Interview with Tushar Joshi

Pulse was a monthly newsletter published in Infospectrum Inc., the software company I worked in from 2006 to 2011. As the chief editor of this newsletter, I often participated in conducting interviews of senior managers in the company.
Here's the interview we conducted with my friend, philosopher and guide, Tushar Joshi.

• Celebrity: Tushar Joshi 
• Reporters: Raghunath Soman, Chandrakant Raju 
• Date: 23rd March 2008

Tell us something about your favourites.
My favourite book would be 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, because unlike other self-development books written in West, this one talks about building one’s character first. 

Other one is Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I like hard work pictured in that book with character of Howard Rock, which has been my own philosophy. 
I watch all sorts of movies, but have a special liking for art films, esp. the ones that show simple people, such as movies of Amol Palekar, Smita Patil. I love watching movies with epic proportions. If I ever get around to building a library, I would collect movies like Patriot, Gladiator, Castaway, etc..
Favourite actors.. Raj Kapoor, and Aamir Khan from the Khan clan.  
Favourite actress is Rekha esp. from her Silsila days. And of course I must mention Amitabh Bacchan… He is in a class of his own! My favourite movie of Amitabh Bachchan is Main Azad Hoon. It depicts transformation of an ordinary person into an extra-ordinary man. Favourite food… biryani!

Tushar does not know ANYTHING about cricket. He did not know why Nagpur was celebrating when India won T20 world cup.

You cooked for your team-mates during your Norway visit…
Yes, I can cook quite a few dishes pulav, anda-burji and some Chinese stuff.

How do you relax? 
I read books. Nowadays, a major pastime is surfing the net and reading blogs, articles and E-books. Our family often goes for long drives, and movies. Eating pani puri together is something that we enjoy the most. 

Tushar was a power lifter. He considers his shift from a trainer profile to IT professional as ‘a wild animal getting domesticated’

One thing that you like about yourself? One thing you wish to change?
Well, I think I can explain things in an easy to understand way, that is to say, I am a good teacher. Of course, my students may have some other opinions.  
One thing I would like to change… well, I find it very difficult to say “No”. It so happens many a times that I agree to do something to avoid bitterness, but when I cannot make it due to lack of time, it becomes even more uglier . So I have been trying to get myself say “No” at the right time to avoid further bitterness.

Working as a senior technology manager in a highly complex project, writing so many blogs, and poems… Taking part in many social activities… how do you manage all this?
The answer would be in two parts:
First n foremost, we must get our priorities right. If I need to do something that will make me a better person, I must do it, no matter what. 
And secondly, I understand that everything comes at a cost… I must say my family has been paying the cost for my so many activities I owe the time I spent on writing blogs and articles to my family. It is because of their understanding and support that I can do all this. The time that I spend in coding or writing at home is the time I take away from being with them. But that is the price we have to pay. I will not say I am making a compromise with the family time, we sit together and decide our priorities and then the time spent is after thorough discussion and our own decision so it becomes investment and not compromise. 

Tushar writes in blogs regularly. Just search by "Tushar Joshi" in Google and the query will return a number of hits about him. Internet is almost like an oxygen for him. Tushar's ORKUT profile has highest number of testimonials that we have come across.

Writing a piece of code and writing a paragraph of article or a stanza of poem… How do you compare these? Do they originate from the same creative source?
A piece of code that works; a well-written article or a beautiful poem…All three gives me happiness; irrespective of whether there are other people to appreciate or not. Appreciation from others is an added bonus! Such creative activities save us from making a machine out of ourselves.

People who have influenced you? 
The list ought to begin with Swami Vivekananda. I feel inspired by his sense of curiosity, his unquenchable thirst to find out answers… 
I admire the devotion of Baba Amte, and the bare honesty of Mahatma Gandhi. George Washington Carver, the Negro scientist who did pioneering research in agricultural in spite of heavy odd is another person I admire. 
In personal life, if there is one person I can name it would be Dr Kishore Mahabal, who is a reader at Nagpur University. I am influenced by his style of asking thought-provoking questions and leaving the other person to find out the answers for themselves. Over the years, I find I have ingrained a bit of his style in myself.

Tushar has been a very active contributor to Vivekanand Kendra. He hates being alone and is at his best being in crowd. He has a huge fan-following of his students.

Best pals at IIPL?
There are many friends at IIPL. I will mention only them whom I have seen closely. Harshawardhan Pandit & Dr Saurabh Sethia… both these have been my close pals, as well as professional colleagues. 
Another person I appreciate is Milind Tapas… very practical when it comes to work! These people have exhibited trait of never making a compromise on quality and they have been delivering consistently against heavy odds. 

