2009 – the year that was

As another year comes to an end trying to inscribe the good memories and farewell the not-so-good ones it gave along the way, I wanted to sit back and ponder upon what really happened in a 365 year journey(well almost). And as I started to gather some thoughts from my poor memory, I realized that this was not just an year, it was an experience that I would never forget in my life; for I learnt some of the most important lessons in life…

Work, pain, joy
My new years, unlike others’, are generally not so enthusiastic; but this was different. I was going to my first job (well Internship technically)! After 23 years, I would be landing in a company! The very thought of it filled my New Year day with all the enthu and zeal. Yeah, I did my internship at Motorola India Research Labs, Bangalore. It was at this place that I had my first experiences of a ‘real corporate world’. “They say you never forget your first job”. Well after hearing this in one of my favorite TV series, I thought it doesn’t sound so real. But, this job remains to be my ever lasting memory. Ofcourse it was not all roses; I had to learn something totally out of my knowledge, had to work with some very annoying devices, had to code in C (I used to loathe working in it earlier); but like they say, the more you run away from something, the more of it you get. 6 months of all the effort was made an ease, thanks to my mentor and the team. I also witnessed a harsh reality of professional life – job termination, how companies ruthlessly fire people in the name of cost cutting.

Life outside college
Almost every time I met some senior at college, they used to say that life is good as long as you are in the safe hands of college (and hostel tooJ). We thought – heck, we’ll have money, no assignments and tests and a whole lot of freedom. But little did we realize that those assignments were far better to tackle than the outside world, accepting the fact in a hard way; as always, life teaches you in a hard way! Some of my woes were solved since I stayed at my cousin’s place but that made way for a different problem – commutation. With 6 buses a day to change and 4 hrs to spend in transit, that was one helluva ride. But in a way that taught me to be more attentive and punctual.

Joy, fate and luck
It was all good until the completion of internship. We had a great reason to celebrate as we would be getting our M.Tech degree after 2 years of hardwork. But the bigger reason to worry about was our job. Thanks to the economic recession, we saw the worst campus placement ever in the history of our college. It was something we never expected. Despite of all the brand name and degree, we had to remain jobless for a very long time. It was during this time that I experienced my first ‘joblessness’. Everywhere I went, people were cursing the IT industry and offering free and completely unsolicited advices to join banks, power plants, what not. Damn! Some of the brightest minds had to struggle a lot to end in a job, let alone a ‘decent-pay’ job. After four months of waiting I finally got into a company. Those four months made me realize the single most important factor in success – luck. You just have to give in to it.

Even now it’s not so rosy life for some of my friends, but we all have started to accept the hard realities of life. Bill Gates once mentioned ‘Life is not fair. Get used to it’. And this year has taught me the same in more ways than one…

Minimizing dependency

There is a design pattern that we learnt recently which says exactly the same. Yeah it is of course in the realm of objects and classes, here I am trying to convey the same in the more complex domain of we human beings…I don’t understand why certain principles and rules that fit with other objects(physical) just don’t get along well with humans…this also assures me that we are special J. Enough of beating around the bush, come to the point!!!...right? Yup, gotcha! So what I was saying is that we need to minimize our dependencies in our lives. I know this is a pretty bold statement to make and even harder to follow in real life, but hey, we all can give it a try right?

Philosophers always say that our life, as a human, is very intricate web of objects, people, emotions, thoughts with ‘dependency’ among these being a very important gel that binds them together. Now though it makes our life simple in most aspects (e.g. being dependent on nature for sustenance), it so happens that sometimes, we end up wasting a whole lot of time and effort depending on other things (esp. people) to happen. One very simple case is a situation in which you depend on some other person to help you out and due to some reason, he doesn’t stand up to his word or he delays things. In this case, in all the possibility you could have saved all that time waiting for that person by working on things yourself.

