Impressions from our first AID Conference [May 2013, UNC Charlotte]

Prologue

After hearing a lot about the AID (Association for India's Development) annual conference from volunteers at the Bay Area chapter, Anitha and I enrolled for the conference in April 2013. At a point we were thinking if we could donate the money that we incur for the conference instead of attending the conference. But that wouldn't have been wise to do. Looking back, it was one of the best decisions that we made this year. If joining AID was a big milestone for me this year, then going to our first conference turned out to be a bigger milestone. The conference had a lasting impact on us. It was wonderful to see and feel the enthusiasm and energy in the volunteers to learn about and discuss and share the issues that we as AID deal with everyday.

Group photo after the Conference

It's the Volunteers

From infants to seniors like Mohan Bhagat, there were people of all ages. If volunteers who had become parents recently or who had kids came together with their kids, there was no reason for us not to be there. It shows the level of commitment that they have. It was humbling for us to see so many volunteers who were Ph.Ds or who were enrolled in Ph.Ds in various fields. Roughly there were as many students as there were working professionals. Whether it's a student or a working professional it's a tough job to take out time for AID along with the demands of our profession or studies, but all of us volunteers somehow manage to do that. 'The strength in numbers' was there to see.
 

AID Family and Culture

As it is said, every organization has a culture that it builds over the years. The conference is probably the best place to witness the culture of AID. Volunteers of all ages and backgrounds coming together with no inhibitions and discussing openly on how to address their common problems. "No individual is bigger than the organization and it's goals" - this is so true of AID and was clearly visible at the conference. All the senior volunteers including the founders were all very approachable and welcoming to talk and discuss and learn from them.

New and junior volunteers are treated similar to others and given opportunities. For instance, when I approached Naga to check if there was time at the end of the conference to recite 'Gandhiji's Talisman', he immediately accepted and gave the air-time. Like I had noticed previously, any volunteer is allowed to take any initiative and take it forward and most other volunteers come forward and support him/her. In a time where 'social', 'collaboration' and 'crowd-sourced' have become quite popular, I believe an organization can realize it's true potential when this kind of culture exists.

The organization where it's goals are the same as the goals of it's members, is the ideal organization and AID like many other volunteer-based organization is definitely of that kind. Since the volunteers have similar ideas and concerns, it takes only a short while to connect with each other and have meaningful interactions unlike the 'small-talks' that we have in our professional lives which seem so artificial. These interactions are the basis of the bonding and result in the creation/flourishing of the AID family. How often we listen at our workplace the term 'family' and immediately a smirk appears on our face expressing 'Really?'. Things like these cannot always be pushed down from the top, they have to evolve from the bottom.

On the first day, being new to AID we didn't know many of the people at the conference and it looked like a professional setting and we hadn't opened up much and so we didn't really connect much. So we preferred to take rest instead of going for the informal gathering at the dorm later that night. But the next day was a transformation which we hadn't anticipated. We talked to other volunteers and speakers and formed the connections and we soon felt like we were part of the 'AID Family'. This pulled us to go for the gathering that night and we wouldn't have known what we would have missed had we not done so.

As volunteers we become sensitive to many problems that we work on and imbibe a similar outlook in our own lives. AID conference certainly leads by example. Practices like 'Being Green', 'No Gender/Race/Economic Inequality' were there to see at the conference.

Speakers and Grassroots-Workers

This conference was an amazing opportunity to meet, listen to and discuss with notable speakers like Dayamani Barla, Prasad Chacko, G V Ramanjaneyulu, S R Hiremath, Ilena Sen, Meera Rafi, Mallesh, Bharagavi and our Fellows who work on the ground like Ravi Arunachalam, Kiran Vissa.

Speakers

Back in Hyderabad, I had read about an agricultural scientist who had given up his job and who was working independently on sustainable agricultural practices and I was quite influenced by him. All the while, the emails and presentations about the conference speakers were floating around, but I didn't realize that he was one of the speakers. Only after seeing Dr Ramanajneylu in person, the memory of the the news-clip resurfaced in my mind and it was a pleasant surprise to meet him in person. The presentation and the talk on the state of agriculture in India and the impact that their collaborations were able to create using indigenous sustainable practices were very informative and inspiring.

Dr Ilena Sen and Dayamani Barla spoke about the plight of the tribal communities in Chattisgarh and Jharkhand. The strong and fiery talk by Dayamani was a reflection of pain arising out of the atrocities and injustices that the tribal communities encounter in their daily lives. Dr Prasad Chacko explained the history and the causes of the inequality and exploitations in the context of Dalits in India. S R Hiremath presented on how their organization encountered the mining mafia in Bellary.

Apart from the Q&A time after each of the talks, the conference provided us an opportunity to engage in offline conversations with the speakers as most of them were available on both days of the conference.

Fun@Conference

The planned and unplanned fun activities had their own place at the conference. The skit was well done and depicted the different concerns of the members of a family akin to the different concerns of the various sections of the society. The highlight for me was 'the Evvar-Nevvar-Newer Ready' trialogue. It was very well scripted and as it was related to the different phases of an AID volunteer we could instantly relate to it. It was quite humorous and the audience would burst into laughter on many occasions during the event. We thoroughly enjoyed it. This can definitely be termed the signature-fun event at the conference.

Evvar Ready-Nevvar Ready Dialogue

Although we missed the late-night gathering at the dorm on day 1, we were eager to join on day 2. It was during this gathering that we came to know some of the other volunteers well and connected to them. Got an opportunity to listen to some of the good singers in AID including Pavan ;-). We were part of a very interesting discussion on dowry and the flamboyance of Indian marriages. Neela did a good job moderating the discussion.

Late-night gathering at the dorm

We had taken a day off from work after the day of the conference. We hadn't planned anything specific but Naga suggested we drive around the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway. While we were heading for this short-trip we inquired if anyone would be interested  and Rohit joined in. We hadn't imagined it would be so beautiful and it turned out to be a memorable trip: the sight of the waterfalls along the route and the green hills were a treat to our eyes and mind.

Noteworthy

Many other significant experiences, memories are here:-

• Novel fundraising means like Adrita taking pictures with a camera in exchange for donations to AID, selling tickets to entry into the cute structure built by the kids during the conference, auctioning Nishikant's photo album from his site visit
• All the participants taking a pledge not to seek or give dowry and encourage others to do as well
• The popular CVC session where all the chapter office-bearers discussed about the problems that they face and came up with ideas and suggestions to address them. This exchange of ideas was much needed
• It was unfortunate that some of the volunteers {names of the volunteers} who were driving along with Nishikant to the conference met with an accident. Luckily nothing major happened to them and Nishikant was able to make it to the conference.
• Staying in the dorms in the university reminded us of our college days
• Mohan Bhagat, self-christened Beggar and his relentless passion at that age in life
• The chain-reaction kind-of volunteer-introduction where-in one volunteer was introducing the next volunteer in the chain was nice and because of this many volunteers had an opportunity to others, which might not have happened otherwise

Credits

We were quite surprised when we came to know that the Charlotte chapter which hosted this conference had less than 10 active volunteers and only a 2-year old chapter. Right from picking us up from the airport to dropping us at the airport after the conference. Special thanks from our side to Ramana, Vijayshree, Kiran, Deboshree, Shalini and Nitin. Kudos to their incredible efforts without which this conference wouldn't have been a success. Also due credits to all other AID volunteers who helped the charlotte volunteers from behind the scenes.

Charlotte Chapter Volunteers

Epilogue

Like all things impermanent, the impressions from the conference will gradually fade but we have a feeling they will outlive many other memories.

As someone put it :-

'All in all, for us as AID volunteers, this conference was everything an AID conference should be: energizing, rejuvenating, restoring faith in human spirit, tackling difficult issues, connecting volunteers in a deeper way, and showing new directions going forward.'

On Taking the Wrong Road ...

You are never too far down the wrong path to turn around.

- Scottish Proverb

No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.
- Turkish Proverb

Vaishnav Jan To : Touching and Inspiring Bhajan from 15th Century

वैष्णव जन तो तेने कहिये जे पीड पराई जाणे रे,
पर दुखे उपकार करे तोये मन अभिमान न आणे रे॥

Above are the starting lines of the popular bhajan written by Gujarati poet Narsinh Mehta in the 15th century. It inspired Gandhi a lot and there have been many renditions by popular indian singers. Full lyrics can be found on wikipedia

Take out the word Vishnu and replace with God and those lines are the essence of what spirituality is for me.

One who is a Vaishnav (one who is a devotee of Vishnu)
Knows the pain of others
Does good to others, especially to those ones who are in misery
Does not let pride enter his mind

This is an old post which remained as a draft...
 
