Ram Writes

It was the summer of 2010, I had completed high school. I had 4 months before my college started. So, an ample amount of time to play, travel and do something new. I thought of start watching a sitcom show that everyone was raving about in social media. My brother recommended it too. I had never watched a TV series, and that too one in English before. The show was “The Big Bang Theory” . I was a little confused at the beginning. I thought it was a documentary on the big bang and universe. The show’s title track indicated something similar. But five minutes into the show a pretty lady shows up. Oops, it’s definitely not a documentary on the big bang. My ability to predict and understand anything related to that show ended right there.  I don’t know about you, but I could never follow the dialogues without subtitles. The practise continues even today. The show didn’t help either. There was sarcasm, references to American movies and comics culture, actors, and physics!! All these were...

One day I was waiting in the lift lobby at work, having nothing to do. It was one of those days where frustration was sky-high, everything that could go wrong did. So, I took a break! Software engineers reading this would agree with me. Might seem silly for others though. Coming back to the story. There in the ground floor lift lobby, I noticed a guy, who was in his mid-30s or so he looked like. We entered the lift.  He punched in floor 1. What a lazy ass! I have noticed him repeating this couple other times. I thought he must really be a sloth. I made fun of him. I loud-mouthed once to my teammates that I am going to take the stairs for four floors and beat them to it. The one-floor guy was around waiting for the lift in the lobby. I made sure he heard it loud and clear.  A few months later, I joined the gym to bulk up. My romance with the gym as you guessed didn’t last long. But oh boy I didn’t give up so easily. I persisted for two months you see! The fifth day of my first ...

Have you ever wondered how hunter-gatherers hunted for their food? Best way to get a peek into the past is to observe still surviving hunter-gatherers communities in the world. Well, they aren’t many such communities around. I am going to take you to the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa. In the Kalahari Desert lives a hunter-gatherer tribe known as San people or Bushmen. Early in the day, a group of San hunters surrounds a Kudu herd. They create panic and scatter the heard. One or two San hunters then start to chase the bull that got separated from its herd. Kudu bull or any other four-legged animal is faster than us humans. Will the hunter-gatherer ever get to match the speed of the bull? Is one or two men enough to tame and kill the mighty bull? Kudu Bull Photo by Tobias Adam on Unsplash Well, four-legged animals gallop and run at great speeds that huma...

In the late 1950s, a pharmaceutical manufacturing company Upjohn developed minoxidil to treat ulcers. However, during clinical trials on dogs, the medication did not cure ulcers. And they were disappointed. Instead, they found that medication had widened the blood vessels. An unexpected effect they didn’t foresee. Bingo! They had found medicine to treat high blood pressure. Upjohn patented the drug and the FDA approved its usage to treat high blood pressure in 1979. The drug was sold in oral tablet form with the trade name Loniten . Surprise, Surprise! The story doesn’t end there. While the FDA granted Upjohn permission to test the drug as medicine for hypertension, scientists noticed some of the patients were reporting unexpected hair growth. One of the patients, a woman, complained that she had to shave her legs and trim her hair more frequently than before she started taking the medicine. Even though researchers thought the effect of the drug on hair growth is more unlikely, they d...

Softsoap On August 22, 1865, Willian Sheppard of New York was granted a patent for his improved liquid soap. You take a small amount of soap and mix it with large amounts of spirits of ammonia. What you get is liquid soap with the consistency of molasses. In the US, liquid hand soap became popular in public places from the beginning of 1900s. But it took eight decades for liquid hand soap to make it to our homes, in the bottle pump avatar.  In the 1980s, bar soap market was dominated by big brands like Dial, Ivory and Zest in the US. The competition was cut-throat and they had to fight it out for every percentage point of market share. Meanwhile, in Minnesota, there was a small company, The Minnetonka Corporation , known for niche items like bubble baths, scented candles, flavoured lip balm. They had a new product, liquid soap dispensed from a plastic hand pump. Until then only bar soap was used for handwashing. And Minnetonka wanted to change that. They tested their new product in...

Animals can communicate. They communicate to share information. But they share information about things that exist in reality. A monkey can share information on the availability of bananas. Animals can alert their group about a looming predator waiting to prey on them. Food, danger, obstacles like river or mountains on their path are things that exist in nature. These are  objective reality . Humans are animals and can communicate about objective realities too. But humans are one level up. We can talk about things that don’t exist. We can share stories, ideas that don’t exist at all but are cooked up by our brain. Such stories, ideas, abstract concepts form  subjective reality  or  fictional reality . These exist only in our brain. They are the product of our imagination. Humans experience and communicate both objective and subjective reality. When the imagined ideas, stories, concepts are shared and accepted by enough people,  intersubjective   reality ...

My childhood superhero was Shaktimaan. I persuaded my parents to buy me Shaktimaan dress for my 6th birthday. I succeeded in getting the dashing outfit. But the transformation isn’t complete without red colour gloves, socks and shoes. I threw tantrums but my parents got the better of me. I was the Shaktimaan who showed up in paragon slippers. Sorry, Shaktimaan! Shaktimaan, the Indian Superhero  Fast forward to the present. I buy the complete set for my niece as her birthday gift every year. She doesn't get only a doll from me. She gets all the accessories that go with it. Wand, tiara, makeup kit and what not! I remember the first time I bought a formal suit. I ended up buying cufflinks, tie, watch, belt and other such accessories. I am sure you would have experienced such things too. You buy a new phone. You follow it up buying a cover, earphones, screen guard, etc. One buy leads to another. And this has a name – Diderot Effect . Named after Denis Diderot,  an 18th-century Fre...

