Caper Diem - Seize the day

Caper diem!! ( Sieze the day). Well that was the theme of the movie 'Dead Poet Society', that I saw yesterday. The backdrop of seeing the movie was that I fared miserably in my first economics mid sem exam and was really down in spirits. Well I went out to take some comic or light hearted flick from the library after the dreary experience and all I got was this :-(

One thing that caught my attention in the movie was the statement by John Keating(Robin Williams) that the natural destiny of us human beings or for any animal is to become a fertilizer for some plant. All those dreams of achieving fame, glory, power and money ultimately ends here. It is more important to live our every day life to its fullest doing the things that you love, or in short 'Caper diem'. In turn this will make your lives extraordinary. Become free thinkers and be a non conformist.

I have decided to implement this powerful statement in my life starting today ( 12:15 am). Let me see where it takes me

Rang De Basanti

Saw the movie after lot of recommendation from friends. Great to watch. A bit 'different' from the usual fares.
Positives - Good direction, great cinematography, AR Rehman.
Negatives - The revolutionary angle could have been avoided in the end.

What impressed me most was the director took to taking up a subject as over exposed as patriotism and gave it a new angle. To be honest I have always hated patriotic movies. The reason was simple, I couldn't connect to the emotions and the over sentimentalism being shown. This movie however puts freedom struggle in perspective to a modern India. Kudos to the director and the story writer for this.
Couple of things that caught my mind in watching the movie :

1. As rightly said in the movie, we tend to talk of the failures of our nation, but when it comes to doing, only a handful does something substantial. Even those who do, very little is known about them. Compare this to the US, where a person who does something substantial for the community is rewarded with publicity, biographical movies and so on. Eg. Coach Carter.

2. It is pretty intruiging to see that a cause can transform people's lives completely. As told in the movie, freedom fighters are normal people who lead normal lives till the call of the cause makes them take up extraordinary feats. If you think hard enough, a hardcore terrorist is pretty much the sam. They too passionately believe in a cause(though sinister) that makes them perform the horrible acts that kill innocent lives. I believe the policies and the strategies that US and allies play are akin to that employed by the British during pre independence which would ultimately collapse, just the way it did for the British. I think it is time we looked at a more innovative strategy to fight this menace.

3. There is a disturbing trend that seems to speak out in the movie. The movie as with the others like '4thepeople' in malayalam and 'Annyan' in tamil seems to advocate violence and murder to cleanse the system. The chilling factor was that all these movies were huge hits. It is only a matter of time before some misguided youths move in this path and adopt the violence as part of their lives. True some of the reasons for the violence advocated in the movies are justified, but the fact that violence itself becoming a way of life would be something akin to the situation in Afghanistan.

4. Lastly as it shows clearly in the movie, unless a wrong happens to near and dear ones, we tend to ignore the issues and the corruption around us. But when it happens we tend to be powerless to fight the system that has grown enormously due to our indifference and callousness. As rightly said, our elected representatives are nothing but a darker reflection of ourselves.

To sum up, I think Rang De Basanti was a well made movie that has a message to convey and does so convincingly to an extend. The direction and the acting was controlled and no overexposure of emotions and sentimentalism was at play here. I think movies with an underlying message should be made more though the tendency to glorify violence as the panacea for all problems should be shunned.
Tags:rang de basanti

Harrasment - The blank noise project

In support of the blank noise project, I am putting my views and experiences with harrasment against women and the steps that I feel can be taken to mitigate the situation.

Scene 1 - I am in college. One of the guys is gloating over a 'triumph' he had today. His 'triumph' was groping a woman's breast in a DTP shop. Most of us were shocked on hearing this and were speechless. Some lauded him for his 'guts'. The matter died down queitly soon after. I forgot it complete within a couple of days.

Scene 2 - I was on vacation prior to joining my first job. I went with my cousin sister and uncle for a movie. Some local guys were giving lecherous looks at my sister. The entire situation was uncomfortable. We gave a stern look to the guys and went into the movie hall. The entire scene left a bad taste in my mouth.

What was the difference between the two situations ? In the first, the victim was an unknown woman and in the second it was my sister who was the victim. To cut the chase short, if you have to feel the enormity of harrasment you have to experience it with your kith or kin who is a lady. We can all engage in path breaking intellectual discussion on harrasment, but nothing drives home the point other than a real bitter experience. Harrasment is not restricted to ladies with gawky and gaudy dresses, the sex siren attitude but affects each and every woman on the street. Most women choose to ignore it while a handful fight back.

