Sunday, December 30, 2007
Friday, December 28, 2007
Gharpe bol ke aaya kya....?
For all those non Hindi speaking minority in the minority of people reading my blogs, the title means- Did you inform at your house when you came out? This is a general statement made by irate motorists when something(someone) comes in their way. The general assumption- Anything that has come into their way would be to commit suicide. Let me go on now.
When I was a child I wanted to become an IAS officer, ah what a joke? Because, I also wanted to become a doctor, I also vaguely remember my dreams of flying an airplane. Reality dawned upon me, I am a blogger now. But how?
I remember standing at a junction of different career roads. There were pointers towards different roads, one showed IAS, the other pilot, doctor etc. But, there was a large chunk of crowd running towards a particularly bad road, pointing towards "ENGINEERING". Almost all of them are running towards it and I chose to be one among the crowd. I took the road. I am an engineer now. What a joke again.
Let me just help you understand the joke. I have been to a decent school, thanks to my father and I still reckon my schooling is the best part of my education, although I did not do too well in my board exams. I then went to a junior college, which is more of a hut than anything else and which emptied my dad's pockets to penury by pretending that they are preparing me for JEE. I fumbled in the war called JEE, stumbled and thanks to the then AP govt and JNTU, I ended up in one of the many Engineering colleges as a Mechanical Engineer. I love physics, and hence I loved my stream, but the pedagogy sucked. There was no practical perspective to anything and any such question in the class was always scorned at. All that the lecturers would do is parrot the text books which they consider to be bible and vomit everything on us. Four years of utter mediocrity with only challenge being passing the exams. And in four years I am an engineer who is not sure about what is so engineer about him.
Its placement time and I managed to clinch a job, not because of my Engineering skills but because of my communication skills, in an airport construction project. I worked there for one year and shifted for bigger challenges(the biggest joke). The expectations from my new company were manifold. I expected to work in:
When I was a child I wanted to become an IAS officer, ah what a joke? Because, I also wanted to become a doctor, I also vaguely remember my dreams of flying an airplane. Reality dawned upon me, I am a blogger now. But how?
I remember standing at a junction of different career roads. There were pointers towards different roads, one showed IAS, the other pilot, doctor etc. But, there was a large chunk of crowd running towards a particularly bad road, pointing towards "ENGINEERING". Almost all of them are running towards it and I chose to be one among the crowd. I took the road. I am an engineer now. What a joke again.
Let me just help you understand the joke. I have been to a decent school, thanks to my father and I still reckon my schooling is the best part of my education, although I did not do too well in my board exams. I then went to a junior college, which is more of a hut than anything else and which emptied my dad's pockets to penury by pretending that they are preparing me for JEE. I fumbled in the war called JEE, stumbled and thanks to the then AP govt and JNTU, I ended up in one of the many Engineering colleges as a Mechanical Engineer. I love physics, and hence I loved my stream, but the pedagogy sucked. There was no practical perspective to anything and any such question in the class was always scorned at. All that the lecturers would do is parrot the text books which they consider to be bible and vomit everything on us. Four years of utter mediocrity with only challenge being passing the exams. And in four years I am an engineer who is not sure about what is so engineer about him.
Its placement time and I managed to clinch a job, not because of my Engineering skills but because of my communication skills, in an airport construction project. I worked there for one year and shifted for bigger challenges(the biggest joke). The expectations from my new company were manifold. I expected to work in:
- Heat Transfer Dynamics
- Machine Dynamics
- Simulations in Material Science.
- Aerodynamics.
- CAD/CAE applications.
- Plant Layouts
- Robotics.
And many more. But what I had done and what I have been doing?
- Creating 3-d drawings from 2-d drawings
- Giving boundary conditions for a model created in CAE
- Sitting on Bench and cribbing for department change.
- Writing blogs and advertising them to my friends.
And when I got transferred, I do something that is never Mechanical and it has got nothing to do with coding. The work I do is so mind numbingly simple that that the ennui of doing it forces mistakes out of you. There is nothing creative and the only thing creative I do here is writing blogs.
And amidst all this, I hear a voice from my computer, it was loud and clear and it has an air of authenticity in it, it said "Gharpe bol ke aaya kya?". And now I keep asking my self, am I heading towards a suicide?
Monday, December 24, 2007
Love-are you sure?
In my previous article I wrote a rather raw or under cooked definition of love, which did not quite get down well with many; though, I still feel that they, in their bottom most layer of heart, are more than happy to agree with me. In fact what I have written is not out of experience but what the research speaks. What is research after all, seeking rhetoric for one's thought process? Whatsoever let me just try and confuse people on what they think as Love, is really love? Or is it just the regular business of Brain with its chemicals?
Before going any further, let me clarify (for fear of losing/not getting girl friends) that I am not against love( let me call it Eros raher than love) nor am I a psychopath nor a cynic. I am a techie guy who has got lots of time and a bit of brain (? Citation needed) to do some useless research and keep confusing myself and others around me with a rhetoric which often ends up proving that I am a person with inflated ego and one who would make fools of “ignorant people” because more often than not I end up putting down others’ argument, no matter what! But, I let go, as I said earlier, at the end of the day, there are more people who enjoy my company than who regret.
Averting any further digression from the topic let me have the luxury of asking you to think once again, what actually you meant by saying I love you to your partner? Well for your convenience (or might be due to the extreme inclination towards objective questions) I am giving you options:
1) I want to marry you.
2) I want you to sleep with me
3) I want to control you(or I want me to be controlled by you)
4) I want to increase my expenses (time, energy, money). (Not much of difference between the options but that’s how RCs are framed in CAT).
Now, most of you might have chosen an option and if you dint, then you are not sure about your love. And for all those who have chosen one of the above options, why you are not able to express yourselves with that option and why you rather chose to use the word I love you. Well, I bet, most of you cannot answer this question and most common answer is, “I tell it because I felt like”; but, if I ask, what that feeling is, I get an answer love; and again we get back to our basic question, what do you mean by love or I love you. So, this gets into a vicious cycle.
Yes, I do understand that it is difficult to define love, but if you were to go through the link which I have mentioned above, you will be able to find out that Biological models of love tend to see it as a mammalian drive, just like hunger or thirst. Psychology sees love as more of a social and cultural phenomenon. There are probably elements of truth in both views — certainly love is influenced by hormones (such as oxytocin) and pheromones, and how people think and behave in love is influenced by their conceptions of love.
Now, this sentence “Their conceptions of love” is a killer sentence. It is rather alluring and deceiving because it is allowing you to conceptualize love and it also means that there is no solid definition for love and this encourages each person to think what ever his brain's pleasure centers are asking him/her to do as love. For example, research proved that when you meet a person whom you think you like, there are high levels of Oxytocin that are released in blood along with other chemicals which are similar to the ones released durin drug abuse. So, say for example, that person has started talking to a girl late nights and if he continues doing this for a considerable period, the chances are that this would turn into an addiction. The same holds good for other romantic activities like going out for dinner, watching movies, holding hands and meeting (any activity that makes you meet) all these activities stimulate brain's pleasure centers, and hence one gets addicted to all these activities. It is fun, rather heaven as one female commented about love in my last article, (apparently she missed out the fact that heaven is some thing illusionary and never exists), when one is able to do all these things and hell(which again is illusionary) when one cannot get the pleasure he used to get.
What I want to conclude here is that, Love- as most people think what they are in is nothing but brain's chemicals at work. I am not saying that Love does not exists but as far as I know 95% of the couples bluff themsleves by thinking that they are in Love. While, in reality, what they actually going through is a natural phenomenon which is as natural as hunger and thirst. What I percieve as love will be discussed in my next article.
Before going any further, let me clarify (for fear of losing/not getting girl friends) that I am not against love( let me call it Eros raher than love) nor am I a psychopath nor a cynic. I am a techie guy who has got lots of time and a bit of brain (? Citation needed) to do some useless research and keep confusing myself and others around me with a rhetoric which often ends up proving that I am a person with inflated ego and one who would make fools of “ignorant people” because more often than not I end up putting down others’ argument, no matter what! But, I let go, as I said earlier, at the end of the day, there are more people who enjoy my company than who regret.
Averting any further digression from the topic let me have the luxury of asking you to think once again, what actually you meant by saying I love you to your partner? Well for your convenience (or might be due to the extreme inclination towards objective questions) I am giving you options:
1) I want to marry you.
2) I want you to sleep with me
3) I want to control you(or I want me to be controlled by you)
4) I want to increase my expenses (time, energy, money). (Not much of difference between the options but that’s how RCs are framed in CAT).
Now, most of you might have chosen an option and if you dint, then you are not sure about your love. And for all those who have chosen one of the above options, why you are not able to express yourselves with that option and why you rather chose to use the word I love you. Well, I bet, most of you cannot answer this question and most common answer is, “I tell it because I felt like”; but, if I ask, what that feeling is, I get an answer love; and again we get back to our basic question, what do you mean by love or I love you. So, this gets into a vicious cycle.
Yes, I do understand that it is difficult to define love, but if you were to go through the link which I have mentioned above, you will be able to find out that Biological models of love tend to see it as a mammalian drive, just like hunger or thirst. Psychology sees love as more of a social and cultural phenomenon. There are probably elements of truth in both views — certainly love is influenced by hormones (such as oxytocin) and pheromones, and how people think and behave in love is influenced by their conceptions of love.
Now, this sentence “Their conceptions of love” is a killer sentence. It is rather alluring and deceiving because it is allowing you to conceptualize love and it also means that there is no solid definition for love and this encourages each person to think what ever his brain's pleasure centers are asking him/her to do as love. For example, research proved that when you meet a person whom you think you like, there are high levels of Oxytocin that are released in blood along with other chemicals which are similar to the ones released durin drug abuse. So, say for example, that person has started talking to a girl late nights and if he continues doing this for a considerable period, the chances are that this would turn into an addiction. The same holds good for other romantic activities like going out for dinner, watching movies, holding hands and meeting (any activity that makes you meet) all these activities stimulate brain's pleasure centers, and hence one gets addicted to all these activities. It is fun, rather heaven as one female commented about love in my last article, (apparently she missed out the fact that heaven is some thing illusionary and never exists), when one is able to do all these things and hell(which again is illusionary) when one cannot get the pleasure he used to get.
What I want to conclude here is that, Love- as most people think what they are in is nothing but brain's chemicals at work. I am not saying that Love does not exists but as far as I know 95% of the couples bluff themsleves by thinking that they are in Love. While, in reality, what they actually going through is a natural phenomenon which is as natural as hunger and thirst. What I percieve as love will be discussed in my next article.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Made in Heaven.......
