It's A Snap!

Remember the 110 camera? Look it up if you have forgotten or you are too young to have seen one. That was the first camera that I bought. It was compact and easy to use, consisting of basically a point-and-shoot mechanism. It even had a telephoto option and a small sliding cover for the lens. If you forgot to open that and took a picture, the result may look as though you had used a filter. Come to think of it, I wonder if that was the intended use of it. The cartridge held 24 frames and could be loaded or unloaded with ease. I would just aim the thing in the general direction of the scene I wanted to capture, and if I liked what I saw through the viewfinder, I would click. 

There was no telling how the pictures would turn out. I had to wait for the film to be developed and prints made. Given that I was no expert photographer, if 3 or 4 pictures out of 10 looked alright, I would be happy. There were some surprisingly good ones too every now and then. I created albums by curating the best shots. After a few years, the prints faded or acquired this strange orange haze maybe because of the materials used in the album, exposure to UV light, and so on. 

After I graduated to a 35 mm camera, I was able to take better pictures (I think!) but the camera came with so many controls that befuddled me. Usually, I ended using the automatic option which meant that the camera decided most of the settings like exposure. The quality of printing meanwhile got better and at the same time less expensive as a result of stiff competition. 

And so, the collection of photographs grew steadily and in inverse proportion to that, the enthusiasm to curate them into albums. The photos simply ended up in envelopes and the envelopes in shoe boxes. The job just became harder and harder as the collection grew. Gone by the wayside was even the discipline of preserving the negatives in any sensible way. Now, I am not a prolific shooter by any measure. I can only imagine what someone who snaps away constantly must be facing. But then, such a person may be more motivated and disciplined. 

Sifting through the collection has become an exciting adventure because you sort of rediscover the moments that you had captured long ago. That nagging voice that says I must sort them out however, continues to be ignored. How about scanning them and making digital copies, you say? Ah, that would require a serious triage to select only those that are worthy of preserving. Plus a commitment to sit for hours scanning, editing, and saving, though ultimately I may have to do this to archive and preserve the pictures.   

Digital photography has certainly proved to be a boon. I don't have to spend money on film or processing. I can even feel good about not wasting resources in printing the bad pictures. Easy uploading to a computer means storage is not a problem.The smartphone has made taking pictures simpler by an order of magnitude. Everyone can now aspire to be a photographer. You don't have to buy a camera and you are always ready to shoot. 

It is estimated that there are nearly five billion smartphone users in the world. Just think about that for a moment. With such a staggering number of people walking around with these devices, and the cheap availability of storage, no moment is too insignificant to save. So we click away merrily. The photos often get uploaded to the cloud. They are shared on social media with friends and families and they keep getting shared to a wider and wider circle often without the original poster knowing. It is scary how these spread out with nary a thought given to privacy issues. Also, I just shudder to think about the enormous amount of cloud storage all the trivia must be taking up and the associated cost. Any savings on film, developing, and printing may be trivial compared to that. 

Don't get me wrong. I fully appreciate the ease of using the phone as a camera (a very good one at that) and the ability to take my 'collection' with me everywhere. It is literally available at my fingertips to browse. But the problem of curating the collection has predictably become much worse with digital photos. The task is simply too enormous. Consider this. In the old days, the wedding photographer usually came back with a printed album within a short time after the event. Today, a wedding may result in a few thousand pictures to sort through. Who has the time to make a hard copy album or even a digital one? If we cannot handle one event, we can forget about scouring through years of digital images. Until you are reminded that you are running out of storage, it is a problem that is easy to ignore. At that point, you simply buy more storage!

I think there is something to be said for a hard copy album of photographs. Sitting down on the couch and thumbing through the pictures is pleasant nostalgic journey. If you wanted to show them to others, it is so much more practical to hand over the printed album or even just the prints than handing over your phone. Call me old-fashioned but scrolling through the pictures on your phone is not quite the same thing. With digital photography, capturing the moments is a breeze but recalling them, not so easy. And having thousands of pictures as opposed to a few hundreds seems to have devalued the pictures somehow (is a picture still worth a thousand words?).

One final point. No matter how good the camera, the way the lens captures certain scenes cannot compare to the way our eyes do. I find that I have to put away the phone sometimes and just enjoy the scene in front of me. There is something in the way we are able to look near and afar simultaneously. As a result, what is simply breathtaking to our eyes can end up looking ordinary on the screen. Sometimes, you have to stop and smell the rose or in this case, stop and enjoy the scene. Or to borrow a phrase, we have to 'stand and stare'.

The Pursuit of Happiness

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"  - Declaration of Independence

The authors of the declaration proclaim only our right to pursue happiness. They were perhaps skeptical whether happiness can actually be attained. I wonder also if they thought that the Creator who endowed us with this 'unalienable right' to pursue happiness, did not at the same time provide us with the means to attaining it. Is it left for individuals to discover the means since we differ in our temperaments and inclinations? Elusive or not, lasting happiness certainly seems to be our overarching goal. Anyone who is unhappy wants to be happy. One who is happy does not want that to change. The purpose of life then is to be happy. 

All of us expect to find our happiness in the world outside in objects, relationships, and so on. We go about this in our own different ways depending on our likes and dislikes. It is important to note that likes and dislikes, and not the world per se, determine whether we find the happiness we seek in the objects that we pursue. The world is the same but can seem different to each of us. We each have our own view of the objects and people surrounding us. We label them as desirable and undesirable and spend our life trying to accumulate the former and avoid the latter. Since the world is not under our control, and our tastes change over time, any happiness enjoyed is fleeting and our efforts generally fall short. Much of our life is spent working for a future attainment, struggling for sporadic occurrences of happiness. Pursuing happiness can thus be exhausting. 

There is another difficulty with finding happiness outside. If objects themselves are inherently capable of giving happiness, they must do so at all times and to all who acquire them. Neither of these is true as we can readily appreciate – one man’s meat is another man’s poison as the saying goes and an object may not even continue to produce happiness at all times to the person who desires it and acquires it. This is evident from the fact that we continue to pursue objects endlessly and find ourselves at the mercy of the world. 

Many years ago, I read 'The Conquest of Happiness' by Bertrand Russell. I was struck by the title. What does conquest mean here? And what do you do after you have conquered happiness? Is it an emotion like anger or fear to be overcome? Is it a trophy to be won? The book is mainly addressed to those who are free from problems like poverty and tries to make the case that in the absence of such privation, it should be possible to obtain happiness by expanding one's interests as wide as possible. Looking outward rather than inward seems to be the prescription, if I may be allowed some simplification. He also believes that the man of science is the happiest because he gets great intellectual satisfaction from his work. Russell states that scientists have no need of complex emotions as a result. They are not dependent on public opinion unlike artists and writers who are miserable because they are at the mercy of critics and the public. But he also adds, "Einstein is honoured while the best painters are left to starve in garrets, and Einstein is happy while the painters are unhappy" indicating that public approval is actually the measure of happiness. I think it is unfortunate to be at the mercy of something as fickle as public opinion for your happiness. 

Today it is the movie actors (or artists) and sports heroes that command public attention while scientists live in relative obscurity. But being the object of public adulation does not seem to bring happiness. It may even bring misery. Despite possessing great wealth or being highly accomplished, people can be unhappy inside. 

In 'The Art of Happiness' by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, the focus is definitely inward. Training the mind is the key to happiness according to the Dalai Lama. Cultivating values such as compassion and affection are important to one's happiness. He says, "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion". Material things can provide sensory pleasure but that is transitory and does little to allay fear and anxiety. On the other hand, joy that comes from inside sustains itself. (You can read more in this article:The purpose of life is to be happy)

Is trying to attain lasting happiness a realistic goal? We saw earlier that objects are not inherently possessed of happiness. Yet we seem to gain a measure of happiness when we acquire an object we desire. So where does this happiness originate? If the object is not the source, then by elimination, it stands to reason that we must be the source. How then do objects make us happy? 

It seems that contact with objects of our desire makes us happy. Conversely, when we desire something and do not possess it, we are unhappy. We are agitated and we put forth effort to obtain that object. Upon getting possession of the object, the agitations are quelled momentarily and we experience peace and joy which stem from inside us. But this is only fleeting because our minds are constantly running after objects – desires will always keep bubbling up, no matter how many are fulfilled and it seems that we are destined to be in a state of agitation forever. The intensity of agitations may rise and fall, but they are never absent. As long as the they continue, we will not experience lasting happiness. 

