Turning 30.

Its like I am standing right at the half-way milestone. And from here, I have two ways to look. One to the past. One to the future. Both seem glorious.

The past thirty years have been fantastic. Being among the fortunate few to get the best in the formative years, and then on to higher education, shaping my career, making wonderful friends, traveling far and wide and for the icing on the cake, in the thirtieth, a loving partner to share the journey with me. So now I have an extra pair of eyes to look towards the future and dream big.

Belated happy birthday wishes to me and a happy valentine's day to my wife.

Facts and opinions..

Fact - The temperature can go down to 20 deg C today
Opinion - Its going to be a very cold day today.

It was not long ago when we had just half an hour in the whole day when we got information from around the world, right from what happened in the neighborhood that day to what the score was, of a match played far down south in Australia thousands of kilometers away.

But today is already a different age. We are flooded with information from all kinds of sources every second of the clock. What used to be an active form of collecting information is now passive. Information comes right to your browser, your mobile phone, your mail client without anybody actively looking for it. What used to be reported in the form of facts once, is overridden now by numerous opinions, some qualified some personal and amidst the forest of opinions, the tree of facts seems to be hidden deep.

The social media which has now become a powerful venue to exercise the freedom of expression, has made it even more complex when it comes to seeking information. So many opinions - similar, opposing, neutral exist and the discussions that ensue make one go back to the good old half an hour news for the purer versions and be at peace.

Fact - The date is 1/1/2014
Opinion - Wish you all a very happy new year :)

The book shelf so far..

Having mentioned that I got back on track on one of my favorite pastimes, reading, a round-up of the recent books I've read is in order. So here goes a quick review.

The Bankster

Simple fiction linking up two different spheres of money laundering, covering a current issue. Language is simple and light. Works if you have time to kill.


Immortals of Meluha and the Secret of the Nagas.

Very deftly written fiction including mythological characters and weaving a story that is both cross-temporal and logical in a way. Language again is very simple but goes from good to mediocre in the second book. The suspense element in the second book was not up to the mark. Hope the upcoming third is as promising as the first.


The Calcutta Chromosome

Fiction taking us through the annals of Sir Ronald Ross and the discovery of the malarial parasite and stitching in it a parallel world of alternate medicine. An innovative story and an open ending that leaves one guessing. Very good language and good presentation.


Sea of Poppies

Written against the backdrop of the Opium wars and the then Indian cross-sea voyages. Liked it for the language, vivid descriptions and use of native vocabulary as required. Can't wait to read the sequel!


And I turn 29. The next year is going to be interesting, it will see through the turn of the third decade of my life, all of it that I had spent working in the software field.

Welcoming 2013..

2012 came and went in a hurry. It was quite eventful in that it didn't leave much time to sit back and ponder on how the year went. And in no time 2013 came, and its already close to 10 days even before I got a chance to pen down an entry on the blog.

The past few months have been mostly travelling and reading, two things I like most. So I am hoping the trend continues into 2013 and I will have read all the pending ones on my list by the end of the year.

So, here's wishing all friends a very happy 2013. Hope you step one inch closer to realizing your dreams!!

pardes 3

Four and a half years later it is that I came back to New York, and many things are the same while a few have changed. There are definitely more buildings new and tall while the older ones stayed the same lending a familiarity.


As always, I do have something interesting going on every time I come over and this time it was the Macy's Thanksgiving parade which gave an extra color to the city.

Shorter though this trip is, it is a whirlwind tour of sorts covering three different corners of the US courtesy friends spread across the country. It was Boston first, San Francisco next and Houston last before I head back to India. From the Brooklyn bridge on the east to Golden gate on the west, from the Charles river on the north to the Galveston bay on the south, I could cover quite a few places far and wide, and meet friends after ages!

So this trip was about traveling, meeting friends and watching movies as well, Meet Joe Black, being the most prominent.


And an interesting date it is today - 12/12/12 and a good day to start back writing on the blog.

Inspiring and Aspiring India

Fifteen years have passed since I last stood before a gathered school audience and spoke on the Independence day about the great Indian freedom movement. It was the Golden jubilee year of independence and coincidentally my last year in school and the timing wouldn't have been any better. And like all speeches in school, mine mostly centered around stating the obvious and remembering the sacrifices of the freedom fighters and spelling out a hope for a bright future. I was just starting to see the world through my own eyes then..

