atmaav

RIP...MJ

2009-06-26T01:54:00.000-07:00

I first heard MJ when Dangerous was making the rounds. Most people remember "Black or White" when they think of Dangerous; it was MJ's biggest hit since 1982's "Billie Jean". I don't remember it making a great impression upon me. Sure, I liked the morphing towards the end of the song. But I didn't understand what drew people to MJ. Entertainment then revolved around Doordarshan and its inane soaps. But I hardly realized that my ignorance of MJ meant a life of ignorance of music.

A few years later, I caught "Billie Jean" on MTV and I remember my jaw dropping at MJ's moves. Shortly after though, I forgot all about MJ . Those were the days of Mohra, Muqala Muqabla, Urvasi Take it Easy etc. And I could appreciate those easily enough. Ironically, I was appreciating countless artists and moves inspired by MJ, but not recognizing the man himself.

It wasn't till I went to Dartmouth and my roommate from Pakistan mentioned his taste for Prabhu Deva when I realized the source of this wonderful form of entertainment. Today, countless artists like Prabhu Deva, knowingly or unknowingly, dance inspired by that great talent. I wonder how many children grow up today, appreciating the music and dance of his legacy without realizing the source.

Here is to the man who changed the face of music, entertained millions and will continue to inspire plenty more....

Government and customer service

2009-04-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the most interesting part of a newspaper is the Letters to the Editors section. BBC News has collected the views of some ordinary Indians (or extra-ordinary now that their views are public) on how they would lead the country here. I love these surveys because they offer insight into what people are thinking.

Of course, most of the insights are fairly predictable (provide electricity, education etc), but some stand out in originality. I was drawn to what Chandra Deep Yerra, a customer service agent, had to say:

"There are a lot of things I could do if I were the prime minister even for a single day. Instead of assigning ministries to my own party members, I would see who had performed well in that position in the previous term and hand it over to that person.

I would start a new division which would continuously monitor my ministers and other members and score them at the end of every week or month. This division would also educate the ministers on where they went wrong and where they could improve. "

It's no coincidence that Chandra is in customer service. And after all, isn't that what we need more from our government: service? Imagine the ramifications of outsourcing public-facing functions to BPOs in India. It's already being done by some Indian Embassies...how about doing that in the motherland?

Mumbai

2008-11-27T02:29:00.001-08:00

I've never had a great history with traveling to Mumbai. This time doesn't seem to be different. I'm sitting at a friend's place in Byculla, relatively isolated from the incidents of yesterday and today, but tense nevertheless.

The standoff has not progressed much. The army and NSG still surround the Trident and Oberoi. We're getting conflicting reports on Taj. 24/7 media is beginning to wear on me; I can't pull my eyes away and yet, the repeating images and obnoxious reporters are straining my nerves.

Worried about the long-term repurcussions. We are a soft nation. One of the liabilities of being an open society. But, we could do better with our security measures. And yet, we cannot do much about the underlying problems. Surrounded as we are by basketcases, we neither want to take on the cauldron of problems that is Pakistan nor can we ignore it.

I believe this won't be like the last times. Many more Indians are vested in Mumbai than in the past. Yet, I can't help feeling we are culturally flawed as well. We are too complacent. Too exhausted. Too weared down by something.

I was in the Atrium mall in Worli the other day. The guards asked me to open my bag; I opened the central pocket and the guard waved me inside. Never mind the metal detector had gone off. Never mind my bag had more than one pocket.

Sab chalega has traded places with kuche nahi chalega. When are we going to learn?

why obama won...

2008-11-05T22:07:00.000-08:00

"At a moment of obvious peril, America decided to place its fate in the hands of a man who had been born to an idealistic white teenage mother and the charismatic African grad student who abandoned them — a man who grew up without money, talked his way into good schools, worked his way up through the pitiless world of Chicago politics to the U.S. Senate and now the White House in a stunningly short period. That achievement, compared with those of the Bushes or the Kennedys or the Roosevelts or the Adamses or any of the other American princes who were born into power or bred to it, represents such a radical departure from the norm that it finally brings meaning to the promise taught from kindergarten: "Anyone can grow up to be President." Time Magazine

There is some unearthly talent there. And we're unlikely to see something so historic in the U.S. in our lifetime again.

Democracy today

2008-11-04T20:03:00.000-08:00

...and he is elected President. A lot sooner than I expected and by a wide margin in electoral votes. Amazing night tonight. I wish I had bought tickets to the rally in Chicago. Over a million are expected to turn up.

I wonder what is going through Obama's mind right now. And McCain's. I doubt if the former is going to have much time to celebrate. I wonder what lessons the latter will take away.

This election has brought a lot of upsets, but that reflects the times. Financial institutions, once considered the bastion of America's economic strength, have disappeared overnight. Others are adopting more conservative business models. The economy is delevering. Consumption is falling and a recession is inevitable, if it has not begun already. Have we learnt anything new about how the world works with this crisis? Not much. We've seen "irrational exuberance" before. Bubbles come and go. Investors invest irresponsibly. People consume irresponsibly.

I see Reverend Jackson cry. He ran for President himself once. This must be a vindication of some sort for him.

McCain is talking about the historic nature of this election. I think he is surprised by the turnout among blacks. I don't like his pigeonholing Obama's victory as a victory for African-Americans. His voice is visibly shaken. In another time, I would have voted for him. He is certainly a man of integrity in a way Bush could never hope to be. And the crowd appreciates it too. "We love John", they chant. There is no doubt though that his party didn't stand a chance at this election without him. He reached across party lines; his appeal to the independents went a long way to balance the lemming path Bush, Rove and co. have set his party on.

I also wonder what Bush will do tomorrow, knowing that his era is over. We cry over Fuld walking away with millions in severance. Isn't it ironic that we reelected a man responsible for trillions wasted in an escalation of committment? A democracy is much like a public financial institution these days. Ownership is diluted, responsibility is thin, and accountability is non-existent. Here's hoping to a more educated and activist democracy. I have to go - Obama is speaking.

Pricing carbon

2008-07-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal examines the effectiveness of the UN carbon-trading scheme today in an article debating the pros and cons of funding coal and natural gas projects in India and China. Critics of the funding claim that financing is being diverted to these projects from renewable energy projects. The trading scheme has also been accused of financing power plants and cleaner coal-burning technology that would have been constructed otherwise.

Both criticisms miss the point. If the carbon-trading scheme is a free market, renewable energy projects would find themselves being financed on their own merit. For example, current market prices, according to the WSJ article, are ~$13 per ton of carbon emissions. If solar projects can be financed and replace carbon emissions at cheaper rates, participating companies would buy them naturally.

The key is whether or not the UN scheme is a free market. Do projects of all colors and sources receive equal consideration? How good are disclosures and monitoring on these projects? When developed and developing countries get together to formulate such global markets, the quality and access to information will be key to good buyer-seller outcomes, and for us, a cleaner world.

Hate trade

2008-07-09T08:46:00.001-07:00

Dear Mr. Munawwar Hasan,

You claim to represent millions of Muslims. Quite a bold claim. But not quite as reckless as your claim that:

"America is against the interests of Muslims. Muslims hate Americans. If this [India-US nuclear] deal goes through, then Americans will make a lot of money."

The logical extension of your argument would be that all kinds of trade should be prohibited with the U.S. because free trade makes money for both parties. I would like to submit the following data for your review:

U.S. Exports by Destination (2007 - in millions)
Afghanistan - $495.3
Saudi Arabia - $10,396
Indonesia - $4,235
Qatar - $2,757
Pakistan - $2,035
Iran - $145

Even countries with Muslim majorities with mostly democratic regimes (Indonesia and Afghanistan) import goods and services from the U.S. and in your words, help the "Americans make a lot of money." Iran imports from the U.S. despite their leader publicly describing the latter as their enemy.

I could include data on imports to the U.S. from these countries because Americans benefit from imports, but frankly speaking, I would need to explain consumer surplus and how goods and services are produced, which would be more than sufficient to ask you the following:

Do Muslims really hate Americans and American products?

Pens don't kill; guns do

2008-06-26T10:03:00.000-07:00

My two cents.
1st cent: Pens don't kill; guns do.
2nd cent: If you don't have a pen, you can't write with a pen.

Misfit

2008-06-12T07:26:00.000-07:00

I had a Gogol moment yesterday.

New Guy: Hi, I'm John Doe.
I: Hi, I'm Abhishek Nair.
New Guy: Sorry, could you said that again?
I: Abbheeshake Nair.
New Guy: You're kidding me??

I fit in. That's all I have to say. I did have to suppress an intense feeling to knock him to the floor. Suddenly, his self-deprecating humor meant nothing. No humility, nothing. It was just a show. His incredulity betrayed him. A child of the world. Misfit in our times.

Obama fights rumours

2008-06-12T06:30:00.000-07:00

I support Barrack Obama and his campaign. I do not agree with all of his policies but I admire his clarity of thought. And I believe that he will bring much-needed leadership to a country wandering in the wrong direction.

Yet, given Obama's diverse background and atypical, but not abnormal, views, he has become the target of baseless rumours and smear campaigns. So, as a small measure of support to his campaign, I reproduce here:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome/

One of my favourites:

The Smear:
Barack Obama Won't Say The Pledge of Allegiance/Won't Put His Hand Over His Heart
LIE: Barack Obama won't say the pledge
LIE: Barack Obama won't put his hand over this heart during the pledge of allegiance

The Truth:

Not our brothers and sisters

2008-05-14T08:25:00.001-07:00

I rarely find good news in these challenging times, but had to pull this quote out of the Washington Post's piece on the Jaipur blasts:

"Hindus and Muslims have lived in such close quarters in Jaipur," said Narendra Sharma, 52, a government servant who lives next to the Hanuman Hindu temple, where one of the blasts occurred. "We have to remember that it's a terrorist issue. It's not our brothers and sisters."

