The Big Bang Theory

There is this sitcom running on CBS in USA these days which is quickly taking up second spot (see first) in my list of favourite sitcoms: The Big Bang Theory. It doesn’t appear to be all that popular in States, if Wiki ratings are to go by, but geek in me seem to see parts of me in legendary Sheldon Cooper whose rational and logic driven world leaves robots into shame. His company of experimental physicist, astrophysicist and engineers is charmed by (how should I say it politely?) a bimboo named Penny and the hilarity ensues. I am hereby proposing a Penny-Sheldon Scale^© of character analysis. If Penny scores 0 and Sheldon scores 100 on this scale, where do you see yourself? Sometime, if I have got really nothing to do in life, which means never, I might watch reruns and prepare a questionnaire. Preliminary investigation and research (also known as a single Google^® search) tells me that I am first to propose this scale. Here are few snippets for you to enjoy.

And today is exactly an year hence and as many posts later as is sum of cubes of first five natural integers.

Balanced view

For an objective reporter writing a well researched article in intellectual journal, need to present facts and information in balanced format is important. It is important for him to provide both sides of an argument and positions for both for and against an issue lest he appears biased or judgmental. An intelligent reader in public discourse is expected to evaluate arguments by themselves and not be influenced by editorial leaning. This is specially true when article for consumption is written for wider audience which may include people on both sides of debate. Therefore, there is this need to balance discussion. However, real balancing can only take place if both views actually carry equal weight. In issues where one side of position is weaker than other, balancing turns into ridiculous tit-for-tat action where point of view of one side is immediately countered with opposite point of view even when they are not comparable at all thereby giving more proportional representation to weaker view.

With India-Pakistan discussion flaring again in domestic and international media, there are plethora of articles which try to balance Islamic terrorism with Hindu terrorism even when ratio of intensity of one to another is thousand is to one. Similar caricatured forced balancing takes place in many other spheres within India and elsewhere where need to find plausible opposing argument to stronger point of view obviates the more important need to maintain contextual usefulness and relative meaningfulness. It would have been great for me to cite news articles for this post but even if you keep this point of mind when reading and writing you will see such things at many places, specially when source of article is an organization which, for political reason, cannot side with the truth.

Such forced balancing also takes place in many Hollywood movies where blacks/whites and man/woman characters are kept in about equal number, specially in police force or medical profession. Need for political correctness and not appearing racists has taken such narrow view that if cast doesn't include black characters then producer/director is considered racist. Even comedy sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S was not spared this criticism. This happens to lesser extent in Bollywood but police or army characters almost always include Hindu/Muslim balance, though often it is part of the plot.

Treatise on F.R.I.E.N.D.S (2/2)

...<< PREVIOUS (Part 1)

A treatise on Friends is not complete without talking about friends themselves. Characters of Friends are bunch of varied lot. Almost any person who has watched it for a while identifies with one or other character. It tells a lot about the viewer which character he identifies himself with. Relative preference of all six characters also suggests glimpse in psyche of viewer.

While Rachel was the most beautiful of the girls, she was also most despicable character to me. Even after repeated viewings I cannot recall an incident when she did something for others or sacrificed for her friends. She was deceptive, manipulative, utter selfish and insensitive, who used her friends for her gain whenever possible. Ross, on the other hand, was at receiving end of her tantrums almost throughout. His sacrifices to her, and others, were mostly unsaid. Yet he tops my list of least likable characters at number two by his continued love for most hateful person among all. His awkwardness, clumsiness and lack humour or looks didn’t help him either.

It’s more difficult for for me to rate rest of the characters so I will not attempt it. Joey’s boyish charm and uncomplicated outlook to life is what I’ve desired for long with no avail. His selfless help to others, bumbling exploits, and innocence wins heart everyday. Of course, there were moments of inconsistency in his intelligence level, but mostly he is person one would love to have as friend. Phoebe was Joey’s female counterpart. She was not as buffoon as Joey but was confident enough to do what she wanted without worrying what others would think of her. Chandler was perhaps closest to normal human male. He was considerate, understanding and caring yet careless, fun loving and enjoyable. An interesting quote I heard somewhere says that every man claims to be like Chandler, wants to be like Joey, but is actually like Ross.

