f(t): Function of Time

Time is the best yet most strict teacher in life. Its value lies in its irreversibility.

Every moment, every event, every feeling, to be more general every thing is a function of time. Earth is a function of time resulting in a habitable place. Geo morphological phenomena is a function of time resulting in changing landscape. A river makes its way through hardest of the hard rocks with the power of time. All the mathematical equations are function of time talking about ΔT. All economics studies on comparative figures are based on time. 

Pick a subject, and you can attribute its essence in time.

Healing is also a function of time. A relation develops and deteriorates over time. Emotions fade in and fade out over the time.

Time is something God has granted to everyone without any discrimination leaving the discretion to us what to do with that. Life is made up of time, smallest unit being moment.  Good times, bad times are just the labeling of a phase. In reality, time is the most unbiased and neutral entity.

Right time is the key to achieving any goal. When a person is on death bed, the only thing he regrets is "Had I done this at that time, I would have been happy".  If you play around time, it will hit you like anything at some other time.

Indeed, time is a fourth dimension, present in every tangible and intangible object. It explains why should we write date and time on the top of any page, why diaries can be a beautiful gift to someone, why to make timetable before planning something big. Time indeed has a wonderful way to show what really matters. 

I will try my best to give respect to time which is an incredible inspiration to everyone. 

I am happy without kids!!

Today is  Sushma's last day at her office. She is a 32 years old, Senior manager in Tech Mahindra and a seemingly successful woman by all standards of the society.

Farewell scene with her two friends Radhika and Maya:

Radhika: Hey Sushma, congrats buddie for your promotion.. You are probably gonna be the VP of the company by next year, right?

Sushma: think so yaar. But not sure, I am planning to move to Jalandhar, may be I have to quit this job before that. My in laws and Sumit are expecting us to have a baby. Sumit has joint family there, it will be easy to take care of me and our baby.

Radhika: What are you talking about? Are you sure, you want to leave this job?

Maya: Are you stupid? Don’t take it otherwise, but kids are just like parasites. Your whole life will revolve around them. You wont be able to roam around. His childhood, his career, his dreams are soon gonna replace yours. Come on dearie, your career has just started to take new heights, and you are ruining it at this crucial stage.

Radhika: See, We are not asking you to not have a baby, delay it for some time.

Sushma: I don’t think I have many choices here, becoming a mother is a magical feeling and moreover I am 30+. I think I should be ready for this now.

Maya: As you wish, don’t regret after 10 years, when I will be the CEO of some company and you would be worrying about the mathematics exam of your kid :D

Three of them started giggling. But the question they raised truly presents one glimpse of thoughts of this generation.

Today, I am writing about a recent trend in the thinking of the new generation. Here, I am ignoring the emotional aspect while talking from a logical and practical point of view.

Conventionally, kids are considered so adorable, lovable and innocent that they become the quintessential part of life after a certain point of time. But in recent times, this necessity is turning into convenience and becoming a well informed decision. For example, many developed countries are facing "no baby boom", where even their replacement levels has shown negative growth like Japan, Germany etc. In India  also, there is a chunk of youth for whom 35 has become new 30 to get married and kids are becoming optional due to delayed marriages or choices.

I have discussed few of the reasons behind this trend in this post.

One reason could be the change in mindset of the present generation. This generation is the generation that "refuses to grow up". Facebook connectivity has brought teenager characteristics into all the generations people specially 25 to 35 group. On a lighter note, they don’t want to be called as uncle or aunty. This shift in mindset is visible  in various forms.

Present youth loves travelling, thrill and adventure. They see kids as the hindrance to their freedom. They prefer to spend their dynamic period of 30 to 35 in fulfilling personal aspirations than meeting family expectations. Career, freedom, fun, independence are their equal priorities along with the conventional responsibilities.

While earlier generation used to consider kids as a medium to increase bond between a couple. Today, many couples fight after becoming parents because they have the grievance that they do not go out as a “couple” instead of “Parents”. For them, child comes as liability at a crucial juncture point. They are not ready to raise a child either mentally, or economically or physically. Parenting is a sudden turning point for them.

Also in the current generation, working parents and long distance jobs are the norms. For them, specially mother, its very difficult to raise a child alone. In previous generations, joint family was a boon in this regard. This advantage is not more with the present generation where metros have become "karmabhoomi" which is far from their "Janambhoomi".

