PINEAPPLE LAUNCHES NEW PHONE

Prologue

Now I generally don't publish my sketches online. But, as many people have been asking me to do so, I will post only one of my scripts that I have written. For, those of you who do not know what a sketch is - it is an aggressive comical take on anything, but it is mostly a script for a video. 

* * * * 

Jay Bandabuddhe, senior manager at Pineapple

Today, we are proud at Pineapple corp., to present you Pineapple 27s, the upgraded version of the very popular Pineapple 27.

The brilliant phone absolutely has no new features whatsoever, expect for well it’s very large 27-inch screen which has made it the best smartphone ever. It is so big that Levi’s has collaborated with Pineapple to make special pockets in their jeans merchandise just to keep you P-Phone safe. Meanwhile, handling this corpulent phone is still an issue we need to address

.

Steve Woznik the fifth, electronic expert for Pineapple.Inc

The features of P-Phone 27 are absolutely the same as that of 23^rd, which is a direct rip-off from a Korean company “G-sung”. Of course, everyone knows this, but that’s what makes our product even more special. False advertising.

The only added features to it are – Siri version 11, which the same as Siri version 2, expect with the increase in the suffix numerical. Another feature is the P-Think, which is an app that automatically uploads pictures to your Facebook account as soon as you think about it. I am definitely not installing that.

The price has not been revealed yet, but our team is estimating it to be around meager 1.9 lakhs. Not at all expensive. The phone is so cheap that you would literally have to sell yourself to buy it. A very rejuvenating experience if you ask me. The phone will be out in a couple of weeks and it would be launched in India in a couple of years. Just to build the suspense and thrill of it.

Raj Koothrapaully, Caltech Geek

This is better cause even if I don’t buy the phone. I can use the excess space in my pants to store everything else – my girlfriend, food, accessories, wooden planks, everything

Gullian Jobless, Ceo at Pineapple Inc.

I know after Steve died we literally rode his “aftermath wave” and we are right at the bottom of the market. But, this is going to be a very good year for us here at Pineapple. We are hoping that our customers would come back because P-phone is just getting bigger now.

We don’t have any new innovation because we absolutely have no clue how to do it. But, we are still surviving because we are still suing “G-sung” for copying our designs five years back.

So, P-phone would give a very tough competition to well other “P-phones”. We are going to be big now, more so than ever.

−−APPLE−−: PINE APPLE – because we are assholes 

THE DAIRY OF THE RUMBLING INDIAN MIDDLE CLASS MAN

"The following is a parody, loosely based on true events, intricately woven with fiction, you need not agree, just read"

I am a typical Middleclass Indian man, and as go all Indian men fitting that strata, I have been blessed with many typical “Indian” characteristics (If you don't agree with any of these traits my fellow Indian brothers and sisters, I understand. Being an Indian, I have the right to classify my own atypical characteristics as “Indian”)

The first trait that would define me is to “be cautious”. I confirm everything at least three to four times, whatsoever the case may be. Let a simple case of locking the main door when I, with my family have started out on a trip (To attend a family function is a trip for us, as we middleclass folks “rarely” waste our earnings on exotic vacations), leaving our “so called” valuables in “soon to be temporarily deserted” house at the mercy of a 7 lever Godrej lock. My first action in this instance, would be to pull out the poor rusted lock multiple times after locking the door to stress the test reliability of the lock. Immediately after stepping back, I would look back to cross verify the lock's fit onto the door. We are so cautious at being cautious that we cross question each other whether or not, we have locked the door throughout the journey. (Generally, my wife does the courtesy of asking such irritating questions “Did you lock the door?” )

Until we reached the railway station, almost everyone tries their utmost to entangle my cautious mind further with layers of confusion with queries such as - “Have you taken the tickets”, “Did you switch off the fans and lights”; “Count the number of bags” or my favorite - “Count the number of children”....

We Middleclass Indians are staunch advocates of traveling light – Five bags are a minimum count we use, with two suitcase, one big bag used as an eatery – even in Rajdhani Express in which the Railway ministry provides food and beverages ( not freely, the price is included in the tickets), one bag for both kids and one with all remaining valuables skillfully fitted into the purse of the lady of the house.

