Tables turned

Nowadays, I am recruiting tech interns for technology team of Cohortplus project. We gather resumes, shortlist candidates and conduct some telephonic rounds. This is followed up with some face to face interviews. The process of recruitment has provided me an opportunity to put on shoes of Interviewer and see things from his angle.

I have appeared in numerous interviews since my under-graduation. A good tech company takes around 5 to 6 rounds of interviews. By some rough estimate, I can claim to have appeared in nearly 100 interviews till date. This would include my internship effort during under-graduation, placement efforts, M.S. internship efforts, Research assistantship interviews, Civils mocks interviews and occasional appearances in interviews in last 6-7 months. Number of times, I was thrown out unexpectedly at last juncture. I always wondered about my mistakes. The current role as interviewer allows me to evaluate my own failures in more objective fashion. I am compiling some observations below.

1. Always go full throttle in the interview. Don't be subdued. Don't show modesty. Interviewer may mistake your modesty as your lack of content.

2. In the technical rounds, take care of various use-cases, null scenarios, dry run, cleanliness of code.

3. Don't tell your weakness to interviewer. Even if he insists.

4. Don't be indecisive and confused. You should be able to inspire confidence in your interviewer.

5. No body knows the solution. Even the interviewer does not know the solution. So keep trying different things.

6. Approach the problem in a systematic manner. Every one likes systematic approach.

7. Think louder. Keep talking and keep telling the interviewer about your problem solving approach.

8. Give multiple solution to the problem.

On top of all this, One must be thorough with his subjects.

Boring life

Sometimes, I wonder what is the difference between a rickshaw puller and all these great engineers working in big companies like Microsoft and Amazon. The only visible difference to my mind is chance. The one who pulls rickshaw is no less hard working. He pulls rickshaw almost 8-10 hours a day. He toil hard under burning sun or in the freezing cold. In many ways, his effort requires greater physical and mental will power than the work of a software engineer sitting in air conditioned office.

From my experience, I can say "Environment is great influencer is shaping minds of people". The biggest example is of NRI's working abroad. When in other country, they would think twice before jumping a queue but when they visit India, they become sheep in the herd.

The events of second world war led to two greatest revelation to colonial power. First is Environment can brainwash even the sanest of the mind. Hitler created an environment where the whole nation became complicit to holocaust and imperialism. Even those who were relatively powerful, could not resist his thoughts. The propaganda campaign clouded thinking power of whole generation of rationale animals and brought out the real animalistic instinct. People complied, obliged, obeyed and lay supine in front of Nazi agenda.

Second big revelation was that real asset of future is not minerals or metals. It would instead be man power of the nation. The Empire of future would be empire of minds. With this vision in mind, Colonial power relinquished their claim over colonies. With this, nature of imperialism changed from financial to knowledge imperialism. A trend of brain drain started where western countries poached the best mind of colonies and provided them with an ecosystem where they can fulfill their biological and security needs in wholesome manner. The colonial hangover in colonies ensured that NRI tag would enable fulfillment of esteem needs as well. Thus brain drain sustained itself and spiraled over time. The sense of certainty in their lives lead to belief that they are makers of their destiny.

While there is nothing wrong with this view. It is certainly a very good belief system because this way person can inculcate "can do attitude" and avoid being fatalistic. But this leaves me wondering about "how does the western philosophy explains the factor of chance in people's life?".

Nowadays, I am reading Gita. I read about Karma Yoga. It talks about relinquishing desires in life and working without expectations and desires. This leave me confused about the whole philosophy of pursuing goals and following purpose in life. How can some one work without any desires. I tried. But I don't understand the system. Without desire there is no motivation. The will power is crippled. I understand that I should be unfazed with the end result and rather one should learn from outcome be it success or failure. But having no desire in the first place is perplexing.


Anyway, this was some random compilation of my thoughts. Will write something more substantive next time.

Lending hand to some one is better than giving dole

There is a famous Chinese adage which says "if you give poor man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish, you feed him for life". Once the person knows about fishing skill, he or she can function independently. On the other hand, doles or donation for charity will only empower him for the duration for which the charity lasts. Unless the person does not know how to use the charity in productive fashion, It will be of no help in the long term.

This wisdom applies to all walks of life. Consider the scenario of flood situation, Most of the time people open their wallet whole heartedly to donate for people who have become victim of flood. However, such doles are not put to its productive use most of the times. Instead, if people could come and help in managing services in relief camps then it could bring bigger difference to the lives of flood victim.

Doles are some times unnecessary evil. There are certain situations where we do not have enough hands to help people. In such scenarios, doles could act as stopgap arrangement for dealing with manpower deficit. A classic case in point is Indian employment sector. Today a large population is unskilled and state is not able to generate enough jobs. Even private sector is lethargic in this context. In such scenario, It would be better if we could ensure some minimum well being or we could provide some social protection to unemployed people. The problem occurs when people consider dole as their entitlement and donors use the excuse of dole as cheap way of shirking their responsibility in lending hand to people in need.

This responsibility-shirking behavior is visible in various dimensions. For example today rich nations are shirking off their responsibility towards poor nations. They provide some cheap loans for building infrastructure through institutional mechanism. However, when it comes to sharing technological competence, rich countries develop cold feet. Had they provided technological know-how to smaller, poor nations then poor countries could have use this in multiplicative fashion to build much more infrastructure.

Even in individual sphere, enabling some one with skills to use and generate money is much more transformational and empowering in comparison to simply giving money to some one. If person has skills then he can survive on his own. But if person has money but he does not know how to use it then it is certain be spent in unproductive manner.

Apart from the mental strength, a helping hand to some one in need, has much stronger emotional sentiments attached to it. According to a famous parable, once a person was attempting to commit suicide. An old man was sitting on the other bank of river noticed the suicide victim. He came and enquired about cause of sadness. The suicidal person said, he has lost job and he has no business. The old man introduced himself as Mr. Ford of Ford motors and asked the person to not worry about his success and failure. He is there to help him always. With these words, the suicidal victim started re-building his life again. Once he became successful, he came back to the same river bank and found the old man sitting on the other side of bank. He walked up to him and thanked him with words "Mr. Ford, your assurance helped me in rebuilding my life." The old man chuckled and told the young man, he is not Mr. Ford. He lied for the sake of igniting confidence and hope in young men's life. The moral of story is "it is not always the monetary help or physical support that helps people in rebuilding their lives". More important is the emotional connect and mental assurance that ignite the hope, and gives the desired purpose and focus to our life.

Some established political schools also opposes the concept of dole. According to neo-liberal school, doling out benefits and giving subsidies leads to wastage of resources in unproductive sphere. Political philosopher F.A. Hayek terms the concept of social justice achieved through subsidies and doles as mirage. He advocate free market and competition. He terms this as fight for struggle where only fittest should survive. By giving doles, We do not make some one fitter for competition. Instead we make people more servile and dependent. Therefore, lending hand in terms of imparting skills, giving mental strength and emotional stability is much more important.

In the Indian context, today We stand at an inflection point of our political-economic history. Today We have large number of poor population. Nearly 25% of population is surviving on daily remuneration of Rs. 26 in day in Villages and Rs. 30 in Cities. This is definitely insufficient for them to live a dignified life. Thus it is essential to provide various amenities as dole. However, such dole-out subsidies should be become permanent feature of our economy. With the scale of population which we have today, such dole is unsustainable. Therefore it is essential that we empower people by way of skilling them. Today nearly 80 Lakh Indians are entering into job market. Therefore it is essential to skill them.

Doles breed servility. While lending hand creates bonding among people. Doles induces responsibility-shirking behavior. While lending hand leads to responsibility sharing. Doles leads to hierarchy creation between donor and taker. On the other hand, lending hand helps in building friendships and relationships. Doles are some times necessary evil but they are only short term arrangements. In long term, lending hand to some one is better than giving dole.

PM's pakistan visit

Prime minister has again stumped his opposition with his political tactics and idiosyncrasies. His stopover visit to Pakistan has been acclaimed and criticized equally across the country.

His fan army is positioning this visit as a show of increasing trust and bonhomie between Indian prime minister and his counterpart Mr. Nawaz Sharif. They claim this meeting as a new beginning and thaw in India-Pak relationship. It is seen as an effort to delink such occasional visits from routine outcome-focused approach.

On the other hand opposition both in India as well as Pakistan is portraying this visit as pre-planned meeting. According to inner sources, this meeting was facilitated by Business tycoon Sajjan Jindal who had played pivotal role in earlier Dhaka meeting of two NSA's.

Whether we can term this visit as successful or failure depends on the purpose of the visit. From the official brief, Visit was impromptu without any specific agenda. So government can claim this as continuation of Atal-Sharif friendship. But a larger question looms over such visit which is "Could India Pakistan visits be actually de-linked from their outcome?". Can we really ignore the pre-history of India-Pak relations in such visit? Can we move away so abruptly from Kashmir or state facilitated terrorism to warmth and personal friendships?

I remember Sushama Swaraj gave a rhetorical speech to media when one Indian soldier was beheaded by some unknown sources from Pakistan. She exhorted to get ten heads in revenge of one Indian head. All the heat generated by rightist BJP around India-Pak relations seems so superficial now.

