Society

NL vs. IN

(Oct, 2024)

Circa 2024 Q2: having spent eight years in the Netherlands in pursuit of education and research, I was at a significant crossroads in life. While searching for positions after my current postdoc at QuTech, I got an offer from Fujitsu, a prominent quantum computing company. Not only did the work description align well with my interest, but the position was in Bangalore, a soul city for me, the cliche Silicon Valley of India. After days of hair-splitting contemplation, I eventually decided to take this offer. While I was considering other offers in the Netherlands, US, and UK, this offer stood out for a variety of professional reasons and ticked a lot of boxes for the type of position I was looking for. But that’s not what this post is about.

While we were bidding goodbye to our dear friends in the Netherlands, I realized there were a lot of things I had taken for granted - both in appreciating the Netherlands as well as in vilifying it. As suggested by a friend (Sap), comparing the expectation of this change with reality was worthwhile, probably a few months after the move. That is the motivation of this post: to revisit my expectations of life in NL vs. IN; from these two viewpoints, I situated in the NL vs. I situated in IN.

Let’s start with food. Why? Well, being a foodie like me is sad luck if you are in NL. It is a country that boasts of the simplicity of food to the extent that a Dutch friend of mine (Renzo), during my masters, quipped that if they could eat batteries to gain energy, they would probably do it. I won’t blame them: spice grows in the tropics, and they haven’t known any better even after years of colonization. We say in India, ‘roti, kapda, makan’. Quality food is a basic drive in my reptilian brain. It is no surprise, so I would spill the beans on this early. IN wins by a huge, huge margin. There are a lot of options that satisfy my palate. Of course, among them are my favourites, such as biriyani, tandoori, Indo-Chinese, and Bengali - the authentic ones. Indian food in the NL is not only average, it is mean! In both mathematical and linguistic sense. In Bangalore, we can visit a random restaurant serving Chinese and come out mesmerized and food-drunk from the taste. Not only in dine-out but the delivery options on Zomato and Swiggy beat Thuisbezorgd any day, and similarly for grocery apps like BigBasket, BlinkIt, Zepto, Licious, etc. vs AH, Jumbo, or Picnic. Not only are the delivery costs lower, but the time range for ordering in is much wider (think of those midnight cravings for Death-by-Chocolate from Cornerhouse Icecreams). Costs are hard to compare between NL and IN. But comparing IN now to IN 8 years ago, food has definitely become costly. However, comparing the same restaurant (e.g., rolls from Leon), the taste has not taken a hit. I remember a single chicken pommes roll earlier, which would have been hard to gobble up, but now, it looks like a mini version of its bygone days. (Of course, this is not surprising, having an Indian bias growing up here, but that’s the last time I would mention that unfair advantage in this evaluation. After all, this post is primarily meant for Indians living abroad, trying to gauge how India feels once you are back after years since you left). The only (half-)Dutch food that comes to my mind at times is the kapsalon. I would definitely miss the summer BBQs, but the full tandoori platter would keep that feeling well suppressed for now. Groceries, however, have a different story to tell. We used to be frustrated by the bland vegetables we found in the NL, the routine (oranje) carrots, bell peppers, cauliflowers, and other winter veggies, as we call them in IN. IN definitely has more options for recipes that we are used to using in the Indian dishes we cook at home. Obviously! Nonetheless, I would give NL a point for having fresher, bigger, and cleaner veggies. Be it onions or cauliflowers, the NL version, both in the supermarkets or Saturday markets, looks like they have been ‘optimized’ for productivity using their greenhouse tricks. Moreover, many products (like cut vegetable mix and pasta sauce) have been designed to make cooking easier (at least for standard EU dishes), as it is unaffordable to have a house aid for most. It is easier to find international products (think maple syrup, za’atar, or kimchi) in Dutch supermarkets than hunting for unique shops selling these in Bangalore. Long back, during my masters, I had an Excel sheet comparing the cost of various items between NL and IN as a way to budget myself. It was only beers and chocolate that had a lower price in NL while being of far superior quality. However, whenever I mention beers, I almost always mean Belgian beers. Dutch beers have inherited the worst features of Belgium and Germany, the 330 ml-sized flute glasses and watery pilsners instead of the rich range of tastes and pints, respectively. Bangalore, the brewery capital of India, has more to offer than what meets the eye. The craft beers from Geist and Toit have an excellent range of products, from stout lager to pilsner on-the-tap. While there are many more choices of liqueurs and wines across the EU (some favourites being Mastiha, Retsina and Grappa), India also has its surprises in Mead and Mahua.

