Commonwealth Games : Why we should blame our School Teacher?

(This post relates to the Commonwealth Games Fiasco)

"Shame Shame Puppy Shame, India"

"yeah... so? What's your point?"

For the record, I am rooting for the complete disaster - and I know I am not going to get it. Like before, India can even bribe the countries to come over and it will be a grand success. And it will be a victory for the country and emblematic of India's arrival on the world stage for 67th time in last 7 years making us the #1 contender in the "Most Arrivals on the Global Stage" category. India seems to be running slower to the world stage than that moron of a Bollywood hero who runs towards the heroine to marry her in the final scene of a soupy Hindi movie.

Anyway, back to the point ... I am not at all surprised with this entire fiasco AT ALL. This is us, folks ... we are a proud nation full of 'Dr. last-minute-wing-it' s ... remember how we study for our exams? ... and like most things in this universe, it works sometimes, the other times it doesn't ... even Dinosaurs had their bad days. It is embarrassing that so many people are volunteering forward to criticize the politicians for corruption and lying and are upset about how they have put India to shame on the international stage.  This is so typical of all of us. What ever shit we might be made of, we would never want our bosses to know about it ...  Indian Professional Etiquette - IPE 101 !!!

Let me help you avoid this futile trap of moral relativism: Organizing an international sports event requires too much of team work and we as a nation have never been trained for it. Further, it fits into the larger picture of India's major problems - "our society is designed and optimized for personal success and we are terrible at team-work as a culture".

I hold our educational system entirely culpable in this regard. Once we are past the age of sharing toys, the whole trip into an ego-centric wonderland begins with our parents advising us to stop playing and expect us to score better than our friends. There is our intro into the bizarre world of entrance exams, personal achievement and selfish enterprise. Children are sent to tuition morning and evening; the schools are cutting down on games to focus better on marks and ranks. Well ... what do they care? They just want less noise in parent-teacher meetings. Keep in mind, ours is one of the few countries in the world, you can become anything just by cracking a goddamn exam. Clearing an exam like IIT-JEE at 16 years of age can ensure you everything : a job for life - no matter how serious you were in college, a wife - however your social skills be, and if things luck out, even grand kids ensue smoothly !!! This trend has gone so ridiculously far that the IIT coaching industry runs into a market of hundreds of crores of rupees and the entire playgrounds in the country are deserted. Look at the following ad. Ain't it just sad?



Holy shit of bovine type! Selfish parents end up raising selfish children - Simple as that. All through school and college, we are told that the only numbers that shape our entire life would be:

"How much is your score ?" ...
"what is your rank?" ...
"what is your percentage" ...
"what is the position in your class ?" ...
"When is the next exam?"

It's all the way a "me-me-me" life. Our obsession with numbers left us with an education that de-emphasized team-work and group-projects right from school till college. Did you ever do a proper project with your classmates and get that sense of equivalent achievement of clearing an entrance exam ? None ... And that's what people in western cultures do instead of remembering answers to questions. Look at this irony, folks. Young people under 25 are getting into B-Schools and Civil Services with no training in team-work and they are going to run the country's businesses and frame policies. Plus it doesn't help a lot that most times, people go to these B-Schools because they hate their software job. For the first time in 20-something years, our hero will be a part of a professional team when he enters a job. With no training so far, most of us obviously are going to suck at team work. So, aren't we obviously raising generations of self-centered people? The system is absolutely simple : "selfish in => selfish out", which explains a lot of these bad results. The common justification those lazy educational ministries give is "There are too many people. How can we find who is the best?". My thought is : if there are too many people, it makes all the more sense to put the emphasis on the group. It is perfectly understandable if they don't have group home-works in Greenland and Antarctica but what about us? We are dangerously under-trained for practical world that our young people are lost in the workplace if they don't have exams ... It's pitiful that something like the following is happening everyday :



... Given such a culture, you'd think we quake the world as far as individual brilliance is concerned. Not even close, dude. As all of us can't be good at cracking exams, we remain as a bunch of mediocres trying to hide behind the glitz of numbers. All that GDP growth to the number of Bollywood movies per year are just masks we kid ourselves with when we can't solve the real problems. And we can't solve the real problems because that requires team efforts at all levels.  Very early in life, I am just told that "you are on your own" ... and I have no training for 21 years in trying to work with a group. What do you expect of me?  The power of the group helps us cope up with inefficiencies of the self and yet be contributory to grander kind of success. That is the evolutionary motive for why we form a family and a culture ... Religion is so popular in the world (in spite of whatever the goddamn atheists might say), ONLY because it makes us recognize the power and belonging to the group over the individual as an evolutionary force. How come we misread the script when it comes to Indian workplace ?

