Tuesday, July 24, 2018

POSITIVE NEWS IS NO MORE CREDIBLE?



Coincidence?

Yesterday someone posted something very negative in one of my WhatsApp group. I reacted: Have you verified this? He replied, "I have not learnt how to verify such things."

This morning I forwarded a very edifying anecdote from the life of the former president of India, Abdul Kalam - something that I had seen earlier in several places. Someone replied, "I don't believe such things. It's all made up stories."

Before lunch today I took a break from work and read an article in the Italian newspaper (I am posted in Rome) - La Republica. Title of the story : "Miracle in the train". It's about a young man in a wheel chair abused in a train, an old lady scolding the abuser, the abuser apologizing and, finally, making friends with the young man. The writer says he posted his story on FB and a lot of his readers accused him of making up the story.

A sad world, indeed, where everyone jumps to believe every negative story about everyone and it has become almost impossible to believe a positive story !!!

Thursday, February 16, 2017

JUST A GLANCE IS NEEDED TO DIAGNOSE CANCER

Yesterday I described the strategy IBM followed to teach their computer to translate texts from one language to another. The technique basically was to tell the computer what a good translation looks like. They taught it also to diagnose cancer – well, at least to distinguish a malignant tumour from a non-malignant one.

How did they do it?

They fed photos of tumours into the computer – 3000 of them. Interestingly, 2800 of the photos were of tumours that were not malignant and 200 of malignant ones, i.e., cancerous ones. The computer has learned what a “not-dangerous” tumour looks like and what a dangerous one looks like.

The interesting fact is the difference in the number of the photos of the bad and the good they used – 2800 good and 200 bad. It looks to me like these scientists are disciples of Don Bosco, whose outlook was always totally positive. He believed in what he called the “Preventive System” : Fill the minds of students with what is good and make this good so much fun that they will not even think of the bad. Fill the days of children so full of fun derived from good activities that they do not even feel tempted to the bad.

That's the best trick of good education whether at school or in the family!

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

TEACHING THE COMPUTER TO TRANSLATE

I am reading the latest book of Thomas Friedman, released just two weeks ago – THANK YOU FOR BEING LATE. Yesterday I read something about artificial intelligence – a computer that learns from its mistakes as a human does, improving itself with each mistake it makes.

How did IBM teach computers to do translation? They started with translation from English to Spanish. A large group of linguists analyzed the grammar of both languages and the technicians wrote a translation program. It didn’t work.

They got rid of all the linguists. They went the way of statistics. They wrote a sentence and did a good translation of it and a bad one. They fed both into the computer telling it which was the good translation and which the bad translation. They did the same with millions of other sentences, each time giving the computer a good translation and a bad translation.

We now type a sentence into the computer. It makes a literal translation of the sentence and compares it to the millions of good and bad expressions it has stored up in its memory. It rejects what looks similar to the bad expressions. It changes the translated sentence to look more like the good expressions, improving it at each step. All this happens in a fraction of a second and we have the final translation by the time we finish typing our sentence in.
I know this is a very simplified way of explaining this process of millions of operations per second. But, hopefully, it conveys the main idea.

We spent a lot of time, money and energy teaching our children the rules for behavior at work, in school, on the road, in business. What is more important than teaching rules is to provide them with as many models of good behavior as possible – our own good behavior and that of their peers. The importance of our own good conduct and of helping them to get into right youth groups!

Monday, October 3, 2016

CORRUPTION DISGUSTS

WHO WOULDN’T BE DISGUSTED

Backtrack a little. This is my first trip abroad. My programme is in Mali and Ivory Coast. No one even knows where Mali is. The travel agent, in fact, almost booked a ticket for me to Male! No, Mali cannot be the island in the Indian Ocean. It must be a country in Africa near Ivory Coast! Finally, we discover it. Bamako is the capital. There is no flight to Bamako from anywhere in India. We take a ticket through Air India to Lagos in Nigeria and they will arrange for an onward flight to Bamako by another company. Fine.

No matter where we search and whom we ask (there was no internet or Wikipedia those days!), we cannot locate an embassy of Mali or Ivory Coast in Delhi. I find out that the French Embassy issues visas for Ivory Coast, but not for Mali. I inform the organizers that I am travelling without a visa for Mali. They say they will take care of everything when I land in Bamako.

Going back to where we left off yesterday, we are on our way back home from the airport because the fight is cancelled. An idea comes to me. I tell my Gujarati friend, “Sir, I have yet another problem. I have no visa for Mali because we could not find an embassy of Mali in Delhi. But Nigeria is, after all, in Africa, not far from Mali. It is possible that Mali has an embassy here. Could we try today for a visa here? In any case we don’t have anything to do all of today.”

He has never heard of an embassy of Mali in Lagos. We ride around the town asking a lot of people. No one has the information. Then he gets an idea. He says, “I have a good friend here in town, who is a travel agent. I am sure he would know. Let us ask him. He will help – after all, he is my friend.”