In your Infospectrum blog, you have mentioned about your luncheon meetings…
Jay, our CEO, has time and again emphasized the importance of earning our pay-check, and I agree with him. Everything that does not relate to end-deliverables finds no place in our office-hours. Harsh, Saurabh and I meet sometimes at lunch and discuss about our own passions, technologies or current events. 

Tushar perhaps has the highest number of certifications in IIPL. He is expert in Java, PHP, mysql, system programming, designing, Linux, C++, VC++…

At this point, Mrs. Seema Tushar Joshi, made an entrance with a tray of tea-cups and biscuits, and we seized this opportunity to ask her a few questions…

How is to be wife of someone like Tushar who is always busy with his work and other creative pursuits?
Before we got married, he had told me, “See, I am already married…. to computers! My work would always be my top priority.” So, in a way, I knew what I was getting into … But I must say that he has managed the balance quite well. Whenever required, he always manages to steal some time from office work he is doing at home, for us.

Tushar is an excellent poet and is equally versatile in Marathi and Hindi. His poem collections date back right to his school days. These poems are on varied subjects, ranging from romantic songs to philosophical poems. You can see reflection of Tushar and his surroundings in these poems.

Which of his dishes do you like?
Maggie… he has a unique method of preparing it, with a couple of chilies thrown in, which makes its taste special!

Does he remember your birthdays?
Oh yes! I must say he is quite particular in this regard. In fact, there was a time when he used to prepare hand-made cards and give them to the birthday boy/girl in person, but nowadays, a phone-call is all that he can make, and he never misses that.

Does he take homework of the kids?
By the time Tushar comes home, the kids hardly have time to talk with him. So whatever time he spends with them in late evening is all playtime with the kids. 
Tushar: My daughters are very young as of now, and their homework, is completely managed by Seema. I may get more active at a later stage, as they grow up, for taking their homework.

Thank you, Seema-taai…
Tushar, What do you like about IIPL? 
We experience a true flat hierarchy at IIPL. The top management, right from CEO is accessible to every one of us, irrespective of whether one is project-manager or a fresher. Another good thing is, we still have a sense of being in a big, huge family… we have not turned ourselves into a factory.  

You have been on Editorial board of Pulse before disengaging voluntarily due to work-pressures. How do you feel about the way Pulse has developed? Any ideas, suggestions for improvement?
Pulse has been doing well. It has some good sections that I always look forward to. 
One thing I wish to mention is about marketing the Pulse. You need to make it more people-oriented so that each and every employee feels inclined to read it. 

Tushar has a huge internet presence. The list below is just indicative of his prowess in cyber-space, and gives an insight into the many facets of his personality. 

Technical articles:
http://omitsoft.blogspot.com/
http://netbeanside61.blogspot.com/

General Blogs:
http://zdirection.blogspot.com/
http://tusharvjoshi.blogspot.com/

Photo album:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tusharvjoshi/

Poems:
http://shabdachitra.blogspot.com/
http://yetaajaataa.blogspot.com/
http://anuwaad.blogspot.com/

No food for thought

With the arrival of smartphones equipped with WhatsApp, Facebook and other social networks, it's becoming an increasingly rare sight to see someone lost in their own thoughts.

Immersive 3D dream

I dreamt that I was in a movie based in medieval times and starring Benedict Cummerbatch and Anne Hathaway. 

Initially I thought I was an actor in it but soon realized that this was actually an advanced 3D experience and I was actually watching the movie. But I could move about the scene at my will and see it from different angles and positions. 

Hope such an "immersive" 3D becomes a reality soon.

Language at its purest best

It is always great to hear a language being spoken by its native speakers. 

This Diwali, we had guests from Allahabad, and it was a pleasure to listen to their chaste Hindi. 

Here's a sample: 

समाज में विभिन्न मान्यताएं प्रचलित रहती है और हर मनुष्यप्राणी अपने प्रकृती अनुसार उनका आचरण करता है. 

Compare and contrast this with mine: 

ये ताट में जो आयटम है न, उसको भरलं वांगं बोलते है. इसको हिरवे किंवा जांभळ्या वांगे को रस्सा में भिजवके बनाते है.

Jokes apart, it's high time for me, living in Nagpur, to improve on my Hindi skills.

जाणता राजा

I dreamt that Tushar Joshi is giving a lecture at Sinhgad fort. The topic: Conquest of Sinhgad by Tanaji Malusare. Tushar has chosen to present the narrative as Ramdas Swami. 

Interestingly, the fort is like what it might have looked at the time of Shivaji.

The first day of session goes off well, attended by hundreds of people, including Adinath Mangeshkar. 

On the second and last day of session, just after the lecture concludes, we see an impending storm around the fort. Everyone is told to evacuate the fort, but I linger on. When the storm hits, I realize it's too late. 

