Asking the "right" questions

As a professor, I am often approached by students wanting some form of career advice-- especially when they plan to take a major leap in their lives, by going abroad for higher studies for their Master's or PhD.

It takes me back to my own times when I took this major leap in my life, and my professor, very strangely, didn't seem very happy. I had expected him to congratulate me when I told him that I had won this prestigious fellowship to study in one of the most prestigious university in Europe. And his lack of enthusiasm, made me hurt and defensive. At that time, I had haughtily and contemptuously believed that he was upset with me because I'd decided to go abroad and build my own life, rather than registering for a PhD under him.

Such was my delusion that his comments had completely missed their significance. Even though he seemed less than enthusiastic, he had discussed at length with me about my plans and I had asked him a lot of questions like: which field of study to take up, what has the most scope, how are European universities ranked vis-a-vis American ones, etc.

And he kept repeatedly telling me, "You're not asking the right questions!"

All these happened more than 20 years ago. Today, I think I'm in a better state to articulate what those "right questions" were, in the hope that the youngsters who come to me for guidance do not make the same old mistake. (They can make newer mistakes, of course!)

As part of our schooling and mainstream education, I realise that we are never taught the following things:

1. What is meant by a sense of identity.
2. How money works. 
3. How cultural persuasion works.
4. What is meant by ownership. 

Instead, we are fed with all kinds of social cues and signals, which we believe as the underlying truth.

Firstly let me set aside the myth of the "prestige" of a university and its effectiveness on our careers. Sure, a prestigious institution name on your CV may open a few doors. But if that is all is your trump card, then the problem is really somewhere else. The way I see it, there is something seriously wrong if someone were to make a higher education choice, based primarily on the prestige of the university. Higher education leading to a Master's degree or a PhD requires achieving mastery or even extending the boundaries of known knowledge. The primary factor that should drive the pursuit for higher education is our strong interest, curiosity, and a willingness to commit in the subject matter that we wish to study.

And what defines this "strong interest and curiosity"? No, it is not how "cool" or "contemporary" is the topic, or what is its future "scope" or something such. The "strong interest and curiosity" is driven by a deep sense of identity. We somehow identify with the problem that we wish to pursue. It is way more relevant to us, and we have a sense of "ownership" towards the problem. We care about it, and even feel responsible for finding answers. At some level, we are saying to ourselves, "I cannot wait for someone else to find answers to these questions.. if I don't answer these questions, who else will?" It is this sense of identification and ownership of the questions that we are pursuing, which is what gives us direction and helps keep our wits together when the going gets tough.

By default, the rapidly industrialising world is geared to view every individual as a resource to be consumed for obtaining greater competitiveness, power, glory or profits (for the company, country, leader, etc.) I'd once remarked that education ought to be an "irrigation" mechanism that nurtures and builds strong roots for the individual; while instead, it is more of a "harvesting" mechanism that injects hormones and steroids (read: latest technological buzzword) and packages the individual to be sold to the highest bidder from the industry. Industry continues this even more, and treats the individual as a billable resource for its clients. Hiring departments are called "Human Resources" for a reason!

This "componentization" of the individual happens in so many subtle ways using a variety of persuasive mechanisms including money, "cultural values", religion, etc. And much of it is not a painful journey at all. In fact, the journey can be downright beautiful, flattering, even "inspiring" and full of pleasant surprises, lasting over several years. You would be praised, awarded, called a "genius," given a lot of freebies, club memberships, business class tickets, and ever so subtly orienteered to a state where the only option you have is to be the resource that is expected of you-- fully and completely.

During the days when slavery was legal, such a thing used to be called, "accepting your chains with joy and gratitude"-- just saying.

A lot of people are in fact, happy being just that. For instance, a lot of IIT graduates are perfectly happy selling soap and toothpaste for multinationals. It is perfectly fine and it is their choice. But really, did they need higher education for that? Wouldn't that seat that they took up might have been better filled by someone else who had a fire in them to really identify with and help solve some pressing problem for the society?

