When arriving in a city we see streets in perspective. Sequences of buildings with no meaning. Everything is unknown, virgin. Later we’ll have lived in this city. We’ll have walked in its streets. We’ll have been to the end of the perspectives. We’ll have seen all the buildings. We’ll have lived stories with people. When we’ll have lived in this city, we’ll have taken this street 10, 20, a 1000 times. After a moment, everything belongs to you because you’ve lived there. It was to happen but I didn’t know it yet.
- L’Auberge Espagnole (2002)

The seemingly random chaos of the roads, streets and corners of this city all falls into place now. After 2 years I have finally deciphered the order in the chaos. I understand its pulse. I don’t feel a stranger anymore. Yes, Kochi too is now my home. And I’m loving it.

Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?

One of my favourite thought exercise is to romanticize about the chaos theory. So this other day, I was having a conversation with one of my dear friends regarding the multiple ‘what-if’s in our life line. Isn’t it incredible that random actions by random actors cause incredible repercussions to your future?

Sometime in 2002. I was attending the centralized allotment process for admission into an engineering college. For those who are unfamiliar with the process – people are called in order of the rank they get in an entrance test and they choose which college they want to study in. People with the higher rank therefore have more choice and usually have higher chances of getting into the college they want. I was chatting to this girl who had a rank just above me and she wanted to get into college X. We could see the live updates of the seats remaining in all colleges right in front of us. With 5 people to go; there were still 2 seats left for her preferred college. She was quite hopeful. But just as her turn came in; the board suddenly showed 0. She was quite disappointed and had to settle with some other college; lets say college Y. I came to know later that there was actually still 1 seat left when she had gone in for the allotment. What had happened was a clerical error and eventually I got allotted that seat. She could have gone ahead and given a complaint and this would have probably been sorted out in her favour; because I myself didn’t have an objection. But she and her parents waved it off and said they didn’t want the hassles. We became friends and after a few years I was still in touch with her. She studied for 4 years in college Y, she met a guy there, she fell in love with him, she got married to him recently and is now expecting a child – all because of a clerical error by a government employee. You might say it was all meant to be; it was fate yada yada – but isn’t it just so damn interesting that someone totally external to her world has affected her destiny and the destiny of generations to come?

Now what would have happened if the girl went and complained? That brings back to the discussion I had with my friend. How would that have changed my life? Would I have the same friends that I have? Would I have taken the same career path as what I have? Would we two have ever met? Questions and more questions. Life is an incredible collage of choices and coincidences.

There is this short story ‘A Sound of Thunder’ by Ray Bradbury written in the 1950s which discusses this theme in-depth. The protagonist goes on a time travel adventure to hunt Dinosaurs. The catch is that the Dino can be killed only at the moment when their natural death would have occurred anyway and you are not allowed to veer off from a precise predefined pathway. But the guy steps out of the path momentarily squashing a bug, whose effects change a lot of things in the future that he goes back to. It is a really good read and I would suggest you have a look at this whether or not you have are fanatical about the Chaos theory. You can read it online here.

Consider this – The 5 minutes you took reading this blog post; if you had spent those 5 minutes doing something else (probably more interesting) what would have changed in your life? You never know.. That’s the beauty of the butterfly effect!

One fine evening, tired after the days work, I found myself seated on my couch at home lazily surfing channels on the idiot box, unable to decide what to watch. This thought I’ve had a for a long time resurfaced – Life has become so damn complicated nowadays with all the choices that we have and the small decisions we are forced to make everyday. See, around 15 years ago, in the same scenario I would have come back home, turned on the TV and watched whatever show in whatever language without being confused about what would entertain me the most. Simply because we had just one damn channel (good old DD National) those days. TV seemed so much more enjoyable then without all this work.

But that sounds so counter intuitive, doesn’t it? Our brains have been trained over the years to believe that choice is always a good thing. It needn’t be. Choice has a dark side too. Think about it. Having to choose something over something else adds an additional responsibility on you. You suddenly think about stuff like ‘Did I choose right? What if what I chose ends up bad? What if I haven’t explored all possibilities?’. It just adds so much more pressure. Don’t take me wrong. I’m not here to say that we shouldn’t have options to select from. But too much of it usually ends up bad.

So eventually, I started looking around on the Internet on the topic; and happily found out that I wasn’t the only with this thought. Relief – I am not that weird as I thought I was. There are people way smarter than me who feel the same. I found this very interesting book by Barry Schwartz titled The Paradox of Choice. Do read it, it is very well researched and explains the concept quite beautifully. The book is available on a lot of places on the web (:grin); but I’ll make your life easier – Flipkart or Amazon.

PS: I do have a copy of the book with me; so if you know me in person; you know you just need to ask for it :)

The world seems to be filled about posts on Anna Hazare and Lokpal; maybe the last thing that you need is to read one more armchair analysis. It’s a free world though; so I need a place to write and you might not need to read this. So stop here if you think you’ve heard enough! :)

First of all, I give it to Anna for clamouring this much support. It’s no mean feat to rally around so many people for a cause. Have to appreciate that. But is the cause good though? Giving it a naive glance it would seem so. But things are not so simple in the real world. The real world doesn’t comprise of writing blogs, tweeting tweets and liking posts. The real world is a lot different. The real world is a lot more complicated. And I don’t think Anna’s cause is going to have desired effects. Let me try to explain why.