Despite he general unpopularity, Monica is my favourite character. Her obsession with cleanliness aside, she was most the confident, successful and thoughtful ladies of the drama. She is also what I identify myself most with. Her clinical obsession with efficiency, punctuality and organization is what I am accused of by my friends too. Yet, she was also genuine friend in need.

I have not watched Friends in last one and an half year, mostly because I don’t want myself to bore with it. Though I don’t know if that is possible. My craze may not be as some of the peoples here but quotes and friends of Friends will remain in my heart forever as sweet memory and longing of separation of the best TV sitcom ever.

That's right, I stepped up! She's my friend and she needed help! If I had too, I'd pee on any one of you! ...More Quotes

Treatise on F.R.I.E.N.D.S (1/2)

It all started rather innocently. In final years of my undergraduate study at IIT Madras, in 2001-03, personal computers had just started arriving on the campus scene. They were not as ubiquitous as they are these days but they were slowly becoming prized possessions for few. With computers in hostel, local network soon mushroomed allowing sharing of movies, serials, music, photos and much coveted male juice. I cannot point when or why but suddenly Friends was TV show everyone was watching. People raved and praised comical escapades of six youngsters in New York City. I cared to not to be sucked into this frenzy, partly because I didn’t own personal computer, but mostly because I didn’t wanted to distract myself from study by getting addicted to this new craze.

When I moved to United States in 2003, I had opportunity to watch this series purely by chance. We had TVs in common kitchens of our dorms and only channel that worked without hiccup was TBS. My limited understanding of American culture and accent limited opportunity to appreciate other soaps on TV. That these serials aired at 8pm which was about time we prepared and had our dinner made our encounter with Friends inevitable ritual. TBS used to run Friends, Seinfeld, and Everybody Loves Raymond back to back in loop successively from 8pm to 11pm every day of week. I think within those two years of Master’s degree, I must have watched all seasons of Friends at least 2-3 times. In 2004, I witnessed sentimentality and emotions among students around me for airing of the last episode of Friends. I was still not that caught up that I missed what I now can say was a momentous opportunity.

When I moved to Los Angeles for job in 2005, more free, and more importantly alone, time made me acquire all ten seasons of Friends on my PC. I would pop one disk in my laptop when I come home while having dinner and watch 5-6 episodes in one go before I went to bed. This was time when I went berserk about my obsession, nay love, of Friends. I probably watched all 10 seasons made up of around 250 episodes of 22 minutes each about 8-9 times then. I became, and am still to date, crazy about this soap. I believe Friends to be the best sitcom ever created. I love the consistency of serial when humour doesn’t run dry from first episode to last unlike many other serials. I love relatively cleanliness of humour. I love them for respecting intelligence of their audience. I fell in love with characters and got to know them inside out by watching them over and over. I felt sorry when things went wrong. I cried when Friends ended. It is not often that I identify with characters of a TV drama but I longed to have their story continued. I detested being torn and thrown away from their lives. I also couldn’t help but not isolate six friends from their future appearances elsewhere. They had to be my loved characters, not some actors and actresses who could work elsewhere.

Friends has its share of crazy fans, specially in India. If two strangers meet, then they just need this common link to have loads of hearty conversation. In those 250 odd episodes I believe Friends covered practically every situation and emotion and many moment of my life can be linked to one where someone did something similar. What’s remarkable about this serial is that I never get tired of watching it and still laugh at right places even after knowing scenes by rote. I laugh when I not watching too by remembering scenes. This is not a usual feat to achieve. What this has also done is that I compare every sitcom with bar set at Friends, and as I said before, none have been able to match it.

...NEXT (Part 2) >>

K soaps are best on TV, comparatively

I don’t really watch TV. Thing is there is really nothing to watch for me on TV. Proliferation of channels has not resulted in proliferation of quality content. Lets see what’s on TV these days.

There are lots and lots of reality shows. As everyone knows reality is last thing they show. They cater to basic human instinct of humiliation and voyeurism and are vulgar, dramatic and unethical in their presentation. I am against these channels in principle and cannot tolerate artificial drama. The Truman Show (plot), The Condemned (plot) and Death Race (plot) are movies which I think depict very correctly the extent of evil these show perpetuate in society and to where we are heading unless stopped.

There are also many competitions and games which select talents for singing, dancing, humour, bravery, poetry, knowledge, etc. These are cousins of reality shows in the sense that they are overtly dramatical and focus least on talent but most on humiliation, public perception and charisma. Participants crying, fighting, slapping, and fawning are common — and one would suspect planted — occurrence. SMS voting in many of these shows have made them purely divisive and infantile.

