The cobwebs of my mind need dusting. Meanwhile I came across this old interview of Kramnik after his WC match with Leko. There is enough traffic in chess sites with armchair amateurs easily trashing Kramnik's style. In fact, enough to re-position opinions in our minds. However, I like the way Kramnik dealt with exactly this in this interview, and I have grown to appreciate his perspective. There is no mincing words here. I think this is a man that knows his mind.

http://www.kramnik.com/eng/interviews/getinterview.aspx?id=50

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. " - Gandalf

We go to the gym. We work out. We don't work out. We complain about not working out. We eat. We don't, and starve for no reason. We talk about eating good food. We talk about eating bad food. We complain about poor service in restaurants.

We prepare for the future. We are impetuous. We are selfish. We aim to please others. We think nobody notices our flagrantly whimsical behaviour.

We say grandiose things. We ask profound questions. We ask inane questions. We claim to speak for humanity. For women. For people of our kind. For people of the other kind. We are all supposed to have commonalities that connect us like threaded beads on a lace. We are all supposed to be different and unique.

We define ourselves. These are the movies we like. This is the music we listen to. We are financially responsible for our dads told us that's a sign of character. Character is important, now. We carry the burden of our past on our shoulders. We mother and smother our friends. We are confident, and the Red Sea parts for us.

We spray perfumes on ourselves. We have our fingers on the pulse of the zeitgeist of fashion.

We are entitled to several things. Dignity. Love. Happiness. Universal brotherhood. That sort of stuff. Our pet peeves. We are to be treated with respect. These are important things. We get misty eyed over these ideas. We are smart. We are entitled to position and status. We are poor. We are entitled to social welfare. We are well read. We are entitled to a finer level of awareness. We are inexperienced. The universe owes us experience.

Things don't work out for us. The world owes us one. Things do work out. We deserve that. We form communities. The world owes us that of course. We are entitled to get invited everywhere. Everyone is. We are someone. Hence so. To sad movies where we can shed tears and console each other. We are entitled to get mad at anyone when we are in a bad mood.

We are reclusive. We don't socialize. It is because no one lives up to expectations. Just us. We do of course. Even when we don't.

We say things out of line, randomly. Overreachingly. Out of scope. Inarticulately. Irrelevantly. Irreverantly. Uncontainedly and incoherently. Immaturely.

We hold consistent opinions. We have faith in several things. Don't call us on that. It is a free country though. We believe in them because they make us warm inside. We believe in them because they are true. We don't know that of course. No one does. But then again they must be true, why else would we believe in them?

The Match of the (20th) Century

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Every time there is a news article on rediff on Vishy Anand, a bunch of people scratch their itch to comment. From the comments the following become clear, and I wonder why they need to comment at all:

- Most people commenting have no clue about chess, the tournament/match details, the rankings/ratings of the players, the relative importance of the tournament/match, Anand's chess-strength relative to other players.

- People are usually commenting on another sport, usually Indian cricket, and how it has let everyone down, whatever that means.

- Most comments are highly polarized with no sense of proportionality. In them Anand is either the King and is heavily lionized, or he is portrayed as a loser - the guy who always played second fiddle -- again displaying a marked hyperbole.

- Most remaining comments are of chess not being encouraged (again displaying a lack of understanding of the sponsorship difficulty for a non-spectacular sport), or of politics in every other sport (as if the monstrosity of chess-politics is nothing at all.)

Why comment on a subject which you know nothing about, or you lack all the important facts, or cannot stay on topic, or you only have cliches and hyperbole to speak with? I am wondering if people are just trigger-happy and can't keep their fingers off the keyboard, regardless of what the topic-du-jour is.

Buncha ragamuffins climbing Mt. Whitney :)

Deep Thoughts

This guy Jack Handey is funny! A friend digs him and told me about him.

