Monday, June 30, 2014

Red Strangers

In this interview with Richard Dawkins about the books he reads, I came across the novel, Red Strangers, which is about the Kikuyu tribe before and after the British arrived in Kenya. I decided to read it because I thought that it would be interesting to read about a culture that is very removed from anything that I had read about or experienced earlier. In the foreword, Dawkins writes:
It is Elispeth Huxley's extraordinary achievement in the first half of Red Strangers to immerse her readers so thoroughly in Kikuyu ways and thought that, when the British finally appear on the scene,  everything about them seems to us alien, occasionally downright ridiculous, though usually to to be viewed with indulgent tolerance.
One gets used to strange custom. For eg., a son is regarded as a reincarnation of his grandfather and so is sometimes addressed as "father" by his own father. The novel is written from the perspective of the Kikuyu. The habits of the Europeans and the items they use  like guns, handcuffs,taps, etc. are not mentioned as such but as they appear to Kikuyu eyes. For eg., it will be written:
  • He neither squatted nor stood, but rested his buttocks against a piece of wood secured in place by four poles.
  • Greatly to Matu's surprise, two iron bracelets joined by a chain were fixed around his wrists, so that he could not move his hands freely.
The beliefs and practises of the British seem incomprehensible and contradictory to the practises of the Kikuyu which they believed had been in existence since the beginning of time. As one of them remarked, "If you work for these strangers it is useless to ask:' Why must I do this?'  They have no sense, and do many foolish things without reason."

One can't help but sympathise with the older Kikuyu who are bewildered by the changes that they have seen happening in their lifetime. The sense of being misfits in a world that they cannot recognize is put into words by a dying Matu:
"Irumu spoke also of paths on which our feet were set," Matu whispered at last. "He said that we moved towards unknown things, away from all with which we were familiar. His words were true. The world to which the path is leading is one which we cannot understand; it was created by a strange God, and it is ruled by distant people; and the young men have learnt new magic that has taken away their laughter. It is time that I reached the end of the path, for I do not know where it is going."
Matu's brother Muthengi has cozied up to the British and has consequently done well for himself. But in the process he had become grasping, self-centered and has forgotten how to smile. Even without the brutalities of colonization, would it have been better to let the Kikuyus live peacefully in their ancient ways? It is a question that has no easy answers.

The beliefs and practices of the Kikuyu would seem bizarre but they are not more wacky than what goes on in our culture. So in that sense it was not such a different culture. One scene reminded me of a scene in the Malayalam movie Midhunam (from 3:37).

Some weeks ago Sujit  got chicken pox. What followed seemed to be imported from Kikuyu culture. There is a lot of mythology associated with the disease and I learned that they were not just practised by the ancients. I was told that this is not like other diseases but is caused by an annoyed godess. There were learned discussions about the day and time of day that traditions dictated for Sujit's bath. When guests were served eatables, someone said' "Give it first to Devi." Devi?! That was Sujit. He was possessed by a goddess you see.

I watched all this in astonishment.  Richard Dawkins had likened religious indoctrination of children to child abuse. After watching what happened to Sujit I am inclined to agree with it. I started to think of these people as Kikuyus with mobile phones. And I am asked to worry about Spinoza's god!. Dawkins said, "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” I must say Hindus have it tougher since they have crores of gods to worry about.There seems to be a god for everything. 

Saturday, June 21, 2014

A curmudgeon's lament

Sujit's  Std.X results came out on 23rd May. Before the results came, there was great apprehension  in the house regarding his performance. When the results came there were whoops of joy and high fives in the house - his performance was much better than expected. (He had scored 87%) I thought back to the time when I got my Std. X results. It was a much quieter affair.

At that time, I was on holiday in my native place in Kerala. I got a letter from my uncle informing me about the results.(It was the age of snail mail.) I informed my parents about the results, they were happy with them and there were congratulations all around. The whole thing lasted for about10 minutes and then everyone went back to their work. It was treated almost as a routine affair and I didn't feel that it was strange. Looking at the expensive gifts that people gave Sujit, my mother commented that she had not even bought me a Hawai chappal. (Notwithstanding the fact that she was one of the culprits this time around. Strict parents often become indulgent grandparents.) That was a different time.

It is like the clippings that you see of old cricket matches. When a bowler picks up a wicket, he gives a quiet smile, the fielders walk up to him and shake hands and wait for the next guy to come in. No jumping around making faces, no pointing angrily to the pavilion. I loved the reactions of Ajinkya Rahane and Kane Williamson when they got their first Test centuries. They quietly raised their bat to the crowd, acknowledged their partner and then got ready to face the next ball.

