Anna Karenina 2012 review

I earlier thought that I would rustle up the rough notes to write a more coherent piece. But, that is too much work. So, unloading my rough jottings, as is, on the world.

• I read Anna Karenina in college. I loved it. I loved it so much that once I narrated it to a room full of bhaang-drunk-friends in 3rd year Holi celebration at my undergraduate hostel. And they listened with rapt attention for half an hour!! (maybe under the influence of bhaang).
• Keira Knightley is stunning as Anna Karenina. I could go on looking at her face in the movie even if all music and dialogues are silenced out.
• Levin is so innocent, so wholesome. That Bill Weasley could look like this was beyond me.
• Karenin is absolutely respectable in the movie. Why should he not? After all, he is a Dumbledore. I did not like Karenin that much when I read the book in my college days. Maybe the director made him great. Maybe the super kind Karenin was the handiwork of Tolstoy himself and I could not realize it in my college years. Maybe the young me wanted to have some sort of villain in a novel. 
• The last scene of Seryozha (son from Anna and Karenin) searching for and hugging Anya (daughter from Anna and Vronsky) teared me up. Maybe it is the best 'happy' ending I could think of. I don't remember whether the book had that angle. It is already one hour past I finished the movie (while writing this) and it is still tearing me up.
• I am a person who runs away from sad endings or sad parts in a movie/novel. But there is something immensely attractive about the sadness in Anna Karenina - the 2012 movie.
• I always wanted to love Russia. I still do - Tolstoy's Russia!! And this movie delivers my beloved Russia in spades.
• The snow, the ballroom music, the stunningly good-looking people, the countryside just like I visualized while reading Tolstoy, the army mannerisms, the horse race, the lovable motherly Agafia Mikhailovna, the scythe scene in the fields... The director knew better than me how I wanted to visualize the novel. The director knew me better than myself!
• Though not explicitly shown, the sensuality of Anna and Vronsky making out, or lying seminude on white sheets, is out of the charts. A work of art, I must say.
• Even though Anna Karenina is viciously injuring Karenin, you wish happiness for both of them. You keep thinking of how Anna could have ended up happier. I wished Anna to feel the same happiness and peace as Levin did.
• I could not find a single character as pure villain or evil. Everyone is human and I felt for all of them.
• The dream-like stage/movie creation is superb. I saw in reviews that some critics did not like this 'fancy' adaptation. But it worked beautifully for me.

Ikigai (Garcia and Miralles)

The Ikigai book flashed in the bestseller section of bookshops for multiple years. I first glanced through the book in one of the Bangalore stores. I loved the physical appearance of the book. It is very 'neat and clean'. The colour theme of the covers is charming. The book is very light in weight. It feels great to hold the book in hand.

The feel-good continues as one starts reading the chapters. The book does a nice job of introducing interesting ideas from other best-sellers like

• logotherapy from Viktor Frenkl's works
• anti-fragile from Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• optimum-daily-mental-challenges to create new neural pathways from Martin Seligman's Learned-Optimism

The book also introduces well-known and proven practices/habits/tricks that enrich our lives and are stimulating. For example:

• mental health hacks like gratitude-journaling, cultivating a few good friends, meditation, deep-breathing, and being okay with imperfection (wabi-sabi)
• physical health hacks like stopping eating before the stomach is full, walking and adequate sleep
• Productivity hack like Pomodoro based time management.
• Describes the fun of Japanese script by drawing picture analogies
• Explains the concept of 'escape velocity of life' in the context of immortality

Unfortunately, for me, all the above were known facts. So it felt like listening to a joke which I already knew. It felt okay to reaffirm my existing knowledge but it failed to delight me as a reader.

I did learn some new beautiful stuff though:

• Shakunaga porcelain created by master artisan (Takumi)
• Miyazaki and his studio Ghibli

There were a few aspects in the book which I found slightly jarring and disappointing:

• It talked about wine being good for health (which is a debunked theory).
• The meaning of 'om manipadme hum' looked out-and-out incorrect.
• The authors are too fixated on a 'long' life. I feel more inclined towards a more impactful/purposeful life, rather than the mere duration of life. As Rajesh Khanna said in the movie Anand "zindagi bari honi chaahiye, lambi nahi".

However, to summarize, I would still say it is a good book. I will recommend it to folks unfamiliar with the concepts I wrote above. For me, too much familiarity with the content prevented the book from being a 'wow'.

