Less equals!! Ha!!

This is yet another follow up article! In fact, this is an explanation for the earlier articles and my stance on dressing up!!  There was a strong feedback from a reader. She was very upset with the articles and me. She quoted Chain around the neck and asked what is wrong in wearing jewelry or dressing up for a loved one; quoted Blame Game and asked what is wrong with using cosmetics; she quoted Minimalistic decision making and asked what is wrong in spending more time shopping if that can give relaxation… like an entertainment. She felt offended that I am considering women who dress up or who spend more time in shopping as less equals; she also quoted that women tend to behave this way as they grow up in the ladder and they have a need to prove that they are not "feminine" or they do not have the characteristics of the other women.

My response to all her three "what is wrong" questions, of course there is nothing wrong as long as it is you who consciously decide to do it and it is not out of a compulsion or mandate by someone else or as a result of social conditioning. Don’t I dress up? Of course I do! I do dress up differently for different occasions or environments; my liking towards different types of attire has changed many times over a period.... like all of you! More importantly, I have considered / I do consider the sentiments of loved ones when I wear an attire for a specific occasion. For example, I try to avoid wearing black when my parents are around as they fear that I will fall sick after wearing black. But I do have a quite a number of black in my wardrobe! When I go to work in India, I dress up very formally and it is Indian formals. Off work, I wear western casuals quite a bit.  When I visit other countries, I dress up in a way that works for me in that country. When I go to weddings, I wear jewelries and deck myself up. You can easily see the range of variations in clothing from these details.

I think, all of us do have a range! Men do too.  I am sure, men also would not like to go to board meetings in shorts and  they would go in their choicest formal suit if the meeting matters to them. So the points I raise are not against dressing up suitably for the occasion nor against having a wide range of choices. It is about who decides what is appropriate for an occasion. I believe, women have the necessary intelligence to decide what is appropriate for an occasion and others do not have the right to decide it for them. If someone wears an attire that is traditionally not worn to  a specific type of an occasion, that person may feel odd and learn what to wear next time; if they do not find it odd to wear, it is fine too; they will continue to wear it next time too. It is their choice!  If someone is willing to let go of this right to decide, I am fine with that too as long as it their conscious decision to let go! My concern is about how the social conditioning is blinding women and making them believe that wearing an extra chain represents their love for their husband or the longevity of his life and they can not wear certain colors depending on whether he is alive or dead.  I do not want some one to stop me from wearing my favorite colors because of my marital status or force me into liking pink because I am a woman!

Shopping is the most interesting feedback for me! By all means, if shopping is like an entertainment for someone, they are free to do that as long as their time and budget allows it. My contention was against the inability to take decisions! If someone spends more time in shopping because they are not able to decide which clothe to buy, it is a problem to be fixed or opportunity for improvement! They need to train themselves in taking quicker decisions.

It is about striking the balance between satisficing and maximizing! It is about understanding that all estimation techniques are useful only to an extent. Cost of decision making will depend on cost of information collection.  Accuracy of an estimate depends on breadth and depth of information used for the estimation. Without some basic information, no one can estimate. Till about 60% of information, there is good positive correlation between amount of information and accuracy of estimation. But beyond  60% of information, accuracy of estimation does not correlate that very well with amount of information and it fluctuates around the same level. The next peaking of accuracy of estimation happens when we have close to 100% of information.

Ironically, all information is available for estimation only when the activity is completed!  Estimation is useless at that point in time! Task is completed anyway! It is the same logic, I am applying for shopping! One needs to learn to take decision with less information except for some very rare scenarios that expect high level of accuracy. If you do not consider shopping as a task to be completed, a decision to be made, and treat it as a recreation, this logic does not apply to you. The logic I use for my recreation will probably be more comparable! Spending a lot of time in decision making is a costly affair in terms of time as well as the amount of energy it can drain from our psychological energy pool. If the returns of that spend is not worth it, do not spend that much is my only recommendation!

