I am back, but for how long

I have this amazing ability of persuading myself to avoid doing something which I would love to do. This sometimes happens due to consideration for others. However, at the centre of the ultimate intention is my own self. This ability which has grown into a habit has been with me for a long time now. It has grown and expanded encompassing newer and newer things and widening its scope. Sometimes, I feel like getting rid of it but after some reconciliation I realize that on the balance, I believe it to be an asset; one that has helped me a lot.

Blogging does not come under the above category; but is definitely becoming a strong contender given my performance and consistency. I posted a long time back. Then one of my colleagues Mr. SS was good enough to come up with something or else the blog would have become unheard of.

A lot has happened meanwhile. I have officially started my career with an investment bank. Definitely, not a bad to place start, some would like to say for anyone but I have my reservations about that. I have moved to Mumbai, in many ways my home town. I am back with my family; but the family I had been a part of for the last 4 years have been disintegrated, but only physically (I hope).

But even during this gap, I never stopped thinking of blogging. I was sure that one day I would return to it. I have even went as far as to note down many points on which I definitely would like to blog, ones which I came across and did not want to miss the opportunity to speak about. So, you can expect my posts to cover these points. But it will all depend on the frequency with which I blog. I cannot promise but will try to be as regular as possible.

Something The Lord Made

I watched the movie "Something the Lord Made" yesterday on HBO. It was a wonderful movie. The whole process of researching, struggling and then finally getting success is perhaps the only reason why we all are living.

In brief the story revolved around a black man, Vivien T. Thomas and a white surgeon, Alfred Blalock. The story depicts their coming together, starting to research on dogs for the blue baby cure for their hearts. The operation is a bit too complex for me to understand and explain but I can imagine that it saved millions of lives. Vivien had to leave college because of financial crunches and starts working as an assistant for Alfred. The movie also deals with the racial discrimination issues. In spite of doing top class work Vivien is not given proper treatment and pay. But Alfred helps him in this. Ultimately they are together able to find a way to do the surgery. It was a joint effort where without any one it could not have been possible. Everyone is against the operation. The church says that this operation is trying to do something against god's will. Alfred's friends tell him that he is risking his reputation and he should not do that.

On the day of the surgery, Alfred, 2 other surgeons and an always supportive doctor Helen Taussig are in the operation theater. Alfred realizes that he cannot do the operation without Vivian's guidance and makes an emergency call for him. Vivian can't operate since he does not have a college degree. The operation is a huge success and is claimed as a break through in medical science. Dr Alfred and all other doctors even remotely connected with this operation are considered godly. However because of racial discrimination no credit was given to Vivian. Vivian confronts Alfred regarding this and then leaves the lab. Alfred tries to stop him but it is shown that he has too become a little arrogant now. Vivian tries to go to college again but he is 35 years old and it does not seem worth it. He returns back to Alfred's lab and Alfred mocks him a little and at that point Vivian says "It is not about you doctor, its about the work. I like the work."

Many years later, after Vietnam and many other important events happen in US, in 1964 Alfred is on a wheelchair and Vivian is escorting him around John Hopkins and a room where many famous people have their portraits. At this point Alfred admits his mistake and tells Vivian that "Vivian, they say in order to live a full life you need to have regrets. I have many regrets Vivian, I have many regrets" while looking at his portrait. After some time Alfred dies. In 1976 Vivian was awarded the honorary degree Doctor of Laws by the John Hopkins University.

This story is indeed provoking. It gives you both a feeling of happiness over the triumph of science and the failure of human society. A society where people are not even given credit for their work because of social biases and discrimination and I don't think I am wrong in saying that these biases still exist. People even today do not get what the deserve and here lies the failure of our society.

A tale of two cities

This would probably be my last post from Delhi as I would be moving to Mumbai this week. Before coming to Delhi, 4 years back, I had spent most of my life at Mumbai. So, throughout the 4 years one question that people kept asking me was to do a comparison of the two cities and maybe give them my choice amongst the two. The answer kept on varying with time spent in Delhi but the conclusion has remained the same till now.

I will enlist the points I had been stressing in my answers.

