Blog updates

As few readers might notice, I have completely changed the template of this blog. I guess, I was quite obsessed with two sidebar-layout. It was making the blog look too cluttered, and a few readers had also complained of the sidebars' content being distractive.

So finally, I have overcome that obsession. This theme & layout are simpler & hopefully more pleasing to the eye. Your frank feedback is certainly welcome. :)

But most important announcement - I have updated my blog roll. I had to work very hard towards it. I have not merely enlisted the blogs, but also tried to point out what I like about certain blogs and bloggers. Also, I have tagged each blog with broad genres that the posts tend to fit in. Additionally, for almost all blogs I have added two posts that I had remembered as having impressed me the most while drafting the blog roll.

Apart from serving as a guide to readers who want to explore new blogs, through this blog roll I want to convey my heart felt thanks to the enlisted bloggers for enriching my life, giving me new things to think about or feel.

I have tried in the past, but I do not know if I could convey this clearly enough. The people I have mentioned make me think of this World as a better place to live in, and thus, this life more worthy of living.

Those who can believe my sincerity behind saying all this, and can understand what it means for a cynic like me, will appreciate that it is one of the highest compliments I can pay. :)

You can go through the blog roll by clicking on 'Blog roll' button below the header, or alternatively by clicking here. :)

If you feel like commenting on the blog roll, kindly do so on the blog roll page itself.

Thank you!

Re-contamination

I feel contaminated. That tight embrace, that laughter, that pleasure, that mischief in her eye, which I could not see yet sense; that betrayal, which I saw and yet could not look at - all unwelcome, yet all are keeping on returning to me. Why? Why the fuck are they returning? My acquaintance with this dirt is so new; I never knew it even existed to contaminate me, yet now that it has touched me, bathed me in itself, she is being so loyal. Bitch! I don't know what to do with it. Can I get rid of it? Would it ever be possible for me to forget all that? Or would it be easier to forget she is my mother of 27 years? Twenty seven years, of which 26 I had lived with both of them - mom and dad.

She seeped into her past, and the past equally eagerly gobbled her up. That night, a truck, its driver and the 50 milliliters of alcohol in his body had decided, her dad had had enough of this living business.

Since that day, mom and I were united by grief, relation by blood was merely incidental. On so many occasions I had felt that tinge of happiness. But no, I had denied it to myself on all occasions. All! How could I have allowed ... allowed myself to be happy? My dad. Yes, my dad is no more. The truck, the driver, and the alcohol were mere excuses. I was responsible for his death. And mom was.

Her dad was in Nashik, to seal one of his bigger contracts. He was to stay overnight and return in the morning - the morning that was to be the one following her birthday. But she and her mom had insisted that he return to celebrate their daughter's birthday. When he had refused, they had used their ultimate weapon that had seemed innocuous to them till then - "Dad, when will you stop running after this money? Your daughter is not important for you?" Her mom had winked at this put on act. They had had a hearty laugh when she ended the call, and that was that; they had never laughed again. Till today, that is. Her mom had breached that unwritten, unstated contract.

My mother is a whore. Yes, why am I shying away from that fact. She is a whore, so what if she is my mother. She is a whore, a depraved woman. A woman belonging to the gutters. So what if she is my mother. How the hell did she fuck my uncle? Her brother-in-law? Since when all this must have been going on? How could she do that? I should have always suspected. He's a son of a bitch! I should have anticipated this. His wife had died 2 years back, and he must have been on look out of some easy-going pussy. Bastard! How could he do that? Did he not think of his deceased brother? Had dad been alive today? Ah, dad is dead. And so... and so my mom... She became available. How is it his fault. He saw an available pussy and...

No! I can't take this. She's such a professional. Such an accomplished whore. She had made 'kheer' for the lunch! She was humming. A god-damned r-o-m-a-n-t-i-c song! As if nothing had happened. As if dad had never died! As if dad had never lived! Why did I not spit in her face? Why did I not scratch it? Why did I not punch her nose into a pulp? Whore! Yes, why did I not call her that ... in her face? What did I fear? Why did that whore have to be my mother?

She had done none of those. But had cried, cried and cried. Still, her tears had not washed away her dirt. She was contaminated. She had taken an off from her work as she was not feeling well. And when she had returned unknown to her mother and the uncle were... what she saw returning to home made her even sicker. She had to return to her clinic. Yet even here, that scene, that depravity, betrayal all - kept on returning to haunt her. They played in her mind, and on it.

Having freshly completed her dermatology diploma, she was posted in the STD (sexually transmitted diseases)-clinic of her hospital. Rest of the staff was surprised to see her back. She took it upon herself to clear the backlog of patients. But the memory of what she had seen that morning would not leave her. Her next patient was a 30 year-old elderly lady. Syphilis! She saw the white patches on her palm with reddish rash sprinkled over them. She had got bored of seeing so many syphilis patients. The 30 year-old elderly lady was accompanied by her son - not elderly, barely 15. "Secondary syphilis, it must be", she thought. Must have acquired from her unfaithful husband. Bastards!

"Kab se hai inhein yeh?" [Since when is she suffering from this?], she asked the son who was visibly at the helm of affairs.
"Do hafton se, madam." [Since two weeks, madam], he said with a gaze that betrayed pain as well as hope. Hope, that his mom would get well, be cured of her pains.

Somehow she felt touched. She could feel her mind developing an aptitude for things other than anger, viz., sympathy and a sincere urge to help.

"Tere pitaaji nahin aaye saath mein?" [Your dad did not accompany her?]
"Mere pitaaji nahin hai" [My dad is not there]. "Maan dhandha karti hai" [My mom is a prostitute]

That hit her like a barb!

These whores, they are everywhere! This bastard, he must not even know who his dad is. Oh, fuck! I can't stand this.

She sighed. She could not speak out all that. Every unformed word she was keeping inside of her was now banging against her ... from within. The pressure was building. Suddenly, she wanted to get it done with as quickly as possible.

"Is ke pehale is ko koi dawaai di thi" [Was she given any medication for this before], she could not keep the contempt out of her voice. She was not sure if she was trying extra hard to instead poison her conduct with as much contempt as possible.

He opened his wallet and started searching for the old prescription. It was taking some time, and she was getting irritated.

"Rehane de. Tum jaise log ek parcha bhi nahin sambhaal sakte." [Leave it, people like you cannot even preserve a scrap of paper]

He panicked, searching a bit more frantically.

Bastard! He must not even know who his dad is. His mom must have made it out with countless pigs. Some random fucker impregnated her, she got pregnant and raised this basta...

Just then a small black-and-white photograph fell out of his wallet. She was holding him, hugging him, kissing him on his cheek, totally unconscious of the camera. And she did not look elderly. She was a girl, then. A child-mother. Her son picked up the photograph from the floor. Just a moment back he was panicking, but the moment his gaze fell on the photograph, there was certain steadiness about him. That photograph, the shared memory of a shared life... it was the anchor to a puny boat tossing in a tumultuous ocean that he was. A light smile played on his lips, and he placed the photograph back.

How could this bastard smile?!! What right has he got to smile. His mother is a fucking whore! Is he not ashamed? Is he not contaminated?

His smile too hit her like a barb. This bastard... Her mind jolted to a halt mid-thought. I have called so many men bastards in real life, yet they were all legitimate. But, this guy, he's truly a bastard and... And, I don't know what is wrong! Why did he smile? Why does he not hate his mother? She's a fucking whore? How could that be?

In the meantime, he produced the old prescription. Relief was writ all over his face. As if producing the prescription was the most important thing to cure his mother. In a way it was. That was the best he could do. Her head was now spinning faster. She had never known ambivalence could be so hard to bear. She had got so used to judging people! 'Good', 'bad', 'ugly', 'cruel', 'nice', 'interesting', 'asshole', 'whore', bastard'... But this guy, her contempt did not just touch him! Her judgment felt flat before his smile, That guileless, proud, smile. A smile with knowledge of an anchor to smile for. A smile for a reason. A smile with no reason. A smile, simply for existing, and being proud of that existence. He lived on an entirely different plane. And so must his mother, a fucking whore. By now, she was not even sure if 'whore' and 'bastard' were any longer vehicles of contempt. Oh, they were just... they were just a mode of existing - external trappings, conveying nothing about the beauty of the soul within.

So, this guy he does not even know who his father was. His mother brought him up with utmost dedication. He kept on loving her like any child would. What the world thought of his mother was not important to him. He knew what his mother meant for him, and what he meant for her. She is everything for him. He is everything for her. They are happy! Save this minor inconvenience of syphilis. Fucking bastards!

She smiled. She had somehow fallen in love with those words now. Her mind returned to her mother. And her uncle. Replaying everything right from the time of her dad's death. In her attempt to keep herself from being happy, she had replayed everything a countless times. She had not come to terms with it. Actually, she was afraid that she might.

Uncle, a widower since two years, who had been on very good terms with dad and us, helped us out of that chaos. He too was grieved. He had run around to get so many works done. Mom and I were incapable of doing that. We never realized, how many hassles must have been there to claim insurance money, the property papers and what not. We were just busy grieving and wallowing in our self-pity. Just like mom and I, mom and he too were united in their grief. They spent lot of time together, trying to pick up the threads of their life. I had my studies, my job to keep me busy. I had other things to look forward to, to plan ahead. What did they have? They both had a vacuum to fill. They both could fill a vacuum. That's it! They fell in love! Why the hell did I get so much bothered? I jealous of mom's happiness? How could I be? What kind of pathetic child I am? Had I accepted the society's terms that someone's death means eternal grieving. That feeling happiness is a sin? Why did I so eagerly embrace the guilt, the melancholy that the society is ever willing to distribute? Oh, fuck! What was I doing? How could I think that way about my mom? Yes, so what if she wanted to feel happy? What's wrong with the sincere warmth they both are sharing? Why should I let our contractual guilt and grief come in between?

