Archive for category life
Not accepting a high salary offer
After reading the salary, I’ve decided that I must refuse. The reasons I have to refuse a salary like that is I would be able to do what I’ve always wanted to do — get a wonderful mistress, put her up in an apartment, buy her nice things. . . . With the salary you have offered, I could actually do that, and I know what would happen to me. I’d worry about her, what she’s doing; I’d get into arguments when I come home, and so on. All this bother would make me uncomfortable and unhappy. I wouldn’t be able to do physics well, and it would be a big mess. What I’ve always wanted to do would be bad for me, so I’ve decided that I can’t accept your offer.
- Richard Feynman
I am speechless, I went through a similar exercise three weeks back and used almost similar approach to reach same conclusion. No wonder, he is my hero. I have a huge influence of him and definitely his writing helped my though process to reach a proper decision.
PS: There were a lot of other reasoning involved in my decision.
Internship, Baroda, et al.
I complete my internship and stay at Baroda today. It has been nice 7 week and perfect transition from scorching summer to moist monsoon. I joined with aim to get my hands dirty with intricacies of a small, relatively new company. I found myself much more than what I had expected – dealing with customers, handling technical problems, discussing on basic policies and dealing with employees is much more complex than what we study from textbooks. A first hand experience of all that gave me a improved perspective to look at problems, this experience is really going to help me in future. It was also nice to apply some of the tools that we learned about in MBA, I could directly see how that education helped me fare in this internship.
Apart from 10 hours at work, I had other time at my hand and I utilized it by doing three things. First of them is walking, I walked around 10 kilometers per day. It used to take 2 hours, but it was fun. Daily exercise as well as my second hobby, that is of listening to podcasts. In last 7 weeks, I listened to around 150 hours of podcasts, most of it was Buzz Out Loud and sometimes TWiT and GDGT. I was catching on all the BOL episodes, its tech news so does not make sense listening to old ones but some analysis is worth listening to. That was another great learning experience, now at least I know of few more things to talk about.
Third most important thing was talk with few friends. Lengthy discussion on career path, weighing decision and what to do in future. It was very complex topic, not just discussion but though process that followed. This definitely helped me think clearly on what I want to do in future and I wish my friends also were helped by my suggestions.
Another interesting instance was my trip to IIM-A, best institute in India for management studies. I could not attend the lecture I wanted to attend but had to chance to go visit a pharmaceutical company with the class. Wearing those jump suite kind of clothing and learning about the business was fun too. The day ended with meeting a professor, discussing entrepreneurship and learning how to start a venture. Overall it was a fun trip enjoying a day with best management students.
Now, learning continues but sometime for break too. Would be enjoying next one month in Udaipur, best city in the World, before starting life as student once again.
Marley, Popcorn and Me
This post is not about the Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog but its about me and how I overcame fear of dogs (and pets). To clarify few things, I do not hate dogs as few people have misinterpreted, I am just scared of all the pets. Whenever I encounter some pets, they try to jump over and lick, I always take that as an attempt to bite me and I run away. It’s not the big sized dogs, it can be a small puppy too. I am even scared of small puppies. There have been cases where I was scared of Mr. Townes (picture below) and in attempt to get away from them I have hurt myself.
Townes Van Zandt
The incident that lessened the fear of dogs happened during Spring Break when I visited Wisconsin. When we started out trip, I was told that I would be meeting St. Bernard. I had no clue about them and I thought of them a just a big sized dogs. Just a quick query on Wikipedia revealed that they are very large dogs which were originally bred as rescue dogs. Still, I could not imagine how large they could be. My first (and only) encountered when we entered the farm, and four of St. Bernard came jumping towards us. I was very scared and did not even come out of the car. When my friend got out, I could compare their size with a human and decided against getting out of car. And then I saw something amazing, one of the dogs pushed the front door of house open. This scared me to limit and magnitude of this can be understood from fact that when I friend returned, she found that I have locked the car from inside.
St. Bernards with my friend
Things changed when I stayed with a family who owned a Bichon named Popcorn. He was very active when I first met but soon realized he was not very active. He would sit in the corner and won’t move for long. One evening I was sitting on couch and I did not realize that Popcorn had climbed the couch and was sitting very close to me. Since I was working on laptop I did not realize how close he was, he kept moving closer inch by inch and in sometime he was almost on my lap. He was so slow and silent that I did not think of him more than a pillow. He stayed in that position for around 15-20 minutes and this helped me gain some confidence around him.