Till recently, BJP suspended talks with Pakistan over Pak ambassador's meeting with Hurriyat leaders. But suddenly Modi has gained this new-found wisdom and he is ready to forget all of blood stained history revolving around Pakistan and thinks talks are the best solution to India-Pak issue. This reflects that Modi is missing an institutional understanding of the issue.

If he had understood nature of India-Pak relations then either he would not have suspended talks earlier or he would have refrained from such unplanned fruitless visits. His move shows whimsical individual oriented nature of Indian foreign policy.

If the visit had no purpose then wouldn't it be better utilization of time, had Modi visited Akhlaq's home in Dadri. Why waste huge public resources on such fanfare and selfie campaign with world leaders who stabs in your back? If the visit had any purpose then what is the result in terms of 8+2 agenda of India and Pakistan. These open questions ought to be answered.

History is evident that India Pakistan relationship passes through a cycle of talk and violence. Often talks reach to near resolution of Kashmir but a sudden terrorist attack with involvement of state element from Pakistan derail the whole peace process. Talk are suspended. Then they start talking about talks. Slowly they engage in talks. In parallel, violence starts. Talks and violence go hand in hand. After a breaking point, talks are suspended and only violence prevail. Once both are exhausted with violence then again they start talking about talks.

The moral of story is Pakistan is not as democratic as India. While democratic institution keep pushing for talks and engagement, simultaneously, military institution like ISI promotes violence. That's why it is often remarked that road to Islamabad goes through Rawalpindi (Military headquarter).

A recent trend witnessed in India is political use of Pakistan bashing for hiding internal policy failure. This was a tested technique in Pakistan. However recent Bihar election showed that national leaders used reference of Pakistan to turn away the attention from government failure in meeting people's expectation.

Time will tell, what Modi has in store for us. He is full load of promises. but very little has happened on the ground. Or even if it has happened, very little is communicated to the people. I wish, Modi shows some commitment and character in dealing with Pak issue rather than becoming agent of RSS or other Hindu groups. He has the persona to take this relationship into unchartered territories but India-Pak issue is much more complex than he seem to imagine.

Book Review: Man who mistook his wife for a Hat: Oliver Sacks

There are some books which are so powerful that they can impact your world view forever. This book is one among those. This is a truly classic read for number of reasons. But before getting into that, let us know who is Oliver Sacks and what this book is about?

Oliver Sacks is one of the most renowned Psycho-neurologist world have had. He spent 6 decades of his life studying various psycho-neurological disorder and authored numerous books on the subject. His approach has reignited the tradition of case-history which was earlier pioneered by Freud, Charcot and others but later receded to background due to excessive focus on empiricism. He started the tradition of narrative reconstruction and street neurology in studying psycho-neurological disorders. His approach is marked advancement over soulless neurology or bodiless psychology. It compels us to look within ourselves and our surrounding with new vision and empathy.

This book is recounting of large number of solved or unsolved cases which Sacks came across in his career. He divided the book in 4 segments namely Losses, excesses, transports and world of simple. Each part compiles a set of cases related to the broad category. He starts with case of Dr. P who mistook his wife for a hat. This was case of visual agnosia where person lost his sense of vision or representation but simultaneously developed a taste for music. He criticizes neurology for ignoring the concept of "judgement" in the pursuit of categorization in cases similar to Dr. P's.

Author has used his artistic vocabulary to elucidate various human expressions, emotions of patients and their relatives and capturing humor in complex cases. His writing also showed the importance of empathy and sensitivity which a doctor must exercise in his tone while interacting with his patients. The cases are strange and bewildering. For example, In the Lost Mariner case, he elaborates on the case of a mariner who lost any memory of events after second world war (1945) in his life. The case of disembodied human being, lazy left leg or number wizard twins Jhon and Michael force us to think about power of mind and perception.

The book also describes innovative approaches used by him to solve confusing cases. For example, case of Medaline J. where he asked the nurse to let the patient starve for food by placing it just outside her reach. This enabled nerve movement in the patient. Similarly, He used mirrors to solve problem of phantom limbs. The book drops innumerable references of Luria, Hughling Jackson, Sherrington and other great neurologist of their time. It provides post-script to various cases describing what future development happened in each case and linked his cases with some other cases.

Each case is so unique and explained in such an engrossing manner that it is difficult to leave the book unfinished. The variety of cases ignite the sense of realization that "there is nothing called pathological state of mind". Each way of life is valid and normal in its own way. If people behave in angry manner then they may have their share of fair reasons like biochemical excesses or deficit for this. if some one likes shopping then it may be driven by neurons in the brains. You never know whether it is a voluntary or involuntary behavior. There is nothing called right or wrong way of life. There are just different ways of life.

The cases described in section of "world of simple" shows there is special talent hidden within each of us. If we are able to connect with soul of other person then we can sense it. For example, Oliver Sacks noticed how twin brothers supposed classified as severely retarded by category of science, played the game of "next prime number" stretching up to 20-digits scale. Mind you, the computers of their age could calculate prime numbers up to 10-digit only. The case of Martin A. who suffered from fatal meningitis but possessed amazing memory and taste for opera music. He earned the fame as "walking encyclopedia". Such stories of idiot savant tells us that chance is a bigger factor in driving our life than our own karma.

The discovery of talent take unconditional love, empathy, non-judgmental behavior and understanding from significant others and society. Reading this book can help us in understanding that abnormality could be a special sort of gift. We should focus on gift instead of stigmatizing abnormality.

The cases under Transporter section highlights the limited understanding of human life by science. For instance the case of Bhagwanandi S. "Passage to India", where despite a malignant cancer, she kept smiling and remained calm. She even told doctors that she is travelling to other world which most of the staff members seemed to believe. Many of the cases remain unsolved till date.

The case studies reignited the tradition of narrative medicinal studies. The case of wiccy ticcy ray or cupid disease of Natasha highlights the amazing mystery of brain connections. It is so strange that on one hand we have reached Mars and aiming for Jupitor and beyond but on other hand we have not been able to understand the human brain completely. This book is a must-read for some one in the field of cognitive neurosciences or psycho-neurology or neurological research. Others may find it little difficult to absorb due to use of some scientific jargon. It would be a very interesting read for some one who wish to discover or understand power of mind.

Most important of all the book would help in widening your horizon and make you more humane towards so-called abnormality of life. My only wish remains is if book could have dwelled little more on idiot savants.

Book Review: 10 Judgements that changed India: Zia Mody

The year is nearing its end. I have lot of pending work. One of the important among them is pending book reviews for all the books I devoured this year. So here comes another one.

Finished book by Zia Mody on 10 judgements that changed India. I finished this one during the flight back home from Portland. One reason which got me excited about this book was a similar question asked in 2014 UPSC general studies paper-2. It asked for five judgements which changed India. This book described ten of them. Moreover just few days before taking flight, I was listening to FM Jaitley speech on judgements which changed India. This ignited some curiosity about this book and among the available six to seven books (courtesy Kiran Ji), I chose this one to become part of my cabin baggage.

Anyway, coming to substance. Book lists ten judgements which proved pivotal in Indian judicial history. The judgements are chosen not merely for judicial innovation but also for the political, social, environmental impact generated by them. The book is easy read. It describes complicated judicial cases in layman language. It balances legal jargon with common day explanation of cases.

Zia Mody's chart is topped by predictable Keshvananda Bharti. She described pre-history of each case without getting into unnecessary details of the case. The description of cases is supplemented by her own thought on developments of the case and thoughts of various legal luminaries on the issue. She has frequently quoted lines from court verdicts. She also does a comparative analysis of various court cases.

She has exercised caution in criticizing some judicial failure but this has not kept her from highlighting judicial failure in certain cases. As she goes into the pre-history of each case, she happens to cover a large canvass of judicial history of post-independent India. For example, Her description of Menka Gandhi case mentions ADM Jabalpur, A.K. Gopalan, Satwant Singh and reference list of large number of related cases.

She has covered a huge spectrum covering women empowerment, free speech, due procedure of law, environmental activism or second generation rights like in Olga Tellis vs BMC. She has captured the essence of each case with an apt-heading. For instance, Shan Bano was described by line "Whose Law Is It Anyway?" or SCARA vs Union of India as "Courting Liberty".

However, Indian judicial history is so vast and dynamic that any attempts to condense it in 230 page would eventually leave some important cases. One very striking omission was no mention of S.R. Bommai Case of 1988 which re-defined application of article 356 and appointment of governors. Similarly FM Arun Jaitley emphasized on role of free speech cases in Judicial history. This is not emphasized enough. Free speech cases are given a soft pass in the book.

Book has captured some cases from 21st century like Aruna Shaunbeg case. However, recent activism of supreme court requires a separate book in itself. Cases like National Judicial Appointment Commission vs. Union of India, Death penalty case of Machchi Singh/Bachchan Singh case of 1980's which defined rarest of rare doctrine in India, judicial activism against corrupt politics on Representation of People's act requires a second book.

Overall, this book is a must read for law students. It is also a informative read for civils candidate. The easy language and pre-history makes it a good read for common readers. Zia Mody has done a good job but she could also contemplate writing 10 cases where judiciary failed to change India or a sequel to this book which list the recent themes of 21st century.

