Sharan Sharma

Weekend Photo and Comment - Abbi Falls, Coorg

2011-12-17T15:09:00.000-05:00

Found it slightly hyped. If you're from Maharashtra, then you've seen plenty of falls like these in the ghat section (Khandala, Lonavala, Matheran etc.). We visited on a Saturday so there was the usual weekend crowd. But most of all, tons of school students. And harried teachers mouthing 'discipline' gibberish; "walk straight" was one such strong missive to a perfectly (in my mind) well behaved student by one her dictatorial teachers. Education, they call it.

I am told the falls actually fall in a private estate but the owner has given an okay to the government to give the public access. The falls are barricaded (apparently a favourite suicide point) so if you want to get wet under/near a waterfall you'll have to go elsewhere.

Elephants at Dubare

2011-11-26T09:21:00.001-05:00

We visited Dubare Elephant Park, Coorg recently. The park is run by the Government of Karnataka and is on the banks of the Cauvery. You take a short boat ride (ETT - 3 minutes) from one end of the bank to the camp for Rs. 20 a head.
(click on the images below for a bigger picture)

The elephants for the famous Mysore Dassara celebrations used to be trained here. Elephants were also trained for to take part in logging operations - something that's now done by machines, forcing the elephants to take iVRS and spending their time here.

The trip was slightly disappointing due to the promise-delivery difference. For example, they charge for "elephant bathing" - but you'd be disappointed if you thought they'll give you a chance to do that. They just allow you to see it. But you'll bump into people telling you with a proud smile that they bathed the elephants, lopped coconut shells and all. Maybe it's dependent on the crowd. To be fair their website doesn't claim that you can bathe the elephants but the guys at the counter do.

Similarly "elephant feeding" doesn't mean you get to feed them. You just get to see the cart-loads they gulp down. The obedient elephants won't even accept a banana from you if you don't go through the keeper! The best part is that the bananas are given by the department themselves for you to feed - only to be rejected by the elephant. Didn't the elephants like us? Anyway, we ended up gulping the bananas down. The elephant rides had a waiting queue of at least 45 minutes and we didn't have that kind of time. So we spent about 1.5 hours and exited.

On the bright side, the trip gave us a great chance to see elephants up-close. As in, cageless touch-feel distance.

And also enough to wonder at Mother nature's design. As in:

1) The elephant's trunk contains 100,000 individual muscles (not skeletal muscles). Damn! Damn! Yes, two damns! And the trunk is sensitive enough to pick up a pin. You bet. With 100,000 muscles.

2) The trunk can hold about 8 litres of water at once.

3) They have a total of 26 teeth (not two! - the tusks are like the human incisors) and unlike humans, they have about 6 cycles of dentition.

4) They weigh about about 3000 kgs; 150 kgs of food and 80 litres of water a day keeps an elephant the giant it is.

5) They sleep for just about two hours a day. Why? Because they spend about 18 hours a day looking for and chomping their veggies.

6) To supplement their diet, they dig up soil for salt and minerals. Entire hills have been carved out due to this action! More about that here.

7) The skin feels tough to touch (the word pachyderm means thick skin) but it has so many nerve endings that it makes it sensitive enough to detect even a fly sitting on it. The pink coloration that you see in the snap below is due to depigmentation - characteristic of Asian elephants.

8) Elephants don't perspire. So they use their ears as fans which cools the blood near the ears by as much as 6 degrees Celsius which is then circulated to the rest of the body

9) They swim well but cannot jump or gallop; They need to have at least one foot on the ground.

10) They have a gestation period of 22 months. And here i was thinking 9 months was tough.

11) They live in matriarchal groups led by (mostly) the oldest/largest female

So much for one animal. Great Mother Nature. What also amazes me is the courage of that first human group to have thought to domesticate this great animal.

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...and oh, the wonders of the internet. There's a page that gives you tips on keeping your very own pet elephant! Best part:

Prevent the elephant from getting chilly after a shower

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Facts and figures given above pertain to the Indian Asian Elephant (elephas maximus indicus). For difference between the African and Asian elephant see here. They even belong to different genera ! (loxodonta and elephas for African and Asian respectively. That seemed surprising to me as a layman but Wikipedia also says that there are no hard and fast rules for genus classification. Before this gets any more confusing, am going to stop.

Arunachala

2011-11-12T14:21:00.001-05:00

ऒम् नमो भगवते रुद्राय !

We were blessed to be at Tiruvannamalai last month. Here are six pictures taken - was quite happy with the images coming from a cellphone!

The verses are those of the Arunachala Pancharatnam composed by Sri Ramana Himself. Have tried a loose translation - apologies for mistakes, if any. See here for more detail.

करुणापूर्णे सुधाब्धेकबलितघनविश्वरूप किरणावल्या

अरुणाचलपरमात्मनरुणो भव चित्तकञसुविकासाय || 1 ||

O, one who is overflowing with compassion!

O, ocean of nectar! By whose rays the dense universe isswallowed.

O Supreme Self Arunachala! Be thou the sunthat fully blossoms my mind lotus!

त्वय्यरुणाचलसर्वम् भूत्वास्थित्वा प्रलीनमेतच्चित्रम्

हृद्यहमित्यात्मतयानृत्यसि भोः ते वदन्ति हृदयन्नाम || 2 ||

In you, O Arunachala, doesthis picture come into being, exists and is destroyed.

The Self-essence in the formof ‘I’ are you who dances in the heart!

They say ‘heart’ is yourname.

अहमिति कुतः आयातीत्यन्विष्यान्तःप्रविष्टयात्यमलधिया

अवगम्यस्वम्रूपम् शाम्यत्यरुणाचल त्वयिनदीवब्धौ || 3 ||

Avery pure mind having entered within by inquiring “From where does this ‘I’come”, and having known one’s own Self, becomes still.

Inyou, O Arunachala, like a river in the ocean!

त्यक्त्वा विषयम् बाह्यम् रुद्धप्राणेन रुद्धमनसान्तस्त्वाम्

ध्यायन्पश्यति योगी दीधितिम् अरुणाचलत्वयि महीयम् ते || 4 ||

Meditating on you after rejecting externalities by means of a restrainedbreath and mind, the yogi sees Light, O Arunachala!

They are exalted in you.

त्वय्यर्पितमनसा त्वाम् पश्यन् सर्वम्तवाकृतितया सततम्

भजते अनन्य प्रीत्या सा जयत्यरुणाचल त्वयिसुखे मग्नः || 5 ||

OArunachala! Seeing you by means of a mind surrendered to you, he triumphs, OArunachala, who always worships everything as your form with undistracted love!

Hedrowns in happiness in you.

श्रीमद्रमणमहार्षेर् दर्शनमरुणाचलस्यदेवगिरा

पञकमार्यागितौ रत्नम् त्विदमौपनषदम् हि || 6 ||

Thesefive verses in the Arya meter on the holy hill of Arunachala are revealed bySri Ramana Maharishi. They are indeed Upanishadic gems.

False Idolatory and Role Models

2011-11-09T10:43:00.003-05:00

Blogpost summary: 8.3/10 on the rant scale.

I. Epic Stuff:

Jobs was outraged and summoned Gates from Seattle to Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters. “They met in Jobs’s conference room, where Gates found himself surrounded by ten Apple employees who were eager to watch their boss assail him,” [...]

‘You’re ripping us off!’ he shouted. ‘I trusted you, and now you’re stealing from us!’ ”

Gates looked back at Jobs calmly. Everyone knew where the windows and the icons came from. “Well, Steve,” Gates responded. “I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.”

Jobs was someone who took other people’s ideas and changed them. But he did not like it when the same thing was done to him.

Read the whole article

And read this for a better background (and also here)

II. i loved his presentation skills. i learnt a lot from his Stanford Speech. There are detractors (this too) but overall, i agree with what Jobs says in the speech. Jobs' tenacity, passion and legendary attention to detail are also obviously worth emulating.

But what i cannot understand is the blind idolisation of the man by certain sections of the public and media. He clearly had his share of negatives. For example, along with his attention to detail came a nasty impatience with colleagues.

In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, "afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened...

(See here and here)

His arrogance and sharp tongue are probably as legendary as his products. I'm also uncomfortable with some of his personal decisions:

For two years, though already wealthy, he (Steve Jobs) denied paternity while Lisa's mother went on welfare. At one point Jobs even swore in a signed court document that he couldn't be Lisa's father because he was "sterile and infertile, and as a result thereof, did not have the physical capacity to procreate a child." He later acknowledged paternity of Lisa [...]

(link)

From what i've seen, members of his hard-core supporter group (HCSG) just don't acknowledge all this. (I guess that is why they are called 'hard-core'). What is also curious is that the HCSG also tries to justify some of his personal decisions. Take charity, for example. It is widely believed that Jobs was not particularly philanthropically inclined.

Even as a non-member of the HCSG, i don't mind that Jobs didn't give. It was his money. As long as it was legally earned and taxes paid, it's none of my business to crib about his lack of giving - not counting the fact that his charity may well have been private.

But why do we see poor justifications like this? This article almost looks like Steve Jobs' sole objective in making an iPhone was to make the world a happier place to live in! Or if an organisation made a great product, they don't have to care about philanthropy.

Also, while i don't mind Jobs' non-giving, i do mind him talking badly about those who do give. Jobs on Gates:

"Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he's more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology.

Uh!

III. This entire thing serves to reinforce in myself some of what i try to follow about public role-models (PRMs):

i. They are not meant to be copied to the last atom of their personalities. It is essential to selectively emulate. A negative attribute (arrogance, aggression, cheating etc.) is negative even if it exists in famous CEO of XYZ, also a person who gives tremendously to charity.

Many of these people have double lives - a flashy testosterone-driven 'cool' life in front of the cameras and a depressed shadow life behind the scenes.They ain't all that cool when you get to know them really well.

ii. Content not Covering. Great presentation skills, looks that can kill, smart dressing, power exuding from his armpits etc: Keep all that aside. What is the life s/he's leading? What's s/he saying? There have been umpteen instances where i've come back from a presentation or talk by a PMR where he's spoken nonsense but look all around and you'll find eyes popping out of sockets among a big fan-following going ga-ga over...over what? Don't know. Just the personality, i guess.

iv. PRMs don't operate alone. They have a team working for them. Next time you hear an exceptional speech by a PRM, applaud it but consider that it may have come from a very good speech writer. So don't feel bad for yourself :)

v. Respect but do not be in jaw-dropping awe of PRM. For one, it indicates a lack of confidence in yourself as a unique human being.

vi. Be objective. You are not obliged to - and in fact, shouldn't - defend your PRM for every thing s/he thinks/says/does.

vii. A role model is not equivalent to a mentor. Getting a good mentor is one of the best things that can happen to one's life and career. A PRM is dispensable.
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1. Sorry for the link loading but here's another good link.
2. For all the hoopla, look what's happening to the market share.
3. Couldn't resist another link

A 64 year old banality

2011-10-20T05:23:00.001-04:00

i'm tired. i hope my fellow countrymen are too.

He said, "We shall continue to fight the casteist, corrupt and criminal forces in the state and work for peace, social harmony and development."

link

But hey, what happened to "communal"! He missed the most important word in today's politics.

Anyway, apart from working for development, harmony and all that, also expect free electricity, TV sets, reservations, potatoes or whatever before the next polls.

related cartoon

Life

2011-10-12T12:09:00.001-04:00

Flower in the stream

This too my lovely life

Must end, another flower

To fall and float away

- Uejima Onitsura

What is 850 x 77.1 ?

2011-09-09T03:59:00.004-04:00

If you're in front of your computer you may most likely reach for Microsoft Excel and calculate this.
...and be surprised at the answer (if you have Excel 2007 or earlier versions).

See this link for a discussion.
i came across this while reading this excellent article.

Nandi Hills

2011-09-06T06:48:00.001-04:00

(Click to enlarge)

Nice place to go to. Very well maintained by the Horticulture Department of the Govt. of Karnataka. Only issue is nuisance tourists (a minority) who insist on drinking even when there is an explicit prohibition against alcohol on the sacred hills.

Dealing with the Ganeshotsav noise

2011-09-02T14:45:00.004-04:00

i wanted to earlier title this post as "Dealing with the Ganeshotsav menace" but wiser counsel prevailed.

When Ganesh Chaturthi approaches, i am filled with irritation - due to the impending noise pollution i have to put up with. Several buildings nowadays in Mumbai have their own Ganeshotsav to flaunt. i say flaunt because keeping a Ganapati idol and worshiping it doesn't seem to be the main purpose of inviting the Lord. The event is mainly a social one and to flaunt one's wealth ("my idol bigger than yours"). Even this is okay with me - after all i am not affected. What i cannot stand is the NOISE. Blaring louspeakers playing stupid songs full of apasvara. (though i must confess when Lataji's bhajans are on, my irritation coefficient is low). Irritation build further when a call to a resident of one of the offending (and offensive) buildings met with a "C'mon - it's just 10 days in a year". can't these people understand that there may be infants, old people, sick people around. Or simply people who want to be just left in peace?

Lord Ganapati is a symbol of omkara. Contemplation on this can happen only in silence. But obviously, circumstances are not in our control. The police will not help. And like demonstrated above, the neighbors don't care a dam for your peace of mind. So what does one do? I wish i were away in an ashram in the himalayas, i think. And at this juncture, great advice comes in. From: "Zen: Meeting of East and West" by Philip Kapleau:

"In my experience, there was little solitude or "peace and quiet" at monasteries and meditation centers where the training was rigorous. Only in romantic novels about the East, or in their movie counterparts, are monasteries set i lush valleys aglow with heavenly peace, the white-bearded sage with flowing robes, his staff in hand, gently saying "My sons..." to the sweet-faced disciples gathered round him while gems of wisdom tumble from his lips and a magnificent sun sinks into the horizon behind him. The reality, believe me, is far less romantic."

(p. 44. emphasis mine)

And then Roshi Kapleau goes on to give his experience in Burma and Japan. In the former case, meditation students had to share their huts with packs of dogs who kept fighting. These dogs found their way to monasteries to escape death from the government who had declared a no-canine policy. In the Japan case (dogs again), dogs used to be left abandoned in the monasteries by villagers. Invariably during meditation time, the place...

"...erupted into a cacophony of yelps, yaps, howls, growls, barks, snarls, whines, meows and hisses [...]. With a strengthening of concentration, after two or three months of zazen, this jam session, surprinsingly, often acted as a spur instead of a hindrance, for the strong effort to transcend the disturbance unlocked energies not usually available. When one succeeded in focusing on one's practice, the clamor, through some mysterious alchemy, became a harmonious chord."

(p 45. emphasis mine)

So basically, if i want peace i have to find it right here, right now. Can't wait for ideal conditions. In my case, what compounded the issue was the irritation caused in thinking "why can't these people be sensitive to others" or "what is the mentality of the public". This is of course my problem - a problem of expectation. Here's another great excerpt on this account:

"Would you get upset at a small tree in the forest for not being tall and straight like some of the others? This is silly. Don't judge other people. There are all varieties. No need to carry the burden of wishing to change them all."

Ven.Ajahn Chah quoted in Living Dharma, Teachings of Twelve Buddhist Masters (p.48) by Jack Kornfield

This Ganesa Chaturthi, i promise Lord Ganapati that i will try and implement the above pieces of advice.

Perverted Secularism

2011-08-25T03:11:00.001-04:00

As a superb example of the perversion of thought in the current Indian mind, TOI's front-page says:

Ramlila Maidan was first associated with the fine fabric of communal harmony when the Mughal emperors allotted this space to the Hindu population to celebrate Dussehra

Before we proceed, note that today's Hindu population in ~80% of India. i'm guessing here, but five hundred years ago, this might have been 90%. So 90% of the population were allotted a piece of land to celebrate their festival. Wowie!

Apparently, the fine fabric of communal harmony is further made up of the following elements of humiliation.

Exhibit 1

During his reign, tens of thousands of temples were desecrated: their facades and interiors were defaced and their murtis (divine images) looted. In many cases, temples were destroyed entirely; in numerous instances mosques were built on their foundations, sometimes using the same stones.

Exhibit 2

In India, Islamic rulers imposed jizya starting in the 11th century.

Oh but that's okay. After subjugating and humiliating the people of the land, they gave them a piece of land to celebrate. That's what is important.

This is the kind of reporting that leads the Hindu to feel that she is being continuously taken for a fool. And stokes anger. "Fine fabric of communal harmony"? Who buys that kind of an argument? And in the information age where facts can be easily verified.

The sane thing to do is present facts. Or if you don't want to do that, at least please don't not wring history's neck the way it's done in this example article. The day our education, political intellectual, historical systems are honest, that day we will see things changing for the better.

All of this doesn't mean for a second that i support anger or violence citing historical wrong-doing. "They demolished our temple 632 years ago, now we want revenge". That's plain wrong.

The ideal setting is for an honest acknowledgement from the above systems that wrongs were committed in the past in the name of religion (and is still being done)- without nonsense like "oh, ______ Mughal ruler did it only for commercial reasons and not religious reasons". And on the other side to please let go, stop wasting time and move on in life.

Ganapati Bappa Morya

2011-08-25T02:35:00.002-04:00

With Ganesh Chaturthi 'round the corner, it is time to pray for those people who publish things like this:

To Ganesh for removing obstacles, a good way to start any project or ritual:
Ganapati Bappa Morya
Pudhachya Varshi Lovkar Yaa

Link

The meaning of this actually is: O Lord Ganapati, please come soon next year.

Hey Bhagavan.

I don't believe this

2011-08-20T03:58:00.000-04:00

Link
Via

Another link to read

Why would i buy this book?