Fifteen years later, now, when I try to recollect what I had dreamt of as a student and compare it to what transformation I have seen in these years, an accident that happened a couple of days ago comes to my mind.

I was on my way to Hyderabad from Hanamkonda in a bus and an hour into the journey, our bus hit an auto and the auto went topsy-turvy into the bushes by the road, in the process injuring the passengers in the auto. The bus driver fled the scene while the concerned bus passengers got down immediately to assess the injured. One of them called for an ambulance while others gave water to the injured. Everything was okay in a moment.

What followed impressed me the most. The ambulance arrived in less than five minutes. Considering the place wasn't near any town or village, it was a huge surprise, a great one.
And what followed later, disappointed me. We, the deserted bus passengers, had to wait for an hour for a replacement bus driver but never got one. Disappointed, we had to get into other buses plying in that route, but had to travel standing all the way to Hyderabad as there weren't any empty seats.

This dichotomy is probably what would summarize our nation of today. One, of an inspiring nation that made connectivity to each and every person possible and essential services available to the last mile. The other, of an aspiring nation trying to overcome the lack of infrastructure facilities and catering to the rising demand on limited resources.

Do we or don't we?

Should I snooze the alarm for another 15 mins? Can I afford to sleep for half an hour more? So begin the mornings for most of us - making decisions. Right from the time we wake up in the morning to the time we rest our senses into a deep sleep, we are involved in numerous tasks, each involving a certain component always, called 'decision making'. Some small, some big. Some mundane, some routine and some life changing. And the effort spent in arriving at the decision is proportional to the impact of the decision. Or is it?

What actually does go into this process of decision making? Is it like a piece of art, that is spontaneous and doesn't know how and why it turned up that way or is it a science with a logical, measured and practical answer to the question. It could be one of them or it could be both. It could differ by person, by situation and by the combination as well. Such a complex process it seems and sometimes all we have is probably a few milliseconds on hand to take a decision, especially if you are driving down the lanes of Hyderabad :)

People say experience aids in decision making. But neither do all decisions have a prior experience that can help. We only "decide" to poke an angry dog the first time, don't we? And neither is a decision transferable. What works for one might not work for another. Wouldn't we all be following Warren Buffet then? In most cases, it is the work of science and art together that aid in decision making, though in varying proportions. The science or the logical part brings in the pragmatic component to take a decision which is feasible in the first place and the art part provides the creative or the satisfactory component that lets one unleash his will or choice in the process of decision making within what is feasible. Anybody who bought a car or a bike, for example, can quickly connect to this. From the list of cars that 'fit' our budget, we pick the one that we 'like' the most.

And so continues the infinite loop of decision making..

It is these things that make life an enriching experience. The process of decision making, the decisions we take and the ensuing effect they have.


Should I post this now or just discard it? :)

The dwindling stars..

Immortalized in the minds of the viewers and on the plains of Himalayas were the choreographed classical dance sequences of the movie Swarna Kamalam. Rhythmic, fast, melodious and beautiful all at the same time. It wasn't alternate cinema, it was mainstream and both a commercial and critical success as well. So were the meticulously done diverse dance routines of Sagara Sangamam. Those were the kind which drew the layman to the sophisticated traditional arts like Kuchipudi and Bharathanatyam and instilled admiration in the minds of the common folk for these proficient masters of the art.

Not just a colorful treat to the eyes and a sweet sound to the ears, it was a source of inspiration when the protagonist bounced back from her deficiency to get back and excel in her profession in Mayuri and a conveyor of emotion when one of them danced perilously on the fort of a well. Songs could instill a sense of fear just by listening to them, soothing music from a simple flute could transport us to a different world, lyrics that could quench one's thirst for quality could all once be found. And in regular movies.

But where are they now, I wonder?!

Quick and Quicker..

After the pleasant experience of renewing my passport at the newly created Passport Seva Kendras, I am happy enough to write about it. Having heard so many complaints, in general, about the process of getting a new one or renewing it, the very idea of renewing mine gave me apprehension. I decided to start early and luckily, there was this huge advertisement in all newspapers about the process and I decided to check it out. Everything was online, starting from filling the form, uploading supporting documents and generating a token for the appointment. The site was well designed and did not give any problems though the lazy me took a few weeks to fill out the form!