India exists today because of the wisdom of millions of overlooked Narendra Sharmas... The common Indian, if there is such a thing, is under-rated. We just have to give him back his voice.

Do not speak for me

2008-05-13T17:48:00.001-07:00

Dear Sandeep,

A Desipundit link took me to your argument against the court ruling dismissing a petition against M.F. Husain's art depicting Hindu goddesses in the nude.

After quoting the judge's ruling and weighing Hindu "symbolism" against the judge's "aesthetics", you conclude:

"Hussain's "art" needs to be challenged by a deep scholarship of the Indian tradition of art, and sufficiently made public. In my readings, Hussain's "art" is bought merely as investment. In true free market style, if enough is done to show that these are worthless investments, we would need to stop worrying about Hussain's "art." The learned judge is merely looking at the symptom not the disease."

Sigh...where do I start.

First, why the appeal to the judge?
The courts have no place with why Husain's paintings would be considered aesthetical. Unless you believe that aesthetics and beauty are standards to be left to the judicial system. In which case, please tell me how India became a theocratic state overnight.

I for one, can judge for myself, what I would consider aesthetically pleasing. If you seek to impose your standards of beauty on me through the courts, you patronize me to say the least. Husain's art may offend, please or do nothing for me, but I will defend my right to judge that for myself. I will also defend Husain's right to paint whatever he pleases.

Also, please define "worthless investments". Is there a hurdle IRR (internal rate of return) you demand as a learned investor of the arts? If that's so, let's play an experiment:

You quote a price for the painting and let me tell you if that's acceptable to Husain.
Here's a hint: you have to pay him what he thinks his painting is worth having destroyed. I have a feeling you are not going to hang it up in your living room.

Actually, given that this game could quickly become expensive, let's lower the stakes a little and shift the risk. After all, I should put my money where my mouth is, right? Let's bet $1,000 right here, right now that Husain will not part with his painting to you for any sum of money. You don't have to buy into this bet, it won't cost you a penny to accept or lose. You just have to get incontrovertible evidence that would hold up in any Indian court that Husain would sell his painting to you for some sum of money. But until you can furnish such proof, your words are as "worthless" as the object of your hate.

Lastly, not a day passes by without someone anointing himself or herself spokesperson for the myriad beliefs held by millions of Hindus. I am sorry, Sandeep, but I have to revoke your license to represent me for you stole it while I wasn't looking, let alone without asking me.

If the price is right...

2008-05-08T07:08:00.000-07:00

The Mid-Day quotes Karnataka's youngest MLA candidate, Hemashree, who also happens to be a TV host:

“My TV appearances made me famous and gave me the confidence to contest,” Hemashree told MiD DAY.In Seeregondu Saval, Hemashree asks women to call in and guess the price of a sari, and hands it over to the caller who gets closest to its marked price. “People in the villages treat me like their daughter. I think women will stand by me,” she said.

I am not surprised. Sarees have become the standard gift in elections. It was only appropriate that they get the host of a TV show selling sarees to buy votes at election time.

How do I know she is not going to be an exception to the rule? Because she said this too:

“Women can’t think of entering politics if they do not have a godfather and money. If you have to contest an election, you need to have money. Spend money and think that you will never get it back. You should have influence too to get a ticket...If not for my father, I would never have been here. Women can enter politics only if their family is into it.”

Supporters of the women's reservation bill may be disappointed, but I am not. Artificial representation has always been a clever distraction from the million mutinies India really needs. Reservations may force political parties to look at new candidates within their ranks and outside, but most likely, as Hemashree unashamedly admits, the nominees are going to be the ones with godfathers and money. At best, there is not going to be any change in the quality of the candidates. At worst, candidates with merit could get sidelined if they happen to be male.

Halfway across the world, Hillary is facing issues with the historic nature of her own candidacy for the White House. Unlike Obama, Hillary has no stirring speech on women's issues. They are non-existent in this election where she faces off two male candidates. In all likelihood, a Hillary withdrawal would not disappoint female voters, because if she were to drop out now, it would have less to do with the idea of a woman in power than her ability to rally voters around the issues of the day. Hemashree will learn just as Hillary has, even in politics, inspiring voters has nothing to do with your sex or sarees.

like snake-charmers and tigers

2008-05-05T06:59:00.000-07:00

You know you have arrived at an intellectual when she believes in defeating cliches with...hold your breath, cliches!

"I find India very attractive, enticing and seductive. But we have also moved away from just the exotic imaging of India being beautiful and coulourful and all the cliches the West likes to associate with India, like snake-charmers and tigers, the Taj Mahal, our beautiful women... I think we've quantum-leaped beyond something so quaint. We've proved our mettle in business and technology. We've become an economic powerhouse. So why don't we focus equally on our brainpower?"

So, it is important that we have gotten past cliches...well, Shobhaa De was just answering an equally meaningless question by the equally thoughtless folks at Rediff.:

"How do you want the world to look at India?"

On another note, I've always wondered why there's an extra "a" at the end of her name. Is it "extra" because I accept the more common "Shobha" as conventional? What does that say about me? Or was it a indulgence in numerology by her parents? In any case, it has made me think, which is something new for anything associated with her in writing.

Like a Bollywood movie

2008-05-01T14:44:00.000-07:00

While reading Marrying across Somalia's caste lines over at BBC, I was drawing comparisons between the forbidden love of this couple and inter-caste marriages in India. But the lady at the heart of this story surprised me further with this additional tidbit:

"Finally, he was mine and I was his. Sometimes life is indeed like a Bollywood movie," she said, smiling.

I visited my local Indian grocery store in Philly and unearthed this interesting fact about Bollywood movies. More than a third of the renters are from Africa! Among their favorites, Disco Dancer.

While we berate and moan the lack of attention to detail, histrionic acting and formulaic song and dance routines that form the staple in our film industry, Bollywood movies have a considerable following in parts of Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Not coincidentally, these also happen to be some of the poorest places in the world. In the end, no amount of investment or diplomats have been able to achieve that kind of empathy. Quality aside, there is something to be said for spinning dreams and creating hope for the deprived.

Sanmanassullavarkku Samadanam

2008-04-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

This is a reprint of my article at the Save Kerala blog - http://savekerala.blogspot.com

Latha looked at her watch. She was going to be late to work. Gritting her teeth at the thought of another long night at the office, she grabbed her iPod and stuffed it into her bag. As she ran out, Latha grabbed the tiffin box located strategically on the dining table and yelled in the kitchen's direction,

"Amma…njaan erangunu." (Mother, I'm leaving)
Pat came her mother's advice, "Poyitte varette paraaa, molle." (Say you'll return after leaving)

At the bus stand, Latha did not have to wait for long. A SAFE bus rolled in, its engine purring to a halt. The driver extended its wheelchair lift to let out a disabled lady and her companion granddaughter. The rest of the passengers petered out of the bus before Latha stepped into its cool interior. This particular bus was operated by Safe and Friendly Environment Lines, the brainchild of Abdul Majeeb, a recently returned Kerala expat. Latha had read all about him in a splashy feature story in "Dusky" - a hugely successful periodical in Kerala.

Six years ago, Majeeb had traveled to Masdar to embark on a venture manufacturing luxury boats and yachts for the city's wealthy businessmen and had amassed significant wealth for himself in the process. Yet, as he traveled between Kerala and Masdar, he was continually reminded of the world of difference between his place of birth and place of work. And nothing irked him more than the harassment women received in urban Kerala. At times, he suspected that beneath a largely literate society, lay a seething, frustrated, unemployed body of men who had nothing better to do than harass women on the streets and in every imaginable public place. Majeeb got so obsessed with the problem that whenever he met a fellow Keralite, he steered the conversation in this direction. Yet everyone, men and women, friends and family alike, just shrugged their shoulders and walked away. Then last year, the problem hit home when his sister was pinched and groped on a private bus. Shortly after that incident, he bought her a can of mace and then isolated himself in his office to apply his entrepreneurial instincts to the problem.

For decades, private and public bus lines were unable to provide safe and secure means of transportation for women and children. Surveys revealed the shocking extent of women who had some experience fending off physical advances while traveling. The numbers were lower, but still disturbingly bad for children, primarily because child molestation went largely unreported. It was a problem that left women and children scarred, and in many cases, families reluctant to let their vulnerable members venture outside for work. On the rare occasions that a woman or child complained, retribution was often swift, but the reaction too little too late. Years of building boats and arranging security for celebrity clients at his yacht exhibitions had given Majeeb considerable experience in the tourism and security industries. In his mind, the problems presented by public travel in Kerala were no different. And that is why Majeeb introduced a private protection bus service catering to men, women and children.

Ten kilometers from Latha's bus stand, Majeeb sat in his office with his legs stretched on his desk, a liberty he took on Fridays when the week winded down to a crawl. Flipping the pages of his investment book, he ran through the calculations for his proposed fleet expansion. SAFE had created a tidy profit for him within two years of its launch; now he was going to expand beyond Kochi into Kozhikode and Kollam. Yet, he knew making his figures public to attract investors, was also going to open the gates to copy-cats once competing bus lines learnt just how well he was doing. But then, Majeeb was no stranger to competition. He thrived on devising innovative services and products to differentiate his business.

