Survivorship bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that “survived” some process and ignoring those that didn’t. This can lead to false conclusions in several different ways. The survivors may literally be people, as in a medical study, or could be companies or research subjects or applicants for a job, or anything that must make it past some selection process to be considered further.

Survivorship bias can lead to overly optimistic beliefs because failures are ignored, such as when companies that no longer exist are excluded from analyses of financial performance. It can also lead to the false belief that the successes in a group have some special property, rather than being just lucky.

Wiki also goes to explain this with a lovely example.

If the three of the five students with the best college grades went to the same high school, that can lead one to believe that the high school must offer an excellent education. This could be true, but the question cannot be answered without looking at the grades of all the other students from that high school, not just the ones who “survived” the top-five selection process.

I thought this is a great concept for us to be aware. The fundamental point here is about how well the sample that we consider represents the overall population. It is a general tendency to ignore the failures and consider only the ‘survivors’ as our sample. Imagine a company opening about 100 funds of which over a period of time they close down about 30 of their worst performing funds. Now the balance 70 funds, which are the ‘survivors’ would certainly have good returns. Now the company can brag how their funds are outperforming the market. What we might miss to see is that these funds are the survivors who would naturally have a higher skewed average.

During World War II the English sent daily bombing raids into Germany. Many planes never returned; those that did were often riddled with bullet holes from anti-air machine guns and German fighters. Wanting to improve the odds of getting a crew home alive, English engineers studied the locations of the bullet holes. Where the planes were hit most, they reasoned, is where they should attach heavy armor plating. Sure enough, a pattern emerged: Bullets clustered on the wings, tail, and rear gunner’s station. Few bullets were found in the main cockpit or fuel tanks. The logical conclusion is that they should add armor plating to the spots that get hit most often by bullets. But that’s wrong. Planes with bullets in the cockpit or fuel tanks didn’t make it home; the bullet holes in returning planes were “found” in places that were by definition relatively benign. The real data is in the planes that were shot down, not the ones that survived.

In this fantastic example, the sample data for the research must have been what happened to the planes that were shot down. That’s what would help them in bringing back more people alive. The research on the returned planes and in particular, the decision to install heavy armour plates in the areas with maximum hit, is a classic display of survivorship bias.

While statistics is about interpreting the data available, what’s also important is to know about the data that is not available and the significance of the unknown data in the projections based on statistical methods. Also, the fact that there are failures which are being removed out of the system, makes any comparison to the past data potentially meaningless.

As you’re aware, in large organisations, on a periodic basis, there would employee feedback surveys. Assume that the survey shows that about 20% are terribly unhappy. Suppose these 20% staff leave the organisation, the newer survey tends to show a better result than last year’s one. The latest survey results are better because it considers the feedback of only the survivors and hence the result could be skewed.

Why does this survivorship bias exist? Can we avoid it? Traditionally, we are biased towards survivors or winners. We read stories, biographies and autobiographies of the winners and survivors to learn how they did it. There’s more to be learnt from the ones who did not survive. Studying the survivors alone could produce a skewed result. The population cannot be complete without taking into account the ones who did not survive.

The other day at lunch, one colleague of mine was saying that there are almost no bad actors in Hollywood (when compared to Indian movies), only for another colleague to quickly point out that ‘probably only those kind of movies don’t get released here’. That’s classic case of survivorship bias and subsequent realisation. Despite our understanding of statistical sampling, we tend to think that the sample of movies that’s released in India is the whole population of Hollywood movies made.

So how does this help us? Why would we have to be aware about this concept? Learning about the survivorship bias makes you less vulnerable to be fooled by this phenomenon. It helps you to ask the right questions. It helps you to put things in perspective. It helps you to read beyond the numbers and also remind you about the significance of the unknown data.

I’m very impressed with this concept. If we are not careful, this bias or a pitfall that we could fall into, very easily in our day to day life. As soon as I read this as a concept, I’m able to see this bias exists almost everywhere and that’s being exploited. Hope it helps you too, if not, at least this is a new thought to debate.

Andre Agassi: I’m a big fan of Andre Agassi. I liked his style before I learned that he had substance too. In 1992, I was watching and cheering him all the way to the finals of the Wimbledon. He was unique. He was a crowd puller and an entertainer than a tennis player and athlete. He was much more human when you compared him with others in his league. His Wimbledon win against Ivanisevic in the finals was a victory of mankind over machines. Was he the first male tennis player to cry in the court? Surely must be one of the rarest. I loved his pony hairstyle and wished I had something like that. Did try that too!

Jose Mourinho: He could very well be the odd one out in the list. He is special because he can be the odd one out in any group. People would describe him as successful, intelligent, objective, sharp-tongued and down-to-earth. That’s what he is. Even his biggest fans would also admit that he is brash, arrogant, cheeky and cunning at times. You just don’t mess with Jose. For me, he is a symbol of confidence. He is very good and he knows that he is very good. He walks as much as he talks. He is the most successful young manager in the world of football management dominated by older pros. His success was built primarily on his people management and his analytical methods. He was the reason why I started following Chelsea FC. Legend.

Mahatma Gandhi: Unbelievable. To live his life the way he did, is just impossible. He must be one of the best leaders ever to have lived. It’s not very easy to lead a mass of 300 million with a principles of non-violence and truth. With masses, the psychology that easily works is that of violence and revenge, not non-violence, truth and patience. I have the highest regards for his principles and the way he united people for one common cause. I wonder how he made millions believe that ’satyagraha’ is the right way to achieve independence. Do you know that he had once listed down seven social sins – politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice. Albert Einstein once said that generations to come will find it hard to believe that such a man lived ever in flesh and blood and walked upon this earth. There is no better summary of Gandhi’s life than that one.

Sachin Tendulkar: I think I was his cousin or a brother in my previous birth. I love this guy so much. He’s a genius. He’s gifted. He’s supremely talented. I feel privileged to have been a contemporary of Sachin Tendulkar. No one has entertained me like Sachin Tendulkar has. I was not alone in turning up, tuning up and waking up only because he was playing. For the kind of adulation he receives in India, it’s hard to play and live like he has. Incredibly level headed, humble and mature, he is a symbol of consistency. He is a phenomenon. He is an era. He is a great role model. That quote of Einstein on Gandhi holds good for Sachin Tendulkar too.

A.R.Rahman: Genius. Consistent. Mature. Level headed. Humble. Sounds like the paragraph on Sachin Tendulkar, isn’t it? I love Rahman for the same reasons that I mentioned for Sachin. The thing I’m very highly impressed is the way he keeps on bettering himself even though he is the best in his league. Every time I listen to a great album from Rahman, ‘I’d be thinking this is his best yet’ and I’ve thought this way more than a dozen times. He is just unbelievable. The era in which he is making music is entirely different than the one where some of our greats had made music. He has already revolutionised music in India and he has a long way to go. I feel privileged to realise that I could still be listening to Rahman’s new smashing music even after 10 years!

Frank Lampard: When he ends his footballing career, he could very well be the best Chelsea player in the club’s history. That’s no mean feat. He is pretty similar to A R Rahman in his personality. He has achieved so much and has many more years left in him to achieve more. The dedication and professonalism that he still shows is incredible. He must have been one of the most underrated and jeered/abused player of his league. He doesn’t care about the criticisms and just goes on to prove them wrong, season after season. I’m sure he won’t stop until the whole football world accepts his genius. Another fantastic role model.

