Survivor's Guide To The Galaxy

Of late I have been hearing people tell me that it's important to know what's happening around you and about people around you and information about them and what they have some and about incidents.

One person advised me that this is essential whole two others made faces of derision whole explaining that I don't know (even) these.

Of course it's a classic focus on S(ensory) detail whole each of them is extremely low on iNtuitive front.

Strange how when we are S we think lack of Sis appalling and don't give a damn to lack of N. And when we are N, we think lack of N in others is appalling and don't give a damn to their lack of S.

We evaluate people strongly on those characteristics that we consider ourselves to be strong in.

What Is A Prostitute

A 13 year old student asked THE question "What is a prostitute?" to her Hindi teacher. The teacher was flabbergasted and asked the child to check with the Biology teacher. The Biology teacher mentioned this incident to my friend, who teacher in the same school, and asked her how one should respond. My friend recited this incident me. I asked my friend to help the Hindi teacher but she wouldn't, rather couldn't.

So I thought I will give it a shot.

There are many activities that happen between two people. Example: Marriage happens between 2 people and we call the people involved, spouses. Another example is employment. The people involved are employer and employee. Yet another example is sales of goods and services. In this case, we call the one who provides the services as the supplier or seller or vendor. The one who purchases is called the buyer or customer.

One of those services, mentioned above, is sex. The person who sells sex is called a prostitute. The buyer of sex has no special name while the person who facilitates the sale, who brokers the transaction, is called a pimp.

Financial perspective:
In many cultures and countries, sex is considered sacred and hence a blatant sale of the same is taboo. Prostitution is the act engaged in by a prostitute. A sexual act is termed as prostitution and the provider termed as a prostitute only when there is explicit payment of money involved and when the buyer and seller aren't spouses. In a sexual act between spouses there is no such transfer of money immediately following an act or prior to the act purporting to be payment for services rendered. Hence such act between spouses is not prostitution. Even sex between friends is usually a social activity with no direct payment involved. Only when sex becomes a commercial activity does the act become one of prostitution.

Social perspective:
In many conservatives cultures, a prostitute is held in poor esteem. That is because sex is considered sacred and its sale is forbidden. Now people can become a prostitute because of these reasons:

1. Poverty leads a person to become a prostitute. Prostitution is termed as the oldest industry - meaning it's almost as ancient as mankind. There isn't much technical skill requires except the ability to provide sex to a customer. Here an easy way to escape poverty is by becoming a prostitute. Of course, one usually becomes  a social outcaste then. In addition are medical problems like AIDS that a prostitute is likely to contract.
2. This too is money related but it's distinctly different from poverty. In this case, people engage in i.e., sell sex because there is a huge demand for special / "high class sex" - for example for sex with exceedingly good looking girls. In these cases, a person becomes a prostitute not because of poverty but in order to enhance their income.
3. A third could be blackmail - "Unless you become a prostitute, i will..." 

And so on.

Moral perspective:
If you ask your parents or your teachers, you are likely to get a reply that prostitution is repugnant and is to be avoided - visiting one or becoming one. In many countries the act is illegal and one could be fined or jailed for engaging in it. Sex with many people or unprotected sex with unknown people is medically dangerous and is to be avoided. Beyond the medical and legal issues, it may bring about a moral dilemma. Whether it's just another business transaction or is it inherently repugnant? Children born out of heterosexual prostitution usually will lack a biological father  in their life - no matter whether a prostitute is male or female, only the female bears the child. These are some of the things one has to remember while contemplating prostitution.

Which gender is a prostitute?
Usually sex is sought by males more than by females in most species including humans. As a result of this demand an opportunity that seeks to address this demand is created. In majority of the cases, the supplier of sex, the prostitute is female because (A). Majority of sex is heterosexual. (B). The customer is mostly male.

Exceptions are presented below:
Type of sex.                          Gender of prostitute
Gay                                                              Male
Lesbian                                                       Female
Heterosexual with female customer      Male

In the movies:
The role of a prostitute (usually female) has been portrayed in movies often. Two movies come to mind which show an outstanding character of a female prostitute: Amar Prem (Hindi), Pretty Woman (English). 

Finally: Which part of this blog's content was inappropriate for a 13 year old or embarrassing for a female teacher to explain to students of that age? Why did the teachers get paralyzed by the question? Of course when a mischievous student asks what sex is one can THEN direct that question to the biology teacher. 

But prostitution is not synonymous with sex and this subject can be explained by anyone - not necessarily by a Biology teacher.

