A Home for Sparrows

Some two years ago when we shifted home to a ‘better accommodation’, we were surprised to find that the new house allotted to us was not vacant at all. We were welcomed in our new home by two feathery residents – two little sparrows – who had already established base behind a slightly loose ply-wood board (which concealed electric wiring), in the verandah. Every morning their chirping, as they surveyed the lawns in search of an unfortunate early worm, acted as the most soothing alarm. Every few months their activities would increase; and the sparrows would be visible, rushing, in turns, towards their board with a worm dangling from their beaks. Loud chirping sounds would come as the bird disappeared behind the board, and then would cease a few minutes later as the bird flew-off. And a few weeks later, a couple of little sparrows would come out of the board, ready to take on the world. Little ones were born, and went away, as is there wont – but the original pair stayed.

Soon the pair had become a part of the family. Even Candy, the lovably ferocious German Spitz, who hardly tolerates anybody’s (other than the family members) presence in his domain, adopted a condescending attitude. He would sit at the edge of the lawn, keeping a lazy eye on the flitting sparrows, but would chase away any other bird if it would try to intrude.

Things were moving peacefully for all the co-residents, three humans, one dog, and two sparrows – but one evening this summer we noticed that the birds were not going inside their board at night, but were staying out. Initially we put the reason for this behavior to heat (temperature was crossing 48^o those days), but soon we detected another pair of larger birds coming out of the board. Now we understood; our little sparrows had been forcefully evicted from their home.

A surprising development. As expected, we took shelter in the expertise of Google – which informed us that such evictions of sparrows by larger birds are not uncommon. Our pair stayed around for a-day-or-two more, but then silently went away – maybe to set-up a new home at a safer location.

The sparrows went away and we humans accepted their departure, albeit with a heavy heart. But one of us flatly refused to accept the new co-residents – Candy. Whenever he had some time free from chasing chameleons in the hedges and stealing mangoes (yes, that was his favourite pass-time those days), he would just stand beneath the board, and would bark loudly towards it, to his heart’s content. Not that that eleven-inches high bundle of fur, with all his anger, had any effect on the intruders.

The old pair of sparrows would visit us occasionally, maybe the worms in the lawn attracted them, but they never stayed for long and never came inside the verandah. Then we got a new bird-house, with a very small entrance – the seller claimed that no bird larger than sparrow can enter – but to no avail. The sparrows took no notice.

Suddenly one evening the board fell down, and the interiors became visible. We saw that the space (behind the board) was filled with a thick and comfy layer of twigs. Even the sides were layered with grass twigs. The effort sparrow-duo must have put in to create that haven of comfort was beyond imagination, but now we understood why the pair of larger birds was so attracted to this abode.

This was a golden opportunity. The electrician was immediately called and instructed to clean the area, and to put back the board securely (so as to prevent any further avian entries). He climbed his ladder, and informed that there were four eggs inside. The instructions to evict the birds were quickly taken back, and the board was put-back exactly as before – to prevent the eggs/babies from falling down.

And not a day too soon. The next morning faint chirping sounds were heard emanating from behind the board. And soon the process of parents taking turns to carry worms to babies was getting repeated once again. We accepted the situation. Well, all of us except Candy – who continued with his charade of barking at the board.

Well, a few days later suddenly the chirping sounds ceased, and the birds also disappeared. The electrician was recalled, who once again climbed his ladder and declared that the space was empty. Maybe that species did not establish permanent nests. So, the place was cleaned of all the twigs, and the board firmly secured. No more little birds were to be born there.

But lo and behold, the next morning our original pair of sparrows were back, trying to find a path to enter behind the board. Those little birds, who were evicted from their home and forced to shift to some new location, were keeping an eye on the intruders, and were back as soon as they found the coast clear. This time the entrance was barred, but that did not seem to bother the pair. They were again hopping around in the verandah, twittering happily – and after so many days, Candy was sitting in the lawn with his eyes closed and contentment on his face.

