Google Zeitgeist

One of the cool ways to check the pulse of trends in our "globalized" world is to follow the country-wide searches. Google maintains this, and calls this zeitgeist. While internet may have shrinked the world, but looking at these searches - it seems culturally, we are still localized. For a glimpse of this mix of heterogeneity and homogeneity check: Google Zeitgeist

From Hollywood

Once upon a time, all I knew about America was Disneyland, a place where “ET” came from, and where most movies were made.

There is concept in modern physics called the “participant/observer” which simply speaking means that it is not possible for the observer to completely get the true nature of the observed without disturbing it. In other words, observers cannot avoid being participants, hence, objective truth is impossible to detect, and uncertainty is inherent in what we are observing. This concept extends beautifully into what eastern mystics have called Maya clouding absolute truth or what the western poet calls – “beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.”

Though, I like to believe that my experiences have provided an understanding of the changing times, but being a participant, my vision is clouded. And the truth gets largely hidden – unless there comes time when situations force me to turn my head to look at what has changed. For me – it was a pleasure trip to Hollywood!

So here I am in Universal Studios, where I am riding “Back to the future” to “Jurassic Park”. Here Judy Garland has never grown old, and Lucy still lives with her slapstick. Looking around, I find so many saree-clad ladies that not only do I seem to have lost my time compass but also my space compass.

Anyway, this is what gave shape to America many years back – in my own world far in India. Hollywood put America in my mental map as that country that existed behind the clouds in the western horizon; as that country that was on the other side of the rainbow.

In those years – maybe I was eight or nine, like many others in India, USSR was the role model. The conversations on the splendid Spasky-Fischer’s chess matches were still alive, and childrens’ magazines like Anandamela still ran articles on those games, there were those childish grandification of superiority of Russian military, that Sputnik came first and America can never catch-up, that USSR was better off in sports – you name it, and there were no doubts who was the winner. Even in the multiple country jokes, Russia will come second to India. The Olympic games in 1984 was discredited in our hearts, because USSR was not there. In sum, that was the psyche of a typical child growing up in India, with some limited access to print and televised media; and I was no different.

I grew up with what I can collectively term as “Russian books”. Up to the point when my memory goes, there was this lady who would come once a month – going door to door, selling Russian books of all genre. My child heart would crave in anticipation whenever I saw her walk in my compound; my mouth salivating. Suddenly, I would become a very good, obedient boy, so that I don’t ruin my chances by annoying my parents. And when that happened – once or twice, cajoling my grandfather would always work. Her magical bag had the keys to my kingdom. Not that she was that old, but her bag was my mythical thakurmar jhuli. The books were colorful, glossy, and most importantly they smelled so good. Since then, the smell of a new book has always been as enticing as what was inside.

So my journey began with a BIG book whose main character was “UCK” all the way to Chekov and The Idiot. She saw me grow from shorts to trousers; her own hair turning from black to grey. I never knew where she came from; I never bothered to find out - up until the day when I realized that she was not showing up anymore. It was not that obvious, and only after a few months, I came to terms that she will not come anymore. An unceremonious exit from my life. Much like the way Russia wiped out from my psyche, as the model nation.

By then, I had got into the rigor of Math and Physics, and solving Irodov’s physics problems became my full-time and pastime vocation – just because they were so hard and challenging. By then, I had learned a bit about the hollowness of Soviet socialism. I also met few people who shared their experiences in Russia, and though, hard to believe, I did realize there was something fundamentally wrong - that was against human dignity. I also learned how this book selling was a part of a larger propaganda machine. In West Bengal, this was all the more pronounced because of support from the local communist groups. Every gathering - be it a village fair or Durga Puja, there is a red color communist book stall selling literature. But why and how the collapse of the Soviet Union took place has always intrigued me. When I ask my Russian friends who have moved to US, they prefer to avoid sharing their lived-experiences, much like what the typical German response is to Holocaust.

Maybe someday I will understand conceptually what happened, but it will take a lifetime to uproot the wonderland that was cooked up – rather fictitiously, by the fairy tales that lives with me. Hollywood will take a while to replace that – and it will not be that easy. In some crude sense, the fact that I was a participant within the propaganda machine - Hollywood could show me that.

Mandal II - Ambedkar out, Condi in

The recent anti-reservation agitation has consumed the front pages and headlines in print and visual media. In the forefront are the doctors from AIIMS who are spear-heading a strike.The whole thing is sort of deja-vu for me as it is for many. Back in 90s, arriving in Jaipur for my undergrad, the stains from Mandal I had not completely dried up. I could feel, breathe, and live the heaviness that surrounded the atmosphere. It was all consuming and distasteful at its very best.

Especially coming from Bengal, where the feelings of caste in real life are thankfully muted by “red” politics. Not surprisingly, Mandal I had a lukewarm impact.

Jaipur was a “culture shock”. All of a sudden I was being openly asked by college professors about my caste, whether I knew the gayatri mantra, or I was a red nut from Bengal. Transitioning to a culture consumated by faith and superstition, and so deprived of reason and intellect (ironically they were science and engg. Profs) in such a short period of time was challenging. The epitome of their being came out in the surface when some of them dropped in awe and overwhelm when the Ganesha in our campur mandir started "drinking milk".

