Politically incorrect humour

I am usually not fan of excess political correctness when used against faceless audience. I don’t, of course, want to hurt anybody’s feelings because of his belief or membership. Hence I am considerate to not mention things which can be considered offensive by my listeners when I am addressing them directly. Even then, things that one can take offense to are limitless and I cannot suppress my speech to sound sugary to everyone all the time without seriously handicapping my ability to convey my meaning. As much as is the responsibility of speaker to not to hurt his audiences’ feelings, so is the onus on not getting offended without perspective on audience too. Communication is after all two way process. My relaxation of political correctness drops even further when I am addressing a faceless audience such as on blog or article. While basic political correctness is desired to maintain harmony and to avoid unwanted instigation of ill-will, too much political correctness robs message of all its possible meaning, because one can always take umbrage at practically anything.

In this context, it’s not surprising that I find some of the politically incorrect movies and serials quite funny. In world where aversion to offending others has made all conversations banalities without meaning, these attempts are quite tongue-in-cheek hilarious. I should also mention that my being able to enjoy these doesn’t mean that I support them but that I can forget about being uptight and enjoy fun. Fun, yes, racist, sexist, crass, stereotyped fun. Hence I quite liked the movies Borat and President is Coming and regularly enjoy TV serials such as Simpsons and Family Guy. Fake news source Onion is also my favourite website. While this post gives the impression that political correctness is sweeping the speech everywhere, as long as we have freedom of speech there are many who will hold the light of truth. And I’ll keep on getting my quality fun uninhibited by need to mollycoddle beliefs of all and sundry.

Primary purpose of this post, though, is to explore my this taste. Firstly, does it make me appear as bad person if I enjoy politically incorrect humour? I know that laughing at sexist jokes doesn’t make me woman-hater. I think that it’s possible to separate both parts of brain that such contradictions coexist. I can have fun at seeing someone slip (on screen) and yet be there first to help if it so happens in real life. Can I have fun seeing someone slip in real life? Can I laugh at racist joke in real life? Well, that depends on the company. As I’ve mentioned in the beginning I differentiate when I am capable of hurting known people than when I inadvertently hurt unknown people. If my company or person who is laughed at finds these offensive then it’s my duty to avoid such sense of humour. I know that such things don’t make me bad person — but does my audience know that too? Would you feel contempt towards me if you found out this fact, as you did just now? At some level, I cannot blame you if you do so, because you will form opinion based on what you see and not based on what you think what I think. Yet, it also depends on how easy you can comprehend the presence of such contradiction in my mind.

Secondly, do I really enjoy all politically incorrect humour equally? Can I laugh at myself when stereotyped? I think I can, most of the time. Sometimes I can’t but I don’t know if that’s because episode is inherently unfunny to me or because I get offended. Is it subconscious sign of something? If yes then does that make me bad person? Do you enjoy politically incorrect humour? What if directed at yourself?

What can I demand that you don't know already?

In March of 2002 I visited Tirupati Balaji with my friends. Tirupati temple is one of the most popular Hindu pilgrimages in India and receives maximum number of visitors and donations in the world. Line for entering the temple can run as long as a day and temple boasts of efficient queuing system to accommodate between 50,000 to 100,000 visitors everyday. As I was waiting at final waiting hall before entering to temple premises, I started to wonder what should ask God for? After all, it is not everyday I get opportunity to pay homage to such esteemed and famous deity and I must seek His blessings for something important to me.

Initially, I felt that there is nothing that I can ask God here which I couldn’t have asked elsewhere because even if this is most popular pilgrimage of Lord, He is after all omnipresent. As He resides in this rich ornate temple so does He in murti at shrine in my home. My this feeling of calm reverence was soon shattered by the ambience. As devotees proceeded to march towards deity, fragrance of sandalwood and incense permeated my nostrils, chants of Hail Balaji and sounds from gongs and bells reverberated my ear drums, and piety in the crowed seeped in my skin. As I approached closed to Sanctum Sanctorum my eyes got watery with respect, devotion and surrender.