The public transportation system in Mumbai is better (at least the part I had been in contact). You have local trains in Mumbai plying at the frequency of 3 minutes. I did not had the opportunity to take the benefits of the new Delhi Metro, so I cannot comment much; but I feel that its utility is being overestimated and making the decision (of who is better) solely on the basis of it is rather presumptuous.

Also, though the crime rate may be comparable in both cities or maybe higher in Mumbai, yet the crime in Mumbai is of the “larger” kind. So, there are more murders in Mumbai but less of pick pocketing etc. (the part which generally affects the common man, like me). The fact that Delhi is more unsafe for women is pretty widely known.

Delhi, or in general the north of India, has a lot of variety when it comes to foodstuffs of practically all kinds.

Mumbai has the added advantage that my immediate family has chosen it for their stay. But it is not that Delhi does not have anything on that front. Most of my relatives are in Delhi or in the NCR region.

So, I have been concluding ever since, that my choice would be Mumbai. However, after having lived in Delhi for some time, the gap between the cities has lessened (in my heart). I learned and developed so many things here. I developed my habit of reading; got acquainted with the better of my friends; did my engineering; got closer to my relatives (whom before I could meet only once a year). Finally, the city witnessed my personal growth and it had a major role to play in it.

Disclaimer: You may not find much relation between the picture and the text that follows.

P.S: One other not-so-related stuff. The city of Calcutta or Kolkata has gone from riches to rags. The communists, who in theory are the well wishers of the labour class, have (in their 30+ years rule) exploited this very class in West Bengal. However, this is still not apparent to most of them. They have become poorer due to the government policies but are made to believe that only the communist government is their last hope. To me, the irony is unbelievable. Bengal, which was the most happening place in the British time, has become a place where almost nobody likes to start a new venture.

Recently, we were in the middle of our campus placements. So, we had people from outside the country visiting. There was one chap, who was visiting India for the first time. On his trip, he went to Kolkata and then came to our campus in Delhi. He wanted to setup his base in India. In the middle of his presentation, he asked the audience regarding the place they would like to work at within India. He gave us options and asked us to raise our hands if we would like to work at that place. When the option of Kolkata was given, no one seemed to raise their hand. At this, he said that even he would not like to set his base there. At this, I pitied the state of the city. Even a stranger, on his first visit to the country, decides on not dealing with the city in the future.

'Independence'

I wrote about the Google spreadsheet invitation becoming easy in my last post. Some people seemed interested. Well at least I am interested in a lot of these new innovations in technology. Mr. SA, one of those interested, asked me about my comments about the innovation. Well, the concept is worthwhile and for a lot of people it actually makes sense. Simultaneous editing and viewing of spreadsheets, and for that matter, other applications like the word program can go a long way. I would like to say that it would be helpful to me, but I am not that much sure, as the field I am going into involves a lot of secrecy in its work. So, though we would be working with spreadsheets for the entire time, it is quite probable that people in the field would not be enthusiastic about making content available on the web, inspite of the privacy being promised. As of now, the features are also only basic but good enough for bloggers to get excited.

Sometime back (precisely 4 years, when I just started my undergraduate studies), I started listening about the concept of independence and freedom. This was the first time I was out of my home (and into the world, so to say). At that time, I could not relate to it. But now I can and am enjoying it a bit. I was not sure why anybody would like to have it, but now I feel that how can anybody live without it. It is not to say that complete freedom is the way to go; but upto a certain level it is necessary for the very existence. A recent example was when I along with my friends had to go on a hunger strike. None of us asked about the same but after committing, the information was sent via our cellphones.

I like reading autobiographies, and not biographies. The reason being that biography again is like hearing about someone from someone else, which is something we are accustomed to. An autobiography, on the other hand, lets me hear from the person himself. The views expressed may not be 100% authentic, but whatever we can get is worth the reading.

Currently, I am in the middle of the autobiography of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. It is a good embodiment of a life, which anyone interested in the Indian freedom struggle can have a look. It covers, in detail, the period of his life upto 1934, when he was in jail (or gaol) as he like calling it. He wrote the autobiography in jail and so not much is present of after 1934. Only a chapter has been added in 1940 filling in some gap. However, I would have liked more details of the period closer to independence as well as the time he was the Prime Minister of India.

