May the fourth be with you!

May 4th, 2008 admin

After many months of being unable to work much on my website, I ironed out enough wrinkles to be able to launch this new look, Wordpress-based webpage, which is more blog-like than my earlier webpage, which used the collection-of-pages style. I hope that the Wordpress format will make it a lot easier for me to keep posting more regularly now since I do not have to bother with formatting HTML etc. to make the page appear right. It may, therefore, put you squarely at the receiving end of some not-so-well-though-out, whimsical posts. With that warning, let me start off the content dilution that Wordpress allows me with a picture of some fresh and juicy strawberries we picked yesterday at Jean’s Strawberry patch in Apex (a 15 minutes drive away).

Posted in Events | 2 Comments »

Spelling Bee - Can you spell a L-E-T-D-O-W-N

January 7th, 2008 admin

Kavita and I saw the Broadway musical, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”, at the Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh’s downtown yesterday. We bought the cheapest tickets ($21), but given that the auditorium was almost half empty, it was not hard to move down closer to the stage. I was not having as much fun as I normally do at musicals and theatre. I wondered if getting closer might help us catch some subtle expressions which I was missing, and, therefore, not enjoying the play as much. We did move closer to the stage, about 20 minutes into the show, of course, trying to choose an appropriate time so as to least disturb the thin audience and the performers.

However, the show never really managed to significantly challenge my expectations from a play. There were moments where it was inspiring, but most of it was a drag. The storyline, whatever little there was of it, was linear, going through each character’s circumstances and personalities one by one. There was hardly any complex, thought-provoking, interaction between the characters. The ballad, called the “The I Love You Song”, where one of the contestants remembers her mother who is in far-away India, seeking enlightenment, is powerful. Another sequence that I liked was one where a contestant, who, before spelling a word, always writes it on the floor using his “magical” right foot, does it in super slow motion. The sequence starts off at normal speed, ramps up in speed to a frenzy, and then slows down to a low frequency stupor, before rebounding to normal. The songs were not awe-inspiring, in general, and some dialogues bordered on being vulgar.

The stage and props remained quite static throughout, with not much in terms of visual impact. The literary impact, which must have been the main motivation behind making this a play, instead of letting it stay in the book that it originates from, was not terribly impressive either. I am sure I did not get all the subtle jokes, but before I denigrate myself too much, let me add that I did not want to go the show having done any homework. I went there to be entertained; if I did not catch all the subtle jokes, maybe they were too subtle. There was one piece of clever wordplay, where “what” is spelled by taking the w from a word where w is silent, h is taken from a word in which h is silent and so on. Such a “what” is never heard, claimed the contestant. Clever, but such cleverness would do just as well staying in a book. The theatre is supposed to be a feast for the eye and the ear, thought-provoking and awe-inspiring. This play does not manage to consistently meet such criteria, although it grazes those thresholds once in a while. There were some members from the audience who participate in the early stages of the spelling bee, providing some opportunity for seemingly impromptu, but potentially well-rehearsed, jokes, before their pre-planned elimination. Some of the commentary and references were from surprisingly recent political events. Participation by some members of the audience and this sensitivity to current news indicates that the script for the play lends itself to some modification and improvization.

Reviews I have read online were surprisingly positive, even rave, about the show. This is a small-budget production; maybe my expecting it to be comparable to the few other plays I have seen - “Phantom of the Opera”, “42nd Street” and “Annie Get Your Gun” - was wrong. However, even then, given that the tickets were priced just as any regular show would be ($21 to $70), I just did not guess that it would be a low-budget production. I am glad we did not buy more expensive tickets. I feel that plays are over-priced in the US. Except for one of the contestants walking into the audience throwing candy, most of the action was on the stage, which stayed pretty much unchanged as well. I do not see why I needed to go there in person to watch this show, when I could have probably seen it clearer, and, for less, on a DVD, feeling just as involved.