"Yeh injections hain, jo pehale diye the wahi hain. Aur do hafton tak lagaane honge. Aur, aur kahin mat jaana, mere paas hi dikhaane aana" [I'm prescribing the same injections she had been taking before and will have to be used for two more weeks. Come to show me after that, and do not go to show any other doctor], she said as she handed over the prescription. "Woh photo dikhaana" [Show me that photo (please)!]. He was somewhat taken aback, but gave it to her. She looked intently at it, and recalled days from her childhood. "Bahut pyaari photo hai." [A very lovely photo!].
"Thank you, madam!" The mother-son duo obviously, a bit surprised at her sudden turnaround, shuffled out of the room.

She reached back home. She did not know how to face her mother. A most wonderful mother for whom her filthy mind had thought the most degraded thoughts and had engendered so much hatred. She realized, they were not united by grief, but were instead grieving in unison. Grieving was as an end in itself. Because... because, she had no answer. Because perhaps, she had accepted happiness to be a vice. Guilt and grief were virtues. Ha!

She looked at her mom, who had just asked, "how is your headache, beta?". She started crying! She was a sinner. She had sinned against her mother. Would she ever be able to confess. Would she ever be able to forgive herself?

She jerked off her mother's loving hand that was on her shoulder.

"Don't touch me, mom! I'm contaminated."

Counterintuitive Ideas on Career-Choice

Do not make that you are most passionate about, your source of livelihood

That is what I have told many people who I interact with online. A few disclaimers are in order, though. I have not yet practically begun my career, so great portion of my analysis is purely conjectural. Also, the above idea if taken as an advise would apply particularly to those who are faced with the prospect of making a career-related choice (in India). Of course, others who are already into their careers, and armed with the benefit of a hind-sight can provide their feedback.

I will begin with an anecdote.

---

During my MBBS-days, I had come in close contact with my psychiatry teacher. I would rate him as one of the best teachers I ever had. In a seminar a group of students was to present, it became apparent that even two years after the completion of his postgraduation course, he was remembering the respective functions of alpha-subunits (click) of various G-proteins (click). Those readers to who this statement won't make sense, suffice to say that his study was very detailed and he must have really loved his books and the field of psychiatry to have remembered all that. In short time he had become my idol. I had really started loving psychiatry, yet something was holding me back from thinking of it as a serious career-choice. Of course, he never nudged me into trying to take up psychiatry as a career, but on taking a stock of my own feelings, I concluded that my reservation was owing to the fact that despite knowing in great details the causes of many conditions at even molecular level, we as clinicians cannot do much to correct the 'root' causes!

This because, we cannot make the right molecule reach the right part of the brain to act on it. Molecules of any drug will reach even those parts of brain where nothing is wrong, and cause undesired effects. This in turn is because, brain actually uses a very limited number of molecules (called neurotransmitters [click]) to carry out the countless functions it performs. What brings specificity are not as much the particular type of neurtotransmitter released or the specific receptor for it, but more so the way the neurons are 'wired' to each other. E.g. a nerotransmitter 'M' when released by neroun '1' when acting on receptor 'R1' present on neuron '2' can activate it. In turn the neuron '2' activates neuron '3' by releasing molecule 'N' acting on receptor 'R2' present on the latter. Thus, final effect of release of M by neuron 1 would be the activation of neruon 3. But what if, instead of 'R1' present on neuron 2, we have receptor 'R3', which inhibits its function instead of activating it? Obviously, release of M by neuron 1 would cause inhibition of release of N, and neuron 3 would tend to remain inactivated. So now, think of a disorder wherein neurons in one region of the brain produce less of M. To counter this deficiency, if we deliver an oral dose of a drug that would enhance availability of M to neuron 2 it can compensate for the deficiency, right? The drug molecules upon crossing the blood brain barrier (click) will reach the fluid bathing the glial cells (click) that surround the individual neurons. The glial cells in turn would modulate the amount of drug reaching neuron 2. Now, the problem is that not all regions of brain are deficient in M! So the regions with normally functioning type 1 neurons will also receive additional amounts of M (because the administered drug would be supposed to do that). So, obviously depending upon whether neuron 2 in other regions inhibits or activates the 'downstream' neuron 3, this situation would result in derangement of many functions. Plus, not to mention the difficulty in making most drugs cross the blood brain barrier.

Of course, I did not have to explain what I wrote in the preceding paragraph to my teacher. It was only for the benefit of the reader. So our means to target specific disorders of brain (prominently, psychiatric disorders) are very limited. And that would remain so for the foreseeable future. This limitation would lead to imminent feeling of helplessness and frustration. The bottomline is: I had decided against being a psychiatrist. Some days before that, to look up something he had shown me one of his texts on psychiatry. It was a two (or three, I don't remember for sure)-volume set (easily over 3,000 pages in all), and it must be said that he had read each and every page more than once. I was surprised and impressed with his dedication. I mentioned that to him, so he smiled and showed me yet another textbook a with one volume more than the previous one, and which he had similarly 'ill-treated'! ;) Also, as a clinician, he was gentle and empathetic with patients. I realized, it takes a lot for a psychiatrist to not get emotionally involved with the patients. They cannot afford to do so. So, they take refuge in humor. But despite that he had never been contemptuous of patients and used to take great care in maintaining confidentiality despite the fact that most patients coming to that hospital were poor and quite uneducated, so there would be little chance of litigation; I was left with little doubt that this person just loved psychiatry. A lot. And that he was also a very suitable to be a psychiatrist.

He was to quit the college job to start his own practice in one of the bigger towns in Maharashtra. He had this fascination to have his own practice. He made his intentions clear that he would like to lead a comfortable life and earn sufficiently for that. His wife is a dermatologist. So, I could not make out how much would he have liked to earn! Anyway, for many people, private medical practice is enticing not merely because it would offer them chance to earn more (which by the way, does not happen in many cases), but also because it satisfies their entrepreneurial urges. At that time (in 2004-05) his and his wife's monthly salary had been Rs. 18,000 each. And he was 30. Obviously, it was a very low pay. But he explained that the situation was much the same in any college (now pay scales are better owing to implementation of the sixth pay commission).

So off he went to the town he had chosen. A few weeks later, he had returned to the college for some work. And as we were having a chat, he mentioned in passing that he had joined the local laughter club in his town. I was amused. I asked him if he indeed believed in the purported health benefits of such laughing. He told me, he had joined the club not for any health benefits, but for networking - to come into contact with more people, which in turn would bring him more patients (and more money)!

I was shattered.

---

Here was a man, perfect in my eyes to practice as a psychiatrist, also quite ethical, who loved psychiatry, and yet he had to resort to such dishonorable means to get patients to earn money? To me it was like his cheating on his love - the field of psychiatry. I cannot yet describe how I had felt listening to him say that. Did he care any longer for psychiatry? Would he still try to remember the G-protein subtypes? Would he still be curious to understand what was wrong with the patient or would he be more interested in getting the patient to come back to him only to dry the patient's pockets, or earn money from 'cuts' (anecdotally, the 30% commission) received by referring the patient for other (needless) investigations and consultations? I want to clarify here, that what had shocked me was not his eagerness to earn money, or even some of the unethical means that he might have come to use in the process, but what had happened between him and psychiatry! He had loved it. And, now?

I concluded that what we are most passionate about is like a romantic relationship. We hold highly idealistic views of our objects of love. We hold them in high regard. We reserve the best we could be for them, otherwise we would be afraid of defiling them. Imagine, having to lie on some very vital matter to someone you love and respect, how difficult is it? A lot, at least for me. But making that passion a means of sustenance is like marrying it! The attraction gradually dies. The small things we dislike about it amplify and start grating on our nerves. The compulsion to earn using what we are passionate about makes us hate what we had loved to begin with. This compulsion also compels us into making 'adjustments' in how we do what we do with our passion. It starts seeming like we are prostituting our skills and abilities and the passion that would have gone in acquiring them only to earn damn money!

To say the same thing in somewhat different words, when you earn, you are the supply, your client is the demand. More often than not owing to market forces, it is the demand that shapes the nature of supply. The supply cannot be arrogant to say, "hey dude, here's what I got. You want it? No? Sorry, look elsewhere", because our dude would indeed look elsewhere! As an obvious corollary, the supply has to mold according to what the demand is.

Of course, 'reasonable' compromises can be made with our passion. Really? Remember, wasn't your passion your Divine? If it was not, it was never passion in the first place. Wasn't it something that you had held dearest to you, always maintaining its sanctity, never defiling it? Wasn't that passion, the manner in which you let it unfold, an embodiment of what you were, what your deepest values and aspirations were? Now you have come to this, that you want to make reasonable compromises with it, eh? So, now your Divine is no longer Divine, but an agreeable neighbor who you could approach in times of need, or much worse, your 'host' who you parasite upon like a leech?

To give my example, I love to: observe; make sense of what I get to observe; think; organize my thoughts and articulate them in the most precise fashion possible through words. It is one of the greatest passions of mine. What would happen if I make a career out of it? E.g., if I have a mechanism for receiving donations on my blog, and each time I write something humorous I get Rs. 200, but each time I write on religion and god - criticizing the two, I get nothing. What would happen if my survival were to depend on how much money I make through blogging? Each time I feel like blogging on atheism, would I be able to do it with same passion and honesty as without any concern for how my write up is received?

