Why I write

I’m asked a question often: Why do I write? This is something thrown at me by family and friends. It is difficult to explain “The Writers High”, if I may call it that. As I start to write my screen stares back at me. There’s a blank cursor as well. It will start to fill with ideas if I begin to write something coherent. And then ideas will take shape. But when writing, it is inevitable I see consistencies and inconsistences. The battle in my head will be a silent one. But it will be intense, until all of this is hammered into a cohesive shape—and something I feel convinced about. And one that I believe my editors will be convinced about as well. And eventually, all of this will be transmitted to a larger audience, whose minds I hope to sway and shape. When looked at from that perspective, this piece of writing, to me, is an act of rebellion against silence.

In fact, if I’ll go so far to say, that every creative act, such as painting an image, clicking a good picture, crafting an piece of music, dancing to the sounds of it in a manner that is unique, are all acts of defiance and acts of bravery.

If all of this sounds laughable, let me put it this way: we live in an age called the “consumption economy”. I guess it isn’t difficult to figure why. Every desire is a click away. And there is competition to fulfil our desires faster. I remember this conversation a while ago with TN Hari, co-founder of the Artha School of Entrepreneurship. In an earlier avatar, he co-founded Big Basket. That was when he raised an interesting question: How did people live before 10-minute delivery become a business model in urban India? He was right then. We’ve become passive consumers. What most of us have forgotten on our way here is that a fundamental human joy: the joy of creation, has been eroding, quietly. Our lives are now filled with the products of what other people want it to filled by. This is not to say modern life has its conveniences, there is an opportunity as well—to transition from being shift from silent consumers to becoming the curators of our destinies.

This is why I started with the simple act of beginning to write. When thought about, it is one of the most powerful medium of creation. But how many people can actually engage with it? It’s a decision to crystallize thought into language, to share one’s inner world with the outer.

This thought isn’t an original one. I first came across this while looking up advice to writers when on a particularly lean patch. That’s when I stumbled across this outstanding passage by Ta-Nehisi Caoates, an African American writer. “I strongly believe that writing is an act of courage. It’s almost an act of physical courage. You get up and you have this great idea. Maybe you were hanging out with your friends—you guys were having beers and you were talking about something. You had this idea and they said, ‘Wow, that’s brilliant! Someone should go write it.’”

But, his point was, how many people actually do it? That’s when it occurred, I am among those who go it.  When thought about, this can be extrapolated to so many other domains. We don’t give it much thought. But the seemingly humble act of preparing a meal is pure alchemy. The transformation of raw ingredients into something far greater than the sum of its parts. It's a ritual that nourishes more than the body; it feeds the soul, and offers a canvas for creativity and a bridge to connect with others. I guess this is everyone means when they say, “I miss my home!”

I’ve seen this in technology. Take coding. People think of it as something nerds do. However, my interactions with people who write good code have it they are polymaths. And code offers them the tools to build new worlds, solve complex problems, and bring ideas to life. In coding, they find a language and the means to create and innovate in a world that is otherwise boring.

What I do know basis experience is that the path from consumption to creation is fraught with resistance. All narrative glorifies the end product. But it hides the messy, nonlinear process of creation. The fear of not being good enough, of failure, looms large. But it is in the act of creation itself that we find growth, not merely in the accolades that may follow. Every attempt, every failure, is a step on the journey of self-discovery and mastery. To get on this path requires a conscious choice. It necessitates a reevaluation of how we spend our time, energy, and attention. It asks us to prioritize not what is easy or immediately gratifying but what is meaningful and fulfilling.

And now that I reach the limits of my word count, I see I have created something. Hopefully, it will resonate with my editors. And you. Despite feeling tired, I have rebelled against it. And created something. I found the physical courage to do it. What I now feel is a high that I may otherwise not have.

This is a slightly modified and longer version of what was originally published in Hindustan Times. All copyrights vest with Hindustan Times

On Writing

Writing is thinking, distilled.

Everyone has ideas that hit every other second. And ideas are a dime a dozen. But when those ideas are written down, gaps in thinking are exposed and as the idea through emerges on paper, tough questions stare at the writer. There is no running away from it.

A good writer use the many tools of the craft to can fool the world, but not for long. More importantly still, you cannot fool yourself. That is also why, writing is pure meditation as well.

Ernest Hemmingway: 1954 Nobel Acceptance Speech

Having no facility for speech-making and no command of oratory nor any domination of rhetoric, I wish to thank the administrators of the generosity of Alfred Nobel for this Prize.