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Entering the US using an Advance Parole

January 3rd, 2008 admin

I have been using my H-1B Work Visa to enter the US the last few times I traveled abroad. A few days back I entered the US using an Advance Parole document, instead. I provide a few tips here for someone in the same situation. An hour or so before the inbound flight is expected to land in the US Port of Entry the airline staff will pass around a Customs Declaration form, a Visa Information form (white in color) and a Visa Waiver form (green in color). Everyone has to fill out the Customs Declaration form. Its purpose is to declare to the Customs official at the port of entry, how much money and what other good you are bringing in to the US. It is straightforward to fill out and requires you to make some quick estimates about the value of the stuff you are bringing in. for the purposes of this form and the others, if you are traveling on an Advance Parole, you are a “resident”. That is, you are not a visitor and you are not a citizen. You do not have your Green Card yet, so you are not a permanent resident yet, but you still are considered a resident. The green, Visa Waiver form applies to some specific countries and the airline staff can help you identify if you need to fill that form. India is not one of those countries. Indians, traveling on either a visitor or work Visa, or an Advance Parole, will need to fill out the white, Visa form. A part of this form eventually becomes the I-94 card that is stapled to your passport by the immigration official at the port of entry. A question in the white Visa form ask for the place and date of Visa approval. I simply put in the place and date of the Advance Parole approval, since I was using that document instead of a Visa to reenter the country. After landing at the port, Newark, in my case, I went through the Immigration Check first. There are 2 separate groups of lines. One group is for US Citizens and Residents. Another is for visitors and other Visa holders (such as H-1B or F-1 visa). I went to the US Citizens and Residents line. This line is much shorter than the other one. An Immigration Officer checked my Advance Parole, Customs form, the white, Visa form and my passport, put them all into a clear plastic envelope and asked me to take those to another officer who would verify the Advance Parole details. I assume this is needed only for people traveling on Advance Parole, and not for Citizens or Permanent Residents (Green Card holders). I took an elevator down to this next officer. His cubicle was actually right next to the baggage claim carousels and I think their office also inspects luggage which fails customs clearance. After sitting for about 10 minutes in the waiting area there, the officer got to my envelope and called me over. He checked everything was good and gave me my stamped and dated Advance Parole original, the stamped and dated Customs Form, the stamped and dated I-94 stapled to my stamped and dated passport. Then I stepped out of that area, picked up my checked-in baggage from the baggage claim carousel and joined the customs inspection line. I handed over the Customs Declaration form to the officer there and walked out of there with my luggage. Some people were being diverted, along with their luggage, for a customs inspection. I am not sure if it was because their Customs Form was not stamped like mine was, or because they wanted to actually inspect something in the luggage because of what was declared by the traveler. The last step, in my case, was to re-check-in the check-in baggage and go through the security check again because I had a domestic flight to catch to get back to Raleigh. The re-check-in area was placed, conveniently enough, right after the Customs. So I could not miss it. My bags had been checked in all the way to Raleigh at Delhi itself. So I did not have to check-in again. I simply dumped by bags in the re-check-in area, where it was helped on to the moving luggage belt by a couple of guys. Then I walked a but further and noticed the long security check line to reenter the terminal. That was it. My international journey was over and the domestic journey began.

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On the nature of religion

October 27th, 2007 admin

Recently, we had a long discussion on our IIT Guwahati, Class of 99, Google groups. It was related to a petition filed with the Indian Supreme Court regarding a song in a Bollywood movie, the lyrics, costumes and imagery in which were deemed derogatory to religious people in India. The discussion meandered its way through several interesting topics and opinions. Here I present a glimpse of my views on the topic of religion and why it is futile to judge what is religiously right or wrong. My friend, Samya, encouraged me to put these views up on the website. I present my thoughts verbatim from my email and therefore any contextual references that seem out of place or emotional here should, kindly, be excused.

I find the notion of religion an interesting subject to think about. Even in this short discussion we have found many points of view, many frames of reference, many notions hidden behind the word “religion”. Thinking of religion reminds me of the story of the 5 blind men trying to understand what an elephant is. I do not see those men, as the story seems to imply, as lacking any specific faculty. I see them as normal humans. I do not see the elephant as an understandable subject that is only difficult to understand. Finally, I do not see the blind men as failures because their “limited” point of view. If those were blind men and that elephant was their large unassailable subject, what makes us, the reader of that fable, special in that we are able to see the big picture? In the real world, we are one among those men, and, therefore, we will not be able to see the entire elephant. Even more importantly, what *is* the “entire elephant” in such a real world? Just because the blind men are feeling around does not mean there is an elephant to be discovered. If there was no one to tell those blind men that they were touching an elephant, how would they *ever* know that it was an elephant they were touching? To me the “elephant” is the ability to be able to simultaneously acknowledge that each of the billions of blind men do have a piece of the view that the others will never have. Further, to me the elephant is the ability to distill those billions of view points into some common, uplifting, purposeful goal. This live interaction between the minds and view points of these billions of people is not just impossibly difficult, thankfully, it is unnecessary. Why should there be one common elephant that all have to agree to have understood?

