My Statistics professor started his first lecture with a quote that went: Lies are of three kinds: lies, terrible lies, and Statistics!

I was reminded of this while reading this ToI report. It’s a report about the eating habits of teenagers, who apparently skip meals out of choice because they think they eat too much.

I agree – it’s not a good trend. And yet, when a ’study’ churns out numbers, what exactly do those numbers mean? For example:

The survey conducted by the Schools Health Education Unit, found that one in 10 teenage girls between 14 and 15 years missed two meals a day thinking they are overweight.

One in Ten? Among what strata of the population? The filthy rich kids? The lower middle class? The chai-wala’s daughter? The kind of people who read the Times of India? The kind of people who cannot afford a daily newspaper? Who?

It’s incredible how anyone and everyone churns numbers out – without the slightest attempt at a qualifying statement. The numbers are from the chosen sample population, not the entire population. When the numbers are extrapolated, it is assumed that the population is identical in diversity to the sample population. Are these extrapolations even valid? Do the researchers know? Should we know when they churn out numbers at us?

Maybe they are – maybe the study was thorough in its research and actually sampled from all possible strata of society. But even then – shouldn’t there be a qualifying statement?

I’m not taking away from the problem of concern here. Sure, it’s a serious issue that needs to be looked at. Sure, having a study with concrete numbers helps bring attention to the concern. And yet, I can’t help but think that – forget skipping meals – more than One in Ten children of 14-15 years of age in India would thank their respective Gods if they got one full meal a day.

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(link via India Uncut.)

Came across this piece of news.

It’s a short article, so here it is, verbatim:

2000 women whipped for 5 hours by priests

Like every Dussera, thousands gathered to pray at a 300-year-old temple in Tamil Nadu’s Namakkal district. What followed next was unspeakable horror.

Two thousand teenagers and children, some as young as 10, were whipped by the temple’s priests. For five hours. The priests’ explanation: This whipping is a cure-all. Some 10-year-olds were lashed for not studying enough. Others were attacked for being slow to attain puberty. And menstruating teens were hit for being impure. The priests say this is nothing new. “We have been practicing this ritual for 300 years,” declares Thangavelu, a priest.

The shocking scenes were filmed by local channels, none of whom called for help. Like others in this area, they find nothing absurd about what they saw. Tradition is tradition, they say.

The women can be seen gasping for breath, many are sobbing their hearts out. But the faith is unshakeable. Radhika, a devotee, says, “We believe that when we are whipped, we will get rid of all our mental and physical ailments and evil spirits.”

‘Women’?? Should the headline not have read ‘Children’?

I wonder how long it will take us to finally realize that the priests that we follow blindly are as human as the rest of us, and as impure and shrouded in selfishness. Maybe even more than the rest of us in some cases. Education, they say, does the trick. No, it doesn’t. Even the most educated people can be blind to faith, and adept at keeping the logical part of their brain asleep when they need to.

When will we get it into our heads that you are who you are because of who you are, and not because of what your surname or ancestry is? People are not born equal, but what makes them apart is their ability – physically and mentally – not their surnames.

A comment on the post suggests that the government should take ’serious measures’ against these practices. Hm. The ‘government’, by definition, governs society – and it bases its work on socially accepted norms. These norms are different between regions, and so are the laws in different lands. Does the commenter really believe that the majority of the Indian population believes that the local priest is wrong?

Also, I’m reminded of a quote that a TV channel used during Sourav Ganguly’r farewell (yes, here I go again with Sourav references): “A good leader takes his men where they want to go; a great leader takes his men where they ought to go.” True, and I don’t think the Indian governing system is even a ‘good’ one overall.

It’s been 8 years since that fateful day, and the world has adjusted to some new but uncomfortable truths.

And yet, how much do we really know about why exactly the attacks happened? Here’s an interesting take on it.

Go read.

Apple’s latest OS offering, Snow Leopard, is here (and is now on my computer).

And I like what I see! Of course this was supposed to be an under-the-hood improvement rather than features that you could actually see, and the result is definitely noticeable.

Boot up and shut down times are much quicker; so is the time to come out of sleep mode. Programs launch much more quickly too. I thought Leopard was fast, all these days. Well, Snow Leopard is faster.

I like the small feature tweaks that they have included. I’ve not yet gone through all the small things, but overall, this is a welcome boost in performance!!

The only thing I didn’t like is the conversion from 1GB=1024MB (previously) to 1GB=1000MB (now). While I realize that the industry has now moved to the 1000MB system, I still like the computer to tell me space counts on the 1024MB model. But I guess that’s just something that you get used to.

As to all the phobia about some software not functioning properly, I have not found any evidence of that. Photoshop CS4 runs fine, so does most of my other programs. I say most because I’m sure I haven’t actually run all my programs, but yes, I think it’s all fine.

So yes, the excitement now having subsided, it’s time to get back to other more normal stuff. Ciao.

