Judgmental opinions

  A few years ago, my daughter and a few of her little friends wrote the script and presented a skit on alice in wonderland called the mad hatters party. Alice and her friends are celebrating a birthday party, but since it is not anyone’s birthday, they greet each other a very happy unbirthday! And the whole script is written by the kids with the prefix “un” so instead of the word “happy”, they used the word “unsad”! The kids were just aged between 7 and 10 and they sat together and wrote the full script for the ten minute skit.   I remembered this as I was reading a post on chatGPT and its wonders to make life easy. I have not used chatGPT and though I am fascinated by the wonders of AI, I am skeptical about using the word “creativity” associated with internet and its byproducts. What comes as output or any form of output from the internet is nothing but what is already poured into it by some human organism. I wouldn’t credit AI to be intelligent to be creative ...

  The era of the mobile phone and the internet has become a lethal combination. Machines were invented to reduce human hardships and make life easier so that more work can be got done in the same time with less effort. They invented those machines and the machines became more efficient by people improvising and fine tuning them. They save us time and they save us money. The washing machine washes our soiled clothes; the dish washer cleans our soiled dishes; the mixer and cooker helps us cook food faster and the vacuum cleaner keeps our homes tidy. That saves us a packet of time and then our inventors forgot to invent stuff that people could use with all the saved time. So people have invented activities that are so addictive that people spend all the time that is at leisure and all the time that is required for what little work they are supposed to do. These activities are in that small five inch screen and we concoct or own activities to supplement the activity done ...

  My take on the happiness index of India and what I feel is the right parameter on which to judge the country. The world’s criteria - Social Support, Income, Health, Freedom, Generosity, and Absence of corruption. The first criteria of social support. Rather than the Government, the true social support comes from the society in which we live in. The supportive neighbours when you are in distress; the joint family system that we live in; in fact if we even have a surviving parent living with us in our own home with, you wouldn’t find a happier home. The western world probably does not know that such a world exists. Many people I know have no regular source of income, yet continue to live a respectable life, cultivating their own food, selling wares and goods, cooking food for others and very contented with that life style. My own grand mother raised seven children in Mumbai just be packing lunch boxes and supplying them to offices in the neighbourhood and this include...

  One of the least known or discussed about afflictions in humans is the Constant Comparison Disorder, not to be confused with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The Constant Comparison Disorder is in fact a disorder generally characterized by an obsession with comparing yourself to others. It is considered a disorder only limited to individuals, but I feel as a society, the whole world suffers from this obsessive comparison disorder. The whole society is obsessed with the disorder and so we are fascinated by the classification of the worlds to 20 rich people, worlds top ten richest nations, the worlds top 20 happiest nations and the worlds top 20 most powerful nations …. The list is endless. I recently came across this world happiness report 2023 in which it is mentioned that Finland is the happiest nation in the world. This report has been vociferously contested because India is ranked 126, ranked below several countries including Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka that have bee...

  As we are growing up, I feel, the glory or excitement associated with a birthday diminishes. For a politician, a birthday might be a tool to gauge his or her own popularity; for a supporter, wishing the politicians on their birthdays may be with the motive of getting a toe-hold for future favours. But for us ordinary mortals, birthdays are just feel-good doses of wishes from friends and acquaintances, and now with social media, from complete strangers as well! I am a bit skeptical with the whole concept of birthday wishes, as I am confused on what basis is the idea of wishing annually on birthdays was derived! I completed 2860 weeks of my birth last Sunday; so why not happy 2860 th birthday? I complete 19000 days of my birthday in another 20 days; so why not happy 19000 th birthday? And so on. Even otherwise, we are congratulating someone for achieving something that just happened – having a birthday! No effort was required to achieve this feat except, perhaps, st...

  There are days when you lose track of time especially when you are so engrossed in some work, that by the time you realize it, you wonder, where did the time go! But for me, today was a bonus day! I lost track of time, completing tasks meant to be completed tomorrow that when I came to office, realized today is yesterday! Somehow, a day seems to have crept into my life and left me with one full extra day: today. And I don’t know what to do with today! I should have been happy. But I am not. Carrying the burden of a full extra day is hard work. Having a full day to do anything I want may sound very ideal with the belief that I am presented with a full day to choose whatever I want to do. This strange phenomenon is explained by a philosopher named Barry Schwartz in a book called The Paradox of Choice. The paradox of choice is a phenomenon where an abundance of options actually counter intuitively leads to less happiness, less satisfaction and greatly hampers the...

