The Machine...

Many a times as a Developer and a computer scientist, I have thought what I see in this in industry is torture of Code. I would compare this to the persecution of Jews by the Nazi regime. I have seen codes being torn apart, getting wasted over time, dying...working as a support person in a C / UNIX project I haven't done coding for about 4 months now. My fingers twitch and get cramped even at the faint attempt of trying to code.

What have I done, What have I become? Many of you might be thinking what I have I been doing for the past 4 months then??? We let me explain.

For me being in Support has been one hell of an experience.

1. Profanity is one thing that is pretty much persistent here. I have heard things ranging from What the Hell???! to the F*** word and almost every god damn thing in between. Talk about a kick start in a project. So don't mind if my blog has profanity in it too.
   
   
2. Managers or should I say People with license to lie. One thing I know for sure is, if there is a place called Hell, they are all bound to see it when they die >:). I wish I could be the judge there in the fiery depths of hell trying to decide which kind of torture they should be put through. Ah....My fantasies...Anyway back to the point why do I say they are so? I am not saying all of them are. But what I have seen every single one of them opens their mouth and there comes out the lie. It is more like politicians, give promises and hopes to the people and once the "their" things are done, the attitude changes to Why should I care about them???
   
   I do not blame these people for the acts they commit, it is more like they have signed the pact with devil and they are forced to do so. Trying to show off in front of clients, the good thing is not all clients fall for it and quite fortunately ours is one that doesn't fall >:).
   
   While some are forced to say, others do it so that they get money and power, some term it as success but at the cost of what??? Being pawns in the game of chess, they don't mind sacrificing a few so long as they are winning the overall game. Such people due to inbuilt genetic instinct to survive, tend to defend themselves at the cost of anything. Imagine sailing in a ship where the captain is the first one to jump when a crisis occurs. Great stuff ain't it. This is exactly how it is over here, captains giving up the post, jumping ships. So long as there is enough greens they are all satisfied, who cares about the crew, after all it is they break sweat in running the ship. All I need to do is just here and turn the wheel. Well I would ask these people to go watch a copy of "Das Boot" and see what captaining a ship is all about and not like what we do in this god forsaken industry.
   
   I have even seen these people say that other companies are bad players even though they come from the very same company. Now that is business. True Politics.
   
   
3. Documentation and Quality process, got a give a high 5 for that. We believe that by creating document, we can become champions in quality. Well I would like to use some profanity here like my OC, but I am unfortunately a bit more civilized. But to give an analogy I would like to say that trying to paint a house even before building it sounds crazy to me =)).
   
   
4. "I Will not code, I wont touch the code, I am not here to code" , I have heard that from managers before. Hmm...I wonder whether coding is something like cleaning the toilet, is it that filthy and a dirty job so that only us low lifes supposed to do. Well it is a culture that Managers do not code, at least in our part of the world. May be people should get a look into Joel's view on software development. I am not going to ask these people to touch code either, but then that statement doesn't come for free either there is an attachment. Don't tell us how to code either? Stay out of our business, you can see the final result but don't ask how to do our job, if you are not interested in touching the code.
   
   What is even worse is most of these people are technically challenged. Saying out things like UNIX is simple or argue over using single or double quotes in grep command or to use grep alone or cat and grep together. Well blow me down. These people especially the technically challenged ones are very much in love in Documents. The second most important thing thing they love is long pointless meetings. I am loving it here.

Apart from all of this we have the work factor, working on national holidays is one thing. The only problem is the client doesn't work on their national holidays. Now that is very very fair. I have sat over night in the office to such extends that I couldn't even brush my teeth because I never left office. I have sat till early mornings arguing with onsite because they are too afraid that the client will go away. Who cares about the worker's health right, customer satisfaction is first right let it be. I would what would happen if the employees were not satisfied. Oh Yeah!!! just remembered that we are all liable commodities, we can all be replaced in one instant of time, just like parts in a big machine. One gets damaged buy a spare one from the market and put it in the machine right???

But unlike machine parts we think, we feel that is why some of us (not all) decide to come out of this machine one day or another and decide to be independent, rather than being an unknown part of an unknown machine, doing nobody knows what. Sometimes we get that realization and see that we are too worn out to come out of it. Some of us wake up in time to see that there is still some of me left.

I dedicate this post to a good friend of mine and a former colleague, who realized that he isn't worn out yet just when things began wearing out and left the machine for good.

Happy Anniversary

I was quite surprised to see a mail from an old friend of mine, she was a my neighbor in Kuwait and lives in Egypt. It suddenly spun my memory back to the old times in Kuwait, yup the good old days. It also kind of reminded me of the fact that we haven't seen each other for over an year and also the fact that I had wasted one more year of my life, doing practically nothing. I see no meaning in my actions anymore, things aren't making any sense, I can no longer see the consequences of my actions. I do what I do that is all I know.

Life has been quite a mess since I left home about 1 year back on 18th September 2006 to join a company in the god forsaken IT industry. And I have done a lot of things in that period, well let me see if I can summarize them all into one post.

1. Finally got to see Chennai in full detail, the climate I love it here, I hate the rainy days, too much water logging.
   
   
2. Lived in PG, met some wonderful people there, Enjoyed life in a room shared by 3 people and vegetarian food in the evening.
   
   
3. Got one of the worst chest infection in my life and with nobody to care, I kind of handled myself through out the situation, of course parental support was there through phone. I remember the days I slept with my head on the table since I couldn't rest properly on my bed. I gotta mention Stryker who also helped me out in an extreme condition once by taking me to the doctor (Who still treats me now.)
   
   
4. Saw one of the worst kind of training in "The Academy" of Cognizant, it was a totalitarian government there. I will torture those assholes to death if I ever get them again in my hand.
   
   
5. Brought a Pair of Adidas Shoes with my 1st Salary and then brought myself a Playstation Portable with my 4th Salary, that was one of my biggest investments yet.
   
   
6. Met a person called J.K, who has become a good friend of mine and one of my room mates.
   
   
7. Learned to Drink Alcohol, Smoke Cigarettes and Grass (All thanks to J.K and Stryker.) As a look ahead for the next year may be I gotta try out drugs.
   
   
8. Went once to Home in this period of 1 year...Have I become detached from my family?
   
   
9. Got trained in .Net Technology and put into a .Net "Development" Project.
   
   
10. Moved out of PG and then moved along with friends into a rental house.
    
    
11. Got disgracefully thrown out of the very project I was put in due to the fact that I tried to follow the "Test Driven Development" Philosophy. Unfortunately people thought of "Getting Things Done" and I believed in "Getting Things Done, Right". I cried for the insulting methodologies used Software Development destroying the very fundamentals of Computer Science.
    
    
12. I met this wonderful person called Divs through Stryker, whom I had known through blogs only. She is the only girl to which I have introduced my PSP to.
    