Majeeb reminisced about his neighbors in Kerala ridiculing him (not to his face, because that would have been impolite) when he told them about his new bus service and his ticket prices which were twice the prevailing rate. Indians, let alone Malayalees, are driven by cost, they said. Charge twice as much, get twice as less passengers, they warned him. Majeeb shrugged his shoulders just as they had shrugged theirs. If there was anything he had learnt about business, it was that you never learn without trying. So he went ahead with his plans to recruit bus "marshals" - able plainclothesmen who accompanied his buses.

In the first month after the inauguration of the bus service, Majeeb did worry. Attendance was poor, and his advertisements attracted just a trickle of passengers, mostly businessmen. Then as word of mouth spread about Majeeb's guard service, he started seeing more housewives and working women among the passengers. Pretty soon, the inaugural bus were running at full capacity and bringing in enough money for Majeeb to justify buying a second, a third, a fourth and even a fifth bus.

In the beginning, there was a security guard on every ride. As expectations rose, he dispersed the guards among his buses. With his higher ticket prices, he was able to add more buses to the same routes and restrict the amount of passengers on each ride. Majeeb had long ago reasoned that the shortest distance from point A to point B in Kerala was not just a straight line. It was a line with bells and whistles. He was not interested in selling a commodity. He was not selling space. He was selling a service. He was selling comfort of a watchful pair of eyes. Not the kind of eyes that women were seeking to avoid. But the protective kind his meticulously-selected and screened guards offered.

Yet, Majeeb took pains to draw the fine line between regulating and liberating interaction between strangers. He had no desire to run a police state aboard his buses. He wanted men and women to converse and act decently towards each other. He didn't want to segregate the two sexes as some clerics and priests in his home town would have liked. Was he in the business of teaching decency? No, he believed such behaviours could not be forced, just internalized.

And what of the criticism leveled at him by a major daily that his rates were beyond the ordinary person's reach? He wrote an emphatic letter to the editor quoting first hand evidence that his bus was actually more affordable. Despite his relatively expensive bus fare, many of SAFE's passengers were switching from more expensive means of transportation including two-wheelers. In the cases of women who were confined to their homes, the opportunity cost was much higher. Majeeb's most cherished possession was a letter from a young lady named Latha, who had written to his office to express her appreciation for his bus lines. Latha was frequently called upon to work for long hours at her office. As such instances grew more frequent, her parents despaired and called upon the daughter to quit. Latha knew she could not heed their warning, which while well-meaning, ignored the hard facts of their circumstances. Her father was confined to the bed after a paralyzing stroke; between his medicines and her mother's care, she was the sole breadwinner in the family. Any other job would force them to live from hand to mouth. It was in the midst of this crisis, Latha wrote to Majeeb, that SAFE "rolled into her life".

Majeeb liked to think that SAFE was a social experiment, but he knew that it was a business like any other. It existed to satisfy an unresolved need like any other successful firm. Only time could tell what long-term changes his entrepreneurial abilities could shape. For now though, he would be happy just to provide law and order in the void that was Kerala's traveling experience.

A knock on the door pierced Majeeb's thoughts and he sat up. His assistant came into his office and said, "It's Minister Balakrishnan."
Majeeb raised his brow, "what does he want?"
"Something about booking a bus for his son's wedding in June." After some hesitation, she said, "Oh and Bhaskaran is on the other line."
Majeeb asked, "Bhaskaran who?"
"Union Bhaskaran…the one who's in the papers about getting you to sign an agreement for your security staff."

Majeeb took in a deep breath and weighed which call was worse.

Post-script:

Sexual harassment is a widespread problem in Kerala. Volumes have been written here and elsewhere on the hellish experiences women face while they travel and work in our state. According to the 2007 Kerala Economic Review report released last month, atrocities against women have increased three-fold over the past 15 years. 2,078 cases were recorded against women in 1992. In 2006, this figure had risen to 9,110 cases. Despite greater public awareness, little has been achieved as tangible results. Successive governments have failed to provide us with better law enforcement agencies. But blaming the government for everything from the lack of standards in our civic life to our economic problems is becoming more and more a convenient cop-out.

Latha's experience and Majeeb's story need not be relegated to the dusty confines of Indian science-fiction. These are very practical applications of existing business models. A little private initiative and lots of common sense can resolve many of Kerala's modern social and economic problems without resorting to charitable or publicly-funded institutions including governments. We have all seen how the latter have fared. I'll let Milton Friedman explain the power of open markets more eloquently, "The great virtue of free enterprise is that it forces existing businesses to meet the test of the market continuously, to produce products that meet consumer demands at lowest cost, or else be driven from the market. It is a profit-and-loss system."

Note: All characters in this article are fictitious. Any similarities that these characters may have to any person living or dead are unintentional.

Stillbirth

2008-04-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

If my mother is Maharashtrian,
my father is Bihari,
my mother is Muslim,
my father is Christian,
my office is in Mumbai,
my wife and kids are in Delhi,
my mother tongue is Hindi,
my fluency is in Marathi,
my mother is an SC/ST,
my father is casteless,

Can you tell me
which half must be circumsized,
which half must be baptized,

which half may live in this city without fear,

which half must return to penury,

which half must apply for reservation,

which half must resent the other half?

I have only one mind, one body, one soul,
but
tear me apart for I belong
to a hundred places, identities and castes.
Or let me live as an Indian.

Ye bhi?

2008-04-05T20:41:00.001-07:00

Ye bhi?

2008-03-30T20:40:00.001-07:00

Ye bhi?

2008-03-12T20:06:00.000-07:00

Ye bhi?

2008-03-09T20:29:00.001-07:00

Ye bhi?

2008-03-08T20:19:00.000-08:00

An SUV, really?

2008-02-07T08:49:00.000-08:00

42-speaker sound system
2 16-inch TVs
42-inch plasma TV
Four computers
and to boot...
a train horn.

Ford is where it is today because at some point, it stopped building cars and started building mobile homes.

Cost of an average RV:$100K.
Cost of a Ford Alton F-650 XUV (yes, it's a mouthful):$200K.

Icons

2008-01-18T14:17:00.000-08:00

The height of irony: an artist greets an anti-artist.

My two cents to Amitabh: embrace the vice police at your risk, lest you try to express your creativity.

The Great Gujarat Game

2007-12-24T21:38:00.000-08:00

Like many observers of the recent Gujarat elections, I was stumped. Was, because reading M.R. Venkatesh's incisive analysis of Modi's victory threw considerable light on voters and voting.

Venkatesh explains India's history:

"Secularists, with their firm belief that the concept of this nation could be built from a clean slate without any reference to her past, are oblivious of this set of voters and their psyche. Remember, we are a nation with a historical baggage of defeats in the past thousand years or so."

and neatly ties that to voters' fears:

"And our collective understanding is that all this happened because we Indians were never politically conscious of defending ourselves...Crucially, we did not have strong leaders to defend the nation from such predators."

And as feared, the greatest casualties of this polarization are "increased communal tensions and social friction. As Indian society gets divided on these lines, it could well lead to the revival of militant Hinduism -- leading to shriller retaliation from the secularists leading to a vicious spiral of polarisation of the polity, voters and society."

The bottom of the pyramid challenge

2007-12-13T13:50:00.000-08:00

Part I: The need to innovate

We live in an era of unprecedented global economic growth and widespread poverty. While poverty rates in many parts of the world, including India and China, have dropped significantly over the past decade, the benefits of economic growth to the most deprived sections of society still remains the "trickle" quoted in old economics textbooks. Fortunately, change is brewing.

Today, efforts in many disparate parts of the world to integrate the poorest of poor, better known as the "bottom of the pyramid" or BoP, are focusing on bringing goods and services to the deprived. And surprisingly, these goods and services have achieved a wide range of levels of sophistication, from savings programs that take advantage of group-based lending models (the most-widely quoted example is the Grameen Bank) to emerging re-insurance programs for micro-health insurers. Many, if not most of these financial programs rely on community savings, in a reversal of the primarily charity-based aid programs of yore. The new mantra today is not just "Give and ye shall receive" but also "Ye shall receive and give", encapsulating that oft-told story of the boot-strapped entrepreneur. In the process, many of the lessons of financial theory of portfolio diversification and risk management are being applied to sustain such services as health insurance and project finance for people who've been limited by the individual income profiles.

Yet many basic services including education, power and medical services have remained outside the scope of the microfinance services for various reasons. Some of these services are based on capital-intensive business models, which are a challenge for limited pools. Schools require buildings and the accompanying infrastructure. Power typically requires transformers, wires for transmission, and not to mention, expensive generators. The challenge is to innovate and adapt these services to the pay-as-you-go business models. The story of CavinKare, which pioneered the "sachet" model of marketing[1] by selling shampoo in the form of small packets, is now legendary among BoP thinkers. While these micro-packaging methods are not replicable everywhere and have been disputed as to their efficacy in boosting consumption, they point to the potential of tailoring business models to cater to the poor. And just as importantly, to tailor them to local circumstances.

There are parts of Africa where a HIV patient can be found in every family of a village. The consequences of contracting HIV are too long to list here. But the particularly nasty aspect of this affliction is the constraint it places on the families and dependents of its victims. Treatment of HIV patients is expensive both in terms of the financial burden it places on their families but also in the time taken to care for them. The latter is time lost on an occupation - an unfortunate double-whammy for these families. To add to their troubles, conventional health insurance programs place severe limitations on HIV treatment costs, thereby rendering them useless for the needs of most of these families.

