Our greatest discovery

At many occasions we have heard the question, what is India's greatest discovery? There are many opinions. Many people say our greatest contribution is 'zero'. They have a strong point. Zero is the basis of all larger numbers. Though it literally means nothing, this number is very powerful, which any mathematician would agree. In common man's terms, without zero the salaries of people does't make sense, financial returns of companies will struggle, digital world comes to a stop, taxi meters get confused, stock markets crash. I think it is safe to acknowledge that zero is our greatest contribution from ancient world, of course having prime importance in modern times also.

But what is our greatest discovery in modern world? I don' think there is a universally accepted answer. Is it the Ramanujan number, contribution of Bose in Higg's Boson particle, C V Raman's discoveries in the field of physics? In my mind, none of these appear to be fitting the top of the list. I think our greatest discovery is in the field of mobile communications. Before you make  any hi-tech guesses like 3G optimization, frequency modulated encryption or 'think to call' (all of these are yet to be discovered), let me tell you that I meant a much more simpler, but powerful and long living one. It is 'the missed call'.

Most of you would know what a missed call is. It is the only method developed so far in history for communicating a message over the phone without actually making a call or sms. And of course, without paying a penny. It is done by just ringing the other party and hanging up before he or she picks it up, and thus by passing on a pre-defined message. It is commonly used for passing on a 'digital' or yes/no type of message. For example, it is a common scene of an Indian mother telling her daughter who is travelling to her distant hostel, "Dear, give me a missed call when you reach safely". The mom is concerned for her daughter's safety, at the same time she wants to avoid making a call, thus saving a bit more money for her daughter's marriage after another fifteen years.  

A fact about the missed call is that it is not discovered by one person, but a discovery that has naturally occurred in the minds of thousands of Indians at the same time. As the proverb says that necessity is the mother of invention, I think this one cannot occur in the same degree to people from developed countries. Also, it is not a possibility in the underdeveloped countries where many people cannot afford a phone. And India being a developing country, with highest rate of mobile phone usage growth, but people still caring for money, the Indian nature of this discovery is obvious. Hence, I believe 'the missed call' is our greatest discovery in modern times.

Though I said that the missed call is more useful for yes/no type of messages, I have personally tried it for more complex messages. As an example, me and my friend have used it in the following way when we used to play cricket near his house.
One ring - things are good, match is on.
Two rings - bad weather or other issues at home, match is off.
Three rings - doubtful, wait for next call.
Keep ringing - more complex scenario, pick up, need to talk.

The above was done using landline phones, also without caller identification. Hence it is not foolproof, because if someone else at home is expecting a call, it is trouble. On the other hand, it is risky to use this technique using mobiles nowadays, because many times the caller hears a caller tune, and the called person hears a ring tone. Gone are the days of fixed number of ringing at both sides, too much technology is also a problem.  

Finally, how long will this nice way of communication last before the service providers put a stop to it? I think it is very difficult to bar any missed calls, because a call gets dropped before getting attended due to technical reasons too. Moreover, the receiving party always has freedom to not pick up the call or being away from the phone, so it cannot be distinguished from the true missed call. Missed call technology or feature is very much built into the mind, thus without a proper mind reader, you can't break it.  

Since the 'missed call' adds 'zero' cost to our phone bills, both of them go hand in hand. One is our greatest discovery in ancient times, and the other one in modern times. But, both are here to last for a very long time....

Bandh, Hartal and ....

The blanks in the title are left purposefully to make sure this article remains valid after so many years also. Thanks to our courts, the name of this menace gets changed every few years, but the people who declare it doesn't care. It is the content that matters, not the name, they know that very well, politicians are not stupid as many would think.

For the benefit of my (potential) international readers to catch up with others, I would like to explain what these terms mean.

Wikipedia defines 'Bandh' as below:
Bandh, originally a Hindi word meaning 'closed', is a form of protest used by political activists in some countries like India and Nepal. During a Bandh, a political party or a community declares a general strike.[1]

Very well said, great child of Jimmy Wales!!

But, mind it. Bandh is illegal in India now. It was banned by the Kerala high court first, and then the Supreme court also has passed its order in similar lines. So, they adopted the name 'Hartal', which was first formally used by our father of the nation for the strikes as part of his great freedom struggle.

Now what is Hartal? Again resorting to Wiki:
Hartal (also hartaal) (Bengali: হরতাল; Hindi: हड़ताल; Urdu: ہڑتال, Malayalam: ഹർത്താൽ) is a term in many South Asian languages for strike action, used often during the Indian Independence Movement. It is mass protest often involving a total shutdown of workplaces, offices, shops, courts of law as a form of civil disobedience.

But, after experiencing the modern Hartal, using the grasping power and perception of the average human mind, it is observed to have the same properties as 'Bandh', the same effect, the same procedure, declared by the same political parties, affecting the same people, invoking the same fear and laziness, and causing the same level of destruction. So what? It is a legally allowed term to denote an illegal activity.

Due to the legality of its name, it is currently a readily available tool to be used by political parties. But, I think it is wrong to blame the politicians too much. There are a lot of communal organizations also who may declare Hartal. These account to may be 5% of the total 'Bandh' days (oh sorry, Hartal days) in a year.

With a bit of pride I should admit that out of all Indian states, my own state state Kerala is leading this movement. It is no surprise, we were the first state to achieve 100% literacy, we are much ahead in public health care, so we got to be the leaders here also.

Now what do we do on these days? The preparations of this celebration generally start once we hear the news on the eve of the Hartal, there is no doubt in anyone's mind. We buy and stock enough of milk, vegetables and other grocery, make sure the supply of alcohol is enough. We leave early from office on the
eve of this holiday, publicly giving reasons of potential early security issues, but secretly the mind is already prepared to start celebrating the event. On the Hartal morning, we switch on the TV and see people who dare to go out getting attacked by the Hartal supporters. We also sympathize with the MNC guys, the IT and BPO people who make all their attempts to reach office, because their client abroad doesn't understand this concept.

In the western countries, when people work hard on week days and are keen to celebrate long weekends, we don't care about long weekends, because we have confidence that India has enough problems to aggravate and cause Hartals, hence we know these short weekends (or mid week celebrations) will get plugged in to our calenders at a good frequency. We don't want to work too hard or celebrate too well, we just like to celebrate while we move forward. We generally have around 20 vacation days, 10 public holidays, and 10-15 Hartals to take rest and celebrate in a year. We may be supporters for the reasons of these Hartals and know it may be genuine, however we also know the Hartal won't solve these problems. But honestly speaking, we simply enjoy it.

I think the law of conservation of energy/matter applies to this phenomena also. Though ironical, I would call it the law of conservation of 'destruction'. It states - "The total amount of destruction remains the same, it just appears in one form (Bandh) and re-appears in another form (Hartal)"

There may be many ways to protest against this social evil. One of them is to write this article on a Hartal day......