, the current (albeit "shamelessly capitalistic" as some inconsequential communist put it) venture gets a thumbs up. Finally, the number of cricket tickets sold every year in India will exceed those sold by the Texas Aggies every year.

Turns out, almost all the IPL matches are running house-full (save, for some reason, Hyderabad and Chandigarh Matches). And more than 10 million Indians are watching each match on TV, making this a goldmine of sorts for the franchisees and BCCI. But you can't please everyone - and it comes as no surprise that some conservatives still fiercely contend that the "essence of the game is lost" - and that the "bowlers have lost relevance" (This claim is downright stupid. What has happened is that the terms "a good over" and "a bad over" have been redifined - and good bowlers can win matches for you in this format!). Money talks better than any loud-mouth can. The people love 20-20; that cipher, Mukul Kesavan's (who the hell is he anyway?) article notwithstanding.

I say that the people love the game with such vehemance for the following reasons : almost all games are running full-capacity; people are addicted to it on TV; I can't even get sopcast to open a single live streaming match (indicating that the traffic is tremendously high); I feel the adrenalin rushing when I see the ball-by-ball update on cricinfo.com and a search for "IPL cricket" on google news brings up a gazillion matches (as opposed to "Ranji Trophy").

And let me weigh in on the venom directed toward the scantily clad women (the so called "cheer-leaders"). And I am opposed to the idea of cheer-leaders not because of any "ethical reason" or a "cultural reason". I oppose the idea because the Indian public has no maturity when it comes to scantily clad women - or sex, for that matter. (The recent "refusal" by Maharashtra to allow sex education - in my opinion an unintentional approval for the sexual abuse of minors - is a case in point.). If you allow children to get raped in India (by refusing to teach them about "taboos" like sex) - then how much safety and decency can a scantily clad woman expect in a stadium filled over-overwhelmingly with lecherous young men? And don't give me that nonsense about it being "against our culture". Because, if you do, I will be more than willing to take you on a trip into Ajanta, Ellora and Kajuraho. Hinduism is one of the most liberal religions when it comes to sex. (And clearly we Indians have a lot of it - just look at how many there are of us - 336 per square kilometer - more than any other large country in the world).

I think we're a few years away from safe ("American style") cheer-leading. I expect Bollywood will take us there. And arguments about the "dangers of American-style materialism in sports" miss the point entirely. Can any other nation produce a basket-ball team like the Americans could (if they wanted to?). Q.E.D.

And now, the "Earth Week".

This blog has been severely critical of the free-market when it comes to saving the environment. These "green measures" are just P.R. and little else. Because buying a Lexus Hybrid that gives 22 miles to the gallon is still worse for the environment than buying a Tata Nano (which gives a slightly higher mileage than the Prius). As a matter of fact, the only thing that puts me off more than a Lexus Hybrid that gives 22 miles to the gallon is an identical non-hybrid Lexus which gives 12 miles to the gallon.

Needless to say, the preceding earth-week was a mindless farce, organized by corporate America in an attempt to put a price on that warm-fuzzy feeling one gets when one does something one deems "good for the environment". Corn ethanol is a case in point: once touted as America's answer to rising petrol ("gas") prices (an argument few would go for looking at the pump right now) - it is now proven to be an artifice of a flawed subsidy policy. It takes almost as much fossil fuel energy to make the damn ethanol from corn; it results in third world hunger - and the carbon dioxide emissions prevented by the hypothetical forest the the extra corn crop replaced all further weaken (if not destroy) the environmental case for corn ethanol. This Time magazine article will make the environmentalist in you weep, I swear.

And with China slated to buy 20% more cars next year (and Ford still running a world-wide profit, disaster in the American Market not-withstanding), it would seem that even if we repaced all the weeks from now until infinity with earth-weeks, we will not be able to stop global warming.

This is because the stability of the current "free"-market system is phenomenal. Environmentalism is an ideal; a principle; much like "morality" and "loyalty". Look at what jokes the market has made of them. Environmentalism does not have a chance - because the people who pay the price for neglect either do not belong to this generation or do not belong to the set of the decision makers. They are the poor in coastal Bangladesh and Coastal India; the victims of genocide in Darfur (yes, Darfur has a climate change connotation - google it!) and so on.

However, unlikely as it may sound, I will end this on an optimistic note. The time is ripe right now for some innovation. With fuel prices rising sky high ($120 a barrel right now), clearly more funding must have gone into more efficient modes of transport. More effective public transport perhaps? (EESTOR comes to mind, as does the new X prize, Google Energy - and more encouragingly, the TATA NANO and Tara Tiny.).

Friday, March 28, 2008

Of Free Speech and Closed Borders

Some insignificant Dutch MP is trying to buy his 15 minutes of fame by offending all the Muslims on this planet (all 1.2 billion of them) by quoting some passages from the Quran and correlating them with "terrorism" in his amateur 16 minute movie called "Fitna" (which I refuse to watch).

Obviously, his brain is minute and absolutely incapable of long term memory and logical analysis. I can point out further intellectual and personal inadequacies right now - but I won't. This post isn't about him. It's about his hate-filled, short sighted message - and the utter hypocrisy it is immersed in.

Apparently, his movie shows the 9/11 attacks and the Madrid attacks - and quotes passages from the Quran seeming to justify the same. And then he reaches the audacious conclusion that the Muslim holy book is a fascist manifesto of sorts. He then sees the increase in Muslim population in Europe - and feels justified in demanding closed borders and discriminatory immigration.

Making such movies is possible only in free societies. How ironic that its message, if implemented would convert a free society into a discriminating (and therefore, fascist) one?

(We won't go into other obvious inaccuracies such as the implicit claim that the only terror in the world is Islamic. How many people (non-Muslims) has islamic terror killed in the last decade? How does it compare with 100,000 dead Iraqis? (More realistic estimates put it at 1 million)).

-----------------------------------

Just to be clear, the Author believes that Osama Bin Laden is a homicidal criminal - and hopes everyday that Osama has been caught - or at least lynched.

The author is not a fan of Islamic regimes that tend to be repressive - and is opposed to them tooth and nail.

The author also believes that misusing free speech knowing fully well that doing so will incite fatal reactions is tantamount to murder - an equivalent of firing a bullet into a crowd knowing fully well that someone will die.



Monday, March 24, 2008

4000 Dead In Iraq

To the uninitiated observer, 4000 dead in Iraq would not seem like a particularly big deal. Five years of military occupation in Iraq resulting only in 4000 dead people? Looks like what's happening down there is love, not war.

Then, one digs a little deeper. 4000 people died in Iraq, because the Americans are the only "people" in Iraq. When it is said "4000 people dead in Iraq", it basically means 4000 dead American troops.

The number of "unpeople" who died in Iraq is a statistic that is most certainly of the order of at least 100,000 - and some (this one is peer reviewed) estimates put it closer to a million. (Here we use the Noam Chomskian convention: people = people from developed world; unpeople = people from under-developed world. This convention is implicitly used in all western (US) media agencies with a few conscientious exceptions.).

A MILLION in a population of 25 Million. 4% of the population of the country. That's the population of Dallas and Houston metro areas put together, if the country in question were the US. The population of Delhi and Mumbai put together if the country in question were India. (The fact that 60% of India is unpeople notwithstanding).

But who cares? Iraqis clearly are not people. 4000 dead American troops? Now, that's a whole different story.



----------------------------------------
A dead man is a dead man is a dead man. The author of this post laments the fact that even in death all are not equal. Reality is not just 4000 American troops dead. It is probably a hundred times worse (from a mortality stand-point). It just makes me sick to see the disproportionate amount of time spent on TV on the American deaths - when the number of Iraqis killed is a couple of ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE HIGHER because of a blunder on the American side.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Boomerangs Work in Space*

For a moment, when I read this story I was shell shocked. Could it be that all the aerodynamics I learnt in my life until now was fatally flawed? Could the fact that airplanes fly be a bizarre coincidence?

