I watched Shutter Island yesterday night. Brilliant movie, totally recommended. Read the wanderlust’s review of the film here.

Anyway, later that night, when I slept I got a really weird dream. I remember bits of it, and it’s really funny.

In the dream every time the “dream-me” wants to get some job done, the I would think of an appropriate person. This person has apparently no connections with the “dream-reality” but is a figment of my dream-imagination. The weird part is that the person would come to being (in the dream) and accomplish the job in the dream-reality.

After several such instances (which I cannot remember any of them now!), the I am asked to talk to a doctor about it. When I do so, he says that it’s a classic case of a person “forking” himself!

And the worst part is, when I ask back, quite seriously, “And you mean to say that I exec after that ?”, he replies “Yes, but how did you guess that?!”

So that’s when I realize that the doctor, the dream-me and the conversation are all a figment of my imagination and wake up.

Now, tell me about your dreams!

First thing that struck me was that I will have to return my company provided laptop, a Lenovo T60p which has been my constant companion for the past 3.5 years. The laptop has served me well, but now it’s time to move on (Company policy requires me to return it )

I would have loved to continue with Lenovo, but I have heard that their support is a bit expensive. I am not sure if I will be able to afford it as a student.

So, that means, I’ll have to purchase a new laptop before I join college and I have less than 15 days to do that. My budget is 35k to 40k INR. I need a Linux compatible laptop which means that certain Graphics cards and certain wireless cards are not allowed.

College going junta or otherwise, any suggestions, advice regarding the do’s and dont’s that one should keep in mind while purchasing a new laptop, kindly advice. It’ll be much appreciated.

He sits in his room, sipping some water. It had been a tiring day. He knows that it was to be the last of it’s kind. There had been changes at the top. The management which used to run the race earlier was being “replaced” with a younger set of people. This had been happening over the past few months. Old coaches were being gracefully retired, and new ones had been appointed in their place. His own coach who trained him so well all this while had been asked to quit. This particular day was the last day when the race was run according to the older ways. The next couple of months had been set aside for transition. And he had no idea what sorts of changes was he to expect.

He quickly hits the shower and puts on a fresh set of clothes. He had an appointment to keep. He heads out to the neighboring coffee place. He was expecting to meet his new coach there. He was introduced to his new coach the previous day. “He is only a few years older than me”, he thought at that time. “But may be he is really good, and one doesn’t have to be really old to have reached the level where one can coach people.”, he consoled himself. He reaches the coffee place and looks around. There is no sign of the new coach. He sits on a table overlooking the busy street.

The new coach enters and motions him to remain seated. He takes off his track-jacket and rests it on the chair which has been pulled out. He then sits down and looks at the athlete. “Ah, another old-school fella”, he thinks to himself. He orders a cup of coffee for himself. The athlete asks for a bottle of water.

“I have looked at your charts. And I must say I am quite impressed. You have the potential to become the star in this new format of the race. However, you’ll have to re-invent yourself. But don’t worry, everyone will have that same challenge. We’ll work out a strategy together.”

He realized that the coach meant business. He didn’t want to waste any time on small talk either.

“Ok, but what sorts of re-inventions I am to expect ?”

“Several. But not any major ones. Like for example the way you take breaks. That needs to change. Currently it appears as if your breaks are too scheduled.”

“I take a break when my body doesn’t comply anymore. And yes, if you look at my break-schedule , you’ll observe that the duration between breaks has steadily increased. Though on a given day, or a week, it’s more or less consistent. But the longer history shows that I am improving. So, what’s wrong with it ?”

“Nothing. Except that it won’t be useful in the new format of the game.”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t been keeping up with the changes that had been going on at the top. So please help me understand, why are we moving on to a new format ? What’s wrong with the current one ?”

“Well, we feel that the current one is not very representative.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Ok, let me help you understand. So in this current format, what pace do the athletes run at?”

“Well, the athletes run at their own pace. Depending on what category of race they focus on. Sprinters run fast, understandably, and they take several breaks since their cycle is short. The long distance runners run slow, because their goal is to build stamina. Even within these different categories, the various athletes run at the pace that they are comfortable with. This comfort level is gained after years of practice.”

“And what exactly are you running for ?”

“The way I see it, each race is an opportunity for us to better ourselves. To understand our bodies well. To refine our athleticism.”

“In other words, you are competing against yourself and no one else, right ?”

“Well, one could say that.”

“What’s the ultimate goal of all this practice, all the running that you do?”

“From what I know, the ultimate goal is to make running irrelevant.”

“Could you elaborate on that ?”

“Well, like I said, throughout the race we seek to better ourselves. I have heard from the people who have exited the race, the “finishers” as we call them here, that at one point you begin to understand your body. And not just that, you understand how to control it. In other words, the body obeys you. You become perfect in the art of running and there comes a time where running no longer becomes relevant. So, the race is a means to developing that understanding. Understanding of your true potential. What your essence is.”

“Well said. Now, let us talk about these finishers. Throughout the history of the race, how many finishers have been there in total ?”

“Not a lot. Probably one finisher, at the most two, every year or so.”

“And mostly these are people who have been practicing since ages, right ?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Ok. Now, if I am not mistaken, most of these finishers are long distance runners, right ?”

“Yes, among the finishers that we have, lot many are long distance runners. But then we do have a few sprinters as well.”

“True. Now, again, among all the athletes, what is proportion of people who run long distance ?”

“Very small percentage of the total number of athletes practice for long distance races. Actually, a lot more people seem to fit into the sprint category.”

“Right. So tell me, doesn’t that sound a bit unfair ? I mean, more people practice in the sprint category. And this has been true throughout the history of the race. Only a few practice in the long-distance category. But among the finishers long-distance runners form a higher percentage, while sprinters have to slog all the day and get nothing in return.”

“Not nothing. Like I said, there are finishers among the sprinters too.”

“But very few. And that’s the biggest flaw in the the old system. It has not no sense of proportion”

“But the goal is, not to have a sense of proportion. The goal is to help each individual realize his true potential. And he can do it best by training for the event which best suits him. Our current system just makes use of what he possesses and helps him build on it to reach the level of perfection.”

“Now that brings us to the next point. Who decides what is best for each individual ?”

