Tuesday, October 23, 2007

The joke called Ramar Sethu

If you are not aware of the controversy in India about the Ramar Bridge, (or Ramar bandan or adam bridge or sethu samudhra project as different parties want to call it), please go back to sleep and I will wake you after the rest of the winter is over.

There is enough serious debate with people's tongues and heads at stake. I just want to compile here some of the acute observations from our esteemed politicians.

Subramaniam Swami: If at all Karunanidhi is supporting someone, he should be supporting Rama and not Ravana. Because Ravana is Brahmin and Rama is Kshatriya!
Dude, If I understand Karunanidhi right, he is telling there is no Rama or Ravana, if a person does not exist, his caste does not matter.

Karunanidhi: People claim Rama build this bridge. I want to know which engineering school he went to.
Ramagopalan: Karunanidhi is going around telling people he built 18 over head bridges in Chennai. Which engineering school did he go to?

Tirumavalavan - (in a meeting reiterating Rama is fiction): Rama killed Ravana who is a Tamil king. We should destroy the bridge because it is a mark of shame for us Tamils.
Dude, Whose side are you on? You are supposed to be telling people Rama did not exist. How did a fictional character kill a Tamil king.

BJP is planning nationwide stir on Ramar Sethu
What is so funny about it? They approved parts of the project in 2001-2002!!!

Vishwa

Vishwanathan is the center of attraction these days. It is incredible how soon he has earned the love and respect of our gang and has become a part of our plans.

He definitely looks intelligent. I have asked Sai to to teach him MS Excel and take some load off us. It does sound selfish of me if you put it that way. But he is a cool guy like me and I like bonding with him. I am planning to take him to the city when he visits the Bay area and we are going to wear neon blue jerseys and metal chains and go bar hopping. Either that or spend some quality time together in Napa.

Sai told me Tabrez is planning to ask Vishwa to go with him on the European tour and not to be left out, Ramki is calling him the V-dog and promising him some interesting night life.

What is cool about Vishwa is, all this does not get to his head. He always has this sweet smile and does not respond much to all this worship. I know this is a combination girls will die for. Priya says his lips are like a cowboy hat and that is so cute. (Some one explain me how hat-like lips are cute) and she wants to go for long strolls with him holding his hands.

Of course, not all response is positive. Ramya thinks he is too clumsy and messy and is too dependent on on others. But that is nothing unusual coming from Ramya - I personally think she is a orderliness freak. Can't blame her too. She is the one changing diapers for Vishwa all day.

Pleasure of beep beep beep...

I spent half a day scanning. No - not the progressive scanning of data sets or the body scan in airports- just plain simple scanning of barcode. You know the beep beep beeps.

This job is incredibly satisfying. It does not involve coordinating the calendars of eight people, I do not have to drill down the pros and cons of scanning or get the buy-in before scanning the next item, (and before scanning the item after that) and I dont have to agonize myself about telling people how rotten their idea is, and where they should shove it - without using the word rotten or shove... and with the word like:) Just the pure simple pleasure of hearing the beep beep beep.

As jobs go, this one is incredibly rewarding and feedback cycle is unbelieavable. All I need is a reassuring beep to say, 'Yes. That is another task executed well... now lets move on to the next one.

A couple of hours of this and I would have applied for a position in Wal-Mart. But it was too good to last. I was fired from the job for being too slow :(

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Prathiba Patel... Hinduism in American and Taveleen's Singh brand of journalism

A friend forwarded me an article by Tavleen Singh titled A dark distorted hinduism. Was never a big fan of Tavleen Singh ever since she started referring to Jayalalitha only as "the big lady down south". A responsible journalist does not do that to a Chief Minister, even an unpopular one.

My problems with this article.

a. Tavleen thinks Pratibha Patil should not talk to dead men.
b. Taveleen feels the predominant brand of Hinduism taught in American Universities is Brahmins drinking menstrual blood.
c. Tavleen thinks Amartya Sen is wrong in telling Hindu brand of extremism is more dangerous for India than Islamic brand of extremism.

