There's a brilliant article by Devdutt Pattanaik on Hinduism and children, and is a must read for anybody who's interested in religion and are likely to be discussing this with kids. I think a lot of people end up treating kids as idiots when talking about religion in general, and Hinduism in particular, and consequently I think it is not surprising that kids go away with a very poor impression.

Devdutt gives a very sane and wise take on how best to do this. You should read the whole article, but here are some excerpts to get you interested:

What are some of the things a parent can do to get their child curious about their religion and culture without actually forcing them into learn about it?

By making the rituals fun. Rituals are about doing things. Rituals are choreographed to connect with us symbolically. Making rangoli can be fun. Cooking prasad can be fun. Doing puja – bathing the image, dressing it up, feeding it, singing songs to it – can be fun. The child will notice that the fun is associated with a deep reverence. Then he will question. Often this the point where parents turn rituals into "holy cows" and lose the opportunity to help their children gain an understanding of their cultural world.

My own moment of understanding of this point came when I read in my history books that Lokmanya Tilak pushed the whole 10-day, community Ganesh celebrations concept in Maharashtra as a way for getting people together and strengthening community ties. At that point I suddenly realized the social value of religion, and hence I've always been very supportive of the less stupid rituals and festivals, inspite of the fact that I don't really believe in God.

My other pet peeve about popular Indian religious writing is covered by the next question:

When it comes to Hindu mythology, there are either over-simplified books (geared towards kids) and there are the scholarly tomes. Neither is a good fit for a curious young person who needs something in between they can read independently. What kind of books would you recommend for them ?

My books! I became a writer because I saw this gap. Often the answers are not what the parents expect. The problem is that authors are burdened by wanting to make Hinduism look nice. The measuring scale is that of other religions. As a result writing becomes apologetic and defensive. People are trying but often I find writers have a poor understanding of the subject and so are unable to appreciate the complexities and so end up with awkward prose.

Try explaining the idea of Krishna surrounded by hundreds of milkmaids doing Raas Lila to a child. Are those girls, Krishna's friends? So is it ok for a boy to have many girlfriends? Are those girls his wives? So is it polygamy? Rather than answer such blunt uncomfortable questions, some writers escape into metaphysics – using words like Paramatma and Jivatma which, unless you are a believer, sounds like gobbledygook.

This really makes me want to go and buy Devdutt's books. I've already read his "Myth = Mithya" which I think is a great book. I'm now going to go and check outwhat else he's written.

On a related note, many years ago, meetu and I were browsing in Crossword, and decided to buy the entire set of Amar Chitra Katha comics they had. At that time, we did not have children, so this was sort of an impulse buy. Years later, now that I have children, I'm really glad we did that, because I read Amar Chitra Katha stories to my children at bedtime. And we have lots of fun discussions. From stories of ancient India (Ramayana/Mahabharata), to Shivaji and the Marathas and the Mughals, to the Indian freedom struggle, they are a great source of brilliant stories that kids absolutely love.

So you can imagine how glad I was when I saw this advice from Devdutt:

Do you have any recommendations for daily reading that may help a young person to navigate with greater confidence through their life – specially when the world outside is very dissimilar to the world inside their homes ?

Step 1: Read the Amar Chitra Katha. Step 2: Discuss the stories and don't let the comic be the end. Discussion is the key. Stories are to be told, not read. Step 3: don't reach a conclusion, don't justify, don't apologize, don't defend … just try and understand why the story was told by our ancestors.

Read the whole article.

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous

Dear All
I regret to inform you of the passing away of my Youth yesterday. The end finally came at 10 am on 6th April 2010 when the diagnosis of impaired glucose tolerance (a kind of pre-diabetes state) and a bizzare lipid profile were confirmed.

