The Arguments within

Merchant Navy tete-a-tete Software/IT Arguments broke out between my pal from IT sector and myself about the significance of our profession. Of course a very peevish thing to fight about, but that’s how human mind continues its growing-up. Even with all its meaningless gossips, such talks often contribute a lot in shaping our decisions of life. To me it was also about evaluating a decision in retrospect, which I had made long ago, when I would aspire to a be computer professional , but some how accidentally arrived into Merchant Navy. Software is a risen industry, with lots of consumption of human work force, elite, hi educated and hi-tech educated, gender mix, decent paying, white-collared and more respected. Merchant Navy, on the other hand, was an old time profession, (arguably one of the oldest method of trade in human history), has been so written about in history that it is rather a cliché now; provides handsome money packets, risk-involving, unpopular to the extent seen as sleaz...

Cultural moorings Here is the scans of something interesting i came across, which tells about some cultural limitations of us , Indians, as a whole (and not just the IAS's). (source: IGNOU course ware for Indian Administration, BPAE-102)

Peregrination to China M y earlier recollections about China are that of nation of communist which is so deeply bogged into poverty,and thus Communism, that Mithun-movies still make a blockbusters over there. (aila, even Mithun has come out of his ‘gareeb chotta laug’ image to work in Guru and other neo-classics.) My experience particularly rest on one incident I had suffered at the tanker terminal in the port of Quindao where a local ‘mafia’(as Chinese goons fondly/lingo-challenged call themselves to foreigners) who put his knife on me and somehow managed to direct me that I should not do any shopping in his area lest he hit me! And then he even ensured that wherever I went the shop-keepers refused me whatever I wanted- an international phone call, an IP-card, etc. This was in year 2003. But the last four months in Xin Ya shipyard (in Zhou Shan)- anchorage and berth- formed the new picture in my mind which is what I think the world ‘fears’ about the growing economic-force of China. I...

“I ain't Lord Ram, you see...”!! ----this often came as a guise for own perjury from him. I think we need to deeply understand the concept of upholding the Rama, first. I will word it like--- 1)there was one and only one Ram, 2) perhaps none of us can rise high to become another Ram. 3) even as Ram remains unsurpassable, we all still admire Ram. We still strive to emulate him. 4) We despise Ravan. In principle, this debate again turns into a fight between Idealist and the Realist. Ram is the Ideal, while Ravan is the Real. It is sorely needed to be appreciated that it is our attempt to emulate Ram that we all are expected to follow by norms of our society. Our struggle to emulate - the Hypocrisy in another sense - is a human need. The corollary to this would be that Hypocrisy and ‘Struggle to emulate’ are inter-twined concepts. Very easy to be confused. HYPOCRITICAL JUSTICE There happened this case on my ship when a bosun, a pump-man and a trainee OS were sent off from ship after t...

About Psychology I have not taken an formal lessons in this area of study, but sitting back I was pondering if it is so necessary to have formal training to assert any claims pertaining to this subject. I would say a ‘No” to that. Psychology is a subject under arts group of philosophy. Although some topics such as Neurology and others- depend upon scientific researches, psychology is very amorphous in nature. Any person can rise up to claim some degree of hold in some minor area of this, which should be agreed by others, unless reasons. What the claimants don’t understand before putting any such claim is that they should also have done some self-diagnosis in light of their area of expertise. Many people, that I see on ship, often ‘predict down’ the behaviour of somebody else, but often with an intention of fortifying self against any upcoming thought, appeal or a proposal , so that it may be turned down. This is not a right way of conduct by anyone who is putting up the assertion of be...

Sometimes happiness eludes us all for our own reasons, when we impose some other ‘better’ or ‘bigger’ expectations upon own self. Rathod had just joined as a crew member on a merchant ship. Like with most other people, he did not know much about what all tasks would entail his duties on ship. Suddenly on first day he is asked to clean up all the officers’ toilets. He was aghast! He didn’t know that’s what an SUH (steward utility hand)was suppose to be doing. He plainly refused. In merchant shipping, refusing a lawful command of ship master while the ship is at sea is a punishable offense. He was brought to the master for the refusal to perform his duties. Master enquired the reasons. Rathod plainly replied that ‘Rathods’ don’t clean toilets. Other SUHs were happily doing their job and enjoying life on ship, moving from one country to another, one continent to another. Many of them rose further to higher ranks of pantry man, and even the Chief Stewards. Case 2 : M came from a well-conne...