In general, Women suffers a lot in practical life in due course. They face difficulty in coming back after maternity period. In unorganized sector, it is worse. Many organization have provisions for limited leave period while others put barriers on their career growth in one or other forms, eg, pregnant women are not allowed to get on foreign attachments. Getting back with their colleagues after a long break become difficult. As per a survey, 25-27% women leave jobs after they bear a child.

There has been a wider discussion over gender justice and equality. But in true sense, Parenthood responsibility is not yet shared equally. Apart from natural barriers, there are mental barriers that a woman can take care of child in a better way while father has limited role. Even the laws favor the same. In the recent bill to  liberalize maternity leave, there is no mention of paternal leave. The quantum of leave is also different even after the pregnancy period. Childhood is still closely linked with motherhood than fatherhood.

Last but not the least, one reason is that with increasing globalization and consumerism, children are added liability in terms of expenditure. The newly imbibed individualism has decreased the craze for carrying further the generations for the same reason. People are thinking rationally and in a more evolving way. They have their personal aspirations to maintain a child within themselves which they consider to be compromised once they have kids and their responsibilities.

Apart from these general reasons, there are personal preferences. One of our senior Professor(50 years old) didn’t has kids, and when I inquired and came to know about this, I felt sorry for him. His reply on my sorry statement gave me a new perspective of people regarding the subject, "In day to day life, I meet my friends and relatives and find them very disturbed because of their children's deeds like studies, bad habits. Some complains that their children doesn’t take care of them while some who stays with them have grievances of bad treatment. At least I m happy, free from expectations and anxiety I may have if I had children."

This trend may make our demographic pyramid similar to developed countries.

The Perfect Man- Another Rare species

In continuation to my previous post- Good girl: A rare species , here is another bucket of expectation for another half section of the world: The Man.

1. 1. Mard ko dard ni hota: A good boy should know how to control his emotions all the time. Being emotional is the prerogative of women. He should know how to fight, otherwise he will be considered as a girl wearing bangles " hathh wich chudiya pehndi h kya". Be a man, dude.
   2. All men are dogs: generalization hurt them most which sometimes make them least trustworthy
   3. Are you a Momma's boy or a joru ka gulam? He has to strike a very fine balance throughout his life by juggling in between
   4. If you want to marry a suitable girl, either you should be Einstein, i.e., lucrative career or you should be born with a silver spoon, i.e rich enough to impress upon your life partner and to carry forward your love story.
   5. How can he earn less than his other half: Not necessary his ego is pressurizing him but the society for sure.
   6. List of husband material is not that short: strong and soft at the same time.
   7. Centre of the family unit while maintaining work life balance
   Boss: These files should get compiled by tomorrow
   Ma: Beta, Ghootno me soojan h jaldi aa (Son, my knees are swelled up, come fast)
   Wife: what have you brought on our 10th wedding anniversary
   8. "Ladies first" syndrome dealing with the pseudo feminists
   9. He should always buy coffee/dinner/gift for his lady for his family, as if his wallet has some self generating capacity
   10. Boy should propose first (this rule is written in holy books). A man who cant make her girl laugh doesn’t deserve her. He should be tall, dark and handsome or chocolaty boy. He should be good at sports, dance, romance, guitar. And O boy, how dare you judging me by my looks?
   11. Additional responsibilities are always on his head by default: running the business of family, present on funeral (chita nu aag kon dega), ghar ka chirag, Aankho ka tara(apple of the eye), Bhudaape ka sahara
   12. Even in legal arena his capacity is defined- A man cannot nurture a child hence the most of the decisions go in favor of women in case of judicial separation. Neither anyone questions the moral and legal duties of a man to pay maintenance and alimony to a working wife during separation. At what level the misuse of 498A of IPC is going on.
   We have to admit that in the present setup even men also face discrimination and it will be utterly foolish to consider that they are the only privileged one because of their sex.
   While the feminist wave has certainly defined new roles for women as a breadwinner instead of traditional cook, but no such wave has taken birth to let a man be emotional enough to express himself.

Why inequality of opportunity matters?

Everyone is born equal. Really? If that is the case, there won't be any need  of one of the crucial functions of state, i.e., welfare. Despite infinite attempts by state to reduce inequality, we can witness a huge gap between the haves and have-nots. The problem lies in the fact that, our policy makers always try to treat the symptom, that is, inequality of outcomes, instead of focusing on the cause,i.e., inequality of opportunity. Opportunity can be defined as the accessibility to something.

Is inequality inherently bad?