    
13. Once thrown out of the project, I revamped my Assembler and gave a new look to my website. And put them out to be seen by the public. Unfortunately no one is noticing it :-P.
    
    
14. I was put into a new project with a UNIX background. Well at least my UNIX Skills won't be wasted to bits.
    
    
15. With the things happening in my new project caused a change in my attitude towards work, there is no ethics or respect for developers in this industry of Slaves. I might start an uprising and / or get killed in the process, but so long as I am a computer scientist at heart, I will not give up this fight. I despise the people who can't appreciate the beauty of the code and works in this industry.
    
    
16. Met some great people from my current project. People who appreciate the code, people who respect the Science in Computer Science.
    
    
17. Living on the edge with this attitude risks everything in this industry for a person. I have nothing to loose, in other words they have to fear me and not the other way. I feel no guilt to insult managers and use profanity when they act ignorant and try to convince things by lying.
    
    
18. I developed a Guestbook for my website using PHP and MySQL. With may not be a big achievement, but it was a nice technology to learn.
    
    
19. I decided to remove myself out of the equation from the life of normal people so that they can lead a normal life. I hope this lessens my impact on the normal people.
    
    
20. I sit here writing this blog entry on the day I am about to leave to my home after the completion of one year in Chennai.
    

Hmm...I ask myself what I have done? I have no answers...

Chicks, Crushes & Me

Let me start off with some basic definitions for my own reference as I am not used to such terminology.

Chick - /'chik / - noun - informal terms for a (young) good looking woman quite often confused with the meaning "young bird especially of domestic fowl"

Crush - /'kr&sh / - noun - an intense but usually short-lived infatuation (usually with a chick) quite often confused with a "humiliating fragging" technique used in Unreal Tournament, as in Crushed To Death

Flirt - / flûrt / - verb - the art of talking to a chick without being in a crush (Note: may or may not lead to a crush)

Bird Watching - / bûrd wŏch-ing / - verb - A term usually confused with "Ornithology", but is more of spotting Chicks (as in above context)

Girl Friend - / gûrl frěnd / - noun - A girlfriend is a female partner in a non-marital romantic relationship, usually considered more than an ordinary friend, especially in a romantic sense but in reality is more of a liability and a money sucking machine, that is very difficult to please and to keep up with.

Now let me come back to the main title, back in the academy a few weeks back we has a session on life skills, which is basically a 2 day session on "Life" Skills its supposed to be fun. I wasnt interested in such events, but then I am being paid 460 - 470 Rupees per day for everyday in office, so not wanting to take a pay cut I went for the event.

Due to a play of luck the guy who came to take the 2 day session was not the "regular" conventional guy whom you would be expecting to take such a session and his methods were pretty renegaded and didn't want to stick to old conventional boring stuff like Powerpoint Presentations or long lectures, he was pretty much practical in his approach when it came to explaining concepts, with each concept being explained through examples rather than theoretical useless lectures like majority of the "Hi Touch 'Quality Time'" Sessions that we had at the beginning of the training.

Anyway it was half way through this session that we had a "Truth or Dare" game, obviously I got my chance no sooner the game started, and since I am not that good that doing "Dares" and I chose to tell the "Truth" and our trainer was ready with a question,

Trainer: Back in 11th standard who was the girl you liked, your crush ?

Me (in the head): Hmm...Tough one what do I say ? I never had any crush back then...

Me: I cant remember of anyone back then

Trainer: O.K no problems, lets go back to your school, college any one there, any crush in your life ?

Me: Hmm...Cant remember anyone !!!

Trainer: You gotta be kidding man!!! Thats impossible, its not possible for it to be like that, come on man, some teacher or your neighbours someone !!!

Me (still thinking hard, I mean real hard, then Pottu distracted me and reminded me of my previous mention of a crush...then I blurted out): Its my Pentuim 3 computer back home, but my first love was my 486 HP Vectra PC.

Trainer (Stunned): What ?!!!

Me: My PC, thats my love, I love my computer.

Trainer (about to go "Goo Goo Gaa Gaa"): How can you love a computer ? Its impossible every person has a crush, are you sure you dint miss out anyone, I mean there must have been some one you missed out.

Me: No I dont think so, My computer is the only thing that I loved dearly.

Trainer (with eyes about to pop out): I am going to get that person out of you, think hard there must be someone.

And that was the end of that session, but then it got me thinking, was there any crush that I missed out. And the recurring dreams of that girl, I thought I must have missed out a crush in my school / college life. I was thinking did I make a mistake somewhere in my life's timeline.

But it was not until I got into the projects I actually began to get into some more wider perspective of things. Well to be frank it was not because of the greater number of women that I began seeing every day, rather the influence of my colleague. This is where things were getting to be interesting, it started off with the fact that he had a girl friend and yes the relationship was a pretty strong one too.

It makes one wonder what is the necessity of "girl friend" in one's life. If we take the part of procreation away from the equation, I personally do not see a lot of necessity for this, of course a lot of you reading this might be protesting against this view. It seems that the art of bird watching chicks is in human blood and the thing is that this is pretty much independent from the fact that whether you have a girl friend or not.

For a moment this seemed to be very unfair since at a glance it looks like you are trying to keep your piece of cake as well as you are gonna eat it. But then I translated it to terms that I understand. Look at it this way, my favorite game is Metal Gear Solid, it runs on Playstation (PSone), also we got some mind blowing games like Gears of War running on XBox 360 which has a lot of eye candy and can grasp your attention. But any given day if there was a choice of Gears of War and Metal Gear Solid, my choice would be Metal Gear Solid no doubt, there are people who would go the other way also, but mine will always be Metal Gear Solid. I guess that is the main difference between Chicks and Girl Friends.

A chick is like Gears of War might be having a lot to show off with new features and eye candy but your girl friend is like Metal Gear Solid, nothing else can give you the satisfaction of playing with it and you never get tired of it either. But there is one major point to note in this analogy, Video Games do not talk back!!! This is exactly where the Quantity of Bird watching and flirting with chicks matters. It is all a game of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Dr Jekyll is the part of you that contains your girl friend, the one you expose to her, the good one. We have the belief that a girl always needs the Dr Jekyll, I am not too sure about it, well frankly speaking I have no experience, so then you might be asking yourself why am I reading this entry by a guy who has to experience in this stuff at all. Well I say this, "You don't need to burn your hand to know fire is hot or Do you?" I leave the rest to the public to decide. From what I have seen we all try to be Dr. Jekyll and we all try so hard to do that, there are exceptions though, I am not saying that all relationships are like that but 90% are, where we all try to hide other side from the girl you love.

Now let me introduce you to Mr. Hide, now this guy is evil personified, the one that you make to stay away from your girl, the absolute bird watcher, the flirt, the dunk and the dope. Most of us try to hide this, but no one can hide it 100%, every girl knows that there is a Mr. Hide in all their relationships. I still wonder why people try to hide this and they do try real hard to do so too.

