Swarm Intelligence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - A lil lopsided though!
Just 24 hours since the immersion of the Ganesh idols in the Hussainsagar lake and my thoughts and opinions seem to be directly proportional to the number of huge idols of Ganesh that have gone into the water body!
At the out set let me be very clear in my views about my religion! Any religion has to be based on the principle of Love in action! I am a Hindu and I am proud of being one! I love Ganesh too! He has the most lovable form! Wisdom and innocence vying with one another to be the most dominant trait in Him! But what escapes my logic is the irrational madness associated with the Ganesh festival and the ten days following the festival till the immersion!
The activities associated with the festival right opposite to my house -they are just the tip of the ice berg when compared to the incidents in the entire city!
The events began two weeks before the festival!
One morning as I was in the midst of my cooking, I happen to walk into the balcony of my kitchen. I saw children dragging away branches of trees. I asked my watch man who had felled the branches. He very cheerfully replied to me that the children had cut the branches to make way for the Ganesh pandal to be erected! I was speechless! I went back to my cooking!
I was upset but said nothing! I kept thinking all the while about the felling of the tree! I wondered if their teachers had taught them about protecting the environment!
I returned from work in the night, I was in for a greater shock! They had decided on changing the venue!
So what!- You might say!
They had gone ahead this time felling another tree - not just the branches but the tree had been sized till its trunk!
I had always without being aware of it taken pride in the curving road to my house and the stooping branches which would reach out to me as if they were welcoming me!
They were several adults who had been a party to this crime against Nature! I tried to blackmail them saying it was a bad omen to cut a fully grown tree! I am just hoping it would stop them from doing it at least the next time!
It took me a long time to come out of the gloom that had set in on that day that I could not even appreciate the excitement and the energy with which the children erected the pandal! Day after day and night after night I would see them huddled together, discussing at length how they should go about it!
One evening when I returned home, I was informed that my Watch man's son had fallen while in an attempt to erect the roof of the pandal and broken his arm! The entire family was crest fallen! He had worked hard day and night along with the other children.
Just a day before the festival yet another surprise was awaiting me!
A banner was put up mentioning that the event was being organized some friends society! It had the pics of all the contributors except the contributors! Confused!
Let me explain! The pics of the actual workers was no where to be seen but the rich and the powerful in the area had put up the pics of their own children!
When it came to actual execution of work and participation once again, day after day, it was the initial group of people !
The other aspects during these ten days which actually end up knotting nerves into a complex web is the meaning less sound pollution caused by the playing of the vulgar numbers from the latest movies! I probably need to learn to appreciate them for reaching such spiritual heights - seeing only oneness of everything around including music!
Now coming to the actual aspect which motivates them - Money!
The money which flows in to this entire event is one of the major aspects luring thousands in to it! The numbers have been soaring in terms of the pandals, Ganesh idols and people involvement with each passing year!
The organizers of such fests have set a bench mark for the other similar minded people to follow in the art of collecting money! They actually ask people for money just the way beggars would but the difference here is they tell you how much you should give them!
It is not just to one group that we need to contribute to, it could be three groups too! Wondering if you can still manage with a hundred or so! No way! The collection committee very sternly insist on the payment of the specified amount! It could be between 200 to 1000 Indian rupees!
The money collected is either in crores or laks and the expenditure could be between laks and thousands. Either way there is a clear 800 percent profit!
Apart from the profits the expenditure on the purchase of the idol, the transportation and the puja is itself un called for! The same amount could be utilized for taking up issues concerning in each locality! They need to realize Ganesh is going to be happy when the poor around us and the needy around us are taken care of!
Who are the people who are actively involved in these activities!
It is the very very average skilled people who swarm together and manage to make a difference to themselves and not the environment!
Gerardo and Jing wang after observing the behavior of ants and bees have come up with a concept called Swarm intelligence and have chosen to define it as the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems! It also says interaction among people of similar skills leads to emergence of intelligent global behavior!
The swarm intelligence that I make a reference to is a little lopsided !
Ganesh festival is a witness to people of similar nature swarming together! They instead of turning into intelligent people with intelligent behavior turn into self centered money making machines! That is not all! They are a source of trouble to the neighborhood, wasting natural and man made resources. They cause more destruction than construction!
The aftermath of the ten day festival is - felling of two fully grown trees, drilling of well cemented road to erect a pandal resulting in gaping holes in the roads, nuisance caused due to high noise pollution to the elderly in the neighborhood and the associated health problems, and a debris left un cleared even after so many days around the area! This is for the residents!
The one section which is immensely pleased with the entire event is the group of fund raisers! They are sure to be richer after the event. This probably is the only business where you get huge amounts as returns without investing any money!
I as an anonymous, nameless, faceless member of the neighborhood, sans any power at best can only pray to the Lord to transform these swarms of people into better human beings and that they prove the theories of Gerardo and Jing wang right by living their lives intelligently and making a difference to the environment around them. Let us hope in a few years time they celebrate by having a small idol instead of the sky reaching Idols and utilize the same amount of money for taking up developmental activities! I also pray to Him to bestow on them that wisdom which will make them realize the harmful effects of the felling of trees and contaminating the water bodies everywhere!