Think of a school science teacher. What if she enjoys teaching concepts by giving analogies, and also likes to enlist the applications of such concepts? What if she enjoys making students think, and see their eyes fill with wonder on understanding something novel about something ubiquitous? But as you know, that is not what our education and exams are about! They are about mundane facts, or how to underline the most important "points" while answering; how to best convince the evaluator that you know the answers (irrespective of whether you actually know)! What if students do not want to learn what she teaches? Then our teacher might come down to the level of merely dictating notes. Or, if the students are to appear for entrance exams, and if the said teacher would be teaching in some 'coaching institute' then she would share 'tricks', 'shortcuts' and mnemonics with them. What would happen to science and her love for it; that would get buried somewhere? Can you imagine how miserable would she feel?

This clash between demand and supply has been very well exemplified by Howard Roark (click), the architect from Ayn Rand's (click) novel - 'The Fountainhead'. Though a great fan of Ayn Rand and her vision, I am stating here something almost contradictory to the 'moral' of her story. In her story, Roark triumphs against his adversaries. His complete antithesis - Peter Keating (mentioned in the same Wikipedia article on Roark) - initially succeeds a lot as an architect. Keating's only drives are approval by others and money. In the process, he loses everything - including the only one thing he had truly loved in all his life - his friend of childhood - Catherine. While, what happened to Keating is very likely to happen in real life, Howard Roark was plain lucky! Also, he had this incredible amount of tolerance. Tolerance of contempt, tolerance of physical hardships, tolerance of deceptions, tolerance of slow rate at which time passed (in other words, patience he showed in waiting for Dominique Francon to understand that he could not allow 'others' to dictate to him what he did with his life, and that what others thought of his work was not a determinant of whether he should do it), tolerance for failures. The only thing he did not have was tolerance for derision of his Divine, i.e., his vision of what buildings should be like. His Divine was intensely personal to him - he could not tolerate others' touching his building-designs, more specifically, the functionality behind them (Rand had sought to use functionality of building designs as the counterpart of 'truthfulness' in one's way of living). His vision of his Divine was sacrosanct to him. Others' visions, if not backed by the same passion, were mere contaminants for him. All this might make him seem arrogant, to be so unaccommodating, but what endeared him to me was his frank admission of the same! He had one true love - architecture - and he stayed loyal to it. On many occasions, by trading off his comfort and prospects of fulfillment of other desires. Thus, Howard Roark for me became the perfect human being that could be envisioned! He was my Divine (click), and still is. But I am not trying to emulate him. I know I do not have it in me to live the way he had. In fact, Ayn Rand had herself alluded to the fact that her (exemplary) characters are not to be found in the real life, but were extreme idealizations of traits that could be found in some extraordinary humans.To paraphrase her (and in turn, Aristotle), she had wanted to present characters, not as humans are, but could be and ought to be. And she had juxtaposed those perfect characters with the contemporary imperfect world, which was quite adversarial to perfection (as envisioned by Rand). She wanted to highlight the conflicts that perfection had to engage in to be able to survive in its purest form.

So, what is the solution? Should one abandon what one is most passionate about, and totally forget it, only for the fear of the difficulties that the world would pose?

In a way, yes. But of course, not totally. It is not as bad as it might sound. I think it is best to pursue what one generally likes but also has a few misgivings about as one's vocation (for income). This will ensure two things. First, you would be sensitized to the possibilities of disappointment and frustration. If your fears indeed turn out true, you would be emotionally prepared for that. Also, as you would not have invested all your emotions in the 'also-liked' activity, you would still have lot many things to look forward to in your life if your career does not shape up exactly the way you had wanted. The second thing that this would ensure is that you will still have fascination for your passion. Your romance with it can continue on the side. You can pursue it as your amateur interest, doing exactly what you want, exactly on your own terms, without any care of who says what or how much you get to earn from pursuing it. Additionally, one can use that amateur hobby as a source of supplementary income (e.g., photography, painting, writing, etc.). Another related idea is to try to save sufficiently in the early parts of your career, and when you have requisite financial security, you could try making a career out of your passion.

Of course, not all career-options are open to amateur pursuit. E.g., joining the army or being a civil engineer or a doctor. But if one looks at such choices carefully, it must be asked, how can one develop passion for them without any exposure to the actual work involved in those fields? I have seen many adolescents/children get fascinated by the white coat, the stethoscope and the respect that doctors command. But that is not what medical practice is about! Fascination for such things hardly amounts to passion! And I'm afraid, quite a few teenagers harbor wrong impressions about what a particular field of work entails.

Also, despite my never having been to any western country, I feel people there do not need to be as much apprehensive while selecting their career for many reasons. First, there seems to be lesser competition for college 'seats'. Second, work ethics are better, so it is easier to like one's work there (whereas, the situations seems to be quite the opposite in India!). Third, the society is more accepting of various kinds of career choices. There would not be neighbors or relatives gossipping about an unconventional career choice one makes. Also, they are more accommodating in general of choices people make. E.g., someone aged thirty-five making a career switch would not be ridiculed by his 15 years younger class mates, but in all likelihood would still be respected for exploring new things. Fourth, owing to greater availability of college seats it is easier to make a career switch. Fifth, on the whole less effort is required to be able to afford the basic amenities for living. Meaning, even if one makes a bad career choice, and income would be less, their existence would not be 'hand-to-mouth' so to say. Whereas in India, vast majority of employed people have to struggle real hard for even basic survival.

So basically through the preceding paragraph, I just wanted to point out that the extreme paranoia that forms the backdrop of my entire argument, would apply only to India or few other countries with comparable social milieu and economic condition.

I am aware that given the extremely loud message conveyed by the media (in form of career advise in 'educational' supplements) and movies like 3 idiots (click) of to go for career involving one's passion, my arguments to some might seem extremely wacky or deliberate attempt to be stand in opposition to common sense. However, that of course is not the case. :)

Your thoughts are welcome!

Corrosion

I was born here over 20 years ago. Unlike you, I don't mind if you step on my toes, for that's what I've inferred the purpose of my life on a railway platform to be.

Despite having my feet literally firmly grounded, I've seen more humans, their humanity & its complements - indifference, deceit & cruelty - than you ever could have.

...Wait! Don't think it's another philosophical drivel only 'cuz I choose to speak through Ketan's blog! How many weighing machines' life-stories you've heard?

I used to like kids standing on my feet. Their big eyes would further widen when I'd make faces - my blinking lights & rotating disks - they'd chuckle, not bothered by their weight at all! They loved me - their entertainer. But now kids find my antics silly :( Why won't they? Having seen smart cards & ATMs, the idea of feeding me a coin & see me come to life no longer excites them.

But not just kids, even grown ups have changed. In those days, they were not bothered by the printed number. Except if too big, they would call themselves "healthy", smile & get down happy. But later on, no number could satisfy them. Most wanted it to be much smaller. They always left dejected.

Somehow I'd always wished that everyone be happy, & none be sad 'cuz of me. So I started showing 5% less weight. Some people got happy, but not others. So I started reducing 10%. This made many happy. They started praising me, wishfully calling me truthful, but that's not what I was! I longed to be known as nice! It was ironical that weight I showed wasn't accurate, yet I wanted the praise to be!

Once, I overheard a doctor explain something about BMI & how overweight people suffered more from heart attack & stroke. He also said obesity was an epidemic & was killing Indians at younger age. I was shocked! I wanted to mend my ways. But having got used to people's praise, I couldn't regain the courage to be truthful. I still showed reduced weight.

Then one day, a mechanical mechanic failing to understand I also had feelings, reported that my spring wasn't yielding enough 'cuz of corrosion & I must be taken away for showing wrong weight. Like all non-humans that die at the end of autobiographical school-essays, I too wanted to. But his boss reminded him of profits, & how his promotion hinged on it. I now understood the true purpose of my life.

Partly inspired by Insignia's post (click)

How Morality is Indispensable to a Social Life

This post had started as a response to one of the comments by Darshan, whose ideas and blog-posts (click) I really enjoy and also recommend to other readers who appreciate critical thinking. The reasons I am publishing this response as a separate blog post are: because the response is too long; I would not like other readers to miss out on ideas earned after hard sessions of thinking, and lastly, because I any way wanted to discuss these issues some times on my blog. It just so happens that now this post will serve as an appropriate launching pad. So ultimately, obviously, this post does not merely remain a response to Darshan's comments, but is a post with his ideas as the backdrop.

Obviously, since this post is fundamentally a reaction rather than an essay, I am not giving a much elaborate background. Darshan's comment (click) was as follows:

"This might sound irrelevant to you.

First of all, I do not believe in the established concept of morality, which is perfectly human-centered. In my concept of morality stealing, lying, money, robbery and society, these are so petty issues that are not even visible to me. There are much much bigger issues facing existence!

In fact this entire affair is something which does not affect me. It is so HUMAN-SPECIFIC!!! As far as any such thing is concerned, I find myself in the game again. So whatever decisions I take by whim in the game, is neither right nor wrong.

I might save the one who stole in this case, for example; Or I might sometime also think that one human less is good for the planet ;) Depends on the mood I am in at the moment!"

Now I urge readers to exercise restrain in drawing any untoward conclusions about how Darshan as a person is. This discussion between him and me is at an ideological-philosophical level, and his comment must not be construed to think that he reaches decisions in his life exactly in the same fashion as might seem from the comment. In my interactions I have found him to be very agreeable and rational and not at all inclined to hurt someone deliberately. The only reason I am quoting this comment here is to put forth the context in which my post had materialized. As to what he means by a "game" would become clear from his post called - How to attain bliss without being in Himalayas? (click).

I am quoting the lines that I feel are pertinent, but yet I encourage the reader to go through the actual post for two reasons - that there should be no "loss in translation" in my quoting something selectively, and also because the post is a well thought out one and well written.

