Out on the FIELD ...

Over the past 5 years of professional life, I realised and now I increasingly believe in one notion - the obsession of getting a degree and then immediately a job must be chucked and a new structure must be implemented. Yes, the education system must be revamped right from the grass-root - the kindergarten but immediately, I can think of engg. and other graduation courses. It should be other way round - after school/junior college/10+2, in short by age of 16-17, kids must be sent on the field and must be brought back to education(at their will) after 2-3 years !!!

 

During my engg. days, except for a handful of subjects which I liked(and the ones I cleared :P  ) , I used to hate the others, espec. the tronics. Of course, I later realised how important and how (more than I thought)useless were many of those disliked subjects were! For example, I was always upset with discrete structures,  got KT in that but liked it a bit when studied it seriously. Then when I started coding and designing, those concepts ringed my brain - transitive, reflexive relations etc. Many such examples can be quoted. The point is as soon as kids reach teenage, they must be exposed to the practical stuff, the field - be it any profession. Make them play with wires, routers, OS, workshop, construction materials, let them go to the fetch orders in business, let them cook/supervise the kitchen of a hotel, let them actually repair automobiles at service centres!!! In that  tender age, the brain isn’t conditioned to handle and appreciate things that are(seem!) abstract. Here I haven’t mentioned the ineptness of the LARGE PERCENTAGE(FEW GOOD EXCEPTIONS) of teachers who are entrenched in most of the institutes teaching ‘professional’ courses. This approach will help in hundreds of ways, right now, I’m able to envisage the below :

1. The (yet-to-be)students will get an idea of the horizon - how a particular industry works, what are the sciences behind it, what are the constraints. Now when they go to real studies, they will be able to appreciate what is taught and even if it isn’t, there are chances that they would do their things on their own without relying on others(this is what the FIELD teaches!!!)
2. From the stand-up comedians to the writers, how many examples do we have around us where people graduated(or higher) in a particular stream but landed up in some other stream;  by will or by confusion or by just going with the flow - reasons are immaterial!!! With the considerable of exposure to the field, the kids will realize their interests and then can choose what they want to do ahead rather than blindly following someone’s advice or hype. That way, we will have a lots of LESS people depressed and uninterested in what they are doing but stuck there simply for the sake of survival
3. The FIELD conditions the mind. I will start with a  simple example. While during our engg. days we were aware that Unix, Minix etc. had a great deal of contribution from the undergrads., we never believed we could do anything close to it - our teachers, our environment and our own mind never was capable to think in that direction. We were given the impression that ‘professional’ life is serious business, its different. When I was recently asked to evaluate a tool for sentiment analysis, I found out one built by some undergrads. of a (U.S based) University. Though the tool was rudimentary, it was going in the right direction. Take the example of Hadoop, HBase and other prevalent Big Data solutions - ALL HAVE EVOLVED FROM THE NEEDS OF THE FIELD !!! First find a problem to solve - you can’t go far if you have a solution with you and are finding a problem to fit in !Of course, when mind wanders in idleness, many unprecedented things may crop which are innovative and not necessarily the solutions to some problems(probably, new problems altogether :P ) but that cannot be practice of masses - it must be limited to the scarce no. of individuals. The point is that during the education learning itself, the kids will dream to create something, think innovatively and think for their hearts
4. Quick mental and physical ageing is a factor which probably the young generation has conveniently overlooked ! The metro and town life styles are awful and woeful - we don’t have much time to live our dreams !!! Exposure to the FIELD in the pre-teens or adolescence will help us save the wasted time and start on the right track itself !!!That way, people won’t end up wasting time during college on idleness which doesn’t take you anywhere(of course it gives some sweet memories but its a too big price to pay  - wasted time when you realise later that ‘college time pe kucch karna chahiye tha !’

 

These are some random thoughts over which I haven’t pondered much and have not attempted to tune them towards more hard-headed, practical solution. But I do suggest the readers to give a thought to what I’m hinting at some time !!! I will attempt to expand and refine this article in the future.