For a successful relationship the technique like in the correct balance of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, of course to what percent is still something that I don't know, I gotta find that out someday. But my belief is that both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide should be know to the girl and not one. At least that is what I would have done, because I feel that by hiding Mr. Hyde you got nothing to gain, someday Mr. Hide is going to over take Dr. Jekyll for that moment of time and you are gonna have lot of explaining to do.

Now let us bring me into the picture, I never had any big crushes or relationships in my life and never thought about it until this particular event took place during the training. Of course by not having any crushes or relationships, people mistake this as me not at all looking at girls. This is not true, I am not a saint, I am still a human being, that being said I don't bird watch them in the traditional sense of the term. Having thought about the fact that I never felt any crush doesn't mean that there was no crush on me, of course any one reading this if they feel had a crush on me please feel free to leave a comment, I like to keep a count of things :-D

But jokes apart , I am not that good at human relationships. For one it is pretty hard for me to accept new people into my life. It is not like I haven't tried it and I have failed miserably at it, yet I don't regret it though. I don't know if I am Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hide, however only one is existent for me I don't know who though. Many of my friends find it hard to be without company of friends, and they also find it easier to be a part of a group. It is the reverse for me, I find it easy to loose company and stay by myself. Ahh...the feel of loneliness I am so happy when I am lonely, I don't know why? And to add to this I find it very disturbing to take part in group activities, especially when I am not with my friends, the 2 days in the academy was real hard to pass by. But with friends like Duttan, Frantic, Jake, Shocky, Stryker...I am in a more comfortable situation. But even if one new individual is there in the group I feel uncomfortable once again.

May be because it was the way I was brought up, I spent most my time growing up with a 486 HP Vectra PC, when I should have been hanging out with my friends in a mall or going out to movies. Sometimes I regret that I never had done such things with my friends back when I was staying in Kuwait. May be I should try experimenting or may be I should try nothing...

A Game of Dice - Part II

Lazy Lazy me...Well a bit too lazy I must say, long time no post. Well after about 24hrs of no sleep I lost my sleep and thought I will complete this much awaited sequel (actually only awaited by me) on the Game of dice.

In the last post I mentioned something called the "Die Roll" some of my friends had a doubt regarding as to what exactly is Die Rolling all about, Die Rolling is nothing but an action that initiates a set of events, that eventually should lead to you goal in an ideal case.

Let us take the example of a simple Snakes and Ladders Game, here literally a Die Roll starts off your quest to reach from 1st square to last square and hence reach. Let me take another example say a game of Cards, the die roll here can be considered the act of shuffling the cards and then dealing them

In a more real life example consider the event of going to movies in a theater, the action that sets off the event might start from booking the tickets. But this is not the sole action that drives the whole event, but is one of the many actions that trigger the whole event. Let me list them out

1. Action - Booking the Tickets
   Event - Ends when the Ticket finally comes to your hand.
   
2. Action - Departure from Current Location
   Event - The events that occurs in between your source and destination (the theater)
   
3. Action - Validating the Ticket for Theater Entry
   Event - Getting to Watching the movie from Start to Finish

Of course I do not claim the above event to completely defined as there may be other sub actions and events, but the point was to make you understand on Die Rolls. I hope yo get it.

In my previous post I was just giving you the theory, with more practical examples may be you guys will understand the Game of Biased Dice...

• The Quiz
  
  It was around the time I lost getting into HP and this were going against me. I had lost almost all the technical quizzes that I participated in. Lost my quizzing partner. Almost become a lone wanderer. I was literally thrown out of a coding competition because I didnt have a partner, yet there no rule saying the minimum team size was 2 and to put salt on my wounds the 2nd round was to debug a 2 pass relocating SIC assembler. I was pulling my hair out (you must be wondering why??? check this out)
  
  Nearly 4 to 5 Quiz competitions in a row was lost, I didnt even make it through the written and then one fine Saturday my friend calls me to go to technopark for some Quiz competition I thought why waste time at home and said "OK", to my surprise I was the odd one out both my friends had quizzing partners, this wasn't the 1st time this happened to me, so I said I will take it on myself and ensured with the authorities that I wont be thrown out and got into a seat. Then this well dressed gentleman comes to me and asks me if I am alone I said yes and he joins me, most of the quiz was G.K and I am not that good at it and but my technical knowledge was good enough, combined we answered enough questions to make it to the on stage rounds.
  
  This is where things went out of control, one my friend was with a professional quizzer so they were leading the scorboard, but to my surprise my partner was good with current affairs and entertainment industry. While I was doing my bit on the technical, scientific and historical areas. There were some unfair decisions against me like for the question.
  
  Who is the inventor of WinZip?
  
  I answered Nico Mark, but the quiz master said it was Phil Katz, we had an argument over it was PKZip and not WinZip not a single person supported us. Sad but true...
  
  But this was the 1st time I realized that if I played with the knowledge of where to bet if I rolled a weighted Die I can take advantage of situations. I am still exploring the various things around here.
  
  
• The Magazine Incident
  
  This happened after the quiz, I got a one year free subscription to PC Quest.
  
  The simple action of Subscription i.e. Posting the letter with my delivery address caused great pain.
  
  Even though my friend and I posted for the same subscription, he used to get regular deliveries at his door step. I had to send 3 emails to the subscription manager to get my copy delivered by the end of month.
  
  This is an excellent example of how Die Rolls on the same event by different persons can have drastically different outcomes.
  
  
• M-CET UT Tourney
  
  Mohandas College of Engineering and Technology, A college where I have a lot of bad memories and 1 good memory.
  
  M-CET used to conduct a UT Tourney every year and my friends (Shocky, Stryker and Duttan) and Myself used to participate for the glory of UT Championship.
  
  The 1st one was during my 1st year in Engineering College. It was Stryker, Duttan and Myself in the Tourney. I won the prelims and was placed 2nd in the 2nd round. Meanwhile Duttan also got himself placed in a parallel ladder, unfortunately he got kicked out in the 1st round it self, it was sad. In the finals we had 6 opponents and the local game hero a guy named Rubin called the game to be run at 75% actual game speed this was disadvantageous to both of us and it was a not a standard procedure as well. But we played along as we had no choice. I was leading the score board until the last 3 minutes , where I lost my lead from +6 to -3. I was placed 3rd and I got no prize for that performance.
  
  The 2nd one happened in the 2nd year of my Engineering, this was the most horrible of all, I was kicked out in the prelims due to a faulty mouse and heavy lag. Of course I demanded justice and as usual no one cared. But Duttan made it to the top of the ladder, I still remember the match the had in Liandri where he obliterated the entire population. But as usual the local hero boy Rubin with his custom settings won the finals, but Duttan managed to cling on to the 2nd position. This also around time when I lost around 89 Consecutive matches in UT against all opponents. IT kind of drained all morale from me.
  
