Random thoughts of a techie

Death

2011-01-26T06:58:00.000-08:00

You are dead
when parents tell that
they are finding you a girl for marriage

You are dead
when morals, social obligations and desires find a conflict

You are dead
when a enthusiastic fresher joins a company with a smile
later to be realized he is just another commodity with a face value

You are dead
when somebody asks- how much bonus/hike did you get, when you ain't get any
and he stamps you a looser

You are dead
when relatives say your salary is very low,
why don't you try for sub inspector post?

You are dead
when you call your friends and they say - pakka koi kam hi hoga
and it is true

You are dead
when you are used and thrown
and then, somebody smiles in your face

Deadness has become a eternal part of life
you are not eligible for suicide anymore
no need of four guys to lift the mass
you are now floating towards sewage pipeline
to be merged in the waste of crowds

Secret Salaries - A malaise in corporate industry

2010-08-22T12:38:00.000-07:00

When I joined my first company, I was given the offer letter. But in the end, a secrecy clause was added - "your salaries and benefits are confidential and not to told to anybody in person and written." It is well known fact that with time people get to know, who is getting how much.

I think this policy is the sheer discrimination against the very basic concept of equality. I don't know where this system started. And I still don't know - are there any companies in India where salaries are not secret?

Let me tell you how this helps in discrimination.

There is boot licker in group, so boss impressed with him gives a good raise. So people get to know that boot lickers are getting raises. The good thing is nobody can say to manager that he got the raise that much. Is he really eligible for this? The very these words are against this secrecy clause. The after effect is- it increases suspicion and politics starts. Because people who are getting monetary appreciation are not going to tell the people, if they are not worthy of it. So some more start licking the boots. This helps in making the manager his clout among his juniors. This funda will most likely will be applied in the cases when manager is inefficient.

There is another case where it can be used. If there is one employee who is good at work and not very happy with the management. He often confronts manager in the meetings with his arguments. Many times his arguments are very apt. Management has no answers. Arguments are signs of healthy discussion. But ugly truth is that most managers don't like when a junior argues with them. Some managers make it the point he is not given a good raise and he leaves in frustration. Other in the group watch it out and no body speaks next time even if something is not in the rulebook. The scary thing is that this helps manager to manipulate the rules.

One more thing, there is one common phenomenon in IT field. The guy who is working from last three years in the same company will always be paid less than the guy who just joins. Let me tell you one tale - there were two guys in the same company. They worked two years together. Then one guy switched to another company. After working there for one year, he came back to this company again. Now this second guy is earning nearly 3/4th more than the earlier one. While both are working more or likely same, but doesn't it demoralize the earlier guy? Is working in good spirit really bad? Or hopping the companies is the good idea?

Second one seems to be a better option. At one end companies say attrition is bad, but aren't they encouraging here.

I think salaries should be open. They will bring fairness to the workplace. People will really get to know who is getting what. If there are secret clauses for the things, hardly backed by the reasons, most likely they are there to help authorities when they can't play fair.

Bloody Indians

2010-07-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

There was bandh all over India by opposition parties on price rise. Roads were lonely without traffic.
There was no holiday. So I need to go to office,

I don't have personnel bike. I came to nearby bus stand. I thought I would ask for lift and somebody will surely help. In the meantime the another gentleman came nearby. He was wearing Kurta Pyajama and was in mid fourties.

He stood before me and waived the hand for lift to two wheelers passing by. He tried 5-10 times. No body cared. Even if somebody would have stopped, this guy would have grabbed the seat as he was before me on the way. So I was second in the line.

This time he saw one guy from the long distance and started waiving hands when he was 100 mtrs away.
When the bike reached near to us, the guy on bike slowed down. This gentleman approached him, but in the meantime, he speeded away.

He shouted on top of his voice looking towards me -"We are bloody Indians. We are born that way only. Because we treat our own people, Indians, like third class citizens. If that guy on bike would have been in Europe or US, even if one beggar would have asked for the lift, he would have stopped and dropped him at his destination. We are good for nothing. We can't change."

As usual, I had nothing to say and I nodded in affirmation. I thought he was convinced that I agreed with him.

After waiving hands for another fifteen minutes, another guy on bike stopped. This gentleman ran towards him and sat on the back seat. He left away looking back at me.

Trek

2010-06-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

Remembering school days

2010-06-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

This is the documentary made by one of my seniors from school, Siddhu. Watched it. Had the glimpses of my school life and some of my best teachers at school- Tony Sir, Namboodri Sir, Jayanti Maam, Chauhan Sir, Y C Sharma Sir and so on. Nicely made.

Conversations

2010-05-31T01:33:00.000-07:00

You want to do it because you get goosebumps when you listen about it. You really love it. Will you define your life or let it be defined by circumstances? Will you garner the praise of everybody till long you become hollow inside?

I don't know. Look at the saints. They never define their life. They just live each day. They don't expect anything. They just smile.

You know why they smile- to fool you. They are constantly at war with them seeking the ultimate truth.

So you say - you have to seek ultimate truth without bothering about your family, your loved ones and your so called obligations towards society. Let so be it. But what if one day i get to know this is the ultimate truth.

You know what is your problem- you want to know everything now. Then what is the purpose of journey. The moments are best lived in finding the answers. Travelling untold path. You have been raised with quick results mindset. Get out of it. There are a lot of people littering shit everywhere because there are lot of people who are collecting it. You keep on reading self help books and reading advice boards. These all things are based on their own upbringing and some intent of what can be sold.

But where should I go, if i don't know where I want to go. Aren't these stupid questions? In childhood, I never asked these questions and it went perfectly fine.

Well that contains your answers because nobody cared much about what you did and you also didn't cared about what others were thinking.

Well that's good. I am ready to follow this. But will you do the same. Her eyes were suspicious now.

There was total silence.

And she screamed back- you know what is your problem. You belong to that category of people who are littering shit. You seek pleasure in giving big sermons to people. Look at what you have done in your life. You will find the answer. And you know what is the answer. Here it is -you are the biggest hypocrite living in this world.

Imprints

2010-05-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

We were all dancing in one of our friends marriage. All the loved ones were showering the love with money - throwing ten rupee notes over the dancing crowd. When the band started playing, a dark colored boy entered the crowd and started dancing with all his enthu. He wore a dirty dress and he was smiling. I too danced with him. His company was terrific. His body just went with the song ignoring all the junta around.When ten rupee notes descended in air, he jumped and grabbed as many as he can. This kept on a while.
Soon one of the guys from the band shouted ," who is this asshole? Get this shit out of here." People intervened very fast. They kicked him outside and asked him to get lost. He got aside. He had accusing look on his face, as I didn't intervened. Band guys were happy. They were playing music -"aaj mere yaar ki saadi hai" and when the ten rupee notes descended, they grabbed it all.

.~.~.~

There was this guy in army. He has a younger brother who does farming. Generally Jats of Rajasthan, those who don't have jobs, always have the option to plough the field. You have a good paying job, you have high respect in society. Their brides are two sisters. The elder thinks she is lucky. Mother in law loves the elder bridegroom more than the younger, so does the neighbours. The army guy brings the so called precious items for her wife- cosmetic and eatables. If her younger sister uses them, elder would envy her.
The army guy doesn't licks the butt of his seniors. He sometimes revolts against some of the high headed seniors. When he gets tensed, he drinks with his buddies. Sometimes, he gets in scuffle with his seniors. So they hate him and try to torture him. His irritation increases and one day he refuses to follow any of the orders of his seniors in front of everybody. Things get worse and he runs away from the army. He lives in a city unknown to his parents for his whereabouts. His parents search him and take him back. He is expelled from army.Stories go round in the neighborhood. He has done something really bad and he was foolish to leave such a good and cushy job. Now he goes in morning to nearby mountain to break big boulders and earns the paltry income. Everybody sees him a looser and elder sister doesn't envy her sister any more.

.~.~.~

Questions and Answers

2010-04-17T13:42:00.000-07:00

Are you religious?
No. I have no astha in any GOD. But i like some of the good teachings. There is one religion i like - Buddhism. I may just go to temple because i like the calmness and serenity, nothing more. I like the free prasad also. It feels good when people offer prasad generously to anybody. And i like LORD Krishna- kyonki inki life mein dance hai, comedya hai, romance hai, cheating hai, masti hai and usool bhi hain. I can very well connect with him.

Why Buddhism?
They are very calm and peaceful people . They are still happy with what they have. Capitalism hasn't entered their hearts yet. They don't shout about their religion.

What do you want in your life?
I don't know. And the most absurd question i often listen is - where do you see yourself in 5 years. Sometimes i see myself as professor in a college. Sometimes i see myself working in a startup. Sometimes i see myself going in a long adventure journey. Sometimes i see myself joining a govt job and leading a simple life near my village. Sometimes i see myself working in a very handsome paying company and go on sabbatical for few years with my savings. Sometimes i see myself joining army as an instructor. And i fear i may not be able to do anyone of these.

You are more ease at writing or speaking?
Writing. But i want to be at ease in speaking too.

Do you love money?
No, but i fear after coming in job life I may be getting this bug. I can survive on Parle G biscuits whole day.

Whom do you love most in your family?
My sister.

What is your idea of friendship?
I don't know but some of my best friends are those who have always helped me. Mutual help and trust are the things on which great friendships are made.

Do you believe in professional networking?
A big no. I read about this in college and i tried. But it was more pain than help. You have contacts with somebody with the aim of personal motive. When you fulfill your motive or your motive changes, you may loose the interest in that guy. I would better go straight and ask for help to somebody rather applying the funda of professional networking.

What is your take on marriage?
I fear that day. I don't know why. I am happy being single. The good thing i like being single is i can take more risks. But i have belief that women are great supporters emotionally.

Want to say something about Kartavya?
I joined kartavya because I felt connected with these children. I have seen the poverty. Later i started thinking that it would look good on my resume. And i have never been at ease giving this thing the resume angle. But honestly i worked with kartavya only because i liked that.

What is biggest concern you see?
Biggest concern i see is the lack of equal opportunity to every kid and this gap is increasing.

Do you watch porn?
Yes.

What is one thing you want to apply effectively in your life?
Do one thing at a time. I am a big failure in multitasking.

What you wish to see?
There should be more companies that should give the chance to guys who have no experience in the concerned domains. There should be more companies who don't ask where do you want to see yourself 5 years down the line. There should be companies who hire people without education qualifications. There should be top class MBA colleges who doesn't give due consideration to 10th and 12th marks, when the kid has no idea if he ever wanted to go for MBA. There should be government in India who can abolish the quota system.

People say you don't know how to drive the bike.
Yes thats true and i want to learn.

Among all your relatives, who do you like most?
My mamaji. He has done in his life whatever he wanted, without bothering about what others said. He build his own business. Now he has opened his nursery for selling plants during rainy season and has planted a big fruit garden. Everybody is saying - he is big fool, these things will not work. He himself says - "i don't know if it will be profitable or not". But he does what he believes and he has a great convincing power.

Do you cry?
Yes i do often.

What you have been doing from last two years?
In Gurgaon in my job, I underwent training and had no work in my company. I went to dabble at one of my college senior's startup and i loved that. My company wanted me to work at Pune Center. I didn't liked the idea and thought of resigning. I thought i can work with my senior. However nothing got fruitful. I came to Pune. Thought what to do. I tried for few startups and gave the interview for one and it was disaster. Then i laid back and learned swimming for 3 months without bothering about anything. Went home. Came to know parents want me to see married soon. Thought of giving CAT a try and get an MBA and can push the marriage for few years. It will be also an end to speculation going one - Tech or MBA. But i love tech too. I had no interest in finance and marketing. The only courses i liked was HR and general MBA. Filled the few forms. TISS is my favorite institute. I loved the profile of college and selection criteria of institute. College has so many other arts courses and I thought it would be fun learning in such a environment. I liked the profile of batch. There were not the guys who all got A's in every field they chose. They are just normal guys who really want to pursue the course.This school is not money centric and produces socially conscious students. Last but not the least -I have faith in TATAs. My percentile in CAT was 84 rounded off. So no calls from anywhere. Cleared TISS exam. Got the interview call. Has been pondering over HR for few days. Saw the HRs working in our company. Didn't like the way they are working. They hardly have any powers. Upper management gives the orders. Didn't went for the interview. Afer that gave 2-3 tech interviews but didn't landed anywhere. Pubmatic is the one of the companies I wished to work for. I have uploaded the resume on their site. Got the call from a lady, didn't hear the name clearly, took it casually and later to find out, it was call from Pubmatic.

Which city do you like more - Pune or Gurgaon?
Pune. Of course.It has great weather. There are very good colleges. You name a field and you can find a good educational institute. It has great picnic and tourist spots nearby. Girls can roam around in lanes till late in night. Pune has the color of life. You can see kids playing roadside. You see youngsters playing cards and chess games in cafes. Totally, Pune has more liveliness than Gurgaon.

Whom do you like more Rahul Bose or Shahrukh Khan?

Rahul Bose.

Whom do you like more Rahul Bose or Aamir Khan?

Tough to answer but still Rahul Bose gets more brownie points.

Who is better guru as per you - Baba Ramdev or Shri Shri Ravi Sankar.

Baba Ramdev.

Is it true that you got lowest grade in your company in performance appraisal?
Yes it is true. I think i was the easiest escape goat and they have to find one to adjust the data on bell curve.

Do you believe you performed exceptional?
No. I performed average or above average.

Whats wrong with the corporates?
They say salaries are confidential. This creates a environment of suspicion. This helps organizations to discriminate. There are two guys - A with lesser salary and B with higher salary. They both apply for the same position in the same company. A will be offered less and B more. Why? By the way both will be working at par on same thing. This is sheer discrimination. Where is the concept of equality? Organisations poach the employers from other companies, but the people from their organisations are poached, they frown upon. People don't discuss about their career plans. There is a perception, if his/her managers listens, he will alienate you from good work considering that the guy is leaving for higher studies. Why not to just have a fair talk with the guy and tell him. This way both understand each other's point of view, rather than playing the cards?

What you have learned in two years at your job?
Trust nobody except your friends. You will see people smiling in your face everyday but it takes time to understand who is who. Anybody can learn the things and work. This is no rocket science. Share what you know with your colleagues and help them. Learning never stops and you learn more when you share more. Project are successful when people work as a team. My learnings apply to nobody except myself.

How your blogging has evolved down the line?
Initially i just wrote anything. Later i read some blogs-how to write, and tried some. One time i thought of writing a dedicated blog on specific topic. But never wrote one. Later i saw some blogs who quote two three paragraphs from somewhere and just wrote their conclusion in 2- 3 lines. Hated this concept and never wrote one this way. I realized that i have to be myself while writing and be original. Many times i haven't written about something until i felt very strong about it. Writing has evolved my thought process and I have learned to talk to myself.

What about rationality and logic in your answers? I don't see any.
There are just feelings. I poured them just as they are. No logic, no figures. STOP.

There were some more things you wanted to say.
Yes, but i have to conceal. I have no courage to say here.

Things I learnt on code development at my job.

2010-02-23T10:58:00.000-08:00

Write design document and flow diagram before you code.

When I started work on my first module, my GL asked me to write the design document.

I had no idea what the design document was. It seemed funny to write about something, when you don't know, how the whole thing will be coded. Good thing was - code first and then write what code is doing.

In college, I used to code just after looking at the problem. I never thought about flow diagram and program design. Simple method was - write everything in a single file. Write the reusable parts in functions and call them from the main function. General programming in C! That's it. If I faced any difficulty, I went back and forth and made the changes.

Reluctantly, I saw some design documents and searched on Google -"Design Document".

We( teammates) kept on discussing among ourselves and finally designed the solution

with the flow diagram. It was reviewed among ourselves and if any alternatives, that were good,

were incorporated.

Then I started writing design document. Writing all the business scenarios, their significances,

,correct implementation, database schema structures, assumptions, configurations, data mapping etc. At first the very thought of writing a document pissed me off. We had that boastful perception that coders only code and writing documents is the job of clerks.

The whole process made me understand what really we are going to do and how we are going to do it. We had a very good understanding of the requirements and solution after this stage. A good design is like the foundation of the module.

Write unit test cases before you start coding.

Uff.. another clerk job. I had never written unit test cases before. Again I Googled -"Unit Test Case". I glanced through some already written test cases.Then I wrote. I cross checked all the requirements were covered in happy case scenarios.We found out error scenarios by asking - what if?

While running test cases after coding, I found that I had sometimes missed one or two - "what if"(error) scenarios. While coding we generally focus on how to implement this thing - rather than what happens when something goes wrong somewhere. Writing test cases beforehand ensures that our code runs correct in all possible cases as per expectation.

Using meaningful names of variables, functions and classes.

Meaningful names increase readability of the code. Most programmers hate reading the code of others. This is the one thing where you can help them and yourself [1]. Instead of writing short variable names that hardly make sense, it is ok to use long names that are readable.

Commenting your code.

We modify code a lot. So instead of writing comments while coding, prefer commenting in the end -when everything is finished.Golden rule of commenting is - don't comment if it is obvious.

Don't hardcode the values.

Instead of hard coding values in your code, you should put them in properties file or xml file. You can easily change the values in properties file, without tempering your code. Hard coding the values in the code is very very bad thing.

Make things generic.

Always think about larger picture. During testing, there was one defect. Some tags in xml were without any values but they didn't have any impact on business as they were optional fields. Any body could have fixed the issue by removing the empty tags from that module. But what about other modules, even though there were no defects for that. So the guy wrote a generic code that takes any XML and removes the empty tags. This code was executed just before any XML was sent from our system - it may be from any module.

Throw meaningful and accurate errors.

This is very important thing, you should dig in your head. Throwing a good meaningful error can save hours for the one who is fixing the bug in your code. I have came across some errors that give a very wrong description diverting the analysis in total different direction. Later on when you run it on debugger, you see the issue is something else and exception is telling you something else. This is the one thing that most developers neglect.

