CHAPTER 1
Statistics
It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.
George Bernard Shaw
* * *
Prime / Premiere ...
Karl Pearson defined Statistics as the grammar of science.
Statistics is defined as the science and practice of developingknowledge through the use of empirical data expressed in quantitativeform in numbers.
For example, a first time visitor from India who comes to America andsees only one white man from the population of about 320 million inAmerica could go back to India and tell that all Americans are white.A second visitor who comes and sees one black man could go backhome and tell that all Americans are black. A third visitor coming fromIndia and seeing one white man and one black man and then goingback to India could tell that 50% of Americans are white and 50% ofAmericans are black. Now a person like me who has been in Americasince a long time and seen a large number of Americans and who alsolooks at available statistical data from Government survey says thatapproximately 88% white and 12 % black. This information is moreaccurate because the sample size is bigger and provides better statisticalinformation. In life, we cannot always have information on the entirepopulation and hence we work on a statistically significant sample size.
This reminds me of an interesting story, that when I came to NewYork for the first time in 1956, I went to Gainesville, Florida by theGreyhound bus. When the bus made its first stop in WashingtonD.C, I had to go to the restroom. When I approached the entrancedoors to the toilet for men's bathroom I saw two entrances, a signon one showed WHITE and the other BLACK. I looked at my skincolor and it was neither as WHITE as White American nor BLACKas Black American. It was in between and I did not know what to do.How was I to determine which entrance to go into?
An individual's statistics of every person is derived from the five senses(Fig. 1); and hence it is the best information to make decisions in life.You know that the five senses are:
• SEE with your eyes
• HEAR with your ears
• SMELL with your nose
• TASTE with your tongue
• FEEL with your body parts
A person who has excellent statistical information and the knowledgeto retrieve the information stored in his brain and arrives at theright conclusion is called an intelligent person. The person in thiscategory stores the information in different compartments and knowswhich compartment the information is in when he or she needs thatinformation to make the right decision. Recently there was a showon `60 minutes on CBS' showing six people who could tell you whatthe day of the week was if you gave them the date in any year. It wasshown that they compartmentalize the information and retrieve itwhen they need it. They showed the closet of one of the persons andit showed that everything was arranged neatly.
A person who has good statistical information but does not know howto retrieve and hence comes to wrong conclusion is called a stupidperson.
A person who does not have any significant statistical informationand hence may or may not come to the correct conclusion is called anignorant person. He is taking a chance to come to the conclusion.
Education, I choose to call it information or statistics, is the mostimportant thing you can give to your kids. Education will stay withthem the rest of their lives and will not be taken away by hurricane,fire like material things which we give them. When a patriot in India(Bal Gangadhar Lokamanya Tilak), was in fight with the British toleave India, all he preached was that education is the only way we canget rid of the British. He started newspapers and started the FergusonCollege in Pune. He happens to be my son-in-law's great grandfatherand was sent to jail by the British to Burma (now called Myanmar)in 1914 for six years, way before Mahatma Gandhi took over hisambition.
Most of the personal examples I have used depict how we as humanbeings use our past information to make good decisions. It is alsoto show how some specific instances in your life dictate your futureactions.
In order to build your database of statistics in your brain, to be ableto make good decisions in whatever you do, you need to be exposedto the following:
• Parental efforts and/or those of a guardian
• Education
• Travel
PERORATION
Evan Esar defines Statistics, though in a cynical way, as the scienceof producing unreliable facts from reliable figures, the fact remainsthat like everything else, Statistics can be used and misused. And ifyou are using it for leading a better life, you are certainly makingnot just good use but the best use of statistics.
CHAPTER 2
Information
I am disillusioned enough to know that no man's opinion on anysubject is worth a damn unless backed up with enough genuineinformation to make him really know what he's talking about.
—H. P. Lovecraft
Prime / Premiere ...
Information is the basic determinant block that leads to theshaping of a decision. One can't overemphasize the use ofinformation. One can only call attention to the substantialsignificance of appropriate information in its value and importantrole in arriving at results. Many a times these results changecourse of actions. They have known to change the course of history.False information has been known to have lead to wars. Rightinformation has led to successful revolutions.
Results can change the path of life. Often they become life defining.
So going after the right information is an invaluable exercise,which should not be done lightly, casually or carelessly. Rather, itshould be gathered with diligence and due precaution to ensurethat your purpose is not negatively affected but is positively enableby—right information.