Year 2015

Another year is coming to a close. This year was full of excitement, fun, struggle, disappointments, frustration, happiness, activities, confusion and new experiences. My discovery of self continued. Undoubtedly, I can term it as most versatile and unforgettable year of my life. Most of it for negative reasons.

A quick recap of the year. It began with placid morning of new year. In the coming week, my sister was visiting India so I spent some time at home but begul of Delhi Election kept drawing my attention. I left company of my sister and came to Delhi. In Delhi, I participated in Election Campaign. In between 26 Jan parade and Barmer trips were fun experiences.

Immediately after elections, I left for spiritual-recreational-religious tour of Bihar and Nepal. It was a grassroot unplanned trip. I was lucky to get some last minute reservations and thus began my back-pack voyage. I travelled to Sammed Shikhar, Kundalpur, Gaya, Nalanda, and Nepal. In Nepal, I attended 10 days Vipasana camp in Lumbini. After Lumbini, I toured Kathmandu on Activa. From there, I went to one of the most scenic destination of Nepal, Pokhara. The detailed travalogue of trip demands couple of full blogs in itself so here I would limit myself to general summary. On my return trip, I visited Gorakhnath Temple in Gorakhpur. 

I met many inspiring, and amazing people. Most people I met wondered about the insanity of travelling alone. In my experience, travelling alone brings new insight, enable greater joy and provide opportunity to introspect and to connect with nature and your own soul. I still remember the sound of dhols and bells which were played at Pashupati Nath temple. I can feel the breeze of air which touched my skin while I was meditating in the middle of a lake on a boat in Pokhara. Just thinking about those sensations has a very cathartic experience. With Holi celebration at home, I came back to Delhi with my back pack which consisted of 4 set of cloths, one pair of shoes and some electronic gadgets.

Anyway, soon after the trip, I began with the pursuit of disciplining my daily life, a struggle which continues till date. I got engaged in numerous activities. For instance, explored cultural life of Delhi, helped an NGO with material preparation for Magazine , attended my psychology classes and finished psychology assignments, started gymming, running, blogging and meditation on daily basis. In the mean time, idea of going for Kailash Mansarovar trip caught up in my mind. I started preparation for the same. But somehow, Srini was able to convince me about idea of Cohortplus. We had been intellectually farting over the idea for six months. Time was running and the desire to do something constructive and productive was building up heavily. Eventually, I chose to work on Cohortplus over going to Kailash Mansarovar.

Meanwhile Civil Services Mains results were out after much delay. A brief experience of happiness occured. After 2 consecutive mains failure, the interview call was a pleasing experience. However once bitten twice shy, I was aware of unpredictability of civil services from my first year experience.  Thus,  Next 3 weeks were completely dedicated to make the most out of the opportunity.

April 30, My interview date. Interview went Ok. Definitely not the best but not the worse either. Immediately after, I moved to Bangalore. Me and my back pack. After 7 years, once again I travelled ticketless for 36 hours evading possible encounters with ticket examiners, slept in closed wooden box which was used for stuffing bed sheets and pillows for passengers and enjoyed hot railway meals.

The quest to build application began. For next 5 and half months, me, Srini, Rahul, Karan worked hard to make this App a reality. I had many moments of dis-belief, frustration and confusion in this pursuit of uncertainty but I salute Srini for holding on to his conviction, reposing his trust in me and working on the idea to make this a reality. Looking back, I think these 5 months were crucial in reigniting my interest in technology after such a long break. And I must sincerely thank Srini for this.

In between, lot of water flowed under the bridge. I visited Delhi almost every other month. Purpose was different each time. Once it was a family function, next time it was Psychology papers assignment for which I had finished in March. Me, Sushant, Prathmesh and Vikas undertook two fun trips to Amritsar Golden Temple, Bagha border and Dehradun, Hrishikesh. I travelled to Vaishno Devi with my parents on a memorable and blessed trips. I consider myself fortunate for getting opportunity of getting darshan of Vaishno Devi shrine 3 times in period of 24 hours and also visiting ArdhaKumari without waiting for even 3 hours. Most people get waiting time of 36 hours for ArdhaKumari. Sometimes, luck falls on my side. But most of the time, it is a sail against tides. Few days after visiting Vaishno Devi, I had my results out and as usual it was "not found" result for my roll number. Heart breaking, sense numbing but life has given me enough lessons to take these hiccups with ease and calm. I celebrated the failure with ice creams and some hip shaking in the Night. Next morning, I visited Nandi Hills with my sister, her intended and her friends.

All the emotions and entropy generated was channelized to Cohortplus. We had a target launch date and We badly wanted to not miss it. Company of Anup, Shekhar and Srini made my stay very fulfilling. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay with them. We explored lot of local food joints and discussed randomly about movies, books, travels, entrepreneurship, politics and random ideas. Most of the time, I was only an active listener to their conversation. It was really fun and education to listen to them. The apartment was located in rich society with facilities of Tennis, Swimming, Gym etc.
I started my swimming, running, gymming and meditation schedule on more regular basis. But my struggle to discipline my schedule continued. Start ups are always demanding experience so my schedule became obvious casualty of night outs or stretched working hours.

Amid all this excitement and learning of entrepreneurship, disappointment of civil services, fun company of learned flat mates, struggle of maintaining my schedule lay the confusion. Confusion of what to do for rest of my life. Should I aim to become a teacher or IT professional or political psephologist or researcher or entrepreneur or just continue with the pursuit of civil services? The vividness of my dreams, incompleteness due to failure in civil services, desire to do something meaningful, something where I can discover same momentum, same energy or similar conviction as I possessed during civil services haunted me.

Its not like I did not know what to do or if I was short of options or skills. It was my ambitious attitude which wanted to make maximum out of opportunity in my alternate career. At the same time, a part of me remained trapped in lofty dreams of becoming IAS. Almost 100 times, I had reached to the conclusion that pursuing career in IT as professional or teacher would be my best bet. But whenever I read something thrilling about other fields, a part of me wanted to drift in other direction. Srini was putting constant effort in looping me for start up thingy. Reconciling this inner conflict was one of the biggest challenge I faced after civil result. Way more challenging than dealing with frustration of repeated failure or seeing my luck beaten by hundred others who appeared for Interview.

In between came this unexpected trip to USA. This trip turned out to be a novel experience which enriched my overall journey of 2015. It demands a separate blog in itself. Will write about it some other time.

Right now, I am in Amsterdam, waiting for my connecting flight back home. Will be heading to Bangalore to fulfill my commitment with Srini. He has been very considerate and helpful throughout. Now time has come to pay him back.

With the end of year coming to close, I have also sort of crystallized my thoughts for my future endeavours. Become an IT expert, learn as many technologies as possible, settle in Noida, help students in civil services preparation for free, run in marathon, write regularly, read daily 10 pages of a book, meditate and read poems. But one prerequisite to this is need to settle at one place and to discipline my mind.

It was one wonderful year where I simply flowed with the flow. Overall It was one of the most unforgettable year of my life. But an experience which is gud once in a decade only. Civil Services results left an indelible scar. There is no bitterness or wounds but scar remains.
To sum it up, I can say, "In this year, I learned to flow with the flow".

Annugachchti Pravaham :)

India's environment history: Does it provide any answer for sustainable development

Today world is facing a perilous state of climate and weather patterns. The year 2015 is termed as hottest year of earth's recent civilizational history. High level emission of carbon di oxide and other green house gases has pushed the temperature by nearly 1%. According to research report, an increase of 2% would lead to irreversible state. It may cause unbearable change in crop and climate patterns. An increase of 1.5% would lead to submergence of many island nations like Maldives and indo-pacific islands. It will lead to submergence of more than 50% of rice cropping area of Bangladesh. In India, It may lead to change in crop seasons, frequent droughts during Monsoon season and more intense rain in localized regions. Scholars proposes Sustainable development strategies as possible solution to curb such menacing trends.

Sustainable development refers to judicious usage of existing resources so that we can save enough for our future generations. Today, we are surviving on finite resources like oil, water or minerals. With increasing population, these resources are going to finish very soon. Therefore, it is advisable to use them as per our need and not as per our greed.
India's environment history presents various lessons about this.

India has a civilizational history of nearly 3500 years. The land has various sort of geographical features be it mountains, rivers, snow clad peaks, deserts, plateau or coastal island. We have survived many environmental calamities in the past. We have also created some environmental tragedies for ourselves in current past and present epoch. Thus India's rich civilizational knowledge teaches us some positive lessons on sustainable development and simultaneously it tells the world about various don'ts to preserve the environment.

If we study Harappan Civilization, we find evidence of water harvesting in Kalibangan. The architectural design of cities and houses could be useful for current day problems of water resource management. In Kalibangan, houses were devised in such a manner that any waste water from Kitchen would flow into the deep earth. This principle could help us in managing water in water stress regions.

Similarly, in Dholavira, Houses were made of burnt bricks but they were plastered with powder made of rice husk. This acted as artificial air conditioning for the house. This way people survived even in hot and humid season without any electricity or diesel fuel consumption. Such architectural knowledge could help us in dealing with problem of reducing hydrocarbons or electricity shortages.

The houses in Ashoka's time were made of woods. This architectural design was suited for earth-quake prone Indian landscape. Currently nearly 68% of Indian landmass falls under earth-quake prone region. If we could learn from these examples of dealing with environmental calamity then we can achieve the goal of sustainable development.