Tintin (Herge)

 

Tintin is a masterpiece created by Georges Remi, popularly known as Herge. Herge is nothing but French pronunciation of his reversed initials RG.

I have been reading Tintin comics since childhood. I enjoyed it with my kid brother, sharing the stories, discussing the plot, and laughing together. I did not stop reading after I completed all of them. I kept reading and re-reading.

After I started earning, I ensured I had all the copies of Tintin. My daughter joined the reading party. With her, I relived my childhood Tintin reading/discussion experiences.

In the meantime, I also read some fan-documentaries. Tintin The Complete Companion. Written by Michael Farr. There is an amazing amount of detail in each Tintin book. The amount of layers and details kept on increasing from early Tintin to late Tintins. You could also glean a lot of authentic details about culture, aviation technology, history, society, politics and many things if you look closely enough. Me, my brother, my daughter, all of us developed the habit of repeating each page, frame by frame, after the main storyline was over. We looked for minute details like:

• Is the aeroplane numbering and model consistent across pages?(fact: Always found them proper)
• Are they properly showing the Swayambhunath temple?(fact: Look at the temple 'eyes'. Too good)
• Is the red-white check pattern on the moon rocket a random choice (fact: It is not!)
• If the plane got carried north from Kathmandu then is Gosainthan a geographically accurate crash site (fact: it is!!)?
• Are there similarities between Professor Calculus' invention and Auguste Piccard's activities (fact: There are!!)
• Are there any patterns in the fictional Rumbaba and Arumbaya tribe languages in 'The Broken Ear'? (fact: There are!)
• Is there a single non-sensical cuss word used by Captain Haddock? (finding: maybe none! All the swear words are terms derived from mathematics/biology/psychology/etc)

None of these details are essential to the main storyline of the Tintin. But such is Herge's genius that these details are meticulously planned and maintained. That makes Tintin comics one of the highest achievements of human civilization. (Got a bit carried away I guess).

The project of digging into Tintin comics for more details continues. It is already a two-generation project. Me/my brother and my daughter. Maybe it will continue to 3rd generation as well, who knows? Here is a WIP excelsheet capturing our findings. Feel free to pitch in if you have more details. We will capture it in the excelsheet with due credit.

Happy Tintin-ing.

Writing Wishlist

Like many others, I too have a reading wishlist. There are many books, blogs and online-articles in that list. I also have a watching-wishlist of OTT-series and movies. I even have a listening-wishlist of podcasts.

But I never thought of a writing-wishlist earlier. I came to know about writing-wishlist when I heard Pranay Kotasthane talking about it in a podcast. So here is mine. This will be updated regularly. The ones which get written will be dropped off from the list.

Highest Priority in Writing Wishlist:

• Realization of probability for Wuhan-Flu (COVID): based on "Are you a Bayesian" by Atanu Dey 

Rest of Items in Writing wishlist:

• India's secularism journey on right track: Pseudo Harmony --> Honest Acrimony --> Honest Harmony
• Pro free market people have a hard and long fight ahead. Need easily digestible awareness campaign for free markets.
• Dealing with mental stress, CBT etc: Personal story
• Staying with parents in a joint family: Virtue or a social-vice
• Updating the personal story behind Raag Bihag, Durga, Desh, GauRMalhar, Malkauns
• Religious celebrations extending on public property. What should be the law?
• River interlinking. My initial apprehensions, and a possible solution.
• Revise/Edit a blog on tax usage in my ideal fantasy republic - Government Dos and Donts 
• To the first order, employment generation is not government's job. More of long term enabler role. Like 92 liberalization. How to assess the government performance by public?
• Query: What are the business unfriendly laws in India?
• Snapshot of my yearly budget and a backstory of the line items and the numbers.
• Moral drawbacks of funding healthcare using taxes (draft in https://opentakshashila.net/posts/a-hypothetical-question-based-on-a-true-event/comments/106203429?utm_source=manual)
• Hindi murdering other Indian languages. The regional languages destroying themselves further by a strategic mistake. The way out?
• Discussion of BBMP budget. What do I like? What I do not like? https://site.bbmp.gov.in/budget.html

Postscript: I realized that writing-wishlist is also my most important reading/watching/listening-wishlist. I feel so strongly about these topics that I want to write about these. That means that I am most interested in reading about these topics elsewhere as well.

Social security, Taxes and Ethics

Using tax money to fund social security programs like MGNREGA/UBI/etc seems unethical to me. This post is to explain my reasoning. Feedbacks/agreements/disagreements are welcome.