At the out set let me be very clear in my views about my religion! Any religion has to be based on the principle of Love in action! I am a Hindu and I am proud of being one! I love Ganesh too! He has the most lovable form! Wisdom and innocence vying with one another to be the most dominant trait in Him! But what escapes my logic is the irrational madness associated with the Ganesh festival and the ten days following the festival till the immersion!
The activities associated with the festival right opposite to my house -they are just the tip of the ice berg when compared to the incidents in the entire city!
The events began two weeks before the festival!
One morning as I was in the midst of my cooking, I happen to walk into the balcony of my kitchen. I saw children dragging away branches of trees. I asked my watch man who had felled the branches. He very cheerfully replied to me that the children had cut the branches to make way for the Ganesh pandal to be erected! I was speechless! I went back to my cooking!
I was upset but said nothing! I kept thinking all the while about the felling of the tree! I wondered if their teachers had taught them about protecting the environment!
I returned from work in the night, I was in for a greater shock! They had decided on changing the venue!
So what!- You might say!
They had gone ahead this time felling another tree - not just the branches but the tree had been sized till its trunk!
I had always without being aware of it taken pride in the curving road to my house and the stooping branches which would reach out to me as if they were welcoming me!
They were several adults who had been a party to this crime against Nature! I tried to blackmail them saying it was a bad omen to cut a fully grown tree! I am just hoping it would stop them from doing it at least the next time!
It took me a long time to come out of the gloom that had set in on that day that I could not even appreciate the excitement and the energy with which the children erected the pandal! Day after day and night after night I would see them huddled together, discussing at length how they should go about it!
One evening when I returned home, I was informed that my Watch man's son had fallen while in an attempt to erect the roof of the pandal and broken his arm! The entire family was crest fallen! He had worked hard day and night along with the other children.
Just a day before the festival yet another surprise was awaiting me!
A banner was put up mentioning that the event was being organized some friends society! It had the pics of all the contributors except the contributors! Confused!
Let me explain! The pics of the actual workers was no where to be seen but the rich and the powerful in the area had put up the pics of their own children!
When it came to actual execution of work and participation once again, day after day, it was the initial group of people !
The other aspects during these ten days which actually end up knotting nerves into a complex web is the meaning less sound pollution caused by the playing of the vulgar numbers from the latest movies! I probably need to learn to appreciate them for reaching such spiritual heights - seeing only oneness of everything around including music!
Now coming to the actual aspect which motivates them - Money!
The money which flows in to this entire event is one of the major aspects luring thousands in to it! The numbers have been soaring in terms of the pandals, Ganesh idols and people involvement with each passing year!
The organizers of such fests have set a bench mark for the other similar minded people to follow in the art of collecting money! They actually ask people for money just the way beggars would but the difference here is they tell you how much you should give them!
It is not just to one group that we need to contribute to, it could be three groups too! Wondering if you can still manage with a hundred or so! No way! The collection committee very sternly insist on the payment of the specified amount! It could be between 200 to 1000 Indian rupees!
The money collected is either in crores or laks and the expenditure could be between laks and thousands. Either way there is a clear 800 percent profit!
Apart from the profits the expenditure on the purchase of the idol, the transportation and the puja is itself un called for! The same amount could be utilized for taking up issues concerning in each locality! They need to realize Ganesh is going to be happy when the poor around us and the needy around us are taken care of!
Who are the people who are actively involved in these activities!
It is the very very average skilled people who swarm together and manage to make a difference to themselves and not the environment!
Gerardo and Jing wang after observing the behavior of ants and bees have come up with a concept called Swarm intelligence and have chosen to define it as the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems! It also says interaction among people of similar skills leads to emergence of intelligent global behavior!
The swarm intelligence that I make a reference to is a little lopsided !
Ganesh festival is a witness to people of similar nature swarming together! They instead of turning into intelligent people with intelligent behavior turn into self centered money making machines! That is not all! They are a source of trouble to the neighborhood, wasting natural and man made resources. They cause more destruction than construction!
The aftermath of the ten day festival is - felling of two fully grown trees, drilling of well cemented road to erect a pandal resulting in gaping holes in the roads, nuisance caused due to high noise pollution to the elderly in the neighborhood and the associated health problems, and a debris left un cleared even after so many days around the area! This is for the residents!
The one section which is immensely pleased with the entire event is the group of fund raisers! They are sure to be richer after the event. This probably is the only business where you get huge amounts as returns without investing any money!
I as an anonymous, nameless, faceless member of the neighborhood, sans any power at best can only pray to the Lord to transform these swarms of people into better human beings and that they prove the theories of Gerardo and Jing wang right by living their lives intelligently and making a difference to the environment around them. Let us hope in a few years time they celebrate by having a small idol instead of the sky reaching Idols and utilize the same amount of money for taking up developmental activities! I also pray to Him to bestow on them that wisdom which will make them realize the harmful effects of the felling of trees and contaminating the water bodies everywhere!
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