Next, let’s look at cleanliness and transport infrastructure. While this seems too trivial a point to even command its own discussion, I have personally felt, on various occasions, many who live abroad develop a soft corner for the overall cleanliness and the infrastructure. I completely agree. The cleanliness of the streets (at least in Delft) is top-notch compared to Bangalore. NL wins here by a considerable margin. Delft is quaint; you feel as if you are living in a painting. Kolkata and Bangalore are bustling metropolias spearheading India’s immense growth. Every time I drive past a dusty Metro expansion work disrupting normalcy in both cities; instead of anguish, a sense of pride blooms in appreciating it as a preparative step to allow further developments and thereby create more opportunities. It is hard to compare these scales, with Delft seeming like a village to me these eight years. Realising how scale matters when managing city infrastructure through discussions with Rupsa on cities, Bangalore is in a pitiful state compared to its peers. In Bangalore, it is frustrating to suddenly find that the footpath is becoming non-existent, warping into a drain, being encroached by roadside shops, splattered by cow dung, and whatnot. On the other hand, NL doesn’t only have a carefully designed infrastructure; the “attention to detail in the design” (as Rupsa says) is what is missing in IN. Graded intersections, for example, are really useful for the huge population of elderly citizens to be self-sufficient in driving their motorized wheelchairs right from their homes to the supermarket, even via buses. The only way I could imagine that in Bangalore is if the wheelchairs are fitted with rocket thrusters so that they can fly! The transport infrastructure in Bangalore is in a pretty sorry state. The city, unlike Kolkata (which was well-designed by the British to bear the brunt of a metropolis), does not have the road infrastructure to support the volume of vehicles. This leads to terrible traffic conditions, eventually disrupting the daily plans, be it meeting friends over the weekends, adjusting the flexi-hours at the office to the traffic conditions instead of other personal preferences, or travelling to the airport. In fact, we would easily visit friends halfway across the country after office in the NL via public transport. In contrast, in Bangalore, we have to plan a staycation with friends living on the opposite side of the city. In terms of accessibility, Delft is a proper 15-minute city - being able to access any facility like a hospital, supermarket, city centre, theatre, etc., within a 15-minute travel radius, that too just by riding a bicycle. The nearest airport from Delft was Amsterdam, which was a different city, but we could still reach it in around 1.5 hours. Funnily, it takes approx 2 hours to get to the Bangalore Airport from the city. Having said that, public transport connectivity is much better in IN. The frequency of the buses is something I always liked in IN. Yes, the buses come dot on time in the NL, but often you have to wait for 15-45 mins if you miss a bus. In IN, you will find almost a continuous train of buses for your destination, so it really doesn’t matter which bus you are taking and if it arrives at its scheduled time. On the flipside, I miss the cycling infrastructure of NL in a big way. The safe cycling infrastructure, even on highways and busy roads is something I will truly miss here in IN. Having just passed my driving exams in the NL, I will have to unlearn a lot before I find the confidence to drive in IN again. NL driving is proactive. You learn the rules, you follow the rules, and more importantly, you expect everyone else on the road to also act according to the rules. Surprisingly, in IN, the driving rules are precisely the same on paper. It is just a different setting where there’s far more chaos for the rules to work realistically. I am genuinely surprised that there are so few accidents, especially when auto drivers meander their way through traffic. NL teaches you the rules, IN teaches you skills.