No writer who knows the great writers who did not receive the Prize can accept it other than with humility. There is no need to list these writers. Everyone here may make his own list according to his knowledge and his conscience.

It would be impossible for me to ask the Ambassador of my country to read a speech in which a writer said all of the things which are in his heart. Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear and by these and the degree of alchemy that he possesses he will endure or be forgotten.

Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.

For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.

I have spoken too long for a writer. A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it. Again I thank you.

What happens at a Lit Fest

Some times, all a writer has to do is simply describe what he sees and the story tells itself, my friend and former colleague Manu Joseph told me. “It can be both amusing and insightful.” Most of us who are familiar with Manu’s body of work know he is a terrific writer with three best-selling books to his credit.

This conversation occurred last year when we met at the Bangalore Literature Festival. He was there as a speaker at the grand finale last to speak on a very controversial theme: “How do you define nationalism?”

I’ll come to that debate and the characters in a little while.

It didn’t occur to me until way after hearing Manu’s insight that I was in a sweet spot.

On the one hand, I was among an audience that would get to listen to some stars that included formidable public intellectuals like Ramchandra Guha (who opened the proceedings), Nitin Pai (who co-founded the Takshashila Institution), cricketers like Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble, policy makers of consequence like Y.V. Reddy (former governor of the Reserve Bank of India), fiery writers in Indian languages like Perumal Murugan, and the glamourous actor-turned-writer Twinkle Khanna. 

Then, on the other hand, I was offered the privilege to moderate a discussion by an all-star panel around Aadhaar — a project around which controversy had peaked last year. It was also the time when The Aadhaar Effect, a book I had co-authored on the the theme had just hit the shelves.

Aadhaar was originally thought up to create a unique identity for 1.3 billion Indians. It has got the world’s attention and was under much scrutiny. On stage with me were Jairam Ramesh, a member of Parliament and author of multiple books, Arun Maira, writer and former member of the Planning Commission, and Sanjay Jain, chief innovation officer at IIM Ahmedabad. In an earlier avatar, Jain was part of the core team that worked on creating the infrastructure for Aadhaar.

With the benefit of hindsight, I now know Manu was right. I don’t have much to do here except describe the various kinds of creatures I saw off stage, on stage, behind the stage, and describe them. This story will tell itself.

Creature #1: The Politicians

Kanhaiya Kumar and Jairam Ramesh had the audiences—me included — eating out their hands. The former, a student leader, is perceived by some as having political ambitions. Manu was on stage with him as one of the speakers trying to define what may the idea of nationalism be. 

Jairam Ramesh is somebody whom I have been trying to reach out to for a while so I may engage in a conversation to understand what his stated position on Aadhaar is. For various reasons, though, we haven’t had a chance to meet. My understanding was that while he started out as a votary of the idea of a universal identity, he now belongs to the camp opposed to it. Why did his stated position change is something that remains unclear to me. That is why I was delighted to share the stage with him; it offered a chance to ask him point-blank about where he stands.

Back to Kanhaiya Kumar. On stage at the finale on Sunday evening were people of all kinds, including Makarand Paranjape (a teacher from JNU), Manu Joseph, and Suketu Mehta, another globally acclaimed writer. Paranjape is a teacher, author and, in the public domain, is known as someone who leans to the “right wing". All of them were there to articulate their views on where to draw the thin line that separates nationalism and jingoism.

Each speaker was given five minutes to make their opening remarks. Paranjape opened with a measured tone on a scholarly note. By the time the mike reached Kanhaiya Kumar, he had heard pretty much everyone speak, Manu and Mehta included.

I watched with much fascination as Kanhaiya Kumar gently asked the moderator if he could stand up to make his opening remarks. Everybody had made their points while seated. Initially, the moderator politely declined. But Kanhaiya’s “humble" demeanour, amplified by his simple kurta and frayed trousers, conveyed to the audience an impression that he was the “outsider", the kind who inevitably gets “left out". That was his calling card.

He addressed everyone on stage as “sir" to drive home the point that he is indeed the “outsider". I thought I could see the audience members’ heads stop working as Kanhaiya started to speak and their hearts go into overdrive—mine included. All of us shouted that he be allowed to stand up to speak. Kanhaiya got what he wanted.

