Indy Telecom & Industrial Media

One of the most important things that the Indian culture (like most Asian cultures) insists upon is a good education. Growing up, the value of education is drilled into you, time and again.

And when it comes to education — and this is important — it is not just any education that is valued. It is education that serves a practical purpose that is considered “good”. You either get into engineering or medicine. If you are looking for variety, you do accounting, finance or law.

Even those that get into the sciences do so as a springboard for doing their graduate studies in something “practical” — like an MCA. If you’re studying something like fashion, art, economics or journalism, you must either be rich or just plain nuts (or just plain dumb, of course).

And of course, there is always that good old fashioned MBA. Do your penance of four years of engineering, either work for a short while (or not), and get into a B-school — any B-school. And Viola! You now have the perfect combination and all Indian parents will point to you as the perfect little example of how wonderful a son (or daughter) you are.

The really adventurous ones, of course, apply to graduate schools and come to the US (or go to Europe) to pursue an education (in the sciences — what else?!). The radicals come here and do *gasp* business.

But doing a PhD in Pure Math? Or studying History or the Classics? Or Philosophy? Music Theory? PLEASE!

You’d be insulting the Indian intellect by suggesting these subjects, because they have no practical value. You see, most of India’s educational system is not based on what you like, but rather what your family and friends deem you capable of.

Competition is rampant from the very beginning of your high school years, and if you still want to do Art History, you must not be very smart. Hell, I don’t even know if any school in India offers a degree in Art History.

Now, this is understandable since India is a relatively young nation, and a developing one at that. Therefore, the luxury of an impractical education is not one that is offered to most people. You get out of high school, and you study a subject that has the maximum earning potential (choice translates into what branch of engineering or medicine you want to do).  And once you graduate, you take up a job and earn money.

But what does this mean for India, as a nation? There is a rich intellectual tradition in India, and we’ve had our share of Chanakyas and Aryabhattas.

However, by implicitly attaching a lower value to subjects such as the Pure Sciences, Classics, History, Art, Economics etc., we are destroying that intellectual tradition. How many Ramanujans are lost because they do engineering and take up an IT job, rather than do pure math? How many Raja Ravi Varmas are slogging away at a call center? How many people study Sanskrit? For some reason, all the Sanskrit scholars I’ve met seem to live in either Cambridge, UK or Cambridge, Mass. And let’s just say that none of them are Indian. You would think that a Nobel-winning economist would inspire people to study economics, but no. Hell, the Indian Prime Minister is one himself, but that does not seem to matter. Because you see, India may need to open more engineering colleges because they can’t keep up with the demand.

There is a very significant downside to this. There is a reason that undergraduate degrees in Classics or Philosophy are valued before you do business, law, medicine or just about anything. It is because it broadens your perspective. It gives you critical thinking ability. You get skilled at abstractions, and at conceptualizations.

Indians are excellent at details. Given the emphasis on pragmatism, this is obviously to be expected. However, Indians are not good at looking at the big picture, simply because over the years, they have not been trained to do so. If anything, if you want plebes, looking at the big picture is probably not a good thing because you do not want your measly programmer to get delusions of grandeur.

But long term vision, long term planning and strategic thinking ability only comes from looking at the big picture. Intellectual traditions are very, very vital to the soul of a nation. And I am afraid that India as a nation is sacrificing its vision for tomorrow in its short term pursuit of practicality for today.

Who needs plaster when you have Legos?

I recently stumbled upon the paintings of Fabian Perez, an Argentinian painter with a rather interesting gallery. Most of his work seems to be centered around the Argentinian culture, and he has some work that’s centered around the Japanese culture.

His Japanese themed paintings don’t really appeal to me in any way, but I certainly enjoy his Argentinian-themed paintings. I’d certainly love to buy prints of them, unfortunately I cannot seem to find them any place. But here are a handful of my favorites for your viewing pleasure!

Of course, my favorite one turns out to be an untitled painting, although I’ve seen it called “Solitude” elsewhere on the web.

I also found out that there is a coffee table book of some of his paintings called, “Fabian Perez: Waiting for the Romance to Come Back“.

Finally, eBay has several his originals of his available through various fine art sellers. A little too expensive for my liking, but maybe some day, who knows!

One of the things that I keep meaning to write about is Bathsheba Grossman’s amazing sculptures.

She creates some very interesting artwork and I have been a fan of her work for the longest time. For the most part, she creates sculptures that are inspired from math and science.

To that end, she has a math sculptures collection which features various “topologically-inspired” artwork. My personal favorite is the Soliton, which is simple, elegant and simply too beautiful to resist!

And there is also her math models collection, which, as the name suggests, has various math models. And since I do have a thing for minimal surfaces, I really like her Schwarz D Surface.

And as a (former, now dormant) graphics geek, I was also very impressed by her 120-Cell Sculpture. The only thing that could make that sculpture better is if one could play around and change the inner reference points for each inner layer.

Other than these, she also has an impressive collection of science and math inspired 3d models etched inside glass crystals. All the models are inspired from math or science and are just as fascinating.

Sadly, my favorite (the menger sponge, displayed above) is no longer available; however she has made available that and several other models as downloads.

I am rarely impressed by a lot of art-work trying to portray science, but Bathsheba’s work is truly awe-inspiring. Of course, that could be because she is someone who studied mathematics but became an artist.

So all you fine folks now know what to get me for Christmas!