The research that the Dalai Lama initiated

A blogger (alas, I forget who) had linked to this fascinating article, that made me hold the Dalai Lama in high esteem. The Dalai Lama alone, among religious leaders, seems to possess the open-mindedness to question old beliefs and subject them to the rigour of scientific scrutiny. Every now and then, he invites a group of scientists to his home in Dharamsala, to discuss their work and how Buddhism might contribute to it.

In 2004, when discussing the subject of neuroplasticity with some visiting scientists, the Dalai Lama asked them a question. Scientists have explained, he said, that mental experiences are a result of chemical and electrical changes in the brain. But something had always bothered him about this explanation. Could it work the other way around? That is, in addition to the brain giving rise to thoughts and hopes and beliefs and emotions that add up to this thing we call the mind, maybe the mind also acts back on the brain to cause physical changes in the very matter that created it. If so, then pure thought would change the brain's activity, its circuits or even its structure. Something as intangible and insubstantial as a thought would rewire the brain.

While some neuroscientists summarily dismissed the suggestion as absurd, there were some who took up further research on Buddhist monks, to check if meditation and mental training produced enduring changes in the brain. Experiments under controlled conditions showed that as the volunteers began meditation, gamma waves of a fairly high intensity could be detected. In each case, monks with the most hours of meditation showed the most dramatic brain changes. That was a strong hint that mental training makes it easier for the brain to turn on circuits that underlie compassion and empathy.

"This positive state is a skill that can be trained," the scientists concluded. "Our findings clearly indicate that meditation can change the function of the brain in an enduring way."

If only some of our indigenous religious practitioners and scientists would collaborate in a similar manner, displaying the same degree of open-mindedness- maybe we could distill some ancient wisdom out of the plethora of myths and superstitions.

Neighbourhood news..

Satya Sai Baba has been camping in my locality and his devotees have descended here in droves. Thousands of people have been queuing up or squatting on the road, to catch a cursory glimpse of his face as his convoy whizzes past. Enterprising vendors have been selling Baba calendars, photograph, chains, posters, etc and making a pile. Eateries have sprung up and are doing brisk business.

I have been quite irritated by this intrusion into our privacy and disruption of our normal routine. How can one man and his devotees take over an entire neighbourhood, hold up traffic and bring life here to a standstill?

Musing thus, I switched on the TV to watch the relay of the cricket match being played in Chennai today. It was then that I realized that 50000 boisterous fans would be setting Chepauk ablaze this afternoon while their 20000 cars would have already choked the bylanes of Triplicane, causing much misery to the residents there. And, by watching the match on TV and by being a fanatical follower of the religion called cricket, I have been a party to the disruption of life in the area around Chepauk. How is this behaviour any different from that of the Baba devotees?

But, what about the questionable methods adopted by Sai Baba, to create an aura around himself and entice gullible people? Again, as I argued in an earlier post, Sai Baba is no more guilty of deceit than many of us in the corporate world. When Coca Cola creates a brand identity and claims in its ads that things go better with Coca Cola; or when TVS Motors makes you believe that just because Sachin Tendulkar drives one of their bikes, we should all buy that model, or when Lux tries to convince you that using their soap would give you the same complexion as Sushmita Sen’s, they are merely creating an illusion and we accept this practice as perfectly legitimate. Why should not Sai Baba build his own brand image then, if there are willing buyers and there is no coercion involved in the process?

To an ardent Baba devotee, my patronage of a game like cricket must strike him as pretty weird and senseless, just as I view his belief in the supernatural powers of a fellow human being quite irrational. Of course, the people who fall in both categories and who worship Sai Baba and cricket must be a contented lot, completely at peace with themselves.

Which bank does Lara like?

As I have confessed in the past, I have always been fascinated by these SMS contests on FM Radio. The one I heard today, sponsored by ING Vysya Bank, asked readers to SMS their answer to the question, “Which bank does Brian Lara like the most?” Options were a) Piggy Bank b) River bank and c) ING Vysya Bank.

Now, on the face of it, this looks like a ‘no-brainer’ or rather a ‘yes, Brianer”. But, life has taught me that these advertisers, unlike Humpty Dumpty, don’t choose to mean exactly what they say. There’s always something more, or something else. One has to look beyond the obvious.

As the sponsors have promised an opportunity to meet up with Brian Lara in person, I am naturally keen on getting the answer right. So, I decided to dig and probe further.

A quick Google search on Lara shows that he was born in Trinidad. While there are quite a few rivers there, starting with Arima river and ending alphabetically with Yarra river, and many of these boast of excellent banks on either side, I can’t imagine Lara wasting his time there. He was far too busy playing cricket from the time he learnt to put his gloves on and wouldn’t have ventured within 22 yards of any river bank. So, option A is ruled out.