My cautious characteristic was still dominating when we reached Mughalsarai railway station at 11:45 pm (we arrived a total of one hour fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure of the Howrah express. But that was totally acceptable – better early than never)

As, usual I was busy in counting our bags and kids, while taking help of the coolie to carry our luggage to board in our reserved 3-tier AC compartment. Out from the blue, my second trait kicked in – to doubt everyone, which started going hand-to-hand with the first one. I took out the ticket to verify the train number and timing, and kept doubting the knowledge of our coolie who, as per generally accepted Indian principles, seemingly knows more than the sophisticated computer system that carried out the announcements.

The train arrived surprisingly on the right time (Until now I had not paid the coolie because of my second characteristic. You never know these coolies, they will disappear once they get the money, leaving you helpless on the crowded platform with seven bags including two sleeping children)

We pushed everyone to locate, let me rephrase, “capture” our already reserved births. My third characteristic woke up late midnight - “always be in a hurry”.

The train was still standing (I already checked with my co-passengers whether it was “Howrah Express”. My brother-in-law had warned me that there would be multiple Howrah's going at the same time) Withing less than three minutes, we locked our bags with chains, bought out the bedsheets, after a small tussle with the coach assistant, who was asking us to wait for a few minutes, and changed our clothes – including that of our sleeping kids.

Suddenly, a “pehalwaan” looking Punjabi with his wife and ten bags entered our section and shouted “Pajji!! This is our berthhee, neeche utaro”. I was intimidated by his physique and voice, but still gave him a free suggestion – my fourth characteristic, in imperceptibly protesting voice, “Bhai sab, this is our seats...do check your ticket again. There are many Howrah's at this hour, my brother-in-law told me already...”

Even before I could complete, the hot-headed punjabi dragged me down from my upper seat. My wife could not protect me from falling and all my kids, now fully awake and frightened (to be honest, not more than I was) started crying loudly in chorus.

And all of a sudden, my saviour came, in form of a ticket collector. He checked our tickets and addressed to me, vindicating Mr. Pehlwaan, “Sir, Your ticket was for yesterday's Howrah – See November 3^rd, 1:00 AM”

I put forth my argument (my fifth characteristic), “Today is November 3”

“No… after midnight date changed… it is November 4… 1:00 AM. Now train may start anytime… please get down quickly… hurry up!!!”

This was no problem as my already awakened third trait - “Always be in a hurry” was still active. My family and my luggage was bought down safely, before the Train could start.

My wife, pissed said “ I keep telling you to check the tickets, but you never listen...”

But, this of course, was given to a deaf ear as I was busy counting my luggage “….5, 6, uhhh, the purse 7....Complete!! Thank God”

* * * *

Why is your entire Life an elaborate lie ?

Your entire life is a lie. It’s a bold statement, made before and not done justice. Let’s examine exactly why virtually everything in your life is a lie.

When you were born, your parents did what all responsible parents do. No doubt they were overjoyed at your arrival, and they knew life would be better now that you had arrived. They wanted to protect you and they wanted to make sure you would be looked after once they were gone, so they made sure your birth was registered by the local registrar.

Most likely this action was never once thought of as an obligation, but rather a necessity to set you up with the best possible chance of a safe, healthy, assured life. The state would be there to provide you with the help should you need it, the NHS would be there to care for you, and all the other benefits that would flow from the existence of your birth certificate. So off they went, and before long they would receive something looking very much like this:

Few people would argue with the idea that, as it is the first document to ‘officially’ exist about you, the birth certificate must be a bloody important document – the foundation of your identity. All documents which subsequently bear your name logically have to stem from the first that was created, right? Wrong. The birth certificate is in fact nothing to do with you. It is not admissible even as evidence of your own identity. Why is this? Well firstly it is stated quite clearly on the bottom of your own birth certificate. Go and check for yourself.

Secondly, as the document clearly states and is so often missed, it is copyright of the crown. 
The significance of these two points can be easily passed over, and obviously has been by pretty much everyone as it just seems like getting your child registered is the ‘thing to do’. As you will now see, the birth certificate is actually the gateway to the attachment of all future debts which will certainly be accrued over the life time of the registrant.

