Forgotten Days

Quite recently, I received couple of friend requests in my Facebook....one of them was from a person called 'Clara' (name not changed in the interest of larger audience). It took me a while to figure out who is this girl and how do i know her.
The story goes back to my young school days....
It was in grade 6th. Back then, our class teacher used to nominate toppers as class leaders who had authority to keep the class noise free, write down names of mischief students (usually boys) on the blackboard and at times mend the talkative ones using a stick. This girl was our class leader and arch rival of boys. however, I found her intelligent and attractive - one who was first in raising the hand for every question teacher asked and also because she used to be strict and furious with boys.

One day, it so happened that me and some of my friends were playing this game of trump cards (WWF wrestlers pics with their body characteristics printed on a small card...remember ?? ) inside the class while waiting for next teacher.
She noted my name on the board and rest is foregone conclusion....
Today, she is an MBA grad working as HR executive at an MNC.

Another request was from a guy called, Emad Shafi who used to be one of those very naughty boys in the class doing things like never completing homework, sneaking underneath the bench and eating lunch in the middle of the class, coming late from PT classes etc. During tests, sitting right behind me, he used to copy my answers. Poor fellow, little did he know that he is following a bad example...
It worked fine for few months until one day when we both were caught with same answers in humiliating fashion. Last section in question paper i.e Essay (common topics included "Population Explosion in India", "Hazards of Pollution" etc ) played the spoilsport. Back then, our marks for essays used to depend largely on the size of content rather than quality of the content. So our objective used to be fill up the paper with lengthy writeup...
One day I completed all I knew about the topic within 2 paragraphs and I ran out of words to write anymore...while time was running out, I needed a solution to lengthen the content to at least 2 pages. Just then a brilliant idea stuck my mind from a TV programme i used to watch every Saturday called "Ek se badkar ek" in doordarshan. I decided to sneak in some popular hindi songs inside the main body of essay and then concluded it neatly.

I went home jubilant thinking who would have patience to read entire 2 page essay of 60 students. Trouble started because, this boy was copying all my answers....he went on to copy the songs also in essay..
Teacher sensed smoking gun as she hadn't expected shafi to fare so well in test, so when she read his paper carefully...it was all over.
I remember he was asked to read his essay loud in front of class. One of the song was Jackie Shroff's ..
ammaa dekh haan dekh teraa mundaa bigadaa jaa e
bebe dekh haan dekh teraa mundaa bigadaa jaa e
ammaa dekh ammaa dekh dekh dekh dekh teraa mundaa bigadaa jaa e
ammaa dekh

Today, Shafi is managing a electronic store in Dubai. For the first time since I used fb, I realized its potential to connect old forgotten friends and people across the globe.

Innovate India - Instead of Investing $$ in India

To be frank, 90% of revenue I earned since I graduated 6 years ago has been spent for anything little more than building a house for myself in Bangalore and greasing some corrupt palms in BBMP offices. The question is, Does the special skills, knowledge and talent I acquired with my engineering degree when compared to rest of the population is worth for just a single house to myself ?? Thanks to rising Inflation, the cost of living in Bangalore is so high that there is hardly any savings left to be able to do anything else.

Many talented and skilled workforce in India who go on to win lucrative jobs abroad are doing very little to give back to the development of country. There is so much brauhaha being created about success of Indians abroad as I see some spam emails floating around stating- as many as 12% scientists and 38% doctors in the US are Indians, and in NASA, 36% or almost 4 out of 10 scientists are Indians, One-third of Silicon Valley engineers are Indian etc etc. There is unnecessary hype generated around them saying they represent India in the World, act as cross culture exchange, make India proud and other crap like that. I believe, single benefit they bring to our nation is making huge deposits in banks here. India is the world's leading receiver of remittances from its citizens spread around the world and account for approximately 3% of the country's GDP. Together with software exports from in house engineers, 10% of our country's GDP comes from highly talented engineers and doctors. Software engineers and Doctors are supposed to be creme de la.... All that best of the best workforce contribute to our nation's GDP is 10% which is still less than 17.7% GDP from Agricultural exports from illiterate farmers and laborers.

Is foreign exchange reserves the only advantage we can derive from these best minds ?