Vijayakrishna: Yup, it’s me. I think I’ve been an inspiration for myself and I thoroughly enjoy being myself. Nobody knows me as much as I know. So I’m the most capable and competent person to talk about how inspiring I have been for myself. No matter how expressive you are, you’re not even going to express half of what you actually are and that’s that half that other people would understand, mistake, like, hate, admire, despise, adore, ignore you. No one will ever know what’s their in the other unexpressed half in me. I’m very proud about how I have lived my 30 years. I admire myself. I’m sure you do that to yourself. It’s a different matter if you want to admit that or not!

If you don’t know any of these names (except mine . . .), just help yourself with google/wiki. I’ll do a bit of analysis for you. Out of these 7 personalities, four are sports personalities, one was a spiritual/political leader, one musician and myself. I think that pretty much respresents me.

Buying toys for a three-and-a-half year old can be quite difficult. Today, I went to this mall with an intention of ‘let’s buy her some new toys’. As I entered the floor the first thing I saw was loads and loads of board games. Anything that comes with a ‘rules of play’ is not going to be of any use for her. Rules mean nothing to her. We are only talking about this thing called discipline. I think it will take some time to introduce the word ‘rules’. There were train sets. She is absolutely fascinated by trains. But she already has train sets of various sizes and shapes.

And then there were cars. She has cars, trucks – manually operated, battery operated, remote controlled etc. Almost everything except the ones that run on petrol and diesel. There were kitchen sets. Least interested. I’m talking about myself. Not sure about her. Guns? Same kitchen set feeling here too. How about soft toys? Well the whole of Disney family is at home. There are also their underwater friends and technology cousins. Block building? I won’t be forgiven if I buy another one of that kind. I was not planning to return empy handed anyways.

I was trying to recollect what kind of toys I used to play with. My brain said ‘your search returned 0 results’. Yup, Did I have a lot of toys? No. Was there any favourite toy of mine? No, because I cannot recollect having played with any toys or games when I was a kid. We were a struggling family back then. We had to look after our survival and needs primarily before thinking about comforts and luxuries. I guess toys would have come under the luxuries category back then. So how exactly did I spend my childhood? I think much of our time as a kid was spent in the outdoors, with the other kids, doing stuff and exploring stuff. We had probably lots of freedom which led to adventure. May be, we didn’t need toys as much as kids of these days do (that’s one sign of me growing old).

But my daughter certainly does. She needs toys, games, television, movies, music etc. She can get to see a lot of experiences but she would not have the freedom of experiencing them herself. That’s because she is always under our radar. It’s not just because she is a three-and-a-half year old but also because we’re like that. In particular I am like that. I’d buy her whatever toys and games that she wants if it means she won’t have to go out of sight. In a way, I have created this need for toys and such stuff for her. That’s sad but that’s the way it is. Nowadays (that’s another sign of me growing old), kids don’t grow up learning and experiencing by themselves. They are now left with abundance of nicely packaged second hand experiences.

I was still struggling with my choices in the toys section. My daughter was happily playing in the play area of that mall with complete confidence that I’d buy what she’d like. I did finally pick up a jigsaw puzzle, a time teller book and something else. I truly wonder what I’d be buying in the next round of purchases, whenever it comes!

Do you know what gives you happiness? I hope you do. Otherwise, think about it today. To talk about what gives us happiness, let’s first talk about needs and wants. We all have needs and wants. Needs are what I would call as essentials for my basic existence and social status. Money is a need. Job is a need. A house or a car can also be a need. Satisfying the needs may not really give us true happiness. Needs follow Maslow’s theory of hierarchy. Once you satisfy yourself of a need, the other need is created or you create it. Needs are not wants. Wants are the expectations and desires that you as a person have for yourself. Unless you know what you want, you can never be happy.

The richest man is not the happiest man. The strongest man is not the happiest man. The most handsome man is not the happiest man. The most powerful man is not the happiest man. Even if one man happens to be the richest, the strongest, the most handsome and the most powerful, he may still not be the happiest man. Being rich, strong, handsome and powerful are all needs, temporary needs. These are needs that one may not realise as temporary needs when he has not achieved them.

Needs are those that you want ‘for your life’. Wants are those that you want ‘from your life’. Now that we have separated needs and wants, what are your wants? As we realise, needs never end. They only grow. While they are growing, think of your wants as well. What do you want from your life? How do you want to lead your life? Now compare the answers for this question with the list of needs that you have. You’ll realise that it is highly possible to satisfy your wants without satisfying your needs. Bed is a need and sleep is a want. If you keep upgrading beds without sleeping enough or realising that sleep is what you want more than the bed, it would be a sad life. For the society, you could be a grand success for only you know that you’ve wasted your life.

It’s quite important to know if we are driven by wants or needs. Needs are meant to be supporting your wants. Your wants are the purpose of your life. Your needs are supposed to help you further. Your needs don’t exist by themselves. They are there because you have certain wants. While the needs support the wants, they have no reason to exist if you have no wants. In reality, there could be people who have not identified their wants. But they would have identified their needs otherwise the society would help them identify. It is fully possible for someone to spend all their lives running behind the needs and dying without even thinking about what they actually want.

In the normal course of life, we are prepared only to handle our needs. Our education and our careers are all about handling needs. So it’s quite possible to get into this quick sand of needs and believe that’s all life is all about. Needs have no purpose by themselves. Getting rich, attaining power and reaching targets are all supposed to give you something. That’s what one must be aware of.

People who don’t identify their wants will never be happy. Because, having achieved all the needs, they would still experience that emptiness which they can’t explain. That happens when you don’t know what you want from your life. Now think of those things that make you really happy, things that give you sense of satisfaction. Exclude gratifications which are different from happiness. Gratifications arise as you fulfil a need or a desire. Think of only those things that you want from life, only those things you want others to give and you want to give to others. Once you know your wants, and once you realise that they are the very driving force of your life, needs may not even matter, let alone being very important.

For all of us, the want is to be happy. That’s for each one of us. We tend to believe that happiness comes in being more rich, more powerful and all that but the reality is happiness comes in being happy. It’s as simple as that. I want to live my life happily and spread this happiness to as many people as possible. That’s my want. My happiness comes in being happy. And I realise that unhappiness disappears when you create happiness for others. I think life is simple unless you’re bored with it and try complicating it.

That’s my philosophy in a nutshell, or in a blog entry, to be exact. This philosophy of mine is something I have concluded and realised based on understanding and experience of life. Don’t go on to try proving them wrong. Because I’m not open for logic

Whenever I saw images and pictures of Indian freedom struggle and the attrocities during that period, they used to get my blood boil. I had a strong feeling that I’d have done something worthwhile. I’d not have joined the Indian National Army. Even as a young boy I was not attracted to the Bhagat Singh / Subhash Bose type of independence movement. I think I never believed in violence. I would have certainly joined Gandhi’s movement. I always respected and admired Gandhi. He might have got a few things right and few things wrong but to lead a life he led, is a massive achievement and sacrifice.

So, as a young boy, very naively, I have even thought, ‘why was I not born in that period? i could’ve fought for India’. I’m asking myself now. Do I now think that I’d have played an active role in the Indian independence if I was born, say, in1910?

I guess not. Now, I’m very convinced that I’d not have done anything special. To participate in anything like the Indian freedom movement, you need to have many things. You should have a concern for the people, you should have a desire to convert this concern into actions, you should be willing to make sacrifices, you should not worry about the consequences, you should stop living for yourselves. I don’t think I’d have made it. Probably, I’d have comforted myself into a nice job and family and probably at best, would have been writing in favour of Indian independence.

