The best part of my journey and stay at Goa was talking to unknown people. The only Indians in the resort at that time were me and a Punjabi family. The rest were all foreigners - about 40 from various countries in Europe. So it did indeed feel a little weird initially. But I soon got used to it, although I always felt like I was in a foreign country coz, besides the foreigners, the place has a homely touch to the way it is built and maintained, and also has the cleanliness and etiquette of a western country. But I realized that in spite of the different ways we build and decorate our surroundings, we are all inherently the same. Life is complex, but the complexity is strikingly similar the world over. I realize this every time I speak to a stranger. I start over with a basic and implicit set of assumptions about the person, although not consciously - I guess the overall personality is drawn in my subconscious mind based on my past experiences with people who look and behave in the manner I can make out from the first glances at the stranger - and this picture of the person adjusts itself as I talk and acquire more information. I am not sure of the degree of precision of the picture our mind draws of the stranger's personality before we initiate conversation - it may be very high because it involves our learnings from the past - it may be very low as it must be needlessly biased and affected by past experiences - it may be very high coz it involves our gut feel which is supposed to give us right advice, but who knows. However, I don't find it difficult now in finding things to talk about. People the world over have similar issues and problems with the world and life. For example - relationships, politics, money, power, cheating, values, emotions, and a million other things - are so strikingly similar and relevant to all our lives that you can relate to any one in the world, if you are really interested to. But not every person would be easy and nice to talk to as personalities vary and compatibility between individuals is a real thing. That explains why I started talking to many, but with only one I talked many many times with increasing comfort.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Goa Trip Takeaways
The best part of my journey and stay at Goa was talking to unknown people. The only Indians in the resort at that time were me and a Punjabi family. The rest were all foreigners - about 40 from various countries in Europe. So it did indeed feel a little weird initially. But I soon got used to it, although I always felt like I was in a foreign country coz, besides the foreigners, the place has a homely touch to the way it is built and maintained, and also has the cleanliness and etiquette of a western country. But I realized that in spite of the different ways we build and decorate our surroundings, we are all inherently the same. Life is complex, but the complexity is strikingly similar the world over. I realize this every time I speak to a stranger. I start over with a basic and implicit set of assumptions about the person, although not consciously - I guess the overall personality is drawn in my subconscious mind based on my past experiences with people who look and behave in the manner I can make out from the first glances at the stranger - and this picture of the person adjusts itself as I talk and acquire more information. I am not sure of the degree of precision of the picture our mind draws of the stranger's personality before we initiate conversation - it may be very high because it involves our learnings from the past - it may be very low as it must be needlessly biased and affected by past experiences - it may be very high coz it involves our gut feel which is supposed to give us right advice, but who knows. However, I don't find it difficult now in finding things to talk about. People the world over have similar issues and problems with the world and life. For example - relationships, politics, money, power, cheating, values, emotions, and a million other things - are so strikingly similar and relevant to all our lives that you can relate to any one in the world, if you are really interested to. But not every person would be easy and nice to talk to as personalities vary and compatibility between individuals is a real thing. That explains why I started talking to many, but with only one I talked many many times with increasing comfort.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Indian Culture on the Road
I think a great way to evaluate the culture of a Nation is to study how people behave on its roads. Look at India for example. The following, which I witness every day, characterize our behavior on roads in general:
- Extremely poor adherence to traffic rules is a characteristic of India on the streets. The unwritten and unacknowledged, yet all-pervading rules are the following:
- Totally ignore all traffic rules when there is no Traffic police watching
- No need to bother about the traffic signal if there is no traffic police around
- Leads to mass traffic signal violation and dangerously concentric traffic, which somehow escapes collisions
- The irony is that even those who want to follow traffic rules are forced to join the herd, otherwise they'll be crushed by the stampede of vehicles
- In case of heavy traffic, while everyone trying to push his/her way through invariably leads to a logjam, yet nobody gives way to anyone else
- Don't give way to anyone, even if it is an ambulance with its siren roaring loudly
- It is perfectly fine to stop your vehicle in the middle of the road even for trivial reasons without bothering you are blocking the traffic
- Narrow roads without exists and space for stopping is definitely one reason, but what's really alarming is the total insensitivity with which some people stop and don't bother for a long time
- If someone shouts at you, simply shout back, irrespective of whose mistake it is
- Honk as much as you can to make way for yourself
- Look down upon everyone else on the road especially those with smaller vehicles
- Believe in Me first, everyone else later, as far as possible
- If you hit someone, run away if you are sure you won't be caught
- If you are in a car, you don't need to worry if you are splashing water or dust on someone walking by the road-side
- If you are in a car, those on 2-wheelers and those on foot are a nuisance. If you are on a 2-wheeler, those on cycles and those on foot are a nuisance. If you are on a cycle or if you are on foot, everyone who is on a motor vehicle is a nuisance. If you are on foot, everyone who is on a vehicle of any sort is a nuisance.
