Serial Killers of Tamilnadu

Sometime ago, I had written that Alcoholism is the biggest killer in our country - compared to any other diseases or evils. But, of late, I am forced to reconsider that view. There is one even bigger killer in Tamilnadu. Visiting everyone's house day after day. Poisoning people to become brain dead. They are the Serial Killers of Tamilnadu.

I mean the Tamil Television serials that invade each and every household that has TV day after day. They too target the mind like Alcohol and make it numb, non-responsive and make people an addict over a period of time. But, these serial killers are more dangerous because this addiction does not even have the social sanction that alcohol is faced with; and hence is affecting the entire family in the centre of the household! At least, the effect of alcohol may wear out after some time; but these television serials leave a permanent effect in our minds.

What effect am I talking about?

First of all, these serials make one believe that there are only two kinds of people - those who cheat and whose who get cheated. Nothing in between and no normal people at all. No wonder why people lose faith in humanity these days.

Second, there is no normal event happens in life. Like people happily going out or eating together or joking or playing or whatever. All the time everyone is scheming to do some harm to others or to take revenge. Increase in mental illnesseses like depression in our society can be directly linked to these serial killers, I am sure.

Third, and the most obnoxious of all, is that the villains of all these serial killers are people within the household - not those gangsters or farway aliens or rich tycoons or underworld dons or anything. It will be just your mother or sister in law or a brother or a neighbour. All possible normal relationships are targeted and are portrayed as the bad ones. They are especially harsh on women - ironically because, most of the viewers are supposed to be women. As a recent cartoon in a Tamil newspaper said, "these serial makers should be punished under Prevention of Atrocities to Women"!

People in their most heinous avatars or everything about our bad qualities in the most pronounced form! If they keep visiting you day after day, you would feel that people will hate them. But, everyone plans all their activities based on the timings of these serials - finish everything before 'Mekala' starts, do that one after 'Selvi' is finished, can we finish this lesson between 'Idayam' and 'Kasthuri', I will call you after 'Arasi' is over - etc., and are extremely eager to invite these serial killers.

I am damn worried about the future of Tamil society.

Decision Making - Case Study 1

A case study to show how we make decisions in life and what are the consequences of it.

A group of children were playing near two railway tracks, one still in use while the other disused.
Only one child played on the disused track, the rest on the operational track.

The train is coming, and you are just beside the track interchange. You can make the train change its course to the disused track and save most of the kids. However, that would also mean the lone child playing by the disused track would be sacrificed. Or would you rather let the train go its way?

Let's take a pause to think what kind of decision we could make.

Most people might choose to divert the course of the train, and sacrifice only one child. You might think the same way, I guess. Exactly, to save most of the children at the expense of only one child was rational decision most people would make, morally and emotionally. But, have you ever thought that the child choosing to play on the disused track had in fact made the right decision to play at a safe place?

Nevertheless, he had to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was. This kind of dilemma happens around us every day. In the office, community, in politics and especially in a democratic society, the minority is often sacrificed for the interest of the majority, no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority are, and how farsighted and knowledgeable the minority are.

The child who chose not to play with the rest on the operational track was sidelined. And in the case he was sacrificed, no one would shed a tear for him.

The great critic Leo Velski Julian who told the story said he would not try to change the course of the train because he believed that the kids playing on the operational track should have known very well that track was still in use, and that they should have run away if they heard
the train's sirens. If the train was diverted, that lone child would definitely die because he never thought the train could come over to that track!

Moreover, that track was not in use probably because it was not safe. If the train was diverted to the track, we could put the lives of all passengers on board at stake! And in your attempt to save a few kids by sacrificing one child, you might end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids.

While we are all aware that life is full of tough decisions that need to be made, we may not realize that hasty decisions may not always be the right one.

What would you have done?

Difference between Heaven and Hell

Read this nice story, explaining the simple difference between Heaven and Hell. I am sure, you will enjoy it.

A holy man was having a conversation with God one day and said, "God , I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like."

God led the holy man to two doors.

He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in.

In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water.

The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished.

They were holding spoons with very long handles, that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful..

But because the handle was longer than their arms and tied to their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering.

God said, 'You have seen Hell.'

They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one.

There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man's mouth water.

The people were equiped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking. The holy man said, "I don't understand .."

"It is simple," said God . 'This is the difference between Heaven and Hell. It requires but one skill."

"You see, these people in Heaven have learned to feed each other, while the greedy in the hell think only of themselves."

Wonderful, isn't it?

This is also a classic short story! Simple knot, keeps the interest, there is a conflict and the knot is resolved at the last possible sentence! Classic definition of a short story.