I searched my mind to find appropriate prayer and request. While I was quite happy student with perfectly happy family, there were many things in life which worried me and which I was apprehensive about. As I went on rummaging my brain for the most important request, I found myself discarding everything. How dare I bother the Almighty with my insignificant fears and inquisitions, I chided myself. Will it be appropriate use of my opportunity if I just ask Him to ward off trivial problems of my life? Shouldn’t I be seeking His support on things worth His esteemed stature? What specific question I pose to Him that He didn’t know answer of? As my thoughts progressed, I questioned if I can limit my request to only my betterment? Why not ask Him about welfare and betterment of all my family members? Thinking in this direction just escalated. Why not ask him for solving problems of all my clan members? All my country men? All the humanity? More I delved deeper inside me, more I found myself selfish, small, petty and incapable of asking Him to solve my problems. When I reached in front of Him, only thing that I found worth asking that may Lord please do whatever you deem well for the world at large.

From one angle, my journey from personal desire to global wish and specific question to general broad request can be interpreted as sign of my greediness. But didn’t I have right to ask as much as I want from the only One who had capacity to give infinite of everything? From another angle, my act can be understood to have wasted an momentous opportunity by seeking generality from the Almighty himself. I don’t know…

Recent song Arziyaan from Dilli 6 captures this emotion in very apt way and was provocation for this post.

अर्जियाँ सारी मैं चहरे पर लिख कर लाया हूँ,
तुमसे क्या मांगूँ तुम खुद ही समझ लो

I come with yearnings written on my face yet what do I demand from you as you yourself know everything?

सर उठा के मैनें कितनी ख्वाहिशें की थीं
कितने ख्वाब देखे थे, कितनी कोशिशें की थीं
जब तू रूबरू आया नज़रें ना मिला पाया
सर झुका के एक पल में मैनें क्या नहीं पाया

I desired for many things, I dreamt of so much. But when I faced you I couldn’t look you into eyes. As I surrendered to you, I found everything.

Life without numbers

When talking about colours, I had mentioned how our language affects our thinking process and vice-versa. There cannot be a better example of this than in Piraha tribe of Amazon forests. This tribe is incredulous in so many ways that it has stumped linguists, anthropologists and sociologists for years. One of the unique distinction of this tribe is that their language doesn’t have any concept of numbers.

It’s not just that the members of tribe don’t know any numbers, but they are incapable of understanding the notion itself even when meticulously trained for months. For instance, they failed to duplicate a line of batteries from pool of batteries; couldn’t draw straight lines to copy a given number of lines on earth; and couldn’t decide which of two boxes had more symbols of fish on it. Their language reflects their mental association: there is one word for meaning small amount and another to mean large amount. When “Piraha are talking and use the ‘oneish’ word to talk about something such as fish, you can’t tell whether they are describing a single fish, a small fish, or one or two fish” says Prof. Everett, a fluent Piraha-speaker himself. Their strange example has strengthened the argument by one linguist that learning a specific language determined the nature and content of how one thinks. We can easily see this in our life as new language often broadens our mental horizon and breadth of opinions. Piraha are perfect example where not having words for something doesn’t permit one to comprehend the notion. And it’s not that they are simply stupid, if one were to be presumptuous and assume that, for their fishing and hunting skills are comparable to people elsewhere.

Among other things that characterize this amazingly unique group of people is the limited memory beyond two generations; lack of any social hierarchy; practice of not sleeping more than two hours at a time during night or day; no distinct words for colour; and absence of any creation myths or concept of God.

Appreciation

Don't you feel that a clap involving beating two hands is more sincere and genuine than that involving beating one hand on table? Moreover, I think that ultimate accolade for presenter/speaker is when audience even forget to clap. See also: History & Psychology of Clapping

To whom it may concern

This is to notify whomsoever it may concern that I will be passing out of IIMA soon and am currently very busy in winding up, thus frequency of posts on this blog is going to suffer for next month or so. You can always read and/or subscribe to my Shared Items which will link to many things I find interesting on the web.

Right to worry

If you are a youngster living away from home in college and you slip and fracture your arm, would you inform your parents (or immediate family members) about the incident? They can’t really help you anyway except worry about you since treatment will happen at its own pace. Many in such circumstances don’t call out to their family members since they don’t want them to worry about them unnecessarily.

What is family for? To provide you emotional support primarily, I’d say. If you don’t want them to worry for you, then you suffer pain in silence without support. Because you love them, you don’t want them to be worried. But because they love you too, they want to know. How would you feel if you are not part of important event in your near and dear one’s life?

