Lewis Caroll

I had no idea that Lewis Caroll was a mathematician at Oxford ! So impressive.

I am taking a course in Analysis at Wash U and we discussed a deep concept in mathematical logic called Modus ponens in class.

More than a hundred years ago, Lewis Caroll wrote a short story around familiar characters to explain this idea. Watch out for some lame puns of that era ! LOL .

India and Darwin's theory

Anybody who is exasperated with the social behavior of Indians, especially those living abroad, must get one fact right. First.

That we were born in an overpopulated country with severe resource constraints and a mostly dysfunctional government.

Yes, we tend to be indisciplined, impolite and discourteous. Yes, we never seem to follow queues. And Yes, we tend to find "workarounds" (has jugaad already entered English dictionaries?) even for things that work. And, at every possible opportunity at that.

But how did we get this way ?

Is it in our 'blood' ? Can't we never learn to be 'civil' ?

Tom Wilkinson in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (an excellent movie, if I may add) makes a brilliant point. In India, life is a privilege, not a right.

In my country, we don't 'assume away' the basic necessities of life. We struggle to get them. Access to water, food, hygiene and electricity is NOT assumed. Not "obvious".We fight to get them. If you never lived in India, you might never understand what that means.

ONLY the top 1% of India's population can take these for granted, everywhere they go. Here's a scenario : The average Indian takes an 8 hour bus ride from point A to point B. After 4 hours, the driver stops the bus in order that passengers 'relieve' themselves. Now, how do they do that ? Use public toilets ? You must be joking! We know all too well that (unmanned) public toilets are unspeakably dirty and infectious, so what do we do ? We look for trees ! I claim that ANY sane person, from any part of the world, would behave exactly in the same way - if put in this situation.

You see - it is not in our 'blood'.
Again - Why don't we Indians learn to follow queues ? If you queue up in India for public transport, you will never be able to board an overcrowded bus or a train. Lets try the following social experiment in your favorite developed country - Cancel all bus routes except ONE , and keep the frequency at crazy low levels during peak time. Make sure there are only 20 seats in the bus for a passenger demand of 200. Allow the passengers to complain about this, but simply ignore them. Finally, report that the sun rises in the west if you still see people queuing up!

You see. In India, we need to fight to survive. Struggle to exist. We push, we shove and we make a place for ourselves. It is the only way we have learnt to live.

So, the next time you see us jumping queues or forgetting to open the door for you, admonish us. Counsel us and correct us. But PLEASE, understand us too.

From the frying pan to.....

This is a "personal dairy" kind of post. I really intended to write it for....me. And you'll see why.

Recently, I have been fighting to keep my head from drowning in the madness of business school PhD admissions. With insanely low odds of getting admissions into any school, there is understandably a lot of angst and hair-pulling from almost every applicant.

But I am 30. I should know better (you would think!).

In some sense, I seem to be going back a decade ago, when I was obsessing about competitive exams and college admissions. Back then, my main reason for trying hard to get into an IIT/NIT/IIM (or whatever letter jumble you can think of), was that I wanted "to prove" something. To whom ? I have no clue. In hindsight, I think it was to myself.

So, that's the thing - I don't seem to have fully exited out of this "proving" business and get on with doing what I really want to do. For example, I still seem to worry whether I will get into the highest "ranked" college that I applied to. For what joy ?

Lets see :
1) "Prestige" : I rest my case with what Paul Graham has to say about prestige

2) "Exposure" : What is "exposure" really ? It can't be about access to the best "resources" because that's the same at every school. And, if you are in a particular geography, say the US, you already are 'in the loop' in terms of conferences, whether they be at Harvard or Acme University. If it is about working with the "smartest brains", yes - I understand there is a point here. But, honestly, the 'gap' that already exists between a PhD rookie and any Professor is so great that you would NEVER run into a situation where the student "knows so much" that there is nothing he can learn from the older people around him!  And lets not discount the fact that research is largely a process of independent reflection and thought.  So, the "exposure" argument is marginal, at best.

3) "Monetary benefits" : eeeek. I didn't quit my high-paying job to worry about how much I would have earned in Harvard versus Acme! When the base salaries themselves are not too high (even if,  Harvard salaries are 50% higher than Acme's), it seems kind of sad to play this low-stakes game!

So, if you think about it a little, the whole "ranking" fuss in academia is kind of funny. To quote Paul again,
"...Most good mathematicians would work on math even if there were no jobs as math professors, whereas in the departments at the other end of the spectrum, the availability of..jobs is the driver.."

So, that's the thing. I really want to get on with my work without joining the Race of the Fastest Rodents. Been there, done that. I'll take a rain cheque on that one.

But I would be too naive to suppose that I can be in academia and not play the publishing game. Some things are true of every profession, and academics is a job (that I love), after all.
So, let me rephrase my statement to :
"I will join the Race, only as a Minimally Interfering Rodent", (where I will define my own minimum levels) !

An ABC Letter

My dearest Nephew,

It is winter of year 2012 (pronounced Two Thousand and Twelve for appropriate effect) and we are all very eagerly waiting for spring! Around the same time when beautiful flowers bloom in oak trees, your mother will a) offload a six-pound weight, b) heave a sigh of relief and….…c) beam. The rest of us will beam too and break into a waltz but you, my dear, will finally get some fresh air! I know, I know – all those vain attempts at kicking your way out – Never mind, you tried....

You know, the funny thing about coming into The World is that nobody, not one of us, can remember how we got here. All of us, including you, have to simply take our parents word for it. For instance, in exactly three years time, your Mama and Mami are going to convince you that it was the local stork that brought you to your parents’ doorstep.  And you will have to decide whether to take their word for it.  