Option C, ING Vysya Bank, needed closer scrutiny. According to their website, ING`s mission is to be a leading, global, client-focused, innovative and low-cost provider of financial services through the distribution channels of the client’s preference in markets where ING can create value. I know for a fact that Brian Lara’s mission in life is somewhat incompatible with this. In fact, there is nothing that Lara hates more than being a provider of financial services, regardless of the distribution channel. Lara and other product-endorsing cricketers of his ilk, passionately subscribe to the view that the market has to add value to them, not the other way round. So, Option C is completely out of the question.

I need to dig no further, as I have hit pay dirt here. By the principle of reduction ad absurdum , if options A and C are ruled out as false, option B has to be the explanation. So, piggy bank it is.

I have sent the sms to the FM channel, on the strength of which I hope to have dinner with Brian Lara tomorrow. Wish me luck.

R.I.P Series-11

Thomas Alva Edison, prolific inventor, declared pompously in one of his incandescent light bulb moments, “Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration”. Post mortem later revealed that Edison’s perspiration, when he uttered those words, had not been due to hard work, but was actually a classic symptom of an acute heart attack that eventually led to his 100% expiration.

A carrot among the pigeons

At a dinner, during a recent visit to Manila, our host ordered pigeons, a delicacy that the restaurant was famous for. The cooked pigeons were carved out and dressed in our presence and everybody at the table, except me, dug into the dish with great relish.

The host went on to share details of other interesting culinary experiences. In his province, he said, rats were caught in the rice fields, cooked in an open flame and eaten by the locals. The meat was so tender and tasty. And, whereas the appearance of a python would make a person in the city recoil in fear, back in his province, it would make the farmer’s mouth water in anticipation.

It was a myth, he added, that only the Koreans loved dog meat. In his own province, he said, dog meat was highly valued. He then explained, in painstaking detail, how the dogs were hunted down and cooked.

How could he forget the time he was served scorpions, fried in his presence, when he was visiting China? He was initially quite nervous, he admitted, when he saw that its fangs were still intact, but when he put it into his mouth, it tasted quite delicious and he asked for some more.

But, the best and most exotic meat that he had had the privilege of tasting was the wildebeest meal that he tried out during his visit to Africa. The meatiest meal in his life.

Munching my meal of boiled carrots and broccoli, I wanted to cut him short here and share some interesting vegetarian culinary experiences that I have had. Like the time, I spotted this big purple brinjal in Pondy bazaar, brought it home, had it minced and turned into chutney. Or, about those ripe, juicy tomatoes which were ruthlessly squeezed, and added to boiling rasam. And the episode where we plucked out mangoes with our bare hands, cut them into little pieces and heartlessly pickled them with burning chillies. Not to forget the time we picked up a kilogram of potatoes, skinned them and mashed them out of existence.

I wanted to tell him all this, but I didn’t. All these gory details of brinjals being minced, tomatoes being squeezed, potatoes being mashed and mangoes being pickled were routine stuff for an hardened vegetarian like me. But I had to respect the sensibilities of my host, who could find such finer details highly disgusting and repulsive. No point in upsetting him. After all, he was footing the bill.

R.I.P, Mondays

In the midst of my third 3-day weekend in the last four weeks, I have been engaged in the task of re-designing the calendar, with the avowed objective of liberating humanity from the tyranny of work. Or, at least, reducing the burden.

After analyzing the issue threadbare, I have come to the conclusion that what the world desperately needs to be a better place to live in are shorter weeks and more number of Saturdays and Sundays.

Who doesn’t hate the first day of the work week? Boring rituals to go through. Impatient customers to deal with. Mundane stuff to be endured. At least, from the second day onward, work becomes Tuesdane, Wednesdane…

So, what I propose is that we divide the year into 60 weeks of 6 days each, with each month having 5 weeks. Each week will have 4 working days and 2 holidays. Week will start on Tuesday. Mondays will be eliminated. We will have 12 months of 30 days each. No more worrying about changing the date on the watch when the month doesn’t’ have 31 days. No more 28-day Februaries.

Some of you, I know, are pretty sharp. It must have occurred to you that 6 x 60= 360, whereas it is an unalterable fact that the earth takes 365.25 days to travel around the sun and complete one year.

My first impulse was to get down to basics and single-handedly work at adjusting the planetary orbit of the earth around the sun in a suitable manner. This, I later realized, would be unnecessarily tinkering with the forces of Nature. So, my simple solution to this seemingly unsolvable puzzle is that we declare those 5 days that are dangling loose, as holidays. Every leap year will have 6 such days. These days will not appear in any calendar and will not get recorded in any manner. They will simply get dissolved in the space-time continuum. The world will simply be placed in suspended animation on these days. Only Einstein and I can comprehend how all this works. So, don’t bother to Google.