Some spiritual traditions hold that lasting happiness is to be found inside of us and only inside. Happiness is in fact our very nature. Being ignorant of this, we seek it outside. Instead, we must turn our gaze inside. Only by knowing 'our true selves', can we be free of the endless struggle to find happiness. 'One who knows the Self crosses over grief (tarati shokam aatmavit)', as the Chandogya Upanishad (7.1.3) declares. How does one come to 'know' the Self? That's a topic for another day! 

 

No Two Persons

"No two persons read the same book" (Edmund Wilson). This implies that each reader derives a unique experience from a book. And why not? Taste and temperament vary from one individual to another. Our life experiences further accentuate such differences. The book 'No Two Persons' by Erica Bauermeister, which I read recently, is a novel about the impact a particular book has on several individuals. It was very absorbing and left me with a desire to read the book which had a transformative effect on different individuals but in entirely different ways. No two persons read the same book after all. 

One can say that each of us perceives the world uniquely. When we say the sky is blue, does every one of us have the exact same image on the retina? Our biological bodies have enough in common that we have evolved a consensus regarding the world around us. The question of unique images or sounds would seem less important. 

What about our thoughts and emotions? How we react to stories, art, or music? How unique are we in these? I think it is easy to exaggerate the differences but the fact we have popular books, movies, music and art suggests that we are more alike than different at least within a geographical area or a cultural unit.  There is also our tendency to be influenced by trends. When we travel and interact with different cultures, the differences do surface. But with the world becoming increasingly connected, the boundaries are becoming blurred.

Our likes and dislikes and our opinions may be shaped by the culture or society where we live. There is also a lot that we learn as we grow up. We go through school and college and are exposed to diverse ideas. We are actually taught to think about things in specific ways. While this is undoubtedly useful, does this condition us and make us more predictable and less unique? Do we lose the spontaneity that we had as children? Why do I need courses on 'Literary Appreciation', 'Film Appreciation' and on  theories that are trying tell me how to think about art and literature? If a particular work does not make an impression on me does that mean I somehow lack the ability and therefore must strive to understand it? 

I read books, listen to music or watch movies for entertainment or information. Sometimes I am provoked to think about the subject. But then there are books and films that leave me wondering what they mean. I can look for reviews and such to learn their supposed import. While these may deepen my understanding and even add to my appreciation, I may not be motivated to try if the work does not have an impact on its own to start with. 

This brings me back to the quote I started with. One of the exercises many of us have gone through in school or college is to write a book report. There are sometimes questions regarding what the author meant by certain book or a poem. How are we to know the author's intent? If we accept that each person will have a unique take on the book or the poem, this question should really be about my opinions, never mind the author's. How should the response be evaluated? It strikes me that the instructor's own biases will heavily influence this. If I am unimpressed by a famous literary work (gasp!), the professor may not take kindly to that. I may even be considered a person with poor tastes. If I merely reproduce a scholarly opinion and state that I concur with it, I may get into trouble for plagiarizing. 

It would seem that once a book is published, it is really up to the readers to interpret it after that. The author cedes control of the narrative to some extent. Of course with promotional tours and appearances in talk shows, the authors can guide the process. But they cannot reveal too much at this stage so as to keep the readers interested. I wonder if authors receive reactions for their books entirely different from what they expected. And what role does the publisher play? After all they judge whether a given book will be successful. So how many books do not reach the readers because no editor liked it? All this makes me really appreciate the plight of those who produce original works. 

It must be gratifying to authors to have a book received exactly the way they intended. There are books that resonate particularly well with me. I would like to think that these are perhaps books where the author and I are of one mind. Is it possible to refine one's sensibilities to such an extent that one can mind meld with different authors in this manner? Be a true connoisseur and critic?

Personally, it is hard enough for me to churn out a few paragraphs every once in a while on my pet peeves let alone anything creative. I am very grateful for the friends and family who indulge me and encourage me in this. On the strength of that, I shall keep writing as time permits or ideas occur. I hope that my readers find my views resonating with theirs more often than not. In the meantime, I hope to keep reading and find more books to enjoy, more authors to resonate with. When I go to the library I don't try to borrow the latest bestseller. I browse the new books section and try to pick up works by authors I have not read before with some help from the jacket notes. This way I have found some that I really enjoyed but also some that I found boring or left me in a fog. Well, you can't judge a book by its cover after all! 

Spam, Sham and Scams

I have a confession to make: I miss junk mail sometimes. I have previously written about how the mail is generally filled with unwanted stuff - offers for credit cards or loans, marketing flyers, etc. There is the occasional gem that provides some entertainment. I refer you to my post on this: Free and Pre-Paid. But over the last few years, I guess businesses have come to realize that mailers offer ever diminishing returns in today's digital world. Even spamming us via email is not very effective as smart filters can keep the unwanted stuff away. Newer ways to target us keep coming up as a result. Social media, anyone? 

In the midst of all this, I have noticed a steady decline in the volume of printed flyers and such reaching my mailbox. While not exactly unhappy about this, I still trek to the curbside mailbox every day to fetch the mail with a trace of anticipation. More out of ingrained habit, I think. Having signed up for electronic delivery of all documents with utility companies, banks and others, the task is pretty much just to pick up whatever is there and deposit it in the trash. But now that I am retired and have some time on my hands, I occasionally peruse the mail. And occasionally something or the other catches my eye. Sometimes the mail does deliver.

The other day, 'Digital Coupon Event', announced one colourful flyer. If it is a digital coupon, why are they sending it by snail mail? I moved to the next one and on a whim, decided to open the envelope. The letter inside had a Post-It stuck on it with this message (I am not making this up!): 'This is from my manager. He wants your vehicle'. I was puzzled. Is this some kind of a shake down? What could explain this peremptory demand? I read the actual letter and it turned out that the car dealership wanted to purchase my car. And would like to sell me a new car. The whole thing had shades of a mob deal ('An offer you cannot refuse').

Spam comes to you in many ways including mail and door-to-door. Door-to-door salesmen may be the original spammers. To be fair, I should not call them spammers as they are not trying to defraud people. Sales reps used to knock on doors trying to sell say, encyclopaedia or vacuum cleaners (As an aside, here's a hilarious account of a salesman who got the two mixed up). For major services and products like solar panels, companies still employ people to canvass the neighbourhood. I do feel somewhat sorry for these people as they have to face a lot of rejection, sometimes rude. But they are very persistent. If you do let them in, be prepared to forgo an hour or more of your time with potential follow up visits. 

Phone campaigns used to be big too but with land lines becoming obsolete, they may not offer good returns. I remember the time when so many calls turned out to be from telemarketers. You can put your number on a Do Not Call registry but some organizations are exempt from this. There are political and other organizations seeking contributions that continue to employ phone campaigns. I once picked up such a call (this was many many years ago) and was surprised  to hear the caller say, "Howdy, I am calling from the sheriff's department'. This was a call asking for a donation for the Policemen's Welfare Fund or something like that. Slightly alarmed at being contacted by the police, I ended up donating to the fund. One must not antagonize the local police after all. Looking back though, I think he must have said 'for the Sheriff's department'. I learned later that fund raising is delegated to professionals who receive a percentage of the collection as compensation for their efforts. Some of these callers are, how shall I put it, more enthusiastic than others.

Moving on, as I said before, the volume of mailers has reduced to a trickle now. The action has moved online and to text messages. Since we are more or less inseparable from our phones, we are subject to all sorts of nuisance calls and texts. There is this compulsion to check the message and emails as soon as they arrive since the phone is now pretty much an extension of your body. It takes a lot of discipline to resist the urge. 

While emails can be filtered for spam fairly effectively, text messages manage to get through. The US Postal Service is waiting to deliver my package and needs a confirmation of details if one text is to be believed. Or it is a job offer stating that my skills and experience are a perfect match for an unspecified job. Or asking me to sell a house I do not own. Other messages merely say 'Hey' or 'Hello'. Still others maintain that somehow the sender has you in their contact list but they cannot remember who you are. One even demanded to know why I hadn't called! 

These messages may seem harmless and are easy to ignore. Others set off alarm bells claiming that your PayPal account has been charged for something or that you are facing imminent arrest, for example. But replying to them or clicking on suggested links or calling the number given can take you for a long ride down a rabbit hole. Typically, those who fall victims to these end up in long tortuous phone calls that play on their fears. The callers seem to have the amazing ability to make the victim turn over all sorts of data and actually hand over tidy amounts of cash in some instances. 

There is only one response to all unwanted texts. Delete and report junk. Don't entertain any curiosity, not even for a split second! Be ruthless. Ceaseless vigilance must be exercised. Perhaps now you can understand my longing for the good old days when the spam was politely and unobtrusively left in your mailbox waiting for you to pick up at your leisure.

