Right, Wrong and Correct

Before the deluge of budget news yesterday, all eyes were on the meeting of foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan. Our nation has a certain view and position on issues ranging from the arrest of 26/11 perpetrators to what is the best and lasting solution to the Kashmir problem. It must have been plenty obvious by now that Pakistan doesn't see things the same way as we do. So to expect that Pakistan will be overawed by our gesture to talk and will change its views overnight is sheer insanity. If our ability to persuade was so magical, and if Pakistan was willing to objectively approach matters, then the impasse would have been resolved long ago. As the editor of The Dawn pointed out on Newshour, we are sitting on the opposite sides of the table, for God's sake!

It is now too late to sit in judgement and say who's right and who's wrong. 50 years back maybe that was an option, but not anymore. To even make an attempt to try and get Pak to see our side of the story is a waste of time and resources. The only way forward is to acknowledge the current situation and evaluate options as alternatives to status quo and not the originally stated positions of the two countries. Agreeing to LoC as the international border must not be evaluated against whether Kashmir rightfully belonged to us or Pakistan; rather, it should be compared to the constant firing that currently takes place, and will continue if no resolution is reached. Some concessions have to be made by both sides.

Today's HT has a piece by Gopalkrishna Gandhi on Prez K R Narayanan, who once asked the Mahatma that the struggle often faced by humans is not so much to choose between the right and the wrong, the truth and the untruth, but rather to choose between one right and another right, and one truth and another truth. Apparently, he did not receive a direct answer, even from the Mahatma. It is easy to distinguish the right from the wrong, but the right option is not always the correct one.

Google cant Foundem

A recent lawsuit against Google questions the legitimacy of its blockbuster algorithm that ranks search results, and whether there is any human intervention at all in how results are displayed. There are suggestions that Google has, and uses, a system to penalize or blacklist certain sites, which are then relegated beyond the 3rd or 4th page, thus drying up virtually all traffic. When such sites happen to be search engines themselves, things get murkier. The recent accusation of Foundem may be an isolated incident, but there are certain developments that do appear ominous.

Google's innocuous Universal Search that not only returns websites based on search phrases, but also retrieves relevant images, maps, blogs etc., may have put websites such as labnol or mapquest out of business. When searching for a city or town, I remember Google showing links to Mapquest and yahoo maps, but not anymore. The feature is definitely convenient to the user, in the same manner that bundling Internet Explorer free with Windows was.

Players like Google and Apple have been making noises forever about Microsoft's unfair practices, but some of their own actions are disturbingly similar. I cant recall the last time I typed a URL in my address bar directly. Even when I know the URL, it's easier to google half the website name and click through to the website. Thats laziness, of course, but it also shows my trust in Google - that it will fetch me what I am looking for, and usually as the first result. I doubt if I am alone in reposing complete trust in Google. So when more than three-quarters of the world uses Google to search, the results displayed can potentially influence people's actions, including purchase decisions, which means money. And there's the rub. With iPods having the insane marketshare that they do, and their ability to communicate only with iTunes, what is available for purchase, and prominently displayed, on iTunes can affect purchases. Apple's recent decision to take down inappropriate software from its iPhone app store is another example. Amazon can drive or kill book sales simply by adding or deleting a "keyword" to the book description.

This is not a new phenomenon limited to websites. This is true of large players in other industries, and is akin to what Toyota is going through. In an open economy, you are allowed to make defective and dubious products. Its not a crime; customers will simply dump you and switch for better ones. But once you establish certain quality standards and gain customer trust, you automatically take on the responsibility to maintain that. The GEs, Boeings and Cokes of the world cant make the kind of mistakes that a mom-and-pop business can. It may seem unfair, but as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility.

Emotional Accidents

Please do not read this post if you are easily offended.

The death of a 10-day old in a stone pelting incident in Baramulla is definitely disturbing. No doubt, it was an accident, but the media coverage would make one wonder whether the protesters meant to commit a cold-blooded murder. We have all seen and been in situations, where the rush of adrenalin makes us lose our bearings. A great office party with one witty joke after another might suddenly turn sour when someone goes overboard with a risque comment. Or a game of cricket where the batsman tries to hit one too many ball out of the park and gets out. We all get carried away. But there was a cold-blooded murder in the valley recently. Although the matter was as widely publicized, the sympathy appeared muted, even polite, in comparison to the current outrage. I refer to the BSF's killing of a 16-year old schoolboy. If you detach yourself from the emotions, the reaction is devoid of logic.