A couple of days  after Sujit's results, I viewed them more soberly after getting an idea of the distribution of marks. I couldn't recall anybody who had scored below 80%. (That is still the case about a month after the results had been declared.) About 1/4 to 1/3 of Sujit's class had scored 100% in each of Maths, Science (Physics + Chemistry +Biology) and Social Studies (History + Geography +Civics). If you get the impression that Sujit's class was filled with exceptionally bright students, perish the thought. Anyway, how do you get 100% in a subject like Social studies?

Apparently three students in the state had secured 500 / 500 (the other two subjects being English and Hindi / Tamil). I would love to see the marks distribution for the State as a whole. I have some idea of the marks distribution of only 3 schools but even if I had a sample of only one school of 70 odd students it was strange that everybody scored above 80%. Scoring 100% in any subject should be a rare achievement but it seemed to be common. It was obvious that correction was very lenient to inflate the marks.

The question papers too (not just the Board questions but also the ones in the school) have been simple. Generally, the questions should progress in order of difficulty. The distribution of questions could be say, 50% of the questions are easy and everybody can attempt them, 30% of the questions will be tougher and 20% of the questions can be tackled only if you are really prepared. Such a gradation is non-existent here. To my mind, you should not be able to max any paper except Maths where you can get exact answers. All other papers have qualitative elements in them.

The focus on marks to the exclusion of all else is amazing. Jaya was telling me about some reactions after the results. One parent asked her about Sujit's marks and on being told that it was 87%, she seemed about to express her sympathies but was confused by the joyful look on Jaya's face, hesitated, mumbled a quick 'ok' and hurried on. I was told of a girl who was in tears because she had scored 'only' 97 in science whereas she was expecting 100.

A friend of Sujit, who had score almost 10 percentage points higher than him, was downcast because he got 'only' 99 each in Science and Social Studies and his mother was scolding him! It was a bizarre (and sad) tale.  What kind of pressure are these kids being put under? I am told that the trend of scoring 100% in various subjects started about 10 years ago. The dumbing down of the syllabus and the marks inflation are presumably to reduce the pressure on the students but it is having the opposite effect on them. As often happens, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

The liberal correction makes it more difficult to distinguish the bright students from the not so bright ones. I have met some bright students who would have done well in a better school and some others who George Carlin refers to as "minimally exceptional". If you look at the mark difference between them, it will be only about 10 percentage points while I think it should be much higher.

For admission to colleges in Tamil Nadu, the marks of all Boards are  treated on par. In the State Board, the marking will be liberal, the students just have to learn by rote and vomit it out during the exams and so end up with absurdly high marks.There is a famous Pink Floyd song which says that education tends to turn students into sausages. It seems to be very true here. I  am quite sure that if you ask those Science students (I have heard only Science marks) to describe the scientific method, they will struggle. The system is different in CBSC and those students end up with lower marks. You will be cautioned by everyone against joining a CBSC school because you will not be able to compete with the State Board students on marks. So the students are caught between the Scylla of learning and the Charybdis of marks.

Scoring marks seems to become easier by the day. Scoring 80% seems to be like what scoring 60% was when I was in school. A friend told me that CBSC Std. X portions have been diluted, the questions have been restricted and the students know what questions to expect for the exams.This year's CBSC Std. XII topper scored 99.6%. Whenever I see marks of 100% or close to it in any subject other than Maths, I get suspicious of the question paper pattern and the correction.

This post raises questions about ICSE correction. Students increasingly seem to take the easy way out to score marks and Spinoza's observation - Anything excellent is difficult - seems  lost on them. Increasing the pass percentage by diluting standards is pulling the wool over peoples' eyes. Unlike what this ad says, it is ullu banaoing everybody. As I had written earlier, "Why create a generation of thinkers when what’s needed are workers?” seems to be the thinking behind education in most Indian schools. I increasingly agree with this guy's views. Richard Dawkins says in Unweaving the Rainbow:

I worry that to promote science as all fun and larky and easy is to store up trouble for the future. Real science can be hard (well challenging, to give it a more positive spin) but, like classical literature or playing the violin, worth the struggle. If children are lured into science, or any other worthwhile occupation, by the promise of easy fun, what are they going to do when they finally have to confront the reality? Recruiting advertisements for the army rightly don't promise a picnic: they seek young people dedicated enough to stand the pace.

Of course have many more ways to waste time these days. Apart from TV, there is Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp etc. which make it more difficult to do anything productive.  This is is especially so for teenagers because at this time, peer pressure is difficult to resist and they "know" everything. (I was more confident of many things when I was in my teens than I am now.) I didn't even have a TV at home which made it easier to channel my energies in more worthwhile directions. I realized that long after my teens.

There is in social psychology the theory of the cognitive miser: a person will put in less effort to achieve a certain task if he can manage well in this way. After all  why work harder when yo can get by with less? Getting absurdly high marks in various subjects makes students think that they are geniuses which is far from the truth. It increases their illusion of explanatory depth, a failing that bedevils all of us.

