The Year That Was - 2013

Every year I write down about the previous year and how it was for me. This year will be no different. Though another 48 hours are left for 2013 to be finally over but for all of us it is practically over, unless of course something earth shattering happens, the chances of which seem to be remote as of now.

Starting from the beginning, this is the first year in my career(which started in 2006) when I didn't change any job. WOW!!! What a change, I take it up as a positive change. Else a disgruntled, sociopath, eccentric and an impossible man like me staying in the same job for more than a year is too much to ask for. And ya hats off to Amity for withstanding my eccentricities and giving me th required help to create my innovations.

As for people are concerned I found out quite a few things.

1. People can be and are very unreasonable specially when it comes to accepting their own faults.
2. Women in general (Hey I am not antifeminist. This is just the naked truth) are always ready to bitch against others. Wow.... I have a huge fan following in my own school who would chop my head off my shoulders given a chance. But I must also say that there are quite a few good female friends of mine who stand by me always. Thanks a lot to them and anyone reading this would know in which category they belong to.
3. I have strongly come to believe in the following statement,, "IF TWO EX-LOVERS ARE STILL IN CONTACT THEN EITHER THEY ARE STILL IN LOVE, OR THEY NEVER WERE". God knows which is true.

Many life changing events also took place and they are given below.

1. I became a dad of a boy whom we named SRIJAN. 
2. I became a teacher trainer, courtesy my wife.
3.  I have received more medals as a teacher in the last one year than I ever received in my entire school time spanning 15 years. (Actually as a school student I never won anything!!!)
4. My projects have again reached national level at various science competitions. 
5. I finally completed BEd.
6. Finally my home loan was approved and right now I am paying EMIs. Really I am so happy to pay the EMIs. 
7. Became a co-owner of a company. 

From health point of view this was an average year and could have been a better one had this last minute problem not occurred which has forced me to become bed ridden for the past 4 days.

From relationship point of view things went on pretty smoothly. My ex-girlfriend  contacted me in September "to touch base with me" which means probably to talk to me for some time (hey don't laugh..... can't I have an ex-girlfriend?) and then kicked me again in October. Sala samajh nahi aaya ki contact hi kyun kiya tha jab fir se laath maarni thi. 

 Financially everything was  more or less smooth.

What am I looking for the next year?? More innovations, and enrollment into another study program and become a better teacher. And anything else that God will give me.

सैलाब

Before I begin, let me tell you the background of the story.
I have always been a foodie of sorts. Always loved to eat; whatever, wherever and without limits. And this always led to a series of stomach upsets. After years of torture finally my stomach decided, enough is enough and got back at me. It started to fire at wrong times; in the middle of a winter night when the world is curled up inside a quilt in deep sleep, I used to be shivering on the top of a western style seat of what-you-know-very-well !!! And that was not all. Just when I was about to leave my home for college, my stomach would start churning and blasting at high decibels. So this is the background to the events that transpired that day.

All I remember was it was day sometime in September. The weather was cool. I as usual got ready for college and waited for my stomach to start its daily routine, but it didn't. Overjoyed I started for the gruelling 3 hour journey. I went on foot for 1.5 kilometers to ALT Center to catch the 6:30 am DTC bus to Shivaji Stadium. As I entered the bus and took the seat the first sign of trouble emerged. A nimble footed air leaked from the insides and I felt a bit awkward. None the less I continued. By the time I got down at ITO the nimble footed air leaks had turned into high decibel explosions which, howsoever I tried to suppress, would leak out with disastrous effects which I would not like to share here.

I got into bus no 425 from ITO to Deshbandhu college. I reached around 8:20 am. As I entered the college premises I realised the need to reach where-you-know-very-well as urgently as possible. So  I entered the loo of Physics Department. My urgency was overcome by the terror that was hanging in front of me. Actually not terror, but nearly 11-12 eight legged terrors were hanging from their webs. Being extremely courageous (!!!!) I came out and started to look for alternatives. Bio department was no better; Chemistry department was locked; English department, New Block, Old Block Admin Block and where not (except probably the principal office) I had peeped into every one of the loos and the eight legged freaks were all there to welcome me. My fear of spiders was greater than the fear of being seen in a YELLOW trouser.

I realised that a couple of kilometers from there, Nehru Place, had 3 public toilets which were operated by Sulabh International and were neat and clean. So I immediately made my mind to go there. I had to walk these 2 kilometers as I could not rick getting a bad jerk to my already delicate stomach and nearby areas due to bus or auto movements. To my utter horror all the three toilets were closed. As I was so sure that I will find atleast one of them open, I had momentarily lowered my guard only to realise immediately that I was in a great trouble.

"Marta kya nahi karta" and "Where there is a will, there is a way" combined together and told me to go to ITO, 14 kilometers from there.

Auto and its jerks were out of question. I boarded a bus, 425. The bus was empty, and I was standing. The conductors politely asked me to sit down when I told him, "Bhaiya, baith gaya to fir uthna mushkil ho jayega. Abhi filhaal situation thoda sangeen hai".

The bus stopped near the Old fort crossing and I could see that the bus may reach late and I might need a faster means of transport.

I got down and hired an auto for Rs. 40. The situation was so desperate that I had to take the jerk risk. The auto reached the ITO crossing where there used to be a Public Toilet. I handed over a Rs. 100 note to the auto driver who told me he had no change but if I waited he could get it for me. I just asked him to give me some coins that he had and he gave me Rs. 11 worth of coins. I rushed away telling him to keep the rest. I could look at the disbelief in his eyes, but he might not have known that I was in a greater danger of creating more disbelief around me.

I hurtled into the toilet. Threw my bag into the lap of the attnedent; pushed a waiting man outside the toilet door, and entered it. I bolted the door from inside even as the man standing before me started to hurl curses and abuses at me.

it was Indian styled one and I just managed to sit down properly when the flood gates finally gave away. Five minutes of landslide and I felt relieved finally.

Ten minutes later I was sitting in the ALT - Shivaji bus returning home.

Till date that was the most frustrating and hilarious moment of my life.

Freedom...

Are we really free??

The question is broad in sense because that forces us to ask another question, FREE FROM WHAT??

That brings up a plethora of issues starting from freedom in our own nation to freedom of expression to freedom of one's privacy, and the issues are never ending. But the answer to all of this is one small word with huge implications, a resounding NO.

Someone might claim that I have gone insane or might say I am being too pessimistic. But I will only smile and say, "wait and watch".

Let us for example look at the following scenarios.
1. India became so called Independent in 1947 and our constitution became enforced in 1950. Now that was a cool six decades back. And yet backward people have become more backward. People have become more and more divided on the lines of communities and castes. Vote bank politics rules the roost. Reservations on the line of caste has more priority than merit. Are we free from caste-ism yet???!!!

2. Today an IAS officer is being shunted out unceremoniously for doing his/her duties. The political parties are joining hands not to take the country forward but to thwart the citizens of the nation from accessing their privy deals. Are we free to voice our concerns???!!!

3. According to Government an urban individual can survive at Rs. 27 per day and hence cannot be considered to be BELOW POVERTY LINE !!! Are these guys joking??? Then who can be called to be below poverty line, "those that are dead due to hunger ???". And we are free !!!!

4. China and Pakistan have staked claims to vast amount of our territory; Pakistan has been inflicting wounds one after the other and we shamelessly extend the olive branch to them knowing well how adept they are in backstabbing and we say we are free!!

5.From getting a simple work done such as a driver's license to a more complex one such as a house registration, one cannot get through the hurdle of BABUS without being fleeced. And we are free!!!

6. A person cannot really practice his choice of religion for the fear of being murdered by the religious fanatics. And we are free!!

7. A girl and a boy were mercilessly butchered to death in the name of FAMILY HONOUR because they made the mistake to fall in love. And numerous such incidents happen almost on a daily basis. And we are free!!

I really wonder was this the freedom that our freedom fighters envisaged for us?

Friends, are we really free?? For if this is freedom then I am not sure about the meaning of archaism and anarchy... Probably we were better under the British Rule for atleast we could have pointed fingers at others rather at ourselves which is far more painful.

The Miserable Life !!

Life so miserable, I can hardly open my eyes
It seems it will pass in a jiffy, while I watch it pass
In front of my eyes, moist and reluctant to let go of the past.

I could have, should have, may be are all dead
I thought I will but I failed
In this failure today I try to find solace

How, when and where did it all go wrong
I know and yet I can do nothing
For the time has fleeting sense and I cannot go back.

