It happened!

Well folks! I have finally done it. I managed to run a class entirely in Samskrita a couple of weeks back. What a fun experience that was! I am so looking forward to another session. 2 passions - teaching and samskrita. Dreams do come true! Patience rewarded.

A la Toastmasters

I started this weekly public speaking sessions with my buddy here. It's been only a couple of sessions and it is already proving to be an eye-opening experience. Never before was my one dimensional thinking and articulation so wantonly exposed. It has already become a challenge to come up with topics. To convey them with substantial examples, humor - well, I am not even thinking about those yet. I am certain this will be a great experience.

My fav shows (current)

Monday evenings are totally taken....by 2 CBS shows - How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang theory. The former, arguably amongst the funniest shows on the idiot box right now, shows genuinely new and innovative high quality scripts. The Big Ba.. is also close to the heart due to its "geek" humor. In the absence of cable, and in the midst of everyday sobs (read CSIs, NCIS, medical dramas), comic relief is provided by CBS on Mondays and NBC on Thursdays. Not that I do not enjoy CSI and its offsprings, but I do miss the Seinfeld days. Thankfully, humor prevails. Some of these shows and animation shows like The Family Guy keep the tradition of awesome comedy going, the mature content notwithstanding. I do love TV, more than I like to admit.

p.s. Two days later I find another awesome comedy in its first season on ABC - Modern Family! Check it out.

ANUSAT - Where is the news?

For those of us living outside India, the online newspapers are the one big connection providing contexts to prevailing situations; whether it is the election fever, terror attacks, cricket mania, or bollywood tidbits, the online news sites provide a strong dose of the desi sensibility to NRIs/expats. Part of the mandatory chore for many in the mornings is to browse the Indian news channels for the latest and greatest, movers and shakers for the day. This keeps us in touch with the perceived reality in India. Weekend gatherings are forums to exchange and share news collected over the week. Don't we feel good when offering opinions of our country (useless as it may be), feeling patriotic at times, disgusted at others, discussing the latest achievements, industrial, financial, technical? Yes, we do. No matter how far away, if you are a 1st generation Indian in a foreign country, you need a sense of persistent connection through tv, news and friends to belong. I want you to close your eyes and think about all news that you read about today. Then try to connect with those news items - a mental bond to establish a relation with those news items...what those mean to you and your family, how it affects your day, and how it affects your future. Did I ask for too much??? Does it surprise you that 75% of what you read puts your thinking into a 'I could care less about this' bin. The remaining news - 'Wow, that Sonam Kapoor does look stunning in Delhi 6. Papa Anil must be so proud.', or 'I want to kill that Sehwag guy for being so inconsistent', or 'Man, I can't understand how Mayavati is so popular..I would never vote for a person who cannot represent modern India in the western world'....eventually leading to a disconnect and lost interest from contributing to the real world. Did you realize that most, if not all, of the feel good factor comes from reading movie based news? Yup, that is the truth. Now ponder about this - when so many people work hard to accomplish their dreams and are happy when they go home to their families, why do we look (largely) to movies for a representation of today's Indian psyche. This is not to deny that movies have their place in our world and offer an escape from the daily grind, and of course, cinema is an art form. But for God's sake, can we please spend more time on the achievers, successes through struggles, motivating people to participate in the society? If people are made averse to contributing or believe that they cannot make a change, they really cannot. Isn't it amazing how much power the online news channels have, power that can be used very positively? Now re-ponder about how the media shapes what we think and how we think. Are they being true to their purpose? Opinions are created by news. Opinions mean prejudices, harmful or not. Indian news media feeds a lot of prejudices. Not in a clever, in-your-face, US kind of way. In US, people are well aware of "media craftiness" and the oft repeated bias, in fact, to the point that it has lost a measure of its meaning. No, I urge you to see what the Indian media is offering you. Ok, I do need to get to the point....ANUSAT.

What do you say when the stupendous accomplishment of an academic institution (yes, a non-IIT one!!!) is pretty much ignored. Whatever news comes of this is tucked away in a sub-sub-sub-section of your news paper many clicks deep that you would never venture to navigate. And it is drowned by the spy satellite that India built with Israel's help.

For those who understand the differences between schools in US and India, it is much easier to comprehend the magnitude of this exploit. The skills developed as part of this project will go a long way in more grand undertakings. Plus it is a significant boost for other schools to take on sizable projects. Shouldn't we be celebrating the fact that a bunch of university students built a working satellite that is orbiting the earth! I am proud of where our universities are going, albeit slowly. This is front page news. Not to belittle Oscar achievements by A.R. Rahman (he deserves them and more), but this news is really big for Indians. And it has received a fraction of the space and time. It may not be a global feat like the Oscar, but it should be the responsibility of Indian media houses to give it the dimension it deserves, place it in context, provide the glimmer of confidence in our education system, highlight the collaboration of the government, private businesses and our academia, spur students and schools to bigger and greater things. In another view, do we not deserve to know sufficiently about this? I am certain we that complain about the sorry state of affairs in Indian schools, will appreciate signs of progress such as this. We all agree that this is a small drop in the ocean of possibilities. It is only a 40kg micro-satellite...sigh! May be not much will come out of this. Notwithstanding funding, red-tape, corruption stifling projects in infancy, the coverage that this has received is deplorable. I am not convinced that this news needs to be sold through professional PR for it to appear at the amongst the important list for the day.

