Passion

Let me attempt to present my views on the question I raised in my previous article.

I was trying in my mind to define Passion, and was easily lured into defining obsession instead. But soon realized that there ought to be a difference between the two. Without getting into the trap of referring dictionaries, let me choose what I mean by passion. I would define passion as a highly intense positive feeling or emotion for an activity, which can drive a person to dedicate all his/her energies into doing it in the best possible manner and which results in happiness of the order for which one can willingly choose to die.

Such true and genuine passions are rare, mainly because our upbringing tries to make of us individuals who can handle, to an extent, most of the basic stuff required for living in this world, and anyone who does one thing to an extreme degree, ignoring everything else, is seen as an abnormal being who must be penalized for his/her behavior. So, first and foremost, this belief must change, along with the development of institutions and systems that allow an individual to focus on his passion, and have the rest taken care of. The industrial revolution was a small step towards that, and consequently, we have had more people in the west, choosing and working in fields they strongly feel for, than in the east, where countries like India have had professions decided by castes which have been largely hereditary for the past 1000 years.

That explains the various perks and facilities most companies provide to their employees in their workplaces. And the company that gets it right, can get the best out of its employees, provided its employees are also doing the work they are passionate about. For example, I heard a few years back that google ensures there's food within 8 feet from each of its employees! Not sure whether that's true, but it certainly is one such perk. And google certainly used to hire extremely talented guys those days.

However, ensuring job-fit is not what a company's HR department or Talent Managers or Technical/non-Technical managers can do best. Job-fit not only means that the company gets the best out of an individual, but also that the individual enjoys doing the job, so much that he applies his mind and creativity to do it better and then, is motivated to get to the next level in that stream. Most well-educated individuals are equally capable of doing most kinds of jobs efficiently. And they can prove their skill well if their abilities are put to test. And I don't think the world really has many jobs so complex that an average human being can't do well enough with a little training. Given all this, I believe it is always only in the hands of the individual to choose his work in his/her area of passion. The world can only offer him the environment where he/she can pursue his/her passion in the best possible way, but can never ensure that he gets the work that he does best and also enjoys doing.

Which brings us to the next element of the puzzle of passion - Choice. Besides the context of our birth, our choices largely define what we experience in life. Our upbringing and education should therefore jointly involve the right elements to give us a strong belief that we should fearlessly and rationally choose what we want to and when we want to. Of course, they should also impart the values which would govern the nature of those choices and ensure that they are not harmful to the world.

So to summarize - our institutions, social setup and systems should be such that they take care of everything else if an individual wants to do one thing alone; and our upbringing and education should make us strong enough to make our choices and stand by them.

There has to be a lot more, and I would therefore like to invite your views. Please comment.

India lacks competent mathematicians: PM

On second thoughts, I feel India lacks competent anybody in any field. We don't traditionally have a culture which promotes passion for any area. So while we develop capabilities, we don't develop competencies that are world class, although our education system does great job in imparting what is sought. If there is passion, one would never have dearth of resources, support or prospects.

So, how can we create an ecosystem that promotes passion in individuals for their areas of interest? What fundamental changes do we need to make in our society, institutions, beliefs and values?

Cricketers, stop complaning of fatigue...

It's funny these cricketers talk about fatigue. They don't even play every day. A 3-hour match twice a week, is hardly something anyone should complain about. And it's sports. They must enjoy it. Okay, that's not the right thing to say perhaps, coz enjoying a job is never possible! However, all jobs, even the ones involving heavier physical labor, are daily jobs. And most factories in India work 6 days a week, in spite of the fact that their corporate offices in big cities work only 5. And needless to say, the earning of a factory worker, as a proportion to that of a cricketer of the Indian team, is a such a small number, that it will round to zero if you consider only a couple of decimal places.

And these 30-40 year oldies don't stop playing, yet go and hurt themselves in all places. And all that despite cricket being such a dull and slow game, where a player, on an average, just stands/sits and watches for 80% of the game. Okay, I may not be accurate with that percentage, but most of the time is indeed spent just watching. It's that odd dive or ball in some odd moment that causes all the trouble for our uncles on field. And I guess that's because of not being too active the remaining time, which in some way slows down reflexes and response time. And we Indians are only good at such sports, where we have enough time to idle around, introspect, scratch at places, spit, fart and occasionally run. No wonder we have no history of any sort in football.

Who's the Culprit? DOCOMO or Android or HTC ?

Who has cheated me? I am not able to figure out.

Tata DOCOMO is my mobile service provider and I am currently using their 299 Rental Roam Free Plan. Under this plan I have 100 MB of data transfer free every month. I have been using this plan for 3 months now, and my data usage has always been below 100 MB per month, and between 2 and 8 MB per day.