My reasoning:

There is this famous and ancient "Ant and the grasshopper" story 

Let us modify the story with two ants and one grasshopper. All three reside in a democracy whose total population is 3 - the two ants and the solitary grasshopper. Ants are hardworking, responsible and productive. Grasshopper is unproductive. The unproductiveness may be due to the grasshopper being lazy and irresponsible. It may also be due to the fact that the grasshopper grew up in abject poverty and the chronic malnutrition in its childhood hampered the grasshopper's cognitive development and hence impacted its productivity. It may also be due to some physical-grasshoppery-handicap.

Out of the two ants, one of the ants has a 'charity' tendency. That ant gives some food to the grasshopper regularly. Hence in the election, the charity-ant wins by its own and the grasshopper's vote. Grasshopper remains as unproductive as ever. Winter comes. There are two scenarios:

Scenario-A: The charity-ant decrees that all ants must part with a portion of their food-stash to save the grasshopper. 

Scenario-B: The charity-ant does not impose any tax. But allows the willing & charitable hardworking population (only itself in the story scenario) to voluntarily donate to save the grasshopper.

I find scenario-A to be unethical. Scenario-B seems ethical to me.

Extending from the fable to reality, proposed UBI/NYAY/MGNREGA are acceptable as long as they are funded like scenario-B. Not through taxes, but through voluntary charity. No government should force (i.e. tax) an ant to part with its food-stash for the sake of the grasshopper (however legitimately needy it might be). There is a finite probability that the basic humanity/antity of the ant will make it donate voluntarily. A voluntary-donation is the right way to fund MGNREGA/UBI/NYAY.

50 Maths Ideas (Tony Crilly)

The full name of the book is "50 Maths Ideas You Really Need to Know". It has got 50 chapters, as the book-name suggests. Each chapter is exactly 4 pages long.

You get more fun out of the book if you solve some Maths problems on the side, as you read along each chapter. The problems that you solve are in the Goldilocks zone. Not too hard, not too easy, just right. I got a feeling of achievement after solving many of these problems. I enjoyed solving the probabilities in birthday-problem (chapter#33) the most. Probability based problems always fascinated me. More so because as a student I always got them wrong due to some or other silly mistake. My main concept used to be correct though (most of the time).

There are many interesting tidbits spread across the book. For example, ancient Babylonians used base-60 numeral thousands of years ago and a part of that system survives in today's seconds-minute-hour convention (chapter#2). Indiana state legislature once wanted to legislate the value of π to a fixed number of decimals (chapter#5). And so on. I have included a list of such tidbits here.

I am also fascinated by useless Maths. Mathematics concepts which seem to be the byproduct of idle fantasizing. For example Perfect numbers(chapter#10). Interesting, but completely useless Maths by today's standards. But concepts developed for fun may become useful for critical technologies, sometimes centuries later. For example, Graph theory (chapter#29).

The motivation for buying this book dates back to my childhood. There was (and still is) a Bengali periodical for young adults named আনন্দমেলা(AnondoMaela). During Durga Pujo, there used to be a special festival number called শারদীয়া সংখ্যা(Sharodiya Shonkhya). In many of these AnondoMaela pages, there used to be essays on Maths/Physics made easy. The writer was Pothik Guho. He made a deep impact on me through his essays. Those essays forced you to solve some problems. He also did a great job connecting easy basics to elite-concepts like quantum-physics, the latest Nobel-winning topic etc. By reading those essays, one dreams of winning the Nobel prize someday. That dream was precious (whether it came to fruition or not). I want my daughter to get the same experience. While browsing this Tony Crilly book in Sapna Book House Jayanagar, I felt that this book could give my kid the experience I got from Pothik Guho. That is the reason I bought it.

Education, Healthcare and Free-Markets

I am for free-markets. Through my lived experiences and some reading, I have realized the amazing effectiveness of the invisible hand of markets. I believe that free-market competition unleashes the best among its stakeholders. There is a constant stream of feedback to the producer. The feedback is customer voting with pockets. I cannot think of any more honest and precise form of feedback.

But most of the world doesn’t share my conviction about free-markets. It frustrates me when some problems fester despite a good free-market solution staring me in the face. Sometimes I doubt my conviction. Is my bias blindsiding me? Is there a gap in my core conviction? Or my thinking is fine but the devil is in the implementation details? I seek to clarify my thoughts by writing this article and seeking feedback on the same. 