So what does this mean ? Well, as the title suggests, quite a lot. Every bill, every license, every account, EVERYTHING which you believed was meant for you was actually never meant for you. It can't have been. Because if it was yours then the foundational document that does carry "your" name will not actively refute the fact.

What it does do is create a legal ball and chain which will be dragged throughout your life as a permanent, though voluntary, attachment of the mind.

So, Why is it so hard to believe that everything in life is a lie?

Why do we walk around pretending like the whole world is telling us the truth when most of the time, we won’t even tell ourselves the truth.

We accept lies every day. From the world, from the government, from the media, from our friends, from our family and mostly, from ourselves.

We tell ourselves that we will get-to-it-tomorrow, or maybe we’ll send that email later, let me just mark it as un-read real quick.

Didn't we all hear these excuses, “This is the last cigarette. I promise…” or “I haven’t had that many drinks, I’m good to drive.” Then there is my favorite, “Me? No, I never watch porn, Ever!!”

The truth is that we lie to ourselves every day. Shit, half of our memories are lies. Our brains are notoriously inefficient at creating accurate records of our life experiences. Sometimes we just fill in the blanks for ourselves.

Over time our imagination can even shift our reality. We start interjecting our own opinions and begin to mold our own memories while re-writing the past. Eventually our new version just becomes the truth.

We lie to ourselves about past lovers and romanticize the experiences. We dwell on that someone we just broke up with, someone we couldn't live with, yet somehow, can’t let go.

I’m not saying it’s right to lie, and I’m not saying it’s necessarily always wrong, I’m simply saying that it is. It’s hard wired into each of our brains and it is something we all do. No matter how much you want to pretend not to.

We don’t need to be taught how to lie, we just do it. We've known how to lie ever since the first time we fucked up.

Life is made up of these little lies. Things that you get to discover as you go. We love lies, fairy tales and falsehoods. We all pass them on, like a bad plague, from generation to generation.

We allow ourselves to be shackled by lies. Controlled by the system in which we live. For god’s sake, our entire monetary system is a complete lie. Digital ledgers of ones and zeros that for some reason we continue to believe in.

The problem with lies is that they become complicated. One day you look back and you’ve wasted your youth, all of a sudden you don’t know which part of your life is a lie and which part is truth.

We live in a hand spun symphony of story telling and infinite susceptibility.

The world was flat, and then it wasn’t.

The sun revolved around the earth, and then it didn’t.

We knew each of those things to be true for hundreds of years and yet at the time, many still believed otherwise.

Like many that have come before us, we have allowed lies to tear through our entire society like a slow rust. Slowly eating through all of the structural components and finally out onto the surface. Leaving the entire structure weak and ready for a complete collapse.

Our whole lives have been lies. We have been played. We are still being played. Pawns in a game handed down by the system.

Sometimes those distortions of reality lead to a good thing. A well intentioned shift in thought, based on understanding and new information can lead to great innovation, but sometimes it gets out of control.

Sometimes that distorted reality can bring down an entire society.

Sometimes the house of cards collapses and brings every one else crashing down with it. You’d be believing another lie if you thought it was not happening again. Right now.

And that right there, is nothing but the cold hard truth.

“It is the smallest things in life that make a big difference, so even the tiniest of deeds however short can have a deep influence on people.”

Of all these small deeds my dog definitely did a number on me. So this one is dedicated to my dog, Bobby

The tale of the Dodo

-Shyam Tenali

“He is an extremely well-behaved dog, believe me. In fact he is almost human. Docile, obedient and quiet. He has never bitten anybody in his life”, Mrs.B rambled on in one breath, looking hopefully at Mother.

She was standing at our front door holding a brown-coated dog of indiscriminate breed and a foolish smile. It had a tapered face, short, straight ears and was panting as if it had run a mile. Putu and I peeped from behind Mother’s sari fearfully, our evening play forgotten.

“I had no idea he was so big”, Mother replied in an unsure voice. She had always put up stiff resistance whenever any of us had wanted a pet.