Kaliyug - a few signs

All of us who have watched old Hindi movies, heard the grandparents reacting to the current events by sighing 'घोर कलयुग है !' and of course, those of who pay attention to the changing times know about the Kali Yug. While  it has been my area of interest and strong belief for past few years, its only recently that I read the Kali Puran and felt like listing the signs mentioned in it about the Kali Yug. All the religions talk about it in their own jargon but the central ideas remain the same - the confusion, the nemesis, the rise of a Saviour on a White Horse. The power capsule can be found here

So what Kalki Puran has predicted is as follows :

1. Places, people and practices to serve liquor, illicit sexual activity, gambling and gold creation, hoarding and selling will be the abode of Kali, the demon
2. Sexual desires will be uncontrolled and find their way through all possible means -  rapes, pre-marital/extra-marital sex etc.
3. Nothing told in the religious text will be followed, in fact, it will be abhorred and people will behave contrary to what is told
4. Bodies of human beings will be fragile, weak and life expectancy will gradually decline, at a stage reaching a maximum of 16 years
5. Diseases and epidemics will be rampant, resistance power will decrease
6. People will be engaged in fruitless debates incessantly, will never arrive at sound conclusions and will believe in endless analysis
7. Earning money, more and more money and getting all the material pleasures at any cost will be the sole purposes of Life
8. Money hoarding, earning interest on it endlessly and living life thereby will be accepted and adorable means of livelihood
9. Family people will increasingly lose thinking and acting capabilities
10. Parents, teachers will not be respected
11. 'Sadhus', saints will turn beggars and vagabonds
12. People preaching intricate and complex thoughts will be treated as saints
13. Men and women will themselves agree and get married
14. Law enforcers will increasingly grow incapable of punitive action. The rulers and the enforcers will turn complacent and insensitive towards the subjects and will be obsessed with being in power
15. Only the one with money will be respected
16. The cultivable lands will shrink in size and quality
17. Rivers will change course and dry up
18. Widows will get married immediately or indulge in sexual activity without restrain
19. The ruling class will increasingly start exploiting the subjects, first economically, and become cruel
20. The rainfall will gradually decrease
21. Tired by harassments, knowledgeable people will leave their countries and settle somewhere else. The ones holding on will lose their faith and interest in their religion and knowledge and succumb to the pressure of the bullies, leaving Dharma ineffective
22. People will cease to trust each other, vengeance and jealousy will be prevalent, vows will be broken, business will be a second name for cheating and unfair practices

 I'm sure we can't deny most of the signs foretold !!! 

'Life of Pi' - few notes

'Life of Pi' was on my list since December 2012 when I first read about the movie but the time to watch it actually arrived in Jan 2013 - things happen when they are supposed to happen, not before, not after !

To be frank, I haven't given much deep thought to the movie and I don't intend to in  the near future(also, I don't intend to read the novel) but I thought I must at least pen down some of the thoughts that ran across my mind after watching the movie.

1. Pi and the Religion

First, some striking quotes :

• If God is so perfect and we are not, why would he want to create all this?Why does he need us at all?
• Believing in everything at the same time is same as not believing in anything at all !
• And how can he find his way if he does not choose a path?
• Faith is a house with many rooms.
  And no room for doubt?
  Oh ! Plenty ! On every floor. Doubt is useful, it keeps faith a living thing ! After all, you cannot know the strength of your faith until it is tested

