ARE EXAMINATIONS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HUMAN BEINGS ???

We were texting each other late at 12 in the night. I was anxious to know about her visit to the slum at Majnu Ka Tilla that morning. Aleesha had talked to me on the subject a few days back. She had seen a poor lady sitting for alms for quite a few days where she went for her morning walk. There was something unusual about the lady, perhaps her composure that touched my friend and she decided to go up to her and talk. The lady narrated a poignant tale of disease, hardship and life in penury.

There was more to come. The poor lady never asked for alms, she just sat there and waited for some strangers to come by. On subsequent early morning meetings, she told my friend about the world she hailed from, how hard it was and how her family lived from hand to mouth. My friend decided to visit the slum she lived at – Majnu Ka Tilla near Vidhan Sabha. I had recently recovered from something called ‘acute gastroenteritis with hepatitis’ and was advised against venturing into unhygienic surroundings. Aleesha decided to tell me about the visit later. Together with Priyanka and Gaurav, two of our ultra sweet friends always ready to help, she personally went to the place hoping to get a feel of the ground situation to help the people.

It was late April – our exams were starting 12th May – University exams, the first ones we were going to take at the undergrad level. Texting was taxing since there was loads to talk about, so Aleesha called. As always, she had well thought of the entire situation and was charting out an action plan to help the people – calling on some NGOs, getting their kids to the college and organizing classes, writing to the government, googling about already existing schemes and the ilk. I patiently told her it was April already, we could always do this job later after exams.

“In June?”

“But we will go home in June or will be busy interning, so we could definitely do it in July when the college reopens? “ I replied in a voice seeking to pacify more than answer.

“It will be too late, Jalnidh…the lady suffers from T.B. and her husband is sick with a chronic illness…Tell me, are examinations more important or human beings? It’s a question of life and death for her and that of just a few extra marks for us.”

I realized the depth of her words and that of her soul, which stood in striking contrast with the shallowness of my thoughts.

The months passed. Its late June already. We were unable to help. I wonder what happened to the lady and if she still follows her early morning routine of coming to the ridge to beg. Perhaps Aleesha might have made an arrangement, we have been geographically dispersed for long and not quite been in touch.

Is it really?

But I still grapple with the question. Steven Levitt said numbers don’t lie – human beings and governments might. Would that number on my marksheet truly represent my worth as an economics undergrad student? Would it not conceal more than it will reveal? The true opportunity cost of preparing for the examination was huge and I had made unequivocally, an irrational choice. 

Arpan: Existing to Empower Underprivileged Girls Through Education

Arpan: Existing to Empower Underprivileged Girls Through Education

Correlation, Causation and superstitions

The chapter on correlation in my statistics course ended with a note which stayed with me for long. After learning all about the wonderful tools of regression and correlation, there I was presented with a WARNING : CORRELATION SHOULD NOT BE CONFUSED WITH CAUSATION.

Just to give you a flavour of the science I had learnt, correlation makes one capable of establishing if two variables move together in a particular direction. A positive correlation between say, population growth and pollution implies that when any one of the two variables increases, the other also increases since the variables are positively correlated. Yet this does not by itself imply that any one of them CAUSES the other. If X and Y are positively correlated, X may be causing Y, Y may be causing X or it may just be possible that both X and Y are being caused by a third exogenous variable!

A kingdom was once plagued by a pandemic that claimed a zillion lives. Tense, the king ordered a statistical enquiry. The statisticians presented the data - more the no. of doctors in the kingdom over the days, more is the occurence of the disease. The king took this relation of correlation for causation and ordered all the doctors in the kingdom to be executed!

Now lets apply the lesson - why do people believe in superstitions? A cat crossed the road before them, its a bad omen - they say out of experience. So if a sweet little pussy cat decides to cross the road just exactly when our jinxed hero steps out of his house, it makes him anticipate failure in his exam or the interview ahead. What explains this seemingly irrational and undoubtedly foolish viewpoint? Well, my theory goes thus. In the 'good' old days, it might have happened that in a good number of cases that the correlation between the 'crossing of a cat' and the 'occurence of failure' turned out to be positive, but people mistook the correlation for causation and concluded "Hence, the cat CAUSED the failure"!!!

Paul Samuelson listed something called a 'Post Hoc Fallacy' right at the beginning of his classic 'ECONOMICS'. The fallacy goes thus - If event Y follows event X, then you implicitly assume that Y was caused by X. If I sneezed before I slipped from the stairs, then the sneeze caused me to trip.

I guess our society needs to learn just a simple lesson and all the claptrap about black threads, wearing stones, reading horoscopes shall see the light of rationality.

P.S. If while reading this blog, lets say you slip off your chair ... kindly don't conclude that I caused it :P heehee :)

The Urge To Melt

QUESTIONS OF IDENTITY

Published in The Sikh Review, an international monthly from Kolkata in the issue of August, 2011 under 'The Urge to Merge' and 'Abstract of Sikh Studies', September 2011 as 'The Urge to Melt'.

Youth from minorities in most regions are faced with a choice as age bestows a host of freedoms. While identity pride is something that remains alive in their hearts, it does not quite manifest physically. As I look around, I find many Sikh friends in my friend list listing their religious preference as a Sikh but shunning off all those symbols which lie at the heart of Sikh identity. I have been grappling with questions of identity for long – what is an identity afterall, why do I need to be different, who am I, what do people mean when they say ‘I am what I am’ etc.

So, why is it that people in my community and in the minorities in general have an intrinsic desire to melt their identity into that of the crowd and get camouflaged? After reading this rare piece of fiction 'Beyong Identity' by P.S. Sandhawalia, I now feel in a better position to address questions of identity. I identify 6 reasons in my blog for such behavior.

1. One reason can be LOW SELF ESTEEM. An individual who is pining for attention among peer group and the society usually stoops to the level as seen. He/she tries to prove her worth by revealing the texture of his/her skin thus expecting adoration through some channel.

2. Second reason can be the HOLLOWNESS of the individual in the sense that when a person is say talentless and usually a fiasco academically or in a field that society tags value to, he/she in order to gain acceptance tries to do what the majority does.


3. Yet this does not quite explain why sometimes successful people may also adopt the majority identity. The possible explanation can be a LACK OF INNER COURAGE. It requires a lion’s strength to be distinct and unique and to swim against the tide. When the world talks of fashion, style and haircuts, it requires determination and grit to debate the motion. That is how the majority’s soft power works. It is an attempt to impose one’s culture, one’s viewpoint, one’s way of doing things on others in a way that the imposed gullibly accepts. As I learnt at school, it manufacturers consent – yes it manufactures it indeed by an overtly mechanical process.

4. Another thing that people often overlook in the dignity of differences. The most beautiful thing about differences is diversity which facilitates mutual enrichment and knowledge.


5. Another factor for assimilation is DISRESPECT. When an individual becomes illusioned with the core of his faith and the beliefs that hitherto carved his identity, he casually jettisons all the symbols associated with the belief as a 'bold' act of freedom and detaches himself from that community. For instance, a girl deciding to take off her burqa (remember I am not making a judgment about a faith by this example and this also does not mean that removing burqa is assimilation in the crowd and that not removing is somehow an act of courage, it may actually be the other way round, as per context).

6. Lastly, I feel that majority in this world are driven by a herd mentality. It’s a herd of sheep with a few roaring lions who have kept their identity intact, rest have shaven and joined the herd of sheep.

So what is exactly an ‘identity’? It is an amalgam of religion, language, culture, customs, symbols, traditions – something into which all of us are born – it is real, visible, palpable.
If we have respect for it and pride in it, we will retain it. Otherwise we will abandon it and assimilate.