The sparrow pair still comes to my verandah daily, knocks at the board with a hope to find an entrance – and then visits the bird-house, which is still vacant. They go inside the bird-house, then come out, then re-enter, and then again come out – as if trying to decide whether this is a ‘better accommodation’ or not. But I am sure that one day the bird-house will get its first inhabitants, and our little sparrows a new home.

Economics of a Medal

The third quarter of each leap year invariably brings us bitter-sweet feelings. Yes, these are the Olympic months – and, after swinging between hope and despair during the first half of the event, we eventually end-up with a handful of medals, and the nation erupts into exuberant celebrations. And simultaneously umpteen theories explaining the reasons for our dismal performance start doing rounds. Some of the theories which are doing round this year are – lack of a sports gene in Indians; giving excessive importance to one sport (read cricket) only; lack of sports infrastructure and training facilities in the country; and parents forcing their children to get admission in IITs and IIMs (rather than going into sports).

In spite of inspired performances by some of our sports-persons, the fact remains that we have had a dismal Olympics. The athletes who really fulfilled/surpassed the pre-Games promises can be counted on fingers. And it is something which all of us knew, deep in our hearts, in advance. Before every major sporting event, we start posing our faith in the capabilities of a few individuals. Often our faith fails to bear fruits, sometimes it does – but almost always the hopes and successes depend on individual talents and brilliance.

Different reasons being put forward for this state of affairs are ‘more or less’ true – but they identify only symptoms. The real malaise lies somewhere deeper. We have to understand that it is just not possible to pick/select some sports-persons, and then to train them to be champions. Things cannot work that way. Champions are said to be one-in-a-million, and that is literally true also. What I am trying to say is that champions emerge only when there are large number of sports-persons actively pursuing a sport. We have been selecting our representatives from a very small pool of players, and, therefore, they more often than not fail at the global scene.

But do we have any pool of talents on the heels of our known stars? The answer, we all know, is a resounding ‘no’. It is not rare to find our sports infrastructure remaining under-utilized (or being utilized by middle-aged amateurs). It is easy to crib that in our country parents want their children to go to IITs or IIMs, and not to Olympics – but why?

We cannot deny that any right-thinking parent would prefer an Olympic medal for his/her ward over an IIT/IIM degree. But let’s look at this from an economics angle – from a young person’s, or his/her parents’, point-of-view. Each year a few lac aspirants appear for IIT admissions, and more than a few thousand make it. A few more thousand make it to the second-rung engineering institutes, and more to the third rung. Same is with IIMs and other business school. Even the failures in these admission tests, have options remaining to make a respectable career.

On the other hand, only a few scores make it to Olympics once in four years; and out of these, a handful win medals and resultant accolades. But what about those who fall on the way-side. Do we know how many shuttlers, or gymnasts, or wrestlers, shed their tears, sweat, and blood, but could not make it because they were not good enough (or not lucky enough)? Do they have any fall-back option? By the time they realize that there is no more hope, is there any alternate career option left? In other words, champions are one-in-a-million, but what about the remaining nine-hundred-ninety-nine-thousands or so.

To excel in sports, we must have a large pool of players in each game – but sports is a very high risk career, at least in our country. It is a roulette of ‘all-or-nothing’ type, with survival of the fittest and luckiest only. On the other hand, conventional careers provide opportunities to aspirants of all levels and calibers.

If we look at the medal tally of Rio-2016, we will find that it is dominated by economically prosperous countries, where earning a decent livelihood is not a struggle (US at #1, Great Britain at #2, Germany at #5). Other countries on the medals table either have had a few exceptionally talented athletes, or have totalitarian regimes where careers are dictated by the authorities.

But, in a country where even earning a decent livelihood is such a struggle, how can it be expected of parents that they – after being aware of the odds – will want their wards to choose a career in sports. (That’s why I feel that the parents of our current sports-persons truly deserve all the accolade.)