We reach the travel agent. Unfortunately, his “friend” has no idea whatever whether Mali has an embassy in Lagos and even says he has no idea where we might be able to find this information. We are about to turn back. But then, my friend, the Gujarati gentleman, dips into his pocket and pulls out a bank note and hands it over to his friend, the travel agent. Immediately he pulls out a directory, searches through it and tells us, “Sorry, Mali has no embassy in Lagos.”

I immediately understand what has happened. The travel agent has a directory with the addresses of all the embassies in Lagos. But, he will not even make an effort to share a piece of this information with “his friend” without being paid for it! Well, it is not exactly a bribe, but …..

But, why am I not surprised? Flashback once again!

Anyone travelling to Africa and South America is obliged to get vaccinated against yellow fever. In those days (1985) only three hospitals in India had the technology to store this vaccine. The vaccination becomes fully effective only ten days after getting the injection. Hence you have to be vaccinated at least ten days before you take your flight.

I was in posted at Imphal. I was the head of a school. I had to reduce my absence from school to the minimum possible. In any case, I was ignorant of this ten-day rule. Three or four days after my vaccination I am on my way to Lagos.

I land. I come to the first counter. “Yellow fever vaccination, please!” I hand it over. “OK.  You have a problem. It is not yet ten days since you were vaccinated. I am afraid I have to put you on the return flight to Bombay.”

“I see. Is this rule so strict? Could you not make an exception?”

“Sure, I can. Give me a hundred dollars!”

“Sorry. I can’t do that. You probably know that our government allows us to buy only 200 dollars of foreign currency – and that, too, in travelers’ cheques!”

A long negotiation followed – we bargained like a good Indian and a good Nigerian would do in the fish market. Finally, I gave him 10 dollars in cash. He let me go. Then I thought I would have some fun at his expense; and, at the same time, give vent to some of my anger and disgust.

“Sir,” I said, “would you kindly give me a receipt?”

“My dear man, how can I give you a receipt for this? Why do you need a receipt?”

“Sir, when I go into the next room, what if someone else asks me for the vaccination again?”

“No, no! No one will ask you once you are out from here.”

“But I would feel more secure with something to prove that I have paid you.”

“My dear man, are you stupid? Here. Listen. You reached here a few days too early. I am supposed to send you back to Bombay. To avoid that you are paying me a bribe – A BRIBE. OK? You are giving me a bribe. How do you expect me to give you a receipt for a bribe?”

“Oh, I see. Thank you so much for making me understand. You have asked me for a bribe and I have given you a bribe and you are allowing me something that you are not supposed to. I see. I see now.”

“Exactly. Now you get it. Have a nice stay in Nigeria!”

When my Gujarati friend’s friend would help him only after being paid, I was not in the least bit surprised! It was a part and parcel of the flesh and blood, bones and skin of the culture of the country. If you noticed, I have changed back to the past tense. I do not want to insult the Nigerians of today. Hopefully, they are not corrupt any longer. God bless them! I have several good Nigerian friends today.

Not yet the end of the story.

Finally, after three days of staying with my friend, with a daily check on whether there was a flight that day or not, we are told to come to the airport. After the experience of being sent back three days ago, I did not insist with my friend that he has done enough for me; he may drop me and go back home! He stays with me, and I am grateful. It turns out, it is a good thing he did !

There is first a check of the luggage. My friend dips his hand into his pocket, pulls out a note and hands it over.

We move on to the check in counter. Two hands meet. A note changes hands – from my friend to the airlines staff. I get my boarding card. They give us also a yellow-coloured form – foreign currency declaration.

We fill it in and move to the currency control counter. “Welcome, Sir!”

“Good morning, Sir.” I hand over the yellow form.

“OK. Where is the red form?”

“The red form?”

“Yup. The red form you filled in when you arrived.”

“No one gave me a red form when I arrived or told me that I had to make a currency declaration. I have only 200 dollars in traveler’s cheques and 10 dollars in cash.”

“Ah, unfortunately you made a mistake there …. You ought to have filled in the red form … ” My friend pulls out another note from his pocket and hands it over. We move on.

If I am not mistaken, my friend pays up at another two or three counters that day. Something or other is needed at each check and the only way to pass through is to pay up.

Security checks those days were not like the ones today, and my friend comes with me right through every step of the multi-stage process of getting into a plane, more stages than I have ever since seen anywhere else in the world. He handed over notes at every single stage. He could not be with me only for the very last check of the hand luggage. There I am finally alone.

At every new counter and every new bribe my blood pressure has been rising. By this final check my BP could cause a stroke to an elephant; I am stubborn; I am disgusted to the core. And the officer here is a lady! She has taken my passport and is going through it.

“So … you are an Indian. You are a priest? Catholic priest?” Turning the pages of the passport; each word dragged out slowly, in a sort of drawl. Maybe she is trying to tell me that my being a Catholic priest makes no difference to her.

“Yes, Ma’am. I am a Catholic Priest.”

“Good. So … what have you got to declare?” Keeps turning the pages of the passport.

“I have nothing to declare, Ma’am.”

“Open you bag, please.” I do. She picks up my breviary. “What is this?”

“That is my prayer book. My Bible.”