He made his opening remarks in broken English as opposed to the urbane language deployed by everyone else on stage. Those remarks in English sounded like prepared ones. He then apologized to the audience and told everyone his native tongue isn’t English and that he grew up in the hinterlands of Bihar. So, Hindi is the language he is most comfortable in and asked for permission to speak in Hindi.

In South India, Hindi is an imposition. But coming as an “earnest plea" from a young boy, our hearts went out to him. “Yes, yes!" we screamed. 

That was the only opening he needed. My colleague Ramnath, who doesn’t understand Hindi, stood in awe of all that Kanhaiya Kumar said. I admit I was taken in too and tweeted about it while he spoke. “My idea of nationalism does not include imposing Hindi on everyone," he said in chaste Hindi. I don’t know how many people understood all of what he said.

Unlike everyone else, he wasn’t speaking to a script, but unleashing rebuttals to those whom he didn’t agree with, most of which were directed at Paranjape. To do that, he was deploying rhetoric, not logic. The nuances were all lost. For instance, “If you think I lean to the Left, yes, I lean to the left, because I am among those who got left out."

With the benefit of hindsight, I now know he said nothing of consequence. But we applauded wildly as he went on a monologue that lasted all of 12 minutes—way past the mandated brief. Clearly, he was in political career-launch mode. I wonder how far he may go! 

I would have loved to talk with him. I ran into him later in the evening. We were staying at the hotel and on the same floor. It was time to exchange pleasantries. But he seemed tired and reluctant to engage. When I told him, though, that I write for a good part of my living, I thought I could see his demeanor change to suggest he may be amenable to conversing. I cannot be too sure. It is entirely possible I may have imagined the change. But gut feel told me there is a supremely confident politician in the making here. I shared my contact details with a companion the Supreme Court has mandated must accompany him at all times. He didn’t share his details. But I wait in the hope he may touch base sometime. I like listening to stories of all kinds.

It was much the same thing with Jairam Ramesh. I was naïve to imagine I could corner him. Just when I thought I had bowled a googly at him on stage about how the Congress party, which he represents, was in power when Aadhaar was thought up and first deployed, and that his voice as a critic now comes across as rather grating and politically-motivated, it didn’t take him much thinking to fend the googly off with a straight bat. “It’s a great idea. But badly implemented," he said, to much applause.

In response to a question from someone in the audience on whether they ought to get themselves an Aadhaar number and link everything to it as is now being mandated, he got away by saying that the law must be obeyed. But to oppose anything you do not agree with is part of the fundamental fabric of a democracy. The flourish with which he said it had me flustered and the audience on his side.

And I don’t know when and how he slipped in that his position changes as his role changes. This was a line I had heard from another member of Parliament while researching the project. Ramesh’s stated position went unchallenged and unanswered. I felt compelled to ask everyone to applaud for him. 

You don’t get to be politician by being stupid. You get to be one because you are smarter than everyone else.

Creature #2: The Critics

Most people at literary fests are the genuinely curious kinds who want to know more about the world. These form the quiet majority. They are keen to listen to people talk, engage in conversations with others, participate in events, buy books, engage in banter with assorted people, try out all kinds of food, and pick some trinkets with much gusto at events the organizers put together after much thought.

It is the vocal minority, though, which gets written about. These are the critics and regulars at all lit fests and are a peculiar breed. There are some traits that bind them.

• They carry an impression of themselves—that they are created of a different mud as opposed to the “masses" who frequent cinema halls to watch Shah Rukh Khan serenade his love interests in the Bollywood version of Switzerland.

• They also imagine themselves as more intelligent than everybody else because they are professional critics often employed at a media house. So, they think it incumbent to criticize everything. 

• These creatures get invited to events like these and are put up at plush places. They talk well, look good, and carry a certain demeanor. And, for all practical purposes, they “travel in a pack". But the serious critics are often ignored and work in mofussil places.

• Funnier still is that, unlike the Shah Rukh Khan fan who will pay hard-earned money to watch a movie first day first show, this vocal minority pays nothing for anything. But their criticism is taken seriously. “The rooms at Cannes last week were so much more better than the crap ones here," for instance.

That is why I assumed I’d be up against a “hostile audience" because by all accounts, they have decided that Aadhaar is evil. Why, I wondered, and poked around a bit. Some interesting nuggets emerged. 

Take the media critic for instance. This creature is of two kinds — the uninformed and the idiot. The uninformed exists because it hasn’t done its homework and lucked out to get to where it is.