Search for a common religion is like this search for the one elephant. It is impossible. Again, careful when I say impossible, it is nothing to be dejected about. It is an elevating feeling. It is like the blind men saying, “Hold it off for a minute…why do we *have* to *all* see the same thing?” It is an elevating feeling because you can, finally, let your conscience guide you without the haunting feeling that you are missing something. We have a faculty for thinking. The blind men still had the sense of touch. Let us use what we have and figure out what purposeful goal we see from our vantage. Let there be a billion religions for a billion people. Anytime we *name* a religion we are in trouble. There are not enough names to make it worthwhile. And anytime two people who name their religion the same but are at different ends of the elephant, there is bound to be frustration. Anytime two groups of people name their religion differently, they try to evaluate the better point of view, the “true” religion. They try to *help* the other group out by bringing them to their end of the elephant, while not acknowledging that there is no *reason* why their end is really better, except that *they* feel so. This brings in ego. The problem with ego is that it is the tendency to prioritize your thoughts over another person’s thoughts *without* reasoning through them, that is, without using your faculty of thinking honestly.

Therefore, I am cautious anytime I am asked, “What is your religion?”. If I thought about it long enough, I might be able to convey some ideas about what my “religion” is, but it will not make complete sense to anyone else in the world, because no one else shares my exact same position next to this impossible elephant. Why? Because no one else is me.

Here is the conclusion from a John Saxe poem

So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean;
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

The complete poem is here

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On the need for religion

October 27th, 2007 admin

After thinking a bit about the nature of religion, I started thinking about the need for it. Why are the blind men so intent on discovering an elephant? Here are some thoughts related to that topic. Again, Samya was the motivation behind putting these up on this website, and once again, a fable helped me explain the thoughts.

Another fable that I think applies to real life is the “grapes are sour” story . That one, as I recollect, portrays a fox that gives up on reaching a grape vine, consoling itself by saying that the fruit is not worth the effort. The way the story was presented to me seemed to imply that such an attitude is laughable and that one should be honest with oneself.

However, I believe that there is much to look up to in the fox’s attitude. The fox was able to weigh the cost and the benefit given the situation it found itself in, and decide the cost is more than the benefit. Such analysis is very important in real life too. It keeps us from getting stuck. Further, the fable seemed to imply that the fox wrongfully chose to “believe” in falsehood. It knew that the grapes would be sweet, but it still walked away thinking and saying they are sour! But think about it. Lots of people are able to live their life without going insane because of such an attitude. If a poor person suffers from a dreaded illness that has a cure but is expensive (or if a poor person, for no fault of his, gets run over by Salman Khan’s SUV), often they or their relatives resign to their fate saying that such is their karma, or saying that they must have done something wrong in their past lives, or that such was God’s plan, or even more tragically, that God loves that person more than others.

Those we call religious and those we call superstitious might actually be very reasoning oriented. They are so starved for a reason for why bad things happen to them that they create, or succumb to, this pacifying fantasy of their being a superhuman controlling their destiny; that there is someone who sees and cares. If you read the book “The Life of Pi”, this is the underlying theme in the book. There is a plain, calculated, probabilistic world where you do have a certain vaguely measuarable probability of dying in a freak road accident. And then there is the world where the accident had a reason behind it. Someone had a plan for why it had to happen. You did not die a meaningless death. No wonder we choose the latter view of the world under extreme helplessness.

The fox could have walked away acknowledging that it was completely helpless and that it would never, in its lifetime, be able to taste grapes, or, the fox could have walked away genuinely believing that grapes are sour. Guess which way the fox would be able to continue living with some sense of equanimity? Afterall, sometimes, we do take life too seriously, And sometimes, these grapes *are* overrated.