Once in an oral exam, the examiner exempted me saying that – “I won’t ask you anything, since you are a Bramhin.” Caste-wars were right at the precipiece and stories about bloody past wars were part of the folklore. There were divisive fractions – to an extent that people from certain castes won’t even intermingle, avoided hanging around, or discreetly eat in separate tables.

Fault lines were deep. And this expanded outside the campus. During these four years, my frequent trips to my relatives in Delhi and hanging around specifically in AIIMS as well as mingling with friends in the Indian bureaucracy gave me an insiders view how Indian bureaucracy was just another India in a microcosm. All this contributed heavily to me getting completely disillusioned with a prospective career in the civil services, thus defeating one of the prime reasons for going to Jaipur. That’s all history.

Fast forward 14 years, and history is repeating itself.With a difference, and with an edge. The pro-reservation movement seem to have gone "Hollywood". Well, I mean US! Comparison is drawn with Affirmative Action in US and in a way used as a justification. Regular icons such as Ambedkar, are being replaced by examples of Condi Rice and Collin Powell. How they have succeeded because of AA. What works in US will also work in India.

And then of course we always have the leftist think tank to support any reservation whatsoever. It has become sort of a given that if you are on the left-centre of the political spectrum – you got to support reservation. It is like committing intellectual heresy if you are championing the poor and not supporting reservation. Thanks to those in some of India’s colleges and hot beds like JNU that we almost always get some naysayers like Prof. Jayati Ghosh sitting and stalling the Knowledge Commission.

I understand the drive to promote the subaltern masses. I understand it is hard to dissociate Marx from championing their cause - but what has reservation got to do with this. Why not go back to the old argument of providing opportunities based on economic condiotion? Looks like that the Leftist always take the path of least resistance in this regard because to actually implement what they should is too darn hard.

With Mandal II, the whole issue regarding reservation for higher education is a big diversion, diversion from where the actual focus should be.First and foremost – the keyword for this whole issue is not "reservation" but it is "premier institutions". And it is only fair to state that India spends too much on higher education at the cost of primary education.

The IMF came out with a working paper earlier this year that India has among the highest resource allocation in tertiary education (i.e., higher education) among all poor countries.India spends 86% per capita GDP on higher education and 14% per capita on primary education while China spends 10.7% and 12.1% respectively. Similar comparison with Latin America can be found where the social conditions of the masses are quite comparable.

Well, it is fallout of Nehruvian economics and his vision. While it has caused an accident of miracles by causing enough highly qualified engineers and managers to sustain the IT boom, but it is evident from reality and research that the common poor mass population is untouched.It will take something like a self sustaining manufacturing sector in poorer states like Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and north east to fuel economic development is a homogenized sense, else we will have pockets of development - Karnataka, Gujarat, West Bengal - and migration of people into these states, thus leaving vast areas undeveloped.

To develop a manufacturing or agriculture base, development of skills and knowledge all over the country is required. Along with that decetralized power to local authorities to facilitate micro-credits, hospitals, etc are necessary. And to develop that we need people to send their children to schools. Learning begets learning, so if primary education is neglected - the poor will not know enough to get into to IIT or AIIMS

So what is happening in primary education? What steps are being taken so that more children go to schools? That the teacher actually shows up in the class. That school supplies are obtained and children graduate and become participants in the market economy. We have seen such a dis-balanced resource allocation. And few talk about it. How much does the center support the states in this endeavor?

In the end, it seems we all know what’s going to happen with this "song and fury" of protests. It has always been a losing battle for anti-reservationists. And it seems that we all are aware of the hidden truth. The protests are not proactive activism for initiating change but a last minute conglomeration to vent one’s frustrations exhumed in one’s hopelessness. The real truth is that there is no fundamental authenticity in these protests – no body wants change because no one believes that it is possible. It is an assembly of individuals who have come together because they have somehow found a coherent individual agenda. There is an undercurrent of resignation that shows up in their statements and discourses. Once time flies – these students will go back to their classes and doctors to the chambers.

Sorry doctors, you may have the right prescription but your diagnosis of the reservation issue is too superficial and your response has come too late. The disease is too deep rooted and it needs a surgical makeover of the political system – followed by a long term treatment. As a starting consider working with those pseudo intellectuals on the left, see if you could get them in your side and then you can go to the next step. No politician will commit a suicide by reversing the policy.

Until then, some of you – enjoy your five minutes of fame through TV interviews and news coverage. That's the saving grace, for once the heat wave subsides, all we have to live with is our social mind-set - whic will become a little more fractured, a little more divided, a little more polarized, accentuating a more heterogenous India.

IMF Working Paper on India Development

Thinking, sinking, eating icecreams

Saturday was a gorgeous day in SF: bright sun, perfect temperature, and gentle breeze. So took the BART and decided to get off at Powell – just to hang around in Union Square and then, I knew at some point I’ll be able to pamper my latent desire by sneaking in to few of my favorite places. The place was all lit up with festivity. Street musician, performers, shoppers, tourists, old men, young men, pretty girls, not so pretty girls, uncles, aunts – everybody seemed to be there.