And just then... I see a person from the pages of History right next to me. He says, चल, जगदीश्वर मंदीरात जाऊ. 

And from there, standing by His side, I observe the tandav of Shiva... Rains lash the mountains, lightening strikes at random, and soon waterfalls emerge everywhere. 

And then, it's sunlight again.

Weekend

2 packets of Maggi, 3 bottles of Coke, 

Stuffing up on cashews till I choke; 

Total 5 hours of sleep, 

Re-runs of The Big Bang Theory start to end; 

This is the state of affairs when dear wifey is away for a weekend.

Flight of imagination

Today morning, I dreamt that our project team at Nagpur was in Goa, playing beach volleyball with the Goa team. After the game was over, we all boarded the upper deck of an Airbus 380 and flew to Nagpur. However, the plane seemed more cramped than an Embraer.

The person sitting to me in flight was Abhishek Deo, who was telling he had 700 toys during his childhood. Someone from the back row remarked that 550 of them were still lying around in the house. 

The dream ended just as I was trying to post an update to Facebook, mid-flight.

Neil Armstrong: A tribute

Neil Armstrong, an aerospace engineer,  university professor, navy combat pilot, X-15 test pilot, command pilot of Gemini 8 mission, commander of Apollo 11 mission and of course, the first person to walk on the moon, passed away on 25^th August due to complications resulting from heart surgery. He was 81.

I vividly remember the first time I heard about Neil Armstrong. It was a rainy afternoon and we were getting restless in our first Geography class of standard V. The teacher, Ms. Shabnam Mirza, wrote the name Neil Armstrong on the board in her beautiful handwriting and asked us if we knew who this man was. None of us did. She told us, “He is the first man to land on the Moon”.

Big deal, was our reaction. We were more excited about who would be the first boy to set foot on the football ground during the recess.

It was only later, in standard eight, when I began to read “Invasion of Moon: The Story of Apollo 11” by Peter Ryan, when the awesomeness of the moon-landing mission began to dawn on me. So much so, that I even translated the book into Marathi, up until the point when Armstrong steps on Moon and says, “One step for a man, one giant leap for a mankind”. Try what I might, I could never translate this particular line into Marathi and the project stalled.

Contrary to the popular opinion that Neil was hand-picked by NASA to be the first man to step on the Moon, the real reasons were far more practical. He served on the backup crew for Apollo-8 and as per the three-mission rotation system, he became the commander Apollo-11, which incidentally became the moon landing mission. Armstrong himself always downplayed his role and insisted that it could have easily been either Apollo 10 or Apollo 12 crew to land on the moon. Of course, what he didn't mention was the fact that he didn't have a big ego and he was a civilian astronaut had only helped the matter.

As much as the fact that he became the first human to step on the Moon, my admiration for Armstrong was for two other reasons.
One, he was the quintessential cool guy. As a test pilot, he risked his life testing the X-15 jets at almost the edge of the space. During the Gemini 8 mission, his spacecraft went into a dangerous spin and began tumbling end over end at 1 rotation per second. On the brink of losing consciousness, Armstrong managed to bring the spacecraft under control.

While training for the lunar landing, his training craft crashed at a very low altitude, but Armstrong ejected from it at the last possible moment.  0.5  seconds late, and he would have crashed. After this incident, people found him in his office, working through his papers. When questioned whether he wasn’t shaken, he said, there were things to be done that needed to be done.

The actual lunar landing was no cakewalk, either. First, the lunar module computer became overloaded and started raising alarms (1201 and 1202). When this was determined not to be a show-stopper, Armstrong looked out of his window and realized that the guidance system was taking them straight into a boulder-full of craters. Taking over manual control of the lunar lander, Armstrong inched the craft to a safe landing area. As he did so, another problem cropped up: The fuel was getting low. After a couple of minutes of nerve-wrecking drama, Armstrong landed Eagle near the Sea of Tranquility, with only 15 seconds of fuel remaining.

After completing their moonwalk, when Armstrong and Aldrin prepared to launch back from the surface of the moon, they discovered that the circuit breaker needed to start the engine was broken. Without it, they would be marooned on the moon. But they used a nib of a fountain pen to complete the circuit and successfully lifted off from the Moon.

And, the second reason why I admire Armstrong: his decision to shun the limelight.

After the historic moon landing and finishing with a whirlwind world tour to celebrate it, Armstrong retired from NASA and took up a teaching position at Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati.  He rarely gave interviews and gave very few public speeches.  Unlike some of his fellow astronauts, who cashed out on the fame and fortune from their astronaut years (nothing wrong in that, in fact), Armstrong abhorred spotlight. He always maintained that the successful flight of Apollo 11 was a culmination of far more hazardous flights of Gemini and Apollo.