Similarly, if we look at our traditional knowledge then we can derive immense amount of information which could help us in developing in sustainable manner. For example, recently Farmers of Nalanda city in Bihar recently used system of rice intensification technique to increase rice productivity by 4-fold. This has set a guinese book world record for maximum rice productivity in a given sphere of land. This feat was achieved without use of any pesticide or insecticides. It was purely organic in nature. If we can spread this practice to all over India then we can reduce our consumption of artificial fertilizers. Fertilizer manufacturing uses nearly 80% of our natural gas consumption. Thus subsequently, our natural gas usage would be reduced. This natural gas could be used for other productive purposes or be saved for future generations thus helping us in achieving ideals of sustainable development.

Another model from our environment history could be learned from Village Ralegaon Sidhdhi. Here, efforts of Anna Hazare has turned a once barren land into productive land with the use of organic farming and social capital. Similarly Tarun Bharat Sangh has achieved similarly feat in Alwar district. Tarun Bharat Sangh used the concept of water budget. He gathered 120 villages which were facing water problems and devised canal system which could help in solving their water problem.

There are numerous other example from Indian civilizational history which have turned the hostile environment into a profitable proposition. For example, Local harvesting system like Bawari in Rajasthan, or Use of solar+wind lamps in Laddakh or social movements like chipko or Appiko which helped in saving large amount of natural resources and forests.
We can draw lessons from these best practices and environmental movements. These explain the power of social capital and awareness. This would certainly help in reducing our resource consumption and sustainable development.

However, failure and mistake is a better teacher in life. This stands true in the context of our environment history as well. India has committed countless mistake in managing environment. We can draw bigger lessons from those events. One such example comes from city of Faridabad.

Faridabad is located hardly 20 km from the national capital. The city had nearly 800 small and big lakes at time of independence. However, recent survey shows that city has hardly 10 lakes left. Moreover, the biggest lake which was used for boating and water activities has turned into playground for kids. The water table has gone abysmally low. Why has this happened? This happened because of neglect of administration, sudden upsurge in population of the city and irresponsible and unaccounted use of water for agriculture and industrial activities. From this, we can learn to avoid mismanagement of existing resources.

Similarly, we can learn from Koena dam. The dam was built in a earth quake prone region. When quake came, it led to crack in the dam and as a result thousands of villages were submerged and great destruction of life and animals occurred. We can learn to focus on micro-dam instead of mega-dams. This teaches us to do proper geological research before taking this big projects.

Similarly, Tsunami crisis taught us importance of Mangrove ecosystem for coastal village life. The Villages which were shielded by Mangrove were protected better and faced little wrath of high waves. The villages where Mangroves were removed saw severe destruction. Moreover Mangrove vegetation in coastal zone acts as a fisheries zone. It provides various rich mineral and plants with medicinal values.

Our legislative history in environment domain teaches us about ill-effects of having a fragmented law. For example our air pollution, water pollution and noise pollution laws are separated. This creates problem for all stakeholders in implementing laws. Our state pollution control board have become non-functional due to poor finance and poor expertise.
Had there been a comprehensive law on environment, It would be easy to monitor different resources and various organization would not work at cross purpose.

Another fine example from our environmental history is of Excavation of Aravalli. Aravallis are considered residual mountain. They stretched from Gujrat-Rajasthan border to Delhi. They acts as major source of rainfall in Rajasthan during Monsoon. Recent media reports showed that in region around Delhi, Aravali are excavated so heavily that they are not more than mounds of sand or stone. Their distinguished geographical features are peeled off. As a result, we also see lesser rainfall in Delhi region.

Similar ambiguity in Land-use pattern laws have led to appropriation of forest land or conversion of forest land into industrial, or residential land. There are various other milestones in environmental history like Bhopal gas tragedy, frequent floods, Judicial intervention on CNG usage which teaches us various dont's and do's to achieve the ideal of sustainable development.

Today, world is facing serious problem of climate change and green house gas emission. If we continue driving the same road, then we may end up with oil wars, resource crunch, famines, which can ultimately lead to destruction of human civilization. Alternatively, we can learn from our mistakes in recent past like Koena Dam or Aravali Mountain or Mangrove destruction and implement our ancient knowledge to achieve the goal of sustainable development.

Gandhi Ji remarked "World has enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed". We need to follow these principles to achieve harmony with mother nature. We need mother earth more than mother earth needs us. Thus time has come that we shall be united in judiciously using our resources and use water harvesting, or natural sources of energy. Otherwise we shall perish.

Pluralism and Secularism in India

Recently, I was having discussion on "rising intolerance" and "economic agenda of Modi" with a friend on Facebook. After lot of push and pulls, my friend said "Beef ban could be justified on the ground that in democracy, majority wins the game of numbers so minority ought to be listen to them". Well, soon the election results were out. Seems like people of Bihar, did not like this notion of democratic majority. Modi received one of the "biggest electoral setbacks of his life". Bihar's mandate could not be construed as entirely "anti-modi" rather it should be seen in terms of combined wave created from caste-class politics, grass-root connections, "Bihari vs. bahari" debate and slowly evaporating warmth for Modi's grand promises during the national election and his speeches from high podium of Red-forts. However, My friend's line of thought left me pondering over question of pluralism and secularism in India.

Over 3500 years of continuous civilizational history, India survived the onslaught of Aryans (debatable, saffron leaders believe that horses were original inhabitant of India), Grecko-bactrian, Parthians, kushanas, Turks, Mughals and later European powers. While west struggled against nature, India struggled against invasion from the outsiders. The major reason behind this survival was our civilizational values of tolerance, accommodation, kindness and humanity. The impact of Indian culture was so deep that most of the kings were Indianized in the process. This could be reflected in historical antecedents where Kushana king named his son "Vasudeva" (an Indian name). Selucus married his daughter to Maurya Dynasty. Akbar had nine ratna in his court house, many of them were non-muslims. The geography, culture and way of life was so rich that invaders could find the right balance between their way of life and locals way of life together contributing to general theme of Indian way of life. This Indian way of life was characterized by values of "respect to other's way of life", "values of collectivism", "mutual interdependence", "tolerance to different opinions, customs, costumes, crafts, carnivals, cuisines, cloths etc", "kindness", "peace" and "humanity". This laid the foundation of India's plauralism and Secularism.

Amartya Sen writes in Argumentative Indian, "This is a unique country where among any cross section of 100 people you could find people of 8 different religions namely Hinduism, Budhdhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Muslims, Christians, Zorastrians, and Jews". Herder, a political scholar of Europe argues that a nation with multiple languages is eventually going to break. His thoughts have proved clairvoyant for modern era Europe but India stands a notable exception of his thoughts. Here not just the language but food, festivals, dresses, and many other aspect of life changes every 50 kilometers. We have more than 24 major constitutionally recognized languages and nearly 260 dialects for a country of perimeter of nearly 15K kilometers. Even Rama a major god in Gujarat is a minor god in Bengal. It is difficult to find any similarity between mannerism of a kerala muslims and UP muslims except the skull cap. This diversity of lifestyle and thoughts underlies our civilizational strength of pluralism.

Had India followed the notion of democratic majority's subordination of minority then we would have been a homogeneous country with one language, one way of dress, one religion, one festival, one kind of food habits. And that would have marked the death of idea of India in the past. Some rulers tried to achieve this homogeneity but our spirit to live ( Eros ) was greater than spirit of dying ( Thanatos ). The plans of Bkhtiyar Khilji and Aurangzeb could never succeed. Leaders like Shivaji, Jat and Sikh rebellion kept Aurangzeb on his tenterhooks. And soon after his death, Mughals degenerated to become history.

India has never followed the tradition of democratic majority except for political usage of term. In India, Democratic majority is merely a mechanism for electing a government and a leader. But the government and the leader is bound to obey our civilizational treasure. The seat of power does not give absolute authority. Our age-old time tested value-system and rich cultural diversity draws some red-lines for any governing authority which should not be crossed. Hardliners may argue that "concept of civilizational values" is lame and ambiguous. They may look for some concrete doctrines which would help in governing in rule-bound manner.

Indian freedom fighters and constitutional forefathers were knowledgeable people who had understood Indian history vis-à-vis western model of majority rule. They used this civilizational strength to break the talisman of western hegemony over Indian culture. As a result, Indian constitution encapsulates these values in very articulate manner. It provides the necessary skeleton, the basic framework within which government of the day should rule. Those who wish to remain oblivion to Indian history, can learn about the idea of pluralism and secularism from the constitution. It may not be a treatise of history but it succinctly elaborate various rules of behavior for proper administration.

First, let us see the idea of secularism. Indian secularism is not same as Western secularism. Western Secularism derived concept of Secularism from Machiavelli's thought in "The Prince". Machiavelli argued that "religion should be completely separated from politics". Consequently, Religion should be limited to private sphere of life. This forms the basis of French policy of "Lucite" where Sikhs are banned from wearing turban or Muslims are banned from wearing hijab or the majority population of Christian is banned from flaunting cross in public. Indian secularism believes that state should maintain a principled distance with all religions. In fact, Indian constitution distinctly award certain rights to their citizen under article 25 to 28 and separately protect minority interest against majority domination under article 29 and 20. Under this, an individual has fundamental right to profess, propagate, and practice their religion.