Some cynics amongst you, no doubt, challenge the very idea. With shorter work weeks, output and productivity will suffer, you point out. That’s nonsense. It’s an accepted fact that half the stuff that gets passed off as work is completely useless. No good to man or beast, as Wodehouse would say. If people work less and are paid less, their consumption of goods will come down, factories will reduce their production proportionately, burn less fuel and emit less CO2. All this will slow down the global warming . This will trigger a virtuous economic cycle that will also be favourable to the environment. Good for everybody, I assure you.

These 5 or 6 days won’t even register as a blip in the history of the 10-billion and 20 year old Universe (I read in an encyclopedia once that the Universe is believed to be 10-billion years old. Since I read this in 1986, I have added another 20 years to its age). Besides, the calendar has always been a matter of convenience and has been altered to suit the need of the times. For instance, there is no evidence that Jesus Christ was born on December 25th. Nor did the months of January and February exist in the Roman times. In the 16th century, the dates October 5, 1582 to October 14th, 1582 simply vanished from the calendar, during the shift from the Julian system to the Gregorian system. The world is certainly not worse off, because this happened. It can be done again. The change will be as inconspicuous and unnoticeable as crossing the International Date Line.

And, my clinching argument is this. When the world transits from the 7-day week to the 6-day week, computers need to be told so, because they don’t have a mind of their own, the idiots. That means more programs. More programs = more software code= more work outsourced to India. Some say that the Indian success in IT owes much to the Millennium Bug that created an urgent need for Y2K-compliant software, an opportunity that the enterprising Indian techies grabbed and never looked back.

So, this could well be the next wave. Millions of Indian software engineers working tirelessly four days a week to make this happen.

Flash news : Prannoy Roy has just announced that he is changing the name of his news channel from NDTV 24 x 7 to NDTV 24 x 6 . Stay tuned for updates

Do worry, be happy

Several prominent people have responded to the annual question asked by Edge Foundation, “What are you optimistic about and why?” These worthies are optimistic about a wide range of issues- better hearing aids, decline of cult and superstition, better understanding of religion, reduction in crime and terrorism, elimination of poverty, discovery of mental illness genes- you name it.

So, with such abundance of optimism and hopefulness, the world is bound to be a happier place and much joie de vivre will result soon. Right?

Well, since I asked that question, and given my warped mind, you know the right answer is “wrong”, right? You are right. Optimism is unwarranted and actually inimical to happiness. Read on. (Source)

It all started with the University of Leicester publishing a World map of Happiness that clearly brought out the fact that the Danes were the happiest people in the world. In fact, for over thirty years, this country with 5 million inhabitants has ranked first in Eurobarometer surveys.

So, the British Medical Journal decided to dig deeper into this and identify the causal factors. In its study, BMJ focused on accounting for why life satisfaction in Denmark substantially exceeded that in Sweden and Finland, the two Eurobarometer countries most similar to Denmark. It looked into various differentiating factors like climate, food, genealogy, hair colour, habits, marriage, prowess in sports, etc .

In the end they ‘cracked the conundrum of Danish contentment’. The main reason for Danish happiness, according to the study, is that their expectations for the year to come are consistently low. And when they find that things are not more rotten in the state of Denmark than what they had expected them to be, they are jubilant.

So, there it is, the secret to a happy life. Eschew optimism. Peg your expectations lower. Enter into a marriage with the expectation that divorce is imminent; you will find much happiness even if it lasts a month. Take up a job on Monday, accepting the inevitably of being fired any time. Believe me, you will experience such relief and bliss when you still are at your workplace on Wednesday. If you find a feeling of rosiness stealing over you, kill it immediately.

Remember that the Great Dane is one helluva happy dog, because he is one helluva pessimist to begin with.

Intelligence and Intelli-ladies

In an interview yesterday, Kapil Dev remarked that while Indian cricketers had loads of talent, they seemed to lack “cricket intelligence” or CI, as he called it. He said that the fact that Sachin had not won as many matches for India as he should have with his talent, made him believe that he was not in the same CI league as, say, Javed Miandad was.

Kapil makes an interesting point. I have often heard it said that Indians lacked killer instinct, but it is for the first time that I hear the word ‘intelligence’ applied in this context.

