Evolution of a prolonging problem

Long long so long ago, there used to be mosquito repellents were synonymous to a brand name called Tortoise. Those days tortoise coils were household name and the need was very low. Those days mosquitoes were not such a big threat as these days.

Slowly the business evolved and Godrej conglomerate came up with goodnight mats , it was a big hit in the early 90s. It was a big relief for the coil users that mats did come with pleasant aroma when compared to smokes of the coils.

Then came a brand called All-Out with liquid formula, which was quite popular for some time. It was quite effective those days, and it was popular for its ad, where East Asians featured in it. I firmly believed then, it was a brand straight from Japan.

Then many brands such as Mortein, Odomos came and ruled the market for some time.

All these years only one thing is constant, and no prize for guessing. It is mosquito. Since I lived in multiple towns, I myself have witnessed at least 6 to 7 species of mosquitoes. Each of them is unique in its own ways. Mosquito repellent business grown as big as 10000 crore market along with the increase in species of mosquitoes in India.

Those days if we had any of those repellents and you would not want to worry about your sleep in night. In the last two years I started with Goodnight Advanced, with normal mode it was quite effective and ensured that I got good sleep at night. Slowly it became ineffective, then I changed to Active mode as advertised, to my surprise it worked well for me.

Then Active mode became ineffective as well, then I bought white one from Goodnight. I had to shell out a few more bucks for the new one, and I assumed it must be damn good. Miserably it had no effect on the mosquitoes. Then I was looking for GoodNight Mats(back to square one :-)). I managed to find one, when I switched the mat ON, the aroma was so strong I attained inner peace hoping that the mosquito would not be so strong as me to bear the pungent smell!! I was proven wrong by the mosquitoes of Chitlapakkam. Last night I slept for just 3 hours, my sleeping pattern is like if I encounter disturbed sleep in a night, thats it! My sleeping quota is over for that night.

I developed anxiety when I started thinking about all the things which I written above. Have the mosquitoes developed their armory to counter these fancy repellents or these companies are going for a ride on money ?. I remembered the movie called Mist, where all the small insects would become super size as a result of failed scientific experiments. It came into my mind and I forgot to sleep.

Lalitha Amma is no more

Grandma passed away around 10 PM on 8-Jun-2015. Ageing is the prime reason for her death, and Dementia added her woes. Last 8 months or so, she was bedridden, and slowly her ability to recognize the things around her deteriorated as the days passed by. Well she led a life like a Queen, she was like a Sun in my heliocentric universe(family).

As I was more attached to my Thaatha, I did not have many cherishing memories with Lalitha Amma(Paati). After my Thaatha's death, I had some wonderful memories with Lalitha Amma. During my college days, once I told my parents, that Paati does not offer me kiss. Which was easily available to my brothers and sister. Once I got good grading in one of my semester exams, she offered me a kiss. At that very moment, I said ithuku naan romba naala wait pannitu iruken amma.

Being a devotee of Lord Venkatesa, I had the privilege to visit Tirupati quite frequently. Once she asked me to take her to Tirupati, and it did not happen at all. I failed to fulfill her wish.

It is a blessing for the children who grow up in the presence of their grandparents. In that way we were bit unlucky. Though we got the attention and love from our grandparents, but it was not a everyday affair.

Game theory in my words.

Game theory is an interesting phenomenon, we can take leaf out of it for our everyday activities.

To explain more about this, prisoner's dilemma is given as a example. If you understand the
the following scenario. You will be able to appreciate Game Theory, and will help you to take
a wise decision on your day-to-activities based on Game theory.

Let us see what is Prisoner's dilemma

Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary 
confinement with no means of speaking to or exchanging messages with the other. The prosecutors 
do not have enough evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge. They hope to get both 
sentenced to a year in prison on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer each 
prisoner a bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to: betray the other by 
testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent.

Here is the offer:
If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves 2 years in prison
If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve 3 years in prison 
(and vice versa)
If A and B both remain silent, both of them will only serve 1 year in prison 
(on the lesser charge)


While driving back to home, I thought about game theory. We  use high beam lights, wherever
it is dark and to improve the visibility on road. But the real purpose is forgotten long back.
Commuters use it for no purpose, for people like me it is an irritant. Apply this above principle
in the usage of High/low beam lights.

1)If you use high beam light. and the approaching vehicle use high beam, and neither you nor the
approaching vehicle are in a mood to switch to low beam. Eventually, it is lose-lose situation.
In this case, both cause trouble to each other

2) If you use low beam light, and the vechicle approaching towards us, use the high beam. If we
choose to remain with low beam, then it is a lose-win situation.As the approaching vehicle is
having unfair advantage on road by causing trouble to you. You remain defiant.

3) If you use high beam light, and the vehicle approach towards you use the low beam, on seeing this
you choose to switch to low beam. In this case, both do not disturb each other and this is a
happy path scenario. Neither you nor the opponent gained nothing or lost nothing. It is a win-win
situation.


Though there are many interpretations about Game theory,my interpretation is be compassionate with
people around you. If you are able to make the others do the same to you. World would be the
happiest place to live. When you choose to revenge people who caused you trouble, the game will
be infinite and the result would either be win-lose or lose-win.

