Sacred cows make the best burgers

“Don’t angry me” can be a perfectly legitimate response to the article’s title, if like majority of Hindus (me included), you see godliness in a cow. (For the uninitiated, “Don’t angry me” is a dialogue made world famous in India by our own Rowdy Rathore.) But the action hero/heroine in you can relax, in spite of the urge to the contrary, since neither am I a beef eater, nor am I in the business of promoting beef eating. The title is borrowed from a quote that was given to me as a topic for a group discussion, years ago. I couldn't make sense of it back then and needless to say, was promptly shown the exit door after the GD. Came across a good equivalent of the same while reading the book "The art of thinking clearly" - "Murder your darlings". Now, don’t take the author literally here, in case, god forbid, you are tempted to do exactly that at times.

The idea is to challenge our most cherished beliefs, biggest fears, fixated positions and strongly held opinions. The views that we hold so dear to our heart, the biases that we carry for years together, all of our “has to be, must be, should be”. How about becoming aware of them, challenging them and verifying them? Except laws of pure physics, of course. It’s obviously not advisable to jump from the top of a building to verify the “law of gravity” J

Problem is, we don’t even consciously choose most of these beliefs. They have been drilled into us over the years, through our education, or by our parents/elders/friends or worse, by the media. Unknown to us, such beliefs impact our choices in life at crucial moments and cost us our chance of success and happiness.

These unverified beliefs lead us to what’s called “confirmation bias”. We are naturally programmed to filter out evidence which is contrary to our world views. Equally, any evidence that’s in line with our belief system always registers. For instance, Rahul Gandhi believes that Coca-Cola founder started as a shikanji seller. A quick visit to Coca-Cola’s corporate website will tell RG that the founder was actually a pharmacist named Dr. John S. Pemberton. But, Rahul’s confirmation bias is his confirmation bias and none of Coca-Cola’s facts.

Sports presents innumerable examples of challenging confirmation bias. Unconventional tactics by sportsmen (and women too) usually end up surprising opponents and result in improbable wins. As a captain, Martin Crowe challenged the belief that a spinner should always bowl with an old ball and achieved great success for his team in the process, in the 1992 cricket world cup.

Corporates aren’t behind in this either. To anyone of us, born in India, on the wrong side of the new millennium, a scooter always meant “hamara bajaj”. But, when Bajaj’s very survival was threatened, it took a Rajiv Bajaj to challenge the belief that Bajaj is primarily a scooter making company. Under his leadership, Bajaj successfully transformed itself into a motorcycle manufacturer and today, it produces nearly 20% of annual motorcycles volume produced in the world.

If you are wondering why the picture of Aamir and Kareena with this article, blame it on a kiss. Well, in 3 Idiots, the “know it all” Rancho does carry an unverified belief. He thinks a nose obstructs a kiss. It took Kareena’s Priya to challenge and destroy that belief for Rancho. So…….