India Pakistan cricket tour

The cricket tour is scheduled for Jan 2009 and there have been clouds of uncertainty over it since the shaful terrorist attacks. The Indian administration is reluctant to send its team to the country which is full of such terrorist camps and is the home to many terrorists.

Recently, Pakistani cricketers like Inzamam-ul-Haq and Imran Khan have urged the Indian team to tour. Their only justification is that the Indian players will be safe in Pakistan and the terrorists will never dare to attack cricket else they will lose their popular appeal in masses. (source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iRkybItiASL4YmF-urK68gePtGNQ). Another proposal is to have the series in a neutral venue (http://article.wn.com/view/2008/11/29/PCB_chief_urges_India_to_tour_Pakistan_Says_neutral_venue_op/). Again the justificatio is based on the security of the cricketers. Amidst all these futile justifications, these people are missing the main point. India should not tour Pakistan since it is hosting terrorists and still refusing to hand them over to India. It is this reluctance of Pakistan to collaborate against terrorism that is costing it. 

There is no doubt in my mind about Pakistan being a failed state and the proof is that even 60 years after its independence, it has not been able to follow democracy and has been run by military rulers all along. This is a clear indication of the lack of will in the people there. Every nation has a basis behind it which leads to a feeling of nationalism/patriotism in the people. In case of Pakistan, the feeling of nationalism has been replaced by the feeling of hatred against India and that is whatt has been their basis of existence. They claim they're a Muslim country but do they welcome Muslims from India? No. The Muslims who migrated from India at the time of partition are still called kafirs. So does Pakistan want only Muslims born in Pakistan? If yes, they should clearly state that and let this know to the few Muslims in India who still aspire to be in Pakistan and are causing internal strifes in Bharat.

Bharat will continue to be a great state because of the rich history and culture behind its existence. In these circumstances, it becomes all the more important for all Indians to realize this and form a strong society which can repel any cultural invasion.

Have you ever paused in this race of life?

Today when I see the world around me, everybody is just running. Some people run behind the bus, some behind the girl friends, some behind criminals, some behind money and some behind success. Life has become a race.

One direct outcome of this race is the jealousy that we see in people all around us. We are afraid of our neighbor scoring or earning more than us. This goes to an extent in some of us who feel unhappy if the other person is happy. Many we do not realize but this feeling of jealousy is the major obstacle in achieving our potential completely. We spend a lot of time not in improving ourselves but in stopping the neighbor from doing something. The paradox is, the harder we try to stop the other person, the lesser capable we become of competing with him. Thus, it is just better to concentrate on ourselves rather on focus on something that is not in our control.

Once we have realized that we should concentrate on oursleves, the question comes up that - do we just keep running in this race without any motive? Well, there is a motive behind running/walking on this path of life. In very simple words - it is to be happy. So we do have amotive behind running but the things are not as simple as this. This is because the track of life has multiple paths. We do not realize this fact and usually end up choosing the path which the people around us are running on. As every cloth does not look good on every person, every path does not suit every human.

The joy of any work is not in the destination, it is in the journey itself. Hence the path that we take is very important. But how can we make a right choice when we are just running all the time? Hence it is very important to stop in this path of life at periodic intervals and ask if we are running in the right direction. Are we running towards the goal that will make us happy? Is running on this path making us happy? When we stop in this race and choose our priorities, then and only then can we make the right decisions about our life.

First of all life is not a race, we should live and not sprint through it. If we do consider it a race, then it is very important to pause sometimes and ask ourselves - "Am I running in the right direction? Am I happy?", and once you have the answer, make your choices and again start running.

Have you ever paused in this race of life and checked if you are happy?

The Sun

Things were not always like today,

The Sun had a limited life, 

It got its power from coal, 

Nuclear fusion was not supposed to exist.

 

Life on earth was usual,

Tall grew the dense green trees,

Animals ran all around them,

Like competing with the cool breeze.

 

Humans were still not there,

Love did not exist as we know,

Beauty was omnipotent in nature,

From the peacock to the crow.

 

The species were still evolving,

Numerous ones were born each day,

The Sun watched them all,

With great interest and no dismay.

 

The Sun wasn’t very happy,

Together with all, he couldn’t laugh,

Because the earth was round,

He had to contend with a half.

 

Then one day as he was rising,

Slowly she grew with him,

It was certainly a new specie,

Green leaves with a yellow rim.

 

Wherever Sun went,

She bent with him,

And when he left in the eve,

Her yellow petals closed within.

 

He watched her closely,

Fully amazed and with interest,

Amongst those he had seen till now,

He surely liked her the best.

 

Others of her kind grew along,

But Sun was focused only on her,

She, who had grown the first,

No-one would interest him better.

