Lets start somewhere

From past few weeks I had been thinking why the change is so difficult to produce results. Well, it seems change in itself is not difficult but the process and the initiatives are more energy consuming. I was looking at a report where a eighty year old gentleman had planted 10 thousand trees in his life time. The whole city is thankful to him. The inspiration that can be taken from this man is, his will to go on even though not much change was visible to him. He was telling the reporter that when he first heard that the reason of climatic change is deforestation, he knew that he should do something. He was not like most of us who will mock, criticize and discuss the relevant issues and then forget. He moved beyond with a spirit that someone has to do it sometime.

We as human seem to feel that I don't have time, its not right time for me to do and what can I do. Well all these questions arise due to a mental state of non leadership and laziness. Today kids and adults take courses to improve leadership skills and public interaction but they forget that standing in a class of 20 students and speaking, or doing a project, may not be real personality development. The real personality is developed when a person performs on ground and even though the performance may not be great importance it generates an inner confidence. This psyche also enables youth and even elder to understand the surrounding and their concerns. The positive aspect of such creative work is the sense of achievement which helps in eliminating depression and other mental tensions.

I see my nana jee, and one thing I always notice is is activeness. He keeps up with doing something or the other even at this age of 84. The positive feature about it is, that you don't feel alone, you have a reason to exist even at old age and a high moral spirit that you still contribute. These factors are very essential for even the senior generation of country.

All in all, even senior people can start to do something which is useful and beneficial to society than to think that its too late. The question then comes is what to do. Well if you are a graduate then you can start some tuitions to some non privileged students with out fee. If you are motived for plantation drive then get associated with some NGO and try to volunteer when you have time on weekends. If your education lets you help in some kind of infrastructural help then you can do it.

All these things happen with the help of some organization which have already found the problems and working on it. May be you are a loner and then you can start to do things from step one and may be you will form your own organisation.

But doing a little bit helps everyone. Work is the best friend for all.

Aam Admi Politics in India

I had been keenly reading news papers these days as this was budget season and most importantly the pre-poll budget for the UPA governement. It seems to be an exorbitant belly of exemptions that was announced lastly by the incumbent finance minister. The finance minister potted the voters with his bait of exemptions. The exemptions were extremely common man oriented like relief by waiving rupees sixty thousand crores to farmers by exempting their loans completely, more money savings for women and old, more money in employment schemes etc.

This budget was made a media hype before even it was tabled in parliament. Whole lot of speculations were rumored from the internal sources of Finance ministry and PMO. The rumors tried to make sure that the budget is going to be tough. Contrarily, when the budget was tabled things went out absolutely wonderful for common man. This hyped the performance of the government before aam aadmi. The party which was feeling despondent after losing state elections in past months and was succumbed under pressure of its left ally, started feeling on ninth cloud. All old gins of rotten politics surfaced and started making blatant statements.

Lalu is the first Dhoni who tried to show that he is one man in the country who can deliver the best in worst conditions. Railways never saw any price increase in last five years.By cutting prices of tickets this year again, lalu proved that he is Amitab bacchan of Indian Politics. But wait before I make these glorifying statements, any further, lets see how shrewed our politics have become.

Lets start with Lalu. All railways' budget saw this year was some or the other exemptions, new trains to bihar(where else), and more. As a good business firm Indian Gov.INC has done its part. However no one read the double stars while the budget was read with valor in parliament. The ticket price reduction will take place only in the trains which has new compartments with capacity of around 80 passengers. Currently, all the compartments in every train has some 70 seats. New compartments are in process of production. To suffice the need, it will take approximately 5 years to get all the compartments of each train replaced with newer ones. Until then there is no price cut. So my dear fellow aam aadmi, keep paying same amount but when you go to vote next time remember how much Lalu jee has done to make your life simpler and better. Another example was new trains. Well every year there are announcements of new trains to be introduced. Not even half of them are on rails till now. The announcements can not take effect till next session which means some other government (if country men are lucky enough). As another example of my own area, a train was announced between Delhi and Khajuraho. A wonderful idea. Not only this, the time table is also decided. It will run three times a week. I feel to bow before the god purush Lalu jee. But you know what, there is no railway line in Khajuraho. It was proposed by NDA government in 2002 and since then nothing has happened. So since there is no railway line so obviously no train. So Budget seems to be more of a vision statement of how railways will looks in 2015. As all the exemptions are going to take effect around that time if things go in normal way.