Of course, I am only picking this news item as an example. It sure seems like many may have come and gone without our knowledge. I stumbled upon this by chance and explored. Here are some of the search results on Google. Please read and revel in pride.

ISRO

The Times Of India

Google Search Results as of April 22, 2009

Unity in Diversity

This phrase has been jackhammered into an Indian's psyche as much as "the pledge" and its famous, oft misunderstood line - "All Indians are my brothers and sisters" ;-). I refer to the education system and pervasive media of the 80s and 90s that went the extra mile to define secularism and paint an opinion of what unity should mean to the youth and the budding thinkers and leaders. Who can disagree that India is a country of stark contrasts - tens of states divided on language each having its own script and claims that they are superior to their neighbors, hundreds of tribes who have indulged in violent revolutions in the last few decades, a few thousand years of history and culture of which only the last 250 years seem relevant to our educationists, hundred thousand indigenous traditions most of which are confusing to the modern generation, a few million broadband and mobile subscribers subject to erratic power supply, a few hundred million of a billion people below poverty level! What annoys me is catch phrases such as the one above that are made ubiquitous but are not accompanied by a stronger cohesive message. The statement in itself is indubitable but conveys the confusing message that one should be resigned to accept that someone somewhere has determined that you live "united" with the "diverse" neighborhood. What is omitted (maybe intentionally) is the emphasis on the common thread that ties the society together. When forced into living together in disharmony, a time comes when the "shackles" are broken and whatever seems to be the most easy-to-accept package is embraced. Do we want that? When modern India struggles to cope with the diversity of race, color of skin, food habits, languages, traditions, practices, caste, religion, it simply looks to the pervasive Western world and its culture for answers. Okay...now don't jump to squash this line of thought. What I mean is that we already communicate in English and are more comfortable with the world of popular western belief system that is delivered in fancy packages (food styles, news media, music, films, etc.) than we are with the neighbor's way of life. What then is the purpose of seemingly meaningful and deep expressions? Has this type of superficial stab worked at all or will it ever? I honestly believe it is an entirely wasted attempt to fill minds with simple observations but not strive to reach deeper to make powerful connections to day-to-day life. Specifically, any such teaching should co-occur with why India was one unit and is still so even though one sees strife based on diversity on a regular basis. I am pained to see miseducation and bad media reporting. Remember that when there is bias there is a winning group and there may be multiple groups that lose. I want to urge everyone to reach within themselves to see their background, learn about their familial origins, read a lot of historical literature, and come to their own conclusions on why we need to be united, to overcome prejudices. (Edmund Burke - "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.") What this exercise will also reveal is the kind of damage is being done to the Indian society in the name of democracy and secularism by incompetent leaders. The more I see the western world and learn its ways of success, the more I am convinced that neither democracy nor secularism can survive without the support of media. So, do we have a feel for what the lapses of and aberrations caused by the media are? One step at a time... :-)

The choice for the future!

Lately I have been torn on a choice between a technical career path and a management oriented ladder. This is not to say I have been given a choice presently. But for the longer term, I have to pick one of these two sort of mutually exclusive roads. On the one hand, I love digging deep to learn my work. On the other, the challenges of having to learn the business side of things and having to deal with people has started to fascinate me. Especially with my burgeoning interest in history and society, I feel like I can make a bigger contribution being part of the latter community. If I had to state one topic that rouses my attention these days it would be people management. Now, I do feel it is shortsighted when I don't club this with project management, an essential part of any job at workplace that includes people management. Clearly, my eagerness is naive...maybe even premature. But, I need to resolve this dilemma soon. The study of financial system is equally if not more alluring. Then there is marketing which is closely related to people's thinking - a topic of interest as I mentioned above. I will attempt to put in order my muddled head in the coming months.

Third time's the charm (hopefully)!!!

With the world's changes over the last year or so, I decided it is time for a new me. Not in a dramatic or a drastic makeover way. But the times are unique. There is more, not less violence around us. There is less of resources, not more. Oil prices rocketed to record highs and stock prices spiralled down to new lows. Unemployment struck the close and dear, while foreclosures struck far and wide. Advancements were made in diplomacy, and governments were taken to task for human rights violations. Families pulled together to solace at times of distress. Large cities were held hostage and bombed. All this while, many reformative thoughts have flooded my mind. Writing is certainly a relaxing activity. So, while struggling to cope with these fickle times, I decided to start blogging again. Yeah...where have we heard that before? A large part of my life, I was plagued with delivering less than I promised. With the naivety of a 15 year old, I have jumped to accept challenging tasks and then drawn schedules without scoping out the work correctly. Am I alone? Hmmm...probably not. But a change is in order. There must be a decision to try and then a decision to execute that decision and then a decision to align the daily work to allow me to execute that decision and finally, execute that decision. I think I am at the first box of the decision chain. It is a start..a firm start! Will I survive the challenge?? We'll see :)