Analysis before action?

I have not been a great fan of picking on the Bhagavad Gita, say, and drawing management lessons from it. I mean, really, there are some texts that are meant to teach you to transcend your daily life. If you do not want to transcend it, if you'd rather enjoy your Netflix and your Glenfiddich (as I do? Quite!), why then you just duck into the nearest alley when you see Gita heading your way. But to use the Gita as a sort of manual to help you get more Glenfiddich...now that never did appeal to me.

I cannot say the same about the Thirukkural, though. Tiru was an eminently practical chappie and there is this entire 'Porutpaal' (which is one of the three divisions of the Thirukkural. The other two, even if you did not ask, being "Arathhuppal" and "Kaamatthuppaal". The former is related to dharma/morality/ethics and the latter to love life) which is entirely related to earning wealth and management. So, Tiru actually was the Drucker of his times (Alas! It should be Drucker is the Tiru of our times but such is the value of branding that...).

Azhivadhoom Avadhoom aagi vazhi payakkum oodhiyamum soozhndhu seyal - Thirukkural

Analyse what will be expended, what received and what gained before you act - Loose Translation

Now that is Tiru just telling you 'Look before you leap'? Not really. As in, yes he is telling you to look before you leap alright but he is not JUST telling you to do that. The whole point about the generic advice you get at your local tea-shop and from the expert is that the former can give you only platitudes. Any idiot can tell you 'Be careful'; it takes the expert to tell you what to be careful about. Likewise, it is the expert who can tell you what to look for.

And Tiru does that. He asks you to look for what you will lose, what you will receive and whether you will gain from the process or lose. And THEN decide based on whether there is a gain in acting or not.

Yup! Exactly! Cost-Benefit Analysis told pithily way back in History! THAT is Tiru for you, which is why he is still remembered and respected to this day!

Multiverse?

The idea of a multiverse has always been fascinating to me. Don't ask me why, though. I mean, like, it is not as though I have a complete experience of the universe that we inhabit, to the extent that I am bored with it and want the additional novelty of multiple universes. It is probably just the idea that more always means better that we humans seem to believe in implicitly.

Or, perhaps, I am giving myself too much credit for being like other humans...being 'normal' so to speak. It is just as likely that I am not pleased with my place in this universe and not too sure that knowing more or traveling within this universe is in any way going to make me the pivot around which the world revolves. AND, you know how it goes. Perhaps I'm the lost Prince from another universe in this multiverse, the frog who is waiting for a princess to kiss so that I can turn into this handsome price, the...ah, well, you get the drift about the fascination of the possibilities a multiverse opens out.

You know, the funny thing about this idea of a multiverse in human minds is that we, somehow, believe that we will be the central feature of it all. I mean, like, we have always believed that we are central to the UNIVERSE despite physicists telling us that we are a speck of dust circling a small star on the peripheries of a galaxy which is itself one of millions and just as ordinary as your star is in this galaxy...Physicists can din it into your ears till Kingdom come and, probably, even they believe, in their innermost hearts, that we are still the pivot around which the universe rotates. I mean, like, "Mr. Universe', 'Miss Universe' yada yada? Really?

So, yeah, I'm sure that we will also consider that the multiverse has been made especially for our benefit. Perhaps our religions already have done so. With the 14 worlds concepts, the seven nether worlds being hells to punish us and the seven upper worlds to house the beings which exist to reward us OR worlds which exist to reward us after death or whatever.

But, of late, I am starting to believe that we have decided to take matters into our own hands. What better way to be the centre of a multiverse than to create it ourselves. It all, probably, started with Marvel. And, like the 'woods' of India which started with Hollywood, we now have the universes: YRF Spy Universe, Rohit Shetty's Cop universe, Lokesh Cinematic universe, Astra-verse what have you. All you need is to marry all this to VR and...nirvana!

No need to depend upon a God or gods, if he or they exist, to do the right thing and create a multiverse which suits us.

We will have our own multiverse centred upon human beings!

Never Wrong?

"You remember making fun of subtitles in movies and shows? The one where you were joking about 'Eerie music' etc?"

"Of course I do," I said. More than resenting the slur on my memory, I was thrilled that someone read and remembered any of my blogposts.

"Did it cross your mind that those subtitles were not idiotic? That they were meant for the aurally challenged to know what was going on?"

Uhoh! I should have known. People only remembered anything I did in order to criticize me.

"Yeah, really? I mean exactly what use would it be to them?"

"You just cannot admit it when you are wrong, can you?"

This was priceless! When was the last time this chap had ever admitted that he was wrong? When anyone in your vicinity had ever done it? I mean, really, it is something that everybody says that one should do but nobody ever really does. And I am to blame because I am just like everyone else?

See, if you are in the wrong and challenged by someone in authority and have no wiggle room; like your boss, like the traffic cop who caught you speeding, like...you get the gist; THEN you admit that you are wrong. And ONLY then. Otherwise...in mere social circumstances while waxing lyrical on your views about the world...I mean, like, do people really exist who admit they are wrong?