In Indian landscape, religion has been very closely integrated with people's way of life. A number of our choices of food, cloth, and customs are derived from our religious belief. In this context, religion becomes a powerful source of identity for individual. Individual personal mental growth is closely linked with his freedom of religious expression. Ours is a country where ISRO's chief visits Tirupati temple before a major launch or leader of masses are seen wearing rings or trinkets. Thus Constitutional protection of these freedom of expressions becomes quint-essential for our well being and societal well being. No government of the day ought to cross this red lines in visible or invisible manner.

These written rules of secularism has become a guiding light to continue the tradition of pluralism in most integrational manner. Our pluralism refers to our diversity of custom, costume, cuisine, craft, carnivals, communication (Language) and most importantly opinion, thought and beliefs. This has become possible due to our past history of accommodation, respect to other's way of life, tolerance, peace and mutual interdependence. In the present context, concept of secularism as enshrined in our constitutional document provides us the vision and wisdom to maintain this plurality. It rejects the idea of homogeneity. It rejects the idea of domination of majority over minority's way of life. It also rejects the idea of one nation, one language, one religion.

This plurality and path finding light of secularism limits the notion of democratic majority to its political context. Probably, this is the reason India became the largest and one of the most vibrant democracy in the world. Almost all the countries which were emancipated from colonial rule during mid 20th century have succumbed to forces of dictatorship, oligarchy or coup. India stands as a notable exception. This could be attributed to combined DNA of plurality, secularism and democracy in veins of Indian masses. Ours is a country where a chai-walah became prime minister. At one point, we had President with religion affiliation with Islam, Prime minister with religious affiliations with Sikhism and Leader of largest coalition with Christian background. Such diversity could not be find elsewhere in the world.

So let us cherish this diversity and not be drained with the propaganda of beef ban, love-jihad, ghar wapasi or narrow other religious agenda. When the calamity comes, homogeneity is destroyed, Only diversity survives. Let us work together to make India more freer, diverse and consequently much more stronger.

Will look into grammar later..

Book Review: The Old Man and the Sea

This was left unfinished in July. Now completing it.

Few Months back, I was watching television and saw Sushma Swaraj blessing travelers of Kailash Mansarovar Yatra. I felt a sort of pinch and questioned myself about "Why did I miss it?". Even now the desire to visit Kailash Mansarovar has not died. Though earlier purpose was religious but now it would be toned with philosophy, adventure, exploration and appreciation of natural beauty.

I finished reading "The Old Man and The Sea" by Ernst Hemingway. The book describes the struggle of an old man to earn his livelihood by catching fish in the sea. Author elaborates struggle of protagonist Santiago against big fish and sharks for 3 days despite having cramps, cuts and bruises all over the body.

The book gives numerous lessons. One can draw his own conclusion depending on perspective one holds of human life.
It teaches the lesson of endurance in life. Santiago endures for 3 days with strong determination to capture the biggest fish among his community members. He succeed in his goal but as happens in life, success breeds enemy, same happens to him. His prize possession of big fish is eyed and envied Sharks in the sea. And the struggle continues.

It also teaches lesson of futility of striving madly in life to achieve something. Santiago fought for 3 days against hunger, fear, frustration, loneliness, deadly Sharks and luck. In the end, he reached the shore with a useless skeleton of big fish. The whole flesh of his capture was eaten by Sharks. The same happens to good people in contemporary corrupt society. The fruits of your honest hard work are devoured by powerful in the society. In life we keep running behind certain things or ego-enhancing goals but in the end "it does not even matter".

However, When community member look at the skeleton of big fish, Santiago's pride which was lost due to 84 day dry run, is restored and his respect in the community increases. This explains the psychology behind passionately following certain goal. Though one may end up only with a skeleton in the end but respect one earns and pride one gathers through the process is immensely self fulfilling. Nitzsche aptly puts it "whatever does not kill you makes you stronger".

Another observation one could draw is "When bad time comes, It doesn't just rain, it pours". Life is like a ship. Ships are not made for standing at shore. They are built to sail in the sea and explore the unchartered territories of human world. A still life is not worth living.

Anyway, the book is a classic of English literature. It is a good motivational read. Hemingway has described events with artistic details and incisive precision. A reader not aware of boat design or art of fishing may find it difficult to follow the jargon or visualise the details. Otherwise author has infused life into the character with his use of literature. This book reminds me of the movie "Life of a Pie".

Book Review: English, August by Upmanyu Chaterjee

Its been long time. I have been writing here and there in scattered fashion but blog is totally overlooked. Anyway, finished reading English, August so thought of putting a book review for it.

Book is fictional account of a young elite class metro kid who lands into civil services through IAS examination. He recounts his experience of first on-the-job training in hinterlands of Madna.

The bengali boy with sanskritized name Augustya, born to hybrid culture of Goanese mother and Bengali father finds it difficult to adjust to small town life of officialdom and hierarchy. He meets interesting people each characterizing the mundanness of civil services.

The book is full of dark humor, sarcasm interlaced with cheap yet frank sexual fantasies. It describes the restlessness and frenzy of thoughts in the mind of convent educated, sexually deprived, drug addicted young and able officer who is struggling with job-person misfit. His experience with office etiquette and rules, interaction with seniors and colleagues, and secret life of officer is described beautifully with wit and sarcasm. The book is sort of a rebels account of services lampooning it as inefficient and waste of time.

The author used his literary skills to capture the randomness and flippant nature of young officers. It was more like a daily diary of field training days. The officer class culture of 2 meals a day, IAS vs the rest , junior-senior bonding are explained in detail.

This is a manageable read for fiction loving convent educated civil services candidate who have never seen a village or never traveled in buses. It can help correcting the misplaced expectations of Lal-batti aspiring individuals. One may read it for the love of literature as well.However, It would be waste of time for people who are discretely aware of differences between a 3rd tier and metro city and who knows the ground reality of the country.

Unnecessary files getting checked in GIT

https://premaseem.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/git-status-shows-files-as-changed-even-though-contents-are-the-same/

good use of git rm and git reset command to remove unnecessarily checked out files.

Post from September.. :)

The days are so happening now days. There are many new things happening everyday. Most of them positive and some negative developments.
I wish I could garner enough strength to write on a daily basis. But some times sharing my inner thoughts on blog does not seem a good idea given that I have a common blog for my tech related posts and general posts. However, I feel inspired by my Mausi Ji who writes so much everyday despite having a grueling schedule of Job, household chores, Palmistry etc.

Anyway, I am enjoying joyful, insightful company of Anup, Shekhar and Srini. Our kitchen is cursed for cooks. Every new cook end up facing some or other tragedy. Earlier Basant, the cook came but soon cyclone in Odisha washed away his house. Later his father also died. So he left. The next, also from Odisha, met similar fate. His Mother died so he also left. Sad. Some times I wonder, how painful or cruel are these moments in comparison to not clearing a exam or not meeting a deadline.
Anyway, My flatmates and me have spotted an opportunity in this. I have explored number of food joints in Bangalore in last 3 months. Recently we visited La Kasa. It had variety of things. I had American dish, Shekhar and Srini had TIbetan while Anup had mexican dish. Sorry, I do not remember names of dishes we had. One afternoon we visited BBQ Square(Turkish food). Before that Napoli, Espresso Cafe, Whats in the Name, Big Brewsky, AAngan, Bakasur, GoldKonda Chimney, Maxmuller, Ant cafe, Tomatino, Luhoan, Earth Planet, Calvins, and few others... Some times I wonder on the rich and lavish life style people live. Most of the time, my gaze is observational. I pity the difference inside and outside the restaurant.
But at other times, I think these are the economic conduits from where money of rich, fortunate and extravagant flow into the economy and reach to the poor.

Apart from food and fun, what makes the company of Anup, Shekhar and Srini more interesting and joyful is their vast knowledge and world view. It is tough to find similar breadth of knowledge in people outside civil services arena. Thus discussions are more rationale, liberal, critical and deep in nature. Anup has good food taste and has traveled a lot. Srini has great command over trivia and general start up related discussion. He is a live walking linkedin. Shekhar is avid book reader and movies lover. Just listening to their conversation is some times so enthralling that it ignite my craving for books and movies.

Start up experience is also good but it is not as great as I expect it to be. This is probably because we do not have strong technology team so learning does not get multiplied. Its like you slog, you search and you find the solution. But some times, having a senior mentor or other colleagues helps in breaking seeming unsolvable problem of technology.
Schedule is not going great. Deadlines have spoiled my schedule. I have to take some serious tough decisions. May be making schedule as my first priority than start up. My flatmates are also not very inspiring in this regard.

Sometimes, I feel really confused about my career choice of making IT as my primary career and Civil Services teaching as fun, hobby and time pass activity. Lot of doubts clutter my mind. Loads of money, good network in Civil Services coaching is great thing. But some how Civil Services teaching does not seem very futuristic. It seems mundane. Technology is more transformational in nature.

Anyway will write further on this later. Need to separate my blogs too.

Loading contact details of person in Android

Very helpful android code snippet
http://www.higherpass.com/android/tutorials/working-with-android-contacts/2/

Loading my small java code on servlet start up

I was confused about how to execute my java code automatically when servlet container is started. Found a quick solution on this
http://crunchify.com/how-to-run-java-program-automatically-on-tomcat-startup/

Here init method of any servlet could be used to run or load some code.

