Wheels of change

After a long pause, here I am, back to the random bakar. The thing about long pauses is that there is so much of an inertia to start again, you keep looking for the big bang to come back with (damn Newton!). Well, but then, mea culpa [One of early comments in code by one of my seniors who opened the doors for me, to the world of absurd comments].

Anyways, I am sure that no one would be interested to know what was keeping me busy; but just in case someone was wondering, well, I got married, switched jobs [after four wonderful years at my last company] and moved to a new place. New job came with new responsibilities, new team and a brand new product that we have to develop. In smaller setups this would typically boil down to ad-hoc meetings, filling every corner of the whiteboard which cannot be erased as no-one keeps meeting notes other than the faithful whiteboard, team huddling up every now and then around every other cubicle and every possible nook and corner for lack of enough meeting rooms (I remember we once huddled up in a restaurant where we had gone for a team outing but ended up talking about work). But in a larger organization where the meeting rooms are a-plenty, you got to "book" a meeting rooom in the outlook organizer for setting up a meeting. You got to send meeting "invitations" to all concerned parties and once the meeting has started, you got to send a "gentle reminder" to everyone to say that everyone should assemble (compared to the smaller setup where all you do is shout out loud, call people and start the "huddle"). One then shares his screen and someone else would take meeting notes and in an hour you would loose the meeting room to someone else who has booked it for the next slot and you walk out satisfied with the heated debate or with the joy of having scheduled a follow-up-meeting to discuss what was left incomplete :).

But that was about what was keeping me busy, the blog was about this new.. mmm... maybe I should call it a hobby... that I have developed of drawing cartoons whenever I have some free time. Hope you like it... :)

Again I am sure no one would be interested in knowing when I get free time to do all this junk, but in case you are wondering... in those long meetings when I dont find anything better to do and I have my notebook and a pen handy :)

Age of Empires

I am sure most of us would have played or at least would know what Age of Empires is. For the un-initiated, its a game where different players represent kingdoms. It is a game based on the simple paradigm, "Survival of the fittest". The fittest is the one with most resources, most land or most advanced. Countries start from some Age [Industrial Age for instance] and advance to Nuclear Age etc.

Well, I am not here to talk about the game. I came across this article about China building one of the most efficient power plants in the world. "China’s ability to generate its electricity more efficiently could be critical as the sector expands". It is doing everything it can to win this game. From Olympics to Technology and Infrastructure it is racing against the world's super powers, but India seems to be slowly panting along bogged with its baggage of greedy politicians and lazy beaurocrats, with us who dont seem to care a lot about where India goes. The infrastructure for common-wealth is nowhere near the target deadlines, it is apalling to see the "Sheru On Track" hoardings in Delhi, sometimes I wonder if Sheru knows that there is no track ahead.
I dont believe in cribbing and ranting. But it was really a helpless feeling to see this article. Maybe I should have stuck to Electrical Engineering and worked for Power Industry, maybe someone else did and I hope someone is working hard to put Indian Power India on the globe.

What an idea sirji!

Pursuing our dreams

Movies as a means for mass communication, I think, was never as strong or more impactful as it is these days. Am just back from the last show of 3 Idiots, it is a simple movie with a simple very predictable story, right to the end with no surprises. Yet, it makes a strong point and drives it strongly, it almost rubs it in; it talks about how Indian families stress on taking a main stream course like an Engineer or a Doctor and ignores the likes and dislikes of an individual. How our education system stresses on getting the highest marks, on running a race and not on the importance of learning nor on pursuing our dreams.

I am guilty of this same sin, and somewhere most of us are, but we need to wake up and realize our dreams and enable the dreams of others who we can help. I dont know how one finds the true love or how does one help someone else to find his or her true love. I dont know how a parent will find what the kid truly wants to do. But I am sure that I wont ask someone else to fulfill my dreams. I dont think anyone should.

Letting go of the burden

Sometime back I was talking with CK about how carrying a burden stops us from seeing the beauty of life. We all do things that we don't want to do, we aren't proud of doing and we feel bad about them. Sometimes we just don't forgive ourselves, I remembered this very good story about an old monk and a young monk. They were walking through a forest when they came to a river bank and saw a beautiful young woman standing at the edge of the bank and was afraid to cross the river.

The old monk, seeing that she needed help offered to help by carrying her across the river on his back. She accepted the offer and thanked him for helping her cross the river.

The 2 monks continued on their journey, but the young monk was shocked and disturbed at having seen his older companion break his vow of not touching a female so nonchalantly. Finally, after 3 hours of walking and thinking, he could contain himself no longer and he burst out in anger, "Why did you break your vow? Why did you let her beauty tempt you?"

The older monk remained silent for several steps and then said, "It is you who should tell me what it is like to carry such a beautiful young woman. You see I put her down 3 hours ago at the river, but you are still carrying her."

It is a simple story, but sometimes we forget simple things and we carry too much load on our back. Let go off the load and we will be a happier person