Nightmare with Eclipse
       Had heard much about "Eclipse : the open source Java IDE". Just wanted to try out.
Had tried long back (almost a year from now).  But didn't find it appealing enough as the
other IDE that I was using at that time "Idea from IntelliJ" was par above it. The version
that I had used at that point of time was 2.0. Had done all the setup and the look and feel
was good. The act ended at that point. Never thought I would come back to it.
     1 year after, I (for some reasons...)  had to try the latest version. Downloaded it and
the greatest thing I liked was that there was no installation and anything required. Just
unzip it and run it. I didn't get it running in the first try. It required JDK 1.4 and my
system was holding onto JDK 1.3. So referred the README and there found the way
to run it with a VM as the option.
     eclipse -vm $JVM_PATH
     Got it running and it was late, after configuring all my sources I realized that there
was nothing related to Java in the Menus. No Syntax highlighting and nothing. So what's
this: wasn't this a Java IDE. Suspected my system Java configuration for this and
gave up not knowing what to do. Lot of time passed just reading the Help ...no use though.
The ultimate rescue : search in google. Luckily someone in some part of the world had
faced similar problems and so stepped onto this link
     http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165604
     This is stupid....No where in the documentation does it mention that Java Develppment
Tool (eclipse-JDT-3.0.zip) has been moved out of the platform SDK and it is a separate plugin that is to be downloaded explicitly. With the 2.0 worship it was packaged into the
core distribution. All my curses to the guy who made this decision ..or the guy whose responsiblity was to document this stuff. So that was the end of all my woes. Am I not to bark against them for all this pain and loss of time (approximately 4 hours) for just getting my project up.

Spelling hint

Came across this useful hint for resolving making myself clear with the spellings of english words involved i and e in succession.

"e before i only after c"

Blind Earthworm

I never paid much attention to the earthworms previously. Yeah, I used to see many of them particularly in the rainy season and sometimes digging the wet mud. We used to use them as bait for catching fish, but it never occurred to know more about them. Only recently I found them interesting, when I saw one of them going on the walkway in my apartment. I noticed it was blind and just to confirm it picked it up and displaced it by 180 degrees and there it was just following the new course going in the direction I put it. A quick search resulted on this page which had many interesting facts about earthworms:-
http://www.biologyjunction.com/earthworm%20facts.htm

Dew worms can live for approximately six and a half years.

They do not have eyes but they do possess light- and touch-sensitive organs (receptor cells) to distinguish differences in light intensity and to feel vibrations in the ground.

 Earthworms are hermaphroditic meaning each worm has organs of both sexes.

 Earthworms respire through their skin, and therefore require humid conditions to prevent drying out.

Squirrel's Nest

While I was walking around my apartment community today, I noticed a squirrel carrying grass in it mouth onto a Pine tree. It caught my attention and I followed the squirrel to find that it was actually making a nest on the Pine tree. It was kind of a surprise that squirrel's live in/make nests. I never thought about it and I didn't know they make nests on trees like birds. I came home and googled to find some interesting facts about squirrel's over here:-
http://www.squirrels.org/facts.html
Some interesting excerpts:-

Squirrel's belong to the order "Rodentia", with 1650 species, it is the largest group of living mammals.  It also comprises forty percent of all present day mammal species. 

Squirrels chew on tree branches to sharpen and clean their teeth. That's why you may see many small branches on the ground around large trees. They will also chew on power lines for the same reason, this has caused many major power outages throughout the country. 

A female squirrel will choose the strongest male during mating season, but is unlikely to breed with that male again. This is natures way of reducing inbreeding,  and to preserve the species. 

A squirrel will break the shell of a nut with its teeth, then clean the nut by licking it or rubbing on its face before it is buried. This action applies a scent to the nut which helps the squirrel find it later, even under a foot of snow.

 

A beautifully written song : Jagame Maaya Bratuke Maaya

A beautifully composed/written/sung song which captures the essence of life. This is from the famous telugu movie 'Devdas'.

I had heard it many a times earlier, but it was never as effective as today. As someone said...it's always there, we only see it when we are ready.

Here are the lyrics and translation to english:-
http://www.poetfreak.com/text/57036/song-of-devdas.html

Random Thought - Futile Search

Nothing can be more futile than searching for meaning/purpose inside a system that was created by us.

All the rules, ideas and values that we live by were created by us. They don't have any real meaning from the point of the universe or the higher order.

Inequality is our creation. It is we who said a white is superior than a black, one caste is superior to the other, the ruler is superior to the ruled, an intelligent person is superior to a dumb person. It is we who said killing in a war is good but killing someone just like that is not good. We created a system that was unjust and now we fight it and say fighting for a cause is worth living for. That's the same as a war which helps create jobs.

Education is the tool to indoctrinate us. It only helps us navigate the intricate system that we created ourselves. We are born and we die just like any other being. All the things that we do from our birth to death are just to keep ourselves busy, to kill the boredom in life and to stop from killing ourselves.

We are as insignificant as an ant or a microbe. There is no such thing as 'advancement of civilization' or 'the greater good'. They're all lies.

There is no such thing as 'PURPOSE OF LIFE'

On Time Management

A very useful guide on time-management. Many of them we already know, but having them at one place makes it quite useful. Thanks to Etienne Garbugli for compiling this.

26-time-management-hacks-i-wish-id-known-at-20

Wheeling in Change

A very nice video made about adopting cycling and public transport in Bangalore. Proud to see Anitha being part of this. Some concrete benefits in terms of monetary savings and reduction in carbon emissions are really worth noting and amplify the effect.

I hope this video creates a positive change not just in India, but around the world.

NCERT Books Available online

I came to know today that all the NCERT books from Class I to Class XII are available. But this is indeed a good deed by NCERT. They can be accessed from this location: http://www.ncert.nic.in/NCERTS/textbook/textbook.htm

As per this article (http://www.hindu.com/edu/2006/06/06/stories/2006060600070200.htm)
in 'The Hindu' this was done in the year 2006 to overcome the problem of shortage of textbooks

Changed my Blog's title

I have been thinking for quite some time to change the title of my blog. My previous title 'Life as it goes by ...' has been bothering me for quite some time. It was quite passive and was in some way reflecting that I was not in control of my life, I was just a mere observer. Maybe this was my opinion when I started this blog. But I don't carry that belief now. Hence this assertive change.

Mount Diablo Challenge

Results of the Mount Diablo Challenge are out and I clocked 1:19:43.8 and stood at 437/607 participants. The timing for the leader was 47:08:06. I had wanted to do it under an hour but the practice and motivation were not enough to accomplish this.
Here are the results.

My Best Timings

Event/Activity Details	Activity Type	Timing	Distance	Date
Half Marathon in Hyderabad	Running	1:55 hrs	21 km	Nov 21, 2009
Half Marathon in San Francisco	Running	2:20 hrs	21 km	April 2008
Pagemill Climb (from Arastradero to Open Space Reserve)	Cycling	0:54 hrs	7.2 mile	May 2012
Mount Hamilton Climb (from Alum Rock Ave to the top)	Cycling	2:01 hrs	17.84 mile	Sep 30 2012
Mount Diablo Climb (from Athenian School to the top)	Cycling	1:25 hrs	11.2	July 2012
Mount Diablo Climb (from Athenian School to the top) During the Mt. Diablo Challenge	Cycling	1:19:43.8 hrs	11.2	07 Oct 2012
Saratoga Climb (from Pierce Road to the top)	Cycling	0:46 hrs	17.84 mile	2012
Fremont School Pool in Sunnyvale	Swimming	-	260 mtr	Oct 3, 2012

Analysis of 'Fight Club'

http://voices.yahoo.com/a-psychological-analysis-chuck-palahniuks-fight-322034.html

Mount Diablo Challenge

I finally registered for the Mount Diablo Challenge. It's a tough task to climb 3,249 ft over 11.2 km under 1 hour. But I am taking the challenge. Have 3 months for preparation. Unfortunately because of the delay in registering I missed the first 2 waves.
http://www.savemountdiablo.org/activities_events_chal.html

Inability or Disinterest?

I dont know what it is?

Good in everyday life

I met this lady called Chris at a physical therapy office. She was very helpful and when I started a conversation with her regarding Anitha's PT sessions and the coming colorado ride, she started giving good advice borne out of her own experiences. And also about how it feels to have prepared a lot and not being able to ride because of some physical problem just before the ride. She talked nicely to me for a long time and I was wondering the why was she being so good taking out her office time and talking to just another customer. Her voice was genuine and it was not a trained customer service representative's voice. In this world where everybody seems to be so busy and pressed out for time (doing what?) somebody unknown taking time out for you is a scarcity. It humbles you when you receive good from unknown quarters of life. It adds strength to the belief that you can do good by small things in your daily life. You don't have to be a Mahatma.

Ennui

"For too long we have been dreaming a dream from which we are now
waking up: the dream that if we just improve the socioeconomic
situation of people, everything will be okay, people will become
happy. The truth is that as the struggle for survival has subsided,
the question has emerged: survival for what? Ever more people today
have the means to live, but no meaning to live for." - Viktor E Frankl

Irrepressible Desire

I had a desire. I kept pushing it to the wall but it would always come back after a brief hiatus. For various reasons I gave a blind eye to it, but it would never subside. Somebody said, that you cannot kill a desire, you only have to fulfill it.

