To Sir, with love

The recent death of a professor in Ujjain shook the nation and brought a shame to the nation where teachers are worshipped along with Gods. Today we celebrate teacher's day, I think such an event is celebrated only in India. I believe, there exist no nation where teachers get worshipped and also get killed.

The Indian media described the shameful event as "Death of a professor". I would say, it should have been "Death of the Student". The student has died, not the professor! Death of the student would mean, death of the learning attitude, therefore the respect for the teacher. There's no end to the ocean of knowledge. Given a piece of knowledge-there must be a teacher; there must be student. Once a teacher-always a teacher. Once a student-always a student.

Though I am a poor student, still I love to be a student always. I still remember some of the nicest lectures of my teachers, I still accompany certain virtues bestowed or inspired by some of my teachers, I still feel jealous about the popularity that some of my teachers enjoy. All the teachers, who have taught me-I have learnt at least a bit from them; some bad, some good but still I am forever grateful to them irrespective of what they were, what they are.

When we say we respect teachers, we respect them because of their knowledge and their attitude towards us. We love them; we hate them but always hold a mark of respect for them.
Sir, I still reminisce the smile you had when I gifted you something on teacher's day. I remember you said "this is not what I want, be studious, excel in your life, my blessings are always with you ". Today I still want to hear this from you though your blessings have really worked, and perhaps I have excelled a bit in my life.

To all my teachers, whom I love the most, my love and respect will never die for you. I know, a guru is just another struggling human being, and I know you are still struggling. And today on this day, far from you struggling with the basics that you taught me, all I can do for you is wish the best and pray to the almighty for your well being.

Thank you Sir, for just being my Sir.

~Swarup

2nd Innings

Returning to blogging after many days. Don't know why, but I am not able to visit this site from my system in office, initially I thought it's the Indian government order of banning blogspot.com for anti-national blogging by few individuals( It was of course banned for few days ), then suddenly when I tried the same in my friend's system it worked! I tried IE, opera all failed. I approached the system admin of my office but to my disappointment he could also find no clue. Assuming that my esteemed office has blocked me from blogging, or thinking that they can block my system's IP but not me, perhaps I am playing my second innings.

Many things happened during this transition. Worth mentioning would be Preeti Ranjan's death by a fatal suicide on 9th July. Preeti was never close enough to me as a friend, I just happen to know him as a colleague of Jataayu, and he was hailing from Orissa, was staying in the same apartment colony. I think, I know him as good as any other oriya jataayuan would know him. For me he was just a black box!. And he turned really black that day.

Well, it was my first encounter to see what death of a person really means. During my staying in my hometown my parents never allowed me to attend any funeral or any death related functions. This was for the first time I touched a dead body, felt its coldness; a first time experience of what Geeta says: a body is just a body, body is mortal, soul is immortal.

Preeti was not a friend of mine, but I felt as if somebody very close to my heart took heavenly rest that day.

As I understand him, he was a very introvert guy, closed in his own world, even his classmates, previous roommates know little about him. As for as my social understanding goes, people who lead a very closed life, often end up this way. Soon after I returned from his funeral, I wrote the following mail to all my university classmates:

hi all,

just returning after the funeral of one of my oriya colleague friend who committed suicide last sunday night. He was cremated in Hebbal Electric crematoriom.

Reason: some love affair. The guy was very reserved, introvert without a healthy friend circle and was staying alone..

just want to speak few words to you people..

"Speak up...." !!

We should thank God that we are in a very healthy friend circle, we communicate to each other so well, we may have differences but we express what we think.. We are too fortunate..But just to remind that there may be few people among us, whom we know them physically, but in reality we never know them internally. We dont know what they think.. what they do.. where they take their lunch.. whom they speak to. Its my appeal to them to speak up whatever they feel. Talk.. Talk.. Talk. Talk to your parents, talk to your relatives, talk to the guy next to your cubicle, talk to your servant, talk to your neighbour, talk to a customare care girl, try all toll-free numbers, talk to a salesman, talk to a shopkeeper. But talk.

Dont feel lonely, for that dont stay lonely.. Someone somewhere is made for you.. Someone somewhere wants to talk to you... find him/her. Read a book, watch a CD, join a gym, join a laughter club, go to a disco, visit a pub, date somebody.. there are hundred ways to live a life..