"...Now consider your life as a game. You are the main protagonist in this game. There are innumerable stages in this game like childhood, schooling, adulthood, love, work, marriage, divorce, riches, poverty etc. Through all the stages in the game there are things like making friends and enemies; pain and pleasures; love and hatred. You earn points when you make friends. Lose points when you make enemies. Earned love, earned points. Lost love, lost points. Consider points as a measure of happiness. That’s how a game works. Human life has endless possibilities of occurrences. All the things which happen in your favor add to your points and those occurrences against you reduce the points. When you succeed through the tasks you jump up in happiness with “Whoa!” and “Wow!” and when you lose you throw the joystick with “Oh fuck!” and “Shit!”"...

..."But after all, it’s a game, not the real life. What you experience in the “game world” is left behind when you are done playing the game and return in your “real world”. Happenings of the “game world” can not affect your behavior in the “real world”, unless you are so obsessed with the game that you have lost your mind and the realization that the two worlds are different."

Also, my response is not an attempt to contradict or disregard Darshan's personal views, which I do not share, but do not even disagree with. This is because, in some areas of life, what views we hold are just our personal preferences, possibly based on factors like nurture, genetics, life-experiences, personality, etc., and however hard we try, we cannot justify them on a rational basis. This in turn happens because, the fundamental axioms in life like "what is the purpose of my life?" or "what is the purpose behind the existence of the human race or the Universe?", etc. cannot be answered in fashion, which we all would agree with. It is how we (especially, in the given case, Darshan and I) answer these questions differently, that have led to the differences in our opinion, and at the outset I wish to clarify that I do not consider either Darshan or my answers to either of the above questions as more correct or less correct, because there is no established or agreed upon standard to gauge their "correctness" against. My frank confession that my views are more of preferences, rather than absolute "correct" manner of looking at the issues would, I hope, be amply visible in my response, which is as follows:

-----

Darshan,

There is no rational reason I could convince you to be more emotionally engaged with humanity and its affairs, or for me to justify my being engaged thus, but what you said was alarming! This is not to offend you, but nor to downplay what I felt reading what you wrote.

It is to your credit, you have made me think something slightly more deeply, making me reach this philosophical conclusion that yet again that there is nothing really very rational that can make me urge one to choose to be moral.

Morality (click) stems from human concepts of 'ownership' and 'rights' (as in adhikaar). So yes, morality becomes operational only when one accepts a certain framework of these human conceptions of 'ownership' and 'right'. Integrally attached with both the concepts is another human conception of "deserving", which is the most nebulous, and hence, difficult to define. And that is why we all differ in what one "deserves" - usually, we are most predisposed to feel what we 'enjoy', we deserve, and what we do not enjoy, we do not deserve. Which is what introduces the subjectivity and consequent liberal bias in assessing our own motives and actions. And, so it becomes imperative to decide upon certain mutually agreed upon criteria to delineate what is deserved by whom.

I yet again concede, I have no rational reason to assert that this framework should be applied only to humans, and why other sentient living beings (especially, mammals that are so similar to how humans are) should be excluded. Partly because, animals cannot talk back to us, as to what they want. No, this is not an excuse to be cruel to them, but the psychological reason why this "we" (humans) v/s "them" (non-humans) kind of communalism (click) operates in our minds.

My feeling greater solidarity for humans as compared to other species, or "nonliving" parts of the "nature", can be considered a form of communalism, and hence is unjustified. The best possible justification (or rather, my double standards), you could find is here:

Ball of Karma (click). Do read comment #16 onwards if you are short of time, otherwise, I believe the entire debate is entertaining, if not enlightening!

...somehow humans take precedence in deciding upon moral issues. If someone asks me why?, I would say it is a very sophisticated form of herd-mentality. That I feel greater solidarity for those who resemble me than those who do not (this line of argument is extremely risk-fraught when it comes to interhuman interactions, I know!). And animals have never really cared for us humans, or for each other (sounds stupid, but is a valid argument because only sometime back we were talking of putting animals on same pedestal as humans). They have killed us humans for their food or to protect their shelter. So we can do the same to fulfill our ‘needs’.

‘Needs’ is another contentious term. Is the desire to live a fulfilling, happy life a ‘need’? Is the desire to see one of our relatives not die of AIDS/cancer/malaria – a need? Is the desire to not suffer from painful rheumatoid arthritis and debilitating kidney disorders and diabetes – a need? Is the desire to not suffer from irritating common cold – a need?

Please see, in all the 3 examples, there is a gradual downscaling of threat to human life. While very few would disagree that we would be alright with killing of a few thousand animals, if the outcome (cure) for the said disease is able to save millions of human lives. The problem comes when discussing animal experiments for treatment of ’simpler’ disorders, which are not immediately life-threatening. But then the question would arise - what ‘level’ of threat to human life do we use to justify animal experiments?

So well, at least practicality dictates that we must not infringe on others' (humans') "rights", for instance, right to live, because then they can also attempt to do the same, and we all might suffer pain or death. Of course, I myself have stated on your blog that it would not be "bad" in 'absolute' terms if the entire human species or the Earth itself are wiped out, but in a 'subjective' sense, I want to live, and I am afraid of death! Possibly, this fear is an outcome of natural selection through genetic mutations, but then the fact remains, I am responsive and subservient to such a fear. I am also responsive and subservient to desire to feel happy [differences between 'happiness' and 'contentment' are hazy; I will have to think a lot about them]. Provisionally, I can define happiness as a mental state I would like to remain in, and not lose. So, talking of the original post that led you here, while everyone prioritizes the (self-assigned) purposes of life differently, directly or indirectly human happiness does figure somewhere at the top of everyone's 'agenda' for life. No other human-assigned purpose would be able to stake that claim - not, living for the country; nor, living for poor; nor, living for endangered species; nor, living for a single (as in, everyone devoting life to a common) religion; nor, living to set exemplary behavior. And even if someone defines something else as the purpose of their life, say, attaining salvation, they do it in belief that salvation will bring them happiness (as defined above).

But since, we humans have to co-exist in space and time, and share the same resources amongst us in our attempts to achieve our purposes (whatever they be), we have to distribute them in most pragmatic fashion possible - such that such distribution minimizes conflicts (which will cause pain, which majority of people want to avoid) and satisfy maximum number of people's desire to be happy (the way they feel it could be fulfilled). And as I said before, it is the limitation in resources and unavoidable interpersonal interactions that make us define every person's rights, authority and what they do or do not deserve.

Just as you pointed out, these concepts are merely human constructs, and hence not binding on you, and I agree. But if all actions were to depend on what one's "mood" is, for instance, what will prevent one from slapping a random person in a bus or raping a random woman in a secluded place? I am sure you must have not done either of the two things, but the questions is what prevented you or will prevent you if you feel like doing it? Or will nothing be able to stop you from doing so once you feel the urge?

So personally, I do think a lot about these (morals, ethics, justice, etc.) issues, precisely because I do find myself deeply engaged in human affairs. Though I have the option of not doing so, by two possible mechanisms - living in some secluded area totally by myself, and hence doing away with all sort of morality OR by committing suicide. I am afraid of both the options, as I pointed out in my response in the Conflusions-post (click), and moreover I have am enjoying my current mode of living; abiding to moral principles is hardly a challenge for me. So, I choose to live by the standards set by the society (morality) because I am living amidst society. Living amidst society is always following our agreeing to an unwritten contract, and that contract is what morality is. If one chooses to disregard these contracts, they instantly lose the right to live a life dependent on fellow human beings. And hence, either such people have to be removed from society because of their incompatibility in coexisting with others (death sentence) or punished (conviction by courts) or of course, the third option - that they live in some secluded place without interacting with any other human being (exile). But then, that they breach certain clauses (rules and regulations) of the contract with the knowledge that --> doing so invites the consequences they had agreed to --> by way of choosing to live in a manner they would depend on others --> they automatically become deserving of the punishment they had agreed to in the first place by breaching the the terms of the contract. For instance, a person committing rape in India becomes deserving of punishment as defined in the section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (click), because he had consented to be punished the moment he rapes a woman while being a part of India (Indian citizenship). This was all law and justice.

You might but ask, what if someone does not want to enter this contract of interpersonal interactions? Why force someone to enter interpersonal interactions? But the problem is no human being at birth is independent. The moment one accepts nurture from one's parents, and wears clothes made by another human being, or eats food prepared with another human's labor, they inadvertently put their seal on the contract of the society called morality. And hence for these "reasons" I do not think it is possible to escape consideration of moral issues.

[With this my response to Darshan practically ends; what follows is the ideas built opon what I just presented]

But of course, the next question could be who gets to decide these set of rules? And more importantly, what are the bases of such rules? It is here, the (supposedly) most widely agreed upon principle of maximizing human happiness and minimizing human pain that comes to fore. We all humans might not always agree as to what constitutes legal, ethical, moral "etiquetted", etc., but if we define some "minimum possible standards", we will at least have a rational framework to work within. These could also be termed as "moral axioms", as in they have no other underlying bases, except that (assuming and hoping) highest number of people in the World agree upon them. I will enlist the most significant moral axioms here:

1. Every human is equal and has same rights at birth.

2. Every human at birth has an equal right to live.

3. Fulfilling the desire to be happy is one of the fundamental goals, and every human at birth has equal right to be happy.

4. Fulfilling the desire to avoid pain is one of the fundamental goals, and every human at birth has equal right to avoid pain.

5. Everyone should try to reach decisions on any issue such that, as far as possible, none of the above principles are violated.

