Crossed Transactions

Husband : "Do you know where my cuff links are”
Wife (response 1): "You always blame me for everything!"
Wife (response 2): “Why don’t you keep your things at the proper place”
Wife (response 3): “They are in the left drawer”

The question and its three responses constitute the classic example Dr Thomas Harris gives to illustrate the presence of three “Ego States” that participate during interactions between two individuals. The three ego states are named as Parent Adult & Child (PAC). The method of so studying the interactions is called Transactional Analysis (TA). Dr Eric Berne is the credited with creating the framework of TA for the study of human interactions (transactions).

The unit of social intercourse is called a transaction. If two or more people encounter each other... sooner or later one of them will speak, or give some other indication of acknowledging the presence of the others. This is called transactional stimulus. Another person will then say or do something which is in some way related to the stimulus, and that is called the transactional response.

The first response, in the above example comes from the child ego state, the second being the parent response and the third an adult response. Diagrammatically, the transactions are represented in the following manner:

In the diagram the first set of three circles represent the three ego states of the first person and the second set those of the second person. In our example, the question, “: "Do you know where my cuff links are” is coming from the adult of the first person (husband) and is directed at the adult of the second person (wife). If the wife comes up with a matter of factly answer like response 3, “They are in the left drawer” the transaction becomes complimentary and the communication may continue endlessly (as long as the transactions are complimentary). However as the transactions become crossed, as in response 1 & 2, the communication will break down.

In general, parallel transactions are complimentary in nature and crossed transactions lead to breakdowns.

The purpose of writing this backgrounder is to bring to light 2-3 types of crossed transactions that I have seen happening commonly:

Example 1:

The most common occurrence between husband and a wife (cited above) and between one of the parents with their offspring,

Son: Wow! what a great piece of music (referring to a rock number). (C to C)
Father : These days you only enjoy this noise. Listen to classic music, how soothing it is. (P to C)
Suggested response: Yes, which band is it.
Or
Son: Where is Kolkata in this map of India (A to A)
Mother: You young people do not have any idea of Geography, we could spot Kolkata when we were in sixth grade (P to C)
Suggested response: here at the east coast near Bangladesh border
Example 2

When a person says something in a jocular manner (child to child), it is taken by the recipient literally and responded to by his her parent (parent to parent/ child).

Husband: I am very hungry. Could do with a dinner of mutter paneer, french fries, bhindi and dal with some chutney. (C to C)

Wife: I am not a machine to be making all this. Its already 8 PM. You must think before you speak (P to C)

Suggested response: Yes, you have forgotten the Rayta & missi roti

Example 3

Manager: Have you completed the presentation. (A to A)

Employee: I have been working since 7 AM. What do you expect? (P to C)

Suggested response: I have completed 16 slides and will finish it by lunch tomorrow. It is so lengthy.

The idea is to make our transactions complementary so that healthy communication ensues

Of Doles of Bail outs

Till the beginning of March, most people were of the opinion that we are in the midst of a deep depression and that it will take at least 4-5 years for the world economy to revive. With the individual countries’ economies being intertwined more than ever before, no country could be optimistic individually about the prospects of a revival. Even when the cyclical periods of recession have hit in the past, the economies have taken at least 1-2 years to turn the corner. So what has transpired in the last two months that we are now hearing noises that the recession will be over by September of this year.

Scores of companies have lined up to raise money by offering fresh shares to Qualified Institutional Investors (QIPs) during May – July 2009. DLF – the biggest Indian realtor has issued Rs 3900 Cr worth of shares to QIPs recently. The idea is to tap the system which is flush with liquidity. According to an estimate issues worth Rs 75000 Crores ($15 Billion) are in pipeline. The financial institutions including banks are keen to subscribe to these issues. The atmosphere is upbeat as it is believed that the economic downturn is a thing of the past and the worst depression since the great one of 1929 is already over in a period of less than a year !!!?? We no longer play test cricket these days, only 20-20, some may argue.

The question is, then, why are the companies raising fresh capital from these QIPs? Is it for further expansion? The growth in GDP the world over is shrinking and in many cases the de-growth is as high as 12%. No company will be in an expansion mode under such a situation. The capital being raised is therefore to help them come out of troubled waters. It is not long ago that leading Indian companies (mostly real estates) defaulted in their payment obligations. Therefore, it is safe to presume that the money will be used for fire fighting and improving the crises faced by their balance sheets. Money to be used for non-productive purposes.

So, the moneys collected by the governments from the taxpayers flow to the banks / financial institutions (FI) in the form of stimulus packages. These institutions in turn are subscribing to the capital issued by troubled corporates. We do not know how productive this capital is going to be for the banks/ FIs.

Excessive leverage was the root-cause of the problem both at the end of the FIs and at corporates. The FIs took highly leveraged positions in the derivatives markets and the corporates leveraged themselves in greed for higher, quicker profits. Typically, real estate companies acquired large land banks leveraging themselves far beyond their capacity and when prices crashed so did their balance sheets.

Are the bail -out packages to FIs and to corporates through QIP offerings, therefore justified?