“There is a collection of wisdom passed on from years. Wisdom accumulated by the finishers. Though they cannot describe the perfection in words, they have recorded their experiences. Several of them. And they have helped synthesize this collection of wisdom and have derived certain rules on its basis. Thus there are rules which tells what kind of race will suit which kind of individual.”

“Now you said, the finishers decide! This is indeed interesting. The ones who no longer run are the ones who decide how the race is to be run. Once again, that seems a bit unfair to me!”

“Well, I don’t think you are looking at things from a holistic point of view. Are you trying to say that the wisdom that has been passed on by the finishers, which has helped so many other athletes to graduate to being finishers in the subsequent years is pointless ? Completely useless ?”

“I never said anything about that. All I am trying to do is point out the reasons why we believe that the rules need to change. See in the current format, even though running at your own pace and steadily improving seems to be the most natural thing to do, it would not make the race interesting. After all, what’s so much fun in watching a race where the better suited runners maintain the lead always and the others don’t bother giving a competition, because their goal is to just improve relative to their own performance? That’ll simply make the race boring to watch, right ?”

“Well, we do try to give a competition. The races are opportunities for us to stretch ourselves, to take our practice to the next level. But yes, the same holds good for the athletes who are currently better than us. So it’s not surprising that better trained athletes do better.”

“But if you look at it from the perspective of the results of the race, don’t you agree that it’s more or less predictable?”

“If you want to look at it only from the perspective of the results, then yes.”

“And it is a fair perspective, you cannot deny that. So, according to our new format, we are going to have different events such as : 100 meters dash, a 800 meters, a marathon and so on. ”

“Well, that’s there in the current format as well. What’s new about it.”

“The rules! You see, under the current system, the interest of the players is not taken into consideration. What if the player feels that he wants to switch events. Switch focus ? The current system has no provision for that. If an athlete feels that he is better suited for long-distance don’t you think he should be given a chance to try that ? Our system changes all that. Any athlete can participate in any race. No bars held.”

“Well, it’s not true that the current system has no provision for switching events and switching focus. It does. But it’s not encouraged. Because even those who switched, took way too long to graduate to being finishers. And after finishing, they themselves said that to realize what they did realize, switching was not necessary. Hence you don’t see several instances of switching.”

“But it’s not encouraged. That’s where the new format trumps. It provides equal chance for everyone to participate in every race. Not just that, the new rules introduce a revolutionary idea of participant vote. The participants in the race will be able to vote as to which event should be awarded the highest credits. What should be the schedule of the events. And so on. We’ll hold a review after every month. During this time, the participants with the most number of credits across different categories will be honored. You see, our system makes sure that it’ll be a race of the participants, for the participants and by the participants.”

“But that will have several side effects. For starters, the credits for sprints will be the highest, because most of them would be sprinters. Which means that there will be a lot more prominence for sprints from here on. And that would mean lesser number of marathons. This would introduce a bias and cause imbalance within the system.”

“There will be as many races of a particular kind as the participants want them to be. Besides you can trust that the system will be self-corrective.”

“But even if you do that, over a long period of time the proportion of different kind of athletes among the finishers is going to remain exactly the same. The reason why people finish is because of the focus they put in the kind of event they run. You see more number of long-distance runners in the finisher category because the kind of race they run helps them build the discipline required to understand their body. They take fewer number of breaks than the sprinter for whom iterations matter. Then again, the reason we have fewer number of long-distance runners is because the kind of discipline that’s required to run long-distance is not easy to follow and hence not lucrative for everyone. Thus this new format is not going to impact the proportion of the Marathon-Runners Vs the sprinters in the “finishers” category.”

“That is correct.”

“And moreover, because of this new format where every athletes can run all types of races, and each race has a different credit, people will try to prepare for everything. However, that’ll not allow them to really develop their capabilities. Because the capabilities required for sprint are so different from those required for, say a marathon. So, in this new system, each one will be preparing for the next race, whether he is suited for it or not. Besides, since the schedule of the races is decided by a vote, there won’t be time to plan as there won’t be time to predict. You are making it harder for the players to graduate to being finishers. While the proportion different types of athletes graduating to the finishers is going to remain constant, the rate is going to drop down , no ?”

“You seem to be once again overlooking an important point here. The focus of the new rules is to make the race interesting. To ensure that people are having fun while running the race. So that it won’t bet a boring exercise that one needs to undergo to achieve some perfection which may or may not come.”

“So, the focus of the new rules is not even the quality of the players or the quality of the race ?”

“I would not put it that way. Lets say that the focus in on the quality of the entertainment which does provide scope for focusing on the quality of players and that of the race.”

“But then, who will benefit ?”

“You will, of course!”

“But like I said earlier, the proportion of finishers is not going to change, and the rate of finishers is going to drop. So how are we benefiting ?”

“See, in the current scheme of things, you can very rarely outrun a player with better athletic talent in your own category of race to begin with. And since you are not encouraged to participate in the race other than the one you had chosen, you could never know if you are better than the best player in that other type of race. However, now with this new format, you stand a chance to beat the next better player, in the next scheduled event, right ?”

“Sure… But you forget, the purpose of the older rules of the race was so that each one of us could realize our fullest potential. The race was a means to achieve that. So, an athlete would any way have not been bothered about beating the next best guy.”

“Good point. But then race would have been too boring to sustain itself.”

“It has sustained itself all this while! Moreover, in the older format, we were aware that it would take us years of practice to come to a point where we have developed ourselves such that we no longer need to run. And we would have been mentally prepared for it right from the early stages.”

“But think of it, athletes, especially the sprinters could get impatient. They would see a better suited athlete finish early. At the same time, they would have to swallow the hard truth that they have to practice for a longer period before they can finish the race. Whatever mental preparation you talk about, the irrefutable fact is this: recognition, in their case would have to wait.”

“I have read about the finishers and I have spoken to the finishers. It’s not the recognition that makes them happy. It’s the simple fact that they managed to realize their true potential. The knowledge, the irrefutable knowledge was what made them happy. Of course, they did get respect and recognition as a side effect.”

“But the ones who are far far away from realizing that, the beginners, the intermediates, they don’t understand why these finishers were feeling happy, right ? They see applause and the respect that these finishers get from those who were still participating and they see expressions of joy, content on the faces of those who finished the race. They see a correlation. They don’t see anything else. Hence they will conclude causation.”

“So what are you getting at?”

