Organized chaos

I have been thinking about death for the past 10 days.
No. Not my death. But death as a concept.

In my earlier post, I had explained about a thought process on death that had taken birth when thinking on the importance of bus drivers. 
Strangely, I happened to come across an accident few days after the post.
The collision of a car against a lorry. 
Having no other alternate route available, I had to walk past the accident scene. Two dead victims had been laid down on the ground, covered entirely with a white cloth.  
I should have crossed the spot as quickly as possible but for some reason, I stopped and looked at the crushed car and the dead victims for a few seconds. I couldn't take my eyes off the victims. 
Something made me want to look at the victims. Something made me want to look at death.

The accident spot and the dead victims occupied my mind for the next few days. And it made me think repeatedly about death. 
The day of the accident would have started like any other normal day for the victims. They would have cracked a joke or two with their family or friends in the morning. They would have had a hearty breakfast. They would have shared an intimate moment with a loved one. Would anyone have expected that the day would be the last day for those victims? 
How great a pain would the parents and friends of the victims have suffered on being made to face the sudden loss?
Why is death of such a random nature?!

The last question troubled me the most.
Death and its random nature.

I let my thoughts flow and they chose to show me the deaths of two close relatives I had been made to come to terms with in my childhood.
It pained me a lot. 
It also reminded me the voids the deaths had caused. In my life as well in the lives of my family members.  
And I halted the thought process there. 
A new related thought had suddenly taken birth. 

****

"When I give you a problem, why do you always rush to the solution?" - This is a question my team leader used to ask me frequently in the initial 2 weeks, after I had been assigned to an account/project in my office.
"A problem needs to be understood first. Only then can you think over it and reach a solution. And when do you understand a problem clearly? Only when you have a proper visualization of it. Try to put it down on a paper. Get it out of your head. Then, you would be able to think with clarity. And the solution would present itself easily."  
I never imagined that a piece of advice I had received regarding data analytics would help me look at death from a new perspective.

****

Let us consider that a person X has died.
X's death is sure to affect the lives of his close ones. The death is sure to create an irreplaceable loss.

The picture below shows a small circular network. 

The dot in the middle represents the death of X and the arrows surrounding it represent the lives of X's family members and friends. The dots in each of the arrows represent the loss created by X's death.

This is how we have been perceiving death for a very long time. 
A death occurs and it causes a loss in the lives attached with it. 
And the overall picture - Death is of a random nature.

Now, consider the next picture. 

Here, we take into account only the lives of X's family members and friends and the loss caused due to X's death in their lives. 
Representing each of their lives one below the other shows us how each of their lives had been affected by X's death at different stages. 
But we know that X's death did not occur at different stages.
X's death occurred only once. 
Which brings us to the next picture.

This image shows a representation of the lives of X's family members and friends in such a way that the losses are aligned. 
And what insight does it offer?
The lives of 8 different people need to come together in such a way so as to suffer a loss at the exact same point.

So, is death of a random nature?! Or not?!

****

I came across a beautiful article that explained how the colors present in a butterfly were a result of the pigmentation of each individual cell. 
Let us consider the example of a butterfly with orange-colored wings containing three black dots on each of them. 
Of these three dots, to possess even a single black dot on its wing, the butterfly would be required to contain a circular group of cells - all the cells exhibiting the same color - which becomes more interesting considering the fact that the pigmentation is not predetermined. 
So, a circular group of cells would have to exhibit the same color - out of pure chance - to combine and produce a beautiful black dot / a beautiful pattern. 

Now, isn't this similar to the way death works?!
Umpteen number of lives align themselves in such a way as to suffer a loss at the exact same point.

And this similarity makes me want to label death with two words borrowed from the butterfly-article's title.

Organized chaos.

The label fits perfectly for death.
But on second thought, the label also seems perfect for life.

Leading an invisible life...