  The 3rd Tourney happened in my final year. My last chance to bring down Rubin. My mind was blank. I had lost so many matches by now I lost my count. After so many days of practice Why has it got to be me...? What makes things worse is my friends Duttan and Stryker also got themselves MX-510 and MX-518 Gaming Grade Optical Mouse respectively. Technically speaking I had no chance to win against them in a 1-on-1 competition. There were 4 of us who entered the competition. We made it through the prelims and in the second round after a couple of restarts in the round, Shocky and I made minced meat of our opponents, with Shocky leading the score board, I made sure Rubin never scored enough to make it to the top 2 and finally we got through the finals. The taste of long awaited victory was sweet, but soon after the dice rolled against me.
  
  The semi finals consisted of only 4 of us, Duttan vs Me and Stryker vs Shocky. I felt this was the most unfair battle. Duttan was going against me with MX-510 and I was holding a low grade optical mouse that Wheels every now and then. But by now I had learned how to turn the die roll in my favour. In a battle arena the enemy with Superior weapon always wins, and no it is not a statement against Duttan NO. He played like a warrior, one must have no feelings for an opponent in a battle field, we should be professionals in a battle field, that is exactly what he did. Of course I had to change my strategy this is where my Die rolls got into my favor. My usual game play being play fair with opponents and attack them. My game play mode changed from Aggressive to Defensive and starved my opponent. I didnt give my opponent any chance to improvise on weapons or shield and waited like a preying vulture on my opponent to make the 1st mistake. Such a game play is considered to be highly unethical, but in a battlefield with an enemy I cannot directly face I was left with no choice, I was literally holding holding up my mouse in air so that my view wont get disrupted by a mouse wheelie. I won with 3 lead, both kills made in the match by me was due to mistakes on Duttan's side. Sorry Duttan about this measure I took to defeat you.
  
  Next in line came Stryker, but I was armed with MX-510 now from Duttan, but this time to defeat Stryker I needed an arena without Sniper Rifles, he was too good with it. He offered me the choice of arena, I said "Zeto", he said lets toss. I won, "Zeto" it is. Again game play was similar to that of Duttan, starve the opponent and eventually I won the match. I brought my MX-518 with money I got from that.
  
  This is a typical example of How some people play with a Biased Die that favours their actions and while other the Die's Bias goes against them. As in Styker's and my case the Die rolls never fully favored us. But Duttan's Die rolls favored him under all conditions allowing him to reach the semi and finals of all the 3 contests. Of course I am not saying that it was dumb luck that got him through, but under similar conditions die rolls favored him.
  
  
• The Online Shopping Incident
  
  After getting a job, I decided to go for a QcK Steel Mouse pad. I did an online order from The Respawn for a good deal of Rs 750 per pad (one for me and one for Stryker). Since my Die Rolls are biased I asked Stryker to post the Cheque to them. But some people are lazy and got other important things to do in their life, so he eventually never posted the letter.
  
  This wasn't problem, the problem is that I posted the letter. The very action that initiated the event. The order never arrived in the specified time of 1 week. After a couple of weeks I sent over a letter to Respawn asking the status of my order. Three things came as a part of their response.
  
  
  1. The order was not delivered, because the person never exists in the Address (you must be thinking I gave the wrong address??? well explain the fact that I was getting my telephone bills on time) and the ordered was returned to New Delhi.
     
     
  2. My cheque for Rs 1500 bounced :-O, holy shit I got 10K+ in my account and my cheque bounced, they were going to take legal action against me...
     
     
  3. Rs 1500 was debited from my bank account, yup lost the money too...
  
  What to do was my first question? After a bit of negotiation and a copy of my bank statement they were convinced that the error was on their side and also agreed to ship it again without any extra cost. This time I gave them an address that they could not miss, my office.
  

Of course these are just glimpses of where the die rolls affect mundane tasks where others seems to just pass through. This point of view also gave my opinions a realistic point of view rather than an optimistic point of view. Most optimists would call this being pessimistic.

This brings us to a very big question what exactly is optimism? If you look at it from a broad perspective of from the biased die roll perspective, optimistic view points arise due to biased die rolls where certain outcomes are less likely than others. But for me who is on the other side of the spectrum where these less likely outcomes are more likely, I have to consider all possible outcomes before a die roll.

In simple sentence I can say that an optimist is a person who has never seen the occurance of a Tail in the toss of a coin. And is so much convinced by that fact that he / she beings to believe that there is no such a thing as a Tail to a coin. If a tail occurs in their toss , they say that is bad luck. Now if a person like me were to toss a coin and get a more likely outcome of tails and not heads and I tell this to them, they would consider me as a pessimist.

This is true with any optimist, ask them the possibility of a worst case scenario, they would say why worry it never occurs so there is nothing to worry. But for a person like me deep rooted in fundamentals of computer science worst case analysis forms the back bone of some of fundamental fields like Algorithms.

Cribbing is another thing that accompanies these optimists and they do it pretty well especially when the die rolls against them, but they still wont accept the fact that the die has rolled against them. I still consider myself as a realist considering both sides of coin before going into a decision making scenario.

This kind of brings a conclusion of my topic, A game of Dice.

The Cross

It was one of those regular mornings, as usual got up, half sleepy, managed to brush teeth, take a bath, put some formals on, picked up my shoulder bag and started my lazy stride towards the Bus Stop. It takes 10 minutes for me to reach the bus stop, the bus was on time and I managed to get my usual seat, 3rd row to the left, the one towards the window.

But this particular morning I was pretty tired due to the extra curricular activities that takes place in the night...:-), the seat next to me was taken by a girl and after about 10 minutes of sitting in the bus it was time to go.

I was quick to fall asleep, as soon as the bus started to move, this is when things go interesting, just after bus passed Sholinganallur, the went through a bumpy region and my left arm resting on the arm rest, slipped and fell towards girl's side, of course I didn't realize this but I felt a nudge in my forearm and I woke up, it was a bit blurry for a moment as I couldn't make out what was going on, then I realize it is my arm.

I turn to my left and I was pretty surprised and a bit shocked by what I saw...the girl on my right was doing the "Sign of the cross" (she was a Christian of course), next thing that came to my mind was "Holy Cow!!! Have I done something terrible...I was sleeping, and my hand slipped, it was an innocent mistake, it was no sin...Damn!!!", I was about to apologize, just when the bus put on a sudden brake, pushing me from from my seat. It definitely shook me enough to loose the rest of my drowsiness and I was pretty alert now, Then it clicked, we were on a collision course with a vehicle and the driver was trying to avoid one.

Me being seated near the window didn't have a clear view of the road ahead, so I looked out of the window and then I saw a bleating kid of a goat half air borne going to the right side of the road. For a moment I though that it was the last time it was going to walk on the face of earth, fortunately it wasn't dead, it was still moving around and crying in pain.