2011-06-06T08:34:00.001-04:00

Was buying some books from the National Geographic site.

Came across a book's cover page:

link

Anyone in the Indian subcontinent will be surprised by the lack of synchronicity between the book title and the cover. The bindi is not at all an Islamic symbol. In fact, Islam prohibits wearing the bindi.

At this deep level of ignorance, why would i even consider buying the book?

Friendly only if you know English

2011-03-29T09:24:00.005-04:00

Yesterday's DNA reports

Although peons are an integral part of a school, often they are unable to strike camaraderie with the students or parents as they are unable to speak in English.

Now, to set things right, many schools are sending their peons to night schools for English lessons.

(emphasis mine)

This is revolting but there's more:

“A school peon is the first person parents turn to for help. He knows the school inside out. But many a times, peons do not know any other language besides Hindi and their native tongue. Parents also tend to disregard them. English lessons will help them in communicating with students and parents alike,” said Sister Rani Anthony, principal, Villa Theresa School, Peddar Road.

i wonder if the good Sister even knows how decidedly ridiculous "does not know any other language besides Hindi and their native tongue" means. Native tongue indeed.

The problem is not with the poor peons. It is with the nouveau crowd who is ignorant about any Indian language. In fact, it is a fashionable statement to say so. These are the same set of people brought up on Baa Baa Black Sheep and who then go on to consume large amounts of English media, prefer to speak to each other only in English all the while completely ignorant about their own fantastic linguistic heritage lying in their backyard.

In fact, the above quote should be "it is a real pity that parents do not know any Indian language well. They only know (imperfect) English of the type spoken in American serials and reality shows and just about a smattering of their native tongue. We have now decided to burden the poor peons due to the ignorant parents."

Another mistake here is to confuse good communication skills with communication in English. If anything, the peons will be left worse-off by forcing them to communicate their thoughts in an alien language. Why not a course on good communication skills per se?

This story is a great example that demonstrates symptoms of a country in a state of rot. Why else would a country with 100s of languages each with incredible depth of expression look to "set right things" since a poor peon cannot speak in communicate in an alien language? Beats me.

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P.S: Thanks to Sandeep who in his comment below reminds me of Becoming Indian by Pavan K. Varma. Highly Recommended.

Woh to Dilliwaala hai

2011-03-25T15:56:00.002-04:00

Post prelude: All Delhi lovers: Please forgive me for not liking your beloved city and it's denizens. But these are my genuine feelings.
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Really enjoyed reading this piece by Sandeep.

To be very honest, i get a bad feeling every single time i land in Delhi. The vibe is that of everyone wanting to cheat you -and have no qualms about it. In fact, the bad feeling starts when i am in the airport among a group of seeming Dilliwaalas waiting to get into the shuttle bus. I've often asked myself why? Some example hypotheses i had were:
1) That i am from the South and find myself in a culture i am not familiar with
2) That I ~~associate~~ hold Delhi, being the premier centre of the government of India, responsible for the sorry state of our nation
3) The language issue; while i speak fairly fluent Hindi i don't have the Panju twang so maybe that makes me uncomfortable

Over the years i've come to realize that my discomfort is certainly a cultural one. Sandeep points those out in his post. I think he is in a great position to write about this issue - he's a Panju born and brought up in aamchi-Mumbai and has been living in Delhi for the last three years.

My observations about dilliwaalas:
1) It's all about power, money and who you 'know'.
2) For the upper class, please add faux-intellectualism to the above. As in winter evening India center talks where a firang will come and lecture to a group of bandh-gallas and worn-to-attract sarees about the renaissance that the Buddha created 2000 years ago and the ill effects of the Vedic religion.
3) For the non-upper class, add faux-spirituality to 1). As in attend सतसंग and then illegally extend your apartment for the puja room
4) Brash masculinity. Refined behavior is seen as a sign of weakness.
5) Generally disrespectful towards women
6) Dilli is my world - unless we're talking Southhall or Toronto.
7) Corrolory to 6): All people below MP are मदरासीs and what a bloody funny lot they are.
8) I can do no wrong
9) Corruption is completely okay. After all it's कलियग.
10) Bending and breaking the rules - from traffic lights to more serious ones - are a sign of your power. Getting caught is even better - it's more fun to use bribe or connections to free yourself and tell everyone how you made one call to Girhotra-ji and the hawaldar was quaking.

Top lines from a dilliwalla...and experiences usually are in this sequence:
1) करवा देँगे
2) समझलो आपका काम हो गया। घर जा करके भाभ्जी को कह देना...
3) वो अब तक आया नही? उसे तो मैँने चार घंटे पहले ही भेज दिया
4) Boss,वो एक problem आगई है...खन्ना ओर पैसे माँग रहा है...
5) काम तो आपका हो जायेगा...बस थोडा wait करना पडेगा...
6) अरे! मैं आपको help कर रहा हूँ और आप...मैँ कहाँ कोई भागके जा रहा हूँ क्या?
7) वो deposit तो मिलना मुशकिल है पर...

For long i felt i alone had this impression about Delhi. Until in a sales meeting many years ago, when an executive claimed that there were going to a lot of orders next month from client X, a manager said "कोई भरोसो नही...वो दिल्लीवाला है"

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More reading

Myths and Misconceptions in Survey Sampling - 2 (SRS is the "safest" sampling scheme)

2011-01-28T10:19:00.001-05:00

In the first of this series, we looked at what SRS is. It certainly is the simplest sampling scheme. But not the safest.

Think of a population of 100 people made up of 50 girls and 50 boys. Your task is to sample 10 persons. You go ahead and take a SRS sample expecting that you'll anyway get a "representative sample" expecting 5 girls and 5 boys. But do not be very surprised if you get 3 girls and 7 boys. Why? Chance. For the same reason that you do not always get one head and one tail exactly when you toss a coin twice. Best way to understand this is to conduct a small simulation in R:

#create a population of boys, girls and total  
pb <-  rep("B", 50)                             
pg <- rep("G", 50)                           
pt <-  c(pg, pb)
 
#create an empty list to store results of sampling
s1 <-- rep(list(rep("NA",10)),1000) 
 
#take 1000 samples of 10 persons each (with replacement)
for (i in 1:1000) {
     s1[[i]] <- sample(pt, 10)
}
 
#calculate % of boys selected in each sample of 10 and plot results  
s2 <- sapply(s1, function(x) length(x[x=="B"])*10)
hist(s2)

Created by Pretty R at inside-R.org

Of course, practically we would do this exercise just once and not 1000 times. But the above histogram illustrates that there is a chance (though small) that you can end up having even 2 boys in a sample of 10 individuals. A better approach in this case is to stratify the population into girls and boys and choose 5 out of 50 from each.
Bottomline: SRS is not the safest sampling scheme. Stratification is an insurance against chance.

Yet, there are times when you might need to use SRS:
1) You have nothing but a list of elements but no extra information on them. e.g drawing a sample from a list of voters in an area
2) When being correct might weaken your case (such is life). Sharon Lohr in her book gives the example of a legal case where a complicated sampling scheme might seem like "you are making the number up".

Myths and Misconceptions in Survey Sampling - 1 (SRS , EPSEM and Self-weighting samples)

2011-01-12T10:10:00.007-05:00

1. Misconception 1: SRS , EPSEM and Self-weighting samples are interchangeable terms
Many use these terms interchangeably in conversation or writing. But, for example:

"Similarly we must avoid the common confusion of epsem with simple random sampling (srs). Probably most survey samples are epsem but very few are srs (outside academic writing)

(Leslie Kish: Selected papers, Leslie Kish, Graham Kalton, Steven Heeringa)

In fact, even Wikipedia makes that mistake!

"A self-weighting sample, also known as an EPSEM (Equal Probability of Selection Method) sample...

Let's see why these terms are not interchangeable.
1) Simple Random Sampling (SRS)
The basic form of sampling similar to a draw of balls from an urn (aren't you tired of urn examples?).

"Simple Random Sampling is a method of selecting n units out of the N such that even one of the NCn distinct samples has an equal chance of being drawn. In practice a simple random sample is drawn unit by unit.

Sampling Techniques, Cochran (Chapter 2)

So, each population frame element has an equal chance of being selected irrespective of how many at a time the sampling is done - individually, pair-wise, three-at-a-time etc. Also,

"We shall restrict the term simple random sampling to situations where the elements are selected individually, hence the elements are also the sampling units. This differs from cluster sampling where the sampling units are clusters containing several elements.

Survey Sampling, Kish 2.1

2) EPSEM

"Sample Designs assigning equal probabilities to all individual elements of a frame population are called "epsem" for Equal Probability Selection Method

Survey Methodology, Robert M. Groves, James M. Lepkowski et al., 4.3

So,
1) EPSEM is not one specific sampling method but consists of many types as long as they all result in (known) equal selection probabilities
2) SRS is a type of EPSEM but every EPSEM need not be (and usually is not) an SRS. For example, Probability Proportionate to Size (PPS) is an EPSEM design that is a type of cluster sampling (see above quote from Kish) i.e not SRS.

3) Self-weighting samples:

We collect data from samples not as an end in itself but to learn something about the population from which the samples were drawn. In this process, a weight is attached to each sample element. Why? To correct any possible imbalances that might (will) crop up in the process of implementing the design. For example, say you draw a simple random sample from a list of people. At this stage every person has an equal chance of being selected and thus the same weight.

Now if each person that was contacted responded to the survey and there were no other survey problems (like the filled-in questionnaire getting lost!), each person would still have the same weight, which would actually be the inverse of his selection probability) . This kind of a sample would be called a self-weighting sample.

But in practice, you find that the response rate to your survey among the upscale people is lower than the rest and you've ended up getting more responses from the non-upscale folk. This would make your results biased. To compensate for this we would calculate an apply a weight that will upweight an upscale person (and therefore downweight the rest). So what started off as an EPSEM design is no longer a self-weighting sample. In fact, this is actually what ones finds in practice and so:

"Others have used the phrase self-weighting sample, although some eschew this term, given that weighting typically involves nonresponse adjustment and some form of calibration such as ratio adjustment or raking, and these lead to unequal weights even when all elements of the sample have been selected with equal probability.

Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods, Ed. Paul Lavrakas. The entry "EQUAL PROBABILITY OF SELECTION"

Summary
1. SRS is an EPSEM method but not every EPSEM is SRS
2. Every SRS is self-weighting (in principle) but every self-weighting sample need not be SRS
3. EPSEM samples are self-weighting in principle but not in practice

This is our culture - Murder a classic!

2011-01-11T13:30:00.002-05:00

I actually had tears in my eyes when i saw this video. After watching this video (not the entire length for God's sake but just the first 30 seconds) you may well ask why? "Isn't this a regular movie sequence? Idiotic may be but tears in your eyes? C'mon, you're overdoing it!".

Here's the reason: The song(kirtana) is originally a divine soul-touching classical composition. Please read the entire article about the kirtana's saint-composer, Sri Bhadrachala Ramadasu at the wiki-link here.

Here are the lyrics:

O, Rama! Is it that a word from your mouth is so precious and rare?
Why don’t you respond when I call you? I who have never forgotten your thoughts even in my dreams.

The kriti evokes devotional thoughts in anyone who has at least a tinge of sattva. How could they even do this? Don't they have a sense of shame? A sense of heritage, culture, pride, dignity? The scary thing for me is that i feel the overwhelming majority of people will end up liking the 'song' in this fashion. Now we know why the country is in this state.

Now after all this if you are wondering what the original is like, please hear the below video. Note that this is not really classically rendered (i for one find some elements added rather corny) but i've included it to demonstrate that while one may take some liberty, at least preserve the basic ethos of the song (this is difficult to define but i think easy to know).

And this is one way it is traditionally rendered. I've taken this video since it shows you the kind of absorption and involvement that goes into the kirtana unlike that crass video right at the top.

Truck Wisdom

2011-01-09T15:16:00.002-05:00

This is the guy who coined "With friends like these who needs enemies". I have a sneaky feeling he has a lot of friends. All locked in there.

Learning to drive (in Mumbai) - 1

2010-10-16T12:34:00.006-04:00

15 agonizing years. Near and dear ones wondering what's wrong with me. And with all good intentions goading me on. My own internal frustrations building up. But lots of fear to deal with.

What am i talking about? Don't laugh but i'm talking about learning to drive!

I can't tell you how scared i was about driving. Basically i just couldn't get some things. For example:

1) How do you manage 3 pedals with 2 legs?

2) How do you manage steering and gears with just a pair of hands?

3) How do you judge stuff on the left hand side when you are on the right?

4) How do you tell the guy driving behind you not to honk the heart out of your chest?

5) How do you take a u-turn that requires a reverse at the end when no ones willing to even stop for you?

6) How do you tell the guy trying to nudge his way in ('illegally') that you are freakin' late for a meeting so can he please get the hell out of the way?

7) How do you temporarily halt the car in the middle of traffic, gently come out of the car and smack the auto guy on his head for dramatically stopping for a customer without showing any indication?

8) How do you drive on a one-way street with traffic from both directions?

And then there were the moral dilemmas:

1) To go or not to go

Red Signal. You're first in line. No one's coming from any other side. 20 cars behind you honking for you to move. Do you move? If you don't you get cursed. If you do, the cop lurking behind the pan-bidi stall springs at you.

2) Traffic Cops - The Black Swan experts

Do you halt at a signal at 7:00 am when there's no one. Does the traffic department really expect you to do that or are they just playing safe; in case there's some problem, they'll just say: "Well, we put in a signal there, see. We've done our job".

3) Learners/Driving School guys

I mean, should they really be plying in the MIDDLE of the road when it IS apparent that they cannot distinguish between an accelerator and the clutch? Should you keep honking at them to move or should you keep in mind that you were at that stage too?

Some other anxieties were that it was too late for me to learn or that I would be exactly the guy to make that horrific mistake on some Bhagat road leading to a car pile-up.

So what made me go for it? The main motivator was Independence.

I was tired if being at the mercy of chauffeurs. I wanted to be independent. If a driver quit (and oh boy, quit they do) you're at the mercy of cabbies or auto fellows. Bus+Train works well but monsoons and heat (which between them is basically the entire year) is a problem especially if you are going in for meetings. Especially meetings in offices which are not walking distance from a station or far enough for a cab to go there. i used to depend on radio cabs : Meru, Mega etc. but these are just not dependable from the availability point-of-view.

Moreover, what if there was an emergency at home? I would need to knock on a neighbours door or again, call for a cab which may not happen.

Lastly, there have been several opportunities i've missed by not knowing how to drive. Like going on road trips in Spring or Fall in Michigan.

So finally, i took the plunge and joined a D-school.

Yes, the D is almost like Dawood (and not Driving) because that's how i think they operate. Gang-like. Goon-like.

Next Post: My experiences learning with a D-School

You use e-mail? hah!

2010-07-08T10:28:00.002-04:00

If anyone else told you this, i'm sure you would distance yourself from this person as being a luddite. But what if this came from a pioneer of computer science? Surely you're joking you would say. But no. It's true.

Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things.

This is from Donald Knuth, renowned computer scientist and Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University.(link)

While lesser mortals like me will still need to use e-mail heavily i think it's important to not allow technology to come in our way, especially our capacity to stay focused on a task. I'm sure almost all of us at some stage have been distracted by checking our e-mail for an update from the admin team on tomorrows flight tickets. Or fooling ourselves into thinking that "we need a break" and hence check e-mail. And the worst culprit - the Blackberry device.

An excellent aid to efficiency it can be a bad accomplice to distractor goons in our head.And with the amount of spam coming into our mail boxes, it's irritating to have the Blackberry beep and checking it only to find an unsolicited e-mail for a training programme. And many have this fascination for replying to e-mails within a minute of its coming into our mail boxes (i confess i do to, to a certain extent)

One thing that has worked for me in office is to put the Blackberry on "e-mail silent" mode and checking e-mails once every two hours on the laptop itself. I had also got into the bad habit of replying to e-mails in the dead of the night - these would be mostly e-mails from countries on the wrong side of the time zone. I've stopped this too. I use the "bedside mode" in the "phone calls only" option.

Maybe another good strategy is to have an alarm ring at some fixed time in the day - say 3 pm - this would be the "e-mail checking" time.

Lastly, i think it also pays to be smart with how you handle e-mail traffic. One has to learn to sift through e-mail rapidly to:
1) Read Now
2) Read Later (though a large number in this list is psychologically damaging when you see your mailbox)

3) Forward and Forget (like "please tell your team" memos)
4) Forward to action ("Hi S, can you pls. see this and reply. Thanks")
5) Delete

The one big (and common!) mistake people do is to read through every 'forward' that comes their way. Please don't! You are not doing anyone a favour by reading their e-mails. Most people who forward something to you may do it just because you are on their list. Or that some information may be useful to you. It is your responsibility to figure out whether something needs to be read or not. With the information deluge that each of us is going through, sound info-sifting strategies have almost become a survival game.

(P.S - i've written it as e-mail and not email as Prof. Knuth suggest at the end of the page here - yeah, so i do one more keystroke. Big Deal. Taking this logic forward we should do away with so much punctuation and nuance (why caps at the start?).)

Banking e-responsiveness

2010-06-03T09:22:00.004-04:00

Convenience and the Internet have become synonymous for consumers like me. Gone are the days when you had to struggle to find out the simplest things like where is the nearest Canara bank branch located.

In the pre-Internet days you would probably do something on the following lines:

1) Search the telephone directory under "C"

2) Call up a branch listed in the directory

3) Be put on hold or keep having your line getting transferred or hear a response like "What do you think this is? A help-line?"

4) Give up after some time
5) Call up a few friends and locate the branch

Now with the internet all you do is:

a) An online search with a few helpful tags like "canara bank branches mumbai".

b) Get to the Canara bank webpage where you are greeted by a couple, delirious no doubt, with the joy of internet banking.

