A New Hope

This is my attempt to write a poem after several years, may be decade. I thought it would end up as a pathetic piece of composition, but I am glad its atleast readable. Here it is



With goals in the mind, and thoughts in our action,

we build a castle in thin air, of better day, a brighter life.



Nourishing our dreams, with beads of sweat.

toiling through time, to see ourselves ahead.



Flying away with dreams so high, to see it shattering away

in the wink of an eye.

Fate hits hard when least expected

and everything seems struggling to explain.



Time goes on with its wayward pace,

casting a spell of mystery and haze

what remains is the enduring faith.



The world seems brighter again with each passing day.

Hope casts its charm over the brave,

who endure to beat the threshold of pain.



Life goes on, with its ups and downs

what remains is eternal faith.

A new hope is all we need

to usher us back into the realm of our dreams.



A new hope is all we need....

Simple Ways to Stay Happy !

The Department of Health and Welfare, Government of Karnataka put a public advertisement for social cause in local daily Deccan Herald dated 10th October, on World Mental Health Day.

I felt the steps mentioned in the ad, were so true and very applicable to our current lifestyles and felt compelled to put it as a post in my blog. Listed below are those steps.

• Accepting who we are and living a life of reality.
• Keeping active, stay fit, walk, exercise regularly.
• Learning new skills, which can be a new language, musical instrument and so on.
• Keeping in touch with friends. We all know, how important are friends in our lives.
• Doing something creative, such as drawing, painting, photography, poetry.
• Getting involved in various activities, eg. theatre club, wildlife club, social service etc.
• Asking for help. I felt, this was one of the toughest things to do, as we build a cloud of ego around ourselves and force ourselves to live in world of illusion.
• Finally Relaxing. Relaxation has different connotations for different people, some find relaxation by programming, some by music and for some by reading.

Though these steps seem simple, they aren't easy. Simple and easy are not synonyms. Certain amount of discipline and patience can help us follow the steps listed.

I would like to hear from people, who followed some of the steps and if it really brought a feeling of positive well being in themselves.

My Delicious Link

I have posted my Delicious link, readers may benefit from the bookmarks I have saved. Delicious Link Here

Happy to have Graduated !

I've graduated with a Masters degree in Information Technology this year and I am very happy to make that statement. Incidently IIIT Bangalore is also celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

Two years back when i decided to pursue Post Graduation, I had no clue, what future had in store for me. I had only one thing in mind, to delve into the realm of Computer Science and learn more, as I felt i was quite ignorant about main stream Computer Science. The basis for my decision was i realized there was so much to learn and i needed avenues to gear myself up for a sucessful career in IT.

Two years at IIITB, has been one of the best years in my life, unforgettable experiences. I am very lucky to have met brilliant students and studied under awesome professors.

IIIT-B gave me my first interaction with Sir N.R Narayanmurthy and other erudite people from the industry and academia. It also was my first attempt to pursue research and publish a paper in an International conference. I also got an opportunity to be a part of placement process, volunteer for a international conference, tech fest etc.

Today I am much more competent and a confident person, than what I was 2 years back. This time I undoubtedly made the right decision !. Displayed below are photos from my graduation ceremony.

Happy Teachers Day !!

September 5th in India celebrated as Teachers Day, and I want to take this opportunity to thank all my the teachers who have guided, advised as well as admonished me at the right time. I am particularly thankful to my teachers at IIIT Bangalore and Vidhya Vardhaka Sangha High School,at Bangalore. They have played a very important role in my character and professional building.

Nowadays, we hear a lot of complaints about teachers who are inefficient, not committed to the profession, lack sound knowledge etc, but there are lot of factors which lead to it, such as rise of other professions, disparity of pay, quota systems and thus its not totally correct to make value judgments on academicians, without being one ourselves. However even today, there are awesome teachers, who make a big positive difference in the lives of students, inspire them with their way of life, and overwhelm them with their knowledge. Teachers at IIIT-B and VVS are some examples. I consider myself fortunate to have studied at those schools. VVS is a legendary school which completed 50 years and IIIT-B is a fantastic new graduate which completed 10 years.

I am posting few photos with my mentors, taken during my convocation at IIIT-B this year. I also plan to pay a visit to VVS to meet my high school teachers, quite eager to see the shine in their faces when they meet an old student of theirs.

Happy New Year 2009

Dear Readers I Wish you a very Happy, Fun-filled and Prosperous 2009 ! Best Wishes to all of you and May the New Year bring lots of happiness to you all.

A research students life and my take on it !