The pain about our life's "meaning" really hits us when age has caught up with us, when our spirit has dwindled, and we are of no use to anyone. By that time we would be deeply entrenched in an economic machine that runs on keeping us perennially in a state of debt and insecurity. It is then that we realise that the big decisions we thought we had made, were not made by us at all. They were made for us by someone else, including people close to us and whom we trusted blindly. These decisions were more of a strategic decision for them, than a meaningful decision for us. And most painfully, they would have taken this decision for us with a genuine belief that it is for our own good. As the saying goes, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

If we want to really help someone, the best we can do is to help them build their individuality. Individuality is built by understanding principles of self inquiry. If we do not know how to build our individuality and find what is meaningful for us, right where we are, it is unlikely that we will be able to do so by cliched things like "travelling the world to find oneself (in debt)." (parenthetical extension, mine).

Ruminations II

UPDATE: There seems to be a mistaken inference from this post, that the concept of "economic holes" is the same as liquidity crunch, and demonetisation from 2016 is the cause for that. This is not true. Liquidity crunch typically happens due to hoarding of cash, arising primarily from uncertainty in the economy. Economic holes is a money supply problem. It is much deeper, and has nothing to do specifically with the current government or demonetisation. Both the current government and previous ones, have ignored this problem. I'd written about economic holes back in the early 2000s. It is really about whether an economy has relevant mechanisms to make its money supply keep up with the demands of a growing economy. 

The Indian mind may have an acute acumen for sustainability, but what we really don't understand is growth and its importance. To put it in dharmic terminology-- we have an instinct for dharma, but we don't understand the importance of prana.

Be it Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways, or now the tragic end to the founder of Cafe Coffee Day, there is one common pattern. They are all seen from some lens as cheaters, because their companies could not repay the debts they had accrued.

But the fundamental problem is not about debt repayment or even restructuring-- it is about money supply. Money, or currency, is a representation for economic value present in a system. Currency by itself is of no value, unless someone is willing to receive the money we have, and provide goods or services.

Everybody seems to understand hyperinflation-- that is, what happens when there is too much currency in the economy. This is what our adversarial neighbours aim to do, when they push fake currency notes into our system. Too much currency in the system with respect to value, will reduce the utility of the currency itself.

What we don't seem to understand is the opposite of hyperinflation-- which is what I call an economic hole. What happens when the potential for value addition, exceeds the money supply in the system?

Indian economy is full of economic holes. There is demand and there is supply-- but they don't meet because there is no "money" to facilitate this economic exchange.

For instance, it is common to see so many apartment owners struggle to find tenants who can help pay off their EMIs, and similarly, so many people looking for rental homes, struggling to find an apartment that suits their budget. As a result, many apartments in large cities go empty, while there is overcrowding in chawls and graymarket PGs.

The demand is there, the supply is there, but the "money" is not there.

The same thing is true for major companies that are facing shutdown or have been shut down ("shot down" is more like it). There is an increasing demand for air travel. There are many empty airports (from the UDAAN scheme) waiting for airlines to connect them to the aviation map. And there are many businesses and a complete ecosystem whose survival depends on a thriving aviation industry.

Similarly, there is a huge demand for coffee lounges-- the concept pioneered in India by Cafe Coffee Day. They are not just a place for college students to hangout. CCD lounges are where business deals are made in the millions, everyday, across the country.

Yet, all of these businesses are struggling to pay their debts. Why? Not because, they made bad business decisions, but because we have economic holes-- there is not enough money in the system.

It is somewhat like an apartment owner, who has to pay a monthly EMI of Rs. 30,000/- but only gets a rental income of Rs. 10,000/- per month.

There is just not enough money in the system to fuel the growth in value addition that is happening. So, when faced with a contention between lack of money supply on the one hand, and economic growth on the other, we (the system), prefer to curtail economic growth and kill businesses (and people along with it), instead of increasing the money supply in the system!

*~*~*~*~*

So what is the solution to this? How do we increase money supply in a way that does not result in hyperinflation, but helps in filling economic holes? 

In the 1930s, the US economy was in a state of depression. People had to stand in queues in their harsh winters, to get their daily doles of bread loaves. 

But just a few decades later, the US became the undisputed economic leader of the world, in the 20th century. 

A lot of factors went into making this happen. But an important factor is about how they managed to keep up money supply, with the increasing demands of a growing economy. 

They introduced the concept of scrips-- which are essentially debt or IOU statements, that companies issue to their lenders. The state in turn, treated scrips as legal tender, which allowed the lenders to sell the scrips to others in exchange for value. But more importantly, the state infused that much amount of currency as mentioned in a (genuine, recognised) scrip, into the system.