I believe, a large part of what we instinctively think of as moral or immoral (and also, legal, ethical, honorable - or not so) can be accounted for by above principles. Of course, I am no expert in philosophy of ethics, morality and law, but at least this serves as a good starting point. I also believe, if some societal impositions or government-sanctioned laws do not fit into the above framework, then they make a good case for a closer scrutiny. For instance, what in the above framework would make consensual homosexuality immoral/unethical/illegal? Or for that matter, euthanasia? Slightly more contentious would be issues like abortion. Likewise, issue of death penalty would be most contentious. The "at birth"-part finds repeated mention to allow for some other concepts like "deserving" and unequal "ownership" (say, owing to one's hard work) to apply, which could lead to subsequent inequality. Additionally for instance, if the established law punishes a convict, the punishment might go against their rights to live, be happy and to avoid pain. But to ensure practical functionality of the entire framework, we have to also admit the possibility some people will not honor point number 5, and hence this dishonor makes them eligible for predetermined punishment. And of course, a very touchy issue of what is a "right" as against what is an "opportunity" has not been addressed here. For example in our contemporary society, despite having same rights, do children respectively born to poor and rich parents get equal opportunity to healthy diet and good education? How do we tackle such moral issues? I would be discussing these issues also in one of my subsequent posts, but then they cannot be covered in limited space.

So to end this post, I just want to point out that the instinctive ideas of moral, ethical, and appropriateness of government-sanctioned laws, etc., are very difficult to scrutinize on a firmly rational bases, but the point is they can be! And at least, we have to make an attempt to do so. If we stop looking for "reasons" to regard something as moral v/s immoral, we would be entertaining moral arbitrariness (and hence, "relativism") as an acceptable criterion. Once that happens, it is only downhill course for the collective human happiness from that point. And also that reason cannot be "someone said so" (scripture-directed morality), because what would be valid reason would not be that someone said so, but the reason as to why someone said what they said. As long as we are living in the human society, it becomes binding upon us to think over moral issues. The moment we lose our commitment to morality, we lose our right to live amidst with other human beings.

-----

One recommendation:

Read this extremely well-explained and argued blog-post by Professor McCormick - Open the Floodgates (click), where he demonstrates why exclusively faith cannot be used to believe in the existence of God without committing intellectual dishonesty.

One request:

Kindly visit a copy of this blog I have prepared at Wordpress (click). This is just an experiment. I may or may not shift to Wordpress. Currently, it is unlikely that I switch over to Wordpress because it does not allow customization of CSS of blog-templates. Of course, the only attractive feature of Wordpress over Blogger is their comment-system, which might eventually win me over if I get into an 'aggressive' mode of blogging. ;)

Vacillation

"His large eyes are just like mine. You can't doubt he's got all his cuteness genes from me! You're jealous!" He teased her trying to keep his voice straight suppressing a chuckle.

"Oh yeah, and who's he got his cute lips from?" She asked sharply, knowing it was only his provocation and yet falling for it.

"Alright, to be fair, his 5% cutitude does come from you. His runny nose is your genetic gift?" He could no longer suppress the grin as his hand covered it, but the mischief still overflowed from his eyes.

"Ranjit!" She rolled up the newspaper and hit it on his head.

"Domestic violence! Stooop!" He shouted. "So now you want me to get physical, huh!" He puffed up in mock anger.

The blow was harder than intended. "Sorry..."

"What sorry! You remember, the last time we'd got physical this way, we ended up getting so wild, I'd to call my office telling them Diarrhea God was preventing me from attending? Too bad, boss has turned atheist as far as Diarrhea God is concerned."

"Ranjit! Stop!" She blushed and laughed. "You're funniest. And the cuuuutest. 100% of his cuteness comes from you! Happy?"

"Hey no, it's unfair. I was just joking. I want a fight, not compliment. Just like the last time, I wanna get physical! I'm feeling horn..."

"Shh... I can't fight you. That's your punishment for being sooo adorable." She placed a finger on his lip as she kissed him on the cheek...

She felt the same warmth in her cheeks today that she had 13 years ago. She smiled as she looked at young Ronit's large eyes peering from the photo in her hand and remembered their mock fight.

She wondered how strange memories were. She had never imagined she could muster enough courage to revisit them after their divorce. But here she was, revisiting those very memories, and yet they filled her with a glow. She wondered if Ranjit still remembered her. If he still looked at the old photos and smiled.

She decided the question was redundant. Memories were shared, but happiness was hers alone. After all, he was the one who had abandoned her. Happiness borrowed from memories was no less real, she realized today.

With fears now dissolved, she decided not to warn Ronit of pains of love. She smiled looking at his silly grin, lost in his own fantasies, and wondered how to ask him about his first crush who caused that grin, as he turned 14 today.

Yes, love was worth it. She decided as she shut the photo album.

Life - Just this and that

A dash of mad passion

And its occasional suppression



A blind leap into the air; drop to the abyss

And a wait for the doom; return to the surface



A speck of apprehension

And its usual suspension



A seasoned flight of fancy, in search of ecstasy

And the crashing culmination in reasoned apostasy



An entanglement of questions

And a chain of comprehension



A mutilation through stabs; tearing away by tensions

And a sudden release into nothingness, without anticipation



That's all that life is

Or maybe a bit more

I'm not yet sure

And so I explore...



AN ADDICTION

[One of the very spontaneous (and unambiguous) poems that I have written. Written in less than 20 min. So there would be 'logical' flaws, indeed. :)


Another impulsive poem by me, which I would like to share is One Moment of Clarity (click)

Title of this poem was inspired by the name of a fellow blogger's blog (click), whose poetry I greatly admire.]

It had to happen. It happened yesterday. After three years!

Yesterday as I was climbing down stairs, engrossed in thoughts, suddenly I heard an enthusiastic "Namaskaar"(a salutation in Hindi). It was one of the sweepers, an older employee of the hostel. I had vaguely registered something to be new on seeing him, but the stream of thoughts in my head, had not allowed me to quite place it.

I smiled back and asked him, "kaheen gaye huae thae kya aap?" [You had been gone somewhere?].

My first instinctive response was to say back namastey (synonymous with namaskaar, but less formal), and ask how he was. But then something held me back.

He replied back, "Apne gaaon gaye thae; ek mahine ke liye." [Had gone to my native village; for one month].

"Haan yehi soch rahaa tha ki aap dikh nahin rahe thae bahut dinon se. Chaliye achchhaa hai, aap apne ghar ho aaye! Chaliye, chalta hoon" [That's what I was thinking. Had not seen you for many days. Good, you paid visit to your home! Bye for now] I smiled and moved on.

I was very pleasantly suprised that he had remembered me, and made it a point to greet. I could distinctly make out his happiness to see me.

He is much older than me, and I had always been quite courteous towards him.

But what had kept me hesitant to greet him with as much warmth as I actually felt?

It was the fear of developing such a strong rapport that I would not be able to say 'no', if he someday asked for money.

But I wondered, was my fear rational? What was the point if it was keeping me from feeling a fellow human's warmth?

I thought again. Why was he so happy to see me? By then, I had already entertained the possibility of his projected warmth to be insincere. Or maybe my courteous behavior could have actually drawn him to me.

But all of a sudden I realized I was not liking these arguments in my head. I was feeling guilty for thinking all this about him. I felt tired of fighting against the happiness I wanted to feel.

Because of past experiences, I have become suspicious of people and always think of their ulterior motives to guard myself against deceit and hurt. But this guard had brought with it a latent fatigue, and yesterday, after three years, it showed.

With a new spring in my step, I smiled at the situation, at my foolishness, and eventally, also at the Hostel in charge, who I think of as cunning and do not usually talk to.

He was suprised. Pleasantly! :)

I just like all THIS. So I post all this just like THAT!

Take a look at the two new widgets at the top of my left sidebar.

Thanks! Not for looking, but your comments!

Of course, I am not entirely convinced by the numbers shown. Especially, TUIB's low 'score'! ;)

Whenever I look at my blog, I feel satisfied by at least one thing--comments have largely been sincere.

There have been numerous arguments and disagreements, but honestly, they have only reassured me that those thus commenting had not simply glossed over ideas presented in my posts. That those ideas had been able to stir something in the reader to induce them to engage them with at least some thoughtfulness. Of course sometimes, those very dissenting/different thoughts have given me something new to think about, and made me see the World in an altered way.

There have also been posts with comments full of frivolity. And am glad, they were expected to be like that! :)

Some might ask me, do I care for comments? Yes, I do.

I am not one of those inclined to instantaneously put pen to paper (even if so in the 'virtual' maze of electrons being thrashed around) owing to a spontaneous outpouring of my passions. This could probably be because of a high 'turnover rate' of my emotions! Meaning, new emotions keep on displacing the older ones very quickly, which would not allow any single emotion to exert sufficient influence on my ego (click; second meaning) to make me write about it! Okay, bad theory! Though some posts, to my own suprise, have been emotional outbursts as well!

So, I do not write in isolation. I do expect that my ideas find readers--not (necessarily) with same ideas as mine, but those who would have thought on the very same issues, if not before, at least after reading!

Yes, I do look forward to comments on my posts!

To end this post, I would only say that my blog has become a very integral part of my life, which I had never imagined when publishing my first few posts.

And very suprisingly, it has brought me in contact with a few people, who I could safely call my 'friends'! A few wonderful people who I truly value today for reasons more than one, and who I would have not known, had it not been for this medium. I am overwhelmed, and to them I could only say, though it would sound cliched on my blog:

Thanks for existing! And also for letting me know that you did. :)

iBubble. The Perfect Sphere. The Perfect Hollow.

Sometimes I understand others in terms of how they are similar to me. Other times I understand them in terms of how they are different from me. There is no other way to understand others. Comparisons are imminent.