See a blue tab called "locators" right there.

b) Locate the branch

Simple, right?

NO!

This is what you get when you go through that process:

Yes. Some brain decided to sort the list. Alphabetically. Based on the first letters of the address, which God knows is as random as you wouldn't want it to be. Total number of records: 103. And to get more pleasure out of the exercise, they limit the display results to 10 a page. So i have to keep clicking and search on every page for the area i am looking for. No Good.

Best part is if i just do a "Canara bank Mumbai" Google search, it gives me a really nice result format - the one i kind of want.

Would it have hurt to give this format on the webpage? Or at least give an area-sorted list? Or an area-search button?

So what am i left with? Step 5of the pre-internet process: "Call up a few friends and locate the branch"

It's easy to talk about e-responsiveness but if you're not thinking about the process from the consumer angle there's no point really. You might as well operate it as a brick-and-mortar establishment. That way at least you won't raise expectations and have it crashing down later.

Incidentally, a site that does a much better job on this front is this

What kind of a mother is...

2010-04-21T06:06:00.012-04:00

this?

'Go for it,' my mother said, 'they might never ask you again. Our show isn't on air yet. No one knows who you are. Do it and you'll have these beautiful pictures to look at when you're my age'.

Crazy.
But then parents forcing their children to do all kinds of things for their own fame - which i am assuming is the case here - is not entirely an unknown thing.

In a state of shock

2007-02-03T22:54:00.005-05:00

I am. Because in a state of madness i decided to get back to the land of milk, honey and Arjun Singh called India.

(Warning: Long rant ahead!)

I landed three days ago. My nerves are tingling and my head throbbing with the simultaneous assault of :

1) Honking

Q: Why are people here so stupid? If the traffic signal is red and you have six cars ahead of you, how does honking help?

2) Shouting

I think the unwritten rule here is that you have to raise your voice to "get work done". Soft polite talk is never on, so it seems.

3) Street dogs howling

Q: How is it okay to let street dogs proliferate? Despite kids getting mauled by street dogs, no one seems to bother. Yes, don't kill them but at least spay them for God's sake.

4) Renovation work

Some businessman upstairs in doing some 'renovation' which i believe has been going on since six months. There is continuous hammering, sawing and that ear-splitting, nausea-causing granite polishing. Apparently pleas to this gentleman to give a deadline by which he can finish this 'renovation' and not doing work in the afternoon in deference to senior citizens has fallen on deaf ears. "He knows people", they tell me.

5) Baarat (wedding processing)

Someone's getting married and has chosen to inflict his wedding on everyone in a 10 mile radius. There's a live band that's playing some raucous stuff. Streets are jam-packed.

I can't take it. I decide to shut the windows, plug my ears with cotton and connect to the net. The supposed 'broadband' connection at my home in Bombay seems worse than a dial-up connection. I try using my wireless internet card and apparently i don't have enough signal. For curiosity i check if there are any wireless connections around. None. IT superpower? If computing doesn't touch the daily lives of people, how does writing code make us an "IT superpower". And my home is supposed to be one of the most upmarket locations in town.

I then decide to organize some of my papers. I call up my bank (a multinational bank, by the way) for status on my account. The lady said she'll call me back in half-an-hour. "Half and hour! Just for status?" I get some server-is-down crap or something. It's more than four hours now. Not a call. Not even a call to say she'll call later. Oh, but how could i forget. In India, it's the customer's duty to call.

The bell rings. Postman. Thumps a package on the threshold.

"Geez man, careful - there's stuff in there".

"This thing weighs a ton. What is it?"

"Some of my books and papers"

"Well, you know, i broke my back getting this"

"Ok"

"It's not easy, you know"

"Hmmm...."

"I really broke my back. Ahhhh"

"Ok"

"I took a rickshaw to get here. Cost me Rs. 25"

"Ok"

"It's not the regular thing you know"

"What is the regular thing?"

"Well, if it's too heavy we would just give you an intimation and have you collect it from the post office"

"Actually, there are more such packages expected. So don't break your back the next time. Why don't you just leave an intimation for me and i'll pick it up from the post-office"

"Oh no. I know your dad since ages. I would never have you come to the post-office. I'll get it - don't worry."

"err...."

"But yeah, i think i have broken my back. And i spent Rs. 25/- on this."

"Sorry about that. Get well soon"

Slimeball. Thinks he's doing me a favour by getting a package to me for which i've paid 150$ (yes!) as postage. Honestly, after this incident i am worried about the fate of my other packages. These contain my personal research notes and books with all my annotations that i've spent almost 500$ on shipping. Should i have just paid him off? Naa...

I decide to pay a visit to one of my old teachers who lives about four miles away. Get some pearls of wisdom which might make me feel better. Five cabs tried. Each of them gives me the FCJ. FCJ = Flick-Cluck-Jerk ; Flick of the wrists, then a cluck of the tongue followed by a jerk of the neck away from you which basically means "Will not go where you want to. Buzz off". This is if he likes you. If only a cluck it means he doesn't like you and wants you to quickly buzz off. I decide to walk the distance to my teacher's house.

I also try visiting an old friend on the way. There is some security system in place in his apartment building where you are supposed to fill up a register on who you are, why are you visiting etc. I just don't see the point of this system anyway because i could just say i was George Bush from the White House and the security guy wouldn't bat an eyelid. Anyway, the register is kept at some corner which the sharpest eye will not see.I keep walking and before long i hear that wierd sound that is produced by elongating the lips and sucking in air through it. No "excuse me" or anything. And the guy is just sitting at his place without moving his ass.

In all this, i think i was just lucky that i was prepared for the bozos on the flight back home. (Red-eyed guy: "get me one more whiskey fast", Orange T-shirt guy with cap and shades on in the flight: "Only one peanut packet with beer? I want two"). And Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. The typical phenyl smell, unsmiling faces, an ayah (janitor) lazily wielding her broom and succeeding in spreading the dirt everywhere. Two fellows with some official badges approaching me with "Customs se clear karva deta hoon, sir" (i could clear your luggage from Customs for you, sir). No thanks. I'd rather pay duty if i have to. I make the mistake of asking where the restrooms are from some official. I think he did not want to be awakened from his slumber so he said he didn't know and went back to sleep.

I think i should do that too. If this is what happens in two days, i am scared.

Why do you disappoint, India? Why are brainless morons now inhabiting you? Where is all that magnificent culture and civilization which others could only dream about.Where did you lose it? When did you lose it? Why did you choose to lose it?

Are you a Sagittarian?

2007-01-28T22:01:00.002-05:00

If your answer is yes, good for you. If not, contact me immediately and i will give you an expensive gem that will remedy the situation. Now! hurry up! Rush!....

"This is the year of the Leo. So Sagittarians and Geminis are bound to be successful", thus spaketh Mr. Bejan Daruwalla.

And the context? Apparently the producers of Big-Shetty-Brother have contacted him on "how religion plays an important role in the life of Indians and also asked me the role of astrology in India".

How convenient for these reporters. Catch the right people in India to potray the usual "Caste, Cows, Curry, Constellations" trash. Do not expect any mention in this programme of how religion* influenced science, arts, architecture, literature etc. in India.

Anyway, more insights:

“It was such a coincidence that Shilpa, who is a part of Channel 4’s ‘Big Brother’, is born on June 8 and this lady’s (the reporter who contacted Mr. Daruwalla) date of birth is June 9. Both of them are Geminis, and Shilpa may perhaps win,” he says.

My mind is spinning. Just like the planets Mr. Daruwalla claims to have a total impact on your life. This is really a revolting brand of astrology.

Here's a piece of advice from Sri Mantreswara, author of the 16th century astrology classic Phaladeepika:

"Planets are constantly favorable to one who is always calm, possessed of self-control, who has earned wealth through virtuous means, and who is always ethical and moral".

Classical Indian thinking was never totally deterministic. The theory of Karma is not an easy one to understand. Ignorance, superstition, bad translations of Sanskrit works and charlatans wanting to make a quick buck have created one big mess.

Ancient texts are flooded with examples on how a person's destiny (if you believe in the concept of 'destiny'. I do. But not in Mr. Daruwalla's sense) has been changed with a combination of right thinking and right action. The Gita Itself says that one just has to do the required tasks at the right time with the right effort and attitude (no attachment to results).

Bottomline: If you believe in astrology and do want to go to an astrologer, please stay away from those who:
1) Put fear into you
2) Tell you that everything is pre-ordained
3) Lead you into thinking that unless you purchase some gem you will be ruined for life

Link to the news article here.
-----------------------------------------
* The word religion itself is probably not the right word for Indic dharmas like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism

For a Nintendo

2007-01-17T23:45:00.002-05:00

Just interrupting the road trip updates to tell you about this:

"I want to say that those people drinking all that water can get sick and die from water intoxication," said the caller.

"Yeah, we're aware of that," replied a DJ. "They signed releases so we're not responsible, okay?"

A radio show where participants had to drink crazy loads of water, then hold their bladders in order to win some electronic gadget.

A contestant died.

Read about it here

Reminds me of a case in India some years back where a foolish fellow had a bet with his friend, gulped down boiling hot tea which internally burnt his intestines and died. The bet was worth Rs. 10 (~0.2$).

It's interesting to see why people take part in these kind of crazy acivities - including participants of reality shows who seem to love to throw away any kind of self-respect. Money? Fame? Challenge? Boredom? Maybe they feel they've been such losers in life that these activities give them an opportunity to 'prove' something. Crazy.

Beholding God : Winter 2007 Road Trip - Update 1

2007-01-16T00:00:00.002-05:00

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes
- Marcel Proust

Well, i did start off wanting to see new landscapes. And ended having new eyes. Let me start off with the grandest of the sights i saw on the trip (ever?) :

(click to enlarge photograph)

The picture above can never do justice to the what the eye saw and the mind now recalls. It can be a mind-altering experience. The scale, the age, the colour, the depth, the beauty, the form - it is adbhutam (wonderful), overwhelming.

One now appreciates slightly more what Arjuna would have experienced when Lord Krishna showed him His form:

Thereafter being overwhelmed with amazement, with his bodily hair standing on end due to great ecstacy; Arjuna with his body offerred obeisances unto Lord Krsna and began to speak with folded hands
- Bhagavad Gita, 11-14

Thoughts like these run through your mind and then you come across the following plaque and rub your eyes in disbelief:
Yes! The oldest layer of the Grand Canyon is named after Lord Vishnu!

Coincidence? Unlikely. Note use of 'Zoroaster' in the picture above beside 'Vishnu'. Seems like the Canyon is purposely named on spiritual lines. More on this with more photographs in the next post.

Another Road Trip - Winter 2007

2006-12-31T04:52:00.001-05:00

Barely back from the first road trip this winter and am off on the second. This one promises to be more challenging. For one, we intend staying rough. For example, no hotel-staying. It's going to be tent-camping on designated grounds on the way.

The route we are taking is pretty much The Great Mother road with detours on the way. Specifically,
Ann Arbor, Michigan -> Chicago, Illinois -> St. louis, Missouri -> Amarillo, Texas, -> Grand Canyon, Arizona -> San Diego, California -> Big Sur, California -> San Francisco, California

This is a total of about 4200 miles (~6700 km). Am then off to Houston, Texas. And if any more energy left, plan to see some more places. Want to do all this in a fortnight.

Promise to fill you in on the details after i return. Wish you a great 2007!

Winter 2006 Road Trip - 1

2006-12-28T00:28:00.001-05:00

Yes, i know. Long time, no post. Reason : Did a 1979 mile (~3200 km) great road trip over the last five days with some great company. Well, i shouldn't say I did the trip because all I did was pass expert comments on their driving skills while they did the hard work.

Learnt and enjoyed a lot. Will try and get around to doing at least one real post on some thoughts that came from the trip. Till then, three snaps:

1) From one of the cities we visited. Straightforward to guess which city?

2) MIT campus, Cambridge, Massachusetts (26th December,2006)

3) Boston skyline - across river Charles. Photograph taken from next to the MIT buildings.(26th December,2006)

Gently the snow falls...

2006-12-15T21:40:00.002-05:00

(please click to enlarge - looks better that way - though, i admit, not a very good snap)

Total vat hai abhi..

2006-12-03T14:37:00.000-05:00

...toh pandhra disambar do sau che tak ek bhi post nahin. Thank you bhai log.

(Translation : i am totally screwed right now so no post till 15th december, 2006. Thank you, bhai log)

Two Great TED-talk videos

2006-11-24T19:56:00.000-05:00

As many of you might know, TED stands for Technology-Entertainment-Design. The TED conference is an annual one held in Monterey, California. As the introduction video says "TED is a preview of heaven".

These are truly inspiring talks from a range of disciplines - science, music, sport etc. Starting from first 1984 session which included the "public unvieling of the Macintosh and the Sony Compact disk", TED does truly continue to inspire.

Below are two statistics' videos. I showed the first five minutes of the following video to my class this week and they liked it. Even the ones who hate statistics liked it :). The talk is by Prof. Hans Rosling of the Karolinska Institute who "brings global data to life". IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE WATCHING THIS, DO SEE IT TILL THE 5:15 MARK AT LEAST.

The second one was thanks to Sandeep who pointed me to it. Another very nice (what else from TED) one. This is by Prof. Peter Donnelley of Oxford who "explores the common mistakes humans make in interpreting statistics, and the devastating impact these errors can have on the outcome of criminal trials".

Other videos are available on the blog. Enjoy!

Precision and Accuracy : Different words, Same thing?

2006-11-15T20:32:00.002-05:00

A follow-up to a previous post, owing to requests for further clarity. For those who requested, sorry for the delay in posting. I've sacrificed some technical accuracy (no pun) to make the post a little readable. However, it is not a very-quick-read post.

In everyday parlance, the two - Precision and Accuracy - are often used interchangeably. In the field of statistics however, the two terms denote separate ideas.

I. The 'thought-survey' (term thoughtlessly borrowed from its experimental counterpart)

Let's say you undertake a survey where the outcome of interest was 'Average annual income of undergraduate students in the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor'. And you got $2000 as an estimate.

However, like a good statistician you doubt whether this was a 'good' estimate. So you repeat the survey again - using the same survey design. This time you get $3000. Hmmm....quite a variance i.e this estimate is quite different from the earlier one.

So to be really convinced you do the survey again using the same survey design and end up with $1000. Wow! These numbers are really 'fluctuating'. You are now rapidly running out of time and money. So you promise yourself that you'll repeat the survey just one last time. And this time you get an estimate of $2,800. What's happenning? Why are these numbers so different? You've got four estimates : $2000, $3000, $1000, $2800.

You decide to discuss this with your friend, Peter, who was also coincidentally at that time conducting a similar project. Peter says "That's funny. I got the following estimates: $7,500 , $8,000 , $7,200 and $7,700"

Now both of you are confused. We have two issues on hand:

1) Why is it that your estimates are all over the place?

2) Why are your estimates so different from Peter's?

Fear not. Fortune favors the intelligently persevering (and now i'm sounding like Aesop). You stumble upon a previous study that said that the 'Average annual income of undergraduate students in the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor' is $2200 for the current year. The difference between this and Peter's/your study is that this is based on a Census. In other words, based on a complete coverage of all students.

Your numbers are however an estimate of this true number since you have sampled only a part of the student population. But guess what? You find - surprise, surprise - that your estimate on average is equal to the true value. That is, you take an average of your (four) sample estimates and this is equal to the true population mean.

II. Relation with Bias and Variance

1) Your estimate is therefore an Accurate estimate. UNBIASED. But you also note that your estimates are varying ('fluctuate'). They are therefore not very Precise estimates.

2) Peter's estimate were on the other hand NOT ACCURATE. They were on the higher side. There was a BIAS (a positive bias). But to be fair they were PRECISE estimates. They had relatively LOW VARIANCE i.e the estimates were close together.

Thus:

HIGH Accuracy => LOW Bias
HIGH Precision => LOW Variance

III. Visualizing Accuracy and Precision concepts

The best way to do this is to imagine that you were playing a game of darts. You then have four scenarios depending on whether the Accuracy and Precision is 'Low' or 'High'. See the following diagram (click to enlarge if required). See how your estimates and Peters' were between the two extremes of Ideal vs Sinful (!) estimates. Just for ease of visualization this has been represented in the form of a 2 dimensional picture. With reference to this example, just look along the horizontal line - the dotted line that i've drawn.IV. But do we really conduct repeat surveys

No! In the practical world, we never have the luxury of time or money to conduct repeat surveys to see how good our estimates are. In practice, the survey statistician would first ensure that the design is UNBIASED. Along with ensuring unbiasedness, a survey statistician would ensure that the variance of the estimate was low. In your case, you had an unbiased sample. The reason for high variance was probably low sample size.

In Peter's case, he probably had a 'helpful' friend living in an off-campus condo who offered to introduce Peter to his friends in condos around. Obviously, these were all also those who worked in places offering higher wages (how else a condo :) , which is why his estimates were biased. The sample of course, is not a random sample and is unscientifically done. So it matters little that his estimates were precise since they were quite biased.

If you feel like, you may now want to review the previous post.

Also, please remember that the fact that the average of your four estimates is equal to the population value is just for illustration. The property of unbiasedness (or lack of it) is on average across many, many estimates.

V. Two basic reporting components

To enable the research user to assess precision, we always report the Margin of Error along with the Estimate in research reports/presentations i.e Estimate +/- Margin of Error; which gets expressed as a Confidence Interval. The estimate, of course, is designed to be unbiased ('tending to' the true population value after many runs)

Pirating films? You Goonda!