The newly minted currency against a scrip, was not given to the company or its lenders. They were just infused into the economy (through banks and NBFCs that could offer cheap loans, and also in the form of social security or welfare benefits to people below poverty line). It meant that consumers now had more money to buy goods or services that the companies were producing, which in turn helped the companies meet their debts. 

Yes of course, the US economy is in quite a bit of mess now. But that is not because of the money supply issue, but because companies tried to cut costs by pushing jobs overseas and leveraging on arbitrage benefits coming from differences in currency rates. That is a completely different story altogether. 

The primary point here is that we don't recognise the problem of economic holes-- or the paucity of money supply for increasing demands of a growing economy. Instead, we shoot down businesses, hound their leaders, and bring down entire ecosystems, simply because we don't understand that these businesses have the ability to create value (which is what an economy is about), but they don't have the "money" to stay afloat.

(On a lighter note-- when our adversarial neighbours push fake currency notes into the system, the government should seize as much these fake notes as possible, and put a stamp of legitimacy on them and make them legal tender and infuse them back into the economy! It can help fill several economic holes! And we get our currency notes printed for free by our neighbours!)

On the sense of fairness

Some time ago I was witness to this interaction between a boy of maybe 6 years old and his mother, involving his even smaller sister of maybe 3 years old. He was very upset with his mother because she had just bought his sister a nice woollen cap and a sweater to keep her warm, while she had bought him nothing (he was already wearing warm clothes). He was protesting to her and throwing tantrums about having been left out.

"He becomes jealous very quickly," his mother told me, looking somewhat apologetic and embarrassed about his public tantrums. "Now, now dear.. Don't be jealous of your sister. Don't you love your little sister?" She asked him. In response to this, he suddenly became defensive and started looking ashamed. He did after all, love his little sister, and yes he had been taught that to be jealous of her would be a flaw in his character.

This episode took me back to my own childhood experiences, where similar episodes elicited similar responses, the end result of which was a kind of battering of my self image and feeling ashamed. Somehow, I could not help feeling the initial emotion which was interpreted as "jealousy" and invariably I was brought to a state where I had to end up feeling ashamed and small, because of my "jealous" emotions.

But was that really "jealousy"? I spoke to the little kid after this episode and made him play the "ultimatum game" (which I'll explain in a while), and my suspicions were right. He was not feeling jealous-- his strong emotions were because, his sense of "fairness" had been violated. And by making him feel guilty, and by calling him "jealous" the mother had actually made the problem worse. Now he is feeling unfair at two levels-- one for what he perceived as his unfair treatment, and second, for the unfair interpretation of his emotional outburst.

One of the least understood psychological traits is our sense of fairness. Our sense of fairness transcends self interest. People with a strong sense of fairness, fight for fairness even when it does not personally affect them. In fact, if we were to fight for fairness only to the extent that it applies to us, then it is nothing but self interest. A sense of fairness transcends self interest.

The Ultimatum game is a well known game from game theory that models our sense of fairness. In this game, a given sum of money, say Rs. 100, is to be split between two people A and B. One of them, say A, acts as a proposer and proposes a split like say: "60 for me 40 for you." If the other person called the decider, accepts this proposal, the money is split and shared accordingly. If the decider rejects the proposal, then both have to leave the game with no money.

When this game was played across the world, it showed vast variations in the way the decider functions when offered an unequal split, like say 80-20.

A lot of people accepted any proposal that gave them some amount greater than 0, because obviously their payoff if they rejected they proposal was 0. This is plain vanilla rationality-- choose an option that gives a better payoff than one that gives a lesser payoff.

But people with a strong sense of fairness usually had a tolerance limit (like say 60-40 or 70-30 or even 50-50). If the proposal violated this limit, they rejected the proposal. Hence for a person whose tolerance limit was 50-50, if the other person offered even 51-49, the proposal would be rejected. Their logic-- although convoluted-- does make sense. When the person rejects a 51-49 proposal, he would end up losing Rs 49; but it it is still considered rational because, "I may have lost Rs. 49, but you have lost Rs 51. That should teach you a lesson about treating others unfairly!"

In fact, I have received the same explanation about the underlying rationality behind this choice, when I have played the ultimatum game with some students and others who had displayed a strong sense of fairness.

If the proposer does not have a strong sense of fairness, this logic would be lost on them. It would appear to them that the decider is "cutting his nose to spite his face"-- that is, hurting himself just to spite the other. It would be very hard for them to see why would someone give up a lucrative offer, just to spite the other.