At times I feel angry, but I can't shout
I feel betrayed, but I can't punish
For it is me and only me who has done it all.

Till I die I will live with this
That I could have but I didn't
That I should have, but I couldn't

Wish the time comes back
Or gives me one more chance
So I may redeem myself.

And... You call this Entertainment !!??

I belong to an era which saw the virtual explosion of many firsts -- Cable TV, Mobiles, Internet, Smart Phones, DTH TV, and many more. Also I belong to an era which saw the rise and fall of many a TV serials which ran into years of telecasts and whose stories would wound so much around the "central theme" that eventually the theme would be lost to what can be called "mediocrity of story lines". Anyways more about them a bit later.
HUM LOG, CIRCUS, NUKKAD and many such serials are a product of bygone era. As a child I saw them, never really understood much about them but still enjoyed. The simplicity of NUKKAD and later NAYA NUKKAD; Mungerilal ke Haseen Sapney, etc., still strikes a chord. Why to go so much back into the future, even serials like Shrimaan Shrimati were so much fun to watch.
How many of you remember "Surabhi" and Turning Point? I remember it vividly. One of my earliest source of knowledge was these two serials. Surabhi and its anchors Siddhartha Kak and Renuka Shahne would mesmerize us for the entire show and take us to places and lands unknown. And who can forget the anchoring of Girish karnad in Turning Point. Scientific knowledge presented in such a beautiful manner.

Fast forward to the years after 2000. With the advent of Cable and now DTH TV the number of channels have simply exploded. From the virtual no choice except DD National and DD Metro now we had well over a 100 channels. Spoilt for choices the number of serials went up exponentially. And from utterly simple serials we are now faced with the new craps known as SAAS BAHU serials.

Every other serial starts with a different theme. Balika Badhu; Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki; Kyuni ... Saas bhi kabhi bahu this; and now the same stories packaged with different names and characters are being presented between 8:00 pm to 12:00 pm... And not just hindi, but even Bangla channels have started to copy the same ideas.

Except for a couple of serials most dwell on almost the same story line. And ya writing a story is so much easy now.
Throw in a mother-in-law from Monster Inc. and add a NANAD (sis-in-law)... throw in a couple of brothers both married; add a daughter in law who is so quite that Manmohan Singh would get blushes; torture, both mental and physical, is endured in the name of parampara; The wierdo in-laws are shown constantly making schemes to malign the daughter in law and whoever they can think of for apparantly unknown reasons; suddenly there is a twist in the tale.
The actor might have demanded higher wages so an accident occurs and the  age old system of AMNESIA + PLASTIC SURGERY is applied and an entire new story line is started parallel to the main line. By the time the new actor with a new face is integrated back to the main story the viewer has essentially forgotten what the main theme of the story was.
Never understood one thing; if plastic surgeries really dole out such fantastic faces then why cant they be applied to the n-number of burn victime scattered all across the globe??? Seems the TV producers have acquired the surgeons from outer space!!!! Hmmm alien contacts.
And Amnesia. God.... its so easy to forget everything and remember it back too after the TRPs have evened out again.

And the effect all this has on the WOMEN of our nation???
My mother feels perpetually that one day I will definitely kick her out of the house after forcing her to sign on the papers !!!! What papers??? God only knows. Or may be the producer of the serial she got inspired from.
My mother and wife fight at times and I watch them rather with a feeling of respect and awe.... both are perfect emulators of the fights I have seen them watch on the Prime Time TV sops. They are becoming experts.

A girl is sitting on a temple stair case; a boy playfully places a garland around her neck; some stupid ritual says the girl now has to marry the boy or she risks being made into a devdasi; the girl manages to push the boy into marrying her; and now when after many twists and turns she is finally settled into the boys family comes the ex-girlfriend of the boy to jeopardize their marriage.

Last two years I am forced to watch this stupid confusion at night and when I switched off the TV when this serial was being telecasted I was shouted at. I simple asked, " Don't you guys get bored watching this shit?". Came the reply, "After the entire day we need to be entertained"...

I always thought that entertainment was to lighten you up. Songs, dances, humour, thrill, adventure etc., seems to qualify as entertaining stuff. But in-laws scheming to throw out the daughter from the house; one girl scheming to throw our another married one out of her marriage; a lady Manmohan Singh enduring the taunts and torture...... and you call this Entertainment???!!!!!

I call it a blatant violation of the  most intricate piece of invention by mother nature..... Human Mind.

What do you say???

Some recent happenings

I wait for the entire year for these 5 days and Lo! it is over in a jiffy. Even before I could start feeling the fervor of the Puja it was over. And now 24 hours after the immersion of Ma Durga's idol, I am feeling kinda sad. Anyways these couple of months had been very eventful. So here are some of those events.
Meeting with an old friend : Caught up with an old friend with whom I had not spoken in quite a few years. And now we have fought over some issue again and we have vowed, 3rd time now, not to talk to each other again. I hope this vow too wont last that long.

Mathamity: Though I was not an official part of MathAmity (inter amity mathematics project competition) I did have three projects directly under my guidance. Two of them won bronze medals while the third and the most sophisticated one did not win anything. I think this loss has more to do with the shortsightedness of the judges than any flaw in the project itself. Anyways our school won the middle school trophy as well as the rolling trophy owing to our tally of 3 Golds and 3 Bronze medals.

New Projects: As usual I am again upto something. My greatest problem is that when I get an idea I am very enthusiastic about it till I can see that it can be realised. The moment I see that it has been completed I lose that excitement. This has more to do with my love for unsolved problems than anything else.

Durga Puja: This Durga Puja, as I mentioned earlier, came and went away in a jiffy. So not much to write about it.

I have stopped counselling girls about which laptop to buy

A few weeks back, a friend of mine called me up, "hey shuv I need to buy a lappy. Which one to take? My budget is upto 40k". I replied back, "what purpose do you need a lappy for?". "I want to read books, listen to music, watch movies and ya do some computer programming stuff too.", she retorted. I said "ok. let me see. i write back to you."

Later that evening I wrote back.
Dear Buddy
The following are the specs you might require for your basic purpose.
A processor Core i3 3rd gen; 1 TB hdd; 2-4 GB ram; you may include a graphics card too but thats optional; web cam; and other ports do come anyways.
I suggested HP, Dell and Lenovo. Also a couple of Samsung products.

The next day she wrote back. "Hey Shuv, thanks for the mail. That was pretty informative but can you specify some models with price. That would be great help."

So I sat down to do some search and suggested her 7 models. Most from HP and Dell as they have good customer service and give good models with fair price.

Then she enquired, "Hey shuv will I be able to connect 3G dongle with all of them?"
I said, "yes why not?"
"Ok. Thanks a lot buddy".

There were no more exchanges after wards for nearly a week. A week later I went to her home and enquired about the lappy she was thinking of buying. She said that she has bought one.

She then showed me the model. A SONY VAIO, PINK COLOURED one.
I was shocked. I asked why she went for it. She just replied. "It was pink and cute".

That day I vowed never to counsell another lady about laptops because at the end of the day it is the colour and cuteness that matters.

India --- The Superpower !!!

We Indians, in general, have this very bad habit of boasting about various things like our IT capabilities and our CULTURE etc. But a serious thought reveals that these two and many other such things are grossly overvalued by us.

Very often I read we Indians are IT Superpower. Well when I first heard of this oxymoronic word I thought that since we are an IT super power we should be having (1) our very own Operating System, (2) our very own APPLICATION SOFTWARES which we will be running in our systems (3) our very own PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES ...... and much more our own things. Unfortunately I couldn't find any worthwhile stuff that can make me proud and say yes we are a super power in IT. When I confronted some of my friends and elders with this I was trounced with logics like the following...... "first ever email service was designed by an indian...."...."without we indians half the silicon valley will fall apart" .... "we indians are the backbone of all great firms like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Open Source Softwares...."........
The truth is rather very harsh for us and our ego doesn't allow us to gulp it. Every building requires one chief engineer. Under him are 10 supervisors. And under each supervisor are 100s of workers, labourers. We Indians are those labourers. Hundreds of thousands of labourers providing services to international firms and working for them. Our IT super prowess is actually our demographic super prowess. The day US, UK and European countries stop outsourcing IT jobs to India, we will fall from being an IT superpower. A harsh truth which we can hardly gulp.

Then we have culture to boast of. What kind of culture are we talking about. A culture in which women are killed before they see the light of the day? A culture where people are discriminated due to their birth and not due to their work? A culture which teaches us to become more self centred than otherwise??