The problem of recording such facts is that, if recorded , should the consequence of the action/decision is a failure then questions can be asked about why the action was taken/ action not judged properly/ what mistakes were there in the decision or the action, ab initio; etc. Take this case only: When the decision to blank (the IG Line for vapour segregation) has caused vacuuming of the cargo tank during temperature fall, question can be raised about how this decision was reached, the problems not foreseen, (and whatever i have mentioned.) In case of not recording the action, the problem remains that should any problem further break out, say due to vacuuming, then these decisions become a severe matter of investigation causing agonies to the management staff for taking actions without informing the company. The problem of non-recording can further cause problems related to inter-personal relationships in which crew’s choice of not becoming a party to such decisions is over-ridden. T...

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. - John Adams What does it mean?? I guess this is about different spheres of knowledge that are passed on from generation to generation so that the evolution occurs. The father demands to read Politics and war—meaning , they are the prime issues of the prevailing scenarios of his times. And to bring peace for his next generation he must master them and solve the crisis. So that the children may have their “right” to read what they want. But in turn they should study something which may award the children’s children their “right” to study what the latter want! Which is arts, poetry , procaine etc. To study arts, the generation before must...

News script: Aishwarya and Angeline Jolie have common ancestors coz they both are blue-eyed . a few days back i was seeing one serial on the Discovery channel, which was telling about the human race, its spread from its origin place in west africa to other parts of the world. This story of migration also involves the evolution of different races of human beings, the route that the migrant early humans had taken, etc etc. DNA samples of volunteers have been taken from all over the world belonging to different races to track down the route and period of migration. Results thus obtained may add new contents to the highly disputed the Aryan Migration Theory, and also bear deep deep impact on many of the prevailing political scenarios. For example the conquest of islam, how did the religions rise and who were they earlier; much very significant light on the aryans and everything connected with them, etc. Such results will have a far deeper impact on the history-genetical understanding of va...

Entrance of IIM L . Celebration of a philosophy, not of religion, in the temple of resurgent India.

random thoughts: i often think that a commonly seen realist is one who doesnt have any standrads in life. he keeps fickling from one thought to another, justifying each of his jump to being real 'coz thats what hapens in this world'. such a person can easily get misguided, or get on the wrong. the judgemental sense of mind should be expected to be lesser developed in a realist. on the other hand an idealist should not be understood as somebody very much dogmatic, or strict with the temporal behaviour, living life in some heaven. he is one who knows how the idealism is difficult, and in most cases, impossible, to achive. so he learns to bridge the gap of idealism and realism. in true sense, therefore, this is being an ideal 'realist'. most commonplace 'realist' are nothing but thugs and fools, trying to mask their foolishness under 'realism'. an ideal realist , in first place ,would never disagree to doing any un-ideal or the wrong things. better, he woul...

My recent take on the subject: 1. Women, although they have ability to choice, but tend to act without choice in most cases. Anybody can make upto them with slight efforts. Men may be little more selective and promiscuous. 2. They tend to get most emotional, and almost get down to begging the man for ‘getting married’ just at the point they are getting physically intimate. This she may be doing without actual choice also, because the purpose is to save the ‘disgrace’ of getting intimate without the compliance of social restriction of ‘Marriage first’. Also, it becomes a justification for their compromise for their animal needs. 3. It is at this point that men may tend to get fooled by a woman’s emotions. 4. Social stability is as it is more of a woman’s need than men’s. 5. They want ‘it’ as much as men do. But changing partners may not be as much frequent as in men’s case. Perhaps, in each relationship, they pause to look around for social stability. Thankfully there are enough men to ...

Bhajji's punishment (from orkut to blogs).... http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=41824382&tid=2576426728417585582&start=1 here is something new to munch> 3 Test ban on Harbhajjan Singh It is fully agreed that such a ban at international level to any indian, cricket player or whatever, will reflect too bad on each of us, standing up against any kind of discrimination. So, any act which may give any indication of discrimination, including racism, should be severey dealt with even by own people against us also. The match at that high point had tension soaring high after the wrong dismissal of indian players. The frustation in india camp must have been palpable. Before this, renowned news mags like India Today, has scathingly reported of racial remark and gestures by Indian crowd on Aussie player, Andrew Symonds, who is of Aboriginal background. The photgraphs of indian people, with arms turned in to scratch own arm pits was shown, to imitate monkeys, to tease Symonds. T...