And on the appointment day, I had to wait for a good 45 mins to get my turn submitting the documents and if I only I had enough of them, the whole process would have been completed in two hours. But it wasn't so for me. Had to do an extra trip for the documents. However, the reception was professional, the executives clarified all my questions and the whole process was so seamless and at the end of it all, I got my passport in exactly a week. Unbelievable, after what I heard from internet forums and friends. Sets an example to the way customer services should be delivered in our country. Hope all the other departments follow suit.

In other news, Rahul Dravid, 'the wall' of Indian cricket retired in what is a big loss to Indian cricket. The man stood for consistency, determination and humility. I always liked the way he spoke and consider myself lucky to have had such great cricketers playing in my cricket watching career!

a game with no losers..

Winning or losing is just a number, a point, a score or a rank. What really matters is the fight, the zeal and the effort. Nobody who saw the Australian open final recently would deny that. At the end how everyone wished that there were no winners and losers in games! After all, how can you pick one from the two who were giving the best of the best performances matching game to game, point to point and set to set. It came so close towards the end of the 4th and 5th sets that it was sheer pleasure to see a tired Djokovic fighting his only human body with an unlimited will power and the never-tiring Nadal returning back with all the might he can, never losing hope. At the end, one reached the summit and that, because the game ends at a score of 7-5.

There was a Verdasco vs Nadal and then a Nadal vs Federer sometime back, both showing the world that upsets and surprises are part of the game. But this one was no surprise. If you haven't watched the game, you would easily accept that Djokovic with a better rank was the obvious choice. But people who watched it, well, can tell you how this match is the best of the best. And can only praise Djokovic for his gargantuan effort in overcoming his physical limitations as a human and stretching that extra bit to win the game. And Nadal, for his unending fighting spirit going into the fourth set one set down and making it to the final game of the match ending on equal terms, well, almost.

If you are already a world champion and are in the final of a grand slam and on almost equal terms in score, what makes you put in that extra effort and win that game using up all the energy of your body and strength of your mind, is what separates champions from the rest.

2011++

2011 is out. 2012 is here.

Wishing all my readers a very happy new year. So I did neither better nor worse in 2011. With 14 posts each of the past two years, seems like I am setting a standard for the blog. Lets see if I can do a hat trick of 14 posts. In these days of twitter, I guess 14 is still an ambitious one.

Coming to 2012, the number has a special significance for me. "be2012" was my login id for four years of my Engineering and the number 2012 was probably the most I typed in those four years. The number brings back great memories of segmentation faults, C++ templates, long nights in labs and those tricky networking programs that kept me glued to the world of computers. And here I am into the eighth year of pro programming, which has now become my bread and butter, of course with a lot less segmentation faults and shorter nights at the computer. It is common philosophy and a very naive one at that, but want to reiterate that computers are these amazing machines that do exactly what you ask them to do, no less and no more. Obedient things they are!

And it was an interesting thing that happened the very next day I wrote my last post that I got to hear the Hyderabad traffic boss mention some statistics that a work force of 2000 is managing a traffic of 25 lakh vehicles in Hyderabad. That should give an idea how tough a problem it is. The infinite demand and limited resources equation is true after all!

Good luck for the new year and wish great things happen in my favorite year :-)

apun ka hyderabad..

I had read a rather shocking news recently in the local newspaper that Hyderabad is adding around 50,000 vehicles every two months. That approximately translates to a 1000 new vehicles hitting the road every day. Simply put, a thousand people realize every day that public transportation isn't going to work for them and decide to ride on their own, which reflects the sad state of transportation today in Hyderabad.


Considering the fact that neither the number of roads, nor the width of the roads is increasing, this is an unimaginable number of vehicles that is going to flood the roads and one that can eventually lead to a traffic chaos. Of course, the day is not far. Daily commuters like me can vouch for that. One can experience this slowly increasing congestion that hits you irrespective of what time it is. Be it 2.30 am in the morning or 2.30 pm in the afternoon. A steady flow of vehicles bumper to bumper is a regular sight these days all over the city.

Although, I can't say nothing is being done. I see these few and far initiatives by the traffic system. Some of them innovative, and some of them very quick in implementation. Have to give it to these guys for living with a system that has inifintely increasing demand with a fixed supply. Its definitely one of those management kind of problems on how to much manage such demand with so scanty resources. The challenge becomes all the more complex because any solution is going to take really long to implement, and in the process is going to lead to even bigger problems. Like the Metro rail being planned.