A youth or a middle-aged person has responsibilities toward parents, spouse and children. Having lived much longer in the world, he is bound to have stronger emotional ties with people around him. The loss of such a life often leaves a humongous void within the family that is often impossible to fill. Sometimes, the family simply crumbles after such an incident. Whereas a 10-day old has hardly spent any time here and is free of any emotional connects. The damage is limited to the parents, and the immediate family to an extent. Every other factor - be it shattered dreams, parental love, loss of innocent life - applies to both cases. Logically, the magnitude of loss has to be much smaller compared to losing a 10-year old child and even smaller compared to losing 20-year child and so on (a bell curve, with the magnitude of loss falling after 50 or 60 I guess). I am not even talking about selling this logic to the young couple who lost their kid. With their expectations and dreams shattered, to them, it might as well be the end of the world. I am only questioning our reaction - people not directly impacted by such incidents.

So why does our emotion run high when infants and kids are robbed of their lives? Why do accidents involving school buses evoke an outrage, but a bus with a marriage party, albeit overloaded, that falls into a ravine doesnt evoke the same sense of shock? I can only conjecture that when we see helpless people hurt or killed, we react much more strongly because we see the situation as completely unfair. When the people involved are grown up adults, we assume they have some control of the situation regardless of how helpless they actually might be. Subconsciously, we patronize the weak and detest the strong.

Say a truck has run over an animal on the highway. Will we feel more sorry if it was a cat than if it were a tiger? I'd say yes.

Tax, Votes and TOI

I religiously hate anything to do with The Times of India, and the group does well to reinforce this feeling by hitting stunning new lows of journalism with amazing frequency, both in print and on TV. I make an exception for the Mumbai Mirror though - it is cheap and sensational and makes no pretense to be anything else. So when I found myself waiting at the reception with time on hand, I noticed with some disappointment that the only newspaper at hand was the TOI. I devoured the Mirror first, and as expected, it contained a healthy dose of daily nonsense. I was still waiting, so I offered a prayer and opened the main paper straight to the editorial page, which I thought that would be the section least prone to rubbish. What a mistake! As I learnt, that is birthplace of trash.

The piece was on income tax rates for women, and going by the title of the section, it appeared a pathetic attempt to simplify economic concepts. The article lauded the effort of the Minister of Child and Women's Development to seek lower income tax rates for women. Apparently, lower tax rates not only empower women but the society at large! What more, it will also encourage more women to start working!! Had it been my own copy, I would have ripped it to shreds. Other than attracting the women vote, which the Minister is clearly after, I dont think lower IT rates for women will make any difference to either women's development or the economy. I mean, if women making enough to pay taxes are considered oppressed, what about the millions that dont even earn enough to afford three square meals a day?

Civilization, non-violence and maoism

Gandhi famously said that ends never justify the means. In the current standoff between the government and Maoists, the maxim applies to both parties. The government may have wronged, but the brutal killing of security personnel and villagers is hardly justifiable. The tribals and Maoists may be creating trouble but the excesses of security forces is equally unpardonable. But when both parties err, the solution is never simple. It requires grace and courage to admit errors, swallow egos and plot a way forward - traits that remain a rarity in the human race. The easier option is to justify and rationalize the action, which only makes it easier to commit a greater error, causing the entire situation to spiral into a full-fledged war, where everything is fair, or so the stupid saying goes.

Despite Gandhi's well-documented success of using reason and dialogue, rather than violence, to prove a point, the approach is incredibly inefficient. It took some 25 years for the British to finally relent, and the decision was no doubt influenced more by their losses in WWII than by their prickly conscience. And not every non-violent protest will gain the momentum of Gandhi's movement. There are so many variables, and in Gandhi's case, they miraculously fell in place to elevate him to a Mahatma so that even the British held him in respect. But despite so many conflicts post-independence, why has no one risen to such prominence as the Mahatma? Is there a dearth of Gandhians in the country? I doubt. It is more that the "timing" and "placement" of these non-violent protests were not as perfect as the Mahatma's. To be clear, I am for non-violent protests. I'd any day prefer that Pak militants swim across the Arabian Sea and organize a satyagraha at the Gateway rather than open indiscriminate fire. And air travel will be vastly comfortable and security checks much less interfering if the Al Qaeda simply chose to protest outside buildings than blow them up.