Why on earth (or more aptly, Why in space) would a rotating shaped solid actually come back in space when it (theoretically) was experiencing no lift, no drag (by virtue of the all-pervasive vacuum surrounding it)? My heart was beating faster. My head was in a serious existential tail-spin.

I was sure I knew (in a hand-wavey way that we engineers are used to) how boomerangs operate. Just to make sure I was correct, I looked at this web page. I wasn't wrong. Phew.

So, how on earth did the damn thing come back in space? Does there really exist a God? Is he trying to deceive us into thinking that we understand how a little of nature works by letting some of our theories be experimentally verifiable? Have I been wrong all along? Is he having fun with us letting us think that we know why airplanes fly? By planting dinosaur bones on the surface of the planet? By planting DNA very similar to yours and mine in a Chimpanzee?

I followed up by a few frenetic Google News Searches.

Apparently the (astro) nut threw a paper boomerang INSIDE THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION and was ecstatic that it came back. Duh. Of course it'll come back. That's its job in a room filled with air at more or less atmospheric pressure. (Air faithfully follows the Kutta-Jukowski theorem - creating a lift force on moving airfoils - as opposed to vacuum). A boomerang coming back has nothing to do with gravity. Actually gravity is BAD for a boomerang as it might hit the ground before coming back - therefore not completing a cycle.

This basically tells me that astronauts are only semi-educated in science - and are far from the "best of the best" that NASA proudly proclaims they are.

And .. Oh Yeah.. There's still no god.

* Where space is defined as any volume within the international space station.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Nasik's Ethnic Cleansing

The fragility of India's democratic structure scares me. A functional democracy in one of the world's poorest and most illiterate societies is nothing short of a miracle; It is indeed a bigger miracle that India hasn't fragmented into gazillion little pieces (like Europe has) - so the Recent brand of divisive politics played by Raj Thakeray (and his minions) does not surprise as much as it disappoints me.

National unity, it turns out, is a relatively liberal* ideal. (Any idea that requires people to think beyond their narrow immediate self-interest, is, in my opinion, liberal). And liberalism (as I have noted on numerous occasions) is something that the average poor man just cannot afford the luxury of. Petty regionalism will almost always seem more attractive. And that's why India seems an enigma to me.

I noted (in a sanguine note, it turns out) in my previous post that Mr. Thakeray's campaign in Mumbai would implode against him. Certainly his campaign is pretty impotent in Mumbai (with 4 million North Indains out of 20million people, this whole idea was a non-starter). But there's 76million other people in Maharashtra whose emotions are extremely amenable to manipulation.

I spent 10+ years of my life calling Nasik my Hometown. But Mr. Thakeray's buffoonery has more or less destroyed the city's creidibility: driving out 30,000 North Indians. In my mind this is plain ethnic cleansing. If 30,000 out of Nasik's 1.4 million are kicked out, this scales up to 3 million out of Maharashtra's 100 million. This is nothing short of a Humanitatian Disaster - remember Clinton went to war with Milosevic over 400,000 refugees? This is a humaniatian disaster.

In my book, this is ethnic cleansing - plain and simple. The only thing that separates this downright Lunatic Raj Thakeray from Hitler is a few gas chambers. It is a shame that news media is balking from drawing parallels between these two mad-men.

I might have railed against the follies and inequities of dividing the planet into little nations in previous posts, but here's a concession that I need to make: Nationality is a certainly a more broad minded (and therefore more equitable) notion than regionalism - the lesser evil, if you will. And hence, the necessity of patriotism - though I hate to say it.

Nobody has ever told me that I am not wanted here in the US. Neither implicitly nor explicitly. It turns out that there's a significant likelihood that they (the locals) might cleanse me ethnically if I drop anchor somewhere in India, say, Nasik. (I am not a local to any specific place, having been here, there and everywhere.). How ironic.



---------------

* Patriotism would be a liberal ideal in a nation where regionalism is rife, like in India. But patriotism in the developed world is secretly frowned upon by the intellegensia as it is often considered a form of pandering to the more base instincts of the hoi-polloi.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Comment Issues

For some reason beyond logical comprehension, the previous post does not have a comment section.

I request people to leave all pertinent comments on the comments section of this post instead. I am unable to enable comments on that post right now.

I have absolutely no clue why this has happened. I am confounded.

Ethnic Cleasing in Mumbai? Give me a break.

Mumbai is a city of 21 million people; arguably one of the world's most diverse and cosmopolitan cities. It has among the highest population densities on the planet; it has the one of the world's largest slums; approximately 100,000 prostitutes; the world's most over-burdened sub-urban railway system and a film industry that makes more movies than Hollywood in a given year.

And if the developments in the last few days are considered, we realize that there's no shortage of imbeciles in Mumbai either. And I speak of none other than one "Raj Thakeray"; a political cipher trying to emulate his uncle's (Bal Thakeray's) openly racist and divisive politics (with only limited success). His passionate efforts to rid Mumbai of North Indian immigrants are so doomed from day one that it will be extremely enjoyable to see his entire movement implode.

Here's why. Let's consider some numbers now:

With 20% of the population of Mumbai being North Indians, Mr Thakeray has confronting him the unenviable task of deporting 4 million people, (which is half the popluation of Israel if anyone's keeping count). If he manages to do this without much bloodshed, then this would be a first in the history of humanity. And if he does manage to do this, I am sure some American politicians (and Lou Dobbs) would give an arm and a leg to learn how to repeat this feat with Mexican "illegal" immgirants (12 million of whom seem to have set permanent anchor in the US).

So, how would Mr. Thakeray go about this task?

Certainly, the most practical way out of Mumbai would be by train. Mr. Thakeray would have to give away each one of those 4 million people one-way tickets home. Some of those tickets will have to be air-conditioned. I know a few North Indians who would rather die than travel in three tier during the summer. And once the train reaches wherever it is supposed to, he must sabotage its engine such that it never comes back. (But this m.o. involves sacrificing a Marathi Saboteur - a suicide Saboteur, if you will - for an enraged North-Indian public will certainly lynch the gentleman in question.). This venture is unlikely to be financially lucrative either. Mr. Thakeray will have to spend an average of Rs. 500 per ticket - a grand total of 4million x 500 = Rs 2 billion. (The option of advertising on the train will be of little use too, since he does not expect those people to come back to Mumbai).

Clearly, this is not a tenable solution. Even if Mr. Thakeray were to procure the money by begging, borrowing or stealing, (the latter being the most probable) most North Indians would either

(a) Not go, sell the ticket to someone else (and ask them to change their name while traveling)
(b) Go, say Hi to Mum and come back

leaving his scheme doomed, like one of Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge's bizarre capitalistic ventures.

Mr. Thakeray could consider going to each house and weeping in front of the principal bread-winners. He could sob (in Marathi) "You're taking opportunities away from my people. Please, starve your family for my people's sake. Please be humane.". Alas, this scheme would only give him a black eye on lucky days.

He could try putting an economic squeeze by holding businesses in ransom from doing business with North Indians. This again is unlikely to work, since a majority of the businesses are not run by Marathi. This, as a matter of fact is bound to back-fire.

And, finally, one hopes, it will dawn upon Mr. Thakeray that only a simultaneous repeal-ment of the entire Indian constitution and the second law of thermodynamics will allow his fantasy to come true. But given that politics is all about inciting emotions, Mr. Thakeray is doing the rational thing.

-------------
The second law of thermodynamics talks about "spontaneity" - whenever there is a disparity, things tend to try to even out. (If they wouldn't try to even out, then there wouldn't have been a disparity in the first place.) That's why Mexicans come by the millions ("illegally") to the US; That's why Bangladeshis come by the millions to India - and people migrate by the millions to Urban Areas like Mumbai.