Last year the Government of India (GOI) announced a waiver of Rs 60000 Cr loan disbursed by the scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks and cooperative credit institutions to about 3 crore marginal and small farmers. The corporate sector described it as a move which was bad management of the economy by the government and the capital markets reacted adversely. The move was widely described as anti- reformist and populist keeping the election in mind. It will give rise to higher inflation and deficit it was said. The modern educated folks frowned upon at the move. The loan waiver in this case addressed to the more basic needs of “Roti Kapada aur Makaan” of a very large number of beneficiaries, whereas in the case of stimulus packages the money is doled out to greedy and wicked FIs and corporates who have swindled billions through their nefarious operations & forged and fudged balance sheets.

Question is, will these FIs and corporates exhibit more responsible behaviour now. The volatility and the gyrations in the stock / commodity markets across the world in the last three months do not indicate so. Without heavy and highly leveraged positions being taken, stock indices could not have gone up so much so fast. They have gone up by more than 80% in many cases. Ditto for commodities. So greed is again at play as causing this kind of volatility cannot be the collective handiwork of retail or high net-worth individuals.

The big corporates have the muscle power to sway a government policy decision in their favour. They may collectively lobby or even use money to have their way. They have the most sophisticated (albeit wicked) managerial brains; effective & professional PR.

In contrast, an ordinary individual (who is neither belongs to a corporate nor is a marginal or small farmer) has no such privileges - he is not the subect matter of any bail out or stimulus package. He is, in fact at the mercy of these corporates. He must compulsively buy products, created fancy for by these companies, he can do without. He must not only pay higher income tax (being taxed on gross income whereas companies are taxed on income net of expenses) but also be subjected to tax on expenses (VAT, service tax). Taxes in his case are deducted at source whereas those for companies are paid by them after all adjustments and fudgings. The individual has no collective voice unlike companies. The individual, above all is blackmailed emotionally by his conscience which prevents him from blatant wrongdoings whereas companies do not have any such obligation being without any conscience anyway. The individual being an individual has to fear the law whereas companies always work with schemes as to how they can circumvent the law. They would weigh the penalties and if the reward for breaking a law is larger than the penalty (if, as and when they are caught) / bribe, they would happily break the law.

Oh God!! Bail ME out of my conscience, honesty & hardwork. Give me the wherewithal to swindle millions (not billions, I have modest ambitions).

शेयर बाज़ार के घाटे

Thou shalt incur losses out of thy own intelligence rather than others' foolish ideas.

Homicide is better than Suicide in this market.

हम अपनी मर्ज़ी से गड्ढे में गिरेंगे किसीके धक्का देने से नहीं ।

Read on the net

At the entrance to a government building -Hard work has not killed anyone yet. Still, why take a chance at being the first victim?

Don’t meet trouble half-way. It’s quite capable of making the entire journey.

Bigamy is having one wife to many. Monogamy means the same

Living by Proxy

In my spare time "I channel - surf the TV". So do my sons Mohit and Abhishek. I pause at each channel for 3.75 secs on an average with stopover at CNBC for about 15 secs. For Abhishek and Mohit a similar pattern is seen with major pauses at Discovery / HBO. When both me and Abhishek are at home there is a struggle for the control of the TV remote although both of us do the same with the remote to have a similar viewing pattern as an end result. The loss of remote is a major irritant for us both. Neither of us can live with proxy remoting !!

We all cracked fireworks at some point in time in our lives during Diwali. Each one burns his / her own crackers by lighting them with his own stick of match. The hearing and visual gratification of noise and light patterns produced by my cracker is the same as that produced by my neighbour's who is also lighting the crackers at the same time at the same spot. Still I love igniting my crackers. Actually, the pleasure is in igniting "My own" cracker. We cannot "Proxy burst" the crackers.

Similarly we cannot enjoy or derive benefits by proxy in more direct physical activities like eating a meal or sleeping or enjoying music. We must eat, sleep and listen to music ourselves to be able to derive the gratification. Same is true for any other similat physical activity. Someone else eating or sleeping on our behalf would simply not do. Quite obvious, even to a naive person! Proxy living in physical world is just not done.

What about our emotional worlds. Manifested emotions of joy, disgust, fear, anger, surprise, anticipation etc are getiing reduced. Increasingly, I find that we proxy live our emotions.

We watch TV endlessly. Womenfolk the soap operas, Gents watch the news / sports channels, children - the cartoon networks, younger generation - music / discovery channels. Rooms and money permitting each family member may have a TV of his own to watch his own channel.

By watching soap operas the women get their dose of emotional gratification by proxy living their relationships. The frustrations against mother in laws, the pleasures of critically reviewing other womens' jewllery / costumes, the complaints against daughter in laws or contempt at how wicked a brother in law may get. Complete emotional fulfilment without the dangers of any reaction from the counterparty. The gratification achieved without expressing any emotions or receiving any rebuttals thereon. Conflicts avoided and fulfillment achieved. During family meetings also, instead of gossiping about other family members and thereby inviting conflicts, it is safe to gossip about TV soap characters. Emotional gratification by living a proxy life.