My Hero calls it a day

Rahul Dravid, my long-time hero and idol as a cricketer and a person, has retired from test cricket. The fact that I am blogging about it almost two days late, calls for some deep introspection.
Numerous articles have been written about the diligent, the hardworking, the gentleman, the true ambassador of the game, the quintessential wall. He knew what he was born for and he carried that duty to perfection. I remember reading this article about him, which compared the two geniuses: Sachin and Rahul. While Sachin was a gifted genius, Rahul was a self-made one. You could not become a Sachin, but you could aspire to become a Rahul, but it's extremely difficult for the same reason.
I was lucky to have seen him on couple of occasions. The class in his batting and his demeanor, can never be forgotten. In those early years, his batting caught my attention and I soon became his admirer and fan. I think it was not just his batting, but the way he performed on/off the field that drew me towards him. I have not been following cricket too-closely for quite some time, but if ever there was a desire to watch a match it was primarily to see him bat.

The fact that "The Hindu" carried a front-page section for his retirement speaks of his greatness. The title is 'Standing tall, ‘The Wall' bows out'.
Here's his retirement press conference : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qteHves1MYQ
Anybody who had contributed so much to cricket would have loved to have a farewell on the field, but he chose it inappropriate to do that considering that this decision was after the completion of a series and hanging in there for one last test for just this reason would be selfish. That's the person he is. I wish I will continue to hear of him from the press. I hope he would write an auto-biography one day so that I could peek into his life, but I am sure he will not do that. He's too modest to do something like that. Some people want to be nice, and some people are just nice.

Amul...too has reserved a billboard for this moment:-
http://www.amul.com/files/hits/amul-hits-1402.jpg
http://www.amul.com/files/hits/amul-hits-1394.jpg

An example of "Vision"

Around 5 yrs back I posted on my blog about the MMTS service that was started in hyderabad around the year 2003. Here's the link for the post:-

http://dhiraj.blogspot.com/2006/01/hi-tech-city-station.html

The service then was not a big hit and was criticized for the low occupancy. Fast forward it to now...8 yrs later...today during the peak hours it's full to the brim, offers a cheap, fast, green alternative to other modes of transport. Considering the growing demand, additional trains and coaches were introduced couple of days back. My wife and I are both using this service to commute to work and cant stop praising/thanking it everyday. This is a true example of a vision. The vision of Mr. Chandrababu Naidu (and his team). Kudos to them. We need leaders like him.

Excellent Post on Time Management

http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/do-it-now.htm

Java Anti Patterns

Came across this nice articles which enumerates some quite basic and common mistakes done by Java programmes. Definitely worth a read.

http://www.odi.ch/prog/design/newbies.php

Another Brick in the wall

It's very easy to give up...

Extremely difficult to stand up and fight.

If you think giving up/detachment is a virtue... then you are wrong... the separation is thin. Detachment is the state in which you didn't have a yearning for it, but you give up something, to which you were attached some point of time. You gave up not because you wanted to be detached...rather you accepted the defeat and were forced to forfeit and be detached.

Dont give up... be detached !!! pun....it's a big pun

Cycling in hyderabad

After a long time did a long ride along with Anitha. She on her Merida and I on my Specialized. Got up early and started at 6.15 am from our house in srinagar colony and went all the way to Gandipet lake (a.k.a Osman Sagar Lake). It's around 28km one way. It was a little cold on the way and roads were empty and the road through Artillery center was very good. It was a pleasant ride to Gandipet. It got hotter on the way back though and the traffic at Mehdipatnam was a spoiler. Were back at our home by 9.45 am. Here's the Google pedometer map of the route : http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=4329901 . Good to be back on the bike after quite some time. Both of us enjoyed it.

Cricket Grounds in Hyderabad

It's quite difficult to find a proper cricket ground in hyderabad. Some of them that I am aware of :-

• HCA Gymkhana ground, SD Road, Paradise. This is a beautiful ground and many Ranji matches are played here. Turf and grass all along the ground. Contact Dutta (9885830200)
• Sanatnagar Welfare Center Cricket Ground, Sanatnagar. Mat, no grass on the ground. Contact Dhanraj Babu (9394556356). More details over here:- http://www.sudeep.me/2008/01/cricket-grounds-in-hyderabad.html
• Sarojini Cricket & Fitness Academy, Bagh Lingampally. Very small ground, but there's good amount of grass. Played on mat. More details here
• MCH ground, opposite Shenoy Nursing home, Marredpally. Small ground. No grass, played on mat.

Participating in AIDS Lifecycle 8

It's been a long time since I posted anything. I am doing the AIDS Lifecycle ride
this year too. Look over here:-
http://www.tofighthiv.org/goto/dhiraj

And this is the video I created in preparation for the ride:-



Prepared it using Microsoft Photo Story 3. Used the pictures that we took on the previous years ride and some others from www.jeffbrockstudio.com.

Tour oF Nilgiris

I am happy to see that organized long-distance cycling events are starting to take place in India. Stumbled upon the link to "Tour of Nilgiris", 7 day 919 km cycling event from Bangalore to Mysore. The culture of cycling is spreading to India...one good effects of globalization ;-)

Comfortably numb

The child is grown, the dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

- The Wall, Pink Floyd

It's all about Biking (Bicycling)

4000 miles on my bike and still going. Little did I think that I would do so much of cycling when I bought my road bike in May 2007. Thanks to biker-friendly California and the sport of Bicycling itself, it has become my passion. Sometimes I even foolishly think of becoming a Pro.

It was in the month of May 2007 that I first rode on my bicycle, a mere 12 miles. But it wasn't until Oct 2007 that I seriously started cycling. I have been commuting to office on my bicycle since then, 17 miles a day. At around the same time Sudhir and I decided to participate in the annual AIDS LifeCycle'08 event, in which we had to cover 545 miles from SF to LA in 7 days. It was in that event that I did my first century on the bike. That ride increased my interest in cycling even more and nowadays I spend some of my weekends going on long rides on my bicycle. For the first time I watched Tour De France 08 and also started keenly following the Pro races. Had I been into this a little earlier, I would have followed the AMGEN Tour of California where most of the Pro teams around the world complete. Hopefully my wish of watching a Pro race with my naked eyes will be fulfilled in Feb '09. That's when the Tour of California will begin.

Road Cycling is a wonderful sport. You can enjoy it in solo, no company required. You can go to far away places and enjoy the natural beauty along the way, as if riding in a car with an open-top. It's a nice way to keep you in shape. Unlike Running, there isn't so much of impact on your legs and knees. And if you commute daily on bike then you are being very Green and also saving a lot of money on Gas. For e.g 4000 miles would mean (4000/30)*4 ~ 500$ of savings in a year.

Thanks to America for bringing me into contact with Biking. Hopefully I will be able to continue Biking throughout my life, irrespective of where I will be.

Book Excerpt : Its not about the bike

This is an extract from the book "It's not about the bike, My journey back to life" on Lance Armstrong the seven time Tour-de-France champion:-

THE QUESTION THAT LINGERS IS, HOW MUCH WAS I A factor in my own survival, and how much was science, and how much miracle?
I don't have the answer to that question. Other people look to me for the answer, I know. But if I could answer it, we would have the cure for cancer, and what's more, we would fathom the true meaning of our existences. I can deliver motivation, inspiration, hope, courage, and counsel, but I can't answer the unknowable. Personally, I don't need to try. I'm content with simply being alive to enjoy the mystery.
Good joke:
A man is caught in a flood, and as the water rises he climbs to the roof of his house and waits to be rescued. A guy in a motorboat comes by and he says, "Hop in, I'll save you."
"No, thanks," the man on the rooftop says. "My Lord will save me."
But the floodwaters keep rising. A few minutes later, a rescue plane flies overhead and the pilot drops a line.
"No, thanks," the man on the rooftop says. "My Lord will save me." But the floodwaters rise ever higher, and finally, they overflow the roof and the man drowns.
When he gets to heaven, he confronts God.
"My Lord, whey didn't you save me?" he implores.
"You idiot," God says. "I sent you a boat, I sent you a plane".
I think in a way we are all just like the guy on the rooftop. Things take place, there is a confluence of events and circumstances, and we can't always know their purpose, or even if there is one,. But we can take responsibility for ourselves and be brave.

Red-use, Re-use, Recycle

Yesterday (April 22nd) was Earth Day. If I were not in US probably I wouldn't have known about it. Lot of people here are concerned about their carbon footprint. It's a different matter that US does most of the climate damage.
There's a lot of talk about Recycling. That's nice but the other problem is that the US economy is primarily driven by consumption. For a variety of reasons (cost, convenience), there is excessive consumption. This is really bad for the environment. It's economically cheaper to buy a new good instead of getting it repaired because of the labor cost. Just dump it and buy a new one. And yeah we can recycle it. There is extra cost for recycling it. It would have helped the environment a lot if the good was reused and extra goods were not manufactured at all.
One fact I realized is that there is a lot of food that gets flown via flights to different parts of the world. This contributes to significant amount of global warming because of the fuel required for transport. Often the cost to environment is not considered in the economics.
Individual can do considerable help in reducing global warming. Some of the things are:-
- Switching off lights when not in use
- Carpooling/Biking/Taking buses etc whenever possible
- Avoiding using throwaway plastic cutlery and styrofoam plates
- Reusing stuff as much as possible

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle as much as possible.