“He is not big at all”, Mrs. B contradicted instantly. “He seems so because he is standing”, she contrived. Mother’s cool reception must have unsettled her. 

“Sit Dodo Sit!!” she thumped the dog’s behind in agitation but he stubbornly refused to oblige. I giggled and nudged my five-year old brother. Whoever had heard of a dog called Dodo?

“I am not sure I can handle him. He does not even listen to you,” Mother accused mildly.

Mother never wanted to look after someone else’s pet but had to give in because of my father. Mr.B was Father’s boss. He and his wife were going out of town to attend a family wedding.” They love their dog like their own child. They don’t want to leave him with anybody else,” he had said.

“There is nothing to worry,” Mrs.B assured Mother. “I have written all the do’s and don’ts down here.” She gave Mother a piece of paper which had things scribbled on it.”Give him two meals a day and keep him tied in one corner of your verandah. Then forget about him!!”

She smiled and snapped her fingers. Then she gave Mother a bag containing Dodo’s bowl, a smelly rug and his brush and soap.

“Do I have to give him a bath too?” Mother asked looking at the things.

“Only if he….you know, gets too dirty. Don’t worry; he will probably sleep like a log all day!!” A car honked in the street below. “I have to go now or I will miss the train,” she said. “Where should I tie him?”

“It is only for three days, right?” You will be back on Friday for sure?” Mother asked, leading the way to the inside balcony while we followed at a safe distance.

“Of course,” Mrs.B smiled reassuringly.” I don’t know how to thank you. Ever since we had Dodo we have rarely gone anywhere as a family. It is only because of your kindness that we can…”

The car honked again. This time loudly and impatiently, and Mrs.B left soon after in a hurry.

“What breed is he?” I asked Father when he came home. Dodo had been constantly fidgeting, pacing up and down, chewing his leash or barking his head off. He was a big dog, with a squarish-bulky body and large paws.

“Probably a cross between a German shepherd and….” He did not finish.

“German Shepherd, my foot! He is a pure Roadasian”, jeered Mother from the kitchen doorway.

“Roadasian? What breed is that?” I asked. At nine, I had a faint knowledge of breeds of dogs but this one was new.

“In plain English, it means a street dog!” Mother, now excited came to make her point.” Look at those black dots on his eyebrows. And the fact that he can’t sit in one place quietly. That is the giveaway that he is a hundred percent Roadasian!”

“Don’t believe her,” said Father. “He is probably a cross. See how friendly he is.” He let Dodo off the leash.However, Mother was not finished. “You just wait and see. Pedigreed dogs behave differently.”

Meanwhile, free at last, Dodo sprang towards us with a grin. Putu and I ran for life and climbed the bed screaming. Dodo raised his paws on the bed and wagged his tail. The he let out a yelp as Mother thwacked his behind. “Out!! Out! You are a bad dog!!”She rebuked him. And then to herself, ”Oh ! How on earth am I going to get through the next three days?”

The three days seemed like three years. Dodo hate being tied up. Whenever someone was at the door he had to bark his greetings. With the result the milkman, the vegetable vendor, our friends and neighbors stopped calling on us. He proved Mother right eventually. He piddled on the floor, chewed my best sandals and put his head in the garbage can. Mother ran after him with her rolling pin and Dodo shot across the room, his ears flattened and tail between the legs.

At mealtimes he hung about with a doleful expression waiting for scrap. I found this very convenient to dispose off my vegetables. Where food was concerned Dodo was a bottomless pit.

“Hasn’t he had his lunch? What did you give him?” Father asked in exasperation.

“Boiled rice and meat without salt just as Mrs.B told me,” replied Mother.

“Boiled meat!!” grimaced Father. “No wonder he is hovering around here. Come Dodo, I will give you some real food.” And he dropped a couple of paratha’s onto Dodo’s bowl. He gobbled it promptly and resumed his scrounging.

After dinner, Father took him out for a walk and did not return for an hour. When he did, he was dishelmed and was out of breath. “The rascal kept running all the time and then there was no sign of…!” Father didn’t finish his sentence. The next morning we found out why. Our maid had come from the terrace with her palla (the other end of the saree) on the nose. Dodo relieved himself there.