Howard Gardner was the first to theorise, in his treatise “Frames of Mind” that human intelligence was not a single entity that could be assessed by simplistic psychometric tests, but had multiple dimensions such as Visual / Spatial Intelligence, Musical Intelligence, Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence, Logical/Mathematical Intelligence, Interpersonal Intelligence, Intrapersonal Intelligence, and Bodily / Kinesthetic Intelligence. Later he added ‘naturalist intelligence’ and ‘spiritual intelligence’ to the list. All these intelligences are important, but each person has a unique blend of these intelligences. Gardner argues that the big challenge facing the deployment of human resources is how to best take advantage of the uniqueness conferred on us as a species exhibiting several intelligences.

Thus, you could have a brilliant mathematician like Ramanujam endowed with much logical/numerical intelligence but who could be completely lacking in musical intelligence. Or, an author like R.K.Narayan high in linguistic intelligence, but poor in inter-personal skills. Some with high spatial intelligence may solve the Rubik cube in a minute, but may flunk the maths test in school the next day. While I, an otherwise intelligent person, can’t crack the Rubik’s cube even if you taught me the steps. Learning/teaching should therefore focus on the particular strength of each person and appropriate teaching modalities applied. If you want me to learn to solve Rubik's puzzle, sing out the solution melodiously.

So, intelligence can be specific to one domain and in a limited arena. Just because a top batsman has bodily/kinesthetic intelligence to execute an exquisitive cover drive or an awesome square-cut, he may not necessarily possess Cricket intelligence or CI, which is something more or that extra bit that is required to win a match.

Maybe, there is something called Bloggers Intelligence (BI) as well. Notice how some bloggers make clever use of the medium, with the right mix of humour, sensationalism and conversational style of writing, while some like me don’t manage to figure it out at all.

On being secular...

This post in the Brittanica Blog discusses the controversy surrounding the Italian law laid down by Benito Mussolini in 1924, and still in effect today, that every school, classroom, hospital, court of law in the country must display a crucifix of Christ. The law has been challenged several times and there have been several disputes, but it has stayed.

On the other hand The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools bans students from wearing conspicuous religious symbols in primary and secondary schools. France had begun to view faith as a matter for each individual citizen rather than for a nation as a whole As a result of this history, religious manifestations are considered undesirable in government-operated schools; primary and secondary schools are supposed to be neutral spaces where children can learn away from political or religious pressures, controversies and quarrels. Because of this neutrality requirement, students are normally prohibited from conducting religious proselytising on the premises.

Both these countries profess to be secular. So does India ,for that matter.

Whereas Italy did not see any inconsistency in the display of the crucifix and in its secular ideals, France felt that to be secular, ostentatious display of any religious symbol was undesirable. To them, secularism meant neutrality.

India , of course, claims to believe that secularism means that all religions must co-exist and that the Govt policy must encourage all religions in equal measure. Religion is so much a part of our lives here and permeates every other activity- business, sports, music- that we take it for granted. For other cultures, such ostentatious display of religious beliefs can be quite strange.

While on a recent visit to a consulting firm in Chennai along with some European colleagues I noticed that the persons sitting across the table were all in black attire, their faces unshaven, and sporting large, colourful marks on the foreheads. They were all set to leave for their annual Sabarimala pilgrimage. My colleagues, of course, were far too diplomatic to express any curiosity, but I wondered what they made out of the whole thing.

I guess, as in everything else, one size will not fit all, and each country will have to choose the appropriate doctrine or brand of secularism that it feels is the best suited. And, then deal with the conflicts.

What do you know?

All you readers out there who spend so many hours of your time, soaking in the wisdom that pours in generous measure out of my writing, don’t you find it strange that I continue to remain an anonymous entity and that you hardly know who I am or what my background is?

It’s only fair that I reveal some secrets of my past, where I hailed from and what my mission in life is. So, here goes.

1) Let me start with the most momentous event - my birth. When the stork came to deliver me, my mother wanted to keep the stork instead. But, SEBI authorities ruled in my favour, pointing out that it was against Stork Exchange rules. So, my parents put me in a basket which they kept outside their house, hoping that some kind-hearted couple will take me away. The next morning, they found that somebody had stolen just the basket and kept me behind. So, here I am.

2) When I was seven, unbeknownst to me, the stork delivered a baby to the couple who were later to become my in-laws. It is said, that when the baby was born, three stars were seen in the Eastern sky. Astrologers felt this was ominous, as on normal nights, there are 37,724 stars seen in the eastern sky. The foreboding proved right .Poor baby ended up marrying me when she grew up. So, here she is with me.

3) When the stork came to deliver our first daughter some years back, she took one look at us and refused to get off. The stork took her back home. Wife and I had to fly down to Sweden, to bring her back from Stork Home. So, here she is with us.