But, recently came across another good definition for Heaven and Hell. Rather, what is the difference between these two. Read this T-Shirt!

What is Intelligence, anyway?

This is a brilliant piece written by Isaac Asimov. Thanks Nambi for sharing this. After receiving it, I have been constantly musing about it and also sharing it with many people - especially with teachers and education related people. Thought should share it with all the millions of people who are hanging on to my lips in this blog too! So, here it is, Mr.Asimov.

"What is intelligence, anyway? When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn't mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP - kitchen police - as my highest duty.)


All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people with intellectual bents similar to mine?

For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was.

Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles - and he always fixed my car.

Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I'd prove myself a moron, and I'd be a moron, too.

In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly.

My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.

Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: "Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. "The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left.

Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?" Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers.

Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, "Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them." Then he said smugly, "I've been trying that on all my customers today." "Did you catch many?" I asked. "Quite a few," he said, "but I knew for sure I'd catch you."

"Why is that?" I asked. "Because you're so god damned educated, doc, I knew you couldn't be very smart."

And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there."

It will be fun, if the rules of the game in this world somehow gets changed and we are back to the historic or pre-historic days, but with all our 'intelligence' intact. It will be great to see who will be the knowledge expert then, and who will be the most-sought after consultants etc.

Tribes: Different kinds

'Communities' are the in-thing these days. From being called Yahoo-groups or google-groups, people connected with each other through Facebook and Twitter call themselves 'communities'. Each software or computer application that is being developed jointly by many people etc. have their own communities - Dabo community, ExtJS community. And, above all, you have the OpenSource community.

We are also part of many such communities. So, it is good to read this post. Anita recommended this book - "Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us", by Seth Godin.

This is from the blurb from that book:

"A tribe is any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. For millions of years, humans have been seeking out tribes, be they religious, ethnic, economic, political, or even musical (think of the Deadheads). It's our nature.


Now the Internet has eliminated the barriers of geography, cost, and time. All those blogs and social networking sites are helping existing tribes get bigger. But more important, they're enabling countless new tribes to be born - groups of ten or ten thousand or ten million who care about their iPhones, or a political campaign, or a new way to fight global warming. And so the key question: Who is going to lead us?

The Web can do amazing things, but it can't provide leadership. That still has to come from individuals - people just like you who have a passion about something. The explosion in tribes means that anyone who wants to make a difference now has the tools at her fingertips. If you think leadership is for other people, think again - leaders come in surprising packages.

Consider Joel Spolsky and his international tribe of scary-smart software engineers. Or Gary Vaynerhuck, a wine expert with a devoted following of enthusiasts. Chris Sharma leads a tribe of rock climbers up impossible cliff faces, while Mich Mathews, a VP at Microsoft, runs her internal tribe of marketers from her cube in Seattle. All they have in common is the desire to change things, the ability to connect a tribe, and the willingness to lead.

If you ignore this opportunity, you risk turning into a "sheepwalker" - someone who fights to protect the status quo at all costs, never asking if obedience is doing you (or your organization) any good. Sheepwalkers don't do very well these days.

Tribes will make you think (really think) about the opportunities in leading your fellow employees, customers, investors, believers, hobbyists, or readers....It's not easy, but it's easier than you think."

Here's the free online audio book read by the author himself : http://bit.ly/15UXUc

Blog after death

Now that we are in the subject of death, let me warn you a thing or two about my death as well. Though many of you will be mighty relieved to know that there won't be any more of this musings non-sense, there will be one spooky thing.

As a person meticulously planning and organising all the things that are unimportant in life, I take care not to leave a big gap in my blog posts in Musings as well. So, I keep scheduling my blogs for at least two weeks in advance.

In other words, even after my death, I will continue to be a well-organised Ghost, I promise. So, after my official death, there will be two or three posts at least keeping all of you worried whether I continue to blog even after becoming spiritual. Don't worry, it is all just due to my 'organisation'. The blog posts will also die down soon - if you are lucky, within a week or so.

But, one thing I cannot guarantee. I am not aware of the technology prospects in the world-after; whether there will be internet connectivity in the heaven (I am sure of it, I will land up in heaven only) and if my blogger account can continue to be accessed from there.

Unfortunately for you, if the answer to the last two questions is YES, then you will continue to get spooky blog posts week after week after week .... Oh, no.

But, the computer addicts cannot live without typing things on the keyboard. Without air, Yes; but without internet connectivity, a big NO. We cannot live without computers even after death. See in the picture below, how some hardcore programmers had died painful deaths.

In case, you are not able to read the two tablets behind, the left one says, "performed an illegal operation and shut down". The right side one says, "the current version of oswald crumm has expired".