Ideas & Views

The Bachelor of Arts by R.K.Narayan ------------------------------------------------------ i have been wanting to read this book from my school days but somehow or the other never had a chance to get a hold on this very first book of R.K.Narayan. There is a place called Book Chowk (both in Trichy and Coimbatore) where they sell and buy all sorts of used books. Chowk is any narrow laned street full of roadside book vendors in the heart of the City.you will get anything from IAS preparatory materials of Brilliant Tutorials to last month's ananda vikatan. It will be a surprise to any first time visitors that people who have not even gone to school for namesake surround themselves with books of all sizes and shapes, pounce and grab customers to have a look at what they have got to sell. more surprisingly the sellers also have some kinda knowledge about what they dusted just yesterday. these self taught small scale business men are such skilled master sellers that only strategic haggl...

a Pulitzer prize winning book (1985) by Tracy Kidder on how a small company and a small team made it big in building computers.............. some notes scribbled down hurriedly while reading the book....... "Mushroom theory of management" ?? Put them in the dark, feed them shit and watch them grow !!! not everything worth doing is worth doing well...meaning...if you can do a quick-and-dirty job, and it works, do it. in computer making industry, there is no such thing as a perfect design. this lesson is the first step in learning how to get the machines out the door. an engineer should know when to stop striving for perfection. about engineers in page 146: engineers do have a professional code;among its tenets is the general idea that the engineer's right environment is a highly structured one, in which only right and wrong answers exist. its a binary world; the computer might be its paradigm. and many engineers aspire to be binary people within it. no wonder. the prospe...

as i opened the online technology news websites, invariably every site is talking about the sony and nintendo game consoles. some sites also have news about myspace being sued by universal music for encouraging users to share their copyrighted mp3 files. is this all there to technology? what are we doing to the society in terms of technology? music, video and games? is that all? when there are more pressing issues like resolving the situation in iraq and afghanistan , curing autism, making life better for the poor and unhealthy, do the technology gurus talk about mp3s, mpeg 4s and wii ? don't they have that small piece of flesh called heart? think of a war torn iraqi teenager, an innocent human who have lost every member of his family to the brutal exchange of bullets and has no roof on his head, no place to go, nothing to eat. it is tough to swallow a morsel of food if you think of his spate. how do these technocrats spend all the money and efforts on luxurious things like a ...

Cell phone rings in vibrate mode in my neighbor's cube. neighbor: hey, what is it? i told you i am busy and asked you to call me at night after 9! what is it now? voice on the phone: -- neighbor: but you said your registration last day is tomorrow. haven't you registered for courses yet? did you talk to your professor or advisor? voice on the phone: -- neighbor: you said you wanted to take 2 courses. why don't you go over the course handout, ask your professor and just register for any 2 courses. this is pretty simple, right, not a big task. just pick up any 2 courses from your department. voice on the phone: -- neighbor: oh, what is your professor saying? why can't you register for courses? You still have time?? (not waiting for a reply) see, i am in the middle of something here. cannot talk to you right now. you cannot be disturbing me like this. call me at night. u got it? ok? the phone conversation ends. neighbor's voice was raised high and sounded stern th...

Phone rings in my neighbor's cube. Neighbor: hi, Mark here! Voice on the phone:hi honey, this is me. Neighbour: hey, waz up? Voice on the phone: one of my friends is having a card game at her house tonight. i was planning to go and have some time out there. i was wondering when you can get back from work today. i wud be finished preparing dinner and feeding Daisy. you can feed the 2 boys and keep an eye on them ??say the party is at Charlotte's house at 6?? Neighbour: Mm, let me see. i still have something to finish before winding up. say, i leave here at 6 so i can be home at around 6:30? i will feed the boys, don't worry. when will you be back ? Voice on the phone: oh, i should be back by 9. that's so sweet of you dear. hope the boys dont trouble you much. you might want to put them to sleep if they get too troublesome. Neighbour: Mmmm, now you are asking for more. See, what a nice husband you have got. you are gonna be happy for that. Be back on time, honey. Ok. b...

whoever is reading my blog might form a notion that i am too sarcastic and cynical for silly things. i need to agree because i care about small things that matter. man's most powerful resource is his imagination. for once, creativity is every man's cup of tea, not just the creame de le' creame or the born-with-a-golden-touch guys . everyone is born with it and it is totally upto him to nourish it. our societal set-up and family environment, on the other hand, are content with mediocrity. the spirit for imaginative and original work gets killed by the time one grows up. they end up earning for a living and does not give any thought to the type of work they would love to do. passion takes a backseat. creativity is buried deep in the graveyard of monotonous and sterotypical work place. i was compelled to think seriously about this when Ron raised this topic over lunch. he had seen a car whose nameplate read "MYPRIUS". someone takes time and effort to go to the DMV ...