4) When the stork came to deliver our second daughter, we sensed something sinister. We had this growing suspicion that it wasn’t the stork that was producing these babies. It was the birds and the bees. We had been taken on a ride all along

5) These constant trials, tribulations and encounters with the stork have taken a terrible toll on my looks. However I owe it to my readers to, at least, reveal what I look like. So, here is a recent photograph that captures me in one of my rare moments when I am not Stork-raving mad.

There, thanks to the prompting by La Mukhs, I have unburdened all I had to disclose about myself. To continue with the chain, I wanted to tag La Tags, but I understand that she and her husband are currently out on a hunting expedition to the bird sanctuary, where they will shoot down certain rare and endangered species of birds, notably storks.

A centenarian teenager

All you brisk joggers, power-walkers and marathon runners, stop right there, hold your breath for a minute and listen to me.

If you are brisk-jogging, power-walking or marathon-running to stay young, live longer and remain fit, you are simply wasting your time. If these are your objectives, your role model in life should not be the sprinting cheetah or the springing deer or the galloping horse, but the humble, unhurrying turtle.

Jonah Lehrer, editor of Seed magazine, refers to an article in New York Times :

The liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its teenage counterpart. Turtles have the power to almost stop the ticking of their personal clock. "Their heart isn't necessarily stimulated by nerves, and it doesn't need to beat constantly," said Dr. George Zug, curator of herpetology at the Smithsonian Institution. "They can turn it on and off essentially at will."

So, leave thy panting and gasping and mad pounding of the pavement. The secret to longevity does not lie there. If you really want to have a healthy heart ticking rhythmically like a teenagers’ even at the age of 100, go slow. Crawl. Speed limit must be 100 cmph. Better still, get into your shell and stay there. Aesop was right. Slow does win the race.

What's your footprint?

Ever wondered how much of natural resources your lifestyle requires?

Try this Ecological Footprint Quiz. It estimates how much productive land and water you need to support what you use and what you discard. After answering 15 easy questions you'll be able to compare your Ecological Footprint to what other people use and to what is available on this planet.

My ecological footprint is 8.5 hectares, against India’s average of 0.8 hectares. Worldwide there exists 1.8 biologically productive hectares per person. If everyone lived like me, we would need 4.7 planets of the size of earth!

Hmmm. I guess, it’s time to conquer outer space and inhabit a few more solar systems.

The great African robbery

A paper published by the Institute of Physics Publishing in July’ 06 describes how the Amazon basin is fertilized with nutrients contained in dust blown from a single spot 5000 km away- the Bodele depression in northern Chad, Africa.

While that part of Africa languishes as a part of the Saharan desert, dust from there gets blown to a distant continent to enrich the soil and help create a flourishing eco-sytem. What a noble thing to do.

This seems to have been the story of Africa all along. Robbed by greedy human beings from other continents and stripped off her gold, diamonds, oil, rubber, wood and other natural resources. According to the Nobel-award winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, historically, Africa is the region most exploited by globalization; during the years of colonization, the world took its resources and gave back little in return. Out of the eighteen poorest countries, fourteen are in Africa.

Now, it transpires that Nature has been part of the looting all along, quietly scooping up the Saharan nutrient-rich dust and ferrying it across the Atlantic. Robbing African deserts to enrich forests in other continents.

The Chola bronze

In an article in The Guardian (and reproduced in The Hindu today). William Darlymple writes admiringly of Chola bronze statues:

“Exquisitely poised and supple, these bronze deities stand silent on their plinths, yet with their hands they speak gently to their devotees through the noiseless lingua franca of the gestures (or mudras) of south Indian dance: their hands are raised in blessing and reassurance, promising boons and protection,and, above all, marriage, fertility and fecundity, in return for the veneration that is so clearly their divine right.

In western art, few sculptors - except perhaps Donatello or Rodin - have achieved the pure essence of sensuality so spectacularly evoked by the Chola sculptors; or achieved such a sense of celebration of the divine beauty of the human body. There is a startling clarity and purity about the way the near-naked bodies of the gods and
the saints are displayed. Yet by the simplest and most modest of devices,their spirit and powers, joys and pleasures, and above all their enjoyment of each other's beauty and their overwhelming sexuality, is highlighted

But, to ask a basic question. Why do humans even bother to create or view art? Some years back, Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran, a renowned neuroscientist, pondered over this question and tried to provide an explanation for the human appreciation of art, in terms of the neural process that goes on in the brain. He wondered if there were any universal laws that transcended cultural barriers or layers, in the appreciation of art. And, for his study, he took up the case of the Chola bronze statues that Darlymple has now written glowingly about.

