Winds of Nilgiris - Concluding Part

This post is actually the combined work of two friends :) The first part was written by Vasumathi and I have tried to complete it.

The first half of the story is here: Winds of Nilgiris - Part 1

For what seemed like an age, the two of them sat dazed, too shocked to respond to what was happening. The car brushed past the trees and foliage as it careened down the fateful slope. Sajan and Anjali pushed hard against the door lock only to find the doors jammed. As fate would have it, the car's impact with the trees had dented the car doors severely. It was impossible to open the damaged door. The window glasses shattered as the car scraped against the last few trees that could have halted the car.

Life flashed in front of Sajan's eyes as the car relentlessly rolled down the steep slope. Beside him, Anjali was staring ahead, horrified, at the approaching abyss. Sajan desperately tried to force the car to a halt. The brakes were to no avail. Heavy rains had loosened the soil on the hilly slope. The flowing soil was dragging the car down, and with it, the two passengers. They watched helplessly, as the car was being pulled into the world of death.

Anjali squeezed Sajan's palm tightly. Tears were flowing profusely from her eyes. She had not cried so much in a long time. The dreams of a rosy future, all the plans for a happy life were now on the verge of being destroyed. "Everything that has a beginning has an end", she remembered the lines she had read somewhere. It was coming true. She could see the valley below, dotted with houses. "Where is that miracle that I have always believed in", she wondered, looking ahead at the sky.

What came next, they would remember for all times to come. Ahead of them, to their left, a telecom tower stood precariously, over the loosened soil. With much of the soil under it washed away, the tower was beginning to tilt, dangerously close to falling down. All it took was a gust of wind to set the tower falling. The two of them watched, horrified, as the tower started to topple. It looked as though the tower would crash into their car. But then, they got lucky. The falling tower missed them by a few feet and fell across the path of the car. This stopped the sliding car from going further down the slope. Somebody had heard Anjali's plea.

The two of them sat still, not knowing what to say. Their lives had been changed forever. As they waited for help to arrive, they watched the dark clouds clearing up and giving way to sunshine. A gentle drizzle continued to come down, even as the sun shone brightly. There was a spectacular rainbow on the horizon. It was a new beginning for the both of them.

Pattern Recognition Bias

If i gave u a sequence of numbers: 2,4,6,8,10,12,.... what can you predict about the rest of the sequence?

The most obvious answer coming from our long education history would be that the given sequence is that of even numbers. This is an example of pattern recognition bias. Our left brain which is responsible for logic (nothing but pattern recognition) makes us connect the dots in such a way. Sounds familiar? Occam's Razor, the principle of parsimony, crudely states that the simplest explanation to a given problem is the most likely of all possible solutions. That is how our brain sees this sequence. We store rules that can be used to generate specific instances. A very powerful data compression principle employed by the brain. In a largely random world, we breakdown data into pockets of order and define a function to impose order on the limited sample space. Are there consequences? Yes. Since we assume a linear and logical world, some of the events appear to come out of the blue, unexpected or rare.

Let me take the earlier sequence itself: 2,4,6,8,10,12.......

Lets say we know more about the sequence: 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,19,20,23,28...

Until 12 what we had was the past and the present. Beyond 12 is the future. When at 16 we see 19 emerge, we are taken by surprise because the expected trend of 'even numbers' is no longer valid. Instead, the sequence turned out to be an ascending sequence. Our expectation of the unexpected is tempered by our expectation of a linear, orderly expected world.

It is possible to superimpose more than one type of pattern on an unfolding event while giving a very coherent and consistent explanation of the past and present. But there is an inherent bias based on our tendency to assume known patterns. If you noticed, I re-interpreted the sequence to be an ascending sequence from an earlier assumed even number sequence. I have made another likely error.

What if the sequence were: 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,19,20,23,28, 27,18....