- Lanes drawn on the roads are just for aesthetic appeal, and they are not meant for anything else
- It is sometimes fun to drive with one of those white lines running through the middle of your car
- And of course, the concept of lanes does not apply to a vehicle with less than 4 tires
- Taking random turns at will and assuming those behind will notice and apply brakes
- If you hit someone, fight with all your might but never accept your mistake
- If yours is a bigger vehicle, you can assume everyone else will give you way
- Honk often to clear the road and make way for yourself
- Tease girls and women on the roads
- ...
- ...
- ...
Herd Mentality
Friday, October 19, 2012
kuch to timepass comparison
Every bald man alive and dead has seen a moment when he came to know the schocking reality that he is on the road to baldness and has already covered half the distance without knowing and with the belief that he can't ever get bald. He still covers half of the remaining distance keeping himself in denial and covering bald patches with smart comb-work, which the world knows and notices, yet doesn't comment or does so with suppressed smiles and mildly sympathetic ayyayyos. This is the Sachin Tendulkar phase of baldness. And finally when the man decides he can't deny it any more and lets his strands loose, he realizes the world doesn't care and it knew all along of the barren islands which never erupt.
This sounds like the lifecycle of a bollywood star, especially a heroine, once in huge demand for her youth and beauty, and later thrown into oblivion once the first signs of aging appeared and Olay didn't help. Or a sports star who can no longer play well enough. Although the important difference is that a baldy was never paid for his hair while a heroine earned money for her beauty (and the sports guy for his ability to play the game well), I think the emotional states of both are still quite similar, particularly in the Sachin Tendulkar phase. And I guess the parallels end right there. Post that phase, a bald man usually regains confidence and does well with his life and work. But bollywood or sports celebrities go one of two routes - (1) get more and more frustrated sine die and finally die, i.e., enter a Rajesh Khanna phase, or (2) make a new beginning in a new avatar and create new goals with a new zeal, i.e., enter an Amitabh Bacchan phase. The main reason the parallels end is that for a bollywood or sports celebrity the cause of frustration was also work-related. For a baldy, it was only an appearance issue, and his appearance never earned him any money. I guess the differences are more obvious than the similarities, and I won't write more on this lame comparison :)
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Manmohan Singh Robot! Let's build a smarter PM!
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
What the hell is going on?
Coalgate is the latest feather in the UPA government's cap. And the latest ingredient in the spicy saga of corruption in India. If it hadn't been for a couple of Finance chapters I read during my adventures with academic pursuits, I wouldn't have appreciated the rationale behind something being called a loss just coz it could have been earned and the government gave up the possibility of earning it. I still don't often understand that way of looking at things, but if that's the rule, so be it.
It would be interesting to go through the methodology of calculating the loss, although my past record with Valuation tells me that I won't understand much of it. Damodaran on Valuation is considered a good book on the subject, but books are never the best way to learn stuff in college. And as far as learning from peers is concerned, stuff like laziness, inferiority complex, superiority complex, shyness, arrogance, etc etc., each applicable to different subset of peers, stopped me from reaching out, and I was left wondering on most topics, but passed the course nonetheless, like I did most others at IIM and IIT, from whatever bits I understood and from whatever bits I managed to cover up with good english.