Much of the issue comes from our belief: that sex is taboo. And that one should always deny knowledge of the subject and also deny experience in the act. As Aamir Khan asks Boman Irani in the movie PK, how is it that we are so embarrassed to admit publicly to owning a condom while at the same time we happily inform the whole world of our marriage (and the ensuing first night, honeymoon etc)?

PF, Gratuity, Cheque Payment

Today I had a discussion with a friend about making payments to people such as sweepers, electricians. They are currently paid in cash and I suggested that they henceforth open a bank account so cash can be avoided.

My friend countered and said that bank payment will cause problems 1. because the persons being paid are illiterate and hence can't use ATM and 2. This will involve having to pay PF, pension, gratuity etc. And that Labor Welfare Act would be in their favor.

Message he sent on Jul 12, 2018

I understand  that  you  want all our staff should open a bank account to receive  their salaries etc.  While  it is  good thinking  that all should  have bank account      we should  bear in mind that most of them cannot read and write except  in Telugu and their banking  transactions particularly ATM are at a risk.   We are also liable to pay them all compensations such as PF Pension Gratuity and other severance costs in case of removal from service as per Labour Welfare Act and the law is in their favour. Taking  all the above  into account  we have been making all salary payments all these years in cash.   Another  mutual friend (UU3) is much aware of this. Hence you will be well advised not to  deviate from established  conventions in our own interests

I may also add here that as an employer  we should  make  them contribute from their income towards  Pradhan Mantra Insurance  scheme  of Re1 per month that gives them coverage of Rs 1lakh per annum per member.

I told my friend that regular cash payments made to these people from our account and when the account is audited how would one explain the expenses? Wouldn't the same PF etc liability arise? If the payments were made from an account that wasn't audited then it's a different issue. Plus the fact that there are only 5 people being paid and PF etc arise only when 10 or more people are employed. The place we were discussing had 5 such electricians and sweepers.

And I continued that first one needed to understand whether the people being paid were employed or just causal labor. 

My friend answered that they were contract workers and not employees. That broughy up an even more interesting question. Since when is PF pension etc applicable to non-employees (there being less than 10 such people working is another relevant point).

Since they are transient labor, having Aadhaar card from a different city, getting a local proof of address to open a bank account is another issue which was a bottleneck towards their opening a bank account.

Another friend suggested a solution which was to give a cheque in their name which they can encash without opening an account. Great.

Now the question was: why did my first friend raise the issue about PF, Labor Welfare Act etc when he knew that the 5 people concerned were not employees. Why did he bring up employee benefits issue when the question was only about shifting to bank payment.

Was it because:

1. He prefers cash and avoids bank transactions wherever he can.
2. Hates change in status quo. Currently those fellows are being paid in cash.
3. He thought use of keywords such as PF Labor act will give credibility to his ideas?

Inna Cheithaarai Oruthal

About two weeks back I had occasion to call Chennai Corporation dog catcher squad to take couple of street dogs away from my locality. The dogs were creating a nuisance and also had bitten couple of people. 

The dog van came and the catchers had a knotted leash and within a short period of time had caught one dog while it's friend ran away. After half an hour of chasing, the other dog was also caught. The guys told me that in all likelihood the dogs would be given anti rabies injection and then brought right back. This wasn't what I wanted. I arranged to pay them some money in order to ensure that the dogs were not brought back. The guys haggled and then we settled on an amount but I would pay only half the amount immediately and the balance after 10 days if we found that the dogs weren't back.

About 5 days after this incident the canine friends were back. The advance money was written off. And as a lady in Blue Cross advised me we, human beings, had to learn to peacefully coexist with dogs.

Yesterday when I was sitting in the neighborhood park, couple of dogs were walking around sniffing everything and occasionally barking. One of them came to me, sniffed me and licked me. 

I thought that it was perhaps the same dog that I had arranged to be sent away. And yet when he licked me it seemed to me that he was telling me that all was forgiven.

I was reminded of the Thirukkural:

Inna cheithaarai oruththal avarnaana

Nannayam cheithu vidal.

Meaning

The best way to treat a person who has harmed you is to embarrass them by being nice to them.

I still am not sure whether the dog had learnt Thirukkural but he sure practiced it. Way better than me definitely.

Addional reading

1. http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2016/08/difference-between-man-and-other-animals.html
2. http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2009/10/lost-puppy.html

Different Point Of View - Returns

I had earlier mentioned about different points of view regarding the same incident http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2018/03/different-points-of-view.html

Here is one more episode.