It is a good read; not only because of the fact that Nehruji was good at English, but also because it enabled me to see the other side of the picture, and maybe the person. This generation are filled with those who believe that most of the freedom fighters could have done a lot better. They took a lot of time in “gaining” independence for the country. Some may even believe that it was not even gained and was just a result of the weakening of the British after the second world war. This generation believes in the methods of Bhagat Singh and party to be used as a means to meet their ends.

Reading the autobiography made me think if all of the above was actually true. Whether we were justified in taking the sacrifices as things which were unnecessary and useless? Nehruji has put Bhagat Singh and others in the category of terrorists, which is certainly not something which one would do now; but at that time may be the concept of terrorism was quite different. One thing I have started admiring about Nehruji (important to note, that before the book, all the things I had heard about him or rather believed about him, were not something to be admired) was his persistent demand for Independence (and nothing else). While many others, including Mahatma Gandhi, gave way to things at the cost of Independence, but Nehruji did not.

May be I have started relating to him due to this ‘Independence’.

Start contributing

Every time I open this site for a new post, I expect (at least subconsciously) that the other “contributors” might have done something so that they can be called with that name in the future. Nevertheless, I get delighted (surprisingly) when I see that no such thing has happened. Maybe I feel happy about the fact that I am the only one adding to the value of Myself SpeakingÔ (had not used the trademark for a long time now). I do not know why, I keep postponing the idea of writing posts, when the entire day, I think about how to frame the events occurring into words and sentences for the next post. The things, which actually manage to reach the posts, are only a tiny part of those intended.

(I think I have not told you that, every post, I first write it into some word processing application and then transfer it here. This would explain the reason of my posts being free of grammatical and spelling errors).

Everybody has a style of writing. You can many a times guess the author (if given some manageable number of alternatives), just by reading his work. This phenomenon includes the writers of blogs as well. Like, here at Myself SpeakingÔ, though others contribute so less, yet if you see the title of a post with some full stops at the end (i.e. blah blah ….), you know that Mr. AR would have been responsible for those; or if you see more than one exclamation marks sticking together, then Mr. KS has got to be held guilty.

I had talked about various social networking groups before and how they help you to be in contact. Well, the phenomenon is far from dying. Not only is the number of such group increasing, but also the time spent by people on these is phenomenal. I am myself present on Orkut. This particular service has changed some verbs and has created a few new ones. So, if someone asks you whether you have been orkutted, (my word processing application does not recognize it, as of now) do not look puzzled. ‘Getting scraped’ is no longer derogatory and infact people have started measuring the extent to which a person is extrovert, by the number of times he has been scraped. In addition, deleting a scrap is considered as a sin in the religion, Orkutism.

I sometimes feel, I can start a completely new blog on Orkut; and I constantly try to control the temptation. So, get ready for some more of my comments and suggestions and experiences with this new found tool of the world.

Is everybody leaving blogger.com? For, whatever blog I visit at blogger.com, I find the top post giving the address of the newly found home of the writer. May be they have moved on, but I do not have any such plans for the near future. Finally, I would be joining the sole company who has offered me a job in the first week of July. I have heard that will provide us with internet connection; but there would be no accessibility to personal mails. Also, sites like blogger.com and (yes, you guessed it) Orkut would b out of bounds. How will I survive, I am a little skeptical.

Yes, it will rain; No, it won't

After living in Mumbai for about 15 years, one thing I learned was that the weather was far from being predictable, especially the monsoons. You carry your umbrellas the entire day only to bring it drier home. And the day you forget it or consciously avoid taking it (looking at the bright sunshine in the morning), you are up for a couple of showers.

But the Meteorological departments and other institutions dealing with climatology across the world are doing their best to prove me wrong. How much they have succeeded is debatable but at least the majority believes that this is something to be discussed about. The hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and other natural calamities that we hear frequently and the accompanying large damages of life and property keep adding fuel to the above talk.

I do not know what educational qualification is required to get an entry into the Indian Meteorological department; but rumours say that the money (from the entry level itself) is good. Some say that it is comparable to the highest salaries paid in India. One thing I am sure is that a lot of money is going into the department for the equipments required have got to cost a fortune as well as the satellites being flown require advanced technology and huge amounts of money.