It was 5:45 in the morning, a chilly December morning. He woke up with a jerk. No it was not due to an alarm, not a physical one at least. As a matter of fact he no more needs an alarm to wake up; his body has been tuned to wake up at a particular time and no matter what he wakes up mechanically at that time.
He grabbed the novel he was reading and got into the loo, he got ready slipped into his attire planned for today and headed towards the mirror. He checked his eyes they were ok, he then checked his biceps not much of flesh there and then he checked his chest, not much of a difference there either, he wished he had a good body, but smiled looking at his small cute tummy. He fastened his waist belt and got into his shoes and started running towards the bus stop.
He usually reaches the bus stop 5 minutes early and waits there for 15 minutes for the bus to come; today as usual he spent the 15 minutes trying to lock his eyes with a girl he likes. The bus has arrived and he barged in and sat in his favorite 2 seater and with a weird inquisitive feeling he waited to see who sits beside him, but before someone could the bus started.
He pulled out the novel he was reading and managed a few pages before he could doze off. He woke up with a jolt. He thought something fell on him, he immediately looked up, there was nothing but the roof of the bus, but why did he think that a coconut fell on him? It hardly took a few seconds for him to realize that there was a person sitting beside him and he hit the persons shoulder and in a few more seconds he also realized that he knew the person. He almost shouted “Hello dude!!!!!”, the guy replied, blabbered something and finally asked the question, the question which he himself has been averting since long, the question which might disturb the peace of even most content soul, the question- “how is life??”. He mechanically told LIFE IS GOOD.
He then started staring at the orange skies of the morning, slowly closed his eyes and then the dramatical cycle wheel started rotating backwards, his thoughts then started traveling back in time, and he was in flash back. The only reason was to find out whether life is good.
The series of events that happened to him for last one year started unfolding. He luckily survived a fatal accident and saved his mobile from the people who tried to save him. He recovered, but lost his mobile a very costly one when it slipped out of his pockets. He smiled and told himself that life is good, because he had a job and he likes the place because all his loved ones live in the city. Within no time his PM calls him and says, you need to go to another city, 1200 kms away from here, business needs you know? After all there are lots of onsite opportunities and growth is faster. He left the city, much to the dismay of his loved ones. After all, Life is good.
Everything increased, his expenses, the distance from his loved ones, the work load, everything increased but his salary. He smiled and said life is good. And one fine day, his PM calls him and says that he was going onsite. He applied for WP and booked his tickets and over the weekend, he has done shopping to the limit his credit cards could allow him to. And then he realizes that the WP got delayed and hence the journey, he cancels the tickets, but finally he flies. He smiled and said Life is good.
Within 2 weeks, he comes to know that he has to fly back to India due to unavoidable circumstances; he obliges flies back along with his three friends. He lands in India, exits the airport only to find out that there are only 3 taxis waiting there. He guessed the missing one shall be his and is true. Just as he tries to get into his friends taxi, his mobile tries to escape the gravity, flies off and suddenly realizes that it cannot esacape and falls back on the gravel with a thud. Never did he know that his mobile has so many parts in it. He collected all of them and spent the rest of the journey assembling the mobile and at the end of the journey he realizes that his keypad was malfunctioning. He smiles and says life is good.
He starts of on his bike to go to the service center and then he realizes that his bike seized as he did not service it for long. He has to leave his bike and mobile in their respective service centers and go back home. And after a few days he does a balance sheet, the total expenses of bike, mobile and credit card bills for onsite travel has well exceeded the savings from his onsite trip. He smiled and said life is good.
Just as he was thinking all these, he started jerking vigorously, he was wondering why, because he was not epileptic. But then he realized that he was approaching office and the bus was going through the wonderful road that leads to the office. Just as his musings are coming back to the present, his phone rang, it was his girl friend, she called and said “hey, I like someone else, thank you very much for everything, sorry, ah” he hung up and smiled. Just as he got down the bus, his phone rung again, he hoped it was his girl friend and hoped that she called up to say that she was joking. But he should be too lucky for that. It was his PM, he reminded him that today is the last day to close the appraisal.
He headed towards the cyber café and opened his appraisal, only then did he realize that there are worse things than a girl friend ditching you. He smiles and writes the mandatory comments and closes his appraisal and heads towards the lift. Just as he reached the lift, the lift car’s doors were closed and it left. He smiled and told himself that lifts have no option but to come back and pressed the call button. Just as he waited for the lift car, there was thud, something landed on his head. He reached for it, it was a bag, after close examination he found that it was a bag of shit and after closer examination he found a small tag- MADE IN HEAVEN. Oops, he realized that heavens dropt shit on him again, this was not the first time and every time it happened he hoped it was the last, he smiled and said life is good as he headed towards the staircase as the lift got shut down.
He grabbed the novel he was reading and got into the loo, he got ready slipped into his attire planned for today and headed towards the mirror. He checked his eyes they were ok, he then checked his biceps not much of flesh there and then he checked his chest, not much of a difference there either, he wished he had a good body, but smiled looking at his small cute tummy. He fastened his waist belt and got into his shoes and started running towards the bus stop.
He usually reaches the bus stop 5 minutes early and waits there for 15 minutes for the bus to come; today as usual he spent the 15 minutes trying to lock his eyes with a girl he likes. The bus has arrived and he barged in and sat in his favorite 2 seater and with a weird inquisitive feeling he waited to see who sits beside him, but before someone could the bus started.
He pulled out the novel he was reading and managed a few pages before he could doze off. He woke up with a jolt. He thought something fell on him, he immediately looked up, there was nothing but the roof of the bus, but why did he think that a coconut fell on him? It hardly took a few seconds for him to realize that there was a person sitting beside him and he hit the persons shoulder and in a few more seconds he also realized that he knew the person. He almost shouted “Hello dude!!!!!”, the guy replied, blabbered something and finally asked the question, the question which he himself has been averting since long, the question which might disturb the peace of even most content soul, the question- “how is life??”. He mechanically told LIFE IS GOOD.
He then started staring at the orange skies of the morning, slowly closed his eyes and then the dramatical cycle wheel started rotating backwards, his thoughts then started traveling back in time, and he was in flash back. The only reason was to find out whether life is good.
The series of events that happened to him for last one year started unfolding. He luckily survived a fatal accident and saved his mobile from the people who tried to save him. He recovered, but lost his mobile a very costly one when it slipped out of his pockets. He smiled and told himself that life is good, because he had a job and he likes the place because all his loved ones live in the city. Within no time his PM calls him and says, you need to go to another city, 1200 kms away from here, business needs you know? After all there are lots of onsite opportunities and growth is faster. He left the city, much to the dismay of his loved ones. After all, Life is good.
Everything increased, his expenses, the distance from his loved ones, the work load, everything increased but his salary. He smiled and said life is good. And one fine day, his PM calls him and says that he was going onsite. He applied for WP and booked his tickets and over the weekend, he has done shopping to the limit his credit cards could allow him to. And then he realizes that the WP got delayed and hence the journey, he cancels the tickets, but finally he flies. He smiled and said Life is good.
Within 2 weeks, he comes to know that he has to fly back to India due to unavoidable circumstances; he obliges flies back along with his three friends. He lands in India, exits the airport only to find out that there are only 3 taxis waiting there. He guessed the missing one shall be his and is true. Just as he tries to get into his friends taxi, his mobile tries to escape the gravity, flies off and suddenly realizes that it cannot esacape and falls back on the gravel with a thud. Never did he know that his mobile has so many parts in it. He collected all of them and spent the rest of the journey assembling the mobile and at the end of the journey he realizes that his keypad was malfunctioning. He smiles and says life is good.
He starts of on his bike to go to the service center and then he realizes that his bike seized as he did not service it for long. He has to leave his bike and mobile in their respective service centers and go back home. And after a few days he does a balance sheet, the total expenses of bike, mobile and credit card bills for onsite travel has well exceeded the savings from his onsite trip. He smiled and said life is good.
Just as he was thinking all these, he started jerking vigorously, he was wondering why, because he was not epileptic. But then he realized that he was approaching office and the bus was going through the wonderful road that leads to the office. Just as his musings are coming back to the present, his phone rang, it was his girl friend, she called and said “hey, I like someone else, thank you very much for everything, sorry, ah” he hung up and smiled. Just as he got down the bus, his phone rung again, he hoped it was his girl friend and hoped that she called up to say that she was joking. But he should be too lucky for that. It was his PM, he reminded him that today is the last day to close the appraisal.
He headed towards the cyber café and opened his appraisal, only then did he realize that there are worse things than a girl friend ditching you. He smiles and writes the mandatory comments and closes his appraisal and heads towards the lift. Just as he reached the lift, the lift car’s doors were closed and it left. He smiled and told himself that lifts have no option but to come back and pressed the call button. Just as he waited for the lift car, there was thud, something landed on his head. He reached for it, it was a bag, after close examination he found that it was a bag of shit and after closer examination he found a small tag- MADE IN HEAVEN. Oops, he realized that heavens dropt shit on him again, this was not the first time and every time it happened he hoped it was the last, he smiled and said life is good as he headed towards the staircase as the lift got shut down.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Love - A beautiful lie.
Please note that the love mentioned in this blog is the love between a male and female.
If there is one thing that is more rotten than any other thing in this world, one thing which hits a person where it hurts the most and reduces him to an absolute idiot, it is Love. Hopeless love, no matter success or failure, would change the way you look at things and stirs up hitherto placid soul into a state of utter chaos.
When you are in love, or for that matter when you were in it and had to get out of it, the temperament which otherwise helped you to take any problem with a philosophical alright would suddenly disappear and is replaced by frustration and irritates you acutely. And, amidst all this you need to pamper your girl if you are in terms with her or frown at her, otherwise. So, no matter what, love sucks the most of you- money, time, brain, parents, friends, sense and sensibility.
In this world of blighters, love is nothing but the name of the way testosterone takes up to the destination it is destined to. There might be people, who with al their might, tend to disagree with me and say that love is pure and all that crap, its all trash, all this purity of love between a male and female is just a sugar coating for bitter truth, on basis of which the world is designed. Love is nothing but the fuel to the world’s most basic motion – Reciprocatory.
Thins don’t end here, love has contributed a lot to the commercial world; the first and foremost thing being the cell phone. If you know a person whose telephone bills increased by 900% and you hardly remember when he called you last time, then a safe assumption is that he is looking a girl. And who is gaining? The service provider. You don’t need to be explained how much the discos, pubs, restaurants, malls, shopping complexes last but not the least the film industry depend on love. They want you to love and seriously so.
