Perception

The effect of air conditioner started waning as the hour hand of my wristwatch moved towards ‘12’. Though it was winter season, in Hyderabad it was as good as summer.  I was sitting in the ICU waiting hall of one of the famous hospitals in Hyderabad. Most of the people around were sitting with gloomy faces, including myself, uttering silent prayers for the speedy recovery of their close ones, battling with the life in the ICU. Rest others were dozing off. My father-in-law was admitted to the hospital and moved to the ICU soon. This was the fourth time he was admitted in the past 6 months. In the next row my mother-in-law was seated surrounded by my wife, daughter-in-law and close relatives trying to give her some emotional support and she was really in need of it (especially with the year long history of health issues of my father-in-law).

There was an unusual silence around except for the occasional murmur. I was surrounded with people from diverse backgrounds (diverse in a true sense – economic, religion, cast, language, culture/way of living). Everybody had finished the breakfast long back and they were on the verge of emptying their stock of topics to talk with the neighboring group.

‘Attendant of patient Mallaya’, the security person shouted entering the waiting hall. People around couldn’t hear the name although she had shouted at her maximum pitch. There was a reason for it. Her voice was familiar to all. But her voice made everyone tensed. . Such a call usually meant three things. (1)Patient’s condition has worsened and no hopes of surviving (2) Doctor just wants to give routine update about patient’s condition and (3) Some hospital formality about getting the signature of attendant, authorizing certain pre-discussed medication.

Everybody’s mind, however, assumed the first reason whenever such a call was made.

The lady repeated the call for the second time. The attendant of that patient jumped instantly out of his chair and followed her. Everybody else heaved a sigh of relief.

This interruption helped people around to resume the conversation. A small boy sleeping in the lap of his grandmother woke up and gazed around. He had a hectic spell of running around, shouting and playing with the other kids in the morning. A short nap helped him to double his energy for another round of hectic running around. Grandma tried to contain him in the lap. She told him a short story of ‘farishta’ and ‘shaitan’. She then asked him to recite ‘Allah’. The Boy enthusiastically started reciting the word. People around threw adorable looks at him. They were looking forward to his mischievous activities again. It helped them to forget their sorrow, anxiety.

The Boy stopped in between and asked his grandma, ‘yeh Allah-Allah kyon bolna ?’

‘Allah bolnese hamara darr nikal jaata hai’, she replied.

‘Lekin darr kis chis se? Shaitan se?’

‘Han ‘

‘Phir Allah bolnese shaitan kya karta? Uno bhag jaata?’ Boy was asking the question and answering himself.

People around were listening to this conversation with a smile.

After some time boy said, ‘Dadima, hum yahan kuch aur din rukate hai. Mere naye dost ho gaye’

Grandma smiled and hugged him and then looked away hiding her tears. One elderly person from the opposite row called the boy to divert his attention. A lady sitting adjacent to the old lady consoled her.

‘Don’t worry; he will get out of it soon’

‘Ya, I am praying to Allah for the same,’ old lady replied wiping her tears.

‘Your daughter did not come today?’

‘She wanted to , but her mother-in-law did not allow’

‘Why, this is the time you need her support’

‘Don’t know why she was not allowed. My daughter did not argue with her; no point in it’

…the discussion thereafter went about how her daughter’s mother-in-law has been unfair all along.

I shared my sympathy with the old lady’s daughter.

I decided to take a short walk downstairs to loosen the legs. When I came back to the waiting room my seat was occupied by some one. I took a vacant seat on the other side of the hall. There was a passionate discussion going on. There was no option for me but to hear it.

Adjacent to me was an elderly lady, who was the attendant for her sister battling for life in the ICU.

‘I did not see your nephew today,’ lady from adjacent group asked her.

‘I asked him to sleep at home today. He has been in hospital 24X7 for the past 10 days’

‘But what about his wife?’

‘She doesn’t come here’

‘That is unfortunate. In such times all the differences should be kept aside’

‘Ya, what I can say! My sister is unfortunate, not to get a good daughter-in-law’

This time my sympathy went to the elderly lady and her sister struggling inside the ICU. In both the cases the relationship between two persons was in a bad shape.

In general, the relationship of a person with his relatives, friends vary a lot. It also fluctuates with time. We can see a definite pattern if we examine nature of our relationship. Our relations on maternal side, typically, are bit more cordial compared with that on father’s side. The relationship between a girl and her in-laws undergoes lot more fluctuations.  It is difficult to pin-point the reason behind it, particularly in later case.