A factor that is probably involved in the dumbing down of the syllabus and marks inflation is an over-emphasis on the idea of self-esteem, an idea that has been criticised. If you keep telling people that they are the cat's whiskers without any reason, you promote arrogance coupled with ignorance which is a deadly combination. An important factor in learning is developing the ability to say "I don't know" which is not helped by indiscriminately granting 100% marks. As Einstein did not say, "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Is knowing the future helpful?

In my previous post, I had written about a situation which had made me very nervous and such situations will keep arising.Would it help if I knew for certain what would happen in the future? This question reminded me of something I had read about Huntington's chorea in Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley.

Most genes are probabilistic in their effects on the body. But one of the most deterministic of all genes is the mutated version of a gene on chromosome 4 which causes Huntington's chorea. The gene consists of a sequence of 3 nucleotides repeated over and over again: CAG, CAG, CAG... (The letters refer to the bases in the nucleotides which are the differentiating factor.) Everything depends on the number of such repetitions. If the number of repetitions is 35 or less, you will be fine.

 If the repetition is more, you will in mid-life slowly start deteriorating - your intellectual faculties will start declining,you will stat losing your balance, limbs will start jerking, you will get depressions, hallucinations, and delusions.The disease takes15-25 years to run its course and there is no cure. The psychological stresses and stain of waiting for it to strike are devastating. (The disease runs in families so you know whether you have a chance of being affected.)

Either you have the mutation and will get the disease or not. There is nothing you can do about it. Matt Ridley writes:

The scale is this: if your chromosomes were long enough to stretch around the equator, the difference between health and insanity would be less than one extra inch.

Now medical science has advanced to the stage where it is possible to know for certain whether you can get the disease or not but you cannot do anything about it if you know that you will get the disease. So is it better to know or to enjoy a few more years of happy ignorance? Ridley relates the story of Tiresias , the blind seer of Thebes to illustrate the problem:

By accident Tiresias saw Athena bathing and she struck him blind. Afterwards she repented and, unable to restore his sight, gave him the power of soothsaying. But seeing the future was a terrible fate, since he could see it but not change it. "It is but sorrow", said Tiresias to Oedipus, "to be wise when wisdom profits not."

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

An unnecessary fear

Usually when I sleep on my side, a urine can is kept in the correct position to collect urine. I had suggested this idea so that I don't have to strain to call anybody and I won't have to disturb anyone at night. But sometimes, the position of the can gets changed due to cough or some involuntary movement which will necessitate my having to call somebody otherwise I will wet the bed.

One night, I suddenly woke up and felt that the can was out of position and I had to make some noise to wake up somebody and ask to check the can. That somebody is usually Jaya. The nurse and Jaya sleep in my room and Jaya often has to do the night duty because the nurses often don't get up (except the nurse who had stayed for 12 years). Usually Jaya wakes up quickly on hearing my sound  but this time I did not hear any sound.

I tried to increase the volume of my sound and kept baying for what seemed like an eternity but there was no response and I panicked. I wondered what could have happened. There is a concept in social psychology called psychological distance, one aspect of which is temporal distance. When an event is thought to be far away in the future, an individual will think of it in abstract terms, looking at the big picture and not worrying about the details. But when the event comes closer, it is regarded more concretely and the details become important.

I suddenly thought of situations where I would have struggled if Jaya was not around. The hole in my stomach where the feeding tube is inserted pains often but she knows how to relieve the pain within a couple of minutes...Once something had entered my ear and I couldn't sleep; Jaya woke  up, did some trial and error and finally poured a little water into my ear and took out a small insect...Once my back had started itching; How could I have told that without dictating?...

I told myself that I was over-dramatising my fears. Maybe she was just exhausted, maybe I should try and hold my urine for a while, maybe the can was really in the correct position and I won't wet the bed....But when you don't want to think about something, you will think about it. Like that damn spot on Lady Macbeth's hand, the anxiety in my mind refused to go away.So I continued my croaks.

After a while Jaya suddenly got up and switched on the light. She had just been tired and drifted off into deep sleep. Boy was I relieved! The rustle in the grass was just a breeze and not a lion: it was a Type I error. (Type 3 error occurs when you are not sure if something is Type 1 or Type 2 error.I always fall prey to this error.)  The brain is a remarkable organ. As soon as I realized  that everything was normal, my pulse rate became normal and I began thinking about how best to torture you in my next post.

In Accounting, there is a concept of the going concern. Similarly life is a going concern and one has to keep going as if everyday will be just another day. I have ideas for wasting your time for next one year (don't panic; Bertrand Russell said that 'The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time' so all is not lost) but I am also aware that every post could be my last. Of course that is true for everybody;  it is just more true for me because I am dependent on a lot more variables.