Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Is the mind held captive by knowledge?


It is when I read a blog recently, which spoke about the mind and its struggles with its own ego, that set me thinking on whether indeed we could define tangible boundaries to the minds capabilities.


Later on in the week while discussing topics for a debate competition, we hit upon an argument on whether a topic could favour someone who has an idea about the topic. Yes, it could in terms of facts and figures, but what about abstract thought flows, ideas, logic and reasoning? Are these affected? That brought me right back to the question on being able to define a clear boundary for the mind’s capability.


Encouraging a parallel line of thought, I arrived at the next question : Do we need education? Is it a barrier to free thinking? Does it keep the mind captive within its realm?


Cogitating over this left me rather confounded. The very process of thinking about the mind, if I go by the questions raised above, would be limited by my knowledge and the ability of my own mind to think beyond the boundaries of its knowledge. But at the same time the very knowledge that ‘knowledge could be a barrier to the way my mind functions’, could empower me to think beyond what knowledge would permit me to otherwise.


So then, knowledge certainly does not restrict us but only acts as a guiding light. For most a guiding light can prove very useful. It takes an exceptional mind, an Einstein or a Newton, to find its way in darkness.

What knowledge also provides is a template to discipline the mind. We are all aware of the vagaries of the mind and for most it is a constant struggle, consciously or unconsciously, to bring it back on track. Whether it is a simple task like reading a book or writing this article, the mind is relentless in its efforts to attain freedom. As the Gita put it very simply, the mind is like a monkey. That one statement says it all. Doesn’t it?


Without education the mind is like a blindfolded monkey on a very tight leash. It jumps around having no clue what its treading on, but is limited by the area it can tread on.


Education takes the blindfold off and provides a longer leash. Now the monkey can not only see what its jumping on, but is also able to toy around with many more things.

What happens in most cases is that people end up getting tight ‘inelastic’ leashes for their minds. Thus limiting themselves to only the length of the leash provided by knowledge.

So people make sure you get yourselves ‘highly elastic’ leashes . So you can stretch it way beyond where knowledge could take you.

Hmmm!! This is getting recursive. The mind thinking about the mind.....

Thursday, December 09, 2004

You’ve Got Mail


With such tremendous improvements in technology, we should be completing our work faster. Shouldn’t we? But how many of us do? Why is it that people these days tend ‘to work’ longer hours, finishing exactly the same amount of work? Or should I be saying why is it that people these days tend ‘to stay in office’ for longer hours, finishing the same amount of work?

So what is it that people do in office? How do companies manage to keep their people busy?

By getting them to check their mails of course.

Everybody sends out mails to everybody else. The xyz department has to prove that its doing its bit, so it sends out a bunch of emails to everyone, the abc division of course does not want to be left behind, nor do the various other departments that exist in organizations. The managers of course have to keep their team motivated and focused, what better way could there be to communicate to them than to send frequent mails.

Thanks to mailing groups, you don’t even have to type in all the mail addresses, just type away and enter the group mailing id and you have just sent a mail to a thousand people.

So the top management keeps itself busy sending emails to everyone. The various departments compete with each other sending mails to everyone else proving how active they are in the organization and what a wonderful job they are doing. The managers motivate their respective teams by sending out mails to them and inform the rest of the world how well their teams are doing by sending out mails again.

The remaining people have just about enough time to read all their mails and realize how much work everyone else seems to be doing.

So who does all the work?

My guess is it gets done after office hours, when you are not expected to be in office. Which of course also implies that you are not expected to send any mails.

We are so used to being ‘connected’ all the time, through either email or chat clients or cell phones or landlines, that we are always expecting to be contacted by someone all the time. This has become such a constant distraction that it has had a huge impact on our productivity levels.

I bet you read at least 15 mails before you completed reading this. Gotcha!! Didn’t I? Anyways, its about time I check my inbox….

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Shanka hara Acharya ???

The arrest of the Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati has come as a huge jolt to the entire nation.