2006-11-04T18:22:00.005-05:00

Yes. That's right. If you are in the state of Karnataka (in India), you better not burn a CD of some movie and pass it to your friend Rajesh. If you do so you are a goonda. This was the announcement made by the Chief minister of Karnataka.

Keeping his film background in mind, Kumaraswamy announced that the Goonda Act will be imposed very strictly on those who pirate movies in the state.

So, what is a 'goonda'? Loosely, it corresponds to 'goon'. Apparently the word goon came from goonda! So a goonda is like a dreadful fellow that you chance to meet on a lonely dark street who pulls you by the collar and requests you politely to part with your wallet, your chain, laptop and some other sundry things that you might not have any use for.

And guess what - you also have a 'Goonda Act'! I mean, i thought that was really lazy. Couldn't they come up a nicer name like say, "Prevention of unlawful blah-blah act". I would hate to ever get arrested under the goonda act.

Friend: "So, i heard you did time?"

Me: Yeah, that's right.

Friend: What did you get booked under?

Me: What a nice day outside.

Friend: Don't change the topic. Don't tell me you were booked under the 'goonda act'. harhahahrha (roar of laughter)

But now:

Friend: "So, i heard you did time?"

Me: Yeah, that's right.

Friend: What did you get booked under?

Me: Well (ahem, ahem), the 'Prevention of unjustified use of muscle power act'

Friend: Wow. Pretty Cool. Say, my sister wanted to meet up with you one of these days.

Anyhow, this 'Goonda act' is a wide-span act. Covers everything from land grabbing, prostitution rackets, narcotic trade and illegal lotteries. AND here's the news:

Though land grabbing, prostitution rackets, narcotic trade and illegal lotteries are flourishing in the city, the Bangalore police have not invoked the stringent Goonda Act against those indulging in these activities.

Obviously. Narcotics, land grabbing are pretty lame as compared to video piracy.

Police Inspector : What's he here for?

Constable : He forcibly evicted these people from their land and took it over.

Police Inspector : Oh, well, ok. And what the hell were these people doing when their land was being grabbed?

Constable : They were watching a pirated version of Mithun Chakravarti's 'Gunda'

Inspector : What!!! Shameless idiots. Put them behind bars. Forget their land, they don't deserve freedom. And beat them up so they'll never watch any of Mithun's movies anymore in their lifetime.

Constable: And this guy who grabbed land?

Inspector: Aww, let him go...we have to deal with these pirated video guys first.

[Note: Do watch Mithun-da's Gunda if you get a chance. Your life will change, guaranteed. For a flavour, go to the link i've indicated above. Phenomenal movie.]

For a hilarious article on the term Goonda see here.

Of course, the other brilliant announcement was to rename beloved Bangalore to Bengaluru. All this reminds me of what Claude Arpi once wrote :

One day an Indian friend of mine was visiting Israel. His guest asked him: 'How does India work?' My friend was a bit surprised by the question, but before he could answer, his Israeli colleague told him: 'Here we work with our guts.' My friend's answer came at once: "In India, it is the Grace which sustains us".

I quite agree.

P.S - i am not suggesting at all that people do illegal download/distribution of movies but...goonda?

Saved by Voltaire again...

2006-10-28T22:59:00.002-04:00

Let me tell you how. I have been in front of my machine for the last few hours trying to model some data. You know those times when intuition escapes you, you can't see features in the data that you could spot in a second at other times and to top it all the software gives you incomprehensible error messages - basically nothing seems to work. You're stuck. Tired. Frustrated. Eyes hurting. Head aching. But don't want to give up.

...and then you stare outside the window, watch the property maintenance guy with his girlfriend and a big smile on his lips...probabaly headed for a bar. He's got a better life than me - cool carefree life, live for the day, no need of breaking your head on 'generalized estimating equations'. Why the hell am i spending time on this? How is it really going to impact my quality of life? I wish i could trade places with him...

...and then strikes Voltaire. From his "Story of the good Brahmin":

"I wish I had never been born!" the Brahmin remarked.
"Why so?" said I.
"Because," he replied, "I have been studying these forty years, and I find that it has been so much time lost...I believe that I am composed of matter, but I have never been able to satisfy myself what it is that produces thought. I am even ignorant whether my understanding is a simple faculty like that of walking or digesting, or if I think with my head in the same manner as I take hold of a thing with my hands...I talk a great deal, and when I have done speaking I remain confounded and ashamed of what I have said."
The same day I had a conversation with an old woman, his neighbor. I asked her if she had ever been unhappy for not understanding how her soul was made? She did not even comprehend my question. She had not, for the briefest moment in her life, had a thought about these subjects with which the good Brahmin had so tormented himself. She believed in the bottom of her heart in the metamorphoses of Vishnu, and provided she could get some of the sacred water of the Ganges in which to make her ablutions, she thought herself the happiest of women. Struck with the happiness of this poor creature, I returned to my philosopher, whom I thus addressed:
"Are you not ashamed to be thus miserable when, not fifty yards from you, there is an old automaton who thinks of nothing and lives contented?"
"You are right," he replied. "I have said to myself a thousand times that I should be happy if I were but as ignorant as my old neighbor; and yet it is a happiness which I do not desire."
This reply of the Brahmin made a greater impression on me than anything that had passed.

Back to 'generalized estimating equations' with renewed vigour!

One question that i have, though - Is it right to characterize the lady in the story as ignorant? She is happy and that's what matters (to her), isn't it? How does it help being 'knowledgable' but unhappy? I think some part of this debate has commonalities with the Bhakti vs Jnana schools of philosophy. Probably, best to have a synthesis as Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa taught.

Happy Deepavali

2006-10-21T23:28:00.002-04:00

May this year be filled with light for all of you. Be Good. Do Good.

I know this comes late but try not to burst those horrendous crackers. Light not bad sound. In the US thankfully you can't even if you wanted to - try bursting a 'Laxmi bomb' or 'Rasi bomb' and next you'll find 500 red crosshair images and choppers above you wanting to take you out like hell.

There's a beautiful temple in Flint, Michigan (called Paschima Kasi!) which i visited today thanks to the initiative by some friends.

Was a nice experience. No crowds - just one gentleman meditating in a corner. The fragrance of camphor and flowers just like back home. Fall colours. Uplifting Vedic chanting - a very helpful, pleasant and learned priest. Was all nice. The Priest invited us for a special Divali puja (worship) that was being organized today but couldn't stay back : had to get back - WORK!

Finally, please do watch this beautiful Deepavali commercial (and this too if you can please)

There are some other very touching and meaningful Petronas commercials there that you might be interested in viewing.

And finally, finally : it is Deepavali not Deepawali (though have tagged this post as both). No big deal but i thought i'll chip in with that. As Sri Chandrasekharendra Sarasvati remarks, the 'w' sound is like when you say 'water'. The 'v' sound is different - as in 'Vani (Sarasvati)'.

RTFM

2006-10-13T21:40:00.003-04:00

Lurking on software help/user fora is an instruction on a lot of things apart from learning the software. Particularly in human behavior.

One really interesting aspect is the way the experts behave. Every forum has its experts - the people who 'own' the forum - baap ka raaj (pop's kingdom). Some of these kings are kind - they lead you step by step even if you are new.

There are others who go: "Go figure, you idiot. Don't come on this forum unless you know the basics" or "How dare you waste our time asking such trivial questions. Don't you have a brain?". And there have been times when i have seen these responses (like this and this!) and have gone "Whoa...Izzat ka falooda (crushed self-esteem)".

One user help list i regularly visit is that of a statistical software called R which i use extensively for my work. R is both a software package and a computing environment AND it's free+open source! - the best brains in the world contribute to this project. It's probably THE standard for statistical computing.

Anyway, all this is beside the point. This post is about a hilarious exchange i saw on the list. BTW, people who participate on this discussion are almost never AFAIK beginners. Actually, most are pretty advanced users who just need some tip here or there or some technical clarification. And then this:

The question I saw this and went "uh, oh...this guy's had itttttt". I mean, "because my gf. is using it in her university project"? 100 marks for honesty, but 0 for being sensitive. And this is what happened...

The Response
(underlining mine)
This response even made it to the wikipedia entry on RTFM!!!

Also see these two interesting related wiki links : UTFSF and Flaming

Solid, na?

The Perfect day...

2006-10-08T18:30:00.001-04:00

...was today. It was just so completely beautiful outside. 21 degrees celsius. Sunshine. Clear blue sky. Just that little breeze.

It would be a shame to sit at home on a day like this. Yes, a lot of work pending but i couldn't care. i just had to experience this day fully. I wouldn't mind not sleeping for the next two days just to be outside with nature today.

Luckily my pal, Sharath, was a willing accomplice in the ditch-work-and-go-out plan. And canoeing we did. Actually kayaking - picked up a double kayak this time.

Did a two hour trip downstream River Huron (a great river - more about it sometime in the future). Luckily the Argo Livery where we commence is just about a 5 minute drive from our place. Sharath finished his meeting early and we just sped there.

...and Boy, was it gorgeous! Just absorb the fall colours.
What do you say? Brilliant, isn't it? I was just spellbound. And nature conspires to make things easy for you. Just when you feel the sun is beating harshly and you wish there was a little shade, there it comes:

...and just when you feel so pure with nature, every now and then there's a house that springs up along the river like this:

...that arouses a wave of jealousy: "Damn! I wish i had a house like that on the river". You then quickly recover and remind yourself that happiness is not about possessing things. The enlightened ones throughout the ages have told us that the sure path to misery is to expect, to want, to desire, to covet. Why can't i just be happy with what i have? Truly, if i was happy always with whatever i had, that would be TRUE happiness - happiness that is unconditional upon external factors. Mental note as i go along the river: Practice vairagya (non-attachment), non-covetousness.

Slowly, we're now almost completely absorbed into nature. Time to stop rowing. Just let the river carry you. Paddle only just a little so you're on course. Put your feet up. Relax. Inhale deeply.Let the fresh air energize you. Immerse yourself in the surroundings (do i sound like one of those yoga guys on TV?)

No noise. No people yaking away loudly. No blaring film music. No people spitting or puking into the river.

And then, all of a sudden the river opens up to magnificent blueness with just a little green to give it that balance.

Who planned all this? Was this day destined to be so beautiful?

Anyway, this stretch also tells us that we are close to Gallup Park - our destination. A sinking feeling. God, will you please give me another chance sometime in life to experience this kind of a day. When i do not have to be excited/worried about the future, neither relive/regret the past. Just be so completely absorbed in the present that it is eternity.

Sharath and I return the kayak, sip some coffee and spend about 20 minutes just staring ahead of us.One last look at the warm green grass and the river as we head back to our homes.

The exchange of words Sharath and i had, i think summed it all up.

Me : I think this was a day to die for.
Sharath : What are you talking about!? This was a day to totally live for

(er...so, do you think we qualify as Zen monks now?)

Update:
A fitting end to a beautiful day - a magnificent sunset. I send a 'Thank you' to the One for the opportunity to experience this day.

New Camera + Home snap

2006-10-04T19:30:00.002-04:00

Finally got a new camera - about a week now. Given that fall is almost in full form, couldn't wait any longer and miss out on the colours.

The new camera

Not something hi-tech. Nikon 7600. Just a warning for those of you planning to buy a camera:
a) I do find that it fails to take good pictures in low light and indoors - gives 'blurred image' warnings too often.
b) Before buying this camera, i had gone through reviews and had found many complaining of the same. I took a chance though - i was running out of time and had to take a decision fast + was already used to a Nikon and had it's charger etc.
c) Speaking of charger, this is a battery guzzler. So you have to buy a rechargable battery /charger set along with the camera.
d) Time-to-flash (i forget the technical name) is quite long. So i take a snap requiring flash and then i would have to wait quite some time for it to be ready to take another snap requiring the flash.

First snap

Meanwhile, here's the very first picture from the new camera. This is my home's backyard - it's got a nice mini valley that you might just about figure out from the snap. The sunsets are spectacular. The best time to capture them would have been in the summer (when i didn't have the camera!) - it get's pretty cloudy nowadays and rains often.

Mozart says : Mathematics needs Marketing

2006-09-29T18:17:00.001-04:00

First of all, thanks to all of you for being patient. The last week was really tough - exarcebated by lack of sleep and food - but enjoyable at the end for the insights i received from my work.

The title of this post is what the 'Mozart of Math' said in an interview yesterday (more on him later in the post). He just received the Fields medal last month.

The Fields medal

Is the Nobel equivalent in Mathematics. "Equivalent" because the Nobel is not given in Mathematics (seriously).

Basically, Nobel hated mathematicians because one of them had an affair with his wife. Well, that is the common masala story, the version you'd hear in a Bombay local train if your co-passengers had the same interest in math as in the stock market. This version has just one small problem : Nobel wasn't married. Rumour faila ne ke pehle at least thoda research kar yaar. Read about the more probable reasons here.

The moolah

Apart from being the 'Nobel of Mathematics', another reason why the Fields medal is highly regarded is because it's not awarded annually but once every four years + you have to be under 40 to get it. (They're so unreasonable, aren't they, these medal-wallahs?).

But get this. A Nobel gets you about $1,000,000. A Fields gets you $13,400. No. i am not missing out any zeros there. Thirteen Thousand Four Hundred Only. Of course, it's more about the prestige. But the sheer gap in prize money probably points to a problem that the title refers to : 'Marketing'.

Now, before i get carried away and get into the 'marketing of math' issue, a little about the great mathematician who's quoted in the title. This is him:

Terrence Tao

Shocked? Baccha dikhta hai na?
(excuse the amount of Hindi used in the post. I don't know why i am doing this.)

Age countdown

Age 31 : Awarded Fields medal (this year)
Age 24 : Prof. at UCLA
Age 21 : PhD. from Princeton
Age 17 : Master's degree, Flinders Univ., Australia
Age 16 : Bachelors degree, " "
Age 12 : Gold medal at the International Math Olympiad (INMO) - youngest to date
Age 10 : Bronze medal at INMO

Called the Mozart of Math, except "he doesn't have Mozart's personality problems". And in the same link, his take on solving problems:

"It's not about being smart or even fast," he said in an interview at UCLA last year. "It's like climbing a cliff; if you're very strong and quick and have a lot of rope, it helps, but you need to devise a good route to get up there."

Doing calculations quickly and knowing a lot of facts are like a rock climber with strength, quickness and good tools; you still need a plan — that's the hard part — and you have to see the bigger picture."

And lest you think his work is an abstract math thing that has no relevance to day-to-day life:

"...work may have implications for possible new methods of encryption and security of information"

Link for the above quote here. Also see this for some idea on the kind of research he's doing.

Finally, check his university website out. In particular go to this link and do one 'page down' - i found it hilarious. First time i have ever read anything like that!

Reading about geniuses

When i first started reading about these geniuses about 15 years ago, i used to get really depressed. I felt so small when i looked at what all they had done. But thankfully i have somewhat overcome this over the years. I think it's even futile to pit yourself against someone else - higher or lower in talent. The operative word being 'pit'.

The best thing, IMHO, is to draw inspiration from these greats. These are thinkers who just keep pushing the limits even further showing us what the mind is capable of. In fact, to be honest, some of my problems have been solved after reading a Feynman story. It's like my mind says "Compared to the problems these geniuses deal with, my problems are so insignificant" And then just that thought of possiblity gives a breakthrough.

The other side of geniuses
Many (most?) geniuses have been known to have eccentric/troubled personalities. Famous examples being William James Sidin, John Nash.

So, let's say you were given two choices before you were born:
1) To be an extraordinary genius but be 'socially challenged'
2) To have an above-average intellect (enough to make a small mark) but be 'normal' in all other social aspects.

I'd anyday choose option 2). My colleagues/friends tell me that i'd do that because i am not in the position of a genius who's so absorbed in his work and derives so much of joy from it, that it doesn't matter to him. Well, i don't know. Reality is different. Take for example , Grigori Perelman.

Won the Fields medal this year along with Terence Tao. Refused it!

I find him such a fascinating personality for other things like this:

"Friends say evidence of Dr Perelman's innate modesty came when - having finally solved the problem after more than 10 years' work - he simply posted his conclusion on the internet, rather than publishing his explanation in a recognised journal.

"If anybody is interested in my way of solving the problem, it's all there - let them go and read about it," Dr Perelman said. "I have published all my calculations. This is what I can offer the public."

Guess what? He's currrently unemployed living off his mother's pension! In fact, he's apparently so disillusioned that he's given up mathematics! (ala Sidin). Read about it here.

So, is he happy? No way. What happens then to all that 'math for math's sake' and 'derive joy from the process' stuff. The question is what's the point in being a genius if you're not happy. But, i guess one doesn't have a choice. You are just born one. That's your burden. As for me : anyday option 2.

Till 28th September...

2006-09-21T21:49:00.000-04:00

Sorry for this...but have been pretty busy lately and have some social committments over the weekend (that i'm not really excited about, but kya karega) that is further eating into my time...will come back with a post on Thursday, 28th September. Thanks!

Chicken Run : The Sillywood Version

2006-09-18T19:38:00.001-04:00

This is a demonstration of the effect of a new strain of bird flu which affects film making ability apart from overall decrease in intelligence.

Ann Arbor Flora : Hibiscus or Dish-Antenna?

2006-09-15T19:01:00.002-04:00

Well, it was a large Hibiscus no doubt. I tried taking it an angle that would communicate the size well. But didn't bargain for this:

Ann Arbor Flora : Playing with the Sun

2006-09-13T21:41:00.001-04:00

Might be good to add: The dual colours above are due to the Sunlight. One case, where the Sun gives rise to duality! Philosophically, the Sun stands for Advaita (non-duality) but let me not get into that right now...