I being ever a man of plain speech and reckless plunger in to delicate subjects would conclude that Love is nothing but a beautiful lie. The means for the love might be different, but the ends are same. All roads lead to Rome, all love leads to?
(The statement has been left incomplete as an exercise to the reader)
If there is one thing that is more rotten than any other thing in this world, one thing which hits a person where it hurts the most and reduces him to an absolute idiot, it is Love. Hopeless love, no matter success or failure, would change the way you look at things and stirs up hitherto placid soul into a state of utter chaos.
When you are in love, or for that matter when you were in it and had to get out of it, the temperament which otherwise helped you to take any problem with a philosophical alright would suddenly disappear and is replaced by frustration and irritates you acutely. And, amidst all this you need to pamper your girl if you are in terms with her or frown at her, otherwise. So, no matter what, love sucks the most of you- money, time, brain, parents, friends, sense and sensibility.
In this world of blighters, love is nothing but the name of the way testosterone takes up to the destination it is destined to. There might be people, who with al their might, tend to disagree with me and say that love is pure and all that crap, its all trash, all this purity of love between a male and female is just a sugar coating for bitter truth, on basis of which the world is designed. Love is nothing but the fuel to the world’s most basic motion – Reciprocatory.
Thins don’t end here, love has contributed a lot to the commercial world; the first and foremost thing being the cell phone. If you know a person whose telephone bills increased by 900% and you hardly remember when he called you last time, then a safe assumption is that he is looking a girl. And who is gaining? The service provider. You don’t need to be explained how much the discos, pubs, restaurants, malls, shopping complexes last but not the least the film industry depend on love. They want you to love and seriously so.
I being ever a man of plain speech and reckless plunger in to delicate subjects would conclude that Love is nothing but a beautiful lie. The means for the love might be different, but the ends are same. All roads lead to Rome, all love leads to?
(The statement has been left incomplete as an exercise to the reader)
Monday, November 19, 2007
Pissed off?
18th November 2007, the date which would have sent shivers down the spine for at least a two hundred thousand students and would have tested the nerves of half a million others, would be known to most of you, if you do not - CAT 2007 was conducted on the aforesaid date.
I woke up with a heavy heart, a fussy brain and with a strange feeling in the stomach; I have started doing things which I would do daily and hence preparing myself for something which I would, by all probabilities, be doing for the last time in my life; writing the CAT.
I started 3 hours prior to the reporting time and headed towards the centre whose location I figured out the previous evening. The journey was tense with chill in the air of the Pune making things just worse. I reached the test centre and found that there are at least a few hundreds already gathered over there and doing all sorts of different things. The guys who are taking CAT just for the sake of it are happily chatting with their all happy female counterpart who happens to be pretty excited about lots of people looking at her. And there are these ardent Nicotine followers doing off with their daily ritual and a few who are doing last minute revision of god knows what. The whole scene baffled me rather tensed me, so I settled for something different, I opted to watch the cricket match being played at the college grounds of my center. And in no time, a bell became very happy, as it ordered at least a few hundred future managers to enter their room to take a first step towards their destination.
Just as many things in India, the things started of in a rather dramatic way when all the candidates started towards the building. There is a huge crowd that gathered at the entrance of the building with each person getting impatient to get into the building and situation similar to the traffic at Hinjewadi started developing.
Just as few people entered the building and gone up the stairs, the candidates who already entered the building started coming down and within no time there was a traffic jam kid of a situation as there are equal number of people who want to get up and down the stairs. I wondered why all the people who have gone up the stairs coming down again, and the question started tickling my conscious and grew more and more curious and suspicious over where all the male candidates are going. I resisted myself as I don’t want to deviate myself, but I could not. I followed the crowd, they all are going as if they are programmed to do so as if they are little robots who are controlled by AI and just as my curiosity increased a little board said it all “Gents toilet” and the arrow on the board pointed towards the horizon. And now I understand what caused the traffic jam.
And now I say, every one is “Pissed off” with CAT.
P.S: I screwed my CAT paper again.
I woke up with a heavy heart, a fussy brain and with a strange feeling in the stomach; I have started doing things which I would do daily and hence preparing myself for something which I would, by all probabilities, be doing for the last time in my life; writing the CAT.
I started 3 hours prior to the reporting time and headed towards the centre whose location I figured out the previous evening. The journey was tense with chill in the air of the Pune making things just worse. I reached the test centre and found that there are at least a few hundreds already gathered over there and doing all sorts of different things. The guys who are taking CAT just for the sake of it are happily chatting with their all happy female counterpart who happens to be pretty excited about lots of people looking at her. And there are these ardent Nicotine followers doing off with their daily ritual and a few who are doing last minute revision of god knows what. The whole scene baffled me rather tensed me, so I settled for something different, I opted to watch the cricket match being played at the college grounds of my center. And in no time, a bell became very happy, as it ordered at least a few hundred future managers to enter their room to take a first step towards their destination.
Just as many things in India, the things started of in a rather dramatic way when all the candidates started towards the building. There is a huge crowd that gathered at the entrance of the building with each person getting impatient to get into the building and situation similar to the traffic at Hinjewadi started developing.
Just as few people entered the building and gone up the stairs, the candidates who already entered the building started coming down and within no time there was a traffic jam kid of a situation as there are equal number of people who want to get up and down the stairs. I wondered why all the people who have gone up the stairs coming down again, and the question started tickling my conscious and grew more and more curious and suspicious over where all the male candidates are going. I resisted myself as I don’t want to deviate myself, but I could not. I followed the crowd, they all are going as if they are programmed to do so as if they are little robots who are controlled by AI and just as my curiosity increased a little board said it all “Gents toilet” and the arrow on the board pointed towards the horizon. And now I understand what caused the traffic jam.
And now I say, every one is “Pissed off” with CAT.
P.S: I screwed my CAT paper again.
Monday, November 5, 2007
The Caste System of the corporate world......
Many of you know how Casteism is born. If you don’t; let me tell you, it is a long process of evolved civilization where people, for ease of administration have divided themselves into different groups on varying parameters. That was the need of the hour and it was to be done that way. After all, man is an intelligent creature and he has to innovate something and you cannot advance scientifically unless you advance socially.
Years passed by, centuries passed by and just as the human activity has drilled a hole in the Ozone layer, eroded millions of acres of forests and increased the global temperatures, the natural and innate tendency of human activity has its effect on Caste System as well.
Now we have environmentalists doing their bit to make people realize the necessity of going green and on the same hand we have extensive industrialization puffing the lungs of earth with their daily dose of green house gases. In the same way on one side we have people saying casteism is wrong and we should get away with it and there are even more people who still believe and strongly so in Casteism. I am not sure we can get away with it or not, but we have already laid the foundation for an all new system of Castes. And I call it the Neo Casteism.
You, me, our managers, the entrepreneurs, politicians, police etc are all part of this. Yes with out even being conscious about it we have contribute to an all new casteism.
The main classes of this are:
The ruling class (old: kshatriyas/new: Politicians and the law enforcers)
The scholar class (old:Brahmins/new: Professors and lecturers )
The merchant class (old:vyshyas/new: business men, entrepreneurs )
The Workers class(old: shudras/new: frontline workers, software engineers, project leads, managers)
Now, doesn’t it seem practical, if you observe, that all those divisions are logical? But, now they make little sense and none at all, but we hang on, we still marry within our castes, vote for people with in our castes and keep on following the blind division that was created.
But, now why “ Casteism called the corporate world”? Because, the corporate world will be pretty instrumental in making the new caste system successful. How?
The caste I belong to in the new system is different from the caste I belong to in the old system. I am a shudra according to new caste system. Hmmm that is interesting, isn’t it? And if all goes well, my great grand sons or at least their grandsons will be eligible for the coveted reservation.
The present shudras, like the previous classification will be at the receiving end of the discrimination with in no time. If you see, the discrimination starts when you join the corporate world. You will join as trainee, get confirmed, become a software engineer and get stuck there ever in the web of multiple appraisal cycles, if you ever get to the next level, you will be stuck there as well and ad nauseum.
So my great grandsons will be shudras(hopefully not untouchables) whose sub class will be IT and whose sub sub class will software engineers. So, my grandson’s name will probably some SE Ranjit Kumar(SE= Software engineer) and if he wants to avail the reservations in one of the 100 IIMs (the possible number in 2500) he hjas to take my salary slip proof to the local MRO so that he recognizes him as an authentic backward class. The other authentic backward classes will be PAs, TLs, BA, Consultants, design engineers. However, all the BPO employees have higher % of reservations as they will be added under SC/ST category.
And hence, the new caste system is created!
-AKP
Years passed by, centuries passed by and just as the human activity has drilled a hole in the Ozone layer, eroded millions of acres of forests and increased the global temperatures, the natural and innate tendency of human activity has its effect on Caste System as well.
Now we have environmentalists doing their bit to make people realize the necessity of going green and on the same hand we have extensive industrialization puffing the lungs of earth with their daily dose of green house gases. In the same way on one side we have people saying casteism is wrong and we should get away with it and there are even more people who still believe and strongly so in Casteism. I am not sure we can get away with it or not, but we have already laid the foundation for an all new system of Castes. And I call it the Neo Casteism.
You, me, our managers, the entrepreneurs, politicians, police etc are all part of this. Yes with out even being conscious about it we have contribute to an all new casteism.
The main classes of this are:
The ruling class (old: kshatriyas/new: Politicians and the law enforcers)
The scholar class (old:Brahmins/new: Professors and lecturers )
The merchant class (old:vyshyas/new: business men, entrepreneurs )
The Workers class(old: shudras/new: frontline workers, software engineers, project leads, managers)
Now, doesn’t it seem practical, if you observe, that all those divisions are logical? But, now they make little sense and none at all, but we hang on, we still marry within our castes, vote for people with in our castes and keep on following the blind division that was created.
But, now why “ Casteism called the corporate world”? Because, the corporate world will be pretty instrumental in making the new caste system successful. How?
The caste I belong to in the new system is different from the caste I belong to in the old system. I am a shudra according to new caste system. Hmmm that is interesting, isn’t it? And if all goes well, my great grand sons or at least their grandsons will be eligible for the coveted reservation.
The present shudras, like the previous classification will be at the receiving end of the discrimination with in no time. If you see, the discrimination starts when you join the corporate world. You will join as trainee, get confirmed, become a software engineer and get stuck there ever in the web of multiple appraisal cycles, if you ever get to the next level, you will be stuck there as well and ad nauseum.