The work-life balance and hierarchy is something that the EU can indeed boast to the rest of the World, be it IN, US, China, or Japan. My previous employment in India, at ISRO, had a poor work-life balance. There were times when I was working for almost six months without two full weekends to unwind. So far, the work-life balance at my present workplace has been good, and I have no complaints. There are terrible cases of work-life balance in some IT companies, to the extent of death from overworking! But it is not a norm as many would have you believe. I am self-motivated in my work. Even when I am not at the office, I am often thinking of the research, finding articles to read or ideas to explore the next day at the office. So, I am not sure if I can ever evaluate work-life balance, as I am more likely to disrupt my own work-life balance than my employer. However, I appreciate the passion for work in IN. Competition and standing out (similar to the US) are factors that play into this. I don’t know if this is good or bad. It is definitely a good thing for a company, for science, or for the nation as a whole. I am not advocating for stressing oneself to stand out. At the same time, I find it hard to sympathize with the Dutch perspective of “doe maar normaal, dan doe je al gek genoeg” (just act normal, then you’re already acting crazy enough) when it comes to achieving something worthwhile in life. I feel this makes the EU matter less in the world scenario in the long run, as they keep petting their prized work-life balance while other countries (esp. from Asia and MENA) wave past them on the track. Everyone is much less ambitious and motivated to compete on a global scale. In a way, I prefer a ‘developing country’, signifying the drive for continual improvement, past not only basic problems like poverty and illiteracy but also past the so-called ‘developed countries’, where the development has stalled in lieu of a false sense of satisfaction of reaching a sufficient societal standard. The flat hierarchy is, however, something I appreciate in NL. I could easily sit across the table for lunch with the dean of my faculty or critic my PI from PhD or postdoc if I think he is wrong. There are far more of these seemingly useless artificial barriers within institutions in IN. Just like many other points in this reflection, I could only promise myself that I will try to have a flat hierarchy around me as much as it is up to me.

The lower cost-of-living leading to a better living standard was definitely a deal-maker in our decision to move. This factor has lived up to it. I compared NL and IN and my remunerations on Numbeo. The reality matches well with the numbers in there. Affording a one-bedroom rental in Delft was more than a third of my postdoc salary. Yes, academia has far lower wages due to being public-funded, unlike profit-making industrial enterprises. Yet, even otherwise, it is easier to maintain a better living standard in India for a similar position with a comparable salary. A lot of it has to do with the wide range of options you would find in IN. As an example, you can find a two-bedroom rental from the range of 10k to 80k, based on proximity to central locations, facilities in the housing complex, etc. We finally upgraded to a three-bedroom rental, which definitely allowed us to have a much better living standard. I have my own hobby/game/study room! A similar argument applies to all other things, be it clothing, food, transport, etc. It is also much easier to find aids, for pretty much everything, from cooking, washing dishes, declogging the drain, assembling furniture, opening up your soda can (hell ya!) On the other hand, I really appreciate how NL has taught us to be independent. I can assemble a bicycle, de-scale a fish, transport a refrigerator halfway across the city on a trolley, and whatnot. We would want to keep staying this independent for as long as possible.

Proximity to family and relatives is a factor in which IN wins, well, again, for obvious reasons. It is far easier and cheaper to book a flight and attend family functions or to tend to emergency situations. More importantly, even when you are not actually doing this, just the ‘possibility’ to do this gives a sense of welfare. The same is true also the other way around. It is far easier for family members to visit you without the visa barrier and long-haul flights. In fact, my parents and in-laws are already planning a visit. NL also have stricter rules on how long or how many people can visit your place. Such rules, while meant to maintain a specific social standard (e.g., students sharing a room for half the rent), impede flexibility more to our disadvantage. With every pro, there is always some con on the flip side. I totally understand; relatives in India can be pretty nosy, especially if they are in the same city as you are. And that brings us to the next point.

NL has spoilt us in many ways than we would want to acknowledge. Among them is respect for one’s personal space, be it in PDA or your apparel. NL wins on this. I could dress up ‘for myself’ and not care about what others think of me. If I would have it my way, I would probably do the same in IN. However, I would be judged vehemently and would affect others around me and have indirect effects. Choosing apparel seems trivial. But think of it as a stand-in for if a lady can wear Western clothes at her in-laws or your third cousin interfering in your family planning. ‘Mah lyfe, mah rulez’ gets washed down the Ganges in IN.

