Me, in verse

What I do, wherefore and why,

I know not and the days go by,

Here that I am, whence did I come,

Where will I go, these are just some,

Queries that I have, and forsooth,

I won't flinch in the face of the truth.

When it's play, it's just that, a game,

But done for a living, it's not the same,

By the time I knew, my days were spent,

Upon my resolve, I had to repent,

Disgraced by the Monarch, and out of spite,

I left Sangraal for the Jesuits' light.

My hand, my pride, the place I reside,

I am within and beauty outside,

What I see, I get the same,

If I lose it, I am to blame,

Strange bedfellows, my mind and me,

An empty manger, not a place to be.

Karma with Karan

More in the dialogue form...

KPJ: What do you mean by duty? Who decides duty?

my humble opinion: No such thing as duty...

Survival requires us to do a lot of things, all of which affect us, our friends and family, our foes and our environment.There's simply one compulsion to do these things - either do them or die. Die now, or die later, or ...

Social functioning in humans, like in wolves and dolphins and other primates, is defined by a learnt code of conduct (COC). The COC simply lists those activities necessary for survival, and calls them duties. For example, in a baboon clan, the elders always feed first, so it is the duty of the younger members to wait/assist.

But that's not all. Individual clans also might have extra clauses in their COC, to serve as differentiator between clans.

Extrapolate this to humans. The original COC's were inevitably religious, but with the rise of religious pluralism and such circumstances, they became secular, and unique to a region or community. In course of time the 'differentiator clauses' turned into proper duties.

'Respect your parents, and care for them in their old age' is one such example (in my humble opinion). This clause has no evolutionary merit, as such, but is still considered a duty in the Orient (that includes us). Idea is, anyone who loves their parents will do this anyway, but there isn't any point compelling someone who doesn't. In the US, for example, old folks don't expect their children to take care of them, and usually bequeath their properties to the institution which does. The children don't expect otherwise. In India, in spite of this being deemed a duty and all, we observe the worst of both worlds.

KPJ: Emotions make us weak, cloud our judgement, force us to waste our time and energy - how do we escape them?

me: You don't.

There are two systems that coordinate everything we say or do, voluntary or otherwise. And they always, repeat, always work together. One's the endocrine system, other's the nervous. Both are headquartered in our brains, but in different regions. Emotions, largely governed by the former, are the tools of this decision making system. Not reasoning.

Emotions don't cloud your judgement or weaken you; they are the results of ages of evolution, and hold considerable survival value - or had held in the past. The reason they seem redundant sometimes, is that we have changed our environment much much faster than our brains had time to evolve to modify or discard them. Which is why most human COC's advocate control of certain emotion as a duty.

But it requires wisdom to distinguish between which 'duties', so to speak, have social/survival value, and which are not. So you shouldn't blindly stifle your emotions or do what is supposedly required of you.

KPJ: What stops us from doing what we want, especially at the expense of the others?

me: The transactional analysis theory is the simplest way of explaining it.

This theory talks about the human mind being divided into three overlapping sections - the parent, the adult and the child. It works like this: when we are children (or encounter a new experience, such as learning to drive a car), and any event happens, it is simultaneously recorded in two areas - one records the child's own emotions, reasoning, and reactions and the other records the emotions, reasoning, and reactions of the elders/dominating authorities involved in the event. The former record is the child, and the latter is the parent.

The child and the parent areas are also governors of certain traits, such as inquisitiveness/creativity and a dominating/nurturing tendency respectively.

When making a decision, inputs from both records are compared and the person's own discretion is used by the processor area, which is the adult. But this is the ideal case.

Sometimes, one of the records dominates, or is completely estranged from the decision-making process. For example, a typical religious fanatic does exactly as programmed in the parent, without taking inputs from the child or processing it in the adult. Such a person is technically said to be parent contaminated, and child estranged.

Needless to say, you'd have figured out that it is the parent that stops you from doing a lot of things. But the influence of this area can and should be overcome in the face of circumstances.