The Prez's website. And the PM's?

2006-09-11T23:06:00.003-04:00

Dr. Kalam, President of India, one image of statesmanship.

Apparently his website was a great hit on Independence Day. 10 million hits. Link to the news article here.

This is Dr. Kalam's website. The official one. The website speaks. This is from the children's section:

We invite children from India and all across the globe to ask questions on the topic of their choice to Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam, The President of The Republic of India. Selected questions and their answers shall be displayed on this site.

Hey, they also have a contest on the website for kids ('Tinkle contest')! . i thought that was cool!

He also has a personal website here. (The footnote says "promoted by his friends and admirers")

Now, if abdulkalam.com was cool, what happens when you do manmohansingh.com?

Anyway, here is the official website. Compare to the Prez's.

Vande Mataram : Salutations to the Motherland

2006-09-07T19:31:00.002-04:00

Vande Mataram is India's national song. A song that can move the hardest heart to tears, a truly inspired composition, in the fullest sense of the word.

Today is celebrated as the marking of the 125th year of the song, composed by the Bengali poet Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Here is the English translation of the song by Sri Aurobindo Ghosh who was a great mystic.

Mother, I salute to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
bright with orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Green fields waving Mother of might,
Mother free.
Glory of moonlight dreams,
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, giver of ease
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother I kiss thy feet,
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I bow.
Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands
When swords flash out in seventy million hands
And seventy million voices roar
Thy dreadful name from shore to shore?
With many strengths who art mighty and stored,
To thee I call Mother and Lord!
Thou who saves, arise and save!
To her I cry who ever her foe drove
Back from plain and sea
And shook herself free.
Thou art wisdom, thou art law,
Thou art heart, our soul, our breath
Though art love divine, the awe
In our hearts that conquers death.
Thine the strength that nerves the arm,
Thine the beauty, thine the charm.
Every image made divine
In our temples is but thine.
Thou art Durga, Lady and Queen,
With her hands that strike and her
swords of sheen,
Thou art Lakshmi lotus-throned,
And the Muse a hundred-toned,
Pure and perfect without peer,
Mother lend thine ear,
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleems,
Dark of hue O candid-fair
In thy soul, with jewelled hair
And thy glorious smile divine,
Loveliest of all earthly lands,
Showering wealth from well-stored hands!
Mother, mother mine!
Mother sweet, I bow to thee,
Mother great and free!

Decimal Points and Accuracy...

2006-09-06T09:03:00.001-04:00

...are not exactly equivalent.

This is a common misconception. Many clients demand more decimal points to the reported data saying it'll be 'more accurate'. No! This is not an accurate statement to make (pun intended, thank you)

A radio announcer saying that "Today's temperature is going to be 70.83018460288453 degrees F" does not make that estimate accurate!

That 70.83018460288453 may be very far from the truth of say, 60 deg. F, though the measurement is precise.

Here's a quote from 'Common Errors in Statistics' , Good and Hardin, 2003 (Glossary on page 187 ) :

"An accurate estimate is close to the estimated quantity. A precise interval estimate is the narrow one. Precise measurements made with a dozen or more decimal places may still not be accurate"

Bar chart gone bad

2006-09-04T20:34:00.002-04:00

This is from a mailer i received. (channel names masked)
The good part
The data is a 13 week average. Averages are always good. And this is a nice quaterly average.

Now,
The not-good part

1) This is ONE-DIMENSIONAL data

...but a SECOND DIMENSION is used (unfairly, in my opinion) to give a false sense of extra superiority. In other words, all relativism in the graph should lie on one axis ONLY since there is only a single variable (presumably TVR%) that is being studied.

But what's happenning on the X-axis?

See how the two bars are of different widths? Even right at the base. And the relative widths go on increasing as the X-axis values increase. So there is a correspondence between the X-axis values and the bar widths. But the data is supposed to be one-dimensional!

The lie-factor

Edward Tufte, the person who has probably contributed the most to the science and art of data visualization introduced a term called the lie factor in the 80s (?). It's the ratio of the 'size of graphic' to 'size of data'. if a lie-factor = 1, then the graph is true to the data. But that's not the case here.

It is interesting to calculate an approximate lie-factor here. Now given that the area of the two bars are not of a standard shape we make use of a 'Monte Carlo estimation' process. Simply put:
- We spray the graph with dots or throw darts at it like below (sorry for the bad quality).
- Then just count the number of dots or darts in each bar of the above graph
- In this case, we want to compare areas, so we take a ratio of the number of dots
- Of course, this is an approximate estimation method. The approximation improves with greater dot density

So, what's the lie-factor?
- It turns out that the ratio of number of dots in the Channel A bar to Channel B bar is 5.5
- And the actual data? Judging this from the graph is made difficult since the axis is tilted. But looks like it's 0.89 and 0.8 for channel A and B respectively. This gives us a ratio of 1.11
- So the lie factor here is 5.5 divided by 1.11 = almost 5! (4.95)

In other words, the graph bloats the actual data effect by a factor of 5!

Assuming a one-one equivalence with the average human mind's perception and the lie-factor, a person would assume that Channel A's viewership is 5 times more than Channel B's while it is actually almost the same!

2) No axis label

The reader has to assume that the data is TVR% data and not, say, Reach% data. Or could it be channel share data? All three are metrics expressed in %s but are very different concepts having specific application in media strategy. For me, this graph is saying "Don't worry about what the numbers are. Just focus on the fact that we're number 1". It's almost taking the media literate reader for granted.

3) The axis itself

- Why are the axis non-orthogonal i.e why aren't the X and Y axis are not perpendicular to each other? They should be in this case. Are the axis tilted to highten (falsely) channel A's numerical superiority
- How does one read off the bars? If you draw a straight line parallel to the X-axis as you should, you 'll read it wrong with this tilt.
- What's with the Y-axis on the right. Not that it matters at all actually but just curious since the convention is to have it on the left.

4) Significance

Is the relative advantage in TV ratings even statistically or practically significant to talk about?

5) Scale

Maybe you noticed that when we took the ratio of the actual numbers it came to 1.11 = saying that the numbers are almost the same! But starting the axis values (origin) at about(!) 0.75 rather than zero adds to the perception skew.

Here's what my redone graph looks like
....when i do the rescaling and other changes:

The only decoration i have done is that HUGE greater-than sign. Is that also lying?

Lord Ganapati : Part IV - About 21,4 and twin blades

2006-08-30T22:05:00.003-04:00

Signifance of the number 21

The Philosophical Context
Ganapati = 'Gana' + 'pati' = group/retinue of followers + lord = Lord of the group.

Which group?

In the literal sense, the group of Shiva's attendents/followers/troops. Thus Ganapati is the lord of Shiva's troops. This meaning follows from various Puranic sources.

However the inner meaning of the term 'Gana' comes when we refer to the Veda. The Atharva Veda specifically associates the number 21 with Him. (as trishapta in verse 1,1,1 )

And this 21 = 5 gross elements/states + 5 subtle existential principles + 5 sense-organs + 5 sensory processes + Prana

Am not breaking up or explaning each of the above sub-groups further since that gets very technical. Suffice to say, that the inner meaning of Gana (group) is really that of all the elements of existence . And Sri Ganapati as lord of all existence is associated strongly with this number. Hence the 21 prostrations before the worshipped diety one for each element of existence.

Note that while the significance of 21 comes from this explanation, it does not restrict us in interpreting 'gana' only in terms of the existential elements as above. Specifically, in the Bhakti (devotional) context, saints have explained 'gana' to mean the group of all that we cherish in life that Lord Ganpati protects. These are not contradicatory explanations.

The ritual context

The significance of 21 comes in the ritual context as well. The ritual code-books ((eg. Yajnavalkya Smriti) tell us that the One VinAyaka has 21 forms (am not giving the names here to keep it short) which are propitiated. In the ritual presribed, two icons - one of VinAyaka and one of Ambika (the Mother Goddess) are consecrated. Then the 21 forms of VinAyaka are invoked as surrounding these icons.

What about the number 4?

Again two streams of explanations:
The ritual explanation comes from the fact that the 21 VinAyakas described above were intermediately spoken of as four before the final declaration that all forms were but forms of the One VinAyaka.

From a philosophical standpoint, the number four represents the four aims (purusharthas) in life - Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha which very loosely translated mean Righteousness/Duty, Wealth, Desire and Liberation. Thus worshipping Sri Ganapati as the One who fulfils all the aims in the devotee's life.

And finally the twin-blade worship

no...nothing to do with Gilette...

The question is why do we usually offer 21 pairs of durva grass at a time in worshiping Sri Ganapati (durva-yugma)? The 21 is hopefully clear from the above explanation. But why two at a time?

For this, remember we spoke earlier of the 21 forms of VinAyaka that were propitiated.
What is VinAyaka?
VinAyaka = Vighna + Nayaka

And from the previous post, we saw that Sri Ganpati is both the Obstacle and the Obstacle Remover. Thus offering two blades at a time is to worship both aspects of God.

I find this really fascinating because here you are actually worshipping Obstacles! It encourages a very brave attitude where one welcomes all aspects of life, including obstcales, with the understanding that God gives them to us to grow stronger. And not run away from them. Like what resistance-training is to body muscles, obstacles are to the course of life.

In fact, this is a recurring theme in Hinduism - for eg. on Ugadi, celebrated as the new year in some parts of India - a key feature of the celebration is to have a mixture of jaggery (sweet) and neem leaves (bitter) - the symbolism is obvious.

We just worship Lord Ganapati in the full trust that He gives us what is best for us.

Lord Ganapati : Part III - Obstacle remover

2006-08-29T21:10:00.001-04:00

Creator or Remover of Obstacles?
Sri Ganapati is most often remembered as the 'Remover of Obstacles', Vighnaharta. But now, here's the curious thing: His name in said to be Vighneshwara, which means 'Lord of Obstacles'!. So we have a situation where He is both the 'Lord of Obstacles' as well as the 'Remover of Obstacles'!

Which is actually how it is meant to be. In Hindu religion, God is the agent responsible for distributing the fruits of our past actions to us. Some of our past actions, being negative in nature rebound on us in the form of unwanted events. Obstacles, for instance.

But as God, He also has the power to respond to the prayers of devotees in REMOVING these obstacles. Thus both Vighneshwara and Vighnaharta are applicable to God, as they should be.

Again, it is important to remember that He does not wilfully create these obstacles. It is we who have created it for oursleves and have to take responsibility for the same. And to correct for them our scriptures give numerous ways. For instance, Charity can counteract any miserliness that we may have exhibted in the past.

But the most powerful form of prayer is a simple and direct appeal to God. Coupled with a sincere attitude to change backed by the will to change. And Ganapati's attraction to the devotee is well known by his name as 'KshipraPrasada' - quick giver of blessings/relief. In fact, out of the 32 forms described in the earlier posts, a specific form called Kshipra Prasada Ganapati exists.

Incidentally, Sri S.K.Ramachandra Rao points out that the Ganesa Gita (1,21) tells us to regard Ganapati as not different from the other Gods - the proper approach is to regard all forms as those coming out of the One God.

Why is Sri Ganapati associated with Destroying Obstacles?
In the previous post, Ajith in his comment asked about the legend that gives Ganapati the status of obstacle remover.

The Brahmanda Purana legend
One legend appears here in the 'Lalitopakhayana' section . This section contains the famous Lalita Sahasranama, the powerful 1000 name litany of the Mother Goddess.
(A pdf version of the English version of the Lalitopakhyana can be downloaded here.)

The story containing the part on Ganapati (Verses 306 to 316 - page 27 of the above pdf) is remarkable. This is about a fight against the demonic forces of Bhanda by the forces of Goddess Lalita.

Bhanda's minister Vishukra inscribed a yantra (jaya vighna yantra) to thwart the forces of the Goddess. The result was that the Devi's forces were overcome with:
1) Fatigue (Alasya)
2) Meanness (krpanata)
3) Helplessness (dainya)
4) Slumber (nidra)
5) Impotence (klaibya)
6) Forgetfulness (vismrti)
7) Carelessness (pramAda)
8) Torpor (tandra)

What i found very interesting was the discussions that ensued in the Devi's army as a result of the yantra's effects. You can see the exact kind of dialogue going on around you, even today! The classic obstacles to our progress!

So these were the discussion points (language mine!):
1) This war is wrong! Why are we even doing this?
2) Tell me, why are we fighting for this Lalita Devi?
3) What the hell! Who is this Lalita devi, anyways? Who has made her our superior?
4) Let's just get together and decide not to fight. What will this Lalita do?
5) I'm tired. Let's just sleep.

Thus speaking amongst themselves they retreated allowing BhandAsura to advance. Noticing the problem in the rank-and-file, Ambika and Dandanatha (the Goddess's commanders(?) ) reported this to the Goddess. On hearing this, She looked at Lord Shiva and smiled.

From this smile flashed Ganapati, elephant faced, inebriated and embraced by Siddhi and Lakshmi. He burst into the camp, searched out the yantra and destroyed it by smashing it into pieces whereupon the Devi's army recovered and advanced. Simultaneously, Ganapati along with His forces attacked BhandAsura and destoyed the enemies forces.

Pleased with this, the Goddess gave Him the boon that he should be worshipped first among Gods. Thus the obstacles were cleared and success achieved by the grace of Ganapati and hence he is known as the 'remover of obstacles'.

The other legend associated with his being called the 'remover of obstacles' is in the VarAha Purana and involves Lord Shiva's boon to him as soon as Ganapati was created.

All in all, it is but appropriate to seek Sri Ganapati's blessings before commencement of any undertaking. If within one's means, it's great if a traditional ritual performed by qualified priests...else what we can always do : shoot a sincere prayer !

Lord Ganapati : Part II - More on the form

2006-08-29T00:12:00.001-04:00

We continue from where we left off last time. Today we focus on the form which can be most beneficially utilized during worship, in the process of 'darshana' ('beholding') or meditation.

We use the form below as an aid to description. But as decribed in the previous post, there are many variations. Each form represents a specific aspect of Ganapati. The aspect is identified depending on:

1) How many arms
2) Colour of the form
3) No. of faces
4) Vehicle/Seat
5) How many Shaktis (consort) accompanied with (>=0)

For example, the number of arms of the form below is 10, is red (isn't apparent from the picture because of the fading) , one faced, seated on a rat and accompanied with One Shakti. We may thus identify this form with Vallabha Ganapati.

With consort? Isn't He supposed to be a celibate (brahmachari)?

Yes. In fact, of the 32 forms in the Mudgala Purana, 24 are described without a consort.
There are also regional variations here.
In the south, for most part He is worshipped as a celibate.
In the north, he is commonly worshipped with two consorts - Siddhi and Buddhi. You might have seen this representation in the famous SiddhiVinayak temple in Bombay. Siddhi and Buddhi of course, are Accomplishment and Intelligence which signify the fruits of worshipping Sri Ganapati.
Interestingy with regard to Sri Kartikeya(the elder brother of Sri Ganapati) the situation is reversed. In the north, is worshipped as a bachelor while in the south, He is worshipped with His consort, Valli.

Let's therefore take the above form, starting from the bottom, and focus on each part and see what the inner meaning is.
Note: In the picture above, the trunk is twisted to the right. This is not usual. Icons of Sri Ganapati are usually with the trunk to the left - this will be covered in a later post.

1) Vehicle as rat
I find this one of the most interesting aspect of the form. The rat symbolizes several things simultaneously.

a) The rat represents the mind. Restless, always flitting about here and there in search of something. Just like a small rat can cause havoc so do small thoughts disturb our peace of mind. And just like rats breed fast, these small thoughts often accumulate into one big wave of mental distrurbance.

The large form of Ganapati thus rests on it representing need for mind-control and capacity to bless the devotee with it.

b) Rats burrow into the earth. Impeled by what? Desire. Thus the rat represents kama ( desire). And we saw earlier that Sri Ganapati presides especially over the earth element. Thus deep rooted desires - which we hold as so precious - are eradicated by the grace of Sri Ganapati.

c) Rats thrive in dark environments. Before spiritual awakening, our lives are said to be dark. Spiritual awakening comes with the awakening of spiritual energy in the Muladhara Chakra (the basal chakra) described in the earier post. Thus Sri Ganapati residing on the rat signifies awakening of spiritual consciousness by overcoming the 'darkness'. Also note that darkness is associated with 'Tamas' in Indian philosophy - the negative qualities to be overcome.

2) Feet
No specific symbolism as far as i know but Sri Muthuswami Dikshitar - the saint-musician - describes the Lord's feet as 'As soft as tender shoots' in one of his Krithis (compositions) which is useful in contemplation.

3) Protruding belly

A large capacity to bear the devotees sufferings. In fact, Puranic stories on how Lord Ganapati has an insatiable apetite indicates this. That is, as long as we are sincere, we can be sure that Ganapati will help us out when approached.

3) Serpent as belt

The serpent is the classic symbol of Kundalini shakti (the much misinterpreted concept) which has to be aroused for spiritual awakening. This does not mean that some extraordinrary austerity/yogic practices have to be undertaken for this purpose. 'Simple' things like japa (repeating the name of the Lord), even doing one's duty with a keen awareness and to the possible perfection awakens this energy.

This awakening destroys tamas signified by the rat. In the natural world, of course, the rat is food for serpents i.e awakening detroying ignorance.

4) Trunk holding the pot of jewels (or any other object depending on aspect)

The following statement by Ramana Maharishi will clarify this aspect:

" Through meditation on the forms of God and through repetition of mantras, the mind becomes one-pointed. The mind will always be wandering. Just as when a chain is given to an elephant to hold in its trunk it will go along grasping the chain and nothing else, so also when the mind is occupied with a name or form it will grasp that alone. "

And the trunk holding the pot of jewels means holding i.e cogitation on precious thoughts. Also signifies the reward for our mind-control practices.