It was apparent there were as many tourists as there were locals. I don’t know in which category I fit in these days. By law I am a Virginia resident, but with most of my time spent here for the last four months, I don’t fall into the tourist category anymore. With this dichotomy there comes a sense of confusion. The urge to take pictures of every passing building does not come by, nor do I get the trigger to step in to the Museum of Modern Art. While I anxiously think of treating myself to La Dolce Vita in the big screen; a good dinner in a French restaurant, I keep drudging along telling myself - to go or not to go.

Meanwhile, I come to my first treating point. A bowl of rice with the choicest sashimi – and I feel a certain sense of satisfaction and redemption - a sense of completion and a connection to my source of life. All taking place as the empty chair in front of me bears witness to the commencement of my new cycle of existence.

Next to me I find a couple – the guy dressed in all black on this sunny day and a girl who seemed to have outgrown the clothes she is wearing. But all seemed to mellow in their togetherness and their being with each other. The black seemed to radiate color and those knee high boots seemed to wither away in the background - the way they showed their love and care towards one another – unfettered, uninhibited, and unperturbed. I could not resist watching their free-spirit as I glanced with my furtive looks.

Food was great but a string of something missing started strumming in my self. And before it started playing hard, I decided to dissolve in the crowd. Walking from one block to the other – I become one with them. This is one of the reasons I love big cities. Many a time I have cleared my head, solved complex equations, and untangled life’s spaghetti amidst them – the crowd. I am no longer a singularity, for I am among them – a source of boundless infinite energy to draw from.

There are times like this when happiness is followed by a sense of pathos – more specifically an earnest longing for the anticipated lived-experience of togetherness. Pathos not because that she is not there with me physically but because I can’t show her my eyes now - the window to my soul that breathes and swims in her longing. And as I recall what one of the sages tell Maitreyi in our Upanishad – that it is not for the sake of her that she is loved but for one’s own sake. So living through this crest and ebb of happiness and sadness, I come to terms with it – that this long stream of ether does connect me to her – somewhere. So, I decide to ride back to planet earth.

I found myself treating dark hot chocolate fudge from Ghiradellis at Stockton. There is an uncanny mischievousness in the whole thing. First, I get a compliment from the “guy” at the counter for my good looks. Well, don’t forget this is San Francisco! Then, it is quite an experience to stand on the sidewalk – shamelessly and blissfully consuming this manna in the cup as passers-by watch. From kids to grandpas, from the dad driving a stroller to that loud group of teenagers fighting for a prom-king – all stop momentarily, as if a pearl has dropped from their string of time, and take a quick gaze as I take one spoon at a time. Eyes twinkle and faces radiate – each a sinful smile – as if telling me, hey you are consuming a bit of the sweetness from this world, but we too love indulgence and very soon we will join you.

With the last drop of chocolate, I knew I had to move on. So off I enter Cody’s where the books galore will keep me engaged for the rest of the day until night falls and the train will take me back to my bed and sleep.

As for the dinner and cinema and museum and arts - there will be some other day. In the midst of this explosion of human conference and the binding common theme of apparent collective happiness, I know my best experiences can only be lived with her. And I’ll wait for my own sake.

Fair Trade, Starbucks, and Globalization

The Fair Trade movement is catching up in UK. Marks & Spencer the retail chain has introduced fair-trade certified cotton clothing and coffee in a big way. In Scotland, Edinburgh has declared itself as a fair-trade city. And this is UK which still lags behind Germany and The Netherlands.

My introduction to Fair-Trade movement took place few years back when I visited Nuremberg and stayed with a German family. They volunteered their time in a fair-trade shop. I did get a chance to spend a morning in that shop marveling at the coffee, cocoa, bamboo hats from Uganda, Ghana, India, and other countries. My first reaction was – Wow, what a noble concept. But when I looked at the prices, I was a bit confused. Is this charity masqueraded as commerce? Is this another avenue for rich to show their hearts to Africa?

I am a believer of free-trade, markets, and the Chicago doctrine. Accordingly, I believe free trade is fair trade with markets determining the right prices. But, I do take certain caveats into account and the biggest of all is – to ensure the people participating in free-trade can participante in the market economy. Some have argued that fair-trade is a problem solving approach to certain existing trade disparities and injustice. To me, it means – do not wait for deep-rooted institutional reforms, do not wait for banks, courts, and law enforcement to create a platform for well functioning markets but look at fair-trade as an immediate/interim fix for the effect and not the cause. Well, I buy this approach for now.

So why are companies really interested in fair trade? How does it relate to “globalization” which seems to be the epicenter of all economic development arguments these days?

First of all, the buzzing of the term globalization has been heavily weighted towards economics and international business just the way history is towards kings and nation-states. But I’d rather prefer a more systemic approach. Often times, people work in their own silos abstracted out by their respective disciplines and specializations – history, behavior sciences, sociology, polity, economics, management, etc. And to come up with a grand unified theory is like inventing cold-fusion and frankly, God only knows whether it is humanly possible to overcome the volume of space and time involved.

I don’t want to write something of the size of “War and Peace” here. So these are simple personal answers to personal questions. And grossly simplified to the extent that it may appear as unstructured vacuuous sentimental chatter in which case you are at liberty to blame it on my espresso which is my driving force here.