In his paper, “The Artful Brain”, Dr Ramachandran says that bronze sculptures from the Chola period in India a thousand years ago are revered because they express the epitome of feminine poise and grace, charm and sensuality. But the Victorian art historians of the 19th century judged the statues appalling because they were not realistic: the waists were too narrow, the breasts too big, the posture provocative. But art has nothing to do with realism; it is about producing pleasing effects in the brain

Yet an artist cannot simply randomly distort a human figure and expect to generate a pleasing result. There appear to be some principles that cut across cultural boundaries.

One of these principles, Dr. Ramachandran suggested, is that exaggerated forms invoke a greater response than the natural form. This phenomenon may be explained by studying animal behavior. If a rat learns that a rectangular shape connotes that he will soon be fed, he is likely to prefer shapes that are even more rectangular, longer, and skinnier. This "peak shift" is used in art to create caricatures. Take Nixon's craggy brow and big nose, amplify them, and the result looks more like Nixon than he does! Similarly, the Chola artists of India simply took the average female form and subtracted the average male form- leaving big breasts, big hips and narrow waist- and amplified the difference. The result was one very anatomically incorrect, but a very sexy goddess,


So, coming back to the basic question. Why do humans even bother creating or viewing art? Dr.Ramachandran’s conjecture is that Art may have evolved as a virtual simulation reality. When you imagine something –as when rehearsing a bison hunt or an amorous encounter- many of the same brain circuits are activated as when you are really doing something. This allows you to practice scenarios in an internal simulation without incurring the energy, cost or risk of a real rehearsal.

So, whether it is a Picasso, Van Gogh or a Chola bronze, you willingly allow that piece of art to deceive your brain.

Et tu, Santa?

I have heard it said that 'Valentine’s Day', 'Friends Day', 'Bosses’ Day', 'Doctor’s Day', and other assorted days were invented by the ‘greeting card’ companies to promote the sale of their products.

Via Frontal Cortex, I learn now that even the modern image of Santa Claus, was a creation of the advertising executives of the Coco Cola Company. They had introduced Santa Claus, in an ad campaign in 1931’ as a chubby, jolly, old man dressed in a red suit and that distinctive cap. That image has stayed.

This is what Coke’s official website claims :

“Starting in 1931, magazine ads for Coca-Cola featured St. Nick as a kind, jolly man in a red suit. Because magazines were so widely viewed, and because this image of Santa appeared for more than three decades, the image of Santa most people have today is largely based on our advertising.

Before the 1931 introduction of the Coca-Cola Santa Claus created by artist Haddon Sundblom, the image of Santa ranged from big to small and fat to tall. Santa even appeared as an elf and looked a bit spooky.”

Amazing, the kind of influence these ads and films have on our lives and how they shape our thinking. To the millions of people of the previous generation in Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu, who were brought up on a fare of countless mythological movies starring N.T.Rama Rao, the images of Lord Rama and Krishna that appear in their minds even today, would bear the chubby, effeminate face of N.T.Rama Rao. If the real Rama or Krishna were to materialise today, they would be viewed as imposters and handed over to the police.

Conversation with daughter-8

This conservation doesn’t involve me or my daughter, but I enjoyed it so much that I thought I should include it in my “conversation with daughter’ series.

This is from the archives of the Scientific Creative Quarterly. The author is Stephen McNeil, an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at University of British Columbia Okanagan in Kelowna, British Columbia.

The original title was.” A DIALOGUE WITH SARAH, AGED 3: IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT IF YOUR DAD IS A CHEMISTRY PROFESSOR, ASKING “WHY” CAN BE DANGEROUS"

SARAH: Daddy, were you in the shower?

DAD: Yes, I was in the shower.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: I was dirty. The shower gets me clean.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why does the shower get me clean?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: Because the water washes the dirt away when I use soap.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why do I use soap?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: Because the soap grabs the dirt and lets the water wash it off.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why does the soap grab the dirt?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: Because soap is a surfactant.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why is soap a surfactant?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: That is an EXCELLENT question. Soap is a surfactant because it forms water-soluble micelles that trap the otherwise insoluble dirt and oil particles.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why does soap form micelles?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: Soap molecules are long chains with a polar, hydrophilic head and a non-polar, hydrophobic tail. Can you say ‘hydrophilic’?

SARAH: Aidrofawwic

DAD: And can you say ‘hydrophobic’?

SARAH: Aidrofawwic

DAD: Excellent! The word ‘hydrophobic’ means that it avoids water.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why does it mean that?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: It’s Greek! ‘Hydro’ means water and ‘phobic’ means ‘fear of’. ‘Phobos’ is fear. So ‘hydrophobic’ means ‘afraid of water’.

SARAH: Like a monster?

DAD: You mean, like being afraid of a monster?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: A scary monster, sure. If you were afraid of a monster, a Greek person would say you were gorgophobic.

(pause)

SARAH: (rolls her eyes) I thought we were talking about soap.