Stories Retold

The new season of a series had just been released. All ten episodes were available to stream. Streaming is certainly a convenient way to watch your favorite programs. No more recording the program when it airs and no danger of forgetting to record it either. You can now watch it at your convenience. And of course there is also the opportunity to watch the entire series without waiting, in other words, for binge watching. 

Waiting for a week between episodes had its own thrill but that is becoming a thing of the past. With all episodes being dumped online at the same time, there is a fear that someone will spoil the suspense and so one may feel the need to watch all of the episodes as quickly as possible. Or negative opinions from those who have already watched may put one off. Besides, at the end of each episode, the streaming app automatically and conveniently plays the next one. You don't even have to pick up the remote. Who can resist that? 

I must confess that I indulged in binge watching every now and then. Recently when I was confined to the bedroom with Covid, I watched three seasons of a show over as many days. But I then switched to reading and managed to read five books over the next few days. I will say that the latter was more satisfying and certainly more relaxing.

The viewing public has been switching to streaming platforms for quite some time now. Given the intense competition for market share, the longer a viewer can be kept engaged on a platform, the better. If they waited to stream one chapter at a time, who knows if the viewers will return? They may get distracted in this age of short attention spans. So online articles scream at you with headings like 'Why you absolutely must watch the new season now!'. Producers and cast get themselves invited to talk about the serial on radio/TV talk shows to create a buzz that drives viewers to the streaming channels. 

The first time I heard the phrase - binge watching, it was jarring. I don't know why. I mean how is it different from reading a book at one sitting? The book was unputdownable just like the TV remote in the case of binge watching. But the word 'binge' has an unsavoury connotation. Binging is associated with eating or drinking without control and now with watching TV. You do not associate it with reading. You may end up being called a bookworm, but you can possibly wear that epithet as a badge of honor. 

Many studies have shown that reading a book is better than watching TV (It is even better than reading the book on a device). But the idea of watching an entire series by bingeing as opposed to one episode or chapter at a time takes this to another level. Sitting for long hours in front of the TV screen is surely detrimental to one's physical and mental health. While we can and often read a book in one go, that may not be suitable for all types of stories. Some books deserve a slower pace of reading. But reading for long stretches of time is not something to get worried about as far as I know. 

There was a time when new novels would often be serialized in a weekly magazine before being published as a book. Saturday Evening Post used to publish novels as serials. Some of the best novels in Tamil appeared as serials in popular weeklies first. When I was young, this was actually the only way most people got to read a new story. I feel this one installment per week (per month in some cases) format made us savour the book in a different way. We wondered what was coming next as we waited for a fresh serving every week. We discussed the story every time a new chapter came out, sometimes passionately. It is even possible that some of the readers' feedback influenced the course of a novel.

Old issues of the magazines were not thrown out but preserved. It was a common practice to cull out the chapters of the novels from each week and then bind the whole thing together so that one had the entire book in a convenient volume at the end. If the story was a long one - some novels ran for years - then there could be multiple volumes. I was able to read some stories written years before I was born as they had been collected in this fashion -  illustrations and the advertisements included. Some of the magazines had a larger paper size and the illustrations looked gorgeous. 

I am tempted to say that the TV screen and online streaming services have usurped the reading habit but new books are coming out constantly. Bestseller lists are still being compiled. Are there really so many new stories? How many are rehashes of old ones? I think that question is immaterial when you consider this. No matter how many murder mysteries have been written, it seems that there is room for more. Similarly, other stories too are being churned out constantly.

Whether there is something new or whether old themes are being recycled is irrelevant. Human beings have been telling stories to one another for a very long time. And we never tire of listening to them. The earliest cave paintings may actually represent stories. Over the ages, stories like Panchatantra and Hitopadesha, folk tales, and fairy tales have been used to instruct and to entertain the young. Even when the story is old and well-known, it can be retold to a new generation. Take the epics and puranas of India. From time immemorial, these have been told to audiences in many different forms - lecture, songs, and drama. The original versions themselves were written as stories narrated by someone to an audience. And they continue to be performed even today. They have also been made into TV serials and when they were broadcast, the entire country took a break from everything else and watched.  

In other cases, old themes may be updated to the present (or future) time period, appealing to newer audiences. The best science-fiction and fantasy stories do this particularly well. It can be said confidently that no one watches Star Trek for the technology shown there. And  whether a book is set in a hospital or a police precinct or in a space ship, it is not the medical or crime stories but the human drama around the doctors, nurses, detectives and others that audiences find compelling. "It's still the same old story, a fight for love and glory" as the song goes, but made new in some way. 

 

Today we have access to an astounding collection of stories from every corner of the world from every era past and this repository is continuously growing. Each generation leaves its mark on the collection. We can read one chapter at a time or an entire book in one sitting, but we will never run out of reading material. Between surfing the web and streaming movies and serials, whether we will continue to read books is an entirely different question. Which reminds me. Time to get off the computer and head to the library.

The Plastic Problem

I looked at the container again. The sign was a little strange as it said that the plastic bottle was recyclable only if the label was removed but I could not see any label. It took me a while to see that the bottle was actually shrink-wrapped entirely in the label. It was hard to tell where the seam was to separate the label. I wonder how many people would pay attention to this when recycling. Even if they did, it would not be easy to take the label off.

Single-use plastic bags are being banned by many cities and countries around the world. But bags are only a fraction of the problem. Thin plastic film is used widely in packaging. Eliminating it is not that easy. The irony is that this plastic is actually recyclable.  There are companies actually reusing it in making sustainable products. For instance, recycled plastic film is used to manufacture long lasting composite lumber, which is used for benches, decks, and playground sets. The challenge is in collecting and sorting.

Many of us as responsible citizens take the trouble to sort the trash into different bins every week. The municipalities have spent our tax money to institute collection programs. It is indeed satisfying to see the contents of different coloured bins being picked up separately. We assume that the plastic that we diligently separated is going to be recycled. All is therefore well or will be. It therefore came as a rude shock to me to read that most of the plastic picked from the curb is not really being recycled. "Recycling plastic is practically impossible - and the problem is getting worse", according to this article.

We should have anticipated this. We use different kinds of plastics which are indicated by the resin code on the containers if you can locate the sign and read it. It is usually on the bottom and (often) in the same colour as the container. The key point is that the different kinds cannot be processed together for recycling. Can you imagine the effort required to separate the mountain of waste plastic by the resin code? The cost of this alone is prohibitive. The process of actually recycling is not cheap either. At the same time, new plastic can be manufactured at ridiculously low cost. One can understand why manufacturers sold the idea that plastics are recyclable (technically they are) so using new plastic would not appear to create a problem. 

Greenhouse gases are considered the single most important contributor to the warming trend. While debates and controversies abound regarding the causes and ways to deal with them, one can say that curbing the emission of such gases is an important step. The most visible efforts in this direction are aimed at vehicle emissions. There is an encouraging trend here as electric vehicles are becoming more popular. But the use of oil by the chemical industry shows no signs of reduction given our addiction to cheap plastics. Reducing the use of plastics is a key factor in containing global warming.

We can say that we have been living in the age of plastics for the better part of the last hundred years now. Plastics are everywhere with their use still increasing. Waste plastic is clogging waterways and contaminating the oceans or ending up in landfills. Plastics have even entered our bloodstream in the form of microplastics. Yet more new plastic is being manufactured all the time. At the same time it is hard to imagine life without plastics.

We are at a critical point in our existence. Almost every day there is some news about climate change as a result of a warming planet. Heat waves, torrential rains, and other extreme weather events are occurring more frequently and with greater intensity than before. New warnings are issued regularly with urgency by scientists about breaching the catastrophic global warming threshold.

As we observe Earth Day, I wonder if we are going to find a way out of this. The campaign to educate and inform people about the need to reuse and recycle has had a degree of success. It seems that people can be motivated by the need to preserve and conserve so that the impact of climate change can be mitigated. Corporations on the other hand are more concerned about their bottom line and need monetary incentives or punitive regulations. 

Attempts to regulate the industry have only had limited success. The political class campaigns for our votes while soliciting contributions from corporations. When it comes to legislating, their vote often lines up with the interest of the corporations. It's funny how the whole cycle works. Corporations earn money by selling to the consumer. They then contribute some of that to the politicians. Votes flow from the consumers to the politicians and then to the corporations so to speak. The vote and money cycles run counter to the consumer's interest. The consumers, being the source of  money and votes, would seem to have the power to control both the corporations and the politicians. Can we start demanding more eco-friendly products from industry (and be willing to pay for them!) while asking our representatives to prioritize our future over their re-election? Well, I can dream, can't I? 