But is this spending – in the name of the human quest to know and somehow control nature – justified. I have come across cases where either these people were not able to predict some major happening, climatically speaking or had gone terribly wrong in their predictions. This winter the temperature in Delhi reached 0.2°C when it usually goes to a minimum of 4°C during that time of the year. As usual, there were no indications before hand. There was also news that BBC had given a better prediction about the climate of Delhi than those given in India.

A more recent example – and one which has a lot more effect – was the case of predictions for this year’s monsoon. The predictions were that it would be below normal. This has ruffled some feathers as India – which is a more agriculturally oriented country – had been trying to revive the agricultural industry and such a happening would have spelt doom for the same. Also, the stock markets became a little jittery at the news.

However, the result is again similar. Not only has the monsoon reached the country before schedule, the meteorological department itself has now predicted a normal monsoon for the country. I know that predicting the climate is easier said than done, but what I ask for is some positive progress.

You have to cross the Threshold

You had always been behaving and acting in a certain way. Then, slowly or sometimes abruptly, you change the method followed and do things in a different way or maybe add and delete items from the things you do. This happened only because, either your threshold changed or the threshold of the thing changed. In short a relative or mutual change in the threshold.

For every thing there is a threshold and may be even a threshold value, if you wish. You had been traveling by train forever and that too in the second class. Suddenly, you feel that in future, if you travel by train that would only be in the air conditioned coaches. After some time, the train journey ceases to be an experience you might wish to experience. You are all for air travel even if that is a little too much for your pocket. That is the time to realize that a threshold has been crossed (or achieved!).

There might be a number of reasons for the same. Like in the previous example, affordability may be an important parameter. The cost of air travel may have decreased or your income might have increased so that it was strong enough to support your new mode of travel. Various other reasons can be searched for, but the thing to notice is that there was a threshold which had to be reached.

You come across these, almost daily. You come across a stranger; talk to him/her for a while; find him to be a nice guy/gal; decide on the next meeting; have a few meetings. The virtual threshold of making him a friend could be crossed at any stage of the above interactions or it may happen that it is never reached at all. Also, you would see that there are a number of points/milestones to be reached and with each one of them, there is a threshold value attached.

Now, the value depends on both the people interacting and the situation or the behaviour involved. Thus, the value varies with the person involved and as such different individuals in a similar situation might have the milestones at different levels in the journey. The value interprets and translates into different variables like time taken, money spent, quantity of work required to be done etc. So, different persons may take different amount of time to become friends with a particular person, or may have to employ distinct amount of labour in similar work profiles.

This threshold value is more dynamic than it seems. So, it is possible that it increases or decreases according to the change in the parameters on which the threshold (and thereby its value) is based. So, when you move out of the comforts of your house for the first time, the value hill is steep; but once the initial phase is over, it kind of becomes a plain and for many, the other way (i.e. moving from the independence in the outside world to the confinements of the home) becomes a mountain.

Why do people blog?

For quite a while, I thought that blogs were a means of making people read your views and ideas or anything that you find interesting and suited for others to read. This would give you the reason why I included the tracker (at the end of the page) which would tell me how many people came to visit my site, the article which was most read etc. I wanted to make the blog famous and so tried to convince others to link to it and employed other ways which would satiate my motive.

Some posts later, I have realized that, more than anything, blogging acts as a means for the blogger to know what (s)he feels, what (s)he thinks and what are his/her opinions about various issues, or products or people, pretty much about anything. It brings his/her subconscious thoughts to the forefront and actually allows oneself to analyze them further and build opinions based on them. The topics on which one writes are something, about which one has thoughts in his/her mind and wants to pen them down. However, the incentive of the audience is always there, but what I want to stress is that, lack of a large audience would not spell doom.

This sort of thing is not new, for we had people writing their diaries (blogs are sometimes also referred to as online diaries) from ancient times. But the aspects which have changed are quite phenomenal. Previously, though the diary writing was not that of a secret affair, a conscious effort was made by the writers to restrict the contents to themselves. These days, one has become more open and wants – or atleast does not mind – others reading his mind in the form of the thoughts he wants to share.