By watching news / sports channels, the men achieve similar emotional gratification by proxy living their lives. The frustration against the political system / bureaucracy nullified by heated debates/ panel dscussions, the lack of achievment in real life negated by watching a cricketing victory, the inability to perform activity in life filled by feeding the brain with a lot of information through news which is nothing but not even noise. Try recalling the news of past six months or even 10 years and how it has directly impacted your life. Or what difference the events you have watched as news on TV have made to your life. Events themselves may have made a difference but not watching them as news. The emphasis here is on watching the events on TV as news. The effect of watching or not watching news would have been "none at all".

Similarly, the aspirations and dreams of the youth are proxy fulfilled by the music channels / movies watched on TV.

Watching of TV and thereby getting our emotional needs fufilled in such a manner reduces the need for human interactions. Creation of interpersonal conflicts and their resolution both get reduced. Conflicts and their resolutions, in my opinion give rise to so many emotions. Imagine a life without TV. It will give rise to so many human interactions and so many real emotions and their manifestation. An example:

1. Try not listening to or watching a music video, instead, sing yourself (howsoever badly, and make others listen) and experience the joy.


2. Conversely, try not listening to or watching a music video, instead, listen to someone from the family / friends sing (howsoever badly) and experience the disgust.

Proxy living of emotions, let's give it an acronym - PLOE (pronounced as ploy) also delays conflict resolutions in real life. Somebody you have had an altercation with and have not spoken to for months, the duration of restoration of relations would be shorter if their is no PLOE.

Once PLOE is reduced / eliminated, I beleive, life will become more intense and emotional gratification achieved with interactions with real persons will be of much better quality

If only I had that......... Big Car, Sony 54" TV, Gucci

Quotations picked up from www

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. ~Mohandas K. Gandhi

You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy. ~Eric Hoffer

You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need. ~Vernon Howard

The only reason a great many American families don't own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments. ~Mad Magazine

The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied... but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing. ~John Berger

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. ~From the movie Fight Club, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk

There must be more to life than having everything! ~Maurice Sendak

The hardest thing is to take less when you can get more. ~Kin Hubbard

Forethought and temperance are the virtues which produced thrift, and with thrift the economic progress of society. And those are the virtues which today are gravely compromised. ~Adriano Tilgher

My work, My Pleasure

My 21 year old son Abhishek has just returned from office. His first sentence upon entering home is, "What a life!!, wait for the working week to get over and the weekend to arrive. After the weekend is finished, the same routine getting repeated”. Shocking, coming from a young lad who has an enviable job with a multinational company that pays him a salary his peers would strive hard for. He has fixed day-office timings (no extended hours) with offs on Saturdays and Sundays. His performance at the job has been par excellence inviting commendation from his superiors. Thanks to his versatility, he gets all the challenging assignments. To sum up – he has an excellent quality of life. That he is exasperated and frustrated is beyond my comprehension.

My spouse, Savita is an efficient housewife. She goes through the chores of the house - cooking, washing, cleaning with clockwork precision on a daily basis. Twenty hours a day, seven days a week. The chores are repetitive without any variety. The clothes have to be washed in the machine using the same quantity of detergent and with the same process. The aloo ki sabzi or the parantha or the chawal have to be cooked in the same manner every time. In fact, the family members would dislike if they are cooked differently. The inventory control is perfect (never have we been made to eat a colourless dal because kitchen has run out of haldi). There is so much of perfection in all her activities that sometimes I wonder if she is run by a microprocessor. She, in fact enjoys every bit of it. If a family member decides to skip a meal she is furious and if some guests drop in, it will be her pleasure to serve them. She never complains of monotony or of having to lead such a predictably routine life.

My mother and brother follow the Brahma Kumaris school of thought. They attend their daily class regularly without fail. They never feel bored with it or look for variety. They would love to travel large distances to attend these classes which have a similar content every day.

So why does Abhishek feel like having been held captive to a routine by his employment? In any case what does he do on the weekends? Does channel surfing on TV most of the time? Occasionally goes for a movie? Goes out for dinner with friends once in a while?

Why does Savita not feel having been held captive by her life. On the other hand she finds the tasks of her routine quite captivating. Without it she will probably lose her persona.

Why do mummy and Alok enjoy the same way of life day in and day out and feel quite exhilarated about it.

I am reminded of a discourse from Swami Chinmayananda in which he says, “If a person’s job involves manual labour like shifting some heavy material or a task wherein a lot of running around is required, one would complain of hardships and feel tired at the end of it all. However, when the same person participates in a game of football, or goes to the mountains on a trek, he feels elated after the same degree of hardship. Here the hardship is “achieved” voluntarily, whereas in the former case it happens because of an assigned task. A night without an A C may be intolerable but we may travel large distances to spend the weekend camping in a tent where there is not even a fan.

So is it all about how you view your life and the attitude with which you participate in the activities that it has on offer?

Or, is it about the extent of belongingness that you may have for the institution? For Savita the institution is her famiy, for Mummy and Alok it is the Brahma Kumari Ishwariya Vishwavidyalaya and for Abhishek it is his employer company.

Or, is it about undertaking an activity as a duty or as a pleasure?

I look forward to comments from all those who read it. It will be my pleasure!