No, we are not raising the bar instead we work our way around the system. We copy in exams, we bribe the TT for a better seat in trains and we throw the banana peels on the road -  we are not trained in thinking in terms of our relation to environment we are a part of. Any profession has a few stalwarts whose extraordinary spirit has taken them abound and transcend the averages … but I am waiting to see a really good team India thing. And don't give me that shit about team-India of cricket. Crap!!! … the whole history of cricket in India is just a few jewels and a whole waste of time. And today, India is #1 because the other countries are tired of the game nor have the money at today's prices to practice and besides in the internet age, wasting 8 hrs on a single sport result is dumb !!! Yet, it is our favorite sport ... we don't feature at all in any of the other team sports … heck, the two best tennis players couldn't stay together for 2 years. And if Lalit Modi had to share his glory for the IPL, he would have not even taken any pains to measure the hemlines on those cheer leaders. That is, sadly, the story of us.

Folks, I strongly think we can't solve the problems of energy security, climate change etc. by writing exams - NO, not in any foreseeable future. So, I think we need this part of training in our schools to begin as early as possible. We need to make team-sports cool again. SCREW CRICKET. WE NEED A SOCCER TEAM FOR THE COUNTRY ASAP !!! That is a key factor that separates our country from China or the west.  Whatever pressures they might be reeling under, these cultures are fundamentally superior at team-work and the power of identity through participative productivity. I am not saying we haven't achieved anything ever. I am merely pointing out that we can do a lot better if we have a better training at thinking in terms of a team as opposed to individual brilliance. I have argued previously that people chase money because they don't know what to do with their lives and the bank balance is a convenient, countable and the comparable measure of success. If we have to change the course, we need to create not jobs but engage in the industry of soul-searching. We need to empower  people to find what they want.

My argument is your politicians come from the same system. If they were being manufactured in a separate factory, we could have bombed it long ago. But alas! they mushroom from among us, snake their way into power through the magic-wand of the people - democracy. They are the product of same kind of thinking - only more ambitious and greedy. They are ill-trained as a group to co-operate and understand the image and the concept of a nation. CWG is not a isolated crash. Believe me, the legacy started long ago when our kinder garten teacher gave us a list of important questions to study for the next days exam. We just don't get trained to achieve stuff like that.

Also, two jobs no man ever even gets trained for anywhere in the world are
1) The husband
2) The politician.
There are no degrees offered in that. Isn't that an amusing coincidence especially looking at the results?

[Please refer to my earlier posts on the commonwealth controversy : here and here ]

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The Unbearable Shallowness of Being : Choice in Shopping

(I better have a point by the end)

I admit it shamelessly today. I have had enough with having too many choices over trivial things in this country. No offense to this great country but this whole choice thing in the All-American shopping experience sucks big time. Remember, I come from a culture where my mom likes to hold exclusive decision rights for everything - right from my toys to brown covers over my textbooks to even a bride. So, when I just came to America and saw 30 brands of ice-cream in 50 different flavors, it was natural for me to go, "woah! This is it … I am in the land of the free, home of the brave … ".   

But 4 summers later, I have gotten sore of having to sift through a countless kinds of merchandise everyday as a part of merely making it through the day. In a sparkling clear moment of a freakish traffic-collision  where self-enlightenment crashed into self-realization in reverse gear, I knew I don’t need this much of choice … esp. in shopping or eating.

Consider the following scenarios:

SCENARIO # 1 - THE COFFEE SHOP

I just step hurriedly into the coffee-shop. Without understanding my limited IQ, the clerk treats me as if I am a recreational part-time gourmet coffee connoisseur trying to review their coffee-shop for the local magazine while I just wanted to inject some caffeine in my bloodstream and run to my research meeting for which I am two hours late already.

I know many of you heard this joke but I always calmly wonder how simple it used to be.

Considering my social awkwardness, I have longer conversations with the Starbucks lady than I could in an entire evening if I ever go on a date !!!

SCENARIO #2 - THE RESTAURANT

Ordering how you precisely want your meal made was cute for two minutes in 2003 when I saw Meg Ryan do it in "When Harry met Sally". Here's a little secret about me - "Honestly, I don’t know how to make the food and besides, I don't even want to" - That is EXACTLY why I came to the restaurant. Being a vegetarian, there is generally 1 relevant option out of some 80 and after I get through the process of describing my meal + drink and the waitress goes "How do you like your eggs?" Or worse "How do you like your side salad?" .  "Hmm ... How do I like my side salad?" Answering this question has become so central to obtaining my meal and hence, staying alive that this question is presently at #2 on my list of "Must-know answers before I die". Take a look:

The goddamn Subway is even worse. I have to describe each one of the vegetables I need in my sub and too many jalapenos tend to spoil the whole meal in the end. In India, no one EVER asked me if I like my dosa crispy or my Sambar stale? That's the other end of the spectrum when I didn't even know I should complain.