Once a significant number of our countrymen start adopting sports as a career option, rest of the problems will be automatically taken care of. (Don’t we find that the facilities for ‘preparations for engineering entrance tests’ – without any government contribution – are even better than most of the engineering colleges in our country, just because there is a huge clientele.) But given the current state of affairs, it is highly unlikely to happen. Till the time our economy develops to such a level that a young man no longer needs to prepare himself for a fight for livelihood – we are doomed to end up as also-rans in such global events.

Preparing for a Dystopic Future

For more than half of world’s population, the fundamental means of earning a livelihood has not changed since pre-historic times. Yes, I am talking about that section of our population which earns its livelihood through physical labour – agriculturists and industrial labourers, who form approximately 35% and 22% of the global work-force respectively. Habits have changed, societies have changed, and technologies have changed through millennia, but this section’s reliance on ‘muscular effort’ to earn their livelihood has not changed. But, now there are indications that things are about to change in not-so-distant future, and likely for the worse.

Two factors which can potentially disrupt the whole scenario are (a) climate change, and (b) developments in robotics and artificial intelligence [AI].

Climate change has already been analyzed so much that its impact on our environment, our societies, and our very lives, is now well documented. Within the next few decades, the whole hydrologic-cycle is going to be disrupted (signs are already visible around us). Experts tell us that perennial rivers will run dry, current agrarian lands will become barren, and deserts will witness floods. Huge number of people surviving on subsistence agriculture will find their livelihoods vanishing rapidly.

In short term, there might be threat to our food security – but since the net rainfall will increase, food-grain production from new areas will, in time, compensate for the loss of traditional agricultural lands. However, it is highly improbable that the population surviving on agriculture since forever will be able to migrate to these new agrarian lands – and, most likely, will lose their livelihoods permanently.

Then who will be working on these new fields? Here the recent developments in robotics and AI will come into picture. Recent years have witnessed unprecedented developments in the fields of robotics and AI (which has, surprisingly, escaped popular/media interest). A computer programme – AlphaGo – defeated, in January this year, one of the world’s top-3 ranked player in the ancient Chinese game of Go. (Please note that Go is considered to be a much more algorithmically complex game than Chess – played on a 19×19 board, with 10³⁶⁰ possible moves, against 10¹²³ possible moves in Chess. And it was previously thought that AI will be able to overtake humans in Go not before the year 2030.) Parallel developments are taking place in the field of robotics and automation, with newer robots becoming more and more human in their mechanical dexterity. And for the jobs which nut-and-bolt robots cannot do, bio-hybrid robots are already on the scene. Thus it will not be long before robots capable of tilling the land will be available – and since the new agrarian lands will be in not-so-populated parts of the Earth, it will make more economic sense for the governments/corporates to use them instead of sponsoring large-scale settlement of humans.

But the role of robots will not be limited to the agricultural fields. They have already supplanted humans from the routine but high-precision manufacturing jobs, and will continue to do so for more-and-more complex jobs – more so because they will completely eliminate the Human Resource issues for the corporates, and will make more economic sense.

Without being overly pessimistic, I feel that we are looking at complete loss of livelihood for more than half of the world’s work-force within next two-to-three decades. And re-engagement/re-training/skill-upgradation of the work-force will not be an option, as even the job-opportunities will evaporate. The scale of global upheaval and unrest such events may cause is beyond imagination.

It will not be possible to change or delay the sequence of events. The best we can hope is to mitigate the adverse impacts on our civilization. How? I don’t know… There are no easy answers. Somehow we will have to disengage the access to basic necessities from labour in third world countries (which are going to be the worst affected), through some form of social security.

But these countries will not have financial resources for any programme of this scale. Extreme measures, at global level, will be required for the redistribution of wealth and resources. National boundaries will need to become more permeable, for wealth as well as for populations – and it will no longer be a matter of choice.

Riding the Dead Elephant

And some would look towards Rio, and say – ‘Alas! The quadrennial circus has finally started.’