In this article, I intend to lay down a couple of such convictions of mine, along with proofs (unfortunately anecdotal) and my residual self-doubts: 

1. Free markets to deliver education 
2. Free markets to deliver healthcare 

Free markets to deliver education:

Conviction:

Today in India, education is sought to run on a non-profit basis. The government institutions are obviously non-profit. The private institutions, theoretically, are not supposed to make profits. The helpless institutes thus try to make some profit through the side-channels of selling books/uniforms/transport. Such surreptitious behaviour of the schools is a direct result of the government's non-profit restriction.

I want a different scenario. I want to legalize profit-making in education. There should be no ceiling price. I want as close to laissez-faire as possible in the education sector. Let the students/parents and schools/colleges figure out the optimum price point. More profit-seekers can freely join the supply side without the need to hide profits surreptitiously under other expenses. I believe it will deliver better learning outcomes. There is a valid concern about the poor being left out. That can be solved by the society funding the poor-family-students with education vouchers. I prefer society working through voluntary charity. But in case that is not sufficient, I will allow the government (very grudgingly though) to step in with education vouchers.

Proof:

Wherever private schools have operated, parents (even poor ones) have moved their children to these schools, despite having to pay higher costs. I trust the judgment of paying customers. People are loathe to send their children to government schools despite those schools being free.

My desired type of private education does exist in India under the umbrella of retail private tuitions and corporate tutorial homes. I have experienced the superior quality and teaching intensity of these private tuitions/institutes. It is common practice in some quarters to look down upon the rigour and grind of teaching practices of these tuition classes, which is unfortunate. 

Niggling self-doubt:

I do not know of any country which has let the private sector operate freely in the education sector. I do not know of any country which is funding education vouchers and letting the private sector deliver the education. Everywhere the teacher's unions are a formidable entity. Why? Is every country on the planet making the same mistake? Or am I missing some reasoning?

Free markets to deliver healthcare 

Conviction:

Healthcare (with some exceptions) is best served by free-markets. Every patient has an incentive to cure herself. The patient will seek to find the best doctor at the cheapest price and pay for the service. With free markets in healthcare, the cost of treatment will come down and become affordable. Unfortunately, the free market in healthcare is mostly absent in all the countries of the world. India is no exception. The private hospitals and nursing homes are burdened with red tape and too many regulations. I wish for a true free market (not the existing pseudo version) in healthcare.

Exceptions can be made for epidemics and infectious diseases. An infected person needs to be restrained from getting into public places. For some communicable diseases, some disciplines need to be enforced on an individual for the greater good. For example not keeping stagnant water in balconies to prevent dengue, not smoking in a public space, etc. I am okay with the government using tax money to handle these exceptions.

For people who are too poor to afford healthcare (despite costs being driven down by markets), there is scope for society to do charity. Just like in the case of education, I prefer society to work through voluntary charity. In case it is not sufficient, the government may step in.

Proof: 

India has one of the best (and cheapest) healthcare systems for outpatient purposes in its cities. I claim so based on my personal experience in the US, Israel and India. In Indian cities, you can consult the best doctors for 1000-2000 rupees (Bangalore rates in 2023). There is a perfect free market here. There are many doctors. There are many patients. There are almost no restrictions for a doctor to set up a consultation clinic. Anybody can set up a clinic with a suitable medical degree. Word-of-mouth referrals among customers/patients lead to a ranking of doctors. The wheels come off whenever surgery is involved. That is where we hear the horror stories.

Niggling self-doubt: 

Why has no country solved the issue perfectly? The US is problematic with prohibitive costs. One cannot afford without insurance. UK with its NHS has long wait lists. So my conviction that the market solves all problems may not be true. But I want a solution where free-markets are allowed to operate in most (if not all) cases of healthcare.

In matters of public policy, these convictions and doubts shape my journey of continuous exploration and understanding.

(Written for Takshashila's #WriteToWin contest. Got appreciated for the submission as well. Thanks Takshashila.)