Why do we laugh? Or what makes us laugh? I heard a talk by Gaur Gopal Das of iskcon on YouTube about laughing, albeit not on laughter itself It was something like, we don't laugh on same joke but we cry on same problem The first part is interesting Why can't we laugh on same joke? I mean, we hear a joke the first time and find it hilarious and literally roll on the floor laughing But narrate the same joke again and our laughter goes down a few decibels The third time, we get irritated and outright angry hearing it repeatedly So what made is laugh in the first instance? I Google it and I find scientists struggling to explain exactly what makes people laugh Scientific American says laughter releases endorphins, the feel - good chemicals our bodies produce to make us feel happy and even relieve pain or stress Another post tells me that laughter is the best form of therapy Yet, I realize, if I tell a good joke that would normally evoke laughter, falls flat on its face to someone wh...

I didn't really believe this photo would have been here in this post yesterday I wasn't at all confident early morning at 5 am and I wasn't confident enough for the last one week or more Paulo Coelho had written somewhere, "Life has a way of testing a person's will, either by having nothing happen at all, or by having everything happen at once!" And my life was not treating me well, so I thought; things were not going the direction the way I planned or wanted to, both at work or otherwise On the work front, I had a tense fortnight with several things happening all at once and inspite of efforts weren't going well As for the marathon, I had planned practicing throughout of October and November, and to my dismay, the months flew past To top it all, I realised I had put back on all the weight lost earlier with me tippling the scale at a mind blowing 82 kg! And carrying all that 82 kg of me over 21 km on the trot was benumbing Meenal unfortunately had a fractu...

Today I am writing about a very common expression that we use, "you are entitled to your own opinion" This statement is usually a conversation ender; end a conversation that is threatening to become an argument Most conversations end with that expression - this is my opinion, you are entitled to your own opinion The dictionary meaning of the word "opinion" is a view or a judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. When do we ask others for their opinion? When we don't need it! When someone asks me for my opinion, it is actually to understand my character more than anything else The decision is already taken and someone wants to judge what my reaction will be when they inform me of the decision So to know that, they ask my opinion Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is perspective, not the truth. This statement is credited to Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emporer known for his Stoic philosophy We all have ou...

Sometimes in life we have events that somehow refuse to be covered in the blanket of time Events eventually get obliterated in time but some of them cling on like shreds to the thorns of our memories And these shreds haunt us for days or sometimes flutter like flags in the wind years later Many are just in passing but a few loiter in our mind unable to decide whether to trouble us or just invoke pleasant memories Nearly ten years at this post had made me lose my sense of time and so when I received my transfer orders a few days ago they pumped the wind out of me I did not expect any transfer after my intense try two years ago resulted in failure and had made me believe that no one wants to be posted here And today I had this strange feeling of watching a few tiny strings fluttering at the back of my mind They felt like bitter sweet memories of the good times and the not so good times but somehow couldn't decide whether they were indicative of being worthy of retention The surreal f...

 I have moved into my new office in Panaji Its nice My room is rectangular but appears square One wall has a window all along its width and I can see the trees outside if I sit in my chair The table was touching the wall but I moved it away from the wall because I wanted to keep a book rack there There's a nice two seat sofa with a teepoy on one side left side of the door Its probably for me to sit when I am having my lunch but I sit at my table because I want to see the leaves on the trees rustle while I am eating If I lean out the window on the right, I can see the Joggers park With some effort I can see the meditation hut but I can't see who is inside it because the bushes hide the view On the left, I can see the road leading towards the quarters of the movers and shakers of Altinho or maybe Goa There's a building across the road but it is hidden by the trees which is a nice thing The room is clean and nice and waiting for me to mess and throw my things around The chair ...

 Let me begin today's very serious sermon with a quote from one of Ayn Rand's books There is fear hanging in the air of the sleeping halls, and the air of the streets. Fear walks through the city, fear without name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare speak. Elections are round the corner and elections is like a business; it flourishes when there is fear in the air In one of my posts earlier, I had told how our purchases and expenses are related to fear How news and advertising generate fear and anxiety to get us to spend our money in buying The trend in the local news and social media is slowly building up towards creating a new type of fear It is the fear that is gift wrapped in the form of insecurity Insecurity is a very ugly thing; it makes you hate people you don't even know Insecurity is loud It is the fear of losing our identity; and it is being drummed out loudly and off the rooftops that we are going to lose our Goan-ness. And it will be growing louder unt...

 All of you must have seen the movie "Life of Pi" Much before the movie came to be made, I had laid my hands on the book Meenal was in Pune pursuing her PhD and I had purchased the book on one of my trips to Pune The book is a good read with one whole chapter describing the zoo that Pi's father owned That chapter justifies the need of a zoo and I was posted in charge of Bondla zoo at the time and I fully agreed with the writer Zoos are fascinating places I lived in Bondla in one of the staff quarters at the time which was close to the zoo The best time of the day was after closing time and the staff would wrap up the day's work with a report on the health of each animal I would then sit and watch the animals after the staff left and the night watchmen would report for duty My day would also start early morning with a round of each enclosure checking up on the things that need to be done and I would have my list ready before the staff reported for work The animals fasc...