My Friend Asif was having a discussion with me and he was right to point out that in India every man wants to earn as much so that he can leave money for his coming generations. Philanthropy is the last thing on their list, if at all. Look at Warren Buffet. He has willed that his sons will have to make their own money and he will give away everything that he has earned in charity. Can we think of a single Indian here???

We look at foreigners with disdain. We say they have no culture. if killing females, discriminating against people, and being racist against own people is our culture then its good not to have one. From a hair pin to ocean liners every stuff we can think of has been invented outside India. And we are proud of our culture and science. We keep on harping what we knew ten thousand years back. We harp about PUSHPAK VIMANA as the first aeroplane. We harp about AYURVEDA. And yet when we get gangarin on our body or cancer, we don't go to ayurveda. We rush to allopathy, the foreign medicine concept. Are we being ignorant or outright hypocrits?

On one hand we use the stuff invented by foreigners and on the other hand we despise them. We Indians are Superpowers in only one thing- Being Hypocrites.

A Teacher's Apology

This apology was long overdue.

All those teachers who are teachers "by choice" and not "by default" will understand and appreciate what I am about to apologize about, but I don't expect the same from the "by default" teachers. So that means only about 2% of all the teachers who will be reading this apology will appreciate and understand the apology and very frankly I can live with that number.

For sometime now I have been reading in newspapers, magazines and listening to debates and discussions on TV channels regarding the degradation of the education system of our nation and how students are shying away from pure and basic sciences and even higher regions of technical education in favour of money minting careers. Surprisingly I have found that the very people who are debating over this topic, for example Principals of various schools, expert teachers and panel members and concerned parents, are the ones responsible for this degradation. And unfortunately they are now trying to pull me into their ranks.

I would today tender a humble apology to my students, student's parents, school administrators and other related or unrelated people regarding what I am trying to do.

All my life I have striven to make my students understand physics and implement it. Day in and day out I have been trying to help my students understand the fun of physics and at the same time I have been designing questions that would help me judge their mettle. I believe in trial-by-fire method when it comes to examinations. My students are forever scared about my question papers for they know very well I will force them to think. And today I would say I am really sorry for that. I am sorry to have forced you to think. I am sorry to have forced you to get rid of rote-learning. I am sorry to have asked questions in exams which seem to be out of syllabus but very well a part of the topic and you got trapped in my trap. I am sorry folks. I am sorry for testing your knowledge and application abilities. I am sorry that because of me and my questions you guys are not able to score brilliantly. And I am sorry to have put you through the trial by fire.

All my life I have tried to tell the parents of students the necessity of exercising one's brains and have time and again requested them to stop looking at marks for once and concentrate on concepts and their application instead. And I am sorry for have failed you miserably. I failed to make you understand the need of self learning; the need of scientific exploration; the need of thinking out of the box; and the need to apply concepts. I have failed you and I am extremely sorry for that. I failed to give set questions to your children beforehand so that I may later make question paper from the same set of questions thereby giving your child a shot at fame. I am sorry. Extremely sorry to have asked questions to your children which seem to be out of topic but are very much based on the same principles that I have taught them. I am sorry.

Finally I am sorry to the various administrators I have worked under. I failed to comply to your diktats. I failed to teach students the way you wanted. I failed to keep both students (your "customers") and their parents (your "clients") happy by teaching them only what is given in NCERT and nothing more. I went beyond NCERT. I tried to pull my students up to a standard. I tried to make them think and reason out everything and in the process I told them to write their own answers; I told them to think beyond the obvious; I told them not to believe in what everyone believes unless you have necessary proofs; I set questions so hard that your customers failed miserably. I am sorry to the admin to have made such blunders.

Finally I would apologize to the entire fraternity of teachers (specially the 98% default teachers) whom I have often landed in trouble for my histrionics. I tried out different methods and ways and topics to teach and you guys had to emulate it. I landed you in trouble. I am sorry for that. I am sorry for trying to teach beyond the normal topics. I am sorry for not listening to you when you told me, "Sir, work only as much as you are paid". I am sorry.

But I would also like to say sorry to you all for the future to come.
I am sorry as I am going to make life tough for my students.
I am sorry for I am going to ask questions related to the concepts that I will teach but will not be explicitly given in the book.
I am sorry as I am going to push my students into a trial by fire; I will make their lives miserable by giving them small but challenging homeworks and projects to do.
I am sorry as I will not let my students get into the habit of rote learning.
I am sorry for i will not stick to NCERT.
I am sorry for I will not let any other teacher or admin guy interfere in my way of teaching.
Guys I am going to be sorry for many more things. I hope I will get more chances to apologize to you all.
Thanks

Honesty is not always the best policy ......

Honesty is almost always the best policy, unless of course if you are an exceptional liar ....

I have read it in my school days that Honesty is the best policy. Strangely whenever I have been honest in my life I have been kicked hard on my face. Every time I have been honest I have been at the receiving end. When I was a teacher of DPSGV and I wanted to leave I told the principal before hand as I didn;t want the students to suffer because of me. I ended up paying 42000 rupees to get out of the school. I was threatened with legal tangles and made to pay. Being inexperienced and naive I paid up.

When I was at Sultan Chand and my grandpa died I told the MD that it was urgent and I will be back in less than a week but I was told to quit. I did.

When I was in DPS Rajnagar when finally I understood that I cannot be honest always I tried the path of lies and deceit to leave the school and it worked.

Now today I tried the path of being honest and I was robbed of a wonderful opportunity that very few people can have in life. And all because I thought that I must tell my school authorities about it.

I was invited by Vigyan Prasar to be a master resource person for a workshop at GGSIP University. And I told of this thing to my school authorities. The Principal gave me the permission but the chairperson cited some absurd rule to stop me from going. Sometime I feel its better I work for myself rather than for these people. Wish I could.

It was a very dejecting day for me. really.
I almost cried.

And I learnt that the Management is never there for you when it matters the most. Its better to be selfish as far as school management is concerned.

I have learned my lessons well.

This is how people learn to lie and cheat and be dishonest. Nobody is a born liar; people and circumstances make them so.

Discrimination

Discrimination is a part of life in India.
Discrimination on the grounds of Gender, Religion, Caste, Creed, Profession and what not. Give one point of comparison and we will show you how to discriminate. And frankly I hate it. But recently I found out something which shook me to the core. And left me wondering whether we will ever be able to be "human" again.
Our two flats are getting whitewashed. Three people have been employed. Since whitewashing is not a full time job hence to supplement their earning they tend to do odd menial jobs as well.
Yesterday we found out that for lunch these guys had eaten chapattis with green chillies. So today we told them to eat lunch at our home.
A curry of potato, chappatis and pickle was to be served.
On my enquiry I found out that they will not be given food in the plates that we use for eating. Rather thermocol plates were bought from market for the purpose.
I was left wondering if my family members were correct in any way. I couldn't understand why we can't use the plates again once they have used eat for eaten.
I figured out that these guy's profession came in the way. They are being shunned for what they do to  survive.
I felt pity- for myself.
I wanted to protest but i knew it was useless. There was too much VETO power at home.
I am left wondering about what happened today.

First Day, First Show.....

The theatrical trailers were amazing. The special effects seemed mind boggling and the actor was my favourite. Abhishekh Bachchan.
Me and my brother could hardly wait for its release and the day it released we went to the nearest theatre- Movie World. We took the first day, first show tickets and that too the costliest of the places to seat. We took the snacks worth 400 bucks and the tickets cost another 350. So we sat down to watch the movie- DRONA.
The first ten minutes set the tone of the movie. It was slow, very slow. Very very slow. The plot barely moved.
It seemed it had been taken from Harry Potter's initial parts and combined with a couple of other movies like The Lightning Thief etc, the story seemed obvious.
Finally the movie picked some speed, but so did the stupidity. The villain was more of a buffoon. The plot was shambles. And we were a wreck.
The initial euphoria about the movie was long gone and I wanted to run away. But the 750 bucks I spent held me back.
Plot after plot revealed stupidities.
Raazpur was supposed to be a place in the movie which was so terrible where nobody could ever come back from. And raazpur turned out to be one such place except that it was a complete joke. People, i figured out, could not come back because they would die laughing at the so called disasters.
And finally I could not gulp the fact that drona reached Jodhpur from Amsterdam on a horse in less than an hour and that too landed on a train in the middle of the desert for no apparent reason.