Some of you knew my Youth very well, others had only recently become acquainted. Youth took charge of my life in1982, when I joined medical school in Xxxxxx, India. Youth took over from a reasonably co-operative and shy Adolescent who had done nothing remarkable during the preceding 8 years. It was a heady time, and Youth had little time for niceties. Youth started by re-writing the rule book and throwing out all existing rules and limitations. Youth introduced me to a world of late night parties, drinking excessively, driving recklessly and missing classes in the medical school. Hangovers became a very common occurrence, and heartbreak was the order of the day. Youth was also highly principled and believe in old fashioned concepts such as liberty, fraternity and equality. This led us to get involved in multiple disastrous challenges with the Authorities, who at once stage even issued arrest orders for Youth's involvement in a strike by resident medical officers at XXX Hospital, Xxxxxxxx.

Youth finally took me to UK in 1991 and I had an excellent time in London over the next 8 years. During this time, Youth became quite disciplined and we managed a few important acquisitions – in 1995, Youth spearheaded our acquisition of the Membership of the Royal College of Xxxxxxxx and 1996 saw us acquire the Xxxxxxxx fellowship.

London also saw the birth of Xxxxxxxx, my first son, and many felt that this would finally slow down Youth, but these fears failed to materialise. Youth continued to be as irresponsible and care-free as before, taking  momentous decisions with very little preparation. One example of such behaviour was returning  to India from UK in 1999 with no stable job and no plan of what to do in life.

The last ten years have been a difficult period for Youth, with the ongoing battle with Middle Age for control of my life. However Youth continued to sparkle and there were many an irresponsible and gay night when Youth was completely in charge and there was not a hint of maturity or responsibility around.

I hope we will all remember Youth as this positive, irresponsible, reckless, cheerful, optimistic character who defied all odds and was up to all challenges. His passing will be missed by me and I am sure by many of my friends.

In view of this sad incident, Middle Age has now taken charge of my life and will be responsible for all future decisions on my behalf. Some of you may be well acquainted with Middle Age while others have only seen Middle Age from a distance. Let me assure you that Middle Age is a very responsible, stable, level headed person and I am certain that I am in safe hands. I hope you will extend all support to Middle Age during this difficult transition as you have always done so in the past.

As you all know very well, we are now on the home stretch and Middle Age is only temporary arrangement for the next few years, until more permanent and final arrangements are confirmed.

sadly yours
xxxxxxxx

ps. as per centuries-old tradition, a Wake will be organized at my residence on XXth July 2010 to celebrate the passing away of Youth. You are all invited to attend and remember our dear old friend in an atmosphere of gaiety  and fun. I am sure this is the way Youth would have liked us to remember him. Please do not forget to get your own poisons – alcohol, cigarettes, or any other addictive substance that you are in love with. The Wake will end only when the last member of the group has passed out.

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous

Money doesn’t make you happy:

On a personal scale, winning the lottery doesn’t seem to produce lasting gains in well-being. People aren’t happiest during the years when they are winning the most promotions. Instead, people are happy in their 20’s, dip in middle age and then, on average, hit peak happiness just after retirement at age 65.

On the other hand, your relationships do make you happy.

If the relationship between money and well-being is complicated, the correspondence between personal relationships and happiness is not. The daily activities most associated with happiness are sex, socializing after work and having dinner with others. The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting. According to one study, joining a group that meets even just once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income. According to another, being married produces a psychic gain equivalent to more than $100,000 a year.

I guess we all know that already; but it’s interesting that there’s a dollar figure attached to a happy marriage!

And, the parting thought:

The second impression is that most of us pay attention to the wrong things. Most people vastly overestimate the extent to which more money would improve our lives. Most schools and colleges spend too much time preparing students for careers and not enough preparing them to make social decisions.

See the full article – it’s short and sweet and interesting.

In order to design a curriculum that teaches what truly matters, educators should remember a basic precept of modern developmental science: developmental precursors don’t always resemble the skill to which they are leading. For example, saying the alphabet does not particularly help children learn to read. But having extended and complex conversations during toddlerhood does.

