A Musical Treat

A gifted singer. One of the most sensual yet powerful voices that I have ever heard.

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Where is the party?

I was waiting to get on the train to Turku to catch a boat to Stockholm. I had half an hour to kill, so was just wandering about when I came across this.

Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting the Chemical Toilets. The way it works is, when people want to organize an outdoor party to enjoy the sunny day, they setup stalls for food and stuff. They also call in the chemical toilets people who install this so that you can enjoy the outdoor party without doing chee-chee on the environment around you.

Of course, after some time these chemical toilets get kind of unbearable. However, I think there is some potential for this in India. The next generation Sulabh anyone?

Anyway, upon seeing this, I guessed that a fair or party of some sort must be going on nearby. I came across what could have been an impromptu performance by the Finnish Royal Orchestra. It was superlative and it piqued my interest in Western music. Any suggestions on pieces I must listen to? Also, does anyone happen to know anything about this gifted singer?

(Note 1 to self: Too much pondy and toilet talk. Must clean up act henceforth)

(Note 2 to self: Must sing paeans about the Exchange (Erasmus) program at Helsinki School of Economics (HSE). Anyway, if you are looking to go on an exchange program, I strongly recommend the Helsinki School of Economics as a place where there is a good balance of fun and academics. More later!)

The Dying Lion at Lucerne

A Hero's death

One of the memorials that impacted me deeply was the monument of the Dying Lion at Lucerne, Switzerland. The sculpture of a wounded lion is carved onto a granite cliff.

The expression of the lion is a work of genius! Who can believe that such emotion can be crafted onto emotionless stone. Somehow the sculptor has managed to capture the last few moments before the lion's death in one motionless piece.

The wounded lion lies vanquished in its last few moments of existence, yet one gets the feeling that it was a brave death. Even in this position, the lion's mane gives it an authority and there is a nobility in the face. Is this the elusive hero's death that the epics talk about?

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Epilogue

I spent a few quite moments there, bought a souvenir of this monument and continued my journey. I just knew this to be a monument for Swiss soldiers who died in some battle. I did not bother to find out about the battle.

Today, I stumbled across this link which tells the story of the monument. Apparently, this was a monument built in honour of Swiss Mercenaries who died while defending the French Royalty in the French Revolution!

I was a bit surprised. The monument which affected me so powerfully was intended to honour people who were protecting the "bad guys" of the French Revolution. However, this still does not diminish the artistic brilliance of the monument. I will ignore the meaning and just take the beauty out of this. More importantly, whatever may have been the intention, it is still a fitting tribute to bravery, valour and nobility.

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The Swiss Mercenary Tradition

I was intrigued by the phrase "mercenary tradition". Here is an interesting article on the same.

"For more than 500 years, young Swiss men went out into the world in a controlled military environment at an age when they are quite naturally a little wild," said Anselm Zurfluh, director of Geneva's Museum of Swiss in the World.

"They usually returned calmed down and wanting to work, settle down and have families. I firmly believe this is one reason Switzerland is so peaceful."

:)

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Lucerne

Analysis Of The Disparities Between Nations - Part I

Well, the video did set me thinking on one angle. Scandinavia (Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark) pays a lot of attention to inequality. Throughout Europe there is a strong thread of socialism in society. This can be witnessed in the high tax rates and excellent social security systems.

For example, primary and secondary education is free in Finland and in some cases even undergraduate education can be free. Tuition fees at undergraduate levels are quite nominal throughout Europe in government funded schools. And if you can prove your financial difficulties, then state aid is assured. Compared to our own socialist experiment, we would expect that government funded schooling = poor quality education. However, the bulk of the population in Finland goes to the government funded schools. If the quality of education were poor, then a market for private schools would have emerged. But from what I know, it is not the case.

However, this does not mean everything is hunky dory. There is one section of people that really finds it hard to make ends meet. My observation is that this section is dismissed as "bums" or "drug addicts". The argument is that, if they are in their plight inspite of all that the government does for them, well, it cannot be helped. In that sense it can be pretty tough for a few. It is not a perfect world but broadly, the western European nations appear to have done a good job.