The movie ended and we came out vowing that we will never watch another movie first day first show.

Rakshabandhan : Missing a Sister

Its not something new, but almost every year this feeling comes back to hurt me. In my clan my father are four brothers (obviously my dad included). And barring my elder uncle (my tau ji) everyone has sons. That makes it 6 boys and 1 girl in our clan's present generation.
But for some reason there has always been a great divide between our elder uncle and the rest of the clan due to which we brothers never practically had any sister at all though my cousin sister is almost 6 years older than me.
On many occassions such as raksha bandhan and bhai douj I used to tie rakhi to my younger brother and he would do the same to me.
The absence of a sister is felt in my life, I cannot say about my brothers but I do feel the absence.
I really envy all those guys who have a sister. Guys you must value her as the most precious person in your life.

Infinite Probability Theorem and a Python experiment

Let us understand the infinite probability theorem. In analogous terms it can be stated as

If a monkey is allowed to sit in front of a computer or typewriter and allowed to hit the keys randomly then there is a infinitesimally small but non-zero probability that it may be able to compose an entire sentence in English. 

Let us not see too much about the monkey but in mathematical terms it states that  given enough time (which may exceed the life time of the universe) a purely meaningful event is possible out of random happenings.

Now to test this I have created a small python script. Here it is.

Infinite-Probability Test Python Script

For the last 20 minutes my computer is trying to solve the problem at hand. The word entered is BANANA.
The probability of getting this word is 1 in 3.23E-9.

Lets see how long it takes to get that word.

The most remarkable day of my llife

Today I can safely claim to be one of the most remarkable days of my life. Probably The most remarkable day. 

When I was 13 years old I got my specs with an eye power of -3.0 in both eyes. Ever since my specs had been my companion. Around 4-5 years back my eye sight slowly worsened to -5.5 in both eyes. This was till last night.

Generally on week days I read newspapers in the evening as I don't get time to read them in the morning. On weekends and holidays I read the paper in the morning. Last evening I put on my specs (of power -5.5) and read the newspaper.

Today morning when I sat down to read the news paper with my specs on I found to my horror that I was unable to read the paper. When I looked around my vision was hazy and I was not able to figure out objects.

Frustrated I removed the specs and viola!!!! I could read the newspaper from a distance which was impossible. I was astonished. What was happening was just impossible and yet it seemed my eye sight had improved.

I went to Dr. PK Jain, who happens to be a famous eye surgeon here, and he confirmed my doubt. But even he was astonished to see that my eye sight had improved drastically from -5.5 to -2.5. This was something remarkable. The most astonishing part was that it all happened in a span of 12 hours. Last evening my eyesight was -5.5 and 12 hours later it was at -2.5.

I am really overjoyed. Whatever the reason I know that my eye sight has really improved and this is a really remarkable event of my life.

A fight within

Recently I was diagnosed with extremely high blood sugar levels with my fasting at 422, PP at 585 and Random at 316. To top it I have high Tri-glyceride levels of around 516.

For years now I have been told by all and sundry that I should take care of my growing belly. In fact my ex-colleague Monica says,"shubham's belly walks independently of shubham".
I used to laugh it off.

Many of my friends, relatives, colleagues, teachers, students and who not have told me time and again to stop the intake of junk food, cold drinks or flavored soda etc., but I never really took things seriously.

My wife had been poking me for the last 4 years to reduce my waist size and I ignored it or by passed it.

Then 15 days back it all started.

From urinating 3-5 times a day it shot up to 30 times a day. My throat was perpetually dry. 10-15 litres of water I drank to no avail. My body started getting lazy and blood pressure shot up.  My eye sight got weakened.

And then I was diagnosed with extremely high sugar.

I am desperately trying to do what I have been suggested all these years. Eating Oats in breakfast, salad and sprouts in the day time, veggies and a couple of chapattis in lunch, cinnamon tea in evening, veggies or fish at night, walking after dinner, walking in the morning and what not .....

Life has its unique ways of letting you know how vulnerable human life is.



I hope to succeed for life has suddenly taken a new meaning for me. I used to live to eat. Now I eat to live. I want to see my son grow up. I want to do a number of things that I have in my mind. i want to visit various places in India and if possible, the world.  

Its now a fight I alone need to fight out with myself. Its a fight within. Its a fight to survive.

 

Being Dad

There was a time, not too far in the recent past, when I used to literally scream at my dad for being over protective. I used to make fun of my dad and used to crack jokes on him at his back.

• When I used to go out for some time I would know that dad would call the moment he would think I am getting late. 

• When I went out for excursions or trips dad would ask me what my name was; my father's name; my address etc. etc. just to make sure that I knew the details. This happened as recent as 2010 when I went to Hyderabad. 

• When I would travel with him, it would be an out right embarrassment for me. He would be traveling with me on a rickshaw and his hands would be literally guiding the traffic around the rickshaw out of the fear that something might hit the rickshaw and eventually me.

• When I would sneeze or cough I would get an emotional speech about how I am neglecting my health and how I am important for him. 

• When I would injure my self he would be the one to blast me and take me to the doctor.

• Going to the doctor was another embarrassment. He would surely come into the chamber and talk to the doctor as if I were an infant.

• Even till date he gave my age to the railway ticket booker as 19. For him I am yet to grow up.

For all the above he always got scoldings from me; shouts and sometimes I really screamed for being so protective and I would tell him it was really embarrassing. I would throw tantrums and let him know that all this was unnecessary and he would just smile and say one thing, "YOU DON'T KNOW THAT ANXIETY OF BEING A DAD. THE DAY YOU BECOME ONE, YOU WOULD REALIZE".

Today, I am the father of a 4 month old boy. And I am slowly realizing what my dad once told me after I blasted him for being too protective and interfering in my life when he suggested and literally pushed me to the doctor for repeatedly sneezing. He said, "The day you become a dad, will you understand the thoughts and anxieties that a dad can suffer from. Only a dad can understand the true love and affection hidden behind such behaviors. become a dad first."

All I can say to my dad today is, "YES DAD I NOW KNOW WHAT YOU USED TO FEEL". 

I am really feeling how it feels BEING DAD....

The darkness of Indian Education System

True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.

Day 1:: 2/7/13
The exam center is Kanya Mahavidyalaya Kharkhoda.
A government run college. We were greeted by dust laden desks and cob webbed chairs. As I settled down a lady came in and told us to keep our materials outside. We obliged. Then we were strictly told not to indulge in any wrong doings which can lead to our paper being cancelled.
Ten minutes into the exam came the first shocker. The same invigilator who had warned us a few minutes back came in and said the following.
I HATE NOISE. SO KINDLY CHEAT WITHOUT MAKING ANY NOISE.
I mean had my jaws been like a Looney toon they would have dropped on the floor. But that was just the beginning. Except me, the guy in front of me and a girl on my right hand side row everyone else brought out slips. Some hand written and some photocopied. They came out from all kinds of location. Inside shoes, socks, collars, folded cuffs, blouses of ladies, from inside the chains of the jeans guys were wearing, and where not.
At times an invigilator would come in and confiscate the papers she could catch. I was a bit impressed by her apparent honesty till the time she came in again and handed back the chits to those she had a previous understanding with. I have never seen such a thing.
Sitting at the last bench God gave me the opportunity to see first hand the mental and moral degradation of our so called educators and educational institutions. I wondered if this is happening at a government institution what might be happening in private colleges!!! Anybody's guess.

Day 2:: 3/7/13

Today came a different type of shocker. Today our seats were changed to room number 5. There the invigilator crossed all limits and helped the guys to cheat. By god it was ridiculous.
Except me there was no one in the class who wasn't carrying a bunch of resource papers for cheating as usual hidden inside awesome places . The flying squad wasn't useful too.
But the paper was simple and yet rampant cheating was on.

Day 3:: 04/07/13

Today I had two back to back exams. And I was prepared enough. As usual reached the center and was seated in room number 10. Todays papers were of 1.5 hours each so didn't have much time to look around. As usual the invigilators turned a blind eye to the on going stuff. Suddenly the invigilator said " flying squad is coming. Hide your chits."
There was a commotion in the class. Crumbled chits were flying towards the last bench and the guy there was busy throwing them out of the window. Desperate to get rid of chits some of them ran towards the windows to throw the chits.
It was an experience in which I felt ashamed of myself.

The second exam started at 4.15 and was going on as usual when again the flying squad came and this time a girl was caught. Her paper was cancelled and Unfair Means was invoked against her.
Later when I came out of exam hall I found the same girl surrounded by many other guys and some invigilators who were criticising the flying squad and the college people for not taking care of the students.