But sometimes, you can’t even avoid such situations. You just have to wait and wait until things turn up and you get your work done. Most of the times, we blame it on our fate and ill-luck and unfortunately we don’t have much control over them. Some situations though can be handled by us. The only mantra that I observed to make this work is to work out things ourselves, if we can do that; and do them as early as possible. I know there are hardly any situations where you can do this, but there are such ones for certain and it is upto our attention to notice such cases and save our ‘precious’ time. After all, time is money ;)

For now, I am dwelling on the Design Patterns…

Expecting to not expect

Yeah, you read it right…never expect anything. Be it from work, people or even life. Now you might think this guy is being a real pessimist, but hold on…I assure you that by the time you reach the end of this post, you will realize what I am trying to convey and some of you might even agree with my words. Coming back to what I was saying, yeah, never expect anything…good or bad. The reason why I am saying this again and again is that lately I have realized that our expectations might not turn out to be ‘real’ in the ‘real’ world. And most of the times, we are left with grief and endless thoughts about what went wrong…where did it go wrong…etc…etc.

Back in my school days, we had a lesson that conveyed the same meaning, in an amusing way, albeit with a positive spirit. The author had, through some his real-life experiences, conveyed a very simple mantra for a happy living… “Always expect the contrary of what you really want in your life to happen”. I don’t remember how happy it made the life of others, but I surely got some good scoldings from my parents for talking ‘negative’ things. But now I realized that better don’t expect anything at all…for your own good J. And by the way, this is what even our Gita says J … ‘the cause of all sadness is your interest in things (or rather, expectations on things, life, luck, people)’

Sometimes its so annoying that what we expect not to happen does let alone something good…I guess fate has its own way of teaching the same principle. I myself have gone through so many of themL. Out of my experiences, I have realized that its not right for us to expect something. Do something because you like to do it…don’t expect the result; love somebody because you love him/her…don’t expect any reciprocation. Instead, I think its good to have confidence in what we do and hope for the best.

After all this long lecture on expectations, I still feel how difficult it is for us to not ‘expect’ something. So am I expecting anything(or nothing?)…well, I am one like you J

P.S: Thanks to my friend for his caption which stirred my thoughts to write this post.

Is genius congenital?

Human body has fascinated humans ever since the human race has begun to understand things. Everyday, we observe things, we learn a lot of them but never do we realize the immense potential locked in us. Starting from this post, I would like to share some of my thoughts on this wonderful system which I have tried to acquire from various resources. However, the master, "Brain" remains my favorite pick; and so I started off with the "Master" himself - Human Brain.

 

Yes...Is genius congenital? Well, many of us have been (or would be sooner or later be) confronted by this very question. And most of the times, we do shrug off our shoulders by considering the answer to be YES. Well that is true, but surprisingly, not always. So the answer to the big question is 'Yes and No'. Looks controversial? Well yes, it is. And that has always been in the world of the most beautiful and intricate system in this world - Our Human Body.

 

Whenever we see a person outperforming others in a radical way, we often resort to a simple and obvious conclusion - "He is a genius by birth". But even seldom do we think about other reasons such as why is he like that? What made him achieve that incredible feat? Was he practicing that trick all along? Is he good at other things as well? Or most profoundly, is he a real genius? These were some of the questions lurking around in my mind as well over a period of time. Recently, I have had the opportunity to watch some really good videos on human mind and its power and also the hot topic of this post - genius itself! Here are some of the interesting and even mind-boggling findings about our mind...

 

Our mind is the most complex organ of our body. With over some millions nerve cells or neurons and other tiny tissues and organs and weighing just about a kilogram, our brain sits on top of the body controlling everything that's going on in it. It’s a known fact that it’s the connections among the neurons that decide our all our thought processes, including intelligence and memory. Now what is that that differentiates the infrastructure of a brain of a genius and an average person? Well, to some of the people, its pretty much hardwired by birth...which gives them the name congenital geniuses. But most of the geniuses have hardwired their brain to behave more intelligently at their will and wish. Yes, it is true. Everybody even you and I can create such masterminds. What we don’t know is that this is actually possible.