As a child, Pi is normal at least about one thing - asking questions and seeking answers. As adults, we do not appreciate these things, at least the education system, the 'bringing up kids' doesn't suggest that we do ! Pi's father has his own ideology and tries to guide Pi accordingly - this is what all the fathers do and MUST do. After all, they have seen the World, had myriad experiences and based on them, they have/had formed their ideologies and beliefs ! However vague and unconvincing these may seem, but every man has ample experiences in his life when he realizes "Yeah ! What Dad said was right"
The first quote is my favourite from the movie !!! Since my teens, I always wondered that if God is so powerful and merciful, why does He allow Man to suffer, to commit wrong things at all ? Why does He need to manage this entire Earth, the cycle of Life, Death, Afterlife and Reincarnation? But as the time passed, Nature, the Indian saints, the History and most important, the people, their behaviour brought me to the conclusion that Man is the God's identity - He would have no importance, no value, no recognition without Man ! Its His ego, His desire to be worshipped, His desire to rule, His desire to be treated as important and serious is what made Him create Man - no other reason ! And this is the time when I realized how CORRECT the Hindu religion and the teachings of Indian saints were - Life, Death, Heaven, Hell, Reincarnation etc. everything is an illusion ! The real goal of Man must be Moksha ! I may be horribly wrong but to make things simple to understand and explain, I treat 'Moksha' as a Shift+Delete/shred command on a file on a Windows/Linux OS - permanent deletion, no existence anywhere ! While this idea may sound rueful, sick, desolate, negative, this is the Truth !!!
The scene in which(I unfortunately couldn't provide here) Pi's father asks him to reason, to think rationally is the most practical piece of advice for a beginner on the path to understand Religion and/or Spiritualism - one can't just hang-on abstract thoughts and philosophy; one has to relate it to the real life and test it ! That's how the Faith must be tested and that's how a Man progresses on the path.

2. The Inner Self/the Subconscious(?)/The Soul

It often happens that our instincts/mind/whatever notices unusual things, tries to point out patterns etc. but we conveniently choose to disregard it. I again realized this when the movie was about to end - when Pi reveals the real story ! I was surprised and unconvinced that how could a hyena and a tiger could stay under a cover  together without causing a trouble and why does the tiger suddenly spring into action out of nowhere and attacks the hyena !
The Inner Self is again a seemingly abstract concept but to simplify it, we can loosely/vaguely relate it to the instinctive mind that all of us have. In the context of the movie, I agree and have drawn the following conclusions :

1. To survive in the 'practical' world like a common man, it must be tamed
2. It must be KEPT ALIVE - if you kill it, you lose your identity !
3. Periodically, one must listen to what it has to say, spend time with it

3. Pi and the Island

The biggest philosophical depiction in the movie, is the island on which Pi lands up. Pi comes there wandering and in a dire situation - he needs food and water to survive ! In a way, he finds a hope, a small source of energy there, so does the tiger ! But later, the tiger runs desperately towards the boat while Pi stays on the island. Pi finds a human tooth and discovers that the island is carnivorous and the water is acidic at night. He assumes that someone came on that island, didn't try to get away from there and died as loneliness crept upon. It serves as a warning to Pi that no matter what the results, he must reach back to the world. But the island teaches makes him realize - if he hadn't found it, he would have died; if he would have stayed there, he would have been lost and died ! He believes that God is watching over him and he must continue his journey.
Depending upon the (in)sanity of each brain, I think multiple conclusions can be drawn :

1. The obvious and the most realistic one is not to get stuck at a place during a journey just because you find solace in there. The journey is more important
2. A more pessimistic variant of the above conclusion is that the instincts often warn us about the danger but the conscious mind trample it ! There are incidents, places, patterns and people around us which may give pleasure, appear helpful initially but it may harm us later. Worse, what you get out of these entities and much more than that is lost later - probably when your times are bad, when you are of no purpose or whatever ! But all that the island gave him by the day, took away again, by the night !

3. Pi's return to the World

The striking feature of this part of the movie is Pi's thoughts about Richard Parker. Pi has spend a good amount of time with his inner self and must have compared it with the Life he had been living in the 'real' world till then. Now, when he's back to the 'real' world, his inner self disappears !

1. The most hard-hitting message, in my humble opinion, was that the jungle is actually the Civilization into which the inner mind/instincts get lost
2. Another, technically correct, interpretation is that upon the arrival in the Civilization, the inner mind sees no scope of living in there(it will have to go wild and soon will be hunted down), hence, retreats to the jungle where the Civilization may not follow !

 

Grand Master Oogway - role model of leadership and wisdom

While I think that writing anything about Kung Fu Panda universe would be a mere redundancy, I'm compelled for past many months to express my perception towards the greatest character(in my humble opinion)of the franchise - Grand Master Oogway.

Master Oogway is depicted as a cool, wise, skilled and a GOOD person who undoubtedly is the best teacher in the Kung Fu Panda universe. However abstract the series may seem, there are a few lessons we can definitely take away, especially about leadership and wisdom.