*~*~*~*~*

So what exactly is fairness? Our sense of fairness strives to preserve some kind of "parity" in social interactions. This sense of parity can very well be crudely modelled and implemented.

For instance in the example from above, for the little boy, fairness or parity probably meant equality in the received gifts. If he doesn't get what his sister got and vice versa (that is, if his sister didn't get what he got), he would consider it unfair.

It also reminds me of one episode when I was myself about 6 years old. My grandparents had come to visit, and had bought us a pumpkin as a gift, from their backyard garden. Our backyard garden had a bitter gourd plant, and we had harvested several bitter gourds. When my parents gave them a few bitter gourds in return, I had apparently protested and thrown a similar tantrum saying, when they have given us one pumpkin, they should get only one bitter gourd in return.

While the tantrums of a 6-year old and their crude sense of fairness, may appear cute; a crude sense of fairness when implemented as a state policy is not cute at all. Imagine a sense of fairness where everybody gets paid the same amount of money regardless of the work they do. There is such a sense of fairness that have been really implemented in societies-- it is called egalitarianism. Similarly, consider another example of a "fair" society where everybody is compulsorily made to take up agriculture and work in the fields-- by arguing that feeding oneself is all what we need as a society.

Fanaticism, bigotry, and religious fundamentalism are all ironically, a result of someone's crude sense of fairness getting violated. It is only when our sense of fairness is violated, do we act in an "irrational" manner, doing things that can adversely impact us along with others. If we do not develop our sense of fairness and allow it to mature, or worse, keep reinforcing a latent crude sense of fairness, it can lead to much bigger social problems in the future.

To help develop our sense of fairness into a mature model, we need to challenge our beliefs, practice prudence, and make stringent efforts to see an issue through the lens of others. We will also need to understand the difference between "sameness" and "oneness." A crude sense of fairness, strives for "sameness"-- in that it wants everyone to be treated the same, and receive the same benefits and payoffs for anything. In contrast, a developed sense of fairness strives to uphold a sense of "oneness." It understands that despite our differences, we are but one world and are deeply connected to form the one creation. An evolved sense of fairness understands that the suffering of one is in fact, the suffering of everyone. We cannot have a healthy body even if one part of our body is diseased. A pain in any part of our body is a pain for our entire self. An evolved sense of fairness understands this oneness.

African Proverbs

In school where we studied under the Macaulayite system of education, we learnt of Africa as the "dark continent" comprising of primitive tribes. And indeed even to this day, Africa is seen by the rest of the Westernised world, as a place of primitive tribes and cultures. Which is why, a 100 people dying in a shootout in Mali a few days ago, finds no mention in mainstream media, while 50 people dying in a shootout earlier in New Zealand is still debated on all channels.

And movies like "The Gods must be crazy" just reinforce the primitive and naive stereotype of African tribes. The movie is based on an assumption by the story teller, that the African bushmen thinks of Europeans as Gods, and goes on to self-deprecate the Western culture in order for the narrative to appear humble.

Similarly, there are ample do-gooders who appeal to the Western tourist to observe other ("primitive") cultures with "humility" and not try to offer solutions. Notwithstanding the fact that, by reminding ourselves to "observe with humility", we are already putting ourselves on a higher pedestal!

The best strategy of course, is to interface with other cultures with genuine curiosity, where we just wish to learn, and are not even thinking about our humility or lack of it. Once we start doing this, we encounter deep profundity no matter where we look -- be it in Africa or in the Nicobar tribes or in animal societies or even in the most unlikeliest of places for profundity, like Wall Street!

This post is about how African wisdom entered my life at the right moments when I needed them most. Here is a collection of them:

It all started when I first realised that much of what we had learnt in school about our own culture and history were just utterly wrong. We were taught stories that we were told to be true, but we could sense that they could not be true. Things didn't add up between the values we were taught at home and the interpretation of our culture in school. It was then that, out of the blue, this proverb just landed on my browser one day:

"Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter"

Wow! Sudden flash of clarity in my mind. Then I started to regress backwards in time in my mind, to try and understand what was troubling me, and have written about it quite a bit, on this very blog. And as if on cue, the following landed up in front of me:

"He who digs too deep for a fish, may come out with a snake"

Eeks! And how! There were snakes all over the place inside my mind as I regressed into the past. And just as I was about to fight them, the following reached out to me:

"Never beat a snake when you haven't seen its head"

Got it boss! I'm not going to fight those snakes. I don't even know how many are there and where are its heads. And while they were scary, they were not the only danger. As I became more and more obsessed with the snakes around me, the following word of caution dropped into my browser:

"Because we focused on the snake, we missed the scorpion"

Wow! That was ehh.. scary! But thanks for that, African proverbs!