Much of what I have mentioned is based on my experience here in the US but plastic recycling is a challenge worldwide though some countries have done better than others. But take heart - it is not all doom and gloom. Here is some news on positive trends in climate change and some more about emerging technology to limit climate change. 

Happy Earth Day!

The Artichoke Adventure

Every now and then we order a box of seasonal vegetables from a local farm (you may recall that I wrote about the farm box a couple of years ago). The box is made up of whatever happens to be growing at the given time. During certain times, the box includes a couple of artichokes. I had not seen artichokes before coming to the US but with globalization, it is possible that they are now available in India too. A quick google search brought up a few Indian sites that described the artichoke as a leafy vegetable (it is not the leaves that are eaten) so it is possible that it is still new to India. 

Artichokes have a long history of culinary use. They were cultivated by the ancient Greeks and the Romans. They are considered a delicacy. But the few times I tasted artichokes at restaurants, I was not particularly impressed. The texture was unpredictable with some pieces being tough as leather. So the artichoke was something we never really bought at the market. They look intimidating. We did not know what to do with them and their relatively high price may also have been a factor. 

The first time when we got the artichokes, we had to figure out how to cook them. I found out that most of the bud (it is the bud of the plant that is eaten) is inedible and must be discarded. It is the heart of the artichoke that is sought after. This is covered by a very fibrous and inedible choke (hence the name?) and surrounded by a whole lot of inedible petals that have thorny ends. It is a complicated vegetable. Or bud if you want to be technical. 

How did we decide that this gnarly ball of tough spiny petals is edible? It just boggles my mind. I can understand someone removing the outer petals hoping to find something inside. But if you end up with a fibrous core, surely you would have given up then. I think it must have been particularly difficult to find any other vegetable at that time. Maybe someone took it up as a challenge. Or it was a form of punishment to consume the artichoke and someone got really motivated to make it work! 

Human ingenuity never ceases to amaze me. Many vegetables and fruits appear difficult to handle and  prepare but we have figured out how to eat them. The jackfruit, for example, weighs several kilos and requires power tools to cut it into manageable pieces and plenty of oil just to separate the edible pods if you want to avoid sticky hands and knife. The banana flower has layers of florets and the inedible stamen from over several hundred florets must be removed individually, a task, which was usually performed the night before with all hands on deck. Songs were sung during this to relieve the tedium, if I am not mistaken! Getting to the meat of the coconut requires removing the husk and breaking the shell first. Then there is the bitter gourd. The bitter taste should have warned us to leave it alone. But we somehow persisted. 

With the jackfruit and the pineapple, the fruit of the labor (pardon the pun) is immediately available. With others, more effort is required to cook the vegetable. If one were inclined to count calories, then the manual labor would justify the ultimate calories consumed considering that many of these things get loaded with fats and sugars in the cooking process. But there is the option to eat many vegetables raw without expending any effort. In fact, it may be contended that eating celery raw requires one to spend more calories than actually consumed by eating it. As Ogden Nash puts it, 'Celery raw develops the jaw'. 

To get back to the artichoke, we googled (what else?) to find out a way to prepare the vegetable. Most of the recipes recommended boiling the bud for twenty to thirty minutes and then removing the petals and the choke to get to the heart. Considerable fuel has to be spent in this process. Obviously cooking anything requires fuel but the payback seemed very small in this case. Moreover, just a couple of artichoke hearts are not enough for a family. And yes, you can scrape off the negligible amount of flesh at the bottom of each petal where it is attached to the stem but the whole experience turned out to be somewhat tedious and unsatisfactory and not worth the effort. The next time we received artichokes in the box we gave them to a neighbor. That I thought would be the end of our artichoke adventure. 

Recently I was watching TV and saw a chef prepare a stew with artichokes. It was a revelation. What impressed me most was the way he cut the artichokes. He first cut the top half off and then deftly removed all the petals with a paring knife. Finally, he sliced off  the choke leaving just the heart. All in a matter of seconds. I was quite impressed by the whole thing. I have no idea how the final dish tasted but none of the YouTube videos on how to prepare this funny vegetable showed this technique. Maybe we had used the wrong key words to search.

I am not quite ready to rush out and buy the artichoke considering that a dozen chokes can easily set you back some twenty bucks or more. One can of course buy them canned but then where is the fun in that? Perhaps the next time we get artichokes in the farm box, we will give them another try. In fact, I will even make it my new year resolution! 

Happy New Year! Enjoy your vegetables, of whatever shapes and sizes they may be!

The Secret Drawer Stories

The hotel reflected the age and quaint character of the town itself. The town had gone through good and bad times but had survived to become a getaway destination to the large city just an hour away by road. The weekends tended to get crowded but on this Monday, the place looked empty. In fact many  businesses operated only on the last four days of the week. But for someone wanting a quiet day and night, Monday seemed perfect. 

The lobby felt dark as I came in from the bright sunlight outside. The furnishings were sparse and dark. The registration desk was lit by a table lamp. As I filled out the details on the form, the registration clerk told me that breakfast was included and was served from 7:30 till 9:30 in the morning pointing to the adjacent hall. He also showed me the door to the back garden area. He then handed me the room key - no electronic card here - and wished me a pleasant stay. I walked up to the second story room carrying the overnight bag taking the creaky staircase.

It was a small room. Really small. So small that if you took three steps into the room, you were likely to hit the other wall. On one side of this grand walkway, you had the bed and on the other, a chest of drawers. The bed was flush against the walls on two sides and the foot of the bed was just a couple of feet from the far (but not really far) wall. The only way to get on the bed was from the grand walkway. Add to this the fact that the bed was rather high and the whole thing had a claustrophobic effect which I assumed the website had described as cozy. 

As I took stock of all this, I dropped the overnight suitcase in the narrow gap between the foot of the bed and the wall while noting that I would have to place it on the bed to open it. The far wall had a window and an air-conditioner unit. The walkway ended at the window with a door to the right. I opened the door and was surprised to see a very spacious bathroom. It also appeared to be more modern compared to the main room. The hotel dated back to the late nineteenth century and the bathroom must have been added more recently. Maybe they stole some space from the room itself in the process.

All in all, a cute, quaint, and cozy room but it was too small. Beyond one night, one would likely feel cooped up. I decided to spend the rest of the afternoon walking the main street and browsing the shops that sold the inevitable tourist knick-knacks. I had dinner at a small diner and decided to turn in early for the night. I climbed on to the bed and sat up. Only then I noticed that the room did not have a television. Imagine that. 

Outside, the town seemed to have gone to sleep already. I wished that I had brought something to read. I got off the bed and opened one of the drawers although I expected to find nothing other than Gideon's bible. But there was no bible there. Instead there was a notebook with the intriguing words, 'Secret Drawer Society' written on the cover. It looked like the night was not a total loss after all. I picked it up and returned to the bed.

The notebook was a sort of a journal except it was not by one person. The pages were filled with entries by past patrons of the hotel who had stayed in the room going back a couple of years. Some thirty or so guests had left their memories and impressions. What a novel idea, I thought. I felt a sneaky delight as if I was reading a private diary.

Many of the entries were rather dull just sharing impressions about the hotel and the town. A grandmother having a day out with her granddaughter, or  a couple celebrating an anniversary. There were tips on what to see and such and recommendations for places to eat. But there were also some with more private thoughts. 

* * *

I walked out to the hallway outside and found the stairway to the back garden. It was a quiet night. I could not sleep and thought that stepping out into the garden would be good. Truth be told, I was feeling rather down having been told that my job was going to be eliminated. I had declined a fellow guest's invitation to visit the local bar. I did not want to tell him that I was a recovering alcoholic. I must confess that a part of me actually wanted to join him. 

I sat down on a bench in the garden and sucked in the cool wind. The sky was a riot of sparkling stars and looked magical. As I sat contemplating the stars, I was greeted by someone and turned to find a middle-aged man. 'May I?', he asked and I nodded and he joined me on the bench. 'Lovely night', I said and he agreed as we exchanged pleasantries. He introduced himself as 'Al' and said he was in Room 11. He seemed to be in a chatty mood and talked on while I mostly nodded and responded in monosyllables. 

He had overcome a drug habit after a long battle. What a remarkable coincidence, I thought. I had myself been sober these last four years. Suddenly, I was glad for his company for I had been feeling despondent and who knows, I might have fallen off the wagon that night. After almost an hour of mostly one-sided conversation, although my mood had improved, he said goodnight and went up the stairs. I too went back to my room and soon fell asleep.