Then something happened. Dodo ran away. It was sometime in the morning after we had left for school and father for his office. Dodo found the door open and quietly took off. Mother searched the whole neighborhood frantically but he was nowhere to be seen. Father was summoned home and it was he who found him following a hunch.

Dodo was found squatting at Mrs.B’s door five kilometers from our house. How did he find the way? We could never figure it out.

“He does not like us”, Putu told Mother.” You always scold him.”

“Well, I can’t help it. He is always up to some mischief,” she replied.

The three days were up on Sunday and we all waited expectantly for Mrs.B’s arrival.

She did not turn up. She did not call or wire us either. Mother sent father to their house several times. He found it locked and the neighbors had no idea of their return. Then Father got news from the office. Mr.B had extended his leave for a couple of weeks. Mother flopped on a chair. “I had a bad feeling about this from the start,” she said. “I even suspect she had planned it all long. Or why would she tell me to give him a bath?” She was really upset.

Since, Dodo had overstayed his welcome; he became the proverbial uninvited guest. Mother and father ignored him as much as possible. Mother said that since Mrs.B had not kept her word, she did not deserve any consideration. It gave Puttu and me the ripe opportunity to get close to Dodo. By now we had both overcome our fear of him. After school he would leap at us and lick our faces. We took him upstairs to teach him new tricks. He just would not learn. Let alone learning new tricks, I used to think he did not even know one.

“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, Mother said.

“How do you know he is old?” asked Putu who did not understand the proverb.

“Look at him. Lazing around all day and up to no good,” Mother replied.

She was the only one he was afraid of. She threatened Dodo with a bath every time he even stepped into the bedroom. So he would wait outside impatiently for the sugar lumps she distributed every morning after the morning puja.

When Father returned from work, Dodo followed him around like a shadow and sat near his feet. Occasionally, he would put his muzzle around his lap and wag his tail if he happened to look at him. Father got the hint.

“I think he is trying to tell me something”, he exclaimed in wonder. Nobody believed Dodo was capable of such an intelligent thought-process.

Within a couple of weeks, we got used to him. It was as if he was always our dog. I even wrote an essay on him tilted “My pet”. Putu made a drawing on him, though not very accurate one. The drawing looked more like a giraffe rather than a dog. Father bought him a new bowl and mother gave him an old rug throwing away the smelly one.

And then Mrs. B returned!! No one was glad to see her. Not even Dodo. Initially, he thumped his tail and pulled back his ears, but when he saw her he soon slipped under the sofa and refused to come out.

“I feel ill Sudha, right after the wedding and the doctor asked me not to travel, thus Ravi had to extend his leave…” she rambled on.

Gloom descended on the house when she finally took him away. Putu howled and I cried myself to sleep. Even mother looked sad. “He was not a bad sort,” she admitted ruefully consoling Putu. Well he was never our dog to start with.

Dinner was a torture as we kept looking under the table for him.

Early nest morning at dawn we were woken up by commotion at our house. Somebody was scratching our door desperately. Armed with a stick and light, Father opened the door a crack. A wet nose and whiskers and a grateful bark greeted him. Dodo had run away again. Only this time I felt he was home.

The many Glitches we have.....Part - 1

Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.

It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labors must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion

 Man is flawed so much that he needs many other faculties to assist him in his continual growth. This is the first fact of life one has to accept before anything else. My fantasy of observing people in general and trying to figure out a generalized thought-process pattern was an addiction I caught pretty early in life, but it was just during my freshman year at college did I really draw a more mathematical approach to all this – credited to a senior.

     To begin with you as a reader would find this post more encapsulating if at all you had read my older post on - The Unified theory of Neuroscience (If not please do). Anyway, on my pursuits I observed many flaws in the general behavior of humans. After referring to many journals, I bring you today some of the common analogies(common errors) we all have.

Obviously none of them are life-threatening, huge mistakes, but they are really surprising and avoiding them could help us to make more sensible, reasonable decisions. Especially as we thrive for continual self-improvement, if we look at our values,being aware of the mistakes we naturally have in our thinking can make a big difference in avoiding them. But then again, most of them occur subconsciously, so it will take time and effort to avoid them -if even you want to.