But how do we test this or quantify this? The most commonly used metric for inequality is the Gini index. The Gini index is based on the Gini Coefficient which is calculated as follows. Let us play around with some statistics.

The data was taken from Human Development Reports. I had to make one assumption to smooth over data issues. The Population and GDP Per Capita figures in the excel sheets are for 2005. When I try to access the Gini Index data for 2005 it links to the 2007-08 data. I have assumed that the situation has not changed too much in the past 3 years in terms of inequalities.

Here is a list of top 15 nations in the Gini Index. I have also included the US and the BRIC countries. The analysis is based on a sample of 126 countries.

The Scandinavian countries are all in the top 10. But other than Japan, the rest of the company is not exactly enviable. Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina(!), Hungary, Ukraine... Purely from casual reading we know these nations are not exactly the kind of nations that the world wants to emulate. Therefore, it appears that most of the equitable nations in the world are equitable because they appear to make everyone poor! The Hindu rate of growth!

Let us look at the BRIC countries. Amongst the BRIC countries we seem to be doing the best. We are at 54 while China is at 93 (yay!?) and Brazil at a really low 116. However, doing good on the Gini scale may not be such a great thing as the previous table suggested. That great model for the world (not anymore?) US is at 71. So only do nations that have low prosperity end up with a high Gini score? How do we measure prosperity?

One measure applied for prosperity is GDP per capita. GDP per capita has some flaws since it is an aggregate measure. But since we are taking that and Gini index into account, it should be an interesting exercise.

This makes more sense doesn't it? The ones whom we thought as not worthy of emulation have low GDP per capitas. Bosnia and Herzegovina has $2500, Slovakia at $8616, Ukraine at $1761. The Scandinavian countries stand out here too. Sweden has $39,637, Denmark at $47,769, Finland at $36,820 and Norway at a whopping $63,918.

Looking at the BRIC countries, there does seem to be an inverse relationship between Gini Coefficients and GDP Per Capita. Can we not grow without increasing inequality? (Afterthought, the same analysis will be better done with PPP adjusted GDP Per Capitas)

Let us do one thing. Let us take the nations with the highest GDP Per Capitas and check out their Gini Indices. Remeber when it comes to Gini Index, lower is better.

Interestingly, among the top 25 GDP per capitas we have countries like Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain. These countries are there on the strength of their natural resources and comparing them is really not going to help us. Let us drop them and build a new table. And the BRIC countries were left out in this one.

(I could have skipped it, but really just wanted to illustrate a point. I also wanted to show how thinking processes really are iterative. When we read from textbooks, we read the end result of a thought process. Unfortunately, the thinker rarely gets to that stage without many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip.)

Okay, last one, I promise. This one shows the GDP Per Capita rank and Gini Index rank for nations.

A cursory glance seems to satisfy the hypothesis that the most prosperous are quite unequal. Let us look at those that have done really well. I define "successful" nations as those whose difference between Gini ranks and GDP Per Capita ranks is not greater than 10. (It is an arbitrary cutoff)

Those are: (Drumrolls please)

Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Netherland, Austria, Finland, France, Canada and Germany.

And what do you know. Barring Canada, the rest are in Europe. I know that they have a strong socialist philosophy. But how come socialism works for these people while it does not work for Czech Republic, Bulgaria, India, China?

Or wait, are these metrics developed in Europe? (!) Is it the result of a built-in bias in the metrics?

For a moment let us discard the "skewed metrics" theory. The question that remains is:

What went wrong with the socialism of India, China, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Russia yet works for these countries?

PS: I had a fun 2 hours playing around with data. Another delectable tool for data handling is GapMinder. Check it out! Playing around with data could lead to interesting observations and voila you have a theory of your own!

PPS: What was the purpose of all this? In addition to raising some questions, I also wanted to demonstrate how to go about thinking about national development. I also observed that in the western world, there is a lot of obsession with development and growth. Maybe we could take a lesson or two from that.

Despatches from Europe*

A Grand Bollywood Museum?