Write object oriented code if you are using OO language.
Even though we write in object oriented language, I have seen code where everything has been put in a single class and one functions keeps on calling other functions that has other functionality. This is not at all object oriented. You should clearly design your functionality with different objects that makes sense. Think this way - everything is object. Don't declare the local variables as instance variables in the code to avoid them passing from one function to another.

Reserve the same amount of time for unit testing as allocated for coding.

People generally think that everything will work fine because they have developed the code. How good be the developer, bugs always appear. Bugs are great teachers, so they take time to be fixed. You should thoroughly test your code during unit testing and find all possible bugs. You can save a lot money and time. Suppose you find a bug at later stages. It requires changes at too many places. You are risking your previously fully functional tested code with bugs that may come while fixing this bug. So one should never reserve too less time for unit testing.

I had one paper in 2nd last semester - software engineering. During that time, this course seemed much like history. Just read and remember, no experimentation, no real life experiences and not any technical concepts - only methodologies, do's and don'ts. While in college, i couldn't connect with it. After 19 months in my job, this course is making sense to me.

[1]Many programmers don't understand their own code when they visit it after some days.

Letter to Kapil Sibal for affordable higher education to all.

2009-07-08T22:35:00.001-07:00

Dear Kapil Sibal,

If India wants to bridge the gap between poor and rich. Indian higher education has to be priced reasonable.

I have seen many bright students in villages. But they can't afford todays education. They don't have money to go to coachings to prepare for the exams. Poor has very less money. When they spend the whole on the education of their son/daughter, stakes are too high. What if he/she looses? This world is too competitive. They will spend whole their life in misery trying to repay the interest on the money they borrowed from someone for their son's education.

I know many scholarships are there. But many people don't know about that. High fees bring in students with high standard of living. Thus spending of the ones from not so good economic background also goes high. You can't be a leacher in your friend circle.

I find the fee 12 lakhs by IIMs totally unreasonable. Is doubling the fees in a single year is justifiable? A big NO. You can make increments year by year. One of the reasons, while increasing the fee, apart from increasing cost was - students get into very high paying jobs, they can easily repay loans. But what now, when market is going through recession. Grads are getting less salary, then why aren't they reducing fees?

People take big loans to fund their higher education. That in turn makes them to go with high paying jobs in order to repay their loan EMIs. The education has to give the privilege to the student so that he can take risks and pursue what he wants in his life.

One of my friends took the loan for himself to fund his graduation. Then her sister took the loan to fund her graduation.
Now he is working at a job. All his savings are gone to repay his loan, her sister's loan and to save for the marriage of her sister's wedding.If this is the result of getting higher education, many people will fear to go for it. Does it really gives the returns worth on your investment?

There is no point in giving primary education free if the higher education can't be reasonably priced. I have seen people giving arguments- higher education is the previlige of only riches. From where the perception is coming? This is dangerous.

Pople are paying tax to govt. to look after basic amenities without much burden on them like- education, health, roads, economical housing etc. They are not paying taxes for the business class travel of the MPs.

Medical institutions are taking huge donations. Is that fair? NO. The guys graduating on donations go to practice. They demand very high fees from patients because their education was costly. They want returns soon. They take bribes from the pharma companies to do a favor to them - subscribe their company's drugs. Indirectly who is suffering here. Once again poor. A visit to doctor for the viral flue costs 500 bucks now adays. There is no bargaining at medical shops and with doctor's fees. Poor have a wrong perception that doctors that take high fees are good. Thus stab themselves only.

Institutions has to find the ways to make the education affordable to the poor. They should have a network with prominent Alumni, Foundations, NGOs and Research orgainsations. That can be another source of funding. They have to find the ways to get the talented students from poor economic background. When the guy goes back after studying, many people believe that we too can get quality education at reasonable price.

If india has to move forward, it has to take the weaker economic sections of the society with itself. There is no point in huge growth, if this is skewd. There has to levelling somewhere to make it consistent.

Sincerely,
Sanjeev Kumar Dangi

Gymming Running and Swimming

2009-07-04T13:28:00.001-07:00

I have practiced little bit of everything - Gymming, Running and Swimming.

Gymming

I used to go to Gym in college. If you are a first timer, you may be shocked, to see, how much weights the guys are lifting . Just relax, don't get disheartened. There are two type of guys - one who are egoist, not so matured, but have great muscles. And there are others - who are sincere, matured and of course have great build. You should seek the help of second type of guys.

It is always dangerous to do a exercise in a wrong way in Gym. Always gets tips from others or instructors before trying a new exercise.

To make muscles, you have to repeat a exercise many times in intervals. That makes it lonely and painful. By the way music always help. Please make sure when you are in Gym, music is playing in the background.

The best thing in Gym you can do is to exercise with a buddy or friend. That makes the activity fun and somewhat competitive. Because, in many exercises, you need the help of other guys. You can do the exercises alternatively with your buddy. While you finish, he starts and vice-versa. This also ensures you don't take too much rest.

I have gone to Gym in morning as well as evening. In morning it always feels good. In evening, sometime you don't feel like going. But once i went, i always performed better than morning. But in evening, sometimes, too much of heat irritates.

Great tips i learned while in Gym -

Do every exercise correctly.
Go to the extra mile in each exercise. Suppose you have lifted the weight 20 times and you are totally exhaust. Push yourself to do 5 times more. The last 5 are the ones that will build your muscles and stretch them.
Increase the rounds and weights gradually.
Have great food rich in proteins and carbohydrates. There is no point in going to gym if you are not taking a proper diet.
Be continuous. I should say gym demands determination. You should be very sincere, if you want to build muscles. If you thing you will get muscles in one or two months, you are wrong. It really takes time for muscles to build up. Many guys gets disheartened after going to gym for one or two months because they don't see muscles building up. There is no instant gratification in Gym. It demands pain, continuity, determination and time.
If you are too chubby, doing too much muscle building exercises will not help much. You should run for 30 minutes first on tread mill and then lift the weights.

Running-
Running is a great exercise. It has one added advantage, it has no monthly costs. Just wear running shoes and go outdoors and start running. If you are too fat, there is no better exercise than running.

We used to run back then at school and i have never really felt much difficulty while running.

When you start running, you always feels good for first few 100 meters and gradually you feel difficulty while breathing. But after you keep on pushing a little bit, your breath will adjust with the rhythm and you will feel somewhat OK to keep with the pace.

Learnings from running-

Running makes to believe that your body behaves the way you think. If you push it, it will keep on crossing the limits. I am astonished to listen that people have run ultra marathons, more than 100 km continuously for hours. It tells that your body never gives up, it is you who give up.
Drink a lot water with salts and lemon in it. It helps to replace fluids lost.Eat a lot of carbohydrates - rice, potato,bananas and chapatis.
Continuous running can be lonely sometimes. It is always better if you find a running group and run with them.

When i used to run continuously i saw every inch of extra fat was lost. And my body was in great shape. I got some muscles in Gym, but fats were somewhat reluctant to go because i never ran on trade mill.

Swimming-

It started just after the trip to Goa. In Goa, many of my colleagues were swimming and i couldn't. So i thought why not to learn swimming.

I dialed the JustDail.com and asked for the swimming pools near by our area in Pune. Myself and my friend, Shrikant, went to two pools and choose the one near our home. Luckily it was well maintained and cheaper, as it is run by municipality.

I along with my friends joined the Beginners Course of 21 days in Rs 1000. In the initial one month, we learned breast stroke and diving. The practice at our society pool on weekends helped. One of our friends Nitin already knew swimming, so he gave tips to all.

The instructor took us in deep water and asked to kick and move hands. He didn't gave his hand unless the guy drinks water and starts going inside. One day i drank a lot of water and started drowning because my instructor was somewhat late in giving his hand. That day, deep water made me fearful. As the days passed, fear in deep water went away.

By the it seems strange seeing kids with age 3 to 4 yrs learning swimming. I saw many kids weeping while swimming during whole session. Trainers hardly sympathized with them.

On Sunday, a life saving demo was organized. I went and loved it. Live saving guards wore the T-shit with tag line -"There is no point in being a great swimmer, if you can't save a life". I made one for myself -"There is no point in being a swimmer if you can't save your self."

I wanted to join Advanced Course in second month. But the instructor gave a -ve nod and said i need more practice to be in advanced course. I joined for second month without instructor. I went with my friends - Anuj, Shrikant and Mittal. We just practiced different styles by looking others and had fun with. During the meantime, we became very comfortable in deep water. We could stay for few seconds when somebody came in way. We didn't have any difficulty while taking breath and it became easy. One day a kid asked us to touch the bottom of the pool - 12 feet deep. We tried with this kid and we all were happy that we touched it. We downloaded some videos from the YouTube and expertvillage and watched them. They helped somewhat.But one thing is sure. You tube videos can hardly replace the place of instructor.

During third month, i joined the Advanced Course under one of the best instructors there - Shoiab. This month was most productive. Till my other friends have stopped, so i went alone by bus and returned also by bus.

Shoaib made us to rehearse the free style moves- inside as well as outside water. We did a lot of breathing after every round and that helped in breathing comfortably while swimming. He forced us to do a lot of rounds and gave tips in breaks - how to improve. My leg and hand movement became good. My stamina increased a lot. I also perfected breast stroke. Some times we clocked our timings in free style right from jumping at start till end.

As days passed, Shoaib started to teach us back stroke. Breast stroke takes least effort - then free style, then back and butterfly. Four rounds of back stroke were enough to exhaust totally. In weekends, the diving board was opened. I think it has height near about 10 feet. On the first day, we i tried to jump, meri phati hui thi. There were kids of 4 yrs jumping effortlessly. They gave the strength. I jumped with my eyes closed and went straight down in water. Then i practiced some more time and fear went away. On the next weekend i tried diving from the diving board. First time i landed flat on water and it hurt. I tried a few more times and i managed to do it decently.

While coming back home, i drank a half litre chilled milk. Sometimes i bought bananas, eggs and biscuits. Swimming helps in exercise of every part of the body. With continuous schedule, my body is in great shape.

While recently i am learning butterfly moves and how to turn at end while swimming. I am doing non stop rounds of pool in circle with butterfly stroke. Initially from 5, i have managed to do 20 rounds non stop. One round measures 50 mtrs.

Learning new things is always fun and i am loving it. Now days crowd has reduced. Schools has started after summer break. So i am in pool for two hours instead of one - just practicing, improving my moves and learning fun tricks.

Some great tips i learned while swimming.

Let yourself loose in water you will swim more comfortably.
Moving hands and legs slowing helps while learning instead of moving them fast.
Practice, practice and practice a lot.
Rather than doing fast, keep your concentration on doing the stroke perfectly. You can always increase your speed later, when you have learned the stroke perfectly.
Practicing breathing inside water helps a lot.
A cap always helps in swimming smoothly if you have long hairs.

Happenings on the way.

2009-03-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

I took the packet of sweets from the shop. I turned up fast as i was getting late on train to Pune.
I saw a Rickshaw man paddling fast. I waved my hand and he stopped.
"Take me to station."
"15 rupaiya laegaga sir", he said.
"No i will pay only 10."
"Thik hai sir jaldi baitho, green signal ho gaya hai."
I took a seat in a hurry and saw my watch.
I felt comfortable as it is just 10 minutes journey to railway station.

He passed through the heavy traffic cautiously driving. He was wearing kurta and lungi.
His hairs were black with white patches in the middle.

After sometime he turned to me. And he started.
"Babuji abhi khana khaya. Dimag kharab ho gaya.
Maine ek parathe wale se pucha - kaise diya. Wo bola - 10 ke 4.
Maine ek plate mangawa liya. Usne parathe lake diye aur maine khana chalu kiya.
Phir sabji laya to dekha bangan ki. Madar**** ne pahale kyon nahin bataya ki
bangan banaya hai."

I hardly took interest in him. But he again turned back.
"Babuji jab mere pitaji mare the, tab main unko ganga ji le gaya tha.
Pandit ji ne kahan ki, tumhe ek sabji chodni hogi. Maine us samay banagan chod diya.
Phir maine kabhi bangan nahin khaya. Aaj isne mera vart tod diya."

After sometime he again turned back. He was so eager to pour out his feelings that i could see his anger and frustration.

"Usko batana chahiye tha ki banagan ki sabji hai. Meri marji main khata to khata, nahin to nahin khata.
Main kyon bangan khata, main aaram se dal bati nahin khata.
Ab aapne bhi 15 ki bajaya 10 rupeye bole. Meri marji thi tabhi to aapko baithaya, warna na baithata."

He dropped on the railway station and said -"thik hai saab."
Then, he paddled back on the way.

First look of Pune

2009-01-05T20:33:00.001-08:00

I shifted from Gurgaon to Pune.It was my first travel by plane.
Pune comes at par with cost of living with Gurgaon.There was extreme cold at Delhi, but i don't feel the need to wear any sweaters here.Security for the flats is very high, it gave me pains in my stomach. It is much safer. You can rock and roll till late at night in streets.
But, there is no economical public transport. Frequency of buses is very low. I have no bike. So I have to loose my purse for hundred rupee note, everytime i hire a auto.
Too many picnic places nearby. Have been to Lonavala, Khandala and Khadakwasla. And you know we bought that famous chikki at Khandala. I ate the costliest Pratha of my life at Pune - Rs 25 per Pratha.
Magarpatta City is very beautiful and very well planned.And I watched "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi" and "Ghajini" at Big Cinemas and INOX.

At crossroads

2008-12-25T03:41:00.001-08:00

When you know everything is going right, you are jolly as always. But suddenly decisions are made by your players and you fall torn apart in your own life. You thinking process hangs, you don't want to think or you doubt your thinking.

Life goes the one way and you want other way.You don't know what to choose. You don't know what to do. Amid the ambiguities you make a mistake. Your heart is not settled yet. Can you really turn against the wind and go on the way you really wanted? Yes, people don't fail every time. You are what you choose.I know choices are never wrong. But they can be made better.

Kartavya - an effort of students towards educated India

2008-12-02T05:39:00.000-08:00

I have been associated with Kartavya for some time. Kartavya is a NGO started by students of Indian School of Mines Dhanbad to teach the underprivileged children. Started as a small selfless endavour by Amresh Mishra and his friends in 1999, it has now spread its wings to other parts of India too. All the other 9 centers are working independently by students of respective colleges, each one cooperating and sharing the vision with each other.

When i saw the its documentary live, I could not resist myself. So just sharing it.

To know more you can write to info@kartavya.org or can talk to anybody in the list.

Lipikaar Vs Google Idic Transliteration

2008-12-01T03:21:00.000-08:00

Lipikaar is a tool to write in local Indian language of your choice with the help of English keyboard.
Google Indic Transliteration is the tool for the same purpose.

Lipikaar has a simple philosophy. Convert the English character to the Hindi character that has same voice pronunciation. If you type "v", it changes to "व". It uses the same key multiple times (as in mobile phone typing) to type similar matching characters and for matras.

Verdict: Simple and sweet. But i have to remember their coding methodolgy.

Google's Transliteration choose a very different approach. They are usign AI tools - such as pattern recognition. Their codes learned the patterns how users write Hindi in with English keyboards. Suppose i write "सही" as "sahee" with english character keyboard. They identify the patterns generally users use to write "सही" and match that to it whenever user types it. So i don't have to remember any methodology. All i have to do is enable the tool and keep on chatting and scrapping in my old way while the receiver sees everything in hindi fonts. You may knowing that Google introduced the same feature some months ago in Orkut.

The advantage that Lipikaar garners is that, they support 17 indian languages but Google's tool only 5.

How to buy a laptop?

2008-11-20T21:32:00.000-08:00

I bought a new laptop recently. From my experiences, i drew a mind map on "how to buy a laptop" with the help of mindmeister.

Vaishno Devi Trip

2008-11-18T20:28:00.001-08:00

My journey to first Half Marathon - Airtel Delhi Half Marathon 2008

2008-11-10T22:27:00.000-08:00

We - Bhanu Pratap, Nagendra and Ashutosh Dubey and me, used to go to run at HUDA park in sector 14, Gurgaon. It was always a casual run and random. Someday we were 2, someday 3 and rarely four of us.

One day i was searching for something related to running. So i found the a running group delhirunners@googlegroups.com in for NCR region. I joined it. One day, Sunil from Gurgaon was looking for somebody nearby who was running. I contacted him.

I have been running in casual sandals till date. Next day, i went to market and came with my Reebok running shoes, socks and one t-shirt.

On the coming Sunday, i went to Nehru Park, Delhi with Sunil in his car, to run with the guys from the delhirunners group. We met many. I remember the names of only few - Tanvir kazmi, Rahul, Melvin, Anita and so on. Rahul is founder of runningandliving.com and is a great guy. It was a great fun running with them. On that day, i finished about 12- 13 kms. That was longer run than my usual runs. It was first time, i met the marathon runners. That was really motivating. I really got some great tips on running and stretching after the run. I have been suffering from the pain on the right side of my stomach. These guys suggested me to slow my speed, whenever it occurs. It was normal. Your muscles will take some time to adjust to the longer running. I tried this and it worked.

Soon the Airtel Delhi Half Marthon registrations started. I got every minute details on delhirunners group. Anita and Tanvir were very quick in giving information, replies and responding to any queries about running. My sincere thanks to them and all at delhirunners group.

After that i decided to prepare for half marathon. Season was changing and winter was on the way. So due to very dark in the evening, i decided to run in the morning.

From the starting of October, i started my preparations. I went on alternate days in the garden. One round of garden was approximately 1km. So i have been running 3- 4 rounds then casually. From that day, on every next run i decided to increase one more round and sometimes two. I didn't stopped even when my legs failed to cooperate. I may have slowed my speed but stopping before the target was not acceptable. Each day i woke up 10 minute early from my previous timing to make time for my extra round. I also did some stretching and normal exercises after that. When the runs got longer, i started to take a bottle of tap water with me to drink in between the run.

The Airtel Delhi Half Marathon advertisements became more frequent on the TV and radio. That too were really motivating with very nice music from A R Rahman. I registered in the last hour on last date, 15th Oct.

On the side by side, Rahul has been organising the runs at the Leisure Valley, Sector 29, Gurgaon. I got the news on delhirunners group and turned up on Sunday there. I reached late and could only run 5 kms. Run was organized very well and it was totally free. So, i decided not to miss it again.