And soon, once I understood this, my outlook towards others changed. What I thought were acts of stupidity or violence on the part of others, turned out to be their desperate measures for survival from the snakes in their minds or in their vicinity:

"A man does not run among thorns for no reason; either he is chasing a snake or a snake is chasing him"

Understood. But why were these snakes invisible all along? Well:

"When the axe entered the forest, the trees said, 'Look, the handle is one of us!'"

Now I see it! Yup, we were taught to celebrate and welcome everything into our lives, and look for something familiar, when dealing with something unfamiliar. In short, we were taught to be trusting, which became our naivety, because we didn't know the above proverb.

We had no idea to what extent we had been repressed and subjugated for centuries, and traumatic practices became associated with our "culture" and "values". African proverbs were there to help explain this yet again:

"If evil lasts for a long time, it will become a tradition"

While I'm still shaking my head at the profundity of the above, my thoughts go into psychological ramifications of traumatic upbringing. As kids, it is still common to see elders thrashing, admonishing and invalidating them on just about everything, because "it is all for their own good". And I wondered how this would pan out in the long term. An African proverb was ready to help me out here too:

"A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth"

After getting enormously depressed and disillusioned with life, after having learnt the above, I was more than ready to give up on life. I mean, what is the point of anything? Why live at all? Thankfully, (you got it) African proverbs were there to bring me hope and soothe my pains and show me the way forward:

"If you think you are too small to make a difference, you haven't spent a night with a mosquito"

Which brought a smile to my face.. but I was still lost.. Then came this:

"Pearls don't lie on the seashore -- if you want one, you must dive for it!"

Yes.. despite the snakes! And also:

"No matter how long the night, the day is sure to come"

True that! Suddenly, I felt much better!

"When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you"

What a profound insight! True, there are a lot of adversaries outside. But it is really the adversaries inside me with whom I have to live with, in my most vulnerable moments. I need to deal with the enemies within! And how do I do that? Well:

"The best way to fight an alien and oppressive culture, is to embrace your own"

"A speaker of truth has no friends"

"The truth is like a lion, You don't have to defend it. Let it loose, it will defend itself"

Satyameva jayate! Talk about actionable insights! No predictive model or advanced AI/ML ever gave me this level of clarity on what to do and what can I expect when I do it..! 

And finally, as an icing on the cake, came this pearl of wisdom:

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together"

Yup. I want to go far. Not fast. I want everyone to be together. Because:

"The youth can walk faster, but the elder knows the road"

Thank you African proverbs!! You have no idea how much you have changed my life!!

A tale of two brothers

'Tis a tale of two brothers
One called Ramu,
and the other Shamu,
from a village long ago..

'Tis the story of their lives

and the lessons learned..

when out to the world,

they decided to go..

Both went far and wide..

till one day,

Ramu found a Master--

and Shamu found a Guru..

They learned their lessons well,

and strived hard with sincerity..

until they were ready--

to go in search of prosperity..

Ramu had learnt to submit 

and yield to the will of his Master..

so that he could think like Him,

and follow his path, thereafter.. 

Shamu had learnt to think,

with abstraction and dispassion..

so he could argue and inquire,

with empathy and compassion..

The Master chiseled the mind of Ramu 

and moulded him, as if he were

a lump of clay..

While the Guru nurtured Shamu

and helped him discover himself through his thoughts--

while at work and at play..

Ramu learned to treat his Master

with fear and deference..

And that he faced a lot of punishments,

was an obvious inference.. 

Shamu explored his mind

to experience a sense of deep connection--

that connected him to his Guru and to the universe,

with a bond of love and affection..

While the Master taught of devotion

as loyalty, allegiance and submission.. 

The Guru taught of devotion 

as commitment, identification and compassion..

Ramu returned sharp, smart and disciplined,

and always with him was a guide..

It was his Master's book of commandments..

that he worshipped everyday, 

and held on to with dignity and pride..

Shamu returned calm, composed and wise..

and never needed a guide--

The Guru gave him no holy book,

and that came as no surprise.. 