A few days back I met a friend who handles the legal function of a non profit organization (NPO). She told me that the said organization had not been filing income tax (IT) returns, that they had only been circulating an auditor's audited copy to stake holders. 

And that her auditor had recommended that the NPO ought to file returns. When I asked her then why the NPO had not filed IT returns, she had no idea why the previous head of Finance / Legal hadn't done it and that she had only recently taken over. A mutual friend, who himself is a Chartered Accountant, confirmed that the right thing to do was to file the returns.

Today when I spoke with her and asked her whether she was going to file the ITR, she said it was upto the stakeholders of the NPO to decide  whether to file or not to file. 

When I asked her what the right thing to do was, she told me that she has to get a consensus and that her auditor had in fact asked her to get a consensus / decision from the stakeholders as to whether to file IT returns or just circulate an audited copy of the accounts. I inferred that the issue in front of her now was not one of what the right thing to do was but to do what the consensus wanted. Which was very different from what she conveyed to me few days back - a complaint about the state of affairs in the NPO.

And finally she explained to me that she had said all this to me during our previous conversation. 

Jai Ho.

I am planning to record all conversations hereafter. 

Additional Reading:
Trump Reverses Tack on Russian Meddling https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-reverses-tack-on-election-meddling-1531869255: Did Russia meddle or not? It depends on which answer is more useful.

Nadappathu Narayanan Cheyal

Earlier today an elderly gentleman called me up and told me he wanted to pay me a courtesy visit. I said "Sure, let's meet in the park 100 feet away from my house."

I told a friend about this meeting and expressed my apprehension that the gentleman would talk about what his children are doing, where he worked, enquire about my family - lot of what's and no iota of any why - absolutely not show capacity for abstract thinking. My friend smirked at me - indicating she thought I was too negative. And. I truly had never spoken with the gentleman earlier nor had heard of him before.

We, the gentleman and I, met at around 5PM. He is an extrovert and talked non-stop. Apart from what I had earlier predicted, he also mentioned about a serious accident he had met with and quoted umpteen proverbs and mentioned many cliches.

"Nadappathu Narayanan Cheyal" was the last proverb he quoted. Meaning even that we walk (or that whatever happens) is an act of God. I asked him "which act then is ours?" trying to provoke a discussion on freewill.
He beat a hasty retreat and said goodbye and left.

I wish I had been wrong in my guess about how the conversation would go.

Conscience

We usually come across the expression "acting as per one's conscience" or (in Tamil) "manasaatchikku virodama nadakka koodaathu". I thought some people violated this and acted against their conscience, rather that most negative acts were in violation of the perpetrator's conscience. 

I recently realized that I was wrong. Negative acts often are perpetrated in perfect sync with one's conscience. 

This happens when our conscience, i.e., our value system, itself is "corrupted". Examples being that violating women is ok, cruelty to animals is ok, if I have a pressing need then taking away your stuff for my need is ok, robbing rich to pay poor paul is ok, if my family is in trouble even murder is justified (as in the movie Drishyam) etc. 

With the above in our conscience and if we perpetrate any such acts, would we consider that we violated our conscience? Did Vijay Salgaoncar, in Drishyam, believe that he violated his conscience?

The issue is that we think that all of us share a common conscience and we assume what is abhorrent to me is abhorrent to you as well. Hence if you (or me or anyone) didn't violate your conscience then you didn't do anything wrong.

So strange.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

When the milkman came to deliver today, a gentleman in shoddy and kinda dirty dress was passing by. 

The milkman asked me in hushed tones whether the gentleman had a mental problem, explaining to me that he, the milkman, had noticed the gentleman often and that the latter didn't talk much and dressed himself in an unkempt fashion. I told the milkman that my mother uses the same definition to describe me. 

The milkman burst into laughter. For some reason, he didn't take me to be mentally challenged.

Incidentally the other day, when I knocked on a door, the lady of the house opened the door and handed me their garbage bag - she had mistaken me for the garbage man. 

I was taken back to a discussion I had had with a friend about 8 or 9 years back. She was talking about a classmate of hers in her boarding school many decades back, incidentally the classmate was from the same village as me, who used to dress in ridiculous looking clothes and was constantly tormented by all his classmates. Apparently only my friend helped that fellow through a difficult time in school. I remember asking her the same question - my dress is kinda similar to that fellow's but no one has tormented me on account of my dress. 

There, then, is something beyond poor dress that makes a man seem deranged and provokes people to torment him. What is that thing?

Perhaps it's how he carries himself. Maybe his demeanor indicates that he is a normal man who is dressed poorly and is quite different from another man who is challenged and hence perhaps dressed poorly.