There is little one can do to stop free will, as Mr Thakeray will no doubt learn.

Friday, February 01, 2008

Corruption, Bird Flu and India

A quick rant (I've got a Dynamical Systems class in 20 minutes):

That corruption is the biggest threat facing the third world is emphasized by the fact that people are shielding infected chicken from culling - and also by the fact the government is just plainly unable to take any significant action.

And when corruption comes with incompetence (children being fed eggs and chicken curry in Bengal) then it is quite evident that society is in a suicidal tailspin, 9% growth rates notwithstanding.

The sooner we convert to a greedy capitalistic society, the better. If everyone really does a good job of looking out for themselves - such blatant incompetence will not proliferate.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

The New York Model

We recently made our annual Christmas pilgrimage to the great American "North-East" - the New York Metro area. The trip was one of contrasts: the serene isolation of Princeton at one end of the spectrum and the bustling multitudes of Manhattan at the other.

Manhattan is a tiny island which houses 1.2 million people - a staggering population density of 26,000 per square kilometer - a ratio similar to that of another financial hub, Mumbai, the densest city in the world. (Why New York City is not in the top twenty list in population density is because its other "boroughs", Staten Island, Queens, The Bronx and Brooklyn are relatively sparsely populated - though dense by American Standards.).

Our trip to New York city was punctuated by suppressed restroom-visiting urges. The damned place is filled to the brim with establishments doing their best to cram a pretzel, a hot dog or a burger of some sort into your throat - but their attitudes towards letting one relieve oneself in the privacy of a urinal leave a lot to be desired. In New York city, it is fair to say that one is more or less water-tight.

The life-line of the city is the sub-way. With such phenomenal population densities, it would be unimaginable if New Yorkers drove like the average American. If almost every grown adult in Manhattan had a vehicle (something like the average Dallas or Houston inhabitant), the resulting chaos on the street would probably make Bangalore streets look as lonely as Siberia. New York relies on its sub-way - all 229 miles of it - almost exclusively to get its people from Point A to Point B - often via Points C,D and F - but never in more than half an hour. The Sub-way is unobtrusively underground in Manhattan - and operates each and every hour of the day, every day of the year.

Turns out, we experienced almost all the cliches associated with subway riding in New York City. Grumpy passengers who utter expletives into infinity when their foot is inadvertently trampled upon; broken down ticket vending machines (which accept every cash denomination except the one you have in your wallet); book shop clerks reluctant to break a $10 (change is worth its weight in gold, apparently in NYC); noisy infants raising a racket in the train; condescending reservation booth attendants (who love informing the masses that they don't accept credit cards)...

Housing in Manhattan is compact - and the average person lives in a minuscule (but optimally designed) apartment. Apartments are invariably in multiple story buildings - and bungalows as a concept do not exist in Manhattan. Groceries are sold in small roadside shops - and not in those walmartish monstrosities that have proliferated elsewhere in the US. A new trend is to get groceries delivered home - after shopping for the same over the internet- but one does not get "the everyday low price". But all that being said, the average Manhattan Dweller earns much more than the average New-Yorker.

Consider, on the other hand that epitome of American prosperity, Dallas, Texas. Dallas houses are nothing short of palaces - all (invariably) centrally air-conditioned in summer and centrally heated in winter. Dallas residents are ostracized from society unless they possess one of them vehicle thingamajigs. (For the area is so tremendous that the apology that they have for "public transport" is almost laughable at). It is no surprise to see that the average Dallas Resident consumes 16,000 (kW-hr) units of electricity a year; wheras the average New Yorker consumes only 5000: and this includes the obscene lighting excesses at Times Square at night! Remember, New York is miserably cold (much colder than Dallas) in Winter and just a little cooler than Dallas in Summer. And now considering the biggest offender: petrol (Gas to the American). The average New-Yorker hardly uses any petrol directly, wheras the Dallas resident almost swallows it by the bucketful.

Dense developed cities such as NYC, Chicago, Tokyo and London are marvels of efficiency - their entire infrastructure system: the water supply, the emergency management, the waste management is nothing short of a modern wonder.

Common sense tells us that the future of Indian cities is going to be just like New York. I feel fears of an imminent infrastructure crisis hastened by the arrival of one "Tata Nano" are ill founded in the long run. And I would believe the additional pressure imposed by the likes of the people's car on the infrastructure will just hasten the eventual completion of Mass Rapid Transit Systems.

To me, the trip to New York was an eye opener. It made me optimistic about the future of India - for New-York style population densities are common in India. And evidence that things are moving in the right direction: the New Delhi Metro - and the initiatives to mimic the same in all other cities. We're not headed for an armageddon with Nanos flooding the streets in these big cities: trust me, the free market will see to it (because parking prices and fuel prices will sky-rocket, creating a significant dis-incentive from using personal transport). People will find keeping vehicles in the cities as expensive as New Yorkers find keeping cars. The future still looks bright!


Thursday, January 10, 2008

There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom

When Richard Feynman uttered these words in 1959, little did he know that 58 years later, an Indian Industrialist would make a very serious attempt to prove him right (in a context he would never have imagined). Richard Feynman's famous words are considered by many to be origin of the modern obsession with the science Nano-technology. And fittingly, the "one-lakh" car is called "Tata Nano" - possibly reflecting on the fact that there's plenty of room at the bottom of the economic pyramid to sell a car to the Indian masses. [In reality, his target would seem to be the middle of the pyramid. The "Micro" might have been a better name - but nit-picking will not get us anywhere.].

The Tata Nano is slated to deliver a staggering 24kmpl - almost 50% more than my Toyota Yaris, the most efficient non-Hybrid in the USA. The specifications show it costs a lot less originally and minimizes the monthly expenditures due to fueling. Less CO2 in the atmosphere than its nearest competitors.

Now, let me address the issues raised by those wet blankets: GreenPeace and Sunita Narain . Sunita Narain (the Anti-Coke/Pepsi Campaigner who has accused the said corporations of saturating their beverages with pesticides) suggested that the government "Tax the vehicle like crazy" - for these vehicles will push the Indian urban air quality further into the abyss. Greenpeace held a protest outside the Delhi motor show claiming that the vehicles would add to the CO2 emissions hastening Armageddon. And everybody I met in India (well, every upper-middle class / rich person) did voice serious concerns about the wisdom of inflicting Mumbai/Bangalore/Hyderabad's static roads with many more cheap vehicles.

Very serious concerns; all equally pertinent.

I would like to split the concerns into two categories: concerns that can be addressed by market forces and the democratic forces, and those that cannot be addressed by the same.

Air Quality and Infrastructural Issues:

Urban India is a nightmare. Polluted like hell. And adding more vehicles to the urban mess would seem to make the matter worse. These concerns are extremely legitimate. And so are the concerns of an infrastructural break-down. But these concerns are universal: they affect everyone. By "taxing the small car to hell", one focuses on the most insignificant of the sinners: a vehicle that gives 24 kmpl (against the current industry average of 14kmpl); the smallest motor-car on the road (two or three of which can fit inside the average SUV) - a vehicle which conforms with the stringent Euro IV norms (as opposed to the scooters on the road which are predominantly two-stroke disasters).

The claim that these little vehicles will expose infrastructural deficiencies is quite obvious. But "taxing them to hell" is sheer economic bigotry. All vehicles on the road are responsible for this mess: the smaller cars less so than the large ones. Perhaps an infrastructure and pollution tolls could be levied in urban areas: creating a dis-incentive from alone-travel.


Another positive that one over-looks is that the impending infrastructure crisis will make infra-structuring an economic and political priority hastening an improvement. More politicians will be promising efficient mass transit; more Corporations will fund politicians who focus on issues like mass transit. Humans are, after all, at their best in a crisis, as Dr. Manmohan Singh showed in 1991.