"The Greater Sea" from Khalil Gibran's "The Madman"

My soul and I went down to the great sea to bathe. And when we reached the shore, we went about looking for a hidden and lonely place.
But as we walked, we saw a man sitting on a grey rock taking pinches of salt from a bag and throwing them into the sea.
"This is the pessimist," said my soul, "Let us leave this place. We cannot bathe here."
We walked on until we reached an inlet. There we saw, standing on a white rock, a man holding a bejewelled box, from which he took sugar and threw it into the sea.
"And this is the optimist," said my soul, "And he too must not see our naked bodies."
Further on we walked. And on a beach we saw a man picking up dead fish and tenderly putting them back into the water.
"And we cannot bathe before him," said my soul. "He is the humane philanthropist."
And we passed on.
Then we came where we saw a man tracing his shadow on the sand. Great waves came and erased it. But he went on tracing it again and again.
"He is the mystic," said my soul, "Let us leave him."
And we walked on, till in a quiet cove we saw a man scooping up the foam and putting it into an alabaster bowl.
"He is the idealist," said my soul, "Surely he must not see our nudity."
And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment."
So we passed on. And in a weedy place among the rocks was a man with his head buried in the sand. And I said to my soul, "We can bathe here, for he cannot see us."
"Nay," said my soul, "For he is the most deadly of them all. He is the puritan."
Then a great sadness came over the face of my soul, and into her voice.
"Let us go hence," she said, "For there is no lonely, hidden place where we can bathe. I would not have this wind lift my golden hair, or bare my white bosom in this air, or let the light disclose my sacred nakedness."
Then we left that sea to seek the Greater Sea.

Arrey Anand babu aap? Aayiye aayiye!

Tere bina zindagi se koi shikhwa
Is mod se jate hain
Rim jhim gire saawan
Aane wala pal jaane wala hai
Yaad aa rahi hai
Yaadon ki baraat
Churaa liya hai tumne jo dil ko
Chhu kar mere man ko
Jeevan se bhari teri aankhen
Zindagi ka safar
Hume aur jeene ki chaahat na hoti
Hume tum se pyaar kitna yeh hum nahin jaante
Manzilein apni jagah hain
Aap ki aankhon mein kuch
Dekha ek khwaab to yeh silsile hue
Yeh kahan aa gayen hum
Zindagi pyaar kaa geet hai
Kya hua tera waada
Meri bheegi bheegi si
Teri bindiya re
Tere mere milan ki yeh raina
Piya bina piya bina basiya
Meet na mila re man ka
O saathi re
Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai
Mere dil mein aaj kya hai
Phoolon ka taaron ka
Hoshwalon ko khabar kya
Huzoor is kadar
Na tum hume jano
Din dhal jaaye haay
Mere naina saawan bhaa do
Piya to se naina laage re
Tu jahan jahan chalega
Hoton se chhoo lo tum
Lag jaa galey ke phir yeh
Ek ajnabi haseena se
Kahin door jab din dhal jaaye
Jis gali mein tera ghar na ho baalma
Tujhse naaraz nahin zindagi
Woh shaam kuch ajeeb thi
Nile nile ambar par
Zindagi ke safar mein guzar jaate hain
Yeh laal rang kab mujhe chodega
Hum bewafa hargiz na they
Phir wohi raat hai

Boards don't hit back.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

The crude art of taking offence.
or
How to get pissed off at anybody, anytime and come out feeling self-righteous and superior.

Genius is 99% perspiration. First and foremost, it is necessary to strengthen the fundamentals on which you will act on taking offence, in your spare time - *before an offence-taking situation arises*. Offence-taking par excellence is never a spur of the moment thing, and the actual taking of the offence is the final product, the coup de grâce, the tip of the iceberg for masters of the craft. The cherry tree has to be planted and watered and so on before a president-to-be may chop it down, or not, for historians to argue over. So get to work offline on constantly strengthening the fundamentals every practising offence-taker worth his/her salt ought to know, in order to rise from excellent offence-taking to superlative, and even beyond - to take some truly sublime offence:

i. Never work on resolving your anger issues. Bottle up your grudges and be a veritable pressure-cooker of venom waiting to spout.

ii. Strengthen your pattern recognition skills. Your skill or it's absence for sweeping generalization and identification with a kind may make the difference between taking good hot-under-the-collar offence and lukewarm offence. Or between taking offence at all or not for that matter. You'll see how this matters later in the post.