Coffee is a drink I live by. It has all the reasons to be my prop. It’s one of the most widely traded commodity and along with cocoa the most popular fair trade good. As history goes it was first discovered by a goat herder in Ethiopia whose goat became happy-happy after munching on some berries. Then as time flew, coffee traveled through many ports and kingdoms, by soldiers and smugglers until it reached Starbucks. Yet, Ethiopia still remains as one of countries where coffee farmers don’t get their due.

Now the question that comes to mind is when coffee reaches a multinational giant like Starbucks where does it stand vis-à-vis the coffee drinker. If I drink my favorite espresso in San Francisco or London or Singapore am I not feeling a sense of unity of space? Or, when my Dutch colleague talks about Starbucks, do I bother that the coffee came from his local roasting plant. Hardly ever do I bother where the coffee beans came from as long it’s Starbucks. Said in another way, an MNC called Starbucks has transcended my political boundaries, time zones, and has brought a feeling of oneness, a sense of homogeneity, and made me a global citizen.

The same phenomenon can be observed for any other MNC – say McDonalds.

Now does that mean everything can be homogenized? Is that possible? Well, that is a bit tricky – from a business standpoint. Porter’s concept of maintaining competitive advantage requires that goods differentiate. And the reality is smart MNCs tailor their products and services to local tastes and expectations. But to what extent, should they go without giving me the feel – McDonalds in Munich is not the same.

This ties into what Bruce Mazlish has argued that in all human societies, there comes a balance between homogeneity and heterogeneity. And from a business perspective it is important to understand the belief systems, culture, and traditions to figure this out. It is no longer an option, but a requirement. For example, when I walked into McDonalds in Delhi, the cheese burger is not beef. Now, I can imagine the consequence of serving beef burgers in Delhi, but if you have come from Des Moines, Iowa, chances are you may be surprised. So there lies the line of separation between homogeneity and heterogeneity.

The other piece is societies and belief systems are dynamic and constantly changing. Certain beliefs, certain customs, and habits are changing faster than others as we are invaded by cable TV and Mariah Carey. And people in Riyadh will respond at a different pace than those in Seoul. While globalization brings us closer through commerce, and increases movements blurring our political and geographical boundaries in our psyche, it also questions our identities in ways that are unprecedented. Our legacy beliefs systems come at cross-roads more often, and we question ourselves – who we actually are?

Now, how do we deal with these questions - individually and as a society. And my hope rests on how dynamic our social scientists are in moving with time rather than getting stuck in the details of some epoch. This will determine answers to the market analysts and those who study consumer behavior.

And may be that’s where Starbucks or Marks & Spencer come from when they arrive at Fair Trade? First, I believe it gives them corporate branding. Second, it gives consumers a choice and “feel good” to be a participant in this movement. These companies are telling us that there is a sizeable market segment that will appreciate this idea. So, it is charity or more aptly, quasi-charity used as a selling proposition! In other words - they are being different and they will be so, as long as the cost of this differentiation is offset by their earnings.

I don’t want to state this with a negative connotation and diminish the potential of fair trade that can lead to free trade. Trade brings prosperity, prosperity brings wealth, and wealth brings justice. And MNCs have a big role to play to use this as vehicles to bring social justice.

I spent few months in outskirts of Ranchi, Jharkhand and have observed the Santhals and Mundas colloquially called Adivasis. Tribal culture still thrives in the forests there. They are extremely poor people in our economic terms. In the near by village, a make-shit market called haat used to be created once every few days where these Adivasis would come and sell their produce - wild fruits, flowers, twigs, and other hand-made crafts. Usually, they would sell in wholesale to some fixed town merchant.

I remember this woman, who used to walk 20 miles for half a day to come to the haat, with her baby tucked behind her back, to sell some twigs that she bore on her head. And then she would wait. Wait for hours for the merchant to arrive. As the day progressed she would get more and more anxious. Finally, sometime before sunset the merchant would show up. He’d come late on purpose. Why? Because the woman would be in a hurry to return back home before it got dark. She was forced to sell her stuff in distress – dirt cheap. And then in the next haat, four days later, same thing would happen again.

Exploitation such as this is going on for years from Ranchi to Uganda. And I am not sure that fair-trade can reach to this woman’s benefit so soon. But baby steps are being taken, and that’s the good news.

The MNCs albeit their vested interest are at least listening. Well, I take that back. It’s after all we consumers - our societies and beliefs that is providing incentives to the MNCs to listen. As Howard Zinn has said that the cry of poor is not always just but if you do not listen to them you will never know what justice is. Moving in the direction of listening to them is definitely a good thing.

MNCs are the only institutions that can truly globalize the world. The half-glass empty viewpoint will be - they are our only hope. As someone noted - to understand which institution is most prominent in a given period in human society – the simplest way is look at the size of buildings. There was a time in history when the tallest and grandest buildings were churches, cathedrals, and temples when religious institutions used to dominate human life. Then later the seats of governments had the grandest building – when politics and Hegelian states were most powerful components of society. Now, if you look at the size of today’s buildings – there’s no doubt that the present belongs to the MNCs.