Little do we know that, these huge cash remittances only end up in corrupt babus/netas pockets through various corruption scams like 2G scam, CWG scam, land scam etc. Today, land mafia and politician nexus has ensured that buying a land or flat in metropolitan cities is nothing less that 30-40 lakhs which means 8-10 years of average software engineers savings. India loses two billion a year in resources, through brain drain of 1,00,000 skilled computer professionals to the U.S alone, according to a UN report. Business Week called IIT graduates one of the hottest exports India has ever produced. The same foreign companies who hire/import Indian cheap labourers sell their end products to India with huge profit margins.
Indian Defense import costs more than remittances of Indian workers abroad. Thanks to low wages at ISRO and DRDO. Today, India is world's largest importer of arms and ammunition from other countries.

There is a need for Indian skilled Diaspora to use their special skills to catalyze changes in social, and economic attitudes in India and help bring in technological innovation and drive the reforms.


Here is my wish list of the opportunities for applying the skills towards betterment of our country :-

1. India has the largest area of cultivable land, after only the United States, and enjoys growing conditions suited to most crops, vegetables and fruit. Yet it imports many oil seeds and crops from other countries. There is a need for another wave of Green revolution which should be targeted at attaining self sufficiency in agricultural produce.


2. 20% of food crops either go rotten or eaten by rodents in FCI godowns of India. Yet about 380 million Indians suffer from hunger and malnourishment today. There is a need for better public distribution systems and technology.

3. We pay billions of our foreign exchange money to French and US based Nuclear companies to build power generating nuclear reactors to fulfill our energy needs. Yet, we are utilizing only 18 percent of the hydro electric potential, 10% of wind enery potential, 5% of Biomass potential to generate electricity. India has 6000 Km of coast sea surface, it has potential of about 40,000 MW tidal energy, its currently harnessing none. UK having much less coastal surface is tapping 10% its electricity from ocean. There is a need for Research and Development targetted at harnessing our natural resources.

4. Korea having coastal surface area which is about 10% that of India still captures 70% of world's fishing export market. Reason being...Indian fisherman do not have technological fishing aids such as cheap mechanized boats etc. There is a need for better weather forecasting and fishing cultivation technologies.

5. Of the total world's area under cultivation for floriculture, India has 25% share but Kenya exports much higher than India. There is a need for agricultural innovation to increase the yield and efficiency of cultivation.

6. We boast our self that nine out of 10 diamonds used in the world are made in India but very few of us know that 20% of gold in the world is used by Indians alone. There is a need to cut down on cosmetics and get rid of goldphilic women mentality.

Back in 1970's, when our country was reeling with acute shortage of food, we brought in 'Green revolution' to boost agricultural production. Now its time for 'Silicon revolution'.

* Views expressed here are my own and statistics collected are from various economic publications which might be obsolete.

Dare to Bare

While I was following the news this morning, I came across this hilarious story about a model named Poonam Pandey who is proposing to go nude if Indian team wins world cup. She says..."I'm ready and willing to go nude at any place and time that the Indian team chooses, to boost their sporting spirit to perform better.
And I am serious about it as many studies conducted by various universities abroad confirm such performances boost and inspire people to perform better in any field,
be it sports or otherwise. Even books on psychology confirm this."

Damn !! if at all i knew that universities allow research on such subjects, I would have chosen that topic and scored good grades. that aside, I'm even more perplexed at the assumption that men give their best only in order to see a naked woman.

Poonam Pandey says: "Mere strip karne se team ka man-o-bal badega"!
Aray o bevkoof kanya, "Bal to zarur badega"! uske saath saath aur kuch bad gaya tho musibath hai !!
Centuries ago a game was lost. A woman was asked to remove her clothes for loosing a bet and that trigerred a war known as Mahabharath. It remains to be seen, who would be today's dushyasan. Will it be Sachin or Dhoni ? Nevertheless,
Aaj ki Draupadi, does not need a karna to strip her.

In few years to come, do not be surprised if a new store for morale booster and therapeutic value comes up in our streets.
Tring Tring...
hello.. Poonam's performance improvement and theraupatic help centre, how may I help you ?
hello poonam, my college cricket final is tomorrow..will u come to college ground for a strip ?? plz..
"Sure, if you win, i can strip for your team, if you loose, I can strip for your opponents"

why study history ?