হংসেশ্বরী

হংসেশ্বরী পড়লাম ।

বইটা হতাশ করেনি। অষ্টাদশ শতাব্দীর শেষ থেকে উনিশ শতকের মাঝামাঝি বাংলার ছবি বেশ ভালো ফুটে উঠেছে।  লোকভাষা, প্রশাসন, জমিদারবাড়ির জীবন, সতী প্রথা নিয়ে লোক এর মনোভাব, রামমোহন রায়, বর্গী ডাকাত। খানিক গল্প এবং খানিক ডকুমেন্টারি  মিশিয়ে ভালই লেখা হয়েছে।

বেশ কিছু নাটকীয় মুহূর্ত ও রয়েছে। তামিল সিনেমা তে হিরো শট বলে একটা ব্যাপার  থাকে। যখন নায়ক কে প্রথম পরিচয় করানো  হয়। একটা রোমহর্ষক ঘটনা বা ডায়ালগ দিয়ে। হংসেশ্বরী তে তার থেকে ও বেশি নাটকীয় রামমোহন এবং উইলিয়াম কেরির প্রথম সাক্ষাৎ।

নারায়ণ সান্যাল প্রথম পড়ি কলেজ এ, বন্ধুদের কথা শুনে। আম্রপালি, বিশ্বাসঘাতক। তখন থেকেই  ওর লেখার প্রতি একটা টান এসেছে। তা ছাড়া বাংলা আর তার ইতিহাস নিয়ে আমার সব সময় ই একটা আগ্রহ আছে। তাই বই টা ধরেছিলাম। যদি আপনার বাংলার ইতিহাসের উপর টান থাকে, তাহলে এই বইটি পড়তে বিশেষ অনুরোধ করবো। 

Ramkinkar Baij: A biography by Samaresh Basu

“দেখি নাই ফিরে” বই টা রামকিঙ্কর বেজ এর জীবনী। সমরেশ বসুর লেখা ও বিকাশ ভট্টাচার্যের আঁকা। দুই এ মিলে বেশ উপভোগ্য। 

বইটা এক বছরেরও বেশি সময় ধরে পড়েছি। নানা ব্যস্ততায়ে এক টানা পড়তে পারিনি রামকিঙ্কর একজন জিনিয়াস ছিলেন সে নিয়ে কোনো সন্দেহ নেই । কিন্তু বইটা পড়তে পড়তে, যে দুজনকে কোনোমতে কম heroic মনে হলোনা, তারা হলেন নন্দলাল বসু এবং রবীন্দ্রনাথ। আমি যেরকম শিক্ষককে আদর্শ মনে করি, নন্দলাল হলেন সেইশিক্ষক। কতটা confidence থাকলে তিনি ছাত্রদের সাথে নিজের ছবি প্রদর্শণীতে পাঠাতে পারতেন। ছাত্রদের কাছে এই gesture টা খুবই inspirational. ক্লাসে মাস্টার ছাত্র সবাই মিলে একসাথে আঁকছে। মাঝে মাস্টার ছবি আঁকার কিছু নিয়ম/philosophy বুঝিয়ে দিচ্ছেন। এই হলোআদর্শ এবং মজার পড়াশোনা। 

শান্তিনিকেতন বা কলাভবনে ওই সময়ে funding এর বিশেষ ভালো অবস্থা ছিলো না। কিন্তু টাকার অভাব সত্বেও, সঠিকআবহওয়া এবং ভালো শিক্ষকের কি মাহাত্ব্য, তা শান্তিনিকেতনের সেই যুগের performance দেখলেই বোঝা যায়। ওই একজায়গা থেকে শিল্প জগতের এমন সব তারকা সৃষ্টি হয়েছেন যারা সারা পৃথিবীর নজর কেড়েছেন। 

এবং রবীন্দ্রনাথ যে একজন আদর্শ principal, সে নিয়েও কোনো সন্দেহ থাকে না। টাকা পয়সার ব্যবস্থা করা, ভালো শিক্ষকদের খানিক টাকা কিন্তু mainly সৃষ্টি ও শিক্ষার স্বাধীনতার সুযোগের টানে নিয়ে আসা, এই দেখে আমি খুব impressed হয়েছি।  লেখক/কবি/গীতিকার/ শিল্পী ছাড়াও রবীন্দ্রনাথের এই entrepreneur এবং administrator সত্তা আমাকে খুব মুগ্ধ করেছে।

বাঁকুড়া ও সেখানকার জীবনযাত্রা সম্বন্ধেও অনেক কিছু জানতে পেরেছি এবং তা ভালো লেগেছে। ভাদু পুজো, এক্তেশ্বরেরগাজনের মেলা, ইত্যাদি খুব সুন্দর ভাবে লেখা হয়েছে।