If I understand myself, still I might not understand someone else correctly, for some contamination of data would distort my perception.

But, if I do not understand myself, there is no chance I can understand others.

The key to understanding others is to understand myself, first.

I am the common denominator in how the World is. If not for me, nothing would ever make sense in this World.

But understanding myself is an ongoing process. Partly because I am complex. Partly because I keep on changing. I cannot suspend the process of understanding others in the meantime.

After all, life has to go on, if it is to stop some other day.

And hence, everything I do, every thought I think has a purpose.

LOL!

Simple! Isn't it? ;)

So...

iBubble had burst?

OR

I burst Bubble?

...Would depend upon if you are a prick just like me, or if you are not a prick unlike me.

Told you, comparisons are imminent! ;)

My flirtation with Wikipedia

While I have been keeping very busy, and am unlikely to post anything substantial for some time, I thought, I would provide link to my Wikipedia user page (click) that I had developed after lot of effort without any real knowledge of HTML. Of course back then, I had been able to develop it only by analyzing a lot of others' users pages, and tweaking them through trial and error.

Also, almost unknown to many of you, I had been a very avid contributor (click) to Wikipedia articles. But had to tear away myself from that web site, especially editing it, only since it was so very addictive and hampering my studies (not unlike blogging ;) ).

There is an article I had created and brought to its current status almost entirely on my own, including making several diagrams. On searching for 'polyclonal response' on major search engines, that article is the first result one gets. Here (click). It enjoys the status of a 'Good article' on Wikipedia, which means by quality and reliability as judged by a stringent peer review, it is 1 among every 403 articles.

Also, I had singlehandedly created an article on a very important topic called 'lymph', which a year back used to get almost 700 to 1000 hits in a day, or more! Same with articles on 'B cell' and 'lymphatic system', to which I had made significant contributions.

It has been more than a year I have made any significant edits to Wikipedia, and was feeling nostalgic. And not to forget, once a Wikipedian is always a Wikipedian. :) So, I wanted to share these things with a few readers who visit my blog. Somehow though contributing to Wikipedia has not brought me any glory or provided with career boost, I feel very content to have added something to the World's knowledge-base. I have used Wikipedia extensively, and have always felt deeply indebted to those anonymous contributors who have been enriching my life through their knowledge and writings, with no material rewards in return, except for the satisfaction of sharing their knowledge systematically.

If any of you feel you are an expert/well read person in anything under the Sun (and beyond), please do share your knowledge through Wikipedia. :)

Tales of Bruno and Galileo: The art of saying semi-sorry after thinking for REALLY, REALLY LONG! Like, 359 years!

Here is an article dealing with related issues of psychology, some history, arguments for existence of god(s), and their refutation :)

Why Atheism? (click)

It is easy to understand, devoid of rigorous philosophical jargon, but very lengthy.

One horrifying thing was the manner in which Giordano Bruno was executed in 1600 (click) for holding ideas that were contrary to the Church's.

Having read of many such executions, I was not affected much. What suprised me in the Wikipedia article, however, was that like modern 'professionals'--reality show judges, there used to be inquisitors! While, the former decide if a contestant deserves to win, largely based on their whims, the inquisitors would, if a person deserved to live, and if not, what kind of exemplary murder would be suitable. But, totally based on whims!

All this to what end? To shield the humanity from truth.

Truths like, Jupiter's moons orbited it, that the Earth revolved around the Sun, and not vice versa!

Galileo in 1633, when 70, was made to retract his verification of Bruno's ideas that went against Aristotle's two millenia old 'truths', which the Church had adjudicated to be, well, 'absolute truths'. Of course, citing the precedent they had set of Bruno's 'fate' only helped further.

But the reason I write is the fact that I would never lay down my life thus. I would rather take the easy path and give in to arbitrary coercion. I feel somewhat ashamed to be that way, but more importantly, dwarfed by the likes of Bruno who had in them to give up to that end, the only thing a man ever truly owns--his life, with nothing to gain in return.

Through this post I just wish to remind that each time we discard naturalism in favor of supernaturalism, what a great sacrifice we frown upon despite continuing to hypocritically savor former's fruits, e.g., reading this post! Okay I concede, some might now precisely curse Bruno for that!

Thankfully, because of God we have some humor (click)! ;)

EXACTLY 17 years back (click), the Church realized Galileo had been right all along!

States of Matter. State that matters - An Explanation. And a joke!

This is the explanation for my previous post which could be found here (click)

I do not believe in writing ambiguous posts, especially as part of the reason I write is to know how others and I view the same things differently. I believe, if not most, some people do have reasons for what they become/what they choose to become. And when the same things are viewed differently, it gives all the parties involved a chance to review what their belief systems are, and what are they based on. At the 'end' of the discussion, one may emerge more confident of the views held priorly, or less so. One may also feel insecure of new ideas if they threaten to upset the equilibrium of their life, which usually is very difficult to achieve, and this is probably also what contributes to the inertia we experience in reviewing and imbibing new ideas, apart of course, from the fact that whatever we currently know/think would be outcomes of numerous experiences, mistakes and rewards, which consolidate our confidence in our 'own' ideas. So with this short preface I seek to establish that on my blog, I wish to be understood precisely, and to understand the contributors equally precisely, though it will only rarely so happen that I change someone's views, or someone, mine.

The only reason I had not included this explanation was the constraint of length of 18 SMSes. Also I did not want to dilute the spontaneity of my ideas by inserting technical explanations for abstract analogies, for it is ever so rare that I come out with posts, which I feel rather than think. I had planned to clarify the analogies as a part of my replies to comments, but I realized, I needed to also come up with a detailed explanation of what I meant through each analogy.

-----

Fluid. By 'fluid' I did not mean weak or flexible. For one talks of flexibility only when there is a shape one could identify with.

By gradients of availability, I meant rushing in for things only because they are available. An avarice for things without pausing to think if we want/need them or possessing them would make us any happier.

A simplistic, but illustrative example is weddings, where so many times people take so much ice cream that they cannot finish it. Mind you, I am not talking here of etiquette, or health hazards of gluttony, or wastage of food, which are separate issues in themselves, but of a weird kind of opportunism. An opportunism that does not even serve our interest! But the sheer pleasure of enjoying something unearned, and probably undeserved (which is contentious, though), but worst of it all, undesired and unrequired! If that ice cream would be required or desired, not so much of it would be found wasted in the plates at the end of the parties!

By falling into next empty space, I was talking of the same opportunism, but manifesting itself differently. Flattery, imitation and insincere agreement. Others' needs for praise and approval are like empty spaces, and on spotting an opportunity (availability) they can be filled! They can be filled instantly and effortlessly, only because this fluid is guided by a gradient. It does not have its own ideas or opinions (no shape), or probably does not value them enough. Does not have any attachments or committed loyalties (no place), and hence has nothing to lose when it goes and occupies the next available space.

This fluid comes in contact with a vast expanse of surfaces, always leaving a trace of wetness (good impression). But it itself never knew what it stood for or against. Its attraction for things (gravitation) was its only guiding force.

The structure called self is a composite of ideals, desires, opinions, tastes, distastes, preferences, and a conscience but most important, a recognition and subsequent acknowledgment of all of these. By surrendering them to the 'demands' of opportunity and availability, this structure collapses, and that is what I had meant by to fall, in fact the collapse of an identity called 'self' is so profound that all shapes and senses of location and direction are lost, whereas as a person grows, it is expected that they accumulate more ideas, ideals, opinions, loyalties and attachments (climbing).

By evaporation, I did not mean destruction or death, but a total loss of identity of the 'self'.

Passively plastic. A passively plastic person also lets their ideas and opinions get shaped according to external forces. There is nothing wrong with allowing external ideas to shape one's opinions, in fact, without the action of external forces, not many ideas can be formed. But when one holds them only to fit into a collective/communal identity, then they lose their own ideas and aspirations. The identity of the individual is supplanted by the perceived identity of a community (mold). The driving force here is the willful assumption of a preformed, assembly-line-manufactured identity, even at the cost of losing one's 'real' native identity, without a sense of remorse.

How is this deformation allowed, or rather sought?

Probably because the original shape was not loved enough? It did not receive assent from coexistence with a number larger than zero, that is, owing to being unique ('one')?

This can extend right from "a feminist needs to defend everything a female does" to "secular people have to side with the 'minorities'"; from "doctors 'should' be dressed in formals" to "'hip' people 'need' to wear low-waist jeans"; from "you need to agree with everyone if you are broadminded" to "learn to say 'whatevah' if you are above the rest of petty people, and close to attaining 'nirvana' to firmly establish you do not care about their existence or their opinions"

Reactively plastic. This simply implies trying to be different from others. It does not matter if what I end up is different even from my 'real' self. The only priority is a need to stand out. To be a 'trend-setter', fully forgetting that trend would also be followed only by opportunists and those seeking the shelter of a collective, without ever respecting the very same shelter.

Rigid. This is what I need to personally guard myself against the most. I know what I want. I know what I like. But I also know, the world is not going to act according to my wishes. I will not the get the kind of education system I want. I will not get as friends, people as honest as I would want. I will not work at places whose ethics would be in alignment with mine.

Because all these systems are too rigid to yield. Whether they are more correct, or I, is a different matter. What matters is that their walls and my contours are incongruent.

And if I barge into these systems brazenly, unprepared, it will be me that would be hurt. Both physically and emotionally. Gradually, I will start giving up. What were originally my aspirations would no more remain so. What I used to find pleasurable, would turn into pain.

As an example, I find it extremely immoral to simply memorize some fact and write/mark that as an answer in exams, without understanding its cause or significance. It, according to me is nothing short of copying. What is the difference? How is not knowing and copying wrong, but not knowing and pretending to know, right?