Slowing pain in my left knee joint started. It became severe after every run. I went to an orthopedist. He checked my leg and approved normal. I took the rest for 4-5 days and took painkillers.

When there was no more pain, i again continued my run. But on the very first run, it again appeared as aggressive as it was earlier. But this time i didn't stopped running. When it increased, i slowed my speed. I took painkillers on the days of my run.

Diwali came and i went to home for one week. So no running for one week.

After returning to Gurgaon on 29 th Oct, i came to know of a run been organized by Rahul (runningandliving team) at Leisure valley on 2nd Nov. I registered for 15 km. I finished in 1 hour 20 minutes. The energy drinks at the pit stops really worked. I didn't felt much tiredness. On that day, Dr Roy, 76 years of age, too ran 10km. He started running at 52 years of age. He has ran 80 marathons and he wants to finish 100 in his lifetime. I was happy to meet such a great veteran. The pain in my knee joint again resurfaced severely. I took painkillers after that. I thought the pain may be due to the wrong shoes fitting. I took the wet foot test available there from Adidas guys on that day. Test showed my foot normal and i could wear any shoes. So, shoes were really not the culprit for the knee joint pain.

I again went to another orthopedist. He took an x-ray and approved my knee joint normal. He gave me some painkillers and pain relief gel and asked to stop running for the few days. I said - i will, but after my half marathon on 9th Nov.

I decided to take rest after that till 9th. I thought if i continued running, the knee joint pain may become more severe, and i may not be able to run half marathon. It is better to be on safer side. Finishing 15 km in 1 hour 20 minutes gave me confidence that i can complete my half marathon with decent timings.

I collected my bib no, timing chip and goodie bag on 7th Nov. and kept my fingers crossed for the d- day.

On 9th nov, weather was great. I went cool till 15 km. After that, it became very difficult. Every one km looked like 5km. But i pushed. Knee joint pain was also playing game. Sometimes it surfaced and then subsidized, again re-surfaced and subsidized. I didn't stopped and was determined to complete despite the pain. In the ending i spilled many bottles of water over my head to feel cool and gain strength.

I finished in 1 hour 59 minutes 24 seconds. My official timing here. Some people were giving free hugs to anybody. I hugged each one of them.

I loved my participation medal and it is worth cherishing. Thank you Airtel and all the sponsors for such a good show.There were no certificates for the people other than half marathon category. I think that everybody should be given a certificate irrespective of category in which he runs. Every man loves keeping a token of achievement as a memory in his life.

After running half marathon, i hope i can run a full marathon. Let's see.

Diversity should win

2008-11-06T21:14:00.000-08:00

I have always being a strong proponent of diversity. I have met many guys; they say - this guy is unexpected and utterly different. They hate the man due to non conformity to their lifestyle, their ideals, their beliefs and so on. I hope to always celebrate the individuality of man.
I would always love working in a company where people come from diverse backgrounds - rural, urban, middle classs high class, all religions, all faiths, different nationalities, different interests. I hate companies that treat their employees like working machines and force them to conformist structure. They hardly harness the other talents and give space to their individualities. The best way a company can encourage this is, by giving enough spaces to individuality, differences, different opinions and still moving leaving aside the idea of hate and differences.
I would never hate a man because he thinks different from me, have different opinions. I may differ in my viewpoint but that doesn't entitle me to hate that guy.
I have seen people saying - this guy is always after books and they hate him. This guy doesn't rises early and they hate him. This guy speaks too much and they hate him. This guy never attends any parties and they hate him. This guy works till late and they hate him. This guy is paranoid about fancy dresses and they hate him. There are thousand examples where people are unable to cope up with diversity.
While diversity brings hope, changes, generates new ideas, shows us the path of tolerance, wishes for better mankind where individuality is celebrated. Where people are free to have different opinions, different cultures, different interests, different faiths and then too giving enough space to other guys' freedom in the same way.
I would never support the divisive politics like Raj Thackery that are threat to the integrity and diversity of India

Let the diversity prosper !

Rantings from Book Fair

2008-10-21T01:50:00.000-07:00

I was reading the paper and my eyes glanced on the newspaper ad - "Book Fair at Gurgaon, Oct 11- Oct 19." I was very happy.

After 2 days, l left early from the company office and went straight to the Leisure Valley, where book fair was set up. There were a lot of stalls - i think near about 50 to 60 book stalls. There was one special offer - 10% discount on all books.

I entered in the National Book Trust stall. There were books in probably all regional languages of India. There were children books stalls, with books on so many innovative concepts. I was amazed how children books have discovered themselves to reach their target customers. There was one stall with all the novels from greatest Hindi writers - you name it and you will surely find the book. Then there were stalls with college books, technical books and management books. There was a book stall for fashion designers also. And one for spiritual books also. There was one selling Arabic and Urdu titles. And the other one was a stall by Haryana Police, selling titles about police administration. Lastly, there were many stalls with all the fiction and non fiction novels.

I was delighted to see so many good titles. I tried to grab many but bucks were less. I went to nearby ATM and debited some more amount. I saw many people carrying handbags full of books. There were many children who were asking their parents - "mama i need this book". After getting it, they glanced it's pages in anxiety and smile; thinking they have grabbed their most precious gift.

In one shop, a child was playing Bansuri. A man, in mid fifities, was giving him suggestions for playing. I asked the man- if i can get a bansuri. He wrote the names of two well known shops in a piece of paper - one from Meerut and one from Mathura. He also told to buy the book,"Bansuri Shiksha" in Hindi. I asked him that how many days it took for one to play it well. He said that in one week you could really play very well.

Firstly, i took a round of all the stalls and selected my titles which i liked. In the next round, i went to my selected titles for purchase. I didn't purchased any of the best sellers and popular books. I purchased the some less known good books and in diverse fields. Because the best sellers i can always find at the book store nearby my house, but not the other titles which are available rarely.

Books from Nation Book Trust of India were really good and economically priced. So I opted for their membership card for Rs 50/- and got extra 10% discount on all my purchases.

I purchased following titles:-

Jammu and Kashmir
Press in India
India's Foreign Policy
Tribal life in india
Indian Painting
Story of Redcross
Journey to Everest (Bachendri Pal)
Palmistry
Third degree
FIR
Rights of Man
Handwriting Analysis
Sketching

(Picture: from delhilive.com)

Run. Be happy and healthy

2008-10-14T01:33:00.001-07:00

In slide show presentations, bullets are/were boring.

The new mantra is - add the pictures to support your words. That engages reader and he can interpret fast. Minimum the words, the better the presentation.

This is my attempt to make a slide show on this theme. All the pictures in the slide show are taken from flickr.com.
It could be made better by making the pictures to cover the whole background by playing with them in an picture processing tool. Next time, i will try that.

Run and be happy and healthy!

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: health run)

Is orkut Dying?

2008-10-09T23:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, that isn't a shock but truth. After its propagation like fire in India and Brazil, orkut became third most popular social networking site.
But see its recents stats of pageviews stats at Alexa.com

What can be the reasons?
1)Social networking is shifting to mobiles leading rise to socialnetworks for mobiles like Twitter and people are shifting to them because of 24x7 connectivity through mobile phones.
2)Addition of third party applications led to the more response time of pages, sucking the users. They made the home page cluttered and ugly. Earlier, the best part of orkut was that it loaded very very fast and fun to play through pages without wasting much time.
4)They content screen became smaller with the introduction of new template feature. Templates also increased the response time of pages.
5)I think the lock feature of photos and scraps have declined the page view stats of orkut. Earlier very large chunk of male population used to surf through the photos of gals in their spare time on orkut.
6)No new excitements. There has been no new excitements, or they are late in implementing the this. They allowed the third party applications a lot after by watching facebook and it spoiled the game for them. They inserted comments sections on photos a long after flickr was doing them since inception.

And lastly i would say, user contribution, that is the core of Web 2.0 is dying. People are editing less wikipedia articles, blogging less frequently, commenting less frequently, tagging less frequently and so on.

Aao Dode: Airtel Delhi Half Marthon 2008

2008-10-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

I will be running for Airtel Delhi Half Marthon on 9th Nov. I have been running in morning at Huda Park on the corner of Sector 14. If you are an enthusiastic runner in the same vicinity, please drop by and say "hello". I will be

happy to meet.

For more details visit:http://adhm.indiatimes.com/

If you are in NCR, have a look at the delhirunners Group.

To Do List

2008-10-07T23:30:00.001-07:00

After reading an article on addedbytes.com about TO DO, i thought of what i will be doing in coming days.

1. I will continue running over longer distances perferabbly in the morning, most likely on alternate days.
2. Keep on reading novels. The next one in the line is "Life of PI."
3. To purchase the webspace and make my website. I read somewhere that down the line after 10 years, there will be two types of people - ones with personal websites and others without them. I want to be in first category.
4.Keep on learning more and more - geeky and business stuff.
5.Writing articles on what i have learn't and that may help somebody.

I think this is more than enough to concentrate on in coming days.

Wish me luck!

BarCamp Delhi 5th edition

2008-10-05T21:36:00.000-07:00

This weekend, i will be at IITD to attend BarCampDelhi5.

If you are tech enthusiastic, hacker, geek, planning to startup or have started one, this is the event i recommend you to attend.To know more about the event, visit http://wiki.barcampdelhi.com/

Why you should backup your email and how to do it?

2008-09-24T04:35:00.000-07:00

Email is such a dustbin, we put inside it everything- Files, phone nos, contacts, presentations, chats. We hardly delete them. But many times we may feel helpless, for ex.-

1)You have came to a different city and you need to take a printout of your resume which is attached in your mail. But the email site is down. That is very very rarity but you never know when the technology ditches you right in the face when you badly need it.

Solution:

Forward a copy to another email service. Suppose you have gmail account, forward a copy to yahoomail or rediff or any other account and viceversa. How to do it? Click here.

2)You are at your office and your email server is blocked by your company's watchdog tool. And you suddenly need the contact no of your friend who dropped his phone no while chatting with you at home. OR

3)You went to your village and there is no internet connection. And you need the a powerpoint presentation, attached in mail, to go through for your meeting.

Solution:(If you are already using Outlook Express, ignore the i) and ii) steps.

i>Enable IMAP in Gmail. Click here.

ii>Configure Microsoft Outlook to retrieve all your gmail files in it on your PC. Click here.

iii>Download all the mails from the outlook client in a separate file. Click here.

You can write this file to DVD also. Or let it live on your PC.

So now if there is no internet connection, you can still find your presentation on you PC.

Picture from thesandbox.wordpress.com and somewhat edited by me.

Google's 10th Birthday

2008-09-23T21:58:00.001-07:00

Check Google Timeline . It's interesting. Also do check out their Project 10^100 .

Guha's First Day (Story)

2008-09-23T03:27:00.000-07:00

We got down in front of the main gate of Sainik School Chittorgarh. I was carrying a bag and my father had a trunk on his head. Myself, Ram Charan made the entry in the register at the guard room of the gate. The gate was very large with a board standing on two tall pillars. The road from the gate led to the academic building. The eucalyptus trees were planted on both the sides of the main road. We turned toward the academic building and many others also followed us. Most of boys were with their mother and father both.

It has been a dream come true when i cleared the Sainik School entrance exam. My parents didn't exactly know where my future was. But they thought firmly that it was bright.

From last one year, i have toiled my nights for the Sainik School entrance exam under the dim light of a bulb in my village. When there were power cuts, i used candles and gas lamp. My father had purchased a new one exclusively for me. I studied with my cousins in the night. We were a joint family. In the late hours of night, when everybody was sleeping, we studied quietly in a small corner room. When we got bored, we played 'Dhap' - a game in which, four paper slips, with a name printed on it, are given to each of the four players. Then, paper slips are exchanged among the members in clockwise turn and the one who gets all his four slips with the same name, wins. Sometimes, we read Ramayana and a few mythological story books in Hindi with colorful pictures, My uncle was a teacher and he has a good collection of similar books. And many times, we slept while reading and rolled over the books whole night. I was good at maths. When i solved the math questions from the high standard books of my cousins, they were surprised.

"You will surely clear the entrance exams," they said.

I still remember the face of all of my family members while i was leaving for the school.

How much they were concerned about me. I was only a kid of 11 yrs. Their eyes became wet, but they didn't stop me, hoping i have a better future ahead. They were proud of me. Many asked my family members - “Has Ramcharan got the admission in the Sainik School?"

And my family members answered,” yes, he had got through the exam, he really studied hard.”

Everybody felt proud answering this question. There was so much hype in the village and i became known to a lot villagers. While leaving my family, i was also not happy. I never thought of living away from my parents at this age.

We were called in the admission office; we were called according to the examination roll no. and were allotted the school. no in the same order. They checked all the documents and all the necessary items we were asked to bring with us. I was the second to be allotted the school no. But the first guy had some faults in the documents and he and his father were asked to go to the collectorate to get attested a few papers. So i became first in the school. no. allotment. And i thought that is really a good sign for the bright days ahead. The admission officer, Mr Bakshi,a medium height man, with little moustaches and wide eyes, advised me to remember the school no. He said, "you should quote this no. when you are asked for individual verification. It is the primary key and your name is secondary. Form that day; i always placed the school. no. in front of my name - "3478 Shyam Singh Guha.” It looked as if a rank has been conferred to me like the officers in the armed forces. But i was still unaware that i was going to get one more rank. Usually many staff members called students with the salutation - "cadet." So my identity verification tag became - "Cadet 3478 Shyam Singh Guha." It became so long that i cut it short - "Cadet 3478 S. S. Guha." Yes, that looked nice and more respected one.

I was allotted Luv Hostel. We were given the map of whole school. In the map, we spotted our hostel and marched towards that. Moving all my belongings to the hostel was a herculean task. We had a large trunk, one bag, one suitcase and one quilt packed in a polythene bag. But we some how managed it.

The hostel consisted of three long dormitories. It accommodated near about seventy cadets. When we entered in the dormitory, there was total silence. There was no one. It gave a dreadful look and i got fearful. Then i remembered that i was the first one to be allotted the hostel and other students will come soon. Many old newspapers were lying here and there. The cupboards were painted in green. Thick, non spongy and red colored mattress were placed on the large smooth flat slabs of the stones, each one standing on three thin lining of bricks. With the scene, i felt sudden pain in my back. I have never seen such a large room with such a dismal look. Many cupboard were open making different angles with the walls and inside there was a labyrinth of spider webs. Four beds, two on this side of wall and two on that side of the wall, shared a ceiling fan and a small open space at the centre among them.

We took out our items out of trunk and the bag. My father wrote my school no. on every item. I wrote " 8478 Shyam Singh Guha " in big curly letters. Writing the name of oneself is always exciting. We took out the bottle of marking ink and marked with the help of a sharp nib. The droplets of ink spread giving some irregular shapes to the digits of my school no. This task really consumed a lot of time. There were dozens of dresses and many small items to be marked. After trying with some more clothes, we left the marking in between. I didn’t like the way, my father was playing with my school no digits.

I said no to him and insisted him to stop. I couldn’t bear the sight of digits giving shabby looks, far away from the recognition. We left this task in between.

I still remember, when i got the admission letter one month ago, there was a separate pamphlet for the necessary clothes and items to be taken with me . I read the pamphlet a lot of times. So, a weak before our departure, my father started buying something each day. So, i check marked the items that were bought on that day. First time when i read the pamphlet, i got the word - 'Trousers.' It was enlisted many times, each time with a different prefix such as black, white, khaki, grey etc. This name frightened me. And i got more suspicious of this due to the repetition with different prefixes. Later, i consulted the dictionary and got relief.

Due to a long list of clothes, my mother suggested that it would be much cheaper if we give the work to the tailor on the per day basis, instead of per cloth basis. This is a custom in the villages, when the tailor is paid a fixed sum for the day, irrespective of how much clothes he sews. It is cheaper, if someone had a bulk of clothes to be sewn.

But after one day, Joginder, the tailor, suggested that it would be much better if he sewed all my clothes at his shop. He argued that the school officials might identify some defects in the clothes made from a simple sewing machine at our home. At shop, he would be able to give more professional touches; he had two more machines there for final finishing. My father and mother got worried and they gave node to Joginder's suggestion.

After sometime, some more students started appearing in the dormitory. It became full of them and it became lively by their movements and their chatting. Every parent selected the best cupboards for his son, after calculating all the pros and cons. They checked the window panes whether they were fitted well or not. Some even guessed the distance from the bathroom and the gate of dormitory, so that their kid don’t have to walk few more steps unnecessarily.

There after, house master, G. K. Pal, appeared. He introduced himself to all of us. He was the English teacher. He asked how we were feeling. Then he showed us the surroundings - garden, courtyard, study room and bathrooms. He asked to report to him in case of any difficulty. He lived in home attached with the hostel to the right side of main gate.

After sometime on the other side another small fellow, Rahul, came. My parents introduced themselves. They asked us to say hello to each other. But we were somewhat reluctant. They were from a village in Karoli district. His father was in army. Soon we became acquainted with them well.

Rahul and his father also started marking their items. They took out the marker pen and marked with the help of a sharp nib. After they have marked nicely his school no. on all Rahul's personal items, I asked them to give me the marker pen. I took it from Rahul and quickly marked my left away items.

In the evening my father went to market. He purchased some pencils, a sharpener, a ruler and some notebooks for me. Then, we sat on the stone slab on the edge of playground in front of the hostel. My father gave me some advice to behave properly with the others and not to fight with anybody. I nodded my head in agreement. He opened his bag and gave me some fruits.