The latest trend going viral on various groups and on Facebook is , " If suicide ever crosses your mind, just know that I would rather listen to your story than attend your funeral " I am tempted to seek some clarification because of the following scenarios Should I call you only if I feel suicidal or do you accept calls for casual chats also? Suppose I call you casually and you are too busy to talk to me and this rejection makes me suicidal, should I call you back and clarify this point? It may appear I am making fun about the whole issue, but we need to understand a very important point In my opinion, suicide is not a sudden decision; rather it is the end result of piling up of depressing events in one's life time It is possible that timely talk may avert suicide but it is difficult to diagnose which call is going to be the last one Humans are compulsorily social animals and maintaining communication with other humans is very important for survival Depression happens w...

By the looks of it, 2020 has been a temporary year We have all got adjusted to this temporary sense of being While we were so fastidious of the kaamwali baai about not missing her work even on sundays, now we are adjusted to cleaning the house every Sunday... temporarily While we were so strict of getting up early in the morning and rushing to office and worried of even missing a day, we are now adjusted to not going to office in time or even for a day or two.... temporarily While we were worried of children missing classes on festive days or because a teacher is absent, we are now satisfied with only three or four online classes in a day... temporarily While we were so strict of our diet, not missing the Wednesday nonveg day, we are now adjusted to not taking the risk of buying chicken regularly... temporarily How long is our temporary year going to last, we don't know We thought maybe because of the zero record earlier on, life would be back to normal by now, but now its extende...

We have heard of stories in the past when trains or planes were delayed waiting for some Minister or VIP to board But yesterday, one train waited for 30 minutes for group of 10 labourers who could not reach the station in time! We are getting to hear and experience a number of such stories which are very touching Another group of labourers, who were to leave 2 days later, actually gave away their money for travel expenses to some labourers who were leaving the same day, even though they were not known to them We, of course, reimbursed the money to them, but this selfless helping each other is so contrary to the belief we have about the labourers Though I appreciate the anxiety behind the reason for being judgemental, what we are doing is only providing the migrant workers a means of reaching home. We are neither providing them a career at the cost of locals, nor relief in their luxuries And this is not done at the cost of anyone, but merely facilitation of a service what the Governm...

Yesterday was a very hectic but rewarding day of work of registration of labourers for their transit permit Before noon, we were inundated with names of 50 labourers to be registered At the same time, a frantic call came from 10 labourers who were not able to get transportation to go to karmali from margao to board the train Someone managed to negotiate with a bus driver who was willing to transport them for Rs. 4000, cost of which we decided to bear ourselves Meanwhile, we also got the information that these 10 labourers would need some money for their travel expenses, but the question was how to get the money to them Meenal and a colleague of hers decided to go to Verna with the money themself and hand it over to them on their way to the station And this decision has had a tremendous effect on Meenal, for when she returned from Verna after delivering the money to them, her face was ashen She said, when the bus came, these 10 labourers, all between 19 to 20 years of age, look...

A year ago, it was a different world altogether Different social etiquette Different rules Different feelings But some things help from that world I am reproducing below something I had written a year ago "I remember reading Leo Tolstoy's novel "How much land does a man need?" We had a part of it as a lesson in school . And I remembered it again as I reached the peak of a Himalayan mountain 60 km from Gangotri at 12100 feet . We had been trekking 4 days to reach the peak. Living in tents. Eating rice and dal. Using dry toilets. Drinking water from the spring. Carrying our backpacks with our worldly possessions. One water bottle. A bowl to eat from. Two shirts. Two trousers. It looked difficult. Legs straining to climb. Back aching with the load. Lungs panting for air. But, I found that I had A song in the heart, My eyes were smiling. And As we reached the peak, we burst into the national anthem. Our eyes get moist. A lump forms in the throat. Indeed Four da...

For students of Almeida, Angle Sir and Borkar Sir were unforgettable Both taught us English and were always seen together During my school days, both were bachelors English was my favorite subject and I preferred Borkar Sir than Angle Sir Our school competed in elocution competition organized by various schools The star of our school was a girl Vasundhara who was a very good orator Even though I was pretty dumb, Borkar Sir would ask me to accompany the elocution team I remember visiting Mary Immaculate in Panaji and one school in Agassaim where Vasundhara won prizes I was a vociferous reader but poor in communication And I was scoring below average in exams basically because I was not mature enough to take exams seriously After school, I next met Angle Sir suddenly in 2014 or so I was waiting for a colleague at Dhavali when I saw Lawande Sir (Headmaster of Almeida in my school days) and Angle Sir walking I approached them to wish them and introduce myself But I was pleas...