It has to be seen as to what pans out and how Hyderabad will face this challenge..

Make a difference..

A friend thought posting this on my blog could spread the awareness and reach a few who might be willing. So I have added a gadget to the right so that the link stays permanently on the blog :-)

In my friend's words:

I believe everyone wants to help the underprivileged, there is always the emotional side of us which responds sensibly for others' ill fate. But we are so much occupied with our own things that our senses do not materialize to reach them.

And there is always the doubt even if we are supporting indirectly in monetary things, the least that we can do to help them beside our limitations,  are these funds going into good hands.?

This time I thought I would try reaching out to a social service organization to HELP and have that experience of being there among them.
After an exhaustive search on world wide web, I tossed on this foundation called 'SPHOORTHI'.

A small gesture of kindness makes a difference for those children and is a reward for the person who sacrificed his career and ambitions dedicating himself for the foundation.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!

It is a young industry. People who are involved with the gadgets you work with, technology you use, languages you program in, are all still around and continuously working and improving things to make the world an even better place. So when you want to write a tribute to a person who is no more around, it feels very odd as it is for the first time that you will attempt to do such a thing!


Apple ranks, for me, at the top of the best human-machine interfaces. It is a completely different experience working on apple gadgets. They just seem to understand what you want to do and transform accordingly to let you do things with ease. Everything seems so intuitive and perfect. Gadgets come, gadgets go. But when an Apple product comes out, it is the most desirable for one and all. And the one and only man behind all of that, the great Steve Jobs is no more. He has been the face of Apple for as long as anyone remembers and will continue to be, always. Such is the aura of the innovator, who made Apple what it is now.


It was a mail circulating back in 2005 about Jobs' Stanford commencement speech, that introduced me to the man and his experiences in life. The speech was, like all great ones, unique and inspiring. It had some of the best lines I ever read. As much as I want to quote a few of them here, I am running out of choice for which to pick among the many - they are all equally exceptional. I guess it takes a Steve Jobs, with his momentous highs and lows in life, to come up with such beautiful lines.  


Here's a tribute to one of the best innovators who made working with gadgets a beautiful experience.


PS: And there was another such a couple of days ago, which we completely missed! RIP Dennis Ritchie, the man behind the C language.

Marvels of science..

From thehindu.com :

CERN says a neutrino beam fired from a particle accelerator near Geneva to a lab 454 miles (730 kilometres) away in Italy travelled 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light. Scientists calculated the margin of error at just 10 nanoseconds, making the difference statistically significant. But given the enormous implications of the find, they still spent months checking and rechecking their results to make sure there was no flaws in the experiment.

When I first read this news in the morning, I could vaguely remember that I had once thought about something similar happening and shattering the very foundations on which much of today's science is based on. That was six years ago!

No discovery is insignificant unless proved incorrect. It is not that hard to believe either, that the great Einstein equation might have to be revisited. From history, we know that it is not uncommon for us, mere mortals, to build our active world on the basis of certain theories, and as we keep discovering new things, we move on to newer worlds! The earth was not always round, remember!

I am no expert in the field to comment on the new observations and what it can mean, but I am always impressed with the way we humans never cease to experiment and keep discovering newer and newer things that have the potential to alter and improve life. And what appears to be the key to such discoveries is to "assume nothing". Not even e=mc-square!

I do.

You see a fancy car on the road and wonder how the designer of that car came up with such intricate details of how the lines, angles and colours blend in to give the machine that beautiful look. You see a/the Taj Mahal and adore the architectural brilliance of the monument and of the architect who thought marble would do the most justice to that masterpiece. You drive through the valleys of Himachal Pradesh, by the serene beaches in Goa, ride on the backwaters in Kerala and be amazed at how nature has lent itself into those formations, ever pleasing to the eye and soothing to the mind. Designs like these are just so perfect, everything about them comes together in the best possible way, like the pieces of jig-saw puzzle, they are an exceptional fit.

And there's the other side. Like the famous Sirivennela song, you wonder why the beautiful swaying of honey-filled flowers is short-lived while on the contrary, the sedentary rocks sit around forever. And why the cuckoo, blessed with a silvery voice isn't dressed up in a pleasing color while the raucous thunders of the clouds have a beautiful silver lining! Some things just don't seem the best of matches, yet have a reason to be that way - may be they just offset each other to bring about balance.