Ok. So if we are teaching the wrong stuff, what is the right stuff? Let's think about what a student should know by the time they complete primary/middle school.

So what should children be able to do by age 12, or the time they leave elementary school? They should be able to read a chapter book, write a story and a compelling essay; know how to add, subtract, divide and multiply numbers; detect patterns in complex phenomena; use evidence to support an opinion; be part of a group of people who are not their family; and engage in an exchange of ideas in conversation. If all elementary school students mastered these abilities, they would be prepared to learn almost anything in high school and college.

This actually seems much easier than whatever we are forcing our children to excel at, doesn't it? So imagine a 3rd standard classroom based on these principles:

In this classroom, children would spend two hours each day hearing stories read aloud, reading aloud themselves, telling stories to one another and reading on their own. After all, the first step to literacy is simply being immersed, through conversation and storytelling, in a reading environment; the second is to read a lot and often. A school day where every child is given ample opportunities to read and discuss books would give teachers more time to help those students who need more instruction in order to become good readers.

As a parent, I understand that we cannot change the school system. But we can control what we do at home. Instead of spending time helping the kids with homework, or doing tables, or spellings, or improving handwriting, or whatever it is that they are currently struggling with in school, we should just have long complex conversations with them.

What I've found is that picking up a newspaper and trying to explain any news item results in a nice complex conversation. Shiv Sena has banned My Name in Khan in Maharashtra. Why? It takes about 10 minutes to explain that in terms the kids can understand. "good man", "bad man", "man who speaks a different language", "man from a different country", "India is a country. Just like that Pakistan is a different country", etc. We have been able to successfully explain such concepts to our son when he was 5-years old, and were surprised to learn that 6 months later he still remembered the gist of the argument.

Or read a novel to them. We are reading Hardy Boys novels to our kids. To the 7 year old, we simply read the text. The 5-year old also wants the same story, but is unable to follow the English straight. So we explain the story to her in Marwadi (our mother tongue). This is a daily ritual, both at night just before they go to sleep, and in the morning when they're getting ready for school. In fact they love it so much that, "I will read you only 2 pages instead of 4" is considered a major punishment in our household.

And we encourage them to write. See here and here. By write, I don't mean the physical act of writing. I mean the composing. They usually dictate the story to one of us, and we type it in for them (without corrections) and post it.

Until now, we were doing these things just instinctively, because we enjoy the activities, and the kids enjoyed them too. Now, this article seems to suggest, that what we're doing is the right thing.

Read the whole article. In addition, also check out this article about reading, language, mother tongue, and vocabulary is also interesting in this context. As are these tweets by @drbhooshan

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous

क ख ग घ ङ

च छ ज झ ञ

ट ठ ड ढ ण

त थ द ध न

प फ ब भ म

य र ल व

श ष स ह

I’ve intentionally dropped the ळ क्ष ज्ञ because anyway they are poor cousins that we don’t want to throw out on the streets.

Anyway, have you ever wondered why the alphabet is always written out as a 2-dimensional table like this? Compare that with the English alphabet which is pretty much a one-dimensional sequence of alphabets without any organizational structure. There are obviously strong reasons why the devanagari alphabet is arranged in a table like this.

To get a hint, focus on the first 5 rows above. First, say aloud the letters in any one of the horizontal rows (top 5 only). Notice any similarities? Now say aloud the letters in any vertical column (just the first 5 rows). Again, notice any similarities?

Before I give the answer, here is a full table, organized according to phonetics, taken from the Wikipedia page on Devanagari

If you read any row horizontally, you’ll notice that your lip position and tongue position remains the same, and only the method of expelling air from your voice box, nose and mouth changes. It remains exactly the same for the first 5 columns (until the nasals), and then changes slightly for the last row (the aproximant or the fricative).

If you read any column vertically, you’ll notice that the way air comes out of our mouth/nose/voicebox remains the same and only the tongue/lip position changes.

