FILM STARS WITH PILES ,WALL STREET BANKERS, AND SELF-IMMOLATION I cannot but help see connections between things far apart in space and sometimes in time. I saw the following news item barely a month after the self immolation of a young lawyer in Tamilnadu in protest against the events in Sri Lanka .. I had then written a blog on this sad tendency which I observe quite frequently in the state. Now comes the following news item Dalit man tries to immolate self, family Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Text: LUCKNOW: A Dalit man and his wife tried to immolate themselves and their children in front of the assembly here after they were denied permission by the administration for constructing ”Ambedkar Park” on their land in Barabanki district. . The rationally inclined might take this viewpoint :How does it really matter to the Tamil youngster as to what happens in Sri Lanka ? How will his death make any difference to events there ? There are far more powerful people whose duty it is to worry about such issues. All that any individual can do is to hold a peaceful protest or send a letter to the newspapers or a memorandum to the Government. As for the dalit family my talk to them might be as follows : How on earth will the setting up of an Ambedkar Park make any difference to your family ? Have you noticed that so many such parks have been set up by Mayawati in UP and the only person to have benefited has been the Behenji herself who last year declared assets of about RS 50 CRORES. These monies were, according to her, your ‘gift’ to her. Now as luck would have it I saw the following item in a US paper Why We (Continue to) Pay Lavishly By Simon Y. Feuerman, Psy.D., L.C.S.W. on January 26, 2009 - 11:06am in My Mother, My Father, My Money The big news of late is that a few marquis CEOS of the country’s major banks and corporations have forgone all or part of their bonuses and pay packages. Robert Rubin of Citigroup and Kenneth Lewis of Bank of America have admirably declined to take bonus compensation this past year. The CEO of the construction equipment giant, Caterpillar and others have also followed suit. Few people, however, believe that the American corporate structure has reformed itself. The reality is that many CEOs are still paid in the tens of millions even as these very same companies have begged for and received taxpayer-sponsored government bailouts. The mostly symbolic atonement and self-deprivation of a few ”star” CEOs is about as comforting as an alcoholic promising not to drink as much he used to. Why does outsized pay continue even as it becomes clear that something is seriously askew? What is the logic behind lavish pay? Why won’t these rewards go away even as they appear to be useless and even counterproductive? What psychological purpose do they serve? It is a generally accepted principle that whenever we over-pay it is a good bet that something is emotionally amiss. One possibility is that we over-pay as a way to put someone (unreasonably) above us. Freud famously theorized that we elevate people for a host of complex but mostly neurotic reasons. This activity seems to exist independent of any reality-based purpose. The very act of elevating a single person or a group of people above us is suspicious, Freud wrote. What are we up to? To over-pay may actually be a way to avoid the deep anxiety and helplessness that we feel, but desperately want to not feel. We can’t make it rain and we can’t force the sun to shine on our crops, but how much we want it to. We can’t force someone to place money in our bank accounts, but how we wish we could. Fear, anxiety and helplessness are to an extent, the human condition. Nevertheless, rather than fully come to grips with these deeply unmooring emotions and convert them into helpful action, we place others above us. We may irrationally select leaders and confer magical powers on them. As silly as this may seem it does makes sense to our unconscious. Way back when our first leaders, our parents, did make it rain. They did put money in our bank. My son when he was 4 told me that I put the moon away at the end of the night and bring out the sun for him in the morning. He ascribed to me great powers. Part of that stays with us. If I can’t put money in my bank account, then maybe my leader can. This leader is allowed to have more than me. He is even encouraged to have more than me. He can have more women than me, more children than me, and more pleasure than me. Even if we have lots of money, the temptation is to put someone else in charge of it and to confer extraordinary privileges and power to him. (Think Bernard Madoff and the minions who ”trusted” him without verifying.) What may be most important to consider is that feeding the neurotic need for daddy and mommy, for adults, can become extremely expensive. To bestow magical abilities and unreasonably great privilege on people is unproductive, possibly hostile and almost certainly, a resistance to emotional maturity and economic growth. I suspect something similar is at work in the sort of instances cited by me above .Many people in our country [ and elsewhere ]are so desperate that they seek some person, some idea, some movement , some organization that seems larger than life that seems to give meaning , confers an identity, lends purpose to life. This explains why film stars, politicians, social leaders , organizations and even terrorist movements have such a following. People in such a mental place can be easily motivated to commit acts of horror, terror and suicide . I make two submissions to end this piece. [1] I have said on many platforms that India does not lack resources or ideas to become a prosperous country. We lack only one thing—the right attitudes to kick start progress .What I have stated above is one aspect of this attitudinal deficit. [2] Hindus must stop their practice of falling at or touching the feet of or venerating ANY PERSON HOWEVER GREAT OR SAINTLY as if he or she were God .This is where I am in total agreement with Islamic beliefs. It is fine to admire success but our attitude in such cases ought to be—what lessons can I draw from this person’s success ? NO MAN CAN BECOME GOD ! I recall an incident that took place when a young girl not just admired but venerated the bollywood superstar of that era ..One day she was told that the star had been hospitalised for –of all things – surgery to remove piles ! This information shocked the young teenager. She had been under the impression that superstars were biologically different from ‘ ordinary’ people ! The girl went on to marry the superstar . No prizes for guessing who they were . Great people are also human beings. Nothing more . . K.R.RAVI