Then I realized that the girl beside me was paying for the well-being of the goat, thankfully I was not the reason of the cross. But then this incident did bring up some bad memories of the driving behavior of people in Chennai. Given two points A and B, people just want to get from A to B in any way possible not even thinking of the consequences of their action. Hurting one's self in this process is bad, but it is worse when you hurt somebody else. Once back during the training days, my bus was passing through Adayar and was waiting in a Signal, and what I saw across the road was pretty shocking, I saw a boy going to school along with his friends and they pass a junction and then this car comes (you can make out that the driving was pretty rash) and takes a turn towards the boy's direction taking him down, and I remember seeing the wheel going over the calf-muscle region of the boy, I have no idea what happened after that since the bus moved away. But this was the kind of driving attitude that I have seen around Chennai, there are numerous other instances too but this one was pretty unforgettable. What did they do to deserve this?

All faults cannot be directed towards the individual driving, it can also be attributed to the condition of the roads, lack of traffic control, but be it an innocent animal or a fellow Human Being, it in no way gives you the right to hurt them or take away their life for the mistakes you commit.

The Mantis

This little beauty was spotted by Shocky during a post mid night call session with somebody, he was outside the house attending the call, while I was still on the computer listening to music and browsing. Then suddenly I heard a shout form behind asking me to come along to see something out-of-the-box he said.

I was thinking "was this the mantis that I saw a couple of weeks back," I wanted a snapshot of it but unfortunately, my camera's flash was not working and it had to be given to a Sony Service center for repairs. But this time, the camera was armed and ready. I ran to my bed room, armed the camera and the went along with Shocky to take some pictures of the Mantis.

Looks like the Mantis just wanted a good night sleep and guess what? Two curious guys stepped it to disturb it. I was pretty surprised by the alertness of the creature to the red focus light emitted by the camera, it was pretty uneasy and just wanted to get away. I was having a real hard time trying to focus my little camera on the Mantis as it kept swaying away. It even had a short flight of its own, a vain attempt to escape from us. Then it finally settled on the window pane where I captured some shots of it in my camera, I have put up one which I feel is one of the better shots.

For a moment there I thought about those wild-life photographers, they ought to have a high amount of patience and commitment to their work, especially to capture the insects without disturbing their natural habitat and not letting them know of his / her presence.

It turns out that the Mantis of "Dead Leaf Praying Mantis" type, the body looks like a dead leaf on twig and by the looks of it, this mantis is particularly young, since the camouflage is not fully grown. Don't be deceived by the Praying looks, it is as much of a deadly assassin when it comes to the insect kingdom, it usually snaps the victim's neck and then eats it, it has got one of the most powerful front legs in the insect world. A little bit of googling even took me to a site that actually showed a a Mantis ripping apart a Humming Bird and having it for lunch.

I was happy to see my camera back in action after a long time (about 6 months), got to take more pictures with it when I get the time, may be a little of nature photography...

Just before I went to sleep the Mantis reminded me of an old TV Show named M.A.N.T.I.S, that I used to watch back in Kuwait. A kind of Sci-Fi action series, not the popular though that I used to see when I was in my 6th Standard

A Game of Dice - Part I

Many failures but one theory...May be it is time I let out of what I think on the theory of my failures in my life, Why I lose out in the most trivial things where others seem to just pass through...

Before I begin I have to mention thanks to 2 persons "Stryker" and "Divs" for their Optimistic Views without which my Theory would have never popped out of my head into the words I write here :-)

After the HP incident, I always wanted to find out the cause, the reason why I fail in things that were pretty trivial to me. There were many incidents where, signs were too evident to be ignored when I visited some of the more important failures in my life. It has been almost a year since then. After coming to Chennai though the brainstorming on the theory was fueled by extreme optimism, especially declaring the fact that these incidents were nothing more than a patch of bad luck that I am going through. Well...I thought If this is just a bad patch then why do I repeating patterns in my life???

I always knew my theory of failure had a strong base but I wasn't able to convince Stryker about it, he just wouldn't accept it. And it was between one of those days I got introduced to one of the best RPG games ever made named "Neverwinter Nights". This game had a unique fighting system. The fights were based on Die Rolls. To be precise let me give a small background on 2 Common Fighting Methods in RPG.

1. Turn Based
   
   Here we fight the opponent in a Turn Based fashion, where the fights lasts several rounds. In each round you don't get to fight directly. You are only given the choice on what action the Hero can do and you have to choose among the various options once done, you lose control and then the battle takes place. The same goes for the opponent also. There is no real time battle going on, just the action of your choice based on probability to hit the opponent vs the probabilty for the opponent to block an attack. To conclude
   
   
   p(A) > p(D) -> Your Attack is a Success
   p(D) > p(A) -> Your Attack is a Failure
   
   
2. Real Time (Hack & Slash)
   
   Games like Diablo is a classic example of Hack & Slash adventure. Where in you have real time attacks based on the command given by you. Here is there is no predefined set of rounds and then lose the control of your Hero. Your hero is well within your control and you just choose to attack and all the calculation takes place in real time.

Now NWN implemented a System that was somewhere in between the 2 systems, you had rounds, within a round once initiated (this initiation is a die roll) has to be played till the opponent finishes their die roll. And in that short span of time you can't control the outcome of the events since it is purely probability driven and not click driven like in Hack & Slash. But once a die roll is over you are free to control you hero once again. Even more interesting is the Hero can be called out of a consecutive die roll event causing the Hero to fail to roll the die, but not the opponent's die roll.

Now this is where things get interesting, I always had a hunch that life was largely governed by the laws of probability, but I never knew where exactly probability kicked in i.e until I played NWN.

Before I go further let me explain some basics of probability for those who are not well versed in it. Take the classic example of tossing a coin. What are the outcomes? It is either a Head or Tail.

Sample Space for a Coin is {H, T}
H - Head, T -Tail

A sample space is the set of all possible outcomes and one thing that can be assured is an outcome of an even will only occur from the Sample Space. Now if we keep tossing a coin long enough we will see that, the number of times the Head or Tail occurs is a number close to the half of the total number of throws, to put in other words, we have a 50% chance that we will get a Head (or Tail) in coin throw. And there is a 100% chance that it will either be Head or Tail and it can be assured that no other event will occur in this sample space.

Let us take a more complex scenario a Dice for instance, in a die roll we have the following as the sample space

{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}

And we have 1/6 of chance that the number we choose will occur in that Die Roll. From this we can deduce the basic formula that

Probabilty of Occurance of Event = Required Event(s) / Set of all Event(s)

Enough of mathematics I think most of you must be having a fair idea of what and how probability is all about?

Probability by itself is pretty boring until you apply it to a system, especially to games. Now in most games of chance (like Snakes and Ladders or even Russian Roulette) everybody plays under the following conditions

The outcome of all events are equally likely.

What exactly does this mean, for e.g. I throw a die and get a number and then you throw a die and you get another number. The outcome of your number is in no way different than mine. Also Another basic rule of die rolls are "They are mutually exclusive events", which means that your Die Roll doesn't affect mine and mine doesn't affect yours.

