The Implications of the Pigeon-Fool Principle

For those who have not read the pigeon-fool principle, please click here before reading further.

The pigeon-fool principle though intended to look funny on the outside, is much more than a mere extrapolation of a funny incident. It is, like a lot of funny things, reality at a higher level. The results of the poll are compiled and as of now, there were over 100 hundred people who read the blog entry but only 36 have decided to vote with almost 90% (31/36) of them preferring pigeon poop over the fool’s mucus on their shirts. The result though hardly surprising made me ask myself, Why the difference?

If you look at the situation objectively, both pigeon poop and fool's mucus have very similar outcomes when they fall on our shirt. Both are equally unfortunate and equally disgusting things to happen to anyone, they take the same amount of effort to wipe and wash the stain etc. But still people are biased towards one of the options! This proves my notion that, given a choice between two equally bad options, people choose the familiar one.

The beauty of the whole argument lies in the parallel we can draw with the elections in India. In most of the constituencies, people are forced to choose between pigeon poop (congress) and fool’s mucus (BJP and allies) and people choose the familiar pigeon poop. And not surprisingly, a lot of people choose not to vote at all (Voter turnout was 43% in Mumbai and 35% for my poll, which is good enough considering that TATA Tea did not sponsor a “Jaago Re” campaign for my blog). Hence even after 5 years of dismal governance, the congress party is back to power in Maharashtra.

Unless we figure out a way where deserving people can rise up to the leadership level, India will always remain a flawed democracy that is more of a “Deeply-Hippocratic-Cheaply-Oligarchic-Republic” as opposed to the “Sovereign-Socialist-Secular-Democratic-Republic” we are supposed to be going by my 7th class civics text book.

P.S: the content of this blog turned out to be much more serious than intended by the author (me) but what the hell!



P.P.S: The artist (me again) intended the bird to look like a pigeon and the guy like he has a cold and he is not sure how successful he is.

The Pigeon Fool Principle

Chapter 1: Somewhere in IIT

A little while back, I was walking around close to some building with a friend and something fell on her shoulder. She reacted with the saddest “Eww”, worrying about her (then white) shirt whereas I looked up to find the culprit. I found a couple of pigeons flying around and one guy on the third floor corridor holding a hand kerchief. We assumed it was the pigeons (as it happens quite often). The whole incident killed the pleasant conversation we were having so I thought it would be a good idea to put forward my theory to raise the spirits.

Chapter 2: The Hypothesis

My theory was that it could well have been the guy who is blowing his nose who did it. The pigeons just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. I was arguing, rather animatedly, that my hypothesis could be correct. The more I thought it through, the more I was convinced that it had to be the fool blowing his nose and not the shitting pigeons.
She desperately wanted it to be the pigeons that she was giving arguments that make just as much sense as religious fanatics when they talk about their religion. All I can say is that she did not take it in the right way and it definitely did not raise the spirits. Soon things “blew” out of proportion and I was in deep “shit”.

Chapter 3: The Pigeon-Fool principle

Life is all about making difficult choices and you are about to take one now. There is no way you can escape from this situation. You have two and only two options available. Both of them happen to be awful (but that is life) and you have to make a decision.

P.S: the poll is completely anonymous and you can vote more than once if you have strong feelings towards one of the options :p





A day in the Life of a Shrink

TOI doesn't want us to read the news

Yes, The Times of India, the largest selling English newspaper in India doesn't want us to read the news. If you think I am exaggerating, fair enough. I am giving TOI, the benefit of doubt. May be they do want us to read the news, but clearly, they don't want us to go past the first two headlines. How else would you explain this?



The layout of the website is perfect. On the left, we have the "Top Stories" and on the right, we have things to distract us from reading the "Top Stories". Even if you are really curious about what is happening in the world, the crap on the right keeps popping into your head while reading the stuff on the left. So there is a good chance you might mix the two and end up reading the news like this.
* 'Grounded' US plane cleared for taking off Best Cleavage in B-Town...
* Pakistan's military said on Sunday that 60 Taliban militants and five soldiers were Babes dare to bare!

I think TOI is the only newspaper that has got its priorities right:
Topless pics first, OTHER TOP STORIES later.

P.S: Hindustan Times and DNA have their homepages full of real news. No wonder neither of them is "India's Largest Selling English Newspaper"

STATUTORY WARNING: This is what too much of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart does to you.

the G vs Y graph

glossary of terms:
G = number of girls you can "technically" hit on
Y = number of years in IIT
UG = undergraduate (B. Tech/DD)
H11 = PG girls hostel



P.S: Inspired from an intriguing conversation with Deva
P.P.S: If text is not that clear, please click on the image for a bigger version... but don't forget to comeback and comment ;)