iii. Perform exercises that screw with your reading and listening comprehension. The reason for this critical inability will become clear below as well. Read a book backwards, or upside down. Read every odd numbered word, or even better - read words in the prime-numbered sequence. While listening to somebody, sing "If I were a rich man, Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum" to yourself. In a loop. Badly.

iv. Reinforcement: Once every week or so, set aside a half hour to go over a previous offence-taking experience. How would you rate the offence taken? Good? Mediocre? Remember, what is measured, improves. What were the circumstances? What would you do differently if you were given a fresh chance to take offence? What would you keep unchanged? Go back to the righteous indignation you felt then. Has it diminished subsequently? Do you still feel as superior? If not, why? Go after the details. What word or phrase specifically made you take offence? What colour was the underside of the dog that scratched disgustingly in the corner? The question words are your friends. Remember what Kipling said:

"I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who. "

v. Prepare your comebacks. Few would contest the fact that the best part of taking offence is in the ad hominem insults you throw at the fellow that tickled your delicate underbelly. Prepare these in advance. This should not be very hard, since the more irrelevant your insults are, the more satisfying they're bound to be. For yourself. So "You say that because your momma's a goat!" is pretty good. If you want to be a bit classier (but less impactful), you may choose "... cuz your momma's a coat!" instead. Now, that has the added advantage that people may think you read Kafka in your spare time away from preparing insults.

Once you have equipped your arsenal, be on the lookout for occasions to take offence. Now, this needn't necessarily depend too much on the content of what somebody says or writes. Just choose your offender and go gung-ho.

The process needs to be as follows. Quickly pick keywords in the potentially offensive text that may help you label yourself and the offender. The sky is the limit for these keywords. Third-world, developed, coloured, non-native, red, blue, porcupine, concubine, young, old, monotheistic, toad-to-be-a-prince-upon-kissing, man, woman, feminist, misogyny, polyandry and so on. The idea is to pick a label that you may identify with, in your mind; but not the offender -- only in your mind. Now, dig into your deep anger reserves and dish out some vitriolic hatred. This is where your toil-by-the-midnight-oil training comes in handy. The key to taking fine offence is in the speed with which you go from labeling to generalization to cranking up the anger machine. This is exactly where your inabilities in comprehension will help. The more time you spend in understanding what was said, and the more you comprehend it, the less offence you'll get to take. So be swift and decisive. Now it's payoff time. Ready an ad hominem insult from your arsenal, customize it to fit within the labeling framework to make it sound related to what was said (but only ambiguously so to come off sounding intelligent), and fire! Go home with hard-earned high-quality righteous indignation for standing up for your beliefs.

Example: Him: "The Aerosmith concert was too long". Churn. Swirl. Whip. You: "That's because you are getting too long in the tooth!". Touché.

May you take some fine premium quality offence. May people point your way reverentially and say "There walks the taker of great offences!". May your friends be patient and your evenings grumpy. Om Shantih Shantih Shantih.

A Bhishma-Krishna centric perspective of the Mahabharata

Yatra yogeshvarah krsno yatra partho dhanur-dharah
Tatra srir vijayo bhutir dhruva nitir matir mama - Gita 18.78. (Concluding verse)

The Mahabharata consists of multi-layered plots and subplots, multitudinous complex characters. It spans multiple generations, and sometimes the entire historical perspective is necessary to make sense of the story arc. However, as everywhere else, certain simplifications are helpful in crystallizing key elements of the mythos.

At a microcosmic level, and an admittedly circumscribed perspective, the Mahabharata may be viewed as a showdown of ideologies of two main characters: Bhishma, the grandsire patriarch of the Kuru clan; and Krishna, the prime lobbyist for a new world order in the Dwapara yuga.

Bhishma was a stander-upper for the establishment, enforcer-in-chief of the letter of the law. He was unflinching in his loyalty to titular positions, and prefered to go down with the sinking ship of the Kauravas in the Kurukshetra war. His track record of adherance to his vows to uphold the prevalent dynastic values of the time are legendary, and contribute to his monicker.