The idiot exists because it can scream from the rooftops, but lacks substance. That is the tragedy with both Indian liberals and those on the right wing. Push them hard and they cannot defend their position beyond 500 words in print. But their decibel levels are high on television they are parasites to boot. Their existence is incumbent on real critics who do the hard work and offer feedback from the ground. Idiots don’t have the muscle to do the hard work. So, they wait until the homework is done by real reporters who go to the field to find out what may the deficiencies be and file meticulous reports.

Idiots then pick and choose what can cause the most impact, craft it to suit their interests, and bomb the place with it. All else is ignored conveniently. When questioned, they have a standard question to throw: who funds you?

Popular narratives on most media platforms are shaped by either the uninformed or the idiot.

So, as a moderator of a panel discussion on Aadhaar, my job was to place a complex theme into perspective. And through all the time I was there, I was asked by various people what I think of Project Aadhaar because I had a “Speaker" tag on my neck and many knew I am there as a moderator. 

Just that I may place the conversation into perspective, I had to state it in as many words on a public forum—that I think to provide a unique identity to over a billion people is a staggering accomplishment. And to completely diss the project is stupid. I could see a few angry faces in the front grunt in disagreement and yell that I shut up. This was stuff they didn’t want to hear. It doesn’t fit the narratives that the uninformed and the idiots believe in.

Some media outlets and social media handles reported the next morning that I was heckled by a packed audience. This was in contrast to what I could see from stage. I thought I could see an audience keen to listen to different perspectives. Because, until then, the only narrative most people have been told is that Aadhaar is a dystopian idea and intended to hijack their lives.

But because local media reports had it that I was heckled, I thought I’d check with a few friends who were in the audience. They told me the only dissonant notes were by some angry voices in the front. Darned right I was. The larger audience wanted to listen in to the multiple perspectives. But if it got reported, it would hijack the contemporary narrative now controlled by a vocal minority.

Manu thought the audience was a receptive one as well. That is why my initial irritation gave way to much amusement when my colleague Ramnath reminded me of a quote by Oscar Wilde. “There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community."

This is not to suggest I have no biases. “Why," I argued in my head, “does Twinkle Khanna have to be at a lit fest? What is her claim to fame? Is it because she is pretty? What were the organizers thinking? Or smoking? And why is she always surrounded by people who want selfies with her?" I always maintained her book sold as many copies as it did because she is pretty and was a popular actor.

Another part of me confronted myself, though, and said that it is a terribly unfair thing to suggest. I haven’t read her book and arrived at a conclusion based on some assumptions—not the truth. I haven’t met her or made any attempt to meet her either. But later in the evening, over dinner, Manu told me that he has met her while on an assignment and thinks of her as an intelligent and beautiful woman. 

But the media can shape popular narrative and informed opinions are hard to come by. To that extent, I suspect I am the kind of liberal who give liberals a bad name.

It was driven home harder still when I walked over to the table where Makarand Paranjape was having a quiet drink. He asked me my name. And then went on to tell me the historical significance of its origins and why I ought to be happy to possess it. When I told him I am not a practicing Catholic, he went on to offer me a brief treatise on the history of Catholicism and asked me some tough questions on why I gave up my faith. So much for all narratives of him being called a right winger. If he is on the right wing, give me a right winger like him any day, as opposed to a shallow liberal. (Update: His posturing on social media continue to come across as boorish in stark contrast)

The other nugget that came my way is that there are “paid critics" who are “professional socialites". After having spent two decades in journalism, it was only then that I discovered this species exists and that there is a reason they get invited to these dos. They have large followings on social medias platforms and columns as well in popular newspapers — usually tabloids or on Page 3. 

A tweet from them or a line insidiously implying a brand is a good one can get their accounts credited with as much as Rs. 5 lakh. In much the same way, they can destroy a carefully crafted reputation as well with a single line. They must be humoured and kept in the good books.

Now I know why one of them has me blocked on Twitter. I’d called him a few names on Twitter in a fit of anger after reading some rather ridiculous tweets on his timeline. The other is a creature always in the news, has answers to everybody’s problems, knows all the gossip, and I don’t bother to read. But the missus thinks of her as somebody worth emulating. All said, both live a nice, “cheap" life of the kind I envy.

Creature #3: The Writers

Everybody wants to write a book. The Bangalore Literature Festival was full of writers. Authors were being looked at in awe. Some people asked me what is it that I do for a living. When told I spend a good part of my time writing, I was often told how they have this idea for a book in their mind and if I can offer any pointers on how may they go about it.