So my great grandsons will be shudras(hopefully not untouchables) whose sub class will be IT and whose sub sub class will software engineers. So, my grandson’s name will probably some SE Ranjit Kumar(SE= Software engineer) and if he wants to avail the reservations in one of the 100 IIMs (the possible number in 2500) he hjas to take my salary slip proof to the local MRO so that he recognizes him as an authentic backward class. The other authentic backward classes will be PAs, TLs, BA, Consultants, design engineers. However, all the BPO employees have higher % of reservations as they will be added under SC/ST category.
And hence, the new caste system is created!
-AKP
Thursday, October 18, 2007
The CAT that was never killed
The proverbial cat was killed because of reasons attributed to curiosity. Well, there was no good reason why the cat shall not be curious and neither was it ever mentioned that curiosity was so lethal that it could kill anyone who possess this cat-forbidden-quality. But, one good thing about this is that we know that curiosity killed the cat. Well, now it doesn’t take a genius to infer that I am now going to write about CAT in this silly-post-after-a-long-time. The CAT which I am talking about can never be killed by curiosity and paradoxically it might even prove that curiosity is the key for survival.
My decision to take CAT dates back to 2002, after trying different exams like GATE, GRE(results of which are not published for obvious reasons), I was crazy enough to be fantasized about taking CAT. My reason for taking CAT then was.....well very few things which I used to do then have some meaning. I took CAT because I just felt like. So, I took CAT 2003 and as usual my quintessential romance with bad luck started, heavens dropped shit on me and the CAT 2003 paper leaked. And you don need to be Einstein's clone to infer that I did not crack it then.
I moved on, got placed in an infrastructure development company, but the desire to kill the CAT never died, though it went through a phase of long hibernation of about two years, the desire to kill was always there. And in these two years, a lot of things changed, my profession (from Infrastructure development to IT), the company I work for, my girl friend, the city I live, the way I live, the way I looked and the way I look at things, everything except for one thing changed, it was as if I was infected and the urge to kill the CAT was always there in me.
But the things changed when I started preparing for the war that I have to wage against hundreds of thousands of people like me. Killing CAT means, killing the others who are trying to kill the CAT and in doing so you realize that you are not good enough to kill so many people, you lose confidence, develop dark circles, grow long hair and behave weirdly with your closed ones. You might even get to hear some philosophical lectures about ability and ambition and that these two must be in synergy for a person. And I am no exception.
During the last 4 months of my CAT preparations I have been through many things, the weekends AIMCATs fetched me a morale boosting >95%iles with the peak being 99.99%ile once and they even successfully managed to suck of my confidence like leeches with %iles as low as 78. There were weeks where I could not balance my personal life with my desire to kill the CAT and there were weeks when I was doing nothing else than preparing for CAT. There were weeks when I sacrificed my weekend discos and there were weeks when I was fed up and went out for a long ride. But, what I still have to understand is whether my curiosity to kill the CAT will help me killing the CAT or not. And with just 30 days to go for the D day, I write this post with a kind of low pressure regions in coasts of my heart waiting to become a cyclone and whether or not this cyclone kills the CAT? Well, I need to wait and so do you!
My decision to take CAT dates back to 2002, after trying different exams like GATE, GRE(results of which are not published for obvious reasons), I was crazy enough to be fantasized about taking CAT. My reason for taking CAT then was.....well very few things which I used to do then have some meaning. I took CAT because I just felt like. So, I took CAT 2003 and as usual my quintessential romance with bad luck started, heavens dropped shit on me and the CAT 2003 paper leaked. And you don need to be Einstein's clone to infer that I did not crack it then.
I moved on, got placed in an infrastructure development company, but the desire to kill the CAT never died, though it went through a phase of long hibernation of about two years, the desire to kill was always there. And in these two years, a lot of things changed, my profession (from Infrastructure development to IT), the company I work for, my girl friend, the city I live, the way I live, the way I looked and the way I look at things, everything except for one thing changed, it was as if I was infected and the urge to kill the CAT was always there in me.
But the things changed when I started preparing for the war that I have to wage against hundreds of thousands of people like me. Killing CAT means, killing the others who are trying to kill the CAT and in doing so you realize that you are not good enough to kill so many people, you lose confidence, develop dark circles, grow long hair and behave weirdly with your closed ones. You might even get to hear some philosophical lectures about ability and ambition and that these two must be in synergy for a person. And I am no exception.
During the last 4 months of my CAT preparations I have been through many things, the weekends AIMCATs fetched me a morale boosting >95%iles with the peak being 99.99%ile once and they even successfully managed to suck of my confidence like leeches with %iles as low as 78. There were weeks where I could not balance my personal life with my desire to kill the CAT and there were weeks when I was doing nothing else than preparing for CAT. There were weeks when I sacrificed my weekend discos and there were weeks when I was fed up and went out for a long ride. But, what I still have to understand is whether my curiosity to kill the CAT will help me killing the CAT or not. And with just 30 days to go for the D day, I write this post with a kind of low pressure regions in coasts of my heart waiting to become a cyclone and whether or not this cyclone kills the CAT? Well, I need to wait and so do you!
Friday, August 31, 2007
“ATHIDHI DEVO BAVAH”
At this time of the year, for hundreds of Infoscions, every Sunday, two Modern Colleges in Pune would become what jaggery is for flies. They go there either in the morning or in the afternoon, but make sure they are there. The reason: To fight a bloody battle that resembles a bigger battle, which they aim to fight later this year. They sit in these colleges, killing each other for a good 2.5 hours and coming out feeling crippled intellectually. Well, I do not want to talk about this any further for fear of going dyslexic as I get lost whenever I see my performance in these battles.
I am no exception for the hundreds of Infoscions, for that matter thousands of others who does the aforementioned ritual, religiously every week. Last Sunday was no exception either. I reached there on my AP registered Honda, extremely careful not to get into the eyes of an ever vigilant Cop (hence forth called as mama.) only to find a lots of mamas standing at the gates of the Battle Ground (Modern Law College). Preliminary enquiry told me that, the war which I have to fight has been postponed as there around 34000 wannabe mamas fighting the war for some 1000 posts, I guess. And I need to wait till the mamas and wannabe mamas clear off. I waited near the gate.
Within no time, the flies gathered around the jaggery. There are singles envying the boy friend-girl friend pairs coming on the Pulsar with female making sure that there is no amount of air passing between the male’s back and her front. And then there is a group of warriors puffing their lungs with their daily dose of Nicotine. Amidst all these actions, I observed to two stout figures approaching the scene, they were wearing a white shirt and a pair of khaki trousers, with a pot like think bulging out from area common to their shirt and pants. It looked as if they stuffed the whole thing forcefully inside. It hardly took anytime for me to realize that they are mamas. They have come here to over see the situation, you cannot have a chaos out side, you know?
One of these mamas, who happened to have good business sense, picked out his mobile, dialed a number and made some sounds, the first of which being “ kuthey ahe” and whatever spoken later by him did not seem to effect my brain any more, as the rest of the sounds went through the hole between my ears(I do not understand Marathi L) and with in no time another mama appeared in a truck and four guys jumped out of the truck and emptied around a dozen bikes from that area with in no time and disappeared from the scene. Only then did I figure out what he had spoken on phone; Great business sense, in deed.
Amidst all the drama, I hardly noticed a family living on the footpath along side the gates of the College. But, what is so special, it is not a surprise in my country, which always has something in the bag for rich and poor equally. But, why am I mentioning about this particular family? And what made me notice them? Was that my selfish nature or is it the natural tendency of an Indian? The questions which I asked just now might not have made sense to you, I will explain.
All the drama that was started has reached the climax, when Pune’s weather as expected started behaving in an unexpected way. The clouds filled the whole sky and the sun was hardly seen. And by this time, a few of the warriors disappeared, a few persisted and in no time a heavy down pour started, I along with a few other warriors ran for the shade under the tree that was next to the foot path family’s house. It was no use, the precipitation was heavy and the leaves of the tree are too weak to resist the rain. Some thing has to be done!
As every one was trying their best to save themselves from the rain, I saw a large roll of plastic has been rolled out; two kids came from no where and tied the plastic roll to the tree- V’oila- The make shift rain shelter of the footpath family was ready. My first instinct was to jump into the plastic sheet and so did a few of others and one among them who happened to be an extremely HYGENIC female, was not happy with the cleanliness of the plastic sheet, she made a noise CHEEE…… I felt like kicking her, but resisted, do not ask me why, of late I have become pretty considerate. The footpath family was pretty happy to see the crowd using their shelter and they were more than happy to open a second roll of plastic, this one is exclusively for the guests.
I was more than impressed to see the courteous nature of my hosts. They might have never been to school neither do they know what “athithi devo bavah” means, but they were courteous and handsomely so. It left me short of comprehension to describe their courteous nature and as I was thinking, the rain faded and the mamas were done and the warriors were ready for the fight and hence the host was left behind as all the opportunists emptied the footpath home. And so did I.
I entered the battle field, I fought and fought and was beaten black and blue for 2.5 hours, but I was able to fight, because I was not drenched in the rain as those crows on the tree, which almost dropt on my head, thanks to the foot path family. As I rode my bike out, I just glanced at them; they were their usual self, as if nothing happened, little did they know that they made a difference to a person and at least a dozen others like me. And as I passed by, I took an oath “athithi devo bavah”.
I am no exception for the hundreds of Infoscions, for that matter thousands of others who does the aforementioned ritual, religiously every week. Last Sunday was no exception either. I reached there on my AP registered Honda, extremely careful not to get into the eyes of an ever vigilant Cop (hence forth called as mama.) only to find a lots of mamas standing at the gates of the Battle Ground (Modern Law College). Preliminary enquiry told me that, the war which I have to fight has been postponed as there around 34000 wannabe mamas fighting the war for some 1000 posts, I guess. And I need to wait till the mamas and wannabe mamas clear off. I waited near the gate.
Within no time, the flies gathered around the jaggery. There are singles envying the boy friend-girl friend pairs coming on the Pulsar with female making sure that there is no amount of air passing between the male’s back and her front. And then there is a group of warriors puffing their lungs with their daily dose of Nicotine. Amidst all these actions, I observed to two stout figures approaching the scene, they were wearing a white shirt and a pair of khaki trousers, with a pot like think bulging out from area common to their shirt and pants. It looked as if they stuffed the whole thing forcefully inside. It hardly took anytime for me to realize that they are mamas. They have come here to over see the situation, you cannot have a chaos out side, you know?
One of these mamas, who happened to have good business sense, picked out his mobile, dialed a number and made some sounds, the first of which being “ kuthey ahe” and whatever spoken later by him did not seem to effect my brain any more, as the rest of the sounds went through the hole between my ears(I do not understand Marathi L) and with in no time another mama appeared in a truck and four guys jumped out of the truck and emptied around a dozen bikes from that area with in no time and disappeared from the scene. Only then did I figure out what he had spoken on phone; Great business sense, in deed.