P.S.: It’s really fun though, to read through some of the reviews out there. There are some that are evidently PC and Microsoft biased, and bring out some inane logic for people to not opt for the Snow Leopard. There’s also this other section of people who are evidently Apple biased, and who in turn bring out equally inane logic for people to run, jump, and go crazy over the new OS. (Can’t find links right now, will update post with them when I can. )

It’s much fun, but neither of those is true. It’s a good new OS, it has some tweaks that to me are typical Apple (simple feature tweaks, that seem to make life just that bit easier, and computing just that bit more elegant), but it’s not something that you’d die for (of course, since most of it is under the hood).

On the other hand, it’s a great OS, and there’s no reason to boycott it either.

Mr Mark Richardson, the former New Zealand batsman, is at it again. This time it concerns the bowling action of the Sri Lanka great Muttiah Muralitharan, who has been shown to have a body structure that makes his bowling arm deviate from being straight as he bowls.

Well, the latest ICC rules allow a 15 degree bending of the arm, and Mr Mark Richardson is “convinced” that Murali is going beyond the 15 deg rule. Watching the slow-motion replays on television have only strengthened his conviction, it seems.

Heh. I wonder why I’m not surprised.

This is what I had written a while back, when commenting on the latest Indian election:

I am in general wary of politicians, but I think Dr. Singh has been one of the few politicians of the recent past who I have respect for: Mr. Atal B. Vajpayee as PM, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam as President, Mr. Jaswant Singh as Foreign Minister under Mr. Vajpayee, and Mr. Pranab Mukherjee as Foreign Minister in this administration.

It’s true. I don’t follow Indian politics any more as closely as I would like to, but that respect from a decade back towards Mr Singh remains. He was one the few foreign ministers that India has had who could put across his point forcefully, with candor, and with wit; someone who has a calmness about him even in tense situations, and who I think has a balanced sense of judgement.

And now he has been expelled from his party. I don’t think I’m amused.

While on the topic, watch this interview that he gives to NDTV. Watch, and you’ll know why I have a certain respect for this man.

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(Thanks Kriti for the youtube link.)

We had an overnight train journey, from Giza (near Cairo, in the north) to Aswan (in the south), and had, of course, the chance to see an Egyptian railways station, and some trains, from up close.

There are two parts to the story here. The first is as a bystander, as trains presumably along the local routes came and went. Well, they could be long distance trains; just that they didn’t seem to be so. These trains were… in terrible shape. On the outside, they were dirty, on the inside they didn’t seem much better; We later saw one of these trains after sundown, they didn’t have lights on the inside either. Didn’t seem in good shape at all, and we were worried about how our own transport would be like.

The other part to the story is as a passenger, on the overnight train from Giza to Aswan. An air conditioned train, clean on the outside, prim on the inside; but what we really liked was how well planned and well thought the design is.

If you talk about the Indian Railways, what’s the one thing that you usually don’t like (I know, we love almost everything about it, but still )? The toilets, yes? Not very clean at best, water everywhere, having to touch things and places that others may have touched with hands that may have been far from clean… not usually a very pleasant experience.

Guess what the Egyptians did. They made every button foot operated. Press a button, the toilet drains itself. Press it further, the flush kicks in. Press another button, the washbasin tap turns on. All with the foot. No ickyness involved. (Also the toilet was clean and dry, but that’s because 1. I think this train was more in the ‘expensive’ category and hence the passengers were probably more familiar with the word ‘hygiene’ than what you would find in the cheapest travel modes; and 2. Here the toilet paper is a viable and practical option; not so in India. But even take out these two factors, and you still have a better planned system.)

There were other small elements that were extremely well thought out, but I won’t compare those with India: the Indian rail system is the de facto mode of long distance travel for a huge number of people, and making it efficient and cost effective while keeping prices down bring their own design constraints.

There was the small compartment cut out in the wall to keep personal items when you sleep (in India no one would use them for fear of theft), the coups had doors that you could lock (not cost effective unless it’s 1st class, in which case in India people would nowadays rather fly), the sleeping arrangements were better and more comfortable (again the cost effectiveness comes into the question; also the ‘beds’ could only be made by an attendant assigned: for the Indian Railways, this brings huge logistical issues).

The only (mild) hiccup that we had was in the food that we were served. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t too great, but hey: what’s travel in foreign lands if there isn’t weird food once in a while? All in all, a very pleasant train experience.

(Although note that this may not be the general case as I think our train was a 1st Class train. I’m not sure ‘cheap’ and ‘affordable’ will be much better than what I described at the beginning of this post. )

P.S.: I have a question. Have we, as an independent nation, made any major improvements over the British rail system that we inherited? I know, I know, we put in better lights, better berths, more comfortable bogies, and we also made progress engineering-wise in the engines that drive the trains. But have we made significant changes to what facilities the passengers get when they board a train? Not upgrades, but changes?