#Glitch 1 - We surround ourselves with information that matches our beliefs

We tend to like people who think like us. If we agree with someone's beliefs, we're more likely to be friends with them. While this makes sense, it means that subconsciously we begin to ignore or dismiss anything that threatens our world views,since we surround ourselves with people and information that confirm what we already think.

This is called "conformation bias". If you have ever heard of the frequency illusion,this is very similar. The frequency illusion occurs when say you buy a new car, you will tend to see the same car model almost everywhere. Or when a pregnant women tends to notice other pregnant women all,over the place all of a sudden. It's a passive experience, where our brain seeks out information that's related to us, but I believe there been an increase in the frequency of these occurrences in the recent times, suggesting rise in anarchic viewpoints ( To put it in plain words increase of - "Misery loves company" phenomenon)

This is also the same reason why you tend to like only certain type of people or celebrities, over the rest, even though they haven't done anything to harm your perspectives. They just tend to give you a vibe that does not sync with your thought pattern.

#Glitch 2 - We believe in a "Swimmer's body" illusion.

This has to be one of my favorite thinking mistakes I came across. In Rolf Dobelli’s book, The Art of Thinking Clearly, he explains how our ideas about talent and extensive training are well off-track:

"Professional swimmers don’t have perfect bodies because they train extensively. Rather, they are good swimmers because of their physiques. How their bodies are designed is a factor for selection and not the result of their activities."

The “swimmer’s body illusion” occurs when we confuse selection factors with results. Another good example is top performing universities: are they actually the best schools, or do they choose the best students, who do well regardless of the school’s influence? Our mind often plays tricks on us and that is one of the key ones to be aware of.

Without this illusion, half of advertising campaigns would not work.

It makes perfect sense, when you think about it. If we believed that we were predisposed to be good at certain things (or not), we wouldn't buy into ad campaigns that promised to improve our skills in areas where it’s unlikely we’ll ever excel.

This is similar to the skill of learning to say no, or how our creativity actually works: Both diverge strongly to what we think is true, versus what actions will actually help us get the result we want.

#Glitch 3 - We incorrectly predict odds

Imagine you’re playing Heads or Tails with a friend. You flip a coin, over and over, each time guessing whether it will turn up heads or tails. You have a 50/50 chance of being right each time.

Now suppose you've flipped the coin five times already and it’s turned up heads every time. Surely,surely, the next one will be tails, right? The chances of it being tails must be higher now, right?

Well, no. The chances of tails turning up are 50/50. Every time. Even if you turned up heads the last twenty times. The odds don’t change.

The gambler’s fallacy is a glitch in our thinking—once again, we’re proven to be illogical creatures. The problem occurs when we place too much weight on past events and confuse our memory with how the world actually works, believing that they will have an effect on future outcomes (or, in the case of Heads or Tails, any weight, since past events make absolutely no difference to the odds).

Unfortunately, gambling addictions in particular are also affected by a similar mistake in thinking—the positive expectation bias. This is when we mistakenly think that eventually, our luck has to change for the better. Somehow, we find it impossible to accept bad results and give up—we often insist on keeping at it until we get positive results, regardless of what the odds of that happening actually are.

#Glitch 4 - We believe our memories more than facts

Our memories are highly fallible and plastic. And yet, we tend to subconsciously favor them over objective facts. The availability heuristic is a good example of this. It works like this:

Suppose you read a page of text and then you’re asked whether the page includes more words that end in “ing” or more words with “n” as the second-last letter. Obviously, it would be impossible for there to be more “ing” words than words with “n” as their penultimate letter (it took me a while to get that—read over the sentence again, carefully, if you’re not sure why that is). However, words ending in “ing” are easier to recall than words like hand, end, or and, which have “n” as their second-last letter, so we would naturally answer that there are more “ing” words

.