Working with GIT

As the number of files and number of team members increase, It becomes essential to move to some standard code repository management system. We have number of options like Perforce, Svn, ClearCase etc. We decided to move ahead with git for couple of reasons. Firstly, open source nature of product and secondly, available android and eclipse plugin for the same.

However, Due to my lack of knowledge about Git and time constraint, I am still confused about smooth merging of files and branching in git. I found following document very useful in this regard.

http://rogerdudler.github.io/git-guide/

Recently, some one made a mistake in git repository using my user name (I am still not sure if I made those deletes). Thus a lot of work had to be repeated. Thankfully I had some back up files so things worked out for me.

Anyway, Done. Will continue writing about my daily learning. Of all the things, taking up laptop and writing is most difficult to put into routine. Anyway, I am sure it is just matter of starting on a regular basis. Things will be simplified.

Problem of Digital Ocean tomcat refusing to start properly

Following commands could be used to find out about the process which is listening to a particular port.

lsof -i :8000
ss -nlp | grep 8000
nmap
socklist
sudo netstat -tapen | grep ":8000 "


Ref: http://askubuntu.com/questions/278448/how-to-know-what-program-is-listening-on-a-given-port

Social Apathy

I was reading news item on TOI in the afternoon and came across one sad news. A young BBA student (22 year old) died unattended after being hit by a speeding car in one of the most apathetic cities of the world "New Delhi". It is so unfortunate that so many people loose their life and meet their moment of death in such miserable and agonizing way. This happened on the eve of his sister's wedding. I can not imagine the pain his parents must have felt.

In India, 1.4 Lakh people die every year in road accident. More than 5 Lakh people are left handicapped with their limbs or some body part sliced off the body. It is so unfortunate that despite 75 years of our independence, we have not been able to build proper roads. Hardly 2% of the roads are national highways. And this 2% carry nearly 40% of traffic volume. Driving in India is not at all fun. It is pain.

The need of hour is to focus on 4 E's. The first one is engineering of roads. Most of our roads are so poorly designed that even the highways develop foot deep holes after one rainy season. The dracula of corruption sucks all the money provided for road development. Be it private organization or public entity, corruption has hit both of them alike. At national level we do not even have proper national highway development authority. I remember, once I was in Kanpur. I went to appear for UP-PSC examination. I was late, the city hotels were literally full with aspirants so there were no free rooms. I searched in dozens of hotels but all were full. Somehow I managed to find a room but it was too costly. I thought of sharing it with some one. I spotted two other boys roaming around looking like aspirants. I approached them, asked them if they are also hunting for rooms. They agreed to share with me. Anyway, story begins. One guy was nephew of UP minister. He told me about various methods of corruption in official tenders. He explained how a 3000 crore sum of money allocated for road building was siphoned off by fraud organizations without even laying single brick on the road. Official inspection declared that road was built but due to heavy rains and flood situation, it was destroyed in the next season.

Roads are considered the first step in bringing development to any region. Today most of Indian infrastructure problem starts with lack of roads. The lack of backward-forward connectivity results in city becoming island of development while village hinterland turns into ripening ground for naxalism. Sharat Joshi of Shetkari Sanghatan has explained this in his thesis of India and Bharat. Whether it is problem of inaccessibility of colleges or it is problem of overburdening of railways, the root cause is lack of roads. Therefore, It would be prudent for administration to focus on roads if they are serious about projects like Make in India etc. Modi is visionary in this regard. He understand most of these grass root problems but somehow he has failed to follow the right steps despite knowing the solution. One, he has put one of the most corrupt minister Shri Shri Gadkari as Transport minister. And adding salt to injury, Modi is talking of digital roads when we do not even have proper physical roads.


My nephew is no more. :( :( :( :( :(

Will write later.

Numerology

A leader is one who knows the day, shows the way and goes the way. I remember meeting a Jain Saint. He was living in a lonely place. I asked him about his food and health. He told me that holy scriptures says "if some one become a saint, he'll always has at least 10 follower". This rule applies to practical world also. If some one is walking on a certain path of which the world does not know or people are not really sure, the person will always find at least 10 people supporting his way of life. Thus a leader is never alone. He always has 10 supporters. In the lighter vein, I think this is the reason why election commission of India's election candidature form requires 10 guarantor only. EC officials know, whichever caste, class, color, creed a person belong, she can always find 10 supporters. So egalitarian in their approach.

Even I see, most of my blogs have a read count of 10 on first day. Some goes viral to the modest scale of 100 but that happens slowly. I do not claim any sort of leadership. But this shows the serendipity of numbers. May be a proof for ancient number theory experts, the so called omniscient numerologists. I am not sarcastic. I am simply bewildered that why any of these things never work for me.

Anyway, I observed another interesting thing in last few days. I came across a very similar android APP which I am working on right now. This induced me to draw a correlation with common theory of face resemblance. I remember, during childhood days, someone told me that every person has 6 other persons with nearly similar face. It means among the total 7 continents in the world, each face is replicated 7 times. Same is the case with any idea. I feel at any given point of time, an idea is executed by 7 teams or groups of people around the world. Some you may know, some you may not be aware of. Whoever do it with persistence, pace and patience emerges as a winner. NASA today announced discovery of earth like planet. I believe there are 6 other such planets. Anyway, mere arm-chair theorising. Let science do it bit before I speak of it so loudly. Similar is the case with 7 Nakshatras.

Any way enough of random thoughts. Will post the rest of it later and will try to bring some substance.

Phir Likhenge.

Exam Result

This post was due for long time. Last few days brought a new kind of experience. Once again a "no match" search on civil services results file. It was heartbreaking but you can not do any thing about it except thinking what else could I have done to be in the list? Many thoughts criss-crossed my mind. I thought of compiling them but somehow inertia of writing my thoughts kept me at bay or may be I did not want to make them public. Today, My friend asked me to read his article on Medium.com. This inspired me to begin my quest of writing once again. I sorted through my previously unpublished blog where I had listed "Things I wanted to do for rest of my life". I re-read that article. It felt good. So I decided to make it public and follow it in my routine.

Last 3 months were exhilarating. Many things happened. Civil Service Interview, Train journey to Bangalore, Psychology papers, Amritsar trip with friends to Bangalore, Vaishno Devi trip with parents, Sister's engagement, Entrepreneurial experience in Bangalore with friends, developing a product from scratch and working daily 13-14 hours to meet a deadline, rebuilding the confidence that I can make a dent in technology field as well, Civil Services result, and encouraging messages from my friends from Facebook. Especially message, wall posts from friends, and calls from well-wisher telling me what difference I have made to their lives was amazing. It felt really good. I remember 6-7 years back I was having dinner at a pot-luck party with my friends and some body asked me What will make me feel truly happy? I contemplated real hard and eventually answer came that If somebody come and tell me that I have made a difference in their life for better then I would be on cloud nine. The purpose of preparing for Civil Services exam was to reach to a platform where I can make a real difference to people's lives. It provides widest and amazing platform to serve common man. Though I could not achieve my dream but I feel great about my effort and encouraging messages I received from my friends on Facebook and phone. Probably first time in five years (except my sister's marriage) tears came in my eyes reading those messages.

I wonder how a split seconds mistake can change the direction of life. I always believed Interview was my forte. I had flawless mock interview sessions so a sense of feel-good factor was there. I scored 140 (highest score) out of 200 in the state level interview. Earlier I had scored 210/300 at national level. However, This time script had a Shakespearean climax. Interview on that fateful day was not up to the mark. My final score was 727 in written exam and 138/275 in Interview. By any stretch of imagination, The score could not have been worse. So score of 138 this time was indigestible. I contemplated hard on various mistakes I made in the interview. With the advantage of hindsight, I could spot couple of mistakes I made.

Mistake 1:
One of the board member asked me about problems which are plaguing state pollution control board. Somehow, very unnatural of me, I spitted that "Many of these boards have become retirement parks." The person sitting on the other side table was a retired IIT professor, parked in UPSC. And to add to my misfortune, He was the chairman of board who possess the sole discretion of awarding final marks. I could see his face color changing instantaneously. But damage had been done. So uncharacteristic of me, I thought.
Mistake 2:
One member asked me whether excessive criticism of Freud is justified or not. I replied saying, "Sir I can not comment whether the criticism was unjustified or not but his thoughts received lot of negative publicity due to excessive focus on sex and unconsciousness". And to add to my misfortune, The use of word sex was so explicit and I found myself looking into eyes of chair man while saying this. A RSS hardcore. Again it irked him. I guess

Rest was OK. and He awarded me 50% keeping me out of waiting list also. I wonder how two innocent responses could make difference to whole of my life? For all these years of failure or unsuccessful attempts, I always questioned that among the destiny or hard work which one rules? Most of the answers were, "Hard Work can change your destiny". Some people says, Destiny is fixed. You can not change it but I question that. However, seeing this year result I have stopped believing in destiny, hard work, god, religion and many other things. There is only one truth randomness. You can reduce this randomness by working hard but random can hit you under the belt. And that too in most unexpected manner.