My friend, Omar, and I are focusing on one such village, Lwala, in Africa. Lwala, in Omar's words, is a:

"village of approximately 1500 people near Lake Victoria in western Kenya. Within an hour’s walk, approximately 3000 additional people live in nearby villages accessible by dirt roads. The majority of the area residents are subsistence farmers….

The official 15% prevalence of HIV in the region is the highest in Kenya (2003 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey). Of the 529 villagers who were tested in 2006, 32% were infected (24% men and 40% women)."

Ordinary microinsurance providers can do little here; most are unwilling to finance the high costs associated with treating HIV patients. Our challenge is to build an insurance program that satisfies the medical needs of both sets of patients, spreads the risk across a large pool of members and is also self-sustainable. That's a difficult gap to close; ordinary medical expenses in Lwala cost less than $0.10 a day at first glance, but HIV treatment is upward of $2 a day.

Among some of my ideas to tackle this idea is to look at the externalities of HIV treatment. An HIV patient who is treated and cared for at a clinic frees up resources for his/her family. Relatives can pursue other occupations to generate revenue for their families. That is not to say that HIV afflicted families can afford HIV treatment any more than non-HIV families. But, their priorities and benefits from insured healthcare are substantially different. Can these families pay meaningfully higher premiums?

Successful treatment of HIV patients can also lead to meaningfully healthy lives. In such cases, the challenge of the model is to create a relationship with patients post-treatment to recover the costs, not unlike the deferred compensation model in labor theory. That challenge is also compounded by the fact that HIV is not curable. There are treatments out there to make the disease more manageable, but many of them cannot be afforded without very deep pockets.

It's a long list of challenges, but the promise of a solution is too great to be ignored. Being able to finance HIV treatment in Lwala would go a long way to getting this community back on its own feet. It could finally break the debilitating nature of the disease.

To learn more about Lwala's clinic initiative, which was started by Milton and Fred Ochieng, fellow Dartmouth graduates, I refer you to Omar's profile of this initiative at Real Medicine's website and the Lwala community clinic initiative website at Vanderbilt University, where Milton currently attends school.

[1] Inappropriately attributed to Hindustan Lever by CK Prahalad.
Source: http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/publications/data/2007-07-13Jaiswal.pdf

Political apathy

2007-12-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

We often hear about campus politics in Kerala and its victims, including education. But few know about the cultural differences between colleges in Kerala.

In his post on Loyola's "“let-us-not-get-involved” political apathy", writer and editor Ashok R. Chandran gives his perspective on how Loyola has achieved a distinct reputation for being the school that bucks the trend. While other campuses have caved into hartals and intimidating student unions, Loyola has refused to bow to the violence that follows the two. However, Ashok questions, is the institutionalized attitude closer to apathy than a confrontation of such social evils?

All valid questions for anyone who wishes to see more mature political involvement at all levels in Kerala.

Overcoming

2007-12-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

Silverine's story on Teresa reminded me of Melissa, the lady I tutor at my local community center. As a tutor, I help adults prepare for their high school equivalency examination. Most of the people who approach our community center have never completed high school, for a variety of reasons. And many of them are seeking to pass the GED exam to get a better job. But not Melissa.

When Melissa approached us with her desire to pass the GED math test, we were impressed. Here is a retired lady past her prime years but thinks highly enough of getting a high school education. And that too, in a discipline that many folks struggle with - math. Fortunately, math has always been my favourite subject.

During my first tutoring session with Melissa, I found that raising her math skills would be no easy task. One of her weaknesses is rounding numbers. In her preliminary test, when asked to round 6,360 to the nearest hundred, she answered 300. At first glance, one would think Melissa is starting from square one. But I deconstructed her thought process to identify that her problem was two-fold: attention (she left out the 6 in the thousands place) and perception (she had trouble grasping large numbers). I pointed out these issues with her constructively by encouraging her to use money as an example, a method she quickly grasped. Two sessions later, Melissa breezed through a quiz I prepared for her. As I watched her check her answers, I could scarcely imagine this was the same lady who believed her greatest weakness to be her failing memory.

Today, Melissa is rapidly mastering fractions and plugging holes in her math skills. In the two months as student and teacher and vice versa, she and I have learnt a lot about teaching and learning, much of it relevant to senior citizens. We have discovered that she has an optimal learning time and its much before the only time of the day we meet. We have also learnt that a two hour stretch is too long for her. So we keep our sessions to one and a half hours now. And we focus the first half of the stretch on new materials and the second stretch on homework. Also, practise makes perfect. So I give her plenty of exercises to take home. And all through this, I am pleasantly reminded of the human spirit to overcome.

Because of all the things I appreciate about Melissa, her ability to admit mistakes, to be patient, it's her perseverance that strikes me the most. And there is research to point that this skill is an important, if not the most significant, trait of a student - Scientific American recently ran an article , The Secret to Raising Smart Kids, which highlighted the results of several studies on how people learn. As the article notes,

"Teaching people to have a “growth mind-set,” which encourages a focus on effort rather than on intelligence or talent, produces high achievers in school and in life."

The writer elaborates on this difference in attitudes:

"Several years later I developed a broader theory of what separates the two general classes of learners—helpless versus mastery-oriented. I realized that these different types of students not only explain their failures differently, but they also hold different “theories” of intelligence. The helpless ones believe that intelligence is a fixed trait: you have only a certain amount, and that’s that. I call this a “fixed mind-set.” Mistakes crack their self-confidence because they attribute errors to a lack of ability, which they feel powerless to change. They avoid challenges because challenges make mistakes more likely and looking smart less so...The mastery-oriented children, on the other hand, think intelligence is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work. They want to learn above all else."

My theory of prosperity is tied to information and how it flows. One of my strongest beliefs about the way the world works, is that our life improves commensurately with our knowledge about ourselves and other forces in this world. More pithily put, "Knowledge is power". But less well understood is how we interpret the information comes our way, how we strive to open new avenues of information and how we act on that information. And as my experiences with Melissa show, the way we perceive information has possibly more power to shape our happiness than information itself.

Slaves to language

2007-11-28T08:05:00.001-08:00

The following email, which was circulated among some of my Malayalee friends, provides some insight into the appeal of Communism to Indians, and Keralites in particular. This email is particularly relevant in today's political context with the left parties going berserk in West Bengal. Such events surprise few Keralites, least of all those who have left the state after being hounded by the Left, as noted by blogger Brijesh Nair.

Below are excerpts from the email titled "Krishna - the first Communist".

"Why Lord Krishna's life and message make him the father of communism. Long before Karl Marx, Lenin and Mao, a historical figure in India fought against oppression, championed the cause of the poor, denounced religious dogma and empty ritualism, and sought to inspire a righteous and selfless attitude in society.

The basic tenets of communism say that all are equal, and exploiters and oppressors should be severely punished..

The life and message of Krishna reveals that he imbibed, taught and fought for these principles 5,230 years ago. In fact, an objective analysis of the Bhagavad Gita too would reveal that Krishna was a better communist than Karl Marx. One could go so far as to describe him as the real founder of communism!

… he says, ''Sarva dharman parityajya mamekam sharanam vraja'' (Drop all the dharma and take refuge in me, ie, in the higher self).

This is really a revolutionary thing. Karl Marx also has said drop the religion, ''Religion is the opium of the masses.'' Karl Marx was not aware of Indian spirituality. All that he saw was the blind faith and the authoritarian rule of the religious institutions that existed at that time in Russia, whereas Krishna takes us beyond religion.…I wonder why the communists have not yet owned Krishna. Many times in the Gita, Krishna says, ''Yo mam pasyati sarvatra'' (One who sees me in everybody, one who sees oneself in everybody, is the one who sees the truth). This is the basic principle of communism — see everyone as yourself.

But it is the spirit of self-enquiry, the scientific temper in a person, that takes one deeper. Religion stays behind and one moves into a realm of pure humanism or pure divinity — this is the hallmark of Krishna's teaching.

Many people talk about communism but lead a capitalistic life. However Krishna never did that. He stood for the cause of the poor.

Now communists in Kerala need not feel guilty about going to Guruvayoor and those in Bengal can openly participate in Durga Pooja!"

Mixing religion and economics tends to have unpleasant results, and the worst casualty of this war is language. Thought is shaped by language and going by this email, imagination has died in Kerala. Language has been raped and pillaged so badly in my state so as to make irrelevant the distinction between communism and humanitarianism, capitalism and materialism and most importantly, the line between self-interest and greed.

Allow me to explain. Go back and read the excerpts, but this time, substitute the word "communism" with "humanitarianism". In Kerala, communism has been particularly adept at shrouding itself as a humanitarian philosophy. It has successfully disguised the economic consequences of policies that favour one portion of the populace over the other. Due to high literacy rates and liberal migration policies in the Middle East, Kerala's ideological baggage has managed to limit Kerala's development since the 60's without the political repercussions that follow economic stagnation as in other parts of India. This is a state with disenfranchised workers. A polity without an economy. A debate without imagination.

Those who've read my writing before have probably heard this before, but I feel compelled to draw the line between goals and ideologies once again:

The difference between humanitarianism and communism is that the former is a goal while the latter is an ideology. If communism says, “All are equal”, humanitarianism says “All must have equal access to opportunities in life, despite their differences.” A farmer is not the same as a doctor; they have different skill sets. Yet, they have equal rights to access freedom of movement be it on a working day or a “hartal” day, equal rights to access freedom to educate themselves in the manner they choose be it in a government school or a privately funded school, equal rights to access different markets be they government supply depots or corporate retail houses, and so on and so forth.