Most of the times we try to confirm and assert a post-hoc explanation. History appears to be logical, business cycles appear to be logical, wars appear to be logical, rise and fall of civilizations appear to be logical. But if we were to ask people of those times, if they expected events of such scales, it is very unlikely that they would have seen it coming. In effect, the logic is to suit our needs. This logic however cannot be expected to hold reliably to forecast the future.

Coming back to the sequence 2,4,6,8,10,12,

The most obvious and probably the only truth that is confirmed is that the given sequence is not a descending sequence. From the start and middle, what we can reliably say about the 'full picture' is not what it is, rather what it is definitely not. We can rule out a pattern based on what we know. We can never confirm a pattern using the same premise.

“We now know a thousand ways not to build a light bulb” - Thomas Alva Edison, on his failures before finally inventing the Light Bulb

An Autobiography of Time

I am the chaos that surrounds your life. That uncertainty which throws a spanner in your works. I am that thing which Murphy talks about. I am not cruel. Nor Am I insane. I am just playing a game. A game to make your life worthwhile. I am your ego buster as well. For if everything went according to plan, then you would believe yourself to be God incarnate.

Some say I am fate. Some call me destiny. Others refer to me as fortune. I am all of these and more. I cause the unmanifest to become manifest. And in due course, for it to become unmanifest again. I am death. I am nature's controller. The world's arose from me. So did the deities and the forces of nature. Knowledge came from me. From me came the seven sages, the seven steps of heaven, the seven rivers, the seven swaras and all that is known and will ever be known to man.

In me rests the experience of man. I prevent things from being undone and hide those which are yet to come. I am the divider of experiences - the past, the present and the future. I hold sway over everything that goes on in the world. I am time. The reckoner of all.

Cogito ergo dumb?

Everything happens for a reason. Really, Is it so? I want to ask. This is one of those very convenient phrases used to provide an answer to everything. Let me see. I failed. It happened for a reason. I succeeded. It also happened for a reason. What in the world does not happen for a reason then? It is one of those words like "gen" where the answer to everything in this whole wide universe is gen. Why did God manifest this Universe.Gen.

Humans like to believe in their ability to ratiocinate. It is a matter of pride for us. Ah look at that donkey there. I bet you a 100 bucks it cannot think like me. We are smarter than all the species that have existed so far. Oh really, how do you deny the existence of anyone smarter than us. Simple. I don't perceive. Nor can I prove. Hold on. In the perception of an ant, whatever that may mean, do we"humans" exist? Can't say. A blow lands on an ant and it goes into deep sleep. We are struck by an earthquake. We goto sleep as well. Wait. Was a man or supernatural involved in those two cases respectively? Eh, it was an act of nature. Of course it was.

But seriously, are we rational or rationalizing. Is reason a tool for justification or does it have any intrinsic value by itself. I believe reason is merely a pattern recognition software meant to compress data into rules which makes us store information much more easily. A genetic benefit to mankind. The "reason" i say this is because if reason really had a value, we would have the ability to predict the future. Why is that reason can so easily explain the past but not the future?
Evidence. There is evidence in the past. A set of points through which we can loop an explanation to make it consistent. More like story writing having a few pointers for the plot. Whereas future is chaos until it manifests. No reason can explain chaos. Although one can "create" order pockets within chaos.

Nature has endowed different species with multifarious pattern recognition softwares. For humans, it is reason. It is nothing special in so far as nature's scheme of things are considered. Remember, the dinosaurs lasted a 100 million years even without such a thing as reason. We, the humans, have been around for a few million years. Can reason save us and help survive longer? If it cannot, some other species, a few hundred million years from now, will be learning about how "reason" resulted in our eventual destruction. Oh that is, if their biological evolution is also premised on reason!

Lost in Paradise - My New Year Experience !

The trail ended abruptly. The eight of us were at the gates of a lighthouse, which stood at the edge of a cliff, facing the expanse of the Sea. We looked around to see if there was any help at hand. No one was inside the lighthouse. The early morning breeze was giving us a much needed respite from sweat and tiredness. Below, the waves splashing against the rocks produced a steady symphony. The near full-moon was high up in the sky and the entire shore was basking in its silver light. At some distance, there were lights at the shore. Was it the same place we had originally planned to goto? No one knew. We were lost. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, with dying cellphones and little signal. It had all started with an innocuous, "What plans for the new year weekend?"