In a sense, I feel liberated as well from the shackles of many things. Few things I am listing:
1. Notion that things are pre-ordained to happen is myth.
2. Developed notion that God is just matter of faith and conviction. I visited Vaishno Devi. I was bewildered to see some people 14 km on mountain by walking on stomach and standing in queue 1 kilometer long. It is all faith.

Randomness is the ultimate truth of life. Thus most wonderful thing to do in life is to reduce randomness of life and bring certainty. Technology/ Science has that capacity to reduce randomness of life. It brings stability in human life. Swami Vivakanand said "Service of Human Kind is Service of God". Technology provides best instrument to achieve this goal. Teaching in technology can be much nobler. Anyway, defeats and failures have great corrective influence in life. Year after year, I used to sit down on my chair immediately after seeing "no match" result and used to list my mistakes and make a to-do and not-to-do things for next attempt. This time it was last attempt so felt a void or hole.

I am not sad and I am no more disappointed. Time heals everything. I feel liberated for the reason that I could not have done better. I can stand with my head high. I feel much stronger, much more relaxed and prepared to deal with randomness of the life. I feel more drawn to poetry as well. I feel much more disciplined after years of relentless preparation. And of all the things, I am definitely a better human being, more prepared than ever to embrace failures of life. The knowledge of political science and psychology and other topics of civil services preparation has enriched me heavily. For last 3 months I have lost touch with current affairs but now time has come to pick it up again and do some thing much more exciting, innovative, creative to make this world a better place to live for all of humanity.

Book Review: Bureaucrazy gets Crazier

Completing the full circle. Back to Bangalore after so many years. Traveled 36 hours with waiting reservation. Last time I traveled ticket-less for such long distance was in year 2006 when I decided to visit my home for Diwali at the last moment. so now back to square one.

Anyway coming to more interesting things. I finished reading M.K.Kaw's insiders account of how bureaucracy functions compiled in book "Bureaucrazy gets Crazier". Kaw's book is compilation of his writings on Bureaucratic experience which were published for over 40 years. In one line, it will make you laugh at the fullest capacity of your lungs and explode all the myths about civil services. The book literally lampoons bureaucracy for its so-called nameless faceless and self less "service" of the nation. It is a must read for some one entering into bureaucracy, to set his expectations right and give him fair picture of power play which takes place in high echelon of power corridor. However, It could be demotivating for idealist blokes who take bureaucracy as a holy job demanding high level of renunciation and spirituality.

The book ludicrously typifies various Babu's personality characteristics like a Yes-Man or No-man or Yes-but-no man or yes-man proper. Kaw has drawn full experience of his bureaucratic service in describing bureaucratic habits of saying No or making excuses like "sahab ghusal mein hai or Sahab park gaye hai or sahab pooja kar rahe hai". The family history of bureaucracy gives extra punch to your service to the nation and person knows in his womb when to take deputation or study leave or which ministry to work for or what foreign posting to aspire for. And your patrons like Nana, Papa and Sasur ji all together ensures that right transition takes place at right muhurt and no evil forces obstruct your steep rise.

The book explains politician - bureaucracy relationship with incisive insight. How a difficult political leader is managed by bureaucrats by laying supine in front of them or how a tame leadership is taken for a ride by bureaucracy. Sometimes the politician-bureaucrats travel the journey of career graph together. The relationship graduates from BDO-MLA to DM-MP to Secretary-Minister to Principle Secretary-Chief Minister. As elsewhere, sycophancy pays heavily. Bureaucrats should learn the art of laughing at the same joke n number of times with full capacity of your lungs which can risk bursting your stomach. Laughing on seniors joke or politician tell-tale stories pays in career rise. However Laughing comes with own risk. When politicians fortunes take down slide, the bureaucrats aspiration may also go for toss, unless he changes his side conveniently.

The book displays authors full command over English language and can act as a dictionary of difficult English words for naive readers. Moreover, some difficult jargon demands above-average grey matter to grasp his dark humor and sarcasm. Kaw has taken examples from his own life and from his conversation with colleagues, seniors, sub-ordinates and others in power circles. Thus, book presents most authentic insider's view of bureaucracy and caricaturise bureaucrats in unabashed manner. The description of bureaucrats wives and their influence on Husband's work, the importance of wives kitty parties in Bureaucrats fortune turnaround and necessity to listen to peons, clerks, drivers and other office staff to gather information about other IAS officers is described beautifully in the book.

To sum up, It gives a authentic gossiper's account of how bureaucracy functions from inside. Author has made fun of bureaucracy but conveyed many serious advises in most engaging manner. It is a must read for those who have recently wedded civil services or for those who aspire to wed with civil services career. But it is also a fun read all other species as well.

Rule of 21 and rule of 10000

A friend once told me that if I wish to make something activity as a habit of my daily routine then I should ensure that I do the activity for first 21 days. Thereafter it would automatically become part of your routine.

Similarly rule of 10000 says If you invest 10000 hours into some activity then you can develop masterly proficiency in the same.

Enough for now.. will write later

Missed post

It just happened. :)

Gold Medal or world record

Ben Jhonson was once asked "What do you prefer, Gold Medal or World Record"?
He said Gold Medal coz no one can take it away.
He was proved wrong. His medal was taken back when he was tested positive in a dope test.

He argued famously "If you don't take it, You won't make it". Probably that was the order at that time.

There were some people including great Carl Lowis who were alleged to have taken stimulants but they were never caught and thus remained clean..
And then some were convicted unfairly. Time comes when people get judgemental and skeptical about you. But in such situations friends do not seek explanation and enemies don't take explanation. Thus trust is what drives the relationships and the world forward.

For me the answer would have been absolute world record becoz that wud get me gold medal anyway.

Good Night

Thought of the day

Happiness is state of mind.

Few days break

appeared for some mocks. Realised under preparation. So taking few days off to refresh my GS and current affair. Will start again soon.

The index list of "How to prepare series" articles

I always desired to compile my thoughts on various topics related to Civil Services Preparation. I compiled this list long back but somehow this got lost in the noise of other work. Now, time has come when I should start compiling my thoughts slowly but steadily. There are lot of memories. Initially I'll try to put scant immediate information without caring much for structure and other things. Once the material is collected then I would refine it.

One thing, I always wonder about Shashi Tharoor is "How did he write so many books?". He is such a busy person but still he write such bulky books. I wonder if they have large helping staff or people working under him. For writing so much, One should be reading as well in proportionate manner. Thus Tharoor is really commendable in this sense.

Anyway, I do not have much to write today. So just copy pasting the index of articles which I intend to write in next few days. Given that Interview is impending so I may miss the schedule but putting this index here would help me in reminding of the pending work.

Before all this one important article is also remaining i.e. on "Why Technology". I'll write that some time soon.


1. My experience of Civil Services
a. How to write a good answer?
i. Different model answers
b. Preparation tips for 1st/2nd/3rd/4th attempt guys
c. How to score good marks in Essay?
d. How to consolidate the information?
e. What are various memory techniques and how to catalogue information?
f. What are general tips on reading tactics/techniques?
g. What are the various ways to answer questions in subjects and General studies?
h. What are various sources which I should refer while preparing for General Studies?
i. How to prepare for CSAT?
j. How should I utilize my time immediately after the exam?
k. How to keep the momentum of study?
l. What is the ideal balance of fun-family-focus on civil?
m. What are various do’s and don’ts of group study?
n. How to prepare for Interview?
o. What should I do for hobby development?
p. Importance of Discussion in the preparation process?
q. How should one finish new reports/12th Five year plan/IYB/Survey/Budget
r. How to read Newspaper and pros and cons of notes making?
s. Frame of mind on the eve of prelims/mains/interview
t. Behavioral learning during the process and behavioral tips for preparation
u. Subject specific tips
v. Karma vs. Bhagya philosophy
w. Study table arrangements
x. Arrangement of books in the book rack
y. Role of technology
z. Cracking Civil Service with a Job in Hand
aa. Create objective while reading
bb. How to avoid negative answer in exam
cc. 5 point approach/stakeholder/critical point/summary/common sense technique
dd. How to start-end answer?
ee. Prelims vs. Mains orientation
ff. Newspaper Indexing
gg. 10 Common reforms
hh. Multi-dimensional perspective
ii. Quotation/Fact/12th plan/IYB
jj. Revision Rule
kk. How to read Magazines
ll. Indexing tricks
mm. Presentation-prelims/Main/Interview
nn. English Importance and Improvement
oo. Psyche of student – Illusion of Knowledge/Learning Outcome/Learning Strategy
pp. Consistency in newspaper Reading
qq. Rules of Group Discussion
rr. Importance of saying No in Civil Services
ss. Full day waste scenario: Phone calls/ No prior plan of the day/ No long sitting/ Not living in the present


2. Why should I prepare for civil services?
3. What is civil service all about?
4. Importance of failure in the civil services and how to convert it in success?
5. How is this book different from other books?
a. Examples
b. Pragmatic approach over theoretical concepts
c. Purely from experience and nothing text bookish
6. Additional
a. Quotes for essay
b. Mnemonics
c. Various chronology
d. Evolution
e. Important thinkers and their thoughts
f. Interesting facts/events to make the answer interesting
g. Anecdotes/Historical analogies
h. List of books and reference material which one should read/refer
i. Important statistics
j. List of conventions and landmark conferences


Two quotes before signing off...
"Branding is about 90% behavior and 10% communication"
"Logo of a company should be so simple that one could draw it in sand"


Good Night

Civil Services Mains Result

I had a bad dream last night. Woke up late in the morning. Went to psychology lab class.
Later in the evening, I decided to visit Lal Mandir to meet honourable Nangmati Mataji.
She is Jain Saint, very pious and loving in nature. She gave me her blessings.