” I should leave now," he said while taking the bag on the shoulder. I touched his feet and then he departed. He waived his hand towards me. When he had gone a distance and i was sure that he won't turn and smile again, I felt the utter loneliness. I went deep inside the dark in the ground. I sat down on the rough and spiky grass. Tears rolled down along my cheeks. I started sobbing and went out of control. But hardly anybody has noticed me in the dark. I again gazed in the sky and kept on weeping. The memories started rolling before my eyes. I with my friends ran through the green fields on the holidays to take bath under the sprinklers in the summers. I, along with all my family members slept under the open sky. We sometimes used to talk about the date of birth and sunshine of each other. When i slept early, my mom used to wake me up for a glass of milk. She lifted me and changed my clothes and made me wear the kurta and pajama. I remember when one day i pulled the ponytail of my sister, my father thrashed me. I stopped talking to every member of my family. Seeing this, my sister made me sit on her shoulders and we ran in open fields chasing our pet dog . She tumbled on the soil, when she accidentally hit into the dog. Both of us rolled on the soil making all our clothes dirty. Then we kept on laughing pointing at the dirty faces of each other with our fingers .

After an hour i got up and rubbed tears on my cheeks. Sobs were slow and less frequent now. I went to the bathroom. When i saw the mirror, my eyes were red. I washed my face with the cold water. Nobody was there to console me. I looked in the mirror again and tried to smile but my dry cheeks were unable to move. I thought why my father haven’t stayed with me a few more days. I had listened; parents of other boys had planned to stay with them with a week or so.

I went to dinner. I didn’t talk to anybody. Each one of us had a new torch, we were asked to bring it as a necessary item. And we were asked to use it while going for dinner. Many boys focused the light beams of the torches in the tall eucalyptus trees. Suddenly a lot of parrots flew in all directions in fear. They laughed in joy. Then, they kept on focusing it again and again turn by turn, to check who’s beam was more powerful. Each time the parrots flew, they laughed again. I wasn’t laughing at all.

I had my dinner. After that, I came straight to the hostel. Boys started chatting. I didn’t have anything to chat. And I was in no mood to chat with anybody. I changed my clothes and laid on bed. I took out my shawl and covered my body. My village memories started repeating again in mind. I again went out of control and started to sob. I tried to calm me down, fearing that somebody would notice me. I took out my head to verify. No body was noticing me. I started crying again and I didn’t know when amid these sobs, my eyes closed and I was fast asleep.

Outing @ Waterbank Resort

2008-09-22T02:11:00.000-07:00

Advertising the Google Way

2008-09-10T23:32:00.001-07:00

Lessons i have learn't from Google.

1)Make a kick ass product and let it advertise for you. Adore it and celebrate it.

They made search that brings everything a user wants on his/her screen. It is making world more simple. The sheer usefulness of the search asks its users to refer the service to anybody, with the same pride as Google talks about it. It is so convenient and popular the very name of searching on Google coined the term "Googling" among the users. And there is no better of advertising, if your product becomes a term to be used in day today life.

2)Add a pinch of Creativity and Innovation.

The google is adding the wow factor to each of its products. Let it be Gmail, Gtalk, Google Earth, Translation, Analytics, Googlebooks so on --- they have always surprised users with simple and very clever products. Gmail revolutionsed the user saw mail. The file attachment in the backend, autosaving, a very large space, embedded gtalk, autosaving of contacts, autosaving of chats, labels, minimum no of clicks for navigation and so on. They really saw what was sucking users and they came with a neat solution.

3)Show the use of your products in day today activities instead of advertising it on billboards, TVs and radios.

You may be seeing the google channel on youtube broadcasting everthing about google. They share experience, useful talks, conferences and life of googlers showing the users how they can use youtube. They have made presidential campaign live on youtube attracting more users, and asking them how to use it. They use their googlegroups for the discussions related to their products faqs, helps, meetings and so on. Googlers writing blogs on the blogger.com. Google using google docs for online registration of events and collecting the data on their online excel documents, telling users how to use them. Google helping universities to deploy google applications freely customizing them according to university needs, thus, winning the faith of young generation and building a brand among would be googlers :)

4)Don't disclose everything about your products. Let people explore and let them spread the words what they found new.

You have been searching from the your childhood days. But still you may not be using google effectively. Have you used google to search for definitions, for stocks, weathers, movies, calculator, translations with their keywords, to get what you wanted, in first search result?

Do you use filters, labels and advanced search with special keywords in Gmail?

Why don't they disclose it on the main page and describe that functionality?

Firstly to hide the complexity from a layman user.

And secondly,many users explore these things and they ask their fellow members -"did you know it?"

No, they say.

They tell this to as many of them as they can tell. They feel privileged that they discovered something new, thus, advertising the Google indirectly. They become faithful users and try to explore more and more and tell people more and more.

What they are getting?

Simple! The joy of exploring hidden things!

5)Be closer to your users.

They celebrate the great moments of history and day today life with google doodles (different home page logos of Google), thus connecting with the feelings and day today life of users. Did you saw the orkut celebrating 60th Independence Day of India through its logo?

6)Win the faith of your users to turn them to your fans.

When you made your orkut account, you saw that Google didn't forced to you to sign through your Gmail account, thus removing that irritating factor of registering to use a service. They would have asked for compulsory sign ups for Gmail to increase their Gmail users. But that would have been harmful for their image in the long term. You may heard that old quote - "it takes years to make an image and it takes a second to break it." So they allowed you to register through any account.

When there was misuse of photos in orkut they provided the lock for security. When you upload a photo on orkut, they say not to upload photos of celebrities, nudity and copyrighted material instead of embedding this statement somewhere in terms and conditions page in small letters. When somebody complains of copyright material uploaded on youtube, they sincerely remove it after verifying it.

7)Each and every activity of your company speaks about you. Conduct yourself well to make a good image of yourself in public.

Have you seen Google collaborating with Yahoo? Have you seen life at googleplexes? Are you using their product? What they represent- the spirit of Google. When people say - i love Google; a smart techie beside you will be thinking - some day i will be a Googler. Workers identify themselves with the image of company and so are the users. If it is good, it works for you. If it is bad it works for you. Their products and work culture inspire brightest minds to become Googlers.

Trying hands on ascii art : first attempt

2008-09-05T04:52:00.001-07:00

(*.*)

x| |x

/ \

:"""":

\ /)

<_>

Talking to innerself

2008-09-04T02:46:00.000-07:00

I was walking with one of my friends Nagendra on a stroll.
He asked,"Which city is better for the medical exams preparation- Delhi or Kota?"
"Both are good", I replied. "But why are you asking this."
"My brother is good in science particularly at biology, so i am thinking it would be better if he prepares for medical exams."

His answer really hurted me. Because this summers, i admitted my brother to IIT coaching institue @ Kota prior to his X class result was out.
Did i asked him for options? No.
Did i told him what all he can do after X class? No
Did i asked him, what does he really loves? No.

So did i committed a mistake? I don't know. I think medical exams are too tough these days with a limited no of seats. So if you don't clear in first attempt, for each year of preparation, you have to roll out near about 1 lakh about coaching. And that is a big money. What if you are not able to make out even after very hard work. It happens. You keep on swinging here and there after in other universities after wasting 2-3 years of life. I am not underestimating the dedication of my brother. But fears are always there. I have seen cases who put in lot of efforts without any results. But now you would be saying, i am too pessimistic. May be i don't know.

On the other way, in engg, you will always clear the exam, what really matters is the All India Rank. So at least you can take admission in college according to your rank and take hold of remaining tensions later.

But next time i will only give him suggestions. I will go with whatever he likes. I am not going to say particularly - "do this". Because in my whole my life, nobody has instructed me to do anything and i am happy for what all major decisions i have taken in my life regarding my career. I wish the same for my brother. Because i have one firm belief -

"you may commit more mistakes, if some one doesn't provide you short cut answers, but in the process you will find your own short cut answers or will start googling more often; that indeed, is the real learning."

Quote

2008-08-24T09:53:00.003-07:00

A random thought came to my mind and i converted it to a quote. It goes like this..

"Get over your confusions, they are viral. "--- by skdangi

Are you more smarter than email spambots?

2008-08-11T05:49:00.001-07:00

While dragging through the blog posts, comments and discussion forums, i see people leaving their email id as it is. Many times, i too have added my email id asking somebody to write to me. I really didn't cared much , i received a lot of spams but not in my inbox. My gmail spam filter does the job for me. But what if you are a celebrity. Somebody grabs your e-mail id and is surely going to fire the mail. Later, i realised it is always better to not leave your e mail id in public places.

One day i saw a man which left his email id in the format xxx{at}yyy{dot}com. At the first glance, i thought the man is really smart. But with the second thought i thought, why can't be the spambot be smarter. It hardly takes a second to add a line of code to spambot to detect this email id that looks so conventional technique.

So how do i do it?

1)Write myname@yyyy.com and leave your name in the post and ask the guy to replace myname with your name or your id(if your id doesn't exactly have your name in it).

2)But the best way is to add a picture of your email id (it certainly takes time to copy and paste the pic from your files on the web) and you would have certainly seen it on the many personal homapages of Professors if you have been trying to do an internship/project under them ;).

3) Make your own pattern that is uncommon. Let's say your id is varun.pie@gmail.com. So you can write varunDOTpie(gmail.com) or varun.pie on gmail.

Advertising through the social cause

2008-08-07T02:53:00.000-07:00

When you are driving on the roads, you may be watching the big billboards of "Teach India" Compaign by Times of India. Have you ever think why they are pumping so much money in advertising? Because they are building the Times of India brand by advertising through a social cause apart from increasing the awareness about this initiative. People look up the boards with a message of social service initiative and they also don't

forget to look at the header with letters - "Times of India", the one behind this initiative.

Have you ever purchased a ITC Limited's Classmate notebook? If so, that says - Rs 1 goes for the education of underprevileged children. People purchase more notebooks with the social gesture to help undervileged children side by side helping the company to sell its notebooks more; hence more profits.

This year, i attended a seminar. There was a event in the seminar named Innovation Brainzam. In this event the audience was asked to give a idea to start a company or to improve the life of people. After that, the audience was asked to vote for the best ideas. To my surprise, ideas getting the highest votes weren't the most innovative or more money churners. But, they were the ones giving the message of social initiatives.Wow!!!

But i learned one thing, people really love people who do social service or kinda work. This is the place where big corportions are using their money to help people as well as help themselves. I think this is better way of doing things - because it follows give and take relationship and genertes bigger returns in terms of faith in the company . In this, company's other motives apart from initiative, are hidden ; most peple don't see them and if some see them, they don't give a damn :) .

Review : RouteGuru's sms based service

2008-08-01T04:27:00.001-07:00

When i was at proto, i met with one of the RouteGuru guys. RouteGuru is the service which gets you the detailed directional map between two locations by giving directions along major landmarks. He told me that we have started a sms feature too.

One day while coming home from company, the driver of our cab wanted to drop someone at sector 48 Gurgaon. He didn't know exact route details. He asked someone on mobile to couple of guys until he got the exact details. Meantime, the routeguru's sms feature hit my the mind.

I typed the message "rg IFFCO chowk to sector 48, Gurgaon" and sent it to 56767 ( luckily i still rembered the mobile service request no. of routeguru). The general syntax for sending the mobile request to RouteGuru is - "rg to to ". Don't enclose the message in double quotes.

My experience:

I kept on looking my mobile for few minutes hoping to get reply, i didn't got any. So i kept it in the pocket. After an hour when i was at home. I checked the mobile at home there was the message from RouteGuru. I really don't know when i received it.

Total Distance 7.5 km
Auto Fare Rs 40.0 (Approx.)
IFFCO Chowk (0.0 km) > RAO TULA RAM CHOWK (1.5 km) > DLF STAR MALL on left (2.5 km) > Left onto RAILWAY ROAD (5.1km) > Sector 48, Gurgaon (7.5 km)

What i loved & What is relevant to whom?

1.Person with no personal vehicle:

The message can tell you the directions and you can easily navigate by following the landmarks. Total distance tells me how much time it will take to reach there and i will check, is there enough diesel my vehicle if the distance is too far .

2.Person with no personal vechicle (travelling by auto)

Auto fare and total distance will do the job for you. Landmarks make no sense for you as you don't know which route the auto driver will be following.

3.Person with no personal vehicle ( travelling by mass public transport like buses)

Nothing is of much use to you except total distance.

Who will use it?

Mostly customers of type 1 and 2. It is hardly of any use for type 3 customers.

What i hated?

Response time is somewhat longer. I look for instant reply. I really don't know after how much time i received the reply as i checked the my mobile long after i had received the reply.

Update: I used the service again i got the reply in 39 seconds. :)

Some of bollywood actors/actresses i like.

2008-07-28T04:22:00.000-07:00

I have created a collage of some of my favourite actors. I was in a hurry so, i may have missed out some. I created this collage with Collagr.

I think each picture has been duplicated thrice. Don't forget to click on the picture to see the its larger size version :).

Happenings at Proto.in/ (Proto4) @ IITD

2008-07-22T22:26:00.000-07:00

First Day - Startup School

I reached the place at 9:15. I collected my name card and got seated .

9:45 Keynote by Kiran Karnik (Former President NASSCOM):

He told that it is the right time for the entrepreneurs to start their own company. As the markets have globalized, the big players want new innovative solutions for their existing solutions to remain competitive. And the good news is that startups come with innovative solutions; they are looking at them. And some new foreign players also want to enter the Indian Market and they are sceptical to partner with bigger players due to high costs and big attention by media, they are looking for startups. He said that market recession will not affect the startups but the good thing is they will be able to hire the smart people easily.

One person from the junta asked "It is very difficult for the startups to convince the govt for any projects, and govt is not really favouring the startup ecosystem".

"I agree very much with you. It is very difficult to change the rules in the govt structure, things move very slowly and with the much paper work and proceedings. But i can assure you that there are some right people too, who are thinking on the same lines as of you. And what you can do is to keep pushing for changes through right people. Things will really change what if the pace is slow."

9:45 Building Services for India: The Art of Pricing by Murugavel Janakiram (Founder of BharatMatrimony.com)

Murugavell unfolded the pricing story behind the BharatMatrimony.com. At first he thought of providing the service for free. But when he didn't got any funding, to meet his costs he thought of charging . In starting he started with the INR 300/ per year for the premium services like calling the other person, while some basic services were free. As the members picked up, they charged this fee half yearly and and then monthly. Now, it costs 1200 per month. They partnered with other organization for identity verification of profiles. With further increase in users, they partnered with money collecting units to reach with masses without online transaction facilities. They opened BM outlets at selected cities and kept on expanding. What they ultimately kept focused on is the best user support.

10:30 At the helm of a Fast Growing Business by Bhavin Turkhia (Founder Directi)

Bhavin started with the comment that "Business is a Game" and correlated the points in Game with business. The best point from his presentation i liked is that, tell the people your future plans and targets. So they really know waht are company's micro and macro goals; and align their acitivies and common interests with that of company They really know why they really are doing the stuff, not merely following orders. Keep the Numbers/ Key statistics that matter in front of everyone on computer screens, on noticeboards in company. Update them regularly, so each and every employer knows where we are going and what's our role in the Game. That is really a source of motivation.

He told one small story. I forgot the name of startup. These startup guys installed a bell in the office and every time a user downloaded their software, the bell rang. And the sheer sound of bell sent a wave of joy and enthusiasm among the startup team. And when they were thousands of users downloading their software, the bell kept ringing on whole day :) :). If you are a startup guy, you can really visualise the joy they had felt. Read a similar story here.

Hire the people and give them responsibilities and ask them to take decisions. You can't scale if for each and every decision the guy is coming to you and asking -how to deal this and what to do ? Empower them to take decisions and take responsibilities.

He referred two good books: 1)Maverik by Ricardo Semler 2) The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack.

Go through the his original presentation below:-

The Game of Business by Bhavin Turakhia

view presentation (tags: openbookmanagement directi gameofbusiness bhavin)

1130:Building Product People Want: Sameer Guglani, Morpheus Parteners

Make a prototype of product. Never fully design the product. Then, identify by a small user group (say 10 people). It should contain a well mix of people similar to what will be your users from diff. age groups, countries, backgrounds etc. Let them play with the utility and use their feedback to add enhancements and make changes in the existing product.

Easy to use and compelling GUI really helps. But at last it the product value you are delivering the customer that really matters i.e deliver a great product to the consumer.

Never make the product for the VCs, always make it for the user. No user will sheer use your service because a VC has funded you. Because you will surely survive if you have large user group. And if you have million users, many VCs will look for you.

See his presentation below:-

http://www.slideshare.net/guglanisam/how-to-build-products-that-people-want-sameer-guglani-protoinjuly-08?src=embed

view presentation (tags: sameer guglani morpheus ventures)

12:15 The Art of Marketing Your Startup: Mahesh Murthy and Kiruba Shankar

Don't advertise in starting. First make a very large user base. Deliver a quality product which helps in word of mouth marketing (cheapest and most reliable). Attend the conferences related to your domain and try to be a speaker to avail free entry. Be honest & give Gyaan to people.

You can never really compete with the big players merely by charging less. Price is never related to the cost of the product. It relates to the value and experience you deliver to the user. Let's say cost of your product may be INR 100. If you think it's value in market is worth INR 1000. Charge the customer for that. There is no point in selling it INR 120 and making a 20% profit.

1:45 Building a Brand that Never Dies by Narayan 20:20 Media

I was sitting at the back and hardly listened anything :(

2:30 Virality is Part of the Design: The Core of Viral Marketing by Amit Ranjan, Slideshare

He told how to make your product viral hit? Use social networking like orkut facebook, interact with people and make communities. Write a blog and be honest with your writings. Make small utilities of your products that can be added on the blogs, web pages, social networks. Make the embedding easy to use. Ask for reviews from popular blogs. Give the interviews to popular bloggers. Integrate your product with viral media like digg, reddit, slashdot, share, email to friend etc.

3:30 Reconciling Entrepreneurs and Investors by Sanjay Anandaram

Most IMPORTANT: How is your chemistry with the VC ? Are you really comfortable with him exchanging ideas and meeting in day to day life? If not, look for someone else.

Before approaching a VC, see his/her portfolio, in what type of companies he is interesting. Now you can guess does your startup fits in his/her portfolio or not.

Apart form funding, the two other things you should look for from VC's are networking and mentoring.

(VC's always have a short term goal. Fund a company, after 3 to 5 years sell it and make a quick large sum of money.)