Make up interpretation was a shocker to me! I took a decision not to use cosmetics when I was 18 years old in an effort to be eco-friendly! Believe me - yes, to be eco-friendly! I wanted to reduce the chemicals I use. Of course, I do not have control over all the chemicals used in the value chain of all my consumables. But wherever possible, I wanted to reduce chemicals! Definitely not due to the fact was I was going up in the corporate ladder :-)! I was not even in the corporate world when I took that decision! In fact I did not even know that such a thing called corporate world exists!

More over, I do not use chemical cosmetics does not mean that I do not like things like henna. Not many people would have seen my nails without the color of henna / maruthani! I do take time do it. In the middle of the night, after all my calls are over, I spend 10-15 mins to apply maruthani about once in two weeks!  In Blame-game article, I did not mean to promote "no-cosmetics" idea. When someone is not used to do something for a long time, doing that activity will  not be perfect, will take more time, will not feel good and they may feel that they are clumsy! At least, I felt I was very clumsy with these things and I did not like the stickiness of the moisturizer! This is my only point! :-)

Coming back the "less equals" feedback, all I am saying in these articles is, I do not want any one to generalize and influence how women behaved generally or a specific woman behaved all thru her life. In fact, I am against any & all generalizations and tagging people to these generalizations!  All of us change, all of us have choices, and all of us are free to exercise those choices with an eye for improving ourselves constantly! I do not claim to be better than other women!! To me, there is nothing called as "better than others"! Each one is unique and precious, if you care to be one, that is!

Ekalaivan and the rest of them!

Why Ekalaivan was a better archer than Arjun is a long discussed topic. I guess, science is answering this question now. It is proved that the online learners / distance learners are better self-regulated than the class-room or in-person students. Ekalaivan was probably the first ever distance learner! Like many other distance learners, Ekalaivan also was learning for his own pleasure & need and not out of compulsion by a parent or someone. When one is intrinsically motivated like that, they are better self-regulated and hence better learners and better performers!

There is an additional possible explanation! Hawthorne Effect! For Arjun, Drona was in physical form. He could differentiate between the physical presence and absence easily. He may have practiced / done right things only when Drona was around. But, for Ekalaivan, Drona was not a physical form; he was a virtual form that is present always, a feeling that is constantly existing. There is no possibility of absence of the guru for him. The only way he could have survived this feeling was by practicing all the time, behaving himself, eating right always. A case of perceived attention improving productivity and performance!!!! His feeling for his guru probably was so intense that he did not need any reiteration of the idea that his guru is next to him always…

It is interesting that ancient India considered the guru as same as God! They also believed that the great gurus can manifest themselves anywhere! Application of Hawthorne effect I feel :-) :-) How many teachers qualify to be at that level is a different question though! But if we think carefully, Drona himself was not good enough to be treated as God… he lied, was partial and violated war ethics. It looks like, it is the disciple's feeling for the guru mattered more than the quality of the guru!! However, we should remember that, the guru should be of good quality otherwise the student will end up learning wrong things or the overall outcome will go in vain… like in the case of Ekalaivan.

Drona was the guru for Pandavas and Kauravas too. If we compare their performance with Ekalaivan, they were poorer. But within themselves, Pandavas were better… that is probably because, the Pandavas had access to their other great guru - Krishna.  One can see the influence of the "Hawthorne effect" easily with Krishna. Pandavas kept Krishna out on purpose whenever they committed mistakes; they made explicit requests to him to stay away mentally! For example, Yudhisthira pleaded Krishna to be away when gambled / played the fatal game; he went on to make all ugly mistakes when he kept his guru away mentally. Not only that, before they set out to the war, the pandavas shared their most dreaded secrets with one another and Krishna to create the bonding once again with their guru.