When asked how he felt after becoming a global celebrity, Armstrong remarked,

“I am, and ever will be, a white socks, pocket-protector nerdy engineer – born under the law of thermodynamics, steeped in the steam tables, in love with free-flow dynamics, transformed by Laplace, and propelled by compressible flow.”

When asked about how it felt to be on the Moon, he quipped,

“It's an interesting place to be. I recommend it.”

One anecdote about Armstrong, the university professor: He once walked in the class, and asked if anyone had any questions about the subject. When all students replied in the negative, he walked out, remarking that he would be back only when someone could think up some questions to ask.

Armstrong’s speech after receiving the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009 is a good example of his wit and humility.

True to his reserved nature, Armstrong didn’t write an autobiography, but thankfully for all of us, he authorized James Hansen to write his biography and gave the author full access to his personal archives. I am looking forward to buying a copy of it sometime.

It’s a sad feeling to realize that one of your idols is no longer around.

May his soul rest in the peace of space.

Life sans TV

Visitors to our home never fail to note one thing: the television; or to be more precise, the lack of it. They try to determine its existence in a number of places; and having failed to do so; venture to ask THE question: Don’t you have a TV?

No, we answer, knowing the effect that it would have. The visitors are at first amused, thinking we are just kidding; and then appalled, when they realize that we are in fact revealing the truth, and nothing but the truth.

We do not have a TV; and have no plans to acquire one; at least in the short term.

I have been living away from my home for more than 7 years now; first for the studies, and then for job.  There has never been a TV in any of my accommodations and frankly, nor there has been any shortage of things to be done… there are books to read; blogs to write, movies to watch. There are some good friends to spend time talking to.

One person who could have changed this would have been my wife. In fact, after getting married, I was almost prepared to buy a TV. But it came as a surprise – a pleasant one at that – when she herself vehemently opposed having the device in the house.

Not that either of us dislikes watching TV. If the mood reigns, we could easily spend days and nights watching any damn thing being broadcast. But as of now, we don’t wish to. We visit multiplexes once a month, and occasionally catch a movie on the laptop. These days, almost everything from TV is available as DVDs… and if not, it can be downloaded from the Internet!

This is not to condemn the TV. It is a powerful medium; one that can educate, entertain and inspire. But, it is also too tempting to resist for long.

However, things might change a bit. We are planning to get a wide-screen and a DVD player so as to enjoy the English titles at their best.

Till then, the visitors would have to contend with either talking with us or reading some magazines. There are quite a few of them.  

Stars shine down...

Last month, on 25th May, Infospectrum, the company I work for as a technical writer, felicitated me as Star Performer in Quality and Process Services category, at the hands of Jay Chopde, CEO of Infospectrum. Other categories, in which awards were handed out, were: Engineering, Management, Business Development and Support Services.


I would be a hypocrite to say I wasn't happy to be felicitated. However, the thought of being selected had never occurred to me, and in fact, barely minutes before the awards were declared, I was at my machine, working on an urgent deliverable that was to be submitted an hour later. So, the awards came as a pleasant surprise.

My tenure so far in this company has seen me working on almost all the major projects across diverse domains (marine logistics to satellite imaging to security software to business intelligence), on various platforms (Windows, Linux, and a bit of work on Mac), working with teams of various sizes (comprising from 5 to more than 30 people). Work has sometimes been challenging, sometimes relaxed; nevertheless, it has always been fun working with some smart people!

But, of course, there is a tinge of dissatisfaction: it could have been better. My deliverables could have been better, my work-process could have been more efficient, my interaction with the team could have been more productive. There is a huge scope for improvement and to make things better.

Perhaps, I should better sit down and start reading "Better", written by my current favourite author: Atul Gawande.

Check it out!

[This is a companion blog-post to my review of The Checklist Manifesto, which can be read at GReviewz. For a technical writer's perspective on checklist, visit ByteSpace.]

Reading The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande has been a satisfying experience. Not because the book gave me a new insight or approach. It doesn't. But it validated something that I have been following over the years: using checklists.

I must have got this trait from my father. He is a very methodical man, very painstakingly so. We have never seen him miss out on any aspect of a process or a transaction. He is always very clear about which step he is at, what needs to be done next, which documents will be needed, whom he needs to meet, and so on. He has never come back from an office because he didn't carry the necessary papers with him.

Whenever the family goes out for an outing, he is the one to close the house. This seemed easy, until we had to do it ourselves in his absence; and invariably we would miss out on something: forgetting to keep the milk in the refrigerator or forgetting to close the knob of the gas regulator.

As I watched him, it became clear that he followed some kind of checklist, albeit from the memory.