SCENARIO # 3 - THE SUPERMARKET

The frickin' supermarket with its plethora of choices is so huge that finding what you are looking for is harder than locating the capital of Tunisia on a world-map while jogging on a treadmill. Besides, I could never find that simple-minded Vanilla Ice-cream I want. There are always some chocolate chips or dehydrated strawberries ruining the whole thing or it would be fat-free or lactose free or it turns out to be an ice-cream with natural vanilla flavor. If it's "naturally- flavored", why can’t they put just the real "vanilla"? What's the point of taking vanilla from nature, make a flavor out of it and then put it? Seems dumb and tastes awful !!! Anyway …

This prerequisite to be cognizant of the qualitative features of the product I intend to buy is a hell a lot of, as Alvin Toffler puts it, "nearly-traumatic information-overload". The whole ordeal of memorizing the flavors, the prices, the brands, the calorie information, the store locations and the on-going promotional sales to buy something like a bag of chips can even hurt my GPA and is proving to be a BIG pain in the pelvic posterior. Believe me, there are times when I have postponed buying a pair of jeans for 3 months because every time I went to the store, I remember some other store selling the same thing cheaper or on sale next weekend. Not just with me, research shows the same thing, we don't end up making the best choices just because there are more options even if you are bestowed with the best set of shopping genes. And, I argue, it's just a waste of time and not just because it doesn't improve my flirting skills.

More disturbing trend is how these lazy-assed, mid-level managers in these giant corporations are asking me  for marketing suggestions or just do idle marketing. What the hell is that all about?

EXHIBIT- A: Dominos Pizza is asking me to take a picture of  my pizza and send it to them which they would put it on their ads.  

"Hellooo! I already bought the pizza. There is no point in advertising it to myself. Is there?".

EXHIBIT- B: The movie "Snakes on the Plane", I heard, incorporated suggestions from the internet for Godssakes!

"In response to the Internet fan base, New Line Cinema incorporated feedback from online users into its production, and added five days of reshooting".
(Source: Wikipedia on "Snakes on the Plane")

It wasn't any shock, it turned out to be a B-grade movie that couldn't be saved even by nudity.

EXHIBIT- C: Minute Maid recently changed the shape of the apple juice bottle and advertised it as !!!NEW LOOK!!!

What?? Which Nobel-prize winning shopper would go, "oooh! New bottle. Let me have some apple juice" ?

I am convinced that these are evil ploys designed to waste my time. And worse, they are now even asking me the caption I want on my T-shirts. If I had the wit to write captions on my T-shirt, I would be having a PhD in Literature.

I have given up. I no longer even dread that look characterized by cerebral discrimination I get when I say, "jeez! I don't know what I want …!". And for the record, I also no longer consider my friend lame anymore even though he always orders the same kind of coffee. You know what, America? Give me something. Anything. I can't tell the difference anyway.

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Silly Points - Episode 3

SWAMIS IN SWAMPS

Look at it this way. He is above average intelligent, well-read, low husky voice, calm demeanor plus no stage-fright and he's got the gift of the gab. Stays leans and fit with all that yoga shit and has thick, healthy hair. Moreover, as if this charm isn't enough, his perpetual half-naked attire is a visual aphrodisiac. In the western world, these are the kind of guys with a healthy dating fortune, even without the consultation of horoscopes. "Swami" in India and he's called a Johnny Depp in the USA. All I am saying is he can nail the whole dating thing better than the average grubby Indian male, if he tries. So, I, for one, am totally unperturbed when a sex scandal involving a Guru/Swami comes out. They have to solve your problems and not get laid? Get real, for godssakes or godmanssakes!!!

Also, in the future, there is a chance of the governments limiting the number of GASP!s you can take in a day. So, don't get used to gasping each time you hear some sex scandal breaks out in a company or a ministry or some organization. In any group greater than 10, it's not unusual for at least one to get abnormally horny in the middle of a workweek. 

Chill!

FLAWSOPHY'S FOCUS ON FACEBOOK TRENDS

I have repeatedly observed that whenever some girl uploads her picture on Facebook and begets about 30+ comments, the guy who reportedly took the pic makes it a point to announce that he actually took the picture. Stop that! It looks desperate.