Imagine.
There are no vegetables left at your home for preparing a meal. You are required to go to the market to purchase the vegetables. But if you step into the market, there is a very high possibility of the Border Security Force arresting you citing the reason that you are not a citizen of the country. And there is no real way for you to protest. 
For, you really are not a citizen of the country, or for that matter, any country. And it has been so for the past 68 years. 
If going to the market presents such a threat, I need not elaborate further on the near impossibility of having an education or holding a job.
What would you do under such circumstances?
What would any person do?

When I read an article last week about the 14,000 odd residents of 51 Bangladeshi enclaves who had officially become Indian citizens after 68 hopeless years, I was affected greatly.
I couldn't even imagine the amount of desperation accumulated by those people leading a life filled with fear day after day after day.

How would you feel when you realized you were country-less?!
How would you feel when you realized you were identity-less?!
How would you feel when you realized you had been leading an invisible life?!

****

The KSRTC (Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation) bus I had boarded at the Shanti Nagar bus stand in Bangalore had reached CMBT (Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus) after about 7 and half hours. The bus had stopped for the passengers to get down and I slowly walked ahead in the aisle of the bus to reach its footsteps. An old lady who was climbing down the steps was finding it really difficult even with the help of two other women. Knowing that I couldn't help her in any way and having been made to wait for a minute, my attention turned towards the bus driver. 
He was a young man, sporting a french beard, dressed neatly in an all-white uniform. And I couldn't help smiling looking at him. 
After all, I had been subjected to top-3-buttons-unbuttoned-in-the-khaki-shirt-and-collar-a-few-meters-behind-the-neck bus drivers all through out my life at Tamil Nadu.

A minute later, my feet touched Chennai ground and I turned to look at the bus driver. He was looking at me. I don't know what prompted me to do it but I quickly raised my right hand to my forehead and did a short salute. The bus driver reciprocated.
I then joined my friend who had gotten down from the bus earlier and inquired if he had noticed the bus driver, especially the french beard. My friend gave me a puzzled look. I repeated the question again. 
"Who pays attention to bus drivers?!", he asked me.
I did not have an answer and remained silent.

My friend and I then parted ways, boarding different MTC (Metropolitan Transport Corporation) buses to our homes from CMBT. Having seated myself near the window in an almost empty bus, I started pondering over the question my friend had asked.

There had been about 70 passengers in the KSRTC bus I and my friend had traveled in. The age-wise split-up of the 70 odd passengers went like this - 1 new born, 3 kids of 7-10 years, 2 people above 60 years and a majority of the rest falling within the 20-30 age bracket.
I then started imagining something which shook me apart.
The first thing I imagined was the death of the 2 elderly people - the loss of moral support and much more for 2 different families.
The next part of my imagination revolved around the death of the 3 kids - the loss of innumerable dreams and much more for 3 different families.
The imagination then shifted to the death of the new born - the loss of a new hope and much more to an entire family.
And I decided to stop my imagination.There was not a need to imagine further. 
The responsibility that our KSRTC bus driver had shouldered became crystal clear.
70 passengers. 
Hopes and dreams and moral support of those many families.

Having realized this, I closed my eyes, leaned against the window of the MTC bus and let my friend's question bellow in my head repeatedly.

"Who pays attention to bus drivers?!"

Beauty!

If only beauty could be sucked..
The beauty of the moss covered walls of an ancient building
The beauty of the cement-filled smile of a construction worker's child
The beauty of the hungry crow scanning through one eye
The beauty of the rain drop wriggling down a rested umbrella
The beauty of the worn out end of the security guard's wooden stick
The beauty of the elastic hair band and the entwined few hair strands
The beauty of the blurred bathroom mirror after a steam bath
The beauty of the circular wood shavings from a flower designed pencil
The beauty of the pot-hole pimples in an empty road
The beauty of the sentences uttered in a crowded elevator
If only beauty could be sucked..