“Simple fact. Our new format allows them a chance to experience that joy. By giving them the chance to beat these so perceived better athletes, they can now enjoy their moment of glory.”

“Ah, but it’s only a moment. On the other hand, the joy experienced by true finishers was not momentary. It was permanent, as it resulted out of irrefutable knowledge. While, the glory provided the new system lasts only as long as the system allows which won’t be for long. So the athletes will see through it.”

“No, they won’t.”

“But obviously they will. All you are giving them is a glimpse, not the whole thing. After a while they’ll call your bluff.”

“Not if there are gradations in these glimpses. Remember, not all races are credited equally! No. There will always be something higher to aspire for. Always. A greater glory to seek. Which lasts for a greater amount of time. Of course, bestowed upon by the system itself. In this new format we make provisions such that our rules can evolve too, if required.”

“Still, there will be the experienced athletes who are approaching their finishing stages. They’ll see through this. They’ll warn the others.”

“You are still missing the point aren’t you ? You see the thing about our new format, unlike that old format of yours. Ours is explicitly fair. It gives every one the chance of basking in glory. Equally. So, every competitor is equal. Finisher or no Finisher. Experience or no experience. When it comes to the new criteria of evaluation, these do not matter. What matters is the result. Of the next race event. To participate in which every one has an equal opportunity.”

“However, when the adept realize the folly of the new system, they will work towards finishing. In the process they might show total disregard for the results of the “next” race decided by the vote. They’ll bide their time, and focus on self improvement in the event for which they would keep practicing. In the process they’ll causing doubts to crop in the minds of others. Because they’ll be so good in their own events, others simply won’t be able to beat them! Soon, the others will see that there are people in the race who seem to have a strategy of their own. They’ll be curious. That can cause the system to fail.”

“We know that. But their numbers are too small to influence the majority. Moreover, they run the risk of being treated like outcasts. Think of it: The new format has inbuilt immunity against such outcasts. When the others realize that they simply cannot win a particular event in which these outcasts participate, such an event will automatically get a low credit. And in the scheme of things, frequency for such events is also going to decrease. Thus the outcasts will simply not get to “graduate” to being finishers. Even if they do, due to their focused practice, they will not get any recognition from the community. These outcasts will be just like the tip of the pyramid. They are never enough to eclipse the bottom. Especially not when we promise focus-lights all around.”

“But there will always be those who will draw attention to the successes of the older format. Who’ll talk about the benefits of the focus. Who’ll fight for these outcasts. What are you going to do about them?”

“Nothing. They won’t be taken seriously.”

“Why not ?”

“While introducing the new format, we only have to subtly highlight the following: The aim of the older format was to be a finisher. The Older format was designed by the ones who had actually finished. The majority of these finishers were long-distance runners. The long-distance runners were a minority in the scheme of things and yet they were able to bask all the glory , steal all the limelight and decide how the race should be run. This will automatically cast aspersions on the long-distance runners. Now, amongst those fighting for the older format a large number of them will be the long-distance runners. Not their fault. It’s just that the kind of discipline they are involved in makes it easier for them to see the truth. The majority, the sprinters, however will revolt against them. The long-distance runners will then have two choices. Either accept the new format and fight in it’s favor to avoid discrimination. Or be discriminated against by the majority.”

“Wow! That’s comprehensive! I have one final question. The objective of older format was to enable the athletes to go beyond the system.. What’s the objective of the new format of yours ?”

“That answer to this question lies in asking the question.”

“Wait, you mean, there is no purpose ? There is no higher objective ? It’s there because it wants to be there ?”

“Like I said, the answer to this question lies in asking the question. “

1. S —> S;

2. S —> S(S);

3. S(X) —> S(Powerset(X));

4. S(X) —> S;

Key to interpreting the symbols:

1. Empty Set, ∅ as “Nothing-else”.
2. {X} as “The Description of X”.
3. {X,Y,…} as “The Description of X and Y and …”
4. S(X) as “The Act of Describing X”
5. S as “The Describer”
6. —> as “which describes”

This is It.

My room-mate’s instant remark was “Look how is he smiling. Why are they taking him in such a posh car. That idiot should have be driven out in a truck.”. I was amused. My room-mate didn’t know anything about Nityananda until the scandal broke. And soon after he heard the story, he became extremely judgemental to an extent that he developed dvesha for that chap! Sigh, impatience seems to be the virtue these days.

Now, I am someone who has keen interests in what’s known today as “Hinduism”  (I prefer Sanatana Dharma as -ism yields the term some sort of a book-bound-closed-system’s connotation) and it’s evolution. I spend most of my spare time reading up on the darShanas (loosely translated as philosophy for those who want an western equivalent), particularly the vEdanta darShana or uttara mImamsa. My knowledge of Swami Nityananda’s teachings is limited to a youtube video on Shiva-Sutras, which I later realized was not what I was looking for (That was the time when I was reading up on pAnini’s mAheshwara sUtras). However,  in the past two years, I have been learning quite a bit about what sanAtana dharma is and what it is not.

So with this background, and with whatever I have read about the scandal, I was naturally amused as to how easily people, like my room-mate jump to conclusions based on a juicy report by the sub-standard main-stream media.

To those who lap up every word said by the main-stream media, I have only five questions, which I deem are important from the point of view of a viewer who is being subjected to hours of this “moulding the public opinion” exercise on issues such as these, as if they are of grave national importance. (On a related note, does anybody remember what is happening with the maoists?)

1. The Tape shows two adults having consensual sex in private. As per the CBI’s evidence, there wasn’t any sort of force used by accused. So how does the charge of “Rape”, stand ?
2. Another accusation is of “Unnatural sex”. Wait a minute, what was that recent reinterpretation of Article 377 all about ? The media was all ga-ga over that same judgement hailing it as a “milestone” in the history of Indian law. And under this new interpretation, I quote:“unnatural offences”, would hereafter be restricted to non-consensual penile “non-vaginal sex” (rape by a homosexual) and “penile non-vaginal sex involving minors” (pedophilia).
3. The next accusation is “cheating”. Cheating whom ? Has the lady who appears in the tape filed any complaints that she has been cheated into having the sexual intercourse ? If no, then whom else has he cheated? If the accusation of “cheating” refers an incident that’s totally unrelated to the sex-tapes, then why is that being said in the same sentence as “Rape” and “Unnatural Sex” ? Is it done deliberately to misguide the public ?
   