HORRORSCOPES

It's about time someone asked Ram Gopal Varma to either regroup his shit or get the hell out of the Tinsel-town. I am tired of these pretentious actors and actresses saying how it's a honor to work with such a great director. Directing, my ass! He just plainly sucks, along with his Hollywood rip-offs and unfunny horror movies. Alright, I agree that he started off well and had some awesome work till he followed the monomaniacal advice for creativity-enhancement from that bohemian monk from western Europe - "Roll up your previous scripts and smoke 'em all".

He should even stop producing those retarded horror flicks with immediate effect and a tip to Indian horror movie writers : "You don't have to explain the existence of a ghost by having a sub-plot of a sex-deprived flat-chested lady who died pre-maturely of unrequited love - NOT NECESSARY!!! ". The whole point of a horror story is to have violence and death with no bounds set by physics and  biology of nature. Let the killing go on uninterrupted. Geez!

P.S. I do admire his guts to experiment.

WHY GOD ISN'T ...

Did you ever notice that we never refer to God as Smart or Funny? We have bestowed him with glory, panache, powers, compassion, love, omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence - but we never sing praises of him as funny or smart. Why is that? This is true of every religion. Are we subconsciously thinking, "What's the big deal?" that once he's both omnipotent and omnipresent. Do we just think it's easy and trivial from thereon to create life and be magnanimous once you know everything and can do anything?

I just think God has to be smart. For one thing, He surely knows He doesn't have to answer EVERY prayer and and His magnificent discernment in this respect is very impressive. I'd bet anything that God has an awesome sense of humor. He doesn't even have to prove it all the time. Remember the time He just made these people search all through the holy-book and vouch for His sense of humor. That's funny and smart, as far as I am concerned.

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A Concise History of Saying Sorry

Today, I am a sharing my most recent epiphany. I am convinced that the greatest anthropological invention since the dawn of man had to be the concept of 'SORRY'. Think about it. When was the last time you screwed up while simultaneously wishing that she won't accept your 'sorry'. Almost never. Right? That's what I am saying : “Thank God for ‘Sorry’”. We can't imagine the world without it. If it weren't for the concept of sorry, we'd be killing each other over misplaced underwear.

Not just that. Ability to apologize and graciously accept one is the hallmark of a civilized and cultured society. The degree of civilization and culture has always been measured by the nature and the number of mistakes that can be offset by uttering a "Sorry". As an example, look at the following time-line on the acceptability of a 'sorry' for an ordinary offense like "Adultery" (The choice of offense was purely alphabetical).
 

UPDATE: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart had THE EXACT SAME JOKE on "adultery" in the segment "You're Not Helping - Iran's Crisis of Modernity" , (dated 09/08/2010 - 1 day after this post !!! ) 

That's right! Aren't we waaayy cool with a lot more screw-ups than  our grandmothers were - else, we would be in a sorryful state! Now, By principle of extension, I dare to conjecture that most relationship problems in an ideal world can be solved by:

1. Saying Sorry, if you are a guy;
2. Getting a Sorry, if you are a girl
P.S. It doesn't matter who is to blame in the situation
P.S.S If you are not in an ideal world, first try and get there. And then, follow (1) or (2).

Not just at the level of individuals, these days we have got companies saying 'sorry' as a part of their Public Relations Campaigns just like BP did after their Oil Spill Disaster. MTV India was asked to scroll "we are truly sorry!" for 3 days 24/7 for use of vulgar language in their program "Roadies II". The pope apologizes twice a year for something or the other. And not just companies, even Countries  are not left behind in catching onto the S-word trend as in, Australia apologized to aboriginals in 2008 for 'past discrimination' ; the United States Congress has apologized to all Black people for 'years of slavery, racism and Jim Crow laws' in 2008 and recently, Japan apologized to South Korea for 'its 35-year colonial rule of the Korean peninsula'.

True, the concept of "Sorry" is just civilized behavior and has a universal charm of a bikini clad model.  I am  all for saying at least a sorry after a couple of generations have been destroyed and disadvantaged by your aggression and selfish guile - a 'sorry' can heal the wounds of time. But folks, my problem is not about apologizing after a goof-up. That's fine & dandy! I just think not everyone is very sincere like Tiger Woods about heart-felt apologizing. I suspect something like this is happening at a company near you :
 

I bet a lot of companies and politicians are taking risks as they misrepresent facts just because they can shrug and apologize later. Else, how else can you explain the following behavior :  

1. In an attempt to "engage industry in pursuit of science-driven social change", PepsiCo. joined the Science Blogs network, started a nutrition blog and ended up advertizing it's products - A breach of trust.