AIDS/Lifecycle Practice 1

Now that the event AIDS/Lifecycle is just 6 weeks away, and now that the California Summer of 2008 has arrived (Forget the afternoon, but the evenings are amazingly refreshing), I shred my lethargy and went for my first practice ride from Cupertino to Stanford and back a total of 24 miles at a stretch. Did it in 2 hrs, my usual speed. I know it's very less and I feel the pinch every now and then when somebody overtakes with ease :-(. This is a good beginging and if I keep commuting to office on my bicycle that should serve the minimum training. But I need to build my lower-back muscles so that they are strong enough to keep in the riding position everyday for 80 miles for a week. My back started aching towards the last quarter of the ride today. Time to go to gym.
Here's the map from Google Pedometer
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1790162

My First Half-Marathon

I have been jogging all through my life but never for more than 1 hour and never very seriously. The last public event of worth mentioning is Hyderabad 10k run (in 2005) around the Hussain Sagar. I guess I completed it in a little over 1 hour. On that day I realized that I could run for even 2 hrs at that low speed. Running very slowly is the key atleast for beginers.

Thanks to Vamsi & Sudhir, we all (including Bharath) registered for this event that was to happen on April 5th 2008. Sudhir & myself knew that running 13 miles wouldn't be easy without practice, so we started practicing running on school tracks in the evenings. The practice helped us a little, but little did we know how hilly the terrain would be in the Golden Gate Headlands Marathon (Rodeo Beach, California). The idea of going to the Rancho San Antonia Park, turned out to be helpful as we realized how difficult it would be to run on Hills. Then, couple of days before the event Sudhir saw the altitude graph of the terrain, and then we had some vague idea of the difficulty involved. At least these events prepared us mentally for the half-marathon.

It was nice to see the number of participants of all ages. This was my first such public event in USA. In the begining itself we had to climb a hill and the altitude gain in the first 1.5 miles was around 600 ft (600 ft looks very small, but you'll know only when you run it :-). And there were steps in one place. We were happy to see the steps as we could stop running there and walk for some time. Sudhir and I ran together and completed the half-marathon in 2 hrs 19 mins. It's not a bad timing considering the terrain and that this was the first one for us and we hadn't
really practiced much before the event and I felt good. The last stretch on the beach was quite tough and it sapped me completely. But seeing Sudhir continuing, I pushed myself. Running together helps a lot atleast for beginers like us. I had a small knee pain, which I generally get if I use too much of my legs. Other than that there weren't any problems.
Check out the result here:-
http://www.envirosports.com/results/event/2216/results.php?p=2&bib=766

And the photos are available here on Flickr:-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dhiraj/tags/halfmarathon/

Jo Beet gayi so baat gayi-Harivansh Rai Bachchan

One poem from my school days which is my favorite and it still echoes in my mind. That's the beauty of it. It was written by Harivansh Rai Bachchan (father of Amitabh Bachchan) at the time of the demise of one of his dear friends. It goes like this:-

जीवन में एक सितारा था
माना वह बेहद प्यारा था
वह डूब गया तो डूब गया
अंबर के आनन को देखो
कितने इसके तारे टूटे
कितने इसके प्यारे छूटे
जो छूट गए फ़िर कहाँ मिले
पर बोलो टूटे तारों पर
कब अंबर शोक मनाता है
जो बीत गई सो बात गई

Read the rest of it over here. (Thanks to Sandeep for writing it in Hindi)

AIDS Lifecycle : Cycling for a cause

This summer (June 1-7, 2008) I will be cycling from San Fransisco to Los Angeles (a total of 545 miles in 7 days) to raise donations for fighting AIDS Worldwide. I will be one of the ~2500 people participating in this tremendous event. It's a tough physical job but I hope to complete it successfully with months of training and support from near and dear.

Visit my personal page for details and donate/leave a note of support.
http://www.aidslifecycle.org/6691

Words of wisdom...

From one of those email forwards:-

Forget about the days
when its been cloudy, but
don't forget your hours in the sun.

Forget about mistakes
that you can't change now, but
don't forget the lessons
that you've learned.


Forget about the times
you've been defeated, but
don't forget the victories you've won.


Forget about the days
when you've been lonely, but
don't forget the friendly smiles you've seen.


Forget about the plans
that didn't seem
To work out right, but...

Don't forget to Always Have A Dream

Keep Smiling

Yahoo Pipes

I had heard about Yahoo Pipes long time back (If my memory doesn't fail me, it should be more than six months). Little did I realize that it would be a very handy tool for me then. I have been searching for a used car for a long time and checking craigslist has sort of become a daily habit for me. It was becoming very painful visiting the site and finding out the cars that interest me. I was thinking of writing some Java Program which would filter out the things for me and send me an email of only the cars that I am looking for. Only a few days back I realized that I could use a Yahoo Pipe for the same. So I wrote a Yahoo Pipe. (Of course there were many similar pipes that people had already written, but they wouldn't meet my specific requirement and also to satisfy my ego, I thought it would be good to write one myself.) It was so easy and fast to write and the Pipe creation Tool was very impressive and I loved it. And we have an option of using the Yahoo alerts to get notifications about any changes in the Pipe Results. This was what I was exactly looking for. Had I written a Java Program it would have taken me more time and it wasn't worth the effort...until my search for cars doesn't end. Check it out http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/. You can copy others pipes and customize them, embed Pipes within Pipes. I guess these are the next-generation SOA apps or what is the term "Mashups". I am really impressed with these concepts. Trivia: As anybody can guess it derives it's name from Unix Pipes.

GM Rao is the Enterpreneur of the Year 2007

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2430267.cms

Feathers in the cap of California

clipped from gov.ca.gov I have been asked to talk to you today about what is happening in California, what are we doing about climate change. Ladies and gentlemen, something remarkable is beginning to stir, something revolutionary, something historic and transformative. Let me give you some background. California already leads the nation in information technology. We lead the nation in nanotechnology, biotechnology, and in medical technology. We generate one of every four US patents and attract almost half of all US venture capital. According to The Economist magazine, California is also home to three of the top six universities in the world, and in addition to all of this, California is the seventh largest economy in the world. Now I don’t mention these things simply to boast or brag. I mention it because California is a very powerful state, and very powerful place, and when we do something it has consequences. And here is what we’re doing.

My Wine-List

Wines that I have tasted till now:-

Red Wine

1. Merlot
2. Zinfandel
3. Cabernet Sauvignon
   

White Wine

American Beauty & Steve Jobs

The movie American Beauty ends with Lester's (protoganist) description of his life flashing before his eyes, interspersed with scenes of his family and others at the moment of the gunshot. Looking back on these events from his vantage point as narrator, Lester is only content:

"I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much; my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.

You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... You will someday."

I think it's conicidence, but just today came across this speech given by Steve Jobs. Here's an extract from it:-

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Road Trip to Death Valley

Date: 22nd-25th Dec 2006
To : Death Valley National Park, California
With : Vikram and Pradeep
Photos are here.

How could be a desert beautiful? I always associated beauty with greenery. That was my thought before going on this trip. But my opinions completely changed after going there. I realized how narrow my definition of beauty was.

We went in Vikram’s BMW X5. They were both driving, taking turns, and I was relaxing in the rear seat. Pradeep had already been to this place many times and he played the role of an informed Guide all through the journey.We started at around 2.30 pm from office in Palo Alto. Our destination was 450 miles from our place and it was expected to be completed in around 8 hrs. Enroute I saw lot of oil wells. California has good farmlands. I was amazed to see such huge farms. Agriculture is completely mechanized over here, otherwise there was no way they could cultivate such huge farms. Halfway through the journey, we stopped at Bakersfield to fill our bellies for the night. US has allround development, wherever you go you’ll find good roads and the same stores/restaurants/banks etc. On the way we stopped at a lonely/dark place to gaze at the beautiful star-studded night sky. In the dark, we descended into the valley. Before we started descending, I got the first glance of snow after coming to bay area. I was eager to touch it and I did that. But soon I would see lot more of snow. It was around 11 pm by the time we reached Furnace Creek Ranch, the hotel where we would stay for the next 3 nights. This place is rightly named as Furnace Creek as it’s right inside the Death Valley and the temperatures in the summer over here go upto 115 degree F. Furnace Creek was standing as an Oasis in the desert with the only place I could see greenery. Once in the room, we retired to bed so as to get up early so that we could make the best of the available time.

First Day (23rd Dec 2006)

Our Guide decided that Race Track would be the first place to visit. It was around 70 miles from our hotel. I had no idea what we were heading for. The last leg of the journey to Race Track was to be covered on a kuchcha road. It completely reduced our speed, but it was worth it. On the route I could see snow in the light of the day. Later while returning I stopped by the road-side to hold the snow in my hands and play with it. The picture of the Race Track from the car itself was great. It’s a incredibly vast flat lake-bed surrounded on all sides by the Mountains.

