Psychology in times of crime

From time to time, professionals are expected to take time off and regroup / retain and reinvent the strategy to engage their customer in a better / friendlier way. It is part of growth for a professional in a sales job or a customer care job or several such professions where there is daily interaction with humans. One evening, my girlfriend who is a doctor at the reputed local hospital was asked to attend a seminar for a week on how to be friendly towards her patients. I could sense she was cribbing about the waste of time this seminar was going to be. A week later, she had this new found appreciation for what psychologists do and how helpful they are to professionals caught in the grind of daily routine. Turns out the week long seminar helped my girl cope with her job in a better way and with a positive outlook. It also helped me as she would be in a good mood on her return and our regular arguments had become rare.



If you think about it, having a human interaction as part of your job can be both invigorating as well as frustrating. Invigorating becasue you get an active feedback of a job well done and it motivates you to do better and work harder plus there is a satisfaction of making a difference to society. Frustrating because human beings do not always think logically and often act emotionally and when it comes to their health they are a victim of their habits. Doctors often find it frustrating that the solution of problem is right there and yet the patients choose to do the opposite. This will be true of other professions too, let us assume a tech support guy is trying to help an middle aged man fix his computer and the guy is being unnecessarily hassled by the owner of the computer asking him unnecessary questions and often implying the tech support is is a waste of time even though he needs their help. People working in tech support / customer care are often an unappreciated lot and hence always need to be trained to not allow such interactions to escalate into war of words because customers can be mean often times.


The police department takes the cherry and the cake when it comes to underappreciated jobs. Plenty times they do a good and stop impending crimes but they cannot brag about it as it is “their job”, but should anything go wrong, the police department bears the brunt of it and rightly so. In essence it’s the thankless job of a sentry. Nobody remembers 1000 good judgment calls but everyone remembers the one bad call. Police department also has an additional burden of being kicked around by the politicians for not being there at their beck and call. There is nobody who has it worse than a police officer. One can only imagine the daily stress these men in uniform go through. The army clearly has its target defined as enemy but often, police have to act against one citizen to protect the rights of another citizen and there are obvious mistakes made and personal equations and prejudices that come in play. I am not justifying the incident at Ferguson or many such incidents that happen far too often, I am merely trying to suggest solutions.


I am sure police are trained fairly well at using arms and dealing with hostile situations. However, am not sure enough is being done to have regular sanitization trainings for the police to deal with women / minorities (religious / racial) and to actively fight the unconscious bias in their minds. The problem is that police officers are so exposed to crime and criminals that they forget that a large portion of their job is dealing with citizen and helping the regular Joe feel safe and secure. It’s always in the last category that the police are found wanting. They are loud / brash and often ill-mannered while interacting with citizen and an extreme manifestation of this are the tragic incidents where young boys / girls are killed in police encounters simply because the police officer in question was not adept at handling citizen and only trained to handle criminals. This mindset needs to change and police department should be open to seek help rather than defend an indefensible behavior on their part. When Officer Wilson says on TV “I did my job and I would do it exactly the same way should it happen again...” I feel sorry for him and sorry for the citizens who have to interface with officers like him who have for so long been so insensitive that they have lost touch with the large portion of their job which requires empathy.


Lastly, my heart goes out to Michael Brown and other such stupid kids who faced a bullet where a severe reprimand was due. Rest in peace! May their family and friends have the strength to bear the loss. Amen!