4. The next accusation is “Showing disrespect to religious sentiments”. But question remains to be asked, which religious sentiments has he disrespected ? The straw-man religion called “Hinduism” which was defined by the courts as “a Way of Life” but is currently used as a label under which all superstitions can be lumped, in-order to be bashed to prove one’s secular credentials ? That one ? That’s not even a real religion! Anyway, for those of who you are not aware, the Tantra system has been an important part in the evolution of Indian System of thought. The main paths in this system are Samayachara, Kaula marga, Vamachara. Of these, the Vamachara path advocates meat eating , sexual intercourses as means to understanding the supreme. Even though this path has been termed as non-vedic (Avaidika) by many including the revered Shankaracharya who has strongly criticized it owing to the disastrous side effects it can have on the beginner-level spiritual seeker, one cannot deny the existence of that stream of thought in the process of the evolution of our traditions. [1]
   
5. Suppose a “Guru” has erred , and when I say erred, I mean in the domain of spirituality and it in the opinion of the followers, then, is our Justice system equipped to judge him for that ? Ours is a secular country which is supposed to keep religion separate. And this is clearly a matter between the “Guru” and the disciples. How can the courts decide in this case ? Do the courts refer to the dharmaSastras ? But which one will they resort to ?There are dharmaSastra manuals written by manu, yAj~navalkya, vaSiShTa, parASara to name a few. Do the courts seek the opinion of other Acharyas ? If yes, then which ones  ? There are those who teach the path of sAmkhya-yOga, those who teach pUrva mImamsa, those who teach Vedanta ? If it’s those who teach vedanta, the courts will follow the dictums of the Acharyas belong to which school ? There’s advaita, vishiShTadvaita, dvaita, achintyabhedabheda, shuddhadvaita, dvaitadvaita. Which ones ? Or will the courts go to one of the new age institutions like (Sri)^n Ravishankar’s “Art of Living” ?

These are important questions which are to be asked by each one of us who watch these programs that mould our opinion. Are the media channels taking us for a ride by giving so much airtime to something just because it’s juicy and titillating despite the fact that the accusations they are highlighting seem to have so very little chance of standing in the court of law ? How is such an issue which affects only the concerned Swami and the disciples who believed in his prowess, become one of national importance that it deserves so much of air-time ? Or have the media channels become entertainment channels that seek to entertain the public more than enlightening them ? If they have become entertainment channels, why are we taking them seriously ?

There’s no point blaming the media. It will show what it thinks will sell. We are the buyers. We should have known better than to have outsourced our right-of-judgement to the media.

And people like Swami Nithyananda are not the problem either. Those who know sanAthana dharma, would also know that it’s based on pillars namely:

• shRuti (what was heard/discovered as opposed to invented. The Vedas, the Upanishads),
• smRiti (what was logically deduced and remembered. The Dharmashastras),
• Agamas (Methods of worshipping and consecrating the temples. Includes the Shaivagamas, the Vaishnavagamas, the Shaktyagamas),
• purAnas (literally meaning “very old”. These expand on the terse verses of Vedas and present it in the form of a narrative for the sake of those who are not qualified to read the vEdas.)
• itihAsa (literally meaning “Thus indeed it was”. Very loosely can be translated as history. rAmAyaNa and mAhAbharata are the two main works in this category)
• shiShTAchAra (Shistha = great, noble. Achara = deeds. The word means following the deeds and ways of great, noble people in the tradition).

To learn anything, to be a master in anything, the sanAtana dharma advices the prospective student to seek guidance under a guru who is already established in that particular field. As for the proof of their authority or establishment in that particular field, the prospective students could watch the gurus participating in various debates or read the rigorous polemical works written by these gurus or go by word of mouth. In other words, the prospective students had all the means at their disposal to help them decide if a particular Guru is suitable for them or not. And only such people were respected and considered as gurus who learnt the shAstras from a guru themselves. This process of learning wasn’t just a careless process where anything goes, but a very rigorous one. Every shAstra has it’s own subject matter which was being taught. However, the way progress of the student was determined in each of the shAstras was more or less similar. For example, let us take music. The student of music, under a guru is said to undergo following stages of evolution [2]:

• anushThAna tAdAtma: In this stage, the shiShya repeats or follows what the guru is teaching. For example, when the guru pronounces “sA” the shiShya repeats after the guru “sA”. The shishya is said to have mastered this stage when he is able to reproduce what the guru has been teaching.
• anubhava tAdAtma: In this stage, the shiShya is expected to have the same experience as the Guru when performing anushThAna. In the earlier example, when the guru pronounces “sA” and the shiShya repeats, but it sounds like “ri”, then he is not having the same anubhava as the guru. So, the shiShya practices until he gets the experiences consistent with that of the guru.
• Ananda tAdAtma: Having gotten the anubhava right, the shiShya practices till the point where he is able to experience bliss. By repeated practice, he is will enjoy singing as it gives him a sense of happiness. Now, he is soaked in the knowledge/bliss of his own music. But it’s not the end yet. Even though he has known perfection, the quest is not yet over.
• akhaNDaikya rasAtAdatma: The final stage is when the shiShya is able to sing in a manner that not only provides him joy, but also to the person listening to his song. In other words, the bliss that the student had been soaked in, he is able to make it flow outwards and make others experience the same. This experience is such that the difference between singer and the listener shifts to the background and what predominates is the flow of one uninterrupted bliss. It is when the shiShya passes this stage, that the shAstraic knowledge is said to have found it’s culmination.

At any time, if a guru erred, that particular line of guru-shiShya parampara was accountable and one could to refer to the teachings of previous gurus in that line to seek clarification. Also, having admitted defeat in a debate on some shAstraic issue, a person who lost in the debate could seek deeksha under the person who defeated him.[3]

The description provided above is my humble attempt to shed some light on the guru-shiShya parampara in the sanAthana Dharma. With this in mind, consider the case of Swami Nithyananda. Does he belong to any guru-parampara ? Do you know what school of thought he advocates ? When people went to him for guidance, did they know what exactly were they seeking ?