Manu and I were catching up after a long while and the both of us laughed at how miserable a writer’s life is. It is hard work and the return on investment (ROI) is terribly low. If you may need perspective, allow me to offer some unsolicited advice on why you ought not to write a book.

• Good books aren’t whipped out of thin air. But it took Manu’s most recent book, a thin volume if size is a metric, three years to complete. We didn’t get into each other’s personal financials. But he and I know writing is lonely, takes awfully long, nobody outside the business understands why does it take as long to write one, and why we expend so much time on what pays as little as it does.

• Then there are the perverted economics of it all. In India, a book that can sell 5,000 copies is considered a bestseller. Assuming each book is priced at Rs500, a best-selling writer can hope to earn Rs2.5 lakh in royalties from the publisher—that is assuming he manages to negotiate royalties in the region of 10% for each copy sold. This too may be set off against the advance paid by a publisher.

• Reality is, thousands of books are written each year. Not all are priced at Rs500, royalties at 10% don’t kick in from the first copy sold, and only a handful make it to the bestseller list.

  So why do you write? The both of us agreed on that the only reason we continue to write is because we love to write. And that the time spent in writing is the only time we feel pure and sacred. I suspect it may be the kind of moment the spiritually-inclined may feel when in prayer.

  When reality kicks in, though, we know the only reason we can write is because there are other streams that allow us to carry on with life. Until then, we continue to delude ourselves to believe the law of averages may tilt in our favour and that what we write may someday make us rich and famous.

  So how do you get to be a full-time writer? My friend Ramnath again pointed me to a passage from Nicholas Nassim Taleb’s book Anti-Fragile. “There is a tradition with French and other European literary writers to look for a sinecure, say, the anxiety-free profession of civil servant, with few intellectual demands and high job security, the kind of low-risk job that ceases to exist when you leave the office, then spend their spare time writing, free to write whatever they want, under their own standards. There is a shockingly small number of academics among French authors."

  “American writers, on the other hand, tend to become members of the media or academics, which makes them prisoners of a system and corrupts their writing, and, in the case of research academics, makes them live under continuous anxiety, pressures, and indeed, severe bastardization of the soul."

  My observations can go on and on. But I must stop. Because, as a speaker at the festival cheekily told Ramnath and me backstage before getting onstage, “Current discourses now sound like the Arnab Monologues."

This is an edited & updated version of a piece that was first published in Mint on Sunday

The Many Sounds of Silence

This note is being written on a silent January morning—the first day of 2018. It appears, save a few oddballs still slobbering drunk outside, most people have turned in to sleep. It is now dark, and silent outside. But as usual, this is the kind of darkness and silence that precedes every morning, before the sun rises.

Unlike most other days though, today, people will wake up later than usual. A late brunch will follow. I too, will join in. The stated intent is to celebrate the beginning of a new year. Until everyone decides to go back to life as usual.

But right now, right here, waiting for the sun to rise, a passage by Paul Goodman, a writer, psychotherapist and philosopher, comes to mind, on the many kinds of silence. Because while calling it an early night on New Year’s Eve, the “He-must-be-weird" look on everybody’s faces was all too evident.

Because, isn’t this that time of the year when you party?

Indeed!

But then, as Goodman writes, “Not speaking and speaking are both human ways of being in the world, and there are kinds and grades of each. There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy; the sober silence that goes with a solemn animal face; the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul, whence emerge new thoughts; the alive silence of alert perception, ready to say, “This… this…"; the musical silence that accompanies absorbed activity; the silence of listening to another speak, catching the drift and helping him be clear; the noisy silence of resentment and self-recrimination, loud and subvocal speech but sullen to say it; baffled silence; the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos."

To get the full import of the power embedded in that passage, may I urge you to listen to it as Sir Christopher Ricks  reads it out. Only somebody who understands literature and has devoted a lifetime to understanding the nuances of it can read it aloud with as much eloquence that breathe life into words.

While I haven’t read the Goodman’s book Speaking and Language in which this passage appears, it caught my attention when Maria Popova offered a pointer to it on that fine blog of hers that is Brainpickings.org. The book was first published in 1973 and I can’t seem to find it anyplace.

But in the silence of the morning on a New Year’s Day, the import of why silence is significant sunk into the mind deeper. Much of it had to do reminiscing over multiple conversations that transpired over the last year with people who are compelled to practice it. These included people who work at hospices and give a patient ear to the dying, policemen on duty who and are often at the receiving end of public ire, and restaurant managers who absorb much negative feedback from patrons.