Next day we were in Chicago and the family I stayed with had a Bichon named Marley. When I had stayed previously, they had to put Marley in a separate room because of me. This time I didn’t want to trouble them and wanted to ‘face my fear’, so asked them to keep Marley out. He was trying to “pounce” on me as usual, but they told me, it would be best if I let him familiarize with myself. This dog had a peculiarity that to familiarize he would have to smell your breath. It was pretty hard for me to allow that as it has to come close to my face. I sat down and owner held the dog and brought him close to my face. It took me 5 minutes but he understood me and my fear has reduced. Next two hours, we were sitting and talking but Marley kept coming to me. I had to keep petting him or else he would try to smell my breath again. I had to constantly pet him and he was sitting on my lap also few times.
This helped me make “friends” with at least one dog, but I am sure next time I meet a dog I won’t be as scared. Definitely I cannot handle a dog like Marley from the movie but some dogs like Top Gear Dog (labradoodle), which is introvert as well as intelligent can be easy to handle.
2008 : A year of Change
I would like to say a year that changed a lot of thing (no, this post is not inspired by any of Obama speeches).
Change in role, from a computer science engineer to a MBA student. This has been my dream for few years and I would say the best thing that has happened to me in last few years.
Change of country, moved to USA five months back and this was also I wanted to achieve. Most repeated question to me last year was – Will you be coming back to India/ are you planning to stay in US or some variation of this. But, I would like to repeat my answer again. No, I will not stay here longer. I will be heading back soon and that have been a promise that I have made myself long before, even before I started thinking of MBA.
I took a month long break before joining college and a month of break currently. These were very important for me since joining as SE in Aug ’05 I did not take any break. I have a set of ideas but needed time to refine and package them, now I have something in my head and hopefully I can improve on it and this education and environment will help me improve. Then there are lot of small changes, but thankfully all are on the positive side.
My new year resolutions, none, but I have one thing that I want follow. My keyword to life is ‘Learn’, learn as much as possible from people, experiences, reading and whatever you can think of. Learning is something that will never stop for me and the day it stops, everything else should stop too.
Yes, I have a list of things I want to achieve on personal front :
- Take YAP to newer level and at least have 30 episodes in 2009.
- Start running, I don’t want to be a marathon runner but at least want to do 5 KM in a stretch.
- Learn a lot about photography
- Reduce weight, at least by 4 kgs.
- …and learn, learn, learn….
Wishing everyone a wonderful and great new year!
Pennies prevail over Prudence
It is not 40 hours since series of terrorists attacks in Mumbai, it is one of the most horrible things I have seen in my life. My heart goes out to all those effected, policeman who gave their life and people still struggling stuck surrounded by terrorists. Great work by Indian soldiers, Good luck.
One disappointing thing that has emerged is irresponsibility of media. Role of media is to provide information to the public but in a proper way and taking care of that they are not divulging important information. I am watching TV channels – NDTV, IBN-CNN, India TV, Sahara Samay, Star News and many other and have realized that none of them are doing their job properly. In this unfortunate event they are trying to sensationalize the information and acting irresponsibly.
First mistake they are making is providing sensitive information such as movement of NSG and Police forces to public. I am sure, this information is not useful to public at this time. At this time, people need to find out where their relatives are, who is injured, which hospitals are people taken to, what blood type is needed and where. These are much more important information if provided to public it would be helpful. Yes, people need to know what area are safe, what is the progress but giving step by step information is not useful. There are rumors (and probably true) that the same information is retrieved by terrorists and can be used against the brave souls who are trying to protect our lives.
Incidents like Sahara Samay showing (in real time) commandos climbing a specific stair to get into windows is completely rubbish. They could have jeopardized the complete operation. Similar situation happened when CNN (US) correspondent asked their counterpart from CNN-IBN, isn’t showing these videos on air not proper, can this information be used by terrorists? The CNN-IBN correspondent did not reply to that question.
Second issue, camera person showing injured people and not many people to help around. Why is the need to show it to the world and specially when you could help those people. You could save someone’s life by helping them. Instead they were continuously showing, these people need help. A message is enough after that its an overkill, trying to blow incident out of proportion. When you are at case, help people. You are humans first!
Third issue, this was an interview of someone who have been saved out of Taj. It’s not even minutes that the lady has come out of such horrible situation and our reporter is asking silly questions. At one point of time it was evident that the reported was pushing the limits so that lady starts crying. So much for TRPs, those people have been under tremendous pressure for last 24 hours, they need peace and rest, they need a doctor or psychologist, not some insensitive reporter blurting out questions whose answers are known to everyone.
Fourth issue, their was a lot of improper information. It is the responsibility of media to provide proper information and make sure it does not create panic in public. If necessary some discretion can be maintained and information provided at later stages. I understand it was a chaotic situation, but still relevant information is must. Over a period of 8 hours, there was news flash more than 10 times that ‘Taj is free of terrorists’. I am still not sure it is free or not, just because I don’t trust you guys anymore. Then we have some people from India TV who claims to have talked to terrorists and are aware of demand, and they even have audio stream of that. Here we have two points to take care of, government should be contacted at first place and its up to government that they want to make it public or not (definitely it would never be made public). Second thing, if it is false information, then you should never be allowed to be part of media again. You guys are shame on your profession and does not deserve to be here. Remember, aim of terrorists is to terrorize people, to make things unstable and you are helping them by acting irresponsibly.