There are also many of 24 hours news channels. What constitute news these days is not everyone’s cup of tea, least of all mine. Neither I am interested in celebrity gossip, nor in supernatural phenomenon, nor personal lives of others, nor in meaningless acts of many. Unless really emergency news happens, I get all my news from print or online newspaper. These channels dramatize and sensationalize news and blow issues out of proportion. Good old 30 minutes daily news of Doordarshan is best to know what really matters.

All of the above don’t respect intelligence of their viewers and that bugs me very much. What remains are sports, movies, music, and saas-bahu soap operas.

I am not into any sports except perhaps in cricket once in a blue moon or some really exciting Olympics events.

I do like movies but watching movies on TV is really uncomfortable since when you want to watch TV, movie may have already started. Furthermore, movies on TV have five minute long commercial breaks every fifteen minutes. Why do I tolerate all that when I can easily get/borrow/rent a DVD and watch movie on my computer at my convenience?

I love music videos too but I cannot handle incessant Hinglish immature-ish blabber of Disk Jokey. Compounding the pain is the fact that music videos are rarely shown in full and are shown often in irritating repeat mode. And commercial breaks are icing on the cake.

Saas-Bahu soaps are overtly unreal drama in their own right. For each 30 minute episode, only 20 minutes of content will be shown, rest being commercials. Of those 20 minutes, 2 minutes will show what happened in last episode, 2 minutes will show what to expect in next episode, and 15 minutes will be real story. Of those 15 minutes, flashbacks, frozen scenes, multiple zooms, thrice-repeat actions constitute half of screen time. Of my 30 minutes with TV, I see story worth 10 minutes because it has been overtly dramatized in the first place, and can be told in 5 minutes in tight editing. Even then, and it pains me to say this, these are least evil of all content on TV.

K soaps and perhaps occasional movie and music is what I can tolerate on TV, if I dare to sit and watch. Except of course, National Geographic, Discovery and History Channels which are gems in themselves. But not all stuff there is interesting either. Thus, I don’t really watch TV.

Mowgli

Anyone who was child in India in early nineties will undoubtedly have fond memories of Jungle Book and its protagonist Mowgli. Its title song is anthem for memories of childhood nostalgia. At its peak, song was so popular that it used to be played even at weddings despite no connections whatsoever. Animation series shown in India was dubbed version of Japanese Anime based on 1894 book of the same name written by Rudyard Kipling. Here is it for your kind perusal:


(You Tube link)

जंगल जंगल बात चली है, पता चला है ॥२॥ अरे चड्डी पहन के फूल खिला है, फूल खिला है ॥२॥ जंगल जंगल पता चला है, चड्डी पहन के फूल खिला है ॥२॥ एक परिंदा है शर्मिंदा, था वो नंगा!! हाय इससे तो अंडे के अंदर, था वो चंगा!! सोच रहा है, बाहर आखिर क्यों निकला है? अरे चड्डी पहन के फूल खिला है, फूल खिला है जंगल जंगल पता चला है, चड्डी पहन के फूल खिला है ॥२॥

It’s well known in all forests, its talk of all forests that a flower has blossomed with shorts on A bird was embarrassed because he was naked Oh, he would have been better inside the egg He is wondering why did he came out in the first place?

This enchanting nonsensical song was penned by Gulzar and was composed by Vishal Bharadwaj. Original book can be downloaded from project Gutenberg.

Media ethics

Many people raised questions about unethical means media employed while reporting recent tragedy in Bombay. Not only were they unethical, insensitive, crude and sensational, they also hampered counterstrike and may have resulted in more lives lost. One would have excused if they were not aware of their own stupidity, which, of course, should not be the case, but their blatant violation even after Ministry of I&B sent them a decree clearly showed a lack of conscience on media’s part. A general appeal in private and mainstream media is for better treatment of information pertaining to such incidents. No one, so far, has offered any solution though.