Amidst all the drama, I hardly noticed a family living on the footpath along side the gates of the College. But, what is so special, it is not a surprise in my country, which always has something in the bag for rich and poor equally. But, why am I mentioning about this particular family? And what made me notice them? Was that my selfish nature or is it the natural tendency of an Indian? The questions which I asked just now might not have made sense to you, I will explain.
All the drama that was started has reached the climax, when Pune’s weather as expected started behaving in an unexpected way. The clouds filled the whole sky and the sun was hardly seen. And by this time, a few of the warriors disappeared, a few persisted and in no time a heavy down pour started, I along with a few other warriors ran for the shade under the tree that was next to the foot path family’s house. It was no use, the precipitation was heavy and the leaves of the tree are too weak to resist the rain. Some thing has to be done!
As every one was trying their best to save themselves from the rain, I saw a large roll of plastic has been rolled out; two kids came from no where and tied the plastic roll to the tree- V’oila- The make shift rain shelter of the footpath family was ready. My first instinct was to jump into the plastic sheet and so did a few of others and one among them who happened to be an extremely HYGENIC female, was not happy with the cleanliness of the plastic sheet, she made a noise CHEEE…… I felt like kicking her, but resisted, do not ask me why, of late I have become pretty considerate. The footpath family was pretty happy to see the crowd using their shelter and they were more than happy to open a second roll of plastic, this one is exclusively for the guests.
I was more than impressed to see the courteous nature of my hosts. They might have never been to school neither do they know what “athithi devo bavah” means, but they were courteous and handsomely so. It left me short of comprehension to describe their courteous nature and as I was thinking, the rain faded and the mamas were done and the warriors were ready for the fight and hence the host was left behind as all the opportunists emptied the footpath home. And so did I.
I entered the battle field, I fought and fought and was beaten black and blue for 2.5 hours, but I was able to fight, because I was not drenched in the rain as those crows on the tree, which almost dropt on my head, thanks to the foot path family. As I rode my bike out, I just glanced at them; they were their usual self, as if nothing happened, little did they know that they made a difference to a person and at least a dozen others like me. And as I passed by, I took an oath “athithi devo bavah”.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Behind every successful man, there is a dog......
Sony, Pluto, Chi-Chi, aaaaaaaaaaaaah(you can safely assume here that a female is screaming), all these sounds can be associated with one thing in common, a dog, yes a canine!!
Now, why I wanted to write about dogs? From a stray dog to so called breeded dogs there is one thing in common for them, what ever they want to do, they do it without shame! Ah- this, I reckon shamelessly, has inspired many a politician. But, now I do not either want to talk about politics. So what's about dogs that made man successful?
BOLLYWOOD
I strongly think, and rightly so, that Bollywood has been benefited by the canine race's quintessential tendency to be shameless in every thing they do and hence their being shameless in romancing has inspired many a director of bollywood to be inspired by dogs for almost all of their romantic scenes(read pornography) in their movies. These dogs also have helped many an actor in improving his/her skill in these scenes, insider information says that Emraan Hashmi, Mallika Sherawat, Neha Dhupia and the likes have lots of dogs. I am not sure what animals Shilpa Shetty and Kangna Ranaut have, they need to really improve their performance, might be a few of dogs in their house might help.
SCIENCE
In countries like ours, where sex education is a taboo, dogs emerge as saviors for all those sex education protagonists. Because, more often than not, the first time an eigth standard or a ninth standard student sees in practical, what the first step towards the Reproduction described in their texts is, when they see dogs on the street; the divine bliss these little creatures are into during the mating season has educated many a human. In fact, there is a strong belief that Vatsayana used to have different breeds of dogs in his garden and used to observe them a lot. My dear dogs, kudos to your race!!!!
MUSIC
If you think that dogs have inspired the human in a rather awkward thing, you are mistaken!!!!
But why? Well, these little creatures when they make all the weird sounds in the night have inspired many a music director and one such MD is our beloved Himesh Reshammiya(HR). Well, in his initial projects HR lacked that punch of ooooooooooooo sounds in his songs, he had a tough time and started working over nights and then he heard the music of dogs on the street near his building and after that EUREKAAAAAAAAA, and its no looking back after that. HR still has that recording of that night's dogs howling, whenever he runs short of creativity he listens to the recording with great concentration, and in his personal diary there are confessions that this is his secret for his success. No doubt his songs are integral part of NIGHT LIFE.
Infact all the night life that people enjoy in the bigger cities is just an inspiration from the dogs, one gentleman who happened to be a night watch man has observed that dogs have lots of fun towards the end of the day(read late night) and inspired by that he quit the job and rented a small garage and started doing all weird things there, these include playing weird music(as compared to howling, it was too embarrassing for him to shout like dogs you know?), head banging(as compared to tail wagging; mind you, humans dont have tails!) and hence the Discos!!! Where you can be shamelessly shameless!
SPORTS
One day Mr. Ferrari was driving his local made car back home after one of those "Disco Parties", needless to say that he has been chased by a pack of dogs in their most jubilant of the moods, Mr. Ferrari resisted, he depressed the accelerator to the abysmal but the dogs won and shamelessly so. And on that fateful day was the idea of a high speed car was sown. And when the dream materialized it was renamed F1.
Infact most of the games that involves a ball- Cricket, football, volleyball, hockey etc are all initially started by humans as a measures to save the ball from the dogs and eventually became games.
INVENTIONS
Behind all the inventions that made difference to mankind there is a dog.
Wheel and Fire: Man invented wheel and fire to save him from the dogs that used to chase him to hell.
Earth is Round: Scholars concluded that Earth is round and it rotates about itself about an axis, when they saw the dogs going round and round trying to catch their tails.
Newton's Laws: There is a school of thought that the reason behind law of gravitation is not an apple falling on Newton's head but it is the tail of his pet dog which used to curl up no matter what.
Theory of Relativity: Once Einstein was traveling back home in his car and as ususal a pack of dogs started chasing him and Einstein accelerated and so did the dogs and no matter how fast he drove there was always a dog adjacent to his door as if both the car and dog was stationary and the theory of relativity was born.
Dogs inspired many other things, they inspired the democracy, parliament, wars, competition, homo sexualism you name it and they inspired it. Now this is called the Canine Conspiracy theory.
Now you know why, behind every successful man, there is a dog.........
Now, why I wanted to write about dogs? From a stray dog to so called breeded dogs there is one thing in common for them, what ever they want to do, they do it without shame! Ah- this, I reckon shamelessly, has inspired many a politician. But, now I do not either want to talk about politics. So what's about dogs that made man successful?
BOLLYWOOD
I strongly think, and rightly so, that Bollywood has been benefited by the canine race's quintessential tendency to be shameless in every thing they do and hence their being shameless in romancing has inspired many a director of bollywood to be inspired by dogs for almost all of their romantic scenes(read pornography) in their movies. These dogs also have helped many an actor in improving his/her skill in these scenes, insider information says that Emraan Hashmi, Mallika Sherawat, Neha Dhupia and the likes have lots of dogs. I am not sure what animals Shilpa Shetty and Kangna Ranaut have, they need to really improve their performance, might be a few of dogs in their house might help.
SCIENCE
In countries like ours, where sex education is a taboo, dogs emerge as saviors for all those sex education protagonists. Because, more often than not, the first time an eigth standard or a ninth standard student sees in practical, what the first step towards the Reproduction described in their texts is, when they see dogs on the street; the divine bliss these little creatures are into during the mating season has educated many a human. In fact, there is a strong belief that Vatsayana used to have different breeds of dogs in his garden and used to observe them a lot. My dear dogs, kudos to your race!!!!
MUSIC
If you think that dogs have inspired the human in a rather awkward thing, you are mistaken!!!!
But why? Well, these little creatures when they make all the weird sounds in the night have inspired many a music director and one such MD is our beloved Himesh Reshammiya(HR). Well, in his initial projects HR lacked that punch of ooooooooooooo sounds in his songs, he had a tough time and started working over nights and then he heard the music of dogs on the street near his building and after that EUREKAAAAAAAAA, and its no looking back after that. HR still has that recording of that night's dogs howling, whenever he runs short of creativity he listens to the recording with great concentration, and in his personal diary there are confessions that this is his secret for his success. No doubt his songs are integral part of NIGHT LIFE.
Infact all the night life that people enjoy in the bigger cities is just an inspiration from the dogs, one gentleman who happened to be a night watch man has observed that dogs have lots of fun towards the end of the day(read late night) and inspired by that he quit the job and rented a small garage and started doing all weird things there, these include playing weird music(as compared to howling, it was too embarrassing for him to shout like dogs you know?), head banging(as compared to tail wagging; mind you, humans dont have tails!) and hence the Discos!!! Where you can be shamelessly shameless!
SPORTS
One day Mr. Ferrari was driving his local made car back home after one of those "Disco Parties", needless to say that he has been chased by a pack of dogs in their most jubilant of the moods, Mr. Ferrari resisted, he depressed the accelerator to the abysmal but the dogs won and shamelessly so. And on that fateful day was the idea of a high speed car was sown. And when the dream materialized it was renamed F1.
Infact most of the games that involves a ball- Cricket, football, volleyball, hockey etc are all initially started by humans as a measures to save the ball from the dogs and eventually became games.
INVENTIONS
Behind all the inventions that made difference to mankind there is a dog.
Wheel and Fire: Man invented wheel and fire to save him from the dogs that used to chase him to hell.
Earth is Round: Scholars concluded that Earth is round and it rotates about itself about an axis, when they saw the dogs going round and round trying to catch their tails.
Newton's Laws: There is a school of thought that the reason behind law of gravitation is not an apple falling on Newton's head but it is the tail of his pet dog which used to curl up no matter what.
Theory of Relativity: Once Einstein was traveling back home in his car and as ususal a pack of dogs started chasing him and Einstein accelerated and so did the dogs and no matter how fast he drove there was always a dog adjacent to his door as if both the car and dog was stationary and the theory of relativity was born.
Dogs inspired many other things, they inspired the democracy, parliament, wars, competition, homo sexualism you name it and they inspired it. Now this is called the Canine Conspiracy theory.
Now you know why, behind every successful man, there is a dog.........
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Please Politicize heath care.......
"It" broke my heart. "It" here is not a ghastly act by a girl, nor that I lost something or someone important. But, "it" somehow managed to break my heart and made me think about one of the most important facility that shall be talked about for a country. The facilty that is seldom talked about unless there is an epedimical outbreak. Yes, the "it" here is the "Medical facility in India".
And why did "it" break my heart?