Anyways, so back to the main budget which offered great money to poor, deprived and secular citizens of India. Sixty thousand crore waiver to farmers is a huge relief. Lets see how it works now. Asked from the mighty FM, from where is this all money going to come?. Answer is, we have not decided it yet, but it will happen, we will find out the sources and there are many. There was confidence in his voice, shine and glow on his face. 25000 farmers suicided in last 4 years. If money for the releif was not the problem why was this not done 4 years back(There was no polls that time). The pro farmers parties like CPM and DMK were also blind. They can make a nuclear havoc, which is a non issue, kill poor farmers of Bengal to build unauthorized SEZs, expel writers from their houses but can not raise voice for common man. This is the same common man , a secular aam aadmi who voted for them with confidence.

Anyways, the debt relief story was surveyed in vidhabh where maximum suicides are reported. The case study is stunning. Again the stars were not read when the FM was making electoral budget, public. The relief will only given to farmers who own lands with less than 5 acres. 80% farmers in vidharbh own an average land of 8 to 10 acres. So non of them comes under this scheme. Next point is only loans taken from nationalized banks will be waived. Most of the farmers tend to go to private lenders in the market to get loans. So the mantra is "we will do but sorry it does not apply to you".

Now I m understanding why FM was not at all worried about arranging all this money as no money will at all be spent. So the crux becomes, good announcements, UPA ka haanth aam aadmi ke saath(UPA hand in hand with common man). Now the congress is eying to cash this opportunity. The mantra, being suggested from seniors, is go ahead with nuclear deal, Left will pull down the government and announce polls before year end and get votes before people forget what we have announced. A sympathy waive will always be there on nuclear issue on urban voters. So both urban and rural votes in Congress's Haanth.

Governments are happy, industry wont complain and banks shares are soring high. All win win except aam aadmi.

Freedom!! Why??

Sounds a funny heading but it is an emotion to be questioned. Why do we need freedom? In order to understand more lets say we don't need Freedom. This implies that I am slave. Now this is a relative term, so slave of what?, Slave of a state where the ruler is dictator, a slave of a community or religion, a slave of perfection or art and lots more. This makes me distracted. You may say freedom from everything mentioned above but it is contradictory. If I want a freedom from religion, I will leave Hinduism and accept Islam but what I did is, mere change of shackles. It means that I had shackles of steel but now they are of Gold. The point is they are still there. So I just changed masters.

So getting FREEDOM FROM.. is the problem. When ever we try to get freedom from some something we are inviting another trap to get caught in. If you ask a spiritual guru the same question they will have a very nice answer. The world is maya and renunciation is the path to achieve Freedom. Stop loving, hating and you will find god. But this seems ridiculous. How can you stop loving and find God when all scriptures say that through love you find god. The stress point becomes you choose either renunciation or world. For me renunciation is death. If I have no human emotions like love, happiness, hate then I am not human. So to become free absolutely I have to die.

The riddle ends if I start watching things than actually thinking on it. The question is why do we want freedom. May be there is a action which makes us uncomfortable and so we need a reaction to balance it. May be not..

Merit not a benchmark of jobs

This is an interesting news published in rediff about a statement made by Ram Jethmalani to the Apex Court on Oct 30,2007. According to Ram and I quote "merit based upon genetic accident is being concretised by a few marks in the examination. But merit cannot be the basis for entry into public services. Merit cannot be a benchmark.". The statement in itself is the poorest form of logic that any human can interpret. There can be microcephalic idiots who will understand the uncommon sense behind it. According to the most notorious and controversial lawyer, the hard work and excellence, as far as studies goes is not a criteria of work but some ridiculous caste system tag does. If you want to guess who has appointed him for the counsel then it will be common sense. Yes, if you have guessed it, Lalu Prasad's party RJD.

Well no doubt why Lalu still rules the Risena Hill. He has a dream to convert India into a slum by 2020. Anyways, I still wonder why Lawyers and Politicians do not Retire.

Beautiful morning and broken bones

The relaxed and dreamy night ended with the glimmering rays ambushing me on my face. The alarm rang and was snoozed thrice. "Oh God it was 8:30 am, how would I reach Office", was the first thought stirring my mind. The fat angry picturesque view of my BOSS loomed before me. I look like a small lamb ready to be eaten by a lion. Nice view of the morning was not soothing the eyes anymore. I open my Hotel's window and rushed to rest room to get ready. I was supposed to complete a task in the morning before reaching office. I had some stupid mail-in-rebate forms to be filled. Moreover there were some cheques to be sent to bank. Lots of stuffs to be done and how could I get up such late. There are 30 times in month that I vow to wake up at six and dream of a routine.

