What is this Basic Woman?

One of my persistent fantasies used to be of sitting in the cafeteria or at the pavement shoppe in campus, almost everytime I'd be thinking stories or the philosophical treatise. I'd raise my eyes to watch the girls going by. I do same from time to time on the street leading to the theatre, amusement parks or even at the fantasy malls.

Certainly apart from the gals, married couples too become an attraction, cuddling each other, immersed in each other's soul, involved very much into their own hypothetical world. I particularly look at the woman. They all are not glamorous, not each one is Marilyn Monroes or Madhubala for that matter. Some pretty, some average, some no doubt just simple. Every other is own their way to the theatre, a concert, a get together or a workshop, may give you a conclusion that they are above average in the cultural literacy but in other respects they are like most - Just Average.

But to the man whose arm she is holding, she is not "Average" but a whole world to him.

As Lord said "It is not got for men to be alone, I'll make a helper fit for him, So made he a woman!"

He doesn't say that he made a pretty, witty or any kind an adjective woman, instead a basic woman.

Now a million Dollar question: Why this Basic woman is so valuable to man?

Three things.

First, She serves the man's needs to be needed.
In this cold world if no one needs you, what good are actually you? Employers, Scholars, readers, patients may say they need you but in such relationship you are always replaceable at some price. To this woman you are not replaceable, for this woman you are just one and no material in this world can ever be as important as you, which gives the man a self-esteem & energy to meet this apathetic world everyday.

Secondly she's a warm body in bed.
I don't refer to the sexual activity which indeed is important but referring to something even more primitive, something more important, more basic "Human Touch".
A baby crying in its crib doesn't want a conversation or a gold ring but to be held. Do we adults think that we are no more child? But a thought is merely a thought, it may be wrong as well, adults need this "human touch" also, cuddling each other for warmth & comfort in this indifferent cold world. A simple man and woman do that for each other.

Thirdly, she serves as an alternative to the man's self-within.
These couples may have been talking to each other for last 30 years or more with nothing left to say, yet they can talk on everything they've already talked about. They do brawl, yet the harmony in between is worth a sight. On a closer look if you observe, with age they behave not less than what kids do. Isn't it something that demands the grey matter some food to think? One thing that this man will seldom acknowldge is that he can't live without her, no matter how good are the conditions. It is this basic woman who still doesn't want it to be heard. In passing also, I would say that the first time Adam had a chance, he laid the blame on a woman but it is this basic woman who still continues keeping down the expectations with the years she face all this.

Its this woman who makes the man learn that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispostitions and not on our circumstances and we are here in this world for not to learn but to unlearn more. Yes every such women is a basic woman as basic as nature and its laws around us. For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women.

Face-To-Face with Nagesh Kukunoor

I had met Nagesh Kukunoor, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Khalid Mohd., Mahesh Dattani & Chandrashekhar Nagathihalli.

All icons in their field.

The only thing I carried by the EOD is immense energy & recharged vision.

Indeed everyone had their own importance but I personally could relate to the life of Nagesh Kukunoor the most, none of the weekend goes away when, while working with my movie stuff I don't gain energy thinking about this revolutionist.

Besides having a decent Indian-American accent, which impressed me the most at first on screen, he seemed to be quite a thoughful & practical person too, otherwise who else would say that piracy dealing with Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) is not a problem but a thing to be admired.

Another funda which tried asking for a rented room in my mind is:
There are two things which have been the biggest contributors in one's individual life are Mind or Art.
Besides having Strong Parental backup, luck, God gift & chances, people who have achieved heights, most of them have either been driven by their mind or they have excelled in some or the other form of art.

And I've also started believeing that art forms the backbone of every business/profession. Be it a communicating art, presenting art, debating art, memorizing art etc.
Therefore, every person who is involved in any sort of profession should associate him/herself with some or the other form of art. This somewhere or the other enhances your chances of becoming nearer to the nature & to excel in even your field even.

First thoughts towards MS/GRE ...

Something that I never considered genuine enough to go for - GRE - during my campus days, has kept my nerves intact at present. Half a year out of college, the same time being in corporate ambience - the world of processes, applications, cubicle affairs, office politics, backstabbing corporate weirdos & talks building up with an attitude of "Us Vs They". "Us" being the self, "They" being a hypothetical existence, in general the processes or the decision makers (which I could reason out). And that's when you suddenly realize that the college wasn't really such a bad experience after all. You could explore whatever interested you from technology to fantasy, relaxed schedule, easy transitions between your bed to chair, no defined posture and there was always time for everything. Why not extend your college lifespan a little longer? Demands a true expression?