Probably not so, the inequality that emerges because of the different choices and varying degree of ‘effort’ (assuming same circumstances) is fine. But what happens when a person’s potential to succeed in life is simply determined by the lottery of birth?  It is the Inequality of Opportunity which emerges because of factors over which we have little or no control, i.e., ‘circumstances’. To simplify, equality of opportunity means ‘levelling the playing field’, ‘giving everybody an equal start’ and ‘making the most of inherent talents.

                                    विरासत में मिली कुर्सी पे राज करते हैं 

                                           फिर भी खुद पे नाज करते हैं। 

Of course, our outcomes do reflect our own efforts and decisions. But other people’s efforts and decisions also play an important role, and we have little control over these.

The outcome of future of  a child reflects entirely the efforts and decisions of his parents, but again he has no choice in determining his parents.

Which caste he is in,  what are his limits, which school he will go, what food will he eat, what should be his occupation, what facilities he will get, when and whom to marry- the family has a major say.

In later stage of life, other people’s actions also start to affect the choices and efforts that a person makes – their teachers and their classmates. Because he doesn’t select teachers or classmates, the choices and efforts of that person again gets constricted.

An illustration of inequality of opportunity 

We are increasingly becoming obsessed with the outcomes or merit in a person's life, while equality of opportunity is persistently at the back seat. One such example is the advantage enjoyed by a certain section of society by getting education in English medium. Majority of students receive their study in vernacular medium. And once they are forced to adopt English as part of a compulsory paper in some of the most competitive exams (SSC, UPSC), they are thrown out of the competition without giving due attention to the opportunity they received in their education. Their communication skills in English is most likely to be poorer than the students who got quality education with special emphasis on "English". This is evident from the fact that more than 70% students selected in  white collar jobs are from English medium. And it seems like, English has become a symbol of superior civilization.

Another example is the compulsory paper of "computer typing" in most of the Group 'D' clerical examinations. How the people from rural background, who haven't ever seen, how the computer functions, are expected to compete with chitty chatty urban youth.

I m neither against English language nor against usage of computer technology in the present world, as both are becoming the essential tools to compete in the global world. I m just in favor of parity and equality in terms of opportunity.

The foundation of an individual is built in his school, the quality of education he receives there. And unfortunately, here money carries more weight over merit. Because only rich people can afford the schools of better exposure with an opportunity of all round personality development. Is there really a point of putting competitive examination like IIT, PMT after 12th class, by the time a gap based on financial differentiation is already created? Why can there be no competitive exam for entering into a school itself without fees barrier, which might have the potential to create level playing field from the beginning and goes with the principle of merit in pure?

Is reservation the solution?

60 decades of history of reservation couldn't change the picture very much, shows the inherent flaw of the policy. Reservation might send someone at a place which he might not deserve on purely merit criteria as an obligation of representation. This is evident in the dropping out of nearly 90% SC/ST of the total in IIT Roorkee last year because of the excess academic stress. The problem again lies in the approach of addressing the outcome not the opportunity. As an analogy, if a person is made to run in race but he starts 5 m behind, it is likely that he will be behind 5 m throughout the journey, unless he puts extra ordinary efforts.

Though inequality in all conditions boils down to the financial capacity of a person, (in Indian case caste, religion might be the other factors). It seems like money has overshadowed all the other things, like talent.

The only solution I can think of right now to remove inequality of opportunity is "equal quality of education at equal cost" so that the future of nation can be safeguarded. As far as means are concerned, this humongous task cannot be left to Government only. Other people need to come to help others by creating opportunity. This will be the sustainable redistribution of skewed opportunities.

Unless we are not ensuring equality of opportunity, we might be losing brilliant minds such as APJ Kalam in the distant villages devoid of opportunity.

My IAS interview

Some details from Detailed Application Form submitted to UPSC
Graduation- BTech from MBM Engineering College, Jodhpur in Computer science, completed in 2011
Post Graduation- Mtech from IIT Kanpur  in Computer Science, completed in 2013
Hobby- Blogging, Vipasana meditation
Sports- Trekking and Badminton
Optional - Geography
Previous job experience- Worked as a software developer in US, worked as a guest faculty at MNIT Jaipur


Board- David R. Syiemlieh, 29th June (Forenoon)
Chairperson:
(On light note) What happened to your foot(met a road accident a month ago)? 
1. US - Wisconsin- famous industry, Detroit- famous industry? Why automobile industry is not flourishing there anymore?
2. Why did u come back from US? what motivated you?
3. Choice of cadre? Why not IFS? Why the interest is declining for IFS?
4. Tribal provisions- constitutional and legislative ? Why Nagaland(5th and 6th schedule) is not there? How they are different?
5. What are the different approaches for the development of  tribal? 