The entire day, we had been staying at a beach front, splashing in the waters, eating and gazing at the splendor of the sea, rocks, cliff and sunset. We had gotten to this secluded beach named 'paradise beach' by boat because there was no land access. In the course of our unhindered merriment, we had missed boarding the last boat out of the beach and were left behind without any night clothes or tent. Our initial plan was to get through the night, sleeping in haversacks and makeshift mats. However, as the night wore on, the prospect of getting any sleep at all, got dimmer. A combination of wet clothes, mosquitoes and the blistering chill of december got us thinking.

We then learnt from the beach-restaurant owner of a trekking trail which would lead us to a village. Our plan was to call up our cab driver and rendezvous at the village, from where we could head back to denser human settlements. The cab driver reluctantly agreed to meet us at this village, and after intense bickering within the team, it was decided that trekking at midnight through the wilderness would be the way out. Most of us were apprehensive about the whole thing. The hill we were to trek through looked quite densely foliated. The most voiced about concern was of encountering snakes and possibly some wild animals. However, by the account of the beach owner, the trek was supposed to be a straightforward thirty minute one, with little scope for getting lost. But it wasn't. Something was different, as it always happens to be. Will come to that soon enough.

We started our climb at 1.30 AM. The moon was casting a brilliant swathe of natural light across the entire beach. The trail was clearly visible in that light and we started out quite confidently, without carrying a torch light. As we went deeper into the hills, the path got narrower and steeper. Rocks and loose stones were jutting out every now and then and some of them kept coming off. The canopy of trees became tighter. The clear light became a haze of dancing shadows produced by the foliage. The place was engulfed in a foggy darkness. We were soon chanting, "all izzz welll" and occasionally taking roll calls. It was the kind of setting which would make a good plot for the-last-person-in-the-line-disappears type of ghost movies. We tried to quicken our pace and get through the deeper hills in good speed. After a while, we were out, into a clearing and along the shores of the sea.

We could see street lights emerging at a distance. Satisfied that we were not lost, we closed the gap between us and the light in rapid strides. We were pretty close, the next turn and we would be at the lights. Or so, we thought. When we took the turn, we came to a point where from the trail turned into a steady up climb having a cemented road. The lights we had seen earlier was now seperated from us by a stream of water, perpendicular to the trail. It had been over 45 minutes since we had started off. All along we believed those lights to be our destination. Now, the water separated us from it. And there was a road ahead. Where were we to go? The presence of a good road, made us infer that we had to go along that road to reach the "village". And so we took it. We were baited. For the next 30 mins, we trudged along a steep climb until we reached a dead end. The lighthouse.

A while later, we were sitting in the car, thinking about what had gone wrong. Someone mentioned that it was a bad idea to trek at night. Another rued about the guide not giving us specific details. Yet another said, we should have taken a torch light, which would have saved us from getting lost. I believe that the charming moon had pretty much ensnared us that night. Sure, it did give us the light. But we had not thought of one important thing. A full-moon is a high tide period. And we were probably trekking at a time when the moon induced tidal action was at its zenith. The water that had separated us from the other side was probably the making of the high tide which the beach owner might not have anticipated. And without a torch we could not gauge the depth of the water.

While at the lighthouse, we called our cab driver to inform him that we were lost. By then we had lost all bearings and the belief that the the lights were our destination had faded from confidence to confusion. It was then, that we got lucky. Our driver told us that he could see the light beam coming from the lighthouse. We asked him to tell us whenever he spotted the beam, and that is how we regained our direction. This took us back to the original spot where our confusion had begun. This time we were sure that we had to cross this patch of water. We walked along the water's edge, which took us inland and to a patch of fields. The fields had boundaries and dikes preventing the intruding sea water. We walked over those boundary walls until we crossed over to the other side. From there, getting to the car was a cake walk, literally! This was the way, my new year started. Lost and found at Paradise Beach, Gokarna.