2. Coca Cola marketed a product called "VitaminWater" without any trace of vitamins in it.

The above two cases strike to me as if a manager just said "Let's give it a shot. We'll apologize if someone raises an objection".

I wonder why the companies and political parties and organizations even bother to apologize. They exist not as emotional bundles of protoplasm (like humans) but have very clear functional mission statements. Shouldn’t they be just doing 'damage control' by paying money or resigning?

(May be Continued ... )

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Rescuing Vegetarianism

It has been brought to my attention from reliable sources, that the confusion surrounding various classes of Vegetarianism is surmounting. People are unable to decide what it means anymore. Thanks your stars, for today I am in a benevolent mood and I have resolved to  help make a difference in the world around me. So, I offer to step forward to clear the confusion; to help the  general public sift through these impostors that are posing as vegetarians. Dear fellow social beings, it shall be proven that there is only one true kind of vegetarianism and we will bust the entire fake racket in a short while.

Let's face it that this internet age has made everyone unbearably smart. Everyone has an opinion; no one takes anyone's word for  anything and everyone has to Google and verify! Henceforth, I would first like to prove my authenticity. I come from a country where 80% of food is vegetarian. I have  been brought up in a completely vegetarian household and not surprisingly, I still belong to the same household and it's  been 27 years. So, I know "Vegetarian". Once for all, I would like to propose a socially acceptable definition for the same. What the hell , anyway?  Newton got his laws by being the first to state them formally. So can I.

I am  already sensing some skepticism already in form of  "woow … wooow … but doesn't milk come from  cows?". Hey smarty pants, yes! I am adding milk because my mom did not let me go to school or go to  play till I gulped down my allocated full glass of milk everyday of my school life. OK? It's been a part of my  system for years and Did we not agree upon me making ALL the rules here?

Moving on. Any deviations from the aforementioned definition are fake and they ought to be ostracized  from our community. Some of the important deviations are presented below:

Let's rescue the vegetarian community from the following aliens:

PESCATARIANS - A fish is NOT a vegetable - the main reason being it can move on it's own! Moreover, I have a feeling that these insecure blokes are just in it to proclaim loudly that they are not eating meat any more. Remember, they are the only type to have a wiki page that has a list of celebrity cult members : 

 

EGGETARIANS - "You are eating a potential life. Out you go!!! " (However, egg-substitute consumers can reapply but only after answering the question, "Why the hell am I eating such crap?")

VEGANS - Urban, snobbish and fat-pursed - A complete embarrassment as  these self-important people think they are carrying the burden of the sins of humankind for all the murder we do in the name of food. Getting inspired by PETA for the naked chicks doesn't impress me. Food is meant to be healthy and enjoyed. Soya products suck. "Sometimes, the road less taken is less taken for a reason" - Seinfeld. (If you are really allergic to milk, you are advised to disengage yourself from this group and consult a local physician).

I have excluded the "Only Organic" planet-savers, because they deserve a complete post. And now for the last catagory - the SEMI-VEGETARIANS. Look at their amusing definition :

"Semi-vegetarian  diets consist largely of vegetarian foods, but may include fish or poultry, or other meats on an infrequent basis. Those with diets containing fish or poultry may define "meat" only as mammalian flesh and may identify with vegetarianism." (Source - Wikipedia)

Just no principles. No rules. Just want to do anything they like and want to belong to the group. Nice try, semi-vegetarians. Take your existential crap elsewhere. I have, for long, had a problem with the prefix "Semi-" used to indicate "incomplete" as in semi-literate,  semi-formal, semi-touch, semi-pro, semi-automatic, semi-hard etc. It always sounded like it was invented  by someone terrible at math. Semi- means 'half'. Folks, take my word for I am pursuing a PhD in Engineering - Unless two of  those semi-'objects' make a full 'object', you can't technically call it a "semi-". I am rejecting the  application even for "Semi-final" because two of them together are not equal to a final !!! There's your  bonus Math lesson.

In conclusion, we should totally reject these arrogant identity seekers who think they are doing a service to the animal kingdom by doing as they please and completely ruining the context and the meaning of our way of life. Jeez, what do they think this all is. Some kind of religion ???

Ciao.

P.S. I eat egg from time-to-time. Once again, these are my rules and my wish.

(Special Thanks to G2) 


UPDATE : Just in case you feel that this post aims at promoting vegetarianism, please recheck your opinion. This is aimed at clarifying that either you are a vegetarian or (hmm ... what's the opposite ... yeah ...) a non-vegetarian. No hanging around others' property please ...

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