Kaurvas did not have this feeling for their guru Drona. They did not keep him at their heart! Interestingly, Drona did not keep his best student Ekalaivan at his side! In other words, Drona was not that good a teacher as Krishna. His students did not consider him as omnipresent; he deceived the only student who considered him as omnipresent!  Krishna's disciples kept him close to their heart, treated him as God and felt his presence always. Krishna too stepped down or up to any level for them- he accepted rather volunteered to be a charioteer to his student, a messenger on behalf of his students, astrologer for his students; he never let them down! We all know the result of such an alliance!! 

One more!

One more tree down in the neighbourhood! It was due to the rain. Fortunately no one was hurt. It was only a few bikes that got hit. That was a big sigh of a relief… but it hurts still….

Just fifty years back, this place was full of trees, in fact was of only trees. Looks like, even fifteen years back, more than 70% of the space was filled with trees and buildings were occupying only the rest of the place with good amount of vacant land in between them for the children to play. In 2001, a new set of buildings were erected to host 200 families vacating several hundred families of birds and squirrels away chopping away a good number of trees.

Last year, government decided to host a few hundred more police officers and their families in new buildings! Hmm… a few more hundreds of birds lost their homes. It was a sad site to see the trees being cut. If I had so much money and power, I would have bought the entire land to save the trees, birds and squirrels. I was just a silent witness… This tree was a survivor I should say, given the fact that it was very close to a new construction. Many of its branches were cut; I could feel the effect of it in the reduced flowers this summer. I was hoping that I would see more flowers next summer as the tree would have healed by then. But… to my unhappiness, she died today!

This morning I woke up smiling, listening to the chirping of myna family from my window sill. A little late in the morning, when I was trying to calm myself down after a few unpleasant things, it was this myna family that gave me pleasantness and strength again. From my window, they flew back to this tree. I was trying to locate them thru the thicks of the leaves. It was a good hide and seek though they did not know that they were hiding and I was seeking them. In the game, I also could see a parrot couple. They all lightened my heavy feelings and the day started to look up!

Now, the tree has gone! It is raining heavily. The birds can't build their nests quickly. Where will they be? It feels a lot like a Tamil movie scene - their homes broke on a rainy day. If it was humans, neighbours or government would have given them a shelter for tonight and probably till the time they get a better place to move in. What will happen to these birds? Do they also have such support systems?  I don’t even know how to help them for the kind of joy they gave me everyday, especially this morning! It feels like not helping someone who helped in a dire need!!

My neighbour called me to tell me that the tree fell down (as I was away from home at that time). She told me that no one was hurt, it was only a few bikes… Really? Was no one hurt?

Do we really understand equality?

I am getting tired of a few terms like equality and vegetarianism. You may be wondering what equality has to do with vegetarianism!!

When people relate kindness and vegetarianism or cruelty and non-veg food, it annoys me. The immediate question that comes to my mind is why are you not considering plants as equal to animals? I get even more irritated when people who can pluck a flower for no reason, who can pinch a leaf on the way without even thinking about it, who can prune the plants for just making them look good, talk about "evil" non-vegetarian food!! It just shows that they do not understand that plants are also living beings and they are no less than animals including humans.

When non-vegetarians show faces about eating crows or dogs or insects etc. it tires me even more. If you can eat chicken, you can eat any bird; if you can eat a lamb you can eat any animal; if you can eat prawns, you can eat any insect! As long as they are not poisonous and you like the taste, that is! What is wrong with eating a crow? Is it the looks or easy availability or less meat that makes a crow so very dirty thing to be considered? Just because you are not used to eating something, can you say it is bad to eat! Anyone who responds that way looses their right to fight when vegetarians talk ill of non-vegetarians! They are equally rude and insensitive!

It is even more surprising for me, when people feel so bad for a deer being hunted by a lion. Sure, we want the deer to live longer! But are we okay if the lion dies out of hunger? I have never got a convincing answer from the "kindness" group. Whenever I think of the "pregnant deer" stories, I used to wonder why there is no "pregnant lion" story at all? Why are we kind to only a few animals?