Tamil cinema and its Data Scientists

The film Baahubali was nearing its climax and the magnificent battle was halfway when it struck me.
About five minutes earlier, having been deprived of the most powerful ranged-artillery plants by his cunning uncle, Baahubali had come up with the solution of using a giant canvas of cloth, cannonballs tied to its ends, that would cover the enemy soldiers when thrown over them which could then be set aflame (the cloth being coated with inflammable liquids) using fire-arrows.
Very soon, as Baahubali approached the enemy-warlord with a group of soldiers under his command, he was presented with another problem. The enemy soldiers had lined their fronts with bound and tied commoners belonging to Baahubali's province. Baahubali now had to attack the enemy camp without harming his people. I kept imagining that he would probably take a huge leap on his horse and land directly into the enemy camp, killing the enemy soldiers and thereby releasing the tied commoners. 
But Baahubali did something different. He commanded his soldiers to direct their sling-shots at the commoners so that they would fall to the ground after which emerged a flurry of arrows from Baahubali's soldiers destroying the enemy camp.
I was awe-struck. 
Totally awe-struck by Baahubali's problem-solving skills that it took me some time to process the other parallel thought-flow that was taking birth.

Why don't we start employing Tamil cinema heroes (or any other regional cinema heroes, for that matter) as data scientists?!

The term 'Data Science' when looked up on the internet, throws out this description from the Wikipedia page - "Data Science is the extraction of knowledge from large volumes of data that are structured and unstructured...(and blah blah blah)". 
A Data Scientist would hence be expected to be an expert in the aforementioned field (which in itself requires expertise of statistics, data mining, computer programming and strategical thinking). And most Data Scientists tend to be just that. 
But then, would an accumulation of knowledge in a range of assorted fields suffice to tackle complex business problems of top organizations?

Definitely not. 

There exists the need for looking at a problem in a novel way.
There exists the need for limitless imagination and innovation.
There exists the need for forward-thinking.

There exists the need for someone like Suyambu Lingam from Papanasam who could come up with the thought of burying a dead body beneath the flooring of a police station.
There exists the need for someone like Deva from Ayan who could hide a diamond-set under his hair.
There exists the need for someone like Assault Sethu from Jigarthanda who could identify the mole in his gang using a simple fake plan.
There exists the need for someone like Vinayak Mahadev from Mankatha who could set up an entire robbery, an ensuing cat-and-mouse game and his own death.

And my thoughts kept flowing in the same path.
I continued imagining a discussion room with Suyambu Lingam, Deva, Assault Sethu and Vinayak talking over a business problem. But then my thoughts paused.

Why employ the creations when you can employ the creators?!

The discussion room underwent an instantaneous makeover with Jeethu Joseph, KV Anand, Karthik Subbaraj and Venkat Prabhu occupying the seats instead of their creations. And slowly the room started filling up with more such creators, their ideas and solutions bouncing around like the game-screen of 'Fruit Ninja'.
Vetrimaaran and Sasikumar started analyzing the available data. Ram and Mysskin started defining the possible parameters needed for addressing the problem. 
And I would go on with the happenings of the discussion room.
But why burden the reader with the specifics?!

The thought process took a while to settle down. But by its end, it had given me something to rejoice.

Filmmakers, if none of their films worked out, have a very good prospect as a Data Scientist. 

Now all I need to find out is if the reverse could work out.

Healthy dogs, beautiful girls and lonely cars

There are many reasons that contribute to my liking of street dogs.

They have always accompanied me, sometimes silently and sometimes barking, on my midnight walks to home from an outing or a journey. They have made me contemplate on the purpose of a job. They have made me wonder, when they keep staring at an empty space while barking continually, if they have seen something invisible to the human eye. They have seemed livelier to me than most by-passers on the road.

But in Chennai, the tiny bubble of joy that slowly enlarged on seeing a street dog having its noon nap or seeing a lazy dog trying to pull up a fight with a lazier cow was always immediately popped by a sharp pang of sadness. 

Sadness on seeing their bony torsos. 

Only on very few occasions have I seen really healthy street dogs in Chennai.

Bangalore seems to be different, in a happier way, in that sense. Most of the street dogs that roam around are very healthy – as a matter of fact, a few are healthier than the domesticated ones that I see walking along with their owners on breezy evenings.