5) Broken right tusk

To see the signficance of this, the Brahmavaivarta Purana tells us that once when Sri Parasurama came to see Lord Shiva, he was denied entry by Sri Ganapati, who said His father was not to be disturbed. Then ensued a big fight between the two. Ultimately, Parasurama flung his battle-axe on Sri Ganapati. Now the battle-axe was a gift from Lord Shiva Himself to Sri Parasurama. Out of respect for His father's gift, Sri Ganapati allowed the axe to strike his tusk losing it in the process.
The broken tusk thus upholding Righteousness as well as Sacrifice in the line of duty - after all, he was ready to sacrifice Himself in order to not allow His father to be disturbed!

Another story is about Him breaking the tusk to use it as a stylus to write the Mahabharata. That again signifies sacrifice for public good.

6) Holding the broken right tusk in one hand
The one broken tusk symbolizes experience of the one Reality in the Lord's hands, experience of which is bestowed to the spiritual aspirant.

7) The other tusk is about helping us rooting out our desires, however strong they are

8) Small mouth
Speak less!

8) Large ears
- Listen more!

- Bestows the devotee the capacity to absorb a lot of information.

- The large ears resemble winnowing baskets. A winnowing basket is used to separate dirt from grains. Similarly the large ears signifiy winnowing of information that we receive.
So, the Lord bestows upon the devotee not only capacity to absorb a lot of information, but also ability to sift right from wrong. Illusion from Reality. The transformation of information into true knowledge.

- The elephant's sense of sound is said to be very acute. Sri Ganapati, by the elephant ears signifies an acute thirst for knowledge.

9) Small eyes
He overlooks our genuine mistakes and is ready to always give us a chance to change. Sincerety is what he requires from us. But that does not mean we take Him for granted. But remember that the elephant as such is gentle but if provoked, you've had it man! Especially if His devotee is harmed. Thus a gentle warning to stick to righteousness.

10) The elephant head
This is interesting : One's body-parts/organs are Karmendriyas (organs of action) or Jnanendriyas (organs of knowledge) . For example, in the human being, the head is a Jnanendriya. But in the elephant, the head is both a Karmendriya (the trunk) and a Jnanendriya! The elephant-head thus symbolizes the harmonious coming together of action and knowledge! The large head, of course, also symbolizes intelligence.

11) What He holds in his hands
Depending on the aspect invoked, Sri Ganapati holds various things. I will not go into too much detail here but to give an example. The goad (pasha) held in his hand signifies drawing the devotee towards Him. The battle-axe/Chakra(discus) that he holds in some icons signfies helping us fight the battle of life as well as cutting off of desires.

Deep contemplation or seeing the form of Sri Ganapati concentrating on this symbolism will undoubtedly ensure great spiritual progress.

Hope all this wan't too boring.

Lord Ganapati : Part I - On the form

2006-08-27T17:45:00.001-04:00

Salutations to Lord Ganapati! The favorite form of the Lord for millions of people.

Today - BhAdrapada Shukla Chaturthi i.e the fourth day of the bright half of the lunar month of BhAdrapada - is a day specially sacred and favorable to devotional/meditational practices to the form of the One reality called Ganapati.

Religious ceremonies in India commence today and go on for 10 days.

Starting today over the next few days, will cover lesser known facets/legends/incidents associated with Lord Ganapati. These posts are a combination of what my teachers taught me, some from what i've heard/read and my own thoughts.

References

The textual references for these posts are some great books for the serious reader :
1) 'Concept of Ganesha' by the Vedic scholar Sri K.N.Somayaji
2) Ganesa Kosha by the great Sri S.K. Ramachandra Rao.
3) There was also a nice book by Chinmaya Mission which i had read many years ago but do not recall the title.

Sri Ganapati's form

The Puranas give many versions on how the form of Ganapati came to be. But mythology apart (not that it is unimportant), the form of the Lord is a concrete visualization of Reality (parabrahman). And this makes sense since the seers had recognized that it is not possible for all to concentrate on a formless Reality.

The beauty of Ganapati's form is that it is what one may call 'multi-layered' - it reveals Itself depending on the spiritual outlook of the aspirant/onlooker.
I. For some religious historians, the form represents it's agrarian root for eg. the large ears are seen to be a representation of winnowing baskets, the rat as vehicle is seen to be representative of control over pests etc.

II. Form as the 5 element representation

For me, the more appealing way to approach the form is from an esoteric viewpoint. That may be due to my traditional leanings but i also feel that is the 'correct' way.

Very few know that the form is actually a representation of the composite of the five elements (Pancha-bhutatma-Ganapati). See drawing below, and note remarkable correspondence to the image of the icon above:

Thus a person medidating on Lord Ganapati sees Him as a manifestation of the entire Universe composed of the five elements. Of course, in time the aspirant goes even beyond the elements.

III. The Earth element and 'Muladhara Chakra'

The reason i've coloured the base of the above diagram red is that that is the traditional colour of the earth element,specially governed by Ganapati. Not only that, red is also the colour of the four petaled 'lotus' representing the basal Muladhara Chakra, one the seven spiritual 'plexuses'. And the presiding diety of the Muladhara Chakra is Lord Ganapati.

That is also one of the reasons Lord Ganapati is worshipped before any other worship/act is commenced. He represents the 'base', the starting point of it all. Every act, if viewed as a spiritual aspiration, must culminate in the realization of non-duality. The grace of Lord Ganapati is required to 'kick-start' this process and destroy obstacles along the way.

Also note that much of the traditional worship of Lord Ganapati is with 'Red' - Red form, Red flowers, Rakta Chandana (red sandal paste). Again, the 'Muladhara' and 'Earth' angle coming through.

There are further esoteric explanations when this line of thought is pursued. But this is best learnt from one's Guru (definitely NOT from cheaply written books) and hence is not covered here in this post. For example, note the connection of Ganapati and the earth element with the Puranic story of Ganapati formed by Mother Parvati(Earth) out of her own body.

IV. Form as the sacred sound 'Aum' (pronounced as 'Om')
Lord Ganapati is Omkara in form. See representation below for a hint of this:

The Omkara form is important since 'Om' itself represents the entire range of sound. I have not found a better explanation of this than by Swami Vivekanada. This is the reason therefore why Lord Ganapati is the presiding diety for writers and poets. Indeed He is the patron diety for all learning.

V. That the spirit of the Form is more important is evident when we see that in the daily orthodox worship, Ganapati is worshipped in a red stone obtained from the Sonabhadra river - and not in any of the forms above.
Moreover, there are numerous forms of the Form. Some texts describe 32 forms , some 16, some 8, some 12 (all multiples of 4). Some also describe 21 forms - the significance of 21 will be described in a later post.

Here it is important to note the work called Sri Tattva Nidhi, commisioned by Sri Krishna-raja-Wodeyar III (1794 - 1869). This work contains 32 coloured illustrations of Lord Ganapati along with the Dhyana Slokas (medidation verses). The Dhyana Slokas adhere to the ones given in Mudgala Purana - a purana centered around Lord Ganapati. Of course, this was at a time when rulers cared about culture.

There is more on Lord Ganapati's form which will be covered in tomorrow's post.

Countering Naxalites : The Govt.'s deep secret

2006-08-25T22:52:00.003-04:00

Before the deep secret is revealed, we note how the active work going on the nation's internal/external security, for instance here.

Note profuse use of words in future tense:'Actively considering', 'would also be improved', 'consider developing the road network', 'discussions are underway'.

Even the title of the article is 'Govt. mulls....'.

But nothing can come close to this gem of a response given in Parliament in regard to the Naxal menace. This was quoted by Mr. Arun Shourie in his article here.

Shivraj Patil told the Rajya Sabha that, in fact, a comprehensive mechanism is already in place to tackle challenges to internal security.

‘‘This mechanism is already there’’, he said. ‘‘Probably, it is not known to the Hon. Members because it is an internal matter that we are doing.’’ He shared this State Secret, the information about this ‘‘mechanism’’:
‘‘We have a Special Security Secretary here. The responsibility given to the Special Security Secretary is to talk to the DIGs and other officers in the Naxalite-affected states every month or two months or whenever it is necessary, and decide as to what has to be done... Then there is a committee which is presided over by the Home Secretary, who talks to the Chief Secretaries of the states and DIGs of the states and they decide as to how the policy should be evolved to deal with the Naxalite activity or the terrorist activities in J&K or the North Eastern states. And, then, there are regional committees of the Home Minister and the Chief Ministers who meet periodically to decide about the policies. And, then, the Chief Ministers have been talking to the Prime Minister and the Home Minister every now and then, whenever they want. There is coordination. There is institution for coordination. You don’t think that we are not talking.’’
So there is a mechanism. There is committee upon committee. There are meetings after meetings. All concerned are talking. The result is before you — in the increasingly lethal depredations wreaked by Naxalites — by now in 14 states; they must have been visible in the trains in Mumbai.
In his statement on the Mumbai train blasts too, the Home Minister gave a long list of meetings that had been held in the wake of the blasts. The last time, there had been more.

The News - 8 for the day

2006-08-23T21:45:00.004-04:00

After the last entertainment i had here, i revisited the great tragico-comedy thing called 'The News'. This time i chose the 'National News'.

Amazing time i had. Here is the result of my casual scanning.

Headline 1: Rajya Sabha adjourned due to foul smell of chemicals

" After 40 minutes of proceedings, an unexpected smell of chemical wafted through the Upper House, forcing members to draw the attention of Chairman... "

....who of course, adjourned the house. Of course, millions of Indians go through this everyday but they don't have the option of 'adjournment'.

But:

"But, even at 1230 hours there appeared to be no change in the situation despite spraying of fresheners by the Rajya Sabha staff."

Headline 2: MPs to get salary hike

"...a parliamentary panel, ....,had pointed out that Indian lawmakers were the lowest paid and government was competent under the Constitution to increase salaries of MPs"

Three things in the above statement:

1) The parliamentary panel decides

How objective, isn't it?

2) "Indian lawmakers - the lowest paid"

Really? Are they sure?

Anyway, even taking this at face value, the real question to ask is "Do you deserve a raise?" Pray, what have we done in the last 6 decades?

Do you still want an increment? Actually wait... we will give you one if:
a) You are held accountable (and not by homilies like "we are accountable to the parliament")
b) You give citizens a list of CLEAR objectives that you will be held to
c) If you do not meet the objectives, you will be recalled

Agreed?

3) "government was competent under the Constitution to increase salaries of MPs"

Headline 3: Heavy rains cause rivers to rise in Orissa
Oh, that was a surprise. I didn't know that happened when it rained.

Headline 4: Cola comment: SRK posters torn
SRK is Shahrukh Khan, a popular actor in India. Why were his posters torn? Because he said something like:

"...Shah Rukh's statement that whether the agency that tested the soft drink for pesticides had analysed if mother's milk also contained harmful chemicals"

Headline 5: British high commissioner to visit Bihar
For what? "to explore investment opportunities in the state".Wonders never cease. But to be fair, without Laloo, chances of business are better.

Headline 6: Hygiene levels in Delhi Zoo to be enhanced
This typifies the way govt. machinery works. After the Damage.

"After the death of six endangered Asiatic lions in the Delhi zoo, Centre is taking steps to enhance hygiene levels in the premises to avoid recurrence of such incidents"

Headline 7: No mercy for teacher who rapes student: SC
Mercy? The guy should be tortured. Alternatively handing him to the Taliban without a beard will do. They'll do the rest.
Best is the abominable offender:

"Finding that all loopholes in the case have been sealed, the teacher pleaded for leniency saying he has a family to support and that the victim has since got married."

In my kingdom, that kind of a statement would come with extra brutal torture - much, much worse than listening to Bappi Lahiri.

And guess what - it took 19 years to come up with this judgement. Also, i've often wondered what kind of goon lawyers stand up for such people.

Headline 8: Family drowns as crowd looks on
5 people drowning. Not that everything happenned in a jiffy. They were trapped for eight hours. Not that they were trapped in an isolated place. They were trapped in full view of a large crowd AND GOVERNMENT MACHINERY. Whatever 'machinery' this is - it's ready to be given as scrap. And no thanks - don't want anything for it. Just take the rotten fellows away.

" The passengers climbed atop the car and began screaming for help.....the tragedy was complete in eight hours when the members were swept away, one after the other."

Can you believe how dead we've become? We just stand staring FOR 8 HOURS at a family of 5 dying? Like someone said, we have a billion people in that country - a few here and there don't make a difference. Just stand and stare.

And oh, what about this: don't just stand and stare. Take pictures of the dying family as well. Fun, isn't it? See here

BUT, in all this, as always, members of one organization stood up for the values they represent:

"Two soldiers jumped into the river to try and help the family.....one of the soldiers also got swept away".

I've had enough now.

Sorry but this is VERY BAD data representation

2006-08-19T21:26:00.001-04:00

Now, i am not exactly the rude person but i must admit to being irritated when i saw the chart below. What's the data and what's the chart saying?

Now, are you irritated as well when you saw this chart? Full article here.

This type of chart is called a doughnut chart (abbr. as D-chart henceforth) and is one of the numerous chart types available in MS Office applications.

Irritation reason 1: MAJOR reason, data vs chart-type

- The data is '% growth'. How in heaven's name can that be represented as a D-chart!

- The D-chart is nothing but a type of a pie chart.

- These are charts that you can only think of using when you have constituent segments of a category that add up to the whole category. Mostly used with Percentages/Proportions that add up to 100%/1.
- BUT THESE ARE % GROWTHS! HOW, OH HOW CAN YOU PUT THAT INTO A D-CHART.

Irritation reason 2: Why a D-chart

Why not a pie chart, if at all - thought that's not considered a nice option too.

Irritation reason 3: Why a chart at all?

These are three numbers! How about just writing the following:

"India has registered a 7.8% growth rate in it's online population as compared to China's 5.22%. India's growth seems impressive considering that the overall worldwide online population grew at 2.7%, but it should be noted that this is coming from a much lower base"

Irritation reason 4: What's with the growth rate?
This continues from the highlighted phrase of the previous point : Is growth really a good metric in this case? Let's say the country of Baddatitis had only 10 people who used the internet in last year in the month of July. Now this july this figure went up to 20. Whoa! a 100% growth rate. Baddatitis' rules!

The base is important. What are the base penetration figures? The fact that the 'World' grew at 2.7% means nothing. It includes a country like New Zealand with a penetration of more than 75%, India currently is about 5%! More space to grow => More growth rate

For more interesting stats see: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm#asia

Irritation reason 5: Laziness

You are justified in thinking i'm picking holes here, but trust me, if you were showing this chart to someone who has worked with data using MS office before, the first mental reaction would be "Damn, these are the default colours in Excel - these guys didn't even bother changing the colours while preparing the chart"

Irritation reason 6: Definitions used

Two points:

1) What is 'World'?

All countries except India and China? Should be the case, and most likely is, but after seeing that chart one has to even ask this question, since it's not made explicit in the article.

2) Online population

The article defines this as "people aged over 15 accessing internet". Apart from asking why the age filter (since kids are now taking to the net in a big way), my first question is
"How do you define 'accessing internet'? ". Accessed at least once in the last month? At least thrice in the last quarter? What?

I realize that this is an article aimed at general readers but my humble opinion is that journalism (of whatever kind - even technical journalism) should set standards in thinking. I honestly don't think that has happenned here. Sorry.

Update: August 26th, 2006

Arunn, through SS Katte, helpfully dropped a comment here on his post. His post is way more detailed than this tiny piece. It'll give you a nice walk-through of the numbers involved. As well as the interpretations.

Detroit - GM HQ

2006-08-18T19:31:00.001-04:00

GM. General Motors. 3,20,000+ employees.
Revenue in 2005 : 192 billion$. To put that into perspective, this is 2.5 times the value of India's exports (2005 f.o.b). Their headquarters, Renaissance Center, Detroit, refects this:

- 2.2 million square feet
- 73 stories

- Bought by GM in 1996 for....a piddly 72 million$. That's about 324 crore Rs....not bad...that might be piddly for the Ambanis as well!And yes, GM is also loss making as of now. Net income = -10 billion$

Interestingly, while GMs CEO had to justify his position in the face the losses, Ford's CEO, Bill Ford, has it much better. Reason: The Ford family's voting power is about 40% all investors put together. Read more here.

Why you should be careful when kids are around...

2006-08-18T17:02:00.001-04:00

Overheard - 5 (Polite Conversation with PhD. candidate)

2006-08-18T15:36:00.001-04:00

Polite Conversationalist : So...how are you feeling just before your thesis defense?
PhD. candidate : Well, slightly nervous i guess.
Polite Conversationalist : Oh, don't worry. You always feel nervous in your first thesis defense.

( smiley from: http://elouai.com/smiley_face.php )

Dr. Rohit Kulkarni, this was for you. You just had to go through one today:)

World's Top Universities

2006-08-16T20:15:00.002-04:00

University of Michigan placed 11th worldwide.
(sorry, couldn't resist posting this :)

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14320413/site/newsweek/

Dr. Kalam and Sexing up science

2006-08-16T19:38:00.002-04:00

This has nothing to do with his hair. Promise.
He's the lead intro for an article in Newsweek on 'Sexing up science'.

Though his job in this parliamentary nation is largely ceremonial, Kalam, a newspaper boy turned aeronautical engineer who stewarded India's guided-missile program, has made it his mission to raise his country to glory through scientific scholarship. He travels from school to school, exhorting students to hit the books and excel at science.