So whether Fair Trade will bring in prosperity to farmers I don’t know. Whether others will join the bandwagon that Starbucks and Marks & Spencer have embarked upon - we have to wait and see. But at least some people are thinking and have made a start.

My coffee is done and so is this piece.

http://www2.marksandspencer.com/thecompany/trustyour_mands/fairtrade.shtml
http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/StarbucksAndFairTrade.pdf

Ma

For most of my childhood, I hated my mother. She was the wrong mother for me. She was dominating, overbearing, and interfering in all areas of my life. It was a perennial boot-camp – a time to study, a time to play, a time to watch TV, and so on. The only haircut that she allowed was the crew cut. The only mantra for life was “discipline”. It took me many years before I could actually see her – her real self. When I saw her, what I saw was pure gold. And I am thankful today for who she has been for me – through thick and thin.

My mother is not a famous person, nor does she possess any credentials that make her anything special in a worldly sense. A mother of two boys, her life has been one of an archetypal life of a Bengali woman. Born in a well-to-do family, she spent her entire childhood with her grandfather in Lucknow. An excellent student through school - she stood first among girls in the state of UP in the board exams. However, as with many Indian women, her career got truncated when she got married at 19 with my father who was nine years elder to her. She later remarked, “It was a generation gap.” Yet that did not deter her inquisitiveness and she was well read both in classical thought and popular culture.

My father came from a rather humble background – where to meet daily needs was a continuous struggle. I still wonder how she could go through a complete lifestyle makeover overnight – from the Plymouths, bunglows, and orderlies to a one room company flat in Calcutta suburbia. When I asked her, she would say – “It was not easy. There was also no choice.” There were times, I am sure, she felt torn apart or felt destiny has played a cruel joke, but she carried on. Later, she would say that I and my brother gave her all the hope and strength she needed in the tough times.

Up until the time my memory goes, she has always seen me as an independent and self sufficient person. There was nothing that was available in a platter to me. So, since the age of seven, I remember ironing my school uniform everyday, polishing my own shoes, cleaning my desk, making my bed, and keeping my books and physical space organized. By eight, I was running small errands – much to the surprise of my neighbors. By nine, she ensured I knew how to make my breakfast. Later of course, my penchant for cooking triggered by my epicurean instincts would expand my cooking abilities many fold.

Those were years of torture for me. Home became my Alcatraz. I was jealous of my friends whose mothers were real personification of “motherhood and apple-pie”. Once I got frustrated and stole two rupees and bought kites and marbles – to get even with her. Both of these, of course, were base pastimes in my mother’s world. I was caught. To get away by lying has never been my strong point. She went totally berserk that evening and hell broke loose upon me – yelling, thrashing, and more thrashing. Later as the storm subsided, I asked her why she had to go to this extent – to which she replied , “you will understand once as you grow old.” There are many things to which she said the same thing. I remember when we went on our only family vacation to Darjeeling, I was 10 years old. On our way back, she showed an elderly man, and handed me a one rupee note to go and get his autograph. “His name is Amiya Dasgupta. If he asks you why on a rupee note, tell him - because you are an economist” And I remember asking her, “What is an economist?” She gave me an explanation that I forgot but the name and term would cling to me ever since. Years later, I took pride in meeting this luminary who among all his achievements finished a PhD in two years from LSE.

During that time, one day, after a lengthy educational discourse with a friend in my school bus, I naively asked her, utterly confused - “What is sex?” And she looked at my innocent eyes and without a blink said, “It means male or female.” I was sure there was more to it, but did not dare to ask her. After a couple of years, when I found out I was glad I did not ask her.

As years rolled by, and I entered my teens, there was a shift in her attitude towards me. She was not that strict disciplinarian anymore and there seemed to be more clearance in my daily routine. Not making the bed was pardonable, hanging around with friends was encouraged, and wearing trendy clothes was absolutely okay. Was it the mellow of age or was it on purpose - I will never know.

She also opened up. While accompanying her to the market or to someone’s house, she would express the intricacies of family life – how my grandmother would throw tantrums and how difficult it is to satisfy my aunts and relatives. Slowly, I was stepping a world which was not that carefree as kite flying, not that straightforward, not that linear. The burden of family obligations – taking care of grandparents, making customary visits to relatives, arranging gifts during festivals, and entertaining guests were many times more of “have-to” than “want-to”. And in spite, there were relatives who would bad-mouth, and say hurtful things - those who are never satisfied and always find something to complain. Yet, to live together, she said, one needs to compromise and tolerate – patiently and silently. The last part was always hard for me to digest. Why tolerate?

As she transformed from being someone sitting in a pedestal exercising authority to someone more human, I slowly began to garner my own individuality. She would seek my suggestions and opinions.

With a family polarized towards the dry world of science and engineering, she became the counterpoint with a balancing perspective on how people feel. Cooking on the gas oven, with eyes squinting to avoid the pungent vapors of heated mustard oil, she would explain how intricately Cassius brainwashed Brutus, how teenagers are vulnerable, and how important it is to keep one’s finer senses alive through appreciation of nature and music.