What’s happening here is that we are basing our answer of probability (i.e. whether it’s probable that there are more “ing” words on the page) on how available relevant examples are (i.e. how easily we can recall them). Our troubles in recalling words with “n” as the second last letter make us think those words don’t occur very often, and we subconsciously ignore the obvious facts in front of us.

The lesson here? Whenever possible, look at the facts. Examine the data. Don’t base a factual decision on your gut instinct without at least exploring the data objectively first. If we look at the psychology of language in general, we’ll find even more evidence that looking at facts first is necessary.

#Glitch 5- We rationalize purchases we don’t want

I’m as guilty of this as anyone. How many times have you gotten home after a shopping trip only to be less than satisfied with your purchase decisions and started rationalizing them to yourself? Maybe you didn’t really want it after all, or in hindsight you thought it was too expensive. Or maybe it didn’t do what you hoped, and was actually useless to you.

Regardless, we’re pretty good at convincing ourselves that those flashy, useless, badly thought-out purchases are necessary after all. This is known as post-purchase rationalization or Buyer’s Stockholm Syndrome.

Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort we get when we’re trying to hold onto two competing ideas or theories. For instance, if we think of ourselves as being nice to strangers, but then we see someone fall over and don’t stop to help them, we would then have conflicting views about ourselves: we are nice to strangers, but we weren't nice to the stranger who fell over. This creates so much discomfort that we have to change our thinking to match our actions—i.e. we start thinking of ourselves as someone who is not nice to strangers, since that’s what our actions proved.

So in the case of our impulse shopping trip, we would need to rationalize the purchases until we truly believe we needed to buy those things, so that our thoughts about ourselves line up with our actions (making the purchases).

The tricky thing in avoiding this mistake is that we generally act before we think (which can be one of the most important element that successful people have as traits!), leaving us to rationalize our actions afterwards.

Being aware of this mistake can help us avoid it by predicting it before taking action—for instance, as we’re considering a purchase, we often know that we will have to rationalize it to ourselves later. If we can recognize this, perhaps we can avoid it. It’s not an easy one to tackle, though!

#Glitch 6 - The Spotlight Effect - Your mistakes are not noticed as much as you think

The perception of our being under constant scrutiny is merely in our minds, and the paranoia and self-doubt that we feel each time we make a mistake does not truly reflect reality. According to the Spotlight Effect, people aren't paying attention at our moments of failure nearly as much as we think.

To test the Spotlight Effect, a team of psychologists at Cornell asked a group of test subjects to wear an embarrassing T-shirt (featuring a picture of Barry Manilow’s face) and estimate how many other people had noticed what they were wearing. The estimations of the test subjects were twice as high as the actual number

You are under the spotlight less often than you think. Acknowledging this should lead to increased comfortability and relaxation in public settings and more freedom to be yourself. More so, when you do make a mistake, you can rest easy knowing that its impact is far less than you think.

What does "Hindusim" do to your subconcious

The most complex, paradoxical, illogical, influencing invention ever known to existence, by mankind is – religion. Throughout the world, many people believe in one religion or the other. When asked to bluntly tell the essence of their religion, they shrug their shoulders and simply tell it’s a way of life.

Recently, many of my friends started “converting” their belief systems – from being a Theist to an Atheist. I, being my usual curious self, asked them as to why they made such a decision and found an answer which is very mundane.

Often so, these people masquerade saying that they are scientifically equipped to disbelieve the whole concept, but in fact, they do turn to Atheism because some of their inner “appeals” to their respective Gods have – well let’s just say were not fulfilled. Vexed by the system, they tend to disbelieve “God” or their version of it.

It seemed to me quite imploring, all this. I personally, am an Agnostician – I know not what God is, but I am damn well know religion is flawed. Unlike my peers, I did not make a rash decision or even follow the hip trend; more so, I scrutinized my own religion carefully and over a period of time came to some very surprising conclusions (Please bear with me).

What is more ironical is the conclusive preaching evident in most religions.

Religion actually convinced man that there is a white bearded dude, up in the sky, who watches everything. He is so jobless that he tabulates every organism (he so painstakingly created) and makes a list of all his “good children” and “bad children”. (Evidently, we are his children and he would make a very biased parent, who needs to see child services)

The Grand Unified theory of Neuroscience ???