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Finally, one contact list to rule them all

July 2nd, 2007 admin

I have a Yahoo email account. I have a Google email account. I have a few more that I do not use much. Each email application or service provider typically has an Address Book or Contacts List, which we can use to list the names, email addresses and other information about people. For a while, I have been thinking about getting the contact lists organized. There were several layers to the word “organized” and I was apprehensive about starting to peel those layers. The first layer of the problem was figuring out which mail server I wanted to stick to. The next thought was to create a superset of all the contact lists, currently scattered across applications and mail servers, at one place. The next issue was to find a way to update the contact list quickly, rather than clicking around a web-based Address Book or Contact List applications such as the one provided by Yahoo and Google Mail. Then there was the hope that I could keep a copy of the contact list locally on my personal computer, in case, at some point, I did not have internet access to get to the Yahoo Address Book.

This list of requirements seemed formidable in itself, yet, what made me skeptical of a final solution, was one last requirement I had. I had maintained a list of birthdays and anniversaries in a text file separate from the contact lists in the mail servers I mentioned. It was a simple text file and a simple Perl script I wrote could go through this text file everyday and send me an email if it found any upcoming event. I wanted to retain the ability to do such scripting and not have to maintain a separate text file version of the contact list, just for the purposes of being able to run such a reminder script.

After collecting and formulating these thoughts over a long time, I finally spent a few minutes last week looking for a solution to the multi-layered problem. Searching on the internet revealed that there WAS a relatively easy solution that fixes ALL the above problems, including giving me the ability to run a simple script to extract birthday and anniversary information! Here is the solution. Yahoo and Google Address Books allow the existing contacts-list to be exported as a CSV (Comma Separated Variable) file, or a CSV file to be imported to populate the Contact List or Address Book application. A CSV file, as the name suggests, is just a regular text file, with many fields belonging to a record typed across a single line, with the comma symbol (”,”) separating the fields. A new record starts in a new line. The file can be opened with a regular text-editor such as Notepad, Wordpad or Textpad in Windows and vi, pico and emacs in Unix. The file may also be opened using Microsoft Excel spread sheet and the fields show up in separate column and the lines show up in separate rows. This solves the problem of easily modifying the contact list in bulk and storing the contact list as a local file on your personal computer. The CSV file is compatible across Yahoo and Google, and probably across many other applications like Microsoft Outlook and Orkut (web-based networking application). The CSV file can then be imported into Yahoo Mail, Google Mail or other such applications. Problem solved. Single contact list. Storable and updateable locally. Uploadable to multiple web-based servers.

The CSV file based common contact list also allowed me to enter the anniversary and birthday in appropriate columns. I wrote a script called contact.py in the Python scripting language to read the contact list file as a simple text file (in the CSV format) and search for upcoming events. This allowed me to get rid of the earlier text file I had my Perl script read. The CSV file, I called it contactlist.csv, was truly the one file I needed to retain for all my address-book related needs. Whenever I want to add a new contact or update information about an existing contact, I update the local copy of the contact list, contactlist.csv, and then import it into Yahoo Mail and Google Mail to keep them up to date. I have noticed that before I import the latest contactlist.csv file into Yahoo or Google, I need to delete all the existing contacts from Yahoo and Google, respectively. Once, we have an empty contact list on the mail server, the importing of contactlist.csv recreates the complete list. Not starting with an empty contact list on the mail servers, creates duplicates, probably because the “import” function is not smart enough to recognize duplicates.

Here is an example of what a few rows from the CSV file contactlist.csv looks like. It gives us idea of what the fields are. The example also shows that all the fields in a CSV file need not be filled. A field can be left empty if we do not know the information relating to that field for a given contact. Also, I use xxxx for the year field of a date (such as a birthday or an anniversary date), in case I do not know the year. This is OK because the script that parses this CSV file, called contact.py, and which is shown later, does not use the year field to determine if an anniversary is approaching. It only uses the day and month parts of the field.