I was flabbergasted.

Ek to chori aur upar se seena zori.

Read this in the childhood days. Saw its practical example. 

Day 4:: 05/07/13

This day was no different from the previous days except that more skeletons stumbled out of the closet. The flying squad is also hand in gloves though they need to like catch at least one culprit but rest are being let off and they go back to the same cheating again. Till now I was very angry but now I am pityful about the state of our nation's education as the educators are themselves nothing more than cheats. 

Atmanah Pratikulani Paresham na Samacharet: The Ultimate Downfall

Atmanah pratikulani paresham na samacharet (Mahabharata 5.15.17) is a very famous conclusive sentence of the Mahabharata, which is supposed to be the essence of the canon of dharma or virtue: What is not good for me cannot be meted out by me to others. What is not good for me would not be good for others also, because others are like me in every respect.

There is a very important factor that we miss in our attitude towards other people, and it is that subconsciously, or even unconsciously, we are apt to feel that we are superior to other people. Logically and philosophically, we may not be able to argue this because it is an absurd feeling. But not all feelings are logical. Many of them are illogical, and they would not stand reason or ratiocinative investigation. The essence of feeling is illogicality; sometimes it is super-logicality, but it is not logical because it will supersede all logic, and put down all logic by a kick which is more forceful than our understanding. This feeling creeps into us in many ways: “I am, somehow or other, more important than other people.” We cannot openly say this or openly declare this, or even openly justify it in any way; nevertheless, we can feel it privately and put on an attitude which is in consonance with this illogical feeling.

And this is what leads to the downfall; not of just one man but of an entire civilization breeding men who think this way. Our present society is full of such people, which unfortunately include me too, who believe, for some unknown non existent reason, that they are ahead of others in the society or are superior.

This led to the downfall in Mahabharata and will lead to the downfall of the present society as well.

The vacations of 2013

With only one more day to go before my summer vacations come to an end, I thought it would be good if I write down the things that I did in these summer vacations.
Of all the vacations that have taken place till date this was the most productive I believe.
Did quite a few things and yet I am feeling that these vacations were a waste.

• Edited and developed many books for various publishers. 
• Helped create a couple of  functional websites (www.connectingdu.in and www.shop4du.in).
• Still creating one more for myself and my students.
• Learned a lot of Python Programming and tried to (ya let me make it right I TRIED TO but DIDN'T SUCCEED) teach my students the fun of python.
• Performed various experiments which are still underway to develop some new products. (3 in all)
• Developed worksheets and other plans to make my teaching as interesting as possible.
• Studied for my BEd final examinations. etc. etc 

And yet I feel I have not really done anything. I hope to  do much more than what I did.
This strange feeling within needs to calm down. I hope I will be able to calm it down.

The day I became a HOUSE WIFE !!!

For a long time I had maintained that being a house wife is no simple job. It is the most difficult and thankless job in the world. And then I got the chance to experience it first hand.

Last night my mom called me and told me she was not well. She was running fever and had severe body ache. I gave her medicines and then went back to my room.
Today morning when I woke up at 06:00 am I realised that my mom has not come downstairs which meant that she was not well.
So I decided to experience how it feels like doing the house hold chores all by yourself.

I first filled up our over head tank with the supply water. Then went into the kitchen to see that the sink had a lot of utensils waiting to be cleaned. So I decided to clean them myself. This is something I have never done at home. It was actually fun to do so. But I seriously got tired.

Then I swept the floor with a broom and then mopped it. In the mean time my brother woke up and I sent him upstairs to clean the rooms.

Downstairs I filled up the filter with water and the bottles with filtered water and placed them in the fridge. Then found clothes waiting to be washed. So filled water in the washing machine and washed the clothes.

In the mean time my mother came downstairs and went straight to the kitchen as my dad and uncle were to go to office and breakfast was to be made for them.

So I and my brother decided to make it. I cut the potatoes and tomatoes and my brother cooked a simple potato dish. Then came the real challenge. Cooking chapattis. Neither of us had ever done it before. The dough was already prepared so my brother started to make the chapattis and I baked them. Well not a single became circular in nature but we enjoyed making them. 

Then I gave breakfast to all and eventually brother went upstairs.

Now mom asked about the lunch and I decided to make it myself.

So here I was who had never really cooked any food and I was determined to make it this time.
First I made the easiest of them all. DAAL.
Then the next easy stuff, RICE.
Then I baked PAPADs. In fact I burned them. Out of the five I baked four caught fire at various places and some were reduced to ash at places which I had to separate to make the rest edible.
Finally the toughest of them all. FISH CURRY.
Of course I couldn't have made them without my mom's guidance. She told me exactly what to do and I went about doing it. The potatoes were sliced in such shapes that amoeba would be put to shame. The sequence of components that was supposed to go into making the curry went horribly wrong. I was to put the potatoes first and then the spices and I did exactly the opposite which my mom figured out sitting at a distance of over 20 ft and that too without seeing. She just smelt it. Anyways the final outcome was , EATABLE. But now I know if ever I am abandoned by my mom and wife, I would not die eating maggi (that was the only thing I could make till today).

Over all the day was fun filled and exhausting. The dinner is being made by my mom as she says she is better now and doesn't want me to mess up the entire kitchen again.

A few minutes back I went to the kitchen only to hear my mom grumble about the misplaced spices and mustard oil in the jar meant for refined oil. (In the morning I filled up the jar without noticing that it contained some refined oil. Probably thats why the daal had a strange smell which everyone felt but no one complained about).

A few things I know now.
1. I can challenge any god damned MAN to become a house wife for a couple of days before saying that being a house wife is an easy job. Trust me fellas, it is not easy at all.

2. I can cook. Atleast enough to survive.

3. Congratulations to my wife; I can cook atleast  a couple of things. !!!

4. I had a great learning experience.

My Brush with death --- Part 1

Well in this series I will tell you some real life incidents that happened with me when I had a brush with death; and I lived to tell the story.
This thing happened when I was around 10 years old.
My village is situated in south 24 parganas, West Bengal. Its nearest railway station is Champahati at a distance of 16 kms and Sonarpur at around 20 kms. The two mode of transports are Autos and occasional busses.
That day I was going to Kolkata with my dad, mom, uncle, aunty, pishi(bua) and a couple of other people who I have forgotten. We were supposed to catch a local train to Kolkata from Sonarpur station. The Sonarpur railway station has a unique location. The platforms can be accessed from the roads that approach the station and the roads open into two markets on the opposite sides. Sonarpur is one of the busiest local junctions and hence sees dozens of trains crossing every hour.
As we got down from the bus we saw a number of vehicles ahead of us. The railway crossing gates were closed which meant a train was approaching. We decided to cross on foot so as not to get late. As we meandered through the traffic we came across the crossing which was closed by a metallic boom barrier. My uncle went ahead and crossed over on to the rail lines and looked at both sides. There was no train visible, though we knew one was approaching. Then my dad, bua ji  crossed. Then I holding my mom's hands started to cross.
If you ever cross a railway crossing you will find that instead of one pair of track there are actually two with one supporting track within 5-10 cm of the main tracks. These are supporting tracks. As I was crossing somehow my left leg slipped into the gap between the main track and the supporting track. I stopped and tried to pull my leg out but couldn't. I tried to pull it, slip it and even tried to open up my shoe inside but to no avail. It was stuck and so was I.
My relatives came back and frantically tried to pull out my leg. Just then I heard the roar of death. As luck would have it the train was coming on the same track on which I was trapped. It must have been around 200 meters or so when we all spotted it. My dad, uncle and a few other people who were watching us ran towards the train. While my mom and bua and aunty stayed back to try and pull my leg out. The problem was that my body's orientation was such that even if I wanted to sacrifice a leg and save my self, I couldn't. I was stuck bang in the middle of the track.
My dad, uncle and other people who ran towards the train could make the train brake. I could hear the screeching sound of the brakes but I was not sure it would stop before it ran over me. My dad, uncle and other people were standing near the track as the train sped by them and hurtled towards me. My bua ji pulled my mom away and my aunty stood nearby, everyone crying and me, at that age, ice cold due to fear.
That I am telling you the story means that I survived. The train stopped around 3-5 meters from me. And the moment it stopped people converged at me. And strangely I was able to pull out my leg as smoothly as it went inside.
I stood there for sometime before my parents whisked me away.