Yet, some folks abuse these rights to access opportunities to suppose that it is everyone’s right to enjoy the fruits of those opportunities, regardless of how hard a person works to access them. If you are fine with this perversion, you have to contend with its consequences. And its consequences are dire for two reasons; the world is finite and humans are flawed.

Our resources are scarce - a fact of life that calls for prudence and a mechanism that channels our resources to their most productive use. Every rupee we spend on protesting Saddam Hussein’s death or some “imperialist” power can be more wisely spent on better roads, better health infrastructure, more wildlife sanctuaries etc, everything that Keralites hold near and dear to our welfare.

A friend of mine once said, "Capitalists live on earth; communists dream in heaven". Again, this quote calls for some clarification. We are not talking about capitalists as communists view them, because the sad fact is that in Kerala, that word has long been hijacked by an ideology that thrives on creating a non-existent enemy. We are not talking about the trappings of wealth, but rather the mechanisms that create and spread wealth in capitalist economies, including the rule of law and free markets. If all humans are "created" equal and humane as communists would have you believe, then life would scarcely require laws and rights to protect. The sad fact though is that humans are prone to bouts of jealousy, greed, anger and violence. Laws and free markets exist precisely to curb and channel those tendencies to good use.

Ben Franklin, who was a deeply religious as well as a scientific thinker, had this to say about the nature of compassion, "God helps them that help themselves." In other words, promote the welfare of people who deserve it – people who are hard-working, diligent, devoted and thoughtful in life. If you don’t make that distinction, your charity goes to waste. I am reminded of the story of Krishna and his childhood friend, Sudama. Sudama visited Krishna with some puffed rice as a gift as he remembered the food is a favourite of Krishna’s (thoughtfulness and devotion). We all know how that story ended. Have we ever noted such qualities in our politicians and youth activists, communists or otherwise? If you are a humanitarian, rid yourself of those enemies of thought, reason and freedom first.

Post-script: It shocked me later to learn that this email was taken from a column by Sri Sri Ravishankar, the founder of the Art of Living foundation, in the The New Indian Express. It is a sad day when a widely-proclaimed proponent of human welfare misuses language.

Why I dropped Rediff

2007-11-20T11:03:00.001-08:00

Cost of a geography textbook: Rs. 35.
Cost of a map: Rs. 40
Reading Rediff.com: Priceless!

Compelled to write

2007-11-02T18:38:00.000-07:00

It's been more than a year since I began blogging and I promised myself that I would make it a habit to write more than once a month. I've broken that rule liberally. Fortunately, I am remiss for many good reasons for things that have happened in my life.

But I am back to writing not because I am less busy, but because I am compelled to write about a movie I saw today. I haven't been to the movies in a while, so when my close friend, Sorin, invited me to see "Lars and the Real Girl" at the nearby Ritz, I didn't hesitate.

"Lars" is nothing short of amazing. Without giving away too many spoilers, "Lars" is the story of a young man's fantasy girlfriend and her role in humanizing him. The movie which begins by highlighting the humorous trials and travails of the town's attempts to accept Lar's girlfriend grows pretty soon into the story of Lar's growth and self-realization. It is a moving, tightly scripted masterpiece of direction and some of the finest acting this year. Ryan Gosling plays Lars convincingly as the kind of person you want in your life not because of the interesting consequences of his imagination, but because of his courage. It takes plenty of creativity to flesh out a fictional character, but it also takes guts to ignore the skeptics.

While watching Lars, it becomes pretty clear that the audience falls into two categories of viewers: those who seldom lose sight of the levity of the situation and those who want to suspend belief even for a short while. My two cents for those watch it though is that if you leave the theater without appreciating the strength of the human mind and its capacity to heal itself, you are missing something. Because there are movies that succumb to the temptation of fantasies of the mind and then there are movies that give it the respect it deserves.

Cookie-cutter analysis

2007-07-05T13:58:00.000-07:00

When a major news outlet like CNN chooses to focus on a humanitarian issue on its front page, it naturally draws attention. Today's focus, widows in India, is particularly interesting to read not because of the article itself, but more so for the reactions of its readers.

On the one hand, you can find a large contingent of Indians quite proud of their heritage and culture and offended by the article.

"I am absolutely outraged at some of the responses here on this story. By focusing on a few cases, the story tries to portray Hinduism in an extremely poor light." - Rohit

"This is at most an isolated case. Hindu tradition and Indian society hasn't ever sanctioned this nonsense. It's believed that yes, dying in certain places in the world does allow one to liberate their soul, but that applies to ANYONE, not just widows." - Varun

"I think this is a grossly exaggerated story. Why is it that CNN always seems to be interested in picking only the negative things about India? Did the author not find a good populace of remarried widows? " - AK

Are they justified? Is CNN making a generally false statement about Hinduism or India? After examining the facts that CNN puts forth, I too am forced to conclude that this is a shoddily written article. Something that belongs to the likes of the 700 Club and Geraldo Rivera. Certainly not of the caliber that one can expect from CNN.

First, Vrindavan draws a disproportionate number of widows. So 15,000 widows in a city of 50,000 is disturbing. But, how do you judge 15,000 homeless widows against a country with 40 million widows? In order to do that, we need to collect data on the total population of homeless widows in India. Let's sit down and chat after that, because till then, all you have is anecdote and conjecture and little else. I don't deny that there is an issue, but I can't appreciate an issue with such flimsy facts. There may be more homeless widows out there, but unless you make the effort to reach out and count them, how do you make people realize the severity of the issue?

Second, there are flimsy attempts to examine the reasons for widow ostracization.

"An educated woman may have money and independence, but even that is snatched away when she becomes a widow." Is it just me or does this statement not contradict itself? What does it mean to have independence when it can be snatched away?

One widow's experience though draws light to what is quite possibly the main reason why widows find little support. Childlessness. To an audience fed on a capitalist society where individuals bear responsibility and joblessness is a negligable factor, that a childless widow has no recourse to support may come as a surprise. But, to a society with a poor history of government social support networks and where a vast number of people rely on their families for support, childless widows are essntially deprived. But of course, it need not be that way. Certainly not in a civilized society. But instead of insisting on more economic growth and government reform, CNN would rather have you believe that this is an issue with Hindu traditions. Yes, it is to an extent, but not to the extent that you can generalize it and call it an "Indian" issue or a "Hindu" problem. Which brings me to my last point - what are India and Hinduism?

At the other end of the comments to the CNN article, you can find people with an unrealistic image of India. I suppose many of them are tired of hearing about Indian family values and how the country is forging ahead on economic terms. So they readily jump on a story like this because it fits that tiresome, Orientalist myth of a superstitious India torn apart by its blind beliefs. The problem here is perception of information. Many people and I'm not sure whether this is the effect of poor schooling, see black for black and white for white. Boys and girls, life isn't a cookie-cutter.

In the end, CNN like many other media outlets will always seek to highlight the news that generates the most controversy. I have yet to see any articles in popular media or elsewhere that offers a holistic examination of India's internal contradictions.

A while ago, Aishwarya Rai was interviewed by David Letterman and asked whether she stays with her parents. It was a deliberately prejudiced question that fetched an even poorer answer from Rai.

My answer to Letterman would have been that modern Indian youth do not necessarily stay with their parents. It can also be viewed that the parents live with them, because after a certain point, it's the younger members of a family who earn more than their previous generation. It's all a matter of perception. But, if you stop at perception, that's all you'll get. The golden standard of truth is further down a prickly road.

Both views of India - a family-loving nation and a widow-rejecting society - are jaundiced, narrow-minded views of a society that has extremes like any other society. In fact, it would more apt to say that India is not merely a society, it is a society of societies. Similarily, Hinduism is as diverse a set of beliefs as are Christianity and Islam. I know that this is rather disappointing news to folks like CNN because they would then have to spend more than a page on their website to cover "Indian society" and Hindu-"ism". It would mean doing some in-depth analysis of a multi-faceted socio-economic problem. I am almost tempted to tell CNN to stick to covering war zone stories and leave the analysis to the experts. Or should I be berated for expecting the golden standard from an attention-deficit media?

Yogic wisdom

2007-07-02T12:51:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, I wonder how our Gods end up as characters on underwear, our religion ends up as nothing more than two paragraphs on the caste system in western textbooks and the sitar as a hippy instrument among various other degradations. Chalk it up to sadhus who preach ludicrous cures for cancer! Why does yoga need to be spread this way? Why can't Ramdev encourage people to practise yoga purely for its meditative and stress-busting benefits? Somehow I feel he is no better than the thousands of other "gurus" that have sprung over the last decade who breach their own "brand" of yoga and try to patent it. And if not patent it, try to glorify it beyond what it is.

This constant obsession with glorifying Indian tradition in medicine or any other field is partly borne by an inferiority complex and partly by alienation. Ramdev feels left out of the vast strides that modern medicine is making in tackling diseases. He can in no way contribute to modern pharmaceutical R&D because he doesn't hold any genuine doctorate and probably has not even had a complete education. Instead, he would equate a disease that has its roots in a phenomenon as complicated as mutating cells to something as simple as "wrong breathing".

Now, before all sorts of yoga followers begin criticizing me, I would like to reiterate that my problem lie with the man and his institutional beliefs, not the practice of yoga, which is a very healthy form of exercise. Stick to the fundamentals, yoga = healthy, and the whole world will follow you. But stray from the truth into the land of half-truths and lies and you not only hurt yourself, you also unwittingly hurt that which you espouse.