Tavleen can think true Hindus do not speak (or do not believe in) speaking to dead men. But the true beauty of Hinduism is it is all pervasive and has no problems accepting animal sacrifices, ellai theivam, ' pei adicha ponukku manthiruchu vidurathu' and widows shaving their head. Yeah! you can quote Vedas and Upanishads and say, this is not the way Hinduism is meant to be. But millions follow that and if you want to question these in the name of superstition, there is no difference between you and Periyaar and I am pretty sure you don't want to tread that path.

I do have problems with Pratibha Patil, but not being a true Hindu is not one of that and I don't think that is a qualification for the first citizen of India. Yes! Abdul Kalaam would have made a better president. But the majority party does not like him and there is no way around it.

Unlike Tavleen, I googled a bit on drinking menstrual blood and found a couple of articles on the tantric practice of Yoni Chakra Puja or Swadhistana Sattva. That begs the question is this main stream and how many people follow it. That is exactly the question Tavleen and Rajiv Malhotra should have asked in the first place. Are the American universities teaching these the 'go-to places' for learning Hinduism in America. In his article stereotyping Hindisum in American Education, Rajiv Malhotra quotes, University of Evansville, Toronto University, Princeton university press (in a very innocuous reference) and a 'prestigious US university'. Unless these are the top choices for people wanting to learn Hinduism, this is as inconsequential as Sati in Hinduism now.

To Rajiv Malhotra's credit, his problem "with such portrayals is not that they mention false things, but that the context (and quantity) in which students understand them makes them appear as standard for Hinduism" It is a laudable mission and can be better accomplished without the likes of Tavleen rabble-rousing.

I fully support Amartya Sen's view and he nailed why India's secularism should be a bit pro-minority. Amartya Sen is talking about the difference in magnitude between the damage a majority can inflict on the minority and the damage minority can inflict. Case in point: death- toll in
- 9/11 - 2752
- Holocaust: 6,000,000
- 1993 Bombay blasts: 257
- Godhra riots: upto 2,000
- Anti-sikh riots: 2,733

You don't need a Nobel laurette in macro economics to point this out. But even when they do, we refuse to believe it and rush to the first defense: He is a communist!

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Cauvery and the tragedy of commons

I was listening to a lecture on strategic modeling when I thught tragedy of commons is a good way to look at the Cauvery dispute and there is a strategic modelings perspective to solving the dispute.

Tragedy of Commons happens when two or more parties over exploit a common resource to maximize their individual benefit. In the end this overexploitation reaches a level where the common resource is not useful or is inadequate for all the parties. In the case of Cauvery dispute, both Tamil Nadu (TN) and Karnataka have greatly expanded the land under irrigation. This became a growth loop - Expansion yields prosperity and prosperity facilitates more expansion. The flip side is they used a common resource - the cauvery water - to do that and we have come to a point, where the water left in the basin and the table is no longer enough to sustain the areas under irrigation. We can fight for years on who has more rights to use the water but the bottomline is there is not enough water.


This is not the first time, the world has come across this problem. All the issues related to pollution, global warming, or exploiation of natural resources can be captured in this same frame work and there are some good solutions out there.

The problem is that the growth loop gets stronger and stronger using up the common resource. The solution is to create a balancing loop that after a point will disincentivize the uncontrolled growth and limit it.


The Solutions are very controversial. We can try the US style 'pay-not- to-grow' programs. If the incentives are strong enough, farmers will opt out. But the problem with this aproach is, that it is counter to a capitalist economy. We can also try to remove the free farm electricity program or tax the agricultural income. These create the balancing loops that limit the benefits of expansion.

Another aproach is to limit productivity by outlawing certain fertilizers or outlawing triple cropping. The effect is the same - by reducing the benefits of expansion, we control unfettered growth and preserve the river and the water table for future use. This last aproach is sucessfully used to rejuvenate the fishing industry in Newfoundland.

Often in public policy, the problem is not in finding a solution, but in implementing it. It will be interesting to discuss if any of these solutions are implementable in India and if all the parties will have the political will to implement measures like this.

