Coffee Breaks

In a usual day at work, a lot of coffee goes inside me. There are about one or two coffee breaks and rest of the day its just coffee which keeps going in.

The coffee breaks are usually social in nature. The objective is not the coffee but the conversations over coffee. Coffee is just a means to provide a setting for carrying out conversations. It helps in ensuring that I can engage in conversations for at least about 10-15 minutes, since apart from the conversations, I am also doing something, and that is, drinking coffee. The slower I drink the coffee, the longer is the conversation.

And this brings an interesting observation. The rate at which I am drinking coffee during such a break can tell a few things. Like, how deeply engrossed I am in the conversation. If its really very interesting, my coffee might as well be sitting around for a long long time. And if I don't like it, I would probably finish the coffee fast and take leave.

I really don't like the coffee that comes out of the instant coffee machine in my pantry area. Its actually pathetic. Its not hot, the milk powder is bad, and the froth is also bad. But still I keep drinking it, I don't know why. Some people take a lot of pain in preparing the coffee for themselves. They have a long ritual for making the coffee. Take a cup, put some hot water in it (very little), put the coffee power (or beans) in it, mix it properly for some time, add milk powder, mix it further so that the froth comes out, then add sugar and a bit more hot water, mix again, then add more water to fill the cup, mix again for some time. And then finally start drinking it. For me the ritual is a big pain. I am really not such a fan of coffee (good or bad), that I would spend so much of effort in making it. But I really like if somebody does it for me :)

For those who do it quite religiously, I am not sure if they really do it for making great coffee or is it more of just another way of passing time. But thats their choice. I have no issues with it.

Welcome 2009

Its great to be in 2009. Somehow this new year has been a bit different from previous years. I am happy but more than that I am content. I have no new year resolutions this time. I just want to let things go on their own and be a silent observer. I don't want to set any goals for myself. There is nothing pressing on me to achieve. And its good this way.

I shall see whatever comes along this year and do whatever is necessary to take care of them. Thats all I can think of at the moment. I am not worried about anything.

Rootlessness

For long I have had this feeling which for lack of any other word, I would call rootlessness. All my life I have been hopping from one place to another. Some of it I wanted, some of it I didn't, and some of it just happened. At the end of it all, I hardly find anything in the world to identify myself with. Its like I don't know where do I belong.

At an early age, I found myself into hostel life, and would spend more time there than at my home by the blessings of the rules of the hostel. I would identify myself more with the hostel than with home. I would feel like that the people around me then would stay around me always.

But as it would happen, every year, a lot of faces would change. Lots of new students coming, new teachers coming, old teachers going, old students going, even the hostel building itself changing, nothing would remain the same every once in a while. And one day, I found myself done with my school and this sweet hostel of my childhood was no more my own. All of my friends there went on their own ways, and over time most of it faded somewhere into memory, and very little of it was left.

At IIT (my college), I was in hostel again. Somehow I never was comfortable with IIT. It was as if a great 4 year marathon challenge, where I had to work my way through, and create a niche for myself for my future. The 4 years taught me a lot of things. I met a lot of great people there. Made a lot of good friends. Learnt a lot of technology and engineering, and certainly a lot of computers and programming. I was never good with physical work, but with computers, I found something I could do well. At least well enough. And I learnt a lot more about human behavior, but somehow grew more and more introvert. But not everything was right. I had a failed internship after my 3rd year (in my own judgement). That was my first experience of putting my efforts into creating something useful and I didn't know the way. My final year project was also not worth much. I just did simulations of some digital filters and plotted their behavior at the end of it. Again, I didn't know how to organize my efforts into making something useful.

And one day, the 4 years were over again. After a few days, I was in my new job. My first job. The company worked in a start up mode. With the help of my seniors and colleagues, slowly I learnt the art of making something useful. Over time, I started appreciating that I had enough skills in myself to be able to contributing something useful to the world.

And then all of a sudden, a weird thing happened. I found myself roaming around different corners of the world for the good of the company. I would spend a good lot of my time in an year travelling around. While in India, I would be busy preparing things for next release of software, and rest of time, learning from people around the world, what all more needed to be done. A cycle which apparently has no end in itself. Life suddenly has gotten itself meshed into a sequence of imaginary goals and deadlines. Before I finish something, there is a big list of new things put forward and I never find myself having done enough.