4:15 Financing your Itch: Running on Bootstrapped Cash by Gaurav Bhatnagar Tekriti Sotware

(This was the talk i really enjoyed because Gaurav related his teachings with the practical examples from his startup journey instead of delivering theoritical gyaan.)

Recruit freshers. The advantage of recruiting freshers is that they bring a lot of energy to the startup and can be easily moulded in any environment. With no experience, they don't demand large sums of money.

Don't force but encourage night outs and hard work, celebrate it and enjoy it. Have parties for no reason and note that parties can be cheap. For example ordering cup ice creams at mid night is a option. You can think of your own thousand ways.

Advertise and glamourize what you can give that many employers look for - flexi timings, working in a small company, working with smart people, a lot of learning, real work instead of dull work in large companies.

See his presentation below:-

8 lessons in funding your own dreams

view presentation (tags: technology india entrepreneurship bootstrap)

5:00 The Dilemma of Creative of Class by Shashank Ghosh, Film Director (Quick Gun Murugan)

He said firstly a film is screwed by scriptwriter then by director, then by producer and then by actors. How do you accommodate the views of everyone? You have to work with all of them and convince them, accommodate their suggestions. Then he showed the promo of his coming movie Quick Gun Murugan. That was ultimate.

II Day

On this day 15 most promising startups showcased their products and had Q & A session with the audience. See the presentation below.

Startups at Proto's fourth edition at New Delhi (July 18-19, 2008)

view presentation (tags: newdelhi entrepreneurship proto delhi)

Lastly, random pics from the event in the slideshow below:

Proto IV held at New Delhi: Startups, Entrepreneurship & Technology in India

view presentation (tags: india startups new delhi)

(Presentation taken from slideshare.com)

Keep your online registration simple and shortest possible.

2008-07-10T01:49:00.000-07:00

Today i got a very nice professional mail from Socialmatic.com. They found blog interesting and thought their service will be useful to me and their readers too. Basically socialmatic is website that posts the links of your blog posts to popular bookmarking sites which in turn helps to drive traffic to your blog, resulting in popularity of your blog.

But the next second when i reached socialmatic.com, i was bogged down by their long registration process (See the registration snapshot picture). So strait away i decided not to register. Who in this world have free ten minutes to play with a new thing? What if he decides to give ten minutes for registration process, he always have doubts; will these ten minutes be any worth? How does it matter if your service is very good?

Users had their own previous bad experiences during registration process many times. And they are not going to take the risk. Let me site a example - someone is searching for some free articles on a topic, he founds a suitable website and registers on that. But when he accesses the article the page redirects to payment page. The user is frustrated and decides not to register again on any new service.

Only one thing that can make a user to register for a new service is very short and simple
registration process. Only two fields can do the work - email id and password. And once the user confirms from email, should be redirected to home page of utility. But this shortest process can be annoying too.

So I would rather say- scrap the registration process or allow the
user to play with your tool once without registration.

Attending Proto.in

2008-06-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

I am very much excited about the July session of Proto. I will be attending the event on 18th and 19th July at IITD. It is a event where 15 most promising startups will be showcasing their products before venture capitalists and there will be some exciting talks by famous personalities for entrepreneurs. I have been always been excited about Barcamps too, but couldn't attend one.

This time i luckily got a free pass for the event. I read the information about Proto event on Ramanujam's site ( He is in the organizing committee of the event). He has announced that he will give free passes to the some of the guys who will be commenting on his blog post. I commented on the post and luckily i got the one.

So if anybody else is attending the event, please do tell. I would love to meet you.

Professional life

2008-05-26T04:31:00.000-07:00

I came to Kota and met the uncle on whose house i spent one year at Kota. I said," I will be joining on my new job in next month. My fun days are over. There was so much masti at College. Now the life will be busy and rountinal."

Uncle said," Asli masti to abhi suru hogi. Tum paisa kamaoge. Jab man mein aaye wahan karach karoge. Aur log tumhe izzat se dekhenge. Apni puri life ki planning kudh karoge. Aur umar ke saath to admi waise hi mature hota jata hai. Isliye tension ki koi baat nahin hai, alsi maja to abhi aayega."

Friendship

2008-02-24T00:23:00.000-08:00

Somebody may ask me, "How many friends do you have?"
I have no answer for this question. Does it matter how many you have? I really don't know where to draw the line between the acquaintance and friend. There are many people whom i don't call my friends but, i would like to help them with my arms open because they have truth in eyes and are good at heart. Sometimes i think everybody who is good at heart and faithful and bold is my friend. But that is also not true. Nobody can be your friend if you haven't met him and passed your time with him. Because you can't judge a person, without spending a sizable time or living with him. Many times my opinions have been falsified about the people the day i started living and sharing a sizable part of my life with him. To my surprise, sometimes my prejudices have been blasted like over flattened balloons.

By the way most friends have many things common.

And friends are defined by most people as those who share their feelings, who help them, who have similar interests, who are honest with them, who have similar history or familiar background, or the ones who loved them when they desperately needed it.

Long way back, i used to think that i should make the only friends that have achieved something or are great. I thought this but this never materialized. I have few guys who loved me but i ignored their feeling. I lost the joy of my life. But somewhere down the line, i have learnt the things. I love the people who love me and friendship has no similarity with the ones with greatness, money and high social status. I have seen many people who have different friends during different times. I don't know how they adjust.

I have one instance in my life. I was very stressed at one time. I called mine school friend. And with the very sheer joy he responded i started crying. I have called him after one year. And his love made me cry. Apart from normal talks, I usually call my friends when i am feeling lonely and distressed and the talks make me cheerful.

Lastly i have no girlfriend/s. I mean- a friend who is a girl, not non- marital romantic partner. The main problem with this is that you never know when it may change into the second kind of relationship. And even if there is no second kind of relationship, the whole public round you sees you with that angle. The difficulties arise when one wants to commit and other doesn't want it that way. And you never know when it can happen.

I have never been friendly to any girl. But i don't feel awkward talking to any girl for normal talks.What i can't do is talking with a girl any thing meaningless just for the sheer of talking.

I don't know what happens in future. But i am happy the way i am. And I do believe the following lines by the author Paul Theroux are 80% true :-

"Friendship is not like love. In love, you give the other person a chance and can start off again. But in friendship, once there is a break, you do tell the other person ‘let’s start it again’, but that never really happens. After that, you are just being polite….”

{Note: Picture from www.xoospace.com.}

How to send small messages or wishes to many people smartly? - Use Google talk

2008-01-19T02:37:00.001-08:00

If you are frequent Orkut user, you have always
had that impulse to say New Year wishes to your
friends. Earlier that would seem difficult, but
now there are many tools available. (One shown in the picture). But there is one problem with them, they look like spam messages and nobody cares if you wish people in this way - one click
and its done for all.

Google talk comes to our rescue. Open your Google
talk, search your so called good friends and paste
your festive wishes. No matter even if they are
off line. The messages will be delivered in their
Gmail inbox. This has one advantage; everybody
pays attention to your wish and this is the easiest
way out there for this.

Even if you want to send a mail (and i am sure you are not writing to
your boss), use that Google talk, write the message and close the chat
box. It saves a lot of time than opening compose mail, writing to,
subject, signing and lastly sending. So next time you are running
short of time, you know what to click.

Fooling the service when link posting from a website is banned.

2008-01-11T18:32:00.001-08:00

Earlier i posted a link of my blog on diggindianews.com (now minkit.com). After few days when i again logged in and tried to post another link. I was not allowed because somebody didn't liked the story and marked the link as inappropriate, so they banned the submission of any link from my blog. But i got a idea. I went on tinyurl.com and got a mirror link for my article and posted it and it worked. And when readers clicked on the link, they were automatically directed to the exact link of the article on my blog.

From father to daughter on birthday

2008-01-06T06:59:00.002-08:00

Accidentally i landed on the blog of the Shekhar Kapur. I read some of his entries. But the letter
titled "The immense wealth I give to" to her daugher on her birthday touched my heart. It is a
very beautiful piece of writing straight form the heart.

Tao of Physics

2008-01-04T13:10:00.001-08:00

I the one month long holidays, i flipped the pages of Tao of Physics.

The author has tried to show the parallelism between the modern
physics and eastern mysticism ( Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Jainism
etc.). The idea is totally new, his own and innovative. The book is
written in very simple English. Concepts of modern physics are
illustrated in way such that even a laymen can understand. No
difficult and confusing mathematical expressions ;simple illustrations
with the diagrams. This is a book to be read slowly. It is not a
mystery novel, somewhat boring (if you don't like physics and really
many don't like). So extend its reading over a few days and read one
or two chapters a day, so that you will enjoy it too and understand
better.

The arguments made by the author in the book sound very convincing and
even if i have any suspicion, i have no words to say that he is wrong.
But it surely clarified my concepts of modern physics very well. I
have read quantum physics, relativity theory, general relativity
theory etc. in my textbooks but i never understood them conceptually.
Fritjof Capra explained everything conceptually and clearly in a
simple language. Knowing and realizing that in modern physics one
concept contradicts another and another contradicts first, yet they
simultaneously exist, was fascinating. It seems impossible with the
rational thinking. But rational mind is made out of our own ideas,
words, experiences, feelings, and there may exist something irrational
because which is beyond our senses and rational thinking but still
exists. So at this level the author says the scientist must stop
thinking rational, rather they should think there exists the knowledge
which their rational mind can't justify.

Everything in the world is the dynamic dance of energy because even
mass is energy and whole world is made of mass and energy. So
everything is nothing and nothing is everything. This sentence is
itself contradictory. Similarly, the writings of eastern mystics say
these things which a normal mind can't interpret because world is
abnormal, similarly as seen by modern physics scientists with the
rational mind.

He has made some more beautiful analogies by quoting the exact phrases
from the earlier eastern texts and concepts from modern physics.

I liked the book very much and recommend this book for others to read.
In the last chapters, some concepts of modern physics like curved
space went over my head. Lastly, after reading this book, i got
interested in the interpretation of ancient texts and i picked up
Gita, a sacred scripture of Hindus, to know more about the mystic
literature and their meaning.

Aaja Nachle : Review

2008-01-04T07:36:00.001-08:00

I was at home and couldn't watch the Aaja Nachle. I was very excited
for this movie. But despite not so good reviews from my friends, i
along with Prashant Golash and Ranjan Pandey went to watch the movie
at Ray theater, Dhanbad.

Story: Dia is a girl who loves dancing, which is seen as taboo in
some families with words like "Naach Gana." She falls in love with a
foreigner and runs with him, just before her marriage ceremony, to New
York. Later, they get divorced and she lives with her daughter. One
day she gets a call from her village, Samli, that his dance guru is
dying and wants to meet her. Guru dies before she reaches and lefts a
video and asks her to save Ajanta, their old dance theatre; soon to
be replaced by a mall. And the story moves how the Madhuri overcomes
all the hurdles and convincing villagers, politicians and lastly,
changes the mind of the businessman. In the end, obviously theater
wins between mall and theater.

Performances: Maduri was stunning. She played the role beautifully and
facial expressions were as evergreen as in olden days. The other
characters to watch was Laila Majnu pair ( Konkana Sen and Kunal
Kapoor ). The whole drama between them was eye catching. Akshay khanna
and Ranvir shoerey have smaller roles, yet appreciable.

I think the one reason some audiences didn't like the movie was that
the story was somewhat predictable and it's main theme has parallel
patterns with Lagaan . In Lagaan, Aamir convinces villagers to play
cricket match and win. And here the Madhuri convinces the villagers to
dance and creates interest in theater to revive the old glory of
Ajanta.

Overall the movie is good.

The best part of the movie which makes your
eyes glued to the screen was the Laila Majnu drama in the last 25
minutes. It had splendid choreography and dialog delivery.

And i liked the one dialog - " To Jalebi hai."

So, watch this movie and judge yourself.

Photograph from www.yashrajfilms.com

At home

2007-12-12T00:08:00.000-08:00

Presently at home till new year!!!

Selling Shahrukh, Geetanjali and Amitabh Bachan.

2007-11-25T00:29:00.001-08:00

Yes, Times of India again. Will Om Shanti Om be the biggest hit of the year?... It's wonderful.. The aura of 70's in 2007. It is full entertainment pack. blah blah blah!! Exclusive reader reviews in Times of India. They started just after Om Shanti Om just below the movie reviews on Sunday Times. Or are they only for Om Shanti Om. Let's see whether they continue it or scrap it next time when Om Shanti Om is down from theatres. Shahrukh led their Lead India Campaign and they are leading his Om Shanti Om's Campaign. Wonderful!! It's always give and take relationship and they are faithful. Right. There is Shahrukh, Shahrukh and Shahrukh in the Page 3 of TOI for six pack abs of Om Shanti Om. One time. ok. Second time. Ok. but after that it becomes too much yaar. I didn't had any
strains when they said it about Chak De India. That was really a laudable movie with a power packed performance by Shah Rukh but Om Shanti Om. Sorry!

Next here is Geetanjali Nagpal
A aspiring model who walked the ramp with elite ones and now is on the roads. She became a drug addict and was discarded by all. She is mentally ill and was found begging.The story really is very concerning and tells the inner side of glam life. As in the glam world night life, drinking, drug intake and one night stands are becoming common. They were the first to report this news and they are the last ones too. There was Geetanjali all over Times of India. Front page news, page 3 news, Sunday Life, Special reports and so on. They themselves create hype and try to exploit and monetize it. Hello, Times of India, please leave Geetanjali Nagpal now. The story has been told a lot and all have read it. You have broadcasted it a lot. Please stop it. It's not a nuclear deal.

Lastly, so what about Amitabh Bacchan? Identify yourself.

For which lollipop flavor you work for ?

2007-11-15T07:16:00.001-08:00

People work to taste following flavors...
1.They want to learn something.
2.They want their butter and breed
3.They love what they do.
4 They work to live up to the expectations of others.
5.Others worked that way, so am i..
6.They are only best at what they are doing.
7.To pass their time happily.

For which flavors do you ?

How dumb your product should be?

2007-11-10T02:25:00.001-08:00

Earlier there were commands on the PC and later came graphical user
interface and then came mouse bringing smile on the many and what
next? Any guess? Have you ever think how dumb a user can be? It all
depends to the height of dumbness the vendor can dumb in the product
to ease his life so he may not have to disturb his heavy ass or bang
his head to think something.

While sometime ago i got on to a site that has a big tutorial on how to
make some cool buttons with the steps and diagrams. After that the
site site owner gave a service to user to make his own buttons. The site has
a few enthusiastic people using it. The problem it had that the user has to go through the
whole tutorial and apply your brain and then create any sort of
button out to his imagination with given tools.

And on the other side there was a site which gave only one cool
template to make the buttons, all they have to choose the color, type
the content of the button and it gives you a ready made button with one
predefined template. It has a huge traffic.

What it proves? It proves that people like convenience and dumbness.
But problem with this theory is that you never know how dumb a user
can be? It all depends on your imagination rather than users. But
somewhere there has to be trade off.

Take for example the graphical user interface has become so popular
people really use a lot of mouse clicks, however navigation can be
done more easily and perfectly with the keyboard shortcuts. Initially
it may seem somewhat awkward to remember the shortcuts but once the
user knows the other side, he will never try to be more dumb.

The difficulty with companies is that for a product to be able to do
wonderful and variety of tasks, they have to shift away from dumbness
because that require the creativity and thinking on the side of the
user, thus uneasiness to the user. But can't there can be products
that can combine both just like the search in the google. Google search has
something for the dumbest and smartest to exploit the search fully.
Can you think on those lines? Can you educate the novices towards the
smartness to exploit the application? ---- are the questions to ponder
upon.

Internet : a new source of Inspiration

2007-11-07T07:19:00.001-08:00

Sometimes i think that Internet has taken the place of Reader Digest
;). Readers digest a magazine which i particularly read for
encouraging, inspiring, emotional and lovely real life stories. They
always establish a belief that world is beautiful and worth spending
quality time of your life. Each time i read a story, it breaks a myth
of my mind.How is that possible? Is life that much beautiful? Can man
go so far? But they defy these all well established myths of mind
with the proof of real life stories.

Apart from the other things and many more which i mentioned earlier
for which Reader's Digest stands, lets take only Inspiration. I think
that reading habit keeps the man charged . Earlier while in school in
I used to read Competition Success Review, just to read its letter by
the editor. It used to inspire and motivate me each time i read that.
It had a very positive effect on the mind that you are no less; and
so and so did this and so can you. And i remained enthusiastic and
full of energy at least for a day :), if not more than that.

But now PC getting into homes, so is internet connectivity, they
define the modern mantra of inspiration and motivation. When you were
surfing, you landed on a great lecture by Steve Jobs at Standford
University, you listened it and it kept banging in mind while in sleep
too asking to go after what you like. One day, you clicked on a home
page of a guy, who has summarized how he struggled in university
being a commando joining the Computer Science Course in Standford
University. One day, you landed a link of a social entrepreneur who
has changed the life many by his own innovative solution of low cost
and long lasting houses. One day you landed on the profile of your old
friend which you met by orkut again, and came to know how he had quit
his job and started a consultancy company. All these minute events on
the web while surfing in the leisure hours on the web charge us and
shape the thoughts of minds which rekindle new hopes in our lives and
inspire to make new milestones and follow our hearts. Internet has
made world small, compressed the knowledge store under mouse clicks
and helped the humans to ease their lives, But inspiration is one
area where it is leaving its marks and kicking the energy in millions
to move ahead with smiling faces.

Lovely pic

2007-11-04T03:07:00.001-08:00

Just check the following link

http://www.flickr.com/photos/byronic501/1095543030/

Real enjoyment

2007-11-01T05:40:00.001-07:00

When your friends asked you to enjoy a dinner at a very high class restaurant and then roll in the market after than, you just ignored them. When your big brother asked you to come to market to purchase a brand new Harry Potter edition, you showed no excitement. When your friends booked night club disco tickets, you thrashed them to never to do it again.

People have a general notion what really is enjoyment. See the orkut profile of many people - you will see the pics that what most people think that your enjoyment level is up to the tip of the iceberg in those pics. These pics may be correct depiction of enjoyment for many but not all. Some may be hiding their beautiful moments of enjoyments, they may be very simple one.