At any rate, it is my belief that even if the parent stops you from doing really dangerous stuff or makes you do stuff you really like to, it is wise to come up with logical adult-like reasons for doing/not doing those things.

Extra Info: Existentialism in a nutshell: Existentialists believe in the power of personal choices in determining destiny - this is all I gather.

...Like I always say, a story or two is worth tomes of theory. So I suggest you watch The Beautiful Mind, and if so inclined, read more about TA in 'I'm Ok, You're Ok'.

About KPJ

Karan Pankaj Jani is currently pursuing his BS in Astrophysics from the University of Pensylvania. He's known to be a friend in need, and for his propensity to ask beautiful questions. Watch out for his comments.

Love

Many scriptures and other profound writings in the past have been presented in a Dialogue format - most notably the Bhagavat Gita. I too propose to adopt something similar here. Here's an excerpt of a chat between my sister and me. (I think the world of my sister, and I may be excused for it)

21:00 Aritri: love s nt done lik buisness

  neway kp it ur way

21:01 me: i agree

  but love is something that should make u rise

  not fall

  true love increases one's powers

  remember kikio

 Aritri: i noe

  nice :)

21:02 me: she was lost in inu yasha's thoughts

  her rival priestess thought that falling in love made her spiritualy weak

  and attacked her

21:03 but in spite of being lost in thought

  she not only repelled the attack nonchalantly

  but also practically destroyed the enemy priestess

  this example is etched into my mind

21:04 and u must remember it too

  i don't know if m in love

  in fact m trying to find out if m capable of such a thing

  but i care for these ppl

21:05 i think so atleast

  and probably that's something like loove too

  coz it inspired me to apply those fundas

  which i didn't even know properly abt

21:06 that's all

  temme what u think

21:08 Aritri: bravo

  m amazed

  realy

  u inspire me

  pls blog this thingy up

 me: no way

21:09 will be teased to no end

 Aritri: arey

  pls blog it up

  man dis s wat ppl

  die 2 hear read

  dey need dis clearance didi

  do sum social service

So, upon her request, I narrate this excerpt from a famous Japanese Manga storyline.

"Once upon a time, the world was inhabited by humans and demons. The latter came in all shapes and sizes, and like humans, in all personality types. Those who were kind and good sometimes fell in love with humans, and raised mixed families. Those who meant no good to any creature were slain by monks/nuns and priest(esse)s.

We talk of a time when there existed a Sacred Jewel (history and name irrelevant to us now), guarded fiercely by our heroine, a priestess named Kikio. Evil demons and humans sought this artefact with equal enthusiasm, for all the reasons typical to such fairy tales.

But one fine day, an exceptional individual came to seek the stone. Born of a human mother and a demon father, he had had a tough time growing up. Neither the humans nor the demons would accept him, and his mixed blood had unusual properties (not of interest here). Sick of being in no-man's land (no-demon's land, actually), he sought the powers of the Jewel to turn into a fully fledged demon. Meet the hero, Inu Yasha.
Well, needless to say, they met. Also needless to say, it was love at first sight.

Strictly speaking, priestesses differ from nuns (in the Japanese form of Buddhism) in that they are ascetics - they can't get married. So this was, sort of, bad news in a lot of respects.

So, word got out. A rival priestess (name both irrelevant and difficult), who was evil, btw, decided that the time was ripe to wipe Kikio out. Assumption was, since the priestess has fallen in love, her spiritual powers have weakened.

So one evening, when Lady Kikio sat on the riverbank, contemplating her beloved, our villainess struck. Too bad for her though. For the thing is, losing herself in his thought had made Kikio 4 times more alert, and 10 times more powerful, and with a casual flick of her bow (she was always armed), she not only deflected the aforementioned attack, but wiped the villainess out.


fin"


Ignorant as I may be of many things, I do believe that being in love magnifies one's powers, and this tale is one of my favourite examples.

It's only words... Part II - वान्ग्मयम तपः

Words are constituted of two parts - the phonetic, or sound, and the intrinsic meaning. The phonetic part is manifest- it can be heard, recorded in writing/audio, and reproduced. The meaning is unmanifest- it can only be perceived or understood.