More than this, still there are reasons to think about as to why to run into this unknown territory. General information is indeed easy to retrieve, few general questions still owe their own importance.
Basically the first question, the one which demands quite an exhaustive & genuine answer is:
Why should a person go for Research/ Master of Science(MS) course?
After having to explore the reasons for above mentioned problem, mapping up of your personality trait becomes indispensable.
If he/she should, then why not the mother country?
Okie that might sound stupid even to think about with having heard about innumerable problems in our country associated with the research portfolio, otherwise why would this brain-drain have been a problem for more than four decades!

Besides having a crystal clear vision with your self within, help from the informal external sources remains crucial, problems related to the economic burden, ease of adaptation, etc. etc.

Few reasons I could figure out as to why one could go for GRE is:
i. Corporate world unwantedly give you an escalation towards management activities with your growing profile, which in due course of time many believe doesn't interest them much.
ii. Being an R&D enthusiast, the passion to come up with a new innovation, to be able to hold the next wave of change.
iii. International exposure to understand the things better on the technological/ business front.
iv. May be to give yourself a chance to do something out-of-the-box which you couldn't come up with, during graduation, taking much longer time to understand the things.

Am currently seeking for the people for lots of advice and guidance.

simplifying Self Motivation.

No matter how strong a person you are, there are times when even the strongest of your sense will find itself uneasy, everything around seems noisy, unknown revulsion dominates mind, silence remains the most wanted companion and if you try reasoning out, Warning! You might end up knowing that you are in the course of depression, albeit it has its own taste :).

But am in general concerned about the one which arises due to inability of the people to achieve the stature they always desired or the aggravation of not been able to accomplish the altitude on par with their potential. Depression which comes out of not been able to find a comfort zone in thy professional life. The ambition of bringing a revolution, the obsession of getting the attention or the desire to excel, yearning not to depend on anyone, to be able to say, yes even I do exist with some rationale & am not Yet Another Person.

Go to the people for advice you'll end up with lots n' lots of inspiring shit, which could have been even better had it been yours, given a chance!

Go to a workshop to spot few CEOs, Presidents or any hyped out persona considered to be successful in life, the only keyword hits your ears are: "Self-Motivation, Focus, Hard Work, Consistency etc." – means all the ideal words of dictionary –
Some will say, "I read this book which turned away my life", some other could have had the fortune of working with some former hyped out personality or some could have had lots of risks, may be they had strong parental backup but the situations everyone had seems to be entirely different from ours, so how could their words actually be the one to act upon?
Although there's no denying a fact that self motivation is the only thing that separates the best from all the goods. The question still remains; what should be done to get self-motivated?

Ok going with the most general belief, reading more n' more such stuff should help you out to bring in self-motivation, ok visit a bookshop with a decent collection, you'll again end up your mind in a confused state as to which book or author for that matter presents the best words of wisdom? Let me arbitrarily pick up some composition hoping it to be good, does that assure to build up the self motivation?

A thought recently went running across my mind - it's basically the act of creating an environment around you which appeals to your heart and to your grey cells. Contacts, talks, social network, profession whatever  one chooses to go with forms the ambience for a person and they should be potential enough to encourage you to do something which is not expected out of thee in usual state of affairs. Thus, in the most fundamental terms its the least important actions taken to create your sorroundings! Lol could Self motivation be as simple as this!

Can it be still better?

Since the day I tried my hands at python, I found myself glued to its very nascent and distinct taste n' its been always enthusiastic to explain how good this language is! But everytime what I realized is that the explanation kept on stretching as much I tried to abstract it or rather tried to explain it in as less words as possible. Now Let us take a look down;



Does this need a better explanation with such a high adaptability!

First day at Accenture ...

This subject by it nature expects a cosmic scene-to-scene summary of the events that have had occurred with me on the very first day but for me it is more about the scientific sentiments and a collective thought process which held me into the best of my moods and attire I think I have ever been into.

Not only it was just the first day but unified with a sentiment of my first job of life. If am true there were concerns, anxiety and a little uneasiness of inflowing into an entirely different world which I had only talked or heard about. Stretched hours of presentations during induction series indeed put an extra pressure on me which enforced me to outline as to how much stress I could actually be put into while being on work.

Amid all these apprehensions and worries I finally landed up at Accenture premises. I could very well sense the energies emanating from within and the excitement of getting in touch with several people whom we campus-youth commonly termed as “Corporates”. I kept on jogging my memory about the golden rules regarding the behavior that a new joiner should keep in her mind which I usually termed as “Corporatism”.