When you rose in the early morning because mosquitoes were biting as your ALL OUT refill got empty. You just came out in the front veranda and sat on the chair. Amid cool breeze, chirruping of birds, smell of flowers and dew droplets on the lush green grass, you felt heavenly experience. When all your family was out for a kitty party, you were alone at home. You took your diary full of poems written by you and you read one by one, still knowing that they have been read most by you. You reached at the last page and wrote a new one in the calm silence of the home. While in the evening you didn't went to movie show with your friends, but you took the bus to a classical dance show because that is what fascinates you and that is what you enjoy. Sometimes you didn't joined your friends in the games because you were attending rare ancient painting classes. Yet all these experiences, the very best of you, you never pasted their photograph in the orkut profile because many has generalized the notion of enjoyment - movies, visiting, dinner a high class restaurant, games, girl watching etc. But they can be pretty odd and different yet so loving to some. So enjoy your real enjoyments rather than pretending to be enjoying the generalized enjoyments. Rather, celebrate them.

Recent happenings

2007-10-12T05:49:00.000-07:00

Some of the best things may not be cheapest but some of the good things are .----- skdangi

*****
These days i have been watching some telugu movies. To name them all - Pokiri, Happy, Bommarillu. Bommarillu is fantastic, Pokiri is good and Happy is OK.

*****
Recently read - " Surely you are joking Mr. Feynman." Funny and interesting read. And if you don't know the Richard Feynman, look somewhere :).

Let the novels spread :)

2007-10-05T04:02:00.001-07:00

Do you read a lot of novels? Do you really care for them a lot and keep them beautifully in the shelf after reading? How many times it happens that novels keep on accumulating and we keep on moving them from one rack to another or one room to another or lastly to the garage or to the kabadiwala. We keep on accumulating them thinking that we will glance them later or our friends will give us accolades when we will show our cupboard full of novels during their visits. First thing hardly happens and 2nd thing sometimes.

The questions arises? You spent few hundred bucks for purchasing a novel and once you read it, it is hardly of any use to you. Then, why you keep on accumulating? Isn't it wrong to close the knowledgeable books in the shelf? I think yes it is.

I had a small bag from last three years. It was stuffed with a lot of material which i thought i will use or i may use. It had my few old passport size photographs, cloth stitching kit, a few old letter pads, my old tie, some old letters and buttons and few pens without refills. It was such a precious crap, i though i am going to use it. But each year i kept on moving it out of trunk after my vacations and moving it in before my vacations thinking that i might need it someday. And a few days ago, i took it out and tossed it in the dustbin and i was happy somewhat.

So once you read a novel, pass it on to your friend. And ask him, instead of returning it to you or closing it in the shelf, he should pass it on to the next one. I have purchased a few novels and after reading i have given them to my friends and then i say - "Let them spread" instead of pondering about their whereabouts.

Some may have concerns about lower sales with this theory. But in my view it is going to increase the sales. As per my experience, in the early days i read novels only when i found them with one of my friends and somebody said me that it was pretty interesting. I kept on reading this way until i got a flavor. My hunger grew and I started visiting book stores and online book review sites. And now when i go to a book store i can't help myself grabbing a few books if i have money. So "Let the novels spread theory" made me to purchase more books instead of less. But the best thing is that knowledge reaches a wider audience with the same price and it can be applied to many other things apart from novels.

Why it happens?

2007-10-02T00:51:00.001-07:00

From few days i was thinking to write on my blog about the Ahmedjinad recent visit to USA, on his bullying by the USA government and the biased media there. He is a man to be commended for his boldness. The media who asked him questions with a biased attitude, can they ask the same questions to Mr. Bush? And like President Lee Bollinger of Columbia University said- " i don't think Mr President (Ahmedjinad) you have answer for my questions." I can say the same lines for Mr. Bush with my own set of questions. He preaches democracy in the world and at the same time supports the military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, of Pakistan. None is good for peace. -neither Bush and nor Ahmedjinad. And i think Bush policies will bring more Ahmedjinads and more confrontations and more destabilization, suspicion and wars that will kill more innocent people rather than giving long term solutions.

But yesterday i found a article in Sunday Hindu Magazine with all the things i wanted to say. And now i can't write because that will look like a copycat material. It has happened to me 5-6 times before. Once it was for the New 7 wonders of the world article and once it was a article on education system in the Open Page on Hindu. So i am not going to loose next time. When ideas will strike and my feeling will gain a momentum, i will cut some time to write them on the blog. Because there is no greater satisfaction than writing what you feel and telling it to the world.

Tips for applying and getting financial aid for summer internship in Foreign Universities.

2007-09-13T08:04:00.001-07:00

(The author is from India; so you can derive the meaning of "Foreign")

Why?
#. You may explore what really it feels like researching. For 3rd yr guys especially, this is the time where you can try your hands on a specialized field and explore somewhat; hence, judge yourself if you really like it or not.
# It can help you if you want to go for higher studies to make your profile better and the bonus advantage is that, if you work sincerely you may grab a good recommendation form the prof. or may be enrolled directly with other things (GRE, Recommendations.) merely a formality. Even if you aren't going for this, a good profile always helps :)
# Exploring different culture and meeting the people form a other country can be great learning experience and fun too. you will learn more if you aren't prejudiced and try to see some things from the angle of native people.

Before you apply...
You may have entered the 3rd year and you want to apply for the foreign internship. Till now you haven't done anything like research. Go through the following steps

#Ask yourself which subjects you like.
#Approach the concerned professor and ask if they may give you any project.
If he says - "presently there is no project" or "he has no time" or a similar reply. don't get disheartened, he may be right. Approach another one. If you really fail to convince a single professor, i must say you are not much motivated.
# It will be better if you work in a group. Group of two is good and of 3 is ok. Take my advice you will be more productive, motivated and lastly, new and better ideas will come when you will discuss over problems. Things can be somewhat monotonous and boring when you are single and nothing is working. (If you want to work single, then too it is ok.)
#Work sincerely and approach your professor at least once in a week to get your work reviewed and put your ideas before him.
#Prepare your resume. Warning- never ignore it and take it carelessly.
Read some tips about resume and cover letter writing on the web. (Embedded link given by Jaikishan Jalan*)
Pick some resumes of your seniors and go through them.
Are there any resumes who are beautifully formatted, easy to read and selling the candidate at most?Learn something from them and make your own.
Don't bluff on your CV.
"Don't write anything that doesn't shine," as said by Durga Prasad Pandey*.
When it is complete, please make it proof read with one of your seniors or alumni with whom you are in contact.( Very Important.)

How to apply?
Meantime you are working on your project under your university Prof, it is the time you should start applying for the foreign universities. As Rakesh Soni* says - "most of the foreign universities get their research grant near around the month of October, so it better to start applying in the starting of October; so you will have pretty good chances of getting financial add."

Till the time you should have identified one or two research areas which you will love to explore.

Make a cover letter referring your current project work.

Go to the top ranking university database or good university websites ( Google University database can help a lot) and track the profile of prof. with your identified research interests. Identify only one prof. in a single dept of a university and mail him. Avoid spamming to all the faulty members in a dept; that never works and shows that how careless you are.

Search in which universities your alumni (preferably students) are. Ask them, if there are any internships in their department or whom to contact for that. Don't quote the referral in your mail to prof, if your senior hasn't said anything about it. Even if you won't quote it (which will happen in almost all cases), you will have one advantage that at least the department knows about your college because of your senior and if your seniors are working good there, it is really a good sign that you may get a positive reply.

Use Google Alerts like -"summer internships in computer science." or "summer internships University of California", if you are really interested in anything like your favorite university and many more.Use the name of your interested field in place of computer science. Reading a tutorial on Google Alerts will help.

Join any yahoo or google groups about foreign internships. (They really don't help much as all users will try to apply for that, but you may get some helpful ideas and suggestions out of conversations going in the group about internships.

Always email a prof with your profession email id such the email id provided by your institute or if are a member of any professional organization ( IEEE, ACM and counterparts), that too will be a good option. If you don't have any, use your usual yahoo/gmail/hotmail /etc id.

Give a pretty small and exact heading like - "Application for summer internship 2008." Replace the 2008 with the year you are applying for.

Never email with a id like funforyou@yahoo.com, loveuall@gmail.com, sexyguy@hotmail.com. If you don't have any email id that looks professional, it is the time to make one. Suppose your name is Ashutosh Kumar Pandey, Branch CSE, NIT Durgapur just see the examples-
ashutosh@yahoo.com
p.ashutosh@gmail.com
a.k.pandey@gmail.com
ashutoshpandey@hotmail.com
ashutosh.nitd@gmail.com

If you have your own home page, it is better to give a link below your signature in the cover letter. Make your home page a good selling portfolio of all your activities and achievements.
If the home page have your personal funny stuffs - well and good. Divide it into two parts - professional and personal. Dump anything that is funny and exclusively for your social network in personal category. So if professor visits it by chance, he don't have to go here and there to extract the relevant things.Give easy visible links to resume and contact details.

Don't attach your resume with the mail. Profs. are really busy people and they hate reading the mails that take much time. If your profile is really excellent (very high grades, papers in international journals), rather attach a very small resume at the end of the mail.(Make it short and be relevant). You may send your full resume after you get the positive response from the Prof.

Don't ever make a mistake of applying to a Prof with different research interests than yours.Suppose if the research interests of the Prof are computer vision and language processing and you blindly mail him/her while your research interests in your resume is embedded systems; i don't think anybody is going to help you out in such blunders.

Maintain all the contacts of the profs. you have mailed with the name, email id and URL of the home page. That will help you for quick reference when some of them reply.

Don't be disheartened if you get a few positive reply out of your 100s of email.

Rather playing out a gamble, be choosy and be relevant to your interests.

While you are applying for foreign universities don't neglect pretty good vacancies in top Indian universities and research organizations.

Financial Help
If you don't get any stipend or your professor says that he doesn't have any funds to support your internship. It is the time to look for some other options.

Accept the offer and identify on which project you will be working. There are basically two following resources.
#Which industrial organizations may benefit from your research ? Which organizations are using these technologies? The bigger question is - " Can you spot somebody to convince that you will working on something that may prove helpful for them."
Suppose your project deals with a network technology that can directly benefit telecom industry. Identify the broader aspect of your project and relate with other organizations who may indirectly benefit
Search which organizations are the players in the telecom field. Search are there any alumni of your college in these organizations. If yes, approach through them for your case. If not, then too it is better to approach.
#Make a case before the alumni whom you know. Never ask them - please give this much. Tell your total budget, tell what you are affording and then ask them for anything they are willing to contribute. If they have some contacts they may also help you to reach the sponsors.

Few advices-
#Dream high and give your shot.
#Smartness and efforts win. Even if you are with average or below average profile, with these two inputs you have pretty good chances of landing a internship opportunity.
#If there is any senior who have got foreign internship, please meet him personally and put up your questions.
#Apart form this, explore more on Google.
#Use Google language converter to translate the website of universities in native languages. But try this only after you don't find the link for English Version on the university website.
#Don't neglect the project you are working under your university Prof :).

Some helpful references ( Taken from the Profession networking presentation by Durga Prasad Pandey, look for the bottom link on this page to download this ppt):
. So you are thinking about doing an Internship? [ html version]
.Presentation on Foreign internship by Rakesh Soni and Mohit Bhatnagar
•Email Etiquettes
–http://www.billstevenson.org/news/etiquette.html
•Networking on the network
–http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/network.html
.What to do when internship ends?

Note:
Author himself tried for Foreign internships. He got few positive replies with no financial aid. But he didn't tried for financial help told above. Hence, he didn't went to any foreign university for summer internship.

*Persons are seniors from my college.

Weird idea with no business value

2007-09-06T00:06:00.000-07:00

Share your mail
On every application i use, they just ask me SHARE. Be it my documents online on Google docs, be it my videos on Youtube, be it my stuff on esnips, be it my pictures on Flickr and so on. Sharing the interesting stuff has become a trend. And i think the information and experiences should be shared for the benefit of others.

So why can't we share our mails? Sounds weird!! Be cool. Suppose somebody sends me an mail that contains interesting and knowledgeable stuff. Why can't we have a button - "Make public"? The moment you click the button, the message goes to sender to either approve or disapprove. And once he approves, this will be made public.

Issues:
1)Different options to the authors of mail 1)Never Publish 2) Publish with Permission 3) Anybody can publish. I don't think we need third option; it may cause blunders. If user checks on "Never Publish, no recipient will be able to share his mail.
2)Where to host?
I think the two popular mail clients Gmail and Yahoo have their own publishing wizards - Googlepages and Yahoo 360. They can publish a separate page with the extension- "/Shared Mails."
3)We can provide a setting button where every user can fill up the details that will be published at the footnote of the mail written by user, thus giving the user credentials for his/her writing when some recipient of his mail makes it public with his/her permission.
4)There should be a Edit button when the mail comes for approval to the author, so that he can edit the post to prepare it for public viewing by deleting personal information. But once the author edits it should again go to the recipient whether he wants to publish the edited content or not.

If you have any more weird idea, it will be fun to read. So please let me know...

Entreprenuership Cell at ISM Dhanbad

2007-08-31T03:16:00.000-07:00

It is really a wonderful news for all the wanna be entrepreneurs at ISMU Dhanbad. I have been waiting for the day. At last, with the discussion on ISMD, enthu by admin and a bunch of third yr guys, Entrepreneurship Cell named Genesis has been opened at ISM. Inauguration function was held on 25th Aug.

Till now, we haven't seen a single story of successful start up right in the college years by any ISM student. I think in the coming years this dream will come true and there will be some who will do something different and set example for their juniors to do something creative and build large enterprises.

Some business Ideas

2007-08-14T18:27:00.001-07:00

Hey, i have been thinking of business ideas from many days. I have few of them . So here they go.
!. A separate news channel.
I have been watching news on many channels. But there is need for one more. It should work like this. Show the main stories with some little and clear details and repeat this after a frequency of 20 minutes whole day.
People are busy whole day. So whenever they find time that can easily get the whole crux of the day in 15 to 20 minutes instead of listening all the trivial details on the other channels and wasting a hour around a single story. etc music channel is also working with this idea but with a different motive. Anyways but the base is same and i think this idea can work too.
2.A marriage counseling portal.
As the western culture is heading its way in India, i think we will see the effect. There marriage failure rate and divorce rate will increase. And this demands a portal for service. And the portal can really help those couples how to adjust and "what next" solutions.
3.Totally natural food dabha outlets at booming tourist places.
When I go to some beautiful places in India on visit, i have always wanted to see a dhaba that serves totally natural food with somewhat local flavor. But almost all the times, i have been disappointed. There is no more happiness to a tired tourist visiting a very beautiful picnic spot and then spending a few bucks for this delicious food and have a good short nap. And it should be a dabha series, a brand in itself. And nowdays, people are loving - "everything green, everything natural."
4.Convert course books into animated videos.
As Information technology has advanced a lot, i still find that it is not harnessed to its potential for the education purpose. This idea can really help the students to learn more in less time and can make the learning fun. Many students really don't understand many fundas by reading science and maths books, but a visual content can help them to understand the things easily.

That's all from my side. So lets comment and let me know what do you think?

Some beautiful quotes

2007-08-01T18:45:00.000-07:00

You must learn from your past mistakes, but not lean on your past successes.
Because remember that You are only as good as next season.

There is no knowledge that isn't power.

Always keep your mind open and adjust with the change or rather exploit the change for your success.

Larger the words, larger the ideas
And larger the ideas, broader the thinking.

You can't be a successful leader without good communication skills. This is a hard truth.

You should always know where you stand.

I don't think I'm really
all that intelligent,
but I have a talent for
amplifying my intelligence. — R. D. G., 1975

Geeks are People Too. :)

Why i hate Times of India?

2007-07-23T18:23:00.000-07:00

I have been reading Times of India from 3 yrs and i can't bear it more. Nowadays i don't read it i just glance the headlines of pages and read Hindu or Indian Express.

Why i don't like Times of India? Because
1.They really don't know what the news is.
Front page covers daily the flicks of Indian cricket matches. And the bottom news is always a sexy gossip or rumor or reality based sexy masala.
2.They know sex sells. Oh really, everybody knows!
That is what they have for you. News about sex, gay, lesbian and links and break ups. Not only this, they publish special report on bikini and celebrate the centenary of bra. Can't we have anything of bigger importance for Sunday Special article. The page 3 is always filled with skimpy clothed models and hoties. All the metro editions of TOI have hardly any content about the metro but is filled Bollywood and local disco party pics.
In Times Life, they take interview of Porn Star and Strippers, are such sort of things are worth reading.
3.They have no ideology except how to make more money.
Give the money to TOI and you can buy a space anywhere you want. Buy front page, buy heading template of front page or you can buy all the pages provided you throw them a big money. There were also talks that they were about to sale the space of editorial page. Check this. Wow !! They not only sale advertisements but sale news also. Looks weird! Check this.
During the cricket world cup, they always gave a notification of everyday match crammed between two large ads one above and one below on the front page side strip. That really irritated me a lot.
In sports news articles have ads between them. On new year they started a campaign "India Poised" and made a lot of bucks. But with this type of journalism i can say that India may be poised but they can't help it fly. In every article in editorial page they don't forget to write "send your comments to 8888". Note after every article! That is what - their one more money source.Their online edition has smallest news to crap ratio. See this .
4.They are smart.
Go anywhere in India and you walk down a lane. Search a newspaper, you can 100% get Times of India there. They open their office anywhere and ask some morons who search the content with Google in no minutes and just copy and paste and their newspaper is ready.Click on the link for proof. If you are in not so reachable part of India, some news are one and two days older. I have personally seen some news articles appearing in Delhi Times appearing 1 and 2 days late in Ranchi edition and many still think that it is fresh news.
5.They don't write the name of their journalists.
I really don't know why they are afraid to give the names of journalists of every news item. Either they think people will laugh on those morons or they have disclosed some high profile secret so they have life threat. Wow !!

