Factory of The Mind

Once the basic needs were satisfied, I, like many fellow humans, started thinking about questions and subjects, which can be referred to as ‘philosophical’. Words like social justice, governance, balance, ego, paradigm, consciousness, truth, myth, etc. started featuring in thoughts, discussions and reading material. Gradually, realization dawned that these were not definitive in nature like mathematics or physics and could not be taken to logical conclusions one way or the other. I learnt to abort discussions saying that each person has and is entitled to his own perspective. Recently, while reading about Socrates, Plato, Aristrotle, I understood that these abstract subjects have been in consideration for over 2500 years. As I thought more, these were being spoken of during the times of Mahabharat as well, which is supposed to be dated about 5000 years ago. All religious texts primarily appear to be dealing with these subjects. Finally, I concluded that there is some substance in the c...

Sometime during my college days, I’d come across a definition that economics is the study of human behavior in conditions of unlimited wants and limited resources. The meaning would perhaps remain the same if I say that it is the study of human behavior in conditions where resources are lesser than required to satisfy wants. I think economics is also the study of human behavior in conditions where resources are more than required to satisfy wants. We are living in times, where this condition is not utopian. There are umpteen examples of people, who have more resources than what they need to satisfy their wants. I’m not getting into the distinction between need and want, but considering all that a person wants as his need. Also, ‘unlimited wants’ is a misleading notion because the capacity of a person to consume is finite. Therefore the term ‘want’ needs to be defined with more precision. But I’ll leave that for later. In economics, a lot of emphasis is laid on the assumptions or emphas...

When I quit my job, I thought that it is futile to spend so much time commuting to and fro and in office to earn a living. As it is, the job is getting me more money than I need to live a simple life. Why not release some bandwidth, even if it means earning less. It is so elementary to look at work as a means of livelihood. One works to earn a living. But is the converse true? If one doesn’t need to earn for a living, doesn’t he need to work? For this discussion, let is consider work as professional work, not personal. When I tried to establish relationships, I wasn’t able to establish a logical relationship between work and earning! Let’s take a farmer or a doctor. Both of them provide a service (growing food and curing illness). Let’s say there is a consumer who is incapable of doing either of it himself and has to depend upon them to fulfill his need. How does he arrive at their fee? If life is precious, both are invaluable, if it isn’t, both are worthless. From the perspective of t...

Read an interesting piece of Indian mythology, said to have been elaborated in the Vishnu Purana. Vishnu descends on earth in the form of a small fish and asks Manu, the first man, to save him from the big fish. The notion of a big fish feeding on the small fish is known as ‘matsya nyaya’ and denotes the law of the jungle. By promising to save the small fish, Manu, in effect establishes the code of civilization or ‘dharma’, where even the weak can thrive. Manu puts the small fish in a pot. But as the days pass the fish grows in size and becomes too big for the pot. So Manu moves him to a pond. The fish in due course becomes too big for the pond. Manu moves him to a river. As the days pass, even the river proves inadequate for the fish. The fish is then moved to the sea. It grows too big even for the sea. So the skies burst and torrential rains fall, which end up submerging the whole earth. This, the fish declares ominously, is Pralaya, the end of the world. The story ends with the gian...

Money is unanimously seen as a very forceful variable. The importance of material wealth outstrips any other form of wealth. It differentiates the donor from the needy. It differentiates the respected from the condemned. A person abjectly poor in terms of physical, psychological and spiritual health assumes the role of a donor (because he is materially rich) to a tribal beneficiary, who has everything except money. Material wealth in such cases include high academic qualifications and high positions of political or economic power. What does richness entail? Who should be considered rich in the broader sense of the word ‘wealth’? A cheerful disposition, ability to sleep like a log, the skill to cook food or stich a cloth, access to the freshest air or the expansive sea, a temperament to be cool during crisis, ability to connect emotionally with a loved one in pain. Surely the lack of many of these is felt when the need arises. How different then are these vis-à-vis money? Consider this…...

Mahesh, 32, is a manual labour working in a village. He also has a couple of buffaloes. His wife also goes for manual work in people’s farms for about half the month. Gopal, 23, is an engineer, working as a sales executive with a large Indian company in Mumbai. Dipika, 20, is in her final year graduation with an excellent academic record. Srinivas, 42, is a senior executive with a large MNC bank. Revati is studying in 10 th standard and is academically brilliant, social, well read (for her age). Economically, their parents or larger family members aren’t dependent on them. On the contrary, their siblings and some other close family members are also in an economically ‘surplus’ zone. None of them have any extravagant lifestyles or expensive habits. None of them are too ambitious. None of them are any serious practitioners of some art or sport. All of the above are typical representatives of people around us. All of them (possibly except Revati) have grown up with a primary aim of earnin...