Global Warming Issues

Political forces in the west have failed miserably in making potent anti-global warming legislation. It is blatantly unrealistic (and foolish) to expect India be a trailblazer and make such legislation - especially when it does contribute just a minute little bit to global warming.

But still, in this day and age, the reality of global warming cannot be ignored - even in India. There's two ways to tackle the global warming issue:

1. Don't develop. Stay poor forever. Greenpeace agrees.
2. Develop. Do so in a sustainable way. Why should only the western man have a car? Why can't the average Indian have a car?

In my mind, it is incredibly foolish to protest the launch of the one of world's least polluting mass-vehicles. What is green-peace doing when they sell Hummers in Texas? It is sheer economic bigotry on GreenPeace's part to protest the launch of the Nano - not to mention foolishness.

If the time comes when India really has to do something about global warming (and looking at India's per capita emissions, it does not look like it is going to happen for a long, long time) - then everyone should foot the bill. The best way to take care of it eventually is to impose a carbon tax - which will create an incentive for owning a vehicle with higher mileage like the Nano - rather than, say, a Hummer.

Though this shows that the Indian corporate houses are finding making the lives of the poorest of the poor much better a profitable proposition, this vehicle will still not be able to touch the lives of around half-a-billion Indians. One hopes that future innovations will cater to those lower down the pyramid. But it is hard to be optimistic looking at the infinite ocean of urban poverty and misery in India.







Wednesday, January 09, 2008

An Embarassment Down Under

When I was much younger (fifth grade?) we used to play cricket in parks (breaking numerous windows, causing physical harm to numerous unsuspecting aunties sitting in the park and scaring the living daylights out of (and sometimes, provoking into aggression) numerous stray canines). We were, as a consequence never popular with the flora and fauna, but we did have to good time. Oh, we had our own fair share of sledging (almost everyone called me "fat"; someone else was called "Godzilla" (because the individual had an uncanny resemblance to the lizard in question)). We had our own fair share of racism (saala "madrasi"/ "sardar"/ "bihari"/ "chinki" : all not in the sense of utmost amicability). We had our own fair share of physical violence - I remember fighting with someone when we had a disagreement over a run-out. We had our own biased umpires (often quite blatant, often just plain incompetent like Steve Buknor).

Turns out professional cricket is just the same - no matter the colour of your skin, no matter the amount of money you earn. I must say, all the gentlemen who claim that cricket is their game must be spinning in their graves. Not that I care. Not that anyone does.

There's no way anyone can beat the Australian team right now. Since actual test victories against the Australians are so hard to come by - the team from the Sub-Continent will try to do the next best thing. Steal a moral victory. Does the term "sore loser" ring a bell somewhere?

But that being said, the issue of Harbhajan being reported for racism one so full with irony that it is identical to Mahmoud Ahmedinijad joining a Feminist Rally. The Australians are the master sledgers: almost as bad as that bully who used to play with us in the park (Let's Call him M.) . M had the choicest things to say about his victim's parents and siblings in Hindi. Let's jt leave that there with the confidence that all my Indian reader(s) familiar with Hindi would more or less have understood what the offensive terms in question are.

It is pathetic to hear Sharad Pawar consider abandoning the series. We never abandoned our games when we played in the park: even if one side had to bat in pitch dark. (One can imagine the umpiring standards in pitch dark!)

Here's what I say to the Australian Team. It is incredibly stupid to report Harbhajan for acrimonious behaviour. It is Indian culture to make fun of other people's races. Indian Ancestors did not enslave black people, so they're not that sensitive to racism*. (If you want to be a stickler for facts, direct Australian ancestors did not enslave black people - but the sensitivity to racial discrimination is owing to the European and American experience with African exploitation). Deal with it. You're no angels either. You sledge like crazy. Withdraw all charges against Bhajii and go to Perth and start sledging. And be sledged too.

And here's what I say to the Indian team. It makes me SICK to see you resort to emotion off the field when you find yourselves incapable of making your game speak. It's just too bad Buknor is going blind and deaf. Shit happens. Deal with it. Go and play the game in Canberra. Go to Perth and try to avoid an innings defeat. (That would be quite an achievement on that bouncy pitch). And then, try to beat Australia in at least one one-day match. And then go back to India, overthrow the BCCI monopoly, let the ICL give it good competition so that one fine day, any domestic team from, say, Hyderabad can beat the Baggy Green.


* I hope Indians get sensitive to communalism, regionalism and casteism (Indian forms of racism). But it does not look like happening anytime soon. Contemporary Indian society is bigoted to the core. Luckily, the government is not, thanks to universal franchise, a triumph of democracy.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Developing World: Adolescent Children?

It's been a freakishly long hiatus for no real reason. I wasn't getting married in these two months, like I was last hiatus. Just plain busy.

Lots happened during the hiatus. Musharaff declared emergency in Pakistan. Some "sting" reports were carried out on Modi's henchmen confirming his guilt in slaughtering Muslims in Gujarat a few years ago. And Bush's (presumable) plans to bomb Iran to hell received a plausibly fatal setback: apparently, Iran does not have nukes at all (and is probably not contemplating building any, either). Yet, John Bolton went on American National Television claiming that he does not trust the above "Intelligence Estimate". And America lost its most dependable (and unbiased) source of news when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were forced out of Air by striking writers. [I was wondering why Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Rielly were still on, but I realized that these people probably do not allow their writers to join unions].

Despite so many interesting developments to make fun of (Isn't John Bolton just asking for it?) , I still choose to talk about a lecture that I attended a few weeks ago for a "seminar" class. A lecture which was quite illuminating in understanding international perceptions on the whole energy crisis the earth is said to be facing.

But before that, let me make a mention of Mr Al-Gore's speech yesterday when recieving the Nobel "Peace" prize (a prize, I believe he really deserves, because his movie reaches exactly the right audience). He lambasted US and China for not doing enough to fight carbon emissions. The US stands squarely incriminated in both these estimates: (total CO2, per capita CO2), whereas China is the 80th in the "per-capita" pollution ratings. To blame a bunch of people who emit 10 times less CO2 (each) than you is plain bigotry. Or plain ignorance. And I believe it is more the latter than the former.

Here's an irksome analogy that I came across during a discussion after a lecture on energy policy a few weeks ago. (I keep the identity of the speaker secret, because some of the comments I make here can be quite caustic, and I know the speaker did not mean any harm - he just suffers from a luxury delusion syndrome - like Al Gore and most of the people in the US, who have been insulated from significant economic suffering by a nation with a historically unprecedented per-capita prosperity)

"Think of Europe as the Old Man of the World, The US as the 40-something middle aged man, and the developing countries as the Adolescent kids of the World. We need to show them the way and teach them how to live the right way. We need to sensitize them of environmental issues."

The above analogy is so miserably flawed that I don't even want to start to correct it. Suffice it to say that it serves as good starting point to understand the well intentioned but far-removed-from-reality mentality of the first world inhabitant. Perhaps we should call the first world the fantasy world, instead?

It's no wonder that fear-mongerers like Lou Dobbs are immensely popular here, in the US. Lou Dobbs' entire life is dedicated to making the lives of some of the poorest people in the world (who come to the extremely prosperous US in search of an opportunity to feed their family back in Mexico, just like his Ancestors did, from, presumably, Europe) that little bit more miserable, thereby enhancing his ratings and making him a little richer. Nothing sells like patriotism, as Stephen Colbert shrewdly observes.

The whole thing is just a battle of perceptions. I am not indicating that there is any actual bigotry in the Average American (or the average inhabitant of the first world). The First world inhabitant, as a matter of fact, the least racist and the most tolerant (dare I say liberal?) person there is in the world today.