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14324892/site/newsweek/

Article talks about the 'developing world's' hunger for science - 3,00,000 engineers a year from India alone and twice that number from China - while western standards in the same are dropping. Having read the article, i'd say it tends to potray a bleak picture for the west though as it notes:

A recent study by Duke University showed that while developing countries often inflate the numbers of science scholars, the United States still employs nearly a third of the world's science and engineering researchers, publishes 35 percent of science and engineering articles and generates 40 percent of research and development spending.

But,

In middle and high schools, where the spark of scientific curiosity begins, the majority of students can't be bothered to take advanced math or physics.

Well, i don't think that's the case in India as well. It's just that we are compartmentalized into taking either Arts, Commerce or Science immediately after junior high school. And due to being a 'safe and respectable' option the top rung take up 'Science'. It's not some great interest in understanding how things work that someone takes up science. Run of the mill. But that's changing now. A lot more top students, especially since the 90s are starting to at least take up 'Commerce'. 'Arts' still remains the rich-man's-son or civil-services-aspirant arena.

I am still waiting for the day students in India can combine streams and be better rounded individuals. Given a chance i would have taken a combination of courses in Sanskrit, History, Statistics, Philosophy, Math and Physics. But all i did was do ONLY Physics with some math in my undergraduation.

Ya right

2006-08-13T23:48:00.002-04:00

This is an amazing piece of poetry:

yayayayayayayayayayayayayayayaya
yayayayayayayayayayayayayayayaya

Cool, na? Oh, wait...it's in the wrong script. Here it is:

यायायायायायायायायायायायायायायाया ।
यायायायायायायायायायायायायायायाया ।।

Maybe it's still not clear. So an explanation is in order.
What needs to be done is break up the sentence properly - a process called anvaya in Sanskrit:

यायाया, आय, यायाया, आय, आयाय , अयाय, अयाय ,अयाय, अयाय
अयाय, अयाया, यायाय, आयायाय, आयाय, या, या, या, या, या, या, या, या

Or the equivalent in English ('A' below stands for the 'aa' sound like in cAr) :

yAyAyA, Ay, yAyAyA, Ay, AyAy,ayAya, ayAy, ayAy,ayAy, ayAy,
ayAy, ayAyA, yAyAy, AyAyA, AyAy, yA, yA , yA, yA, yA, yA, yA, yA

And when you break it up properly the verse then reveals the meaning:

The sandals that adorn the Lord, which help in the attainment of all that is good, which gives knowledge, which causes the desire to attain the Lord, which removes all that is hostile, which attain the lord and are used to travel aound by which all the places can be reached - these sandals are for Lord Vishnu

Poetic Recreation

It was and still is a great pastime in traditional circles in India to come up with such challenging creations. There are even poetry competitions held where the poet is given a theme and a constraint to base his creation on. For example:

'Create a 32 syllable verse with 16 syllables in each line using only the consonants 'da' ( द) , 'va' (व) and 'na' (न) with the theme being one of Lord Vishnu's incarnations'

And here is the creation:

देवानां नंन्दनो देवो नोदनो वेदनिन्दिनाम्।
दिवं दुदाव नोदेन दाने दानवनन्दिनः।।

Meaning:
The Lord who gives pleasure to the gods and drives away the opponents of the Veda, filled the heavens with a loud sound when he killed the demon Hiranyakashipu.

In the great intellectual activity called avadhAnAm - many of these kind of challenges are given and the person being tested has to come with up these creations instantly. It calls for great knowledge of poetic metres, mythology, grammar etc.

In fact, will do a post on avAdhAnam soon. i rememeber i had read the biography some years back of a Jain avadhAni who lived in the 19th century - i searched for it some days back on the net but could not get it. Will try again - his story just demonstrated the amamzing powers of the mind and took you back to the great intellectual traditions of India.

Source for the verses:
The wonderful book called 'Wonder that is Sanskrit' by Sri Aurobindo Society, Pondicherry.

1) The first verse is by Sri Vedanta Desika (1269 - 1370) in his work PAdukAsahasram

2) The second one is by Bhoja a great Indian king and scholar (1010 - 1060). This verse is from his work Saraswati KanthAbharanam. The Indian city Bhopal is named after him. In fact, if you will, Raja Bhoja was the first to realize the spectre of the Islamic threat and was thus also the first to organize Indian kings under one umbrella.

Imagine Bombay University doing this?

2006-08-11T22:58:00.001-04:00

The University of Texas System will spend $2.56 billion to expand teaching and research in technology and science, a Texas-size bid to make the state a hub for scientific and medical research.

Link: http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/08/2006081104n.htm

I can never. This is what universities should be doing though. Spend time and money on research and teaching. All Indian universities are worried about is how to effect 'social justice' that some vote-bank policy dictates. Or internal politics.

Original research? New teaching methods? Are students learning something worthwhile? Will they contribute to nation-building? Providing an atmosphere conducive to them to learn, explore?

No.

Meanwhile the bright kids wait for the day they can leave India for the US/UK, where their talents are recognized and allowed to develop further.

Now i am not saying that Bombay/Bangalore or any university should spend close to 3 billion dollars. Obviously we don't have that kind of cash. I am just trying to point out is the effort and policy direction.

Also see a previous post here on the University of Michigan's annual research budget. The university is the largest university research spender in the world. The sheer scale. Yes, the fees are HIGH. But the faculty and facilities are the world's best. And a student who's enrolling knows it's a life long investment. I'd have this rather than MSc's from Bombay University who've done nothing but just cram. Why blame them? That's what the system demands.

Ann Arbor Summer - More on Marigolds

2006-08-08T17:01:00.001-04:00

This is a follow-up to the comments on the previous post. I thought it would be better to put the reply in here as a separate post and add some more details along with some other snaps i had taken.

And if you are a botanist reading this and find something even slightly technically incorrect, please let me know!

Types of Marigolds
If you are from India you would associate marigold with the orange flower that is used on festive occassions (and used in large quantities, may i add - among all the loose flower cultivations in India, Marigold occupies the largest cultivation area. Reference here.)

But there are many types of marigolds. What we commonly call the marigold belongs to the botanical family 'Compositae' and can belong to either of two genus:

1) Calendula
What is commonly called the 'pot marigold' : 'Calendula Officianalis'. The flower in this genus has medicinal properties. This type of marigold looks like this - very different from the following genus:

2) Tagetes
Within this genus there are two major species : Tagetes Patula (French Marigold) and Tagetes Erecta(African Marigold or Tall Marigold).

French marigolds are the smaller of the species in terms of length of the plant and are available in more shades (more orangish shades). The cultivar ('cultivated variety', see here for more info) Safari Tangerine is what we see commonly in Indian markets like here.

The African marigolds are also sometimes called American marigolds since they have been grown in the Americas for 1000s of years. In fact, one particular type of Tagetes Erecta is called the Inca series. Below is a snap of a Tagetes Erecta called Florist's magic:

In fact, there is even an African marigold variety that is white - the vanilla cultivar. See here for picture.

Significance of the name
- The genus name for marigold (Tagetes) gets its name from the Etruscan god 'Tages' - the god of wisdom.

- The common name 'marigold' comes from "Mary's gold" after Mother Mary.

- The common name used for it in many parts of India is Genda. The word Genda possibly comes from the 'Gonda', the tribe in Chhatisgarh where the flower is cultivated - my guess though, i am not sure. In fact, the Gondas even have a legend behind the origin of the flower. Read about that in this excellent site:
http://www.plantcultures.org.uk/plants/marigold_spiritual.html

Use as a 'Torana' in Indian homes

'Torana' means gateway in Sanskrit. A garland made of Mango and Marigold is used a torana in Hindu homes. In other words, the garland is tied to the frame of the main door of the house. This garland is changed on every festive occasion - and given the number of Hindu festivals :) , you can be sure that the garland keeps changing frequently.

One strong reason for the use of the flower as a torana is that it has protective properties - has an unpleasant odour that keeps insects and other pests at bay (these properites have now been well documented by researchers) . So it is particularly useful in the Indian tropical climate.

But then, if it has an offensive odour, why is it used for worship? One reason straight comes from the above, in that when marigold is offered along with other pleasant smelling flowers, it performs the function of keeping insects from coming near the image that is being worshipped.

But there is more to it...

Spiritual Significance

(French marigold)

In both Christianity and Hinduism, the marigold has a lot of spiritual significance.

The flower is offered to Mother Mary on the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25th of every year). This is the day when the angel Gabriel came to Mother Mary to tell her of Jesus Christ's coming. On this day, in some traditions, marigold seeds are sown in pots as a symbol for auspiciousness and patience to await the divine.

In Hinduism too, the flower symbolizes auspiciousness. The saffron/orange colour signifies renunciation and hence is offered to God as a symbol of surrender. While offering the flower one should also remember that marigold is a very hardy flower and has a stout, erect stalk (hence the scientific name of 'erecta') - in fact, the Sanskrit name for marigold is Sthulapushpa which signifies this. It symbolizes a trust in the divine and a will to overcome obstacles. This is also why the flower assumes such improtance on Vijayadashami - the day Lord Rama prevalied over Ravana - a victory of good over evil.

One of the great Indian mytics of the last century, 'Mother' (Mirra Richards) of The Aurobindo Society said that the marigold signified 'Plasticity':

The spiritual significance given by the Mother to the Marigold flower is 'Plasticity'. About Plasticity the Mother says:

"When you come to the Divine, you must abandon all mental conceptions; but, instead of doing that, you throw your conceptions upon the Divine and want the Divine to obey them. The only true attitude for a Yogi is to be plastic and ready to obey the Divine command whatever it may be...

Ann Arbor Summer - Marigold

2006-08-06T21:33:00.002-04:00

The flower traditionally associated with auspiciousness in India. Many Indian doors are adorned with garlands made of marigold and mango leaves alternating each other. The flower is also used in ceremonial Hindu worship.

9. Others

2006-08-01T02:18:00.000-04:00

A list of posts that are are general enough to be placed here OR are not categorized as yet

6. Till 28th September
5. Imagine Bombay University doing this?
4. Rains in Bombay...strange things happen
3. Disruptive designations
2. Browsing Books
1. Research Spending (Univ. of Michigan)

8. Category: Who's this person?

2006-08-01T02:17:00.000-04:00

This list contains a list of posts in this blog in the 'Who's this person' series. The series profiles of lesser-known people who deserve to be known more. It also may highlight lesser known traits of already well-known people.

3. Terrence Tao and Grigori Perelman
2. Dr. Venugopal
1. Dr. George Sudarshan

7. Category : Politics, Media and Current Affairs

2006-08-01T02:15:00.000-04:00

This page contains all posts concerning Politics, Media and Current Affairs. Also some interesting news titbits.

On Reservations
6. Update on evil Arjun and Reservations
5. The reservation madness in Kerala continues
4. The reservation madness continues
3. Seeing the humour in reservations
2. Vile VP's quote on reservations/Mandal II
1. State of the Indian police

Current Affairs + Other news
18. Pirating Flims? You Goonda!
17. Countering Naxalites : The Govt.'s deep secret
16. The News : 8 for the day
15. Imagine Bombay University doing this?
14. YSR
13. Bombay blasts : Leave the grieving alone!
12. Bombay blasts
11. Quick Quiz -1 (ramadoss joke)
10. Bombay's rain woes - F*** the citizens
9. The local news
8. Powerful Pakistani Islamic clerics form a club
7. Laloo chockolate
6. McEnroe drops pants in anger
5. And i died laughing - 4 Post that partially contains news on Vijaykanth
4. Bappi and Rahman team up!
3. State of the Indian police
2. Goa officials study Cannes festival
1. TN election special

Media
11. The Prez's website. And the PM's?
10. YSR (for the wikipedia reporting part)
9. Bombay blasts - leave the grieving alone!
8. The local news
7. Football fever inreases world's population
6. More tummy journalism
5. Glorious Journalism (a whole article on some actresses' tummy upset!)
4. Today's blooper
3. Data Misrepresentation - Population definition
2. Creative headlines dept. (headline on hututu is my fav. sport)
1. The shameless fourth estate (2 reputed newspapers claiming the same exclusive interview!)

5. Category : Philosophy, Life and Indian Culture

2006-08-01T02:10:00.000-04:00

- This is a listing of all the Philosophy as well as Indian Culure posts on this blog.

- Over the years i've developed some dislike for dry philosophical discourse or speculative philosophy. I'm more interested in philosophy that can make our lives more enjoyable.

Philosophy
4. Saved by Voltaire again
3. Which is the real one? The answer
2. Which is the real one?
1. Facing Life (Nietzsche)

Indian Culture
4. Happy Deepavali
3. Vande Mataram : salutations to theMotherland
2. Ya right (some amazing Sanskrit poetic creations)
1. Happy Nagapanchami

Series on Lord Ganapati
1. Part I : On the form
2. Part II : More on the form
3. Part III : Obstacle maker or Destroyer of Obstacles?
4. Part IV : On 4, 21 and twin-blade worship

Thoughts
2. The auditory equivalent of the solitary tulip
1. A single tulip can be my garden

Making Someone Happy
1.

4. Category : Statistics

2006-08-01T02:00:00.000-04:00

- This post is a listing of all the Statistics (and related) posts on this blog.

- All posts are strongly applied in nature. You are unlikely to find any posts related to the field known as 'Mathematical statistics'.

- Posts try and simplify concepts. More emphasis is laid on BASIC statistical thinking rather than tackle advanced topics on issues on, say, modeling or estimation.

- I hope these posts are useful. Any feedback welcome!

- Do let me know by e-mail or by leaving a comment on one of these posts if you want me to add a post on any topic/concept.

8. Two Great TED-Talk videos
7. Precision and Accuracy: Different Words, Same Thing?
6. Decimal points and accuracy
5. Football fever increases world's population
4. Data Misrepresentation - Population definition
3. Average of two numbers
2. Stat PJ
1. What do you call a statistics blog?

Data Visualization
2. Bar chart gone bad
1. Sorry but this is VERY BAD data representation

3. Category: Humour

2006-08-01T01:50:00.000-04:00

This page is a listing of all desperately-wanting-to-be-funny posts. Please click on the post-title to take you to that post. Enjoy! (or dismiss with a limp ha..ha)

Containing videos
8. Chicken Run: The Sillywood Version
7. Practice on trains, specilize in chairs
6. Laugh and be laughed at
5. ...and i died laughing - 4 (Move over Keanu)
4. ...and i died laughing - 3 (Chiranjeev and tractor)
3. ...and i died laughing - 2 (Q&A)
2. ...and i died laughing - 2 (video with Chiranjeev and horse)
1. ...and i died laughing (the three videos - one of them the Balayya train stunt)

Others
12. Pirating Films? You Goonda!
11. RTFM
10. Why you should be careful when kids are around
9. Thalaivar Strikes-2
8. Happy Nagapanchami (partially humourous)
7. Effect of smoke breaks
6. Thalaivar Strikes - 1
5. A car i will refuse a rid in...
4. McEnroe drops pants in anger
3. TN election special
2. Stat PJ
1. Princeton

The 'Overheard' series
5. Polite Conversationalist and PhD. candidate
4. Amblin
3. Arnold
2. Redemption
1. Value of meetings

2. Category : Video features

2006-08-01T01:45:00.000-04:00

This page is a listing of all the posts that contain videos. Please click on the post-title to take you to that post. Enjoy!

9. Two great TED-talk videos (Stats related)
8. Chicken Run : The Sillywood Version
7. Happy Nagapanchami
6. Practice on trains...specialize in chairs
5. Manorican Express
4. ...and i died laughing - 4 : Move over Keanu
3. ...and i died laughing - 3
2. ...and i died laughing - 2
1. ...and i died laughing

1. Category : Photography

2006-08-01T01:33:00.000-04:00

This page is a listing of all the posts that contain photographs i've taken. Please click on the post-title to take you to that post.

Ann Arbor Spring and Summer 2006
18. Hibiscus or Dish-Antenna?
17. Playing with the Sun
16. More on Marigolds
15. Marigold
14. Ann Arbor Summer - Playing hide and seek
13. White, form over colour, 2
12. White, form over colour
11. Trees on Fire
10.The hydrant too...
9. Ahhh
8. Tulip Time
7. A single tulip can be my garden
6. Ann Arbor Spring (contd.)
5. An Apple a Day
4. Michigan Mallige
3. Can you get the fragrance?
2. More Early Spring
1. Early Spring!

Ann Arbor General
5. Wish it would rain
4. A car i will refuse a ride in
3. More on the oft-ignored hydrants
2. Tree Roots - Um diag
1. Arbor-aranya

White, form over colour
2. Ann Arbor Spring: White, form over colour
1. Ann Arbor Spring : White, form over colour, 2

General
9. The Perfect Day
8. Home Snap
7. Detroit - GM HQ
6. Bombay blasts
5. Which is the real one?...the answer (this is the answer to the below post)
4. Which is the real one?
3. A car i will refuse a ride in
2. The auditory equivalent of the solitary tulip
1. Juhu-Bombay

Wish it would rain...

2006-07-30T15:18:00.001-04:00

..because right now : IT'S HOT! ~90 degrees F = ~ 32 degrees Celcius.

So to feel a little better am posting a series of cloud pictures. This was a 'time-series' track across an hour taken some time back from my apartment - .
Watch the cloud cover come...and go...

See in a zig-zag fashion (left to right and then one-step downwards diagonally). Click on picture to enlarge.

Happy Nagapanchami!

2006-07-26T22:02:00.001-04:00

Thank God, it's not come to that as yet.
(Nagapanchami is the festival of snakes in India)

But soon, you can expect greeting card companies to latch on. And then merchandizing companies selling rubber snakes wishing you a 'Slithering Nagpanchmi' with some cute cartoon character embossed it.