That was the first time I came so close to death.
Today as I reflect back I feel blessed that I was saved.
 

The Incident that changed my life: Forever

Trust can be a very dangerous word. Specially when your life and career depends on it. This one incident literally altered my life once and for ever. I have always wanted to become an astrophysicist or an astronomer. I still have a Newtonian Telescope but it is lying almost useless. But back in those days I was so enthusiastic that I spent every penny in my pocket (and also took help from Akshay bhaiya) to bu a telescope.
My BSc hons. Physics was nearing the end and I was preparing to get into Delhi University. I have never been a conventionally good student as far as scoring marks is concerned. My BSc marks stood at 59% and I knew that to enter DU I need to clear my entrance exam for MSc.
The entrance exam went ok and I was disappointed at my performance, yet had a bleak possibility. I diverted my attention to Jamia university.
What happened was that my Jamia results were out much before the DU results and I cleared the Jamia entrance. So I was running around to get my admission process done. But I was faced with a strange problem. I had submitted my second year marksheet to DU for revision of marks. And they had not given me my marksheet back. Jamia was insisting on it. So I was kinda stuck. During the same time the results of DU were also declared.
I asked my two friends Vishesh and Ram (both names changed) to go and check my result of DU entrance. Till I die I will rue that one decision. Why I asked them to go???
They came back and told me that my rank was nearly 470 and being a general candidate I had no chance to get into MSc at DU. So I concentrated on my admission to Jamia. My dream to be an astronomer got a severe jolt.
Anyways, I got admission at Jamia and started to attend classes. Nearly a month later another guy started to attend classes at Jamia and that guy happened to be my senior at Deshbandhu college where I studied. The moment he saw me there he asked me, "why are you here? didn't you take admission in DU?" I told him that my rank was so poor that I couldn't have got admission. He amazingly told me, "You got a rank of nearly 24 in DU and you say that you had no chance?"
I was flummoxed. i decided to check. I went to DU Department of Physics and asked them about the process of admission which was over by more than a week. There they showed me, on a lot of insistence, my rank. Shubham Chakraborty S/o Gautam Chakraborty, GEN, Male, 24(Rank).
I couldn't believe my luck, my stupidity and my friend's betrayal.
I went back home and couldn't eat for quite some days. I went into severe depression. I was angry and upset. More on myself than anyone else. Just because Vishesh and Ram couldn't get admission to DU they didn't want my admission too. I simply asked them once about this and they couldn't talk to me ever again.
But my chance of being an astronomer was gone.
It totally changed my life and its course.

Raggging: My First day in College

I can never forget the first day in college .... Deshbandhu College ......
I had heard about ragging and was pretty scared ....
I reached college pretty early, around 08:00 am and found a few guys standing, roaming and chatting. The guard stood at the main gate and I showed him my payment slip (I-cards were not issued till the end of october). As I strolled inside I was expecting to be caught by seniors any moment and was mentally preparing myself. But instead another guy came up to me and asked me, "1st Year" ? I nodded. With a smile of relief on his face he introduced himself, "Hi I am Vivek. 1st year BSc Physics Honors". I was thrilled as I was also enrolled in the same course. Now I was a bit at ease and talked to him about why I enrolled and other stuff. Then we came across another guy who introduced himself as "Vijay" and amazingly from our course only. We caught hold of Vijay near the Physics faculty room. (Me and Vivek are still good friends. I am not sure what is Vijay doing. Hadn't heard of him after 2004).
Now we were three "freshers" who were simply waiting to be ragged. Well that didn't happen though we could see that many "freshers" were holed up with seniors around them and some were dancing and singing while one was converted into a statue. And then there was a kid who was standing slightly bent was with his right palm rounded around an invisible object near his lower abdomen was pushing his hand back and forth and shouting, "Billi mera saara doodh pi gayi .." ("The cat has drank all the my milk .."). The seniors were having a laugh while it took me some time to figure out what exactly was that guy being made to do. We fled the scene. As we moved through the door of the admin block we came out into a small stretch with walls on both sides and it opened into a stretch with garden on both sides. The walls were used to put on marks list and time table etc. We three saw a crowd there and we assumed that they must be noting down the time table. We also went there and started searching for our time table. And in a few minutes we found ours. As I started to dictate Vivek started to note it down. And then we saw a guy emerge out of the main gate and what he said sent chiills down our spines. He said, "Hey guys lets go the freshers have started to pour in. Let us get hold of some and have fun.." All guys around us cheered. We three were standing right inside a huge crowd of seniors who for some reason didn't figure out that we three were freshers. We looked at each other and went out with the seniors. We reached the college gate and went out. With a huge sigh of relief we went straight to the bus stop to catch a bus.
Then something hit me. "This was not god. I mean come on we are freshers and we have not been ragged. This is so unlike the stories we have heard and .... no lets go back", I said.
Vivek gave it a thought and concurred. Vijay too came along and we headed right back into the college. This time though  we were not that lucky. We were immediately caught by a bunch of seniors. They took us to the huge space in front of our library. Many many seniors were there.
I was asked to introduce myself, purely in hindi. Well that was tricky.
"Mere naam Shubham Chakraborty hai. Main Zilla Ghaziabad ka rehne wala hoon aur yahan par ....."
I stopped. I had no idea what "BACHELOR OF SCIENCE " was called in hindi. So I translated word to word. "Main yahan Bhautik Shastra (Physics) me Kunwara (Bachelor) hone aaya hoon"..... Well this Bachelor (Kuwanra) means un-married. All seniors burst out into laughter as I was left embarrassed. 
But this was just the beginning.
Vijay was asked to become a Peacock and fly around the campus and he was doing exactly that. I saw Vivek doing Bharatnatyam in front of the Library.
I was asked to stand on a concrete slab around 3 ft high and I was asked to shout " meri biwi bhaag gayi hai, mujhe Deshbandhu me biwi dilao" (My wife has run away, get me a wife at Deshbandhu). I shouted 10 to 12 times.
Suddenly I felt someone clutching my legs. As I looked down I saw Vivek holding me leg and saying,"Swami mujhe sweekar kijiye " (Dear Lord please accept me as your wife).
Then we two were taken to the open area near the library where one of the seniors became a pandit and rest all family members and married me to Vivek.
That was hilarious.
Then me, Vivek and Vijay (who had by them completed a couple of rounds of college) were lined up and asked to behave like chickens. So we hopped and skipped and said, "kukroo koo" ..... and went till the main college entrance. There the seniors clapped for us and told us that it was over for us. They sent out a diktat that no one else was supposed to rag us again. We were given a copy of syllabus and time table etc.
Thus our introduction to college was really something which atleast I will never forget.

Disillusioned

The other day I was reading somewhere that India's literacy rates has gone up a couple of notches in the last few years. But then is it really so? Is just being able to read and write alphabets and a few sentences makes you literate? Recently i came across a guy from Darbhanga, Bihar who has done his graduation and was pursuing his BEd. This guy has never ever seen a computer let alone use it. He was totally baffled as he was supposed to make a project on Information and Communication Technology.
I was flabbergasted. How is it possible that a guy in this era who has completed his graduation has never really touched a computer let alone use it?
But I believe this is the situation in our country. And somehow for obvious reasons our rotting education system has got stuck or rather become regressive.
CBSE is the best example of this situation. In order to pass every tom dick and harry we are creating an entire generation of degree holders who know nothing and will eventually become useless when it comes to job market.
This years CBSE results have shown that class 10 students are scoring perfect 10s in huge numbers. Have these students suddenly become intelligent or are we faking it all? It is anybody's guess.
And  then we have our professional colleges which are production houses of engineers and MBAs. Again let me emphasize that our country's vast population actually needs more professional colleges but the problem is not the number but the quality.
A BTech passout gets a job of teaching in the same college immediately after his course. Now how much does a BTech passout would know to teach the students? Anybody's guess. And then when he teaches and creates other engineers they are bound to be substandard. So it creates a viscious cycle.
In one of the colleges where I have taught, the college didnot have an Electrical Engineering Lab and another one didnot have a Workshop fo First year students. Now engineering is supposed to be a Practical field where Labs and Workshops are very important and when students don't know anything about workshops and machines what type of engineers will they be.
I happened to be an "external" examiner for the students of my college's third year students and I went to take their electrical engineering lab viva. I was appalled to see that our future engineers could not differentiate between a resistor, diode and pico-farad capacitor.
Now that is engineering for us.

Anyways!!!