It is the "chance" part in the games of chance that keeps people thrilled. Extend this to our lives and you will see that even more interesting things happen.

In usual games of chance we play, the dice is common i.e all share same set of dice in one common ground and hence the outcomes are equally likely. But in life, we all play with our dice and not all of our dice are same, most of us get a fairly well balanced die and our rolls in life are good enough to keep us going.

The game gets interesting when you are playing with Weighted Dice, in games of chance this is basically called "cheating." But in life we call this Good Luck and Bad Luck. Most of the events in our lives are a result of the Die Rolls that we make at the time the event occurs, more of less like a fight in NWN. We always have the choice of neglecting the opportunity to roll the die, but once done the Die roll cannot be reversed, once you take part in the event you have to complete it till the next die roll, where you are again given a choice to play or leave.

Under similar conditions each of our die roll's outcome will effect other players in the same game, this implies that our rolls are not mutually exclusive. Another interesting point in this game of life is how Die rolls of others can be used to our advantage. In normal games of chance, each player is for himself / herself and one player cannot play for other unless in some kind of team. But in life we can utilize the die roll of another person to play the game for us and that person need not be in the game at all...

In the next post I will be explaining practical scenarios of the Die Roll theory by taking simple examples from my life

(To Be Continued...)

From the Frying Pan into the Fire (The Project Saga - VI)

Well for most of you who are reading my blog might know that my life is going real smooth, with almost no problems...And even better I had a real good transition when I jumped from the Frying Pan into the Fire...

After getting fired from the Development Project I was in, I was put up in a Support Project. I was asked to go to Kolkata for training, well unfortunately my health doesn't permit me to do so, since a slight change in weather conditions could trigger off an asthma attack, for which I am still under medication.

So they released from the project and put me in the glorious bench of CTS, they call it the "Resource Pool" here, funny names they got for bench in various companies, wish they had a "Swimming Pool" instead, could have at least tried to learn Swimming :-P.

Anyways after about 2 weeks of basically doing nothing, I was called by the PM and asked me me what I was doing

PM: Hey, What are you doing?

Me: Nothing...

PM: You were put in Factiva right.

Me: Yes

PM: And you refused to go to Kolkata

Me: Yes, I am an asthma patient and dust and sudden weather changes trigger Asthma and it could turn out that I would have caused a delay in the training process. So that is why I declined.

PM: OK, So what were you trained in?

Me: I was trained in .Net Technologies, I am ready to do anything in that, if you give me any new technologies I need time to learn the technology and after that I will be ready.

PM: OK, So tell me, How can I help you?

Me: Help...What do you mean by help?

PM: What can I do from my side?

Me: Well I am trained in .Net and I will be happy with any project you give me and I will comply to standards set by Cognizant. As for any other technology I need a little time to prepare myself, after that I can do what you need me to do.

PM: What is you plan / roadmap in the next 2 years?

Me: I stopped making such things long back...

PM: People tell me, that they want to take certifications, become Technical Architects etc What is your plan?

Me: Well I am really not into certifications etc

PM: How can I help you?

Me: You can't help me...

PM: No No...I mean in your professional career

Me: That is What I said, No One can help me...

PM: OK, Are you interested in a C++ Project in Factiva?

Me: I am happy with anything that Cognizant gives me...

PM: OK, this Project is called CIBS, it is the Heart of Factiva's Billing System, It is build on Unix and Technologies will be C / C++ etc

Me: OK, The only thing I need when specifcally is I need emacs when I work in Linux / Unix environment.

PM: I don't know the details of that, I you can find that out yourself when you join the team.

And so I stepped into the fire from the frying pan, and it is one of the easiest thing I have done. The work being mainly in support nature, I have a huge task of studying the system at hand, it is basically tougher than writing a system from scratch since you have to decipher the thoughts of another person to understand the system. And working in a unix environment after long time felt refreshing, but unfortunately I haven't had any encounters with the Informix Database System, the Backbone of CIBS system. Moreover we have have to work in the Client Systems, with means a lot of typing lag and slow responses. I hate that...

I did have a lot of discomfort since I lost admin rights in my system, as the project that I am doing now no longer demands it. But being back in the Black Screen and White letters gives me a bit of happiness. And in between I got my confirmation appraisal that shows no effort put by me in the past 6 months as though I was simply sitting around in Cognizant doing nothing. Just one sentence Completed my confirmation

"Can be confirmed as PA"

"Means Hazardous useless waste Material Handle with care" :))

Of course if you did go through my blog you would have understood I wasn't, so I am not going to complain about anything, I am just going to keep quiet about it, because I got better things to do.

So, with that I entered into the support type project, lets see how far things take me around in this new mis-adventure....

The Last Drink… (The Booze Saga - Part IV)

Events Occurred on March 20th

Yup…I decided to stop drinking (alcohol of course)…Well not for the greater good or because people advised against it but rather a Logical paradox that reached at the end of another drinking spree.

Well let me put up the situation for you…It was a Thursday night and we decided to have a go at Vodka again..this time over at a friend’s house. As usual we all sat around, I started off with a peg of Whiskey and then started Vodka along with my friends, there were about 9 of us if I remember exactly…

In less than an Hour I finished off a pint of Vodka (Apple flavor my favorite :-)), and that was the fastest…I prefer to have just 7 up and Vodka and nothing to taste…My friend was surprised and disappointed that he didn’t get his share of Vodka…So he asked they guys there to buy one more…

After a pint of Vodka, I expected something big…I mean all my friends told me about getting High…but instead of that I got this puking sensation…

And this time the Mind didn’t want to run away like the last time, it was in its room trying to see what is going to happen…

My body on the contrary was very active…It wanted to puke…I took up the challenge, I didn’t, it was a huge tug of war…Gonna Puke, Not Gonna Puke, Gonna Puke, Not Gonna Puke…

Finally I was left with 2 choices either to puke and become normal or to not puke and keep up with the game between Me and Body…I chose the 2nd >:).

I could hear the guys around me forcing me to drink one more, I didn’t want to so I kept quiet and sat and resisted the temptation, My body was pretty much overwhelming, finally the puke was coming up, “NO”I said and I swallowed it back…In the meanwhile my friend called me over the phone the time was 0:15 HRS , I just rejected and put my mobile on the floor, he called again, rejected again, once again he called and once again rejected…That wasn’t the last of puke it happened 3 more times all 3 times successfully resisted…

Then I remember the guys getting hold of me and taking me back to my house (don’t worry I was still on my 2 feet, didn’t go into all 4s), I said “Guys my slippers you forgot them, my mobile..”, no problems we will get those…

They took me back to my room and put me over my bed and by the end of it all I finally won the battle..