বিকাশ ভট্টাচার্যের আঁকা যে কত ভালো তা আমার বলার অপেক্ষা রাখে না। প্রত্যেকটা ছবি গল্পের কোনো না কোনো অংশফুটিয়ে তুলেছে। কিন্তু বেশীর ভাগ জায়গাতেই লেখা এবং সেই  লেখার চিত্রণ অনেক পৃষ্ঠা পর পর। সহজে বের করার কোনোউপায় নেই। তাই আমি বেশ কয়েকটা table বানিয়েছি। আমার সেই table গুলোর ছবি নীচে দিলাম। আশা করি যেই পাঠকেরাদেখি-নাই-ফিরের এই সংস্করণ(একাদশ মুদ্রণ এপ্রিল ২০১৮) পড়বেন, তাঁরা উপকৃত হবেন।  

এই বই পড়ে বোলপুর শান্তিনিকেতনে যাওয়ার জোর ইচ্ছে হয়েছিলো এবং ২০২২ এর পুজোর ছুটিতে বোলপুর ঘুরতে গেছিলাম।রামকিঙ্করের ভাস্কর্য গুলো কোনো বদ্ধ ঘরে নয়, বরং খোলা মাঠে এবং খোলা আকাশের তলায় শোভা পাচ্ছে। ঠিক যেমনরামকিঙ্কর ও রবীন্দ্রনাথ চেয়েছিলেন। আমি দেখি-নাই-ফিরের কল্যানে ভাস্কর্যগুলো আরও ভালো ভাবে উপভোগ করলাম।

আমার ব্লগের পাঠকদের, না পড়ে থাকলে, এই বইটি পড়তে অনুরোধ করবো। 

Charity vs investment, and it gets personal

Investment > voluntary-charity > forced-charity

Investment:

Investor gains satisfaction and more wealth.

'Investee'/employee gains wealth and confidence.

The willing customer gains higher life satisfaction by consuming the product.

Voluntary charity:

Donor gains mental satisfaction.

Charity receiver gains wealth but possibly develops a chip on their shoulder.

Forced charity: 

Donor suffers the pain of getting looted. 

Charity-receiver gains wealth but possibly develops a chip on the shoulder.

Some more observations:

• In Fountainhead, Roark does charity on Keating by donating him his knowledge for Cosmo-Slotnick-building and Cortlandt-homes. But that act of charity did no good to Keating and morally/professionally decimated him in the long run.
• In Atlas-Shrugged, charity/giving is a banned cussword in Galt's Gulch for good reason.
• While I was in college, I was 'forced' by my social expectations to provide free tuitions to some students at a Student's home. In the beginning, I basked in the glamour of teaching higher-secondary physics in a reputable student's home. Also, I was awed by the sense of great social service I am rendering. Later, contrary to all brainwashing about the joys of charity, I grew resentful about spending my precious time in an activity which I could not easily back out of.

Home in the world - A Memoir (Amartya Sen)

This book is an autobiography. I loved Amartya Sen's prose in “The Argumentative Indian” and this book did not disappoint either. The description of Burma and Shantiniketan seemed very beautiful to me. The mindbending argument in Shantiniketan about terming most of Northern India as the biggest fresh-water island is impeccable and stands out for the understated humour. I got introduced to the great Kshitimohan Sen through this book. There is a lot of humble bragging by Sen and why not?! He is undoubtedly an academic prodigy. And I like his type of bragging much more than the brash and tasteless bragging that goes around nowadays. Overall, I enjoyed the book.

But I don’t like Sen’s Muslim appeasement tendencies. A sample of that is in the post-script. I noticed such tendencies in his other writings as well. But I don’t let this dislike come in my way of enjoying the rest of his work. I look forward to more of his works.

Postscript:

• I bought this book in July 2021, at the peak of the Wuhan flu pandemic. 
• Chapter 6, section 8 (page 107): The sacking of Nalanda by Islamic invasion is obfuscated. Sen refers to "invaders from the Middle East" without naming the religion. However, he mentions about resumption of higher studies later under Muslim rulers explicitly. I would have granted Sen a civility that he does not want to humiliate a community by explicitly associating the entire community with bad deeds. But Sen does not extend the same courtesy to Hindus. He explicitly mentioned Hindutva and political Hinduism ruining the plans of the Nalanda restoration.

Me, my college, and all the good things

 

My friend Sujit wrote a beautiful post about what he got right in graduate school. It nudged me to reflect on what I got right, by intent or otherwise, in my college (Bengal Engineering College, now known as IIEST Shibpur).