There are always needs for such movements. Earlier, it was for freedom struggle. Now there could be a new reason. In fact, the present reasons could be much more pressing than the freedom struggle. There might be a need for a movement against corrupt politicians, a movement against inefficient public servants, a movement in favour of education, a movement against communaism – there could be so many and there are so many. Have I shown any intention to change anything that’s happening around me. No. Have I shown any signs of actively engaging myself to bring about change? No. How can I honestly say that ‘I’d have played an active role in the Gandhian movement’? I cannot.

Active role does not even mean playing a leading role. Active role is just actively participating and supporting, which anyone with a genuine desire and passion must be able to do. When someone asked me if I’d like to become a prime minister, my answer was no. I don’t want to. I might be very unpopular with such a statement but I simply don’t think my life should be spent sacrificing for others. There were so many martyrs in the freedom struggle who spent all their lives and got nothing for themselves. So many unsung heroes. I don’t think I can make such sacrifices. And I don’t want to make such sacrifices.

How many of us have the courage to quit our fine careers for the common cause? How many of us prefer IAS and IPS over CA and MBA? How many of us can spend our lives for others? How many of us can take the plunge? How many of us will stop thinking ‘what’s in it for me’? Now, how many of us would say ‘I’d have done this and that in our independence movement’?

Buddy: Did you see that news about that Indian techie in US who killed himself and his family too?
Mate: Yeah sad. Let him commit suicide but why did he kill his family?

Pal: What do you mean by ‘let him commit suicide’?
Mate: I meant it’s his life and he ended it but he had no right to take others’ lives.
Buddy: Not exactly, mate! Attempt to suicide is an offence as per the Indian laws.

Mate: That’s bad. I wonder why an attempt to suicide is an offence?
Pal: In this case this guy has killed his family too. Think about this. Lone breadwinner in the family commits suicide leaving his dependants stranded. Sounds like a crime?
Mate: No. It doesn’t.

Buddy: See if one commits suicide you can’t do anything. If he was caught attempting, he must be certainly punished.
Pal: Exactly. Such a cowardly thing to do for someone responsible for his family.

Mate: Why would you punish someone who was already going to end his life?
Buddy: Punish him because he was cruel enough to escape while leaving his family carry his baggage.
Mate: Ok, see it from this perspective. Everyone has a right to end his/her own life. Who has more right than yourself on your life? If you talk about responsibility, why just talk about attempt to suicide, while there are so many other irresponsible acts?

Buddy: Well, I kinda agree. I don’t think someone can insist me to live when I don’t want.
Pal: Then it’s kinda easy isn’t it? I live my life the way I want. I drown into loans, drink and enjoy myself and end my life when I’m stuck. Irresponsible!

Mate: See, if you talk about responsbility, is there a law that says one cannot take sanyas which also involves abandoning the family?
Pal: That’s different.
Mate: In what way? Sanyas has an absolute disregard for the family the same way suicide has.

Buddy: Okay, if I’m single and I have no dependants, will I still be caught for attempting to commit suicide?
Mate: Plus, if I have a right to live, I must have the right to die.

Pal: I got an answer. Anyone who attempts to commit suicide may not be in a state of mental balance. They can be a danger to society until they are rehabilitated.
Mate: That’s a good one. You got me there.

Buddy: Still you don’t have to charge him with a crime. Just take this guy to a doctor or a psychiatrist, why charge him under the Indian Penal Code?
Pal: But you admit that someone who has had a failed suicide attempt can be a danger to society?
Mate: I’d say they would be depressed like hell. So the most dominant feeling must be that of depression and not anger or frustration or revenge which normally result in fatal criminal acts.

Pal: Technically, the police will have to arrest someone to admit this guy into a hospital. Without an arrest, they don’t have a mandate.
Buddy: Oh then arrest is just a legal vehicle for a medical destination
Pal: I think so! But I’ve also heard of one-year imprisonment for some of them who have attempted suicide.

Mate: My stance is very simple. Irrespective of the situation, anyone has the right to end his/her life and that’s it.
Pal: I don’t agree. Attempt to suicide is a punishable offence.
Buddy: I’m not sure!

As a matter of procedure, they begin the proceedings by a vote to just reconfirm that they all agree about the guilty verdict. When the voting happens, by voice and by raise of hands, all but one vote guilty. That’s 11 voting guilty and 1 voting not guilty. As the verdict has to be unanimous, they all try to achieve that by further discussion. The whole movie is about how the jury arrives at an unanimous verdict. If you think that the 11 jurors would try and convince that one dissenting juror to arrive at a unanimous decision, read on.

The beauty is, it is not the 1 man (juror #8) that changes his vote to guilty, it is the other 11 men who finally change their vote to not guilty. Fantastic isn’t it? You would imagine that it must be easy for the 11 men to convince the 1 man. And that’s how their discussion starts. The one man who votes not guilty is very clear about his unclarity. He says that he is not sure if the accused is guilty or not guilty. The eviences and witness do not convince him either ways. He thinks that the benefit of doubt should go to the accused. They all think that they can convince this one man and just have this whole discussion finished soon. What happens is, that one man’s logic and reasoning makes everyone to reconsider their rationale and subsequently their decisions.

First of all, it’s a great story for a play. This movie was based on a story which made a very successful play. There are only three shooting locations in the movie. One is, the court. Two is, the juror’s meeting room. Three is, the open stairs that lead up to the court. The court scenes are for a few minutes. And the camera shot from the open stairs is for a few seconds. About 95% of the movie happens in the juror’s meeting room. It is a dimly lit small room which cannot hold more than a dozen people. The movie is all about the conversations, discussions and arguments among the jury. That also means that the camera work has to be fantastic. All that the camera would be focusing more often is faces of various jurors and the sometimes the group discussion.

In a matter of few minutes into the movie, we just realise that all these 12 people are 12 entirely different characters. They have different personalities coming from different socio-economic-cultural backgrounds. Until this one juror starts speaking, the other jurors wouldn’t even have thought that there is a need to discuss this case. Each one has their own reasons to have come to the ‘guilty’ conclusion. As the movie goes you see that those reasons range from their own bias, beliefs, prejudices and even negligence. Juror#8 strongly believes that the evidences and witnesses are not good enough to convict this boy and punish him with an electric chair death. He has no problem in being unpopular. He knows that he is the only man out of the twelve who has a different opinion but bravely and honestly and politely he makes his points and refuses to be knocked down by anything other than sound logic and proof.

That one juror (juror#8) does not say that the boy is not guilty. All that he says is that he does not think there is enough evidence to call him guilty. The underlying principle of that juror’s argument is that even criminals can go unpunished but innocents should be punished. Yes, that’s a Gandhian principle as we know. He says that he does not have conclusive proof or arguments to convince himself to say that the boy is guilty. He goes to prove how the witnesses and evidences are not good enough to give someone a death sentence.

During the process of the discussion, the members of the jury, one by one, not only admit they were wrong but also realise why they had come to that hasty conclusion. It ranges from bias to gross negligence to utter disregard to the life of accused individual. Not many of the jurors actually care too much about the accused boy. Deep in their hearts they think that it’s okay even if they’re wrong about their verdict. So what if the world has one slum boy less? The same bunch of jurors would have handled this verdict lot differently if the accused was say, a senator. Whereas the juror #8 looks at this case objectively and goes by one of the important premises of the justice system that all are equal in the eyes of law. As the discussion goes on, voting is taken at various intervals to see where the jury stands. With every voting opportunity, we see that juror #8 has more and more people supporting him and starting vote no guilty. Some of them even openly admit they were wrong and more importantly, why they went wrong.

