A critique of Room by Emma Donoghue

Spoiler Alert: Since this is a critique, it is bound to contain some spoilers. If you do not wish to read any spoilers about the book, please look away now.

‘Room’ is a book that I read recently and loved instantly. I was breaking my head to try and find an apt and succinct description of the novel and did not find any better than the review made by Audrey Niffenegger, author of ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’, who said, “Room is a book to read in one sitting. When it’s over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days.”

Let me try and describe the book in short. It is a story about the relationship between a mother and her five year old son, Jack. Both Jack and his mother, whom he affectionately calls ‘Ma’, are kidnapped by ‘Old Nick’ and locked in a Room. Ma tries to protect her son, who was born in the Room, from ‘Old Nick’, and conceals from her son the fact that they are actually locked inside and that there is a whole wide beautiful world out there to live in. As Jack grows, his inquisitive nature forces Ma to spill out the truth about the Room and the world outside, which Jack, in his innocent way, calls ‘Outside’.

The book then goes on to explain the beautiful relation that a mother has with her son, and the sacrifices that a mother makes for her son. As much as I would like to comment about the beauty of the book, I will not do so because this post is meant to be a critique. If you need a summary of the book, the innocence of Jack, and the problems that the writer must have faced in writing such a book and how she overcame them, have a read here.

Before being critical, I would like to make it clear that I liked the book very much. It is a must read, and it deserves all the fame and accolades that it gets. However, there are some important points that I would like to make, which would have brought the book even more fame and success, like actually winning the ‘Man Booker Prize’, for the year 2010 (The book was a finalist in the competition).

The first point that I would like to make is about the unraveling of the truth. Ma, who had initially kept the secret of the real world from Jack, had to tell him the truth as she could no longer convince the growing and questioning Jack. The book does not give much importance to the unraveling. Very little space is given to the part where Ma lists out the truth about the things in real world. It would have been nice if the author had expanded this section of the book by showcasing, in much more detail, the hard-to-believe emotion of Jack. Jack finds it hard to believe when Ma tells him that there is a real world outside. He thinks that Ma is lying to him.

The ‘Room’ part of the story ends half way through the book. (Spoiler alert). Jack and Ma escape from the Room after they successfully execute their escape plan. This part of the book was extremely thrilling and scary. It was just un-put-down-able. For me, the book ended the moment they escaped. The fact that the book was called ‘Room’ and that there was nothing about the Room, after the escape, was hard to take.

The second half of the book explained about how Jack copes with living in Outside. Jack finds it hard to accustom to the outside life. Everything seems new and strange to him. There are a lot of questions going on in his head and he does not have answers to most of them. He does not understand why his public display of innocence is cute, and hence funny for the adults. He does not understand how he could have a book, ‘Dyllan the Digger’, and still find it in a store (he thinks there is just one copy of everything). He does not understand why paparazzi are like vultures, and many other such things that are commonly understood by people living in the Outside.

While all this was happening, there is very little mention of Ma. For me, the story is as much about Ma, as it is about Jack. The fact that she lived all alone in the Room, before the birth of Jack, has been overlooked. She mentions how not a single day had passed without her thinking about escaping, how she had made different plans, of which none were successful. The book would have got more 'meat' if Emma had explained about the plans that Ma had made when the character was locked up in Room all by herself.

The reunion of Ma with her mother was hardly given any importance. After spending seven years, away from her parents, there was not much joyous interaction between Ma and her parents. I would have liked to see a happy reunion between the two.

Apart from these points that I have listed out, I felt that the book was very well written. It captured the innocence of a child very well. Extreme effort must have gone into the writing of this book and I applaud Emma Donoghue for doing a good job for most of the book.

P.S. Certain mid-sentence capitalizations are intentional. It is not a typo or a grammatically wrong sentence. If you have read the book, you will know what I mean.

Is being selfless actually being selfish?

As paradoxical as the title of this post may sound, it is actually true! Every now and then when you perform a selfless act by helping an old man cross the street, or helping a student pick up the books that he/she has just dropped, or any such thing, and come about feeling great that you have helped someone, the fact is, internally, you are actually being selfish. You just don’t know it.

To make sense of the previous paragraph, we need to go back a couple of centuries or so. Charles Darwin, a naturalist, made a revolutionary claim that we were not created by God, but we are a product of evolution. I guess every sane person accepts that we are here because of evolution, but the question about God’s existence will be debated until the physicists find the ‘Theory of Unification’. This post is not to discuss about the existence of God, but to make sense of evolution.