Like they say, everything is open to interpretations.
Shankhara – is supposed to mean one who clears or kills all doubts.
But it could just be a combination of words with no meaning at all. Or you could interpret each word separately and arrive at your own conclusion.

Very simply put, these are the questions millions of people had an answer to just a few days back and may be left stuttering when confronted today. Only time will probably give us the correct answer. For now, we can just hope that this was all a mistake.

Welcome to the dark murky world of religion and politics, where power play has become the order of the day. Religion and politics have become so intertwined that it is becoming extremely difficult to distinguish one from the other.

Millions of people who have believed in certain values and lived by them are left stranded with no ends to grope. At the end of the day one has only one’s conscience to cling on to.

But where it hits hardest is the youth, the new generation, the future. When such a blow can weaken strong foundations of faith built over many years, once can only imagine its impact on the younger generation.

It is the responsibility of the media, the politicians and all other public entities, while attempting to achieve their ambitions, to also keep in mind the impact such sensitive issues can have. The law will take its own course. Meanwhile, it is very important that the media, the politicians, religious leaders et al refrain from unnecessary speculation.

Sunday, October 31, 2004

Deccan Dexterity

It was on a recent trek which covered Mullyangiri, Kammengundi, Halebidu, Belur and Donigal, that the aura behind the deccan struck each an every one of us. Though for most part of the journey we trekked sitting comfortably inside a Qualis, I still prefer to call this trip a trek, because we did trek for a few hours towards the end.

Not only were we awestruck by the beauty of the deccan plateau, its history and the complex intermingling of geology, history, religion and economics in this region, but also by our ignorance of these facts. Adding to the insult, I managed to grab a book on the Deccan titled “Diving the Deccan” written by Bill Aitken, which not only exposed my ignorance, but also that of multitudes of Indians living their lives in blissful ignorance.

What does the word ‘Deccan’ mean to you? In all probability the geographical region that we know as deccan today or nothing at all.
Deccan is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘dakshina’, which also means “On the right hand” (from which incidentally the word ‘dexterity’ is also derived). It also referred to the southern direction in general. Today, in the hugely popular field of Vastu Shastra, the south is considered very auspicious.

Dakshina was corrupted by the British, probably to suit their tongue, to the word ‘Deccan’, which they defined as the semi arid land in the south central plateau.

The Deccan plateau is a semi arid region, that does not even boast of fertile lands. What is it here then, that has attracted people here? What is it in this land, that has caused so many battles to be fought over it?

People would argue that most of these battles were based on religion. But just a closer look would reveal that religion was hardly the reason. Hindus hated the Muslims, Buddhists and Jains, the Deccani Muslims hated the Mughal Muslims as much as they hated the Hindus, Buddhists and Jains, and Orthodox Muslims hated the Unorthodox Muslims as much as they did hate any other religion. In fact there have been repeated instances of alliances between the Hindu and Muslim rulers.

Though many of these battles have often been camouflaged by religious motives, these should be viewed from the diametrically opposite side, as battles for power, land and wealth. To the rational mind, it all made pure economic sense.

What the Deccan did possess was wealth. The Deccan throws up some of the earth’s richest minerals.

The Deccan to us today is a fusion of the North and South. It is a cultural melting pot, having ingredients from the Dravidian and the Aryan Culture, resulting in a flavour that is unique to the Deccan. The region boasts of high quality architecture, influenced by history geology and religion. To a theologist this region forms a treasure trove of competing religious ideologies.

My visit to Halebid and Belur, left me flabbergasted at what I saw and at my own blissful ignorance of it. ‘Halebidu’ in kannada, as I was told means, ‘destroyed house’ or ‘old house’. It was so named after it was attacked by the Alaudin Khilji. It was earlier called Dwara Samudra, the Capital city of the Hoysalas.

Many small stories that our Guide had to tell us, brought to life the carvings in the temple, each one of them telling us a story of its own.. For example, the story behind the name Hoysala. Apparently while a group of students were being taught by their Tutor, they were attacked by a Tiger. One of the students Sala stood his ground while most of the other students fled. The master throws a weapon towards sala and shouts ‘Hoy Sala’, which means ‘Kill Sala’, instructing him to kill the Tiger. Sala later went on to found the Hoysala Dynasty.