In India, more often than not, the most important things are always least talked about. It is hard to think of anything more important than health for human happiness and the quality of life. And yet, health is virtually absent from public debates and democratic politics in India.
How do I know? Just observe the newpapaers, news channels and any other media,they talk about Politics, Sports, Entertainment, Woman empowerment etc. But the last time when the debates scratched the surface of Medical Faciltity was when they talked about Sex education and its appropriateness. Holy god!!!!. Otheriwise they do not even bother to talk about.
Does that mean that Indians are a healthy lot and it is a waste of time talking about this? No, infact the situation is far beyond for being called worst! According to a Harvard study, absence rates among health workers range between 35 and 58 per cent in different Indian States. A similar picture emerges from an ongoing study of health services in Udaipur district (Rajasthan). More than half of the health sub-centres were found to be closed during regular opening hours, and even in the PHCs and Community Health Centres, 36 per cent of the personnel was absent on average. Meanwhile, local residents suffer from horrendous levels of morbidity: one-third of all adults had a cold during the 30 days preceding the survey, 42 per cent had "body ache", 33 per cent had fever, 23 per cent suffered from fatigue, 11 per cent had chest pains, and more than half suffer from anaemia. Close to one-third would find it difficult to draw water from a well and one in five has difficulty standing up from a sitting position. The situation is similar, if not worst, almost through out the country.
If this is the health condition of a country which continously relies on it Human Resources, the health services condition is even dismal, to say the least. As a ratio of GDP, public expenditure on health in India is among the lowest in the world — about one per cent. In fact, the health system is almost totally privatised. To illustrate, only 15 per cent of total health expenditure in India is public expenditure; the rest is private expenditure, such as over-the-counter drug purchases from chemist shops. By contrast, the ratio of public expenditure to total health expenditure is 40 per cent in east Asia, 50 per cent in Latin America, 75 per cent in Europe, and as high as 85 per cent in Britain. In large parts of India, there are no public health facilities worth the name, except for female sterilisation and polio immunisation.
If you attribute the state of affairs to the Poverty of the masses, you are mistaken!!! The harsh reality is that, even the rich, more often than not, do not have the access to decent health services. The technology and the expertise are there, but public facilities are highly inefficient and private services are virtually unregulated, leaving patients at the mercy of unscrupulous practitioners. Fraud, over-medication and unnecessary surgery are the bread and butter of the private health sector. To illustrate, according to a recent study of health services in Mumbai, about 65 per cent of deliveries performed in the private sector end up with a Caesarean, compared with 9 per cent in the public sector (the latter is close to WHO norms).
What is the solution? How can one tackle this problem? If you ask me, I would tell, Politicize the issue, yes, make the health part of democratic politics, make health care a part of election campaigns and let the Politicians talk about it. The benefits, mid day meals, free medicines, more vaccinations, active Public Health Centers and a Healthy Country. I am not dreaming this, nor am I showing an unrealistic picture, I have a proof. The states like Tamilnadu and Kerala where health is a part of the Politics.
The health facilties in states like Tamilnadu are far better, the Health centers are clean and lively. There are lots of medicines available for free and the health centers are well maintained and staffed, thanks to regular inspections. How was this possible? Competetion! Competetion between two governments, one has provided good facilties and the other has no option but to better them. On the contrary, in north India, the situation is rather gloomy. If you go to a PHC you are greeted by a hostile environment which is reluctant to serve. The reason, health care is not the part of Politics here.
I am not saying, polticizing the issue is the only solution, but it solves many a problem.
SO PLEASE POLITICIZE HEALTH CARE.
And why did "it" break my heart?
In India, more often than not, the most important things are always least talked about. It is hard to think of anything more important than health for human happiness and the quality of life. And yet, health is virtually absent from public debates and democratic politics in India.
How do I know? Just observe the newpapaers, news channels and any other media,they talk about Politics, Sports, Entertainment, Woman empowerment etc. But the last time when the debates scratched the surface of Medical Faciltity was when they talked about Sex education and its appropriateness. Holy god!!!!. Otheriwise they do not even bother to talk about.
Does that mean that Indians are a healthy lot and it is a waste of time talking about this? No, infact the situation is far beyond for being called worst! According to a Harvard study, absence rates among health workers range between 35 and 58 per cent in different Indian States. A similar picture emerges from an ongoing study of health services in Udaipur district (Rajasthan). More than half of the health sub-centres were found to be closed during regular opening hours, and even in the PHCs and Community Health Centres, 36 per cent of the personnel was absent on average. Meanwhile, local residents suffer from horrendous levels of morbidity: one-third of all adults had a cold during the 30 days preceding the survey, 42 per cent had "body ache", 33 per cent had fever, 23 per cent suffered from fatigue, 11 per cent had chest pains, and more than half suffer from anaemia. Close to one-third would find it difficult to draw water from a well and one in five has difficulty standing up from a sitting position. The situation is similar, if not worst, almost through out the country.
If this is the health condition of a country which continously relies on it Human Resources, the health services condition is even dismal, to say the least. As a ratio of GDP, public expenditure on health in India is among the lowest in the world — about one per cent. In fact, the health system is almost totally privatised. To illustrate, only 15 per cent of total health expenditure in India is public expenditure; the rest is private expenditure, such as over-the-counter drug purchases from chemist shops. By contrast, the ratio of public expenditure to total health expenditure is 40 per cent in east Asia, 50 per cent in Latin America, 75 per cent in Europe, and as high as 85 per cent in Britain. In large parts of India, there are no public health facilities worth the name, except for female sterilisation and polio immunisation.
If you attribute the state of affairs to the Poverty of the masses, you are mistaken!!! The harsh reality is that, even the rich, more often than not, do not have the access to decent health services. The technology and the expertise are there, but public facilities are highly inefficient and private services are virtually unregulated, leaving patients at the mercy of unscrupulous practitioners. Fraud, over-medication and unnecessary surgery are the bread and butter of the private health sector. To illustrate, according to a recent study of health services in Mumbai, about 65 per cent of deliveries performed in the private sector end up with a Caesarean, compared with 9 per cent in the public sector (the latter is close to WHO norms).
What is the solution? How can one tackle this problem? If you ask me, I would tell, Politicize the issue, yes, make the health part of democratic politics, make health care a part of election campaigns and let the Politicians talk about it. The benefits, mid day meals, free medicines, more vaccinations, active Public Health Centers and a Healthy Country. I am not dreaming this, nor am I showing an unrealistic picture, I have a proof. The states like Tamilnadu and Kerala where health is a part of the Politics.
The health facilties in states like Tamilnadu are far better, the Health centers are clean and lively. There are lots of medicines available for free and the health centers are well maintained and staffed, thanks to regular inspections. How was this possible? Competetion! Competetion between two governments, one has provided good facilties and the other has no option but to better them. On the contrary, in north India, the situation is rather gloomy. If you go to a PHC you are greeted by a hostile environment which is reluctant to serve. The reason, health care is not the part of Politics here.
I am not saying, polticizing the issue is the only solution, but it solves many a problem.
SO PLEASE POLITICIZE HEALTH CARE.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
My bike siezed
I am ashamed of myself. I am a mechanical engineer, I am supposed to know how a SI engine works, what is required to keep an engine going. But, last sunday, when I was riding my Honda machine there was a deep little moan, I thought I ran over a chicken, the marathi one, no I did not, it hardly took a few seconds for me to realize that it was my bike and it stopped abruptly near the famous E square. I am supposed to be at the Modern Law college to stcik my ass to a bench for a good 2.5 hours to take the AIMCAT. But I did not, rather I could not, as my bike refused to carry an idiot who thinks that all that is needed for a bike to run is petrol and just petrol.
My otherwise silent bike has been making weird noices of late, if I could call these noices moans, yes, my bike has been moaning of late. I just turned a blind eye to it and attributed it to the bad roads of Pune(if at all Pune has a few) but only now that I realize that those moans are SOS signals asking me for Engine Oil, but I never cared. And around last week, this moaning has become intense and prominent and this tickled my procastination and my bike was almost happy when I took it to a servicing center. But, its happiness ended there!!!! It seems, to have a privilage of your bike being serviced by the servicing center(Pashankar automobiles) you need to take an appointment, a bloody appointment, I have got no option but to take one and I got it for 16th August. That means I need to bear with my bike's moans for a week or so. I decided that I would.
My bike had other ideas, it (might have)thought that I shall be thought a lesson, but before that it started giving me warnings, the moans have started become more and more prominent, and now I just started thinking it is high time I take it to a servicing center and that I cannot wait until the appointment and whence I heard a deep moan, a moan that comes out of a dog run over by a lorry, a moan that comes when an ant is stamped by a shoe, a moan when some one kicks you hard on your ass and when I was trying to comprehend what it was, I realised that my bike stalled and it was not moving, only then did my shit filled brain realized that a bike needs engine oil apart from petrol. But, it was too late, the damge was done.
The road side mechanic made most out of the oppurtunity, and my wallet has become lighter by 1000 bucks and the bike is currently under observation and I am trying to make sure that the cylinder and piston are not damaged, fingers crossed.
My otherwise silent bike has been making weird noices of late, if I could call these noices moans, yes, my bike has been moaning of late. I just turned a blind eye to it and attributed it to the bad roads of Pune(if at all Pune has a few) but only now that I realize that those moans are SOS signals asking me for Engine Oil, but I never cared. And around last week, this moaning has become intense and prominent and this tickled my procastination and my bike was almost happy when I took it to a servicing center. But, its happiness ended there!!!! It seems, to have a privilage of your bike being serviced by the servicing center(Pashankar automobiles) you need to take an appointment, a bloody appointment, I have got no option but to take one and I got it for 16th August. That means I need to bear with my bike's moans for a week or so. I decided that I would.
My bike had other ideas, it (might have)thought that I shall be thought a lesson, but before that it started giving me warnings, the moans have started become more and more prominent, and now I just started thinking it is high time I take it to a servicing center and that I cannot wait until the appointment and whence I heard a deep moan, a moan that comes out of a dog run over by a lorry, a moan that comes when an ant is stamped by a shoe, a moan when some one kicks you hard on your ass and when I was trying to comprehend what it was, I realised that my bike stalled and it was not moving, only then did my shit filled brain realized that a bike needs engine oil apart from petrol. But, it was too late, the damge was done.
The road side mechanic made most out of the oppurtunity, and my wallet has become lighter by 1000 bucks and the bike is currently under observation and I am trying to make sure that the cylinder and piston are not damaged, fingers crossed.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
60 years of Educational (in)dependence
We are entering into the 60th year of Independence, happy, pretty happy. There is many a change in our country, most of which is recent, which we can boast about and be proud of. But, this is no reason to be complacent and if you ask me, I am more worried about the way we are changing to an IT/Outsourcing dependent economy. Worried because, the changing socio-economic situations, and market mechanisms are sucking the students from basic sciences to professional courses, with the lure of high salaries, like information commerce, management, information technology, and biotechnology.