THINKING CLEARLY One of the wonders of the world is that obviously intelligent people make elementary but serious errors in thinking.. I happened to meet a friend of mine, a successful banker in California who had migrated from India to the U.S more than a decade ago. He was talking about violence in India and gave that as one reason for his disappointment with his home country. Let me use this argument as a starting point of a simple insight into thinking skills. One of the first lessons in thinking skills is as follows: –ask for reason –ask for logic –ask for credible evidence -remember anecdotes do not constitute evidence Take murders . I looked up possible sources of evidence regarding incidence of murders in various countries in the world. I came across THE MURDER MAP which shows graphically the incidence of that crime in most countries . What did I find ? India’s record is more or less the same as that of the USA ! I am not saying that we can be smug about our record. All that I am, saying is that once you respect and base your thinking on evidence, figures and logic you will become a better thinker. In looking at figures there are two other points to be remembered: -when given a figure always ask ‘Is this big or small, significant or not?’ -this figure has to be analysed in relation to what denominator ? Let us take a common lament –How is it that a country of one billion cannot produce a Wimbledon champion ? Let’s look at this statement in the light of the above guidelines. This lack of tennis champions is sad but is a billion the appropriate denominator ? –What is the base , the bucket , of the number of families that have access to tennis courts ? Is the denominator , the figure of one billion or the number of kids who have tennis playing facilities within access ? If you feel as I do that very few families can access such facilities and this ought to be the denominator , it is indeed creditable that we produce some very good players of the likes of Sania Mirza. A Bihar based friend of mine boasted about five years ago that the Bhojpuri film industry was the fastest growing film industry in India . To which I replied that in the case of Bhojpuri films ANY GROWTH WILL SEEM ASTRONOMICAL !The reason why I said this ? The same old little matter of the denominator-in this case zero base . When I moved to the city of Washington D.C three years ago I was looking at various places to rent an apartment in. I knew that every city in the U.S [maybe all over the world ] has parts that are unsafe .I looked at the figures for crimes in each part of the city and made an informed decision to move into the locality where I now stay . Often we tend to go by hearsay .In most cases we tend to form opinions on the basis of subjective judgements. These tend to be prejudiced . I have evidence to prove this ! K.R.RAVI

CAN YOU THINK CREATIVELY ? Based on an experiment that was carried out in the U. S I tried this with my trainees, relatives and friends –all Indians . Here is the experiment FIND OUT THE ODD ONE OUT IN THE FOLLOWING A COW, A STACK OF HAY AND A PIG Most people point out that the PIG is the odd one . Westerners tend to point out the stack of hay instead .Why this difference ? Americans tend to be analytical and seek to fit things into slots and classifications. Thus the cow and the pig are animals while the hay is not. Hence the hay is the odd one out . Indians as well as other Asians tend to seek to see relationships and then find a relationship between the cow and the hay which it eats .Hence the pig is the odd one . In another experiment it was found that when shown a picture westerners tend to focus on the item that is prominently seen while Asians tend to see much more of the background . Thus it may be said with some exaggeration that Asians tend to see holistically . However these need to be further researched. I have observed that Indians are not really thinking contextually especially in matters that involve some degree of emotion or where there is some ignorance or arrogance ..In such instances I notice that many of us proceed to think as follows—what I do not know may not be important. Alternately what I see is the whole situation. Also what is good for me ought to be good for others. Take for example the annual India International Film Awards .Notice that this seeks to acknowledge INDIAN films This event has been held for some years now in various locales all over the world .Amitabh Bachchan is the Brand Ambassador . I have written letters in the media pointing out one serious error in these awards .NOT ONCE IN ALL THESE YEARS HAS CINEMA OTHER THAN BOLLYWOOD BEEN EVEN CONSIDERED FOR RECOGNITION . This is an instance of what I do not know[-cinema other than Bollywood ] is not worth knowing .This is arrogance and insensitivity .Surely we need to either call it the Bollywood International Film awards or acknowledge the other cinemas in India . Contextual thinking is an art that needs to be deliberately cultivated. This calls for empathy that is somewhat rare . I help trainees to try and see any event, phenomenon, behaviour in CONTEXT ..This yields rich perspectives. On one occasion a friend remarked that he found it silly and absurd that some communities in south India actually seem to celebrate with dance and song the death of a loved one . This he felt is ‘contrary to the norm ‘, I challenged him to try and seek a paradigm shift in thinking –this after all was the hallmark of creative thinking. Let us see how we can not only challenge our own thinking but can also try contextual thinking . The caste groups that ‘ celebrate’ death are among the poorest of the poor in India –scavengers and those who carry night soil for example . For such people death is in fact a deliverance from a horrifying life—hence a celebration is called for. This is contextual thinking . Secondly who are we to lay down norms and call any other behaviour as contrary ? I remember a scene in the film MADHUMATI in which the hero Dilip Kumar is shown walking past a tree in a forest when he notices Johnny Walker hanging upside down from a tree. When asked why he was upside down Johnny Walker remarks ‘As far as I am concerned you are upside down’. Thus it is we who feel that one ‘ought’ to grieve when someone dies. The castes referred to may well reply as Johnny Walker did ‘ How is it that you guys cry when someone dies ?” My friend Jean found it strange that Hindus wear white apparel when in mourning . She suggested that white dress was the ‘right’ colour for a wedding—this being the practice in her community of Catholics. Surely being normative has its hazards—you may put off people. I believe the time has come for all of us to try and understand ‘others’, their thinking, lifestyles, their beliefs and their world view in the light of contextual thinking. Perspectives can vary enormously. My friend Kavita narrates an interesting experience she had in Oakland in California . Kavita happened to befriend a girl—an Afghan– who was working in a small shop. They got talking . At one stage Kavita asked her Afghan friend how she found life in Oakland The reply almost shocked Kavita. ‘Oh, Oakland is a happening place—like Lahore and some cities in Afghanistan !’ TAUBA TAUBA ! K.R.RAVI