If the answer is “No” or “Don’t know” to any of these questions, how will going to any courts help in anyway? Being a “secular” country, the government hasn’t and cannot pass any ordinance guaranteeing us protection against false gurus. It’s a matter of religion. Nor can it have a ministry which provides certificates of Authenticity to spiritual gurus. On the other hand, our traditions are rich enough to provide us with all necessary information to help us decide if the particular person in question is the right guru for one of us or not.

Hence, going to the courts for such things, only highlights our ignorance and our unwillingness to educate ourselves owing to our laziness. Also, making arbitrary judgements based on this ignorance might be a much sought after skill in “blow-kisses-in-air” page3 parties, but if one wishes to be taken seriously, such half-baked judgements which aren’t backed by facts won’t fly at all. And either of the these is unbecoming of us as Indians. We’re the ones who have inherited a very rich and a very ancient tradition of pursuit of truth. Our ancestors would write voluminous books systematically criticizing the errors in interpretations of individual words in any of the shAstraic passages [4]. They would not yield even a bit until the said interpretation was shown to be backed-up by logic or experience. And here we are today, glorifying flippancy.

I just hope that I won’t have to see the day when a “Ministry of Spirituality” would issue instructions on the media channels in the name of “Public Interest” instructing me on how I should be reciting my gAyatri mantras. That day the colonization process started by the British would have found it’s culmination.

References
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[1] For those who are really interested on more information regarding the various streams of thought that existed and interacted with each other in the latter part of the first millenium, I would highly recommend reading S.L.Bhyrappa’s kannada novel sArtha (translated into English as “The Caravan”) to get an nice introduction to systems such as the baudha (buddhism), yoga, tantra, mImamsa and advaita vedanta.

[2] The four stages of evolution of the student is based on my understanding of the chapter titled “sarvaj~na bIja” from Narasimha Shastry Devudu’s kannada novel “mahAdarshana”. The chapter is a dialogue between yAj~navalkya and his guru uddAlaka’s wife AlApini about the path to becoming a sarvaj~na. The novel as such describes the life and works of maharShi yAj~navalkya who gave us the shukla-yajurveda of which the IshOpanishad and bRihidAraNyaka Upanishad are a part.

[3] Tradition has it that the pUrva-mImamsa scholar manDana mishra having been defeated by adi shankarAcharya took deeksha under him with the name sureshvara who later went on to write vArtikas on shankarAcharya’s taittariya upanishad bhAshya and bRihadAraNyaka bhAshya. Another example would be that of the advaita scholar Trivikrama Panditacharya who, having been defeated by madhvAcharya took deeksha under the latter and later wrote the work tattva-pradipika which was his commentary on madhvAcharya’s brahma-sutra bhAshya.

[4] How many of us knew the maxim “vade vade tattva-nirNAyam”, meaning “It is only after repeated debates that the truth emerges” ? As an aside, how many of us are able to see a connection between this and the purAnic story of samudra-manthan (churning of the ocean) ?

Anyway, the credit card ones are usually easy to handle. I just tell them I have got one which serves my purpose and do not need another one at this point in time. Most of them just say “Thank you sir, have a nice day.” and there ends the matter. But there are those who are slightly more persuasive. “But sir, our card offers you this, this and this.”. To which my reply again is “I don’t care what it provides. I don’t need one right now. And when I’ll need one, I will know how to find you.”. At this stage most of them just say “Thanks you for your time sir.” No “Have a nice day”.

However, there is this one class of salesmen/saleswomen which is a class apart. Probably they are very motivated and want to achieve their targets by any means. And they’ll try all the tricks in the book to sell something.Today I got one such call. It was a lady on the phone.

Lady: “Sir, is this Mr. Ranjal Shenoy ?”

[Wonder where they get my name from, but anyways..]

Me: “Yes it is”

Lady “Good morning sir, this is XYZ calling on behalf of PQR bank. Can I take two minutes of you time please, sir.”

[They always ask permission in the beginning. Good manners]

Me: “No. I am busy right now.” [Yeah, watching "Up in the Air"]

Lady, “But sir, it will not take long. Only two minutes. It should not be much of a problem.”

[The lady somehow feels that she knows better about how I should be spending the two minutes of my life. Better than myself!]

Me: “Well, half a minute is up already. And by the time I am done, another half will pass. If it is credit cards or home loans, let me say upfront, I am not interested in any of them.”

Lady: “Sir please listen to what we have to offer before deciding that you are not interested.”

[Wow. That sounded like my mom threatening me to listen to her lecture on why spinach is good for health before declaring,  "Yuck, I won't eat it."]

Me: “Whatever it is, I don’t need it right now. I am quite satisfied with whatever I have. So, even if you are offering me a ticket to Ibiza, I am not interested. You can keep it. And your 1.5 minutes are over”

Lady: “But this is not just any other credit card sir. This is a life time free Platinum Card. With Credit limit of XXXXXX. And our interest rates are as low as YY.Y%. This is a once in a lifetime offer sir and we are offering this to a few customers and you are one of them.”

[Oh, so credit card it is. And the usual catch phrases "Lifetime free", "Platinum/Gold/Silver", "High Credit Limit", "Low interest rate", and in this case "Once in a lifetime offer". I am made to feel special! As if I am a member of some elite club. ]

Me: “Look, I am very satisfied with my current credit card. I don’t spend more than ZZZZ every month and I pay my bills before the due date. So I am neither interested in the increased credit limit nor am I interested in your low charges. And regarding the once in a life time offer, I know for sure that I will get a call from another bank offering pretty much the same. So spare me that stuff please”

Lady: “But sir how can you be sure that your spending pattern is going to remain the same in the coming days? You might want to urgently purchase something expensive, say a gift, and you don’t have enough credit limit. At that time you can make use of this card. Or what if you have other commitments and are not able to pay the credit card bill in time. Won’t the reduced interest rate help you ?”

[Try to inject fear and uncertainty. What if tomorrow everything falls apart. Have you covered yourself ? Do you have a plan B ? No? Don't worry, we've figured out a plan B for you.]

Me: “Ok. You make very valid points. Allow me to answer. From what I have seen, for the past four years, my spending pattern has been considerably consistent. Like I said earlier, I am a satisfied person and I don’t have a need to live beyond my means. Credit card for me is a matter of convenience which allows me the flexibility of not carrying cash around everywhere I go and at the end of the month pay everything back at just one place. I am quite certain that I don’t have the need for something which I cannot afford. So urgency doesn’t come into picture here. And suppose, if I were to purchase something, and suppose the item is terribly expensive, what’s the guarantee that the credit limit offered by your card would be sufficient ?”