this is the very first dance drama that i saw and it is an out of the world experience. one of my close friends and dancer said "it is once in a blue moon that you would come across such a mind-blowing performance". she cannot be truer. what do i know to write about this Dance Drama called " Ekaantha Seetha "? on the pamphlet, i read that it is choreographed by bharatanatyam dance gurus, Sri and Smt . Dhananjayans . the ticket fees are contributed towards Shankara Nethralaya Eye Foundation. i just popped in. watching the dance drama was sheer joy and overwhelming bliss that has to be shared. hence, i decided to write about it and spread the word that there is a renaissance going on. " ekaantha seetha " is a sanskrit phrase which means "a lonely furrow" - ekaantha meaning lonely( tranquility to be more precise) and seetha meaning furrow. yes, our epic character seetha is found from earth when king janaka is performing a yagna for havin...

there has been only war, war and war around the world. there seems to be no peace outside and inside for any citizen of any country. why make it mandatory to issue the Nobel Peace Prize to anyone? especially, the list of nominees mentioned here were hardly known to most of the people. none of them or for that matter any ONE single person has not risen up to the level of Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, though its not necessary. these great men in the past had really set a yardstick for what Nobel Peace means. some genuinely good deed is expected out of the awarded candidate that should have had widespread influence over a considerable mass of population. so, let the prize be not given to anybody this year. if someone really stopped a war (which is not so at least in 2005), or fought for the humanitarian rights of under-represented community of people anywhere in the world, let they be awarded. let the 'Doctors with no borders' receive the prize. let some NGO or NPO be recogni...

review of "God's Debris" authored by Scott Adams a brilliant thought experiment, brilliant because this thought experiment occurred in an American. this is Vedanta blossoming from its early inquisitive stage, the notable change being its from a westerner and not restricted to western audience alone. i was tempted to read the freely distributed PDF available in the Internet, mainly because it is free and was suggested by a close friend. i could not resist taking notes while reading the PDF then and there. so i took a printout of the complete set and started scribbling all over the empty space on the top, bottom and on the sides of the pages. a friend of mine suspected that i am reading research papers for my work related project in the bus as she saw me reading this material with a pencil in hand. let me see if i can make sense out of what i scribbled on those pages. i have tried to copy them here and add some sensible explanations (for my own reference and record). .......

a review of " iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business " i was about 50 pages into the book. i could not take anymore of praise for Steve Jobs. it also made me feel so small that i stopped reading the book and worked 14 hours everyday for 3 weeks at my office. it took me a while for me to come out of the "you are nothing" feeling. soon, i started reading the book with fresh enthusiasm, just for the pleasure of reading. within the next few pages, the tone of the book changed dramatically. in history, if there was one biography that points out all the mistakes of the person being biographed and the flaws in his very personality, this is it. its a blasphemy of biographies!!!! may be that's all there is to it. but wait. the biographers covered the length and breadth of Steve's temper and how it reflected in every action of his. as a biography, it neatly portrays his ups and downs in both professional and personal life. how did the a...

a review of " Bookless in Baghdad" authored by Shashi Tharoor i am an admirer of this United Nations' Under-Secretary General and a regular reader of his columns in various magazines and newspapers. (he writes a column for Sunday Magazine of The Hindu). i am also a regular visitor to his website , crazily reading every word he has to say there. but, here is a book from him that would have made a rather good blog. a book on books and authors !!!!! (and here is a review for that too!!!!) tharoor probably has a compulsive desire to publish every piece of paper he writes!!! may be there are publishers out there in NYC who will do anything for his name and fame. you still didn't buy one ardent fan of yours, Mr. UN. i am yet to read his other (more meaningful and accolades winning) works like 'the riot', ' the great indian novel', 'show business'. i am sure they will buy me. i have read about them and are in my must-read list of books. i am boun...

a review of "Surely you are joking, Mr.Feynman !" authored by Richard Feynman you are surely joking at us, Mr.Feynman, by writing this book. this book is almost a child's diary of day-to-day events. it was a mistake on my part indeed since i expected an account of his technological insights into atomic science. its a narration of what he did in his childhood - a boastful " i didnot play like a normal kid. i am special. i made ham radios" - what jobs he did as a teenager, how he dated gals, how he visited pubs to find someone to lay down that night, and finally a mention of how he built labs in los alamos. an outright teenage read. i just missed it when i was one. NOTE: Richard Feynman is a Nobel laureate in Physics in recognition for his brilliant and dedicated work in building America's first atom bomb at Los Alamos facility during WW2 times. he is a brilliant physicist, more remarkable because he is just another guy next door sorts. this book need not be...