For example, in the above two cases my sympathy was in the opposite direction, I mean, once with the girl and then with mother-in-law (although from different families).  Probably I was getting biased with the conversation. What if, in each case, I put myself in other side’s shoe and try to gauge the emotions and the arguments. I am sure the views, incidents, reasons and interpretations on both sides will be exactly opposite.

But I could not figure out why the behavior of respective person went to extreme in above two cases. I tried to think further.

There can be severe enmity (am I using strong word in such relations? never mind lets go ahead with it) between two persons due to following possibilities. Let there be person ‘A’ and person ’B’ (I would like to avoid daughter-in-law, mother-in-law so that I don’t offend any particular role)

(1)    Both person ‘A’ and ‘B’ started on a wrong note from the beginning of the relationship

(2)    ‘A’ started with open mind and ‘B’ was unfair from the beginning

(3)    Reverse of case (2)

(4)    Both ‘A’ and ‘B’ had good intentions at the beginning of the relationship. But, at some point in time the relations went sore most probably triggered by some kind of ‘misunderstanding’.

I strongly believe that the fourth option is the cause in vast majority cases. The ‘misunderstood’ event gets stored in the memory along with the associated emotions and the mind then frequently uses it as referral or benchmark point to assess any future interactions with that particular person. In short we can say a ‘perception’ is created in our mind about the person.  

What is the ‘perception’? It is the “imagined” view/reason of any incident/action for which we do not know the actual reason. Instead of exploring the true reason, our mind tries to imagine or reason-out the reason. This ability to imagine is the beautiful gift human being possesses, but it is a double edged sword. The imagination can go in the negative direction as well. This is what happens when we try to imagine about ‘intention’ of the other person. First thought of our imagination invariably goes in the negative direction. The reason behind it could be the own experience in the past, similar incidents/situations experienced by others (again it is ‘that person’s perception’ J ), recalling story/film/TV serial portraying similar situation.

This ‘perception’ (I mean wrong perception) forms the base for a bad relationship. It becomes stronger when more such similar events are stored and linked to the ‘bench mark’ event in our memory.

I have taken the example of relations in our personal life assuming it will be easy to correlate. The ‘perception’ (I mean wrong perception) can play spoil-sport in the team effort at the work place too. And the reason behind creation of the ‘perception’ remains same.

Once the relations between two persons are spoiled (due to incorrect ‘perception’) then finding out the root cause of what/who made ‘first’ mistake is almost impossible. Thereafter any normal action, conversation between two persons gets interpreted ‘wrongly’ at both the ends.

What is the way out to erase (wrong) ‘perception’? I wish I had that magic formula. It does not exist.

Suppose ‘A’ takes positive steps to improve relations (or vice versa), it is highly unlikely that ‘B’ will be in a state of receiving it ‘correctly’ (I mean, with positive mindset) and with precise synchronization. And further, if ‘A’ tries to measure or expects specific response from ‘B’ and does not find it satisfactory, the relations take further dip with ‘A’ feeling let down. That means, unfortunately, such “conditional” positive steps to restore normalcy in the relations do not work.

Only way out is continuous and unconditional positive steps taken (by either) towards re-conciliation i.e. without expectations in return. It ‘may’ yield result some time in future; even if it does not, it’s still ok, as the relationship does not go downward.

But this is hard to happen and the reason behind it is the ‘subtle ego’ I discussed in the previous blog. It acts as a major hurdle in restoring (even maintaining) healthy relations among human beings.

Though I have taken example of a girl and in-laws, the same thing can happen between a boy and his in-laws. In our system where girl leaves her home and merges with boy’s family, we have more examples of the former type. Imagine if the system changes to boy leaving his home and merging with the girl’s family. I am sure there will be a “deadly” dual between son-in-law and father-in-law J

-ramakant kapatral

(author of ‘Certainly Uncertain’ , a fiction in IT background ;  www.apkpublishers.com)

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CERTAINLY UNCERTAIN: A FICTION NOVEL (MYSTERY, SUSPENSE, ROMANCE) IN THE BACKDROP OF IT WORKING LIFE

This is a fiction novel based on the backdrop of the IT sector. The main characters in the story line are employees of an IT firm. They are caught in the midst of a murder case of a female co-employee. The story is narrated in a series of flashbacks and present scenes giving a clear idea of the happenings around all the people involved. The author's motive of writing this novel is to bring out the tough life of IT with a intriguing mix of suspense, thrill, monotony, office politics, and a colourful romance. It is accentuated with the technical terminology used when describing the projects in office and the discussions shown in office meetings. The protagonist Manav happens to be in the forefront in all the investigation along with the Inspector How he and his team cope with the situation and continue with work in spite of the pressure that is building up is commendable. All in all it's a perfect fiction read!