If civilization is an onion, then non-violence is the outermost layer that has evolved after eons of human life and strife, which also makes it the easiest one to shred because underneath it is a more primal and dominant layer of survival instinct and self-preservation, which is usually subdued, but can get invoked in a jiffy. Shootings in college campuses and churches, driving a plane into the IRS building over a tax dispute, shouting contests and physical abuses on local trains or roads are the handiwork of this instinct. One can debate to no end whether the situation warranted such a primal response, but, unfortunately, life is a matter of perspective and there are no absolutes, whatsoever: The umpire at the bowler's end sees three stumps at the batting crease but the square leg umpire sees only one.

The emperor and Birbal were talking a walk in the palace garden, when Akbar notices a monkey pampering its offspring in the pond. The emperor comments that a mother's love for its child is pure and selfless. Birbal disagrees and when asked to prove, requests the water level in the pond be increased. At first, the mother protects the child from drowning, but when the water rises above its own head, the monkey abandons the offspring and runs for safety. Civilization is our offspring and we will guard it closely until our own existence is at risk, and then, all bets are off. Gandhi also said that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. But isn't that a better option if non-violence will end up making you the only blind guy walking around?

Competing on Quality..or the lack thereof

Recently, an article by an IIM-B prof appeared in the WSJ with the message that businesses must gear themselves to face tomorrow's competition or become extinct. Such write ups are pure delight for any self-respecting management grad whose foreordained favorite pastime is to pontificate on how the world will turn out tomorrow even as he is inept to deal with the today's complexities. But I digress.

The article raises valid points and I can relate to one area where I have come close to switching to this kind of "competition". My TV viewing preference is thus: sports, Hollywood movies, Bollywood movies, Bollywood music, news. Leaving out sports and news, the other three choices can be said to fall in the traditional category of "entertainment" and,traditionally, competition for my time must be within this category. Of late, one news channel, riding on one particular program anchored by one disgusting gentleman, has crossed the chasm between information - which is what news traditionally was - and entertainment, with admirable success. The producers of those innumerable cheap comedy shows are facing tough competition from no less than the chief editor of a news channel. Arnab's news hour on Times Now is a riot.

The program is probably a blot on journalistic sensibilities, but it seems to be so on purpose. The manner of debate is deplorable with no semblance of respect accorded to the events, commentators or the audience. I can spend all day ripping it apart, but I cannot deny that from being nowhere on the radar of a entertainment-minded TV viewer profile such as myself, this program suddenly has moved to # 2.

Measurement and Importance

A recent campaign by Aircel attempts to raise awareness about the dwindling tiger population in India. Apparently there are only 1411 of them, but the campaign only asks people to spread awareness about this info - how it will translate into action, and more importantly what action, is anybody's guess. So here I am, doing my bit. But I am incredibly uninformed about the magnitude of the Tiger situation. Is 1411 a small number? I dont know the life expectancy or mortality rates in tigers, but assuming 10 tigers die every year, we are still good for 140 years without counting new additions. In comparison, global warming looks a near term issue.

Another hot topic is how to deal with drunk drivers. The recent high-profile incident in South Mumbai has everyone clamoring for harsher penalties and stricter punishment. To be clear, drunk driving is extremely dangerous and must be punished. But is it the most dangerous form of driving out there? Again, I dont know the stats, but I doubt that drunk driving causes the highest number of accidents or deaths. I'd say its overspeeding and breaking of traffic rules.

One of our psychological biases is to automatically attach importance to what can be measured because we are more comfortable with tangibles than abstracts. Nowhere is this more visible than in our financial markets where all sorts of ratios and indicators are used to explain trends. Once a metric has been devised, of course, a proper explanation inevitably follows, and this is called post rationalization which we are extremely good at.

Drunk driving must be dealt with but what about other offences that are equally fatal? There is no tangible metric to measure these offences nor a system to track such offenders. With drunk driving though, the cops simply have to hang out in the vicinity of night clubs with a breathalyzer and they are sure to find offenders, which will make for good reporting and fat wallets. To say there are only 1411 tigers sounds much more desperate than simply asking people to stop poaching tigers. This bias is also prevalent in the corporate world where sales, billing, collections, margins etc are emphasized to death. It is widely assumed, and incorrectly so, that numbers dont lie. Intangibles like employee morale and customer satisfaction are hardly ever focused on. And here's the worst part. Even when cos choose to look at these intangibles, the attempt is always to create a survey and get a number which simply defeats the purpose. For the life of me, I cannot figure out what it means to have customers who are 88.5% satisfied.