The Dutch weather is no winner. India, however, has a wide range of landscapes, from deserts to humid, from mountains to coasts, so this is very specific to Bangalore. I have always loved the weather in Bangalore compared to all the places I have lived before, i.e., Purulia, Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram and Delft. The half-hill-station climate with a cool breeze and the dance of rain and sunshine is appreciable. It is far easier to convince myself to go out for a walk for more days in a year than in Delft. However, the sun at mid-day can be harsh at times, especially for my sensitive skin. While I am in an air-conditioned office space on weekdays, it does become a factor to consider while planning weekend activities. While pollution should be covered in a previous point, its effect on our lives is similar to that of the weather, so let me factor that in here. There are indeed times when I wish I were wearing a mask. I am not trying to sound like an NRI; many do wear them in cities to protect themselves from pollution. There are far more green pockets in Delft, or Dutch cities in general, that act as lungs for the city as a whole. Compared to Bangalore or Kolkata, most of Delft feels like you are walking in a garden.

Festivals are tied to your background. Thus, it is hard to derive the same festive feel from Koningsdag, Sinterklaas, Halloween (which is considered a US concept in NL), and Christmas the same way you would enjoy Durga puja, Holi, Diwali, among hundreds of others around the year. Are there festivals in NL I am blanking out on, or are there only these three and a half? In fact, even Christmas carnivals are far more enjoyable in Kolkata than in Maastricht. We ended up mostly celebrating Bengali festivals in NL, within the Kallol association. Festivals like Durga Puja, Saraswati Puja, Poila Baishakh were indeed fun within the close-knit community. Given the harsher societal integration with the Dutch, it is imperative that each community holds on to each other more tightly, sparking friendships in the long run. The structure of Bengali communities is very similar in Bangalore to that of Delft, something that is yet to be explored for us (given we are flying to Kolkata this puja). Besides festivals, you feel more connected in general to what is happening around you, in society at large. Be in because of the TV channels in your regional language or the blooming of tulsi and hibiscus in the garden.

Another critical factor is the language barrier. The languages that are comfortable for us are English, Bengali, and Hindi (in that particular order when it comes to professional interaction). NL had a combo of Dutch and English. Bangalore has a combo of Kannada and English/Hindi. Thus, though we were not speaking the primary language in either place, it was reasonably easy to get around. There are subtle differences. Roadsigns and announcements in public transportation are primarily in Dutch (except at Schipol and a few other essential tourist destinations), whereas, in most places in India, you have a combo of the local state language and English/Hindi. On the other hand, in situations where the bulletin is only in the local language, you could still piece out some meaning from the Dutch words due to them having the same script and many similar-sounding words; however, Kannada is runic, even with working knowledge of the Devanagari script. In both places, there is a growing sense of linguistic imperialism fueled by nationalistic sentiments. It is justified in many ways, preserving one’s culture and language. Yet, as expats, it does make life hard. This effect particularly spills over from personal to professional spaces for disciplines like medicine, law, teaching, or urban planning. These professions require learning the language often at the C1 or C2 level before you can even be considered for employment, irrespective of your experiences in India or elsewhere. While knowing the local language is a plus for many jobs in India to gel well with customers who are not so well versed in English, the working language in most places in India is English or the state language (mainly in some governmental roles). So, you can almost always work your way through using English alone.