 

Susan Polgar is a Grandmaster in chess game. But it’s quite interesting to know that she was just an ordinary girl like any other in her childhood. It was her father's psychiatric experiment that turned her into a chess genius. No it’s not about giving some shocks or anything. Years of hard work, dedication, passion and desire have literally hardwired her once-normal brain into a genius. Can you imagine a 14 year girl to actually study thousands of books and understand millions of chess games? Susan did. Now she can beat a world champion at chess in 60 seconds...yes literally 60 seconds. Now this level of intelligence is not something she got by birth. Her desire, passion, hard work paved way to some really mind-boggling results.

 

Our society is full of such examples. In fact according to a survey, there are more such custom tailored brained people than the actual congenital geniuses - musicians, dancers, scientists, businessmen and many more. If you study about them, you will find that despite being amazingly good at some things, they are not quite good at other things, which might come as a surprise. Is a person who is extremely good at dance equally good at mathematics? Well not often. Reason...it’s not only the genius, but also the knowledge.

 

'Practice makes a man perfect'... now a cliché, is extremely important and can become a single most powerful tool to attain the mastery or genius. While some people have the knack of cracking the problems like cutting a cake, some people solve it quite diligently and based on what they have learnt with their experience. Doing something repeatedly actually hardwires the nerves in the brain with that task and after some time, you need not even think of how to do it. This is what exactly happens when you learn a bi-cycle or reach your home through a complicated path even after a long and tiresome day and never forget that path.

 

Now is there any limitation to this 'hardwiring' process? Or is there any 'threshold'? Well, NO. The mind's capacity is unlimited. Actually, the more you utilize it, the more powerful it becomes, just like any other muscle in our body. All it needs (physically) is good food, fresh air and good rest. And when it doesn't get these, don’t worry, it knows how to take care of that...something which is not under your control after some limit. But, yes it needs practice; and not just some random practice, but a highly systematic one. That's why our parents insist on having a timetable, keeping surroundings clean, and being disciplined.

 

We all have some amount of genius inside us, buried deep within. Only some of us dig that out and reap the benefits. Most sadly, the very thought that 'we don’t have it' almost always holds us back from achieving the impossible. The moment we break that barrier, every one of us can become the super-genius.

A day to remember...

23:59:59 14th August, 2007

"Hurray!!!We submitted the first assignment in IIITB!" yelled one of my friends with joy.

Yes! it was definitely an achievement in itself for us. It was not any where close to what our country had achieved 60 years ago but it definitely was. And that became a stepping stone for all the achievements that would come our way later in our lives...

00:00:00 15th August, 2008

One more year of Independence and one more moment of achievement. This Independence Day is definetely one of the most memorable days ever in the history of our country. The reason - we have with us the person who brought us a Gold Medal in a Singles Event in Indian Olympics history for the first time. Well this was of course one of the many other achievements made by our country in the past one year.

The yester year witnessed some of the grand achievements and also some gruesome incidents. With the Ambanis and the Mittals making their way into the list of richest people in the World, India is now the place for Billionaires and the World is looking for more...Yes, the 'more' here includes IT, Nuclear Power, Education, Economy and many other key areas and arenas used to judge the progress of the nation. Last year saw the rise of the Rupee and fall of the boom of IT - a major setback for the Indian IT companies, resulting in the lay-off of the employees. Nevertheless, a considerable amount of growth was witnessed in many industry segments.

If that was what the past had for us, what does the future hold for us? A new ray of hope, a vision for growth, a potential for development. Yes! the future promises to be better than ever - only if we tap all the aforementioned ingredients for success. We are more powerful than ever, poised for a sustained growth. We encapsulate in us the enormous amount of energy required to turn the heads of the world and look up to us.

So our action plan? Get started on personal improvement first, which would initiate a chain reaction in million others which would eventually trigger the ultimate course of action for National development.

Our mantra - "Arise, awake and stop not until the goal is reached"

Jai Hind!!!

A 'time'less world...

I got up today morning and tried to find out the time - but wait! where's the time? There's no watch. I turned on my lappy to appease my tension for knowing time, and No! there's no display of time in it either!!!I tried to ask my friends, all of them have no idea of time. For a moment,my tension levels increased, at a speed I never experienced before. Suddenly everything seemed so confusing, I felt I am lost with no idea of when to brush my teeth, when to have bath, breakfast, college, assignments - oh no!!! what's happening to me?