As soon as I came out of the car and stepped onto the race track, I couldn’t stop myself from running from this end to the other end and then come back. I dont know what made me do that, it was more than a mile one-way and it was cold too. Standing in the center of the Race Track and looking at the panorama around you covering mountains was an experience to my eyes. I felt like playing football and cricket there. The Race Track is also known for the moving rocks. It’s seems nobody has ever seen those rocks moving, except for the tracks which show their path. It seems that these rocks move, when the Race Track becomes wet.

From here we went to the Ubehebe Crater. I had only seen pictures of volcanic craters till now. And now I was seeing a Crater with my naked eyes. It was 600ft deep and I went till the lowest point. Pradeep and Vikram came half-way down. I yelled in my full pitch to hear my yell travelling through the walls of the crater and reverberating. I collecteda few volcanic stones as souvenir. Only when we were climbing up, did we realize how difficult was. The ascent completely sapped our energy. Once we were out of the crater we relaxed for a while and then headed towards the Titus Canyon. It’s a long canyon, but it didn’t look that appealing and further we were tried, so we decided not to go along the Canyon. We had our lunch there and got some energy to go for the next target.

We then drove to the point where the Sand Dunes were there. I had seen them from the car, when we drove to Race Track in the morning. I cant understand, how these dunes formed, because at no other place in the Valley could I see such kind of fine-grained sand. It’s only at this place and I heard it’s spread on an area of 15 sq. miles. We had little time as the Sun was about to set. I took off my shoes, and ran on the Sand to feel it by my feet. There were a couple of big Dunes, but I couldn’t afford to go that far. I liked it and now I feel like visiting Rajasthan. From there we went to the Mosaic Canyon, which was a short but good one. It had nice marble stones along it. By the time we came out of the Canyon it was dark enough and we decided to be done with the day and returned to Furnace Creek Ranch. Had Dinner at the 49ers Cafe and strolled in the souvenir shop for a while and then went to our room. It was a tiring but wonderful day. We watched the famous Sholay movie that night (courtesy Pradeep and his IPod).

Second Day (24th December 2006)

The first spot on the itinerary for the day was the Bad Water Basin. We drove for less than an hour along the descending road to reach the lowest point in North America: The Bad Water Basin. It’s 282 ft below the sea level. It’s a very very big salt-basin. It’s like the Race Track, filled with layer(s) of salt. I dont know how thick the layer of salt is. It was formed over the years, because of the water from the surrounding mountains accumulating over here and as there is no outlet for this water, the only way it could disappear was the intense heat in the summer, leaving behind the salt. We played football with a tennis ball over there for a while. Beauty is of different kinds.

We then headed to the Devil’s Golf Course: A funny name. It was named so, because the land there was like tilled land (with salty masses), and it’s so rough that only Devil’s can play golf there. From a distance it looks like there only a layer of salt on land, but from close inspection you’ll realize that it’s all salt mixed with soil. Again, dont know how thick it is. Then we drove along to the Artist’s Palette. The naming comes from the various colors of soil/rocks on the small hills, which get their color from the minerals present in it. We could see tints of Green, Red, Yellow, Brown and Blue. It was nice.

Our next spot was the Golden Canyon. There’s a trekking path through the hills which starts from the entrance of the Golden Canyon and ends at Zarbiske’s point. This trek was one of the best parts of the trip for me, although we decided not to go till the Zabriske’s point as it would eat up some of our valuable time. I found stones of various colors, of which I collected as many as my hands could hold as souvenirs. In the trek, there was a path which was along the body of one of the highest peaks. (I am limited by my vocab to describe it, but this is what I intend to describe this path http://www.flickr.com/photos/dhiraj/346362707/). It was particularly interesting. The area was containing of lots of short hills, which we could have had explored completely, had we got the time for it. There was another spot called the Red Cathedral, yet another mid-sized hill named like that because of it’s color and shape.

After having lunch at one of the camping locations, we headed towards one of the high-altitude peaks. This is called the Dante’s Peak. As we were driving towards it we could notice the drop in the temperature and also patches of snow. I wasn’t aware of how big a surprise was awaiting me. We reached the peak, and it was very very chilling there. For the first time I had to wrap myself in two layers of sweaters. I was enthralled by what my eyes were showing me. From this point, we had an amazing view of the Bad Water Basin and all the salt where-in we were playing that morning was looking like water. The best vantage point to see the Death Valley. The Sun was around an hour away from setting, and we were yet to see Zabriske’s point. So we moved on, although unwillingly. The Zabriske’s point was very close to the road and very much accessible. From here we could see all the small hills around Grand Canyon, where we were trekking in the noon. It was getting dark. I wanted to stay there and watch the start-studded night-sky lying on my back, but the other two were of a different opinion and so headed to our hotel. Had dinner at the same place and retired to our beds.

3rd day (25th December 2006)

It was Christmas day and also the last day of our trip. I got up early and took some of the pictures around Furnace Creek Ranch, at the time of sun-rise. There’s a golf course in the Ranch and it was looking beautiful with the mountains in the background. We packed up all our stuff, checked out of the hotel and drove out of Furnace Creek. Wildrose Charcoal Kilns was the only item that we thought of covering. Along the route to the Kilns, for the first time I could see some greenery and trees. We thought of going to the Aguereberry Point, but the road was very bad and so we had to back-off. After driving for some time we reached the place where Charcoal Kilns were there. There was a lot of snow at this place on these mountains and I was excited. There were a total of 10 kilns which were built in the later half of 19th century to make charcoal required during mining. They were still intact. The road near that point was slippery because of ice and the car even slipped. From here, had we got the necessary equipment and time, we could have hiked along the snowy route to reach the Telescope peak, which is the highest-peak in the Death Valley, stading 11049 ft above sea-level. It’s a pretty tough trek, but would have been great had we done it. Maybe the next time, if at all there is one. That was the last item from Death Valley and the we started on our journey back home.

It was my first road-trip and it turned out to be a wonderful one, beating my expectations and changing my definition of beauty. There were a couple of places that we missed due to lack of time, like the Scotty’s Castle and Panamint Springs. There were lot of nice places to hike and also camp, which can never be covered, no matter how much time you have at your disposal. Death Valley is such a vast and beautiful place.

Here’s my rating of all the places that I saw:-

1. Dante’s Peak
2. Golden Canyon
3. Race Track
4. Ubehebe Crater
5. Mesquite Sand Dune’s
6. Bad Water Basin
7. Wildrose Charcoal Kilns
8. Mosaic Canyon
9. Zabriske’s Point

Vivekanda's paper on Hinduism

This is a link to the paper on Hinduism presented by Swami Vivekananda,
at the World parliament of Religion at Chicago, 19th September 1893.
http://www.theuniversalwisdom.org/hinduism/paper-on-hinduism-vivekananda/
Bear with the considerably large no. of typos in this version.

Here are some of the lines that I liked:-

"Lord, I do not want wealth nor children nor learning. If it be Thy
will, I shall go from birth to birth; but grant me this, that I
may love Thee without the hope of reward - love unselfishly for
love’s sake."

"Unity in variety is the plan of nature, and the Hindu has
recognized it. Every other religion lays down certain fixed dogmas
and tries to force society to adopt them. It places before society
only one coat which must fit Jack and John and Henry, all alike.
If it does not fit John or Henry he must go without a coat to
cover his body. The Hindus have discovered that the absolute can
only be realized, or thought of, or stated through the relative,
and the images, crosses, and crescents are simply so many symbols
- so many pegs to hang spiritual ideas on. It is not that this
help is necessary for everyone, but those that do not need it have
no right to say that it is wrong. Nor is it compulsory in
Hinduism."

Earth at Night

This link has the picture of how Earth looks at night (of course, it's an image formed
by super-imposing many images from satellites)
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020810.html

Money-n-Fame

Let not fame and money hijack the purpose of life.

Desire...Quest...Consummation...Greed

Let not the progression of Desire to Quest to Consummation... reach the stage of Greed.
Run, rabbit run.
Dig that hole, forget the sun,
And when at last the work is done
Don't sit down it's time to dig another one.

- "DARK SIDE OF THE MOON", Pink Floyd

Bringing in Change

Just like there are two ways of designing software, there are also
two ways in which change can be bought in :-
- Top-down. This has a lot of impact and is very intrusive. A faster
way to bring-in change. There will be oppositions and revolutions
and without force or authority this cannot be done.
- Bottom-up. This is very non-intrusive. Instead of asking people
to change, can make them realize that what could be the benefits
of the change, and they would automatically change, once they
see the benefits. This is more durable, but would take a longer
time. No force or authority is required in this case. This is how
the companies like Infosys, Wipro, TCS bought the IT revolution
in India. Only after the successes of these companies did the
government start building STPIs, giving away land and other
infrastructural support to this sector and some other financial
incentives.

Who am I?

I am zilch. My role gives me identity. My sole objective is to
worship my role. Worship in the true sense.