And one need not dig deeply to uncover the reason for their good health.

Most of the fast-food outlets (which are plenty in number here) have a street dog waiting nearby like a cautious guard. And the majority of the consumers of these outlets happen to be youngsters – boys and girls in the same ratio and of the age bracket of 20-30 – who generally tend to be more compassionate towards the street dogs than a father of a 5 year old or a mother of a 10 year old. The bones that remain after the feasting of a gang of 5 boys or a gang of 4 girls are dedicated happily to the dog waiting by their side.

The result – healthy dogs that walk the streets as symbols of the younger generation’s 

compassion.

****

“Bangalore ah da?!! Ponnunga laam semmaya irupaangale!!” – This is a comment I got to hear from most of my friends when they learnt that I was moving to Bangalore for my job.

Honestly speaking, I found myself agreeing with the comment after having spent just a couple of days in the city. There was something different to the members of the opposite gender in the city that made a new visitor take notice. And I wanted to figure out the something different.

“Adingu! Azhagaa iruntha paathutu poga vendiyathu thane! Ethuku da ithelaam oru vishayam nu discuss panni saavadikare?!!”, one of my friends shouted at me when I asked him what he felt could be the reason for the difference in the (additional) beauty exhibited by the women in Bangalore compared to the women in Chennai.  But unlike my friend, I believed that understanding the reason would help me appreciate the beauty more, thanks to Feynman’s views on beauty.

Weather, wider range of fashion/cosmetics, better cost of living leading to more air-conditioned homes – these factors were some of the many I considered to have had an additional impact on the opposite gender here. But they did not seem to sum up satisfyingly.

And then one evening, as I was wandering about in a shopping mall situated nearby my office, it hit me. I stopped walking and looked around the mall. 

Right. Left. Up. Down. 

After I had finished observing the entire mall, a smile appeared on my face.

In the entire mall, there were only two women above the age of 40 out of the 100 odd women shopping/roaming/picture-clicking.  And there lay the reason.

Unlike Chennai where you get to see a majority of women in the age category of above 35, Bangalore (in its entirety) functions like a very huge mall filled abundantly with women in the ‘below 30’category. 

And for innumerable pairs of ‘younger’ eyes of the male gender, understanding the beauty that comes with age is a concept as vague as dark matter.

****

Traffic jam.

If a poll was conducted among the residents of Bangalore as to their least favorite thing about the city, I am pretty sure that the aforementioned two words would emerge a clear winner by a very huge margin.

When a person drives a motorcycle very slowly, one of the most common jokes made is that even a person on his feet would reach the destination faster than the motorcycle rider. But very little did I know that the vehicular traffic in a city could worsen things to an extent where, literally, a person on his feet reaches a destination faster than a motorcycle rider.

And the sad thing is that every person stuck in the traffic jams realizes the reason behind it and yet does nothing to reduce its severity.

One car for one man – if you wish to know the reason. 

The space that could have accommodated 4 motorcycles, thereby 4 men, is wasted on a stylish looking four-wheeler carrying one occupant and 3 empty seats.

Will a man sacrifice his luxury for the benefit of others? I have little doubt of what the answer would be.

And I would have no right whatsoever to advocate a well-earning person to do away with his luxuries. He works. He earns. He buys. The logic becomes as simple as that.

But then, what would be a solution to the problem of these accumulating luxuries?

Nature always holds answers to the questions of men.

One morning, as I stepped outside my room, I saw a spider resting in the web it had woven the previous night. Sometime later, a misstep by my roommate destroyed the delicate web, making the spider rush to a corner in our corridor wall. When I returned from my office at evening, I was surprised to see that the spider had woven a beautiful web again.

The eight legged insect was leading a life so simple that it could build its home in a few meager hours how many ever times it might be destroyed. 

But we, on the other hand, lead lives weighed down by assets and luxuries that someday we would be out of breath, suffocating from the very possessions that we had bought in the first place to make our lives admirable.