In last few years, I have shifted my living apartment 4-5 times, stayed in N number of hotels. Have been stranded in distant airports, away from anybody I know. Travelled alone long distances to meet people whom I never met before and probably would not meet again. Made a whole lot of acquaintances but very few friends. I do not know what is the relevance of all this that I do.

I go back to my home town once or twice in a year. Except for my parents and a couple of people I know there, there is not much to relate to there for me.

This process has resulted into this exquisite feeling called rootlessness.

Photographs from PAN IIT 2008 Alumni Meet

http://picasaweb.google.com/shaileshk/PANIIT2008AlumniMeet

from my cellphone camera. Not really providing a detailed coverage of the event. Just some glimpses here and there.

MENSA

Mensa international is the largest, oldest and best known society of people with High IQ. It inducts people with standard IQ tests (like Stanford-Binet) and if you score above 98 percentile (i.e. you are amongst the top 2% people), you qualify for joining Mensa.

About 6 and a half years back, I tried the test and I failed. I had just completed my graduation with IIT Kharagpur, joined Interra and had generally done well. I was more than confident that I would be able to qualify. But fortunately or unfortunately I didn't.

It helped me realize that I am not really as intelligent as I used to think I am. The only other thing I could do was hard work. This has helped over the last 6 years and I have been able to do reasonably well in my career. I have learnt a lot and done quite good things so far. Probably it was good that I failed in that test.

Oh and since then I have consistently avoided appearing in any kind of tests :) I don't like them. May be I am afraid :)

Some truths about IITians

On Internet, I get to read a lot of criticism about the IITians in general. I thought I would write down some truths which are generally ignored.

It is said that IITs produce people who all go to US/Europe and serve the foreign countries and corporations. A detailed survey on this issue (officially released by PM of India during PAN IIT 2008 meet) has shown that about 66% of all IIT graduates actually stay back in India only. Only 30 something percent of IIT pass-outs move on to foreign countries. The recent liberalization has helped create a lot of opportunities in India itself and more and more IITians are actually staying back in India and helping build the future of India (including myself).

Prof Kalaam once said: IITians should not be employment seekers, they should be employment generators. I see so many of my seniors, batch mates, juniors running their own companies and generating so many jobs for the society. In existing organizations, IITians have contributed towards the growth of organizations by their efforts.

Some say that IITs have never produced a Nobel prize winner. It should be noted that Nobel prizes are primarily given in areas of Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Economics, and Peace. I would like to explain here the difference between science and technology. Basic sciences are focused on the discovery of the general principles which describe how things work. Technology is focused on applying these general principles into building things which are useful for mankind. IITs (Indian institutes of Technology) are focused on imparting the knowledge of technology rather than basic sciences. IITians have been at the fore-front of leading technology development all across the world. But for most of the part, their work is not directly qualified for Nobel prizes. It doesn't mean that any IITian would never get a Nobel Prize. This essentially means that Nobel prize should not be the criteria of judging the contribution of IIT system towards the society.

I don't say that all of us are great, or we have done enough for what we are worth, but any criticism should be well founded and based on proper facts. In any large group of people (there are roughly about 200, 000 IITians), you will find a wide variety of individuals with different capabilities, opinions, ideas, attitudes. The overall judgement of the whole group should not be based on a few individuals, but should take a wider perspective.

I am sure as a brand, we have done well over the years and our future looks bright. And one thing more. Our alumni network (PAN IIT) is probably one of the most active alumni networks all over the world.

A Wish

Main aaj udna chahta hun
Bahut uncha,
Aasmaan se bhi upar
Bahut door udna chahta hun

Nayi raahon pe chalna chahta hun
Nayi manjilein dhoondhna chahta hun

Ik lambi udaan me
khona chahta hun
apne aap ko

Main aaj udna chahta hun

Gaana chahta hun geet
apne dil ki gahraiyon se
Wahan jahan koi sunne wala na ho

Sunna chahta hun
woh aawaaj
jisme koi shabd na ho

Main aaj udna chahta hun
Aasmaan se bhi upar

I wanna fly
very high