Life is precious...live it... live it fully..

~Swarup

R&D vs G&P

Well, my favorite quote on research had been the one by Wernher von Braun- “Research is what I am doing when I do not know what I am doing”. On this, we can bring a corollary on the definition of Development which could be something like “Development is what I am doing when I perfectly know what I am doing”. R&D as we all know or assume, is the backbone of any successful knowledge cultivation organization.

Being a techie, I enjoy my designation as a software engineer, R&D division. Whew.., “So you do Research!” - asked one of my professor uncle! “Yes”, promptly the no non-sense engineer inside me replied, making me silent. So how many papers you have published, where and all?, IEEE, ACM ? This time the no non-sense engineer inside me and myself, both were silent!

Research what I am talking about is what research being done in Indian companies. The original research is actually never done in Indian companies. Research requires certain amount of basic knowledge at a very fundamental level, which the Indian techies forget the moment, they step out of their universities. And after years of confrontation with different customers, different projects, when you become a project leader or a project manager, you will find some scope for research, that too, when ordered by the top brass of the organization. Therefore the scope of research is often limited to that elite category which constitutes roughly 5% of organization, and rest of the people never do R&D even though they belong to R&D department. In fact they do is G&P, Google and Paste.

Google, as they say a noun which became a verb. Behind this huge success of this software industry, there is a little bit of google inside it. Google along with the Free Software Foundation brought a revolution in the software industry thus causing the so called ‘Death of the creative programmer”.

Today when my boss says, “Do some R&D on that”, all he/she means me to is do some google, see if any existing implementation is there, then try to develop a simple prototype, try to find an open source if available, and remember, don’t waste too much of time!

Interestingly, it works. Today efficient engineers are those who know how to use Google better. Now take for example, if you are told to write a simple hash function, unless that has some stringent requirement its better to google and paste than to try inventing one. This saves time as well. Not only small companies, but the so-called CMM-Level 5 companies R&D staff also do the same. Perhaps that’s what shows how mature in terms of capabilities they are?

The fact is that most of the companies can’t afford pure research. They are mostly customer driven. They invest where they see profit. The original research is in fact limited to universities. As of Indian universities are concerned, except few there is a total lack of synergy between academia and the software industries. Most of Indian researchers whom I have met work more on theoretical research; ask them about implementation they will shy away. They lack the enthusiasm on learning new things. For these oldies Fortran, Pascal, Latex is enough. They hardly think beyond that. They give some figures, statistics in their papers, and nobody dares to ask them how they really simulated it! Often those figures they use for bench marking with a previous research done on the same area.

Most of my friends thank to the guy who invented this copy-and-paste. So do I. Apple first introduced that in Lisa in 1981. Twenty-five years after we still hail if not Lisa but the immortal concept of copy-and-paste it introduced.

Long-live Ctrl-C. Long-live Ctrl-V.

~Swarup

Open Space

Open Space

Happy Valentines Day

Yesterday night I thought of watching few highlights of the emphatic Indian victory over Pak, but to my utter dismay all the news channels covered one single story; about V-Day and protests surrounding it. Come February, it has always happened that everybody gears up for some or other reason; the florist to catch a market for red rose, the card maker to foray new varieties of v-day cards, the lovers obviously to find a milestone in their life, politicians to invoke a new controversy, and media houses to breed a new story. It all happens for a single day that’s today February 14^th, Valentines day.

Protesters have gone rampage across streets. Mobile marriage vans are on roads to pick budding couples and try instant marriage. Pamphlets putting curbs on young girls freedom for this particular day are being distributed. They say: Valentine day is a foreign concept; a conspiracy promoted by the west to ruin our culture, corrupt our youth. Needless to say, these people are fanatic.

Culture is never a stand-alone entity, its not a contented silent lake, it’s a free flowing river, where rivers of different cultures merge. The question here is if valentine day alone is ruining our culture, then so is every other foreign concept. And to start with first foreign concept is our adaptation of English. Now think of Indian life today without English, I am sure we will find ourselves as aliens to this world. Therefore the right note is to capture the best of the foreign culture, and I am sure, we Indians have done it right, and very carefully.