As the years rolled by, Ramu went far and wide,

and earned for himself name and fame.. 

Shamu too reached out far and wide, 

but always returned to from where he came..

The more he acquired fame, 

the more Ramu felt a deep loss..

Inside him was a chasm that--

with all of his wealth, 

he never could cross.. 

People spoke of Shamu, 

as if he were a banyan tree..

He grew tall and wide, 

but never went anywhere.. 

For his deep roots helped sustain

a rich ecosystem, from here to there..

While Shamu is loved, revered and celebrated,

he has but one lament..

as the world adopts modernity, 

the earth under him as turned into cement!

The story of the design of Bengaluru

Students of architecture and town planning in India, are familiar with the name of Le Corbusier, who designed the planned city of Chandigarh. But it is quite unlikely that they would have heard of Kempegowda, or maybe would have heard of him as some local, sundry chieftain from the south.

This post is about why Kempegowda is so revered in Bengaluru and the science behind his founding of the town that is now India's tech capital.

Kempegowda was a regional chieftain (ಪಾಳೇಗಾರ) under the Vijayanagar empire that was headquartered in Hampe (known as Hampi, to the outside world). He is widely regarded as the founder of present-day form of Bengaluru, but very few people know why this is so.

Bengaluru is situated on top of the Deccan plateau, and is about 3000ft above sea level. It literally sits on hard, igneous rock, and was historically known for its white granite. The name of the town literally comes from the white granite (ಬೆಂಗಲ್ಲು) that is found here. The name of the town has nothing whatsoever to do with boiled beans. A similar town near present day Chennapattana called Kengal (ಕೆಂಗಲ್ಲು) was known for its black granite.

These areas had no natural source of water like a big river or the sea coast. It was far away from the coast, and high up in the Deccan plateau. The nearest major river was Cauvery, almost a 100km away. Nevertheless, the demand for granite from different parts of the kingdom had made Bengaluru into a thriving trading hub under the Western Ganga dynasty up until 1000 CE, and under the Chola Empire later on. The story of Bengaluru goes back far into history. Ancient Roman coins have been found in Bengaluru, and not just that, in Talakadu on the banks of the Cauvery, archeologists even found a mould for minting Roman coins! Talk about counterfeiting!

Kempegowda had recognised the importance of Bengaluru as a trading hub, and proceeded to build a planned township around several markets called Petes (ಪೇಟೆ). In 1537, he built a fort with eight gates to the town, with a moat surrounding it. Only small parts of the Bengaluru fort remain standing to this day, near the K R Market area.

Bengaluru Fort. Image Source: Wikipedia. By Indrajit Roy - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28760709

Inside the fort were several marketplaces or Petes: Balepete, Akkipete, Chikkapete, Nagarathpete, Ragipete, Arelepete, etc. all of which exist to this day as localities in the city. The entire town was designed around marketplaces. On a related note, the cosmopolitan nature of Bangalore is not a post IT boom phenomenon, as is widely believed. It was not even the British Cantonment that brought diversity to the place. The town was a trading hub from much further ago.

The township within the fort was demarcated into blocks (called Agrahara) and were allocated explicitly for residential and business areas. Most roads in the town ran from East to West, or from North to South. This practice continues to this day. People interested in city planning often find this curious property about Bangalore roads -- some narrow roads are called "mains" and some big roads are called "cross". The names "main" and "cross" does not refer to the size of the roads in Bengaluru -- but to whether they are a East-West road, or a North-South road.

The main challenge for Kempegowda was to provide water supply to the capital city of his province. As noted earlier, there are no major rivers or the coast nearby.

In order to cater to the city's water needs, Kempegowda surveyed a much bigger area starting from Hesaraghatta in the north, to Begur in the south, and studied rainfall patterns and lakes in the area. He then constructed a vast network of lakes and feeder canals between the lakes, to connect almost 1000 lakes in an intricate pattern of canals. These feeder canals were called Rajakaluve (ರಾಜಕಾಲುವೆ) or "main canals" that were not to be disturbed. They were critical to ensure not just water supply to the lakes, but also to form a continuous system of flow, so that the lakes remained fresh.

This approach to planned cities based on principles of Vastushastra, is very different from what present day students study about town planning -- that involves concerns like design of public spaces, creating central business districts, paved roads, footpaths, etc. All of these are important, but they come much later. The provision of a near continuous source of fresh water to a landlocked town, is architectural design at a much more fundamental level.

