LUCK, RANDOMNESS & PROBABILITY

   

LUCK, RANDOMNESS AND PROBABILITY 

      I was waiting for the result of an MRI scan. My doctor, yesterday, texted me, “got the result of the MRI and will ring you tomorrow in the morning.” No time given. I checked my phone when I got up today. I did not want to miss this call. I checked the volume on my phone. Asked my wife to make a call to me to make sure the network was ok, and my phone was working.

        I kept the phone in my pocket or in hand all the time. At 11:30 someone knocked at the door. The postman was there. He had a registered letter for me for which he wanted my signature. I put the phone on the console in the hallway. The letter was from HM Revenue and Customs. A registered letter from inland revenue. Something was serious. I took the letter in the study. Two pages, it took about five minutes to get through their jargon. It did not make a sense. I looked at the envelope. The letter was not for me! The name and address were for the next-door neighbour.

The postman had made a mistake. I put the letter back in the envelope. I went to the hallway to open the door and to drop the letter in my neighbour’s letterbox. I saw my phone on the console.

I have missed two calls from my doctor in those twelve minutes. Did he have to ring precisely in this time slot when I left my phone in the hallway? Did the postman have to make an error at that particular day and time? And me, why did I leave the phone in the hallway?

Anyway, I immediately rang back on the number from which the call was made. All I got after going through a choice of multiple options interrogations, was a recorded message “we are closed now, ring us between 10am and 12am Monday to Friday.” Tomorrow was Saturday. I will have to wait till Monday. What a bad luck, I felt angry, anxious, and sad.

Thinking calmly, I realised, no one was to be blamed. it has nothing to do with luck. Things happen, mostly randomly. It is we, who as individuals define them as good or bad in retrospect. I do not mean that because things happen randomly, we do not have to make any effort to achieve what we want, like Sant Maluka Daas “ अजगर करै न चाकरी, पंछी करै न काम। दास मलूका कहि गए, सबके दाता राम। “*

But We do have an agency. We must make every effort, take due care and diligence to increase the probability of the result going in our favour. This is what I mean by making one’s own luck. Of course, remember, probability is not surety! But it is far better than absolute randomness. 

 I should have kept my phone with me. I should have checked the address before signing for that letter. If I would have increased the probability of “good luck”!

*The python doesn’t plow, the bird doesn’t work. Maluka Daas says, God Ram is the provider for all”

 

WE ARE ALL BLIND LIKE DHRITRASHTRA*

 

WE ARE ALL BLIND LIKE DHRITRASHTRA^*

 I got up in the morning and made a cup of tea, like an automaton, lifted the remote laying on the coffee table near my hot cup and switched on the television. The beaming face of Donald Trump came on the screen. This was the morning after the day of voting in the USA. For the last couple of weeks, the American Presidential Election has hogged the television screens and radio news channels in the western world and most of the other countries as well.

          We have been seeing the ups and downs of the presidential candidates’ ratings in different states and different communities. Media all over the world kept on saying the fight was neck and neck, we mostly believed them. On the morning after, the results were quite the opposite. Trump won by an overwhelming majority. According to his supporters he is the best thing that ever happened in America, for the opposing Democrats, just replace the “best” by “worst”! How can we have such diverse extreme opinions about the same person?

Same thing is happening at the Ukraine-Russian war. A section of world population believes Russia is the aggressor and is invading a sovereign country whereas the Russian population and many others believe that it is Ukraine’s fault, and it does not deserve any support. Majority of people are in one or the other camp. No middle ground.

In Gaza and Israel conflict we were and are being shown an incredibly detailed imagery, depicting initially the heinous terrorist attack on Israelis by Hamas and then the colossal infrastructure destruction and death and misery in Gaza. In this case also the global population is deeply divided and no resolution in site.

 On the news channels, the correspondents and the experts are giving varying accounts and interpretations. I know the scenes are heavily censored either based on human decency or on the religious, moral and or political views of the reporters and the experts. Added to this are pressures and threats by the ruling regimes in the places from where the reporters are broadcasting and where the news is being shown.

In past for most people the news came quite late after a lot of manipulation on the way but now, thanks to phenomenal progress in communication tools, it is almost instant. But with the help of the ubiquitous social media the manipulation of masses has increased dividing the global opinion in polar extremes, reducing the chances of reasonable peaceful negotiations to zero.

The life like photos and videos seem so real that we do feel like being there. But we as individuals are not able to see, hear and analyse these events ourselves, it is not possible. We also choose to believe, the reporters and the commentators whose views agrees to our individual biases. The algorithms of social media platforms ponder to our biases and excludes the views of the other side thus deepening the chasm.

Our world view thus is shaped by what the media in our countries and our societies chose to show us.

          The great Hindu epic Geeta begins in the early morning when the two great armies stand facing each other. From there on it describes what is happening at the battleground. The king Dhritarashtra is blind and for his benefit Sanjay, who has the power of clearly seeing and noticing the events which happen at a distance, describes to him the events as they are enfolding.

We are all blind like King Dhritarashtra but is our media an honest broker like Sanjay?

*.     Dhritarashtra was the blind king of Hastinapur as described in the great Hindu epic Mahabharata.