In the morning, feeling refreshed and more cheerful, I went down to the dining hall for breakfast. I wanted to seek out Al and thank him for saving me. Not finding him in the dining room, I went looking for Room 11 but could not locate it. I stopped at the desk and asked the clerk and was totally taken aback when he told me that there was no Room 11 at the hotel! But I told him that I had met and spoken with Al who said he was in Room 11. The clerk shook his head and rolled his eyes. 

I was a little shaken as I started walking off. As I was reaching for the door, the janitor who was cleaning the lobby said to me, 'There was a Room 11 but it has been converted into a storage room now'. He then lowered his voice and continued, 'The previous owner used to stay in Room 11 often. He was known to be addicted to drugs and one night he died in that room as a result of an overdose. When the hotel was sold after that, the new owners decided not to use that as a guest room. It was quite a few years ago but many guests since have reported to seeing Al'. A ghost, for real, I thought with a little shiver. Well, at least I had not been hallucinating, thank God! Or had I?

* * *

Sunlight was streaming on to the bed through the window. I rubbed my eyes and looked at my watch. It was 9 O'clock and I realized I was late for breakfast. As I jumped off the bed and went into the bathroom, Gideon's bible fell down from the bed. Strange that I had picked it up from the drawer in the night to read. Stranger still, as I distinctly remembered that there had been no bible there. Somehow I had a vivid feeling that I had read something else, vaguely recalling Al from Room 11. As I returned the bible back to the drawer, I saw the notebook with 'Secret Drawer Society' written on the cover. Suddenly I had a spooky thought: Did I read that and not the bible? How did I end up with the bible? Did someone switch books on me while I slept? Did I actually 'meet' Al? I really did not want to know. I packed and quickly made my way downstairs with my bag. I did not stop to see if there was a Room 11.

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Replace It

We live in an era where we are expected to keep replacing perfectly serviceable things. This is especially true of electronic gadgets - phones, computers, and such. Anyone who has lived through the last four decades, especially as an adult, has had to contend with a constant stream of advances in technology, whether in home appliances or with the digital landscape. As newer and fancier models arrive in the shops, the temptation is too great not to jettison our old ones for them. With the intense competition to bring new products to the market, is it also possible that the newer ones aren't as reliable as the ones they replace? After all, more and more the mantra is 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it, just replace it'. 

Last year we had to call in an appliance repairman to fix our refrigerator. Many were busy and were only available after a couple of days. We finally found one that was willing to come by. The first thing he told us when he arrived was that he would have refused the call if our fridge had been one of the newer models. Ours was over seventeen years old but he said the new ones with all fancy bells and whistles were not made to last. After he repaired the fridge, he told us never to replace it and appreciated that the fact that we still had our old washer and dryer. Now, maybe he had not kept up with the technology and was not confident of repairing new models but our experience with the dishwasher has convinced me that the older models were real workhorses. I am always loath to replace something when it is still working well. My motto is, 'If it ain't broke, don't replace it'.

As luck would have it, the fridge broke down again after a few months and the handyman this time threw up his hands and admitted that it needed to be replaced. And so began a hunt for the replacement. We eventually settled on a model which would work without us having to fiddle with too many bells and whistles, or worse, having to download an app. I don't mind using apps to do my banking but I have no need to talk to my fridge or my coffee mug. Yes, I said coffee mug because someone gave me a mug that is capable of keeping the coffee hot for a long time. The mug can be controlled through an app to set the temperature. But the base needs to be charged and the whole thing has to be handled carefully as far as washing goes. Needless to add, the mug is sitting in its box unused. The point is the more the features, the more the complexity, and the more the chances the gadget will malfunction. More is not needed when less is adequate and more is not always better. 

I have written before about shaving razors (long back actually), a classic case where more blades are not better and disposable cartridge has only meant more plastic waste. Talking of waste, there is the coffee pod a monstrously wasteful product. I could go on but you get the idea. A lot of change seems to be change for its own sake like the annual releases of new smartphone models. But in some cases, changes have meant steady improvements to function and safety. I think cars over the last three decades have certainly become better although even here the proliferation of bigger vehicles has been a drag on the environment. Overall, people are keeping their vehicles far longer than they used to in the seventies or eighties. That is certainly a good thing. 

Changes have not merely remained in the technological realm but have permeated all aspects of daily life. I think as a generation, we have adapted to these very well although there may be room to debate how well. But we can certainly claim the right to look back and sigh about some of the things that arguably worked better before. 

Take the case of eBooks. It is amazing that you can carry a small library in a little handheld device or even your phone. You can feel good about saving trees by not having the printed version. But what I did not expect was to pay such a high price for eBooks. Why do they cost as much as their hardcopy brethren? After all, the cost of production should be negligible in comparison to the latter? Furthermore, you don't even actually own them. You have just acquired a license to read them. Unlike the printed books, they cannot be lent to others, sold in the second hand market or donated. In my book (no pun intended), this is a bad deal. One of the joys of buying and reading a book is the ability to share that joy with others. If I cannot do that, then at least I shouldn't be paying a premium to read the book. I can see why the print industry is still going strong.

So, go ahead and look back wistfully on the good old days when things used to be built to last. I do hope that that applies to our bodies too! In any case, indulging in nostalgia is a luxury readily available when we are old. 

One final thought. Technology has been the driver of dramatic changes in our lives. But ironically there is one area of tech that is seemingly bucking the trend. Systems written in COBOL, that venerable old language, are still around and are in fact supporting many important sectors like banking, insurance and government. Sixty years on and still chugging along, COBOL, I am sure, will be replaced eventually but like I said, if it ain't broke, don't replace it!

Being And Number-ness

I publish this article with a little reservation. I am not sure if all my readers will find this interesting and I wondered if I should share this post here. But then Of This And That is supposed to be ramblings about nothing or anything and all things in between and I decided to chance it. I beg your indulgence but it is possible that I will lose some of you half way through (I am of course making the assumption that that has never happened before). 

First, a puzzle to warm up. I came up with this a few years ago and shared it with a few friends when we were all exchanging different puzzles. This blog post itself is the outcome of my further reflection on the final poser.

If : 

3 + 8 = 102

6 + 9 = 23
10 + 5 = 15
5 + 13 + 31 = 144
Then: 7 + 11 = ?

When you have solved that, try 1 + 1 = ? using the same logic. 

***

Numbers have always fascinated me. I have written about numbers before pointing out how the interpretation of various things represented by a numeric measure affects us (see: Life by Numbers). Provided there is an agreed basis, we can compare different things by measuring them against that basis. This does not have to depend on language. If I count the number of bananas in a basket, I am going to come up with a fact, not an opinion. But if you ask me if they are large or small, then there is room for debate.  

The way we represent numbers can differ though the world has standardized on the decimal representation and place values. When we write a number, it is understood by default that the base is 10. The decimal system uses the symbols 1 through 9 and 0. It is possible to use a different base - the Babylonians used 60 as the base. This sexagesimal system needed symbols for the numbers 1 through 59 but it did not have 0. The Romans used a completely different way of writing numbers but without the place value concept. It resulted in a very cumbersome system not suited for performing calculations easily. You can read more about my rant on it in A Roman Affair.

The place value concept along with zero makes it possible to have an elegant and compact way to write numbers, and to do advanced mathematics. You can have any number as the base - you will need separate symbols for all the numbers below the base and 0 to be able to make it work. In a base-8 system (octal) for example, which will use the symbols 1 through 7 and 0, the positional weights will be 1, 8, 64, 512, etc. just as in the decimal system we have 1, 10, 100,1000, etc. In the digital world, the binary system rules. Everything is 0 and 1. The positional weights go 1, 2, 4, 8, and so on. Note that 10 in any system will represent the base e.g. 10 will be the base value 8 in the octal system.

Now something strange happens when we try to use 1 as the base. I can certainly imagine such a system but how will I represent numbers using it? In any number system as seen above, the actual base does not have a separate symbol which means that '1' cannot be used. This presents a problem for the 'unary' system. Based on the examples above, I will need symbols to represent all numbers smaller than the base of 1 but no number is smaller. If I use 0, I cannot write any number other than zero because the place value will always be zero. Does this mean we cannot construct a 'unary' number system? 

Imagine that the universe is the set of natural numbers {1,2,3...}. Using 1 as the base, there is no way to express the numbers in writing. It is a kind of singularity if I may use the term where all the numbers can only exist in potential form. Now consider the binary system where all we are doing is introducing the zero which really represents nothing but makes every number visible. All of a sudden we have all these numbers becoming manifest. A big bang of numbers, one might say, which immediately made me think of the origin of our universe. 