Walking trees

2007-06-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was power-walking to the subway on my way to the office. Somehow, I found myself behind a 6'4'' giant of a man unable to get past his frame on the narrow pavement. We played musical chairs for a while as my exits were blocked. This went on for two or three minutes. Suddenly, an opening cleared and I slid past him. As I walked away, the gentleman's companion quipped, "Beware of walking trees".

Blessed from birth

2007-06-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

My American colleague just returned from a break on the beach with a beetroot-red face. His tan became the topic of the day.

Him: Ya, you guys don't get a tan.
Me: No, not really. We've been blessed with one from birth.
Him: Are you serious?
Me: Well it's possible. If I sit out in the sun for too long, but it doesn't show. It just feels like a burn.
Him: Oh.
Me: I have to go to India to get a tan.

RNA, apes and sapience

2007-06-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

Remember those days when debates on evolution vs. creationism were settled and we all rested on the assumption that science was nearing a final understanding of the forces that shaped life. Wait - past tense? Molecular biology is apparently entering a paradigm shift. I'm an avid follower of science, but even I was surprised to pick up the latest issue of The Economist and flip to its cover issue on RNA. Although a little off-topic for its typical reader, recent discoveries in molecular biology are turning notions of genetics on its side.

Apparently, scientists are discovering new functions for a hitherto misunderstood chemical in biological cells called RNA. RNA has till date, remained relatively plain in the long shadow cast by its more popular counterpart, DNA. Ever since Crick and Watson discovered the helix structure of the latter and the release of Jurrasic Park, these protein-creating genes have captivated every school-going kid's imagination. In contrast, RNA has always been seen as a "humble carrier and fetcher of building materials". Well, science textbooks are going to have to be revised again, because all clues point to RNA playing a more distinguished role. Apparently, RNA has been found to be instrumental in biological functions including fertility and gender determination, by regulating levels of proteins. The Economist compares it to discovering that our protein factories have management. And that management is possibly as important as the factories themselves.

Molecular detail aside, why is this important? Well, other consequences notwithstanding, it poses a huge obstacle to the "apes are sapient" argument. Much has been made of the fact that great apes and chimpanzees share more than 90% of DNA with humans (as high as 96% in chimpanzees) and the implications it poses for animal testing. Well, with RNA's elevation in status, the definition of the gene may broaden according to the article. And unless further research is done, a big question mark lies on exactly how much genetic resemblance, and by association, sapient resemblance, can be found between apes and humans.

What consequences do these developments have for supporters of human rights for apes? Uncertain, but it certainly cannot help them in the immediate future. But then apes and other primates never really required human rights. They deserve protection in terms of habitats safe from human encroachment. In any case, arguing for human rights for non-human species is pointless when even humans are threatened, particularly near ape habitats in Africa and Southeast Asia. We would be more successful in conserving ape habitats if we created financial incentives for local human populations to preserve and protect them. If we cannot grant primates "human" status, we could certainly grant them value in terms of their contribution to biodiversity. Or at least, in the name of being sentient?

Protecting ape habitats by itself may not bring a ban on animal testing. Humans are known to inflict harm on even other humans without the slightest motive of self-preservation. We must be the only sapient species that willingly inflicts pain for purely exploitative purposes. So, one could naturally ask, what does it mean to be sapient if we tolerate inflicting pain on sentient creatures? What does it mean to be sapient when we accumulate resources at the expense of all other species? What does it mean to be sapient in a single species world? Questions like these have for too long been relegated to second rate status besides purely symbolic and short-sighted gestures like claiming human status for apes. Our claim to sapience cannot come with granting human rights to other species. It begins with justifying ours.

The death of the spouse

2007-04-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

Today's word, boys and girls, is spouse. What does it mean, you ask? Well, I always thought it meant one's marriage partner. And by association with "marriage", it had the qualities of permanence, love and intimacy. It's the person with whom you can always count on sharing your joys and troubles at the end of the day. Isn't that the idea?

Not according to Tarra Weiss at Forbes.com. Tarra would have you believe there's a whole new unexplored relationship out there - the "work spouse". As she explains, "with a work spouse, you know each other's favorite food; gripe about co-workers; confide about personal issues; and support each other during good and bad times. The main difference? There's no canoodling."

Wow, in my parents' days, before the advent of the "office culture" and "coffee buzz", when most people held 9-to-5 jobs, such relationships would have been at best called close friendships. And is it any surprise that friendships are not encouraged at work? No, says Linda Carr, the industrial psychologist quoted by Tarra, who refers to research that shows that "aside from showing a new employee the firm's culture and unwritten rules, they serve the same role as a mutual mentor. They bounce ideas off each other, offer advice and emotional support. That, says Carr, is the No. 1 reason employees give for staying with a job."

Fair enough, Tarra. But when can you cross the line to calling it a "work spouse". Apparently, when 17% of 750 surveyed claim they have one, according to the poll quoted by Tarra. And also when you go shopping with someone as "Jacalyn Lee and her office husband Patrick Farrell did during lunch breaks while working at the same New York City public relations firm." Why don't we question their similar tastes? Why doesn't anyone ask why these people don't leave their shopping till the weekends? To me, these are subtle signs that Jacalyn and Patrick either do not have time outside the office to pursue these matters, which is unlikely considering that they are taking their lunch break off. Or just more plainly and certainly not a subject for a column in Forbes, they share more common interests in shopping than perhaps, with their spouses.

So, was Lois Marino wrong to have termed her husband's office buddy as his "work spouse" in Tarra's article? Well, like most things related to marriage, I'd like to leave the vocabulary of people's relationships within the marriage and outside of it to them, because unlike most subjects of analysis, a relationship can be infinitely complex, irrational and spontaneous. Such is human nature as you and I know. My bone of contention are not with these seemingly sane people; it's with the folks who choose to label it. Because while there may be a need to highlight close friendships, there's no need to draw tenuous links between a good working relationship and the one that you have at home. The two are vastly different.

My belief is that there is no new relationship that is coming to the fore at 9 to 5 offices. If at all there is anything to speak of, it is a consequence of an office culture of longer hours stretching beyond the 9 to 5 regimen. But, that is not news to Forbes or Tarra Weiss, who arguably make a living off charting new territories in human relationships at the workplace. Even Linda Carr, the pyschologist quoted by Tarra, makes no fuss about it and simply calls the relationship one between "mutual mentors". I'm sorry Tarra, but that is simply too much of a leap to the "work spouse" that you're asking us to believe.

So, what about the 17% who said that they have a workplace spouse? Perhaps, it is that instinct within some people to compartmentalize their relationships and lives. Let me explain. If your relationship with your marriage partner consists of separately labelled domains called "canoodling", "shopping" and "supporting" and you have not found all these domains within your spouse, it may be "natural" to seek out the "work spouse" who possesses the missing ones. Or is it as simple as Forbes justifying the exclusivity of its audience by persuading readers of Forbes that on account of their ambitious, hard-working lives, they are redefining human relationships?

Overheard in my office

2007-02-26T09:45:00.000-08:00

My company is a pretty tight group. We try to indulge in some literary creativity in our off hours, as the rest of our time is spent poring over rather boring legal documents.

Colleague 1: I've added the 9'o clock breakfast on Fridays to my schedule.
Colleague 2: Oh, you mean the one in the lobby?
Colleague 1: Yeah, I have two breakfast"es" on Fridays now.
Colleague 2: Do you say breakfast"es" or breakfast?
Colleague 1: Maybe it's breakfii...

blogLinx

2007-02-17T21:27:00.000-08:00

I've been remiss w.r.t. the blogging scene for some time now, partly due to personal reasons and partly due to the demise of my blogrolling links. I'm very lazy without it, because I've accumulated quite a bunch of valuable blogger friends whose posts I like reading. Don't know how many of you utilize the blogrolling service (http://www.blogrolling.com), but I'm sure those of you that do, have noticed that it hasn't been working for a couple of months now.

So, I dug back into my programming background (I swore to myself I would never code another line again after college...but some promises are made to be broken, I guess) and came up with blogLinx, a stripped down version of the essential services provided by www.blogrolling.com.

At the moment, if you register at blogLinx (http://bloglinx.bravehost.com/), you can add up to 50 blog links to your own link list. The service is very self-explanatory.

And here's the best part: you can import your links from blogrolling.com! All it takes is pasting the url link that blogrolling provided you. For example, my blogrolling url is: http://rpc.blogrolling.com/display.php?r=f3f3ff5f3a8ffec015eae0a49a2e763e.

Of course, keep in mind the maximum number of links you can add to blogLinx - 50.

Currently, blogLinx is free. I intend to keep it that way.

Instructions for accessing your link list from your blog site are provided to you once you register and log in to blogLinx.

So, join me at http://bloglinx.bravehost.com. And feel free to email me with any comments/questions! Appreciate your time and help.

Enjoy connecting.

A convenient history

2006-12-14T15:23:00.000-08:00

I had the great fortune of running into this great and valuable discussion at S A J Shirazi's blog - one that's not seen very much outside the blog forum.

I want to emphasize my support for some of the points raised in this discussion.

1) That both countries are guilty of hiding facts and presented a prejudiced view of their histories. Some folks in here have presented Bhagat Singh as an example of distortion, or the lack of mention, in history as taught in Pakistan. Similarly in India, while the BJP came to power, several NCERT history textbooks were rewritten to reflect a view that our ancestors did not eat beef (to appease the hardcore Hindutva supporters). This attracted hoarse criticism from various sections of our society and by and large, the Indian middle class. Historical distortion, whether it is with respect to denying a hero's status on the basis of his religious identity or denying a people's cultural habits, is distortion regardless. In the end, only truth matters, unless you believe that knowing the truth, you would rather other learn from lies. In which case, what you are promoting is not "education", but your own ego.