So long…

India's own Ferguson

It was a typical night of Aug 9 2014 at Ferguson (St Louis, Missouri) when an 18 year old teenager Michael Brown was shot dead by Officer Wilson. Ever since, Ferguson has not been the same. Initial few days witnessed incessant protests from the locals who found the police action unacceptable. Well, Officer Wilson and others from the police department were hard pressed for a justification for the killing. It could have been a bad neighborhood; it could have also been that Michael fit nicely into the description of “usual suspect” but shooting to kill an unarmed teenage student cannot be justified by any stretch of imagination. The least the police department could do is suspend the officer concerned for long duration for colossal lack of judgment or discharge him from the police duty and let him face the prosecution for his act. Instead, the police strong armed the demonstrations and for almost 3 weeks Ferguson burned and faced the brunt of irate locals going berserk. “It could have been me” said one of them when asked why he was protesting; Point taken. Do any of us still feel this was over reaction? (A grand jury subsequently decided that Officer Wilson is innocent and is let off)


President Obama addressed the nation on Monday morning (24th Nov 2014) and appealed to the people of Ferguson to maintain calm and respect the rule of law. I have nothing to add to the President’s soothing words except, Mr. President! Justice seems to evade Ferguson! Rule of law is fine but the law has a letter and a spirit; while the judgment of the jury is perfectly adhering to the letter of law, it seems to be lacking in the spirit. It is not enough if justice is done; it should seem to have done too. Nobody is asking the officer face death sentence, but am sure the people will say “A mistake was done and a life is lost. Surely someone must take responsibility”. It is here I agree with the residents of Ferguson when they protest the decision of Grand jury. Please understand, I do not condone the violence but when the state fails to react to citizen’s concerns protests get out of hand.


India does not have a good record on the likes of Michael Brown’s either. However, India goes one step ahead when such incidents occur. Police immediately brands them terrorists and politicians brand them Pakistanis. Consequently, nobody dares to question the state’s overreach in the fear to be labeled “traitor” for siding with the enemy or worse, being next in line for similar action by police. Don’t get me wrong, it may sound like I am suggesting that police are generally the bad guy, am not. However, too many officers get involved with politicians and execute “extra judicial killings” at their behest in the name of fighting crime. Anyone who questions them in Parliament is shouted down as anti-national and nobody takes to the streets fearing police backlash. The police derive their power not by rule of law but by political patronage and this is where it gets all messed up. India has a long list of Michael Browns and will continue to have until its citizen realize one thing – “It could be me next time”. We often complain people don’t stand up for the right cause but we forget we never stand up for other’s rights too. If we had stood up and fought against the police overreach the first time, irrespective of the fact the person they shot and killed was a gangster or terrorist or whatever, things would not have been so grim. Today, police can literally “pick-up” inconvenient individuals and eliminate them by staging an encounter because they are sure nobody will protest nor will the courts take cognizance.


With the death of Michael Brown (may rest in peace) a town arose and stood by him and fought for him despite not being related to him. Even though we do not need the incidents like Michael Brown in India, we desperately need the spirit of “I am my brother’s keeper”. Until then, India will continue to see cases like Michael Brown.


So long…..

Vanishing age lines

Declaration: I am attempting to write about a subject I have not studied in depth nor have any inclination to research and hence to a mind trained in theoretical physics this attempt might seem focusing on the trivial and missing the point. I am merely using information readily available on the internet and basic knowledge of human metabolism to base my premise. I am open to criticism and willing to debate any point of view contrary to mine.


It was 4 am on 24th November 2014 and I was still awake reading through articles of Wikipedia as well as other sources on the 5 dimensional world. Interstellar – the movie had intrigued me and bowled me over. I wanted to read up on certain aspects of it and the actual science on which certain facts of the movie were based. Now, I do understand that movie script writers use cinematic liberty to build a premise of their choice and I am not planning to step on their toes; however, despite loving the film and the stellar performances by the lead actors a few aspects somehow didn’t hit me right. I am merely attempting to put things in perspective so that anyone who had queries similar to mine could find a few answers here and possibly appreciate the movie better.