 

 

He knew he cannot walk to earth,

Hold her and give her a kiss,

But still he was in love with her,

And never gave her a miss.

 

 

The Sun didn’t get one thing,

This was a property of her kind,

To follow him all through the day,

And close in the evening time.

 

He would have known this,

Had he watched others of her type,

But friends, such is the power of love,

Only the “one” creates that hype.

 

Earlier, the Sun wasn’t happy

For it couldn’t watch all earth together,

Now he was happy,

There she was on earth, and he loved her.

 

Time just flew by,

Short life span she had,

The day came, she wilted,

Leaving the Sun unhappy and sad.

 

Things were not always like today,

The Sun had a limited life,

It got its power from coal,

Nuclear fusion was not supposed to exist.

 

Time was short for Sun too,

The coal was ending fast,

But, sad at his beloved’s death

He just couldn’t come out of the past.

 

The coal finished, and it was time

His body, he must leave,

But a bold decision he took,

In her, he strongly believed.

 

To remember his beloved’s love,

He decided to burn himself,

Converting body hydrogen to helium,

The nuclear fusion came out of shelf.

 

He knew his body will finish one day,

With all hydrogen fused,

But for remembering her more,

He didn’t care of his body being used.

 

The sun spots that we see today,

Are scars on the body of Sun,

He’s living to relive his love,

While we in his “body smoke” have fun.

 

 

We call her sunflower, her property

Is still not known to the Sun,

Of her kind, grow and close with him,

But he just loved her, the special first one.

 

Love is never forced,

It doesn’t need a reminder,

The Sun once loved,

And still shines to remember.

Knowing nature the natural way

This post is a compilation of excerpts of discussions that I have been having with some of my friends lately and is about what we like and what we dislike.

At the lowest level, liking and disliking must be secretion certain types of hormones in the body. Science still has not reached a stage where it can classify these hormones and make a human forcibly like or dislike a thing. These are still under our control.

Not looking at the lowest level of chemicals, can I just say that we like the objects that behave according to their true nature?

I think so.

Cold fire doesn't make sense
Neither does hot ice-cream
Those that behave the way they should
Become the objects of which we dream.

Yes, we do tend to like objects that look and behave like the way they should. In philosophical terms, we give importance ot the objects that follow their "dharma". Dharma is nothing but the boundaries in which an object operates. The dharma of the mirror is to reflect objects. The day mirror decides not to reflect, nobody will use it. Similar is the condition of any object that you can imagine. We do not like polluted air. This is because air is not meant to be polluted. Adding foreign substances to the composition of air makes us not like that.

Is it the same thing with boys and girls? Maybe yes. Humans are also the part of this nature.

But the bottomline is that I am not sure about the natural behavior of boys and girls. So here I would cite the opinion of my friend who managed to convince me temporarily with his logical examples.

Girls are usually shy. Nothing compares a girl's shy smile with a slightly bowed face. The way she slightly looks up at you, smiles and lowers her eyes. An innocent girl will win you over anyday. I guess it might be a cultural thing since this phenomenon is not present to the same degree in all the cultures. Similarly, a boy's nature is more childish and more extravagant. He is adventurous and maybe it's in the hormones.

I apologise for any gender discrimination that I might have made but somehow I agreed with the examples which my friend cited for the above instances.

Based on this, I suddenly get a feeling that a girl which I will like should both be shy and confident. It sounds a contradiction on face but it's the way it is. She must be confident about what she is doing, enthusiastic about what she thinks but at the same time be a bit shy at the right moments.

O God, a girl so innocent
May enter in my life
May she be confident
May stand tall in any strife
I for sure will love her
And invite her in my life.

Energy requirement

Given the energy shortage the world is facing today, we are constantly trying to switch to non conventional sources of energy like from sun, wind, water, nuclear etc. But I think that adding this additional layer of transducers in between is not efficient. At least today, these transducers consume a comparable amount of energy to work than the energy they produce leading to low efficiency.

A more efficient way to get energy is from humans. Just imagine that your mobile phone is constantly getting charged as you hold it in your hands. We humans get our energy from food. So why not use the energy from within to power other devices. But how can we come up with a non-intrusive way to do this? For the uninitiated, non-intrusive means that we cannot insert wires or implant devices into human beings. A simple possibility that comes to my mind is to use the heat energy emitted from the body to charge devices. But the problem here is that these amounts are usually much smaller than what are required by the devices. Plus, we will still need some transducers in between. So this idea does not sound good technically.

Ultimately we do need transducers at some level and the proposed idea does not help. If it helped, we could just feed the sources from which we get our energy directly to these transducers. It is just the coolness of the idea of charging your mobile phone by holding it in your hands that initiated this thought process in my mind.