“Take a deep breath and walk in with a smile on your face. Keep your head up and remember to make eye contact. Be polite and friendly to everyone you encounter, whether it's the receptionist or the mailroom clerk, your colleagues or your new boss. Introduce yourself to those you meet and remember that it's okay to ask questions. Remember that every workplace has its own way of doing things. Your first few weeks or even months on a job is not the time to change the way things get done.”

Now since I have already entered into the premises, need not say this huge building of Bang-3 with a world class infrastructure had already convinced the right hemisphere of my skull about the size and brand of the company. I was indeed amazed to see how only the processes not the people can run these big enterprises, with man power not more than the slaves to these processes and applications. I was in an obligatory mode of convincing my left hemisphere murmuring to it as, “Yes! This is the place I wanted to get into or this is the place I could actually get into at my best.”

Standing for long to get the visitor’s pass in a queue, while every passer-by kept an ambiguous glance at me, or at all of us perhaps was providing anxiety a room to play, anyway day proceeded in much an anticipated manner in a closed room with lots of new faces and numerous presentations. By the end of the day things were getting normal with me too sensing the comfort, ready to see the “First Second day.

Looking at the discipline and strict rules to be followed my mind which always tries its maximum to compare between the present and the past, kept on corroborating, “How good would it be, if we could have got this kina infrastructure at the campus itself?”

Its "Love_Actually"

Okay … Its time to document a bit about my subsequent winning acting venture “Love Actually” – A performance packed melodrama.

Vipanchika ‘05 had an extra pressure on IT’ans as it was a Hat Trick prospect with taking hold of the champions’ Trophy indeed for our “English Skit” as well. Hence, we started with certain eye-catching titles but the mere remembrance of the last upshot was keeping every subject look incompetent enough to get us the Best Skit award when other silent branches like EC/Civil were on fire this time. It was until “Babil” – My classmate entered the confused scene and like his fizzy character proposed us to go for some enormously uncomplicated topics, I was inarguably persuaded as I was coordinating two more skits, a Hindi and English respectively. Thus, I was expected to be stretched out by all the three teams with dates getting closer.

Not receiving much of the contradiction from other ends we arrived onto a unanimous decision of showing some after wrecking-effects of “campus love”. And my most competent team geared up all through once again for the development of the script, locating best of their grey cells for most innovative ideas, within 2 days we were up with a rough draft. Practice started but unlike “US Placement Blues” which banked most on its storyline, this skit required lot of emotions and expressions, perhaps an action amassed consequence.

Getting inspired with my navy styled hair cut the role that suited me most was of the Retd. Military Father of the girl (who falls in love), catches his daughter red handed indulged in a romantic conversation while on phone. Contrary to my normal behavior (be assured of off praises) I had to scream throughout the scene & on the same hand clarity of voice was another factor which troubled me the most. After even about a day of practice exact emotions and dialogues weren’t able to find their flow. One moment it felt as if it was kind of an impossible role but hard practice & not considering me less than any most successful actor in the tinsel town I finally eased up with my character configuration, could find the relative voice and indeed the people who saw me for the first time were not less than surprised. Ah! Sigh of relief, what to say for long it felt on par acting in a film.

It was already dark on 26^th of Feb but this year Open air Auditorium welcomed us, with a third slot again … a superstitious corner of mind had already given us the best performance award. Crowd was ready to boo every stage performance irrespective of branch but once IT is on stage, all attempts to deviate the attention of the performers and observers are assured, when already IT has a lead of 20 points with Civil firmly following behind.

Whoosh! And raised up the curtains, Lainu (The Lead Character) had already started firing the saboteurs with his performance; [Now you need a great heart to miss that remarkable action happening on stage] we all behind the curtains were no doubt craving to see that performance as the crowd boosted most of scenes with the applauses. Improved coordination & last emphatic win certainly endowed us with the strong mental confidence. All banners were carried on time without any confusion, the biggest catch of the skit was the loud voice that everybody had maintained throughout; and this single factor with its absence is capable enough to diminish the whole team effort in a single go.

My Scene loomed, with bold heart I entered the stage with chest popping out (to bring in the so called “Military Personnel effect”), depicting suspicion in mind & on face. Indeed put all the voice that was remaining in me after some final practice sessions. Hold on! What is this? Mahima seemed to be really terrified, oh! My God her face expressions indeed made me feel real personnel on fire for a moment.