Evolution is a process where a living being continually adapts itself to the surrounding environment in order to survive, and the adaptation is carried on down the generation time line resulting in a whole range of organism that we see today. You and I are not special, we are just apes! Technically, Homo Sapiens are the 5^th ape. We are more closely related to chimpanzees than horses are to donkeys. Whether you like being called an ape, or not, you are one. Darwin stated that the aim of the organisms is just one, survival. And only the fittest of the organisms survive. Unfortunately, during his era, nobody knew about the DNA structure or the genes that make up a DNA. When Watson and Crick proposed the double helix model of the DNA, a whole new world was opened up for us to explore.

Scientists have analyzed the gene structure of the human beings and many other animals. They describe the genes in our DNA sequence as ‘Selfish Genes’. The role of the selfish gene is to simply act selfish so that it gets to survive, and that it gets propagated down the generation time line. This is totally in conjunction with what Darwin had proposed. The genes in our body modify to each and every external stimulus so that we can survive and our life on earth can continue as long as possible. Scientists have been able to explain the sensation of fear of heights in certain individuals, the need to fight back to defend oneself, the need to groom oneself to look better, and many such attributes in human beings, as being directed by the selfish genes in our DNA sequence. Some of us are scared of heights because they don’t want to fall down and die. Such explanations can be given to most of the emotions that we exhibit. While all these traits sound logical, there has been one aspect of human behavior that the scientists found hard to explain using the concept of selfish gene; the ability of the humans to be kind to other human beings and even other non-humans.

If selfish gene is meant to help you and you alone, why do we perform acts of kindness and help the needy? Why do we even have to protect someone if we know that the race is run only by the fittest? Recently there was a breakthrough and certain scientists have been able to link this trait in humans to the selfish gene. The researchers have proposed that, the act of being kind to another living being will generate a sense of camaraderie among the two, thus helping the former to remain safe from the latter. The former being, will help the latter, hoping that the latter will not hit back on the former when survival comes into question. The latter will develop a sense of guilt and not act selfish towards itself and thus helping the former to survive. That is a whole lot of things that I have said above. Some of you might want to go back and read through the previous paragraph again.

Experiments have shown that even chimps show selfless acts towards other chimps. However, it is not as clear as it is in humans. This emotional trait has been hardwired into our brains and we perform selfless deeds even though we know that we won’t be getting anything in return. The brain has been positively reinforced by being selfless to such a degree that it no longer needs to know that it will get something in return for this act of kindness. Being selfless also shows that the individual has matured a great deal through the evolutionary process. So, the next time you act selfish and do not see why we should be helping out the needy, keep in mind that, you are nothing more than a less evolved CHIMP!

To be, or not to be (born in March)

To be, or not to be (born in March), that is the question. Well, that may seem to be a stupid question to ask as no one can decide when he or she is going to be born. But, probably that is a question more directed towards parents, than to those born in March themselves.

Why this question all of a sudden? Well, being a March baby, I had to ask this for varied reasons. The very first years of me remembering celebrating my birthday, seem to be the only years when I have celebrated (at least, when my parents celebrated it for me) to the fullest extent. Ever since I joined school, there has been some or the other reason that has prevented me from celebrating it to my heart's content.

Birthdays, in India, are the days when the birthday boy or girl dresses up in colourful dresses (a change from the monotonous uniform), distributes chocolates to their classmates, invites their "close" friends back home after the school, and has a grand finale of all celebrations by cutting a cake with friends and family all singing the "Happy Birthday song" in unison. It is the day, when the person gets the maximum attention in school and elsewhere, with scores of "friends" surrounding him/her all day, many of whom would have been there only to enjoy the extra chocolates that the birthday baby would have been left with after all the distribution. It is also the day, when teachers would hardly scold or punish you for any mischief performed during school hours.

However, if you are a March baby, none of this would seem to be true. In India, March is the time when schools hold their year-end examination. Every year since my fifth standard (this is when exams start to get serious), I remember having had my birthday on an exam day, or at least, in the middle of the year-end exams. You can imagine my plight here. Colour dress or not, no one gives a damn if there is an exam on that particular day. Moreover, if your birthday falls on a break-day, it is even worse. Everybody would be so busy with their preparations that, it would be easier to find a needle in a haystack than find a friend who is ready to party with you (not that I used to party myself). It would feel like a curse and I would perhaps name it, "The Curse of the March-Born Baby".