Well shower was pouring the mollifying hot water to burn off my anxiety but mind is powerful enough be make me tense as much as possible. I was in hurry of everything. I had to reach office and do the work before the Boss ask me any updates. I was praying to god to make him late. Why don't I hear often in America-" My tire punctured". I was trying to give god some wonderful ideas to save me. "This is the last time god I am asking for any help" was a recursive string bring uttered. There had been millions of "last times" for one or the other thing.

The lush white marble of my bath tub may have not liked my prayer and colluded with the soap lather to make the place frictionless. Suddenly, their conspiracy resulted in my dis balance and the only support was the white curtain, which could not bear my burden. The white strong wall of the bath tub directly plunged into my ribs just below my sensitive heart.

The reflexes in the form of tears did not wait for even a minute to usurp me from any logical state of mind. Some how I came out and managed to go to the office on time. I took a half day off and went to Emergency. Finally after x-ray I got to know that I have fracture in Ribs.

Software Engineering skills Part II

[I apologize for any errors or grammatical mistakes as this is being written in haste and not been proof read. One of you can let me know the mistakes on phone or mail and I will make the corrections if necessary. ]


The dark winters and the darker pre-design document is the beginning of this story. Its late for me to write on this now but I had been busy to complete the masters. The snow was the gesture of the coldness in the results that we received. A poor pre-design document. No reasons but lots of mistake. All of us were equally responsible. I was advised to change the name of the people as its a bad practice to name someone without their consent. So, I have made the changes here. Lets start from our nice smiling girl and let her be Supriya (I can smell something known) then comes the last lady Mahalaxmi then comes John and Sukhvinder. Team is still not complete so lets guess two new names Aparna and Somesh(It sucks, I know).

Aparna is a nice simple girl who believes in being self sufficient and productive. She looks crooked but she is too simple and smart. We had nice time being friends but she had been most professional in being as a group lead. Somesh is a hasty but too perfectionist fellow. He wants everything right in the world and absolutely professional.

Before I move on to my story again I need to mention this disclaimer.


"This is perfectly a hypothetical plot which has no semblance to any living or dead in this world or another world. The photos are randomly chosen and bear no relation to the subject being written. If someone finds it related to their own life, its a coincidence and I have no legal bondage in regard to what I am going to write or show. If you feel bad or hurt please try to forget it. If situation worsens please contact your doctor".

So the document made was Pre-design document. It proved how bad we were in terms of documenting. AI's gave us nice reviews. Again confusions rose and December was in its midst. We got break and I left for India. Mahalaxmi was too gone and so was John(Americans never work in breaks). Supriya was pointed to do extra work and correct the UI section. Ofcourse, Sukhvinder had to help her. A nice simple Supriya was transforming into a confident monster. Design document was the target and before I came back, we all got our assignment to new sections. This time the approach was different. Aparna made sure that we all get work which we complete in time. The older sections were not corrected and the new once started. Then team structural responsibility changed. I was now Team Lead(WORK Assigner); Sukhvinder was point of contact to client(This was awarded for is extra love to Client. Thank god that client was not a girl otherwise the end of this story had been happy marriage ceremony of Sukhvinder); John was the Guru(No one ever doubted it. Not even Mahalaxmi) and Last lady was the point of contact to supervisor(She is best in communication after all); Supriya was the log maintainer.

I was assigned Course and Report(No one know what it was), Sukhvinder was more into transaction section, Mahalaxmi was responsible for Search and Refunds, and John has User and Login with shopping cart. John was too technical oriented. He never complained of his work. We all did have complains.

Lets start from me. I was given Report.WHY??Well because no one else took it and no one else knew what was it about. We always neglected this section and I was the scapegoat. Mahalaxmi has complains about her section being too small and thus less responsibility. Supriya is always non complaining and looked happy to teamed up with me this time. Sukhvinder was too concerned about the script given to him, an alien task. John was pissed off with any more documentation.