First,Middle,Last,Nickname,Email,Messenger ID,Home,Work,Pager,Fax,Mobile,Other,Yahoo! Phone,Alternate Email 1,Alternate Email 2,Personal Website,Business Website,Title,Company,Work Address,Work City,Work State,Work ZIP,Work Country,Home Address,Home City,Home State,Home ZIP,Home Country,Birthday,Anniversary,Custom 1,Custom 2,Custom 3,Custom 4,Comments,Messenger ID1,Messenger ID2,Messenger ID3,Messenger ID4,Messenger ID5,Messenger ID6,Messenger ID7,Messenger ID8,Messenger ID9,Skype ID,IRC ID,ICQ ID,Google ID,MSN ID,AIM ID,QQ ID
Shahrukh,Mayur,Khan,srk,srk@bollywood.com,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,1/2/xxxx,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Here is the contact.py Python script which then works on the CSV file called contactlist.csv with contents as shown above, and sends email to your email account. You might have to appropriately fix some of the fields in the script to get it to work. I present it here just as a hint.

import csv, datetime, re
from string import split
filename = “contactlist.csv”
warnZone = 8 #number of days before which email reminder should be sent

daysInMonth = [’31′,’28′,’31′,’30′,’31′,’30′,’31′,’31′,’30′,’31′,’30′,’31′];
def dayOfYear(month, day):
#print “%s %s” %(month, day)
doy = 0
for n in range(0,int(month)):
if(n == int(month)-1):
doy = doy+int(day)
return doy
else:
doy = doy+int(daysInMonth[n])

now = datetime.datetime.now()
today_month = now.strftime(”%m”)
today_day = now.strftime(”%d”)
today_doy = dayOfYear(today_month, today_day)
#print “%s %s %s” %(today_month, today_day, today_doy)

reader = csv.reader(open(filename))
content = “”
for row in reader:
firstname = (row[0])
middlename = (row[1])
lastname = (row[2])
anniversary = (row[30])
birthday = (row[29])
anni_split = anniversary.split(’/')
bday_split = birthday.split(’/')
#print “len anni_split %s” %(len(anni_split))
#print “len bday_split %s” %(len(bday_split))
if(len(anni_split)>1): #keeps “a/b/c, gets rid of “A”, as in 1st row
anni_month = anni_split[0]
anni_day = anni_split[1]
anni_doy = dayOfYear(anni_month, anni_day)
diff = anni_doy - today_doy
if((anni_doy >= today_doy and anni_doy <= today_doy + warnZone) or (anni_doy <= today_doy + warnZone - 365)):
# print “%s %s %s’s anniversary is on %s/%s” %(firstname, middlename, lastname, anni_month, anni_day)
content += firstname+” “+middlename+” “+lastname+”\’s anniversary is on “+anni_month+” “+anni_day+”\n”
if(len(bday_split)>1): #keeps “a/b/c, gets rid of “A”, as in 1st row
bday_month = bday_split[0]
bday_day = bday_split[1]
bday_doy = dayOfYear(bday_month, bday_day)
diff = bday_doy - today_doy
if((bday_doy >= today_doy and bday_doy <= today_doy + warnZone) or (bday_doy <= today_doy + warnZone - 365)):
# print “%s %s %s’s birthday is on %s/%s” %(firstname, middlename, lastname, anni_month, anni_day)
content += firstname+” “+middlename+” “+lastname+”\’s birthday is on “+bday_month+” “+bday_day+”\n”

#print “%s” %(content)

import smtplib
smtpserver = ‘mailserver.department.company.com’
AUTHREQUIRED = 0
RECIPIENTS = [’gol345die@gmail.com’]
SENDER = [’con789vey@po.doc.com’]
session = smtplib.SMTP(smtpserver)
smtpresult = session.sendmail(SENDER, RECIPIENTS, content)
if smtpresult:
errstr = “”
for recip in smtpresult.keys():
errstr = “”"Could not deliver mail to : %s Server said: %s %s %s”"” % (recip, smtpresult[recip][0], smtpresult[recip][1], errstr)
raise smtplib.SMTPException, errstr

Posted in Tutorials | No Comments »

Bringing beauty back to the eyes of the beholder

April 16th, 2007 admin

Anant sent me a wonderful article from the Washington Post newspaper today. The article, titled “Pearls Before Breakfast”, by Gene Weingarten, appeared on Sunday, April 8th 2007. Here is the link to the article, hoping the link continues to work for a long time.
Pearls Before Breakfast by Gene Weingarten
Reading the article evoked many thoughts which I sent back to Anant in an email, and also present here, hoping that my thoughts might futher thinking on this issue.