The truth is that Democracies are genetic algorithms which favor populism and narrow regionalism over globally egalitarian ideals. This is because only inhabitants of the first world vote for their leaders. And this makes me conclude that the very concept of regional democracy is deeply flawed.

It is my opinion that, for democracy to really work (and for free trade and free markets to really work), the world needs to be one large nation which free movement of capital AND labor, not just the former.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

No Homosexuals in Iran

Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad was asked a sneaky question during his lecture at Columbia. Everything about the whole speech was sneaky: the dressing down that an incensed university president tactlessly delivered frankly made me sympathise with Ahmedinijad for a little while.

When asked about how he justified persecution of homosexuals in Iran, he contended that homosexuality, as a phenomenon, does not exist in Iran. People laughed at him for that.

We must realize that the only difference between the fanatics and the west is liberal thought. But it seems that western liberal thought is not liberal enough to understand the reasons behind illiberal thought.

Liberalism is a luxury of the rich. (You might want to consider reading the previous post to understand why I make this claim with such vehemance). When you are worried about where your next meal comes from, you, more likely than not would not care about whether homosexuals (less that 1% of the population in societies where "coming out of the closet" is not an option) have rights or not.

The Iranian president, the product of a democracy (a little bit of liberalism that has seeped into an otherwise phenomenally othodox society) must be a refelection of what his people want. Otherwise, out he goes! It is electoral pressure in Iran than made him what he is. He is playing for the conservative muslim vote - the extremely illiberal school of thought that believes that Homosexuals must be stoned to death and that women must be kept under lock and key.

I don't think Ahmedinijad could have said anything else to that question. I don't think laughing at his denial or Iranian homosexuality has any point: Iran is an orthodox country right now. If you ask Pat Robertson (an American religious maniac) something similar, odds are he will give you a more venomous answer. [I would hold him more guility than Ahmedinijad as he hails from a much more liberal society and is still a fanatic].

I believe true liberalism can arise only when one understands the cause of illiberalism and accepts it. And in the case of the Liberals in the US vs Ahmedinijad, I hold both guilty. For if we turned back the clock 50 years in the US (with its instituionalized racism) - we find perhaps an equally sickening picture. There is room for optimism: the US, now, in my opinion has more or less conquered racial prejudice.

And Iranian society is more orthodox than the US was 50 years ago! Let's be reasonable, shall we? Why expect the impossible?

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Of Sleaziness and Corrupt Equillibria

Blogs are supposed to be offensive. If you want something inoffensive, then some nursery rhymes might be what you're looking for. This disclaimer is trying to preempt comments by one anonymous (or many anonymi) - who consistently opine(s) that yours truly is a pompous goof (or something to that effect). Anonymi are encouraged to comment, of course. This little disclaimer is just to put them down - a taste of their own medicine!

The disclaimer having been gone through, it seems more appropriate let the pontifications begin.

0-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Not knowing much of something has seldom stopped me from opining about the same something. So, let me extend my speculative genius to Sociology.

The recent visit to the third world (home) has opened my eyes wide. I viewed India with a more critical eye this time: having lived in a more prosperous society for a couple of years. The same critical eye that has been viewing the U.S with for the aforementioned couple of years.

The following analysis is based on my experiences with India and the U.S - but from what people tell me - and plain common sense - I am sure this applies to any third world society contrasted with any rich society. And here I go.

In performing this analyisis, I will use two tools in plain argumentative form: thermodynamics and genetic algorithms. The former to define an equillibrium, and the latter to analyze how to get there.

Let me define a social equilibrium now. (And just like all the Ideas I've had before in my life, it's all been done before by some other nut.) Let me quote wikipedia here.

In sociology, a system is said to be social equilibrium when there is a dynamic working balance among its interdependent parts (Davis & Newstrom, 1985). Each subsystem will adjust to any change in the other subsystems and will continue to do so until an equilibrium is retained. The process of achieving equilibrium will only work if the changes happen slowly, but for rapid changes it would throw the social system into chaos, unless and until a new equilibrium can be reached.


I contend that contemporary Indian society is in a corrupt quasi-equillibrium here; a culture brought about by 45 years of Xenophobic protectionism (not to mention extreme economic exploitation prior to that). Here are some thought-allegories to help digest the point I am trying to make:

Firstly, let us consider an Idealistic police officer. Let's call him Ram. Ram turns down bribes when he catches people jumping traffic signals. He follows an American model of doing business: he writes the errant motorist chalans (Indian tickets ). Every other traffic cop accepts a crisp Rs. 50 note (I hear inflation has made it a crisp Rs 500 note) and lets the motorist go. Ram feels happier about himself. God is probably smiling at him.

He keeps up this outstanding behaviour. One fine day, his colleague calls him home. And when he goes to his colleague's home, he sees a couple of little spheres with eyes walking around the house, jumping on beds, fighting with each other - or behaving like typical children. Ram feels flabbergasted. His own kids are skinny to the core. Their ribs show. He soon finds out why.

His colleague's chidren eat a lot. A lot of fatty, expensive food. Food that Ram cannot afford himself.

Ram realizes that in order to feed his family like other people do (who are in the same position as he is) he must indulge in practices construed unethical by his God. Ram does not want to indulge in bribery of any sort: but his conscience will not allow him not to bribe. He is rational, after all. How can he watch his children starve, when a little compromise on his morals can make them live happier lives? Why should he be so selfish as to gratify himself by being moral?

And the invisible hand of the market (another of the millions of names for the second law) sees to it that he starts trading Rs 500 notes for pride and "morality". His children gradually grow more spherical. Ram will initially be miserable about his embracement of corruption. But gradually he will have begun to accept this as a part of life. He will have became bitter, cynical and, ironically, happier.

Morality, after all, is a luxury meant for the rich. The high horse that the rich ride on to "look down" upon the soul-less animals that they deem the poor to be.

Ram's story might contain elements of exaggeration: the rotund-ness of the little ones, for one. But I assure you, this dilemma is extremely common in poor India - and perhaps is only tempered by blind religious faith. (Here's another instance where I frown upon Dawkins' bellicosity toward all things religious: liberal values, like religion, seem to be a luxury only the rich can afford). Common sense would extrapolate this to any other region of the planet where penury is the predominant way of life: Africa comes to mind.

Now let's move on to Sarkar, a Bengali farmer. He farms rice in the sweltering 40 degree heat and infinite humidity. He is initially ethical, refuses to accompany the Basmati with little stones that lie about here and there. And then he sees his neigbour's fat children standing beside his skinny ones. Enough has been said.

Let's call this invisible-hand-emotional-blackmail the "thin children effect" (T.C.E) - and let this depict other implicit coercive effects that force people to compromise morality (such as the "let-me-steal-to-eat" effect, for one) too. Corruption is imperative because everyone else is doing it. With corruption the demand for higher legitimate wages goes down - there is no incentive to bargain for more pay when lots of the green stuff makes it to your pocket through the back-door.

Now let us try to construct a genetic algorithm that starts out away from equillibrium - and ends up in equillibirum. This, again is a thought experiment - inspired by the likes of Einstien et.al.

Start out with lots of rational average "honest" agents (people) - put them in large corrupt society. A corrupt society would penalize ethical behaviour (the T.C.E) and would reward corrupt behaviour more often than the legal forces would penalize corrupt behaviour. (And often corruption would get so institutionalized that the enforcement mechanisms would lose integrity too). If the people are rational (i.e. they realize that feeding their children is more important than the "luxury" of being ethical), then it can be seen that the "honest" agents will be forced into corruption. It can happen vice-versa only if the number of agents is much larger - perhaps of the order of the dishonest agents. Sleaziness and corruption shall prevail. You don't need a computer to tell you this. Just common sense.

On the other hand, take a handful of "corrupt" agents and put them in a large "honest" society. A honest society, I am convinced, can only be well to do. (More on this in shortly). Since enforcement is much better in an honest society, it is quite easy to see that the dishonest will be penalized - and rationality will convert them into honest citizens.