Notes :

1. 'He/he' refers to Master Oogway as this article revolves around him
2. NO copyright infringement intended - the material used here is just to help relate to some aspects important in human life !

Oogway and the Monkey

Oogway and the three masters - Ox, Croc and Rhino

Oogway and Fenghuang

Oogway and Tai-Lung

Points to be noted :

1. Oogway goes places in search of talent(and doesn't just stay in a cosy place, expecting talent to show up), identifies, pursues and grooms such individuals
2. Knows the nerves of individuals and can see through them - anticipates the darkness within Tai-Lung, Fenghuang and also is prepared to tackle them !
3. Makes his point lucidly but assertively - Patiently but sarcastically, disapproving of the petty objectives set by individuals like Ox,Croc and Rhino though having potential of doing bigger things ! Yet, believing and guiding them !Teaches teamwork by practicals
4. Fights like a true leader,when required - During the capture of Woo sisters, repelling Tai-Lung - risks himself at the front, exhibits great skills and doesn't behave like an 'armchair leader'. Ex: Tai Lung is Shifu's student and Oogway doesn't interfere till Shifu falls but then immediately leaps and protects the Dragon Scroll

Oogway's vision about return of Tai Lung

Points to be noted :

1. The calm and terse way in which Oogway tells Shifu about his vision(and not coming down heavily upon the followers/juniors)
2. Accepting the possibility of impending danger(and not denying it in order to stay in the comfort zone). In fact, when Shifu sends Zheng to Chorh-Gom Prison, Oogway quotes - "One often meets his Destiny on the road he takes to avoid it ! "
3. He advises Shifu to remain calm and also points out at the solution - the dawn of the dawn of the Dragon Warrior

Oogway with Po beneath the Peach tree

Points to be noted :

1. Oogway understands and appreciates(and doesn't invalidate) the mindset of an extremely junior-most, rather naive, person
2. He boosts Po's morale in kind and easy-to-understand words(and not using mumbo-jumbo 'motivation' stuff)
3. He is willing to give time to Po in spite of his failures and again points at a simple solution - stop getting concerned with past and future and focus on today

Before ascension

Points to be noted :

1. Though shocked and worried about Tai Lung's escape, quickly composes himself(and doesn't melt down and flow out like magma)
2. Not only tries to calm Shifu but also asks him to guide Po and give him time(and not hogging him - 'Get it done !')
3. Leaves/ascends in time and ensures that he has given charge to another experienced and able person. One can see how he is not obsessed with being in-charge and not willing to surrender his power !
4. Even before leaving,points at the solution again("You must believe ! "); again, this solution is simple and well-suited for a veteran like Shifu. Essence is, providing simple and appropriate solutions at different levels
5. Follows leadership hierarchy - With ripe age, spending time in meditation and allowing Shifu to exercise authority. Not meddling in training or daily affairs
6. Soothsayer traits - allowing the events to unfold, letting things come and go !

I leave derivation of the summary of leadership and wisdom traits to the readers, rather than providing, rather thrusting my own ideas because - "YOU MUST BELIEVE" :

 

Look around - there's huge DATA

It is my humble opinion, the one indispensable attribute to acquire knowledge is to analyse the ‘data’ around - if one does this over years, he/she will realise what knowledge is all about !!!

The intent of this post is just doing some groundwork - gathering and putting forth some data for further analysis and references. Hence, this post will be referred in the future posts.

Having made the above statement, I will just put ahead several, random observations which need no eagle’s eye - even a common man engrossed in his deadly ‘routine’ can have them. These observations are, seemingly, insipid account of events occurring around us and there is no intention(NOT IN THIS POST)to give a verdict about these.