Also, I’m sure, this is the first time many of you have figured out how to correctly pronounce ङ and ञ. (Actually, my Hindi teacher in primary school taught us that ञ is the sound made by a small child crying, and ङ is an even smaller child crying. So, obviously, none of us had any clue how exactly one is supposed to pronounce those letters.) And, also, I’m sure there are many who have now figured out the difference between श and ष for the first time. (”They are ’same’,” is what I believed for many years due to the same Hindi teacher…)

Last month, I created http://ForPune.com, a website for questions and answers about Pune. It is catching on quite nicely, and has garnered 161 questions in just over a month, and most of the questions have good answers. A nice community of regulars and irregulars is building around it. I, as the founder-cum-moderator-cum-administrator, and the other early active members of the community will end up defining the character of the community – by subtly or explicitly encouraging or discouraging certain behaviors, and by making some people feel welcome and some people feel unwelcome. For example, questions that seem like thinly veiled attempts at self-promotion quickly get voted down by the community. And that's a good thing.

However, consider the following sequence of events on this question. Regular user @drbhooshan does not believe in homeopathy and left a sarcastic answer. I have also in the past made no secret of the fact that I don't believe in homeopathy. So I tweeted that I found the answer funny. But @sroy_sroy (in a DM) and @kshashi called me on it. To  quote @kshashi:

You cannot create a community by discouraging a genuine participant. http://bit.ly/8XpKAu

This is an important and valid point. Irrespective of what I and drbhooshan think of homeopathy, the question was a valid and genuine question, and there were valid and genuine answers that were useful to the original question. In that mix, drbhooshan's answer was not the correct answer, and deserved to be voted down, instead of voted up. Truly, a community is not created by discouraging a genuine participant. I repented. (Although the system does not allow me to undo my +ve vote, since a certain amount of time has already passed.)

But now, I'm wondering. As a moderator/admin I have a greater responsibility towards making people feel welcome. But for that should I be really hiding my personal opinions? On the one hand, I can argue that the community deserves to see the real me, not a carefully crafted, all-welcoming, well-rounded, PR-approved persona. On the other hand, if the real me is a misanthropic jerk, then a community will never really get formed. So where do I draw the line? How do I separate my moderator/admin duties (which should be impartial and based on published site guidelines) and my personal opinions (which should have the same weightage as any other user). Since everyone knows I'm the moderator/admin, can I really ever be 'any other user'? Any suggestions? Experiences?

(Note: This post is not intended to be a pro-homeopathy vs anti-homeopathy discussion, so please keep that aspect out of your comments, as it will unnecessarily distract from the main issue I'm trying to bring out. Thanks.)

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous

I swear I'm not a Luddite. I'm not moving to Florida to bitch about the government full time and I'm not in some remote shack banging this out on an ancient Underwood. However, I guess I count myself among the skeptics when it comes to the unmitigated goodness of progress. Or at least its distant cousin, trendiness.

The article rambles a little (intentionally, I think) but has lots of beautifully crafted paragraphs. Like this one:

This all began with these lingering questions: "Why are we conference attendees paying good money, traveling long distances, and sitting for hours in chairs narrower than our shoulders only to stare at our laptops? Why do we go to all that trouble and then spend the time Twittering and wall posting on the overwhelmed conference wifi? Or, more specifically, why are we so fascinated with our own 140 character banalities pouring down the stage curtain that we ignore, or worse, mob up on, the speakers that drew us there in the first place?"

Touché. Even I'm guilty of this one.

Then he talks about what real time addition really is:

Email was the first electronic medium to raise my clock speed, and also my first digital distraction problem. After some "ding, you have mail," I turned off the blackberry notification buzz, added rationing to my kit bag of coping strategies, and kept on concentrating. Then RSS came along and it was like memetic crystal meth. The pursuit of novelty in super-concentrated form delivered like the office coffee service. Plus, no one had to worry about all that behind-the-counter pseudoephedrine run around. "Hey, read as much as you want, no houses were blown up in Indiana to make your brain buzz."