Every Bijoya, she would meticulously force me to write letters to all the relatives – even those I have never met. “Who is this Buchu kaka?” What’s the point in writing when I don’t know him?” I used to question the futility of this exercise, but I could never win that argument. Years later, when I met one of those part-fiction Bijoya uncles in US, he recalled how important and warm he felt as a college student, when he got those letters from a distant land. I have since bowed down before networking 101 – Ma-style

Her conversations became more stimulating and at times she would bring up esoteric writings of Machiavelli and Radhakrishnan to probe my curious mind. To her it marked a transition as I was stepping into adulthood. Consistent with her philosophy of teaching how to fish, rather than giving the fish - she opened my gates of personal enquiry rather than being didactic or pedantic in a certain way on how to think for myself. She became more of a backstop – as someone who is there for consultation but will not do the work for me. Over the years, she has advised me on variety of subjects – from how to make lemonade at home to check loose motion to how to keep girls happy.

Today, the world is celebrating “Mother’s Day”. In my mother’s world, it will be just another day. She will make the morning tea and then wake my father, saying, “Shuncho, saat ta beje geche.”(Listen, it is seven o clock.). And her day will end by making a final check that all doors are locked and all lights are switched off.

While people in many parts of the world will be showering gifts and worry whether the chocolate cake will melt away in the scorching summer sun before Mom gets to eat, I will be in a far away land, quietly wondering about this remarkable woman.

Few months back after my relationship broke apart, I was all upset with life. In her stoic manner she said, “When I break an egg, I don’t regret why I can’t have a boiled egg, I rather try to make an omlette and enjoy.”

Through her simplicity she keeps showing me how to cut through complexities of life. Through her being ordinary she shows what it takes to being extraordinary. This who Ma is for me – now.

Happy Mothers Day!

Reading tomorrow

Yesterday was an unproductive day, an overture to my my lock-stock-and-barrel move later this week. But I had some urge to flirt with myself thinking about what my adulthood really means for me - now.

I have been grappled with a mystery and have been feeling overwhelmed - time to time. Nothing new. But what awes me is how tender, soft and serene I feel about it this time. It is as if the more I grow farther from the childishness of adolescence, softer this feeling get. The more worldly I get the more innocent it becomes.

It’s my perennial love for whom I lived my life. It is alive again. And I have started to read the poem that has not been written.

I think I can see her, this time, not far away – in my future. We meet and we take a walk - in the evening mist for hours in that winding road, holding hands, anticipating the moment when she will rest her head on my shoulder. Gentle and pristine. And I hear her breathe – from as close as I can get to her. I then wish the world was really flat. So that as night falls, we walk and fall off the edge – and swim in the emptiness of the open dark sky. Nothing exists – just us and the universe, left behind.

Love is absolute. It is giving everything. There is nothing in between. It is my belonging to her - wholly and completely. A belonging that is so painfully sweet, that I rejoice to this dolor. And wait for that day to come.

Where are the answers?

As a kid, my mother used to reprimand sometimes by saying – “...only God can help you now.” George Packer makes a parallel statement in this week’s New Yorker, that God needs to come and only He can help the West Wing the way things are going on with this government.

Whether it is the foreign policy or energy policy, there is a looming frustration. So many people are talking, but the right people are not listening. The Hogans, Fukuyamas, and the Zakarias are being ignored and yet they keep voicing persistently. Fruitless are the efforts of ace game theorists and strategy makers of diplomacy and policy makers of energy.

For me, energy is what I live by during the day. After work, I am engaged in understanding politics and foreign policy, and how history, literature, and anthropology contribute to the way human beings think and develop societies. And my waking hours are completely muddled these days with the current state of affairs. It is disempowering. It is disturbing the anchoring hope that something worthwhile is possible by the tools that are currently available at human disposal. Time may help to soothe, and give clarity to the way things play out, but that’s after the fact.

Conference after conference, meetings after meetings, from living room coffee table talk to water cooler discussions, it seems all the same. People are raising the same questions – over and over and over again. Granted, that problem identification is not easy and to verbalize a problem out of an amorphous ambiguous set of disconnected factual incidents is challenging. But give me a break now. We know what the problems are. Now start answering them. What are you waiting for? Probe anyone on giving answers to - who is going to pay for modernizing the grid, or when will Iraq start exporting oil so that energy prices reduce - and their face turns white. Suddenly, their animated enthusiasm transforms to voice of discomfort. And the obvious way to spin or deflect this situation is by rattling the names of entities who are supposed to do so. It’s is always someone else who is not doing their job.

When did giving half the loaf become an accepted and celebrated fact? If you don’t know well enough who can answer the question, stop asking it. Stop slicing and dicing, if it is the same baloney. You are just slowing the process, bogging down the system, and eating away other people’s valuable time. If you keep doing the same, we as humans will have no choice but to look for answers where we have always looked for when it came hard questions. Why do we live? What is the purpose of my life? Is there an after life? Yes, resorting to the Almighty. With all due respect to my belief it God, it will be a pity that after thousands of years of human civilization that brought our science and political thought from Archimedes to Einstein and Aristotle to Huntington, the only way to resolve our energy and foreign policy problems is by using both of our hands close to us and saying a little prayer.

“It takes all the running you can do ...."