Indian education system started off in a modest way after independence, with 25 universities chiefly imparting the Science education through the affiliated colleges at the time of Independence and in the last six decades, the number of institutions for higher science education has grown enormously. Today, there are 20 Central universities, 215 State universities, 100 deemed universities, 13 institutions of national importance, and more than 17,000 colleges. Under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), the government established the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 1956 and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) in 1987 through Acts of Parliament to administer, regulate, and supervise the functioning of higher science and technology (S&T) education in the country.
The good news end here, the proportion of India’s population that enters higher education is around 7%, which is 1/2 the average for Asia. There is about 1 university for nearly 4 million people. This figure is too small for any significant impact of higher education, science education in particular, on the country. The number of universities has not grown in relation to the population, thus greatly restricting the opportunities for higher education. The system needs a massive expansion to establish about 1,500 universities countrywide so that the country can achieve a gross enrolment ratio of about 15 per cent by 2015. China, for example, has authorized the creation of 1,250 new universities in the last three years. Unfortunately, the expansion that is evident in India is only in the form of dubious deemed universities and unregulated private engineering colleges that have mushroomed mainly as commercial ventures.
Compared to an enrolment of 5.7 million (1995 data) at the tertiary level in India, it is 14.20 million in the United States, which works out respectively to 613 and 5,399 tertiary students per 100,000 populations. Even though enrolment at the tertiary level has been low, the absolute numbers have been increasing. In particular, enrolment in the science stream has increased from 127,200 in 1950-51 to about 1.5 million at the turn of the millennium. However, there are disquieting features in these numbers.
The number of students opting for science after the secondary school stage has dropped from 32 per cent in the early 1950s to 19.7 per cent in recent years. More significantly, in the 1950s the brightest entered science but today’s 19.7 per cent is from the lower middle level. This shows that young students, particularly the brighter ones, are drifting away from science. The choice of the National Talent Search awardees also reflects this trend in recent years. Of the 750 awardees, hardly 100 opt for science and only 15-20% pursue science to the post-graduation level. Peer pressure, the changing socio-economic situation, and market mechanisms have further added to the process of the drift away from basic sciences to professional courses, with the lure of high salaries as you step out, like information commerce, management, information technology, and biotechnology.
The dwindling number of students joining the Sciences after the secondary education is not a good sign; in fact it is not at all good. A recent study based on 10-year enrolment data (1992-2002) both at Plus-Two and college levels in Delhi, showed that priority for science disciplines as a whole is on the decline even at the Plus-Two level. Data of college enrolment in the sciences between 1990-91 and 1997-98 revealed that, on an average, about 48 per cent of the students drifted out of B.Sc courses to join professional courses. These students are those who got admission after securing 80-90 per cent marks at the Plus-Two level. Data from a few colleges outside Delhi too showed a similar trend, which indicates that this disturbing phenomenon is countrywide.
The above also indicates that students who remain in science do so as a last resort thus leading to a situation where most students in higher science education are unmotivated and uninterested. To compound matters is the fact that 88 per cent of the students who opt for science after school are taught in affiliated colleges, which are ill-equipped, have woefully inadequate library and laboratory facilities, are overcrowded and poorly staffed.
Even those highly motivated few who choose to remain in science and move into universities for post-graduation and research are only confronted with outdated curricula, uninspiring teaching and disinterested teachers, entrenched bureaucracy and improper administration, poor infrastructure, obsolete laboratory equipment, lack of an academic environment, and, to top it all, lack of opportunities for the youngsters to do even reasonable research, let alone be creative and engage in front-end work. Data since the 1980s bear this out this as well. While the absolute numbers of student enrolment and universities have increased, the number of research degrees awarded in natural sciences has almost stagnated, whereas in engineering sciences the numbers have actually declined. This led to an all-round lack of qualified people for specialized jobs, in particular teaching in institutions and this is vicious cycle. The latter is bound to have a serious cascading effect in the years to come.
This lack of qualified people for specialized people for teaching is manly attributed to the lack of monetary benefits for this Profession. It will be no surprise if you hear a complaint or two from a motivated science student, that his" quantum mechanics lecturer is a joker and all he does is vomits the text book in the class". The reason being that the salaries for these professions are so less that a call centre employee would be earning more than a research professor. All this is a consequence of what happened back in 1951, when the then government has decided to have standalone research institutions. The idea is to move research out of the universities, but the important point was missed upon. The point is that teaching and research go hand in hand, one enriches the other. So, it is high time we reverse what happened in the past. Let us make the Universities the hub of research. Let the system learn a lesson or two from the Outsourcing industry.
I believe there is an ample case in favor of private research based universities in India. What generally happens is that, when a multinational company wants some academic researches to be done on say electronic cooling techniques. It collaborates with a university in US. It gives a professor a grant of $2 Million to do it. And the professor has to buy experimental equipment, pay his electricity bill, give the university its hefty cut, and hire some graduate students (and pay their tuition, fee and monthly stipend).Another company, say its competitor which is cost conscious, also wants similar work done, but somebody in their ranks has heard of a university in India that can do the same thing for $0.6 million - and that's including the airfare. After all, paying a graduate student Rs 20000 per month ($500) instead of $1500 would do in India; expert technicians would work for a fraction of what they would for in the US. Sending experimental apparatus to India shouldn't be too tough either.So, the idea is that there is a massive case for research based universities in India. And once, these "universities" mature, they will attract excellent faculty from all around the world and this might change the horrendous numbers put forth before. But it is easier said than done.
Expansion of the university system to about 1,500 universities will call for large investment. But before that, the severe resource crunch that afflicts all universities, in fact the entire higher education system should be addressed to correct the years of neglect. As the Indian National Science Academy noted as a matter of serious concern a few years ago, the investment per student has nosedived from Rs.850 a year in the 1960s to Rs.350 a year at the turn of the century (at 1990 prices). The allocation to education has already declined in recent years to about three per cent of the GDP instead of attaining the figure of six per cent recommended by the National Education Policy. The share of higher education and science education in particular has dropped to 0.7 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively. Compare the latter with those of the U.S. (1.6 per cent), the U.K. (1.4 per cent), and Japan (1.04 per cent). Considering the rate at which India is growing we shall have this rate at around 2%.
So what is required is a severe overhaul of our education system. While I agree that there are lots of underprivileged people who require higher education in premiere institutes and reservation is one means to do that, on the other hand one shall never forget the necessity to foster the talent and pave way for better education; this means a change in outlook towards education among the bureaucracy and the executive.
Reference: http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/11/stories/2007081150071000.htm
Indian education system started off in a modest way after independence, with 25 universities chiefly imparting the Science education through the affiliated colleges at the time of Independence and in the last six decades, the number of institutions for higher science education has grown enormously. Today, there are 20 Central universities, 215 State universities, 100 deemed universities, 13 institutions of national importance, and more than 17,000 colleges. Under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), the government established the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 1956 and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) in 1987 through Acts of Parliament to administer, regulate, and supervise the functioning of higher science and technology (S&T) education in the country.
The good news end here, the proportion of India’s population that enters higher education is around 7%, which is 1/2 the average for Asia. There is about 1 university for nearly 4 million people. This figure is too small for any significant impact of higher education, science education in particular, on the country. The number of universities has not grown in relation to the population, thus greatly restricting the opportunities for higher education. The system needs a massive expansion to establish about 1,500 universities countrywide so that the country can achieve a gross enrolment ratio of about 15 per cent by 2015. China, for example, has authorized the creation of 1,250 new universities in the last three years. Unfortunately, the expansion that is evident in India is only in the form of dubious deemed universities and unregulated private engineering colleges that have mushroomed mainly as commercial ventures.
Compared to an enrolment of 5.7 million (1995 data) at the tertiary level in India, it is 14.20 million in the United States, which works out respectively to 613 and 5,399 tertiary students per 100,000 populations. Even though enrolment at the tertiary level has been low, the absolute numbers have been increasing. In particular, enrolment in the science stream has increased from 127,200 in 1950-51 to about 1.5 million at the turn of the millennium. However, there are disquieting features in these numbers.
The number of students opting for science after the secondary school stage has dropped from 32 per cent in the early 1950s to 19.7 per cent in recent years. More significantly, in the 1950s the brightest entered science but today’s 19.7 per cent is from the lower middle level. This shows that young students, particularly the brighter ones, are drifting away from science. The choice of the National Talent Search awardees also reflects this trend in recent years. Of the 750 awardees, hardly 100 opt for science and only 15-20% pursue science to the post-graduation level. Peer pressure, the changing socio-economic situation, and market mechanisms have further added to the process of the drift away from basic sciences to professional courses, with the lure of high salaries as you step out, like information commerce, management, information technology, and biotechnology.
The dwindling number of students joining the Sciences after the secondary education is not a good sign; in fact it is not at all good. A recent study based on 10-year enrolment data (1992-2002) both at Plus-Two and college levels in Delhi, showed that priority for science disciplines as a whole is on the decline even at the Plus-Two level. Data of college enrolment in the sciences between 1990-91 and 1997-98 revealed that, on an average, about 48 per cent of the students drifted out of B.Sc courses to join professional courses. These students are those who got admission after securing 80-90 per cent marks at the Plus-Two level. Data from a few colleges outside Delhi too showed a similar trend, which indicates that this disturbing phenomenon is countrywide.
The above also indicates that students who remain in science do so as a last resort thus leading to a situation where most students in higher science education are unmotivated and uninterested. To compound matters is the fact that 88 per cent of the students who opt for science after school are taught in affiliated colleges, which are ill-equipped, have woefully inadequate library and laboratory facilities, are overcrowded and poorly staffed.
Even those highly motivated few who choose to remain in science and move into universities for post-graduation and research are only confronted with outdated curricula, uninspiring teaching and disinterested teachers, entrenched bureaucracy and improper administration, poor infrastructure, obsolete laboratory equipment, lack of an academic environment, and, to top it all, lack of opportunities for the youngsters to do even reasonable research, let alone be creative and engage in front-end work. Data since the 1980s bear this out this as well. While the absolute numbers of student enrolment and universities have increased, the number of research degrees awarded in natural sciences has almost stagnated, whereas in engineering sciences the numbers have actually declined. This led to an all-round lack of qualified people for specialized jobs, in particular teaching in institutions and this is vicious cycle. The latter is bound to have a serious cascading effect in the years to come.