What really pains me is that how the largest read daily can be so irresponsible towards its duty, which affects the thinking and life of millions daily? Or may be it is so irresponsible, that's why it is the largest read daily. Is money the sole thing for which they run in life? What say?

Morning Run

2007-07-14T19:21:00.001-07:00

I woke up early in the morning at 5:00. I kept on lying for 15 minutes on the bed. After the morning ablution , i sat in the extension gallery. The morning scene was eye soothing. The air was fresh and cool and loved the green canopy in front of my eyes over the swampy area in front of my hostel. I saw two young man strolling on the road and laughing.
"Why not to go on morning run?", idea rolled in my mind. It has been a lot time, nearly 2 months when i ran last time.

I walked down in my loose pants and t-shirt. After walking a few meters, i started jogging and reached the lower running ground of my college. I completed four rounds of the running track. There were a lot people running. Tu my surprise a group of 5 housewives, in their mid thirties, were also running.

After this run the sweat was running all around my body. I felt fresh and happy. Running in the early morning in the cool fresh air is a treat for the body and soul.

Death

2007-07-12T05:04:00.000-07:00

I died earlier once in my life and i want to die again.

Suggestion: Separate Button for 'Mark as read' in Gmail

2007-06-28T13:07:00.001-07:00

I frequently use the "Mark as read" option in the gmail "More actions" drop down list. I am thinking why don't they just make a separate tab for "Mark as read" like all other buttons such as- Report Spam, Delete, Select (shown in the picture) which are used very frequently. We should not forget that the user convenience increases the usage of software exponentially. And i bet, this change will be liked by all.

How to improve your website ranking in two minutes

2007-06-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

Today i read some tips on the topic. And i must recapitulate them.
1.All the titles of the pages should be strong keywords and highly specific to the content of page.
suppose i want to name the title of home page of my website. My full name is Sanjeev Kumar.
But there may be many others with the name Sanjeev Kumar. So if i do take title as "Sanjeev Kumar - B.Tech ISM Dhanbad." If anybody enters Sanjeev Kumar in the google, i really don't know what are the chances. But if somebody is trying to search for me, i am sure he/she will be
typing something like this in google - "Sanjeev Kumar ISM Dhanbad "; and chances will be that my page will be enlisted at first result.
Or you can think of all the common queries the user may input to search you the web?
Or where you want to show yourself when the user enters a query in context to the matter in your website? Answer all these question and you will end up with a list of strong keywords.
Suppose for my site the strong key words are -"Sanjeev Kumar, ISM Dhanbad, Computer Science and Engineering, Indian School Of Mines Dhanbad, Sainik School, Chittorgarh, Chirawa,
B.Tech, Pattern Recognition." In my view, 4 to 10 key word list is the best.

2. Add the meta tag to describe the page and use the above key words in the description. e.g.
start symbol (<) meta name="description" content=" Sanjeev Kumar, a final year student in computer science at Indian School of Mines Dhanbad (ISM Dhanbad)" closing symbol(>).Note that i have written both "Indian School of Mines Dhanbad" and "ISM Dhanbad" to make
it work in both cases.

3.Include the main keywords supporting the Title in the content of the web page.
Suppose i will we including my name and name of my institute and place at least 2-3 times on this page.

4.Embed the links where ever possible.
Search engines trust more on links, because nobody wants to bluff them in that part. You can misguide with content on your web page, but you will embed the right link thinking of correct user navigation. So embed as much links where ever they are possible. You know their weight age is more.
Suppose i am interested in pattern recognition and want to display my profile when some body searches something related to patter recognition. Then i will devote a separate page with my
interest on pattern recognition with the title. I will write my genuine matter. And embed all valid links in the text related with pattern recognition where ever possible. And i may enter the
description in the meta tag like -" What all Sanjeev Kumar loves and researches in Pattern Recognition".

5. Always include the ALT attribute in the IMG tag. And correctly specify the title of the pic. Suppose i am uploading my pic on my home page. I would rather write
start symbol (<) img src="Insert Path of Image" alt="Sanjeev Kumar's Passport Photo"closing symbol(>)

Made in Japan and Inheritance of Loss

2007-06-10T13:44:00.001-07:00

I recently completed "Made in Japan " by Akio Morito and "Inheritance of Loss" by Kiran Desai.

Made in Japan is a wonderful books that teaches you some real practical lessons of doing business and tells you how SONY was evolved and finally turned into a quality brand. The good thing is that there are no theoretical lessons and there are many common sense management techniques. The voice of Akio is very much convincing and yet thoughtful and full of weight. I recommend this book to anybody who want to learn something about international business practices and especially Japanese work culture.

I really didn't like the Inheritance of Loss much. The book tells you about the cross cultural conflicts and modern day crises of identity, conflict of Times and religions, arising civil wars around the globe due to different reasons by giving a picture about a revolution by Nepalese in hills of Kalimpong, India.
At many places she has exaggerated the picture sheer out of her imagination to match with the dark side of characters of her novel.
At one point she says that " Biju catches a rat and burns it with fire, and all his colleagues have a good laugh." In my dreams also i don't think anybody have done that sort of thing his/her life. Fictions should seem realistic, if they are narrating a story relating to current era and characters.

Her writing style is nice and different. But she takes a lot time to make the background picture and story moves very slowly.

Startup Experience

2007-06-10T10:10:00.000-07:00

Ya i have been doing the summer training in startup this year. This startup is being started this year. Yeah we are developing the very first product of the company. And this very thinking is giving me kicks inside.

The experience is wonderful. We are here at Bareily :). The start up consists of two rooms and five PCs. We have managed 5 tables for the systems. We are a team of four people. The best thing is that we sleep on the same floor,we code on the same floor and we eat on the same floor. There are no office hours. You code just when you like- early in morning, late at night or in the afternoon, if you like. I hope you don't. Myself too :).

We have connected our system with LAN and the internet. And you know there is one electric generator too, if the power goes off.

I sometimes code with sandles on or sometimes in my nickers and i love coding when i drink a cup of tea. We also enjoy the hot fresh food at the same desk. Hope you don't think of googlers ;).

And we stroll in Bareily in evenings in leisure time.
The best thing is i am learning a lot and enjoying a lot.

Enhanced ATM /debit/credit cards

2007-05-26T06:39:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking that ATM cards can do somewhat more than just withdrawing money.

I think that we can totally discard all the pass books. And all the data of the pass book can be stored in a memory chip which can be embedded in the ATM card. And the ATM can be upgraded with a reader which can write the new transaction each time it is done.

Or we can give one more option in the display screen -"Update your card with the latest information". And the user can update the transaction history form the last updated transaction.

And what if the user's can deposit the money in the ATM's only. But there are some issues that need to be answered before that.
How to recognise the different notes - 10 rupee, 100 rupee, 500 and so on. Well this can be easily done with a recongniser embedded with a sensor.
What is the user feeds the money not well arranged, say some notes have the pic on ghandi on upper side and some on down side. Well this can easily done away, there is no problem if we don't give a damn to this type of mistake. The machine can take the notes in with any side on the top and deliver in the same manner, if someone wants to withdraw the money. We can ignore this mistake because each note can be recognised based on its dimesions only as different value notes have different dimensions.
But the user must insure that he feeds the notes according the slot dimesions. If it accepts length wise or breadth wise, he should enter them according to specied slot.
What if a note is torn? Well that too can be detected , if our recogniser have this ability. This will made the recogniser software somewhat complex and more costly, but that can be done too.
And we can decide a maximum capacity a user can deposit the money, so that it doesn't overflow more than the specified amount, and more no of users can be serviced.

But lastly one question is - what is the lifeline of this product? Well i must say a decade, but as the days will pass the people will use this facility less. As the credit and debit card are increasing their influence. We should do everything with this money. The employee should get their money transferred through internet in their respective accounts and each one of them can use their cards only for any type of shopping, thus discouraging totally the withdrawal and deposit of money. Less the withdrawl , less the deposit.

Let's see when the money will get out of market and we will be dealing all the things with a single cards and all the shops will have card reading machines and some machines can be provided by the govt for the vendors and small shopkeepers who can't afford that machine, but that seems a tough job.

We created history

2007-05-20T23:43:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, i ran in IT city run (5.5 kms) in Bangalore midnight marathon.
We started early from home. The bus left us a far away from venue. So we strolled for 4kms as we were some what early.

The race started at 6:30 pm. I along with Nihit jain, Mohit Ranjan and Shrikant stood in the front. There were a lot of media persons clicking the photographs. We were welcomed with a local beating the drums and dancing in their colorful attire.

As soon as the race started the Nihit took the sprint and got too ahead. I ran in my usual speed.I got out quickly out of crowd and my steps moved fast on a plane and clear road. I have decided not to stop anywhere .Because if i stopped , it will be difficult to gain the momentum. After one and half kilometers i got somewhat exhausted, but i continued. As i was coming back after covering the one side of road, Mohit met me on the other side and he cheered me -"Common Dangi." My steps moved a little faster.

My enthusiasm went high when i saw people cheering , cameramen taking the shots and drum beaters welcoming on the way.

In the end, pain started in the right side of my abdomen. I pressed my upper jaw against the lower and kept on running. And i finished the race in 27 minutes. After that, the Nihit Jain , Shrikant and Mohit followed respectively.

Later, we had snacks and few bands performed on the stage. We left after soon after listening to a band by a five guys from Infosys. In the end this run was nice.

Bad luck, can't run in Banglore midnight marathon

2007-05-14T01:59:00.001-07:00

What to say, i am leaving banglore on 18th and there is Midnight Marathon on 19th May. I was so excited to listen the news of marthon, but when i checked the date, i am disappointed. I have enlisted this wish in my blog entry . What can be more fun than running in a cool night under the full moon over the head. Really,i will miss it.

The face of Banglore

2007-05-13T23:43:00.001-07:00

After enjoying the holidays at home, i have reached banlgore on 12 the May. I am enjoying at Banglore. It is a lovely place. Weather is wonderful. It is cool and there is no humidity like Mumbai. and it feels ma st when i am in baniyan;).

Ah, i can see the chandan tilaks on everybody's head. While in train on the way, i was sitting beside a couple from Kerala, i noticed a lovely tradition. When the lady applied the sindoor on her forehead, she gave some to her husband and he too applied sindoor on the top of his forehead.

The one difference between south indians and north indians i noticed that the all the south indians in the trains were talking as usual as at home and they were behaving naturally and normal while north indians used to be mum and talk less with the neigbhours on the trains. While south indians were enjoying every type of food such as fruits, kakdi , dal bahaat , namkeen made at home, icecreams, cold drinks and kurkure and idli wada etc., on the other side north indians couple were having only kurkure, colddrinks and packed food served on the train or rather say they were trying to show themselves as modern trendy middle class type. UHHHHHHHHH!

Banglore is made up of two worlds. One the natives of banglore who live full in their traditions. The men wear mundus. The ladies tug the mala of chameli flowers on the hairs . Smell of flowers is lovely and ladies look beautiful. Here are a lot of temples. In every street i can see 2 and 3 temples and people pray daily and have strong faith in almighty. I can see the people coming out of temples with their foreheads smeared in chandan and with the puja thali.

The others are the hi-tech professionals working in IT sector and students studying in colleges , living in western lifestyle. Wearing jeans and t- shirts, they fly on bikes, enjoy at discos and bars and ear phones are always plucked in their ears and mouth synchronizing with the latest tunes.

The only one thing that disturbed me is the traffic. It is frustrating to wait on the crossings. Rest every thing is lovely.

Tips for entrepreneur

2007-04-18T09:31:00.001-07:00

have been reading a lot of blogs about entrepreneurship from last few months. After analyzing ,the most important points according to
me are :

# Start early. There are no more duties and you can take bigger risks in life, and correct immediately. Dream yourself as next Bill Gates and march on.

#Seize the opportunity at the right time. See what's the next wave and how things will unfold in future. And harness the opportunity at the right time, not to early and not too late.

#Have some bigger aim than money? Suppose say - how my product will facilitate the life of the people ?. How my product will help in betterment of society? If you are only motivated by money - good. But business is not a easy game. It things don't work in the beginning, you will easily give up if you are motivated by money. That time, prime goal other than money will keep you motivated.

#Persist. If you fail, learn from the mistakes and try again.
I was reading a story in the Hindu about a lady writer.Githa Hariharan She used to write the stories. In beginning no body praised her writings. Many times she contacted her favorite Russian writer,Ezekiel, for tips on how to write better. And she always got a postcard with a one word reply -' persist' Later on when she became a well known writer, the postcards stopped arriving.
This story applies in every field of life.

#.Again repeating. Jump in an area that you will love working. So in the long run too, your enthusiasm will be high.

#Effective implementation should be the first priority. If you have 30% vision and 70% effective implementation, you will go a long way.
But if you have 70% vision with 30 % effective implementation, you will go somewhere. But where? i don't know.

#Recruit highly motivated people. That is a long term investment.

#Carve out a niche in a narrow field before spreading out your venture.

#"Real trouble starts when you get funding from the VCs."

# Enterprenurs are not born , they can be made. Learn and think entrepreneurship. One day you will say - how easy that is.

#Things take time to move. Have patience and don't be diverted by short term glamor or benefits at the other places.

# If you don't have an MBA don't panic. If you have a vision and command over or excellent work ex in one area , you are a good candidate for starting your own venture .We learn more with the experience than theory .More you will read - more you will fear and think how difficult it is. When you are ignorant somewhat you will move without fear and learn on the way.
Following examples say more-
Sunil Mittal is not an MBA.
Mukesh Ambani dropped out of MBA program to help his father in business.
Bill Gates was not an MBA, but a college drop out.
Stever Jobs too was college drop out.
and you can collect lakhs of examples from real life who are doing in business wonderfully, but are not MBA holders.
Most of the IIM students still work at their high paying salary jobs rather than starting their own ventures.

Try your chance. Wish you all the best!

Salution Bug

2007-04-18T08:29:00.001-07:00

Many times i write mails with the salution 'sir' and many times with 'bhaiya'. Way back in my school i used to call my seniors with the salution 'bhaiya' and now here in college we call seniors with the salution 'sir'. And in many mails i interchange the two, one that should be started with 'bhaiya' is sometimes fired with 'sir' and sometimes that should be started with 'sir' is fired with 'bhaiya'. I use them so much that i don't even recognize the mistake even when i am conscious. Let's hope i correct this in future.

off Track

2007-04-07T21:25:00.001-07:00

He maintains a website for MBA aspirants - TotalGadha and his bio on his blog says -

The author is an IIT-Delhi alumnus. He never went to the IIMs because he refused to join IIM Kolkata and Bangalore, though he got a final offer from both. He just wanted to go to one place, IIM-A.

I don't know is it true or not. But if it is true i liked this.

Journey to Home

2007-04-05T22:09:00.001-07:00

hI just had a short trip to home to join one of my friend's marriage.

***
I met a guy, Hakim Mohabati (in middle in the photo on the right), from Afganistan. He has been to Kolkata for a visit. He works in UN. He told me something

"The bollywood is very popular in Afghanistan. The bollywood movies are dubbed
in Pashto and Farsi ( the two main languages of Afganistan). And many times
we see them in Hindi too. And i know Hindi well. There is only one cinema hall
that shows English movies and all others show Hindi movies. A few years
ago there was a show by Sonu Nigam. There was huge crowd. The crowd became
so frenzy and crazy that they pulled down the stage.
My favorite actor is Ajay Devgan."

Have you watched the "Jakham" movie of Ajay Devgan?, i asked.
"yes, i have. There were Sonali and Kunal Khemu too in that movie."
I was surprised by this answer. He knows everyone in movie.

"Do you listen Pakistani Music having sufi touches? Atif is a big hit in India
nowadays. Do you know?"
"No i don't listen to Pakistani music."

"What do you say about India?"
"I love India. It is a beautiful country. I have pain in my biceps and i
don't know what is the reason. My friend took me to a good doctor in Kolkata.
and i hope this pain continues, so that i may get more excuses to visit India.
There is a very big govt. Indira Gandhi Children Hospital in Afghanistan.
TATA has donated 500 trucks to Afghanistan. And you know there is no
rail network in Afghanistan. There are only roads."

He gave me 30 Afghani (currency of Afghanistan), one 10 Afghani note and
one 20 Afghani note. I asked him to take 30 Indian rupees in return.
He denied and said,"show this Afghani to your friends and keep it with you."

****

Each time i go home i listen more good news and one or two bad news. But
the bad ones strike me more and remain longer. Why? I don't know.
There was a man who did his MBBS and was married two yrs ago. He had good
name and fame in the village because there are hardly a few who achieve this
Dr. tag from villages. He was blessed with a lovely kid 6 months back.
And now he is no more. He passed away of heart attack. Then sometimes i
think that how short is life.

Each time i listen the bad news, tears don't come in my eyes. May be
because i have been away from home from a couple of years and i don't have
a strong emotional attachment. Whatsoever be the reasons? But it is true.

****

She was sitting beside me. I was going to my friend's home for marriage.
She was reading the booklet given by ALLEN institute Kota. She took prelims
CBSE PMT yesterday and came to visit Rani Sati Mandir, Jhunjhunu with her
father and sister.

"How was your paper?"
"Very good," she replied with a smile.
"What are the chances that you will get through?"
"I am damn sure."

I said that i had also been in Kota for one year. We got engaged in chatter.
I asked,"Have you visited Chambal garden in Kota?".
"People make so fuss about Chambal garden, but i don't think that is such
a lovely place.OK. But not very good."
"Hmmm"
"By the way what is your good name?"
"Prerna."
She didn't asked anything about me and neither did i told anything.
I asked a few more questions. By listening to her replies, i was totally
sure she hadn't been out of his residence in whole one year. I was
listening to her innocent replies with a smiling face.

After one hour the bus stopped.
"Bye, my destination has come."
"Bye."

I couldn't ask for her phone no. ;)

****

I was reading "11 minutes by Paulo Cohelo." I was sitting in the gate of the
compartment. A kid was sitting beside me. I loved the place and moment.
Because that kid was smiling.