In my opinion, the developed world is more of an "honest" society - where dishonesty and petty corruption is more of a mutation than mainstream. And the poorer countries are "corrupt". But hold on! There's more to it than meets the eye. Since social hierarchies are quite difficult to breach, it is possible for many equilibria to coexist in the same society. While the lower middle class in India probably is in a corrupt equilibrium, the upper middle class is probably in an honest equilibrium.

Suppose, in the aforementioned GA, you don't introduce people into a large society, but you consider a large poor society instead, living in an "honest" equilibrium. Suppose, by some mutation, one "corrupt" person comes about. His children grow fat. Subsequently, he converts his neighbour to corruptionism (sic) so to speak. And so on, ad infinitum. An honest poor society is therefore unstable.

A dishonest rich society, on the other hand need not be deemed unstable - for there is greed in everyone. But, an overtly religious or "liberal" society will spontaneously become an honest one - because for such a society, dishonesty isn't even an equilibrium.

Futher, I expect rich societies to be much more susceptible to the luxury of patriotic blind faith - as is abundantly demonstrated by the U.S. The evidence of a growing Jingoism in India could perhaps be interpreted as a sign of the country's shifting economic fortunes? Of course, one must bear in mind that an overwhelming number of Indians are poor beyond imagination.

How does one break the corrupt Indian quasi-equillibrium? More on that soon.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Introducing Entropism

As far as religions go, there's plenty of religions out there - all brimming with messages of love - and beating the living daylights out of each other. To add another religion to this abundance of hate in the name of love would be unwise, to say the least. But nobody told me that. Here I go, starting a religion of my own.

Nothing makes sense right now. Christianity's most sacred assertion of virgin birth is improbable to say the least. And Judaism (and other faiths derived from Judaism) believe in a male God who created the world in seven days. Hinduism and other associated faiths believe in life after death , Nirvana - all equally irrational and improbable as virgin birth. (Please note that I dare not criticize Islam in this blog, as I might be imposed a fatwa upon by some Cleric and be prohibited from entering India - a fate similar to the one that has befallen one Salman Rushdie - so let me say for the record - Islam is a great religion and a religion of peace. That sound you're hearing is my knees shaking in fear of getting a fatwa issued in my name.)

Here are the basic tenets of Entropism:

Entropism is the belief that shit happens. Especially when you are careless. In order to limit the amount of shit that happens, one must be quite careful.

The intelligentsia amongst my readers would surely have realized that this is little else than the second law of thermodynamics ("the entropy of a closed system never decreases"). Yes, this is INDEED a cop out of mammoth proportions. The fundamental premise of this faith is just a statistical reality. No chance of that going wrong, eh? (Unless they make a Maxwell Daemon for real this time).

What is the central message of entropism? Is it one of love?

No. It is one of utter self centeredness (sic). And love, incidentally is a mere consequence of selfishness. (For an elaborate discussion of the same, the reader is refferred to Prof. Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene". Though I think Prof. Dawkins' emphatic confrontations with theists are counter-productive from a practical point of view - his book is still very powerful philosophically). The basic message is "Do unto others what others do unto you - keeping in mind, of course, legal constraints - for if what others do unto you is illegal, turning them over to the police might produce more satisfying results". A sort of order in the society shall then result - something not unlike the Evolutionary steady state that Prof. Dawkins discusses in his book.


The central message of entropism is one of faith. In oneself. Libertarianism comes close. But that's a political ideology. This is a religion. So, let's keep them separate - shall we? Separation of lack-of-church and state. (If I had my way, we'd do away with international borders and we would be worried about the separation of lack-of-church and planet but that's an altogether different story).

And what about prophets? Does entropism believe in prophets?

Yes it does. There's one and only one prophet. That is me. Possibly because there is only one entropist. Me. If you wish to convert to entropism then you could also become a prophet. Shit happens.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Prognostication: Cricket Tomorrow

The 20-20 world cup has concluded - and has revealed an entirely new and much more exciting game of cricket. An entirely new business model of the game seems to be on the verge of taking root - despite what a few snobs (the so-called "purists") say.

With this further shortened version of the game, it is quite likely that second rung tournaments will get more interesting. This has already happened in England and South Africa - where first class cricket has more or less undergone a revolution. Cricket can now compete with the likes of football in Europe - because the shorter version keeps intact Cricket's inherent reliance on strategy and intellect - and just adds a lot more entertainment.

England, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia. Small countries. Where Cricket is more of an after-thought than a religion. Now let's scoot over to the commercial hub of the game. The Sub-Continent. 1.5 billion cricket crazy people. A place which gets full stadiums for boring rain threatened ODIs. A place which is serious about its entertainment.

Here's what I see happen to cricket in the near future: (5 years?).

A local cricket league that makes lots of money takes root in the Sub-Continent. Perhaps the ICL or perhaps BCCI. This League also includes teams from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Pakistan is also invited by the business concern - but political concerns (some overzealously "partiotic" delsional nut like Bal Thakeray's goondagiri (sic)) might make that a little difficult. And it makes money. Matches are played by cities and states- just like they are right now. Only they make a lot more money.

Since there aren't so many Australians around (their entire population is slightly more than that of the Mumbai Metropolitan area) - I expect that they either materialize in this league as a couple of clubs from Australia or they distribute themselves into local Indian teams like Indians currently do in British county cricket. That's because there's not much money in playing for local leagues in Australia - unlike there will be in India. Economics, after all, conquers all.

The Australians, the south Africans the British, the West Indies - initially will be star players. The will play a lot better than the Biharis, the Andhras - and the Mumbaikars. But in time, as India's economy grows - and as getting into local cricket becomes more lucrative - with more opportunities and all - I expect cricket to become a serious career option for young Indian boys. I expect more Indian cricketers to emerge who are as disciplined as the Aussies are right now.

And ten years down the line, I expect that the ICC will more or less dissolve - except for a few ceremonial games. I expect economics to shift criket to India.

Unless, the Chinese and the Americans start liking cricket. And that's unlikely to happen.

What I have claimed here is just based on common sense, little else. The only thing that could make this not happen is massive political instability in India slowing down the country - again, unlikely - the communists notwithstanding. Or an inherent genetic inability to perfrom in sports among Indians - a theory that seems untenable, judging by the occasional spurts competence shown by our current "selected" cricket team - and by the sheer talent of the occasional cricketer. Let's players select themselves, not some "selectors".The current system reeks of authoritarianism.

As far as cricket is concerned, the future belongs to the sub-continent. Because there is no incentive like money. And there is no engine of growth like the free market. And ironically, money there is (for cricket) in the subcontinent (though it is still one of the poorest regions in the world otherwise).

Monday, September 24, 2007

Awaiting Ahmedinijad's Speech

The president of Iran will speak today in Columbia university. It isn't everyday when a so-called "enemy of state" speaks in Public - and is perhaps an opportunity that is unique to truly liberal societies. Here's my two cents on the whole US-Iran standoff.

Firstly, let me condemn Iran for its obvious lack of civil liberties. It is disgusting that a nation, in this day and age, adopts sexism as a national policy. It is disgusting that leaders attempt to deny (more out of convenience than anything else) perhaps the most shameful and horrendous acts ever perpetrated on western society (viz. the Holocaust). Let me also condemn other transgressions of civil liberties in Iran - the enforcement of a maniacal dress code, the extreme censoring of the press and intolerance of dissent.

The enforcement of a ruthless interpretation of the sharia law might be barbaric, but I am of the firm belief that when western states go to war on other states because they are deemed "barbaric" - then there's a hidden agenda somewhere. (read O.I.L).