But notice something funny about The World? You have to believe somebody first and understand things later.  It’s what we grown-ups call “trust”.  Let us call this Word A.

So, it was a beautiful afternoon in Spain and I thought it would be fun to write a letter to you (this is the first time I am writing to someone who is not born yet, hmmm…you should try this too!) Anyway, since you were still ‘in the dark’ (and that’s your first example of a pun…yes, you are welcome!) I thought I will tell you a bit about The World.

For instance, a lot of grown-ups have obsessed about how it looks like, from the outside. The first few guys said it was flat and then came a clever guy who said it was round (But he really got yelled at, for saying so). Never mind, you will learn about such things in that place we call “school”. But what they won’t tell you in school is that there was an even smarter guy who went back to saying it was flat and made a lot of money! See, it literally pays to think differently. So, remember, in your art classes, if you want to paint the sea yellow, the sun blue and the sky purple, then go ahead and do it! Sometimes we grown-ups are too afraid to color ourselves…differently. And there’s your Word B – “creativity”.

Three decades ago, I was in your place. I too was Being Born….Seems like a long time, doesn’t it ? But here’s the thing - time moves so quickly, you’ll hardly notice it. You will be so busy growing up that you won’t see time speeding by you. Don’t worry, growing up is not easy for anyone. You’ll have lots of questions about lots of things and you’ll face your share of challenges. I’ll let you in on a secret: It is really very simple. The only thing to remember while growing-up is this:-  When in doubt, always speak the truth. Yes, it is that simple. Your word C is “integrity”.

Ok, let me stop with that thought. I am so looking forward to seeing you!  Here’s wishing you a happy first breath!

Lots of Love,

An Excited Mama-to-be

One Woman, One Life.

Didn’t it start so strange? Us, two random people,

Brought together by technological chance

We started awkward, a balance delicate - feelings gossamer

Orthogonal thoughts ,antithetic backgrounds, shared values

Our story began, so commonly uncommon  

An emotional roller-coaster -

My reservation against your exuberance

My mistrusts , fears against your strength and confidence

Your unflinching devotion and your reasonable counsel

That naughty playful exterior covering solid pragmatic interior

Eventually leading me to see the world ,

With eyes - free of prejudice

And now, I slowly close them, to think of one thing to say

With a throaty lump and racing heartbeat,

“I want to be a better man for you”.

Chocolate Math

(Dusting the ol' blog after a long time..)

As I begin a career in academics, I have been thinking of what I call, the academic SPECTRUM of research. At the one end there is the empirical stuff which is very data driven and essentially an exercise in statistics. At the other end is the theory, which is driven by abstract mathematics.

What is amazing is how mathematics has really become the ONLY language of research - there is absolutely no other recognized way to communicate ideas in academics. Now, whether this is a good thing , especially in the social sciences, is a point of debate. (which, sadly, nobody wants to get into).

An uncharitable view of economics is that it is an elaborate exercise in "mathematical curve fitting" . By that, I mean - you pick up some nice smooth curves (log x, e to the x etc) from the mathematicians and then write stories to link them up with real-world phenomenon. Now, obviously - the properties of the above curves have been extensively researched by the math guys, so over-enthusiastic economists try to ascribe real world meanings to every one of properties and call them by grand names "Law of ..." this and that.. How else would you make a discipline out of it ! (The math guys will be like, whoa! dude - SLOW DOWN)

Anyway, the justification is that these are on a  "best efforts" basis. I buy that notion. After all, mathematics helps keep your thinking straight (and these are Krugman's words). But really, the most important thing that people seem to forget is this :

Math can only take you so far. We are nowhere close to the level of sophistication required to handle the real-world. Think of it as playing with binary digits while real world phenomenon requires the notion of complex coordinates.

More practically, what does this mean to all the academics doing research in economics & finance ?

Here's an analogy :
Imagine math as pure chocolate coming from the cocoa tree. There is a long line of economists lined up in front of the tree. At the very end of the line, far away from the tree, are the "white chocolate" economists - who use a little bit of math (chocolate) but a LOT of milk, sweeteners etc - in the work they do. They are far away from the "pureness" of the tree and closer to the town (real world) where they sell their economic ideas (white chocolate). At the very beginning of the line, are the "dark chocolate" economists, who use a LOT of math and very little of anything else. They don't really have much business with the town, most 'consumers' can't digest a lot of this variety. Right ON the tree are the mathematicians themselves ! Here, the chocolate cocoa is BITTER - Imagine, these guys must be really hard-core to like that stuff.

So, a potential researcher should decide which section of the line he wants to belong to. For myself, I can't be ON the tree ! Pure cocoa is too bitter for me. I'd like my feet grounded, though I prefer living in the forest rather than a being a man-about-town ;)  So, here's to the dark chocolate days !!

The Gilded Cage

The fledglings soared - higher, faster, stronger
They lived to 'Succeed', never to wander

But what comprises Success - the query hardly grows old
"Possession of food, and land and gold "

And so the brilliant birds, of glow and feather
Were taught to yearn - for promised lands of Enclosure

The Confined Land - it offered food, land and gold
But - in beautiful cages, of gilded bars manifold

Readily accepting, the birds began Life - in grand confines anon
The promise of regular food, turning whispers down

But Life got funny - it twisted and turned
Forcing birds to think - is it true , that which we learned :-

Is Success about land or is it about gold ?
Or is it Internal - a Fulfillment, to look back from old ?

And so began the longing - to break free and fly
To be just a Bird, sans gilded cage and rye

A chance Moment - door opens, but time is fickle
Two choices - blue, wild sky - closed, safe receptacle :
Crossroads - Zero Hour. Perched with wings spread
Awaits many a Bird.