Verses from Gita - 3.27

प्रक्रितेह् क्रियमानानि गुनैहि कर्मानि सर्वशह्
अहन्कारविमुदात्मा कर्ताहमिति मन्यते

అహన్కారము యొక్క్ ప్రభావముచె కలత్ నోన్దిమ్పబదిన జివాత్మ
నిజముగ భౌతిక ప్రక్రితి యొక్క త్రిగునములచె చెయబదిన కర్మలకు తానె కర్తనని భావిన్చును.
(Translated by P.C Bhaktivedaanta Swamy (ISKCON founder))

Purpose of Life - All the world's a stage

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts
- William Shakespheare (from As You Like It)

I heard this many a times, but it is now that I have come to see
relevance of this quote in all our lives. If we go by the quote and
assume that the world is a stage and we are all actors, then there are
some questions that arise and some ideas that we can infer from that
assumption:-
- What should be the aim of the actors (meaning us)? The aim of the
actors is ONLY to play the role as best as possible. And this is the
only objective of the person. The individual should put all his efforts
to make the best performance. Does this mean that the people who play
the bad roles have to be as bad as possible, because their role demands that?
But shouldn't I know the script to play my role well ?
- There are both good and bad roles. Gandhiji said "Hate the crime
and not the criminal". This is very apt. An individual might be
playing multiple roles simultaneously. So if the individual has
to play one bad role, then it doesn't mean that the individual
is to be hated because of that role. Valmiki was a hunter in his early
life. If this was believed then a thief/rebel would be accepted into
the society very easily, than the way it is now.
- Which are the real roles and which are manufactured/fake roles?
- How do I know what my actual role is?
- It's the role that is important and not the one who is playing it. This
is a very important inference, because if each one of us assimilates
this then there will not be any vanity. Everybody who plays his role,
would be given the respect no matter how supposedly small/insignificant
role that he is playing. Individuals who are achievers or considered
to be successful, often have lot of vanity, because they think that it
is they who had achieved this all by themselves. But this is not true.
It's the circumstances (or the role) that have brought them there.
Rather, it's the role that is great and not the person. All the
individual did was to play his role to his best and ofcourse he should
be applauded for doing that. The individual should not forget that,
the role that he played could have been played by somebody else too.
If not Mahatma Gandhi somebody else,
If not Nathuram Godse somebody else,
If not Bhagat Singh somebody else,
If not Sachin Tendulkar somebody else,
If not Rahul Dravid somebody else,
If not Abraham Lincoln somebody else,
If not Einstien somebody else,
If not Hitler somebody else,
If not Lance Armstrong somebody else,
If not Narayan Murthy somebody else,
If not Mother Theresa somebody else,
If not Norman Borlaug somebody else,
If not Verghese Kurien somebody else,
If the people see the distinction between the role and the actor, then
they would not set the goal to be Sachin Tendulkar but rather to be a
great batsmen. Unfortunately the society gives more importance to the
actor than the role as the role is very abstract and it doesn't have
any existence.
[There's a lot of relevance in the workplace. Once people realize that
it's the goal that matters and that all their roles are created to
achieve that goal, and their only objective is to play their roles
to perfection then they would compare their performances and not
their compensations. They would not care about recognitions and
designations]
Service above self. (Put the quote in hindi -- seva parmodharma).
If people realize that it is their role in the larger goal that is
important, people would cooperate with each other in working towards
the goal inspite of their differences. Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi
would have continued playing together, if they would have realized this,
if they would have understood that the individual should yield to the
larger goal.
- Every role has significance. Just like the character of the (almost
completely disconnected) squirrel in the "Ice Age 2" movie, whch
plays a major role in the movie, by unknowingly saving all the
animals, everybody's role is of significance irrespective of how
small/minor it is.
- Separation of concerns. We have to play multiple roles simultaneously.
And as mentioned above, our objective should be to play all these
roles they best way we can. And to do this we have to keep them all
separated, without allowing any role to influence any other role in
any ways.
- Detachment. Once you step out somebody else will step in and all that
you were because of the role that you played, is gone. You should be
ready to accept this fact. You should realize that all that you are
getting as part of playing the role will not be available once you
cease to play your role and that you should not try to hold onto those.
There will always be cases when you'll find a person who can play the
role better than you, and then you should righteously give way to him.
- Relentless pursuit of perfection. Perfection is ideal and it can never
be achieved. And that's the reason why
For every Sampras there is a Federer,
For every Gavaskar there is a Sachin,
For every Newton there is an Einstien,
So individuals should strive to push the limits to reach perfection in
whatever they do.
- Just like most of the plays/stage which have a happy ending, will there
be a time when every individual will be happy? Will there be a time when all
the bad roles transform into good roles and there will no longer be any bad
roles?
- Why attribute success to a single individual and honor/appreciate/recognize
/appreciate only him/her, when there are lot of people involved in it? Is
it because all of them cannot be praised, because humans dont want equality,
because an individual would be happy when he is shown as above the rest? Is
it because he/she has set an example, and doing this would inspire others
to follow him/her? But should you make people to work for recognitions than
work for work itself?

A picture you ought to see

Another story on GMR

Sometime back I had written on my blog about the
GMR Group. It seems to be growing very rapidly...and I hope the GMR group becomes as big as the Reliance group.
As per this article on rediff

Rao, who owns a 79% stake, is worth $2.2 billion, enough for him to debut at No. 18 on Forbes Asia's third annual list of India's 40 Richest.

Friends Map at Orkut

I didn't notice this until today. Orkut provides a nice friends map using Google Maps.
That is mine (For some reason no one is showing up in India :-()

The amazingly cool WII

The newly introduced Nintendo Wii (pronounced as We) is an amazingly cool innovation.
I am not one of those guys who is into gaming, but the other day when I saw people
trying it out at the Valley Fair Mall in San Jose, I couldn't stop myself from trying it. I played boxing and
it was as if you were really in the ring and were fight with an opponent to knock him down. No more key combinations or press-buttons...Just swing your arms and body and
it recognizes the motion of the body and also the pace of the motion and reacts
accordingly. I think this is a revolutionary technology.
The last time (remember I am not into gaming) I was amazed, was when I got a jerk/sth
of the sort of a shock when I held the Playstation controller in my hand, and when
I hit my car with sth while playing the NFS sort-of game. I am talking abt the
feeedback and this was like 4-5 years back. But looking at it now, I get the thought..."but isn't that very basic and simple".

The crazy Vista story

I am not sure if I have heard it properly ...but I remember hearing to the radio
that Vista was a 50,000 man year project. Isn't that crazy...but that's what I
heard "10,000 people working for 5 years". (Yeah it does include every person involved
in the effort: the developers, the testers, the program managers, the UI experst and
the other higher-ups). I dont know anything abt what's new in the Vista, but I do
know that it's not just the OS, but there are lot of other products like the entire
office-suite, but still I cant convince myself that it would take such a looooooooong time. But the following blogs seems to point that it could be true:-
http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html

I am still trying to find out a written evidence for it.

Purpose of Life - Background

"The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose"

I found it as one of my friends' signature. I dont know what it really means :-),
but there's sth to it that makes it interesting.
I think I am at a stage in my life (almost everybody goes through it) where I have
to question my existence. Questions like: Who am I? Why am I on this earth? What
should I pursue? How should I live? Has it got more to do than just 'I came, I saw,
I left' or will it be just 'I came, I left' (Can I see the the reality in my lifetime)?
are making sense to me. Should I trouble myself by bothering to answer all these
questions or stay happy/contended by being ignorant? I dont konw if I will be able
to answer them...but I am convinced that it's worth giving a try :-).

Does GOD Exist ???

The eternal mystery was/is troubling me. Is there somebody called GOD or
something of that nature who controls all our lives and actions. Do we really have
control on most of the things that happen in our life? Is there sth called destiny?
If so can we change our destiny? I am not wise enough to answer them...but how do
I march ahead? By making assumptions? What if my assumptions are wrong? Does it
REALLY matter whether I believe in GOD or not? I guess it does...it will change the
whole perspective towards life. Because if you believe in GOD or sth of that nature,
you'll start accepting that you are JUST a cog in the wheel. An important thing
that seemed to support this (thiesm) is:-
- There are only a few things that are in our control. Because it's a big
inter-(connected/related) world, we are affected by even minor-minor acts of
somebody/sth living on some part of the world and similarly we affect others
who are totally unrelated to us.
- One thing is true...we come and we go (we take birth and we die). To me it seems
to be safe to assume that we REALLY dont have any control on these two aspects...
PROBABLY death might be a little in our hands, but not birth...because we dont
have any existence b4 we are born :-). If we think about death, the cause could
be a natural calamity, a natural death a sucide or a homicide. If it's a natural
calamity or natural death...there's nothing to point at. Let's think abt suicide
...why did I commit a suicde? there should be some reason for that...it could
be a circumstance...then how did that circumstance originate...it is very likely
that some human is involved in the creation of that cirumstance...if so then can
I say that it were the actions of that human which caused me to commit suicide?
It could be even more complicated...There could be a big chain of humans and
their actions which as a whole made me commit suicide (Individually each of their
actions isn't significant enough to be the cause, but collectively it is)? So
isn't it true that all these people who are part of this chain have a say in
determining my death. But if I put myself into the shoes of one of these
humans....Did I really intend to do that? If I had known that a small action of
mine could cause somebody to commit suicide, why would I do that? Even if I had
known that it could produce such a result, it might not make sense from my point
of view to stop doing that, because the small action by itself is not wrong. Am I
to be blamed for this? At this point it makes sense to accept that I am not
responsible for my actions. Atleast I'll be happy that I am just doing what
I am being asked to do. The same reasoning applies for homicide....here the
person subject of the homicide is directly responsible for my death. So do we
say that there's somebody called GOD who should be held responsible for all the
actions of all the humans? What about birth? Am I responsible for my birth?
Seems very funny :-) but I think this was the question that made the Hindu's
think of the concept of rebirth...the separation of soul and the body.