Our universe is said to have begun with the Big Bang. What was there before that point of singularity? Science does not talk about it and perhaps cannot talk about it. On the other hand, the Chandogya Upanishad declares, 'All this was Existence or 'sat' (Being) in the beginning, one only, without a second'. Note that Existence does not come into being. It just was, is and will always be. This 'sat' (or Brahman) is the essence of everything in the manifest universe. Before the universe came into being, there was just pure undifferentiated Existence that is Brahman. How did the universe come about? The universe of names and forms arose because of the principle of Maya, the mysterious power of Brahman. 

In the natural number universe, can we say that there is just 'number-ness' in the beginning, and all the numbers become manifest by using the principle of zero? That 'number-ness' is the 'sat' or the essence of all numbers and zero is the differentiating principle or Maya? Maya literally means 'that which is not but seems to be'. Zero though not strictly a number, yet seems to be one. It may be a loose analogy but I found the connection interesting. 

One final thought on this. I sort of resolved the issue with the unary representation by dropping the zero and using just 1. I know this breaks the rules but now every place value is 1 and every number is represented by 1s. In this set, there are 1s everywhere you look. All numbers are just bundles of 1s - {1, 11, 111, 1111...}. Knowing '1' is knowing all. As for our universe, the Upanishads say, 'All this is Brahman'. And by knowing the essence ('sat'), we know everything. 

Ah, how the mind can go from zero to infinity in no time at all! I do hope this ramble about 'being' and 'number-ness' has not led to some kind of numbness but has proved stimulating. You can decide if it is profound or silly or profoundly silly.

***

[For those still trying to solve the puzzle, all the numbers on the left side of the equations use the decimal system. On the right hand side, the answer is expressed using different base. The base is the first number on the left side of that line. For example, 3 + 8 = 11 (decimal). Converted to base 3, this is  102. On the last line, 7 + 11 is 18 (base 10) or converted to base 7, it is 24 (base 7) so the answer is 24. Now applying the rule to 1 + 1, the answer is 2 (decimal) and we should convert this to base 1, but how do we express any number with 1 as the base?]

Paper or Plastic?

The pace of change in India has been dizzying in the last few years. Every time I visit India, the change is palpable - in terms of new highways, faster trains, malls, metros, etc. There is definitely an optimistic forward-looking vibe all around, at least in the places I visited. I found the highways to be very good but the frequent speed breakers kept shaking up my joints. Whether they keep speeds in check or not, they are definitely bound to break other things and provide auto mechanics and orthopedicians with a steady stream of clients! The rest stops along the way are clean and well maintained. Even on the smaller highways I noticed little coffee shops and clean public toilets. But as soon as you reach the city limits, you will meet the inevitable congestion making you wish you had taken the train.

One area where the change has been the most dramatic is the explosive growth in the adoption of digital payments. Thirty years back, when I was working in in India, I had to accompany an executive visiting from abroad when he wanted to purchase a hand-woven rug from one of the arts and crafts emporia in Bangalore. We ended up in one of the showrooms on MG Road where he was able to find what he liked in a few minutes. He then wanted to pay for it using his American Express card. That's when things kind of ground to a halt. 

It turned out that American Express at that time required merchants to call them on the phone to get the transaction approved. This should have been routine except on that day the phone lines were busy or down and the store just could not reach Amex office in New Delhi (yes, they had to call that office). For the next forty minutes or so they kept trying to get through while also trying the patience of the American visitor. They even tried to use the telex (look it up if you don't know or have forgotten what that is) to contact Amex. It was a frustrating experience to say the least.

Fast forward to today. On my visit to India recently, I was trying to get some breakfast at the famous little corner canteen, Veena Stores in Bangalore and here I was the one holding up proceedings, wanting

to pay with cash. Well, actually not holding up because the rest of the shoppers were using one of many different phone apps to place their orders at the two self-service kiosks. By the time I paid for my order with cash, at least ten others had completed their transactions pushing me to the back of the order queue. When I saw another person fumbling with cash, I immediately guessed that he too was visiting from abroad and I was right. By the way, this is a fast food store by Indian standards which is to say, it will leave the so called fast food outlets in the US in the dust when you look at the sheer volume of transactions and the speed with which orders are fulfilled.

When I first came to the US, I was often asked 'Paper or plastic?' meaning 'Cash or credit card?' when paying for things. Over the years as the use of cash decreased steadily, this question changed in meaning with plastic bags taking over the old paper grocery bags. Yes, plastic bags did replace paper causing the explosion of single use plastic bags in landfills. We have come a full circle now with reusable bags instead of paper and plastic. And we can swipe, insert, or tap credit cards or flash the smartphone for payment at the checkout. QR codes are not ubiquitous as they are in India.

India seems to have leapfrogged the the paper/plastic stage and gone directly digital. The need for point-of-sale machines has been made redundant with payments being made using the phone everywhere. Even street vendors display QR codes and accept digital payments. Visitors are not able to join this revolution since it requires both an Indian bank account and an Aadhar card. Fortunately you can still use plastic, at least for now. And cash of course but cash is no longer king, it seems.

I wonder what that executive would say today if he saw folks buying things from the smallest street vendors and paying for them digitally. Back then, based on his experience with the credit card purchase, he expressed the opinion that we would not be able to bring advanced software solutions to the Indian market, something I was pitching hard for. I was an impatient young man then! Now impatient young and old people are waiting for me to complete my cash transaction.

Middle Seat Musings

The other day I had an epiphany. Epiphany is too strong a word but I had a realization. You see, we have had this three-seater reclining sofa for a number of years now. The middle seat does not recline. No one wants to sit there and consequently it has been the resting place of TV remote, unopened mail, and whatever books or magazines that we are reading at the moment. Clearly, this is being underutilized. 

It is not just on the sofa that the middle seat is less desirable. In a car, if someone has to sit in the middle of the back seat, it is quite uncomfortable. The hump in the middle of the floor forces you to have one leg on either side of it colliding with the feet of the passengers flanking you. Cars on the road mostly run with just one person inside so this is not a big issue perhaps. But that points out that the cars are underutilized. Ironically, in and around major cities, the roads are often  jammed with cars but most of the cars have just one person occupying them.

The couch and car seat are trivial examples but I think they speak to a larger issue. There is a lot of unused capacity in what we own these days. Homes have grown in size over the years here in America with the average size of a newly built home increasing by as much as 50% over the last four decades. In many homes, the number of bathrooms exceeds the number of bedrooms, and I have to wonder if the house is moving into the hotel category. How much space we need may be a subjective issue. But how much of the house do we really use? I grew up in houses where the rooms served multiple purposes, as living/sitting/playing spaces during the day and transforming into bedrooms at night. Now we have dedicated spaces for living, dining, sleeping, home office, etc. which means that each room is only used part of the time.

We may not pay much attention to utilization when it comes to homes or cars. But there are industries where utilization is a major concern. Hotels want all their rooms to be booked. Airlines are very focused on filling every seat of their flights. They routinely overbook flights to allow for cancellations so that when the flight takes off, all the seats are occupied. They will offer upgrades and discounts to get them filled at the last minute. And full flights bring us back to that detested middle seat.

Travelling by public transport including airplanes does involve giving up one's personal space to some extent. Sharing that space with strangers does not come easy to people especially if they are used to all that excess space in their homes and cars. Long flights are exhausting in general. Unless you can afford to fly business or first class, you are going to be constrained and confined. With headphone wires, phone charging cables and laptops, one can barely move one's limbs, let alone get up and walk. 

Occupying the middle seat in a plane is particularly torturous. If you are sitting in the aisle seat, you at least have some free space. The window seat offers a certain privacy if you can call it that. But in the middle seat, you are wedged between two others with very limited opportunity to move about. The window and aisle seats get their own armrests and you would think that the middle passengers should get two armrests to compensate for the extra inconvenience endured. But in practice, they have to fight the passengers on either side for the armrest. They should in all fairness be given a discount for all the discomfort. Of course, by charging extra for the other seats, one could argue that the airline is in effect charging less for the middle seats.

I recently read reports of innovative cabin designs for planes including one which eliminates the middle seat entirely while still providing the same or increased capacity. That sounds like a win-win solution to me. Of course these are at the concept stage and there is no telling when such designs will be implemented. But one can certainly hope. As things stand, even Buddha, who famously advocated the middle path, would hesitate to recommend the middle seat on airplanes. 