I’d said earlier that Egypt is like India, including the fact that the traffic is unruly. Well yes, it is, but no, it’s not like India, and especially not like Kolkata.

We were at Kolkata just after we were at Egypt, and we were back to the familiar unruly traffic that is so typically Kolkata. And yet, there was a big difference from Egypt.

In Kolkata, the unruliness is based on skill, where the drivers are aware exactly of how much space is available, how fast other vehicles are moving, and how much time he has to squeeze through a space before the next car rams into him. That’s skill, honed over years of driving and sharpening the judgement bits of the brain.

Not so in Egypt. There, you just go, and trust that the others are watching you as you go and will not ram into you. Often, cars changing lanes just start moving into the next lane, without the slightest idea that another vehicle is moving just behind. A few seconds of blaring horns later, he’s jolted into realization. At an intersection, a car simply starts going on the wrong side of the road, simply because there’s a traffic jam, even though someone on the other side can just ram into him. The list is endless. There is a lot less skill, and a lot more recklessness, in driving in Egypt. No looking, no judging, just hitting the accelerator and going.

Sorry, Egypt is not like India in this respect. We’re far better drivers.

We had two extremely different experiences in similar situations in two Egyptian towns, and were left thinking why things must be so in an otherwise excellent country.

First was Aswan,  famous for its High Dam and Lake Nasser that former Egyptian President Nasser built to control the flow of the Nile. Our guide there was a local man called Ahmed, and after the first hour or so we realized this guy was a gem of a person: uncomplicated, free spirited, and thoroughly enjoying his job. We were quickly friends, and at the end of the end we asked if he would accompany us to the local markets: we wanted to shop for souvenirs. He agreed, went with us, and translated while we looked and bargained.

It was a good experience. The prices were reasonable, the shopkeepers were pleasant, and we had a happy time moving around. Indeed, it was only the ticking clock that made us come home for the night. We were content, and were heavier by a few pounds with the shopping bags we had acquired.

Our next major stop was Luxor. We went around the place with another local man, also called Ahmed, and at the end of the day we requested him too, to accompany us to the local markets: my mom had remembered that she needed some more things to give away as gifts. Alas, Ahmed of Luxor had another engagement for the evening. Nevertheless, he dropped us off at the local markets, and warned us that we must remember to bargain ruthlessly.

In we went, and were pretty soon completely shell-shocked. What we had bought for 30 Egyptian Pounds (EGP) at Aswan, and for which the shopkeeper their had originally asked EGP 40, was now being offered to us for EGP 150. How can you bargain with that?? For the item that we are familiar with, we know what the prices should be. For something that we are unfamiliar with, how much bargaining can we do? We were soon disgruntled, and left the place fuming.

A number of thoughts come to mind.

First, it’s not just that the two different places reacted differently to a group of obvious foreigners who were there to have a feel for their items; the presence of a local guide probably had a major impact. When they have a local man doing the talking, the foreigners are ‘friends’ of the local man, and are not to be cheated from; by themselves, the foreigners are suckers to be extracted money from. Big difference, isn’t it?

Second, Luxor is more commercialized and famous as a tourist destination; this presumably drives the prices up in a small-ish city such as Luxor. Lots of foreign tourists with cash to spare, and not too many markets to compete among themselves to bring the prices down. Voila!!

We were pretty disgruntled at our experience, and were promptly uttering statements such as ‘This doesn’t happen in Kolkata / India… it’s much better at home’. Indeed, we were reminded of what practically everyone we knew who had come to Egypt had told us: beware the local shops and such, they will take every opportunity to extract more from you than you should.

But on second thoughts, does it not happen at home, in Kolkata? I am reminded of the bargaining that we ourselves have to do at major shopping zones such as Gariahat, the times when a bag priced at Rs 1000 is sold for Rs 400. Isn’t that the same thing? The only difference is that at Kolkata, we’re the locals, we know what the prices should be, and can shout the shopkeeper down when he says the prices are right. In Egypt, we don’t know the prices, and we can’t bargain as well as we need to. Big difference, no?

The other thing that I can’t help wondering about, is why the prices must be driven up. Surely, over time, the idea that prices are high at such-and-such shopping area will filter out to even new arrivals at those places, and they will desist from shopping there? Doesn’t it benefit both the shopkeeper and the tourist if the tourist is assured that the prices are genuine, and he doesn’t have to bargain and heckle with the shopkeeper? The tourist gets a good price, and the shopkeeper sells more items, thereby increasing his total income. Yet, that’s not happening. What’s the economics working here?

What Egypt is most famous for are the Pyramids, Palm (date) trees, Perfumes and Papyrus.

Their currency is the Egyptian Pound, where One Pound equals 100 Plasters.

All of which contain the ‘P’, a sound that Arabs cannot pronounce.