The most significant memory though is that of a conversation with a police constable at a hospital a few months ago. He was called in by the authorities there after a young woman was wheeled in. She was declared dead on arrival by the resident doctors. Her body looked hopelessly broken.

But the constable had a duty to perform as prescribed by his manual. That included asking those who had gotten her there to describe the circumstances under which the accident occurred. Questions like was the victim under the influence of alcohol, or under treatment for any mental disorder… and other such questions that sounded intrusive and offensive to her traumatized parents and siblings in their moment of grief.

“How can he be so heartless?" they wailed. “She’s dead and he insists all these protocols be followed."

The verbal assault that followed was inevitable. Friends and some relatives pounced on the policeman. He did not say much, but absorbed all of it. When done, he prepared his papers and handed them to the coroners. This allowed the body to be formally released to the grieving family.

“Why did you have to take so long to complete all this?" they spat at him as he walked out.

I felt compelled to follow. And ask him what went through his mind. Is this routine? Is this just another day’s job? How do you deal with it? Would he be amenable to have a cup of tea and share what may be playing on his mind?

He agreed.

Turns out, it was a long night for him. And a long day before that, as well. He had been on duty for at least 36 hours. An interesting conversation followed. The sum and substance of which was that people like him are trained to keep silent and maintain distance when under assault. It is drilled into their psyche. They must look at all things around dispassionately.

So, when anger overcomes him, or he may feel sadness, he is trained to ask himself in the third person, what caused the anger; when sadness floods, he asks himself, what episode triggered the sadness.

Why does he do this? By asking himself these questions in the third person he detaches himself from the sources of these emotions. He reinforces the idea that these emotions are around him but not because of him. Thus he removes himself from the emotional circumstance.

But to get anything done of consequence then, he must first surround himself with silence. And in that silence, he can distance himself from the noises that surround him, and listen in to the many kinds of silence all around.

Apparently, silence, he told me, has much to say.

When seen through the prism of the constables world of silence, Goodman’s types of silence make even more sense, and becomes easier to grasp and appreciate. Consider each of the types of silence Goodman describes and see it from the perspective of the constable investigating a death.

The dumb silence

When looked at through the grieving family’s eyes, a constable performing his task and not taking any questions is a cruel creature. His silence is borne of dumbness—or numbness, one that is lost in slumber and nothing but a function of apathy. The constable doesn’t think much of what they think of his silence. It is par for his course.

The sober silence  

This is silence that of the kind that can be witnessed from the perspective of a neutral observer watching the constable at work. But from the constable’s perspective, this silence is much needed to get the task done.

The fertile silence  

Sober silence has a unique ability to morph into fertile silence because it can ignore the loud voices that call it dumb silence. Because it is only with sobriety that 36 hours of sleep deprivation can be set aside. There is work to do. A dead body must be studied clinically to rule out signs of foul play.

In conversing with the constable, he said the reason he signed the document that allowed the coroner to release the corpse to the mourners was because his mind was hard at work. It had to stay awake to ask if the dead woman had been pushed over the parapet of her balcony or if she had jumped off it to commit suicide.

So, the questions he asked on whether she had an alcohol problem or a medical history that required prescription drugs was to rule out foul play. When the answers were in the negative, he jotted she was of sound mind, but ruled out foul play.

The alive silence  

In asking him how did he rule out there was no foul play, turns out, that in his silent observations, he had measured the height of the parapet she had fallen from. If pushed, her body would have been splayed at a certain angle. But if she had jumped out, the angle her body would be found in would have been very different. Experience had taught him that. But his silence also suggested she was reluctant to jump. Because after jumping, she changed her mind. He could tell this, he said, from the way her head hit the ground first as opposed to her legs.

The musical silence  

How did he keep his head when he was being abused by all and sundry for being “heartless?" Again, turns out, it was important that he did. Because if he uttered as much as a peep, it would be impossible for him to carefully absorb the noise around him. Much like silence is of different kinds, the noises speak as well. He was trying to catch the nuances of what the noises were trying to say. All of it sounded angry. But he was trying to listen carefully, to what was said, what was unsaid, and how.