Kempegowda also knew that this network of lakes cannot sustain a large population. He then estimated how the city would grow, and created markers in the forests outside of the city until which the city could grow comfortably with the designed network of 1000 lakes. These markers are called "Kempegowda towers" today -- of which only 3 of 4 towers are remaining.

Kempegowda north tower at Mehkri circle. Image source: Karnataka.com

Today all four Kempegowda towers are within the city limits, and the city has grown far beyond the four towers.

At the time Kempegowda built his capital, its population was estimated to be about 500,000 and the larger area till the Kempegowda towers could sustain a population of about 1 million. And today, with a population of almost 11 million, the Bengaluru metropolitan area has only 29 of the 1000 lakes remaining! Many of the Rajakaluves have been encroached upon by roads and buildings, leading to major flooding during rains and dying down of lakes. 

Today a major source of water supply to the city is from the Cauvery river which still remains where it was -- 100km away and 600 feet below in altitude. The daily electricity bill of pumping up water from the Cauvery is almost 1 crore rupees! 

Following the industrial revolution (in Europe) and the semi-industrialisation of our colonised society, there has been a fascination for constructing large, non-local solutions to address local problems. Hence water supply for Bangalore was designed to come from somewhere far away. But what about the people and the ecosystem who already depended on the water over there?

When we construct a large infrastructure to solve a local issue, we in turn disrupt the ecosystem around the places where we source our materials from. This in turn causes a migration in search of jobs and business opportunities, into the urban centres that have large infrastructure built for them. This increases the demand for even more infrastructure, thus starting a vicious cycle of infrastructure building, disruption of existing ecosystems, and large inflow into urban centres. 

In contrast to this, the Vastushastra approach to architecture and town planning, emphasises on extensively studying the structure and dynamics of the surrounding ecosystem (called the Vidhi), and make minimal, sustainable changes to the existing ecosystem so as to cater to our needs (the principle of dharma). The system that we build should be in harmony with the surroundings and form an overall stable ecosystem. 

For some reason, Kempegowda is never regarded as a master architect in our mainstream education, and is never featured in any college syllabus on architecture and city planning (as far as I know that is, I would be glad to be proven wrong on this). Vastushastra is not studied as part of architecture or civil engineering curriculum either (as far as I know). 

*~*~*~*~*~*

Coming back to the story of Kempegowda, such was his popularity among his people, that many neighbouring provinces started feeling insecure, and even worried that his popularity would become more than the kings at Vijayanagar itself. 

The chieftain of Chennapattana, Jagadevaraya filed a false case against Kempegowda with the Vijayanagar king, alleging that he was minting coins illegally. This caused the king to imprison Kempegowda and take over Bengaluru town. 

But the citizens of the town fought for him and finally convinced the king to drop the false case against him, after five years. After his release, Kempegowda constructed an underground cave temple near Basavanagudi called Gavi Gangadhareshwara temple as a thanksgiving to the divine. 

Gavi Gangadherashwara cave temple at Gavipuram near Basavanagudi. Image source: Wikipedia. By Pavithrah - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20746521

The citizens of the town organised a grand festival to celebrate his return where they put him on a swing (Uyyale ಉಯ್ಯಾಲೆ) as part of the celebration. The area came to be known as Uyyale-kavalu, which in the present day is known by the Anglicised name Vyalikaval, near Sadashivanagar, that is home to several celebrities and political leaders.

Astika and Nastika

The terms astika and nastika from Sanskrit are wrongly translated as "theist" and "atheist". This post tries to explain their meaning.

There is no notion of theism in dharmic thought. Sure, Hindus have several deities, but it is not the same as theism. A deity is used as a handle to focus one's thoughts and hermeneutics around what it represents, as a means of spiritual inquiry. This is characteristic of the bhakti marga mode of inquiry.

The terms asti and nasti respectively represents something that is or is not. The video above, explains these terms.

The fundamental debate in dharmic thought is whether there is a reality that is beyond our perception and cognition, or what we can perceive and think of is all there is.

As in a much later era, the quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg, once said, "What we observe, is not the universe itself, but the universe exposed to our method of inquiry."

A core debate in dharmic thought is as follows. What we can perceive, imagine and conceptualise is called Maya. The true nature of reality is said to offer its glimpses to us only when we can escape the illusion of Maya. There is no single way to achieve this. This spiritual inquiry takes several forms, each of which has a core component -- like jnana (pursuit of knowledge), bhakti (devotion), yoga (harmonization), karma (deeds) etc.