The number of such naysayers is definitely and rapidly increasing. The event, which used to be a matter of a city’s and a nation’s pride, is gradually finding few takers. The Winter Games of 2022 will be hosted by Beijing, which defeated Almaty (in the dictatorship of Kazakhstan) in the voting – after seven of the nine candidate cities withdrew from the race. Cities like Oslo, Stockholm, and Quebec City were no longer willing to host those Games. And this reluctance is not limited to Winter Games only. Boston, Hamburg, and Toronto have already withdrawn their bids for the 2024 Summer Games; and the race is now between Rome, Budapest, Los Angeles, and Paris only – and there is growing public discontent, at least in Rome and Budapest, against their bids.

The writing on the wall is clear: There is a growing aversion among the populace from hosting the games – which is forcing democratic governments to stay away. And only dictatorships/autocracies, which value the so-called ‘national pride’ above the public sentiment, remain willing. As Christopher Gaffney, a prominent voice in anti-Olympic movement, puts it – “Wherever we see an educated population that has a relatively free press, relatively high levels of governmental transparency, and that has put it up for a referendum, in every one of those cases we have seen the Olympics be rejected.  Without exception.” No one wants to play host any more.

If we compare today’s situation with the unmatched financial success of 1984 Games at Los Angeles and the subsequent increase in the number of bidders, we realize that things have gone terribly wrong somewhere in between. In fact, the seeds of this deterioration were hidden in the success of 1984 itself. Pre-1984, the Games used to be relatively low-key, largely amateur, events – yet the 1976 Montreal Games were a huge financial disaster. The city took three decades to pay-off its Olympic debts; and the interest in hosting Olympics suddenly waned. Los Angeles remained the only bidder for the 1984 Games, and was, therefore, able to dictate terms to IOC. The IOC was cut out of all the TV and sponsorship deals, and the city succeeded in making a sizeable profit from the Games (maybe for the first and only time).

However, the IOC was subsequently able to use the situation of 1984 for its own advantage – by showcasing the financial success of that event to motivate other cities to bid. The number of bidders rapidly increased to eleven for 2004 Games. IOC became a monopoly right holder, which had a large group of cities raising the stakes to out-do each other. As a result, the Games gradually began to display illogical, and often vulgar, lavishness.

And then came Athens (2004), Beijing (2008) and London (2012). Athens became the perfect example of what the Games should not be. The internet is clogged with slide-shows of empty, broken, useless stadiums, built to welcome the coming Games, and then abandoned, allowed to fill with weeds, rodents and other signs of human escape. Does a European or Asian city really need a baseball stadium, or a canoeing centre? No wonder the residents of Boston, or Oslo, or Stockholm don’t want their city to be the next Athens. This, followed by the excesses of Beijing and London – which actually spent as much as four times the original budget – woke people up. And hence the resistance came.

The most irrefutable argument against the Games is on account of civic priorities. Does it make sense to spend billions of dollars of tax-payers money, and to displace the poor away from inner city areas, to construct a stadium which no one will care for after the end of Games? Aptly put forward by Chris Dempsey, one of the leaders of No Boston Olympics campaign – “… if our governor and mayor were focused on building a stadium and building a velodrome, they are going to be less focused on improving education and fixing roads.” And Gaffney adds – “We’re not going to spend tax money on hosting a three-week party.”

It is high time that IOC realizes that it is riding a dead elephant. The powers of IOC exist only if cities show up to bid – and, if the status quo continues, the bidding between Beijing and Almaty will soon be the future of Olympic bidding – among cities in countries which will be ready to spend any amount just in hope of making a political statement.

And the opposition to hosting the Games will gradually turn into opposition to Games itself. As Gaffney is already saying – "We need to have a serious rethink about the way these events drive inequality on a global scale. And the best way to do that is to stop them. Full stop."

The Day of Titans

Today morning Google reminded me that this is the 136^th birth anniversary of Munshi Premchand; and a little while later, it was Facebook’s turn to remind that this is also the 36^th death anniversary of Mohd Rafi. Two unparalleled stalwarts, who had enriched our culture like none other, born and died respectively, exactly 100 years apart. This fact makes this day really unique.