It was a RUSH to know all this stuff, and know it soonest; but it came like a flood. That un-read counter was HARD to keep to zero and there was always one more blog to add. Read one interesting post and be stuck with them forever. In time keeping up with my RSS reader came to be like Lucy in the chocolate factory with the conveyor belt streaming by. From my vantage point today, RSS seems quaint. The good old days. I gave it up for good last year when I finally bought an iPhone and tapped Twitter straight into the vein. Yeah, I went real time.

Now I can get a hit at every stop light. Between previews at the movies. Waiting for the next course at a restaurant. While you are talking to me on a conference call (it's your fault, be interesting). When you look down at dinner to check yours. Last thing before I go to sleep. The moment I wake up. Sitting at a bar. Walking home. While opening presents on Christmas morning (don't judge me, you did it too). In between the sentences of this paragraph.

Don't  tell me you don't see yourself in those paragraphs! And did you think about why you do all this? Here's why:

I tweet into the void and listen for echoes. There it is now, that sweet sweet tweet of instant 140 char affirmation. Feels good. RT means validation. I think I'm developing a Pavlovian response to the @ symbol that borders on the sexual.

Read the whole article for a very interesting second half where he discusses real-time and the singularity.

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous

@netshrink said: "Why does every woman want me (the doctor) to tell her husband to do things she wants him to do eg. exercise, not drink, come home on time"

and @sarikaphatak replied: "@netshrink that's called 'Sonarane kaan tochane' you have much more cred than the so called 'nagging'. effectiveness needs to be studied"

I have also been in a similar situation (i.e. situation similar to @netshrink's) often, except that instead of woman and husband, in my case it is typically mom and child. It's either a school kid who's probably not studying as much as the mom wants him to, or a college student who is partying too much, or in some cases son/daughter of marriageable age who is rejecting the parents' matrimonial suggestions.

The mom ends up telling me: "He will listen if you tell him."

You know what? Most probably, I'm not going to tell him.

The reason your kid listens to me is because I don't nag him about every damn, trivial thing that you feel compelled to improve in your kid.

The reason your kid listens to me is because of the 100 things that I feel like telling him, I only tell him 3, and keep the remaining 97 to myself. Because, frankly, (and this is true of everything in life), of the 100 things that you worry about, only 3 are really worth worrying about.

No, I am not going to tell your kid to read "educational" books instead of the "trash" he reads. I think the "trash" he reads is fine. No, I'm not going to tell your kid to not play the obscene 'Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.' There's nothing we can really do about it, and might as well focus on ensuring that he grows up with the correct values, inspite of playing GTA: Vice City. No, I'm not going to convince your daughter that she should agree to marry that nice Software Engineer in New York, who makes a lot of money, but is not interested in movies, or books, or sports, or travel. The reason your daughter listens to me is because I don't give her stupid advice like this.

Indian mythology has this interesting concept. Sadhus and rishis acquired great powers through penance, but their powers reduced every time the were used. Hence they had to be a little careful before using their powers and randomly cursing people. That, I find is a very useful piece of insight – your power increases when you don't use it, and decreases when you use it. ("No, I am not going to use my blog to promote your event, because if promoted every silly event, then people will stop reading my blog. I can only promote events that are really worthwhile.")

Now, if I could only follow the above advice when parenting my own kids…. but damnit, it's too difficult to do on a 24×7 basis!

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous

In this post, I am going to give one very simple and effective technique that will significantly improve your talks or documents or presentations or blog posts.

Whenever possible, give specific examples.

That's it. That is the technique. It is very easy, and yet most people ignore it. You were probably going to ignore it too, except that I am now going to convince you with an example.

What I am said above was a little theoretical and abstract. It sounds interesting, but it hasn't really had a significant or lasting impact on your brain.