So, I do conclude that the above idea does not make much sense.

But still, if such a thing happens, there are serious social implications of this. Can you imagine a scenario where the poor become energy slaves for the rich? Some kind of employment will just be to sit in a place and pass on the energy to other things. This scenario will just be like Matrix movie with the only difference being that there it was the machines that made humans their slaves for energy. Some countries whose average obesity levels are quite high could come under a serious threat. Imagine India invading US to get more slaves who can eat much more and hence give more energy.

Why am I vegetarian?

This is the question that I fear most. Whenever people talk about eating meat etc, the only thing on my mind is that let they not ask me why I do not meat. The simple and plain reason is that I do not know. I have accidentally eaten meat at times unknowingly and it had no special good or bad taste. So it is definitely not the case that my digestive system can’t process meat. Another peculiar thing is that I am okay with eating eggs. This makes the situation all the more complex.

Science only tells us that we should eat a healthy diet. It does not mention about not eating meats. Animal meat is actually a nice source of proteins. Then what restricts us? It is definitely the culture and the environment in which we grow in. I am very sure that if a small child is bred in an environment where people eat each other, he will have no grudges in eating human flesh even though his teeth structure might not be suitable for that but that is totally a separate issue. Hence I do not eat meat because I grew up not eating it. I only eat eggs because my mother let me eat eggs in my childhood. Now that I know why I am a vegetarian, the question is whether I want to change into a non vegetarian. Was my mother correct in not letting me eat meat? I think it’s not a question of individual choice but just about following the culture.

But does the Hindu culture forbid people from eating meat? There’s been a lot of debate on this issue and in my opinion that is mainly because ancient wise people thought that if we start killing animals they could become extinct at a very fast rate. While this is also true in case of the plants, but that is why they promoted agriculture to a large extent. One more reason is that the degree of life that is portrayed by animals is much more than the degree of life portrayed by plants. Thus when people thought to live in harmony with nature, they thought more about animals. We see that an animal is associated with each of our gods. Similar but not to that extent, certain plants having medicinal properties were also promoted for worship like Peepal and Tulsi. This explains one aspect of the culture. Thus it does not forbid us to eat meat but just has this rule for the general benefit of the society as a whole in the longer term. This is what culture is mostly about. It tries to move up from the level of individual betterment to the level at which the whole society can be improved.

So now the question is if I should follow the culture? That in itself brings the question of why is having a culture important. Is culture just a set of rules to bind people or is it something more? Does culture add anything to our life? Is religion a part of culture? Are gods a part of culture? I’ll try answering these questions some other time but I know why I am a vegetarian and finding answers to above questions will tell me why I should remain a vegetarian.

Super Mario

I created this... it does look like our legendary superhero.

The Indianization of CSE, IITD

The rumors had turned out to be true. I as the convener of the class was given my first task to organize a meeting of everybody with the professors. The agenda had not been revealed officially but in every row of seats, the chatter was the same. “Why don’t they want us to intern abroad?” The professors presented their decision and gave many justifications. The main one was maintaining the status of IITD as a public institute and hence exposing its harvest first to the home crowd. People protested with all kinds of excuses, but Prof. M. Balakrishnan and Prof. Anshul Kumar were hard nuts to crack. Had it only been in hands of Prof. Banerjee, things would have definitely been different, all of us believed. But why only us? Most of the other departments were not forcing this policy, then why we? The computer science students are supposed to be the cream, right? Having the Dean and ‘would be Dean’ on your side can sometimes be bad.

The “intern team” had 6 members – Prof Prem Kalra, I (convener) and one group representative from every group (Ravi, Prateek, Rahul and Nitin). The work was divided into various phases – figuring out the pool of companies, contacting them and finally the hardest, forcing them to take interns without any test. There were many subtleties in the whole process which had become the talk of the batch. First, choosing the company pool was going to be a global optimization solution and hence some local preferences might go haywire. We students cannot be very sure about one single company and always want to expand our set of possible choices. This created issues while listing particular preferences. Still, somehow this was managed. Over this, the department was suggesting startups as a good option for internship, the idea which was ridiculed by the batch. ‘First they don’t let us go abroad and then send us to a startup. No way!’

Prof Kalra had to contact the companies. Once we had prepared the letters, they were emailed hoping to get positive responses from the company people. Many companies obliged but again, "many" was not what the batch wanted. We wanted a total of 60 seats and preferably more. It was tough being on toes every time. I kept bugging the professor all the time and pushed him to try more and more. But yes, one thing I learned during this was that when you are holding a responsibility that is very critical to other people who have vested the responsibility in you, it is not enough to let them know about the positive feedback. Every single update has to be given to them. Not doing this increases the unrest and they get a feeling that you are not doing any work. We five people had to bear a lot of spat from the whole batch, not because we were doing a bad job, but it was more because people were very anxious about whether they will get an intern in a good company. For some, it might also have been about venting the frustration on us for not being allowed to go abroad. Anyways, the lesson was correct.