One of the worst experiences was during my 10th standard exams in 2003. 10th standard exams are one of the most important exams for a student in India. In conjunction with the all-important exams, there was also the Cricket World Cup that was happening, in which India had gone on up to the finals, which was on March 23rd, 2003. The fact that they lost the finals to Australia made you feel even more miserable than what your exams had already made you feel. Such situations continued up to my 12th standard exams. It was only after that, that I felt there would be some respite with this "curse", allowing me to celebrate my birthday more joyfully. But, I couldn't have been more wrong. March, again, fell mid-way through my engineering semesters and there used to be internal exams in my college in and around this time preventing me from celebrating to the fullest.

Four years passed this way and I later joined NTU, Singapore, for my doctoral studies. Last year, was the first time I "celebrated" my birthday outside India away from my parents. Unbelievably, there was the dreaded exam again, a continuous assessment on the day after my birthday. So, the whole of my birthday was spent studying for the quiz.

This year though, it was a different scenario. I am in such a pressurised situation that celebrating my birthday was one of the last things on my mind. I am currently writing my confirmation report and it seems to be taking ages. I am working on a set deadline in my mind and I want to complete it by then. So, there has been absolutely no respite. I spent the whole of my birthday writing my report and then took a short break. To do what? To *write* this blog post. Man, I must love writing!

At the end of the day, I seem to have become immune to this curse. I am not a party person, I don’t drink, and I don’t spend extravagantly on unnecessary things. Probably it is because I have been tuned that way over the last 22 years. If it is so, I take this as a positive reinforcement, as it has taught me to lead a simple but satisfying life.

Finally, I would like to say that, I don’t have any hatred towards my birthday. In fact, I actually love it. There is this unexplainable feeling that I have towards March. For me it is a magical month. You may say I am biased towards the month because I was born in it, but, I don’t care. Without any offense to other months, March is the best month to be born in!

It would be interesting to see what next year has in store for me. Probably, I will be completely free and will be able to enjoy the day as much as I can. That said I am sure irony will play its part and make me feel too old to enjoy birthdays with the same enthusiasm of a teenager.

"Network Cable Unplugged", but it isn't!

Today morning, when I sat down at my desk and opened the browser to check my mails, I found that my computer was not connected to the internet. I ran the Win 7 trouble-shooter to diagnose the problem. It said "Network Cable Unplugged". I was like "What the...?" I quickly turned over the cabinet to see where the ethernet cable had run off. It was sitting well behaved in its slot. Then what was causing Win 7 to say that the network cable was unplugged?

I checked the socket connection on my wall to see if the other end of the cable had been disturbed. It was also tightly lodged into its socket. I asked Win 7 for a detailed description of the problem and this is all it could say, "Network cable Unplugged or Broken". Wow, that was descriptive! At least it gave me something new to work with. I replaced the ethernet cable to see if the original cable had any loose-connections in it. Unfortunately, the new cable was also of not much help. The same "error" kept occurring.

Well, if the ethernet cable was not faulty, then was the wall socket faulty? I tested that by connecting the cable to another free slot and still Win 7 said, "Network Cable Unplugged". But it wasn't! Like any other trouble-shooter, I resorted to restarting my machine, and checked if that helped. No, it didn't.

Suspicious that it might be a Windows related problem, I booted into Ubuntu to check if the same problem persisted over there. Not so surprisingly, I was able to connect to the internet without any problems. So, at least the problem was narrowed down to its source. Buggy WINDOWS 7.

Now that I had the power of the internet, I plunged into the World Wide Web to find a solution for this "problem". Not many articles talked about this problem. The few of them that did were happy to stay working with Ubuntu. Sadly, I could not do that. Some of the applications that I require, do not run on Ubuntu, or at least, requires a lot of work to make them run on the Linux flavour. Finally, I came across a forum with a user who had faced the same problem. His "solution" to rectify the problem is given below.

1. Shut down your PC.

2. Unplug the power cord.

3. If you have a laptop, remove the battery as well.

4. Walk away from the problem for at least 30 minutes.

5. When you return, reconnect battery and power cord.

6. Start as usual.

7. If this solves the problem, take 20 minutes and post this to all of those message boards that you didn't find the solution to.

I seriously laughed aloud at the above set of "instructions". What else do you expect a computer science engineer, researching in computer science, to do, when he/she reads such instructions? The instructions looked ridiculously stupid and not worth trying. Therefore, I spent 30 more minutes searching for "proper" instructions to solve the problem. Sadly, I didn't find any. I was seriously frustrated at this point. So, I thought, "well, there is nothing to lose in trying out the above instructions", and gave it a shot.