It’s high time we started leading happy lives instead of the norm of leading happy lives in the eyes of others.

“In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely.” 

                                                                               - Henry David Thoreau from Walden.

Stepping into a world of contrasts

I looked carefully at the route indicated in the ‘Google maps’ application that was running on my mobile phone. I then raised my head and looked ahead. I had to walk about 500 meters straight after which I had to cross the road and walk another 500 meters to reach the gate of the IT park where my office was situated. I looked at my watch. 20 more minutes to the time specified for entry at the office. I did not want to be late on my joining day and hurried.

After I reached the spot where I had to cross the road, I stood quietly hoping that I could join some random small group of IT professionals who would cross the road for the opposite side served as the source of livelihood for more than thousands of ambitious people. But as I saw people walking down the road hastily, some not caring about the speeding vehicles and some raising their hands thereby making cars swivel around them, I couldn’t believe that those people belonged to the same city and same profession of people who so quietly and so politely had filled the AC buses I had frequented the earlier day. It took me some time before I managed to cross the road, thanks to a lorry driver who took pity on me and stopped his vehicle, enabling me to walk across.

10 more minutes to the reporting time. And I was 200 meters away from the gate of the IT park after which lay another 600 meters to my office situated inside. I hastened my steps. After about five steps, I heard a feeble cry of “aiyya!”. A momentary feeling of excitement grabbed me on hearing a Tamil voice in a city where Hindi and Kannada (in that order) are mostly heard. I then looked ahead and saw a very old woman, dressed shabbily, seated at a corner, holding her hand out. I kept walking. “Aiyya!”, she called out again as I walked past her. I stopped on my way and reached for my pant pocket. As my hand moved over an empty back-pocket, I realized that I had kept my wallet inside my bag. I held the left strap of the bag and as I slowly pushed it down my left shoulder, the time displayed on my watch caught my eye. Not even 7 minutes left. With the bag hanging from my right shoulder, I sprinted ahead hoping badly that the lady would not call out to me again. She didn’t.

A 600 meter walk. A one-minute wait for the elevator. 10 floors up. A security check. After all these, I entered the room that had been assigned for the new recruits. Seeking a desk at a corner, I seated myself, placing my bag down. Most of the people in the room seemed interested in introducing themselves to each other. A guy behind me tapped on my shoulder and extended his hand. I grabbed his hand and shook it, glancing at my watch.

There was a minute more to the reporting time. A minute more.   

And I spent the rest of the day in the tinted-glass walled, marvellously designed, sufficiently air-conditioned office building with the cry of “aiyya!” echoing in my head.

****

Finding a PG (a place to stay as a Paying Guest) in Bangalore is not a hard task. But it is not an easy one either. The options are aplenty but it might take an eternity till you find one that suits your needs.

The one that I and my two other friends locked in on turned out to be a slightly uncomfortable one after we moved in. A small stretch of land with wild unkempt shrubs that lay near our ground-floor room, separated by a small wall, turned out to be a waste disposal yard as opposed to our perception of a waste land.  

We tried to analyse the severity of the 'garbage' situation, examining from behind the small wall and discovered that it served as an abode for many a plump rat.

“We are screwed.. totally! We need to find another good place by a month or two!” said one of my roommates as we gathered in our room after our analysis.

The next morning, I woke up early and with a desire to witness the morning Bangalore sky, I stepped outside my room. Muffled sounds could be heard from the garbage yard and I understood that the rats were busy. A few minutes later, an old man with a stick in his right hand and a jute-bag in his left, walked inside the garbage yard. I silently observed him as he collected the empty plastic bottles lying around. He then noticed me and waved his hand. I waved back, a couple of seconds later.

“Naye waale ho?!” he asked me. I nodded.

“Yahaan chuhae hain.. patha hai tumhe?!”, he asked me eagerly. “Haan! Kal raath hi pathaa chala!” I replied, smiling.