I don’t know what’s real answer, if any, and like pretty much everything else it depends on the person concerned. I however feel that when relationship is at its closest, be with family or friend, then one has right to make others worry to reduce one’s suffering. It’s a sacred right which we don’t grant to acquaintances. If you are frustrated and feeling down then you have right to shout at your closest people and they must take it without complain. You cannot do that with mere acquaintance to whom you will smile and pretend everything is alright. In similar vain when one is asked “how are you?” only people who are close deserve complete truthful answer, and that right is not available to others who ask this in mere formality and expect nothing more than “fine, you?”

In an parable, when Lord Krishn was suffering from serious headache, He was advised by sage Narad to put dust from the feet of person who loved Him most on His forehead for cure. He asked Rukmani if She would do it. She refused saying that She will go to hell for eternity if She dares let dust of Her feet touch the forehead of esteemed Lord Himself. It will be a sin, She declared. Krishn then asked Radha about the same. She immediately agreed. When people wondered how dare She sin against the God Himself, She opined that Her love of Lord is so great that She will willingly suffer hell fire just to reduce His small pain.

Our relationship with our nearest loved ones should be that of Radha and Krishn because right to worry is most coveted right of true love.

Mother’s dilemma

This is a hypothetical dilemma and thought experiment I made up. It's not simple and may be heart-wrenching for some, so proceed with caution. What were you do if you were mother in the question below?

You are mother of four children and part of a happily family. One day a crazy man breaks into your house to steal while your husband and three children are away. You are alone along with one of the children. Somehow, circumstances lead to such that life of your child is endangered. You have two options. (1) If you don’t act, you survive and your child dies. (2) If you fight, you get killed but child is spared. Culprit escapes in either case. For purpose of this hypothetical question, ignore outside help such as police or neighbours and ignore third option of both surviving. These are not drastic assumptions and very plausible in most circumstances.

Without exception mother will always scarifies herself for her child. So question is not really difficult since there is only one practical answer. Tricky part is whether that decision is best-for-all optimal decision? If you die, then your four children are raised motherless, and will suffer incomplete childhood, with potential fallout in adulthood development and mental trauma. If you survive, then you will have to live with the guilt of letting your child die, along with any blame that may arise from husband or other children. One side is a family of three children with both parents and lifetime of guilt for mother, other side is a family of four children with one parent and some sadness which will typically last until adulthood of children. Which loss is lesser?

As neutral third party, I’d find first option optimal, though that’s not likely to happen unless mother is under full use of her brain and faculty at time of tragedy. Second option is instantaneous emotional response. What is your take?

Consider following independent variations of this problem and see if your answer changes.

• If there is no father?
• If father is drunkard and lousy dad?
• If child under threat of life is youngest of all? Oldest of all?
• If one of surviving children needs special attention?
• If all four children are in their late teens or older? Below age of twelve?
• If there are three children? Two children? Five children?
• If instead of mother there is father in the original scenario and in each of subsequent variations?

Anonymous friend

Unless you’ve been living in a well your whole life, you will not be unfamiliar with social networks such as those whose icons adorn right panel just below my photograph. You are probably also not unaccustomed to receiving friendship requests from people about whom you haven no idea. Since whole concept of social network is to make friends, therefore such requests from random strangers are not something to agonize about. What is irksome, though, is how the process evolves.

Of over 100 anonymous friendship requests I’ve received in my internet avatar, only one was accompanied by an explanation. Rest were mere requests from people whom I’ve not met without any insight into why they want to befriend me. Unlike others, I am less generous. I simply reject these requests. Some people perhaps do this to increase their friend count, though how and why that’s relevant is beyond me. Perhaps higher number in friend’s list is desperate attempt by them to appear more popular by befriending all and sundry. Why do I reject a mere request from anonymous friend? For one, if a stranger doesn’t have regular courtesy even to introduce himself then what is there to interest me in him except to indulge his desire to increase his virtual popularity? I don’t want to clutter my friend’s list with people I don’t know about thus making it difficult to keep track of people I want to know about. After all, if stream of updates grows longer and is interspersed with random Joe eating his dinner then knowing that my best friend visited Delhi becomes more difficult. Another reason is what happens next.

Even if I friend hitherto unknown person, I am sure not to hear from him ever again. That one person who befriended me with proper introduction too has disappeared in my friend’s list never to be seen again. So what was the point again, if not to cultivate and grow friendship among strangers? No conversation, nothing. Ultimately, it boils down to keeping my friend’s list manageable with real friends. But I am aware that I am in minority among denizens of internet in this behaviour.