This lack of qualified people for specialized people for teaching is manly attributed to the lack of monetary benefits for this Profession. It will be no surprise if you hear a complaint or two from a motivated science student, that his" quantum mechanics lecturer is a joker and all he does is vomits the text book in the class". The reason being that the salaries for these professions are so less that a call centre employee would be earning more than a research professor. All this is a consequence of what happened back in 1951, when the then government has decided to have standalone research institutions. The idea is to move research out of the universities, but the important point was missed upon. The point is that teaching and research go hand in hand, one enriches the other. So, it is high time we reverse what happened in the past. Let us make the Universities the hub of research. Let the system learn a lesson or two from the Outsourcing industry.
I believe there is an ample case in favor of private research based universities in India. What generally happens is that, when a multinational company wants some academic researches to be done on say electronic cooling techniques. It collaborates with a university in US. It gives a professor a grant of $2 Million to do it. And the professor has to buy experimental equipment, pay his electricity bill, give the university its hefty cut, and hire some graduate students (and pay their tuition, fee and monthly stipend).Another company, say its competitor which is cost conscious, also wants similar work done, but somebody in their ranks has heard of a university in India that can do the same thing for $0.6 million - and that's including the airfare. After all, paying a graduate student Rs 20000 per month ($500) instead of $1500 would do in India; expert technicians would work for a fraction of what they would for in the US. Sending experimental apparatus to India shouldn't be too tough either.So, the idea is that there is a massive case for research based universities in India. And once, these "universities" mature, they will attract excellent faculty from all around the world and this might change the horrendous numbers put forth before. But it is easier said than done.
Expansion of the university system to about 1,500 universities will call for large investment. But before that, the severe resource crunch that afflicts all universities, in fact the entire higher education system should be addressed to correct the years of neglect. As the Indian National Science Academy noted as a matter of serious concern a few years ago, the investment per student has nosedived from Rs.850 a year in the 1960s to Rs.350 a year at the turn of the century (at 1990 prices). The allocation to education has already declined in recent years to about three per cent of the GDP instead of attaining the figure of six per cent recommended by the National Education Policy. The share of higher education and science education in particular has dropped to 0.7 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively. Compare the latter with those of the U.S. (1.6 per cent), the U.K. (1.4 per cent), and Japan (1.04 per cent). Considering the rate at which India is growing we shall have this rate at around 2%.
So what is required is a severe overhaul of our education system. While I agree that there are lots of underprivileged people who require higher education in premiere institutes and reservation is one means to do that, on the other hand one shall never forget the necessity to foster the talent and pave way for better education; this means a change in outlook towards education among the bureaucracy and the executive.
Reference: http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/11/stories/2007081150071000.htm
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Why Cars are bad?
When I came to know about the recent soar in interest rates, I felt good, only because the sales volumes for the cars would go down. In 2006-07 Pune alone sold a good two hundred thousand four wheelers, much more than the previous years value. The only reason, people have money to buy these monsters which does nothing but suck oil.
Going at this rate we might even surpass the The States, in cars atleast and this is a no good reason to smile about, we have TATAs going in for one lakh car(mileage claimed to be around 16-18kpl, not sure though) and we have Renault wanting to have another small car and many more. For me all these ventures cruise us towards an oil hungry destination which we can well avert by regularizing Public Transport System.
A recent survey showed that a bus that occupies twice the space that a car occupies and would carry atleast 20 times more people than 2 cars does and would consume lesser oil when compared to oil required by cars to carry the same number of people, essentially I am saying that using buses would decrease the per capita oil consumptions.
For me even auto rickshaws are a better alternative to a car, these little machines would ideally have a mileage of say 30-35 kpl which comes to 8kpl per capita mileage which in case of a car would go to as low as 2 kpl so when you are travelling in a car you are consuming 300% more oil than when you travel by auto.
I do not even want to talk about the pollution caused by the cars, but I would just like to add that diesel cars have the highest particulate emmision index of all the vehicles. So, friends, before thinking of travelling by a car think whether you really need it
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Vision 2050
Today, 25th May 2040, is a special day for Raju, he has been dreaming about this day for last 8 years, yes 8 years that was when he has joined the ITL College of Engineering and Research (ICER), the ambitious project started by Infosys. Raju has now completed the rigorous and the most educative 8 years course and today he is going to be officially declared as Bachelor of Technology in CAECE (Computer applications in Electronic and Communication Engineer).
Raju has worked pretty hard for this, Raju codes JAVA better than any veteran PM in the industry, he is equally good at .NET and he is infallible at his Digital Circuits fundamentals and his concepts in other subjects of ECE are as good, if not better and he is so strong at the concepts that he can confidently deliver a technical lecture to an IIT class. Raju is not intelligent, he in fact failed to clear the JEE, the main reason behind joining ICER, but what transformed Raju from a mediocre student to a tech wizard? Not just Raju, almost all of his class mates, batch mates are all as good. So what made all the difference? It’s the ICER! The intellect and values of ICER!
ICER is one of the premiere educational institutes in India; it beat the shit out of IITs with in 2 years of inception. Unlike the other engineering colleges in India where students pursue their Engineering different streams like Mechanical, Chemical, ECE, EEE, etc., ICER has altogether different structure; it offers courses in Computer applications in all the above subjects. So if you are interested in, say Mechanical Engineering and want to pursue a course in ICER you need to take up CAME (Computer applications in Mechanical Engineering). You complete all your basics in Mechanical Engineering in 3 years and then your internship starts with an option to elect between Design/Thermal/Production. You will be taught all the software in the field and within a year. And then you are ready for the projects, you will be working along with the Production Teams on the related projects. The student also has the opportunity to go onsite and work along with client. This continues for one more year and then you are sent back to ICER for your management concepts. This goes on for 1 year where you are taught the basics of Management as applicable to software industry. With curriculum so profound, no doubt ICER is the most sought after college globally and ICERites are the most sought after professionals. Of course, all ICERites shall work for Infosys, make a significant contribution to the growth (Google way) before he/she could leave the company.
May 2020. Deepali is an enthusiastic HR executive for Infosys, like many other young professionals she also has a vision, a vision which when materializes would make a mark for the future of her country, a vision, which would change the educational system of India from being subjective to being objective, a vision which would produce true professionals.
21st May 2020, today is pretty important for Deepali. She has to present her concept before the board. She was well prepared for all the dissection of her novel concept, the concept which she named as ICER (ITL College of Engineering and Research). The presentation was crisp and the benefits were manifold and Infosys went ahead with “Project ICER”. It was completed with in 3 years. And Deepali has become the dean of the College.
25th May 2040, Raju is going to receive the achiever’s award from Deepali for his novel concept of Telepathic Communications where you do not need any Device to communicate between people, its B2B (brain to brain) communication system. Deepali has given away the award and also announced the opening of ITL College of Sciences and ITL College of Arts and Commerce again its just Computer applications in these fields.
Raju has worked pretty hard for this, Raju codes JAVA better than any veteran PM in the industry, he is equally good at .NET and he is infallible at his Digital Circuits fundamentals and his concepts in other subjects of ECE are as good, if not better and he is so strong at the concepts that he can confidently deliver a technical lecture to an IIT class. Raju is not intelligent, he in fact failed to clear the JEE, the main reason behind joining ICER, but what transformed Raju from a mediocre student to a tech wizard? Not just Raju, almost all of his class mates, batch mates are all as good. So what made all the difference? It’s the ICER! The intellect and values of ICER!
ICER is one of the premiere educational institutes in India; it beat the shit out of IITs with in 2 years of inception. Unlike the other engineering colleges in India where students pursue their Engineering different streams like Mechanical, Chemical, ECE, EEE, etc., ICER has altogether different structure; it offers courses in Computer applications in all the above subjects. So if you are interested in, say Mechanical Engineering and want to pursue a course in ICER you need to take up CAME (Computer applications in Mechanical Engineering). You complete all your basics in Mechanical Engineering in 3 years and then your internship starts with an option to elect between Design/Thermal/Production. You will be taught all the software in the field and within a year. And then you are ready for the projects, you will be working along with the Production Teams on the related projects. The student also has the opportunity to go onsite and work along with client. This continues for one more year and then you are sent back to ICER for your management concepts. This goes on for 1 year where you are taught the basics of Management as applicable to software industry. With curriculum so profound, no doubt ICER is the most sought after college globally and ICERites are the most sought after professionals. Of course, all ICERites shall work for Infosys, make a significant contribution to the growth (Google way) before he/she could leave the company.
May 2020. Deepali is an enthusiastic HR executive for Infosys, like many other young professionals she also has a vision, a vision which when materializes would make a mark for the future of her country, a vision, which would change the educational system of India from being subjective to being objective, a vision which would produce true professionals.
21st May 2020, today is pretty important for Deepali. She has to present her concept before the board. She was well prepared for all the dissection of her novel concept, the concept which she named as ICER (ITL College of Engineering and Research). The presentation was crisp and the benefits were manifold and Infosys went ahead with “Project ICER”. It was completed with in 3 years. And Deepali has become the dean of the College.
25th May 2040, Raju is going to receive the achiever’s award from Deepali for his novel concept of Telepathic Communications where you do not need any Device to communicate between people, its B2B (brain to brain) communication system. Deepali has given away the award and also announced the opening of ITL College of Sciences and ITL College of Arts and Commerce again its just Computer applications in these fields.
Monday, July 23, 2007
My first blog!
I am a procrastinator. I like to do things "tomorrow" rather than doing them today! Tomorrow always excites me, the very fact that "tomorrow" exists makes me live in peace, one fine day, I thought of starting my blog, I procrastinated and done that religiously, as if procrastination were my food and the days passed by, but there was no blog of mine.
Today is a different day, not that something great has happened today, but I just thought let the blogger.com have the bliss of having my blog on their server and hence AKP has created his blog. OK, enough of touting!
I am pretty late but I had this little proverb "Better late than never" for my rescue, it has rescued me many a time and this occassion is no exception.
Now, why did I start this blog?
Today is a different day, not that something great has happened today, but I just thought let the blogger.com have the bliss of having my blog on their server and hence AKP has created his blog. OK, enough of touting!
I am pretty late but I had this little proverb "Better late than never" for my rescue, it has rescued me many a time and this occassion is no exception.
Now, why did I start this blog?
- I am a dreamer, most of the time I get weird ideas which I seldom document, I am planning to blog them all(only if I do not tend to procastinate)
- I travel often, I want to blog my experiences so that I can see how I percieved the place.
- World and Indian politics, my opinions.
- My ideas to see my country as a superpower.
- Any issues, concerns which I come across.
- Miscellenous.
I end my first blog here.
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