I created my first checklist as a student: an exam checklist. It listed the things needed to appear for a paper: the writing pad, the Camlin compass box with all the necessary instruments, extra pens and pencils, and so on. It proved immensely useful: never did I have to borrow anything in the exam hall.

After finishing the studies, I joined my first company. Living alone, it soon became a chore to get all the necessary accessories in place before leaving for the office. This was when I created a checklist based on a Marathi acronym: मोरूचा पापा  which meant: मो (Mobile), रूमाल (Handkerchief), चावी (Keys), पाकीट (Wallet), and पास (Gatepass). I still follow a more enhanced version of this.

A friend of mine often chided me for using these kind of checklists, saying such "simple things should be obvious". Well..... HP, if you are reading this and still feel so, do check out  The Checklist Manifesto.

There ain't no shame in usin' checklists.

Climate Change is for real

The scorching summer is here.
After a brief respite of a few days, which saw a pleasant cloudy weather, the mercury is rising again. SuryaNarayan (the Sun God) is playing with great consistency, with the last few temperatures reading 44-deg Celsius, 46-deg C, and 45-deg C. At this rate, He is bound to score a half century by the end of this month.

The heat is affecting the daily life in some remarkable ways.
Clothes get dry in a matter of 30 minutes. Chapattis turn brittle like papad if left out for more than a few hours. A significant number of people are suffering from sunstrokes and sunburns. Earlier, my understanding of these two maladies was that they could be cured in a matter of hours with sufficient rehydration. However, it seems their effects can last for more than a week, with the patient suffering from repeated vomiting and headache. In fact, some major hospitals have created chambers in which the victims are kept in a specially created environment for days  to get them back to normal.


And this is true not only of Nagpur, where people are habitual to 40-deg+ temperatures (and discuss it with some pride!). The coastal regions such as Konkan and Goa too are experiencing a never-seen-before heat-wave. In Goa, the temperature usually hovers in the range of 28-deg C to 34-deg C; but these days it has regularly been touching 38-deg C mark.

The first and foremost thing that we can do..
...in our little capacity as individuals, is water conservation and water recycling. No faulty and leaking taps, no mindless overturning of buckets. It is infuriating to see people washing their cars (and even porches) on a daily basis with pure drinking water. One must pause and think before spilling each and every drop of this precious liquid.

(Photo Courtsey: Manjusha)

We need to take utmost care of our little ones and senior citizens, as they are most susceptible to heat strokes. It is better to avoid exposing them to any outdoor activity during the day time; but if it cannot be avoided (due to marriage season and such), they need to be well-covered all the time.


Animals too suffer a lot during this harsh weather. We can place a bowl of water on our terraces (for birds), or a container out in the compound (for cats and dogs).

Around five years ago,
I had read a novel named "State of Fear". In it, the author Michael Crichton had argued that the hue and cry over environment change was mostly a propaganda promoted by some vested interests to create a 'state of fear' in the public mind, with little hard evidence to support it.

Well, looking around at the scenario today, Mother Earth seems to have proved Mr. Crichton completely wrong. To believe that environment has not been remarkably -- and perhaps even irreversibly -- affected would be to live in a state of denial.

Climate change is indeed for real, and it is here to stay.

Pride and Prestige

He had a good voice. He sang for the college band as the lead singer, and won many competitions.

Then one fine day, he was unceremoniously dropped in favour of a new kid, who necessarily didn’t have a better voice than him, but had better connections. After all, that was what really mattered.

However, it didn’t work out. The new entrant was booed by the audience, and was lucky enough to be only showered with catcalls. (Rotten tomatoes weren’t allowed into the auditorium.)

He (the original singer) didn’t have any idea of this; he had chosen to stay away from the whole thing.

Two days later, the professor heading the cultural committee and the band leader came to see him.

“Son,” said the professor, “You need to come back to the band.”

He shook his head, “I am sorry, I won’t.”

“But you must!” burst out the band leader. “We have inter-collegiate band competition coming up next month, and as the defending champions, if we don’t put up a good show, we would lose face!”

“You heard me.” He said flatly.

“Surely for the pride of college-“

“Don’t give me that nonsense” he snapped. “College as an institution is emotionless. It has neither a sense of pride nor prestige. It is your collective pride that’s at stake; you are worried that you would lose face.

When you chose that chap over me, you obviously didn’t give a damn about my pride. Now, I have decided to put my pride and self-esteem above that of yours, or that of the college, any way you choose to see it.”

Sach is Life!

Sachin Tendulkar played an amazing innings of 200 not out in the 2nd ODI against South Africa at Gwalior. In the process he broke the long-standing record of highest runs in an ODI innings (194) earlier held by Saeed Anwar against India. More significantly, Sachin also became the only player in ODI history to score a double century in a single innings. 