“It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place” –Red Queen to Alice
From Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Friday night. End of another week. End of work week means weekend. And as I spend few seconds to reflect what I have done, what I have accomplished - I get this momentary euphoria that I did something. And then I wag my proverbial tail until that thought flies by - like puff of air - that destroys everything. Was it yet another week of keep-pace-or-may-be-replaced? And am I at the same place relative to others. Oh! Tocqueville, help me, when will I discover this wonderland?

Panorama photograph of SF 1906 disaster

This is an amazing photograph of San Francisco taken by George Lawrence after the 1906 earthquake. There were no airplanes; he used a camera suspended from kites. The Invention and Technology magazine has an entire article on this photograph. http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2006/4/2006_4_52.shtml

Water, Widows, and My India

Today, The New York Times has an article right on the first page about the release of Deepa Mehta's Water and the protests from Hindu fundamentalists. The article points out - lest we forget - that within the outsourcing aura and Tom Friedman's India, the reality of dark ages still lurk and shows up its ugly head time and again. This time showcasing about the widows in Indian life as depicted in Deepa Mehta's Water.

We Indians know all about that. I don't think any Indian disputes these realisites. My great grandmother became a widow when she was 17 years and lived on with us until she was almost 90. An appaling life! No meat, no fish, no sex for all this time. In return, she served others just to survive. She used to say that she is lucky in many ways. Because of all of her relatives were generally nice to her and allowed her to live with them. Otherwise, the norm was to spend her life on alms and benevolence in the shanties of Mathura or Varanasi.

We have all faced the brunt of social conditions in India. For every good thing that India has to offer you will find exactly the opposite. That is the diversity of the country - so, to argue one way or the other will eventually end up in a deadlock. Outliers are as ubiquitous as the primary substance under examination. You have extreme poverty and the evils that come with it. There was and in some rare cases sati, caste wars, people fighting in the name of religion - you name it - and it is there. But there is also the other side of India which is equally powerful - tolerance, openness, pockets of wealth, intellectual curiosity, and survival of an ancient way of life which does not believe in proselytising. As someone commented, India is unique in that it has a Muslim president, Sikh prime minister, Christian leader of the opposition; and they are running a country of 85% Hindus. While widows are mistreated on one side, a widow was the elected Prime Minister who ran the country for several years. Such juxtapose facts give a glimpse about the complexity that's synonymous with India.

Why I am saying this? Because the western intellengtia has always gone after the negative issues more actively compared with the good side. Ask any average westerner about India few years back - before outsourcing. And even if he or she does not know where the capital of the country is, they will know that caste system exisits, a place where virgins are burnt, and where there are myriad goofy ways people get married.

This is a phenomena that started since westerners started coming to India few centuries back. Included among them were the missioneries. From a Christian view of looking at India, it appeared nothing more than a hodge-podge of tribal culture. And that's what they construed and wrote back to their fellow brethren- too many gods, too many customs, worship snakes and cow, and so on. The term "Hindu" became a popular term to group this complex collection and then a way of life suddenly became charecterized as a religion. Bhagavad Gita became Bible's counterpart and so on. From the narrow spectrum of Biblical interpretation, Indian customs and tradiotions began to be graded by the Christian examiner. And obviously "Hinduism" failed in areas of organization, system, and burreaucracy - where Christianity was way ahead. While the missionaries took upon themselves to bring light of Christ to this dark world, the political machinery saw its benefits and allowed this to happen - bringing about division and schism in the society. Well, I agree this is an oversimplified representation but the crux is what matters to me here. And the crux is in the western world, India has been only been slightly greyish compared to dark Africa. It remained a land of backward beliefs and unfound mysticism. Even with Beatles, Yoga, Osho, and the Hippies of the 60s, India remained a land of snake charmers. Books and hsitorical reports all represented this view of India, at least in the popular literature. I am not saying this was always intentional because even today, if you come from a Judeo-Christian world, India will appear this way. But that is looking at blue light with a green filter.

I also hold certain Indians responsible who have played their part in presenting a skewed image of India. I am earmarking those whose sole aim in life has been tradionally to get books published or papers published or looking for a tenure in a UK or US university. When research and writing, especially from a native, feeds into an already established belief in western world - it intensifies the curiosity. And these writings end up giving back-handed compliments and indirectly upholds the supremacy of west over east. After all who does not like flattery especially if it relates to culture, heritage, and roots. Obviously, chances are people will like to read it, and it will get easily accepted as mainstream facts. I am not saying that this is always wrong. But if you put forward only one side of the picture and not represent the other side as well, people will get a wrong impression. In other words, not saying the whole truth is equivalent to lying.

Coming back to this topic on overall social evils. Certainly, I do not support them, but instead of saying this is the way it is and highlighting these issues just for the sake of letting the world know they are there, is doing a disservice. I wish the purpose of the movie is to promote activism to eradicate these issues, not to create sensation to get an agenda through. I hope that's not the intent here with Deepa Mehta's Water - to create a controversy, since as they say there is nothing called negative publicity. So I will take her word for it. She has moved enough stones to complete this movie and she deserves credit. As for the Hindu fundamenatalists I don't care. I don't think their agenda qualifies my basic criteria to even spill ink over to argue one way or the other.