a review of 'The Devil and Miss Prym ' authored by Paulo Coelho this is a second book of Paulo Coelho that i read after the hit book-of-the-century 'The Alchemist'. i have read 'The Alchemist' long back. though i forgot the details of the plot, i remember the essence of it - a man meticulously and determinedly following his dreams against all oddities. while reading 'the devil and miss prym ', i realized that Coelho's novels are based on certain themes. mostly the theme is one of human value and not any fancy cinematic imbecility. the fine print below the title 'the devil and miss prym ' reads 'a novel of temptation' on the frontispiece of the book. Coelho holds the readers till the last page to decide if the main character(s) resists or yields to the temptation. i prefer to look at this novel as both resisting and yielding to temptation. there are two main protagonists in this novel - the stranger to the village who brings the t...

a review of 'Only the Paranoid Survive' authored by Andrew Grove the book is all about dramatic changes all industries undergo and how each player in that industry adapts to survive and succeed. these dramatic changes that revolutionize the way business is conducted are aptly called "Strategic Inflection Points" , shortly SIPs. SIP would have been an appropriate title for the book but since the stress is on why companies should survive the SIPs, "only the paranoid survive" is more appropriate. usually, technology books get outdated fast since technology changes leaps and bounds in the blink of an eye. this book written by a co-founder of Intel makes an interesting read even 10 years after it was written. though the then market trends he has written about has become the industry norm today, only someone extraordinarily smart could make such observations and come up with a strong understanding of basic principles. change is not always easy, more so when it is...

Would he have known - That he will die rather than just being hurt, That his dearest brother would die with him, That his wife would never forgive him, That his sisters could not cry, That his children would not make it on that day, That he left us a debt of guilt and shame, That we loved him and would love him again if he comes back, That I would wish he be my dad one more time.

I was first of all surprised to see an IEEE invite for a presentation from a bio-technology company. I decided to attend the presentation since it raised many questions in me as to how and what EE can contribute in a bio-technology venture. I also thought that the Flowchips company must be a big entrepreneurial success and that they want to share what they have achieved. it took a while to search down the street where the company is located. There was no sign nor even a bill-board in the name of Flowchips anywhere in the vicinity of that address. But since the address was too clearly printed in the pamphlet to be a hoax, I went inside TGM enterprises building since thats the company sitting in the address of Flowchips. the presentation was arranged in a small conference room which can seat about 6 people. This may be one of the war rooms for a typical start-up firm. The organizer, naturally, did not expect more than a handful of 5 to attend this after-work, dinner-time presentation. He...

deep down words of wisdom explained by Ron today and which i am going to carry for the rest of my life: mere technical capabilities and IQ alone are not enough for a successful career. a good engineer is one who will thrive, work and achieve the goals given to him in a chaotic situation. when the company is undergoing a major structural reorganization - the preferred term for 'layoffs' - , when the projects are handed over to other departments, when the company is merged with or bought by another, an engineer is given a real life test of integrity. all the HR interviews are about testing how much tolerance a person has for ambiguity in the company. is he going to face it up and come out with flying colors or is he going to yield to rumors. Influence over how many people and group? a point to keep in mind whether u r developing a product/technology in engineering environment or taking a management decision in the company. more thoughts on this topic for later........

Master and Commander - the far side of the world Three cheers to Russell Crowe(Captain 'Lucky' Jack Aubrey) and Paul Bettany(Dr. Stephen Maturin). the movie is based on a novel by Patrick Obrian and directed by Paul Weir. The plot goes like this - a British navy ship is commandeered by Captain Jack to find, fight and capture the enemy French ship Acheron, which is mightier and more capable. Hats off to the mucis composer for the Irish violin is mesmerising. Tip-tap-toe went my feet. Apart from the dialogues, direction and performance of the actors, the following are the scenes that impressed me so much that I would sit and write them: 1. first and foremost, the movie speaks volumes on leadership qualities. the movie can be prescribed right away as a CDC ( must watch) for all the management students in B-schools. 2. Dr. Stephen's self-surgery. 3. Dr. Stephen's passion for natural science. the keenness to detail and recoding observations is, indeed, a tribute to Darwin. 4...