Each marga or pathway of inquiry has a different characteristic. The jnana marga for instance, uses skepticism as its core element of inquiry. It is sometimes called "Neti, Neti" (not this, not this). One who pursues knowledge is eternally skeptical of everything that is presented, and wants to go and explore their foundations -- until one day, they turn their skepticism onto their skeptical mode of inquiry. And get thoroughly confused. And are completely lost. At this point, they are considered to have qualified for spiritual inquiry (passed their comprehensive exam or quals).

Similarly, a seeker using the bhakti marga for spiritual inquiry, holds on to an object of their devotion and idolises it or deifies it. They express themselves without inhibition towards their object of devotion. Their object of devotion would be the centre of their universe and they dedicate themselves totally in it. Until one day, they realise that all the ideal and divine attributes that they have been attributing to their object of inquiry is in fact, within themselves! If they felt that their deity was the epitome of gracefulness and compassion, it is because their mind was able to experience it. If they felt that their deity was the epitome of justice and order, it is because their mind was able to experience it. By attributing things to the deity, they are in fact, discovering themselves. And that is when they have cleared their comprehensive exam and gained candidature.

This beautiful rendition from the Markendaya Purana, estimated to be more than 5000 years old, explains the above -- the purity of thought and action we attribute to our ideal deity, is in fact, within us.

Like the above, there are several pathways, each having its own dominant heuristic to help us escape the hermeneutic framework in which our mind resides. Each such transgression of the underlying hermeneutics leaves the seeker in a potentially different part of reality and they would come back with a glimpse of one small part of the underlying reality that is presented to us as Maya, in our matrix.

Where there are several pathways and heuristics to escape Maya, there is also a "null" hypothesis, which is the nastika hypothesis.

The nastika hypothesis basically says that there is no such thing called reality beyond our perception and cognition. Just because we stumbled upon something unexpected, which made our entire mental framework crumble, does not mean that it was somehow unreal, and whatever we experienced in the resultant state of confusion and hallucination is somehow real.

In fact, whatever we experience in our state of confusion (that gained us our candidature), is still in fact, being experienced within the framework of our faculty for perception and cognition! How can we claim to have transcended our existence, if all that we experience is through our perception and cognition? Sure, we may not be able to understand what we experienced, or we may not be able to explain it, but we did experience it in our mind, using our brain and body -- that is, we experienced it within the framework of existence, or Maya.

The astika mind would argue back by saying that, what the seeker experienced is not just a new experience, but a new insight and a perspective. Which can only be experienced if one were to escape from sensory and cognitive limitations. For instance, did mathematical truths like the primality of a number, exist when dinosaurs roamed on the face of the earth? Sure they did. Except, there was no seeker who could escape from the confines of their mind, and discover them. It was only after several millennia, that the human mind discovered it. It was always there, but the earthly creatures were too trapped in their minds to discover them. Who knows how many more elements of reality we can discover, if only we made an effort to escape from Maya?

The nastika mind would reply by saying that in our quest for truths that lie outside the realm of Maya, we may end up neglecting our very existence and well-being. If for instance, people around me are suffering, I would rather engage with them and find solutions right here and now, within the framework of Maya, rather than neglect all these "worldly matters" and go off on a "spiritual quest" and breaking our own minds. This line of argument, for instance, was what philosophers like Siddharta Gautama (later known as Buddha) gave, in their rejection of the astika philosophers.

Buddha himself went on a spiritual quest, but in a guided fashion. He went to explore the roots of suffering and pain. He didn't reject everything, saying Neti, Neti. And he didn't idolise anything, like a bhakt, pursuing the pathway of devotion. His pursuit had a focus called "What is" (the cause of human suffering), and based on focused struggle or "Srama". This pathway of focused inquiry was later accepted as yet another valid pathway, and is now called Sramana.

The idea of nastika is very important, because it brings in the notion of a null hypothesis for spiritual and philosophical inquiry. It is possible for us to adopt scepticism as a blind belief (religion), just like we can be proud of our humility, and flaunt our modesty at every given opportunity. The nastika frame of reference can give a reality check in such cases.

The above debate is very different from the debate as to whether "God exists" or "There is no God". This is also not the same as the (confused) dilemma between "religion" and "science".