“I see. So … you are an Indian. So … you are a Catholic Priest. So … you have nothing to declare.” She is picking through the books, clothes and trinkets from my handbag. She picks up an item, raises it into the air and looks at it hard and long. She puts it back. She picks up the next item.  I am angry; I am disgusted. But, I am stubborn. I am determined that I will NOT pay anything, to anyone, any more.

“That’s right, Ma’am. I am an Indian. I am Catholic Priest. I have nothing to declare.”

My stubbornness finally won. We lost time. It was embarrassing to watch all my personal belongings being displayed before everyone. But I did have nothing she could object to in any way. She had to let me through.

The contrast between the kindness of that Gujarati Brahmin gentleman to a total stranger – a Catholic Priest whom he had never met in his life – and the height, depth and extent of corruption in that country … that contrast could not be greater. My own country is corrupt – corrupt even today, but I think corruption of THIS sort is rare. I make no judgement on Nigeria, not even of those days, and certainly not of today. I do hope it is better now.


By the way, I did ask my Gujarati friend, one of those three days I spent with him, why he was being so kind to me, and he did explain. But I see that I have written far longer than I originally intended to. So, THAT will have to be another story, another day!

Sunday, October 2, 2016

GUJARATI BRAHMIN TEACHES ME TO BE KIND

A GUJARATI BRAHMIN TEACHES ME TO BE KIND

Some time ago I wrote about helping a college girl at Kolkata airport to pay for her luggage, without being asked, and without even knowing who she was. It did not occur to me then how I might have learned to do this. Well, maybe I learned it from a Gujarati Brahmin in Lagos, Nigeria, 31 years ago!

The first time I went abroad was in 1985 – to Bamako in Mali (West Africa). We had no direct flights from India to Bamako. Air India had no flights at all to Bamako. It flew to Nigeria, but not every day. I bought a ticket through Air India from Bombay to Lagos. I was told that I would have to stay two days in Lagos to fly with another company to Bamako; but Air India would provide me free food and accommodation only for 24 hours!

I landed in Lagos and I waited in queue before the Air India counter to be taken to the hotel. An elderly gentleman approached me. The conversation was rather long, but here is the summary of it.

He: “Sir, are you going to Bombay? I have this envelope of documents. Please check; see, they are all only papers – land documents. I trust you. I would like you to take these with you. My family will come to the airport and take it from you. It is really urgent. They need them tomorrow.”

Me : “I am sorry, Sir. I am not going to Bombay. I just arrived from there. But … you trusted me. You wanted me to help you. I can’t help you. But … can You help me?”

He: “Sure. What’s the problem?

Me: “Sir, my flight to Bamako is only the day after tomorrow. Air India will provide me accommodation only for one day. Tomorrow onwards I have to pay for my stay. You know that our government allows us to buy only 200 dollars in all. My programme has to take me from Mali to Ivory Coast to France and Italy. I am just at the start of my journey and all I have is 200 dollars. Could you provide me accommodation?”

He: “Sure. Air India will give you five-star food and lodging for today. Enjoy it. Tomorrow, at 9.00 am come down to the lobby and I will pick you up.”

AND OFF HE WENT !!! He gave me no phone number, no name, no address. I said to myself, “The cunning crook! I will never see his face again!”

Believe it or not, the next morning at 9.00 he was at the hotel. He took me to his palatial home. As it turned out, I stayed not one day with him but THREE, due an air-crash. He did not just give me food and lodging; he went to extreme lengths to look after me till, three days later, I was safely on the flight to Bamako.

I need to write at least two more pages to cover the entire story for you to understand the extreme kindness and generosity of this man. I will write the story in full if this short piece seems to interest you!

But, here is the key to the title I put above : This gentleman was a Brahmin from Gujarat; he knew I was a Catholic Priest, a Salesian of Don Bosco; he made sure that I never got his name, address or telephone number. He made sure that I would NOT be able to thank him in any way for the help he gave me. Was THAT the unconscious reason for the automatic response from me to the college girl who had no money to pay for her luggage from Kolkata to Bangalore?

Monday, August 24, 2015

LIVE  NATURAL  LIVE  HEALTHY

The Indian market for organic food is today FOUR times larger than it was just THREE years ago. Good news, indeed. We are growing more conscious of our health, and the harm that pesticides and fertilisers cause. It is today a 300-crore business. Not surprisingly, we export even more – 700 crore.

Organic products do not always look uniform in shape and colour, unlike the perfect plastic-like products that are so very attractive but have been grown in very artificial conditions. Organic food does cost more. But, we will probably save in medicines the extra we spend on healthy food. It tastes better, too. 

Live natural. Live long. Live healthy. And, if you happen to be a farmer or have space for a little kitchen garden, you earn or save some good money, too. Eat healthy. Live happy.

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Don Bosco has THREE institutions in Nepal. We could extend help through them to those who have suffered in their neighbourhood (and even TO them, if needed - information of any loss to them is still awaited!). You may transfer your contributions to BOSCONET. We PROMISE not to make disaster relief into a BIG BUSIINESS ! BOSCONET, Acc. No. 32070038412, State Bank of India, Mahavir Enclave, New Delhi, IFS Code: SBIN0011564