I didn't intend to discuss this topic here, but like law, my articles take their own course. I was a great notes-writer at IIM. I wrote good notes at IIT too, but there I was outdone by people like Abhishek Bhargava by miles of written crap. I did have a couple of loyal customers like Ratnesh Bansal and Jeetu. And a few others who played safe by xeroxing notes by Abhishek, Saumya and me, just to make sure they don't miss anything at all. But sadly, half of my time at IIT was spent figuring out what the seemingly better people did, and writing good notes with the mind shut and ears open was one of them. I utilized in IIM that skill developed over 2 years in IIT, and it didn't take me long to become the 'notes-guy' of my section. IIMs are culturally a little different from IITs, in that you cannot and need not totally rely on class-notes. The curriculum is full of the so called 'Case Studies' which you can solve, resolve, analyse and answer just from common sense. Some part of the remaining stuff can be tackled through the gyaan in class-notes, which must also be there in some form in the books, I am sure. But you need to be a Schizophrenic John Nash to find those bits and connect them in a way that it makes any sense. So a few who care a little, look at the notes. For those who care more than a little, and there a few of those, there are the books. You are charged in your fees for books and they are thrown to your face, even if you don't want them. And naturally, very few actually see those books after the day they register for a term, when they have to collect the books from the Academic Office. So proud or amused they are on that day that they take pictures of stacks of books and put them on facebook. Some perverts see a phallus and worship it in hope that it bears some fruit. The few who do study them, are either in BCG (and the like) or in some unknown company which they joined after they were forced to sign out of placements without job just coz it was convocation day and the diro had to declare 100% placements!
Coming back to Coalgate... Why the hell do they make a 'gate' out of every damn scandal? They should have avoided that here, at least, coz they ended up naming the scandal after a popular toothpaste, sticking to the phonetics. But who are 'they'? I don't know. I wish we had some democratic way of naming popular newsy stuff. A discussion in Parliament may be a good idea. Afterall when we are known by our Scandals, we better have good names for those.
As it gets more and more ridiculous with our leaders throwing blames in defence and playing defence when blamed, some channel(s) highlighted yesterday or the day before the fact that we lost 147 crore in the Parliament sessions where nothing happened except shouting and gossip. Well, I wonder if we should consider this a loss at all, given that even otherwise, those parliament sessions are no good. However, from similar to but slightly different from the Chidambaram logic, one can say that if the session happened and the cost of the session was incurred, where is the loss? At some level this makes sense coz there is always a way to justify chaos in Parliament, as something done in National Interest. Also, given the fact that our leaders do everything for National interest by default - from watching porn in Parliament when they are not sleeping to dancing naked with prostitutes to making favors to lobbies for 'nominal' monetary gains. 'Nominal' because the numbers are so huge, you can't key them into calculators, and have to settle with the names only. Of course technology has advanced and now we have stuff that take long numbers... but we will not tell those politicians of the ancestral generations. Otherwise, they may think beyond their calculators. They already carry iPads and stuff, although turned off. The moment they learn how to poke into their screens, India will have bigger scams. Unless somebody comes up with 'politician-lock' app like they have child-locks in TVs.
Lastly, with all this talk about huge numbers, that too of money, stuck in various messes - some here, some there, some nowhere - I am really confused how money really works. Does anyone really know how much there is, how much there can be and how much there needs to be, and what the hell is going on?
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Fighting over Religion - Can we stop it?
Religion, which for most of us is a hereditary attribute rather than a chosen belief, is the root cause of most tensions between humans. I was wondering about the possibility of abolishing all the existing religions and starting afresh. I realized that it requires a round of devastation of human civilization at a scale big enough to wipe out all our luxuries and take us to a level of misery such that we lose faith in the existing manifestations of God we believe in or have imagined. If that really happens, and we do indeed start afresh, it is very unlikely that the humans spread all over the globe will develop new concepts of god and religion with consensus. There is bound to be different schools of thought and imagination, and therefore we will most likely end up again with this situation with many religions. If we cannot have one religion, we should somehow have peaceful coexistence of all religions. Is it possible with where we stand right now, with our 2000-3000 years old religions or is there an easier way to achieve it with a new set of religions? If it is possible now itself, what should be done to make it happen?
Sunday, August 5, 2012
An Opportunity Wasted...
I wondered for a moment whether wasted is the right word. Possibly they are honest individuals with genuine concern for the country and they did what they felt was right. If that is true, they should not be blamed for losing an opportunity, coz according to their judgement they were making the best of it. Their fighting against corruption was totally voluntary. So it is not really justified that we blame them for misjudging at a certain point and leading the movement to its doom, coz we did not elect them for the cause. We, the common people, were only going to be beneficiaries if the movement succeeded, i.e., we were there to share all rewards, but not contributors to the movement in any significant way. Of course the public support did give strength to the movement, but the public also left when it got bored.