Firstly, Shia Iran hates Sunni Al-Qaeda. If Iran ever made a nuclear bomb, it would surely never fall into UBL's hands. Their main incentive to develop the bomb is to keep the Israeli/US forces at bay to make sure they do not attack. They are not surely stupid enough to use it on the US or Israel first. The subsequent nuclear blitz will vapourise their nation instantly. A nuclear Iran, frankly isn't such a big deal.

Let's face it. Iran has a loud-mouthed hard-liner for president. Someone whose electoral future depends on how much "testosterone" he shows on international grounds (as long as he does not make a huge mess out of his internal affairs). Because, he is Iran's Bush. Iran's right wing cow-boy. The people who vote for him are those religious patriotic zealots.

Why all the vitriol? He knows the US won't attack Iran. He's calling the US bluff. Look at the population of Iraq. 25 million under a dictator they hated. Now, in Iran, it's 65 million - in a more democratic society. The entire US army will not be able to handle Iran and Iraq together.

And if Bush attacks Iran, crude prices go north. Iran won't sell crude. Petrol (gas) hits $10 a gallon. US economy gets hit. Corporations lose. Republicans lose. There's never going to be a war with Iran. Ahmedinijad is trying to derive as much political mileage as he can from that bluff. And it's working. But he does need all the mileage he can get - considering the economic mess that his policies have got the proud Persians into.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

That Pesky Inconvenience Called Reality

Just today, for a reason similar to the one I watch Fox News for, I was reading the Indian "news-paper" (and I use the term loosely), Times of India. And the very first article (this link will die soon) on the paper was a survey from a Swedish Firm - some Karios Future or something - which seemed to Imply that the young Indians are the happiest in the world.

It figures. Last time I was in India (in Hyderabad) - the young beggars requesting for the rupee seemed to have a smile on their faces. They walked about with a spring in their step. Oh, and the auto-wallas were ecstatic to have me in their auto. They talked as the drove me all around the Ahmedabad city and charged me Rs 200 for what should have been Rs 70. There was a certain joy in their eye when I paid them Rs 200. The same stroke of opportunistic happiness that one might experience when one watches a generous rich uncle step into a room.

The journey to Surat from Hyderabad was fun too. The boy who cleaned the coach for money seemed to me much happier than the average boy-who-cleaned-the-coach before I left for the US two years ago. The heavy rains in Gujarat left many low lying houses (adjacent to the railway track) inundated. There were people who had no place to go to but the roof. Though the elderly people on the roof were markedly grumpy, there was a certain mirth in the grins of the younger ones on the roof.

Young women forced to commit sati do so more happily than they did before. Once can hear them laugh in glee as they are burnt to death in the funeral pyre. Young Indians deprived of a seat in the college of their choice (due to some confused reservation policy) laugh all the time as they settle for something less exciting.

And the downtrodden lower castes - they're happier than ever before. They laugh as they are kicked out of temples and enjoy explict bigotry here there and everywhere. Young couples marrying outside their caste and religion enjoy every moment of their lynching by angry mobs.

And all this makes the Indian youth the happiest in the world.

If you could not smell the sarcasm in the above post, then you're stupider than I imagined.

Actually, I feel vindicated. It looks as if the nomenclature touted by yours truly in an older post is being taken seriously. The survey said "Indians", that 5% of the sub-continental nation - not the Bharatwasis! It is quite easy to see why the Indians would be doing well. They know how lucky they are - and they are therefore happy. Little reason else.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Mr Karat Needs an Education

Wheras one does not doubt the US' imperialist tendencies (40% of the rants on this blog lament the same), one cannot help but notice a marked illiteracy in Mr. Karat's recent statement. (The Karat in question is a so-called "Indian Communist" - he has all the right intentions - but seems intellectually misguided - and blinded by Karl Marx).

For those who came in late, here's what he said (I quote a report from the Hindu).

Karat said India's foreign policy has been governed by consensus and non-alignment for the last 50 years. "But if the nuclear deal is through, it will break the 60 years of our foreign policy. "We are not against the people of America or against America as a country. We are against the imperialistic America and the most hated Bush adminstration", he said.

Karat should take a few courses in Economics. An in the first good course he will find what Adam Smith said quite interesting. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest"

To expect America to "help India" out of pure benevolence is ridiculous - but then again, if you blindly believe in Marxism - how smart can you be? Of course, they have their own axe to grind! Everybody has their own axe to grind. The world is just a lot of little people with their own little axes to grind.

If you try to suppress selfish agendas ( like the communists tried to do) - you get long, long queues for potatoes, rampant poverty, omniscient corruption, a disgruntled and demoralized proletariat and a significant unregulated unofficial free market economy - the black market. If you think I am wrong: just look at India - which seems to be in a sort of corrupt social equilibrium*.

Mr Karat is a shrewd man. It seems quite ironic that he would be blind to such obvious facts. Unless, unless, he knows it all - but is trying to tell his vote bank what it wants to hear. He is trying to capitalize on what he perceives as a global Islamic disenchantment with Bushco, perhaps. Another of those morally bankrupt politicians that we keep ranting about?

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Vegitarianism: Am I a Hypocrite?

I've always had this "holier-than-thou" attitude: I don't do meat because I reckon killing an animal causes it pain. And since, in general, the average living thing tends to avoid pain as much as possible - pain must be, well, painful to say the least. So, I don't do beef, I don't do chicken - or any other meat for that matter.

But the average roach that encounters me gets the under-side of my shoe, inevitably. I have an obsession with killing ants and other insects that bite. I would kill a bed-bug if I ever saw another (something I seriously wish I won't). In other words, if insects were human (which they, thankfully, are not) then most of humanity would be in my firing line.

Does one sense a certain double standard somewhere? Well, I did - so I did some reading up.

Causing a living thing a sensation of pain is what I want to avoid - and it turns out that in order to experience pain (pain as we know it), one needs a central nervous system - something that insects apparently do not possess. (A rather dumbed down explanation of the same can be found here.).

Which gets me thinking on a tangent: an insect is little but a robot: it does what it is programmed to (by evolution, so to speak).

Which eerily corroborates what I had been thinking all along: even humans are little but over-rated robots - after all, consciousness is an illusion that the conscious mind creates to "explain" itself.

At this point I see a roach crawl on the floor. I am taking a shoe out of the closet right now. I have the shoe on my hand. The shoe is being used to crush the roach with lethal force right now. After hearing a convincing "crunch" sound, one is sure that the roach is no more. But I am not a sinner. Killing the roach was as much an ethical crime as, well, breaking a pen.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Quarter A Century

I am twenty five years old now. Turned 25 around the "ides of July". Turning twenty five had a sort-of -sobering effect on yours truly. It got me into thinking about Human timescales. Our lives are not mere drops in the ocean. Here is why.

Twenty of me and you have the Mughal Empire. Forty of me and you have the Christian Dark Ages - full with plagues and little ice ages and everything. Sixty of me, you have Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) fighting his wars. Eighty of me, and you have Jesus Christ - allegedly perishing for the sins of one and all. Hundred of me and you have the glorious kingdoms of ancient India and China. You have Buddha sitting under a tree in what is now Laloo-land. You have Asterix and Obelix plundering the Romans. You have Aristote and Plato commiting blunders. You have Pythagoras talking about hypotenuses. Two Hundred of me and you have the Egyptians and Chinese starting out and the Indians (some contend) on song.

As a matter of fact, just a hundred and twenty of my lives could have fit into the entire Egyptian empire. A hundred and twenty is not much - why, I see a hundred and twenty people all the time. There were classes in IIT which had 250 students. (Ah, the lovely farce that is IIT education!).

Half a billion of me, and you have the big bang. Considering that the world has SIX billion people, it is intriguing (though absolutely useless) to note that the cumulative age of all humans on the planet right now exceeds the age of the universe. On a more somber note, the cumulative age of all Indians right now exceeds that of the universe by a factor of roughly two. Now, that is scary.