Poor MS Dhoni.. He too played an blistering innings of 68 not out in just 35 balls, but with the every six and four he hit, 30,000 spectators in the stadium (lucky them!) and millions watching around the world groaned and cursed, and urged him to give the strike to the Little Master.


Kudos to Sachin for making India proud, not just once but time and again. As much as the records, what is equally appealing - and more inspiring - is the silent determination and the calm resolve with which he faces every challenge. In a world full of pompous airbags, here is a giant who remains humble inspite of scaling the pinnacle of success in every possible way.

विक्रमांचा महामेरू

भारतीय क्रिकेटचा आधारू

मास्टर ब्लास्टर

या धरतीवरी
फलंदाज ऐसा नाही
क्रिकेटमध्ये आनंद राही
तुम्हाकारणे

कित्येक गोलंदाज संहारीला
कित्येकांसी घाम फोडीला
नवीन लोकांसी प्रेरणा जाहला
सचिन रमेश तेंडुलकर

It has been famously said that "when Sachin plays, even God watches from the heaven."
That's wrong.

When Sachin plays, God isn't watching from the heaven. He is out there on the crease, wielding the bat.

Salaam.. Dr Kalam!

In 2000, I read “Wings of Fire”. The next year, I read “Ignited Minds”, and a year later, “India: Vision 2020”.

The common thing among these immensely inspiring titles was its author: Dr APJ Abdul Kalam… one of the most famous scientists of India, and the most popular President of the country.

Until yesterday, it seemed a rather impossible dream to see and listen to Dr Kalam. But it was realized rather suddenly, when he came to inaugurate “Technovision” festival of SRKNEC. Ms Kirti Deo, my sister-in-law who studies there, managed to get a VIP pass, and we had an 11th-row view of the whole function.

The motorcade arrived at 10:15 AM. Even among the sea of people, it was easy to spot Dr Kalam, with his trademark silver locks and the grey Safari suit. On his arrival, the audience gave him a standing ovation, and all eyes were fixed on his every move.

In his speech, Dr Kalam spoke of empowering the nation through technology. He talked of his vision of making India a developed nation by the year 2020, and gave a 10-point strategy to achieve it. He detailed the PURA (Provision of Urban amenities to Rural Areas) mission, a recent initiative launched by Govt of India. He advised the students to have a systems approach (systems design, systems integration and systems management), suggested the faculty members to focus on the technologies of the future (such as nanotechnology and intelligent biotechnology).

Getting briefly into his favourite role of a teacher, he asked the audience questions about inventors and their inventions, and when the crowd gave right answers every time, chuckled, “Amazing students”.

He talked about success and failure, and administered an oath to “work with integrity and succeed with integrity.”

For a person of 80 years of age, Dr Kalam exhibited a physical fitness and mental sharpness that was quite amazing. He walked briskly; spoke firmly and even admonished a lensman who was insolent enough to be talking in a high voice. His speech was interspersed with light humour. When the students promised him they will live up to the oath, he said, "Your parents will be watching you!"

The function ended with national anthem, and it felt great to be singing it alone with this great son of this soil.

“Wings of Fire” only details his life-span up to 1991. Dr Kalam went on to become Chief Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minster and oversaw the Buddha Smiling Again at Pokhran in May 1998. In 2002, he became the eleventh President of India. I hope he comes out with another volume of his auto-biography in which he shares his experiences in these high-profile positions.

Dr Kalam, Dr R A Mashelkar, Dr Anil Kakodkar… These people are epitome of excellence in their fields, be it missile technology, polymer chemistry, or nuclear science. Listening to them is always an intellectually enriching experience, one that pulls us out from our dreary routine and makes us have some faith in human resilience to beat all odds.

Turning 30...

Last week, I was chatting with a friend, and she vexed eloquent about Ishaan, her cousin. He is all of five  three years old (thankfully) and yet seems to be really sharp for his age. I said something to the effect about the next generation already beating us in smartness. And she said, "Next generation? Oh yes, you are now an old man!"

I was rather confused for a moment... And then it hit me.

Last month, I turned 30.

“So what?” the younger lot among you might say.

“We understand... Join the club” the elderly among you will say.

One doesn’t take much notice when one completes the teenage years and turns 20. We are all too fascinated with ourselves, and eager to set the world in proper shape. We pride ourselves on our ideas, blissfully unaware that most of them have already been tried, tested and either implemented or failed. We just can’t wait to enter the twenties and take charge of our lives.

Stepping across to the thirties is a sobering experience. The mist lifts from the eyes, and reality kicks in. One by one, you begin to discover what you are capable of, and equally importantly, what you aren’t as capable of as you once thought.