Krishna was the mercurial iconoclast, impishly charioteering the course of events towards change, while vowing to not wield weapons in a war that, in a who-did-what-to-whom interpretation of the situation, wasn't his to fight.

This microcosmic rivalry plays itself out in the little nugget of an incident hidden in the mighty tome. Bhishma, the steadfast, who never reneges on a vow, vows that he'll make Krishna violate his. Bhishma relentlessly scorched the Pandava warriors - later in the Bhishma Parva, Sanjaya says:


"As regards Bhishma, his car was then his fire-chamber. His bow was the flame of that fire. And swords and darts and maces constituted the fuel of that fire. And the showers of arrows he shot were the blazing sparks of that fire with which he was then consuming Kshatriyas in that battle. As a raging conflagration with constant supply of fuel, wandereth amid masses of dry grass when aided by the wind, so did Bhishma blaze up with his flames..."


Krishna realizes that the Pandavas will not win the war as long as Bhishma is at the helm of the Kauravas. He breaks his own vow, and engages the Sudarshanachakra. At this crystallized moment highlighting the essense of belief-systems of the two personas, Bhishma lays down his own weapons, and is humbly eager to accept what's coming to him. In chessical jargon, he plays the player, and not the board. Krishna, on the other hand, is very much playing the board. If the situation demands his breaking yet another rule, he rises up to it.

Bhishma loves the map more than the topography. As a consequence, he champions a static application of rules, while his opponent stands for a dynamic reading of reality.

Mythos tells us that adharmis do not always come in weird hairdos, resounding laughs and Mogamboesque fashion-sense. Perhaps we lose messages hidden in our mythos. But then, maybe we are wired to cling on to stassis, until it is challenged and overthrown, so that we may cling on to a new brand of stassis.



The Ourorboros, attracted by something wiggly, chases it, bites it, and starts consuming what happens to be it's own tail.

Probably pathological.

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
-- Iris, Goo goo dolls


I am lying down staring at the popcorn ceiling, about to slide into a comfortable sleep.

* N takes the stage in front of his illustrious peers: a bunch of know-it-all high-schoolers. N is the shy kind. Not given to bombastic pronouncements. This is a subject he has chosen from all possible ones. "There is", he says, "something that can be learned from anyone, regardless of their place. Take my driver, for instance...". I enthusiastically applaud his talk. It seems like a good thing to do.

* C has achieved a romantic understanding of an essentially classical concept: the distribution of loads on a structure. I am busy making my handwriting look good on my notebook.

* J illustrates the quantum states of the electron, employing analogies and anecdotes. It sounds really cool. I consider what I may say that'll sound cooler when I am in his seat the next year.

* I am climbing up the stairs in a familiar building of the hallowed institute. I wonder if I chose to push myself to study (I am terrified of what it'd be like to stop), or if the ball was set rolling earlier on my choices regarding studying (I am terrified of not having a say in the matter). These seem to be the only two options.

* "A poet once said 'The whole universe is in a glass of wine.' We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass closely enough we see the entire universe." Feynmann is saying, with an avuncular grin at the camera.

* K is talking about his spirituality. He tells me to go to an open field, or the top of a mountain, where there isn't anyone in sight. "Then" he says,"when all else is quiet, listen to the residual, primordial sound that has always existed - everywhere, all the time, - as white noise...". He is very earnest, and I had no idea he had this side to him.

* Manni and Lola are lying in bed.
Manni: Willst du weg ... von mir?
Lola: Ich weiß nicht. Ich muß mich grad entscheiden ... glaub ich.

* The Buddha sits in the lotus position under the bodhi tree. He extends his right palm and makes contact with the ground, calling upon the earth to witness his moment of enlightenment. Worldly concerns cease to make sense in his momentary circuit of contact with the infinite.

* On the makeshift blackboard is a curve representing the diminution of marginal desirability of every additional piece of candy to a child. A is tutoring me. Sanskrit. "Ekam sat viprah bahudah vadanti (There is one Truth, but sages say it in different ways)" he quotes. He has a taste for the rhetorical.