On some occasions, few have taken umbrage at my rejection. One cannot please all people all the time and being bothered about indignation of strangers is little low on my priority in list of things to worry about. There are people who are offended at nothing and frankly, that’s the part of life. You may have met all kind of people in life but every next person is still a surprise. For instance, a Ms. V asked me how am I connected to her on LinkedIn, a professional networking site. Since she had requested connection, but I didn’t know it then, I postulated few hypothesises:

I...don't know. I mean, I don't have you in my address book so I couldn't have sent invite myself in bulk. I remember you adding me and I probably approved in bulk. Since you work in recruitment agency and I am from IIMA, I thought that's your work at play. May be you intended different Ashish Gupta and added me by mistake? If there is a way to find out who added whom, we can try. Or we can disconnect. Or we can try to know us. Sorry, I seriously don't know.

Somehow, I offended her with my “curt” response. Some days later when I mailed her back saying that it was she who invited me to befriend, I was at shock at her reply:

I don’t know how to take it.....Anyways it seems I knocked at the wrong door....If you wish you can delete me from your Connections...I should admit I never encountered such a bad exchange.... :(

At some level, I am amazed at my ability to antagonize a perfect stranger with few lines of email. After all, my communication skills need immediate overhaul if something is wrong at my end. On the other hand… What’s your neutral take? Seriously, I want to know.

Bathroom singing

Bathroom singing refers to amateur singing and in that way almost everybody has sung or sings in bathroom. What is so special in bathrooms that it has been inducing people to sing for centuries and warrants special phrase “bathroom singing”?

Could it be solitary private confine? But then one would be singing in car or elevator when opportunity presents. It couldn’t be effect of morning because one doesn’t sing in morning if not taking bath. Could it be boredom of act of bath which is tried to be eliminated with melodious ululations? Or could it have to do something with water on the body? Does one sing in swimming pool, even if in private? Does bathroom singing occurs more proportionately in morning baths than bath at any other time of the day? Can moisture in the ambience induce one to hum? Does it has to do something with optimism for the next day, as person who takes bath unhappily typically doesn’t sing? Do people burst into song whenever they are happy?

Answer to all of the above questions will be ‘yes’ sometime but what is so different in bathroom singing that holds all the time? Is it a learned behaviour where child learns to sing hearing his parents or peers singing in bathroom? Do aboriginal tribes sing when taking bath or is it mere modern phenomenon after invention of bathrooms? Does presence of another person singing in bathroom nearby hinders or enhances chances of you singing? Would that depend on whether you know the person or not? Does bathroom singing depend on how cold the water is compared to desirable temperature? Does one sing more when taking bath in freezing cold compared to scalding hot or comfortably warm? What is volume of singing function of? Level of happiness, cold, amount of soap on body? At what age does the bathroom singing starts, and stops? Is there any cultural implications or differences? What types of songs are more amenable to bathroom mouthing? Soft or upbeat?

So many questions and no answer. How little we understand about even small things in daily life. Need a researcher for Ph.D. in Bathroom Singing pronto!

Skipping up stairs

I don’t know since when but as far back as I remember, I have been skipping every other step when climbing up a staircase. When I was young, skipping wasn’t possible. For one, my height didn’t permit such large footsteps, and for another, any attempt would result in a rupture in my shorts/pants. After I acquired required height, though, skipping steps became natural for me and has been so ever since, so much so that I have to remember explicitly not to do so when I am acting in professional capacity at my work. I would think that one would find a man in suit & tie jumping up stairs a little odd. When no one is around though, I am back to me!

It’s not really because I am always in hurry. I am a Type A personality but I am not always, in fact am mostly not, busy in doing anything so important that climbing stairs fastest would be become first priority. Despite that, as largely but not completely consistent with definition of Type A, I am generally “impatient, excessively time-conscious...highly competitive...incapable of relaxation...drive [myself] with deadlines, and [am] unhappy about the smallest of delays.” I walk faster than average as well. As the Wiki goes on to mention that this research is obsolete by today’s standards, so don’t you worry about my “insufficient level of self-esteem” and and “free floating hostility”. Nevertheless why I jump up staircase is interesting. Most teenagers do so but I guess most grow out of this later.

Perhaps there isn’t any great reason at all and I am simply too lazy to lift my steps twice the number of times and thus save on efforts required by skipping steps on staircases. In any case, I have to try to stop doing so soon to suit my adulthood more!