Big companies have reputations to live up to so how could they bend their knees in front of this “weak” professor of IIT Delhi. Microsoft Research, Google and IBM were adamant on doing their own selection process and that complicated the system. Do we delay the student allotment for other companies for these arrogant ones? The problem was that these companies were good and people did not want to leave them. Besides we did not want the situation that people take up intern in a company and then leave it for some other. In the mean time, the department also had a reputation to live up since the other companies had also put their faith in us. The pressure was increasing from all the sides and we had to ask these arrogant companies again and again to do the selection as early as possible so that we could go ahead with the allocation process. At one point of time, there was also the department suggestion of nobody going to any of these 3 biggies but how could that be. We students want the best to happen to us.

“Never extend a deadline” was the second lesson I learnt. There was resume submission for the companies who were doing their own selection. And, I had been assigned the task to collect and forward the resumes. Few students asked me if they could submit the resumes a few hours after the deadline to me and I being the “good guy” said it was okay with me. But certain elements of the batch, when they came to know about it, raised a furor. I had to face people in my room trying to explain them why I had accepted the resume after the deadline. These elements just revolt and tell you that you are doing nothing and you sometimes feel the anger inside you. But again, it was the frustration against the department which was being vented at me so better to just stay quiet. But yes, in professional situation it would be a nice thing not to extend a deadline.

Then there was this Google issue. Of all the resumes submitted, the list of shortlisted people was astonishing to some extent. Many good people by almost everybody’s standards did not make it on the basis of the resume. I used the word “random” publicly for this selection and that again created an issue with people. Lesson three – Choose your words carefully. A single word can make a mob go against you. Finally, it was sorted out. The mailing list of the batch became a common place for somebody’s comments against the process and then a whole bunch supporting it and at last a meek mail in the end from one of the team to give a satisfactory reply. It was getting interesting.

The last issue was with some people being with low CGPAs being left out because of the CG criterion set by the companies. I can understand the frustration of these people because they might have got a decent internship had the batch been allowed to intern abroad. It again started the process of figuring out their best options and contacting the companies. And I had to be there in every meeting with the professor.

With all lessons learnt, spat faced, the allocation did go through. The order of allotment for the kneeling companies was decided to be on CG, the only objective criterion I believe when one is shooting an arrow in the dark. There might have been some small differences had it been a selection process by the companies themselves, but I personally believe that the whole process saved us a lot of hard work of applying, giving interviews which the department said was not worth an internship, and I completely agree with them (not because I got internship in MSR but because I really think so). Though some people might not be happy with their companies but I believe that this might have been the best they could have got in India.

The bottom line in the whole process was that, constantly people vented their frustration against the department keeping them in India, in form of anger against this allotment process. But in the end, they also tried to agree with the department to maximize their chances in India.

It was interesting.

Everyone had a summer internship to look forward to.

The department had been Indianized.

A Logical Proposal Indeed

A is a shy guy and is not able to gather courage to propose to B. A is also a logician so he takes the help of predicate logic. Now A is trying to make B understand predicate logic, but actually he wants to propose to B. He goes on as following:

Let us first define the predicates.

M(x,y) : x and y marry

L(x,y) : x loves y

A predicate can be true or false. Just to see some properties of the above predicates,

M(A,B) <=> M(B,A)

“I am married to you” means “you are married to me”.

L(A,B) => L(B,A)

This statement is not true. If I love you, then it does not mean that you love me. Hence the predicate on left does not imply the predicate on right.

But now, if I say reverse them, that is

L(B,A) => L(A,B)

This statement is true. This is because whether you love me or not, I will always love you. Hence there cannot be a case where you love me and I don’t love you.

Now we also have,

L(A,B) ^ L(B,A) => M(A,B)

i.e. if I love you and you love me, then we will marry. But now since I always love you, we can remove L(A,B). Thus,

L(B,A) => M(A,B)

Thus if you love me, we will marry.

Do you love me?

Kumble needs me !!!

Kumble, in his team, for sure needs me
Someone who can quickly wipe off the tail,
With vicious off spinners, and straighter ones,
Make every Aussie batsman curse himself and wail.

Kumble, in his team, for sure needs me
Someone who can overcome Lee, Johnson, Clark
Pick fours at will, hit sixes out of ground
Let India, in one day, cross the 400 mark.

Kumble, in his team, for sure needs me.
Someone who can never miss a catch,
Dives, runs, whatever to get the ball
And help the team win every match.

Kumble, in his team, for sure needs me