But the opportunity was indeed wasted by team Anna, thinking from their own point of view, for whatever aspirations they had. May be they indeed want a clean political system. Or may be this whole movement was one huge show to gain publicity and build a reputation, that can lead to a direct and strong entry into politics with possibilities of fastest rise to the top. Or may be it is something else. In any case, they wouldn't be happy about the way things flopped for them after the first two super-hit shows. So much so that they couldn't even motivate themselves to fast for the cause they so much expressed belief in, and ended it all in haste, as if they found it totally useless to do it any further when people didn't care and government didn't bother.
On another note, it is interesting to understand what could be the incentive for someone to launch a movement against corruption and fight for a clean system. At an individual level, the motivations and benefits sought are generally too personal and micro to really justify a mass-movement. Still, we have definitely come across individuals who have died for causes beyond their own. Or did they internally link the cause to something their own and found a personal benefit big enough to justify embracing death? Suicide bombers, army men, social and political fighters who don't fear death - what really drives them?
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
the pursuits of unhappiness
The world is a damn competitive and ruthless place, where struggling for success in everything and maintaining a happy face have to go hand-in-hand. And if they don't lead to tangible achievements, you are simply lost. And if you do achieve success of the magnitude the world envies, you become the object of criticism in whatever you do. And if you are not in control of your emotions, and by controlling we mean suppressing them to an extent that they are practically non-existent, you will die of the immense stress the world subjects you to. So, you are either unhappy or incapable of experiencing any emotion including happiness. Success sucks. Even wanting it sucks. But without it life sucks because of limited resources. We are basically trapped in endless unhappiness or as emotionless dummies. My feeling is that emotionlessness is an impossible situation. At a practical level, what it means is that nothing happening in one's life is able to create any emotional change in the individual, and his/her mind is instead occupied by an endless emotion of sadness. That endless emotion could also have been happiness, but that happens only with spiritually enlightened people who reportedly existed only in 4th century BC and before. So, basically, it's all unhappiness. Only possibilities are the kinds of unhappiness - i.e., unhappiness coz of scarcity and physical pain or unhappiness coz of stress and mental agony or unhappiness coz of emotional suppression. We can choose which one we want to pursue. What we get is again not necessarily what we want. The pursuit of happiness is just a euphemism. We do want to be happy and often consciously indulge in many experiences that make us happy. However the pursuits of life, which we want to believe are pursuits of happiness, are really pursuits of unhappiness.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Intellectual Pursuits and Intellectual Growth
In a nutshell, I making two points here:
- Human efforts to fulfill their various kinds of needs are not in a perfect hierarchy as Maslow put it, but are rather in the form of multiple, parallel complex threads of striving for everything. However, this observation still does not refute Maslow's theory, as I am sure Maslow realized the complexity of the human mind, and knew that his overly simplistic hierarchy of needs is really true at a broad level. For example, a man hanging from a window of a building on fire, would not really think about anything else but saving his life. A man whose life is going fine (i.e., enough food and water), would then look at his days more closely and contemplate about people and situations. And so on.
- Intellectual growth of an individual is of the deepest and highest quality when it is drawn from the real struggles of and for life. All struggles of our lives are to work with and around people to get what we want to make our lives better. We are not born equal and so our struggles to grow also vary. Humans are selfish and self-centered creatures at a very basic level, and it takes immense amount of hard work and persistence to really make our lives work. The fight for resources is never ending. But the inequality, right from the moment we are born, and the greed with which humans want to amass and disproportionately grow and protect the resources they own and control, makes this world a ruthless opponent to fight with. It not only takes all the strength of the individual, especially those who are unfortunate at the start, but also demands that all their mental and intellectual resources be fully focussed on getting the best they can out of this world. And I believe the intellectual ability of the highest order is the understanding of human behavior and the ways of the world. Philosophy and meaning of life are ingrained in this ability, and the stuff in books written by scholars looking out of windows of their cozy cottages in snow is just confusing pieces of interesting literature which entertains and enchants coz it speaks of the ultimate truth, which neither they know nor does anybody. Drawing inferences based on assumptions is like assuming the inferences. It is through dealing with life's hardships that one learns the truth that is relevant to us. Beyond that, it's pure academics, which has huge respect but no utility.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Energy and Blah
Yesterday, the petrol price increased by a whopping 10%. And over the past couple of years, it has increased many times. Well, it doesn't affect me so much, as I do have some extra money, and it really doesn't matter to me if my monthly expenses increase by a few hundreds or even a few thousands. I won't even come to know if it's just that much, coz I don't really keep track of exactly how much I'm spending (beyond some approximation). And I don't have to support a family. But for the millions of Indians who just manage to make the ends meet, and for those who don't, every rupee rise in petrol price is a new disaster. Not that if we have another powerful and efficient energy source, the problems will end, coz politics will spread its wings to engulf all opportunities for political exploitation at the cost of the common man. But may be having another means will spread and lessen the intensity of the pain. Having said that, I am sure capable people are researching on ways and means of energy production that can replace petrol and other fossil fuels, and are also safe. And I am sure the world will change tremendously in the next 50 years, as the fossils will reach their exhaustion, and human energy needs will keep on increasing.