But in a sign of things to come, Indians who have TV will...

(name of channel masked obviously)

Positioned strategically above the Cobra's hood above, is the name of the title sponsor. Head and Shoulders. How appropriate. Apparently this movie got an award for visual effects. I must see it. Maybe the tongue goes in an out faster than you can see.

Ok...now some 'serious' stuff begins. If you're not interested , go straight to the end and watch the video. Else happy if you can stick on...

Origin of the festival
Now, the word 'Nagapanchami' comes from 'Naga' for snake and 'panchami' for 5th since it is celebrated on the 5th day of the dark half of the lunar month.

The origin of Nagapanchami is that in the rainy season snakes are forced to abandon their holes due to water entering it. When they are out in the open, they come into contact with people who out of fear might kill them . The festival therefore gives the snake the status of God so no one harms it.

The other explained origin of the festival has agrarian roots since it occurs at the beginning of the harvesting season. So in a manual harvesting operation, farmers are exposed to snake bites. This festival is a kind of a homage to the snake to pray to the snake-god not to hurt her/him and family. Offerings are made to snakes and people perform 'arati' - respectful light offering - to the snake.

If you are not a person who believes in all this, you can just look upon it as a psychological comfort for farmers. See the quote i have put in bold below. It's from a paper in 'Asian Folklore studies' by Asutosh Bhattacharyya :

"I have myself seen living snakes in a village shrine of Siva in the district of Burdwan. They live inside holes made on the walls and floor of the shrine and generally feed on milk and other offerings given before the deity at the time of worship. Gradually they increase in number. But nobody coming to the temple is afraid of them nor do these ‘domesticated’ serpents cause any harm" (Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 24, No.1(1965), p 1-10)

Of course, now this festival like others has just turned into a money making thing. Every year hundreds of snakes are captured by snake charmers and tortured. for eg. their fangs are removed so that even after they are released they are not able to hunt and consequently die. All this is so very against the spirit of the festival. In fact in the same paper i quoted above, there is this reference (specific sentence in bold) to show you how things have changed.

"At the time of worship these snakes come out of their holes where they hide themselves during the day and night. After the worship is over they take food and drink offered by the priest and then quietly retire to their holes. In some places serpents live in the hollow of big peepul trees which shade the shrines below. At the time of the annual worship of Siva offerings are also made by the devotees. None ever think of causing any harm to them. Snake charmers also not allowed to catch these snakes which are considered absolutely harmless due to their supposed divine association."

From an esoteric standpoint, Nagapanchami worships the 'Kundalini shakti' - the spiritual 'serpent' energy within all of us. At the same time we pay homage to Sri Patanjali, the great grammarian and the sage who gave us the Yoga-Sutras (His image on right).

He is believed to be an incarnation of the Serpent-God, Adisesha on whom Lord Vishnu is depicted to be resting.

Two online resources to the Yoga-Sutras are:
1) http://www.astrojyoti.com/patanjaliyogasutras.htm
2) http://dailyreadings.com/sutras_1.htm

To wrap this post up, three videos for you. Watch the first two till the end.

1) This is from one of the 'famous' snake parks in Thailand. In my view pure harassment for the animal. In fact, feel uncomfortable posting it. But am amazed at the circus. The handler is putting his life at risk. The animal feels threatened and keeps striking. Stupid tourist marvels at it all.
Incidentally, this 'cobra-kissing' is done at Battis-Shirala in Maharashtra, India as well. The village is famous for its Nagapanchami festival. I remember the village being covered on NGC some years back. Apparently the snakes there are handled humanely. But even then, it definitely is traumatic for them to be caught from the forest and worst - kissed by humans!

Ann Arbor Summer - Playing hide and seek...

2006-07-25T21:36:00.001-04:00

She won. But by cheating. Breeze helped her.

YSR

2006-07-24T20:28:00.003-04:00

YSR is Yeduguri Samuel Rajasekhara Reddy - chief minister of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Famous - sorry, infamous - for a lot of things. Read here.

Right now, his prime focus is apparently trying to wrest control of one of Hinduism's most famous pilgrimage sites - Tirupati-Tirumala. Remember that the temple has an annual revenue of Rs. 7,380 million = 164 million$ !

The amount of religious conversion activity in T-T is unprecedented. Despite the government rule that this is not allowed there. Forget that, YSR's government came up with a statement saying only two of the seven hills belong to the temple! Then after vociferous protests, they have now said 'it depends on the centre'. See here. Also remember that this is same guy who proposed a 5% reservation for Muslims - divisive politics. The religion quota was thankfully refused permission by the Supreme Court. See here.

Recently, there was a meeting by Hindu religious leaders to discuss the tremendous conversion activity occuring in Tirupati-Tirumala. Needless to say, a fact-finding commission found out serious issues eg. employees of the temple board being converted - again not allowed as per law.

This is the problem. Tolerance is taken for granted to conduct mischief. And it then turns a full circle.

YSR's profile is fun to read on Wikipedia here. If there was ever a critic of Wikipedia content she/he just needed this article to quote. Obviously written by a big fan of YSR. Then someone has edited it - all of which has led to one big confusion. See the print screen below and enjoy! (click to enlarge screen-shot)
Apparently YSRs multipronged economic strategy is to give free power.

Update on evil Arjun and Reservations

2006-07-21T04:17:00.002-04:00

Before i give you any update (in other words venting out my own frustration), take a look at this screen-shot:

Please note:
1. The words 'titanic vision' in quotes. Almost like they knew the titanic chaos the man was going to cause.

2. Creative caption (by the way, it's clipped off - he's not Prime Minister as yet)

3. Note the word 'Amrut' (nectar) right between the two Singhs. Now, recall the Kurma Avatar story and the battle for the divine nectar between the forces of good and evil. You know what i am getting at.

4. The full story that appeared last year here. Note disproportionate coverage and evil's quote somewhere in between:
" the only guide to a man is his conscience"

Now, let's come back to the update. Two of them.

1. If anyone can do this, he's definitely evil. The bomb blasts happenned on July 11th, 2006. This man the very next day makes a statement on reservations for Muslims - it's almost as if he was crying for attention. And he was talking about conscience on his birthday.

Incidentally, one more example of his conscience, which was noted by blogger barbarindian here. I won't spoil it for you. Alternatively, see evil's official webpage - click on biodata and check what he gives his profession as. Conscience?

2. Now, forget that, evil went one step further. In the cabinet meeting called to discuss the blasts, he and another extraordinary statesman, Antulay, suggested that 'Hindu' groups were behind the blasts so that they could then blame Muslims!!! See here. Apparently, our PM wasn't interested in this theory:

"....this prompted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to urge the Ministers to refrain from raising 'divisive issues' in the Cabinet before bringing them to his attention"

3. Few days ago, evil again woke up. Maybe he gets up everyday thinking, what do i disrupt today. He's made this statement:

" The impressive growth had gone hand-in-hand with a mounting agrarian distress and price rise. A vast number of people remained untouched by the mesmerising statistics, which the people had rejected decisively in the last elections."

Now, i don't know too much about this, but do Human Resource ministers also take decisions on the economy?

Anyway, enough of evil....on reservations, i had forgotten to post this gem - Reservation in Sports in UP! The fact that they are even thinking about it...

And secondly, reader Camelpost kindly drew my attention to this - a comment she/he left here:
(sorry for the bad formatting...didn't have time to do it up)

"
This is an analysis of the ranks of students admitted at NIT Calicut from Kerala: Source Hindu Education Plus 11/7/2006.

Branch, Last rank in open category, First Rank in SC Category, Last in SC Category.
Architecture 1992 7597 15799
Civil 14054 99803 113527
Comp Science 5186 41238 83642
Electrical 7246 37792 85362
Electronics 2921 12058 37362
Mech 8191 38875 82922
ProdEngg 9907 89380 90498
Chemical 12326 92769 102590

Need i say more?

Yes, i know this is SC/ST and not OBC. But my stand is that there are much, much, much better ways to improve standards for the backward castes. And OBCs especially - that's just plain vote bank politics

Effect of smoke breaks

2006-07-16T22:35:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Sandeep for this.
Maybe we should show it to this guy:
(Thanks to Sharat for this snap. Can't locate original sources for any of the above snaps)

Bombay Blasts : Leave the grieving alone!

2006-07-15T02:47:00.003-04:00

Go to this site - this is the coverage of the blasts . Alternatively go here and see the video titled 'Painful aftermath...'

Some typical dude of Indian origin reporting with that irritating accent...has no clue of courtesies such as PLEASE LEAVE THE GRIEVING ALONE!

Lands up at one of the unfortunate family's residence and has the bloody gall to say that the family came to know of the death of their member just a few hours before they landed up.

You know what that means, you idiot? It means leave the poor people alone!

Forget that, he also decides to do an 'extra' - so he goes to a crematorium and in a very stupid idiotic nonchalant fashion stands next to some funeral pyre and does his reporting. Ah, that'll look good for the worldwide audiences! They've never seen a funeral pyre before.

The worst was zooming in on the poor relatives' faces at their residence - the father and (presumably) the sister of the deceased. i am sure they'd have tortured the wife as well but 'she was holed up in a room'.

Also, somewhere around the 1.47 minute mark of the video, watch as one lady comes into the room and tells people to clear off.

Which is the real one? The answer...

2006-07-14T21:29:00.001-04:00

Firstly apologies for not posting the answer to this on tuesday, as i had promised while responding to the post's comments - the Bombay blasts had got me quite upset.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The answer:

Two monks were in front of a temple flag pole.

Monk 1 : The flag flutters.
Monk 2 : No. It is the wind that flutters.

The 6th patriarch intervened:
"Neither the flag nor the wind. It is your mind that flutters"

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What is reality? Are we sure that what we perceive is real? How much of reality are our senses blocking out? Are our senses ever capable of perceiving reality?

...and if you are sick of all this and just want a 'reasonable' answer to the question, ok...the first snap 'was closer to what i saw and the camera captured'. Is it the real thing? No.

Bombay blasts

2006-07-11T22:07:00.001-04:00

Took this picture last year on 11/2 in a Bombay local train. Didn't know that this would happen today, on 11/7 .
Blasted by Islamic terrorists...need to crush them...by brute force.

Which is the real one?

2006-07-07T02:22:00.001-04:00

Rains in Bombay...strange things happen

2006-07-07T00:24:00.001-04:00

like this.

Quick quiz - 1

2006-07-06T07:02:00.001-04:00

What's the opposite of 'Dr. Ramadoss'?

A. Dr. Ramadoesnot (know how to treat men of knowledge)

(background info here)

The reservation madness in Kerala continues

2006-07-06T01:31:00.002-04:00

We spoke of the bad govt. decision in Kerala here on the quotas.

One more mad decision:
33% of posts in temples in south kerala will be reserved.

Now, if reservations are being extended to other religions, why is this specific law not applicable to them?

And why is this law applicable only to the Travancore Devaswom Board? Why not all temples? Just curious.

By the way, the famous Sabarimala temple comes under the purview of the TDB netting Rs. 700 milion annually.

Anyway, this is not half as depressing as the earlier post below.

Who's this person - 2

2006-07-05T21:56:00.001-04:00

So after profiling Dr.Sudarshan (who incidentally, no one i know, knew), here's another doctor. But this is a medical doctor. People in India should be able to identify this gentleman easily since he is in the news.

Well, this is Dr. P. Venugopal. He's the director (ex-Director after today and you'll soon know why) of the All India Institute of Medical Studies (AIIMS), one of India's premier medical education, research and treatment facilties - and a government funded institute.

Achievements

A gold medalist at the undergraduate and post-graduate level. Also spent time training under the legendary heart surgeaon Dr. Cooley and the Texas Heart Institute. Regarded as the foremost heart-surgeon on the country he is also the pioneer of open-heart surgery. He performed the first heart transplant in India in the year 1994. He was also in the news last year for his thoughts on stem-cell* research which promises to revolutionarize heart-surgery.

*Stem cells are a unique type of cells which have the potential to become many different types of cells and are capable of renewing themselves indefinitely. For an excellent source of information on stem cell research, see the interactive tutorial at the University of Michigan's site here).

For all his achievements, he is known to be an extremely media-shy person; he once retorted to a journalist who wanted to interview him saying - "I have nothing to tell you and i do not want the publicity".

His decades of dedication at AIIMS have rewarded him with great respect by patients, students and colleagues (except for some, and you'll soon know who).

Patients talk about how they'd rather come to AIIMS rather than go to a private hospital even if they can afford the private hospitals since Dr. Venugopal personally interacts with patients. Students and colleagues are in awe of him.

Unfortunately the dedication for him has come at personal time lost - for a man in his 60s he has a seven year old daughter.

As a person
Known to be down-to-earth, no-nonsense (which has made him unpopular, especially among politicians, you'll know who soon) and a father-figure in the department.

When we himself had to get a heart-operation done last year, he chose his junior-most staff-member(Dr. Bisnoi) to do it saying he is proud of his students and if it was 'good enough for his patients, it was good enough for him too'.

After the operation, the first words on gaining consciousness was asking the doctor on how the other patients were. Read the account here.

Status at present

With 46 (!) years of service at AIIMS, having overseen 50,000 open heart surgeries and 15,000 closed-heart surgeries and tremendous respect all around, you expect the government to treat him well, right? Well, in case you haven't read about it - they sacked him two days ago. With immediate effect.

Yep. Sacked. C'mon, don't put on that shocked face - after all, they're giving him three months salary.

So here's the answer to all the three 'you'll soon know who' stuff that was in the brackets above.

Health minister Ramadoss said he was being sacked on disciplinarian grounds. Dr. Venugopal's fault? He criticized the government for interfering in the hospital's administration. Apparently technically you cannot do this. Something to do with the fact that you are a govt. servant. Talk of freedom of speech. Fact is that the interference was subtantiated by the Public Accounts Committee tabled in Parliament - it talked of excessive intererence impacting the efficiency of the institute.

The best is the way, he was ousted.
1) He was not even on the agenda in the meeting where his fate was sealed!
2) When the topic was brought up, he was asked to leave the room without even getting a chance to explain himself. The minister did not bother about heeding others' advice on this issue.
3) Of the 17 people in that room, most are affiliated to the health ministry. So what do you expect. There were only three dissenting voices. Even those who did not dissent were unhappy with the way the minister rammed his way through. Except one who agreed with the minister. Who was he? MP from TN. Expected.
4) All the time, Dr. Venugopal was waiting outside the room like a petty peon.

When the news was anounced, he was visibly shaken and had to be assisted to his car. The govt. doesn't care if you put your heart and soul into the institute for close to half a century. The govt. is only bothered about power and wants people to keep licking.

And oh, by the way, the person who heads the selection committee at AIIMS is a close relative of Ramadoss. Shameless fellows.

Anyway, Dr. V might should have expected all this. First, he was accused of supporting anti-reservation students, which was not liked by the minister. Of course, this charge has been openly stated to be false. The person who headed the anti-reservation strike said that, on the other hand, Dr. V called him and warned him to call off the strike. Read this here.

When he was on leave last month, two of his aides were removed and replaced with the minister's henchmen. Moreover, the fact that Dr V. was appointed by the previous BJP government apparently wasn't liked by the minister.

So what's next?

Political front: The BJP and the left have both criticized the move. BJP leader, V.K.Malhotra who was in that room and one of three dissenting voices, calls it a black day and speaks of how the autonomy of the institute was being eroded brick by brick.
The Congress - can't expect anything better- says the issue should not be politicized (!) and it was a matter between the ministry and AIIMS. Aiyee?

One more thing - the recommendation of the governing bidy has to be approved by the cabinet. So let's see. But can't see much hope there.

Judicial front: Only hope. Already a petition has been filed by the head of the neurosurgery dept. at AIIMS and 7 others against politicizing the governing body of AIIMS.

Today the Supreme Court severely criticized the minister and told the govt. to "be a model employer"

The reservation madness continues

2006-07-02T07:05:00.001-04:00

The Kerala assembly has unanimously passed a bill fixing quotas in private professional institutions. So now, the seats in the general merit category has been restricted to 18%

The quota break-up below. Bizzare stuff:
25% : Socially and economically backward communities
15% : NRIs
15% : Management Quota
12% : Economically backward forward communities
10% : Scheduled Communities
3%: Physically handicapped
1% : Sports quota
1% : Arts quota
Total of above = 82%

Now along with teaching your child her/his full name you would need to also teach her/him caste properly and the appropriate suffixeeg. Raman Nambudiri, GMC (General Merit Category). But given the sorry state of Nambudiri's today, i wonder whether this would be Raman Nambudiri, EBFC.

Meanwhile the 'social-justice' crusaders themselves have got confused. Check out comrade Yechury of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) confusing SC/ST quotas with OBC quotas apart from logic that even a donkey will hee-haw at:

"In all courses of graduation and above, only 8.18 per cent of SCs and 2.9 per cent of STs are enrolled as against the 20 per cent reservations provided for them. Hence, the fear that extension of reservations to the OBCs will deprive the general category of students must be tempered with this reality."

Finally, the IIMs have no clue on how they are going to increase facilities overnight to accomodate the new seat increase. IIM-A 'does not have land to even build a shed'. But IIM-Calicut has come up with a great excuse :

" Its director has told the core group (of the govt.) that as the institute is located in a hilly region, finding a contractor is difficult. "

Ann Arbor Spring: White, Form over colour - 2

2006-06-25T03:02:00.001-04:00

Second of the four parts of this.
One of these snaps is a repeat though from a different angle - couldn't resist posting it again because it looks very beautiful. You'll know which one if you've seen the earlier posts!
So here they are - starting with Miss Elegance herself (click for a larger image):