I just want to end saying that India is dealing with institutional reforms here. Questioning belief systems, culture change, and altering something so deep rooted in an organic culture like India will take its time. Don't forget that for Europe to come out of its dark ages - it took 6-7 centuries before 1700s. With only 60 years into independence, progress is happening. For many of us, we will hardly see any change in our life time, but let's face that's the way it is. Until then let's look at how we can expedite the process rather than saying it's there. We all know it's there! We need don't need a Nirad C. Chaudhuri (with all due respect to his contribution to history) . We need more of Amartya Sen. If someone brings up a dark side of the condition of widows, we also need to present the other side, where widows in India are also living in the mainstream, working, going to pubs, and living a normal life. Kudos to Water and Deepa Mehta.

Cigarettes and chocolate milk

One of my favourites - a song this time:

http://www.myspace.com/rufuswainwright

Is re-marriage a real option?

Ever since I came back from the wild west, I got myself mired in putting out fires. My woes with driving is not over yet - it seems. After two bangs with my rental on my way to the airport, all I wanted was to see my car drained of battery juice. Anyways, that's what the ubiquitous tow trucks and service places are for.

Finally, as luck would have it, I played with this site and screwed it up! So, here I am at the wee hours of monday morning, getting my brain dump going. By the time it's over, the sun will rise. Being a night owl, the only way I see a beautiful sunrise is when I am awake through the night.

Okay - enough of the preface. Over the weekend, I was working on a paper on "real options" and came across stuff that I found interesting- how well it fits to the decision on marriage. Of course, it's not something novel - Prof. Dixit from Princeton has innumerable annecdotes on this subject.

So here's how it goes:

The overall premise: Marriage is an investment. It's a contractual agreement. Period. Don't agree then just get over it.

The three aspects that are associated with a marriage decision are: uncertainty, irreversibility, and time.

Now, there is a cost or investment associated with each of these aspects. It's an ivestment because in face of these factors, you expect that you will have a successful marriage.

Uncertianty - You will never know everything about what is going to happen in the future. Even if you wait till you get to know there will always be some unknows (Gary Becker - A treatise on the family, ...divorces happen because couples enter marriage with incomplete info, and complete info is impossible to get before marriage).

Time - The longer you wait in the marriage market, the more information you will get about your partner - true which gives the option of backing out. But there is a cost associated with the wait. You get old, but more importantly, if you are turning down someone today, you may end up marrying someone worse or someone better. So there's a risk associated.

Irreversibility - Once married, there is a sunk cost component that you cannot reverse. All the roses, diamonds, telephone calls, etc. Well, divorce is certaintly there but even in that case there is a "title" associated which has a cost component. Now, the decision to get a divorce can be separately modeled - but for now, let's assume that one gets a divorce because he/she knows that the choice to be single again is better than being in marriage. And by the same token, can argue that if he/she decides to get re-married then the chances of making a better choice is higher.

So - the 64K dollar question is - if I meet someone really great - does it make sense to wait? How long?

The short answer is all other conditions being the same (pardon me - I hate that Latin term), it depends how I feel about myself, and the uncertainty associated with my future.

Suppose, you were a fashion designer or Tom Cruise - it would make more sense to exercise the wait option because the chances of meeting someone from the opposite sex would be very high. In more steamy technical terms, volatility will be higher - with more entries and exits into the marriage market game. But, if someone is in an environement where he/she hardly gets to meet someone from the opposite sex - chances are the waiting option will be an expensive option. And oh yes - I know many souls who fall in this category. They are willing to kill the option of waiting to get married early in the game. Just one caution, however, these friends of mine are driven by the few cubic centiliters of testosterone they have (a.k.a manhood) that dominates over their 2 lbs brain. As clear as I can get - I am not taking about these desperate junkheads who are willing to even marry the next lampost they see.

Coming back to where do I fall in this spectrum? To be honest, last time, I was plain and simply lazy not to invest much in my marriage search. Nor, was I willing to pay the cost of waiting. Strange but true, I treated marriage as a check list item to get done with - don't think too much - just do it. So based on minimal information, I had taken the plunge. Realistically, my action qualifies myself as a "rational fool".

You get what you paid for. So, in a way - marriage on the cheap did not turn out so good for me. Bad investment! Now, I am stuck with irreversiblilty, but how low or high that price is again falls under the domain of uncertainty. But with all rationality, I think I played the right game to clean the slate and work for a good future. Did I get hurt? Sure, I did. Did I learn from my mistake? Yes, I did. Am I certain about what's going to happen next time? No, but I am believe I will do better.

How long should I wait?

Ans...

Yackety-yak...and off I fall off the rationality track...

As my heart gets filled one drop at a time, I know, if the drops keep falling, the pain will grow. Right now, I am watching as each drop falls at its own pace - just as the ice melts from the glacier. I am holding off, but it will become a restless young river. And there will come a day, it will overflow, break the levees, and deluge my whole self. No reason will be able to hold the pain. That day, I will pour myself...into her. And vow to be together for the rest of our lives...

Hey, not everything in life can be rational. Love certaintly not! As I was taught love is not a decision. I kinda dont like this word - decide. Wrong family history. Its siblings are suicide, homicide, genocide ... got something to do with killing. Yes, decision is killing all other options. I like the word - choice, instead. I fall in love because I choose to. And I will get married again only when I choose to.