Not much bothered by the audience I continued firing her on stage but buddy “this is me”, how can I perform everything perfect without any confusion! Now I forgot a dialogue for a moment but again “this is me”, who managed to cut that part off and found a flow with the next very dialog and expressions. Perhaps that very moment gave me most of the satisfaction in this skit, coz challenge no doubt lies in such problematic situations - Lot of lessons in jus’ a single moment !

Can’t forget the incredible appreciation I received from KK (Krishna Kumar) – My Classmate, he was so impressed with my performance that he almost laid a kiss on my cheek. God how proud embarrassment that was! Its not that nobody else appreciated or nobody else than me got these praising, in fact I was nowhere in front of Lainu, Mahima, Kirtan & others, I mentioned it intentionally for the simple fact that KK encapsulates in himself a wonderful actor & a character. It’s undoubtedly a surprise when such great performers appreciate you, acting as the source of motivation for further proceedings.

After about an hour, results were announced, already dazzled by our combined colorful performances, judges had no other option left than to grade rest of the skits below ours. Our electrifying response mixed with merriment caught the due attention of the masses. A sudden surprise followed me when one of my classmates asked me for the script of the skit as his friends from MEC (Model Engineering College) been impressed seeing this performance & quite out of the box storyline, resembling with most unspoken real stories that they planned to perform the same skit in their campus scheduled to be after about a week.

This enjoyment din’t just stop here, being adjudged as the top performing team, we paved our way to the Sargam ’05 – University Arts Festival @CUSAT campus which started right after a single day break when Vipanchika got over and we found our slot due for 3^rd March again. Wasting a day with an intention to improve some weak frames in the skit we finally realized that the fun and humor was trying to keep a distance from all of us, thus, with no obligation again we landed up with the exact performance as it was prior but undoubtedly one good team outperformed our performance taking the lead to force us to settle down with the second best award. The relishing thing was that the judges openly described skit interpretations and they could derive lot more significance and meanings out of our skit than what we could have derived, had if we tried lot hard and also the margin with which we remained second was just minute, thus, enjoyed that second win and embossed lots of memories of those times, which will remain somewhere forever in the hearts for all the years to come.

US Placement Blues

Here goes a brief memorial description about a wonderful skit that I was an integrated part of during VIPANCHIKA ’04 – An inter branch Arts festival at CUSAT campus.

It was about 12 hours delay with the skits presentation on stage when the show began at around 12:00 midnight; I personally found the then ambiance much better than had the skits been presented all through noon. Thanks to CUBSA members for that delay although it did cause us heaps of trouble. And I can’t forget the pressure piling on to our heads by the evening with our non-stop practice which gave exhaustion a room to play with our physical limits.

It was around 10 p.m. when we daringly raised ourselves to the Open Auditorium-Main Stage but now it was the turn of God’s own country to mess up with our daring spirits, and the heavy rain followed us to cover the whole stage before we could actually make any arrangements for ourselves. Hmmm. We really had nothing but to keep patience for the right time to come for ourselves.

With the third slot for our chest number, there again came a moment when the whole arrangements were been shifted to the SMS Auditorium – tightly packed with about 400 students not letting even the fresh air to find a room to enter. Whole of my team decided to wait outside & avoid seeing any prior performances coz that could actually hamper the individual performances, since every great artist in my team was on a debut to this great world of acting. But still with the news “flowing in” through the IT organizers, revealed that the prior performances weren’t on par even with our practice which they had already seen.

Soon we were behind the curtains making arrangements within those 300 seconds that were allotted to every skit with a bit of partiality to the first team. I still remember those energies emanating from within with the excitement of curtain which rose up to let everybody ooze out their energies in every possible manner they knew. Females in our skit were indeed sensational with their outfits, which did serve towards the craving spirits of the crowd. It was amazing to see the crowds calming down right from the third scene and really concentrating on the dialogues, I couldn’t believe at least form the drunken community to be such patient.

One thing that I can’t truly forget is the confusion I created behind stage about a scene which I’d already performed and forgetting completely as to whether I really performed it on stage or during the practice.

(Me & Sethu - A scene depicting Indian secretary interacting with her Boss)

There indeed were a lot of acknowledgements, praising and morale boosting talks which had made certainly our minds for not settling up on to anywhere less than the first prize. Anyway, with lots of hopes we stood outside the hall, when a person just came running towards us with a blasting message that we have won the competition. Nothing but smiles circulated on everyone’s face with a few exceptions where smiles were packed with lots of thunderous voices even In fact it was by a very heavy margin that we left our opponents behind, on a scale of 10 we were close to 8 and just first runner up team had score around 5.5 and score dipping down further with the second runner up team.