I was particularly impressed with the way the character of the juror #8 is depicted. It is very easy to show him as the hero, the saviour. But his character stays true all through the movie. He does feel proud that he convinces people. He does not even feel happy. He goes on and on until there is a unanimous not guilty verdict. He does not count his conquests because he does not think so. At the end of the discussion, he only feels no sense of satisfaction that justice is delivered. When that is achieved, they all leave the room and so does he. Juror #8 was just one of the juror who thinks that he must perform his duties and responsbilities as a juror with diligence and principles. He does not think he is a hero or something by convincing everyone around the table. He just thinks that it’s just the part of the process to achieve the group objective of unanimous verdict.

Juror#8 does not know the accused personally. But still that does not stop him from arguing for him passionately for the sake of justice. It is quite natural to think that whatever one does a result or a fruit is expected, sometimes we can’t be patient for the fruit. In this case, the whole discussion that happens inside the room is not known to anyone outside the room. The boy who finally gets released does not even know that it was only juror#8 stood between him and the electric chair death. After the jury’s verdict, they all go back to their own lives. The fantastic efforts of Juror#8 is undocumented and he gets no credit for that. The thing is he does not expect any credit for that because as far as he is concerned he has to do justice to his role as a juror, without caring about whether he gets the publicity for that or not. Juror#8 is one of the most inspiring characters I have even seen in movies. The reason why I keep calling him juror#8 is because the names of the jurors are not mentioned in the movie!

If we start analysing the case in the movie to conclude if the arguments are valid or if the boy is really guilty, we’d have lost whole point of the movie. It’s not about the case. The witnesses and evidences are for the jurors and not for us who are watching the movie. For us, what we need to appreciate is the courage of the one juror, the courage of the other jurors to change their original verdict, the courage of the other jurors to admit why they went wrong, the passion of the juror #8, the noble thought and efforts of the juror#8 which does not expect any personal gain. So, please don’t go analysing the case but just stick to how the discussion evolves and concludes.

This movie was released in 1957. This is a black and white movie that runs for 96 minutes. If you have not watched this movie yet, tonight is a good time. All I can say is, they don’t make movies like this anymore!

Friend: So what’s your Zen saying?
Me: What?

Friend: Zen. You follow Zen, right?
Me: Yeah, I think I do, as much as possible.

Friend: But what does that say?
Me: What do you mean what does that say?

Friend: A religion must say something right?
Me: Okay I get it. For starters, Zen is not a religion.

Friend: What is it then?
Me: It is a way of life. A philosophy. But tell me something.
Friend: What?

Me: You’re a hindu right?
Friend: Yeah, you know that. I’m a religious person.

Me: What does Hinduism say?
Friend: What do you mean what does it say?

Me: As in, a religion must say something right?
Friend: Well, I’m sure it does say something but . . .

Me: You don’t know?
Friend: Hinduism is a great religion and the oldest too. There are these vedas, epics and puranas.

Me: That’s all right but I was just trying to know how much you know what your religion says.
Friend: I may not know enough but it’s a great religion.

Me: How did you end up following Hinduism?
Friend: What kind of question is this? I’m a born Hindu. Mine is a Hindu family.

Me: So you’ve inherited your religion. You haven’t chosen your religion as such.
Friend: I think that’s very normal.

Me: To inherit is normal. To continue with that or know more about that is your own choice.
Friend: Whether I know or not, I do follow. That’s called faith.

Me: How come you say that you follow a religion and you don’t know what it says.
Friend: What’s the big deal?

Me: Religion is all about beliefs right? You don’t know what it says but you have the belief. You believe something that you don’t know?
Friend: Hey hey, hold on. We do a lot of things that we may not fully understand.

Me: Is that a comforting thing? I’d say it’s even worse to say that there many such things.
Friend: But that’s the way it is.

Me: Do you know what’s the difference among Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Jainism?
Friend: No, I don’t. Why do I have to know about all those religions. I’m a Hindu and I’m fine with that.

Me: What’s not fine is that you don’t know what Hinduism says. It’s ok if you don’t know about the religions that you don’t follow. But Hinduism?
Friend: As I said, it’s not natural for us. Honestly we don’t want to spent too much time on that.

Me: Don’t you think religions have become like political parties. You know that they’re supposed to have different ideologies. You know they are different. You don’t what exactly their policies are. In reality, all that you see is they behave differently. But you still vote.
Friend: There’s a reason why we are where we are . . (smiles)

Me: Today, religion is all in practice and behaviour and hardly anyone cares about the theory.
Friend: Okay. Now what are you trying to achieve?
Me: We’ve got the signal. Let’s go. You think we’ll be late?

Opportunities: I think it can’t be a question of opportunities as they are certainly available. When I talk about opportunities I’m talking about women at large, not just Indian women. There are enough opportunities for women to get jobs in banks, companies and even politics. Creative arts require natural talent and genius which can create opportunities for the artists in the normal course of time. Are women being encouraged to take up creative arts is another question. With ‘less’ pressure to be breadwinner, I would imagine that women are better placed to take up creative arts.

Priorities: Yes, that could be different. If I’m very creative and I don’t apply my creativity beyond my realms, no one may ever get to know. As such, creativity can be applied anywhere. When they get applied in popular arts, it reaches people and creates that publicity. If I have different priorities and none of them are as popular as painting, writing, poetry, humour or music, it’s hard for me to prove that I’m a creative person too. It’s just a matter of choice about where I want to be creative.

Creativity: Is it just a matter of not being creative enough? Creativity may not have anything to do with gender. I respect statistics a lot. If creativity has nothing to do with gender, why would, even in 2009, we have less representation from women in creative arts? I know a few people who very categorically say that men are more creative than women. They say it as a matter of fact statement. It’s like saying Chennai burns like hell and Bangalore has a lovely weather. That’s how the creation is. It is not a matter of Chennai’s mistake or Bangalore’s choice when you talk about their weather. Out of the box is fine but if the box itself is very small, it may not be as out of the box as you’d like. Is their box very small? Or that’s because this is a man’s world?

I know I’ve used the word ‘creative’ a bit loosely here but I hope you get the point. To further the point, make a list of 10 most famous thinkers, 10 most famous philospohers, 10 most famous inventors, 10 most famous spiritual gurus, 10 most famous explorers and out of these find out how many . . .

When the Bangalore blasts happened, I was in Bangalore. I was staying in Shivajinagar which was one of the several places where the bombs exploded. It is, of course a big news and a terrible news. But I can confirm that it was not as bad as it was made out to be, by the news channels. I was shopping around that weekend because things returned to normalcy in a matter of few hours. If you had followed the images and footages on the television, you must have been thinking that Bangalore was burning, while I was exploring the city on foot and by taxi.

We have too many private news channels. And there is a dog-eat-dog competition among them. What this results in is a cheap competition of who can best sensationalise the happenings. Sadly, that’s what it all boils down to. You can see that if you keep switching across channels while something worthwhile is being reported. I guess there must be a mad rush to fix a catchy deadline that can run for days and weeks. It is purely a business. It is just a matter of who sells more copies or who gets more viewership.

The crudeness, the cheapness of reporting is one. Worst is, the joy, more than the duty, of reporting terrible incidents. Sometimes it makes me feel that if they hear about a serial bomb blast somewhere, they might scream ‘yesssssssss’. The news channels’ job is a bit like that of the doctors. If everyone’s healthy, he’s got nothing to do. That shouldn’t mean he’s hoping for the cholera to break out. If it does break out, he can’t be spreading the scare and fear instead of awareness and alertness.

