Captive Adaptations

Its been 7 years. 1999 was the last time when I was around to celebrate this festival with my sibling sisters. Not that I am religious or ritual, but I don’t miss an opportunity to participate in anything that symbolizes love and warmth.

The amount of time that goes invested as part of growing together, while learning more from your siblings than your parents, is what makes this day all the more meaningful, at least to me. Almost all virtues that I carry today are undoubtedly what I have subconsciously learnt from my elder sisters. And the privilege to be looked upon as a role model, is bestowed by my younger sister. In many ways they have been the true guiding forces for me to “behave”.

“Raksha Bhandan” or “Rakhi” implies that a brother protects his sister during the times of adversity, but in a deeper sense, I think its their prayers, love and affection that has enabled me to stay away from trouble, else its easy for a hyperactive individual like me to drift away into troubled waters. Call it faith, call it a belief system, even when I have not been around with my sisters, I have always momentarily paused and wondered, is it their protective shield that is still working !

Finally the heat of reservation debate entered our office cubicles today. Like most startups we are always scampering to meet the deadlines and find very little time for an elaborate discussion on “events” which the main stream media projects day in and day out.

But, accidentally today, I found myself in the middle of a passionate discussion that my dear colleagues were having, and the impulsive disorder that I have to rant on any subject anytime led me to make my own comments. With the simple data I had known I emphatically proclaimed that both “pro-reservation” and “pro-merit” camps missed many vital facts, let alone missing the viewpoints of the other camp.

For all the brouhaha that this debate has caused, it just occured to me that all this attention and uproar was mostly because most of us, particularly the educated Indians have “pro-merit” or “anti-reservation” sentiments, this, mostly because we do not want to lose being the “privileged” and we easily choose to ignore the “socio-economic” reality. For example how many of us have made a sincere effort to learn these facts which went unnoticed for the past 6 months. The 104th Amendment Bill, passed both the houses with almost 100% “votes” in both !. And the bill was also signed by the President of India, on Jan 20th 2006.

The entire MSM is only now after nearly 6 months, cooking up a receipe for disaster. Is this the “Rang-de-Basanthi” effect ?. Yes, envelope ignorance, incompetence and greed, (mostly the psuedo-intellectuals in the urban educated society) and stamp it with arrogance they carry while thumping their chests on “pro-merit” and proclaim to be all-knowing, and we have a sure shot receipe for disaster.

May be its time for all of us to make an effort to atleast try and be better informed. Lucky us, just today we have a very good compilation of alternative perspectives on this. Read it here !

Four days have gone by, since my birthday and the dreaded question, was the most frequently asked. In this entry I have tried to find an answer as to why this question is the most FAQ ?

A few years ago, I used to get agitated & annoyed when friends, relatives and even my parents used good intentions to arrive at this question. But with each passing year, discretion has outmoded valor, and has indeed proved to be a well suited response than valor. And its also a coincidence that I happened to be reading Chapter 11 of the selfish gene since I purchased the book.

Here is a very valid reason for people to be asking the most dreaded question, and an equally compelling answer, for me to be more sensitive towards all people asking me this question. The idea is simple. Celibacy and Marriage are both memes that have been passed to us for generations. And it so happens that during the years between 25-35 the “Clash of these memes” is bound to happen pretty frequently.

The success of survival of a particular meme depends critically on how much time people spend in actively transmitting it to other people. And if celibacy weakened the power-of-people to influence and enforce the idea of marriage, its no wonder people feel threatened with the “Meme of Celibacy” as its sure to outlive the “Meme of marriage” for the very reason that it would have recieved more time and attention. Statistics easily show that with each passing generation people are waiting longer to get married, and at the same time are also producing lesser number of off-springs indicating the fact that Celibacy seems to have been winning over the idea of marriage.

Its very interesting to note that Dawkins himself wrote about this clash of marriage and celibacy although for totally different reasons than the one I have stated here. For more you can read it here.

IITians may have captured the attention of the whole world, including the US Congress, but its a little known fact that 90% of them fall short of their stellar performances when it comes to impressing girls. Blame it on all-brains-no-brawn did you say ?

Well, the administrators might have a found a remedy to that too. I just noticed this news article that IIT Delhi has equipped all hostels with a gym. A couple of my friends including my CEO is from IIT Delhi, so I do have a fair bit of understanding of how their life at IIT was. We can be rest assured, with this move IIT Delhi is sure to churn perfect 10’s in brawns but would that mean fivepointsomeones otherwise ?. Lets wait and watch.

Note: Interestingly, I am reading fivepointsomeone for the past few weeks, will provide my review on it along with Mediocre But Arrogant of the same genre at a later point.

The start of a new year and serendipity is smiling at me. Just 10 days ago in my aforeblogged Making a Difference - Redux, I had made references to a few wonderful people doing some interesting work and who are really MAD (Making a Difference).

The first on that list was PlanetRead by Brij Kothari about SLS - Same Language Subtitling. Today, I accidentally typed Google.org instead of the usual Google.com and I noticed PlanetRead on that page. A little more digging and I found this on GoogleBlog.

Both Google Foundation and Google Grants program seem very commited to address the Digital Divide issue globally. The vision of Google Foundation is made crystal clear by the words on the right side of the page by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Here let me quote.

“We hope that someday this institution will eclipse Google itself in overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world’s problems.”

What more can I say ?. Its definitely a shot-in-the-arm for all people who dare to think & act different. The corporate grants and backing for all such programs have had names like Stanford University, Reuters and now Google Foundation is putting their weight behind such efforts. Examples of Atanu Dey backed by Vinod Khosla, and now Brij Kothari backed by Google Foundation are screaming the obvious, all such ideas are becoming serious business, and are more than just philanthropic efforts. Let me reiterate, its time for all you good souls to act and take “The Other Road Ahead“.