One ancient school of thought described God the same way. Divinity was expressed in the manifest form as Creation, and as the Unmanifest form that was the Spirit or Paramatma or whatever one might call it. In fact, so strong was their concept of duality, that their official language had a singular, plural and dual form.

Seeing this similarity in between the nature of God and words, they held words sacred, and professed that  the art of good speech was tantamount to penance - वान्ग्मयम तपः

The school of thought is of course the Shaktha/Shaiva school, whose credo is:

वागर्थविद सम्वृत्तौ, वागर्थः प्रतिपत्तये |

जगतः पितरौ वन्दे, पार्वती परमेश्वरौ ||

Salutations to the parents of all Creation, Parvati and Parameshvara, who are inseparable, just like the sound and the meaning (of a word) are inseparable.

Divinity theories aside, there's no denying that words are powerful tools in the aid of mankind. Wielding them skilfully requires true penance. But using them well is penance too.

Long before Socrates' triple test, our scriptures defined that anything to be said must satisfy three criteria: सत्यम्, प्रियम्, हितम् - It should be true, it should sound good and it should be well intended. Such speech is truly an offering to God, and pleases all who hear it, and never fails to fulfil it's intentions.

So with the best of intents, I pray that this Deepavali, Ganesh, Lakshmi and Sarasvati, bless us with the power to win over the recruiters with our words (and deeds, but mostly words).

It's only words... Part I - Etymology

E PLVRIBVS VNNVM - one, among many. This is one of the two inscriptions on the Great Seal of The United States of America. বিবিধের মাঝে আছে মিলন মহান - among the various, exists this great union. This is a lyric from a Bengali patriotic song, referring to what is technically known as The Union of India or The Indian Union.

There cannot be union without communication. But what happens when the means to communicate becomes the instrument of diversification?

The parable of the tower of Babel tells us of such consequences. In a nutshell, the story goes like this:
Ages and ages ago, the twelve tribes of Israel decided to pool in their technological expertise and build a tower that would take them straight to heaven. Infuriated by this arrogant intent, God created a multitude of languages, making communication between the tribes effectively impossible. Since the tribes couldn't understand each other, they couldn't coordinate and build the tower, and their ambitious plans were laid to waste.


Biblical parables aside, the languages of the world, while being distinct, are definitely not distant. Shown below is a graphic taken from my sister's project

Copyright Aritri Roy

This brings us to another branch of knowledge that is closely related to mythology - we call it etymology - the study of words and their origins.

I'm inclined to quote Prof. Srinivasan, our OB-II prof here - that a language is more than a sum of its grammatical syntax and vocabulary. A foreign speaker, who's an expert on a language can be easily differentiated from a native speaker, because the former would not have the body language, the slang or the attitude of the latter. All this simply because he wasn't brought up in that culture.

Etymology however focuses only on the vocabulary of languages, and can give valuable insights into the history and the mindsets of the speakers of the languages. But again, there is also a matter of perception.

Take for example the words for left - sinistra in Latin and gauche in French. It is clear that they're the origins of the English words sinister and gauche, both with very negative meanings. Dan Brown related the fact that the left side has traditionally been associated with the 'Feminine Principle', to the prevalent male chauvinism of the Dark Ages and thus explained the etymology of these words.

While this theory is plausible, I draw your attention to another very gender-neutral explanation to the same phenomenon. Do you think it is a coincidence that left handed people make only 25% of the human population? Before you point out that left-handedness is a recessive trait, let me assure you that it's not the cause for the actual demographics.

Maybe, just maybe the low survival rates of left-handed people caused a stigma to be attached to the phenomenon of left-handedness, and anything related to the left side. Hence the origins.

The point in mind was that etymology, like mythology, has tremendous powers of revelation, if used carefully. With this short piece, I leave you to ponder on the true meaning of 'It's only words...'