My mother was next to Shreya when she woke up today. Instead of the ‘good morning’, mom said ‘Jai Shree Krishna’. Shreya didn’t respond. This was a new greeting. Mom told her to repeat the greeting and said that she should say ‘Jai Shree Krishna’ every morning and whenever she greets someone. Shreya casually asked “Why should I?” Mom replied saying, “It feels good.” My mom-in-law joined her and reinforced this to Shreya. I walked in and asked (on behalf of Shreya), “Who feels good?” Suddenly their defence  mechanism took over and mom said, ”Ok, ok, we’ll not try teaching your children.” Just a casual event, but loaded with understanding. One, at the age of 4, Shreya retains a tendency to enquire. By this age, most children lose this tendency completely. Genuine enquiry leads to knowledge and understanding. But as parents, as teachers, as elders, as opinion leaders, we should reflect whether we encourage or even respond favourably to a genuine enquiry or are we too busy trying to in...

Having fun is very important for us (our family, I mean). And it is so for many people we know, for almost every child in the world. In fact, it can be argued that it is the purpose of life! We also enjoy company. Fun can be had within oneself, within the family or with a larger group. All forms of fun are necessary. But ever since we’ve stepped out of the so called ‘mainstream’, our interaction with friends (from the erstwhile mainstream life) has reduced to almost zero. I get a feeling that they don’t want to interact with us. No casual phone calls, no comments on facebook / blog, no replies to e-mails. The initial feeling was that of depression, nearing betrayal. But it is not as simple as that. I've been trying to figure out the reasons for this change. There may be other reasons, but one reason is that when we moved towards a life into a village most of our friends, colleagues, relatives looked at it as moving away from fun. It is quite obvious. Leading a simple life, being en...

Concern for relatives (outside immediate family) seems to have reduced considerably. Of course it varies, but in general, we've become more 'practical'. Our reaction to news from relatives is perhaps similar to news one gets through TV or newspaper about people in general.  For example, when we get informed about a sudden death or detection of a terminal illness at young age, the likely reaction is "Oh! What is the impact on family? Are people financially dependent?" Almost zero time is allotted to 'feeling' the grief (or even joy). It different in different communities. Rekha feels that among South Indians, the bonding between family members is not very strong, unlike Marwaris or Gujaratis. People would rather keep the doctor’s appointment or not disturb the schedule of children than to comfort a cousin in deep grief.  The issue on hand is quite fundamental and very important. Have family members & relatives also become distant enough that their joys ...

Land price is a major factor governing my decision to buy land. My concerns are thus: 1.     There is no economic rationale for price of any agricultural land to be valued beyond a threshold. How does one arrive at this threshold? Let us say that one family of 4 can manage not more than one acre of land. If a person can earn a gross revenue of 1 lac from an acre and net revenue of 80 thousand, the net revenue should cover his cost of living (including a reasonable saving) and the cost of capital (interest cost on investment in land). If his cost of living is pegged at 60,000 pa, he cannot service more than 20000 of interest pa. The land price for an agricultural land then cannot exceed 2 lac per acre. One may re-calculate this threshold by modifying the assumptions of how much land can a family manage and how much gross revenue can one make from the amount of land he can manage. There may be other methods of arriving at the threshold. But, this has to be a factor in price dete...

Last week, we saw a documentary titled ‘Schooling the World’. It was about how modern education is aimed at and has substantially succeeded in destroying the ethnic cultures, ruined the lives of many for the gains of few individuals and nations and distorted children from the path of natural growth and lured them to a much inferior materialistic life. It states that the genesis of the degradation of education lay in the colonial domination, which treated the subjected nations as resources meant to fulfill their dream of ruling the world. It goes on to state that many well intentioned efforts are accelerating this degradation because they are blinded to the real effects of modern schooling. Overall, it is the story of evil western forces using their power to destroy the cultural treasures of eastern tradition by way of reforming the schooling system. The audiences to the movie were 5 couples, 3 of who have completely pulled their children from modern schooling, one family who schooled t...

Watching what interactions, events, thoughts do to you is quite interesting. Imagine a calamity; suffering people, shortage of basic needs, uncertainty and hopelessness. As if to defy the adversity, one witnesses love and concern, selfless service, generosity without an expectation of reciprocation. Innumerable instances can be recounted. Now imagine prosperity. Almost inevitably, one witnesses fear of loss, discontent, greed and insensitivity. The same person is capable of exhibiting these contrarian behaviours. Many in our generation have spent years sharing a single room with the entire family, who are now intolerant to the same family members staying in a separate room under the same roof. May be, adversary kills the ego and prosperity feeds it, and a well fed ego in turn causes adversity. My sense is that this cycle is a natural process and cannot be broken however much one wishes or hopes. Not in every case, but as a rule.