Random reflections on peer pressure

Disclaimer : This post is based upon the wisdom drawn from my experiences during university and IPS training in SVPNPA. I am not a professional psychologist or psychiatrist and hence my observations are independent of academic literature on the subject and also they pertain entirely to Indian context.

Peer means persons connected to each others through some or the other attribute usually age, sex, school/college, hobby, profession. We spend a lot of time with our peer group. It constitutes the social matrix within which we think, act and take decisions. Naturally, all our actions are influenced by the reactions of our peers because generally humans want to minimize their criticism and want to remain part of the cherished group by being acceptable to group members. Thus peer group affects the decision making process of the group members positively or negatively. This influence can prove to be positive or negative for the individual depending upon the nature of peer group. However, often it leads to undesirable and at times disastrous consequences for the individual and it is against such consequences that one has to guard against.

During my school and university days, there was an unwritten code of conduct according to which student community has to direct their behavior. Asking questions and taking active participation in the classroom was looked down upon and anyone doing this would  render oneself liable to attacks and ridicule. Special words with derogatory connotations were reserved for them making them conscious and creating inhibitions in them. As most of the students were uninterested in the subject being taught, writ of the majority would run making the stated goal of academic excellence a far-fetched one. The psychological pressure imposed on respectable minority by ruthless majority to fall in line was enormous. Often majority would argue that they had to suffer because of the miniscule minority. Same is partly true in the training of bureaucrats. The word "KTP" referring to "Keen Type Probationer" accompanying with not so obvious but detracting and contemptuous connotation is often used to describe someone who is really enthusiastic about the training. This leads to slow decaying of his enthusiasm and erosion of confidence. One feels let down by the peer group. A mediocrity in academia, industry and govt is one consequence of this negative peer group influence. This mediocrity further fuels more mediocrity and a culture of mediocrity comes into existence making it a vicious cycle.

Despite this, a few manage to withstand the negative pressure without deviating from the respectable path they have chosen for themselves. High degree of inner strength is required to pursue what they think is right. Maintaining independence of thought and action without wavering to undue pressure is a characteristic style of an effective leader. Such people become high achievers in life and they are few in number. Thus it is not narrow technical intelligence which is the source of reaching the pinnacle of success but rather nurturing multiple intelligence which inter-alia includes emotional intelligence that separates the leader from the crowd.

At this juncture I am hasten to add that peer group influence need not necessarily be negative. Sometimes constant but soft nudging by peer group towards the members keeps the momentum of the group going towards their stated goals. Group members share their unique experience, habits and viewpoints causing others to see the same thing in new light. These peer groups become the fountain head of innovation and furthers the civilization.

Thus it is important to choose ( if at all we have a choice ! ) the right peer group which can push us towards realizing our true potential because a negative peer group would kill our innate desire of excellence and achievement.

ITBP Attachment

All IPS probationers went to Indo Tibetan Border Police(ITBP) attachment last week. The visit was fun filled with loads of adventure, exploring national training academies etc. I would love to give individual posting on each day of 7 day attachment, but before that I just present what the menu had to offer all these days .. :)

• River Rafting @ Hrishikesh
• Bungy Jumping @ Hrishikesh
• Visit to Indian Millitary Academy, Dehradun
• Visit to IGNFA, Dehradun
• Dinner hosted by DGP, Uttrakhand @ Dehradun
• Stay at LBSNAA, Musoorie for next few days
• Artificial Wall Climbing @ ITBP Academy, Musoorie
• Exposure to various Explosive Mechanisms @ ITBP Academy, Musoorie
• Rock Climbing @ ITBP Academy
• Star Operation: 12 km Survival Module including mountain trekking, monkey crawl, rapling, raids etc.
• Battle Innoculation : Real battle time simulation experience with LMG fire going 5 ft above the head
• Ganga Kinare pooja @ Har ki Podi in Haridwar.

All in all, it was a thrilling and once in a lifetime experience. Thanks NPA for giving me this wonderful exposure visit.

Khula Manch

Khula Manch is one of the activity in the Academy, which has been created to provide a democratic platform to the probationers to voice their problems in presence of the director and the faculty. It has significance in training actvity, for police have a strange relation with the concept of democracy. Khula manch tries to inculcate the spirit of democracy among the probationers especially for grievance redressal functions they have to perform in their professional careers. 

So, today I thought of one pertinent issue with regard to relations that exist between an officer and the constable on the street or any officer working under him. The relations are on a such a note, that much of the junior staff find themselves detached from the department and feels like quiting it prematurely. The attitude of some senior officers is perceived to be unhelpful and tyrannical, as if reducing the subordinate to the position of slavery. Some have used very stong words to explain the feelings behind the issue, but I think with some pluses and minuses, the problem can't be ignored. The underlying reason for such a behaviour may be lingering feudal culture, rigid heirarchy in police department, lack of empathy etc. A small suggestion, which we can accept while dealing with junior staff is that to treat them as if you have a personal relation with them. Even to call a constable by his name can instill a sense of confidence and pride in him. Even to say "Kya haal hai" would suffice. I feel that is very small effort that seniors can do to bridge the gap.