I got up the next morning and described this challenge to my friend and He gave me a disappointed look and then said you are wasting money man…You don't know how to drink…Then we both almost simultaneously said…

Friend: Dude you gotta drink and then puke only then you will enjoy drinking..otherwise it is a waste of money.

Me: Dude you gotta drink and then not puke, only then there is a challenge to drinking otherwise it is a waste of money.

OOPs….That is a Classic example of proving A != B, by assuming A == B (Proof by Contradiction) =)), Some of the classical examples in Computer Science like the Halting problem in Turing Machines is proved this way and is one of my favorite way of proving things ;-). I was thinking of it and Laughing of the fact in my mind…

All the guys who heard my story of swallowing the puke felt disgusted and said it was better if you puked (it seems most of them puked and were in fairy land after that)…I said that only by not puking there is a challenge to drinking..Obviously I was wrong as per their standards…

So after thinking about the paradox I created myself and the 14 Missed Calls in the Mobile I thought I should give up drinking…And had my last drink of Vodka on the previous day…
Goodbye Vodka, I will miss you….

Me, ME, mE… (The Booze Saga - Part III)

Events Occurred on March 15

Sipping from a plastic glass, I could taste a lemon flavor at the tip of my tounge and I asked my friends “Hey guys is this Lemon Flavored”, none replied, after a couple of more sips, I realized it is Apple flavored Vodka, local MGM brand of course, the lemon flavor was due to the 7 up on the top…Now I am beginning to enjoy it.

After the first round, I felt wow this thing is real good, gotta have more, then it was the second round, a little less 7 up a little more Vodka…then the 3rd, when it was the 4th OOPS…ran out of 7 up…”How about a dry?” a friend asked, I was a bit hesitant, then I noticed a bottle of “Dashamulaaristam” (Ayurvedic Medicine, which is basically used a generic ailment for indigestion etc…) , was poured to dilute the vodka, Gulped it in one shot…WOW!!! now thats the stuff…

It was then the other two inside me began to quarrel…the Mind, the Body and of course there is Me

Mind: WOW, Now that was real good never have tasted that before, gotta ask him for some more…

Body: No, No…One more and I will make him puke, No way you gonna do it…

Mind: I don’t care Let me ask him…

I looked around for the Vodka bottle, Damn it’s empty, finished….Not a drop to drink

Body: Finally…When will he stop abusing me like this…

Mind: I am on a High…Woo Hoo!!!!

Body: Hey Shut up, up there , Hello…Are you still alive or blacked out?

Me: Nop..still around I guess…

Body: Your stupid mind is on a high and is gonna dance around.

Meanwhile I was laughing to jokes told by me…

Me: Hey you Mind, didn’t I tell you not to wander away, when I am taking a break.

Mind (Not caring) : Gotta do something, I am free, La La La La……I am going for a dance around the park, turn on the Imagination boys and shut down the senses, today is party day….

Me: HEY HEY…..Hold your bloody horses…Who gave you the permission to conduct your own parties?

Body: See I told you he won’t listen to you nor me, and you won’t listen to me…

I was trying to get up and get my balancing act to get to my room, my Mind was trying to make me dance around…

Me: STOP IT!! STOP IT!!, I am going to teach you some discipline

I was chasing my mind who was slipping away from me as time passed. Running through narrow alleys and dark corners and finally jumped and fell over it and caught it with my both hands and was taking it back to Mind’s Home.

Mind (Crying) : No…No…Leave me I want to go, Please let me go, I want to play more, you never let me play alone, it is always you watching over what I do? Why can’t you let me go at least once. I am no longer a child you know…

Me: No longer a Child you say…No Longer a Child, Ha, Ha, Ha…(Me going to fits of laughter.)

Mind: Hey Whats so funny? I want my rights, I am an adult.

Me: You don’t know what it means to be an adult and you don’t have any control over the things you make Body do.

Body: Yup, Teach him something, that useless piece of, good for nothing…

Me: Hey who is talking to you…

Body: Sorry…Was just supporting you.

Me: I will ask for support when I need it, for the time being, do you mind find a way to my room and then to my bed.

Mind: Ha Ha…Ha, Body is getting scolded….

Me: Who asked you to talk?

Mind: Nobody

Me: Then Shut up…

I somehow managed to open the door get out, closed it, opened my room’s door, closed it. Finally got into the bed room and fell on the bed.

Me: Haven’t I told you not to wander about when I am taking a break. Don’t do it again. You can wander all you want when Body and Me take rest.

Mind: Sorry…But I was getting on a High, I couldn’t control myself

Body: See he is bloody irresponsible…He don’t know the meaning of life….

Me: Hey Didn’t I ask you to keep quiet sometime back.

Body: Sorry….

Me: OK, back you go into the room, you can play with whatever you want to in there and control the whole brain from there, but under my supervision

Mind (with a very sad look): OK, But this is not gonna stop me from trying to escape again…

Me: In you go…

After locking the room and putting the key safely Me was gonna rest just when the Body nudged me…

Body: Why do you abuse me like this?

Me: What?

Mind: Yeah! Right, Like you didn’t hear that.

Me: Grr…

Body: Why do….

Me: Yeah I heard that, Don’t know, may be because of my state, our state, I don’t have anything to look for…look after…So why not enjoy the rest of my iterative days.

Body: Why are you always like this? You know I am growing old with every passing day, with this treatment, I won’t last long.

Me: What is the use there is nothing more to gain…

Mind: Yea, listen to Me you stupid, Me knows everything.

Body: Look even your mind is not respecting me.

Me: Well he is right.

Body: May be it is time you needed a female touch, that is what is missing!!!

Me: I thought we already settled that issue long back about 6 years ago, Why do you dig up the dead?

Body: You need some realization of hope in your life, that is why

Me: I thought we had a pact to not discuss this.

Mind: Hmm…I usually have conflicting decisions with Body…This is one place I agree though….

Me: I definitely know your ulterior motives, you cunning mind, it is the way you are gonna get to be free. You never agree with the body unless you see something in it for you.

Mind: But at least it will be for the greater good.

Body: Listen to your mind…

Me: Yo Mind let us Discuss the General Theory of Relativity….

Body: DON’T DEVIATE FROM THE TOPIC!!!

Me: How about the Special Theory…

Body: You and your bloody theories…Why do you need to justify your actions.

Me: Because the Mind is too stupid to understand Why it needs to do one thing!!!

Mind: Who me…

Me: I told you…Lets rest body and close this topic

Body: As you wish…

I could hear from a long distance…the beeping, sharp tone of high pitch, it became more clear…I opened my eyes, OOOH…my head pounding, damn its the Alarm in the mobile, damn it is time to get up.

Recurring Nightmares

I am running towards the exam hall, panting with a heavy shoulder bag on my right shoulder and pieces of paper, (I don’t know of which subject ) in my other hand, with some of them falling from my hand.