It's an interesting bit of coincidence that the lady's (the one who handed me the garbage bag) husband is also from the same village as me.

Note:
Before you rush to a rash conclusion, note that there are many people in our village who do dress well.

Additional Reading:
http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/07/men-in-tears.html

Evolution And Vishnu

A friend sent me this:

"Mom, I am a genetic scientist. I am working in the US on  the evolution of man. Theory of evolution. Charles Darwin, have you heard of him? " Vasu asked.

          His Mother sat next to him,  smiled and said, "I know about Darwin, Vasu. But Have you heard of Dashavatar? The ten avatars of Vishnu?" 

Vasu replied yes. 

          "Ok! Then let me tell you what you and your Darwin don't know.

        Listen carefully- 

        The first avatar was the Matsya avatar, it means the fish. That is because life began in the water. Is that not right?" 

          Vasu began to listen with a little more attention.

            She continued, "Then came the Kurma Avatar, which means the tortoise, because life moved from the water to the land. The amphibian! So the Tortoise denoted the evolution from sea to land.

            Third avatar was Varaha, the wild boar, which meant the wild animals with not much intellect, you call them the Dinosaurs, correct?" Vasu nodded wide eyed.

            "The fourth avatar was Narasimha, half man and half animal, the evolution from wild animals to intelligent beings.

            Fifth, the Vaman avatar, the midget or dwarf, who could grow really tall. Do you know why that is? Because, there were two kinds of humans, Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens and Homo Sapiens won that battle." 

            Vasu could see that his Mother was in full flow and he was stupefied.

          "The Sixth avatar was Parshuram, the man who wielded the axe, the man who was a cave and forest dweller. Angry, and not social.

          The seventh avatar was Ram, the first rational thinking social being, who practised and laid out the laws of society and the basis of human relationships.

          The Eighth avatar was Balarama, a true farmer who showed  value of agriculture in the life.

          The Ninth avatar was Krishna, the statesman, the politician, the diplomat, the Ambassador, the sutile interpreter, the lover who played the game of society and taught how to live and thrive in the adhaarmic social structure.

          And finally, my boy, will come Kalki, the man you are working on. The man who will be genetically supreme."

            Vasu looked at his Mother speechless. "This is amazing Mom, how did you .... ? This makes sense!"

          She said, "Yes it does, son! We Indians knew some amazing things, but just didn't know how to pass it on scientifically. So we made them into mythological stories.  Mythology creates faith and makes man sensible. It is just the way you look at it - Religious or Scientific. Your call."

That's evolution explained from Hindu religion. yet it's all about Vishnu (no Shiva).

Now, what does this story, told by mother to son, prove?

1. That the ten avatars of God existed? No, where is this proved?
2. That the Gods knew about evolution? No, if God's existence or His avatars aren't proved, where is the question of His knowing about evolution? Of course God being  omniscient, He knows everything including evolution. You dontd need the Dashavatar story, as told by the mother, to prove it.
3. That our Rishis knew about evolution and they created the story of the Dashavatars which follows the same path as organisms did in evolution? Maybe so or maybe it's just an accident. Even then how fish evolved into tortoise is not explained.

Addional reading:

Nice article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3049057/

Playing Carrom

Carrom board isa game that is like billiards or snooker, except the board is much smaller, about 44" square and can be played sitting on the floor like Ludo.

It was a time long long back that I used to be an exceptional player. In our city we used to have boards which were different. The boards that we played on were larger, smoother and the 4 pockets were oblong in shape instead of being circular. And you could hit the coins hard - they wouldn't jump out or fly in those boards as they do in boards in other parts of the country.

There are 2 parts to playing carrom well.

1. The mental part.. how the old man in the hospital visualized putting the red coin in the movie Munna Bhai MBBS. That's the plan or design.
2. The actual skill which is a motor function. It decides the position of striker, angle, velocity. Here the old man has to execute what he planned earlier. He needs to place the Striker at the right location, hit the striker with the right speed and pointing at the right direction.

It is a sorry state of affairs when you still retain the first part but have lost the 2nd (possibly because of age, arthritis or Parkinson's or whatever). You can see what you can do but your fingers do not hold the same skill. I am reminded of what the old tailor Mr Siddiqui says in the movie Jolly LLB 2 - that his fingers aren't as they were before and they don't work well now. What a loss.

The mind can figure out but the body isn't able to keep pace. But isn't this better than having the body in shape while the mind has settled down with Alzheimer's?

Amen.