One of the 'flavor' of our ‘personality’

Once I boarded a train to Ahmedabad. Luckily I got a lower berth (which rarely happens in my case). One gentleman, in 50s, was sitting opposite to me. He too was lucky to get a lower berth. Soon an elderly couple accompanied by a teenager boarded the coach. They were allotted middle and upper berths. The teenager ‘asked’ us to take middle/upper berths. It wasn’t a request. It sounded as if he took it granted that that we will not mind it.

It was not intentional, but there was absence of words like ‘please’. Possibly the gen-Y does not like the ‘redundant’ formality. For me, it was ok to exchange the berth.

The gentleman, however, was offended. He shot back at the teenager, ‘what do you mean take that berth? You can’t order me.’ Clearly, his ego was hurt.

The teenager and the elderly couple preferred to avoid any further argument.

I offered them my lower berth in exchange of upper berth (I looked at the positive side of upper berth; I could sleep without getting disturbed till late in the morning).

All of us settled down.

Now, was I trying to be “goody-goody” compared to the gentleman opposite to me?  Any third person might assume that I did not exhibit the ego like the gentleman. This proved wrong within a few minutes.

After few minutes the train started moving. Even the ruffled feathers of the gentleman got settled. But, I sensed something was troubling me. I even started getting agitated as time went by. I took a deep breath and tried to identify the cause.

I realized that my ‘ego’ was also getting hurt. The reason was simple. Although I had offered my berth to the elderly couple they did not extend the customary ritual of saying ‘thanks’. That pinched my ego. My ego was of different type. It started to show its presence slowly and grew exponentially. The important difference was it slipped through my ‘conscious awareness’ and started troubling me.

The ego displayed by the gentleman was ‘gross’ ego and the one within me was a ‘subtle’ ego.

The subtle ego is easy to detect when we closely observe others. Rather, it is easy to point it out in others, but difficult to detect within ourselves.

We can overcome gross ego with ease.  The subtle ego, however, requires lot of efforts to overcome. Reason being, it takes roots in our subconscious mind. The least we can do is to become aware of it; that helps. This ego is one of the root causes of our mental agony, spoiled relations, and unhappy life.

This ego adds a kind of ‘flavor’ to our ‘nature/personality’. Our relations with near-dear ones, with relatives get influenced by the (subtle) ego and the perceptions we keep forming about them. The (subtle) ego slowly poisons our emotions and subsequently results in storing the ‘incorrect’ version of our ‘experiences’ in our memory. So most of the time it helps when we just keep our emotions under surveillance (against the influence from the subtle ego).

At the work place too, the subtle ego is one of the main causes of a (potential) failure of the project. It affects ‘team effort’ at the base level. At the manager level the consequences are high obviously due to the greater decision making powers and the responsibilities.

Almost all the organizations have in-house soft-skill training programs but they don’t cover such aspects. May be it is an ‘accepted’ factor at work place or it is assumed that person restricts his ‘nature/personality’ to his personal life at home. In other words, it is assumed that person will wear a ‘mask’ of different ‘personality/nature’ at work place. But, I am sure, the mask gets unveiled (slipping through conscious attempt) when stress levels are high. The damage done to the professional relations / performance due to this ‘ego’ is long lasting than in personal life, personal relations.

It is important that our ‘nature’ should get ‘rightly flavored’ in childhood. Our parents, Grand-parents mould us to a great extent. Unfortunately we are missing the story-telling grandmother in this era (even my generation missed it to some extent). The grandma(s) used to tell interesting stories with the moral message embedded in it! Kids were introduced to such ‘unaccepted’ flavors of our behavior like ‘selfish’, ‘ego’, ‘anger’… etc.

The void created by story telling grandma need to be filled by something else. The story books may help to some extent if we cultivate habit of reading in our children or better way is, we reading stories to them (keeping the TV sets off !! ).

But do we have time and enthusiasm? Do we want kinder garden school to address it? Are they capable?