2) India's greatest challenge in terms of presenting its history in a factual manner is to remove the vestiges left by its Hindu Nationalist movement and its colonial rulers.

3) Pakistan's greatest challenge in terms of presenting its history in a factual manner is to remove the India-phobic perspectives and focus on rewriting the story of its people. Does this involve some soul-searching? Most probably.

History is best presented as a set of facts and opposing interpretations, so that the final interpretation is left to the reader him/herself. Ultimately, any meaningful interpretation is supported by real life experiences and not by bookish knowledge. If India's history textbooks excluded the section on the Indus Valley civilization, on account of the Indus Valley lying in Pakistan territory, then who is the worse for it? Me, the reader, who else? Because I have just lost a great part of my understanding of the great forces of history that shaped me.

Instead of taking different cultures at face value, real historians examine these similarities and differences in depth and often come up with more comprehensive truths than the xenophobic perspectives that nationalist governments often display. And this drives fear into the hearts of the middle class because there are people who want to live together despite their differences and there are people don't see that desire and want to tear them apart. Look at what's happening in Iraq!

As an Indian, do I care about what's taught in Pakistani history textbooks? At some level I have to. Because the first political conversation I had with a Pakistani friend went something like this:

Friend: Gandhi slept with two girls by his side.
Me: Perhaps, but you gloss over his accomplishments.
Friend: But he was weird.

I have read/heard from enough sources not to reject what my friend said. But, the fact that she found it meaningful in a conversation we were having about Pakistan and India's problems tells me that she's been indoctrinated to believe that just about everything about "Indian" history is bad.

I wonder if she realizes that when Nehru asked Gandhi to reconsider Jinnah's request for the Prime Ministership, it was Gandhi who suggested Jinnah's name for the PM to demonstrate that India was a democratic and secular republic. We have had Muslim presidents and prime ministers since then.

So, here's the next question:

Should Pakistanis be equally concerned about what's taught in Indian textbooks?

Of course. Because I do not want to hold a prejudiced, and ultimately false view of anything. I want to know the truth, the facts, pure and simple. I do not want it sifted for the digestible and the indigestible, for the morally repugnant and righteous or the patriotic and the unpatriotic.

Under the influence

2006-11-29T11:08:00.000-08:00

Do we have any say over what our kids learn? This past weekend, an incident in a Boston tram forced me to think about whether we need to pay more attention to the people that influence them.

On our way home from a nice dinner in Little Italy, my friends and I boarded a very crowded tram. As the tram emptied itself gradually, we found ourselves sitting across from a middle-aged man with two curly-haired children wearing jerseys. Neither of them could have been more than 10 years old. They could have easily passed for a typical family returning from a ballgame.

The younger child was sipping a super-size plastic cup of cola. The man turned to him and said, "John, I think you're the slowest person I've seen drinking coke." Something in the voice told me that this man wasn't the children's father. A certain distance and a certain mockery that indicated that he was probably their uncle or a close friend of their family at best. There was enough familiarity between the children and him, but there was no sign of a father figure there. This became more obvious as the conversation proceeded.

The three of them were sitting next to a pretty, twenty-something year old girl carrying a large purse. My first impression was that she was also part of the family as the man chatted with her and she responded courteously with an occasional giggle. About two or three stops later, she stood up to leave and he (let's call him Mr. X) remarked, "You better take care of that purse. It's really big and I'm from New York. New Yorkers steal." She smiled and stepped off the tram. Mr. X turned to John's brother (let's call him Sam) and said, "You know, I could have gotten her number if I wanted."

A couple of minutes later, a group of girls boarded the tram and began talking excitedly near the exit. Mr. X looked at them and whispered to Sam, "What do you think? Isn't she cute? You think I can get her number?" Sam laughed awkwardly in awe, not knowing how to respond to this man who seemed to hold the key to an experience beyond his understanding. I wondered what was going through Mr. X's head.

You have to realize that although this man was trying not to be overheard, he spoke certain phrases loud enough for some of us to hear. I stared off into the distance, but had my ear turned in their direction. Evesdropping yes, but in this case, I would rather be discourteous than play willful ignorance.

Mr. X then proceeded to shift his glance across each and every girl in the train with a running commentary to Sam. It seemed that Mr. X had made it his goal in life to get the phone number of every girl he came across. Sam, on the other hand, had no clue what Mr. X was talking about, but he knew this was something new. This was something foreign to his experiences in the school playground. So, as if it weren't enough to demonstrate by example, Mr. X asked Sam, "Hey, what happened to that girl in your class? I thought there was something there. Come on, you can't be shy about these things." Sam grinned and fidgeted around trying to figure out what to say.

Sam's awkwardness revealed itself to everyone sitting around Mr. X and the children. A lady that had taken the vacant seat next to Mr. X and been smiling when he teased Sam initially, grew a frown on her face as she realized that Mr. X was no longer just an over-friendly uncle. This was a man that was straddling that grey area between child abuser and man-child. A lonely middle-aged man taking out his sexual frustrations on a child entrusted to him. A man who would have seemed entirely ordinary talking to friends in his age group had he any, but was entirely corruptive in the vicinity of children. Physical abuser Mr. X was probably not, but abuser nevertheless.

As I pondered these things, I tried to get an identity, a name or an address, something actionable. So my heart skipped a beat as Mr. X pulled out his blackberry when we reached our step. But my excitement was short-lived as he dipped it back into his pocket.

Could Mr. X have been a professional? Very likely. And that’s when it struck me - how completely ordinary looking people belie sick minds. There is a very fine line between a child abuser and a man-child. It's a line that can be crossed easily. So, my two cents to parents everywhere: watch over your children, at least until they're old enough to understand the meaning of platonic relationships. Otherwise, they risk growing into sexually frustrated men like Mr. X.

Disclaimer: The names used in this article are fictional.

In his hands

2006-11-21T15:28:00.000-08:00

Soon after I turned seven, I returned to my hometown in Kerala with my family. When my grandfather turned up at the bus stop, he was dressed in a neatly pressed, lightly starched shirt and dhoti with an umbrella in one hand and a clerk's bag in the other. For his pains to impress us, he received a chubby boy in a bahama shirt, checkered shorts with a videogame in one hand and a fruit packet in the other. It was an awkward meeting.

Almost immediately after moving into my grandparents' home, I began to view Appuppan as a distant figurehead out of tune with my life. I desperately shut him out along with everything in our quiet village. I silently ignored him and whiled away the mind-numbingly slow moments on my videogame. I would have played it that whole summer too had it not died.

Kerala's climate has never been forgiving to delicate electronics. It was either the scorching sun or the endless downpour that killed my toy. I don't know which to blame. One day, I left it on the roofless porch of our house in a lapse of judgment. A few hours later, I returned to find it dead. I dismantled it and made some feeble attempts to reassemble it, but the game did not yield. It just sat there, lifeless.

I tried to pretend nothing had happened. But I could not have been more bored. As I began ranting, the peaceful quiet of our house came under attack. I unnerved everyone in the family with my constant complaints. I don't know what I was looking for, but I seemed to have struck a nerve because soon enough, Appuppan got up from his chair and stepped outside the house.

He walked up to a short, young coconut tree and sliced off a leaf with his rusty machete. Coconut leaves are special; unlike banana leaves, they are extremely thin, long and durable. And until then, I never thought of them as more than leaves. In Appuppan's ancient hands, they turned into clay. Reaching into the depths of his childhood memories, he twisted the ends of the leaf here, there, across, under and over itself until lo and behold, a rounded cube sat in his hands. He handed it to me and said, “See, it's a ball.”

The pessimist that I am, I expected it to unravel immediately. But, it lasted more than three whole days. And even after I had exhausted its utility, Appuppan was more than happy to slice off another leaf and work his magic. As the days flew by, I invented new games to while away the time. And Appuppan was always there to refill the supply. An average coconut tree has something like twenty branches and more than a hundred leaves on each branch. That summer, between him and I, we barely used an entire branch. To a tree, that's like pulling a hair off your head. But to my Appuppan and me, it was a limb across the gulf between us.

My first love

2006-11-01T10:51:00.000-08:00

If you thought this was about a girl, I apologize. Because my first love was a children’s story called “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.

Charlie was to me the hero who lived my life before I did. Lonely and penniless, Charlie was an outsider in his own town. At an age when indulgence in chocolate was encouraged, Charlie’s parents could hardly afford a warm home. His life did not lack warmth because there was plenty of it from his grandparents and parents who lived in the same wooden cabin. But, he could not venture far outside of it. I also know what it feels like to be an outsider.

I was five when my family packed up our belongings and moved to Germany. One day, I found myself holding my father’s hand and collecting my water bottle on the shelf by the classroom as he talked with my nursery teacher. The next thing I remember is boarding a plane full of quiet, serious Germans. With a one-year old bawling toddler in one hand and a five year old child in the other, my parents had quite a challenge on their hands when they arrived in Frankfurt. And it didn’t help that I could not speak English except for a a very practical “Madam, may I go to the toilet please?”. To call it culture shock is an understatement.