Fifth issue, don’t be insensitive. I heard some reported using the word – ‘interesting’. I had no words after that. People are dying and our reporters can use words like these. This is not over, there were many cases of similar usage.
Sixth issue, why is media going to places where it should not go. For instance, I saw some reporters inside the Taj lobby showing the logo and what importance it has for people. Yes, we understand its heritage but that news can wait for some time. Why going in and risking your life and others to things which can be delayed, still that place has few terrorists and anything can go wrong. If you don’t care about your life, its ok but don’t create problems for others. (I will say, it is responsibility of government too to take care of incidents like these, a complete cordoning of area should be done with no one allowed till it is completely safe).
Last issue is about social media, twitter played an important role in information dissemination and we just not only got information but images (from people like Vinu). But, there were a lot of rumors too. I think, like bloggers, twitter users should be responsible too. I am not questioning anyone intentions but make sure information is correct and we are not leaking some important information, we are not sure who all are monitoring things.
One last thing, I understand everyone does not have the same impact of the news but please don’t make those things public. I saw a question on twitter stream (not directed to me) – You are not from Mumbai, then why are you concerned[from one Indian]. I won’t give answer to this question, I understand that readers of this blog feel the pain in same way as I do.
Godspeed soldiers!
(Blog title taken from one of the tweet replies)
PS: In my view every media person should watch the movie ‘Mad City‘, its tagline says it all – One man will make a mistake. The other will make it a spectacle.
Things Have Changed
A month in US and I already feel some changes in me, not exactly because of the location.
Education system is good, unlike exam(result) oriented studies in India here people concentrate on real life scenarios, a more practical approach to problems and assignments. I love this system, this suits me perfectly and allows person to think in much better way. One important thing I have notices is the way people think, they approach all issues from the basics with very simple thinking and reach proper solution. I used to think in a very complex way, and thus my approach towards problem used to be very complex. I used to find solution too, but sometimes it wont be as good or sometimes it would be great. Lesson learnt, never underestimate or overestimate the situation, approach it with basics and you will find the solution. I had used the same approach for Mechanics and I was very successful in it, but not in real life scenarios. Hopefully will learn the technique soon.
I have developed new love for library, that is my favorite place in VT. While in CUSAT I never used to visit library or once in a semester, but here I visit library daily. Surprisingly, I do not refer to books, I just sit there with my laptop and would work on anything. I feel good there and want to spend maximum time.
I loved eating out, either it be Bangalore or Cochin. Even though there were good options available I loved going out. After coming here, I have just gone out few times. Sometimes there is a chance when everyone feels like not cooking, and want to try out Maggi or something light and readymade, I don’t like that and I cook something.
Movies, yep, I can’t live without. I have cut down drastically on that. I have not seen any after coming here except for The Dark Knight, I went to Christiansburg for that.
Want to write a lot, but wont delay it more to complete it. This blog has been in my ‘outbox’ for 7 days now. More details in some other post 
Random Musings
Today I complete a week in Virginia Tech, a week that was full or surprises, a week where many unexpected things happened. I moved into this alien land and had mixed feeling about this move. I was sad about being on the other side of planet, more than 15,000 kms from family, on the other side I was excited about the new life I was about to start. Life as a student, to regain the joy of life that I had been missing as a software engineer.
This place is beautiful, absolutely amazing. I had one good reason to move to Blacksburg, my friend for last 15 years was here. We went to school together, did our engineering together and now he would be my senior for MBA and flatmate once again, what more can one expect at place this far from home. But there was surprise, my new flatmates, they are amazing. They have helped out in almost everything, settling down, cooking, getting furniture and tips for the college. Really awesome guys, hope I could stay with them longer but can’t, they have got great jobs and will be moving out in a month.
I knew USA is a advanced country, a place where things are organized, neat and things are in order. But only after coming here I have realized magnitude of that. Buses run perfectly on time that you can set time on your watch, traffic sense is amazing, rules are followed with perfection are a few things that I have noticed.
Sometimes, some people are not good at writing exams and due to our system they miss few opportunities. Same happened with me, but after a weeks hard work I have achieved what I had come for. After long I will have a perfect sleep, the sleep I had been dreaming about for long (LOL!).
Then there are some people, whom I trusted a lot and expected to contact. But few haven’t even contacted or have backed off when asked for some help. I guess that’s life…its purpose is to teach lessons everyday. But most important lesson that I have learnt is "never loose hope, whatever might be situation, there will be a way out, every time we fall we have to get up and continue."