The credit for whatever fiction/non-fiction I have read in life should go to Premchand. It all started when, as a little child, I found a partially torn copy of some old magazine, which contained the story ‘Panch Parmeshwar’. The little child, that was me, knew little about Munshi Premchand or about Indian villages; but the story touched some cord somewhere, and the child had read the story umpteen times before he put the magazine down. And soon afterwards, as destiny would have it, I was given a small book, titled ‘Munshi Premchand ki Shreshtha Kahaniyan’ – and I was hooked. Pretty quickly I had finished all the volumes of Mansarovar (the novels came later) available at the local Hindi Pustakalaya, and then I moved on to other Hindi authors, and finally to English ones.

I was introduced to Rafi much later in life. Though I had always enjoyed the melody of Hindi film music, I never really cared about the singer(s) or music-director(s). Somewhere in my early teens, the song ‘Pukarata chala hun main’ from the film Mere Sanam forced me to check for the singer – and Rafi had won a life-time admirer. In those early days, my passion for Rafi was limited only by the availability of audio cassettes at the local music shops – but after the arrival of YouTube, I could find scores of previously unheard (by me at any rate) songs which are unmatched in melody, and are unknown treasure troves of Rafi’s talent.

In addition of their immense talent and having an ardent fan in me, these two personalities have much more else in common. Both were extremely down-to-earth, and – in their lifetimes – were the living embodiments of the virtue of ‘hard work and simple living’. It is especially surprising in the case of Rafi, as he – in spite of belonging to the glamour industry – always lived up to his middle-class values.

If we measure success in the terms of money, power, or awards, both of them were more-or-less failures (Rafi could win only one National Award, that too at the fag end of his career; and Premchand was mostly at loggerheads with the British government on account of his radical views). But if we measure success in terms of the impact on our society, they were unqualified successes. Both of them have established standards in their respective fields – and have inspired whole generations of practitioners as well as fans/followers in their chosen fields. Even today, in every by-lane and every corner of Hindi speaking/understanding regions, one can find fans who can put any expert to shame by their nuanced understanding of these maestros’ arts. And above all, we have had many talented and prolific writers and singers, who took up writing or singing just because they had a Premchand or a Rafi to look up to.

Hindi and Indian culture would not have existed, as it exists today, without these doyens. We will always be indebted…

Atrophied Decision Making – A Case of ‘Reverse Moral Hazard’

The other day while having discussions with some friends and colleagues, opinion emerged that, at least in present circumstances, a corrupt official is more beneficial for the ‘system’ as compared to an honest official. ‘After all, a corrupt official has some incentive, however perverse, to take decisions and to act, while an honest official has none.’

This premise throws open some questions worth pondering. The usefulness of rogue and ‘amoral’ elements for the system is a time tested fact. The use of disguised (or at times, known) pirates by the monarchies of Portugal and Spain to search new oceanic trade routes and the deployment of white-collared fraudsters to expand the British Empire in East India are but a few examples where the elements with highly questionable personal integrity have been used to further the cause of the ‘system’; and time has proved that these engagements were immensely beneficial for both the parties – the employer as well as the employed. But the more disturbing aspect of the above mentioned premise is the unwillingness of ‘honest’ officials to take decisions and to act.

Going by the broader definition of honesty (which implies trustworthiness, loyalty, fairness, and sincerity) – any person failing to perform his assigned duties to the best of his abilities is not honest. Thus, indecision and inaction by any official render him unfit of being called ‘honest’ in the true sense of the word. However, in a narrow and better-understood sense, any person who does not ‘mis’-use his official position for personal gains or gratifications is honest; and our current premise is about the rapidly eroding desire among this class of ‘honest’ officials to take the decisions as are expected from them.

I feel that this situation is a variant of the well-known and discussed principle of economic theory – Moral Hazard. In economic theory moral hazard is a situation where a party will have a tendency to take risks because the costs that could incur will not be felt by the party taking the risk. In other words, it is a tendency to be more willing to take a risk, knowing that the potential costs or burdens of taking such risk will be borne, in whole or in part, by others.