Journos question everyone. News channels are omnipotent. They are so bloody powerful. They question politicians, economists, sportsmen, artists, celebrities; they can question anyone. They have the God-given right to ask anyone the tough questions. They have the privilege of embarrassing anyone in the public eyes. They might even score some brownie points when they get someone to walk out on them from the studio or when someone was made to weep. I guess they would also weep if it helps the TRP.

Who can question the news channels? Who can evaluate them? They can name and shame the politicians for not doing their job, they can question the commitment of a player when he is not in form, they can brutally criticise an artist and his creations and pretend that they know more than the learned economists. Now, who’s checking if the news channels are doing their job? Who’s going to report them? How do you evaluate the news channels is an interesting topic in itself.

You must know about this blogger Chyetanya Kunte who wrote a post titled ’shoddy journalism’ about the coverage of the Taj incident by NDTV. He was not a well known blogger or anything. He wrote about how the terrorists used the NDTV’s live coverage of the whole Taj incident. He was particlarly singling out Barkha Dutt for the ’shoddy journalism’ and questioning her ethics. He was tracked down by the NDTV and Barkha Dutt. He was sued and made to issue an apology in his own blog for his post. Below is his original post for which NDTV sued Kunte. Make up your mind.

I think it was a very good post (though with a poor closing line) which should have been responded by Barkha appropriately instead of a libel. He has raised some very vital questions which require answers more than anything. Those were the questions on everyone’s lips. When this argument continued in facebook, Barkha herself responded there in facebook, again with no valid response. You can read the whole history of this battle here. The whole episode was seen as a breach of freedom of expression. The bloggers were enraged. Many many anti-Barkha communities were created in Facebook. Finally, we all realised there is a way to talk about the Press. I think the answer to who can evaluate and if required, criticise the news channels lies in this very incident.

It is in the internet, and it should be the bloggers. Who else can do that and using which other medium?

Before we go to the movie, a very short backdrop of the story. Rwanda is an central African country that was a Belgian colony until 1962. Hutu and Tutsi are the two major ethnic groups in Rwanda. Hutu are the majority and Tutsi are the minority. Unsurprisingly, it was the Belgians who promoted the divide between the classes and ethnic groups when they took control of Rwanda in 1916. They considered Tutsi as the elite and ruling class and gave them key positions. In 1959, the very same Belgians took a u-turn and handed the power to Hutu. When they left the country in 1962, Hutu majority were in ruling power. The Hutu-Tutsi relationship has always been strained since then. The Hutu-Tutsi situation existed in the neighbouring countries of Congo and Uganda as well.

The story starts in the early 90s. There is a constant tension in the country due to the recent incidents of violence. The Hutu movement to wipe of ‘the cockroaches’ (as they would call Tutsi) starts to gain enormous momentum. That’s when the Hutu president of Rwanda gets assassinated which worsens the situation. Hutu take military command of the state and sets on a mission to erase the Tutsi population from Rwanda.

This movie is the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, the assistant manager of a very big hotel in Rwanda. Paul’s father is a Hutu and mother is a Tutsi. His wife is a Tutsi.

In 1994, the genocide breaks out in Rwanda. The radio keeps blaring ‘kill the cockroaches’. The armed Hutus are everywhere. They are in hundreds and thousands. They have all the weapons with them and they have the numbers too. They start killing Tutsi on sight. They seem to take pride and joy in killing Tutsi. The news about the mass murders spreads. Tutsi are running everywhere. They want a place to hide, place to save their lives. As this was a very well planned massacre, Hutu have got them very well surrounded. There is no escape.

It even gets to a stage where the disposal of dead bodies becomes a massive operation by itself. Rwanda starts stinking. Dead bodies are cleared like debris. It becomes difficult to drive in certain roads because of the uncleared bunch of bodies lying around.

The real Paul Rusesabagina recollects:

We all knew we would die, no question. The only question was how. Would they chop us in pieces? With their machetes they would cut your left hand off. Then they would disappear and reappear a few hours later to cut off your right hand. A little later they would return for your left leg etc. They went on till you died. They wanted to make you suffer as long as possible. There was one alternative: you could pay soldiers so they would just shoot you. That’s what her [his wife] father did.

This whole situation was brought out in the movie very well. They make you feel how bad the situation was. They got me worried. You get this uncomfortable feeling when you see thousands of armed Hutu extremists chanting and walking down the roads and killing Tutsi along the way. Absolutely merciless. Be it old people or women or children, they just go on killing them. And there is Paul Rusesabagina trying to save his family.

When all this news comes out, Paul wants to save his family and that’s all he cares. And he feels that he must save his neighbours too. Then he realises that he is able to save some more lives. And he slowly realises that everyone is abandoning Rwanda. The journalists, the red cross, the UN officials, everyone is leaving Rwanda. No one wants to stop what’s happening here in Rwanda. Worse is, no one even wants to know what’s happening here in Rwanda. This wasn’t the biggest story in CNN or BBC and was called ’some tribal violence’. I know why. There is no oil in Rwanda, for starters.

As the killings continue, Paul with no support from anyone, goes on to refuge about 1,268 people in his hotel which has 112 rooms. The power is out. Supplies have stopped coming. There is no administration at the hotel. There is no one to do that. These thousand plus people will have to be fed until the crisis comes to an end. Hutu are hunting for the Tutsi. Paul Rusesabagina, a true hero, saves 1,268 people in a genocide that killed about a million people in about 100 days.

It’s a great movie, as in it brings out the horror and emotions as it should. I mean, imagine a million people getting killed in about 100 days, that’s about 10,000 murders everyday for 100 days. It must have been fucking hell and the movie captures that as much as possible. It is simply impossible to capture a horror of this magnitude in a movie. It cannot be a documentary. It is a movie and there’s a story telling to do. In the process, they had to show the backdrop to make us understand the gravity of the situation. Even though you now know that Paul saved more than thousand people, when you watch the movie, you won’t believe that they could be saved or might have been saved. That’s how well they’ve depicted these scenes.

Paul was a hero. He was a hero because he could commit a heroic act to save so many lives. Before 1994, he was a very ordinary man, with his family and children, working as an assistant manager in a hotel. After 1995, he took asylum in Belgium after some serious life threats in Rwanda. He is again a very normal man now. He was a hero, for a short period, when it mattered most. One might wonder why Paul left Rwanda and is living in Belgium. The answer is he wants to live. He wants to live his life peacefully. That underlines that he is a very normal man who went against all the odds to perform a heroic act at a certain time. He did not dedicate his whole life to the people of Rwanda or something. He did not want to bring change to Rwanda or something. All that he did was to be a hero when he can and be like a normal man when he wants to. This mentality is brought out very well in the movie as well.

This is a very inspirational movie. It shows that you don’t have to be in the army or in the politics or be a strong or powerful guy to do such acts of heroism. All that matters is your spirit and determination. And all that he did was very much in his capacity as an assistant manager of a hotel. He did not do anything that a hotelier would not otherwise do. He housed people, he fed them, he made feel comfortable, he made them feel safe. In our walks of life, in our capacity, we can do quite a lot. But we don’t do unless we’re pushed to the limits. Even in this story, if Paul’s family, friends and relatives are all Hutu, he might have tried to flee the country for a peaceful life. It was the fight for the survival of his family that brought the best out of him. We all need to be pushed to the wall to come up with such acts. But we are normal people. But even normal people can do quite a lot. That’s my take away from this movie.