Anil: Anant, this is a brilliant cultural and psycological experiment that results in what the author might have found a little baffling, but fails to surprise me as much. That said, I was very happy to have read it, since it confirms my suspicions. My elation in having correctly identified human nature is matched by my disappointment at its meaning. The article distills the theory of three philosophers, regarding beauty, thus - “What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?”. Yet another viewpoint, we have all heard of, is “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” But I wonder if it really is. Why do people pay hunderds of dollars to go listen to Joshua Bell at a concert? Why do people pay millions for a Van Gogh painting? Are they all acting out of the pure lure of beauty? I sincerely doubt it. Are many a people in the concert audience there because they want to please someone - maybe spouses, maybe bosses, maybe for their own future cocktail discussions? Are many collecters buying paintings to be able to sell it in the future for a higher price, or maybe to appear appropriately dignified and aware in their social circle? Who is judging or defining beauty here? Is it the observer or has the quatification of beauty already been done by a select few; a panel of “experts” who have been given the job of branding, evaluating and weighing beauty of an art-piece? Does their word then percolate down to the ticket costs and price tags? Is this branded beauty making people more aware or less aware of what beauty truly is? Is it training people to not heed to their own sensibilities and evaluations, but rather to always be skeptical of their own belief and to habitually fall in line behind the sensibilities of the masses? This ties in with, and runs against the grain of the overrunning theme in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. “What is good, Phædrus, and what is not good…need we ask anyone to tell us these things?” But is that what is happening? Are we handing over the responsibility, and therefore the return, the true joy, of appreciating what is beautiful, to others? And this ties in with the overriding theme of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead”. The book talks about a world full of second-handers who depend on and imitate, yet resent and try to extinguish the prime movers, the first-handers, the visionaries of this world. This article highlights a subtler expresion of the same distinction; one within a single human being. It points to how, within a single human being, the second-handedness matures and stifles out the primal motivation to be honest, capable judges of beauty that every child is. Thanks for the forward. I hope we can continue to be aware and honest.

The following are a few more thoughts on this issue based on my reply to Anant’s email response, presented as a dialogue (though it was not, Anant’s response came together all at once, not in response to my statements presented below).

Anant: Anil, your analysis was very thought-provoking. I definitely do not think beauty is measurable and even if it is the majority of the people would not have the inclination or time to make that measurement.

Anil: I think beauty is measurable. It is not standardizable. The measure is individual and subjective. The International Standards Organization cannot come up with a “unit” for beauty. However, each one of us, has the capability to distinguish between greater beauty and lesser beauty. Indeed, is that not the resource we tap into when we say “I loved this movie” vs. “It is an Oscar winner, but I did not think it was that great”. What makes me sad is that even though we all have this skill and the sensitivity to appreciate beauty, it is the opposing quality of insensitive honesty that is found lacking. The courage to honestly and individually appraise beauty, rather than meekly submit to others’ appraisals, is what we allow to slip away over time.

Anant: If it is subjective, is there a basic sense of what is beautiful in every person that is built in, like an instinct? Like you said, it is this instinct that is being stifled due to a number of factors: the need to conform, lack of time, wrongly ordered priorities etc.
Another thing that came to my mind was that they really didn’t need Joshua Bell to prove this. For an untrained ear like mine or the majority of people who walked past him, there is no difference between how a world-famous violinist plays and how a merely good violonist would play. But I guess the stamp of “genius” that the experts have put on Bell does make the story more dramatic.

Anil: The whole point of beauty is that even to untrained ears like ours it should still qualify as beautiful! The ear of a child is probably untrained, at least in the sense you probably meant it, yet, if the music conformed to his or her sense of beauty, the child would be attracted to it. It is important to recognize that I am not saying the passers-by were stupid. Maybe the music itself was overrated! Afterall, the music that some Victorian-era musician composed with great elation and suffering, does not automatically qualify to become beautiful. As a slight diversion, my take on the issue of effort is that honest, sincere creative effort more often results in beauty than secondhanded imitation. So, for all the effort the composer and the violinist put in to the performance, the result likely will be quite beautiful. But it does not necessarily have to be. My take on the experiment itself, however, is that things of great beauty might still need time to familiarize themselves to the observer; they might not be beautiful at first sight and might need the “state of mind” that Kant talks about. The results of the experiment were partly sullied by the requirement that music, more than visual art depends on the “state of mind” and time to prove its worth. In any case, my thoughts in the previous mail were more or less independent of this particular experiment, although the article certainly evoked those thoughts.