Guru - Definitely in Mani Rathnam's class

In Tamil, we use the same word 'Nugharthal' to refer to ' enjoying a refined sensual experience' or 'to smell'. Mani Rathnam's Guru is one those experiences that should be smelled and breathed in like a 'pavazha malli', the smell of moisture on a long bus journey in the night or a baby after shower - very subtle yet overpowering.

You don't normally talk about a biopic of an industrial tycoon in these delicate terms. But that is what sets apart Mani Rathnam from others. I do not want to write about the storyline. Just want to talk about my interpretation of some of what I saw that made this experience 'Nugarthal'.

There is no mistaking which real life industrialist the movie is about when the protagonist is called Gurubhai. We get a feel for Guru's character early in the movie when he says to his manager, "If you think I am good and the 'phiranghi' thinks I am good, why should I work for you? I might as well work for myself and make all the money for myself". And how is he going to do this in the 'Lincense Rajjed' India? The tone is set early in the movie too. Guru is begging for a licence to trade yarn. The person who has the power to grant him the license is in a golf club and challenges him to hit the ball to the hole to get a license - a game Guru is not in comfortable in. Guru does not even try to use a club. He picks the ball, walks to the hole and drops it. For the first time in the movie, he has rewritten the rules of the game.

This in a nutshell is Guru. He played a lot of games that he did not know, and always had a different interpretation of the rules. As he says, "I opened the doors either with a 'salaam' or with a kick". Of course, the problem is people felt he is doing 'salaams' too often or kicking doors too often.

The movie transcends to a totally different level when we realize this movie is more about three different people's very conflicting definition of right and wrong, than about one Guru. There is the khadi-clad, corruption-fighting newspaper editor who thinks his quest for truth (and his newspaper that drove the Britishers out of India) is holier than God; a young journalist who is not above using wrong means to the right end of fighting corruption; and the industrialist who does not mind kicking or 'salaam'ing to create prosperity - for himself and for his three lack shareholders. There is no one right answer to who is right and who is wrong and the movie just revolves around this question.

... and there is an emotional cynosure for these three people - a girl full of life, afflicted with multiple sclerosis and counting her days. Mani Rathnam uses her as a great balancing act whenever the conflict between the three characters escalates to an uncontrollable level. Only their common love for this character makes the decency in their confrontation realistic.

Guru's relationship with the father figures is also very subtle. His dad and the news paper editor mean well, patronize him and want to protect him. But Guru fast outgrows both of them and ends up antagonizing them. May be it his ambition and drive, or it could also be their inability to accept an alternate way of doing things.

The movie is full of Mani Rathnam's little gems. Guru can't find a better phrase to praise his wife than sheepishly say, you are as shiny as a polyester. Or when Guru says, I dream of the day when I will clothe everyone in this country, his wife crash lands to reality telling "let me go dry your clothes - else you wont have anything to wear tomorrow".

Of course I do not like everything about Guru. The civility in the confrontations are way too idealistic. May be there are people out there who can be decent when disagreeing. But having grown in the era of Karunanidhi and Jayalalitha, I am not aware of it.

May be the reason Nayagan is a great movie is because it ends with a question and not try to offer a solution. But, Mani Rathnam as in Ayutha Ezhuthu, falls prey to offering a fit-all solution. and over-dramatizes the climax to do that. I cannot believe Mani Rathnam does not know a rousing monologue is not sufficient to sway a judicial enquiry panel and I flinch when the hero who was barely audible the day before, delivers a sermon the next day. (Though Guru says, "main Baniya hun saab! Have to conserve even the speech for a better day"). And why is there so much stress on Guru being middle class? Is Mani Rathnam afraid a truly elitist movie will not resonate with the public?

Guru does have a few weak spots, but it is definitely one of the best Indian movies I have seen. When a movie makes you stop and think about the subtleties of life, it transcends the level of box office flick and becomes a work of art. Guru definitely is one!


Post script: I cannot believe how awfully bad the English subtitles are. Subtitles are there for a reason - for people like me who do not understand the language. When I am able to enjoy the movie better without the subtitles that definitely screams "Quality control please!"