Indians, you and I, have a culture of corruption inbuilt in our genes. It’s not just the politician who’s corrupt – that bracket includes the common average Indian. A simple example. You are caught at a traffic signal violating the red light. The policeman who catches you red handed gives you two options – pay Rs 100 to him and you walk free or he gives you a ticket that needs to paid in court. What would you choose? I bet 90% of you who are reading this would go for option 1. We are inherently corrupt and are willing to sacrifice our principles to cut some corners. That’s the only practical way we know of dealing with such a situation. I myself remember just 2 instances in my life where I have given a bribe. I did have plenty of oppurtunities where I could have bribed.. when I got my passport, when I got my DL, when I built my house – but I never paid a penny. I feel strongly about that; but then again I believe I was just lucky. I never was challenged enough in such situations. If I would have been; when I think about it; I might have paid. Even with so many ‘set’ principles in my head – I admit I’ll be corrupt if the situation demands it.

There is a general misunderstanding that only the person who accepts a bribe is corrupt. The person who gives the bribe is equally responsible. Corruption in India therefore needs to be solved from the bottom levels before we go into tackling it among the highest authorities. Frankly, I don’t see it making any difference at all. I read posts saying that the day Lokpal is passed; India’s going to be transformed overnight into Singapore. Bullshit. In fact, from the way I see it, it’s just going to be the opposite. An Indian does stuff only if he sees an incentive for himself in it. Very very few people are selfless or are keen to be professional in what they do. Applies to politicians, applies to government servants, applies to you, applies to me. Sadly, I think the whole motivation behind a lot of development activities in India is because the people responsible for it see an opportunity for grabbing something for themselves. If they think they’ll be caught; they’ll not take a bribe; they’ll just not do the project also. That’s where India is going to lose. There I said it! – India has actually benefited from high level political corruption. Sad, but true. Corruption is what drives development in India.

Ok, so that was my rant. What is my solution sitting in an armchair? Forget about the guys at the top level. Eliminate the root causes of corruption at the lower levels. Increase the salary of the policeman, the teacher, the clerk, the secretary and every single government servant. So that they don’t feel the need to be bribed to do their job. Atleast some of us would be converted – I’m sure. This may still be naive; but not as naive as telling me that having an additional bureaucratic engine would solve the problems of corruption in India. That would eventually just become another set of officials that need to be bribed. One more obstacle.

Corruption is not a problem that we can afford to solve at this moment in my humble opinion. We as a nation are not at that stage. There are a lot of other pressing problems like poverty, infrastructure and education to solve. Corruption is too big a challenge and too expensive to monitor and eliminate at this point. We’ll someday reach that stage. But we are nowhere near that now.

And like it or not; India is a democracy. Arm twisting the government isn’t the way to get things done in a democracy. Having no politicians is worse than having bad politicians. Think about it.

Let’s be civil. Let’s think of a practical solution to our problem and not indulge in foolishness.

Another year has gone by and as usual it went pretty fast. I guess as you get older, time flies faster than before. One more year deposited to your nostalgia bank and one more year worth of events to memorize. 2010, though, unlike some of those nasty years before it, hasn’t been a up and down sine graph for me – instead my joys and sorrows have kept the curve generally flat, with the ups dominating the downs. Ok, I will not indulge in further geeky analogies from science, you have my word :)

This year was an year of changes. I have relocated to a new place, a new home, a new job and even a new career to an extent. And I am happy that I made all those switches. I have a job that I love, I am doing stuff that matters more. That’s upside #1, and somehow that has floated this year really high in terms of endearment. I miss a lot of things too though. I miss Bangalore, I miss Bosch, I miss the evenings with friends there. But to gain you have to loose some. And eventually I guess the balance tips in favour of the new life. So not a bad decision in the end. Pat on the back.

2010 was also seems like a season for weddings. Two of my dear cousins, umpteen number of close friends – everybody seems to have chosen this year to get married. And as the year ends, the bachelor count in my friend circle is being heavily battered. I am wondering if I’ll end up being the last man standing, the next year I write the post. Watch this space.

Travel wise too the year was good. I finally got to see a lot more of India. Mumbai, Gurgaon, Delhi, Kolkata, Sikkim, Bihar, UP – all first time visits, all happened this year. So yeah, I traveled to my hearts content.

Material gain was also quite high. I’m obviously getting paid more, and with that spending a lot more too! I bought a new car, my new house is nearing completion and I got a new camera. So some of my dreams are finally coming through. Life’s become more extravagant, but I don’t mind that. Whatever the philosophers say, materialism is still important to some degree, atleast for me. Thanks to 2010 for that.

On the flip side, I bid goodbye to a few close friends, whom I might never see again. Having a life built around friends, that needs some adjustments from my side too. But yeah, things won’t remain the same forever can it? I’ll consider that a small blemish amidst all the positives. And yeah, atleast there’s Facebook – which is why I don’t care about the privacy stuff.

All in all – 2010, you were a super-duper-awesome year for me. And I can quite safely say that it was definitely one of the best years in my life so far. 2011′s peeping by the door – welcome, but you do have a tough act to follow!