Moreover, a significant large among us are married by 29-30 years. And quite frankly, the spouses have a special way of getting us on the ground level, turning us more humane from our demi-god image (mostly in our own mind).

And the funny thing is... You sense the change yourselves. You no longer enjoy doing things you once used to.

Some doors close for you, be it IITs or civil service. And it is said that, as a mathematician, if you don’t come up your best work by early twenties, you are finished. For someone whose dream (okay, okay... one of the dreams) was to be a mathematician/physicist, it is quite heart-wrenching.

If the teenage years are about enjoyment, and the twenties are about education, the thirties are about endurance; we supposed to be more mature, more responsible, and more serious towards life.

It’s not that we are not supposed to make mistakes, but we are expected to learn from them.

The past decade has been quite a roller-coaster ride, a sine wave. There are a few things that I did right, and some things I could have done better. And there are a lot many things I should have done, but didn’t manage to.

And...ah, yes... There are things I shouldn’t have done, but did them anyway... Mostly out of ignorance or immaturity. I have my share of regrets.

A couple of weeks ago, we visited the Ramkrishna Math in the city. Standing before the huge statue of Swami Vivekananda, I could only think of a line from this great Warrior Monk:

“God, give me the courage to change the things I can,

Strength to bear the things I cannot;

... and wisdom to be able to distinguish between the two.”

Laus Deo.

10 Things I once used to enjoy…

Has it ever happened with you that you are doing something day in and day out for a while, and then after a period of time you suddenly let it go?

Well, here is a list of 10 things, in no particular order, that I once enjoyed, but seem to have lost interest… at least for now.

• 
  
  Crackers and fireworks: As a kid, I thought I would never tire of lighting crackers. It seemed the best means of enjoyment. The sound, the light, the smell thrilled me. Not any more. I don’t even remember the last time I must have put a matchstick to a cracker or to a bomb. Not that I would stop any kids from enjoying them.
  
  
  
• 
  
  India Today: India Today has always been a staple magazine, just as Times of India has been the staple newspaper. However, over last year or two, the quality seems to have gone down, whereas the price has shot up; it used to cost Rs. 10/- now it’s up to Rs. 25/-. To my surprise, The Week -- a magazine I hardly ever took a glance -- seems to have improved significantly. Its last few issues have been worth a read.
  
  
  

• Writing, with a pen: I loved writing, especially with a fountain pen. (Remember those “Hero Pens”?) Until my graduation, I must have filled at least a dozen notebooks with my diary scribbles, reviews of books, articles and stuff.

Today, I don’t even have a good pen, for most of my writing (which seems to have transformed into “blogging”) happens on the machine. Admittedly, this is one activity I am sad about losing. One of my New Year resolutions is to buy a diary and a good pen and to write as much as possible.

• 
  
  Reading a newspaper: No day ever began without a cup of tea accompanied by the morning newspaper. I remember sitting by the kitchen table, reading out headlines to my mother as she prepared the morning breakfast. Now the news is mostly read online, with major headlines just skimmed through.
  
  
  
• 
  
  Forwarding SMSes: We had a group that forwarded SMSes to each other with a devotion. Not that this activity has entirely ceased; but the frequency has considerably gone down.
  
  
  
• 
  
  Using Sticky Notes: How I fought with HP over using Sticky Notes? And, now I have myself stopped using this as reminder tool (though I do use them to scribble short notes or details of temporary importance, such as URLs or IP addresses).
  
  
  
• 
  
  Yahoo!: No, not the Shammi Kapoor song... it still remains a favourite. I am referring to Yahoo! Portal. When we first hit the internet, Yahoo! Served as our anchor. Everything we did, revolved around it. We had Yahoo mail accounts, were members of Yahoo clubs (which later became Groups) and so on. Nowadays, the epicenter of our online presence has shifted to Google.
  
  
  
• 
  
  Watching TV: As a kid, TV was our primary pastime, after playing. We watched Doordarshan, we watched DD2 (Metro), then came the channel explosion of cable TV. Ever since I shifted out of Goa for job, TV has vanished from my life. And for good. The only time I made an effort to watch it at my landlord’s place was to catch up on Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Marathi series. And after the fiasco of finale, I repented over watching that too.
  
  
  
• 
  
  Fiction: Well, I haven't stopped reading fiction genre entirely… Just last week, I finished with The Lost Symbol, and loved it. But on the whole, the fiction section is something these days I don’t venture towards on visiting a bookstore.
  
  
  
• 
  
  Ghazals: For about 4 years, from 2001 to 2004, I listened to nothing but ghazals. Mehdi Hasan, Ghulam Ali, Jagjit Singh, et al. I had a stack-load of  CDs, the ghazals folder on the computer measured a few GBs. Then suddenly, I put them aside. No reason as to why, or when… Perhaps it was too much of a good thing? I haven’t listened to them in the last five years, except perhaps a chosen few, that too a couple of times at the most.
  