This is one of the most spine-chilling movies I have ever seen. It’s not very often that you’re filled with sadness, disappointment and helplessness after you’re done watching a movie. I was really worried. Really worried that this happened and it happened as recently as in mid-90s and the fact I could know about this only from a movie. Do watch this movie. The sad thing is, this movie would always be relevant. You cannot rule out another such genocide in the future. If I had asked you in 1993, if a mass killing of million people would ever happen, you’d have laughed off. That’s why this movie would always be relevant.

Lao Tzu became very famous, a wise man, and he was without doubt one of the wisest man ever. The emperor of China asked him very humbly to become the chief justice of the supreme court, because nobody could guide the country’s laws better than he could. He tried to persuade the emperor, “I’m not the right man”, but the emperor was insistent.

Lao Tzu said, “If you don’t listen to me . . . just one day in the court and you will be convinced that I’m not the right man, because the system is wrong. Out of humbleness I was not saying the truth to you. Either I can exist or your law and your order and your society can exist. So . . . let us try it.”

The first day a thief who had stolen almost half of the treasures of the richest man in the capital was brought into the court. Lao Tzu listened to the case and then he said that the thief and the richest man should both go to jail for six months. The rich man said, “What are you saying? I have been stolen from, I have been robbed – what kind of justice is this, that you sending me to jail for the same amount of time as the thief?”

Lao Tzu said, “I am certainly being unfair to the thief. Your need to be in jail is greater because you have collected so much money to yourself, deprived so many people of money . . . thousands of people are downtrodden and you are collecting and collecting money. For what? Your very greed is creating the thieves. You are responsible. The first crime is yours.”

Lao Tzu’s logic is absolutely clear. If there are going to be too many people and only a few rich people, you cannot stop thieves, you cannot stop stealing. The only way to stop is to have a society where everybody has enough to fulfil his needs, and nobody has unnecessary accumulation just out of greed.

The rich man said, “Before you send me to jail I want to see the emperor, because this is not according to the constitution;this is not according to the laws of the country.” Lao Tzu said, “This is the fault of the constitution and the fault of the law of the country. I am not responsible for it. Go and see the emperor.”

The rich man said to the emperor, “Listen, this man should be immediately deposed from his post; he is dangerous. Today I am going to jail, tomorrow you will be in jail. If you want to save yourself, this man has to be thrown out; he is absolutely dangerous. And he is very rational. What he is saying is right; I can understand it – but he will destroy us!”

The emperor understood it perfectly well. “If this rich man is a criminal, then I am the greatest criminal in the country. Lao Tzu will not hesitate to send me to jail.” Lao Tzu was relieved of his post. He said, “I tried to tell you before; you are unnecessarily wasting my time. I told you I am not the right man. The reality is your society, your law, and your constitution are not right. You need wrong people to run the whole wrong system.”

Your comments please!

Sun signs were not invented by Linda Goodman. And sun signs are not a thing of Western Astrology. Sun signs and moon signs are described very well in the ancient hindu astrology. There, sun sign denotes the body and moon sign denotes the mind. Sun signs talk about personalities and how someone is seen by the others. Moon signs talk about what emotional side of the person. Therefore, sun sign alone may not be sufficient to judge a person. You need to combine the qualities of the sun sign and the moon sign for a decent package. But sun signs, moon signs, ‘your day today’ and ’signs this week’ are not astrology. They are pieces of astrology which may not make full sense when used in isolation. By now you’d have understood that I believe in astrology. That makes me a bit old-fashioned, isn’t it? Sadly enough, I can’t even prove to you how it works. I cannot convince you.

Some people don’t believe astrology. That’s because they don’t ‘believe’. I believe in ancient hindu astrology. When you believe in astrology you’re either old-fashioned or superstitious or lacking self-confidence. Those are perceptions that are hard to erase. When I say I believe, let me clarify that I’ve never consulted astrology or sought any help from an astrologer or sought to know my future. Now you may ask, is it possible to predict the future? The way I see it, astrology is a science. It has its own methods, formulae and theories. It can predict the future and those predictions can go wrong, just like it happens with any science. Astrological predictions are like those by-pass heart surgeries. There are proofs of concept that it works. But it depends a lot on who performs it and various other circumstances. Just because a by-pass surgery fails we should not be doubting medical science.

Astrologers are like bloggers. To be an astrologer, you don’t need a degree or a certificate. So anyone can be an astrologers. Most of the amateur astrologers give astrology a bad name. Because of them, astrology has even become a joke. Reminds me of the local meteorological office. When they say it will rain, it will be sunny like sun has come closer by a million miles. That’s a local joke because they get it wrong most of the times. That’s why people don’t really take bloggers or astrologers or meteorologists any seriously.

The fake astrologers are like magicians. They show you what you want to see.

Astrologer: You must be a very hard worker. You’ll give anything and everything for your work. Right?
Astronut: Absolutely. You’re right!
Astrologer: You hate lies. You hate being lied to.
Astronut: You got it. My blood boils when I’m lied to!!
Astrologer: You’re a very creative person. You get upset when you’re ideas are not considered.
Astronut: Spot on. Looks like you know me better than I do!!!
(By this time, it is clear that the astronut is willing to get laid. Now comes the business end of the discussions which wins the bread)
Astrologer: You have some loans and that worries you.
Astronut: Yes, it drives me crazy. That’s why I’m here.
Astrologer: Okay now, what you need to do is . . .

Whatever he prescribes, if it works, the astrologer becomes a legend otherwise he can blame it on anything including the fact that the ‘astronut’ had his kitchen facing north and his gas stove facing west.

Let’s be clear. Unreliable astrologers should not mean astrology is unreliable. Astrology has stood thousands of years. I think the basis of astrology could be statistics. Suppose you survey a group of 1000 people wearing blue shirts and 800 of them are very positive-minded. Suppose you survey another group of 1000 people wearing white shirts of which 900 are very pessimistic and skeptical. Your survey conclusion would be that wearing blue shirts generates positivity and creates vibrancy whereas wearing the white shirt makes you negative. When you’re wearing a particular shirt, if 9 out of 10 times, your day has been fantastic, you’d ‘believe’ that it’s your lucky shirt and would wear for the right occasions. It’s all probability based on track record or past data.

Now take a bunch of 1000 pisceans and study they personality and behaviour. I’m sure you’re going to find lots of similarities. That’s because, before someone for the first time wrote that Pisceans are unexciting sober introverts that you should avoid, the survey and study must have happened. That is, thousands of years back, before the earliest scriptures of hindu astrology was written. My take is, it is a pattern. I need not be the introvert of highest degree because I’m a piscean but most pisceans could be. That’s statistics. That’s trend analysis and study of patterns. While this is understandable, you can still ask why should all pisceans be so boring? Why Sun in Pisces makes someone an introvert? That’s a bigger question. That’s where the fundamental belief of ‘planets do influence lives’ comes in. It’s like saying, ‘I know blue shirt is your lucky shirt but why?’.

Astrology is not just sun signs and moon signs. It is much deeper. Astrology is also based on mathematics and astronomy. Do not ask me how astrology works? I don’t have an answer. I’m sure this is not the only question for which you and I don’t have an answer. I certainly believe that astrology works because I believe planets can influence the people’s lives. There are so many things that we don’t understand. We call them luck, fortune, God, unknown, unknowable etc. Wait for a few years for a NASA group of researchers to come up with a paper to say that planets of the universe can influence people’s lives. Some might even win a nobel prize for that.

Now, go ahead. Knock me down!