Classes start on 25th, before that we have Quest and am looking forward to it. Football fever is climbing up here and next month we are having homecoming, so am pretty excited to witness American Football and its mania.
GO HOKIES!
Journey to Blacksburg in photos
Posted by veetrag in life, photostream, travel on August 14, 2008
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| View before NY | Island before NY |
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| JFK | Roanoak Airport |
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| Mountain of clouds | View from my room |
Impact of Blogging?
After Ahmedabad and Bangalore serial blasts we friends were having this general discussion. Deepa tweeted about blogging about the incident and what can be done and this is what Nimish and I replied.
KV: @ddeeps what will blogging do? We will blog and few ppl will read and agree n nothing will change.
Ddeeps: @kv Oh never despair. We talk, we discuss, we think, re reflect, we are spurred to action, we support – all things happen.
Nb42: @kv 98% of the people are decent citizens. 2% are extremely stupid. But it’s us 98% who’s at fault for electing the other 2%.
KV: @nb42 exactly, but do you think we 98pc ppl can blog n change those 2% ppl?
Its almost 5 years since I have been blogging, but still I am not clear about the impact of blogging on general people, or how we can change the opinion about certain things?
I am not talking about the tech people, the people from our gang or bloggers. When we write about technology and tech news/reviews/bug fixes/hacks it is to be accessed by similar minded people and they find solutions online. Or when The Economics describes Robert Scoble as Chief humanising officer and quotes ‘he has made Microsoft, with its history of monopolistic bullying, appear marginally but noticeably less evil to the outside world’ then I completely agree. Because people who had views about MS, hated MS or had no opinion, they all belonged to the tech world, the internet world. That was the place where Scoble was hero and everyone listened to him.
But once we try to apply same things to normal world specially in country like India where most of the people do not have access to internet, where politicians still try to get votes based on caste, region etc rather than what actually people really thinks, the situation is completely different. If we talk about people who blog or we interact on twitter we see most of them have rises above the level of these small issues and cannot be misled by politicians. But those are the people who are our target audiences too, they are already aware of what is happening around, they know problems and solutions too, they do not have power to change it. They can blog about things but who is going to read, not the politicians or general public.
There are these small incidents that happen in our daily life, for example when I went to get a medicine from medical store, most of them did not give me because I wanted to just have one injection. They wanted me to buy a complete pack of 10. These medical store guys act like a mafia and sell medicines in bulk only. Every medical shop I went to I got the same answer ‘buy 10 or don’t buy it’. Where do I raise my voice against it? Who should I complain to? In the end what did I do, I just wrote a blog post. [I never posted that because I knew that post will have no impact]
Push button publishing might have made everyone a journalist, but what good it is when the ideas can’t be propagated into real life. I have another question too, few months back we had a Blogathon India, and it was really a nice effort. I read all the posts and learnt a lot from them, I tried to change few habits too. But I don’t think it caused a lot of impact, its purpose was to increase awareness, but I think it just tried to help those who were already in better shape. We need to reach out to common people and authorities, but blogging isn’t going to help much.
So, I want to ask all the bloggers what is the solution? Do you really think blogs will have impact someday? In a country where 1/3 of population is trying hard to get two meals a day, we can blog and can change perspective of people? I have no clue on this. At this point I was thrown with another question, did you vote? What or how did you decide who to vote for? Maybe answer to this question will lead me somewhere.
Just Chill!
I hate PHBs, not just because of there ignorance. Ignorance is not an issue, but when they pretend that they know everything, that is what bothers me more. I have no clue why this happens but once a person crosses the limit from normal being to become a PHB, he looses common sense; he crosses the threshold of being normal and achieves idiocracy.
If you guys have seen Office Space, you will remember the daily conversations between Lumbergh and Peter. As soon as Peter enters his cubicle Mr. Lumbergh will come to his cubicle, place the coffee mug of cubicle wall and …
Lumbergh: “We need to talk about your TPS reports. You forgot to add some important points to it”
Peter “I understand the policy. And the problem is just that I forgot the one time.”
Same thing used to happen to a friend of mine. His manager had recently been to a ‘top level conference’ and had got a red coffee mug with golden engraving ‘member of so-n-so club’. Manager’s routine was same as Lubergh’s, he will come to my friends cubicle and start the conversation:
Manager: We need to talk about the user guides that you sent for review. They were not formatted properly.
Friend: Yes sir, I think I made a mistake.
Manager: You should have referred to old reports; your report looks so different.
Friend (thinking): those reports were pathetic and had nothing in them, only good thing about them were they were formatted properly. My reports make sense but are not formatted, now what is more important?
Now this routine continued for few days, manager and his coffee mug. Finally my friend got an idea, he bought a coffee mug and in just 3 days manager stopped visiting his desk.
The Coffee Mug
