Blue print of success

So cliched... but helps immensely when I need it

Shiv Khera Presentation

View more presentations from Joerohit

India and Indians

Notes: This was written way back in 2008. Though I have lost some of the optimism (why? look for another blog post) but still I do believe most of it.

I remember my civics classes in school. Our teacher digressed and told us that Indian population growth is more than 2% which effectively means that Indian population will double in 20 years time. The strain on the resources is already showing, he was worried about the future.

Who knew in 10 years time the curse will turn out to be blessing. Today India is a huge market of a billion people. India is home to the fastest expanding middle class. The Middle class, the same people who are synonymous with demand of the economy. The advent of IT and ITES jobs have put money where it cannot stay for long. No wonder all companies want to attarct it to their products. Those who showed promise for Indian story are reaping benefits, those who showed skepticism are licking their wounds and looking for an opening. Welcome, gentlemen this is india.

But why does it come as a great surprise that Indian talents long surpass those of other countries? Why is it unexpected that Indian students are the most sought after in all the countries? Why is it astonishing that IITs which were made from scratch, and almost without funding in comparison to US and European conutries, have reached stage to be reckoned with the best in such a short time. Its not bewildering either that IIMs too are following in the same foot steps and the world over comes to recruit its graduates.

Hope you guessed why India is not such a undeniable future. Its the people of India. Indians is the biggest contribution of India to the world. They always have been. India is the land of Vedas and upnishads - the earliest philosophies of the world. Sages and brahmins were basking in glory of knowledge while the world groped in darkness Gita is the first organized way of living, Sanatana dharma is the first organized religion The Mahabharta and Ramayana are the epics of the era which knew no literature.

If Jerusalem was the center of spiritualist developments in the west, India was the land of spiritualism in the east. While the ancient relegions of the world were taking shape in the deserts of middle-east, the modern relegions of India were taking their first breaths. Thinkers like Buddha, Mahavir and poets like kalidas sprinkled this nation of philosophies with their contributions. While the world clambered for existense, Buddha showed the way of Nirvana.

While the city states of Greece were experimenting with democracy and politics, Chanakya wrote a constitution for good governance and national strategy.

Everything that has a beginning has an end. The glorious time of the Indian subcontinent was followed by its dark ages when the plunderers looted the wealth of India. Its a pity that they took the fruits of the kalptaru called India but never bothered to know her secrets. They laughed at the half naked ascetics and burnt libraries. India's supreme position, thus received a setback and others prospered at her expense. After the shackles of slavery loosened, like a jungle-bred lion put in chains, Indian youth roared and fluttered but only allowed to break free during liberalization. India is all set and best-placed to achieve its long-due and forgotten glory

Newton's laws of motion in action... in Life

Life is essentially so interesting because it never ceases to change. But why does change seems different to different people? What governs their response to change?

If there is a better place than science to apply Newton's laws of motion, its life. For those who slept in physics classes let me quote the Newton's laws of motion and then I will explain my point of view about each of them.

1) First law of motion: Every body, moving or at rest remains to be so until an unbalanced external force is applied. This is also called the law of inertia. Inertia is a state of constancy and not necessarily idleness. It means the person has settled into a predictable life so comfortably that the life goes on for him without any change. The momentum of his life, large or small is always constant

For example, lets consider a vapid, unemotional but attractive young man who is the object of desire of a lot of girls. Some do try but he sis uninterested because he cannot reciprocate their feelings as he feels satisfied with himself and doesn't see a need for romantic interest. This is the effect of inertia, the need to change looks insignificant and the effort to change looks huge.

2) Second Law of motion: The rate of change of momentum is directly proportional to the net force applied. In other words, Force is something which can change the momentum. How potent the force is, is determined by the rate at which the momentum is changed.


Other than force, there is one other factor which governs the change in momentum: Inertia. Higher the inertia lower is the change in momentum. Extending the analogy of the young man, lets assume he is courted by a curious young girl incessantly. Slowly, young man becomes a lot more agreeable to the girl but she always complains him of being inattentive, inexpressive towards her. All the love she showers on the young man results in a slight smile or an invisible blush. The inertia of the young man against the force of love is huge and thus the momentum caused by love in general populace is hardly noticeable in our protagonist

Thus, force can change momentum to the extent inertia allows it

3) Finally, the most important law, the 3rd law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This basically means that the force applied by an agent to change the state of target(opposed by its inertia), changes the state of agent himself(again opposed by his own inertia) as if the same force was acting upon the agent

Finally, When the girl proposes the young man for marriage, he becomes happy and says yes with his uneventful, hardly noticeable smile. While the girl is so happily chirping and blushing away to glory as if it was he who proposed her

The idea here is not to teach physics, but to teach life. I am sure I have been unsuccessful because everyone has their own views about life and this meager force can hardly challenge that inertia. I hope , though, I have been able to add a color to that kaleidoscope

Change is life's spice but everyone has his own tastes.

Wish Granted: AC First Class

This is hardly a lesson or theory but an experience I describe here. I start a new thread on this blog about the long time longings which as and when get fulfilled, get posted here. This one is about traveling in AC First Class of Indian Railways. This has been my dream for a long long time and it came to fruition on a trip from Kolkata to Delhi on Sealdah Rajdhani Express on 21st March 2011.


The best part of the whole story is that it started as a surprise :) I was comfortably seated in my 2nd AC seat playing a game on my mobile when a couple with a child comes in and start talking about taking my seat. A glimmer of hope kindled in my eager heart that I could have been upgraded. With huge anticipation I checked my PNR Status and here it was, my cabin number H in H-Ext1!! Yeah! there are cabin numbers in AC First Class and seat numbers are to be checked at boarding time.