  
  

This is not to say that the activities mentioned above are in any case bad or that I have vowed never to take them up again. Maybe, a few years down the lines you might see me doing these very same things all over again (though, I have doubts).

It’s just that the excitement associated with them at the time doesn’t exist now, at least for me.

As they say: there’s a time for everything.

You’re having too much of computing when….

Well, dunno if this is a good thing or a sad thing, but all this is from personal experience.
You know involved a bit too much involved with the computer when…. 

• Your dreams end with a log off screen.
• You refer to every non-animate object as “machine”.
• You refer to the head of the family as the admin user.
• You own a 32 GB pen drive, but don’t have a good pen.
• When tagging anything with a date, you write: 20091219. Yeah, that stands for 19-12-2009.

•  You try to find Alt – Ctrl – Delete keys to unlock the keypad… of your mobile.
• Talking of top-end models (be it cars or watches), you refer to them as “enterprise versions”.
• You refer to cuisines as "domains". ("My wife is an expert in Maharashtrian and South Indian domain.")
• While talking to kids, you talk of access rights. (“No, beta…. You don’t yet have the access rights to handle the knife.”)
• Release of Windows 7 excites you more than that of an Amir Khan movie.
• You can remember half a dozen alpha-numeric passwords, but have trouble remembering your credit card signature.
• You have trouble signing your credit card signature.
• The suggestion to your spouse of preparing a dish at the last moment so that you can server it hot and fresh is communicated as, “Let’s keep all the components ready and compile a fresh build of masala dosa at the runtime!”.
• When reading a piece of printed matter, you reflexively try to ‘click’ any underlined text, assuming it to be a hyperlink.
• When you remark, “he has his ideas in the cloud”, you’re actually referring to the cloud computing.

Bahot Shukriya…

A colleague took his girlfriend to lunch, and forgot his wallet in the office. When realisation dawned upon him in the restaurant, he went to the washroom and tried calling his team-mates, but they were in a meeting. So he called me up to get his wallet.
The whole thing was so funny, it inspired me to do a satire of an old Hindi song sung by Asha Bhonsle – Mohd Rafi : Bahot shurkriya badi meherbaani, meri zindagi mein huzoor aap aaye…

Here it is…

लडका:
बहोत प्रोब्लेम हुवा, बडी परेशानी
इस होटेल में क्यों हम आये
घडी बेच दूं, या कपडे निकालू
करु क्या ये मेरी समझ में ना आये

करु पेश किसको नजराना बिल का
ना बन जाये कोई फलूदा इज्जत का
खुदा जाने मेरी सोनेरी घडी फिर
मेरी जिंदगी मे कब मिल जाये

बिल तो बहोत है, और पैसे कम है
सब दोस्तों के फोन भी बंद है
आज ये मुसाफिर दुवा मांगता है
खुदा इन सबको जल्द ही उठाये

लडकी:
मुझे डर है मुझपे, नजर आ ना जाये
लगुं भागने मैं, वो पिछे आ ना जाये
कही ये मेरी पर्स ना खोलकर
बिल पे करे और फिर भूल जाये

Passion & Emotion

Are you passionate? Or are you emotional? Does it mean the same?
No… on the surface of it, you are passionate about something; you get emotional about someone.

But there’s a more fundamental difference between the two.
Passion involves mind; emotion, by definition, excludes mental judgments.

Passion drives you to action. A passionate gardener; for example, would study his plants, read up about how best he can take care of them, he wouldn’t mind getting his hands dirty with soil – on the contrary, he would just love it. On the other hand, someone who just gets emotional about plants and trees would keep on complaining about loss of forest cover without ever setting out his foot to do something about it.

It is alright, in fact essential, to be emotional about someone. But emotions block critical analysis; you can hardly bring yourself about to criticize the object of your affection. But, being passionate about the relationship will make you strive for giving your best, and bringing out the best from the other person.
Emotions are self-centric… one may pine away for someone without ever thinking of ways to improve the other person. Passion is all about making its subject better.

Passion is often backed by a vast knowledge about the subject. If you are passionate about computers, you are likely to read more about them, study them in detail. If you are just emotional about movies of the past, all you are likely to do is whine about how such classics are no longer made.

More often than not, emotions are abstract feelings about generic subjects. It is rather difficult to describe why you feel the way you feel. A passionate person is more likely to give you the specific reasons for why he or she rooting for a particular cause.

Emotions are important…. they distinguish us from animals, and bring in some beautiful moments in one’s life. One can’t help being emotional; but it would help to bring in more of passion to everything, be it your work or your relationships.