M1:
1. Questions on blogging? Last blog post? Side effects of knowledge on human's mind (no question)
2. Intercaste marriage, inequality? Caste hierarchy?
3. What fascinates you in international affairs?
4. What about USA women's president? Views? Why desirable? Are you a feminist? Political rights in USA?

M2:
1. Geography application- why interdisciplinary? Mother of all the fields?
1. Link with history? Which dictate what?
1. What is spoils system? Why being used in US? Is it desirable in India?
4. Permanent bureaucracy vs lateral entry?

M3:
1. Different tribes in India, their distribution,  asked about one tribe in particular(gharaisya)?
2. Tribal uprising during colonial times? Why no tribal uprising in Rajasthan?
3. Which tribe helped Maharana pratap in Haldighati?
4. Mining vs tribes? How to strike a balance?
1. What job opportunities will u create for them? How will u bring them in mainstream? Use of technology?
1. Criteria for declaring a tribe?
7. What are the commonalities in all the tribes?

M4
1. Piezoelectric effect (couldn't answer)
2. PARAM, recent supercomputer by India, its application? Which country has highest number of supercomputers ? Which country has fastest supercomputer? What speed ?
3. NECERT's plan CLASS
4. National waterways- name them
5. Cyber security? Threats? How to handle them?
6. why did you come back from US? Argued on the motivation to become an IAS (leaving high paying job)
1. Why haven't you gone for teaching?

Chairperson
1. MNIT jaipur (working as a guest faculty there), which subjects, which year?

The Side Effects of Knowledge on Human Mind

Ever wondered in life, ‘I shouldn’t have known this’? Well, if you haven’t,  you certainly will, at some point in your life.

As the title say, this article is about the side effects of gathering too much knowledge on an individual’s psychology and does not talk about the side effects arising from the misuse of knowledge (e. g. One can argue about invention of nuclear bombs).

I assume that we all agree on the very basic nature of knowledge that it is a driving force behind our actions and a tool we apply in different ways in our life to achieve our goals. To consider one aspect of knowledge on human behavior, let’s take a simple example:

Assume that you are attending a seminar on applications of physics in daily life phenomena, and a professor of physics and a student in commerce are sitting beside you. The speaker of the seminar is mistaken on certain critical aspects in the lecture. What do you reckon would be the response of the two guys sitting beside you on those mistakes made by the speaker? If I present the most common scenario, the professor would stand up and correct the speaker.

Now, add to it a common classroom scenario. Suppose, right before the seminar, you were having a discussion on similar topics with the professor and the commerce student. Now, would it be the commerce student or the professor who stands up and tells the speaker of the seminar about his mistakes. If I apply common experience here, it will still be the professor, not just because he was the first to catch the mistake; but also he had more confidence and more urge to correct that mistake.

Let’s take another example. Take the process of human growth starting from when we are children. A baby has very little gathered knowledge and has no business with the outside world. As we grow up, until around the age of 10, we are just gathering as much knowledge as fast as we can and accept everything around us to be the way the world has to be. As we grow, collect experiences and reach youth, we start learning from our and others’ experiences that there are many problems existing around us in the society. As we grow more and learn more, we reach a point where frustration starts creeping in, because we know things could be better around us, in our family, in our society.  This frustration, this sense of urgency continues until we reach a point of achievement (that we have solved or contributed towards solving some problem around us) or saturation (we agonize so much on our society’s conditions that finally we adjust, giving up trying to change it).  Now compare it to the mindset of a person who is born in the hills far from the hassles of a society, with knowledge just enough to survive.

Let’s take another example. It is related to psychology of slaves during the period of slavery in America in 17^th and 18^th centuries. There are numerous citations about how continuous slavery had changed the mindset of people who were born in slave families. Two such articles are The Mask of Obedience and The Psychological Effects of Slavery and Colonization on the Negro. The basic idea is that the slaves went into a phase of self-loathing and depression that they were good for nothing other than being slaves until there was a propagation of ideas of freedom by pioneers like Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. The article The Mask of Obedience also talks about the misery and depression among slaves. They had an idea of freedom and they did nothing to rise against their masters. What’s worse is that just the idea of freedom kept them in agony and still they didn’t gather the courage to fight for their freedom until they were led by abolitionists.  From the same article, I quote “Oppression driveth the wise man mad.”  meaning  “A person of intellect would go mad by such an oppression.”

What do all the above examples have in common?