To say that this is a Westerner’s portrayal of India is the worst you can do to this film. That also shows complete lack of understanding for movie as an art form. This movie would not have been as interesting if the hero Jamal (cut the protagonist crap, it’s hero in the Indian movies) had not had the slum beginnings. And I must appreciate Danny Boyle’s portrayal of slums. He did not show the slums so we can pity them. The focus was always on the characters and never on the slum by itself. With the slums as the background, lasting feelings or images could easily have been sorrow, pain, despair etc. Whereas the overwhelming feeling of the film was fun, adventure and joy. This is not because Jamal wins the prize and the girl. The sense of adventure and joy was spread throughout the time scale of the life of Jamal and his brother Salim. The guys are shown to have fun, be very enterprising and take on the life. If this was the Westerner’s portrayal of India – that no matter where they are, they’re mighty spirited people who never give up – thank you Danny!

Like it always happens with movies, the value of positive and negative publicity is almost the same. All the controversies have certainly made the movie a bit more popular. I still don’t understand why Indian slums should not be shown in a movie. It’s more shameful to have them than to show them. Over the last 60 years, the slums in Mumbai have grown to be the largest in Asia, one of the few Asian records that China did not pip India. Remember, slums have only grown. That’s a harsh reality. The India of outsourced processes, internet reach and mobile market is still not the real truth. The last couple of decades of urban prosperity has not done much to our literacy rate and the poverty line. That’s the truth. Why get so defensive about it, especially when the movie is not at all about the negatives. Isn’t it strange that politicians have not come out against the depiction of Indian slums in this movie? They won’t because they had/have a responsibility to eradicate slums and they’re not doing much about it. If we had shown the energy that we show against such movie directors and pub-going women towards the politicians, we would have less reasons to complain. Tired of seeing people barking up the wrong tree.

When Lagaan made it to the Oscars, I don’t remember anyone making so much noise. In my eyes, Lagaan was more shameful because it showed the Indian bunch as some illiterate bodies in an obscure village, who acted stupid, silly and emotional. None of the villagers were keen about putting up a fight except one man who leads them to an unbelievable charge against the well-mannered, smart, disciplined English. Some of the villager characters existed in the movie just for comedic elements. All they did were stupid, funny things that you’d not expect normal human beings to do. The movie completely undermined the Indians so that the hero can be a hero while you’re having fun watching the movie. Lagaan was made for the Indian audience and when it made to the Oscars, it was so unfortunate that the whole world got to see how ‘we’ projected ‘our’ illiterate silly Indians against the learned British. SM has not done more damage to the image of India than Lagaan did. Isn’t it hypocrisy of the highest order that Slumdog is being pilloried while Lagaan was not? If the same SM was directed by some RGV or Mani Ratnam, we’d have gone bonkers. The pseudo-nationalists always need some reason to knock down anything that’s not Indian.

SM is not the perfect movie. It has its faults. It has its perceived plot holes and all that. Actually I don’t mind that. The movie ‘Life is beautiful’ was not the perfect movie, in terms of factual accuracy and hole-free plot. But no movie has ever moved me than ‘Life is beautiful’ did. In just about 15 or 20 minutes into the movie SM, you’d realise that looking for perfection would only spoil your movie experience. If you look at this movie very critically, I pity you because you missed the fun. Superb casting, great acting by the younger actors, Rahman’s music, most lively camera work, smart direction, mementoesque screenplay with a bollywood-like ending. It’s got it all.

My favourite part of the movie is this. Jamal is on the final question for 2 crore rupees. He doesn’t know the answer and he has the last life line that is phone-a-friend. He calls his brother’s number and he is pleasantly surprised that Latika (Jamal’s love) picks up the call. That’s the first time he gets to speak to her after many months of forced separation. Upon the show host’s insistence, he asks the final question to Latika. She thinks hard but she doesn’t appear to know the answer. Show host says ‘just 15 seconds more’ for the call. Jamal, instead of asking if she knows the answer, asks her “where are you” and she replies “I’m safe”. For me, that sums up the movie. You should watch to appreciate this fully.

In another couple of weeks we’d have known if SM gets the Oscars. I don’t think that Oscars are the paramount, supreme awards that are given out in the film industry. Some of my favourite films which have been the best of that year, never went on to win the Oscar thereby substantiating my belief. Oscars are an American award given to American films and some foreign language films, all from the American standards of film making plus their understanding of world culture. But what Oscars can give you unbelievable publicity, reach and acceptance. For that reason, it helps to win the Oscars. I don’t quite think that the movie would win the award, despite the Warner Bros connection. I really really hope that Rahman wins it. He deserves this award. To get nominated twice in a category that has three nominations means he’s the odds-on favourite to win it.

As many have noted, SM was not Rahman’s best ever. And that’s not to undermine his music in SM, but just to show the high standards he has maintained all through his career, right from his debut. At least 20 to 30 times in his career, I have thought that ‘this is it, this is his best’. Yesterday, I was listening to his ‘Newyork nagaram’ song which still blows me away. The man’s a genius and he deserves global recognition and acclaim.  His ‘O Saya . .’ in Slumdog Millionaire is a very unique score. My bet is that it would win the Oscars.

All these international awards do have some subtle business angle to them. All those Indian girls won the Miss World, Miss Universe, Miss Asia-Oceania and all that not just because they were stunningly beautiful but also that western cosmetic industry had to tap the Indian market. And boy, didn’t they do well! An Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire would start a long season of foreign investment in Indian movie industry. With a humble budget of $15m (most of the hollywood actors get more than that per film) Slumdog Millionaire has amassed $130m. In the current economic conditions which other investment would give as much?

Slumdog Millionaire is the new entrant in my list of my favourite films (I plan to review each of them here, over a period of time). You can say all you want, the one thing SM accomplishes is to remind us the magic of cinema. Roman Polanski said “Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater“. I know some porns will achieve that, but as far as I know that’s the most crisp definition of a good cinema. Slumdog Millionaire does just that.

Or may be, the perfect murder is possible, after all? Even the much-hailed LAPD has a murder case that is unresolved for 70 years! I don’t know what percentage of murders actually get solved. May be we can call all those unsolved murders as perfect ones. But then, just because the case is not closed may not mean that the case is unresolved. A case moy not be closed for various reasons, of which unable to solve the murder could be one. A murder is still a very unsophisticated crime. It is in most cases, a man to man thing. Whereas, forensic science has gone leaps and bounds over the last few decades. Man still kills man for the same reasons, using the same weapons, in the same locations, but the ways and means to solve the murder through forensic methods are ’state-of-the science’.

‘Dial M for Murder’ is one of my most favourite films. It is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best ever. The movie is all about a man’s attempt to commit a perfect murder. He hires a stranger so a motive cannot be established. The job is to kill his wife. The scene where the husband talks to convince the paid-killer that his plan would work, is one of the best scenes I’ve seen in movies. As you’d expect, it fails because the protagonist is after all, a human. Despite weaving a well-explained fool-proof master plan, few things don’t go as planned which results in the assassin getting killed by accident. In further investigation, which is also excellently explained, the intelligent police officer solves the crime. The screenplay sets a benchmark for mystery/thriller movies. As with any Hitchcock movie, you gotta observe very well or watch it a few times to fully appreciate Hitchcock’s genius.

Why can’t be there a perfect murder? Quite difficult. There are always some clues which are there to see. One, there would be a motive. For every murder, you might zero in on to the ones who could have a motive. Two, it’s nearly impossible for the murderer to leave no evidences or witnesses behind. Forensic experts are way too sophisticated to keep scratching their heads. With an half-an-inch hair, they can probably tell you what you had for dinner last night. Three, it’s hard to fool all the people all the time. Humans are humans. No matter what, even the coldest of hearts will beat faster when lie, when they sense that they are being closed in.