Shah Rukh, Chidambaram, Tendulkar

A day of interesting events and statements...

SRK says he doesnt look at the script before signing on a film. Well, I am glad he realizes that because we movie-watching public knew a long time ago that there doesnt exist a thing called script in his movies.

Then PC mentions that he is proud that Kasab is getting a fair trial. I had mentioned in a previous post that we accuse Pak of going slow on 26/11 suspects even as we are fiddling with Kasab's evidence and trial. How ironic that our honorable home minister should make this statement!

And finally, India is humiliated at Nagpur. With Dravid and Laxman out, the middle order simply evaporated. But, as always, Sachin rose to the challenge. As always, he played resolutely, with remarkable dedication, focus, hard work and commitment to get to his 46th century! And, as always, he decided that was enough!! I realize I am being really mean, but I would be surprised if I am the only one that thinks Sachin just played for the record today. Its just too much of a coincidence to labor to reach the century and then get out without adding a single run. I wonder what general reaction would be if he were dismissed at 99. Certainly, he would have attracted huge sympathy for putting up a fight and missing a landmark, being unlucky because had he reached the century he might just go on to make a double, triple, do a Laxman, and maybe win us the test! Alas, that was not the case. He reached the century alright. We love to see successful people fail so we can offer them our sympathies. But when they succeed and collect the reward, we are left to choose between either patronizing or criticizing them.

Penny wise, pound foolish

It seems plain common sense for me to get off the bus at my designated stop without buying a ticket if the bus was too crowded for the conductor to get to me. And it is nothing more than opportunism if I surreptitiously hide behind a crowd to give me a few extra seconds so I can get away without buying a ticket. Say the conductor did reach me, and I acted as though I didn’t hear him. Even then, to call me a cheat is a stretch. But interestingly, all three cases are classified as cheating because the rules are unequivocal: To travel by bus, you must buy a ticket. So any violation counts as cheating.

Bus tickets are often no more than pocket change and it is very easy to assert one’s values when the stakes are negligible. It is interesting to see how our perception of violations changes with scale. How many of us would offer to pay up an airline if our credit card was not charged due to a system error when we booked a ticket online? We would laugh at the airline’s ineptness, rationalize that they deserve to lose money and feel good about the unexpected fortune. Okay, this can be excused as being a rare incident, but there are every day cases that no one looks as cheating. Have you ever paid your telephone or electricity bill on time even when the co forgot to send you one? This is the exact same situation with the bus ticket. A change of context and our mind starts playing games. In fact, research has proved that the way a question is posed or framed actually determines whether or not someone can answer it!

All this build up is to debunk to my favorite proverb, “Penny wise, pound foolish”. I love it because I have been accused of it and I can easily see how my actions can be summarized in those words. So I took a cold, hard look at why I do the things I do and have come to the conclusion that the proverb was coined by someone who had no inkling of how the human brain worked. First, penny-pound, cent-dollar, paise-rupee are not absolutes as we think them to be. Like values, money is relative too. The value of money changes depending on the situation. If you are buying a car for Rs. 50L, you wouldn’t think twice to buy accessories worth 25,000. But what if the car only cost Rs. 5L? Or let's say you take a cab ride home and the meter ran up to Rs. 490. Would you round it off to 500? What if the fare was only 90?

These two scenarios seem similar – things are relative – but the logic that guides in second scenario (cab) is very different from the first one (car). In the car scenario, one should definitely buy extra accessories for my 50L car and not 5L - why not go all the way when you are splurging money. But in the cab scenario, the decision to round off should depend solely on the service. That the fare ran upto 490 should not be cause enough to round it off and tip the cabbie Rs. 10. And that the fare was low should not stop one from tipping him. The magnitude of the money involved shouldn’t be equated with the magnitude of the decision involved.

I will avoid buying a bus ticket if I can and save Rs. 5. Once I get off, I will celebrate this with an ice cream that costs Rs. 20.