But I need to survive. I cannot change the exam system according to my wishes. In its confines, memorizing, without understanding is alright, or maybe, also admirable.

That brings me to elasticity. Elasticity is not absolute deformability, which is actually plasticity, but an ability to return to its original shape. A rubber band is elastic not because it can be stretched, but because it can recoil back. So possibly, elasticity lies somewhere between two extremes of plasticity and rigidity.

Deformability would entail that I will need to compromise on occasions. To fit in, to survive, to make life fulfilling. But same time listening to my conscience, to let it pinch, to not silence it, which will remind me that I had betrayed the 'self'--my ideals, original aspirations, which I had loved. All this because the circumstances (edges and corners) had forced me to change. But also to remember that choice of fitting in and compromising were both mine, and mine alone.

Important is to not drown my conscience in "It's okay!". To remember to not compromise the next time out of force of habit, or simply knowing that a simpler route exists.

So yes, elasticity is indeed deformable rigidity, and thus by default a moderate property between the two.

Self-love. This is the trickiest to define. To love the self, first, it is important to recognize the 'self'. Self is the innermost desires, doubts, the knowledge of what I like, what I hate, what I want to do. And if possible, also 'why'? But this assessment needs to be most honest. Most of what constitutes 'self', calls for some action or reaction, be it, lazing late till afternoon on a holiday or 'fighting the system'. To understand that it is alright for those actions to be directed by the desires, but within such a framework that very same actions will not bring 'me' shame in my own eyes.

Ultimately all actions have to serve the upkeep of self-image. If I love my 'self', I will make a most honest assessment of it. If not, I will try to shield it from my own scrutiny, or to distort it. The moment I try to distort it, I know, there is something that I do not like. Either I try to change it, or accept it as my limitation/deficiency.

Loving the self does not amount to serve primal-most self-interest to the exclusion of anything that entails sacrifice for the good of someone else, which if seems 'right', and not doing so, 'wrong', then it is indeed congruent with my desire to somewhere make a change outside of 'me'.

This might seem too mechanical way of living--the loving-the-self-part, but actually it still is the most spontaneous expression of the 'self', just that it passes from under a screen of introspection. :)

-----

A sinister, sadistic, half-asleep-from-previous-night's-binge-examiner eyes neatly dressed, frightened, semi-prepared students of final year MBBS exam, standing before him in mock respect, but genuine awe, and thinks: WTF?

Neatly dressed, frightened, semi-prepared students of final year MBBS exam, standing in mock respect, but genuine awe, eye a sinister, sadistic, half-asleep-from-previous-night's-binge-examiner, and think: WTF!

Examiner's WTF? = Who to flunk? | Student's WTF! = WTF!

States of Matter. State that matters--1

Do not be so fluid. So fluid that you fall into the next empty space. No shape. No place. Existence defined only by gradients of availability. Never able to climb; only fall. You will spread yourself wide. You will spread yourself thin. And before you know it, you will evaporate into nothingness.

Do not be so passively plastic. So plastic that you always fit in and forget your own shape. Always wanting the rigid confines to define the contours of your being. You will fit in. You will not remain you.

Do not be so reactively plastic. Yes, plastic again. So plastic that you change shape the moment you see a mould. Only to not fit in. Letting the confines define the contours of your being--this time staying out. Before you know it, you will become the next unshapely thing. You might become the next mould. Only fluids and plastics will occupy you. You will forget your shape.

Do not be so rigid. So rigid that you want the confines to yield, to replicate the contours of your being. You might wish, but you will not succeed. Before you know it, the edges and corners will scrape off chunks of your own being. You will lose them forever. You will not remain you. If you wait for that perfect mould--the one made for you, it will never be made. You will always remain outside. Outside is only for lodging. Outside, you will not live.

Be elastic. Mostly fitting in. Sometimes comfortably. Sometimes uncomfortably. Fitting in, yet feeling where it hurts. Knowing where the edges poke the contours of your being. Remembering what shape you were the last time. Springing back into your shape, each time you come out. Choose the best mould, but it will not fit perfectly. It will hurt. Be prepared for that. If a mould is too convoluted, too constricting, remember, it is best to lodge outside. For inside, painful poking will overwhelm your senses. You might remain you. Life will not remain life.

That elasticity is self-love. Love yourself, and life will become the simplest it could. You will remain you. Life will remain life.

---
1. This is simply a summary of a lesson on how to live that I have learned. What you have learned could be different. If so, consensus need not be reached.

...continued (click)

Sequel to My Post 'Do I deserve pink chaddis?'--Guest post by Sioneve

This is actually a guest post by Sioneve. We had a small blanter (blog+banter) here (click)

She had promised to do a small story on how my conversation with my kids would turn out if one of them ended up like the girl in my post--'Do I deserve pink chaddis?' (click).

So well, here goes the imaginary conversation:

-----*-----

Ketan speaking to SON about Pink Chaddis, over breakfast…the expected converstaion:

Son: [sing-song voice] Good morning dad! What a lovely day! Do you like the new outfit I designed in fashion school?? Isn’t it FABULOUS. It is supposed to capture the freshness of Spring – you see the side vents gape to allow fresh air to get in and circulate around inside my clothes and also freshen up my chaddis at the same time!! No pools of sweat building up!! And the chaddis have to be pink because I think that is the freshest colour in Spring!!

K: [thinks: AAAAARRRGGGHHH!!] Hmmmm. Son, as I havwe said many times, I respect your fashion design capabilities greatly. However, I think that if you go out dressed like that, people may not respect you and I would be very sad if you lost respect.

Son: Oh Dad! Don’t be so square! I am an ARTIST! I do not care WHAT people think. All artists are avante garde! We have to be because we are at the cutting edge! We decide what happens, BEFORE it happens! Get hip Dad!

K: No Son – realy – I care about you very deeply and am trying to give you my best advice. It is painful to be laughed at! Plus I have seen fashion designers like Giorgio Armani – he always dresses respectfully in navy shirts and slacks – you never see his chaddis sticking out like yours – pools of sweat or not!!

Son: But Dad – all my friends dress like this! Its who we are! Armani is SO yesterday! We are the voice of tomorrow!

K: Okay. I have tried to reason with you but you will not listen. So I have no choice but to tell you to march right back into your room and reconsider your dressing choices! While you live under my roof, you follow some codes of decorum!

Son: Awww DAD!!! It’s not fair!! [Pouts and marches off to room. Slams door].

-----

NOW…This is how such a thing should be handled…(purely facetious)…

Son: [sing-song voice] Good morning dad! What a lovely day! Do you like the new outfit I designed in fashion school?? Isn’t it FABULOUS. It is supposed to capture the freshness of Spring – you see the side vents gape to allow fresh air to get in and circulate around inside my clothes and also freshen up my chaddis at the same time!! No pools of sweat building up!! And the chaddis have to be pink because I think that is the freshest colour in Spring!!

K: [thinks, if you can't beat them, then join them and beat them at their own game!!!] What a DIVINE outfit (high pitched squeal). I was just thinking son, we don’t do enough things together! I would like to join you in your fashion….may I borrow one of your outfits and we can go out together!!

Son: [thinks, ARRRRGGGHHHH!!] Oh, Dad no! I was thinking that you look so elegant in your Armani suit! Why change a classic??

K: No, seriously – because I want to hang out with you and be cool and properly aerated!!

Son: Okay Dad! You are right! We should do more together! Why don’t I wear my Armani suit and join YOU!!

K: Oh son…you would do that for me?? Isn’t it asking too much for you to give up your FABULOUS fashion??

Son: No! No! I want to make a new fashion statement – conservative is back!!!

K: [smiles sweetly!]

-----*-----

Thanks, Sioneve a lot! This was truly a lovely post! Thanks for giving me such premature tips on parenting! I'll follow them as soon as I suffer from ventriculomegaly, or broadmindedness, in other words! Or till, I have a son, whichever is later!

Disclaimer to my SON wherever he be: See, it's only my decorum that's keeping me from stating the obvious truth here that I won't be half as broadminded as portrayed in even the first version of our conversation! Say hello! to Sioneve auntie! Okay, now if you want such ventilatory chaddis, just see how broadminded I am (click)!

Do I deserve pink chaddis?

*Chaddi is a word used interchangeably for "shorts" or "briefs/panties".

This is a post I've been planning to do since long, because it was after a long time some event had made me introspect and analyze things with utmost depth possible, and yet leave me, possibly, without answer. Also, this post is going to be very, very frank. Everyone tends to push the innermost workings of their minds under the carpet. But quite the opposite of that, I'm going to reveal it as explicitly and plainly as possible. So, in certain ways this post is going to be EXPLICIT. So, the reader's forbearance is requested. Also, I'll try my best to set the sequence of my thoughts in an algorithm-like structure. So, it'd be easier to dissect it, and discuss the same.


First, I'll have to tell something about myself to establish a proper context. As of now, I am preparing for postgraduate (PG) medical entrance exams, for which I've joined a particular coaching institute in a city different than the one indicated in my profile. I stay in a hostel, which consists mainly of other PG-aspirants just like me. We have a mess, where we have our meals, and at other times, it serves as the reading room.