I always wondered what is the benefit of teaching history as a subject in schools. I used to hate history just because it was hard for me to memorize the facts, dates, events and vomit them in the examination paper. I still hate to remember things which can be fetched easily such as birthday's of friends, recipe for cooking or instructions to fix a unrelated problem. I just think that...our memory is limited just like a RAM in the computer. Instead of stuffing this precious little memory with useless garbage or easy to fetch data...use the brain cell energy for imagination, remembering stuff which will make things fast etc

okay okay okay....let me not bias the argument because of my own prejudices on the subject....let me present the facts and try to make open minded analysis around the topic.

First and most important fact to consider is that, By far almost all students view of history is that, it is merely a collection of true stories rather than an interpretation of the past. Most of the history which is taught in schools is basically nothing but interpretations of some smart ass which means they are very debatable. For example: Few years ago, there was a controversy created when BJP came to power, HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi had ordered all CBSE syllabus to alter their presentation of history ( which were predominantly covering Islamic dynasty ) to give more importance to Hindu rulers and their successes against Muslim invaders. The changes were short lived as they were re-written by Arjun Singh when BJP regime was overthrown by Congress party.
Here, it is quite clear that each party wants to force their own view of history on public....to be either seen as sympathetic to a cause or garner more votes in the election. Furthermore, in some cases the history is totally distorted just to keep national secrets and pride high. Example: The facts surrounding India's defeat against China is largely missing in the history books. Our netas feel its just not necessary for our younger generation to learn about their forefathers humiliating defeat against enemy.

The situation is not very different in other countries. While I was talking to my friends from Pakistan and US. I learnt that History books in Pakistan tell that Pakistan defeated India in 1965 and 71 wars. In US, almost every high school student thinks that America and German joined hands to fight Russia during world war. Thanks to the cold war and its ramifications on history books. African Americans were typically defined through the eyes of other, usually the writings of whites, who depicted blacks as mindless slaves.
At the end of day, readers do not get to see actual picture...they are forced to see the one painted by the government.

More disturbing consequences of studying this 'interpreted history' is breeding of continuous resentment and hat redness of one community over another.
All the wars in history were fought for more or less same reason i.e some past humiliation by one king over another king, family feud, power struggle, love failure, religious supremacy etc.
Moreover, the influence of past events on the current issues is not always clear for students. Are we expected to find a solution that will please everybody ? i.e next to impossible task. People live in the present. They plan for and worry about the future. History, however, is the study of the past. Instead of working on future, why bother with what has already been?

Of course, teaching history involving controversial issues allows students to realize the complexity of the society they live in. History also teaches us how to learn from the mistakes of others.In general, History helps us understand people and societies. But are these benefits worth time and effort involved in studying one subject all through school age ?


Thoughts to Ponder over :-

"All modern wars start in the history classroom". Anonymous

"History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind". Edward Gibbon

Mistyped Mistakes

I had two major blunders this week.....both of which made me feel i'm a big dumb ass.

I recently had to face an embarrassing situation when I was chatting with one of my female colleague using instant messengers. There are lots of short hand notations used by instant messaging which if mistyped can create bizarre meanings.

the word 'sec' is short form of second and the fact that character 'c' and 'x' are placed right next to each other on the keyboard makes the usage of word 'sec' highly risky.

By now..you must have figured out what situation was I in...when I mistyped 'c' with 'x' while I was typing ' can you please give me a sec?'

Recently, I found a note stuck to my door saying 'UPS representative was here yday and package was not delivered as the recipient was not available at home- For more details call xxxxxxx'. I decided to head out directly to their office and collect my package. When I got there, it was a long queue...after about 30 mins of wait.. my turn came and teller immediately looked at my receipt and told.. i have come to wrong place, the package is from UPS not from USPS !!
I wondered how on earth can there be two mail delivering companies with almost same name.

Are we learning right science ??

Recently, while I was browsing through books in Milwood library in my neighborhood, I found an interesting book which talked about what really goes behind a scientific discovery, creation of new theories, laws, axioms, hypothesis etc.
I for long had an assumption or misconception that scientists and researchers who come out with new astonishing discoveries and inventions every year must really be ultra genius or other-worldly smart ass. But after reading that book, it makes me believe that thinking like a scientist does not require incredibly sophisticated logic.

It states that, just like any layman, scientists go through series of simple steps before making any new findings.
1. Observation: - It all starts when we see, hear, feel or taste a specific pattern in the events or strange coincidence.
For example: - Lets say a dog starts barking in particular way at certain times. We tend to observe what makes it bark and find that it barks usually when it finds any other dogs or strangers around the house.