A New Learning , Roadmap and Destination

Things always happen because of a reason, which may be predictable or mysterious at times.Change is the only thing that endures.Interest also comes in its ambit. Interest of a human being keeps on changing and as a result of that he makes some decisions to pursue his interest which ideally should neither be cash oriented nor society's pressure driven rather the one which satisfies his inner self and which adds to his degree of happiness. The decision once made, will unfold his future journey but only for as long as he allows it to, and if he is unsatisfied with the outcome of his decision or the culmination is contrary to what he actually wanted it to be then of course he can lead to a new direction by making a new choice which will probably make him happier.He keeps on traveling in one line until and unless he is struck by another interesting thing where again he changes his path.All these keep on happening and this is what according to me constitutes life. Thus this phenomenon is quite explicable but the most important thing in this sequence of events is whether he is enjoying the process of traveling in one direction as long as he does so and when he changes his direction does he enjoy more than what he did earlier both qualitatively and quantitatively ? One can only lead this kind of life is by not getting afraid of being failed because of his repeated decisions which might end up making his life full of misery.Failure is the only thing which will ensure more learning in less time. After failure we will analyze the reasons of failure and will try to improve the shortcomings. So the more somebody fails the more he learns. The most successful person is the one who fails every time but does not give up , does not make the same mistake again and at the end of every failure he knows what not to do and by knowing what not to do after failing million times he actually knows million ways of not doing something and thus actually increasing his chance of hitting his goal. He is million times better than the person who hit the goal in the first instance itself because winning person only knows what is the correct way of doing it without actually knowing all the incorrect ways of doing it which are equally important and it was just a matter of chance that he hit it but there is a good probability that he will not hit the goal in yet another occasion but the person who failed million times in performing his first job learnt million learning and thus in a better position of making the best decision and performing the task. In fact failure is something which must kiss every individual and if somebody hasn't failed in his life then he probably should be declared untouchable in the society instead of casting an individual untouchable by caste based system as is prevalent in India which seems to me entirely ridiculous and full of prejudices because the only way one can escape of failing is by not trying to do anything which makes him a useless person and thus untouchable is justified because of his deeds. In fact there is an organization in the United States which looks in your CV before recruiting in their organization whether you have failed in your life or not and if you haven't then they won't offer a job to you. The reason of this strange behaviour is quite simply this : since you haven't failed in your entire life means you will not know what to do next after failing and since you will not be knowing how to recover after failing , you are not qualified enough for getting into their organization.
Just ponder over this : what the worst can happen to me if I happen to fail in anything I do ? for example in my case, what worse can happen to me if I don't get placed after my B.Tech. ? well, I would love to be in that situation because then I will be forced to study and the amount that I will study say in 1 months will be way more that what I might have studied in my entire B.Tech. Isn't that good ? In fact learning can only happen if I don't know whether I will get placed or not. So if that notion of safe and secure placement is removed then to prove my mettle I will study more and as a result I will learn more and that's what ideally I should be doing. The essence of all these things is simply this : no matter what the traditional way of doing or going about something, until and unless we find the thrill in the process , we must not get thrived by the mere outcome because outcome is something which only lasts for a short time and it is the process that remains with us for quite a long time. The process must give the full satisfaction to us for what we are and what we are doing. We must pose questions to ourselves quite frequently that is this what I love to do or is this the best that I can do for society? After all, everybody earns for themselves. Even a beggar does. What did we do for the larger section of society which is downtrodden and hapless enough not to get a square meal ? Do we owe something to them being the so called "brightest brain" of our time ? What is the fault of a 2 day old poor child who after getting born find itself on the corner of a road where nobody is there to take care of it or what is the fault of a child who is deprived of his education to work at a tea store just because it's mother is sick and old enough of not being able to feed herself and her children ? OR should we just stop listening and answering to such nonsense stuff and get away with all these because our family is safe and roaming happily.

Well, the effect of all this led me to quit my Amazon internship and gave me a entirely different direction where my path is destined to be studying something which I haven't studied quite rigorously for quite some time.
I am going for civil services. I like the process of getting into it, not merely the outcome. What if in my first and second and may be third attempt of getting into civil services I fail miserably all the time ? well, my response to that will be , since failure is a norm and not an exception and at least I have tried to do something which I liked and to do something good for society. This will put me in a better position than a lot others who merely work for themselves. It will give me much needed satisfaction than I would probably get after working for a corporate giant merely for the sake of some cash which will neither be of any use to me nor to society.

why 26/11 is recursive function while 9/11 is not !!!