Sir Benjamin Franklin had said, "For having lived long, I haveexperienced many instances of being obliged, by better informationor fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on importantsubjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise."
Quality of Life is based on how much information you have and themanner in which you use the information to accomplish whatevergoal you have in your mind. Normally, if you think through thegoal and make a detailed plan of action and attack, you have a muchgreater chance of achievement and accomplishment. You have tomake sure that you have good statistical information. If you have badinformation, what is also referred to as garbage, then you are boundto make wrong decisions, because garbage in can only give garbageout. So make sure that your source of information is reliable.
Sources of good information
Parents and/or Guardian
A child starts collecting data from the moment he or she is born. Infact, it is reported that a baby in the womb is constantly collectinginformation.
Hence, I believe that the environment has more to do with theprogress of the individual than the genetics. I agree that genetics hasto do with an individual looks, some mannerisms, diseases etc. To me,70%-80% of the personality of an individual appears derived fromthe environment.
Psychologists and psychiatrists claim that 80% of the personality ofthe individual gets formed from the time of birth until the age of4 years. Considering that environment has significant effect on theindividual, it is critical that for the first 4 years, the child should begiven the best environment. This does not mean that you ignorethe child after 4 years. If you do a good job in the first four years oflife, you create an envelope around the person to know what is goodand bad and he or she will be able to discern what is right to do andwhat is wrong to do. We cannot always keep the person from beingin an undesirable environment, but if the guardian of the child hasconsciously done a good job, it goes a long way in the building of thechild's personality.
In my family, the mothers have stayed with the newborn child for atleast first six years of their life, so that the child gets the best statisticalinformation, either by parents and—equally important—by thegrandparents. My wife has stayed home all the time since we weremarried in 1958. My older daughter began working only after herlast child was six years old. Till the youngest one was four years old,she worked from home. My second daughter, who has a Ph D. inComputer Science, has been home with her kids since her first childwas born in 1996 till today. She always tells me that she is planningto go at home with her children while in they are in school and thenmove with them when they go to college. My daughter-in-law hasnot worked since she is married in 1994 and has been raising her sonsince 2003. I always try to practice in my family what I preach.
In USA and developed countries, a woman who has given birth toa child is more prone to go back to work to preserve the family'sstandard of living. Then, the child is placed in the day care well beforehe is ready to make sound decisions on his own. The child gets thevalues of the babysitters. We have watched on hidden cameras in TVshows what takes place in some of these places. The children are notgiven the same attention that you would give them in your home.
The main reason a new mother goes to work is to maintain a highereconomic standard of living with two incomes. The family can afforda bigger house, newer cars and more luxuries at the cost of not givingthe child the best environment. Who can love a child more than themother and father? One has to realize that there are more importantthings in life than just luxuries, at the critical time when kids areyoung. We have a lifetime to chase other things.
Nowadays, there are many more possibilities of working from homeand hence one can work part time, while taking care of one's children.
In my case, I convinced my wife and she agreed to stay home withour kids when I moved to make a living in a small town (populationof 6500) after graduating from University of Florida with a Ph. D.in Chemical Engineering. My wife, being well educated in India andUSA with degrees in Law and Political Science, came to USA fromIndia in 1956 with aspirations to go back and become the PrimeMinister of India.
During that time, unlike now, there were no opportunity to workfrom home and she had a hard time in adjusting to raising babies.During that time when our kids were young and the youngest wasjust four years old, she could only raise children and do housekeeping.This took a toll on her professional career. She even had healthproblems after the birth of our third child. She has never recoveredcompletely from it. She agrees that raising children was worth thetroubles that she has till today.
My two daughters and my daughter-in-law kept the tradition going,which my wife had set. However, since their field was consulting andinformation technology they could start working from home aftertheir youngest kids was at least more than 5 years old. During theirkids' times in kindergartens and elementary school, they averagedapproximately six hours per school day of social service. In fact mysecond daughter, volunteered six hours per day since 1997 after herfirst child was born. She got a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1991.
In India; there is a possibility of a mother going to work and leavingthe child at home. In India, in the past, the families lived together asjoint families. In such cases, when a child is left behind, it is takencare of by the grandmother, who has the same values as the parents.