Well we had no real hopes form the design document as we knew that requirements were not corrected. Mahalaxmi and I sat together and tried to make requirement more systematic. We worked hard, met AIs couple of times, bugged supervisor and team mates . Things moved smooth and Sukvinder tried to do data modeling sections. I remember a small fight between Sukhvinder and Mahalaxmi during this time and I was in Laundry. SE was an omni present topic, all time job, with no monetary gains. The fight ended with mutual exchanges of sorries(I dont remember if that really happened, but its nice to write it here).
Supriya was working on UI section and Sukhvinder was a helper. She thought she did a lot of work and now its gonna be less. Somehow she was wrong. John actually was pretty silent this time and major work was on Supriya (with Sukhvinder) and Mahalaxmi(with me and Sukhvinder). Not to mention somehow Sukhvinder emerged as the PRESERVER for all. He was helping in most of the sections and was confident that things are going to change. I knew somehow that things are not very different from past. We all were working days and nights. This was the time when we recorded some nice videos of Sukhvinder, Mahalaxmi and Supriya. I still have them but can not upload it. They show how much Mahalaxmi used to love "Cotten I Joe songs" and how more on John's nose hairs. It also recorded the marvelous and challenging laughter of Supriya like in uproar in a silent jungle(burrow). The best video is the cursing video of Mahalaxmi and Sukhvinder where they discuss the matters related to human body shopping. They were basically analyzing the market conditions about such trade. Its a hilarious video.

Document was done and the expectations were not much. We did hard work and nice job. The result was a OK. I was content that things are winding in positive direction. I though remember a small verbal fight between me and Aparna over documentation. I remember that I told the AI that we were not told to correct the previous document and Aparna said she told us to do it. She was sad as most of the time she took our failures as hers. I was sad that day as I was in no mood to hurt anyone. Just that I was too pissed off with the bad results. Well things started to get interesting after that. I was sure that I m in worst phase. I irritated my head who was supporting, the team load was immense.

Now was the coding era. We all were supposed to report to Somesh. He was out QA and not to mention a perfectionist. So every we were supposed to code. Mahalaxmi was doing search module(it proved to be shortest but longest). Panjabee was to read an arcane CGI script. No problems for John. He is the gem in the team for programming. We thought this phase will be good. Mahalaxmi, John and myself were in department from long and were kind of coders. But things are not as they look. So the first testing of search failed. So was the case with User module. Course was not started and Report was done badly. Even client was unaware about what they want in report so I made a tentative static report.

In this time I made sure that Supriya start to learn. I never wanted anyone to interfere in her learning so I asked her to ask me or John anything that troubles her. I myself used to sit in Library with her to help her learn. Nights were common for me. Supriya was also devoted. I told her that if she wants grade in this course then she has to work double and she did. Sometimes when she lagged I made a point to shout at her not to terrify but to make her vigilant of consequences. The best thing in her was she had full confidence in me and whatever I was telling her.
Sukhvinder was not escaping meeting and I hated that. He was more busy in his database course. So his script reading went on and on. Search failed again in the next test session which made Somesh bit angrier. Mahalaxmi was good but now we were skeptical if we will be able to do things in time. She was also having her project load and RA work. Things were getting complicated.

Requirements for reports changed and I was in mess. I have full course and Report. I had plan in mind that if Supriya did not do good in programming I myself will code. But I wanted to give her opportunity to show her best. But now things were getting worse. More reports were to be appended. Course was becoming bigger. Now I have started realizing why our design was bad. We had escaped half of the functions in Course.

The best thing in Mahalaxmi was she always sat with us as a team which Sukhvinder lacked. I was bit agitated over him, as his script reading was not ending and his seemingly simple code was not even started. Somesh asked him to submit his code and show results but the best reason for him was "It can not be tested as client did not get Verisign authentication for setup". We knew that he works hard but this time he was postponing(May be because of the database course which was too much work). So now the things in course were mounting like hell and even John said that it too big to be a module. It was a gigantic module which could have been a project in itself. I wanted that Sukhvinder completes his relatively smaller section and join me in completing course. I can not ask it from Mahalaxmi as she was too engaged with Search (which was not working after the third trial). Actually Somesh was too good a tester. He always pointed out the errors.

Deadlines were approaching and I was under too much pressure as I was coding for both Course and Report. Supriya, John and I designed and modeled and coded it from scratch. Meanwhile, I had exchange of fire emails with Mahalaxmi. According to her I was always interfering in contacting AI and they contacting me instead of her. According to me I can not wait long to take decisions and go via some routes. So in one of the mails I happen to remind her that its her job to be a point of contact. She got agitated with these words and my dare to remind her of her job. So she replied with a harsh mail of reminding my duty and how I interfere with her work and a warning that I have to ask her before contacting AI for meetings or work. I was hurt a bit. But then I felt that I should be more professional. I stopped making friendly gestures then and tried to be professional in getting things done.