There was a time when we were school students and every new knowledge material that was thrown at us we used to grab them with both hands.
Today things have changed. On one hand the boards have decided to make our students handicapped by reducing the syllabus and have removed pressure so that they may become more prone to suicidal tendencies when faced with the real life challenges. An entire generation of students are coming out who are nothing more than paper tigers.
Well that is an entirely different matter altogether.
Here the problem is very different. I have been trying hard to make my students understand the need to do basic computer science but they won't listen. I have supplied them with materials. Taught them personally in a couple of classes. Tried to emphasize with them the need to start early. Spent money, time and energy from my side to be able to teach them a programming language. Unfortunately not many of them seem to be interested. They are more interested in IIT coaching rather than learning a humble programming language. Seems the rat race to entrance exams has killed the curiosity inherent in students.
As I see students moving up the ladder in school they get to focus more on entrance exams rather than their hobbies, and passion and  knowledge. Anything that doesn't help in getting into entrance exams is no good and they are not interested.
When I was a lecturer of Physics at Engineering Colleges I was disillusioned by the approach of going-to-be- Engineers towards the grand daddy of engineering--- Physics. I was so disappointed that finally I left college and came into schools where students, I believed, are more interested and curious to know and understand the world around them. Not that they are not, but only till they reach class 9. As students reach 9th class suddenly there is a transformation and students become less curious and more focussed on IITs.
Not that I am against IIT. but that is definitely not the beginning and end of the world. There is the entire universe beyond that. Unfortunately a combination of Parental pressure, Peer Pressure, School Pressure and Stupidity has made this entire generation into rats. And the problem with a rat race is that even if you win you are still a rat only.
Somehow I am slowly believing that IITs are responsible for the death of curiosity in students regarding innovativeness and curiosity and knowledge.
Anyways it pains to see that my entire energy, money, time and efforts to make my students really computer savvy has met with a stone wall. And this stone wall is my student's will not to learn anything that doesn't serve the purpose on their way to IIT.
Anyways, i will continue...

Projectile Motion

I had been pushing my class 11th students to do something worthwhile with Physics. In this quest I had asked them to learn Python Programming language and apply it to the projectile motion and plot it. To show them that it is possible I decided to make a real time plot myself and upload it for them. So here it is.

I hope my students share the same passion as I have about learning new programming languages.

Problem to my students of Class 11

Well I recently gave a problem to my class 11 students which was interdisciplinary in nature.
They are supposed to plot the projectile's trajectory using Python programming language. Just to show them and myself that it is very easily do able I am uploading here the plot that I have programmed out. The plot they create should be similar though not exactly the same.

For a planet who mass = 6 x 10^24 kg and radius = 6400 km with an initial velocity = 200 m/s and an angle of 30 degrees, the plot should look like this.

 

I hope my students will be able to solve it too.

No luggage .... No room !!!!

Remember Om and Isha from my previous blog?? If no then you better read that before or else you won't understand much of this story. You can find that story here.

For those who are acquainted with the previous story this is a sub-story related to that. Om, my very good friend, was in love with Isha, another classmate of mine from school times, between March, 2007 to September, 2009. This incident was revealed to me by Om only about a week back when he had come here from Bangalore and after coaxing him a lot did I get his consent to put it here. Of course I no longer talk to Isha so I didn't take her consent and I believe it wouldn't matter much for most of you won't know who really Isha is.

Well as told by Om, this incident took place somewhere around February, 2008. Om and Isha were going around for nearly a year and for the first time they had been physically close (err ehm I am not to reveal anything more or else Om would be punching me hard on my nose). Om was pretty naive to even hold Isha properly let alone kiss her and yet it did happen. But it was clumsy and Om felt stupid of himself. They were on a date on that day when the following conversation broke out between them.

Isha: You want another kiss?
Om (flushing): Ya sure why not but please not in public. 
(It was too late and Isha had already landed one on his lips though it was kinda blink-and-you-miss type).
Om: What the hell was that? How many time do I have to tell you that I hate PDA (Public Display of Affection).
Isha: But I love to tease you.
Om: Someday I will punch you for doing this.
Isha: Oh Janu please be a game. you are such a spoilsport. God knows what will you do in private.
Om: That is a different case altogethar and I know what I will do.
Isha:Oh really. Ok tell me what all will you do.
(Silence from Om)
Isha: Oh Please tell me na what will you do.
Om: Oh nothing re baba. 
Isha: Please tell me na. Or are you incapable of....
(Om's ego got hurt somewhere)
Om: Oh please I am very much capable and I can do it right now itself.
Isha: Oh really. Ok lets do one thing, lets book a hotel room and .....
(Om was shocked.)
Om: Ok ok we will see it someday.
Isha: No not someday but today.
Om: but why today...
Isha: I dunno...it has to be today thats it ......

And so the stage was set. After vehemently fighting against this Om finally gave in. After sometime they figured out that. Paharganj near Delhi Railway station has innumerable cheap and good enough hotels. So they headed that way. Once they reached Paharganj they started searching for one and came across a good looking Madras Hotel right in front of NDLS.

Om and Isha went in and were greeted by a dark complexioned, skinny, south indian guy who spoke heavily accented Hindi.

Man: What room do you want sir?
Om: A room for two. For one day.
Man: It will be 500 rupees sir.
Om(reaching for his purse): No worries. Here it is.
Man: Sir where is your luggage.
Om(Stumped): Well it is at the station guest room. You give me the room and I will get the luggage.
Man: Sorry sir. No luggage No room sir.
Om: But why? I am telling you na that I will get the luggage once I get the room.
Man(Hardening his stance): Sorry sir. No luggage No room.

Isha pulled Om away from there.

Om didn't speak to Isha for a couple of days.

Last week when I met Om he revealed this entire event to me. And we laughed our hearts out. That, according to Om was the biggest embarrassment he had ever faced.

Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi !!!

There was a time in Indian Television when the number of channels were limited to one digit and the quality of serials were really good. Most serials used to reach a logical conclusion. Serials could be seen siting with your entire family and every one enjoyed. Those were in the bygone era.

Now we have serials of only one type: Saas and Bahu and a lot of Bitching.

I know I am going to be branded as antifeminist but frankly guys I have had enough of it. I can surely call it the EKTA KAPOOR effect or the EK effect.

Not that serials don't start with some really great ideas. For instance look at Balika Vadhu. Had a great idea against child marriages. And today it is reduced to nothing more than Saas-Bahu-Bitching story. In some serials Saas has been replaced by Sasurs who are shown as Asurs (Demons) and not to forget the Nanads (Sister-in-laws). It is really sad to see that every serial that starts with a great idea falls prey to the TRP trap and ends up becoming the same suspense thriller known as Saas-Bahu problem.

I can never figure out a few things.

 How come all nanads (S-I-Ls) always stay at their parental place even after  marriages??? may be just to do bitching.

And then there is a strange problem of ageing. Most mothers or mother-in-laws don't look much older than their daughter-in-laws.


And how about plastic surgery, cancer and amnesia. These three medical terms are the backbone of the Saas-Bahu serials. An actor is playing tough, the director decides to create an accident and do a plastic surgery and bring in a new actor.

Or else how about a little amnesia. The moment TRPs start falling a new character is introduced. I lost count of the number of children and husbands available to our Bahu in the famous serials like Kyunki Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi and another one which I can't recall right now.

And how about bringing someone to life? People holding hands around the 200 year old Baa of Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and everyone chanting we won't let you go and Viola!!! she is back to life.
Boss medical science needs to be re-written.

Why 200 years!!! With so many fast forwards and jump forwards Baa did not change. If in the beginning Baa's age was 80 then with 5 jump forwards of 20 years each her age should have been around 180 if not 200. Sorry for adding an extra 20 years.

Now how to forget the COMEDY series. Crass, cheap, sexually perverted ..... that is the content quality of our comedy serials. But more of it in another blog. This one is exclusively for Saas-bahu serials. 


Over the years the content and story of serials have become so stupid that it is impossible to watch it with your family. It doesn't have that appeal. Gone are the days of IMTIHAAN or SURABHI or TURNING POINT ...... now it is about TRP and sadly TRPs are controlled by home makers(read house wives). That is why the producers are also doling out things that they can change at their whims.

Anyways I have long stopped watching TV. I watch things on the internet. You tube is there and I watch my favorite Discovery and Nat Geo serials there. Atleast I don't believe in overloading my head with junk and fighting with my mom or wife about the serials.