The feeling of being an outsider is universal to expatriates. And most take the challenge of assimilating into a new culture and learning a new language in their stride. But at five, I was overwhelmed. I was so stricken by fear that on my first day on the way to my new school, I sat quietly in the school bus, squarely facing the window, all by myself on the seat. Silence though on a school bus is like shouting in an exam hall. It just doesn’t happen. A slightly older girl noticed me and introduced herself. She said, “Hi”, but I didn’t respond. I was too scared. She asked, “Why don’t you speak?” What could have I said? At that age, I could understand English when it was spoken, but could not muster a single line of self provoked thought. I didn’t realize how hard I was trying to avoid her until she asked, “Are you kissing the window?”

My attempts to learn English were no less successful. I remember my first snowfall and the bewilderment it brought to me. Our kindergarten teacher was a lovely lady, perhaps a little culturally challenged, but only a little. She asked us to draw snowmen, but I had never seen a snowman. Yet, art is often divorced from reality, so it probably did not matter. The real fun started when she asked us to label our drawings. Now, I could not spell “snow” for the life of me, let alone “snowman”. So I did what seemed to me was the next best thing. I looked at my closest neighbour’s drawing and copied him. But, unlike high school where copying a word here or there may seem pretty quick and easy to do, my writing skills at five could not have matched a snail’s pace for all the practice in the world. So, my pride at discovering a shortcut was short-lived and I got quite an earful from my teacher when she discovered my tiny, ever so innocent, sin. I absorbed a valuable lesson then and there: as an outsider, you have to hold yourself by your bootstraps.

It’s hard to tell, but I may have continued feeling that way all through my life had I not come across Charlie in my school’s Scholastic Book catalogue. I’m not sure what drew me to the book, but I insisted on placing an order for it. The day it came, I picked it up and did not put it down until I finished reading it. And by the time I did, Charlie had given me a new lease on life.

Many folks I run into grew up reading up Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl fans are hard to find among them. Maybe it’s because Blyton’s books are reassuringly full of families, friends and stories placed in domestic settings. There is nothing outlandish about them. Dahl’s heroes on the other hand were almost exclusively individuals fighting their alienation. Matilda, the precocious girl who takes on a strict disciplinarian of a principal and an insensitive family. BFG, the giant who refuses to eat people unlike other giants. Mr. Fox, the father who saves his family from a bunch of farmers bent on uprooting his home from under a tree. And lastly, Dahl himself, in the autobiographical story of his childhood, Boy. I recognized all of them. They shared my growing pains, my culture shock and my place as an outsider. And yet, none of it would have mattered had they not faced those problems. In the end, they worked out their own place in life. That held out hope for me. That meant a world of difference for me.

Small gestures

2006-10-19T13:56:00.000-07:00

Silverine recently posted a blog to point out the role of compassion in Western societies. After reading it, I recollected a story told by my English teacher from his experiences in India.

Mr. Born was then just Peter and in his own words "another diplomat brat" based in Delhi. But, unlike many diplomat kids, Peter took some time to travel through India. It was during one of those journeys that he found himself hungry and sitting in a third class train compartment passing through India's hinterland.

It was one of those compartments that was packed to the brim with people - the kind that you watch with mild amusement if you have never seen arms and heads sticking out of the window in reckless abandonment. The kind with yellow metal bars that poke through your skin and leave indelible imprints if you lack a thick hide.

And Peter was hungry. But he had a dilemma as the train pulled into a station. If he left the compartment, he could lose his seat, but worse still, there was no knowing when the train was scheduled to leave. So he could miss it while his tea was being brewed. But, we all have angels watching over us and to Peter's happiness, his fellow passenger noticed his discomfort. A stranger who seemed willing to help Peter. He offered his assistance and convinced Peter that as a native, he was more experienced in these matters. So Peter gladly forked over a hundred rupee note for lack of change. The stranger stood up and left the train. Peter waited.

And waited. As the train jerked and slowly started leaving the platform, the truth gradually dawned on Peter. What's a hundred, you might ask. Well, it was Peter's last remaining money. And he was still hungry.

Most people would break down under these circumstances. Peter tried hard, but even he had to acquiesce to a wet outburst of tears. His neighbours felt awkward. One of them start giggling with his companion at Peter's expense. It was too much and he expelled his rage in fluent, unaccented Hindi, "Chup ho jao!" Not so strong for most people, but coming from an American seated in a train full of village and town dwellers, it was effective. The murmur died down soon, only occasionally interrupted by Peter's dying sobs.

Unbeknownst to him, a man sat in the hallway in that tendon-stretching huddle that is characteristic of elderly men. One of the millions of farmers ferrying between their villages and the towns to market their produce. He had been a mute witness to the whole situation until now. He stood up, pulled a handful of bananas from his gunny bag and walked up to Peter. He laid them in his lap. It was an offering of help from a stranger who had otherwise no reason.

Slowly, one by one, each passenger handed a few rupee notes to Peter, until he had enough to see him all the way home. And all it took was one kind soul.

Big things happen with small gestures.

An economics professor, tired of teaching theory, lent a hundred rupees to a woman as a practical experiment once. Today, Grameen bank lends money to 5.6 million members who come from poor families.

A man marched to the sea to make salt. Today, a nation of a billion goes to sleep with better prospects.

Big things happen with small gestures.

Caught in mistranslation

2006-10-17T06:42:00.000-07:00

From the BBC website:

A lot of common errors were transposing errors, for example: First Aid Centre was Fivst Aicl Centrt. Another sign read: Help potect the cultural relecs, help protect the railings.
Mark Quan, Toronto, Ontario

I have two favourites from spending many years working in China. At the Terracotta Warriors Museum in Xi'an a sign said "Cherishing Flowers and Trees" which meant "keep off the grass". The other on a cruise on the Yangtse River, "Don't Bother" instead of "Do not Disturb" on the cabin doors. There were many others but these always made me smile.
Lee Tomkow, Santa Barbara, California

Whilst living in Beijing about a year ago, I came across a park in a residential area in the Shunyi district which (although intended for use as a 'dog park') was translated to 'Dog-Bark Park'. Not to mention an apartment building which, for some bizarre reason beyond my knowledge was named "An Australian Lady and Her Lifestyle".
James, Spring, TX, USA
At the Simatai section of the Great Wall of China there is a sign that reads: People and flowers, plants help each other in breath, if you pick the flowers they will die, and you will reduce your life too. A lovely message somehow gone somewhat wrong.
Ollie Boothroyd, Windsor, UK

"Site of jumping umbrella" (paragliding site)
Michael Pye, Cambridge, UK

"No striding". On a menu: "The oil explodes the shrimp". "Pleasant aftertaste". On a sign: "Keep fire in safe hands, we live in a safe world."
Emily, Bremerton, WA, USA

My favourite is: "Please take advantage of the chambermaids" on a hotel brochure.
Andrei Pogonaru, Bucharest, Romania

At one of the bigger train stations (and I'm kicking myself right now because I can't remember which one!) there is a huge, and I mean huge, sign which states simply "Question Authority". Remember, this is an incredibly heavily controlled officially Communist state. The sign is merely pointing to the help desk.
Peter Douglas, Edinburgh

The taps in my hotel room in Beijing had a fancy engraved sign "No Drinking Without Dealing" - I suspect they meant "boiling". There are so many examples but my favourite may have been at the Ming Tombs "Environmental Sanitation of the Scenic Spot Needs Your Conserve" - indeed it does.
David Graves, Seattle, USA

Forbidden: Prostitution, gambling and drag abuse!
Lou, Beijing, China

I have stayed in Shanghai many times for work. The new subway at Jing An Temple was proudly opened early for tourist trips. All the east exits said "East Exit". All the west exits said "Wast Exit". The next trip back the offending words were covered with duct tape.
James Phethean, Helston UK

When I was living in Beijing in 2000, I saw a sign in front of a rock garden in the Forbidden City that warned tourists "Please do not climb the rocketry".
Craig, California

Airline Pulp - The only English description on a snack package handed out with drinks on Southern China Airways.
Andrew Hobbs, Henley on Thames, UK

atmaav

2006-09-28T11:36:00.000-07:00

There are temples in Kerala where you can spot a banyan tree ("aal") intertwined with a mango tree ("maav"). This beautiful symbiosis gives a subtle meaning to the word "aatmaav" or soul. The reason I found this relevant today was something that I read on how parts of Africa have a concept called "ubuntu". Frankly, if it weren't for Clinton there's only a slight chance I would have heard of it.

The varied set of responses to a BBC article reflect how powerful and yet, complex a word unbuntu is:

Ubuntu is at the heart of the South African truth and reconciliation process. The term Ubuntu, according to Tutu, has perhaps its equivalent in Western world: "I think therefore I am." The Ubuntu version of this same concept would be translated as "I am human because I belong. I participate, I share." Ubuntu embraces the worst in the other with the awareness that I would have done the same evil if I were in their shoes. It comes from the grim realisation that in as much as people are capable of doing good, there is always a danger of an evil force that works at various levels possessing people and making them do things that they would not normally do.
Dawit Yehualashet, Ethiopian in Goshen, IN, USA

The essence and depth of 'ubuntu' as a concept lies in the age-long African philosophy and practice of communalism and shared objectives. You are your neighbours' keeper...We are all extricably linked and if you buy into the philosophy of ubuntu then I have your back and you have mine. I am because you are - togetherness is it.
Lawrence Mba, Toronto, Canada

It is refreshing to see a Western leader talk about this concept because many people perceive there to be a clash between Western and non-Western cultures on the question of how to build a society. Do you base it on the concept of the individual where you encourage competition to elicit the best qualities in us? Or do you base it on the concept of the community where you encourage cooperation which may at times, require personal sacrifice for the good of all?