Limitless is the imagination, vision and implementation of the architects (sometimes nature itself being the architect) who produce such marvelous pieces of creativity. And what comes with this authority to design and create is responsibility. Knowing well ahead that they may be credited or criticized for ever, they take up this responsibility.Such is the spirit of the great.  Handling expectations and yet performing is definitely something extraordinary. Magnificent it is, that they create these beautiful things of joy.  Impressive it is, that they say 'I do.' to whatever follows their creation - be it unlimited admiration or never ending criticism. 

Zindagi..

The thing about get-away/adventure genre movies is that they trigger that thought in you - to jump right up, pack your bags and just go on that trip you always wanted to. So does the movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. With an introspective title and a festive trailor, one can easily guess what the movie is about.

But as most movies of this genre are, it is the journey that matters, not the climax towards the end. Not letting one down, the movie takes us through a pleasant ride woven around three friends who set out on an adventure trip far off in the picturesque lands of Spain. Punctuated by tiffs of the past, fresh experiences of the current and thoughts about the future, the three friends go through a roller-coaster ride of emotions with each of the adventures they try, and in the process, learn to let go of their fears - both inside the head and outside.

At the end, they emerge victorious having conquered their apprehensions and realizing their priorities, which I guess is the point to take back from the movie, that once you let go of your worst fears, you emerge as a new person with lots of optimism, a fresh and dynamic outlook. After all, its just one life!

"Hello... Its raining.. "

It was the kind of day when people knew it would rain but did not exactly know when. Typical monsoon day in Hyderabad. Two minutes into my ride that day, it started pouring and I had to stop and find a shelter lest I find myself swimming in the Hyderabad waterways :) And so I did. It was an abandoned shop with a small extended roof overlooking the busy roads, good enough to give cover to four random people like me who had dared the rain gods and lost!

In a different world, it would have been an opportunity to strike up random conversations with these four strangers. And like any such conversations one would imagine, we would have started with Cricket - the universal subject. All four would have enough accolades for the Indian team. Then we would move on to Politics - the Universal language that everyone understands and has opinions about, and probably next about the unique feature of the city - how it can turn into an ocean when it rains. It probably was designed that way to make up for the lack of an ocean in the near vicinity. And at the end of it all, we might even have realized one was a distant cousin of the other etc. Happens sometimes ;-)

Yes, all of that would have happened, but in a different world. In today's world that isn't the case. All the other three quickly reached out to their mobile phones and started conversations with people they already know while I stood staring at the overflowing waters, knowing well that if I called somebody on a Saturday afternoon all I would get is a good amount of bashing! In a while the rain subsided, and everyone went their ways entrusting their bikes with the additional job of swimming. Obviously, the distant cousin will never be found.

May be I am generalizing this all too much to say that while mobile phones have brought distant people closer, it also made people around you distant. There is some truth to it though. One can always spot people fiddling with their mobiles when in new environments rather than looking around or talking to somebody. Our contacts have become our world. So it seems.

Ten thousand...

select datediff(day,'19840212', '20110630')

10000


For the number freak that I am, what can be a day more interesting than June 30,2011 - the day I turned 10000 days old? Ten thousand days!!! That seems such a big number! If instead of 365 days, a year had 100 days, I would be 100 years old already. How cool would that be!  But honestly, apart from the seemingly beautiful number of zeroes in it, nothing interesting happened on the day. Except that my watch stopped working, at around 10 AM, which I guess is ironic in a comical way! It probably had the 10K bug ;-)

And with today, I have completed seven years at work too. Approximately 1/4th of the ten thousand days. So numbers and numbers it is the past few days.

Mon-soon!

Monday comes soon enough. It always is the case. Though I was completely unwired the past week and away from the happenings of the dynamic and ebullient world, it still wasn't enough to eagerly look forward for Monday to get back to the sparkling life of traffic, ever-changing news, social networking updates and this beautiful invention called mobile phone.

It was calming in a way, to see the news come and go by the time I got to them and to find out that India already won the WI series before I knew it started.

And the week was also witness to the first showers of the season - the other 'mon-soon' had set in and Hyderabad, which was pretty close to a boiler the earlier week, had suddenly turned into this pleasant city with a cool breeze welcoming me on the way back to work. Makes me wonder how varied and rich the Indian seasons are. One minute they are something and the next, the exact opposite.

So its back to work and world, after a monsoon break. :)
And probably a few blog posts too!