(From Left - Me, Babil, Rachit, Mahima, Ashwain, Rini, Annley, Sehtu, Rakhi, Lainu Celebrating the victory)

For the detailed script Click here!

Sir Tim Berners Lee - Part 1

Timothy John “Tim” Berners Lee – Mystery Man

Nothing to say sometimes; sums up lot more than what many can brief at many times. Tim Berner’s Lee is one of those grand personas, whom I’ve esteemed since the days when I understood the internet world. And nothing but that silent appreciation indeed pleads me to trap something about him into my collections. This compilation certainly worth as it seizes up some of his finest snapshots of life which I came across to over a period of time, indeed difficult to browse at a lone spot.

A physics graduate from the Queen’s college, Oxford University, England at Jus’ 21 years of age (1976) once was caught hacking at college network with a friend & was banned subsequently from using the university computer but who knew that the same person will provide the biggest platform for whole of this planet to hack one day.

Tim is married to Nancy Carlson. They have two children, born 1991 and 1994. His parents were both mathematicians who were part of the team that programmed Manchester University's Mark I, the world's first commercial, stored program computer, sold by Ferranti Ltd. One day when he was in high school Berners-Lee found his dad writing a speech on computers for Basil de Ferranti. Father and son talked about how the human brain has a unique advantage over computers, since it can connect concepts that aren't already associated. For example, if you are walking and see a nice tree, you might think about how cool the park is under the trees, and then think of your backyard, and then decide to plant a tree for shade behind your house. Young Berners-Lee was left with a powerful impression of the potential for computers to be able to link any two pieces of previously unrelated information. He also built a computer using an old television, soldering iron, M6800 processor adjoining all his zeal within.

Plessey Telecommunications Ltd hired him as a programmer in 1976, where he worked for 2 years to join D.G. Nash Ltd. for another two.

It was 1980 when he landed as an independent software consultant at CERN - Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucleaire (World’s largest particle physics laboratory in Geneva). There he wrote a Hypertext program for his personal use to help him remember the connections between thousands of researchers and hundreds of systems at the lab. He named that program as “Enquire” (and called it as a “Memory substitute”) after an old book he found in his house during childhood days; which fascinated him as it magically contained the answer to any problem in the world. He indeed successfully dedicated his life to make that babyhood fascination an actuality.

He left CERN in 1981 and took a fellowship at CERN again in 1984 to work on distributed real-time systems and almost immediately started trying to get the official funding for his hyper-text project. It was in 1989 when he proposed a global hypertext space to be created in which network accessible information could be referred to by a single “Universal Document Identifier (UDI)” and only after getting it sanctioned by his boss “Mike Sendall”, he wrote first www server “httpd” & the first client named “WorldWideWeb”- A point & click editor which ran on the NeXT machines. This work got started in October 1990 & released in summers of 1991 to the High Energy Physics community & hypertext and NeXT communities. A student “Nicolas Pellow” at CERN also made available a “line-mode” browser which could be run on almost all the systems.

Richard M. Stallman@CUSAT

Face-to-Face with R.M. Stallman

Much early I read “How a person masters his fate is more important than what his fate is”. And only lifetime examples substantiate such sayings, making them believable forever. Although interaction with this amazing “Human Professional” justified innumerable sayings but that’s just one part of it, a person whose every part is magnificent whether it be his fate or the way he’s been behind it.

>>A Historical day at CUSAT<<

Interaction with this Role Model was at times blowing, at times austere, other time funny and sometimes silly, when fistful learners had an opportunity to actualize a great noble vision. Session started with his introduction & certainly the politics dominating in the software industry, pronouncing consonants extremely clearly in a slow, soft, and steady voice, Talks forwarded with the discussion about his community members working at Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, US, the way they all enjoyed programming and fun at work. Their approach for naming new softwares was indeed unique! Which caught huge attention of the masses, happened to be a recursive acronym sending a recursive Message e.g. GNU (Gnu is Not Unix) .

Those 5 hours had a terrific impact on the mind and soul of everyone present. I had experienced such perspective for the first time and that indeed droved me to write something which I felt. For the first time I started thinking against the giant M (Microsoft). At such an age he seemed more enthusiastic than anyone of us present there. The vision and the courage that he depicted not only justified the realm of programming but the real essence of a programmer. I felt extremely great to be able to get the direct corroboration with one of the best programmers the world has been blessed with. My experiences with such a motivated hacker, living activist shallth remain living forever!