Most blogs talk of travails faced by women due to harrasment. While this is instructive in understanding how a woman is affected, I feel a much better appreciation of the problem can be understood by looking through a perpetrator's eyes, what goes through his mind, why he does what he does and what can be done to remedy the situation. I put a disclaimer here to the fact that what I write below is my sole opinion and are not actual facts that I have stumbled across in the pursuit of my journey through life.

First is the 'forbidden fruit' factor. Unlike the west, the division between men and women is much prevalent here. As a result, for most men in their late teens and mid twenties, woman is a type of 'forbidden fruit', a 'mystery' of whom he has many fantasies. When combined with others of a similar disposition, it leads to exploits that primarily gratify the fantasises he has built up. Lynching in buses and other activities are the end result of this. The guy who carries this out becomes a hero to some and this inturn encourages others to carry out these shamefaced acts. In retrospect, a permissive society is a two faced coin. If we don't have it we have harrasment against women and if we do have it we have unwanted teenage pregancies which in turn leads to higher criminal elements turning out in the streets.

Second is the anonymity factor. Most of perpetrators act in conditions of anonymity. Thus overcrowded public places like buses, trains, streets are places that provide a safe sanctuary for these people to carry out their designs as what they do could very easy be construed as being caused by the stampede of the crowd. Remove the anonymity, the actions will stop.

Thirdly, the 'easy' factor. Many times due to lack of a retaliatory reaction from women when faced with harrasment, the perpetrators take it that women like it and actually encourage men to do it. In the course of my life, I have come across many people who say this. The meekness with which women suffer from harrasment emboldens the perpetrators and they carry out their acts on others as well. This meekness is not just a female phenomenon, but is prevalent in males as well. These people suffer from exploitation all through their lives unless they retaliate back.
It is not enough that women give cues about her displeasure at being harrased, but should be vocal about it. Men in general are thick skulled to non verbal cues and understand things better when verbally said. My pet theory for this is that motherhood has made women more tuned to non verbal cues as a baby can hardly communicate its needs and wants and this inturn gets reflected in the lives of women. Men on the other hand was more of a food gatherer and used more of verbal skills to get his food.

Finally the lack of empathy. Many often women in forums ask 'What if this sort of harrasment was inflicted on the perpetrator's mother or sister? What then? '. The answer is many people (men and women) included never empathise with any situation. If that was so, most of the problems in the world would have been solved !! The standard answer that would come from such a perpetrator would be 'It is not my mother or sister'. Women shouldn't expect it from men and even from themselves.


While the entire discussion above was looking through the eyes of a perpetrator, it is only natural to ask what can be done to remedy this situation. My suggestions would be as follows:

1. When faced with harrasment in public places, retaliate vocally. It might be a good idea to talk in low tones first, but if the guy doesn't take the hint a vocal retaliation would put him in place. Nothing embarrases a guy or girl better than having the entire crew peering at you.

2. It is imprudent for anyone let alone a woman to go to a dark and lonely place all by themselves. The harrasment is for both sexes, may be more for women due to the 'oomph' factor.
3. Blank noise or other women help groups could conduct training programs for women to learn basic self defense and also be assertive inorder to implement point 1 above better.
4. Becoming a group with identifiable symbols would reduce the harrasment against the group. For example all blank noise members could wear an wrist band that identifies them as a group member. Now if these people see any woman getting harrased, let alone themselves and they pitch in to support the wronged person, then the incidence of harrasment would reduce when the members are around. It is the herd mentality coming into effect.
5. Lastly, mothers and sisters should provide insights to their male children or siblings about the problem and provide them with the right information inorder for them not to indulge in these type of activities in the future. Mostly male children are rarely informed about woman harrasment and he inturn gets misinformation about the same and start indulging in these sort of activities.

Ultimately I believe that only 5-10% of the male population could be labelled as a true pervert. For the rest, the overdose of misinformation, peer pressure makes them do acts which they wouldn't in the normal course of life. Clear retaliation incase of wrong doing, group support are some of the measures that can be taken to counter this.