In order to follow the tradition of grandparents taking care of thechild, Indians in USA now get their parents to come to the UnitedStates to live with them and take care of children so that the mothercan go to work. I think this is, in most cases, bad for the grandparentsbecause many (I do not know how many) do not have a commandover English language and cannot drive a car. Back home, theyare used to having a freedom to do what they want and use publictransport to go where they want. In India people visit each other alot and it is not true in USA, where normally you have to make anappointment to visit somebody. I am reminded of a show of DavidLetterman, who was interviewing Aishwarya Rai, who was chosen asMiss World in 1993 in a beauty pageant. He asked her how comeshe (at that time was 31 years old) still stayed with her parents. Shequickly answered that, like in USA, she does not have to make anappointment with her parents to see them.
When my children were planning on having kids, I requested themnot to give birth to kids close to each other, so that I will not be ableto spend quality time with one grandkid at a time. You can see how Isucceeded. My grandkids were born in 1989, 1993, 1996, 1997 and2002. You can see that I could be with each of my grandkids for 2to 4 years of their life from their birth. I knew from my statisticalinformation that the grandkids want to be entertained by their grandparents for the first 2-4 years of their lives, and then they want to goplay with their friends and do not have much time for grandparents.This way I have been able to help my children in the upbringing ofthe grandkids, one grandchild at a time.
The grandparents coming from India call the life here, as living ina `golden cage'. Since there are Indian television stations now and alot more people, like them, are here, this problem is not as bad asit was few years' back. Indian grandparents have formed clubs andassociations to enjoy with their peers here. In Houston, they haveformed a colony close to the Hindu temple and get involved in thetemple activities.
Education
Education is the best thing that you can give to your children andgrandchildren. When you give education and not all the materialthings, only education can stay with them for the rest of their lives.The material things can be destroyed by accidents, hurricanes, storms,and decline in stock market.
I made a request to each person in my family to have at least onepostgraduate degree. That is what I considered to be an educatedperson. Some people say that having higher degrees is not needed tobe a good person. I am saying that you have to be a good person andhave higher college degrees so that you have the capability to thinkfor yourself and know where to get information to accomplish whatyou want to do in life. I have been to school and colleges for 23 years(actually it would have been 24 years, had I not been able to jump onegrade in elementary school) and have four college degrees (includinga Ph. D. in Chemical Engineering) and took courses in Managementfor one year.
Only bookish knowledge is not sufficient to make the appropriatedecisions. One should have had exposure to extracurricularactivities—some kind of sport for boys, could be baseball, football,basketball or tennis; for girls it could be basketball, tennis, dancing(ballet, jazz, tap, Indian classical—Bharat Natyam, Kathakalli). Boysand girls could also learn a foreign language, learn some musicalinstrument (I am presently taking lessons to play Tabla, which isIndian drums), and belong to a scholastic club (viz. public speaking,personality development). Extracurricular activities, teach more thanjust book knowledge, they shape your personality, make it morerounded. Ballet, for example also teaches one to stand erect. In yournormal life you need not bow down to the one whom you are talkingto. Bowing down is an admission of inferiority. We, in India, bowdown to our elders to show respect.
Per capita income in USA of Indians, as compared with others inthe USA is almost 80% higher than the national average in 1980,1990, and 2000 census data. It is also the highest amongst all theother ethnic groups. China is second at 40% higher than the nationalaverage. I think this is because the Indians and ethnic groups put alot of emphasis on education. In my family, I advise every member toget a Ph. D and if not a Ph. D, to get at least two Masters' degrees.My grandson went to kindergarten school in San Jose. In his schoolthere were only ethnic groups' children and less than 5% NativeAmericans. This school is also very expensive and name of the schoolis Challenger. Still ethnic group spend their money on excellenteducation at not material things at that age. Since Indian parents haveexcellent education, they have good income (as mentioned above)and can give them material things also. When we give new cars to ourchildren, we instruct them that if you misuse the car it will be takenaway from them. Till this day we have not had any problems with,our kids and grandkids, associated with driving new cars. There is anactor in India, who ran over people sleeping in the streets of Mumbaiand did not even stop to see what he had done. This is bad behavior.The material things can always be gotten later, since you will havelong adulthood working career after they getting a good education.
What I have seen in USA is that the parents support their children toget an education till 12th grade, then, most of the children are told tofend for them to get a college education. Indian parents support theirchildren till they get their first college degree. What normally happensis that the children here, when they get out of the high school, getinvolved with girls or boys, get married, have children and buy ahouse and then say that I have responsibilities so I cannot afford to goto college. Where is the necessity of getting married at 18 and livingan independent life. Why not wait till one gets a college education,a good job and then get married. You have a lifetime to get married,have children and buy house, like I say there is a lifetime to acquirematerial goods.