An AI/NLP problem

I was just wondering if this could be possible:-
Using my blog (which includes all my blog posts) as the key to a
search engine, can I find all those persons who blog and
have a similar mindset/interests/thoughts like me.

Hindi is NOT our National Language

All these years I have been believing that Hindi is our National Language, because
that's what I remember I was taught when I was in school, I am not sure if it was
written in any of my texbooks. Thanks to Vikram, I came to know TODAY...that it's
a BIG myth that we are carrying around in our mind. I am unable to accept that
something as simple thing as this could be tampered with. It makes me think how
many such fallacies and myths I am having in my mind. Will I get a chance to correct
all those things or I'll have to take them to my grave? Whom should I blame for this?

National Public Radio (NPR)

The best radio that I have come across.
If u are in the bay area you can tune into 88.5 FM, which is the KQED-FM.
Their non-intrusive way of advertising, the worldwide (BBC news at 9 pm),
and the daily morning biz news and the "Perspective", have been really
good.
Here are the timings of some of the good programs:-
- BBC world news at 9pm (daily)
- "The perspective" at 7.30 am (daily)
- "Commonwealth club of California" 8 pm (every friday)
- "The voices this week" at 7.05 am (every sunday)
will keep adding to this list as I found more.
Check out the link for details.

The flipside of Rules

Rules are created with a purpose/objective. But unfortunately as time progresses the
rules themselves become the objectives and the original purpose itself is forgotton.
And the enforcers of these rules forget that the rules are to be verified/applied with
the original purpose in mind. Lest the rules might become blind-faiths. So it is
necessary that the rules are evaluated regularly to see their applicability with the
time. It would be great if the authority which judges the compliance with the rules,
takes into account the original objective, because there might be many cases wherein
one can violate the set rules but still be achieving the original objective.
The other problem with rules is that they are sometimes created for avoiding
(mis/ab)use of some things by miscreants...But at the expense of the righteous
persons losing thier right. Take the following scenario:-
My college had intially computer labs open throughout the night. There were people
who were using it for education and there were other who were misusing it. The
authorities came to know abt this and they put in the rule of closing the labs in
the nights. So all those people who were actually using it lost their right to
education.

Sanyaasa - The fourth and final stage of Hindu life

I am impressed by the way Wikipedia describes the Sanyaasa stage of hindu life:-

Having succeeded in overcoming all sensual affections and desires, and in acquiring perfect equanimity towards everything around him, the hermit has fitted himself for the final and most exalted order, that of devotee or religious mendicant. As such, he has no further need of either mortifications or religious observances; but with the sacrificial fires reposited in his mind, he may devote the remainder of his days to meditating on the divinity. Taking up his abode at the foot of a tree in total solitude, with no companion but his own soul (jiva), clad in a coarse garment, he should carefully avoid injuring any creature or giving offence to any human being that may happen to come near him. Once a day, in the evening, when the charcoal fire is extinguished and the smoke no longer issues from the fire-places, when the pestle is at rest, when the people have taken their meals and the dishes are removed, he should go near the habitations of men, in order to beg what little food may suffice to sustain his feeble frame. Ever pure of mind he should thus bide his time, as a servant expects his wages, wishing neither for death nor for life, until at last his soul is freed from its fetters and absorbed into the atman, the impersonal self-existent Brahman, or else returns to dwell with Brahman experienced as the personal Deity.

Inter(net)-Dependence

I never thought I would be so dependent on the Internet. These days it's like I am in a solitary confinement (in my apartment) and my laptop (Thinkpad T60) together with
the internet is my window to the outer world :-). Internet has become the 4th basic
necessity of my life (apart from roti, kapda and makaan). Look at the ways I am using it:-
Chatting :- Yahoo Messenger, GTalk, Gmail
Phone, Conf call :- Yahoo Messenger, Skype
Shopping info: Froogle,
Driving directions: Google Maps, Yahoo maps
Search: Google, Wikipedia,
Music: Raaga.com, dishant.com
Apart from these the other things that I use the net for are recipes, movies, blogging , internet radio etc.

The OLPC Project

Here's the link for the pics of the working prototyp of $100 laptop,
which is part of the One Laptop Per Child intiative.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pete/sets/72057594143224765/
And here's the link that shows the current adoption/interest by
the countries:-
http://www.laptop.org/map.en_US.html

The Hindu

My favourite newspaper is "The Hindu". One of things I was thinking of when coming
over to US was that I would be missing reading it every morning. But recently I
realized that I can read it in the same print format online. The subscription is
free for first the first 3 months.

Computer History Museum

Finally got a chance to visit the one of it's kind Computer History Museum, situated
in Mountain View. It's really worth a visit. It had a collection of old machines ranging from the Abacus to the Blue. To mention some of them: Abacus, Difference Engine, DEC PDP1, System/360, ENIAC, UNIVAC, Apple Mac Workstation, Altair 9000 (that created the PC revolution). You could also see the huge Hard Disks (the platter of which is around 3 feet in diameter). I was just there for over an hour. It makes me visit again. Will fill up this space with more info.

My Cricbay profile

I have become a part of the cricket-playing community of the Bay area :-)

Nice Article On India and it's ties with US by Fareed Zakaria

Universe as a state machine

Was reading this book "Things a computer scientist rarely talks about" by Donald E. Knuth. In the book he ponders
about the existence of God and whether the universe is deterministic. He also mentions
the possibility of the Universe being a big state-machine. Or is it a huge cluster of
state-machines interacting with each other. If that is the case then SUPPOSING we
get to know the transition rules of the state machines then it could be possible to
predict our future :-). This makes me think of astrology and the art of prophecy. In astrology (AFAIK) the future is predicted on the basis of the positions of the stars
and other celestial bodies. And astrology is an old science. So long time ago itself this question had occurred to those founders of astrology, that can we predict future? And they tried to answer that.

Embarrassed

Didn't ever expect that people could be so good. Vinod and I were going to the
Diwali party at Sunnyvale Temple and it was very crowded with all the Indians present
in the bay area making their appearance. For around 15 mins we couldn't find a
place to park and then there was this young mexican guy who saw us struggling and
guided us to a parking place near his house and wished us Happy Diwali. After we were
back from the party at the parking place this guy was still there and we thought he's
looking for making some money out of this opportunity. The way he was being courteous
and helpful we thought we were pretty sure about his motives. Otherwise why would
someone at that hour (it was past 11 in the night) stay out and help people. When we
offered him money he rejected and just bid us adieu. I was amazed. He would have felt
bad, afterall we took it in the wrong way. It's sad that we are moving away from that
kind of behavior to one where every action of ours has some kind of selfish motive.

A nice parable

This is a humorous parable written by Raymond Smullyan. Makes me think about the following things:-
- Belief in God (I am an athiest though)
- When we are doing something are we really doing something, or are we just acting
to the script written by somebody?
- For some time I used to think that Reason should be the basis of all your actions,
but that shows my ignorance. There seem to be lot of things in this universe for
which there are not yet reasons.

WorldWide Catalog

Came across this largest online catalog of books, linking all the libraries worldwide.
It helps me in finding for books/videos/magazines etc. in my local libraries. This will
be very useful to me considering the fact that I dont have my own medium of transport and the public transport system here in the bay area is not good. So I would only go to the library if the book is available.
Found that currently libraries from only a few countries were linked. And there is not
even a single library from India :-). Currently, there are
over 10,000 libraries connected.
I was initially thinking when would Indian libraries have a similar kind of step. Wait are there any community libraries at all India? Except for the bigs cities and that too may be a couple of libraries in them. The situation is pretty bad :-(

Blogger Beta

Blogger has come up with a beta, which includes some good features like:-
- Publish thru Email
- Enhance inline blog content editor.
- Setting up feeds (I am not sure if this was earlier there)

Visit Blogger Beta Tour

I hope I will soon migrate to it.

It's raining marriages

This season (from Jan - Aug 2006) the number of marriages that I have attended reached
14...a big number.