I shut down my PC and unplugged the cord. My PC is a desktop machine so point #3 does not apply. I also walked away from the problem (it was lunch time and I was feeling hungry). When I returned (35 minutes since I left, to be precise), I connected the power cord and started the machine.

Well, I guess all of you have already expected what the outcome was going to be. Let me swallow my pride and tell you, the bloody thing worked! I was able to connect to the internet in Windows 7. I was lost for words when the minimalist Google page loaded when I opened my Chrome browser. I was literally scratching my head wondering what shutting down the PC for 35 minutes could have done that restarting didn't.

The only logical solution that I can come up with is that, shutting down the PC and unplugging the cord from the socket would have earthed some stray eddy currents that had accumulated on the chipset. I cannot think of anything else. MS needs to look into their network drivers and try to make it more robust to eddy currents.

Finally, since the instructions worked, I could not help but follow the final instruction in the list. I have taken 45 minutes to compile this blog post in hope that it will help someone else with the same problem.

P.S. If anyone else has any logical reason for the above solution, please leave them in the comments section.

How Do You Change The Indian Political System?

Recently, I came across a video, which was shared by a friend of mine, on Facebook. The video was from a news channel in Bangalore that had invited two politicians to debate about the performance of the current government in Karnataka. One politician was from Congress and the other was from BJP. I won’t take names as I feel they are not worthy enough to be named. Below is the video of the debate and I would like you to have a look at it before reading further.

Well, those of you who know Kannada would have understood what was going on, and those of you do not follow Kannada, would still have known what was going on. There was total chaos in the studios. The news reporter was trying his level best to stop the two from fighting. But, all his efforts went in vain.

If you were from India, you would know that this is a common occurrence and would have thought that these two politicians are corrupt rogues, who are trying to throw mud on each other's party and prove to the public that their personal parties are the "best". You probably are right.

The politician from congress started the "debate" well by questioning the functionality of the BJP by asking what they had done for the development of the state. Since the questions hit the nail on the head, the politician from BJP tried to "elevate" his party's status by trying to demean the congressman and his party. He even went onto brandish personal abuse, which infuriated the politician from congress even further, resulting in a full-fledged verbal abuse.

Why is Indian politics in such a bad condition? Why aren’t there good leaders at the state level? Why aren’t the leaders giving importance to developmental activities? While searching for some "good" politicians, I came across one, Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan, a well-educated politician from Andhra Pradesh. The answers to the above questions were answered by him in part. Below are two videos where he talks about the changes that are required to bring forward a healthy political system.

He does talk at a very high level stating the problems that our system is facing. But, what are the solutions to rectify it? The same personnel, who we say are corrupt, are the ones that have to change the system. Will they do it? Of course not! Why would anyone dig their own grave? So, one may ask, what can be the solution?

As Dr. JP mentions in the Q&A session of his talk at Google, there is a need for awareness among the general public and a desire among the same to solve the country's problems. The educated should step into politics and make the change. Of course, not every educated person is ready to step into politics. There is far little number of people who are willing to make the step. Whenever such a daring person steps in, the "big" parties trounce him in the elections because of the money politics that they play. Here is where we come into picture. If you do not want to step into politics, I can totally understand. What I ask of you is to at least vote for the right person. Do not vote for a person just because he/she is from a "big" party. However, the next question is, ‘Whom do you vote for, if the two personnel in the first video stood against each other for a single seat?’ Well, in that case, if you do not find anyone who is capable of leading your constituency, then do not vote for anyone. Make use of the right to NOT VOTE (there is such a provision in the Indian Constitution).

Secondly, the biggest power that we have in our hands is education. If the government does not provide education, many kids will believe that corruption is the only way to be successful and follow in the paths of the current rouges. We cannot rely on the government to provide high quality education. So, it lies in our hands. I say, go out and imbue the importance of education in your neighbours, your friends, your relatives and most importantly, in those poor people, who do not know the value of education. Moreover, follow the rules. Do not bribe. Do not take autos if the drivers demand more than the meter fare. Take the bus. It will also reduce your carbon footprint. Doing such "small" things can have a relatively major impact on the society. I will borrow this statement from Gestalt psychology, "The whole is greater than the sum of parts".