DAD: We are talking about soap.

(longish pause)

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why do the molecules have a hydrophilic head and a hydrophobic tail?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: Because the C-O bonds in the head are highly polar, and the C-H bonds in the tail are effectively non-polar.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Because while carbon and hydrogen have almost the same electronegativity, oxygen is far more electronegative, thereby polarizing the C-O bonds.

SARAH: Why?

DAD: Why is oxygen more electronegative than carbon and hydrogen?

SARAH: Yes.

DAD: That’s complicated. There are different answers to that question, depending on whether you’re talking about the Pauling or Mulliken electronegativity scales. The Pauling scale is based on homo- versus heteronuclear bond strength differences, while the Mulliken scale is based on the atomic properties of electron affinity and ionization energy. But it really all comes down to effective nuclear charge. The valence electrons in an oxygen atom have a lower energy than those of a carbon atom, and electrons shared between them are held more tightly to the oxygen, because electrons in an oxygen atom experience a greater nuclear charge and therefore a stronger attraction to the atomic nucleus! Cool, huh?
(pause)
SARAH: I don’t get it.

DAD: That’s OK. Neither do most of my students.

Oh, God!

A colleague and his wife were involved in a fire accident, but after many days of hospitalization, skin grafting, etc recovered slowly and returned to their normal routine.

I called him up the day he reported back for work and asked how he was. He replied, “By God’s grace, I managed to pull through”.

What amazed me about that reply- and I told him so- was that he was thanking God profusely for saving his life, when he would have been within reason to hold the same God responsible for the nasty accident that almost killed him.

Faith can move mountains, faith is what will sustain you in life, faith in a higher Being will pull you out of a crisis – such beliefs are hardwired into many of our brains. Some others would view such blind faith as misplaced. “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence” felt Richard Dawkins.

But the point is this. This colleague had as much right to subscribe to his belief as I had in questioning it, so long as each showed genuine tolerance and respected the fact that the other person was entitled to his viewpoint.

I was reflecting on this incident, when I heard about the controversy surrounding the installation of a statue of E.V.Ramaswamy Naicker, a sworn atheist, near the Srirangam temple. While the choice of venue was clearly made by the Dravida Kazhagam (DK) with the idea of provoking the believers, the latter fell for the bait and reacted predictably, in anger. The whole atmosphere became charged because of this mutual intolerance. What the believers should have done was to ignore the statue completely and instead score a point by turning out in large numbers on the same day, to offer prayers at the temple.

True rationalists like Richard Dawkins shun the word “atheist”, because it has a negative spin and pre-supposes that the positive or the default setting was to be a believer or theist. Self-styled atheists such as the DK, on the other hand, will not have any stand-alone purpose for their existence, without the framework of temples and believers to pick on.

I was intrigued by a recent news item that reported on a function organized by the DK to mark the 33rd death anniversary of EVR. The speakers thanked the DMK Govt for the order that allows members of any caste to officiate as priests in temples, but demanded that the rule must be further extended to permit women to become priests as well. I am all for equal opportunity and such noble ideas, but what I found amusing was that a party which has campaigned violently for demolition of temples and which has consistently denounced believers as barbarians, should exhibit so much concern for the caste and gender of the priests indulging in ‘barbaric acts of performing puja’ inside temples that, in its considered opinion, had no right to exist in the first place. It seems to me that the party has as much locus standi to comment on who should act as priests inside temples, as the devotees of the Lord have in expressing an opinion on who should be the General Secretary of the DK party.

Save this planet.

I learnt an important lesson in life, as a boy of 12. I had carelessly discarded a tube of toothpaste, believing that it was empty. An aged relative who was passing by – or rather was keeping vigil- pulled out the tube from the dustbin, rolled it tightly, squeezed it professionally with both his hands, managed to salvage another week’s supply of toothpaste and then delivered a long lecture to me on the importance of getting the maximum bang for the buck. Of course, he didn’t resort to such Americanisms, as he didn’t even suspect that such a place as America existed, but you get the point.

Another aged relative got on to a bus, traveled a mile beyond the point where she actually needed to go and walked her way back, so that she would get maximum value for the 10 paise that was charged as minimum fare those days.

Frugality was strictly practiced by members of these yester-generations and implemented mercilessly. Everything had to be re-used, recycled or handed down. Nothing was to be wasted. When purchasing something- if at all- durability was the only criterion to go by.

Watches served several generations. My first watch was my grandfather’s and if I hadn’t lost it during a cricket match, I would perhaps have passed it on to my grandson. Pens were for keeps and one went through the entire education process from kindergarten to post-graduation using the same pen. Well, not exactly. Till the 4th or 5th standard, you got along with the pencil passed down by your elder sibling.