Lady: “Well, it is better than what you currently have.”

[Drive home the point that the offer is better independent of your want. Trying to exploit the "For sale" mentality]

Me: “Pursing something just because it is better than what I already have, despite the fact that I have absolutely no use for it sounds like a waste of effort to me. Don’t you think so ?”

Lady: “Do you want the card or not ?”

[One final offer. Take it or Leave it. The lady has other customers to attend to. She's not interested in my philosophy of frugal living as it won't help her achieve her targets.]

Me: “Throughout our conversation, have I given any indication that I wanted it ?”

<Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. >

[She hung up on me! Oh, boy!]

It was an interesting conversation.

Kanchan Gupta: So tell us, what prompted you to write this book? To take the middle class series nearer to a conclusion or something else…

Pavan K Varma: Essentially, after 60 years of independence, I thought the time had come for a cultural audit. This audit entails two things. One is a rigorous analysis of colonialism because, as I write, colonialism is not about the physical subjugation of a people but the colonisation of their mind. And while a political audit takes place after the Union Jack comes down and an economic audit takes place to take stock of what is lost and what is gained, a cultural audit is something that does not take place … this is something which is common to all colonised countries… to, in a sense, recolonise the mind. So, it is both a rigorous analysis of colonialism and a meditation on the state of culture today in our country.

I must confess I profess a fair degree of anguish at our low threshold of satisfaction and self-congratulation. Because we are not only a nation, we are a civilisation. We have 5,000 years of history, antiquity, peaks of refinement, assimilation, diversity … but underlying that diversity, what is not visible to a superficial observer, is great unity. We are not a parvenu civilisation, we were not born 200 years ago, and therefore it is legitimate for us to see where we are in terms of our culture today in contrast to the journey we have made and where we have come.

And I believe in the reappropriation of our cultural space without chauvinism or xenophobia. This is all the more important because we are simultaneously in an aggressive phase of globalisation where the subtext in the field of culture is often co-option, where the victim is the last to know. And, when the educated are relatively rootless, that co-option becomes all the more easier. So that, essentially, is the paradigm of the book.

Interesting choice of words there when Mr Varma says that we have come to set a low threshold of satisfaction. Now, one might be prompted to ask, “Low threshold of satisfaction compared to what ? What is the standard ?”

Going back to our tradition to seek guidance, we find that the Vedanta Darshana talks about Ananda or Bliss as one of the svaroopa lakshanas of the Brahman. The Taittiriya Upanishad has a section known as the Ananda Mimamsa which is one of the anuvaka of the Brahmanandavalli. It discusses the the gradations of Bliss starting with the smallest unit, a healthy young man possessing all the riches and all the capacity to enjoy,  to higher celestial beings, all the way up to the supreme Bliss that is the Brahman. The concept of Rasa in the Indian theory of Aesthetics has it’s roots in this Ananda. I won’t attempt to talk about Rasa here, because I possess neither the courage nor the talent to do justice to this topic. Instead I would direct you to this excerpt from one of Sandeep’s older posts where he dealt with this topic in detail. [Again, emphasis in underlined italics is mine.]

…..The nearest approximation in meaning to Rasa in English is feeling or emotion. More accurately, Rasa is the emotion inspired in the audience/reader by the artist. The culmination of Rasa is defined by this poignant verse.

Sakalaprayojana Moulibhootam Samaanantarameva|
Rasaaswadana Samadbhootam Vedyaantaram Anandam||

The crest of all benefits of enjoying a work of art is blissful joy;
Joy that eliminates the awareness of one’s own existence and subsumes the enjoyer within itself. (Ed: a very crude translation)

In other words, an intensely-involved meditative state that excludes even the awareness that you are alive and breathing. This state is beyond mere involvement or acute concentration. Paradoxically, the stress here is on the artist because his/her art consciously creates the environment to elevate the viewer/listener/reader to this state. A true artist therefore strives to attain:

Yaavat Poorno Nacaite Na Taavannaiva Vamatyamum|

The artist knows no peace until he empties the Rasa that has welled in his heart through experience, erudition or sheer talent. This emptying process culminates in a work of art, which ennobles those who savour the Rasa it contains. The joy of the artist lies only in creating the work of art.

Now that is the standard for the satisfaction which our ancient artistes strived to provide, and they were motivated to do so by an audience which was worthy of experiencing that satisfaction. For being the descendants of such illustrious ancestors, we have definitely spiralled down if we had to set such low threshold for satisfaction that we seem to heap praise on mediocrity consistently.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: <xyz@pqr.com> [Edit: e-mail address of the sender is not made public]
Date: Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 12:18 PM
Subject: FW: Join the ‘Earth Hour’- Saturday, March 27, 2010 8.30 PM - 9.30 PM
To:

This Saturday, the symbols of our civilization, iconic buildings and landmarks from India to Australia to America, will stand in darkness, to help bring to light one of the biggest challenges of our generation– Climate Change.

The ‘Earth Hour’ that began as a show of solidarity against climate change has today become a global movement. It brings together a whole generation of humankind, from across the world and across all walks of life, in celebration and contemplation of the one thing we all have in common - our planet. It is a call to stand up, to take responsibility, to get involved and lead the way towards a sustainable future.

Join the ‘Earth Hour’ by switching off all lights this Saturday (March 27th)  - 8.30 PM - 9.30 PM. Just for one hour.

To know more and to pledge your support, log on to www.earthhour.in

I usually don’t reply to or forward such mails. They meet their end in my trash-folder. In this case however, I found the contents of the e-mails mildly disturbing. And I thought that they deserved to be looked into more seriously.

Let me admit that I am a climate change skeptic. Climate-Change science, as I understand it, deals with modelling the future trends in climate based on the past trends in the indicators such as the temperature. The success of a such a predictive model depends on two things:

1. A input data-set with a high degree of accuracy that consists of all the possible factors that can affect the phenomenon that we are trying to predict.
2. The manner in which the data-set is interpreted to predict the future trends.