After climbing some stairs and running through long halls I finally reached the examination hall. Late….Again….the exam has already begun, and I am not even ready yet. I put the bag down and stuffed the papers inside, took out of pen, pencil..etc. Then there is that annoyed look on the face of the examiner, which one has to face after which I hurriedly ran in to catch my seat…finally after settling down and preparing the answer sheet, I took my first look into the question paper, which obviously didn’t have any questions that I studied for the exam add to this the loss of 45 minutes to the total time of the exam.

I could feel the thumbing of my heart, drops of sweat dripping down the sides of my forehead, the fear of failure once again…The silence around me was deafening, I could no longer take it and then I see the room I am sitting in and then the whole building…

It is results time and I have the same feeling all over again…I know I am going to fail for sure…I don’t know how I will break the news to my parents…And then I get the paper only to see that I am right about failing in it.

I woke up from my sleep, my heart still thumping and all sweaty, franticly trying to make sense of reality, what I will tell to my parents about that exam??!…It was such a critical exam…What do I do now…Only to realize it was a dream…rather a nightmare that too a recurring one.

Still not able to make myself believe, I searched form my mobile in the pitch black darkness, only to get hold of my friends face (I am glad that I didn’t wake him up). I didn’t give up I knew it was near a bit more to the left and up and I finally got hold of it, and checked the time. It was 12 March, Monday Morning 4.15, I felt relieved that all of that wasn’t real.

I felt really thirsty after that partly due to the nightmare and partly due to the Vodka drinking the previous night, With a heavy head and an unsteady balance I some how managed to get to the Kitchen and have some water and got back to my bed.

I lay on my back looking up into the darkness and thinking, Why??? I mean Why again??? I thought my schooling and college days were over and this “Recurring Nightmare” would go away…Funny thing is this time there was no Subject…I mean in all my previous experiences, it was usually the exam for the Subject that I performed the worst, most of my schooling days was filled with Mathematics and Physics. In college it was one for each semester. But this time it was different, no subject, could it signify my life, Did I fail the examination of my life? or just because my memory was being defragmented in my sleep and the process just triggered this Dream, I don’t know, but the feeling isn’t good…could also signify of things that are yet to come. Just got to wait and see…

Browsing Anomalies

It is not everyday you face these sort of browsing anomalies.

This was an anomaly of true kind, The incident took place when I was in Kuwait and using dial up connection to download some stuff. The speed just shot up to 12KBps and just remained like that, look at the average speed for that Torrent. On a dial up modem with maximum of 32Kbps i.e. 4KBps, I can't explain how I got 12KBps...

This is not exactly an anomaly, but I got around 200KBps in BSNL Broadband. They have promised a minimum of 256 Kbps (upto 2 Mbps). This was the first time I saw this sort of speed in my home :-).

A Tribute...

This post is a tribute for a lady, she was a very influential and inspiring person whom I have come across my life. It is not everyday I look up to a person and borrow their qualities to embed in my life...

The person I am talking about is Gayathri Radhakrishnan, she was the principal of my former school - "Arya Central School", it was only yesterday that I realized this lady had passed away, through a conversation of with an old friend that I met yesterday accidentally. It was pretty strange that even the closest of my friends who studied with me back in Arya actually forgot to tell me about this, I do not blame them my lifestyle in Chennai has ridden me of TV and Newspapers so I have kind of lost touch with what is happening in the world. Before I went to Chennai I knew she was bed ridden because of an injured disc in her spine, the last time I saw her was before I joined college, never got to see her after that.

So I dedicate this post to her as a token of respect and farewell from my side.

I still remember the speeches she used to give before the Board exams, giving us the morale boost and will power to face the inevitable harsh examinations, reminds me of motivational speeches given to the soldiers before the war that prepares them mentally for combat.

When I joined Arya Central School back in 1999, it was one of the harshest environments faced in my life, I had to battle against great odds to finally make out of the school, it was one of the rare cases when I fought for a "lost cause" and the cause was once again founded and in the end I won the battle. Indirectly our principal did play a part in this battle, she used to be real strict in the rules she made, there were no bending or breaking of those rules and everyone came under the rules she made there were no special exceptions under the rules everyone was treated in the same way.

In a way it was the strict rules that if you don't get 80% in your boards you are not admitted to +2, this in way kind of forced me to do a make or break study pattern that boosted me from 69% in 9th to 84% in the 10th board. I finally made it to +2 in Arya. But that was not the original plan though, me being a computer enthusiast wanted to take computers in +2 but unfortunately Arya didn't have computers at that time and my marks weren't good enough to get me computers in other school, so I finally opted for biology (this is one of the things that I never regret doing even now).

I borrowed this concept of following rules of the game from her. I continue to follow this even today whenever possible. Obviously it has its consequences like kicking me from Projects because I tried to do things only the right way...But I am happy about it.

The second thing that inspired me the most was her scientific point of view of things, she used to be very methodical and logical. Even though she was scientific she was a theist, but I used be pretty spiritual, eventually I became an atheist, but this methodical approach for each and everything eventually laid down the platform for me in the field of computer science.

The influence of the Scientific mentality was so great the only thing we used to have in school was an annual science exhibition named Arya Expo. Of course many of our school days are filled with various cultural activities and sports event, our school had none of that (or it was very minimal.) Yes I know most of might disagree with the way she conducted the school. I would not stop you from thinking like that but again I just loved this kind of schooling (pure focus on the science stream nothing else.)

Another draw back was a bit of conservativeness, even though we had a mixed school, girls and boys were put in separate classes which is pretty conservative. Ours was the last batch to have this kind of treatment, eventually she did realize that it is better to allow a system to go to higher entropy rather than prevent it :-). Hence we even had called the school "Arya Central Jail" at times :-)).

I would say that it was under her administration our school began appearing the spot light, our +2 teachers were the best she had to offer, with unforgettable classes in Mathematics, Biology and Chemistry. Physics was pretty much forgettable, but we had the moments in that too. She also had a very good memory ability to remember each and every student's name once she has met them.

The last time I visited my school our teachers said the school is very different from what used to be when our batch was there, a lot of commercialization has taken place and the administration has changed hands to the daughters of the former principal. A lot of cultural and sports events were going on and Arya Expo is no longer being conducted regularly (that was pretty sad of course.) Also Arya also started having "School Annual Days" which was never seen by our batch.

One of my juniors back in the school said that she never gave up the hope to live even during the final days of life. She had written a letter which was read out loud in the morning assembly saying that she will be returning as the principal of the school from 2007 new year. But unfortunately things didn't go according to her will and she passed away 2 weeks later.

The only thing I regret to say is that she never got to see our school stand first in the "Metals & Materials" Quiz conducted every year at Kalpakkam in Chennai. It was an honor for me to represent my school at this prestigious event, but I blame myself for this unfortunate event of not getting first place. It was I who actually regretted to answer that final question which could have got us that elusive first prize in the Quiz, I will never forgive myself for that...

With these words I bid farewell to the former principal of "Arya Central School"