An unexpected, abnormal, unpleasant and unusual thing happened day before yesterday (17^th Sept), and which I came to know of yesterday. DOCOMO reports that in a single day, my mobile sent/received 317 MB of data. And the unbilled amount on my mobile number shot up by Rs.4000. And since the credit limit allowed to my number is only Rs.1300, my outgoing calls were blocked. And blocked without a notice/warning. I called up customer service and asked them to unblock my outgoing calls, and they did in a few hours, although they first said I must pay the huge unbilled amount above my credit limit.

Neither the blocking made sense to me nor the unblocking.

Later when I came to know from my online account with DOCOMO about the humungous data transfer that happened on 17^th Sept from my number, I called up their customer care to tell them that it was total non-sense. The response I got was even more frustrating. They said they couldn’t check the details of what happened, coz the details did not show up in their view of my information. And that they could not take any complaint in that regard, coz, well, they could not take any complaint in that regard. That was ridiculous. And then, when I asked them to connect me to whoever would be the right person to talk about such things, they simply said there was no one. They asked me to wait until my next bill would be generated, on October 7^th, and then they would look into the issues with the bill. Finally, after a lot of yelling, I got an email ID where I could report the problem. I sent an email yesterday evening.

I found that the data transfer was high yesterday (18^th Sept) too, in spite of the fact that the mobile was out of service for more than half of the day. But it was indeed active for the rest of the day. Today I called them up again, and begged, that if they did not fix the problem at this stage, the bill would go on shooting up. And I can’t go on paying money till October 7^th – the next bill generation date, when each day my internet usage is Rs.3000-4000. The response I got – again the same email address. He promised a reply within 24 hours after I mail them. It is already 22 hours since I mailed. No reply so far.

Now here’s why I am not able to figure out what the actual problem is.

Android: Does not have an OOTB tool to monitor the data transfer. I could not find the details of even the total data transfer since I started using the phone. I can install an app now, but I have no way of checking whether my mobile did actually indulge in so much data exchange on 17^th Sept.

HTC: Common sense says I should only blame my OS for this and not the device. But I found that some HTC users did face this kind of huge data exchange on occasions. So is my HTC the culprit?

DOCOMO: Was there any error or mixup in DOCOMO’s records? DOCOMO will hopefully check and get back to me.

Let’s see what happens. Meanwhile, I am no more using mobile internet. And have not yet paid them any money. Waiting for them to block my outgoing calls again…

What an A$$!

An ad by Flying Machine has given Indian social activists something to kill time with…

I personally don’t find anything offensive in this ad. It just acknowledges the fact that certain things contribute to human sexiness, and we all want to look sexy. And now I feel it is actually a waste of time even to talk about it, coz Indians also have all moved on and above and beyond these small and unimportant non-issues. We just don’t care.

Modi fasts!

Modi fasts. Now speaks in Hindi. Now claims sadbhavna. Now claims religious tolerance. But I can't help seeing him like a crook coz his face is like that. Generally eyes don't lie. And Modi's eyes are those a criminal. But in a rare case, it could just be a physical characteristic, without any character level correlation.

But the progress in Gujarat that I've heard of from common people like me, is too much to ignore. Modi indeed seems to be a man of vikas, besides other things.

Given how Indian politicians act and behave, Modi seems like the better kind. He doesn't talk too much to Media. And whatever he does is somewhat more logical and to-the-point as compared to other politicians' nonsensical blabber. That may be because he's not a lawyer, like most other top politicians in the country.

Now, he may have instigated riots, and done nothing to stop them. And that is the only negative point against him, and a big one. So big, that I chose to ignore all the good things that my Gujarati friends have been telling me past 10 years about him. Not sure how much he's responsible, and how big and bad his role in the riots was. But now, I feel I can also take a stand of not having a negative opinion about the guy without any evidence and until I see any strong evidence.

With criminals all over the political class, Modi seems relatively okay now. But if he has really done a thing like causing or aggravating religious riots, he is unforgivable, and should be punished, as and when we manage to gather evidence he can't bail himself out of. Till then, let him have his chance of driving progress of the country.

Going on...

Although I came out of the accident with only a few minor scratches, I did end up with pain in hands and legs. However, it took 24 hours for the pain to show up at a significant level, which still wasn't very intense. I took advantage of the excuse and skipped swimming for two consecutive mornings. There is still some pain in the joints. I hope it won't be there when I'll wake up tomorrow morning.

The accident tore my shirt and a little bit of my bag. My clothes and bag protected me well. I didn't wear a helmet, and thankfully my head was left untouched. My bike is having a tough time these days. Last sunday I had its servicing done, along with a few costly replacements which had been long overdue. Then the accident led to a few more costly repairs. And today I found it dead in the office-parking with a tyre-puncture. Let's hope everything else is fine.

My mom slipped on wet floor today and had a bad bruise on her hand, which had to be sutured. The sutures will be removed in a week or so.

Crazy things happening out here...