Now, it appears that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old.  However, we have mostly accurate data on indicators such as temperature for only the last few hundred years or so. This is the period after the invention of thermometer. The rest of the past-data is calculated based proxy studies such as tree-rings, isotopes in ice and other indicators of relative temperature. So, first of all, we have accurate data for only a very tiny portion of time compared to the earth’s age. The accuracy of rest of the past-data is bound by the accuracy of the proxy studies. It might be good. But is it good enough ?

Next thing we have to look at the accuracy of the predictive algorithm itself. Now, if we have made the predictions, we will have to wait and see how accurate our predictions are. For example, if I want to predict the trend for five years from now, I use the previous data, make the predictions, and after five years I check how accurate my prediction was. This would help me improve my model by forcing me to look at the factors that I need to consider to make it more accurate. Hence, this whole process takes quite a bit of time before we can say with some degree of confidence “This is what the future would look like”.  In other words, the science has not yet matured.

Hence, till it matures, it’s a matter of faith, or opinion on how good a given model is and how seriously it’s predictions must be taken while making environmental policy decisions.

Since this science is not so perfect yet, it’s easy for the various lobbies to selectively quotes findings from this research area to buttress their cause when it comes to arguing the environmental policies. It is also possible for the lobbies to see if they can influence the scientists working in the area to selectively publish data in favour of their cause. The recent Climate-gate scandal brought home the fact that  researchers had been reluctant to share the data for independent verification by other researchers. The scandal involving IPCC’s report on Himalayan Glaciers highlighted how lax the review process was in this particular area of research. Incidents such as these and the existence of well argued opinions opposing the findings of climate change proponents is what makes me skeptical in my attitude towards Climate-Change science in the way it is currently being pursued.

Now one might argue, “But aren’t you observing the rising temperatures, the change in season patterns ? How can you deny that climate change is not happening.”. My answer would be, I am not denying that. But I am reluctant to jump to conclusions that the change that we are observing is solely due to human activities. That has not been proved. And secondly the camp is divided on the accuracy of the temperature data as well as  the accuracies in the modelling methods. So things aren’t settled yet. What we have been hearing so far are opinions. Not the truth. The truth stands independent of the majority opinion or “consensus” as it is called in the case of the Climate-Change debate. We’ve seen that happening once in the past where the majority opinion was that the earth was at the centre of the planetary system. And turned it, that was not the truth!

At the same time, I am of the opinion that diverse opinions must not be silenced. No. Until the truth emerges, all sorts of opinions have every right to exist. Opinions are the paths that seekers pursues while  proceeding towards truth. Sure, when the truth is found, the need for opinions ceases to exist. But until one cannot deny their need to exist.

Having said that, the problem, I believe comes when one of the factions tries to stop the flow of opinions. One of the popular way of doing this is by seeking consensus, where you consider everything to be settled beforehand which makes further enquiry unnecessary. There is however one major flaw in this method. If the truth is not the same as the consensus, then it’ll be discovered sooner or later. And we have to go all over the consensus process again. There are other ways of stemming the flow of opinions. Like enforcing bans, casting aspersions towards those who oppose your views and thus rendering their opinions irrelevant. Instances of all these methods being used to stop the flow of opinions has been seen in the Climate-Change debate.

Now, I do agree that we have to make people realize that the area of Climate-Change needs to be seriously looked into. More so, in the view of understanding the nature of our involvement in it. It’ll help us prioritize if Climate-Change is indeed the most important “global” problem that needs to be addressed immediately as most of the proponents would like us to believe. In the long run, solving this problem, if this is indeed a problem, would require us to discover alternate sources of energy and that’s not going to happen any time soon. In the short run, it would require us to cut down on the use of fossil fuels. This would have serious impact on the modern world that’s so dependent on energy for it’s growth. The impact will be felt more by developing countries such as India, whose march on the path of progress will be halted by laws which compel to limit our consumption of energy. And that will have another set of consequences thereby transferring the problem from one domain to another.

Given these facts we should be very careful in considering what causes do we want to pledge our support for.

Personally, I don’t think that “Earth Hour” campaign is going to have any serious impact. Most people, like most of my well intentioned friends who have forwarded me this email, won’t even consider it seriously beyond pressing that “forward” button and feeling happy about the fact that they did their bit for Climate-Change. The ones who will participate in the campaign, having stood in that one hour of darkness will come back and blog about it, or tell their friends about it and forget about the whole thing the next morning. Thus, there won’t be any significant take aways from participating in this “Stand in darkness to show the light” symbolism. Except of course, the moral high-ground that the people running the campaign are going to take.

On the other hand, If it’s a serious campaign, then I find it even more abominable because of the way it tries to educate people about Climate-Change. The message is loud and clear. “Act soon, else your future will be dark. Just like this.” This is the kind of doomsday mentality that I despise. People do all sorts of irrational things when they are made to feel that they will be judged on actions committed during a finite interval of time. They become desperate. We’ve seen this in the previous centuries and we continue to to see terrible things being committed in the hope of securing an eternal life in the “heaven” and avoiding the eternal “hell” based on the actions performed in one single lifetime spanning over a few tens of years. The Earth-Hour tries to latch on to that emotional part of us that urges us to drop everything else and act for the cause.

The sad thing is, in this exaggeration, what will be lost would be the genuine call to reflect on the problem, and help understand it better. In the end we would have only given up an hour of light to stand in darkness. To me, that’s coming a long way from “Tamaso maa Jyotirgamaya”.

This evening, I noticed an interesting PDF document in my collection which goes by the title “Interesting and Amazing Creations in Sanskrit”. The document is still available in the public domain. You can find it here

I found several interesting verses in them. Presenting one here just for the record

tam bhU-su-tA-mu-kti-mu-dA-ra-hA-sam van-de ya-to bha-vya-bha-vam da-yA-srI |
srI-yA-da-vam bha-vya-bha-to-ya-de-vam sam-hA-ra-dA-mu-kti-mu-tA-su-bhU-tam ||

The first line addressed to Lord Rama in prose order is:

bhUsutAmuktim udAra hAsam bhavya bhavam yato dayAsrI tam vande |

Meaning: I pay my homage to him who released the daughter of the earth (Sita), whose laughter is deep, whose embodiment is grand and from whom mercy and splender arise everywhere. = Lord Rama.