I shouldn’t let anxiety get the better of me. Mumma said these things happen during this phase. And that I should not think too much. I know my delivery date is a year away. But I dream of Kavi, my dear baby girl all the time. I am sure it is a girl. A girl child will be with me for life. I had been a good kid to my mumma. And Kavi sure will be a good girl. But what if it turns out to be a boy? Argh! Boys enjoy getting dirty in the mud pool. They hate to wash their body. How will control a brat? Mumma has warned me about this as well. Use carrots and sticks she said. I am not sure what that means. She didn't offer details. She said only a mother know her baby. I don't want to wait till Kavi is born. I need to know all there is to know. Stop! I am thinking too much. I should not take the stress. Mumma said mental health matters too. It is not always about physical well-being. I should eat fruits and greens. Look! There is a pineapple. How did it get here? Our dear humans must ha...

Source : Penguin Random House Oftentimes concrete real-world examples or stories help in summarizing a difficult concept.  I came across one such story while I was reading the book Nudge. Nudge was written by Richard Thaler, Nobel Prize Winner for his work in the field of behavioural economics. And the book is about his award-winning behavioural concept. T he story that follows will help you understand what it is. Read on!  Mr.Thaler had prepared a draft introduction about his book. He had intended to explain what his book is about to a friend. He sent an email but forgot to attach the draft. His friend was with Google at that time and wrote back asking the author to send the missing attachment. He added that Google is experimenting with a new feature for Gmail that solves this problem. When a user mentions the word “attachment” but doesn’t include any file, an alert  “It seems like you forgot to attach a file” will be shown. Source:  Gmail I don’t know about y...

RAF Avro Lancaster Bombers used in WW2 Photographer - Richard R Schunemann It was the Second World War, and  British Royal Air Force (RAF) , raided Germany and bombed their cities. German defences were strong. German fighter planes and anti-aircraft gunners shot down British bomber planes. The Royal Air Force wanted to save their planes and pilots. Adding armour plates to the planes can protect. But too much armour adds to the weight and affects the range, speed and air time of fighter planes. RAF analysed fighter planes that returned from their missions for bullet holes. They found that wings, nose and couple other areas took the most hit. But cockpit, engine and tails were less damaged. They decided to fix armour plates to protect damaged areas of the plane. But  Abraham Wald, a Hungary Mathematician  suggested the opposite. His suggestion shocked everyone. But Wald reasoned, RAF was analysing planes that survived the mission. Yes, these planes took hits. But they were ...

Amul Girl - Amul brand mascot The year was 1946. Dairy farmers from a couple of villages in Gujarat supplied milk to a company. The company processed the milk and sold it to the Bombay Government, which then distributed to consumers in Bombay. The company made a lot of money but paid the farmers way less. Farmers sought help from Sardar Vallabhai Patel. Farmers protested and demanded that the Bombay Government buy milk directly from them. The government didn’t budge and so farmers halted the milk supply for 15 days. Bombay went without a drop of milk for 15 days. The Bombay government finally gave in and accepted the farmers' demand.   Farmers from villages set up milk union and started milk processing plants. Farmers dropped in their daily milk produce to a village collection centre. Milk quality was tested right there at collection points and sent to processing plants. More and more villages joined the union and district level collection centres cropped up. Milk Union managed eve...

Loss Aversion Photo by  Peter Feghali  on  Unsplash I hate to lose. I hate it even more to lose my money. I started to invest in stocks soon after I started to earn. I was naïve enough to ignore sane advice. I didn’t do my research and picked stocks when they were ripe at a pretty insane price and eventually, it became sour. I am a bit of a hygiene freak. I don’t even consume apples that have been cut like 10 minutes ago.  I throw them away or give it to others.  I should have done this to my sour stocks as well. But I didn’t. Instead, I held them too long, hoping to sell it at least at the price I had bought them.  I sold good stocks, made a profit and felt happy. I held dear my bad apples. My portfolio was full of bad apples and in red. I sold them off sadly at throwaway prices. But there are still a few bad ones which I cannot even sell. I learnt my lesson, “Throw away bad apples (stocks) when I see one and cut down on my loss”.  Oh, by the way, hol...

Photo by  Alistair MacRobert  on  Unsplash Miller, a Harvard Professor, in the 1950s conducted experiments to know maximum items or things a normal person can remember. It turns out an average person can remember 7 items. Miller called it “ Magical Number Seven ”. Come to think of it, humans have utilized number 7 to the fullest. There are 7 wonders in the world. There are 7 colours in the rainbow, or at least only 7 colours are visible to us, humans. Then there is Steven Covey’s bestselling book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. A google search on basically any self-help topic redirects us to a blog or website that more often than not has “Here are 7 ways or steps to achieve whatever you want” listed somewhere in the page. And then we have M.S Dhoni whose jersey number is, well, you guessed, 7. Totally unrelated fact, but ok. And surely there are more than 7 ways to help me remember grocery items but none came to my rescue when I needed them the most. You see, I h...