Food had to be consumed and could never be wasted, even if one was choking inside and sambar was oozing out of the ears and the nostrils.

If you bought a pair of slippers, you not only had to choose the sturdiest and rugged pair in the locality, you also had to walk down to the cobbler across the road to get an attachment (made from old tyres) stitched on, so that the wear-out period would be longer. It was forbidden to buy the next pair, unless the existing one had worn out completely and the soles had disappeared completely.

Such habits don’t die. They stay with you forever. I can never get myself to throw out anything, if it still has got some life in it. I can’t keep water running in the wash basin, a second more than necessary. My wife refuses to buy footwear from Bata because the damn things last forever and never get worn out and she can’t bear to throw them away even after they’ve gone completely out of fashion.

Do all you kids out there realize that you are depleting the earth’s resources so rapidly with your extravagant lifestyles and with all your disposable stuff ? Does it even occur to you, misguided souls, that the environment doesn’t belong to you and we ,of the earlier generation have just given it to you for safe custody till the time it is passed on to your children? Must you cut all the trees, burn all the coal, combust all the oil, ignite all the gas and release all the CO2 in one lifetime? Can’t you show some restraint?

There. It’s finally done. That outburst certainly made me feel a lot better and morally superior. I had my chance to get even. I could take it off on someone.

R.I.P, Art Buchwald; hey he's escaped.

The renowned American humourist, Art Buchwald, when told in January this year that his kidneys had suffered irreversible damage, declined dialysis and checked into a hospice, to spend what he thought were his last days. But things didn’t go as expected and months later he was still alive. And on July 1st, he walked out of the hospice, defying all odds.

While at the hospice, he decided to share his extraordinary experience with his readers and published a book titled, “Too soon to say goodbye” in which he jokes about things that one normally refrains from discussing, plans his funeral, gets his friends to send in eulogies as they would write after his death, so that he could get to read them, talks about wills and the pleasures of disinheriting people and notes with immense satisfaction that, “'the beauty of not dying but expecting to, is that it gives you a chance to say goodbye to everybody”.

Amazing stuff written in a remarkably cheerful tone, despite the specter of death looming large and demonstrating that you can find humour in any situation, if you are so disposed.

He almost made it to my RIP series, but much to my delight, managed to pull out in time !

Update 21/01/07 : Art Buchwald passed on last week. The New York Times posted a video on their website, with Art announcing, " I am Art Buchwald. I have just died."

Bites-6

A film I love to watch on the National Geographic Channel is the one on the Alaskan brown bears and the salmon. By some mysterious homing mechanism, salmon return from the northern Pacific where they have spent two or three years and enter the exact headwater gravel beds of their birth. Here the hungry big brown bear ( HB3) patiently waits for the salmon meal.

Not just the brown bears, but there are other stories of salmon grabbing. Model-actress Padma Lakshmi, for example, managed to grab a Salman, Rushdie. Not surprising, because Padma Lakshmi’s ancestors were also bears. Forebears, they were called.

Another person to grab a Salman is Katrina Kaif. This Salman, Khan is quite a character. When not mowing down pavement dwellers with his jeep, he is hunting down deer in a Rajasthan forest. He has been sentenced to a term in jail, but he may take refuge under the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act. His lawyers have enough material to show that his life is wild and that he needs protection.

Similar was the case with the other famous Khan, Mansur Ali Pataudi. Was caught red-handed with the corpse of a black buck, again belonging to an endangered species. So, is he in jail? No way. As Groucho Marx said, behind every successful man is a woman. And immediately behind her is his wife. So, his wife Sharmila Tagore got him out of trouble by presenting a powerful case in Court that Tiger was an endangered species as well and that he shouldn’t be caged.

Tiger Pataudi, as some of you belonging to my generation would know, was a famous cricketer in the ‘60s and ‘70’s. This was despite an accident that he was involved in, early in his career. Prior to that, he used to spell his name as Pataudii, but as he lost an eye in the accident, was forced to change it to Pataudi. Now, of course, he has retired from the game. So, while his actress wife Sharmila goes for her shooting at the RK Studios, he goes for his shooting in the jungles of Haryana, looking for a fast buck.

Another Bengali actress making her mark now is Konkona Sen. Her performance in the film, Mr and Mrs Iyer, as you know, won her accolades. Now, she has taken on a challenging role in a film called Traffic Signal, directed by Madhur Bhandarkar. Sen’s sensitive portrayal, in the movie, of the life of a sex worker in Mumbai, has pushed up the Sensex by 200 points already.

This Sensex. Either being pushed up by the Bulls .Or, worse, being pulled down by the Bears, like the salmon in Alaska.