In the recent past, a video with a little girl crying for animals made several rounds. Usually, watching a child cry will hurt you; but this one is sweet, it makes you smile, and feel happy that the little girl is crying for another life!! I hope her parents later explained to her about the eco system and also helped her retain the feeling for other lives in general - including plants, animals and humans!! 

All the species have the right to live in this planet and have equal opportunity to be consumed by another species! Till we understand this, the word equality does not mean anything to me!

Blame Game!!

This article is an after effect of my recent trip to colder countries and my reflection on what I read in a book written by a visitor to India a few years back! The writer mentioned that in India, it takes longer time to do simple day to day activities like bathing, cooking etc. I did not mind that statement given the kind of sophistication the kitchens and bathrooms in the western world have. However, during my recent trip, I realised that I took longer time to do the same things in the western countries in spite of the sophistication! It does not seem to be correlated with the technology!

In India I get ready - starting from brushing my teeth to being fully dressed (some times it is a saree too) - in about 20 minutes. But in these colder places, I took close to about an hour and I did not dare to wear a saree outdoors! This surprised me! When I observed more, I realised that every single activity took longer time and I had to do additional activities that I never do back in India!

"Moisturiser" is the first key differentiator! In Chennai I (most of us) do not need to apply moisturiser; but in colder places one definitely needs it! It takes more than 5 minutes to apply on every inch of the skin! I guess, those do it daily would have learnt techniques to do it in seconds! For someone like me, who does not use any cosmetics whatsoever, it is a big pain! bathing took twice as long a time to get rid of the sticky lotion hmm…..  Not only that, it made me take bath twice a day - I did not like the stickiness of the lotion on the skin; The next day I realised that I had to apply this sticky lotion even before sleeping! So, I bathed twice and applied the lotion twice! Time required to bathe quadrupled and apply moisturiser doubled!

The first couple of days were warm and sunny. So the extra time was limited to only bathroom! But then, the following days were colder and I had to wear winter clothing though the locals were saying it is still warm and nice :-) :-)! Locals also warned me to wear as many layers as I need to and not to compare my clothing with what others are wearing! To wear that many layers under the outfit, it took quite an amount of extra time! More annoyingly, some of my clothes did not fit me because of these extra layers! It was as if I gained weight and went out of shape just in a couple of days! Aha!

I walked slowly - slower than how I walk in Chennai - because of the additional heavy clothing over the outfits! I had two more layers - a fleece and a jacket most of the time! They weighed about 5 kilos together - more than 10% of my weight! As a person, I do not like to carry anything heavy! You can imagine the frustration!

My fingers went numb and dysfunctional! I was not able to open water bottles even; I was not able to carry my handbag without dropping it multiple times! I dropped my mobile and did not even realise that I have dropped it! Holding a tissue too had to be done with a lot of pressure; I almost crushed the tissues before wiping my face or lips! I appeared weak, clumsy and careless! Not only that, all these wasted time! Others had to open the bottles for me, pick up my bag or mobile when I dropped them ( sometimes, after I tried doing myself and wasted a good deal of time :-) :-)!!!)

Just an edge of a paper could cut my skin; you could imagine the tenderness it developed because of the weather!  Back in Chennai, I am used to soft cotton and silk clothes; I never wore synthetic clothes at all. but in North America, I had to wear synthetic and woolen thermal wear in spite of my extra tender skin. I could feel them bruise my skin! With all these, I had to smile and laugh! As a result of my tender skin, I did not want shake hands with anyone but the culture expected handshakes more often! Wow!

Now I am thinking of the writer's statement and the examples he quoted. Is it India / Indian culture that made him take longer time to do simple things or made him believe that Indians waste a lot of time in simple day to day things? I can put the same blame on the countries I visited and say that people there waste a lot of time in simple activities. But it will be a gross inaccurate, incorrect and rude statement. What made me spend more time is my inexperience to handle a different climate and different environment. If I had been there for longer period or visited them more often, I would have learnt techniques to better manage these things and will definitely take shorter time! It is just a matter of practice!!

How quickly and easily, people can blame a country or culture without even thinking!