For starters, I did not know of a worm hole or the 5 dimensional world – as depicted in the movie. Let me try and elaborate on these terms so that the story can be appreciated better. Worm hole is basically used for time travel (along the same lines as on earth). Assume 2 people are travelling from point A to Point B on earth. One is travelling by foot while other travels by an airplane. The person travelling by airplane is actually using accelerated velocity mouth of a worm hole to get to the other point quicker than the normal travel and by expending lesser energy. Even though the example is rudimentary, it makes a limited point of time travel. Worm holes never take you back in time because we are still operating in 4 dimensional spaces where time moves only in forward direction. The distance in space is measured in light years (distance travelling by light in one year @ 300,000 km /sec) and worm hole simply saves us a few light years of travel exactly like an airplane travel as compared to travel by foot. In the movie, Interstellar, the actors go into the accelerated mouth of a worm hole to travel to a galaxy far far away in a few hours.


The second bit that intrigued me was the 5 dimensional world. Unlike anything we know in the four dimensional world, a 5 dimensional world allows you to go back in time. Basically, it is not an actual world but a theoretical concept (or spiritual) that makes it possible to travel back and forth in time rendering the time like a physical dimension. Theoretically, this means that people living in 5 dimensional world can go back in time and face the same events again and use their retrospective knowledge (or hind sight) to deal with it better because they have already dealt with it before. Like let us suppose we could go back in time and avoid the world wars by not allowing the triggers to escalate because now we know that it would result in devastation. 5 dimensional world has a spiritual side as well. If you meditate on your problems had enough, your mind activates energy centers within your brain which helps you identify any unresolved issues of your past hidden in your subconscious mind and resolve them therein alleviating your problems. In essence you have literally travelled back in time to change events of your life. It is also said that a fully active mind can even recall events of past life and help resolve any unresolved issues. In practicality however, we continue to live in a four dimensional world where we cannot go back in time. The point to remember is 5 dimensional world do not reverse the physical state of body, it merely allows you to travel in your present form to revisit events of the past. In the movie Interstellar, Coop uses 5 dimensional world to travel back in time to send a message to his daughter, Murphy on the solution to the problem she was facing to execute what the film terms as “Plan A”. You will observe that Coop does not become younger; he has merely travelled back in time to send a message.


The final bit of the movie and the only bit I could not agree with was the climax where Coop meets his daughter Murphy who is on death bed aged 90 odd years while Coop himself is still young and dashing even at his 124 years age. This is a false notion that is shown perpetually in most sci-fi movies attempting to depict time-space relativity. The time – space relativity governs the relative time elapse on earth vis-a-vis any other place in space. Due to variance of effect of Sun’s gravity and relative speed on rotation of planet, each planet has differing cycles of day (sunlight) and night (dark) ; likewise due to varying distance from sun there is difference in time taken to revolve around the sun (number of days in a year). These effects of time-space relativity can be used to depict that we will have longer days and night and each year may have many more days (when compared to earth) but this does not mean the elapse of time is slower. Imagine having 2 watches, one faulty that moves the second hand every 10 seconds while the other normal. For every 10 hours on the normal watch, the faulty watch would show only one hour, but the time elapsed would be same in both cases. Meaning a day on Jupiter maybe 5 hours as compared to 12 hours on Earth but that does not mean 5 hours is equal to 12 hours, it just means Jupiter rotates many more times than earth in any given time duration. Likewise, because Jupiter takes 12 years (earth time) to complete one revolution around the sun, it does not mean that an astronaut who has landed on Jupiter ages by one year after every 12 years. This is a fallacy because the time elapse is the same and time elapse is not measured by solar clock or seasons (refer atomic clock). The movie Interstellar, on more than one occasion shows Coop telling his daughter Murphy that they would be of same age when he return from his space trip and in the climax a 124 year old Coop has not aged physically while his daughter is old and frail seems more fantasy than reality. Time elapse and human metabolism are linked and human beings age due to metabolism and time elapse and not due to time-space relativity. I assume the writer has used this false notion liberally in the movie to help average viewer appreciate time-space relativity by means of human aging.

Please go watch the movie Interstellar. Amazing screenplay, good performance and the relative slow pace helps viewers grasp the concepts of theoretical physics and adapting to the science jargon. Highly recommended.


So long…