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The Monk who was not much of a storyteller

September 10th, 2006 admin

The much acclaimed book, “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” by Robin S. Sharma, came to my attention when my wife’s cousin and my Uncle, both, recommended it. I probably raised my hopes too much because upon reading half the book, I recognized a sense of disappointment with myself. I had expected this book to be mesmerizing tale, a story of a monk revealing a hard-earned but deceptively simple viewpoint on how to live. With so many books that try to approach this subject, I had not heard much about the others. I was, therefore, expecting this book to be truly original.I was disappointed by several aspects of the book. Firstly, it is not a story. The lessons are not interpreted by the experiences of the characters as they face life, but rather, the lessons are handed down to the reader on a platter, more like any other self-help book. The book starts off as a story, but within a few quick pages settles into a conversation between a teacher and a student. A few pages further and the conversation shrinks to mainly a monologue by the teacher, with the student unfailingly accepting all the lessons, and obediently egging the teacher to go on. If this was how the book was to be, I do not see the pretense of attempting a story. It would have been to the benefit of the reader if the book were written in the form of a sermon, like most self-help books are.

Second reason for my feeling let down was the writing style. I read on the back cover that Robin Sharma is an electrifying speaker. I listened to some of his speeches on his website and I agree that he speaks very well. He is not, however, and electrifying author. The book, a conversation as it is, comes across as artificial. Two people speaking like a perfect teacher and a perfect student. Speech gliding between realistic wisecracks and unbelievably long-winded paragraphs of complex, flowery constructions and quotations quoted and embraced with unerring finality, push the characters, hurriedly created as they are, further away from a reader. The writing, on top of being unbelievable as speech, is itself quite weak. The book gives us a sense of being written hurriedly to meet a deadline. The style is clearly that of a PowerPoint presentation with bulleted highlights that form the skeleton of the book. Exploration of each of these bulleted and sub-bulleted lists adds the bulk. The exploration, however, is quite shallow and one-dimensional. What I mean by shallow is that the meaning of a bulleted item is explored in an obvious, rather redundant and repetitive way. It often reduces to “Do X. Doing X will improve your life in the following ways…” What I mean by one-dimensional is that the various bullets and sub-bullets that make up the chapters and sections of the chapters, are left disjoint. The only attempt to tie them together is of the type, “Do X and Y and Z all together.” The book has been written not for the really interested, but rather for those accustomed to an executive-summary style of presentations. Quick and to the point. It is, in some sense, a medicine the patient wants rather than the one the patient needs.

Another reason I was a little taken aback at least at the beginning of the book, was that the author relies on a stereotyped image of sages and monasteries in India that matches the western audience’s existing ideas on the topic. So the convenience of unreachable, eternally blissful, centenarian sages living in huts made of flowers in the lap of an unexplored valley in the heavenly Himalayas makes the lessons so much more authentic? I think it takes away from a lesson it’s believability. It dilutes an otherwise perfect thought.

In attempting to infuse authenticity to the teachings by letting these perfect sages be the originators of the thoughts presented in the book, the author’s lack of imagination reflects poorly on these actualized beings. The author comes up with a supposedly symbolic story of a Sumo wrestler and his adventures in a garden. The imagery is so wild and the associations between the symbols and the teachings so hard to understand, let alone remember, that the only reason I can think of for such imagery is to allow memorization by incredulity. The story is so feebly constructed that the audacity of actually publishing it and going with it as the theme, makes it stand out. Think of it like that irritating TV ad which is so irritating that you cannot forget it. On top of this, the author seems to have plagiarized some stories. One is Oscar Wilde’s “The Selfish Giant”, which is related as an ancient Indian tale towards the end of chapter 9. The others - like the protagonist pouring tea into a cup until the cup overflows on to the saucer, on to the table, and eventually, and unnecessarily, on to the Persian rug or the one where a child starts building a table for his parents so they can sit separately during dinner time just like his grandmother is being asked to today - I have read these stories before. Maybe they are old enough to be used as your own, without any copyright issues. But still, the lack of imagination disappointed me.

Although I have been pointing out the weaknesses of the book so far, there are some strengths. The most important strength of course is that the main ideas presented are, all said and done, good. The ideas come from various sources and different times. The book serves therefore as a collection of some sensible thoughts. The reader has to be careful to fish for these great thoughts hidden under the unimaginative, artificial, hurried, bulleted writing style and ponder upon those. Another positive I recall was seeing suggestions for other books the reader may read. The suggested readings included - “The Stories of My Experiments with Truth” by M. K. Gandhi, “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse and writings of Ben Franklin, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. I have read “Siddhartha” and think it was a thought provoking read.