I may not be the right person to write a post about research, but will express my views based on a years experience in my research elective. Albert Einstein once said about research "If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be research", which sums up to say, if we have solution its not research there can be improvements not solutions, solutions are depressing for scientists as they leave no room for improvement. There are two facets to a research in a students life, the professors angle, the research student's so called research mind.
The first one is the most complex angle, it is as hard to understand professors as is to understand women, when you think your nearly done with the job, and meet him with your head high, he politely lets you know he needs a totally new implementation or this is not what i expected kinds off, great !!, so what next ? start slogging again. In a professors terms 'we' means 'you' and 'soon' means now. PhD Comics is a wacky cartoon strip site worth visiting.
Having said all &%$$#@? about the prof, we should be thankful to them, cause the so called 'research mind of the research elective student' never pushes harder unless external prodding, a great momentum of laziness can only be overcome the 'professors polite words'. Well this holds for me at least my best research interest is always not my research elective topic somehow, guess this hold for most research students.
Research is something which can be your best dream or worst nightmare, there are frustrations about last moment implementations, total confusion about the research topic itself, burdening presentations and meetings especially when you realize all your thoughts get invalidated because of a new found fact, hours before the meeting.
Despite these facts, research is very rewarding especially if you are the inquisitive kinds, getting humbled by the sheer amount of information existing is a awakening experience, there is a thrill, a conquest to solve something unsolved, or be the little creator in your own world. It is purely intellectually satisfying and simulating.
BadCareer is a wonderful article to read about becoming a good grad student, and make sure you don't forget to read PhD Comics, after all life is all comical for a research student as long as his results are not approved :)

My Dream Girl

I have been asked numerous times about the kind of girl i would like to get wedded to, and now that i have just a couple of years left before i get married i have also made some introspection, this is what i felt. After some reading and gyan for experienced people, i have become wiser i think :)

• Should behave like a girl, be shy, talk a lot, bore me with her PJ's and behave like a child at times.I just want to listen and drown in her eyes.
• Be simple and open hearted. Cherish small things like enjoying a cup of tea at roadside teashop, a walk in the rain, sharing an ice cream, playing a game of carrom etc.
• Very importantly, be able to distinguish between fad and reality and be responsible in life, i am specific on this because many a times some girls feel, watching movies, dining out or weekend trips is what life is all about, i would suggest them them to think of life as not just a bed of roses but also bed of roses and thorns. Sometimes little things can make or break a relationship. Be mature.

Finally as anyone would point out, what about looks ? I feel as long as she is beautiful to me any looks would do :) Now that i have written them down, people still curious to know what i feel can read this post :)

My dreams

Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch in his last lecture mentioned, how important was writing downs goals or your dreams in managing your time and life successfully. Taking the advise of this wise man, i decided to write my what plans i have for the next one year from now.

• Plan 1: Have a successful stint at SUN for my internship.
• Plan 2: Buy a Royal Enfield Thunderbird bike, this has been my dream since a long time. Every time i see a Royal Enfield, i get enticed and start day dreaming about it.
• Plan 3: Learning any musical instrument, and i am somehow instintively attracted to mrudangam. I keep my fingers tapping on my table assuming i know to play one :)
• Plan 4: Learn some form of martial arts, and lately i have taken craze to the Israeli martial art KravMaga. Looking out for someone to teach me KravMaga.
• Plan 5: Develop a new hobby of wildlife photography, not because i am fond of photography but rather very fond of wildlife. To be frank my all time favorite job is to be a wildlife forest ranger.
• Plan 6: The final one, get better at managing time and stop brooding over the past.

I do not know if the six plans are doable but i definitely want to take a shot at it at least fulfill two than not planning and doing away with none.

Recalling the past

It's almost the end of my Masters course, at least officially classes have ended and I have just my internship left. While writing this post i recall what i had written the day i joined IIIT-Bangalore,to exactly state " July 29th, today is my first day at IIIT-Bangalore. Its so silent here, everyone's indoors slogging or at Labs", today on December 24th,2009, its silent again but only me and a few unlucky research elective students are slogging at the lab :), hopeful of making some inroads in the field of research. This day reminds of my early days at IIIT-B, just out of company, confused about what path to take next and so on. The confusion still remains but about new things in life, but yes i personally feel, i have become a much wiser and an adaptable man.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my stay at IIIT-B , at least most of the time i could say except for the time when deadlines of projects came closer or dinner time at the canteen. There have been lot of 'firsts' here some of them being first night out or night outs for project completion, working out in the gym at 1am in the morning, first international conference paper and so on. There have been really tough and rough times for me, on a personal front life has been roller coaster ride and i have seen emotions flow to such an extent which i never felt or faced all my life. Did i make any new friends, well to be true to the term good friends may be one, adding one to my minuscule list of true friends. On the professional front, it was great learning and lots of interaction, IIIT-B gave me umpteen number of opportunities to interact with leading academic personalities and industry professionals,which i had never imagined was possible some years back. Yes my 2 year stint with TCS definitely helped me manage myself confidently and build new contacts and engage people successfully.
In fact the 2 years here i could consider as one my best days in life, i have laughed, cried, hated, sighed and rejoiced moments and each one of them is memorable. I wish i had kept a personal diary when i joined the college, things are just memories and most of them may fade away someday. This post was quite intentional to help me reminisce me those nostalgic days at IIIT-B. Another 6 months of the course remains, but as internship and hardly any hostel life / academic, a new life filled with action awaits me at the company. Its time to pull up my sleeves and plunge back into the corporate world, adios academia !! unless and otherwise if my distant dream of doing a PhD comes true.