Apply this in whatever you do, you will see the difference in your life.

If you are interested on this topic, do read "Games Indians play". An interesting book on game theory.

Sleeping Paralysis

Have you ever experienced that, some devil or ghost sitting on top of you, pushing your body and making you suffocate to breath, unable to move or speak for brief period of time when you were asleep? Do not be worried you are not alone. It is nothing but, sleeping paralysis.

It is a condition, which happens when you experience REM (Rapid Eye Movement), it is a deep sleeping state. Whenever one experiences sleeping paralysis, one tend to panic as our brain would always try for reasoning and it would make us believe that we are unable to move as ghost or devil is sitting on top of us making all these things. And we believe that it is because of ghost, so we end up in nightmares which would make us sweating.

3 years back I had experienced the worst nightmare, around 3AM in the morning I experienced this phenomenon and told my room mate (Badri Badrinath Varadharajan) that something is trying to push me and making me suffocate. He comforted me and said it would be dream or something. After 15 minutes or so, he woke up and screamed that he also experienced that. We were frightened and we went to hall and preferred to stay awake till the dawn.

It took 3 years for me to realize that, it is a medical condition and ghost do not exist as I believed. Nowadays when I go through this, I do get hallucination and in my lucid dreams I will tell myself it is because of Sleeping Paralysis and I am dreaming.It would make me confident. So next time when you experience this phenomena just tell yourself that you are going through sleeping paralysis.

Well, it is true that "Appearance is always deceptive"

Thanatophobia - Fear of death

Recently I had a chance to watch one of the videos in Ulaganayagan Tube channel in Youtube, in that Kamalhassan paid his last tribute for his close friend R.C.Shakthi (who happened to be the director who introduced Kamalhassan as hero in his film) who passed away couple of weeks ago due to his elderly age. In that video, he mentioned that he is not feeling bad as his friend is no more. Because they knew very well it will come to everyone, and he had added that he might miss his physical presence but his memories are with him. I am shocked to hear those words and it is too much for an emotional guy like me.

Once Rajinikanth was criticized by the cinema fraternity for not attending the funerals of the actors who were once his close friends. For that he came up with the reply that, visiting the funerals of friends would make him very upset, and would always remind him of his last rites performed on them instead of the very nice memories he shared with the one who is no more. I found this answer quite convincing. After that he started visiting the funerals as he became one of the unavoidable personality in the state.

I am a normal human being, and I am not ashamed to say that I am afraid of death. Deaths do make me feel insecure and would leave me dejected at least for a week. In some way or the way I would find reasons to not to attend any funerals( blame it on my fear). On the other hand, the loud cries and the formalities/process being followed in funerals induce the element of fear inside me.

Though I am a big fan of Kamalhassan, in this matter I go with Rajinikanth. I did not attend some of my close relatives funerals, though I did not plan to not to attend them. It happened that way. When somebody talk about those deceased relatives, it gives me a feeling that they are living peacefully in the place where they used to live, and it is due to the reason that I did not see those rituals performed for them, I did not their motionless body with flower garland. I did not see people crying around them.

Dilip Shanghvi, became the richest Indian.....

He toppled Mukesh Ambani from his coveted place, where he comfortably sat for the last 7years or so and now this position has a new person.

Who is Dilip Shanghvi? He is the owner of Sun Pharma, the pharmaceutical company which is 4th largest in the world. After his company acquired Ranbaxy pharma, his company's shares reached dizzying heights. His company's current market capitalization is 215000 crore rupees.He started his business in 1983 with few lakhs as investment and now in 32 years he has reached this milestone.


 What bothers me is that, in 2002 his company market capitalization were around 2600 odd crores. Well had I not studied engineering for 2 years and instead my father had spent that money by buying Sun Pharma shares, it would have worth 1 crore by now :D :D :D. His company has grown by 100 times in the last 13 years. Phenomenal isn't it?


Moral of the story is the early movers on any profession will have the full advantage of gaining the unprecedented reaps. Always rely on your instincts and sometimes you got to take decisions based on leap of your faith, do not worry about the outcome.

A Good Facebook page - shot to fame.

             Gone are the days, political parties spending troves of money during election campaign for making the paintings of their party leaders and flags on walls and cut-outs,which made the Artists(the one who is a professional in drawing/painting) to burn their midnight oil and ensured some additional money for them (at least during the election season). Slowly the trend changed to flex printing and hoardings, which almost killed the art(Yes I mean Painting/drawing on wall).

           Now the trend is opening a page in Facebook, and maintain the page active and lively with 3 or 4 page admins in place. The reach is humongous and the outcome is phenomenol. We have examples like Mr.Barrack Obama, Mr.Narendra Modi, they ensured that they strike the chords of the people with their posts( though the crediblity of the posts under scanner) and turned every likes and shares for their posts into votes.

          One another example is recently concluded Super Singer Junior, the winner of the title has a huge fan following in facebook, ever since the show started airing on Vijay Tv. Though the talent is a vital ingredient for any aspirant who wish to attain success, in addition to hardwork and talent these kind of effective utilization of technology will help one to reach the destination for sure.