General professionalism is high in the NL. If someone is responsible for something, I can safely assume that the person will do their job sincerely, be it assembling a piece of furniture or picking up their dog’s poop. I don’t typically need to follow up or micro-manage. The situation is not so in IN, esp. in Kolkata, where it seems nothing gets done unless you escalate to a higher authority or pay a bribe. The default is assumed to be ‘stalled till further notice’. I found Bangalore, however, to be way more professional than Kolkata, and almost on par with NL. Every interaction I had to go through so far in setting up our new home has been smooth and predictable. E-commerce is really smooth in India. Return pickups are at the door instead of you having to post a package back yourself. NL is pretty tech-savvy compared to the rest of the EU when it comes to contactless payment. However, UPI is at another level! From roadside coconut vendors to buying bus tickets, from paying house rent to dining in at a restaurant, it works ubiquitously in a breeze. There are multiple reliable and competing apps not only for food delivery and transport but also for other services like Porter (for package transport) or NoBroker (for property search). Medical facilities are also very different in NL and IN. In IN, I can book an appointment for any specialist with a few day’s notice at max (if not direct drop-in). Getting past the paracetamol prescription from the huisarts in the NL requires a carefully crafted pitch deck. While I sympathise with the more sound scientific logic of preventing antibiotic resistance, the role of medical science to provide relief to a troubled body should not be sidelined. I wonder if the real cause is the shortage of specialists (I had to wait for four months before I got an appointment with a skin specialist) rather than holding on to this medical stance. On the other hand, I have heard from friends that the specialists in NL are well-trained experts and that the emergency service is swift. At the same time, in NL, most facilities remain free (or covered by insurance). Mediclaim in IN is reserved mainly for procedures requiring hospital admission. Customer service in the NL is a pain - waiting long before your call gets transferred to a representative with no clue and then going through a thousand different processes before it is finally resolved. I find IN to have better customer service, with more flexibility (yes, a general theme in this reflection). People would go out of their way to help you in difficult situations in comparison to the cold, stay-within-boundaries Dutch attitude. Even though the hospitality in IN stands out, the societal etiquette in NL involves superficial courteousness that is easy to appreciate and get used to. I miss the morning greetings from others sharing your elevator ride to the office. In India, everyone (not only the milkman, but also the 6 figure salaried guy at the office) seems as if in a trance within the rat race of life, busy making ends meet, and as W.H. Davis would have it, ‘no time to stand and stare’, be alone greet. A big part of this is influenced by the points discussed within work-life balance. But let’s call it a draw on this, shall we?

Well, by now, I have realized that not only have I made this way more comprehensive than I had initially planned, but also, most of the verdicts that I have passed are not black and white. They are intertwined and very subjective to my interpretation at this moment. But that is how I want to leave this at: a screenshot of the open tabs in my mind castle. I would love to revisit this essay months or years later.

Appreciating the evolution of a language

(Sep 14, 2020)

I often face this dichotomy - flowery English or minialististic encodings. Short Messaging Services (SMS) used to be really popular in my high-school days. It had a limit of 80 characters per SMS, with a monthly pack limiting the number of such texts. I can imagine it will be extremely difficult to imagine such a World, for kids who have grown up with WhatsApp and Facebook. Pretty much as difficult as it was for us, to imagine that, our parents waited for weeks for handwritten letters or had to rush to nearby telegram offices to send messages.

Some changes that happen in human civilization are so rapid that in the larger scheme of things often whiz past and perish within the neural cavities of an isolated generation. SMS language seems to me as one of them. We invented words to represent ideas, found general rules of redundancy on English spellings (e.g. vowels don’t matter), conditioned decompressing the meaning based on context - striving towards the theoretical limit of channel efficiency of information coding in the truest Shannonic sense.

It taught me but one thing. Language, like society, is ever evolving. It is not a hard requirement to follow the Oxford dictionary. What matters is to express yourself such that the information is conveyed as close to your intention as is permitted by the resources you are willing to commit. A spelling mistake shouldn’t matter much, specially if that captures a snapshot in time, They are like the mutations in out genes. When enough people make them they survive, the same way that many Indian words are now enlisted in British English lexicons.

On the flipside, I love linguistic artistry - synonyms, idioms, puns, etc. that adds richness and vigour to a language. The resolution indeed is similar to my alignment between science and art. The necessary and the inevitable. The explainable and the creative.

Social media

(Sep 13, 2020)

I watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix today. It was captivating. Netflix’s recommendation engine indeed knows my tastes.