The sense of Urgency

What the above examples have in common is a need for change, an urgency to make things right. It is as simple as that – unless you have an idea that something better exists, you are happy (or live with) what you have. Once you know, you can get something better, you start craving, agonizing yourself to achieve/ acquire that something.  If you are unable to achieve it, you keep yourself in a state of craving, a state of misery until you finally give up.

Knowledge is the driving force behind your senses towards a better life. In other word, knowledge shows you that something better exists; and if your are unable to harness your knowledge towards achieving it, you stay in a state of agony.

Essentially, the more knowledge you gather, the more comes the realization of what is wrong in the world and what needs to be corrected.  For many people, an excessive amount of knowledge becomes difficult to handle. People often forget that when we know something can be improved, we have two choices

1.    Let’s do something about it.

2.    Let it be the way it is and move on.

But, the important thing to note is that “Keep agonizing yourself and keep craving about it without taking any action” is not one of the choices.  However, people often choose it, and that is when knowledge becomes difficult to handle i.e. In the absence of action or the ability to let go.

The other Generation Gap

Introduction

India is a predominantly young nation with the majority of population being under 25 years of age. This means that the majority of Indian population belongs to the newest generation. According to Wikipedia, the term generation means, “all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively.” However, in our society, the word generation has acquired different meanings. We will look into the concept of generation in a more general sense and how the idea of generation gap varies based on our perspective in the Indian context.

What’s your age?

It’s a pretty simple question to ask someone, which usually has one true answer: “The number of years, months and days that have passed since you were born.” However, a curious person might argue that: Since we live not just to die, but also to contribute to the society, interact with people and help in overall evolution of the society, why does the number of years that have passed since our birth determine which generation we belong to. We should be able to be called as belonging to a modern generation if we change with the changing society.

No matter how we argue about this, this observation holds a lot of substance, especially when the concept of generation is used to argue about if something is outdated or not.

Taking this idea as the basis, let’s define the concept of age (as has already been done by many intellectuals) in a more general sense i.e. a person can have different kinds of ages likeBiological, Mental, Cultural etc. Applying the conventional concept of age here, we can say that a person belongs to an older generation culturally if (s)he is not able to adapt to the new customs and ideologies in the society.

The other generation gap

Now that we have given a generalized notion of age (and generation of a person), we can draw some interesting conclusions.  This concept of age (and generations) gives the flexibility of categorizing someone as belonging to an older generation physically (biologically), but to the modern generation mentally or culturally, which was not possible with the conventional concept of age.

I will give an example where it becomes evident that the physical age is not a measure of the cultural age. The notion of status of women in Indian villages is still generations old i.e. they still have to sit on the floor in front of men, have to cover their face, not allowed to present their opinions etc. However, the scenario in Indian cities is radically different, especially in metropolitan cities. Why is it that Indian villages are stuck with a, maybe, 100s of years old notion of women as compared to urban India?

Why is this happening?

Its not too difficult to understand the cause behind different perspectives and behaviors exhibited by different human beings in similar circumstances because it is nothing special given the fact that all human beings are different and these different behaviors are signs of individuality.

However, the degree of difference is sometimes astonishing not just in the behaviors but also in thinking processes of people in the same biological generations.  The reason is the difference in the kinds of situations they have faced in their lives. Some of the factors that cause these radical differences are:

1.    Inequality: The skewed societal structure is responsible to a large part for this. When people are underprivileged, their goal in life is survival as compared to goals of intellectuality, money and impact, which are the luxury of privileged section only. Exposure to suppression for a long time harms the creative portion of the brain and trains it to treat every situation as imposed rather than opportunity. 

2.    Lack of connectivity: According to me, this is the most important reason for propagation of phenomena of cultural and mental generation gap. When people are pushed to the back seat of progress, they start getting left behind from the latest advances in technology and methods of communication. This leads to a divide where they interact mostly with like-minded people who have also been victims of this process. This further compounds the effect and leads to a huge gap between them and the progressive society.

3.    Competition: The competition is no longer always a good thing, because it has not just grown to a severe level but also has become ruthless. Competing survival interests cause people to forget about humanity for personal interests.

4.    Politics: Politics nowadays not only promotes inequality but also victimizes people with less powerful status in the society in return for monetary as well as power benefits.

Conclusion

The basic idea is that various factors, especially like lack of connectivity and privileges, is transforming our society in ways such that it is being divided into sections where some elite sections are reaching pinnacles of progress while others can’t even think what progress is. It is our responsibility not to look down upon them and say, “Its not our fault if they don’t want to learn” but to show them the paths we have taken by helping them climb the ladder of mental and cultural advancements.