The so-called watchdogs of our society, should they determine, what we should eat, how we should celebrate? Should they determine, whom should I talk to, and whom should I not? Can they imagine their life today, without a mobile phone, without a printing press where they print their glossy posters and pamphlets. Why they don’t see them as foreign concepts as well? They can’t. Nirad C. Choudhury was right; We Indians are hypocrite enough to understand the realities.

But the problem is not only with them, but with this Gen-Y as well. Today valentine day is all about packed wallets. Parents encourage their children by giving enough pocket money (they feel, they missed the bus, let their children don’t miss it), market adds fuel to it, and media creates the hype. You have got 365 days, and why only today, why such a casual (!) way to celebrate love. Why a rose, at a cost of Rs. 15/- (Rs 5/- on other days), why an expensive gift, why a candle-lit dinner? Why to make a divine concept like love, a diabolical one? Why for the sake of the hype?

Let’s stop talking; about puppy love, and culture ruination. Let thousand cultures merge in our great Indian culture, but let the souls find love, peace, mutual affection.

Just celebrate life. Have fun, watch pogo!!

~Swarup

Valentines Day, 2006

Being Married

There's popular proverb in Hindi "Shaadi ek dilli ka laddu, jo khaya woh pastaya, jo nehi khaya woh pastaya..". After being married for almost six months, I am still confused about my own status in this regard.

Nothing comes easy in life. So is marriage. And if you'll look into the sides of a typical Indian marriage, things are too far complicated. It's just a labyrinth of kinship. When two people get married, they involve at least a thousand people on both the sides. It's just not an easy matter for them, neither for the couples nor for the parents, the relatives, the event managers et al. Making it a ceremonious affair is more about the status than joy. Once the marriage is over, those one thousand people, the guy who danced in the baaraat, the guy who served in the feast, the girl who prepared the garland simply forget the couple. Nobody really bothers whether they are leaving a happy life or not.

Ergo, post marriage life is all about the struggle of two people to build a unified contained world where they can easily breath. Irrespective of whoever they are, they learn to be happy with whatever they have, wherever they are. It's a lot about sacrifices, compromises for each other and moreover a mutual understanding between two very different personalities.

If I say, I am happy with my marriage I will be lying.

Let me not be a Hypocrite.

If I declare "Now I am lying", I am lying or telling the truth…. ???

Paradox….

byte, char *, String

Life for a techie does not move beyond that. Whatever great software you develop, you always play around those things or variants of them. Sending, receiving, wrapping, unwrapping, encoding, decoding, parsing, generating, displaying, entering.. huh... anything else ? Hope all typical actions of a software are covered. We junk ( I love to call it joonk ) s slash w space E R dots do no great things, but paid handsomely. Sometimes I wonder, how come my company pays me for this junk piece of code I am writing.

When I first touched Computer, I thought this and only this should be my career. This is such a great job. Programming a rotating flower in BASIC gave me the joy I never had since then. And the Rest is history ( of course for me, my friends and closed ones ).

All my interest died when things became too much monotonus, doing the same things again and again. what keep on changing are specs, requirements, platforms, toos, languages, bosses, companies, teams, colleagues but inside I will be still playing with strings and bytes making fool of myself.

It's a curse that I am carrying being a techie..

~Swarup

jealousy...

Well.. my first step to blogging. Just learning the ABCs of this new culture. I feel, I became a late comer. Never in my career I've been late for anything ( except few ). There's a nice oriya proverb "Ghore no poshunu chalo baji lani" which means "hitting the door before entering the house" ( any better translation..there should be .. I guess ). And here I am, again discovering that guy of whom I will be jealous forever.

The fault of that guy.. He bears my name.

Way back in Jan 1997 when I first created my yahoo account, I couldn't get the user id "swarup" then came the gmail, again the same thing. To my utter disappointment today again I couldn't get the swarup.blogspot.com URL. That Swarup guy, it seems technogically far advanced than me and I have never been able to catch him in the race. I wish him a very Happy New Year.

I dont find anything wrong with myself If I am jealous of that guy. Think positive. had man not be jealous of bird, he would not have invented the aeroplane.

High time dear Swarup. The domain name swarup.com is still available for sale, its time I should arrange some money..

Friends.. are you listening.. I need some credit..

~Swarup