Oh, wait! Ironically, it is about the impact of this very core algorithm that drives these capitalist organizations, like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Pinterest, etc. which ingests user data to serve advertisements as their core business model. In short, what success means in this formulation? You reverse engineer the psychology of the users, personalizing their feeds to increase their view time so that you can serve your content more adeptly.

It is an amazing documentary I highly recommend to one and all - especially to the teenagers of today, who doesn’t have a clue how the world was before. There are some words which kept resonating - my takeaways from the show.

• I have Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google, Instagram, etc. accounts. I love spending time on them. So don’t take it personally if you find it captivating. That is the core aim of these systems. Even the very persons who ideated them find it hard to look away. That said, it means, this short-term dopamine release is not a way of justifying that these do need your euphoric attention. You need to outplay the A.I. Can you?
• We measure A.I. by comparing with human intelligence. We possibly will never evolve any further to beat A.I. is Chess, Go, DotA, who’s implementations have crossed the threshold of human intellect. It is simply a battle of algorithms and hardware. We are a general-purpose system. We are extremely poor in running specialized algorithms in our general-purpose brain. Which means, we are losing this game big time. We are a compute node being used to train the A.I. to beat us better next time around.
• A simple solution of course is to not play the game itself. A vast majority will still play and eventually, the effect would be inevitable despite our passive protest. Or, we can revolt - for what morals we still hold dear. A middle path is to use more benign alternatives. Like changing your LinkedIn feed from Top to Recent everytime, or removing sponsored posts on Facebook. That leaves me with a rather sadist yet neutral viewpoint - is that right. I know my data is being used and yet I keep using the delusional free service. Doesn’t using these tricks equivalent to using torrents?
• What struck me most is that - no one seems to be in control. The algorithms are let out in the field, with a primitive understanding of the limited test dataset, and then they learn and evolve, become behemoths in themselves to influence civil wars and national elections! The only control we seem to have is that in a national senate of a capitalist country where the executives testify by presenting only the sugar-coated intention and not the possible dire consequences.
• The presentation of facts is generally manipulated by our biases. At a philosophical level, that is what we always do - live in our echo chamber, looking at the world via our own lenses. Except, only here we don’t get to choose our lenses, someone does it for us based on what’s profitable for them. Taxing based on data obtained in not a solution, monetizing premium accounts or open-source alternatives won’t have the same adoption, neither will standalone voices be loud enough to tower past the overarching greed. I have not yet reached a consensus in my mind of what’s the best action for each tiny individual to emerge to a better future for mankind. Let me know your opinions :)

Calibrating a moral compass

(May 15, 2020)

I came across this verse on Charu’s website,

“Jab laga ki humara vyavhar galat tha toh Geeta padhni shuru ki,
Jab laga ki usne humare saath galat kiya toh shayari likhna shuru kar di.” - Charu

(Translation: When I thought my actions were wrong, I started reading the Bhagavat Gita; when I thought I was wronged, I started writing poems)

This makes me ponder the very nature of right and wrong. Many philosophers have in the past wrote volumes of text on it, like Beyond Good and Evil (Friedrich Nietzsche), and the core thesis of most is morality is subjective. It is always relative to the person assigning the value. Oftentimes these values correlate well and come to be accepted as societal norms. Oftentimes these social norms gets codified as the law. But laws are amended over time, and laws are confined to the land in question.

We see people like Edward Snowden or Taslima Nasrin taking refuge in foreign lands. We see homosexuality getting legalized. We see different alcohol consumption laws based on age, religion, etc.

So it is not so easy to objectively define if your actions are right or wrong. Infact, let us divide it into 2 types: the legal distinction of right/wrong instituted by the governing authority, and that of a more personal question. I would categorize the morality from religous belief under the latter.

It is much easier to judge our actions based on the law. Yes, rape is a crime - it is wrong, by all standards of the current society. It wasn’t always like that though. It was a common war practice which the conquerors often used to indulge in.