Before I describe the very trivial incident, let me make it amply clear that the fact that I'm blogging about it, only implies that I've thought a lot over it. And I urge the reader to be patient, and specifically ask me where something that I try to explain remains unclear. This disclaimer is necessitated because I suspect apppreciable number of readers, if they read this post would be tempted to send me pink chaddis! But, I'm not giving my postal address! :P


There is this girl in the ladies' hostel (just next to the hostel where I stay), owned by the same owner as my hostel, who attends the same coaching institute as me, but in a different batch and schedule. My interaction with her has been nil. And she uses the same reading room and the mess. This girl, as far as I've seen, interacts only with boys from her alma mater, which is in a different city from where I've been staying. And, I hadn't taken any special notice of that fact, though it had registered in my mind. I wouldn't think much about such issues, for simple reason--they don't affect me, and moreover, there is fundamentally nothing wrong with that. Just that the event I'm about to describe made me think also about all this. As to what's her opinion about other fellow female hosteliites to be not interacting with them at all, or conversely what do other female inmates think about her.


The incident was this: I had gone to the mess to have my lunch (I don't study at that particular study room, but do so in my own hostel room), and I was at the table where the food is laid for us to help ourselves, the girl was ahead of me in a sort of short queue that was formed, and my gaze fell on her flank. And I felt such an intense revulsion that I turned away my gaze with disgust. What I saw was her exposed flank because of a triangular 'side-cut' in her shirt. The area exposed was more than 50 centimeter sqaured, with part of her innerwear's elastic band visible. Now for those wondering how did I reach the magical figure of 50 cm², just think of a square of 10 cm sides (100 cm²), and cut it half at the diagonal.


Actually, for someone with perfectly normally working hormones like me, I should've stared on. My female readers might be disgusted by this suggestion. But then, I believe, I'm going to do full justice to all the moral considerations involved in this particular event, which is prototypical of what one gets to see day-in-and-day out. All this got over in a less than a second, and nor must have I turned away my head in a violent motion to draw anyone's attention. Basically, no one around noticed what had happened.


But this got me thinking as to why did I feel disgusted, as afterall what she wears is entirely her prerogative.


I'll make a few clarifications here, right at the outset:
1. I did not gossip about it with others.
2. I did not give her a 'look'.
3. I would never think of harming her in anyway on account of what she chooses to wear.
4. If I were to ever interact with her, I'd do so with utmost courtesy that I would reserve for anyone I'd be talking to for the first time.


Of course, to clarify, her dress was in deed out of the ordinary for what other girls wear at this place, especially when coming to study or eat. Moreover, she herself had worn that dress for the first time, and to the extent I remember, she never had repeated it.


I drew this conclusion--'she wanted to expose her flank and elastic band to draw attention to herself'. Of course, I'll first try to address the concern as to why did I draw the above conclusion. I had an argument in my head in attempt to make maximum possible allowance for that girl.


Allowance 1: She must have not realized that the dress was revealing.

Answer: She has always been meticulously dressed even on other days, when she used to wear Salwar-Kameez. Most of the people when the buy their clothes, try them. This girl used to wear relatively costly dresses, and it was unlikely that she must have bought it from some street-side hawker and didn't get and an opportunity to try it. Dressing is a skill, and she had been good at it, so it's unlikely that even if in an unlikelier event that she did buy the said shirt from a roadside hawker, she wouldn't know that the dress would be at least 7 to 8 cm short of the trouser's waist.

Allowance 2: She must have dressed in a hurry.

Answer: Didn't look like that. Her dress was well-ironed. Her hair wasn't disheveled or anything, and she was taking her food quite leisurely, and also eating it equally leisurely.


Allowance 3: She must have been comfortable with that sort of dressing.

Answer: Possibly, yes. But that had got me thinking as to why we choose the kinds of dresses that we choose? We buy clothes such that they cover those parts of our bodies that we don't want others to see, especially strangers. I wear a shirt/T-shirt whenever I move out or my room, for simple reason I'd feel embarrassed to allow others to see my bare chest and back, etc. Likewise, I wear trousers that cover my groin area completely! Sorry, couldn't help it. Had to bring in the last example to clarify. So, I reached this conclusion that she did not mind revealing her flank and the elastic band of her innerwear.


Allowance 4: So what? What if she's comfortable with revealing her flank and the elastic band? That does not establish intent to reveal.

Answer: When she must have bought that particular shirt, she must have had the option of buying one that did not reveal her flanks. It must have not been very difficult to buy a shirt that would be just 8 to 10 cm lower, and jeans that would be an inch or two higher. Afterall, all other days she had been wearing clothes that were not revealing in the same way. But yes, there is indeed a subtle difference between 'not minding' revealing and 'wanting' to reveal. How do I know it was the latter and not the former? I concede, this is difficult to answer. But, I'll give an example. If at a tea stall, you order Pepsi, and the waiter comes and tells you they don't have it, and offers you to have Coke instead, if you say, "Okay, alright!", then, that's what is 'not minding', but if you ask for Pepsi in the first place, then you 'want' Pepsi, and does not amount to 'not minding' it. So, I believe, this adequately establishes the intent to expose, so to say.


Allowance 5: Okays, so what if she wanted to reveal? How does it make me conclude that she wanted to draw attention?

Answer: This is most difficult to explain, but if I've to assume that she did not want to draw attention, how do I explain someone carefully choosing clothes that precisely are going to reveal one's flanks and the elastic band? I could attribute random behavior to, maybe, a small child doing things on whim, like wanting to stand on a table and not wanting to climb down, or children of 2 to 3 years not willing to eat their food, but how do I do that for someone in their twenties? It's either random impulse or it's well planned attempt to draw attention. And considering her age, it was much likely to be the latter.


Allowance 6: Okay, so what if she chooses to wear revealing clothes? What's my problem?

Answer: Nothing! Honestly, I have no problems with what she wears. What all I thought about the issue till that point, and for a few minutes beyond did not affect me in any way!


Now, I'll point out a few things that people do. Do ask yourself if you find them disgusting or not:
1. Picking of nose in public
2. Scratching of groin (in public)
3. People making lousy noises while eating, or licking their fingers passionately while eating

Do you find all or any of the about disgusting?

Yes? What's your problem?


But they disgusted you, right? Isn't it precisely their prerogative to likewise to use their fingers, nose, mouth and other orifices the way they want to?


No, but honestly, what I saw about that girl disgusted me beyond reasons involved in above three examples.


Now I will try to explain, why.


The other three examples I gave--what do they tell us about the people concerned? That they are coarse, possibly unhygienic, inconsiderate of others' attention, and lack a sense of aesthetics.


But why did I feel more disgusted at that girl?

Because that attitude is representative of things fundamentally so wrong with any human being. Picture this:

You're talking with someone. Possibly, the person is talking something grave, and a part of you wants that person to be distracted by you if of the opposite gender, or if the same gender, to be envious of you! This is hypocrisy of highest kind. Not being truthful to oneself, as well as to one's present. Also, such a person is living their life on others' terms, wanting their approval. And approval from any random person, not specifically the people they themselves value.


I have to make many more clarifications. I'll feel the same kind of disgust if I see someone trying to show off their knowledge out of context, or status or wealth. Or those saying "yes" all the time to please others. Or considering themselves as much worthy as gauged by just about anyone. All these things have one thing common to them--lack of truthfulness to oneself, a lack of certain kind of straightforwardness. Honestly, I wouldn't have disrespect for someone plainly going and asking someone--"Do you think I'm attractive enough?" What I don't like is the subliminal influencing through any means. At a much larger scale, it's the same kind of hypocrisy that makes our politicians do things subversive to the interests of the country in name of benefit to one 'community' or the other. Also, how little or high is the chance that persons not averse to wearing revealing clothes to attract attention of just about anyone, wouldn't do so at the workplace to get promotions, or colleges to get extra marks (something I've myself noticed happening)? Is this honorable? Of course, the one giving into such distractions and extending undue favors would be deserving of same blame of indulging in immorality (click).


But, what had really agitated me was that once there was a spat between one of the coordinators of our coaching institute and the owner of the hostel regarding quality of the food served, and coincidentally, when the aforementioned girl was present their, she had been labeled as "characterless" by the hostel owner, because she had been going out alone with guys at night on walk. I was really disgusted by the owner. Afterall, he had no right to interfere with her personal life, who she moved out with, what all she did, and I too had made all the right noises as to how, the girl is a mature, grown up adult, and it was very, very mannerless of the owner to have said that. But a part of me was wondering, did I not also conclude the same thing a month back (then)? That was my hypocrisy. To have something with utmost verbal strength, but just half strength of actual conviction behind those words. And quite obviously, the girl left the hostel to live elsewhere in some days.


Some more clarifications:

1. I never felt even once that owning to her dressing, she deserved to be badmouthed, or eve teased, or molested.

2. I think a saree can be much more revealing than what she was wearing, if so intended by the one wearing.

3. I'm no fan of idea of "preservation of culture", something I might discuss in one of my coming posts. I've not even mentioned the Indian culture perspective above.

4. What all I've analyzed for the above girl applies to males, as well as to all other spheres of life.

5. I'd try my best to not be judgmental about the girl, if were to have any interaction with her. But, my above conclusions will definitely weigh heavily on me. If I find her a nice, upright person otherwise, I'd really be forced to do a rethink on my criteria for judging people. Maybe, I'd try to know her better, and understand, why would she like to wear those kind of clothes, which would make people notice only the superficial aspects of her personality, and maybe, not value her emotions, thoughts, words, deeds, or innovative ideas? But on the whole, in my life, whenever I've tried too hard to make allowances for others' acts that I would find objectionable, I've ended up on the wrong side of judgment, meaning, those people have indeed turned out to be unreliable and opportunistic.


The crux of this post is, if someone has right to wear whatever they want, or behave however they like, I have equal right to draw conclusions about them. Of course, I don't have any right to impose my beliefs on them. And such conclusions are bound to have bearing on how generous would I be with them, or how sympathetic I'd feel if they're troubled. And most important, how much would I respect them as fellow humans.