There was this one statue with a boy embracing a girl. But what was strange about it was that the girl had a donkeys head. The guide went on to explain what the artist was trying to explain here and it made a lot of sense to all of us. It simply meant, to a boy. at the age of sixteen even a donkey looks like a beautiful girl.

What was planned as a short 10 minute trip in and out, took us a whole two hours. The details of the carvings were simply breathtaking.

A trip down the Konkan coast, exposes us to the western tip of the Deccan Plateau. These gigantic rocks, which also happen to be one of the oldest on the surface of the earth, command respect as you look at them. You cant but help get the feeling that some of the rulers that the Deccan has churned out, owe their qualities of strength, ruggedness and enduring character to these very rocks.

Unlike the deserts or the oceans, where one is engulfed by the same constant monotony for miles to come, or the Himalayas, where each and every step is distraught with danger, the Deccan explodes with a mind boggling range of emotions, drawing you further towards it.

Looking forward to visit a lot more places.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Gastronomical De-Lite

The IT industry as a whole seems to be making a very conscious effort to contribute to the calorie levels of its employees. “Employee Growth” is being taken care of in every sense of the phrase.

Pssst…. If anyone is in the Office Furniture business, armless chairs are going to be the next super sellers. It is only natural that the comfort needs of employees are satisfied along with supporting their growth.

Like every other occasion, which is celebrated without fail, today too was celebrated. Ofcourse, when there is free food, who the hell cares what for? Anyways it was called Karavali Parba. It’s a traditional festival in Karnataka, they said. Starting of from a state of “delicate incertitude”, I have now attained the state of “Strong Suspicion” about the actual existence of any such festival. Power searches in google did not yield any fruitful results. But as they say, as long as its fun, who cares?

An enthusiastic start to a very traditional lunch on a plantain leaf was soon to become a concerted attempt at emptying the leaf. We had grossly underestimated our traditional meals. What saved us was a timely announcement by one of the organizers where he detailed the variouses courses in the meal. I don’t think I registered that entire list. But I remember, that he went on for quite some time.

Well it was certainly a Gastronomical Delight that was indeed also “De – Lite”.
What is scary, are the Olfactory Delights that lie in store in the air conditioned office interiors… Who says Art of Living and Meditation are not useful or practical???

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

tracert

For those of you who could not make any sense about the subject, its just a command in linux/unix that lets you trace the route to any machine on the internet from your machine.

Well frankly I had no idea what i was trying to name when i was asked for a name for my blog while registering. In fact it left me wondering as to how i got myself into this at all. This in short is the story behind the subject of this mail and the name of my blog.

Now that i seem to have figured out what it is that i have named, i suppose it is only my duty to enlighten anybody else who may wonder what all this is about anyways.

Boarding the same train of thought, it would not be pertinent to keep myself in the shadows, especially when i am throwing so much light around. I am a computer science engineer from the Cochin University of Science and technology. Following a short stint at Tata Consultancy Services and two years at a b-school(SCMHRD, Pune), I now find myself idling away my time at Infosys in a sleepy little port town in Karnataka.

Frankly, I am not much of a writer and this and the days to come would be my maiden attempts at it. As you probably have guessed already, its only after exhausting all other options of keeping myself busy in office that i am venturing into these realms.

It is only with the intention of making this introduction of mine technically "Complete", that I am about to take this post of mine perilously close to the lines of a hindi film script. I am not technology averse. I am totally new to blogging. I enjoy all kinds of music and movies. I read anything that is hot and in the news. Have just read Da Vinci Code. And I am trained in carnatic classical vocal and violin. And love indian food. Thats about it I guess.

I suppose you guessed most of that already, but the Hero has to sing a song and express his love for his heroine to make it a hit Bollywood fillum.

Please do mail me your comments, suggestions et al.
Hoping to churn out as many posts as the box office does films.

Abe oye, khatam nahi hua #$@# ...

to be continued...

Vinod