Lessons for life

The fallibility of man is seldom a respected concept. The innate belief is that we are all perfect and we cannot fail. It is often spoken of as a curse. Nobody likes to fail. But we all do at one place or another. And yet, there is so much stigma attached to it. The society watches us. It gauges and measures our ability. Are you good enough? What's your worth in this world?

There is an uneasiness in every big step we take. Is it going to work or is it going to break? When defeat stares us right in the face, there is an irreconcilable reluctance to accept the outcome. How could this happen to me? I did everything I could. And yet I did not get what I wanted. A misplaced grudge against fate, destiny, God, man and maybe even animals. An urge to stop trying completely, going into a shell, fearing further failures.

I don't think the adage - prevention is better than cure - applies here. No one can really control the factors that go into what shapes the outcome. The secret is not of how not to fail. How we pick ourselves up when we fail matters more. For in that lies the ability to lead. A man who knows how to pick himself up from his failures knows what it takes to lift others from their failures as well.

I often wonder about the value of 'leadership skills' and the way it is nurtured. Leaders are not made. They develop. They are not the most talented. Neither are they the wisest. Nor are they the strongest. They are the ones who know how to dust off and get up. And in doing so, they know a thing or two about falling. And when they know that, they know how to motivate and inspire those who have fallen to rise and stand up once more.

I believe this is what our failures are for. To learn how to rise higher with each fall and in the process take a few others up as well. I don't think failure will tie me down, for now, I have lost the fear of failing.

A dog named Rocky

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who have had a pet dog and those who haven't had one. If you don't have one, go ahead and bring one home. That is one decision you will not regret. Dogs are amazing creatures, with high intelligence and emotional quotients. I would go on to say that they are humans in a merely different form. Recently, I came across a dog, which greatly resembled my dog, Rocky. Not just that, this one was so friendly with me that I felt it was Rocky in a new life. Reincarnation? Maybe, dogs remember their past lives.

Rocky was a dobermann pinscher. He came to my house because my sister used to pester my dad to have a dog. I was dead against having pets at home. Which meant that my dad would eventually get a dog. Rocky came from our carpenter's work yard. The first time I saw him, I thought "this dog is going to kill me one day". But I survived. Not that he tried. Anyway. Long story short, it turned out to be a life-enriching experience.

Dogs have a religion. That religion says, There is One and only One true master. Most dogs are believers. My dog was one as well. So, he listened to my Dad. The rest (which included my mom, sis, and our driver) were largely taken for a ride. With me, it was a case of sibling rivalry! I could not help it. He saw me as competition, a brother to wrestle with. He had quite a few friends in the kids from the school nearby. And he had one enemy. Tiger.

Tiger was the name given to the stray street dog. Now dogs are very particular about their territory and any intrusion by other dogs is seen as a sign of aggression. Rocky and Tiger had an uneasy LoC, i.e. our gate and the adjoining wall. It kept them from tearing each other apart. They did manage to get into a biting argument a couple of times resulting in a few rounds of injections and blood wounds. Thankfully it did not result in any complications.

Rocky was a very intelligent and comforting creature. In the initial days of his stay at home, we would barricade the kitchen and the puja room. He realised that those spaces were out of bounds for him and would not enter even after we had stopped barricading it. He would know exactly when to take the liberties and when to be the obedient hand/face licking dog. He could precisely gauge my family's mood and would act accordingly. There is so much more that could be said about his behavior. I could write on and on about it.

Everytime I think of Rocky I am reminded of happy times. His company was a pleasure. He was a sight to watch. A bundle of hyper energy. Jumping. Pouncing. Running around with a ball or his feeding vessel. Hanging his nose out of the car window. Profusely licking my palms. Ah, I miss him a lot. Cheers to my brother, friend and pet!