Rahul in Person

Today I had the oppurtunity of seeing Rahul Dravid in person for the first time. He was at Tirumala Music Center (TMC) Begumpet as an ambassador of Samsung. Good no. of people
had come to see him. People wished all the best to him and the Indian team for the coming world cup (2007). He was as usual reticent and didn't even entertain any questions from the press persons. Unfortunately I didn't carry a camera, else this was a wonderful chance of capturing him. Have been looking for a long time for this oppurtunity and today was the time.

Biking to Anantagari

Couple of weeks back my brother and I went to a place called Anantagiri on Bike. It's a small hilly jungle, around 80km from hyderabad, near vikarabad. It's a nice place for trekking, though completely neglected. The ride was very good as it's along the
highway and the climate was cloudy and windy. We trekked a bit but there was lot left
to be explored. Check out the photos here:-
Anantagiri photos

Shirdi Travel Diary

Shirdi Travel Diary (13/04/06 to 16/04/06)
Sunil, Anil annayya, Aunty (Sunil's mother), viji annayya
and myself had planned for a trip to Shirdi and finally we
made it.

13/04/06
I boarded the Manmad (Secunderabad to Manmad) express at Begumpet station, on
which Sunil and Aunty were also there. They came from vizag to hyderabad today
morning.

14/04/06
Got down at Nagersol (which is around 2 hrs from Shirdi) at 7.30 in the
morning. On-board the train we befriended another two telugu familiies who told
us all about what are the formal procedures to get the darshan, where to stay
and what all places to visit near by. From Nagersol we all took an omni (these
are quite popular here, most of them fitted with LPG cylinders, I guess it
makes them quite economical) and reached Shirdi. Went to Bhakt Nivas (the
trust-owned hostel for the piligrims) and found that it would be difficult to
get a room there, as this was a long weekend and so the no. of piligrims who had
come was large. So booked a room in one of the private lodges. Shirdi is
a small place (in the Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra), rather it's a village
in-transition. As it is evident that a period of transition is turbulent, same
is the case over here. Probably in another 3-5 years it will be as good as
Tirupati, but you cant beat the climate thing.
Refreshed ourselves and went to Baba's temple for the Darshan. Owing to the
big rush we had to wait for 2 and 1/2 hours to get the darshan. Returned to
our lodge-room, and Anil annayya and Viji annayya dropped dropped in. They
were coming from B'lore. They both went for the darshan and they were lucky
to get it in no time. All of us then took an Omni and went to Shani Shingnapur
(a place where the temple of Shani (god) is located, 75 km from Shirdi). Did
some drama there and came without doing the usual formalities as the people
there were trying to take us for a ride. Came back and collapsed on our beds
in the lodge room.

15/04/06
Today was an eventful day as we embarked on our trip to Aurangabad, which
is around 150 km from shirdi. Took an Omni at 8 in the morning from Shirdi.
On the way we visited the hanuman temple near Ellora and also another shiva
temple which had one of the 12 jyotirlingas. We then headed to Ellora Caves:
the best part of the entire trip. It was amazing how they carved out huge
mountains into caves and temples. There were 34 caves in total and we didnt
have enough time to see all of them. The caves were built between 5th and
11th century AD and it was evident as some of the carvings had withered out.
On the way had a cursory look of the state of the farming community in
Maharashtra and the general atmosphere. Farms were very big compared to the
same in my home place. Grapes,Sugarcane,Onion and cotton were the major crops.
The look of the houses indicated that the farmers were not really well-off
but then most of them ( I guess almost all the families) had bikes, (I could
spot lot of Rajdoots and could hardly find a scooter). Further there were
DTH antennas atop houses. Elder people had to wear Topis, dhoti and kurtas
all in whites. Marathi uses the same script as Hindi (Devanagari) and can
be quite easily understood if you know Hindi. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar is quite a
popular figure over here and all the parties exploit his image by having
the picture of this great Indian along with their party leaders on the
Billboards.
From there we went to Aurangabad, where the Bibi-ka-Makbara is located. It's
a look-alike of Taj Mahal. Aurangzeb used to shift his capital from
Delhi to Aurangabad. On the way saw the Daulatbad fort from the vehicle.
Would have been nice if we had explored it, but it was not part of the
itinerary. Also saw an 18th century engineering work called the "PanChakki" a
water mill which still works. The water is routed through canals to this place (
covering a distance of 6km) and it is siphoned up creating a waterfall at
this place and the same water rotates the turbine of the mill. Enroute we saw
big mountains which looked like those in Grand Canyon. I was wondering that
these would be ideal for rock-climbing.
It was 7 in the evening by the time we reached Shirdi. Strolled along the
temple and market and did some shopping and retired in our room.

16/04/06
Got up at 5.30 in the morning as we had to visit Nasik and from there to
Manmad and catch the train back to Secunderabad. Anil annayya and Viji Annayya
left at 6 to catch the bus to Pune as they had to be in Bangalore the next
day. After vacating the room, we boarded a bus to Nasik. Nasik is considerably
big city. Nasik is quite famous for its onions and we could see big onion
fields on the way. Sugarcane was another major crop for Marathi farmers. All
along the route there were grape farms and we could see plenty of grape clusters.
Bought and had enough seedless grapes as they were pretty cheap.
By 10 we were in the Nasik bus station. From there caught a Maharastra
RTC bus (red bus) to Triumbakeswar (30 km from Nasik). The temple of the three
gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva is quite a famous one and an important place to
visit in Nasik. There was a big queue at the temple and we had little time
so we did not venture in to stand in the queue and wait for the darshan of the
idols. Instead we just appreciated the beauty of the temple from outside. The
temple is very good, particularly the way the pillars were carved out, showed
the calibre of the artists and mostly it was still intact. Also Triumbakeswar
is the birth-place of Godavari, went there but didn't have much to see except
for a pool of water and people bathing in it.
We immediately caught the bus to Manmad at the new Nasik bus station at 1 PM.
By 3.30 PM were in Manmad. Manmad is a very old town: the pitiable state of
the bus station reflected this fact. Our train was to leave Manmad at 5.30.
After having lunch at one of the hotels went to the station and boarded the
Manmad express there.

17/04/06
It was 9 by the time we (Sunil, Aunty and myself) alighted at the Begumpet
railway station. There ended our 3-day trip to Shirdi. In all I had visited
the 3 districts : Ahmednagar, Nashik and Aurangabad. Except for the trip to
Nasik in which most of our time went into the journey everything else was
good. Elloras were amazing and surely the best part of the trip.

Ruthless Life

I knew that life could be as ruthless as this, but never saw it through my
eyes. Recently I met the mother of one of my friends and realized how tough
it could be. She had been on the bed for close to two years and for these
two years she could not move any of her body parts, except for opening the
mouth, slight movement of the neck and eyelids. It's a very difficult situation
where you can see, listen and probably understand what others are doing/saying,
you want to reply or do something but you cannot. With difficulty I could
control myself from shedding tears. I can only imagine how traumatic it would
be to go through such a hellish situation.

GMR Group

It gives me a sense of pride watching the television commercial of GMR
Group (which is into Energy and construction (airports and roads)).
This is the group which has roots in my own district Srikakulam and around
20 km from my village. It makes me think about the amount of oppurtunities
(in terms of employment) generated. I have great regard for industrialists,
because they are the one who generate wealth, employment, pay taxes
(directly and/or through their employees) to the government and this is what
the public servants/politicians feed on.
There's a sugar factory, because of which I guess sugar cultivation in the
region would have taken a big leap ( I dont have concrete proof of this, but
certainly it would have given a fillip) . This GMR group has also built a
state-of-the art engineering college in my home-town making higher-education
accessible to students residing in smaller towns and villages. (Ofcourse,
there are other socio-economic reasons why these educational institutions
are not able to create an impact).
I have all the reasons to hail these people whatever be the actual intent
behind doing all this be as long as significant no. of people are benefited
because of this.

Dravid and Tendulkar

One of the recent issues of Sportstar carried a cover feature on these two Goliaths
of Indian cricket of their time, on the occasion of each of them reaching a milestone of their career: Sachin becoming the most capped Indian Test cricketer (132) and Dravid playing his 100th Test, Mumbai Test against England, March 2006. It quotes Shakespeare :
"Some are born great and some achieve greatness..."
Talking about Dravid, S. Ram Mahesh writes:
"He was grudgingly awarded greatness. Even there it was not a greatness easily
bestowed - his was supposed to be a greatness good batsmen "could aspire too".
A greatness that was paradoxically both easier and more difficult to attain than
Tendulkar's. Easier because you didn't need genius hardwired in your DNA to take you there; more difficult for precisely the same reason.".

The suicides have crossed 300 but the sensex has reached the 10000 mark.

"The suicides have crossed 300 but the sensex has reached the 10000 mark too."

Those were the closing lines of an article in "The Hindu" about the pitiful state of
the cotton growers of Vidarbha. The no. of suicides have been increasing year after year.
The above lines give the true picture of India. On one side the country is advancing
at a rapid rate and on the other side it is degrading at an equal or probably even
more rapid rate.

Biking to Nizamsagar

Find the photos here