A case for caste system

During a recent trip back to my native place Kerala, my cousins and I had a long, passionate discussion about an esoteric topic namely the caste system. The discussion started a series of thought threads in my brain, the outcome I would like to share with the rest of the world.
To the uninitiated, caste system is a form of division of society in terms of the work or activity the person engages in. To draw a parallel we have the class system (upper class, middle class, lower class) in the modern world that divides the society based on the economic status of each individual. The caste system was practised extensively in India and even to this day its tentacles are all prevading in one sense or the other. Academically speaking the caste system is divided into 4 - Brahmins (teachers, priests, scientists etc) , Kshatriyas ( soldiers, administrators, kings etc ) , Vaishayas ( merchants and traders ) and finally the Shudras(artisans, craftsmen, service men etc). The Brahmins pursued a life of intellectual attainment, the Kshatriyas pursued a life of bureaucracy and battle, Vaishyas were merchants and Shudras served the community. In modern times caste system has been touted as one of the most evil systems ever designed that led to mass exploitation of men and increased the luxuries of a few. Worse the assignment of caste was hereditary with the son falling into the same caste as that of the father, with little or no leeway to change. The structure was very rigid and authoritarian and people representation was unheard of.

While I agree with the protagonists of the argument that caste system essentially lead to wide spread exploitation, my conclusions after much deliberation is that the system was not essentially bad and in labelling it as an evil we are refusing to learn valuable lessons it gives us to deal with our lives and our role in the society in general.

One of the primary advantages that I see in the caste system is its division of society based on the activity taken up by men rather than on economic prosperity. There were different yardsticks to measure success in this system compared to the current (class) system where only money is the single yardstick to measure success. A successful brahmin in the caste system would be one who has greatest knowledge of the scriptures, a renowned kshatriya would be a warrior of repute and so on. Having different avenues to develop talent and measure success would inherently render stability to the society and enrich it compared to the current system of focussing only on material attainment as means to success.
Secondly, the caste system is based on the recognition that not all men are born equal and not all men need to have the same rights. This can appear pretty controversial, but in my view I beleive this is the situation that exists in the real world also. It is impossible to compare the talents of a statesman like Churchill or Gandhi to most of the average Joe as it is to compare the scientific genius of Stephen Hawking to a laborer in the fields. According to these men of stature of talent needs to have special rights of their own over the common man if society has to derive the best mileage of their talents. Thus leading a state would be by the person who is fit to lead in this system unlike democracy where sometimes the greatest idiot can appear on world stage on the strength of a misguided electorate. Sometimes we need to be guided by forces who can see far beyond our line of vision and take us to the next level. Caste system has an inherent mechanism to achieve that.
Finally, caste system is based on specialization. Once people move to their caste and their particular occupation, they acquire skills that make them gain greater mastery over their art. These skills are then passed on through generations by virtue of the progeny belonging to the same caste as the parent. Thus you end up with high skilled workforce that can deliver.

Our social environment is constantly evolving. Caste system was one among the different social structures that was invented and discarded later on. Rather than condemn it to the pathways of history, it would be of great value to social reformers and revolutionaries to look at the advantages of this system and use the learnings for a new social structure in the future.
Tags:caste

Poetry for software

Hi,
I am new to blogging. Just got an insight into mantras that is mentioned in the great Indian epics like Ramayan and Mahabharat. It is been said in these books that if you chant certain mantras(words in rhyme) you can convert ordinary items into extraordinary things like an arrow to a brahmastra which is equivalent of a nuke these days. You could also chant certain mantras and get freedom from thirst and hunger especially if you are embarking on a long journey. While this seems to be a figment of rich imaginiation of the authors at that point of time, I feel there is something that we miss here, that could potentially be of great use in the IT industry.

One of the biggest challenges that the industry faces today is how to recognize voice and convert voice based actions into accurate computer operations. I tried the voice recorder in Microsoft word and it was pathetic. The reasons for the inability to capture voice commands accurately could be due to pronounciation, language and sound quality of the speakers. This is where the mantras come to picture. Mantras like songs have to be recited or dictated in a rhythm. The underlying characteristic of a rhythm is that it is independent of a language. Once we know the rhythm the language behind it is unnecessary, pronounciations are secondary and so on. We can accurately capture the intent by using a combination of rhythm and words. The same could be
used for software. If we have an algorithm to identify and match rhythms, then all it needs to do is to match some of the user spoken words to identify the course of action.
We could have some one sing a song like , "add a person to my address book with name ''candy' age '26' and address 'dsfadsfdsaf' " in a rhyme and bingo, the software understands your intent and performs the operation for you, which is add the details of candy to your address book.

On the lighter note we would have offices full of singers and higher pay packets might be for persons with clear singing voice and a sense for rhythm :-)