Also, the convenience of doing all these things has attracted people towards it. Unlike before, when it was almost impossible to make available your daily accounts for others, blogs have overcome this aspect. You no longer need to bind together your ideas into a book to be published and made available, you can just post them at your convenience – in terms of size, time etc. - and others can ravish them.

What I increasingly find myself doing is that any situation I experience, in my mind I try to make it into a post for my blog, with the title and everything. Sometime I feel that by posting it, I would be able to refer to it in the future and may be learn, and thereby gain from it. But, I realize that the actual aim of writing is to make a permanent impression about it in the mind, so that you never have to refer to it, and it gets imbibed.

On the battlefield!!!

In the previous post Mr. AA told that five of us went on a 24 hr long hunger strike supporting the medical students who were already there for around 90 hrs.

Here are some snaps of our effort.








We know more than anyone else that this effort of ours was too small in comparison with what the medical students had been doing; but then it was far better than not giving a damn about it (what the majority of society has decided to about yet another important issue).

In front of us at least 5-6 people who were on strike from the beginning had fainted. We are too 'weak' to even get there! Anyway the media was present there throughout and got excited whenever a new group of supporters came in for the medical students. There were some celebrities that came in for encouraging the brave students. Good speeches, good thoughts, but finally all of them went back in their AC cars, satisfied with the free media attention they got!

I am not sure if a hunger strike is the right way of showing protest, but what else could one do if not this to show denial of what could be the stupidest decision of the cabinet. (Or is ot about to get more stupid?). One way could be to present an alternative plan for the cause that the government is superficially promising to fulfill, but even if some people capable of doing that actually get through it, I am not sure anyone would listen.

So what should we do? Wait for things to get so bad that only a Vendetta could sort them out using the only way which ascertains a solution!

Mine was too meagre

The college days are here to end and the realization is slowly, but surely growing on me. After a lot of searching and efforts, I have managed to create some DVDs with content which I would like to have after IIT and with which I would be prepared to face the world outside IIT without LAN. I just cannot imagine the state in which you wish to watch a movie, or listen to a song or watch the latest episode of an American daily and not have access to it.

However, it turned out that it was a long way to go before we can say good bye to the college. My friend gave me a link to a site listing different phobias. However, I could not find the name for the phobia of sitting on a hunger strike. Mine was not that of a phobia but more of hitch about doing something you have not done ever before. Yes, I went for a hunger strike. But only for 24 hours. If you think that is not big enough, try one for yourself. Of course you can drink plain water but nothing else. However, it was nothing when I and my 4 other friends looked around and found people who had not eaten for some 100 or so hours.

I would like to mention the names of my fellow strikers who took the brave initiative, which the entire engineering community had refrained from. They were Mr. NJ, Mr. KS (also a contributor to this blog), Mr. SP and Mr. AB. We were on a relay strike for 24 hours at AIIMS along with people from the medical community. When we started the count said that there were 87 people on strike and 43 had already collapsed. 24 hours later there were the numbers were 34 and 95.

Their effort was more than commendable. I just cannot imagine surviving 100 hours without food. And the enthusiasm was tremendous. The support came from everywhere. Students, welfare associations, faculty etc. everyone was there. The media was busy giving in depth and regular updates back to their studios. While I knew that by so and so time my strike would be over and so had something to look forward to, others did not and yet they continued.

But one thing I realized was that people like me who try to achieve things by protesting online through blogs, communities, petitions etc. are merely bluffing. Nothing much is achieved by forwarding mails, posting on online groups or communities, signing petitions. It is just a method to convince oneself that he has done something for the cause when in reality he has done nothing more than crap. Little is achieved even after taking to the streets and NOTHING is achieved by the former method, if you call it a method at all.

Lastly, after the strike, I happened to meet a lady doctor and when she came to know that I was from IIT, she enquired (I assume sarcastically) if the IIT was affected at all by reservations. I said yes and tried to defend how the engineering community especially the pan IITians are doing their bit, something for which even I was not completely convinced. However, at least I could tell her that IITians have joined and 5 IITians went on a hunger strike with the medicos. She looked somewhat satisfied but I am not.