Caught in the cross fire: The tale of a poor husband

Apart from the eternal truth that every human being would one day meet death; I recently stumbled upon two other eternal truths. Yes, two more. And probably these two are greater truths than the truth of death itself. This truth can be felt and understood only by a husband, and no one else. So in case you are not a husband, which means either you have not married yet or are a divorcee or a widower, you may not accept this fact; hence, stay away.  For ladies, this is one fact with which 99.99% married women will agree, and the ones to disagree are the ones who have never tasted the in-law's relations.

Well you must be wondering what those two eternal truths might be. They are

1. No mother-in-law can ever agree with her daughter-in-law
2. No daughter-in-law can ever agree with her mother-in-law.

And between them is the ultimate fool created by mother nature- Husband.

There are many cases of daughter-in-laws (hereby referred as DIL) being subjected to cruelty by mother-in-laws(hereby referred to as MIL) and husbands. These cases come forward when either the DIL is dead (or has been killed) or the DIL takes up enough courage to protest and lodges a case or walks out. At times there are cases of MILs who have been killed or rendered homeless by their DILs.

But there is a third category of people who are at loss from both ends. Mother and Wife, the two tug boats continuously keep on pulling the Husband towards opposite ends. The Husband, if of level head and mild mannered, gets badly stuck.

If he goes with the wife then the world stamps him to be cruel towards his parents who have toiled hard to bring him up and blah blah blah .....

If he goes with the mother then the world and supreme court pulls him up and even throws him in jail for cruelty towards his wife and blah blah blah.

So where is the husband supposed to go when caught in the crossfire between Wife and Mother??

There doesn't seem to be any rule or law in justice system for that.  Some of you might say that it is better to be diplomatic. But I am sorry to tell you that diplomacy fails when it comes to Mother-Wife war.

The role of a husband is somewhat like a punching bag. Get punched from DIL as well as MIL. No matter how hard you try you can never really escape.

There does come times in between which are of relative calmness but don't get carried away by it, you see there is always a lull before the storm.

Connecting DU

Finally the time has arrived when we are going to launch the website we have been working on for a long time. 

This is what all you can do and much more.

1. Create Free Account.

2. Interesting Profile Questions.

3. No Mutual Friend concept.

4. In-built Messenger which allows you to Chat with Friends and Strangers,

    just above the Task bar(bottom of your screen).

5. Share important Documents in the Notes and Assignment Section 

    and Upload & Download them.

6. Share Photos and Videos.

7. Upload Songs, Listen Online and Download in Music Gallery. 

8. Update  your Status.

9. Send Friend Request.

10. Share Important Links 

11. Discussion Forum to discuss latest controversies in DU.

12. Write you own Blog.

13. ConnectingDU-Webstore.Here you can Shop for Cool T-shirts. 

14. Confession Page, Non one comes to know about you.

15. Chat_For_DU. 

      Here you can chat, create your Own Chat Room and Even Chat in the Chat Room of DU.

16. Accommodation/PG where in you can find Accommodation.

17. ConnectingDU Official Account.

      Where you can tell us your Suggestion,Advices and Complaints. 

      We promise to act swiftly. We will be at your service to help you as soon as possible.

18. Invite Your Friends in Find Friends section.

19. Integrated Google Search bar right below the slideshow.

      Where you can search  Everything and Anything being on this website itself.

20. Last but not the least. Lets "ConnectDU" and "RockDU"

Click 

www.connectingdu.in

Hope you have fun !!!!!

Connecting DU

After a lot of toil and brainstorming me and my friend Sagar are going to launch our website Connecting DU. This is an informative website, an educational portal and a social networking site, all rolled into one.
On 18th of May 2013, at 10 pm in night we will be formally opening our website for public. Hope to get a good response.
Further information can be found here.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/ConnectingDU/107880889399049

Female Ego -- Part 3

Well now you must be grumbling, and may be calling me an anti feminist because of my series called Female Ego but what to do, I keep coming across these types and I believe let me publish. Ok. Promise I will write one series on male ego too. Ok?

Well this incident happened a few years back in the office bus in which I was coming. My office, where I worked, was full of ladies. In fact I was the only insignificant male candidate in the entire office. Sometimes it used to make me feel so puny. Nonetheless that day we were waiting for the bus to move from office to home. The sun was beating down hard and it was too hot inside to sit properly.

Now there were four ladies sitting inside with me, let us call them A, B, C, and D. And one more lady E was sitting in the office who was also supposed to join us. For some reason she was getting late and A, B, C and D were progressively getting restless. So finally came a time when I suggested them to call up E to know the status of her return. God only knows why I suggested that. A flurry of chit-chats and PNPC began.

A-- Why should we call? It is her (E's) responsibility to keep us updated.

Me-- That is ok but may be she is in some work and not finding enough time to call us.

B-- If she doesn't have the time to call us then will she attend our call??? I doubt.

Me-- But what is wrong in giving a call. May be she will not attend but at least we can try.

C-- No way. No point in calling her up. I agree with A.

A-- Really how careless is she, that she can't even be responsible enough to call.

Me-- Oho .... it is possible that she is just trying to wrap up the work fast ... so why argue...just call na.

On this A, B, C and now D also jumped up on me.

D-- Why don't you call her yourself. Or better just go out and escort her to the bus. We are not going to call.

Me-- I don't have her number, else I would have called her long back instead of fighting about it.

Well I soon realised that this statement was a big mistake.

B-- What do you want to say? We are not beggars or downtrodden that we cannot afford to call. We can but we won't. Why should we. She should have called back.......Blah Blah Blah ....

I had enough of it. I just walked out of the bus and went to meet E to see what had gone wrong.
I had just reached E's workstation when I saw her wrapping up her work. Seeing me she apologised for being late and assured that she will be back in 5 minutes.

I went back to the bus only to be greeted in an extremely sarcastic way

B-- Kya hua, Princess ko escort nahi kiya aapney? (What happened you didn't escort the princess??)

That sentence blew the lid off my head. I just looked up at B and she immediately fell silent.

No body spoke to me for the next few days.

Till date I couldn't figure out what was so wrong that I did.
And I couldn't figure out why those ladies were so adamant at not calling.

This thing got cleared up a bit a few days back when a similar incident happened in our school bus except that this time I chose to be a mere spectator and kept listening to the PNPC that went on in the bus. That story will come up on some other occassion.

For the time being I can say that I saw a new type of ego in females. One which is closely related to PNPC.

Female Ego - Part 2

Today I came across another type of female ego. Yup. Another type.
This type is not exactly typical of only women, but men too have it in great amount. But women have it of a different type.
For example.
A friend of mine, lets call her ABC, posted something on a social networking site. What she wanted to convey was "MEN ARE POLYGAMOUS IN NATURE AND GENERALLY NOT HOOKED TO JUST ONE WOMAN". Well absolutely correct stuff except that this she wanted to say through an analogue. The following is the analogue she used.

"Men are like Bluetooth: He is connected to you when you are nearby, but searches for other devices when you are away...Women are like Wi-Fi: She sees all available devices but connects to the strongest one..."

Well what she wanted to say was ok, but what she ended up saying was exactly the opposite of what she intended. 

Let us take the first sentence. 

Men are like Bluetooth: He is connected to you when you are nearby, but searches for other devices when you are away.

Well nothing wrong in that. She said absolutely correct stuff. The blunder lies in the second sentence. 

 

Women are like Wi-Fi: She sees all available devices but connects to the strongest one...

 Oooops!!!! Comparing women to wifi is a great problem. She should have said WIFI adapter which connects to the strongest signal. But she ended up saying Wi-Fi. A wi-fi actually sends out SIGNALS in all directions and is available to all devices at the same time too. !!! That is a blunder. Coz that makes the sentence mean like "women send out signals to all and connects to the strongest one."

Also it means that women can engage and disengage with different devices. Also it means that she can connect to multiple devices at the same time unlike Bluetooth (read MEN). 

Now I pointed it to it. But I made some mistakes. 

1. I pointed it out on a social networking site. Big mistake. People will generally not take these things lightly and a that too a lady!!! no way. 

2. I tried to make sense out of a nonsensical stuff. This was a big mistake. Never fight with a lady over something that makes sense to her, irrespective of its logical stability.

Now I have given up. Coz I now know it is difficult, nay Impossible, to see the technical error.

Nonethe less I am having fun understanding various types of egos at work.

 

NOTE: Me writing this is also a form of ego. I am frustrated of trying to make sense to her. So i thought making this public may massage my ego too. WoW never knew ego can be like this as well.