It's crazy how we discovered an energy source and finished it off in a couple of centuries. And in the process created a human world running on interesting stuff that work with energy controlled, stored, flown, burnt, etc. to give us great lives. And soon we need to find another energy source big enough to keep this going and grow it further.
Probably this post does not bring in any new insights or thoughts or information. Anyway, I had to do something lying down in this beautiful park :-)
Have a great weekend!
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Let's live and die
Life is so uncertain, particularly when it comes to the end of it. I feel that more nowadays than ever before. Probably after the death recently of one of my batchmates at IIML. And the thought has been getting reinforced by news of deaths of famous young people.
The realization that all this is going to end soon for me too, and possibly at any moment, and that we all have very limited and short time alive, is so sad and disillusioning. Of what consequence is all that I think, feel and do? What and why is all this going on? Why should anything be given any importance?
Thanks to our design, we all have an internal urge to live, to create, to want, to understand things, apply and demand logic, feel emotions - enough of a recipe to make us do something of our lifetimes. Come out of it, though I guess we can't, our existence is over. Or rather, we are not capable of talking about what we would be if we are not what we are. Is death that state of liberation from the trap of being human? Of life? Or is it just and end of what is, and there is nothing thereafter? We don't know. We can only imagine and write stories of crazy Gods, who are supposed to know everything but never show up. May be we are designed too weak to get into all that. But certainly we do poke our noses into everything that's going on. May be our innocent laws and equations, to explain what is, amuse some infant God, for whom we are metaphorical teddy bears who play when the key is wound, and who stop when it's totally unwound. Rewind and we are in a new life. Perhaps God needs a rechargeable battery for us. Perhaps we'll create one for him some day. Till then, let's live and die.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Tips to an IIML prospect
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Learning Guitar
Saturday, February 4, 2012
A Win Down-Under
A funny comment I read under a TOI article last night said that India, Pakistan, West-Indies, Sri Lanka etc. should all voluntarily and officially move out of test-cricket altogether. And let only Australia and England play the boring version and feel proud about it if they will. I couldn't agree more.
Even if indeed this victory is not representative of the Indian team's abilities, the fact still stands that test matches are terribly boring and need to be gotten rid of ASAP. Although I am proud that it was a test match in which Bhuvan and his team defeated the angrez to shut their mouth that shouted teen goona laggaan, they really had no choice and power to decide or enforce the version.
Let's hope now that we win a few more matches and our team of uncles makes us proud. Don't stop expecting from them. Remember the times when the team had only one uncle - Robin Singh - who was more active and energetic than every youngster in the team. (Handsome kahaan hai aajkal?) I am sure he can still come back and dive like a kid, if only some of the youngsters could retire.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Got Some Change?