I must add that I did complete reading the book and my current opinion about the book is more forgiving than the one I had after my first session with the book. Partly, the reason was I adjusted to the tone and style of the book when I picked it up again and overcame my self-imposed expectations from the book. Partly the reason was that the main ideas in the book are good. It was the presentation of the ideas that was the issue I still had at the end of the read.

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What I believe

September 4th, 2006 admin

I believe in my religion, not in giving it a name,
I believe in mistakes, and lessons, but not in placing blame.
I believe in doubt and reason, only where that may apply
I believe destiny may overcome reason and not be tamed by “Why?”
I believe also in the destiny one builds, cause preceding effect,
Making the best with what you have, and the most of what you get.
I believe in taking life as seriously, as life does take you,
Working with it as best you can, but expecting a joke or two.
I belive in the magic, powerful, that small things and acts can make,
A few good words, an honest ear, a smile, a forgiven mistake
creating happiness from nothing, dissolving sorrow, fear and tact
This I believe is real magic and better than the best Vanishing Act.
I believe in an honest attempt at excellence in every deed,
Not thinking of the tree to be, just enjoying planting the seed.
I believe in teamwork and community, in compassion and moderation,
I believe also in the individual and the infinite in one.

(Anil Krishna, September 4th, 2006)

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A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul

August 5th, 2006 admin

My friends Ashwin and Tania recommended this book and the following is from an email I wrote to them after reading the book.How goes life? Or in Mohun Biswas’s words, “How life, maan?”. I am still struggling to figure out the book. The tragi-comic look at the entire life of a man, leaves you wondering if it is a happy ending, a sad ending or the less categorizable, yet more recognizable ending. Endings as they typically are in real life, sadly abrupt in a way, never having achieved life’s true potential, yet satisfyingly complete, having achieved the one goal in his life. The beautiful and believable sense of humour, never taking life too seriously, is the only way he gets through life, which is otherwise overwhelmingly complicated, sad and painful.

When I was about a third of my way into the book, I was not sure why I was reading it. It seemed to have no tangible theme, too many characters and a primarily depressing story (if you could call it a story). It was as if the author picked up reams of paper and just wrote what came to his mind, letting the events and narrative flow which ever way they chose to. It was not until Mr. Biswas started tasting “victories” that I got hooked. Victories is a big word, for what were primarily small satisfactions in life - a small job, a good comeback, an occasional acknowledgement, an intelligent son, temporary privacy. These inconsequential satisfactions, in an intricate net of inconsequential emotions from inconsequential people in an elaborate yet equally inconsequential family define the few moments of joy in Mr. Biswas’ life. And the theme of the book seemed to emerge.

Mr. Biswas lives his short life, struggling for a sense of self and place. He is constantly being pulled down, not by an evil villain, not by a calamity of nature, not by a debilitating disease. He struggles against the real horrors of life, its inconsequential realness, its uncontrollable meandering, its invincible boredom. He fights. The fights he puts up are spirited. He loses some. He wins some. He laughs, he cries, he is elated, he is depressed, and yet he never gives in. He is a hero who fought grinding, never-ending battles which really did not win him anything, but at the same time won him the only thing he could hope for in his condition. A purpose. A goal. Something to look forward to. Something to live for. The beauty of the story and the writing is its truthfulness. It brings out the extraordinary in ordinary man’s ordinary life. One puts down the book with a sense of calm and understanding that is comparable to one you draw from a book on philosophy. “A House for Mr Biswas” is a strangely satisfying read that grows on you as you delve deeper into Mohun Biswas’s travails, and leaves you with an almost involved attachment to him, his family and his life.

V. S. Naipaul writes with a thin layer of believable humour protecting the characters and the readers from the insane helplessness of certain situations. The descriptions of the various regions of the J-shaped tiny island of Trinidad that Mr. Biswas spends his entire life in, the dialect, the social structure, the family structure and the life of a Hindu family Mr. Biswas marries into is expertly intertwined with the story. The strength of this book is the author’s ability to truthfully represent the seemingly purposeless life of a man, and yet bring out the the purpose in his life and that of every human being.

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