The second line addressed to Krishna in the prose order is:

bhavyabhatoyadevam samhAradAmuktim uta asu bhUtam srI yAdavam vande||

Meaning: I bow down before Krishna, the descendent of Yadava family, who is the lord of the sun as well as the moon, who liberated even her (Pootana) who wanted to bring an end to his life, and who is the soul of the entire universe.

The beauty of the verse in case you haven’t noticed already is that the second line when read in reverse is the first line, and the first line when read in reverse is the second line! In other words, this is an example of  a palindromic verse.

The PDF document contains several such examples of showcasing the wordplay found in Sanskrit Literature.

I shall leave you with two more:

1. Verse written as a magic square such that it reads the same when read in all four directions. These types of verses are called sarvatobhadra, meaning perfect in all directions. The four directions being:
   1. Starting from top-left parse the rows from left to right till you reach the bottom-right syllable.
   2. Starting from the top-left parse the columns from top to bottom till you reach the bottom-right syllable.
   3. Starting from bottom-right parse the rows from right to left till you reach the top-left syllable.
   4. Starting from bottom-right parse the columns from bottom to top till you reach the top-left syllable.
      Ex: This sarvatobhadra palindromic verse from Shishupala Vadha written in the 8th century by the poet Magha.
2. Verses which present a solution to the Knight’s tour problem ( I kid you not!). There is a quadruplet from Vedanta Deshika’s 13th Century composition named Paduka Sahasra. Each line in the quadruplet contains 16 syllables. Thus the first two lines can be arranged on a chess board from square 1 to square 32. Now, the third and the fourth lines of the quadruplets are anagrams of the syllables present in the first two lines. So if you now traverse the chess board following the syllables of the third and the fourth line, such that the syllables are ordered on the chess board as per the first two lines, you end up completing the knight’s tour. Here’s a demo of the solution to the knight’s tour problem available as FLASH animation. And here’s more material explaining the meaning of the verses.

Institutes such as the Institute of Mathematical Sciences Chennai, and now apparently even the Chennai Mathematical Institute shortlist candidates for their MSc and PhD programs based on scores of this test. I wrote the Theoretical Computer Science paper.

I thought that the paper was very easy. The paper consisted of 25 objective questions and 6 “prove this” type subjective questions worth 40 marks.

I managed to answer 24 of the 25 objective questions. I couldn’t answer the one which was based on Graph coloring, a subject which I had skipped during my preparation.

Of the 6 subjective questions, I answered 5 worth 31 marks. I did not solve the 9 mark problem which was again based on Graph-coloring. I thought I would come back to it after finishing the other 5, but never got around to do it.

I have forgotten most of the objective questions. I do remember the subjective ones though. So, listing subjective questions just for the record.

1. A five pointed star can be formed by joining the Vertices (1,3), (3,5), (5,2), (2, 4), (4,1) of a regular pentagon. Show that the sum of the angles formed at the vertices of the 5-pointed star is 180 degrees. [4 marks]
2. An array contains N elements. Write an efficient algorithm to check if there are two numbers whose sum is zero. [5 marks]
3. Show that the Tower of hanoi problem can be solved in (2^n) - 1 steps if there are n-rings. For extra credit prove that this is optimal solution.  [6 marks]
4. A triolimo is an L shaped object formed by connecting three square tiles of a chess board. Given a (2^k)*(2^k) chessboard, if one of the squares, any arbitrary one, is marked red, prove that the rest of the chess board can be filled up with triolimos. [6 marks]
5. A Partition() Algorithm almost similar to the one presented in CLRS in the quicksort section was given. We were asked to answer
   1. What are the assumptions made in the code.
   2. What does the algorithm return.
   3. What happens when a certain loop is rewritten without certain conditions.
   4. What is the loop invariant. Prove it’s invariance. [10 marks]
6. Something on d-colorable, degenerate graphs, and their vertex cover. Don’t remember the problem since I didn’t get time to solve this one. [9 marks]

Like I said earlier, the paper was easier than I had expected. But in the case of competitive exams, and I have experienced this in the past, there are good chances that you don’t make it to the next round if the paper was easy. An easy paper implies that most people would have solved as many questions as you would have. Since its on a relative scale, even a minor mistake in an easy paper would be severely penalised. More so in the case of JEST, since the subjective questions will be evaluated only if you have cleared the cut-offs set for the objective questions. Which means that no scope for any mistakes in the objective questions.

So, I hope that I haven’t screwed up anywhere in the objective questions, since they were way too easy.

The other thing about JEST subjective questions is that you have to answer within the space provided in the question paper. Which means that if you are proving a theorem, you need to be very judicious about which steps you are going to skip in case there is a space constraint.

Now, I not used to solving theorems in a space-constrained environment like this one. I don’t usually skip steps but on the contrary try to include as many of them for the sake of completeness. This is probably a bad-habit that I have acquired over the years due to my 100/100-in-mathematics obsession. Basically in those days, you wouldn’t want to lose out on a perfect score in mathematics just because the evaluator could not follow how you derived one step from the previous one. IOW, you didn’t want to give any opportunity to the evaluator to deprive you from scoring full marks. And in my home-town, a 100 in mathematics used to earn you a lot of respect.

But in the case of JEST, I guess the strategy has got to be different. One should make use of the space provided for rough work and copy only the relevant portions into the space provided for answers.

According to the IMSc website, the results should be out by end of March. So not much to do till then.

Finally, I must admit that I enjoyed the whole process of preparation very much[*]. I am revisiting CLRS after a span of 4 years, and it has been a very enjoyable experience. I think, after four years of working in the kernel and having dealt with a lot of similar algorithms, I am able to appreciate the design of some of the algorithms better than I would have while I was at college. Now that I have started studying the book, I want to continue the study habit. Of course, I won’t be spending as many hours per day as I have spent in these last couple of months.

Anyway, this is the first technical paper that I wrote after 4 years. I am glad that I it went well.

[*] I must also admit that the last couple of days weren’t exactly fun. That was the time when it struck me that I am not supposed to be reading for pleasure, but am supposed to be “preparing for an exam”. That was when I started having doubts if my preparation was sufficient. For that matter, I still wonder if any amount of preparation is sufficient for any exam ?! Especially for an exam like JEST which is relatively unknown unlike GATE. Thus without any problem sets to practice and with just one sample paper, I wasn’t sure if all that I had enjoyed studying in the last couple of months would be helpful on the day of the test.