-ramakant kapatral

Time-pass thinking

Time-pass thinking

After completing two rounds of evening walk on the Baner road, I decided to rest on the benches arranged on the footpath. The breeze was cooler than normal, thanks to the snowfall in northern India. Being Friday, the traffic towards Mumbai was more.

I saw a young lady ‘dragged’ by her ferocious dog on the opposite footpath. It must have been a hell of an exercise for her. I heard sudden burst of barking sound behind. When I turned, I saw a stray dog emerging from the lane behind. Two puppies also joined their mother soon giving active support in intimidating the enemy on the other side. The ferocious dog threw one glance towards his enemies and continued sniffing the objects in its path. It did not consider worth acknowledging the protest. The stray dog now got more aggressive in barking. Even the puppies stepped in front of their mother to challenge their enemy. The stray dog easily distinguished ‘itself’ from the other, despite being similar in features/look and hence challenged its trespassing act (Interestingly, it must have observed different creatures around like the one sitting on the bench, but did not bother!).

I think similar thing happens with human beings. One starts perceiving himself/herself as different from other at early stage of life, possibly in first 5 years.

I remember my son used to insist on buying ‘chhatri chocolate’ at one of the shop in Chembur. He used to just say ‘woh chhahiye’. At times we used to ignore it. But then after couple of aggressive tries, he used to say ‘Kaustubh ko woh chhahiye’. He did not say “Mujhe woh chhayiye”. Only after some time he started saying “Mujhe”, possibly then the perception & identification of his ‘I’ was formed. How and Why does this ‘I’ gets formed?

Now going back to the discussion of the previous blog about ‘thought’, ‘mind’, …..the next obvious question is, is there someone / some entity inside us which is making all this happen (I mean some one initiating/controlling flow of thoughts, emotions, thinking)? ……Like in software there is an operating system that schedules and controls execution of application software – so, is there equivalent of it inside us?

The answer is yes and that entity is the ‘Life Principle’ keeping us alive.  This entity is supposed to be “same” in all living things. Yet, the individuals are quite dissimilar in behavior. Now, despite possessing same ‘life principle’ why there is a sense of individuality in each being? In other words, why the ‘I’ in me is different than ‘I’ in you !

And why is that the ‘thoughts’ , ‘emotions’ are unique to the specific individual ?

Each person right after the birth (or perhaps when taking shape in the womb of the mother) starts accumulating experiences along with the associated emotions triggered by stimulus from sense organ. These are stored in the memory. Such experiences will be unique to the person. Therefore when new stimulus is received from the sense organs similar to the ones in the past, person recalls the relevant past event(s) and interprets in present context. This is how thought flow starts. These thoughts will differ from person to person since the experiences stored in memory are unique to the person.  In addition, there are other differentiating factors like the current emotional state, the basic nature/ core personality of a person ( which gets defined when in womb; some texts say, it is carried forward from previous birth) and his ability to think, interpret, discriminate ‘history in memory’. If two humans are fed with the same audio-visual inputs, their thought flow (its type, intensity, intention) varies. Its attributes like emotions, e.g. happiness, sadness, anger…etc also varies.   Interestingly, the audio-visual inputs may trigger different thought flow in same person at different time.

And that’s how the ‘perception’ of individuality starts taking shape within us.

The perception of individuality and ‘I’ gets stronger with time.

If we go with above explanation, then the ‘life principle’ , which is same in all living, gets corroded/coated with the “perception” of being an “individual” over a period of time.

As we grow, the baggage of memories & new experiences further hide the ‘sameness of life principle’ within us and enhance the belief of individuality.

At some point the ‘individual’ sense starts asserting and influencing all our actions in addition to setting strong expectations on the result(s). Any deviation in the expectations causes unpleasant reaction within. In my opinion, at this stage, ‘individuality’ is getting transformed in to the ‘ego’ personality. Again this happens at an early age. Thereafter ‘ego’ personality becomes stronger or rigid with passage of time.

So we can now attach one more attribute to the thoughts, apart from the ‘emotions’, which is “ego”

This ego plays quite a vital role (most of the time a negative role) in our life.

The interaction between humans could be simple and straightforward. (When I say interaction, I don’t mean an isolated one-time conversation). But ego creates hurdle in this process.  Then there are bountiful of presumptions and perceptions (about the person, about the situation at that time) which further make this interaction a complex one.

…..More about the ‘ego’ and ‘perceptions’ in next blogs.