I am just 25 right now. Current longevity estimates would put my life at around 75 years at least - assuming something is done to control sphericity of my own self. Utterly sobering to think that only forty of me would be sufficient to fill the entire 3000 years of the Egyptian empire.

Considering that the median age of India is 24 right now, I must also realize that I am one of the older Indians on the planet right now. It's all downhill from here, eh?

If you're not mesmerized by these statistics, all that means is that you grasp human timescales much better than I do right now. Kudos to you.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Sixty Two Years Ago

Something wonderful happened sixty two years ago.

It was a miserable war which killed millions. And then a monster with a mustache killed himself. But the war was not over yet.

There was a nation which was trying to throw its weight around. A nation with imperial ambitions. A nation which wanted to colonize a significant part of the world. Japan.

And the allies (the British, the Russians and the Americans, basically) knew that colonization was unethical. It was something that they wanted to protect the world from.

So, one brave man who lived in a big house in Washington had an idea. He had hired some scientists to work for him to help annihilate an entire city of 100,000. They came up with a bomb which could do so.

The war was more or less over. It looked as if the salaries of those scientists would go to waste. Oh, what a waste.

So, president Harry Truman had a brain-wave. Why not kill 200,000 Japanese and curse their descendants with gamma rays? That would end the war, he would be a hero.

And two bombs were dropped on densely populated cities to kill people. They were not dropped on an ocean to demonstrate their awesome power and scare the Japanese into surrendering. No. That would never do. They bombed two cities instead.

This master-stroke of genius stopped the war. This is the way that god wanted it.

And now, this very responsible nation that stopped the war (after making that extremely difficult decision to kill 200,000 people in order to obtain peace) realized that nuclear weapons were too dangerous in the wrong hands - like those of Iran and North Korea and India (for 1998 + a few years) and Pakistan. (Israel, however, is responsible) So, it now acts as a champion of nuclear non proliferation - and maintains enough weapons to blow up the world many times over as collateral. That's what I call responsibility.

And that's why I will think of August 6th and 9th as wonderful occasions - not as occasions of utter shame. Occasions that make me proud to be human, not occasions that make me sorry that I am living. Not occasions that show me how deep and stupid this obsession with nationality is.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

The Trip Home.

Why the Hiatus?

The avid reader of this blog would have observed an uncharacteristic hiatus in recent times - and would probably have guessed that the reason for the same was the matrimony that the author was undergoing. And (s)he would not entirely be in error. The author, to use a Wodehouseism (that's a neologism) has become rather superfatted and lazy after getting married. All the author does is sleep and eat and surf and sleep, while the little woman does all the dirty work.

The Trip.

A mention must be made of the recent trip to India. The trip to India was a pleasant affair - the ubiquitous rudeness notwithstanding. There were absolutely no surprises in the trip- save, perhaps the Mumbai Airport. I expected a mess, frankly, when I landed in Mumbai. But the airport was probably cleaner and more impressive than all the other airports (besides DFW) I had been in ... Frankfurt and Bahrain. And the immigration and customs were a cinch. I did not have to stand in those fabled kilometer-long lines awaiting my turn.

The Traffic

The traffic was terrible (on expected lines). To say that I was scared when I saw Indian roads for the first time after coming back would be an understatement. I was petrified. I had no clue how people could survive with such traffic. A five hour drive to Surat on the day I landed was affected. Though most of the road was wonderful (the golden quadrilateral) the stints on the two-laned portions really scared me. My heart was racing faster as the driver overtook slower vehicles. (Mum and Dad didn't even flinch when this happened, to top it all).

Here's how an over-take is performed in India. Let's say you have to overtake a truck (henceforth referred to as the victim) on a two lane road in India. Let's say there's a car coming in the opposite direction. You first speed up, such that your speed is at least double the speed of the victim. Then you perfrom a cursory check to see whether a vehicle is coming the other direction in the right lane. If a vehicle is indeed approaching - then the overtake is not abandoned. In such a case the accelerator is depressed all the more and a headlight is flashed. Flashing this headlight momentarily (this is still mid-day, mind you) lulls the you into a sense of security. It is almost as if all responsibility is passed on to the driver of the approaching vehicle. The overtake is completed. The approaching vehicle might be forced into the shoulder - that's just routine. These delicate maneuvers are performed at speeds approaching 100kmph on those roads. Needless to say, safety is an eternal issue. Indian roads are among the most dangerous on the planet.

Surat turned out to be a singularly interesting town. Absolutely no garbage on the streets - spic and span - without any city buses - with newborns (virtually) driving two-wheelers - and absolutely no place to go to.

Congestion is normal on Indian roads. Surat is congested. Mumbai is congested. But Hyderabad is something else. It is saturated with a prosperous middle class. Though clean, it is static. Honestly, there are times when you feel it is a miracle that things actually move. Let me talk about one specific road. The Hubsiguda main road. And let me tell you how we cross Indian roads.

Just walk across. Don't care what is coming. Vehicles are usually so static that stopping is not a big deal for them. Just act as if you are blind-folded and cross. Unless some Salman Khan is driving along on his BMW, you are as safe as you can possibly be.

The monsoons came (albeit a little late) to India. Rain wreaked havoc over Mumbai (on expected lines) - and even over Hyderabad and Surat. Since the internet is more or less saturated with stories about the rain - let's let that go, shall we?

The Wedding

I would like to firstly talk about the status of atheists in India. There is no respect for atheists in India at all. When you say you're an atheist, people just assume you're a Hindu of sorts. I managed to bear this soft bigotry( yeah right, bigotry!) with a smile of my face - primarily because I am not a Dawkinsian crackpot.

The wedding, firstly, was as traditional an affair as a wedding can be - with the exception of a gazillion camera men fighting with each other giving both the bride and the groom an Angelina Jolie complex. I kid you not. If you were at the wedding, you would also get the feeling that most of India's 1.1 billion turned up as cameramen (armed with Nikon D-somethings).

The food, it must be metioned, was incredible - and even as the groom, I managed to get a fair fill (sneaking to the catering room every now and then). I have a gut feeling that it was frowned upon by a few powers that thought that they were - not that I cared a hoot.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the wedding ceremony was the number of reunions it facilitated. I met cousins, aunts, uncles and grandmothers after a cruel hiatus of two years. I met friends after an equally long hiatus. It was incredible in that I met almost everyone that mattered in my life at one point - and in that lay a regret - viz. there was just not enough time to do justice to everyone who turned up. Lots of people I did want to spend time with - but I just could not make it.

Lots and lots of relatives were met - regardless of whether they were known or unknown. I would like to add that I am almost positive that there were some impostors and some gatecrashers in the mix. But one never knows, does one? Lots of gifts were handed over. Usually idols of Ganesha - a hindu God destroyed and then re-created by Lord Shiva (the destroyer). The fact that Ganesha is a fan of the edible and is characterized by rotundity could be an ominous sign of the role that obesity might play in one's life - but, if that were true, then almost all Hindus would be fat.

Moral of the Story

One of the most important players in the wedding was rice. Rice coated with turmeric was thrown at the us by one and all. The rice crashed into the our heads like a Japanese Kamikaze airplane. It was all out war. And let's not forget the long rituals. The whole wedding was a blind ritualistic orgy. But within these rituals I could see genuine devotion among the people - and often genuine happiness. A certain joy that only religion can bring to the believer. A placebo that does more good than bad.

If there is one thing this whole experience in India taught me, it is the following:

Religion and rituals make people happy.
Being happy is the point of life.
Trying to spread atheism (like Dawkins and others do) is incredibly stupid, ignorant, arrogant and counter-productive.

I am an atheist who likes to see others happy. I don't care about the logical consistency of what others believe in. As long as they're happy. For happiness, often, is much more than a warm gun. It seems to be approximated quite well by devotion.