While I finish the travelogue, enjoy this:

Like you, I watched the reactions to Kapil Sibal’s alleged dream of pre-screening the internet. It was easy to see that some of the reactions were at most paranoia. Sibal sat down with Karan Thapar on Devil’s Advocate a couple of days ago. Watch it if you are interested in the issue.

Free speech absolutists such as I will have some disagreement with Sibal but he is by and large reasonable. And that is important to acknowledge. At best this is a disagreement where one side (I) is not in control and the other side is in control but not being outrageous.

I can live with that.

Those five words are perhaps the most important life-lesson I have learnt recently. I don’t need to give a fuck about everything. I don’t need to be paranoid about everything that isn’t exactly how I want it to be.

And I don’t need to jump in with a pitchfork every time someone deviates from absolute free speech.

Sam Harris interviewed psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Daniel has an interesting scientific perspective of happiness.

Sam: How should the split between these two points of view affect our understanding of the good life?

Daniel: Some conceptions of the good life take the Aristotelian view to the extreme of denying altogether the relevance of subjective well-being. For those who do not want to go that far, the distinction between experienced happiness and life satisfaction raises serious problems. In particular, there appears to be little hope for any unitary concept of subjective well-being. I used to hold a unitary view, in which I proposed that only experienced happiness matters, and that life satisfaction is a fallible estimate of true happiness. I eventually concluded that this view is not tenable, for one simple reason: people seem to be much more concerned with the satisfaction of their goals than with the achievement of experienced happiness. A definition of subjective well-being that ignores people’s goals is not tenable. On the other hand, an exclusive focus on satisfaction is not tenable either. If two people are equally satisfied (or unsatisfied) with their lives but one of them is almost always smiling happily and the other is mostly miserable, will we ignore that in assessing their well-being?

Rightly, Sam then brings up self-deception. No discussion on happiness is complete without talking about the biggest factor that hinders the honest introspection of happiness.

Sam: To what extent to do you think true self-deception (as opposed to simple bias) exists?

Daniel: I don’t know how you expect to distinguish true self-deception from simple bias. Suppose you like someone very much. Then by a familiar halo effect you will also be prone to believe many good things about that person—you will be biased in their favor. Most of us like ourselves very much, and that suffices to explain self-assessments that are biased in a particular direction. You will believe these biased assessments regardless of whether they are about you or about someone else. We resist evidence that threatens our positive image of people we love. And perhaps we love ourselves more intensely than we love most (or all) others. When does this become self-deception?

A discussion on happiness can go on for hours leading to nowhere, as I recently found while talking to a fellow traveller in Ecuador. But more on that in the travelogue. I promise it is coming up soon.

While travelling, happiness is the most discussed topic — in that I bring it up in conversations. I like to understand how others interpret the word and what it means to them in their lives. Visualize a scale with two extremes being actively seeking happiness and passively receiving it. I find that fellow travellers often like to reach out and seek happiness actively — indeed that is one reason why they are travellers. Most of the other interactions I have happen with those who are closer to the passive end of the scale.

***

I’m looking forward to reading Daniel’s Thinking, Fast And Slow. I have read a bit of philosophers and spiritual people talk about happiness. It will be interesting to hear what a psychologist has to say.

Sawai Gandharva is an annual event of Hindustani music that we Punekars tend to believe is like Woodstock — only held every year with no topless girls. Actually there’s nothing in common between the two besides the wonderful music.

Among the strangest things I read was that Shankar Mahadevan performed at Sawai last week. Strange because Mahadevan is not a pure classical singer. The Sawai audience consists of purists who do not take well to anything that isn’t, well, pure.

Here are two videos of Mahadevan performing at Sawai: One and two. Judge for yourself.

On second thoughts, don’t. Yes it is possible to write a long critique of the performance. But it was enjoyable — which is all that ought to matter. No?

***

That day, Mahadevan’s performance was followed by Pt. Jasraj. I imagine purists counted it amongst the worst days of their human existence.

What a wonderful world:

Here is Times of India’s report on the Kolkata fire incident that killed 89.

***

Being enraged seems useless, offering condolences to relatives or peace to deceased seems pointless, questioning India’s rise to economic stardom seems orthogonal, mentioning India’s lack of respect for human life seems banal.

The bright side is a few hospitals will reevaluate their fire safety standards. That’s all we have to show for it.

By now you ought to have seen the flash mob in Mumbai. Meticulously planned and nice.

A similar attempt in Delhi was a damp squib:

There was disappointment in store for the participants when the flash mob performance at Janpath’s flea market was stopped barely 30 seconds after it began. Cops said the organizers had not taken permission from Delhi Police or the market association to hold the event there.

“They don’t have permission from authorities concerned to hold the event here. We received a complaint from the market association and that’s when we put a stop to it,” said a police officer.

(30 seconds from start of performance to complaint to stop is impressive.)

***

Some cops in Delhi are just not into this feel-good stuff. Back in ’08, a friend and I sought permission for the free hugs campaign at (what I recall was) Connaught Place. They did not like the idea even after we offered to modify it to alleviate their concerns.

We moved to a different place.