On a personal level, I hope to find the golden mean between cramped seats and oversized homes. I am going to start by sitting in the middle seat of the sofa more often. I will also examine other aspects of my life. That will be my new year's resolution. 

(April 14th is celebrated as the start of Solar New Year in India)

What's In A Name?

During the recent Oscar Awards ceremony, the song 'Naatu, Naatu' from the Telugu movie RRR was adjudged the winner. There were a handful of Indian movie industry figures who were interviewed by a reporter at that time. As they talked about how they were proud to represent 'India', I was struck by how the interviewer kept talking about 'South Asian representation'. It looked like we were about to be rebranded as 'South Asians'. That was not all.

There is a tendency to refer to all Indian movies as Bollywood in the US. The fans of RRR were understandably upset when the Oscar host called it a Bollywood production. And how about the term 'Bollywood' itself? The Indian cinema industry is much more than the Hindi films made by Bollywood.  Given all this, to call RRR a South Asian movie is lazy and a travesty (I am reminded of the time when all South Indians were clubbed under the term 'Madrasi' by North Indians). 

This is not something new. The term 'South Asian' has been in vogue for quite a few years now. But I think people in India or for that matter in the diaspora for the most part prefer to identify themselves as 'Indian' primarily. The country is of course referred to as 'India' (and in the constitution as 'India that is Bharat') and I find the use of the more generic 'South Asian' mildly annoying as it tends to erase the nationality.

The term 'Indian' in America is a source of some confusion thanks to Columbus. When he arrived in the Caribbean in 1492, he assumed that he had reached the eastern part of India. He set out to find a new route to India and had reached some place. Ergo, it must be India. Such was his logic. Without any verification, he decided to refer to the local people as Indians. He did not even set foot on the main land mass of America. I am sure he had some idea of what India was about but did not want to face the fact that he had not reached India. 

In the end, he lost the opportunity to get the continent named after him. I could care less about that but the fact remains that this led to the Caribbean Islands becoming West Indies and India being referred to as East India. How else do you explain the name 'British East India Trading Company'? It should have been easy to see that there was no West India. After all, for centuries, Europeans had been trading with India. How hard was it to accept the error of a misguided explorer and allow the native population of America to retain their own identity and spare the rest of the world some confusion?

As a result of Columbus's mistake, the native population of America became Indian. The Indian diaspora in America are Indian Americans. The terms 'Indian American' and 'American Indian' are not interchangeable by the way. I found out that the term Asian here does not typically include Indians even though India is a huge part of Asia. I suppose the term South Asian was born out of all this confusion.  

If 'India' is being subsumed into 'South Asia', the reverse is true of  'America' which rather than being a generic has come to stand for just the United States of America. What about Canada and Mexico? Actually, no one even asks whether we mean North or South America when we say 'America'. I think America is really an idea that the US strives to represent. I would like to submit that India is both a country and an idea. 'South Asia' is too nebulous a term identifying neither a country nor an idea. 

So what's in a name? Clearly a lot more than what Juliet thought there was. On the other hand, many immigrants in America routinely change their names to make it easy to pronounce. Many have two names, one ethnic and another English. The fact that many ethnic names cannot be represented correctly with the English alphabet does not help matters. Does this mean a loss of identity? In the melting pot that is America, I guess we have to expect a melding of cultures and that includes names and origins. One hopes that the various sub-cultures will nevertheless continue to flourish. This in fact is the unique lived experience of India over the ages.

Thanksgiving

Every year a strange event occurs at the White House around the Thanksgiving holiday. The President, arguably the most powerful person in the world, pardons two turkeys in what appears to be a comical ceremony usually marking the occasion with some inane remarks. I say comical but sparing a couple of the birds while millions of their kind are being slaughtered is a cruel joke and I find it distasteful. I cannot see a reason for it to be part of Thanksgiving celebrations. 

Historically, Thanksgiving was observed as a day of prayers and church services in response to events considered as special blessings coming from God, such as victory in a war. The English settlers brought the tradition to America. The modern observance of Thanksgiving Day may be quasi-religious or even secular but in earlier times it was to express gratitude to the Almighty. This sentiment may be seen in the proclamations of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. From its religious origin, Thanksgiving has evolved into an annual affair, not tied to any particular event.

Whatever the origin, I guess Thanksgiving is a day to reflect upon and be grateful for what we have. But not everyone has something to be happy about. Some say that there is always someone who is suffering more and so one should be grateful that one is not worse off. At the conceptual level, this is good advice but hard to practice. When we start comparing, we inevitably direct our gaze to both sides of the spectrum. We end up feeling better or worse depending on with whom we compare ourselves. Also, it can be argued that to gain some satisfaction based on the fact that there are people worse off is in bad taste. 

Being grateful for one's circumstances, I think, is acknowledging the role chance plays in our lives, whether one considers it divine providence or karma or just happenstance. But there are occasions when someone lends a helping hand and we are indebted to that person. It is not always possible to repay this debt because its value depends on the seriousness of the situation. Unless the same misfortune befalls the helper, we cannot in true measure repay the debt. It is perverse to hope that this occurs just so we can even the scales. This is perhaps why, in the Ramayana, Rama says to Hanuman that there was no way to repay the debt He owed Hanuman (Ram Charit Manas, 5-31-3). As you know, Hanuman had completed his heroic one man mission to Lanka and brought back news of Sita to Rama. 

Reflecting upon our good fortunes should bring to our minds all those who have helped us along the way. We can look upon Thanksgiving as remembering with gratitude the people and circumstances that have benefited us then. We remain indebted to them.

Being grateful for what we have is one thing. Being content with what we have is a more difficult goal that many spiritual traditions stress but one I think is at odds with our consumerist economy. Lest we settle into the warm glow of satisfaction saying, 'What more could I want?', the retailers kick off the annual holiday shopping season right on the heels of Thanksgiving comprehensively answering that question. As we count our blessings, we are reminded of what more we could want. You have your Happy Thanksgiving but the sellers want their Happy New Year.

On that note, I hope we all have a Happy New Year!

Hidden Potential

When I browse news stories on my phone, I routinely come across articles on the hidden features of the smartphone. A google search for hidden features on the iPhone 12 brought up 48 million results. A search for 'Samsung Galaxy hidden features' brought up a whopping 780 million! 'Features You Didn't Know', 'Hidden Tricks You Must Try' scream the headlines and many with specific number of such features - '21 Tips', '10 Pro Tips', etc. 

I am sure some of you remember the tagline for old yellow pages 'Let your fingers do the walking'. Our fingers are indeed doing a lot of walking these days. And talking when you include texting (Don't call - let your fingers do the talking!). In fact, they are dancing madly on the screens of smartphones, although speaking for myself, I would say not very well. More on that later but it made me wonder what we are getting from this mad dance. After all we spend a lot of time on the phone. Still there are all these articles telling us about hidden capabilities. 

With such a large number of articles crowding the internet, I am not sure what is hidden any more but then I realize that I rarely read them and hence they remain hidden from me anyway. Maybe you are one of those who read these and go, 'Yes, I knew that' or 'I have tried that one', but not me. In fact, when I first got a smartphone, it was a mystery box to me. I am not an early adopter and I got my first smartphone many years after such phones had been on the market. It was a steep learning curve to become comfortable with just the basic workings of the phone. As for things like 'Back tap', 'pinch', 'swipe left', etc. - the so called gestures, I am still behind the curve. My fingers are clearly not adept at dancing on the screen of the phone. Lifelong learning has taken a new meaning for me.

The whole thing reminds me of my first encounter with the PC some decades ago. When I booted up the machine, it whirred through several lines of display and finally ended with nothing but an intriguing and somewhat intimidating  'C:\>' on the screen. I had no clue what to do with it at that point and wondered what the hype was all about. Without all the bells and whistles of the graphical interface, it was quite underwhelming.

To get back to the phones, occasionally, I click on one of the links about secret features and actually learn something useful. For instance, I discovered that you can make it appear as though you are looking at the camera  (make eye contact as it were) when talking to someone on Facetime. I am sure you can relate to that especially after all the zoom sessions you have sat through during the last couple of years. It is annoying to see that the person you are talking to does not appear to be paying attention  because he/she is looking at your face on the screen and not at the camera. 

Why do we have all these 'hidden' features anyway? Did the coders put them in quietly behind the scenes even though they were not in the design? I rather suspect that there is simply no time to create the document or manual for the phone and keep it up to date, what with new releases happening very frequently. Still, it must frustrate the programmers that their work may remain hidden. I am sure that some of them are authoring the articles on the functions in their spare time hoping to spread the word but the gargantuan number of articles tells me that there is an army of nerds which delights in bringing the hidden potential of the smartphone to light.