A good friend of mine has once bolted me with a very queer question. He was well aware of my work in the field of cognitive sciences and neurology, thus hoped to clear his doubts. He asked one of the very base questions ever asked by humans. “When is medical science ever going to come with a unified theory on how the brain works, Shyam? There Einstein’s general theory of relativity and Newton’s law of gravitation in physics, why not in brain-science?”

I stood there perplexed, not knowing what to say. I knew what conscience of the human mind is, but still could not find words to per play his query. Initially I laced off the topic and deemed it as debauchery of sheer nonsense.

“I know what it is, It is a layman’s question, does not require much of my attention”, I thought.

But the more I thought about it, the more I remained entangled in doubt. It took me almost three months to come to a near convincing answer, which probably, is the next pep project I intend to take up.

I know not, the answer to the latter question, that is posed, but yes, I can try and tell you more about the former. But, before that let me tell you a neurological case I have encountered during my research.

An amateur athlete lost his arm lost his arm in a motorcycle accident, but continues to feel a “phantom arm” with vivid sensations of movement. He can wave the missing arm in midair, “touch” things and even reach out to “grab” a cup of coffee. If I pull the cup away, he yelps in pain. “Ouch! I can feel it being wrenched from my fingers”, he says, wincing.

I met a school teacher who had suffered from a stroke that paralyzed her left side of her body, but still insists that her left arm is not paralyzed. Once, when I asked her, whose arm she was lying in the bed next to her, she explained that the limb belonged to her brother’s.

A librarian from Bangalore, who had a different kind of stoke began to laugh uncontrollably. This went on for a full day, until she literally died of laughter.

None of these people are “Crazy”; sending them to psychiatrists would be a waste of time. Rather, each of them suffers from damage to a specific part of the brain that leads to bizarre but highly characteristic changes in behavior. They hear voices, feel missing limbs, see things that no one else does, and also make extraordinary claims about the society they live in. yet for most part they are lucid, rational and no more insane than you or I.

Although enigmatic disorders like these have perplexed and intrigued physicians throughout history, there are often disregarded from any scientific survey. Most studies are labeled “File and Forget” and are lost to the desks collecting dust. This is because physicians today, focus on alleviating symptoms and making people well again, they not necessarily, try to dig deeper to learn how the brain works.

Odd symptoms such as the above are mostly blamed for the patient’s upbringing or even the parent’s. Far from being just curious, these odd symptoms actually illustrate the fundamental principles of how the human mind functions, shedding light on the nature of body image, language, laughter, dreams, depression and other hallmarks on the architecture of human brain.

Have you ever wondered why some jokes are funny, while the others aren't? Why you are inclined to believe or dis-believe God? Surprisingly, we can begin to provide answers to none of these questions.

My answer is that we are not yet at the stage where we can formulate grand unified theories on mind or the brain. Every science has to go through the an initial "experiment" or phenomena- driven stage-in which its practitioners are still discovering the basic laws- before it reaches a more sophisticated theory-driven stage.

Consider the evolution of ideas on electricity and magnetism – Victorian physicist; Michael Faraday was the first to study magnets systematically. In one experiment – which can be ascertained by even a school boy – he simply placed a magnet over a paper , showered iron filings on it, by which he demonstrated the existence of magnetic field lines. In the second experiment, he moved a bar magnet to and fro in the center of coiled wire, to prove the relation between electric current and magnetism. These experiments set stage for Maxwell’s equations on electromagnetic waves, which were formulated decades later.

My point is simply that neuroscience today, is in the “Faraday” stage, not in Maxwell’s, a common misconception by both doctors and people, alike. I would love to be proved wrong, of course, and there is no harm in trying to construct formal theories about the brain, even if one fails. But for me, the best research strategy might be characterized as “tinkering”. Whenever, I use this word, many people look rather shocked, as if one couldn't possible do science by just playing around with ideas and without an overarching theory to guide one’s hunches. But that’s exactly what I mean (Although these hunches are far from random; they are always guided by intuition) it is fairly better to study science through exception, rather than to the shackles of the so called “rules of science”.