A Peaceful Protest

It has been long since I wrote. The reason was mainly because my account (through which I could access the web) has been frozen. The reason being that some anti-social element got hold of my password, and thereby my account, and downloaded 5 GB of God knows what. As a result, I became instant villain of my department and was held responsible for all that was happening wrong in the department. From bandwidth usage to chair robbery, I was the one to be contacted.

After getting a lot of undeserved bashing and with some efforts, I was able to track the user ids as well as the network IPs of the culprits. But that was not enough as to find the computer with a particular IP in the entire institute campus would surely have taken a lot of time and sweat. So, after a few searches I gave up and updated our HOD about the status. He was kind enough to atleast give partial access to my account so that I could continue with my semester and none of my courses or projects are affected.

Now for some latest updates. I along with many of my fellow students took to the streets yesterday with a peaceful protest march from IIT Delhi to AIIMS. Since the march was peaceful, no slogans were allowed on the streets. We were given security or more so the police accompanied us so that nothing goes out of hand. Most of the students were enthusiastic. One of the reasons was the fact that it would be their chance to come into the limelight, for the media coverage was spell bounding.

The media was not allowed inside our campus and so they were waiting at the campus gates to have a chat with the protesters as well as catch them on camera. My colleagues were more than happy to contribute and say whatever they can. We had made posters so that the onlookers would atleast know the purpose of the protest. I do not have a picture of any poster to show you as of now, but I would definitely try to arrange for one by my next post. The posters read
1. Deserve, Not Reserve
2. Is this how you stop Brain Drain?
3. Disowned by my Own Country
But the best poster was one where we had used mathematical equations, true to our name as the top technological instituion of the country. Ofcourse nobody, including the media, could understand that but the creators of the poster where more than happy to explain the complex equation.

I have not told you yet what we were protesting against. Well you might hav guessd it by the slogans on the posters. If not, we have a long way to go before we take poster making as our profession. Ending the suspense, the protests were against the new set of Resevations which the Government of India is trying to introduce. And also to show our solidarity towards the medical community who have been protesting for about a month now. Some members of the medical community are on a hunger strike at AIIMS in retaliation of their members being manhandled by the police in Mumbai and Bangalore. Some guys from us are also planning to join the hunger strike but no commitments yet.

Lets have a treat

Lately I have been going to so many treats and lunches and dinners that I am beginning to wonder if life would remain this way forever. In my last post, I mentioned about how I had to attend (poor me) two farewells on the same day. Previous to that there had been a whole gamut of job treats that I went to (including mine). Of these, mine had been so far the best. People said that it was because of the food and everything but I know the real reason. What I can say is that how the treat is depends on who the treat is given by.

But this unbeaten record (which I also thought was unbeatable) was finally beaten last night. It was the treat of Mr. SK or 'panji' as we call him (I mentioned the nickname because it took a while before I could recall his real name). Half my institute was there and so it also had the distinction of the most number of people in a treat (of the ones of which I was a part). I knew that the host was a famous personality but so famous was some information.

The treat was also different in some other aspects. Not all the people have had the privilege of being seen by me before. The ones who I had some acquaintance with were meager. Also it was the first treat with people from both sexes present and I am not talking about ones not invited by the host. Not that it matters to me, but I thought you might consider it has a prerequisite for the best party, if not for all parties.

Initially, all the things I mentioned made me rather uncomfortable. On my way to the place of the party, I was thinking why was I even going to a party with a few strangers. When I reached the venue, this feeling became strong when I watched a bunch of humans from the other sex. The feeling reached its climax when people came flocking in packed cars.

But as the end of most of the movies, the climax was followed by a happy ending (or should I be philosophical, and say a happy beginning). As the music started and people started dancing, the magic wand had been waved. There was dancing and drinks, and dancing and drinks, and dancing and drinks. Though they were some starters (in the beginning) and food (at the end), I don't think many people cared. Atleast I did not, which was kind of a surprise.

People say that I kept dancing for 4 hours, which is ironical as I have never learned dancing and cannot even claim to know even a single dance step. But maybe everyone was on the same platform (atleast literally they were). Also, people kept teasing me that I was drunk and the culprit was none of the traditional ones but Coke.