The Ground Reality

I was in a cab driving by the Dadar area of Mumbai and came to halt at a signal called Prabhodhankar Thackeray chowk named after Bal Thackeray's father. My cabbie threw a look at the statue of the man and commented that his two grandsons have gone to great lengths to assert their lineage - one put up an umbrella over the statue and the other his party flag. Of course, he was referring to Uddhav and Raj. More out of courtesy (to acknowledge his observation) than curiosity, I asked him if the MNS can survive on its own. And that got him talking.

He was intrigued that in this day and age, we have separatist politics when we should be drawing inspiration from migrants who put in insane hours of work. He felt this strategy may have worked 10 years ago when leaders were demigods. Now, people are wiser. He then wondered who is a Mumbaikar anyway? Is he the one that speaks Marathi, then how is he different from a Marathi Manoos and others that have learnt the language? Is he the one that is born here? But then migrant kids are born here too. Do people who own land and property in Mumbai should be considered Mumbaikars? Not only do a lot of migrants qualify, but a number of natives will be left out. The conversation was cut short as I reached my destination, but he closed out saying he is a Maharastrian himself and finds this whole thing comical. Worryingly though, he said his line of reasoning is not popular when he talks to fellow cabbies and others in his circle.

So it seems the Sena and MNS will have enough to go on. And I wish they do, at least verbally. The barbs traded by political parties on Mumbai and IPL issues are sheer delight. Modi wondered if a letter in Italian might stem price rise whereas the Sena politely declared that even in the extreme case of Mumbai being thrown open to Indians, Italians are still unwelcome. What sense of humor! Thankfully, the clashes havent gotten physical, and I hope they dont. It'll be a shame for this entertainment to stop. And Rahul Gandhi is gladly obliging with one faux pas after the other, and for once, I am egging him on.

FootInMouthitis

The past few days have yielded so many instances of this disease, which like any other, is never contracted willfully, but is "floating in the air" and afflicts the unsuspecting intellectual, who, fooled by his illusory fundamental right to free speech, shoots off his opinion like an arrow, but realizes a little too late that the arrow has rather incredibly transformed itself into a boomerang, and made its way to through the dirtiest of filth before coming back to smack the deliverer right on the face. As with any other disease, the virus needs a carrier to survive - someone who can carry it safely without getting afflicted themselves. And our media plays this role to perfection so that in the rare event the public decides to keep their mouth shut to avoid infection, the media promptly eggs them on.

I see no other conceivable explanation for the likes of Mukesh Ambani, SRK, Aamir, PC voicing their opinions on the Mumbai issue and the IPL. What seems is not what actually is. Pak players were kept out of the auction doesnt imply that the cricket-loving public in general, and the teams in particular, dont want them to play in India. There were clearly other considerations, which would be abundantly clear to even a 10-year old. Same goes for Mr. Ambani and PC on the Mumbai issue. With or without your endorsement, Mumbai will be for all Indians. So why provide fodder? George Barnard Shaw has shown us the cure, "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides the pig likes it."

It is in this light that Omar Abdullah made a remarkable comment. On an TV debate about whether Pak is doing enough in prosecuting 26/11 suspects, and how dare the Pak PM say he cannot guarantee that another such attack will not happen - which our media promptly twisted to mean he will personally ensure another such attack while conveniently ignoring that our own government has made no promises to protect us from such attacks - Mr. Abdullah simply said that we should stop talking "at" one another and start talking "to" each another. On the popular opinion of not resuming dialog with Pak until something material is done to prosecute the perpetrators of 26/11, Mr. Abdullah acknowledged the slow progress and was saddened himself, but also pointed out that dialog is the only way to arrive at any sort of resolution. And he rubbed it in for the anchor and other panelists when he offered to happily drop the dialog option if they could show him any other way to break the impasse.

I must say that I do find it hilarious in a perverse sort of way that we must blame Pak for dragging its feet whereas our own judicial system is hardly lightning fast in prosecuting Kasab against whom we supposedly have a water-tight case - with CCTV camera evidence no less. And Kasab is having a good time replying in Marathi monosyllables and claiming he was falsely implicated. For some, this is testimony to the sanctity of our judicial system, for it gives even a traitor a chance of fair trial. But if the Pak courts insist on irrefutable evidence, well, they are just stonewalling the whole thing. To me, its the case of people living in glass houses throwing stones at others.