I was the object of envy of everyone around me, including the guy who checked my PNR on his laptop, and the guy looking to usurp my seat. Yeah man! I am the one taking over the world and you rotten garbage, keep your stink off me. I was so happy that I could only compare the happiness to a time in my childhood when I found a rupee coin on the road to school and I spent it in recess on a pepsi cola.

I went in my cabin to find it empty! So the king travels alone. King? Yeah, why else would the attendant bow unto me while wishing 'Good Evening Sir'. O yeah! Mamta's boys can do that too in addition to thrusting the tray of food in your lap. But not here; here they serve it. Served they did, the juice, in a tray and a glass. The same Jumpin but in a glass! A neatly turbaned guy with mustache comes in, hands me a rose, says "Welcome Sir" and I get that he is the butler for the night. He gets a folding table and sets it up to put the first round of food. He gets a huge tray with crockery containing the food. As I am wondering how am I going to eat from a large tray, he presents me with a smaller plate to help my helpings.

So the time passes merrily with four sumptuous meals being served with utmost sincerity and welcomeness, which I experienced for the first time in the trains of a country which prides on its tradition of "Atithi devo bhava". As i deboard in Delhi, I have a perpetual, divine smile which refuses to die. I play along.

The Next Vishnu Avatar

यदा यदा , ही धर्मस्य , ग्लानिर भवति भरता:,

अभ्युथानम अधर्मस्य , तदात्मानं सृजाम्यहम .

परित्रनान्य साधुनाम , विनाशयाच दुष्कृताम,

धर्मं-संस्तापनार्थाया:, संभवामि युगे युगे.

Meaning:

Whenever Dharma is discouraged,

To eradicate the Adharma and to establish the Dharma,

To help the holy people and to finish the evil,

To establish Dharma, I come and come in every era

Although I am not a very religious person but I do believe in the above shloka. My belief germinates from a logical point of view rather than being derived from scriptures. In this post I will try to reason why the above may be true and also the why the way it has been said would never let it be desecrated. Finally I will delve a little into fictional world of Matrix to further elucidate my points.

It all starts with evolution and the way it works. Evolution, roughly, operates like a computer chess engine. At any point in time, it calculates all the possible changes in a species within a given set of rules. Rules in the case of Evolution can be survival factors like sun, water, temperature, pressure etc. and also societal factors like predators, intra-species competition etc. It distributes all these possible changes to the new generation of off-springs(according to the genes of parents, but taking a big enough sample size, we can assume it to be random because there are several factors governing distribution like regressive and aggressive traits in parents etc.) and allows them to compete with factors above. The better changes survive and others perish. Among all those who survived the same process is repeated again.

I cannot say the same about lesser animals categorically but in humans evolution also have a alternate side. Evolution-like-process called conditioning governs the distribution of virtues and vices in humans. After conception of the child, the evolution slows down and conditioning begins. Some of this conditioning is hard-wired in the genes of the new born but most of this is formed socially on interaction with family, friends, peers, government, and experiences. The only difference between conditioning and evolution is that none of the holders of the attributes of conditioning (i.e. vices and virtues) die to make a difference in their distribution. Thus both streams of attributes gains power over the time. This process of conditioning is what makes the prophecy of Avatar true.

To see why this assertion may hold true, for the same of argument let us assume there are 100 attributes of human nature and there are 100 severity states for each of these attributes. Every person will have all these 100 attributes. Let me define an Avatar in terms of these attributes. An avatar will be the one has all these hundred attributes at their best possible state. What, then, is the probability than any one person on earth is an avatar. The probability is 1 / 100 (rasied to the power of 100) i.e. the avatar will be one among 100000....(1 followed by 101 zeroes) individuals. To see this in perspective, there are only 6 billion people in this world (6 followed by 9 zeroes). 

So how many years will it take for the avatar to materialize after the last one? Assuming a life of 40 years per person, every year 150 million people die and are newly born. it will take 6(followed by 92 zeroes) years. Now here is the catch, no one really knows how many attributes there are in human nature and how many severity states they can exist in. All we can see is their effect on us and to some extent the society in general. Thus, it can never be accurately predicted, when the avatar will appear, or how good he / she will be. Only the affect can be seen. Thus, we find that, when the bad people have make it impossible for the good to exist and whenever a deliverer comes to end the misery, the avatar has risen. Since there are no time bound commitments which can be calculated, there is no way the argument made by the shloka can be denied . It is bound to come true!

A pertinent question now is why can't the avatar preempt the misery and not allow it to happen? My take on this is that, since the definition of virtue is based on vice (o yeah! the concept that we should always speak the truth comes from the fact that there are people who do not speak the truth), it is the vices which will arise first and those with a conscience will create a virtue of not practicing the vice. Thus, this runs on a feedback mode. When the bad becomes powerful, the good realizes that and then it starts to congregate all its energies to fight it. I always wondered, why is it that when some farmers die, the relief package is announced? Why is it that when a aggressor attacks the defender moves? I think questions like these can be some what answered in the light of argument above.

There is a related concept and argument which also holds in the fight between good and bad its nuances. The concept is that of entropy. I will touch upon that in some later post.

Just to elucidate what I have argued above, the analogy from Matrix is very fitting. Matrix is a system which is a colony of half conscious minds, duped into believing as reality what really is a fictional computer world. They have a concept of free-will. Thus, when a person realizes that he may be in an artificial world, he is given a choice to explore that or to disregard it. Most people disregard the choice. Some people make a choice to explore it further but give it up midway. Some other explore it to the end and end up fighting the system, but they lack the attributes to beat the system. One among them, though, is the right mix of everything required to beat the system. This ONE is described as sum of the anomalies in the system. He is born to resuscitate the populace and end the evil.He is the avatar.