Slowly, with despair, I got my self refreshed. And as the day cleared, a strange feeling started to creep within me. Was it shock? or tension? or fear? NO! it was something else - it was joy,happyness,freedom,hope - all mixed up together - giving me a feeling so amazing, I started loving it. But why this strange feeling at such a strange point of time? I tried to think over and voila! I think I got the answer - yes! It was due to 'time'. I dont have 'time' anymore...Yippie!!! So no more deadlines, no more haunting dates, times of submissions!!! Oh God! Is this true? Am I really relieved of 'time'? can't believe it.I dont need to rush my self through my daily chores, I do not need to worry about other's timelines. All of a sudden, the whole world seemed to be so beautiful - I feel I am liberated from the chains of 'time'.

Now that I got my answer, I started doing things at my own pace, with all the time I ever needed. I tried to read newspaper, then I went into my garden and watered the plans - oh! how peaceful it is to be with nature! I watched my favorite movies, went to the market and on the way back I saw kids playing on the street happily, college students competing among themselves
to impress a local beauty, the busy businessmen aah! where was I all these days? Was I lost in 'time'? Yes may be!!! I had my lunch, slept to the pleasure of my eye got up and went for a walk...beautiful evening. Lost in myself I had my dinner and was watching my favorite movie...

"Get up you lazy fellow!!!" yelled my friend,"Did you submit the assignment due today?"

"OOh!! I...I just dozed off finishing that!"

'what a beautiful dream'. I got up and started to fight myself against 'Time'

Are you 'Socially Network'ed?

Hello! This is Rakesh again with a new post and this time its about the common thing we all know and come across in our daily 'Net' lives. Please leave your comments after reading it.


Digital age is what can be used as an apt term to describe the current scenario of the world. With eeverything from eating to washing clothes to work now becoming 'Digital', there's hardly anything left that is 'traditional'. Coming to think of it, I feel though the 'Digital Age' and the pervasion of computers in everyone's life has done good, there has been a feeling of disruption of personal life and relationships. It is not uncommon these days to come across a person engrosed in working on his laptop even in his leisure time rather than going out and meeting his kith and kin.


Over a last few years, there's been a new trend shaping up among the 'Digitizens' - as we may call them - which is 'Social Networking'. What is this? It is basically a network of people comnected to each other on wire - or Internet as we popularly know it. these people are geographically diversified, they are of different ages, classes of life, and lifestyle. It all started when websites like 'Orkut', 'Facebook', 'iBibo' etc came into light and brought about the change in people.


But the question to think about is "Is 'Social Networking' really useful?". Well, I feel 'yes'. The reason - we being so busy in our daily lives, can't go out and meet everybody personally. Thanks to Internet and Social Networking sites, you can connect and to any person, view their profile, share pictures, videos and what not! I have come across cases where a whole new relationship was born just out of 'Orkut'ing.


But that is not all. As every coin has two sides, this social networking has also a dark side to it. The prolific penetration of these web sites has actually increased the number of 'Computer Addicts'. I have personally seen the profiles of people with more than 15,000 scraps in Orkut. That is a real big number...right? Moreover, there are so many fake profiles to lure the gullible people and thus only increasing the security threat. And there's always a 'Porn' effect out there!


There are quite a number of variety social networking sites depending on their purpose/function. There are generic social networking sites such as 'Orkut', Facebook', 'iBibo', 'BharatStudent' etc. and 'LinkedIn' for Professionals, and there are other sites which help to share the 'downloads' they have made, 'softwares' they have, sites for uniting the family members, and there are sites to form groups to actually 'fight'...ummmm ;) The bottom line - there's something for everone.


Over the centuries, mankind has evolved, survived and flourished due to one reason - communication. The new concept of 'Social Networking' in the 'Digital Age' has definetely brought out a new dimension of communication - thus leading towards betterment of society and mankind.


So the question remains "Are you 'Social Network' ed?"