... to be continued

XL Suuktani

I wrote these shlokas in the Crederity PPT. I'd be happy to know if anyone could translate them before I post their meanings. I'll add more shlokas and their translations soon. (Plz excuse the lack of halantas, and Kudos to the Google people for developing such an awesome transliterating interface)
आकर्ण्य यस्य सुस्वरं, द्रष्ट्वा यस्य वदनं |
त्रिश्णाम नाशयते येन, तस्मै सद्बांधावे नमः ||


कोमलं हृदयं यस्य, शोकनिवारने रुचिः |
मतिमान बलवन्तश्च, तस्मै वल्लभाय नमः ||  

My OB PLP

In this personal learning paper, I intend to discuss not the content of the course, but what I learnt by attending the classes – both about myself and about the subject.

In the very beginning, the subject of Organizational Behaviour seemed to me an attempt to formalize, through theory and jargon, what is commonly known as ‘common sense’. It was a bad attitude, because it prevented me from learning anything at all.

The only life I’ve known so far is that of a student, and I’ve learnt to trust my teachers completely. So when encountered with a subject that seemed wholly unworthy of study, and that too by so respectable a teacher, in an institution of such calibre, was rather disconcerting. Even my father, who’s an MBA in finance, spoke highly of the subject. All of this compelled me to reconsider my view.

I commenced my soul searching by trying to relate what I learnt to subjects I was more familiar with, i.e. the pure sciences. The very backbone of this viewpoint is that there exists a chain of things in nature, and various levels in this scale come under the purview of various sciences. The very fact that this hierarchy exists, justifies the study of all hierarchies. In fact I recalled that one of the things that motivated me to do an MBA was to understand the hierarchy in the artificial chain of things – the economy, for example.

One of the first pillars of OB is that people will inevitably form groups. Thus, even though in OB-1 we focus on the individual, experiments like the Hawthorne one and the various theories of learning and motivation prove the power and influence of groups on people. In that way people are like atoms. A silver atom, for example, has the power to kill the highly dangerous MRSA bacteria when in isolation, but loses that property when it is part of a wire. Similarly, copper loses its superior conducting powers when made into nanotubes.

As a student of Biology, I had the opportunity to get to learn about the basics of this subject under the head of Ecology and Behaviour. We learnt that all behaviour in the wild originated from one motive – the preservation of one’s genetic makeup, even if it meant reducing or destroying the chances of another creature of the same species i.e. the object of all behaviour was to ensure that the creature left viable offspring. And that all other needs and motives could be traced back to this one.

Take the case of the butterfly, for example. Upon hatching, the caterpillar does nothing but eat, so it can pupate properly and become a butterfly. This creature spends its time pollinating flowers of the plants that it knows will be food for its future generations, mates, lays eggs (if female) and then dies.

The behaviour of solitary, selfish herd and colonial animals (other kingdoms as well) could be equally explained by this one need. In a true colonial situation, for example naked mole rats or ants or bees, each member is practically a genetic clone of the other, so it doesn’t hurt to have only one reproducing member.

Students of ecology and behaviour rarely venture into the domain of Human Behaviour, even if they do realize that there is an inevitable linkage. I realized that Freud, who didn’t sound like an ecologist to me, was probably also referring to this same point of view in his notions of infantile sexuality.

Exceptions in this theory, of course, are grouped under altruistic behaviour, and are more difficult to explain. For example, emperor penguins fight over the adoption of an orphaned chick, which is not genetically close to either prospective parent.

Humans are by no means wholly altruistic, but do seem to display a component in their behaviour that doesn’t comply with the prevalent theory. And I am glad that I got the opportunity to study theories of need and motivation that capture that component. With each passing day, I understood the relevance of the subject.

But perhaps the strongest link I perceived was that between models of perception and Optics. I mean Rayleigh’s criteria for resolvability of images is exactly what is implied by the perceptual grouping models.

At the end of it, I realized that the fundamental premise on which this field is based is not just that Human behaviour is explainable and predictable, but that it can and should be managed to the advantage of the organisation. OB isn’t just about knowing others, it is about knowing myself.