So here's an example. Consider the following paragraph from a random blog post:

We would like to profile women who we consider an inspiration to others. These are women who are on the way to living their best life. What they have to say is of great value to the forum. We will be featuring these write-ups from time-to-time. It is also a great opportunity for them to highlight what they do/ what works for them.

Compare that with this:

Did you know that Asha Joglekar, owner of 'Bhakri' restaurant spends two hours a day in just dropping and picking up her kids from school? How does she do that and manage a restaurant? Reema Shourie is an accomplished painter and has held three exhibitions of her work inspite of having a full-time job in a software company, and having two kids. We would like to profile such women who are an inspiration to us. These are women who are on the way to living their best life. What they have to say is of great value to the forum.

The second one definitely has more impact, because when the reader is reading the second part of the paragraph ('women who are an inspiration' etc) she has specific examples in mind that makes the rest of the paragraph easy to relate to, remember, and understand at a deeper level.

Don't take my word for it; there's scientific research backing up this claim

This is not just my gut feeling. There is psychological research showing that people understand "thematic" and "concrete" stuff better and faster than abstract things. This was first proved in a famous experiment called 'Wason's Selection Task'. Instead of describing the experiment, I'm going to run it on you.

Here is a puzzle for you. I'm going to show you 4 cards. Each card has a number on one side, and a color on the other side. The rule for the cards is this, "If one side of the card has an even number, then the opposite side of the card MUST be RED." Your job is to figure out whether any of these cards violate the rule or not. I keep the 4 cards on the table in front of you. You can see one side of each card, and what you see is: '3', '8', 'BROWN' and 'RED'. Your job is to determine whether there is any violation of the rule or not by turning over the minimum number of cards. So, to be sure, how many cards do you need to turn over, and which?

Time yourself. How long did it take you to solve this?

And you probably got it wrong. 73% of the people do. The correct answer is: you need to turn over 2 cards. The one with '8' on it, and the one with 'BROWN' on it. If you got anything else, you're mistaken. 8 has to be turned over to check that it's back is RED. BROWN has to be turned over to ensure that it's back is not an even number. '3' and 'RED' do NOT need to be checked.

Now here's a different puzzle:

You are a policeman in a bar. You have to ensure that all the drinking happening there is legal. The rule is, "If a person is drinking beer, then he must be above 21 years of age." You can see 4 people at a table drinking. The first person is drinking a coke, but you can't guess his age. The second person is drinking a beer, and you can't guess his age. The third person is obviously a teenager (i.e. he's definitely under 21), but you're not sure what he's drinking. The fourth person is an old man, easily above 50, and you can't tell his age. Now, to be sure that the rule is not being violated, whom all do you need to check. (Here check is defined as asking for an age proof, and checking what drink he's drinking.)

Again, time yourself.

Within a few seconds you must have gotten the right answer: you need to check the age of person #2, who's drinking the beer, and you need to check whether person #3, the teenager,  is drinking beer or not.

Here is the amazing part: both puzzles are identical! Yet most people get the first one wrong and the second one correct. And, it takes them much less time to do the second one.

Now do you understand why your talks need examples?

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous

participants were told that the questions were developed either by a research institute located in California, "around 2,000 miles away" (distant condition), or in Indiana, "2 miles away," (near condition).  In a third, control group no information regarding location was mentioned. As expected, participants in the distant condition solved more problems than participants in the proximal condition and in the control condition. Because the problems seemed farther away, they were easier to solve.

This pair of studies suggests that even minimal cues of psychological distance can make us more creative. Although the geographical origin of the various tasks was completely irrelevant – it shouldn’t have mattered where the questions came from – simply telling subjects that they came from somewhere far away led to more creative thoughts.

These results build on previous studies which demonstrated that distancing in time – projecting an event into the remote future – and assuming an event to be less likely (that is, distancing on the probability dimension) can also enhance creativity.

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous