Deducing the past

Now having gained the present information, just how do we gain information of the past that we cannot get by conventional means? Ever thought about widening the horizon, forward and backward?

So if the first step is to use your senses, the next step would be to use your head. Your deduction and logic would take you where your information networks cannot. Theoretically, what you need to do is to ask yourself questions like why,how, what etc. i.e.relating to a particular situation; and then logically think out the answer to that question, i.e. what might be the logical possibility. If you cannot single out a cause or answer, then you need to keep in mind the different possibilities and if you can, then whittle it down to a single possibility or keep in mind the probability of the different possibilities. One question would essentially be followed by another question, and a chain would have to be established.

I think an example would do better:
Question:why did I get supple( failed in a test) in Organizational Behavior(a subject)?
Answer:Because the teacher gave me very low marks in the internal
Q: Why did the teacher give me low marks, and misbehave as well?
A:He must be having some problem of his own, most probably something playing badly on his mind.
Q:And what could that be?
A: His boss , the director general, would be paying him trinkets and giving him scant respect, despite of his credentials.
Q:But that's his problem with someone else. Why the heck would we students become targets?
A:The director general is in a high post. The teacher being his employee, cannot say anything to him. Ultimately the teacher can only possibly vent his anger on the students.

The deduction: Ok-kay. So I flunked in my subject because of the Director General.

This was an example of a chain of thoughts. We can also find answers to other questions. But the question has to come first.

Q:Why does the director general have this habit of snatching cellphones from students?
A:uske phone me koi balance nahi hoga (He must not be having balance in his cellphone)

Q:Why is the director general so stubborn , and frustrating to interact with? Why is he such a good for nothing headache?
A:uski biwi usse bat nahi karti hogi (Maybe his wife doesnt talk to him)

Note: I have put up an example that is quite specific. It is so chosen for a bit of humour, and also because it shows that I apply my logic at places other people never think about. Nevertheless, I would request the reader not to go totally into the specifics of the example, not to personalize it, but see things with a logical perspective. The questions and the answers have to logically follow, and a chain of thoughts will have to be formed. The logic in the given series of question and answers has to be understood and appreciated. The purpose of the post and the example is to help the reader develop a logical bent of mind so as to obtain information where the conventional sources fail.

Exploring the present, to the limit

One of our teachers always used to say"Everything is information". I would not like to name that teacher because of my dislike for her and her snake-like nature. To me, information is a very powerful tool/weapon that you cannot live without, and that information has three dimensions: past, present and future.

First let me talk about how to gather information about the present.
1) This stuff is pretty much banal and platitudinous, but firstly you need to have a very good friends network, and interact with as many people as you can on a regular basis. This much I think we all do.
2)An exigent need to keep all of our senses open as to what is happening around us. Not only the intake or the input channel should be fine-tuned, but the perception should also be sharp and precise. sometimes we do see "see" what happened, but do not "sense" or perceive it.
3)After the input of the information and also after interpretation, we also need to identify what that means, and also foresee the consequences of what would happen because of the current scenario. We have to see the consequences from our vantage point, and also what that means to the world.

The use of some logic is always a plus.While I say that u need your network, the fact that you have something in your cranium must never be forgotten. For there are many sources of yours, or some people you know who spread rumours or bend the information in a way so as to attain their own ends. That's why you need to listen what the other has to say first, and then apply your own logic , observation or even common sense to come to your own conclusions.

For example, the director general always shows himself to be very helpful, approachable and kind person. But we observe that the college is in a perpetual downfall. Now this is a logical inconsistency. For if he was as he shows, the development in the college should show clearly.

The only logical explanation is that the director general is an 'illegitimate rescuer' , which effectively means that he is only acting. He is simply pretending to be helpful, but actually does not do any good.