He let out a chuckle. “Par gabraane ki koi baath nahin.. Yeh chuhae toh bahoot achae chuhae hain!”  he said, giving the rats a certificate of appreciation. I smiled again after which he left, having collected the empty bottles in his jute-bag.

Today morning, as I stepped out of my room, I could see a rat busily eating a dish from a small plastic cover. I made a small kissing sound trying to grab its attention. The rat quickly dropped its food and rushed towards its hole. I tried the kissing sound again but the rat seemed to pay no heed.

I then remembered Ruskin Bond’s amazing little piece – Those simple things - in which he describes his friendship with a mouse during his stay at London.

“Seems like I too might become a Ruskin Bond someday” I told myself.
“Think about what stands in your way from becoming one” a question arose, followed later by two answers.

Writing.

Developing a friendship with mice/rats (After all, they belong to the same family).

I decided to begin with the easier one and started working on the kissing sound. 

Purpose!

As I stepped on the terrace of our apartment, I checked the time on my mobile phone screen. 5:40 AM. The sky was a mixture of orange, grey and white. I breathed in selfishly a large whiff of the morning air and began walking around the terrace. It had been more than a week since I had seen the sun rise from its slumber.

As I looked around trying to observe the morning life in the nearby apartments, my eyes caught the sight of a dove seated on a dish antenna, a few apartments away. It seemed to be in a meditative state. The sky behind it looked like a painting lavishly splashed upon with a can of orange. The patches of grey amidst the orange splash seemed to increase its beauty. A momentary smile appeared on my face before it disappeared. I repented having forgotten to bring along the camera and rushed below to my home to fetch it. One storey down from the terrace, I realized that I could have captured the piece of beauty with my mobile phone. I stood there, baffled as to proceed upwards or downwards. I do not know what made me proceed downwards but a few minutes later, I came back panting on the terrace with my camera only to find the dove flown away and the painting spoiled by blotches of white.

I relaxed for a couple of minutes. Then I began clicking random shots of the sky. I then paused and started searching around for specific images of beauty. A group of pigeons had gathered over the water-tank of a nearby apartment. As I tried to frame the shot, another image caught my eye. A saree clad lady, a reddish towel bundling the hair behind her head, was spreading wet clothes over a clothesline. From my position, the image seemed a potential for a beautiful silhouette photograph. I directed my camera towards her. I immediately lowered it down as I thought about the possible risk of my intention being misunderstood. I decided to let the image go.

A flock of birds hurriedly made their way over my head. I quickly raised my camera and captured an image. As I looked at the picture on the camera screen, I realized that a black-and-white picture of the same would create a more solemn atmosphere. I changed the mode and waited for another flock. The wait was not long. I followed the flock with my camera, clicking continuously as an airplane made its way into one of the images. Delight filled me as I looked at the image.

I kept roaming around the terrace, the camera leading my way for some more time. But then as I came to the spot from where I had first seen the meditating dove, I could see that the orange shade had nearly disappeared. Blue had begun to dominate. I lowered my camera and looked at the sky.

The camera had made me forget the real purpose of my visit to the terrace.  I placed the camera on the terrace wall and seated myself some distance away from it. My focus did not shift from the sky for some time as the shades of the sky slowly changed and the birds flew above in all the directions, not a care in the world.

As I began making my way to my home sometime later, a question suddenly popped in my head.

Was art making me forget the purpose of life?

A mildly terrifying feeling overcame me. I tried not to think about it and entered my home. My mom who was cooking called out to me. I entered the kitchen and she asked me excitedly to show the images I had captured. I handed her the camera and walked away. A couple of minutes later, she came to me and returned the camera saying that she would try to accompany me the next day to the terrace. She added that it had been a while since she had taken time to notice the beauty of sunrise. 

I smiled hearing her statement.

She had unintentionally cleared the frightening doubt that had overtaken me. 

I slowly placed my camera inside its cover and went ahead with the day’s duties that waited, having had a happy revelation.

Art can only make a person understand the purpose of life better. Never the opposite.