1. My college healed my failure scar: I failed to crack the ivy-league of India and cried bucketfuls of tears. It had hurt me badly. My college, though not Ivy League, was a premier institute. The glamour of my college led to a lot of social approval. That social approval allowed me to pick up the pieces and proceed onward with life.
2. Confidence in life: I kept my studies in moderate focus. Unlike many who completely abandoned the hard work and discipline of 11th/12th. That allowed me to score well in college relative to the class. The class population was already supposed to be an elite one. So, performing well there set me up emotionally for the moments of self-doubt, I faced later in my job life.
3. Outlook towards charity: I have an unconventional outlook towards charity that I find very satisfying. My college days set the foundation of my current worldview when I got pulled into a philanthropic-spiritual college club (Vivekananda Youth Circle). Through good and bad experiences in volunteering, I learnt deeper about charity and my stance towards charity.
4. Get into a job domain of my choice: Through some logical (and not so logical) reasoning, I decided to go after VLSI/semiconductor domain. My college, due to its glamour (and some dumb luck), allowed me to land a VLSI job in my final year. I am thankful for that.
5. 'Risk'y feelgood: I am not much of a risk taker. In my college, I took two huge risks. One paid off. Other bombed. But 25 years later, I feel so good that I could dare to take the two risks.
6. Falling in love with Calcutta and Bengal: Being a Bengali by birth (but raised outside Bengal), there was always a soft spot. But much of it was 'theoretical', mainly based on Bengali literature. My four years in the heart of Bengal deepened my love. I saw the good, bad and ugly of Bengal and loved it despite everything.

Is that all? Hell no. But some are too personal and raw to discuss publicly, and 25 years have not dulled the sensitivity one bit.

Was everything good? Hell no (again). There are some serious regrets, and the list is much longer there. But it is good psychology to reflect on the positives for a default pessimist like me.

Rape of Dominique, Free markets and Me

Being the product of our socialist Indian society, I did not readily believe in the positives of free-market. Then slowly, many authors/writers/columnists and life-experiences "happened to me". 

• Ashok Desai (Price of Onions fame), 
• Swaminathan S Ankleswarn Iyer (Swaminomics fame), 
• Gurucharan Das (India Unbound fame), 
• Atanu Dey (author of deeshaa.org), 
• Paul Graham (essay writer at eponymous paulgraham.com), 
• Amlan Dutta (ex Vice Chancellor of Vishwa Bharati University). 

They gradually convinced me about the multiple implications of freedom and the free market. On top of that I lived and experienced the changes brought by partial Indian liberalization of 1990s. As a result, from being a socialist in 1990s, I became a staunch pro-free-market person by 2012.

Then I read Ayn Rand for the first time. In 2012. By that time, I needed no more convincing. As far as I was concerned, Ayn Rand was preaching to the choir. But the her passionate language and reasons blew my mind. 

I also came across people with intense hatred against Rand. I found at least three people who told me, "But did Ayn Rand not glorify the rape of Dominique by her hero Roark"? I found out that none of the three has read Ayn Rand themselves. They had read commentary on Ayn Rand written by some third person. I postulated a tentative law "Anybody referring to the rape of Dominique has not actually read Fountainhead".

I also found that my socialism-to-free-market journey (from 1998 to 2012) is not typical. Many folks (I know of) are still in my 1998-frame-of-mind, i.e. they are still anti-free-market. Most of these anti-free-market people are in government jobs. That brings me to my second postulation: "A person whose salary is funded by taxes is unlikely to see the virtues of the free market. It goes against her/his means of existence". You cannot convince these people about free markets, and I have given up on such attempts. I understand that I might have become like them if I had taken up a government job.

That brings me to my third postulate. The education system must be privatized for betterment of the society. At least the delivery of education should be privatized. The government vouchers can still fund the students, but the delivery must be in the hands of a profit-driven industry. Otherwise, the socialist drivel is drilled deep into the psyche of impressionable minds. After that, it is challenging (myself being an example) or impossible to alter people's thinking. 

Fatehpur Sikri: A bitter sweet experience

Skip Fatehpur Sikri! If you are on holiday and want to relax, avoid this place like the plague. The guides/touts/beggars will ruin it for you. Yes, you can resist the guide/conman/beggar mafia by  shouting/pleading/ignoring, but that resistance is exhausting. Do you want your relaxing holiday to be this stressful?

This is such a shame because the Sikri part is one of the best kept medieval pieces of architecture you can ever come across. It is clean,  stunning and beautiful. But I recommend visiting Fatehpur Sikri only if you are a true art/architecture/history enthusiast or an intense devotee. You will have to tolerate/suffer the guide-conman-beggar mafia with all your persuasion/will-power. If you think your love for history/religion can trump the stress of dealing with the bullying/nagging mafia, you should go for Fatehpur Sikri. Otherwise, drop it. Visit Tajmahal instead. You cannot have enough of Tajmahal. And the government has made the arrangements impeccable. There are guides there at Tajmahal as well, but they will respect your 'NO'.