We already passed the submission dates and took extension. Somehow Search was done and MahaLaxmi had to face Refunds. She worked hard to complete the section and so did we all. Sukhvinder too completed his code. I wanted him to join us but he reminded me that its not his work. There were discontent building up against Sukhvinder and I never wanted him to loose points so I was pressing him to work and show his presence. Again a bad phase of email exchanges went where I and Sukhvinder had left nothing to curse each other. Most of them were professionally written(we both have experience from Industry to write those bullshits.). One of the email was pretty personal where he made an allegation that I am frustrated and so I am targeting him. It made me felt down. I stopped any email after reading that mail and emailed personally to Aparna that I will not ask people to work, nor will I be responsible for any assignment and completion. Let me get the worse grade but I can not do anything further.

Bad things are going but Sukhvinder apologized for the comment and joined us in completing whatever was left. Aparna played a nice role in resolving that issue and I think she was too good as a manager. I made him work on CSS and a small translation module which was an overlapping module of User, Course and Transaction. He made it finally and we all completed things.

At one time when I and Mahalaxmi were talking she told me how much she is irritated with Search now. I though I have to ask for some supernatural help to make search work. Finally search worked and also Refunds. Mahalaxmi resolved the issues and John helped her with the problems. Surprisingly, Supriya was the winner as she completed the assigned coding in course module. Also she actively did testing of other modules. I did no testing.

So everything was integrated and we were happy. Somesh wanted the final presentation as soon as possible. Our system failed. But the good thing was there was no team who passed it. So we got some time to work on it. We never used any CVS or SVN. Though John and I have made a SVN repository on my computer but no one was ready to learn using it. This was the reason that in last moments we all were modifying each other's files and complaining of errors.

This was the time when we all were acting as one team. No one knew what module was done by them. I think that was what I wanted. Things were happening nicely. Aparna had constantly supported us throughout the phase. We used to go to her place in odd times like 3 AM and 6 AM. She was too supportive to lend us her lap top for Supriya for work.

Mahalaxmi and I too had nice time chatting on various issues of marriage, Cultures and more of dam things which I can not write otherwise she will sue me. John had been real guru and out of any troubles. We had nice potlucks at the end. John seemed to be victim of Mahalaxmi where he was forced to know about why India, how India and where in India. I am sure if he goes to India he will feel at home.

Our modules passed individually and collectively, and we were the first one and the biggest project to finish it on time(i think so). So all rejoices. No complains now. Professor sent a congratulation mail to the team.

The end was the last potluck we wanted to have at Mahalaxmi's place. The interesting part was I and Sukhvinder was preparing some food and were almost ready to leave for Mahalaxmi's place. Suddenly, Mahalaxmi called me up and told me to postpone it or keep it at Supriya's place. The reason for cancellation became very hot topic as it informed us of biological cycles in human being and their consequences. Most of us know the reason so I will not write it here but it became interesting as when Mahalaxmi told me about it on Phone( I was on Speaker and we all could hear that reason). It was a very embarrassing situation for me but it became hilarious at the end.

Very nice Potluck was the not the end. We kept on meeting after that and enjoyed to harass each other by some or the other nonsenses.

Life of a river

Thoughts emerge as water from a river source. A point, initially, becomes the sea at the end. The journey is what makes it most important. A child is a point thought. Each and every thing is new and good. Learning starts by sensing, the feelings and the ambiance. The emotions(outcome of thoughts) are hedged to crying and smiling either due to fear or food. The mother inculcates everything, whether it is hard stones that are in the path of emergence of the baby river or the path to traverse. She builds the power in the stream by providing slopes. The noisy stream is full of life and is difficult to stop. The mother enjoys the delight but nails hard stones to make it slow and calm. The thoughts gradually become profound and they take the shape of intelligence and logics. The stream is now getting slower and more serene, and becoming river. The broad and prodigious waters are now moving slowly and composedly. The depth has increased. Intelligence is now more subtle and ingrained. Its more of cognizance and vastness than just being juvenescent. Now the emotions are not restricted to the personal grief or longing. They are attached to all the living and non living things of the world. Now the river is personal but for all. The outcome of emotions is not a chuckle or despair . Its calm and a sign of learning, the learnings from the path traversed. The river progresses, sometimes gets polluted and then cleans itself. Thoughts too require refreshing and introspection from time to time. They do not change but modify and become potent. The dilapidated strings sunder and the neoteric thoughts meld.

River is reaching the mouth of delta. It had been an aeon when it was a nascent stream. Now, the horizon seems endless. It spreads its shoulders to infinity. There becomes not one but thousands of small rivers all excited to assimilate in the vast sea. It is free from all the thoughts. Its on the verge to become infinite depth. The cognizance is slowly dying. The depth is not increasing but has spread to many rivers on the land. The entire delta is fertile to bear the best in the world. Thoughts have finally ceased to a point. The point is now diminishing and the cycle completes.

[Referred from Gita]