We cannot expect to see a change overnight. It is only in the next generation that we can see the results. In fact, look at some of the educated politicians who are governing our country today. They are doing a very good job. Dr. Manmohan Singh is a great personality. Narendra Modi is a prime example of a politician who believes in education. Yes, he might have made some mistakes during the Gujrat riots and he should be punished for it, if proven guilty. However, look at the way Gujrat is developing under his leadership. We need to produce such leaders. Sadly, such "good" leaders are scarce. And those few that are educated are at the Central level. There is virtually no one at the state level to take care of the basic needs.

I would like to conclude by saying that education is the only way forward. Education will bring about awareness among the public, which in turn will help the common man to make better and justifiable choices. As more and more people get educated, many of these educated personnel will trickle into politics. They will have a better understanding of the system. They will be better able to solve the problems, which will help the country move in the right direction. You have the power. Make use of it.

Erdős Number

According to wikipedia, "Erdős number describes the 'collaborative distance' between a person and Paul Erdős, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers." So, who is this Paul Erdős and why is his number famous?

Paul Erdős was a famous mathematician who had an enormous output of mathematical papers. Because of his enormous output, his friends created a metric as a tribute to him. According to this metric, Paul Erdős gets the Erdős number 0. Anyone who has co-authored a paper with him gets an Erdős Number 1. Anyone who has co-authored a paper with a person having an Erdős Number 1 and not directly with Paul Erdős, gets an Erdős Number 2 and so on.

Why am I telling you all this? Because, I believed that I had an Erdős Number of 4! I recently wrote a paper with my Professor, Dr. Ramakrishna Kakarala, who has an Erdős number of 3. This got me excited! The complete tree being: Vittal -> Kakarala -> Kelttee -> J. H. Straight -> Erdős. Therefore, my Erdős Number should be 4, right?

If you were a keen reader, you would have observed that I mentioned "I believed" and not "I believe". The reason being, I was wrong! I do not have an Erdős Number of 4 though I have collaborated with my professor who has an Erdős Number of 3. I missed a crucial part of the definition of the Erdős Number. "Erdős number describes the 'collaborative distance' between a person and Paul Erdős, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers." There you have it. Sadly, the paper that I wrote was not a mathematical paper. For a paper to be a mathematical paper, it has to be published in journals or conferences dedicated to mathematics.

Its funny how people can go from a state of euphoria to a state of despondency within a matter of seconds! Ah, but this is life...

Nature's Unchangeable Path

Today morning I got up to the usual sound of the alarm from my mobile phone. Sleepily, I walked across my room and opened the window to let in some of the fresh chilly morning air. The air blowing on my face usually wakes my brain up and helps me get my day started. On some days I have to take the help of coffee and on others, nothing helps at all! Today was a different day though. I was wide-awake after opening the window just half way through...

My room's window has a sliding mechanism to open and close the glass pane. Therefore, you just have to push the glass in either direction to get the job done. While this looks to be a straightforward job, little did I realise that pushing it open today, would hurt a living creature.

When I opened the window today morning, I saw a poor butterfly get struck between the window's railings. I had not realised that it had taken shelter on the other side of the window for the night. The butterfly was haplessly fluttering its wings and trying to get away from the "death grip". It was such a saddening sight and I wanted to help the harmless creature. The fact that its wings were struck in the railings meant that I could just not slide the glass pane in the either direction. It would in fact injure the insect even more.

While I was thinking of what to do, the multicoloured insect was fluttering continuously with all its might. The vigorous fluttering had eventually tired the insect, as it was lay silent for the next couple of minutes. I had fears that its wings might be damaged and was wondering if it would ever to fly again. I just did not know what to do. Every solution I thought of would in fact hurt the butterfly further.

After rejecting most of the ideas, I stuck to the least painful method. I decided to lift the glass pane to increase the gap between the glass and railings, enabling the butterfly to fly to freedom. I slowly lifted the glass pane and the butterfly started fluttering again. I had to blow at it to help it get away from this claustrophobic space. Once it reached the end of the glass pane, it flew into the open air celebrating its freedom. It looked to me that the insect was not completely at ease with itself and was trying to reach a nearby tree to settle down. What a joyous moment it was to see the insect escape from a near death position. However, the joy was short lived...

Just when it seemed that the butterfly would find sanctity in the nearby tree, a mynah came swooping in from nowhere and caught the injured insect in its beaks. It was both a stunning and a sad sight. Stunning because I was amazed at the predatory skills of that bird as it caught a flying insect in mid air and sad because the butterfly had finally met its end.

I had to acknowledge that this was how nature worked and that Nature had already planned the time each creature would meet its end. At the most, it is only possible to delay the inevitable, but not stop it completely.