Salzburg is beautiful. That statement needs qualification. Much of Europe is beautiful in its way. However, Salzburg's beauty is different from Paris. Paris is a big city which throbs with life. There is a hustle and bustle and the cafes which act as islands of calm from which you can admire Paris. Salzburg's beauty is one that calms the mind, soothes the soul, helps the mind pause before letting it soar again. If you had a nervous breakdown or wanted to write a treatise, there are few places to beat Salzburg. Talking of beauty in Europe, the cities are so well maintained and so beautiful that after a point it begins to fade and when that happens, the headiness induced by beauty is replaced by a void... a void filled by boredom. The flip side to perfection?

At the risk of betraying my philistine tendencies, I was not going to visit Salzburg! I thought of heading straight to Vienna, but there is a God and the proof of His/Her love was that I was not sleeping as the train pulled into Salzburg.

(Houses nestled in the hills. There was a fog when the train pulled in, which gave it an almost dream-like quality)

One of the must-see sights in Salzburg is the Mozart residence. They have an extremely impressive museum in what was formerly the residence of the Mozart family. I was a bit hesitant to enter. The entry fee was 7.5 euros and I really do not know too much about western classical music. But enter I did and glad I was.

When you buy the ticket, you get an audio guide along with it. This is a really simple and handy device. The museum itself is very small, just one floor. As you enter a room, there are numbers attached to the exhibit. You key in that number and a narrator talks about the exhibit, with classical music playing in the background and also mentions a line or two about the musical piece. This is a beautiful but simple innovation.

I think we should have a huge museum dedicated to Indian music with such an audio guide. I use the term Indian very specifically. In my view, Indian music should consist of Hindustani, Carnatic and Film music. This would throw the purists into fits of horror and if I had the money I would do that just to get sadistic pleasure out of it!

On a related note, I think we need to build a huge Bollywood museum in Mumbai or even better Goa. It would make oodles of money. I cannot count the number of people who have said, "You are from India? I really like Bollywood movies!" It is kind of important. The reason is... for much of the west, India is about living with poverty, snake charmers, the Apu trilogy, the caste system and now cheap outsourced labour. Even though I am not the greatest lover of Bollywood movies, they change that perception of India.
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The Art of Correspondence and Ambitious Fathers

The Mozart museum houses a significant body of letters that were exchanged between Father and Son. The exchanges reveal a proud but protective father worried about keeping a mischievous son on track to what the former thinks is the latter's potential. Mozart showed signs of genius quite early in life, early as in 3 years of age not 15 years of age! Father writes the following about his son to a friend,"...A God has been born in our own Salzburg" Mozart's father was an accomplished musician himself and comes across as demanding. Therefore, one can imagine the worry he would have had to go through.

The letters reminded one of the lost art of the correspondence. Of course, in today's times, there is no need for long communication. In fact, it would be frowned upon. But as a consequence, the charm of reflective thinking, witty and cutting observations that delight are lost.

A biography of Nehru by M.J.Akbar draws extensively on the correspondence between Jawaharlal Nehru and his father Motilal Nehru during Jawaharlal's days in England and it throws great light on the father's role in the development of his son. If I recall right, (and correct me if you think I am wrong) Motilal sends a picture of English Governor Generals of India (or some such high post) and writes to the effect that he would like Jawaharlal in that position.

Of course, from one perspective such things place undue pressure on the child. But from another perspective, perhaps these parents played the role of protective guides, showing a path and stepping in when the person looked like he was straying too much.

Either way, somehow I left with the feeling that writing letters leads to a kind of fulfilling relationship that modern methods be it emails or chats miss out on. Of course, that does not mean one has to write on paper, but if one writes proper emails, the way your english teacher would have liked it, perhaps it is more fun.

(View of Mozart house)

(Another shot)


(Christian Doppler's house is next to Mozart's :) For a town of its size, Salzburg has produced many achievers. Must be all that beauty! However the Doppler residence seems to have become commercial space. Note the ad!)

(One can imagine Doppler working at one of these windows)


(How to talk Arty!)

* I have always wanted to write "Despatches from " :)

Wintry Nights at Scandinavia

View from my balcony at 5 pm :) Oh Sun Lord, where are thou?