As I have been repeatedly emphasizing on this blog, expecting people to act on moral grounds by their own volition is model but not practical solution. People and organizations are going to act based on (dis)incentives they have and not based on their own consciences, as much as we would like to have this in the world. I’ve been trying to think of what penalty we citizen can inflict to tilt balance of incentives in favour of more ethical media management. A government body which penalizes these channels either on grievance complaint or active monitoring is one way to go. However, recent attempts by Ministry in developing code of conduct have been vehemently opposed by media who would like us to believe that self-regulation is way to go. If only they had regulated self. Recently created News Broadcasters Association (NBA) in India has developed a set of non-binding guidelines which are obeyed in violations mostly. Since self-regulation failed miserably and is an oxymoron to me in the first place, Ministry can try to bring legislation to the effect. After all, why would media have problem with legal regulation if they really wanted to follow their own self-regulation, unless that was hogwash which it what it appears to be?

Alternative is for us to boycott these channels and let them know why we do that. I’ve been proponent of power of public in most cases in teaching lessons be it to corporate, government and private sector. But again, what we do says more than what we say, and people of India are not going to stop watching sensational news channels just because they claim they don’t like sensationalisation. If they really didn’t, would these profit driven media be stupid to serve that? More and more I think about it, more and more problems for which we like to blame politicians, government, corporate and lobbyists are because of what we do. A newspaper whose top five stories always comprise of glamour and sex is largest selling English daily in the world. Reality shows which show blatant humiliation and meanness gross highest TRPs every week. Doordarshan with its clean and unsensational news is least watch television channel among people who have access to cable. As much as anybody would like to think otherwise, because it is easy to blame others than look self-ward, we too have a blood on ours hands.

Colour as indicator of beauty

There is a increasing perception in media and among educated urban elite in India that use of fairness as indicator of beauty is wrong. That perception is manifested in opposition to depiction of unfair woman in Fair & Lovely adverts as not being able to attract suitable mate, not being able to get a job, or being perennially dissatisfied with her life. Resistance was raised again when Fair & Handsome was launched for men. It is not untrue that people of India do equate fairness with beauty, and reasons can be as recent as white colonial rule to as old as primitive human evolution. It is also agreeable that to judge one by standards of beauty beyond one’s control is unfair to the least, and downright mean in most cases.

What gets my goat though is the fact that society continues to accept other measures as standards of beauty while isolating fairness as something mean. If you believe in individual liberty then there is no reason you should have objection to anyone’s standards of beauty and anyone else's attempts to measure up to those standards by any means they choose, including use of fairness creams. While both parties have choice in principle, second party doesn’t have a choice in practice. If all men think that fair woman is beautiful, then has a woman choice not to try to be fair without suffering rejection as consequence of her choice? But then, if all men think that obese woman is unattractive, then has a woman choice not to try to be slim?

This happens in nearly all parameters of beauty and in many other spheres of life. Tall build, dark skin tone, wide shoulders, glistening row of teeth, full dark smooth hair, no paunch, sturdy long legs, muscular arms, chiseled face, firm handshake etc. are few among many standards of male beauty. Men try to measure up to them by working out, taking care of themselves, consuming healthy diet, seeking medical care, and so on. Similarly for women. Why does nobody objects to association of beauty with soft skin, long flowing silky hair, long thin legs, slender waist, absence of spectacles, etc. for women? Why raise objection to association of beauty with fairness only? At the end of the day, can you really force me to see beauty where I don't see? Isn't it in eye of beholder anyway.

I don’t see how one is not acceptable, and I agree it is not, but others are. Of course, any attempt at making everything unacceptable is going to snowball into destroying whole standards of civilization. Life is full of unfairness, and I think cribbing about it just not going to help anybody, one has to deal with handicaps given in life or work to overcome them. If I am not intelligent and don't earn as much as you do, will you consider that unfair, since my intelligence is beyond my control?

Meet Airtel Manmohan Singh

You know the trend these days of changing the names of TV shows to include sponsor's name? Like "Airtel Panchvi pass...", "Rin Rangoli', "Wheel Smart Shrimati", "Closeup Antakshari", etc. Made me wonder how much sponsorship I will get if I change my name to say, Airtel Ashish Gupta. I will use this is all verbal and written communication, on my degress, wedding invite, business card, name plate, email signatures and so on. I know that millions of people don't come across my name, but then, I am not even expecting millions of rupees in sponsorship. Something like 10K perhaps?

Corollary to that is that prime ministers et al can bring crores in exchaquer by simple agreering to prefix their name by sponsor's name. Their name is there all the time on TV, in print news, in international press, in many official documents and what not. Surely, they can utilize the popularity to earn some money, for themselves, if not for the nation.