Sunday, May 30, 2010

All I Want Is…


Everything! Well, let's be little modest and talk realistically. There are a lot of things that we want to do in our life, and probably my list is little ambitious one. So, here goes the final part of my bucket list that I started couple of week back on this blog-
  1. Skydive alone from 15,000 ft
  2. Own an island at Lakshadweeps
  3. Do a great job as instructor and bring in the change in the system that I am looking for… (details will be in some other blog)
  4. Fulfill my business dreams
  5. Work in the field of micro finance and child education
  6. Adopt a child
  7. Getting married (if I will ever) at some very interesting place… may be under the sea, or on top of Mt. Everest ;)
  8. Able to be in the old physique and able to kick, jump and run again
  9. Direct a movie
  10. Write one of the best fantasy-fiction of all time
Well that's all about the current dreams… but as the life had been 'dreams unlimited' so far… so this list will grow with time.
PS- This was just on the fly list for fun… so no serious talks and questions please ;)

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Please! Let 'em fly...

Now a days, when I see local news paper here, I noticed a lot of focus is given on how Indians are doing in other countries. It is no secret now that many of the top companies in the world are headed by Indians or people of Indian origin. In the list of richest people in world you see two Indians among top five (not referring to any latest list...). But, a common factor in all the stories is that they left the country and then they earned the spot where they are these days. 

India is a amazing country, people here learn to struggle and grow as their life proceeds. So, it makes really easy for them to grow in other countries where the struggle is very less to none and as a result you see LN Mittle, Indira Nui etc. But what are those factors which are keeping same person behind in their own country. Sometimes I think about these factors and in the end everything becomes so complex that I choose to leave this topic. But, now here in VIT I am learning some of these things... and I will share with you as the time permits and relate my experiences with current day problems.

The very first thing that I learned here that we waste a lot of time of some non essential things. I can tell you about many complex processes in India which are comparatively very simple in other countries. Right from any simple work in the municipal corporation of your city to get driving license to just pay your fee in college. Everywhere things are so complex that most of the time we give up. This things lead to corruption, as we are so frustrated with the whole system that we like to pay some extra bucks to get over things done in easy way. With time this dependency becomes habit... and result is what we see around us. Other thing that I have seen is that we spend so much of energy in paper work, for a very small and insignificant work we use a lot of applications, which lead to nothing but wastage of time, energy and paper. I am not opposing the use of papers for important stuff, but using so much paper for nothing never makes sense to me... 

So, in this frustrating atmosphere if someone wants to do something better for himself, for his society and country... probably he/she will spend his young energy is most useless work and but the time that person is ready to explore the world... probably half of his age will be gone! 

Friday, May 14, 2010

Kya Kare Kya Na Kare

It has been more then a month since I joined VIT University. I was one of the interesting decision I made, as those who know me for sometime can't imagine me in the academic field. I joined on March 25th, and it was most weird time to join any education institute in India. The reason being that it as almost term end as exams are there in late April and May. So, there I was... 

After joining here, soon I realized that there was nothing much to do till Summer Semester starts in mid of May, so whole day you are sitting in your office (which is (un)-fortunately in front of Director's office and just above Chancellor's office). I came to know that at least 20 more faculty members are suppose to join in coming months... and then it all started. Suddenly, you became the most senior faculty member among new joinees (although your age and experience clearly shows as you are the youngest one)... many new faculties come to meet me and seek some guidance about finishing some formalities and all those kind of things... they face my face first with a feel of nonacceptance that they are talking to a student (who has faculty ID card and wears tight T-Shirts and designer jeans with Nike shoes). Then they all start speaking some alien language (which indeed called Tamil) and after explaining to them that I don't understand, they move to some other room or talk in English (in last month I spoke the amount of English that I haven't spoke in my first 3 months in US). 

So that was the beginning, after a few days I started to feel alien in my own office as all the new faculties have been assigned room in some other building which is at last 2 Km from here so a whole group decided to stay in my office as I was sharing the office space with two more faculty members (temporarily). Now you feel to realize that you are a product of globalized market... people around you are speaking the languages which sounds very similar and very difficult to understand (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayam.... all in a single room). Also, sometimes you hear some interesting versions of English (Tamil, Chinese etc.) I must add that after Made in China products, and next globally available phenomenon is Made in China Students... 

Finally, you have been assigned some exam duties where you just have to stand for three hours in the hot afternoon and you feel like crashing down to sleep... (I HATE EXAM DUTIES). Somehow, you finished the exam duties and you have been assigned a subject for summer... you start to prepare lecture notes, quizzes etc. When all preparations are in full swing, one night at nine you get an SMS from your colleague that all new faculties will take classes from next Fall semester and your summer class has been canceled :(( The ABET accreditation committee will be visiting your campus this December and you have been assigned responsibilities to develop an Embedded Systems Lab and they also requested (?) to offer a course in Embedded Systems coming fall... and so your life goes on and you SUCCESSFULLY finished your one month in academic field :D