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Bollywood Bonanza
Konkona Sen - Ranbir Kapoor
Diya Mirza - Imran Khan
Vidya Balan - Bobby Deol
Sushmita Sen - Upen Patel
Rimi Sen - John Ibrahim
Madhuri Dixit - Sunil Shetty
Katrina Kaif - Akshay Kumar
Aishwarya Rai - Tushar Kapoor
Vivek Oberoi - Manisha Koirala
Deepika Padukone - Ashmit Patel
Sonam Kapoor - Aftab Shivdasani
Esha Deol - Harman Bhaveja
Vidya Balan - Sunny Deol
Sunidhi Chauhan - Karan Johar
Sonakshi Sinha - Salman Khan
Rani Mukherjee - Salman Khan
Sonam Kapoor - Salman Khan
Shilpa Shetty - Salman Khan
Lara Dutta - Salman Khan
Kareena Kapoor - Salman Khan
Bipasa Basu - Salman Khan
Asin - Salman Khan
Juhi Chawla - Salman Khan
Anushka Sharma - Salman Khan
Neha Dhupia - Salman Khan
Karisma Kapoor - Salman Khan
(At this point a hint was given that the gal's name started with the letter "P", and after this hint, last 4 calls were to be taken...)
Priyanka Chopra - Salman Khan
Prachi Desai - Salman Khan
Pooja Bhat - Salman Khan
Preity Zinta - Salman Khan
Can it get crazier? Can I sue Zoom (or whoever makes this stuff) for fraud?
Have you ever tried calling them up to play? I did once, but only ended up wasting a lot of money without even getting connected. Ya, I was stupid. Is there anyone else like me? And someone who got connected by any chance?
Saturday, January 28, 2012
CAAAR!
I still remember the surprised look on the face of guys at an exam center in US when I told them I did not have a car, and needed a place where I could keep my bag (the way we keep them in front in exam halls during exams in India!). Yes, there are very few in the US who write CFA exam and yet don't have a car.
Just another parallel thought which sprang from this - most guys in US start their companies in garages. It's understandable, coz it's decent space, totally not necessary, without rent to be paid, and huge office space for a start-up. In India we keep cars under our buildings, or in open air and covered at times with plastic. To make a sweeping conclusion, it's easy to start companies in spacious countries like America, where the basic physical infrastructure is virtually everywhere.
I'm cold, but...
Snow and Ice reminds of the thing going on at Davos right now - The World Economic Forum. I wish I could be there. The thought of so many intellectuals and crooks at the same place talking stuff that shape the world definitely gives an intellectual erection to anyone suffering from paralysis of analysis, like I do. But the way I am going about my career, I don't see that possible in my whole life-time. I know that at the core of nature, there are stuff called quantum leaps, but they might just be the operating procedures of god to execute this world. Not that steep rises at macro level are rare - we have people turning billionaires in USDs within short time-spans - but I am deeply pessimistic at this point of time. Although I often feel these are not quite normal in humans (but important to note that one's concept of normality is only relative assuming himself/herself as normal), I wish I had a single strong passion to drive me in some direction, a single strong goal and motivation to pursue it or a single strong pain I would have fought with all my energies.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Religious Intolerance & Conflicts
Furthermore humans evolved from apes, to whom human gods with human characteristics kind of funda cannot apply coz apes were there even before humans existed. Although this argument cannot stand in front of the counter-argument that evolution is false theory, same god created everyone, that same god is human-like, coz humans are some ultimate species meant to rule this planet and represent god's loved ones and all that shit. You cannot argue with logic to counter things said as facts with disclaimers that those facts need no proof. Although, I agree that logic too fails after a point coz of human ignorance, but it evolves with time and does not refuse to change its shape in light of new learnings and evidence. For example, all arguments of religious folks to support their beliefs are based on what someone said 1000-2000 years back or what someone wrote in some book such long time ago. Whereas, all arguments of atheists, who generally argue in light of evidence, are based on recent discoveries, learnings and knowledge - like the theory of evolution or quantum physics.
What about animals? I am sure each of our human-like gods created all of them too, according to respective ancient scriptures. If however there is some possibility that there is a bunch of gods, perhaps playing video game or something using us, each creating stuff living and non-living... What can I say? The thought itself is too human, in the present sense of what 'human' means. May be gods behave differently. May be only gods are qualified enough to talk about gods. Some humans have also spoken about them. Can't tell now whether they were just schizophrenic and told stories out of illusions or they were results of some bug in the video game software that resulted in some guys knowing stuff of the gods. The latter is also a possibility, besides the former, coz of late, we've had fewer such genuine enlightened guys, possibly coz the bug is fixed now!