2. Hypothesis: After making those observations, we make a generalized basic phenomenon with dog barking. It barks when it senses a threat to its territory.
The threat could be either other dogs or other animal or fire, wind etc.

3. Prediction: In the next step, we tend to substantiate our hypothesis or add more credibility to our hypothesis by forecasting future occurrence of weather change or stranger visits consistent with hypothesis.

4. Experiment: In the final step, we carry out test to see if the predicted event occurs i.e. we physically observe if there are any intruders in its territory or change in weather after it started barking. Depending upon the outcome of experiment, we accept or reject the hypothesis.

Many of the science’s greatest ideas and discoveries were made by following the same reasoning. When Galileo was walking on the beach, he noticed that sand looks continuous from distance but when looked closely its actually collection of fine grained particles. Similarly, he thought water and air may also not be continuous and must be made up of much smaller molecules. This observation gave rise to discovery of Atoms (basic building blocks of all matter).
When Geologists observed that Latin America and Africa fit perfectly well with each other like a jig saw puzzle, it gave rise to Tectonic plate’s model of earth.
Newton discovered the law of gravity when he observed mango falling from the tree.
Alchemedis discovered the law of buoyancy while taking shower in his bath tub.
Alexander Fleming while working on flu research noticed something blue and green growing in one of his Petri dishes. Further investigation revealed that this mold soon to be known as penicillin had killed the other bacteria in the dish.


But there is a serious question which you and I have to think about……have we wondered what is the problem with this kind of inductive reasoning…… which uses set of observations as basis to support hypothesis but not to guarantee it ????
All the hypothesis is based on observations only....Suppose we find a snake which is venomous.. few days later we find another one which is also venomous...so it goes on and we would have found 100 different kinds of venomous snakes then we form a hypothesis that all snakes are venomous. This hypothesis stays on as long as someone dares to check if any newly found snake is really venomous.


Its something like Geocentric belief…..i.e everyone observed that sun rises in east and sets in west, so they came to conclusion that Earth is the center of universe and all other planets and sun revolve around the earth….This belief stood for many many ages only to be disproved by Galileo’s one simple experiment with his telescope.

We saw Maurice Greene winning all running races in 90’s, so we concluded Maurice Greene is the fastest man on earth. One day Usain Bolt walks in and shatters all records held by Greene and disproves the fastest man theory.

Thus every scientific law is tentative by its very nature.... each successful experiment is only partial support of hypothesis...it always stand on edge of error.
This concept is very well pictured in the movie 'The Beautiful Mind' where the scientist will go on to disprove some of very basic or fundamental laws of physics and eventually wins a Nobel prize. So funda is never be too attached to a theory...rather be open to surprises....

Quote to Ponder over :-

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right....A single experiment can prove me wrong -Albert Einstein

Laughter series continues....

Hindi Names and their Chinese Version

Ek Aashik: Hiro Hito Hun
Aashik's mother: Hiro Ki Ma

Now follow others in the same context.....

A secretary: Li Kho Li Kho
A Waiter: Chai En Pao Lao
A cook: Pu Lao Pakao
A Sadhu: San T' Sa-Tsung
A Soldier: Tien Shun
A Watchman: Kuon Hai
A milkman: Pa Nih Mi Lao
A Rich man: Ma La Mal
A deaf girl: Kya Kaha
A Beautiful girl: Hsein Ah
Kolhapuri girl: La Won Gi Mi'Chi
A villager meeting kolha-puri girl: Hakka Bakka
Stripper: Sabu T'aro

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Confusing Name

An Indian guy named "Anantharaman Subbaraman " arrived at the New York airport and ended up waiting for his visa for about 2 hours for the authorities to call his name. He got fed up and went to them and asked why they haven't called his name yet.
They said that they have been calling him for the last 2 hours as

"Anotherman Superman"

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ಗುರು : ತುಂಬಾ ಸಂತೋಷ ಗುಂಡ. ಅದು ಹೇಗೆ?
ಗುಂಡ : ಗುರುಗಳೇ, ನಿನ್ನೆ ರಾತ್ರಿ ಮನೆಗೆ ಬರಬೇಕಾದ್ರೆ ಲೈಟ್ ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ, ನಿಮ್ಮ ಪುಸ್ತಕಕ್ಕೆ ಬೆಂಕೆ ಹಚ್ಚಿ ದಾರಿ ದೀಪ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಂಡು ಬಂದೆ!