If you are hell-bent on visiting Fatehpur Sikri, I have some suggestions. The place is a gold mine for photography enthusiasts. Plan to reach the place before 6:00 AM. You will have the entire area to yourself. Also, if you are commuting from Agra, you get to skip the hellish Agra-Fatehpur commute in the early hours of the day. If you are not of the religious type, you can skip Buland-Darwaza, Badshahi-Darwaza and Salim-Chishti-mazaar and focus only within the ASI-protected-Sikri-ticketed area. You will be less bothered by the tout-guide-mafia.

Murder on the orient express

I read Murder on the Orient Express after watching the movie. Watching the movie did not take anything away from my enjoyment of the book (and that is rare). The framework and beautiful picturization in the film helped my mind focus on the puzzle that Agatha Christie laid out with so many details in writing. There were pieces of understated humour throughout, like the thoughts of the Doctor and Bouc when Poirot 'assigned' them and himself the task of sitting back and working out the details after laying out all the facts.

I had to read this book with some urgency at the behest of my daughter, who insisted that I must read something normal and fun. She believes that I mainly read "boring" books in masochistic torture.

Design Favourites

1. Infinity pool: I like it because of the aesthetics. It needs one sidewall lower than the water level and a pump to continuously maintain the water level.

2. Door free entrances to public rest rooms: I like it because it maintains privacy without an actual door, leading to better hygiene and easier maintenance.

3. Shutterless airplane windows: I like it because it removes one movable component per window. Also during take-off and landing, the pilot can centrally control the window transparency (without having the cabin crew pleading/cajoling all passengers to comply).

4. Slit in Ikea cup base: I like it due to its functional utility. When I first looked at a cup in Ikea, I thought it was a defective product. Later I saw every cup has that slit/chip. After about six months of use, I understood the reason. It was for draining residual water after a wash in the dishwasher when I kept the cup upside down. I realized it while unloading the dishwasher. Many bowls (ironically from Ikea itself) had a little bit of water remaining in the concavity behind the bowls. Not the cups. 

Also, you need to load the cups on the inclined portion of the dishwasher rack with the slit aligned with the slope. Only then the water will effectively drain out (as shown below):

Soul searching: Rough thoughts

1. If each cell within me is individually living, how do they transfer a part/whole of their consciousness to become a single 'I' (Sambaran)? Does an individual living cell at my fingertip know that it is part of a consciousness called Sambaran? Is Sambaran (a living consciousness) a part of some higher super-being/organism which Sambaran is unaware of?
2. I have an intense urge to live on and survive at a subconscious level (not at a conscious level, though). Why? Maybe the top-level I's commitment to all the cells living as part of 'me'.
3. If every cell, even the ones in my brain, dies and is replaced within six months, how do I have a continuous feeling of 'I' throughout my life? Do the dying cells transfer the 'I' consciousness to the living ones? What happens on Sambaran's death? What sends the signal to all the cells in the body that 'now is time to die' for all?

Raag Behag (Bihag)

Vocal

Instrumental

রবীন্দ্র সংগীত

Preferring Independent House in Old Age

In a recent twitter poll organized by Manish Chauhan of JagoInvestor.com, I was surprised to see that 50% of responders preferred independent-house in old-age (over a flat in a society). Since this was so counter-intuitive to me, I requested people to cite reasons to stay in independent-house. This post is to accumulate all those points. Some of the reasons FOR an independent house are not specific to old-age but evergreen points. I have classified them separately.

Specific to retirement/old-age:

1. Pursuing of hobbies: Retired old age IS the time to pursue hobbies. Some hobbies like gardening may not be suitable for shared flat kind of accommodation. Independent house helps.
2. High maintenance charge: Flats in societies can have very high maintenance charges, which may be unacceptable in retirement.
3. Status Quo: People want a familiar environment in old age. Folks who have stayed in independent houses all their life see no reason to change to flats in old age.
4. Proximity to parking: It is not possible to have car parked nearby in most societies. In old age, with limited mobility, this can be a good reason.

Evergreen:

1. Privacy: A private balcony is an impossibility in a shared society. In crowded cities, complete privacy may be hard to get, even in an independent house. But there is a finite probability of getting the requisite privacy.