Whatever be the case, the point is, that religious tolerance just does not come naturally to humans, although religion probably does. We'll always have people fighting over gods. Unless by some iron fist, we can achieve a gradual convergence of all religions to one concept of the almighty creator, which we all agree upon, with the best of human understanding and knowledge. Unfortunately, this is never going to happen, unless the world is flushed of its shit a couple of times (which I heard is going to happen once in 2012), coz none of the religions has a sunset clause and coz powerful humans use the human propensity for religion and the existence of different religions, to play politics and derive more power, so as to rule other humans.
If humans are part of nature and nature is perfect in the way it evolves, then all that is happening must definitely lead to something good. Of course, we don't know if nature really evolves in ways that are best... and best for whom?
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Sad state of Indian Manufacturing Sector
Most of our engineers get into IT, coz they get paid better there, have better working conditions and get a better raise in money each year, although the quality of work is quite the opposite at times. Strangely, these Software companies are categorized as Tecnology Stocks in our share markets, while Manufacturing is a separate sector - as if all the technology lies there in what you do with computers, while it is not even true as far as most of the Software work we do in India is concerned, which is mostly cleaning up or updating or maintaining stuff created by Americans.
Having said that, it is not the engineers that determine the area of focus in a particular section of an economy. The Manufacturing sector is probably not able to reach the critical mass where it can push for further investments and aggressiveness to achieve higher scales. It is either just sustaining itself or shrinking each day in a milieu that is a total turn-off. While the milieu and mindsets are changing and will further change once we have better incentives, job opportunities and quality outputs to prove the viability of the sector, the fundamental driver even for that lies elsewhere.
I believe we basically need strong policy action by the government, to push the Manufacturing sector, which will not happen as long as we go on taking too much pride in our IT sector and ignore the other areas which are important if we want to be fundamentally strong in the long term. A strong policy action, and encouragement through perks and incentives is enough to drive our systems and businessmen towards creating the right ingredients to generate resources for growing the sector. Resources, like people with right set of skills and adequate technical knowledge, are immensely scarce. But so were C and Java resources once upon a time. The funny thing is that our mechanical, civil, electrical, electronics, chemical, metallurgical, mining engineers, and others whom I missed, all somehow learn C/C++/Java or some other such thing in weeks, and become professional software engineers for life, while the stuff they learn for 4 years of engineering study, is just to get them degrees, and what they learn during those 4 years hardly matters to them or anyone. Then where's the incentive to improve the education standards of our engineering colleges?
I had this feeling often when I was a software engineer, that if I had done the same job when I was in my 10th standard, I would have done it 10 times better and more efficiently. Afterall, the skills you require for being one, are not beyond 10th grade. And the maturity you require for such jobs, is also not beyond 10th grade. But I had no other option, coz that was the best job I could find.
Of course, the world will always be imperfect, coz we don't have a deadline to make it perfect. Our movement forward or backward in any area seems to be the sum of human push and shove (which, I realized just now, is a vector!). Government action, therefore, has to be driven by push from the Industry, and vice versa. We have to get it right somehow :-)
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Meaningless Existence?
I don't know what to do. If I choose to believe that we are all living in some illusion, then I'll have to fight the uneasiness of not knowing the reality. This belief, however, has the nature of non-belief in things being real as they are, and therefore does not crave for evidence so as to exist. If I choose to believe that all this is real, I'll have to fight the uneasiness of believing something without any evidence. In any case, I am unable to make choices of belief or non-belief. It simply does not happen with me. I either know, or I don't know. But when I don't know, and I know or feel that I can't know, it sucks. What should I do?
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
How we did assignments at IIML :-)
6 minutes |
17 minutes |
32 minutes |
16 minutes |
5 minutes |
30 minutes |
14 minutes |
8 minutes |
Ambuja Cements Ltd
6 minutes |
13 minutes |
10 minutes |
11 minutes |
8 minutes |
6 minutes |
0.55244898
0.619724771
0.413505747
0.771509434
32 minutes |
Short-Termism - Focus on Today at the cost of Tomorrow
"Strategies don't come out of a formally planned process. Most strategies tend to emerge, as people solve little problems and learn...
-
"Strategies don't come out of a formally planned process. Most strategies tend to emerge, as people solve little problems and learn...
-
Coming to Delhi is a dream come true to me. It took too long, but finally I am in Delhi, and I feel great. I am here for an 8-weeks Summer I...
-
The Common Admission Test (CAT) will now be a Computer Adaptive Test (CAT) . I totally support this move and am glad the IIMs did it. But i...