It was August when I had promised that I will followup with a Redux for Making a Difference. Well before the year flips into the next, I want to fulfill atleast some promises.

Below are some links to work of some amazing people, all of whom I have been a secret admirer of.

• http://www.planetread.org/
• http://www.linkageindia.org/
• http://www.suvy.com/
• http://www.vipani.org/
• http://www.deeshaa.org/

All of them have something in common, and if you follow it carefully, you can connect the dots. Well, I don’t want to test your patience. The common thread linking all of them is “Reuters Digital Vision Program“. If any of you have any secret plans of a sabbatical and want to invest your time in something really worthy and interesting I think this is it, supported by Stanford University, and backed by Reuters Foundation, this program provides an opportunity to contribute something significant.

Of course, if you do not know, Atanu Dey’s RISC - Rural Infrastructure and Services Commons evolved from here, and his RISC program has been endorsed and supported by none other than Vinod Khosla himself.

Also, I am an India-phile or Indophil (don’t state the obvious did you say ?) and below are some links to work of some Indians from the same program.

• Vipul Arora
• Aman Deep Singh Grewal
• Avni Jamdar
• Deepti Rohatgi
• Rita Sandhu
• Shachi Shantinath
• Paras Dagli
• Nita Goyal
• Dipak Basu
• Sham Bathija
• Durga Prasad Pandey
• Brij Kothari
• Annamalai Muthiah
• Rajendra Nimje
• Srinivas Sukumar
• Sanjay Bhargava
• Thomas George
• Atanu Dey
• Rajeswari Rao Pingali

Of course hats off to all the fellows-of-the-program from all nationalities who have contributed their time and efforts in this initiative. So what are you waiting for ?

P.S.: If any of you want to brainstorm on ideas to enroll yourself, I would be happy to be the Devil’s advocate on it. So feel free to shoot me your comments either here or through mail to ynmanju4us at gmail dot com

Introspections are really funny activities. And while I am in the phase of “year-end” introspections, it dawned on me that as a Hindu it is quite but natural to culminate all acts with a philosophical review. Why one might ask ? For eons, Hindus as part of the child rearing activity have ensured that a healthy doze of Vedas or Upanishads are fed to the child. For the un-initiated, Upanishands (philosophical revelations) are usually found in the last section of each Veda (the intellectual scriptures of Hindus) , and therefore the philosophy of Upanishads has come to be called as Vendanta. And while I am a Hindu, and although I am not a brahmin, my upbringing ensured that I be exposed to good amount of Vendanta.

So its quite but natural for me to introspect and conduct a “philosophical review” of events in a given time period, say like a year. Hoping that the output of such an activity will provide all the “Things to be done”, and hence be incorporated as my new-year resolutions.

Interestingly I find a good deal of similarities in the new age “Time Management” ideas and the concept of Vedas. Here, read for youself, why Vyasa Collected, Processed and Organized all Vedas, and made sure that reviews or Upanishads were part of the last section, and interestingly he did so because he noticed that people had less and less time, due to their pre-occupations.

Now compare and contrast that with GTD - Getting Things Done, how striking are these similarities !

Captive Adaptations wishes Kannadigas world-over, a very happy Karnataka Rajyothsava. We also take this opportunity to remember one of Kuvempu’s poem “Kannada Dimdima” here. Enjoy !.

Our tribute this year is for those fabulous people who have made “Kannada Wikipedia” a treat to all its readers. Kudos to the wonderful work of this amazing team. For people who have not yet been hooked on, here is a snap shot below.

The guidelines to setup the Kannada fonts on your system and browser, can be found here.

My dearest fans, Wish each of you and your family a very Happy Diwali !. May this Diwali bring with it some new light and lead us towards better awareness rather than mindless accomplishments.

Let us take a moment to stop and reflect, and care for the people who make our everyday life a treat to live. The pointed focus of our career goals, renders our relationships to slowly cease meaning. Let us remind ourselves of the overall responsibility we share not just as a good citizen, but as a brother, as a son, as a husband or as torch bearer in any relationship. Let us not give into such illusions. Yes, our mind is always our biggest enemy. Give people around you a chance to reset it. Have a wonderful festival season.

I am flying again today and will be in Bangalore by Tuesday. Although I am not flying via Singapore this time, I just wanted to revisit the thread about Singapore’s transformation from a swamp land to what it is today, mostly because of one man and his vision - Lee Kuan Yew.

Just a few weeks ago, he was interviewed by a German magazine, about the much touted “Asian Century“. The man’s economic intelligence is clearly apparent in this interview. Some of the all-time-best statements I have read in the recent years come out in this article, and his answers to the quandary that most of the Western countries face seem so simple. He sure comes across as a man with impeccable character and clarity. I am highly impressed.

Here are a few highlights from his interview.

On Globalization and how the late 80’s and early 90’s started the disruption of the cosy Western Life-style.

The social contract that led to workers sitting on the boards of companies and everybody being happy rested on this condition: I work hard, I restore Germany’s prosperity, and you, the state, you have to look after me. I’m entitled to go to Baden Baden for spa recuperation one month every year. This old system was gone in the blink of an eye when two to three billion people joined the race — one billion in China, one billion in India and over half-a-billion in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Democracy v/s Meritocracy

Why should I be against democracy? The British came here, never gave me democracy, except when they were about to leave. But I cannot run my system based on their rules. I have to amend it to fit my people’s position. In multiracial societies, you don’t vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion. Supposing I’d run their system here, Malays would vote for Muslims, Indians would vote for Indians, Chinese would vote for Chinese. I would have a constant clash in my Parliament which cannot be resolved because the Chinese majority would always overrule them. So I found a formula that changes that… We run a meritocracy.

Read on.. you just can’t ignore his insights…