I can visualize the phrase, and it is monochromatically grey. It disassembles without warning into an alphabet soup and restrings into a fresh pattern of a myriad colours, as I descend into slumber, into what feels like a pit not unlike the one the od'd Renton sinks into in "Trainspotting".

A reader (Sean) of 'The Dilbert Blog' posted this in the comments section today as "brain malfunctions". Quite funny, but I think it hasty to jump to the conclusion that these prototypes of reasoning fallacies are indeed bugs and not features of the workings of the human brain.


"Amazingly Bad Analogy
Example: You can train a dog to fetch a stick. Therefore, you can train a potato to dance.

Faulty Cause and Effect
Example: On the basis of my observations, wearing huge trousers makes you fat.

I am the World
Example: I don't listen to country music. Therefore, country music is not popular.

Generalizing from Self
Example: I'm a liar. Therefore, I don't believe what you're saying.

Total Logical Disconnect
Example: I enjoy pasta because my house is made of bricks.

Judging Things without Comparison to Alternatives
Example: I don't invest in US Treasury bills. There's too much risk.

Ignorance of Statistics
Example: I'm putting ALL of my money on the lottery this week because the jackpot is so big.

Irrelevant Comparisons
Example: A hundred dollars is a good price for a toaster, compared to buying a Ferrari.

Incompleteness as Proof of Defect
Example: Your theory of gravity doesn't address the question of why there are no unicorns, so it must be wrong.

Following the Advice of Known Idiots
Example: Uncle Billy says pork makes you smarter. That's good enough for me!

Faulty Pattern Recognition
Example: His last six wives were murdered mysteriously. I hope to be wife number seven.

Failure to Recognise What's Important
Example: My house is on fire! Quick, call the post office and tell them to hold my mail!

Ignoring All Anecdotal Evidence
Example: I always get hives immediately after eating strawberries. But without a scientifically controlled experiment, it's not reliable data. So I continue to eat strawberries every day, since I can't tell if they cause hives.

Inability to Understand that Some Things Have Multiple Causes
Example: The Beatles were popular for one reason only: They were good singers.

Judging the Whole by One of it's Characteristics
Example: The sun causes sunburns. Therefore, the planet would be better off without the sun.

Taking Things to their Illogical Conclusion
Example: If you let your barber cut your hair, the next thing you know he'll be lopping off your limbs!

Proof by Lack of Evidence
Example: I've never seen you drunk, so you must be one of those Amish people."

Did you feel while reading this that your reasoning patterns are above such speciousness? Do you also believe that you would behave differently from the subjects of the Zimbardo and Milgram experiments, under the conditions of the experiments?

I am walking outdoors next to my apartment complex, heading to the gym for a bike ride. I am wearing my tri-shorts, and a white T on top.

Two kids pass me by. Boys. One is maybe 9, the other 12. Somehow I think they are friends, not brothers. The older one says "Hi!".

Many men/boys pass you by in this part of the world, without recognizing your presence. Sometimes they look at you, but don't return your smile. Anyhow, these kids aren't like that. I'm glad for a moment. "Hi!" I say.

The older one reveals the reason behind his opening salvo. "Love your tights!" he says. The sarcasm in his voice is clear. The younger one snickers. I pass them by, a bit saddened.

I wonder what caused him to make that remark. He doesn't know me, I am just a passer-by. But he found it important enough to make that remark, by first making the effort to establish a short exchange. I think I attribute it to two factors:
i. His desire to reinforce his way of looking at things, his aesthetics, and to subtract mine, through a putdown. This perhaps, adds to his sense of confidence about his place in the world.
ii. His need to strengthen his influence as a role model to the younger boy - there was a hint of appreciation at the smartness displayed by the 12 year old, in the younger one's chuckle. It seemed this transaction upped the 12 year old's status within the little tribe of two.

The World plays chess, and wins

The World improved on its dismal chess record by beating GM Arno Nickel in this game: The World vs Arno Nickel

One of my favourite games of chess is Kasparov vs The World from 1999; Kasparov won. This game also made the young Irina Krush famous among chess enthusiasts, as she grew into the role of The World's most influential advisor for the game.