1. There was a time once when people used to cry, even commit suicides, if due to some god-forbidden situations in their lives, they had to sell their(possibly ancestral) lands, houses. It was considered a responsibility, a moral duty to maintain the ancestral lands and related occupations. Today, lands are sold everyday for ‘money’, are seen as liabilities due to their use only for ‘obsolete’ tasks and occupation.Moreover, selling lands and becoming ‘rich’ is looked upon and envied. They are bought with a view to generate more ‘money’ in the coming times by again selling it
2. There was a time when festivals were celebrated with at most simplicity(rather simplicity was the very fabric of life) - during Ganesh-Visarjan, people used to recite ‘aratis’ and walk peacefully to the sites of Visarjan.During Diwali, it was a routine of people visiting each other homes and spending a lot time together, even friends of ‘young’ ages were involved. I remember several occasions where we visited our friend’s places during Id, with the only sign of ‘celebration’ was greeting, embracing and feeding the guests with delicacies. Today, people block traffic, dance(?) on cheap tunes played on deafening stack of loudspeakers - be it Ganesh Visarjan or Shiv Jayanti. During Id, people block roads for Namaaj.
3. There was a time when teenage friends met, they had loads of things to share, discuss about the events in their lives(as well as of others :P). True, they used to argue over ‘national’, ‘social’ stuff about which they could do little. Each one had a bicycle. If that was not the case, the strongest guys use to ride the bicycle while the weaker sat pillion. Today, when teenagers meet, most of them are busy sharing stuff on expensive cell-phones, chatting on it, riding two-wheelers at dangerous speeds
4. There was a time when mothers - either housewives or working, felt restless when their children weren’t at home for long. The fathers had enforced a strict code of conduct - from food to spending, from rising in the morning to sleeping at night. The grandparents were the supreme mentors and observers, also served as knowledge repositories. There is no need to quote how these things have changed now(nuclear families, high rate of migration), not to mention how they will change in immediate future
5. There was a time when even in late twenties, men used to be slim and sturdy. Going to gym, playing, riding, walking etc. weren’t ‘leisure’, ‘special’ activities but an embedded, routine activity. Today, even the school kids, teenagers are out-of-shape, obese. Exercise has become ‘daunting’, ‘requires special attention’
6. There was a time when mom cooked vegetables, it’s aroma itself used to suggest the vegetable’s name. The taste was authentic and vegetables, grocery etc. came cheap. Today, there is no limit left on the ever-rising prices of food commodities. The vegetables are so tasteless, toxicated and dull, I wonder about their nutritional values !!!

I suddenly realised that I had summarised numerous such things before and again listing them would be a mere redundancy !

Why History ??? Part-1

Note : Owing to my potential, the formatting and look-and-feel is as screwed as ever - requesting the readers to focus on the content

This is the question which I, who dreams to be a full-time Historian, must have attempted to answer ages ago. But better late than never !

The people of our mother/father ‘s generation used to love a song ‘ Sikandar ne Porus se, ki thi ladai, jo ki thi ladai toh main kya karun ? ‘ This song was an epitome of the question, rather an exasperation, that occured in the young minds - ‘Why should we learn, worse remember, who was whose grandfather, which battle was fought - when and for what, why to learn about swords and elephants in the era of ballistic missiles, why to remember the list of political parties’ and so on... I admit that I was no different from these people UNTIL I realised that what we learnt in the school is far from being qualified as ‘History’ - it was just a dump of chronology, a subject to mug-up and in a way, a liability !

With a wide range of professions engaging numerous youthful elements(except politics :P), there are some questions, I as an amateur Historian, would like to pop :

1. Why the activity of requirement analysis carried out so extensively and seriously before undertaking a project/product development ? Why don't just start coding and building apps. ?
2. Why a doctor, especially a psychiatrist, are hell-bent on various tests and ‘history’ before starting the treatment? Why don’t they subscribe a random medicine and later proceed with a trial-and-error methodology ?
3. Why do lawyers have those piles, stacks, cupboards of books having references to cases spanning over decades ? Why not just have a book that lists all laws and fight each case as it comes ?
4. Why so much pains taken by software engineers to come up with design patterns, best practices, pitfalls etc. ? Why strive so much to avoid ‘re-inventing the wheel’ ? Why not just hit the coding button directly ?
5. Why do civil engineers, geographical experts spend years analysing terrain, studying crust and mountains before undertaking construction projects? Why not directly begin with the construction ?
6. Why there is so much demand and respect for ‘experience’ in the world - be it a grandfather, a veteran soldier, an old fox having served in the intelligence? Why not put young guys right away and let them learn ?