-ramakant kapatral

(author of ‘Certainly Uncertain’ , a fiction in IT background ;  www.apkpublishers.com)

About the novel: The story has in store many romantic encounters full of intense feelings and unadulterated love which will resonate with your heart. No journey is complete without some mystery; and so is the journey of this story. Also, I have tried to share my experiences in project, people management.

A passage from the novel:

“Manav looked at her. She was smiling for sure. But, ninety-nine percent of it was in her eyes; they were shining in the dim light. Rest one percent reflected in a faint stretch of her lips and the cheeks that appeared slightly lifted. There was also an illusion of minute vibrations on her parted lips. They were trying to steal all the appeal. Overall the magic was deadly. It was an absolutely harmful view for any heart. Manav’s heart jumped erratically in a succession, almost pushing his chest bones. He was semi hypnotized with strong desire to inch towards her to touch her face, her hair. He somehow managed to turn away his head on time.”

On a Sunday morning, after a sumptuous breakfast, I went to the balcony. . There was no specific plan about Sunday, as usual.

 I was aimless and the day was just beginning. Being an IPL season, the adjacent ground was full of multiple teams playing cricket matches.  The pigeons, crows too were busy searching food. Though it was a Sunday there was hustle, and noise at the nearby construction site. I started thinking how I should spend the day. After a few minutes of thinking, I realized, I was reaching nowhere. But then an interesting question came to my mind.

What is thinking and what is a ‘thought’ after all?

The ball was set rolling. My mind started accessing my memory randomly. It was not a truly random access. It was pseudo-random access, because the ‘seed’ inputs were from what I was seeing, hearing at that time. Of course there was pinch of imagination added to the subject, but the base was from the memories of past events/ experiences relevant to the audio-visual inputs I was receiving.

I heard uproar from the ground! there was an appeal made in one of the match.

I recalled the match I played when I was in school. It was the tenth day of the match. We used to play during the interval meant for the lunch break. Our team was short by 43 runs to win with three wickets in hand. I was at the crease with 22 runs to my credit. While playing a defensive shot the ball hit my front foot after skirting with the edge of the bat. I was given out. I was disappointed and cursed the umpire – we were in the same class. We had heated exchange when going back to the class.

Coincidently I had met him last month, almost after 25 years, when we had a get-together. The Chinese starter we had ordered was superb.

The hissing sound of ‘tadaka’ brought me back to the present. My wife was preparing the lunch.

I tried to recall back where I was. I noticed how my thoughts got drifted.

I concluded, a ‘thought’ is a subject selected by mind in a pseudo-random way from the past experiences. Sometimes mind adds its own creativity in creating the stream of thoughts. The subject of the thought, thereafter, remains in motion hopping from one subject to another that are linked or very vaguely linked. Generally the direction of the thought changes when audio-visual inputs change or when mind adds creativity in imagination.

What is ‘mind’ then?

When my thoughts were hopping, I could say my mind was ‘wandering’. That means the flow of thought is mind. The faster the thoughts flows, or subjects of thought change (often affecting our emotional state), the more ‘messy’ is our mind.

In software terminology I will say mind is a process-loop selecting variables (subjects of thoughts) pseudo-randomly.

When we say control the mind or calm down, we intend to slow down the flow of thoughts or slow down the activities in mind. Interestingly there is link between the activities of mind and our breathing style. When the mind is agitated our breathing is erratic. If we control or even just observe the breathing, the mind calms down.

But then is ‘thinking’ different than the pseudo-random flow of thoughts? I ‘think’ the answer is yes.

The flow of thoughts left loose on its own is - mind. But when the flow of thought is controlled or regulated for a particular purpose or in a particular direction then it is ‘thinking’. Therefore there are two different terms used with reference to any person. The ‘mind’ and the ‘intellect’. When we are ‘thinking’ it is our intellect in action. When the thoughts are wandering, the mind is in action.

Hence, coming back to Sunday morning, initially my mind was active and then intellect took over.

Technically both are flow of thoughts; however, in later case it is regulated/controlled thought flow. In my case they were exclusive ( and I believe it is same with all); I mean both could not be active simultaneously. They switch when somebody controls. Who is that?

I went further doing this ‘thinking’….. about who is the thinker…..I will come back on this. Till then, see you.

-ramakant kapatral

(author - ‘Certainly Uncertain’ , a fiction in IT background ;  www.apkpublishers.com)