When I played games with IMT: An impossible heist

IMT or Institute of Management Technology was the college from where I did my MBA. As it so happened, my scores or grades were really low and my degree/diploma was in jeopardy. My CGPA(cumulative grade point average) for the first five semesters was a mere 4.4 on a scale of 10, and I needed to achieve a GPA in excess of 7.3 in the final semester so as to secure my degree. I needed to be very alert and active so as to know when our papers had been checked, and then see to it that I had got at least what I deserved, and maybe even make a last minute request to the teachers to increase my scores. All our answer sheets were dumped onto a common table and we had to really search for our papers in the huge stack. I needed to get rid of all the unwanted sheets in the lot. Unto this direction, I, along with Yogesh Poddar( more popularly known as Y-Pod ), decided to clear that particular table of all the unwanted sheets.

And so, it started. We stayed there in the hostel, and for starters, we went to the academic block where all the papers were kept in the night at about 1a.m. We picked up all the papers, bundle by bundle, and stashed them in a green dustbin just outside the academic block. Our work was done, or so we thought.

Next evening, what we got to see was amusing, in the least. We found that all the sheets were back in their place on the table! Someone had found out the sheets in the dustbin, reported the matter, and we don't know whether it was some sweeper or who it was who actually picked the sheets out of the dustbin, and put them back on their place.

So, we just set about our task in a more meticuluous manner for the second time. This time, we knew that the risk was greater of getting caught as someone could be vigilant. But nevertheless, we arranged a huge bag in which we had to put in the papers, and went to the place at around 2a.m. We put in all the papers, and were halfway through when I realized that my cellphone was missing! But we had to first get the bag and the sheets out of sight. So we first got the behemoth of a bag to Yogesh's room ( which was on a tiring second floor) , and I first went to my room to check if my cellphone was there, but it was not. So we had no choice but to got to the academic block once more, and Yogesh sent many a bell to my phone from there. Then on the way back we were again stopping every meter and sending a bell. Then finally, after much effort, and some luck, we found my phone in the dark at a place where myself and Yogesh had switched sides on lifting the bag( It was a big bag and two persons were needed to lift it).

Even after this much trouble, there still was the trouble of where to keep the papers. We could not simply throw them away, as we could not leave anything to the element of uncertainty. Even in our room, it was some trouble as someone could probably find out. Anyhow, Yogesh lived in a single room, and we kept the troublesome junk under his bed, in a kabaadiwallah(junkdealer) like bag, so that no one would notice.

We disposed of the litter only when we we got our degrees and marksheets, safely in hand.

Shades of life

now how should I put this?

Basically we encounter good people and bad people in our life, and we associate 'white' with a good person and 'black' with a bad person. That much is taken for granted. But after that comes the tricky part, when we slip. It is our tendency to see a person as completely white or completely black. This is the sort of characterization used mostly in Bollywood movies, where the hero is totally white and the villain is totally black. But in reality, there is no such thing as a completely one-dimensional character. The fact that we percieve people to be black or white is a perceptive distortion and is called the "halo effect".

In reality, there is no black or white, but only everchanging shades of gray. The very building blocks of this world are the maybes, the can-bes, the what-ifs, the could-bes, the if-nots, the if-elses, the half-truths and the like.

We can take the case of former Satyam CEO Ramalinga Raju. Today we know that he embezzled some funds and showed faulty balance sheets. So just about everyone paints him in bad light and wants to get even with him. But we must not forget that he was the one who opened a gave bread and butter to thousands of engineering graduates who may have been struggling to find a decent enough job, and the company also set benchmarks in good corporate governance practices. Thats about the bottomline, that we need to have a really wide perspective so as not to be parochial in our approach, and when we are carping about how tough life is, we need to keep in mind the positives we might be enjoying at the moment or how worse life could have been.

The purpose (of the blog)

In this blog I am going to put down in writing my thoughts, and maybe also some of the anecdotes of my life, from here and there. The posts may revolve around things like purpose, logic, destiny, some happenings etc. I think I need a blog so as to reach out, and also because some of my thoughts may be kinda hard to comprehend and digest, at least orally. This is needed more for the teachings that I think I cannot impart in the classroom as they may be too heavy, at least for sophomores. These are the sort of facts of life that are very much there, but no one thinks about them. And life began for me after 23, so I should basically be getting new material to post in the future.

The purpose is also to show that everything - what we do , what our capabilities are and even what is possible , is limited only by our mind. The only limits we percieve are only apparent and the limits can always be redefined through planned, directed efforts