A DRAGON ON THE PAVEMENT

                     

A typical English morning, grey, cold and light drizzle. I went to the get my car from the garage in the back of my house. On the concrete footpath this beautiful yellow flower plant just lighted up the day. The plant was growing in the groove between slabs next to the fence. Shiny green narrow pointed leaves and spike of blooming clusters of trumpets like flowers I drove out of my garaged, had another look at this happy flower. It put a smile on my lips.

Pink Snapdragon in our garden 

I knew this flower, “Snapdragon”, I have it in my little garden. It took some time and effort to get a few of these growing in
pots. And, here, this plant was happily growing in this barren concrete car park with little sustenance! And despite its meagre resources it was thriving and certainly adding some gaiety in an otherwise bleak space.

I have a friend who is like that. He is constitutionally jolly even in difficult circumstances and is always ready to help and cheer up others if needed. He manages to liven up any gathering just by his presence. I am sure you too, do know someone like that in your neighbourhood and friend circle.

Back to the Snapdragon plant. It is called a dragon because the flower does look a bit like dragon head and if you press its sides, it does snap its jaws!

I looked up its proper botanical name: Antirrhinum majus. It is so named because it looks like a snout. Rrhinum means nose,

being a medic, I do know that but why “Anti”. In common parlance, “anti” denotes something opposite rather than alike. Antirrhinum should mean that this flower is against the nose, ready to oppose the nose (like, Anti-apartheid or antibiotics). I was intrigued. and had to check the Web. Apparently, the Greek word “Anti” has got many meanings*:

1.     in exchange for, in place of

2.     at the price of, in return for

3.     for the sake of, for

4.     instead of

5.     compared with

6.     equivalent to, no better or worse than 

 

In Antirrhinum, it may mean equivalent to or instead of nose, in other words “Anti” could mean “like”, which justifies the botanical nomenclature. Does it feel anti-rational to you? Pardon moi, I cannot resist saying, it is all Greek to me.

* ἀντί - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

ALL-INCLUSIVE HOLIDAYS: A CAUTIONARY TALE FOR AD LIBITUM SERVICES

 

ALL-INCLUSIVE HOLIDAYS: A CAUTIONARY TALE

 FOR

AD LIBITUM SERVICES

 

The man entered in the main restaurant and hang his coat on the back of a chair. The waiter came and asked him if he wanted coffee, tea or orange juice. “I would like a glass of orange juice and then a pot of Earl Grey tea” the man said and went to get his breakfast.

He came back with a plate full of various kinds of bread, two sausage, two poached eggs, two rashes off crisped bacon and a bowl filled with baked beans. He had some fried tomatoes, mushrooms and cheese too. He drank the orange juice and ate about half of what was on his plate and pushed the plate aside. He got up and brought two more plates, one had few slices of melon and pineapple each, a kiwi, an orange and a banana, the other plate had a big slice of double chocolate cake, two pieces of Baklavas and a big muffin. There was also a bowl filled with strawberry ice cream. He asked the waiter to get a fresh pot of tea as the previous one had gone cold. After finishing a cup of tea, he left. There was at least half of the food left on the table.

This was not unusual though. All around me on many of the tables it was the same story, more or less. We were also guilty of this gluttony and waste, perhaps, not to that extent.

Why were we all behaving like this? Just because we were on vacation and yearning to have a jolly good time does not explain this indifference to wastage of food and drinks. I am very sure most people did not do this at home. 

I wondered about this, but while I was there at this Cretan resort, enjoying my holiday, I was too busy consuming to concentrate on pondering!

When back at home I kept mulling over it. 

There were hundreds of varieties of food and drinks on display in the main restaurant at the breakfast, also at the lunch and the dinner times. There was even champagne for breakfast! Apart from this main restaurant there were many snack bars specialising in different cuisines and cocktails, scattered all around this vast resort on the shore of Aegean Sea. The presence of so many enticing dishes from different countries and cultures induces one to explore as many as possible, What a pleasure!  If one is not up to your taste, just bin it, what a waste!

Another factor is peer pressure and imitative behaviour. Seeing other's overflowing plates, one just does it without a second thought. Soon it is accepted and becomes the norm.

The last but I think, the most important reason is this. When one does not have to pay at the point of use, the wastage does not impinge on one’s conscience as much. People in general, care less about things which come free or seem to come free. Sense of entitlement without immediate association of pain (cost) dims the moral inhibitions on wastage and misuse. Air and Water are vital commodities but because they are free, people do not hesitate in polluting or wasting them.

The National Health Service in U K is a prime example. Because people do not have to pay at the point of delivery, many do not care to protect it and to use it carefully and prevent waste. Everyone feels entitled and wishes to have the best treatment, whatever the cost. But just like all-inclusive holidays we all have paid a price. The government is paying for it  from what it has collected from us through taxes. It may seem free, but it is not.

  An all-inclusive holiday resort could not keep on giving best foods and drinks  ad libitum without charging an appropriate price, taking the running costs, price of raising capital, inflation, taxes etc into account. They have to think carefully what level of service and quality of food they can provide with the money they have collected in the first place otherwise they would go bankrupt. 

Without rigorous audit and strict governance by the provider no ad libitum service can be sustained because the customers will consume it as if it is free and unlimited service.