In the night, we started playing cricket on terrace. Suddenly results came. Somehow my 6th sense got activated. I checked my mobile randomly, and saw upsc result on the system. It was wonderful. Within 5 seconds, I checked my result. Over the years, I have got conditioned to "no matches" search result of pdf files. I was glad that this time it was not so.

The excitement is very measured. Its more tilted to the side of caution. I am thankful to god for providing me this opportunity of interview this time. This is my last try so glad that i have opportunity of taking this one last winning shot at goalpost.

Over the years my patience, character were tested by upsc. May god give me strength to tide over this final barrier. This phase is also equally difficult. Let us hope for the best and do our best. Amen

Entrepreneurship

I attended NITK alumni meet event "Elevator". Listening to Shashank N.D. of Practo, Ajit Pai from Delhivery and Sandesh C. from Chai-Point was very insightful.
The panel discussion was moving on opposite poles. Sandesh and Shashank had contrary advises to share. Shashank has good words of wisdom from his experience of building Practo. My thoughts were more aligned with ideas of Shashank.

He explained "entrepreneurship is like process of self purification". The ups and downs are true test of individual belief in what they are doing and process itself acts as touchstone of character. Many time one has to swallow his ego. Every day is faced with new set of challenges.
For him, the zeal of entrepreneurship came from the problem on which he was working. It was not money or fame or comfort. Instead the idea was to make life of people better. He derived his motivation from the problem itself thus he is able to build such a large organization in short span of time.

The most important thing in building a company is to "get the team right". If your internals are right then investors, money and other things will fall in place automatically.
His passion was infectious. For him, having a plan B means your plan A is dead. This was opposite to the idea of Sandesh from Chai-Point who considered that some basic floor is necessary and having plan B gives more confidence, risk taking ability and peace of mind to the person. Person understands worst case scenario and knows where to start again in the event of failure.

Shashank explained that joining a start up is like working on a accelerated MBA program. So its better to join a start up than pursue MBA. Other speakers also believed that MBA does not really matter. There is no right time for starting your own venture. Best time is to do it now. He mentioned "regret minimalisation framework" i.e. in life we should try to minimize our regrets. If there is something we wish to do, then do it now so that we won't accumulate regret of not doing it.

A company can create value by promoting its money generating power or through showcasing its vision. According to him, both are good but value or attraction created through vision is much more than monetary aspect. So his views were against the conventional wisdom that entrepreneurship is about money. Rightly so. For me as well, Entrepreneurship is about being enterprising, building something, creating something and taking self-motivated initiatives. I do not see entrepreneurship as money motive.

He talked about concept of VUPIM in dealing with dilemmas and taking quick decisions. V stands for vision, U for users, P for practoian (employees of his company), I for investors and M for me. This helps me in keeping the right focus and conduct the business in ethical manner. For him, If every one says your idea is good then probably your idea is not good. If 99% of the people laugh on your idea then you should go with that idea, picking your co-founder and employees from 1% who believe in you. Anyway, all the big changes and revolution in the world originates from small group settings. Hats off to him. keep going dude.

Other guys also chipped in with their words of wisdom. Sandesh talked about importance of grand vision and constantly working towards that. Ajit Pai from Delhivery said "difference between idea and business is execution. A successful execution is function of time and focus you put in that idea".

I have a habit of asking senior people about wisdom of their life. So I met two guys during dinner. I asked them to share their experience. One fellow told me "Life is Hard. Enjoy it." Other person was quite cryptic. He mentioned the inevitability of organizational politics as his learning. I could not decipher much but just kept smiling.

We had good fun talk with a fellow from Booth School. A 1988 batch guy was lean built but very humble and modest. He was quite amiable and discussed good memories and traditions of NITK. I feel NITK is class apart from all the other schools of India in terms of overall extra curricular and co-curricular activities. Though we have not marketted ourselves well but 3 names in top 30 under 30 on forbes magazine is testimony to this. A college with private beach, party politics, pan India look, extensive club culture and very enlightened crowd is rare in the world.

The booth fellow (Himashu Sahu) was a hardcore capitalist. He explained me typical money oriented consumer behaviour. I tend to disagree with him and we had good laughing moments together. Some other fellows were Santanu Bishwas, Pankaj Agrawal, RajKamal, Jaswinder and Harpreet. I pitched my idea of "connect" to all these people. All of them were excited and happy about it. Pankaj Sir were looking forward to communication over idea of Connect, so this is due on me.

People explained power of network and i realised the same. In last few years, I have built good network of civil services aspirants but unfortunately all my tech connections are lost. Some times i feel disappointed about this. But it is just matter of few months. I am sure, I'll pick up in no time.

Day was very happening otherwise as well. But not in the mood to write about other events of the day. Tomorrow again a very hectic day.
Good Night.

Transport conundrum

For five mins, I was thinking whether I should write a long blog today or not. It was already late in the night and I had a tiring day. But then quality can not be compromised for long so I decided that something substantive should come out.

I visited one of the highly regarded pilgrimage tourist destination of Jains, Tijara Ji for some familial purpose. The day was happening, I met Arun (My distant relative) after 13 long years. The worth mentioning part was the return journey. It took me 2:30 hours to cross some 30 km stretch connecting Gurgaon and Delhi. I was really sad to see the sorry state of traffic and transport affairs. Loads amount of fuel was being wasted due to slow speed of traffic. The air was filled with vehicular smoke. It was difficult for people like me who step out relatively infrequently to breath properly. I noticed nearly 300 small vehicles passed by the bus in which I was travelling. Nearly 70% of them had occupancy of 2 or less than two. Nearly 90% had their windows glasses up. I presume they would be using air conditioning.

I am perplexed that why people are not able to comprehend the social impact of their individual actions and social goods of their life style changes. The highway is wide enough to occupy at least 4 lanes of vehicles on each side but still the exponential growth in the traffic has made it ineffective. For the sake of flexibility of schedule, independence and show off People prefer private vehicle over public transport. Most of the executive class make their own environment conducive to health by switching on AC but they forget that cumulative impact of their individual practices worsens the overall atmosphere and directly impact the health and well being of people who prefer to use public transport or are forced to use public transport.

The slow speed of traffic kills productive working hours, burns extra fuel, vitiates the environment, impact health and well being leading to lung cancer, increase pollution and deteriorate the living standards. On the other hand, if some of us are able to make basic life style changes of using public transport once a week or car pooling or replacing cab culture with bus culture then a large part of problem could be solved. However, the shift to life style changes won't happen automatically. Rather Government needs to play a facilitating role.

Firstly, Government needs to spruce their public transport system. We can not advocate the alternative of public transport without having a robust system in place first. For this,Metro rail project should be expedited. The mechanism of rapid transit system needs to be developed such that Bus rail road water or any other mode of transport are integrated in seamless manner so as to make the user experience of travel cheap and convenient. We can replicate Ahemedabad model of Bus rapid transit system. The system has failed in Indore but that is no basis of why it won't work in Gurgaon. Just imagine, what could happen to a person who fall ill in such traffic situation? There was no way to deal with such emergency so that person can come out of the traffic.
Secondly, A regulatory and enforceable framework is necessary for making life livable in such situation. The traffic rules related to lanes should be enforced strictly. The regulatory implementation is also necessary. On basis of such regulatory decisions, We can increase or decrease the number of coaches in Metro rail or increase number of buses or other public transport on roads.
Thirdly, A greater emphasis should be placed on traffic profiling and consequent planning of traffic and road development. India is in the stage of expansion. The land is limited, population and vehicle are increasing exponentially thus we need to use technology in provide real time information on traffic and regulating it accordingly. Electronic toll booth could be one example of effective use of technology in this regard. Further scientific innovations like low altitude flying cars or Chinese Bus cum rail service could be useful to us. We need some policy research on the appropriate length of traffic signal or traffic directions on particular roads.
Fourthly, In Indian context, no solution of road traffic management could be solved by entirely government or technological intervention. We can not borrow western prescription and blindly paste them in Indian context. Indian social milieu is way different from the western individualistic culture oriented developed country. To deal with such situation, we need to think of Indian solution to Indian problems. One part of any Indian problem is associated with lifestyle changes. For example, incentivise car pooling or promoting MNC's to use buses instead of cabs for providing conveyance to employees. Different companies or offices can have different opening or closing timings so that peaks of traffic could be moderated. Once a month Work from home culture or Video conferencing to facilitate work from remote location could be pursued. The approach of limiting number of cars per family or mandatory car pooling or auctioning car number plates or restricting the entry of even number/odd number car on to roads on certain days may seem to go against democracy but in public interest, these are viable and much needed options that should be seriously enforced.

There is lot more to write but will write some other time. I should also try to shape my blogs as newspaper articles, so that I can send it to editors. But anyway, enough for now.

We also had a very good discussion on whether Gita should be taught in schools or not. Will write on that later. Running short of time. Daily. Bad

Good night