Given the long list of features touted by this army, it stands to reason that many of us are probably not using the phones to their full potential. We spend a good deal of money to acquire a phone but if we are not making full use of it, are we not losing out? I would say no. It is like the sewer pipes in the house. They are only used when we use the bathroom. You don't keep flushing the toilet because the drain pipes are sitting idle. Similarly, the phones should be used only when necessary. Yes, I just compared smartphones to sewer pipes. I have probably committed technological blasphemy but you get the point. 

Talking of hidden potential, I have often heard it said that we use only a small percent of our brains. Upon enquiry, I found that this claim has been debunked thoroughly. In fact, all parts of the brain are active virtually all the time. This however, does not mean there is no scope to learn new things but it does blow up the notion that there is somehow this huge untapped capacity in our heads which, when tapped, can turn us into super-intelligent beings. Alas, no such luck. So we must still struggle to find the capacity to learn the hidden features of the smartphones. Or must we really? Like I said, it is okay to leave drains underutilized.

PS: While I was writing this, as if on cue, a relic was delivered to my mailbox, a hardcopy of the old fashioned Real Yellow Pages (not to be confused with the off-white Yellow Pages wannabes, I suppose). The book calls itself the Original Search Engine, and bears the logo suggestive of fingers walking the pages of the book. I found it rather comical. The next generation of phones must let our eyes do the walking to eliminate any comparison to the antiquated albeit original search engine. 

A Tale of Two Birds

It has been a mild summer here in San Diego so far this year. While other parts of the country are reeling under heat waves, we have been enjoying mild days and cool nights. We still have time of course for a southern California spell of hot weather but for now one cannot complain. 

Back in early July, I noticed that a sparrow of some sort had built a nest behind the porch light in the space between the light box and the wall. Also around this time, there were mocking birds in the neighbourhood providing a steady mix of songs. One in particular seemed to be a late night partying kind and would  start singing around midnight. He (apparently the males are the ones singing to attract females) used to take up a commanding position on the top of the pomegranate tree in the backyard and belt out an amazing array of 'rocking' bird hits.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the songs of birds as much as the next person but listening to these songs in a repeat loop for two to three hours in the middle of the night takes a toll. This bird had the ability to project its voice to an entire block and the stamina to keep going for hours. But there was nothing to be done except close the windows and hope that the bird would snag a partner soon. Which he must have by late July because all of a sudden, the singing stopped. While I would not go so far as to say 'good riddance', I confess I do not miss the singing now. In passing, let me note that I was amazed to learn that the mocking bird can learn up to two hundred different songs and can mimic the sound of car alarms and the croaking of frogs.

The bird that had taken up residence at the front porch was a model tenant. She seemed noiseless mostly and I only noticed her flying away sometimes as I opened the front door to go out. There were a couple of occasions when I spotted two birds and I assumed it was the male half of the pair. I soon saw the mother sitting in the nest for long periods and I was sure there was a clutch of eggs there by now incubating. Then all of a sudden, one day, we heard high pitched squeals at the door and when we looked, we saw the mother (or the father) sitting on the light box feeding in turn three tiny but wide open mouths. Soon this became a familiar sight a few times a day. It was fascinating to watch them through the mesh door sitting on the staircase (opening the door would have scared the lot). 

Over the next couple of weeks, the little fledglings grew from strength to strength and their squeals noisier. Every time the parent arrived with food, they snapped into action, bobbing their heads up and down as if competing for the best morsel. More and more of their bodies became visible and in ten days or so they appeared fully grown and ready to fly fluttering their newly grown wings. And fly away they did in the next two days. The parent seemed to egg them on almost pulling them out by the beak. One by one, they took the first tentative steps around the nest, and a few quick trial jumps to the top of the lamp, eventually leaping off the nest. One interesting thing to note was the sibling that first took to flight seemed to return and help the others.

If you have not quit reading this post by this point (thank you), you are no doubt wondering why I am launching into the breeding and nesting habits of birds. But I have a good reason. I don't know about you but I have found this summer a bit exhausting and I am not referring to the heat which I already mentioned has not been a factor here. 

It has been a summer of discontent in many ways. The news from around the world has been sad and alarming - heat waves in many parts of the world, floods in others, and unprecedented wild fires in still other parts, war in Ukraine that seems to rage on with no end in sight, a COVID-weary world unprepared to tackle the outbreak of another virus (monkey pox), new lows reached by the political class, need I go on? In the midst of all this, to see the little sparrows set up their nest and raise their family, and to see the young ones take their first flights - all routine and normal activities, was calming and somehow reassuring. They seemed to offer the hope that all is still right with the world. Indeed, to quote Emily Dickinson, 'Hope is the thing with feathers' and who better than a little bird to reiterate that?

Time to take down the empty nest and clean the porch. I now miss the chirps of the sparrow family and even the mocking bird's songs.

Counting Your Way to Sleep

Most of us have probably had to deal with sleeplessness sometime or other. Advice on how to fall asleep is plentiful and runs a wide gamut of techniques - lower temperature, calming music, exercise, journaling, avoid late dinner, focus on staying awake (yes, I found this nugget on the internet!), etc. It sounds paradoxical that natural functions like sleeping, eating, and even going to the bathroom have now become subjects of How to Guides and serious research. This post, however, is not serious and definitely not an attempt to offer any tips for the sleep-challenged. And if it fails to entertain but makes you yawn, well, that is okay too.

There are apps (of course, there are) on your phone to help you drift off into the dreamless and fitness trackers that tell you if you did and for how long. I wonder if the latter bit helps or makes you more stressed about not getting enough sleep. It also sounds paradoxical to rely on electronics while being told to avoid screen time at bedtime. Apart from that, I think the phone apps still present some problems.

If you are sleeping alone, you can merrily play the calming music (more on that presently) or listen to celebrities read stories to help you fall asleep. Otherwise, you may be disturbing the person lying next to you. As to wearing headphones in bed, do I even need to comment on it? The music itself, I think, is designed to be non-descript so that the tune does not get stuck in your head and become an annoyance. You know how catchy jingles can take over your head. But I find much of the music from the apps sounds somewhat eerie and foreboding, not the best kind to induce sleep. Anyway, my problem is not falling asleep but getting up after a few hours and staying awake. Picking up my phone at that point is the last thing I want. 

The oldest advice for insomnia has got to be 'counting sheep'. This really intrigues me. How on earth did someone come up with such an idea? Why sheep? When such profound questions arise, there is only one thing to do and that is to consult the internet. Yes, the collective wisdom found online may be confusing and contradictory but it is readily available so I 'let my fingers do the searching' to paraphrase an old advertisement. And I was not disappointed.

The idea seems pretty old and goes back more than a thousand years according to this article. Before deciding whether the idea works or not, I had to think about the actual process. One cannot just whip up some sheep to count. One has to expend some energy to imagine the scene. Are the sheep at rest or moving about? If they are all sitting and ruminating, it may be easier to count them but if they are huddled close to one another, it can be hard to distinguish individual sheep with all that fleece covering their bodies. On the other hand, they are freely moving about, it will be difficult to keep track of the count. If you are particular about the accuracy of the count, that will be a problem. Even if you are not, what if you finish counting the lot before you fall asleep?

One of the suggestions (see this 'How to Guide' - there really seems to be nothing you cannot find online) is to imagine them jumping over a fence in an orderly fashion. Just how do you achieve that? What if they jump back? There is also no mention of the noise level but won't the constant bleating of the animals prevent you from falling asleep? The article goes on to list other methods including taking a pill. I am guessing the author spent watching countless (!) sheep before adding that little gem. 

Then there is this sheep counting app (this should come as a surprise to no one) which features two modes of play whatever they may be. I am not even sure if this is a serious app but it proffers this advice: 'Enable the blue screen filter on your phone so you won't get distracted and start counting to fall asleep faster!' I will leave it to the readers to sort out the ambiguous wording. But staring at the small screen with or without a filter sounds like terrible advice to me. 

For the definitive word on the sheep method you have to just watch Mr. Bean demonstrate it. That's absolutely the best way to do it! And if you want to follow him, I am sure you will find pictures of sheep for sale online. May I note that this is also a rare documented case, albeit fictional, of the method actually being effective as a soporific.

I did not quite find out why sheep are selected for this though. I was going to say there is no rhyme or reason but in this case sheep rhymes with sleep, so there you have it. Seriously though, would you ever accept rhyme instead of reason?