ಯಲ್ಲಾ ಕನ್ನಡಿಗರಿಗೂ ಕನ್ನಡ ರಾಜ್ಯೋತ್ಸವದ ಶುಭಾಶಯಗಳು

Today Karnataka celebrates its 52nd Rajyothasava, for readers who do not know what it means here follows, on November 1st of 1956 ,the Karnataka state was formed ,by clubbing districts of North canara,South canara , Mysore , Bijapur ,Bidar,Gulbarga and many more to form one single state.Karnataka got its statehood , government and other judicial powers. Today Karnataka stands to be one of the top states in India with rich diversity in art,culture,literature,fine arts,food, ethnicity,industries,education and scenic beauty.Bangalore known to be the silicon valley of India and capital of Karnataka has made Karnataka proud by putting itself and India on the global map. I have been a proud kannadiga and always will be,it should be a sincere effort by every kannadiga to remain loyal to his state and be proud of being a part of Karnataka regardless of how the state is performing, influence of globalization , westernization and should remember the roots of our existence lies in our motherland and we should endeavour to think big , think useful for our motherland.

My Proverbs

Of late I have begun to write my own proverbs, mostly influenced by Google Talk Status messages.I have done with fourteen of them now, and will continue to add, as and when I get ideas on new proverbs, all these proverbs are based on my experience in life. So here they are

• Romantic Love is a pleasurable pain.
• Shattering people's blind beliefs is one of the greatest victories in life.
• Don't be a loser,make your foes feel one !
• Whatever happens,happens for good was said by someone who got what he wanted.
• Being a snob to jealous individuals,is one of my best characters.
• To show attitude is one and to have is another.
• A life without attachments and expectations is the path to True Happiness.
• Emotion is like a superpower,if you control them you can move mountains,else they can get your life out of control.
• Passion drives a man to his purpose, desperation defeats it.
• Gravity doubles when falling in love,no wonder it takes a lifetime to get up sometimes !
• Getting simple things in life is not easy,which concludes simple and easy are not synonyms.
• Fight hard till fate is forced to accept defeat.
• Foolishness is often mistaken as being gutsy.
• A cloth is never complete as long as old knots are unsewed for making new ones, same holds for relationships in life.
• Life is a Zero Sum game !.
• There is no fun in the kill, unless it is a chase !

I hope readers will like some of them ,if not for all.

Are you a nerd?

I took a Nerd test and this is what it showed up, 11% scored higher (more nerdy), 1% scored the same, and 88% scored lower (less nerdy). What does this mean? Your nerdiness is: High-Level Nerd. You are definitely MIT material, apply now!!!. I think there's a limit to bluffing considering the last statement :)

Deja Vu

First of all ,let me ask readers a question,have you been in a situation where you have felt you have been through the same situation before but cannot recall where ,everything resembles the current situation,the place,people and your posture too,it strangly feels like you know the outcome too.
Strange isnt it ? I have been thorough this before and always used to wonder,where was it and surprisingly this feeling last for a few minutes.
It was by chance i have found the answer to this mystery,the phenomenon what i described above is known by a term "deja vu".
According to Wiki the experience of déjà vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of "eeriness", "strangeness", or "weirdness". The "previous" experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience "genuinely happened" in the past. Déjà vu has been described as "remembering the future.
Some more gyan,some believe déjà vu is the memory of dreams. Though the majority of dreams are never remembered, a dreaming person can display activity in the areas of the brain that process long-term memory. It has been speculated that dreams read directly into long-term memory, bypassing short-term memory entirely.
So next time it happens you know why, dont you ?

Escalate !

This blog should have come much earlier atleast before i quit TCS, but some how was getting postponed or had slipped out of my mind.
Here is what i have got to say,folks in the software Industry have a very special term to use for anything which looks like "needs urgent attention" and lo the word "escalate" appears from nowhere,i have heard this word atleast a zillion times and read a billion times i guess.
It frustrates me to the core that not even the slightest effort is made to look for synonyms of "escalate",everyone seems to get a feel of seriousness when they use this word.
For eg.If the Project timelines have overshot,the Team Lead says "we will have to escalate this issue to clients",if the performance of a Team Member is highly unsatisfactory,the Project Manager complains" X's performance is deplorable,matter needs to be escalated urgently,to the HR" and the poor chap Team member too has gotten used to it and writes "As the interface team are not able to provide Test Support,i am escalating the issue to the onsite PM",so what should i say,omnipresent damn escalate !
Finally i conclude its urgently required to escalate the issue of the usage of the word escalate before it escalates beyond the escalating limits of our mind.
Quite escalating eh !