The silence of listening  

And what did he hear through all those noises? He heard what nobody could. The silence of the mother-in-law and sister-in-law. He spoke of how they were teary eyed, stood as they were expected to, and accepted condolences from the neighbours and immediate family. But they were quiet. To his mind, their silence was noisy. Because to his mind, it suggested there was some tension in the family. Convention, given the part of the country they are from, suggests they must wail loudly. But they weren’t. Him keeping quiet and listening to the others speak helped him hear things nobody else could.

The noisy silence  

He figured he was on the right track when he asked somebody very quietly if there is a patriarch in the joint family. The father-in-law was there too. He too, was there, sobbing quietly. Through the man’s eyes though, the constable thought he could see anger. This was a tragedy he could have averted if he had intervened earlier and done something, absolutely anything, to defuse the tension between the women. In his silence, he was whipping himself.

The Baffled silence 

The clincher for the constable, the final sign that there was no foul play was the silence on the husband’s face. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t speaking a word. Answering only in monosyllables. But it was a look of a man asking himself questions.

“Where did I go wrong?"

“Why did you have to do this to me?"

“Did I not love you enough?"

“What about our children now?"

“Why did you do this to yourself?"

The silence of peace

And where does he find peaceful silence, I asked him. The veteran constable didn’t look like the kind prone to baring his soul. This once though, he did. Maybe, he was tired. Apparently, he likes it when he goes home to the woman he loves and doesn’t have to say anything. But in his silence, she knows he has come after having done his best. And without him saying anything, she knows he loves her. And she doesn’t insist he spells out in as many words.

He is content when she is content with the sound of his silence. He didn’t have much else to say. Silence followed. There is much beauty and tenderness in silence.

But how are those in slumber after having ushered in the New Year to much loud music to know that?

Originally published in Mint on Sunday

Homeopathy, astrology & economic forecasts

Astrologers, homeopaths and economic forecasts can’t be trusted. Because the so-called science they practice is fuzzy at best and hocus-pocus at worst.

Consider, for instance, this delightful anecdote recounted by a senior journalist at a popular Mumbai-based newspaper. Sometime in 1998 or 1999, he wrote a few days ago on his Facebook wall, the hugely popular astrologer Marjorie Orr took a break. Fearing a backlash from readers, his editor suggested that the young man, along with two of his colleagues, should ghost write the column until Orr got back to work. Some trepidation later, he got down to following orders for six weeks until the astrologer got back from her vacation. Not a single reader from the newspaper’s erudite, English-speaking community wrote in with an angry word that his predictions were off the mark.

The post attracted a barrage of amused comments from other journalists who’ve ghosted for popular astrologers like Peter Vidal in Indian newspapers. Vidal apparently recycles his column by replacing the text for one star sign with something he’s written in the past for another star sign. Most people don’t notice. Then there is Panditji from Jaipur who misses his deadlines every once a while and the poor sub-editor at the desk had to think up “good” days of the week, “lucky” colours to be worn and “numbers to bet on” for each star sign. “The trick,” wrote this veteran desk hand at the magazine in response to the Facebook post, “was to make people believe they were on the verge of a quantum leap in life.”

Then there is homeopathy: generous column inches are devoted to it in newspapers and magazines, and practitioners make a pretty damn good living out of it. The premise around which this tub of crock continues to exist—in spite of a mountain of evidence to prove homeopathy is indeed crock—is that water molecules have memory.

But even Class VIII students exposed to elementary chemistry and concepts like Avogadro’s number know water molecules have no memory. This is because by then, they’re taught the mechanics of dilution. Whatever the botanical compound that goes into making a homeopathic drug, it is diluted to an extent that there would be no trace of the molecule left in the drug—except the sugary coating made of powdered lactose, of course.

In homeopathic parlance, on average, most compounds are diluted by 30C. That is 1060 , or one followed by 60 zeroes. To understand how much of a dilution that is, imagine a drop of water with a diameter of 150 million km—the distance from the earth to the sun. It takes light eight minutes to travel that distance. Now imagine a drop of water with one molecule of a substance in it. That is a 30C dilution.

It is entirely possible that Samuel Hahnemann, who thought up modern homeopathy, had figured he’d gotten it all wrong in the face of this evidence. That is perhaps why he continued to argue water has memory and that even after dilution of the kind he propagated, water retains a “spirit-like” essence of the original compound that is “no longer perceptible to the senses”.