*****

How to search for the information on the web?

2007-03-29T19:13:00.001-07:00

1. Google
Type the specific search query and better to read some search basics, features and tips
2. Wikipedia
While googling add wikipedia with your query. With wikipedia article you can find a general
overview by scanning the page and going through the initial heading part. Dig the references
on the foot of the article. You will find some qualify references.
3.Delicious
Search for query in the delicious search. The best part of delicious is that it enlists the results
of your query based on popularity i.e. how many other users have tagged the article for reading.
It is most likely that most people are reading the article, it have some good information and may
be what you want.
4.YouTube
Why youtube? Simple there are videos which everybody loves. Search and download the video
you want. Suppose you want to search for and article on entrepreneurship. What if you find a
live video on the same topic by hotshots of business world? Cool.
If you have bandwidth problem, download the videos while you sleep. Open the tabs with the
download and sleep. When you get up, your recipes will be ready.
5. Blogs
There are many experts who are writing the blogs on the field of their expertise. They write very
nice articles and tell what there experiences have been. Blogs have become a rage now a days.
You can search on any of blog search engines like google, technorati, blogdigger, bloglines etc.
While going through a blog, if you find that there is everything related to what you are finding
but not what you want. Bloggers usually maintain their favorite links on their pages. So dig
these references or blog links and scan them; most probably you will land on right page.
6.Think of a professional website where the info can be. Go to page and search within.
or search in google with "site" label . Suppose i want to search for tips for undergraduate studies
abroad. I will think of some some site like ieee, acm and search within student resources section.
The information will be much superior and authentic to some general information.
7. If you still can't find what you want. Then, you are too dumb. Better to learn this skill.

Dropped out of School

2007-03-25T06:25:00.001-07:00

Andres dropped out of Phd to build his startup - "Octopart".

We are a couple of nobody's trying to build something from nothing and the odds are we will fail. However, in order to even have a chance at succeeding, we need to have everything staked on this. I gave up a Ph.D. in physics today and I did it because I had to.
I did a lot of great things (two trips to the South Pole) so I'll never regret it, but I'm a shell of the personality I used to be. Basically, I had been languishing in school and had gotten comfortable with mediocrity. Maybe only physics grad students will understand this, but when you are a student in your mid 20's you live apart from society. Everybody's life moves forward but you are in this open-ended thing that keeps you poor and without natural social contact. Last summer I started counting the number of girls I would interact with on a daily basis and it was usually less than three - counting the coffee girl at Strada. Needless to say, dropping out of grad school is something I had been thinking about for a while.
The reason I chose today to drop out was because of a conversation I had with pg last week. He said bluntly that Octopart's chances of getting funding were worse if I stayed in grad school. He wasn't trying to convince me to leave, he was just stating a simple fact. It shows my naivete that I hadn't even considered it. Once I realized that we might not be funded if I kept delaying the inevitable I started to think more about what I wanted to happen with Octopart. Then the calculation became simple - if I want Octopart to succeed I have to dedicate absolutely everything to it. I realized that Friday and quit Tuesday (long weekend).
I have no money, no job, no health insurance, and no idea if we are actually going to succeed but at least I'm fully committed to something I care about.

The story has been taken from Octopart Blog

I hope we can learn something. When our heart says - something is calling, we should go for it.

Advanced search in Gmail

2007-03-24T19:47:00.001-07:00

I left some messages in my gmail Inbox unread. So each time i opened, my inbox count showed 28or 30 or 32 messages.
I became fed up of this and wanted to mark as unread. But that could take a lot time going through all the pages and marking the unread as read. I searched the google and found the tips of advanced search at the link .
and i finished my job with by using "is:unread" in two seconds

Just a slideshow of pics - Enjoy

2007-03-23T21:38:00.001-07:00

I just got this from here.
and it works. Yeah!
And you know they are the same old flicks of mine.
I have no new ones.

ISMites rocking !!!!!!!!!!

2007-03-16T07:07:00.001-07:00

I have been tracking some of the ISMites from last few days, and i heart fills with pride to list the names of them.
They all are inspiring.

Rakesh Soni launches Apnipathsala.com and cricspirit.com
Avlesh a budding enterprenur at Burrp.com
DP Pandey and team launches FastFoward India
Parag Gosawami is a professional DJ.
Two of ISMItes including Viraat have launched their new venture under the guidance
of Nirmal labs.

And ISM mech deptt is rocking with a bunch of them have got their admission calls from
the top universities of us
And CSE guys rocked in IIMs results. Bravo.

They rock man!!!!!!!!!!.

Cherries

2007-03-15T07:12:00.001-07:00

When you walk on the dirty lane of life
without arms,
with only the lessons learned,
carrying a pot
full of concoction of hopes
desires, failures
and few events of triumphs
as cherries,
that sweeten the mixture.

Life goes on
we add on to more cherries,
But life fucks us anyway
adding the sour.
We continue our fight
to make it sweeter again.
The addition of one more cherry
boosts our moral.
We struggle through out our life.
We put on hard efforts
when we are going towards
saturation level.

One day you slip on a stone
in the middle of the road,
your pot falls down
yet fully intact,
ah, you are a bit relaxed!
Then you see the crack
on the outer walls,
you see the liquid flowing on the ground.
All your desires and dreams
rolling in the shit.
The event lefts you disheartened,
crippled and mentally ill.
Then you see the shining cherries
glittering in the mixture.
You watch them,
and hope rekindles again,
You see life through a new angle
and you are a beginner again
with all your egos and wealth lost.

Many laugh on you
and you laugh on yourself.
Then you start
with your body and heart,
lightest till date,
You rise again
charting the new path in the common lanes
carrying the new pot
and adding on cherries again
without fearing of a stone.

Dragging

2007-03-10T07:09:00.001-08:00

Hey, it is exam time here. So you don't have to guess what i am doing these days. I am simply dragging myself. Hope to meet you frequently after a few days with a ultimate fresh mood.

Things to learn from Guru

2007-03-01T08:47:00.001-08:00

- Start your our business rather than working for someone.
- Jump into area that you will love working.
- Start small and dream big
- When there is a will, there is a way. Rather than seeking excuses, seek solutions.
( Did you expected Abhishek working some more years thinking that he would start when, he would have a lot money?)
- Relationships matter in business.
- Business isn't so easy, there is a die hard competition and you have to work really hard in starting. That's why 2nd
point is important.

Let education be fun

2007-02-28T11:41:00.001-08:00

I was reading about a initiative BRiCKS, led by Prof. Amitabh Mukherjee IITK. They have made school education fun by giving hand on experience to the school children by asking them to make robots or models by their own idea out of junk materials. And the results are wonderful. Their concept is simple - Make learning fun.

I must quote here the Google's philosophy- " We give people the challenging task. But, we ensure that challenge is fun."

There is no doubt that education system in India needs reformation. It has been said that education system in India is toughest in the world, but then why aren't we able to produce the best graduates in the world. Yet, India boast of its IT man power, but we are yet to see a new language developed by an Indian. We are yet to find the great companies in IT and computers based on innovation and smart products like Google, yahoo, amazon etc, instead of doing back end outsourcing work for the west.

The news of suicides by graduates are no new, even in premier institutes in India A lot of students suffer form undue stress and lack of career counsellings. I hardly see the career counseling centers in the colleges and universities in India. Instead of studying, i have seen
people dying day by day by gluing whole day to the text books. And some continue the struggle through out their life.

Education system in India still suffers from the rote learning. Let me tell you personal example. I hear on phone from my mom that my brother topped in his class. Instead of elation, the news pains me. Because i know, how he had made himself adaptable to rote learning and why he performs poor in Mathematics.

Let we take the example of Mathematics paper in ISM. I don't think that any sharp mind can solve that paper in the stipulated time without rote learning all the questions. Many people know the exact lines and results of the solution also before they sit in the exam and they secure 100 %, thus, discouraging the people to apply their brains. Many may enjoy the short term benefits of this system in the exam papers but the long term results are devastating. Many people drop their reasoning and inquisitive mind. No body cares why it happens; they care only is; that it happens.

I was reading the article on the same topic on TIME magazine. They insist that in the so fast changing world , how can the education system be static. We need to change our methodology. We still ask the students to rote by heart the exact location of Amazon river and capitals of different states in India, when the knowledge is just available a click away on Google. With so much valuable information present everywhere, teachers need to change themselves from their job of stats dictators to the mentors who supervise, involve, guide and make the learning environment fun and enjoyable. Teachers can make their own material out of presentations, videos, pictures and refrences to give the best material to the students. With Google earth, the whole geography can be made live with pictures and places. And now the history movies are made also, who dictate the exact history while showing the exact places of the events on the Google earth. And we are yet to see how much the information technology gives thrusts to eduction. Some teachers are maintaining the blogs writing the informative articles to guide students with the help of their previous experiences. But i am yet to see these sort of events in India.Yet we know that knowledge is for sharing and there are no bigger lessons than the real experiences in the life. But when will we apply the things?

In the last, I am happy to see the initiative by Prof. Amitabh. Let the natural and enjoyable learning environment flourish in India.
With so much of information being added to the world each day, how much you can ask students to remember? It is much better to be stored on hard disk and to be seen when needed.

Real education is developing the reasoning, innovation and creativity in the brain of a child.

Truth about IIPM

2007-02-28T06:58:00.001-08:00

I accidentally go to a link on JAM magazine.
Read the truth about IIPM

The story is somewhat old. May be i got it later and it also didn't came in mainstream media. It became a bigger controversy when IIPM threatened the Rashmi Bansal, founder of the Jam Magazine and the Gaurav Sabnis, an IIML alumni, who also blogged giving a link to the Jam magazine.

I too wanted to write something about this because everyday you see a full page ad in every daily paper, it sucks. But you need data.. Well, over advertising has pushed someone to find the truth and saved the lives of many students who were planning to enter into Arindam Chaudhari's Gurukuls.

Kudos to Rashmi Bansal and Gaurav Sabnis!

The bloggers are opening hidden truths and bringing out some live stories. There are many people who are frustrated, reading the distorted truths in the mainstream media and all they want is, say their point.

Bloggers are threating the main stream media in the same way, the open source software coders have threatened the software sellers
Ya, blogging is making sense.

Hungry Kya?

2007-02-24T02:26:00.001-08:00

I many times forget to eat my lunch on Saturdays and Sundays. Usually i become so engrossed in checking the mails, scrapping my friends and reading something interesting while surfing that i loose track of time. And many times i reach in mess at 3:00 pm.

me: Can i get food?
anand: sir roti to khatam ho gaya hoga, lekin chawal bacha hai.
me: chalega yaar.
anand: sir aapke room pe pahuch denge
me: thik

Then he comes with a plate of rice and a lot of fresh salads on my room. Well that is the best food i appreciate. It is really so good eating rice (it really doesn't matter) , when you are so hungry. I gobble that in just 5 minutes. I really can't pay in any way for this great service by Anand. I am top of heaven that time.

I mostly enjoy simple food consisting of salad, roti, dal, sabji and dahi. No lavish food of any restaurant can match with this food. I never enjoy the grand food at the restaurants, the way when people offer during treats or have during weekends.

Gain v/s Loose

2007-02-15T05:58:00.001-08:00

I always thought of winning everything in life. But some way in the mid i realized, that is really a tough job. You can't gain everything in life without sacrificing something. We have to make our own priorities. To gain them we have to categorize something as secondary to loose. Those who always think of getting a pie anywhere they see a big show, may end up getting nothing. Do it like Aamir and Rahul Bose way - choose and specify your priorities and give quality result. Don't be mislead by the success of others. But, you must always congratulate them. I must quote it again - everybody has his/her own time.

Somebody has said - Life is not about winning every battle in life, but about winning "Mahayudhs" in life.

But i must say small battles add color to your life and give you confidence to go for Mahayudhs. But it really depends on you how much they matter for you?

Just took a short rapid reading course

2007-02-09T05:15:00.001-08:00

I just finished "How to read better and faster" - by Normal Levis. It is loving to see that i have improved my reading speed from 250 WPM to 325 WPM.
The author says - complete a light novel in one evening in one sitting. Well that is a tough task! But I completed the Readers Digest in two sittings reading from start to back without leaving anything. And lets try a novel this time :-)

Fictions and Non fictions completed

2007-02-07T07:10:00.000-08:00

I have read the following books in last one and half month.
1)Fountain Head - Fiction
2)Namesake - Fiction
3)The Google Story - Non fiction
4)The World is Flat- Non fiction
I recommend anybody the above books in the order i have enlisted them.

Fountain Head - really liked. Keeping the volume in mind i though i would not be able to finish it. But it was very much interesting and went with the story. I appreciate the character of Howard Rowark. But myself can't be Howard Rowark. I have experienced that life can be lonely in few chunks but in the midway you need the support of people, you seek their approval, you want them with you, you enjoy with them. In this novel, Ayn Rand had herself practiced her theory of objectivism. Her writing style is unique and ideas are original.
It has been satisfying to read Ayn Rand.

Namesake - story beautifully told. The Jumpa Lahiri has her own way of telling the story. A good read for understanding the psycology of NRI parents and their kids. How insecure they feel about their children living a in a different world with different life style. And how their childs react, when they think that why their parents are imposing certain things on them. They fail to understand the emotions of their parents and their attachment to their motherland. Now, i will wait for the movie by Mira Nair on this novel.

Gooogle Story and World is Flat can be scanned very fast. You already know a lot about the subject matter.. But both are entertaining. Google Story can be completed in one go. Reading Google is fun.

Would somebody figure it out?

2007-02-02T06:17:00.001-08:00

This is a message i got from one of my friends. I tried for 2 hours but was unable to find any result.

Yaar I want to find out my real date of birth so kindly help me out in this , I know from the Hindi calendar that it is on the "teej" festival which we celebrate in rajasthan.it comes in the month of "chaitra" as per the hindi calendar and as per our English calendar it comes in mid july -aug. so pls. check for this on the net as u may find the hindi calendar for 1986 and after that u see for the date on which the teej was there.or try to see in the site of some astrology ,etc ,which are using the hindi calendar.

If you can solve the problem or can help in any way, please mail me at skdangi@gmail.com . I will be really thankful to you.

Limited Lifetime Warranty

2007-02-01T09:18:00.001-08:00

If any defect in material or manufacture appears during the life of this product, it will be replaced at no cost to you. This warranty does not apply to normal wear or damage from abnormal use, misuse, abuse, neglect, or accident. HP will not be liavle for any indirect, special , incidential, or consequential damages. This warranty gives you specific rights, and you may have other rights and you may have other rights that vary from country to country.

The above message is printed on the front cover of HP, 700MB, re-writable CD. Can you guess what warranty means by the above message to customer? If yes in any sense, is that hardly of any use to the customer? . I say, no.

Trend of spamming at Orkut.

2007-01-22T07:47:00.001-08:00

It is really sucking when i find some spam messages by the people for advertising their
ventures or their products by posting in the scrapbook. I think that wasn't the
purpose for which the orkut is being run. Today a lot of budding entrepreneurs are
sucking by posting irrelevant spam messages. If you do get such messages
please go to the profile of spammer and click on the report abuse tab to notify
the orkut and play your role as a faithful orkut user because orkut wasn't made
for advertising or professional exploitation.

Dreams

2007-01-21T07:22:00.001-08:00

Most fulfilling things i want to do in my life.

1)To visit at least five countries for just exploring. How about making some foreign nationals friend and visit them on holidays ;)
2)To go on a one month long expedition to African Jungles. Won't that be fun?
3)To write and publish a best selling book. I am really serious about it. Hope you won't laugh here.
4)To run a marathon and to break all timings established while my run at Sainik School days.
5)To launch my own start up.
6)To visit Tibet and live for a few hours among the Buddhist monks.
7)Learn to play a music instrument. What do you say about playing flute.?
8))To live a meaningful life.

These are my dreams. So when you make a plan for African jungles or for Tibet, do give me a call.

Best Magazines of Interest identified

2007-01-20T02:27:00.001-08:00

My all time favorite magazines :-
1)Readers Digest
2)The Chronicle
3)Time
4)Competition success review. I especially love to read the essays.

Apart from these, i love reading general any tech related magazine and Sunday magazine of Hindu Paper.

Value addition

2007-01-18T09:51:00.001-08:00

I visited a trade fair in Kolkata. I stopped in front of a shop. Something caught my eyes in the stall. "Anything on rice." A large banner of cloth on the wall said. A young beautiful girl introduced the product to me. Actually they were writing the names, drawing painting of celebrities or gods on a single rice grain.

There were many products lying in front. They have bought some ready made key chains, necklaces and hand bracelets each costing near about 20 to 30 rupees. But after gluing (sticking) a few rice grains with some painting, they were selling them worth 80 to 100 rupees.

Many customer came and gave their names to get a bracelet with their own names painted nicely on a rice grain and pasted beautifully on the front. It was a nice piece to own. Some couples came and they took some similar items with the love sign painted between both the names. The shopkeeper said, "with every love sign more, you have to pay 10 rupees extra."
Some asked for two, some for three and a few even asked for four love sings on all the four sides.

I was amazed to see that how smartly they were making money with a simple concept of value addition.

Tagged!

2007-01-13T23:28:00.001-08:00

http://www.blogscope.net/?q=apne%20jate

I was happy to see this. My blog is tagged for "apne jate "in Dil Chahta Hai poem.

Success sutras

2007-01-10T00:33:00.001-08:00

1) Drink a lot of water and day dream heavily.
2) Implement all the foolish ideas you have in mind, there are lot of people to avail the opportunities.
3)Initiate nonsense, and then leave wisely while others are barking.
4)Break the bond of the couple by airing some false rumors and then show sympathy to the girl after they broke up. Most likely she will we with you. Keep on doing this to keep your options open.
5)Show your worst performance in a long tenure and behave as a ass hole. Then give a big shot once. Many will be singing your success story. You made it by degrading the benchmarking level to the lowest level.
6)Keep on pretending that you are doing some useful work. You can disturb a lot of people who always research what others are doing.
7)...
8)...

You can add many points. But always remember that best time to think is, while you are in bathroom.