I presume that most of you have got the essence of the post just by reading the title nevertheless I am going to narrow down on the topic and try to find what is lacking in our system i.e. why 9/11 is not repetitive and 26/11 is likely to be . To make the post shorter , I am directly putting the rationale behind my perception of what is deprived in our national security system or to put in other words , why U.S. security system is much more sophisticated that ours.
I am going to narrate two contemporary instances for the very purpose of proving my perception.

1. Frisking of former president of India :-
former Indian president has been frisked by an American airline that too , on the Indian territory and that too in spite of being an opposing Indian law that no former president of India can undergo frisking. How can a private airline do this kind of horrendous crime with a former president ?? Answer is very simple , the airline is a private American airline and according to U.S. laws all the on board passengers on any airline which is going to land in America have to undergo frisking , no matter who the individual is. So abiding by the laws of its own country is the most vital for it to sustain.

2. Detention of SRK in U.S. :-
This highly hyped episode also depicts that if you seem to be a suspect of any crime to the U.S. officials then irrespective of how large your fan community is , you are required to go through the same procedure as it is for others. Although the immigration officials knew the plethora of information about SRK , yet he has been grilled by officials just because his surname appeared on their computer screen . There is no provision of special rules and Regulations for any star in U.S. unlike India. So we should appreciate the U.S. officials , for they are doing their job with zero tolerance and at the same time ensuring that there is no more 9/11.

In U.S. any traffic cop can book the daughter of president of united states if she is found guilty for speeding. These are the things that they have done for making 9/11 a non-repetitive function. Their ultimate objective is being fulfilled by these stringent laws . These are some precise reasons why there is no 9/11 after 2001.

On the contrary , today our PM has given guidelines to all chief ministers and other highly ranked Indian officials that Pakisthani based terrorists are planning fresh attacks , so get yourself prepared with the new subsidies and compensation money to all the future victims and that is precisely what the state chief minsters are doing . There is no stringent action which has been taken post 26/11 to combat the crime infrastructure in India . There is absolutely no change in the way things are being implemented before 26/11 and after that . There are special rules for all star icons , all VIPs and relatives of VIPs and relatives of relatives of VIP and so on until the series diminishes to a common man .

So finally , I would say it is the inherent nature of Indian security system that makes it more vulnerable and if this situation persists then I can bet that 26/11 is going to be a recursive function with no return statement in itself.

PS : As many of my friends suggested to write on something funny so as to increase the blog hits , surely i am going to do that . wait for the next post.

And yet another independence day

Independence day is the most important day for any human beings , for they can exercise their right of movement to anywhere , their right of speaking and writing , their right of equality in all aspects of life and so on and so forth. Being a social animal , we want freedom of doing everything and anything until and unless it does not ill-affect somebody else and independent India provides their citizens of doing the same which the latter had expected from the former. The situation of not being under control of somebody else but theirs gives immense pleasure and gratification to all social creatures and we associate this very independence of ours to a vital ingredients of advanced civilization.
But in spite of all our right to movement , right of expressing ourselves freely and right of getting equal opportunities etc. which we have inherently derived from our ancestors in this country , does India itself independent in taking its own decisions ?

Does India need america or for that matter any other external unwanted elements for resolving its own disputes or issues both inside the territory of India and outside the territory of it ?

In spite of having got the status of independence more than half a century back , we are still following the path which is shown to us by some external agency . To put it more bluntly , Aren't we competent enough to take our own decisions ??
To say an recent evidence to it , just because Hillary Clinton or Obama administration wants us to shake hands with Pakisthan post 26/11 attacks and resolve the bilateral issue according to their strategies , we are precisely following what they have instructed us to do without applying our own brain to it . Does this handshake which happens one day in Chine , on other day in Egypt , on another occasion in Russia between our PM and Pakisthan's president worth enough ? Inspite of release of all the suspected 26/11 perpetrators in Pakisthan , wouldn't this handshaking symbolises a slap on the face of victims of the attack ?

India has been proved to be incompetent to protect its citizens in its territory as well as outside its territory. There is no action taken place to protect the indian students in Australia despite the brutalisation of students there . Even the Autralian media said that the attacks were racist in nature , but inspite of all that not once our govt. has said that . Our govt. is putting their best efforts to be as dumb and deaf as they can and just wash off their hands in the entire matter.
"India , on its own can not do anything in this matter", this is the statement made by Shashi Tharoor ( minister of state for external affairs ) on TIMES NOW .

Inspite of all this , can we call India , an independent country who is able to take their decision on their own at least in their own disputes.
Celebrating 62nd independece day as warmly as we can , will not be of any worth if the very cause of celebrating it , i.e. the state of being independence is not fulfilled . Delivering enthusiastic speeches on Red Fort and distributing sweets and at the same time forgeting about our rights and duties is symptoms of dead nation , never to rise again .