But in the scenario being discussed, the situation is reversed. In the prevailing system in government/quasi-government organizations, the cost of erring is too high for any official (if blamed/caught/detected), while there are neither any costs of indecision/inaction nor any personal/professional gains (recognition, praise, career progression, etc) for successful or beneficial decisions and actions. This gives rise to a peculiar situation, which we may call ‘Reverse Moral Hazard’ – which arises because an individual or institution desists from taking decisions/actions, and behaves extra cautiously, for the fear of disproportionately large (personal) negative consequences of those decisions/actions.

The conventional wisdom dictates that errors ought to be divided in two categories – (1) genuine mistakes, which could happen due to misunderstandings of facts or rules/procedures, incomplete knowledge, oversights, or simple bad luck; and (2) deliberate acts of omissions or commissions with mala fide intentions. It is important to distinguish the two, and to take follow-up corrective/punitive action only according to the nature of, and intention behind, the mistake. Unfortunately, the present bureaucratic system treats all errors, including genuine mistakes, as deliberate mala fide acts. In these circumstances, it is explicable that officials behave extra cautiously – which has led to the current atrophy in the decision making process.

The onus to correct the situation lies squarely with the top (policy-making) levels of bureaucracy. If the policies are ambiguous with multiple possible interpretations, any decision taken by the lower rungs of bureaucracy on the basis of those policies will be open to questions. The inevitable aspect of every official decision is that there are always some winners and some losers. If the very basis of a decision is ambiguous – questions are raised; decisions are analyzed, scrutinized, and re-interpreted; and motives are searched for. And if, god forbid, the interpretation of policy as made by the scrutinizing agency is different than the one made by the decision-making official, he (the official) is proclaimed guilty of mala fide intentions. Now it becomes a case of ‘guilty till proven innocent’ – and the burden to prove his innocence lies with the official himself.

Unfortunately, the ultimate loser in this situation is the common man, for whose benefit and welfare the ‘system’ ostensibly exists.

An Ode to Life

This Thursday, Kaun Banega Crorepati had two ‘special’ guests – Rukhsana Kausar (from Rajouri, Kashmir) and Stanzin Youtso (from Leh, Ladakh). There was something so heart-whelming about both these ladies that I was forced to think, and write, about them. Two individuals cannot be more dissimilar, as far as appearances are concerned – Rukhsana was sort of lost, shy, and not sure of the happenings around her; while Stanzin was pretty, suave and confident. But once one looks beneath the outer appearance, a strange, but basic, similarity emerges.

Rukhsana had been a news-maker two years ago, when she single-handedly killed one terrorist and wounded another after three terrorists attacked her house at Rajouri. On the other hand, Stanzin had lost all her family in the Leh cloudburst. It is their reaction to the calamity befallen on them which strikes one’s heart, and also rekindles hope about life and mankind.

What really impressed me about both these ladies was the character they have displayed after the incidents which changed their lives forever. In Rukhsana, one could clearly see the pain of a part of life lost in the shadows of terrorism, and also apprehension about future (there is an award of ` 6 lacs on her head announced by terrorists) – but there was no regret about her actions on that fateful night. That petite girl seemed lost in the glare and glamour of a television show, but the only thing about which she seemed sure was that her actions had been right, irrespective of the consequences, and she is going to re-build her life along with her family.

Stanzin presented a different picture. She, unlike Rukhsana, was awed neither by the glare of cameras nor by the presence of Mr Bachchan. She was confident, even playful, and discussed about her favourite songs and actors. But nowhere did it appear that she had forgotten the tragedy of Leh, in which she had lost her parents and siblings. Her eyes reflected the pain she had suffered (and is still suffering). But she was continuing with life – not by ignoring those painful memories, but to give all the due respect to them.

Those two have shown us that life can be difficult, but one has to take those difficulties in one’s stride and continue on. And that it does not take a hero to fight the vagaries of life; even the common man has the ability to do it. And that bad phases in life are neither to be wished away nor forgotten; one has to treat them as integral part of life, and try to build the future on the memories of such phases.

Both of them had reminded me of the true meaning of life. I salute both of you, as I salute life…