Ben Goldacre writes sardonically in his superb book Bad Science: “If water has a memory, as homeopaths claim…water has been sloshing around the globe for a very long time, after all, and the water in my body as I sit here typing in London has been through plenty of other people’s bodies before mine. Maybe some of the water molecules sitting in my fingertips as I type this sentence are currently in your eyeball. Maybe some of the water molecules fleshing out my neurons as I decide whether to write ‘wee’ or ‘urine’ in this sentence are now in the Queen’s bladder (God bless her): water is the great leveler.”

Both of these disciplines are similar to another perverted discipline—economic forecasts. It draws from the worst of astrology and homeopathy. While the chances of getting a prediction right using astrology are as good as flipping a coin, homeopathic remedies are no better than placebos where there is no relationship between cause and effect. But economic forecasting relies on both of these to get by and there are suckers by the millions buying into them.

To sift through why economic forecasting is fraught with inconsistencies, Nate Silver’s outstanding book, The Signal and the Noise is a good place to start. He argues that this discipline faces three fundamental challenges: “First, it is very hard to determine cause and effect from economic statistics alone. Second, the economy is always changing, so explanations of economic behaviour that hold in one business cycle may not apply to future ones. And third, as bad as their forecasts have been, the data that economists have to work with isn’t much good either.”

To get a sense of how difficult this really is, let’s consider the most reliable data we have on the US economy (because it is the most closely tracked). The US government puts out 45,000 indicators each year and private data providers track as many as four million statistics. Since World War II though, they have witnessed only 11 recessions. How in the world is anybody to choose 11 outputs specifically from the data on hand that caused these recessions?

By way of example, consider the maxim “co-relation does not imply causation”. What it means is that just because two variables have a statistical relationship with each other, it does not mean one is responsible for the other. For instance, Silver points out, ice cream sales and forest fires are related because both occur more often in summers. But there is no causation. You don’t set off a bush fire in some desert when you buy a tub of ice cream.

On the face of it, there seem to be three reasons why economic forecasts go horribly wrong. The first is arrogance on the part of a large majority of economists. The Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI), based out of New York and London, is widely respected. In 2011, the firm predicted double-dip recession, which is a recession followed by a short recovery and leading into another recession.

When quizzed on the prediction, the firm threw up a lot of data that seemed incomprehensible to most people and obfuscated it with jargon that made no sense. Like this: “ECRI’s recession call isn’t based on just one or two leading indexes, but on dozens of specialized leading indexes including the US Long Leading Index…to be followed by downturns in the Weekly Leading Index and other shorter-leading indexes. In fact, the most reliable forward-looking indicators are now collectively behaving as they did on the cusp of full blown recessions.”

Silver tracked their approach to a stance articulated to their clients as far back as 2004: “Just as you do not need to know exactly how a car engine works in order to drive safely, you do not need to understand all the intricacies of the economy to accurately read those gauges.”

When looked at from this prism, the only thing that matters is data and more complex data—and not even an attempt to get to the story. “There were certainly reasons for economic pessimism in September 2011—for instance, the unfolding debt crisis in Europe—but ECRI wasn’t looking at those. Instead, it had a random soup of variables that mistook co-relation for causation,” concludes Silver.

The second reason economic forecasts are notoriously difficult to handle is that the society and the systems they try to predict are dynamic. Nobel Prize winner F.A. Hayek, in his acceptance speech in 1974, had explained why these systems are difficult to deal with.

Physical scientists can observe and measure the things that drive systems they are studying. But society, and therefore, the economy, is not a physical system. There are millions of variables that cannot be measured or seen. For instance, how will an individual respond to a set of stimuli in a given set of circumstances? There are no universal answers.

But economists, in their attempt to be rigorous, infuse techniques and models used by physical scientists. This is fundamentally flawed because in doing that, they have to ignore that which cannot be measured, in spite of it being integral to economics. The outcomes are incorrect predictions and actions that can harm society.

The third is that humans and the institutions they build are inherently biased. As an experiment, Silver conducted economic polls across organizations that engage in forecasting. Given the same data, he figured that the lower an entity’s reputation, the wilder its predictions. And if your reputation in the markets is higher, chances are your estimates are conservative.

The dichotomy is explained by the fact that if your reputation is on the lower side, you have little to lose. So perchance you hit bull’s eye, the chances of drawing attention is higher. If reputation is high on the other hand, there is an incentive to protect it and you’d much rather err on the side of caution.

Perhaps these are the reasons why Ezra Solomon, an influential US economist and professor at Stanford University, once caustically said: “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”

First Published in Mint on Dec 5, 2014. Copyrights rest with HT Media Ltd