Of course there are people who get caught on the wrong foot. But, when they do, nobody ever really says they are wrong in so many words, do they?

Let's not even talk about the teens' favorite reply when wrong-footed: "Whatever". The more 'adult' responses also come nowhere close to admitting error.

You have the chaps who will swiftly change the subject. The 'Let's change the subject, no point in friends fighting each other on such trivial things' lot. So, they'll switch from whether India need a Sengol to why Ashwin was dropped...and set off a different fire.

You have the chaps who will remember an important appointment. "OH! I have no time to waste on these fruitless arguments. I need to be in an urgent meeting within fifteen minutes" gang.

Then you have the varieties of people who will start talking about your personality instead of the subject at hand.

"Ah! You always have to have the last word."

"As though you never made a mistake. Remember the time..." THIS is probably the closest you'll get to a tacit admission of error.

"You people always take this tack." And that 'you people' is the diplomatic version of 'Sanghi', 'Fascist', 'Libtard', whatever.

Among all this variety, you'll hardly ever find someone who'll outright admit in so many words that he was wrong. If you find one, quickly cart him to a Zoo; he is an endangered species.

Because, in this world of 'If you do not agree with me, you are against me' AND 'Anything does not support my point of view is from WhatsApp University', everybody is never wrong. He's only talking to the wrong people.

Echo chambers zindabad!

Sengol?

Ah! No, no, no! If you walked in here expecting me to either talk of the importance of the Sengol or to lament the iniquity of its treatment in the past OR to rant about how it was never an important symbol of the transfer of power and how it represents the hunger to become a dictator instead of a democrat...where was I? Ah! IF you were expecting anything of that sort, please walk right out again. People who regularly come here know that I am this wishy-washy chap who prefers not to talk about things on which the populace is already polarised and refuse to be convinced otherwise even if their own deity comes to do the convincing. (The if-he-tries-to-convince-me-otherwise-he-is-Satan-disguised-as-my-deity school of thought, you know?)

Kodaiyali Sengol kudiyombal naangum udaiyanaam vendarkoli - Tirukkural

He who gives what's needed to the deserving, who speaks softly even with his enemies, who is unwaveringly just, and who protects and cares for the weakest sections of his people is the doyen among kings - Loose translation.

Let's have one thing clear first. Sengol IS the sceptre but, more to the point, it is almost always understood as the RIGHTEOUS sceptre. (The opposite, in case you are interested, is Kodun-gol and it is I who hyphenated it for clarity's sake. And, NO, I will NOT take responsibility if people start using THAT term to vilify their political opponents!) In fact, in THIS kural, Sengol is used in the metaphorical sense of being am impartial judge (though, yes, you can understand it more as righteousness in thought and action rather than merely justice as handed down in a court of law. Thus, a righteous judge of ALL issues, not just legal disputes).

This being soft-spoken to even your enemies is probably dated advice these days when being polite even to your well-wishers is considered a sign of weakness if they happen to oppose any of your whims. And you do not even need to be a 'ruler' for you to spew venom. (Oh, yes, the idea is that you are more powerful when you are a ruler which means you can actually spew MORE venom - in words or in action.)

But it does appear like Tiru gave timeless advice; advice that in Tamil Nadu at least, political parties can quote to justify what they are anyway doing. 'Give what's needed to the deserving'. Now THAT automatically means, in today's politics, giving biryani and liquor and cash to people, which is what they need, so that they vote for you. AND who, indeed, is more deserving than someone who votes for you, pray? AND, by giving all that, you PROVE that you are a worthy ruler, so what more can you ask for?

THAT last thing from this Kural was an eye-opener. The King is supposed to care for the weakest sections of his Society? Now if THAT is not a socialistic idea, what is? Welfare state, anyone? But, then, it is not surprising since the kings of yore used to open their granaries in times of drought, they were responsible for hunting predators if they affected the flocks of their populace and so on. So, now, we have THIS as well to add to the list of things that we have always had in this country long before the West even thought of it. (Ah! No! I am NOT making fun of advanced thought in ancient or medieval India. Thought has ALWAYS been advanced here. You have even had democracy in Licchavi, Atheism as a school of philosophy, yada yada. What I doubt is action...as in actually creating flying machines and nukes and whatnot. Maybe true, may not be true, but, hey, to doubt is free as much as to believe is free. AND the surprising thing is we tout that which can be disputed but do not even KNOW of the ideas that we have birthed. Shows how little we value ideas as opposed to material things.)

Tiru ALWAYS stays relevant, somehow. The surprising thing this time is that he came to the fore in a political debate of the day. THAT much relevance even he may not have expected or wanted. But, then, WHO can claim to be safe from the polarising of today. I will not be surprised if there is a #CancelTiru hashtag on the Net soon!