The only way to commit a perfect murder would be like this. Someone from say, Delhi goes to say Kanpur. And this guy picks up some random person at home, murders him and returns to Delhi like nothing happened and continues to live his life. There is no motive here. Unless he has left any glaring clues, it’s hard to trace this guy back to Delhi because there is no reason, there is no motive. If you wonder why someone has to do this, believe me, there are all types of people in this world. Some psychopaths kill people for no reason. Those can be caught only in action. It’s hard to investigate their crime because even the evidences are of little help as there would no motive that can trace back to them. In another Hitchcock classic ‘Strangers on a Train’, two strangers meet in a train and develop a conversation. One man offers to kill the other man’s wife, while the other guy offers to kill this man’s brother. By trading murders, they can commit ‘motiveless’ murders, while they can have a perfect alibi.

Remember, there is only so much the law enforcement can handle. At any given point of time they may not be able to efficiently work on more than a certain number of cases. The resources, human and technical, will be limited to a certain extent. There’s going to be prioritisation there too. If it’s between the murder of a 20-year old BPO employee or a 80-year old street dweller, you know which catches the eye of the media and hence the demands the time of the police.

So, I’d conclude that perfect murders are always possible. It’s just that they don’t get caught. If they get caught, that wasn’t a perfect one. Easy to conclude, isn’t it?

Black negative. White positive. Why is black always associated with unpleasant things? Isn’t this a subtle way of racial discrimination? On one side we say ‘no to racism’ and then we see that subtly and symbolically racism exists. While it’s considered an offence to show racial discrimination, some racists never miss a chance to show the difference these ways. The colour black is not such an unpleasant colour in the Tamil language. That’s because Tamil is not the language of the white race. In English, most of the expressions using the black colour never have a pleasant reference.

A disastrous Monday is a black Monday. You don’t want to get a black mark. You would be careful of the black sheep. You don’t want to be blacklisted by anyone. You don’t want your stuff to be sold in the black market. You’d never like to be black mailed. Nothing scares you more than black magic. You may not be very popular with your black humour. You’d never appreciate a black-hearted person. You’d wear the black hat to look at the negatives of an idea. We will all vanish into the black hole.

If you are a black person, how comfortable would you be in using these expressions? Unfortunately, these cannot be erased from the language. These expressions have been in use for decades and centuries, probably since the first black man was noticed by an English-speaking man. To use any of these expressions may not mean you’re racist but I cannot ignore the undercurrent. Edward de Bono first talked about the six hats in the mid-80s. He could have said, black hat symbolises creativity or positive thinking. He didn’t. At least, I think we should be mindful of this fact when we propound new ideas and coin new words and expressions.

With these kind of references to the colour black, it’s hard to whitewash the undertones.

I know it’s cool to say I’m ambitious. It’s inspiring to say ‘20 years back I had a dream and here I’m today’ or ‘my relentless efforts driven by my ambition made me achieve this’. I don’t know people who claim to be ambitious are really ambitious or just claim so because that’s a nice thing to say in our society. As far as I’m concerned, I have no ambition. I don’t know what and where I want to be after 10 years. While I don’t dream about the end result, I certainly enjoy the process. I don’t need the carrot of ambition.

Every want or desire is not the ambition. It is the ultimate state, the superior motive. The ambition is an uncertainty. What is certain is the process that we are on now which might lead to the destination, whether desired by you or not. I simply don’t understand the concept of having an ambition and working towards that. I see that’s a reverse appraoch. What’s natural is to do best with what you have and you’ll get what you deserve. I know I won’t come across as the most optimistic guy with this kind of thoughts.

Ambition is like religion. Some people badly need religion. Some people are very comfortable without it. Some people do need ambition to drive them. Some people don’t. You don’t have to do wonders only because you have an ambition to push you. Need not be. One can do well because he is dedicated, committed, truthful and honest, because that’s the right way, the only way. It’s very easy to live here and now. Living in the past or for the future is unnatural but common. I’m not a sanyasi. Living in a material world, I can’t live ‘here and now’ like the zen masters. But I try as much as I can. It makes me feel light and free. If you live ‘here and now’, you might even laugh at the term ‘ambition’. My idea is simple: live here and now, live happily.

I’ll leave you with this Zen story:

One day, while walking through the wilderness, a man encountered a vicious tiger. He ran for his life, and the tiger gave chase. The man came to the edge of a cliff, and the tiger was almost upon him. Having no choice, he held on to a vine with both hands and climbed down. Halfway down the cliff, the man looked up and saw the tiger at the top, baring its fangs. He looked down and saw another tiger at the bottom, waiting for his arrival and roaring at him. He was caught between the two. Two rats, one white and one black, showed up on the vine above him. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about, they started gnawing on the vine. He knew that as the rats kept gnawing, they would reach a point when the vine would no longer be able to support his weight. It would break and he would fall. He tried to shoo the rats away, but they kept coming back. At that moment, he noticed a strawberry growing on the face of the cliff, not far away from him. It looked plump and ripe. Holding onto the vine with one hand and reaching out with the other, he plucked it. With a tiger above, another below, and two rats continuing to gnaw on his vine, the man tasted the strawberry and found it absolutely delicious.

You can never have the past or the future; one is irretrievably gone and the other is yet to come. The present is here and now, and it is yours completely and unconditionally. No one can take it away from you, and you alone have the power to decide how to use it. Cheers!

My professor in college used to tell us that we should read newspapers not for following the news but to improve our English. We had this habit of reading the papers and noting down those words that we didn’t know the meaning of. That way, all that it became was to go looking for the words that we didn’t know. It sure improved our vocabulary but not sure if it improved our English. But then, good vocabulary is always mistaken for good English.

I used to wonder how about half a dozen daily papers each have 24 pages of news to publish on a daily basis. It’s impossible to do this on a daily basis without using a lot of garbage. There must be a lot of recycled news, outdated news made to look new, unimportant stuff being made like the president is assassinated and such stuff. There’s gotta be a lot of nonsense in there. It’s not practically possible to run daily papers full of quality, reliable news published fully in compliance with the ethics of journalism. That’s not the reason why I don’t spend too much time on papers.

I just feel that it does not deserve too much time. It simply does not. In my school/college days, it helped me to gain brownie points because I knew about something in detail. I’ve grown up now. So I don’t need that. Nowadays, I’m not even sure if I can claim that I ‘read’ the papers. I just browse them through. I can call myself a ‘headline checker’. Anything that catches my eye, gets my attention. I have this in-built scanner that helps me look at only those things I want to see. The maximum time I spend on the daily newspaper would not be more than 10 mins. That’s all. The way I see it, newspapers are a source of information. There are various other sources such as the internet, the television and the people/friends who read newspapers. Quite a lot has changed. Newspaper and Radio are not the only sources for us to get information.

At times, it does make me look a little stupid because I don’t quite follow the news as people do. Someone asked ‘did you see the news about the octuplet’? I could make out that it had something to do with eight. I thought octuplet meant a verse with eight lines. I just don’t care though because I know the exact difference between intelligence and knowledge. Timely or otherwise, knowledge can always be acquired. I have not yet lost anything because I’m not spending more than 10 mins on papers. Of course, I’ve gained a lot. See, I’m not spending that time on blogging. Writing vs Reading.

Yes, I missed that ‘octuplet’ news. I don’t think that news of use to me but I would have at least learnt that term ‘octuplet’. Now that I have learnt a new word, hope I get to use it often. Octuplet.