Not everything is governed by the law. There might be sugar tax at places, but noone would take you to court if you ordered that extra potato fries after jotting down on your new year’s resolution of cutting down on fatty foods. But you would feel guilt. The first principle of breaking your own personal set of law. Incest for example is looked down. Yet, inter-family marriage is common in many places, called Maman Kalyanam (uncle niece marriage) in some communities in southern India. Is cheating on your partner ok? Is smoking cigerette secretly because your son doesn’t approve of it ok? Is downloading from torrent ok? There can be many such questions that can be posed.

Sometimes we do have personal double standards. We are ok as long as we are not at the other end. It is ok to cheat as long we are not cheated upon. This is one of the benchmark I use to set my personal law - do as you would be done by (the Bible).

The Bhagavat Gita. Yes, it is a religious book - extensively discussing many model dilemma of its protagonist Arjun. Even though I am an atheist, I like discussions on morality. At the same time - it should not be taken as a gold standard. The hindu dharma (philosophy) allows self-improvement, redefinition of morality based on time. Infact, the morals of Ramayana and Mahabharat often conflict. It is not a question of which one is right. There is no right answer pervasive of space and time - morality is not a physical law. Just like quotes and poetic verses can be interpreted in many way, so can any moral omnibus.

List of posts I wish I had the time to type out

These are approximately the ideas I want to discuss on this page in the future.

• Price of knowledge - open-sourcing vs. education/IP having a cost
• Price of creativity - should art have a price? Is generative AI creative?
• Clarity vs. Technicality - being clear (mathematical) vs. being easy to understand (toy examples and popular science)
• Exams, marks and IQ - Value of standardized exams? Marks in exams/degrees vs. gaining knowledge.
• Gender roles - Male vs. female … who should pay, direction vs. maps
• Modern art vs. Realism vs. Digital art
• Meaning of life - To contribute to humanity or be happy for oneself
• Social media role - Can they be a source of knowledge?
• PhD vs. Industry - Ethics to contribute to the world… different ways
• Love vs. arranged marriages , and the Institution of marriage
• Backpack vs Suitcase
• Boundaries between countries
• Vegan vs. Non-vegetarian vs. Cannibalism
• Being choosy with food
• Adventure sport vs. couch potato - Use human being’s main power - brain
• Wheels vs Legs
• Afterlife vs. Death
• Needing inspiration vs doing what you need to - Routine vs no routine; Indecisive vs firm decisions
• Euthanasia
• LGBTQQIP2SAA
• Governance
• Space junk

A collection of sci-fi/fantasy ideas from my childhood diary.

• Swastika - The Gateway To Time Travel
• Om - The Principal Syllable
• Area 51 - The Mystery Military Base
• Mathemagical Blackholes and Phi - The Elegance
• Biorhythm - How It Works
• God’s Arrival - Kingdom of Heaven
• Aliens and Gods - Story of Niburu
• Magnetic Anti-gravity - Levitation
• Yang-Yin - Balance In Nature
• Ankh, Djed, Was - Egyptian Symbolism
• Panchbhutas - The Five Elements
• 11:11 Phenomenon - Guardian Angels
• Carbon - The Compounds of Life
• Predicting the future - Nostradamus to Paul The Octopus
• Mind waves - An unexplored force
• Deja Vu - Souls and Time revisited
• Puspakh Ratha and UFOs - A flying timeline
• Fractals - From Here To Infinity
• Bionics and Hormones - Immortality In Our Grasp
• Augmented Reality - Alice In Wonderland
• The Tsangpo Gorge - The Hidden Cavern
• Göbekli Tepe - The History Of Man
• Mount Meru and Senai - Knocking On Heaven’s Door
• Ark of Covenant - King Solomon’s Mines
• Rama Setu - Mythology And History Mingles
• The Knights Templar - Preserving Bloodline
• Nicholas Roerich - The Chintamani Stone’s Power
• Dwarka - The Lost City
• Lucid Dreaming - Controlling The Demon
• DNA Memory - The Next Big Leap
• Space Elevators - Rail-guns For Low-cost Satellite Launch
• Aerogel and Carbon Nanotubes - Replacing Steel And Plastic