Pepper gyaan

I learnt a super interesting funda yesterday. If i had learnt it earlier, it would have been a blockbuster quiz question.

To most of us today pepper is just another thing that spices up your meal. But just 200 years ago it was the prime reason why the European powers decided to take over India and seeing success here a large part of the world.

The word pepper is itself derived from a sanskrit word for the spice. The europeans, especially the rich and powerful ones were completely in love with it. So much so, that in order to find the southwest coast of india, they decided to discover alternate sea routes and ended up in the Americas. Here they saw another plant was used to spice up the food and decided to name it chilli pepper after the only other spicing agent they knew.

This is where it begins to get interesting.

This plant was more adaptable and could grow in a wide variety of climates. They brought it back to Europe and also spread it to the old world. In hindi it is called mirchi. Slowly it spread across india and became ubiquitous as the primary spicing agent. Well plants from one part of the globe are transported to another. This has happened to any plants. What is the big deal.

This is what happened. The mirchi became so ubiquitous that in a cruel irony of fate, today pepper in hindi is called kali mirch.

So in the west the relatively new spice agent is called chilli 'pepper' whereas in India the original pepper is today named after the chilli as kali mirch!

Of atheists and superstitions

I was wondering, if atheists have any right to be superstitious. This thought has been running in my head for quite some while.

I remember seeing in a quiz somewhere, a trivia about eastman's statue at M.I.T. To get good grades many students would rub his nose. Similarly outside C.B.T, Anna University is the infamous arrear stone. No self respecting 9 pointer except Suhas (who should not be counted anyway, as he is not self respecting) would sit on that. I am not trying to say that universities have only athiests. They do have a higher number of people who claim to be, but that still boils down to an extremely low percentage. Universities thought should definitely have a higher percentage of rational thinkers. These two legends, actually put this thought in my head. Ok, so universities have superstitious people. Lets see what can be worse. Atheists.

Then I began thinking. I consider myself an atheist. Not the confused agnostic. Atheist. God doesn't give a damn to the nitty gritties of my life. I don't give a damn to his. But in a lot of matters I am extremely superstitious. Whenever I start something I cross my fingers. When I was in class 2 there was this teacher who said if a train was going on a bridge above you and you crossed your finger and made a wish it will come true. I still follow that religiously :) . Not many have come true, but I still make a wish none the less. Now, do not come to the conclusion I am irrational. In most cases I am not. Except probably these two idiosyncrasies.

Well before i digressed to give you my story, I was thinking. And this thought led me to my theory and I came to the conclusion that atheists not only have a right to be superstitious, they are also more likely to be. Sounds counter intuitive. This is my argument.

Whether you are a believer or an atheist or confused, probability still sticks to the same rules. You win some you lose some. Some days you are the bug, some days you are the wind shield. So faced with a situation where chances of success and failure are the same, everyone wants to do something that will improve their chances of success. I mean, over and above all the possible effort that can be put into the particular thing you are working on.

So a Ganesh Bhakt will go and break a coconut. This is an expression of faith. In case it doesn't work he will just complain. Ganesha, you cheated me even after taking the coconut. Its alright next time I'll break 2 coconuts. Bribery made. Probabily of failure two times in a row anyway lesser. Chance of success higher, and ganesha gets credit.

Confronted with the same situation what does an atheist do. He cannot run to ganesha. He knows knocking on that door is pointless, at least for him. Yet, something has to be done to calm down the heart. Additional stone has to be turned to make lady luck smile. So before beginning/ submitting his job, he crosses his fingers. If it still screws up, next time he will have two pairs of fingers crossed. Same story repeat. Chance of success higher. And the crossed fingers worked.

Confronted with a series of defeats ganesh bakht has two choices. Go deeper and deeper into his faith. Believe its a challenge set by God to not lose hope on him and persevere. Or become athiest and start crossing fingers.

The atheist confronted with series of defeats again has two options. He will start thinking of what use were the crossed fingers. Now stop behaving stupid. Persevere and success is around the corner. Or become a ganesh bakht and start breaking coconuts :)

If the atheist did persevere and achieved the success and things became normal once more, there is a high probability he will get back to his superstitions. No harm pushing one's case, and everyone is not Hari Seldon. Even he could not predict individual cases.

The Mosquitoes and me - A story of Blind one sided love

The mosquitoes around Seema Society - they absolutely love me. Every time I come home, you can bet half your fortune that i am going to catch malaria within a month's time. You could claim that my society is close to a huge breeding ground for mosquitoes, but then why is it that only I get malaria and no one else in the building.

I analysed this and came up with a few possible reasons

a) I am a babe magnet: okkkkkkkkk. I'll say it again. okkkkkkkkkkk. I mean how could my brain even come up with that. Agreed its the FEMALE anopheles mosquito, but the other side is you. when was the last time a woman gave you a second glance. Wait a minute, when was the last time a woman gave you a first glance. Ok. Enough. Theory chucked.

b) Personal hygiene: I agree, I do not set very high standards of personal hygiene. In fact if it was possible I will lower it further, but that would be an impossibility. That actually puts me in a good position to realise that its the flies that are attracted to dirt and not mosquitoes. And even if that were not the case everyone else in my house are cleanliness freaks. The house has to be spic and span. Plus they hate mosquitoes, making it a point to deploy chemical repellents to keep them away.(Personally, am neutral. I do not car4e if mosquitoes live or die.) Yet the mosquitoes overcome all this and more to come kiss me in my bedroom. Additional proof that I am the sole object of the mosquitoes longing is that my brother who sleeps in the nearby bed in the same room has never been affected.

c) Virah mein pyar badhtha hai?: Not being at home for longish periods of time, the mosquitoes begin to miss me. So when I do return the mosquitoes shower their love with some sort of vengeance. This is corroborated by the fact that my first bout of malaria was when I returned home before starting 4th year of college. I lived in mumbai before joining college, and after that only for vacations.

Inspite of the anti-malarial drug induced thought (the most likely reason of how i must have come up with option a), I am happy that I had the reasoning power to come up with option c and also conclude that it was the most likely option.

The mosquitoes are losing their sting though. First time their love sent me to the hospital for a week. The second time I was in decently bad state for more than 3 days. This time the affter - effects of their love seems to have lasted just the better part of a day.