Today in my room , I have heard loud music coming from my opposite wing , the loud music comprised of songs about which everybody care only once in a year. The songs were Lata Mangeshkar's famous "Ae Mere Vatan Ke Logo " , "Mere Desh ki Dharati" and all others. I have absolutely no problem about listening to these songs but the question is , will listening of these songs create any kind of patroitic feelings in ourselves which is so strong and pertinent that can last for at least next independece day . If yes , then the sole purpose of listening is served otherwise its all in vain .

To conclude it here , we will have to decide that how should we celebrate our independece day which reflects our nation's independence because that is precisely what we are celebrating otherwise many more independence day will come and go and the illusion of being independent will remain with us forever.

The more things change , the more they remain the same : Mathematical and Societal perspective

Change is one of the most indispensable part of human society which is driven by time. There is no life without change. So change is the only constant thing in our life , but if that is the case what does the title supposed to convey ? How can something undergo change and still remains the same ?
How can there be light and darkness at the same time ? How can something exist and at the same time it doesn't ? Isn't that paradoxical ? I think "The change" is not Mr. India of that famous movie who in spite of being there , is not there.
Although the cliche appear to be insane and totally preposterous , for obvious logical reasons that i have cited above , nevertheless we will try our coherent thinking onto it .

Mathematical perspective :-

It is once said by Prof. Srinathan ( a great mathematician ) that if something is true , we can mathematically give a rigorous proof that it is actually happened to be true and if nobody can actually find a mathematical technique to prove it , no matter how hard and meticulously he try to find it , we can not conclude that it is not true . As he went on saying , it is the limitation of the mathematician and not of mathematics and may be the future generations will be more intellectually advanced to prove or disprove it.( we can think of P = NP classical problem to actually verify what prof. had said ).

Now lets try to use mathematics to rescue from this problem , for if we are able to prove it then we are through and on the other side if we aren't then also we are on the safe side .


Lets consider a physical quantity lembda denoted by L .
and over a period of time change in L being del(L) where del (.) is some function on L.
Time taken for this change to happen being del(t) where del(.) is some function on t.
So the change taken place per unit time is del(L)/del(t) by using simple arithmatic.

Since in mathematics we check the correctness of our technique by applying it on the boundary conditions , for if it is true for some values then it must be true for all values including the boundary values .

If we look at the change for a very small time , implicitly implies that del(t)-> 0 . Since according to the principle of theory of computation we can not do any finite or infinite computation in zero time because if that was the case then power of adversary is infinite which is next to impossible as per turing machine model. So if del(t) -> 0 implies that del(L)-> 0
together implies that del(L)/del(t) -> 0/0 which gives us a indeterminate form and we are stuck.

The other boundary conditions is when we oversee changes over a large period of time . As the title says that the more things change , we would make the changes to be very large .
so del(L) -> infinite .
Since infinite changes in L can not happen in finite time according to the same principle . so del(t) -> infinite , but then we look at the rate of change del(L)/del(t) -> infinite/infinite which is again indeterminate form.

So where does mathematics trying to take us ? Looking at the perspective of mathematics : The more things change , the more they become inderminate or complex .

Societal perspective :-

In accordance with human perspective , the cliche can be looked upon in various forms .
In this world everything is changing and the change become so common to the world that it is the only thing which happens all the time . So in some sense it is becoming the only constant being , thus no matter the scale of change occuring to various things , it is the change which will remain the same. Everything in the world will still remain under the sky as it is the limit. It can not go beyond that.

some illustrations from our own life in favour of the fact :-

1. Irrespective of which govt. comes in power in india and they bring in some innovative schemes to change the society , to combat the terror and crimes drastically and to increase the GDP , but immaterial of that , everything still remains the same at the ground level . History is the eye-witness of this obnoxious fact . Here we are not concerned about the rationale of why is this so . May be some other post will take up this issue.

2.Irrespective of what grades we have got in our previous semesters , the current semester will pass in the very same manner as the prevous ones. To put it in more general way and more bluntly , no matter how hard we try to correct our mistakes of past , we end up repeating the same mistake again and again .

3.Irrespective of how many chicks have we seen in the past , whenever a new one comes , we end up thinking about the same insane things again and screwing up the game.

4. Man , being a social creature is bound to have changes in his life but internally , from his soul he remains the same human being with the same qualities that he was possessing previously. There is no change in his behaviour or his intensions to help others.

5. If we want to change something in ourselves , then we can only change that very something only for a small period of time after which that very something looks like it hasn't undergone any changes because that very something might have undergone changes in its shape and size but not in its inherent properties that that very something must posses to prove its identity. As It is the inherent nature of something that makes it what it is.

So is it indeed true that the more things change , the more they remain the same ?
and what can we say about the reverse of the title ? i.e. The more things remain the same , the more they change.