The list of such questions from my side is unending ! However naive and stupid they may seem to the respective professionals. they can be asked by some one who doesn’t understand the scope, the pitfalls and the impact of that particular profession. If you are patient and honest till this line, you can get a ‘slight’ idea of the frustration and dilemma a true Historian faces when some one questions the validity and usefulness of History !
The objective of this article is just to clear the dust on the mirror - NOT to prove anyone greater/smaller than anyone !

Let me analyse and put forth a few reasons why History always seems ‘obsolete’, ‘boring’, ‘mysterious’ etc. First question, in the Indian context, to be more specific, Maharashtra board, what we studied & when(how part later) :

1. Std. IV - Shivaji
2. Std. V-X - Various revolutions, Indian struggle for Independence, WWI and WWII

Now I am going to stress the brain of the readers a bit more - recall the manner, the methods in which the subject was taught, learnt and looked at - the teachers just used to read(asked to read !) the chapters, the students good at memorizing saw it as a trump card while others dreaded it! More or less, it was true about it was/is true about all subjects, not just History ! But History, and the one we have learnt, didn’t find any direct application/relevance to our further education - engineering, medical, management, arts etc. The exams focused on the chronological orders, naive and mundane events, extreme insistence on partisan politics and politicians etc.which killed the interest of the students in the subject(precisely, that was/is the intention ! ). The students and people are bombarded, since ages, with worthless ideological statements, to quote some ‘India is a nation with rich cultural heritage’, ‘A period of golden History’. If that is not enough, they are scared with statements like ‘History repeats itself...’ and so on(NOT TO MENTION THE DISTORTION OF THE HISTORY!!!). But no attempts are made (DELIBERATELY !) to make the masses to realise the crucial nature of History - it’s relevance to the current period, the knowledge and wisdom, the boon of prediction and analytical powers, the direly needed self-esteem(in the national sense), the solid and fruitful values it can inculcate! Thus, History is reduced merely to a dreaded academic subject at the school level !

After all that abstract salvo, let me bring some ‘relevance’ to the flow :

1. WWII is what we all studied in school. How many of the things we see around today are rooted in WWII ? Just give a Google - Internet, Ballistic missiles, Nuclear warheads, Inter-continental aviation, Indo-Pakistan problem, North-South Korea problem - the list is mammoth !
2. When we talk about Shivaji, partisan politics, Hindu extremism(?) etc. all such myopic terms come to play. Well, there was a short strike made by him at Umberkhind, near Lonavla where he ambushed a Mughal army of 20000 with just 3000 of his, most of them belonging to infantry, and won it with minimal bloodshed. For those who need 'Western Endorsement',  the 352yr old Harvard Business School has about 600 books on Shivaji Maharaj for references on management casestudies. About 20-25 countries including Switzerland, Vietnam teach military warfare techniques of Shivaji in their military training.
3. The DBMSs(DataBase Management System) have come a long way & so have PLs(Programming Language). Today, we see a new framework, a new tool etc. popping before we can breathe. All claim to be innovative. A veteran programmer/developer/architect can easily expose myths and segregate the useful and useless stuff !

While umpteen such examples can be given, many minds must already have started debating against it. But it must be remembered that in either case, the role of History can’t be denied. Another point, History has something for everyone. Unfortunately,this article focuses on too less arenas as those are the only areas of my (limited) knowledge !

After having written a no. of lines enough to cause yawning, I would like to summarize what History has to give, depending upon the interpretations and expectations :

1. For those interested in building their own philosophy(like me :P ), it acts as a data repository
2. It helps, after analysis of course, to expose myths and establish facts
3. It gives invincible power of prediction - learn more, predict more accurately
4. It inculcates,especially among the youth, qualities that are direly need - perseverance, rationality, open-mindedness, tolerance, defiance, patriotism etc. These are the things one has to experience and learn - they can’t come out of the thin air so no need to agree with the above statement !

I intend to expand this article in future, in time. It is challenging for me to cram my findings of a decade in one article;more challenging, rather killing, for the readers(if any :D )