Sunsign Compatibility

Sun Signs is a term I'm sure most of us have come across,trying to get a clue of how the week would be in Sunday Heralds or probably accidental reading of Linda GoodMan's SunSigns

It was kind of amusing to read compatibility between certain signs I used to wonder whether all these were plain crap or may be something scientific,so whats the best way to find out ? Experiment offcourse.

I started recalling the birth months of people with whom i have a very good rapport Well,surprisingly it turned out 8 out 10 were all in the compatibility range. And to added to these,i have found that people whom i gel within a couple of months of meeting or probably a kind of natural selection were all my compatible signs.

But does this always hold true,what about sibling relations,parents etc, they dont have to be in the compatible range offcourse ?
So i concluded when the surrounding is new and everyone's a stranger,mutually compatible signs get closeto each other sooner or later.And even in sibling relations,the compatibility signs has its trace somewhere to some extent.

So does it give me some romantic clue ? Well probably I am looking for that sweet someone in the compatibility range or will nature play its role of getting the mutually compatible signs together.

Lets wait and watch,who does it first! and yeah why don't go and find out who your compatible signs are! Does it hold for you too ?

My New Tech Blog

I have been blogging for almost an year now,and primarily on general issues or events,after joining the MTech pro gramme ,a new rush of enthusiasm for creating a tech blog has gripped me. So here i present my new Tech Blog tech blog .My tech blog will focus mainly on algorithms,operating systems and occasionally on general Computer Science issues.Wordpress.com is where i am hosting it. I hope readers will find my blogs interesting to read in the times to come.

MIT , Unsurpassed !

Some time during the 2nd week of August we had visitor from MIT.Prof Vijay the undergraduate dean at MIT. A simple man, from Bangalore, who reached great heights with sheer hardwork' and diligence. This is what he had to say about why he thinks MIT is what it is today. Students at MIT , stay challenged !The challenge limits to the inellectuality in the statement Every student at MIT possess the'well known Tech journal Scientific America and the excitement is about who solves the puzzles first. He also mentioned about a MIT Software Lab,students and researchers from any part of the world could access it and do a real time experiment,the outcomes are not previously known but spontaneous, Now isnt this brilliant !!

Happy Independence Day Folks !!

15th,August,Every year as the sun dawns on this day, A billion people celebrate in joy , India's independence day and the day goes into the memoirs of history. Today India celebrates 60 years of Independence.60 years ago,India was like any other poor,hungry,ignored nation. A nation which no country desired to associate itself with. Today, we draw eyes all over the world,India is poised to be super power.Its a name to reckon with,and we are no longer a toyed nation. A young nation ,creating such waves is remarkable and the future of our country rests in our hands, wherever we may be , whatever we may do, our actions should be in the best interests of our country.Like a famous quote by Late American President John F Kennedy goes "Ask not what your country can do for you,ask what you can do for your country !!" Jai Hind and Happy Independence Day !!!

1st week ,so far ,so good

1st week ,so far ,so good Today marks exactly a week's stay at IIIT-B .The week has been quite fast and i have really liked my stay here.The hostel life is a great teacher , I truly feel ,all professional courses should be residential,its an enormous advantage and the level of exposure is at a new high.

I made a few friends and probably can recall about a 30 names out of 136 students of my class.The atmosphere here is so challenging, there's so much to know in the field of Computer Science, even with a 2 year experience at TCS , i feel i hardly know anything in CS.

Being up till 1am has become a regular routine and it hardly feels a burden to stay late. ,with so many seniors working in the labs and continous activity in the campus.

The prof's are down to earth and extremely knowledgeable ,and IIIT-B Director Prof Sadagopan's ,talks of wisdom are very inspiring.Seniors are very friendly and helpful .A wonderful bond has begun to weave between us.

The level of learning is quite high and i must admit i have already begun to feel the pressure,The subjects are approached holiestically.Every concept taught is discussed with a relevant industry example.

We were made aware of some of the clubs in college,and birthday bashes are fun. IMSAA an international paper presentation contest and NOKIA challenge are the awaited events.IIIT-B has been given the charge to conduct the NOKIA tech challenge , a national tech event and i am in the volunteering commitee :)

In my next blog, i shall write about ,the visit by MIT(Masuchussets Institute of Tech) Undergrad Dean to IIIT-B and his thoughts about why MIT remains the No 1 Tech school in the world. Ciao !!